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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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A Demon’s Promise Part 11: Lights and Edges

AN: There’s a bit of time jumping in this, across the span of a few months, cause this was going to get bogged down and drawn out if I was trying to write all this in detail, cause it was just a lot of general stuff, really slow plot, it wouldn’t have worked well. So we’re jumping across the span of 7 ish months, and the next chapter is going to be around the 9 month point.

Characters: Incubus!Levi, Reader, Ida, Asa, Isabel, Captain (You’ll see), Various BG Characters

Pairings: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: Language, Blood, Gore, Violence, Death, Brutal Death, Major Injury, some Angst, Mentions of Sexual Acts, Heavily Implied Sexual Acts. But also Domestic Fluff and Dad!Levi :D

Word Count: 12674

<----Previous Part Masterlist Next Part---->

(Four Months Later)

*Reader’s POV*

You could have started small. There were a thousand ways you could start trying to make things work with Levi. But the first thing you did was try to force yourself not to hold the children hostage from him. They were his children, too, and from what you could see, he loved them. It wasn’t fair to him--cruel, even--that you kept the twins just out of his reach or sight more often than not, or you’d leave the room with them before he could even ask to hold them.

You needed to let him try to be a father.

You still didn't want him in your space, so if he asked to come in to do something, it was an automatic no. You still needed boundaries, and that was your safe space, and he was going to stay out of it.

But when you left your room, you stayed conscious of natural excuses to let him hold the twins. Maybe one of them needed changed. You would ask him to feed one while you fed the other. He seemed to be strangely pleased if he was asked to give them baths, which at first was just a gentle sponge bath in a special seat. If your arms got tired or the wrap started to sit uncomfortably, you would pass them off to him to hold for a while.

Once he realized you were giving him opportunities to hold the twins, Levi stopped any and all pushing to be allowed around them, because you were giving him that time. The most he ever did was offer help if you were struggling and hadn't yet thought to ask him for help. Most of the time, you felt you had things pretty well handled. But sometimes you were at the end of your rope and unable to figure out what it was that the twins wanted. It was in those moments Levi tended to approach, stoically asking if he could try figuring out what they wanted. Most of the time, they tended to calm down after a few minutes with him.

Which began to convince you that the twins just wanted time with their father. And you weren't going to deny your twins that if it was what they wanted, as well.

So, gradually, over the first few months, you relaxed your grip, let Levi be with his children, let him wander the house with them, out of your sight. He would take them both when you sat down to eat so you could have a peaceful dinner, or he would just take them for an hour or so just to be with them, usually reappearing when they were hungry or tired. If they were tired and were going to do more than nap, he would bring them back to you so you could put them in their cribs in your room. The cribs in his bedroom were still, at this point, unused.

By now, though, you were starting to trust him with the twins. You'd seen him change around them, seen a bit of that indifferent exterior crack to reveal a surprisingly soft individual underneath. You'd seen how gently and carefully he gave them their baths, how patiently he endured it if they were trying to gum his fingers, hair, or clothes--and how he discreetly washed his hands or changed his clothes afterwards, or how quick he was to keep dangerous objects out of their mouths

Just because you saw how he was with the twins didn't mean everything between the two of you was magically fixed, though. There was still tension between the two of you, though you were trying not to treat him like he was liable to go on a rampage and hurt you or the twins anymore.

Frankly, you were trying to pin down where that feeling came from in the first place. Levi was a lot of things, but he'd never raised a hand to you, the twins--you'd never seen him physically threaten anyone. You didn't want to admit it, but this concept that he was out to hurt you seemed to develop around the time you found out he was a demon. Which meant it was probably entirely rooted in the fact he was a demon, which made you one hell of a hypocrite since your children were half-demon and would one day be full-demon, yet you held nothing against them and didn't fear any possible innate malice in them.

The duplicity made you hope maybe it was just rooted in how Levi had hurt you in the past in non-physical ways, and a fear with the reveal he was a demon and all those harsh words and suggestions that he didn't give a damn about you meant he might one day escalate to physical violence.

But again, he didn't show any signs. It was just the fear you harbored in your mind, and he knew the fear was there. He didn't complain, though. He seemed to quietly accept and endure it. He didn't react when you wouldn't let him touch you, or you flinched away if the two of you accidentally came into contact. He never forced his presence upon you, and for the most part, made himself scarce and let you have your space. But as much as that made you feel relieved, allowed some of the tension to drain out of your body...it also made you feel alone, in this giant strange house that wasn't yours.

That, oddly enough, was the next thing that you started to work on. And it was from the stupidest whim, too, that you started to warm up to the house and finally, finally accept Levi’s statement that the house was yours to do with as you wished.

The floor could be cold on your bare feet when you walked around the house, wood or stone, and one day when you found yourself reluctant to get off the couch because you were warm curled up with your feet on the cushions but the floor below was freezing in comparison, you'd wondered if any of those catalogs Levi kept updated in the bookshelf had rugs in them.

You went through the pile--new catalogs having replaced the ones that had been there when he'd initially showed them to you--and picked out the ones that looked like they might have some nice rugs in them. You ignored the prices, just to test how far this offer actually went, and simply sought out one you liked best, marking the page and circling the item like Levi had told you to, placing the catalog in the other basket tentatively and then scurrying away.

The next day, you'd realized the catalog was back in the stack. Not too much longer and the ordered rug was delivered, and after the basic questions had been asked by Levi, it was rolled out and covering the floor in front of and at the base of the sectional couch in the living room.

No complaints, no questioning if that was what you wanted, nor even any passing comments suggesting it didn't match the rest of the room. Levi bought it and placed it for you without hesitation and the only question being where you wanted it and how it was supposed to lay.

Now that you knew he was actually going to follow through, you picked up a bit more confidence and went to the bookshelf a bit more frequently. Browsing the catalogs became a pastime, at least for a little while, as you slowly redecorated the downstairs half of the house into something more to your taste. At first it was just little things--curtains, rugs, a bigger coat and shoe rack by the door, a few plants, little things like that. After that, you got things like baby clothes--the twins were growing, and from the advice you’d managed to scrounge up, you knew that they would burn through clothes like gasoline in a poor mileage vehicle. Toys made an appearance, and soon decorations and little knick-knacks that caught your eye that you really didn’t need, it was more of a want. He didn’t complain about those, but you /swore/ you felt a /look/ on occasion when the two of you happened to be in the living room at the same time when he came by to check the catalogs. You were even considering trying to liven up the outside of the house as well--the ivy that had grown over the stone could be pretty if the yard was decorated a bit more--that way it would look decorative instead of abandoned.

Of course, you weren’t the best with plants, but it would give you something to do besides take care of the kids and lounge around all day.

That one thing ended up being the topic Levi pushed you on. Not giving the twins to him to take care of every now and then, not making the place your own, it was getting out of the house that not even his blatant ‘hints’ could put a stop to. You hadn’t found a part time job, and you’d only browsed a few things you could be doing on whims, never committing to anything, and if something really caught your eye, you ended up finding a way to do that at home.

It wasn’t healthy. You were probably going to go stir crazy if you didn’t have something to get out of the house soon, but you were afraid to leave. Maybe you trusted Levi to handle the twins when you were around, but there was something so much more real about leaving them in his care when you left the house. Any time you thought about leaving with him to take care of them, something in you seized up with panic, and you quickly backed out.

Until, apparently, Levi had enough.

Four months old--he waited until the twins were four months old to give you the chance to get your life back in gear before he took matters into his own hands.

Levi making breakfast had become habit by now, and he was catching on to the things you liked and what you left untouched if he made it. He still put variety into breakfast, but it was more personalized to your tastes now. In fact, you had the sneaking suspicion he actually enjoyed this, enjoyed practicing his cooking skills and getting the chance to make at least the first meal of the day, even if he didn’t eat and the twins were still only drinking pumped breast milk.

He waited until you were halfway through your meal before he ambushed you, dropping what at first glance appeared to be a business card and a credit card on the counter beside you.

Holy shit, that was a fabled black card.

You stared at the credit card like it might bite you, brain crashing as you tried to figure out why he would throw something like /that/ at you. How loaded was he? Who did he have to kill to have that kind of money?

“Never seen a credit card before?” Levi asked flatly. You were starting to understand that was just the way he talked, and he didn’t mean anything by his brisk way of speaking--it was just the way he was. If he was trying to intentionally make a jab at you or piss you off, you would know.

“Not a shiny black one, no.”

Levi gave a soft, irritated sigh and pushed the card out of the way with his fingers, bringing the business card back into focus. As opposed to the sleek black card, this was simple cream cardstock, with curly, almost cursive letters spelling out what was clearly a business name. You picked up the card, arching an eyebrow at the name printed across the surface and staring at Levi.

“Rose’s Touch Spa?”

What was that supposed to mean to you?

“Turn it over,” he said with an exasperated sigh that you couldn’t even figure out what it was on your own. You did, in fact, turn it over, and on the other side was a simple list of appointment information filled out by hand. The date was written in light pink for today, in about two hours, a Platinum package for one already paid for.

Slightly alarmed, you looked up at him. “Uh, what is--”

“It’s been four months,” Levi said, cutting you off before you could question or decline, his voice firm and leaving no room for argument. “You haven’t left since you got here, not even for a jog. That package is a full treatment, right down to all the amenities. Take the day. Relax. Do whatever else you want, as long as it’s not here.”

“But the twins--”

“Will be fine here with me for one day until you get back. You're not getting out on your own, so I took some initiative. It’s not up for debate, you’re going,” Levi said flatly.

“You know I hate it when you make decisions for me,” you said hotly, but Levi didn’t rise to the bait, calmly pouring himself some more tea--the two of you were having breakfast alone while the twins slept after their morning meal, grabbing a rare quiet moment, so it was just the two of you in the room having this conversation.

“I left it to you for four months. You didn’t do shit. It’s not healthy, and I’m stepping in,” Levi said bluntly. You chewed nervously on your bottom lip, mind suddenly buzzing with all kinds of things that could go wrong while you were gone, and that persistent, underlying, general sense of fear that wouldn’t leave you alone when Levi was involved. “If you’re that worried, you have a phone for a reason,” Levi added at your nervous disposition. However, he didn’t seem to be anywhere near changing his mind on the subject. In fact, he was starting to clean up as if everything was already finished.

“They’ll treat you as a VIP, so you won’t have to wait very long once you get there. You can probably leave thirty minutes before and get there with plenty of time,” he said casually, water running as he started scrubbing at the dishes.

You were quiet for several long moments, the only sound Levi cleaning up what remained of the morning breakfast mess. “I don’t want to leave the twins,” you eventually said in a soft, barely audible voice. Levi paused, appearing to consider your words for several long minutes.

“Your life didn’t stop because you had the babies. If it has, it's of your own doing. Nothing’s stopping you. Nothing will happen to them while you’re gone. They'll still be here when you come back. I promise."

He didn't look at you while he said it, but there was a sincerity in his words that made you believe you could at least attempt it today. It would do you some good to get out of the house, and to get a full package at a spa, and then do whatever you wanted with no limit to your spending…

It didn't look like much when it was just two cards on the counter, but he was really pushing to give you a day to yourself, a bit of freedom and fresh air. Maybe you wanted to see ulterior motives in it and that was what made you scared, but you really needed to stop doing just that. If you kept looking for problems everywhere, you'd find them, usually of your own making. And one of his biggest complaints had been you twisting his words.

You were going to give him this chance, and if nothing bad happened...maybe you could stand to trust him a little more.

"Fine…" you murmured softly, taking both cards and tucking them away for later. "You're not going to be busy today?"

"I don't have to be anywhere until Saturday."

Right. One upside of being around all the time was that you were becoming quite familiar with Levi’s schedule. He always went out on Saturday nights like clockwork, and always came back wanting to see the twins. Every now and then, he didn't walk through the door like a normal person--he'd come from upstairs like he'd been home the whole time, which left you wondering how he got inside in the first place. Another demon thing, maybe. Usually when that happened, he was a little worse for wear and kept more covered up than usual, which only made you more suspicious about what was happening when he went out on Saturdays.

Then, of course, there were those hours he spent locked in the tower doing God knew what. You hadn't snooped around to try and find out, and you'd told yourself you didn't want to know, but with how frequent it was, you were starting to wonder.

Thanks to the twins and their knack for waking you up at odd hours with their crying--and if one started, the other was grunted to join in--you'd also found out Levi didn't seem to sleep much, as you could hear him moving around the house at all hours of the night. And in the early mornings, when the sun was just starting to rise, he tended to go out for a jog. And Tuesdays were his cleaning day where he made sure the whole damn house was spotless.

So, you'd asked if it was all right with him because you didn't know if he planned on locking himself in the library again, today.

Well, apparently not, since he'd scheduled this appointment with the intent to get you out of the house all day. Which meant you had no excuse. The twins were going to be with their father today, and you were going to get out of the house for the first time in months.

You hadn't realized how much you actually needed this say to yourself, no strings attached, until you were right in the middle of it. When Levi had said he got you the full package, he hadn't been kidding. An hour long massage, manicure, pedicure, haircut however you wanted it, facial, the works. By the time you left, you almost felt like an entirely new person, and you realized you were suddenly faced with an entire town of things you could do.

Food was first, with you going to your favorite restaurant to get whatever you wanted--except alcohol, since you were driving yourself around. After that, you went to the nearest mall and browsed, ogling the puppies in one of the shop windows and buying yourself a nice sun dress to go with your new makeover. Strolling around downtown opened a few doors you hadn't been expecting, as you caught sight of one or two advertised classes or workshops that caught your interest, Levi’s suggestion that you pick up a once a week hobby that got you out of the house regularly flashing through your mind. You finished up your night with a movie, the sun having set long ago by the time you left, and a longing to get back to the twins now firmly rooted in your chest.

You'd decide if you were going to commit to a weekly class later after some online research and contemplation at home.

It was strange having a home with a driveway and a large stone gate, how you had to park and get our of the car to open the gate before you could drive inside, and having to get out again to close it behind you. You felt like you were driving up to some ancient, off limits castle instead of somewhere you were living.

I really need to liven this place up, you thought as your gaze flickered across the plain front lawn, driving the car up to where it usually stayed when it wasn't being used and putting it in park. You gathered your things and, mindful that it was an hour that the twins should be asleep, you quietly entered the house.

It was completely silent inside, which put you on edge as much as it helped relax you a bit not to be greeted with chaos. But Levi didn't appear to see who entered the house or show you the twins were fine, either.

As you set your bags by the door, you were fighting off fearful thoughts, things like Levi making off with the twins while you were gone. So as soon as you were free from the things you needed to carry inside, you started searching, going straight up to the bedrooms and peeking your head inside to confirm that the twins weren’t in the cribs in either room. You went up to the library next to see if the door was locked and Levi was inside, but it was empty. At that point, you were starting to panic, hurrying downstairs in a rush to check the kitchen to see if Levi was feeding them in there--he wasn’t. You were basically running when you checked the living room, and promptly came to a full halt at the scene inside.

Two bare feet sticking out from behind the couch caused you to hurry forward enough you could see what was on the other side. The floor blanket playmat thing you’d bought a while back for the babies was spread out and plush on the floor, on top of the carpet for extra cushion. Both babies were lying on their backs asleep, one of the baby blankets thrown over them to keep them warm and a few baby toys lying on the ground around them, like a rattle or a few stuffed animals. Beside them, lying on his side with one arm draped protectively over them, was Levi, asleep for once as you’d rarely seen him do. You weren’t sure he intended to fall asleep here, but he’d definitely planned on being here for a while based on the pillow he had under the elbow of his other arm, which might have been propping up his head before he fell asleep.

Frankly, you were surprised that none of them had woken up with all your running about. And...you were a little glad, too, because now you got to see this scene.

You lingered, deciding against waking him up for the time being. They all looked so...peaceful right now. The scene was soft and warm, Levi’s hair falling gently in front of a face that was suddenly gentle and missing signs of hardness or harsh edges. He looked perfectly comfortable and at peace lying there beside the twins, and you kind of wished he’d stay like this solely because...well, he seemed more approachable like this, at least to you. He looked...sweet, lying there with the twins. Even the twins looked slightly more peaceful than normal when they slept, like they were aware they were being protected while they slept, safe under his arm.

After simply gazing at the scene for several long minutes, you left them alone--at least for now--and retrieved your things by the door to put them away. Almost all of it went to your room, so it was one quick, quiet trip and then you were coming back downstairs. Levi and the twins were still asleep in the living room, but now you didn’t have an excuse to delay, and the twins really should have been asleep in their crib. So, quietly, you knelt down beside Levi, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder to wake him up.

He took a sharp breath in as he stiffened, eyelids opening even though his eyes were foggy and darting around to take in his surroundings, leaning slightly back to look at you. Once he realized it was you, he started to relax slightly, rolling his shoulders and starting to sit up.

“It’s late. Let’s get them in their cribs,” you said softly, receiving a grunt from Levi in acknowledgement as he sat up and gently pulled the blanket off of Asa, wrapping Ida up as he gently picked her up, taking care not to wake her in the process. You picked up Asa in the meantime, freezing for a heartbeat when Asa twitched and you thought he might wake up before, thankfully, he settled back down, and you were able to get to your feet without waking him.

This was one of the few times you would let Levi into your room, just for the few moments it took for him to safely put one of the twins in the crib. He made sure they were covered and warm, lying on their back without anything in the way before he backed up to the doorway, leaning on the frame just outside your bedroom.

“How was the spa?” he asked you as he watched you situate Asa in his crib, watching the twins for a few moments just to make sure they really were going to fall asleep.

“Very nice,” you said honestly, a little part of you in the back of your mind grateful that the two of you had at least gotten to the point you could have simple conversation. “I even rescheduled...a month out.”

Levi’s gaze wandered to the sun dress you had laying on the bed. “And had a shopping spree afterwards?”

You shrugged, stepping away from the cribs and making your way towards the doorway. Levi stepped out of your way and let you walk by, closing the door behind you before he followed you back down the stairs to the living room.

“Not really. I browsed a few places, but didn’t buy much. I had dinner, saw a movie, walked around downtown--just a regular night out,” you said simply, starting to pick up the baby toys on the floor. Levi helped, especially since he’d contributed to the mess, folding up the blanket and putting the pillows back up on the couch.

“Will you be going out again? Before next month’s appointment?” Levi asked casually, though you were well aware he was hoping this one day out had inspired you to get out of the house more.

“Maybe. I’m looking at some things, I’ll let you know,” you murmured, playing idly with the stuffed animal in your hand. “What about while I was gone? They weren’t too fussy, were they?”

“They seemed fairly content. I think they were looking for their mother sometimes, though,�� Levi said honestly. You appreciated the honesty. As much as it tasted bittersweet that they’d missed you, you also appreciated that he didn’t try to claim they’d been perfectly happy without you, with just him to keep them company. At least he hadn’t made it sound like they didn’t need you. “You look different.”

You turned to look at him, stuffed animals in your arms with your hand wrapped around the baby rattle. “You booked the full package, didn’t you? It was practically a full makeover.” You shifted, suddenly a little self-conscious, though you couldn’t for the life of you figure out why. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Never said it was.”

An awkward silence lingered between the two of you for a few moments, what could have been a nice moment spoiled by the tension of the history between the two of you as you turned away. “I’ve been running around all day. I’m going to head to bed...I’ll see you in the morning,” you said softly, already leaving the room before you even finished talking.

You were tired, and you wanted to rest, but you also wanted to get out while the conversation was positive, leave things on a good note before the two of you had the chance to spoil it by accident or bringing up things that didn’t need brought up.

Let this moment stay a good day, a good memory. Which was exactly what it became when you were able to fall asleep that night without any other incident.

(One Month Later)

You had slowly grown used to the house, made it your own. There were still a few things that made you reluctant to call it home, namely the continued awkwardness and unease living with Levi, but you were starting to be able to coexist with him, which was the important thing. You had your spots around the house now, places you liked to be. There was your room of course, but now there was also the library, where you liked to go up to the balcony floor to read, and outside, where you were working on some yard work to make the place feel more at home. You were planning on putting outside toys in the back when the twins were old enough--sprinklers on a water hose for the kids to play in, a playhouse, swing sets, that kind of thing. In the front, you were more worried about plant life--flowers, trees, bushes, the like. Maybe put in some rock beds. If you were lucky, maybe you could even convince Levi to let you put in a fountain or two--make the place look nice. You were determined to put in the flowers, bushes, and at least one tree. You still needed to talk to Levi to see if remodeling the front and back lawn was part of his ‘make this place yours’ statement, but you were drawing up plans for larger alterations while making the smaller ones like the rock beds, bushes, and flowers.

At the moment, however, you were looking for something a bit less laborious than gardening. You just wanted some quiet time in the library while the twins were down for a nap, which meant you were heading up to the tower with the baby monitor on your person, hoping that Levi wasn’t currently holed up in there with the door locked, which would have meant your plans were entirely spoiled and you’d have to think of something new.

You paused with your hand hovering over the doorknob, able to hear Levi’s voice once again, faintly, from the other side of the door.

Shit, he was in there, which meant the door was probably locked, and you couldn’t go in. So much for a bit of reading for your time to yourself.

You started to back away from the door, but paused, that curiosity that you had managed to keep at bay for these past few months cropping up much stronger and more intense than it had been, especially when you knew all you had to do...was press your ear up to the door for a few minutes and listen, just long enough to get context and figure out what might be going on behind that door, combined with what you saw of him afterwards usually--though usually he disappeared to his room or the bathroom directly afterwards unless he was needed.

You really should just walk away. Part of you was afraid to know what was happening behind that door. But at the same time, the curiosity was killing you.

Fuck it. Just get it over with.

Slowly and hesitantly, so you didn’t make any noise that might give you away, you gently pressed your ear against the wood, closing your eyes to focus more on what you heard and not get distracted by the grains in the wood or something.

For a few moments, you didn’t really...hear anything. Just soft but heavy breathing--well, if you could hear it, it was probably panting. There was the softest grunt, and you heard him speak again.

“There. Right there…” Levi said, his voice sounding a little strained and followed by a low moan.

Wait a second…

You strained you ears to try and catch maybe another voice, a different pitch, but all you could hear was Levi, no one else. Which made you doubt your brief moment of almost realization.

But then you heard a low chuckle that made a tingle go down your spine in an almost conditioned response. “Faster? Impatient today, aren’t we?”

Oh yeah, that was definitely what was going on in there. It would explain why the few times you saw him afterwards he looked disheveled and a little sweaty if he didn’t get a chance to clean up first. As for the lack of a responding individual...well, either he was rubbing one out for himself, which would suggest a stupidly high sex drive bordering on addiction with how long and often he was up here, or he was performing for an audience that wasn’t necessarily here.

Whichever it was, you really didn’t want to be listening much longer now that you had a hint about what was going on in there.

Also, if there was an audience, it would explain why he wouldn’t want you walking in on that.

You shook your head after pulling away from the door and hurried back down the spiral staircase, trying desperately to erase the image that your mind easily called up with your...extensive experience with Levi what you were now forced to realize was hardly a year ago. A whole year since the wild three months of regular wild sex that had led to the situation you were in now.

And now that you thought about it...he hadn’t once touched you since that last night. Not at all. Only accidental brushes or the occasional assistance with the twins, or when he’d carried you into the house that first night here.

You didn’t think you hated him anymore, after the past five months with him and the twins. But you still didn’t like him. Still, you couldn’t help but wonder...what were the two of you? What were you now, and what were you going to be? Was there even a name for whatever this arrangement between the two of you?

Maybe you just needed to wait a little longer and find out what would happen next.

But right now, you really didn’t want to be thinking about what he was doing up in that tower. You’d been right the first time, it would have been better if your curiosity remained in check. Now you were going to have to try and avoid thinking about what he was doing up there every time he locked himself in the damn library.

Fuck.

(Two Months Later)

*Levi’s POV*

While domestic life was gradually getting easier between Levi and Y/N, especially with her getting out of the house for glass blowing lessons every week--that hadn't been what he expected her to pick up, but he wasn't going to complain so long as she was getting out every now and then--Levi was mostly focused on the twins, who had been growing rather rapidly. Not abnormally so, just, he hadn't expected them to grow this quickly. Y/N was practically ordering new clothes for them through the catalogues monthly, though he had a feeling she was also trying to get ahead of the growth spurt, buying clothes for one year and older as well and not just the seven months they were currently at.

With both of them not working, considering they were living off the mass of wealth Levi had stolen and accumulated over the centuries and the money he'd made in more modern times doing sex work, they were both there for many of the firsts with the twins.

Two months in, the now calm coexistence with Y/N had still been rough and more tense than anything. But that had also been the time when Levi had entered the same room as Y/N when she was walking the twins around for some sight seeing outside the bedroom. As he rounded the corner and approached, Asa had turned his little head at the sound of Levi's approach and smiled for the first time upon locking eyes with Levi. It had cut him right to the heart--in a good way, and softened his expression immediately, a faint smile flickering across his face as well with the bright look his son was giving him, and one of his firsts, at that.

The first thing Asa smiled at in this world had been him.

Of course, he'd tried to hide it, simply because at that point he was worried about how Y/N would react knowing Levi got the first smile from the twins. Thankfully, Ida smiled at her mother a few days later, which made Levi relax a bit once more with the relief of Y/N getting the same first with Ida, at least. The last thing he'd wanted was her to have another reason to be jealous or upset with him.

Not that he could help it, or would apologize for it.

His son smiled for the first time when he saw him. How could that make him feel bad, besides when he overthought it on his own time worrying about how Y/N perceived him?

While he dodged a bullet with the first smile thing, since it was split between the two of them, the first laugh was singular to him, and him alone, for both twins. Thankfully that had been roughly around the four month mark, and Y/N had been far more tolerant and forgiving of him by then--hell, she’d been willing to let him take care of the twins on his own while she went out for a day to herself. That was progress.

One of the twins he’d made laugh by accident, while the other was definitely on purpose, though he hadn’t known it was their first laugh at the time, so he’d felt a little guilty that he’d accidentally made it so he shared more of the firsts with the twins than she did.

