#anyways the point is limbo fucked him up a bit so hes got some memory problems lmao

[septic-salad]

The Third Time This Month

#he forgor 💀 #anyways the point is limbo fucked him up a bit so hes got some memory problems lmao #Also I stg I started this yesterday before the Quackity stream I cant believe I accidentally manifested memory problem q!Quackity #im incredibly distraught #quackity #dream smp fanart #wilbur soot #quackity fanart #quackity dsmp #c!quackity #c!wilbur #revivebur #wilbur dream smp #wilbur dsmp #c!revivebur #dsmp fanart #dsmp comic #my art #tntduo #tntblr #c!tntduo #ctntduo #quackbur #cquackbur #cquackity #cwilbur #im sorry for all the tags I just put too much energy into this cringe for it to go to waste #Spotify

[onecanonlife]

Tommy and Wilbur fell apart a long time ago, and there was never any time to mourn the pieces of what they were.

But here's the most important thing: Tommy doesn't give up on the people he cares about.

(Or: on grieving, graves, a past that refuses to let go, and learning to look forward at long last.)

(word count: 5,619)

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

“You know,” Tommy says, “I never really got to—to mourn you. Not properly, anyway.”

He’s not sure what response he’s expecting from Wilbur. He’s not sure why he’s saying anything at all. He’s not sure why he’s here.

That last one is a lie. He scuffs the ground with his shoe, and then pretends that he didn’t.

“I wasn’t expecting you to mourn me,” Wilbur says, in that stupid, even, condescending tone of his, the one that he uses whenever he thinks Tommy has said something incredibly obvious, when he’s got an idea in his head of how things are and what people mean, regardless of the way it all actually is. “In fact, I rather thought you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t, even.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He has no patience left. No patience left for the look in Wilbur’s eyes, no patience left for the way he focuses straight ahead, barely sparing him a glance, no patience left for the way he speaks, measured and calculating, every word he says carefully weighed against the end result, curated for intent and impact. No patience, and he had precious little to begin with. “I’m not even—this isn’t about you.”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. It makes him look like a prick. “Oh?” he says.

“Because I would’ve,” he continues, doggedly. Now that he’s started saying it, he’s damn fucking well going to finish it. “But, y’know, you blew it all up, so we had to rebuild, and then I got exiled” —His voice doesn’t waver at all— “and then shit just kept on happening, so I never got to decide. How I felt. I never got to think about it.”

Wilbur laughs, then, and it’s the laugh that he hates, because it’s the laugh that’s not genuine. He knows what Wilbur sounds like when he’s happy, and this isn’t it. Hasn’t been it for a long time.

“Not sure there’s much to think about, there,” Wilbur says, and he scowls.

“Shut up, you prick,” he says. “And yes there was. That’s not something you get to choose. What I feel.”

“I’m not trying to—” Wilbur starts, but he shakes his head, going back to talk over him, because no, he’s not doing this. Not today, and not here.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he says. “You always do this. You go, you go mimimimi, I’m Wilbur, and I understand everything about how people think and I’m always right and you are all wrong, and you, I dunno, man. You just. You just don’t. You don’t know. You think you know things, but you don’t. You’re not always right. And I’m—I don’t fucking know why I’m bothering with this right now, but it’s not so you can tell me that I shouldn’t be. Because that’s not something that’s up to you.”

“Then why are you bothering with this?” Wilbur says, and his voice isn’t unkind, but it’s not kind, either.

“I just said I didn’t know—”

“Because if you’re asking me if you should mourn me, you already know what I’m going to say to that,” Wilbur says. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the fucking problem,” he says, and tacks on a quick, “Not like that,” but Wilbur’s face has already hardened, and yeah, there’s a million better ways he could have put that, but that’s the thing about talking to Wilbur. His brain is never firing on all cylinders, as it were, because it’s too busy trying to figure out if he should associate him with warm summer days and the haze of potions and a strummed guitar or explosions and drifting smoke and blank eyes and the awful realization that what he thought would make everything right didn’t do anything at all, and that nothing would ever be right again.

And before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater stretches out, vines trawling over the edge, leaves sprouting from between the rocks, sunlight catching on the pool at the bottom, the flag fluttering lightly in the wind. Before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater has grown over, time pressing itself into the cracks. Before the both of them, L’Manberg is a crater. It wasn’t always.

“You make everything so fucking difficult,” he says.

“It’s what I live for,” Wilbur says.

“It’s what you died for, too,” he says.

Wilbur pauses.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.” But for once, he doesn’t elaborate, and Tommy glares at him. Only for a moment, because there’s no point in glaring when someone won’t see. Won’t look. Wilbur has his eyes turned to the crater, and Tommy has his eyes turned to Wilbur, and something about that is how it’s always been. The vines have grown over the earth’s old wounds, but Tommy can’t help but feel like they’ve curled around his ankles, holding him to the spot, the moment, and every moment that came before.

I never got to mourn you, he doesn’t say again. I never got to mourn you, and I feel like I should. But you’re here, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Wilbur won’t hear him. And if he does, he won’t understand.

-----

He collects bits of the past like buttons, or stamps, or memories.

He has his discs. He’s hesitant to play them, even now. Hesitant to take them out of his enderchest. He has his home, still in the same spot, all this time later. His hill, his hole, his garden, their bench. He sat on that bench and heard Wilbur, once, reaching out from beyond the grave, and Wilbur told him he was proud, and something in him ached in the same way that his scars now do when it rains.

He has some of Friend’s wool. Just that, just wool, because he doesn’t know how to knit, and he doesn’t know who would teach him. He can sew a little, but it was something born of necessity, of the need to patch up uniforms and close the tears over freshly dealt wounds, and he can still feel the needle pricking into his fingers, again and again and again. He never could figure out how to hold it so that it wouldn’t. He bled for L’Manberg in more ways than one.

Deep inside a chest, he has two uniforms. Blue and red and white. One is a size too small. The other is several sizes too large, and always will be.

He still goes to pray, sometimes, though not as often as he did. He got the chance to meet god and found no one there, so it’s a little tricky, these days, being faithful. But he’ll go to Church Prime, because no one else really does, so he’ll have the whole building for himself as he strides up to ring the bell, to ask for guidance and favors, to pay his homage at the feet of a higher power that he cannot believe cares. On the best days, he’s tempted to try to conduct a service. But there’s no point when there’s no one to hear it but himself. Even he can’t bring himself to put on a show for empty pews.

He prays, and nobody answers, and sometimes he can’t help but remember the void, the tearing, ripping nothingness, raking him to shreds again and again, where he was not alone and yet nobody came.

He considers visiting Tubbo. But Tubbo has his own life, and a mansion he hasn’t moved into, and a town that Tommy does not belong to, and an allegiance that Tommy does not share. He considers visiting Ranboo, but that’s either the same as visiting Tubbo, or it’s the same as visiting Techno and Phil, or it’s the same as visiting Wilbur.

So he looks at his discs and doesn’t play them, bunches his hands in wool that he has no use for, and calls out to a god he can only now offer false homage. He holds to the past, and wishes he could believe he has a future. Wishes that he didn’t see obsidian and curtaining lava whenever he closes his eyes.

-----

The first time he hears Wilbur play again, he hides in the forest like a fucking coward.

The guitar is strummed hesitantly, haltingly, interspersed with silence every few seconds, as if Wilbur is struggling to find the old positions, struggling to move his fingers just right. He wonders, then, if limbo took away his calluses. He didn’t think to look. Thirteen odd years without playing a guitar is bound to make anyone rusty. Tommy wonders if Wilbur’s fingers will bleed if he presses down on the strings hard enough, and then he banishes the thought from his mind, because something in him revolts at the idea of Wilbur bleeding. Of Wilbur trying and trying to play until he—

There is something to be said, here, about using yourself up in the pursuit of something greater. There is something to be said, here, about holding matches ‘til they burn down to the skin, about stairs without handrails, about things that are never meant to be and yet claw their way into existence anyhow. There is something to be said about pushing too far, too quick, and flying too high.

Wilbur’s not singing. Is just going from chord to chord. And Tommy hides behind a tree, pressing his back against the bark, because it has been so very long. Wilbur didn’t play in Pogtopia. Wilbur barely played in L’Manberg. The last time he heard the twang of this instrument was sitting by a campfire, plans for a van in the works, the night sky starry and welcoming above them, his chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the flames. And Wilbur smiled at them, smiled at all of them, and his voice was light and sure, his notes soaring.

Wilbur’s not singing. After a moment, he starts humming, softly and meandering, and each turn in the melody hits like a wrench, like he’s dragging the notes out behind them, yanking at the tune whenever it goes somewhere he doesn’t like. It’s a lot of leaps and skips and jumps, a lot of highs to lows and then highs again, and something about it sounds like wailing. There are no words, and there is no happiness.

But he’s playing. He’s playing, and does that count for something? There was no music for such a long time, no music in the darkness and no music even in the light, and now there is music in the grey twilight, and it is not happy music but it is music. Wilbur is playing again, and Tommy’s not going to cry, because what kind of pussy cries about hearing a guitar? So he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t venture out from this spot, either. He stays there, and listens as Wilbur sends his voice shooting up into falsetto and then back down again.

It’s good that there are no words, maybe. They’d be sad. He can tell.

“That sounds nice,” Ranboo says, all of a sudden, and Tommy jolts at the same time that Wilbur’s hand must jerk, a discordant clash of notes, something that can’t even be called a chord. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” Wilbur says, after a pause. Tommy almost creeps out to see his expression, because he can’t picture it. Can’t tell from his voice what his face is doing. “I was just about done anyway.” There is another pause, and a rustle of clothing. Standing. The crunching of leaves underfoot. It’s nearly autumn again, and already the leaves are changing, falling.

It would be wrong of him to resent Ranboo. He’ll never admit it aloud, but he likes him. Rather a lot. Hiding it is probably pointless now, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. But Ranboo is occupying the space that should be his, that once was his. There is a van in a forest, and a guitar song winding its way through the branches and the roots, and everything is different and everything is the same, and the new story is written without him in it. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he thinks it is not this. He thinks it is not to be left behind.

And Ranboo does not know Wilbur well enough to hear the lie in his voice.

They go off together through the trees. Tommy stays. Runs his hand across the tree bark, and tries not to put his emotions into words. Better to let them drift along as is. Better not to give them voice, because whispers turn into shouts all too easily, and there is not enough space here for shouting.

-----

There’s a thing about graves. There’s a thing about graves and who gets one, and who doesn’t.

He didn’t think about it at the time, the fact that Schlatt—Schlatt the tyrant, Schlatt the enemy, Schlatt the man who had Tubbo executed—got a funeral, and a tomb, has one even to this day, and Wilbur got rubble and a room sealed off and untouched. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no burial. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no gravestone to deface or to ornament with flowers or to kick or to scream at or to kneel beside and speak to or to cry or to do any or all of those things. He didn’t think about it at the time, because there was rebuilding, and then there was a house on fire, and then he doesn’t like to think about it.

And there was Ghostbur.

Wilbur hates Ghostbur. It makes him angry, the way that Wilbur hates Ghostbur. Ghostbur was good, and Ghostbur was kind, and Ghostbur tried his best, and Ghostbur did not deserve to die in the way that he did, terrified, with no one there by his side, with only shouted numbers to soothe his terror, and Ghostbur does not deserve to be stuck in a train station for all of eternity. So he makes Ghostbur a memorial, because it’s all he can do, and the first time he’s next to it at the same time as Wilbur, he meets his eyes squarely. A challenge. A dare. And Wilbur looks right back at him, and then to the gravestone, and his lips curl into a sneer.

And he says nothing at all.

He says nothing at all for a long time. Until he does, and it’s all made so much worse.

“Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” Wilbur asks, and it’s all very even and nonchalant, so much so that it might have him fooled if he didn’t know better, hadn’t heard time and time again exactly what Wilbur thinks of the ghost he left behind him.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” he demands.

“An honest one,” Wilbur answers.

“Right,” he says. “Because you don’t lie anymore, or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t,” Wilbur agrees, and that is a lie. Tommy would be insulted if he weren’t so tired of it. “Really, I’d like an answer.”

“What does it matter?” he snaps. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here anymore, and you are. No changing that. I’m fucking stuck with you. You’re like, you’re like a leech, you know that? A leech in my brain.”

Wilbur smiles tightly.

“I’d rather be a leech in your brain than dust in the ground,” he says. “Like he is.”

“Shut up,” he grits out. “Don’t—just don’t fucking talk about him.”

“Alright, then,” Wilbur says. “I won’t. If it upsets you that much.”

And he doesn’t. And the grave stays.

And it is not until later that he thinks about the thing about graves again, about who gets one and who does not. There is no grave with Wilbur’s name on it. There was no soil to lay him to rest, only cold, hard stone, a room undisturbed, a monument to destruction. And had there been time, he would have thought about it more. Would have taken it upon himself, perhaps, because the thing is, in the end, that maybe Wilbur deserved better than to be remembered as the man who destroyed his nation. Deserved better than to be remembered solely by the ravine’s dark corridors and the smoke that clung to him like foreshadowing and the way his eyes looked dead, dead, dead for a long time before Tommy watched Phil plunge the sword into his chest.

Because he was not only that. It hurts to think about, how he was not only that. But sometimes, things that hurt to think about ought to be thought about. Because Wilbur was shattered edges that Tommy knows only now that he could not fix, because Wilbur did not want fixing, but Wilbur was also laughter and a gentle hand on his shoulder and the words “I’m proud of you” that lit him up like sunlight, and he was kind and he was kind of a dick and he was brilliant and Prime, maybe Tommy should have known. Should have known that there was going to be a fall. But he looked up to Wilbur like a child to a shooting star, and it’s a long time before children understand that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that the wonder of them comes from self-destruction.

But before Wilbur fell, he shone. A beacon in the dark. Hope, freedom. And before he was those things, too, he was Tommy’s brother. Just that, and nothing more, because more was not needed.

And he received no grave.

It’s a question of time again, and a question of mourning, and a question of how he was ever supposed to grieve when there was no time for it at all, and when a ghost shadowed his every footstep and dripped blue from cold fingers and insisted that nothing was ever wrong. But for the first time, he wonders how Wilbur thinks about it. Graves, and ghosts. And who gets a grave, and who does not.

Who is mourned, and who is not.

Who is given up on, and who is not.

The question echoes once again: “Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” And this time, Tommy hears no taunt in it, no mocking, no cruel joke about the ghost who deserved so much better. Only bitterness, and exhaustion, and resignation. Like Wilbur already knew what answer he would be granted.

That’s a realization of some sort, that Wilbur believes he prefers him dead. It’s a realization of some sort, but he doesn’t know what kind.

There’s ghosts and there’s graves, and there’s the living and there’s the dead, and both are left waiting for relief that never comes. It’s thirteen years in a train station and it’s months without knowing what to think, without having space to breathe, without being able to process that his brother was unwell and then that his brother was gone. It’s too much time and too little, too much distance and too little, and Ghostbur did not deserve what he got, but neither, he thinks, did Wilbur.

That thought feels right. And wrong all at once. Bitter, heart-wrenching. That Wilbur deserved better. They all did, that he knows—but Wilbur did too. And that thought is muddled up in all the rest, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, but it’s there. If there’s anything to be done with it at all.

-----

Here is a fact: he kept Dream alive for Wilbur’s sake.

Here is another fact: he doesn’t know if he regrets it.

Because here is the thing: he remembers that day, remembers the pain and the fear and the devastation, and he remembers the moment it all turned around, cowering behind Sapnap and behind Eret until the time came to step forward, to take the axe in hand and deliver the blow, to deliver himself to safety, finally, finally. And he remembers the words bitten out from Dream’s mouth, panicked, desperate, and he remembers what he said. He will never forget.

And the decision, in that moment, was far easier than it had any right to be.

It became harder, later. Because he made the decision thinking, in large part, of the person that Wilbur used to be. Of a quick, charming tongue and flashes of smiles and music and song and leadership and knowing what to do, always, and Prime above but Tommy missed that person. And so maybe he deluded himself. Maybe he thought, in that dark room, with the portal swirling behind him and the entire server at his back, that he could get that person again. That Wilbur would return, and that it could all go back to the way it used to be. Discs spinning in the sunrise, the server at peace, his brother with him.

But death put those thoughts to rest.

Because death proved to him that Wilbur had only gotten worse. Because in death, Wilbur was happy he was there, did nothing but talk to him and make him play competitive solitaire as he was torn apart atom by atom. Because Wilbur—he became so very certain that Wilbur, if released, would bring nothing but harm to the server again, would tear everything down, because there was something in his voice, in his eyes—

But that was then. And now, Dream still lives in prison, rots but lives, and Wilbur has a burger van in a forest with a friend and spends most of his days lounging about or making eyes at Quackity or talking up a storm but doing jack shit, and Tommy doesn’t know what to make of it, and doesn’t know how to admit that maybe his idea of what Wilbur would be like and what Wilbur would do wasn’t entirely accurate.

And he still doesn’t know if it was worth it. Worth the constant fear, worth knowing that one day, Dream will be out, will come to him, will try to finish what he started. He tried to prevent it and only made it worse, only led Ghostbur to his doom by his innocent, trusting hand, and Dream resurrected—

A monster, he would have said, once. He no longer knows if that is fair.

Because here is another fact, one that he is only now beginning to understand: Wilbur is very, painfully human. He’s always known, and yet he hasn’t, because once, he thought Wilbur hung the stars and the moon and all things bright and glowing and good, and he thought that Wilbur could never be so human as to be fallible, and then it turned out that he was wrong. And it was easy, in the aftermath of that, to figure that Wilbur was perhaps some kind of monster instead, and everyone around him said as much.

But that, he thinks, goes too far in the other direction.

His hopes will never be realized. He will never have the old Wilbur back. He clings to a past that clings to him right back, that has him in a chokehold and will not let go, but Wilbur is something else entirely. The rest of the past does not live and breathe, is contained in his overflowing chests, in uniforms that don’t fit him, in the church’s empty hall. The rest of the past is made of things he can hold, but he has never been able to hold Wilbur. Not then, and not now. And there is no hope of making of them what they once were.

There is no going back.

So was it worth it, then? To keep Dream alive, and to receive this, this man who varies between manic energy and calculated calm, who speaks with a whip in his tone at some times and unbearable softness at others, who proclaims Dream his hero and then claims he would have killed him, if he could, for what he did? Was it worth it, and is it worth it, and how is something like that measured at all?

Wilbur is a tightness in his chest when he speaks and a ghost that won’t leave and a ghost that died and a thousand words like a thousand stinging hornets and no picture that could encompass all of them, all of what they are and were. Wilbur is Wilbur, and Wilbur is not safe, not anymore, and perhaps Wilbur is not even good—but there, that, that is wrong, and he won’t make this mistake twice. Wilbur is good, it’s just that he’s forgotten that, and Tommy is so, so very tired of having to be the one to try and remind him. And Wilbur is empty space and Wilbur is a space too full and overflowing around the fractured edges, and Wilbur is too bright and too loud and too quiet and too little and too much, and even now, even still, Tommy does not know where they stand.

Was it worth it, to have this?

He doesn’t know. But sometimes, he imagines what it would be like if Wilbur were still dead, if Wilbur were never, ever coming back in any shape, in any form, and his throat closes up and his eyes sting, no matter how much he has laid out his hatred for the man, his regret at going into the prison that day. He tries to imagine a world without Wilbur in it, in which he has given up on Wilbur, and even now he doesn’t like it, even though maybe he should, and that is, perhaps, answer enough.

-----

“Why do you keep coming here?” Wilbur asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, instead of a hundred other things. “Why don’t you ever fucking leave?”

Wilbur just looks tired. There are bags under his eyes. Tommy thinks he can guess why; he so rarely slept during their exile, but Tommy is thinking about limbo, and train stations, and how whenever he closes his eyes, part of him is convinced that his heart has stopped beating. He wonders if Wilbur, for all his sunrise-obsession and constant movement and moments of utter wonderment at the world around him and the way he doesn’t move whenever a creeper approaches him, feels the same way.

“There was a reason I asked Ranboo to do this with me instead of you,” Wilbur says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. Tommy feels himself still. “I mean—actually, I asked Phil, and Phil was all, oh, Wil, go and make friends, and I was like fuck you I’m not twelve years old anymore but Ranboo’s pretty great so it worked out. But I—I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t get it. Why you choose to keep coming ‘round here anyway.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “What’s not to get?”

Wilbur shoots him a look, eyebrows going up and mouth slanting all sympathetic-like.

“Tommy,” he says, slowly, as if talking to the child that Tommy has not been in a long, long time, “I’m not what you want.”

Several answers form in his head, and then dissipate just as quickly before he’s able to reply. “‘S that right?” he says, and something boils within him, hot and snapping and popping.

“I can see it when you look at me, man,” Wilbur says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. “You’re—and I mean, I don’t blame you for it. I was awful to you, Tommy. I don’t deserve anything less than your scorn. But you and everyone else, you’re all waiting for what I’m going to do next. You’re all waiting with bated breath. Scared of the next disaster I’m going to cause. So you don’t—you don’t have to be here, Tommy. Not if you don’t want to be.”

There are so many things he could say. Your disasters always cause the most damage to yourself, is one of them, and then there’s a simple, you think I don’t know that? Because how many times has he told himself that same thing? That he doesn’t need to be here? That it would be better for him if he wasn’t? And some part of him must listen, because he’s not actually here all that much. He has other things to do. A life outside of this, outside of this forest on the edge of a fake desert and a van that makes pretty shitty burgers and one Wilbur Soot, like a portrait from the past and yet nothing like that at all, because portraits are shadows, still images, permanent and unchanging, with mo mutable future, and Wilbur Soot is none of those things.

He has a life. He has Tubbo, still, even if it’s all changed. He has others. He’s not alone.

Wilbur’s right that he doesn’t have to be here.

“Stop fucking doing that,” he says. “Stop trying to make my decisions for me.”

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says. “You always are. It’s my fucking choice whether I want to be here or not. And I’m making that choice. Not you. Me. And sure, maybe one day you’ll manage to get rid of me for good, but you’re gonna have to fucking work at it, and I don’t see you trying.”

“I thought you didn’t want me here, Tommy,” Wilbur returns, and the words seem to fall so effortlessly, like easy acceptance, and why, why is it this of all things that Wilbur seems to take in stride? Why is it this and not a thousand other things? Why is it this and not the fact that despite it all, despite every warning sign and every indication that maybe it might be better for him to give up after all, Tommy is still here?

“I didn’t want you gone, either,” he snaps, and Wilbur falls completely silent. So he continues, because who knows when he’ll have a chance to say this again? That’s the thing about chances; they’re difficult to count, impossible to anticipate, and he bollocksed up the first one he got, to try to break through. “I never wanted you gone in the first place. So maybe I don’t—maybe I don’t fucking know what I want. Because I never got to just live with that. There was never a chance to—there wasn’t even a fucking grave for me to visit. I never got to figure anything out, and now you’re back and nothing’s the fucking same, so maybe I don’t know what I fucking want. Maybe I don’t fucking know if I want you here, but I didn’t want you gone. I didn’t want you to be dead. And then you were. You just were, and I couldn’t—did you expect me to be alright with that?”

It’s a question of mourning, and a question of graves, and a question of chances and who deserves them. And Wilbur just looks confused.

Fuck him.

There’s so much more to say, and he can’t say any of it at all, and the past chokes him like a knot of vines or a clump of flowers in his throat, but he’s still breathing. He’s still breathing, breathes again, whatever, and Wilbur is the same. They’re the same in a lot of ways, maybe. On the other side of the final death, trying to hold onto and release the years gone by all at once. Moving forward, but stuck in quicksand, and they’re never going to get out if they don’t let each other.

“You’re my brother,” he says, and that’s all. As if that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

Wilbur blinks.

“Ah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Fucking ah.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says.

“You’d better be,” he says.

And impossibly, the vines uncurl, and the flowers come floating up, and when he takes a step forward, it comes easily.

There is a van in this forest, and it is not the same van. Some distance away, there is a crater in the ground, and nature has draped itself over the ruins of the lives they once had, and the flag still flaps at the bottom, and they are never, ever going to be able to rebuild what they lost. The crater will always be a crater, a scar in the earth. Healing, healed, grown over and stitched shut, but still a scar.

And there is a man standing in front of him who is not the same man that he knew. Not the same man that he claimed for his family, and who claimed him in return.

But he is not the same, either. Perhaps nobody and nothing is. The past clings, and he clings tighter, but perhaps he needs to loosen his grip, because despite everything, there is a future out there, somewhere past the next sunrise. They are going to get older. They are going to live. So he has his discs and his uniforms and his wool and his prayer, and he has this, too, because it is his choice. To take a step forward, and wait to be met in the middle. To dare to turn ahead, to believe that there is something awaiting him. The both of them.

