𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

"Awh, real Romeo move climbing up here to say such sweet words." Insincerity dripped off each syllable, but Fetch's voice was quieter than usual.

A warm ball of something, emotion, care, whatever, began to squeeze tight, deep in his chest, lodged among the ribs and viscera he assumed were in there. Only growing as Dee continued, but getting... bad. Wrong. Panic and nausea Fetch had to swallow down quickly. Real. It was real.

Too real.

He didn't like real. He couldn't handle real. Real made it worse when he forgot what to say. When he reached for a thought that wasn't there and stumbled like miscounting steps in the dark and getting that moment of fear at an unexpected final drop until the ground appeared.

A usually still chest started to rise and fall rapidly with heavy breaths and he grabbed at Dee's hand, planning to pull it away but freezing.

"Oh, trust me. You have my pity. This is such a pitiable display after all."

Regret. Immediate and confusing. He swallowed roughly, his grip tightening on Dee's hand.

Who says Fetch's weight can’t be felt? Every time the shifter frowned, every time he smiled—Derward felt it. That’s why the compulsory nature of their alliance hurt so much.

“… Romeo died in a coffin,” he frowned deeply, reminded of the glorified box he’d been bound to and had only just been freed from when he first met—No, summoned—albeit accidentally, tragically—the bird.

He genuinely couldn't figure it out, but put his wallet away and followed behind DJ like he was a lost puppy.

Dee clarified quickly, “—Cash on delivery,” looking back over his shoulder at Gordon. Once outside, he shifted into street decorum and loosened up, trading his crossed arms for hands slipped into the pockets of his trousers.

“I don’t (have a car), but I drive.” He hot-wired, too. Unless they hit a problem during Mission: Cain that obviously required manually overriding an engine, though... DJ would stick to answering direct questions only. Lucky for him, Cain never judged him for things done during his more rascally years.

i can't make out a heartbeat.

this has got to be, without a doubt, the single most humiliating day of my life.

look! he's breathing. he's so beautiful.

you really delight in these sadistic strains on my blood pressure, don't you?

a girl rescued me.

she was singing. she had the most beautiful voice.

i think you've swallowed a bit too much seawater.

we're just gonna forget this whole thing ever happened.

hmm. teenagers. they think they know everything. you give them an inch, they swim all over you.

my nerves are shot! this is a catastrophe!

don't you shake your head at me.

now look at me.

you'll have your looks, your pretty face. and don't underestimate the importance of body language.

i'm surrounded by amateurs.

you want something done, you've got to do it yourself.

first we've got to create the mood.

if only i could make him understand.

i just don't see the way he does.

i just don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.

look at this stuff. isn't it neat?

i just don't know what we're going to do with you.

it was ruined! that's all! completely destroyed!

now thanks to you, i am the laughingstock of the entire kingdom!

you went up to the surface again, didn't you?

how many times must we go through this?

they are dangerous.

i'm not a child anymore.

don't you take that tone of voice with me.

if you would just listen...

so much for true love!

i consider myself a reasonable person.

i set certain rules, and i expect those rules to be obeyed.

is it true you rescued a human from drowning?

he would have died.

one less human to worry about.

you don't even know him.

know him? i don't have to know him. they're all the same.

have you lost your senses completely?

the solution to your problem is simple.

the only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself.

gee, you must have really been through something.

i can't stand it. it's too easy!

i'm really looking forward to this performance.

listen to me. the human world is a mess.

are you sure about this?

have i ever been wrong? i mean, when it's important?

this... i haven't seen in years.

do you think i was too hard on her?

we haven't dicussed the subject of payment.

i'm not asking much. just a token really, a trifle. you'll never even miss it.

life's full of tough choices, isn't it?

do you hear what i'm telling you?

i hope that you appreciate what i go through for you.

you gotta look your best.

you gotta bat your eyes. you gotta pucker your lips.

you are hopeless. you know that? completely hopeless.

i've never seen a human this close before. he's very handsome, isn't he?

i'm going inside.

have you noticed she's been acting peculiar lately?

i know you've been keeping something from me.

i feel really bad not knowing your name. maybe i can guess it.

you're under a lot of pressure down here. come with me, i'll take you home and get you something warm to drink.

any sign of them?

what have i done?

isn't this great? the salty sea air, the wind blowing in your face. a perfect day to be at sea.

perhaps you haven't been looking hard enough.

believe me, when I find her, i'll know. without a doubt it'll just... bam, hit me like lightning.

time to come out. you've been in there all morning.

where are you going?

she's a demon! she's a monster!

there's something different.

i lost her once! i'm not gonna lose her again!

you've gotta get away from here.