Ida had been the first one he made laugh, and it had been entirely by accident. Him and Y/N started to get into a bit of an argument over something petty, as usual, something that didn’t matter overall and was mostly fueled by the old wounds between them instead of the matter they were arguing over. The twins happened to be in the room at the time, and in an effort to get the topic to be dropped so the twins wouldn’t have to be in the room as it escalated into a full-blown fight, Levi had looked away with his signature, dismissive ‘Tch’ sound.

That little sound had made Ida giggle and squirm happily while staring at him with a wide smile, which had effectively shut down any argument they’d been having in favor of the fact one of their twins had laughed for the first time. More specifically, she’d laughed at the funny noise her father made, but still she’d laughed, and they’d both heard it.

And frankly, if she was around and he made that little noise, she would giggle at it. It actually made him a little self-conscious of how often he made that noise.

Asa had clearly been the one he’d made laugh on purpose. It had been while he was playing with the little boy, which right now consisted of simply tickles, silly little games, waving interesting objects in their face, that kind of thing. Levi had been tickling his tummy and feet to keep Asa entertained while they laid on the floor, Asa on the play mat and Levi stretched out beside it, and as his hand came in for quick little tickles all across the little boy’s tummy and sides. Asa had let out a squeal, legs lifting momentarily into the air and arms pinwheeling beside him and thumping into the ground at the tickles.

And again, Levi smiled in turn, not at that moment realizing it had been Asa’s first laugh. That part came later, when he mentioned he’d gotten Asa to squeal-laugh while playing with him and he’d seen the downcast look on Y/N’s face. That look had told him she’d missed something before she’d told him that was the first time Asa had laughed, and it had been because of Levi again, while she was out for the night at the glass blowing class she’d decided to give a try.

Again, he felt a little bad that he currently had experienced more of the children’s firsts by his own hand than she had, but he wasn’t going to let that taint the memories themselves. They were still good, precious memories he was going to hold onto.

Like their first baths--actual baths, not the sponge baths they got for the first few weeks after coming home from the hospital. That had taken some convincing, since that had been when the animosity was still fresh, but with Y/N’s supervision, he’d been able to give them their first baths, which he’d insisted on doing. The twins hadn’t been sure how to react to the experience, both of them appearing to find it all strange and new, but not yet deciding if it was a good or bad thing. Ida kept trying to grab everything he used to clean her to inspect them, but he kept it firmly out of her reach and stayed focused on very carefully cleaning every part of them so there wasn’t a trace of filth or stink on them, leaving their skin smooth and soft since he’d been careful they didn’t end up dried out, either. In his opinion, they seemed a bit more active and squirmy afterwards, like they’d been pleased with the clean feeling afterwards despite the alien experience.

He was definitely there when Y/N started to slowly get them eating food instead of just breastmilk. That was still new, since it was usually recommended around the six month mark, which they hadn’t passed that long ago. It was strictly baby food right now, no soft melting finger foods yet, just spoon fed baby food, but it was still a graduation from breast milk, which had Levi excited that his anxiety over Y/N possibly being impatient to pump milk and feeding them straight from the source would finally be over when they graduated completely from breast feeding. When he was the one feeding them, he was always careful to make sure they were paced no matter how eager to eat they might be, and that they didn’t get too much in their little mouths, so they wouldn’t inhale the food and choke. And, of course, he was always trying to make it as neat of an experience as possible, to the point he’d gotten pretty good at catching stray baby food with the spoon without leaving any traces behind.

They were also able to sit up by now, in a way. That one was Y/N’s doing--she’d apparently sat with them on the couch and discovered they could officially sit up as long as they were propped on something, which meant that they could play with some toys to entertain themselves on their own for a little while as they read or watched a movie or whatever it was that they wanted to do. Y/N liked to prop them up on the crescent shaped pillow with a few baby toys within reach and read books from the library. Levi, however, was still in a mindset to snatch each and every moment he could, just in case Y/N’s favor towards him turned foul in the future and these moments became scarce. So when the twins were with him, usually all of his attention was on them. He, of course, tended to have the lingering feeling like this was time he was being allowed to have and he needed to make the most of it.

Even though he was painfully aware of the fact that he and the twins had an eternity stretched in front of them as long as nothing terrible happened, and Y/N only had a few short years with them. If anyone should be acting like every moment was a rare allowance, it was her, but she wasn’t aware she was on a clock, and he didn’t like to think about it--not at this early stage. Let her enjoy these years of firsts and infancy in peace, let the memories be pure. He’d tell her when they got a bit older. While she still had a few years left, but after the first couple of innocent years had passed untainted by the knowledge.

They were rolling over now, too, which had Levi a little leery about the house. He was thinking about officially baby proofing it, and just how gung-ho he wanted to go with it. Considering they had twins and they were his children, it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

Ridiculous amounts of baby proofing it was. Until some of them frustrated the hell out of him and he realized the lack of necessity for some of them through trial and error. But right now, if they were going to be crawling around and exploring soon, all sharp edges and dangerous items and open electrical sockets needed taken care of. And gates needed to be put up. Fuck, were there baby gates for grand double staircases?

At the moment, it was a rare moment of familial quiet time in the library, the twins snoozing on the baby mat in front of Y/N piled on top of each other like kittens clutching toys and stuffed animals, Y/N curled up on the couch with a book down below while Levi perused his collection on the second floor looking for something he wouldn’t mind reading again. A lot of the books here were ones that he’d read before and decided they were worth keeping a copy of because he felt they could be read more than once.

As he was passing by the window, moving from one bookshelf to another, he glanced outside, past the large semi-finished lawn and to the street he could view from this high up at this particular window. However, his movement was brought to a halt in front of the window, gaze fixed on the same spot with burning intensity as he took a step closer to the window to get a better look.

There was someone standing on the opposite side of the street, looking up at the house with as much attention as Levi was currently looking down on them. The people walking around on the street didn’t seem to notice he was even there, as if it was just open air. The tingle on the back of Levi's neck confirmed he was seeing someone currently in between, someone keeping themselves unseen to the human eye. He didn’t have a name for the person he was gazing at, but there was faint recognition. He felt like it might have been one of the demons who had initially dragged him back to the Infernal Council trial that had led to Levi having to impregnate Y/N. A vengeance demon, if he remembered properly, and not at all a friend. A threat, at the very least.

Their gazes locked, and a dangerous burn entered Levi’s gaze, body tensing as he realized he couldn’t let confirmation of where he and the twins were living get out.

I see you.

Y/N wasn’t paying attention to him at the moment, thankfully, so Levi shifted into the in between himself, wings unfurling as he stepped right through what had been a physical wall, his wings controlling the rapid descent as he made a beeline for the other demon that was turning to make a run for it. The other demon just had to get the information to someone else. Levi just had to silence him before he could.

The other demon took off with bat-like wings smaller than Levi’s own draconic ones, trying to zip through small places and outmaneuver him. Levi, however, wasn’t shaken, following with ease and rapidly gaining speed, coming closer and closer as they flew above the roofs of homes and businesses. Finally, the vengeance demon made the mistake Levi had been counting on him making, and he tried to plummet down and enter Hell so he could shout the information to the nearest demons and let gossip and natural spread of information do the rest.

However, as soon as he tucked in those wings and started to plummet, Levi tucked in as well, diving with the speed and accuracy of a bird swooping down upon an unsuspecting mouse. His arms wrapped around the other demon with a snarl, turning them both to the side and keeping them from shifting one more plane down into Hell. They crashed to the ground, Levi making sure the other demon was taking the brunt of the fall before he jumped back up to his feet two paces away from the other demon. As the other let out a frustrated growl and his twisted true form burst through, Levi’s eyes narrowed, his own human form bleeding away to reveal his demon form, wings, horns, tail, and all.

This was a slightly more matched fight. Vengeance demons could be vicious, but they were oddly enough considered a lower class of demon like incubi and succubi. Though he still had some nasty natural weapons Levi was going to have to be mindful of if he wanted to come out of this fight on top. Like those claws he was staring at, or the fangs. Vengeance demons certainly weren’t crafted for allure like incubi were, looking more like the Dracula vampire form in the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing movie.

Thankfully, one good thing about all the deals he’d been making and years he’d been gaining, was that he was pumped full of vitality and strength, more than he normally was. Clearly the Council hadn’t been thinking about that little side effect when they put him in the position to have to make this damn deal.

The other demon lunged at Levi, who stood his ground and lowered his body into a charging position at the last moment, his horns now perfectly aligned to impale the demon that charged him. When the other howled, Levi quickly backed up before he left his neck exposed any longer than necessary, moving out of range of those wicked claws that slashed at him. Black ichor dripped down his horns and onto his skin, gold and black eyes flashing as he braced himself for another attack. The demon lunged itself at him again, and this time Levi met him head on, hands flashing through the air as the two exchanged blows, Levi deflecting most of the others hits and landing a few solid hits of his own, causing black blood to spatter onto the pavement below. Some of it, unfortunately, was his own. Those claws managed to do a bit of damage even when Levi deflected since they were so damn sharp, breaking skin wherever they connected. Levi ignored the sting, however, and stayed focused on the fight, stepping back and leaning away every now and then to avoid the snapping fangs that tried to savagely rip at any flesh it could come into contact with.

Levi ducked and weaved around the other demon, keeping his attacks quick, his movements agile, doing his best not to let the other demon land any solid hits on him as he methodically tore them apart. The other demon could probably sense he wasn’t going to win this fight, his attacks turning wild and unrefined, Levi able to dodge almost all of them as he put the demon on the ground, pinning him beneath Levi’s weight as he proceeded to beat them to death.

It was a brutal way to go, but he didn’t have any demonic weapons on hand to finish him off, so it would have to be by his own hands. Killing demons could be tricky, and this was someone he couldn’t let slip through the cracks and risk telling people where Levi and the twins were.

Mid swing, when the demon below him started to look like a bloody pulp, a sudden surge of strength from the being beneath him caught Levi off guard, and he felt sharp claws sink into his abdomen, slender, bony fingers pushed past--it felt like it went all the way through, at least barely. Levi choked, pain wracking his body, but determination and fierce protectiveness for the little family he had back at that mansion pushed him through it so he could slam the full weight of his fist into the demon’s temple while its head was pressed against the ground, hearing a sick crack and feeling the hand that had impaled him go limp. He didn’t remove it, yet, knowing that would only cause the bleeding to worsen and the injury to get worse, which he did not need right now.

A few more hits, and he was certain the vengeance demon wasn’t going to be getting back up. There was no breath, no heartbeat, and he still did another hit or two--overkill, yes--just to be sure.

He needed to get back home. He needed to take care of this, before he bled out and died. This was arguably worse than the wounds Zeke gave him.

Being extremely careful he didn’t cause any more damage than was inevitable, Levi let his wings unfurl again, ready to take flight the moment he was free as he slowly pulled the clawed fingers out of his torso. The demon beneath him was already turning a matte black and seemed to be crumbling, which confirmed that yes, they were very dead, and no one would be able to retrieve the information of where Levi and the others were located.

Though he really needed to figure out what trail had led the demon there in the first place. He’d have to ask Furlan to look into that.

Those thoughts could wait for later.

As soon as the fingers were clear, Levi pressed his arm against the holes in his abdomen to try and staunch the flow of black ichor, wings already lifting him into the air with temporarily powerful beats in the air, carrying him as fast as he could manage back home. By now Y/N would have noticed his sudden disappearance, but she was going to have to deal with his disappearing act a little longer. He didn’t want her seeing this.

By the time the house appeared within view again, Levi was barely keeping himself in the air, head swimming as he bobbed and weaved almost drunkenly through the sky, breaths labored as he simply aimed for making it to the bathroom in the house.

It was a crash landing, Levi ending up curled up on his side on the cold floor as his demon form slowly bled away and gave way to his human form again and he fazed back to the physical plane, skin clammy and eyes half-open as his gaze roamed his familiar bathroom. His foot weakly kicked the door shut. He dragged himself over to the cabinet he kept the towels in, dragging out the black ones to press hard against his wound while his bloody hand reached for his phone to make a call--or rather, text--for help.

Human hands or means he couldn’t die from. Demons and Angels, supernatural beings, that was another story. Which was why he couldn’t let himself bleed out here in the bathroom. He had two children that were going to need him after their mother was gone, and he needed assistance with this injury.

The bastard had actually gotten a good last hit on him, and he hated it.

I need help. Don’t let Y/N see you, the text read when he sent it. Now all he had to do was sit and wait and hope he didn’t bleed out before help came.

He was borderline unconscious when Isabel finally showed up, walking through the In Between so Y/N wouldn’t see her and she could just walk through walls instead of worrying about locks and doors. Her words were far away when she picked him up off the floor and leaned him against the wall, but it didn’t take much to figure out what she was trying to say to him despite his current condition.

“Vengeance demon was watching the house. Had to take care of him before he told anyone,” Levi murmured as Isabel got a good look at the injury, moving around the bathroom to find the first aid supplies Levi kept, water, more towels, things like that.

“A vengeance demon did this to you?” Isabel asked skeptically. Levi snorted acerbically.

“Caught me off guard. Guess I’m a little rusty,” he mumbled.

“It’s fixable, but it’s not going to be pleasant. Your healing’s done part of the work already, but try not to move or fall asleep for a while.”

“I know the drill...Isabel...I don’t know how he found out about the house, but--”

“I know. I’ll tell Furlan, see what we can find. Maybe you guys should go to one of the other safe houses until we find out where the leak is.”

Levi shook his head. “No...Y/N’s just started to settle in and get a life again. I don’t want to move her.”

“Tell her it’s a vacation. Go to that beach cottage you love so much. Take the kids to see the ocean. Just for a couple weeks, and then right back after we figure this out.”

“...Maybe. We’ll see.”

There was a knock on the door, and both of them grew quiet, Levi becoming a bit more alert and trying to sit up as Y/N’s voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“Levi? Are you in there?”

Levi cleared his throat, taking a moment to make sure there wouldn’t be traces of pain or weakness in his voice as he asked a quick, simple, “What?”

“You disappeared, I just...are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said, his tone almost curt, though he made sure it was soft enough she wouldn’t think he was angry at her.

“Okay, but...I have my class tonight, so you’re going to have to watch the twins in an hour or so.”

Levi cursed in his mind, grinding his teeth together. “I’ll call Isabel, then.”

There were a few long moments of silence where Isabel stared at him, Levi well aware he just accidentally tipped his hand if Y/N had learned anything about him and how he felt about the twins. He never gave up a chance to be around them and take care of them, and was always more than willing to have one on one time with them.

The doorknob rattled, the door starting to open since neither Levi nor Isabel had bothered to lock it--or in Levi’s case, hadn't been in a condition to lock it. Levi quickly leaned over and pushed it shut before she could get it open enough to see what was happening inside, his hand pressed flat against the door and a low groan of pain escaping him at the sudden movement. He hoped she hadn’t heard that, with how his face was maybe two inches off the floor, the sound quiet and maybe not heard over the click of the door shutting.

“I respect your privacy. Do the same for me...please,” Levi ground out, tagging on the last part so he wouldn’t come off too harsh. They were finally getting in a good place, he didn’t want to ruin that because he was hurt and his answers were a bit brisk right now.

There were a few moments of silence again, except this time, Y/N simply walked away. Isabel was right next to him, a hand pressed against his injury to keep it from bleeding more since he’d just agitated it, helping him to get back in a sitting position. This time he managed to keep the gasp contained, though the pain was spelled out across his face, surely.

“Babysitting?” he asked Isabel briefly as she got back to work on his injury.

“I’ve got it,” she answered just as quietly.

Damn, he was glad he had at least some friends to help him with all this. He’d be shit outta luck if he didn’t have Isabel and Furlan.

Levi leaned his head back and let Isabel do her work, simply focusing on enduring the pain and keeping his eyes open as his mind raced with what he should do now.

Predictably, Y/N hadn’t been open to leaving the house for a vacation when she was finally making it home and she had her weekly classes. She’d been open to the vacation in the future, but right now, she wanted to stay here with the babies, and she had not been open to leaving. So, Isabel, Furlan, and Levi had to work around that stubbornness to make sure the house remained safe, and Levi had to default to settling for his other, more long term safety measure.

It wasn’t a full solution, but it was a nice start, and it would do more than just add a bit of security to the property.

He had an unannounced day out besides a bit of a warning to Y/N earlier that morning, telling her he didn’t know how long he would be gone, but that he should at least be back in time for dinner. She didn’t get angry this time--she’d stopped getting angry when he left, since now it was part of normal everyday life and the twins had been home for a few months now. Not to mention, he rarely went out on days that varied from his usual, except when there was something he needed to do or get for them.

The first three-fourths of his day was spent searching for the perfect fit. He went to several stores, some out of town, looking for the perfect one, which was a lot more difficult than it might have been for normal people. The last small part of the day was reserved for supplies, which would be easy once he finally settled on his choice. He’d done a bit of research two or three days prior, and he knew generally what he was looking for. Now it was just the matter of finding the right one.

He was looking for a dog.

A puppy, more accurately. Very young, probably recently started on the transition away from their mother. He wanted a puppy so that he could start training early, and so that the little one could grow up with the twins and they could form a comfortable bond. He already knew the breeds he was looking at, he’d narrowed it down to a Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd, and since he knew what age he wanted, it should have been easy, right?

No. It wasn’t. Not for a demon. Dogs could sense the infernal nature in him, and they were not very welcoming whenever he walked into a kennel or a pet store. Most of them growled or barked or were on edge when he entered. It might have been another reason he was looking for a puppy. If he got them that young, they could learn to be comfortable around him and the twins, instead of naturally being hostile. But it was also making his search a little more difficult. Not only did he have to find a puppy of one or both of the breeds that fit what he was looking for, he had to find one that took to him fairly well that wasn’t going to be on edge because of his infernal blood.

It didn’t help he could feel some judgmental looks from the caretakers whenever all the dogs responded negatively to him. He ignored it, though. If he looked long enough, surely he’d eventually find one that would warm up to him.

His search finally came to an end not at a pet store or a shelter, but at someone’s home. They’d put up an add that their dogs had puppies and they were selling most of them, and he’d decided to give it a try. The Doberman father of the puppies had admittedly tried to bite him when he arrived, but the owners had put the dog in another room and brought him into the room they were keeping the puppies in. The German shepherd mother they had to put on a leash, because she nearly freaked out when Levi was brought into the same room as her puppies, but thankfully the owners were still letting him look. Patiently, Levi took a seat on the ground instead of the couches, putting himself on the level of the puppies who were old enough to be wandering around and be separated from their mother if they were picked, but young enough they were still being kept around her.

Most of the puppies scattered and hid or went to their mother, but there were two or three brave souls who wanted to check him out and see what this new person that smelled funny to them was. One left after the mother barked at them when they got too close, and another wouldn’t get close enough for Levi to touch them, but the third…

The puppy was a boy, more Doberman in coloration, but with a German shepherd lean in body structure. He had little light brown eyebrow and ear markings, a soft light brown underbelly marking and up half of his legs, two light brown, symmetrical patches at the front of its chest, a light brown muzzle, and a little tuft of white/grey fur running in a stripe from nose to between the eyes. This little guy ignored any warnings from his siblings and mother and went up to Levi, albeit hesitantly, who stayed still and let the puppy sniff him experimentally, occasionally jumping back as if he kept expecting Levi to do something before he would approach again. When he got comfortable enough to linger around Levi, he carefully extended a hand and let the puppy sniff him, even letting it nibble playfully on his fingers before he very gently and carefully gave the tiny puppy a few gentle pets. After that, he seemed rather confident, crawling right into Levi’s lap and looking for a comfortable position as he snuggled in.

Finally. Ironic how it ended up being a mix of the two breeds he’d been looking for. Or maybe that was part of what made it so perfect.

After that he just had to talk to the owners about price and what the puppy had already been given regarding shots and the like, and if they were already starting house training him or were leaving that for the next owner. He had the whole discussion with the puppy in his lap, acting as if it was entirely normal that this was happening. He had twins that happily lolled around in his lap--thankfully they weren’t crawling yet--so a puppy making a happy home in his lap was nothing.

After the discussion with the owner and paying, Levi left with one very tiny nine week old puppy who was already asleep tucked under his arm. It might not have been the safest, but he let the little guy stay there and drove back to the best store he’d been to one handed, the puppy in his arms waking up at the drastic change in the air after the car came to a stop and Levi stepped inside. He sat the puppy down in the grass to do his business before picking him back up in his arm and heading inside to get all the dog supplies he needed--with help from one of the store associates, who talked to him about what he’d need for a puppy, and he needed to talk to in order to set up training lessons as well--the basics, at least. The more advanced guard dog stuff would have to wait until the puppy was older and would probably need a different kind of trainer.

He also let the little guy run around on the floor in the toy aisle to pick some toys while he worried about dog food, bed, leash, collar, food bowls, all that kind of stuff. The collar ended up being a dark green and gold one, which he got a nameplate for at the kiosk in the store.

Which also meant he needed to come up with a name for the puppy on the spot.

He watched the little guy after filling out address and phone number for if he got lost, the name the only thing still needed as he watched the puppy bounding around, currently entertained with a canvas toy he was absolutely enamored by, tail wagging furiously as he gnawed on the toy.

Hmm...a guard dog...but he didn’t want it terribly cliché, so nothing like Cerberus, Spike, Fang, or anything like that. Maybe something the twins might eventually be able to say with ease--in a way.

Levi cocked his head to the side, giving it a few more minutes of thought before he finally keyed in CAPTAIN in big letters to have engraved onto the golden name plate.

Once he had everything, Levi and Captain headed back to the car, all of the stuff loaded into the back and Captain getting a seat of honor in his lap where Levi could make sure that the puppy was safe during the drive--after he was let out into the grass again, just to make sure he didn’t need to relieve himself again before they got in the car.

Normally, he probably should have brought this up to Y/N first, but after the encounter with the vengeance demon, Levi wanted some kind of layer of protection for the family he now had to take care of. He couldn’t ask Isabel and Furlan to constantly keep an eye on the house, and no security system in the world, no matter how state of the art, was going to be able to protect against a demon walking through the In Between plane.

But a dog, a dog could see--a bit--creatures that walked in the In Between. Cats could, too--animals in general had always been sensitive about that kind of thing. But a dog he could train to alert them when there was something in the In Between lurking around the property. It could help if Levi wasn’t around, or if Levi wasn’t somewhere he could see with a glance out the window. It was another layer of protection, even if it was slight, and it would help Levi have a bit of peace of mind that they would be a little safer on the grounds. It would take a lot of hard work and training when the dog was older, training him to growl or bark a certain way when there was a demon in the In Between lurking around, but not to bark or growl at Levi or Furlan when they were walking around in the In Between.

He’d figure it out when the puppy was older. Right now, it was all about integration into the house...and convincing Y/N to let the fact he’d done this without asking her slide. And convincing her it was a good idea.

When he came home, he once again let the puppy in the grass to do its business, having been told by the store owner that the puppy was going to go all the time in this early stage and he’d have to be vigilant and patient, and that messes inside were inevitable until the puppy was old enough to be properly potty trained, and he eventually was trained successfully.

Twins and a puppy...he really was taking on a lot at once, but...he needed this extra layer of protection for the twins, and he needed the puppy to be young so he could get them used to demons, for his and the twins sakes. He couldn’t exactly wait, either, considering the threat was real now, even if he wasn’t planning on making it known to Y/N. Not yet, anyway.

Once Captain had done his business once more, Levi scooped him up and headed inside, leaving the supplies and toys in the car for now.

As soon as the door closed behind them, he heard Y/N moving from the living room, coming over to the foyer with Asa in hand and then freezing when she saw the tiny excited thing wiggling in Levi’s arms wanting to run over and check out the new person and the new surroundings.

“What the hell?” Y/N asked, sounding for the moment too stunned to be angry.

Levi kept a firm hold on Captain, unaware where Ida was and wanting to be safe for the time being. He planned on Captain getting used to the twins scents and adjusting to being around himself and Y/N before he did an actual first meeting, so he was keeping a tight hold on the puppy for the moment.

“I know I didn’t give you any warning, but this...is Captain. He’s going to be our new guard dog...eventually,” he said, scratching Captain behind the ear and watching as the puppy turned to investigate, nibbling at his fingers again.

“You got a puppy,” Y/N said blankly, still staring, though Levi didn’t miss how she held Asa a little tighter.

“A puppy can adjust to being around three demons. And he can grow up with the twins, too, so they’re used to each other,” Levi explained.

“And you didn’t think to ask me first?” she asked pointedly, and Levi grimaced inwardly. The question that he couldn’t get around.

“I did,” he said honestly.

“But you didn’t ask me.”

“Because it was something I was going to do regardless,” Levi said, giving the puppy little strokes along its head as it licked at the hand holding it.

“You should have asked me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But it still doesn’t change anything. We need a guard dog, and the best way to go about it is get a young puppy to raise with the twins and get used to being around demons.”

“We need one?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes. A guard dog can do what a security system can’t for us,” Levi said calmly. “I won’t be pushing any more responsibilities off on you--I’ll be training and taking care of him, you won’t have to worry about him, usually. Except the few times I’m not home and he needs let out.”

“Are you sure having a puppy around the twins is a good idea? What if they don’t get along?” she asked in concern.

“I’m not going to throw them together right away. I’m going to have him get used to their scent and make sure he associates good things with them first. And I specifically got a breed that’s good with children and families.”

“Families?”

Levi glanced up at her, realizing for the first time the connotations he was bringing to light whenever he referred to or thought of them as a family. A dysfunctional one, for sure, unique and with strange relationships...but they were, weren’t they? Children, mother, father, even if mother and father weren’t together and had a strained relationship. Now they even had a family dog.

“Is Ida in the other room?” he asked, instead of saying anything about his use of family.

“Yeah, she’s napping on the floor, Asa wore her out.”

