#at which it is justifiable to leave someone to slowly burn to death (and often the argument implies that /anything/ obi-wan did | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blueberrypancakesworld · 1 year

Text

Sin of desire

Increase Mather x fem reader

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Sequel to Contempt of sin

warning : kissing , angst , obsession , death threw bruning , implied darker themes , obsessive thoughts and love , implied torture , breakdown , little knife play , hunter/prey slightly , dark ending , smutish

Increase Mather x fem reader

+++++++++++++++++++++++

,,You are mine," these words she had not forgotten since the incident in her flower store. She could not forget his threat, his warning that she belonged to him.

Since his eyes had landed on her, he seemed to have put her under his spell. She remembered too well that look, the look that she couldn't help but call divine.

His sinful touches that he justified by God's word and his delusion. The cold leather on her skin, his intention, his intention that he had all the time towards her. The kiss. The witch had become the witch hunter's delusion to make her his.

Or the whole town, each of its witches would burn. Burn the flames would take them all and drag them down to their judge. It had been about a week since he had kissed her.

But her desire grew with every second. When she was not in her house or her store that protected her from his gaze, she was only outside for a short time.

She felt his gaze on her as she stepped outside. No matter how often she looked around, turned and asked where he was, she could not get rid of his gaze. He seemed to be watching her from everywhere.

Once, when she was buying new apples from the small stall two streets away, one of them fell down. ,,I'll do it," she said to the seller, an older man, so that he did not have to bend down.

But no sooner had she knelt down and picked up the apple than his leather glove appeared in front of her and grabbed the apple away.

She still knew exactly how her heart beat faster out of desire, fear and awe. How his blue eyes feasted on her feelings and he watched her.,,I'll take care of it, miss," he had said, and paid for her entire purchase. Something she could have bought herselves.

But at that time it seemed as if he himself wanted to control this until he had made her his. ,,Be more attentive little flower" she had heard him whisper as he helped her up and pulled a petal out of her hair with his gloved hand.

But only a soft ,,Thank you" had passed her lips before he walked past her and disappeared. But his gaze, the gaze of these beautiful eyes remained on her. Another encounter that she would not forget. Never. ,,A hungry wolf!" hissed Mary Sibley as the coven met in her house.

The leader took a sip of her wine before glancing at her problem. ,,Get rid of him! It's your always dubious attitude that I can't use," she warned the younger witch, who seemed almost powerless in contrast to her. ,,You can't just kill her, that would be too revealing," Mary's longest witch friend and apparent spat reminded her.

,,I'll take care of it...but don't forget I'm not one of you and leave me out of your business" she warned but saw Mary losing patience more and more. ,,Shut your mouth," she heard Mary hiss venomously before walking out angrily and yet with a hint of fear.

Y/n knew that Mary could kill her, because killing a witch hunter and someone she knew like that would be too obvious and panic would set in. Something is going to happen, an accident she thought before putting on her hood and witching back and forth from Mary's house to hers in the shadows.

But the misfortune should announce itself already in the following night. It was in the middle of the night when she woke up from her bed as the door to her house, which was also her store, was kicked open.

Still lightly drunk from sleep, she heard several people running up the stairs before the door to her bedroom was kicked open and the council members were standing there.

Pulling the covers off, she reached under her pillow and slowly took her father's dagger in her hand. ,,What do you want?" she asked calmly, but with a hint of fear in her voice.

She knew that it was not a good sign that almost all the council members were here. Something is wrong, she thought when she didn't see Increase among the men. ,,Y/n you are provisionally accused of being a witch and will have to undergo an examination to see if you have any witchcraft marks," one of the men said and she felt herself tense involuntarily.

She clasped the dagger tightly and went into a deffesnive posture. I could try she thought and was already casting her first spell. ,,Miss, we can take her in the shadows of darkness without attracting attention and keep her safe, or you can give us an excuse to overpower her by force and drag her there in front of everyone like a witch...and that's not you, is it?" she heard the words and after a moment's thought she sighed and threw the dagger back on her bed. It was a mistake she thought as she put on her coat and almost disappeared in the group of black-clad men.

Was it really Increase or is there more? she asked herself, but her question was interrupted by the squeak of a door. ,,Thank you, sirs, I'll take it from here, see if there are any complications in the surrounding streets" she heard the all too familiar voice of Increase, who looked from his men to her.

Wordlessly he grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her into his house. ,,You don't investigate your own house, it's unraveling," she said, looking around slightly.

It was quite large, the lower floor formed the living area and a staircase probably led up to the bedroom. ,,How clever you are...witch" he said and his hands, still covered with leather gloves, slipped off her coat.

Immediately she crossed her arms in front of her torso as she stood there in a simple white undergarment. ,,Sinful" she heard him say playfully concerned but his look told his true thoughts.

Show me more of you. ,,I was removed from my house at night because of an accusation," she said quietly, but audibly, not taking her eyes off him. ,,Who did it come from?" she finally asked, but Increase seemed to have something else in mind.,,Questions don't make it better, my witch, I suggest we start with your investigation," he suggested, pointing to the stairs.

I should not go to his bedroom she thought and covered her ears with her hair to hide the blush. ,,No, you don't want to give me a reason for exicuration, do you?" she heard his warning question at her ear before he stroked back the strands of her hair.

,,No, you don't want to give me a reason for exicuration, do you?" she heard his warning question at her ear before he stroked back the strands of her hair. ,,Upstairs," he demanded and she did as ordered and went upstairs to his bedroom. She felt the little black pill she always carried with her.

A drug that would kill her instantly if she revealed any information under torture. Only if I take it, she reminded herself, and an inner battle broke out between her suicide, her feelings for Increase, the coven, and protecting herself.

His door creaked lightly as she walked in and goosebumps ran down her body as she found torture instruments and weapons on the walls along with the many texts, writings and books. ,,It frightens you to be so close to death," he said, amused, and with a click confirmed that they were now locked up together. ,,Just a scared woman," she replied, but they both knew the truth about each other. ,,Of course," he commented briefly before moving on to a chest ripper.

She could feel the sound of her torn flesh and her missing breast. ,,You know what I can do?" he asked rather rhetorically and ran his hand over the cold metal. ,,Torture me, force me to talk, break my neck with the gallows, make me drown on the chair, break my bones with stones or kill me with your own hands" she enumerated and saw the lust reflected in his eyes. He wanted more.

More than just giving her the pain and lecturing her. ,,Burn. I could burn you and watch you burn in the hellfire" he finished her list and she swallowed. She was still standing in the room with only her dress on.

Not moving out of caution from him, but still watching him. ,,Do your witch mark examination," she said nervously, wanting to leave, but also unable to deny that the thought of being alone with him appealed to her. ,,So impatient for me," he murmured with a smirk before moving from the torture device to her. ,,Never," she said in a whisper, but even though he heard it, he ignored it. For now.

She saw him take off his gloves and put the leather on his desk before he walked around her and looked at her right arm first. Goosebumps spread over her body.

His fingers were cold as he moved from her hand out to her lower and then upper arm. Wordlessly, he felt her skin and looked for indicators of a witch.

They both knew the answer. ,,Why don't you just kill me?" she asked after he looked at her other arm. She gasped in surprise as his hand tightened around her neck.

Not hard enough to deprive her of air, but the warning was clear. ,,That wouldn't be fair, my sweet flower. Besides, I didn't answer your question," he reminded her, but it was true.

She still did not know who had accused her. ,,Say, what would you do if I told you who put you in this situation?" he asked and slowly his hand slid from her neck down to the first button of her dress which was buttoned in the front. ,,I see at the moment only a man subjugated by his own desires" she returned and saw something change in him.

Before he suddenly grabbed her by the jaw and pressed a knife to her throat.

He warned her coldly and she felt the blade press against her skin a little harder. ,,So tell me, if you could choose to die, how would you want it?" he asked, still in a cold tone. But he removed the knife from her neck and continued unbuttoning her dress.

With each button her mind seemed to empty and her heart beat faster. ,,So sinfully beautiful truly a witch with a wild heart" he murmured and his fingertips carefully and almost fearfully ran over her breasts down to her slightly hardened nipples.

He looked at her with such fascination and yet desire for possession and lust that she found it hard to ignore the tingling in her belly and abdomen. ,,How I wish I could" he purred and she tensed as she felt the cold point of the knife resting on one of her breasts. ,,Please," she said softly, but he shook his head slightly, almost dismissively.

Before his free hand went to her lips and a finger gently stroked them. ,,Shhh or you'll be heard," he warned with a smirk as if her voice would trigger something.

She bit her tongue and her fingers dug into her dress. Not out loud she admonished herself and closed her eyes. She didn't want to give him the nerve, even if her heart hadn't calmed down. It seemed to beat even faster under his touch.

She winced as he moved down her side and lightly poked her there. ,,Look at me and sit down my flower" he said and faster than necessary she buttoned her dress again. But her eyes did not leave him once.

Just as his blue eyes did not leave hers or her body. Slowly she walked towards the simple wooden chair and sat down there. Only the creaking of the wood through her body seemed to break the silence of the room.

But she kept her word, looked at him and saw him coming towards her. Her hands clung to her dress and she saw him kneel down to her. ,,Almost there" he said and she got goosebumps again as he reached down to the hem of her dress and pushed it up.

The fabric gathered at the top and was held firmly there by her. She barely dared to breathe as he slid his fingers up her legs. Shortly he scratched over the soft flesh of the thighs. Left red stripes closer and closer to her center.

He felt her squeeze her thighs together. Out of fear and lust before him. Because of his guilt. He was her sin. ,,You didn't find anything" she stated and she knew that she didn't have a witch's mark on her body. ,,And even if I don't have what I need, you don't have your answer either," he stated firmly and slowly rose.

His arms rested on the back of the chair, blocking her escape. ,,What would you do if I told you?" he asked again and seemed to watch and wait for even the smallest reaction. ,,It depends on who betrayed me," she admitted and her fingers dug deeper into the fabric of her dress.

She felt him push his leg between her legs as far as the chair would allow. Not enough to satisfy her, but enough to make his intentions clear if she answered correctly. ,,You want to know?" he asked and she nodded more hastily than intended. ,,Yes" came from her lips and she bent forward a little to understand him clearly.

Knowing that he was enjoying the sight below him. ,,Mary Sibley" was the name of the woman who was at the same time their greatest enemy.

But instead of the shock in her eyes, there burned infinite hatred and rage. Rage at the woman who had considered herself the reterin and revolutionary of the witches.

She wanted to save them all, to usher in a new age. It hurt and yet her suspicions were confirmed. ,,She wanted to get rid of me" she realized and wanted to scream. Suddenly she felt him put a finger under her chin.

She forced him to look at her with the hatred she felt. ,,Wonderful" she heard him say and saw how he enjoyed her breaking down. ,,Tell me, what should happen now?" he asked, watching her closely.

As her eyes went to his, their eyes met before she continued to look at the instruments of torture hanging on the walls. Before her eyes lingered on the candle shining on his desk. ,,Burn...let it burn her and her cyrcle" she said and he allowed her to rise.

The rage that coursed through her body seemed stronger than any magic she had ever known. This feeling of betrayal that drilled through her worse than any metal could ever have done.

She let her hand slide over the flame. It didn't hurt nearly as much as the rage she felt. ,,Don't," she heard his warning words, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled it away from the flame.

His cool fingers stroked the slight burn before his lips gently laid on it and kissed her. He finally had what he wanted. To see her full beauty in her brokenness. She was the most divine thing there was.

Which was based on mutuality. ,,Don't be disgraced by the actions of others," he warned, but she seemed almost to ignore it. ,,I'll tell you everything. Everything I know, what I can do and what this Satanic whore is up to". ,,My love," he said. ,,At last you see it too," the older man purred and kissed her hand up to her neck. He held her against himself and she didn't seem to want to let go of him in return.

On the contrary, she favored the kiss that once again connected their lips. An intimate, loving kiss, burning with desire. ,,She shall burn" she whispered before kissing him again.

At last they had crossed the threshold of sins and suffering. She was aware of how gently, yet possessively, he pulled her to him. His hand that rested on her side.

Almost guiding her, as her hand buried itself in his white hair. Their eyes that met for fractions during the kiss. How he pressed her lightly against his writing table.

Caressing her and finally having his sins. While she finally got the love she had always adored. And even though her heart was still beating fast. It was not out of fear of him or fear of the strain. No.

It beat with satisfaction, hope and joy at the end of the night as she watched Mary burn at the stake. While she stood next to Increase who felt the same joy.

But just as their hands were joined, so were their minds, bodies and hearts. They beat in unison with him out of love for each other. ,,I love you" he said and pulled her to him for a kiss.

A kiss visible to everyone, to the whole city. But it was no matter, they would burn down all those who stood in their righteous way. They were just. Their love was just.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Taglist : @eccentricchick

Happy Valentines day everyone

37 notes · View notes

blossom-hwa · 3 years

Text

Danger: Ruby - JUYEON

Only one part in this chapter!

Pairing: Juyeon x gender neutral!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, fantasy, royalty!au

Triggers: death, semi-graphic depictions of blood

Word Count: 5.9k

Lesson 5: dreams can find their way into reality. And often, when they do, they mean something.

Previous: Obsidian >> Ruby >> Next: Onyx

TBZ Masterlist | Danger | Kingdom

[ Taglist will be in a reblog! Send a dm or an ask to be added! ]

Juyeon isn’t stupid. He knows there’ll be ivory soldiers patrolling the shrine when he gets there. Somin may be murderous, but she has a brain – a very big one at that – and thus knows how to be cautious. Of course she’d have people stationed to protect one of the most important pieces of her vicious plan.

But he didn’t expect this.

He ducks down with a curse. Kevin and Jacob follow suit. “Why are there so many?”

Neither Kevin nor Jacob replies, but the grim looks on their faces tell him they know the answer. Juyeon knows it, too. More soldiers here means either Somin’s been growing her army, or things are going better than expected at the front of the war so she has reserves to send back here.

Neither option bodes well for him.

“How are we supposed to get in?” Kevin mutters, peering around the hill at white pinpricks of guards on the otherwise green landscape. The scene reminds Juyeon of fluffy sheep on a pasture, just a lot more dangerous.

“I’ve been here once to see Changmin.” Jacob sits down. “If there’s a gap in the guards, I can create a door and shift us in.” A grimace slides across his face. “Kevin, you can’t come. Only royalty and those of magic blood can enter the shrine. Honestly, I’m already stretching it, since my magic rank is barely high enough to justify a visit.”

Kevin doesn’t look happy at all with that, but he nods. “I’ll stay as close as I can, then, in case anything goes wrong.”

“Right.” Jacob looks back at Juyeon. “I can’t perform magic inside this shrine. I’d have to create the door so that we shift right to the edge of the grounds, as close as I can get. If guards are around…”

“Well, they can’t follow us in.” Juyeon grimaces. “As long as they still respect the laws of the Board.”

Judging by the looks on his two friends’ faces, they have about as much hope for that as Juyeon does. The guards themselves might be good people, but soldiers are loyal to their kingdom, not necessarily to the Board’s balance (though usually, those two go hand in hand). If the queen gave them different orders, Juyeon and Jacob are screwed.

“Go at night,” Kevin decides. “It’ll be harder to see you then.”

Juyeon nods, looking up at the sky. It’s mid-afternoon, judging by the sun, which means they have a few hours before it’ll be safe enough to have a go. “We only have one shot,” he murmurs, eyes narrowing. “If one of us gets caught, even as we escape, they’ll just call reinforcements. And if there’s a mage, we’re in even bigger trouble.”

There shouldn’t be a mage. This shrine is traditionally the gray mage’s domain, and with Changmin dead without a designated successor, no one can take his place. Still, Juyeon wouldn’t put it past Somin to have put someone there anyway. After all, she killed him and a royal on the same soil. What’s a little more desecration of blessed land?

Jacob shakes his head. “I don’t sense any traces,” he says. “Granted, we’re a bit far away, but if there was a really powerful mage, I would’ve felt something, at least. There could still be one, but it isn’t likely they’d be a high mage or anything.”

“Why does Somin have some regard for certain rules but not others?” Kevin shakes his head. “She’ll kill people on the grounds, but she won’t send a mage to protect the place?”

Juyeon’s fists close around clumps of grass. He really doesn’t need to think about that now.

A snarl flashes across Jacob’s face before he frowns. “I don’t know. Anyway, our bigger problem is getting out. If we manage to get through the door and close it before anyone else can enter, they could ambush us when we try to leave.”

“So you need a diversion.” Kevin leans backward on his hands, staring at the sky. “What’s big enough to draw a chunk of guards away long enough for you to search the shrine?”

“If I knock out a few guards, do you think you have enough strength to pull them away?” Juyeon tries to joke.

Kevin gives him a look that’s enough to wither a tree.

“Understood, you definitely have the strength to do it. My deepest apologies.” Juyeon smirks, nudging Kevin with his shoulder. A grudging smile spreads across his friend’s face, but it quickly disappears, replaced with a thoughtful look.

“Hey, Jacob?”

The mage looks up. “Hm?”

“Is it considered desecration of the Board if I set fire to the grounds outside of the shrine?”

. . . . .

The plan is almost as bad as Sunwoo literally ripping the sapphire necklace off of Somin’s neck, but Kevin refuses to see it that way. In his words, “if Sunwoo could create a diversion by burning his hand, I can do it by burning some grass.”

Juyeon tries to remind him that Sunwoo didn’t actually burn his hand, whereas Kevin will actually be burning a hill. Kevin just waves him off. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Sadly, he doesn’t. Which is why he and Jacob are dressed in black and heading towards the shrine under the cover of night while Kevin brandishes a lighter somewhere far in the background. Hopefully far enough to not burn the shrine down.

Juyeon tries to console himself with the fact that Kevin knows more about fire than he does. He’s the one who makes their campfires and cooks if they have the means. He sometimes worked in the kitchens back home and handled the oven fires. He should know how to control flames. More or less.

(Juyeon isn’t very consoled.)

No Ivory heads turn as Juyeon steps quietly over the grass to one of the many trees surrounding the shrine and begins to hoist himself into the branches. After helping Jacob up, there’s nothing more either of them can do but wait for the signal.

Which is just the shouts of guards when they notice a hopefully large conflagration on a nearby hill.

It comes faster than Juyeon thought it would. The first yell is faint, but they slowly grow louder as more soldiers take note of the fire that even he can see in the hilltops. With bated breath, he waits as several ivory-clad guards peel off to investigate.

Jacob hisses softly. “Let’s go.”

It takes long, far too long in Juyeon’s mind, to jump down the tree and wait for Jacob to carve a door into the air. Heart beating wildly, he shifts from one foot to the other as the wooden slab finally shimmers into existence.

It looks familiar. Very familiar. Juyeon frowns, stepping through the door, then almost trips when it hits him.

“Juyeon?” Jacob raises an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

Breath shaky, Juyeon turns around to look at the back of the door. Pure white, a contrast to the dull brown wood of the front, wreathed in greenery.

Queens.

“This –” he swallows – “this is the same door I went through in my dream.”

“… Seriously?”

Juyeon nods. “Yeah.”

Jacob purses his lips, looking like he wants to ask more, but then he shakes his head. “Get over this fence. We need to hurry before Kevin’s fire dies.”

Risking a glance over his neck, Juyeon sees that the flames have gotten smaller since he last checked. One lighter can only do so much, even on green grass. Swearing, he hauls himself up the fence.

“Hey!”

Jacob curses for the first time in Juyeon’s life. It almost shocks him more than the soldier’s shout, but Jacob doesn’t give him time to process it before he hisses for Juyeon to hurry up and get inside. The bars dig into his hands but Juyeon finally flips himself over the top, landing on the shrine grounds with a thump. Jacob follows, albeit more gracefully.

“Pawns and kings,” Juyeon swears, getting up. One look over his shoulder through the slats of the fence tells him several Ivory soldiers are approaching. “Know any hiding places?”

“Follow me,” Jacob says before darting between two trees. They duck behind a few bushes, black clothes camouflaging them in the dark, waiting for the sounds of pursuers.

Nothing comes. The soldiers must be abiding by the laws, then.

Not that it matters. They just need to pick the right moment for an ambush, and when he and Jacob try to leave, they’ll be pinned.

Juyeon sighs. The things he’ll doing do for a stupid little red jewel. Like use a door from a dream to enter the shrine where one of his best friends was murdered in cold blood with his love.

Bile rises in Juyeon’s throat. He closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out. The bile subsides.

Get in, find the jewel, get out. Juyeon breathes again, eyes still squeezed shut. He’s already done the first thing. Now he needs to find a ruby. The faster he finds it, the faster he can leave this place.

When he opens his eyes, Jacob is staring at him in concern. “Juyeon?”

“I’m fine,” Juyeon says, feeling not fine at all. “Any ideas where to look?”

Jacob looks unconvinced, but he stands anyway. “We need to pray first.”

“Pray?”

“Yes.” Jacob nods. “This is the most venerated shrine of the Board. You can’t just visit here and not pay your respects, especially as a royal of the Onyx Kingdom, not to mention its next king.”

For some reason, the thought of praying at the shrine that was supposed to be Changmin’s home, the same shrine where he was murdered with the former Ivory queen, makes Juyeon’s insides want to curdle.

It doesn’t make sense. He’s survived attacks by several mages, fought his way through multiple seemingly-impossible situations, watched one of his friends die and slit the throat of the man who killed him. Praying at a shrine is definitely not the hardest thing he’s done over the past few months.

Not physically, at least.

So he stands. Nods. His legs follow Jacob through the dark, weaving around bushes and trees and flowers that dot the shrine grounds until they reach the building of gray marble that gleams in the moonlight.

Jacob pushes through the door and walks inside. The stone slab stays open, waiting for Juyeon to take the next step.

He doesn’t. Instead, Juyeon’s feet glue themselves to the ground. Changmin’s insignia rests against his chest, stone cold and heavy as a lead weight.

For several moments, Juyeon stares into the dark depths of the shrine, the shadows of unlit torches just visible on the walls. Jacob’s silhouette shows too as he stops, realizing Juyeon isn’t right behind him. He turns back. “Juyeon?”

Juyeon shudders. The sound of his name echoes loudly, too loudly, unnaturally loudly between the marble walls. Vibrations race up his spine and more than ever, he wants to run. Just turn around and run.

But he can’t. As much as his brain screams for him to sprint away, away from this shrine and its cloud of death, he forces himself to breathe, just breathe.

You are fine. You will be fine. Find the jewel and leave.

You will be fine.

He steps into the shrine.

. . . . .

Juyeon almost wishes Jacob had left the shrine in darkness. Sure, the endless expanse of shadow was unnerving, but with the torches now flickering strange shadows across the gray floor, the urge to run is even greater than before.

But he forces himself to walk to the altar covered in dusty gray silk, to kneel on the cold marble floor. His hands fold mechanically in his lap as he bows his head in reverence. He closes his eyes.

Then he opens them again. What does he even pray for? His mind is such a mess, he knows there are so many things going wrong that he should pray to fix, but for some reason he can’t even fixate on a single one.

Next to him, Jacob’s eyes are already shut. His relaxed posture speaks of peace and calm, not the rigid fear and terror Juyeon feels just being in the same place where one of his best friends died.

Changmin was murdered here, murdered by an Ivory mage who decided her loyalty to the then-princess was more important than the higher orders. She was helped by a cowardly mage – maybe that isn’t fair, considering the queen was and still is holding his daughters over his head, but Juyeon doesn’t care right now – a high mage, a powerful mage who bound the former queen in promise with the gray mage and then didn’t hesitate to sever the physical ties of that promise by killing one half of the bond.

Anger boils in Juyeon’s stomach, and he latches onto it. Better anger than fear, anyway. At least anger brings warmth, fire, while fear only makes Juyeon feel colder than the stone floor.

One hand rises from his lap, clutches the gold king and queen resting against his chest. Why is this shrine so holy? Why is it so venerated that no one can practice magic here? What’s the point of that, when its last protector was murdered because of the stupid rule? Magic isn’t the only way to kill a person –Juyeon would know, considering he’s slit a throat before – and if Changmin had been able to use his magic, he might’ve fought off the two mages, might’ve resisted the magic-binding chains Bom forced onto his arms, might’ve survived.

A tiny, choked sound rips from Juyeon’s throat. He glances at Jacob to see if the mage noticed, but his eyes are still shut in reverent calm, still the essence of serene tranquility.

Watching Jacob, watching the mage lower his head in quiet prayer, drains the fight out of Juyeon. He slumps over, face now in his hands, as he tries to stop the tears beginning to well at the corners of his eyes. The insignia bounces against his chest, slightly warmer from the heat of his fingers, but still too cold to feel comforting.

Changmin. Juyeon’s hands slide down his face, come to his lap and clench into fists as he fights to breathe. Changmin, I wish you were here.

Then it isn’t just Changmin. It’s Kevin, it’s Sunwoo, it’s his sister and mother and father whom he wishes were here. He wants Changmin’s doe eyes and Kevin’s boxy smile, Sunwoo’s sarcasm and his sister’s warmth. He wants his mother’s lips pressing gently to the top of his head as she whispers goodnight to her sweet prince, wants his father’s hands holding his shoulders proudly as he reiterates once more how proud he is of his son.

He wants it. He wants it so badly it hurts –

“Juyeon?”

Queens.

There’s no point in trying to wipe his tears when Jacob’s already seen him crying, but Juyeon tries anyway. “I’m fine,” he says, even though the voice crack gives everything away. “I’m –”

But Jacob isn’t listening, is unfolding from his perfect posture to drag Juyeon over into a hug. For a moment, he stiffens, but then he sinks into Jacob’s warm arms that can’t quite make up for the warmth of all those people he wishes were with him too, but they’re a decent substitute, nonetheless.

Jacob doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything as Juyeon silently cries into his shoulder. Juyeon thinks the mage probably knows what he’s feeling, if the few tears dripping onto his own clothes are anything to go by. For several minutes, they just stay there, pressed against each other in front of the altar.

“Sorry,” Juyeon sniffles when he finally feels stable enough to pull away. “I’m – I should’ve been praying, but –”

“I understand.” Jacob smiles, though sadly. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Knowing this was where… where he was killed?”

Juyeon doesn’t need to ask which “he” Jacob is talking about. Instead, he just nods. “I just – I don’t know what to pray about, there are so many things but I can’t think of even one because I just feel so – I want to pray for Changmin and Sunwoo to come back but that isn’t possible –”

A hand on Juyeon’s shoulder stops the rambling. Jacob’s gentle eyes stare into his. “Juyeon. Breathe.”

He takes a breath. Does it again. The second time, it isn’t so shaky.

“Okay. Now.” Jacob squeezes Juyeon’s shoulder slightly. “You may not be able to bring Changmin and Sunwoo back, but you can pray for their souls. Pray for their peace, pray for their well-being even in death. That a good place to start?”

With every word that comes out of Jacob’s mouth, Juyeon feels a tiny part of himself relaxing, bit by bit. He nods. “Okay.”

“Go from there.” Jacob smiles encouragingly. “Just breathe, Juyeon. You’re all right.”

You’re all right.

Juyeon takes a deep breath, feeling calmer. “Thanks, Jacob. I’m sorry.”

“No need.” Sorrow flashes in Jacob’s eyes, lit by the flickering firelight. “I understand. Take your time. The Board… it’ll understand.”

With a shuddering sigh, Juyeon turns back to the altar, folds his hands on his knees. Closing his eyes, he lets the traditional words begin to float through his brain.

I revere the higher orders of the Board and beseech them to answer my prayer, loyal servant to the balance that I am. I pray for the departed souls of Ji Changmin, Kim Sunwoo, and my parents, that they find peace in the plane beyond my own. I pray for the souls of those still with me, my sister Lee Jisoo, Kevin Moon, Jacob Bae.

Maybe Juyeon’s just imagining it, but Changmin’s insignia seems to grow warmer against his chest.

I pray that we will finish our mission with no more deaths. I pray that this war will end, that Jeon Somin will be defeated, that balance will be restored once more.

Definitely warmer. Juyeon takes comfort in the spot of heat on his skin, bowing his head further as he sends one last prayer to anyone listening above.

I pray that I have the strength to carry out your will.