And he thinks he might finally be able to let himself grieve. Grieve, and let go. Grieve the dead, and what they had, and what they might have, and grieve for the fact that there was no grieving, no grave.

And then, let himself hope that they will have better after all.

-----

The next time he hears Wilbur play, he steps out from behind the tree.

And maybe the song is a little less sad.

And maybe nothing will ever be the same as it used to be.

And maybe it will be alright.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #crimebois #/rp #dsmp fic #cat writes fic #long post #sometimes you just. you just gotta write some c!crimebois y'know?

[its-rael]

I was going to wait until I had finished doing all the concept sketches for this but uh, I’m lazy so here take it as it is I’ll keep adding surely surely.

-LONG POST-

AU where the hermits fall into the boatem hole with no way to fly out because of some event that happens - maybe an apocalypse, maybe everyone just goes apeshit, who knows - and they all get messed up heads from falling in the void and passing out n fun stuff like that. They ‘land’ - idk how this would work without them dying lol - in a semi futuristic city which for now let’s just call it Boateqm (silent q). The hermit crabs would also fall at different rates therefore appear in the city at different times. So where do they end up?

Hospital gang:

Etho wakes up in a hospital bed with no memories - most of them will wake up with no memories btw - his doctor/nurse (this hospital may be understaffed) Tango asks him a bunch of questions then has to go see another patient. Etho is seen by a certain Bdubs who had just finished visiting his buddy Scar -will get to him next- in the bed next door. Bdubs walks back to notify Scar, a fashion designer, that the guy in the bed across would make a great model, just look at the striking hair! And the red eye! He opens the curtains on the side and Scar gets a look. He asks if Etho would like to be hired. Etho is to say the least very confused and on the verge of a panic attack that never quite seems to happen so he’s in a weird kind of limbo anyway it is now that his doctor/nurse Tango comes back and having overheard the conversation suggests it would be a good idea. The hospital can only take custody of Etho for so long, might as well start earning money now so he doesn’t become homeless. Etho is still very confused. So Tango just agrees to the job for him as his caretaker lol, and besides Scar comes here kinda often so Tango trusts him. Anyway Etho’s true passions he discovers are synthesisers, breeding horses with Bdubs and finding elaborate ways to do tax evasion. A simple man.

Scar is in the hospital because he got SCAR (hehe) from walking into a glass door in his super fancy house, which he owns because he’s a super fucking rich fashion designer of his own label Scara (this is not the first time he’s walked into a glass door). Scar refuses to go to a rich people hospital tho cause 1) he cares about healthcare and wants more funds to go to lower grade hospitals 2) Tango is his mate, and needs a goddam raise. But yeah, very successful, ran for mayor once but someone really didn’t like that which resulted in another hospital visit. Mans in the wars. One hospital visit he got really inspired by the fabric and stuff there so he had a line of clothes that were hospital inspired one time, in turn making hospital inspired garb very trendy for a bit. What a mad lad. Ideas man. Some would call him a genius if he didn’t keep on walking into glass doors n shit. Scar woke up in the back room of a small tailoring shop owned by a nice old couple who took him under their wing. He thanks them in every award speech, and whenever he’s in the area make sure to stop by and give them presents. His side hobby is gardening.

When Tango came to, he was lying on the footpath of a quiet street in the suburbs just out from the main city. Gorgeous day, golden hour, pretty houses, very aesthetic. He also had a leg injury, fuck. So Tango did what anyone would do: hobbled to the nearest house, asked in the nicest way he could under a lot of stress (so he kinda yelled) for a first aid kit, and performed surgery on himself atop the nice families dinner table. The nice family turned out to have called the police and an ambulance, who showed up just as Tango was wrapping up his leg with a bandage and took him away to the police on a stretcher. This debacle got him a leading story on the local newspaper: ‘Man performs surgery on himself after waking up with no memories and a leg injury’. After being questioned by the police, they decide they can’t really charge someone with amnesia and no money with anything like breaking and entering (he did knock and they did let him in) or property damage (blood on the carpet). The paramedics are stunned at his surgery, so they tell the police to take him to the nearest hospital and get him hired there, he could save so many lives. He gets hired by the head doctor after an examination of the surgery. The head doctor doesn’t really care that Tango doesn’t have any records or anything, the hospital is understaffed and Tango seems like an Angel sent down from the heavens to him. Tango is very very good at his job. So good that he gets offered a job at a far better paying hospital which he takes, then soon drops because he prefers the chaos of his old job much better.

Tango found Impulse extremely dehydrated, looking like death, wandering outside his flat one night, so he carried the man inside and saved his life. Now they are flat mates, and Impulse works in a tech store - an upgrade from working at a service station previously.

Bdubs woke up in an inner city park at night, homeless, broke, and in the company of other homeless and broke people. He built his way to success, got luckily hired by some rich asshole to mow their lawns plural - the rich asshole didn’t ask much questions, he just saw a poor man criticising the way a park had been landscaped to an old guy in a caravan and though it was good enough, seeing as the last one quit - and Bdubs didn’t mind too much, because the rich assholes property was really gorgeous. Once Bdubs was able to say he had work experience and wasn’t homeless he started babysitting the kids in the neighbourhood, pretty good money. Plus the kids love him, and everyone he meets loves him, he's just a nice guy. He met Scar because he had to purchase a suit for a kids birthday party, so he went to the cute little tailors shop he always walked past on the way to his favourite cute little gardening supplies shop. By now Bdubs had been promoted to part time gardener - the job is shared - and started working on and off at a building firm. They become besties, turns out Scar is also really into gardening etc etc. Eventually Bdubs becomes an architect, mainly designing for city contractors n such but occasionally designer homes, like the one he did for Scar.

Mumbo and Grian wake up in the hospital around the same time that Etho is still there, however Etho has been awake longer, and should really find a place to stay soon now that he’s got a steady job. Since - ok plot point here - the two are in the exact situation that Etho found himself in, he starts to feel like something weird is going on. Mumbo and Grian take a lot longer to recover than Etho did, and the two become hospital bed neighbor buddies. When they finally recover Scar offers them a temporary place to stay at his house while they find work. Tango gets Impulse to put in a good word for Mumbo at his work.

Nomads:

TFC is an old man who lives in a caravan off the money he made being a very successful miner, he now collects pretty shiny rocks and gems and stuff to give to kids. He’s like an all year round caravan Santa and wise old mystical figure. Dope.

Joe is a humble man who likes to wander. He’s never had a home, but if he needs anything he’ll go to TFC’s caravan or a homeless shelter or something. But he isn’t sad or anything, he really likes the freedom of being a simple wanderer.

Others:

Keralis is a business partner of Bdubs. Kerlalis is mega stonks. He was one of the first to land, had a big diamond in his pocket, bought shares in a company that blew up soon after and now he is really fucking rich.

Doc and Ren are the only ones who remember anything, and they arrive at the same time. Doc manages to keep his cool, but Ren loses his shit and gets thrown in a mental institution. Doc spends some time trying to get Ren out, and after a final success and laying low for a bit the two seek to bring all the hermits together.

Pearl ends up working in Bdubs building company.

Beef works in a music shop -sells records and instruments- and he starts up a record label out back after his boss retires and passes the shop onto him.

And yeah I don’t really know the other Hermits that well was hoping some of ya’ll could help me find places for them in this city :) don’t really know how to format this either so maybe some input would be nice, just wanted to get the idea out hehehe

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #ethoslab #goodtimeswithscar #tangotek #impulsesv #bdouble0 #mumbo jumbo #grian #tinfoilchef #joe hills #keralis #docm77 #rendog #pearlescentmoon #vintagebeef #hermitcraft fanart #hermitcraft fanfic #etho fanart #tangotek fanart

[plunnies-n-shit]

Folding Ideas

Desmond buys them a bag of dried apricots to share for breakfast because he can. 

It’s not like they’re going to run out of money. They’re in New York City. Desmond knows how to pick pockets, and he’s good at it. A few hours of working downtown every day, and they’ve got enough money to live as comfortable as they want. Within reason, of course-- it’s not like the two of them are going to buy a house in the suburbs or some shit. They’re a bit young for that, for one, because Desmond is a young twenty-one and Clay is a not-much-older twenty-six, but also because neither of them can open a bank account in the States anymore and therefore don’t actually have credit scores. Fun times.

But they have enough money to live as comfortable as they have been living. Desmond could have gotten them fresh apricots, if he wanted, despite the fact that it’s the middle of winter. He’d made the breakfast run pretty early in the morning, though, and he didn’t feel like bouncing between stores until he found some. Leaving Clay alone for too long makes Desmond a little nervous these days. They’ve only just gotten each other back, and they’re all too familiar with how quickly they can be taken from each other again.

Besides, keeping anxiety down is beneficial to the both of them, until they figure this sharing thing out. Desmond can feel the way the apricots stick to Clay’s fingers because Desmond got the cheap version in a bag that didn’t adequately keep out the humidity. But the taste is pretty much the same. Maybe a little more bitter, but since Clay doesn’t have a lot of memories of sweet foods, it’s probably best for them to take it slow. 

Actually, Desmond doesn’t know if Clay has any memory of food and eating before they got plopped back here-- it wasn’t entirely necessary, so the Animus probably threw it out. And there is second-hand marvel swimming through Desmond’s head as Clay squishes the little coin of dried fruit between his fingers, rough and a little leathery on the outside, but so sweet on the inside that it’s actually a little overwhelming. Squishy. Satisfyingly squishy. Clay spends about two minutes squishing each and every piece before he eats it. 

They’re still tangled up with each other. Desmond doesn’t know how, or why, but they are. It wasn’t a thing they had to be conscious of when they were one person, one body, Clay so tangled and integrated in Desmond’s head that there wasn’t even a line between the two of them anymore. Fuck, Desmond hadn’t even realized that Clay was still there until they were getting to the final stretch, and at that point he couldn’t even be bothered to care. Think, act. It hadn’t been a problem, then, just a “we’ll talk about this later” kind of scenario.

It’s. Starting to get to be a problem now. They still mirror each other, sometimes, actions getting overlaid-- one of them will think to open the door, and then they’ll both be moving, often to the effect of a lot of bumping and unspoken apologies. Clay can’t sleep, so Desmond can’t sleep, and the restlessness just spreads out between the two of them until they just end up spending hours in that limbo between being asleep and being awake and hoping that they’ll feel better once it passes. One of them starts panicking, and then the other one starts panicking, and it’s a positive feedback loop until their bodies just can’t take it anymore. 

The worst part is that one of them doesn’t think it’s a problem, and the other one does. 

Desmond? He doesn’t think it’s a problem. He doesn’t mind Clay being all up in his space all the time, and being all up in Clay’s, acting like they’re attached at the hip until something happens to point it out and Clay. Clay. Is an anxious bundle of nerves, so worried about pretending to be normal, so worried about not drawing attention to them that he’s basically shaking constantly, always on the very edge of panic that Desmond can hardly tell the buzzing panic in the back of his head from real, actual danger. Thank goodness for the Eagle Sense, because otherwise he’s pretty sure he might start slipping from anxiety into paranoia. 

Clay is the one all hung up about this. Angry at himself for forcing his way into Desmond’s head. Angry at Desmond for not stopping him. Angry about the situation they’ve been thrown in-- because they won, damnit, saved the world and set up the groundwork for the Assassins to at least have a chance against Juno, and they got sent back here anyway. There’s an urge in his chest to howl in his anger, and that much Desmond gets.

There’s also the part of Clay that’s all full of fear, though, the survival instincts and learned behaviors that he thought were worth saving because they kept him alive, kept him going, except it’s really hard to differentiate between a survival instinct and a learned survival behavior and sometimes maladaptive behaviors slip through. Slip in. And--

Okay, it’s a little gay.

#q's plunnies #assassin's creed #desmond miles #clay kaczmarek #claydes #timetravel au #Folding Ideas

[spectralscathath]

Like-Minded Souls, Indeed?

Because this was exactly what Mercury needed, the voice of someone his boss killed showing up in his head and telling him to save the world. No thank you. Not unless you paid him.

Meanwhile, on Ozpin's side of things, he would like to very much not be found out by Salem. That would be... unfortunate.

Ao3 Link

Chapter 1: In Which Neither Mercury Nor Ozpin Can Ever Catch A Break

Ozpin felt the tugs of Ozma's magic at the corners of his mind, the limbo of their incarnations finally broken as a like-minded soul was bonded with.

He awoke in the back of someone's mind, still bleary as though he was physically waking up from a deep sleep. The mindscape was quiet with a forced calm, tension like pulled strings threading through the soul of this new individual and ready to snap at the slightest touch.

He looked out a set of new eyes, to see if it was a good time to introduce himself, and felt ancient fear flood through him at the sight of Ozma's oldest and most terrible foe. Oh. Oh no. This was very bad. This was quite possibly the worst place he could incarnate.

Salem herself, smiling at the girl who had killed him under Beacon. To die in fire was not an experience the countless souls wanted to repeat, and Ozpin was unfortunate enough to join the ranks of the few predecessors who’d suffered such a painful death.

He chose to say nothing, instead observing the way silver strands of hair fell over the side of his vision, how the body ached with phantom pains that were not Ozpin's, and wisely retreated back into the mind.

Perhaps another time.

Perhaps when Mr Mercury Black was not currently surrounded by danger.

After all, they both had to make the best of things now. He could only hope that Mr Black would be the type who could be persuaded away from Salem.

If not, then this was going to be... difficult.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ozpin had been a father, so many lifetimes before. He had never been perfect, he had made countless mistakes across Ozma's many lifetimes, he accepted them all as his failures, so he could learn from them and do better in the next life.

He had given his second life in a futile attempt to save his daughters, and sometimes wondered if he regretted his choices. Should he have stayed? If he had stayed, would he still be alive? Would his children still be alive?

The look Marcus Black wore in so many of Mercury's memories reminded him too much of Salem to ever again regret his attempt to escape her clutches.

He had been waiting a long time, studying Mercury’s routine so he could find the safest time to breach the gap between them. He had to say, this was an opportunity like no other, to see what Salem’s plans were without detection, but with great reward came terrible risk. All it would take was one slip, and they’d both be dead. Or worse. And if he did nothing, then all the knowledge he could gain would be for naught.

So he waited until they were alone before he could chance speaking to him, until Mercury had retreated to his corners and locked the door, shoving a chair under the handle as was his custom. He was paranoid, which was a very fair response to the situation. The massive wardrobe must have taken some shoving to put it in the path of the window, but it certainly did prevent any unwelcome visitors who might see it as a means of entry.

The bed pushed into the corner was wise as well, to put his back to a wall,  although the fact that Mercury piled his pillows under the covers as a decoy and then slept under the bed itself might have been pushing it somewhat.

He waited until Mercury was sitting on the bed, looking over his weapons and performing any upkeep needed, the faint cyan glow from the vents in his prosthetics lining his silver fringe.

Mr Black, don’t be alarmed.

“What the FUCK?!” Mercury bolted upright, knife in hand as he looked around, head swinging to every potential place an intruder could be. “Who’s there?!”

Professor Ozpin. He had to think quickly. Don’t tell Salem or she will kill you. This is part of my curse as her opponent, I must incarnate into a new mind with every death, and I am now currently in yours.

“No the fuck you are not.” Mercury snarled. “Show yourself, come out and face me.”

I can’t, actually. He should try and enter Mercury’s dream. He personally had never done that, but Ozma had, so therefore he had as well… hadn’t he? It seemed the lines were blurring between himself and Ozma already. More than they had been when he was alive. He’d been one of the more compatible hosts, on account of not having anything that really needed Ozpin Headley more than it needed Ozma-in-Ozpin’s-head.

“Nope. Okay. I’ve gone mad. I’ve been up too long.”

That is true. Mercury had a terrible case of insomnia, it seemed. Though with the night terrors he had, it was understandable. He was about to have a whole lot more, once the merge hit the point where Ozpin was able to fade into the memory consciousness, just as Ozana had when she had joined the other incarnations in the depths of their shared subconscious.

He was hoping he could spare the young man the nightmares from hundreds of deaths. Ten thousand years was a long time to live and die and live again. Mr Black, I assure you, this is not an ideal situation for me either, but you must understand that you are not crazy and that I am now-

“Taking up residence in my head like a fucking pervert? What, running a school wasn’t enough for you to get your sick kicks?” Mercury snarled at him.

Okay, that was uncalled for. Mr Black, that is very untrue. This is just something that happens . After all, someone had to stop Salem.

“Fuckin- alright, fine, so I’ve gone mad. What else is new?” Mercury grumbled, sitting back down and angrily sharpening a knife.

You’re very sane, I assure you. Ozana had told him something similar, if a bit less polite.

“Right, I’m talking to a voice in my head while living in a castle owned by some sort of humanoid Grimm witch, that’s the definition of sanity.” Mercury snarked at him.

If you can believe Salem’s existence, then surely you can believe mine?

“I don’t believe anything you say. Can you go back to shutting up?” Mercury’s anger was a tangible force in their head, not like a wildfire, but more like a poison, something that slowly corroded whatever it touched. It was a very cold anger.

I’m afraid not. I must insist that you leave this place before Salem finds out of my presence, or she WILL kill you then and there. Or worse. There could be so much worse. Salem had been around far longer than he had, by sheer virtue of her immortality working differently. It had left her with a large pool of creative methodology for causing pain, many of which had been lost to time.

He didn’t want to undergo that as much as Mercury likely wouldn’t want to either, so that meant leaving was their best choice. He’d been listening in on a few of the meetings that Salem had hosted, finding out that Haven was the next target, and Vacuo after that. He’d also found that she hadn’t yet obtained the Crown of Choice, but that she did still have at least one operative in Vale looking. He wished them luck. He personally had decided to move the Beacon Vault and hide it a little better after he took over the school.

There was no way Salem’s people could find it. Not without his knowledge. Or Jinn’s knowledge.

He had to keep Jinn out of Salem’s reach. If summoned, she wouldn’t choose not to answer Salem’s question. She didn’t have that sense of morality. To the Relics, all that mattered was their task, and the rules that bound them to it.

So, Mercury, when do we leave?

“You’re stupid.” Mercury told him bluntly. “We’re on another continent with no way off that isn’t controlled by Salem. There is no leaving. At least not until she sends me out on a job. So here’s the deal, you shut the fuck up, and then maybe when I’m out of this creepy fucking castle, we can talk.” Ozpin could hear the lie in there. Mercury had zero intentions of ever talking to him again.

But it was a good idea, for safety’s sake. He would have to be a silent observer. After all, the walls could have ears.

Besides, once they were out on a job, so to speak, he could simply start talking again. After all, that was the letter of the potential agreement, if not Mercury’s intention.

Agreed. I will see you when we are in the clear.

“Piss off.” Mercury grumped at him, and just this once, Ozpin chose to comply. He could use the time to gather information, and silence was a small price to pay for that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mercury followed Emerald, Watts, and Cinder into the safehouse Lionheart had brought for them, feeling a strange sense of betrayal flood him that was definitely not his. He realised it was probably Ozpin, who had so far remained quiet during the flight out of Evernight, meeting up with Watts, and going over battleplans for confronting Raven Branwen.

He’d been tuned in just to see what his role was (he was Thug #2, the muscle who was meant to stand there and possibly kill someone if that kind of point had to be made), and was allowed to be basically invisible beyond that. He watched as Cinder went to cook herself dinner, and since she knew she controlled Emerald through food and shelter, probably Emerald as well. Mercury could cook for himself, if he had to, and Watts could starve for all they cared.

He wasn’t hungry anyway. Too busy trying to hold off on the wrenching nausea in his gut that was not his. “See ya, Em.” He shrugged at her, holding up his scroll. “I’m gonna play some Amid You. See ya tomorrow.”

“See ya, Merc.” She waved him off. She’d gotten a bit more tolerable since they got trapped together in the deathworld that was Salem’s castle. Not that they were friendly or anything. Just tolerable.

He made his way up the stairs and into one of the rooms, making sure it wasn’t the fanciest one because he’d let Cinder and Watts duke out ownership of that one. He locked the door, looking for something he could shove against it and picking the bedside table. It’d do.

He checked the window lock and pulled the curtains over, sitting on the bed as he played music on his scroll to mask the fact that he could be talking to himself, if only to tell Ozpin to shut the fuck up with the sadness.

“Alright asshole, what’s the problem.”

I can’t believe Leo would fall this far. Ozpin sounded fucking miserable. Sucks for him, he got betrayed. What happened to him? He was a hero for so long…

“People suck, get over it.” Seriously, if he’d been around since the asscrack of time, then he should know that.

Not always. Some people are good. It makes it hurt all the more when some of them turn out to… well. Stick a knife in your back . Ozpin sighed, impressive for a man who didn’t have a body or lungs. So. Now we can discuss you leaving this group and helping protect the Relic of Knowledge.

“Yeah, no, not happening. If there’s a mole on the inside of your old team, then me buggering off from Cinder is only gonna end up with us dead, which is that thing you didn’t want, right? After all, Leo runs Haven, and those kids Watts mentioned? First years and a drunken Huntsman. Haven’s dead meat.”

We have to try. Salem cannot be allowed to obtain any of the Relics.

“Nah. We have to survive. I’m not dying just because you wanna be a hero.” Mercury kicked his boots and greaves off, since he was out of Evernight, twirling his ankle a bit and listening to the metallic clicking the joint made.

Mr Black, I must insist. If the Vault in Haven is opened, it could go very badly. Besides, Qrow is my friend. I’d rather not risk him being hurt.

“Hey, the plan involves not going near Qrow. It’s a simple sneak in, sneak out, and the White Fang blow up the school a few days later. No one’s getting hurt, except for Lionheart. Clock’s ticking on his usefulness.” The plan was easy compared to Cinder’s weird domino pieces plan for taking down Beacon. He preferred the Haven plan that was clearly Salem and Watts’s idea. It was simple, no muss, no fuss. Easy pickings.

Gonna be great to see how Cinder’s rampaging ego ruined it, something easy like this clearly wouldn’t fuel her proud streak. She was just like Marcus. Always wanted a challenge. That was why he saved cutting off a target’s semblance for a finishing blow in his assassinations.

Haven Academy is important, Mercury, you can’t just let it be blown up! I won’t stand by while Salem steals the Relic and destroys another Academy! I can’t!

“All the Huntsman in Mistral are either dead or useless, gramps.” Mercury rolled his eyes. “Academy’s already useless. You should focus on the relic.” Maybe if he came up with another plan it’d get Ozpin off his back.

I don’t play to win at all costs, Mr Black. I try to protect as many pieces on the board as I can.

“That’s why you’re losing,” Mercury collapsed back on the bed, hooking his hands behind his head as he got comfortable. “How about another deal? We wait for Cinder to get the Relic. Watts has to go back to Evernight after dealing with Branwen, so the trip back will be me, her, and Emerald. Cinder won’t be expecting an attack, so how about we kill her, steal the ship, and then you can take the Relic wherever you want?”

And Emerald? Ozpin queried. Would you be killing her in this sneak attack as well?

That made him pause for a moment. Would he kill Emerald? Probably not, he didn’t need to. Cinder was absolutely a threat who had to be taken out as quickly as possible, but Emerald? Nah. “She’d probably get all butthurt that Cinder’s dead or whatever, but I don’t see why she should die as well. Worse comes to worst we’ll knock her out. We’d be doing her a favour, honestly. You’ve seen how Cinder treats her.” The fact that Ozpin was constantly watching everything was real fucking unnerving and something he tried to not think about at all times.

Hmmmm… Ozpin deliberated for ages, which made Mercury think he was probably scheming away. Whatever. Mercury wasn’t going to fall for any of it. What could a voice in his head do? Get sad at him? You think you can kill Cinder?

“I think that I’ve been watching how she fights for nearly two years now and that she’s got a massive blind spot on her left side.” It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be manageable. Amber got taken out too, after all. “You got anything that would help? Cinder said you put up a fight in that basement where she killed you.” He hoped that was uncomfortable to talk about. If he had to be disquieted by sharing headspace with a weirdo, so should Ozpin.

Yes. I have some magical ability left that can, at the very least, level the playing field a little bit. It’s not as strong as the Maiden’s magic, but if applied correctly, it could work.

Sounded like Ol’ Oz was coming around to ‘fuck everyone else, I got what I want in the end’. Selfish thinking won again. Why waste energy on stopping the destruction of a school when Cinder could be allowed to think she won and Mercury could then use that pride against her to escape this whole messed-up situation.

After all, Salem might be remaking the world and had offered to make him one of the top dogs, but in the pecking order, he was still near the bottom of the ladder. Besides, he did have her worst enemy in his head.