Levi nodded. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to get a few things from your bedroom with the twins scent on them for him to start getting used to the smells before meeting the three of you. I’ll keep it out of destructive reach and put him in my room while I bring his things in,” Levi explained, waiting for her express permission before he moved.

Hesitantly, Y/N nodded, still looking a little upset and unsure about the whole thing before Levi headed upstairs to start getting Captain settled into his new home.

Next Part---->

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steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

youtube

#Yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #episode recap #S5 #Ep19 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Joey's fear of birds I've never heard about until this episode #Tea Gardner #Grandpa Muto #Tristan Taylor #Baby Dragon #This weird ass tranformer that Yugi is wearing.

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feelyourhearttakingroot · 3 years

Text

The Reader's Guide to Avoiding Redfly (and how to have a good time doing it)

“How’re you doing, kid?” Tom murmured in your ear. Your skin hadn’t started crawling yet, but it definitely would soon.

“Redfly, leave the girl alone.”

A third voice - the voice of God himself, if it meant that Tom would let you go.

Summary: Your friend Dina is dating Benny Miller, and drags you along to one of his fights before a night at a bar. His friends meet you there - Tom ‘Redfly’ Davis, who is too busy trying it on with you to think about his wife; Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia, who is a god made flesh; and Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales, who agrees to help keep you out of Redfly’s clutches. But Frankie is not without his own charm...

Relationships: Frankie Morales x reader, side Santiago Garcia x Original Female Character, side Benny Miller x Original Female Character

Rating: First chapter is Mature, but it will be getting Explicit after that...

Author’s note: I saw Triple Frontier last week for the first time and it has occupied my every waking thought since then. This is my first ‘x reader’ fic, so feedback is appreciated. Benny is my darling boy and I want to write him a loving af relationship even if it’s in the bg of this fic. I also don’t mean to step on toes but Redfly is the worst man and deserved to die a lot earlier than he did in the film. I am also obviously obsessed with Frankie Morales. Sorry if the formatting is fucked, this is the first fic I’ve posted directly to Tumblr in many’a.

Warnings: 18+ for frequent language, she/her pronouns, future smut but this chapter is just teasing.

Read on AO3.

Chapter One

The Fight

“The fight ends at 9pm, so we’ll be good to get to the bar by 9.30,” Dina said, leaning to within a hair's breadth of the bathroom mirror. Your arms twitched, hands opening and closing as you watched the safety pin come even closer to her eyeball.

“Dina, do you have to- the fight?”

“Yes, I need to separate my eyelashes, and yes, the fight.” She said, tongue peeping out between her lips. “Benny is fighting and he’s going to come with us to the bar afterwards.”

Your heart sank, just a little. Benny was a great guy, and you were happy for Dina, but it was always harder to get into bars when Benny ‘Brick Shithouse’ Miller rocked up with facial wounds and an ego after inevitably winning the fight.

Apparently their post-fight sex was insane.

“So it’s you, me, and Benny?” you asked flatly, and she rolled her eyes in a way that made your hands clench into fists, with a vivid mental image of the pin sinking into her eyeball. She ignored you, of course, and started on the bottom lid.

“No, you prick,” she said, teasing each lash apart. She paused, and winked at you through the mirror “Ha. Prick! Get it? Sandy, Amy and Kelly are joining us - and Benny is bringing his friends.”

“William and Tom?” You were trying so hard not to be a downer, you really were, but you’d met William and Tom before and it was not a great experience. William - Benny’s brother - was aesthetically pleasing, and a lovely guy, but way too earnest about the purity of combat, while Tom was… a douche. A douche who clearly enjoyed his nights away from the wife a little too much. “Great.”

“Not just Will and Tom,” she chided, finally putting down the pin and fluttering her eyelashes at her reflection. “A few of his old squad guys are coming too.”

“OK then,” you said, and turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Dina called.

“To get another drink.”

Based on the MMA prelude, you decided to rethink your outfit to something a bit less… showy, and had poured yourself into a skintight skirt with a shirt that helped accentuate your decolletage just right. So right, in fact, that you’d forgone a sensible coat in favour of a leather jacket that didn’t even close properly. The clothes did little to shield you from the cold, which explained why you had chugged nearly half a bottle of Smirnoff in the cab over.

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

Dina looked every inch the fighter’s girlfriend, she really did. You didn’t even know she owned a faux-fur coat. Her meticulously-separated eyelashes were currently fluttered together, shielding her eyes from her cigarette smoke.

Not that it helped. Your buzz was fading fast with every second you stood out in the freezing cold parking lot.

Sandy hadn’t bothered to change her outfit - “Fuck it, it can’t be any dirtier than the bar.” - and was leaning against the arena wall wearing a mini dress that practically showed what she had eaten for breakfast. The woman had legs up to her neck, and more than one man had slowed his passage into the arena to get a good look. Sandy, with legs that long since she was fifteen, and a face that had been beautiful her whole life, flipped each one off with a casual laziness you could never hope to emulate.

The three of you were standing outside the arena waiting for Tom and the others to arrive. The crowd was known to get rowdy, and Benny had been very firm with Dina about going in with his friends. William was already inside with Benny, prepping him for the fight.

It was so cold you were nearly tempted to ask Dina for a pull of her cigarette, just to feel some warm air, when -

“Dee!”

Your face locked into a grimace, and you looked down to kick a loose pebble from under your shoe, trying to regain control of your facial muscles by the time Tom got close.

“Tommy!” Dina yelled. “You’re late, what the hell?”

“Don’t blame me,” Tom said, “Blame these assholes.”

Two sets of denim-wrapped legs stepped into your view, and you huffed out a little sigh before looking up. Tom was standing in front of you, with his friend on his right.

His friend. Who was the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen. He smiled at you, and you felt a small laugh escape you.

What was that face? He looked like a Latino George Clooney. How did he get taken seriously in life?

“Hey, tiger,” Tom said to you, his lopsided smile showing a little too much teeth on one side.

“Hey… Tom.” you replied, raising a hand in greeting. He made a little ‘pfft’ sound and pulled you in for a hug, enveloping you in the smell of… dear god, was that Axe?

You heard the crunch of gravel, and a movement out of the corner of your eye told you that the devilishly handsome man was currently introducing himself to Sandy.

Probably wouldn’t have worked out with us anyway.

“How’re you doing, kid?” Tom murmured in your ear. Your skin hadn’t started crawling yet, but it definitely would soon.

“Redfly, leave the girl alone.”

A third voice - the voice of God himself, if it meant that Tom would let you go.

“This is my girl right here, Frankie.” Tom said, and the proprietary tone in his voice made your stomach turn. You should have just met them at the bar.

“Crazy, I thought your girl was sitting at home looking after your daughter and -” the second half of the sentence was in mumbled Spanish, and you heard a bark of laughter from the handsome man. A quick, rough pat on the back and Tom released you, already walking into the building as if nothing had happened.

The speaker was standing in front of you; a tall-ish man wearing a blue plaid shirt over a grey tank top, with a beat-up baseball cap on his head. Just as the phrase ‘hillbilly trucker’ crossed your mind, every thought in your head promptly vanished on looking up into his face. A pair of warm brown eyes were gazing down at you, creasing gently at the corners. He wasn’t built like Tom or William; they slanted more towards beefcake, where this guy was toned and slim. He was older than you - not a surprise, William and Tom were in at least their mid-40s - but it was a very manageable older. Unruly, curling brown hair peeked out from under his cap, and the man smiled, a shadow of a dimple appearing on his cheek.

The other guy was crazy good-looking in a movie-star way, the sort of hot that had made you laugh because it was almost unreal. This guy was the perfect side of handsome, mortal enough to take your breath away just a little and not make you feel stupid about it.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Frankie.”

Maybe it was the dimples, maybe it was the fact that he had just saved you from a fate worse than death, or maybe the cold had finally gotten to your brain. Whatever it was, you barely knew what you were saying until you’d said it:

“And I am so fucking yours.”

So much for not feeling stupid. His smile widened, and your heartbeat quickened just a bit.

“Ignore Redfly,” he said. “He just doesn’t have good manners.”

Another burst of Spanish from behind you, from the dark-eyed Adonis near the door, and Frankie replied in kind, with an evocative hand gesture that you were pretty sure meant ‘fuck off’.

You finally turned to get a good look at the other man. He was standing in front of your friends, angled towards Sandy in a way that boded well for her. He was terribly good-looking.

“Hey, how’re you doing?” he leaned toward you, and took your hand in his. “Santiago Garcia.”

The man was on another level. You felt like you were meeting a politician. You told him your name as if in a dream.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he said, looking into your soul, and you felt that laugh bubble up again. This was too much all at once.

Dina blew out one last plume of smoke, and threw her cigarette butt on the ground.

“Come on guys, it’s fucking freezing out here.”

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

The arena was chaos. Tom was nowhere to be seen, but he could have been standing two feet from you and you wouldn’t have seen him. He could have been behind you.

As the thought crossed your mind, a hand came to rest on your hip and you jumped sideways, ready to kick Tom in the fucki-

It was Frankie, hands suddenly up and visible, mouth framing a ‘whoa’ that you could never hear over the din of the crowd. You grimaced, mouthing sorry.

He gave you a tight-lipped smile, uncomfortable, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He craned his neck to look over the crowd, toward the ring, and you stepped quickly toward him. Your hand raised, like you had the right answer in a classroom, and you tilted your mouth up towards Frankie’s ear. He scrunched his face and bent his head towards yours.

“Sorry,” you said into his ear, trying not to deafen him at this range. He smelled warm, and clean, a welcome respite from the arena’s smell of old beer and sweat. “I thought it might be…” one of your best friends, whom I loathe. “... a creep.” you finished lamely.

When you pulled away, he was looking at you so intently that a blush started to creep up your neck. Hands still in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels as he processed what you said. His tongue worked in his mouth, pushing out his cheek, before he winked ever so slightly, and nodded.

He knew. He damn well knew.

Frankie grinned and pointed towards the ring, to where your friends had disappeared, before nudging you forward.

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

Dina and the others were sitting ringside, by Benny’s corner. Dina had shrugged her coat in the sticky closeness of the arena, and was adjusting her top for maximum cleavage. Beside her was Sandy, deep in conversation with Santiago, and Tom sat beside Santiago next to an empty chair.

The single empty chair.

Fucks sake.

Tom saw you both coming, and had a look of fake disappointment on his face that your hands twitched to slap off. He held his hands up in defeat, before patting his thigh. A quick scan showed that this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in the arena; the place was jammed so tightly that you counted at least seven people on laps in this section alone. A fire hazard, and a pain in the ass.

You’re fucking kidding me.

You went to take a step, and felt a hand grip your arm. Frankie was sliding past you on your right, pivoting to sit in the empty chair. A shit-eating grin slid onto Tom’s face, and he patted his thigh again.

You’re fucking kidding me.

Frankie still held your arm loosely in his left hand. Reaching over Tom, he nudged Santiago, who broke off from his conversation long enough to pass him a beer. Settling back into his seat, Frankie spread his legs a little too wide and steered you into the space between them.

He looked up at you under the brim of his cap, his face out of Tom’s eyeline. The corners of his mouth curved downward and one shoulder shrugged, as if to say ‘Why not?’.

Lightheaded, floating on a mental chant of fucking hell fucking hell fucking hell fucking hell, you perched on Frankie’s knee, your knees pressing against his other leg. A quick glance at Tom’s face nearly made you yelp. The ham-coloured man was staring sullenly out over the ring, lips pursed around his mouthful of beer. The smile was nowhere to be seen.

Frankie shifted slightly, and with one hand on your waist pulled you closer until you were sitting mid-thigh. When he was satisfied, his hand moved to settle against your lower back, keeping you upright. The shape of the seat had his body angled away from you, allowing you to sit upright without being nestled against him. He leaned towards Tom and said something in his ear, something you could barely hear over the din. It was as if he’d forgotten you were there.

But not quite. Slowly, as if you were a wild animal he was trying to tame, his hand started to move in gradual, broad strokes, forward and back, forward and back.

Your stomach muscles locking tight was your only visible reaction, and you thanked baby Jesus and all the angels in heaven that Frankie couldn’t feel the way your pulse had suddenly picked up. Though that might not be far off; there was a warm throbbing between your legs that definitely hadn’t been there two minutes ago.

Forward and back. Forward and back.

This was totally normal. This happened to you every day. Every day you met hot guys and sat on their laps. Every day you got mildly turned on by hot guys stroking your back.

Looking over at Dina, the two of you locked eyes. Her grin was positively wolfish.

Fuck off, you mouthed.

You looked around, hoping that the people-watching fodder available would help take your mind off the hot man you were sitting on and what his hand was -

As if Frankie could hear your thoughts, the rhythm of his strokes changed. Now, instead of moving forward and back, his palm started sliding up and down, with every pass downward bringing his hand closer and closer to the curve of your ass.

For a fraction of a second, your breath caught in your throat, and the pulse between your legs kicked up a notch. Trying to keep your cool, you casually - so casually! - looked over at Frankie.

Still absorbed in conversation with Tom. Fine. He clearly had no idea what he was doing, no idea of the effect he was having.

Your awareness was steadily narrowing down to where his hand touched you, to the vague sensation of warmth that each pass left on your skin. Reaching the hem of your jacket, he paused almost imperceptibly, before reaching under the leather to rest on the back of your shirt.

Dear god, were you disappointed he wasn’t touching your ass? Were you actually sad that this stranger wasn’t -

A radiating sensation on your back, so warm and firm, and suddenly you could feel every little movement his hand made, the way his fingers were flexing against your skin so gently -

Air you didn’t realise you had been holding escaped your lungs in a whoosh.

“Getting bored up there, tiger?” Tom’s expression wasn’t as friendly as it normally was, and you were reminded why all of this was happening. This was purely for Tom’s benefit.

“No, it’s fine. It’s…” you looked down at Frankie as he took a sip of his beer. His eyes met yours over the rim of his beer cup, and a smile crept across your face. When the cup left his lips, you took it deftly from his fingers and lifted it to your mouth. Your gaze didn’t leave his. Tom may as well have been part of the furniture.

The beer was not good, but you finished it, and ran your tongue over your lips. Frankie’s eyes tracked the movement, and you felt his hand pause, felt his fingers splay wide across the small of your back.

“It’s great,” you said, winking down at him. “But I think we need another drink.”

You placed a hand on his knee for leverage, and stood. Dina saluted you with her nearly-empty drink, and tapped at the low liquid level with one long fingernail. You nodded, and flashed the OK sign.

A broad chest blocked your view, and the smell of Axe surrounded you. You glanced up at Tom, who was shaking his own empty cup.

“I’ll come too,” he said. “I could do with another-”

“It’s cool, man,” Frankie stood, easily slotting himself between the two of you, and gently but firmly took hold of your shoulders as he turned to the exit. “I got it.”

Empty cups and debris were strewn across the aisle, and you were beginning to regret wearing your heels for what was shaping up to be a fucking obstacle course. But you felt Frankie’s presence behind you, and if you put a little more sway into your walk than normal, so what?

Between a few stragglers at the bar, there was a gap just wide enough for the two of you to lean against the counter. You rested on your forearms, and flagged down the bartender.

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

“Two beers, and a whiskey and coke.”

“Make it four,” Frankie said. “I know it may not seem like it, but it is better to get Redfly liquored up. After about,” - his hand made a see-saw motion - “six drinks? He’s going to get real maudlin, start missing his wife, and go home.”

“Oh, yeah,” you replied, “He’s really missing his wife when he’s trying to put his hand up my skirt.”

His eyes flickered up and down your body, and he cleared his throat. One hand came up to scratch at his moustache, before smoothing it back down.

“You know, I don’t blame him,” he said. “That skirt looks great on you.”

A low warmth pooled in your stomach, and you smiled. He smiled back, those beautiful eyes twinkling as he turned around to face the arena, elbows back on the bar.

“If I… go too far, in there,” he said, face suddenly serious. “You can just punch me in the face. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

The bartender laid your whiskey and coke down in front of you, and pulled out two cups for the beer.

“Two more of those, please,” you told her, and took a sip of your drink. You knew you were a bit of a savage for drinking whiskey with coke, but your sweet tooth demanded nothing less. “Frankie, I’m not really OK with the idea of ‘being saved’.”

“That’s fair,” Frankie turned to the bar, and rapped a quick tattoo on the wood. “When we get back in there, you take the seat and I’ll -”

“But,” you raised a finger. “Your lap is pretty comfortable. And if you’re OK with having my ass on your knee all night, then I’m happy to stay there.”

A laugh escaped him, and you found yourself appreciating the way his moustache framed his lips so perfectly.

“I think you’d be hard pushed to find a man who wouldn’t be OK with that deal.”

The bartender laid down four cups of beer. “$25.60.”

Frankie laid out three $10 bills, and pulled the cups closer.

“Do you think you could make sure Tom doesn’t put his hand up my skirt?”

He was intent on arranging the cups in a way he could carry them, to the point that you thought he hadn’t heard you. Just as you were about to repeat yourself, he flashed you a wicked look.

“Well sweetheart,” he smiled, “I’ll just have to get my hand there first.”

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

As soon as you sat back down, it was like a switch had flipped. Your conversation at the bar had been light, to the point where you’d nearly forgotten that you’d actually been turned on a little at sitting on Frankie’s lap.

When you got back to your seats, and Frankie had handed off the beers he was carrying, he sat and pulled you down onto his lap in one fluid movement. No more tentative movements; he held your waist firmly, and pulled you even closer than before. And now, not only was his hand stroking your back again - he had put it under your jacket straight away - but his other arm was now resting on your leg. His beer cup sat on your knee, below where the hem of your skirt rode up, and he rotated it gently on your bare skin, almost teasing you with the cool feeling of the condensation on the base.

It drove you just a little short of wild. Though part of you wanted to shift against his thigh, wanted to feel some pressure right where an ache was steadily building between your legs, you kept it together fairly admirably.

A wet patch on Frankies jeans probably wouldn't go down too well anyway.

A murmur from the crowd rolled towards the ring, and Pantera’s heavy guitar riff blasted through the speakers.

Benny was here.

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

Ringside seats were… certainly something.

The smell of blood hummed in your nostrils, and you felt the impact of every punch.

Benny was a monster. He had swaggered into the arena, head and shoulders above everyone, and proceeded to hammer the shit out of his opponent once the bell rang. Watching the way Dina was looking at him, you were very, very glad they were going back to Benny’s place tonight.

The six of you were standing at the ring edge, screaming and roaring with the crowd. Your blood was singing. Sitting on Frankie’s lap, his hands leaving trails of fire wherever they touched you, had rattled you something fierce, and the adrenaline from the fight was getting to you too. You didn’t think your pulse had slowed for about ten minutes, and you were breathing like you were climbing a mountain.

It was the last minute of the last round, and Benny was flagging.

You guessed. You really had no idea who was doing better, both fighters were covered in blood and looked tired as fuck.

Santiago, Dina and Tom were rattling the cage, howling through the wire at Benny. The man was intent on his opponent, never taking his eyes off him.

As you watched, Benny did an odd movement, stepping back, rotating his shoulders and head as his feet danced. You heard roars come from your friends, but were completely lost.

“He’s about to kick the guy’s head off his fucking shoulders,” Frankie’s voice was low, and close. You felt his nose brush the outer shell of his ear, and you suppressed a shiver as his breath ghosted over you. He was standing behind you, so close that you felt his warmth up your body from ankle to neck. He reached over your shoulder, and pointed up at Benny’s right foot.

“You see that?”

Benny’s foot was moving in a fan shape on the floor of the ring. He dodged as much as he needed to to evade blows, but whenever he was still his foot moved in that fan shape.

“Why is he waiting?” Turning your head, your nose brushed against Frankie’s jawline. He smiled down at you.

“Not long now, sweetheart,” he said. “Watch.”

He stepped closer until he stood flush against your back, and crossed his arms over your chest to grip his own elbows. His beard brushed against your cheekbone, and you found yourself nestling further into his hold. He was just so warm and solid and -

Benny moved like lightning. His opponent came too close, ever so slightly unguarded, and Benny pivoted on his left foot and -

“Fuck!” you screamed. Benny’s opponent hit the floor, and the arena erupted.

===> Chapter Two

#triple frontier #frankie morales #francisco 'catfish' morales #santiago 'pope' garcia #william 'ironhead' miller #benny miller #tom 'redfly' davis #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #fic #santiago garcia x ofc #benny miller x ofc #The Reader’s Guide to Avoiding Redfly #trgtar

109 notes · View notes

callboxkat · 3 years

Text

Statement of Patton Sanders

Author’s note: Anon, this is probably not what you meant, but, hey! Here you go!

Summary: Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 7th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

(Necessary bg info: The Magnus Institute is an organization that takes and investigates statements about paranormal experiences. Jurgen Leitner is a character who collected books with supernatural powers.)

Warnings: This is a The Magnus Archives AU, so if you’ve listened to that you should know what to expect. Body horror (cut off fingers, broken neck), nondescriptive vomiting, blood mention, food mention. Child abuse, sort of. It's in a story in this story. No character death or villain characters.

Word Count: 3289

Original prompt:

Writing Masterpost!

Ao3 Link

@badthingshappenbingo

...

“Hey, we have the same glasses.”

“Yes, I suppose we do—Do you need help with the chair? Oh, you’ve got it.”

Patton and the other man sat down on opposite sides of a desk. He was a weary-looking, bespectacled man who couldn’t have been much different in age from himself, although slivers of premature gray were visible in his hair.

The man—an archivist, he’d introduced himself as—leaned forward to turn on a tape recorder. It seemed a little old-fashioned, but it certainly did fit in with the overall vibe of the place (recording on a laptop would have probably felt out of place), and Patton didn’t mind. This would be much easier than hand-writing his entire statement.

The archivist cleared his throat. “Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 6th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

Patton shifted in his seat. The archivist sat across him, looking at him expectantly. The tape recorder lay innocently on the desk between them, the tape inside slowly turning with a quiet tick. They sat in the basement of the oft-mocked Magnus Institute. They were in an office, but even here the walls were lined with bookcases, stacked with boxes upon boxes, each of them, it appeared, filled to the brim with folders, or with cassette tapes. Other peoples’ statements, presumably. Patton wasn’t sure how he felt about that. His story just being one of hundreds more, maybe thousands, in those boxes.

“Do I just… start?” he asked.

The archivist adjusted his glasses. “Yes, please.”

He nodded, swallowed, and even before he’d fully decided where to begin, he spoke. The words came surprisingly easily.

“I used to work at a library in my home town, back in the US. It’s a little town in Florida, almost at the border with Georgia, pretty near the coast. I don’t… I don’t work there anymore, of course. But at the time—this was about three years ago, back in 2017—I was there most days.

“One day we got this book in the return bin. It was weird. Not one of ours. It didn’t have a title that I could see, but there was a label on the inside cover. It was a bit smudged, but the last name was Leitner. I don’t know if it belonged to them, or if that was the author… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, I guess.”

He noticed that the archivist suddenly seemed very interested in what he was saying, even leaning forward to hear.

“I was about to move the book over to the donations bin—I figured that’s what it was, you know, just a book somebody didn’t want, and decided to give to us rather than throw away, and got the wrong bin by mistake. But… I don’t know. Something about it just drew me in. I have no idea what; usually I go more for cookbooks, or crafts stuff, or um, lighter fiction. Not… that.”

He tried for a weak smile, but the archivist didn’t seem open to humor. Which Patton have once found awkward, but now it was almost a relief. He wasn’t sure how to make his story funny.

“So I took it out of the return bin, and I put it on my desk, instead. I was busy right then, but when I had a free moment, I sat down to take a look at it. It was old and worn, and like I said, there was no title. But it had this… weird feeling to it. Something off about it. I didn’t like it at all. But it was like I had to open it.

Patton sighed, glancing away. Suddenly, he felt on the edge of tears.

“And I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I opened that book.

“It was a story about a child who keeps refusing to do his chores. His mom would give him things to do, and the kid would say, ‘Yes, I’ll do them!’ but then as soon as the mom leaves, he’d drop the broom or whatever and run off to play with his toys instead. And as time goes on the mom gets more and more tired of this, because she has to do all the chores he doesn’t want to do.

“So, she takes him aside, and tells him sternly that he has to do his chores, or there would be consequences. And of course, he doesn’t listen, because he’s a kid.

“So the next day, takes him aside again, and tells him again to do his chores, and he continues not to. And it continues like that for ten days. But on the tenth day, the mom trips on the broom that the kid left in the middle of the floor, and she hurts herself. Very, um… very badly. She… breaks her neck. But she gets up off the floor, and her neck is all… it’s bent at a 90 degree angle. And there’s blood on the floor. I remember that page very vividly. Most of the book was in black ink, with some—” He made a face, “—illustrations. In the picture on that page, the blood was red.

“So, the mom… she goes to the kid, her neck all wrong, and she tells him, ‘You’re going to clean until your fingers fall off! Which… he does. She makes him clean, and clean, and clean. He has to scrub the floor, and when he finishes, she makes him start all over again, and again, and again. And, one by one, his fingers just… fall off.”

Patton was silent for a moment.

“On the last page of the book, there was a handprint. It wasn’t printed, you know, with ink. It was stuck in with a dark substance. I like to think maybe it was chocolate or something… but I doubt it. The weirdest thing about it, though, was that it had no fingers.

“When I closed that awful thing, I looked up, and it was dark outside. I’d apparently been reading for hours. I want you to understand—this wasn’t a big book. Maybe twenty pages, tops. And I’d found it near the start of my shift. I have no idea where all that time went, or how I didn’t notice it passing. Or why no one came in to disturb me. It’s like no one came to the library that entire day. I lived in a small town, like I said, but it wasn’t that small. We usually had people trickling in and out, even on slow days. Retired people who needed something to do, school kids doing homework, you know. You have a library here, you should understand, even if yours is more, uh… specific. So, it was really strange that no one had come in at all.

