#also i fit SO MANY of my personal headcanons in here hell yeah

[mediumgayitalian]

“Oh, gods.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, gods.”

Nico scowls, wrenching just eyes away from Will’s poorly-covered grin and shaking shoulders.

It’s not that bad. It isn’t.

Sure, the complete lack of lighting except Greek fire torches makes the cabin look like a little piece of the Underworld, right here on the surface. But that’s comforting. Honestly. Nico knows the Underworld. It’s — familiar.

And, yeah. It would, probably, be pertinent to have some furniture, or something. At least somewhere for him to store his clothes, because he has more than one set of those now, and maybe a shelf, or something. And, admittedly, the obsidian altar could take up a little less space than it currently does.

But it’s not that bad.

“Are those. Coffin shaped beds.”

The tone of Will’s voice is unlike he’s ever heard it. He turns back to face him, slowly, and finds him biting his fist, hard, every muscle of his body tense as live wire.

“I was twelve godsdamn years old,” Nico snaps. “Forgive me if interior design wasn’t my passion.”

Solace loses it.

In his defense, not that Nico is too worried about defending him, he does appear to try very hard to not lose it. When the first giggle slips out of his lips, he clamps his jaw shut tighter. When his whole body begins to shake with the force of repressing his laughter, he curls inward, as if making himself smaller might reduce the chance of a lapse in control.

But then he glances back inside and looks, really looks, at the dreary, stone walls, the lone skeletons standing guard, and the plush, teakwood black coffin bunk beds, and he collapses to the floor.

“I’m going to open a chasm beneath you,” Nico threatens. “You are going to fall and crack your spine into a million pieces on the bank of the Styx, rotting there with every other forgotten hope.”

“You are a Black Parade lyric personified,” Will wheezes.

Nico doesn’t know what that means, so he kicks him. Unfortunately, he only laughs harder.

“I mean it, Solace. It’s a long way down to the Underworld. You will spend the entire fall petrified with the knowledge that nothing can save you.”

For added effect, Nico makes the floor under the medic’s body shake, makes the tip of a skeleton hand peek out from the earth.

Ironically, this stops Will’s laughter, but not for the reason Nico was aiming for.

“Hey!” A bright blue flipflop-clad foot darts out and collides With Nico’s ankle, sending him sprawling. “I said no spooky magic for the next two months! Put that skeleton away!”

“Fuck off, Solace! It’s barely half a bone! You are so annoying!”

“That’s my specialty.” Will pushes himself upright. He waits until Nico sits up, too, so he can catch his eye before his face splits into a dazzling grin. Actual sparkles seem to flicker beside his face. “And you are ever so easy to annoy.”

Nico stares, unimpressed.

“Anyways.” Will coughs. “You can’t stay here, Neeks —”

“Don’t call me that.”

“— it’s straight-up too depressing.” He peers inside. “It’s also cold, and, like…borderline unliveable? So. As your doctor, I can’t allow it.”

“You’re a medic,” Nico says, raising an eyebrow, “first of all, not a doctor. Second of all, you can’t tell me what to do. Third of all — where am I supposed to sleep? The woods?”

“Hm. Good question.”

Will gets to his feet, brushing the dirt off his shorts and offering Nico a hand. After a second of hesitation, he takes it, allowing Will to haul him up.

“C’mon!”

Nico snatches his hand away, face burning. (Gods. Why does Will have to be so…touchy-feely? And why does it always do weird things to Nico’s stomach?) But it hardly takes a look over Will’s shoulder before Nico’s feet are following after him, without his permission.

“Where are we going?”

“Well, my dad’s kind of a hoe,” Will says matter-of-factly. Nico chokes. Will’s grin widens. “And our cabin was built with that in mind. I know we’ve got an extra bunk or two for ya. Hurry up!”

This…cannot be allowed. Nico doesn’t have a ton of Camp Half-Blood experience, or anything, but as far as he knows, Hermes is the only cabin that can really do that. He doesn’t want to incur the wrath of Apollo, or whatever, by staying in his cabin uninvited.

Well. Will’s inviting him, technically. And there’s a confidence to his offer, like maybe this isn’t the first time he’s done it.

“What if I don’t want to live in your stupid sunshine-y cabin,” Nico grumbles, trying to cover up his nerves. “Holding hands and singing about how much I love being alive isn’t really my cup of tea.”

Will snorts. “Oh, di Angelo,” he says dramatically, shaking his head, “you are in for a world of discovery. Welcome to the Cabin Apollo. Take your shoes off at the door and remember that Kayla bites.”

———

Living in the Apollo cabin is strange.

Four days in, and Nico is only just starting to get used to it. He’s not entirely unused to sharing space with people — he’s had two sisters — but the Apollo kids argue like they enjoy doing it. One minute, Will and Kayla will be screaming at each other at the top of their lungs about touching each other’s shit, then they’re teaming up to pull Gracie off Yan’s face for the exact same argument, only now they offer sage advice on respecting boundaries and compromising. It’s bizarre.

(Austin is pretty chill, actually. Nico has noticed him starting quite a few fights — it was he, in fact, who moved Will’s shit and then gracefully framed Kayla — but he has a very powerful eyebrow raise and a very powerful image as Unproblematic. He has quickly become Nico’s favourite.)

He’s only just barely beginning to understand how they work together, and the struggle comes in because everything is so chaotic. When Nico spent time with Hazel in New Rome, she was in the barracks. He never really had to worry about squabbling over counter space in the bathroom with her, because she had her own little toiletry caddie like everyone else, and bathrooms were public. With Bianca — well. There’s no one alive who knows this about her, but she was bossy. She was sweet and wonderful and self-sacrificing and brave and kind and the centre of Nico’s life, but by the gods, did she take her authority as a big sister seriously. She ordered Nico around all the time. He never had to worry much about when he would have the chance to use the bathroom they shared at the Lotus, or who got the T.V. remote, or who go to sit on the bus instead of standing, because he was not the one deciding. He could stick his tongue out and whine all he wanted, but she was boss. He knew that.

The Apollo kids are not like that.

As well as Nico can figure, it’s kind of a free-for-all. You want first shower? Either wake up the earliest — a strategy only Will every manages to employ with any success — or manage to jab an elbow in someone’s rib and sprint. You want whoever’s humming to shut the hell up so you can sleep? Make sure your threats are quick and believable, or just straight up start throwing shit until they finally stop. You want the coveted middle of the bench spot at breakfast? Well, tough shit on that one, actually. Nico has yet to make that one happen for himself.

He won’t admit it, but he has kind of learned to enjoy it. It’s annoying, and the Apollo siblings do indeed sing at all hours of the day (although the content usually skews more towards diss tracks and delighted insults, if not straight-up curses), and it is so godsdamn bright in there, seriously, is it a gimmick or what, but there’s something to be said about the fact that he’s so surrounded by people and chaos that he hasn’t even had the chance to feel lonely. Not even at night, panting to himself after a nasty nightmare, because all it takes is a particularly loud snore from Will one bunk down to remember where he is. To remember that he’s safe — by demigod standards, at least.

But, still.

He kind of misses his privacy.

“Will,” he whispers urgently, on his fifteenth day of rooming with the Apollo weirdos.

The medic hums noncommittally, attention very focused on the test tube in front of him. Nico has been fighting the urge to try and launch a piece of dust inside it for forty minutes, just to make him explode.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sounds good, Nico.”

Nico narrows his eyes. “You’re ignoring me.”

“Uh-huh. Agreed.”

“I can say anything I want right now.”

“Sure. Maybe double check with Austin.”

“…I’m going to put a colony of ants in your pillowcase.”

“Good idea.”

“Then I’m going to douse your hair products in gasoline and set them aflame.”

“Baller.”

“After that I’m gonna read your super secret diary to the entirety of camp at singalong tonight.”

“You betcha.”

“And then I’m going to shadow travel to Russia.”

Will blinks, frowning. “Hey, no shadow-travelling. What’s this I hear about shadow-travelling?”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Nothing, stupid. You were just ignoring me.”

Will smiles guiltily. “Aw, I’m sorry, Neeks. Got focused on this. I’m finished in twenty, then I’m all yours?”

“…Don’t call me Neeks,” Nico grumbles, furious with himself for how quick he’s relented under wide blue puppy-dog eyes.

“Sorry, Neeks.”

Huffing at Will’s quiet laughter, Nico slides off the nurse’s station counter and wanders around the empty infirmary. Things have luckily finally cooled down in here, nearly three weeks after the end of the Giant War. Some of the exhaustion has faded from Will’s features now that he’s had time to sleep properly.

Not that Nico has noticed, or anything.

“Okay,” Will says a few minutes later, holding his hands up protectively in front of his geeky little setup. “I just gotta do this last step, so long as I calculated it right, it should be fine…” He squeezes a drop of something into the liquid bubbling over the burner, freezing immediately. One, two, three seconds pass and nothing happens, so Will relaxes, sighing in relief and turning to face Nico fully. “Okay, we’re good. What was it you wanted to —”

The text tube contents explode in his face, dousing him in slimey green goo.

Nico bursts out laughing.

“Great,” Will says darkly, swiping the stuff from his eyes. “The one day I don’t wear goggles. Great.”

Nico gasps, sides aching. “Oh my gods —”

“Feel free to help, di Angelo.”

“— you look like a cartoon! Your face!”

It takes Will twelve cloths and seven whole minutes to clean himself and the nurse’s station off of the goo. Nico cackles at him the whole time, and tastefully does not mention the many globs of goo that remain caked in his hair.

“Whenever you’re done.”

Will is very, very bad at being stern when he doesn’t really mean it. And he doesn’t really mean it now, because every time he tries to glare at Nico, his mouth twitches.

“I’m good,” Nico finally wheezes, forcing his face back to normal. “I’m good, I’m good.”

He very pointedly does not look at Will’s hair.

“Dick,” Will huffs, fondness bleeding into his tone. “What did you want?”

He must notice the change in tone at his asking, because he clears the bench fully, hoisting himself on top of it and patting the spot next to him. Nico hesitates for half a second, then crawls up, sitting criss cross applesauce, knees touching.

“I need to move back to my cabin,” he manages, finally.

Will’s face betrays no judgement or emotion. “Oh?”

“Yes.” He picks at a loose thread in his jeans. “I need — space.”

The thread loosens, allowing Nico to tug on it. A hole begins to unravel along the seam as he pulls and pulls and pulls. He stops himself before it gets too wide, tearing the thread off and winding it around his fingers.

“I can tell everyone to tone it down,” Will offers softly, eyebrows creased. “We’ll be more quiet, we’ll —”

Nico places a hand on his knee, cutting off his sentence. “It’s not about that, I promise. You guys have been great.”

A wounded look still pulls at Will’s strong features, as much as he visibly tries to pull his face back to something more supportive. “It’s not?”

“No, no. It’s just —” He frowns, trying to articulate the tangled mess of his thoughts. “I have my own cabin.”

“So?”

“And I can’t stay in yours forever.”

“I mean, you could.”

“Chiron’s been giving me looks, Will.”

“So what! I’ll — write you a doctor’s note, or something!”

Nico snorts. “A doctor’s note letting me sleep in your cabin?”

Will nods fervently, although he seems to acknowledge the ridiculousness of his suggestion, if the grin on his face is any indication. “Yes! For medical reasons, you know.” He mimes writing. “‘Patient’s cabin is dank and sad. To avoid bouts of misery, patient must sleep in the presence of the coolest and best and prettiest and most uplifting people in camp.’”

“Hm. Not sure Chiron’s gonna buy that last part. Not sure I buy that last part, actually.”

“Hey.”

Nico dodges Will’s shove, chuckling.

“Seriously, though, Will. This was never a long term solution, right?”

“I know. You’re cabin just — sucks so bad, man. No offense.”

“I take great offense to that, actually. My cabin is art.”

“Sure, Eddie Cullen.”

“I don’t know who that is, so that’s a horrible insult.”

“Travesty, honestly.”

Outside the open infirmary windows, Nico can hear distant, triumphant screaming, laughter, and the clang of metal. Today’s a good day. The weather’s balmier than usual, for late August, and some of the gloom that’s hung over everyone’s head for the bast few weeks seems to have lifted.

“You can’t go back to your cabin like it is,” Will says into the silence, startling Nico, “but —” he grins when Nico begins to protest, holding up his hand. “We can definitely change it up.”

He slides off the bench, botching his landing and almost sprawling on the floor. He holds a dramatic hand out to Nico when he rights himself. Nico ignores it, rolling his eyes and getting to his feet by himself.

“C’mon,” Will says, grabbing his hand anyway. Sparks shoot up Nico’s arm. “We need to go ask Chiron for the van keys and approximately five hundred dollars.”

———

Three hours is too fucking long to be in a vehicle. Especially when Will is driving, because all he does is play nonstop country music and let everybody cut in front of him.

“I’m driving us back,” Nico informs him as they (finally) get out of the stupid van, snatching the keys from his hands.

Will shrugs. “Sure.”

Nico had expected more of a fight, honestly. But he supposes neither of them are legally allowed to drive, age-wise, and besides, Nico technically has seventy years of driving experience on Will.

(…The Lotus had a racetrack.

Nico was very, very good at it.)

“What is this place, anyway?”

“This place,” Will says grandly, throwing an arm over his shoulders, “is essentially the mortal version of the Labyrinth, minus, you know, the soul-sucking terror.”

“Okay. All that’s telling me is that you have horrible ideas and we should leave immediately.”

Will rolls his eyes. “It’s a furniture store.”

“Well, then —” he punches Will’s shoulder, huffing when he only laughs. “Say that, then!”

“But then what would I do with all the drama in my heart?”

“Choke on it, hopefully!”

Ikea is weird.

Since Will did not tell him what the plan was, he didn’t draw up any plans. Luckily, Will has the dimensions of his cabin — although where he got them, Nico does not ask — so they spend an hour or so in the cafe drawing out a plan.

“You need more than two beds, Neeks.”

“Uh, no I don’t. Unless my father has something very important to announce to me, I need a bed for me, and a bed for Hazel.”

“What if I want to sleep over?”

“You can sleep on the porch.”

Mostly, they wander around the sets. Nico isn’t really sure what he wants his cabin to look like — he has to remind himself that yes, actually, he cares about the space he’ll be spending at least the next three years of his life in. It’s a startling reality, to have control over his own space. He must’ve had some say in his childhood bedroom, but he has no memory of it. He spent the most time in his and Bianca’s room at the Lotus, but that was already furnished when they got there, and besides, it only felt like they were there for less than a year. It always felt like a hotel room, never his room. Westminster was no different. His room in his father’s palace had already been designed, too. In fact he’d based his cabin on it.

What does Nico want his bedroom to look like, without someone else deciding for him?

“I’m not getting a fucking Lightning McQueen bed, Solace.”

“But it would be so sick! And look — it’s got little cubbies!”

“I’m going to ditch you, and shadow travel back to camp,” Nico threatens. “And I have the van keys, so you’ll be stuck here for real.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Will looks at him sternly, hands on hips. “No shadow travelling for you, Death Breath. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fade into nothing on my watch.”

“I’m joking,” Nico says, exasperated, but cannot deny the warmth that fills him up at Will’s concern.

In the end, he decides on a pretty normal bed. It’s bigger than Will’s bunk (“Or anyone else’s bed,” Will grumbles, “you lucky asshole.”), but not ridiculously designed. He picks a similar size for Hazel, only the frame is white, not black, and the bedspread that comes with it is a soft, coral pink that he knows she will like.

“Wanna see if they’ve got a Mythomagic bedspread for yours?” Will teases.

That would be the coolest thing ever in the entire world, Nico thinks, and is so embarrassed that he shoves Will, shrieking, into a giant basket of pillows for making him think it.

“Obviously I don’t want that.”

“You are such a turd! I’ll get you, di Angelo!”

He does not. Nico is way too sneaky for him, and after the fifth time Nico manages to give him the slip, he gives up, sulking in a display for a bedroom of a nine year old girl.

“Fitting,” Nico teases, gesturing to the princess wallpaper. “You drama queen.”

“Buzz off.”

Next, they look for furniture. It’s pretty easy — Nico doesn’t need much, and he’s not too concern with cut or style or anything. He quickly picks out two dressers, one to match Hazel’s bed frame, and one to match his, and then a couple bookshelves.

Four hours into their trip, Nico is exhausted. They have a three hour drive ahead of them, they’ve been out all day, and he wants to go home.

But Will stops him before they go get all the boxes for their furniture.

“This is still pretty bare bones,” he says quietly, then grins at his own accidental pun. Nico shoots him a venomous look, warning him against making it more obvious, and for once he actually listens. “You know, we’re still under budget. We’ve got around $200 left — we can get a motel, stay the night, then we don’t have to drive back right away. And tomorrow, maybe we can check out some other stores, look for smaller decorations and stuff. And if we don’t have to drive back tonight, we’ve maybe got another hour in here, if you wanted to get a couple more pieces.”

Nico opens his mouth to refuse — that’s way too much effort to spend on one person’s cabin, c’mon — then pauses, thinking about it.

Chiron hadn’t even thought about it before handing them the money. Will had barely gotten the words out before he’d started counting out the bills.

“I want you to make a home here,” the centaur had said, touching his hand. There was a pain in his kind eyes, stopping any protests. “I made a mistake, Nico, the first time you came here. In another life, you felt welcome enough to stay the whole time. Take what you need.”

What does he need? What does home look like, to him?

“There was a beanbag chair, in our room at the Lotus,” he says, pushing the words past the lump in his throat. “Me and Bianca used to fight over it.” His voice shakes. A tear gathers at the corner of his eye, and he blinks it back. “It wasn’t real fighting. When I called mercy she’d — scoop me up and throw me on it and squish in after me, and we’d sit together and play video games. Or read. She liked to read.”

Will squeezes his trembling hands. “We can get a beanbag chair.”

“And I — don’t like the blackout curtains. The dark makes me think of — the pit.”

“Okay. They sell lotsa lamps here, too. Might be nicer than the Greek fire.”

Nico nods. There’s — more, far more ideas, now, flooding his brain; Hazel crowding over him on a rug-covered floor, shrieking as he teases her about Frank; a desk tucked in the corner where Will sits, mouthing along to his textbooks as Nico sharpens his sword; Jason running his fingers along rows of books on a big, cluttered shelf; Reyna with her fist curled around her mouth, studying a chess board across from him, hair shining under the natural light from the window.

He can have that. He can have that.

Thankfully, all their stuff fits in the back of the van. Despite his insistence earlier, Nico hands Will the keys, and he drives around until he finds a shitty motel with a vacancy sign flashing out front. He pulls into the farthest corner of the parking lot, killing the engine, then waits.

“You okay?”

Nico shrugs. “I’m…not sure.”

“That’s okay,” Will assures, pressing a fleeting touch to his shoulder. Nico grabs his wrist before he moves away, tugging down his hand and linking their fingers together.

For once, it doesn’t make him feel all sparky. The warmth of Will’s hands is grounding, and so is the gentle squeeze, the smile he feels pointed in his direction.

“C’mon. Let’s check in and sleep, huh?”

Nico’s exhaustion compounds in the walk from the car to the lobby, so by the time Will is speaking quietly to the host, he’s half asleep, leaning on Will’s shoulder. He vaguely feels it when Will shifts his weight, sliding a hand around his waist to hold him better. He blinks and they’re standing in front of a door.

“Almost there, Death Boy,” he murmurs. “Hold on a sec.”

It takes him six separate tries to make the keycard work. He gets huffy when Nico snickers tiredly at him.

“Finally, yeesh.”

He guides Nico in, dropping the backpack he brought somewhere near the door. As soon as the bed is within Nico’s sights, he makes a beeline, barely remembering to shuck his shoes and jacket.

“Please do not sleep in your jeans.”

“Mmmfuck off,” Nico groans, already sliding under the covers. He’ll regret it in the morning, but whatever.

“Goober.” Callused hands brush through his hair, resting lightly on his forehead. “Goodnight, Nico.”

Nico’s out before he can even think to respond.

———

He wakes up, in the middle of the night, scream caught in his throat and heart pounding in his ears. The air smells like smoke and fear. The rushing of the Phlegethon is so loud it’s overpowering.

A loud snore knocks him back to reality.

Crawling desperately towards the source of the sound, he hangs over the bed, eyes adjusting rapidly to the dark to see a curled lump on the floor, head resting on his own hands. A quick glance behind him confirms the other half of the bed has been left untouched.

“Stupid,” he mumbles, tiny smile chasing away the last of his fear.

He tugs the blankets off the mattress, pulls off the two pillows, and joins his dumbass, selfless friend on the floor.

———

“Question,” Will asks, swallowing the last of their disgustingly delicious greasefest of a breakfast. “Were you alive when Walmart was invented?”

“I was alive before your great grandmother was.”

“No, I mean — were you out and kickin’. Have you strolled the endless aisles of corporate soullessness, basking in the wonder of American overconsumerism?”

“…You’re such a weird, particular person.”

Will looks delighted. “You’re a Walmart newbie!”

He pulls into the dead, cracked parking lot way too happily for this hour in the morning. Nico would even say he takes the nearest exit to get to the store gleefully. He is embarrassed for him.

Walmart is…underwhelming.

As stupid as it is, Will had hyped it up so much that Nico was almost a little excited. It just looked like any other basic superstore. Will, for whatever reason, seemed delighted by that fact.

“I do not like this store,” he explained when Nico asked, expression not matching his words, “it just means so very much to me that you are joining me in the misery of having experienced it.”

They spend more time than they mean to just dicking around. At one point they nearly get thrown out by management, because Will finds a pair of NERF guns that some child dug out of its packaging and no words need to be spoken. They gear up and scamper off, hunting each other through fluorescent-lights hell.

“Please just get your shit and leave,” says the very tired looking manager, and they have the good gall to at least appear embarrassed as they mumble, “Yes, ma’am.”

It doesn’t take long when they have their head on straight. They get some fairy lights, a couple cool posters, dorky little trinkets that Nico probably doesn’t need, per se, but what was he supposed to do, leave the little plastic crow skeleton behind?

Unlikely.

With his own money, Will buys several cans of paint and a CD. He explains neither of these purchases. The look on his face gets steadily more infuriating as they make their way through the line, and Nico really, truly considers leaving him behind.

The purchase of the CD becomes very obvious very quickly. Even though Nico is driving, and therefore Nico should get music control, Will pouts and pleads until Nico gives in and lets him play his stupid country album. He justifies his decision in his own brain by noticing the radiance of Will’s smile as he belts out the words, badly, at the top of his lungs. He then spends the rest of the drive back to camp convincing himself not to be embarrassed for having said thoughts.

They get back to camp about lunch time, and Will destroys any attempt for a subtle reentry by whistling the second they cross the property line.

“Austin! Kayla!” he hollers, making Nico jump. “Come help us unload!”

“We coulda done it ourselves,” Nico grumbles.

Will pats his head condescendingly. “It has been twenty-four long, long hours since I’ve bosses my siblings around, Neeks. I need this.”

It does go by quite a bit quicker with Austin and Kayla’s help. Lou Ellen, Cecil, Yan, and Gracie come to help, too, but Gracie’s too little to carry much more than a small desk lamp. Instead, they lay down the biggest box — Nico’s bed frame — and let her climb on top of it, carrying her like she’s a queen atop a throne back to Nico’s cabin. She has the time of her life, giggling to herself like a madwoman.

By the time everything’s unloaded, a couple hours have passed, and the Hades cabin looks like a clusterfuck.

“Maybe you stay in Apollo a couple more nights,” Will suggests.

“Might have to,” Nico agrees. Will looks inordinately pleased with himself.

All in all, it takes about two days to disassemble the old furniture, get rid of it, and start putting together the new stuff. Will helps for most of it, but he has a few shifts in the infirmary, so Nico ends up trying to do a fair bit on his own.

“May the wrath of Zeus come down upon this fucking piece of shit, no good, poorly designed garbage-looking idiotic mother fuc —”

“Maybe time for a break from furniture assembling?” suggests a voice, accompanied by a quick knock in the open door. Will leans on the doorframe, grinning, box propped up on his hip.

“Will, thank the gods,” Nico sighs, relieved. He angrily shakes a tool in his direction. “Allen wrenches are fucking useless. I’m three seconds away from throwing this through the window.”

“Definitely time for a switch, then.”

Will’s smile is wide and crinkles his eyes. He’s got dimples, too, Nico is now noticing, and then very rapidly un-noticing then because gods above that is a dangerous path.

“Did you and Rachel get into another prank war?” he asks, praying the flush on his cheeks goes away.

Will glances down at his paint-spattered clothes. “Nah, this is just my painting outfit. Why ruin more than one set of clothes, you know?” He sets down the box in the middle of the room, then heads for the half-built furniture sprawled all throughout the cabin, tugging it all towards the middle. Nico inches towards the box, curious, and finds it full of dozens of paint cans and brushes, including the ones he got at Walmart.

“I didn’t know you painted.”

He flashes another grin in Nico’s direction. This one has a little mischief to it, a little teasing. His stomach swoops.

“Gotta have at least one artistic talent or my dad would disown me. Help me tape down this tarp, will you?”

It takes them twenty minutes to prep the room, protecting the floor and the furniture. Once everything is ready, Will jogs over to the CD player he gave Nico a few days ago, flicking through the stack of CDs and choosing one at random. Soft opera music begins to float around the cabin.

“Okay,” he begins, clapping his hands, “first we need a base coat. Get the white paint and the rollers.”

It takes them the rest of the day, painting until dinner, then waiting past sunset for it to dry. Nico follows Will back to his cabin that night — he wouldn’t let him sleep around the paint fumes — and the two of them return the next morning, re-donning their paint-spattered clothes. Will braids his hair, this time, tucking the little pigtails behind a kerchief. It makes Nico smile every time he looks at him.

As much as he’s in painting clothes, Nico doesn’t really do much of the painting. He stays in the centre of the room, half assembling furniture, half watching Will bring his walls to life with more colours than he’s ever seen in one place.

Will doesn’t ask what Nico wants him to paint in his murals. Instead, Nico watches as the streets of Venice begin to unfold on one of the walls, bright and blue and exactly as he remembers, even though he knows for a fact Will has never been. The shining fruit of his stepmother’s garden is next, with a notable absence of the pomegranate tree, and then the hills of New Rome, the sunflower field in rural New York Nico used to visit, the Chinese mountainscape from the first big shadow travelling jump he ever made. Even the poplar forests of the Underworld, looking much kinder and livelier in Will’s rendition than in real life, with Mrs. O’Leary and Cerberus chasing each other through the flickering leaves. Beautiful, colourful, breathtaking scenes; Nico’s favourite places, Nico’s many homes.

“I get a lot of dreams,” Will admits, dragging a smear of rich purple near the ceiling. “You’re in a lot of them. These are the places you’re smiling, the most.”

“They’re beautiful, Will.” Nico’s throat is drier than any desert he’s ever been to. “Gods, they’re more beautiful here than they are in real life.”

“Liar,” Will teases, although his smile is shy.

Nico has never seen him smile like that. He’s seen a lot more of Will in these past few days, actually; his softness, his kindness, his love.

He has only knows Will for a little over a month, he thinks. But Will loves him. That much is obvious.

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

His eyes are still trained on his work. He is on his tiptoes on a step stool, one leg extended precariously, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. The curve of his brush is careful, meticulous. Only the best for his friends, for Nico. That’s Will.

“Hey,” Nico says again, more urgently. He steps forward, wrapping his fingers around his wrist.

“Just a sec, Neeks, as soon as I’m done we can —”

Nico pulls until he loses his balance, falling into Nico’s arms. He stares into wide, blue blue eyes, for one second, two, then presses their lips together. Will’s squeak of surprise is swallowed by his mouth, hands sliding up his arms to cup his face, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh,” he sighs, eyelashes ticking Nico’s cheeks as they flutter close. “Oh.”

He melts into Nico’s hold. There’s a thunk and a crinkle as his paintbrush falls from his loose fingers, splattering onto the tarp, and paint-wet hands tangle into his hair. Nico finds he doesn’t mind.

“You love me,” he murmurs in between breaths, lips brushing Will’s with every word.

“Yes,” Will breathes. He kisses Nico again, and again. “A lot.”

“Good.” He’s not sure if it’s the paint fumes making him lightheaded, or the odd, slightly uncomfortable position, or the intoxicating, delirious feel of Will’s warm skin. He’s not sure if he cares. “Good.”

It’s not quite an I-love-you-too. The words won’t form on his tongue, so instead he tightens his hold, sending them that way, and presses closer, closer, closer.

Will smiles into the kiss.

He understands just fine.

#i could write an essay about how i think they’re dynamic would be immediately post three days in the infirmary #also i fit SO MANY of my personal headcanons in here hell yeah #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #pjo hoo toa #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #nico/will #will/nico #gently falling in love #love #i’m tagging it bc. will loves so clearly in this one it kills me a little #fic #my writing #longpost

[prettyoatmeal]

MORE John Price Headcanons While You're Dating

Part 2 to this!

Since SO many people (like 4) were asking for me to do a part 2, here it is! Enjoy! A/N at the end!

Genre: Fluff! Smut after the buffer.

Summary: Just some more headcanons I've thought of. GN reader, no mentions of Y/N.

Content Warnings: NSFW After buffer.

Masterlist here!

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

Big big big big boy.

He's quite muscular, got that meat on him (I mean, hell. Look at those shoulders). This means he needs to buy pretty large sized clothing for himself when he's out shopping.

This also means that they're a perfect size for you, able to very easily slide into a shirt of his and just wear that with how long it is on you.

They're just so comfy and baggy and cover you up so well, they're nice for when you don't feel like wearing something form fitting or if yours are in the wash.

John would definitely approve.

They'd smell like him, like home, how could you not wear them every now and again?

If you asked really nicely, John would get you a personal travel bottle of his cologne to keep on you at all times.

If you two are deployed, then he'd definitely pack a few extra shirts and sweaters of his because he knows you'll want some with you in the barracks. Maybe sleep in them or use them as a pillow case.

Seeing you in his clothes would definitely rile him up, seeing how the shirt gathers around your hips especially would leave a lasting effect on him. Expect his hands to be all over you.

You'd get the same reaction from him from wearing something more form fitting.

Wearing something that hugs your curves and shows off how great you look?

Oh boy.

It would drive him mad.

Would purposefully buy you shirts or those bike shorts in a half size too small and blame it on forgetting your size or being an 'accident' just to watch you try them on and gaze how the fabric squeezes around your chest and thighs.

Would definitely get heart eyes from that.

"John, are you sure this is my size?" as you finally pull the shirt over your chest, feeling how constricting the fabric is.

"Is or isn't, you look divine!"