Escape was definitely the best option. “And hey, if she’s planning on attacking Vacuo after, think your buddy in Atlas would let us bunker down there?” If they did it right, then no one would know what happened. Cinder would be too dead to talk, Emerald would be a flight risk but he could probably talk her into not going back to work for Salem, and he sure wouldn’t tell anyone.

Yes. James can be trusted.

Just like Lionheart could, Mercury thought, but this one he kept to himself. “So. Deal?”

I don’t like this. It’s cruel and callous.

“I’m Mercury Black, have we met?” Why would he want to be anything else? The world was cruel. The only way to win was to take what you had and fight for what you wanted. No rules. No lines. Those made people weak.

… Very well. I’ll agree, for now.

“Then we’re done for tonight.”

I suppose we are. Thank you for hearing me out.

Mercury blinked perturbedly. Did he just get thanked? Weird. “Uh- sure. Whatever.”

Ozpin sounded way too amused as he chuckled, Mercury’s hackles rising only slightly. Good night, Mr Black.

Mercury snorted and didn’t bother replying, reaching for his scroll as he switched his music off and went into the games folder. Yeah it was gonna be a good night. He was gonna play video games til his eyes fell out and not sleep.

He supposed this situation with Ozpin could have been worse. At least the guy kept to himself and didn’t make a nuisance. If Mercury had to have a creepy man in his head talking to him, it could have been a lot worse. Could have had a Tyrian in there. Or a Watts.

Or his dad.

Mercury’s nose scrunched. Wouldn’t that be awful. Least Ozpin knew which of them was in control.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was chaos in Haven Academy’s foyer. Mercury dodged a wild swing from Yang, flipping back in a handspring as he errantly observed the room. Ozpin had not been happy about the ‘kill everyone’ plan but whatever, they were here now. Ozpin had been a lot louder since then and was still there, still currently losing his mind in the back of Mercury’s head. Mercury tried to tune most of it out. Wasn’t easy.

Mercury, please! This can’t be what you want! Ozpin begged as Mercury watched that kid in the green get thrown through a wall by Hazel. Ozpin always went real quiet around him. He wondered why. They’re just children!

He didn’t answer back, because fuck it, what did he know? Being a kid didn’t mean shit. Where was ‘just children’ when Marcus beat him up daily? Nowhere, that’s where.

You have to stop this! You’ll never be able to get the Relic now, the plan won’t work! This is our only chance!

He dodged another gunshot from Yang, which was criminally easy, she definitely had not gotten faster since their last fight, and checked in on the only threat. Qrow was- oh fuck he had stopped fighting Raven, disengaging from that little sibling duel to charge Hazel, landing a blow to the guy’s back with enough force that Hazel’s knee hit the ground. Mercury swore it dented from the weight behind that blow.

No no no no no no-

He whistled as he caught Yang’s kick in one of his own, forcing her leg down and scoring a punch directly to the floating ribs. Her eyes went red for a moment as she swung a hook at him, one that he dodged again, knocking her around with a few more kicks to the head. Had she gotten sloppier? He would be ashamed to fight this badly.

Mercury. Please. Don’t make me do this.

He glanced over at where Qrow was nimbly dodging Hazel’s blows before a cheap shot from Lionheart hit him in the shoulder, knocking his footwork off-balance long enough that Hazel got his hands on Qrow.

Mercury I’m so sorry-

“What-” Mercury asked before his vision flashed gold, and he was shunted into the back of his own head. Suddenly he was the voice, and Ozpin was in control- he had no control over his own body, no way to stop as Ozpin took a running leap, leaving a confused Yang behind, and landed a kick into the side of Hazel’s head, the shotgun blasting right in his ear.

Ozpin had took over. Ozpin… could take over. And he’d never mentioned it. He’d never-

Qrow looked at them, utterly dumbfounded. The entire room had gone dead quiet as Ozpin-in-Mercury’s-body artfully landed between Qrow and Hazel, not taking his eyes off the latter. Then he spoke with Mercury’s voice but it wasn’t Mercury’s words and it wasn’t right-

“I’d like my cane back, if you wouldn’t mind, Qrow.”

Cinder was staring. Emerald was staring. Everyone was staring as Mercury was turned into a fucking puppet, all his control stolen away. He hadn’t even known Ozpin could- He’d thought-

His view of their- their, not his- vision tunnelled, greying out at the edges. Haven wasn’t there anymore. It was just that house. His room. The smell of whiskey and blood and cigarette burns-

And Mercury clocked out, brain going black with panic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He felt hands on his shoulders even though there were no hands on his shoulders, pulling him out of the darkness and shoving him back in the driver’s seat. He blinked, collapsed against a wall with a cane handle in his hand and Qrow leaning over him, the smell of alcohol on the other man’s breath hitting some button in his head too close too close-

“Get AWAY from me!” He shrieked, kicking him full in the chest and loosing a shotgun blast to make sure the point got across, the Relic clattering on the ground as Qrow lost his grip on it. His hand clenched on the cane handle so hard it was shaking, and he threw that away as hard as he could.

Mercury, I am so sorry, I swear, I didn’t want to ever have to do that to you, but you left me no choice-

“ Shut up!” He snapped, voice ragged and a little too raw as he pulled his knees defensively to his chest and dug his fists into silver hair, tugging until the burn on his scalp felt like he was pulling Ozpin’s voice out of his head.

He heard footsteps come closer and looked up from his defensive curl, a knife appearing in his hand as he met Lil Red’s silver eyes, wide with concern and simmering with underlying resentment. “Professor Ozpin?”

Mercury, you have to understand, we can’t let Salem get the Relic-

He remembered a similar look on her face when she saw him walking again in the maintenance hall of Amity Colosseum. He snarled back this time, instead of a cocky smirk. “No. Come near me and I’ll rip your fucking face off.”

“Don’t talk to my sister like that!” Yang snapped, her eyes bright red as she glared at him, the Schnee keeping a hand on her shoulder to keep her in line. Fucking try it, Blondie, he’d take her other arm off, they could match.

Ruby wisely took a step back, still easily too close for him to handle. “Mercury?” her hand twitched towards the gun on her back

Mercury? Will you let me explain?

“All of you shut up.” He glared at the Relic, kicking it away as he jumped to his feet. He couldn’t handle this. It was too much, too much control lost- and Emerald wasn’t there, FUCK. So much for doing her a favour. He looked at everyone, feeling cornered, skin alive with fire ants that weren’t really there and legs burning with phantom aches, and did the only thing he could do when fighting wasn’t the option.

He bolted, clearing the stairs behind him and disappearing into Haven Academy, picking a random room that wasn’t Lionhearts (he was not going NEAR a fucking Seer, no thank you) and locking the door.

Mercury, I truly am sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Ozpin told him gently, and the worst thing was that he sounded like he meant it.

“Don’t ever talk to me again.” Mercury snarled, and started breaking everything in the room that he could get his hands on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Man, Ozpin's sections got deeper then I expected but then again the guy has identity issues for sure. Where does Ozma end and Ozpin begin? Things we will literally never know!

#rwby #mercury black #ozpin #Oz!Merc AU #rwby fanfiction #my writings

[rainbowbutterfrosting]

The Revived - Chapter 20: Some Light Reading

This is chapter 20 of the Dream SMP multichapter fic @dramaticsnakes​ and I wrote together! I hope you’ll enjoy!

AO3

Read in order (on Tumblr)

Characters in this chapter: Wilbur, Ghostbur

Word count: 4,137

Cw: A lot of pain, inflicting pain, tensions between characters, food/eating

Fic summary: Wilbur was alive, and it was such a magnificent feeling, that made his mind spark with anticipation. It didn’t take long, however, for Wilbur to realize that this new breath of life, was not just his own. An echo-y voice hides in the back of his mind, and before he knows it, the transparent version of him he saw at the endless train station, is a lot more ingrained than he’d expected him to be.

And Wilbur really shouldn’t care. Because he’d be damned, if he spent the life he’d awaited for so long, babysitting a lost cause of a ghost, stuck in the very same limbo Wilbur spent so long in. It was an even exchange, and one Wilbur wasn’t going to mess with. Why exactly he ends up setting out to get the ghost out of his mind, in order to save the both of them, however, is beyond him. And perhaps Wilbur’s past isn’t as easy to leave behind, as he’d hoped it would be.

It was not an entirely pleasant experience to wake up, lying on the floor with his leg in a strange elevated position. In fact, he wouldn’t have been entirely convinced he’d woken up at all, if it wasn’t for the wave of pain bursting through his head. It was pounding, and his vision was blurry enough for him to almost believe he was sitting on a chair, blindfolded again.

There was no one around to punch him though. Just a huge empty bunker, and a smell of scattered paper. He didn’t have the slightest clue what time it was, or for how long he’d slept. As he squinted at his surroundings, there wasn’t the slightest hint of natural light. Just the torches above him.

There was silence.

“Ghostbur?” he said, his voice hushed.

“Oh! You’re awake! Good morning.” The ghost’s words were quick, though tinted with relief. There was something exhausted about them too, however. Wilbur got up from the floor, crawling back to the chair. He sat down on it, getting a better view of the room. “How are you feeling?”

Wilbur cracked his neck, stretching his arms. “Wonderful,” he said.

“Actually?”

Wilbur tensed up, closing his eyes momentarily. He took a deep breath. “No. Not really.”

There was a sigh from Ghostbur, but it wasn’t one of annoyance. It was rather melancholic. Relieved, perhaps. “Yeah… Me neither.”

While the words weren’t exactly good news, Wilbur’s lips curved up just slightly. Perhaps it was just the honesty. There was something silent and intimate about the words, breaking through the silence. The mutual pain. Not that that was too comforting in the long run. “Shit, my head hurts,” he noted, not necessarily to anyone but the empty room, placing a hand on his forehead.

“Mhm...” Ghostbur said, and everything indicated he was feeling it too.

They sat there in a less uncomfortable silence, Wilbur’s limbs heavy, as he looked at his bandaged leg. The regeneration potion had helped quite a bit, he realized as he tried to move it, but he still doubted he’d be able to stand on it confidently. He noticed some dryness leftover from a few tears right underneath his eye. He froze. “Ghostbur?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you… If I cry, do you feel it?” It was a risky and perhaps vulnerable question. The mention of the tears only seemed to make his head pound more. For a moment he was almost thankful everything was far too blurry for him to think properly.

“I don’t know.” Ghostbur said, with far more nonchalance than what was probably deserved, “My face often burns anyway.” He paused, as if he only just then realized what he was saying, “I mean, that’s okay though! It doesn’t feel so bad when it’s on the face anymore.”

The words sent an unwelcome shiver down Wilbur’s spine. He went quiet for a few breaths, unsure what to say. I’m sorry, he felt he should say, but it didn’t taste familiar enough. I can help you, he considered, but he realized it was yet another empty promise. Thank you, he wanted to say, but it was far too vague, and far too broad, and he wasn’t thanking Ghostbur for feeling pain. None of it sat right with him. He shook his head. “Is there anything you wanna do?” he asked instead. 

Ghostbur let out a breath. “What can we do?”

And wasn’t that an excellent question? Wilbur closed his eyes.

“Should we… Should we find someone?” Ghostbur asked.

Wilbur looked at his leg. He looked to the books, filled to the brim with information. He looked at the food readily available to him. He bit his lip. “I… I don’t think it’d be safe while my leg is still healing.”

“Oh, right, right,” Ghostbur said, sounding mildly disappointed, but it wasn’t too noticeable.

“There are some books we could read,” Wilbur tried, feeling as if it was a bit of a weak offer.

“I like books,” Ghostbur said, and Wilbur wasn’t sure if it was entirely sincere or not. Then, the tone turned softer. As if a pleasant memory passed by. “I used to write books.”

“Really?” Wilbur asked, tilting his head.

“I had a library! I wrote things down, and I read all the history books I could find. Tried to organize it all,” Ghostbur explained, sounding a little more excited at each word.

As Ghostbur spoke about it, Wilbur found some faint memories in the back of his mind. Organizing books, and writing down new information. Searching for something. “Did you like history?” Wilbur asked, and for an absurd moment he felt like an actor, asking someone if they enjoyed their latest movie. He huffed at the thought.

“I did. I tried to figure out what you did when you were alive. Everyone looked at me in different ways, and I-” he trailed off for a moment, “I don’t know, but I did enjoy reading.”

“I wonder if there is anything you wrote in here,” Wilbur mused, trying to ignore his own curiosity. 

“I don’t think so. Most of them were destroyed when-” He abruptly stopped talking, the last syllable sounding strained.

“When what?”

“My head hurts,” Ghostbur simply replied.

Wilbur slowly nodded, not quite sure what to make of the lack of an answer. “So… To pass the time, how about we read some books here? We can find some information about the revival too, and try to figure out how to get you- how to free you, in the process,” he looked at a different spot in the air, realizing there was nowhere to make eye contact with the ghost. “How does that sound?”

“Okay!” Ghostbur said, “That sounds good.”

He could finally get started on the work. It was something Wilbur was itching to do. He was itching to occupy his hands and his mind with something. His mind was still simultaneously going at thousands of miles a second, and carrying thousands of pounds with each thought. He needed something tangible. Something he could keep in his grasp.

At first, he grabbed the nearest book on the shelf. Quite a big one titled “Governments and Communities of History”. He almost dropped it as he held it in one hand, but he shakily moved it over to the table.

“Governments and Communities of History,” he told Ghostbur. He flipped inside and into the table of contents. He skimmed most of it. It started with the beginning of everything and continued to list political parties that he vaguely recognized. He flipped towards the end, hoping to find the knowledge he missed over the months he was gone. His eyes lingered onto “Eggpire” as he flipped to the corresponding page. 

He cleared his throat, “Ready, Ghostie?”

“Yep!”

“This section is about the Eggpire. ‘The Eggpire is an alliance between BadBoyHalo, Antfrost, Punz, Ponk, Hannahxxrose, and Skeppy.’ Huh, I don’t really know most of them. ‘The alliance was formed on January 14, 2021 between the founders, Bad, Ant, Punz and CaptainPuffy. However Puffy is the only founder to leave. She joined Anti-Eggpire (also known as Pro-Omelette) due to a disagreement in views.’” Wilbur chuckled as his head throbbed in response, “The second name is way better.”

Ghostbur made a sound of agreement. Just as Wilbur was about to read again, he had a realization, “I think this is the same Puffy from the flower shop, but I’m not sure.”

“I think so.” Ghostbur paused. “I mean, I can’t imagine a lot of people are named Puffy.” 

Wilbur nodded, “Good point.” He took a breath before continuing, “The keystone of the alliance is the crimson red egg located in Badboyhalo’s statue room. The Egg is meant to be a source of chaos and a way to subdue the rest of the server. Despite the Eggpire being formed as a military coalition by Bad with Ant, Puffy, and Punz, most members of the Eggpire have joined due to being corrupted by the Egg.” 

Wilbur cringed, “Are they that bad at commanding that they couldn’t genuinely recruit people? Wait- where did the egg even come from?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there was a big red chicken that laid the red egg?”

Wilbur exhaled out of his nose to resemble a laugh, “These guys are fucking losers, who else tried to resemble me while I was gone?” 

He flipped to the beginning of the book as Ghostbur chided him, “Language.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, but his headache seemed to worsen from the action, “Pardon my French, I speak it like a bitch.” Wilbur smirked to himself as he heard Ghostbur’s upset noises.

His eyes glossed the table of contents, as he barely focused on the words. He exhaled sharply as his mind settled on L’Sandberg? No- that couldn’t be right. It was L’Manberg and it was long gone. 

He flipped to the page to verify it, before seeing the text that he mumbled out loud, “L'Sandberg (formerly L'Puffyberg and L'Puffberg) is a nation created by BadBoyHalo weeks after the end of the Eggpire.” It oddly reminded him of himself. Starting L’Manberg then creating Pogtopia because it was taken away. L’Sandberg was even named in an odd reference to L’Manberg, perhaps he would have to check the place out.

He was about to read the next part as he reread the previous lines. A strange familiarity ran through his mind. “I’ve heard of this Badboyhalo guy, but there’s no way he’s the same dude that would create a nation along with a cult-y alliance.” The only person he could picture as he read the name was a demon that dressed in red and black. He saw him bumbling around the streets with a blue man with shining skin. 

While they’d had small conversations before, he wasn’t even a hundred percent sure about his name. Part of him wanted to call him SaintsofGames, which he assumed might’ve been his actual name, or perhaps an older title.

He tried to imagine the friendly demon who cooked muffins on Saturdays being a general, but all he got out of return was the throb in his head to increase. “Have you ever heard of Badboyhalo?”

Ghostbur thought for a moment, “Yeah, I think Tommy mentioned him once? I don’t really remember all the details though.”

Wilbur hummed, “He seems neat.”

“Wilby?”

Wilbur looked up from the book and into thin air, “Yeah?”

Ghostbur whined out, “My head hurts.”

Wilbur nodded, but winced as it somehow worsened the headache. “Mine as well.” 

“Do we got any… I don’t know what it’s called but it’s sweet drink.”

At Ghostbur’s words, Wilbur’s stomach growled. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna see if I can find something to eat.” Wilbur faintly chuckled, “That’s probably why I’ve got this killer headache.”

Ghostbur made a small hum of agreement as Wilbur awkwardly realized that he would have to walk to get food. He moved from the chair, hissing in pain as positioned himself to stand on his uninjured leg. He slightly toppled from the unbalance, but didn’t have too many problems staying steady. 

“Alright, I’m gonna warn you now that it might hurt.”

Ghostbur’s voice was laced with panic, “Wait, what are you doing now?”

“Don’t worry too much. I’m just walking around in the bunker,” Wilbur reassured. “My leg still hurts so I might fall or something.” 

Ghostbur sounded displeased, “Okay, just make sure to be careful.”

“I will.” His eyes searched the room for possible food. He smiled as he remembered the carrots and melons growing downstairs. That smile quickly faded when he thought about the idea of stairs.

He hopped over to the general direction of the stairs, occasionally stopping to maintain his balance once again. At the final step he nearly stumbled, but caught himself just in time by grasping at the nearest wall. He was reminded of the exhaustion that followed his trip to Phil’s house when he’d just returned. It seemed like ages ago by now. He tried not to let the thought linger.

His leg ached slightly as he limped along to the crops. He licked his lips, as he looked at the melons that only served to remind him of his hunger much more. It occurred to him that it had been a while since he last ate. In fact, he had no clue exactly how long it had been at this point, the amount of sleep he’d gotten remaining a mystery to him. Instead of dwelling on that, he reached down at a melon, carving it into several pieces. He didn’t do a particularly great job at it, but it hardly mattered. 

He saw himself down on the nearest chair, eating each piece at an impressive pace. The sweet taste seemed to get to his entire body, working almost as many wonders as a potion would.

For a strange moment, Wilbur wondered if the water in the watermelon would cause any harm to the ghost. He couldn’t hear any screams nor pleas, which was fortunate. Being able to consume anything at all was most certainly a plus. To be fair, if the water there was enough, saliva likely would too, and that was a can of worms that Wilbur didn’t have the brain power to consider even the hypothetical of.

Once Wilbur had devoured the entire melon, he felt just a little more at ease. He felt less dizzy, and his body and mind seemed more connected than before.

While the throbbing in his head had ended, he noticed the pain in his leg. He closed his eyes for a small moment as he tried to think of a solution. He did all the medical treatment he really could at this stage. He fiddled with the rind of one of the melons before he realized he could make a potion of instant health.

Attempting to start a drug empire turned out to be helpful after all. 

He ran through the materials he needed in his head. Netherwart, blaze power, and a glistening melon. He stood up but his vision swarmed with black spots for a few moments. His stable leg shook as he leaned against the wall. It stopped seconds later, but he was filled with exhaustion that told him to forget about the potion.

Yet, he hopped to a chest near the farm. It wasn’t far away, but the action by itself seemed laborious. He shuffled through it, but found nothing of use. He hopped over to the stairs, quickly grabbing two nether warts from the farm before he started going up.

It was a long process, but he eventually made it up the stairs. He took a shaky breath as Ghostbur chimed in, “We’re still in the bunker right?”

Wilbur nodded, “Yeah, back up the stairs.”

“So are we doing more reading?” A slight boredom filled Ghostbur’s voice, but Wilbur couldn’t tell if it just arrived or if it had been there for the whole day.

Wilbur hopped to Tubbo’s chest before leaning against the wall once more. “Makin’ potions.”

Ghostbur softly gasped, “Oh, I’ve never done that before! I saw Phil and Techie doing it once though.”

“Sounds neat,” Wilbur responded, half-paying attention while looking through the chest. He pushed around some of the items in there before finding three blaze rods with a few stacks of cobblestone shuffled around. He spotted the crafting table next to the chest and he quickly melded the items together into a brewing stand. He held the brewing stand normally as he put the spare blaze rods in his coat pocket. 

He closed the chest and opened the one next to it. Twenty iron ore, random concrete blocks, and miscellaneous mob drops. He was about to close it when he saw a yellow shine under some rotten flesh. Wilbur let out an exhale of relief, “We’ve got all the stuff we need.”

Ghostbur excitedly clapped, “How do you make potions?”

Wilbur put the brewing stand down on the crafting table. “Well, you start with oh fu- n! Fun, fun, yes.” He didn’t know why he censored the swear in front of Ghostbur, but it somehow felt better than letting out a curse. “I forgot the glass bottles.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun.”

Wilbur let out a dry chuckle, “You’re right.” Wilbur thought for a moment, “There might be some in the chest next to that cauldron.” His eyes ran over the cauldron that he didn’t even know was filled or not. He pursed his lips. His uninjured leg was shaking slightly, but he didn’t exactly have another option. Well- he could always suffer. Yet that would mean the suffering of Ghostbur as well. 

He didn’t exactly care about the ghost, but he generally preferred not hearing his pleas. He quickly hopped over to the cauldron, only to collapse at the wall behind it. He closed his eyes tightly, wishing to any possible deity out there that there was water in the iron container. 

He swung his hand inside the cauldron, not daring to look inside, as if the water would disappear if he did. He felt water about half-way into the swing as he smiled. However, the instant he did that, he heard a cry of agony in his mind that instantly made him open his eyes and recoil, immediately taking his hand out of the water. “Ghostbur what’s-” Ghostbur’s previous words ran through his mind quicker than he could even process them.

It- Water burns me. I’m sorry I just didn’t expect it.

As regret plagued his mind, Ghostbur’s whimpers followed alongside them. The whimpers that reminded him of his agreement with the ghost.

W-warn me next time?

Sure.

Although he hadn’t intended to hurt Ghostbur, guilt overtook him. “Ghostbur, I-” forgot about the really important thing that hurts you if I forget! I just don’t care about you at all!

The familiar cynicism made him externally cringe. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I- I know. It- it hurts, Wil.”

Wilbur somberly nodded, “I know, I can’t do anything about it right now.” Wilbur hated how pathetic his words sounded.

Ghostbur’s typical pleas filled his mind before the pattern was interrupted, “C- could you dry it off?” It took a second for Wilbur to realize what the ghost was saying with the sobs intertwined in the shaky words. But as soon as he deciphered it, he immediately took his hand to his pants, rubbing it to make sure most of the water was off.

It didn’t take long for all of the water to be gone as he hesitantly spoke, “How does it feel now?”

“Better than before.”

Wilbur weakly pulled his body up against the wall. He opened the chest next to him to find it was full of glass bottles. He grabbed three of them out as he closed the chest and put the brewing stand on top. He tried to fill the bottles up in the cauldron, but found that his usual method involved dunking his whole hand into the water. 

He attempted to just tip the bottle so more water would enter, but upon pulling the glass bottle back up, he sighed. He knew from his early days that you needed a certain amount of water in order for the potion to properly work. Too much water made the solution diluted, causing the effect to be much more muted than it should be. Too little water made your body feel off the rest of the day, assuming the potion even works in the first place.

“Ghostbur?” He felt an odd pressure on his chest as he imagined the ghost’s whispers from before.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve… I’ve gotta dunk my hand in water again.” He could feel the ghost recoil.

“Alright,” Ghostbur took a shaky breath. “Make it quick if you can.”

“I will.” Wilbur exhaled slowly himself. Although it wouldn’t hurt Wilbur, he felt a sense of unease as he quickly dipped his hand in the water. A muffled groan echoed in his mind. He looked towards the other empty bottles in his hand as he slightly frowned.

“Ghostie, I won’t make you do anything, but I’ve gotta ask you something.” Wilbur didn’t wait for a response as he continued, “The pain you felt was from me filling up one bottle. I could just brew with this bottle and drink the potion.” Wilbur momentarily closed his eyes as the words on his tongue tasted bitter to him, “Or I can fill up the other two bottles in case of emergencies. I won’t pressure you for either option but-”

“Wilbur, I know I should choose the extra two bottles.”