. . . . .

There’s nothing in the shrine, nothing remotely red or gem-like. Juyeon’s almost grateful. At least he doesn’t need to spend another minute longer in the gray-walled building.

It would’ve been more helpful if he could’ve found the ruby, though.

Looking through the living quarters doesn’t reveal anything either, though to be completely honest, that could just be Juyeon’s fault for not looking carefully enough. These were the rooms where Changmin lived, where he was supposed to have been safe. Instead, he was forced to try and escape from his own home.

And, apparently, this was the place where the queen was killed. Not outside in the garden, like Changmin, but right here.

The blood is gone. Taemin probably had someone clean it, or he did it himself. Juyeon wouldn’t have been able to tell that someone was murdered here if the high mage hadn’t told him where he found the bodies. But the uncertainty makes things worse, really, because everywhere Juyeon steps, he doesn’t know if he’s walking on the stones where the former Ivory queen, one of his good friends, was killed by someone they both trusted.

No jewels. Nothing in the walls, nothing beneath the stone floors. Jacob can’t sense any magic, which doesn’t make sense – shouldn’t there be a strong magic trace coming from the ruby, even if he can’t pinpoint who created the trace?

Jacob shakes his head, his mouth thinned into a line. “They could have put a cloaking spell on it,” he says, looking around fruitlessly one more time. “These mages are more powerful than I am. They could’ve made it so that I’d have a much harder time sensing it than if I’d created the spell myself.”

They look through the living space again, then the prayer area. Still nothing. So they walk back outside into the gardens.

A soft breeze hits Juyeon’s skin the moment he steps onto the grass. Despite the fact that they still haven’t found the ruby, he finds himself relaxing in the presence of the cool air. Under the bright moonlight, surrounded by greenery, Juyeon feels a little bit more at peace.

Then he remembers that Changmin was killed in this very same garden and the tranquility disappears.

Stepping carefully, Juyeon walks through the grass, trying not to start at every random shadow that passes under the pale moonlight. His eyes carefully scan the overgrown flower bushes and trees, looking hopelessly for a glint of red under the stars.

A sense of déjà vu comes over him as he rounds a corner of the shrine. He’s seen some of this before, that particular tree, that stack of stones, that rosebush just next to the gray building. His feet slowly grind to a halt as he turns in a circle, eyes furrowed.

How does he know this place if he’s never been here before?

Lost in confusion, a rock on the ground knocks him off balance and Juyeon trips, falling to his knees. Scowling in embarrassment, he starts to stand.

Moonlight glints down from the sky in his periphery. And suddenly Juyeon knows.

Changmin saw that pile of stones when he was in this position with arms chained behind him, saw the trees lining the edge of the gardens as he knelt on soft grass, waiting for a blade to strike down and take his life. He saw the roses, saw a little ray of moonlight out of the corner of his eyes as gold burned and metal flashed and pain buried itself in the back of his neck.

This was where he died.

Juyeon can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. Can’t –

Scrambling to stand, he glances to his left. Moonlight shines on a smear of something dried and black. Against his will, Juyeon looks closer.

Pawns and kings.

That’s –

That’s blood –

Changmin’s blood –

Juyeon falls to his knees again and throws up on the grass.

For how long he sits there, gasping, not even trying to clean the sick off the corners of his mouth, Juyeon doesn’t know. At some point, though, he becomes aware of Jacob kneeling in front of him, wiping his lips with a piece of cloth torn from his shirt.

His cheeks are wet. Juyeon blinks, feeling dampness at the corner of his eyes. When did he start crying?

Jacob’s voice brings him out of his daze. He blinks again, trying hard to focus on the mage in front of him. “What?”

“I was just asking what happened.” Jacob finishes wiping his lips, letting the dirty piece of cloth flutter to the ground. “I was up ahead, and then I just heard you and… yeah.”

Bile rises again in Juyeon’s throat, but he forces the stinging sensation down. “I –” His voice cracks. “I remember here. Changmin died here. And –” he points to his side, refusing to look with his eyes – “I saw his… his blood.”

A soft gasp sounds. “Queens.”

Juyeon swallows with difficulty, nearly retching again between the disgusting taste in his mouth and the lump in his throat. He stares resolutely to his right, at the huge bush of red roses planted against the gray shrine. It’s probably about as tall as his chest, maybe even his neck.

Irrational anger rises in Juyeon’s chest. This was the last thing Changmin saw, these red roses in full bloom. Juyeon fights the urge to rip all the flowers off of their stems, to make the plant pay for Changmin’s pain –

A glint of shiny red sparkles between several green leaves as they blow in the breeze.

Juyeon stills. “Jacob.”

The mage turns around, looking very pale. “Hm?”

“Tell me I’m not hallucinating something red in that rose bush right here.”

Jacob furrows his eyebrows. “Juyeon, they’re red roses.”

“No, something else.” Juyeon swallows. “Like a jewel.”

Looking unconvinced, Jacob gets up and walks closer to the bush. Carefully, he moves a few leaves to the side, then gasps. “It’s all the way in the middle,” he murmurs, turning around. “How…?”

Juyeon stands on shaky legs, steps over to where Jacob is. Shiny red sparkles in the pale moonlight, hidden partially by dark green stems and even darker petals. If it was any other flower bush, Juyeon would already be ripping through the branches, but the thorns prevent him from that easy course of action. Besides, this bush is gigantic. Standing up, Juyeon can now confirm the tallest branches reach the base of his throat.

A very, very bad idea springs into his mind, almost as bad as Kevin setting fire to a hill. “Jacob, give me your cloak.”

Confused, Jacob hesitates from handing over the heavy red cloth. “Why –”

Juyeon plucks the cloak from his hands and wraps it around his exposed neck. Then, before Jacob can say anything more, he draws the sword at his side and starts cutting through the bush.

Thorns rip through his flesh, tearing his clothing and scraping across his skin. Juyeon grits his teeth as Jacob cries out in the background, still hacking branches away. Leaves and red petals fall around him, thorns embedding themselves in his arms and legs, but Juyeon doesn’t stop until he’s cut through to the center of the bush.

There, nestled between the petals of several deep red roses, the ruby lies, glittering in the moonlight. Juyeon reaches out one blood-covered hand, the other holding thorny branches out of his eyes, and closes his fingers around the jewel.

Dragging himself out of the bush is almost more torturous than cutting through, but finally, Juyeon bursts into blessed open space, staggering into Jacob’s arms as he pulls free of the last thorns. Dimly, he hears Jacob cursing and unwrapping the cloak from Juyeon’s neck, trying to staunch the blood on his skin, but Juyeon waves him off. “We need to go. Now.”

Because if Juyeon stays in this cursed shrine for a single second longer, he’s going to do something much worse than vomit on the grass.

It takes long, too long for them to find a space along the fence with fewer soldiers than the rest. Skin still stinging from all of the thorn cuts, Juyeon ignores the shouts of surprise as he climbs up and leaps from the fence. Arms and legs moving on autopilot, he makes quick work of the two guards there as Jacob crashes down beside him, hands already moving to fashion the door. He drags Juyeon through just as several white figures begin to flash at the corners of his vision.

On a separate green hill, not the one blackened by fire, Kevin stares as Juyeon emerges from the door, blood dripping down his body. “What the –”

“No time.” Jacob quickly disappears the door before anyone unwanted makes it through. “Where are we going next?”

“Forest,” Juyeon wheezes. Queens, the pain just gets worse with every second. “Decide after that.”

Another door appears, thankfully dark wood this time and not plain or white like the one from his dream, and Kevin helps Juyeon through as shouts begin to sound around the group of hills. Jacob follows as Juyeon nearly collapses onto lush grass, red beginning to bleed over green.

“Pawns and kings,” Kevin swears, rolling Juyeon over. “Juyeon, what happened?”

Juyeon stays silent, letting Jacob explain everything as Kevin digs thorns out of his skin and cleans the scrapes. By the end of the story, Kevin has mostly bandaged Juyeon’s entire body up – somehow, a few thorns even got into his chest, what in the name of the Board and all that is holy – and he looks ready to commit murder.

Well, maybe not murder. But the angry exasperation in his expression doesn’t look very friendly when he turns to stare Juyeon in the eye.

“You, Lee Juyeon, Crown Prince of the Onyx Kingdom, are an idiot,” he pronounces. “The biggest idiot of our group.”

A small, sheepish smile flits across Juyeon’s face. “Sorry?”

“Queens, just shut up.” Kevin groans, turning away. “You try to stop me from burning a hill and then go and do this…” He shakes his head. “Go to sleep. I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Jacob raises an eyebrow. “Since when did Kevin become our caretaker?”

“Since you couldn’t stop Juyeon from bloodying himself on a rose bush,” Kevin snaps. “Now go to sleep unless you plan on taking first watch.”

“Which watch do I take?” Juyeon asks.

The expressions he gets from Kevin and Jacob are one and the same. “You think you’re going to take a watch?” Kevin snorts. “Good luck with that. No, you’re out for the night.”

And there’s no arguing with that, not when Kevin has that face on. So Juyeon accepts the thin blanket Jacob throws over him, rolls over, and shuts his eyes against the stinging pain all over his body.

. . . . .

Juyeon opens his eyes to the same foggy pathway that’s become unwelcomingly familiar over the past few months. He wants to sigh when he sees his feet wreathed in smoky white on a stone floor, but his dream self doesn’t obey, only stares forward at the wooden door.

It’s definitely the same door Jacob conjured to enter the shrine. Bile would rise in his throat at the thought, but throwing up doesn’t happen in his dream. Instead, he begins walking forward, wincing as black silk brushes against the fresh cuts from his time at the shrine.

Wait.

Juyeon actually commands himself to stop, rolling up a sleeve to confirm the existence of the rose thorn scrapes. Sure enough, they’re there.

Weird. His injuries don’t usually come with him into dream world. Uneasiness pools in his stomach, but he begins to move forward anyway. Then he stops again, just as his hand reaches out to the door handle.

Changmin isn’t here. He hasn’t appeared, hasn’t passed Juyeon the insignia that forces him to relive the gray mage’s last moments over and over and over again.

Juyeon really wants to stop then, wants to sink to his knees and beg the higher orders for an explanation of this strange variation of an unfriendly dream. With all of the others, there was a script he would follow – Changmin, shrine, door, path, roses, you. It was nauseating, but at least it was predictable.

Now, as Juyeon turns the handle, he has no idea what will meet him behind the slab of wood.

The door opens. Juyeon steps through the frame onto a familiar stone path lined with rose bushes.

Castling queens. If there was one thing the dream took out, why couldn’t it be the flowers? Juyeon would choose to see his dead friend over a jewel-toned rose any day, especially in this dream.

But dream Juyeon doesn’t care about that, just starts walking forward. Each step stings his skin even more – there may not be cuts on his feet, but ever brush of his clothes against his arms and legs makes Juyeon want to cry – but he keeps going, keeps following the stone path.

There are no shades. No one offers him flowers. He doesn’t even pick them himself. The familiar sensation of dread that usually accompanies his inability to find a red rose doesn’t rise in his stomach, doesn’t force tears from his eyes at the unfairness of it all. Instead, once he reaches the silver tree, his legs buckle and he collapses to his knees.

Heart beating wildly, Juyeon bows his head as though he’s saying prayer at an altar, the way he did just hours ago in the gray mage’s shrine. Only this time, there’s no marble surface covered in dusty gray silk. Just a silver tree with silver leaves that glitter in the moonlight.

What is he waiting for? Why is he here? Juyeon tries to think but he can’t, not through the endless burning of slashes and scrapes all over his skin. In fact, the pain seems to have increased since he first opened the door, the stinging multiplying second by second as blood begins to trickle down his skin in rivulets, sticking to his clothes and marring the stone floor with drops of red –

Then a door opens behind the tree, a white door wrapped in green vines and leaves visible just between the silver branches. A familiar figure emerges, cloaked as always in darkness.

Through his eyelashes, Juyeon watches you step around the tree, coming to a rest in front of his kneeling body. Your feet step onto drops of his blood, but you don’t seem to care. In one hand, you carry a rose, a dark red one with petals that look like silk.

If Juyeon didn’t know better, he’d think it was one of the roses that housed the ruby back at the shrine.

A movement out of the corner of his eye jerks Juyeon out of his musings. Your hand comes into his line of vision. Touches his chin. Tilts it up.

Juyeon gasps as his head rises, expecting your fingers to be cold. They’re warm, though, inexplicably warm, sending a rush down his spine. His eyes flutter shut as he tries to lean into your touch, but your hand pulls away almost immediately.

Fighting the urge to whine like a child, Juyeon stays still, trying to catch a glimpse of your face. It stays wrapped in shadow, however, and despite the fact that from this position he should be able to see you, his dream prevents it.

Frustration rises in his chest, mixing with the pain of his rose thorn cuts, and Juyeon almost releases the cry of annoyance building in his throat before your warm palm presses against his forehead.

Pain.

Absolute, blinding pain rips a scream from his throat as your palm stays firmly glued to his skin. It hurts so much, stings so much as blood courses down his skin in sticky red rivers, filling his nose with its iron tang and overwhelming every one of his senses with just how much there is, queens, he never knew his body held this much blood, never guessed that he could feel so much pain, never realized he could lose this much blood without dying –

And then it’s gone. Completely. The pain disappears as quickly as it came, your palm now pleasantly cool against his sweating skin.

Juyeon gasps as your fingers leaves his forehead, falling forward until he’s half-collapsed in a pool of his own blood. Disgusted, Juyeon goes to rip his himself away, but then the blood fades away without a trace.

Wide-eyed, Juyeon whirls around. All of the sticky red droplets have disappeared from the stone path. The only sign of his previous wounds lies in the blood crusted on his skin, but the cuts have disappeared. All of them.

Whipping back forward, Juyeon scrambles to his feet as you open the door behind the silver tree, presumably to make your exit. He reaches out an arm to hold you back, to see your face, to try and figure out who his mysterious savior is, but at the same time, he knows it’ll be useless. You’re already half-gone, stepping through the white door.

But at the last second, your head turns back. And Juyeon catches a glimpse of the side of your face, your cheek, your chin, one glittering eye –

Then he wakes up, gasping under green treetops just visible in the gray morning light.

It doesn’t take him long to realize all of his pain is gone.

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 prayer for juyeon poor boy’s gone through a lot :/)

41 notes · View notes

commonwealthoccurences · 3 years

Text

Cheers (Elder Maxson)

Note: We’re assuming Sole is around the same age as Maxson in this; a middle-aged Sole with 19 year old Maxson is an iffy concept to me. Thank you to the Discord server for fixing my writers block! Also, weird analogies for 500, anyone? Mildly OOC Maxson.

CW: Potential death mention, abstract/rhetorical poisoning

It’s easy, Sole thinks at the end of the day, to drink poison. To tilt your head back and surrender to what may come, no matter what. It’s easy to allow yourself to be captured in the will of whatever's been mixed into your glass, slightly acidic, barely masked, and pretend to be unknowing. Knowing Elder Maxson has been like drinking poison, and so, they think it must be very easy to allow oneself to do so.

They’re staring into the wine that’s been handed to them, a deep plum color swirling in the foggy glass it’s been poured into. In another timeline, this wouldn’t be the last they’d share with him, and there was a much more content life waiting for them at the end of their internal battles. But they often told themself they weren’t one for wishful thinking, and with that, returned their attention to the man himself, who sat, quiet and contemplative, across from them.

On any other evening he’d be lounged across the plush cushions next to them, a sharp contrast to the usual appearance he showed every other member of the Brotherhood. There’d be a lazy grin on his face, a little too much wine wiping away the stern expression that’d been burned into the lines of his skin, and the two of them would be deep in the throws of a playful debate. Sole had lost that privilege, though.

Just as Maxson had lost the privilege of seeing them with their head tilted back, a laugh shaking their frame, delight taking over the weight of the world that they held between their strong shoulders. Two friends, or something more, turned strangers. What a twist. “Is this it?” Sole spoke up. Maxson had resumed his public facade, and they knew he wouldn’t be the one to break the silence.

“I suppose it is.”

The meeting of their gazes brought both of their internal battles to the forefront, images of warfields flashing between the pair. Sole clenched their jaw and tilted their head up, still trying to remain casual in the way they spun the wine in the glass. They didn’t dare take a sip; they wouldn’t put it past him to actually poison it, and as much as they cared for him, there was a reason the air was so tense.

Sole had made it into the Brotherhood a little shell shocked from their experiences with the Wasteland, looking for structure and someone to have their back as they fought to survive. Of course, the Brotherhood was much more than that, and didn’t hesitate to introduce their bigotry, disguised as defensive beliefs, as soon as Sole stepped through the doors to the Prydwen.

They were unsure at first of where they stood. Ever the scholar, they tried to remain neutral and stand back, observing, as they made their way through the beginnings of their Brotherhood experience. Other than Nick Valentine, they had never met a synth; maybe he was an exception, and the Brotherhood was right in the idea that they weren’t to be trusted. They’d found themself in the company of Elder Maxson more than once at this point, eager to look through the cracks of the mask he wore and get to know the man behind the ideology, the intense scowls, and the unwavering leadership. They’d begun to debate as a pastime, and slowly, as the tapestry of his beliefs came into full view, they found themself suffocated.

The threads were frayed, woven by generations beforehand. Maxson’s contributions were made for no reason other than that he was told it was right, to add strength to a fabric that only caused pain to those that were innocent. Sole found themself edging closer to the tapestry with a thread ripper and magnifying glass, wanting to take apart every argument and excuse and bring forward the man behind the brainwashing that the Brotherhood was so fond of, but it was too late. It seemed that the threads had been woven into his skin as well, leaving no person outside of his anti-synth ideology.

They needed time away, and after one particularly intense debate-turned-argument, they asked for it. Maxson knew what was happening as soon as they were hesitant to look him in the eye, and when they finally did, there was no vulnerability like he was once given access to. They were choking on the smell of his soap and aftershave, suffocating on the tenseness flooding the room, and needed to get away to think.

After a month in Sanctuary, listening to synths and humans alike recount their tales, their life experiences identical in the way that both types of people hurt and thrived, became overjoyed and mourned losses, Sole went to seek out answers. In the back alleys of Diamond City they heard whispers of an organization, and went to find the Railroad.

They had a long talk with Deacon, looking over his own tapestry with a magnifying glass, shielding their eyes from the reflective, joking threads, so they could see the life lessons hidden beneath. Despite how hard it was to access, they found his tapestry much warmer, if not a bit worn from how many had taken refuge under its fabric. Every time they dug in and pulled at the threads, trying to find a fatal flaw, it held together like no other. One month away and they knew what they had to do.

It was hard to return to the Brotherhood, knowing their days there were limited. They’d seen the people before the ideology, instead of the other way around, and once considered many of them friends. But at the end of the day, the ends of their tapestries were coming loose, and Sole could no longer justify sticking around. They were smarter than that.

Maybe it was obvious, and a little immature, but they avoided Maxson upon their return to the best of their abilities. He tried to reach out to them, calling them in for meetings, upon which they kept their answers short and didn’t give any information as to what they had been up to during their escapades away from the Prydwen. But at the end of his third try, when his expression changed from curious and a little hurt to hardened and stern, they knew he understood. They had their own tapestry now, and didn’t need the refuge of any others. Certainly not his.

So when he invited them to one last evening together, they accepted. There was nothing they weren’t prepared for as they walked through the doors to his quarters and settled down on the couch. It was easier than they expected it to be, but they supposed the time away had already given them the opportunity to sever any hesitancy they would’ve once held.

They found themself indifferent to the intense discomfort in the air that would’ve pinned them to their seat just a month ago. Their breath remained in their lungs, their hands didn’t shake. They tilted their glass and stared at the liquid inside before placing it on the table in front of them and folding their hands together in their lap. “I sincerely hope you don’t plan on doing anything stupid, Sole.” Maxson’s voice was harsh, biting. He sipped his own drink.

They found a small smile betraying their lack of fear of the man in front of them. With a light sigh they glanced out the window. “Arthur, please. Let’s not pretend you haven’t been picking apart my brain for the last few months in the name of getting to know each other. Do you really believe me to be stupid?”

“I didn’t. And then you left for a month and returned doubting Brotherhood ideals. It seems you still have time to prove me wrong.”

“I think we can both agree a resistance to brainwashing is the exact opposite of stupidity.”

Sole sighed and brushed the palms of their hands down their thighs. They stood with little hesitancy and made their way over to one of the windows that decorated the walls of Maxson’s quarters. The view was one of the few things they’d miss about the Prydwen.

Of course, they supposed they could understand how members of the Brotherhood became so out of touch with the Wasteland. Everything felt so untouchable from their perch in the sky, rocking gently in the light winds that flooded the ground with radiation. Staying, surrounded by the hivemind and far away from any contradicting opinions, would’ve been the death of any independent thought from Sole.

They would miss Arthur, not Maxson, and the way they thought they were two separate people just a few months ago. It was easy to pretend, when he had been less than sober and forgot everything he thought was his responsibility. His thoughts flowed more readily into speech; the first slip he had made was calling Sole beautiful as they leaned against that very window, looking up at the stars that almost appeared to be within reach from where they sat in the sky.

It had caught Sole by surprise, though they supposed it shouldn’t have. Yes, Arthur was in a position of power, arguably one of the highest in the Wasteland across the factions, but they had spent enough time with him at that point to know he fell victim to alcohol. Well, that’s what they pretended.

Arthur was no lightweight. They could see it in the way his movements still remained controlled in contrast to his words. It was an excuse, they’d realized, after just two nights, to say what was on his mind instead of what he had been taught to say.

Maybe that’s why they thought they could get to him at first. Unravel some of the tapestry that had dug deep into his skin and latched onto his mind. It seemed as if he wanted free of the Brotherhood mindset and the way everyone looked to him. It showed when they were together in the low lamplight of his quarters, alone in a space that didn’t allow for his facade, and he looked 19 again instead of aged beyond recognition.

His hand brushed across their cheek and they fought hard to keep their attention out the window; they wouldn’t let him exploit vulnerability that should’ve never been given in the first place. They were hyper aware of the placement of his hand, knowing that into two smooth motions they could be on the floor, dead. Instead, he hooked a finger under their chin, and they felt a kiss placed to their forehead. Then, he was out of their space and across the room, busying himself behind his desk with paperwork. They were dismissed, for the last time.

Just a week later, it was easier than expected for the words to spill out of their mouth and into Deacon’s ears. Descriptions of the Brotherhood’s guard shifts, the weakest point of their aircraft, protocols and every hidden weapon they knew about. They didn’t choke, didn’t waver. They had seen too much upon their return to the Railroad; synths injured from the hate the Brotherhood had spread, members fatally wounded when they jumped to defend. Sole had reveled too long in the privilege of ignorance and the company of a man who, despite being tragically indoctrinated, they could no longer lend sympathy to when they had to bear witness to the consequence of his actions.

Maxson’s last mistake was assuming that the silent goodbye they’d shared just one week earlier would be their last. Sole was ready to take a torch to his tapestry, and they were the last person he should’ve assumed was stupid enough to let him go easily.

#Potential part two?#Fallout 4 #Fo4 #Angst #Elder Maxson #Oneshot #Imagine #Fanfiction #FF #Drabble

27 notes · View notes

applsauss · 3 years

Text

Lightning Bugs in July | II

GUNNER AND BUG

Description: You were christened ‘Bug’ by Beth and ‘Gunner’ by your pals. Those are the names that define you.

Fandom: Band of Brothers

 Pairing:  Joseph Toye/Reader

Word Count:  5.9k+

Warning(s): Derogatory Language. Nothing you wouldn’t see in the show.

“What did they call you?”

Em’s question was so innocent.

You were called ‘Bug’ once, when you’d run barefoot through the grass, catching lightning bugs with your bare hands in the sleepy twilight.

Beth was younger, then. So were you. She would call after you from the porch: “Buggy! Come in. It’s getting late!”

You existed in a world without war for so long, why can’t you exist there once more? Why is it so hard to stand back on that beach and live in it the way it was, the way you once were?

There were lightning bugs, then, over the Potomac. They flashed like they wanted to remind you of everything good still left in the world.

“Were you a good machine gunner?”

They called you ‘Gunner’ once. You used to take pride in that name, then you learned to accept it for what it was: A fact, something that’s definition just meant you, something that was yours.

They would call after you, in a firefight, in the quiet often that followed one:

“Gunner!”

Wars seem never-ending when you’re in the middle of one.

You are shaking in a foxhole. Dirt falls over your head and shoulders the farther you press your back into the wall behind you, and your machine gun is steaming above you. These are unimportant details. Mostly, you are staring at your bloody hands.

Something drips down the side of your face like a shiver. Your chest rises and falls quickly -- so quickly -- you can't control it. Mostly, though, you are staring at the wet blood sticking between your fingers.

"Gunner!"

Where did all this blood come from? You look down at your arm and find that the red is soaking through your uniform as well. Is it yours? Panic flares, cold like dread in your chest, and you can't catch your breath, but you're breathing so quickly -- how can it feel like you're drowning? Is it the blood?

"Gunner!"

There is a loud ringing in your ears, like gnats swarming your head. Are you dying?

"Gunner!"

Someone slides into your foxhole. You suck in a sharp, rattling breath and scramble for your bayonet, but the straps of your webbing are tangled and you can't yank it free. Then a hand settles over yours -- kind in that it is unyielding -- and you realize it's just Joe Toye who's crouched beside you. "Oh, Gunny," he rasps as he sinks to his knees, the edges of him stark against the sky.

"Joe?'

You can barely make out his face in the broad daylight; your vision blurs and drops off to static around the edges. You try and force more words up and from your chest, but your jumbled mind won't let any thoughts stick. Slowly, Joe wraps his arms around you and brings you to his chest.

"Are you hurt?"

The question confuses you. You don't have an immediate answer. You turn your face into Joe's chest, nose pressed to his jacket, and beneath all the shellfire and hellfire, the air around Joe Toye tastes like Lucky strikes on your tongue.

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s Lieb?”

"I don't know." You find yourself struggling to hold down the urge to cry. You wrestle with it on the floor of your mind, bat at its hands and squeeze its neck. Joe cradles your head and begins rocking back and forth.

"It's alright. You're alright. You're looking fine, Gunner--"

"Oh, dear God--"

Someone else is at the lip of the foxhole, the familiar shadow of a friend cast over you.

"Go get the doc."

You barely recognize Eugene Roe when he slips down the wall of your foxhole. He has the pallid face of an angel, his halo, the red cross on his helmet.

Joe's voice rumbles in his chest like a beloved wave of thunder. "You're gonna be fine, huh, Gunner?"

"Huh, Gunner?

"Huh, Gunner?"

Does he know what your name means to you?

You were called 'Bug' once, when you ran barefoot through the grass chasing lightning bugs.

You never liked your first name because it was given to you by your mother, who didn’t, and still doesn’t, know you. You were christened ‘Bug’ by Beth and ‘Gunner’ by your pals. Those are the names that define you.

When you close your eyes, you urge yourself to remember that beach, that twilight, that last moment of peace you stole before you waded deeper and let the current of war sweep you under, tear you away from whatever simpler life you might have lead if you'd never joined up and shipped off, shot and been shot, dug into the earth and understood intimately the way it shivers during an artillery barrage.

This is one thing you know for certain: Your name belongs to you the same as it is you, who you are.

What did they call you?

Gunner. Because it's what you call a machine gunner. A good one.

Joe sets your helmet on your head; You forgot when you took it off in the first place. A hand appears in front of your face; Skip Muck is staring down at you grimly as he hoists you up and over the edge of the foxhole.

The sun in France is soft like velvet, and with the eclipsing of spring comes a fresh summer breeze. The air rushes over your skin, caressing your face like a lover might, and the sun kisses the apples of both your cheeks, speckled through the leaves. These are unimportant details.

Mostly you cannot tear your eyes from the field of German bodies that comes into view as soon as you clamber out of the foxhole. There are twenty, maybe thirty of them -- a whole platoon draped like dolls over each other, shredded from high-caliber rounds. It is a mass grave.

Blood soaks into the dirt. The grass it drips from sways in the summer breeze without care. Blood drains from your face, leaving behind cold dread, and you smear it on your pants when you try and wipe it from your hands.