If you wear a proper compression shirt, he'd probably die on the spot.

please please please please wear one.

No matter how thick or thin you are, he'd love every bit of how you look, and he'd definitely make that well known to you.

Definitely the kind to love playing with your hair, especially if it's long. He'd love braiding it, brushing it, running his fingers through it, literally anything,

Loves feeling how soft it is right after you wash it.

Will probably offer to help you dry it.

"Allow me," typa guy for sure.

He'd also be very big on communication.

He's had a lot of experience and has realised that bottling feelings up and keeping them locked away can only make the situations worse.

If you notice he's particularly upset, would always vent to you (If you're comfy w that of course) just to get how he's feeling out of the way, hoping it won't interfere with anything else.

Not one to pull the silent treatment, in fact, he hates it. If you're the kind to pull the silent treatment, he would egg it out of you one way or another.

"I'm too old for this, spit it out," in the kindest way possible.

He knows how draining it is physically and mentally to keep your emotions to yourself, so he'd always convince you to finally let it all loose.

Please tell him how you're feeling, especially if he's the person you're upset with. It breaks his heart seeing you upset and will 100% do everything in his power to make the situation right again.

The type to get grumpy or emotional when he's sleepy. Sometimes he just needs a soft chest or soft tummy to lay his head on and he'll be out like a light.

If you would let him sleep on top of you, that is. All that muscle would be pretty heavy so unless he knew you could take it, little spoon would do just fine for him.

Yeah, he'd love being little spoon. Loves feeling your arms pulling him deeper into your chest.

John is pretty dominant in a traditional sense, very masculine, a fierce leader, knows exactly what he wants and how he's going to get it, but he's also a massive softie and will do anything and everything to have your full attention when he's in the mood.

Yes, he wants to be little spoon, yes, he will also lead an army of men through a battlefield. They exist.

__________________

NSFW

He's an ass man, 100%.

Y'know how I said he'll 'accidentally' buy smaller sizes just to see how the material so perfectly forms itself to your curves?

Yeah, this is why.

Will grab and slap your ass at every chance he gets (with your consent, ofc) even in the most innocent of situations.

Whether you're bending down to pick up something you've dropped, over the kitchen counter while pulling something down from the top shelves, or just leaning over the dinner table to wipe it down, SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! Jolting you forward.

Loves to hear that high pitched, surprised shriek coming from your mouth at the sudden impact of his hand on your behind.

Backshots with him would be crazy, fingers intertwined with your hair, pushing your face into the mattress as he pounds into you from behind.

Doggy or reverse cowgirl would be his favourite positions because he just gets that full view of your ass jiggling with each bounce or each thrust from his hips.

Definitely wouldn't be gentle, but wouldn't be too rough either, that perfect balance.

Maybe a bit rougher when he's desperate or releasing some pent up stress, but all in all, he wouldn't dare to hurt you unless its the very occasionally slap on the ass or thighs.

I feel like it would be out of his comfort zone as well. Seeing how prominent his hand prints can be after spanking, seeing them on your face or anywhere else would probably make him upset during the process.

Spanking would be the furthest he'd go, making sure the skin is red and raw.

Would stop if he notices you're crying. Breaks his heart.

On the contrary, will gladly make you cry with his head between your legs. Feeling how you twitch against his mouth every time he makes you cum brings a smile to his lips.

VERY focused on making you cum first. Very focused on making sure you're comfortable ad satisfied all the way.

Definitely prefers to be dominant in bed, likes having that control.

Daddy kink probably.

He probably wouldn't make too much noise in bed, maybe a few groans and whines. But would for sure be a dirty talker.

"Yeah, that feels good, doesn't it?"

"Sucking daddy's cock- fuck, -so well, Gorgeous.."

"So fucking tight, aint ya. Mmh, fuck, keep squeezing around me like that, Dove."

Will only let out a classic moan for when he cums.

"That's it, gonna fill you up so good- ahh~!"

Surprising at first since he'd never made all that much sound before but the more you know.

Its totally hot though.

King of aftercare, tbh.

Would gladly carry you everywhere after you've become too sore to walk anywhere yourself.

Even if you can walk after a pounding, will still carry you. Gotta be treated like royalty after letting him slam into your holes like that.

Boy, did it feel good.

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

I somehow accidentally deleted the first draft of this I made so this turned out a lot shorter than I first wanted it to :(

Also why it took so long lol. I swear, idk why my Tumblr is bugging so much but losing like 2k words after I've worked on it all day literally broke my heart.

Probably don't expect a part 3, but after having a few days to myself, my motivation has defo returned haha.

Goodnight!! <33

Tags: @mind-nine @tapioca-marzipan @underthestarwars @avalkyrieofparis

#call of duty #cod mw2 #John Price x reader #Captain Price x Reader #John Price Imagines #Captain Price Imagines #John Price Fluff #Captain John Price Fluff #MW2 x reader

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

@anothertawogsideblog its been a while, but i still wanted to respond to this! first off, thank you for your compliment on this post, it really means a lot! second of all, yes! although whatever song you have to recommend, it might already be on here! (however if it isn't, dm me!! i have something for that ;3c)

i've actually been waiting for an opportunity to share this, so thank you so much!

this playlist follows Rob's character progression through the original series (wiiiith some gaps filled in ;3)

below the cut are my insane ramblings explanations of why i picked the songs on the playlist, where/how they fit into the timeline of events, aaand a couple of headcanons i have that were inspired by the songs :D i tried to be quick and concise and only talk about lines that REALLY stood out to me

WARNING: don't click on it unless you are prepared to do a bit of reading. legitimately i'm warning you here, there's well over 3K words on this (not counting the lyric transcriptions)

wow, really? okay, strap in!

Self- by Will Wood and The Tapeworms

this and -Ish were recommendations from my partner, so thank you to him :3

the respective opening and closing songs to SELF-iSH tied the og album together, so it was only natural that they serve the same function here.

the SELF-iSH album already deals with themes of identity, and i personally find Rob to be so interesting because of his complex relationship with his identity. or i guess the relationship that i perceive him to have

this song is short, but it's one of many songs that represents something we didn't see happen onscreen. for this one, its Rob getting zapped into the Void.

"well i don't remember 2012, but i heard the world would turn to hell, and compared to that, well, i'm doing well, so i pray to God it really did"

2012 was the year the show began, but its also a year where people believed the world would end. the connection is sort of paradoxical in relation to the show

"so when all my friends forget my name, no, i wont come back and be the same, no, i wont come back and be the same, and i'm gonna be myself again"

this part in particular is not only representing him being erased from the mind's of people who knew him, but also foreshadowing his eventual transformation...

the last line haunts me, because in my head animatic, its something he's saying to reassure himself that he'll be okay. that he'll get out of this and still be himself. which,,, i'm sorry, excuse me (UGLY CRIES HARD INTO A PILLOW) okay next song

Turn the Lights Off by Tally Hall

AUTISM JUMPSCARE

so this song is basically the ensuing panic and chaos from being brought to a place where mistakes are kept. most of my head animatic is just him wandering around in the Void and being chased or frightened by all the weird shit in there.

"eyes of yellow scales and feathers tails in tethers turn the lights off"

more foreshadowing,,,, how the white of his eye changes to yellow after the Void,,,,,,, how he gets a pig tail in The Future,,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah

Sweet Hibiscus Tea by Penelope Scott

Penelope Scott is a recurring artist on this playlist :3 (foreboding sense of doom)

"and i am not your protagonist i'm not even my own i don't know anything i don't even know what i don't know"

local boy achieves sentience, more at 11

"and if you look outside you'll see disintegrating trees the artificial way the sunlight bounces off the waxy leaves"

these lines perfectly paint a picture of a world that is not real, again tying into him becoming sentient

"and if you look outside you'll see disintegrating trees the artificial way the sunlight bounces off the glitching leaves"

do i even have to say it.

"my wet heart catches on every thorn you're already halfway out the door"

Rob calling out to Gumball and Darwin and then seeing them ignore him in favor of Molly........

"and i'm so tiny and so old and god its never been so cold and it is 85 degrees i don't know what i need"

the ending to this song feels so hopeless and frustrated. which sadly, ties in perfectly.

ECHO by Crusher-P (feat. GUMI)

this is like. the ultimate Rob song for so many reasons. here are my takes!!

"the clock stopped ticking forever ago how long have i been up? i don't know"

reflecting on how long he's been in the Void. has it been a day? or has it been years? it's impossible to know

"why cant i see, why cant i see all the colors that you see? please can i be, please can i be colorful and free?"

so in this instance “seeing color” is a sorta metaphor for being important or interesting. things which he wasn't, based on being put into the Void.

then him longing to be important, to be interesting, to be out of this god-forsaken place

"what the hell's going on? can someone tell me please? why i'm switching faster than the channels on TV I'm black, then i'm white no, something isn't right my enemy's invisible, i don't know how to fight"

in reference to his surroundings being screens of TV static. realizing that his real enemy is whatever decides who’s important and who isn’t, but not knowing how to fight back against it

"the trembling fear is more than i can take when i'm up against the echo in the mirror"

at this point the "echo" is the boy he was when he was brought here. young and naïve, hopeful that somebody would remember him and care enough about to come rescue him.

"i'm gonna burn my house down into a ugly black, i'm gonna run away now and never look back"

this is him running after the van and leaving this fucked up place behind. the fact that these lines repeat and overlap each other really sells the amp up towards the climax that is him grabbing onto the side of the van and holding on until we flash to the other side.

"what the hell's going on? can someone tell me, please? why i'm switching faster than the channels on TV I'm black, then i'm white, no, something isn't right, my enemy's invisible, i don't know how to fight,"

this,,,,, this is after the memory wipe. this is the "who am i? what happened? whats… wrong with me?" that happens as soon as he's spat out the other side.

"the trembling fear is more than i can take when i'm up against the echo in the mirror"

now the echo is a ghost of his former self, before he was transformed. i headcanon that his pre-Void self's appearance haunts him like a ghost, never being fully visible or tangible in any way, but still undeniably there.

from this point on when he tries to interact with it or remember who he was, its like trying to grab fog. it just slips right through his fingers and dissipates into nothing.

Eighth Wonder by Lemon Demon

FIRST and ONLY silly song!!! this one is him sneaking into and hiding in the Watterson's house almost entirely undetected :3 (DON'T look at his body dysphoria look at him he’s normal he’s NORMAL)

Projections by CG5

hey hey hey hey hey DON'T look at the Bendy and The Ink Machine character on the cover of the song—look at me! this song is a PERFECTLY NORMAL CHOICE-hey hey! stop looking at The Projectionist look at me-LOOK AT ME! this is NORMAL.

just. hear me out, okay. just listen. to the song.

"in the dark i see everything there's no place that i'd rather be"

he's just some poor amnesiac hiding out in a basement. he isn't happy about it, but he doesn't have anywhere to go. no memories, no family, and goodness knows California isn't particularly kind to the homeless. he has nowhere else to go. this is what he has and he has to deal with it.

"way back in history, you could say i was very bright, but now i'm drawn to the deepest darkness, and that's where i find my light”

and now he's alone in the dark, where the only light he has is the light that emits from his body.

"everywhere that i look, all that i see is projections of what i used to be"

he sees the ghost of his former self so often, and he knows that it's a clue to his past, but he can never get a good enough look at it to jog his memories.

in the original song, the change in vocalist signifies that Norman Polk, (the soul trapped inside The Projectionist) is the one singing now. i though that was cool, so that format carries over here as the former self begins to sing!

"but i guess it'll always be like this cant change anything about this infinite abyss”

infinite abyss is the Void that lurks just beyond their world, all powerful and unchanging

“i cant believe that this is happening, not at all i'm literally a walking thing singing 'bout my downfall i can still remember the day that i drowned, but i never even died"

this is the part in The Nobody when he got his memories back and decided to pursue vengeance

"start the show and look up at the screen watch from the beginning to the end of the scene if you want to learn more about me just watch the projections of what i used to be"

the rest of the song is his acceptance of the villain role and the ghost abandoning him for it

Again by Crusher-P

the first song for The Nemesis!!!

okay so quick thing before we start: there's a cover of this song by Jayn and The Living Tombstone (MAJOR FLASHING LIGHT WARNING FOR THE VIDEO). this version changed the lyrics in some places which offered some SUPER awesome opportunities for angst stuff. i would have put this version on the playlist, but it sadly isn't available on Spotify :( so for simplicity's sake i'll just talk abt the original here :)

i sort of see this song as an argument between his current self and the one he left behind. how much this anger and resentment has changed him from what he was. some parts of the song are sung by his past self and others are sung by the present.

"i haven't been myself lately i don't blame you for not wanting to stay saying things that i don't mean not meaning what i say"

(lines 1 and 2 are present self, lines 3 and 4 are past self)

i think that after he accepted the role of antagonist, the ghost of who he was before just vanished. i like to believe it was afraid of him, and perhaps ashamed, too.

"when its good, its so good when its bad, its so bad even when i knew what i had what am i supposed to say when i end up driving everyone away?"

(present self)

wanting revenge can change you. you were hurt, or something was taken from you, and you want to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. when you have all of that anger festering inside of you, it can distort whatever idea you have of who you are—and that is what happened here. the anger and resentment not only permanently changed who he is now, but scared away what little of himself he had left.

"every inch of me is charred god, what happened to my heart? i'm about to fall apart again, again and you're never coming back and i'm not okay with that! and i should have never let myself get attached!"

(present self speaking about past self)

he's never getting back what they took from him. he'll never be the same, because of them. who he was — that's not him anymore, and its their fault.

"and its like every day is a fight for my life to get some self control and when you've forgotten who i am, it just feels, it just feels like i'm nobody at all"

(present self talking about past self)

again, the ghost disappearing after he accepts the antagonist role making him lose touch with who he was

"i lost myself hitting the ground i held my breath in case i drowned"

flashback to when he got spat out of the Void without his memories. when he got his memories back, he also regained self-awareness.

"i should have known when to let go and when to see who i was being"

maybe it was a mistake. but its still their fault. now he's REALLY mad.

Enemy by Imagine Dragons

i think you and i know each other pretty well at this point. you're reading my analytical mini-essay about this cartoon character. we’re being cringe together. you won’t make fun of me for choosing the jerma meme song.

the first part of this song is for The Bus. think of it as an internal monologue while he does his villain shit. this one also kind of touches on how he’s taking the nemesis thing a lot more seriously than Gumball is

the second part of the song transitions into the events of The Disaster.

"they say pray it away i swear that i’ll never be a saint, no way”

this is Rob reflecting the role he’s been given as antagonist because he wants to be the main character. he’s not content to be a good little character and stay in his assigned role, he wants freedom!

“a chair in the corner is my place i stay i shake and i think about the powers at play, the powers at play”

the powers at play are exactly what they sound like. it’s the show runners and the audience — the people who are watching and controlling his fictional world.

“and the kids in the dark that were doomed from the start,"

i've done a little digging into what the show creators have said about Rob, and from what i can gather it was planned for him to have had this happen to him from a very early point in the show. so. yeah. doomed from the start indeed

"love is a constant, love is a basis, he cannot be, she cannot be, they can not be changed goodbye..."

everyone in this story is powerless to change it. everyone... except him, now that he has the remote

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by Set It Off

a classic villain rage song! most of this is him fucking up Gumball's life in The Disaster

"baa baa, black sheep, have you any soul? no, sir, by the way what the hell are morals?!"

fun fact! early prototype versions of Gumball made him a black cat to tie into his unluckiness :3 they didn't end up going with it because he was too hard to see against black backgrounds, but still. i like to imagine Rob knows stuff like that,,,,

"maybe you'll change abandon all your wicked ways make amends and start anew again maybe you'll see all the wrongs you did to me and start all over, start all over again"

this is that moment in The Disaster where Rob tries to reveal the nature of their world to Gumball

"oh, who am I kidding? now, let's not get overzealous here you've always been a huge piece of shit if I could kill you, I would but it's frowned upon in all fifty states having said that, burn in hell, yeah!"

but Gumball doesn't understand. so Rob gives up and decides to finish what he started.

"karma's gonna come collect your debt!"

at the end of the song its Gumball jumping in after the remote, Rob closing the AV portal like curtains, and Gumball managing to press the rewind button, transitioning into the next episode

Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land by MARINA

holy fuck i love this one okay lets go. now we're in The Re-Run, but these next two songs are replacing the ones that were there in The Disaster

"you don't have to be like everybody else you don't have to fit into the norm you are not here to conform"

again, rejection of the role he was given and what the universe wants him to be.

"i am here to take a look inside myself recognize that I could be the eye, the eye of the storm"

now that he has the remote, he can be the center of it all. the eye of the storm, the main character.

"i am not my body, not my mind or my brain (ha) not my thoughts or feelings, I am not my DNA i am the observer, I'm a witness of life"

i like the interesting position that sentience puts him in. he's watching the world with the context that none of its real, so he's watching it with us, the audience. but he's still living through all of these experiences like they are real because they’re happening in his reality, so he’s still part of the show and,,, yeah you get it.

"i live in the space between the stars and the sky"

line is in reference to how he's caught between worlds. he doesn't belong in Elmore, but he doesn't want to go back to the Void

Dr. Sunshine Is Dead by Will Wood and The Tapeworms

ooooh this one’s good. let’s get started.

"if we can't see each other, then there's no more use for hiding I've decided I'll abide it; why deny the color black?"

why shouldn't he have what he wants? he has all of the power to get it. who's going to stop him?

"i'm not a flower, not a solar-powered calculator Damn my eyes for seeing what's not there"

these lines are in reference to Leslie and Bobert, who get to be important and interesting and not having their lives ripped apart by the universe. god fuck those guys and fuck him for ever wanting to settle for being a cute side character when he could have THIS

"the future must know where you've been the past predicts the state you're in the present did and will not last is, isn't, was, have, hasn't, has"

this is the part where Gumball starts to get the upper hand and it starts to dawn on Rob that he's fucked

"all that i ask is, keep those empty frames if nobody's in them, then no one is to blame for your self-portraits, sign another name well, who should I be then, if I'll never be the same?

Gumball ejects him. and now he's falling…

"and if dreams can come true, what does that say about nightmares? i'll stay awake tonight..."

if he can come so close to his perfect life, if he can wield the power of a god and still fail--is there any point in continuing to think he can be anything else? anything but a mistake to be cast aside and forgotten?

there's nowhere to go--no point in trying to be anything else. this is the end.

Bad Apple!! - English Remaster by RichaadEB and Christina Vee

STOP LAUGHING

okay so this cover is metal as fuck and i love it a lot but anyway- we're still in The Re-Run at this point. just for fun we're going to pretend he was in there a lot longer than he was in canon

"and maybe its a dream, maybe nothing else is real but it wouldn't mean a thing if i told you how i feel"

oughhh imagine trying to pull the wool away from someone's eyes only for them not to understand and leave you more isolated than you've ever been before.

"you could tell me what to say, you could tell me where to go, but i doubt that i would care and my heart would never know"

so what if he's a mistake? does any of it really matter in the first place if none of it’s real?

"will tomorrow ever come? will i make it through the night? will there ever be a place for the broken in the light?"

will things ever get better for him? will things get better for anyone trapped in the existential nightmare of their own fictionality?

will the mistakes of the world ever find peace, or comfort, or solace in what they are--toys to be ripped apart and cast aside by greater beings?

"if i find a way to change, if i step into the light then i'll never be the same and it all would fade to white"

imagine holding infinite power in your hands--the ability to rewrite reality to your liking, to step into the spotlight you've yearned for for so long, only to be sent back to the buzzing white hellscape where everything terrible began?

ramping up towards the climax of the song is when Gumball enters to rescue him from this place. Rob is running from him stubbornly because he's being overwhelmed by hatred and hopelessness- convinced an eternity of loneliness is what he deserves.

"this time you're not hurting me! this time i will take a stand! all the hatred in my eyes building up an evil plan standing lonely in the night, with the darkness by my side"

he finally gets ahold of the remote again. Gumball is utterly defenseless--and Rob has the chance to finish what he started. but...

"looking deep inside myself, and revealing only fright"

but standing behind Gumball is the ghost. his ghost.

"if i make another move, if i take another step then it all would fall apart, there'd be nothing of me left"

the person that he was- the person who would have done anything to even have the chance to be rescued, is right there.

if he does this--if he takes Gumball's life in favor of an eternity of loneliness--then he'll lose what little remained of who he was.

so he cant do it. he cant bring himself to do it. so he goes back

"so i'm back here once again, so i'm back here once again! will i ever make a change? will my heart begin to mend?

this one simple action, where Gumball goes back into the Void to save Rob even though he's won, it lets Rob forgive him in a sense. the two of them are friends now.

"would you love me if i go?"

but it cant last, even if he wants it to. he has to fix the mess he's created.

"it feels like a heart attack! but still everything's the same-"

so he rewinds, fixing all of the problems he caused. he finally stops just after he first got the remote

"and it all just fades to black"

he smashes the remote and the world goes dark as the credits roll and the music fades out...

Amygdala’s Ragdoll by Ghost and Pals

this is another song that takes place during some offscreen time, specifically the time between the rerun's end the ex's beginning.

there's a general theme of guilt and anguish in this song. he reason he “breaks up” with Gumball is tied to what happened at the end of The Re-Run. Rob feels bad about ruining Gumball life and he’s still struggling with the guilt of his actions along with everything else.

"an eye for an eye that's how the game works i'm losing my autonomy, a mutilated part of me"

being aware that you are fictional character and therefore losing what autonomy you had because somebody is making all of your decisions for you & having a mangled, broken body that's a distorted version of who you are or used to be.

"today something changed i figured it's true the frontal lobe placed me behind my own strings 'cause i defy the way the game works i'll say it again, i'm only getting worse"

yet another reference to Rob being sentient and trying to go against the show's narrative

"the dull assumptions that I've tasted decency waiting for the embers to lose their glow and I, and I dunno oh, all I've ever seen before were clusters of holes"

he's really been put through the ringer for like. genuinely no reason. what was the point.

“the fire and i, alone again the guilt and i, alone again”

ough this one hits. after everything that happened in the re-run can you imagine the kind of guilt he felt? like. friendly reminder that The Re-Run was an infinitely more fucked up episode than The Disaster because one character CEASED TO EXIST and another literally DIED onscreen.

jesus. being somewhat responsible for that happening has GOT to fuck you up.

Be Nice To Me by The Front Bottoms

this one is a breakup song that i put on here just for The Ex because there is no heterosexual explanation for it. anyway

the themes of hating someone you’re in a relationship with and trying to get them out of your life but they just keep showing up despite every attempt you make to push them away,,, yeah

“i got boulders on my shoulders collarbones begin to crack there is very little left of me and it’s never coming back”

CRYING

"you say i'm changing sorry, i didn't know i had to stay the same could we talk about this later? your voice is driving me insane, driving me insane!

you get it. you see the parallels.

"you're a werewolf and i'm a full moon all your very worst enemies will be gone soon"

oh boy, more foreshadowing! but yeah that's it for The Ex. moving on!

Infinitesimal by Mother Mother

this is one of the few super mentally ill songs that i let stay on the playlist.

this song has a general theme of feeling like an idiot for being upset about seemingly minuscule problems. its also a song about existentialism, which i thought was fitting

All The Rowboats by Regina Spektor

this ones for The Future! starting with him kidnapping Banana Barbara and ending with him being erased, then painted back into existence.

like. listen to these lyrics and TELL me it cant be tied to the paintings predicting unchangeable futures.

"all the rowboats in the paintings they keep trying to row away and the captains' worried faces stay contorted and staring at the waves they'll keep hanging in their gold frames for forever, forever and a day all the rowboats in the oil paintings they keep trying to row away, row away"

Rät by Penelope Scott

i imagine this takes place when Rob wakes up after being painted back into existence.

now he's dealing with anger and resentment over Gumball again, but now its different because he was TRYING to do a good thing but he STILL got FUCKED OVER ANYWAY.

"i fell for circuit boards rocket ships pictures of the stars if you could only be what you pretend you are"

if only Gumball could be a somebody who's worthy of being the main character

"let me level with you, man as someone guilty of the game i took the help, I took the cash i would've taken your last name"

in reference to Rob trying to replace Gumball using the remote, but ultimately choosing not to

This Is Home by Cavetown

this song is where i introduce one of my favorite headcanons inspired by this playlist: that Rob was the one who built the transformation machines from The Inquisition.

in this song, he's starting to work on his plans to save everyone as well as reflecting on his life and the decisions he's made up until now.

“i’ll cut my hair to make you stare”

okay so. you know that cluster of polygons on Rob's back? it’s supposed to be a backpack, but the fans (myself included) always draw it as a ponytail.

in The Inquisition, its missing.

i'm serious, go and watch that episode back. it's just gone.

this was probably a purposeful choice during production so that the audience wouldn't see his model clipping through the floor in the shots where he's lying down, since that would break immersion.

but in conjunction with the ponytail headcanon? oh man.

i like to think that after the events of The Future, Rob cut his hair. mostly because i just LOVE the trope of a character cutting their hair to symbolize change/character growth. not sure how it would work with his whole... whatever he has going on, but i digress

"are you dead? sometimes i think i'm dead 'cause i can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head but i don't wanna fall asleep just yet my eyes went dark i don't know where my pupils are but i'll figure out a way to get us outta here"

i don't think Rob knows about the painting, but what he does know is that the world is ending, and he doesn't want to disappear before he can have a chance to save everyone.

"get a load of this monster he doesn't know how to communicate his mind is in a different place can everybody please give him a little bit of space?

reflecting on how he handled the confrontation in the Future. he was so fixated on finding answers and getting rid of obstacles that he hadn't thought to explain the reasons behind his actions to anyone.

"get a load of this trainwreck his hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet but little do we know the stars welcome him with open arms oh..."

little does Rob know that while he works on a solution, the Void is waiting for him.

Moonsickness by Penelope Scott

getting all of the machines to work right is an arduous task. he's building all of them from scratch, conducting all of the necessary tests, dealing with all of the bugs and problems, and its all on a time limit. the world is set to end any day now and he feels like he's failing, but he has to keep going for the sake of everyone in Elmore.

Who We Are by Imagine Dragons

we've finally made it to The Inquisition!! think of this song sort of like an internal justification for his actions as Superintendent Evil (goofy ass name btw, there's no way he didn't come up with that because of the Dr Wrecker persona)

“it’s who we are, doesn’t matter if we’ve gone too far, doesn’t matter if it’s all okay, doesn’t matter if it’s not our day,”

its for the greater good.

"oh, wont you save us from what we are?"

"up in the attic, down in the cellar lost in the static, coming back for more oh, for more"

they need to do this. they need to change. there's no other way.

but things never go his way, do they?

7 O'Clock by Penelope Scott

after he gets knocked out via t. rex clobbering, in my head there's an intense dream sequence that this and part of Some Nights takes place in.

"a glitch in the game, i loop like a bug and all that i ever wanted was a really tight hug"

REMEMBER WHEN HE AND GUMBALL HUGGED IN THE RE-RUN? BECAUSE I DO

"a glitch in the game, i loop like a bug and all i ever died for was a really tight hug"

SCREAMING AND CRYING ANS SOBBING AND WAILING AND BANGING MY FISTS ON THE FLOOR

"the future is static, it drips on the floor and makes its way underneath my bedroom door"

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ARHARGGARRAFHRASFASGA (<- INSANITY)

Some Nights by fun.

oh my god we finally made it to the reason i made this post. if you've made it this far you have a problem (<- WROTE ALL THE SHIT)

so. this song is already about reflecting on your past. but my GOD its like they made this song for Rob because so many lines just fit him perfectly. lets get into it.

"but i still wake up, i still see your ghost"

when he started working on a way to save everyone, i like to imagine the ghost started appearing more frequently, eagerly watching him work on a solution and rooting for him to finally become a better person

"oh Lord, i'm still not sure what i stand for what do i stand for? what do i stand for? most nights i don't know anymore"

i'm. sorry guys i need a second. (UGLY CRIES SUPER LOUD INTO A PILLOW)

at this point he doesn't know who he wants to be. first he didn't know who he was. then he decided he would be someone driven by anger and vengeance. then he wanted to turn over a new leaf, but was dragged back into villainy.

so who should he be? the frail and scared amnesiac? the malicious and cunning villain? or... maybe, once all of this is over, he can finally choose for himself.

"well some nights i wish that this would all would end 'cause i could use some friends for a change! and some nights i'm scared you'll forget me again some nights i always win (i always win)"

I'M SOBBING JUST LET HIM BE HAPPY

"so this is it? i sold my soul for this? washed my hands of that for this? i miss my mom and dad for this? no, when i see stars- when i see- when i see stars, that's all they are"

this whole bit is him waking up and monologing about why they stopped him. if he's failed, what was the point of all of this? what was the point of anything?

"well, that is it guys, that is all five minutes in, and i'm bored again ten years of this, i'm not sure if anybody understands"

in reference to how people sometimes tune out in the middle of a show's the runtime and also. the show turned twelve this year. (kubrik stare)

"the other night, you wouldn't believe the dream i just had about you and me i called you up, but we both agree

the ground starts to shake under him and the floor caves in. we hear the final lines of the song as he falls in slow motion, deeper and deeper into the abyss.

"its for the best you didn't listen its for the best we get our distance, oh its for the best you didn't listen its for the best we get our distance, oh"

-Ish by Will Wood and the Tapeworms

in his final moments, Rob reflects on his life for a final time. falling through the air, he realizes that who he is, who he was, who he wanted to be never mattered anyway. because no matter what he did, it all ended the same.

with the world devoured by static and nobody left to defend it.

#I'M NORMAL #DON'T LOOK AT THE WORD COUNT LOOK AT ME I'M NORMAL #please read the notes tho it legit took me like a week to put together #also shoutout to the two random people on spotify who found this playlist and saved it before i posted it on here #no clue who you are but youre the real ones #the amazing world of gumball #tawog #rob tawog #tawog rob #dr wrecker tawog #tawog dr wrecker #blorbo posting #tomothy rambles

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Sinner-Adam, His Boyfriend Mam Plus Spinel (2024)

----------

Credit for Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss goes to Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano

Credit for Steven Universe goes to Rebecca Sugar

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

it could be possible that one might need to click on the drawing to view it better, and with some of the words I wrote in the drawing, one might need to click on the drawing to view it better...maybe...?

and yeah my fan-headcanon is that Mammon from Helluva Boss is Pansexual and as for Adam, he is Bisexual but he is still in the closet but at the same time, might not be fully aware of it.

meaning he doesn't know he is Bisexual.

also I plan to use this drawing in the future as a future chapter cover for over at Quotev, which is why both my names for here and over there is on there...might be a while until I use this for over there.

like I said before, some of the stories I am working on are on hiatus.

and once again this is a "do not reblog without permission" type.

only I can freely use this for both here and for over at Quotev.