Wilbur cringed at the truth. “I mean- you don’t really have to choose that option. We could just start brewing if you’d like.”

Ghostbur sighed, “I can take it.”

Wilbur despised the words, but he responded, “Alright, my hand is going in.” He quickly filled both of the bottles, trying to ignore the muffled scream that ringed in his mind.

He forced himself to block it out as he turned back to the brewing stand, filling it with the three full bottles as Ghostbur’s noises died down. He rubbed his hand on his pants before taking the nether wart he had and putting it in at the top. Only silence greeted his ears as he remembered he needed some blaze powder to power the machine overall. 

He crushed the blaze rod with ease, putting it in as the rest of the process seemed automated to him. He barely processed his movements as he soon watched as the mixture turned into a bright red, He took the glass bottle away from the stand, as he swirled the liquid around, watching it carefully. It was almost hypnotic. He held the bottle to his lips and took a deep breath. “I… I’m going to drink a health potion for my leg.” He bit his lip, “It might hurt a bit.”

“Oh.” Ghostbur said, his voice sounded a little quiet, “Okay, I’m ready.”

Wilbur nodded even if the ghost couldn’t see him, and took a large sip from the bottle. He kept drinking, not removing the bottle from his lips. His throat was burning at the sensation. He closed his eyes tightly, feeling the pain spread through his body, as if the headache from before had decided to pound in his leg instead of his head. His blood felt as if it had momentarily been replaced by the burning potion, removing his attention from anything but it. He tried to breathe his way through it, each breath coming through as a quick hiss.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, before the pain transitioned into a comforting warmth. He opened his eyes again, trying to step down on his leg. The pain had decreased significantly. He let out a relieved breath, and gave an accomplished smile. “It’s much easier to walk now,” he said.

“Is your leg better?” Ghostbur asked hopefully, “Are you going to leave the bunker soon?”

Wilbur frowned. He shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “The leg could still use some time to heal and…” he looked at the bookshelves above, “There might still be some information we can use here.”

“Right.” Ghostbur said, suddenly sounding determined, “That makes sense.”

Wilbur tried to chuckle, though it came out so silently and breathlessly, that it was hardly a noise at all. He took a step on his much more useful leg, feeling relieved as he could walk more or less without limping. He walked to some chests he hadn’t looked at yet, and rummaged through them. If he was planning on staying in the bunker for longer, it would be optimal to know what supplies he had available to him. He was reminded of his exile, before Pogtopia was built, as he and Tommy assessed their remaining supplies, to figure out what they had to work with. His heart became just a little heavier at the thought, and he decided to put the thought away, for as long as he could.

Among the most noteworthy items he found was a clock at the bottom of one of the chests. It looked old, as if someone had forgotten they’d put it there in the first place. Wilbur picked it up, inspecting each side of it. The hands of the clock moved ahead each second, making a rhythmic little ‘tick’ at each step. The sound was comforting to him somehow, ringing through the silence of the solitary bunker.

It read 5am.

It took Wilbur a few moments to figure out if the clock was functional and accurate, though he eventually concluded that it was highly probable. He wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, nor for how long, but at least this would let him keep track of the now. Slowly, he walked up the stairs again, much more successfully this time.

As he reached the bookshelves, he stopped, staring at the nearest empty wall. There was a faint ticking from the clock in his hands, and he felt as if he was staring into nothingness. Staring at a silent wall. A half-bent nail was firmly placed on it. Gently, Wilbur placed the clock on it, until it was hanging there safely. He sat down on the chair, and allowed his eyes to close, as he centered his mind. He had a goal in mind, and as soon as possible, a plan would be shaped from the muddled thoughts.

It was time to get to work.

#dream smp #dsmp #c!wilbur #ghostbur #ghostbur angst #dream smp fic #c!wilbur soot #the revived #revivebur

[thewayshedreamed]

This Time— Part 6

A Nessian Fan Fic

Fic Masterlist

This chapter offers some additional insight into Nesta’s thought process and sheds a little light on the ongoing process her emotional development has become. I hope it comes through!

This is somewhat of a “building” chapter so that we can get Nessian to the crest, so to speak. Part 7 is already written and only needs some editing, so it’s possible that I’ll be doing a double update today ☺️ They certainly have a lot to discuss, and once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. 😂 Anyway, enough of me. Enjoy!

Links to the previous parts:

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 ||

Warnings for grief related to the loss of a parent and some strong language.

——————————————————————————

Around 11:00 PM, Nesta decided she couldn’t be alone with her thoughts anymore. She was ruminating on similar memories and effectively raking herself over the coals. Although she knew any one of her friends would be there for her no matter the time of day, she picked up her phone to call the one she knew would most likely be awake at this hour.

“Hello?” Azriel’s raspy voice came through the phone.

“Were you asleep?! Since when do you go to bed early?” Her surprise was obvious by her tone. What the hell? He’s never in bed before midnight.

“Nes. Always a pleasure.” Azriel breathed a chuckle into the phone. “I usually wouldn’t be. I’m.. umm.. at a friend’s house tonight.”

Nesta gasped and dropped her voice. “Oh my gods. Az, were you on a date?! Am I interrupting?” She clapped her free hand over her forehead. “I’m the worst. I’m sorry.”

Another chuckle from Azriel. “You don’t have to whisper, you know. She can’t hear you. You’re not interrupting anything. I was asleep when you called, but I’m out on the couch now. What’s up?”

”If you were asleep, then that counts as interrupting! Are you sure?”

”Yes. Just, maybe the short version?” His tone was tentative, almost as if he felt guilty asking her to keep it concise at 11 PM. No one truly deserved Azriel as their friend.

“I can do that. So, here it is. I’ll save you the long, tedious trip through my brain.” She paused for half a second to take a breath. “I’m in love with Cassian.” She let out a quiet groan for effect.

”Mhmm...” The lilting of his voice implied that he was waiting for something like the punchline of a joke; the unknown part of her statement.

Her breath caught. “I kind of expected more of a reaction.”

”Did you? I thought there was more to it.” He seemed entirely neutral in that grating way of his.

”How did you know?!” She asked, incredulously.

”You told me.”

“Mm.. I don’t think so. When?” Now she was actually confused. Did she make some kind of drunken confession at Rita’s? She would remember having this revelation before now.

“At brunch. When we were driving home.”

”What are you talking about?!” Her voice was definitely higher pitched than it had been previously. She was anxious to hear his response, thinking he had surely dreamed this.

”Nesta. We were in my car, backing out of the parking lot. You asked me, ‘Why couldn’t we be the ones to fall in love?’ Or something along those lines. I thought that you were using some cryptic way of telling me because it implied two parties. Why do you think I hit the brakes so hard?” He seemed impatient, as if he was telling her the most obvious thing in the world.

“I thought maybe the question weirded you out! I didn’t even realize what I said, to be honest. How the actual fuck do you notice tiny things like that?” She didn’t wait on his response. He would know it was rhetorical. “Now my problem is this: I think he’s dating someone, so I’ve lost my chance.” She briefly told him what she had overheard the night of Elain’s birthday, her voice starting to crack toward the end.

”Hm. He hasn’t said anything to me about that, but I could see why he would wait being that you and I are close. But honestly, I don’t know that you could ever lose your chance with Cassian, Nes.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. She simply sat there, playing with the corner of her throw blanket and hoping he would continue. He seemed to sense her discomfort and started talking again.

“I think you’ll regret it if you don’t talk to him. But, if I can offer my opinion, maybe wait a little while so that you know you’re absolutely sure this is what you want. I don’t know how he would handle it if you decided it’s not what you want.”

She felt herself prickle with defensiveness. “I wouldn’t do that to him, Az. Of course I’m sure. It only took me an eternity to figure this shit out.”

Azriel responded in a soothing tone he so often used with her. “I know. But remember, you’re not the one he talks to about you. I’m just looking out for my brother. Maybe let it marinate, yeah?”

She knew his intentions were pure, and she couldn’t really blame him for being protective. Before she could respond, she heard a feminine voice in the background ask: “Az, everything okay?”

She heard him pull the phone away from his face to answer. “Oh, yeah. All good. It’s Nesta.”

Delayed by her scattered brain and the copious amount of wine, the identity of the voice finally hit her full force.

”IS THAT ELAIN?!” She sat up straighter as if it would allow her to hear them more readily.

She heard Azriel laugh, followed by a shuffling on the other end.

“Hello? Nesta? Everything okay?” Nesta could hear the genuine concern in her voice.

“Hey, El. Everything’s fine! Sorry to crash your date. It seems we have quite a bit to talk about. Very soon.”

It took Elain a couple of seconds to respond, and Nesta could hear the smile in her voice. “Yeah. I think we do. Someone told me I should just talk to him. Turns out that they were right.” She paused, waiting for an “I told you so” from Nesta. She didn’t have the energy. “You know you can talk to me about Cassian, too, right?”

Nesta shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’ve been leaning on Az since our fight, and I honestly haven’t had the energy to bring it up beyond that. But I do want to talk to you. And Feyre. It’s just been...hard.”

“I can imagine. It’s hard to remember a time before you and Cass. It’s like the end of an era or something. Just know that we’re here.” Her voice was soft, laced with worry and a desire to help her older sister.

”Maybe for now,” Nesta teased, “but you may not have much time to chat these days.”

She knew she was blatantly deflecting, but El’s words had caused tears to prick her eyes yet again. It’s hard to remember a time before you and Cass. She realized how true it was, and what upset her the most was that she knew she didn’t want to know a time without Cassian.

The call wrapped up with more gentle teasing between the sisters, and eventually, embarrassing Azriel a bit over speakerphone. She told them she loved them and promised to keep them updated on how she was feeling. Her heart felt lighter once she finally ended the call, thanks to the laughter they managed to pull from her.

——————————————————————————

Christine Archeron’s death anniversary fell on a Tuesday that year, and Nesta awoke with a similar irritation as last year— death anniversaries should never fall on weekdays. She went through the familiar motions as any other morning, headed to work, and concentrated on her various tasks she was expected to juggle at any given time. As appearances went, it looked like any other ordinary day to those around her, so the extra heaviness remained hers alone to carry.

On her lunch break, she got a chance to pull her phone to check her messages and mindlessly scroll through social media. She had been focused on scrolling for so long that her phone took her by surprise when it vibrated in her hand. She tapped the notification by reflex and found herself studying the sender’s name as if it was some sort of mistake.

Cassian: Thinking about you today. I know it’s a rough one. Keep your head up. Christine would have it no other way ❤️

Nesta read the text several times in a row; just to make sure it was real. It had been so long since he’d contacted her intentionally, and it made her happy that he still thought to reach out today. It simultaneously made her a little sad; however, because it was yet another reminder of what she’d lost in him. That was an issue to deal with later.

Nesta: Of course you are, because you’re the perfect human, and I don’t deserve you. Thanks, Cass 💕 Means the world to me to hear from you. Mom really loved you, and I know she would appreciate you looking out for us.

She hesitated over the send button for several seconds before deciding to go through with it. It felt so weird to intentionally script any type of message to him being that they had spent most of their relationship entirely uncensored. Everything about it felt wrong— she couldn’t act natural with him because it wasn’t appropriate anymore, yet she didn’t feel right having to draft and redraft their communication. It was all so fucked, and she was tired of this odd limbo they stayed in.

She reflected on her conversation with Azriel and Elain on the night she had unintentionally crashed their date. She knew that they both held strong points about her situation and wouldn’t advise her to try to repair things if they knew it was a lost cause. She acknowledged that Azriel, specifically, knew more than he was at liberty to tell her. That being the case, she decided that was evidence in favor of hashing things out with Cassian. It wasn’t long before she was lost in her own thoughts, her food entirely forgotten.

I’ve spent my entire life trying to ensure I didn’t need anyone. I never wanted to depend heavily on another person in a way that I couldn’t manage on my own. But that’s not really the case anyway, right? I’ve managed fine these few weeks, but that’s the thing. I’ve managed. Why do I try to insist that’s enough for me?

But what if the door is closed? What if this was Cassian’s final push, and he’s gone? I don’t know Alis, and she could be wonderful. She probably appreciates the shit out of him and saw immediately that he’s not the average person. She probably knows how special he is. She probably beams anytime he enters a room and tries to take care of his heart in any way she can. She’s probably fucking delightful.

But does that really compete with history? I guess if that history is filled with turmoil, it could. She’ll never know the Cassian that was a freshman in high school— braces and curly hair, still a head taller than most of the other boys in class. She won’t remember how he hit his second growth spurt the summer after sophomore year, where he started to fill out and caught the attention of any girl with a pulse. She doesn’t know what it’s like when he’s truly angry with his dad and the world. She doesn’t know the full range of his eclectic music tastes or the guilty pleasures he sings depending on his mood. She didn’t do the leg work to reconcile the tough, intimidating exterior when he gets upset with the gentle soul beneath. There’s no way she knows when his humor and his laughter are distractions from his pain rather than when they’re genuine. She can’t love him like I do. Im-fucking-possible.

She was pulled abruptly out of her head, and incredible jealousy, by her alarm. It was time to go back to work and finish out the day, and she hoped it passed as quickly as possible. She silently chastised herself for piling this emotional time bomb on today of all days as she threw away her lunch and walked out of the break room.

So much for leaving this issue for later.

She resolved to put all of these thoughts back into their little box until she had the emotional energy to open the lid once again. Whenever the hell that would be.

——————————————————————————

The rest of the day zoomed by at a blissful pace, thank the gods. In fact, when Nesta glanced at the clock, she realized it was several minutes after 5:00 PM. She clocked out, grabbed her things, and climbed into her car. She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself to make the drive out to the cemetery. She wasn’t sure what time Elain had been able to go by, but Nesta had agreed to meet Feyre at 5:30 to pay their respects. It was becoming a standing tradition, where they would make their short visit whenever they could during the day and follow with dinner together as a family.

She made it with a few minutes to spare, so she took that time to sit with her mom one-on-one. She gave her a brief update on her life, told her how much she loved and missed her, and gently brushed any leaves or grass clippings off of her headstone. There were fresh flowers in her vase, something she noted each year on her death anniversary. Any other time of year, they kept seasonally appropriate faux flowers to make sure her site was properly decorated. She made a mental note to offer to contribute to the fresh arrangement in the years following when she saw her family at dinner. They were always taken care of before she made it out to the cemetery, and she didn’t want to risk forgetting for the next year. She leaned into the arrangement, taking in the various floral scents emanating from the blooms in the bouquet. There was a myriad of vivid colors, wildflowers throughout, and Nesta loved how true to her mother’s spirit they were.

She turned when she heard car doors and saw Feyre approaching with Rhysand. She stood, extending an arm out to her baby sister, who accepted it readily and rested her head on her shoulder. They wrapped their arms around each other, and Rhysand stood nearby, resting his hand on Feyre’s opposite shoulder. They stood together for several minutes until Nesta excused herself to allow Feyre some time alone with their mom as well.

She drove to her father’s house where she found Elain already setting the table for dinner. They worked together quietly, making sure they had plenty of place settings for everyone. Azriel offered his help to carry various dishes of food to the dining table and took his seat next to Elain once it was all settled. Almost as if on cue, Feyre and Rhysand walked into the house and took their seats as well. The dinner started off quiet considering the somber mood, but Feyre was the first to break the tension when she started to tell stories from their childhood. In a matter of moments, their home was filled with animated story telling and loud bouts of laughter, and Nesta couldn’t think of a better way to honor her mom’s love of life.

As everyone finished up, she suddenly remembered her mental note from earlier. She waited for a natural lull in conversation, then commented softly, “Mom’s flowers were beautiful, you guys. You did an amazing job.”

”They were really perfect. They couldn’t have been more ‘Christine’ if you tried,” Feyre remarked.

“Elain, Dad. I’m not sure which of you took care of them this year, but would you let me take care of next time? I haven’t contributed since she passed, and I’d really like to.”

Mr. Archeron softly shook his head back and forth, communicating to Nesta that it hadn’t been him. Nesta adjusted her gaze to Elain who looked just as confused.

“Oh. Nes, I assumed it was one of you. I didn’t... I didn’t order them. I wished I had.” She looked down at her hands, and Azriel placed a supportive arm across the back of her chair.

“Okay... so who did?” She glanced around the table from person to person, but no one took any credit. It was Rhys who spoke up first, clearing his throat to master his voice.

“You don’t know?”

”Obviously.” She looked to Feyre for support. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Feyre said nothing, watching Rhysand talk with rapt attention.

When he spoke again, it was cautious, as if his words may startle her. “Nesta. The flowers are from Cassian. He’s done them every year since Mrs. Christine died.”

She was suddenly short of breath. Everyone’s attention snapped to Rhys, including her father’s. Her sisters and Azriel were looking at Rhysand with stunned expressions, their eyes flicking to her face occasionally.

“What? How could you know— why would you know, when we don’t? What the fuck is going on?” She was falling over her own words, struggling to form any cohesive thought.

”I’m so sorry,” Rhysand glanced around the room for the first time, realizing he had everyone’s attention. “The only reason I knew was because he asked me to make sure they made it from the flower shop to her gravesite the year he had knee surgery. He asked me to keep it to myself then, but I figured by now he would have said something to at least one other person.” He looked down into his plate, various emotions playing over his handsome face. Feyre leaned over to comfort him, knowing he was likely embarrassed to be the reason the air had changed so dramatically.

Nesta’s head was swimming, emotions roiling from a million different directions. She knew anger was cheap and unfair, but she pulled on that tether as hard as she could to make sure she could navigate everything she was processing. She was on her feet suddenly, pushing her chair away from the table and walking toward her keys.

“I have to go.” She couldn’t be in here anymore. The room was too small, the walls were too close. Too many people. She picked up the pace, flinging the door open and shutting it hard behind her. She was down the porch steps when she heard the door open again. Azriel’s voice followed her.

”Nesta. Where are you going? Nesta, stop!” He had jogged lightly to catch up with her, and he tugged her gently by the wrist to stop her. She spun on him quickly, eyes flaring and brimming with tears.

“Anywhere but here! What the fuck was that, Az?”

He said nothing; looked down at his own feet as he shook his head.

“Cassian has some fucking nerve, you know that? Why is he insisting upon himself?” Her voice was lowered and had taken on an almost eerie quality; the calm before the proverbial storm.

“Nes, I don’t think he meant to upset you. It sounds like it’s something he’s made somewhat of a tradition. Maybe he just wanted to be sure and see it through.”

”He doesn’t get to do that anymore, Azriel. He doesn’t get to butt-dial me while he makes date plans with some girl, then turn around and send flowers to my dead mother. What am I supposed to think about that? And how would that make his girlfriend feel?” Azriel pulled her into a hug at that, resting his chin on top of her head. He didn’t answer her. There was nothing to say.

She pulled away from him, gripping her keys, and walked toward her car. “I’m out. Tell them I love them, and I’ll call tomorrow.” She nodded her chin toward the house, climbed into her car, and backed out of the driveway.

——————————————————————————

She wasn’t sure how long she’d driven before she found herself in his driveway. She knew it hadn’t been very long considering the sun was still clinging to the end of the day. She honestly didn’t remember making the conscious decision to come here, likely fueled by anger and muscle memory more than anything else. She was still so frustrated at her situation, her emotions spilling over and refusing to be put into that stupid fucking box anymore. The worst part was that, as mad as she was with him, she so badly wanted to see him. She wished the circumstances were less complicated so that she could knock, ask for a hug and some tea, and lay on his couch. They were a hell of a long way from those people now.

She loosed a breath, puffing her cheeks with air and exhaling slowly. Just before she peeled her head from the headrest to get out, his front door opened. He opened it most of the way, then leaned against the door jamb on his shoulder. He had his hands in the pockets of his sweats and one of his ankles crossed casually over the other. For a moment, she only looked at him, unable to move or offer any type of acknowledgement. She took in the charcoal henley he was wearing, unbuttoned save for the very last one. The small flap of the opening leaned to the side, revealing the base of his neck and the beginning of his tattoos. He looked so very Cassian, casual and laid-back, that she struggled to keep her emotions level at the mere sight of him. His hair was down, looking like he had just run his fingers through it with its deep part and how it fell haphazardly around his face. He was wearing his reading glasses, she noticed, the thick frames highlighting the sharp angle of his cheekbones and the wide set of his jaw. He gave her a soft smile, and cocked his head to the side and back in invitation. She could almost hear him gently telling her to “get in here”.

Too late to turn back now.

——————————————————————————

A/N: Alrighty, hope y’all enjoyed this chapter, even with minimal Nessian. The next chapter(s) will more than make up for it, though! I’m hoping to have max Nessian to y’all ASAP. A million thanks to all of you who continue to follow this au. Your comments/ feedback have meant the world to me!

If you’d like to be tagged, feel free to comment, reblog, or send a message! I’d be happy to add you to the list. If I’ve accidentally left you off or there are issues with your tag, let me know, and I’ll look into it! Comments and constructive criticism are welcome (even encouraged)!

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@polireader // @lord-douglas-the-third // @justgiu12 // @notyournymphetish // @sjm-things // @strangeenemy // @iammissstark // @keshavomit // @sjmships // @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks // @dusty-lightbulb // @texas-shaped-waffle-maker // @julemmaes // @charincharge // @superspiritfestival // @awesomelena555 // @sleeping-and-books // @hizqueen4life // @maastrash // @bookstantrash // @rhyswhitethorn // @grace-k-sterling // @sayosdreams // @sis-it-dont-add-up // @ladywitchling // @b00kworm // @courtofjurdan

#nessian #nesta archeron #nesta x cassian #nesta #cassian #acotar #nessian au #nessian fwb #nessian angst #nessian fanfic #acowar #acomaf #archeron sisters #acotar fanfic #sjm #sarah j maas

[pigeonxp]

YGCMA songs and how they relate to c!Wilbur based off of yesterday’s lore (in my biased opinion)

This is so dumb and i literally don’t care. I can’t think about anything else other than doing this synopsis even tho like 28480329204 other people are going to do it. idc. 

(I listened to the songs earlier, and i’m also listening to them as i write the opinions. these are basically just my thoughts while listening tbh. im also not doing the full song, just some things i feel relate within each song)

- Jubilee Line

the lines at the beginning of the song, “hate to see you leaving / a fate worse than dying” could relate to how wilbur feels after tommy gets pulled back into the overworld. or, he could be referencing L’Manburg and how he hates to see his country leaving him (ouch). 

then we have the lines “your city gave me asthma / so thats why im fucking leaving / and your water gave me cancer / and the pavements hurt my feelings”. This could be in relation to L’Manburg as a whole. He put everything he had into L’Manburg and it only ended up hurting him in the end. yikes. 

now we have “shout at the wall / ‘cause the walls dont fucking love you” repeated. This could be in reference to when he said he was fucking kicking and screaming to get out of the train station. hes screaming and he doesnt care because it doesnt matter to him. it doesnt love him just like how the people of L’Manburg didnt love him. wilbur get therapy challenge.

so based on the lore from yesterday, we know that c!wilbur’s limbo was a train station (props to fanartists. i love you.), presumably the YCGMA album cover type deal. when he sings “Theres a reason / that London puts barriers on the tube line / theres a reason / that London puts barriers on the rails” repeated. if the train station looks like how they do on the album cover, there could be barriers where he is. maybe hes trying his best to just kill himself over again by jumping onto the tracks. just in an attempt to escape. jfc 

“theres a reason they fail”. he was still in the train station, wasnt he?

- Saline Solution

for this one, i feel like hes pretty far into the void and regretting his decision to have phil kill him. hes tired of being in a fucking train station for years on end. 

“i think this time im dying / im not melodramatic / im just pragmatic beyond any / reasoning for thinking ive got / fuckin rabies or something.” hes so fucking sick of being in this goddamn train station and he thinks hes dying. hes so pent up and sick of being there, maybe hes just in so much pain that he feels like hes dying. if hes been there for a while, hes probably bound to go crazy at some point, hence the “pragmatic beyond any reasoning.”

“I think ive lost my mind / blurring the fact and the fictions” this feels like he really does believe hes going crazy and is mixing up the things he really knows and the things his mind is creating for him. maybe this is when tommy first arrived and he cant tell if he real or not (thats a stretch but i figured id share it anyway.)

“I think ive made my choice / im a deceased playing victim / slip the face, slip the victory” he quite literally says that hes a deceased playing victim. hes literally saying hes dead HAHHAHAH anyway. maybe hes blaming himself again, because us c!wilbur apologists all know that hes very good at doing that.