“Anyway, it was a horrible, horrible book. It was like someone set out to write a kids’ book about why they should do their chores, but instead of that, it was this nightmare version. I really didn’t want to add it to our library. Where would you even put a book like that? So I didn’t put it in the donation pile like I’d planned. But I also didn’t seem… able to just, like, get rid of it. I couldn’t just throw it away. Not because it was old and weird and maybe worth some money, no, more like… I don’t know. I just couldn’t do it. It’s hard to explain. So I put it in my desk, went home, and tried to forget about it.

“I’ll admit that, at the time, my apartment—my flat, you call ‘em here—wasn’t the cleanest back then. And thinking of that book, I kind of wanted to clean it. But also… I really didn’t. Thinking of that book made me very aware of the mess, but I kept thinking of that kid and the way his fingers just fell off, one by one, with that horrifying mom with her broken neck just watching, and then that handprint in the back of the book.

“I thought maybe whoever owned the book last, that Leitner person or whoever, put the handprint in there as some kind of joke. Just tilted up their fingers so they didn’t touch the page, to make it look like they didn’t have any. But I guess I kinda doubted that, even then.

“I made dinner that night, fed Jim and Pam—they’re my cats—and I left the plates in the sink to clean the next day.

“In the morning, they were stacked on the counter, perfectly clean. I tried to tell myself maybe I’d cleaned them and forgot, or maybe the cats had…. Somehow bumped them, and licked them clean, and it had just coincidentally looked purposeful. I don’t know. Pam liked to jump up on tables.

“I’d almost put it out of my head when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting any visitors, but sometimes a couple of my friends would drop by at random, so I might not have thought much of it, except that my cats suddenly started acting different. Scared. They were hissing, and they ran off to hide. That wasn’t like them at all. …I didn’t answer the door.

“A half hour or so passed, and I figured whoever it was was probably gone, so I went to peek out the front window. Sure enough, whoever it was… if there ever even was anyone out there… was gone. But there was a box sitting on the welcome mat. Plain cardboard, no shipping label or address or anything.

“I should have left it alone. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but… who knows.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t leave it alone. I looked around, I wanted to make sure no one was there. No one was, as far as I could tell, so I opened the door.

“The box was small, maybe 6 inches long, a little less tall and wide than that—err, I’m not sure what that is in metric. Maybe like… 15 centimeters?”

The archivist waved him off. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry. So the box was small, and it was very light when I picked it up, which was honestly a bit of a relief at the time. I could practically hear one of my friends, Virgil, screaming at me about mail bombs. He’s a pretty cautious guy. Now I think maybe he had the right idea.

“I thought maybe the box was empty, even, until I stepped over the threshold and… and I uh, felt something rolling around in there.”

He shuddered at the memory.

“I brought it into the kitchen and opened up the box. Inside was… inside was a single, human finger, cut off just below where the joint would have been on the person’s hand.

“I felt sick. I was sick. I barely made it to the trash can. I remember my cats still didn’t come back to see what was going on, which was unusual for them. Normally they were very nosy little guys. It was like they knew something was very, very wrong. I don’t blame them for staying away.

“I called the cops right away, of course. Or, as soon as I’d calmed down enough to dial the number. I mean, course I did. Someone had dropped off a finger at my door.

“The lady on the phone was very nice, but I don’t think she believed me at first. Or maybe she just couldn’t understand what I was saying. I was a little upset, obviously. Eventually, though, the police did show up. They took the box, asked me some questions, and they left.

“That night, I was in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes, trying to forget the whole thing. I was almost done, but then, somehow… the garbage disposal turned itself on. Something wrong with the wiring, they told maybe. I was so surprised that I dropped the plate I was holding, and the stack of dishes shifted, and somehow, my hand ended up… my finger went down the drain. Into the garbage disposal. It all happened so fast. One second I was just washing a plate, humming the intro to Steven Universe, and the next….

“I scrambled to turn it off, but it was too late. I grabbed a dish towel and drove myself to the hospital in a panic. Only remembered later to send someone to look after the cats.

“They couldn’t save my finger, even if they had tried. There wasn’t anything left to save.

“A week later, I got another package. Left at my door, just like the last one. Identical to the first, but this time it was a different finger. Maybe from the same hand, but it wasn’t like I looked at it long enough to know for sure. And I’m not a doctor. I called the cops again, and they came. They weren’t much help. They poked around a bit, talked to the neighbors, and told me to get a security camera. I did do that.

“I was very careful that day, remembering what had happened last time, even though I knew it was ridiculous. What, some crazy person leaves a severed finger on my doorstep, and that somehow makes me lose my own in a freak accident? …But I was careful, anyway. And nothing happened that day. But the next morning, when I went to go to work… I slammed the car door shut on my finger.

“It kept happening. The same plain cardboard boxes left at my door. The camera always seemed to cut out when they were delivered, although once I swear I caught a glimpse of a silhouette. It looked… wrong, though. Maybe it was a tree casting a shadow or something. No one’s head looks like that.

“I stopped calling the police, eventually. They didn’t help. Just asked the same questions, swore they were doing all they could, and left. I stopped opening the boxes, too. I tried throwing them out, burning them, kicking them into the gutter. I went to stay with my friend Virgil, but the box found me there, too. I moved twice. It didn’t seem to matter. Every week, a box would show up, and within a day or two, even if I never even opened my front door or looked at the box, I’d lose another finger. Until….”

Patton looked down at his lap, where his hands sat. Where each finger should be, they instead ended in neat little stubs just after the knuckle. They were remarkably even, considering that he’d lost each one in different ways, in different weeks. One after the other.

“After that, it finally stopped. My hands healed as much as they ever would, and I went back to work—I still don’t know how I kept that job—and I found that book in my desk. I tried to throw it out, but I couldn’t make myself let go of it. I tried to feed it to the paper shredder, but I couldn’t make myself rip out the pages. Eventually I just threw it across the room, and it landed neatly in the pile of donated books. Apparently, it would have let me just… add it to the collection. But I couldn’t let other people read it—What if the same thing happened to them? So I took it home with me.

“I did try to get rid of it on the way there. I stopped by the river, a dumpster… I tried to set it on fire. Imagine trying to get a lighter to work like this. I couldn’t follow through with any of them, though, and not just because of my hands. The book wouldn’t let me. Or I wouldn’t let myself. I don’t know which it was, really. Maybe I was afraid something worse would happen if I managed to destroy it. I don’t know.

“I locked it away. Buried it where I couldn’t see it. Still, it was like it was calling to me, telling it to hold it, to read it, to place my own hand over that awful handprint. It was driving me crazy. The cats wouldn’t go near the room it was in.

“I tried to ignore it. To forget about it. For a while, I thought it was working. I was still constantly aware of where it was, but it got easier to ignore.

“Then, one day, the doorbell rang. It was another box. Inside was a single, severed toe.”

A silence stretched between them, yawning between Patton and the archivist. The tape recorder ticked on. A tear rolled down Patton’s cheek. When he continued, his voice was choked.

“I will never forgive myself for what I did next, but I couldn’t go through that again. Please don’t judge me. I know it’s unforgiveable. But you can’t understand what it was like, not if you’ve never been through something like that. I knew it was the book by now, that was doing this to me, and I had to be rid of it. I still couldn’t destroy it, but I could… give it away. So I went and I got the book, and I wrapped it up as best I could, and I wrote ‘DO NOT READ’ on the package in capital letters. And I gave it away. I don’t know who I gave it to, and I don’t want to know. I drove across town, stopped at a random house, and stuffed the book in their mailbox. I can only hope they never read it.”

Patton let out a shaky breath. “It worked.”

The archivist’s face was impassive.

“After that was all finally over, I decided I needed to get out of there. Not just out of the town, but as far as I could get. I had family in the UK, and one of my friends studied abroad here and loved it, plus you guys speak English, so it seemed like as good a place to go as any. So I moved. Nothing else has happened since. I don’t have any fingers, but at least I have all my toes, and I’m rid of that awful book. I’ve tried to forget the whole thing, which as you might imagine, is a little difficult, but I try. Still, when one of my coworkers mentioned this place—I work at a shop now, restocking at night, so I don’t have to see the customers—I decided to come. I just want to be rid of this story. So… if you guys can track down that book, stop it from hurting anyone else, please do.” He clenched his hands, as well as he could. “I don’t want its weight on my mind anymore. It’s done enough to me.”

He fell silent.

“Statement ends,” said Logan. The archivist leaned forward and turned off the tape recorder. “Thank you for coming in. You can leave the way you came. Roman, my assistant, will take down your details. We might contact you if we need further information. Do you, by chance, remember the address of the house where you left the book?”

Patton shook his head. “No, I… I didn’t want to know.”

Logan nodded slowly. “Alright. Well… we appreciate your time.”

“I hope my statement… ah, comes in handy,” Patton joked weakly. He almost smiled at the gobsmacked look on the archivist’s face, the most emotion he’d shown the entire time Patton had been there. And then, he got up, and he left his story behind. He’d given it away to someone else, and he was done with it.

22 notes · View notes

lycanthrop-ee · 4 years

Text

Sires and Sons

Chapter 3 of ? First chapter - second chapter

A/N: Back at it again! Yeah that’s all I have to say

Synopsis: When the twins split two years ago, Janus was tasked with raising Remus. His only help was the evasive and sullen Virgil- who he already had to wrangle like a stray teenager. The endless days in the Dark Side’s Mindpalace were broken only by monthly catch-ups with Patton, and the only thing that ever changed the stories that Janus used to get Remus to bed. This time, though, something was different: secrets were slipping through Janus’ lips- and past the divide between Dark and Light.

Ships: Moceit (probably just bg but I don’t actually know can you tell I’m a professional-)

TW: Lots of arguing, let me know if there’s anything else!

Word count: 2097 (oops)

First, the shorter side’s eyes widened, fixed on a point beside Janus as the latter froze. Next, Patton took a short step forward, as if- and Janus had no doubt he was- fighting the urge to run over and wrap Remus in a dad hug. Finally, Patton’s gaze flicked back to Janus, his brows raised with questions. Janus could basically read them off him- what do we do? Are you going to turn around? Has he seen us?

The last was a definitive yes. The young side’s tired skipping had halted as soon as Janus had, and his grip on his guardian’s hand had tightened. The poor kid had never met anyone outside Virgil and Janus- the latter had often wondered how he’d react.

Apparently, this was how- a small voice floated to him.

“Jan?”

His first instinct was to pick the little side up and bolt away with him, but that wouldn’t help anything- Instead, he cleared his throat.

“I… I suppose there are some people you should meet, Remus.”

Patton called to them across the way.

“...Janus?”

And just like that, all the focus was on him. Even though he was only one of three adults here. Janus took a deep breath, clutching Remus’ hand as tightly as ever, and started to pick his way through the trees to the other two. Logan and Patton stiffened at the decision, but waited agonizingly outside the door as the pair made their way forward- the kid’s pace picked up, practically dragging Janus along.

The older side came to a halt twelve feet from the others, Janus picking his gaze from the ground to focus on Logan’s unreadable expression and Patton’s indescribable one. Remus stared at them, eyes wide as he strained against Janus’ hold. Janus broke the silence.

“...Remus. This is Patton and Logan. Patton’s… he’s the one I have my meetings with.”

The tiny side gave them a bright smile, and Janus was amazed at how his cheery personality shone through. Patton, finally accepting the situation, fell into a crouch as though coaxing a feral cat.

“Hey, there, Kiddo. It’s… nice to meet you.” The side’s voice soothed Janus as Remus smiled.

“Hi there! I’m Remus- how do you feel about swear words?”

The tense moment was broken, and even Logan had to stifle a grin as Patton’s eyebrows raised in surprise. Janus laughed.

“He’s a little overtired…” He tried to explain, but found it was no use. “Who am I kidding, he’d have asked anyway. It’s… good to see you again, Patton. Logan.” He nodded at the less familiar side, who acknowledged him similarly.

“I guess there’s no point in hiding that I’ve heard a lot about you,” Patton said, ignoring the question. “I don’t believe the pleasure has been mutual, though.”

They were all saved from the strange conversation by the door opening, Virgil standing delicately at the other side. He opened his mouth to speak before identifying the situation and stiffening, his eyes darting around- no doubt searching for the second small figure that was missing. Janus let out a breath.

“Virgil. Can you take Remus for a moment?” His voice was steady, even as his hands shook. Virgil sensed the delicate tone, nodding and stepping forward to collect the child who did not hesitate to make his resentment known. As they walked back through the door, Remus looked over his shoulder in a way that was all-too similar to the last time the kid had seen anyone new- two years before and certainly out of range of Remus’ memory.

As the door closed, a collective breath was let out, and Janus turned incredulously to the other two. His nerves turned to a delicate anger. “What the hell are you two doing here?!” Patton winced, and he fought off guilt as Logan answered.

“We were here to collect Virgil.” Patton’s eyes widened, and he tried to signal Logan to be quiet with no avail. “He said you two were out.”

Needless to say, this cleared up nothing.

“What- collect Virgil? What do you mean?” Janus watched Logan’s realization as he turned to Patton, speaking in a thinly veiled hiss.

“He doesn’t know? Patton, I thought you two talked!” An unexplained anxiety flooded Janus as his thoughts overlapped and mixed. This wasn’t helped by Patton turning to him delicately, mouth open as his head visibly raced to find the right words.

“We’ve been… Virgil has…” The usually comforting side stuttered strangely, and Janus’ stance was unsteady, alone on his side of the path. “A while ago, Virgil expressed interest in interacting more freely with our side of the mindspace.”

“He wants to join the Light Sides?” The words stumbled from Janus’ lips, fumbling in their eagerness to be answered. Patton winced, reluctant to use such harsh language, but Logan took over more confidently.

“Yes.”

Janus felt unsteady. Patton pressed on.

“Not- not necessarily, Dee, he just- he showed up one day, and it’s been- well, it didn’t go well at first but we’re… I mean, he’s still in no position to…” Patton trailed off as he saw Janus’ expression. He felt it himself- eyebrows furrowed, eyes surprised- a cat from the bag and the rug out from under it. Logan spoke again.

“We’ve been experimenting with the necessity of keeping him separate- whether it’s beneficial or obsolete. Obviously, Remus needs to be here, and you’re here to take care of hi-”

Patton shushed him at this. Janus hardly cared.

Sure, Virgil stayed in his room for the most part- but he really unhappy? Enough to leave him and Remus behind? The Dark Sides mindpalace was hardly pleasant housing, but they were all there together. That was how it had always been. They couldn’t boast the amicable sleepovers Patton often spoke of, but conversations like those the night before kept them all functioning- or so Janus had thought. Looking back on it, he had no clue what happened behind the door to Virgil’s room. Was he unhappy? Struggling? So afraid to talk to Janus that he’d turn to near strangers?

Janus struggled to recover his grasp on the conversation, focusing on straightening his back to maintain his usual on-top-of-things demeanor. “I- well-” He cleared his throat. “What are we going to do about Remus?” Patton frowned.

“He still hasn’t seen Roman, so it’s not too bad, right?” The side looked to Logan, who gave a curt nod.

“It doesn’t affect Thomas at this level. We simply need to find a way to explain our sudden arrival in his life, then remove ourselves from it as soon as possible.”

Janus could accurately pinpoint the moment Logan’s plan stabbed Patton in the heart, no matter how much he tried to soften his reaction. He watched as he tried to find a way to gently break his own opinion to Logan without directly undermining him, timed the moments between Patton’s mouth opening carefully and his voice finally sounding.

“I… Logan, I’m sure it couldn’t hurt to be around Remus now? After all, he already knows about us. He still has no idea- and how would he? Besides,” He added, now directly and obviously pandering. “It might be helpful to see how Remus works in comparison to… maybe we’d understand them both better, then.”

Logan sighed.

“Patton, I understand you find it difficult to move past your emotions for the greater good.” The object of Logan’s remark flinched. “But the less Remus is exposed to us, the better. We’re a variable that can be easily avoided- and one that has been for years now. It’s best that we move past this infraction as painlessly as possible.”

Janus recognized that unless he spoke up and took a stance in the argument, he’d be left behind to stand awkwardly beside the conversation- that wouldn’t do if he wanted to retain some semblance of control. His mind jumped to assess his options:

He could side with Patton, giving his argument a significant boost given Janus’ stance as one of the more rational sides. If he agreed, it may spell out victory for Patton, which could possibly lead to more time spent around him and the other Light Sides. This could also help satisfy Virgil’s urge to be around them while still keeping him close to home. On the other hand, Remus already knew far more about them than Logan and Patton knew- if Remus made the connection, he may end up asking after the representative princes, and that was an extremely slippery slope.

If he sided with Logan, they would easily overpower Patton in debate. The effect this would have on their friendly relationship aside, it would make everything go back to normal.

Or would it? Even if Remus brushed off the encounter as a trick of the forest, Virgil still wanted to leave. That would confuse Remus, who didn’t even know there was anywhere else to go- and what would Janus do with the kid during his meetings with Patton? Maybe they’d end up having to associate anyways…

“Patton’s right,” Janus cut in. “We can’t keep everything secret from Remus- at least, not you two.” For the first time in a while, he let himself feel the full insanity that Remus’ raising had been forced into. He shook his head. “The kid doesn’t even know about Thomas.”

Patton flinched visibly. “Well, that’s… for a good reason, Kiddo, I-”

“I’m not one of your Kiddos.” Janus’ voice was icier than he’d have liked, and Patton’s fragile face fell. “No- Patton, that’s not what I meant.”

The wind blew out of Janus’ sails. He’d argued this with Patton before, and all it had ever accomplished was to put a sour stains on long-awaited summer days. “I just meant that he- he’s still clueless. He’s still young. We could just tell him that you…” He flailed for an explanation. “You’re my new coworkers.”

“And what’s our supposed line of work?” Logan asked drily. Janus took it as a challenge, trying to see the argument objectively.

“We…”

“I don’t want to lie to him,” Patton cut in. Janus raised his eyebrows drily, and Patton stuttered forth. “No, not- I mean, imagine how confused he’d be if…”

“He’s already confused, Patton! This whole thing was your idea- the separation, the secrets. We’ve been lying. His whole life is a lie of omission.” The fatherly side had shrunk under the beration, Logan practically swelling to protect him- Janus couldn’t see why; he was on his side. It’s not like he’d ever hurt Patton- irritation fueled his argument further. “And there’s nothing inherently wrong with lying, obviously I’d be the first to tell you that- but this lie is keeping Remus from a normal, pleasant childhood. We can only do so much when he’s got no one his age- oh, wait. He does! But you couldn’t possibly introduce the two of them because yours is perfect and mine’s wrong.” This sharpness in his words seemed to shake even Logan, to Janus’ satisfaction- which he quickly shoved aside. He was getting off topic. “Remus isn’t stupid. This whole situation, however, is idiotic.” With that, Janus was finished, making room for the opposition’s response.

It was quiet. It was quiet but for a small sniffle, no doubt from Patton. Janus let a sigh hiss though clenched teeth.

“Thomas’ current condition is stable,” Logan spoke evenly. The same irritation Janus was trying to clear bit at him once more.

“But it isn’t maintainable. Not my a long shot. Thomas’ state may be unchanging at the moment, but Remus and Roman both are rapidly developing simply by nature- even without all the secrets, there’s no denying that Thomas is in a stage of growth. Maybe the current stage of his progress is particularly convenient for you, but down here things are bursting at the seams- as, I understand, you’ve been more privy to than I have.” Janus couldn’t suppress the last jab, but afterwords wished he had. He stared at Logan, evening his breath as he watched the other think over his reply. Patton had been pushed out of the argument the way Janus had consciously averted, the taller side noted. The moments stretched out, and Janus allowed himself a cautious sense of accomplishment.

“I suppose a new arrangement is in order,” Logan allowed evenly.

Janus’ chest shuttered as he let out a breath, trying to keep sudden tears away from his eyes at the overwhelming relief that hit him. His gaze flitted to Patton, whose face held a cautious- but still blindingly bright- smile.

A new arrangement… the advisor had spoken.

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niftybottle · 4 years

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Hey @tulipsandsake, I’m your @bering-and-wells-exchange person. I saw you reblog D&D and Critical Role stuff, so I thought I’d do designs for Myka and Helena as D&D characters. Helena is a half-Drow multiclass Bard (College of Glamour)/Artificer (Battle Smith), while Myka is an old-school (2e/AD&D/Baldur’s Gate era) human dual Kensai->Mage. (I don’t have races/subclasses for everyone, but Artie is a college of lore bard, Claudia is an Artificer, Pete is a fighter, and I’m not sure what Leena is). Helena is very much a “seduce anything that moves” ~D&D Bard~, while Artie is very much not - he leans hard into the collection of lore/jack of all trades angle, and while he can play music very well he borders on anti-social. This is the source of some of the tension between them, with his distrust for her Drow parentage occupying most of the rest.

At this point I’m going interrupt to give a blanket apology if I explain something you already know - it’s hard to judge knowledge levels with a gift exchange without ruining the surprise, so I’m going to err on the side of explaining things just in case.

Helena is a bard to capture the importance of her novels, but novel-writing isn't the most practical in a fight or as a live performance, so I gave her an instrument. I chose the hurdy-gurdy, which is a (real) instrument with a very silly name. I picked it because it is very complex and mechanical, like something she might have invented or cobbled together. It’s kind of like an automatic violin or fiddle - rather than being plucked or bowed, a crank on the side is rotated, which moves a wheel across the strings. Rather than frets there are keys which hold the strings at certain points when pressed. There are also “drone” strings, which play a given note (that can be adjusted using a tuning peg) whenever the wheel is turned. You can technically “play” a drone string by holding a sting as if a guitar string as the wheel turns, but that isn’t traditional. Both drone and melody strings can be adjusted using tuning pegs, and apparently you can adjust the exact note the keys play. Some hurdy-gurdys (but not Helena's) also have additional strings not played by the wheel that can be played like a guitar. Hurdy-gurdys do not have much standardization, and the number/presence of all the different kinds of strings can vary.

Helena's bard college I went back and forth with - the college of glamour is about charming, as in the magic, which does suit her, but the college of lore would also be good. Ultimately I decided that college of lore would be better for Artie. Battle Smith, her artificer specialization, I kind of chose to make the character a little more practical to play - artillerist might have suited her character a touch more, but not too much more, and the battle smith's ability to use intelligence for (magic) weapon attacks/damage reduces the important stats to two (int and cha) rather than three (adding str or dex for weapon rolls). Helena's Steel Defender is Dickens the Mechanical Cat, and he can turn the crank for the hurdy-gurdy, letting her play it with one hand.

I don't have her backstory completely pinned down; I feel like her Drow parent escaped to the surface rather than being a functioning member of Drow society, if only to reduce the sketchiness of the alternative method of conception. Christina is definitely a valid "reason for adventuring", but Endless Wonder or fleeing the consequences of a lab accident or charm spell wearing off are also possibilities.

In terms of the illustration itself, I tried to balance bard flamboyance, artificer practicality with a touch of mad science, and Helena's canonical slightly Victorian elegance. I definitely needed the fancy bard hat, because I am of the firm belief that every bard needs a fancy hat. She's wearing a cute pair of overalls (and I now have "stylish overalls" in my google search history), but they got covered by Dickens :( . With the more muted browns inspired by the artificer half as well as her canon style, she was looking a little drab for a bard, so I added a little cape. In terms of skin/hair/eyes and being half-Drow my thoughts were kind of: leaning in to the purplish/blue/lavender skin thing some illustrations of Drow have, because between the inherent problems of the evil elves having black skin and wanting to stay fifty feet away from anything that might come close to being a race-bend I wasn't going to deal with having her skin be darker. I think it turned out OK? For some reason Helena's eye color is significant to me, so they stayed brown rather than Drow purple or something, though they wound up a bit brighter thanks to my attempts to add a little purple. Jaime Murray's hair is iconic, but more for its smoothness and luster than its color, so I was fine making it white as long as I kept the style. The hurdy-gurdy was a bit of a nightmare (twice over, since I had to ink it), which isn't surprising - I kind of cursed myself with that instrument choice, but it was so perfect ;_; . In general, and especially in comparison with Myka, Helena's illustration fought me the whole way down. If you watch the time-lapse, you can see some of the references I used, but far from all - I streamed so much hurdy-gurdy playing youtube is still confused, and the pose went through some shenanigans.

Now, to Myka. Thinking of her pre-med before pre-law before secret service vaguely remembered quote, I thought of the old Baldur's Gate fighter(kensai)->mage cheese build, and thought it might be a good way to capture that simultaneous indecision and discipline/intelligence.

Going very briefly into Baldur's Gate/2e: Kensai, in BG, is a Fighter kit. Kits, in BG and 2e both, are a little like specializations in 5e, in that they are a kind of further customization beyond the class itself. The difference is, not every character has a kit - there is a base class (fighter) and a kit is a set of trade-offs, taking away base class features in exchange for various benefits. So fighter, the base kit, is pretty similar to the fighter in other editions - good at using weapons and armor and attacking a lot. Can equip the best stuff, and use it well, but doesn't get a lot of bonuses apart from that of equipment. Kensai (in BG), on the other hand, trades the ability to wear armor (and use non-thrown ranged weapons) for scaling bonuses to to-hit and damage (abstracting some things for you), and a minor one-time bonus to natural armor, as well as the Kai ability, which temporarily maxes out damage on successful attacks, usable a few times a day, depending on class level. In short, they trade off the armor portions of the Fighter class for additional weapon bonuses.

In Baldur's Gate, if you want to build a dual fighter/wizard, kensai is a great pick for kit, since wizards can't cast in armor anyway, but they can cast spells to boost their AC, mitigating some of the disadvantage of the kit. Mage is a base class and basically what would be called a wizard in later editions. Mage kits, with the exception of wild mage (in BG), which is a whole thing I won't get into, are pretty much picking a school to specialize in - they get bonuses to spells of that school, but there is an "opposing" school which they can't use at all. I wouldn't be terribly interested in those specializations even if I could use them for Myka, but I couldn't, because of how dual-classing works.