I think if I feel like it, I can have only a few posts that can be reblog but like without placing that certain tag in.

but there are reasons why I use that tag in the first place...

like maybe if I forget to put certain words in a post or if I misspell something, or if some chance someone is going to be a jerk.

Spinel befriending Adam, could be from a Timeline where Steven does end up using the Rejuvenator on Spinel, even if in the Movie he hadn't plan to...but in a Crossover Timelines, from many different Fanon Timelines of infinite Alternate Universes.

Steven ends up using the Rejuvenator on Spinel, and possibly having Lion open up a type of warp portal, to throw Spinel into...

possibly to send her back to the Garden until he can think over how to meet her again and try to get Spinel to learn about Earth again in a different way, that doesn't involve Pink/Rose...

but instead of sending her to the Garden, Steven ends up accidentally sending Spinel to where Adam is, where he fell in battle and where he will also in fan theory by a few fans...would end up being reborn as a Sinner.

so like picture after he gets regenerated and reborn as Sinner, Adam finds a heart shaped gem next to him, and it all of a sudden starts glowing and floating in the air, and then Smaller Spinel back to how she was made (before she took on her second form and looking a bit older and taller...) ends up hugging Adam, because she ends up imprinting on him as her new "Best Friend"...

Congratulation Adam, it's a Gem...

and yeah, besides the whole Mamtella being my fave, which is Mammon x Stella, which that ship name that pop into my head still sounds like a type of food that you put on toast, and yeah one time when I had talked about that ship name, it did make me hungry.

it had made my stomach growl...

and well besides Mamtella, the Bromance of Mammon x Adam seems too perfect. O_O

I still think Valentino has a type of split personalities, which would explain his accents and how he speaks changes on his moods...

Niffty freaking him out, is one of the BEST things to happen.

the song that would fit that would be "That's My Girl", which it is one of the lyrics of a song.

even Charlie and Emily, who sing together about the how Heaven and Hell are, should have parts of that "That's My Girl" play. XD

guess I'm just being weird for thinking that.

the song "That's My Girl" is by Fifth Harmony, I think.

if I was able to, I would still want to call dibs on Mammon's butt...

because of the Toxic Levels of Greed that has been going on...

there can be the okay type of normal greed, then there is the levels where it can cross the freaking line.

and if I have to go even fully super Feral Earth Angel Princess on Mammon, no one hold me back...not sure if that could ever happen.

but I call dibs on his butt and slapping him as hard as I can across on his face...and yeah, my calling dibs on his butt will be different from Millie's dibs on Moxxie's butt...

and I'm talking about the Mammon from our universe of course.

though if it were possible to call dibs on the Mammon from Helluva Boss own butt for the whole wanting to kick it as well, that would be interesting as well.

but I guess maybe even if I can have that super peeved off side that comes out at times, it does seem to be better controlled...

plus there is that whole if it gets to the point when I get to hot, I need to be close to some cool air to cool down...

I could never really handle being too hot, and well not too cold either.

that can be for some people in this world, who can only be okay with certain warmth and coolness...

and my wanting to slap Mammon, even if I might not ever be able to...is like one of those feelings you want to do but know you might not be able to.

like how I made that list that has the list of names, both angel and human who I want to punch below the belt.

Mammon is at the top of the list of course...there is a good reason why he is at the top of the list.

and with how some humans are, is going to give me another reason to want to keep him on that list, and call dibs on wanting to go Feral Earth Angel on his sorry butt...even if it is wishful thinking, and might not be possible, but is more of a type of thinking that ya wish you could be can't really do so...

even if I can have my moments where I might can be a doormat at times and can still have my closed off side and maybe not very confident at times...but well, there can be different sides to a person, even sides where they get tired by the actions of some Eon-Boomers.

not everyone has to agree about my believing in not just God, but also Goddess as well...but don't be a Toxic-Religious person about it, and throw misused words at me like "may the lord have mercy on you." or "may god have mercy on you"...and the only reasons I bring up that is to point out that it can be misused by some Toxic-Religious people, like that jerk from a few years ago, who had to throw one of those two at me, I can't remember which version of it, but I know it was one of the two...and that jerk, is probably one of the top reasons I started to really dislike Toxic-Religious people when they cross a line.

at least some who use to be Toxic-Religious, get detoxified and become no longer Toxic-Religious...but some percent might end up staying Toxic-Religious for who knows how long.

on the day I was still working on this drawing, it ended up being a bit of bad weather, and it was lucky I had stop working on it and saved it, before things turned off for a bit...meaning the computer had turned off, but I didn't dare turn it back on right away because I didn't want to do so when the bad weather was still going on.

this took from April 1 to April 2 to finish...

so I had first started to work on it on April Fools Day...

didn't really get to play a April Fool's Prank, one of the things I did was work on this drawing, also took a breaks, and of course had to wait until some time later once things seem a bit better, to finish the drawing...

I would of seriously been super peeved if everything went off that day, when I was in the middle of working on this drawing...

it was lucky I had stop to take a break and saved it when I did.

anyway, there is one more drawing I want to post up for today.

well technically tonight now.

hope some like this Crossover drawing that has Adam, Mammon and Spinel. and the whole weird idea about Spinel becoming Adam's Best Friend, and maybe like a Emotional Support Gem...

#do not reblog without permission #hazbin hotel fanart #helluva boss fanart #steven universe fanart #sinner adam #fallen angel #adam hazbin hotel #mammon helluva boss #spinel steven universe #crossover fanart #april 2024

[katyspersonal]

Wait why do you mean Asthon (your vicar oc) is cut content?! Bro is real? Like really real?! Wait you got me curious. (or is it just about the fact that we don't know in detail the other vicars? I personally headcanon the woman praying in the grand cathedral of the nightmare as (one) the Vicar between Laurence and Amelia)

Argh, well, it is complicated! Yes, he is very OC-ish, but the thing is, this name WAS featured in cut content:

( x )

Basically, at some point, the names were switched, and Willem was called Laurence, the scholar that detracted from him was called Ashton, when actual Willem was also 'husk of Micolash', when there was also another face featured, called Herbert (Norbert in English)! Like, I think you know most of the cut content by now, but yeah, some names are obscure.

(It is also this same site in which I've learned that Norbert's name was also mistranslated! ヘルベルト is 'Heruberuto', and Lance McDolands also noticed that before in this ( x ) Tweet!)

You might recognise the first dialogue, too! Micolash has some voice files for cut dialogue ( x ), it was a little mistranslated, hence I am using this Japanese site, but the gist is still here!

So, yeah... Ashton and Herbert are the only names mentioned across the cut content that appear to be same/close in status to what Laurence and Emilia are! That's why I just took what I could, and in my thing there were four Healing Church heads in total; Laurence, Ashton, Herbert and Emilia, in this order! And each would bring something different during their era. In fact, I did want to make a line-up explaining who did what - whereas Laurence is self-explanatory, it is worth to mention how Healing Church was living after Laurence became a beast. But like, I first want to finalize the DRIP designs for them all, and I can't even get past Laurence's one already, because I am always distracted/working/sick/dead/etc fdsjhfh

Like, yeah, basically they're 'OCs with a prompt', since I had to design and write literally everything about them, but I still consider them to be revived cut content, because I hate giving myself any credit. xd

Fun fact! Ashton can also be a female name! I really wish I learned of it before I already wrote him as a male character, because we do need more nasty, evil women. But I tend to be a little rigid when I've already written a character in a certain way. Not gonna lie though, I often consider retconing him as a female character, because explain me how, HOW you can have """too many""" female villains? For now though he just really loves feminine things. Same as Damian. Or Micolash. Or Valtr. Or Ludwig. ...damn, I like slapping feminine aesthetic like FLEX APE too much, even where it doesn't quite fit. MOTHER OF MERGO, I AM-

(It's just an inside joke. It's funny because Gehrman would've dressed every hunter into a pretty dress if he could. xd)

But yeah, basically, I took what I could from the cut content, and tried to base my ideas on what it gave us. So, if Ashton used to be someone under Laurence - then that should be the dynamic in my thing too! So, underling of him in Healing Church, and the next vicar. Herbert was also mentioned to have been a previous leader of the Church, so that was saved too!

Fun fact - because Emilia used to be named Laura in cut content, I also have a secret 5th Vicar that went unused, with Laura being Herbert's daughter that didn't get to live to be the next Vicar. Well, TECHNICALLY, she is still alive! Remember that big Celestial Emissary in orphanage, who acts like the 'leader', and also, interesingly, drops Communion rune? I headcanon that the emissaries in that Orphanage are children that were taught to Think With Cosmos by the Choir, and Laura used to be their overseer while Herbert was at the position and she had not too much to do. But more or less, she refused to abandon the children when Croir's base crumbled the hell out, and sort of ascended with them. In either case, this is not quite Laura anymore.. But, after Orphanage got nuked, Herbert was the one to take in orphans that he could take and raise them within the walls of the Healing Church! Like I mentioned, Adella was one of kids (well, teens) he basically adopted. But she had the biggest adopted daughter energy to him, hence she became a successor.

Ashton, though? Honestly, he started and is still going as my "punching bag" djfdshfd I did not want to use Laurence as obligatory 'evil cleric' at the time, since he had too much tragedy potential, and too much complexity. But yes, Ashton is more or less the combination of some traits I just looooooove. -_- Self-projecting, bullying people for what he himself has, provoking someone to feel a certain way and then blaming their reaction as them being "insane" or "irrational", fuckin'... flirting with someone and when they start returning the h0rny, blaming them for "daring" to think that he, such a HOOOOOOLY man, would EVER feel this way, and force them to apologize etc etc dshdh + Every time I reblog that video where a woman pushes a priest off the platform, I caption it as 'this is Rom when Ashton was being homophobic' and it is still canon, so that too.

Like... I can write a list that will actually make your phone lag upon scrolling so much, but you already get the idea of what type of a person he is. However yeah, jokes or not, but he managed to gain enough of reputation of a 'saint', by both appearing rather oppressive in demeanor and by secretly normalizing cannibalism (he'd sometimes feed people concerned with falling into beasthood meat or blood of enemies of the Healing Church, that they'd not know about, but they'd feel "easier' after that (of course...), and would be easily gaslit by Ashton into thinking that he had something personally to do with it, to offer remedy :') Like... It was kind of a big deal while it lasted. That you didn't have to be burnt/shot/trapped into one of those coffins if you start feeling beasthood but you could like, idk, talk with Ashton and feel better? I love to think that his beast form would reflect that, where his back would resemble a Kin way more than a beast, and you'd only see his hideous true form when he turns around! So yeah, like 'wolf in a sheep clothing' sorta!!)

______________

But yeah, these are the ideas! I really love the guy, but at the same time a lot about him comes from a couple of years ago, when my knowledge on Bloodborne lore was a bit limited, so for now I question whether Ashton "stole" too much from the thing LAURENCE should've been doing during his corruption arc. So yes, just take it as me tossing ideas around. Thank you for the ask, I really needed to revisit this stuff!

#bloodborne #ask replies #bloodborne headcanons #cut content #vicar ashton #vicar herbert #father norbert

[probably-enjolras]

Hi! I'm writing a genderbent(?) Les Mis retelling and would like some advice from queer les mis fans who might see this post. My enjolras-adjacent character is a demiromantic ace cis woman whose LI is a pan cis man (composite of mostly éponine and R). I've seen the takes on tumblr about enjonine and I'm wondering if this is queer erasure. For context, I myself am a queer woman, and the marisette pairing in my WIP is a lesbian couple. please help, i don't want to cause any harm to queer readers!

first, you can write whatever you want and i won’t stop you, this is all my opinion. if you decide to go down this route you will have people who will want to read it and that could be a great story for them. but here’s my personal take:

enjolras is INCREDIBLY queer coded. throughout the book he is repeatedly described as having no attraction to women, and even his attraction to men is debatable, which is why aroace headcanons are so common. i like that you’re keeping the demiromantic ace headcanon in your character, as someone who is aromantic and has a lot emotions about enjolras.

however, i just cannot see him(her) falling for a woman(man). there are too many lines about his lack of attraction to women and comparisons to historical gay male figures for me to think he would be attracted to a woman. so, in my opinion, having her being attracted to a cis male just doesn’t fit his character. I’m not even going to get into how i think enjolras is trans-coded but we won’t go into that, though if you wanted to make her a trans woman i would literally buy your book right away… just saying ;)

I do think the inclusion of so many sexualities is very important and i really like that, so take my potential situations with a grain of salt because if you want to keep what you have, it’s still a very queer story and has important representation that needs to be seen more.

HOWEVER! you said you’re combining R and Eponine! i think you can still do that, but just keep eponine’s gender and characteristics and mix that with grantaire’s characterics. or, to make it even more queer, maybe make eponine nonbinary/trans, either trans masc or neutral or trans fem, and explore that dynamic instead of the original queer dynamic in the book! or hell, keep them both cis but maybe make it a queerplatonic relationship thats not romantic at all because we’re severely lacking that in books and especially a QPR between a man and a woman because people seem to think men and women can’t be platonic to begin with, let alone have a QPR. there’s worlds of queer relationships out there and i think they would be fun to explore.

(also lesbian marisette sounds AMAZING absolutely no notes 10/10!)

so yeah, while i don’t like enjonine personally (i literally have it blocked in my filtered tags just because of the discourse lol) i can 100% see ways you can keep enjolras’ queer identity and still have it be enjonine. to use an old fandom term, ship and let ship. im glad you’re reaching out to queer fans, and if you wanna keep me posted on your story, i would love to hear how you’re developing it! i hope this makes sense and doesn’t box you into trying to please people, its YOUR retelling, at the end of the day its what makes YOU happy and how YOU want to tell your story. if you feel like this is trapping you in a box, just disregard everything i’m saying and do what you want and i wouldn’t judge you at all.

also, if any of my followers wants to jump in on this in the replies, go ahead!

best of luck!

#asks #(will this block my own post on my blog if it’s in my filtered tags? let’s see!) #enjonine

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

yay, you opened them!

as I mentioned, do you have some random lance headcanons? like, just general ideas you have about him, maybe how he is as a person, friend or partner

Hey hey, hello!👋 Thank you for ask! I hope you like them and it matches Lance's character as well. Wow, my first ask yay, God I'm so nervous I never did that before help me AAAAAA

I think that as a person, it's pretty obvious here: a wise, compassionate, fearless, kind of unshakable and stoic person. We love him for this.

Can be quite tough with enemies, but never had a personal grudge against other adventurers and monsters. I think he is a calm person by nature. But he will not avoid conflicts, Lance rather will try to resolve problem peacefully. If there is no peaceful solution, then beware, he is a strong and smart battle mage, so he will kick your ass like no tomorrow. ⚔️⚔️⚔️

As a friend, it's the same, but with good friends he is more open. Frequent conversations about new places, exploration of new monsters or artifacts, discussions about life, ect. I think to you as a his friend Lance will reveal his secret side - being a nerd.

And because of that, I honestly think Lance would love Solarion Chronicles: The Game. Why so? This game is basically like DnD that develops logic, teamwork and creative problem solving, so Lance would enjoy this stuff. A lot of people don't know about it though (Lance has to keep the prestige status of an unshakable person, right?), and his friends are unlikely to be interested in this (maybe Jadu, because I think they are good friends). So if Farmer became his friend and somehow offered to play, then Lance will calmly agree (but inside he is like "Hell yeah, a fellow player").

As your spouse, it was a little ambiguous at first. Don't get me wrong, Lance is a wonderful husband, he will be loyal to you and will truly love you. But this man also has a duty to his Guild, to Castle Village, to all the people he swore to protect. And Lance believed that with his crazy routine, his new life and duties as your husband would not fit into the usual routine of an adventurer and magician. So he was afraid that this was the point of no return.

But my dear Lance didn't fully understand that our farmer's routine was even crazier. Our farmer manages to rule a huge farm, befriends with all the residents of the Stardew Valley, catch exotic fish, protect the world from monsters as a fellow adventure.

So when Lance, as a Farmer partner, about to go to the First Slash clan on a Wednesday, and tells his partner: "eat dinner without me today," he feels a little lonely, even surrounded by his guildmates.

Only later this evening, Farmer came to First Slash clan with a plate of tropical curry (you know for whom) and a torpedo trouts for the Jolyne request, the Farmer hands the plate of curry to Lance and say something like: "eat dinner without me, uhuh, sure, you can only dream", winks and makes it clear that Lance's partner is sleeping with him tonight in a cramped bed.

And in that moment, Lance's cheeks turned pinker than his hair (poor Lance, my God 😅).

His Guild mates looked at the whole thing in mute shock, and Jolyne laughed all over the room. But you know what? Lance doesn't care. Because Lance realized that he found his most precious treasure, his dream come true. And will never give you to this world. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

It turned out longer than I thought, but I tried to shorten it as much as possible I hope there are not too many grammatical errors

Well then, hope you enjoyed it and thanks again for asking ❤️👋

#stardew valley expanded #sve #sve headcanons #sve lance #ask me something

[hoshibait]

question in relation to blumiere/count bleck: how do you imagine he met the others? any specific headcanons or based off the game?

like many people, i imagine he met his team during his search for timpani.

i do love the theory that nastasia was saved as a bat stuck in a trap by blumiere. and later coming back to him and dedicating her devotion to him out of love and loyalty. reminds me of the first half of a japanese folktale i read back in middle school. crane's return of a favor i believe it’s called? i wouldn’t be surprised if that was intentional. except i guess it’s angsty for a different reason. that being unrequited love on nastasia’s end. also, weird parallel to blumi being saved by timpani and falling in love??? what is it with this game and someone almost fucking dying and falling in love with the person who saved them?

regardless, i believe he nursed her back to health and the two of them become close friends. hell i like the idea of blumiere considering nastasia a best friend.

as for o’chunks, i go along with the basic common agreed backstory that he used to be a general of an army from some faraway land. with one of his advisors sadly betraying him and thus causing the fall of his army to an enemy team. i do hc the fact that blumiere was a manipulate dickhead with o’chunks. i do find it disturbing that it’s implied that he preyed on his depression and helplessness to get him on the team. but hey honestly, it makes it more interesting, adds onto blumiere’ s character, and weirdly fits for him in my hc for him. you gotta remember all of bleck’s team is just a squad of mentally ill bozos relying on each other.

i sort of combine mimi’s theories altogether to make one backstory. i do remember someone proposing something interesting. isn’t it strange how francis built a “pixl” identical to tippi? that was basically a robot? she still has pixl qualities though. what if the witch mentioned in carson’s stories is related to francis in some way? i do believe the witch could’ve been experimenting making some sort of rogue pixl related to shape-shifting abilities. what about the robot part i mentioned though? maybe the witch was also into robotics??? look i’m trying my best here man.

regardless, i think mimi’s true origins is hard to fully decipher. i can imagine that even she doesn’t fully know or likes to talk about it due to horrible identity issues and lost sense of self. i’d like to think she ran away from her origin place, wherever that may be, with a dazed and disoriented mind. blumiere just happened to find her in a guarded off forest somewhere, and it just kind of took off from there. i wouldn’t say he preyed on her psychologically like he did with o’chunks, considering mimi just wanted a place to stay and have some sense of belonging somewhere.

oh, dimentio, i gotta actually talk about him on this blog now.

yeah this little shit just kinda came across the gang one day. i can imagine blumiere being like “erm okay what a creep” until he read in the dark prognosticus that there was a figure like him involved in the prophecy, so only until then was he let in. i like to imagine at some point dimentio put them in dimension D to show them what he could do, which just intrigued blumiere even more. (because seriously what exactly is dimension D and why does it deez /slap)

as for his origins, hoo boy.

so carson mentions how the magician that created the pixls had a family, right? and how he had a family and all? and they all succumbed to some sort of fate. except the son? i know it’s mildly implied that dimentio can be this mysterious character, or at the very least related to the magician SOMEHOW. i do find the obscurity of dimentio’s origins fun though. although i do agree that dimentio is somehow related to the pixls and the magician like many people do.

and we already know about mr.l in game, so i won’t talk about him

thanks for the ask! this was really fun to talk about!

#💌 #ask #special interest #infodump #paper mario #super paper mario #count bleck #lord blumiere #nastasia #o’chunks #mimi #dimentio #sighs scornfully

[wanderingchocolateeclair]

"I have plenty of hcs for these two in UA relating to my personal backstory hcs for them too, so if anyone ever wants to know those I’m happy to write them out :)"

Yes please !

>:D

CW: mentions of bullying, accidentally killing someone-

So~

Before I forget, this is a simple headcanon I wanted to include but

When Shinya was first year, Tsunagu was part of that year’s “big three” and was the top student.

Shinya made a promise to Tsunagu that he’d become the top student when he was a third year, and well- he definitely kept his promise! 

Anyway- onto the main ones:

For context, I have lil backstory headcanons for the two of them - both of which are very angsty bc <3

But thats for another time, I'll just include the main thing for these hcs-

Both Tsunagu and Shinya have accidentally killed a person/people, with their quirks, Tsunagu was around 12, Shinya was 10- (separately)

Being quirk accidents, it was brushed off as just them 'needing quirk counselling' so that happened-

Tsunagu got bullied A LOT growing up, for multiple reasons, but when he got to UA it became more of a different type.

People avoided him a lot in his first years, because "hey, isn't that the kid who killed a guy before?" "yeah- don't get too close- he might get angry"

It mellowed out after he became a third year, and he had gained a reputation for being very strong and stern and, well, our typical "jeanist-y" and though he still got bullied/avoided quite a bit, he did have a group of classmates and friends who were there for him.

His whole demeanour was made up from him simply putting walls around himself to ignore everything that others said about him, while also becoming insanely observant.

He made the arts and crafts club, because it was "important to be able to find hobbies, and also hone skills that could still be important to heroics, such as precision and focus."

But deep down, he had also hoped to maybe find someone who was like him. Who either had a quirk that everyone believed to be "unfit for heroics" or an outcast who needed to know that they weren't alone....

And well, of course, along came Shinya.

A first year, who miraculously seemed to fit that exact description.

Shinya was also bullied a lot, however it came more verbally.

Not many knew about his true backstory, or where he was from, but they did know two things. "he has no family" and "thats the kid who killed a bunch of guys, isn't it?"

And you can assume that most people grouped these two statements together, and that led to some even more awful rumours. But he was mostly just ignored and majorly avoided out of fear.

Going into UA, he masked everything he had with a smile and an energetic personality, trying to earn people's trust so maybe- just maybe- he could be seen as more than just the rumours that were told about him.

He stumbles into this empty clubroom, looking around and calling for the chairman to the handicraft club.

"If you're here to make fun of me or the club, please go away- I'm not in the mood today" a voice answered him from the closet.

When he got nearer the closet, he found a very lanky blond boy kinda....stuck....under a pile of stationary that seemed to have fallen over. He looked miserable as hell but insisted that he didn't need help.

Shinya simply responded with a "oh...no- I was actually looking to....join?" and was met with Tsunagu laughing like "haha very funny- tease the tired third year about their empty club."

And Shinya was like "what? no- I'm being serious..." and that was met with silence before Tsunagu jumping up with an insane amount of energy suddenly entering his speech as he very happily accepted this new first year into the club.

It was tense at first, as they both had never really spoken to other people before.....properly.....but after introductions and explaining why the club was always empty, they realised that they were a lot more similar than they thought.

Neither of them pried into the other’s personal life, however over the year of knowing each other they did end up sharing and learning bits and pieces. (this is also bc they re connect later on in life and share the bits that they never did in their UA years, finally knowing the full truth about each other and their stories)

Shenanigans ensue, just like in my other hc list, and they become really close good friends.

Now. Tsunagu struggled with his emotions. He was very easily upset and angered, and this made him believe a lot of things about himself - one of them being that he’d never be able to be a hero because he cant control his emotions.

Shinya was who helped him with this.

He reassured him that it was normal and okay to feel these emotions, and he told him that he believed in him. He told him that no matter what everyone else says, he knows he’ll be able to face his emotions and that they do not make him a bad person or a “villain”

(I’m sure you can imagine how this hc ties into bakugou’s internship with Jeanist)

In turn, Jeanist proved that he trusted Shinya. And that he didn’t believe he was a bad person, or any of the things the others had said.

Despite wearing his “happy mask” Shinya had never felt proper happiness, or felt what it was like to truly be his age and have fun.

And Tsunagu was who helped him with this.

He taught him that it was okay to show when he wasn’t truly happy, allowing Shinya to reveal his truer self around him.

And he taught him how to let himself have fun. Even for a few minutes. And he was the first person to ever hear him laugh, properly.

And they both helped each other learn to control their quirks and understand them properly.

There were some instances where one had to save the other from various stuff- often from bullying at first- but as the year passed, people learnt better than to mess with either of them, because they had each other.

Also they almost died during a school trip that involved the third years taking supervision over the first years.....during a villain attack that ended really badly-

Wound up in hospital a couple of times due to internship stuff/villain encounters, and spent the time making crafts together.

But also, they made each other lil charms of them in their original hero outfits that they have kept to this day.

After Tsunagu graduated, Shinya took care of the handicrafts club and managed to get quite a few members, however he missed the days of it being just the two of them.

I actually headcanon that they lost touch about a year or so after Tsunagu graduated, because Tsunagu moved abroad to study fashion stuff and further heroic experience, and Shinya went to study medical stuff- and though they really wanted to try and contact each other again, they both felt too scared and nervous to try.

Until they meet again one day and reconnect almost immediately- realising that they didn’t have anything to fear.

(Also this may or may not be bc my initial hc for these two was that they met in their adulthood -specifically in my fic “when it rains”- but canon came along so I’m fitting that into this)

(With the potential of added angst bc <3)

But yeah!!!! those are those!!! i think I’ll leave it at that for now so i hope you enjoy them !! :D

Again, if theres any other types of headcanons you’d like me to ramble about, or if you’d like me to elaborate on any of these further or give particular scenarios you’d like to know about, please feel free to send in asks my way!! :)

#tw caps #bnha #eclair rambles a bit :) #bnha headcanons #edgeshot #best jeanist #shinya kamihara #tsunagu hakamada #edgejeanist #bestshot #eclair responds?! #heres a few headcanons on the more serious side for these two #bc i know i talk a lot about them being menaces as teenagers #and getting up to shit and into troub;e #but they also had some more serious times #and mean a lot to each other #bc theyve always been there for each other #<333 #thank you for asking!! #i love answering things like this #bc rambling about these two is my specialty /lh

[tsuki-sennin]

Our beloved Ohsama Sentai planned to reveal Gira's deception in spectacular fashion... but of course, freakin' Jeremy had to come in and steal all our thunder! That jerk is yuckin' it up in his narration, acting so smart and tough. Who does he think he is?!

...well, that's partly why we're here today~!

Spoilers, I guess...

-"I'm the king, dum-dum. I can do whatever I want."

-Noooooo, Himeno!

-You've gone too far this time, Spiders Jeremy!

Yanma: Yes, we know about the King-Ohger book. It's only the foundation of literally all organized religion in the world. Jeremy: Oh cool, then you'd be happy to know that I wrote it all down~!

-Damn, okay I see you King-Ohger.

-I don't think we've had a (proper) Sixth Ranger be genuinely and consciously villainous since Mikoto.

-I suppose it's fitting he's white, black, and gold on a story involving an alternate Earth.

-...of course, I'm counting my chickens a bit early, so...

-He was biding his time, that Jeremy.

-"Whoa, what!?"

-I see Rita's never heard of Rip van Winkle.

-I'm going to be feeling a lot of things about Jeremy, aren't I?

-Hi Dezzy, sorry I thought you blew up last episode.

-Morphonia, hello~!

-Just like Racules, eh?

-We now have a whopping three antagonistic factions all at the same time in the 12th episode.

-"Duuuuude, spoilers! Sheesh, just give me a headcanon, eh? :3"

-"I headcanon you as a menace to decent society."

-"See, now you get it~!"

-Read between the lines~!

-Man, these ski-lift chairs must be really disorienting to sit on.

-Oh

-He got us.

-T

-The Thundercracker?

-"Give me the spider boy, bee boy."

-Ohhhhhhh

-Holding a little lady hostage, eh Racules?

-Suzume, Suzume... I'm not sure what manner of bee she'd represent, but

-N'Kosopa~! Lie detection~!

-OH MY GOD

-Damn, okay!

-"Owie"

-"So like, are you supposed to be killing me?"

-Jeremy Brasieri. A little over 2000 years old.

-SHIOKARA NOOO nLHJKHLB

-YANMA WHAT THE HELL MAN

-G

-Gin

-I have to imagine what it's like to see them live.

-"Not bad, you sure know what you're doing~!"

-OH

-Okay, guess it's Himeno's turn to analyze

-Rita's screms give me life.

-They kidnapped him.

-"My, you're scary~!"

-I see Himeno changed her hair back.

-"Oh is that all~?"

-"You are the Spider Man."

-Well, he's got the sass, the powers, the Anti-Venom/Spider Armor Mk. 1 color scheme...

-...speaking of which, I plan on seeing Spider-Verse 2 Part 1 soon.

-The way he's both a storyteller and playing literally everyone around him is also definitely a send up to Anansi, from the West African Akan people's folklore.

-Jeremy the Spider Man.

-Help us out, Kaguragi.

-"I'm a bigger liar than you, spider boy!"

-D

-Dude?

-"Wonderful."

-Well, he's definitely got the moves. I'd expect nothing less from him

-"Come ON, dude~! You've gotta know~!"

-THEY'RE DENYING HIM HIS COOL REVEAL

-"Jesus Christ, you people SUCK at this!"

-Six~!

-Ohhhhhh

-OH?

-I really like this silhouette art-style.

-Very puppet theater-y.

-Ohhhhhh

-Quite literally. Spiders Jeremy.

-LHJK>H

-"Yeah, I can get behind peace :)"

-Pan icon Jeremy Brasieri.

-...I feel very personally marketed to by Spiders Jeremy.

-"...did I just make friends? ...I guess I did~!"

-Hello Dezzy!

-...I guess he says no.

-...ohhhhh, his jingle

-His transformation

-His INSERT SONG

-HIS FIGHTING STYLE

-HIS MOVES

-This character is everything now.

-"See you later, I suppose."

-I swear my fealty to you, my king.

-Ohhhhh, that's a tarantula.

-A big one too.

-...I am feeling many things.

-I think they're good things?

-Idk man, Sixth Rangers are just

-The most effective marketing tactic of all time

#Rejoice O Swarming Evil! You're My King! #ohsama sentai king ohger #ohsama sentai kingohger #super sentai #kingohger spoilers #king ohger spoilers #kingohger

[actualbird]

First of all! Hello, Hello!!! Hope you're doing well!