“Sit secluded in hatred /.../” hes sitting in a fucking train station for god knows how long beating himself up over and over again and just hating himself. hes all alone. with himself. someone he fucking loathes.

this is honestly all i have for Saline Solution, but i will definitely add more later if i get different theories. 

- Since I Saw Vienna

This is my favorite song on the album and my comfort song so that could factor into this bit ahaha

im going to skip through this one a little bit and go to the line “The roads are my home, horizons my target / if i keep on moving, never lose sight of it / treating my memory of you like a fire, let it / burn out, don’t fight it, try to move on” this sounds like hes reminiscing on his home in L’Manburg and his presidency was something he relied on and he would fight to get it back, but now that hes dead and said that it should remain that way that he should just let it go. trying to move on from his symphony, forever unfinished. 

 “its been sixty weeks since i saw vienna / a bandage and a wide smile slapped across my face / ill pick up my hiking boots when i am ready / and ill put down my roots when im dead.” THESE LINES FUCK ME UP IN GENERAL BUT HOW THEY RELATE TO C!WILBUR RN IS JUST SUIBHYSBUSHDXNSKJDNHBD YK???? in the context that vienna is L’Manburg and he died, its saying that its been a long ass time since hes seen it and hes faking being okay about his death. he misses it but doesnt want to admit it. the picking up the hiking boots when hes ready is him moving on from his L’Manburg, and putting his roots down when hes dead is finally being okay with not living there/being an important part of it. he believed his death was the best for the people in L’Manburg and L’Manburg itself. it seems like hes still trying to convince himself. 

“Ill be gone then, for when you must be alone.” hes gone. hes dead. hes in the train station. he left the L’Manburgians alone and hes alone in his limbo. man. 

- Losing Face

this song is angry. hes so fucking angry. my thoughts are that this is about the following presidents after him. he feels like the L’Manburgians were happier without him and im pretty sure he believed that even when Schlatt was president. this is so evident in the lyric “Is he better than me?” Hes literally asking if the other presidents were better than he was. he doesnt believe he did everything he could to be the best president, even though we all know that he gave everything that he was into that country and then some. he broke himself for the L’Manburg but he doesnt believe hes enough. sheesh.

“Ive seen him / ive been him / ive felt the same way” even though he cant see the new presidents being president, he knows what its like. he knows that they might break under the pressure. hes been there. he knows how if feels. yikes. 

“Ive lost all meaning / ive lost my sense of hope” this feels like when he was nearing the end of L’Manburg when he blew it up, and that he feels like trying to win it back is pointless. he has no hope for it anymore, so why not give up? his mental state is already shit yk so i cant really blame him for feeling that way. 

“i dont care / i want you here / as long as youre happy, i dont care” this line. this fucking line. hes lost hope in being president, but he doesnt care. he just wants the L’Manburgians to be happy. that was his whole thought process while he was president. he didnt matter to himself, he just wanted them to be happy. he sacrificed his mental state for them. cries in wilbur apologist.

- Your Sister Was Right

this is my second favorite song on the album i think HAHAHAH

anyway

“I use everyone i ever meet / i cant find the perfect match / abuse those i love / while i ostracize the ones who love me / back.” wowie wow wow fucking ouchie. He feels like he uses his friends. this whole thing is a projection of his shit ass mental state rn fucking hell. he feels like hes abusive. thats what everyones been telling him. they tell him he was awful and a shit president and all that jazz even though hes been killing himself trying to be the best for them but its still not enough (pigeon projecting? more likely than you think)

“every time that i miss you / i feel the way you hurt / and i dont deserve you / you deserve the world / though it feels like we were built / from the same dirt.” man. hes dead lol. he misses the L’Manburgians. not only were they his supporters, but they were all his friends too. every time he misses his friends he feels their pain of when he first blew up L’Manburg. he feels like because he caused them all pain that they dont like him and that they never liked him and that he is undeserving of their friendship. he still wants to be friends with them. he still loves them. he still wants the best for them. he thinks theyre so much better than him even though they all created L’Manburg together. in reality they are all the same, but their actions impact each other and he feels that his actions make him worse than them or less than. fuckisonmdfnpbhife

“and i hate to say it / but your sister was right / dont trust english boys / with far too much free time” sister is dream mayhaps. fuckngeionsfjg that hurt sorry uhhh anyway yeah sister is dream?? he did say that wilbur would be a shit president and he believes that hes a shit president so he thinks they were all right about him being a shit president  fbhjebinfnejg. maybe sister is just everyone who didnt believe in wilbur. man....

“a fucking waste of time” do i even need to explain this one? he fr doesnt belive hes worth it anymore and that hes literally a waste of time. hjkfbhnfve

- La Jolla

this one feels pretty far into train station limbo to me as well. namely from “and im lonely / there i said it” this could either be him being lonely as president and feeling like he doesnt have anyone to talk to really because hes too busy trying to hold himself together for everyone. either that or hes lonely in the station and didnt want to admit it because this is what he wanted. he wanted to die. he wanted to be dead because he believed thats what everyone else wanted and he just wanted the best for them. 

“i could go away / i could pack my things and be gone before you wake” he could leave if they asked him to. he would do anything for them. 

“you know ive tried hard to love me too / it always seems to fall in, through” this line already physically pained me but now it hurts even more having to relate it to a character i love. we already know that his mental state was declining as his presidency continued, but this would confirm that hes just trying to love himself even though he can never seem to get it right. 

“my own personal sunset” this is just the ‘this is my sunrise’ line but different. my man misses the sun. fuck. 

- I’m Sorry Boris

this song is almost definitely from a long ass time in the limbo. 

“and im sorry / but, boris / im leaving / im not good for anyone here” boris represents L’Manburgians!! hes talking about how hes leaving the world by planning on killing himself. fuck. 

“we reached the end of a decade” mans been dead for a decade. sheesh. 

he then goes on to say that he cant believe hes leaving, he doesnt think he wants to leave them, but he thinks its whats best for them.

he talks about how they do all of these bullshit things before helping you and i know its in reference to london but for the sake of my sanity its about the presidency role and how it will fuck you up before bothering to help you not want to kill yourself.  

should i do a separate post about how i visualized it/about how i thought about the song in paragraph form like a lowkey explanation? idk how to explain it but in this one i wanted to just cover some of the lyrics of the songs and my thoughts on them. i think c!wilbur wrote these in the limbo after he died. i know this is also shit and Not Good, but i really just needed to get my thoughts out before it killed me. i also didnt reread this. its probably repetitive and shit yk. i do Not Care. id also love to hear thoughts on this if yall want to. if you made it this far i love you please hydrate and eat today and youre so sexy ahaha 

“and even though im finished / im not quite done with it” even though hes finishing his symphony by blowing it up, hes now realizing he wished he hadnt blown it up and that he hadnt killed himself. man. 

-

#tw death #tw suicide #wilbur soot #ycgma #dream smp #tommyinnit #dream #c!wilbur #fuck i love this album

[euphoricdr3ams]

1:47 AM

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Jennie x Female Reader

Word Count: 2,472

Part: 1

Something was off. You couldn’t put your finger on it but something had definitely changed. She no longer responded to your messages within minutes. She’d give excuses when you asked to Facetime. She worked late into the night. Your mind raced, trying not to jump to conclusions. Your mind flashed back to all of her affirmations of love. 

I love you...

I’ll never leave you…

You’re my soulmate...

You held onto those words, praying that the next time you met that she’d have an explanation for her behavior. The history between you two goes way back. You were her first relationship, her first love. You watched her grow into the headstrong idol she is today.

Though she was busy pursuing her dreams, she always made time for you. She’d cancel on her members and stay up late hours on the phone with you. She’d sneak out to just get boba in the middle of the night. The rare moments where you felt broken she was always there. The times where she couldn’t be she sent all of your favourite things: cookies, stuffed animals and the occasional Tiffany bracelet. You hated when she spent all her money on you but she was insistent on spoiling you and treating you like a princess. 

The more you reminisce on the past, the more you realized how beautiful the past three years had been. From what you thought was only going to be one night stand turned into a full three year relationship hidden from the cameras. No one could have predicted you’d both ended up here. When it finally happened, you were both in a state of bliss. A cheesy confession after a passionate session of love making. Could you two get any more stereotypical. You were the first to make the move to something deeper. It took her time but eventually Jennie allowed herself to feel love. After all of the struggle you had been through individually and as a couple, There was nothing that could have broken you apart. 

This made Jennie's recent actions over the past few weeks even more odd.  You laid on your bed confused. Why the sudden change? The one person who you would turn to wasn’t available yet posted about a new endorsement on Instagram. You slammed your Macbook closed in frustration—a gift she gave you. 

“What the fuck?” you screamed as you stared at the ceiling.  

“Hey, Let's talk it out now.” You almost forgot you had your friend listening to you on speaker phone nearby. You were so used to just speaking with no one around. “Have you tried to contact her members? What about Nayeon or Yeri? 

“They all are being just as shady as she is. But can I really be mad at them? Even if she’s cheating, why would they tell me? They’re her friends before they’re mine anyway...” 

You held back tears as you spoke the possibility of your girlfriend cheating into existence. 

“Have you tried reaching out to Kai?” 

Kim Jongin. Kai. The Dance King of one of the most popular kpop groups ever. He had drop dead gorgeous looks and public approval that you couldn’t compete with. You hated the idea when it was first brought up by YG. your mind thought back to that horrible day.

3 Months Ago

Jennie shuffled in the bed, disrupting the peaceful after-sex nap. She wore you out with all the toys, teasing, and overstimulation earlier. 

“Princess,” she purred in your ear. You already knew where this was heading. “I know you’re not sleeping.” 

“Well, I’m not now,” you said in your whiny voice. She always liked it when you whined a little. 

“Good,” she said. “Come look at me. I have to tell you something.” Slick fingers wrapped around your waist as you shifted under the duvet so you looked her in her eyes. You were greeted with a face full of concern. She looked distressed. Jennie bit her lip in nervousness. She knew what she was about to reveal would be a big blow to your relationship and put it to the test. You saw how hard it was for her to speak. 

“It’s okay,” you said, your heart beginning to race. “Take your time.”

“Please don’t freak out.” But it was too late for that; you were already freaking out. “YG thinks it's going to be a good idea for me to get into a scandal.” You continued to listen.”One that allows me to capitalize on internet rumors. They want me to start hanging out with Kai and then it will get revealed that I am dating him around the same time as my solo debut.” 

Your eyes widened. “What? Don’t they look at the internet? Why would YOU of ALL idols need to get into a dating scandal? They already dragged your name through the mud after what happened at the Lotte concert. Why would this be a good idea?” 

“After seeing the response from Hyuna and Dawn, they thought it would be good for me and Blackpink.” She played with the curls in your hair. “Plus, YG is trying to distract the media from something big that has been rumored to be going on with Big Bang and, you know, he always sacrifices us.” 

“Why are you trying to justify this? Jennie, this is a horrible idea. You’re just gonna let him do this to you? What if it backfires? Then what? What about me..?” Your emotions were starting to get the best of you as your voice began to shake. “How am I supposed to feel? You won't even tell your family about us. Now I'm just supposed to be cool while you spend what little free time you have with someone else?” 

You were tearing up. You didn't want to pressure her to come out but remaining in hiding was a huge deal for you. Your family all knew. Your friends knew. You wanted to shout to the world your love for her but you kept it secret, all for her sake. Now she was gonna be photographed and used like a tool to make YG richer. You had to let her know how you felt whether she was ready to hear it or not. 

You saw her face fall in real time. She already knew you were going to respond like this. There was nothing she could do. She was in a legal binding contract with YG Entertainment. Truth be told they decided all of this without her consent and had already finalized all of the non disclosure agreements before they even told her. 

“Y/N, I don't even want to do this at all. I don’t have a choice. I’m just trying to find a silver lining in a dark situation. The “relationship” has an expiration date and, trust me, I won’t leave him for you.” She kissed your forehead and pulled you into her arms. You laid there as she ran her fingers through your hair. You had no choice but to trust her and just pray and hope the situation between you and her would never change. 

You were brought back to reality, after recalling the frustrating memory. “I know the thought of Kai makes you feel a little insecure,” your friend said. 

“Don’t remind me…” 

“Y/N, if you feel this upset you’re going to have to ask her. You know Jennie can't hold up her act in front of you. Knowing is better than sitting around and wondering what’s going on,” she said. “Look I gotta get some sleep. It’s almost two in the morning. I’ll check on you tomorrow...and think about what I said.”

The line went dead and now you were left alone in the dark with your thoughts. You knew that your friend was right but you weren’t sure if you were ready for your questions to be answered. What if she was cheating? What were you going to do about it? How would you handle it? Were you prepared to leave all three years of memories behind?  

[1:47am] Jennie - Are you up right now? Can I come over? 

Seeing your phone light up with a notification from your girlfriend almost made you want to laugh. It was as if she knew that you were thinking of her, as if she had intercepted your negative thoughts of lies and cheating. 

[1:50am] I am. You can come over now if you want. I want to ask you something. 

[1:50 am] Jennie- I’ll be there in 20 mins. 

It was now or never. You got dressed, sporting your favorite pair of sweats and a T-shirt. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, worried about what came next. Anything could happen now. If things went well and everything was a figment of your imagination, it’d be over and the two of you would make love all night into the early hours of the morning. But if things went badly, you’d spend the rest of your night crying until you couldn’t cry anymore and burying yourself in a grave full of regret and doubt. Whatever the outcome, you told yourself, it was better than being stuck in a limbo of uncertainty. 

A sound at the door disrupted your thoughts. Jennie opened the front door, closing it shut behind her. She was wearing comfy clothes, probably coming straight from practice. Her demeanor was off, with a look of dejection plastered across her face. At the sight of her, your heart began pounding in your chest. She didn’t say anything until she put her coat down and grabbed a glass of water. 

The conversation started off with “Hey” and “How was your day?” The next four minutes were filled with small talk, awkward things that you never really talked about before. Her actions were off. She sat, closed off from you. Not once did she try to touch you. Not once did she try to kiss you. Not once did she say she loved you. Your mind already shifted into worst case scenario mode before she even opened her mouth. 

“Y/N, I loved you. I want you to know that.” She took a deep breath. Loved. Past tense. “I think It’s time for us to take a break.” 

“Why?” 

“I’ve been going through a lot after all of these scandals and the mounting pressure from YG and I don't want to keep being a bad girlfriend to you. You deserve better.” 

Every word that came from her mouth broke your heart into pieces. How could she suddenly feel this way? Why was there no emotion on her face? Why were there no signs of sadness or regret? What the fuck was the point of the past three years if she was willing to end it all without any sign of remorse. You couldn’t stand the silence and decided to speak, trying to keep your voice down. 

“Three Years. We’ve been together three years and that's all you’re gonna say? Seriously Jennie, be honest for once. I can see right through your bullshit. After all this time, why don’t you tell me the truth? Why have you been acting differently?Why haven’t you been answering my calls and taking your time to respond to texts? You don't stop by anymore and you don’t even want me to stop by the studio to bring you food. Why the sudden change?” 

You were so angry you hadn’t realized that you were screaming. 

Jennie sat there, stone faced and motionless. She knew the answer to all of your questions but couldn’t bring herself to crush you like that. She wanted this to end peacefully, to the point where you could still be friends. But she didn’t know if that was possible. Not after she betrayed you in the worst way. 

Back in Paris, she’d gone out for drinks with Kai. You’d both had too much and he flirted with you and you flirted back. She knew she was playing a dangerous line but the idea of playing with fire made her excited. One thing led to another and she crossed the line. She had sex with him, waking up in the middle of the night with her clothes scattered all over the hotel room. She quietly got dressed and left the room, ashamed of the mess she’d made. 

She cried in her own hotel room for the rest of the day, ignoring her phone and cutting off communication with everyone.  How could she be so selfish? Being drunk was never an excuse. She shouldn't have let herself go like that. She didn't deserve you. You needed someone who was gonna be strong, not a weakling who would betray their lover and jump in bed with the first man that flirted with them. 

Soon, she fell back into destructive habits. Everything was out of her control but the one thing she could control was her weight. She went into the bathroom and puked away all of her guilt. She was hoping that it would make all of the guilt and pain disappear but it didn’t. Kai was gorgeous and even though it would be easier, he wasn’t you. Truth be told, she had been denying the realities of her own sexual identity and that night confirmed it for her. She loved you and only you but she knew that you deserved better. She couldn't bring herself to break your heart. She treated you worse and worse, hoping one day you would get sick of her shit and leave but the day didn’t come. You were as loyal as a dog and would never leave her side. 

Currently, she was faced with the reality of continuing to lie or being honest with you. She chose honesty. “I fucked up. Y/N, I had sex with Kai.” Jennie burst into tears. “I’m so sorry” Jennie cried into her sweater. She couldn't even hold herself together, fearful of the best thing that ever happened to her would be walking out the door in a minute. 

You were motionless.The truth had come to the light and your worst fear was true. She’d lied to you, cheated on you, completely broken your trust… 

“For what it's worth, It was only one time,” Jennie explained, “and I was drunk. It’s not an excuse and I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise to you to be faithful. I know I'm full of shit. I couldn't handle the guilt and thought that if I pushed you away, it would help. But tonight I’m ready to be a woman and own up to my mistakes and let you know that I love you with all of my heart. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I’ll never ever betray you again. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to you that I love you and that we can get past this. But if you want to call it quits, I understand. Y/N, the decision is all yours now.” 

_________________________________________________

Hey Y’all, I finally came back to life and decided to give you a little something something while being trapped at home due to Miss Rona. Depending on how you all like this I will write a conclusion to this. Let me know what would you would do XOXO Admin YOLO 

#blackpink #blackpink lisa #blackpink jisoo #blackpink jennie #blackpink rose #Jennie Kim #Kim Jisoo #kim jennie #blackpink angst #lalisa manoban #lisa manoban #jennie angst #jennie smut #jennie #blackpink imagines #blackpink smut #blackpink drabbles #blackpink scenarios #blackpink fanfic #wlw #kpop girl groups #girl group reactions #girl group angst #girl group smut #yg entertainment #blackpink reactions #blackpink requests #Blackpink request #kpop angst #kpop smut

[kbstories]

Axiomatic

ax·i·om·at·ic (adj.)

Self-evident; unquestionable.

The best part of battle is the afterparty.

(Or: Remember that banquet Luffy promised? This is it.)

Tags: Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Partying

Set in Wano. Spoilers for all of Wano. Read Chapter 2 here.

***

“What do you think?”

Lipstick glides over thin lips, the wax malleable and smooth as it leaves a coat of rusty red in its wake. Killer makes sure it’s perfectly even before he glances elsewhere. In the mirror, Kidd’s face is all scowled impatience.

One last run-down – eyeliner, mascara, lipstick: done, done and done – then Killer grabs the mask waiting for him. “Alright, let me see.”

Their eyes meet and Killer sighs. Metal over skin-and-bone, Kidd’s arms are crossed; his shaved brows push together further. As if Killer doesn’t indulge his every whim by the regular.

“I’m looking. Show me again.”

Kidd grumbles, “Watch.” He opens his arms, reveals an unbuttoned shirt tucked into his favorite patterned pants, glinting gold over black under a double-belted cinch at the waist. So far, so very Kidd.

No, the point of discussion is the frankly massive coat slung across his neck: Nice soft-looking suede on the outside and glossy-grey fur on the inside, it hugs Kidd’s shoulders in all the right places to then cascade down his back in a display of near-ridiculous opulence.

Extravagant, over-the-top, flashy. It’s hard to tell which type of animal had to die for this. There must be a lot less of ‘em now, with this monstrosity in the world.

Kidd is swiveling it back and forth with critical glances to the mirror, the coat wooshing with the motions. Killer takes in the fluid glide of fur over Kidd’s exposed chest, the contrast of impeccable couture against jagged scars. Loses himself for a moment or two imagining how it would feel like to run his hands over both.

An appreciative hum. In Killer’s educated opinion, Kidd looks damn near sinful.

“Yeah?”, Kidd asks and Killer nods. “Yeah. Heh, told ya the detour’s worth it.”

Perhaps it was, although sifting through Onigashima’s treasury whilst bleeding all over heaps of shiny expensive everything might’ve been a case of skewed priorities. There’s no need to talk about what-could-have-beens, though – they’re here, they’re rich and they’re long overdue at Strawhat’s banquet.

Killer’s practically done, tight jeans under a shirt that’s done up to the third button and left to flare open otherwise. It’s not his old favorite (that one stopped fitting him a good year ago) but similar enough, patterned in geometric black-and-white shapes. Definitely one of his fancier ones, not that anyone will care one way or the other where they’re going.

It’s… been a while since it’s been anyone other than them and their crew. Pirates are pirates, allied or no; Killer eyes the scythes neatly stored next to the bed.

Kidd is touching up his lips one last time, the same shade as Killer’s. “Bring ‘em. That Roronoa guy keeps throwing you weird looks and I’m not allowed to kill him.”

Yet goes implied. Killer isn’t wearing his mask and so he doesn’t roll his eyes. “He’s got every reason to”, he reminds his captain, focusing on the heavy clasps of his weapons to keep the memories at bay. The red mark on his chest stings, stuck in the limbo between a healing wound and a fresh scar for a few days still.

A testament to his failure that Killer won’t hide. If Zoro hadn’t stopped him that day his hands would be stained with blood that cannot be washed off, not entirely.

Kidd’s eyes are on him, dark. “I don’t care.”

Resentful as always. Killer reaches for him, digs his fingers into the fluffy lining of that coat and oh, the fur is as soft as it looks. “I do, though.” A firm tug, one Kidd follows until Killer can kiss him, careful not to smudge anything.

“No killing of allies today, ‘kay? We just came back from a war. The crew’s tired. I’m tired.”

“Mh” is all Kidd has to say to that, a grumpy huff against Killer’s lips more than anything. Kidd does give him a proper kiss, however, and Killer knows he won this one.

All he can ask of Kidd is to try, anyways – with two equally hot-headed captains and a whole host of morons around to rile him up, there’s bound to be blood eventually. The trick is to make sure everyone’s drunk enough not to take it too personally.

A pinch to his ass tells Killer he was caught scheming. Kidd smirks, tells him, “We’re getting wasted tonight”, all triumphant like it’s the best idea he’s had all week, and Killer doesn’t miss the emphasis on we.

“Two Emperors down! Strawhat better bring the good stuff tonight or this alliance is over.”

Killer groans, “Kidd”, but he’s smiling, too. Before he can be called out on it, Killer shoves his mask into Kidd’s hands, metal clanking against metal. “Make yourself useful. We’re late.”

Kidd’s laugh is more of a cackle than anything else – “Yes, darling”, said in that sarcastic lilt Killer knows all too well – yet Kidd complies. His hands, organic or otherwise, handle the mask they’ve built with care and precision. Soon, Killer’s vision is narrowed down to dots, the audio filter of his helmet kicking in soon after.

Killer rolls his neck and hums, satisfied. “Ready?”

Kidd throws a final look at himself in the mirror, grinning into the collar of his new coat.

“Hell yeah. Let’s go.”

*

The banquet is a sprawling, messy affair that swallows the entirety of the ramshackle village the Strawhats picked as their home in Wano Country.

From the moment the Kidd Pirates get there they are surrounded. Wherever Killer's eyes roam there are knots of people drinking, eating, laughing and crying, sometimes simultaneously – there, at the heart of it all where the crowd is thickest, burns the largest bonfire Killer has seen in a while, perhaps ever. Smiling faces all around and for once, it doesn’t make Killer’s stomach drop because they’re genuine.

Survivors of SMILE just like him, caught in the rush of real emotions for the first time in who knows how long. Killer has a pretty good idea how that feels like.

Next to him, Kidd is so tense he’s stalking, gaze intense, oozing Haki to keep people away; Wire’s hand is clenched to bloodlessness around his trident while Heat exhales a bit of smoke with every breath and yeah, Killer gets it. Can’t help it himself, either, scythes kept close to his sides to make sure they’re there.

The thing is: They don’t do these kinds of things. Parties, yes, many and often but not like this. Killer can count on one hand the amounts of times the population of any island was actually happy to see them, much less willing to send them off with one big feast.

Actually, he wouldn’t need to count at all because it’s simply never happened. Even filtered by his mask it’s… a lot to take in at once.

The entire damn country is here, it seems, all breathing a collective sigh of relief so monumental the air itself carries their joy. For all that the Kidd Pirates were in this for revenge and glory, Killer can’t deny it’s rewarding to see a nation so ravaged by an Emperor’s greed do whatever they want for the first time in decades.

Finally, a few familiar faces start popping up. Some of the samurai greet them with nods of their heads, overly formal like the people from Wano tend to be; here and there they spot the distinctly branded yukata the members of Trafalgar’s crew are wearing and, rarer but all the more noticeable, those animal people Strawhat dragged along from somewhere.

Minks? Or something? Killer is inclined to say it doesn’t matter if they didn’t have the habit to jump on them out of fucking nowhere. Looking for bone-crushing hugs and wet-nosed kisses, of all things, and– Oh no, he did not sign up for this.

Much less for whatever that group of cat minks are gearing up to, staring at the holes in his mask with eyes nearly swallowed by black, round pupils. Killer is absolutely, solidly convinced he doesn’t even want to know what that’s all about.

“Captain.”

And yeah, his tone is a little more alarmed than he truly means it to be. It gets Kidd’s attention, though – himself having fought off a dog mink enamored with his metal arm not too long ago – and he barks a laugh even when he ramps up his presence to an almost stifling degree.

“C’mon, I feel Strawhat up ahead.”

To nobody’s surprise, they find him smack dab in the middle of everything. Strawhat and his crew are lounging around the bonfire, there’s no other way to describe it: All broad smiles and flushed faces amidst the chaos, completely in their element, and it’s hard to tell if it’s the closeness to the bonfire or the vaguely impressive amounts of empty bottles lying around already. They’re certainly boisterous enough for it to be the latter, even Jinbei.

And no, Killer hasn’t quite processed that turn of events yet. The strangeness of seeing someone of that caliber wheeze into his mug with laughter as his (new?) captain takes a disturbingly big bite out of an even bigger chunk of meat is… not helping things, in that regard.

What a bunch of weirdos. In the safety of his mask, Killer allows himself a small smile.

From here the flames seem to reach for the sky, tinged in warm pinks and oranges by the sinking sun and there, very faintly, Killer can make out the first stars. He can’t remember ever seeing them, not with the factories running over night as well.

“Spikey!!”

Ah. Killer’s head turns with Kidd’s and it’s a good thing, too, because there’s a stretched arm coming for his captain – Kidd bites out, “Nope, no, Strawhat”, red eyes going wide – and Killer manages to side-step it in the last possible second. One, twice it wraps around Kidd, fancy coat and all, and then the rubber recoils.

“Killer!”

Oh my, Killer thinks mildly as he watches him go. Behind him, half their crew is flabbergasted and the other half is in stitches. “Captain’s gonna be in such a mood”, Heat says to Wire, and it just sends them into another fit of chuckles.

For Killer, finding a drink becomes his top priority. So much for keeping things peaceful.

>>Chapter 2.

#one piece #eustass kid #killer one piece #kidkiller #fanfiction #one piece fanfiction #this is a setup for smut in chapter 2 ngl #(i just got carried away as per usual) #this fic is also on AO3!! #my stuff #one piece spoilers

[wevegottogetaway]

Whirlwind  Part IV - Khamseen

DAY14

The energy shrouding the air of Godspeed’s is much different from what it was for Induction Rave a couple weeks ago. The place is still one of high spirit but the loud euphoria that permeated each of its nook and cranny in celebratory cheers, is now replaced with liquor-prompted laughters and light conversation melting into a mellow background noise. The music seems to have taken the same cue, its lowered volume simply adding to the mesh of sounds of the bar and no longer pulsing baselines into the heart of its patrons. Even the number of clean tables surpasses that of sticky ones for once; a rather improbable phenomenon for such an establishment.

Sitting in a corner booth as he nurses a bourbon in his hands and a scowl on his face, Harry is the embodiment of sulkiness. Feeling drained despite having the rare day off, his shoulders are stuck in a permanent hunch. They bear the pressures of being in the most competitive Navy pilot program in the world only to be met with disillusion once partnered up with someone who traded trust for contempt wherever he was concerned. Not to forget, he is still grieving the loss of his best friend. The sharp memories of the accident have yet to depart his mind whenever he closes his eyes or sits in a cockpit alongside a certain daredevil lady. A lady who haunts his nights by dragging him out of whatever peaceful place he’s escaped to, her crestfallen face appearing just as Morpheus’ arms reach out to him. And Aella always wins his attention no matter the weariness in his bones or how appealing a good night sleep might be.

Entranced in a meticulous reenactment of their last mission, involving pistachios as makeshift aircrafts, Dazzler and Tigger are seating across their subdued friend. They brushed off Harry’s taciturn disposition as they’ve come to be familiar with it, and instead proceed to do as usually ever since the accident: offer friendly companionship whether he decides to actively partake or silently tag along. He’ll start sharing again when he’s ready, they figure. No use in prying and pocking; any person who’s ever been around Harry would know. A closed book he may not be, but rather, he remains selective as to who can leaf through his essence and more importantly, what they may uncover as well as when they get to do so.

"Need a refill?" Dazzler asks Harry as he comes to a standing position hovering over the table, two beer-less pints in hand. The person of interest looks down at the drink cajoled in his hold, a couple sips away from dryness. A nod and a soft ‘please’ is all he offers his friend before returning his focus on the glass in his hands. 

As Dazzler approaches the bar effectively out of earshot, Tigger turns to the laconic man seating as his table. For once, his instinct tells him to candidly check on his mate, the absence of Dazzler’s overjoyed nature perhaps giving the moment a tone better suited for confidence. "Got a lot on your mind Styles?" He asks as softly as his voice will let him.

Harry’s eyes lift from their aimless target on a crack of the table to finally land on Tigger’s inquisitive face. They remain unwavering for a second too long as if gauging whether now was the time to exteriorize some of his sorrows. Wasn’t the headache throbbing hard enough already? Didn’t he reach his last thread when Aella and him both shot their last chance at a peaceful partnership? Be that as it may, there is so little space left in Harry’s brain for pondering purposes, he’s just desperate to get some sort of leeway.   

"You could say that, yeah" he says to his bourbon with a humorless chuckle.

"Anything involving a certain someone?" Tigger tentatively inquires whilst inconspicuously fiddling with the nutshells scattered across the table. They both know the identity behind the certain someone, and the mere mention is apparently enough for Harry to warrant another mouthful of inebriant. The gesture effectively empties what was left of the liquor, but it’s all the troubled pilot needs to open the floodgates of his censored mind.

"She’s driving me nuts, Tigger. We can barely stand to be in the same room, how are we supposed to fly together?" The piercing green eyes always had this magnetic pool to them. In friendly conversation, they were meant to make the narrator feel like the center of the universe. But right now, under the bar’s dim lights, their glow is shaded by an unhinged quality as if this time their owner was looking at the sun because his world had fallen off its axis and needed fixing.

"Maybe…I don’t know…have you guys tried talking about it?" Tigger doesn’t have much faith in the anticipated answer, but he’s a firm believer that communication can resolve anything. Proper communication, that is.

"Right." Harry looks at his poised friend unimpressed. "All the ‘talks’ we’ve had end in the same way. We scream at each other till we’re blue in the face and we say stuff that leaves us worse off than how we were." His mind takes him back to their last squabble 3 days ago, the way they had completely blown off at each other’s scowling face with crude words escaping their mouth. Like a reflex, he reaches for his drink in a vain attempt to erase the taste of malice still lingering on his lips, only to be met with a teasing drop idling around the rim.

"That doesn’t sound like talking Harry." Tigger retorts with a pointed look. His friend his better than that. Better than the excuse no doubt about to come is way if Dazzler wasn’t making a reappearance with two foamy pints and a bourbon.  

"Oi, what’s the chitchat about?" He asks with a beaming smile at the idea that his tortured soul of a friend is finally coming out of limbo, or - at least - back to his talking self. The grin is enough to reprieve Harry from his tiresome thoughts for a second as he looks up to Dazzler and thanks him for the amber liquid placed in front of him. He’s always thought that Dean earned his callsign because of that particular smile: all around contagious, and well, nothing short of dazzling…

He is quickly brought back to the matter at hand by Tigger though. "Just talking about Harry and Aella’s inability to hold a civil conversation together and their propensity to rip each other’s head off." He says, not beating around the bush whilst watching with a raised brow as the seemingly defeated man across from him promptly indulges in his replenished drink.

"Right Styles, what’s got you so riled up about our lovely Aella anyway?" Dazzler bluntly asks once he’s comfortably back in his seat. The term of endearment is not lost on Harry’s ears, however, and the reminder furrows his brow some more.

"Fuck, I forgot you lot were friends with her." He sighs. How is he supposed to vent to his friends about another friend of theirs without coming off has an asshole? He’s positive that ship has already sailed though, without much to be done about it. "Look I’m not saying she’s a bad person, but you guys don’t have to work with her." He tries to soften the blow with a subtle deflection but in his defense, he says it all genuinely so. 

Harry doesn’t really know Aella. Doesn’t know what kind of friend she is, how caring she might be with those she cares for, or how witty her words become when prodded by the right person. He does know, however, that any compatibility they may have ends at the gate of any Navy base. He knows she’s more daring than she ought to be when she’s high above the clouds and high on adrenaline. And he knows she can be downright contentious, not to say bitchy when she doesn’t get her way. So no, Harry doesn’t consider Aella to be a particularly good pilot, at least not in a tandem set up. She’s too quick to set his nerves on fire like she does everything else, to make him think otherwise.

"Damn straight I don’t work with her! Coz Tigger’s stuck with my annoying ass until the day it’s too flabby to sit in a Tomcat. But I still don’t get it, man. From what I’ve seen, she seems pretty fucking brilliant to me." Dazzler once again shows his luminous colors as he senses the conversation is about to get much somber. 

"Completely reckless you mean. Half the time she’s suggesting moves that’ll send us crashing faster than I can say emergency ejection." Harry has abandoned any cushioning tactic at this point. His resentment has taken control of his speech and his body tightens in accordance: jaw so defined, the contracting motion could be spotted from across the bar, his shoulders stiffen underneath a slightly oversized shirt and his knuckles turn a few shades whiter at the pressure exerted around his already half-empty glass.

The look his two comrades share across the table in silent conversation does nothing to alleviate his frustration. Instead, it makes him feel like a kid about to be given a talk by his parents. And the way Tigger hesitantly speaks up next, voice as easeful as he can muster, makes Harry think he’s not so far off the truth. 

"Harry, do you think you might still be processing what happened with Fox?"

The mention of his deceased best friend sends a shiver down Harry’s spine, an indescribable coldness seizing his body that no alcohol could shake off. On the defensive, his guard soars up and the same chilling tone is now clouding his words. 

"And what’s your point exactly?"

Dazzler is quick to elaborate on his friend’s suggestion as tactfully as one Dean Marshall  is capable of. Subtlety was never his strong suit. "Come on, mate. It’s kinda common knowledge that Fox was a bit of a stuntman himself. But that’s what made him such a great pilot, Harry."

"It’s what got him killed." The retort comes harsh, triggered by an array of emotions still festering in every far enough corner of his being, because he can’t quite fathom how to face them yet. It’s an out-of-body experience in a way, a disconnection between body and mind, that makes him a mere bystander of his knee-jerk reactions. Surely the words are not his. Surely some kind of demon is hijacking the headquarters of his mind and turning him into a sourpuss who can’t reign in his spreading misery. Pretty ironic for someone who used to spread kindness every time he was given the chance.

"Now, you know that’s not the whole truth." Dazzler tries to reason, admittedly slightly shocked by his friend’s outburst. The things grief can do to one’s temper…

"Whatever. She’s still impulsive and she doesn’t know how to fly with a partner." Harry’s quick to dismiss the subject of Fox, he’d rather have a slumber party with his new nemesis before reminiscing the circumstances of his friend’s premature death.

"That’s probably because she’s used to flying solo." Tigger rightfully points out. "See, you’d know that if you two talked like decent human beings."

"Well, she doesn’t have to be a bitch about it." Somewhere, a muted part his brain is considering Tigger’s statement, but it’s not enough to sweeten his bitter thoughts. It’s not pride getting in the way; Harry’s not a prideful person, or at least not in the ways that would blind him from admitting any wrongdoings. His mind is just too fuzzy to reason from both exhaustion and the booze he’s been continuously sipping on this evening. The mockery seems to be the last straw for Dazzler, however, and for once the wrinkles on the usually chirpy lad’s forehead are not caused by laughter.

"Jesus Harry! I love you mate, you know that. But stop acting like a prick, it doesn’t suit you." Green eyes immediately widen at the admonition, and before he can even think of defending himself, he’s being told off some more. "And before you say anything, no I’m not on her side. I just want to help you. Both of you. And believe me, she’s been given the same speech a handful of times, but I’ll be damned if one of you listened for once." 

"Daz, you’re getting carried away." Tigger says, once again acting as his partner’s counterbalancing act. He also doesn’t want to end the night with a fall-out. Losing another friend is the last thing Harry needs.

"Damn right I am." Dazzler quips back, his index finger pressing on the table. "I’m tired of your childish antics. Fuck! Since when am I the most grown up of the bunch?" He asks in disbelief, not able to resist throwing humor in an otherwise tense conversation. "I’m your friend Harry, and sometimes friends are here to kick your butt when you’re acting like one." He gets up from his seat before opening his arms wide in a taunting gesture. "So watch me Styles. This is me kicking your goddamn butt. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re out of pistachios." And just like that, he’s off on his new quest for a fresh bowl of snacks. They all know it was more so a way of withdrawing from the conversation before it got too heated. And perhaps to prevent Harry from having a chance at a comeback, but he wouldn’t admit that anyway…

"He’s right you know." Tigger softly breaks the silence that had filled the space. "You two need to sort your shit out because we’ve still got 3 weeks left and I know for a fact you’re not a quitter. Besides, TopGun is not the kind of program you can just give up on. You can still make it, Harry." 

He can’t quite figure out if his hopefulness has reached the moping man on his left, especially when all he gets in a response is one more bourbon sent down the drain, followed by a "fuck, need anothe’." 

DAY 15

Leonie Forbs was born to teach a group of overzealous navy pilots about the riveting matter of astrophysics; or so is Aella convinced. She is poised, calmer than the sea before the storm, yet when a bunch of bullheaded students does storm in her class, her collected and no-taking-shit nature still prevails. Quite the paradox for such a frail looking woman, but she’s made it clear since their first session that her place at TopGun was not to be questioned and that she could not only handle herself but also the 16 adrenaline-driven aerialists sitting in front of her. Aella admires that a lot; she can only dream of receiving the same kind of respect around base these days. 

Even more baffling to her, is how Leonie still inspires kindness and confidence within her students. Mastering the rules of the universe in no cakewalk, but with every explanation and encouraging word she provides, Dr Forbs has managed to make it that little bit easier on them. Come to think of it, she somewhat reminds Aella of Berks and his fatherly yet firm lead. The way they both seem hellbent on making her feel welcomed without giving her any free pass either, is enough of a sliver of hope to outweigh all the anguish Rex’s clique has been giving her since she joined the program. 

She doesn’t know if it can counterbalance her own partner’s though. 

"Last point we need to discuss before your test today comes from the Pentagon itself," Leonie declares as she leans back against her desk, arms casually crossed around her middle.  "Intelligence services have discerned a flaw in the Russians’ new MIG 22 flight tanks system. Their negative G push overs are out, so they operate zero to one G only." She scans the room, watching as they all process the new information.

"What happens if they don’t?" One of the students Mason Homes - or Ace, as commonly called around base - bluntly asks.

A pregnant pause ensues before Aella promptly answers her fellow comrade in a bored tone. "They risk flaming out."

"That is correct." Leonie interjects with a quick glance toward her star pupil, before turning her face back to Ace. "Even below one G, the internal fuel tanks are placed too far off ahead the plane’s center of gravity to keep it stable." The explanation immediately falls out of her lips, concise and simple to comprehend, before her attention extends to the whole class. "Now that this precious intel has been handed to us, we need to exploit it. So what’s your take on it?"

Harry is the first one to speak up as everybody seems to mull over the enigma formulated by their professor. His voice is poised, the answer definite and confident. "Concentrate on low altitude, push boosters to +3.5Gs and negative Gs alternatively."

"Very good." Dr Forbs praises in a smile, uncrossing her arms for her hands to hold onto the desk behind her. "Much like their predecessor, MIG 22 have excellent fast-climbing interceptors, so keeping it low will put their tanks at high pressure. Their endurance is very limited, so you would also be right to keep them on their toes and make them really work for it. Chances are they won’t be able to pace up or they’ll run out of fuel."

"What about using after-burning turbojets in inverted thrusts?" Aella challenges. While she doesn’t deny Harry’s tactic would prove adequate, she thought of a different way around the puzzle. Once again, the conventional route didn’t cut it in her opinion. It was too predictable, something she makes sure to always stay clear of.

"I guess it could work on paper, but your range and scope would be infinitesimal." Leonie responds truthfully after giving the proposition a thought. In the past couple weeks she has come to understand and appreciate Aella’s unorthodox thinking. She knows it comes from a knowledgeable place as opposed to one of attention-seeking. Aella doesn’t defy the MOs of traditional naval aviation to drop jaws or get a round of applause. She’s simply driven by her own curiosity and in all straightforwardness, it’s just the way her brain operates. Conjures up the unexpected first like some kind of survival instinct, but in her book, predictability is the first step towards failure. And in her profession, failure usually means death.  

"Not if you push the compression to 50%, then their scope is smaller than yours, and that’s enough to put you on their six." Once again, Aella made the laws of science her greatest ally. The plan may be venturesome but her calculations make it also airtight.  

"Very avant-garde of you, Lieutenant Lonethorne, I shouldn’t be surprised." The professor admits with a knowing smile and glowing eyes. "If well-executed then yes, the maneuver would prove successful. However, Lieutenant Styles’ approach is just as valid and much less risky." She adds for good measure. Even though she values Aella’s mind dexterity, her purpose is not to bring this groundbreaking side out of her students. Harry’s answer is the one she had expected all things considered. 

"But more time-consuming." Aella retorts to drive her point home. She doesn’t think outside the box for the hell of it. There’s always a reason, a worthy advantage that her partner always seems to overpass because of the riskiness of it all.

"I won’t deny that. Both tactics are absolutely potent in their own way; what matters is the situation in which they come to play. And that’s your job to determine." Dr Forbs reminds her fervent student that being a navy pilot can be a long list of pros and cons at times. What maneuver will result in what outcome and for what gamble. Knowing all the possibilities at any given moment is a great skill to have, one that Aella seems to have down to a T. But the real excellence of a pilot shows in the way they can make the right choice out of those possibilities.

"Alright, I’m gonna pass these exam sheets around. Once you’ve been handed yours, you have  two hours to complete them. Please don’t forget to provide explanations to your calculations, this is not a math test." Leonie explains with a pointed look before sharing an encouraging smile. "Good luck to you all." 

The next two hours are then filled with the sound of pencils scratching paper and frustrated sighs that only increase in volume as the clock ticks closer to the impending time allotment. As there is only two remaining questions waiting to be completed on his exam paper, Harry breathes deeply and takes a look around the room. Most of his fellow classmates are immersed in deep reflection, various level of frowns hardening their face depending on their advancement on the test. His green eyes then settle upon his co-pilot. She’s scribbling furiously on her paper as though her fingers are straining to put her racing thoughts to ink. Whirlwind on paper, is what he thinks.

His musings are further strayed away from applied physics as Harry recalls his conversation with Dazzler and Tigger the night prior. He certainly did a lot of thinking since then, but his mind is still fuzzy when it comes to Aella. He’s been juggling with the thought of giving her a chance, talking things out as Tigger suggested, but for some reason the idea has him terrified. Certainly a repeat of history would crush him for good, but at the same time he knows he’ll never be the pilot he longs to be again if he keeps being the person he is with Aella. They decidedly need to find a way to be at their best together, because this bringing-out-the-worst-of-the-other business is not doing them any favor. 

Harry is about to refocus on the problem at hand when Aella suddenly stands up, all 6 papers of her exam gathered in her hands in a neat pile. She cooly makes her way to Dr Forbs as quietly as she can, as to not disturbed her class, before handing her work to the teacher. Their exchange remains silent but Harry doesn’t miss Leonie’s small head gesture and yet another smile she addresses his partner. It’s not the first time he’s noticed one of his superiors showing that kind of recognition for her work. Time is running against him though, so he shoves the note in a far corner of his mind and goes back to the task at hand. Partner differences is a can of worms that will have to wait to be opened. 

The ocean has almost entirely enveloped the setting sun as Harry wanders along San Diego’s Crystal pier. Few people decided to roam the promenade, probably too busy on this brisk and not to mention, week night. Harry is just glad the urge to come here wasn’t sprung on him on a Saturday evening. The experience would have included much more elbowing and people dodging than tolerated for reflective purposes. But as his feet tread the wooden structure, gaze glowing over the breath-taking view, his mind feels clearer than it has been in weeks. 

He’s let it go too far. The angst, the animosity, this bottomless gap edged between Aella and him, as well as between his truthful self and the bad-tempered doppelgänger that seems to have replaced him. He’s become almost desensitized to it, too riddled with grief to really care, but the way Dazzler put him in his place the night before served as a good wake-up call. This petulant and dismissive person isn’t him, or as his friend no-so-gently worded it, he is better than that. 

He can’t ignore the pit forming in his stomach though. Can’t blindly hand over his trust, forget about his doubts, and relinquish the reins to the woman that put said doubts in his mind in the first place. And that leaves him one only option really: talk to her about it. But while Harry’s never been one to shy from divulging his feelings, usually the person at the receiving end of his disclosures is already part of his trusted cycle.

Just as a runner passes him on the side, he lets out a long sigh at the prospect of such a heavy conversation. How is one meant to deliver the most vulnerable parcels of their character on a silver platter to the person they are the most scared of? Harry can’t help to see it as yet another test the universe is kindly throwing his way. The only thing stopping him for cowering away is the fact that she might have to shared equally vulnerable parts of her in the process. Perhaps it’s the only way they may align to finally be a working team: weaknesses and susceptibilities all out in the open.

The end of the pier is slowly coming to view, a couple of benches providing the perfect front row seat to the Pacific’s show. The sun has now completely gone MIA, faint lanterns scattered along the path dispersing small beacons of light that pale in comparison to their predecessor, but it’s enough for Harry to notice a silhouette standing ahead. Based on their movements, they seem to be caught up in a yoga or stretching session, one foot placed upon the wood railing as their upper body folds over the extended limb. Harry distractingly takes note of their suppleness but as he finally reaches the end of the dock and the mysterious athlete stands back up, he quickly realizes the soul he’s sharing the pier with tonight, is not so mysterious.

The uniform has been traded for a light hoodie, combat boots for a pair of neon trainers and long legs usually hidden under protective layers are now bare to any curious eyes as the only piece of cloth ‘covering' them up is a pair of light running shorts. Harry comes to a sudden halt as he realizes the very reason of his torments and spontaneous walk is now standing a few feet away from him. He finds himself at a bit of a crossroad: he can either stay and get on with what feels more and more like the only option he has, or turn around and delay the inevitable for one extra night. The choice is stripped from him anyway when Aella turns around as though guided by a sixth sense and her eyes cross his in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" She can’t help but ask.

Harry is at lost as to what to say, he didn’t expect to confront her so soon after deciding confrontation was their only saving grace. All he can do, is look at her questioning eyes that for once, are void of any hurt or resentment. He’d like to keep it that way if possible, no matter how unlikely it might be. 

"Just walkin’, enjoyin’ the sights I guess," it almost comes out as a question. 

"Oh. Well, I was just gonna go so…bye" She has trouble meeting his eyes as she nervously readjust her running attire and prepares for a quick escape. 

"Wait!" She’s interrupted by Harry’s voice and her whole attention is brought to his tall figure awkwardly standing in front of her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. She raises a brow when he takes too much time elaborating on his request for her presence. "I just…thought we could…talk, you know? Like, we kinda need it, don’t we?" His stance is not the only thing manifesting awkwardly it seems.

"Um, right now?" Aella suspiciously inquires, her eyes swiftly bouncing to the sea on her right and back to Harry.  

"’S good time as any, innit?" Is all Harry says in response.

Aella seems to gauge him for a second as if becoming aware of the meaning of this upcoming conversation. She knows it might be a tipping point in their partnership; if they want to make it work, that is. And the moment took her by surprise sure, but will there ever be a right time? There usually isn’t, after all. "Right then" she agrees with a quick tilt of her head towards the benches as an invitation to sit. For a minute or so they remain silent while they try to figure out a way to start the conversation.

"I’m not the sexist prick you think I am." Harry eventually says, looking at his hand on his lap.

"Right." She answers not convinced. He certainly didn’t go out of his way to make her think otherwise.

"I’m not, I swear." He briefly looks at her before settling back on the lathes paving the pier. "I know I haven’t given you much reasons to think so, but I don’t have anything against you as a woman." 