Dual-classing in BG and 2e is one of two methods to have more than one class on a character. Which one you can do depends on your race (as does a lot of things in 2e). If you're human, you dual-class; if you're not, you multi-class. Multi-class characters are more what you'd expect from multi-classing in other editions - you have two classes, you gain levels in both. There are differences (exp is divided evenly between classes, rather than choosing what to level, class and combination restrictions), but most relevantly, you can't use any kits with multi-class characters. So, we want to dual-class, not multi-class, so that Myka can use the Kensai (BG) kit, which makes her human, which is fine.

Dual-classing, compared to multi-classing, is weird. Basically, you start off in one class, with a kit if you like, and level normally in that class/kit until you decide to switch, at which point you are done with the first class and can't level in it anymore. Then you *start over* in your new class (which cannot have a kit), as if you were a level one character in that class, without (effectively) the ability to use anything from the previous class (except hp). This continues until the number of levels in the second class exceeds that of the levels in the first class, at which point the character regains all the qualities and abilities of their first class. Dual classes can wind up quite powerful, but they require both planning and a willingness to be weaker for a time to be more powerful later (which I feel suit Myka well - she's a planner and has the patience and discipline to accept temporary weakness to be stronger later). So, given that we want to use the Kensai (BG) kit, Myka needs to start with it, and then switch to mage later, since the second class can't have a kit.

At this point I want to clarify why I keep specifying Baldur's Gate and/or D&D 2e for things. Turns out, Baldur's Gate does use D&D 2e as a base, but makes some modifications. One of the changes it makes, which I didn't know when I started this, is the Kensai kit itself. Kensai is not officially a 2e kit, and technically isn't in 2e at all. There is a (fighter-ish) class in the "Oriental Adventures" book for first edition, but it isn't quite the same, more it's own class that happens to share some tables with fighter. Since the end goal is character design, not creating a legal 2e character, I won't go too far into it, but I did create both a (cheated to level up) Baldur's Gate kensai -> mage and a (1e-ish)Kensai->(2e)Mage, using the rules from 2e for most things not directly in the Kensai class description (and ignoring the stat requirements for dual-classing since I didn't roll any 17s); screenshots of both should be in the supplemental reblog, in addition to a link to Helena's dndbeyond character sheet.

Fortunately for me and my lack of foresight, both BG Kensai and 1/2e Kensai have similar flavor: a heavily "eastern" inspired warrior with even more discipline and asceticism than standard fighters, focused on their weapons and unable to wear armor, with a restriction to either lawful (1/2e) or at least not chaotic (BG) alignments (if this sounds a little monk-ish WotC agrees - kensai is a monk specialization in 5e, being a monk that can use a not-monk weapon). Also fortunately for me, mage is wizard is mage, regardless of edition. Magic from book learning/intelligence. Not too complicated.

In terms of character narrative, in canon, I feel like coming to the Warehouse was a significant breakpoint in Myka's life and worldview. Not being a writer, this small essay notwithstanding, I'm going to sum it up as a break from tradition and from seeking the approval of her father. Where joining the Warehouse crew was for canon Myka, I want dualing from Kensai to Mage to be for DnD Myka, with reaching the point where she can use Kensai features again representing the peace with her past she eventually reaches at the warehouse in canon. What I'm picturing is: Myka is from an isolated and very traditional mountain village where the kensai tradition (and 2e mechanics) has been preserved. Myka is trained in this tradition, and has both the mental discipline and physical capabilities to excel. The people of this village are purists and don't believe in using magic, especially in conjunction with being a kensai. Somehow (at this point my having thought this through starts to fail) Myka gets ahold of some spellbooks, and with her love of books and curiosity, begins to read and reread them, until one day she casts some magic. This is against the rules, and she's kicked out of the village for "corrupting" their traditions, and now she has to make her way through the world with only her fledgling mage talent to rely on.

Talking about the illustration/design itself: given the heavily eastern vibe, I'm trying for a samurai/ronin style based on my recollections from my weeb phase. I wanted in particular with the robe/kimono to make something that would be in between the plain practicality of Myka's kensai kimono and the flashiness of wizard robes (if you watch the timelapse, you may spot the part where I accidentally took a left turn into fallout's vault boy coloration before tweaking it a bit). I also wanted to have her using magic, and I think the magic effect turned out well. Really, this illustration just came out really easy. I was just … drawing hands. If you watch the timelapse, I even saved a third hand for a while because it was so nice (but at the wrong angle). I don't know what happened. Really the only snags were the aforementioned Vault Boy Moment and coloring Myka's hair (although I did decide to leave her face as a sketch rather than try to ink it).

I think maybe I've babbled enough for now. I'll reblog this in a moment (since tumblr hates links) with character sheets, timelapses of the drawings, and a bonus doodle that came to me reading the artificer specializations.

#Bering and Wells #Warehouse 13 #Bering and Wells Holiday Exchange #tulipsandsake #my art #wow I sure can write when that's not the focus of what I'm doing #ask me about dnd apparently

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mugsywrites · 5 years

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Some BG Unquiet Grave Musings

Some Glaaron/Gleggie stuff:

People frequently assumed Glenn was Aaron’s boyfriend when they were in college, such was the intensity of their bromance. They’d do shit like sit super close so they can share earbuds when listening to music on a portable CD player while studying in the library.

Glenn and Aaron both had *insane* glow ups post-college. They were both more “adorkable” than “hot” when they met their future spouses (all three of them) way back in freshmen year and stayed that way through college. But years of spending long weekends hiking in the mountains/doing outdoorsy shit made both of them put on a bit of muscle and by the time they hit their mid-20s there were the straight up babes Ross/Steven are today.

Aaron was Glenn’s best man at the Gleggie wedding. The rest of the groomsmen consisted of three of Glenn’s male cousins. As I mentioned in a previous post they all went to a Korean Spa for before the big day and got naked together. Hilarity ensued.

Maggie chose Sasha as her maid of honor since Beth was a teenager who still lived at home with their parents. There were no hard feelings. The rest of the bridal party was Beth, Tara, and Glenn’s oldest sister.

Speaking of Glenn’s sister/rest of his family: he has three older sisters. Their parents were a little wary of Maggie at first but *all* his sisters hit it off with her immediately, the oldest in particular despite the age difference (I imagine she’s about eight years older)

I haven’t worked out exactly how Gleggie met in this universe. On the show they were kind of thrown together because of circumstances and she was attracted to his bravery. One of the things I was toying around with: A party on campus gets out of hand, someone is hurt or ODs, everyone freaks out but Glenn and Maggie. Both sort of take charge and keep cool heads until the injured person is taken care of. Maggie is impressed with him and seduces him (Glenn is a virgin, Maggie is not). She meant it to be a one time thing, but they kept getting pushed together and Glenn is *so* sweet and amazing and looks like Steven Yeun so they became a thing for real.

Also toying around with the idea of them having a pregnancy scare early in their relationship and Glenn’s reaction to it solidifying that this was the guy for her.

Everyone’s jobs/personal life:

I haven’t quite finalized what everyone does for a living. Gleggie: I’m leaning toward Glenn being a social worker of some kind or a high school guidance counselor. Whatever he does it’s primarily about helping others. I think Maggie is a veterinarian like her father.

Sashita: Rosita I’m toying with working for law enforcement on the forensic end of things due to how easily in canon she learned stuff relating to explosives and Eugene was apparently teaching her chemistry stuff at one point. Sasha was a firefighter on the show iirc, or was training to become one. She was also on the prison council, so I could see her in politics. Something like policy analyst or outreach.

I don’t know have many ideas about Tara, just that whatever she does she works at the same place Glenn does and they’re work spouses.

Aaron and Eric both I see as doing the opposite of show canon--they started out doing aid work overseas but got burnt after a few years, returned to the Atlanta area, and started working in local politics. Eric works in fundraising, he’s so good at charming people and remembering little details about them. Aaron worked in communications/speech writing/etc before quitting to write a novel. He’s always been a big reader and wrote short stories in college but thought it would be an unrealistic thing to pursue. He was inspired partly to try by Michonne--she was his TA in one of his writing courses and became a successful and critically acclaimed writer. They met up a few times and she encouraged him/became a bit of a mentor when he wrote his first book.

Jesus sort of fell into his eventual position as bookstore manager--likes to read, organized, good at figuring out what needs to be done and who the best person to do it is. When he and Aaron went to LA to work on the film of Aaron’s book he got a job as a production assistant and within, like a day was practically running the whole operation. Super competent and could be diplomatic with ~*actors*~ while at the same time completely unimpressed by fame.

#musings on my fanfic

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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I notice I read faster when I read along to audio. At least, this is true when I’m otherwise looking up words to learn new words as I read - the audio keeps me going at a certain pace. I experimented with following along to the Xiao Mao story with pleco dictation tool and I definitely read faster. I don’t know how much of that is just me not having to subvocalize/me being surer of sounds (apparently I really do learn more solidly with sound). I didn’t have to look at any more word definitions than usual, and still paused to breakdown some hanzi. But just going at audio speed helped me look at the text in a more flowing way. idk if this info can help me later?

as usual, still seeing benefits this month from Listening Reading Method and associated exercises: biggest benefits being improved listening comprehension. Every time I listen to the guardian audiobook on its own now I understand more details each time, and the last time I listened to the condensed guardian ep 1 I literally followed nearly all lines word for word - which is really good improvement to me. I started watching Secret of the Three Kingdoms (just for fun so with eng subs, the hard chinese subs) and tried to focus on the opening scenes audio as I watched. I could match all the chinese specific words I heard to their english translation/hanzi I saw except a few war-terms in the opening monologue. But that’s still such an improvement to me, it means I might have a better comprehension rate next time I watch a show with no subs. And it means I might have a better comprehension rate next time I watch a show just with chinese subs (at least matching text to audio which I think I’ve read studies has helped learners with listening comprehension). So just like. Overall I’m noticing my listening skills are getting more reliable. The fact they helped me read the Xiao Mao book yesterday show on some level those skills are starting to be more dependable. So right now its an odd mix of my listening catching up to my reading, and my reading sometimes being weak and forgetting the sounds of some things lol.

The other benefit of L R Method lately being of course: making harder stuff easier to read. I’ve been noticing in general much better just overall ability to pick up materials and read for main idea/details. While yeah, it depends on my familiarity and their difficulty how much I can follow fully versus only vague main idea, its still cool to just know its getting closer to a point where less stuff is fully opaque. I’m running into less stuff I can’t follow at all without a dictionary. Whereas before doing L R Method more (and this extensive reading more), I definitely had novels I just could not even wade through for the vague main idea sometimes. My chinese is starting to get much closer to my french reading comprehension.

And for context since I’ll probably be curious later, time spent L R Method this month:

Guardian: 12 chapters*40 minutes each (roughly)=480 minutes= 8 hours Alice in Wonderland, other L R Method random chapters: 2 chapters (one 30 minutes, the other 80 minutes) =110 minutes= ~1.8 hours Silent Reading: 6 chapters, approximately 1.5 hours.

So probably around 10 hours total spent L R: 11.3 hours so far this month. And if I add random time spent simply re-listening to the audiobook chapters in the background multiple times, lets say at least 4 times each for each material (it may have been more). That would be half the time L R took (so 5.65 hrs for one audio playtime of each)*4 times = 22.6 hours just listening to stuff I’ve already studied in L R Method. This is not counting random audiobooks I listened to in order to test listening improvements - I also listened to guardian condensed eps a little, some stuff more than 4 times, some Chinese Spoonfed audio files, sherlock holmes audiobooks, the little prince audio, some audio drama. So lets guess maybe 5 more hours listening in the background (maybe more like 10 but I want to be on the lower end of guessing). So I’ve had 27.6 hours additional listening (or more) this month outside L R Method sessions, if I had to guess.

I’m going to guess a majority of my listening improvements lately are mainly due to the sheer number of listening hours this month - the suggestion to ‘play audio in the bg even if I’m not always focusing’ was overall a good idea for me. I personally think all the listening to stuff I at one point comprehended (stuff I’d L R Method previously, show audio of a show I know well) further helped the listening practice be useful to me. Since I saw much more improvement for example re-listening to Guardian audiobook chapters I’ve already done L R Method with, compared to sherlock holmes audiobooks since I’ve never read/seen the books in chinese or english.

I’m going to guess the L R Method primarily helped with making audio more comprehensible, picking up vocabulary, and by picking up vocab making listening and reading easier overall. I think the L R Method sessions helped make extensively reading my print copy of guardian possible (I’ve read 5 chapters, took a little over 4 hours to read those 50 pages extensively so far), I’ve extensively read a few one off chapters of various novels this month. I’ve read some other stuff, and probably read about 6-8 hours this month (not counting L R Method time). However... I was super sloppy about tracking listening hours or reading hours this month... once I learned I could pick up stuff and read I kinda just browsed a few things without bothering to track them lol. I do think reading as an activity I did overall less than L R Method in terms of hours. Since one L R Method session takes 30 minutes for easier novels, 80 minutes for harder, and 40 minutes for Guardian/average. So once I’ve done that I don’t feel like doing much else so I’ve been reading just 15-30 minutes a chapter here and there or manhua chapter, or watching part of an episode etc.

Some funny differences actually? My french I actually think I know less words ‘firmly’ but because of the near-cognates and familiar word ‘pieces’ I can get a lot of meaning from many ‘vaguely’ understood words, so I rarely run into things I can’t partly follow. Whereas my chinese I think a majority of the words I can read, I can read pretty reliably ‘clearly’ and they do help with ‘vaguely’ understanding words with familiar hanzi but new meanings, BUT chinese’s use of hanzi means once I run into totally unknown hanzi words I have much less to grasp to ‘vaguely guess’ the meaning of than with french. So what I don’t know in chinese is a lot more opaque, I have less chance of guessing its meaning reliably - although if I know a hanzi/radical/surrounding words I have some chance of guessing. So like? What I do understand in chinese I find much more transparent than with french, but what I don’t understand I cannot ‘deal with’ as much. But the gap is getting closer. Just like - I could read a french economic paper, psychology paper, but chinese I have not learned enough economics specific words or psychology specific words to push through something like that lol. I don’t have the near-cognates to help figure things out. It gets less bad the more hanzi I know, but still its not the kind of guess I’d want to rely on the way I’d imagine native speakers have a better idea of what’s probably most likely the meanings of unknown stuff. I’m running into similar issues as with reading with output too, though they present a bit different in output. Still, I find it a good sign if I can start thinking more about my chinese output - it means my passive vocabulary’s getting big enough I can follow another person’s speaking/writing and start wanting to respond as fully as they do. Which is much more like my french. And the working on chinese listening over time has taught me a lot about what I need to apply more to french..

#rant #may #may progress #all this to say tldr: what i want to do is L R Method more lol #i would LOVE to finish the first arc the sundial arc this month #idk if i'll achieve it #but i'd Love to do it

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notdeadjusttrash-blog · 6 years

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My Friend has been Falsely Accused of Tracing So I Will Defend Him

Okay I accidentally deleted the blog I posted this one because I’m a dumbass, so I’ll just repost it here even though I don’t use this blog anymore, but apparently I still have followers. Bless caches because I was able to get this back from google caches so I don’t have to retype everything. I added further evidence and refutes to claims that were not in my original post btw.

Anyways, I am making this post to help out my good friend @5ru9 aka Falco who has been recently accused of tracing/copy pasting other people’s / official art!

I’ve known Falco for over 3 years, and we’ve grown as artists together. Once in a while we give each other advice on art (thanks for the mech and armor advice and teaching me how you line and color!), but most of the time we just meme each other.

Anyways, a lot of people have pointed out that they’ve seen him livestream before, and he’s already posted some of his block outs and other wips as proof that he does not trace in his post here:

http://5ru9.tumblr.com/post/168277137427/hello-i-have-been-informed-about-a-callout-post

To further prove his claim with solid evidence, I shall present to you!

Times he’s asked for advice on his art, or I randomly decided to mention things I notice in his WIPs!

Exhibit A-1:

A Tenkai Knight he made up! I pointed out a few things I thought were awkward about the perspective in his WIP.

Exhibit A-2:

He started working on this way back in July and didn’t finish it until much later because he was working on several other pieces at the same time. I suggested lowering the eyebrows and drawing the eyes a bit narrower to get more of the playful expression he was aiming for. In his final piece here, you can see that Falco continued to refine the piece.

By the way! The reason he sometimes posts a lot of detailed artworks one shortly after the other is because he sometimes works on multiple pieces at once! And then finishes coloring them around the same time.

Exhibit A-3

Falco and I spent good time trying to figure out why he felt like something was wrong with his sketch! I thought maybe it was the trapezius and I decided to red line (or blue line i guess) it so it’d be easier for him to see approximately where i thought the line should go to fix it.

Exhibit A-4:

The gif-ing process turned white bg into blue… anyways! Falco showed me an early version of his Tenkai Knights OC that he eventually used in an April Fool’s joke to pass off as a new character in the series. He mastered the tenkai style enough that at first glance, people really did believe it was official! Like you had to get a good look to realize Shiyu was not really a real new character! Btw I had to go into my old twitter acc to find this…. (Edit: the gif wasn’t working bc it was too big so i had to make it smaller… and choppier and stuff to fit the mb max)

Well now that brings us into!!!

Exhibit B

Some of his old art!! (I’m so sorry falco i’ll be exposing your ancient art to ppl now)

Here you can see his progress from 2014 Tenkai fan art to early 2015! It starts looking more and more like the official art, which is what he was going for.

For reference, here’s what the character Ceylan Jones/Washizaki looks like:

I blocked out fan art by everyone except falco (which i marked) that shows up in this google search. Everything else is official art. The two fan arts by falco you see here are more recent, the angel one being from 2016 and the chicken one from 2017 (i think he also made a version with sonic instead of the chicken? lol). They’re both on his dA accounts btw! The 2017 one really looks like official art, doesn’t it? But it’s his artwork! He practiced a LOT to reach that point, and I hope the earlier arts I showed above this one are enough to convince you in his art progression! Side note: i only used images w/ceylan because 1. i’m biased because ceylan is my favorite character and 2. he drew ceylan a lot because ceylan is his favorite character Also you can see his handle change from s3iwashi to burningbraven. 5ru9 is is a pretty recent handle.

ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN IN THE TENKAI FANDOM FOR A WHILE CAN VOUCH FOR HIM!!!!!

And now for the last one,

Exhibit C

WHAT? WHO IS THIS???

This is my favorite character from a Chinese series called AOTU World! His name is Grey, or 格瑞。I commissioned Falco to draw Grey for me, and let me tell you it would be IMPOSSIBLE for him to have copied any of this. Why? Because the donghua is 3D and the manhua’s art is very inconsistent!

Let me show you the reference pictures I gave him to work with!

They’re all in my gdrive folder here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CqwH5KS-pHX0ZqLHQpoIZBi6W-gsU_Tz

This is all official art from the manhua, except the 3D model is from the donghua. Look at how inconsistent the references are! There’s no way he could have copy and pasted or traced this! Grey doesn’t even do this particular pose anywhere. lol. I told Falco “give him a cool sword pose”. (I’m sorry for being so vague, Falco! But it turned out great!!) The style he ended up drawing in was a mixture of all of them.

Btw!! here’s the blockout and the sketch he sent me before I sent my payment for the commission!! You can see his construction in the block out!! The arm construction and leg construction is light, but it’s there. You can also see the block out below the sketch. Notice he actually fixed the leg length from block out -> sketch?

ARGUMENTS AGAINST SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS

LOOK, thte actual drawing doesn’t even match the sprites that closely. Pay attention to the collar especially. The whole frankensteining the image and then painting over it thing is just way more effort than drawing it himself. They don’t even match that well in the overlays. Like wow it’s such a crime to try and stay on model.

WHO WOULD EVEN NEED TO TRACE A MOUTH LIKE THAT? IT’S SO EASY TO DRAW. I CAN DRAW IT PERFECTLY JUST BY LOOKING AT IT. (well i AM an animator so I also do style mimicking)

Doesn’t the fact that you have to edit the sprites to match his artwork prove that you’re just a tryhard in making up fake evidence and not a tryhard enough at art since you think it’s so impossible for people to draw characters on model?

Yes he referenced the broom and possibly the heels from this image, but your overlays for the leg and arms are disingenuous and you know it. The leg positions are different, and the overlay doesn’t even match up. Face tracing also makes no sense. You literally stretched the mouth to try and make it fit but it still doesn’t fit. Do you really think it’s that hard to draw mouths and eyes in the DR style? DR faces are really simple to emulate. Also you fool, if you follow Falco’s artwork enough, you’d realize the way he draws bodies is actually rather consistent even as he does different styles. Especially when it comes to hands. His way of drawing hands is how I recognize his art and know right away it’s his art and not official art or a trace (also his coloring style). The heels he drew are also reminiscient of how he typically draws shoes/feet. he draws them bulkier. The other art has dainty heels. At most he referenced how backside works because he’s used to drawing sneakers.

Also come on, if all you referenced from an image was a broom because you liked the style (his is also clearly drawn by himself since you can’t overlay it on the other one. like i said he mostly used the style as a reference for how-to-broom) and you referenced pieces from many other images, are you going to list every single thing you referenced? While yeah it’d be nice to, it’s a little ridiculous to expect all 5-20 references whenever they post the image. It’s a thing where, if someone asks, you’d tell them, but it’s too much to list all of it. This isn’t a 20 page thesis.

If it’s such a crime, then holy shit sue all those people who parody other people’s comics and sue everyone who dares!!! to ever draw something remotely similar to someone else. Dang.

Art doesn’t live in a vacuum.

Okay, this one is just plain stupid. You distorted the sprite to match it up with his, but what would be the point for him to distort it just to trace? Also if he traced, can you explain the rest of the fingers that are drawn nicely but clearly different from the sprite? Also the thumbs don’t even match up. His faces more downward while the sprite is facing more forward. Also explain the turned body in Falco’s sketch, then!! And the hair! OH WAIT YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT BY ANY OTHER WAY THAN HE DREW IT HIMSELF!!! BECAUSE NO SPRITES MATCH IT AND YOU CAN’T FIND ANY SPRITES TO DISTORT ENOUGH TO EVEN GET CLOSE TO MAKING FAKE EVIDENCE FOR IT.

By the way, the style he drew it in is closer to the drv3 than this sprite. while it’s pretty much the same style as the older games, drv3′s art is more refined than the older games. Falco’s art is also more refined as you can see. (wow not only did falco’s art improved from back when we first met; even professional artists improve. shocker. /s)

Dude what the hell? The overlays don’t even match up even ifi you tried to frankenstein them. And these are really common poses at really common angles, and once again, must every single thing we reference from be listed in the description of every place we post an image? Let me just list all 30 videos and 50 images i used as reference for one of my prints. jfc.

As for the saihara animation based on the digimon opening animation? It was pretty clear to everyone that it’s some kind of parody. Many people when making parody animations don’t mention the original video either?? It’s a fun thing for fans of the franchise to recognize the reference themselves. Yes he could have said it was the digimon opening on the description, but at least he didn’t say he thought of the idea himself? And if you talk to him about the animation, he will openly tell you it’s from digimon. And the fact that you think it’s a trace despite how much the overlays do NOT work out is practically proof that you’re just doing this maliciously and hoping that saying he traces enough with shoddy evidence will make people believe you.

ALSO PEOPLE LITERALLY TRACE ANIMATIONS TO MAKE PARODIES OF, DOWN THE STYLE WHERE ALL THEY CHANGE IS THE HAIR AND OUTFIT, AND YET SOMETHING WITH DIFFERENCES EVEN DOWN TO THE STYLE LIKE THIS IS SOMETHING YOU THINK IS A TRACE? Do you need a new pair of glasses?

I was gonna ignore this one because it was the same as a lot of the others, but you literally erased Falco’s face line so it would match the sprite, and you covered the bigger boobs Falco gave her, and totally ignored that the angle doesn’t even match properly. Like you covered parts of his sketch in your overlay just to make it look more like it matches, but if you actually fucking overlayed it correctly, even with squashing it, it won’t fit. (Also sorry to point this out Falco, but the circles on your goggle lenses are too small compared to the sprite; Maybe if you actually traced like this person claims you’re doing, they’d be perfectly like the sprite. OH BUT WAIT YOU DREW IT YOURSELF SO OF COURSE THERE’S SOME DIFFERENCES. JUST LIKE HOW EVEN THOUGH ALL YOUR OTHER WORKS ARE REALLY CLOSE TO THE STYLE AND PRETTY MUCH ON MODEL, THEY’RE NOT EXACTLY THE SAME WITH THE SPRITES! SHOCKER...!)

HOLY FUCK. I already pointed out and gave evidence that Falco started on the Nier Automata drawing waaaaaaay before he posted the actual picture. The 2 sketches are sketches! They don’t take a super long time. I busted out 10 inktobers in 1 day. (thumbnails of my artwork below)

Look I even even lined and colored 5 fairly detailed chibis in 1 day (i did the sketches earlier though. btw i hand drew the plaid on ray. it was annoying)

At the moment I have 5 wips. They’ll likely all be done around the same time. I know Falco often has multiple wips as well, and sometimes he also finishes some of them close to each other. Some artists (like my friend Fish) can pump out extremely detailed paintings in less than a day. WOW some artists can draw at a fairly fast rate. WHO KNEW? (manga artists in weekly magazines pump out 15-20 pages of manga in a week)

He’s still developing a style; he’s mostly doing style mimics of series he likes in the mean time.

At the moment he’s mostly experimenting with the drv3 style, but he was practicing p5 earlier. By the way, he DESIGNED a phantom outfit for mishima. Who the heck would he copy that from? He made it up because he loved mishima and wanted to make him part of the gang in some AU fan art. Mishima doesn’t have artwork like this for him to trace, so it should be obvious it’s his own work.

And the pokemon and crash bandicoot ones are actually not that close. The pokemon one looks like a good attempt at imitating the pokemon style, but since he hasn’t practiced it enough, you can tell it’s a little off model because, well, he drew it himself and doesn’t practice the pokemon style a lot. Same with the crash one. Had it been a trace, with his level of control over his lines (which you can’t refute), it would have been much closer.

