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#i hate them so much and i wish they never existed. its making me stronger supposedly but the only thing i feel like its actually doing is
strwbrymlkshake · 6 months
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It's difficult dealing with so many people who think we aren't meant to be with eachother. I don't get why someone else's relationship can mean so much to bystanders. Can't you find something else to do?
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oh-shtars · 1 month
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Hello flick’s cool alternative blog! Can I christen it with a prompt? Give any random thing you’re excited to explore in your AU
Heeeyy!!!!! ✨✨
You know, I was planning to accompany this ask with doodles but I’m going to have a busy week and most likely won’t get the time. But then I didn’t want to keep you waiting for a while so. DAMMIT-
For now, I’ll answer this with words. But keep an eye out for the RFTS!Drawing Dump I’d be posting here on @oh-shtars. (Friendly reminder to follow this RFTS!Blog if you haven’t already.)
But yeah, some random things I’m excited to explore in the Reach for the Stars!AU! :)
1. Valentino
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “wtf Flicker-?” Hear me out first.
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I did attempt to make Valentino (or ‘Tino’ for short) a lot more endearing than his canon version. And honestly, I grew to like the little guy.
He’s just a 1 month old kid who views Asha as his parent after his actual mother rejected him. (Some animal moms tend to do that.) Once he was bottle-fed and grew stronger, he’s ready to face the world head-first.
No really, he would headbutt anything that bothers him or Asha, regardless of who they are. She even adorably dubbed him her “loyal protector.” Don’t worry, the headbutts don’t hurt as much and the worst they can be is annoying. Tino is impulsive and brave but cares a whole lot about Asha.
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He didn’t like Star at first, even when the latter tried to ensure him he’s no threat. Tino disliked him for scaring Asha at their first meeting and over the story, gets a little jealous and bratty that he’s getting a lot closer to her. Like a lot… Idk, I find it funny that their first interaction is something like:
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But eventually, Tino grows to like him and comes to become protective and endearing to BOTH of them now. Just imagine this scene, but instead of Canon!Star, Tino was more than ready to charge at Magnifico while RFTS!Asha and Star lunged to stop him:
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So yeah. I, Flicker, had gotten to love RFTS!Valentino more than I expected. Not only would he be a little comedic animal sidekick, but he’s going to play a neat role in the final battle and have Asha’s back the entire time, while not letting his size stop him.
Tino’s going to be fun to write :))
………
2. Magnifico’s Character
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Remember when I said RFTS!Magnifico is just brimming with unresolved trauma/issues? Well, then he projects all that towards people that don’t deserve it. He’s sour and furious on how the universe turned its back on him as a little kid when he watched his village get destroyed.
And under being raised by his adoptive father, who just never seems to listen to him, Magnifico thirsts for revenge and thinks he deserves to get the world that he and Amaya were denied from. So he would step on other people to get his way.
Another thing about him, is that the moment Magnifico discovered Wishing Stars exist, he genuinely thought they ignored his pleas for help and downright hates it. He unleashes that frustration onto Star and his whole kind.
Frustrations like how people only really care about you for your potential and the things you can offer. Mag had a belief that King Oliver had only took him in just so that he would have an heir for the throne, but didn’t actually loved or cared for him like a son. (Which wasn’t true.) So Magnifico projected that onto Star for the past decade he was caged, stating that:
“You know people only value you for what you could offer…. In your case, it’s your ability to grant wishes. For mine, it’s being a sorcerer AND an heir... But without all that..Well, you can really only imagine…”
So guess where Star’s insecurities came from:
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RFTS!Magnifico is going to be an interesting villain, that’s for sure.
……..
3. Asha’s Wish
Asha, before and through the story, has a little habit she does every night before going to sleep. She whispers to the sky her wishes and desires and some of her concerns.
It’s a little thing her father used to do with her before he passed away, and she holds onto it as a memory of him. Tomás used to say that if she does this every night, then she wakes up the next day feeling refreshed and start the morning new. Maybe, just maybe, the stars above would be listening and would try to help.
Present Asha now believes that all those stories were just fairytales but she still hung onto them dearly since it’s one of the remaining things left of her dad. She also has this one wish:
“For everything to go back to the way it was. When dad is still here and that I never drifted away from my 7 friends. To wake up and see that the incident was just a mere dream.”
Welp….I sure hope that one wish doesn’t come back to bite her in the arse anytime soon-
…….
4. The 7 Teens
Somehow, I found a way I could make each of them have a part to play. Each friend that Asha had gotten estranged from ever since the “incident with her dad,” share a bit about themselves and rekindle their relationship with Asha. These short plots would be scattered at certain times throughout the story as Asha and Star encounter them on their journey.
And at the same time, each teen presents a positive trait of theirs that shows a very cautious Star, how not all humans are terrible people. Each show an example of an admirable trait:
Safi - Selflessness and integrity. Helping others even if it inconveniences him (Allergies)
Simon - Protectiveness. He means well but it doesn’t always show up right.
Bazeema - Consideration and kindness for others. (Doing small things to make them comfortable)
Dahlia - Determination + Loyalty
Dario - Patience + Forgiveness (Especially since he’s hard of hearing)
Gabo - Justice and hatred towards prejudice (it’s why he’s grumpy)
Hal - Helpfulness and the happiness received from doing so
Asha - Empathy and Love for others
Basically, these group of friends revive Star’s wonder and slowly help him become more trusting and open. In Star’s eyes, it’s amazing how they do all these incredible things for others even without the need for magic!
Idk, I think all this would be a very sweet thing to brainstorm. Haven’t finished developing this idea yet but I’m loving it so far 💖
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ausetkmt · 9 months
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Top 26 Assata Shakur Quotes: Wars, Government and People
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Assata Olugbala Shakur is a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted of being an accomplice in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster. She has been on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorist list since 2013 as Joanne Deborah Chesimard and was the first woman to be added to this list. Check out some of the top Assata Shakur quotes here.
26 Assata Shakur Quotes That Took the World by the Storm
Assata Shaku Quotes on People
#1. “The only ones who can free us are ourselves.” — Assata Shakur
#2. “At this time, I’d like to say a few words, especially to my sisters. Black people will never be free unless black women participate in every aspect of our struggle, on every level of our struggle.” — Assata Shakur
#3. “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” — Assata Shakur
#4. “People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.” — Assata Shakur
#5. “We had to learn that we’re beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active.” — Assata Shakur
#6. “When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear.” — Assata Shakur
#7. “In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.” — Assata Shakur
#8. “The more you understand what you’re dealing with, the stronger you get. People see fear as a bad thing. Fear is healthy when you’re dealing with Amerika. But when fear controls you, when you’re afraid to struggle, fear is a bad thing. I’m more afraid of what will happen if I don’t struggle, than what will happen if I do.” — Assata Shakur
#9. “People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.” — Assata Shakur
#10. “I think that the movement against the World Bank, against the globalization process that is happening, is very positive. We need globalization, a globalization of people who are committed to social justice, to economic justice. We need a globalization of people who are committed to saving this earth, to making sure that the water is drinkable, that the air is breathable.” — Assata Shakur
#11. “People are really beginning to see the mechanisms of imperialism. When colonialism existed people could see colonialism. When racial segregation existed in its apartheid form, people could see the whites only signs. But it’s much more difficult to see the structures of neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, neo-slavery.” — Assata Shakur
Assata Shakur Quotes on War
#12. “I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise, I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter. You know, I would be free to be so much more. I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior – a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.” — Assata Shakur
#13. “I think that the greatest betrayal that a revolutionary can participate in is to become like the people you are struggling against. To become like your persecutors. I think that is a betrayal and a sin.” — Assata Shakur
#14. “I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.” — Assata Shakur
#15. “Freedom! You asking me about freedom. I’ll be honest with you. I know a whole more about what freedom isn’t than about what it is, ’cause I’ve never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.” — Assata Shakur
#16. “If you’re deaf, dumb, and blind to what’s happening in the world, you’re under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what’s happening and you don’t do anything but sit on your ass, then you’re nothing but a punk.” — Assata Shakur
#17. “My experience in the United States was living in a society that was very much at war with itself, that was very alienated. People felt not part of a community, but like isolated units that were afraid of interaction, of contact, that were lonely.” — Assata Shakur
#18. “I think that in order to struggle you have to be creative. In my life, creativity has been something that has sustained me; it awoke my spiritual struggle.” — Assata Shakur
#19. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” — Assata Shakur
#20. “The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive.” — Assata Shakur
Assata Shakur Quotes on Government
#21. “I had to adjust to living in a Third World country, which means that things people in the U.S. take for granted-like hot running water whenever you turn on the tap-are not always available.” — Assata Shakur
#22. “I couldn’t see how we could seriously struggle without having a strong sense of collectivity, without being responsible FOR each other and TO each other.” — Assata Shakur
#23. “I found that people had all kinds of levels of consciousness, all kinds of levels of education, but that Cubans in general were very educated politically. I could go sit in a bus and get into a conversation with someone and that person had a wealth of knowledge. And energy!” — Assata Shakur
#24. “I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America.” — Assata Shakur
#25. “Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.” — Assata Shakur
#26. “Are you ready to sacrifice to end world hunger? To sacrifice to end colonialism? To end neocolonialism? To end racism? To end sexism?” — Assata Shakur
Conclusion
Assata Shakur holds a reputation as a militant activist and supporter of the Black Lives Movement. She is a household figure in fighting the wave of sexism and racism. Her words inspire millions today.
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heaven-s-black-box · 6 months
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Eye for an Eye- Kurotsuki
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Recovery date: January 17th, 2020
Description: Your main character’s boring, predictable life is shaken when they discover a stranger dying in an alley. They went to call 911 but the person begs them not to. They decide to take them back to their place to fix them up. Once the mysterious stranger is better and feels stronger, they reveal that they are actually a supernatural being. Their species holds strong to the “eye for an eye” and that includes saving lives. Your protagonist is now stuck with this being as their sidekick until they are able to save their life. At first, this is annoying, until feelings start to develop.
Notes: Recovery was done in conjunction with @potato-qween69. We thank them for their help. Content warning for Death.
Word count: 602
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This isn’t the first time Tsukki’s seen Kuroo slumped against an alley wall bleeding out. But as time passed he had hoped it would be the last. They met in a situation similar to this, Kuroo had been slumped against the back alley of his apartment building. Tsukki had found him bleeding out when he went to take out the trash. He checked his pulse and as he reached for his phone to call 911, Kuroo opened his eyes and stopped him. 
He couldn’t let him die, so he resorted to trying to inconspicuously haul Kuroo up to his apartment. He ended up slinging his arm over his shoulder, and when one of his neighbors caught him, he said his friend had had a little too much to drink. Tsukki’s patch job had been crude, but it did its job. Kuroo was out for a few days after but every time Tsukki went to call 911, something told him not too, so he didn’t. 
This time the wound was much worse, which is hard because the last time he had a pretty bad gut wound. Tsukki knelt beside him and reached to put pressure on the wound. Kuroo let out a small groan of pain, and Tsukki cringed. It must really hurt he thought. This was all his fault, if he hadn’t saved Kuroo that day, no… if he hadn’t started that stupid fight and stormed off, Kuroo would be fine. He would be bleeding out like that first fateful day.
He still remembers thinking Kuroo might be some escaped psychiatric patient when he said he was a god. It wasn’t until he showed him the almost perfectly healed wound that Tsukki thought he might not be entirely human. When Kuroo refused to leave, he only got an answer of ‘I owe you my life.’ At first, he wished Kuroo’s debt would hurry up and be repaid, but now… now he never wanted it to. 
“Look… I finally- finally repaid that debt,” Kuroo coughed up some blood, "that you hate so much.”
That was a lie, he didn’t hate the debt… anymore. He’d trade his life for Kuroo’s in a heartbeat now. But… during their last fight, the one right before he ran off, he had wished for the debt to be repaid, for Kuroo to leave him alone. That couldn’t be further from the truth, and he realized that now more than ever. 
As kuroo’s eyes began to shut, Tsukki became more and more panicked.
"No. No. No!” he began to raise his voice, “You can’t go! You can’t leave me!” He began to sob, “Please… you can’t… I- I love you.”
He knew Kuroo heard him from the small smile on his lips. And he was glad, glad that he could make Kuroo smile before he died. Do-Do gods die he wondered. It didn’t matter, whether just his body died or his whole existence vanished, Kuroo had no reason to come back to him. Tsukki hates himself for this.
Months pass, what had been a cool fall slowly turned into a frigid winter. That’s why Tsukki found himself at a cafe him and Kuroo used to frequent. It hurt, but he knew he had to move on. That was until the chair in front of him was pulled out. Looking over the edge of his book he wanted to scream.
“Excuse me,” the man with pitch black hair and golden eyes asked smirking, "is this seat taken?”
Maybe he hadn’t screwed up too badly… Or maybe this was a second chance. Either way, he wouldn’t waste it.
"No, it’s not.”
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peanutbutteresque · 1 year
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salut, bonjour, guten dag, ciao!
get to know me and le château of my mind (っ˘ڡ˘)っ♨
⍣ i never get caffeinated even after drinking two cups of coffee in less than 10 minutes time gap (i feel like i can pull five cups of coffee in a day and still feel nothing, haven’t tried it yet but i’m pretty confident). it is probably because i have been having lattes, not that tiny yet deadly shots of espresso or proper drip coffee. i normally have one instant coffee and low-calorie sweetener dissolve in small amount of hot water, then put some ice cubes, and at last, pour the pricey-but-hard-to-resist oat milk on it cause we need to balance that less than a dollar grinded coffee with a five dollars milk. believe me, this simple recipe creates a decent typa coffee. it does taste so good and addicting but it doesn’t kick in, i need something stronger which means more acidity and bitterness that i don’t think my tummy is ready for a level up yet. i’m saying this all as if i’m in a person who needs a specific dose of caffeine per day to get their busy business life done lol wrong person *cough cough*. but no, i adore coffee and its caffeine on behalf of dopamine and antioxidant. i also do have a very special coffee buddy whom i cherish the most. we have paired our lattes with an interesting range of food, we went from cakes/cookies to instant noodles. we literally have everything with our lattes. i wish we can go out more and do cafes hopping to explore all the coffee recipes that exist. anyway, y’all better drink water more than coffee, we can’t deny the fact that it’s 100000 times healthier and more important than that colored drinks. 
⍣ i am an aries, yup, “the leader” of all the signs, the hard to get, the dominating, the chaser, the independent, mr/ms. confident, the headstrong, type of personality, and the list goes on. frankly, i don’t always feel like i own those natures, it feels like i lean more toward the soft and emotional kind of aries. i can be as indecisive as a libra, sometimes confidence doesn’t seem to be my strong suit, i can’t always say what’s on my mind like most of the aries i know seem to be really good at, i tend to put myself on other’s shoes, i think too much than i act, there were numbers of argument i lost because i chose to breakdown and cried rather than defense myself, i can be as gossipy as gemini. just like many aries, i do have a perfection side but it often leads to me being angry and depressed about it. they said, aries is the type of person who is strong and reliable, i might seen as one with my appearance and how i am in my daily life. can’t deny the fact that people see me as a joker, i always make them laugh in any occasion with or without a purpose. i often wonder, am i doing it because they expect me to do so or is there even a possibility that i am a natural joker? hate to break it to you, i don’t think so, it is true that deep down, i am a wreck, i am lost, i am scared, i do not know what to do. the future i once had a clear vision of seems blurry right now. i need someone to wake up the real sleeping aries in me, she must know how to face a situation like this with such grace and poise. anyway, sorry for turning this into a journal but it will eventually just so you know ;)
⍣ let’s get into the real business, i will use this space to post reviews about movies and tv shows (mostly on netflix and disney+) have watched that leave strong impressions on me. it actually will be rewritten from the reviews i have done on my instagram. most of them posted in close friends, and please note that i have a really really small circle, that’s why i’m planning to re-post them on this platform so it will be more accessible. since i am a full-time fangirl, i will also be liking, re-blogging and might be posting everything about my favorite artists, be it holywood peeps, kpop or cpop idols (mostly wang yibo and xiao zhan)!! 
thank you for coming to my ted talk. please check out my blog regularly for the new updates! take care my loves and be happy! see you latte(r)! <3
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moon-lv3r · 9 months
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soulmates ~ bruabba pt 2
🦋 category: angst, hurt no comfort, one-shot, soulmate au
🦋 characters: bucciarati, abbacchio
🦋 summary: au – in which people are born with red strings from their pinky that attach itself to their soulmate. the string would not appear until soulmate is born. the string appears physical but one can pass their hand through it. only you can see your own string and where it leads
the life of leone abbacchio and everything that contributed to his unfortunate downfall, never meeting his soulmate. all he had were regrets
part 1 - bruno’s pov
part 2 - leone’s pov
🦋 warnings: mentions of drug abuse, overd0sing and abuse
🦋 notes: wrote this at 4am!! took me like weeks to finish but here’s part 2 of the bruabba soulmate au! hope you guys enjoy it hehehehehehe~ i should give them a happy ending next time
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The young boy watched as rats ran about the house as though they had lived here.