Regarding your - Artem has the oldest daughter vibes - post. HE'S TRANS YOUR HONOUR!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! 😂❤️

But in all seriousness, I gave it some thought and out of all of them, Artem being trans would make the most sense? Just the way he is as a person? You know? *Vaguely gestures with my hands*. One thing that stood out to me was how touched starved and touch averse he seemed? I know it's contradictory but as much as I remember, he was always hesitant to touch Rosa and would be an absolute mess when touched by her?

So what if, it's because he doesn't want to make others uncomfortable with his touch, especially if it's a woman? (And especially if he likes that woman). Because he was made uncomfortable by others, in this case mostly men, when he was younger? I've noticed that most men are far more likely to just casually touch women? Even if the touch isn't sexual/romantic in nature? Like a brush of a hand here, holding a woman's waist while you're passing her in a tight space? Like, you wouldn't do that to a man, so... Artem is just very aware? Like, aware too much, to a point where he can never relax among others?

I might be projecting too much! So please ignore this if you don't agree! It's just something I noticed! Me and my trans friend, we talked about something similar recently - noticed that he would be a bit hesitant to be more physically affectionate with me and we had a long conversation about it!

And... I haven't touched the game in about half a year! 😅 I still love the game! I just "play" it vicariously through you! 😂 So there might have been more things revealed about Artem I'm not aware of!

Please take care! ❤️

- The Hibiscus anon! 🌺 I'M NOT DEAD! 😂

irt despite being a man, artem is eldest daughter all girls catholic school student vibes

oh my gosh, HIBISCUS!! HI HI :DDD!! it's awesome to hear from u again and i hope ur doing well!!!

while i am in no way an artem expert (thats sam) and am pretty behind on his cards, i still shake ur hand so much cuz UR SO RIGHT.

like, listen. at this point ive got a schrondinger's headcanon where certain members of the nxx team or the ENTIRE team is simultaneously not trans or definitely trans/experiencing gender in a non-cis way. yes they are. all the time. but only when it sparks joy in me. also all the time. do u understand, i understand. still, i deffo understand and adore why artem also gives of trans vibes.

like, so much of artem's extreme carefulness with matters of the heart or even just matters of relating to other people personally, the fact that he goes about this in a meticulous and often overthinking manner because he hasnt done it/gotten the chance to experience it much before is something that resonates a lot with a bunch of queer identities. the fact that he holds a lot of himself and his personality/interests close and not many people know him on a personal level, that also resonates with queer experiences. the fact that certain things that are "obvious" to other people are things that are not as obvious to him, also queer (and also also something i like to interpret as a neurodivergent trait, but thats a whole other ask response). hell, even the notion that artem is doing things "later" than is usually expected (like romance).

all of these things (which i guess can be mushed into the over-arching statement of "over-thinking because we didnt experience the world on the usual timeline many other people experience and thus we have to be extra careful to avoid failure") fit well with a BUNCH of queer experiences, methinks

(source: me. cuz im queer and i like artem)

additionally, i got reminded of this awesome response mariuscomehome wrote about artem viewed from a lesbian lens. i DEFINITELY recommend u read it!!!

//smacks artem like a car im selling. THIS GUY CAN FIT SO MUCH QUEERNESS INTO HIM!!!!!

i think i went off on a tangent here but yeah. ur so right. artem trans vibes too, whether it be for fitting theme/characterization reasons or just cuz headcanons are fun as hell anyway :'D

#i shld not have written this response at 6am cuz i was blearily blinking like 'oh my god i can cite queer theory sources--' and i had to #stop myself. 6am is not the time to be doing anything with any kind of theory sources. zak BEHAVE #hibiscus!anon #asks #and thus continues the saga of ppl 'playing' tot primarily thru my blog jhVKJSHDFS BY FAR THE FUNNIEST WAY TO EXPERIENCE THIS GAME METHINKS

[grade-a-masochist]

Kit and Ash headcanons pt. 2

Even more Kit and Ash (and co, at this point) headcanons! Ft. trauma, grief, terrible visions coming true and found family. And TMI gang feels. And some Blackthorn feels—well, TDA gang feels. Kierarktina, Haline, Blackstairs. Hell, we even have some Kitty. There’s just a lot of feels.

Remember how in the last post, I unintentionally got emotional over Tessa and Jem and Alastair and so many more bitches? Yeah, it happened again. Now we have everything here. This is basically a fit outline at this point. I'm sorry. Please give it a chance still.

Huge shoutout to @bookeater34 for reading so many of these to ensure they made sense.

Here is the first batch of Kit and Ash headcanons.

This was alluded to in the prior post, but: Ash's body temperature and pulse aren't exactly...normal.

Now, it is my personal headcanon that different types of Downwolders have different quirks to their physiologies. Same with nephilim.

Example: Warlocks tend to have slow pulses. The beats drag, heavy and languid, full of ease and without a care, like the drizzle of old, thick honey. Their tempo is largo, as though the heart knows it has all the time in the world to soften into its next beat. It's almost indolent, really, the way it doesn't ebb and flow so much as it drawls.

Their body temperature isn't quite warm, but it isn't quite cold, either. Just like warlocks themselves, it's caught somewhere in the middle, not indecisive, but rather content in its middle-ground. It's tepid, almost gently so. It isn't discomforting, isn't strange to the senses in the way the abrasive cold of vampire's is. Rather, it's welcoming and perhaps even soothing, in its own way.

(Tessa, being the sole example of her kind, only mostly falls under these categories.)

(Her temperature is higher than that of a common warlock. Enough that you could almost call it warm, if you were so inclined, if you really stretched the definition to its very limits to serve your purposes. Her pulse is a few beats faster than what is the norm for warlocks, enough that it's noticeable. The tempo isn't largo, but rather lento. Not only is it faster—it's also stronger. Harsher.)

(It's the nephilim blood in her. Which leads me to the next point.)

Nephilim run hotter than mundanes. Enough that it's conspicuous upon contact. It's like they've been out for a run and haven't quite cooled down; all soft, blazing, engulfing heat, though not uncomfortably so. Toasty warm, instead, like coming home. When they're in battle, it's like coming too close to a fire.

Similarly, their heartbeats are on the faster side. Their pulses are fierce, harsh things, like their hearts would like to run out of their chests sooner rather than later. Swift and steady, firm, utterly unyielding. Beating drums, war drums, pounding to an allegretto pace.

(Clary's case is a tad like Tessa's. Her pulse is faster, her body warmer, but not too much. Just barely enough for it to be noticeable. Like being under one too many blankets, moments away from being smothered by the packed heat of the weight, on the knife's edge between comforting and overwhelming.)

(Jace, on the other hand, feels downright feverish. It's sharp heat pressing down on you, like the veil of sunburn warming your flesh, sinking straight to your bones the minute his skin brushes yours. Clary likes it, because not many people are warmer than her, and she finds it cozy. His pulse is a rather passionate allegro, roaring stubbornly and ferociously, just like him.)

And then you have those that are both and neither.

(People like James, Lucie and Mina—they’re different. Their temperatures are gentle and lovely, like sun-warmed cheeks and blushing palms, warm like sitting beside a fire after a night out in the Londonian winter, because Shadowhunter blood will always prevail, even in them, but not enough to forget the cool reach of eternity. Their heartbeats are soft, looping things, slower than any Shadowhunter heartbeat; a cheery adagio, fierce against their ribcages but easy nonetheless, like gliding swans.)

(These differences, of course, are felt on some level by parabatais. Alec, Matthew, Cordelia, Simon—they can all tell that which is different in their parabatai, even if they occasionally lack a name for it.)

There’s werewolves and their click-fire metabolisms, always a step ahead of everything, with hearts like machine guns and bodies that are absolutely ruthless in their heat. They take running hot to a whole new level, their skin as hot as the sun’s beams on any given day, so that warlocks and vampires shy away from their touch with the same wariness that werewolves avoid theirs. There’s an incompatibility there, the hot-and-cold metaphor taken to an ironic degree by the angels and the demons, damn them both.

(Nonetheless, it doesn’t quite stop them.)

There’s vampires, too, and the utter silence in their chest, the sepulchral stillness. The graveyard that they crawled out of is in them, too, and it only has whispers of life, because it no longer beats. Their nails are sharp and sturdy, harsh like claws if they come down with intent, and their bones feel harsh to the touch, like coming into contact with steel, with concrete. They are cold as ice, smooth like marble and just as foreign to the touch, a discomfort that says something is wrong found in the skin that will not warm.

(Not entirely true. If they spend enough time around a werewolf, if they are touched enough, their skin retains a hint for a while. For enough time that they feel ever so slightly human.)

(There are comforts in rivalries, too.)

There are the demons, who are most similar to vampires in their disposition and most similar to werewolves in nature. Their metabolisms are quick like that of werewolves, with heartbeats that either run fast as the sun or stay still for entire minutes at a time, a wonder that no scientist in the Shadow World has figured out as of yet. The majority of them run hot, fiery hot, unbearably and unspeakably hot; none burns hotter than Lucifer himself, or so the legends say.

The Princes and Lilith, though, are sharp and unnatural in their grace, in their chill. There’s no flush to their skin and no warmth to it, either, even when they are injured. They are void, dark things, swirling with powers unknown, as though their entire frames were composed of ichor and illusions alone. They are ice cold and damning in it, with their talons and their claws and their sharp, sharp teeth.

(Sebastian was somewhere in the middle, burning alive for as long as he drew breath, with a heartbeat that ricocheted between the speed of a freight train going off the rails and a turtle’s pace. He always felt hot, like he was burning up, and yet his skin still was always cold, like he carried a fever with him everywhere he went, same as he carried shadows.)

(Maybe if he’d been born any other way, he would have come out more like Tessa. But no matter.)

And then there’s the fae. Oh, the fae. With their bone structure like the most exquisite, delicate porcelain and their intense, glimmering gazes. Their eyes were perhaps meant to startle, to absorb all the attention that they possibly could; fae themselves seemed designed to take over the mind of all who beheld them, all graceful lines and sharp angles and unforgettable voices. With their sharp canines, glinting like blades and just as wicked.

Their heartbeats were neither fast nor slow, somewhere between andante and moderato, like a joyful song, beautiful and enchanting in their rhythm. Their bodies, too, were neither here nor there in their temperature, leaning more toward each edge depending on the fae, depending on who and what and where. More often than not, though, they were cool to the touch, tantalizingly so, like the crisp night’s air in Faeri.

(The Queen and the King were opposites, in this. King Arawn burnt hot and bright, blazing paths left by his body when it met another, as hot as any Shadowhunter. The Queen was glacial, though, biting and numbing to the touch, and yet still so enticing, because she would welcome and soothe those that came into her arms.)

(Kieran is on the latter spectrum; polar cold, though not uncomfortably so. Rather, refreshingly so.)

(Ironies.)

Half faes depend wholly, as such.

(Mark and Helen are warm like mundanes are, a novelty for all nephilim, and their heartbeats were pleasant albeit swift things, the song of the fae becoming staccato in its haste.)

(Ash is an absolute travesty. He’s got the sharp canines of the fae, which are sharper still due to his demon heritage. He’s cold to the touch, too, sometimes shockingly so, and much like Lilith, there’s no warmth to his cheek and no color to his skin. His pulse is pleasant like all fae hearts are, but it’s far faster than that of Mark and Helen, far faster than that of common nephilim. It’s closest to the marching band of Jace’s heart, though still faster, sitting on the furthest edge of the allegro ladder. It’s always steady, though, and rarely does it stutter.)

(Kit is just as fascinating. His canines are sharper than they ought to be, noticeably and undeniably so, and they make his smile into something even more crooked. Kit is always warm to the touch, a steady, cozy pulse, entirely unyielding, much gentler than the nephilim heat and softer still than the cold he’s grown to associate with fae. His heartbeat is slow and syrupy, like Mina’s, and yet much more graceful, doing the same lovely song and dance of the fae. It’s utterly hypnotizing, much like Kit himself becomes as he settles into the secrets of his blood, without even realizing it is so.)

(All of him is inviting, not because of how alien he is, but because he feels unfathomably familiar, incomprehensibly welcoming.)

(Just as all of Ash is enticing, precisely because every sense is bewildered by him and every instinct fails to recognize him.)

(Like this, they are a complete juxtaposition.)

(But the who to the what makes them make sense.)

Ash gets control of his loyalty spell.

Now, I know you're shaking your heads, but hear me out.

Ash's loyalty spell is completely separate from his will. He has no control over it and, as such, is as much its victim as everyone affected by it. He's perpetually isolated by it, because he will never have genuine affection that has not been manufactured by the magic applied to him. That's a sad fucking reality to live in.

(And Ash is, as we know, bitterly and acutely aware of this. He's no fool; he has a perfect understanding of the fact that everyone who has ever cared for him, who has ever dedicated themselves to him, has done so because their will has been literally bent into that shape without either of their consent.)

(And there's no better way to convince someone of their utter incapability of being loved than giving them irrefutable proof of it. Ash has only been shown love as a result of the magic inlaid in his bones, which is no more in his control than it is in the control of those it preys on.)

(Hence, with the notable and frankly appalling exception of Janus, Ash has never been loved for who he is. Never genuinely.)

It's a reality Ash very obviously doesn't want to live with. He's not shy about how much he abhors the position the spell puts him in, and how much it's isolated and destroyed him.

Which is to say, if he could get rid of it, I believe he'd jump at the fucking chance.

But the thing is—can he get rid of it?

Call me crazy, but I find it very hard to believe. Perhaps it's because I am a fan of characters having to adjust to undesirable parts of their lives instead of said parts being removed, because mental illness and trauma, but I actually do have plot reasons, too.

Ash has had these spells inlaid upon him for the majority of his life. At this point, he is as much the magic he has been forced to carry as he is the blood running through his veins and the calcium making up his bones. These spells that make him so lethal, that make him so untouchable, that have made him so lonely, are a part of who he has been made to be.

You can't rip out an organ because it is ill and that is undesirable. Instead, you treat it. You adjust.

Ash cannot destroy the spell. That much I believe to be true. I think that it's too integral to what he is, if not who he is, to be torn from him.

But why should he be unable to learn to control it?

It's stated that Ash had been inlaid with the same spells that Auraline was, once upon a time, and that they both commanded perfect loyalty and affection. But the King felt confident enough to send an assassin after her nonetheless, as though the spell wasn't a constant in regards to her.

In her case, it wasn't a constant outpour that demanded everyone drop to their knees for her. Instead, it is stated that she commanded the assassin's loyalty in order to survive. Hence...it's fair to work under the assumption that she actually had control over this aspect of her gifts, unlike Ash.

It could be argued this was because of the blood of the two courts running through her, the one that gave her the unimaginable problems Kit will now be wielding. (Scary stuff.)

A case could be made that it was her blood that granted her control, and nothing else. Hence, because Ash and her are different breeds, he can only ever hope to survive the magic, not to actually hone it.

But.

But a better argument can be made that the reason Ash has no control over it is because the King learned from his mistakes, and clipped his wings early. No control, no autonomy, no running away. No precious weapons being stolen. No losses.

The King made Ash in the image of the heir he had wanted, but he carved him into the shape of a weapon very, very purposefully. A weapon only he could wield, one he could control entirely.

(Ash really has jumped from one abuser to another, huh.)

But Ash does have autonomy and he did run away and now the King has absolutely no control over him. Pity. (Not.)

Even with all this, though, the loyalty spell is very much what it was before. Nothing about it has changed. Hell, for all Ash knows, nothing about it can change.

Enter Christopher Herondale, stage left.

Among the pond of differences and ocean of similarities between the two of them, one reigns supreme—they are, fundamentally, as people, creatures that they cannot understand. There's nobody else like them. They lack the means and the information to make sense of themselves, their abilities and limitations, and the implications of all of it.

And there's very little anybody in their lives can or is willing to do to help them parse it out. Even when they want to.

But Kit and Ash themselves can figure out a way to parse their abilities, somehow.

In Kit's case, it's a matter of discovery, acceptance, practice and control. Rinse and repeat for every different facet of what he can do, which grows every day without him being able to stop it.

But the matter of the fact is that, however microscopic it might be—Kit actually does have control. Somewhat. Kind of.

Ash is floored.

It doesn't take Kit too long to realize how much Ash hates his loyalty spell, largely because he can't control it at all. Every morsel of love or affection he receives is second-guessed and facsimile. It's a horrible existence.

It also doesn't take either of them too long to realize that the answers to Ash's qualms lay in the book Kit hates most in the world—the Black Volume of the Dead.

In its pages lies the means to Ash's freedom, whatever it may be, and they're both sure of it.

But finding the book is, for obvious reasons, a little out of the question.

(Or is it.)

(Is it...)

After King Arawn is dead, the spell remains in place and unchanged. It's the same ball and chain Ash has gotten used to hauling around. It's the exact same burden that he just can't seem to get rid of.

Kit and him try a long list of things during the years.

(It takes them about a year to build enough trust and rapport to actually discuss the matter and try to approach it in a somewhat constructive manner, but that still leaves him with one or two years to tackle it, give or take.)

Kit goes through all the ancient tomes in Cirenworth's library that might hold something worthy of note. The ones at the London Institute, too, in due time. He tries asking Jem and Tessa about it, and gets little out of them because, for all their years, some things are still beyond them. He tries asking Magnus, too, which is a...very interesting conversation, but a mostly fruitless one, since it just confirms what Kit already knows.

(Extraordinary magic, deeply unusual, hard to cast and hard to find, theoretically eternal, only found in the most unique and powerful of tomes, not something to be trifled with.)

(Here's the real kicker: it's permanent.)

By God, he even tries remembering all the spell books he'd grown up around and hunt some down, with a success rate of exactly zero.

Ash, on the other hand, tries to get information out of the fae. Difficult to do, considering he's wholly isolated from them, but he gets some things. Mostly, that it's the magic that made Auraline so beloved, and that she wore it like a crown. When he asks his mother, she has less to say before she cleverly shuts him down. All she does give him is that he seems far more compelling than Auraline was.

(Kit and Ash grimace at each other that night. Being right was, for once, far from a pleasant thing.)

He tries listening for rumors. Talking to those that go unnoticed and thus unpunished, those that always know more than they let on. They're charmed by his existence and he lets it run wild, as wild as he possibly can, but even so, there's little they have to tell him

The fae hold no real written records and, even if they did, it'd be impossible for Ash to get them.

After months and months of research of all kinds—Kit even resorted to talking to ghosts, for Pete's sake—they have to address the kelpie in the room. They have to admit it to themselves.

There's no answer outside of the Black Volume.

Their hands are tied.

And then, as per usual—the dreams begin.

The Dreams. Capital D. These fall under the category of things that he knows that he shouldn't know. Future and past memories. Things he doesn't want to see that he's always forced to behold. The usual.

Except that these aren't visions about Idris or Lake Lyn or the Blackthorns. There's no Ash and no Faeriland and no screams. No fire. No nothing.

There's pages, instead. Pages of a book. Pages upon pages of old, yellowed pages, positively ancient and positively evil, too. He could feel it, the power they held thick against the walls of his mind like the whispers of London's catacombs. Sinister, enticing whispers, the kind that came with things he wanted nothing to do with.

Naturally, Kit recognizes said pages.

Small, frantic handwriting cramped between the margins of the weathered pages, like there was too much to say and too little time, too little space. Little sketches of screaming faces and corpses and skeletons. Dried, aged ink.

("It's the bloody Volume of the Dead," Kit mutters as he wakes up, flopping back into bed to scream into his pillow until he runs out of breath.)

(Damn whoever wrote the cursed book and damn his heritage for the dreams and damn them all, actually.)

(Kit is officially and entirely done. He's moving to Estonia. He can send Jem, Tessa and Mina postcards. Ash won't even mind—)

(Ah.)

(Ash.)

(Damn it all to hell and back.)

Despite Kit's most fervent hatred for every accursed thing that book has to say, the dreams persist. It features in every moment of sleep he has that isn't spent in Faeri with Ash, a wealth of terrible knowledge and horrible power falling into his hands with all the ease of autumn leaves. They pool there, no matter how hard he tries to shake them. The knowledge stays, no matter how vehemently he tries to forget it.

And eventually, after days turn to weeks and weeks start turning into months, it gets hard to ignore.

So. In the most ironic twist of fate ever. Kit stops ignoring it.

(He gets himself a small, nondescript notebook. Pocket-sized. The kind he learned through his father that nobody really asks about. He gets himself a pack of cheap ball-point pens, because nobody asks about those, either.)

(He puts his years with his father to good use. When Jem and Tessa are out with Mina and he's in with an essay, he empties his bookshelf, filled with all the books he's been gifted these last two years. It's an antique bookcase, with glass and lovely wooden drawers at the bottom; they're mostly decorative, given their age, but he and Jem have fixed them up enough for his school supplies.)

(Where nobody would think twice to look too hard.)

(He makes a false bottom out of them, careful to make it good and hard to find. He fills it up with enough embarrassing things that it wouldn't matter. He puts the notebook at the very back, hidden in plain sight, because a glamour would actually be more suspicious.)

(And then he starts writing the pages in his dreams down as well as he can from memory. With his runes, it isn't particularly hard. A little Mnemosyne here, a little Stamina there, one or two Energy runes to keep himself awake through an entire night to get as much as he can down, and bam.)

(A pocket-sized, annotated section of the Black Volume of the Dead, the most powerful and fearsome tome in the Shadow World.)

(Hidden in a teenager's bookshelf.)

(Because of his psychic, prophetic dreams. Which were in this case, theoretically, triggered into summoning sinister spells into his dreams, to help his winged companion who he sees in his dreams.)

(Jesus.)

While writing it all down, Kit realizes his suspicions were correct; the section he's been dreaming about is all about the extraordinary, unique, ancient loyalty spell that has plagued Ash for years. The one he wants gone more than anything.

The one that is, like almost everything in the goddamn book, fucking permanent. Apparently, such is the price for the most wicked magic in the world. Nothing like finality to drive the point across.

Once out of the fugue state that had possessed him as he wrote and wrote and wrote, Kit goes back through every nitty-gritty detail, through every single word, and promptly realizes that there really is no way to reverse the spell. It really is a burden to carry for a lifetime.

But—and here's an even better kicker—there is a way to change who controls the spell.

(Arawn is dead. The person who originally controlled the spell is gone. Thus, the change is possible. It is very, very possible.)

Kit sees the first glimmer of hope in fucking months, and goes the fuck to sleep.

(Ash is...somewhat unsurprised to hear Kit has been dreaming about the Volume of the Dead. He is somehow more taken aback by the fact that Kit actually preserved what he saw in the hopes of helping Ash. Kit doesn't get it.)

("Of course I did it," he says, cocking a brow. "I told you we'd figure it out somehow, didn't I?")

("I guess you did," Ash murmurs in return, and then listens to Kit ramble about what they could do.)

A plan—the worst Kit has ever seen or been a part of, the most horrendous piece of tactical brilliance maybe ever, even worse than Ty's plan to bring back Livvy, and isn't that just adding insult to injury—is formed.

A warlock is contacted.

A house-visit is planned.

("Hello, Miss Vex," Kit says breezily, a smile like caramel on his mouth and gold in his hoodie pocket, where he holds his hands. "Long time no see.")

(Hypatia pulls him into the apartment and into her study with the most unimpressed of sighs, looking at Kit like he's quite a droll thing. "Not long enough," she says pleasantly, sitting behind her desk and folding her hands in a way Kit recognizes.)

(Down to business it is.)

("Ah, but see, I needed someone with a broad mind and a very careful mouth, and then I thought, who knows how to keep a secret well, for the right price?" It's both bravado and honesty, and Kit stands behind the chair he's supposed to be occupying, perching his hands on its slope primly. Shadowhunter calm. Shadowhunter grace.)

(Hypatia narrows her eyes, some shadow crossing the molten gold of them, like a flare of her star-shaped pupils. It's an uncomfortable look to be under. It feels like being dissected. But Kit has been dissected his entire life and so he keeps his pulse steady and his breathing calm and his smile in place. He keeps himself still.)

(And then Hypatia dips her head just a bit. "For the right price," she concedes.)

(Kit reaches into his hoodie and retrieves a heavy pouch, placing it on the desk with the glorious sound of money, of artifacts, of things a boy with sticky fingers and knowing eyes can get oh so easily.)

("How would you like to keep a couple secrets for me, Hypatia?" Kit says, a dark note to his pleasant tone, leaning more weight on the chair. He is still. Lethally so. He does not blink.)

(Hypatia's starry eyes gleam. "I'm all ears, Herondale.")

(Kit smiles and sits.)

A deal is made.

The use of a spell is learned. The process of its ritual is, too.

And so, one day, Kit walks into the clearing at Faeri in his dreams, and when Ash smiles in greeting, Kit can smile back and say, "I've got it."

(It's not easy. In fact, it's absurdly difficult. It's hard enough to keep it a secret from everyone. Harder still for Hypatia and him to figure it out on their own under secrecy. Even more so without the person Kit's trying to help actually physically present in their realm.)

(Even once they've figured out the theoretical how, it still seems brutally difficult and brutally cruel to put anyone through, nevermind Ash.)

(It's Ash's choice, though. Not Kit's. And so he thanks Hypatia for weeks of business, leaves her with secrets interesting enough that the gold will keep her mouth shut, and gives Ash what he wants.)

The next day, Ash positively throws himself at him in an embrace. The clash of them is more vibrant than usual, the pressure harsher, more unstable. For a minute, it's like a blow, until it eases and Kit can actually breathe and hug Ash back with little hesitation.

"It worked," Ash says, voice full of wonder and breathless with delight. "It's actually mine now. It really is."

Kit squeezes him harder. "Who else's?"

("My control leaves much to be desired," Ash admits later, as he excitedly tells Kit of the fact that people are actually able to not give a damn about him now. "But now, I can actually do something about it.")

("And you will," Kit says, before mischief takes over his grin. "Come on, try me.")

In the end, it takes even more months before Ash can actually control it. Before he can pull it around him like a veil or tuck it into his bones to sleep. Before he can hone it into a weapon he has control over, and reclaim one tiny piece of himself.

Now, when someone stays, he won't have to wonder.

And maybe that makes it worth it.

(Although, a year later, Kit reconsiders this greatly optimistic perspective, as someone shouts—"YOU USED THE BLACK VOLUME OF THE DEAD?")

Ash is possessive of Kit.

Mightily so.

Not even in the "only I can have you, I'll lock you up in a tower with a dragon" way. He's not that fucked in the head.

(Well, he is—half a lifetime of abuse and unresolved and largely unacknowledged trauma will do that to you—but it doesn't present itself that way, okay.)

It's more in the way that he defines his relationship to Kit in terms that really only make sense to him.

Which are possessive terms.

I mean, come on. This is the same guy who answered Janus's "You are mine," with a genuinely delighted, "Who else's?"

Tell me he wouldn't be this way. That's right, you can't.

The thing is, it's not ownership. Not precisely. It's less about him actually owning Kit and more about him feeling a sense of belonging in regards to him. A mutual one, at that, as far as he's concerned.

The way Ash sees it, they do not own each other. They belong to each other. And that is wholly and entirely different, as he will very passionately declare.

(Ash is used to being owned. The Queen owned him from the moment he was born, and then the King stole him before his father did, and his mother owned him again after that, and now Janus owns him, too, though this is one time he's okay with it. He doesn't mind being owned. He's familiar enough with it that he finds it easy to accept. He finds the certainty of it somewhat soothing.)

(He does not find the idea of owning Kit pleasant, though. Moreover, though he would not mind being owned by him, it feels wrong to say. Inaccurate. Ownership is not what he wants them to be.)

(Ash thinks of the quiet sense of belonging that had bloomed within him when Kit stayed, scathing remarks and venomous glares and vicious distrust and all, not because of the spell but because of him. On some level, at least.)

(And he thinks that yes, belonging, that's what it is. That's what they are.)

(They do not need to own each other when they already belong to each other, right?)

To Ash, the easiest way to define their relationship—which does not fit the label of "friendship," as it has been described to him, but also does not fit the label of an ally or an enemy—is in terms of belonging. To each other.

Which. Um.

Yeah.

It goes something like this:

Julian, ever the mother hen, has some serious questions about the boy Dru is a tad too familiar with, particularly because Julian does remember him and not in a very positive way. They're thick as thieves, though Julian somehow has a hard time imagining Ash getting up to any common mischief. Though he did bite Emma that one time. Mayhaps there are layers to the matter.

(One such very interesting layer being that, despite the ice cold spell on his emotions being gone, Julian feels nothing out of the ordinary for Ash. Nothing he hadn't already felt, like curiosity or wariness or the beginnings of ruthless, callous disregard, if necessary. No need to protect. No need to preserve.)

(Emma doesn't, either. He can see it in her eyes, clear and fierce as they always are, but different from the warmth and kindness she reserves for those she considers family. Right now, there is no glimmer of the honey-sweet blaze of protective rage Julian knows so well. Only wariness and a hesitant sort of calm.)

(The same calm in Tessa's eyes, which perch upon Ash with a familiarity that seems a tad haunted, looking oddly morose. It is different from the calm in Jem's eyes, which seems more calculating, on the knife's edge of strategy. The same calm Julian might see in his own eyes.)

(And still, the wariness in all their shoulders, hands a tad too still. Shadowhunter still, even though Tessa cannot bear runes and Jem has chosen to leave them behind, in another life.)

(In all shoulders except Dru's, because hers curve with a hopeful sort of awe, with a cheerful kind of delight, as she asks Ash questions or shoots him looks when she thinks he won't notice. Julian isn't sure if she's yet realized that Ash notices everything going on in the room, even if he does not give any indication of that fact.)

(He isn’t sure she’s realized he’s shooting her looks, too. Curious and perplexed, and wistful and longing in a way Julian doesn’t quite understand, even though he recognizes it at once.)

(He’s seen it on enough faces.)

(Kit hardly seems at all bothered by Ash’s presence, either, because his shoulders are tense with a wariness that isn't aimed at Ash, but rather on his behalf. It's not in his eyes, not in his face and not in his hands, but it is in the slight bump to his shoulders, the curve that should be a straight line. It's well hidden, so much so it takes Julian a long, long while to realize it. Kit has always been a good liar, a good actor, and he's gotten frighteningly better. Julian feels queasy just thinking about what he could get away with.)

(Dru and Kit are not worried for themselves, but rather for the fae boy, and Julian is inclined to believe it's wholly out of their own free will, because he's running entirely on his own.)

(Everybody seems to be, in fact, even though Ash had been like a siren back in Thule, the only beautiful thing in a world of ash and blood.)

(Now, the pull is so thin as to not be there at all.)

(Very curious indeed...)

They ask their questions, all three of them. Emma asks the kind of probing, narrow-eyed questions that make most people jump to the defensive. The kind that the fae are perfectly comfortable circumventing. Ash doesn't disappoint; he doesn't break a damn sweat, adding fuel to the fire with an ease that's rather infuriating, expression perfectly calm all the while. Occasionally, Kit will snort or glower at something he says, getting a pale arched brow in return, or mutter something that makes Ash's perfect composure flicker for a moment.

(Interesting. Julian files that away for future reference.)

Julian asks the kind of questions that are honey-dipped and gentle on the surface, and barbed with wire under that, like bear traps laid for Ash to fall into. They're the kind of words that made even the fae shift in their seats once upon a time, and it works now, though the gig is up practically at once. Ah. It's not kind, but then again, neither is Julian. He doesn't care about kind. He cares about his family's well-being, and if Ash will disturb that, then Julian will do what he has to. As he always has.

Dru, though. Dru asks the kind of questions that Julian would expect from Ty, bursting with curiosity and colorful with information. They're utterly unexpected and driven by a logic Julian can't quite follow, though the method to their madness is completely undeniable. Kit gets a look in his eye at that, pained and yearning, but fondness quirks his mouth. Ash looks completely taken off guard for the first time, increasingly wide eyes and raised brows, bewilderment heavy on his face.

(He answers every question to some extent, though, no matter how silly said question is.)

The bigger question comes from Jem, though, who notices easily that if Dru and Ash are thick as thieves, in a curious sort of way that seems wholly new to them, then Ash and Kit are conjoined. It doesn't seem to be entirely conscious, but rather instinctive; they fall into step together, a natural tandem that's startling in its ease, their mouths pressed together in silence, even though the manner in which they looked at each other said volumes.

A conversation occurs through wriggling brows and expressive curves of the mouth. It is not a pleasant conversation. Nonetheless, Ash looks more at ease than he has since he got dragged through the portal, some unseen coil unraveling in some unseen way.

They shadow each other without a thought both before and after that, murmuring softly when they do talk, a gentle sort of tension to their endeavors. A fragile sense of tranquility, buzzing with electricity, tremendously tremulous. It is not easy to ignore; there is something about Kit and Ash that attracts the attention of all in their vicinity. It is an allure that is as much in their blood as it is in how they interact with each other. Quiet tension and a deliberate quest to side-step all the wires that would decimate them, an intimacy beyond words and an intensity that was hard to behold, draining, even when it seeped into each and every one of their interactions.

Even so, there's no animosity. In fact, there's even a curdled, complicated brand of fondness that they seem to reserve solely for each other. Bittersweet and surprisingly earnest, even if it is violently sharp. Even if it’s almost threatening in its careful handling, as though they were aware that their coexistence was more volatile than them being at odds with each other.

(Jem and Tessa observe it with a palpable kind of concern and an even deeper kind of understanding. There is something knowing there, and whether it is good or not, Julian can't tell yet. He isn't sure they can, either.)

(He does know that Dru has something to say about it, though, watching Kit with a cocked head and furrowed brows. It's reminiscent of Livvy and her intense, furious picking apart of all that came into their lives. The thought makes Julian flinch away from his own mind.)

(The pain never gets any less softer. Merely the slightest bit easier to breathe around.)

(Julian thinks about Ty, and thinks that he probably can't even do that. There's no breathing around hollow lungs.)

It's hard to understand and even harder to explain, which is why they all sit down to discuss Ash's presence—however momentary, given he seems rather divided on what his course of action ought to be—on their side of the world and what it means for them all. Usually, they’d discuss the matter with, say, Alec, the actual freaking consul, but desperate times.

Ash and Kit sit on the same sofa, half a cushion of space between them, a calculated valley of distance that they can nonetheless bridge at whim. Ash posture is perfect, spine ramrod straight and shoulders pulled back into a steady, his feet planted firmly on the floor, whereas Kit slouches on his end of the sofa, legs spread out in front of him and feet pointing in opposite directions, so that his head rests on the back of the couch and his foot settles an inch from Ash's. His arms spread over the back of the couch, hand primed to reach for Ash's head, and the other picks at the loose strings of the armrest.

They are, despite themselves, the picture of nonchalance. They've changed out of their ruined clothes—Kit had laughed at Ash dressed in Kit's own distinctly modern clothes and rid of his circlet, given that my, Ash, I see you're Jon Snow no more; how's it feel to join the rest of the peasantry?—and Kit balances his mug of tea between his thighs, Ash's own cradled between their hips. Oscar's ghost has settled by Kit's feet, panting happily at his return.

Their relaxation is matched by none, except perhaps Tessa and Jem, who simply looked relieved to see their son live and well, even if he now seems to have a shadow. Or a friend. It's hard to parse out from their behavior alone, I'm afraid.

(Dru doesn't look too concerned, either. She settles on one of the armchairs, her clothes exchanged for a pair of Tessa's, looking at Ash and Kit curiously from over the rim of her mug. Her gaze is intense and unyielding, probing, and rather excited, too.)

(Julian doesn't have a good feeling about this.)

Cue dark looks being exchanged and a distinctly odd feeling spreading through the room as Ash continues to be both remarkably uncooperative and tepid in a way that is as mild as it is warning. Worse still—Kit isn’t all that different when it’s him they’re questioning. He looks apologetic about it, just a bit, but even so, there is something implacable about it.

They're not belligerent, not at all, but they're not exactly nice, either. In fact, on paper, they're perfectly polite and forthcoming. The kind of song and dance Julian knows best from being both dancer and spectator, both musician and audience. They’re good at it, good as Julian is, and it comes to them so naturally he can’t help but be begrudgingly frustrated, even if he’s annoyed just the same.

The answers to the most basic of their questions are both unexpected and not.

They've known each other for a few years, give or take, by virtue of the powers that be. No, it was not intentional. Yes, they did know exactly who the other was, though it mattered little to either—here, it appears to be an admittance, because Kit pauses for a moment, and Ash's eyebrow twitches with the knowledge. They’d never met in the physical world before today. Nor did they intend to meet today, mind you. They don't consider each other a threat, either, if that needs pointing out; at least not quite, Ash tacks on somewhat humorously, like an afterthought, because fae habits evidently die hard.

(Kit snorts around a mouthful of tea, not agreeing but hardly disagreeing, and Ash seems perfectly at ease with that.)

Once all the questions Julian and Emma had to ask have been answered, skirted around, riddled or flat-out ignored, and Dru’s grocery list of queries has been answered to the best of Ash’s ability, Jem asks what they've all been not-subtly wondering:

"What, exactly, are you to each other?"

(The question would be dramatic and out of place, had Kit not jumped in front of Cortana with daggers held up and eyes ablaze before Dru could so much as twitch, holding the weight of Emma's strike with vicious surety, when she had turned it on Ash. Had he not yelled, he's with me!)

(If Ash had not just about slit the throat of the fae who'd tried to do the same to Kit, right in front of them all, with an ease that was chilling. With a certain vindication that Julian found eerily familiar, tucked under his bones on the best of days; not vengeance, not quite, but a protective snarl. One that could be ultimately worse than any vengeful rage.)

(If Kit had not pulled him through the portal, all rules and all carefully toed lines and all the things they conspicuously did not mention during their meetings be damned; burning through the barriers between them to grab at his bloody wrist and pull, because I can't protect you here, so come with me.)

(If Ash had not, against all odds and the thoughts warring on his face, let him.)

(If Kit had not made absolutely certain to keep him by his side at all times, as though fearing he'd have to take him and bolt, nodding at Dru when he took Ash's other side.)

But as it is, they've earned the question with their familiarity. With their mutual and wholly subconscious prioritizing of each other. With the way they interact with what can only be described as care and protectiveness.

(Dru perks up at the question, shifting in her seat, regarding them with Cheshire eyes that clearly say yes, do go on. Julian is once again reminded of Ty, eyes always pricked up to catch everything that happened around him, drinking the world down with brilliant wonder. God, he misses Ty, like Julian's got a yawning void where he ought to be.)

To their surprise, Kit does not divert them or immediately jump into an answer, as he has thus far. In fact, he leans back in his seat and shoots Ash a dry, somewhat weary look, as his face takes on a pensive veneer. His fingers begin to drum a steady pattern on the backrest, right behind Ash's head.

"Say, Ash—what are we to each other? Any ideas?" He asks, cocking a brow and quirking a corner of his mouth in a way that suggests mischief and remembrance. He looks utterly innocent, and Julian can tell at once he's taking the piss out of Ash, likely not for the first time.

The way Ash looks back at him can only be defined as withering. Julian is most definitely. "Perhaps one or two."

"Marvelous. Dazzle me," Kit said brightly, leaning back fully and spreading his arms grandly, brows rising like en exclamation mark.

(Tessa and Jem exchange a look, exasperated and unbearably fond. Herondales.)

Ash sighed, looking for all the world like he'd much prefer doing anything else, carefully balancing Heosphoros on his lap, where he'd been cleaning the blade of its muck for the entirety of the conversation. Julian got the impression that Kit was a handful that Ash had learned to pick his battles with.

(He isn't surprised.)

And then, looking Jem straight in the eye with arrogant disregard and a cold, calculating look that very much verges on defiant—

"He is mine."

Pause. Utter silence. The crowd is shocked. Not a word can be found among these halls. Even the ghosts have nothing to say.

Ash raises a brow, seemingly unimpressed by the response to a statement he found innocuous, and cocked his head. Like this, his chin was raised with distinct superiority, the line his jaw defiant without a shadow of a doubt, something in the way his eyes narrowed spelling out trouble.

(At once, Julian is reminded of the Kieran he first met, mad like the ocean and sharp like a blade. There is that royal elegance to Ash, too, Julian realizes; the look of a man who knows he is something, and who has adjusted accordingly.)

(He wonders if there is more to Ash, just like there was more to Kieran. He hopes so.)

Dru releases a rather inhumane sound as Jem and Tessa sputter, choking on her tea and coughing as Emma pounded on her back furiously and Julian handed her napkins. The glare she pins on Kit is harsh and accusing, as though she were considering chucking her mug at his head. She certainly has both the aim and the arm for it.

(Kit raises his hands in surrender, motioning at Ash with them, the universal sign for don't look at me, look at him.)

(Which she did. Just as furiously. With the Scowl of Doom.)

(If Ash had looked bewildered before, he looks so far out of his element now that Julian feels a surge of pity for him.)

(Up until the exact moment he looks at Kit like a lost puppy, tilting his head and nudging it softly toward Dru. He looks strangely alarmed, all in all, and now all Julian feels is amusement.)

(Kit makes placating gestures at them both, which work more than they really ought to. The way he looks at Dru, it communicates something. Enough that she settles back down, looking suspicious but satisfied.)

(Enough that Ash settles, too, once more the picture of calm.)

As Jem and Tessa exchanged furtive, concerned looks, Julian and Emma and Dru looking at each other as though to ask how much of that was fae speech and how much was straight up fact, Kit speaks. His voice lands somewhere between amused, withering and perhaps genuinely curious.

"Really?" He asks, poking Ash between the ribs with his stele, a deceptively careful movement. "Come on, Ash."

Ash is unfazed. "It's the truth, is it not?"

And, well. Kit says nothing to that. No agreement, no, but no disagreement, either. He pauses instead, his face twisting into an expression Julian cannot for the life of him read, which is at once pensive and disgruntled. It suggests a yes and a no, both and yet neither, or perhaps that he's still deliberating the merit of either.

But inaction is as good as action.

(And Ash knows that face on Kit, when aimed at him, enough that he knows it's an allowance. It is, if nothing else, an acquisition.)

(With them, there is more said in the unsaid, more words in their silences.)

(And they've learned to read them well.)

So Ash nods, says, "Splendid. Now, if I may," and methodically returns to his polishing.

"Huh," Dru says after a while, surprised and yet not, and then sips from her tea.

Nothing gets said for a little while longer, and thus Kit spoils Oscar and drinks his tea.

Kit read ASOIAF.

Yes. Read.

He had to do something in his free time and why not read the books to the show everyone and their mother was slowly losing their shit for.

He did read them. It took him weeks but he did.

When he sees season 6-8 come out, he will promptly become homicidal.

(Yes, he agrees with the L + R = J theories. Hence him calling Ash, of all things, Jon Snow.)

(This is the epitome of an inside joke, given he's the only one aside from Dru who's actually either read or seen the damn thing.)

(She watches it as it comes out. Kit is appalled.)

(Finally, Tessa says, you know what it's like to be me.)

(Kit just stares at her in open, unabashed misery.)

The aftermath of the war in snippets.

As the dust settles and the body count begins, as nephilim mourn and downworlders weep, as Kieran frantically tries to round up the faeries safely, the world goes on turning. Blissfully, silently, blindly, as it always does. It stops for no one. It turns for no one. It simply moves on.

(Somewhere, Clary and Jace embrace, battered and bruised and bleeding entirely too much, but alive, so fucking alive. They hold hands and their rings clang, and somewhere in the distance, Simon releases a primal sound of relief and all but launches himself at them. They all land in a tangle of limbs, squawking indignantly and laughing and then crying, all holding on to each other because you're alive, I thought I'd lost you, I thought—)

(Simon hugs Clary like she'll go up in a cloud of smoke if he lets her go, and she hugs back like he'll forget who she is without her touch, and Jace embraces them both like they're his entire fucking world.)

(In the distance, Isabelle says they're here, come on! And then it's her, too, crying into Jace's neck and crushing her chest to Simon's back and leaving her hand imprinted on the back of Clary's neck. And they let her and they grab at her, too, and they're okay.)

(When Alec appears, his entire body is shaking and his bow clatters out of his hands as he crumples to his knees before them. There's an ugly gash at his cheek and his forehead is darkening with bruises and he looks like crap, but he's smiling even as tears run down his face, as his knees bracket around Simon's and his chest supports Clary and his arms wrap around all of them and his hand squeezes hard at Isabelle's shoulder. As his temple knocks into Jace's, both of them bloody and teary and disgusting, and all of them happy and miserable and breathing.)

(Magnus is sighing as he comes upon them, but all the sighs in the world couldn't hide the way his smile quivers with relief. None of the put-upon exhaustion in the planet could hope to make them not understand what it means that Magnus Bane drops to his knees in the muck and the debris and touches them all gently, messing with Simon's hair and wiping blood from Jace's cheek and gently squeezing Isabelle's wrist and booping Clary's nose, tucking his chin into Alec's hair. The fondness with which he says, What am I going to do with you?)

(Somewhere, they are alive and for now, that's all that matters.)

The Silent Brothers struggle to help all the injured, the entire battlefield an open wound, iratzes and prayers and blood stinging the air like heavenly fire. Wails cut through the air, grief and rage and pleading alike. The silence is sometimes like the wound has already become a tomb. It certainly has enough bodies for it.

In some corner of the battlefield, Cristina helps Kieran do what he promised Kit and Alec—he gets the fae together and the fuck away as safely and quickly as he can, hair flickering between a frazzled, electric blue and a thick, fearful black, white licking through its depths like sea foam, the Queen's crown tucked over it haphazardly, a permanent frown on his beautiful features.

Cristina tries to smile, tries to be reassuring and encouraging, she does, but every few moments, her eyes flicker to the spot where she last saw Emma—she thinks about the grim, fierce determination on her face, of the way she'd held Julian's hand with finality and said Cristina's name like a eulogy and feels her heart drop like a rock—and her face curdles like milk.

(Sometimes, her eyes will flutter instead to the spot where Mark last stood, panicked eyes and longing and vicious determination, planting a kiss on Kieran's mouth like smoldering embers as he cradled his face with the most tender of ferocity, staring into his eyes like a promise. Kieran had looked gutted.)

(She understood why when Mark kissed her, passionate and utterly desperate, so much yearning and adoration on his quivering lips and dry tongue that she'd trembled with it. He'd held her like precious china, like the warmth of childhood he knew would be stolen from him. He looked at her eyes like he was trying to memorize them, like they were the last thing he ever wanted to see.)

(When he pulls away, chasing after the trail Aline and Helen had carved for themselves, going right into the heart of the battle—where Dru and Ty are, where Julian and Emma were going, where the world would either end or survive—Cristina thinks, with a despair so strong it makes her ill, don't you dare leave me.)

(Sometimes, Kieran and her will meet eyes when they look at the same spot, gazes haunted with the same fear, terrified that their Mark will be another lost name in this war.)

(Terrified that they'll have to live on without him, that they'd have to bury him. That they'd have to go back to a home where he was but a phantom in their halls.)

(They both look away.)

And then she hears it. "Tina! Kier!"

Cristina might have twisted her ankle with how fast she turned, had she not been a shadowhunter. She's half-convinced that, from the sound Kieran's neck made, he might have dislocated it with how fast he turned his head.

There, booking it through the field and to them, is Mark. Bleeding sluggishly and so dirty she can hardly make out the lines of his runes upon his skin, but grinning widely and alive, running not for life but for his loves, running like not even Lucifer himself could stop him.

And Cristina isn't sure which of them does it first, but before she knows what's happening, both her and Kieran are running, too, shouting at the faeries to continue as they go in shaking voices; running toward him, running right over every obstacle, and into his open arms.

The clash is painful and ugly and she's going to have bruises for days to come without a series of iratzes. Kieran's teeth clack together when they all slam together. Mark accidentally crashes his chin against Cristina's forehead. They slide through the mud and only Kieran's ridiculous strength keeps them standing, a hand fisted in the back of Mark's shirt and an arm around Cristina's waist, and then he squeezes so hard Cristina feels her ribs creak.

But Mark's eyes boggle with it as Kieran connects their foreheads, looking for all the world like he might dissolve into tears, the black bleeding out of his hair and giving way to pale, sweet baby blues and white tangs, as he keeps whispering, "You've come back to me, you've come back to us."

Cristina only realizes she's crying when she realizes how hot her face is as she buries it in Mark's neck, an arm around his waist and his blood seeping into the scrapes of her skin, a hand digging into the back of Kieran's neck, and then she's laughing because by Raziel, they've done it. They've done it.

They're going home. They're all going home. They're all okay.

And Mark laughs in return and kisses Cristina's tears away, just as desperate as before but no longer afraid, no longer a goodbye; now, it's a hello, a here I am, a I'm never leaving you again. Kieran is fierce with how he kisses all over Mark's face, his fingers quivering bruises into Cristina's waist, his eyes squinted so his tears won't fall, and Mark stops him with a press of the mouth. It's hardly a kiss. It's a shared breath.

But it does the trick. Kieran settles. They all settle, melting into each other, ankle-deep in mud and bleeding and in the middle of the end of a war, but in each other's arms.

"Never leave us again," Kieran hisses and Mark smiles, beams, and says, "Never. Never."

(Cristina believes him.)

(And then she sees Helen.)

Elsewhere, Helen carries her wife in her arms and her brother on her back, whispering you can do this, we're almost there, stay with me, stay with me. Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me.

Julian's head lolls against her shoulder, blood dripping steadily down his arms and over Helen's skin, onto Aline's cheeks. He's utterly limp, breath unsteady and hot against Helen's neck, mouthing words even like this—Livia, Ty, Dru, Tavvy, Helen, Mark, Emma, Emma, Emma—and even so, Helen can feel the tears spring to her eyes, as she says, "Jules, hey, Jules—please, please, please."

In her arms, Aline is pale and cold, breath coming out in small, soft puffs, hand loose where it'd been putting pressure against the red blooming across her abdomen. Helen can see the rune that bound them on her chest, where her shirt is torn, can see the place where their hearts became one forever.

(Forever cannot end today, it can't.)

She looks beautiful, even like this. Helen loves her like she's never loved anyone. She loves them both more than anything. She loves them all and she's terrified that this will be the end, that this will be the last time she can see their faces, can feel their warmth.

"Please," she whispers, running faster than she ever has, thinking of Ty and Dru and Emma left behind, thinking of Tavvy with Max and Rafael and Mina. Thinking of Livvy, of how she'd lost her, of how she cannot lose any of them, of how she'd die without them.

Thinking of Mark, Mark—

"MARK!" she screams, screams for all she's worth, glimpsing him in the distance. "MARK!"

He turns, at once, because he'd know her voice anywhere. His smile is blinding, happiness the most beautiful thing Helen's ever seen on him, and she will always remember the moment it slips away, replaced by the heart-stopping horror, the bone-breaking terror, that she feels in her own chest. She can see the panic in his eyes. She can see him run. She can see Cristina and Kieran follow, because they'd chosen them, they'd all chosen each other, family over blood.

And she says, "Please, Jules, please—stay with me, okay, we're almost there, Mark is here, you'll be okay, you'll be okay—"

A beat, a spike of fear, more blood pooling against Helen's chest. "Aline, love, my soul, my beating heart, come on, come on, we're only getting started. We've got forever ahead of us, okay? Stay with me. Stay with me."

She whispers those three little words over and over again, long after Mark and her have gotten their precious charges to the Silent Brothers, Kieran having carved a path for them with vicious determination. Long after they are healing. Long after Mark touches her hair and cradles her to his chest and says, they'll be okay.

(Helen holds him like she held them, panic and love and desperation, and says, stay with me.)

(Mark kisses her forehead and gently says, forever.)

In the middle of the battlefield, where fae and downworlders and nephilim clash, Ash blazes through it, thinking what are you doing, Ash, what are you doing.

You're making a mistake, you're making a mistake. You're betraying the only person who's ever loved you for you, you fool. How can you do this to him?

(Because maybe love isn't letting him set the world aflame.)

And he's brutal and ruthless, fierce as he fights back against Janus's troops, water as he treads through the ranks of those that used to follow him. As he turns his back on the only person not to abandon him.

(Kit's face flashes across his face, the fierce set of it when he jumped in front of Emma Carstairs and Cortana for Ash. The pain in his voice when he said don't die before they shot into separate parts of this battle.)

(Even though he hadn't known who Ash would choose in the end, what mistake he'd inevitably make, he'd wanted him alive. He'd pleaded for it.)

(And Ash had said stay alive.)

But still, his mind says, don't do this, don't do this, please don't do this.

And maybe that's why, when he soars up into the sky—a point of vantage, a way to see what's coming—he doesn't feel the threat, doesn't do the sole thing he's been trained to do for years, until he hears the familiar whizz edging his way. The ruthless, sizzling burn.

The pure, solid iron heading his way, with the cold dread of certain doom.

(Ash has always been remarkable, not because of who he is, but because of what he's been made to be. It's been his sole virtue in the eyes of each of his captors, the reason behind his gilded cages and his pretty titles and all the status that only ever amounted to loneliness and the name weapon.)

(Remarkable didn't always mean good. Sometimes, it just meant outside of the ordinary in the worst of ways.)

(Like the fact that, tragically, inconveniently, only half fae or not—iron was poison to him.)

Ash barely begins to dive and drop, a desperate attempt at eluding the inevitable, when the net lands. It's heavy and noisy and uncomfortable, clattering like plated armor; it tightens on impact, twisting its way into his body and pressing his thrashing wings into his back so harshly he idly wonders whether it'll snap his spine. It seems plausible.

Anything seems plausible, really, as the iron begins to sizzle audibly along his skin, burnt flesh and the acerbic, anemic scent of cold iron filling his nose. It's so strong he gags, fingers scrabbling around the holes of the net, looking frantically for a way out of it even as they begin to blister and peel.

And then the chain wraps around his ankle, squeezing like a vice with an awful crack that jolts all the way up to his hip and down his toes—

And with a sharp yank, Ash falls.

(He goes through the air so quickly, it seems honey-dipped in his head, sluggish and unbearably thick in its descent. He goes with hands clawing through the net, like they could cut through the air and find a cloud to grab onto.)

(Heosphoros falls with him, because irony is the one thing to never fail him.)

(The burns darken and deepen as he goes, the flames fanned by the chaos, and he knows it will consume him, because he can actually feel the pain begin to run its course. Ash doesn't feel pain like normal people do. Not at all.)

(But iron has always been a weakness of his, the best way to keep him subdued and cowed, and now, it may very well kill him.)

(The hilarity is not lost on him; a winged thing kept in a gilded cage bites its master, and winds up knocked out of the sky it'd finally soared into moments after. Winds up entangled in a net, a mobile cage, because if he cannot be their bird of prey, he will be hunted instead.)

(Ash sees the blood begin to well between his fingers, where the iron chains pull at his flesh, and wonders if this is what Kit saw back in Lake Lyn.)

(The thought is oddly comforting.)

The crash is a brutal tangle of limbs, as he barrels into people, both live and dead, and through heaps of mud. As he's dragged through them, the chain at his ankle pulls taut, intent on forcing his bones out of his body as his hands claw at the ground under him.

And then there's deafening, all-encompassing silence as he finally, finally jerks to a stop, whiplash threatening to overcome him. There's white nose, so that Ash can only hear his own breath, the unsteady beat of his heart.

Fuck, he thinks, patting at the ground for Heosphoros, getting his hands and knees under him even as they lock, trembling with exertion.

The world swims around him, turned red by the blood running hot down his face, turned blurry by everything else. His nose is washed out with blood and dirt, burnt out by iron.

But he hears their footsteps, wet and heavy in the mood. He feels their weight, their finality.

And because he can't fight, because he can hardly string a thought together with the net digging deeper and deeper into his skin, burning like hot coals against it, Ash does does the one thing he can do:

He digs his hands and knees into the ground, and crawls.

(Ash remembers, distantly, a pristine room in a world full of heat and sand and misery. A world filled with despair, with only one shining star, only one saving grace—Janus.)

(He remembers crawling in a training room, hands and knees and spitting blood. Not crawling from the pain, but instead toward his sword, toward survival.)

(He remembers what it got him.)

Laughter explodes behind him, lilting and fair like all fae voices are, and he scrunches his eyes shut.

(It is the same now as it was then.)

The chain around his ankle tugs again, a sharp pull, and his leg goes out from under him. He narrowly avoids face planting with an elbow in the mud, gritting his teeth against the clattering of the net and how it burns more steadily against his skin.

Another yank, then, this time flipping him in place, landing him on his back with a groan, trying to curl away from the iron at once.

The laughter fades into a giggle, he can register that through the rushing of his blood; he can register the sound of armor, heavy and clattering, ornate.

And then the presence of a foot upon his ankle, dainty and purposeful, and then cruel, dropping all its weight upon him until his bone goes snap.

Ash jerks, whimpers, but he doesn't scream. The pain is real, realer than anything, but it's familiar, too. Pain is easy. Pain is what he experiences every day, one way or the other, and if he cuts off its flow, if he dams its reach, it's more sensation than anything.

(Except iron.)

The toe nudges curiously at his ankle, at the net, jostling to see what it gets. To see the new lines burn through him.

Ash bares his teeth, a hiss building, primal and furious.

The fae, or rather the fae, his mother's fae, the Rider she took from the King, her little treasure—

They smile, wide and wicked and terrible, and Ash snarls and lands a kick against their knee.

It's harsh enough he feels something give, sees their face pale for a second and then thin with rage, their smile falling at once.

Ash tips his head back with a pant, fingers opening and closing, curling into fists and loosening into calm palms. All he needs is a moment. All he needs is—

Their voice is a slithering whisper, clouding like smoke, when they say, "It is time for your blood to run, boy king."

(My boy king, Ash's mother had crooned, the cool hands fitting round the sharpness of his face faint as the touch of a ghost. There was no glow to them, no buzz of power, no rise and no fall and no ebb and no flow. Nothing. Nothing at all.)

(Just the emptiness of a well growing dry and a field growing barren, with only a whisper of longing remaining from the screams of inclemency there had been once.)

(Ash knew that she was a blaze, that she was a fury, a force as fierce as any storm. It did not matter that she was fading right before his eyes. She could still turn the world to ash, just to make sure she took it with her when she went. Just to make sure she won one last time.)

(And yet he knew, standing in front of her, her hands gentle and soft and dead on his face, that it did not matter what she could do. It did not matter what she wanted to do.)

(Because the grass was greener where Ash stood, and she would realize one day. They all would. They always did. And that day, Ash would find out how much love was really worth.)

(But until then—until then, he stood in the damp, cold darkness of a drying well and let her cradle his face with motherly affection he wasn't entirely sure she was capable of.)

(He looked at her blue eyes and her red hair and the terrible beauty of her face, the delicate brass of the petals encircling her temples, and memorized. Wished that the Mnemosyne rune would let him pull this image up again and again and again, no matter what.)

(My boy king, the Seelie Queen said, smiling a smile that is not soft and is not kind, one that is loving nevertheless, even though there was no warmth to it. My king of ashes.)

(Born to rule the night and the blazing stars, to rule among the dead and the ash, to rule the sand of the rise and fall of time. To wrought destruction unlike any other.)

(Born to raze the world in the name of glory.) 

(Ash thought of the grass, greener under his feet, and of the visage he saw when he shut his eyes every night. Blue eyes, the sky that had been taken from him, a watercolor depth Ash could not grasp; a mole like ink blotting over the freckles of his skin, so very like the stars he'd all but forgotten in Thule, the constellations Janus taught him dutifully; a crooked grin full of sharp teeth and brimming with something Ash wanted to unearth and tuck inside his ribs, a shape so alarmingly familiar he could carve it into the face of the world. A rune, one echoed at Ash's own pulse, a twin of the lines burning on his wrist, a ghost of the gift upon his veins.)

(Thought of the visage he saw every morning when he opened his eyes—golden eyes, the very sun burning in Ash's palms, as sharp and cold as the first knife he was taught to use, the first time he understood give instead of take; a smile, such a wide and strange thing for Ash to love, a gaping wound on a face like the fall of an empire. A scar across the peak of a collarbone, a ravine in holy aureate land, and a chipped incisor, crumbling marble soon to turn to powder; blood-stained cuffs, a lesson never learned, and raised veins, lines that burned with heavenly fire in the world Ash was born into.)

(Careful pianist's hands, glorious and indelicate and always crusty with blood, even though the piano sat around their house collecting dust and the knives went auburn with rust.)

(He thought beyond night and day. Thought of this land, greener where he stood, greener still in his dreams—greener, perhaps, because of him.)

(He thought long and hard.)

(And he smiled that same terrible smile, the devastating sharpness of his canines and the plush curve of his mouth and all the destinies woven into one tiny gesture. All the lives it carried.)

(King of ashes indeed, Mother.)

(He sees a flash over their shoulder, black hair and grey eyes and a terrible set of sharp brows before it all fades into glamour, and thinks, and thus he comes.)

"Is that so?" He drawls, beginning to feel the threads he ignores pull taut against his fingers, the pressure building, building, building—

"Mayhaps you've got me confused with yourself, child of Mannan."

Heosphoros comes hurtling through the air with terrible finality and wicked aim, cutting and bursting through everything in its path, the way Morgensterns and their blades always do.

(The way Ash is willing to, whether it makes him a monster or not, for the faces that flash before him.)

Gathering all his strength, all the charm simmering in his blood, all the magic he's learned to harness and keep tucked into his bones, he commands—"Unhand me and release me, Rider."

The effect is instantaneous, as the pleasant drawl of his voice rackets up to a hundred miracles, unfurling into something beautiful and sweet and irresistible. A tide that, when directed, surpasses all in the world but one.

(No amount of command has ever affected Kit worth squat.)

The Rider freezes, hand going slack around the chain as their eyes blow wide with panic, and Ash kicks out at their ankle, knocking it out from under them.

He feels a tug at the net, unfamiliar hands and a cool, reassuring presence he doesn't trust, and then it's lifted sharply and pulled away, leaving relief to begin to settle like a balm across his flesh.

Ash doesn't question it, doesn't question what it means, and simply opens his hand up to Heosphoros's hilt as it lands, settling at once, at home with its owner.

It's quick work; the tip of the sword pressed against the chink in the armor, between the third and fourth rib, and then deeper, deeper, deeper.

The gurgling is awful, but familiar. Ash pulls out his dripping sword, laying a foot against a throat and pressing down, and says, "Heosphoros has some soul yet."

And then, silence. The battle rages. His ears ring. There's sensation all over his body, raw and aching, and he turns away from it, trying to wash away his disorientation as he turns to where his net pools at his feet, bloody and horrid.

"Tiberius," he tells the presence, and the glamour falls. Ty looks like one of the tragic statues Janus told him about, terrible and beautiful and vengeful.

But he'd helped Ash, had worked with him, and Kit loved him. Loved him enough that there need be no words for it to be known.

So Ash says, because like this, today, he can see Livia Blackthorn’s outline in the smoke, because he does not like debts: "If you still wish to rouse her back, you should go. Time slips away, Tiberius. The wicked powers won't await you."

Grey eyes widen, fixed at Ash's chin instead of his eyes, dread and concern exploding behind them. It's almost charming, how much he cares, the way his hand slaps over the heron necklace peeking over his gear like it's a clock and he can feel it ticking.

"Don't you die," Ash says, runing a series of iratzes into his skin, before he thinks of what he saw in Lake Lyn, of the color of the sky in those dreams, and walks right past Tiberius.

He hears him leave, quick footsteps, following nightmares instead of dreams. Chasing after ghosts, unknown as to the creation of more.

Ash stumbles toward the clearing where he can see the flames of Kit's magic rage, so close to the angelic fury heavenly fire wages, and thinks I'll run, I'll walk, I'll crawl, but stay alive.

(And he sees two blonds in his head and wonders which of the two he's talking to.)

(Later, as he staggers like a drunk, vision blurred and red and awfully hazy, listening to the faint sense of direction in his mind that leads him to the blazing grounds, he hears, "Ash? Ash!")

(His heart freezes solid.)

(Tessa Gray runs into his field of vision in all her splendor, hair pulled back into a sharp, tight bun and the lines of her faces deep with concern and fear, deeper still with determination. Jem stands by her side, looking uncomfortable with the seraph blade in his hand, but majestic still. The nephilim grace in him won't disappear, no matter what he wants from it, and right now, it glimmers like marble along his angles. His eyes say why he's here—his family, his son. Both their eyes do.)

(And looking at them, both of them, who would kill and die for Kit, he feels an awful sense of fatality consume him.)

(And yet.)

("Christopher," he gasps, coughs, holding a hand to his ribs, feeling blood pool and wondering where it came from. His wings are heavy and crooked and twisted into odd, terrible angles, but all he can say is Kit's name.)

(All he can do is point at the clearing in the distance, bursting with flashes of light as its flames brighten.)

(They see it, too, and their eyes go haunted and fierce, at once, exchanging a look that says as much as any conversation would.)

(And then their resolve hardens into something solid, fierce titanium for all knives and swords and arrows to bounce off of. It's unwavering, not unafraid but brave, not unbreakable but rather unyielding.)

(They're ready.)

(Jem wraps an arm around Ash's waist, hauling him upright and dragging half his weight as they rush.)

(Ash can feel his heartbeat, his warmth. He's battle-hot and his pulse is battle-fast. Different from what he usually hears when he focuses enough.)

(He wonders if Kit will be like this when they get to him. Or if he'll be fever-hot or bloodloss-cold.)

(Cortana is a sword of mercy. Emma is a woman of justice—well, her version of it—for the most part.)

(But Janus is not a merciful man and Kit isn't, either.)

(As they walk through the smoking trees, Ash hears the whispers licking at his ears, the power seeping through his heels, tracing its way up his bones. It's slow and possessive, suggestive, promising warmth and comfort, so enticing in its familiarity.)

(It's a hissing voice, the wind of Faeri and yet harsher, hotter. The drip-drip-drip of adamas, like a seraph blade taking a life of its own.)

(The entire clearing has taken a life of its own, and it embraces him like a ghost, drawing him into his arms by slithering its way into his lungs. Every breath is heady with blood and roses abloom, sugar and summer rain. The slightest hint of a burnt-out match.)

(Something Kit and yet not, uncomfortably so.)

(It knocks the breath out of him, the strength of the power, the raw weight of it sitting on his lungs. It knocks his legs out from under him, too, sending him crashing against a tree before Jem stumbles them both upright, alarm dotting his scarred cheekbones.)

(Ash's head is spinning so hard, feeling light as paper and intoxicated, that he barely catches Jem saying, "Go, get our boy. I've got him. I've got him.")

(He doesn't catch Tessa's response. Just Jem trying to get his attention, trying to ask him what's wrong, applying healing runes over and over.)

(Just the way the clearing's whispers all converge into the same thing: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I love you, I love you.)

(He doesn't catch anything beyond the way the world blurs.)

(He does catch Tessa's scream, though, horror and fear and pain. The most tortured scream he's heard in maybe all his life. A wail, really.)

(Ash struggles against the haze taking over him, struggles against Jem, straining toward the clearing, and Jem follows, because his better judgement is clouded by his desperation.)

(And when he sees the blood, hears Drusilla's screams and Tessa's frantic words, he feels Jem's arm fall away from him.)

(He feels the world fall down on him.)

(What have you done, he asks nobody and gets no answer.)

At the heart of the corpse of this battle, innocence wails.

Kit lays in the middle of a copse turned into an inferno by his power, pale flames shivering along the trees and scorching their way through the earth, fading gently along with his rage. Washed out by his relief, by the thought he's dead, he's dead, until only the ashes fluttering to the ground and the blackened remains could tell of what had happened there.

(What am I gonna tell Ash? Kit thinks, remembering the way Ash would have done anything for Janus, the way green eyes sparkled with affection around him.)

(The thought makes cold dread pool in his spine, a hurt so real that it almost capsizes his lungs.)

(Or maybe that's the sword.)

Emma's hands flutter around where Cortana sticks out of his body, crimson beginning to darken its inscription in wet, dark streaks. They're shaking, he notices, bloodstained hands that took Janus's life easily, not in revenge, but in protection.

(Bloodstained hands that had included him in that protection, brown eyes widening and bursting with primal horror as the illusion rippled, faded, and the truth was revealed.)

(As Kit held Janus in place with a hand around Phaesphoros at his neck, blood dripping down the black blade and Kit's neck, tendrils of white energy spreading like veins and locking them together, just as Cortana ran them both through.)

(He'd deceived her. Illusions were such tricky things, hardly instinctive the way destruction and fire were to him, but it was easy to fool the mind while in battle. It was so focused on surviving, so focused on eliminating its enemy, sometimes it failed to realize that something was amiss.)

(And so when Kit's blood sprays over her front and the grass, over their feet—Converse and combat boots, their lives themselves summarized through footwear—and his body fades back into existence right in front of her eyes, all he does is smile with bloody teeth and say, "I'm sorry.)

(A clean blow from Cortana is as good as a death sentence. Janus died with frightening ease, one of Kit's daggers in his lung and Cortana having crushed right through him. So much rage and so much fire and so much death, and he ended not with a scream, but with a whimper, crawling away to no avail.)

("Ash," he'd said with his last breath, blood slipping between his lips in awful, gurgling sounds. "Ash.")

(And Kit had thought, falling to his knees as Dru screamed at the edge of the clearing—pinned beneath a tree and bleeding as she was, her sword broken in half and her face streaked with blood, panic in her eyes—so you loved him.)

(Janus had loved Ash more than anyone had loved Ash of their own free will; that much, Kit had always known. He'd never doubted that.)

(But he'd also known it was the kind of love that spread like corrosion, withering its way through every nerve-end with pitiful desperation. Janus loved Ash, yes, and he loved him in the terrible ways father did, broken and ruined by their pasts, and inevitably ruining all else, too, like they had been.)

(Janus loved Ash more than anyone had ever loved him, and he would destroy Ash with it, and Ash would let him.)

(He'd destroy the whole world, use Ash to do it, and Ash would let him. Because he thought that was what love was. Because it was all he had.)

(Just like Kit had once thought his father loved him, somehow, because it was all he’d ever known.)

(And Kit thinks, flopping onto his back with a wet cough, lungs filling with fluid, blood gurgling through his mouth and down the sides of his face—I wish you could have loved him right.)

(And isn't that the crux of who Kit and Ash both are, at the end of the day?)

(Johnny, Sebastian, the King, the Queen, Janus. Who else would they add to the list?)

(Kit laughs as Emma's voice registers only as a panicked blur, Dru's screams beginning to melt into memories, the fires dimming.)

"It's okay," Kit tries to say through the globs of blood obstructing his throat, grabbing onto Emma's hands with raw, split-open palms, Phaesphoros having left him oozing black blood. "It's okay."

Emma shoves his shirt up and away as best she can, beginning to press her stele down onto his skin, forcing it to stillness, forcing the lines to be sharp and precise. She pushes it down harshly enough he wonders idly if it'll burn right through his skin, enough for it to be almost as painful as Cortana jostling. He knows better than to squirm away from it, though, and he stills the instinct and gurgles through a moan of pain—I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, she whispers, and he mutters back deliriously, okay, 's okay, 'm alright—as he feels the runes begin to sink in. He knows them, can recognize their tracings upon his skin.

(Mendelin and amissio, siblings meant to keep him alive for as long as possible, meant to keep his body producing a little bit of blood for every drop that sinks into the ground under him.)

(It's interesting. Even now, as he fades in and out of the world, as his body fights against the cumulus of injuries, he can feel the clearing whisper like the land in Faeri does. His power has coated it, has made it come alive, and his blood is feeding it. It is giving it a voice.)

(Kieran will have to clean up his mess. Kit feels a bit bad for him. He should have killed both him and Ash when he had the chance; lord knows his life would be easier if he had.)

(But the fact that he didn't is exactly why Kit gave him the crown that now sits upon his brow.)

"A Silent Brother, get a Silent Brother!" Dru screams from the edge of the clearing, drawing Strength runes and Endurance runes and so many more runes Kit's mind can't entirely piece together right now over her arms, trying to shove the tree off her leg, trying to unpin herself, to help.

Emma jolts, at that, already scrambling to get her feet under her, but there's conflict in her. Dru or Kit? Who does she help? Who does she save right this moment?

"Go!" Dru snarls, face blazing, determination and fury and fear. "I'll be fine, go!"

(Her eyes are wide with desperation. They're feverish with it. Abruptly, Kit thinks of her entire world almost ending so many times. Of her mother taken by disease, her home attacked by Endarkened, her father gone because of Sebastian, her brother and sister stolen from her by the law; of Julian and Emma turned into something not-themselves, of Kit so far away not even touch could ground him, of Ash caught in the web of Janus's love, of Livvy and the Mortal Sword.)

(And he thinks, I'm sorry.)

(It's all he can say to her for becoming another memory that will haunt her at night, another phantom only she can see.)

(For becoming somebody else that left her.)

(And ah, yeah. That's what he'll tell Ash. He'll tell him the truth.)

(I'm sorry.)

"It's okay," Kit says again, as Emma promises she'll come back with help, as she squeezes his fingers tightly enough to break them, saying stay with me, hold on, Kit, I'll be back, I'll be right back.

As her fingers slide through his slippery ones, as she turns away and runs, a blur of gold, Kit's hand begins to fall to the ground and he tells her back, "I'm sorry."

Looking at her back as she runs, torn black gear and bloody skin and swirling runes, he feels oddly reminded of a past not entirely his own. Emma's golden hair looks red for but a moment and she looks smaller, somehow, but just as bright. Kit blinks hazy eyes and it's just her, just Emma, and then it's just the mouth of the clearing, ash falling like memories.

Ash falling like slivers of silver, the moon itself peeling and pooling around them in piles of filth. It'd be pretty if it were snow. It'd be poetic if he weren't dying in front of one of his best friends, as she shouts and begs and breaks her own bones trying to get to him.

In the light, it's the same shade of grey as Ty's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Kit mutters again, tears beginning to bead his own.

(Ty, he thinks, with a regret as deep as the ocean itself. Ty, whom he's loved for so long he can't imagine stopping; Ty, whom he would have followed anywhere; Ty, whom he failed.)

(Ty, who resented him and hated him and forgave him; Ty, who calls him Watson without the easy familiarity of their time in the Institute, but still pronounces it like the title belongs only to Kit, reluctant though it may be.)

(Ty, who will still choose Livvy. Kit, who can't blame him, who has come to expect it, who's learning to understand that he can't save him.)

(Kit can pay the consequences for Ty's choices, the same way he would the ones of his own. But he can't stop him. He can love him, but the truth is that maybe he'll never have him.)

(He can love and be loved by him, and understand that Ty will burn the world down for a chance to see Livvy's smile even once.)

(Kit was right to stop him. He was wrong to help him. Even if he understood the why.)

(Now, though, he wonders what he'd do if it was Mina he lost. Tessa. Jem.) 

(Ash.)

(He wonders what atrocities he'd commit, what rules he'd break.)

(He thinks he'd shatter through them all. He thinks nobody would be able to save him, then.)

(And Kit thinks, staring at the spot where the smoke meets the sky, bronze as though to summon wicked powers, as though to rouse one last chance for rebirth—please don't kill yourself trying to save what can't be saved, Sherlock.)

(They'd miss you.)

(I'd miss you.)

(...Will you miss me?)

In the clearing, it's the body that plunges a hand into Ash's chest and squeezes his heart to pieces.

It used to belong to his friend, once, he thinks. It's hard to tell. Not because of the blood, no, nor because of the way he seems empty, drained, like someone sucked the life out of him.

It's because of how fragile he looks, crumpled onto his side, weak and small and looking distinctly like a child. Golden eyes have gone wide with fear and dull, duller than he's ever seen them, dull like...like death.

Kneeling before Janus's body, empty of the life it never lacked, even when it lacked almost everything else, Ash feels spectacularly screwed.

Screwed out of today, out of tomorrow, out of every day he's lived and every day he's to live.

Screwed by life itself, actually, because Janus was the one thing he'd ever truly had. The one thing he had left. The one thing he'd cherished.

And now he's a dried up, crimson-dyed husk, like a withered flower on the Seelie Court. Empty, dead and gone.

His hand is reaching for Phaesphoros even like this. His fingertips were centimeters away, really, close enough to brush the cool, familiar metal. Close enough his breath might have fogged up against the hilt. There's a metaphor there somewhere, certainly. A really good one, even.

Ash can't grasp it, though. He can't grasp a damn thing. Feathers tremble their way free from his mangled wings and fall into the pool of coagulating blood. Fall over the hole pierced straight through Janus's solar plexus. Fall and fall like Ash's tears don't.

All he can do is stare, hands sunk deep into the grass, like maybe it'll make this right. Like it'll make sense of it.

But Janus is still gone.

Ash can't touch him. Won't. If he does, he might crumble to dust before him. He might fade. It might end. It might be over.

(It already is. It already is. It has been for a while.)

(It has been for a long time.)

Drusilla has stopped screaming. Or maybe Ash can't hear her over the white noise that led him, staggering and possessed, to his knees before Janus. Maybe Tessa is wailing still, but he can't tell.

Maybe—

The clearing is shifting. Changing. Just a bit. Like the ground under them—him, under him, is moving just a bit.

Enough to draw his eyes away from Janus—his body, from Janus's body, fuck—and the sight a little further away.

Ash had been breathing before. Curious. He'd thought he hadn't, but he was wrong.

He was wrong, because he stops breathing now, when his eyes meet Kit's.

They're the same startling blue they were the first time Ash saw him in Faeri, commanding all of his attention with ease, even if Ash could disregard it just as simply. Glimmering with the same power, swirling with the same recognition.

Except they're wide this time, wet with tears and hazy with pain. His face is pale, lacking in all color, quivering with strain. He looks almost unrecognizable. Almost.

(As it is, Ash would recognize him blind, deaf, dead. He'd recognize him anywhere. Anywhere.)

The scorched dirt and grass around him are blackened with blood, reflecting the blue flames of magic Tessa is helplessly pressing into his stomach, around where Cortana is sticking out, though it doesn't seem to be doing much. Though it seems to be a last ditch effort, the kind Ash knows for a fact she has to try.

He looks ethereal, already half-gone, and still Ash can feel his presence buzz. So much more softly than usual, a whisper to his usual scream.

Ash can't describe the feeling that strikes him, then, can't think of a thing other than no.

"Ash," Kit gurgles, the sound wet and barely coherent, blood slipping from behind his teeth. His hand lifts and reaches toward Ash, bloodstained and shaky.

It's his right hand. His right hand. The currents between them, the ones that always pull them together, they whisper, thicken like they always do.

(Ash sees his Enkeli rune, over the slow jump of his pulse, because it's his right hand.)

And Ash, who can't get his feet under him, who isn't sure he'll ever be able to rise from this, isn't sure he'll ever be able to recover—

He crawls. Hands and knees in the dirt, in the grass, dragging over every burn, smearing blood over every place where Janus and Emma and Drusilla and Kit bled.

Over every place where someone he loved died.

When he reaches him, Ash doesn't know what he'll do. Attack him? Yell at him? Kill him?

(Crumble?)

He isn't sure of a thing, really, except that Tessa is crying and pleading fiercely with Kit, and that he can hear Jem and Drusilla speaking urgently, panickedly.

And that Kit is bleeding out, and he can feel it soaking his breeches as he crawls to his side, as he grabs that trembling hand and—

And holds, gently, gently, because his own tremble just as bad. Because he's too spent for rage. Because he doesn't want to hurt. Not Kit. Not Kit.

(He's lost too much to lose Kit.)

Kit looks at him with wide eyes, tears beginning to spill, and tries, wheezing and trembling, to speak. To say what he's broadcasted to the roots of this place, in his desperation.

(I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.)

"Stay alive," Ash says, his voice barely a croak, heavy with tears that won't fall and hollow with loss, with a violent grief.

(Kit's hand twitches in his, bloody palm against bloody palm, cuts against burns. And then his fingers curl around Ash's and tighten.)

Ash digs his stele out with useless hands and burns healing runes on every inch of Kit he can reach, every single one he can remember, until his hands tremble too harshly, until the runes are sloppy and fading and useless, until his sight is too blurry to make out a damn thing.

Until his body finally gives out, shoulder to shoulder with Kit, hands still curled tightly.

He hears voices. Panic. Pleading.

But he focuses only on Kit's breathing, slow and shallow, and his blood dripping.

And he says, heads almost knocking together on the grass—

"This is what I saw."

(Kit's breath hitches, for a moment. A terrifying moment. Ash thinks, for a moment, let me die if he does.)

(And then it evens out into laughter, the worst kind, and Ash thinks, stay, stay.)

(I ran, I walked, I crawled. So stay alive.)

(He can see the back of Janus's golden head. It looks nothing like Kit's. It looks nothing like he remembers.)

(Maybe that's a good thing. But not today. Not today.)

The world swims, crimson and blue, the grass under him gray with ashes.

How fitting. How very fitting.

The last thing Ash sees is Tiberius skidding to a stop at the mouth of the clearing, looking for all the world like the world has crashed down upon his head. The heron necklace dangles from his hand, crushed and charred, the pain of a thousand deaths in his eyes, tears running ceaselessly down his cheeks.

There is no Livia over his shoulder. There is no Livia at all.

(The grass withers under them, the trees groaning and creaking, the whispers dying.)

(There's power in death, maybe.)

(And as the flowers die and the earth sacrifices, Ash hears Kit's breath strengthen.)

The Blackthorn family immediately after the war, a summary:

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Silent City is unusually crowded. Granted, it's perhaps too big to ever be actually crowded, but it's close enough.

People heal, people live, people die. Whatever the outcome, nephilim grieve. There's always someone to grieve. Always.

Some are luckier than others.

Mark and Helen hold a silent and faithful vigil by Aline’s bedside, the witchlight’s faint glow casting shadows over her pale, drawn face. Helen tracks every change frantically, eyelashes ever-shifting and eyes wide. She holds Aline’s hand in both of her own, tracing her marriage rune, whispering pleas that sound more like prayers.

In return, Mark holds her and says, she will come back to you. Just you wait. We always do.

(Ultimately, it’s as good as prophecy.)

Aline recovers swiftly and steadily, color returning to her cheeks and strength gentling back into her limbs. Her wounds begin to close, her bandages less and less bloody with every change, her skin growing warmer. As they wait anxiously, Cristina appears every hour, frowning and wan with concern, carrying news from the rest of the family.

Ty is distraught but iratzes have carried away all physical hurts they can find, although his cries are ceaseless. Dru’s fractures were severe but they are healing well; nevertheless, she waits impatiently for Julian to wake, for Aline to recover, for news about Ash and Kit. Emma is mostly healed, although not even Raziel himself could rouse her from Julian’s bedside, where she whispers all sorts of things to him, waiting hopefully for him to respond.

She even bears news of Tavvy, being cared for by Maryse in Cirenworth, along with the rest of the children. Although afraid for his siblings, he was safe and well, as Magnus could attest to, having dropped in on them as soon as he was able.

(The only person she has nothing to say about, no news and no comfort, is Kieran.)

(He had walked through the portal to the Faerilands after ensuring Aline and Julian made it to the Silent Brothers, with one last, lingering look at both Mark and Cristina, and they had yet to hear anything from him. Then again, he now had an entire country to run—he had his hands full enough.)

(Nevertheless, Mark and Cristina exchange sad, heavy looks. Their longing is strong, a wound that never softens and never scars, pulsing for their attention at all times. Reminding them that they can have Kieran, but only in increments, only in bursts. Nevermind that he’d have them forever and ever if he was able. Nevermind that they never want to leave his side, not for a moment.)

(Nevermind it at all.)

And then there’s the news about Julian.

Unconscious and boneless as tofu, he hung in the balance between life and death, running a fierce fever and breathing in patchy, awful heaves. Mark could see it in Cristina’s eyes, haunted and frightened; the truth of Julian’s precarious state. As she murmured, respecting the unspoken vow of gentle tones that the fear of the room seemed to carry, Mark could see it was taking everything in her to keep herself together, not only for herself, but for them. Because they needed her.

Mark yearned to sweep her into his arms and soothe her, to tell her not to carry their pains and focus on herself, for she was just as tired and just as scared. For she, too, had somebody whose return she hoped for breathlessly.

(But he’d promised Helen, and so he pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek, instead, sweeping her hair back and saying, I love you.)

(What more could he say, when love was his one absolute truth?)

She smiled at them, though, strained lines of exhaustion, and dropped a kiss to Mark’s hair and squeezed a hand to Helen’s wrist gently, promising to return soon.

As she went, Mark thought about Julian, his baby brother who never seemed small, who had gone and grown into something strong and insurmountable and hurt when Mark had been forced to go. And he thought of him on Helen’s back, pale and so very frail, delicate like paper as Mark took him into his arms, limp like a ragdoll.

He yearned to join Julian’s side and hold his hand, brush his hair back and sing him lullabies, even if they were off-key. Anything to give him the comfort he’d had to go without as a child who had grown up too soon. 

Anything to soothe him just a bit, as he waited for him to come back, as he always, always did. Julian had never left them, not once, and surely he wouldn’t start now.

(That’d be beyond preposterous, after all, and what were they to do without him? A life without Julian was no life at all for the Blackthorns, Mark knew with utter certainty. A life without Julian would be a hell none of them would be able to endure.)

(If they lost Julian, Mark feared the truth that he knew—they’d all crumble to dust, and nothing would rouse them back up.)

(They had barely recovered from Livvy—if one could even call surviving by the very skin of their teeth recovery—and that’d been with Julian painstakingly pulling them together as he had since their father had died. Without him...)

(Mark banished the thought, and pulled further into his side, pressing a kiss to her temple.)

(Julian would come back to them, just like they would go back to him. They would all come back to each other, come back together. They always did.)

(Always.)

So they wait.

And Mark is right, in the end.

Aline comes awake with fluttering lashes and hazy eyes, hand twitching in Helen’s and already reaching for her clumsily before she’s even opened her mouth around her wife’s name. It’s alright, though, for Helen is just as quick to notice, tears dripping down her dirt-stained cheeks in furious lines as she draws Aline’s hands into her own, holding on like a prayer, like a lifeline.

Her entire body quivers with the force of her gratitude, her relief, love pouring out of her battered form in torrents. Her forehead presses against the lock of their hands, battle-weary knuckles and fingers against porcelain skin, and Mark hears the litany, too low for even nephilim ears, but not too low for him.

Aline must feel it, for her entire face softens, so immediately smudging into gentle adoration that Mark looks away.

He presses a kiss to Helen’s hair and gently detangles himself from her, saying, you’ll be okay.

He waits for her to nod, barely perceptible, and then nods at Aline, who looks at him with steady gratitude and the affection she holds for each and every one of the Blackthorns.

As he goes, he still hears Helen’s words, her quiet sobs.

(Hears her saying thank you, thank you, thank you.)

(You came back to me, you came back to me, thank you.)

In the room where Julian fights to stay with them, Dru pokes another iratze onto the bruised skin of her thigh.

Sat at the foot of his bed, where she can keep track of every move he makes, Dru has her leg spread out before her. It’s not nearly as grotesque as it was back at the clearing, bone poking through swollen flesh in bloody bursts, twisted at awful, odd angles. Quite like Ash’s wings had been as he staggered into the clearing, actually, blood dripping down in thick, ceaseless streams, feathers falling and cartilage scorched in more lines than she could count.

(The thought makes her heart drop to her feet, not for the first time today, tears pricking her eyes. She tries to swallow it all back into place, digging her stele in more harshly.)

(Crying won’t do anything for anyone right now. They need her to keep her cool. She needs to be patient.)

(Ash will probably be okay. He heals fast, faster than any of them, Kieran aside. This is nothing. It’s nothing.)

(The Silent Brothers have performed greater miracles than healing...whatever was wrong with him. They can fix this. They can fix him.)

(They have to.)

The humming from the bed distracts Dru enough for her to lift the stele and go back to playing with it instead of drawing iratzes. Emma.

Emma, who lays curled on her side beside Julian, holding his hand and counting every beat of his pulse, mouthing the numbers one by one. They keep her sane, Dru thinks, like the stele does Dru and the pleas to Helen. It’s something to hold onto.

It’s something.

The hums are gentle, tunes Julian has hummed to her and the rest of their siblings for years when they couldn’t sleep, tunes he must have hummed to Emma, too. Hoarse with tears and pitchy with exhaustion, but soothing, soothing enough that Dru bites her tongue against another wave of tears.

Emma brushes away bits of Julian’s hair, sticking to his bandages and skin with sweat, the move unspeakably tender.

She waits.

They all do.

(The humming and the soft weeping are the only sounds aside from Jules’s shallow pants.)

(Somehow, that makes it much, much worse.)

Ty sits against the side of the bed, a tight little ball of misery, clutching the heron necklace he’d worn on his neck for years in his hands still. It’s ruined, entirely beyond repair, and yet his grip is still careful, cherishing.

(He’d been crying when he walked through the door, Kit’s blood on his shirt and necklace in his hand. He still is every now and again, on and off, and nothing can console him. They’ve tried.)

(But it’s the same grief as when Livvy was gone, desperate and feverish and bone-deep, and so she does what she can, and leaves him be.)

(Not even Raziel himself could make him leave Julian right now, though, so he stays, and they let him, because they're family.)

Now, she does what she can and waits for her body to heal, for her brother to wake up, for Aline to recover, for Ash and Kit to pull through.

She has a life of waiting under her belt. Waiting for her mother to get better, even though she never does. Waiting for her tears to dry up the day she realizes her father won’t ever get up. Waiting for Mark and Helen to come back home. Waiting at home with Tavvy in her arms as her family fought a war.

And now, even though she’s the one fighting wars, even though she was in that clearing when the be-all-end-all battle came, she’s still stuck waiting.

(She’s still helpless.)

(She was helpless under the tree, too, even as she broke her own body trying to get out from under it. She was helpless to watch what Emma couldn’t see, a scream in her throat as she watched her run both Janus and Kit through. She was helpless to watch as Kit bled out, growing hazier and hazier to her, and then to watch as Tessa tried to keep him alive.)

(Haven’t we all lost enough, she thought as Ash fell to his side, limp and still and awfully pale.)

(When Jem got her out of the tree, she had seen the thought reflected in his eyes.)

Footsteps rouse them all, heads snapping up and around, and right there is Cristina, hand in hand with Mark. She’d left to get them something to eat, having returned with fruit and crackers, the most any of them will be able to stomach.

She’s been their pillar, once more, helping Dru move and keeping Ty hydrated with remarkable patience and rubbing soothing circles into Emma’s back. She whispered comforting nothings in Spanish, her voice an anchor, and waited with them, exposing herself to their pain in the hopes of easing it in the slightest bit.

Dru looked at her and saw nothing but family.

She looked at Mark looking at them, eyes taking in everything with pain, mouth thin with it. She watches as he steels himself, a mask of calm as fragile as Julian looks right now smoothing his face, determination hardening along his shoulders.

And then he squeezes Cristina’s hand and does what he has to.

(He coaxes Ty to eat, though how he does it in the end, Dru has no idea. The point is that he does it. It’s not much, more nibbling than anything, but it’s something.)

(He bargains, pleads, and then outright leverages Julian against Emma to get her to sit up and eat. How will she help him, take care of him, protect him, if she can’t keep herself healthy and strong? How will they protect their family?)

(Emma glares balefully, resentment in the line of her mouth and gratitude in the stubborn scrunch of her brows, and snatches her share of the crackers up.)

(Cristina smiles, bright and relieved, and Mark cracks a grin that’s all tremors.)

(They eat in silence, too heavy with fear, with the beginnings of grief, for speech.)

Aline is healing, Mark says, and Dru thinks, at least some of us are, blue eyes and black wings flashing behind her eyes.

(Truthfully, She has no idea if they’ll make it. Last time she saw them, Ash was being carried off by the Silent Brothers, Cortana still in his chest and hand loosening from around Ash's as he, too, was carried away.)

(Ash had looked vulnerable in a way Dru had thought impossible for him, face slack and body raw, crushed by a threat she had been unable to protect him from. She had sworn to herself she’d never let anyone harm her friends and family again, and yet, even after he’d chosen them, had turned against everything he’d ever known for them, she’d been unable to help.)

(Dru bites her tongue and thinks of something else.

(Kit had had color in his cheeks. There had been a certain life to his limbs, as the dead leaves fell over Cortana and stuck to it with the darkening blood. There had been, until they began placing runes on him, clarity in his eyes. More than there had been since he fell to the ground.)

(Dru is pretty sure it was a result of the clearing. Or, rather, what was left of it.)

(In the time it’d taken Jem to get her out from under the tree, right before the Silent Brothers arrived, Kit had done something. What, Dru didn’t know. Maybe she’d be better off asking Kieran. Maybe he’d have an explanation for what she saw.)

(Namely, the way the clearing had died around them.)

(Abruptly and without a warning, the trees had withered around them, the trunks hollowing out and darkening into thin, twisted things, as though a giant had sucked them dry. All the green had fled the grass and the bushes, leaving it gray and ugly, crumbling to ash between her fingertips. The flowers had crumbled to dust under the wind’s gentle blows.)

(And Kit had inhaled, the first real breath since Cortana cut through him, and the whole clearing settled into darkness. Something in it, something she hadn’t noticed was magic, left. Died.)

(And Kit was better for it, looking far more liable to stay alive than he did ten seconds ago, among the empty husks and the ash of what it took.)

(Dru knew that, if it kept Kit alive, she'd burn a dozen clearings down.)

(If it kept Ash and Kit and Julian alive, she’d burn it all down herself.)

(Just please, she thought, staring at Julian, pale like Kit had been as he bled out in front of her, fragile and small as Ash had looked. She was helpless. Please don't take anything else from me.)

Mark wraps an arm around her, firm and reassuring, and looks at her with steady eyes that almost hide the fear and the pain.

We will be alright, he says, with utter certainty. Like Kieran speaks. Simply and softly, though not necessarily kindly.

Mark sounds kind, though. Mark always sounds kind.

And Dru chooses to believe him, because he’s just as afraid as she is, and leans into him.

(Julian wakes up the next morning, embracing all of them with trembling arms, holding them to his chest like he can ensure they never come to any harm ever again that way.)

(His eyes are unsteady, unfocused, but as he squeezes Dru and positively crushes Ty into himself, letting him cry into his neck for as long as he can bear, she thinks, welcome back.)

(As Emma laughs tearily into his back, Mark nuzzling into Julian’s shoulder, Cristina having ran to tell Helen, Dru thinks.)

(She wonders about Kit through her violent relief. Wonders if Tessa is waiting by his bedside, humming like Emma had been; if Jem had sat by him like Mark, staring at Julian like a hawk, refusing sleep until Julian's eyes began to shift behind his lids.)

(If, just maybe, she's another one of the grieving, wailing people who have lost something irreplaceable.)

(Wonders about Ash, knowing he has no one to be by his side, no one to fret over him and hold their breath with every shift he gives, hoping, hoping—)

(He’ll have them. He will. He already has Dru and Kit. They’ll work something out, they always do.)

(All he has to do is survive.)

(Both of them. Survive.)

(She hopes against hope that she doesn't lose them, too.)

(She hopes and hopes and hopes, for Ash and for Kit and for herself.)

(It's all she can do.)

Jem returns Cortana to Emma five hours later, his face drawn with exhaustion and a terror so raw Dru remembers what it feels like in her chest. The terror of losing family.

The terror of uncertainty.

“It’s not your fault,” he assures Emma quietly when she tries to explain, tries to apologize. “Kit is a Herondale. We’d have better luck trying to stop the sun from going down than trying to stop any of them.”

“Will he be okay?” Dru asks into the silence that follows, wanting to wipe the fond melancholy that’s always just on the wrong side of agony on Jem’s face.

Her answer is the way it falls further, even as his eyes blaze. “They are unsure. But Tessa isn’t. She’s absolutely certain he’ll be okay.”

“And you?” Emma asks.

Here, Jem smiles. Not very glad, not very wide, but fierce and knowing, hope so strong it burns. “He’ll survive. We always do.”

Dru believes him.

She has to.

(She asks him about Ash, before he goes. She expects apologetic silence, maybe a promise to find out, because she doubts he’s inquired about it.)

(Instead, something softens in his face, and he says, “They’re keeping him asleep. It’ll help him heal. With time, he’ll recover. Both of them will.”)

(She can’t stop her tears this time, lapping them up with her sleeves, but when he gently squeezes her shoulder in comfort, she can’t bring herself to feel anything but relief.)

(We’ll be okay. We will.)

(We have to be.)

The Carstairs take Ash in during the immediate aftermath of the war.

It's not entirely purposeful, initially.

After the clearing, it takes Ash four days to wake up.

The Silent Brothers keep him knocked out via Sleep runes, in a sort of magical medical coma.

(They tell Jem it's to speed up his recovery. That, as far as they know, it's the simplest way for Ash's body to cope with the damage and mend, given the extent of the abuse it underwent. That it would help his unique physiology kick in, surely, given that he seemed to heal at an accelerated rate; something the iron had impeded. Something Jem does not doubt they will file away for future reference, were Ash to become troublesome.)

(In truth, Jem was a Silent Brother and a nephilim long enough to know that Ash's unconscious state is a lot less about them wanting him to heal swiftly and a lot more about them being wary of him.)

(He can't fault them for that. He himself hardly knows what Ash will do when he wakes up and realizes that he chose their side, when he had no real reason to, and lost it all in one fell swoop in return.)

(Just because it was the right thing to do doesn't mean it didn't cost Ash everything he cared about. That was a big loss to ask a teenager to cope with. Especially one such as Ash.)

(Briefly, Jem entertains telling Alec of the matter, seeing as he's the head of the Clave in its totality now. If anybody can sway the will of the Silent Brothers, it is him, however mildly.)

(He discards the thought just as quickly.)

(Sleep is a mercy for someone who will wake up to his world torn to pieces. Ash will wake up to mourning runes upon white cloth and funerals and ash. He will wake up to loss, heavy and long. He will wake up alone.)

(Better he sleeps for as long as he can, before he inevitably has to face the wounds war has left behind.)

(So Jem asks to be notified when he wakes—I will answer for him, he says, just as he did with Kit—and goes back to his equally unconscious son.)

(Kit's sleep has little to do with runes, and plenty to do with the fact that he'd drained every drop of energy he had left turning the tide of the war time and time again, with little to no rest. Taking out whole fields, going into Faeri time and time again, getting hunted through Idris and chased through way too many places to count them.)

(He'd used his abilities more in the past days than he had in all his years with them. That took a toll. An enormous one, in fact, particularly because Kit had forced himself into some semblance of control and dipped his toes into the true well of his power. He had soon found himself drowning in it.)

(And now here they were, Tessa and Jem, watching over their son as he recovered from the depth of his power. There was color in his cheeks now, blooming fast and steady, and his breathing came easy and smooth.)

(Nevertheless, he was much too still. Nevertheless, he gave no signs of waking. Nevertheless, his healing fluctuated.)

(They didn't know when he'd wake up. If he'd wake up.)

(The things he'd done, how he'd done them—opening Pandora's box without a rope to hold him had cost him. He hung in the balance now, somewhere where they could not help him.)

(But Tessa knew that he'd wake, with a mother's fierce heart, and Jem believed he would see Kit smile again, with a father's ferocious certainty.)

(And so they sat and they waited, watching Kit's veins run pale and bright occasionally, watching as he became something other, even more so than he'd already been.)

(Watching as he accepted it.)

(There was power in his veins, the likes of which nobody matched and the likes of which nobody should have. Kit did not want it. He did not like it.)

(But he would come back to them, even if it meant accepting that he was the last of the First Heir, and he would live only with her power pumping through his heart.)

(Jem thinks back to how the clearing had withered around them, the finality of it, and tells Tessa that Kit has already accepted what he is.)

(Tessa smiles and says, now comes the who, doesn't it?)

The first thing Ash notices upon waking is that he's not in the Faerilands.

In Faeri, the air is crisp and pleasant, carrying with it a sweet scent and a lofty cheer. There's flowers and spice in it, traces of nostalgia in the butterscotch and the roses, the pine needles and the earthy trails no common nose could catch. The power of the land has a scent, the most enticing swirls of color to it, the kind of wondrous curses that thickened in the Unseelie Court.

It's idyllic, almost, though Ash knows better. No thing in Faeri, no matter how lovely, was ever without its thorns. Never without its harm.

(Not even Kit was exempt from that.)

Even so, it's much like the air high up in the clouds; fresh and addictive. It's thin and cold and roiling in his lungs, the illusionary press of freedom, and it's like yin fen to the caged. It's the thing that almost led Ash away astray more than once.

(It's the thing he'd most wanted to show Janus, once upon a time. The thing he had gotten to show Drusilla, watching condensation thicken in her blue-streaked hair and her long lashes as she clung to him, casting trembling shadows over the vivacious wonder in her ocean eyes.)

(The stars had reflected in them, giving new shape to all the constellations Janus had told him about, and for a moment, Ash thought, how beautiful.)

But the air here is damp and heavy, pushing down on him like rocks, a burden as heavy as any crushing his lungs. It gives Ash the impression he might be in a cave, filled with the beginnings of mold and the tepid scent of parchment. He has a moment to wrinkle his nose and try to hide it in the pillow he's laying on, sheets scratchy and stiff, before he catches the ashy smell of ancient bones, so pungent it almost cloaks the faint scent of blood. So domineering that Ash can almost outrun the overpowering tang of iron before it burns through his nose.

And then he gags on it, struck like a knife to the throat.

That wakes him up.

He's up and crouched by the bed in a snap second, hand reaching for a sword that isn't there and touching instead raw, rubbery material where feathers out to be. Which is more alarming still, because his wings aren't supposed to be up there.

Ash hesitantly, slowly touches along the arch of the bones, finding them set and stiff with a material he can't recognize. They're no longer crooked and mangled, no longer oozing and raw, but he can feel how they've been forced into a semblance of their usual, proper shape against their current will, with varied results. He can feel the thick bandages and the places where runes did not suffice.

Memories come back to him in sharp, swift bursts. The pungent scent of iron and burnt flesh. Tiberius and his inclement gaze. Tessa and Jem and their ferocious will. Power strong enough to knock the breath from his lungs. Ash and scorched grass. Blood and gold, Cortana the blade of mercy and—

And Janus, golden gaze hollow and mouth coagulating with red. His entire body pooled in it, really, a body that had been so imposing now drained and small, fragile as porcelain. His fingers, graceful musician's fingers even with all their scars and violence, had curled with longing, so very close to Phaesphoros. All of him had curved with desperation, the very same one that roared within Ash.

All of Janus had curved and stiffened into something other than what he had been, because he was gone.

There's a clatter, steel on steel against rock, against skin, and there's sensation in Ash's ankle, sharp and strange. Tender and yielding, like the bone has somehow softened while he slept. He looks down at it, uncomprehending, and finds more bandages, vigid bruises peeking out from under them.

(Iron. Iratzes never work quite as well as they ought to on him when it's iron.)

There are chains, too. Manacles wrap tightly around both his ankles, loose enough to allow for the breathing of his bandages and yet still uncomfortably close to his skin. They're not iron, that much he knows; he'd know if they were. But they're certainly something, because when he tugs, reflexive and utterly dispassionate, there's resistance that only comes with a power. They're tied around the foot of the bed, pooling on the stone floor in glimmering coils.

(He has a moment to be overcome with bitterness, because he's caged and at someone else's command even amongst the so-called "good guys.")

(It had sounded right on Drusilla's tongue, eyes burning with certainty as she told Ash that he'd become one of the bad guys if he didn't choose to do the right thing for himself at some point.)

(But Ash is still Ash, no matter what he does, no matter where he goes. The Queen's son. A Morgenstern. A weapon. A prisoner.)

(A thing.)

Warmth, thick and strange, pools between his toes and under his soles as the silence blurs into white noise, his surroundings blurring in and out of focus. Try as he might, Ash can't keep himself aware, can't keep himself focused. All he can do is look down at his feet and try to see anything but bloody bodies in a clearing, blond hair and golden eyes and a rune over a quivering, too-slow pulse.

Ash nudges half a step forward, desperate to put distance between himself and the way Kit had said his name like a plea, the way Janus had looked so miserable, and feels vaguely surprised as he realizes there's more than chains by his feet.

There are blades, their blades—his blades, which must have been resting against the bed before Ash jostled them and sent them clattering toward the floor. He's managed to make a mess of them, too, stepping on their sharp edges, blackened steel growing slick and shiny with blood.

That doesn't make much sense. In fact, nothing makes much sense at all.

(He keeps seeing golden eyes, hollow and staring up into the sky with a look of distinct anguish, preserved in eternum in death.)

(He keeps thinking, what have I done. Where have you gone.)

(Don't leave me.)

(Still, it's too late, and he's alone now as he was before Janus came along.)

(He's alone as he always will be.)

He picks the swords up, mechanical and easy, and cradles them to his chest like the most precious of babes. He can feel their edges sinking softly into his sweater, not quite cutting through but just close enough; he can feel the blood seeping through the fabric, warming uncomfortably against his skin.

(He can feel the phantom of Janus's blood under his knees and against his knuckles. It'd been hot against the grass, thick and dark, growing gelatinous with time.)

(How long had he been dead before Ash arrived?)

(Had he suffered?)

(Had he been afraid? Had he screamed and wailed? Begged and pleaded? Fought until the very last second? Remained silent and spiteful to the bitter end?)

(Had he said something before he died? Anything? What had his last words been?)

(Had he thought of Ash when he realized he wouldn't survive? Had he found it in himself to care?)

(Had he found it in himself to want to see him one last time?)

(Fuck.)

Ash sinks into the bed with clumsy steps backwards, the back of his knees clattering against the wooden frame harshly. All his usual grace has deserted him, leaving him with leaden bones and thick, coagulating blood.

He feels heavy as rocks as he collapses onto the thin mattress. The hilts knock together with a sharp, awful sound, his feet sliding harshly against the stone floors, scuffing slick with blood.

Ash has never felt heavier. He's never felt stranger. He's never felt weaker.

He's never felt more helpless or more alone.

His wings are broken and charred and he's grounded, trapped. Chained. His back is burnt and oozing into the bandages tightening around his torso, healing at a rate that was much too slow for one such as him. His ankle is a mess, raised welts and burning indents tightening into skin, bruises darkening the flesh.

Ash's body is one big, heaving wound. It's a rotten mess.

He is a rotten mess, and not a particularly interesting one, either. He's as unsightly as they come, and he can't even bring himself to care, staring down at his blood on the stone floor and trying to blink away Janus's body on it.

It was grass. Grass. Not stone. This wasn't real. Ash's mind was playing tricks on him. Preying on his weakness, on his vulnerability, like everyone had for as long as he'd been alive. It had been grass and it had been greying with ash and blackening with charring and blood. It had looked nothing like stone.

It had looked like the vague memory of his throat getting cut open felt. Hazy and sharp all at once, brutally painful and yet wholly numb. It'd felt like having iron injected straight into his veins, burning him from the inside out in one cool, ruthless go.

His eyes had been so, so empty. The molten gold of them had gone queasy and flat, utterly dull, utterly hollow. They'd never looked so empty. Not even at his worst.

(Ash wonders which of the two he hates most. The way Janus's face had been frozen in misery even in death, or the way his eyes, which had been Ash's sole anchor for so long, had filmed over like the eyes of so many others.)

(He thinks he doesn't want to answer that question.)

(Not ever.)

(But he does know the answer.)

(The answer is both and neither.)

(The answer is that the worst bit had been the utter silence of him.)

(No measured, poignant breaths, a pattern like that of a warrior or a dancer. No heartbeat, over-fast with angel blood and yet still easy somehow, still graceful, even in the face of death.)

(No nothing.)

(Just ugly, empty silence.)

(The same silence there is now, in the City of Bones and its aptly named silent halls.)

(He can't hear anything. Not even his own breaths. Not even his own heartbeat. Nothing beyond the very slow drip of his blood down his skin, beyond the gentlest of hums of Heosphoros against him.)

(Nothing but the roar of his grief.)

When he was finally free of his father's grasp, hand-shaped bruises that went unseen on his pale skin, for they were invisible even to himself, Ash had thought, now I can go back home.

He hadn't stopped to think that home was a concept that'd fall dismally short from what he remembered, what he imagined. Home was an empty house and a piano that went untouched, collecting dust, and jokes that fell rather flat time and time again. Nobody picked those up, either.

Home was the silence of Janus's absence and the silence of his presence, too. The hollow where Sebastian and Thule had taken something with their blood-red fury and their poisonous fog, leaving Janus burst open and only sewn half shut, so that everything that was carried in inevitably slipped out.

Home was the reminder that no matter what Ash did, he could not fix the harm that had already been done. He could love Janus, and be loved by him in turn, fiercely and without a moment's doubt. But he could not fix the broken mirror that reflected them.

(He could not save Janus, just like nobody had saved him.)

When they'd left Thule, Ash had had everything he'd ever needed. He'd had a friend, somebody to love him as he loved them, and a home, and his wings, and he'd had the swords and he'd had hope.

(Hope so bright and so strong it'd left blisters along his skin. They popped with every tiny, silly little disillusion. And then they cracked and bled with every loss.)

(And now they're scarred over, raised bumps all over his flesh, with failure and desolation.)

When he came back to Faeri, he'd had his mother and he'd had Janus and he'd had a home. He'd had someplace, someone, to call his own.

He'd had all he'd ever wanted right in the palm of his hand.

But now he's got nothing and no one. Only broken wings and burnt marks criss-crossing his flesh, cold like Janus's body. Cold like his eyes.

All he's got are two swords that belong to him because of his name and nothing else, and this is it. This is his legacy.

This is all he has left in the world.

(It startles a laugh out of him, a sound like the gurgling of a dying animal.)

(It sounds like Kit choking on his own blood, and that makes Ash choke on his own tongue and a sound that's a bit more like a sob.)

Ash crushes the swords to himself, hardly feeling them as they cut, as they sink deep. He doesn't care.

What has he done? What has he lost for it? He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He isn't sure he ever has.

All he knows is that Janus, Ash's some compass, is dead and so is his mother, who had cared for him and who hadn't, but who had still been his mother. His family, whatever crumbling illusion of it there even was, is gone. And they'll never come back.

The Queen is gone and Janus is gone and that the world isn't his, because Ash didn't want it. He never did.

Fuck, he hadn't wanted the world. He'd just wanted Janus. And Janus wanted to give him the world. Janus wanted him to be a conqueror. And so Ash had wanted that, too.

Ash had wanted everything Janus had wanted. Mostly, to stay with him forever.

And now that was never going to happen.

Ash is so focused on the way the swords begin to sink into him, like comfort, on the way he's drowning, that he almost doesn't notice when the door bursts open.

Which is a little alarming, because it's wrenched open, slamming against the stone walls and bouncing off it so harshly that it almost hits the intruder.

Some instinct, ingrained in him with fist and knife, sends his fingers twitching into a grasp around the blades in his hands. His head shoots up, teeth already bared, eyes glowering up at the threat.

Ash feels positively lethal with the sudden and fierce rage that bursts aflame within him, turning his bones to kindle at once. Right now, he could swallow the sun raw and let its fire slide down his tongue and upon the earth.

But as his lips curl back over his sharp teeth, as the fury simmers and builds, dyeing his vision Thule red, like it'd been on the battlefield—there's blue.

Bright, brilliant blue, sky blue, the blue he was denied for so many years that he all but forgot it. Hazy like a head injury and cloudy with pain, so that it almost looks grey, but even so, it washes over Ash until the anger is gone in a cloud of smoke. He feels boneless in its absence.

Not more boneless than Kit, though, who doesn't stand in the doorway so much as he splatters against it.

His knees look rather shaky, clanking together softly, like they can barely hold his weight. His fingers clench around the door, white-knuckled and stiff. He looks awfully pale and awfully drowsy as well, eyes hooded and droopy; it's strange to see his concentration flicker, when his gaze is usually one of single-minded, fierce focus.

(Part of it is faerie in nature. Ash is sure of it. But some of it is just Kit and who he is, plain and simple.)

(Ash feels all the more unbalanced to have that tiny little rug yanked out of him, too.)

"Ash," he breathes, winded and looking sick with relief nonetheless. "There you are."

Ash doesn't say anything. He tries. At least he thinks he does. But something has died and fossilized in his throat, leaving its last breath perched on his tongue light a weight, and the only thing that comes out is a sound that is mortifyingly similar to a whimper.

And then the blood from his hands begins to drip and pool on his lap.

Kit jerks, a full-body thing, his eyes following the current. He looks terribly alarmed, enough that Ash thinks his scent would have gone harsh with char and vitriol, had he been able to smell anything past the remants of iron and the torrents of blood.

(As it is, all his senses are dulled by the fuzziness clinging to his limbs. By the white noise that began shutting the world down when he saw Janus.)

Ash watches as Kit forces himself forth on trembling, halting steps, panting and trembling and sweating like he's running a fever all the while.

There's a bandage around his neck. Ash vaguely remembers the cut, sharp and surprisingly deep and surprisingly straight, but he thinks it should have healed by now. Iratzes. Amissios. Sangliers. There are ways.

But still, the bandage. The bandage and the hand pressing gingerly against his stomach, where there used to be a sword. The hand that's healed, maybe the only part of him that is.

(Kit looks ill. On death's door, really. Like a strong wind could knock him over and keep him down permanently.)

(It doesn't take a genius to figure out the myriad of reasons why that might be. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out he should be in bed, resting.)

(Ash can't help but wonder, what the hell are you doing here?)

"Sorry about the radio silence," Kit mutters into the void, voice breaking with exhaustion in odd spots. "They wouldn't tell me where you were, and they wouldn't let mom and dad tell me either, and I haven't been awake for long."

Ash says nothing. What is there to say? What is there left here?

(There's nothing but grief, Ash thinks. Nothing but the things they had to do and what it cost them.)

Kit doesn't make it across the room so much as he lurches through it. He doesn't crouch down so much as he collapses by Ash's feet, without a care in the world, even as he half sits and half kneels on bloody stones. He winces against what it must do to his wounds, leaning his body against Ash's leg mindlessly, the barrier between them buzzing strangely and unsteadily even as it painstakingly gives.

(Kit's magic must be disturbed. Unsettled. He did, after all, open the door to powers as of yet unexplored. Not to mention the frankly ridiculous amount of near death experiences.)

(And maybe, just maybe, Ash's magic was simmering all over the place, too.)

"It took a while to sneak out without them noticing, and then I had to actually find you," Kit continues, patting around his body for his stele and frowning down at the chains like they’ve wronged him. "That was the easy part. Finding you is always the easy part."

He unearths the stele from a pocket with a pleased sound and begins pawing at the manacles around Ash's feet, drawing shaky runes upon them until they clang open and clatter to the floor. The relief is immediate and intense. Dizzying.

Terrifying.

Kit looks up at him once Ash has been rid of both his chains, smiling wide and crooked, something that blurs into something lazy with exhaustion as his stele clatters out of his hand and rolls to a stop against Ash’s foot. His mouth is pale, lips cracked and chapped, even though his cheeks are blazing, hair sticking to his forehead oddly. His eyes are fully shut now, body beginning to tilt fully into Ash, like he might be falling asleep against him, now that his mission is complete. His breath doesn’t even out, not nearly, labored and shallow with pain, but it does ease some.

He looks a bit like he's gazing up at the sun, open and drained. He looks oddly content.

He looks safe, calm. Trusting.

It makes something inside Ash shatter like a fist around glass.

"Christopher," he croaks, shaky and small, and he thinks that says everything.

(It has to. It has to. Ash has no other words to give.)

And it does. At least Ash thinks so. Because Kit stills, a pointed difference that sinks into Ash’s body, and then slowly blinks blue eyes open, tipping his head into Ash’s thighs like a question.

The haze in Kit’s eyes clears rather abruptly, all the clouds chased away by the awareness that usually permeates them, until there’s only a serious stillness to him. The pain does not leave. Ash isn’t sure it can. But it’s shoved aside in favor of something deep and firm and knowing, something Ash has seen in his eyes a thousand times and then some.

(It’s the same recognition, the same bone-deep awareness, like Ash is both something particularly fascinating and something Kit knows most everything about. It used to be eerie, especially because Ash had the vague impression he looked at Kit in much the same way.)

(Now, though, it’s comforting in a way that’s like a fist around broken bones.)

Kit’s brows furrow, deepening into a frown. Concern, Ash thinks. Concern. One so deep it casts shadows over his face, sinks teeth into his lip and sorrow over the bruises under his eyes.

His eyes sting. His hands shake around the blades, or maybe his body does, because they clink together in awful bursts.

(Ash feels, abruptly, like he’s a child with a knife to his throat again. Like he’s a child getting dragged through a portal and into Thule’s wombs, into Sebastian’s claws. Like he’s a child getting dragged through the mud of the lives of everyone who’s tried to use him.)

(He feels weak and small, and he’s fairly convinced that he is.)

Kit must see it, like he sees so much about Ash, because his face twists into something distinctly mournful. Sad and pained and guilty, though not quite regretful. Just lost. Just drained.

Just helpless.

He blinks rapidly, mouth opening and closing time and time away, face screwing up horribly, until finally all he says is, “I’m sorry.”

Just that. Just that, once or twice or thrice, or maybe so many times Ash looks count.

Kit turns his head into the inside of Ash’s thigh, not to hide but to nudge in comfort, and says, “I’m sorry.”

(He’s kneeling, Ash realizes with a pang. Only halfway, and surely he can’t know what it means, surely—)

(But the next nudge is deliberate.)

(Kit always knows the things about Faerie that nobody else does. And he knows how fae apologize, too.)

Ash makes a sound that isn’t even human. Something so raw and small it sounds animal in its vulnerability. It starts out a sniffle and gets lost in a sob and a whimper, until all he’s got left is his stinging eyes and his aching, tight throat.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Ash whispers, feeling his mouth quiver around the words. He sounds gutted. He feels it, too.

Kit looks devastated, small and broken as he looks up at Ash. Utterly lost. Like he has no clue what to say. Like there aren’t enough words in the universe.

There’s the bandage on his neck. Janus did that. Janus did so much of this.

And Ash let him. And now he’s lost him.

And still, Kit is here.

(What are you doing here, he wants to ask. What are you doing here with me.)

Ash ducks his head, scrunching his eyes shut, hiding away from Kit. The one thing he’s never done.

(There’s a sharp inhale and then a pained breath, Kit stiffening and shifting, pressing a hand against his solar plexus. Where the sword…)

(God.)

There’s silence, then, as Ash tries to ignore the wetness on his face and his hands, drying into something stiff on his lap. As he tries to sink back into the pain, because it’d hurt less.

“I saw Dru on the way here,” Kit says suddenly, quietly. Ash stills.

“She yelled at me for being out of bed, because apparently I look like death, but she guessed I was trying to find you pretty quick. She gave me the info she’d collected on her own, since nobody but Jem told her anything. She asked me to tell you this—thank you.”

Ash’s breath is knocked out of him, like the words are a blow to the lungs. His eyes snap open, falling upon Kit’s. The gaze that greets him is patient. Serene.

Honest.

“She cares about you, Ash,” Kit murmurs. “More than you know. Emma asked about you, too. And Ty. He seemed really worried. I could hear Jem and Tessa talking about you while I slept, too. They’ve been keeping tabs. They’ve been worried.”

“Christopher—”

“They’re all thankful,” Kit cuts in, completely ignoring Ash. “I mean, sure, they’re all wary. But they want to know you. Clary wants to know you.”

“Clary?” Ash whispers, voice quivering with something that can only be hope.

“Clary,” Kit confirms, with a crooked half-smile. “She’s not the only one.”

Ash opens his mouth, trying to gather words, trying to respond. But there’s nothing. He has no idea what to say. He isn’t sure there is anything to say.

(Clary wants to know him. Clary Fairchild, who went against his father, who killed him, who has fought tooth and nail to create the world they have now, wants to know Ash. Even though he’s his father’s son. Even though he was—is—Janus's.)

(She wants to know him.)

There’s a heartbeat. Soft and slow, like a lullaby. Languid and pleasant, soothing, the rhythmic swirling of honey of it gentle like balm. Kit’s heartbeat.

(The white noise has faded, just enough that the world begins to filter back in. Just enough that Ash can hear the way Kit’s breath is stilted, but that it’ll grow steadier.)

Kit is alive. He’s here. He’s here.

He’s here, features softening into something familiar and heart-wrenching, something vulnerable and welcoming. His eyes are warm and fond, open in a way they’ve never gotten the chance to be.

(There’s flecks of amber there. Ash doesn’t remember those being there before. He doesn’t think they were.)

(He doesn’t think the thin ring of gold around Kit’s pupil used to be there, either.)

His hand comes up, wrapping around one of Ash’s, around Phaesphoros’s blade, even as it bites into his fingertips. It isn’t a tug. Just gentle pressure.

“You come home, Ash,” he says, brutally soft, brutally honest. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. You come home.”

Ash holds the swords to his chest, feeling where they nick his arms where his armor is no longer there, and says, sounding hoarse and smaller than he has ever felt: "I have no home."

Kit looks at him steadily, unsurprised and undeterred, like it's never really occurred to him to shy away from Ash and his pain. Like he can't entirely fathom leaving him. And slowly, deliberately, he presses a hand to Ash's wrist, pushing through the pressure with still fingers, their tips falling easily over his Enkeli, over his quick pulse. The hand around Ash’s, around Phaesphoros, clenches and tugs ever so gently. Warm, fresh blood spills over Ash’s knuckles.

But Kit’s face is set, frown deep and defiant, eyes soft and reassuring.

"You have me instead," he says with utter, unflappable certainty, just as Ash once said he is mine.

(Like he believes it, and that makes it somehow alright.)

Ash feels his expression blow right open, into something raw and distinctly painful, something as big as the weight of that realization and as small as Ash feels right now, with the remnants of the world crashing down on him. It’s crushing him down to nothing, grinding him down to dust.