THE X-FILES + incorrect quotes

She barely remembers anything. Her body UNCONSCIOUS on the sandy beach of the island as Derward worked tirelessly on giving her CPR that it would make her chest ache when she would awaken. She just can't catch a break huh? She wondered just what would happen if she had something GOOD in her life. Well, she had Derward. That's all she could really ask for.

The RIP of her top filled the air as he tore her band tea over her chest, truly it was strangling her. The water having made it tight against her skin, only able to move just barely now that she was regaining her heart beat.

She knew the woman on the boat. One of Trevor's ex flings. A mother of one of the bikers he was hated by so dramatically. When the woman's reaction of her made the two of them click together, Bethany knew she'd have to fight them but there were six people on the boat ... and only two of her and derward.

HACKING up salt water that she spit through her lips, she turned to the side to let it out, shaking a little. Big inhales of breath and some panicked movements on her part cause her hand to reach out and grab Derward's leg hard and digging her nails into his skin. "F - ah! .. ( big breath big breath )!" she's SCARED. You can see the look in her eyes ... and she never has that look.

His eyes bugged, watering as her nails bit into his skin. He was already in so much agony—why did there have to be more? But one startled look at her face gave him his answer. Yes, it hurt, but at least it meant he was there to anchor her.

Gently, he loosened her grip, threading his fingers beneath hers just enough to shift her hold. He slid his hand free, guiding her fingertips—rather than her sharp nails—to press against his leg. He wanted to warm her, but his own skin was pruny and clammy, his jacket still soaked through. He couldn't even offer her a dry sleeve to wipe away her tears.

"…Thankfully, it’s still early… I don’t think the sun has reached its peak yet…"

He sat up a fraction, careful not to disturb Beth as she clutched onto him, and shaded his eyes to scan their surroundings. They would have to move further inland, and soon. The high-tide line loomed dangerously close; if they drifted off here, they risked being swept away by midnight. He had never slept that heavily in his life, of course, but with Bethany in his arms, sleep might just win.

"I was trying so hard to resuscitate you… I didn’t even check if you… broke something…" He swallowed hard, growing breathless as the ocean's anger flooded his memory. Suddenly he was right back in the open water—frantically searching for her amidst the bruising swells, hope tangled in terror, the suffocation of not knowing whether she was already gone, his own head slammed beneath the surface dozens if not hundreds of times before he finally dragged them both to the beach.

"Do you trust me to undress you?" he asked steadily, discovering a decorative chain attached to her waistband as he proceeded feeling out her figure for physical damage. Her bottoms would have to go. Wet cargo cloth and metal alone probably added five extra pounds to haul around. He wouldn't have the added buoyancy from before—maybe the one saving grace of being out at sea—but he was prepared to carry her where they needed to go.

Gordon feels tears pricking at his eyes.

With Cain's disappearance, Dee had already taken to holding himself more, arms crossed tight, curling inward. It wasn’t a whimpering retreat; it was a cage he built around the space Cain belonged in, keeping the rest of the world out. He knew he wasn't the open, untouchable man Cain adored right now. And that was the bitter truth: Cain would return, and they would burn as bright as they always did, but Derward loathed that this absence was forcing him to harden into someone new just to hold the line. On that note, he was almost relieved Cain couldn’t see him like this—bristling and locked down.

“… Weird is relative, even if not all relatives are weird.”

He nodded, eyelids heavy, channeling a tough-guy Kojak grin for Gordon. “Put your wallet away. I don’t take advance payments for violence. This punch is purely C-O-D, baby.”