Some memories make it past the filter of your mind. It was enfilade fire, which is a technical term meant to obscure the horror a gunner witnesses when it happens. The Krauts had been lined up so neatly, eager to catch the rest of the company off-guard to the point of deadly carelessness.

You remember feeling mostly confusion when the first couple soldiers in your sights fell, only to reveal the others stacked up behind them, pierced by the same spray of bullets. Hubs, your ammunition bearer, had shouted something along the lines of 'get those fucking Krauts, Gunny!" before loading up another belt for you to bury more dead with. You don’t remember why Liebgott wasn’t there to do it instead.

That confusion you felt -- your mind unable to process the carnage -- gave way to urgency when you were reminded of your buddies, just over the hill, their backs turned and wanting for a bullet while they take care of the line. “Don’t let anyone past,” Lip had told you and Hubs before shuffling off. “We’re all countin’ on you.”

The Kraut platoon leader managed to get his men together a bit, and they stopped mid-charge to fire back upon your position. Vaguely, you remember an explosion, a squelch, a shout, being thrown against the wall, then jumping right back on your gun. And now you're left in the silence of a firefight. The air tastes heavy with blood.

"Gunner," Joe Toye rasps.

You shake your head and fumble with your breast pocket for a pack of gum. You set a stick of it between your teeth, bite down, and let the spearmint burn a hole through your tongue.

It feels deserved.

“Gunner.”

That’s your name. It’s what you are. A machine gunner.

Instruments of war are carefully, purposely, deadly. A well utilized machine gun can change the tide of an entire battle -- that lesson was drilled into you the moment they picked you out for a machine gunner, the moment you were christened in Toccoa by Joe Liebgott and O. Petty.

You are a machine gunner.

You attempt for a moment to hang onto that urgency you felt when Lip gave you your orders to justify the death in front of you. You’ve never seen so many bodies before. In certain spots, the Germans are two, three deep, dead and dying on top of each other. One of them wails. The sound pierces you faster than any bullet. The sound is stuck in your ears. It is there, always,whenever it is quiet.

Your mouth tastes like blood and spearmint. You hate that flavor. You squeeze your eyes shut, but no memory comes.

"Were you a good machine gunner?"

Yes. You were.

An hour later, the rest of Easy Company bustles around you. You are sitting next to your machine gun while Smokey cleans it, occasionally spitting the chewing tobacco from his mouth onto the grass.

"Joe," you ask quietly, staring down at your bandaged hands while they shake. Joe Toye grunts, and you meet his eyes then, feeling brittle and empty. "Where's Hubs?"

It isn’t until the next day you find out you’re wearing what’s left of him. Liebgott tells you this shamefully, wringing the straps of his musette bag and unable to look you in the eyes. You both feel the loss immensely.

But wars end eventually, and in October, the Virginia heat touches down once daily, in the early afternoon. Tommy sits down on the wood pile beside you and pulls out his lunch box, same as yours. You tilt your head back and enjoy the brittle heat of the day wrapping itself around you like a quilt. You let your eyes slip shut and it almost feels like just yesterday you were standing out on the gravel bank in your wrinkled uniform, throwing your medals into the Potomac, instead of three months ago. Your fingers twitch, and your thoughts are flooded with the taste of spearmint.

"Hey," Tommy grunts beside you.

You peak an eye open to find him holding out a saltwater taffy for you to take. His pockets are always full of them. You don't remember exactly when he picked the habit up, but it's been this way since you were kids.

You accept the small offering, unwrap it, then pop it in your mouth. "Thanks," you mutter, and he nods.

The afternoon is quiet. The sweat you worked up installing drywall is freezing on your back, but the toes of your boots are sweltering in the dry sun. You find yourself lingering for longer and longer in moments like these. It began in France, when Easy Company would eventually break in a relatively quiet town after going through hell.

You were always a bit greedy with food and personal property, everybody with siblings is, but you were never as greedy with anything else than a peaceful moment after your boots touched French soil for the very first time. Some days, it was as if your entire mind, body and soul wanted for nothing more than to lounge out in the sun and play a game of cards. You held on to those moments with a greed so intense that at times, it felt like nobody but General Taylor himself could order you away.

There are some things you need to learn to let go of, though.

“Where’s Ma?” you ask after a prolonged lapse in conversation. The question has been on your mind for some time now. Your mother's a tramp, but she usually shows her mousy face every couple weeks around the house, begging for table scraps, sometimes demanding them.

Tommy shrugs. “Hasn't been back nearly as much since you left. Last I heard -- you know how Beth is with her -- she went off to New Orleans or somewhere with a gentleman suitor. Hasn’t been back since March.”

You shake your head. “‘Course that’s where she went." You remember her waxing poetic about Mardi Gras and all of its sexual freedoms. You run a hand through your hair and wish quietly for the way Lieb would cut it. The conversation feels awkward and stilted when it shouldn't, because Tommy is your brother and you’ve known him since you were two and he was zero days old.

The air tastes uncomfortable, and humor is the only weapon you have to mask the flavor. "Anything else happen while I was gone?” you ask, half-joking.

Tommy shakes his head, the attempt at humor landing between his feet, a dud shell. “Not much has changed. You know Norma’s graduating this year, says she wants to be a movie star” -- you laugh good-naturedly at this -- “She’s got a plan and everythin’. L. A,” Tommy continues with a snort.

You open your mouth to respond but a quick shout interrupts you.

“Hey, Bug!” A couple of the other workers at the job site are approaching you. You smile curtly and nod your head. Tommy is silent while they poke and prod at you, try and get you to tell them a couple war stories.

“So tell us what it was like.”

“Did you shoot anyone?”

“You must be either brave or stupid to have volunteered to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane.”

These are all things you've heard before, a part of the same, re-used script every man who didn't enlist carries in his back pocket.

“Hey, next time you’re down at Old Towne’s your drinks are on me, alright, hero?” That one's new, and something you're having difficulty getting used to. No one in town thinks much of your family, your mother's broke and half of you are abominations on your fathers' side, but a war hero is a war hero, you suppose. At least that's the case for you.

You say what you have to to get them to move on as quickly as possible. You don’t want to talk about any of it, you don't want to think about any of it -- you want to scrub Europe from your mind until it's the blurry memory of a night terror you only have early in the mornings, before you're fully awake.

“Alex is back in town.” Tommy says when the crowd of workers finally moves on.

You frown. “Since when?”

“Since Christmas. ‘Was all torn up when we broke the news that you’d gone, said that you were real brave and real foolish, waxed poetic about how you were worth the wait.”

You can't help the bitter laugh punched from your chest. “The wait?”

Tommy shakes his head in sympathy. “Norma chased her off before I could, and I had to hold Pat back from trying to maul her in town a couple times.”

You laugh and drop the conversation. Alex Lanchester is a jar of worms you don't want to reopen. She left you for a suit and the Big Apple two weeks before you finally confessed to enlisting.

It’s stupid to get caught up in someone like that, so you don’t. You just close your eyes and think of those lightning bugs on the Potomac and when Tommy lights up a cigarette, you keep your eyes closed and pretend they’re not Lucky Strikes.

In the winter there is ice along the Potomac. The gravel's crunch underfoot is sharper and the flow of the river is slowed to a crawl. This is an unusually cold year. The snow began in late November and hasn't stopped since.

You are standing at the edge of the water, where the ice is thick and uneven, and you watch the opposite bank for paranoid movement. You wander back to this beach often. It's changed, eerie like a mirror image of a place you once loved, but it is quiet and often empty.

You kick at the ice, watching it crumble beneath your feet, then your stomach lets you know it's growing impatient for lunch. You stare out across the Potomac for a moment longer, then turn on your heel and begin marching home.

You pass familiar landmarks as you go, all of them covered by a blanket of slushing, gray snow. There are boulders you'd played king of the hill on as a child, overgrown trails leading up to the manor sitting empty atop the hill, and the crooked oak Tommy once leapt out of, only to break his leg in two places. A faint smile pulls at the corners of your mouth when you remember how he blubbered while you dragged him home. He's taller now, and broad like an ox; he doesn’t often cry anymore.

You pause suddenly at a large willow draped over the river and the road. Its branches droop low, and are frozen to the shoreline. You almost don't recognize your own initials carved into it, next to an A.L. lovingly, painstakingly inscribed beside them.

You remember when you'd taken a knife to this tree, in your senior year of high school. There's no greater taste than love in your mouth, and Alex taught you that, kissed and kissed you and promised her life to you. You'd been convinced that the world would fold up in front of you like a red carpet, that you would never want to wash out the flavor of caramel popcorn and a promise for the future like starshine from your mouth.

You press your fingers to the damaged bark, trying to glean some sort of emotion from it, then pull your hand away as if burned. It's stupid to get caught up in a person like that, so you don't. You pull out a pack of Lucky Strikes you'd nicked off Tommy, and set a cigarette between your lips.

The taste is strong, stronger than anything you'd ever had before. It makes your eyes water, but you keep it unlit and resting against your tongue as you walk home, ignoring the way your heart throbs until you're once again staring up at your three-bedroom house, at the end of the shitty road, wondering what in the hell you're supposed to do with yourself now that you're no longer 'Gunner', but instead 'Bug' once more, like you used to be.

You don't feel much like 'Buggy' these days.

You just feel tired.

You're sitting in your bed facing the window. The radiator under it is rattling, and the heat rolling off the coils warms the front of your body. Out the window, Virginia is naked and pale under the early morning sun, and you watch as the gray forest shivers in the breeze. The chill drives you to a razor’s edge and pulls memories you'd long since drowned to the surface of a river edged with ice.

You see faces just under the surface of those dark waters, staring up at you. You blink the image away, then see half-buried foxholes from the Ardennes out your window, waiting in the treeline at the edge of the yard.

You see yourself huddled in one of them, behind your machine gun, and Joe Toye sitting next to you, griping about his feet and smoking like a chimney. His face, his hands, his voice were rough. You wanted to die wrapped up in the blanket of his stumbled, awful vocabulary. Everything about him was warm to the touch, sometimes like spring sunshine, sometimes like the lick of fire up the side of a pan.

But winter leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like the bite of iron in blood. You can't stand the flavor anymore, and with it comes this itching under your skin; discomfort, rage.

You turn away and pull open the top drawer of your bedside table, intent on finding the pack of Lucky Strikes you stole from Tommy. There is a stack of letters held together with a rubber band, some faded photographs full of blurry faces, taken in Europe, and those cigarettes.

The taste of blood in your mouth is unbearable. It tastes the same as a field of German bodies. You lick your teeth, stare at the pack, then decide you deserve the flavor. You shove the cigarettes back into the drawer so they're hiding under a photo of Second Platoon, then look back outside. It's begun to feather snow.

Winter and the holiday season are in full swing, now -- The kids are home on Christmas break, playing in the snow and bothering Beth at all hours of the day, and the world outside your home is quiet and cold. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like the bite of iron in blood. You can't think of anything there is to celebrate anymore, and the fact that people are celebrating at all is enough to make undeserved anger well up in your chest.

There is a pounding of feet up the old stairs that stops abruptly at the door behind you.

"Beth says breakfast is ready."

You look over your shoulder to find Em hanging from the doorway, poking her head into the bedroom. Her clothes are a clash of yellows and warm blues, and she flashes her teeth when she grins at you.

"Thanks, Sweet Em."

Her eyes light up at the name, then she bounds across the room and drapes herself over your back. You grunt when she squeezes you, her sharp chin poking into your shoulder, then laugh, and grab her arms where they're clasped in front of your throat so you can stand up with her.

"Noo!" she squeals and wraps her legs around your waist, but she lets you carry her all the way down to the table, where you let her off at her favorite chair, then take Lip's seat next hers. "Got any plans for this lovely winter break, Em?"

Em shrugs her shoulders and begins to eat her oats. “Dog and Tommy said they’d go sledding with us! Did you want to come, too?”

Your mind fills with images of foxholes and forgotten faces and your smile falters for a moment, but you work to ignore the dread sinking into your chest. You're interrupted by a shout.

“Hey, Bug! Did you really cut your hair like this? And who’re your buddies?” Ulysses comes thundering down the steps holding a picture over his head. You immediately know the one, it was taken the day before D-Day when you’d all been kitted out. Joe Toye was in it, so was Smokey and Liebgott.

Panic like anger blooms in your chest. He shouldn't be going through your things. You fix Ulysses with a look. "Give it back."

"Why?" He shrinks back, holding the picture to his chest. "It's just a picture."

He shouldn't be going through your things. Your eyes burn. You're beyond words. You leap up and try to snatch it, but Ulysses backs up the stairs, holding it behind his back. The fact that he's holding that piece of you, waving it around, unsettles something in your chest. Beth shouts something, but you don't hear her.

"Give it back, Ulysses!"

He can play with your uniform all he wants, take your loot out and parade it around his friends like he was the one to steal it, but that picture is personal. It's the last thing you have left of your buddies. You grab Ulysses by the belt and tug him towards you to try and snatch the picture from him, but he squirms in your hold. "Hey! Stop it! That hurts!"

"Then give it back!" you shout, increasingly desperate and mad, tugging until Ulysses falls back onto the stairs, shouting at you. Then Jim-boy appears at the top of the stairs, and descends then faster than you can react. He snatches the picture out of Ulysses' hands, gives him a withering look, then holds it out for you to take.

The silence that follows a firefight is unbearable. You remember that they used to call you 'Gunner'.

You feel four pairs of eyes on you. Ulysses is rubbing his elbow where he knocked it on the stairs. You look down at the picture.

It's of Second Platoon, the same one you'd thought it was. Joe Toye and Liebgott are on either side of you, smiling. You have both your hands on your ammunition bearer, Hubs', shoulders, leaning over him and you're grinning widely, your mohawk cut fresh on your head.

Guarnere is towards the back, caught shouting something over his shoulder. Smokey, Rogers, and McClung are next to each other, arms over each other's shoulders. Malarkey and Buck are arm-in-arm with big, cheesy grins. Petty's there too, and Ramirez. Popeye, Muck, Penkala. There is paint on your faces. Half of you are dead.

Your hand shakes the more you stare at it, anger and frustration rising in you until you're choked by it. "Fuck!" Half of you are dead. You feel as if you died with them. Maybe you wish you had.

You drop the photo on the floor and stalk out the back door, not bothering with shoes even though the ground is covered in snow. The dog barks happily, but you ignore him and the slap of the screen door as you head straight towards the gnarled apple tree, knowing you can sit behind it in peace. Your feet burn in the snow, but it's nothing you're not used to.

From the house you hear Beth’s low voice scolding Ulysses, but it’s not his fault. You’ve changed.

The days that follow are rough. Winter's maw opens up and deepens; swallows you whole. It snows heavily through the rest of the week. You spend the meat of your days working, and the lean margins down at the Potomac, staring at the river ice and the faces just beneath the surface.

Now it is well past sunset, and it is cold. The white of the snow and clouds reflect the distant city lights, creating an eerie, lilac, never-ending twilight that surrounds you, holds its breath and watches your every move.

Bastogne never had any color; it was just gray. In Virginia, the winter is steeped in purples and pinks when night falls, and during the day it is powder fresh and bluebird soft.

You're sitting on a frozen log, throwing rocks at the river ice when you hear the sharp crunch of gravel behind you. You jump violently at the sound but don’t turn to see who it is even when your instincts scream for you to. A part of you wants to wait and see if they'll give up without acknowledgement, dreading any interaction, and another part doesn't care anymore.

"It's been a while." After a prolonged silence, a familiar voice rings out in the silence of winter. It is singular and friendly. Alex dusts the snow off a bit of log next to you, and smooths her skirt as she takes a seat beside you.

You continue to stare across the river, ignoring the faces in favor of searching for Krauts now. You're not quite sure why, but you're not surprised she's here.

Beside you, Alex digs the toe of her boot into the snow covered gravel, then asks, "how long have you been back in town?"

Your mouth is dry. "Since August,” you say reluctantly.

She sighs. "You never came to see me."

Her tone rubs against you like a cat asking for its chin to be scratched, then tests its claws in your chest. You remind yourself to be mad-- "Yeah, well, you left me first--" But you're not. You're not upset with her. Maybe you were, in the beginning, but you're not anymore. You don't think you could be even if you tried. You're so far removed from that heartbreak, it seems insignificant after everything you've done and seen.

"Can't say I blame you for being angry," Alex says frankly.

You roll your stiff shoulders and heave a sigh. You're past giving a damn. You bounce another rock off the river ice, then rub your chapped hands together. It might just be the way the light bounces off the snow, but sometimes you can still feel, see, smell the blood on them. You can still taste it. They are red. You work your jaw around a phantom piece of spearmint gum, then wish for the bitter taste of Lucky Strikes.

“What happened?” Alex asks.

You stare hard at the ground. "I went to war."

"No," she laughs humorlessly, then gestures to your hands. "What happened?"

You follow her gaze down to your hand, and it takes you a moment to realize she's not talking about the blood, but your scars. They are raised, irregular and uncomfortable. You stare at your skin for a moment, then hide your hands between your knees. "Burned myself with the barrel of my machine gun." Your nails cut your palm as you first your hands, and your mouth runs before you can catch it. "Had no choice but to bare-hand it. Doc patched me up afterward, said I was lucky that it wasn't as bad as it could've been."

She is quiet, then remarks, “Sounds painful.”

You are not yourself. You feel a sudden urge to correct her. "It didn't hurt till the morning -- I didn't even notice it to begin with."

There is more, just waiting on the tip of your tongue to be spilled. You haven't so much as breathed a word of the war in the months you've been home, so why is the urge to speak so uncontrollable now?

"It happened the same day my first assistant gunner died right beside me, a direct hit with a bazooka round, had his guts sprayed all over me and everything, and I didn't know till the morning. Joe had to pull me outta the foxhole, all covered in gore and that's when this--" you hold up your arm-- "happened, or a little afterwards, you know, when we finally got into the town we'd been trying to liberate. Fucking Nazis."

You look up to find Alex watching you with pity. You turn to watch the river instead. There is movement in the dark forest across the way. You squeeze your knees and shake your head. There aren't any Krauts anymore.

“Never mind.” “It must have been hell over there.”

"It wasn't."

"What?" she asks.

"It was," you amend. You realize that you don't know how long you've been sitting out here in the cold. It must be well past dinner. You pat your knees and make to stand with a huff. “Well, I gotta go. Beth won’t like it if I’m out after dark for too long. She barely lets me outta her sight anyways.”

“I missed you, you know," Alex says suddenly, voice wobbly.

You glance over at her, then back across the river at the Krauts and Bitterness returns. “I’m sure you did. Everyone misses the war hero.”

“No,” she says, “I mean I missed you. You. Breaking it off with you was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

You close your eyes, and even though you're standing in the exact spot you once had, before you'd gone off to war, a toy soldier, you can't picture this beach the way it had once been. But you remember Joe Toye, when he'd held you in that foxhole in France, rocked you, whispered right in your ear that you'd be okay.

"You know--" you start to say, then are forced to stop when your voice shakes with emotion you didn't know you felt. You swallow thickly, and blink your wet eyes. "You know, burning my hand or even losing Hubs wasn't the worst part of that day."

Alex looks up, but you stare at your hands. There is blood on them, and now you're sure it's not just the lilac sky. "It was knowing I killed those Germans. A whole platoon. I mowed down a whole platoon of Krauts with just a single gun -- and they were just kids, you know, like Hubs -- Like Dog. Just like him!

"I got a medal for it, they fucking congratulated me, said I was real brave. Crazy thing to tell a murderer, ain't it?"

There is a brief silence, then Alex sighs.

"Merry Christmas," she says sardonically, and it confuses you for a moment until you realize that today is Christmas. December twenty-fifth. What an arbitrary date. You remember how she used to be so adamant you celebrate it with her.

"Merry Christmas," you breathe, hollow. You feel her eyes on you for a moment, then she directs her gaze back out over the Potomac, and you wonder if she's looking for Krauts too, the way Joe would.

You wish for a flare. You wish for Tommy's Lucky Strikes to burn your tongue on. You try and fight the tears, but you're just so goddamn tired. You're more Gunner than you ever were Bug now, and Gunner is so goddamn tired. Why is that?

Your weak knees force you to take a seat on the log once more, and you drop your head into your hands, aware of Alex and how she is watching you, pitying you. Joe would never look at you like that.

You heave a quiet, shaky sob at that thought. How are you ever supposed to be Bug again? Since you were Gunner when you leapt to your death in Normandy? Since you were Gunner when you killed in cold blood for your buddies? Since you were Gunner when Joe Toye would hold you and make you forget about everything but him and his goddamn lightning bug eyes? Since you were Gunner when you heard the crack of a bat, then the news that the war would be over, for good this time.

You try and stifle the way you cry into your hands, but you can't. It is like the rain in Virginia: Absolute. A firestorm. You can't control the way your body shakes with each rattling, frozen breath. Your vision blurs to nothing and you dig the heels of your palms so hard into your eyes you see spots.

You barely realize what's happening when Alex wraps an arm around your back and leans into you, holding you tight to her chest. She's warm, and not as solid as Joe, but she is a startlingly welcome comfort nonetheless. As long as she stays quiet, you can even pretend that It's Joe Toye holding you instead, in Bastogne, whispering to himself and singing that stupid Billie Holiday song he was so obsessed with.

But you didn't love Joe Toye. He tasted like Lucky Strikes and hellfire and the twilight lit up by flares, drifting like lightning bugs in the sky. His river was not the same as your river from memory but it's all you can seem to think about these days. That night in France, when you'd been so close to something, but afraid to grasp it. Why can't you forget that night, like the rest of the war?

This makes you cry harder.

You didn't love Joe Toye, but you loved Alex a lifetime ago. Before all of this, you'd been in love, carved your initials next to hers in a tree and promised each other the rest of your long lives.

This is one thing you know for certain: Joe Toye did not taste like love, but Alex tasted like starshine and caramel popcorn and first dates and first loves and hurt and broken promises and it turns your stomach the way your fifth candy apple does but you want it anyways.

You fucking want it anyways.

Masterlist | Posting Schedule

#bob #band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers x reader #joe toye #joseph toye #joe toye x reader #joseph toye x reader #joe toye imagine #joseph toye imagine

29 notes · View notes

arsenysworld · 3 years

Text

Fanfiction

Everything will be different now

Peter Parker/Natasha Romanoff

SpiderWidow

Peter doesn't want to believe what is happening. The first stage is always denial. He writes off his obsession with a hormonal surge. The guy does not cease to convince himself that he will still find his true love, because he is surrounded by quite beautiful girls of his age, and Peter himself is sure that he does it well (no)

Parker can only allow himself to fantasize, which however (as he thought) was enough for him. There were plenty of reasons to stay in the shadows. The most obvious of these was the age difference. He is 18, and she is 35. Yes, and reciprocity could not be counted on. A stately, intelligent, beautiful, and most importantly, a respected woman, and a teenager who cannot pacify his hormones. Completely different people. It's funny even to think about it. Parker understood this, and each time the awareness of reality cut him from the inside, delivering incredible pain and suffering.

***********

Natasha had fiery red hair. It seemed that only by touching them, you could get a great burn. Romanoff was all fire, and Peter was a moth, spellbound by the fire. Knowing that he was going to certain death, he continued to fly.

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

Peter loved looking at Natasha. Sometimes she noticed it, but with a great desire to look away, Parker still did not do it. After all, if he averts his eyes, one gets the impression that he was caught for something obscene. For a while, it seemed to Peter that she appreciated his attention, and that is why, in response to his studying look, she gives a warm smile, which he forever imprints in his memory. If he wanted to, Peter could remember each of her smiles, each of which he appreciated and remembered. Parker smiles back at her, hoping that he does not look stupid. At first they silently look into each other's eyes and do not need extra words, such moments come when both want to be distracted from the madness around them, and they do this, finding comfort in each other's eyes. Peter appreciates every moment that slips into these, to some extent, "intimate" minutes for the guy himself. And then Natasha looks down at him, shifting her gaze again to the eyes studying her. Peter swears he saw her bite her lip lightly one day. And after the exchange of smiles, Natasha averted her eyes, as if there were no glances and smiles a second ago. These "glances" remained only between them. For Peter, such moments were intimate and carried a special value. But each time he was forced to instill in himself, contrary to his wishes, that this was their special friendly gesture, which was long overdue to become some kind of routine. But he could not deceive himself. These views turned him wildly. A pleasant feeling burned in his chest, just thinking about how he wanted to continue. But he still preferred his fantasies.

******

There is another way to get Peter's heart to do somersaults. During their gatherings in the Avengers Tower, Parker is always in his favorite place - on the left side of the sofa. Natasha always sits down next to him, tightly pressing shoulder to shoulder, as if deliberately embarrassing the guy, but the following moments make Peter's heart literally jump out of his chest. After a minute (if not less), she grabs Peter's hand, interlaces her fingers with his, and wraps her hands behind their backs. Peter starts to shake every time Romanoff does this. They did it all the time, but for Spidey it was like the first time. He tries not to squeeze her thin hand too tightly, although in his state it is difficult to control himself. But not too weak either. Peter starts to breathe more quickly, and can hardly contain himself not to stare at her, showing his indignation.

****

Natasha feels him trembling every time, but she never says anything, because she guesses that these moments mean something to Peter and she doesn't want to hurt him with her grin (although it was very difficult to restrain herself). But she could not do this to him, no one treated her so reverently and attentively. And of course this attitude flattered her. But the boy is only eighteen. She will not forgive herself if she "seduces" a boy who has recently become an adult. After all, it's not okay to try to please a boy who is 17 years younger than her. But Romanoff probed the possible ground with such casual but obvious gestures. And, God, how she liked to watch his reaction, how he got lost, but made every possible effort to seem more confident, not even realizing that Natasha saw him through. She took pleasure in first encouraging him, and then cutting off, not letting him really understand anything and pretend that she didn’t do anything. One day she allowed herself to bite her lip. Peter even glanced around to make sure the gesture was meant for him, and then fell into a stupor with realization. This time, Peter thought it would be more appropriate to look away this time. This amused her greatly. But the Spider did not make it clear whether the Spider was scared or simply did not expect such a sharp turn of events.

*****

Usually Natasha understood what she wanted and always confidently walked towards the intended goal. But Peter ... he changed her mind. She didn't want to see anyone but herself next to Parker. Every time Romanoff saw the Spider, something warm and viscous spilled over her chest. An ordinary person would think that she was just a little nervous, but Natasha denied any thoughts of this nature. Would she be nervous? Never!

Peter became for Natasha a kind of weak point, an obsession.

One day changed the fate of both.

Peter spent his Saturday morning at his home in Queens. It was early March and that day turned out to be rather cloudy, and then huge dark clouds hung over the city, warning of imminent rain. On such days, I do not want to do anything, there comes some kind of apathy for everything. Peter liked to devote such days to watching movies or reading books. These activities somehow lifted my spirits.

But his idyll was broken only by one phone call.

"Peter!" Fury's voice came from the tube - "listen carefully, now we have a very important task, but I'm not calling you for this" - Peter was intrigued - "we don't need the whole Avengers, but Stark said that training for you will not be superfluous, so you I have to come to the base, we will leave you someone for training, and we are already flying out, so I recommend to hurry."

Before Peter had time to say anything in response, beeps were heard from the other side, announcing the end of the conversation. Peter dreamed of getting on some "top secret" assignment. He can't wait to prove himself. He wants to seem more responsible and adult than he really is, but it seems to him that no one takes him seriously (Even during telephone conversations). He wanted some kind of recognition. And each time, hoping for a serious assignment, he only gets training with Steve or, even worse, with Barnes, from whose hands it is impossible to get out alive. But it is useless to argue.

After a while, Peter was already entering the main hall, looking around such a familiar room. The interior was empty and Peter was about to turn around to search other rooms. But before he could do this, his eyes covered someone's palms. Not having time to understand anything, Peter turned sharply, brushing off other people's hands, and grabbing a potential "attacker" by the wrists. Imagine his surprise when he turned sharply and looked into Natasha's green eyes.

“What are you doing?” The redhead asked with a touch of irony. “It's just a joke, Peter.

“Sorry, reflex,” Peter justified himself, feeling a little guilty.

“Yes, I understand,” Natasha replied with a note of mockery. “Well, what do you propose to do?

“By training?” Parker answered with an obvious lack of understanding in his voice, not expecting such a question.

“Are you really doing everything Stark tells you?” Romanoff asked in surprise.

"Well ... I think it will be useful ... and ..." Not knowing what to say, Peter tried to continue.

“God, just don’t say that you’re afraid of the evil uncle Tony, who will come and scold us?” Natasha pouted her lower lip and raised her eyebrows. And then she could not restrain herself at all, she laughed.

Parker could not help smiling, realizing how funny and true it sounds.

“Why didn't you go with them?” Peter asked a question that had been of interest to him for a long time.

“They decided that I was too often involved in operations, and that I deserved to rest,” Mocking Fury, and raising her index finger, she lowered her voice and spoke just like him.

This made Peter laugh out loud. The resemblance to Fury is amazing.

“I've never heard so many jokes from you, only if during your quarrels with Mr. Stark.” Peter said.

“You just don't know me well, but you can take this wonderful opportunity and get to know me better,” said Romanoff a little more quietly, shifting her gaze to Peter's lips, but realizing what was said, she returned her gaze back to Parker's eyes.

With her phrase, she struck Peter on the spot. To be honest, Natasha herself did not expect this from herself, she was thrown into the cold from the realization of her words. But after that, the fear turned sharply into confidence. She began to slowly approach Peter with the thought of "now or never."

“Um ... Miss Romanoff?” Peter asked, clearly not expecting this turn of events. Of course, he dreamed about it from their first meeting, but now he was simply not ready.

“Peter,” Natasha is stretched out almost in a whisper, “Did you know that you are insanely beautiful?

Determined not to waste time, Red hugged Peter's face with her hands, stood on tiptoe and kissed Peter tenderly on the lips. She kissed without pressure, completely weightless, as if asking permission to continue.

"Umm ... Miss Romanoff ..." Peter began, but was interrupted by Natasha.

“No, no, no, now it's just Nat,” Romanoff muttered through half-closed lips.

"Uh ... yes, but I have to say something ..." Again, Peter does not have time to finish

“Not now ...” Natasha continued to whisper.

She was wildly hot until she looked into Peter's eyes. She saw fear there. Romanoff thought he wanted to stop her, but was afraid. Sweet excitement melted in my chest.

“What's the problem?” Romanoff asked, pulling back a little, although she understood that the problem was obvious, but it was worth asking.

“It's all ... it's all wrong, and I'm not sure ...” Stammering, Peter continued to come up with an excuse, not so much for Natasha as for himself.

"God, Peter Benjamin Parker! What's wrong with you? You dreamed about this more than anything else! What's your problem?" - one after another, thoughts flashed through the guy's head, forcing him to listen. Peter wanted to, but he was afraid. After all, he is an inexperienced teenager who simply has nothing to surprise her with. And the fear of being rejected and ridiculed became stronger than his desire. But Natasha interrupted his stormy stream of thoughts.

—Okay, I won't if you say that you don’t want me — Natasha challenged me — Come on, one phrase and Aunt Nat will no longer bother you — Natasha added, slightly dropping her eyelids, and directing her glassy gaze into Parker's eyes ...

Natasha didn't need an answer. She knew that the Spider would not resist her, and when he still admits defeat, it is only a matter of time.

Inside Parker, two feelings continued to struggle: fear and desperate desire. Fear kept saying that you shouldn't do things that you will regret for a very long time. But the desire, backed up by his dreams of this moment, insisted that trying is not torture and worth a try anyway. And at the end of this internal dilemma, Peter came to the conclusion: "If she insists on this, then she really wants it, which means she just needs to pull herself together, turn fear into confidence and act."

“You know I’ll never say that.” Peter replied, lighting up Nate with his bright and slightly nervous smile.

“I thought so.” Threw Romanoff before attacking Spider again. She felt his insecurity and wanted to help him relax as soon as possible.

This time their kiss was longer, more confident, deeper than the last time. Now their languages were fighting among themselves for primacy, but no one wanted to give up in this fight. Peter's hands went around Nat's waist and pulled her closer to him, as if Parker was afraid of losing her. A warm, pleasant feeling blossomed in my chest, because of it both felt themselves "in their place." For a second, Natasha allowed herself to pull back to get some air in her lungs, but Peter did not want to be ignored, even for such a short time. His hands went down to Romanoff's buttocks, squeezing them tighter, letting her know that Peter wasn’t the type to wait. In one sharp movement, Parker pulled her towards him, biting into her red lips. For a second, Peter was even amazed at his confidence, but decided not to waste time and move on, guided only by his instincts. Natasha smiled at him, and then continued to lick his palate and from time to time pull back her lower lip, thereby forcing the Spider to move towards her. Natasha's hands helped her in this, grabbing him by the hair and guiding him closer and closer to her. With a snap, Romanoff unzipped her latex suit, grabbing Peter's arm and placing it on her chest. The guy was not satisfied with the unzipped zipper and with this thought he pulled off the suit from her marble shoulders, and then completely exposing the whole body from the shoulders to the waist.

"It seems that the bolder, the better. Because I don't see any other explanation. Besides, she seems to be really happy, which means I'm doing everything right." - Parker's internal debate was not planned to stop.

They kissed passionately, with taste. These were magical moments, but Peter wanted to surprise Natasha, to make her really pleasant.

Captivated by this idea, Parker grabbed Romanoff and sat him on the counter, ridding his entire body of the latex suit.

“I didn't know what you can do,” Nat stretched out intrigued.

“I thought today was our discovery day.” Peter said with a grin.

Peter slowly went down to Natasha's thighs with his hands, picking up the elastic of his silk panties with his fingertips, getting rid of the interfering little thing. From desire between Natasha's thighs, everything burned, it seemed if Peter hesitated even a second, then she would just start dripping. Romanoff lowered her back to the table, propping her body up with her elbows so she could see Peter and his face. Parker gently spread Nat's legs, placing them on two high chairs on either side of him for added convenience.

Noticing the excess moisture in Natasha's crotch, he first bent down, parted the labia and began to lick every last drop. Each movement of his tongue, increasingly brushing her clitoris swollen with desire, made Natasha bend in an arc. She couldn't contain her moans escaping from her every time Peter changed his pace.

Then Parker abruptly pulled away from Natasha, leaving her dissatisfied, causing this to snort disapprovingly. Then Peter brought two fingers to Natasha's lips.

"Close." - Peter ordered imperiously.

Natasha did not object, she even liked that at least somewhere the role of the dominant was assigned not to her. She slowly opened her mouth, swallowing two fingers, and beginning to generously wet them with saliva, while she did not take her gaze from under half-closed eyelids from Peter's eyes. Parker even admired this picture for a few seconds. Natasha, lying on the table, completely belonging to him, licks his fingers without taking her lustful gaze from him. This sight awakened animal instincts in him. But Peter had to stop her. He wanted to see it through to the end.

“Enough!” Peter said, removing wet fingers from her mouth.

And now a new wave of vivid sensations rolled over her with renewed vigor, forcing her to moan more often and louder, while Peter abruptly entered her, picking up the pace. She prayed not to come in the first ten seconds. But it was not there, Peter put the thumb of his other hand to the girl's clitoris, starting to press on it, adjusting to the rhythm of the fingers, which caused a new barrage of groans that filled the entire room.

A couple more movements and Natasha's eyes roll up, her mouth opens, gasping for air, her back arches, and her hands rummage around the table in search of at least some support, but not finding anything they grab onto the edges of the table, almost tearing off the glass cover by the root. For another couple of seconds Natasha lies motionless, slowly coming to her senses. She realizes that she has never finished like this before. The redhead comes down from the table, wraps her arms around Peter's neck and whispers in his ear how much she loves him and how much she needs him. Then she feels his lips and bites into them with a kiss of gratitude. Then Natasha looks at her watch in horror and begins to dress convulsively.

“What is it, are you late somewhere?” Parker asked with undisguised surprise in his voice.

“Everyone will be back any minute, do you have any idea what will happen if they see us?” Natasha said, zipping up her zipper and putting her hair in order, thereby hiding all traces of their closeness.

Peter took a rag, wiped the table with it (to be sure)

When all the Avengers returned to the tower, they held some kind of urgent meeting, at which they discussed the details of the next mission. But neither Peter nor Natasha was interested in their discussions. They only continued to give each other their views, but both knew that now everything would be different.

#marvel #fanfic #writers on tumblr #peter parker #natasha romanoff #romace #comics #peter parker x natasha romanoff #widowspider

22 notes · View notes

join-the-joywrite · 4 years

Text

Hamish & Vera soulmate au headcannons

Lil headcannons for a colours soulmate au in which the S1 finale wasn't the first time Hamish had been hit in the face with the powder. Because why not? This version of the colours is the one where you can only see varying shades of the colour of your soulmate's eyes. Because why not?

Here is part two, as promised

To everyone who knows Vera on any level, she hasn't changed a bit. Okay, maybe she's a little bit more sharp now and then and she gets a little testy whenever it rains. But maybe that's just the stress of being Grand Magus, and Temple Magus, and Chancellor of Belgrave setting in.

When she's alone at home, Vera stays up late into the night, wondering if she made the right decisions. She falls asleep in Hamish's jacket often.

The jacket is completely worn through now, the suede verging on ruined again. But she doesn't want to make back to brand new again nor does she ever want to get rid of it. It's quite literally that last bit of Hamish -- her Hamish -- that she has left.

She tells herself that it's for the best. If the Knights remained active, the Order would pursue them to the ends of the earth. But you have a seat of power almost all disciples would die for, that inner voice says, you can turn the Order around.

"They're our enemies." "But they don't know that." Well ok fine but I'm also deathly afraid of seeing Hamish's face again so let's not talk about this ever.

Eventually, logic trumps all else and Vera agrees to induct the Knights.

When Alyssa returns their memories, Jack is consumed by rage and hatred. Hamish wants to feel the same, he wants to be burned bitter by the betrayal, but he can't.

"Secrets are terrible things. They ruin the best of things and can break down nearly everything."

"I love you."

Hamish understands Randall's apprehension, Lilith's disgust and Jack's rage. He wants to say he feels the same. But all he feels his confusion. All he thinks about is the day he watched Vera leave.

Who's jacket had she been wearing?

Hamish runs his thumb over the letter hanging from the chain before tucking it under his new Order robes.

Did the necklace belong ..... to Vera? Because he knows it isn't his and he found it right where he'd fallen.

What the fuck is in Hamish's head on repeat for the entire evening.

"If you're going to stand there, at least make yourself useful." While Vera congratulates herself on her ability to appear as normal in front of Hamish, Hamish studies Vera as he passes her a drink. The same drink he'd watched her make back in the den.

Vera is momentarily distracted by the taste of the drink in her hand.

"Drinks are an art form, V, which means I can make whatever I want with justifiable reasoning." Laughter echoes. "And what are you calling this drink? It's a bit . . . harsh for all your old suggestions." "I'm thinking something along the lines of Vera."

"Are you calling me harsh?!" "I would never!" Pure, unfiltered joy echoes through the entire apartment.

"Magus?" Hamish's voice brings Vera back to the present. "Mingle, Acolyte. It's your party, after all."

Hamish reluctantly leaves the bar. He wants to stand there longer and study Vera -- maybe some of his questions will get answered.

"Drink it all in one go or your brain will shrivel up to the size of a raisin." "Bottoms up."

Suddenly, Hamish can recall his high school locker combination. Lilith is talking about some childhood fear, Randall's complaining about a retainer, Jack's crying about a tattoo -- frankly, that part scared Hamish a little -- and then he's stunned into silence with the flood of memories.

And then he's as angry as Jack was. He's furious. But not at Vera for what she did. He's furious at her for not waiting. Waiting for him to respond, waiting to see if they could have made it work.

He's furious because now he'll never know if they could have avoided all the deaths between then and now. Maybe the Knights could have allied with the Order. Maybe the Knights could have weeded out all the bad magic in the Order. Maybe he and Vera could have done it together, made the Order what she said it could be, a secret society of magic practitioners that is dedicated to preserving and passing on the art of magic. So many maybes, so many what ifs.

A part of him wants to storm into the temple, into the reliquary and demand that Vera confess. The more rational part of him keeps him grounded to protect the fact that they have their memories.

He'd feel a little bad about planning to rob the Order blind if he wasn't so pissed at them for raiding the den. Thanks to Lilith's potion, Hamish is slowly developing burning rage at the idea of being betrayed by his own goddamn soulmate. As time passes, he's starting to forget that he used to understand her circumstances, her choices being bad or worse.

So when they come across Zecchia, he's ready for it without any hesitation.

"Bring me something in a tall glass." Okay maybe a little hesitance. Just a little.

Hamish thinks it might have been a mistake when the news about Rogwan is delivered. He realises he's gone and royally fucked up on a Jack Morton level when they find out Zecchia robbed them.

"So, what's all this talk about wolves?"

Vera's too pissed with them to register the fact that Hamish has his memories (not all, though, right?) "Where is my inventory?"

"It was . . . stolen from us." "For fuck's sake, Hamish, can't you keep track of anything in that fucking apartment?" Randall: ( ͡° ʖ ͡°) (ಠ_ಠ) what the fuck is happening here 🙃 "I am seriously considering killing both of you." "Please don't." "SHUT UP"

Rogwan taking Hamish's fear could have been incredibly catastrophic if Vera had had her phone on her around the same time Hamish got his hands on money and a phone booth, even worse if she had answered any of those calls (though to be honest, she might just have been incredibly confused about it or more accurately, Hamish might not have even dialled her number properly)

Hamish standing at the phone booth with the dial tone while Randall repeatedly tries to climb a nearby tree: I know what you did, Vera Stone. You wicked witch with a cute butt. You jacket thief, alcohol thief, heart thief-- vest thief! + stupider and stupider things until Randall eventually gets his attention again.

"I give my life to the cause to protect the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose from threats both inside and out." "So . . . we're supposed to babysit the Grand Magus aka you?" Both Vera and Hamish shoot Jack a withering glare. Randall finds it funny and Jack is grateful for Randall.

"Is everyone okay?" Awww she cares. Stop smirking at her -- stop -- STOP IT, FACE!

As much as Hamish was internally laughing at Vera for her still harbouring her old feelings, Hamish realises that he hasn't forgotten his own instincts when it comes to Vera when he sees the Magistratus, Angus, charge at Vera.

He may have fucked several things up, but no one is allowed to harm Vera. Tundra is a Knight of the Blue Rose, but Hamish is Vera's -- it's not as if he'd have it any other way anyway.

Vera's pretty stressed, what with the impending end of the world. Hamish is waiting for Vera in the reliquary, having discovered something ... interesting about the Tartarus explosions.

"I got your text." Hamish stands, book in hand. "Yeah, I found -- . . . is wearing three different shades of black a conscious decision or--" "Shut up."

Hamish happily complies. Who cares what colours she's wearing when he's got her in his arms? For someone who doesn't like anyone kissing in the reliquary, Vera seems to be very unopposed to the idea when she and Hamish are the ones doing all the kissing.

Not that Hamish is complaining. He wouldn't ever want to stop Vera. "Wait -- wait, this isn't why I'm here." "Your text specifically said you had something big to show me." "I ... see how that can be misconstrued."

Vera glares. "Make it quick, I'm busy."

"Tease," Hamish mutters with a grin before delving into the very solid fact that the world is going to end.

"The council wouldn't listen to reason so . . . I gave them fear. Stopping Praxis is the only way to stopping these eruptions." "Or is it the only option you'll consider?" The glass hits the table hard. Hamish is beyond pissed, but he's not sure at what. Vera is clearly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps he should let her know about his first clash with pulveris memoria

"They're asking for something I can't give them." "Or won't." He knows he's being difficult but he doesn't feel guilty about it at all. He's still mildly miffed that Vera didn't think he could make the choice for himself on whether or not he wanted anything to do with the Order.

Of course, his entire demeanour changes when Alyssa shows up in the reliquary. He may be pissed and a little disappointed in Vera but that doesn't mean he's willing to let her stand in harm's way. And of course, Alyssa knocks him straight the fuck out. (I mean personally I don't like her but I have to admit, that was a smart move)

I can't fucking remember how the scene goes word-for-word but you all know it.

Hamish wakes with the gripping fear that Vera is hurt or worse, dead. As soon as he sees Vera though, he's incredibly calmer. She seems okay. She's alive.

"She took your magic." Honestly, it could have been worse. It really could have been a lot worse. But he doesn't say so because he knows magic is something that is important to Vera and he knows that she's fucking terrified -- even if she won't say.

"I imagine she, like you, finds me a selfish woman." "Vera, I don't think you're selfish. You're demanding and ... weirdly ticklish, but not selfish."

Vera thinks about all that she's put Hamish alone through. She has very many a regret in her life, but Hamish somehow seems to dominate that lost. "How can you be so sure?" "Because of all the times you could have killed the Knights but you didn't, because you wanted th-- us to live. To learn."

It's a little hard to separate Vera's soulmate from Tundra's champion, but Hamish does it. He's still a Knight, despite whatever feelings he and Vera might share. Both of them are him but not together. Not just yet.

"It's all right to let someone care about you, V." "You--" "You dropped this." Vera stands still as Hamish puts the chain over her own head. How long had he had all his memories? Said nothing? All this time, he'd kept his mouth shut -- was it for her sake? Old guilt creeps back into her.

"Maybe you are selfish, V, but not for all the reasons you think. Your selfish acts are always about protecting other people. Me, Jack, Alyssa, the Knights, the Order. Selfish doesn't mean evil."

"What's he doing here?" "We're not staying." "Yes, we are."

"No, you're not." "It's not safe." "I'm no threat to her."

Hamish really doesn't want to leave Vera alone with Alyssa. But she trusts herself so he'll trust her. Besides that, he still has to save Lilith.

When Hamish returns to the temple, chasing Midnight, Alyssa is dead and Vera is shaking.

"V, it's not your fault." How does he know exactly what she's thinking?

Hamish sets a drink, Vera's drink, in front of her and turns to leave. To give her space. To give her the choice. He drags his hand over hers. Do you want me to stay?

Vera makes no movement other than wrapping her fingers around Hamish's hand and holding fast. Yes.

And as he stands there and the doors to the reliquary closes, he glances down at Vera and realises that bad as things are, they could be worse. Vera tried so many times to push him away, but she's failed every time. And he's incredibly thankful for that.

Vera doesn't have her magic, but she's got all the colours in the world because of Hamish and somehow, that's so much more important to her.

Someone help me I'm Sad™ I wanna write this but like ,,,,, not as a full book because that would make me cry ,,,,, maybe like a nice collection of scenes 0.0 what do you think?

Take a look at other soulmate aus I've chosen to torment myself with

#hamish x vera #hamish duke #vera stone #vermish #the order #netflix #the hermetic order of the blue rose #the knights of st christopher #the knights of the blue rose #the knights of saint christopher #soulmate #soulmates au #soulmate au #please just give me the soulmate au i want #mara-writes

39 notes · View notes

punksarahreese · 3 years

Note

24. — agony maybe for bloodletting?

In which I make Connor suffer <3

CW: mentions of murder, fighting, gore, injury

***

Connor didn’t hear much after the initial snap of his father’s neck, the sound was deafening and he almost felt the way Cornelius’ life left his body. The resounding reaction was absolute chaos but he didn’t register half of it. He barely noticed as the pack around him absorbed the reality of the situation and reacted accordingly, most of them ready to avenge the death of their late dictator. They were appalled that their great leader was dead, at the hands of his son no less, and saw it fit to take those feelings out on his killer.

He must have felt something, though, because the second Connor realized what he had done, he burst into tears. Unfortunately, that resulted in him letting his guard down and the pack only took that to their advantage, overtaking him in a flood of anger and crying for redemption. Connor didn’t know where the hits were coming from, all he knew was it hurt more than anything ever had. He was still sobbing, remorse hitting him harder than any part of the attack, but he couldn’t fight back. There were unsheathed claws digging into his back and arms and face with no remorse, tearing at his skin and forcing him to the ground. Everything was happening all too fast and Connor didn’t have it in him to fight back.

“I deserve this,” he found himself thinking, “I just killed my father.”

He had to do it, though. His father had abused far too many pups and humans and young wolves, there was no way Sam would have survived the training day if she was being punished like Cornelius wanted. She was a new wolf, barely two days off of chains, and she didn’t understand the hierarchy yet. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t been fed enough since turning, she didn’t deserve to be punished for being hungry. Sure she was out of line, trying to take food before the elders, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be beaten half to death. He hadn’t even considered how things might end in that moment, just launched himself at his father with the intention to protect Sam and every other wolf and human that the leader thought he could harm.

He found his thoughts travelling to Ethan, the one pack member he had complete trust in. The other man was only two months into his new life, not yet properly integrated into the pack. If they killed Connor now, they would immediately turn on Ethan and Sam and any other wolf that had a positive affiliation with the leader’s son. He couldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let his friends die because of him. He needed to leave, to escape, and to get Ethan somewhere safe.

That was the only thought in Connor’s mind as he forced himself off the ground, heaving all his body weight upwards to throw the other wolves off him. His head was spinning and his whole body stung, feeling like he was one big open wound. He didn’t think much of it at the time but somewhere in his brain he knew he must be badly hurt. Every movement send his whole being screaming, though he didn’t make a sound outwardly. Everything felt stiff and burned, as if someone was pouring saltwater into his open wounds. He tried to get away, dodging sharp teeth and claws but not fighting back. He could justify defending himself, sure, but he wouldn’t bother. He wouldn’t hurt these people any more, even as they were trying to kill him. That would only make him more of a monster and he didn’t want to be bad; he couldn’t be. He had already stooped to his father's level, became a murderer just like him, and he hated himself for it. All he could do was push through the agony, though, if not for himself then for Ethan.

The wolf in question was standing at the edge of the clearing, fear evident on his face. He immediately ran to Connor, trying to support him because he looked on the verge of passing out. Connor just held onto his wrist for stability, a quiet apology slipping from his lips. Ethan wanted to tell him it was okay, he did what he had to, but there was no time. They had to run, get away, because the pack showed no sign of stopping until Connor paid for what he did. They had them almost surrounded again, growling and shouting, filling the forest with hostile sounds. Ethan didn’t even think as he wrapped his arm around Connor’s waist to help him run, dragging his injured friend with him as he took off away from the pack.

He wasn’t sure how long they ran for. Eventually all traces of other wolves chasing them vanished but Ethan kept going. He ran until he felt Connor slow down, his body going slightly limp and relying on Ethan to keep him up. The other man had been breathing shallowly and whimpering every so often and he knew they needed to stop. He would heal on his own in time but that would only happen if Connor rested. He half carried the other wolf to a sheltered area not far from a river, helping him into a tiny half-cave in the hillside. It wasn’t perfect but they would be safer there, until Connor was strong enough to move properly.

He collapsed onto the cold rock with a pitiful sound, making Ethan wince. His friend was clearly in pain, both mentally and physically. The events must have hit him properly the second they slowed down because Connor was crying again, clutching at his heavily bleeding arms and muttering under his breath. Even when Ethan crouched beside him, hands putting pressure on his wounds and speaking softly to him, all Connor could do was weep.

“I d-didn’t… I didn’t mean to…” he whispered, “I’m not a m-monster…”

“I know, Connor,” Ethan promised him gently, ripping a piece of his t-shirt to use as a bandage. He didn’t have any other choice because Connor’s neck had a particularly nasty gouge out of it and the last thing they needed was an infection. Connor cried out when he pressed the fabric to his damaged skin, making Ethan apologize softly. They just needed to control the bleeding until his body could catch up and heal. He would be fine physically in the next few days, but mentally Ethan knew this would hurt him for a while.

That’s why he had no complaints when Connor finally fell asleep after hours of crying, using Ethan’s thigh as a pillow. They hadn’t been all too physically affectionate before but Ethan didn’t mind at this point. He wanted Connor to feel safe and he knew the pack-instinct was begging for some sense of security and comfort. So he just sat there, on the cold ground of the cave, holding Connor’s scarred hand. He waited it out with him, listening as Connor wept in agony as his body slowly healed itself. Lycanthropy did grant immortality and fast healing, but the process was agonizing and Ethan knew that it would be a rough few days. All he could do was promise Connor that he was safe, listening to the shallow gasps of pain and mantra of apologies that came from his friend.

Everything was so uncertain now, his life turned upside down for the second time in a few months. Still, Ethan knew he was needed right then and that was all that mattered. Connor was his family, in any sense, and he would protect him the best he could.

#this may be incoherent #Connor can have some trauma as a treat 🥰#at least he has Ethan 🥺#gay werewolves be gay and traumatized <3 #bloodletting #occult!au #werewolf!ethan #werewolf!connor #rhoi #ethan choi #connor rhodes #my aus #my-writing #asks #mutuals #crockettstiddies

7 notes · View notes

demoncryptspanties · 4 years

Text

Time After Time

Part 7 - Finale

Masterlist, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

A/N Thank you so much for sticking with me the whole way through. I’m not sure what I’m going to do after this but if you have any ideas please share. Thank you for the comments and likes I really appreciate it, so yeah basically thank you, and enjoy.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

You threw on a kimono robe on from the back of the closet. As a force of habit, you didn’t throw on any clothes above underwear underneath your robe and walked downstairs. Selene wrapped herself around your wrist, just slightly obscured by the sleeve of your robe. The table in the kitchen was already filled with the other people in the house including Luke. For some reason a feeling of light-headedness overtook you making you stop and hold onto the nearest surface. It felt like you had gotten up way too quickly. The black in your vision disappearing as quickly as it came.

You missed the look of concern on Sabrina’s face when you straightened up and refused to look at Ambrose taking the empty spot in between Sabrina and Zelda instead.

“Morning Aunties, Sabrina, Ambrose and of course Luke,” You gave Luke a tight smile and reached for the cup of tea and an apple.

“Are you alright Y/N,” Hilda asked a look of concern gracing her face. You were craving one of her cinnamon brews.

“Yes of course, but I wanted to ask you. What is the best way to get rid of a hex?” You asked loudly in order to gain the attention of the whole table. Your tone gave way to clear annoyance bordering anger, you had to fight the urge to give Luke a pointed look.

“You got hexed?” Ambrose joined Hilda with his look of concern, while Luke had a small smirk which he quickly covered when you looked at him.

“Yes.” You turned back to your tea sipping it gently.

“Well it depends on the hex, what has it affected.” Hilda sat down in front of you, halting her movements at the stove.

“My sleep. I’ve been hit with waves of fatigue for 2 days now. I guess that what was also making me lightheaded.” You smiled sweetly.

“Well a bath of milk and a chant should do it, but we don’t have enough milk,” she seemed to already be planning something sharing a look with Zelda and then moving back to the stove.

“I can go to the store on my way back home and get some.” Sabrina offered from her spot next to you. Her tone was slight, she was confused, she hadn’t figured it out yet. Were you the only one who saw it?

“Yes, that would be fantastic Sabrina. Do you know who hexed you Y/N” Zelda said. She had finished her tea and was quietly observing the conversation. It was characteristic for her; you could tell she was already plotting.

“Yes, I do.” You had a twinkle in your eye knowing exactly where this was going.

“Perhaps I could help you with a little revenge,” She shared your twinkle and you nodded lightly. Zelda seemed to already have an abundance of plans to torment whoever hexed you. Her and Lilac would make a completely unstoppable team, chaotic but calculated if one could be.

“Well I am going to bed; someone wake me when Sabrina has the milk.” You moved to leave, downing your tea and giving a small wave.

“You literally just woke up,” Luke muttered just loud enough that you caught it. He was annoyed, he wanted more from you.

“Did I fucking stutter,” You didn’t turn around to look at him. Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so harsh but now that he actually did something it felt justified.

A small hiss filled the kitchen. No-one could place the sound until Selene ghosted over the table stopping right in front of Luke baring her fangs and preparing to pounce. Ambrose scooped her up lightly and called after you.

“Selene really doesn’t like Luke does she” He cooed lightly at her. You walked back to collect her, offering your hand to the snake. Selene coiled around to her previous spot and hissed at both the boys, snapping at Ambrose’s fingers. Ambrose seemed hurt by the action and cocked his head at you.

“Are you angry at me?” He asked earnestly. His voice was soft, now that was sincerity.

You gave him a genuine smile and sighed lightly, “No I’m just tired.” You began to walk away again until his voice stopped you.

“Is that my robe,” his tone was teasing but Luke’s face seemed to illicit a feeling from you that you didn’t recognise.

“Oh, I suppose it is,” you cocked your head to the side and pulled it off yourself handing it to him. The sharp intake of breath from Ambrose and Luke’s flustered cough were worth the disapproving look from Zelda. You shrugged and finally went back to your room the peach coloured walls offering a little comfort.

You knew what jealousy felt like and it sure wasn’t that, sort of. Maybe it was but it wasn’t just that. Whatever you were feeling had you frustrated making you groan slightly, even more, frustrated when tears started welling in your eyes. You weren’t upset. He was happy, he wanted this, and you wanted him to be happy. It was fine.

It was the evening when Sabrina came back with the milk, it was almost instantly that you felt better. You had more energy than you had in months, the amount of sleeping you did finally catching up with you. Zelda had offered an array of ideas for you to pick from, but you eventually and reluctantly declined. It wasn’t needed, you wouldn’t stoop to that level over something stupid.

For a while after, you made a conscious effort to avoid whatever males were in the house. It seemed to be a running thing. First Ambrose’s uncle Edward and then eventually both him and Luke. You didn’t want to, but you felt the distance would be good for you. Although he did seem a little sad when you would leave a room that he was in. You probably couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

You not being involved in everything worked fine, you seemed to conveniently be visiting your sister when large events happened such as Tommy’s death and the ritual. It was like you were less involved with everything, more didn’t like you were looking in on a story. You didn’t feel like family anymore and it was weird, and you didn’t know why. Sabrina made the effort to fill you in on everything but it wasn’t enough, you were so separate with nothing to do and no real purpose.

One thing you didn’t miss was Ambrose being pardoned though. You should have been happier than you were. You just wished it happened earlier. When you were a bigger part of his life. You were jealous, now this was jealousy. Luke got this part of him and you didn’t and to be honest it was your fault, if that day you had just pushed him to say something, you knew he would have. If you pushed harder but then again, as you said, you wanted him to be sure and he wasn’t. You celebrated with everyone and then Luke had to leave and so you dragged a drunk him to bed. This was the perfect opportunity to ask him something, anything, anything you wanted the answer to. But would you take advantage of the situation like that and how bad of a person did that make you if you did.

You stopped thinking which was probably the worst idea and just asked him. “Ambrose, what happened with Batibat.” You felt guilty instantly, but it was too late now.

He stilled but his expression didn’t really change, it was like he was somewhere else, but he did answer you. “I got pardoned, but it was too late, and she was dead. I couldn’t go anywhere with her. It all happened on the same day. She was at the door burning.” It was pretty obvious that he was talking about you, you decided not too to push.

He was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. You decided to ask another question. “Do you love him. Luke?” You hated your own nerve, and, in all honesty, you didn’t want to know the answer.

“Yeah I do. In a way. Not like I love her, but I still love him.” He giggled lightly at his own words and again during the silence. You heard soft snoring from him after and chose to take your leave.

You shouldn’t feel sad, you do know that. He was happy and you were jealous. You had finally admitted it to yourself, but you wouldn’t ruin this for him. It wasn’t fair. You left town to stay with your sister which is why you missed the 13, you did come back just in time for Lupercalia though, which was purely by accident. Something had changed with Ambrose but again you didn’t know what it was, you didn’t know him anymore. Although you held onto the belief that you did, you knew in your heart he was a different person.

It was clear in weird ways. You weren’t sure how it happened, who was changing him but slowly his attitude changed. It was first obvious when Sabrina said she wanted to be top boy. Normally you would have thought he would be supportive, but he wasn’t. When he mentioned that it was called top boy for a reason you frowned and shook your head at him, your opinion didn’t seem to matter anymore. He looked away from you.

The next time it became glaringly obvious was during Lupercalia. The mostly monogamous Ambrose had instead technically decided to cheat on Luke with the extremely beautiful Prudence. You got the appeal, you really did. If she wasn’t so bitchy to put it lightly you would probably be all over her. At least that’s what you told yourself. You told yourself a lot of things, you explained a lot of things away. How separate you are from everyone, how you were losing your place here. You weren’t sure if that was just you or if you really were, but Sabrina stopped asking you for advice a while back. The aunties had their own things to deal with, Hilda being her new relationship and Zelda being her growing relationship with father blackwood.

You of course decided not to participate, you weren’t sure what Hilda was doing but the other three in the household were participating. The house felt sickly, you just smelt wine and lust and the overwhelming feeling of being lonely. You avoided everyone for a while and only came out when needed or asked for. That wasn’t often. You made plans to go back to Central America, but something halted them. Luke had died according to father blackwood. Ambrose had put up a front, but he came in the middle of the night to your room. You weren’t asleep, you weren’t really sure why and he cried.

He cried softly at first and then it became more desperate and you could almost feel how hard it was for him to breathe. It took a moment, the surprise of him standing in your room and the sobs that were coming out of him but once you registered what was happening you leapt up and pulled him towards you. He wasn’t expecting you to pull him so harshly and fell into your arms and therefore you onto the bed. You both stayed like that for a moment, then shifted that he was lying facing you. You had a leg over his and you both cling to each other like it was saving a life. You didn’t talk about it the day after, when you woke up in a similar position or even after that. You decided to avoid each other for a while, but you didn’t leave. Whether that was a good decision would reveal itself later but now there was something unspoken between the two of you. An understanding.

You were glad that you stayed since Ambrose seemed to make a habit of getting himself into trouble. Father Blackwood had allowed him to work at the school, once you found this out things started to take a lot more sense. Every father figure Ambrose seemed to have is always a bad influence. So, it came to no surprise that he was accused of murder. You hadn’t seen him or run into him the entire time it was all happening. Everything reminded you of before, when you were helpless, when you couldn’t do anything. It made you break down a lot. You didn’t even try to see him once he was imprisoned and then Sabrina happened.

You tied to help when you could, but it was mostly patching people up, providing relief of sorts. Not many people there even knew who you were. Angels and witch-hunters were people you were familiar with all in bad ways. You wouldn’t be useful on the front line in that sense. Not with what happened to your brother and your aunt, uncle and cousins. It was too much.

It all went downhill from there, it always went downhill. Everyone was so focussed in their own business, rightfully so, that they didn’t realise how badly you were actually doing. You needed him, you needed something, which you weren’t getting but you were too afraid to ask. You hadn’t left your room in days and as Selene got sicker you did as well. You felt like before, when you thought he was going to die, when things were a mess. When nothing worked and it wasn’t getting better. Nobody noticed, nobody cared.

The best thing you could have done was move on, go home back to central America. Leave go somewhere but you were in no shape to leave the house until you were. It was the aftermath of the Satan situation and you made your way to the school You saw him with Prudence. You listened to him saying that he was leaving, you were breaking, and you weren’t entirely sure why.

“You’re going?” You said softly. His eyes were wide like a deer caught in headlights.

Prudence took this as her cue to leave, giving Ambrose a soft smile and you a light touch on the shoulder.

“Yes, you see. The twins are in danger and I don’t want.” The look on your face shut him down, his words dying in his mouth.

“I know I’m not angry about that by all means go but Ambrose without any warnings.” You stepped close to him, eyes both sad and confused.

“I know that it seems, and with Prudence, I know.” He made a move to touch you, but you stepped back to your original place.

“I really don’t care about that Ambrose. It’s just. Years ago, when you were sleepy and maybe a little drunk, I made a promise. That I would come back to you time after time. And I did,” you were rambling by this point, the suddenness of it making you look away from him as if talking to yourself.

“I don’t see where this is going. You don’t think I’m coming back.” He eyebrows were set in a confused stare again. A nervous sigh escaping his throat.

“No will you let me finish for once in your life. I came back because I loved you. And even though the love we shared has obviously dissipated. You made a promise to me. The same night you proposed, sort of, that you would never leave me, and you are. Without even thinking about me. I don’t know what to do Ambrose. I don’t know where to go, where I belong anymore” Your eyes were watery by this pointing turning to hold his stare.

He took a deep sigh before saying, “Look I’m not leaving for good I will come back.” He didn’t know what to say, what he was supposed to say.

“I know that, that’s not what is hurting me. It’s the fact that the love we shared and the promises we kept was not enough, that I was not enough for you to do something simple as call and tell me you’re going. What about your aunties and Sabrina were you just gonna call when you were halfway across the world?” Tears were free-falling by now.

“It’s not about that is it.” His voice softened along with his face to almost a whisper, again reaching out to touch you but you shrugged him off.

“Of course, it’s not about that. I mean it is, but it isn’t.” You started to fidget on the spot, unable to look him in the eye. “When you broke up with me, I never spoke about anyone I had met romantically or slept with. Because I wasn’t with anyone, ever. I didn’t want to be, but then I find you having an orgy.” You were just saying anything that came to mind now. You didn’t want to admit everything, admit that you need him. Your sister had her girlfriend, Lilac her coven, Jude his own coven. You just wanted someone to want you, to need you around. You wanted to feel like you were worth something, it was selfish and wrong but your relationship with everyone had changed and you were being left behind. Everyone had grown, done things and moved on without you.

He started to interrupt you, but you cut him off “I found out through Sabrina that you were in a relationship, that you had a boyfriend who you were very much cheating on with Prudence. Dick moves by the way. You didn’t have the heart to tell me that.”

Your eyes finally met his with you both unable to look at anything else. “I am in love with you, I always have been. I probably always will be. With Lilith as my witness I wish I could stop. I want to hard to stop, to let you go but I can’t. I want you in any way I can. I let you break up with me because I thought it would make you happy, that you were just going through something that we could work out. You thought you were setting me free, but you just hurt me instead.”

You took a moment to compose yourself, too deep into crying to carry on. Once you calmed down you continued, “It was me, who comforted you when Luke died, it was me who was completely distraught after you were arrested, not Prudence. I may not have seen you but that is literally because I couldn’t, I couldn’t bring myself to. It was me making teas after your fun nights and talking through the shit decisions you were about to make. It was me who tried to protect you no matter the cost. I was the one who was there, who showed you love, beyond everything but I wasn’t enough. I never am.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He seemed stunned and guilty in a sense.

Something seemed to change in you after he spoke, it was like any trace of emotion had left and your face went blank. You sniffled lightly before replying “It doesn’t matter. It was unfair of me to spring that upon you. You cannot help your feelings. Just go you have twins to find.” You gave up.

“Y/N. I’m sorry. I love you.” He tried to offer but again you shut him down.

“No, you don’t Ambrose. You’re just saying that because I burst in front of you. That was unfair of me. Please by all means go. Be happy and find those twins.” Sighed deeply and turned away from him, walking towards the exit.

“Y/N please.” He asked weakly. He was still shocked and a little confused not having time to process your feelings before you shut down on him.

“Please go Ambrose. Prudence is probably waiting for you. You have to go.” You didn’t give him the time to reply, wiping your face with your sleeve you offered him a soft smile and left the room.

He didn’t chase after you rooted to his spot and when he finally left the room you were gone. Prudence put a hand on his shoulder saying something that he didn’t quite hear still in a daze.

You had teleported yourself back to the house, throwing everything you could into a trunk desperate to leave before he figured out where you were. You didn’t mean to let out all your feeling but the combination of Prudence, the stress of the last couple of days and your own internal feelings had pushed you to admit that.

You scrawled a note addressed to Hilda saying that you were going to your old coven for a bit, and that she could contact you any way she wanted after a week had passed. You also left one for Sabrina, congratulating her and wishing her good luck until you came back. The one for Zelda wished her fortune and happiness as the new high priestess. The one for Ambrose was shorter, an apology and promise that you would always come back.

You didn’t know where to go, who to stop by on your way but somehow in the shortest amount possible, you found yourself at home. In front of your old childhood house, somewhere you knew your mother would be. Ambrose would be okay, and if you saw each other again it would be fate but right now you knew where you needed to be. You needed somewhere that felt like home, so you went to the beginning. Maybe you would end up back in Central America, but when your mother opened the door the thought of after left, you were when you needed to be for now.

#ambrose spellman imagine #ambrose spellman x reader #ambrose spellman #caos imagine #imagine

107 notes · View notes

luna-almighty-god · 4 years

Text

Guardian Angel N°9 [No passion could be greater than mine]

Hello everyone, this is chapter nine !

This story is obviously not canonical, please do not refer to it if you are looking for canonical information.

===

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

===

Lingering in the darkness, not thinking. Not to think about his growing terror, his suffocating spirit. Forget the pain, the long, nagging suffering that gripped his heart. Not to think anymore, to close himself off. To no longer exist.

To push away his horror.

The nightmare suited him so well though. Wasn't it his symbol, his whole being? That darkness that had consumed him from within for years? The latent darkness of his soul, his emotions he couldn't allow to escape.

For he was made only of darkness. The same darkness that frightened him. And as the death knell of silence struck him, he searched in vain for air, a way out, a way to heal his wounds. A way to heal his distorted mind that screamed at him... screamed... screamed...!

[ Screaming at him to wake up.]

His eyes widened in fright, bringing him back to reality. The coldness of the room hit him hard, his bones cracking brutally, vibrating with a rage that threatened to explode.

Bile rose up his throat. He became livid, he straightened himself up and threw himself on his sack. Without understanding, without trying to know, without paying attention to what was around him, he could only feel his salty and burning pearls that escaped his gaze, which moistened his face in half-stifled sobs.

His fits were becoming more and more present, too, much too present. And the mere thought that time was running out for him, without knowing exactly how much time he had left, once again failed to make him implode, to destroy the barrier he had erected around his soul.

He chewed the apple with force. The taste never seemed as vile as that day, giving him only one more reason to regurgitate what he had in his stomach.

But he remained of marble, partly in control of his body. His physical suffering didn't matter too much to him at that moment. There was another element that worried him much more than that.

He was asleep. He fell asleep more and more often, for only a few minutes, but ...

It was still abnormal.

[ Nyx wasn't supposed to sleep ]

*** ***

Ink was stamping his feet, mad with joy and impatience, while a huge smile had taken place on his face. Sitting on Nyx's bed, he forced himself to remain calm but his excitement was far too great: the secret club was open again and started again its ultra-secret meetings ! Well ok, he was getting a little bit excited by himself since this 'secret club' only existed in his mind.

But in any case, being there in the presence of Nyx and Nightmare brought back wonderful memories - well, it was all relative.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” grunted the impatient nightmare master. He'd been pulled from his important files and was hoping to expedite this 'meeting' and get back to work.

Nyx, scribbling at his desk, laughed again:

“Cross must also comes.

- What? Why? Nightmare wondered.

- He could be useful to us.”

At the same time, the door opened to reveal the swordsman, who blew with difficulty and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve:

“S... sorry...have to sow... Horror ...”

This time, Nyx allowed himself to puff. It was true that he had asked the monochrome to come here without being seen, but he didn't expect the other one to take such precautions.

“No problem, thank you for being so careful!”

Cross gave him a smile before collapsing on the bed, exhausted, trying to ignore the gaze of his superior. Ink clapped his hands, overexcited:

“So, tell us everything! How are we going to help these new lovebirds?”

Nyx took a new sheet of paper to draw up the plan:

“The first step would be for each of us to admit that we love the other. Horror seems to be in full denial and refuses the idea of loving Dust, while Dust seems unwilling to think about love.

- Maybe they don't love each other, Nightmare grunts. Love isn't a necessary part of life, you can be happy without going out with anyone.

- I don't doubt it and I agree with what you're saying. Maybe deep down, they're just very good friends. But I have to admit that I have doubts when I see them doing their movie night from time to time, or when I see how well they know each other and can guess the state of the other with a simple glance. The other day Horror wasn't on his plate and Dust noticed it immediately, unlike us. Afterwards, as I said, they may only be very good friends.

- They say that a perfect couple makes two best friends.” commented Cross.

Nyx's smile widens:

“I've heard about it, yes. Look, I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, nor do I want to force Dust and Horror to be a couple. Maybe we can just put them in situations that will demonstrate whether or not they love each other? Then we'll see what happens.

- And what kind of situation?" Nightmare asked, sensing the trick coming.

- Jealousy!” Ink exclaimed.

The master of the house grunted:

“Is this a joke?

- No! Think about it, if they really are best friends, they'll support each other in going out with their loved ones. But if they're in love, they'll be jealous and won't let each other date!

- That's stupid.

- In what way is it stupid? You'd let Killer go out with someone else, wouldn't you?”

The air suddenly vibrated under the charge of a violent negative aura. The eye of Nightmare began to glow with an icy light as it shot the artist in the eye:

“No way.”

Ink chuckles:

“Ah, you see!

- Tch, shut up!”

Cross sighed while casting a jaded look at Nyx, looking for some support in the drawer's gaze. But his blasé look turned to surprise when he saw Nyx's face. Nyx was watching Ink and Nightmare with a broad smile, as if their childishness made him crazy with joy.

Cross held back any comment, but it goes without saying that the situation left him forbidden.

It was Ink who ended up bringing back the lack of seriousness of this meeting:

“Well, how can I make them jealous? The two of us should get closer to them, shouldn't we?

- Indeed," Nyx confirmed by becoming neutral again. One person will have to hang out with Dust, especially when Horror is around. Physical contact is preferable. As for Horror, it will be better to encourage discussion and laughter. Thus, I think the most qualified will be ...

- ...you.” cut off Nightmare.

Nyx was startled and had great difficulty in regaining his usual neutrality. His gaze struck that of the prince of nightmares as the latter approached with a sly smile:

“You're always being clever without doing anything direct. It's time for you to participate in your plans. Especially since there's no way I'm going to intervene.

- But, you know...

- Killer's going to freak out on me, and I didn't have a hard time proving my feelings to him just to lose him to some bullshit plan. So, you get off your ass and deal with it yourself.”

[Alone]

Nyx used violence to keep himself from flinching.

[Alone]

His faint smile returned as he ignored the pressure on his soul:

“All right, I could probably handle Horror.

- And I Dust.”

Nyx was astonished, as were Ink and Nightmare, who turned their heads to Cross. He had straightened up, massaging his neck with embarrassment:

“Ink is also in a relationship”, he justified himself. “I don't really want Error to come back and blow us up.”

The Creator went into a frenzy of laughter:

“Ahah, it's true that Ruru is terribly jealous!

- Ruru ? relieved Nightmare. What a nickname for...

- Oh, stop being such a grumpy Nighty!

- Nighty?!”

And they left in a squabble, under the jaded and amused gaze of the other two. They finally decided to separate, just to go back to their activities so as not to attract attention.

But when Cross last came out of the room, he was apostrophized by Nyx:

“Thank you”, he said.

The monochrome tilted his head to the side:

“Why, he said.

- For devotion to you.

- Well, you weren't going to handle it by yourself anyway!”

They exchanged smiles, but Cross couldn't help but shudder. Shivering at the strange look in Nyx's eyes, a warm and grateful look. Yet he hadn't done much, had he? He had only offered to help him!

“W-well, I'll go!” the swordsman let go with embarrassment before moving away quickly.

Nyx just nodded his head and watched him turn into another corridor. His smile became painful, he lowered his eyes, clutching his coat where his soul lay:

“... Cross ... why do you always have to protect me ...?”

***

He collapsed to the ground, his skull smashing against the concrete in a terrible, morbid crack. His soul twisted, twisted so violently that he felt his stomach compress, and before he could realize it, he vomited unidentifiable contents, a black and viscous liquid that came to form a vile pool. His face was undone, marked by tears and wounds, and painfully straightened as he struggled with a coughing fit.

“L-Leave him! I beg of you, let him go!” he sobbed, unable to get up, only being able to observe Ink holding Plum by the collar.

The Creator cast an impenetrable gaze upon him, empty of all life, observing him the same way he always does: as if he were nothing. Nothing but the accumulation of his mistakes.

Nyx leaned on his hands and yelped in pain without turning away his tear-fogged gaze:

“He-He didn't do anything! I forced him! He had nothing to do with it!”

Plum was livid with terror, trembling on all sides without daring to intervene, holding his breath miserably in the face of growing apprehension.

Ink took a step towards his son while strengthening his grip on Plum:

“You're going to make me believe that you, who is at the mercy of everyone, who is mostly chained up in a cell, who is worthless... You forced Plum, one of Nightmare's subordinates, to have a relationship with you?”

Nyx remained silent, his throat tying itself in front of his father's gaze, his pupils turning slowly red:

“Hilarious... Really, really...”

A grin appeared on Ink's face and he gently sneered:

“So... So hilarious...!”

His laughter grew louder and more terrifying as his pupils began to alternate between red and yellow, more and more rapidly and uncontrollably:

“Do you think I'm a jerk?!”

Plum coughed as he felt more pressure on his throat, while Nyx petrified in horror. And Ink, who laughed like crazy as his pupils turned an icy blue, used his foot to crush his son's skull against the ground.

“YOU ARE STUPID! STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID! YOU STILL DON'T GET IT, DO YOU? THIS RELATIONSHIP IS NOTHING BECAUSE YOU ARE NOTHING! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EXISTED, YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BORN!”

Plum widened his eyes, suffocated, searched in vain for air as his body tried to struggle, to free itself from this monstrous hold. Nyx felt a twitch, tried to get up, but his father's foot struck him violently in the skull, holding him down in a state of semi-consciousness.

And Ink, whose pupils had now disappeared, reaped the joy of his son's distress:

“Ah... ahah ... Pathetic and miserable... so that is what you have inherited from me.... ?”

The fracture sounded like a mirage, a distant sound. A distant sound but yet so close, too close, too violent.

Nyx's soul seemed to shatter. For a split second, he saw the neck of his soul mate break.

Then there was nothing but dust.

Nyx opened his eyes, his mouth open in a scream without the slightest sound escaping him.

[Plum was dead]

It was just a nightmare.

[Plum was dead]

He wasn't supposed to.

[Plum was dead]

He couldn't sleep.

[Plum was dead]

Why... ?

[Plum was dead because of him]

WHY WAS HE SLEEPING AGAIN?!

Nyx stuck his teeth directly into his wrist, ignoring the creak that echoed against the walls, narrowly choking a new scream that escaped him, choking the storm that roared in his lair, choking his rage and sorrow, his anguish and guilt, ignoring his pupils that shot between red and blue, ignoring ... ignoring ... ignoring ... ignorant ...

He sobbed, closed his eyes...

...and cowered a little more in his sheets.

[He wouldn't sleep.]

*** ***

The noise of the hotplates filled the kitchen like every morning, and like every morning Horror thought he was the first one up and had started breakfast for the whole castle. And like every morning for several weeks now, Nyx came quietly to join him at the table, watching him with attention and curiosity.

Aren't you fed up with it?" Horror growled as he did every time. Seriously, do you find it so hard to sleep in the morning?"

[If he knew...]

Nyx smiles:

“And you? You don't have to get up so early either.

- I always go to bed very early, so I wake up early. That makes sense.

- Yes, it makes sense.”

Horror was uncomfortable. He could feel Nyx's gaze on the back of his neck and it was destabilizing him, as always. He grunted, concentrating on his pancakes:

“Don't you want to doodle instead of looking at me?

- My apologies, I just admire your work.”

The cannibal stopped moving, blinking in amazement. His head turned towards Nyx, without him daring to believe what he had just said:

“...you? Are you in admiration?”

Had he known Nyx a little better, he might have detected the embarrassment that had taken hold of him.

Holding his gaze with embarrassment, the cartoonist nodded:

“Yes. You're hardworking and talented.

- ... Well, I just get up and cook, that's all.

- You're the only one in the castle to do so. Not to mention your dishes, which are a delight! Really, I never get tired of tasting them!”

Horror raised an archway:

“Yet it's nothing too complicated. The basis of the basis what. Here, make some pancakes yourself, I'm sure no one will see the difference between yours and mine!”

But Nyx's suddenly discombobulated mine silenced him, and even though the black-boned one quickly regained an impenetrable air, it was too late, Horror had understood:

“Nyx ... Can't you cook?”

The drawer hiccupped, his face suddenly taking on a soft mauve color, a sign of intense embarrassment. He sharply averted his eyes, hiding part of his face in his scarf:

“Indeed, I've never tried it...”

Which made Horror laugh. A bright and frank laugh that bothered poor Nyx a little more:

“I know it's ridiculous, but please don't laugh ...

- Ahah, sorry, really! But admit it's funny! You, who spends your time looking perfect and giving advice, now I learn that you don't even know the basics! How were you raised? By overly loving parents who didn't teach you independence?”

[If only he knew]

Horror's laughter died at the sight of a tense Nyx, trembling, as if the words spoken had violently shaken him.

Horror suddenly realized that he had probably said something stupid, and anxiety took hold of him. Damn it... When he said that Nyx looked perfect, it wasn't a joke. Nyx really seemed perfect, leaving the impression that he was always in control and that he excelled in everything he did. So why did... why did he suddenly seem on the verge of tears?

“N-Nyx...?”

The cartoonist was startled, as if from his own thoughts. He loosened his scarf and turned back to Horror, returning to his usual expression. An expression that suddenly seemed quite false to the cannibal.

“Excuse me, I was thinking!” Nyx replied with a slight smile.

Horror felt his soul squeeze. How many times had his comrade found himself playing the comedian, to appear so sincere in his lies?

“... okay. You want me to teach you how to cook this time?”

Nyx tilted his head to the side:

“.... Doesn't that bother you?”

The cook had a smile on his face:

“Of course he didn't.”

The black-boned one hesitated for a long time, then laughed:

“Well, why not? It might be fun!

- Yeah. Let's do it tonight?

- Yeah, perfect!”

Yes, the evening was fine. That would give him time to... do what he had to do.

*** ***

Maybe he was paranoid. No, not "maybe"... Nyx knew he was paranoid. He was always, every moment, despite his apparent calm. But it was stupid, he didn't have to be anymore. He didn't have to be, did he?

[There was no longer any danger.]

Of course you had to be suspicious. But from there to watching everyone at all times?

No, no, that was stupid. He had to stop. The others were right: he paid too much attention to their private lives. He was getting too involved in lives that no longer concerned him.

But, um... (Sighs)

He watched with a keen eye the breach he'd opened up in front of him. A breach that allowed him to see the whole world of UnderLust, especially a familiar skeleton that was walking around the streets looking like nothing, a shopping bag in hand.

Sugar Plum was still as beautiful as ever. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. He was even more beautiful than before. Nyx could not help but melt in front of his resplendent smile, his joy of life that emanated from his whole being. Because Plum had now blossomed: freed from his hated work, he had dared to confess his feelings to Grillby only to discover that they were mutual, and so he fell in perfect love with the fireman while finding a quieter job to earn a living without selling his body.

A sweet victory for Nyx, who enjoyed seeing the other skeleton finally live a life he liked.

[A life he wasn't a part of]

His smile cracked as his soul cracked.

Yes... Here, Plum didn't know him. At least he only knew him by sight, if he hadn't already forgotten him.

“... Ahah... What I expected... ?”

Nyx had a nervous laugh, passed a hand over his undone face. He had prepared himself from the beginning, knowing that he would go from disillusionment to disappointment, but each bad surprise managed to make him feverish, to weaken him a little more.

It was silly, wasn't it?

He knew the consequences. He had decided on his own to change the course of events, and each of his choices had led him to a painful conclusion. Seeing the way that timeline had unfolded, he realized the sad truth: everyone was much happier... without him.

[And ironically, thanks to him]

He's still laughing, a bitter laugh. You'd think his life would never stop being ironic.

His gaze returned to Plum as he entered an alleyway, probably with the intention of going home. Silent, Nyx continued to follow him with his eyes, moved by the vision of the one he had loved so much, and still loved so much ... before he frowned at the sight of three monsters.

Plum seemed to have been ambushed. Oh, it wasn't the first time. Many monsters had a hard time swallowing the fact that 'their' fetish prostitute had run away, but usually they would attack when the skeleton was in the company of his brother or boyfriend, or simply when he was in full control of his magical abilities.

But this time it was different. Plum had spent an exhausting day and found himself alone on his way home, surrounded by monsters greedy for violence and sex, in a dark and deserted alleyway...

Nyx's blood only made one turn, he didn't ask himself the slightest question: a gate had already opened in front of him and he rushed in without waiting, to land directly on one of the assailants, smashing his face against the asphalt with gentle violence, without killing him.

Plum widened his eyes, surprised by the sudden appearance of his saviour, while the other two monsters retreated in fright.

Nyx offered them a mischievous smile:

“Gentlemen, if you'll allow me to attend the party...”

The monsters simultaneously grunted, threw themselves on the black-boned skeleton who quietly dodged them, moving with ease as if dancing, only to end up turning on himself and making a mocking curtsy to his opponents.

It was not his purpose to kill them. Only to scare them away.

The humanoid dog that he had put down got up grunting, his nose bleeding. He was the quickest to return to the charge, but Nyx only had to step aside for his opponent to explode his fist against the wall, screaming in pain at his visibly broken hand.

It was simple. These opponents were no match for him.

The other two monsters were a giant religious mint with sharp fangs and a humanoid rabbit that came and attacked him with a metal bar. Nyx dodged for the umpteenth time before suddenly disappearing into the shadows of the alley, leaving his enemies panicked and watched around them with apprehension.

Neither thought to look at their feet, and it was only too late that they saw their own shadows move to make Nyx appear to be grabbing their ankles, before firing a sharp blow to knock them to the ground. The skeleton disappeared again, leaving the three oddballs moaning in pain and incomprehension, and crawled out of the shadows near Plum :

“Are you all right?” he hastened to ask, madly worried.

Plum was startled and turned sharply back to him, stunned:

“Y-Yes! But are you all right?”

A lovable question that brought a tender smile to Nyx's face:

“I feel much better when I see you in one piece... Be careful when you go home alone.

- Yes, I'm sorry...”

Plum sighed before smiling shyly at him:

“Thank you very much. I didn't think ... I didn't think I would ever see you again.”

[ "Neither do I." ]

Nyx remembered this answer which reminded him of the horrible night he had spent.

But you can't erase the past.

“I've come to believe you're a guardian angel!” Plum laughed softly.

Plum used to visit him in his cell

“I love you, little angel...” he whispered to him.

Nyx stopped breathing, assaulted his memories once again, frozen, disconnected from time.

A poor mistake.

[He should have remained suspicious]

He perceived the attack far too late, had just enough time to push Plum before he suffered a violent pain, shuddering when the religious mint stuck its fangs in his wrist.

[The wrist he bit in the night, which he hadn't thought to treat]

Nyx vrilla. This suffering awakened a deaf terror, an impulse that seemed to break the limit he had set for himself.

His pupils disappeared.

Shadows metamorphosed... ...into black, slimy tentacles. Tentacles that skewered the mint with a sharp blow, making it scream in horror before it fell into a pile of dust.

The other two froze in horror at the sight. Fearing they might be the next targets, they ran away without asking for the rest, horrified.

Nyx returned to him.

A cold sweat ran down his face.

He turned his head, feverishly, to Plum, who sat on the floor and watched him in amazement and confusion, his face livid:

“N-Nyx... you...”

The black-boned one retreated, terrified of his own reaction, terrified of the dust he had caused, terrified of his pupils, which he knew had turned blue.

He swallowed.

He threw himself into a new portal.

His body fell heavily on the floor of his room. His erratic breathing, unable to control his jolts, he rolled himself into a ball against the wall, could not choke the sob that escaped him. He brought his broken wrist against his chest, trembling all over, the pain making him want to vomit.

[Pathetic and miserable]

He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, his soul beating far too hard.

[He shouldn't have existed]

He needed it. He needed it more and more, more and more.

His able-bodied hand grabbed his bag blindly.

The touch of the apple seemed to him more painful than ever.

He bites into it once. Just once.

The pressure was too much.

He burst into tears.

===

Next Chapter

You can support me on my Utip or on my Ko-fi account !

===

Credits =

Dreamtale-> Joku

Error -> LoverOfPiggies

Ink -> Myebi

Killer -> Rahafwabas

Cross -> Jakei

Dust -> Ask DustTale

#Guardian Angel #undertale fanfiction #undertale #fanfiction #errink #nightkiller #horrordust #horror #dust #killer #nightmare #cross #bad sanses #nyx #vantablack #inkmare #sugar plum #sans

10 notes · View notes

chnat0wn · 5 years

Text

Black Irises

Relationship: Alfie Solomons/Original Female Character

Summary: Deborah meets her sweet, jewish boy she used to know. He is different now. He is a man. He changed when she left him. War changed him.

Alfie Solomons has a few rules. One of them says that no one is allowed to touch or even get near to his woman. Even though Deborah isn't his anymore, he still considers her his own property.

tags: [young love, meeting after years, aggressive partner, angst and comfort]

AO3 LINK

00. The Beach

Deborah entered the building, which from the very beginning was the purpose of her journey. She caught Polly and Ada's attention. They were inside when she decided to disturb their peace in an extremely rapid way. She was breathing heavily and deeply, feeling the familiar, inevitable burning in her chest. The women watched her - they knew exactly why she came.

“Where is he?” she asked without hesitation. She only needed a few deeper breaths. Without waiting for any answer, she moved quickly to Tommy's office. She opened the door, using a little more force than she intended. The room was empty. “Where the fuck is he?”

Ada stood in the entrance to her older brother's office. She looked at Deborah and took a deep breath. She didn't say a word, instead she pursed her lips and followed Deborah, who was looking for one of the books in the desk. She counted on getting any information about the current location of Thomas Shelby as if she expected him to record the exact date and place of the planned revenge.

“Where are they, Ada?” she wailed desperately. She ran her fingers through her hair in a purely nervous gesture, and once again looked around the room. She hoped that Tommy would be at her side any minute, that she would be able to talk to him. “I know what Alfie did. I also know that he should be punished for this. But not this way, Ada. Not this way...” she spoke uncontrollably, having more and more problems with breathing. “He is a good man. Each of us has moments of weakness, don’t we? He just wanted... he had to find a way to...”

“Out of the pan and into the fire.” Ada interjected. “First, you believed that this fucking Italian-tyrant could change. That he'll stop beating the shit out of you.” she folded her arms and shook her head in disbelief. “Now you hope you can change Solomons. You justify everything he did. At least you try to justify that he agreed to kill Tommy.”

“He had no choice.” she protested, dropping her hands. They fell involuntarily. She knew that if she would stay here and have a senseless conversation with Ada, she wouldn't be able to do anything, she would lose her precious time.

“Sure, he had not.” she snorted. “I have helped you many times. Because you are my friend and I love you like my own sister. But I don't know if I can put my real family above your happiness. Which, by the way, you probably won't get. Not with someone like Solomons.”

Deborah's eyes welled up with tears. It happened often when she was falling into pieces, which was not a sign of weakness. Most often she cried when the pain was unbearable. Never out of helplessness, but now - completely involuntarily - she made an exception. At the thought of Tommy getting rid of Alfie at any moment, a mixture of negative feelings filled her to the brim. A mixture of negative feelings that she couldn't take with calmness.

Ada noticed a change on Deborah's face. At first she saw the uneasiness in her eyes. Now she could see the pain that distorted her smooth, pale visage.

“Listen, Debby. I don't know where he is. He rarely tells me about his destinations.” she said reproachfully. She could no longer look at how Deborah was falling apart from the overwhelming feeling, under the pressure from Ada.

“Formby Beach.” Polly interjected. The woman appeared out of nowhere. Although Deborah was aware that Polly is nearby, she was surprised by her sudden presence. She glanced at the smoldering cigarette, then at Polly's face. An expression of worry pierced her face. “You better be hurry. Tommy set off about ten minutes ago. And I don't think that anything will stop him from what he intends.” she said and brought the cigarette back to her mouth.

“Oh, God. Thank you so much, Pol.” Deborah approached the woman quickly, wrapped her arms around her neck, then laid a quick kiss on her cheek. Then, she left the building and bumped into Arthur. She looked at him, frowning.

“Good day, Debby girl!” he shouted.

“Not now, Arthur.”

“Ishmael” Deborah touched the man's forearm and pointed to a distant point. The view of the beach caused a piercing heat have through her body. She also saw three silhouettes – Tommy, Alfie and Cyril. “Stop the car.” she asked, and before Ishmael extinguished the engine, she opened the door. She fell out of the car and rushed roughly towards the beach. The weather seemed perfect – a light breeze blew the neck and cheeks of Deborah, and the high placed sun cast pleasantly warm rays. The sky was extremely blue and the sea exceptionally calm. She would stop, give more attention to everything that was around her if it was not for the task she gave herself. Tommy has chosen a beautiful day undoubtedly. Or that day favored his intentions.

Tommy was aiming for Alfie. The weapon outlet was at the height of Alfie's face. Tommy was hesitating, which the casual person would not be able to see. Because Tommy didn't hesitate like other people; he didn't show uncertainty, he didn't consider the pros and cons. He was appeared determined, as someone who had already made the decision. But he delayed carrying out the task assigned to him by himself. Seeing all this, Deborah almost made a pitiful moan. At first she couldn't bring herself to make any sound, no matter how much she wanted to prevent Alfie from upcoming judgment. She heard that they were talking – if the conversation consisted of Alfie's one–sided monologue – but she couldn't catch specific words, the meaning of the speech. She was too far away, the blood was too loud in her ears.

“Stop it!” she screamed, realizing that it would be all over before she gets to the right place. “Put down the gun, Tommy. Please!” she added in one breath. She was in the habit of asking instead of ordering. Alfie often admonished her that she should be a bit tougher if she wants to survive. That she should treat men a bit harder.

They both looked at her. Alfie's face expressed surprise and horror Deborah had never seen before. Tommy looked indifferent, though she was able to see the movement of his jaw as he pursed his lips in dissatisfaction. She stood at the point between Alfie and Tommy. She brushed individual strands of hair from her face, breathing heavily. She stared at Tommy – she expected that he could use the moment of inattention and settle the matter as it should. She looked at Alfie, however.

“You shouldn't fucking be 'ere, right? You shouldn't get involved in 'his.” Alfie drawled. He was clearly offended by the fact that someone interrupted him with such an intimate experience as his own death.

“Shush!” she turned to him, raising her finger.

Deborah looked at Tommy again. She came to him slowly. The sand made it difficult to move, not to mention stepping up – she was shaking on her feet as the shoes were sinking in the soft, golden surface. She was like a child who was just learning how to walk. Besides, she felt unimaginably tired. She stepped up in front of Tommy, never taking her eyes off his face.

“Don’t do it.” she whispered pleadingly. “He deserved it after all he did. Except that I don't have a goddamn idea why he did it...” she glanced at Alfie with reproach, then returned to Tommy. “Let him live. Not for himself, but for me. For Benjamin.” she smiled crookedly, though her eyes filled with tears. After a moment, one of them ran down her cheek. “Otherwise, shoot me too.” she nodded decisively.

Tommy looked away from Alfie and slowly moved it to Deborah. He hadn't been making exceptions, even if a woman asked him to do otherwise. If he had to avenge a family member or other important case, he was unstoppable. He didn't accept arguments or prayers. Still, something in Deborah's face meant that he would be able to consider it all again.

“Mphm... We can be together forever.” Alfie interjected. He was strangely calm, unmoved by the whole situation. “Somewhere else. In a better place. In Olam ha–ba.”

Deborah turned slowly and looked at him with a pain that didn't accompany her even when she was with her previous husband. She didn't understand his attitude. She didn't accept the words he said. She didn't believe he could talk to her that way. She didn't believe that he thought he could convince her this way. She looked at him with a distinct grief, as if she was angry with him. Alfie was close to looking away. But then he would show his weakness.

“You, sweetie” Alfie pointed at her. “you have yer fucking, perfect ending, eh?” he said. “Let me have mine. This 's exactly as I wanted it to be. You can leave, right. No need to watch.”

“You can't be serious.” she shook her head. She pursed her lips and looked away only for a moment. She looked at the sky over her head, closed her eyes and let the warm rays fall on her face, drowning in the golden light of the sun to gain strength. She looked at Alfie again. She sniffed and walked over to him, traveling twice as long as to Tommy. She stepped in front of a silhouette emitting extraordinary power, in front of the silhouette which she always felt safe with. Familiar warmth beat out of Alfie's body. The warmth she wanted to remember. That's why she approached him a few extra inches and placed her hands on his stomach, sliding them under the flap of his thick coat. Alfie raised his hand to her face. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, and then he wiped another tear that fell down her face.

“Don’t say that. Don't do such a thing to me.” she whispered. Alfie looked at her with complete understanding. However, Deborah wasn't able to understand how he could be so calm. She knew why, since he chose such an end for himself. But she didn't know how he was managing it. “Don't do this to us.”

“Yeah. Our Benji.” he gasped expressionlessly. “He'll understand it.” he answered in the same tone as before. Deborah frowned with disbelief. “He's a big boy. And you acting like a little girl, aren't you?”

Alfie looked away and thrust his gaze into Tommy's face. As if he expected he would do what he came for. Deborah followed his glance, then raised her hands to his face and forced him to look at her. Only now did she notice the difficulty with which he looked into her eyes. He never had that big problem with it. He was usually self–confident, crushing her with his power, a hard, dominant gaze. It came naturally, he never wanted her to feel worse than him. But she felt that she should worship him. Go to her knees and pray to her own Lord and Savior, who Alfie was to her.

“Maybe he'll understand.” she replied, taking the same indifferent calm. She looked down just to gather her thoughts. She had to wonder if she should reveal a theory that had been bouncing off the walls of her mind for a long time. It was like a biting insect reminding her of its presence. “You can't take a father away from the children. Do you understand me, Alfie?” she asked, looking him in the eye again.

Alfie opened his eyes wider, frowned and raised his chin a bit, looking at Deborah from a different angle. He had never thought that he would be able to feel so many conflicting emotions. He wasn't stupid and he thought he knew what Deborah was talking about. Out of fear, he didn't allow himself this thought. If he was not mistaken, and Deborah's words were quite obvious, he was not ready for what was waiting for him.

“Fuck me...” he took a deep breath through his slightly parted lips. He raised his hands and covered Deborah's hands with them. He has always admired her beauty. For him, she was a rare masterpiece, the most precious gemstone. He was grateful that he had met her again, that he could be with her. But now he couldn't tell if he felt any happiness. He pursed his mouth, making one of the lip disappear somewhere under his mustache. He squeezed his eyelids as if some unidentified, exceptionally loud and troublesome noise disturbed his thoughts. Deborah saw a single, wet trail run through Alfie's cheek. He took an uneven breath and dropped to his knees, sliding his hands down Deborah's body. He buried his face in her stomach and embraced her, clinging her like a last resort. Deborah slipped her fingers into his hair and breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s all right, Alfie. It's over now.” she said quietly. “Everything will be fine.”

Alfie didn't believe her words. He knew that it has been better back then. And they probably never will be happier than they used to be. Their best times have passed, and attempts to come to terms with this thought have ended in failure. He couldn't see the future. And he didn't feel convinced about the positives of life, even when Deborah was with him. He felt even worse with the thought that once again he must bring her into the world that surrounded him. Such delicate, seemingly weak woman in his dangerous reality. He didn't want to think about raising children in this conditions. He knew what happened to Grace Shelby.

“We'll move to Margate. Just like in your visions.” she smiled slightly. She leaned over and kissed the top of Alfie's head. She glanced at Tommy, who was watching them. “You'll never see him again. He will never hurt your family. You have my word. Just let us go.”

It was said that Thomas Shelby had softened. Maybe they were right. Maybe he was less brutal, but he never lost his cunning and skill to solve problems. And this time he could see another way out of the situation.

“If he dares to threaten my family again, I will kill him. Without blinking. Understood?” he said, not even trying conviction. He just looked at Deborah, and he gave her no choice but to believe his words.

#alfie solomons #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons x oc #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders imagine #tommy shelby

40 notes · View notes

ganymedesclock · 5 years

Text

A Headcanon Compilation: Hollow Knight characters and messing up

Ghost: They’re a combination of stubborn, inquisitive, knowledgeable, and naive. Thus, they’re decently likely to cause absolute mayhem by total accident. You will come home and find them dangling upside-down tangled in your blinds, and they’re just staring blankly straight at you, in active defiance of giving you an explanation. Did they miscalculate? Irrelevant. They hacked their way into this situation and they’ll hacked their way out.

This kind of tends to make their problems worse because when all else fails they are really quick to take the ‘death before dishonor’ route. This means that anybody who has known them for a decent amount of time has probably watched them completely lose patience and frenziedly attack....... a random mushroom, or a piece of paper that got stuck to their back, or a branch that they walked into while they were distracted staring at their map.

In short: it’s funny if the property damage that inevitably accrues isn’t something you will have to pay for, or hold dear. It can also be a little sad, though, since Ghost is both impulsive and pretty aggressive- if they get angry enough to basically tantrum with their nail, they might damage something they don’t mean to that’s important to them or one of their friends, and grieve it afterwards.

Hornet: Hornet messing up incidentally looks almost exactly like a cat tripping. She just snaps to attention and, if particularly embarrassed, has this sort of ‘nobody saw me do that’ preening / saunter out of the area. In the face of an enduring problem she’ll just sort of sit there brooding over potential solutions, but stay self-contained and only bark an unnecessarily acerbic “what” if someone tries to talk to her while she’s sulking trying to think of a solution.

Her work ethic means that she’ll just sorta pick herself up, regroup and try again most of the time; if nothing has been going right for a while she’ll probably start shaking, get snappy at small noises, and then eventually just have a meltdown if she feels like she can’t justify walking away and taking a breather. She’s an angry crier when frustrated, much as she hates to admit it.

She’s naturally sensory sensitive / easily irritated by noise, unpleasant textures, or other stimuli, but if she’s especially stressed, she gets snappier at any particular bad stimuli in the environment. If she’s already frustrated about something and Quirrel is sharpening his nail and making a scraping noise about the third pass he makes with that whetstone, she’ll snap about it.

Quirrel: He likes a good puzzle so he’s fairly accustomed to trial-and-error, but expect a lot of progressive “huh”s and small comments to himself. That’s, of course, if this is an interesting thing to be stuck on. If it’s something he feels is stupid or pointless and he’s still stuck on it, he’s actually surprisingly quick to pull a “fuck this I’m out” if he can, and if he can’t for one reason or another, he’ll get pretty exasperated with it. He’ll still have nearly a full conversation with it, but he’s the most likely of the group to incredulously ask an inanimate object “really, now?”

He’s mildly likely to draw his nail on it if he feels like that will get results but he’s not prone to flailing, even if he’s very frustrated. His irritation more just boils down to him increasingly cutting out the middleman and being efficient with his attempts to solve it. Again, if he’s still entertained or sees scholarly value in something he’ll play along in a very minimal-damage manner; if he’s totally out of patience for something, though, that’s about the time he starts breaking out destructive high-caliber spells. It’s rare for him to get so peeved his Soul just starts making little crackles of lightning around him, but it does happen, and it’s usually not a good idea to try and hang onto him if he’s at that point.

Zote: Ironically Zote is pretty used to failure so while he’ll blow a lot of hot air, and, depending on how upset he is, blame literally everything he can think of in short order whether or not it can make sense, he basically just vents all the frustration out of his mouth. He’s the most willing to get down in the trenches scrabbling for success and then, as soon as he gets there, immediately insist that everything up to this point was a calculated plan as part of his success, which naturally, only took a single attempt.

He only really loses his head about it if he runs out of things to blame and/or complain about in which case he’s still griping but he starts instead airing / tying the issue to personal grievances or his general perception the whole world is out to get him, which is a lot less entertaining to listen to and tends to make him angrier rather than feel better. At this point whether or not he has a breakdown depends entirely on if he succeeds or gets distracted before he pulls a thread attached to his emotions.

Worst case scenario, he gets angry, screams at his environment, exhausts himself, gives up, and then either finds another way around, forgets about it, or gets a new idea and comes back.

Pure Vessel/Hollow Knight: They had a very proper upbringing and very precise training. They’re very by-the-book, but that book is a weighty tome on martial tactics and the code of chivalry. Definitely after their failed vigil against the Radiance they’re very tired and fatigue is quicker to take them than anger. Sort of participating in the category of heroic determination, really- they’re more likely to beat themselves up for not being good enough unless it’s a really stupid problem in which case they might actually find it kinda funny, depending. Or just very vexing.

It’d be a rare set of circumstances that could mash their buttons that way, but if sufficiently aggravated by something completely stupid, some irresponsible use of light magic and sharp implements might happen. They’re not incapable of anger, after all, and they were pretty much trained from the cradle. All in all, though, they’re rather clever and their dutiful streak means they’re rarely offended by menial labor as long as they feel like it’s accomplishing something.

Grimm: It’s rare for him to actually get vexed since, simply put, he’s so old, knowledgeable, and powerful that setbacks tend to be novel and interesting to him more than anything. He’s willing to be fairly charitable about something catching him in a pickle, sometimes even playing along with situations he can easily get out of with a minor flexing of godly power. Would-be bandits have held him at nailpoint before.

Of course, there’s limits to how long he’s willing to be entertained, and that tends to be what you’re putting on stake. Even risking fairly personal injury, as functionally a god of mortality, Grimm will even consider something he loses a limb to as all in good fun. Threaten his progeny or his clan in a way that makes him suspect you could genuinely imperil them, however, and you’ve booked a truly horrifying lesson in how much he’s been humoring you.

Radiance: If at first you don’t succeed, burn whatever you perceive as spiting you to ashes.

No, really. She’s pretty bad at this whole ‘patience’ and ‘forgiveness’ thing. The only reason she’s not a complete liability (in contexts where she’s not leveling kingdoms by operating exclusively as a dreamscape psychic death curse) to everything around her is that she’s so powerful that an awful lot of things are basically of no concern to her, from tripping on a root to a would-be godslayer running her through the chest.

Of course, that’s sort of a gamble, because if she interprets it as a challenge, even if she sees you as absurdly beneath her, she might just decide to “honor” you with the immaculate, shining death you’re clearly asking for. That, or if you just subject her to something she feels is undignified enough to be humiliating or annoying.

Most likely to evaporate a maskfly for pooping on her head, in short.

White Lady: She’s a patient sort, at least, superficially. It would be more accurate to say that if something annoys her, she doesn’t often retaliate directly because she’s very comfortable in the knowledge that she can come back in a century or so once it’s rotted beyond all recognition. It’s rare for her to get motivated enough that she decides to hasten entropy’s hand. When she does, the matter tends to be over.

As a result, with a minor problem or tribulation that isn’t time-consuming, she’ll take her own good time teasing out a solution, and not particularly worry about it not happening as quickly as she wants. Something with a looming deadline and serious stakes, she’ll simply continuously evaluate the previous attempts and try again, with an increasing determination. Her anger will build along with it, but she’ll keep that sequestered as best as she can until she makes a decision to do something reckless with all of her roots at once. Even in situations that can be dealt with by a more subtle touch, if she makes up her mind to end a situation, she either will, or she will perish in the attempt.

Pale King: Since he views himself as not really allowed to get mad he’ll try to continue working through his frustration and probably not actually realize how annoyed he’s getting. Likely to just pick himself up and continue going, carefully neatening himself if it’s the first time it’s happened, leaving his raiment in whatever state he hit the ground in if it’s the twentieth or thirtieth.

Like Hornet, he might get slowly snappier, but largely, his tone would remain entirely the same until he hits some kind of wall. Depending on which emotion he’s feeling at the time, this might be funny (you just come into his workshop and find him lying face down on the floor and he just, in completely calm tones, tells you to leave him there, and possibly carries a conversation like that if you have something urgent to say and it really can’t wait), or this might be terrifying (he’s in one of those moods where the entire surrounding area is at subzero temperatures and his eyes are leaking primordial ancient light, and you should probably just quietly excuse yourself and come back when he’s calmed down enough to thaw out)

Because, y’know, he’s the King of Hallownest, and his emotions have basically no outlets besides planking and chilling eldritch divinity. Since he’s such a workaholic, him having artist’s block is... something to deal with, all right.

#Hollow Knight #readmore #these are based on Refuse and Regret's 'verse'#in case you're wondering where I'm getting Sparky Wizard Quirrel or the Pale King expressing his emotions in the Elsa Method

120 notes · View notes

alternativewinxcontinuity · 4 years

Text

Don't mind me, just losing my mental sh*t

Has anyone else ever noticed it always seems to be the people who’ve never written/posted anything that leave the most unnecessary (and often meanest) comments?

Or the people who themselves write like they haven’t hit puberty yet but feel like they can comment like a professional editor by giving advice that is exactly the opposite of what they were just saying needs to be fixed?!

Not Winx Related, I just really needed to vent. I got a shit review on a non-Winx Story and as I bitch a little about that I'm finally taking the time to address a review I got on my GOT fic, which turned nasty that I want to pick apart, but not to his face because he is not the kind of reviewer who should be interacted with, so I'mma dump it here. (Rant un-beta'd.)

Like? You really want to leave a comment on chapter 2 of a part 30 chapter fic that you haven’t read saying shit like:

“I don’t see the point its basically a rewrite”

When, had you read even one chapter on, you would have begun to see the divergence that is about to slowly snowball out of control while the universe does its best to stay on track. (yes the 'its' typo is review accurate.)

Like buddy, I get it, you've never written anything in your life and you think this is okay to say to someone because, and this may surprise you: you're an asshole.

"The point" was that it was a fun idea, "the point" was that I was enjoying the crossover and figuring out how everything could go wrong by replacing a single major part, "the point" was many, many other people found it hilarious and so did I. Not "the point" but it was also a version of Harry Potter not written by a fcking TERF.

Or:

'This Character is just really out of character, you're doing a bad job of writing him.'

Okay *goes to check their fics to see how they wrote him to see if she can figure out where reviewer is coming from. they have no fics in the fandom.* 'hey reviewer, you say he's out of character, how would you go about fix him so he's more in character?'

'Oh well, he's just not very *season 1 characterisation despite the fact he's explicitly stated to be season 3 end of his character growth story arc*, you should have him do *a thing that is something he would never have done even in season 1*'

Or shit like (and this is a long one from 'Richard' who hid behind the Anon function):

"This is a great fic. It's surprisingly difficult for me to optimize the protagonist. So first,"

Like? excuse you? why would you need to optimize my character?

"I really hope Sansa chooses to mine the metric tonnes of valuable honey and wax from that beehive once she gets her inventory."

So I hate to admit that the honey and wax would be a good idea, and she will be getting a boon of that, but it will be because she'll be getting Bee Hives later, not because she'll think to strip mine a people in dire straights.

"Also, she has valyrian steel claws, which she now knows can dig into the rock very easily. Those crumbling ledges? She can dig new ones, she can dig a staircase. She can widen the entrance so that her soldiers come in to help mine the liquid gold. Especially since she appreciates the difference between currency and goods. Of course, maybe she'll establish diplomatic relations instead."

So I am going to look so fcking petty when I finally get the next chapter out, because I actually addressed this idea with reality. Trust me, I did some research, and while there's almost nothing easily found on how long it would take to do this sort of work by hand, what I found supported the idea that it's stupid. It takes (and I shit you not) literal days with a team of men using hand tools to carve through even a few metres of rock (the exact time depends on how hard the rock is and how large they make the opening/area).

Sansa would be literally clawing at the walls with her nails which, while yes they are Valyrian steel, are still attached to very human fingers and arms. and here's where my first hand knowledge kicks back in: I went on a mock archaeological dig when I was in high school, I spent several hours scrapping layers of compact sand to uncover artefacts, resistance levels aside, the repeated action is hell on your muscles, Sansa would spend as much time recovering as she would digging. to get all the way to the entrance would take her literal years with Richard's suggested method.

PLUS: the point of the adventures is for SANSA (and Arya) to have the spot light, to be forced to think and find ways to use the new Abilities they've been given, or to come up with new ones. It's part of my whole "Power is Earned, or it is Corrupted" mentality, if you don't work for it, you will sooner rather than later abuse it.

AND: of course she's going to use diplomatic solutions, she's Sansa, and that's what the clue of foreshadowing was saying! Literally everything you need to know to solve the Dungeons is in their individual clues!!!

"Secondly, medieval people already had long-lasting torches which burned for hours and hours instead of 5-10 minutes. Each torch looked like a pillar or stupidly elongated torch that was carried with the tip lit and burning down like a candle. They also didn't use candles as those were too expensive. They used rushes soaked in fat which could be made by the dozens to hundreds with a few hours' work. There's a youtube video on this subject entitled medieval misconceptions: torches and candles."

Oh. My. God. Such. Valuable. Information. If . Only. I had. Known. This. When. I wrote. about. reed candles. in this. very fic.

Literally of the four times I used the word candle, twice it was explicitly 'reed candles' (and guess what other name rushes go by?) and once it was a metaphor specifically about the smoke and not the candle.

As for the pillar candles, the ones that burn for hours are too heavy for someone of Sansa's size and arm strength and the hour candles, (if you've ever seen Avatar Last Airbender, the candles they used in the Secret Tunnel) are unwieldy and aren't so good for putting down in a way that doesn't risk them going out. (Putting them far enough into a wall sconce that it won't topple back out makes it very tricky to remove it.)

Which, why even bother with torches that are more effort to obtain when Sansa's powers make the 'advantage' obsolete anyway!? Not to mention: Displayed Content! If a show uses something even in the background, it exists in that world. Wax candles aren't that rare. (Also side note, because I do my fcking research: the majority of hives which supply the honey and wax to Westeros are owned by the Maesters of old town.)

"I don't really care about those things though. The latter is a mistake literally everyone makes and I didn't know was a mistake until a month ago. Which goes into my third point, how Sansa could optimize things."

Then why bring it up, especially since I didn't technically make said mistake??

"At this point she knows she needs people and she's already given her powers to someone trustworthy. She also knows that healing is a power she can give. And she knows they're going to need this at least as much as medics. And there are indeed people she trusts whom she hasn't approached with an offer of power. Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, Lyra Mormont of Bear Island, and Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion Lannister can wait but not forever. Lyra should be approached as soon as possible."

NO. Arya was the exception, not the rule, Sansa isn't going to just go off and give her god-blessed powers to anyone else. I was hesitant to give it to Arya as it was, and only let myself because I could use the 'Arya's God is Death, there's more stakes than you thought' to fully justify it.

Tyrion as he is can't be trusted, and future Tyrion chose Dany over Sansa, neither Sansa nor Arya know how his story ended, so as far as they are concerned he's a good ally, but not actually trust worthy enough for this.

For those of you confused, Lyra Mormont is one of the daughters of the Lady Maege Mormont, and one of Lyanna's sisters. Lyra got maybe two mentions in the books and nothing in the tv series so I can only assume Richard meant Lyanna, who is currently 2 years old! But we'll come back to this, because Richard sure did!!!

As for the medic thing, I really hope Richard meant he was fcking off for good in his final word, because if he comes back, I really don't want him to think he's responsible for the medic corps that I've been planning and attempting to foreshadow with Sansa approaching Luwin, and Beth and Jeyne following Sansa's lead with archery.

Like, oh hey, guess which unfortunate field medic bride of a Stark might find her way to Winterfell if she hears about young women being trained in some basic healing to help Maester Luwin deal with any cases of over flow of patients. That's right, I'm planning for triage nurses! No magical powers required.

"I assume she's going to get glass from Lys through the Tapestry of Doors. For that she's going to need tokens. She's going to need tokens for everything, and she already knows it. So collecting and hoarding tokens should be a big priority for her. And that means going places where there are tokens to be got. Places she hasn't gone to yet, like The Wall and Bear Island. Just to get tokens."

No. Again, just NO! Sansa already stated that Tokens and relying on them were a thing that would come back to bite her, she'll horde them as she finds them, but she's not going out of her way to find them because she has things to do! Also: the Tapestry of Doors was a piece of Flavour text for way late in the fic if it ever came back, and like a Stargate, requires one at each end, so someone would have to travel to Lys anyway, which is dumb when Sansa now has a Loom which can copy any 'raw' material, and the ability to convert that 'raw' material' into any object she has the blueprint for, which she can get by 'scanning' with her console.

She just has to put 2 and 2 together!!

"She also knows there are dungeons in each place, and that she needs to get to them. And that it's better if she gets in with people. Like people Lyra trusts to whatever dungeon is in Bear Island."

The thing about the Dungeons is that the whole thing is for Sansa, some of them will have special requirements, but very few of them are crucial, they're just there so Sansa has a place and a trial to obtain Unique Items of game breaking power or ability.

"The last way to optimise her powers is one I don't think she'll take even though it has a lot of benefits. Going with a squad of soldiers into the Dreadfort's dungeon in order to confront the walking dead, with hit and run tactics slowly draining the population there. The main benefit and reason to do this is to harden and blood the soldiers to prepare them for the Long Night, so she should have the soldiers on rotation in order to expose as many as possible to the horrors to come."

Problem is the undead in the Dreadfort Dungeon aren't the same as the Wights and White Walkers, they can just be killed in the same ways. The idea of these kinds of fics is that by the time the Long Night Comes, Sansa and Arya can do most if the heavy lifting. You are right that Sansa wouldn't risk her people for some EXP though.

Sansa will be going back though, there's a pair of Shears and Needle in there.

"Also, the loot should be great. Perhaps another loom. But I would do it even for more bobbins. Or nothing at all."

Literally the Loom is a one off item. It is super powerful with what it can do in the context, so having more than one would ruin the power balance I've been trying to keep between Power Fantasy and OP Bullshit.

Someone of course pointed out that (Richard said Lyra, but responder said Lynna) Lyanna was currently literally 2 or 3 years old, she can't do shit. (they also brought up that 2 (actually 3) characters had already declined the super powers, because it included bad timeline memory downloads.) Guess how Richard took that?!

If you guessed "not well" you get a cookie!

Seriously, I was kind of annoyed at his review because^^^ reasons he was wrong about stuff, but also the arrogance of 'telling me how to optimize my character' was just, icky, so I was just going to ignore him.

But then he went (in response to the other reviewer):

"(snort) I think you need to recall what Lyanna Mormont is like at 10 years of age. She is a force and she is in charge. And what exactly is your objection, that Sansa needs consent or is preserving innocence?"

No moron, the objection is that she's literally 2 or 3 years old, what the fck is she going to do in her tiny little body? But yes, now that you mention it, Sansa (was assaulted and lost her bodily autonomy, she) would place a huge amount of importance on consent, it's one of the reasons she was so upset by Arya taking advantage of her sleepy state to get her to agree.

"Lyanna Mormont wouldn't care. Jon and Robb care, that's why their sister cares. Lyanna would never thank Sansa for trying to preserve her innocence, keep her ignorant, or keep her weak. She would be insulted."

Lyanna is literally 2 or 3 years old, she doesn't know enough to care or be insulted by not being told that she's lost the chance to remember several years of horrific shit before being violently murdered.

Also I notice you didn't say anything about the name correction. Got it wrong the first time did you?

"Which leaves only respecting Lyanna's will. Or her mother's will maybe. Or at least informing them of what she's decided to do before she does it so they can prepare. But Sansa gains nothing by not asking."

And what would she gain by asking? also nothing. Lyanna is 2 or 3 years old. Also the fic isn't about her. Why would Sansa even trust her? The child who thought she could judge Sansa for being unable to stab her way out of some horrible places? who scorned Sansa because she was femme? Because Sansa's strength isn't the same as hers so Lynna decided Sansa didn't have any?

Lynna chose Jon to lead the North over Sansa who had a better claim to the throne, Jon, who spent the entire 8th season saying how much he doesn't want to be king, Jon who legit just tried to walk away from the Command of the Nights Watch.

"And this brings up another issue, the fact Sansa never decided FOR Jon and Robb cuts both ways. She informed them of their choice and she let them make it."

"Sansa didn't keep them in the dark without informing them of the decision she was making for them, as you seem to want to do, since that definitely isn't the right thing to do. Mushroom management is a shit heap."

The boys were already aware that something was up, Sansa had nothing to gain by lying, and she made the offer before she realised the memories were a thing.

"The question to ask a toddler is "do you want to grow up?" it's not a difficult question to ask and it does have a meaningful answer. And that's the problem you have, because you already know Lyanna Mormont would say yes and you want her to say no. That's why you want the question never asked."

"You want to pretend that Lyanna Mormont, DEFINITELY in charge of bear island at 10 years of age, is a gormless wimp like 25 year old Jon Snow who refused to be king and refused to even THINK whether or not Daenerys would be a good queen by constantly uttering the refrain "she is my queen"."

Laynna was in charge because she was the last of her family, everyone else was lost fighting someone else's war. More importantly: she's not even part of the equation? Why would Sansa travel to Bear Island to ask a 2 or 3 year old if she wants to become an angry and traumatised 10 year old in a 2 or 3 year old body which will feel like a prison because she's not as tall or fast as she used to be, because she can't lift or climb or jump or ride or fight like she used to.

And for what? a few super powers she has to ask Sansa for? For mental trauma her family and friends cannot comprehend?

But no, have a look at the part where Richard really started to cross the line:

"No, Lyanna Mormont wants power, wants to grow up, that is obvious. And you're an obstacle in her way. She would hurt you for standing in her way, probably smashing a mace in your knees. And you're so weak that yes you would in fact be hurt by a 2 or 3 year old toddler. She killed a giant and she would have no problem killing you for daring to think you're a giant."

"Stand aside little man and let Lyanna Mormont have her glory."

Now I don't know what this guy's obsession is with Lyanna, but that sounded like a threat to me. Like, who tells people that a fiction character would physically maim or murder a real person just for pointing out said fictional character is 2 or 3 years old?

Lyanna doesn't want power? She's not that kind of person, even if she is fictional? More importantly:

Neither I nor the reviewer were 'standing in her way' because she's a fictional character who's not even in this fic!!!

But his behaviour was pretty shit, so I told him to knock it off or I was going to turn the review filters on.

That went about as well as you might expect.

So I was All:

[I don't know what you think you mean by 'optimize the character' but half of your assumptions are wrong, the rest run counter to my pre-existing plans and I don't care for your overall demeanour. I was prepared to leave your post be, but your recent reply is inappropriate and uses language which runs VERY close to sounding like a death threat, which I DO NOT APPRECIATE. I don't want to be 'that bitch', but I am going to ask you to please be respectful, or I will be turning on the comment filters.]

Because I don't Know if you know this but AO3 has three filters in the privacy tab of every story posted:

1] “Only show your work to registered users”

this means that you MUST be logged in to an AO3 account to even find it let alone read it

2] Disable Anonymous Comments

you Must be logged in to leave a comment

3] Enable Comment Moderation

doesn't matter what you say, with out Author OK, your review will not be showing up in the comment section.

(… tumblr just did that thing again where it refreshes in the middle of my thousands of words of text and loses all my stuff, it is literally making me want to kill myself. Because I have to retype all the responses from the next fcking section. It's my own fault for not just using a word document, but also: fck tumblr? For being stupid?)

So, from here Richard had three options:

1- Apologise and move one

2- say nothing and pretend it hadn't happened and move on

3- He went with this:

“Your Sansa Stark is weaker than canon Sansa Stark. It's true your Sansa Stark has a strictly higher level of ambition than Sansa Stark. But what she uses in order to achieve her goals, her resources, is weaker.”

“She uses actions, capabilities and skills. She uses embroidery, archery, learning (archery), she uses the people she already knows but not strangers. She uses and manipulates the people she can interact with, learn from, act upon. The level of people that is directly equal to skills.”“

She doesn't use language, nor does she use strangers. Strangers are the level of people that don't require interaction but DO require language to deal with. And your Sansa Stark's language is too weak. When she manipulates the maid in the Dreadfort, it's entirely accidentally and unintentionally.”

Sansa has seen what power does to people, she's seen what lies ahead for the manipulators of the world, she's been taught at the side of Cersei and Petyr, and she does not want to become them. For all the horrific things she's gone through, Sansa came out the other side with her compassion intact, possibly even stronger than before.

“She talks to Domeric only because she's already interacted with him, she's been healing him for days by that point. She fakes Green Dreaming to her father because she knows her language is inadequate and will achieve nothing. The way her father and mother treat her, they know mere words would be inadequate. And they would dismiss any words she said. "Haven't we told our children dreams can't hurt you?"”

She doesn't want to interact with Domeric, he looks like the man who violated her repeatedly, killed her brother and sacked her home. She wants to be as far away from him as possible. When she does end up interacting with him, despite being so sleep deprived it's a wonder she hadn't started hallucinating, she manages to win him over pretty easily.

She fakes Green Dreaming because “a god made me time travel” is not only a ridiculous concept but a foreign one as well. Why would Sansa tell her parents that when it would mean admitting to going through some horrific shit, to letting her family down and being let down by her family when Green Dreams are a known thing which explains her knowledge. It's not inadequacy, it's efficiency and an attempt to hide horrible things.

I need to point out that “Haven't we told our children that dreams can't hurt you?” is said by Catelyn in self-recrimination afterwards, and is said specifically to reference the reason Sansa might not have felt she could go to them with her problem was because it was based on dreams. Because what parent would take dreams as a serious threat unless they were a Nightmare on Elm Street survivor, especially since Green Seers have become so rare they've been relegated back to myths and stories by the time Jojen and Bran show up.

“Language requires actions such as mouthing, shouting, tonguing, but actions will never add up to language. Actions are necessary but NOT SUFFICIENT for language. This is why you can't write a single damned sentence with only actions. Try it, you won't be able to.”

I can't take this paragraph seriously if only because of the use of the word 'tonguing'. FFS, he sounds like a small child trying to convince people he's got a PhD. 'If I throw out some big words and phrase them right they'll sound 'academic' and I'll look smarter!

'I know this probably isn't what Richard meant but: Sign Language? Is literally all actions?

(Obviously real language requires thoughts and concepts to be communicated to be a language, but even the most primitive of body movements can express something: I'm hot, I'm hungry, I'm angry, etc. It might not be true language, but it is communication, which is the basis of language, the reason we made language in the first place.)

“Canon Sansa Stark had dreams, plans, and designs on what others have. She wanted to wed a prince, she had designs on the princess position. She wanted out of King's Landing. She wanted Winterfell. She wanted the Knights of the Vale to fight ... FOR HER.”

“People who had never met canon Sansa Stark in their entire lives fought and died for canon Sansa Stark's benefit. For the designs of a (her words) stupid girl. And sure, her initial designs were stupid. And they only rose up to being pathetic. But they were designs, they were dreams, they were plans.”

I need to talk about my interpretation of Sansa for a minute, because that's what I've been writing: my interpretation of Sansa.

Sansa was raised with an idea of how the world should be, not how it was. She was raised loved and protected and surrounded by men of honour. Fed stories of heroes, brave knights and valiant princes, where good always triumphed, or was romantically defeated and beautifully tragic.

She wasn't raised to expect dishonourable men and hidden motives, she wasn't raised expecting a (metaphorical) dagger in her back.

She didn't want the crown, she didn't want the throne, she wanted “the prince” from her stories, who would cherish her and care for her and give her a family filled with love. And yes the pretty dresses and the shiny jewels and the adoration and praise. But she never wanted power, that came later.

Later after she'd seen the cracks in the world and the grime beneath the gilding, when she'd learned friend and foe were often the same, that people with power would hurt her, use her, that she was nothing but a trophy to them.

Sansa wanted power because “if I'm the one with the power, then they can't hurt me any more, if I have the power I'll be safe, if I have the power then I can protect people, if I have the power I can stop people like that.”

But Sansa has never had power, it was always borrowed, an illusion that could vanish at one misstep. She had no money of her own, her blood made her valuable to others as a trade commodity, but gave her no personal power.

When people fought for her, it was never really about her.

Petyr gave her armies so he could win favour so he could use her as a proxy for her dead mother. Brienne fought to fulfil an oath to Sansa's dead mother.

The Men of the North fought for Winterfell, to get revenge on the Boltons. The Wildings followed Jon Snow. And when it was over, it was Jon who was crowned king, not Sansa the one who had to talk him into getting back their home in the first place.

Her parents and Robb fought for her, but their armies fought for House Stark, for the insult Sansa and Arya's capture and Ned's death presented.

“Your Sansa Stark has no plans, has no dreams, and certainly has no designs. She doesn't use language, because her language is too weak and has no power. She doesn't use her emotions or feelings because they are brittle and far too weak to be used. Weaker even than the emotions and feelings of a stupid girl. She doesn't use her mind or intellect because she doesn't cogitate. She uses skills and ONLY skills. To try to fake everything else.”

It's odd that he says this when he started off this response by saying my Sansa was more ambitious than canon Sansa.

First of all: I thought I was making it fairly clear that her goals were: save her family, save the North, stop the White Walkers.

Her dreams are to never be beholden to another man ever again.

Sansa wants her family alive, she wants to be safe and she wants to be free of all the political manipulations she had to sit through in the first timeline.

Second of all: Richard has clearly never been assaulted in his life in any way and I am so fcking happy for him. Really.

Look, people who suffer long term trauma, (or short term, it doesn't matter how long really) are not magically okay afterwards. The idea that sexual assault makes femme women strong is disgusting and so toxically prevalent in movies and shows and books these days its... horrific. You'll notice butch women like Arya aren't typically assaulted to be strong, because they're already so 'manly'. It was a genuine surprise when they tried to have Brienne assaulted, but that was more about showing how much of a 'good guy' Jaime was than Brienne.

You can really tell in several places that the tv series had non-con fetishists on staff.

Sansa is so brittle now, because she feels safe enough to let herself feel the fear she wasn't able to earlier, to work through the panic and the anger and all the emotions she couldn't before.

“Your Sansa Stark plans to use skills in order to change the world. And since it's obvious the world isn't run by woodcutters or farmers or archers or anyone else defined by their SKILLS, she will fail. She will fail abysmally, totally and catastrophically. She hasn't got the slightest sliver of a chance.”

Quick tally: Sansa has managed to convince her parents she had knowledge of the future, put them on track to realising Petyr Baelish was stealing from the Crown, got Stannis curious in Dragonstone, came up with a plan to gain favour for the North by helping to pay of part of the Crown's debt and has begun working on a plan to ensure more food is available for the Northerners when Winter arrives.

Not to mention, (and you'd easily miss this): Sansa has begun influencing a shift in the young women of the North who had previously been influenced by the South.

The thing is, Richard seems convinced its about the looting and the grinding, 'kill enough stuff and you become a God!' but it's not.

“So you stacked the deck in her favor. You put a high tier deity on her side. Now Sansa has a slim chance to squeak out a win, using the power she's borrowing. But here's the thing, it will never be HER win because it isn't HER power, it isn't HER plans. Your Sansa Stark has no plans, but her deity does, even if they're stupid plans of puerile amusement-seeking. So IF there is a victory at the end, it will never be Sansa Stark's victory, it will be her deity's. Because she is only a pawn, a tool, a peon, a minion.”

Richard doesn't seem to understand what the introduction of Arya's God means for the lore. The amount of death from the wars is causing Bad Things in the back ground of the original timeline.

Sansa isn't the Being's pawn, she's their start player, the Being is a sponsor who's giving Sansa the chance and resources to be greater than she was. It's not about 'puerile amusement-seeking', but how do you tell a young woman who's gone through what Sansa's gone through that the fate of the entire human race is in her hands, that if she fails it won't just be her family that falls.

If Sansa thinks the Being just wants amusement, then Sansa will act as she pleases and hope it's good enough, which puts her closer in line with saving the world than if she's actually trying to save the world, because that is a much bigger task than 'stop the issues that got my family killed'.

The Being is only victorious if Sansa is, it's their shared victory.

Now up until this point Richard has been an arrogant tool, but it might almost seem like he's being reasonable. This is where he loses the plot and just starts back on his favourite fall back: threatening people with violence.

“Now generally, when an author writes a protagonist who is a pawn, a tool, a peon and a minion of a higher power, when they write a protagonist who is WEAK, it's because they themselves are weak. Generally doesn't mean universally however, so I had to know. And now I do. You are weak Jasper.”

“You want to convince me of something Jasper. You want to convince me that I'm wrong, that my opinion is wrong, that my position is wrong, you want me to change my mind, you want me to know my plans and judgment are wrong. Because they're in conflict with yours. But how do you achieve this? By threatening me with your borrowed power. Exactly like your Sansa Stark.”

Did he have to google the list of synonyms there?

I don't know what it is about being referred to by name, but it bugs me that he chose to use only a portion of my pen-name like we were somehow familiar, rather than not using my name or referring to me as OP or something along those lines.

Also I really have to disagree that only weak people write about people being weak, but I don't think his opinions of weak and strong match with mine either.

He is wrong, but more importantly: he threatened someone with violence for daring to correct him.

I wasn't threatening him, I was warning him to stop being an asshole or I would disable anonymous commenting.

“You do this because you're weak. And what do we call weak people who complain about strong people's actions when they are the bitches of higher powers? We call them exactly what you "don't want to be", we call them bitches. You are a bitch to higher powers and you bitch about higher powers like me. You bitch about people who can use their intellects. And for a good reason too.”

“You fear my attitude because I am the bitch slapper. I slap little bitches like you all fucking day long every single day. It doesn't matter to me who it is, whether it's my own friends who are bitching, I slap them for it. And you will never ever convince me that you're right. Because you're weak. And because I don't respect bitches.”

Look, I've seen enough therapists of different varieties to pull off some impressive psych 101 bullshit so I can tell you right now: Richard is a man who has never held any real authority in his life, he has mediocre skills at best and often feels talked down to because he feels more entitled than he is and no one treats him like a god for breathing. He refuses to back down when wrong even in the face of evidence and then he pouts because the world didn't shift to match his delusions.

The worst part is I know this, and I know I shouldn't let this bother me. But it does. But it shouldn't and I can tell him to his 'face' via review reply why he's wrong, or he'll know it bothers me, then he'll feel validated, even though he's wrong. And he'll probably threaten someone with more violence and then I really will have to disable anon comments and effectively punish some readers who did nothing wrong.

“So what are you going to do to me that I care about? Stop me from reading your fic? You don't have that power. Stop writing it so that I can no longer learn how your mind works, my ulterior motive? That would be cutting your nose to spite your face. You would suffer far out of proportion to me. I would just move on to some other author. Report me? Go ahead, I don't care. Really, we're done here, so have a nice life.”

Yes I do, literally the first of the privacy filters would stop you from reading, but that would hurt my other readers who don't have an account.

'Ulterior motive'? Buddy, you apparently don't understand how any mind works.

Again: if you don't care why bring it up?

Are you really leaving though? Do you promise?!

“The only thing you could ever do to me is surprise me by ceasing to be a weak little bitch. Or even resolving to not be one. This would invalidate all of my predictions by rising to my implied challenge. That's what I like, win-win. (lol) I'm not holding my breath though.”

I don't have anything to prove to this douche tool and it bothers me that this is bothering me so much!!!! The worst part is, this review came at a time when my attention for the fic was flagging, so I'll never know if it was really this review or not that made me stop writing for the past few months?

Those of you with an AO3 account who drop by my profile to see if I wrote anything interesting may have noticed my recent 'for archive users only' locked fic. I can confirm that yes: to mental detox this review I went and watched a Chinese Xianxia drama that has become my new hyper-focus. Almost 100 plot bunnies are being posted into the locked fic in an effort to purge it rom my brain so I can get back to what I was doing. It seems to be working. I wrote about 1000 words for Episode: Sisterhood this week, so the chapter is almost done. At last!

#just blog stuff #i’m just bitching now #absolute aggro #swearing #op would like to die #not winx or alt con related #i'm just really angry about it even though I know I should know better #eleven pages of op being an angry incoherent mess

2 notes · View notes

determined-magi · 5 years

Text

Ah, there it was, they could smell the city’s filth...they had legions out already... good.

They stand at the back, half the group’s gazes lost somewhere, missing, saddening sight that denoted perhaps another little battle, slowly getting lost.. A foot after another, they begin to walk, each gesturing to each legion they hold for their forces to march. Horns run back and forth from the city, a cry or warn, a cry for seeking safety.

Their soldiers hasten their pace, so do they, weapons at the ready. The steadiness and rything of feets and armor soon begin to lose, unrelenting cymbals and loud drums of metal and flesh, deafening all to their ears. Their magic join, together again...

“ You... we had a fucking deal! “

“ You dare disobey me?! “

“ Fuck you, more than half the city burns, aren’t you satisfied enough, you stupid idiot? The castle already burns, you sent those on purpose! “

“ So what if I did? I brought too them a fair reason to desist, and if you hadn’t interfered, I would’ve had them leave the message I had intended. “

“ Your message cost us, you idiot! We can’t afford to find ourselves be more swayed towards violence. Look at what you just did! Look at what you had me do! I had to knock them two, because they were unresponsive to what you just pulled off, because you dragged them into a fucking slaughter! “

“ Don’t you dare to tell me you wouldn’t have done it, because you have done so to an army on less stellar of ways! “

“ I would, yes! But not to the scale you had done, I would drag them to something they could handle, this clearly was not it, none of us, that was why we brought men, to lessen the damn blood on our hands! “

“ We’ll have to do the same at the academy, and then back to our lands, you think there won’t be armies rising? You’ll think they’ll just lay down like some well behaved dogs? No, we’ll have to cull the remaining resistance, and it won’t be small. This is but a small thing in comparison... “

“ We’re supposed to make it to somehow keep them all from dying, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO IF WE LET OURSELVES BE SWAYED?? HELL RIGHT NOW BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF YOU ISN’T ENOUGH, I REALLY WANT TO FUCKING RIP YOUR THROAT OUT FOR THIS ONE!! “

“ that is enough... “

“ !!! “

Blinding pain earns both the ground as two snakes coil around their ankles, eyes turning towards the bleeding face of a mage, eyes somewhat open, but clearly still trying to bring her back from being out.

The next thing that follows is both seeing a pair of familiar circle spells, of a yellow tone. They curse, unable to move, before they know it their strenght quickly wanes to the venting of their magic against their will. Oh how they hated that trick... What follows then is the tackling of both, one by Thannor and the other by Braigon, delivering what would be karma to one, and a sensible action to the other by knocking both with similar punches, taking away weapons and placing a object locked spell over both, the same one just used to release any building magic until seen they were fit to have it back...

“ Well... God must really hate us... “

“ Please don’t... humor is not what we need... “

“ What we need is tie each to a log, and talk with them. “

“ A good idea, when we go back to the camp, any deserters? “

“ We’ll know at the camp, someone send in the signal to regroup. “

“ Oh, thanks for knock the uncalled fucking, you temporal gave me contusion. “

“ We couldn’t afford a damn fight breakin ‘ere, so we did as needed. “

“ Traitorous assholes... “

“ Oh, fuck me sideways, you both are- “

Another punch, Rhowën frowns to Thannor, shaking off the grip.

“ You, spoiled idiotic brat of a prince, did you know what the hell’s been going around? Because I guess from your state of mind, you clearly don’t, so let me give you a moment to knocking it. “ The judge says, grabbing the gamberson and opening his hand, before giving a slap after slap. “ You just fucking slaughtered innocents, fucking innocents. Mother, daughters, babies. Dragged us to it. Weeks after some of us broke down by this whole ordeal, And you acting as far from the person we’ve pledged loyalty to as you could be “

“ Rho, you’re starting to do the same as them... “

“ Like if I will let myself get to that fucking point right now, I had no intentions to get fucking decked, Braigon. “ He hisses, then turns back to both the noble and prince. “ Neithe of you were fucking there, but I was, and I heard sister wail her ass as she fucking drank, then began to give off hand comentary that disolved into self loathing rants over herself and the cheer fucking helplessness she felt, how she fucking howled, and I say fucking howled, over her prince going madder by the months, hell, the weeks, how brother had hardly gotten better, hell she even said you may have fucking gone backwards all over again Agar. She went on fucking rants saying how worthless her existance was as she took bottle after bottle, choked down the vomit trying to leave her, and kept getting drunker and drunker over the course of a pair of hours, hell, you didn’t get worried she would throw a damn bottle and try to kill herself with a god damn shard! “

“ Rho... “

“ NO, I AM GOING TO SPEAK MY MIND TO PUT THE PAIR OF IDIOTS INTO PERSPECTIVE BECAUSE GOD DAMN IT SOMEONE HAS TO, AND GILRIN JUST LEFT TO GET HER DAMN PIECE OF MIND LIKELY ON ANOTHER ROUND OF DRUNKEN MISERY RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE SHE COULDN’T EVEN MUSTER A LOOK TO YOU BOTH RIGHT NOW. “ The judge shouted. “ SHE FUCKING LEFT, LIKELY TO SEE IF SHE COULD FUCKING STEAL SOME DAMN BOTTLES BECAUSE WE DIDN’T HAD ANY, BECAUSE I FUCKING KNEW IF WE BROUGHT MORE SHE’D GO STRAIGHT TO THEM AGAIN BECAUSE HEY, SHE FUCKING LOATHES SLAUGHTERS, AND SHE FUCKING HATES HERSELF FOR AGREEING TO PARTAKEIN THEM, AND HEY, GUESS WHAT? WE OVERDID ONE AND YOU BOTH JUST AGAIN SHOVED UP A “MY FEARS ARE RIGHT” RIGHT DOWN HER THROAT, FUCKING REALLY? AT LEAST I AM TRYING TO LEARN MY DAMN FUCKING LESSON, BUT YOU BOTH TAKE THE FUCKING CAKE!!! “

“ RHOWËN. “

“ AT LEAST I AM TRYING TO FUCKING WATCH MYSELF, BUT YOU, YOU GUYS WANT TO FUCKING MAKE THIS SHIT RIGHT OR NOT? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU TWO WANT FROM US ALL? TO FAIL? BECAUSE SUDDENLY SLAUGHTERING A CITY AND THEN TRYING TO BEAT EACH OTHER SENSELESS IS A GOOD WAY TO GET US TO DO THAT. ONE IT FUCKING SCREWS UP WITH OUR TENDENCY TO ACTUALLY NOT GO TOWARDS VIOLENCE AND DO THE RIGHT DECISIONS; AND FUCKING TWO: IT BREAKS THE UNITY WE DAMN NEED TO KEEP IF WE WANT TO PULL THIS ONE THROUGH YOU FRUSTRATION PAIR OF- “

“ RHOWËN, now. “

“ ... “

“ Fine, I’ll go steam off again... “

The judge stomps his way, both general and smith sighing as they rub their faces. A rather unusua sight to see, for once the hot headed person wasn’t Thannor, Thanneth was just a few feets silent, watching with a rather flat look to her face as he turned away, somewhere while doing so letting grasp a glimpse of worry. Both prince and noble turn and lower their heads, their own heated thoughts blinding most of the spoken things... yet still showing some of it having nagged at both...

“ You both know he’s worried, don’t you two?. “

...

“ His prince is behaving more like his father, forcing people he’s claimed to care about unto horrendous acts, and hurting innocents as he does. trapped too deep in his own thoughts, by his own feelings almost beyond reason... if such isn’t already. With only seemingly the drive to cause harm, to his own people none the less, and the drive to see all he’s fought for burn too... “ He pauses. “ His sister is breaking at be back of us all, developing a bad habit for which she’s enganged in multiple arguments with someone, to cope with what has been going on these past months, Thanneth even has grown worried... Gilring has been drinking more often, and stronger drinks too... if she’s not smoking alone somewhere away, I would say I am impressed you managed that... “

“ Don’t you question my ledership now, General, I have every right to do as I so wish to with my kingdom, an you will comply. “

“ I don’t question your leadership, young man, that is beyond question and it is going into the field of judging and making critics on it. And sadly, I can no longer do different thanks to you, can’t I? “ He gives a stern stare before turning around to take a seat. “ Yes, you will do as you wish, but for the moment? I will have you both calm down before you let your own emotions, and fresh deaths, blind your own reason and judgement again unto needless violence... “

“ Needless?! HE DISOBEYED DIRECT ORDERS. “

“ Because you slaughtered people, and from what I head people you promised to relatively let go unscathered, a reasonable justification to act as he did. And you also approached towards him in an offensive pose as well. “ He answers, tone grave and not unlike a father or uncle scolding a child. “ Pray tell, what were you thinking as he did? I’ve lived enough to see men turn against others in blind rage, was it to hurt, or to murder for treason? “

“ You DARE... “

“ Yes, I do, you both are acting like petulant children, you more so than Agar. I am honestly frustrated, I did not spend years of my live training, living and helping grow a noble and a prince for this to happen. I do not know what goes around each other’s head entirely, but whatever it is, it is NOT enough to justify what has been going on, and how is had gone so... “ He sighs, a rumble on his throat clearing the annoying mucus, a still annoying left over from the excess of ash and smoke. of a few days before. “ Do tell me, am I wrong? And if so, do clear the interrogants, for I simply can’t understand what you both could think or go through to do these kind of things... “

...

Silence it is then, isn’t it?

“ Well then, have it your ways children, if you ever feel like talking, just mutter a word, I will be meditating the poison away from my mind... “

#|ic|#|their seven greatest|#|carpe fatum|#[ you think this can't get worse #but heeeeeeeeey guess there is a second part

4 notes · View notes

calleo-bricriu · 5 years

Note

I aspire my blogs to look like yours. It's actually so fun to just sit and read through - just thought you should know, so keep up the great work!

Honestly, it’s one of the few benefits of working in a high stress, high burnout, high full of infuriatingly dim people: I can rework it and channel it into Things Calleo Has To Deal With which makes the actual frustrating, stressful stuff I actually have to deal with about 100% less annoying.

Pretty much every unprompted rant he has about someone at the Ministry, I guarantee you is someone (usually someone with a C level title, a VP title, or a regional director title–or worse, a doctor. Doctors are the actual worst to work with, you’d swear they’re all seeing a computer for the first time with every ticket) I’ve had to deal with that made me die a little inside having to listen to them be wrong and not just double down on being wrong rather than admit that they’re wrong and don’t actually know how to do my job better than I do.

The rest of it is a combination of having written the character for close to 20 years and being flexible with how I can justify him doing things and interacting with others.

While there are some things I’m just not interested in, in general, I go with the Giant in the Playground philosophy of “Decide to React Differently” to keep RP going instead of shutting it down with, “There is only one way my character would respond to this” when that’s almost never the case if you stop and think about it beyond your first reaction.

The most notable part:

“Decide to React Differently: Have you ever had a party break down into fighting over the actions of one of their members? Has a character ever threatened repeatedly to leave the party? Often, intraparty fighting boils down to one player declaring, “That’s how my character would react.” Heck, often you’ll be the one saying it; it’s a common reaction when alignments or codes of ethics clash.

However, it also creates a logjam where neither side wants to back down. The key to resolving this problem is to decide to react differently. You are not your character, and your character is not a separate entity with reactions that you cannot control. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a player state that their character’s actions are not under their control. Every decision your character makes is your decision first. It is possible and even preferable for you to craft a personality that is consistent but also accommodating of the characters the other players wish to play.

When you think about a situation, ask yourself, “Is this the only way my character can react to this?” Chances are, the answer is, “No.” Try to refine your character so that you can deal with situations that conflict with your alignment/ethos without resorting to ultimatums, threats, etc. This will often mean thinking in terms of compromise and concession to your fellow players, or at the very least an agreement to disagree.”

In a similar vein, try to have a variety of thread styles; if, for example, the majority of what you post is shipping with a small handful of people others may assume, even if it’s an incorrect assumption, that you’re only interested in shipping and only interested in shipping with the friend group you already have so they may just not even try, especially if they’re not really looking into writing ships and only ships.

While everyone has their favorite kind of RP to write, if it’s all you write or the majority of what you write, you’re pigeonholing yourself and shrinking the pool of potential new partners.

I also find it much easier to get more involved if I don’t stick myself to an ultra detailed backstory that will almost never come up in RP and is largely just flavor text and little more.

When I do character creation, I start with a skeletal design of the basics of what I want from the character and build off of it; any backstory gets pieced together as RP happens and I have to come up with it on the fly. For me, it’s easier to get a character well developed by starting with a basic idea and slowly building on it as RP happens which is something Tumblr often insists is the “wrong way” and that you need to come up with novel length pages on backstory before you’re ‘ready’ and that’s discouraging enough that a lot of people give up before they even start.

And, honestly, the bleak truth is most people only skim those long biographies anyway. Very few people will sit through 5 pages worth of backstory, especially if very little of it is relevant to how IC interactions take place.

Write them if you enjoy writing them, but don’t expect or assume that anyone who doesn’t do the same doesn’t have a well developed character.

And also? Post for the sake of posting; I don’t mean aesthetic posts or constant memes, just post as your character.

This is something I’m more comfortable with as it’s how Livejournal RP games worked back in the day; you could tag something private and it was known that it was for ‘flavor’ to read OOC, you could tag things private to certain groups of people but leave the post public so everyone could read along, threads were often open threads, meaning anyone in the game could join in at any point (I kind of miss that aspect and it’s definitely not a thing on Tumblr, people here tend to be super closed off and keep threads between two characters).

Anything I have posted that is not tagged as owl or private is public and you are free to have your character join in the commentary, join in the conversation, post about what they overheard/saw/read, or send in asks about it.

Like, for example, all the quick back and forth Calleo tends to have with @retired-death-eater ? At the very least, if your character works at the Ministry, they probably would have overheard parts of the back and forth if not all of it.

But, anyway, just post. Have your character post about their day, about something they overheard in the staff room, about a weird thing they saw, about their hobbies, about something they’re reading/researching, about the last Quidditch game they saw, etc…even if nobody hits the heart button or comments, they’re still reading and it’s still giving them a clearer idea of what your character is like.

THAT all aside, do. not. gossip. OOC.

Nobody cares what fight you had with X player or that you don’t like how Y interprets a canon character or any of that; if you dislike someone’s writing, don’t follow them, soft block them, hard block them, use tag filters, us xkit’s blacklist, but don’t start complaining to everyone who will listen that you dislike that person because all it does is make you look bad.

It also makes people less likely to want to engage you out of fear that, the instant they slip up or do something you don’t like, instead of coming to them to explain the issue, you’ll just go behind their back.

If someone has legitimately treated you objectively badly OOC, it’s fine to ask overlapping RP partners to please not try to involve you in RP with that person and if you desperately feel the need to explain why, keep it to the facts of what actually happened. And never, ever try to tell your RP partners who they can and cannot RP with; that will and should get you dropped immediately as there is never a time it’s appropriate to do that.Asking them to please not involve your character with the player you had a falling out with? Cool and reasonable.

Demanding they stop RPing with that person too? No. Controlling, manipulative behavior and you will likely be rightfully dropped by multiple RP partners.

Creating “burn book” blogs or “anonymous confessions” blogs that accept negative submissions? Also no. You’ll eventually be found out, and you will likely rightfully be branded as a bully that people will not want to interact with out of fear of them ending up on one of those blogs if they ever do anything that even mildly annoys you.

#ooc #long post #tumblr rp is still so weird and insular to me and I dislike it strongly enough that I frequently just disregard it when it comes to my own #I'm not going to jump into other threads uninvited #but y'all can feel free to do that to any of my non-private things #and if you're not sure if I forgot to tag something as private just ask #hp rp #roleplaying advice #justasimplesecretary

9 notes · View notes

merrymemori · 5 years

Text

From @hellmori.

John ignores ten years of feelings for his best friend until it slowly overflows him.

For Elyse (@raven-reyes-of-sunshine). This wasn’t supposed to be this long, but the slow burn got the best of me. Merry Christmas <3

John and Emori had studied together since primary school. He was the poor kid who had lost his father, and she, the girl with the weird hand and the ugly scar on her face. Both targets of rejection, pity, and despise, they found their way to each other, their friendship built as a shield to fend off the outer world. Together they could face anything and anyone.

With the death of his father, John spent a lot of time at Emori’s house, mostly because he was afraid his mom would try to choke him in his sleep again. Otan, Emori’s brother, was the one who took care of him, who held him after nightmares, who made sure he was going to school and had what to eat every day. They felt more like his family than his own mother, who drank 24/7 to forget she had a son.

By the age of fourteen, John and Emori were inseparable. They walked to school together, they had lunch, they stood up for each other whenever someone mocked them. Emori actually punched one of their colleagues for insulting John, which got her a bloody knuckle and a three-day suspension – if you asked her, she’d say that it was worth the stinging pain in her right hand and every lecture she got, from her brother to the school principal.

Emori helped John with his homework whenever he was struggling with a math problem, and he helped her every time she had no idea where to start writing an English paper. They would sleep in the same room, she on the bed, he on an air mattress by her bedside, both falling in a world of dreams, where their path would cross in each one of them.

One year later, Emori had her first kiss. The feeling of being beat to it by his best friend wasn’t as unsettling as the fact that someone as cool and smart as Emori would want to kiss a guy as stupid as the boy she hooked up with. John thought she sure deserved better.

Whenever she talked about the kiss or the boy, something bubbled inside his chest, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say it made him feel weird. There were times when he’d want to turn his back and cold-shoulder her, especially when she justified her delay for being insecure about her hand, saying he was the first one to not reject her for it.

In John’s mind, a lot was wrong in her allegation. A, John didn’t give a damn about how old she would be when she kissed someone for the first time, and B, he had always said how badass her hand was, how she shouldn’t feel the need to hide it – how could she say that that guy was the first one? That was unacceptable.

Now, his lack of interest in having his first kiss always annoyed Emori to a point where she couldn’t stop asking him why he hasn’t done it yet. John tried to answer it politely the first couple of times, but his bad temper eventually made its way to the surface, retorting he didn’t want to kiss someone just because people said he should. That resulted in a one week fight, in which they would only talk to each other through Otan or one of their mutual friends, especially Raven or Monty, depending on where they were.

When John was old enough, the sleepovers and silly fights stayed in the past, and he had to face his fears. His mom still drank like that was the only possible thing in life, and her neglect wasn’t as surprising as it was when he was little. With the passing years also came the responsibilities; John started working part-time at a coffee shop downtown at the same time he studied for his SAT. He and Emori had discussed college plans, and he couldn’t wait to get out of that house, to move on far away from the ghosts of his past and the monsters of his present life – there was no way he would screw this up.

Emori would often doubt of her college potential, saying she wasn’t that smart, and why would any college want her? What does she have to offer to the academic world? John just thought that was nonsense, there was no need for her to be that nervous – even though their only hope of getting a better life was to move out and go to college, but she didn’t need to be reminded of that – and he took every chance he got to assure her she was brilliant.

The day Emori got her acceptance letter, John hadn’t received his yet. His heart was torn between being happy for her and being devastated for losing the only good thing in his life. And what the hell would he do without her? It was so easy for the broken and self-destructive part of his brain to believe that his fate was being stuck in a city he hates, with people that despise him, away from the one person he cares about. The damaged part of him drifted to all the ways Emori would forget him and move on without him. How she would graduate, get a job, a house, and eventually find someone to spend her life with. She would build a home and a family, in which there would be no place for him. With time, he would be nothing more than a faded memory in the corner of her brain, just a dusty fragment of her life racing into oblivion.

A week after John cried himself to sleep every night and Emori ran out of tears at the idea of moving away without her best friend, his letter arrived on the mail. The envelope was crumpled, the corners slightly damaged by what looked like water – and God knows what happened to it – but it was finally there.

John held the paper in his hands, his trembling fingers wrinkling it even more. “I can’t do it, you need to open it for me.”

As Emori took the envelope from his hands and read the words carefully, the way her face lit up with it didn’t leave any doubt. “You got in, John.”

He widened his blue eyes. “I got– I got in?”

Her lips molded into the most radiant smile while she lurched forward, the impact of her body on his making John lose balance and hit the wall behind him.

“Ow.”

Emori chuckled, caressing the spot on his head that collided with the wall. “Sorry.”

He laughed, and she hugged him so tight it got him paying attention to how the smell of her hair was so vivid inside his nostrils, to how her chest was crushed against his, to how close she was to his –

“I’m so proud of you,” Emori whispered in his ear.

She kissed his cheek, lingering on his skin more than she usually did, but he banished every theory that dared to pop into his mind – they were just friends, it’s not like anything past that was ever going to happen.

“Thanks.”

Abandoning all the pain and harm in his past life, John and Emori rented a house with their group of friends – Raven, Bellamy, Monty, Echo, and Harper. Each of them would go their own way during classes, from English literature to history, chemistry to sociology, anatomy to calculus. They all shared one class, though – astronomy – and the fact that they used that to name their group space squad made John feel like they were still in middle school at the same time it warmed his heart for being a part of something that good.

During their sophomore year, John lost his mother – not that the woman who beat the crap out of him and remembered him every day of how he got his father killed was his mom, but still. Emori insisted in accompanying him, saying he shouldn’t go through that alone, and together, they hopped on the next plane. Back at their hometown, Emori and Otan helped John with the funeral, even though there was no one to attend to. John watched his mother be laid to rest by his father’s side with Emori’s hand in his, her grip guaranteeing that she was there for him and that he would never be alone or hurt again for as long as her heart beat.

On their way back to Emori and Otan’s house, thunders traveled through the sky and bolts of white lightning flashed in the blackness above them, announcing the rain that would soon pour down. As John stood on the sidewalk, just a few meters away from the faded blue house with the brown lawn and the broken windows, cool raindrops fell on his face, wiping his soul clean. Emori held him close, her arms wrapped around his neck while the ache, guilt, and resentment that had been consuming his body for years left alongside with his tears, the rain washing it all away. Around them, the blinding light and the rolling thunders reminded him that even the strongest of storms would eventually be over.

As their graduation day grew closer, John could barely believe that he, the guy who thought he wasn’t worth or capable of having a future and building a life for himself, was actually graduating in something he loved. Emori still mocked him, saying he was already a softie before majoring in English Literature. John, of course, didn’t miss the opportunity, replying she already spaced out a lot, she didn’t need an Aerospace Engineering degree to attest that.

When their graduation took place, John and Emori had met before the ceremony. He was wearing a white dress shirt, black pants, and formal shoes, the light blue tie around his neck only making him uncomfortable. At the moment his eyes landed on Emori, his heart skipped a beat, and he had to remind himself to breathe. Walking towards him, there she was, smiling so brightly in a long black dress, her arms and hands unconcealed. He was momentarily stunned at the sight of her fleshy lips tinted red, her short hair curled down her back, her formal dress bringing out the curves of her body.

He cleared his throat, trying to pull himself together as his eyes denied his command, getting an eyeful of her. “Wow, you look– you look beautiful.”

With her high heels shoes on, she was almost the same height as he, about two inches shorter. Emori scanned his body up and down, raising a hand to put a lock of his hair back into place. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

During the ceremony, as he held his diploma in his hand, the black academic dress weighing on his body, he watched Emori walk across the stage. All the way, she held a blinding smile on her lips, her badass hand holding the diploma cover, her cap restraining the curly locks of her hair from dancing in the wind. John was pretty sure she was the most beautiful girl in the room, hands down. She walked towards her row, winking at him on her way back, and he didn’t know if it was the thrill of graduation or if he was having other sorts of feelings, but it made his cheeks flush and his heart flutters inside his chest.

In that same year, space squad spent New Year’s Eve on the front yard of their house, drinking bubbly champagne and watching as fireworks painted the sky. They were one step behind the new year, and John couldn’t stop thinking about Emori’s honest yet drunk proposal in their graduation party, saying they should kiss at midnight if neither of them had a date. Was that why he turned down the cute girl from his creative writing class when she reached out to him a week after their graduation?

With every passing second, his heart hammered harder in his chest. He was being stupid again, obviously. Emori probably didn’t even remember she had said that, it was just a funny thing to say at the moment because they were both dancing and laughing like crazy.

Ten, nine, eight–

“Hey, stranger.”

Drawing his eyes from the cheerful sky, Emori wrapped her arms around him, resting a hand on the back of his neck, her fingers playing with his hair, giving him goosebumps.

“Hey,” he answered, not fighting the goofy smile on his lips.

She smiled shyly. “Is our deal still on?”

Okay, so she did remember it. In his mind, knowing that she was conscious when that offer took place would make things easier, but it was not that simple in reality. Did that mean she was being serious? That she wanted it to happen? Was she looking forward to it too?

John nodded, swallowing the anxious laugh that tried to emerge from him. Emori nodded back.

Three, two, one!

“Happy New Year,” she whispered against his lips.

Feeling her smile, he took her mouth in his, just a quick and soft peck on the lips for his lack of experience. He told himself he was fine with it because what if he was sloppy or had bad breath or if he clashed his teeth with hers if he dared to deepen the kiss? Oh God, how embarrassing would that be?

Emori, on the other hand, didn’t share the same concern. After he reluctantly released her, she kissed him once, then again, and again, and again, until all his insecurities melted away and her bottom lip was trapped between his.

The whistling and popping sounds of the glowing fireworks above them could easily be mistaken by the ones inside his chest, the technicolor explosion of her lips tinting his monochromatic heart.

Emori jolted him when she unexpectedly broke their kiss, his whole body shivering with the sudden loss of her warmth. They both stared at each other, gasping and panting, taking in what had just happened. John glanced at her lips, at how her lipstick was a little smudged by then.

He pointed at his mouth. “You have– just a little bit–”

Emori frowned.

He groaned at his ridiculous incoherence and exasperated attempt to sound cool about the kiss, but his brain seemed like it had liquified with the taste of her tongue. John reached for her, brushing his thumb softly on her bottom lip, trying to wipe the lipstick off her skin. Her gaze and parted lips didn’t help, of course, as he caught himself drawn by them again.

She thanked him, taking a step back. “Happy New Year, John.”

He watched as she walked away, glancing over her shoulder once before joining Raven on the porch. “Happy New Year, Mori.”

The kiss subject died there.

Two years later, with Emori working in an aerospace manufacturer and John as a high school teacher, he finally started dating but, of course, the universe had to conspire against him, making his girlfriend overflow with hate for his best friend. The first time they met, John thought Ontari would stab Emori with a fork as she watched them hug, burning Emori alive with her unkind gaze. In the beginning, he thought it was his mind playing tricks on him now that he finally had someone, that he was overreacting, and Ontari wasn’t that jealous of him.

A few months went by and John moved in with Ontari. If you asked Emori for her opinion on that matter, she would say he was blind, and that living together was the biggest mistake of his life. The thing was that yes, perhaps Ontari was a bit violent sometimes, but it was nothing he hadn’t experienced before. Besides, he really didn’t think he was the kind of guy who could be loved so fondly it made people want to throw up. No, the only type of love he knew was the one that hurt and bled and stung, and that was all he expected of others.

When he first reconsidered his relationship with Ontari, Emori had just seen the bruises on his face, a dark circle on his cheek, his swollen bottom lip from a cut. There had others before that time; slaps to the face, punches to the gut, a cigarette burn once on his chest – some of them weren’t visible, and if they were, John was really good in hiding them.

Emori, holding his face in both of her hands, brushed her thumb softly on the unharmed part of his lip, her eyes evaluating the lesions. “Did she do this to you?”

“It was nothing.”

“Like hell it was.”

She tilted his head to get a better look at the purple coloring his cheek, shaking her head. “She’s hurting you.”

Emori sighed, dropping her hands by her side. “You can’t keep doing this, John. You don’t deserve this.”

John snorted. “What is it? Is it because I started dating? Are you jealous or something?”

Emori huffed. “That isn’t dating, John. It’s abuse.”

“No, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

That same night, Ontari wasn’t so pleased after knowing he met Emori, just the two of them. All the while he tried to explain they were just friends, she had him pinned against a wall, her hands locked around his throat. With shortness of breath, his mind took him to his best friend, to her worried words, the gentleness in her eyes, the touch of her skin on his lips. Oh, how he wished he had listened to her.

He waited until Ontari had had enough, choking him and forcing him to do things he really didn’t want to, letting her fall into a peaceful sleep before gathering all his things and heading to Emori’s place. He knew better than to hang around and wait to end things nicely – there was no nice with Ontari. She had hurt him before, several times, but that was the first time he felt scared. He was not going to put up with it anymore, not after what he’d been through with his mom, that was for sure.

Emori’s jaw dropped at the same instant she opened the door, noticing the purple bruise circling his throat. She reached for him, her hesitant fingers brushing lightly on the mark, her touch sending shivers down his spine.

Her voice was low. “What happened?”

“You were right,” John replied, taken over by embarrassment. “Can I stay here for a few days?”

Emori wrapped her hands around his waist, nodding against his chest. “Stay as long as you need.”

John held her tightly, arguing with his mind to keep his mouth shut, to not expose ten years of bottled up feelings in that specific moment. Maybe he could tell her some other time, when the Ontari situation was already lost in the past. But what if he was too late? Could he ever bear seeing the woman he loves with another guy or girl?

Should he continue to ignore his emotions, and move on with her being just his friend? Or should he hold on to the tiny string of hope he had inside him? Well, they did kiss two years ago – did she remember it? Did she want it? Did she like it?

“Is it over?” Emori asked against his sweater, the vibration of her voice provoking an earthquake inside his chest.

He nodded. “I mean, not really. But she would’ve followed me if I had stuck around. I couldn’t, Mori, I–”

She held him tighter, caressing the space between his shoulder blades. “I know, I know.”

Emori pulled back, her questioning eyes staring at him. “But you don’t… love her, do you? I mean, you’re not coming back to her, right?”

John denied, shaking his head. Acting out of fear, and with the thought of “better said than sorry” in his mind, he plucked up the courage, forcing the words out, “That was never gonna work.”

“Yeah, but you don’t–”

“No, Emori, I could never love her,” John cut her off. He sighed, closing his eyes. “I can’t because she’s never gonna be you.”

“John?” She called him, her endearing voice making his eyelids fly open instantly.

Her bottom lip trembled, her kind brown eyes melting before his. “I need you to tell me something.”

“What?” He whispered.

“I need to know how you really feel…” she said, “about me.”

“Mori, I–“

John sighed. He always had a deep passion for words. How someone always came up with the right thing to say or write, the pleasant sound of each letter combination, the infinite interpretation of sentences. Words always sounded so beautiful, so pure, so meaningful, but, at the same time, so meaningless. When it came to express his own feelings, no matter how hard he tried, words would never express the same magnitude as his actions. Maybe he wasn’t able to tell her, but maybe he could show her.

He cupped her face, slowly narrowing the gap between them, a part of his brain still certain that she was going to push him off and slap him in the face. When he saw her eyelids close, John brushed his lips against hers, feeling the warm, minty breath from her parted ones, the reluctance yet magnetic pull between their mouths. Emori circled her arms around his middle, her hands exploring the soft wool of his sweater under her palms.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips, and he smiled widely, feeling his heart fuss inside his chest.

Emori made sure not to meet his bruised lip, her mouth kissing the corner of his and taking the liberty to lock his top lip between hers as he tangled his hands in her hair, smelling the scent of her shampoo just as vivid as that day she hugged him, the day he realized another switch had turned on inside his heart. His lips tingled from the electrical sparks her touch gave him, exactly like the first time they kissed, and his body frequently gasped for air with every slide of her hands on his back.

Emori rested her forehead against his, both of them sharing the same air, the quick rise and fall of their chests trying to catch their breath. Years of unspoken feelings floated around them, dancing and twirling in the cold winter breeze, celebrating their freedom, as they held onto each other.

John shook his head. “I’ve been feeling this for so long.”

Emori chuckled. “Me too.”

She softly brushed a knuckle on his cheek, lowering her hand to the colored circle around his throat, placing a gentle kiss on his bruised skin.

“I promise I’ll never hurt you,” she whispered against his neck.

He nodded, swallowing hard, taking her face in both his hands to look into her eyes. “What do we do now?”

Emori smiled. “Now,” she said, laying a soft kiss on his lips, “we allow ourselves to be happy.”

A lopsided smile took shape in his mouth. “No more wasting time.”

John lifted Emori off the ground, wrapping her legs around his waist, his smile growing wider as she giggled in his ear, the most adorable sound echoing inside his brain. With a light kick, he closed the door behind him, both of them disappearing inside her apartment.

#hellmori #raven-reyes-of-sunshine #merry memori 2018

11 notes · View notes