"Ah my bad. You just think I’m a worthless co-pilot then." Aella spits out as she stands up, ready to run back to the safe space of her home. This was a terrible idea…

"You remind me of him." The words immediately bring her to a halt, half because she’s intrigued by their meaning, and half because of Harry’s searing pain obviously laced through their utterance. She turns around and looks at his hunched body, elbows now resting on his knees, glossy eyes still fixed on the ground. "You remind me of them both."

Aella swallows the lump in her throat before hesitantly asking "and who would they be?"

At that, Harry looks up and painfully answers,"my dad and Fox." 

Taking her time with the new information Aella takes a deep breath, drawing strength from the two blue immensities surrounding her. Slowly, she goes back to her seat next to Harry, though she leaves a decent space between the two of them. "How come?" She encourages.

"Fox was my partner before you came into the picture. But he was also my best friend." He starts explaining without losing an inch of his composure much to his surprise. 

"I know about Jonathan." Aella softly answers and Harry momentarily looks sideways at her from his bent position.

"You know of him, but you don’t know what kind of person he was." He argues with a shake of his head, short curls fluttering on top. "Fox was passionate. He was the strongest force to be reckoned with and he was fearless. And he was my best friend, but one day he took it too far and we got into an accident." Pause. "I survived, he didn’t." It surely is a condensed version of the whole story but that’s all she needs to know at the moment. 

Aella is slightly taken aback by the confession. She knows lieutenant Evans lost his life as a pilot, but she didn’t think Harry had been part of the equation, picking himself up as he watched his best friend stay down. She can’t really fathom the trauma that comes with such an incident, having flown in tandem for a very short period of time and with someone she isn’t particularly sympathetic with. Until tonight maybe. 

"Harry, I’m sorry about what happened…but I’m not him." She tries to reason.

"I know, I know." He is quick to acknowledge, taking his face in his hands before brushing them through is hair. "But the way you fly, or want me to fly is just…" He struggles to find the right words. "Look, I let him take all the risks when we were partners and he died for it. I’m not about to let that happen again. To you, me or anyone that sits in the same airplane I do," is what he settles for.

Aella doesn’t know what to say. Her brain is the one running now, faster than she ever has, as it pieces together the puzzle that is Harry Styles. She doesn’t necessarily approve of his conduct but she understands it better now. Understands the moody attitude and the resentment at her expend. Most of all, she is relieved that his supposed hatred for her has nothing to do with her gender nor her person and everything to do with his troubled past. It makes it somehow easier to stomach though she’s not about to mold herself up to his safety-appreciative standards. 

"What about your dad?" She asks instead, redirecting the subject at hand. Once again, the inquiry has Harry looking back at her. Except this time, he unfolds his torso to let it lean against the backrest of the bench, crossing his arms instead. Aella tries to overlook the way his biceps seem to pop out underneath the sun kissed flesh. She’s positively compelled away when he lets out a long sigh and dives back into the night’s confidences.

"I actually don’t know much about my dad," he starts with a humorless chuckle. "He was a Navy pilot too, gone most of the time, but he was a hero at home. He died a hero too. Left for a mission one day and never came back. I was 12." He pauses, needing a break and when he turns back to assess the weight of his words on her face, he’s only met with compassion and her undivided attention. "And all I’ve ever from anyone the wiser, is that he went into an ambush, knowingly, because he thought he could save a comrade. See the pattern?" He asks bitterly before he can help himself, but Aella knows it’s not really aimed at her. 

"I get it Harry. You’ve been through some trauma, and I’m just a breathing reminder of it. But I know what I’m doing." She says its conviction as her eyes cling onto his emerald versions. "I would never suggest something that would put you in danger; not matter how much I want to kill you most of the time." That earns them both a chuckle, and the weight on Aella’s heart is alleviated some, upon the realization that this is it, this is their turning point. The moment that can break or make their duo, seal their fate and pave their path. And by the sound of it, the future looks promising finally. "I know it looks like I’m crossing the line at times, but I spent the last 10 years of my life up to my neck in books. I never got to do the fun stuff during Navy School. The parties, the raves, the bonding… I was just the girl deluding herself into thinking she could make it, stealing a perfect spot from a more adequate man to take. And since it was just me, I studied all I could, and then when I run out of books to read I studied some more anyway." It’s now her turn to gaze at the ground while Harry listens carefully. "My choices up there, they’re not a way for me to prove myself. They’re just the possibilities I got from all the things I’ve missed out on since I enlisted because of who I am. And that’s fine. I’ve always been fine with that. But now, I have a partner and I can’t do my job properly if he doesn’t accept the possibilities he doesn’t see yet."

They both look at each other then, letting the words resonated into the night, in tune with the sounds of the crashing waves. The cards have changed, weakest ones at last laid out on the table whilst they still hold onto their kings and aces. But their fate is yet to be determined. Letting go of their blatantly mutual distaste might bring them one step closer to being a unit but they’re still ways from flying as one. 

Rome wasn’t built in a day though, and Aella still has half a run to complete. She figures it’s best not to push whatever progress they made that night, so she calmly stands up, about to resume her training when Harry softly calls out to her.

"See you tomorrow partner." It’s faint and simple, but Aella understand every ounce of its meaning. 

It’s a peace offering, an olive branch shyly extended from the tip of his fingers; a vow to try and figure this all thing out not as co-pilots but as equals. And that’s all the promises Aella needs to mutter back a ‘goodnight Harry’ and run back to her place in record-breaking time with a smile etched upon her face. 

Tomorrows have finally regained their wonder.

#harry styles writing #harry styles fic #harry styles series #enemies to lovers #pilot!harry #Whirlwind #part4 #ofc #Khamseen #creative writing #harry writing #TopGun!Harry

[bunnyramen]

IFHY

Bakugou picked the scissors out from his desk, still haven’t used them even though they were on the supplies list.

They were still sharp. Maybe a bit too sharp.

But he didn’t care, this stupid string on his finger felt tighter and tighter everyday and seemed to glow brighter by the minute.

He couldn’t sleep at night, it was so bright and when he closed his eyes he could still see it.

It was cutting off the circulation of his ring finger, like it was trying to tell him something.

But he couldn’t put his finger on what it was though.

All he knew is he wanted it off.

He knew the consequences, your soulmate could die or your soulmate could go blind and they would never be able to find their way to you.

Even thinking about cutting it off could lead to catastrophe.

But he just couldn’t seem to care anymore.

Why, you may ask?

Because he already had fallen in love with someone else, a certain dumb ass redhead who seemed to make flowers grow and people smile wherever he went, at least that’s what he saw.

Kirishima didn’t seem to think the same way even when others would say it over and over again.

And the boy that had captured his heart and wouldn’t give it back, sat just a few rows ahead of him, unaware of any sort of stupid ass hex he put on Bakugou.

And whoever the fuck he was attached to would just hold him back.

Bakugo was practically sweating, putting the end of the string on the middle of the scissors, bringing them down on the string with a mighty “SNIP!”

Then he heard this noise from in front of him, and he looked up, seeing it was coming from Kirishima, or rather his mouth.

It sounded like he was screaming? But very silently.

“Kirishima? Are you okay?” Mina shook his shoulder, the boy falling out of his chair and onto the floor.

Many of his fellow classmates stood up quickly, Mina being the first to rush to Kirishima’s side.

Bakugou was the second, kneeling down next to him and going ghostly white when he saw the state of him.

Pink tears seemed to be coming from his unblinking eyes, his eyes themselves for were a dark red, almost empty looking if it weren’t for the light.

“Aizawa-Sensei!” Mina cried, voice cracking from the sobs that threatened to break it in two.

Aizawa pushed his way through the crowd quickly, depositing himself neck to Kirishima’s limp form. He grabbed Kirishima’s hand, where the strings was located and followed it, until he got the end.

The cut end.

Bakugou looked at his hand, seeing that his cut end matched Kirishima’s.

His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach, feeling closed in with all the people crowded together around the four of them, all whispering, or crying, or both.

They knew.

“Iida, take Kirishima to Recovery Girl. Well meet you there.” Aizawa stood up and out of the class president’s way, Mina doing the same but Bakugou was still stuck to his spot.

“Yes, Aizawa-Sensei!” Iida picked Kirishima up gently into a princess carry, the tears flowing from his eyes staining Iida’s clothes.

The class moved out of the way, Tsuyu opening the door for Iida to make a quick getaway. In a matter of moments and bit of smoke, he was gone.

A beat passed before the entire class rushed out in the halls in haste to follow Iida to Recovery’s girl’s.

Aizawa was about to make his way there when he saw Bakugou still rooted to his spot, having not moved, his hand still on the cut end of the string attached to his finger.

“Bakugo-“ Aizawa but the blonde spoke up first, cutting him off.

“What have I done?” His voice was so small, unlike the cocky, boisterous voice Aizawa grew to tolerate from his loud student.

“Kid, it’s not your fault.” He knelt in front of Bakugou, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“You seriously can’t sit here and tell me that it wasn’t my fault!” Bakugou lifted up the cut wire to Aizawa’s face, his hand shaking so much that he almost dropped it.

“You didn’t know, kid.” Aizawa’s hand on his shoulder got a bit tighter, willing to squeeze some sense into him.

“Yet It still got him hurt! I hurt him! Me! I have no one else but me to blame!” Bakugou did something that was unexpected, enrapturing Aizawa into a hug, holding on tighter than ever.

The stoic teacher really didn’t know how to respond, never having seen the blonde reach out to.. well anyone.

He wrapped his arms around the boy, giving him a slightly awkward pat on the back.

“I think he would understand, kid. He always has.” Bakugou nodded against shoulder before pushing him away a bit.

“This hug? Never happened.”

“What hug?” Aizawa said seriously.

Bakugou nodded in respect, standing up a bit wobbly on his feet, giving Aizawa a hand.

They headed out, practically running since they were already a few minutes behind.

——-

When they arrived, much of the class sat in the waiting room, they wouldn’t all be able to fit into the room.

Midoriya mumbled to himself, Todoroki and Iida were both holding his hand.

Ochako and Tsuyu were huddled together in a sort of side hug, Ochako’s head leaning on Tsuyu’s. Their string was wrapped around them, holding them together.

The others were either huddled or doing their own thing, the atmosphere in the room becoming a bit stifled.

He walked into Recovery Girl’s room, the main squad of his sitting around the boy’s unconscious form with grim looks.

His eyes were closed now, but his eyes were still leaking pink tears, they put paper towels under him. But he looked peaceful, beautiful in fact as the tears sparkled when they ran past his eyelashes.

“Well it’s not looking good for him. Luckily it didn’t kill him immediately like some cases.” Recovery girl turned around in her chair towards Bakugou with the help of her cane.

“But he’s still stuck in a limbo sort of space in his mind, the pink tears are just a side effect of the cutting of your string.” She pointed at the limp string hanging from Bakugou’s hand.

“Well, how do I fix it?” Bakugou piped up.

“Well, the only way I’ve seen for such a case is to replace thread but that’s only if the soulmates share mutual love for each other.” She pulled out a large spool of red thread from her pocket.

“Well, we have to try! Otherwise, he could stay like this forever.” Saying that brought another onslaught of tears to Mina’s eyes, Jirou hugged her tight, Kaminari and Sero joining.

“It seems to me that you love Kirishima, is that correct?” Recover Girl grabbed scissors and cut a good distance sized piece.

“Yes, I do.” Bakugou was comfortable letting everyone know that he loved the redhead, beck, they all loved him.

If the circumstances were different, he probably would’ve never said anything and took it to his grave. But right now what the time for that.

“Then it’s all up to Kirishima then.” She tied a knot around Bakugou’s finger and walked over to tie it around Kirishima’s finger.

Almost instantly, a slight golden glow started to come from middle of the string, as if it was mending the broken bond.

“Huh, imagine if Kirishima didn’t love Blasty. Then he would be in big trouble.” Kaminari laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

Just then the glow stopped abruptly, Kaminari’s eyes went wide as he made a face that spoke of “oh fuck” vibes.

Mina gave him a slap in the back of the head, “you jinxed it!”

Bakugou walked over and grabbed Kirishima’s hand, intertwining their fingers.

Kirishima sat up with a gasp, looking around scared, startling everyone in the room.

His eyes were back to normal, one red and one white as snow.

“What are you guys doing here? It’s not for school yet, is it?” Kirishima wiped away the tears as if he didn’t notice them.

“Another side effect of cutting the string, memory loss. Fortunately, it seems it only erased all of today but I’m not sure.” Recovery Girl was relieved.

“Kirishima, what was the last thing you remember doing?” Mina asked.

“The last thing I remember is going to visit my family and then coming back since we had school the next day.” Kirishima looked like he was struggling to even remember that.

“Ok, that was like almost a week and a half ago. Luckily not much has happened in that time span but you’re probably gonna need to relearn a lot of lessons from class.” Jirou patted him on the back as Kirishima looked like he wanted to go back into that coma.

“If I may ask, did you see anything while you were asleep?” Kaminari was curious, and with the way the others looked, they were just as curious themselves.

“I’m not sure what was happening because all I could was bright swirling colors and then you showed up.” Kirishima pointed at Denki, “and then you started screaming really loud and your skin like melted off and it was just your skull.” Kirishima smiled as if it was a fond memory.

“I would share more but, it would be way too graphic since it got more terrifying as time went on.” The boy shivered thinking about it.

“But anyways, how did I even get here? And why was in some hell purgatory or some shit?”

Bakugou looked guilty, looking nervously off to the side before speaking up.

“I cut the string. I wanted to be with you and I figured the person I was with would hold me back, so I cut it. I didn’t know that I cut off the person I wanted the most.”

Bakugou raised his hand in the air, pulling Kirishima’s hand with it, showing him they were attached, though it felt more like a handcuff than a string now.

“We’re soulmates?” Kirishima’s eyes warbled with tears, the whites of his eyes becoming a bit pink in color.

“I understand if I’m not the person you wanted to be attached to-“ Bakugou was tackled onto the ground by Kirishima, his back hitting the floor with a light thud.

“Woah! Maybe we should give them a bit of privacy?” Mina whispered, ushering everyone out of the room, Recovery Girl following them.

“Don’t mess up any of my things.” She warned as she left.

Bakugou doesn’t know he went from being a sad sack to having a lap full of the boy, dare he say it, of his dreams.

“I’m surprised that you want me too, you know?” Bakugou looked up at the boy, who’s smile faltered.

“Why wouldn’t I want you? Yeah, you may not be the nicest person at times but I’ve seen you, the you that’s under all those bricks and stuff. And it’s pretty bright, nearly blinded me the first time I saw it “. A pink tear escape one of Kirishima’s eyes, falling into Bakugou’s face.

The blonde rubbed his thumbs under Kirishima’s eyes, trying to wipe his tears.

And for the first time that day, Bakugou showed off his teeth with a bright smile.

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

@leal-5 They gave me a good idea and decided to write it (the prompt is theirs)

“Soulmates au but if you cut your string, the person it’s attached to could die”

#soulmates au #kiribaku #dadzawa #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #sorry if its trash i wrote it siper late last night #*super #midoriya bnha #izuku midoriya #shoto todoroki #tenya iida #todoiidadeku #tsuchako #tsuyu asui #urakara ochako #mina ashido #denki kaminari #sero hanta #jirou kyoka #bakusquad #tw coma #tw scary imagery #tw hallucinations #tw nightmares #tw melting #tw near death

[gccdnews]

Did you see JESSICA DREW from MARVEL walking around Limbo? The CISFEMALE looks like ALICIA VIKANDER, and is NINETY SEVEN years old. I’ve heard she can be VIRTUOUS & WITTY but also COCKSURE & REACTIVE. When I think of them I think of HELPING THE INNOCENT BY HOSPITALIZING THE GUILTY, RAISING SPIDER-BABY, THE GREATEST QUIPS OF ALL TIME BITCHCAKES. They’ve been here WITHOUT their memories as an PI & FIGHTER at BAKER STREET INVESTIGATIONS & UNDERGROUND FIGHT CLUB for SIX MONTHS. I heard they’re seeking a sanctum.

// whew. jess has a history™. it's long af and spans nearly a century so im not gonna go into crazy detail, but it's still lengthy. and i'm also gonna modify just a bit to fit in with the mcu for plotting reasons and stuff. if you don’t really care about her full history then there’s some bullet points toward the bottom.

she was born in england in 1924 and brought as a small child to the transia (it's a small, fictional slavic country) where her father was conducting research. unfortunately due to her being a small child, she contracted uranium poisoning from her father's work and had to be placed in a cryogenic chamber and treated with radiation and a highly experimental serum derived from the blood/genes of various species of spider.

she spent decades in stasis, educated subliminally with special tapes. when she was finally awakened she had only aged into her early teens, but she'd developed superhuman abilities.

grew up, moved away, met a dude, fell in love, then accidentally killed him with her powers. so yeah that kinda torments her still to this day. well, when she still remembered it anyway.

got recruited into hydra who she was led to believe were the good guys, had her memories suppressed, was told the high evolutionary basically a "god" figure, idek evolved her from a spider into a human woman, had an agent pretend to fall in love with her, etc etc. basically got gaslit and brainwashed into becoming a high ranking member until she was put out on a field assignment and told to assassinate nick fury. during the mission he told her what hydra really was and she dropped their asses.

got her memories back from mordred the mystic, then lived in a shitty apartment in london for a while. ended up breaking into a convenience store across the street at one point to get some food, but got noticed by shield agent jerry hunt who pretty much hounded her until she dyed her hair and created a secret identity to hide from him

did the hero thing for a while, moved to l.a., dated jerry, became a bounty hunter, moved to san francisco, became a p.i., superhero'd some more, met carol danvers 😍

went on a mission to finally take down longtime archenemy morgan le fay, and did so, but not before some morgan did some magic shit and separated her soul from her body ?? so she goes to the sorcerer magnus and has him cast a spell to make everyone who ever met her forget she existed.

not long later she was found and revived by two hero pals, breaking the spell, but she was left comatose. dr strange gets involved, abra cadabra, jess ain't a cadava'. but she is however, powerless.

continued working as a p.i. until an encounter with the new spider-woman mattie franklin somehow restored her powers, which came back slowly and were very unstable. meets jessica jones, accidentally zaps tf out of her, then works with her to save the new spider-woman.

eventually struck a deal with hydra to spy within shield so she could get her powers back but the skrull queen veranke was behind it and manipulating her so she could learn to perfectly impersonate jessica. jess ended up held captive for two years aboard a skrull spaceship while veranke took her place.

she and the rest of the captives got saved but because of the havoc veranke wreaked, she didn't exactly receive a warm welcome back.

spent some time rebuilding her reputation until she was invited to join the avengers (for avengers 1 in the mcu, let's say). they did some good work and she eventually fell for clint/hawkeye. they dated a while but things went sideways when he cheated on her (but obvs that's subject to change depending on who picks him up, just leaving that in for now bc it seems kinda noteworthy).

skipping comic spider-verse stuff bc how does that work with the rp, idek.

left the avengers after that and mostly stayed out of their business so she wasn't around for ultron or civil war and instead got back to her roots with some good ol fashioned p.i. work. may have crossed paths with the defenders and other street level heroes during this period.  

then of course, came the snap. jess was one of the ones that vanished. using this instead of her death during secret wars in the comics. when everyone came back she joined all the others to fight thanos and damn right she was part of that moment with all the female heroes like she should have fucking been irl.

when things settled down after y'know, dying, she realized that she wanted to be a mother and raise a child, and almost never got that chance. instead of waiting, she got herself artificially inseminated. which was good too tbh because like, look at her luck with men and imagine getting stuck in one of those relationships she'd been in so far. way better off doing it on her own smh

got invited to an alpha flight maternity ward by her captain marvel but when she went there it ended up getting overrun by skrulls and being super fucking pregnant she called carol for help, but the maternity ward was apparently in a black hole?? bc ofc it was lol. so jess protected all the women there, had an emergency c-section to give birth to her son gerry, then popped right off the table to finish kicking skrull ass. carol got there just in time for jess to collapse into her arms after the fight. headcanon — there was always a crush there but this was the moment jess fell hard.

had a liiittle teensy falling out with carol tho so she ended up kissing roger gocking/porcupine right in front of her during a battle that ended up repairing their friendship. then she went on to have a party announcing she and roger were dating but lbr she did most of this sub/consciously hoping to get a rise out of carol. but her spider-baby ended up crawling out a window and roger was the one to find and save him and there were some actual feelings there too, so. complicated. she kind of distanced herself from everything else to focus on p.i. work and raising her son.

not much later, jess realized her radiation immunity was gone and her powers were killing her, so she had roger take gerry to an upstate farm in case her condition could potentially harm her son, then set out on the search for a cure. that search of course, leading her to limbo city, nevada.

upon her arrival however, her memories quickly started to fade and by the time she woke up the next morning she had no specific recollection of memories. just innate and instinctive knowledge like her emotions toward people she was familiar with, emotional trauma that manifests mostly in her dreams, maternal instincts/yearning, her abilities both physical and learned, her interests and likes/dislikes, etc. things that come naturally to her, for the most part.

interestingly though, the town’s magic seems to have cured her??

gonna say she speaks english, romanian, german, hungarian, symkarian, russian, bulgarian, polish and spanish fluently, and knows a bit about a number of other languages.

incredibly intelligent, she is after all the daughter of a genius, raised among scientists conducting research, and her knowledge/intelligence was only maximized by her stasis education tapes.

exudes a high concentration of pheromones that can attract or repulse people, to put it simply. and ignore the original heteronormative connotations bc women aren't typically the ones she wants to repulse, and men arent always the ones she wants to attract. it's difficult to control but she learned over the years. even now without her memories she has innate control over it, but if she manages to work up a sweat (which isn't all that easy for her tbh) or misses a shower or two, well… it's gonna kick in.

she probably can't do it anymore in limbo because she can't remember how, but with her pheromones she learned to control them so well she was able to elicit fear, anxiety, attraction, hatred, pleasure, etc. and even used them to convince the hulk to make her a sandwich once.

fucking loves butter. she's been known to eat the stuff straight up. and a lot of it. lucky thing she has a spider-metabolism.

hc: she loves making puns, especially spider related ones. she also likes to annoy her spider-friends by spider-throwing the word spider in front of everything though it's obviously a joke, unlike in her cartoon where im pretty sure she was dead serious lol

hates rats. so much. she will tear down a whole skrull army but if one shapeshifts into a rat it's over okay, she already lost.

allergic to flerkens. which is great for visiting her bestie/crush, and her pet flerken chewie.

still has her suit but hasn’t worn it yet in limbo. she found it under her bed a couple days after “waking up” in limbo but put it right back because she figured it was probably some weird sex thing and maybe wasn’t even hers so, gross, yknow?

#jessica drew. #limbchq: intro #jessica drew ( intro ). #death tw #gaslighting tw #captivity tw #pregnancy tw #i've come to love her so much in a short time

[veryvincible]

The Shitstorm That Is TS:IM and IM2020: The Allegory of Nothing

4 / 4. We’re here.

The writers don’t know what artificial intelligence is.

1 2 3

Let’s go back to the beginning. Jocasta is the robotics ethicist of Stark Unlimited. The company has adopted a system wherein the automated employees are in a non-hierarchical environment. Tasks are “suggested, not ordered.”

And guess what that does? Well, when these employees are needed, this happens:

The majority of them are non-compliant. And what’s the solution to this?

Apparently, give them a phat beat for Tony to kick Fin Fang Foom’s ass to. That’s what Andy Bhang decided to do, but only after following the “proper ethical protocol” when speaking to Jocasta. Which is... saying “please.”

Because, you know, saying things like, “Hey, I need you to do [whatever the fuck]” when a giant dragon is laying siege to your city is... oppressive, I guess. It doesn’t matter that that’s how humans tend to talk to other humans in emergencies, because Jocasta’s a robot ethicist and a functioning AI, and this "proper ethical protocol” is to slow things down with formalities instead of allowing everyone to treat each other like individuals.

By all means, continue to buffer the solution so everyone can say “please.” It’s only Tony who’s out there fighting a giant monster.

I actually like Jocasta. I think she’s a good character in most of the media she appears in. But here? Well, here, everyone is shitty.

It’s glaringly obvious that the goal here isn’t robot... equality. These sentient machines are just free rein. Sure, they work for Stark Unlimited. Sure, they’re employees... but they actually don’t have to do any work, like, ever, unless they want to.

So, they’re obviously not being treated like human beings. They’re practically high-tech babies, which is exactly how you want to present your oppressed group in your revolution plotline. Especially in this political climate! Hierarchy is most certainly oppressive! These robots can’t handle having real human jobs! They’re just so innocent and flawless.

...

And out of place.

Here’s the thing. Dan Slott... doesn’t really know what AI is. These little nano-suits that are coming in to help save the day have no reason to be sentient. Sure, they might be artificially intelligent, but sentient? No.

Artificial Intelligence refers to a computer science field that focuses on learning and problem-solving machines. These machines gather data and use this data later on in order to make decisions. If you use email, your spam filter is a result of AI. Our phones learn how we respond to certain messages (and pick up our diction even out of context) as a result of AI and machine learning.

Chatbots simulate human speech, often by using messages compiled from other humans. The more you talk to them, the more organically they’ll seem to respond. They recycle human messages and send them back.

Deep learning is a more specialized form of learning that more closely resembles how the human brain functions by organizing information in a non-linear fashion with interconnected neuron nodes. This is what leads to the sentience that’s seen in characters such as FRIDAY, and it’s very obviously not present in every machine with AI capabilities. In essence, artificial intelligence is not synonymous with sentience.

So... Why does TS:IM treat these concepts like they’re interchangeable? Why is it that the featured AI revolution is so dependent on the feelings of machines that have no chance of becoming sentient? Again, Tony’s nano-suits could be just that: nano-suits. There’s nothing saying that these suits have to be sentient. In fact, it’s worse if you consider them to be.

If all it takes for a machine to be considered a part of this AI revolution is some problem-solving, wouldn’t Tony’s actual suits also be considered AI? They have autopilot, don’t they? They avoid obstacles. The HUD provides useful information regardless of whether or not a character AI is residing in the suit. 

For example, here’s a scene wherein some researchers are doing a robot stability test with one of these lovable dog-like machines.

Now, I cringe when I see the poor guy get pushed down. But you know who doesn’t cringe? The dog-like robot, because the dog-like robot feels nothing. It’s a learning machine, but it is not a sentient being. Not even a loving heart emoji directed toward its robot savior.

Another example?

This right here.

From combat drones to... coffee makers? Coffee makers are supposed to be oppressed here? What’s a Keurig going to do with sentience anyway? How’s it going to get to the fight? It doesn’t have legs. This machine doesn’t have legs. Or wheels. Or anything.

Because it’s a coffeemaker, not a member of society. And this dilution of meaning with regards to sentient beings also dilutes the message of the AI revolution. It’s not pointed out in-universe how fucking crazy it is for all of these machines to be considered oppressed when they don’t even have the mental capacity to think past prompting “French press or Espresso?” on a touch screen.

There’s also a serious question asked here: What would a sentient machine think about being a sentient machine?

And we have gotten some pretty thoughtful answers out of this. For example, Jocasta thinks she has a soul. And Tony, despite his flesh and blood, is still in existential limbo because of the idea that he might be artificial intelligence after all.

And... the depth ends there, because all sentient machines in this universe want to do is... be human.

Like, really. They want to be human.

The reality of what it would mean to exist solely in one form without ever experiencing what it’s like to be in another is completely swept away here. There’s very little differentiation between robots who want to be humans and robots who want to be robots with rights. Also, there’s very little differentiation between robots who want to be robots with rights and Keurigs.

But really, this is also kind of frustrating. Sure, it could be a nod to certain feelings of oppressed groups who don’t fit in. It could be a clever bit of characterization akin to that of a young Asian-American girl wanting to be white so she doesn’t get bullied in school, or a gay person who’s always wished they could be straight.

Except it’s not, because nothing in this run feels like it’s been thought through to that extent.

Instead, what we have is a confusing mess. Most of these robots (with the exception of some) want to be treated exactly like humans, whether it’s actually better for them as a species (?) or not.

For example:

What makes an AI feel “cooped up?” FRIDAY, from what we’ve been shown, was usually given free rein of the tower. The same way our phones respond when we say, “Hey Siri!” or “Okay, Google!”, FRIDAY responded when she was called on. No matter where Tony was in the tower, she could be there, too.

And also, she was in the suit.

There is no reason that any AI should have to be restricted to one specific place or another, and yet throughout the entirety of the run, AIs are only allowed to be in one place at any given time. Why is that?

Sure, it’s nice to have a body. And if they want a body to go out and interact with the world, more power to them. The body is the least of my concerns.

I just hate that any AI is considered to be a “helpless passenger” at all, when machines the likes of these should be more than capable of not only going wherever they’d like to go within their allowed boundaries (which, again, should be and has been shown to be much larger than “just the suit”), but also going wherever they’d like to go at any time. They can be in two places at once. Presumably, if they’re complex enough to seriously contemplate the philosophy of being, they’ve got the processing power to be on multiple simpler trains of thought at once, and they’ve got the ability to control multiple bodies or project in multiple locations at once.

And even if this were a total retcon, and it turned out that actually, the capability for AIs to be in multiple places at once was never a thing before now...

It’s specifically stated on the exact same page that this is possible.

It’s truly dumbfounding.

And perhaps the worst offender of all: the complete disregard for any kind of philosophy or conversation about what it means to be an entity.

So, we’re all aware of 616 Tony’s current story if we’re reading this. Multiple times in his life, he’s been replaced by backup copies of himself, mostly holographic or otherwise exclusively digital.

And Jocasta treats him like Tony. Or, well, she treats him like a version of Tony. Whatever the case, she’s never shown any hostility toward him whatsoever for being a fleshy backup. This never made him any less valuable.

But... She’d rather let FRIDAY die for good than be given a second chance at life, because if they loaded up the backup, she’d be... missing a week of memories.

A week of memories that made her “a completely different entity.”

Now, I’m not here to lecture anyone on what it means to be yourself. I’m really not.

But the main difference between the original Tony and this current Tony (if we’re working off the assumption that he’s not supposed to have a totally different and fucked up personality) is the “memory loss,” or rather, lack of available data. Functionally, it’s amnesia.

And you know what? The original Tony has this too. There are already things that Tony doesn’t remember because of his time spent as an AI. Essentially, every single Tony that could possibly exist in 616 canon right now (even TonAI, our lovable blue friend with a control freak streak) is just as Tony as all the other Tonys, because they all have the memories of their developmental stages and quite a bit of the time spent with the Avengers, and they all have missing information.

So, if FRIDAY’s one-week-ago backup were to be loaded up, what would happen? Would she be completely different?

No. She would have every single memory that FRIDAY had originally, with the exception of whatever memories she saved in the last week of her life. And yet, because of the lack of critical thinking that went into the writing process, Jocasta decided that a dead FRIDAY was better than a FRIDAY with memory loss.

The writing is lazy. The thinking involved in this entire plotline is little to none. Coffeemakers are not oppressed, and a friend waking up from a comatose state with a few memories missing is better than that friend dying. Not every AI is sentient.

And to top it all off, after arguing for 20 or so issues that AIs are people, too, and every life- even the life of a Keurig or a stability testing machine- is valuable...

Tony devalued his own, concluding the worst AI-centric plotline I’ve ever read.

Whoopsie.

#tony stark #tony stark: iron man #ts:im #marvel comics #iron man #dan slott #iron man 2020

[pumpkin-spice-whump-latte]

Whumptober #7: Isolation

Hey guess who can’t write something without it turning into a goddamn novel? IT’S ME! I got a little carried away with this one, but it’s a concept that I’m actually super interested in.

contents: Sensory deprivation, hallucinations, unreality mention, drugging

_________________________________

“Test number 13: Keller injection administered. Subject–”

“What the FUCK did you just stick me with you sick BASTARD?”

Dr. Tillman paused during the outburst, looking down at the man strapped to the table indifferently, then continued.

“…Subject restrained. Begin phase two.”

Ben could feel a cold finger of fear start tapping it’s way up his spine as soon as he’d felt the needle pierce his skin, and it was only made worse by the fact that he wasn’t even being told what was in it. He had no idea what drug had just been forced into his system and wouldn’t know until something started hurting or growing or peeling off… Oh god. It was the vast unknown of it all that was the worst thing.

“At least… Goddammit, at least tell me what this is supposed to be testing for, huh Doc?” There was a tiny bit of pleading his voice that he hadn’t meant to let slip, and it made his cheeks burn in shame. Might as well have said “pretty please, oh Mr. Mad Scientist sir, with ice cream on top?”

The man above him simply checked to see the straps around Ben’s wrists and ankles were tight enough, scribbled something down on his clipboard, then turned to leave the room.

“Hey!” Ben yelled after him. “I’m asking you a question! Hey!” It did no good. The scientist didn’t even pause a step to look back before the door slammed shut behind him. Ben would have kept on screaming out demands and threats, turning all of his fear into anger, if his vision hadn’t started to suddenly fade away.

The room started going dark gray and fuzzy at the edges, and he quieted down a little in nervous confusion. Was he passing out? No… No he was still awake. It was the room that was going away. It was his eyes that were rapidly failing him.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.” He whispered this to himself, since he’d long since given up on the possibility of anything else out there hearing him, but then that too started to fade. His mouth opened and closed and he could feel breath being pushed out over his tongue and teeth, but he could hear nothing.

At that point his vision had blacked out completely as well.

He was strapped to a goddamn table, alone, and unable to hear or see anything around him. He knew it was useless but screamed anyway, forcing out a great rush of air in the way his body remembered, compressing his chest and opening his mouth wide as he could. There was no one around to hear it.

-----

“Bennnnn..” It started softly. His name called from somewhere far off, in a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “BEN!” There it was again, only this time sharp like the crack of a whip. He tried to call out an answer but, when he couldn’t hear his own voice, he knew it had to have been auditory hallucinations. That happened a lot with sensory deprivation. The brain had gotten used to hearing or seeing so when it was suddenly taken away, the brain compensated by flinging out random images and sounds. Memories.

Ghosts.

Even so, Ben figured he could handle this. The scientist’s experiment had become clear; total isolation and it’s effects on everyone’s favorite kidnap victim.

Great.

He tried taking a few deep breaths, focusing on the sensation of air moving in and out of his lungs. Feeling the way his chest expanded and contracted to remind himself of his connection to the waking world. It was okay. Whatever this was would be temporary. The drug in his system would wear off.

…Wouldn’t it?

____

After only six hours Ben wasn’t so sure it would. Of course he had no way to tell it had been six hours; his entire world consisted of darkness and nothingness and trying to count the seconds had gotten tedious after ten minutes.

But now he had a lot more to deal with than just boredom. Like the fact that he was still hearing things, and could no longer tell if they were real.

“Of course I’m real, man.” Carlos’ voice. The other captive he’d met not too long ago. The one who’d been a doctor too and had gentle hands. Ben was hearing his voice like he was sitting right next to him.

“Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.” The voice kept repeating his name over and over until he pushed out more air in another frustrated shout.

Then came the sensation of fingers on his arm. He twitched and tried to flinch away, but he was still strapped down to the table. He couldn’t move an inch and

something was touching his arm.

He tried calling out Carlos’ name, tried demanding he do something to let him know this wasn’t a hallucination.

“Tap my arm three times if you’re real.”

The ghostly fingers only moved down to tap at his leg instead. What did that mean? Real, but not real? Here, yet not here?

Was he going insane????

------

After fifteen hours he began to forget things. Strange, random things like what pizza tasted like. Big, important things like what an hour of time even felt like, let alone meant. He had started to feel vaguely detached from the idea of having a body and being alive at all, and now it had grown into a full blown existential crisis. What if…

What if he had actually died?

What if this was Hell? This was his punishment for snitching on his boss back when he was a free, unhurt man. Jerry had never gotten over it but you weren’t supposed to be stealing opioids and managing a hospital at the same time.

Maybe this was limbo. Maybe he’d stay like this for the rest of eternity, unable to move or see or hear anything….

Except he could hear things, couldn’t he? Sometimes it was a woman’s voice humming directly next to his ear. Sometimes it was his father, saying some garbled nonsense he couldn’t understand. But most of the time it was Carlos.

His brain had apparently latched onto to the man out of a sense of desperate camaraderie. The only other person he’d seen in ages that was alive and didn’t cause him pain and terror. Carlos was beside him a lot during that time, and it was getting harder and harder to convince himself it was just a hallucination.

“Tell… Tell me a story. Tell me how the scientist found you.” It was getting harder to tell if his voice was making it out of his throat. Or if it mattered.

The shadow of Carlos didn’t answer, but Ben was able to feel the soft pressure of someone laying their head on his shoulder. Tears slipped out hot and rolling from the sides of his eyes, and he sobbed out noises he couldn't hear or even properly regulate.

“Tell me how we’re gonna…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. There was no point in it anyway. Tell me how we’re going to get out of here? Ha. Funny.

A great feeling of heavy sadness washed over him then, cresting so far above his head that it felt monstrous, and his brain decided that was enough. The hallucinations, the tortuous uncertainty, the maddening need to scratch his nose and not being able to, he could deal with all that.

But the feeling of utter loneliness–the sense that he really was the only person in this universe, and Carlos and Dr. Tillman and his boyfriend back home that he didn’t let himself think about, they had all actually been hallucinations–that’s what ended up breaking him.

It was at hour thirty that the drug finally started to wear off and allow his senses to function properly again, but by that point he no longer cared. By that point he responded to anything Dr. Tillman said or did with mindless screaming, prompting the scientist to drag him unwillingly back into a holding cell and toss him onto the ground.

Ben was ninety-nine percent sure he was still hallucinating (or hadn’t been, maybe this was a dream, maybe he was asleep) but couldn’t help himself as the scientist was walking away again. Whether this was real or not his entire body screamed in unison for the company of another living soul. For the reminder that he was a person and shared this earth with other people.

“Wait! Please! Don’t!” He might have been able to see again (if his eyes could even be believed) and he might have been able to hear again (if his ears could be trusted either), but it meant nothing in that moment if he was to be left alone again. As much as he hated that damn scientist’s face, it was the only one he’d fully seen in thirty hours.

He broke down into helpless sobbing as the door was slammed in his face.

“Please… Please don’t, I can’t deal with this I can’t…” That wave of sadness stole over him again as he pushed his face into the cold metal floor. Looking around to see if Carlos or his father or his old boss Jerry had stuck around now that he’d regained his senses…

But it seemed like they hadn’t.

Now more than ever, Ben felt completely alone.

#whumptober2019 #no.7 #isolation #sensory deprivation #hallucinations #drugs #oc: ben #this is so long if anyone actually reads this you deserve an entire cookie

[buns-with-a-book]

Into the Spardaverse 3 - A Tale of Two Worlds

Donte and Dante talk, Cassandra and Reboot Vergil talk, lots of talking but expect some action in the next chapter.

Fandom: Devil May Cry, DmC (Devil may Cry) Characters: Dante, Reboot Dante, Vergil, Reboot Vergil, OC Tags: @nimnox @furyeclipse @synchronmurmurs @harlot-of-oblivion @queenmuzz

Summary: Dante and Cassandra hear the tale of the brothers of Limbo City. 

Dante looked around the safehouse the punk found for them. It seemed to have once been a nice apartment but now it was in ruins, sprayed with sigils and spells to deter demons by someone who came here before them. In the presence of them, he could feel a slight tingling. It was similar to Cassandra, when she summoned the orbs of light to either light the way or burn off the face of a demon. It never burned, at least not enough to slow him down, but it always kept him focused on the task at hand. 

“Hey.” The punk’s voice rattled him from his thoughts. He looked back to him, seeing what looked like a salvaged bag of food set out on the tiny table. There were a couple cans of tuna, some mayonnaise condiment packages, some sliced bread, and plastic utensils. The punk had taken an orange from the bag and was quietly peeling it open. Dante frowned at what was available, a frown that made the punk huff in irritation. “Look, if you’re gonna keep on going to find your sis, you’re going to need to eat.” 

“No pizza?” He asked, walking over to the worn couch and flopping down. 

“Nope.” The punk crossed his arms. “Haven’t had pizza in years.” 

“Jeez, what kind of life do you live?” Dante huffed, opening one of the cans and mixing the mayonnaise with the tuna. “Next thing you know, you’re gonna tell me you haven’t had strawberry sundaes.”

“Bleh, strawberries. Don’t like em.” 

“What!?” Dante stared at him. “They’re the best thing ever!” 

“I don’t like the seeds. They get everywhere and it’s distracting.” The punk replied. “I prefer oranges anyway, especially in orange sherbet.” He added, taking an orange slice and popping it into his mouth. Dante made a face, thankful that he didn’t turn out like this punk. He couldn’t fathom a life without his beloved sundaes. He quickly made a sandwich of tuna and mayo and chomped in, wincing at the taste. It wasn’t pizza...but it would do for now. 

“So, kid, how long have you been hunting demons?” Dante asked between bites. 

“...since I was a kid. I was tossed around from place to place, fighting off demons that hunted me down.” Dante noticed the softness in his tone. His hand reached up to hold a necklace, rubbing the red jewel. Dante could only presume that it was the Perfect Amulet, in another form. “Everywhere I was sent to, there were always demons trying to kill me.” 

‘Ain’t that a familiar story.’ Dante mused, staring at the punk. 

“What was your mom like?” The punk asked suddenly, rousing Dante from his thoughts. 

“What?” 

“Your mom. We’re obviously more alike beyond looks and names.” The punk said, sitting up to face him properly. Dante took another bite of the sandwich.

“Well...only if you go first.” He waved his hand. He could feel the scowl that the punk was throwing at him before he let out a sigh. 

“My mom was an angel.” He said softly. “From what I remember, she held off Mundus’ armies as long as she could while Dad fled with us.” 

“Wait, Sparda was with you?” Dante interjected. “Lucky. My dad was never with us when...that happened.” He winced at the memory of smoke and flames, of the final scream from the mother he wasn’t strong enough to save. “Nor was Verge.” He raised an eyebrow at the punk. “Speaking of him…” 

“What about your mom.” The punk hissed. It seemed that the topic of Vergil was a sore subject, not that Dante could blame him. For years, Vergil was a subject that he didn’t want to think of, especially after what happened on Mallet Island. Dante let out a sigh.

“Ok, ok. My mom…” He closed his eyes, pushing past the memories of ash and smoke and blood. “She was a witch, as I recall. Familiars, potions, the whole shabang. Don’t really remember my dad much...I think he visited a few times before he just...disappeared. Everybody talks about him like he’s the hottest shit that ever walked around. Hell, even a whole town worshiped him like a god.” He chuckled at the thought of Fortuna. The punk listened quietly, shifting in his seat. 

“The Sparda I know...that I remember, he was just a really good swordsman.”

“Sounds like some things never change.” 

“He used to be kicking until recently...until the Demon King found him and killed him.” Dante winced at that. Some things never changed indeed. “I wanted to meet him, before he died, but…” He let out a sigh. “So much for that. Shit.” He hissed. 

“I understand that feeling kid.” Dante finished the sandwich and stood, walking to the window. “There’s a lot I wanna say to my old man, a lot I wanna ask...but I can’t.” He sighed, leaning against the windowsill. He looked down the street and blinked, watching as a tiny golden butterfly fluttered down the street. It stood out from the bleakness of Limbo City. He smiled, knowing exactly what that butterfly was. He held out his hand, letting the spectral butterfly land in his palm. His hand bloomed with warmth, reminding him of the sun that was shrouded behind grey and green clouds. He looked up, out the window, and felt a sense of direction. It was northward...and it was nearby. An image of a mansion flashed in his mind, guarded by a gatekeeper made of twisted metal and appearing like an angel. A flicker of his own demonic energy melded with the butterfly, giving its wings a bright-red glow. 

“What was that?” He heard the punk ask behind him. 

“The way me and my sis communicate, if one of us is in danger.” He said, letting it flutter away. “I know where she is.” He pointed out the window. “Up that street, a couple lefts, and we’ll end up at a big ole mansion. That’s where she is.” The punk let out a frustrated sigh. “Hm?”

“She’s at The Demon King’s Palace. Fucking great.” 

“So, we’re going to kick the ass of a jackass?” Dante laughed dryly, looking back to the punk. The laugh died off at the sight of him, looking more vulnerable than he ever saw. There was also the fact that he hadn’t seen Vergil at all, neither his own brother or the brother he knew the punk had. 

“That jackass...is my brother.” 

“Jeez. Everything just has to get more complicated.” Dante muttered, running a hand through his silvery-white hair. It didn’t help that the Demon King was the punk’s brother...who slew their father as well, he could never see Vergil doing that. It was those thoughts that he mulled over. In the distance, he swore he saw a blur of neon blue, like lightning across the cloud-covered sky. He smirked and stood up.

“Come on kid, we’re gonna meet someone at jackass’ mansion.”

“Who?” The punk quickly got up.

“My brother.”  

---

Cassandra hummed softly, watching the orb of sunlight she summoned bounce around at the mere gesture of her hand. While this little bitch that called himself Vergil was searching for her Dante and Vergil, she was passing the time as his prisoner. She had settled herself on the edge of the bed but dared not take a nap. It was too risky, especially with the Demon King lurking in the very walls of the mansion that was his palace. She had no idea how the demons of Limbo City operated, if even sleeping in their realm would damn her to a hundred years of slumber. 

‘When all else fails, assume their rules are the same as the Fair Folk.’ She thought. The handle of the door twisted before opening, revealing Vergil entering her prison cell of a bedroom. Behind him was a demon on spindly legs, holding a tray of tea. She stared at the demon, unsure how to react to it aside from disgust. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked, struggling to sound as neutral as possible. 

“My agents are seeking out your allies, Rose. It will not be long before they come.” An unsettling grin crept on his face. “And with their arrival, they shall be destroyed.” She noticed his unsettling confidence, as if he knew they would be crushed by him. Did he know what the Dante and Vergil she knew held? Did the power of Sin Devil Trigger exist in this world? Or was it impossible, a lofty unreachable standard? She didn’t dare ask, not wanting to spoil the powers she knew they had, to catch the Demon King off guard. 

“So…” She hummed, glancing around the walls. “Nice sigils you got on the walls. Are they supposed to do anything?” Vergil looked at her in surprise. He carefully pulled off his gloves, walking over to her. She stood up, backing away from him. “What are you doing!?” He took her hand, ignoring her recoil from the touch. 

“Perhaps you are no angel…” Cassandra bit back a scathing comment, trying to tug her hand out of his. He let go after a few moments, Cassandra quickly pulling her hand close to her. “Would you like tea?” And he had the gall to ask if she wanted tea!? He gestured to the demon who had been standing in the room. The demon looked towards her, tilting it’s faceless head. 

“...no thank you.” She whispered, trying to keep her voice even. She dared not ask about his mother, she was certain either Mundus killed her or he did it himself. “I...I don’t have the appetite at the moment.” 

“Suit yourself, Rose.” He sighed and stepped back, walking to the demon. He picked up a teacup and began to sip the tea. Cassandra stared at her hand, gently rubbing the skin. She didn’t dare try to activate her healing Crest, not wanting to attract any more of his attention than she already had. “Who were your parents?” Vergil asked. She frowned. 

“Soren and Eos Greensleeve. If you’re asking if they were human or not, they were human as far as I was aware.” 

“Was?” 

“They’re dead.” Another half-truth. Stella was dead and Nyx was dead to her. Vergil hummed quietly at the news.

“My condolences. I know what it is like to lose your parents.” She raised an eyebrow at that. 

“Eva...and Sparda, correct?”

“You know of them?” He asked, turning to face her. She swallowed. 

“I’ve heard of them, how Eva sacrificed herself to save her sons. Sparda’s last gift, Rebellion and Yamato...all rumors and legends. I wonder how Sparda would react, seeing his son as the Demon King?”  

“Quite interesting that you speak of a dead demon, a demon who did not bend to my will. It was a shame I had to kill Sparda.” Cassandra stared at him, her body frozen from shock. “He was half-mad from Mundus’ torture, it was a mercy to kill him.” 

“You speak of mercy but I doubt you were ever capable of it.” She whispered. “You only killed him because you could do it.” The look she got from that, a look of casual disinterest in her shock, told her more than he could ever say. 

‘This bitch is a fucking madman!’ She thought, narrowing her eyes at him. She wished she could run from the Demon King, she wanted to, but she had to wait for a distraction from the outside. Preferably named Dante, but any distraction would do at this point. She noticed he was walking away from the window, to the door. 

“Where are you going?” 

“To the library. I will find out who you are, Rose. You may not be the angel I originally pinned you to be but you are someone of interest. I just need to find out who.” The spindly demon trotted after him docily, stepping out of the room before Vergil closed the door and locked it. 

‘You won’t find out, because I don’t belong here.’ Cassandra thought, walking to the window. ‘And by the time you figure it out, I’m gonna be kicking your ass.’ She opened the window, watching as a blue spectral butterfly fluttered to her. She smiled at the sight, taking it into her hand. ‘Make that both of us, you little bitch.’

#devil may cry #devil may cry dante #devil may cry oc #devil may cry vergil #into the spardaverse