And you act like it’s a crime to imitate others’ art style. It’s really not. What is wrong with you? Do you want to slow down animation production by only letting the character designer draw everything? Or do you want animation where the art has 0 semblance of consistency because all the artists draw in vastly different styles? lol. What do you have against artists that try to stay on model?

LOL THIS IS ONE IS SO STUPID WHERE DO I EVEN START?

Oh, I KNOW. Why don’t I do that same pose with my own hands?

IT’S A MIDDLE FINGER, YOU IDIOT.

Just because YOU don’t know basic anatomy and can’t tell a middle finger from a pinky, doesn’t mean everyone else is as incompetent as you. He wasn’t doing the rock-on hand pose (sry idk if that pose actually has a name lol), and he’s drawn the rock-on hand pose properly before.

Closing statement

I believe I covered a lot of things and provided a lot of evidence here that Falco and his other friends did not cover in his defense against the false accusations.

I even added more counter arguments in this repost because apparently my original post wasn’t enough to convince people.

Perhaps the person calling him out meant well (no, I doubt it because they made a new side blog just to diss him because they knew if they did it on their actual blog, they’d be called out for being a jerk), but they did not do enough digging to find out if their claims were true or not (and they probably know well enough that they MADE UP THEIR EVIDENCE).

If you’re going to make a call out post, please make triple sure sure of everything before you accuse people. Talk to them first. Talk to those who know them too.

Many jobs require you to be able to draw characters exactly in the style given. Animators for example! There are multiple animators working on one series, and they all need the skill to draw consistently! Some games also have teams that need to be able to draw in the same style so they don’t have to leave everything up to one person. Comic artists often have assistants that help them draw background characters, but those background characters can’t be too different from the main style either.

As for the people who believed the call out post before, it’s perfectly understandable. I am also guilty of falling for similar posts in the past. Due to that, I decided it was best to double check before retweeting (i say retweet because i use twitter far more than tumblr these days. heck i almost never post anything on this blog) things, and if i wasn’t sure, I would just leave it be.

I hope my post was able to convince you on Falco’s innocence and all his hard work. And if you already believed him but checked out this post anyways… Thanks! ObligatoryPleaseWatchAotuWorld.

And again:

Art does NOT exist in a vacuum. All artists are influenced by each other and MANY artists, especially professionals, use a lot of references, whether it be from photographers, their own pictures, others’ artwork, life, or whatever. We all use many different resources. If you’re going to say that’s wrong, you just dismissed millions of artists in the world.

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sambashua · 7 years

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questions tag

I was tagged by the cutest sweetheart @shinwrons aka my fave penta stan thanks for tagging me mariah:D

What are your five favorite songs from your bias group?

as most peeps well know, my bg is SEVENTEEN TEEN TEEN and ugh i love all their songs so much this is a real struggle but i think Pretty U, Beautiful, NO F.U.N, Healing and Fronting are the ones I listen to most consistently ??? (this was my biggest struggle in my 19 years idk man i like all their songs listen to them all)

What are your five favorite songs (kpop) not from your bias group?

Well this is even more difficult but I’ll list some I’ve been listening to a lot recently bc I am super indecisive: Blackout by VIXX (bc i finally added it to my playlist thanks to cass), CAMO by BoA (dude this song is so good i’ve listened to it so much she is my queen), Running 2 U by NCT127 (ah this song is so lit by i wish it was longer tbh), Happy by WJSN (i go so hard to this song) and You Smile by ASTRO (this might be my favorite astro song ever idk i just love it so so much like i love baby a lot but 10/10 shoulda been their title imo)

(um okay so i can’t just put five bc i’m a ho so imma do another five girl groups and five boy groups and these are the ones i listen to a lot not just recently more like long-time faves idk) (also this is so much ya don’t gotta read this i just get eggcited abt music)

Why So Lonely by The Wonder Girls (this was one of my first favorite gg songs after mamamoo and hyuna and stuff so it holds a v special place in my hort and i used to watch the dance practice on repeat that whole summer lol i miss them now i’m crying), Like a Cat/Heart Attack by AOA (ugh i can’t choose between these songs i listen to both all the time i just love aoa and i hope choa rests well and gets better) (also have you seen the dp where they dance in cat onsies honestly iconic), Rollin’ by Brave Girls (the mv is trash but the dance is lit like how much thigh power do they possess i’ve tried and i can barely do it for one chorus like ?? but support them pls also deepened and yoohoo are jams ugh), Why by Taeyeon (aka the loml) and Free Somebody by Luna (aka the second loml) (oops also coloring book by oh my girl)

All In/Need U by Monsta X (i listen to these alllll the time), Heartbreaker by NCT 127 (AH I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH), Wake Me Up by B.A.P (jam of the century), Chained Up by VIXX (who doesn’t love this song tho) and Sherlock by SHINee (hoo hoo hoo what’s better than shinee’s back badadadadada)

What are your five favorite non-kpop songs?

I’ll just list my favorite song for my five favorite western artists! Falling by Florence & the Machine (but flo is my all time favorite artist ever and i love every single song she has ever released she is a musical genius), My Body Is a Cage by Arcade Fire, 4u by Blackbear, Woman by the 1975 and All You Are Is History by State Champs wait also My Brother Taught Me How to Swim by Passion Pit (ah i love all their songs so much) AH SHOOT also Still by The Japanese House okay that’s all~

Who is your bias and why do you like them?

hmmmm well idk abt you but i just hate jeon wonwoo what a gross nerd who reads a bunch o books and makes dumb puns and laughs unnecessarily hard at the pain of others and is generally very violent w skinship and can’t eat seafood and is wayyyy overconfident and always hides his hands if he’s wearing long sleeves and is generally very shy and introverted and is afraid of dogs and cried at me before you and thinks he’s the best gamer in the world and has the dorkiest, most adorable smile where his nose crinkles up and wow how gross don’t like him at all idk what to say

What do you usually wear for winter/autumn/spring/summer? What’s your “style”?

ahhh mariah i totally agree w you~~ my ‘style’ is just generally comfy lol usually i wear leggings and a t-shirt tbh but my job requires me to wear real pants rip so for work i usually wear jeans and an okay shirt ? my staple piece is long sleeve t-shirts tho i wear them all the time even in summer here it gets p hot but if i can i wear log sleeves and pants bc i’m crazy apparently. i like sweaters a lot too and jeans but idk i’m just so lazy when it comes to fashion help me

For your bias group, what was your favorite hair style/era for each member?

um this is illegal ugh okay

scoops~ either nice era or last summer for kcon ny w his grey/silver hair i mean come onnnnn

hannie~ ummm his is difficult bc he’s def had the most range w his hair... but i’m gonna have to say pretty u era bc ?? i liked it so much but i feel like a lot of people didn’t?? he looks good w any hair tho tbh (also to clarify i do not mean the extensions bc those were low key cursed just his bob okay)

shua~ BISH IF YOU THINK I WOULDN’T SAY NICE ERA PEACH SHUA THEN YOU DON’T KNOW ME AND I DON’T KNOW YOU

jun~ okay i seem super nice era biased?? but surprisingly i really loved his blonde hair i thought the styling was good and the HEADBAND yes but also boom boom era was iconic bye

hosh~ well hosh legit always looks good rip but i think i really loved pretty u (all the hats were so blessed) and boom boom eras! his light hair for mansae and the light blue/silver were also frickin bomb af but i generally prefer dark hair~

wonu~ i think i talked abt this before but i reallyyyyyyyy loved pretty u/shining diamonds concert ugh also ofd1 (shoot i can’t find any pics but it was basically this but softer or award shows 2016 ah plz he always looks good tho and his hair rn is so good too ugh it’s like ofd reminiscent (i had 400 tabs open for this i h8 me self)

jihoon~ wow okay def nice era once again! damn i shoulda just say nice era for everyone and called it a day rip but also come on adore u era was everyone’s fave fight me HA FOUND A POST WHICH COMPARES THE ERAS WOW BLESSED

dokyumie~ my fave for him was for sureeee adore u era! normally i prefer bangs but seokmin is one of a few boys who i actually prefer his hair up ???

gyu~ as expected probably pretty u era! he just looked like such a soft puppy LIKE HE SHOULD!! but damn his black hair is so good too bye

hao~ he is always the cutest lbr but he looked incredibleee w his silver hair for highlight and also pretty u bc i am such a ho for brown hair why

boo~ honey blonde boo is such a blessing but he looked so cute for adore u too how it was styled up a bit AND ALSO MANSAE OR NICE W THE RED BROWN COLOR ICONIC AND ROSE QUARTZ BOO IT WAS TOO SHORT LIVED

bernonnie~ high key anything after mansae era destroys my life but i’ll say pretty u just bc he looked so young and cute ahjgka but i mean nice, boom boom and dwc are illegally good too so (look how softtttt)

chan~ p r e t t y u just bc that’s when my son started to grow up cry also his hair before that era was so endlessly tragic why pledis (boom boom was also v v good tho)

How did you “discover” kpop and how did you discover vixx?

okay i was like why vixx bc i didn’t realize someone else wrote this lol but kpop in general i found through youtubers yes yes and i was like wow dope then i only listened to bts for a couple months and here i am now (you can find a more detailed synopsis in basically any questions tag i’ve done if you haven’t seen it by now lol) BUT WOW VIXX HOW INTERESTING OKAY so i liked chained up and dynamite ya know back in the early days of my kpop career so like early 2016 i think then that spring/summer 2016 i was like okay i like bts and svt but i know there’s more out there *clenches fist* so i set out on the yt channel learnkpopnameswithme (?) and i saw vixx and was like wow cool i know a bit abt them and i watched a couple and i think i saw error and was like hollup this is too damn intense bye so i still listened to their music and stuff but i thought there were unattractive and i hated ken (I AM SO SORRY I LOVE HIM NOW IT’S OKAY) but i think when milky way mv came out i was like wow how good and pure! and then a month or two ago i really started watching more of them and their variety lol. but in conclusion i’ve known their names for forever but i was like not into them much haaaa sorry

What does your phone case look like?

it’s this sparkly grey case that’s half clear and looks like mountains/waves/granite/??? depending on who you ask but everyone asks me if it’s broken smh

Do you normally browse tumblr on your phone or on pc?

usually phone unless i’m already on my computer ?? or if i’m writing a post ? like i’m on my laptop now so

How are you doing? Got any plans for the day/night?

doing greatttttt when i started writing this it was my birthday so i was like yay i have plans but now i kinda don’t lol rip

i’m only gonna tag people i’m close ish with?? bc i can’t come up w any different questions and these are p good! @king-hao @kyungminie @yooncheoly @atshinee @hoshi-ssi @jungnoir @moonhyook @s-lay-ing@everyonesabiaswrecker @taeismyking @honestlay ofc only do this if you want but i’d like to see your guy’s answers

#tagged #bye this is so long #but 10/10 listen to those songs if you haven't #it took me a damn week to finish this jeez #mir moos

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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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Through the Looking Glass Chapter 11: Winter Snow

AN: Yaaassss This is one of those chapters that has been in my head since I started writing the series. Finallyyyyyyyy we’re here.

Also consider this the point that they’re not kids anymore. They’ll be full blown adults next chapter. Still teenagers here, but they won’t be in the next chapter.

Characters: Levi, Reader, Mentions of Varioud BG Characters

Pairing: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: Language, Mentions of Bullying, Depression, Bit of a Breakdown, Angst

Word Count: 12296.....Holy Shnikies, is that a new record for me with Tumblr fics? I think it is... O.o

<----Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter---->

Gif Found HERE

*Levi’s POV*

When she had shown him the little booklet of information about college, he hadn’t at the time realized just how big of a part that was going to play in her life--not so soon, at least.

It was nothing that happened right away, and not something that he noticed as soon as it started to happen. For a while, everything continued as it always had. He would show up in her world and be granted a brief reprieve from his life, with her pulling him deeper and deeper into the wonders her world had to offer, showing and teaching him new things. When she turned fifteen and was able to drive a car--he finally had a name for those damn horseless carriages--she took the time to try and teach him how to drive those death machines as well. It was rocky at first, with her focusing on how this button and this position and this pedal did such and such, starting with simply getting the car going and moving it back and forth, teaching him about basic signs, driving on certain terrains and in certain weather…

It ended up being an entire process, and it took more than a few days where they saw each other to teach him how to safely drive a car--and even then, she only taught him to use an automatic. Apparently there was another kind of car that operated differently, but she said he shouldn't worry about learning to drive the other one unless she ended up getting one of those different cars.

It had been much easier learning the emergency phone number in her world, the number to call if there was ever trouble and they needed help. Three numbers and press the green phone button, it didn't get much easier than that.

Of course, he also kept learning other things. He liked to peruse the books in her house, particularly the ones about the history of her world, or the nature and what it looked like beyond what he saw with her. Sometimes that was what he did while he waited for her to finish her schoolwork. Other times, he practiced what she'd been showing him on the piano. He wasn't as good at it as she was, but he also didn't have a piano to practice on in his world--not unless he drew all the keys in the dirt and pretended he heard the sounds of the keys while he practiced the patterns and positions.

Even though he'd practice by himself while he waited for her to finish the homework beyond his understanding, he preferred when she would help him practice. He liked having her sit so close beside him, hands over or under his to show him the keys…

She also liked to take him places. Especially after she got that car. If they had the time and it wasn't too late in the day, she would drive them to another town to see a new park. Once she'd gone bowling--and they'd both sucked until he finally got the hang of it. She taught him pool after getting grumpy over Levi getting the hang of bowling and pulling ahead of her in three or four games. Pool she'd been fairly good at, as had Levi once he got used to using the pool stick instead of a knife--he had wicked aim and accuracy, which helped him significantly in that game.

She liked to bring him places to try foods from different cultures with her, or to walk through bookstores and help her choose new fantasy or sci-fi or supernatural stories to read. She’d even buy him any books that caught his eye so that he could read them when he visited, though he usually checked with her that they were non-fiction, first, so he could still learn something about the world she came from in the process.

While all this autonomy started to appear, and they were able to do and see more things, she was also...changing.

She was always so eager to get out of the house when she saw him, looking relieved and happy for an excuse. When she thought he wasn't looking, she seemed tired. There were circles under her eyes, a slight slump to her shoulders, and the few times Levi drove the car instead of her, if he glanced over at her he could catch her with her eyes closed, like she was trying to rest a little in the brief silence between them. A few times, she'd fallen asleep on him, though Levi never said anything about it, even when she woke up embarrassed. The most she would get would be a soft 'Tch' before he went back to whatever he'd been doing to entertain himself while she rested. Considering how eagerly she always threw herself into their time together, she had to be exhausted if she was falling asleep during it.

And he didn't mind it at all when she fell asleep on him. For those few minutes, it felt like he got to be the one to take care of her for once, something he didn't get to do nearly as much as he would like to. She took care of him so much and in so many ways, he doubted he'd ever be able to catch up and return the favor to its fullest extent. Plus, he soon found out why she always seemed so exhausted. It turned out she was stressed and spread thin.

It was something he had to piece together slowly from things she said or papers he found. She was always so focused on making the most out of his visits, that she never said a word about how tired she was, or the things that were stressing her out. She wanted him to take his mind off his life, to not worry, so she tried not to mention anything that would make him worry about her.

But he paid attention when she talked to him. She was going to school five days of the week, yes, but she was also working two jobs, as well as some babysitting on the side when the opportunity presented itself. Her mother had apparently remarried, and was expecting another child soon, so she was trying to help more around the house with things her mother couldn't do due to her pregnancy. She was putting in all the work required to stay at the top of her class, namely the very top, which would be called a valedictorian. She was also keeping up with her interests, helping her mother with an out of home bakery business, keeping up with her piano practice, and she did something called skating that she felt gave her some exercise but also relaxed her. She was also in one or two school activities that took her time, and once they reached a certain age, college came back into play, and she started applying to be let in and to be awarded money to go while keeping up with everything else. He didn't know how she managed to find the energy to drag him all over creation and keep him discovering new things.

Every now and then she let slip that she wanted to leave the town she felt trapped in, and the people in it, and he could see the desperation in her eyes to do just that. The stressors he could understand her wanting to leave, but the people...it took a few more hints for him to figure that part out.

Less of a hint. He had to get her at the right moment, when she finally opened up to him about the part that worried her the most.

He'd appeared in one of his favorite ways--quietly, when he'd simply been walking down the street--and had suddenly been the private audience to the soft piano music being played in the darkened living room.

The happiness he felt to be here again, and to be hearing her music as well, was muffled when he noted the overall tone in the room.

The music was sad, melancholy, depressing, and there wasn't any light in the room to illuminate her or the piano, the curtains on the windows pulled closed, the lights kept off. He approached from behind quietly, a small frown on his face as he came up to inquire what was wrong.

Along the way, his foot crunched a paper, the sound unheard by Y/N because she was focused on the piano and what she was playing, not the rest of the room. He picked it up to look at it closer, realizing it was part of a stack of papers that looked like those applications she'd been filling out so many of recently.

It wasn't one of the applications, but rather a note--a letter--attached to the top and addressed to her parents. It was from one of her teachers, and it went on to talk about how the school she wanted to go to had a very low acceptance rate, was very far away and wouldn't have certain financial aid available for her, and how it was a very expensive school. How she 'shouldn't plan on going to the one school alone, because it was unlikely for her to get in, and even less likely for her to pay for it' and needed to apply for more scholarships and to other schools, yet she refused to apply to more than two schools, and refused to apply for some of the scholarships.

Probably not the only thing bothering her that had her playing in the dark, but it was a good hint.

After putting the paper back into the stack, he stepped a little closer, finally making his presence known by commenting on the mood in the air she'd created.

"So doom and gloom--I'm supposed to be the depressing one," Levi quipped in a flat tone and she whipped around in surprise, banging her knee on the piano in the process and turning back around to clutch at her knee and hiss.

The pain, however, was an excuse to try and hide what he'd already seen. Tears, freshly falling down her cheeks, and not from hitting her knees.

Levi’s usual closed off demeanor shifted, and he quickly came over to sit beside her on the bench. She turned her head away from him to hide the tears as she tried to--unsuccessfully--wipe them away without him noticing.

The problem was that as soon as he was sitting beside her, he realized he didn't know what to say--either to get her to talk about it or to comfort her. He simply sat there awkwardly in silence with her facing off to the side and him facing the piano, both of them unable to talk for some reason.

Hesitantly, unsure if it was the right move but knowing at least it would be something, Levi let his fingers find their way to the right place on the piano, and started to play one of the newer and more difficult pieces she’d taught him recently. It was melancholy--most of the ones she taught him had a bittersweet edge to it, or at least a part of the song that felt that way--but it felt fitting for the moment, and he thought perhaps the song would prompt her to do something in return. Maybe she’d play with him. Maybe she’d start to talk. That was up to her.

Levi quietly played out the song, focused on hitting the right chords, making sure his arm brushed against hers every now and then in the process when he reached for keys closer to where she was sitting as a way of having some contact with her. She was silent at first, just listening to him play the song before, about halfway through, she finally reached out with one of her hands to play half the song. Levi felt a little relief to be getting a response from her, and he let his hand slide over hers as she played half the song for him, feeling her fingers moving below his, able to feel the slight shake in them even though she seemed to be playing the notes steadily.

They continued like that for a while, before Levi started to worry that she might try to use the piano as a distraction rather than an opening to start talking. As they neared the end of the song, he finally spoke up, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, fingers still moving over the keys. She shook her head, keeping her face turned away from him so he couldn’t see her expression.

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“It really is. It’s stupid, and it doesn’t matter in the long run, anyway.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t have been crying.”

She sighed, hitting one of the notes with more force than necessary and letting her hand drop away from the piano just short of the end of the song. Levi stopped playing as well, sitting quietly on the bench and gazing patiently at her back as he waited for her to start speaking.

“It’s just...everything going on, you know? I mean, I took it all on myself, I really shouldn’t complain, and I wouldn’t, but it gets so much...harder when...Gah...I hate people…”

Her voice shook, and she sniffled rather loudly, rubbing her left eye with her palm. Suddenly, Levi realized that besides the one time he’d helped her find her home when she’d run away...he didn’t think he’d seen her cry so openly around him. He reached out to gently touch her shoulder, and a shudder seemed to go through her at the contact, and she turned on the piano bench so that she could face him, burying her face in his chest as a small, hiccupped sob escaping her as she curled up against him. He was taken aback for a moment, but after feeling his heart ache and feeling how she was clutching at the fabric of his shirt, he gently draped an arm around her shoulders, letting his other hand gently touch her shoulder in a loose hug.

“Are people picking on you again?” Levi asked, digging for information to try and figure out what was wrong so he could figure out how to properly help her. She gave a bitter laugh at his question, a sound that seemed strange coming from her.

“I think I’d prefer getting beaten up like back then to this bullshit,” she said bitterly, and Levi’s eyebrows raised. He was pretty sure that was the first time he’d heard her swear, too. “No, I...I’ve always kinda been an outcast, at school...which I guess I got used to it...somewhat...but it’s gotten really hard this year. I’ve been working my ass of, and...and it just gets that much harder when you’re constantly hearing people call you lazy, and then you come home to hear the exact same thing as if you’re not spending every hour trying so hard...and then every time you accomplish something, everyone’s back there talking about how it's not going to matter anyway.”

She adopted a voice clearly meant to mimic everyone else, a bitter and cutting edge to her tone even with how her voice was muffled in his chest. “Like you’re actually going to get accepted by any colleges or scholarships, you never get anything in on time, you’re always being told to get things in or they’ll be late, always turning it in last minute, you’re so lazy you never get anything done or doing what you’re supposed to be doing, like you’ll have enough scholarships or meet the deadlines for the places you want to go. Oh, you got accepted by that college? Well it’s not like you’ll ever be able to actually pay for it. Oh, well if you do go to this college you want, you’ll just crash and burn anyway--you’re so straight laced I bet you’re that kid that goes crazy with freedom in college and drops out. You’ve never had a boyfriend or had that many friends, you’re totally going to be that crazy cat lady with forty cats and no friends. You can’t afford to go out for an hour, you have to stay home and get all these applications done, plus your homework, and don’t forget stuff for bible study every morning, and your practices, and yearbook, and everything else under the damn sun you’re not allowed to mess up in cause you have to be the perfect child that’s the first to go to college, you have to get the perfect cushy, high paying job, perfect grades, perfect activities, don’t get snippy with me if you’re feeling stressed it’s all your fault because you’re being lazy and not doing the work like you’re supposed to, you keep screwing around. You’re tired? Same thing applies--you don’t know tired, you’re just lazy and you can’t manage your time. If you’re feeling so stretched thin, then you should just drop something. But not this, or that, I don’t care if you don’t think this helps, don’t drop it either. Oh, you’re not actually allowed to drop anything, just make it all work.”

Her grip tightened on him as she spoke, and he wasn’t sure if the trembling in her body was from sobs or rage with how bitter her voice seemed to sound despite the wobble from tears or the occasional hiccup of a sob. He didn’t interrupt with any of his thoughts, he simply let her rant and rave to him, let her vent, because clearly she needed to.

“I know it shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t care about what they have to say. It's the same people who make sure anything I like is uncool schoolwide as soon as they know I like it, who thought it would be so...fucking funny to make me go to homecoming with the kid who treated me like a disease and wouldn’t even touch my arm the whole time, the same kid who told me to go kill myself in class and people just fucking laughed and the teacher didn’t even blink even though she was sitting right there. I shouldn’t give a damn about what they have to say, but after so long of hearing it, no matter how thick of a skin I think I’ve built up it still...it still gets to me, and I’m just...I’m just so tired…”

She sagged against him, like some of the fight left her after she finished speaking, curling up in his arms like a baby rabbit seeking shelter, like there was a fox right outside the burrow waiting to devour it and it knew it couldn’t run from it. Levi had stiffened at the mention of the kid who’d told her to kill herself, his expression darkening as he got a better perspective of what her life was like at school, something he now realized he’d never heard about the social side of, only ever her schoolwork and the subjects she studied. Never the people.

Now he knew why. He just wished she would have said something sooner. Did she really think that just because she wasn’t getting beat up that it wasn’t still a real problem? If it was getting this bad…

She stayed slumped in his arms for several long moments, Levi gently rubbing her back to try and soothe her as he waited for her to regain her composure, feeling like she still had more to say and not wanting to interrupt her while he quietly absorbed information. Then, abruptly, she sucked in a long breath and pulled away, arm rubbing angrily at her eyes with a fierce frown on her face.

“It’s still nothing, though,” she said as she got to her feet to start an aggravated pace, and Levi was just about to argue that yes, it was, after that long rant that had driven her to cursing and tears, but she was still talking, and she had a determined venom in her voice as she spoke. “It’s nothing, because I’m not going to let it turn into something. I don’t care if its spite driving me right now, but I swear I’m going to prove every last one of them wrong and--and--and break out of the fucking cage everyone keeps trying to put me in. Even my mom. I love her, but she’s just as bad, always demanding I be so fucking perfect and do what she wants instead of what I want. But even she’s trying to pin me down, she keeps pushing for me to go to these colleges nearby, or to stay in the area, or to settle for something else even though what I want to do...yeah, its difficult, it's a high bar, and it’s going to take me really far away, but it’s my life, it’s my choice. And I’m going to prove every last fucking one of them wrong and get the hell out of here and make something of myself.”

She finished with a huff, having worked herself up in her rant, turning to look at him with slightly flushed cheeks, looking expectantly at him for some kind of reply now that she was finished and he’d been silent for so long. It wasn’t like he had the words to say, though--he wasn’t good at words, and she’d just dumped a lot of information on him.

“All those bad words. I think I’m a shitty influence on you.”

She was taken aback for a moment, staring at him for a second before she snorted in surprise, the tension slowly draining from her shoulders and the faintest smile coming across her face. She approached the bench once more, sitting beside him with the blush coloring her cheeks and her hands locked tightly together.

“You’re the only real friend I’ve had, no matter where I’ve gone. You’ve always been here for me. I don’t think I tell you enough that I’m really thankful to have you. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t.”

Her words were softly spoken, and she stayed close to him the entire time, even if her embarrassment didn’t allow her to look him in the eyes. And to hear her say it aloud to him...it settled doubts he might have had that he wouldn’t have voiced otherwise, helped put some of the restlessness inside him at ease.

Levi looked at the piano in front of him, grasping the handles for the key lid and lowering it over the piano keys. “You’ll make it,” he said with affirmed certainty. “You’re tougher than you think. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you? What’s a little further?”

He looked over at her to catch her smiling warmly at him, a twinkle in her eyes, and he felt his heart soften in the face of that expression. Once the key lid was in place, he gently touched her shoulder to give her a playful shove like she tended to do for him.

“You need a break. I’m here. What should we do?”

She heaved a sigh, looking away for a moment and chewing on her lip as she considered what was possibly an endless list of possibilities. “It’s gonna start getting colder soon...so it should be something we won’t be able to do once winter settles in...I think it’ll be clear skies tonight…” She turned to face him, that sparkle in her eyes again and a smile on her face. “I know what we’re going to do. Come on, we’ve got a bit of a drive to make first,” she said excitedly, getting up off the bench and heading to the front door, where she picked up what Levi knew to be her car keys.

Levi got up to follow her, wondering to himself where they were going now, and how far of a drive it would be. What in-town activity would they be carrying out today?

They got into her car, Levi looking up to see the night sky as he opened the passenger side door and got inside, Y/N already starting up the car before he even shut the door and driving the car out of town and into open country. They drove in silence for several minutes, Levi sneaking peaks at Y/N the entire time, mulling over the stress she was under and her confession in the other room.

He would have beat the shit out of a few people by now if he was there, but he never showed up when she was in school, always after. He was never around when she needed him around, which meant that it was something she had to deal with on her own.

It was like he’d said, though. She was stronger than she thought. He’d seen the determination and the fire in her eyes before. She would make it through. And she would reach her goals. Even if she had to get herself through on spite right now.

He still wanted to get his hands on that one individual in particular…but she hadn’t even given him a name.

Y/N suddenly took a turn onto a dirt road that went so far into a wheat field, turning off her lights--which immediately caught Levi’s attention--before she brought the car to a stop and shut all the lights off, reaching into the back to grab a blanket before she opened the door.

“We’re actually not supposed to be here--it’s private property--but we should be fine so long as we’re gone before dawn,” she said with a spark of rebellion in her eyes.

Good. It sounded like she needed to break some rules and get outside some of the restrictions around her for a while.

Getting out of the car, Levi spoke up in a low voice, looking around at the field around him and noting that the hay didn’t reach high enough to cover the car. There was a corn field behind them that would have been high enough to cover the car, but for some reason they’d parked here. “What are we doing out here?”

Y/N got on the hood of her car carefully, scooting back until she could lean back to lie on the windshield with her legs stretched out in front of her. She gestured for him to come up onto the hood instead of responding, waiting until he’d crawled up with a sigh before she threw the blanket over both of them.

As soon as he leaned back, he understood why they were here. Leaning back on the hood of her car, he had a clear, unobstructed view of the night sky. Where the corn would have reached high enough it could have obstructed the view somewhat, the wheat was low enough it didn’t creep into his line of sight for the sky. It was just pure...open sky. And out here, where there were no lights from town, just nature, the stars shone brilliantly in stunning detail, the only light that could have ‘affected’ the view being the moonlight itself. But it was still a dazzling display above him, and all around there was the soft rustle of wind through the wheat fields, crickets, the occasional howl from coyotes in the distance--just nature, fresh air, the sky laid out endlessly in front of them…

Y/N shifted onto her side, curling up next to him with a comfortable sigh. “I know you live underground so...I figured it’s about time we went stargazing. I’m surprised we haven’t yet.”

Levi turned his head enough to look at her, noting that she was looking at him far more than the stars, probably gauging his reaction. For her, this was something she saw quite frequently, so maybe his reaction to it was more interesting to her. Still, knowing she’d chosen this because she knew about where he lived, how it wasn’t an everyday sight for him, how this was a sight that was denied to him…

Much like earlier, he put his arm around her instead of choosing to respond with words, pulling her a little closer to him as a way to show her his gratitude, that this did, in fact, mean something to him, and he appreciated her gesture. She seemed to understand, that blush returning to her cheeks as she buried her face in his chest and pulled the blanket tighter around them as if that could hide her reaction and make it seem like she was just getting warm.

Knowing she drove them out here so they could see the stars, that her idea of an escape was to show him something that he rarely got to have and to sit in silence with him for however long they wanted to…

He cared about her. Deeply. That had never been in question. From the moment she’d built that safe place for him--an image called to mind as he looked up at the stars unobstructed much like he had once looked up at them from the nest she’d created for him through the window of the tiny wooden playhouse--he had a soft spot in his heart for her. And over the years, she just burrowed deeper and deeper, that flickering flame growing stronger, the warmth getting more intense. She made him happy--made him feel like he belonged, even if he flickered in and out of the world. Even though he didn’t get to stay, he was still so grateful to have a chance to be part of her life, to know her, to spend time with her. She was a safe place for him, a place where he didn’t have to keep his guard up, where he could relax and just...be. All these things he felt for her, and one thing that had held him back recently had been a concern that she might not feel the same way.

Now, lying side by side and looking up at the stars, knowing she’d done it for him and that this moment between them was what she considered an escape from her problems, that he might be as much of her escape as she was his...it gave him the sense that maybe, just maybe, she might care for him, too.

He didn’t say anything, though, not yet. Right now, he just wanted to enjoy this as long as it lasted, with her in his arms lying next to him--eventually falling asleep, which he didn’t disrupt considering he now knew how much she needed it--gazing up at the stars in relative silence.

Sometime after she fell asleep, Levi looked down at her, the arm that had been wrapped around her all this time moving just slightly so his hand could reach into her hair, giving it a few soft, gentle strokes.

“Stay with me...I don’t want this to end…” he murmured softly for only him to hear, the stars and moon his only witness as he breathed her in for a moment before lying back down to gaze up at the sky, for once grateful to his insomnia to allow him to stay awake and simply bask in the simplistic beauty of the moment.

*Reader’s POV*

At long last, Levi finally blipped into your world during winter, when there was snow on the ground. You had been waiting years to be able to show him snow for the first time, to get to see his first experience with snow, share it with him…

As soon as you saw him appear in your room, you immediately dropped the pen you were using to write neatly on your scholarship applications and leapt to your feet, grinning widely at him and not even giving him a chance to orient himself in your world before you had your arm hooked around his and you were leading him down the stairs to the front door, where you started throwing winter clothes at him.

"Oh my God you're actually here, your timing is perfect cause right now--well, just put it all on, I don't want to spoil the surprise!" You squealed excitedly, yanking on a hat, gloves, a coat, simply draping the scarf loosely over your neck without wrapping it. You tried to jump in and help Levi get dressed as well so he would move faster, but that only made him grumpy.

"I've got it--I can dress myself, I don't need you to do it for me," he grumbled, shrugging on the flannel coat you'd grabbed for him. It was actually one of your stepfather's many coats, and it utterly dwarfed Levi...considering your stepfather was in the six foot range in height, and Levi…

Well, at least he would be well covered and warm.

Once Levi was well bundled and looking at you with a mixture of impatience and expectancy, you happily flung open the door, about to bound outside before you reminded yourself it was slick outside and you needed to watch your step. You checked yourself, stepping around the icy spots outside your door and hanging back to shut the door so Levi could just focus on the experience.

It was snowing outside. Not only that, but it had been snowing for the past few days, and there was a white blanket over the world at least a foot deep, with icicles hanging from the roof edge and ice patches hidden under the snow making the pathways treacherous.

Levi paused on the porch once he could see what the outside world looked like, with you sliding discreetly behind him to shut the door before too much heat got out of the house, quietly creeping around to his other side to watch him as he walked with slightly widened eyes to the edge of the covered porch, looking at the icicles and reaching out to touch one gingerly, head peeking out from the cover of the porch to look up at the white flurries falling from the sky. His breath fogged in front of him, making him pull back for a second before he looked over at you, watching him excitedly on the porch.

"Snow," he said simply, and you nodded at him exuberantly. You reached out to take his hand, stepping out into the snow and noting how high up to his legs he sank into the snow as he followed behind. You didn't keep a hold of his hand, only grasping it long enough to get him to follow before letting go and allowing him to comfortably walk beside you.

"There's so many things to do and see--its cold, and I honestly hate the cold, but staying warm shouldn't be too much of a problem," you said with a glint in your eyes. You knew the perfect place for sledding, knew somewhere the snow was particularly thick that would serve well for snowmen and snow forts and snowball fights. Maybe it was little kid stuff, but Levi needed the chance to cut loose and be a kid, especially since he never had the snow experience when he was actually a little kid. You might have to spend a bit of money, but you were fine with that, too, your purse slung firmly over your shoulders. You could get a good sled at a nearby store, you could afford some coffee to warm back up and restore some energy after some time outside, and, you had some money for your thoughts on a grand finale for the night.

You'd been scheming this day ever since realizing Levi hadn't seen snow yet, and you were praying he was going to be able to stay for all of it.

"Watch your step--there's ice hidden under the snow on the sidewalks because it's been so cold, so just...be mindful," you warned him, walking with arms out at your side and methodically placed footsteps for a few moments. "I always hate walking in fresh snow--everything looks so clean and pure and pretty that I feel like I'm ruining a beautiful snapshot of nature. Though, we kinda have to walk in it to get where we're going," you said with a guilty note in your voice.

"Couldn't we just take your car?" Levi asked, and you noticed his gaze was now roving over the unblemished patches of snow around you, how it really did seem like a thick and pure blanket fallen over the world.

"Well, this is the more fun, scenic route. Plus it's kinda dangerous to drive in weather like this before they've cleared the roads, especially with the ice underneath.

You could see that his cheeks and his nose were already starting to turn red, and that he'd mimicked how you had your scarf on. Not wanting him to catch a cold--especially because you knew proper medicine was more of a luxury where he lived--you reached over and wrapped the scarf around his face, causing him to pause and give you a blank stare. You coughed, hoping your blush could be passed off as a result of the cold like him.

"Besides, I want to show you this place in the forest. One of my favorite things about when it's cold and snowy like this is what it sometimes does to the plants," you said as if you hadn't just wrapped the scarf around his face, continuing forwards and trudging through the snow in the direction of the nearby park that had the forest trail.

"Why do I feel like you've got this whole thing planned out?"

"Because I do. I've been waiting for you to show up on a snow day for what feels like forever. I can think of six things I want to try and fit into this one day--six!" You shrugged, as if it was still the most casual thing in the world, attempting to adopt his usual indifferent attitude to tease him a bit. "Course, three things we can do at the park alone, so, no big deal," you said with a sniff, flashing him a mischievous smile a heartbeat later.

"And those things are…?"

"Well, we're gonna look at something. Then we're gonna build something. And then we're gonna do something."

Levi snorted. "So informative."

"What? I was more specific: looking, building, doing," you said with a pout before you pointed up at the park just ahead of you. "Besides, we're practically here."

The park itself wasn't the pristine picture the rest of the snowy fields seemed to be--there were remnants of snow sculptures and forts, a few shakily made snowmen, footprints all over the place and snow splattered along the side of equipment. The two of you trudged past that, though, and into the forest that was far less disturbed. No one wanted to be hiking in this weather, except you two crazy teenagers, apparently.

Levi’s fingers brushed against a bush, and looking back you could see that some of the branches and leaves were encapsulated in ice.

"Almost, but I'm looking for something specific," you said cryptically. There was this one tree at a fork in the forest path that you knew would look gorgeous trapped in ice like that, so you were keeping hush hush about it, leading the two of you deeper into the woods like you were the villain in a child's fairytale.

The crunch of snow and the blowing of the wind was the only sound, the icy air cutting at your lungs and making your breathing a little heavier than normal as you trudged uphill, frustrated to hear that Levi didn't seem to be struggling behind you. You didn't understand how, but he appeared to be unbothered by the physical strain, at least for now.

After several minutes of hiking where Levi admired the wintery scenery around the two of you and you navigating, you finally came to your tree.

It was a weeping willow, placed by human hands at the fork in the path for aesthetic scenery purposes. But right now, with the ice covering every branch and leaf in perfect, unclouded clarity like it had been entrapped in glass, branches swaying just slightly in the breeze…

It looked gorgeous.

"My favorite thing about winter isn't all the activities--its how the ice freezes over the trees. I think it's beautiful," you said pensively, your hand cupping beneath some of the willow strands and letting the iced over, draped branches slip through your fingers. "It's like they're frozen in time…"

Levi stood a few feet back, hands in his pockets, breath puffing steadily in front of him as he looked up at the magnificent tree that was 'frozen in time,' his gaze returning to you in time to see you disappearing behind a thick curtain of the iced over branches and leaves. While he couldn't see you, you crouched down and tried to make a snowball as fast as you could, catching a glimpse of him moving to join you under the tree, which caused you to giggle and take a step or two back, your hastily made snowball hidden behind your back.

As soon as he stepped into the shelter of the tree, you practically slapped the snowball into his neck with the close range you were at, acting before you could doubt yourself, shrieking maniacally as your dipped your hand into the snow for another one, heart pounding at what you'd just initiated.

"What the f--"

"SNOWBALL FIGHT!" you shrieked, tossing another one at him that splattered harmlessly against his side. You attempted to flee, trying to scoop up more snow as you darted out from under the willow, whipping around to see Levi already had one in his hand. You flung instinctively, the shot sailing harmlessly over his shoulder and causing you to shriek again as he tossed his at you in retaliation, the snowball hitting squarely in the center of your chest.

"You brat!"

"I got you, admit it! Take tha--shit!"

"Like this is a fight you can win!"

"I missed again? Wait, fuck, no, stop, I'm a terrible shot--ack!"

"You asked for it!"

"I've made a terrible mistake, have mercy--EEK!"

"HAH!"

"I surrender, uncle, uncle, I give, stop!"

The snowball fight had quickly turned into a snowball execution, Levi pelting you with snowballs with that ridiculous speed and wicked aim of his while your shots kept going wide and missing him while you tried in vain to run from him, ending with you laughing and shrieking, hunched over and taking a few more snowballs before Levi finally stopped. You peeked your head up warily...and he crushed one last snowball atop your head, making you do a cold shiver dance as snow slipped down inside your shirt.

"There...I think that's a lesson learned," Levi was saying smugly, watching you do the cold dance with a smirk on his face. He looked flushed though--you doubted from exertion, most likely from the cold.

"How about we do something less competitive--like make a snowman? At least one? And then we can go sledding. We can take a break after that, I know a coffee shot that should still be open."

"As long as you don't make any more sad excuses at that snowball assault," Levi teased you, and you pouted, which only made him chuckle.

He was smiling and laughing, though. And seeing snow for the first time. This day was already a win for you. Now you just needed to try and get to the end of your list of what you wanted to try with him before he went back. Who knew if the snow would still be here when he came back again?

The snowman building and the sledding didn't last as long as you might have thought they would. The snowman you two made by the willow tree was more of a monument to the fact the two of you had been there, complete with you wrapping your scarf around the snowman's 'neck' as a finishing touch, since it wasn't doing much in the way of warming you up draped loosely around your neck like that.

The sledding had been fun at first, trying desperately to guide the inflatable inner tube you'd bought at the nearest store down a steep hill before trudging all the way back up got tiring fast for you. The final straw, though, had come when you made a ramp from the snow, managed to hit it on your way down, and then promptly fell off the inner tube midair, causing you and Levi to go flying in different directions through the air with no soft landings. You were dazed after that, and Levi declared it the end of the sledding part of the day, demanding you move on to the next thing. Besides, it was getting dark, so you were running out of time to do what you wanted to.

Little did he know…

After your annihilation with the sled, you'd guided Levi towards a coffee shop while nursing an ache in your head and shoulders where you'd slammed your body against the ground, still a little dazed. You were both flushed from the cold and tired at this point, so the burst of warm air was extremely refreshing.

Levi looked around the little shop with a critical eye while you stomped snow off at the entrance mat, rubbing your hands together for added warmth. "You haven't had coffee before, have you?"

"Never heard of it."

You gasped dramatically. "You don't have coffee where you're from? Oh the humanity!" He rolled his eyes at your antics, and you walked forward towards the counter. "Well, it's a hot drink, kind of like hot chocolate or tea...but also much different. Its good for waking up or staying warm, and it can be made in all sorts of different ways. In fact, what kind of stuff do you usually drink? Besides water?"

Levi shrugged. "Tea."

"Any kind of tea in particular? Herbal, black, white, green, fruit? Do you add lemon, or sugar, or milk, or anything like that?"

Levi looked away, like something you'd said bothered him, though you couldn't pinpoint what. "Plain. I drink my tea plain. I do prefer black tea, when I can get it."

"Okay, black tea...strong, bold, dark, maybe with a bit of a nutty taste or malty...I know espresso is a different beast, but you might want something with more espresso...maybe a nut flavoring to help balance out the bitter without getting too sweet...You're not big on sweet things, right?"

Levi shook his head. "I don't get many sweet things where I live."

You nodded, chewing your lip. "Okay, so...toffee nut might be too sweet, so...either a hazelnut latte with an extra shot of espresso, or a hazelnut americano."

"What's the difference?"

"One is made with milk, the other with hot water. I mean, maybe if you were more used to coffee I'd say go with the americano, cause there's not many other flavors to block out the overpowering taste of the espresso, but the latte I feel like has more that balances it all out."

"I didn't realize picking a damn drink was such a project."

"Like you don't fuss over your tea with the leaves and water temperature and extra flavorings."

"...Tch."

"But also the americano might be closer to tea--"

"Just get me the damn latte and be done with it," he groaned, cutting you off before you could spiral further in these circles.

"Fine, fine, go find a table for us and I'll get the coffees," you said in a semi defensive voice that had the hint of a laugh at the end with how exasperated he sounded. He wandered off towards the back to a two person table by the window, taking the seat with his back against the wall so he could see the whole room and you as you went to the counter, ordering his hazelnut latte and your own coffee, as well as two fresh rolls. You waited patiently for your order, which didn't take too long because there weren't many people out and about right now in this weather--plus, this was officially dark enough the streetlights were turning on.

Taking the seat across from him, you placed the latte in front of him and reached into the little bag you brought with you, breaking apart the two rolls and holding one out to him. “Here--I figured something to actually eat would be good, too,” you said cheerfully.

For some reason, Levi hesitated for a brief second, fingers hovering over the roll before starting to retract, eyes a little unfocused before he took the roll from you. Strange, why that was a thing, but you brushed it off in favor of drinking from your cup of chosen coffee, cupping both hands around the cup to help you warm up.

“We can warm up in here for a while before heading back outside. It’s only going to get colder as night settles in.”

“This is one of those six things you wanted to do, right? Get coffee?” Levi asked, hands on the cup he had yet to drink from, allowing it to warm up his bare fingers. Actually, looking at the window you could see some spots on the window where condensation had been wiped away on the inside, along the edge of the frost that was creeping along the outside of the window. Had he been tracing the ice while he waited for you?

“It is, yeah.”

“It’s going to be dark, then, by the time we get to the sixth thing. Was that intentional?”

You nodded. “There’ll be far less people there if we go later when it’s dark out. Plus, I think it’ll be prettier.”

“Are you going to tell me what the last thing is?”

“Nope. You’ll have to wait and see.”

Levi scowled, finally taking a sip from the coffee you’d chosen for him. He made a face at the first taste, and for a moment, you were worried he wasn’t going to like it and would set it right back down. He took another sip, though, and he wasn’t neglecting the cup. He didn’t seem to think it was the best thing in the world, but at least he was drinking it.

He was probably going to stick to tea, though, based on that expression.

“Well, what do you think so far?” you asked him after the two of you sat in silence for several minutes, nursing your coffees and letting yourselves warm up while you nibbled on your respective bread rolls.

“About the snow?” When you didn’t correct him, he looked back outside the window. It was still snowing, but much lighter than it had been before--like light flurries, or something out of a Christmas movie. The snowflakes that hit the window evaporated almost instantly, revealing it had turned into the kind of snow that didn’t stick. “It’s nice.”

You gave a pleased smile and took another sip from your cup, glad that so far your little endeavor to make snow and winter a positive experience for him had worked, despite the little hiccups along the way like falling off the sled and coffee apparently not being his thing. At least he’d been willing to give it a try, though.

For the most part, the two of you sat in companionable silence, Levi asking the occasional question about the piano and what you were learning or pieces he was learning, and even giving you a tentative question about how the whole college thing was panning out. It was still stressful, and as you’d said before, your...situation, or rather the people around you, were only making it so much harder for you and really getting under your skin about it all. But Levi’s words from last time were something you were clinging to in order to help you push through these last few months before you would graduate high school and you could finally get out of here.

Just another one of the many reasons you were glad to have him in your life. You wished he could stay with you, that you could keep him here. His life in his world didn’t sound pleasant at all, and you knew he’d already been through some dark things. Maybe if he was here, he could have a better life, things would be easier for him.

And...and maybe he’d choose to spend it with you.

You were blushing at the thought, and you panicked slightly when you remembered you weren’t outside, you were warm inside, and there was no biting cold to blame on the flush in your cheeks. Finishing the cup of coffee with a rather painful swallow, you started gathering up your things, glancing out the window to see the sun had fully set and darkness had taken over the sky.

“We should probably get going. Yeah, night might be the better time to go, but if we wait too long you might blip back, or they might close, so…” you said quickly, getting to your feet and tucking hair into your hat as a way to hide the fact that you were rubbing your cheeks in a weird hope that it would make the flush go away, or maybe give you an excuse. Levi was still giving you an odd look, though, his eyebrows raised, but he got up without commenting on the blush.

Aw jeez, what if he saw, though? He was so damn observant. And what if he already knew? What if he already knew that you’d been sneaking glances of him the past year or so that he’d come to visit you? What if he knew you were starting to look for excuses to reach out and touch him, even for a moment? What if he knew that part of the reason you buried your face in his chest whenever you two hugged or were curled close together--whether it was on the hood of a car or on the couch watching a show--was to hide the furious burn in your cheeks, and to let you simply breathe him in for a few moments? What if he knew that the times that he tended to blip through into your world was when you wanted nothing more than to be around him, when you desperately wanted a friend and needed someone there to be a steady presence to help you get back on your feet, or provide a comfort that didn’t feel invasive or demanding on how you should bounce back or how you should be feeling. What if he knew your heart had started skipping a beat when he looked at you like that with those sharp steel blue eyes, his hair falling in his face…

Ah, snap out of it, stop stop stop! You’re friends! Who knows if he even thinks of you that way, just...uhg, this isn’t about you, this is about him, this is his first snow, just...just focus on that right now, you can puzzle over your feelings after he’s left alone in bed throwing out your frustrated complaints about how you don’t know how to talk to people you like into your pillow like you usually do. Later. After this. Focus, the night’s almost over, and he probably won’t be here much longer today, anyway.

Having given yourself a mental berating over the direction of your thoughts, you focused back on the present with a quick huff, straightening up and leading the charge back out into the cold snow, Levi walking leisurely at your side as usual. It was a longer walk than any you’d done so far, and you were taking him in a direction that you hadn’t taken him before. He wasn’t around a lot in the winter time, obviously, so he didn’t get to see this little hobby of yours. Well, maybe not even a hobby, more like a winter pastime. You were far from a professional or enthusiast. It was just something you liked to do on occasion when it was cold, and you were hoping that it was something that he would find enjoyable as well.

It was a simple setup, one that matched the smaller town you were in, with a regular clear plastic half-wall lining the edge, plain Christmas lights crisscrossing over the walled off area several feet into the air and anchored to the poles along the outside, or to the small booth that served as the entrance fee area and the place to get rental skates, if there were enough. Benches lined the outside of the wall, places for spectators to watch or people to put on their ice skates, and the small outdoor ice rink itself was well lit, the ice appearing to glitter between the starlight, Christmas lights, and the lightly falling snow.

There were a few people, but since it was getting dark and the weather was getting colder--it was already below freezing--most people had left or were in the process of leaving as you went to the booth, paying the entrance fee for two teenagers and getting your shoe size, then having an awkward few moments where you got to try and figure out what shoe size Levi was before you finally managed to get a pair that looked like it would fit him, passing his ice skates to him even though you still hadn’t given him an explanation about what you were doing.

You sat down together on a bench near one of the entrances to the rink, and Levi followed suit when you started taking off your shoes and putting the ice skates on in turn.

“Considering you’ve been stupidly good at anything like this so far, I sort of expect you to get the hang of this fairly quickly, but...this is called ice skating,” you explained in a low tone so no one would hear you explaining what this was to him. “It’s all about balance and such--balance on the blades on your feet, center of balance, that kind of thing. It might take a bit to get used to, but once you do, you’ll be skating along in no time. It's something I like to do in the winter, and I thought you might enjoy it, too.”

You finished strapping the skates on, getting to your feet and taking a few careful steps since you were still on concrete until you were standing in front of Levi, holding your hands out for him to take. “Here--just focus on standing and getting used to balancing on the blades, first,” you told him, pulling him up to his feet and letting him stand in front of you for a few moments, holding tightly to his hands as he wobbled slightly, feet moving from side to side experimentally, picking up one foot and attempting to keep his balance on the other, simply feeling it out for a few seconds while you held him securely in place.

His hands are warm...rough and calloused...but warm...

After he seemed to get his balance, you walked backwards to bring Levi forwards into the ice rink, making sure he kept his balance despite the awkward steps until you reached the smooth ice that the skates were meant for. The slicing sound of the skate blade against the ice felt right to your ears, and you gave Levi a moment to adjust to the terrain, shifting so that you were standing beside him on the ice instead of in front of him, holding one of his hands.

The remaining skating group seemed to decide they didn’t want to risk crashing into the new skater in the small rink and left, meaning it was just the two of you in the rink as you taught Levi how to push off with the blades, how to turn, how to stop without face planting into the ice. It was much faster than most people learned, but it was still slower than you expected. He just seemed to be a natural at so many things, it was almost weird watching him have to progress through figuring out how to ice skate.

Then again, you were teaching him piano, as well, so it wasn’t entirely something new. Maybe it was just the fact he always seemed to be magically gifted when it came to anything physical or something that had to do with aim, accuracy, speed…

With just the two of you, the rink was pretty quiet. There were your voices, of course, with you encouraging him and explaining what you showed him on how to do this or that on the skates, how to speed up and slow down, how to do a hard and sudden stop (again, without face planting). Levi occasionally made a few quips or grumbles, though none of it was mean spirited. He seemed focused on what you were showing him, and he was learning it fairly quickly. You might even dare to say he was having fun.

The other sounds were the slicing of your skates against the ice, and the music playing over loudspeakers on the poles for patrons to skate to if they wanted to. The man running the booth wasn’t even paying attention to the two of you, he was watching tv on a tiny screen you could barely see through the window in the booth, meaning that for now, it was just the two of you, despite the normally public setting.

Once Levi had his balance and he was able to skate on his own, namely in a circle, considering you hadn’t taught him any tricks yet since you were rather focused on...just skate, you let his hand go, albeit reluctantly. Still, it would allow him to get comfortable in the skates and skate on his own without leaning on you like a crutch--and the entire thing would be much more enjoyable for him if he could do it on his own without your help.

Once you were no longer teaching him the basics, you took off to go at your normal speed, skating fairly quickly around the rink, getting the feel for being in the skates again--figure skates, mind you. You liked trying to pull off tricks, and you liked trying to time them to the music. You weren’t an Olympic figure skater, but you could do some basic tricks. Not only was it something that you liked doing and that gave you a degree of accomplishment, but it was also a moment to let yourself shine and show off a bit around Levi.

Closing your eyes, you simply felt the movement, the feel of the breeze created by your movement against your face, gravity acting on your body as you leaned this way or that for a turn. You listened to the music, getting a feel for the beat and the pace before you started adjusting to try and match the music. When the beat dropped, you attempted a leap and spin--just a quick one, landing a little shakily because it had been a while since you’d done this, but still sticking the landing for the most part. Smiling slightly to yourself, you did it again with the next beat drop, the landing going much smoother. You did a few simple movements as well as a few balancing attempts--skating on one foot was a little tricky and required quite a bit of balance, but you could do it--not that you let your foot go too far off the ground--you weren’t trying to form two right angles with your legs and upper body, you had a slight fear of losing your balance forward and causing a bad accident trying to pull that off. It was simple leg up stuff that you tried. And as long as you were paying attention, eyes open and alert to your surroundings, you could skate backwards, too--which you did. It was at that point that you turned to see Levi watching you while you were skating, an intensity in his expression you hadn’t been expecting. You blushed slightly to catch him staring at you, then gave him a smile, a wave, and you turned back around to do a nonchalant figure eight down the center, cutting across to the other side, doing a little spin before you came to skate beside him.

“So, what do you think?” you asked him warmly, skating casually beside him for the time being, staying on the inside so you were the one making the tighter turns.

“Think you could show me some of those tricks?” he asked, eyes down and directed towards your skates. You chuckled, lifting one of your legs just slightly off the ice and unsurprised to find him mirroring your movements. He was a little wobbly at first, just like when he’d stood up, but he quickly evened out, and he even was able to lean into the turns without crashing. “I’d say wait for the harder ones like leaping spins until you’re a bit more experienced with the skates. Maybe just stick to movements and patterns. Lifting a leg, figure eights, skating backwards, that kind of thing.”

“What, you think that little of me?”

You snorted. “On the contrary, you have a gift for learning these kinds of things. I’m actually pretty envious how easily everything seems to come to you.”

“Not everything,” he mumbled, and you thought you saw his cheeks were flushed again. Though maybe it was the cold. It was far below freezing at this point, and the two of you were skating around, that freezing air blowing on your exposed skin in an almost cutting manner. You hadn’t really noticed that much, though. “Skating backwards shouldn’t be too hard, right?”

While you had expected him to try it, you hadn’t expected him to try it right at that very moment as he was skating beside you. His hand suddenly grasped your arm, and he did a hard turn like he’d seen you do a few times for your tricks, coming to a slightly wobbly stop--not a full stop, you were both still moving--directly in front of you, one of his feet planted between your legs and the other on the outside. He was, for the moment, skating backwards.

“It’s gonna be inverted, remember? So instead of leaning--”

“I know,” he said with a huff, glancing behind him and leaning in a mirror of the direction you moved to turn with the curve of the small rink, his grip on your arm tightening slightly and his gaze down at your feet to make sure you two didn’t get tangled up in one another.

You went around the rink like this once...twice...eventually he stopped looking at the turns behind him or the skates below, his grip on your arm going lower...lower...closer to your hand...his eyes focused solely on you as you strangely enough took over guiding the two of you in nonchalant circles around the rink, feeling that gaze of his making your cheeks burn until, after a turn into the longer stretch of ice, you turned to look at him and ask what he was staring at.

He kissed you.

There was no warning. You hardly had time to turn your head to face him before his lips were against yours. His lips were cold because of the weather, maybe a little dry as well, but just like his hands, despite the rough and cold outer appearance, it was...soft. Hesitant, even, like he might pull away at the first sign of discomfort. You sucked in a sharp breath in surprise, feeling yourself lean into him, start to put more weight on him as you kissed him back just as hesitantly.

You were both frozen like that for a few moments, cold lips pressed together, timid and unsure about what to do, neither of you having done this before and knowing what came next. But despite the freezing temperature and dry lips, it was still warm--or, it caused a warm feeling in your chest, a nervous and overeager squirm in your belly as your mind started to work again and all these thoughts started to crash down on you, realization of what this meant, what it could mean, that this was your first kiss, that Levi was kissing you, holding you a little closer to him. After that initial freeze, you both tried to keep going, the inexperience showing but neither of you wanting to pull away. If anything, you leaned into him a bit more, lips moving against his in the way you thought they were supposed to, his attempting to follow in kind. As if to help guide both of you, his hand reached up to brush his knuckles carefully against your cheek, your head tilting slightly to the side in a reaction to the touch.

He felt warm. He felt comfortable. He felt inviting--like you belonged here, right here with him, stumbling through figuring out what came next, with him holding tight to you to help keep you steady when you started to shake, and you there to return the favor.

Your heart was pounding in your ears, and you felt breathless, felt your knees start to shake, the skates wobbling beneath you as Levi started to pull away, just as gently as he came in for the kiss. Your eyes, squeezed shut a few moments ago as if that could help freeze the moment in time like the branches on the willow, started to open.

The presence you were leaning into in front of you suddenly disappeared, and with the amount of weight you’d been putting forward, you lost your balance, falling hard onto the ice with a skidding slide, palms burning against the cold ice as you pushed up onto your elbows, looking around in bewilderment.

And then you just...stayed there. Just sat there. Completely alone in the skating rink. No one around to so much as witness what had happened, or confirmed it was real.

No Levi.

Just you.

Alone.

Alone on the ice before you could even release the breath you’d been holding.

*Levi’s POV*

Levi opened his eyes not to the chilling air and the bright lights both from the stairs and the strings of lights above, not to Y/N’s face aglow in that light, that blush in her cheeks that she’d kept trying to brush off as the cold despite her lingering touches, no lightly falling snow that left wet drops like dew on her cheeks, nose, and forehead. He was alone in the silence of the Underground, lying stretched out on a couch with an arm behind his head under a pillow, staring up at the dark ceiling of his current place of residence.

He closed his eyes tightly, trying to will himself back to that moment, feeling a bubbling anger rising in his chest. Nothing was happening. He couldn’t smell the fresh air, couldn’t hear the faint music, couldn’t feel her hand against his arm or her lips against his, couldn’t feel the unsteady weight of having those blades under his feet. He held his breath, eyes shut as tight as he could, trying so damn hard to get back there.

But nothing changed. Even though there was nowhere he wanted to be more right now.

Levi opened his eyes slightly, peering at the ceiling without really seeing it, hand stretching out in front of him like he was reaching out to that mental image of the girl running ahead of him, just out of reach even as he stretched, tried to grab onto her even as she slipped through his fingers like smoke, far out of his reach.

Levi’s outstretched hand turned into a fist, and he slammed it against the wall the couch was pushed up against, hearing something crack. “Shit!”

It had been so perfect. He’d been watching her the whole time, watching her move so gracefully and freely, so confident and just so...so...beautiful. And she didn’t seem to even realize that was how he saw her. Didn’t seem to realize just how much she was worth to him. He couldn’t help himself--he hadn’t even realized what he was doing until his lips were on hers. But it had still felt so right in that moment, in that single, fleeting, perfect moment.

And now he was right back here. All over again. He didn’t even get the chance to open his eyes and see her reaction, and it pissed him off. Now he had to wait, and he hated the thought. Anger and frustration bubbled right to the surface as he got up off the couch, unable to sit still as he got to his feet with a dark, sulking look on his face at how robbed he felt right now.

Though there was also a tiny part of him that was scared because he hadn’t been able to see her reaction. Especially now that he’d just disappeared on her.

He didn’t know how long he could wait--he knew he’d have to, but it had to come eventually. He’d go back soon, surely, and he could see her then, he could try to figure out what that kiss was to her when he went back, what it meant for them. Even if part of him was nervous to know how she was going to take it, even if he had no idea what this meant for them, fuck, he had to know, and he couldn’t stand to wait another hour!

What Levi didn’t know at the time...was that it would be years before he ever saw her again.

Next Chapter---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

Levi Tags: @clary-quinn @humanitys-hottestsoldier @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea @hauntedhousecat @peaches-and-clouds

Through The Looking Glass Tags: @artist-bby @kaz2y5-pie @tartheyes @super-peace-fangirl @huntersbunker @nefelimalfoy @soft-levi-girl-blog @honeygivemeachainsaw @regalillegal @sugas-daddy7 @cathyannecookie @chaoticshepardplaid @roayaloveslife @sanrioclit @wvnderfvllyalvne @sparkling-gayyyy @do-not-feed-sugar

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authenticparanoidghosts · 7 years

Text

okay, bc @dr-doc-phd asked, Diamond is Unbreakable but it’s BnHA, also titled “will I ever learn how to chill out”

(this is a LONG GODDAMN POST I’m sorry everyone)

first order of business: quirks vs stands

stands are essentially gonna be converted into quirks bc I Do Not want to take the time to come up with all new powers for everyone, they’re going to be called quirks, there are no punching ghosts (possible exception of Star Platinum, I haven’t decided on him yet)

Josuke: same as usual, he can fix anything he’s touching. he developed his quirk at a really early age and and it seems to be directly derived from Tomoko’s power (she can temporarily stick items together) but it’s way more powerful

bc quirks have a genetic component, the fact that his is so similar to his mom’s offers him no insight on who his father might be

Josuke is not really bothered by this

Koichi: essentially has the same power as Echoes ACT1-2, by writing manga sound effects on objects/people and activating them through touch, he causes either the sound to be heard or an effect related to the sound to take place (these effects get stronger as he trains more and more with his quirk). due to Keicho’s actions, he develops a second quirk (this is, for the record, totally unheard of) which allows him to increase gravity on an object within close range

his range on all things is v short and his gravity power is fairly weak but he’s actually v scary

Yukako: her ability is exactly the same, except she’s not able to plant her hair into anyone else’s scalp until she trains more

she’s one of the super special recommended students because I love her and she’s terrifying

Okuyasu: his quirk is exactly what The Hand does except he uses his own right hand for it. he’s even still got the little circle markings for it.

he develops his quirk at ~14 through unnatural means, previously he was quirkless

since he developed it artificially and at such a late age, his control over it isn’t fantastic and he has to be careful

Mikitaka: can change the shape and composition of his extremities but cannot detach them, seriously manipulate his own size, or alter his entire body at once

he’s also a recommended student at UA and he’s staying with the hero who sponsored him, his actual origins are shrouded in mystery (which he encourages)

(Mikitaka’s goal is essentially to become a cryptid and I love that about him)

Keicho: very specific version of telekinesis where he can only pick up objects under a certain weight (it’s literally, like, a gram or two), but if he can pick something up, he can move it at an incredibly high speed. he basically carries sand or bb pellets with him at all times and shoots them at people like very small bullets that cannot miss. he’s clever enough to use this to devastating effect.

like Okuyasu, he was also quirkless until he was roughly 14

Rohan: can control someone’s thoughts or actions by writing on their skin, but it only lasts as long as the ink does. so. essentially still Heaven’s Door, but he can’t read your mind.

Rohan and Koichi have to carry markers with them to use their quirks which is kind of silly but I secretly love

anyways, Rohan….might still be a manga artist?

he’s not a hero or a villain

villains probably try to recruit him bc, you know, his power is super useful

YOU KNOW WHAT he could just be pimping out his own quirk to anyone willing to pay for it as like a side job until he meets the squad (Koichi) and changes his ways (is charmed into acting like a decent person)

Jotaro: I was thinking Jotaro’s quirk could be just stopping time for five seconds? but also it could be “self preservation” where it’s automatically activated when he’s in danger and a ghostly shape (coughs Star Platinum) appears to shield him or catch bullets or whatever it is that he needs. either one is good. it’s not really relevant yet and could work either way.

other quirks described as they come up

IMPORTANT NOTE: being quirkless isn’t quite as uncommon in this AU as it is in BnHA canon, but a definite majority of people still have quirks

okay time for some AU bg

1988 - Joseph Joestar (a popular American hero) and his teenaged grandson Jotaro Kujo (just some kid) are credited with uncovering and stopping the crimes of international supervillain Dio Brando.

it’s totally fucking sick

Dio cannot be detained and questioned in further detail about his misdeeds due to his unfortunate but unavoidable death. although it is suspected that he has many more allies than they could actually find proof for, it’s impossible to figure out.

every associate of Dio’s who is captured is unable to give more information due to the use of some kind of memory-altering quirk, believed to be held by another ally of Dio’s and employed without prejudice on those who are in a position to betray him

Dio seems to have been amassing a global organization of villains, but they scatter after his defeat (death) and hide or destroy all evidence of their activities

the investigation is ongoing

1999 - Josuke Higashikata, secret illegitimate child of Joseph Joestar, signs up to take the UA entrance exam

during the test, he meets Koichi and they instantly hit it off

they collaborate to help each other score points during the practical exam

teamwork makes the dream work

when the list of students accepted to UA for that year gets posted, Joseph (who, as a pro hero, has to keep up with the industry which means paying attention to any up-and-coming heroes) notices Josuke’s name and does some investigating to find out if this is MAYBE just some kid who is coincidentally 16 years old and coincidentally has the same last name as a woman he romanced about 16 years ago

surprise! it’s totally not

so Joseph asks Jotaro (who has grown up to become a detective or whatever and is now one of the people still investigating Dio’s people and has recently been following a lead in Japan) if he’ll maybe keep an ear out for news at UA bc he has an uncle who goes to school there now

surprise! Joseph says. please don’t tell my wife! he says

yare yare, says Jotaro, and proceeds to cut through this miscommunication bullshit by announcing this new relative to the entire family and then leaving Joseph to deal with his own mess from across the pacific ocean while he gets to go hang out with his baby uncle and talk shit abt their relatives

so Josuke meets Jotaro just before the school year at UA starts

I’m sure it goes well

(actually, it goes really well right up until Josuke’s policeman grandfather is killed by a villain at work and Jotaro, as an international attaché for quirk and supervillain-related crime, is asked if he will maybe please take some time off of his 11-year long, seemingly dead-end case to investigate this)

((kind of puts a damper on the “meet the family” thing, but they solve the case and Josuke becomes even more resolved to become a hero))

the school year begins and Josuke and Koichi are delighted to find out that they’re in the same class

they’ve made it into the hero track bc they absolutely crushed it on the practical exam. they also tested well in other areas, but they did a nice job against the robots

boy howdy they sure are excited to learn how to be superheroes

class 1-A: Josuke, Koichi, Mikitaka

class 1-B: Okuyasu, Yukako

I have no idea how old Hazamada and Yuya are but they could potentially also be students

Hazamada is for sure a student so I’ll say he’s a year older and in the general education track

Yuya??? could be there????? but also maybe he’s busy doing his own thing. he seems like a busy man. he’s got things to do, nutrients to steal.

anyways, now we have to backtrack a bit again

1988 - Mr. Nijimura has a deceased wife, a failing company, and two quirkless sons

he himself has a minor physical quirk that gives him a decorative pattern of scales on his face, but that’s it. his wife was quirkless and by the time she passed away it was fairly apparent that their kids took after her

Mr. Nijimura has always resented the fact that he does not possess a useful quirk and is angry that his sons are also powerless in a world that increasingly seems to value those with quirks over those without

Mr. Nijimura is also someone who values power

he’s a total asshole about everything, but in 1988 he’s contacted by one of Dio’s allies. they know he has quirkless children and they want to know if he’s interested in potentially helping them develop powers of their own

spoiler: he is

one of the things that Dio’s group has been doing is research into artificial quirk enhancement and development

this is because Dio A) wants to make his own powers stronger, and B) has discovered that it’s really easy to attract followers when you promise to give them superpowers, or make their powers even cooler than they were before

Mr. Nijimura is given one dosage of a compound that Dio’s allies claim will awake the latent potential in someone who has failed to manifest a quirk

in order to get his hands on the drug, Mr. Nijimura has to agree to officially be in Dio’s debt, should the trial compound succeed in awakening a power in the son he uses it on

the organization needs quirkless test subjects, but they can be hard to find

if something goes wrong with the kid, the organization will admit no culpability bc Mr. Nijimura does this at his own risk, but also they will take the kid to figure out what exactly went wrong

HOWEVER, because he’s viciously jealous of powerful quirks, Mr. Nijimura does not administer the compound to either of his sons, instead he injects himself and causes his own quirk to go haywire, over-evolving until he becomes a weird, mutant lizard creature

Dio dies in the days just after his transformation, so the organization is too busy falling apart and destroying anything that could link them back to Dio to keep track of the Nijimura family

(if Dio hadn’t died, they likely would have taken the boys into their custody after their father’s mutation and raised them as Dio’s followers/soldiers)

(also used them as test subjects, albeit more valuable ones since they can also function as workers for this group of Dio’s allies)

(but he did die so that doesn’t happen and that’s an AU of an AU for a different day)

SOMEHOW they manage to live on their own with their mutated dad

I think the Nijimura family was not really as hard up for money as they are sometimes portrayed

(however it might make sense to put one of Dio’s grunts into the situation, like someone who pretends to be Mr. Nijimura for a little while to cover their own trail in the aftermath and ends up taking care of the kids for a while)

(but like, only for a little while, until they can ensure Mr. Nijimura can’t give anything away and the coast is clear for them to duck out and get a new identity)

((I just CAN’T accept that a 7 year-old keeps house for himself and an even younger child and his mutated father without any kind of help))

the point is that eventually they’re left mostly to fend for themselves

and it continues on like that, just the Nijimura’s by themselves, until Keicho, who was raised to believe that those who are powerful are better than those who are not, discovers some secret record of his father’s connections and what he did to himself and decides that he and Okuyasu need quirks to survive

I’m not going to say he’s right, but I’m also not going to claim that life wouldn’t be easier for the two of them if they had powers

1995 - Keicho falls in with a straggling faction of Dio’s group (technically now reformed independently to carry on the development of methods to artificially enhance quirks) by offering himself up for experimentation.

this splinter group doesn’t have the same resources Dio did for this sort of thing, so they’re kind of hard up for volunteers

at least initially

[ominous music]

this new group manages to successfully give Keichi a quirk (he’s about 14 at the time) and he works his ass off until he can get into UA

1996 - Keicho gets into UA

this is how he repays his debt to them

by being a spy

bc they’re still criminals, you see, so they would greatly benefit by having a guy on the inside to tell them shit abt heroes that they can later exploit

Okuyasu is allowed to know none of this (nothing about the organization and also about Keicho’s new double life) because Keicho doesn’t trust him to keep a secret and likes to cover all his bases

he does understand that their father is the way he is bc he took a drug to increase the power of his own quirk, but he hasn’t been told where/who he got it from. Keicho will not tell him where he acquired his own quirk.

later, Keicho gets his hands on more of the successful compound (through theft) in order to get his brother a quirk, so Okuyasu gets his powers when he’s ~13~14 and Keicho is already a UA student

he does it through theft bc Keicho does not want Okuyasu to be indebted to Dio’s (ex)people, which turns out to be really handy later

haha, ‘handy’

anyways

1999 - Keicho has an ambiguous birthday so I’m gonna say he’s just graduated when the squad is in their first year

he’s interning at a hero agency and acting as a mole for Dio’s slowly reviving criminal organization

since Dio is super dead, it’s really more of a new criminal organization full of people who have had their quirks enhanced or awakened through the improved versions of the tech developed by Dio’s original people

it’s led by a totally new person who wants to continue the research and expand their own criminal network for their own ends

SO Okuyasu takes (and passes!) the UA entrance exam

Keicho always planned for him to go to UA as well so he does it more out of a sense of duty than a desire to become a hero

the ongoing mantra of Okuyasu (and Keicho’s) life is that power is the most important thing a person could have

having a quirk equals power. learning to fight equals power. being a hero - a public figure who garners attention and respect - equals power.

people who are strong are worthwhile, people who are weak are worthless

AT THIS POINT Okuyasu is a little less in the dark, he knows his brother is getting paid to spy on UA and hero organizations, he also knows that this arrangement has something to do with how they ended up with the compound that gave them quirks, but he doesn’t know who Keicho’s contacts are and what he’s telling them

Keicho has paid back his “debt” at this point and is getting actual money from the organization to continue his spying

I don’t think I mentioned that there was a financial component to this deal earlier, just wanted to make that clear

ALSO AT THIS POINT the villains (initially) don’t know that Okuyasu has developed his own quirk because of their technology

I mean, they have their suspicions, but they can’t prove anything

Keicho let them believe Okuyasu was still quirkless up until the day he took the entrance exam for UA, and by then it’s too late for them to wipe down their lab for fingerprints

so there’s like, school stuff going on?

Josuke and Koichi meet their classmates and then class 1-A meets class 1-B and everyone is like “fuck, these guys are assholes”

surprise, losers, later on you’re all great friends

but to hurry this along a little

sometime early in the semester, Keicho gets caught doing Bad Stuff by Josuke and Koichi who are classic meddling kids

he panics bc these guys have some solid evidence of his misdeeds, so clearly he has to get rid of them somehow

he decides to attempt this by letting them tail him (very badly) back to his and Okuyasu’s home so he can fight them with backup

there’s a scuffle and Koichi gets hit/injected/whatever with a variant on the special quirk compound (Keicho has also stolen this), later causing him to develop a secondary quirk but initially causing him to lose major motor control and Josuke to believe he’s been fatally poisoned

Josuke does some shouting, Koichi flops around a bit, Josuke does some more shouting about the duties of a hero, Okuyasu as a minor moral crisis and taps out of the fight, Keicho does some impulsive shouting of his backstory and gets in major trouble

Keicho is being monitored by the organization by the time Josuke and Koichi stumble onto the scene like amateur detectives bc they think he’s double crossing them (evidence: they’re pretty sure he’s stolen from them before and his allegiance can clearly be bought), so when they catch him spilling info on them to two UA recruits they freak and need to eliminate him before he reveals anything else

Keicho’s cover is totally blown so Otoishi is immediately dispatched to kill him and also Josuke and Koichi if he can

the new head of the organization values privacy. like. a lot.

Otoishi can’t manage all of them bc he doesn’t have time and can’t outclass the pro heroes starting to show up on the scene, so he grabs (kills) Keicho and skedaddles

Josuke, Koichi, and Okuyasu are detained for questioning

well, Koichi is taken to the hospital, but Josuke and Okuyasu get detained

Jotaro shows up bc the stuff Keicho and then Okuyasu spilled about artificially gaining a quirk reeks of Dio’s people and it’s kind of his job to find Dio’s people

some stuff happens I guess and Okuyasu can’t be charged with anything bc Keicho was careful not to let him know or be involved in anything

like, he could be charged with property damaged, but it was his property

he complies with everything they ask him to do and tells them all that he can and they get someone in to look at his thoughts to see if he’s lying (he’s not)

they keep an eye on him for about a week to make sure he’s not REALLY a spy but once it becomes apparent that he really had nothing to do with it besides defending his brother and generally having a fucked-up life they don’t really have a reason to kick him out of UA so he just. goes back to school.

Koichi also goes back to school after about a week. people were spreading rumors that he died. he’s fine, but now he has two quirks, which you can imagine starts even MORE rumors

ofc UA still wants to keep an eye on Okuyasu - his brother spied on them for three years and he has ties to a villain organization, they can’t just let that go - so they ‘suggest’ that since he has no legal guardians or adults in his life he should move into the UA dorms

guess who also lives in the dorms

Josuke and Koichi and the squad, they all live in these AU optional dorms

except Mikitaka, who is being fostered by the hero who recommended his entry to UA

dorms foster bonding time and VOILA any and all grudges between him and Josuke and Koichi are easily settled

so Okuyasu joins up w/ Koichi and Josuke bc his classmates won’t really talk to him

they’ll warm up to him eventually, but by then he’s got his squad and he’s good with that

and like? other stuff happens? Kira is busy being Kira? but here’s the beginning and all that

this really is the post that wouldn’t end

I’m gonna stop here and put you all out of your misery

I’m p sure I know how Kira gets worked into everything but I’ll leave that for another day

#long post #I love this au but it's #so long #and I've never shut up once in my life so #my writing #KINDA #my headcanon #Jojo #BnHA #I realized exactly how Kira fit in halfway through editing this and I literally groaned ou loud #if I'd decided to add it this would have become a novel #Doc #for you buddy

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