His parents fought day and night, screaming about how someone like them could be their soulmate. What was soulmate really? How were his parents right for each other when all they did was a screaming match? Wasn’t finding the right one for you all about happiness? Why had it led to a life of misery for him?
Would the right person ever make life a misery for each other?
As the years went by, Leone eventually learned that his parents were in fact, not each other’s soulmate. Their respective soulmates had died and they learned to deal with it, finding each other at their worst and spiraling into the negatives.
Soulmates had to be a curse.
Love had to be the worst curse of all.
He wondered why his parents stayed with each other when they clearly hated each other so much. He was tired of their constant nonsense. He had to be the one to comfort his younger siblings whenever tears escaped from their eyes when their screaming matches often forced its way into their ears. But who was there to comfort him?
Leone Abbacchio had nobody.
Leone often told bedtime stories to his younger siblings, trying to drown out the fights that were occurring. He always did his best to comfort them, make the place feel like an actual home. All he wanted was for his siblings to have a normal childhood. His younger sister once asked why were their parents together, to which he responded, “Pfft, I don’t care about them. Just… get out of here when you can. Forget they ever existed. Find a proper family because this one, is broken, you don’t need this.” He changed the topic, it wasn’t a topic which he knew the answer to.
As fate would have it, the truth of their parents' marriage eventually slipped out.
“If I hadn’t slept with you and ended up pregnant with Leone, what makes you think I would’ve stayed?” His mother shouted during one of their matches. “You and Leone are my biggest mistakes ever!”
Leone stood in a corner as his siblings huddled him. He stared. His mother stared back. “What are you looking at boy? Don’t make me say it again.”
He was only a teenager when the truth came out. 15. He did what any 15 year old would do, he ran. He left the house, encouraged by his mother and protested by his siblings. Their cries were not enough to change his mind. The fury he had was stronger than ever.
Leone walked about his dirty neighborhood as a drunken woman walked by. Mrs Giovanna. All she did was go out to party, often leaving her son home. Leone turned around to see a young boy carrying the now passed out lady into their home. Why was everyone so messed up? What was soulmate really? Why had it caused all of this? The tragedy that was his life.
He stared up at the peaceful night sky. Away in the distance were the city lights, crowds filled the streets, people’s chatters headed for his ears, they seemed to live such peaceful lives. He wished that he could have that. Why couldn’t he have it all?
The stars seemed to be smiling down at him, pitying the fate that was the life of Leone Abbacchio. Perhaps the stars above were laughing at him, for his lack of an ability to shine. Leone was just a mere trash in an alleyway that nobody would ever stop to pay attention to. When was the last time he had cried?
“Hey boy, fancy some?” A ragged old man stood behind him, flashing rows of gum with a few rotten teeth left. In his mouth was a burnt cigarette. His eyes were as bloodshot as one can be. Not a single rational thought was behind his mind. Leone knew who he was. The sole drug dealer in his neighbourhood. It was hard to believe that he was a man in his thirties when he looked well beyond his years due to the substances he consumed on a daily basis. But it seemed to be able to help him cope…
“Give me your weakest,” Leone ordered. A small one wouldn’t hurt him right?
The weakest grew. Leone was becoming a changed man. Now he would engage in fighting his parents instead of protecting his younger siblings. His younger sister naturally took that role as she watched her elder brother spiral down into the abyss. He couldn’t fight it… not when there were drugs scattered about their home, courtesy to their parents. He needed that high.
“Hey!” Leone shouted at his mother, who was looking to pick a fight with him.
She glared at him, “You dare talk to your mother like this?” She spat. “I will not tolerate th-“
“Shut up! You stupid…” Leone uttered as his eyes drifted to his younger sister standing away in a corner, watching the shell that was her older brother. “Tch… You stupid woman…” He got up and slammed the door of his room. He began engaging in his substances again, unable to quit. Why was it so addicting? He had stolen this from his parents, after running out of money to get some.
The ecstasy he received from those white poison. He suddenly forgot about the troubles he had. It was like he was floating in heaven, living his best life. It was like he was shining among the stars. It was like he was living a life without troubles. He couldn’t free himself from the one thing that helped him forget… Even though it was slowly killing him. It was slowly driving him over the edge.
It wasn’t a surprise when the day came where he hit his own father in front of his whole family. His younger sister ushered all of the younger ones into their bedroom and told them a bedtime story so that they would sleep… just like Leone used to do. Leone was only a mere 15 years old, his sister was 10.
His younger sister had tried to get him off drugs but his withdrawal symptoms were so bad that he could somehow make their already broken home look less like a home. It wasn’t a scene a young child should see, much less endure. Yet, that was the fate of the Abbacchios. Drugs were ruining their household. Everything was ruined. All because of the death of their parents’ respective soulmates.
No wonder none of the children believed in soulmates.
It was the cause of all of their sufferings. It was horrible. It was terrible. How were they supposed to lead a normal life when all they knew were suffering?
At age 16, Leone had already dropped out of school, after an episode of him wrecking everything in his way. It wasn’t a pleasant thing, much less pleasant when Leone’s sister had no choice but to go on behalf of her parents to the discipline office because they were too high to even move. It was a ridiculous scene, yet nobody seemed to realise that something was going on. Maybe they did, but didn’t care enough to get help for the children.
The children had nobody in the cruel world they had little choice but to live in.
Things kept deteriorating. So was Leone’s addiction. He couldn’t go a day without using a single substance, it was a miracle he was still alive. It terrified his younger sister, while his parents did little to stop him. They were still fighting each other and encouraging Leone, often sharing their prized possessions and getting high together.
His younger sister had completely taken over his role as the younger siblings’ caretaker. It was too much. She wanted to blame Leone… but was it really his fault? When it was the environment they were welcomed in that made him that way? She moved her hatred towards her parents and protecting her siblings.
She wanted her elder brother back.
Leone Abbacchio had officially lost himself, at the young age of 16.
Drugs had overtaken him. He was nothing without a single powder. Not a day went by without him getting high on any substance he could get his hands on. If he didn’t take any, his parents would have to face his wrath, but his parents would fight him as well. Peace was something no Abbacchios knew of.
Years slipped by, the situation never improved. Leone was now an adult. He was 20, but he had never truly lived up to that age. His younger sister was now 15, yet she was the one who lived up to that age. She was now at the age at which Leone stopped living, before completely losing himself at 16. She still held onto the hope that her elder brother would return, and save her the responsibilities and get everyone out of the mess they called home.
Leone often returned home with new drugs, or fired from a new job. His sister often confided in their neighbour, a boy of the same age as her named Giorno Giovanna. Their similar situation led them to become friends. She finally had someone to share her troubles with. Leone was glad that she could at least find a decent friend, though he hadn’t liked that blonde stuck up much. But he was still better than him. All the friends Leone had could only encourage his addict behaviour, he just can’t quit it.
Their parents still remained the same. The younger siblings were at the age where they could slightly understand what was going on. It was a sad situation all around. One that seemed to be never ending. They were all trapped in this hell loop.
It wasn’t until one opportunity presented itself that Leone finally figured out a solution. He was going to murder their parents, but he wasn’t going to get caught for it. Leone was the one in charge of cooking, so it would be easy to spike their food. His parents often used drugs so dying of an overdose didn’t seem too far fetched either. It was like a perfect solution. He would call child protective services after that, and get his siblings taken away from him, so that they would be free from him.
Yes, that sounded like a great plan…
He had enough drugs to execute the murderous plan of his. He wondered what had driven him to this point where he was killing his own parents. It was crazy. It was insane. He was driven over the edge wasn’t he? Would he have done this if he wasn’t an addict?
He separated the meal and spiked the one he was going to serve to his parents. He watched as his siblings took their respective meals and ran back into their room, fearing him. He watched as his parents took their meal without even looking him in the eye. He watched as they ate their food, unaware that it was their very last meal. He watched as every bite brought them closer to their death. He watched as they slowly poisoned themselves…
He watched as they slowly died from the consequences of their actions…
Their own son.
He waited for his younger sister to spot the body before calling for child protective services. He watched as his younger sister cried all of her heart out. Crying at the people who never did their jobs as parents… yet a part of her loved them. He spoke into the phone and fed the person on the other side lies, how their parents were using drugs during dinner before abusing them. It was a convincing story. Calling child protective services was a backup, in case the dosage wasn’t enough to kill them.
Their parents did indeed die. The funeral was bleak, void of people. Nobody really cared about the Abbacchios, maybe that Giovanna boy did. But that was about it. Barely anyone showed up to mourn for the loss. But what loss was there to cry over? What did the world lose?
After the funeral, it was time for the children to be taken as Leone was deemed as incapable to look after the children. He wanted this to happen. They deserve a better shot at life than he did. He was nothing, nor will he amount to anything.
“Licia,” Leone ordered. He had something to say before he lost his sister for what could be forever. “I have something to say,” His tone sounded very nonchalant. Licia looked at the man who was supposed to protect her with a deadpan expression, “Make it quick.”
Leone sighed, “Promise me that you’ll do well. Get a good boyfriend, or girlfriend. I don't care. Never allow this to happen again. Listen to your big bro. I-“
“Can you promise me something as well?” His younger sister, Licia Abbacchio stared, trying to hold back tears. “Promise me you’ll quit… the next time I see you… You better be the Leone Abbacchio I always knew… Not this husk of a person. I want the Leone Abbacchio who used to tell me bedtimes stories back!”
Leone paused, staring at the ground before nodding, “Alright I promise. I’ll find all of you when I am clean. Promise me that you’ll enjoy what remains of your teenage years.”
Both siblings exchanged their promises and goodbyes before a teary goodbye. For the first time in years, Leone cried. He cried really hard. Why was life so hard? He hated his decision but he had to make it. What other choice had he got?
For months, Leone did his best to stay clean, to steer away from the dirty path. But it was horrible. He wondered if meeting his soulmate would help but decided against it. He didn’t want to trouble his soulmate with a burden like him. Whoever they were, should meet him when he becomes a better man. He was afraid of his parents’ relationship coming back to haunt him.
Leone just could not stay away. He did his best, but progress was slow. Sometimes he made progress, only to sink even deeper. It was a tough journey. But he had to do it. Leone grew reckless with his dosage, never paying attention to how much he consumed. He was growing careless with something that could kill him.
One night, one fateful night, he swallowed too much. He was careless and just consumed a whole package after trying to stay away for a week. Perhaps it was the redrawal symptoms hitting him, making him reckless. But there he laid, convulsing after vomiting his meal with blood in it. He tried to stand, but collapse onto the ground.
He had failed his sister’s promise. He was supposed to look for her when he became a better man. He was supposed to watch her live her best life. He broke the only thing his sister wanted from him. It was such a simple thing, yet there he laid. He was dying. Memories flashed before his mind, him telling bedtime stories… He wanted to do that again. The smiles he used to see. He wanted to see them all again… He can’t die… Not like this. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. He tried to reach for a phone but it seemed too far away… He looked at the red string on his finger. His soulmate… it seemed that they were not meant to be… Maybe his soulmate was better off without him… Yes…
Leone Abbacchio was worthless, a promise breaker. He deserved nothing.
He was sorry to everyone.
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coolfire333 · 1 year
Note
for the ask thingy 1, 5, 13 deltarune or tc!
Thanks for the ask!! I'll do the questions with both fandoms since I'm feeling chatty :)
1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*
Deltarune: Swatch/Spamton, I mean I kinda understand the appeal with how their relationship is in canon why people would ship them, but the fandom has really turned their relationship into something so drastically different in the lens of romance that it almost boggles me. Swatch always feels so ooc for me in most things I see shipping him and Spamton, and it's rare that I find something depicting the animosity the two canonically have for each other in a shipping piece. I'll still reblog stuff of them that I find artistically appealing but tbh I do not understand the fanonical appeal
Trauma Center: Lloyd Wilkens/Luc Rousseu. Wilksseu must have been conjured up as the most insufferable pairing imaginable because that's the only way I can explain its existence. It makes so little sense but at the same time I feel like I completely understand it. I think it's brilliant and hilarious though so I actually still ship it as a crackship LOL, nasty old doctor men in love get a thumbs up from me I guess
5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*
Deltarune: Probably Swatch/Spamton again, for the reasons above. I wouldn't say "ruined" because I never shipped it to start with (I prefer Swatch/Tasque Manager and Spamton/nobody in canon) but I prefer them to have a hate-love, forbidden romance in rivalry kinda deal if I were to ship them
Trauma Center: Actually no! The only thing I can say is that I do like multishipping so while Angie/Derek is still my favorite pairing for either of them, it'd be interesting if more people were open to shipping either of them with other characters, just to see how the dynamics play out. Like Adel/Derek, for example, I think that's really underrated and intriguing
I also once saw Naomi/Derek and idk if I really ship it but it's certainly interesting, those two interact all the time in second opinion yet I rarely see stuff of them interacting in fandom, and I wish there was at least a bigger brotp thing going on with them in fandom since they seem pretty close (especially in trauma team with Naomi's backstory expanded upon, like Derek consulted on Naomi's diagnosis and operation, and in second opinion Naomi literally operated on Derek, they're ride-or-die buddies in my mind so hard)
13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?
Deltarune: Two things. First, idk if this counts for this question but I don't like the popular headcanon that Spamton and the addisons are brothers/siblings. I do like estranged family dynamics, but I think the main reason people think they're related is that they look alike. I just think they're the same species(?), so in this case I think that having them just be coworkers/friends is much more interesting, compelling, and canonically supported.
Also, I do like Berdly...he is not the most egregious example of this trope (looks nervously at my other fandoms) but I just LOVE nasty bully-type kid characters, especially if they're being that mean to compensate for something really bad that happened to them. His backstory really struck a chord with me, and besides he's not even that mean or even evil, he's just pretty stuck up and annoying. He's definitely not the nastiest character I have "this is my son" feelings towards but I see a lot of people absolutely DESPISING him...por quoi.....
Trauma Center: ADEL TULBA HAS POTENTIAL!! I like what they did with his storyline in canon but my god could it have been expanded upon a la Naomi's story in second opinion. Like I think they should have built him up more as a secondary character with playable missions as him, especially during his time at the hands of asclepius (like Naomi's delphi missions), it would have made him such a stronger character.
And trauma center LOVES to copy their own work across different games when it comes to storylines/specific operations so literally I would not have minded at all if they gave him the Naomi treatment from the start. I'm playing utk2 for the first time rn (as opposed to just watching playthroughs lol) and I'm just like. Where is Adel. Where is he, he's been awol for like two whole chapters!
Still love Adel to bits though. I think that liking him is an unpopular opinion too, I mean I don't think anyone hates him per say, but I'm not sure anyone particularly likes him either, and I think part of that is because the storyline could have made him more interesting
Thanks again for the ask, this was fun! :)
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mattydemise · 2 years
Text
I’m sitting in an empty room with my headphones on. Nothing else exists except for the music in my ears, the headphones I can barely feel on my head, my laptop, and my fingertips. Everything else is just a lie of the senses. I hate liars. In fact I despise them. Liars make me grind my teeth and my blood boil. If nothing else in life you should conduct yourself honesty. If others don’t catch you out first, you best pray you don’t inevitably catch yourself out. Once the thin wall of self-deception has been toppled and you’re forced to face your own ego, it’s a battle you can never win, because you’ll never be strong enough. There’s only a smattering amongst us that have the will to topple their own ego. That’s why you hide. That’s why you lie in the first place. Self-medicating so you don’t have to crawl into the muck surrounding that ego of yours, clawing for purchase, gasping and forcing each and every breath. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
So I sit and write this and bleed onto the laptop for a while, for as long as you’ll read, for as long as I’ve the strength to write. Say what you will about my art and writing but it’s always true to me. It’s always dripping with my own conviction. Conviction, sex, and violence. The human form at its most primal. In throes of artistic passion, writhing with someone in the garden of earthly delights, or throwing flesh and bone against the flesh and bone of another. It’s always sexual and it’s always violent. Men fight men because they’re too scared to just man up and fuck. Men fuck women because they’re too shackled to fight them. Men are more delicate than you think, just as women are stronger. They’re built for childbirth and bleeding. What do men know about evacuating life from themselves? The severing of umbilical cords. Vile, beautiful stuff. Men just want to beat the piss out of each other and then get drunk and fuck. Such is our nature. To tear things limb from limb and then fuck in our bloodlust. Perhaps you can cut through the writing and take this all metaphorically or symbolically but then again maybe you can’t and maybe, just maybe, you’re now thinking something different. The laws we cling to only offer so much protection and our nature is that of fighting and fucking, of flesh, bone, blood, and cum. It all amounts to the same thing.
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balkanmermaid · 2 years
Text
Celestial II (6)
Summary: Brennan has a chat with his demon, Beelzebub, and plays through a tennis match.
Focus. You have to focus now. Pay attention. You don’t miss hits. You’re meant to win. You’re good.
I can no longer recognise whether this voice in my head is truly mine, or not. Beelzebub and I are foes only half of the time - once the demon realised he would die if he didn’t have my body to possess and share with me, his threats turned into bargaining. The last words left to a man who feels he’s about to be silenced, subdued, cast aside. Oh, but hadn’t he and the other demons willingly left heaven?
Hell, why am I thinking about things like these? I’ve forgotten what I was doing. The only thing that takes me back to reality and pulls me out of my thoughts is the speck of yellow in the air. The ball. The match. There’s so many people out here that the noise they’re making can drown out the demon’s voice in my head. If I only focus on them and not on the words he’s whispering into my ear, then…
Then what? Do you think you’ll win this one, Brennan? He’s ahead of you. It’ll take a while to get your scores even, and even more time to manage a point or two and lead the competition.
Are you trying to make me give up already? I think and throw myself after the ball again, racket ready, arms and legs flying about as if in a haze. Not unlike other matches I have had, this one fills me with excitement, with adrenaline, gets my heart sprinting as if it’s on some kind of race on its own. No, whatever Beelzebub wants to tell me, I can give in to later. Right now I have to win.
Sweat soaks through my shirt from a spot over my torso I can only feel when I run around. All that exists for me now is the ball, my opponent, and our rackets. If I could write and describe things - and people - the way Benjamin and Marion can, I’d call my jumps as graceful as a lion’s, and my hair a mane. But while it does fly around my eyes as I jump after the ball, it’s not graceful at all. On the contrary. I catch myself wishing my hair tie was stronger. Whatever. There’s no time for regrets now.
I was just pointing this out. I’d hate to lose as much as you do, you know. But something’s troubling me. You’re overexerting yourself, buddy. This feels wrong. You shouldn’t be getting so worked up…
If there was any doubt about it prior to him speaking these words, there is none left now. Bastard. Who does he think he is, the boss of me? I never asked to be a tennis player paired with the demon of gluttony. And how ironic, really. I could have made us work together, aim at a common goal - as close to a common goal as we can get, that is - and reach it.
Beelzebub isn’t lazy. He lives to eat, however. And that’s no good either. I wonder how Kamael and I saved ourselves from a possible toxic bond.
There could have existed one between us. After he discovered his gift with food and his ability to manipulate flavours, I felt drawn to him. Perhaps this could bring us closer together.
And we were, we still are, in a way. Though me and Benjamin and Lyle are much closer, I like to talk with K sometimes as well and cook things together with him. That, or enjoy what he has made and just hang out as he prepares the food. That has to count, too, right? We haven’t drifted apart too far just yet. We won’t.
I think you have. You’ve drifted further away from everyone else than you’d like to admit, haven’t you? You know it. You try to stay away from everyone so you don’t hurt them. But you can’t.
Survival isn’t enough. I have to fight my way back to life. I want to see my brothers and step brothers and mom fight their way back to life. Come on. It can’t be that hard. We all started from nothing. When Margit adopted Lyle, Aster, Benjamin and me, she took us in to take care of us and try to love us as equally as she loved Luce, Stef and Kam. And she did. And look at where all of us are now.
All that I am is the pressure coursing through my muscles, all that I am is the heartbeat like the rhythm of a drum, all that I am is a focus on the little tennis ball, and its thumps and my heart nearly align. The crowd cheers. The lights blind me. I forget that the world exists. Right now only the match does. I don’t only want to win for the prestige. I want to show myself what I’m capable of. People will grab at practically anything I throw at them, be it gossip or a
loss, victory or a shocking truth. But what I need is to keep myself afloat on the surface of life. Not the top. The surface. I want to live.
It hurts, because I’m being told the truth in my face by a demon. A being that isn’t human, something I never expected to be sentient - something that, despite all our expectations, mine and my family’s, isn’t either entirely evil, or willing to get me in trouble, or injured, for its own amusement.
Yeah, look at where you guys are now, Beelzebub sneers at me. Struggling to rebuild lives that were never truly yours. What a tragedy, isn’t it? Your parents… He pauses. The silence that appears between us is a knife cutting his words apart; a knife swishing through air - so easy to feel; a knife stabbing me in the gut, twisting. Tears prick my eyes. I shouldn’t cry. I’m not supposed to be crying right now. Why does it hurt? Your parents never did this, did they?
And yet you suffered it all.
It hurts, because, as evil as I suspect Beelzebub is, he sees himself in me. He was an angel once, too, like all the others, all of them rejected for the evil that stalked its way into their hearts and took over their minds, driving them to sin. In my reality, people believe far less than the people that wrote down the stories about these demons, and that, while it doesn’t make me give up my mistrust of the demon, doesn’t label me as his follower, either. I have never said I agree with him or any of the others.
It hurts, because I tried my best to turn my head away from this, from the truth, and yet it kicked me right in the shin. Reality was too hard to escape from, if I could say such an escape was ever even possible. I’m not only a good tennis player, one of the new hopes of people and someone I needed to have to look up to when I was a kid. I’m a guy possessed by one of the most powerful demons. A demon who has no tolerance for frozen pizza, one of
my guilty pleasures, but also a demon who will give me nightmares and make me try to kill my brothers - his own fellow demons - when he’s bored.
What I want, though, is to understand them better and see what they saw, find out why they’re fighting among each other now and why they want to turn their backs on the alliance they had once.
Inside my head, Beelzebub bursts out laughing, exploding into noise. All around me, the lights are still as bright as ever. I don’t mind their brightness this time around, I notice as I keep moving, moving, moving, sprinting towards one end of the tennis field, then towards the other, following the ball forever like it’s made of gold. It isn’t - but it can bring me gold. It can bring me victory, if I play right. And sure, I haven’t been perfect. Far from it, I’d say. But I’m leading score-wise.
You have to understand what made you this way, Brennan. Trace what led you to me, and what bound us together. You’re a cool guy, even though I’m not entirely sure if I like you. You can be pretty stupid sometimes, the demon says in my head. I don’t blame ya. You humans have put together such a complicated world that I’m surprised you don’t go insane more often grappling for happiness. And why even that? It’s right in your faces. You’re flawed, but that doesn’t make you any less interesting. If you focus on enjoying the little things and eating your little hearts out… isn’t that it?
Well, Beelzebub and I think in ways that don’t match. I don’t agree with him, and I doubt he understands me, either. What I can’t fake my way through however is that he’s right in this case.
Happiness really is in the small things.
And many of those make up one huge thing.
Life.
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caitimetravels · 3 years
Text
she’s insignificant
chapter 3: the dangers inside
the umbrella academy x reader
disclaimer: i do not own the plot/storyline of the netflix tv series and i do not own the umbrella academy characters.
warnings: swearing, mentions of death
masterlist
y/n stared at the blue energy in the courtyard before deciding to join her siblings as they rushed to see what it was. as she ran down the stairs she caught sight of klaus holding a fire extinguisher.
"what are you doing?" she caught up with him.
"something" he shrugged, bursting out the door first. "out of the way!"
"thats not going to- klaus what the hell?" y/n went to stop him only to watch as he tried to extinguish the mass of energy. she shook her head in disbelief, stepping beside vanya.
klaus chucked the extinguisher when he realised it wouldn't work.
"what is that gonna do?" allison shouted over the loud noise. klaus threw his hands up.
"i don't know. do you have a better idea?" he stepped back in surprise as another flash came from the portal. luther pulled klaus back.
"everyone get behind me!" and in true sibling rivalry diego nodded, shielding vanya and y/n.
"yeah, get behind us!"
they watched, brows furrowing at the familiar figure that dropped to the ground. as they stepped closer the vortex disappeared.
"is that-?" y/n looked up at vanya, peeking around diego to see.
there, in a too large sized suit, stood their missing brother. he pushed himself to his feet taking in their appearance.
"does anyone else see little number five is that just me?" klaus questioned as they walked closer. the said boy stared down at himself in confusion before looking back at them.
"shit" he cursed.
--------------------------------------------------
they all moved back into the kitchen, letting five do as he pleased while he explained what he needed to.
he placed a chopping board and knife on the table while the others stood at the other end. y/n stood off to the corner, not entirely comfortable with them after being accused of murder. "what's the date? the exact date"
five walked around, grabbing bread to make himself a sandwich. vanya answered, "the 24th"
"of what?" five pushed walking back over.
"march"
"good" he pulled out two pieces of bread, laying them on the chopping board.
"so, are we going to talk about what just happened?" luther raised an eyebrow, expectantly but five stayed silent. "its been 17 years!" luther stood, frustrated but five wasn't taking any of his bullshit.
"it's been a lot longer than that" the shorter boy walked towards him before blinking behind him to grab the marshmallows. luther sighed,
"i haven't missed that"
"where'd you go?" diego piped up, unfazed.
"the future" five sighed, "and it's shit by the way" he opened up the bag of marshmallows.
"called it!" klaus raised his finger.
"do you want one?" five looked up at y/n, referring to the sandwich, a soft gleam in his eyes. the others shared a look, of course he had only missed her. she gently shook her head with a small smile. "i should have listened to the old man" five walked to the fridge, pulling out a jar. "he knew. travelling through space is one thing, travelling through time is a toss of the dice"
he paused as he opened the peanut butter, looking up at them again before noticing klaus' attire. "nice dress"
"oh, danke" klaus twirled loose material around. allison rolled her eyes.
"how did you get back?"
"in the end i had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time" he continued making his sandwich like he hadn't just shocked them.
"that makes no sense" diego scoffed,
"well, it would if you were smarter" five shrugged, ignoring the way diego stood up to fight him. luther held him back.
"did you put a decimal point in the wrong spot?" y/n asked, surprising the others. she crossed her arms, thinking "it was probably a miscalculation in your proof of the existence of a bound for the number of limit cycles of planar polynomial vector fields of fixed degree."
five paused, thinking it over before realising she was right. "it should have been 0.57" he mumbled.
"how long were you there?" luther changed the subject, obviously confused.
"45 years" five went back to his sandwich making. "give or take"
everyone sat back down in shock.
"so what are you saying? that you're 58?!" luther narrowed his eyes in disbelief. there was no way.
"no" five looked up, speaking through gritted teeth. "my consciousness is 58. apparently my body is now 16 again"
"how does that even work?" vanya croaked out, still shocked at the situation.
"delores kept saying the equations were off" five shrugged, stepping away and looking off into the distance as he took a bite of his sandwich. "bet she's laughing now"
"delores?" vanya asked. y/n froze, he had kept her? at the girl's movement, or lack thereof, allison looked over at her, raising her eyebrows.
y/n shook her head, waving it off.
five picked up the newspaper on the table, staring at the picture of their father.
"hm.. guess i missed the funeral"
"how'd you know about that?" luther questioned, defensive.
"what part of the future do you not understand?" five narrowed his eyes, slightly amused by his brothers incompetence. "heart failure, huh?"
"yeah-" diego started only to be cut off by luther.
"no" there was silence for a moment before a kitchen knife stabbed into the table beside luther's hand.
"if i had murderous intent, luther, you'd be the first on my list" y/n scoffed, walking out.
they all stared after her in shock.
"nice to see nothing's changed" five sighed before following her out.
"thats it?" allison asked, turning towards him as he walked. "thats all you have to say?"
"what else is there to say? circle of life" he called back.
--------------------------------------------------
vanya walked up to five in the parlour where he stood staring at his painting.
"nice to know dad didn't forget me" five turned to her, "read your book by the way.. found it in the library that was still standing"
he started to walk around, noticing y/n sitting on the balcony above. she had her legs dangling through the bars, calmly reading a book. he turned back to vanya.
"thought it was pretty good, all things considered" he stared her down, "definitely ballsy, giving up the family secrets. sure that went over well"
"they hate me" vanya frowned,
"well there are worse things that can happen" five was obviously trying to cheer her up, in his own way.
"you mean like what happened to ben?" there was a pause, both thinking it over.
"was it bad?" five asked softly, he knew y/n was still listening. he heard the faint sound of a book shutting. he looked away as vanya nodded.
"y/n had a hard time dealing with it.. the worst of all of us. dad forbid her from going on missions after her reaction.."
"her reaction?" five turned back, eyebrows furrowing, this wasn't in vanya's book.
"she nearly tore our souls out.. she was devastated and couldn't control her emotions. dad said it helped her though, something about a new ability. he trained her alone from then, forcing her to find you" vanya shrugged, sighing, going silent.
"find me?" five pushed, "what do you mean find me?"
"she said she did.. did she not?" vanya looked surprised now.
"no, no she did.. just didn't stay long is all" five shook his head, frowning.
"yeah well, they stopped trying when she lied to dad"
"she lied?" five looked back up at where she was previously sitting but now she was gone, the only thing left behind was her book and a wisp of smoke.
--------------------------------------------------
"ben.. i'm- i'm scared" eight sat cross legged in front of his statue. "my powers are getting stronger and i'm scared to hurt the others. i wish you were still here" she refused to cry no matter how much she wanted to. she couldn't let the same thing happen.
"i'm scared ben. what if i can't control it? what if hurt somebody? you're not here to help me and i-.. it hurts sometimes. dad doesn't understand, he never did but it hurts to suppress my emotions like he wants me to. we try so hard and he still never thinks we're enough.." she paused, pulling her knees up to her chest. "what if i am weak? what if he's right?"
unbeknownst to her ben's ghost sat beside her. "you're not weak" he shook his head, moving to look at her face. "you'll never be weak, you're so strong. please keep being strong for me" he pleaded with her as she continued to blame herself. he hated this. he hated not being there for her. he just wanted her to be okay.
--------------------------------------------------
y/n walked beside five, standing under his umbrella with him. they didn't speak as they walked back out into the courtyard. the siblings all stood in line with luther in front of them, carrying their dad's ashes.
"did something happen?" grace looked at them all, smiling despite the occasion. they all looked up at her.
"dad died.." allison answered, confused. "remember?"
"oh, yes of course" grace nodded, expression turning more somber.
"is mom okay?" allison asked, now worried about how grace was acting.
"yeah, yeah she's fine" diego quickly defended, "she just needs to rest, you know, recharge" allison looked incredulous but dropped it nonetheless.
pogo stepped forwards, looking up at luther. "whenever you're ready, dear boy"
luther breathed out, opening the lid and dropping the ashes in a pitiful pile. they all frowned.
"probably would have been better with some wind" luther griped,
"does anyone wish to speak?" pogo ignored it, looking at the rest of them. everyone stayed silent, looking away. "very well.. in all regards, sir reginald hargreeves made me what i am today, for that alone i shall forever be in his debt. he was my master and my friend and i shall miss him very much.." he paused, "he leaves behind a complicated legacy-"
"he was a monster" diego cut off, still staring down at the ashes. klaus laughed. "he was bad person and a worse father. the world's better off without him-"
"diego" allison scolded, glaring at him in surprise.
"my name is number two. you know why?" he looked over at her. "because our father couldn't be bothered to give us actual names, he had mom do it"
"would anyone like something to eat?" grace asked, smiling again, unaware of what was happening.
"no, its okay mom" vanya denied, albeit confused.
"oh, okay"
"look, you wanna pay your respects" diego stepped out in front of them, "go head, but at least be honest about the kind of man he was" he looked at pogo now.
"you should stop talking now" luther warned, anger growing. diego glared at him for a moment before fully turning to face him.
"you know, you of all people should be on my side here, number one"
"i am warning you-" diego ignored him,
"after everything he did to you" y/n sighed, crossing her arms to her chest, fighting wasn't going to fix any of them. klaus and five shared a look. "he had to ship you a million miles away"
"diego stop talking-" luther tried again. diego was definitely hitting a nerve. he jabbed a finger into luther's chest.
"that's how much he couldn't stand the sight of you!" luther grabbed his arm and swung at his head. diego ducked. they begun fighting while everyone else backed away.
"boys! stop this at once!" pogo attempted to stop them, moving back despite this.
klaus held an arm out to shield five and y/n. the former slapped it away. they continued to fight, diego egging him on and landing several punches. klaus began to chant while vanya yelled at them to stop.
"klaus" y/n warned, gaining both his and five's attention. her eyes were turning black, she was struggling.
"y/n? are you okay?" five hadn't been there, he didn't know what she would do if she lost control. pogo walked away, not wanting to stay. klaus nervously watched y/n while the others watched luther and diego fight.
"i don't have time for this" five sighed, beginning to walk away, leaving y/n with klaus under his small pink umbrella.
that was when it happened. y/n froze as they knocked ben's statue.
"aw" klaus complained while allison glared at them.
"and there goes ben's statue"
"klaus?" y/n's voice scared them all. she sounded weak. she gripped his jacket, tightly. "klaus"
"what's wrong?" he looked down at her, watching as she fought her emotions. her eyes were turning black but she kept fighting it.
diego pulled out his knife and vanya's shouting at him to stop made it harder for y/n to calm herself. he threw it at luther, cutting his arm.
"klaus" she called again and he held her arm unsure of what to do. "i-i can't.. i can't-" she let out a pained whine as her eyes darkened, she was letting go. suddenly diego and luther let out shouts of pain.
"what's going on?!" allison watched them, confused and distraught. vanya quickly left their mother's side, pulling y/n into her.
"its okay, you're okay" vanya whispered to her, trying to calm her. "it can be fixed, you're okay, just relax. try to relax" listening to vanya's heartbeat she slowly calmed down, the blackness of her eyes seeping away and diego and luther straightened, no longer in pain.
y/n stared at them in shock and guilt before shaking her head and running inside. she locked herself in her room again. she was truly a demon.
--------------------------------------------------
one by one the siblings left, y/n watched sadly as they all abandoned her again. she was always left alone, the family problems only got bigger when they got together. she sighed, maybe she was better off alone.
--------------------------------------------------
y/n looked up from her book as she heard frantic footsteps around the mansion. peeking out her door she noticed vanya slowing down in front of five's room.
"oh thank god" she disappeared through his doorway but y/n could still hear her voice. "i was worried sick about you"
five had talked to vanya? why hadn't he come to her?
"sorry i left without saying goodbye" five's voice answered softly. what had he been doing? y/n quietly left her room to hear better. she wanted to be apart of her brother's plans too. she didn't want to be left out anymore.
"no, i'm the one that should be sorry. i was dismissive and i guess i didn't know how to process what you were saying.." vanya paused, "i still can't to be honest"
"maybe you were right to be dismissive" five huffed, that didn't sound like him at all? what was he really doing? "maybe it wasn't real after all.. it felt real. but well, like you said the old man did say time travel could contaminate the mind"
well vanya referred him to a therapist y/n tried to sense the room. something else was going on. carefully using her power she felt another person.. klaus. when vanya walked out y/n quickly turned to smoke, gliding along the floor, past five who watched vanya leave. klaus pulled himself out of the closet.
"that's so touching, all that stuff about family and dad and time"
"will you shut up? she'll hear you" five warned him, walking back over.
"you're lying to vanya?" y/n appeared next to klaus, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.
"it's nothing you should worry about" five dismissed before looking klaus over again. "i thought i told you to put on something professional"
"what? this my nicest outfit" klaus gestured to it. y/n snorted when five scoffed.
"we'll raid the old man's closet"
"whatever, as long as i get paid" klaus shrugged, beginning to walk behind five.
"when the job is done" they stopped just above the stairs.
"so, where are we going?" she followed along, smiling innocently at five who raised an eyebrow at her.
"not we, just klaus and i" five shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"five" she frowned,
"y/n" he mocked.
"just let me come, please don't leave me in the dark. i just want to help you" she pleaded, she had missed him.
he thought it over before sighing, "fine" he turned to walk again but klaus stopped him.
"but just so we're clear on the finer details" he waved his hand around, talking over the plan. "i just got to go into this place and pretend to be your dear old dad, correct?"
"yeah, something like that" five agreed, exasperated.
"what's our cover story?" klaus continued, ignoring five's look of annoyance.
"what? what are you talking about?" five shared a confused look with y/n who shrugged.
"i mean was i young when i had you, like 16.. like young and terribly misguided" five agreed just to get him to stop but he didn't. "your mother, that slut, whoever she was, we met at.. the disco and you can be his sister"
"i am his sister?" y/n raised an eyebrow, but klaus only smiled, clicking his fingers.
"okay, remember that. oh my god the sex was amazing"
y/n scoffed, walking away first, five following. "what a disturbing glimpse into that thing you call a brain"
"don't make me put you in time out" klaus waved a finger at him.
as they walked out the door onto the street y/n paused.
"what's wrong, baby sis?" klaus asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "you're not backing out already?"
"no!" she quickly denied, looking up at him as she snapped out of her starstruck daze. "it's just.. i haven't left the house in 16 years.."
klaus and five shared a sorrowful look. what had happened to her?
tags: @rxses-and-reverie
799 notes · View notes
robininthelabyrinth · 3 years
Note
For a prompt, what if Wen Xu arrives to burn down the Cloud Recesses while everyone is studying there
Home Alone - ao3
“All right,” Wei Wuxian said, when Lan Qiren announced that the Cloud Recesses would be imminently under attack by Wen Xu and the Wen sect armies, the calm in his monotone voice belied by the wrinkle of concern in his forehead. “We’re going to make that bastard wish he’d never been born, right?”
He was speaking lightly, as he always did, trying to make those around him feel more comfortable, braver, less afraid – his was the language of confidence and arrogance, of never backing down, and he didn’t know how else to speak.
He didn’t mean anything in particular by it, or at least not more than he usually did.
He wasn’t expecting Lan Qiren to look at him and say, “If you have any ideas, now is the time to contribute them.”
-
“So what exactly do you do again?” Wei Wuxian asked, following the older Lan sect disciple around – at least, the man was dressed like a Lan sect disciple, and with a forehead ribbon suggesting that he shared blood with the main clan, too, but Wei Wuxian wasn’t so sure he really was one.
“I blow stuff up, usually,” Lan Yueheng said cheerfully.
That was why Wei Wuxian had doubts.
The man was practically skipping. There was no way he was a Lan.
“Shishu is an alchemist,” Lan Wangji said. His hands were folded behind his back, as always, and he looked tense as might be expected, what with an imminent attack on his home by a colossal army intent on ravaging and destroying everything in its path – but the way he looked at Lan Yueheng was unaccountably fond, as if he were someone he was close to. Wei Wuxian hadn’t known there was anyone other than Lan Qiren or Lan Xichen that Lan Wangji was close to. He was oddly jealous. “Not always successfully.”
“Hey, at blowing things up, I am the most successful!” Lan Yueheng grinned. A moment later, though, the grin faded, and he looked anxious. “Wangji, are you sure you won’t go with your brother?”
“Brother will protect the sect books,” Lan Wangji said solemnly. “I will stay here to defend the sect and the guest disciples.”
Wei Wuxian appreciated that, being one of said guest disciples.
Anyway, it made sense. Lan Qiren had seriously considered trying to send them away with Lan Xichen, saying that their lives were more important than some extra books – other Lan elders hadn’t necessarily agreed, judging by their expressions – but regretfully concluded that adding more people to Lan Xichen’s escape route would do nothing but reveal its existence, dooming all of them.
So they’d split up: Lan Xichen, heading out virtually alone with the most precious Lan sect books, and all the rest of them here to try to resist as much as they could – even Lan Wangji.
Lan Yueheng didn’t try to argue with Lan Wangji, only sighed, sounding as though he’d expected nothing less from him and had only felt the need to make a token protest before accepting it as inevitable. It seemed he really was close to Lan Wangji.
Yeah, Wei Wuxian was definitely jealous.
“All right, then,” Lan Yueheng said, shaking his head and resuming his cheer. “Blowing things up in self-defense plan it is! You’re both talented in music, right?”
“What does music have to do with explosions?” Wei Wuxian asked.
-
The answer, apparently, was a lot – at least when you were an experimental alchemist in a musically inclined sect and you’d developed a way to trigger explosions via certain combinations of musical notes.
-
“So, did you know that Teacher Lan was scary?” Wei Wuxian asked Jiang Cheng, who’d finally returned from helping get all the elderly and children and civilians to evacuate – and refusing to join them, of course, even though he was entitled to go in order to preserve his life, being the heir of a sect and all that, completely typical Jiang Cheng – and was now pacing around, eager for a fight.
“Just because he punished you a few times doesn’t make him scary,” Jiang Cheng said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “You know what does make him scary? Playing music that makes his opponents try to cut their own necks.”
“…what?”
“Apparently he gets really upset when you mess with his students,” Wei Wuxian said wisely.
Unlike Jiang Cheng, he’d had time to adjust to the concept of Lan Qiren being terrifying: they were on the fifth wave of scouts, and this set wasn’t doing any better than the first four, not even when they’d realized it would be better if they stopped their ears with wax before approaching.
That’d only made Lan Qiren shift tactics – and songs.
Some of which had an even wider area of impact.
“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said, looking at him suspiciously. “What did you do?”
“I convinced Teacher Lan that guerrilla warfare that destroyed as much of the enemy as possible would be more effective than just trying to defend the sect’s territory, since that was clearly a lost cause,” Wei Wuxian said promptly. “He agreed, but said that he could only do so much since he wasn’t a very good sword fighter. And then I asked him if he knew anything else that could be used as an attack and he said ‘no’ and then he said ‘well, I suppose’ and then he listed off a few things that – according to him – aren’t meant to be used in warfare but, and this is a direct quote, ‘could be put to a destructive use if one so wished it’.”
“And we now ‘so wish it’?”
“Yup. Oh, and watch out for anything that has a Lan sect cloud with a three-looped circle carved into the side of it, and I do mean anything– those explode.”
“Of course they do.”
“Hey! For once it has nothing to do with me!”
-
“I thought you said he said he was bad at swordfighting,” Jiang Cheng said suspiciously.
Wei Wuxian held out his hands helplessly in a ‘don’t look at me’ gesture, trying to defend himself from a sharp and pointy elbow to the side while also not pulling his eyes away from the ongoing battlefield for even a single moment.
“Shufu considers himself to be of average skill at the sword,” Lan Wangji said in the peaceable tone of someone who had been taught the basics of swordfighting by the person in question. The basics of really awesome swordfighting. “His real strength is in music, as you’ve seen.”
“I get that, really, I do, his music is terrifying,” Wei Wuxian said, and meant it completely. Between the two, he’d rather go up against Lan Qiren with a sword, where he’d at least be able to make a decent showing of himself before getting chopped to bits by the man’s fluid and almost seemingly delicate style that was nevertheless highly effective at skewering Wen sect disciples left and right; it would be better than with music, where he might as well just cut his own throat or strangle himself with guqin strings now to save Lan Qiren’s fingers the trouble. “But Jiang Cheng’s still right, okay – why in the world does he consider that to be ‘average’? Who is he comparing himself to?”
Lan Wangji considered the question for a long moment, then finally said: “A statistical outlier.”
-
“I wish we had aerial attacks we could use against the Wen sect’s swords,” Wei Wuxian said wistfully, and next to him Jiang Cheng nodded with a sight of longing – it was so frustrating seeing more and more Wen sect soldiers arriving in groups, like flocks of birds that started to fill the skies because they couldn’t be so easily shot down. “But if we try anything, they’ll just shield against us.”
“Teacher Lan said we can’t use spiritual energy against them, since we’d lose,��� Jiang Cheng said, and as much as they all regretted it, Lan Qiren was probably right: they might be better trained than the Wen sect soldiers, might be better cultivators and stronger in spiritual energy individually, but they were young and immature, and at a serious numerical disadvantage.
It would be far too easy for the flying cultivators to stop their flying just long enough to set up a defensive array, block whatever spiritual attack they sent out, and then keep going to find and stab them before they’d even recovered from the energy expenditure.
“I didn’t mean spiritual energy,” Wei Wuxian grumbled. “I just meant, you know, like the explosives we’ve laid in all over the ground – something like that. If we could attach those to something…”
“I don’t think we have anything that flies anyway,” Lan Yueheng said regretfully.
“You have lanterns, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang said, and everyone turned to look at him. “Fill them with something that explodes when disturbed and send them floating into the air. Better yet, write ‘peace’ on the side of them to make it look like you’re making some sort of meaningful gesture designed to shame them. The Wen sect won’t be able to resist kicking them aside as an insult, and that’ll trigger them.”
They all stared at him.
He shrugged.
“We have a lot of defenses set up against invasion, at home,” he said. “And not always the budget to pay for anything fancy, so we’ve come up with some slightly more unorthodox ideas, too.”
“It’s a really good idea,” Wei Wuxian said, suddenly focused on the hitherto ignored Nie Huaisang. Clearly he’d made a tactical error, thinking of himself as the only person who knew how to get up to tricks. “Do you have any other ideas like that?”
Nie Huaisang smiled.
-
“Teacher Lan, I have an idea,” Wei Wuxian said, inserting himself briefly into the clearing near the Lan sect gate where Lan Qiren was sitting to rest in preparation for the Wen sect’s next attack. “But you’re going to hate it.”
“You may proceed,” Lan Qiren said, not looking up.
“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said, blinking. “Really? You’re not even going to ask what it is? Or why you’d hate it so much?”
“There is no time for that,” Lan Qiren said, and finally spared him a glance. He looked tired. “Things will get worse very soon.”
“But we’re winning!”
“No,” Lan Qiren said, shaking out his fingers – even despite occasionally alternating to using the sword when necessary, he’d played his guqin to the point of drawing blood and breaking nails, and was continuing despite everyone pleading with him to stop and swap out for someone else for a while. He’d said that there was no one else on his level, and he was probably right, but still, surely, just for a little… “We are surviving. Do not mistake the two.”
-
“Okay, so,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing his hands together. “Resentful energy –”
“No,” Lan Wangji said.
-
“Thanks,” Wei Wuxian said to Jin Zixuan, who’d probably just saved his life by stabbing a Wen sect cultivator in the back right before the man had been able to stop Wei Wuxian from activating another series of explosions. “I guess I owe you one?”
“Don’t mention it,” Jin Zixuan said. “How else can I help?”
“I don’t know,” Wei Wuxian said, scratching his head and thinking about Nie Huaisang as precedent. There wasn’t time for schoolyard rivalries right now. “Do you have anything really unexpected that could be used to hurt people? Be creative – they’re guarded against all the usual defenses, so the weirder the better, anything goes. I won’t judge.”
Jin Zixuan thought about it. “I’m pretty sure I have a drug that puts people to sleep?”
“…why do you have something like that?”
Jin Zixuna grimaced. “My father gave it to me along with another one that he said not to use in excess, though I don’t actually know what that one does because that was about when my mom ran in and started throwing things at him. I can’t throw it away because it was a gift from my father, but I put it as deep into my bags as I could so that I’d never have to see or touch it. Ever.”
Wei Wuxian’s nose wrinkled. He’d never before felt pity for Jin Zixuan, but having to put up with Jin Guangshan on a regular basis was pretty bad – much less owing him filial piety.
No wonder Jin Zixuan was so twitchy all the time.
“Okay, so one sleep drug and one…uh…”
“Enhancement. Presumably. Can we throw it at the other side? Maybe turn it into incense and make smoke-bombs or something?”
“You know what,” Wei Wuxian said. “Why not? If nothing else, it’d be distracting, right?”
-
“This doesn’t feel honorable,” Jiang Cheng said, watching the fun. They’d raided the Lan sect’s medicine cabinets and kitchens for other noxious and irritating substances that might make for good smoke-bombs – Jiang Cheng himself had even located a whole patch of something not unlike poison ivy that had been quickly repurposed for the cause. “Strictly speaking.”
“Honor’s overrated,” Wei Wuxian said. “Making the Wen bastards pay for attacking Lan Zhan’s home is what’s important.”
Lan Wangji didn’t smile, exactly, but Wei Wuxian took his expression as a win regardless.
-
It turned out that music could also make plants grow really fast.
According to Lan Qiren, the spell ruined the plants’ nutritional value and made them basically useless.
Well.
Useless if your goal was eating them, anyway.
(First they could grow under their enemies’ feet and attack them, roots and vines twining around them to strangle them, and then they could be used up in the smoke-bombs – two for the price of one!)
-
“Are you sure about not doing the whole resentful energy thing?”
“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said. “No.”
-
“Hey, Wei-xiong, do you have or can you create any more papermen?” Jin Zixuan asked.
“Yes, sure, plenty,” Wei Wuxian said. He’d like to say that he’d known he’d one day need such a skill, and that that was why he’d learned the trick so thoroughly, but that was a complete lie. “Why?”
“Nie-xiong, Jiang-xiong and I are going to use them to make a shadow-play to lure a bunch of Wen sect cultivators into another plant-and-explosives trap.”
“…that’s amazing, Jin-xiong,” Wei Wuxian said, marveling. “How do you even think of that?”
“Even I get into trouble sometimes,” Jin Zixuan said, and was startled into an unexpected smile when Jiang Cheng punched his shoulder approvingly.
-
Wei Wuxian was actually having a pretty good time with it all right up until the main force of the Wen sect decided to ignore all their traps and charge straight towards the classroom they’d fallen back to using as a headquarters, and then suddenly he wasn’t having a good time at all.
“Run,” Lan Qiren said, and put down his guqin, drawing his sword once more.
“But we can fight!” Jiang Cheng argued.
“Run.”
“Shufu –”
“Run.”
They ran.
-
“If you don’t come out, I’m going to make him pay,” Wen Xu called.
His fingers were knotted in Lan Qiren’s hair, pulling their teacher’s head back to show how his face was covered in blood, how it was seeping out through his mouth and nose, how one of his eyes was badly bruised and swollen from having been beaten down by sheer force of numbers.
Lan Qiren had made them pay dearly for their efforts to bring him down –
But there were just so many of them.
“How dare he,” Jiang Cheng hissed. “He was once one of Teacher Lan’s students, too!”
Wei Wuxian was holding Lan Wangji back, but only barely; his fingers were starting to go numb from the sheer effort of it. If Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng weren’t there to help him hold him down, Lan Wangji would have already given away their position, rushing out to make some futile gesture in his overwhelming rage. Wei Wuxian was focusing with all his being on how much he had to stop Lan Wangji from doing something like that, because if he wasn’t, if he let himself think about anything else for even a single moment, he’d have also run out there, sword drawn, without so much as a care – he hadn’t realized he’d be so angry over it, so furious, so betrayed and horrified by Wen Xu’s cruelty.
Prior to today, he wouldn’t have said he even liked Lan Qiren!
“My students are not so foolish as to fall for so obvious a scheme as that,” Lan Qiren said, his tone as monotonous as it ever was during his lectures – for the briefest moment, Wei Wuxian felt that he was dreaming, that he had merely dreamt everything that had happened: surely it was still yesterday, with Lan Qiren standing tall, safe and healthy, at the front of the classroom, lecturing about one of the Lan sect rules…which one had it been? Shoulder the weight of morality? Have a strong will and anything can be achieved? Be mighty, and others will die for you?
Do not break faith?
Somehow, despite everything that had happened, Lan Qiren’s eyes curved ever so slightly.
“Present company excluded, of course.”
Wen Xu threw him down to the ground, mouth twisting and teeth gnashing with offended anger.
“Beat him,” he ordered his men. “Make it hurt. I want him screaming – let’s see how his precious students like that. Or maybe it’s just that they don’t care?”
-
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, eyes red with unshed tears and barely swallowed rage. “Tell me your idea about resentful energy.”
-
“Perhaps,” Lan Qiren said, then paused briefly to cough up some blood. His voice, when he resumed speaking, was hoarse. “Perhaps I should have reviewed your idea more closely when you first proposed it.”
“Possibly,” Wei Wuxian said, offering up some cloth to help wipe away the blood. Lan Wangji was busy bandaging his uncle’s injuries up, while Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Nie Huaisang hovered by the door, only barely pretending to be keeping a lookout the way they were supposed to. “In my defense, I didn’t quite expect…that.”
Everyone politely did not ask him to elaborate.
The effects had been…well, it turned out using resentful energy the way Wei Wuxian had thought was possible, to say the least, and also that they’d taken down an awful lot of Wen sect soldiers in their defensive efforts.
“You will all have been affected by the resentful energy you used to summon the corpses,” Lan Qiren said. “Although the method you devised appears to avoid the most immediate consequences, which – let me remind you – include qi deviation and death in some instances, there is always the possibility that it has left traces of resentful energy within your meridians. If it is allowed to build up, it will escalate into a backlash that would rip your body and soul to pieces. There are spells and songs that can help clear your spirits and ease the effects.”
“Nie Huaisang has been playing some of them for us, since he can’t fight,” Lan Wangji said. “Nie sect ones – they’re…uh, not especially calming, more of a cleanse-by-force thing, but they seem to be working.”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “We’ll listen to any others that you’d like, Teacher Lan,” he said, anxious, and the rest of them nodded. “Just say which ones. If there’s any array or anything – or if you want us to write an essay about why using resentful energy is dangerous and wrong –”
Even Wei Wuxian nodded at that – even Nie Huaisang nodded, and he hated essays more than anything.
Lan Qiren huffed lightly. “Now you’re all so obedient.”
They all bowed their heads.
“…you did a good job,” Lan Qiren finally said, and they all looked up to stare at him. “You rescued me and repelled the Wen sect, however temporarily. Even though you used demonic cultivation, which is forbidden, you did not purposefully disturb graves, and you can make recompense to the spirits later. It was well done, and I thank you for it.”
He noticed that they were gaping and frowned at them.
“What have I taught you?” he scolded, and he sounded enough like he normally did that Wei Wuxian had the sudden urge to burst into totally inexplicable tears. “The preservation of human life is the priority, always. Why is this a surprise?”
“Shufu is right,” Lan Wangji said, and there was something of peace and calm in his eyes, the foundation of his world steady and unfaltering – he was almost glowing with it, satisfied and happy, and he was so utterly beautiful in Wei Wuxian’s eyes that it was almost blinding. “We acknowledge Teacher’s words.”
“We acknowledge Teacher’s words,” everyone else quickly agreed.
Lan Qiren shook his head, nodding in appreciation. “What is your next step now?” he asked. “The Wen sect was only repulsed, not defeated. They will not be gone long – they are already regrouping outside our gate, and this time they will be prepared for the effects of your demonic cultivation. In the end, they still have the advantage of numbers.”
“I don’t think we got as far as that in our plan,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing the back of his head.
His thinking had mostly stopped at get Teacher Lan back and make them pay. He was pretty sure the same was true for Lan Wangji, and probably all the rest of the, too.
“Maybe you didn’t,” Nie Huaisang said with a sniff, and damnit, Wei Wuxian really needed to stop underestimating him just because he was a bad cultivator and a bit empty-headed. “I, on the other hand, sent a message back to my da-ge way back when this first started, and he should be here very soon with an army of his own.”
-
There were those in the Jiang sect that liked to mock the Nie sect as being unduly paranoid, always preparing for war and speaking grimly of its inevitability, always training their disciples and soldiers as if each one of them would need to fight five or ten of the enemy at once.
If Wei Wuxian ever met any of those people ever again, he was going to punch them in the face.
“Just be sure to get your sect ready when you get back,” Nie Mingjue advised them all grimly when it was all done and Wen Xu’s head was stuck on a pike at the entrance to the Cloud Recesses as a warning. The Nie sect’s forces were smaller than the Wen sect’s invasion force, but their people were better trained; even after flying all the way from Qinghe, they’d come down on the remaining invasion force like a hammer. “This isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
“We understand. There is still war to come.”
“Not just war, but uneven and unbalanced war, and not in our favor,” Nie Mingjue said heavily. “Understand that even with this loss, the forces of all the cultivation world put together can’t match up to the armies under Wen Ruohan’s command.”
“Actually,” Lan Qiren said, and gave all of his students a pointed look, probably on account of the fact that they all still owed him the essay they'd promised to write, “I think you’ll find that there’s something more that we can add…”
537 notes · View notes
labyrinth-runner · 3 years
Note
“I might already be on me knees, but I’m still gonna make you say please.” Darkling x Fem!Reader
Title: Worth the Wait
Summary: Reader is insecure of their powers and their ability to be the sun summoner. General Kirigan assures them that they have what it takes.
Word Count: 2600
Warnings: It's sinful sunday folks. This is literally going to turn into smut. Unprotected smut. Marking.
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You'd been at the Little Palace for almost a month and by now you felt like you should have been making progress. They called you a Saint, and prayed to you so that you would be their deliverance, but who would deliver you? Who would save you? The weight of your responsibilities was almost debilitating on your shoulders. Most of the Grisha looked at you like you were so much better than them, like they could only dream of being you.
If only they knew the truth. You were a sham. You could barely manage to bring forth your power on the good days. Your arm had felt the wrath of Baghra's rage more than once this week.
Your power on your own was nothing like when Aleksander touched you. When his hand closed around your wrist, it was like your power would do anything for him. It bent to his will, and you were okay with that. The warm sureness washed over you and made you feel for one small moment that you might actually belong here. With the Grisha. With him.
The way he looked at you made you feel like you were more than you actually are. He made you want to live up to that look.
After another failed day of practice, you couldn't sleep. You tossed and turned in your comfortable bed, unable to relax. Eventually, you decided to get out of bed.
Your feet took you down to the main hall downstairs. The room was empty. Fires crackled in the hearths as their embers cooled from neglect. Your hand dragged along the tables, settling on the Darkling's seat. He had never used it in your time at the Palace, yet the Grisha fought over where they sat in relation to this chair.
There was nothing special about the chair. Its dark wood was smooth under your fingers. Casting a glance around, you pulled it out and sat, looking out over the empty chairs around you.
"It suits you," a voice said from behind you.
You jumped up, turning to see the silhouette of the General leaning against the open door to the war room. "I-I'm sorry, General."
"For what?" he asked, "For taking your rightful place? You should be sitting there, anyway. Not with the other Etherealki. You're not like them, Starling."
You blushed, looking down. "I know I'm not like them. They belong here. I don't."
"Come," he murmured, pushing the door wider for you to enter. "Let me set your mind at ease."
You passed by with bated breath, smelling the familiar scent of ash and cedar wash over you. Your eyes fell on the map resting on the table. The armies of Ravka were stretched thin, with enemies surrounding from all sides as well as from within. The door closed with a thud.
"Do you know why our enemies wish you dead?" he asked cooly.
"Because I am Grisha and Fjerdans hate our kind?" you replied.
His lips turned up slightly, "A good guess, but no. With your power, you can destroy the fold and reunite Ravka. A united country is stronger. We would loose less men, have more area to farm, and would have a better supply route. With you gone, we remain divided, an easy target for those who would wish Ravka harm."
You sighed, shoulders bowing forward. "I'm not capable of that."
"Not yet," he replied in your ear. His voice sent a shiver down your spine, "But you will be."
"How can you be so sure?" you asked, stepping forward out of his reach. Nervously, you rubbed your arms as you looked over the map.
"For a sun summoner, you surround yourself with darkness," he commented. A chill went through you as one by one the lights were consumed by pitch black night. "If you surround yourself with darkness, it's no wonder you can't find the light."
Your hair stood on end as you bumped into the table. Pieces on the war map toppled over. "If you're testing me, it won't work. There's no light here."
"There's no light in the fold, either," he countered.
"I'm not strong enough."
"Yes, you are." His voice was all around you, like the darkness. "You're just looking in the wrong places for the light."
"What do you mean?"
"You're a sun summoner. Your power comes from within. You need to stop looking outward for the power, the validation. The only person who can unlock your true potential is you."
"That's not true! When you touch me I-"
"When I touch you, I amplify what's already there. I make it easier for you to find it within you, but it's always been there, Starling."
You swallowed. The darkness was oppressive. Your voice was softer, less sure. "I can't."
"You can," he murmured. "All of those people believe in you. Why can't you believe in yourself?"
"Because they don't know me!"
"But they do. You are their Saint! The world has known you before you knew the world!"
"I'm no Saint. I'm just... I'm just me," you replied, frustrated.
"And what are you?"
"I..." Your mind was swimming. You used to say a member of the army. You used to say you were an orphan, someone without a place to belong. Then, after the incident in the fold, you were welcomed here. You wanted so badly to belong here. The Little Palace was everything you dreamed of. When you walked into a room, you were noticed. When you stood next to General Kirigan, you felt like an equal. You were no longer a nobody. You were a somebody. In the darkness, you reached for his cheek, and with precision you found it.
"I am Grisha" you replied, dragging your thumb across his cheek. Warmth surged through you as your power snaked it's way up to the surface. Your blood rushed in your veins. Every fibre of your being felt alive. You pushed away the darkness, surrounding you and Aleksander in a halo of light.
You pulled away from him and the room dimmed back to normal. His dark eyes focused on you, seeing you as he always had. His gaze was intense as you slowly backed away, your backside nudging the table.
"You're not just Grisha," he murmured stepping into your space. His hand reached up, his ring lightly grazing your cheek as he pushed a strand of hair out of your face. Your eyes fell from his to his lips. The air between you was charged. "You are mine, Starling."
His lips crashed against yours, his stubble tickling your skin. Your hands sunk into his raven hair to pull him closer to you. His large hands slid up your thighs, pushing your robe further up as they hooked behind your knees to lift you onto the table. Your back knocked over multiple little pieces, causing you to chuckle as his lips made their way down your neck to your clavicle. His thumbs drew lazy circles on the inside of your thighs as his lips trailed lower. Landing on his knees in front of you, his lips sucked marks up the soft flesh of your legs, inching the fabric further up.
"Are you scared?" he murmured, looking up from between your legs.
"Of you?" you asked, smoothing a lock of his hair out of his eyes. You thought back to all the moments between you, the pull, the charge, the familiarity of him. There was a crackle between your skin as your atoms grew closer, wanting to bond. You knew it now, you were two halves of the same whole. He was darkness, you were light. You could not exist without each other. Just as you could not know light without dark, you hadn't known yourself until you knew him.
"Starling?" he asked, pulling you from your thoughts.
"No," you admitted. "I'm not."
"Well, Starling, what do you want?" Aleksander asked, his fingers slipping up to hook around the band of your underwear, tugging down gently.
"You," you groaned, your head falling back to look at the ceiling as the cold air hit your skin.
“I might already be on me knees, but I’m still going to make you say please," he smirked, nipping your thigh.
"Please, Aleksander," you breathed, subconsciously opening your legs wider for him. "I want you."
The smug grin that you got in response made you bite your lip. His eyes seemed to get impossibly darker with desire as his hand slid up your chest to push you flat back against the table top. His other hand tugged on the bow keeping your robe closed, letting it fall open. He stood between your legs, taking in how you looked spread out over Ravka. All of it would be his from this moment forth: Ravka and you. The world was at his fingertips.
The anticipation was killing you as he gently dragged his fingertips down the valley of your chest before settling on your hips.
You had to wonder what he thought when he looked at you. Was this love? Or was it simply lust? When two beings such as yourselves existed, was there any other course to take besides falling for each other? When you were the only two beings who could potentially live forever, why would you fall for those who could die when like should end up with like?
"I've waited so long for you," he whispered.
"Then why wait any longer?" you asked breathlessly, propping up on your elbows. You had never felt more bare; more seen.
He tapped his fingers in a cadence on your thigh as one would impatiently tap a table. "You make a good point, Starling."
Reaching up, you grabbed ahold of the lapels of his coat, pulling him down to you. He rested his forehead against yours as your hands smoothed up his chest and over his shoulders to push the fabric off his body. Then, your sure fingers worked his buttons over with determination.
He grabbed your hands, bringing them up to kiss your wrists. The Darkling took over from where you left off, shedding his own shirt and pants until he matched you.
Hooking your heels around his abdomen, you pulled him closer. His hard length bumped against your slick. His eyes closed at the feeling.
Suddenly, it was if something had come over him. One hand gripped your hip as the other cupped the back of your head somewhat roughly to pull you into a kiss.
This kiss was different.
It was rough, passionate, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses. Part of it was frustration. Anger. Disgust at himself for not being able to be the cool, controlled Darkling he was known to be. He blamed you. He blamed himself for becoming undone by you.
You kissed him back with the same ferocity, but opposing emotions. Your kiss was a resignation, an acceptance that this was how the world should be. Your kiss was relief. Your kiss was love and admiration. Your fingers tugged at his hair, making him open his mouth to fight your tongue for dominance. It was a long battle, but you won. You twirled your tongue around his, soothing him. Your breaths mingled as one, a balance. Your breaths were tantric as he pulled your body flush against his.
Unexpectedly, he lifted you, carrying you towards his bedroom.
"What's wrong with where we were?" you asked softly as he placed you on his bed. It was softer than yours.
"I don't want to think of the war while I make love to you," he sighed in your ear. He pulled back to kiss you softly. "I just want it to be you and me. Here. Now."
Lining himself up with your entrance, he took a deep breath. He kissed you again as he entered. He wasn't forceful, but it was still an adjustment. He swallowed your noises of discomfort with his mouth, waiting for you to become accustomed to the feel of him. When you nodded, he started to move.
He started slow, rocking back and forth into you, kissing you as he did. His hand dipped down to push your knee towards your chest to increase the angle. He hit somewhere deep inside you, causing you to gasp. The gasp quickly turned into a moan as he hit the spot again and again. His pace quickened in speed and increased in roughness, but you liked it. Your body had taken worse beatings that left you feeling less pleasure than this before.
Your fingernails dug into his shoulder, looking to ground yourself. Deep within you, your power was surging, giving you energy that you spent on the Darkling. You matched his thrusts.
"Saints," he gasped.
You grabbed his chin, bringing his face back to look at yours. "I am yours. Take me as you want me."
His gaze was unfocused, seeing through you, but he nodded. His hips snapped into yours at a pace that shook the bed. Your hand gripped his hair tightly as he bit your neck, sucking a mark that you knew would be visible.
It was almost on the precipice of being more pain than pleasure. Your body was incredibly hot. A slight sheen of sweat glistened on your skin as you gasped for air from the exertion of it all. Every muscle in your body was pulled taut, like a slingshot ready to fire.
"Let go," he instructed in your ear.
You screamed his name. Your toes curled as a blinding light filled your vision and you saw stars. You saw the light within you, soaring up towards the heat of your inner sun until you could almost touch it.
And then you were falling. Crashing into a pool of cool darkness. The cold washed over your skin and you realized it was Aleksander's release. The darkness quenching the heat of the sun.
He slowed his pace, fucking you both through your orgasm until life came back into focus for both of you. You blinked through your daze until your vision cleared and you were back in the arms of the Darkling, resting on his bed.
The Darkling had lived a thousand lives before you were even born. Part of you wondered how often he had laid with someone like this, wondering how you'd compare to the rest.
He flopped on his back to catch his breath, chuckling as he stared at the canopy of his bed.
"That was...." He turned to look at you, a boyish grin on his face that you recognized as a happiness he never wore. "Worth the wait."
You let out a breathy laugh of your own as you turned onto your stomach. "Good. I'd hate to disappoint."
"You'd never disappoint, Starling." His smile softened as he reached up to hook his thumb under your chin.
Your eyes trailed down his body, looking at his chest and scrutinizing it for the first time. Scars marred his body. "I'm surprised you never had Genya erase those."
"They remind me of what I'm fighting for." He followed your gaze and sighed, the wall of sadness back in place, and also, you realized, grief.
You reached out to take his hand, kissing his palm. "The fight will be over soon."
He held his arm up so that you could tuck into his side. Hugging you into his side, he kissed the top of your head. "One way or another, Starling. One way or another."
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yandere-sins · 3 years
Text
His Love
Horrortober Day 4: Needle  |  “It’s just a tiny sting. You won’t notice it at all.”
Day 4! Time is passing so fast... but I am glad to do this challenge :3 I think the biggest challenge for me is actually writing for the character’s I predetermined at the beginning. I find myself wanting to switch them around for prompts but no! I will stick to the list and keep challenging myself ^-^
Warnings: Yandere, TW Needle/Syringe, Kidnapping, Gags and being tied up, Sedation Characters: Dazai Osamu x Reader
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It was wrong.
With tears streaming down your face, you had to recognize that everything you thought had been right was actually terribly wrong. You only just met him. Perhaps it had been a month now. But really, you only just met this wonderful stranger named Dazai. He didn’t just catch your eye, he also pulled at your heartstrings. It was the kind of love you always had wanted, just… it wasn’t. Not really. 
Not if that love meant being held captive, gagged and tied, staring into the face of a madman.
Something about the way he held the needle in his hand, clear drops of something collecting at its nozzle, seemed utterly wrong. Not just morally. Morally it was very wrong. No one should fear getting injected with something unknown. But the way he held it was strange enough to ring alarm bells. As if he didn’t know how to properly use it.
As if he didn’t know what he was doing.
“Shh,” Dazai shushed you calmly, holding down your right leg as you began to move and struggle again. Panic rose inside of you, festering in every inch of your body. NO! you wanted to scream at him, your bare feet trying to kick Dazai or at least the syringe out of his hand. Whatever his plan was, you didn’t want to have anything to do with it. 
You’ve tried being calm, tried being patient with him. When he invited you over to his apartment, only to spike the tea he served you with drugs, you were scared, yes. But you tried your best to work with him and his crazy wishes. No useless question fell off your lips anymore after Dazai stared at you crazed when you asked him if you could leave. You’ve been so good. So why did you have to go through this?
“It’s just a tiny sting. You won’t notice it at all,” Dazai assured you, or rather, reassured you. But with your mouth gagged, you couldn’t tell him how little you feared the needle and how much you feared what it would transfer in your body. With the last bit of effort you could come up with, you looked at him, fixating his eyes with yours. As miserable as you could, you pleaded with him silently to please not do it.
And for a moment, it seemed to work. Dazai merely stared back. You weren’t sure what he saw, maybe it was his own reflection that made him hesitant, but it caught him, made him lower his arm. “You know,” he mumbled, slowly painting his fingers over your leg. It gave you goosebumps, but at the same time, it helped to lower your anxiety, seeing how he relaxed. “I don’t like doing this to you, either.”
Even you knew those were empty words. Just like all the other words he always told you. Dazai’ loved you’, ‘adored you’ even. What a joke. ‘Couldn’t imagine a life without you’ and ‘wished to always be with you’. And he could have! Some part of you believed that if he hadn’t done these things to you—kidnapping and mistreating you in every way possible—then perhaps, you two could have become the couple he wanted. He could have proved you wrong. Proved that the love you always wanted did exist!
You two could have found a way to live. With each other or apart, but in love. Beautiful, pure love. But not like this. Not with him still gripping the syringe in his hand, eyes lowering to leer at your body presented to him like a gift. A gift he wrapped himself while you were unconscious like so many of your days now. Because you were his present to enjoy, no matter if you liked it or not. 
A sigh of relief left you, despite getting stuck on the gag, and you dared to look away, only to feel his grip tighten around your ankle again. Alarmed, you opened your eyes again, looking at a man full of disappointment and anger. Back was the tension that left you before and gone the feeling of safety you irresponsibly allowed yourself to have after the threat seemed banned. 
“I don’t like doing it, but I hate it even more to see you’ve been hiding this from me.”
From his trouser’s back pocket, Dazai pulled a black, rectangle object, dangling it in front of your face. Shit, you thought, and you were pretty sure the truth was showing in your expression. You knew exactly what it was: your savior. A phone that the man who came to patch you up after a rough fight with your captor two days ago left you. It had been a risk to have, but you hid it in the cover of your pillow. But without the possibility to use it until now, this random act of kindness had been in vain. You’ve been wanting to dial the emergency contacts, but before you could, Dazai had forced you to rest, leaving you restrained until he came back. But you didn’t think he could find it, even if you never used it. 
“Why must there be secrets between us, my love? You know I hate being deceived, but let’s be honest, did you really think I wouldn’t find it?”
Tugging at your ankle, you yelped, losing the strength in your body to keep yourself up and face him. You’ve been good. All this time, you had been understanding and patient. But who could blame you for clinging to a ray of hope? Shaking your head, you tried to plead with him again, but this time, his expression was merely filled with conceited disappointment. As if he was any better than you. That overprotective, obsessed, and mad asshole. 
“So while I go out and find who dared putting these stupid thoughts in your head, I can’t risk you being as awake and clever as you think you are.”
The syringe came back in sight, and you felt almost defeated, knowing there was nothing you could do against a decision he had already made. There was only hoping for the best and trying to prepare for the awakening by his side later, coddled and suffocating in his chest. 
“Dazai,” you said, but what came out was probably nothing more than blabbering against the gag. If he could say empty words, then so could you. If your survival depended on being sweet and kind to the man who was ruining you with his mere presence, then you would be what he wanted from you. 
His eyes opened wide, his name being such a rare word to hear from you, even if you butchered it with your inability to speak properly. Letting go of your ankle, he climbed on top of you, making it easier to look at him again while you laid down and relaxed. “I love you,” you lied, the feelings never reaching your eyes, but they certainly lifted Dazai’s mood. “Me too!” he sighed, smiling softly. “I love you too.”
It really was just a tiny sting, but against his promise, you felt it painfully in the side of your upper body. Letting out a strained groan, you temporarily tensed before you were sedated, eyes slowly closing as you drifted off to another sleepless night for you. In the cold, dark bunker that Dazai called your home, nothing seemed safe, and nothing was right. You could do everything you dared, but you couldn’t do the things you wanted. 
However, something even Dazai had to realize at some point was that you hadn’t given up yet. You’d never. You had a life before this—one you loved. Even if you had to make yourself small and loveable, endure the hardships of a thousand needles and the love of a psycho who you once thought was the man of your dreams, you wouldn’t give up. You wanted to believe that there was more to life than being here, that there was so much more to see and experience than the trauma you were going through. That there still was true love waiting for you. A love that was stronger than all of this. 
But did you really believe you were stronger than that cunning man who calls you the love of his life?
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raggaraddy · 3 years
Note
hello if you want you can ignore this of course but I was wondering what would vampire Hoseok do if he found out someone turned oc? Your fics are amazing by the way!
Bitten to death
A/N: Thank you for your request :) It was fun to write. However I took it less as a reaction, and more of a story prompt. So it's not exactly a conclusive answer to your question. I hope you still like it, though ^-^ 💜💜💜
Summary: You thought you knew everything about Vampires but when you wake up one you learn there are some important things you did not know. And it's only going to let worse once you learn why you were turned.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, maiming, choking, violence, mind control, abduction, yandere themes.
Vampire! Hoseok
It was like a horror story within your already horrific story. Some man you've never met before broke into Hoseok's house when only you were there. While you screamed and fought and instinctively called for Hoseok, he covered you in bites unlike any other you had felt before. Ones that made you suffer as if fire was coursing through your veins. You wish that you could say you were strong enough that your fight had some kind of impact. But in truth, it was over after only a few seconds. And it was in those few seconds that you felt your chest burning and your breath fill your lungs for the last time.
Waking you're met by the stranger hovering above you. Your head aching and your body throbbing in ways you had never experienced before. With a quick glance, you can see everything around you, and that does mean everything. Every single little detail. And the information is overwhelming.
Your mind feels as if it's breaking from everything you're taking in. For as far as you can see there are pallets and long isles of shelves lined up, the contents on every rack crystal clear. You can hear the sound of his shoes on the concrete and the dirt gritting underneath, and how each peak of sound travels and bounces off the farthest point in the warehouse. Even the smells, there are hundreds of them all hitting you at once. A few you know like the fragrance of the treated wood or the oils stain, but others you couldn't guess at. It's as if all of your senses are on high and you have no way to focus them.
Despite your panic, no matter how much you want to run, you can't. Laying on your back with your arms spread out to either side of you and your legs held together, you're being bound by the thinnest most delicate length of silver chain. Though, it's not tied. It's only draped over you, but still holding you as if it were stronger than any steel. Burning you as if it were touched by the sun.
You may have only seen a few newly made vampires before, but you have still been around them enough and know enough about their existence to recognize how and why your body feels wrong. And absurdly you can't help but feel betrayed. This was not supposed to happen to you. It was the only safety you got from belonging to someone who was called The Immortal King, and The Origin of Cruelty. No one was supposed to be foolish enough to steal from him, and most importantly, no one was supposed to be able to hurt you. But now because Hobi didn't keep you safe, he's now lost his blood supply and you've lost your humanity.
The stranger snaps his fingers, the sound bursting in your eardrums making you groan and wince as he repeats it. "Focus your attention on just this one sound. On just the sight of my hand. Feel the air around it." He coaxes you, snapping again. The noise echos dozens of times, ricocheting off every wall. The dull thud of his fingertips hitting his palm only sounding the once though.
Opening your eyes your concentration goes to the hand held above your face as he said, the space around it blurring. On the back of his pointer finger on an otherwise porcelain complexion, you notice a small patch of dry skin just below his knuckle. Clear blue-black defined veins wrapping the back of his palm. He clicks his fingers again and you catch the sound of friction from the way his finger rubs down his thumb, feeling the most minuscule shift in the air created by his motion.
The pinpointed attention helps for a moment, but then you shift your eyes to his face and the explosion of information overpowers you again. His hold comes around your neck keeping your head from turning. The tight pressure on your throat while stifling your movement, nearly makes you smile. There's no airflow to restrict. Your chest isn't heating, your body isn't convulsing trying to breathe. Even in this tense moment, you can't help but find it humorous, thinking how many times over the years had you wished for this exact thing when Hobi had squeezed the air from you.
"Watch my eyes," on his words your vision becomes immersed in them. They're piercing blue. Made up of streaks of white interlacing with a clear sapphire shade, like thousands of threads made out of the purest tropical ocean. A transparent irregular line encircling his pupil, and beyond that every distinct strand blurs together with the others until it reaches the shadowed grey edge that holds the circular shape. Slowly his jet black pupils dilate, stretching and filling his entire iris till every trace of colour is removed. As if transfixed, you're unable to close your own eyes, a flooding of bright light filling your field of view. The strength of it is so intense that the tendons in your sockets ache and your eyes begin to water. Tears rolling down the sides of your face, cresting in your ears.
"Apologies, you are only my second." He confuses you with a vague explanation you did not ask for. The black finally receding into its natural size. Your own eyes scrunching as you try to blink away the soreness. The bizarre occurrence leaving you feeling drained of strength, filling you with anxiety caused by the uncertainty, which is only worsened by the glimmer of triumph in his gaze.
Searching past him to the ceiling your brain is again processing the whole image instead of the sum of its parts. The strain in your head slowly fading, your tight held muscles releasing as everything begins to normalize. You don't know what he did, but it seemed to help.
He doesn't back away, continuing to invade your personal space. Although, the way his fingers are trailing along your skin while you're restrained on the floor is still not the worst thing he has done to you. Seeing as he killed you.
"I had almost given up hope that Jung Hoseok would love." His hand daintily caresses along your neck and up your jaw. Your eyes shutting as his fingertips run over your lips. "I began to fear it might not be something possible for him." He divulges, his touch still aimlessly wandering.
The way he speaks you can feel his vailed anger. Despite his soft words, this is not someone who cares about Hoseok's wellbeing, this is someone who hates him deeply.
"However, you restored my lost faith. And for that, I would like to thank you, Inamorata."
He thinks Hoseok loves you? Is he crazy?. He's possessive of you, that is all. Even in moments of deception or weakness when you had told him that you loved him, he's never said it back with any sincerity. And he has never said it of his own accord.
"Sir," your eyes reopen. "I think you've misunderstood. These," you weakly gesture to the silver, each slight movement searing the links deeper into your flesh. "aren't necessary. We are on the same side. I hate Hobi, more than anyone."
"Truly?" He asks tilting his head to the side. His white hair messily hanging across his forehead.
"Yes," you nod trying to insist your point. "He's kept me locked up for years." you chuckle dryly. Finding it nearly risible that all of this is because this man believes in a fantasy.
"Well then, you are free to rise," he nods resolutely. Plucking the chains out of your melted skin as you grit your teeth. The sound of the sizzle on his own skin baffling you as to how he can even lift them.
Sitting up you gently pull your limbs in, inspecting the blistered and bloody marks. The skin on your wrists already starting to intricately knit itself back together.
"Come here." The stranger calls from a rested place on one of the pallets to your right.
Standing, it is a bit hard to walk with your ankles still cut up but you make it to him decently. Looking around you, you can see the sun streaming in from the high windows that line the whole length of the warehouse. It's enough to light up the otherwise dark space, but with the sheer size of this place, the beams of sunlight do not get close to the two of you in the centre. Still in the middle of the day, it means Hobi can't get to you. Not easily at least. So you're on your own for now.
"Kneel." He instructs plainly. And you follow, lowering onto your knees in front of him. Your only thoughts are of escape. You may be in your first minutes as a vampire, but it should be simple to move quickly. It always seemed like something that came easily to them. "Inamorata, you will call me Master." he declares abruptly.
"Yes, Master." You smile confusedly. Inamorata? Why does he keep calling you that? You're unsure if it's a name or a title, but it's weirding you out.
Your face drops, your heart thumping, realizing what you said. The words you just spoke replaying in your head. You hadn't meant to say that.
Why did you say that?
In fact, why had you knelt? Why were you doing what he said at all?
With a gaped mouth you climb back to your feet. "Look, I think-um." You start not knowing what you want to say.
"Kneel." He orders again more forcefully yet with a knowing, jovial smirk. You shake your head hard, staying upright. You're not going to let him order you around. He has to be kidding.
Your brows furrow, your mouth drops open, and your forehead tightens as your knees bend against your wishes. You drop back into your knelt position. Grunting as your jaw clenches, your fingers digging into your legs, doing your best to resist without success.
Your eyes go wide in shock.
"Good. Now stay there," his voice makes your stomach drop. But your muscles relax, your shoulders dropping and your bottom lowering on your calves. Your body resting in this position.
This is nothing you have ever seen before. It's nothing that you knew was possible. It shouldn't be possible. On top of all the horrible advantages they already have, you're sure you would have known if mind control was one of them!
"How?" You gape, shaking your head in disbelief. "Why?"
"Why?" a smile fills his face, "What you have told me is far different than what I had heard." He stands and turns, tapping his foot against the top pallet sending it and its boxed contents flying. He grabs at the bottom slats of wood underneath and drags them closer to you with a horrid screeching on the concrete. Sitting back down he is now much lower and much nearer to you. So much so that his legs spread straight out on either side of you. "See, I had heard stories of the self-proclaimed King of Vampires, who had fallen in love with his human pet. That he kept her close, kept her safe, and drank from her exclusively."
"That's not love." you interrupt with a scoff, "That's imprisonment."
"Well, let us see what the truth is. Tell me honestly, Jung Hoseok's little Inamorata, do you love him?"
"Yes." You're mouth answers before your mind has time to think. "No!" you instantly correct.
The smile grows larger on his face "And what do you feel about him?"
"I'm scared of him. But I care for him." The words are pouring out of you uncontrollably, your face placifying as you speak. "and I miss him when he isn't home."
"And does he love you?"
"I think so, yes." You wish you could make yourself shut up! Your calm tone drops and you bite your jaw trying to take back your own body, growling as you do. "No! He doesn't." you snarl in a rapid shift.
"You think so? Then my last question; Do you want him to love you?" He asks satirically.
"Yes," The word slips out. Being accepted joyously from him. "You can't just make me say anything you want!" you shout. Your body is rigid and stiff as you think to stand with nothing happening.
"I did not," he chuckles, "I made you say what you believe is true."
"No, you didn't! Tha-" his finger raises to his lips shushing you, cutting you off like your voice had disappeared.
That is not how you feel! Hobi may have gotten better as time has gone on, but he is still cruel and malicious and heartless. The only thing this man is doing is speaking to your primal brain. The part of you that gave into its survival instinct and it's the part that you fight every day to repress so that you stay in control. You can't love him, it's not possible.
"Ha, you are far more amenable than my last. I can hardly feel any resistance." He mocks, tapping his temple. "And I recall Jung Hoseok trying to move heaven and earth to break free. Even Mansueto struggled to contain him. But you," he reaches down holding out his hand and you follow his gesture, your body moving independently to accept it. "You are a broken little thing."
You don't understand his ridicule. You're not moving consciously. Your own mind isn't connected to your actions. So you can't fathom how your body is even reacting, let alone how you should be able to fight it.
"Stop." You complain, your voice coming out with far less strength than you had intended. "Look, Hoseok doesn't have my blood anymore, okay. So just leave me out of whatever fucked up feud you have you have going with him."
"No, that is not enough." his tone becomes suddenly harsh. He lifts his hand and you stand as he raises it. "He stole someone precious to me and he must feel the same agony of loss."
"You're wrong." you swallow, working to overcome your nerves, "I'm sorry, but you just are. He doesn't love me. I'm not precious." You try to reason, seeing your pleas falling on an unreceptive man.
"We will see."
The sun has barely set before you hear commotion beyond the metal walls.
You had tried over and over to pry information from this man, to convince him to let you leave. But you were unable to gather so much as a name from him, and clearly, you failed to be let go. After a certain point of ignoring you, he stopped you from speaking altogether. Not allowing you to say a word until he permits it. More than that though, he filled your head with many instructions. Telling you how to behave in anticipation of Hoseok's arrival.
100 meters in front of you the locked doors are ripped off their hinges, a dozen men and women pouring into the warehouse with inhuman speed. But as if time slows down your eyes adjust and you can see them, see their movements with full clarity. Hoseok comes in last and straight down the middle into the open square that you all occupy. And you must admit, you are genuinely happy to see him. Now you just want him to hurry up and get you out of here.
The man steps forward to meet them while you are sat on the stack of pallets behind him. Your only instruction at this time is to sit quietly and wait for him to call you. Hating the feeling of being restrained by your own body.
Watching them all lineup versus a single man, you find it comical how outmatched he is.
Hobi always said that when he got tired of playing with your human body, he was going to turn you. And he was furious if anyone robbed him of even your smallest reactions, so clearly, he was going to be beyond pissed that someone sped up his plan, and took your death away from him.
"That's mine," Hoseok puffs up his chest, looking past the man's shoulder to you. 
The only thing that's confusing you, though, is if this man knows who The Vampire King is, why he didn't expect to be met with hell on earth, and why he didn't prepare better.
"Jung Hoseok, always so impolite. Do you not think you should greet an old friend after so many years?"
"We can talk all you like, Kol," Hoseok snarls, finally giving a name to your killer. "Once I get my property back."
"I think you'll find this is my belonging now." he chuckles in a brief pause. Hoseok's expression darkens, his eyes becoming murderous. The fury around him actually making you shiver. "Do you like the modifications I made? She is much more durable now."
Supposedly, Hobi's already noticed your change, because he doesn't look at you again. Instead, the two men have an intense staredown. All of the vampires on his side looking ready to kill on a word.
"And far more obedient. Come here," Kol calls you, holding his hand out at shoulder height for you to take. Moving automatically, you jump down from the stack of wooden pallets placing your fingers on his palm.
Unable to stand the rage on Hoseok's face you look down, just missing the exact moment he charges. But you see an instant later as he is thrown back like a paper doll into four stories of shelves, his weight bringing the metal, the shelves, and the products down on top of him as the whole structure collapses. His men looking as startled as you to see Hoseok so easily discarded.
Before the toppling construction settles, Kol breaks from your side and an incredible, horrible scene breaks out. His speed is something you can't follow, even now. You only see the trail of destruction when he stops. One after the other, he made his way through half of the vampires, ripping them apart. Literally tearing some in two halves. Decorating the square with blood and innards.
The others are as belated and overwhelmed as you, only just having the sense to react as his blurred image stops. When he advances again, this time he doesn't use his quickness for an advantage and simply ploughs through them. They attack all at once, and still as they grab and strike at him, their forces barely move him. And his response is terrifying.
You can only bear to watch the first one. Kol's fist driving through a woman's chest, the horrid cracking of her ribs as he tears it back out making you want to scream. But his orders have you completely silent. Instead, you close your eyes, sealing your hands over your ears. Trying to block out the violent sickening sounds of his destructive rampage.
There's a last thud before it falls quiet again. Your eyes springing open to see as horrific of a sight as you had imagined. He's dripping in blood. Drenched in it. And Hoseok's people are strewn in every which way. Not a single one having survived.
Sauntering through the sea of dead bodies, he makes his way to the side where Hoseok is unmoved, tossing away the beams and panels as if they were nothing. Grabbing him by the ankle, he drags him from the rubble into the clear space in front of you. The man you once thought of as the most powerful in existence, and his troupe of vampires, was completely demolished in mere seconds of work. And you can only watch on with your body shaking. Your hopes of rescue decimated. Your chest aching with worry, even for Hobi's sake.
"Now that it's a more intimate number of us, should we talk?" Kol releases him, brushing past you as he sits where you had before. His action triggering an instruction he provided earlier, forcing you to follow him and kneel at his feet.
Sitting up, Hoseok rubs the back of his hand against a large gash under his eye. The ferocity not having left his mannerisms. "You disappear for 90 years, and you show up to what, gimmie a blood bath." His laugh falls into a grimace as he stands himself back up.
"I was created in the 13th century and you brought infants to a fight with me. What did you think would happen?" Kol asks scornfully.
"I was hoping they would do a little better," He smirks, shrugging off their deaths. "Okay, that's my bad. But still, that doesn't tell me what you want. Or did you just want to remind me that you're still alive?" He taunts, his sardonic nature returning, "Remind me that you're still pissed and you can kick my ass. Good job. You put on quite a show." he smiles, his tongue running over his fangs as he gestures around at the gruesome display. "But she," he points to you with two fingers, bitterness lacing his next words, "is worth nothing to you."
"Oh, she is worth everything to me," Kol slides forward, his hand brushing down the back of your neck, "because she is worth everything to you."
On those words, you get the most heart-wrenching sight. A pang of insecurity shows up in Hoseok's eyes. Uncertainty and something so close to fear. The smile fading as he looks him up and down.
"I am curious, though, Vampire King, do you think she will detest the Sire bond as greatly as you did?" he punctuates the question, tugging your head back by your hair. "If I treat her as Mansueto treated you, how long do think until she breaks?"
With immense speed, Hoseok splinters one of the wooden crates near him, lunging at Kol, aiming to drive the shard into his heart with a roar. But he's caught before his hand ever plunges forward. Instead, Kol takes the sharp wood and spikes it into Hoseok's stomach. Continuing to dominate him with a solid blow, knocking him off his feet, smacking him into the concrete in front of you. Stepping down, he swings his foot punting Hoseok in the chest hurling him back among the remains of his fallen creations.
You had thought if you ever saw Hobi being handled as roughly as he treated you, that you would enjoy the Karma of it. But seeing him so easily immobilized is making you sick with fear and mostly sadness.
With Kol having stood, you're no longer bound on your knees and you scramble to your feet. You want to run to Hoseok's side but before you have the chance Kol drags you into him, his hand wrapped around your waist, his other crudely brushing the hair from off the side of your face.
"Call out to him. Tell him your every feeling." He hushes the order in your ear.
"Hobi!" you yell, not sure you would have even needed to be compelled to want to shout for him. "Get up, please. I'm scared. I wanna go home!"
"Go to him," Kol releases you and you sprint to his side, hardly able to slow your sudden frantic speed.
Doubled over Hoseok is bleeding profusely. He needs your blood- but you can't do that anymore. And you have no idea what to do. You don't know how to help him or how to get out of here. He's the one that is supposed to keep you safe.
Coming from behind you, Kol bends down shoving you out of the way to lift Hoseok by the throat. "Stop!" you follow their movement, hanging on Kol's arm. "Stop! Please." But you have no effect. Instead, he jerks the wood dagger out making Hobi yell in pain.
"Do you recall what you said as you killed our Sire?" Kol whispers maliciously. "You told me that 'I will get over it'." Releasing him, he lets Hoseok plummet to the floor and you drop with him trying to catch his weight. "In 100 years from now, I'll let you see her again and you can tell me if you were able to take your own advice." he smiles spitefully.
"Hobi," you whine lowly. Brushing his hair from his sweat and blood wet forehead. "I don't want to go with him. Rather the devil you know, right," you softly chuckle, trying to pull his energy back.
Even though you know the both of you have no chance at the moment, you guess you're just looking for an affirmation that he isn't going to let you go and let this other man keep you for the next century.
"Please," you whisper, your waterline filling with tears.
Reaching towards you, Hoseok's hand constricts around your throat, pulling you into him like he has countless times before.
"You're mine," he growls through pained grunts. His anger lessened, distress replacing it. But he gives you the answer he could see you searching for.
"Yes," you nod subtly. Closing your eyes as you lean further into his hold.
"Get up," Kol orders, interrupting you.
Despite his tightening grip, you pull away from Hobi, standing as you were told. The elder vampire taking your arm leads you away through the bodies to the open doorway.
"Say goodbye Jung Hoseok," Kol calls back, leaving him injured and alone, making you wish more than ever that you could pull back. "And do not worry, I'll take very good care of her for you."
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thefanficmonster · 3 years
Text
Fated
Karl Heisenberg x Autistic, Sound-sensitive Reader (Female)
Warnings: Swearing, Spoilers for RE8:Village, Noise sensitivity
Genre: Romance, Comfort
Summary: Not everyone could love a man like Heisenberg. But Y/N isn’t everyone, nor is she just anyone. She loves him as the whole package he is: murderous intentions, human experiments and all.
Requested by @phoenixofthevalley Hi dear! Here you go - the first fic I’ve ever written for Karl Heisenberg (first of many) and thank you so much for being my first ever Resident Evil 8 requester! Hope you enjoy the read! Feel free to correct me if I’ve described anything incorrectly or in an accidentally offensive manner. I have no intention of spreading hate or any type of misconception so I’d really appreciate the correction. Love, Vy ❤
Watching Karl get so excited over this grand plan of his - the destroying of Mother Miranda, his revenge - it all makes me feel uneasy. I can’t explain the feeling, mostly cause I’ve never felt it before, and I can’t quite describe it either. I don’t connect to people easily and I’ve always been told I’m the problem but I guess it took the right person to make me feel things I haven’t felt for no one else all my life.
“The weren’t worthy of your emotions, darling.“ Karl told me on one of the rare occasions when I opened up my mind to him. I felt his words wrap around me like a comforting embrace. For the first time in my life, I felt understood.
I think that’s what took me the longest to get used to - being understood, seen and validated. My opinions had never before been taken into account seriously, my personal boundaries were rarely respected by others and people always had a hard time dealing with how distant I can be. But what bothers me above all is how people refer to me as dramatic because of my sound sensitivity - something no one took seriously when I’d tell them about it.
Karl did though, surprising me to no end.
He respects that I like my personal space and prefer not being shown much affection, especially not physical. He understands that I have a hard time showing people affection myself. He goes out of his way to make sure I’m ok with whatever it is he’s doing, saying or suggesting. And I’m sure that if I were to ever tell someone about this, they wouldn’t believe me. That’s most definitely due to his rough exterior and intimidating appearance. Also probably because he comes off as downright selfish and rude when you first meet him, but getting to know him was a journey worth taking because I now know the real him. A trust me, his rough exterior and the softness of his true self have nothing in common. Although, he does claim that softness is only reserved for me.
With all that laid out, it’s completely understandable that I don’t want him going up against Mother Miranda. Thanks to Karl I’ve never had the displeasure of running into her, but I’ve heard countless stories of how powerful and downright terrifying that witch is. Bottom line: I don’t want Karl walking into something that’s the equivalent of suicide.
And I’ve finally decided to let him know exactly how I feel about it.
I’ve been sitting here, searching for my voice as I observe Karl in his deepest thinking space. He’s constantly in it, if you ask me - constantly thinking, looking for ways to make his innovations better, stronger, more powerful to add to his chances of victory against the sadistic ruler of this village. He was already at his desk when I walked in, hunched over dozens of drawings drawn with cut-edge precision yet in his mind they are probably not near good enough. In his mind, all he does is never good enough. He prides himself on this factory and what he’s produced thus far but he cannot stay proud of himself for very long, he constantly feels the need to better himself in order to remain worthy in his eyes. I wish I could change his mindset on those grounds but I know that my tries would be futile and pointless.
“Karl?“ I suddenly speak up, surprising both him and myself. I don’t know what I was thinking opening my mouth when I still have no idea how to go about this without making it seem like I don’t believe in him. That is in no way the case. I believe he can defeat her, if he cannot do it himself, his robo-army most certainly can. But I don’t want defeating her to cost him his life cause without him in mine I’m not sure what will be left of me.
He straightens up from where he’s been hunched over for the past God knows how many hours, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms as her turns to look at me, his sunglasses capturing the white neon light in the office as he does so.
“What is it, darling? Something wrong?“ he takes a step towards me as I stand up and go to approach him.
“Actually...“ Suddenly, that thing he keeps in a safety cell just below this room starts going off with that annoying loud sound it makes. It’s always disturbed me, ever since it came to exist which was not so long ago considering it’s been his latest project. It not only terrifies me but triggers my sound sensitivity as do most of the machines in this forsaken factory.
I close my eyes tightly shut as I cover my ears with my hands, praying for the sound to go away as soon as possible because I can’t take it. It almost makes me physically nauseous and gives me vertigo, bringing me to the brink of tears because of its loudness and intensity, like it’s drilling right into my brain.
I can’t quite pinpoint the exact moment the sound went away because when faced with such a pain-inducing experience, my senses tend to tune out while I still remain conscious, but when my hearing returns I the only thing I’m able to hear is a steady heartbeat and a steady breathing. 
“It’s ok, darling. You’re ok.“ I hear Karl’s quiet whisper, giving me peace and coaxing me into opening my eyes.
When I do so, I come to realize why the rest of the world has gone quiet. Why I’m suddenly so flooded with comfort like no one is able to bring me. No one but him.  One of my ears is pressed up to his chest while the other is covered by his warm hand which travels up to move a strand of hair from my face and put it behind my ear as he repeats his soothing words like a chant, slowly starting to let go of me out of fear that he’s crossing a line. He’s always so wary about that and I’ll forever be grateful to him for it.
“Are you ok, sweetheart?“ His hands gently cup my cheeks, tilting my head so I can look him in the eyes - directly in the eyes, for he has ridden himself of his glasses. I’ve found he does that often when around me - removes his glasses. I once asked him why that is but the answer he gave me was vague, all the while a small smile played on his face. Guess he’s a bigger secret-keeper than I primarily thought. It doesn’t bother me really, I know the only secrets he keeps are the ones that would be a hazard for my safety if he exposed me to them, so I allow him his secrets and I keep some of my own to myself. It’s only fair, after all.
I nod, blinking up at him, “Yes, I’m ok. But...“ Now or never, girl. Now or never. “But if you want me to be honest, I will be.”
He looks baffled by my answer but he doesn’t falter, quickly regaining his composure before he replies, “Of course, dear. I always want you to be honest with me. What’s on your mind, what’s bothering you?“
Now “I haven’t been really ok for a while now.” I take his hands in mine, removing them from my cheeks but holding them firmly between us - a gesture that surprises me just as much as it shocks him. Never have I felt the need to be so close to someone. It may be momentary and temporary, but I refuse to dwell on that as I push forward with my argument, “I haven’t been ok since you told me about your plane. The whole thing with Mother Miranda and all that...” Not the time to be leaving me, words. I started this, I’ll finish it. “Look, Karl, I know you and your army can bring that witch to her demise but...”
“But what, Y/N? Tell me.“ He encourages me softly, his hands subtly tightening their hold on mine as if to keep me grounded, remind me he’s listening closely to every word I’m saying. Like he always does.
“But what if it doesn’t go as planned?“ I blurt out, biting my bottom lip nervously. It makes me anxious, being so honest and emotionally exposed. That’s so rare for me I doubt I’ll ever get used to it, but that’s the only way I have at least a fragment of a chance of convincing Karl to drop this. “What if things go south and you end up killed or turned into a monster or something else?“
The concern on his face washes away when he hears my words, getting replaced by a soft, consoling smile. I quickly look away, feeling that confession on my part was quite odd. I feel out of place but not uncomfortable, I don’t know how to explain it. It almost feels like relief, like I’ve finally gotten a huge boulder off my chest and I can finally breathe properly. But I can’t, not until I hear his reply. That smile should probably tell me something but it doesn’t - I won’t believe anything until I hear it come out of his mouth with my own two ears.
“Oh Y/N, darling, you won’t lose me. Ever.“ His thumb swipes across my knuckles soothingly, drawing abstract patterns on the skin of the back of my hand, “You never need to worry about me, hun, I ain’t going anywhere. No one can take me away from you or you away from me. Anyone who dares to try, well, bad things will happen to ‘em.“ He chuckles, easing the tension enough for me to able to look up at him again. When our eyes meet again, I see something I can’t name nor describe. All I know is that what he’s telling me is genuine and comes, “I’ll always be here, by your side, Y/N. I will always be here to shield you from anything and anyone. Any rogue lycan or any loud sound, I’ll be there to prevent it from reaching you. Never forget that. Ok?“
That urge to be have him close takes over me again. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I see a clock ticking down, counting down the numbered hours we have together before he inevitably carries out his plan. As scary as that is, I think I can do nothing but accept it.
And so, that’s exactly what I do.
Wrapping my arms around him tenderly, enveloping him in the first hug I’ve ever given him - probably the first hug anyone has given him - I accept our fate, silently hoping it changes somewhere along the lines.
“Ok.“
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vox-ex · 3 years
Text
Things you interrupted me to say
(Kara and Lena)
Okay, so I took this as a chance to write how I would have adapted the ending in the comic version of Crisis (#7 ) to fit the show.  Basically, Lena was chosen as the Paragon of Humanity and Kara is a self-sacrificing idiot who knows she was supposed to die but couldn't tell her. I hope you don't mind.
Kara wonders what they must look like.  
Lena pressed against her side, her hands braced around Kal's fallen frame, their feet sliding together as they try to find purchase on the rubble underneath as more threatens to fall on top of them.
Truth and hope and humanity huddled together at the edge of the universe.
But Kara doesn't feel like the saint of any virtue now.  
She is just scared.
And it's a fear so familiar, so haunting, that when she closes her eyes, she feels 13 again. Feels her mother's arms around her under a sky that is still red and a world that is still burning somewhere light-years away and decades in the past. She hears her father's last words again, hears his broken promise reaching through all that time and all that space until it fades into nothing but the faint sound of her name echoing in its place.
"K-Kara?"
She feels Kal shift beneath her, and she opens her eyes, the two worlds now burning as one again as she feels her strength starting to falter, and she knows whatever has to happen has to happen now. She looks down, Kal's blue eyes, hazy and pained but as familiar as the day she first saw them — as innocent as the day she first promised to protect him — and as much as she hates herself for it, she can't stop herself from repeating her father's words as she wipes away the sweat from his forehead.
"It's okay, Kal."
And even if she still can't forgive him for leaving her behind, maybe she finally understands why he did.
She looks over her shoulder, sees the Anti-monitor trying to make his way through the fallen debris, armor half torn and steps faltering but still stronger than he should be.
"It's okay. I-I know what to do."
She has time, but not much.
Because she had been sent to Earth for one reason, and then she had chosen another, had decided to protect the Earth like she never could Krypton.
She lets her head fall, allowing the weight of what's about to happen settle on her shoulders.  
Knows she can't look at Lena when she asks her to let her go.
"Take Kal, find the others, get out of this universe as fast as you can."
Not after everything it took to get her back. 
"Kara?"
And she hates the way Lena says her name with all the pain she promised never to cause her again.
"Lena, please, I need you to help me save him."
But she just needs her to understand.
Because she had been sent to Earth for one reason, and then she had chosen another, had decided to protect the Earth like she never could Krypton.
"What about you?"
And they both sound so desperate, so tired, so angry at the things that put them in this place, that forced them to make this choice.
"Lena, please, there isn't time; this is how it has to be."
"How it has to! —" And Kara knows then she does. Understands what was in the book of destiny that Kara hadn't wanted her to see, that she had been too much of a coward to tell her herself.
And still, she can't look at her. Because if she does, she'll see just how selfish she had been again, just how much pain she had caused again. All those moments, she could have said something and didn't. All those times, she told herself she was doing the right thing.  Kal had been wrong; love wasn't always the most unselfish thing in the world; sometimes, it was the most.
"No! You promised!"
And Kara can feel Lena's hands on her chest as she tries to push her away.
"You said no more lies!"
Feels them push harder as Lena tries to make her look at her.
But Kara keeps her head down, keeps hold of Lena's hands, keeps them pressed against her chest, her words quiet and gentle among the chaos around them.
"I know."
And as she steadies their hands together over her heart, she tries to hold onto that one last piece of proof of how they fit together, of how they had ever existed in the same place at the same time.
And Lena suddenly sounds so lost, her anger so quickly turning into desperation, to bargaining, to anything but acceptance.
"It doesn't have to be you...I mean I wasn't supposed to be a fucking Paragon. It was wrong then. It could be wrong now."
And Kara sends one last prayer to Rao that she's right, but she doesn't dare lie. Not again.  Not now.
So she doesn't say it's okay.
She doesn't say everything will be fine.
And yet, she still can't bring herself to say goodbye.  
"I have — I have to go."
She moves to stand, pulling herself to her feet, Lena's hand sliding off of her shoulder and down her arm, but as she steps forward, Lena's hand stays in hers, and she is forced finally to look up at her one last time.
"Ple-"
But her desperate plea to be let go — to be forgiven — is cut off by the urgent rush of Lena's body into hers, by the hesitant press of lips and the quiver of fingers against her cheek that seek for so much more time than they are given.
But when Lena finally lets her go, it's with a simple confession.
"I didn't want there to be any more lies between us."
The look in her eyes is all at once everything Kara feared and everything she always hoped for. A moment of clarity unmasked by both of their pain — every doubt she ever had that Lena could love her, had loved her, gone, replaced by the proof of Lena in her arms that no matter how brief and no matter how fleeting she could keep in her heart forever.  
And it's all she can do to hold onto that feeling as the ground underneath them shifts again, forcing them apart on last time.
But when it all settles, the anti-monitor stands in Lena's place. The sky behind him slips between red and purple as explosions fill the air with the smell of ozone and sulfur and burning carbon.
His words echo through the rubble.
"I will wait no longer! You will die. And your Cousin, your family...your worlds. All shall die with you!"
And there is something in his vengeance that seems so mortal to her, so human.  Even as he stands there with his chest heaving with light and his hands glowing with embers, she knows he is not the god he proclaims to be, that he was born from the same stars as her — maybe he can be broken the same as her too.
"You have sealed your fate. As have I."
But he just steps forward, unconcerned about the building inferno around them as he mocks her.
"Do you wish to die, Kara Zor-El?"
Kara can't bring herself to answer him, throwing herself at him instead, forcing her body to move faster than her mind, to push past all the hope that still lingered to the anger that lay underneath.
She tried to stay just out of his reach, tried to be smarter and faster, but all it took was one moment in the wrong place and —
"Kara! Watch out!"
She felt the Anti-monitor's massive hand tighten around her, pulling her toward the ground, her cape fluttering uselessly behind her as Lena's voice echoed in her ears along with a pain that made it impossible to breathe, to think.
She was out of time.
She could see Lena and Kal on the other side of them. Could see Lena holding onto Kal with one hand while the other gripped the extrapolator, thumb shaking as it hovered over the button that would pull them out of this place.  
She tries to look at her, to ask her to forgive her one more time, to thank her for helping keep the promise she made to her parents all those years ago, and for saving the world together one last time.
She sends one last prayer to Rao, and ignoring the agonized protest of her heart that is telling her it's not ready to let go, she pushes her fists into the center of the anti-monitor's chest until she feels all at once the weightlessness of space the impossible heaviness of sun.
It was like touching every part of the universe.  
And for a second, there was something beautiful about it.  
But then she felt it all come apart.
Every cell.
Every atom.
Colliding and combusting — breaking apart.
She could feel the Anti-monitor's chest give way, feel it replaced by nothing but emptiness.
She pushed harder.
Every part of her, becoming a part of him.
Light and dark matter warring for the same space.
It could only end in destruction.
She tried to look back one last time, to make sure Lena and Kal are gone, but all there is a blinding light and then the feeling of being pulled, of falling, and then nothing.
---- ---- ---- ----
Lena feels the cool metal of the ring against her finger. Its weight different now than when it had been hidden in her pocket. Brainy's instructions and calculations, and warnings ringing in her ears as she watches the Anti-monitor hold Kara a loft.  
Her thumb skims the button on the extrapolator she had modified.
She looks back at Clark, at Kal.
She's running out of time.
Kara's running out of time.
She can hear Alex's voice in her ear, asking what the hell is happening.
If they've destroyed the machine?
If they're ready to come back?
If everything is okay?
She thinks how the answer is yes to everything but the last one.
Because she is sitting here deciding whether or not to leave Kara to die, and so no,  Alex, everything is very much not okay.
Kal moves behind her, trying to stand, to help, but she knows he's still too weak, and fuck what would Lex think of her now he could see her, with the fate of two Supers in her hands. She can't help but offer a smile at the not-so-subtle irony of the world.
She holds on tighter to the extrapolator just as she finds herself knocked off of her feet.  
Lena goes blind for a second, but when her vision clears, she sees them both still suspended in the sky, Kara and the Anit-Monitor surrounded by a bright light as they fall through the sky. 
She manages it get to her feet again just in time to watch as the light around them starts to collapse, manages to pull Kal up with her, hanging onto his cape with the hand now bearing Brainy's legion ring, and it's all adrenaline and weightlessness and a feeling she'd never be able to describe again as she feels her feet leave the ground.
But fuck she still hates flying.
And when she's finally close enough, she reaches out, fingers just touching the fabric of Kara's cape, her hand just close enough to feel its heaviness, but then there's a flash of light, and there's an unbearable wave of heat, and so she pulls, she pulls unknowing if it's enough and there's nothing to stop her body falling backward, the heat and atmosphere and dust and ash passing over her as she lands, sharp rocks digging into her back.
There's a quietness that follows the chaos, and she watches the muted explosions above her give way to only sharp white light before she finds herself staring up at the first blue sky she's seen in what feels like years.
She doesn't remember pushing the button on the extrapoltaor.
But she must have.
If they are here.
If they are any place that isn't there.
But where is the question now.
She rolls to her side, can feel the blood that follows down the side of her face as she does.
And fuck, that hurts.
She sees the back of Kal's cape in front of her; it's red so much brighter now that the world has been thrust back into its normal vivid hues.
But something still feels wrong.
And it's then she sees the way his shoulders shudder with each breath he takes.
It's then she sees Kara's head cradled against his chest, her cape torn and hanging from her shoulders as if its weight alone could pull her from his arms.
"No."
She says it first in disbelief.
"No!"
Then again, in resolution.
She says it to herself and to the universe and to the god she knows Kara prays too and the god she stopped believing in when her mother died.
This is not how this ends.
She presses up onto her elbows and then onto her knees, the world tilting at every angle, and she never even makes it fully to her feet before she is next to them, before somehow Kara is in her arms instead of Kal's.
And she is everything the world isn't.
Quiet.
Still.
Cold.
"Kara," she whispers.
And for some reason she Lena feels the overwhelming need to be gentle with her, like she wants to push away the hair that has fallen across her face and wipe away the streak of ash beneath her cheek.
"Kara," she whispers again.
"It—It's over now. It's okay now."
She looked back at Kal. His head held in his hands, broken, hurt, but still breathing. She hears Alex in her ear again, hears her saying that they are on their way, hears her asking for coordinates.  
Lena had helped Kara keep her promise to everyone else but her.
"Lena?" It was Alex again. "Lena, what's going on?"
"I-I need a, I just, I need —"  She tries to breathe, she tries to think, she tries to talk, she rips the comms from her ear when she can no neither.
And with the warmth of the sun at her back and tears falling onto her hands, she feels for the steady beat of Kara's heart.
---- ---- ---- -----
The sky isn't red.
The sky is blue.
The sky is blue, and the sun is warm, and Lena's eyes are green, and the world is still standing.
Kara can see Lena's comm hanging from her ear, bent, and dented in on one side, barely held together by the wires through which she can still hear Alex's frantic voice.  
"L-Lena—please—."
But Lena doesn't look like she can hear her.
Instead, she's looking right at her, tears making her eyes that much more green.
"Kara? Kara, can you hear me?"
And there's a layer of dirt over both of them, and Lena has a streak of blood along the side of her face and staining the top of her shirt. But still, she can't help but think she looks beautiful despite it all— that she's never looked more beautiful.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and she doesn't know where those words come from. But she has so many things to be forgiven for, she supposes.
"You're sor—, you're an idiot."
Lena reaches out to touch her face, fingers slipping through her hair and resting on the base of her neck as her head falls against her chest.
Kara closes her eyes and lets the touch try to take away some of the pain.
She feels Lena let out a deep breath, shaky, and unsteady as if she had been holding it in for too long.  
"I think that the gods sent you here to punish me."
Kara opens her eyes slowly, her voice quiet as she lifts her arm, trying not to wince as she reaches up to wipe the tears from Lena's cheek.
"You told me you didn't believe in God."
But Lena just shakes her head and shifts closer, her hand moving to brush the hair from Kara's forehead as a gentle laugh tries to mask her pain.
"Well, the universe then, the universe and the stars, and every atom and particle, they all conspired together to send you here to punish me."
Kara smiles and kisses the back of Lena's hand, thinking not for the first time about just that, about everything that should have kept them apart that somehow brought them together … "but you decided to love me instead."
Lena nods, resting her head again on her chest, their bodies pressed together… "Yes, I've decided to love you instead."
Kara knows they won't be alone much longer.
She knows they will have to share each other with the world again.
Knows all the other people they have both missed that are waiting for them.
But for this moment, they are in each other's arms, and the universe is not a vast place of infinite worlds; it is only here and only now, and it is only them.
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