But Kit is looking at this dust, same as Drusilla did when she told him he was more than just a fancy sword and a cursed name, and saying hm, what can we make of this? I think this would make a nice home.

“Christopher,” Ash sobs, the only word he still knows how to say, feeling the wetness finally avalanche down his face, feeling distinctly childish and just a bit okay with that.

Kit nods like he understands, like it makes sense. The gold in his eyes is sunlight on his sky blues. His voice is soft. “Let’s go home, Ash.”

Ash nods, blubbering quietly, and this time, when Kit tugs, Ash lets go.

(The swords clatter down with the awful sound Ash dreads more than anything, the one that makes him seize and tremble and curl in on himself, because it sounds final. He feels scraped raw and bloody with it, empty hand twitching and dripping, making a mess of them both.)

(But Kit just pulls at the place where he squeezes around Ash’s pulse, at the hand where there used to be the weight of the ghost of a legacy, and pulls Ash down. Ash lets him.)

(The pressure between them is thick as ever and maybe harsher, stealing away Ash’s hearing for the moments it takes for it to yield. It settles over them like a heavy quilt when Ash falls into Kit, aggressively warm and familiar, prickling at his skin with it. It feels like waves over his skin, roiling and raging, mournful and comforting.)

(He doesn’t think they’ve ever touched this much. It seems unlikely. It seems unlikely that Ash has ever been held like this, actually, hidden away by all of Kit’s limbs, cradled fiercely. It’s odd in the ways everything about Kit is odd.)

(But it’s not bad.)

(It's not bad at all.)

(Kit must find his stele again, because he scrawls iratzes along the line of Ash’s neck, cuts closing swiftly into tender lines of sensation. Then the stele clatters to the ground again, and the hand that had been holding it settles in the middle of Ash’s back, mindful of the mess of his wings. And Kit sits back and stays.)

(Ash cries into Kit’s collarbone, listening to the slow crawl of his pulse beat through his own bones like a physical ache, and lets himself be held.)

(And he thinks of the Blackthorns asking after him and Clary wanting to know him still and Kit, and figures that maybe he’s got more left than swords and grief.)

(When Jem and Tessa finally find Kit, frazzled and just about ready to start pulling all the tracking runes and magic, they heave a sigh of relief in the doorway. Then exhale in alarm at the blood on the floor and the bedsheets, the chains.)

(And then they see Kit and Ash, sound asleep in front of each other in the bed, and relax. There’s blood crusting on their arms, their clothes. They both look like they need a lot more rest, and about a dozen more iratzes. Ash looks like he’s been crying. He looks completely lost and drained, even in sleep.)

(But they’re asleep and they’re together, and that’s something.)

(They’ll be alright, Tessa says, leaning back into Jem, intertwining their fingers over her waist.)

(The bedroom across from Kit’s would do nicely, Jem says as a form of agreement, kissing her temple.)

#kit herondale #ash morgenstern #morgendale #clace #malec #sizzy #kierarktina #haline #ty blackthorn #livvy blackthorn #kitty #the wicked powers #twp #shadowhunters #tsc #tda gang #tda #the dark artifices #morgenthorn #blackstairs #dru blackthorn #janus #tmi gang #tessa gray #jem carstairs

[shotorozu]

hello! i hope you're doing well~

can i request headcanons (or with scenario if you'd like) where bakugo's s/o falls asleep on him while crying 🥺 and if it's okay with you, can s/o have the emotion deprivation quirk because i really loved those hcs you made before :)))

i really really love your blog btw. your writing is always sweet and fun to read ❤

passing out after crying on them

character(s) : bakugou katsuki, shinsou hitoshi

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns, emotion deprivation quirk— the more you suppress your emotions, the more power you get.

headcanons : hurt and comfort, but mostly comfort.

note(s) : thank you for the love anon :)) i also added shinsou because i thought this concept fitted well with him too :))

»»————-　♡　————-««

bakugou katsuki

you were really unreadable— you’d understand that because of the nature of your quirk. however, being with katsuki gave him the ability to read you and your mannerisms

if your nails dug into your palms, that probably meant that your day was shit, if you kept looking at your nails, it means you’re trying not to cry, and running your hands across the surface meant that you were happy.

and unfortunately, he caught the sight of you digging your nails into your hands, not enough to actually do any harm but.. enough to keep you ‘focused’

he wants you to be comfortable enough to go to him with your problems, but then again— it was always something you struggled with, so he wasn’t expecting it

so now you’re alone with him, walking along the corridors of the dorms— and none of you guys are saying much.

“get in here,” he says, grabbing your wrist as he yanks you into his room, immediately setting you down on his bed.

“i don’t know what happened with you, but i don’t fuckin like seeing it.” he sets your head on the soft pillows, an arm bringing you close in positions

“nothing really happened,”

“yeah? then why the hell were you doing that then?” his words sound rather harsh, but he’s not raising his voice at you “you know what i mean.”

“i’m sorry, it’s just.. exhausting. having to suppress my emotions for long periods of time. i don’t know what to do because i’ll..”

and that’s when you start crying, which was probably the last thing on your check list— you’re getting his pillows wet, he’s not saying anything, you can feel yourself getting weaker

all of the doubts in your head run wild, and bakugou only shoves your head onto his chest “idiot, stop it with the apologies already. just let go.”

and you do exactly that. you heave into his chest, bawling like it’s been forever since you’ve done so. you’re getting his shirt wet, but katsuki couldn’t seem to care— he’s just glad that his hands are emitting enough heat

your ragged breathing eventually blended into soft breathing— you don’t seem to be shaking in tremors anymore, and he’s glad

he takes a look at your face. you’re out like a baby, cheeks still damp and your eyelashes were wet with tears.

“idiot Y/N,” he mutters to himself, wiping your damp face with his thumb, “you’re out like a baby. you’re not gonna hear this but next time, don’t be so stiff with coming forward to me for help.”

“i’m the last person that’s gonna judge you, i do love you after all. it might not seem like it but i really really really do.” he presses a kiss against the back of your ear.

he’s going to try to not wake you up, as he gets up from the bed— sprinting downstairs to prepare some water that he’s gonna force you to drink down later

when you wake up, you bet he’s making you put a cool towel on your eyes, reducing the puffiness as he has you on his lap.

shinsou hitoshi

can also tell if you had a good or bad day, and he really hates seeing you so.. miserable.

he can tell that you have so many thoughts in that head of yours, because of that powerful quirk. those were one of the few times he wished he had aizawa’s quirk.

he frowns when he sees you suffer in absolute silence, even though you’re wearing the most neutral face he has ever seen, he can quite literally see it— because you’re fidgetting with your hands on your lap.

unlike bakugou, the first thing he’ll talk to you about is how you’re feeling— the moment you guys are alone.

don’t try to deny it, because he knows already— this is just him giving you a heads up, just letting you know that he’s about to coddle you.

actions speak louder than words in moments like this, he has you pressed against him on the bed— allowing your arms to wrap around his torso like lifeline

“you don’t have to say anything right now, Y/N.” he reassures you, “let it happen.”

as if it was on command, your eyes water— and you shove your head onto his shoulder, finally breaking the barriers you were desperately trying to keep up.

you’re vunerable, a mess, and hitoshi allows you to cry like there’s no tomorrow— only resting his hand on your back, rubbing soft circles there

when you start shaking, hiccups escaping your lips— he panics for a moment, because you’re on the cusp of going into a panic attack

but that’s also when his baritone voice starts giving out soft instructions on stabilizing your breathing pattern. his quirk would always be the very last option.

and when the storm has finally calmed, your eyes flutter— a sudden wave of sleepiness washing over you, and you just allow yourself to fall asleep in his hold

he sighs in relief, and he doesn’t care that his sweater suddenly became soaked with your tears, it allow him to carry some of your burden— he’s just holding you with all of his attention.

his violet irises soften in adoration, and he’s kissing your tears off your cheeks, moving anything out of your face.

hitoshi being hitoshi wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he’ll spend a good moment thinking about what he’ll talk about with you the moment you wake up, and he’ll pask you about your issue, and how he can help.

but for now, he’s just thankful that you have so much trust him— to the point you’re okay with being vunerable around him, and he’s just so proud of you.

“sleep well, kitten. i love you a lot, please remember that.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters, boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei. i only own the writing, and i don’t profit off my hobby.

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission :))

#bnha imagines #bnha x reader #mha x reader #mha imagines #bnha x y/n #bnha fluff #bnha angst #bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #bakugou x y/n #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x y/n #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou imagines #bakugou headcanons #bakugou x you #shinsou x reader #shinsou x y/n #shinsou x you #shinsou hitoshi x reader #shinsou imagines #shinsou hitoshi x y/n #shinsou hitoshi headcanons #bakugou katsuki x you #shinsou hitoshi x you

[ackerfics]

hi, rory! <3 what majors would the sc veterans take if they were in the modern world?

hi, anon !! thank you so much for this ask, this is heaven in disguise from all my schoolwork. tbh, the whole time i was working for a lab report, my mind will go back to this ask bc i wanted to have the association as accurate as possible hhhajshw

i asked one of my friends for help and thank God for them bc my single brain cell really said 'it's time for you to rest' after staring at one backlog. without further ado, here are the veterans' majors if they're studying in university:

first off, hange zoe, because if you ask me this question in real life, they would be the only one i can answer. every damn time i would think of them in a college setting, being a biology major is really hange's forte. at this point, this is what everyone would associate them with.

hange is all about experimenting and doing brilliant breakthroughs in any field of science but knowing that they have this unparalleled fascination with the unusual and unexpected life-forms (ahem titans ahem), the biology lab would be the surest place where you could find hange. i feel like biology is too broad so i will add that microbiology or bacteriology are just some of the specializations they will be taking in their time in college.

imagine, being lab partners with hange and immediately knowing that you will have one of the highest grades in the class because they're that well-versed in a specific lab report. and if you're partners with them for the rest of the academic year, you might as well have a shot at an immaculate grade. i'm not saying that you should depend on them too much though hHHHH, hange is still a member of the majority of the student body who relies heavily on caffeine to keep them invigorated. who isn't at this point?

so far, some of the biology majors that i encountered (well, more like chatted behind a screen — online classes suck), they have this energy that could drain my social battery too quickly and hange fits that description. (note that this doesn't apply to any college bc i observed this in mine soooo 🤭) they're the type to always go on a tangent on a certain science article or coerce you into joining this org thing. i can imagine levi just looking at hange like they're the one sucking his brain cells out whenever they speak about a documentary in bbc they watched the night before.

and if you're stuck on anything biology-related, hange will be the best person to ask help from. they're the first ray of sunlight you get while waking up. they're that approachable.

okay, so erwin smith.

don't come at me but he just radiates this ceo vibes and with that, one of his probably majors is business administration. i know this is so stereotypical of me but let's face it, erwin is a smooth talker through and through and if he doesn't take up marketing, business is one way to spend his college years. knowing his personality in attack on titan of establishing deals easily with a determined resolve, he fits the broadest description of being a business administration major. (again, don't come at me because my consultant for this statement is google and nobody comes after google sometimes hhhhh)

just for the benefit of myself, i will add what google says about this major, "[they] learn the mechanics of business through classes in fundamentals, such as finance, accounting and marketing ... students find ways to solve problems using data and they develop communication and managerial skills." and i thank you.

he's also probably the most well-spoken and most professional when conversing with others among his friends (and i'm not saying this to drag the other characters but this is what i pick up on) and that is exactly the qualities his major specializes. it is expected for them to strike deals and be a people person and who better character for the job than our very own erwin smith 🤩

now i mentioned 'one of the probable majors' and yes, aside from business administration, philosophy just exudes erwin smith. ngl, when i imagined erwin in a college setting, this major will always come first. his mind is just so sexy to me??? and i hope you guys think the same, too, because i don't want to be the only one who thinks that 👀 kidding aside, erwin is one of the smartest people in attack on titan and every time he speaks in one episode, my brain will instantly go mush, and that's what i feel when i hear philosophy majors talk.

philosophy majors (according to any other youtuber who does lookbooks for various majors hhhhhh) challenge what is unanswerable and analyze questions with no right answer. i feel like erwin, like hange, will talk all night to explain a theory. just imagine a date with him and you just listen to him rant about a topic that they should be making a report on. just listen to this man, okay?? it's adorable when he lets his guard down to include you in his little bubble of philosophies. he would also mention random things that he learned in classes, sometimes finding joy in knowing the philosophies of other people, or even deciphering levi's dream of an apocalyptic world. (it pisses levi off but he just leave him be.)

if you want a man who can do both of these majors, erwin smith is the answer 😉

sigh, mike zacharias.

this man holds so many talents and will forever amaze me.

i assume all of us here watched the movie perfume. and no, i'm not saying that mike is going to be a murderer but just like the main character of that film, making perfumes will be his forte with that sense of smell of his. and here, i conclude that mike will definitely take up chemical engineering.

he gives me the vibes that if it covers the one thing he does best, he will love his major. (mr. zacharias, can you please spare me that quality because i really need that now 😩) being in the labs while experimenting mundane things that can be found in the environment to create different scents is also a likely situation you can find him in, again, very much like hange. he's the type of student who really puts so much effort in staying afloat the honors list, even to the point of topping midterms in his major, for the sake of his dream. there will never be a moment where you will catch him complain about his major and professors.

he's that type of friend in college who agrees to any rant you say but in reality, he's got his life easy 😭

i headcanon mike owning a perfume shop after college just like how levi always dreamed of having a tea shop.

okay, imagine this little scenario if you're dating mike where he creates this unique perfumes as random gifts for you. they're not the typical perfumes that can seep through the room and can make you gag for no reason, they're subtle scents that will stay for the duration of the day. because again, he's got a sensitive nose, so making perfumes according to what his sense of smell dictates will always result in a revolutionary experiment. if you're randomly blurting out that you want a fusion of flowers and fruits as your perfume, say no more, he's your man.

now, the veteran who i find the hardest to associate a major with — levi ackerman.

after much deliberation and a break from plant physiology, i see him taking up law or criminology.

(i asked some of this from my mom because she attended law school :>>>)

levi is so organized and detailed in the things that he do and he fits in either of these majors since they require tedious memorizations and analysis of laws and crime scenes while being assertive enough to defend someone. he's the typical person who blurts out the true situation of a crime scene when watching film adaptations. yeah, he's that person, the one who sucks the enthusiasm out of you while watching a movie because he just had to correct some of the scenes. nevertheless, he means well though, he just wanted you to understand the reality unlike how films portray gruesome murders. movie nights always end up with levi ranting about half-assed mystery clichés.

levi's binder of readings are always too bright for everyone's good. his notes are full of highlighters and scribbles that it can blind someone. for one, he's always up all night studying his readings and cases for a practice court so by choosing neon highlighters, it's a way for him to wake up. there isn't one book in his possession that he doesn't highlight like it's a fricking coloring book. hange once jokingly said that his binder now acts like his bible and for once, he agrees because he was never seen without one. hange had a field day since levi never agrees with them.

when doing practice courts though, his go-to resting bitch face always come in handy when carrying out his role as one of the lawyers. he's just so sexy with his hands in the pockets of his slacks as he tries to justify his supposed client. the way he questions the accused definitely isn't hot because he's like one of the panelists in your thesis defense, the one who just comes up with questions that have you melting on the spot. he's dangerous i tell you. it also doesn't help if you accidentally hurt one of his friends or just landed randomly in his blacklist for being annoying as hell. relax though, he doesn't mean harm other than the fact that he's ready to throw some hands from all the pent-up rage he gathered in his body.

of course, i couldn't forget how he dresses up like a typical dark academia fanatic so look out for eye-candy.

if you want someone who can recite articles from the constitution, this man is perfect for you 😌

i had so much fun doing this !! again, i'm not generalizing every major i've talked about in these little headcanons, this is all for fun and based on the people i encountered in college. if you want more of this, don't hesitate to ask !! 😚

#attack on titan #aot #levi ackerman #aot x reader #attack on titan x reader #snk #levi ackerman x reader #attack on titan headcanons #hange zoe #hange zoe x reader #mike zacharias #mike zacharias x reader #erwin smith #college au #erwin smith x reader

[ivyaugustetc]

the dead poets on ice: another headcanon from hell

hey guys!! sooo @pretentious-strikes helped me come up with this idea so big big shoutout to faye ily bestie

uh yeah i had some trials and tribulations over this but it's here :)

also, when i say the poets, i'm including chet and ginny and chris in that. i need to give them a name though. i thought sapphic trio or sumn???

neil: i love this boy but he cannot skate </3 he's got so many talents and yet this is not one of them. he spends the entire time clinging to todd (who also isn't entirely sure he can skate well) and the other half quoting dramatic shakespeare scene and faking his death on the ice HAHAHAHA. can you imagine him pretending to stab himself with a dagger while quoting the end of romeo and juliet? and then he just. fake stabs himself and pretends to die on the ice while todd is like "GET UP I NEED HELP"

todd: the literal definition of "i think i'm doing it right???????" like he kinda knows what he's doing because he skated once two years ago but at the same time it's still a new feelings and he's disoriented?? the fact that neil is hanging onto him for dear life kinda makes him feel like he should know what he's doing, so he fakes it til he makes it because he doesn't have the heart to tell neil he is no safer in his hands than in the jaws of a shark. he leaves better than he was at the beginning, of course, but boy were those first ten minutes absolute hell for him (except for the neil holding onto him part. that was nice.)

meeks: not horrible, not fantastic, but secure in the knowledge that he can skate wherever he pleases without have to worry about falling over. he's just freaking zen the entire time, more of a spectator than a player in whatever chaos is occurring. he makes the occasional sarcastic comment, but spends the majority of the time focusing on his own craft (a.k.a. skating in circles around the edge of the lake). he'll help if anyone gets injured, but otherwise he's perfectly content with his own thoughts and we love it for him :)

cameron: who is a perfectionist? richard. who's good at everything on almost the first try? rich. who's fucking incredible at ice skating? CAM THE MAN RICHARDSON THAT'S WHO. when I say this man has the technique, the style, i mean he has it. he's told approximately no one and yet exactly everyone is in awe of this man's skills. and while he's not showing everyone up, he helps the others that can't seem to go two seconds without falling on their asses. moral of the story: get urself a man who can do both, aka richard cameron.

pitts: he is as tall as a tree and just as uncoordinated as one :) he's the type of person to laugh at how much he sucks rather than get frustrated about it? so every once in a while you'll hear a yell from pitts, followed by a thud, followed by the loudest, most infectious laughter you've ever heard. Like he makes everyone else nearly fall from laughing so hard. He just raises the morale like crazy but is probably also prepared with first aid training if anyone were to fall and break an ankle or something.

charlie: does not know what he's doing, but he's doing it very loudly and badly. he has a baseline skill set that includes standing upright and skating slowly on the ice, but it soon progresses into ZOOM ZOOM GOTTA KNOCK EVERYONE ON THEIR ASSES dalton. he's just zip zoppin through everyone, cackling his head off and trying to push a select few to the ground. he never once succeeds to push cameron down even though that's his main target because cameron has the balance of a flamingo and even though charlie's laughing he's internally thinking "WHY WON'T YOU JUST FALL AND VALIDATE MY CHAOS????" he leaves without having knocked over cameron, but it's fine. he knocked knox over more times than he can count.

knox: um...he's the worst out of all of them. like he is...abominable. he knocks himself and everyone around him off balance whenever he falls because he's the flailing, Not Going Down Without A Fight type of faller. he's definitely frustrated by his lack of skill, especially when Chris skates by and does a little twirl right in front of him. But he's determined to leave that place not totally helpless, but does he? no. charlie made sure he didn't. moral of the story: it could've been better if it weren't for charlie.

chris: I feel like Mrs. Noel would've been the kind of parent to put Chris in gymnastics or something when she was a kid and therefore Chris has great balance and would be a GOD at ice skating. Like, she probably do a few of the little twists and turns that lower-level figure skaters can do. She ends up getting really focused on trying to learn how to do a spin and goes off in her own little world for a bit before she realized she forgot where she was and goes back to hang out with Ginny.

chet: this man is a football player, okay? ice skating is not his thing. First of all it took a hot second to find ice skates that actually fit him, and then when he finally got on the ice he was caught completely off guard by how SLIPPERY IT IS????? so he hangs onto chris like she's a life preserver for a while until she gives him some motivational pep talk that convinces him to let go. he does the weird preschooler slide-walk thing for a while, you know where he's making the movements of walking but his feet are just sliding back and forth on the ice and he isn't getting anywhere because the coefficient of friction is basically in the negatives? but he ends up figuring it out and leaves with one-half of a new skill!!

ginny: queen has never done this before but she does NOT need anyone's help. She is so dead set on doing it all by herself and not allowing a single soul to give her help. When she falls, she dismisses all the hands held out to her and figures out how to get up by herself. Once she gets the hang of it, she allows herself to be dragged around by speed-demon Chris Noel for a bit and once or twice they fall down in a heap because Chris is skating backwards in order to hang onto ginny's hands and therefore cannot see where she's going and furthermore hits every poet like they're bowling pins. But they laugh every time they fall because it's lowkey hilarious and also they're in love <3

#dead poets society #dead poets society headcanon #neil perry #todd anderson #stephen meeks #steven meeks #gerard pitts #charlie dalton #nuwanda #richard cameron #chris noel #ginny danburry #chet danburry #knox overstreet

[bucky-at-bedtime]

Stucky Fic Recs

So basically I went through all of my ao3 bookmarks and collated a list of some of my favourites (I couldn't fit all of them on this list, so if anyone shows interest there might be a part two).

Please read tags and descriptions of the works before reading, some of them are pretty dark or extremely horny so just make sure you check that the fic is for you!!

Please please please send me your favourite fics in return! I am always happy to hear fic recs, headcanons and any other ideas/comments you all have!

Without any further ado, here are a few of my favourite Stucky fics:

‘Not Easily Conquered’ series by dropdeaddream, WhatAreFear

Rating: M, Words: 117,692

https://archiveofourown.org/series/115516

“I told you, you heard me: I told you never to follow me into Hell. Now I’m not vain enough to think that’s why you’re out here now — if there’s any person in what’s left of this God forsaken planet who’s part of a bigger picture, it’d be you. But I’ll keep saying it until it sticks. You got nothing to prove. I’m not worth much, I damn well know that, but I���ll ask you anyway: Stay for me. If you leave me alone in this world I’ll turn into something terrible. I’ll turn into the nasty creature that’s growing inside me. This war, it’ll swallow me whole”

[To me, this fic is like the classic Stucky 101 fanfic – if you're a Stucky fan and you haven't read this, I highly recommend it. The authors explore the Steve/Bucky relationship in such an interesting, tragic, emotive way and I cry every time I read it. I couldn't praise this work enough.]

‘Ain’t No Grave’ series by spitandvinegar

Rating: M-E, Words: 131,789

https://archiveofourown.org/series/426577

"Yeah, he never calls me by my name," Steve says. "It's always champ, ace, hotshot, that kinda thing."

"Man, that is flirting," Sam says. "That nicknames thing, he is flirting with you. He's just working his way up to calling you baby or something."

Steve goes redder than a damn coke can. Sam pumps his fist. "Yes, I am so right, I am wise as hell. He did, didn't he?"

"He called me sweetheart," Steve says grimly, "because he's a drug addict with brain damage."

"Or because he looooooves you," Sam says. Captain America throws a cookie at his head. Sam eats it, because he deserves a treat for being so damn wise.”

[I'm currently re-reading this fic and absolutely loving it. The way spitandvinegar writes Bucky's road towards recovery and Steve's entire characterisation – it's all just so good. It's another one that covers some pretty dark themes, so make sure you're checkin those tags!]

'Einherjar' by thecommodore_squid

Rating: M, Words: 71297

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7157024/chapters/16249814

But Steve was fine.

Sure, he hadn’t seen Bucky in months, and sometimes he was at the punching bag so long that his skin started to peel off to expose the bones of his fingers, and sometimes he couldn’t find the energy to drag himself out of bed, and sometimes he went weeks without sleeping, and sometimes he thought about throwing himself head-first off the nearest tall structure, but he was fine.

He was absolutely, perfectly, one-hundred percent, fucking fine.

AKA In which Steve learns how to deal with his shit, and Bucky learns how to stop leaving.

[basically the definition of a recovery fic, I absolutely adore it. This is tragic and amazing and makes me cry and smile. It’s got a bunch of fantastic cameos and It really just ticks so many of my boxes.]

‘Like real People do’ by 2bestfriends

Rating: E, Words: 67,775

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887376/chapters/47103217

“"Ask me what?" demands Bucky. "I didn't hear a question."

Steve licks his lips. "Will you stay with me? Will you come back home, Buck?"

"Home," repeats Bucky in a small voice, and then he's crying for real.”

[Basically soft lumberjack!steve and lonely twink!bucky being horny and in love. This is a comfort fic for that’s really just about my favourite boys falling in love.]

‘This City Bleeds it’s Aching Heart’ by anonymous

Rating: E, Words: 34,537

https://archiveofourown.org/works/835829/chapters/1591736

“The one where Steve and Bucky pose as a happily married couple while on a mission for SHIELD, to catch an international arms dealer hiding in a suburban neighbourhood.”

[The plot in this one is just a good time and i think it’s just a really fun take on the fake relationship trope. Also some really great characterisation.]

‘Home is Wherever I’m With You’ by cydonic

Rating: E, Words: 88,570

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18868081/chapters/44783077

“Bucky kisses Steve and Emma goodbye before they leave for school, which is why – partway down the road – Amelia turns to him and asks, “why are you and Daddy kissing?”

Which is definitely a conversation Bucky’s been expecting since Steve just did it, but it still takes him by surprise. Again, he thinks he should wait for Steve, but Amelia’s not the sort of kid to let anything rest. Plus, Bucky’s taking her to school where she will undoubtedly share the story with anyone who’ll listen.

He also stops to think that Steve’s asked him to stay, which means Bucky must be trusted with their happiness and well-being, at least in some small capacity.

Bucky clears his throat and searches for some explanation that will help Amelia make sense of this sudden turn of events. “Because we love each other,” is all he comes up with.”

[Bear with me, this is a House Flipper!Bucky Au. And dad!Steve. I just love a found family trope I’m not gonna lie to you. Another comfort fic that warms my lil heart.]

‘Lucky Seven’ by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves)

Rating: E, Words: 94,364

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7033105/chapters/16002481

“Back from where--?” James says, the sentence ending in a distinctly undignified squawk as Steve sweeps him up in his arms, bridal-style, and starts carrying him upstairs.

James tenses momentarily then relaxes into Steve's arms and throws back his head and starts laughing. The laughter peals out of him, his body shaking, his amusement occasionally broken by little gasps of pain.

“What's so funny?” Steve frowns.

“You are,” James says, still giggling. “You're ridiculous, Steve Rogers.”

“Behave. Or I will drop you,” Steve growls.

[The shrunkyclunks modern AU of my dreams featuring Mechanic!Bucky and cap!Steve and some really beautiful writing.]

'Dishonor On Your Cow' by mandarou

Rating: E, Words: 111695

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659162/chapters/23589582

“Sergeant Barnes?”

“Oh, hell no, don’t call him that, man,” Sam warned.

“Captain Fuck Off!” Barnes shouted over him. “Fight me!”

Steve didn’t know whether to laugh or just slink away. He managed to combine the two by pacing two steps and snorting instead. Like a bull.

“I’m gonna need you to calm your ass, Barnes,” Sam said as he went limp again, obstructing Barnes’s struggling under him. “This is so undignified. That is Captain goddamn America.”

“Captain goddamn America!” Barnes repeated, louder. And angrier.

Steve cleared his throat again. “I’ve been looking for you,” he told Barnes.

“I hope you brought lube this time!” Barnes shouted.

[I’m not gonna lie it took me a minute to get into this one but by the end I was crying with them, laughing with them, and just really in my feels. Some very insane things happen so here’s a few of my favourite tags: ‘Seargent Barnes is done with your Shit Steve’, ‘blatant disrespect of a man’s motorcycle’, ‘Steve you ding dong’ and ‘PR nightmares in the form of Supersoldiers’.]

Propietary Information by Notlucy

Rating: E, Words: 85141

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964402/chapters/27054777

“Okay, so Bucky Barnes has a crush on Steve Rogers. The guy's gorgeous, talented and, oh yeah, the Chief Design Officer of the biggest tech company in the world. In other words: he's so far out of Bucky's league that he might as well be in a different stratosphere.”

[We were never gonna get through this list without a Sugar Daddy!AU (I have a weakness). This one is… saucy and sexy and sweet and uh pretty kinky so read the tags and all. I’ve read it a few times, and I love the way the author has written Steve in this one, he just makes my heart go '!!!']

‘Roots Have Grown’ by AustinB

Rating: M, Words: 17280

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912451/chapters/15767941

“Bucky is a mildly agoraphobic veteran with funds to spare, who becomes enamored with the cute blonde guy in his building.

So when Steve mentions needing a roommate to cut down on rent costs, Bucky decides it would be a good idea to volunteer.”

[Another weakness of mine is Roommate AUs, and this one is phenomenal. I tend to go for post serum!Steve stories more often, but this is a pre-serum Steve that I just adore.]

‘The Cold Never Bothered me Anyway’ by icoulddothisallday

Rating: E, Words:75562

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728869/chapters/26425530

“Bucky Barnes has spent his whole life in a state of mild hypothermia. Steve Rogers has spent the last 70 years in the ice. The two things aren’t related until, suddenly, they are. Shrunkyclunks soulmate AU (AKA the awkward bb au).”

[I think this is the only soulmate AU in my bookmarks? I would totally be down to read more though! This one is really fun and really enjoy Bucky’s characterisation here!]

'War, Children' by Nonymos

Rating: E, Words: 106615

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5373050/chapters/12409394

“After Bucky was released from the hospital, it only took him a couple of weeks to give up on himself. Difficult to believe in any kind of future when the simple act of staying alive was almost too big an effort.

Out the frosted window, across the street, there was a tiny homeless guy burrowing under an awning.”

[An interesting exploration of Bucky’s PTSD with a trans!Steve which was a cool take on his character too!]

'The Company You Keep' by orbingarrow

Rating: G, Words: 51191

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3468605/chapters/7613072

“Hurt, hungry, and on the run, the Winter Soldier doesn’t have a lot of safe options to go to for help. Figuring that any friend of Captain Steve Rogers is unlikely to be HYDRA, Bucky takes a chance and reaches out to the first Avenger he can find.

It works out better than anyone could have expected. Eventually.”

[hurt/comfort, recovering Bucky, protective Steve, found family and domestic avengers, need I say more? I absolutely loved this one]

#stucky #stucky fics #stucky fic recs #fic rec