Curbing his language, being careful, normally it wouldn't be a problem, Laurie was deliberate and thought things out, especially with Gilmary, but he wasn't exactly as in control as usual. Maybe he could pull out bigger words, string together a sentence or two that sounded like him, but it was a lot to ask. To follow. So he stayed quiet.

Noise quieted, thinning out as they turned off the commercial street and onto a small side road. The wash of different business fronts, signs, and a busy road phased slowly into quiet and the singular glow of streetlights.

Hesitantly, hand still shaking, if anything it looked worse, Laurie touched Gilmary's arm. A hopefully reassuring squeeze to buy him time to put words in place since just speaking hadn't worked out so well.

Another smoke, as if tobacco would make the fresh air clearer, sort things out, not simply give him time and something to keep wandering hands busy. His freehand never pulled away, without Laurie's say so it was kneading into Gilmary's sleeve.

"If Sid is a villain, so am I." Laurie's eyes were glossy, not as able to let it out as Gilmary seemed to be, and not as able to hide it as he usually would.

"Whatever picture you might have of me as some... damsel in distress is wrong. I brought this on myself." He was a student. Twenty one, in pain, failing, desperate. Sure. He brought it on himself. "I have enabled that man to cause so much pain. I have delighted in doing it myself."

A shaky hand brought the final drag of the cigarette up, then flicked it away as smoke billowed out. Laurie blinked a few times, trying to clear that fucking haze, and took a deep breath.

"I... I earned just over half a million in one night last week." He let the number settle in. "Some launch party for a pop star I've never heard of. Her label wanted everything bespoke. I design the bespoke. I gave them one night of the fae otherworld, with none of the drawbacks. Just some nausea I had to add in. Humans expect some side effects, if there aren't any, they question if anything worked. Even when they're seeing magic in front of their eyes."

“I see the actual distress in you, Laurie, but I would say as pigeonholes go you’re more like the really smart guy the bad guys're keeping in the basement to crack the code for them…” Laurie’s intelligence was evident from the day they met—and it was a driving force in Gilmary’s attraction to Laurie. Not that Gil was suggesting characters who needed the standard rescuing were dim. Just… they weren’t Laurie.

“Since we’re not mentioning names, and since I’m not on the clock, I can tell you man t’ man that I think I’m treating that very same pop star you’ve never heard of—” He tilted his head as though he’d said what needed saying. Fae. Otherworld. Human. He took note of these words, the tone Laurie had used on each, but Mordaunt couldn’t suspect that which he couldn’t fathom: a supernatural world beyond the ingrained acceptance of a possible Holy Trinity.

“Oh yeah. I haven’t heard of 'er either.” Gilmary didn’t seek out a lot of contemporary tracks, sticking to the 60s, 80s, and 90s when he needed a hit of pop.

With the engine idling, Gilmary looked Laurie over tenderly.

“May I point something out to you?” he asked, hushed. Laurie hadn’t told Gilmary anything that would shake that stupid sense of awe from his heart anytime soon. “People that continue to enjoy causing others pain don’t ever come to see me…” He let that sink in for a beat. “People that like what they do for work don’t say they used to be good at it…”

"Well, uh." he asked her where he liked to be buried. She would prefer him to be buried in North Yankton but you can't really bring a corpse cross lines between America and Canada. "I think I know a place..."

Bethany turned her body around to face Dee when he spoke about if she needed space or not. "No! No ... I'd love for you to stay around. I don't know where we'd stay but obviously, we can't stay here." She motioned to the blood soaking into the rug.

“… Then I’m staying.” He smiled, wide and warm. “You’ve been warned.”

DJ never intended for them to stay here, and he nodded willingly at the notion of leaving the bloody apartment behind. He saw it more as a hideout from Trevor than an actual home, anyway. Even before the bloodstains.

He gave her hand a reciprocal squeeze. “A big tent, a big bed—but not too big.” The snuggle-happy wink was there in tone, eyelids unmoving. “And all the recouping we can handle…” Though their retreat was only a concept at the moment, it made his chest swell proudly. The smell of pooling blood, however, quickly stole him from his daydreams... Luckily, his reality retained the most important part of the picture. And she was right beside him.

Black-capped Chickadee & Downy Woodpecker showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory