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yummyinmytwistedtummy · 3 years

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Draconic Instinct: Malleus x Reader vore

So... this was originally going to be posted on the 7th for @twistedtummies2′s birthday, but I saw that they were having a rough time recently and decided to post it a bit earlier. I’m a little unsure about how this one came out but I’m gonna post it anyways. I hope ya’ll like it, and happy early birthday/happy easter @twistedtummies2.

I swear I didn’t mean to make it so romantic. It just kind of happened.

There were hardly any words to sum up how you felt at this moment, but to say the very least you no longer envied ant man's power of shrinking on command. You supposed fictional characters couldn’t get vertigo but you certainly did and it wasn’t pleasant.

Groaning, you sat up and held your stomach and head. It hadn’t taken you long to figure out what happened. The only thing you were left wondering was how and why it had happened.

With awe and slight fear you gazed at the world around you and how different it was to when you weren't the perfect size to soak in a teacup.

Everything was 10 times the size it had once been. Maybe even bigger. Bushes loomed over you, flowers were bigger than your hands, grass was like walking through a corn field, and when you looked up at the trees they were larger than skyscrapers. In comparison you were roughly the size of someone's palm.

Being shrunk definitely wasn’t on your bucket list, but NRC never really seemed to care about what you wanted. “Great, how am I gonna get back to the dorm now?” You huffed and placed your hands on your hips.

Several ideas came to mind yet none of them were actual solutions. You couldn’t walk, it would take forever. You couldn’t call anyone since your phone had cracked when it fell from your hands before you shrank. You also couldn’t ask Grim for help since he was already back at the dorm.

The one day you actually needed his help he was sick because the little furball ignored your advice and ran out into the cold rain the night before. You sighed and looked at your surroundings again.

It was rather odd that you were shrunk today. Not that being reduced to a few inches tall was ever normal, but today was a particularly peculiar time to fall victim to more troublesome magic.

Today was your birthday. 365 days in the year and today was the day that something like this happened to you. At this moment your gorgeous beau was waiting for you back at the ramshackle dorm with some movies so you could cuddle up and relax together after a long day of school.

Although you doubted Grim would let you have any alone time with the prince since he was so sick. A sick Grim was a clingy Grim. You didn’t mind as long as he was comfortable but you had been hoping to watch your boyfriend indulge in some ice cream later that evening. You still loved Grim but you were a bit bitter about the fact that your favorite bonding activity with your boyfriend was cancelled.

Now you couldn’t care less about it as it seemed that you might miss the evening all together. A frown decorated your features and you grumbled unhappily about the situation as you began to walk in the direction of the dorm.

You would never make it home in time, but there was no use in standing around and pitying yourself. As you walked you tried to recall anything out of the ordinary that had happened during school. Besides the birthday wishes and occasional presents, everything checked out.

Maybe it was someone’s unique magic. You hadn’t seen anybody around as you were walking home but then again you weren't really paying attention either. Apparently you weren’t paying much attention now either as you hadn’t noticed the giant teen approaching you until it’s shadow fell over your very tiny figure.

You looked up and gasped. A very large hand was reaching down to grab you, which had been the cause of the shadow. You did what any sane person would do and tried to book it. The giant hand was faster.

“Let me go!” You shouted angrily, but stopped when you were swung upwards in a way that made you worry that you were going to lose your lunch. “Oh boy…” Even after the ride was stopped you felt dizzy.

“Well, well, well, lookie here. The high and mighty prefect of the ramshackle dorm!” A smug looking face appeared in your vision and you had to hold back a scream.

The giant in front of you was the owner of the hand that had plucked you from the ground. He was dressed in a Savanaclaw uniform and resembled a bear. His smirk displayed two rows of sharp teeth that in any other situation would make you swoon. Right now though your fear conquered your kink.

“Got ‘em good there Bazz. Aw look at ‘em all tiny and trembling. Hahaha!” Another student who you didn’t recognize came from the side and sneered at you. “What a weakling. Hardly fit to be called a prefect, especially without any magic.”

Oh… That’s what this was about. You glared at the two men and started struggling. “Put me down you oafs!” It had been a while since you first arrived at NRC but it seemed that some people were still insistent on bullying you about your lack of powers.

This wasn’t the first time that other students had decided to pick on you. People sneered and called you names in the hallways all the time. It wasn’t hard to ignore them after a first few weeks and soon you began to think that they were just words.

No one had tried anything like harming you so far, but it wasn’t entirely out of the question. At a villain school it’s generally to be expected. It was why you so often only travelled with others. Your fellow students that you had established relationships with and trusted accompanied you back to the ramshackle dorm most days. And if they weren't around, Grim was usually there to take care of you.

Except for today.

You were in no way a weak individual, however it was much harder to defend yourself when you were 5 inches tall.

The second student, a Scarabia student from the looks of it, had a curly mop of red hair and cheeks spotted with hundreds of freckles. His eyes were a light blue color and his crooked smile revealed good dental work. He would have been more attractive had he not been leering at you or practically peeling apart at the seams from sunburn.

Bazz, the bear manimal, had dark skin and medium length black hair. His eyes glowed yellow as he smirked with teeth so disgusting they almost matched his eyes.

Several more students, from nearly all the dorms, crept out of the shadows and surrounded your initial two captors. The color drained from your face and you willed yourself not to tremble as a series of horrific opportunities entered your mind.

“Oafs! Ha! We aren’t oafs, you're just a shrimp!” The group laughed and you glared at them with as much malice as you could muster. “Not that name calling ever does anything.” Bazz drew your attention back to him. “We had hoped that by telling you that we didn’t want you here, you would get the message and scram. But some herbivores just don’t get it, so us predators, both physically and magically, have to teach you where you belong on the food chain!”

You gaped and let your eyes widen. Did these buffoon’s know who you were? That you had saved their arses on several occasions, both from others and themselves. You weren’t super buddy buddy with Leona, (cause he’s a pain and doesn’t like you very much anyways), but he still seemed to care about you enough that he didn’t want you to die. At the very least Ruggie could still get some free chore help out of you.

And if Kalim and Jamil found out what one of their students was doing they would both be unhappy, angry even if he actually managed to hurt you. There was also the deal with Azul, situation with Riddle, and the show Vil put on as well. Truthfully there were so many reasons that they shouldn’t hurt you. It was almost shocking that they still wanted to hurt you after everything.

One thing you did notice was that there wasn’t a single Diasomnia student in the bunch. That comforted you a minor amount. At least no one in your boyfriend’s dorm disliked you enough to go behind their dorm leaders back in order to get rid of you.

“G-guys, let’s just t-talk this out.” You held out your hands in hopes that you could calm them into a negotiating state. “Listen, you don’t want to do this really. So if you could just turn me back I’m sure we could work somethi-”

“Shut it, meat!” the savanaclaw barked at you. The noise made your ears ring and you held your hands over them to muffle the loud shouts. “Heeheheehe… is the little herbivore scared. That’s alright no need to be shy, I like it that way.”

The circle of boys surrounding you, howled with laughter and you cringed from the stimulus.

As the laughter died down, Bazz looked at you closely. “Scrawny thing like you would have barely made a meal full-sized. Guess we’ll have to kill you the old fashioned way instead.” You gasped and began to thrash in his grasp as some of the students whistled.

“Bazz, you should feed her to yer snake!” “Bazz! My little sister’s been looking for a new doll to dress up!” “Bazz, hey! My dog needs a chew toy and that thing is the perfect size.”

Threatening ideas that all promised a painful demise bounced around the group, each one more horrific than the last. The scarabia boy looked like he was about to lose it with laughter and Bazz watched you struggle as if it was the most entertaining thing in the world. No one noticed the clouds above head slowly circling and becoming denser.

“Alright alright! Hey everybody shut up!” Bazz, who you had concluded was the leader by this point, shouted at his lackeys. “I’ve decided how I wanna kill ‘em.” he said darkly with a smirk. An almost crazy look came to his eyes and he turned you so you were on display for the whole group to see.

“This little magicless shit and their raccoon thing have been plaguing this school for too long. I saw we knock out two birds with one stone and get rid a both of ‘em at the same time.” he paused for dramatic effect. “We’ll coat this one in tuna and leave it for the racoon to eat, and when he’s finished we’ll tell the headmaster and he’ll be expelled!”

The group cheered and you moaned in utter exhaustion with a dab of hopelessness. Why was this school so ridiculous. You swore one day these imbeciles were gonna set the school on fire and when they turn to you for help, you were just gonna roast marshmallows and watch them panic.

A part of you was scared of course, you knew how Grim got when it came to food, but there was no way he wouldn’t notice you. Besides you weren’t really all that nervous anymore now that you noticed the sky.

Dark clouds swirled around and flashes of green lit up the sky momentarily before dying down. Malleus was obviously looking for you and he was obviously not happy. Moments after you realized he was coming a massive lightning bolt struck the ground only feet away from where the pod of students stood.

You screamed and shut your eyes as pain lit up behind them. You were swung around as the bear man protected his eyes as well and nausea took over you temporarily.

Even after you opened your eyes, only blackness filled your vision. Luckily you could still hear pretty well and relief flooded your veins when you picked up the voice of your boyfriend.

“Hmm… it appears a bunch of scoundrels have decided to pick on my darling. Unfortunate as it seems, I am at fault for letting them walk home alone. Please return them and I won’t harm you.”

Malleus was a frightening person to be up against, however the number of other students seemed to give them hope. “Not happenin’” You heard Bazz growl. “I caught ‘em so their mine!”

The dark fae stiffened and you inhaled sharply. Thunder boomed and some of the students appeared frightened for a moment before attempting to return their expressions to confidence. They failed miserably.

Malleus’ eyes widened before slanting dangerously. His pupils which were already slits, thinned out in an even more reptilian like way. His cape billowed around him as the wind picked up as a result of his rage.

Being possessive doesn’t even begin to cover how Draconia feels about you. To him you were the most magnificent treasure in his entire hoard. The shiniest most beautiful precious gem he owned and his mate. After many many years of near solitude, Malleus had come to appreciate your company more than he could describe with words. Hearing another try to claim you ignited the fire in his belly and drove most logical thought from his mind.

The only thing he was thinking about was getting you back to him, completely unharmed. You supposed this might be the reason that the next events were so seemingly out of character for him.

He growled threateningly and the students took a step back. Two of them ran for it and one looked like he was just about to. Bazz and the Scarabia student stood stiff and nervous but didn’t back down.

Your eyes finally adjusted and you watched as a pomefiore student foolishly took a step forward. As first years they had practically nothing to use against the dark prince, who waved his hand and a gust of wind blew the student over like he was made of cardboard.

Malleus obviously wasn’t in the mood to play, yet he didn’t take out the students just yet. He decided he would show them something. “Bring my treasure here!” he snarled. Bazz shook but didn’t comply.

“Fine, be that way.” the half dragon snapped his fingers and you were effortlessly teleported into his hands. You knew from experience that he could only do that to smaller objects so you supposed it was a good thing that you were shrunk.

“Malleus!” You cried out and looked up at him with relief. His eyes momentarily flashed with the familiar adoration that he used when he gazed at you everyday. They turned dark again when the Scarabian boy shouted, “Hey! We caught that little rat so it’ ours. You're gonna have to fight us if you really want to take them!”

“I will.” his voice was eerily calm as he stared them down. “In due time, but first,” he raised a finger and you squealed when he lifted you suddenly. “I need to tuck my treasure where it will be safe. I wouldn’t want my mate getting damaged or having to see the gruesome mess I am going to turn you into.”

Confusion etched itself on your face but quickly shifted into understanding. Scared understanding, but understanding no less. “Umm… Mal… I don’t think-”

“Shh…” he quieted you and smiled at you softly. Despite your fears you nodded, giving him permission to continue.

The two of you had discussed this before, as he was well aware of your interests, however you had both decided that it wasn’t the time yet. Now, apparently was the time as you found yourself hovering over him in anticipation of what was to come.

You glanced to the side and saw the last 4 students’ faces undergo the same transition yours did except they appeared much more horrified. Squirming, you looked down and gulped when Malleus gave you one last comforting look before stretching his jaws wide beneath you.

A flush crept onto your face as you gazed down into the open maw of your boyfriend. His teeth were sharp like spikes waiting to clamp down and tear through anything that he decided to consume. Each dip and crevice of pink pulsing flesh was oozing with clear slime. The back of the throat was illuminated by a strange green glow that came from below. Hot, stale breath washed over you and blew your hair slightly.

Nervousness and anticipation spread through you as you were lowered into the large mouth that you realised resembled a sort of odd cave. His long forked tongue curled around your torso tightly as it carefully pulled you past the sharp fangs and into his mouth. The action was weirdly comforting as you picked up on his concern for your wellbeing.

Soon you were pulled completely into the slimy maw and watched, mildly afraid as the jaws shut, sealing off your exit. The tongue unwrapped itself and slid over you instead, prodding and feeling as it tasted you. It particularly enjoyed any part of you that wasn’t covered by clothing. And as your shirt was pushed up slightly so the tongue could lap at your midsection, you felt and heard Malleus humm in delight.

You squirmed and giggled as the tongue continued to tickle you as best it could. It pulled back suddenly when a loud groan echoed up from below, telling Malleus that it was time to eat. He had never been one to deny himself of food if it was within appropriate terms so he tipped his head back and you felt gravity shift as he began to swallow you.

The fae grunted and swallowed thickly, using a finger to trace your form in his throat. He scrunched his face as you sank slowly down past his chest, which he thumped in order to speed up your journey. And finally he felt you plop into his stomach.

You panted for breath as the ride down had been far too tight for your liking but almost immediately gagged when you were hit by the horrid stink of whatever meat and sweet dessert Malleus had eaten last.

The gut around you was fairly large and spacious compared to the size you currently were. The walls pulsed and throbbed as they sensed you in their space. It was almost as if they were trying to locate you. That’s when you realized they were.

A high pitched whining sort of sound alerted you to the fact that your boyfriend was checking to make sure if you had made the journey safely. Quickly you trudged through the sludge, which tingled your skin when in contact, and placed two hands on what you assumed was the front wall of the stomach.

You could see due to the eerie glow in the stomach but you weren’t quite sure which direction you were facing. You received an answer when a handprint pressed against you in a comforting manner.

“I’m alright!” you called, “Don’t worry about me!” The stomach lining tensed and you heard Malleus growl, “Impossible!” You blushed and smoothed your hand over the slimy walls in appreciation for his undying concern for your wellbeing.

Outside, the remaining two students who had failed to flee when they saw Draconia swallow his lover whole, trembled in their spots. Both whimpered when his gaze turned towards them and fixed with a cold and dangerous stare that promised pain.

“You!” the dark prince seethed, “attempted to take my mates life!” His voice raised and lightning flashed behind him. “And for that, you will pay dearly!”

You were flung backwards into the sludge as you felt Malleus jerk swiftly as the fight began. He pointed his staff at the two buffoons and muttered an incantation under his breath before a large jet of light blasted towards them.

Both jumped out of the way just in time for the laser to scorch the ground where they had previously stood.

They looked at each other fearfully and then back at Malleus. Scrambling, they attempted to stand up and fight back, but neither were successful as they were suddenly blasted by another powerful spell.

Your boyfriend smirked wickedly as he watched the two students deform and shrink until there was nothing left but two large rats screeching panickedly in the grass. “You’re lucky my mate disapproves of murder. Otherwise you would be in hell right now!”

Lightning struck again and Malleus vanished from his spot, leaving the, now rodents to scamper off into the woods, hoping the spell would wear off.

Flickering lights flew around the room as its owner appeared out of thin air, transported home with magic. He sighed and leaned his staff against the wall with a huff. You were quiet as you listened to the dark mage begin to undress enough to leave his midsection exposed.

He gently sat down on the bed and you gripped the stomach wall to remain balanced. He leaned back and grunted, placing a palm over his stomach. “Darling, you are still alright?” his voice sounded slightly strained and you raised an eyebrow.

“Um, yes, yes I am.” he sighed in relief. “That’s good. In that case please do excuse me but-” you didn’t hear him finish his sentence before the air around you thickened momentarily before rushing upwards in a loud blast.

“GRRRRWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRP!!!!!”

You gasped and felt your legs weaken beneath you. The large eructation bellowed around you and seemed magnified from you being inside of him.

Malleus moaned softly. His eyebrows drew together and he sat a bit straighter on the bed. “My apologies, darling, it appears you gave me quite a bit of gas.” He muffled another burp, which rumbled deeply in his throat and blew the fetid air out the corner of his mouth.

“N-no need to apologise.” you said hesitantly. You were very aware of your boyfriend's aversion to rudeness, however, your interests didn’t care much and you always found yourself shaking at the knees when he let loose a bit.

He smirked and rolled his eyes at your reaction and wished he could see your no doubt adorably blushing face. His hand rubbed large circles over his stomach and a low purr like sound began to rumble through his chest.

You trudged over to the wall again and placed your hands against it. He pressed back lightly in conformation that he knew you were there and you smiled fondly as you began to rub the stomach lining.

He let out a low croon and you felt him sink into the bed. You could almost see the look of pure delight that would slip onto his face anytime you massaged his belly. If only you knew how much better it felt to him now that you were applying your ministrations from inside.

Malleus hummed softly and peered down at his stomach with a loving and satisfied gaze. You were safe. Away from those bullies who he would further deal with later once you weren’t around to stop him with morals, as most humans had. Safe, warm, delicately tucked away inside of him, where nothing and no one could get to you.

His most valuable possession, most treasured jewel, most worshiped treasure. His mate. HIS! The instinctual possessiveness and protectiveness had died down a bit now that he was back in his ‘nest’ with his mate, safely stowed away in his stomach. Now feelings of regret and guilt began to fester within him as he thought about how he hadn’t really asked for permission before swallowing you.

“Darling?” you stopped rubbing and looked up, not that you could see him, “I… I wanted to say I’m sorry…”

You made a confused face and pressed against the lining a bit. “Why?”

“I’m sorry for several reasons, actually.” he sighed. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you in the first place. I’m sorry that I didn’t prevent such an event from happening. I’m sorry that you were scared and in danger while you were under my care. I’m also sorry that I ate you…”

He paused and you cocked your head. “It’s… it’s a dragon's instinct to protect their valuables no matter what. For you… in such a position… I felt that you were too exposed, too vulnerable. Even if I had placed you in a pocket there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t get hurt. What I was sure of was my ability to protect my own body, so I decided to temporarily add you to it.”

The dark fae wrapped his arms around his midsection and frowned. “Oh darling, I hope you can forgive me.”

You stepped back from the wall and swung your fist at it as hard as you could. He was unable to stop a magnificently large belch from erupting past his lips, which you were quite delighted about but shoved those feelings to the side. You had caught his attention, so now it was your turn to speak.

“Malleus Draconia!” you said sternly, “If you think for one minute that I am going to let you blame yourself for something entirely out of your control then you’ve got another thing coming to you.”

The half dragon stared in shock at his gut and let his jaw drop.

“It is in no way your fault that those jackasses decided to pick on me. In fact it was bound to happen sooner or later so it was only a matter of time. Besides you can’t be with me 24/7. It’s just not possible. So you stop being sorry about it this instance or I am going to give you the gut ache of your life!” You kicked his stomach again to prove your point and he released a deep burp into his fist.

“HHHHRRRRRMMMMMMMRRRRRLLLLPPPHHH!!!!”

“Oh and another thing,” you started, “I have no idea why you would be sorry in the first place, since you saved me.” He paused and knit his eyebrows together as he thought about it. “You saved me Malleus. I’m safe. I’m safe and I’m not scared or unhappy or hurt in any way. I’m safe and in fact I’m also quite content.”

The half dragon sat up in surprise. “Yes, that’s right.” you continued, “I am enjoying this experience deeply. True it would be a bit nicer if you could stop repressing, but I know how you feel about that. So don’t feel bad that you swallowed me to keep me safe. You probably could have swallowed me just to add some fat to your thighs and I would still be in heaven.”

He growled at the suggestion of him killing you, even if you would appreciate it due to your twisted sense of what's arousing and such.

You chuckled and restarted rubbing his stomach lining. “Malleus, I love you. I trust you and your decisions. If you need to do something to keep me safe, even if it did make me slightly uncomfortable. I would still love you just as much.”

He began to purr again and sighed. “Thank you darling. I… I suppose you’re right.” he paused. “I love you too. So very much, and because of that, along with the fact that it is your birthday… I will indulge you as much as you like.”

You paused and gasped. As much as you’d like…? You almost shook with excitement and Malleus chuckled, sensing your joy. “Shall I start with the usual?” You nodded vigorously, then realized he couldn’t see you and blushed in embarrassment. “Yes I would like that very much.”

Malleus smiled at your enthusiasm and waved his left hand, conjuring a bottle of soda. He much preferred to drink from a glass and have his beverage stored in glass bottles, but for simplicity's sake he decided it would be alright to drink from a regular two liter.

Another wave and he had sound proofed his room. Something he found himself doing often since you had begun to come over.

Carefully he unscrewed the bottle cap, wary of it potentially exploding. You heard the hiss of air being released and backed up against the wall in anticipation of what was coming next. The next sound you heard was a series of thick squelches and some fizzing accompanied by the noise of liquids rushing downwards.

Soon enough a waterfall of sweet, sugary soda cascaded through the open valve above. You squeezed your eyes shut and hissed when it splashed you as it hit the stomach bottom and mixed with the acids that pooled there.

The liquid level around you rose steadily and you heard it bubble and hiss as it frothed incessantly upon exposure to the heat in Malleus insides. The pressure in the air doubled until it became almost too thick to breath.

By the time Malleus had finished the bottle, the liquid level had risen past your hips and rested just below your waist. He pulled the rim of the bottle away from his mouth and panted. Almost hesitantly he replaced the cap on the now empty bottle and placed it on the bedside table.

“Alright darling,” he grunted, “I’m HURP!- hah… I’m ready. Give it a good kick.” Almost immediately he felt a sharp pain in the side of his middle as you gave the inside of his gut a fierce blow. His stomach groaned loudly and the air pressure thickened harshly before Malleus opened his mouth and let out one of the loudest, deepest, longest belches you had ever heard.

“BWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRP!!!!!!!!!!!! - HACK!!!”

It came to a close after a sheer 14 seconds of filling the room with its hellacious stench. The paintings on the walls had rattled and shaken in its wake and the bottle fell off of the table it was placed upon.

Your ears rung and you were sure your nose was bleeding by how intensely hot you felt. Your whole face turned a lovely shade of crimson almost as dark as Riddle’s hair.

Malleus gasped and moaned, letting his head fall back on the pillows. Despite his favor for elegance and manners he could never deny how simply incredible it felt to release a large amount of pressure from his stomach.

He puffed out his cheeks as he felt another massive burp roll up his throat.

“HHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRP!!!!!”

“BRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!!!”

“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLCH!!!!”

“BRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOORRRP!!!!!!!!!”

Several more belches, all magnificent in size, erupted past his lips and echoed throughout his bedroom. You moaned and listened as your boyfriend continuously burped without restraint. This was a once in a lifetime experience and you intended to enjoy it to the fullest.

Finally the burps tapered off and Malleus groaned, rubbing his throat which stung a bit due to the power behind the eructations. He looked down and realized that while busy emptying his stomach of gas, he had also hacked you up.

The ride up had been short and tight but you hadn’t been paying all that much attention when it happened so you couldn’t say for sure if it had been uncomfortable. Rolling over on his stomach where you happened to end up, you smiled loopily up at him and he flushed looking you over.

It made him feel nice, seeing you so small and content. While you were in danger he hadn’t gotten the chance to appreciate how simply adorable you looked, being this tiny, or how delicious.

Malleus’ stomach growled disapprovingly at having lost its new favorite snack but he ignored it in favor of muttering a short incantation which quickly cleaned you of gut gunk. Now clean, you stood shakily since his midsection was bloated a bit, and tried to walk over to your boyfriend's chest.

You ended up falling over, since it was slightly like walking on a waterbed that wasn’t totally full. Malleus chuckled and you saw his eyes flash a bright green before your perspective changed rapidly.

It was only moments later that you found yourself, full sized once more staring into the captivating eyes of your beau.

“Hello darling.” he spoke softly. “Did you enjoy yourself?” You nodded rapidly and he sighed wrapping his arms around you. His hand gently runs over your hair and you let your head sit on his chest.

The sound of his heartbeat fills your ears and you sigh. It was quite a relaxing sound, but you still preferred the low burbles that his stomach provided. The two of you lay this way for a while, simply enjoying the presence of each other. However Malleus eventually shifts underneath you and whispers your name.

Curiously you look up at him and he beckons you closer.

Closer.

Your lips touch in a brief kiss and he pulls back with a smile. “I have a birthday gift for you, but first.” He loosens his grip so he can sit up, positioning you in his lap. You shiver in anticipation when he gazes down at you greedily. Finally he leans forward enough to lick a stripe up your cheek and bite your earlobe teasingly.

“HHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMLLLLLPH!!!! - Phoosh”

As he pulls back he suppresses a thick belch and blows the leftover fetid gas into your face. Your eyes water and you cough while inhaling deeply at the same time. You opened your eyes and Malleus could have sworn he saw hearts in them.

“Thank you…” you breathed and he smirked. “Mmmm… as delightful as it is teasing you and getting to see...” he flicked his tongue along your lips, “taste your sweet blush. I do have an actual gift for you.”

He moved so you could see the table where he had previously placed the soda bottle, and lifted a hand in a swift motion and whispered a few words. Suddenly a large ice cream cake appeared with a scrawled “Happy Birthday” on top.

The ice cream appeared to be chocolate vanilla swirl, and the frosting on top was vanilla. Decorative chocolate thorns encircled the cake’s base and had been arranged to appear as if they were climbing the dessert. Just above the wording a candle in the shape of a spinning wheel sat delicately. The spindle part was engulfed in a small green flame that danced almost eagerly as it waited to be blown out.

You gasped and turned back to look at your boyfriend in surprise at the complicated cake he had (ordered you presumed) gifted you. The overly large size and ice cream part didn’t slip your notice and you had a feeling this night's adventures with your interests were far from over.

“And one more thing.” Malleus spoke hesitantly, as if nervous by the next gift. He waved his hand and a small box appeared. He handed it to you and you opened it carefully. Inside sat a silver ring that had been made so detailed it looked as if it had literally been woven together with several tiny vines of thorns. Right in the middle of the ring was a small emerald which flashed in the candlelight.

Your eyes widened and you glanced up at your beau who looked as if he was holding his breath. “It’s to signify our relationship. It’s not an engagement ring, it is meant to be worn on your right hand.” You watched as he gently slipped the ring onto your right hand.

In the valley of thorns we have something similar to the gallagh ring that you told me exists in your world. Instead of wearing it a different way depending on your relationship, the gemstone in the middle turns black when you are single. It turns the color of your partner's eyes when you are in a relationship, and when you become married it permanently changes to that color and the band turns gold.”

He explained how it works in a quiet voice while you admired the pretty ring and your hand held in his. Malleus pressed a kiss to the ring and looked at you nervously. “Do you like it?”

You threw your arms around him and smiled wide. “It’s the best gift I’ve ever received. Thank you so much Malleus.” You pulled back still smiling, he sighed in relief and smiled back. “That’s good to hear.” he looked like he was about to say something else but was interrupted by a loud growl that came from his stomach.

“Sounds like you’re hungry. Why don’t we eat some cake?” he smirked and tightened his grip on your waist just a bit. “Hmmm. you mean, you eat some cake and I eat all the rest, only to end up with a big bloated tummy for you to rub?” You blushed fiercely.

“Yes, I do believe that sounds like an appropriate way to end the evening.” He leaned forward and kissed you once more. “Although you will always be the sweetest treat I have ever had the pleasure of tasting.” You giggled. “I love you too, Malleus.”

#v*re #burp #burp kink #belly kink

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maddrmatt · 3 years

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A Beautiful Future: A Premonition or a Punishment? (SoKai Week 2021)

New to this fanfic? Click here to properly begin!

Greetings, readers and fellow SoKai fans!

Let’s continue on with the show as our favorite MIA Keyblade wielder reflects on what was seen in the last chapter! Enjoy!

________________________________________________________________

Chapter 2: Ponderings of the Lost Hero

Quadratum

After opening his eyes, Sora suddenly leapt to his feet. He summoned his Keyblade and surveyed his surroundings.

Fortunately for him, he wasn’t currently in any danger. But much to his dismay, he was not in a chapel in Radiant Garden about to kiss the love of his life. Instead, he was standing next to a large dumpster in an alleyway between two tall buildings.

‘I must’ve been so tired from running that I fell asleep when I stopped to rest,’ he thought as he dismissed his Keyblade.

Sora’s current location was hardly an ideal place to take a nap. But the Gigas and the various adversaries that inhabited this world had kept him on the run since his arrival. Also, even though he had yet to encounter him again, he feared that Yozora would find him and try to ‘save’ him again. So, he couldn’t be picky about where or when he could sleep.

It still mystified him that he was now in a world that he had originally thought only existed in a video game. When that girl in the Final World had mentioned she was waiting for a Yozora to find her, he had assumed that she had been talking about someone with the same name. But his encounter with Yozora and the very real existence of this world had certainly raised a few questions.

‘I may have been here for a long time now, but I still can’t believe it. How can this world be real and also be a video game in a world back in my Realm? And why is ending up here the penalty for misusing the Power of Waking?’

But the biggest question was the one that had bothered him the most. ‘And will I ever be able to leave?’

Sora’s thoughts now turned what he just had witnessed in his sleep. ‘That was some dream. The first dream I’ve been able to have since I got here. But I wonder if it wasn’t just a dream. What if it was a premonition? A vision of the future? Dreams can do that, right?’

Sora began to pace around the alley. ‘It certainly looked and felt like one. I mean, we all did look a little older. Not to mention I saw that Pinocchio wasn’t a puppet and the Beast wasn’t, well, the Beast anymore. And there were so many guests at the wedding that I didn’t know.’

He thought back to the part of the dream where he walked down the aisle toward the altar. Now that he was awake, he realized that there were indeed quite a lot of unrecognized faces among those he knew.

‘Let’s see. When I saw the group from Atlantica in the crowd, Ariel was human again even though the last time I saw her, she was a mermaid. Also, it seems that some magic was needed for Flounder and King Triton to attend since they were hovering in the air as if they were still underwater. And then there was that girl who resembled Ariel but with black hair. Did Ariel and Prince Eric get married and have a daughter?’

‘It also looked like there had been some big changes in Arendelle too. Anna had been wearing an outfit similar to what Elsa had been wearing when Donald, Goofy and I had first met her. And speaking of Elsa, she was not only wearing a different snow gown and had let her hair go, but she also looked more at peace with herself then I last remembered. Plus, she also had a small blue lizard on her shoulder. I wonder if she’s taken on Rapunzel’s taste in animal sidekicks.’

‘Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys we met were there and they had all been enlarged to human size. And there were some other toys with them, probably their friends they’d been separated from when the Organization split their world. Like that redhaired cowgirl and that woman with the pink bow in her blonde hair and dressed in blue. Strangely, she looked like she was made of porcelain which is an unusual material for a toy. They both seemed to be pretty close to Buzz and Woody respectively. Also, there was that unusual toy that looked more like a child’s art project.’

‘Little Chef was definitely in some unfamiliar company. He was with that redheaded man with that woman with brown hair as well as that older man with glasses. And there were also two other rats: one with gray fur and that pudgier one with brown fur. Maybe they were Little Chef’s relatives.’

‘I’m glad that Cloud finally made it home because he was among Leon, Yuffie and the rest of the committee and it seemed that he and Tifa had hooked up. And they weren’t the only ones. Leon had his arm around a woman with black hair and Aerith was with a man who looked a little like Cloud only with black hair. Even Cid apparently had a date: that woman with auburn hair and glasses. And then there were the new faces: that big, muscular guy whose hand appeared to be made of metal and the little girl in pink on his shoulder as well as that strange catlike creature with red fur.

‘It also looks like I ended up in meeting them in Shibuya after all since I also saw Neku and his friends there as well. But there were some missing from that group. Rhyme and that boy she called Beat was there. But Joshua wasn’t. And neither was Shiki. Instead, there was only that girl with brown hair and glasses. I hope nothing bad happened to them.’

‘There were even some unfamiliar faces among Queen Minnie, Daisy, and the rest I remember from Disney Castle. There was that unusual pair who looked like a rabbit and a cat with a whole bunch of little rabbits with them. And then there was that female duck who looked like she could be Donald’s twin sitting near his nephews. There was also someone who looked like a younger version of Goofy accompanied by a female dog with red hair and apparently, some who looked like a younger version of Pete.’

Then Sora realized it was not just the unfamiliar guests that stood out in the dream. His own thoughts during the dream contained information that he had not known before.

‘How could I have known why Xion looks the way she does? And though Master Yen Sid mentioned that Aqua saved Kairi long ago, my thoughts implied that she played a big role in our meeting. I’m sure I would’ve learned it all if I hadn’t disappeared. But is it possible for your dream self to know something that you don’t?’

Sora leaned against the wall of the building and gazed out into the empty street. There was still no sign of incoming trouble. He was glad that nothing had shown up during his pondering on account that he still had more to do.

‘All in all, it certainly was quite a show. But still, I can’t help but wonder why a dream like that would come to me now? And if it really was a vision of the future, does it mean that I’m going to make it back home? And Kairi and I really are destined to live happily ever after?’ Sora thought as a feeling of hope came to him.

Unfortunately, the hope faded as a troubling thought took over. ‘Or maybe it’s a future that isn’t going to happen. Maybe it’s nothing more than extra punishment for breaking rules I never knew existed.’

Sora thought back to when he returned to the Final World after Xehanort’s defeat. He recalled how Chirithy had told him about what he was risking using the Power of Waking to restore Kairi. As he remembered that conversation, a feeling of anger at the unfairness of it all came to him.

“I never meant to break any nature taboos. I didn’t even know they existed. I thought I was just rescuing my friends from that Lich Heartless. I didn’t know it would end up rewriting time and giving us another chance to fight. And I especially didn’t know that it was the wrong thing to do,” he said out loud not caring if anybody heard him.

That’s when Sora realized something. “If I’m being punished for doing that, does that mean that we were supposed to lose no matter what we did? Well, to whoever or whatever decided that, I’m sorry but if following your rules meant letting Xehanort win after everything he did, then I was happy to break them.”

His thoughts then turned to Kairi. “And I definitely was not going to leave the girl I love more than anything in the worlds as she was: shattered, split and scattered. If there was any chance to save her, I would have taken it no matter what the consequences. Because a world without Kairi is one I never want to live in.”

That’s when Sora realized the sad irony. ‘And yet, a world without her or any of my friends is exactly where I ended up anyway. I guess the punishment really did fit the crime in the end. And as if that wasn’t enough, it seems I’m now being tormented with visions of a future that may never be.’

Then a feeling of determination came over Sora. ‘No. I can’t think like that. I won’t ever think like that. If whatever forces sent me here sent that dream to punish me further, then I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.’

Sora gazed up at the dark sky and cried out, “It’s not going to work! You hear me? It won’t work! Instead, I’m going to use what I saw in that dream to further fuel my desire to get back to my home! Back to my friends! Back to her so we can have a future like that in the dream!”

The young hero then reached into the pocket of his jacket nearest his heart. He pulled out a folded piece of paper which he then unfolded revealing the lucky charm that Kairi had given to him before he and Riku left for the Mark of Mastery Exam.

Taking the charm into his hand, he clutched it to his heart. ‘We may be worlds apart, Kairi. But our hearts are still connected. I realized that when I was suddenly able to fight for you. Even though I didn’t know exactly what was going on, especially how somehow Xehanort was still around, I knew you needed me. And I know that connection will bring us back together someday.’

“They can take your world. They can take your heart. Cut you loose from all you know. But if it’s your fate, then every step forward will always be a step closer to home. And it will be my fate. And whatever that dream’s true purpose was, I will do all that I can to make it our fate, Kairi. That’s a promise and I always keep my promises to you. It’s my oath to return,” Sora said out loud.

After gazing once more around for any sign of trouble and seeing that there was none in spite of his earlier outbursts, he figured that he had time to do one more thing before moving on to a new location in the city. Leaning against the wall with the lucky charm in one hand, he then looked at the paper that it had been wrapped in.

He began to read the words written on the paper. Words that no matter how many times he read had always managed to touch his heart because they came from the one who his heart belonged to.

“Thinking of you, wherever you are.”

________________________________________________________________

On the edge of one of Quadratum’s tall buildings, a man in a black coat gazed downward into the alley. He watched the spiky-haired brunette boy read from his letter. Under his hood, he smirked and let out an amused chuckle.

“You might wish to keep it down, Sora. You never know who or what may be listening here in Quadratum. But it sounds like that was a pretty good dream you had with the way you were going on about making it a reality. Your determination to get back to your home and your devotion to your girl are pretty admirable. They will serve you well when the time comes for you to play your role,” said the Master of Masters.

The very first Keyblade master gazed up to the sky. As he had done before, he brought his hands together into a heart shape and held them up so he could view the full moon through them.

“Soon, all the pieces will fall into place, Sora. My apprentices. The Union leaders and Dandelions who still exist. The Darknesses. Yozora. Your friend Riku and the rest of your Guardians of Light over on the other side including your little girlfriend. All of them have their roles to play in my grand plan and once they are fulfilled, we will finally see the absolute end of the true Keyblade War,” he declared.

Then his voice took on an ominous tone. “But after all is said and done, will all your devotion pay off? Will the dreams of a ‘happily ever after’ with your beloved Kairi come true? Or will the fates conspire to pull you apart once again? And if that should happen, will it be the ultimate separation, one that is impossible to undo?”

The Master then parted his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I may be the author of a very large compendium of future events. But the Book of Prophecies never accounted for everything. So, in the end, who can really say?”

The Master then returned his gaze back to the young Keyblade wielder in the alley. Sora had finished reading his letter and was now staring to leave. The Master’s gaze followed the boy as he headed out into the city.

“Things may have taken a… slight turn from my original plans. But the more I think about it, it actually makes things more interesting. After ages of watching events unfold the way I had foreseen; I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to actually be surprised. And I have a feeling, Sora, that you are going to be full of surprises.”

________________________________________________________________

Notes from the Mad Doctor:

Went rather heavy on the internal monologuing in this chapter, huh?

Sharp Disney and Square Enix fans will likely know the unfamiliar guests Sora was talking about. Feel free to let me know if you did recognize all of them or some of them.

I think we can understand the anger Sora’s expressing here. After everything he did to protect the worlds from Xehanort, this is his ultimate reward? I know he doesn’t regret doing what he did to save everyone especially Kairi. But I wouldn’t blame him for being upset.

Although I have mentioned him in my other stories, this is the first time the Master of Masters has actually shown up. I really hope I wrote his mysterious yet eccentric demeanor well. And I have a feeling, given the Master’s presence in Quadratum, that Sora’s arrival in this world was no coincidence. Then again, is anything a coincidence in Kingdom Hearts?

I give my thanks to whoever reads this chapter.

I also give my special thanks to @fandomchanger, @dreaming-in-seams, and @sakuranekogirl for their likes on the previous chapter as well as @sokaiweek, @phoenix-downer, and @the-secret-place for reblogging the previous chapter.

The next chapter still needs work so it should be posted on Thursday if all goes well.

Comments, likes and reblogs are much appreciated! Stay tuned for we’ll be dropping in on the other half of our favorite couple next chapter!

________________________________________________________________

Onto the next chapter!

#kingdom hearts #kh fanfiction #sokai #sokaiweek #sokaiweek2021 #sora #master of masters #maddrmatt

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gukyi · 4 years

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for you, anything | ksj

summary: in the popular online multiplayer game, kingdom, you are the top-ranked knight with money, fame, and power. in real life, you’re a graphic design geek who’s got a very unsubtle crush on her gorgeous coworker, kim seokjin. but when you’re suddenly dethroned from the first place spot in your game, you and your kingdom character embark on a journey to reclaim your title, and learn on the way that things are not always as they seem.

{friends to lovers!au, enemies to lovers!au}

pairing: kim seokjin x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, fantasy word count: 21k warnings: alcohol mention, brief and non-graphic descriptions of violence, this is basically two fics in one so you get double the fun and double the word count!! a/n: once again, a massive, massive thank you to @aurawatercolor for commissioning me!! you can find her on twitter as well under @btspresso_!! she’s the genius behind this enemies to lovers and friends to lovers seokjin fic wrapped up into a nice package just in time for the holidays!! you ever seen a fic with e2l and f2l together? that’s right, i didn’t think so. enjoy!!!

check out the post-script drabble here!

♚ HERE ♚

“Oh, shit!”

From twelve feet away comes the sound of these three things in this order: fingers furiously mashing keyboard keys, wheels of an office chair swiveling angrily on the linoleum floor, and a war cry. All of which could either belong to a video game world championships in a big-city stadium or your simple, office of two-floors in a more-than-one-hundred-stories skyscraper based in graphic design and media for small start-up companies.

“I can’t tell if Photoshop crashed again or if you’re playing that weird online multiplayer game again,” Yoongi grumbles from across the way, where he’s gnawing on a Clif bar in one hand as he mindlessly taps his mouse with the other.

“Please,” Jimin says, carelessly waving a hand. “Don’t act like I haven’t caught you watching My Hero Academia multiple times this year while we were supposed to be doing work, you absolute piece of toast. But if you must know, I was in fact playing Kingdom.”

“I’m going to tell Namjoon,” Yoongi says with zero emphasis, because everybody knows that Namjoon’s got dirt on everybody in the office anyway (including Yoongi) and that if you try to expose somebody else to him, he’ll expose you back. It’s colleague culture.

“And what’s Namjoon gonna do? He already knows you carry a flash drive of illegally-downloaded animes with you wherever you go,” Jimin retorts casually. He’s not wrong, and you can confirm that Yoongi indeed carts around a USB drive in the shape of a pineapple that has 64GB of anime.

“What do I know?”

Namjoon comes trotting into view from the corridor that leads to the gender-neutral bathrooms with glasses hanging from the collar of his sweater vest, a clipboard with nothing attached to it in his right hand, and a steaming cup of jasmine tea (he hates coffee and declares this publicly at least three times a day) in his left.

“You know that Yoongi—”

“Has been doing his work the whole time you were in the bathroom so you don’t need to worry about him,” Yoongi interrupts quickly.

Namjoon shoots both Jimin and Yoongi a suspicious glare, but moves on. He’s got enough blackmail on the both of them to bury them into the next calendar year, but he’s wise, and he only uses it when absolutely necessary. “Just doing checkups on you guys before Boss Man calls me back into his office and gives me a pile of over one hundred hours of work I’m supposed to do in a forty-hour work week.” It’s been obvious from the moment you were hired that Namjoon does the most work out of anybody in this office, including your boss, and gets very, very little from it.

“You don’t even have any paper attached to your clipboard,” Taehyung points out rather unhelpfully, from where he’s been drawing hearts on the cheeks of the Surprised Pikachu meme he’s taped up on the wall his desk is pushed up against.

Namjoon looks down at his clipboard like it just spit mad fire at him, furrows his brows, and lets out a sigh equivalent to three years worth of pent-up aggression. “Shit.”

Jimin cackles from his computer.

“Whatever, I’m still going to do checkups.” Namjoon takes the pen from behind his ear and writes himself a note, presumably to get paper for his clipboard later. “Jimin, you’re still working on that website layout for the art critic and photographer. Yoongi’s on coding for that search engine that we all know is never taking off but is still paying us. Taehyung’s on marketing because he’s got the most charming voice and Hoseok and Jungkook are on media production for the indie movie company. Y/N and Seokjin, you guys are on clientele and coding. Everybody good before I go get more paper?”

“Yes, Tiny but Large Boss Man,” Jimin says, and it’s enough of a confirmation to send Namjoon scurrying down the corridor again in search of paper as everyone else returns to their prior business.

“Y/N?”

You turn around from the font website you’ve been browsing for about half an hour to find Seokjin standing behind you, an earpiece in his ear and that charming smile on his face. It’s the same smile he gave you on your first day on the job when he was introducing himself, same smile he gives when he meets clients in person, same smile he gives Namjoon whenever the man is about to have a breakdown. It’s a friendly, personable-but-universal kind of smile. The kind models need. The kind that Seokjin has mastered.

“Hey, Seokjin,” you say, only just then coming to realize that Seokjin is much closer to you than his voice originally implied. You’ve rotated 180 degrees in your office chair and he is hardly a foot away from where your feet are. It’s a lot. Seokjin is always a lot. In the best sort of way. “Is anything the matter?”

“No, just wanted to check in and see how the project was going for that one guy that wanted a nice advertisement to put on Angie’s List,” Seokjin says, leaning down to look at what you’ve been doing.

“Oh, well I’ve been browsing this font website for ages and I still can’t find a nice one for the sub-heading. All of these are too flashy or difficult to read,” you say, beginning to scroll as you and Seokjin both look for one that you like.

“Hmm, I see what you mean,” his voice sounds like honey and if you had any less dignity you’d let the chills send shivers down your spine. Luckily, you know how to maintain your composure in an office setting. And you also know that Yoongi and Jungkook would never let you hear the end of it, ever. “Oh, how about that one?”

“This one? Rose Quartz?” You ask, pointing to it.

“Yeah,” Seokjin says. “It has a nice flair that matches with the font for the business name, but it’s still easy to read. It would probably look really nice with a crisp shadow behind it, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you’re onto something,” you say, clicking to read the fair use and copyright.

“Couldn’t have done it without all the hard work you’ve put into this,” Seokjin says, standing up and shooting you another one of his famous smiles. “You’re the best partner anybody in this tiny media production and design company could ask for.”

He leaves without bidding you farewell, but it’s enough to have you staring blankly at your computer, contemplating existence itself. Sometimes, a little part of you wonders if Seokjin only treats you like this and none of your other coworkers, but then you immediately remember that Seokjin is naturally charming and that he probably speaks to newborn babies in the same way.

Yoongi wheels over to your desk from where his is, smirk lacing his features as he chews on another, different-colored Clif bar.

“Ever heard of a personal bubble?” You ask snarkily, because you already know why he’s over here, and so does he.

“Why aren’t you asking the same question to Seokjin, hmm?” Yoongi taunts. He’s know about your dumb crush on your coworker (of all people, your coworker! A fellow employee!) for months now. He isn’t being any more helpful whatsoever.

“Go watch your pirated anime,” you grunt out, too overwhelmed with the way Seokjin smiles at you to really give Yoongi your full attention. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Sure, but I’m not Seokjin,” Yoongi says. Then he wheels away and you’re left staring at the Rose Quartz font, whose sample text reads: This was meant to be.

At least Namjoon doesn’t know.

It’s midnight on a Tuesday, and you’re just about to turn off the lamp on your bedside table and get some well deserved weekday-night shut eye when your phone begins to blare, a disgustingly ugly picture of Jungkook’s face appearing on the screen.

You stare at your phone like it’s personally offending you (which, if Jungkook’s face is anything to go by, it definitely is) before you turn off your ringer and close your eyes. Jungkook can wait. Very seldom is he at the top of your list of priorities.

Barely five seconds after you’ve put your head on your pillow, your phone begins to vibrate, this time even angrier than the last. Aggravated and a little concerned—because Jungkook never, ever calls twice—you pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Y/N! Something crazy just happened!”

“I hope so, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me at midnight on a work night,” you grumble into the phone, monotonous voice a stark contrast to Jungkook’s easily excitable one.

“Have you been on Kingdom recently?!” Jungkook asks, and you practically see his eyes bulging out of his head in front of you. One of your youngest coworkers, it’s moments like these that remind you why he bears a striking resemblance to a university student—up late playing video games even on a work night—despite having a couple years in the workforce under his belt. He keeps telling you that he wants to go back to school and get a Masters in something, but he isn’t sure what yet.

“No,” you tell him like it’s obvious, because it is. You typically begin to wind down your night around ten, which means that anything that’s happened on Kingdom in the past two hours you are thoroughly unaware of. “Can’t this wait? Kingdom’s fun and all, but I really do need to sleep.”

“But Y/N,” Jungkook says with a whine, insisting that you stay on the line, “someone beat you! You’re rank two, now.”

If Jungkook’s loud voice and jumpy attitude didn’t wake you before, you’re certainly wide awake now.

“What?” You ask, shocked. “Just now?”

“Yeah, like fifteen minutes ago! I don’t know what happened,” Jungkook says sadly, lost. “I was dueling with another knight when the horns and banners appeared on the screen and said there was a new top player. You’ve been dethroned!” He cries out like it’s him who’s lost their place.

You’re fumbling out of bed, making a beeline for your desktop computer across your bedroom. Normally, you’d be ashamed about how high-school you’re behaving around a video game, but you’ve invested an embarrassing amount of time and energy into Kingdom, and you’ll be damned if you think someone else can outdo you.

As you’re logging onto the game, Jungkook continues to wail into the phone. “I don’t even know who this person is, I feel like I’ve never seen them before! I mean, they must be really good since they practically appeared out of nowhere, but still! I’m a decent player so we must have crossed paths. Maybe I just don’t remember…”

Sure enough, the moment you open your screen the horns blare and the banners appear, congratulating a different player on achieving the top rank. You watch helplessly as the celebration fades on your computer before the leaderboard appears in the top left corner, your name a sad second place.

“Who’s JK0901?” You shout into the phone, earning an exasperated sigh from Jungkook on the other end. You scowl at the name that’s knocked you off your pedestal, before narrowing your eyes to look at it more closely. “JK? Is that you, Jungkook? Are you just calling me to make fun of me for beating me? Don’t disrespect your elders, Jungkook.”

Jungkook gasps like he’s been accused of murder. For people that take Kingdom as seriously as you and Jungkook, it may as well be. “No! What the heck, Y/N, you know that my username is KookieMonster97, for God’s sake. Accusing me of being the best, how could you?”

“You should have just taken the compliment,” you frown into the phone, “Now all the girls are gonna know you aren’t, in fact, the number one Kingdom player.”

“Fuck, you’re right,” Jungkook mutters. “But it’s not me, I swear. You would have received a very different phone call from me if it was. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even told you and then ruined your day in the office tomorrow. So it’s not me.”

“I can’t tell if I’d be more or less angry if it was you,” you admit.

“Why, because I’d finally have something to hold over your head other than my unwavering youth?” Jungkook taunts. Definitely still a university student at heart.

“No, because it means I’d have to hear the entire office praise you for a day, and I’d rather permanently pop my eardrums,” you tell him informatively. Jungkook has enough of a head. You actively try to not do anything to enlarge it unless he wholeheartedly deserves it.

“I love our coworker chats, you know,” Jungkook says. “Whoever this person is though, I bet they’re receiving bucketloads of praise for knocking you off the top spot. You’ve had it for like, three months now, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” you tell him through gritted teeth. “I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into this game and look how it’s repaying me,” you grumble, staring down the Kingdom home screen.

“JK0901 probably did a ritual sacrifice to beat you,” Jungkook supplies unhelpfully.

You sigh. Whoever they are, they proved that they are just as good at Kingdom as you are, a veteran player with an embarrassing several years of experience under your belt. In fact, they proved that they’re better than you.

♚ THERE ♚

It’s cloudy today, which means that more of the market stalls are out on the main street. You pass by them on your way to the castle, vendors calling out to you with promises of apples, jewelry, and perfumes.

You’ve got money to burn and your responsibilities can wait a couple of minutes, so you indulge one of the stalls and purchase a couple of apples. One should give you a bit of energy now, and the rest can be roasted later for a better meal.

“Miss Y/N, off to the palace?” The vendor asks. From how much you frequent this part of the kingdom, every artisan, farmer, and merchant alike knows your name. That, and the fact that you’ve amassed quite a group of followers from your daily knightly escapades.

“Of course,” you respond happily, paying the merchant with a couple of silver coins and then some, just as a thanks. The extra money helps the farmers raise the quality of their crops and allows them to earn more for their efforts. It also boosts your standing amongst the townsfolk. “His Majesty requested my presence for further instructions on fortification, most likely. But I’m just honored to be recognized.”

“As you should!” The man responds dutifully. “You are our best knight, after all.”

“Please, you flatter me. When the work day is done, go home and feed your children well, alright?” You ask, giving a firm nod to the merchant before you’re on your way. As you stroll down the stone-paved path, other vendors call out to you, hoping that you, too, will indulge in their finest clothes and trinkets on your way to the castle.

Maybe another day.

You take a hearty bite of the apple as you head towards the palace, a satisfying crunch ringing through your ears as the townsfolk nod and bow to you. It’s easy to figure out that you’re the top-ranked knight in the kingdom, with badges of honor pinned to your torso, ink black armor clinging tightly to your body, and red sashes tied around the black ones on your wrist, signifying approval from the highest ranking military official in the kingdom: the king himself.

The guards at the palace gates step aside as you nod to each other, bowing courteously. You repeat this process several more times as you slowly proceed towards the throne room, where the King (and maybe the Queen) are likely to be waiting for you. They had increased their security at every door frame after an attempted assassination several months ago, which you (with the help of other high-ranking knights and castle officials) discovered was a plot orchestrated by Their Majesty’s second-most-trusted advisor.

Finally, you reach the golden arches that signify that you’ve arrived at the most expensive room in the entire palace (save for Her Majesty’s bathroom, which, though you have never been inside, is rumored to have a golden bathtub and sacred water from the River Blancheur, over two thousand miles away. But you cannot confirm nor deny.), threatening red doors slowly creaking open as the King and Queen come into view.

They’re sitting on their thrones, as per usual, but they aren’t the only ones in the room like they normally are. Instead, there’s another knight, as equally decked out as you, standing before them, arms crossed behind their back.

“We hope that you can wear these honors proudly and do your duties with pride,” the King says regally, deep, thick voice echoing throughout the room.

“I will stop at nothing to ensure this kingdom’s greatness,” the knight says back, just as formal. The knight gives a long bow, red sashes around their wrist dangling towards the ground. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were being replaced. But of course, that’s not the case.

“Oh, Y/N,” the Queen says happily, noticing your waiting right in front of the closed doors to the throne room. “Prudent, as always.”

“I aspire to please,” you say with a bow. The King gives you a warm smile, one you’re willing to bet that this other knight isn’t often on the receiving end of.

“Your timing is impeccable,” the King says, ushering for you to come forward. You do so, taking calculated steps along the red carpet, woven nearly two centuries ago and maintained ever since. “We were just congratulating Sir JK on his recent accomplishments in the Black Forest.”

“Of course,” you say with a nod, refusing to turn to your left so you can stare down this Sir JK for yourself. “The military made groundbreaking strides for our kingdom there.”

“You are the first person to know this, other than him, of course, but we’ve decided to appoint him as the Head of the Royal Knights of the Kingdom of Kalar,” the King says proudly.

It takes everything in your willpower not to let your mouth drop open. You blink rapidly, making sure that you aren’t in a daze nor still asleep. Sure enough, you’re wide awake and your ears and eyes seem to be working perfectly. The knight next to you is taking over the highest position a knight can hold in your kingdom, one that even you haven’t been given.

You’ve been replaced.

“What an incredible honor,” you say, body stiff. You can practically feel the ego of the knight next to you radiating off of him. It makes your nerves twitch.

“I think so as well,” the King says proudly. He has, luckily, not picked up on your sudden mood change. “So, I’ve called you here to appoint you as his second-in-command.”

You bow graciously at his words, ensuring that, despite your bitter attitude, you are still thankful for this opportunity. Mostly. You are mostly thankful for this opportunity.

“I’m honored and grateful, Your Majesties,” you say, head facing the carpet. “I would rather die than let down my kingdom.”

“You two are to work together closely,” the Queen advises, words that make your ears bleed. Oh, wonderful, now you have to work hand-in-hand with the person that stole your favor with the royal household right from underneath your feet? You can think of nothing more enjoyable. “Your cooperation alone will ensure the utmost safety and security of this kingdom.”

“We shall do better than our best,” the knight beside you says. His words make your eyes roll back into your head, but you’ve been a bigger brownnoser in your past. You can forgive that, even if the man next to you radiates an energy you’d rather not surround yourself with.

“I’m pleased to hear it. Your training and work together begins now, so do not hesitate to get to know each other.”

You and him take one baited breath each before turning to each other. You both bow out of obligatory respect, which satisfies the King and Queen well enough. And as you come up, you catch a glimpse of each other’s eyes. His are dark, rounded pupils. They’re hiding something.

You’re determined to figure out what it is.

“Call me J,” the knight says the moment you’ve stepped foot outside of the palace. The setting sun shines dimly on the main road, and many of the vendors are beginning to pack up their belongings in order to head home.

“Okay, J,” you say suspiciously. Everything about him unsettles you slightly. Perhaps it’s the fact that behind the armor and the mask and the badges, he’s extremely good-looking. Or maybe it’s the fact that he swiped the top-ranking knight position right from your fingertips. It must be that. “It’s baffling to me that we haven’t met yet. If you’ve been in such high favor with the King and Queen, then I must have seen you somewhere.” You wonder if he can hear the bitterness lacing your features. You sure hope that he can.

“I guess our paths just never crossed,” J says, taking a bite out of a peach he just purchased from a farmer’s daughter, who was watching over the stall as her father haggled with another vendor. You watched as he winked to the girl as she gave him two peaches for the price of one. “I’m more on the ground than you are, am I not? You spend much of your time strategizing in the castle.”

“You don’t know what I do,” you huff out. He finishes the peach and wraps up the pip in a piece of cloth from his pocket before tucking it away. There is no place to dispose of it on the main street anyway.

“Don’t I?” J says with a sly grin, one that makes you want to kick him in the shin and push him into the grass. “Everyone knows what you do, Y/N. You were the King and Queen’s favorite.”

The way he uses the past tense doesn’t go unnoticed by you.

“But, as it seems, being on the battlefield outweighs directing it from above,” J says. He keeps his eyes off of you and his head held high while your gaze focuses in on him out of pure fury, just another way to hold his newfound superiority over your head. Five minutes next to him and he already seems to know how to push every single one of your buttons.

“So it seems,” you say bitterly.

“You and I really must get along, Y/N,” J says casually as you begin to stray from the hustle of the main street. Neither of you seem to have a particularly clear destination in mind, only a path that must be taken for the sake of the greater good. It’s only the prospect that if you do well enough, you’ll impress the King and Queen and regain your favor with them that’s keeping you from socking J in the face and dashing off, taking his second peach with you. “We’ll be spending lots of time together.”

“Doesn’t that sound like the bee’s knees,” you mutter to yourself. For the greater good.

“Should it not?” J asks innocently. It makes you want to wipe that smirk right off of his face, that knowing tone in his voice. “I certainly don’t have a problem with you, Y/N. Do you happen to have one with me?”

He asks it because he knows that whatever you say will incriminate you. He knows that if you say no, you’re a goddamn liar, and that if you say yes, you’re weak. Weak because you’re admitting that you can’t handle spending time with him even though you have to. Weak because you’re showing him that he has power over you.

“No, of course not,” you say, plastering the fakest smile on your face. Two can play at this game. “In fact, would it be alright if I had that other peach? I’m absolutely starving.” You can be civil. If he can, at least.

“Sure thing,” J says, unwrapping the peach from the woven napkin the farmer’s daughter gave him.

You reach out to take it from him, but in the blink of an eye his hand dangles it over your head, too far out of reach for you to grab without losing all of your dignity in the process.

“What do we say, Y/N?” He asks sweetly, like a parent disciplining their child. God, everything he does absolutely aggravates you.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes. Perhaps you aren’t on the front lines as often as he is, but you sure know how to fight. Maybe now is a good time to remind him that you received the same training he did.

“Please?” You ask, just as saccharine.

“As you request, Y/N,” J says with a bow, finally handing it over.

If this is what the next several months have in store for you, you wonder if maybe sinking down to a lower ranking might be worth it after all, especially if it means you’ll never have to see him and his bouncy hair and dark eyes again.

You take a bite into the peach. It’s sour.

Just your luck.

♚ HERE ♚

When you walk into work the next day, a hush falls over the room.

It’s not even as if the entire office has been quiet so far this workday, not as if the clock struck nine o’clock and everyone decided to start a competition to see who could shut up for the longest amount of time.

(For the record, if anyone were to win that competition, it would be Yoongi, who usually only speaks either 1) when spoken to or 2) to let someone know when they’re being dumb via insult. The first person to lose would be Namjoon, because his job description is to boss people around. And he’s awfully good at it.)

The elevator door dinged on the twenty-third floor and you could hear Hoseok’s loud gasps and Jungkook’s cackled laugh even through the glass door that separates your office from the rest of the companies that take up residence in this particular city skyscraper. And then, as your loafers tapped on the hard linoleum floor and the glass door creaked open, the entire office fell silent.

Quickly, you wonder if you’ve forgotten someone's birthday or if anybody’s due for a celebration of some sort. But nobody’s come to mind and the lights aren’t off, which means that this isn’t the kind of sudden silence that precedes a surprise party.

This is the kind of sudden silence that makes everybody go, “Oh shit.”

It feels like you’re walking on eggshells as you make your way over to your desk. You’re a couple minutes late due to oversleeping (for reasons that start with J and end with -ungkook) so everybody’s already here, and the office should be as boisterous and rowdy as always. And yet, something’s different.

You’re left entirely in the dark in concern with what the reasoning is, so you just decide that you’d rather not be the one to break the tense quiet that’s befallen your office and settle down, logging into your work desktop and checking today’s assignments on Slack.

Five minutes pass and you can’t help but think that, of the many, many days you’ve spent in this office with these people, this has got to be the most awkward by an overwhelmingly long shot. Not even the time Namjoon showed up with his hair dyed purple and traces of a sharpie drawing with a certain phallic design on his cheek was more awkward than this.

It seems that even Namjoon’s picked up on the vibe of your workspace today, walking in and out without a word. He wheels in a portable whiteboard from one of your meeting rooms and writes down everybody’s assignments on the board in his handwriting, which makes his O’s look like D’s.

Ten minutes in and this is the quietest your office has ever been in the history of mankind, probably. You’re almost convinced that genuinely no one will speak to each other until five o’clock, when Jimin’s end-of-work alarm goes off and you all pack up and go home, and that today’s workday is an exercise in meditation and peace, two things that are seldom available in your usual office environment.

And then, out of nowhere,

“Oh my God, I can’t take it anymore,” Hoseok says loudly, letting out a breath you didn’t even realize he had been holding. It’s highly unlikely that Hoseok spent the past ten minutes holding his breath because he wasn’t allowed to talk under your office’s societal norm of silence, but you honestly can’t put it past him. Speaking is essentially the equivalent of breathing to him. “I’ve been wanting to bother Jimin for not responding to my email from yesterday for the past five minutes. I don’t even know why we’re doing this, it’s clear that Y/N doesn’t care at all about what happened.”

“What don’t I care about?” You blurt out, equally as curious as everyone else also seems to release their baited breaths.

Hoseok and Jimin immediately begin to argue about appropriate email-response time between coworkers and Yoongi rolls a couple of feet over from his own desk to enlighten you.

“Jungkook told everyone that you had been docked from your top rank in Kingdom, and the whole office seems to have taken it very seriously,” Yoongi mutters into your ear, making you scrunch up your nose in exasperation. Is he kidding?

“That’s why everyone was so quiet? Because they didn’t want to bring it up?”

“I guess so, but I was just quiet because it was nice to have the whole office shut up for a few minutes in the morning,” Yoongi says with a shrug before wheeling back to his own desk, where an anime you vaguely recognize as Haikyuu!! is playing on his monitor.

Immediately, you whip around to meet eyes with Jungkook, who looks like he’s been expecting your furious glare all morning. He smiles guiltily and can offer you literally nothing other than a mouthed sorry because you two are in a workplace environment where shouting is, generally, socially unacceptable.

Despite your standing on the game, it’s easy to argue and even easier to prove that your coworkers care much more about Kingdom than you do. The loading screen of the castle in Monet’s art style is Hoseok’s desktop background. Jungkook has a little sword decoration next to his computer, and a couple of his pens are official Kingdom merch that you’re pretty sure he purchased from Hot Topic. Taehyung and Jimin play during their lunch break, the only time in the workday where shouting is socially acceptable, and the both of them came to last year’s Halloween party dressed as knights. Even Namjoon’s in on the game, though he rarely has time to play and usually has no idea what everyone else is referencing when they talk about Kingdom.

Contrastingly, you enjoy the game but very seldom do you actually broadcast that affection in public. You need to have at least some semblance of personal dignity in this absolute free-for-all of a place of employment.

So really, it’s no wonder that all of your coworkers acted like it was the end of the world when you got knocked from first place. To them, that would be like having a winning lottery ticket only to drop it onto train tracks and watch as the public transportation system has a field day with it.

“We’re really sorry, Y/N,” Taehyung says as he comes over and hands you a Tootsie Roll from the stash he keeps in one of his desk drawers for bad days. Apparently, this is a bad day. “Jungkook told us and we didn’t want to put salt in the wound.”

Even if their methodology was weird and slightly unsettling, the sentiment was there. “Thanks guys,” you tell Taehyung with a smile, “but I think you guys took it harder than I did.”

“Of course we did!” Jungkook says with a cry. He is objectively the most torn up out of the lot of you. “We had the top player in Kingdom in our very office, and now what! You were famous, Y/N! Whoever that bozo is who took your place is gonna feel the wrath of Jeon Jungkook and company.”

“Who’s feeling the wrath of Jeon Jungkook and company?” Seokjin asks as he strolls into the office, even later than you. To be fair, it’s looking like he’s got a box of a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts, which is enough for anyone to forgive him, even your hard headed boss. “Is it Jimin? Did he steal your Post-Its again? I saw he had a new pack.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen for barely a second before they narrow in on Jimin, who is already skirting away to find Namjoon so he can use him as a human shield. Jimin has quite the history of taking Jungkook’s office supplies only for a second and then failing to return it.

“No, but I’m gonna deal with him later,” Jungkook says, fishing through his office supplies on the hunt for his Post-it notes, which may or may not be currently in his possession. “We were just talking about how Y/N got knocked from the top spot in Kingdom by some asshat none of us have ever heard of, and now he’s going to feel the wrath. Of us. Specifically me, but also us.”

“What wrath?” Taehyung jokes. “You’re fresh out of college. You’re practically as intimidating as a baby bunny.”

Jungkook growls just for emphasis, and it only proves Taehyung’s point more. He’s always had a baby face.

“Well, I brought doughnuts to cheer everyone up,” Seokjin says, opening the box to reveal a dozen doughnuts of varying kinds that is likely to be finished within the next thirty seconds.

“Oh my God, Kim Seokjin, I love you,” Hoseok says before immediately taking one and a half and bouncing off.

“Save the pink-frosted one for me, will you? It’s my favorite,” Seokjin requests. He’s not even monitoring the box, too busy putting all his stuff away and getting settled at his desk. He’s basically asking to be robbed.

“Aw, I wanted that one,” you joke sadly, already going for the chocolate-frosted one with rainbow sprinkles. The box is nearly three-fourths empty. Even Namjoon’s materialized out of nowhere to take the glazed one to eat while he completes the next fifty-four things on his to-do list.

“Then let’s split it,” Seokjin says without missing a beat. Your heart does the exact opposite.

“Jimin, you wanna split one with me?” Taehyung asks.

“Ew, gross, no way, I want a whole one to myself,” Jimin immediately rejects.

“I’ll go and grab it,” Seokjin says, standing up to nab the doughnut for some evil being (by the name of Jimin) takes it for himself. He plucks it from the box and takes two napkins, too, walking over to your desk as he splits the doughnut in half.

“For you,” he says casually, like it isn’t making your heart beat out of your chest.

“Thank you, kind sir,” you say jokingly, taking the doughnut and placing it on the napkin he hands to you.

“Tell me about this Kingdom thing? You got knocked from first place?” Seokjin asks, making conversation as he lingers by your desk. It’s obvious that nobody’s going to be getting any work done.

“Yeah, but it’s really nothing special. Everyone was making a huge deal out of it, which you should be very glad you missed, because the first ten minutes of this workday were absolutely silent and it was awful in every way that something can be awful,” you tell him.

Seokjin laughs, and it warms you from the inside out. “Then I’m glad that I came late,” he says with a chuckle. “I couldn’t imagine a day where Jimin and Taehyung were silent for more than two minutes.”

“I lived through it,” you say, smiling. “Anyway, everyone seems to have gotten over the fact that I’m no longer the top-ranked Kingdom player. I’m kind of down about it myself, just because I worked really hard, but whoever it is that took over, I’m glad for them. I mean, it’s just a game.”

“That it is,” Seokjin says. “How about a toast to your Kingdom-playing skills, and to whoever it is that beat you.”

“Cheers,” you say, holding out your half of the doughnut.

“Cheers,” Seokjin echoes.

The two of you clink doughnuts, and they squish together awkwardly.

“You should bring doughnuts more often,” You muse.

“If it means we don’t have to work and can just talk like this, then I will,” Seokjin says as he takes a bite, already heading back over to his own desk. He waves goodbye with a smile, and only then do you finally indulge.

Sweet. As always.

♚ THERE ♚

When you were moved to the Military Tactics Unit, the King and Queen pulled you out of military training in favor of you spending more time working on strategies for the Kingdom’s armies rather than sparring with fellow Knights. It was a wise move on the part of Their Royal Highnesses, who feared losing you to a rebel group or warring kingdom, and you didn’t mind not having to engage in the physicality of training with those that would be spending more time on the battlefield.

And at the time, you saw it as a much-needed break from hand-to-hand combat training for years on end when you hadn’t set foot on the front lines in months. But now, that decision has decided to come back and bite you where it hurts.

Because as second-in-command to the Head of the Knights, you (and J, both luckily and unluckily) are tasked with the important duty of supervising the military training of the new recruits. This spells doom in various ways, some of which include (and are not limited to):

Having to spend more time with J.

Having to spend more time with J without letting all of the recruits know you both vastly dislike each other.

Having to spend more time with J in a scenario in which there is constant hand-to-hand combat.

Having to spend more time with J without being able to make up an excuse about needing to attend to urgent military business in order to leave.

Having to spend more time with J.

Attempting to remember how to spar.

So, in essence, you’re screwed.

This is the mindset with which you walk into your very first training session in over six months, a few minutes late, of course. Recently you’ve been attempting to calculate the maximum amount of time you can spend either being tardy or leaving early from events that involve J without you facing any repercussions. So far it’s been working out well.

When you walk in the door, before you can greet any of the recruits or even offer J a slightly sarcastic wave, he says, “Look who’s finally shown up,” loud enough for all of the recruits to turn to look as you stroll in tardy.

“I got held up by a vendor on the main road, my apologies,” you lie like a liar. It’s obvious that J does not believe you whatsoever, but it satisfies the recruits, who return to their business as usual.

“Well, you’re just in time for warm-up,” J says, false positivity radiating throughout every single word.

You walk up to where he stands at the front of the room, wearing much less of his official armor than he normally is. Right now, he stands in front of you in a plain tan cotton shirt and training pants, similar to the rest of the recruits. It’s really quite jarring, to see him dressed so differently from what he usually wears—dark armor and scarlet red sashes. It makes him seem… almost softer.

“Thought you might have bailed on me,” J mutters into your ear as the recruits begin to stretch.

“Have a little more faith in me, for God’s sake,” you grumble in return. You may not like him, but you aren’t about to abandon your responsibilities just because of a little bit of distaste.

“Do you wanna take warm-up, or should I?” He offers, motioning to the recruits. They all look so nervous, so desperate to prove themselves on the first day of training. It reminds you of yourself, like you’re looking into a mirror and a time machine all at once.

“You’re the boss,” you say, unabashedly letting the bitterness seep through your tone. “You choose.”

Unsurprisingly, J decides to let you handle the warm-up session, something that is just a precursor to the main event and therefore, not as important. He takes a couple of steps back and follows your instructions as you go through stretches and basic movements in combat, allowing all of the recruits to get a feel for what knighthood is really like in the Kingdom of Kalar. Warm-up was always your least favorite part during training, so boring in comparison to the sparring and hand-to-hand combat that you would engage in soon after. Sure, it was necessary, but when you were a wide-eyed, overeager trainee, you were willing to risk a pulled muscle if it meant you could beat someone up sooner.

With this in mind, you wrap up the session in a fairly timely manner, letting the recruits do their own stretching after everything absolutely necessary has been covered. It also means that you can sit back and let J do most of the heavy lifting, which, while you’re bitter about him getting all of the attention, is better than having to do it yourself based solely upon memory. You remember combat well enough to handle yourself in the battlefield, but the technicalities of training have completely slipped your memory by now.

J and everything else about him may leave a sour taste in your mouth, but you have to admit that he’s a good teacher and an even better morale booster. This must come from his experience out in the field, on the front lines, where raising his troops’ spirits came as a necessary quality to develop when times were tough.

He speaks slowly, explains everything in enough detail to cover all of the bases without losing attention, and frequently opens up the floor for questions. And as per usual, the recruits already begin to cling to him like vines, desperate to soak up every ounce of knowledge that he doles out.

J doesn’t need the ego boost, that’s for certain.

“Now that I’ve gone through everything, I believe that the best way to learn how to spar is just to start doing it, even if you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re doing. Despite what you may think about me, experience is the best teacher,” he says with a smile, earning a laugh from the crowd.

You roll your eyes.

“Um, sir?” A timid recruit raises her hand, her body curled in on herself. You take one look at her, and know that she’ll come out of her shell soon enough.

“Yes, a question?” J asks.

“Would you mind giving a demonstration? Just so we can watch. So we, well, don’t injure ourselves or each other while we’re sparring.”

A demonstration? You blink, having awoken from the trance you had placed yourself in one J stepped up to take over the training session. Doesn’t a demonstration mean… well, you and him?

J seems to come to this realization at the same time that you do, and grins wildly, giddy. He knows exactly how much you’ll hate doing this, which is all the more reason to say yes. “Of course, we’d be happy to. Y/N?”

You hold in the sigh you’ve been wanting to let out for about five minutes now, taking a deep exhale as you turn to face J. You’ve been in close proximity to him before, but you are about to get a whole lot closer.

“If you say so,” you say with a shrug, trying to keep this as lighthearted and casual as possible. Though, both of those things are likely to be tossed out the window now that you’re about to spar with your worst enemy.

J grabs a mat from the side of the room to lay down on the floor in front of you, and the two of you step onto it. Instantly, you’re transported back to when you were still in training, bouncing up and down on your feet with your fists raised in front of you, ready to take on the next recruit. You had always been quite good at sparring, back then.

Now is a completely different story.

“Are you ready?” J asks as you face each other in front of a crowd of recruits, all of whom are watching you with hawk-like intensity.

“Guess I can’t say ‘no’, can I?” You joke, though if J offers you a way out of this, you’d gladly take it, shame and dignity be damned.

“Well then, do your worst.”

He’s an open target. You’ve never been given an opportunity to sock him in the face before now, and you’d absolutely love to take it, but this is a sparring session, not a revenge session. That can be saved for a later date. Instead, you bounce on your feet like a nervous, excitable recruit, and aim for his neck.

He easily dodges, but you expected that, and counter his attack with your leg. It goes back and forth like this, as your muscle memory kicks in and you remember exactly what sparring was like back in your training sessions. For a few seconds in the middle of it, you genuinely think you and him are on a pretty level playing field.

And then—

One punch gone wrong and he’s got you lifted up off of the ground and onto his back, having grabbed your wrist at the perfect time to hoist you over his shoulder. You gasp in shock, body not necessarily remembering this part, and then—

He slams the both of you down onto the mat, your back hitting the cushion with a thud as the breathe gets knocked from your lungs. You definitely haven’t done this part in a while.

You know the recruits are all watching you intently, but you refuse to lose like this, even if this is normally the part where the person pinned underneath the other one surrenders. With both of your arms and all of your force, you attempt to shove J off of you by using your elbow to punch him in the chest. If you go down (which you most certainly will), you will go down with a fight.

He sees your move coming from a mile away, and immediately pins both of your arms above your head with a simple swish of his hand. The other one is holding up his body by your head as you both stare at each other, breathing heavily. His leg sits in between both of yours, resting up against your thigh, and his head hovers a very dangerous less-than-three inches away from your own. If a particularly near-sighted person were to stumble upon the both of you, you’d be absolutely screwed.

The both of you gaze into each other’s eyes for a second, the wind knocked out of you. You never quite realized what his face looks like up close. His cheeks are bright red. But it’s a second too long because the recruits have gone silent, refusing to applaud or do anything else to signal that the sparring match is over.

And then, it feels like a million years pass as J slowly removes himself from on top of your body, standing up and dusting his hands off before leaning down and offering his hand to help you up. Too floored and absolutely speechless to reject his extended palm like you normally would, you grab onto his hand and let him hoist you up, unable to speak.

“How was that for a demonstration?” J asks the recruits, who are all blinking like they’ve just witnessed something far too shocking for their liking.

Another trainee, a boisterous young man who walked into today’s session with his energy fully up and his eyes on the prize, raises his hand. “Could you show us again?”

You and J take one look at each other.

No. Way.

♚ HERE ♚

Because your office is both tightly knit and also uncannily resembles a cast of grown adults playing various high school stereotypes in a Hallmark movie, every year you do Office Superlatives. Office superlatives are basically an excuse for everyone to come up with a way to insult each other 1) while getting paid to do so and 2) without facing any repercussions whatsoever.

For three years in a row, your office has designated you as “Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Really Important”, a superlative that came about because on your very first day, you spilled your coffee on the one and only Kim Namjoon, who you then mistook as your boss, and thus ensued the most embarrassing one minute and thirteen seconds of your entire life in front of a bunch of colleagues you would have to see every weekday for the foreseeable future.

Thankfully, you haven’t spilled your coffee on anyone important since then, even if you do regularly knock over your pencil cup and send every pastel-colored highlighter flying across the hardwood floor. It became such a frequent occurrence that, for April Fool’s Day last year, Taehyung and Jimin taped every single thing on your desk to your desk to see how long it would take you to notice.

(It took you over three weeks, but that’s besides the point.)

“I know that the saying is ‘the customer is always right’, but this client I’m working with right now is literally wrong,” Taehyung says with a sigh. He collapses back in his office chair, mindlessly playing with the fur of the stuffed Pomeranian dog he keeps on his desk, staring down the email on his desktop. “Like, I’m not Squarespace or Wix. Either you pay me to design your website entirely, or you do it yourself. I’m not a drag-and-drop of a person, and I don’t get paid to be consulted on every font choice.”

“Didn’t you write on your resume that you can identify every standard Microsoft font without being told the name?” Yoongi asks with a frown from across the office. He’s making the most of his gigantic desktop computer, and has a tab open with One Punch Man right next to a Photoshop logo design he’s working on.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it,” Taehyung says with a frown. “I need someone who knows how to let people down easily.”

“Jimin?” Hoseok pipes up unhelpfully, earning an eraser to the face from Jimin, who is notorious for going on a bunch of first dates and very, very seldom going on a second one. You don’t even think that for the entire time you’ve known him, he’s ever gone a third date with someone. Ever.

“Do not make fun of my lifestyle choices!” Jimin shouts out defensively. “I just like meeting new people.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok says like a white girl in a Disney Channel Original Movie, “and then never meeting them again.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Jimin tells him pointedly, already beginning to stand up from his office chair to attempt to further convince him that serial-first-dating isn’t all that bad. “Two weeks ago, I saw this guy that I had gone on a date with last year and he told me that his friend was starting up a small pet barbershop business and needed help with the graphic design for his company. Now I’m designing this guy’s logo and backsplash for his wall.” He says matter-of-factly.

Hoseok frowns. “So, what I’m hearing is that you saw a guy you had gone on a date with last year, and what you got out of it, was more work.”

Jimin opens his mouth to say something else, but he flounders. Hoseok cackles to himself, shaking his head because Jimin’s just proved his point further.

“I’ll ask Seokjin,” Taehyung says with a sigh. “He could tell me that I’ve lost my job and that I’m getting evicted from my apartment and I would thank him.”

Amen.

“Hey, where is Seokjin?” Jungkook asks, spinning around in his office chair for the most efficient way to scan the entire office in search of the man. “He was just here watching One Punch Man with Yoongi.”

“I didn’t even notice he had gotten up,” Yoongi says, turning to the empty spot next to him where Seokjin once was.

“I’ll go look for him, I need to grab something from the printer, anyway,” you volunteer, pushing your chair back, standing up, and avoiding the gazes of anybody in the office who happens to have knowledge of your not-so-secret secret crush. This means that you are staring down at the lines of the wooden planks in the floor as you walk over to the back hallway, because every single person in the room currently has at least… well… some insight.

“He’s all yours, Y/N,” Taehyung wolf whistles, making you roll your eyes as you head down the hallway.

Too busy counting the planks that make up the hardwood floor and hoping that you’ll maybe be able to identify Seokjin by the shoes he’s wearing rather than anything else, you don’t look at where you’re going as you make a beeline for the printing room. That is, you make a beeline for the printing room until you crash right into an unsuspecting colleague.

“Oh, shit!” Said colleague cries out.

Oh God.

You look up to find Seokjin standing in front of you, a nearly-empty cup of low-grade office coffee in his hand, and a growing brown stain on his pale blue dress shirt. One look on the floor and there’s a puddle of coffee gathered at your feet, wet splotches on your flats and his loafers.

“Y/N, are you alright?” Seokjin asks, eyes wide and apologetic as he immediately searches for some place to put down his coffee to avoid any more casualties. He looks right at you, making you want to curl in on yourself, before his eyes train down to your torso.

Only then do you realize he’s not shamelessly staring at your chest, but rather at the massive brown stain on the front of your blouse, quickly seeping into the fabric, the scalding temperature of the coffee having gone right over your head the moment you realized who exactly it was that you crashed into.

“Uh…” you stammer, brain crashing as everything that’s just happened in the past thirty seconds catches up to you all at once.

“Oh my God, I’m such a mess,” Seokjin says, fumbling awkwardly as he finally finds a trash can to toss his sad lump of a coffee cup into.

No you’re not, you want to tell him, but the words don’t come out and you’re left standing there, looking sort of like you blame him for everything, when in reality, you just have no idea how to function in front of him.

“Coffee stains,” Seokjin says, hands fishing through his seemingly bottomless pants pockets (he could probably fit an entire Nintendo Switch and its dock in there) until he pulls out this measly little thing that vaguely resembles your orange highlighter. “Here, I have a Tide To-Go pen.”

Before you can tell him that you can just deal with the stain and wash it in the privacy of your own home where you don’t look like a bumbling idiot, he grabs your hand and pulls you into the gender neutral bathroom nearby, locking the door as the light flickers on.

“Here, do you need help?” Seokjin asks, holding out his Tide To-Go pen as he wets a paper towel made of entirely recycled materials and begins fruitlessly dabbing at his shirt.

“I’m alright, really,” you insist, staring into the mirror and trying desperately to avoid the fact that Seokjin’s shirt becomes transparent when it’s wet. Maybe quitting your job and moving to another city doesn’t sound unappealing after all. “I can just get it out with OxiClean at my apartment, Seokjin, seriously.”

“Are you sure? That’s what the Tide To-Go pen is for,” Seokjin says, holding it out towards you again as a final attempt to get you to use it.

“No offense, Seokjin, but I don’t know if the Tide To-Go pen is even going to make a dent in the stain on my shirt,” you chuckle, the only thing you can think of to get him to stop offering the thing to you. The Tide To-Go pen is meant for when you accidentally get a bit of ketchup onto your jeans as you move the french fry from your plate to your mouth. Not when you’ve got a giant coffee stain on the front of your shirt.

“God, I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Seokjin says, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt to try and get a better grip on the fabric as he relentlessly scrubs at it. God help you. He may as well take the whole thing off at this point—though you really, really hope that he doesn’t. “I’m such a klutz.”

“No, it’s my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” you tell him. You still know that you passed by 107 wooden planks before you crashed into him, because that is what you do when you don’t want to look anyone in the eye.

“Seriously, though, I had the cup of coffee. I feel really bad, I could pay to get it dry cleaned for you?” He offers, eyes wide and in search of some way to make it up to you.

“No, no, that’s not necessary. I’m can handle a stain, Seokjin. I’m an adult. I live in my own apartment and everything,” you say firmly, refusing to accept anything else from him. God, if he paid for your dry-cleaning, you’d never be able to live that down. “Maybe I’ll finally stop being voted Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Important,” you joke, trying to make light of the fact that you’re standing in the tiny gender-neutral bathroom together, Seokjin’s practically got half of his transparent dress shirt unbuttoned, and you both have massive and very conspicuous brown stains on your tops. All wonderful, wonderful things.

At this point, Seokjin stares down at his shirt and, quite frankly, just gives up, smoothing out his shirt as best as he can and tossing the poor, now-coffee-colored paper towel away.

“I suppose it’s high time we give you a break for always knocking over that pencil cup of yours,” Seokjin jokes back as he opens the door, motioning for you to leave first.

“We should invest in some Velcro for it,” you suggest, making Seokjin chuckle as he shuts the door behind him.

“Uh… what the fuck?”

The two of you are stopped in your tracks by a particularly suspicious Taehyung, who just witnessed the two of you walk out of the same bathroom with both of your clothes fairly askew.

“It’s not what it looks like,” you immediately tell him, eyes wide. Count on him to get the wrong idea.

“Okay,” Taehyung says, eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

“Taehyung, come on, I spilled coffee on the both of us,” Seokjin attempts, but Taehyung is absolutely not having it.

“That’s what they all say,” he says cryptically, nodding as he heads to the printer room with his eyes still narrowed. He glares at the both of you until he rounds the corner, out of sight, and by then your cheeks have heated up so badly you think you might actually start sweating.

“Now the whole office is going to think we’re dating,” you say, somewhat jokingly but also somewhat seriously. There’s no way Taehyung’s going to be able to keep his mouth shut for any longer than the next five minutes.

Seokjin laughs, looking at you and shrugging. “There are worse things, right?”

Are there?

♚ THERE ♚

“Oh, Y/N!”

You inhale.

Of all of the places in the Kingdom that J has not yet infiltrated and ruined for you, the small cafe on the edge of the kingdom borders has to have been the last one. You discovered it while you were on night watch as a baby knight, a task given to those too dedicated to the job to release but not yet prepared enough to fight on the front lines. It’s a quiet place, open more hours of the day than closed, owned by an old lady with no other family to take care of the business. You’ve already promised her that after she passes, you will immediately begin funding the cafe yourself, too much money on your hands and not enough wonderful places like this to spend it on.

When days are loud and hectic, when the King and Queen and all of their military advisors are stressed and have been snapping at you all day, this is where you come. The old lady keeps her door open especially for you (at least that’s what she tells you), always with a steaming cup of jasmine tea and a wise old story to tell you. Sometimes, you’ll get to tell a story back, and you exchange words of wisdom from a knight at the highest ranking in the kingdom and an elder with many years of experience in the kingdom behind her. She always tells you, “keep your eyes wide and your heart open, because things can only enter it if you’re looking out for them.”

You’ve held those words close to your soul ever since the first time you heard them.

But when your eyes are wide and staring down a certain knight in the kingdom who seems to have stumbled upon your one sacred place, you’re a little bothered, to say the least.

You exhale.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you say sourly, the scalding tea burning your tongue as you take a sip.

“I’ve never seen this place before,” J admits helplessly, already bowing to the old lady who runs the place. He introduces himself handsomely, and much like everyone else bewitched by his good looks and unrealistically charismatic personality, she immediately warms up to him.

“I wish it could stay that way,” you mumble to yourself, far too quiet for anyone except you and your tea to hear. “It’s far away,” you say to him as the lady ushers him to the seat next to yours, already promising him tea on the house. You sigh. “Wouldn’t expect you to go hunting for a nice tea place when there are so many wonderful places in the city.”

“I guess it’s nice to branch out,” J says with a shrug. “I have to say that I don’t really go out to cafes all that often. Too busy.”

“You know I understand how that goes,” you tell him honestly. For once, it’s something you can actually relate to. “But I think that it’s important to take a break from our duties and just relax. We don’t have much time to do that, you know.”

The lady brings over tea, and J insists he pay her for it despite her insistence for him not to. She shuffles off into the back before he can even get out some coins.

“Tell me, where can I leave this? I feel terrible not paying,” J asks you. It catches you off guard, really, mostly because he seems to be the kind of person who walks around the center square winking at every vendor in the hopes of receiving free merchandise.

“Oh,” you say, embarrassingly speechless. “Well, I suppose I could take it and give it to her. If we left rather soon then we could simply leave it on the counter for her to find. It’s likely that she won’t come back out for a while, since I have company.”

“Am I your company, Y/N?” J asks, almost teasingly. It makes you want to chuck your cup of jasmine tea into his face.

“Don’t think too much of it,” you advise him, a warning to tell him to knock it off. “We’re just here together.”

“Lucky us,” J says, holding up his cup of tea for a toast. You indulge him (begrudgingly so), letting your glasses clink together as you both finish a much needed warm drink on a chilly afternoon.

Too soon, the respite of the cafe is broken by a knock at the door. You both turn to find a messenger waiting patiently outside the cafe, motioning for J to come and speak to him.

“If you’ll excuse me,” J says, scooting back his chair and heading over, shutting the door behind him.

The moment the door closes, the old lady reappears from the back of the room, collecting your finished cups as you both listen intently to the murmuring outside.

“That young man mentioned that the two of you spend lots of time together,” the muses, cleaning the cups with a wet rag. She’s got a knowing look in her eye, like she’s picked up on something the both of you seem to have overlooked.

“We’re both knights,” you correct. It’s important to you that she knows that you don’t spend time together out of personal preference. It’s merely obligation. “So we see each other quite often.”

“I’ve never seen him around before,” she says pointedly, “but he seems to know quite a lot about you.”

“Oh, not really,” you insist. How could he? You’ve barely known him a month. Still, it’s clear that the lady doesn’t believe you.

“As you say,” she says, skeptical.

You’re about to open your mouth and reject her notions further, but then the door opens up again, and J looks terribly apologetic as he walks inside, joining your side. “We’ve been called in.”

As per usual, the Kingdom appears with impeccable timing to ruin the rest of your afternoon. It has a striking tendency to do that.

“For what?” You ask, exasperated. J doesn’t look much happier.

“Criminal hearings,” J says, and the words make you you toss your head back and sigh.

Criminal hearings and its many, many procedures are quite possibly your least favorite part of being a top-ranked royal knight. With your knowledge of the ins and outs of the military and the kingdom’s inner workings, as well as with you being an advisor to the generals and the King and Queen, you are often obligated to attend these, just in case there is a desperate need for the technicalities of military crimes that no one else can provide. It is, admittedly, extremely boring, since you can’t really offer any sort of insight or opinion on the actual criminal and their crime at hand.

“Fine,” you say, suddenly much less energized than you were approximately thirty seconds ago. “I suppose that we’ll have to be on our way.”

“Ma’am,” J says, attracting the attention of the old lady behind the counter. He holds out some coins, palm facing up. “Please accept this from me. I couldn’t leave without paying you for your wonderful tea and service.”

“Oh, pish posh,” the lady says with a shake of her hand. “Any friend of Y/N’s is well-deserving of some tea. You both work very hard. You should take any opportunity that presents itself to relax, and enjoy being young.”

“Please,” J insists, placing the coins in her hand, “a token of my gratitude. We shall return soon, right Y/N?” He gives your shoulder a nudge, making you look up at him. Return? You’d be blessed if J forgot about this place entirely, though you know that he’s bound to come back soon.

Perhaps there are worse things than losing your favorite cafe to him. Perhaps, you can simply learn to enjoy his company, instead.

“Of course, how could I resist?” You say, waving goodbye to the lady at the counter. “We really must be going, but I shall see you soon.”

“Take care of yourselves, the both of you!” She sees you off with a smile and a wink directed right at you for a cause you aren’t too keen on picking up. Old ladies are always so vague.

When you walk outside, you’re surprised to find yourselves alone. “Where’s the messenger guard?” You ask, looking around to see if he’s found a tree to take respite from the sun under.

J laughs, warm and hearty. “I sent him off, told him we would be able to make it ourselves.”

“Oh, alright,” you say with a shrug, already beginning to trudge the familiar path towards the castle.

You take six steps before realizing that J is neither next to you nor following you, still standing on the porch of the cafe as the sun makes his hair glimmer a dark caramel in the light.

“Aren’t you coming?” You turn around to ask, an eyebrow raised as you tap your foot on the cobblestone road.

“Have you ever skipped a criminal hearing before, Y/N?” J asks, and the very notion of bailing makes your eyes go wide.

“Skipped?” You clarify.

“That’s what I said,” J confirms.

“No…” You trail off, feeling more and more like the try hard you once were while training, wide-eyed and eager to prove yourself. Standing in front of him, rocking back and forth on your toes and twiddling your fingers as he steps off of the porch, taking long strides to reach you, makes you feel so nervous. With every step he takes closer to you, your heart begins to beat faster, faster, faster.

“Well,” J says, reaching out his hand to take hold of your own. “Would you like to start?”

When you were stationed on the Kingdom’s borders, you thought you had explored every nook and cranny of Kala. You had wandered through forests, across rivers, and into small edge villages with goods you had never even heard of before. You thought you had seen it all.

Clearly, you were mistaken.

J pulls you off of the cobblestone path and immediately takes you into the woods that surround the cafe, weaving past trees and ferns and grass alike. This time of year, the forest is ripe with greenery, right when summer is coming to an end but the leaves have yet to begin to fade to brown. Even without landmarks or a path to guide him, J seems to know exactly where the two of you are going, like he’s taken this road a million times before. And still, you had never seen him before this.

It’s a wonder that the two of you missed each other for so long.

“Where are we going, J?” You ask, laughing as the exhilaration of skipping your duties in favor of a fun day in the forest begins to flow through your veins. You’ve never done this before.

“Just wait, you’ll see,” he says cryptically, taking you down a large hill. You must be out of the Kingdom borders by now, with how far you’ve been going, and yet, no one had ever thought to place guards in this area.

Five more minutes of travelling and you’re near convinced that J is about to take you to some cave in the floor of the forest and murder you, when he tugs you up a hill to reveal—

It’s a clearing with grass so green you’d almost think it was enchanted. The leaves of the trees whisper to each other, voices flowing with the wind that breezes by each and every one, saying hello to the branches as they rustle. Tall grass and ferns grow on the edge of the forest, disguising the clearing to anyone who wouldn’t bother to keep looking, make their way through the overgrowth and into the oasis.

Never in a million years would you have been able to find this place on your own.

“What do you think?” J asks excitedly as he pulls you into the middle of the clearing, where the leaves of the trees have left an opening for the sun to shine through, a halo in the middle of the forest.

“I—I’m speechless,” you say, eyes wandering from every piece of bark to every blade of grass. You’ve always loved your Kingdom and its beauty, from the extravagant castle to the little shacks on the border, but this is more than that. This isn’t just beauty—it’s magic. “How did you find this place?”

“Strayed from the pack during military training outside,” he says guiltily. Clearly, skipping out on responsibilities has become a habit of J’s.

“Unbelievable,” you say, fingers tracing along the wildflowers growing close to the forest floor. You take a seat in the middle of it all, letting the sun stream through the leaves as the flowers open their petals at your touch. It’s as if every single living thing has been enchanted—like none of this could exist naturally.

“Do you like it?” J asks, taking a seat on the stone next to you. He reaches down to run his fingers through the grass, letting the soft dirt gather on his skin.

“I don’t think I have the words,” you tell him. You thought you had found a hidden respite from the hustle and bustle, but he has found not just a respite. He’s found a home. “Why would you show me this place?”

“What do you mean?” J asks. He finds a small yellow flower, a buttercup, and plucks it from the ground, twirling it between his fingers.

“I mean, why would you bring me here? Wouldn’t you want to keep this place all for yourself?” You inquire, curious. Certainly, that’s what you would do.

J pauses for a moment, staring down at the buttercup in his hands. Wordlessly, he hands it to you, watches as your fingers touch his own, taking the buttercup from him. You twirl it between your fingers, and wonder what all of this means.

“No,” he eventually answers. “Because a place like this deserves to be shared with the people that deserve to see it.”

♚ HERE ♚

[You have 5 unread messages]

Jungkook (5:53PM): Is it still acceptable to talk about Kingdom at company dinners? Jungkook (5:53PM): Is the ban that Yoongi instated last company dinner still going? Do you think he’ll be mad if I talk about how I just got a bunch of gold from solving the mystery of the time capsule?

Yoongi (5:55PM): If I have to sit through another company dinner where everyone is talking about Kingdom and nobody is talking about anime or my dog Holly I will lose it

Taehyung (5:57PM): You’re coming, right? You mentioned having a thing that ended pretty late this evening so you weren’t sure you’d make it

Seokjin (6:03PM): Excited to see you tonight! Promise I won’t spill anything on you tonight haha

Your office’s annual company dinner is the one and only opportunity you, as employees, get per year to talk about whatever you like in front of your colleagues, all while getting a meal paid for by your wonderfully unassuming, hardheaded boss. It is both a celebration of camaraderie and, of course, being employed, and a chance for your personal group to talk about Kingdom for two hours straight without repercussions.

Needless to say, many of you are looking forward to it.

To Jungkook (6:07PM): Yes, but only if we get to talk about how I’m still the best at the game out of everyone To Jungkook (6:07PM): Also, don’t forget to talk to Yoongi about My Hero Academia I know that you secretly love it

To Yoongi (6:08PM): Bring earplugs? Or maybe a manga book to get the conversation going?

To Taehyung (6:08PM): Yeah, I’ll be there To Taehyung (6:08PM): Probably be late though To Taehyung (6:09PM): Save me a seat!

To Seokjin (6:10PM): Not sure if I can promise the same thing! Fingers crossed we make it out tonight unscathed by scalding hot liquids

The company dinner starts at 6:30, which means that it really starts at 7:00 by the time everyone arrives, but even still, you’ll probably be late because you are actually doing last-minute laundry, and not attending a special event like you had told Taehyung. Sue you. Your clothes were dirty.

Standing in the middle of your apartment wearing the slouchiest clothes you own, you wonder if it’s even worth going when you know that you will probably 1) be late and 2) have to endure two hours worth of Kingdom talk and other things that leave you thoroughly embarrassed, like your nonexistent love life.

You’ve never skipped out on a company dinner before, but then again, never have all of your colleagues been so on top of you about your very insignificant, not at all soul-crushing, extremely minimal, super unimportant, tiny little infatuation with a certain coworker, so there’s that to consider.

Not to mention the fact that your entire office genuinely believes that the two of you hooked up in the gender neutral bathroom during the middle of the workday, which is a circumstance so improbable you have no idea how Taehyung managed to convince everybody that that was actually what happened. It’s not as if your coworkers didn’t see the ridiculous brown stains on the front of your and Seokjin’s shirts, or didn’t smell the office coffee stench all over the both of you.

So, for once in your life, you are genuinely considering just staying at home, finishing your laundry, and eating the frozen veggie burritos you bought from Costco two weeks ago. It sounds very tempting.

This thought is immediately combated by the fact that you usually have some of the most fun during the year at this company dinner, and a free meal at a nice, upscale restaurant is something that you would normally never pass up. But then again, Seokjin will be there and he will be dressed very nicely, and the rest of your coworkers will also be there, and they will be relentless.

Jungkook (6:33PM): Tae said you’d be late but please come soon! We can’t talk about Kingdom without the best player present!!!! Jungkook (6:33PM): Oh no Namjoon sees me with my phone

And out of every possible text you could have received that night, that one is the one that convinces you to pull out the same dress you’ve worn to the company dinner (it’s not as if anyone else will remember) every other year, tug it on, and head out. Your Costco veggie burritos will have to wait for another stay-at-home night.

You arrive fashionably late as always, walking into the restaurant and just asking for directions to where the “big group of loud office workers” is, a term easily identifiable by the scrambled hostess with fifteen different tables to seat all at once. She points you to the back room, where you can already hear Hoseok’s laughter from outside in the main dining area.

“You guys are loud,” you say in lieu of a greeting, everyone letting out cries of “Y/N!” and “You made it!” as you look around for the last empty seat.

“Here, saved you a spot right next to me,” Seokjin volunteers helpfully, motioning to the empty velvet chair next to him. In the seat next to that sits Taehyung, who is grinning guiltily, like he didn’t just dupe you into thinking he had saved you a seat next to him and someone else other than the person you were hoping not to embarrass yourself in front of.

“Thinking of me when I’m not even here, how thoughtful,” you say, walking over and sending a glare Taehyung’s way as you take your seat, the glass at the top right corner of your placemat already filled.

“How could we forget about you?” Seokjin reasons, and he says it so casually but it makes your heart flutter all the same.

When Seokjin’s finally started talking to Hoseok and Jimin on his other side, the two of them attempting to explain the inner workings of Kingdom to him (to little avail, as per usual), you round on Taehyung, who is every bit the best wingman and the worst friend in the entire world.

“How could you do this to me?” You hiss at him, trying not to attract the attention of the man sitting on the opposite side of you.

“I said I had saved you a seat!” Taehyung says defensively, clearly enjoying himself way too much.

“This was not what I had in mind,” you tell him pointedly.

“Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have hidden it from you,” Taehyung says. He motions to Seokjin, who’s laughing at something that Jimin’s just said, eyes crinkled into half moons as the waiter places the cocktail he’s ordered down in front of him. “You know, it’s not so bad having a crush on him, right?”

“He is our coworker and way out of my league, of course it is,” you remind Taehyung.

Taehyung shrugs you off with a wave of his hand. “Give yourself some credit, Y/N. You’re hot. Embrace it.”

“I will not, thank you very much. This conversation makes me want to hurl,” you say as normally as possible, blinking to show your discomfort to Taehyung.

“You need to stop being so afraid of what might actually come out of this,” Taehyung says, a reassuring hand on your arm. “You never know what might happen.”

“What’s definitely going to happen is that I’m going to feel too cold from the vent above my head, and we’re going to switch seats,” you say. You immediately make to stand up, but Taehyung grabs onto your wrist and looks up at you like a child begging for candy in a supermarket.

“Please, Y/N? Just give it a try, and if you hate it by the time the entree comes around, we can switch. Alright?” He asks, a simple compromise to get you to sit back down.

You sigh. You suppose it wouldn’t hurt to shoot your shot, no matter how terrible your aim is.

“I didn’t order any soup, so hopefully we can last through this dinner without ruining more of our clothes,” Seokjin says, an icebreaker to ease the obvious tension between the two of you. He breaks down your walls so easily, carves out a path in the side of it to waltz right through.

“I don’t know,” you say sarcastically,” you better finish that cocktail soon or we might both be in big trouble.”

Seokjin chuckles, warm and full, and takes another sip of the fruity drink for good measure. “Don’t know how you keep getting crowned Most Likely to Spill Coffee on Someone Important when I’m here, a walking coffee volcano.”

“When the superlatives roll around, I’ll petition the court and see if we can crown you instead,” you promise.

“I’m honored. I’ll cherish that title for as long as I live,” Seokjin jokes, bowing to you just for good measure. “This is nice, you know.”

“What is?” You ask, peering down at the large group menu. Everything looks awfully delicious and awfully expensive, so you just go for a classic pasta dish and hope that Taehyung orders something different, so you can try each other’s.

“Sitting next to you,” Seokjin says like it’s obvious, making you blink at your menu like it’s just offended your entire family ancestry. “I don’t think we’ve ever been paired up like this at a company dinner.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?” You ask hopefully.

“It’s nice,” Seokjin says. “I feel like we don’t get to talk very much at work.”

“You said you’d bring more doughnuts,” you remind him. Seokjin has held up on his promise, actually, and since the first round of doughnuts, he’s brought on two more occasions to brighten up everybody’s day.

“I think I need a better excuse than doughnuts,” Seokjin says to himself. “I can’t keep going to Dunkin’ right before work, pretty soon all of the workers will know me by name and that is a level that I’m not sure I’d like to reach yet.”

“Don’t feel bad,” you tell him, a hand instinctively coming to rest on his shoulder as comfort. “Some of the Costco employees recognize me even when I’m wearing my sunglasses inside.”

“You wear your sunglasses inside Costco?” Seokjin asks with a laugh.

“Sometimes I just forget to take them off when I walk from my car into the store!” You say defensively. “It’s really bright in there, sue me.”

“No, no, I think it’s cute,” Seokjin assures you. “Maybe being recognized by the Dunkin’ employees won’t be that bad. At least they probably wouldn’t know who I was if I had my sunglasses on.”

“I’m being attacked, I’m pretty sure,” you say pointedly.

“Only affectionately. You’re still ridiculously endearing.” Seokjin says with a chuckle, smiling at you as Jungkook calls your name to tell him something about Kingdom that he’s forgotten. But even as Seokjin gets tugged into another conversation and you get pulled into your own, your brain can’t help but replay the sound of his voice in your head, over and over.

You’re still ridiculously endearing.

“Hey, Jungkook,” Jimin asks over a mouthful of complimentary bread with olive oil. “Did you ever figure out who knocked Y/N from the top spot in Kingdom?”

“No,” Jungkook cries out, suddenly thirsty for justice. “It makes me so mad that I don’t know who they are, especially since they’re getting all the in-game brand deals and Y/N gets nothing,” he says pointedly as he motions to you, clearly exasperated for a cause that wasn’t even his to begin with.

“Jungkook, it’s not a big deal, it’s just a game,” you remind him, the table too wide to reach over and pat his hand comfortingly. “I still get a lot of things in second place.”

“What’s Jungkook talking about?” Seokjin asks, motioning to where Jungkook seems to be on a rampage as Jimin and Namjoon listen in.

“Oh, Kingdom, like always,” you say fondly. “He’s determined to figure out the name of the person who dethroned me.”

“Is that so?” Seokjin asks with a laugh. “He’s got his work cut out for him. How many people play Kingdom?”

“Hundreds of thousands, probably,” you say. “Maybe millions.”

“Millions of people, and somehow we ended up with the second-best player in the game right at this table,” Seokjin says with a grin. “We should be honored.”

“It’s just a game,” you remind him, even though the sentiment is awfully sweet. “I think I much prefer the real world, don’t you?”

Seokjin smiles at you as the waiter comes around to offer him another cocktail.

“Another one, sir?”

Seokjin looks down at the cocktail, then at your unstained clothes, and he shakes his head, laughing to himself. “No, I’m alright, thank you.” The waiter nods, taking his empty glass and moving onto another coworker. He looks at you, and his eyes are swimming in stars. “I think that I do, too.”

Dinner ends with Hoseok and Jungkook gobbling down everybody’s leftovers, your boss paying the bill without even glancing at the check, and you laughing alongside Seokjin, who keeps your end of the table entertained with fantastic stories about his past job at a luxury department store and less-than-fantastic dad jokes that he prides himself for coming up with on the spot.

Taehyung had nudged you when the entrees had come around, motioning to the vent above your head, but you hadn’t even noticed the cold.

“Ugh,” Jimin says with a groan as the group of you head outside once everyone is finished, the chilly night air hitting your skin as you open the door. “I hate that we could only schedule this for a Wednesday, because it means we have to come into work again tomorrow.”

“When else are we supposed to schedule it for?” Yoongi asks with a frown. “Did you even look at the When2Meet? Nobody had any free time for the rest of the month.”

“Well, if everyone’s cleared their schedules just for this dinner, anyone want to keep the celebration going at my apartment? I just bought a box of wine from Trader Joe’s,” Jimin asks.

“On a Wednesday?” Yoongi says, nose scrunched up in disapproval.

“Yeah, when else would you drink boxed Trader Joe’s wine?” Jimin responds like it’s obvious.

Everyone begins to either disperse back to their cars or get Jimin’s address so they can get wine drunk on a Wednesday like you’re supposed to, leaving you and Seokjin out of the crowd.

“Are you heading over to Jimin’s?” He asks you as you begin to walk towards your cars, taking a step every five seconds as you watch Jimin tell everybody his exact address, loudly and slowly enough for any burglars and axe-wielding murderers within a three-mile radius to also hear him.

“No, I think I’ll just head home for the night,” you say, checking the time on your phone. It’s nearly ten, already. Where did the time go?

“Ah, then I guess I will, too,” Seokjin says. “Oh, here’s my car.”

“You parked close,” you comment.

“I thought that I’d be late because I arrived at 6:45, but I was the second one here,” Seokjin tells you, making you laugh.

“Sounds like our office, doesn’t it?”

“I guess. We’ll have to do this again sometime just to see how late everyone shows up,” Seokjin says.

“Promise I’ll be early next time,” you say.

“Next time, then?” Seokjin asks, already opening his car door and beginning to step inside. You stand on the sidewalk in front of him, watching as he pulls the door shut and waves to you through the windshield. A next time sounds awfully nice.

“Next time.”

♚ THERE ♚

The King and Queen never do find out about your truancy, though you have to admit, you were never really worried about that in the first place. Not when J was grinning as he told you he had sent the messenger guard off, laughing as he dragged you through the forest, smiling as he twirled a buttercup between his fingers. He had done it before and he’ll do it again, and look where that’s gotten him.

Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him.

Still, despite your high ranks, the two of you can’t avoid your responsibilities forever. Eventually, you will always have to report back to the castle, get a new assignment, and start the cycle all over again.

“At least they’re letting us go together,” J reasons as the two of you nod to the knights standing guard at the border of the kingdom, by the main forest that leads directly to a kingdom with whom your relationship isn’t all that strong. No wars have broken out between your two lands in years, but never has stability been one-hundred percent earned, which means that both kingdoms must be on high alert. You never know when a rebel group will attempt to invade the land.

“Like I’d want to spend any more time with you,” you joke, giving J a nudge in the side as you stroll along the forest edge. In the middle of the day with the sun high above your heads, neither of you are particularly worried about being attacked. It would be foolish for an enemy group to do so, especially at a time when the kingdom’s guards are the most awake.

“Am I really such awful company?” J asks, and he’s smiling but he asks in such a way, it’s almost as if he means it. The two of you have never been on the best of terms, but you’ve found yourself growing out of the competition-fueled rage you once always found yourself in whenever you were near him. No longer is regaining your first place your most important priority. Rather, it’s doing your job and doing it correctly, upholding the duties that the kingdom has entrusted you with, regardless of who’s by your side.

(Though, even if you’d never admit it, J makes quite good company, most of the time.)

“No,” you insist, a hand reaching out to rub comfortingly at his forearm. “You aren’t.”

“You think so?” J says with a laugh, almost bitter. “I must say, you’ve never been that fond of me.”

“You may have charmed your way into the rest of the kingdom’s hearts, but I needed some convincing,” you remind him, reminiscent of how he would tease you constantly, dangle his promotion right above your head like a trophy you’d never be able to reach.

“Did I do a good job, then?” J asks, hands in his pockets. It’s a quiet day, today. Even the birds have begun to murmur.

“You did quite alright,” you say, nudging him. “Though I must say, I absolutely hate how all of the vendor’s daughters fawn all over you and give you free items like fruit, and jewelry. I’m never given that treatment.”

“You just don’t have my naturally charming, handsome, soft looks,” J says, posing in front of you as the two of you walk. The obnoxiousness of it all makes you almost want to chuck the apple you’re about to eat right at his face.

“What do you mean? I can be charming,” you say with a pout. You pretend to flip your hair, just for emphasis.

“You and I are different types of charming,” J says casually. “You’re strong. You speak loudly and clearly and you don’t ever flounder. You always know exactly what you want, and know the best way to get it. You aren’t afraid of anything, and are always willing to take on any challenge that comes your way. It’s… it’s different.”

And even if he thinks you never flounder, never stumble over your words or stutter, for once, you can’t think of anything to say. You’re walking along the forest’s edge with a knight you had convinced yourself that you would never befriend, and he’s just told you all of these wonderful things about yourself you never would have known he’d thought otherwise.

J’s right. It is different. This is different. And you can hardly remember when it started to be like this. Only one day, it was just like this, and it never stopped.

“Do you really think all of those things about me?” You ask, staring down at your boots as you walk along the dirt path, kicking small pebbles as you go. They go flying off into the grass, never to be seen again. But sometimes, you come across one you had kicked a few steps back, and you try again, earnestly hoping to see how far it will go with you by its side.

“I mean, well…” J says, stumbling. “I don’t just think those things about you, you know? They’re facts, aren’t they? Those are things that, well, I suppose, everyone would think about you. Right?”

“You know what I think?” You ask, looking up at him. His dark hair shimmers in the light, like reflects of gold have been sprinkled amongst the ink black. “We are different types of charming. You’re charismatic and friendly, always willing to listen. You accept things graciously and are always grateful for what you receive. You pay people back whatever they’ve given you, even if it’s not the same item, even if it’s just the thought that counts. You always want to do better, and then you do. You work hard for each thing you get, and you never take it for granted.”

J grins down at you. “But you don’t actually think that, do you?”

“Nope,” you say, shaking your head. “Just facts.”

“Just facts,” he echoes.

When did talking to him become so easy? When did it all start coming to you naturally?

“Did you ever hate me?” He asks you, curious. He knows, he must, that that’s not the case anymore.

“No,” you admit, perhaps more to yourself than to him. “I think that I just hated that you were better than me. But… like you said, it’s different now. Now, I don’t care if you’re better than me. That sort of competition makes me a better soldier. You make me a better soldier.”

“Really?” J wonders, genuine. His eyes are wide in surprise, shocked at such a candid admission coming from you. To be honest, you’re surprised with yourself, as well. “I had no idea.”

“Keep it up, then. You know—”

A taut string let go.

The wind stopping in its tracks.

And an arrow headed right for your heart.

“Oh my God!” You shout quickly, unable to do much except alert the man next to you that the two of you are in imminent danger.

Before you can even blink, close your eyes and wait for the tip to pierce your heart, J is pushing you out of the way, sending you flying to the forest floor and he pulls his bow from his back, sending a steel arrow flying in the direction of the woods. You both wait there, only a second but it’s a second too long, until you hear a thud on the ground, a final breath, and then—

Silence.

The moment you’re both positive the assailant is dead, J turns to you, eyes wide. “Y/N, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m alright,” you assure him, telling him (and yourself) over and over as he pulls you up from the ground. Your heart is racing and you can’t quite seem to catch your breath, but you’re alive and so is he, and that’s all that matters. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he immediately says. “As long as you are.”

You look behind him to find an arrow stuck in a tree, but what alarms you more is the sight of blood on the tip. Immediately, you turn back to J, only to find the side of his arm covered in blood, bleeding right through his armor.

“Oh my God, J, you’re hurt,” you cry out, fumbling for something to stop the flow.

“I’m alright, Y/N, really,” he insists, placing a hand on top of your own, rubbing the back of it with his thumb for good measure. “It’s just a graze. I’ll be fine.”

“We have to take you back to the kingdom,” you push, already beginning to head back towards the gate.

“I’ve suffered worse injuries, Y/N, seriously,” he tells you, hoping to ease the pit of worry in your stomach. “I’m a top-ranked knight who prefers the battlefield over anything else. I’ve broken bones, gotten stabbed, and nearly died. This? It’s nothing. Really. Please, don’t worry.”

“We still have to get you back to the Kingdom and patch you up,” you insist firmly. “Even if you say you’re alright.”

“Whatever you say, Miss Y/N.” J goes with you obligingly, lets you walk him back to the kingdom gates.

You urge him into the local medical practitioner, sit him down on the bench and watch as the doctor bandages his wound, reminds him not to engage in any strenuous activity while it’s healing. He sits patiently, glaring at you slightly and rolling his eyes any time the doctor speaks, which is fairly frequently. It’s clear only one of you wants to be here right now, and it’s the one of you without a scratch on your body.

When the doctor leaves to tend to another patient, you get up from where you’re seated and sit down next to him on the bench, resting your head on his shoulder.

Working for the Kingdom makes you stronger. Sitting in the cafe makes you think. But being with him, standing by his side, it makes you wonder. It makes your heart race and your mind clear. It makes you feel safe.

“I think you saved my life,” you whisper softly, clutching onto him like a lifeline, like if you let go, one of you will drown.

But that’s not the case. Neither of you will let go. Not without the other. Never without the other.

“Really?” He asks. He already knows the answer.

“No, I know you did,” you tell him. Things are different now, but maybe they’ve always been like this. You just never noticed. “Because in a heartbeat, I would do the same for you.”

♚ HERE ♚

“I have not seen Seokjin all day,” Jimin comments loudly one day, making everyone immediately turn to Seokjins’ desk, which looks practically untouched. His computer is asleep, his chair is pushed in, and his desktop is empty. The only thing that suggests that the man is even here in the first place is the messenger bag resting against the desk drawers, though it doesn’t look like it’s even been opened today.

“Probably too busy avoiding you,” Yoongi deadpans, earning a “zing!” from Hoseok that makes you feel even more like you’re standing in the middle of a high school movie made by people who don’t know what high school is like.

“Is he even in today?”

“He is,” you pipe up. “His bag is here.”

“Of course you would know!” Taehyung teases, and he earns a highlighter to the face for his trouble.

“He’s probably just trying to get his work done in a place that doesn’t consist of screaming and constant insults being hurled across the room,” Jimin says with a sigh, turning back to his work. It’s a fair statement, especially when the environment in your office is most often distracting, loud, and not at all an ideal work environment. It’s an absolute wonder that any of you manage to get your work done while you’re here.

“Y/N, wanna go hunt him down?” Taehyung suggests, sending a wink your way as your eyes widen.

“No, absolutely not, no way. I will not be tricked by you again,” you say, very reminiscent of the last time you went to go look for Seokjin and ended up with a coffee-stained shirt and a group of coworkers who thinks the two of you hooked up that one time.

“If you say so…” Taehyung says, voice trailing off as he turns back to his work.

But for once in your life, Seokjin’s absence is more noticeable than ever. He’s become a fixture in your everyday office life, always stopping by your desk with a second cup of low-grade office coffee for you (with a lid, of course), sending you emails complaining about Jimin and Hoseok when they’re being loud, asking you for help on every one of his difficult font decisions for logo designs, drafting emails to clients with you. It’s a sort of closeness that you never really had before—sure, you worked together and often got paired up for projects, but it’s different now. Like you jumped ship on being just colleagues but instead of drowning, you began to float.

Five more minutes pass and you pretty much resign yourself to getting back to your work, knowing that Seokjin’s probably just grabbed his laptop and found a place where he can work in peace and quiet without Hoseok’s shrill voice interrupting his thoughts. You’ll have to ask him what place he’s discovered.

When there are four minutes left in the workweek and you are finally beginning to close out of the fifteen thousand tabs open on your Google Chrome window, the door busts open.

It doesn’t actually bust open, so much as Seokjin comes flying through it and it slowly goes to rest on the padded door frame like it’s been designed to. His tie is loose around his neck like he’s been tugging on it all afternoon, his laptop is clenched carefully between his arm and his torso, and he’s got a flurry of papers freeballing it in a stack in his hands.

“Oh my God, what tornado did you come from?” Jimin asks as Seokjin rushes over to his desk, cramming everything into his tiny messenger bag that definitely isn’t meant to fit a laptop and a stack of papers that thick.

“Sehun just dumped an entire project on me that’s due on Sunday at noon with no warning, and now I have to pull together fragments of a crumbling magazine label before their final review on Sunday afternoon,” he says, terribly out of breath. He’s scrambling to gather his belongings, crashing into anything within a two-foot radius of him.

“Dude, what the heck? I’m gonna tell Namjoon to kick Sehun’s ass,” Hoseok says with a frown, nose scrunched up. “Do you need help?”

“No, no, I’m alright, I can do it,” Seokjin insists, rubbing a hand through his hair as he leaves before the clock has even struck five.

“Are you sure? You look like you want to jump out of the window,” Hoseok asks again, just for clarification. He’s not wrong. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Seokjin become so stressed in such a short period of time before. “At least let one of us help you get settled back into your apartment.”

To your right, Taehyung whispers into Jungkook’s ear, who then does this sort of weird hand movement to Hoseok, who nods understandingly. It looks suspiciously like they just plotted someone’s murder.

“I can’t,” Jungkook says with an obnoxiously fake yawn, suddenly speaking much slower than usual, “I’m deadbeat tired.”

“Me neither,” Taehyung says, coughing in the way people do when they just want to get out of something. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

You whip your head around as everyone besides Yoongi comes up with an absolutely bullshit excuse not to accompany Seokjin to his apartment—Jimin says he has a date right after work and Hoseok says he needs to feed his puppy before he gets too hungry, leaving only you and a Yoongi that hasn’t been listening to the conversation whatsoever to vie for the spot.

“Yoongi?” You ask, somewhat desperate not to be the one to accompany Seokjin to his apartment. You turn to your head to glare at Taehyung, who shamelessly coughs again when he meets your eyes, smiling guiltily.

“Huh?” He asks, turning around.

“Fine, you know what? I can come with,” you say with a sigh, already grabbing your belongings as Taehyung and Jungkook high-five next to you.

“Oh, really? You’re a lifesaver, Y/N, you know that?” Seokjin says, and even when he’s stressed it’s like the weight has been lifted off of his shoulders once you volunteer, and you suppose that there are worse things that can happen than accompanying Seokjin to his apartment for ten minutes.

Seokjin gives you the address of his place so that you can drive to it yourself, the both of you pulling into the parking garage underneath his apartment complex at the same time, waving to each other from adjacent parking spaces.

“I really, really appreciate this, Y/N,” Seokjin says with a smile as he brings you into his apartment complex, nodding a friendly hello to the security officer in the lobby. “I know that it’s a Friday night and everything as well. You’d probably want to be doing something else.”

“Ah, yes, you know me, I frequent all of the clubs and bars in this city,” you say sarcastically as you walk into the elevator. Seokjin hits the button for the seventh floor and laughs. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. It was a dick move of Sehun to drop this on you when it’s due in, like, thirty-six hours.”

“Tell me about it,” Seokjin says, exasperated as he leans back against the steel walls of the elevator. “I thought I would just get to go home this Friday night, pull up Netflix, and have a one-man movie night, but now I have to spend the next thirty-six hours doing this.”

“Well, you know all of us are just looking out for you, wanted to make sure you didn’t injure yourself from stress before you got back to your apartment,” you say as the elevator door dings. Seokjin leads you down the hallway to his door, sticking his key in and jiggling it until the door pops open.

Admittedly, you have never been in Seokjin’s apartment, but you it was like you had already painted a picture of it in your head from his personality traits alone. You thought it would be fairly minimalistic, clean and neat, not too many flashy colors or kitschy items but things like photographs and magnets to make it feel like an office and more like a home. Pictured it as a sort of very simple, modern home, like the ones that celebrities live in because they can afford to keep their belongings clean all the time, because Seokjin looks exactly like a celebrity, gorgeous and put-together.

Instead, Seokjin’s apartment is almost a hodgepodge of everything he could think to find to decorate, a stack of photobooks on his coffee table, slouchy leather couches wrinkled from wear, various kitchen supplies splayed all over his countertops. It’s the kind of place you can imagine him being in, existing in. You can see him standing behind his kitchen island with all of the ingredients and supplies for this wonderful dish he’s making littered across the counters. You can see him curled up on the couch, leaning against the corner of it to find that perfect spot, watching television.

There’s a difference between owning a place, and living in it. Living in it makes it feels like a home, like it’s real, and not just for show.

“Wow, your place is—”

“It’s really messy right now, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t expecting guests,” Seokjin says, letting his messenger bag plop down on the ground as he scrambles to make his living space nicer for you.

“No, I was going to say it’s lovely,” you tell him. “It feels exactly like you.”

“Does it?” Seokjin asks genuinely, a soft smile lacing his features. “Well then, thank you.”

You wait around in his apartment awkwardly, not really sure if stepping past the front of his couch is socially acceptable since you’re just “visiting” and he hasn’t officially invited you inside yet. The main objective of accompanying him to his apartment has already been accomplished: you made sure he got home safely and that he can do his work in peace. Finished. But even still, you’re hanging around, wondering when he’s going to kick you out for being a weird, unknown fixture in his home.

“Um, would you like to stay for dinner? I made soup last night and I have way too much for me to eat on my own,” he offers, opening up his fridge and taking out an enormous pot. It clinks as it hits his countertop, the metal sound echoing throughout his apartment.

“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” you say, taking this as your cue to remove yourself from the situation before you do anything else to make an absolute fool of yourself.

“I insist, please,” Seokjin says, stopping you in your tracks. “I may have a whole project to finish by Sunday, but we should at least spend this Friday night together, right?”

You look down at your shoes before looking up at him, meeting his eyes from where he stands behind his counter island.

“Then I will,” you say, removing your flats and padding over to where he stands, coming to a stop on the other side of the counter island. “But only if you let me help you with the project, too. It was asshole-y of Sehun to dump it all on you. At least let me handle some of the graphic aspects.”

“Y/N,” Seokjin says, reaching his hand out over the counter, “you have a deal.”

This deal mainly consists of you eating some of Seokjin’s homemade soup on his couches, your laptops on his coffee table and that ridiculously thick stack of papers spread out amongst you. Seokjin already has a fair bit of information about the project at hand, but he still has absolutely zero progress since he received the assignment four minutes before the end of the workweek.

“So, basically, what we have to do is re-organize the magazine’s overall design and aesthetic before their final review on Sunday, because if they don’t appeal to the publisher, they’re getting tanked,” Seokjin says, paging through the papers in search of a sketch.

“So we’re their last hope,” you summarize.

Seokjin nods. “We’re their last hope.”

“Great,” you say, not at all enthused. “No pressure at all.”

“I know. I’m so relaxed right now,” Seokjin says, clearly not relaxed.

“You know what’s making me relaxed? This soup,” you say, finishing the last of what’s in your bowl. “It’s delicious. I didn’t know you cooked.”

“It’s just a hobby of mine,” Seokjin says with a shrug. “I picked it up when I moved to college and didn’t know how to make anything except toast.”

“You’re a very fast learner, then,” you say. “I’d pay you to make all of my meals, honestly.”

“Would you like more? I have a ton, so we can eat it all if you’d like,” he asks, already standing up and reaching his hand out for your bowl.

You hand it over, shaking your head as he makes his way back to his little kitchen, ladling more soup into both of your bowls. “You’re too nice, Seokjin. Seriously. How am I supposed to pay back this kindness?”

Seokjin lets out a warm chuckle as he warms up your next serving in the microwave. “Believe me, Y/N, volunteering to take on this project with me with a due date in less than thirty-six hours is more than enough. You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

“No,” you tell him. “I want to. You deserve someone who’s willing to help you with big things like this. You shouldn’t have to deal with it all on your own.”

Seokjin grins as he returns, handing you your bowl of soup as you get back to work. “I don’t deserve you, Y/N.”

What was supposed to be a couple of hours spent grinding out a project over a shared pot of soup turns into a night’s worth of work, scribbles on paper and the redoing of the same logo fifteen different times on your computer’s much slower, less-updated version of Photoshop. The application crashes on three different occasions, causing you to nearly slam it into the wall, but you just try to look on the bright side. Find the silver lining. Of which there are none.

Seokjin doesn’t seem to be faring any better than you are. You’ve never seen the man under such pressure before, not in the office and certainly not while you’re out of the office. He’s tugged on a crewneck sweater over his dress shirt and paces around his apartment in bright pink slippers, brainstorming aloud as you bounce ideas off of each other in a panic.

“What if we rebranded them?” Seokjin suggests wildly. When you turn to look at the digital clock underneath his television, it says 11:17PM. You’re surprised he hasn’t collapsed underneath the pile of work he’s got on his plate.

“What do you mean? Do we even have the authorization to rebrand them?” You ask, pulling up a new tab on magazine marketing techniques.

“The project description says requests for anything that will keep them afloat,” Seokjin says. He immediately opens an old photobook, buried underneath your laptops, sketches, and papers, flipping through before he sits down right next to you on his slouchy leather couch. “What if we gave them more of a minimalist kind of style? They’re trying to jump off of this super quirky, very basic Urban Outfitters kind of aesthetic, but I think it makes the magazine too young, you know?” Seokjin suggests. “We could do something more grown-up, attract their market audience.”

“Are we allowed to do that?” You ask, thoroughly interested. Maybe Seokjin’s onto something.

“Who says we can’t?” Seokjin responds, and it’s good enough for you to hop on board.

Sitting in his apartment like this, brainstorming different ideas and collaborating on logo designs, magazine layout, and website design together, you are more productive than you’ve been in a very, very long time. Even as the night stretches on into the early hours of the morning, as you watch the clock turn from 1:00AM to 2:00AM to 3:00AM, the two of you are wide awake, the only things illuminating his apartment being a floor lamp by his television and the blue light of your laptop screens.

“It’s…” Seokjin yawns when it’s nearly four in the morning, pen slipping from his fingers, “so late.”

“I know,” you say back, feeling your eyelids beginning to sink. “I’m surprised we’ve even stayed up this long.”

“Haven’t been up this late since college,” Seokjin says, smiling hazily at past memories. “Always had code to finish for my class the next morning.”

“At least we get to sleep in now,” you joke. Even if you still have to finish putting together a brand new image for this magazine that’s about to go under, tomorrow is still a Saturday.

“Thank God,” Seokjin says, resting his head on the back of the couch cushion, letting his eyes flutter shut. “I feel like we did a lot tonight.”

“We were very productive,” you agree.

He yawns. “We work well together, don’t you think?”

“Hmm?” You ask, leaning over to move your computer from your lap to the coffee table, exchanging it for a sketchpad to keep brainstorming.

“I think,” Seokjin begins, and it must be just the sleepy haze his brain has entered rather than anything else that could spur him to express this, that makes him say, “that you and I make a perfect pair.”

You sit up straight at this, looking over at Seokjin as the pencil in between your fingers falls onto the sketchpad before rolling onto the floor. It looks like he’s fallen asleep, exhaustion finally overcoming him as all of the work he’s done catches up to him. In the dead of night, the only sound in the room is his soft breathing, chest rising and falling slowly as his mind begins to wander. You watch him, eyelids heavy, and think that he couldn’t have possibly thought that. No way would he say such a thing to you if he was perfectly cognizant, wide awake. After all, you’re the one with a crush on him, not the other way around.

You lean back, pondering why a man like Seokjin would ever invite you into his home, offer you soup, and shower you with subtle compliments that couldn’t just be friends being friends, and before you know it, your eyes fall shut.

It is nearly one in the afternoon by the time you wake up, the sunlight streaming in from the side of his apartment. It forces you to finally open your eyes, groaning as your blurry vision begins to clear.

That is when you register these four things in this order:

This is Seokjin’s apartment.

This is Seokjin’s apartment, in which you worked on a project with him last night.

This is Seokjin’s apartment, and you fell asleep on his couch.

This is Seokjin’s apartment, and he thinks that you’d make the perfect pair.

You hear a clink from across the room, and turn to find Seokjin, still wearing the same thing he was wearing last night, standing in his kitchen, pouring two glasses of orange juice.

“Morning,” Seokjin says. He pauses, then corrects himself. “Afternoon, actually.” He walks over to you, handing you a glass of orange juice as you rub your eyes, waking yourself up.

“How long have you been up?” You ask him, too tired to thank him out loud for the glass of orange juice.

“About an hour,” he says, checking the time. “I didn’t want to wake you up. You looked so peaceful.”

“I feel awful, I didn’t mean to intrude on your apartment for, like, an entire night,” you say, rubbing your forehead as you try to smooth out your hair, make yourself look less like you fell asleep at four in the morning in your gorgeous crush’s apartment.

“No, it’s alright, really,” Seokjin insists. “It was nice having company, for once. And I think we got a lot done.”

“I still feel bad, I didn’t mean to stay so long,” you say, looking around for your belongings as you try to gather your bearings.

“It’s fine,” Seokjin reassures you, sitting down on the couch next to you as he begins to clean up the absolute mess of the coffee table. “But your phone has been ringing nonstop, so someone must have missed you.”

You fumble around for your phone before finding it having slid in between the couch cushions, pulling it up to see three missed calls from Taehyung and two missed calls from Jungkook, as well as a slew of texts from the both of them.

“Oh, it’s just Taehyung and Jungkook,” you say with a shrug, deciding that now is not the time to bring them into the conversation. A quick scan of the texts gives you a rough summary of what you would have heard if you had answered their calls instead.

Taehyung (9:35AM): Y/N Taehyung (9:35AM): HELLO Taehyung (9:35AM): ARE YOU ALIVE??? Taehyung (9:36AM): YOU NEVER SLEEP THIS LATE ARE YOU OKAY??? Taehyung (10:03AM): I WENT BY YOUR APARTMENT AND YOU DIDN’T ANSWER IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT Taehyung (10:04AM): TEXT ME 1 IF EVERYTHING IS OKAY AND 2 IF EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY Taehyung (10:05AM): LAST TIME I SAW YOU YOU WERE GOING HOME WITH SEOKJIN DID HE MURDER YOU??????? Taehyung (10:18AM): oh Taehyung (10:18AM): oh wait Taehyung (10:19AM): OHHHHHHHHH Taehyung (10:20AM): ;)

Jungkook (12:18PM): Kingdom just started a new event! Get online with me and let’s crush this thing pleaseeeee

“Just want me to play Kingdom with them,” you say, ignoring Taehyung’s text messages and pretending like they don’t exist.

“You really like that game, don’t you?” Seokjin asks.

“Oh, they like it more than I do, really, I just try and keep the obsession to a minimum,” you say casually.

“But they always talk about how good you are,” Seokjin adds. “You’re ranked second, aren’t you? That’s a big accomplishment.”

“Yeah, but it’s not that exciting. I mean, it’s just a game,” you shrug it off.

“But you like it, which means that’s important,” Seokjin says. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of the things you like. They matter to you.”

“You think so?” You ask, smiling at him.

“I know so. Tell me about Kingdom,” he urges, nudging your side. “Please? I’d love to know.”

And for once, you don’t just shrug it off and brand it as a game you play occasionally. You let yourself love that game, for all it’s done for you and your friends (even if you aren’t the best anymore) and your happiness, and you tell Seokjin about it. About how you started playing it when you were bored one day during work and saw a forum on it. How you got the rest of the office hooked on it as well, even if they were much more obnoxious about it than you are. How you go home after a long day of work and log on, letting yourself relax as you weave your way through the rankings and quests, finding solace in the familiarity of it all. You tell him why you love it, and why you probably won’t stop playing it for a long time, no matter what becomes of your ranking.

“It was nice being ranked first, but I actually don’t mind whoever it is that’s taken over,” you tell Seokjin honestly. “Jungkook wants to hunt them down, but I think that, whoever they are, they deserve that spot. You know, I used to hate them because the top-ranked player gets all of the best rewards, but our characters have recently started to spend so much time together that I feel like they’d probably have fallen in love by now.” You chuckle to yourself. If life were a movie, everything would always work out perfectly.

“You do?” Seokjin asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah, of course,” you say. “They spend so much time together. Who wouldn’t, right?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Seokjin says, smiling. “I also have something to tell you.”

You shake your head. “Don’t tell me you’re obsessed with anime, please. That is where I draw the line.”

“Don’t shame us,” Seokjin says, a hand on his heart like he’s been personally offended. Your eyes widen. “I’m kidding,” he says, laughing as you exhale, relieved. “I actually play Kingdom, too. I just wanted to ask you about it.”

“Seriously? All this time and you just pretended like you had no idea what it was?” you say in disbelief. He’s been hiding this from you for how long? God, the rest of your office is going to have a field day with this information.

“I just wanted you to tell me about it,” Seokjin admits sheepishly.

You shake your head. “You could have talked to me about other stuff, you know.”

“I know, but you never talked about Kingdom and I could always see how much you loved it. It was nice, listening to you tell me about it,” he says.

“I’ve been betrayed,” you say dramatically, opening up your laptop to pull up the game. “What’s your ID? We can add each other.”

This is where Seokjin goes silent. “Actually, I think you might already know who I am. I’m above you in the rankings.”

Your mouth drops open.

“You’re JK0901? Are you kidding me?” You ask, absolutely floored. All this time and you had no idea that Kim Seokjin was a Kingdom expert. “What does JK stand for? I was convinced it was Jungkook and he was just lying to my face, but in reality, it was you who was lying to me!”

Seokjin lets out a chuckle. “Jin Kim. I’m surprised you guys didn’t figure it out earlier.”

“I can’t believe this,” you say, practically speechless. “How long have you been playing?”

“Not that long,” Seokjin shrugs. “I picked it up because I wanted to impress a girl I liked.”

“Really? All this effort for a girl you like?” You ask, still in disbelief. You suck up the way your heart is sinking at the thought of him liking another person, but then you remember that it wasn’t like you had ever made a move on him anyway. Smiling, you ask, “Will you at least humor me and tell me who it is?”

Then, Seokjin looks you dead in the eye, and says, “You.”

He doesn’t give you time to respond. Instead, he wraps a hand around your torso and pulls you into him, pressing his lips firmly on yours as you gasp into his mouth, body tensing up before you melt into his touch.

It’s a quick kiss, nothing too crazy, but it overwhelms you nonetheless, leaves you gasping for air like you’ve been underwater this whole time and have finally surfaced. When you part, you look up into his eyes only to find that they’ve turned into crescents. He’s grinning down at you like he’s finally gotten it right.

“You did all of that for me?” You ask. “How did you even know?”

Seokjin looks particularly guilty. “You’re not necessarily… that discreet, Y/N.”

You close your eyes, the heat already flaring in your cheeks. “Oh God, you knew?”

“It was fairly easy to figure out,” Seokjin admits. “But the good news is: I felt the same way. So, no harm done.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” you say, curling into his chest so you don’t have to look him in the eye.

“You’re incredible, Y/N, you know that?” He asks, pulling you away from him just so he can get a better look at you. He’s standing in front of you, looking at you like this is what he’s been waiting for. Like all this time, he’s been waiting for you. “I’d do it all over again if it meant I could end up with you.”

“You would?” You ask, pulling him in for another kiss. There’s plenty more where those came from, but you’re already feeling greedy. Why wouldn’t you? If life was a movie, then wouldn’t this be the happy ending?

“In a heartbeat.”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

#seokjin fluff #seokjin angst #jin fluff #jin angst #bts fluff #bts angst #seokjin scenario #jin scenario #bts scenario #jin fic #bts fic #bts au #seokjin imagine #jin imagine #bts imagine #bts enemies to lovers #bts friends to lovers #w: for you anything

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duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Hellsing Liveblog Chapters 25-27

This is the first leg of the “D” arc. I had originally planned on trying to do the whole thing in one post, but it’s pretty long and meanders in places, so instead I’m going to break it up, starting with the part that wraps up volume 4 of the collected editions.

Much of these first three chapters just showcases Millennium preparing to depart their secret headquarters in Brazil. They have three blimps, maybe more. We already saw the Graf Zeppelin III, but there’s also a Graf Zeppelin II and a Hindenberg II. Also, the Major refers to all of this as “Operation Sea Lion 2″. The original “Operation Sea Lion” was Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the U.K. during World War II. It was never enacted, however, because the Germans couldn’t establish air and naval superiority over the British. Basically, the Major is declaring that he has finally achieved what Hilter could not, thanks to his “Last Battalion” of 1000 vampire soldiers.

The bridge of his flagship (flagblimp) has this big comfy chair on a robot arm, and a panoramic world map. The arrows on the map point in all sorts of nutty directions, including the United States and other European nations. I could have sworn I had heard some mention in Hellsing Ultimate of Millennium sending forces to the U.S., but the international angle was never mentioned again, and I assumed that I must have imagined it. In any event, the Major made it clear that his target is Alucard specifically, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to invade places where Alucard is not.

The Major prepares to take his seat only to find Warrant Officer Schrödinger sitting in his chair. Remember, Schrödinger inexplicably teleported himself to London to address Hellsing and Iscariot, and then he got shot and killed for his trouble. But now he’s back, alive and well. He mocks the Major for being to slow, and the Doctor scolds him for his insolence, but the Major orders Doc to back off. This is a running gag throughout the rest of the series. The Doctor keeps trying to chastise Schrödinger, but the Major lets him do whatever the boy wants, almost like he’s some favorite pet.

Meanwhile, an unidentified helicopter tries to land on a British carrier, the H.M.S. Eagle. The Captain orders his crew to open fire, but the first officer suddenly does this:

So yeah, the first officer is a vampire now, and he’s sold out Queen and Country for Millennium. He and a handful of vampire crewmen kill the rest of the crew and turn them all into ghouls, allowing the helicopter to land, making way for...

This lady, Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle. I should point out that in the pages leading up to her boarding the Eagle, she was singing Engelandlied, a German war anthem from World War I. She’s nutty, is the idea.

So, I’m gonna go ahead and put forth my fan theory that all the bad guys we dealt with prior to Rip were just patsies for Millennium, and not actual members in their own right. This includes Tubalcain “Dandyman” Alahambra, because, for all his powers, no one ever said his rank, leading me to think he didn’t have one. Same with the Valentine Brothers and any of the vampires Alucard and Seras were sent to fight during the first dozen or so chapters of this manga. Millennium may have turned them into vampires, and in some cases they even let them in on Millennium’s inner workings, but they were never more than cannon fodder. Jan seemed to understand this, although Luke and Dandyman seemed to believe they were genuinely created to represent the new pinnacle of vampiric power. Even the Doctor thought Dandyman had a strong chance of beating Alucard, but in the end they were just experiments meant to test Alucard’s mettle.

And, really, the rest of Millennium is not much different, except Rip and the others actually know why they’re being sacrificed, even if they don’t necessarily understand how or when.

Meanwhile, Seras still won’t drink blood, and she keeps trying to eat regular food instead, even though she struggles to swallow every bite. I’ve never been very clear on whether vampires in Hellsing can eat non-blood food or not. Seras is doing it, albeit painfully, but I don’t think she really gains anything from it, except whatever coping mechanism this is supposed to serve.

So in walks Sir Integra, who dumps a bag of medical blood on her table. Seras never really answers Integra’s question, but she already told Walter, and it’s not much of an answer. The heart of the matter is this: Seras really doesn’t want to be a vampire. Or, maybe, more accurately, she doesn’t want to stop being human. The trouble is that she already lost that battle way back in Chapter 1.

In many ways, Seras has accepted her fate. She works for Hellsing, recognizes Alucard as her vampire master, and so on. I think she understands that this is the only life she can have now, and her will to live is strong enough that she appreciates what Alucard and Integra have done for her. At her core, Seras is a public servant, and fighting monsters for Hellsing is not so different from fighting crime as a policewoman. I think she sees her current condition as a means to that end. She doesn’t crave power like the evil vampires we’ve seen thus far. Seras views her abilities as a means to an end. Alucard biting her gave her a way to stay alive and continue fighting the good fight.

However, she doesn’t want the baggage that goes along with that. She wants to retain as much of her humanity as she can, and drinking blood is the one thing that she has some control over, or so she believes.

But Integra’s far too practical for that dilemma. Alucard was willing to respect Seras’ relucatance, but she needs her troops on their toes and ready for action. So she takes a knife and cuts open her finger, and then orders Seras to lick the blood off. This is... disturbingly sexual, and one of a number of scenes that reminds me that Hirano Kouta had done a lot of, er, adult comics before Hellsing. I think he did a lot of uniform fetishy stuff too, which is why Seras and Schrödinger’s uniforms look so similar to each other. Both are meant to resemble German WWII gear. I’m willing to grant some leeway here, because there’s probably only so many ways to do a finger-licking scene like this without sexualizing it a little, but the last bit with the saliva trail is just revolting.

So, what’s bugged me for a long time was that if Seras drank (a little) of Integra’s blood here, why did this subplot not get paid off until much later in the story? She drank blood, didn’t she? Well, yeah, but Integra ordered her to do it, so it doesn’t count. This came up a couple of times earlier in the story, when Walter and Al mentioned that she wouldn’t drink blood willingly. It’s not just an ethical issue for Seras, or she’d simply chow down on the medical blood. I guess Integra could force feed her every night, but that wouldn’t solve anything. This is about Seras accepting her transformation as a fait accompli. I think this is why she very nearly drank Alucard’s blood back in Northern Ireland, when it sure looked like there was no other way for her to survive. But if she’s just sitting there with no one making her do it, and no urgent need to do it, she’ll refuse every time.

I think Hellsing uses the premise that a vampire has to do more than just bite a human to turn them into a vampire. That is, Alucard had to put his own blood in Seras’ body to complete that transformation. I think that’s how it worked in the Dracula novel, and Seras herself mentions it in the Gonzoverse anime. But that wouldn’t count either, because it’s part of the change itself. The idea is for the new vampire to partake in blood-drinking by choice, and until that happens, they won’t get all the cool powers.

One other thing, Integra takes this opportunity to mention that she’s a virgin, which is a weird flex for this situation, but okay. In Hellsing, that means Integra could become a vampire herself, but not if Seras bites her, because it has to be a vampire of the opposite sex. In any case, Tegs warns Seras not to bite down during this creepy finger-licking KFC-hentai thing.

Back in the damn ocean, Lt. Rip van Winkle is welcomed aboard by the traitorous crew of the Eagle. She asks them how it feels to be a vampire, and causally reminds them of their treachery. Then she gives them new orders, which are to die by her magic gun, which fires a bullet that can turn around in midair.

And so the First Officer and his lackeys learn the same lesson as the Brazillians working for the Dandyman, and the Dandyman himself, and the Valentine Brothers and whoever else. Millennium might turn you into a vampire, but that hardly means that you’ll live forever. Millennium always demands treason as payment for their help, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they might betray you sooner or later.

Besides, Rip doesn’t need the British crew, because she has her own henchman on board her chopper. While she waits for them to wake up, she paints a swastika on the deck, just to make it clear that they’ve taken control of the Eagle, which she renames the Adler. That’s German for “Eagle”, you see.

Back on his blimp, the Major cuts this twenty-minute promo which basically amounts to “I love war, we have no particular agenda except to wage endless war for the fun of it.” Back in England, Alucard is eagerly awaiting their arrival.

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #sir integra hellsing #the major #lt rip van winkle #the doctor #warrant officer shrodinger #enrico maxwell #... is not actually in this story #they just put him on the title page for some reason

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priorireverte · 3 years

Photo

Congratulations Rhiannon!

Your application for Charity Burbagehas been accepted. I’m so excited to have Charity around as that opposing voice to forgiveness and reconciliation with the undead former Death Eaters. What is she going to do? I’m a little scared for us all.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Rhiannon, she/her

TIMEZONE: GMT

ACTIVITY LEVEL: My activity level is pretty decent? I’m always available via discord for plotting and am normally able to get on the dash for replies every day if not every other day.

ANYTHING ELSE: No triggers. I’ve been roleplaying for over a decade, and have been roleplaying exclusively on tumblr since 2012 so I’ve been around a lot - mostly in Harry Potter roleplays.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Charity Ffion Burbage

BIRTHDATE: 20th March 1965

DEATHDATE: tw torture 28th July 1997. Charity was personally killed by Lord Voldemort following a prolonged period of torture after she had been kidnapped by Death Eaters not long after the end of the school year. Her death was never made public.

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis!female, she/her pronouns, bisexual. Her sexuality has never been something that she’s hidden, having been publicly involved with both men and women. She’s never cared what people have to say about it - as far as she’s concerned it’s no one’s business other than her own.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw. The hat did briefly consider placing Charity in Gryffindor, but her curiosity and thirst for knowledge ultimately won out.

OCCUPATION: Returned. Prior to this, Charity spent four years as the Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts, and before that she was working in Misuse of Muggle Artefacts

FACECLAIM: Gugu Mbatha-Raw

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

POSTBELLUM

Confusion was the first thing that Charity had felt upon waking. She could feel rough stone against her back and as her eyes came back into focus she could see that she was no longer in Malfoy Manor. The space resembled neither the dank, low walls of the wine cellar that had been fashioned into cells, nor did it resemble the imperial coldness of the dining hall. That was when the panic set in. Where had she been taken now? The last thing she remembered was pleading towards Severus Snape’s impassive form as the jeers and cackles of the Death Eaters rang throughout the marble hall. She didn’t believe the Unspeakables when they first approached and explained the curious circumstances surrounding her return. Believing them to be Death Eaters, she summoned what strength she had and kicked and scratched, desperate to get away. It just didn’t make sense. Coming back from the dead was something reserved for muggle fiction - it wasn’t actually possible. But yet here she was, and the Unspeakables were insistent. She answered their questions distractedly; the cogs in her head were too busy turning over the situation to care too much about what was being asked of her. Just how was this possible? Sure, inferi were possible, but that was lightyears from what she was. Having grown up largely in the muggle world, the inability to use magic bothered her little - especially when there were more pressing matters. After all, doing things the muggle way had always been her default. Whilst she had grown used to doing certain things with magic, readjusting to doing them without magic was a minor inconvenience at worst. There was one name amongst her fellow returned that truly set her blood boiling, even more than the other Death Eaters. Whilst she wasn’t sure it was reciprocated, she had considered Severus Snape a friend once, when they had been colleagues. She hadn’t wanted to believe it when she had heard that he had been the one to kill the headmaster, Charity had always wanted to believe the best in people. But those final moments at the manor had broken any lingering faith she may have had in the dour man. The rest of the returned Death Eaters could fester away in Azkaban - it was what they deserved - but in her mind Severus Snape didn’t deserve a second chance. Once her trust had been broken, it was near impossible to regain; something that had only been heightened in her new perspective on life. Justice was needed and she would see to it that justice was indeed taken on all of them.

PERSONALITY

Ever curious, Charity loved getting to the bottom of how things worked. Her parents had always championed this, encouraging their daughter to never shy away from asking questions. Books, puzzles and various children’s science kits had occupied her free hours as a child, and she delighted in getting to the bottom of a mystery. There were few sweeter feelings than those felt in those moments she cracked the codes. Charity was loyal to a fault, willing to go above and beyond for those she cared about, even if that meant getting herself into trouble. If a friend needed help, she would give them the shirt off her own back, and if they needed a place to stay? Well, Charity would have the spare room in her flat ready quicker than they could say Bowtruckle. She was a firm believer in treating people as you wished to be treated, and would never back down at a perceived injustice. Of course, this got her into trouble at school more than once, with Charity often ending up in detention over going toe-to-toe with pureblood supremacists. They weren’t any more special than anyone else for coming from a long line of wixen, and Charity could never understand why they would believe that - a more inclusive society could only benefit everyone. There was so much that could be learned from the muggles that could only improve the world they lived in. It was something that only grew stronger within her as she grew older, and she did her best to impress it upon the students who took her class at Hogwarts, especially after Voldemort returned. A gregarious soul, she had always been one to get stuck right in, treating new acquaintances as if she had known them all her life. Of an evening she could have been typically found in the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks with a beer in hand, unwilling to let the looming shadows of war affect her day to day life. Every moment was precious, and Charity would be damned if she couldn’t live her life to the fullest. After all, wasn’t it the muggles who said that the best revenge was living well?

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY

Born into a cadet branch of the Rowle family, Margot Rowle had never quite fit in to what was expected of her. Warm and indulgent, no one had been surprised when she had been sorted into Hufflepuff, though it marked a first for a house full of Slytherins and Ravenclaws. Her school years were hardly remarkable though she did well in all her classes, and following graduation she joined the Muggle Liaison Office. A few years in she was assigned to a case in Wales, a dragon had been spotted and causing trouble near a mine in Tonypandy. The last thing she had expected when she had arrived in the area was to fall in love, yet fall in love she did. After a whirlwind romance that led to her being cast out from her pureblood family, Margot married Owain Burbage and settled into a muggle life among the verdant valleys she now called home. First came Rhodri, born a year after Margot and Owain’s marriage, then Charity two years later, and finally Morwenna followed along four years later. The Burbage household was a happy one, constantly full of friends and family. Whilst she largely lived like a muggle, Margot made no secret of her origins, telling her children stories of Hogwarts as bedtime stories. Charity had been the only one of the children to show any signs of magic as a child, and neither Margot or Owain had been surprised when the owl had tapped at the kitchen window the morning of Charity’s eleventh birthday. This didn’t change anything, she was still treated just the same as her other siblings. Returning home for the holidays, she never struggled to fit back in rhythm with the rest of the family - it often felt as if she had never left at all.

HISTORY

Upon graduating from Hogwarts, Charity returned home to Wales for a brief spell. With so many ideas and options for a career swirling about her head she didn’t know what her next steps should be. After several lengthy conversations with her mother, she decided to take a position within the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. It wasn’t the best job around, but it provided her with a steady salary whilst she figured out what it was she really wanted to, and having grown up surrounded by muggles there were few who were quite as suited to working with muggle items as she was. It was only supposed to be for a year or two, but that quickly turned into eight long years. Charity finally quit in 1991, and decided to spend the next two years in the muggle world, working various small jobs and settling in East London. It was by chance that she had seen the position advertised in the Daily Prophet when visiting her parents. Teaching had never been something she had ever really considered, but something within her told her it was the right path to forge ahead on. Recalling the inaccurate Muggle Studies lessons of her teenage years, she proceeded to overhaul the curriculum, with a particular focus on muggle achievements and areas that had no direct equivalent in the magical world. She loved her work, knowing that this was where she belonged. Her classes only grew more outspoken as the war crept up on them, determined to dismantle the prejudices held by many of the students. If she couldn’t save the current generation she was a part of, she would do what was within her means to insure that future generations would be different.

OOC EXPLORATION:

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? I decided to apply after it was recommended by a friend (hi, nic!). It’s such a unique concept, something that is a rarity in the hprpc. It’s been a long time since a plot has made me this intrigued, and I’m curious to see just how the returned will adjust to be among the living once more. Charity is a character I’ve been interested in for a while, and I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and give writing her a go.

ANYTHING ELSE? I am absolutely obsessed with pinterest, so here’s a lil board for Charity

#prioriacceptance #charity burbage

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spiced-ciderr · 3 years

Text

Dearly Departed Chapter 2;

May 17th, 1991

Walking into the backroom, eighteen year old Dawson wondered around the dark area. It had to be here. They had to be here. Judging from the tapes Scott had left her, she was in the right room. He'd specifically asked her to look in the spare suits.

Scott Cawthon had been her babysitter growing up. On the nights her father was too drunk or her mother was out at every strip club in town, he was there. He'd been a security guard for her Uncle Will's establishment. He'd always known, though, that something was up. She hadn't noticed it at first, but the suspicious glances he'd shoot at her Uncle, the way he'd never let her or her sister alone in a room with him, the way he'd instructed Dawson to never let Keyla out of her sight when they were at Freddy's. She knew something was...ill. Wrong. Not right. Something was wrong with William Afton. Regardless, she knew she could trust Scott. He was always there for her and Keyla.

Right. Her sister was still back home. She prayed that she'd be okay. A part of Dawson knew that she wouldn't be returning home from the pizzeria tonight.

Lifting the head of the original Fredbear suit, she inhaled sharply, dropping both the costume head and the flashlight she'd taken in with her. The smell. Long-rotten meat. She gagged. The-The kids- He was the one who killed Charlie! A-And Gabriel, and Jer-Jer! All of her and Keyla's childhood friends-

She gasped, her thoughts interrupted. Eyes widening as she felt the large, cold metal blade penetrate her stomach. Choking, she shakily looked up at her Uncle. He grinned sadistically, yanking the knife from her torso before plunging it in again, and again, and again. She screamed, her voice ringing out through the pizzeria. His eyes widened, quickly glancing to the door of the Parts and Service room. He growled, lifting her by her long hair and dragging her away. He snarled at her, before her world finally faded to black.

And with that, Dawson Lynn was dead.

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Falling. She was falling. It was hot. The stink- What was this smell?

She hit the ground with a thud. Ouch. She groaned, opening her eyes. She was- whAA-

Quickly rolling onto the sidewalk, she gasped as her heart raced. She nearly missed being hit by a speeding car. On her back as she gazed up at the bright sky, she realized something was off. Oh, yeah, it was red. Why was the sky red? And why wasn't she dead? She literally just bled out on the floor-

The sun was replaced with a large, bright pentagram. Oh. Oh.

'I'm in hell. Not surprising, honestly.'

She got onto her knees, looking into a nearby puddle. Her large, wolf ears twitched-

Wait.

"large, wolf ears" ?

She froze as she took in her new appearance. Sitting atop her head, were two large wolf ears, both a dark brown and fading into a golden ombre near the tips. She felt behind her, only to find a large and fluffy tail, the same color scheme as her ears. Her eyes had also changed-

Instead of the milky brown they once were, they were now heterochromic. Her left eye, was a beautiful golden color, while her right was pitch black, a small white pinprick at the center. She also had a set of fangs, along with sharpened nails that almost resembled claws.

Shakily standing up, she searched for any scraps of money. She needed to find shelter.

After a few hours, and a lot of gambling, she'd successfully gained a small house somewhere near the 3rd circle. She'd rather not think about just how she'd obtained it.

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A few months into hell, she'd already risen up and proven to be powerful. Taking down any demons that stood in her way, she started pondering in sorcery and magic.

She soon started to call herself "The Witch"

She was surprised when she was officially elected as one of the most powerful Overlords. Though, she was excited to meet the rumored "Radio Demon".

But she hadn't know how soon she'd find him.

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It'd been about two years since she'd arrived into hell when she was summoned out of nowhere to an overlord meeting.

Everyone, including the king of hell himself, had been gathered around a large, rectangular table. She'd been sat across from the infamous Radio Demon, and she couldn't help but shudder at the white noise that filled her senses, making it harder to focus. The static dancing across her skin, she could hardly even concentrate. And from the looks of the other overlords, she could tell that he had been targeting her. It wasn't effecting the other demons.

As the meeting adjourned, she quickly made her way to the exit. But of course, not before being trapped in the elevator with the radio demon.

Damn.

She tried her best to ignore his stare, even though she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her skull. Finally, she turned around.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, exasperated, finally facing him.

His large grin, from ear to ear, somehow stretched even wider. "Why, whatever do you mean, dear?" he asks, feigning innocence. She growled. "You know damn well what I'm talking about." Instead of responding, the elevator suddenly went dark. Lights flickering on and off, he cornered her quickly. Grabbing her face roughly, it was his turn to growl. "Now, dear, that was quite rude, wasn't it? Since you are fairly new, I'll let you off with a warning this time. Do not. Speak like that. To me." he finished with a whisper, before the elevator dinged. Composing himself in record time, he gave her his most stunning smile before walking out the door. "I look forward to working with you, witch!" he calls back.

She glared. She was angry. But why was she flustered, as well?

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She later found out she'd being seeing a lot more of him. Every time they seemed to cross paths accidentally, the more it happened She started to learn things about him. She learned he loved to cook. He absolutely adored music, song and dance. Even in death, he'd still do his weekly radio shows, broadcasted to all of hell.

They eventually became business partners. She supposed that was the closest she'd get to him. Although, 'business' mostly involved going on bloody rampages with Alastor and gathering territory for him, while he'd return the favor. She also learned, that under any circumstances, never touch him. He had to initiate it first, or else there would be a second death in her future.

She eventually decided not to mess with him, not wanting to lose a limb for 'accidentally' shoving past him.

As she strolled down the streets in one of her cities, she suddenly became very aware of the loud screaming and shouting not too far from where she was. Using her shadows to travel quickly towards the scene, she was met with an odd sight.

Said Radio Demon was currently genociding half of her city.

Furrowing her brows in confusion, her orbs scanned the area, bodies littering the streets. It was here when Alastor took notice of her presence. "Ah! Dearest! How nice of you to join me on a lovely evening such as this!" He cheerfully exclaimed. She rolled her eyes. "Alastor, come on, this is-" "-Your territory, yes I'm aware! I thought it'd be courteous to pay you a visit!" his smile grew in size. She raised an eyebrow. But before she could protest, he took hold of her wrist, swiftly pulling her against him, before adjusting his grip. "Isn't it a lovely night for dancing?" he asked, tone just a bit softer. She pulled back slightly, before giggling. "Fine, fine. But just one dance, alright? As much fun it is to dance through blood-soaked streets with you, I've got places to be, Al." she chastised. He scoffed.

They danced until dawn.

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

She wasn't expecting to see a dog standing atop a large building.

How the heck did a dog get into hell?? Dogs were so precious!

Using the her shadows to transport herself behind the pupper. Though, right as she appeared behind him, she almost fell off the roof when he turned into a human, in front of her.

Holy shit-

She noticed him approaching the edge.

Oh. Oh.

There's two things she could do here- She could walk away, or she could try and stop him. She decided in the long run she wasn't that shitty of a person, speaking up.

"Hey. What are you doing?" she asked, gently making her way closer.

Glancing behind himself, the man looked back out to the city, lights reflecting on his face. "Escaping this hell." he replies, coldly. But she can hear a small hint of something broken in his voice. This poor soul.

Coming to stand next to him, she sighed. Running a hand through her hair, she responded. "It ain't that easy. Believe me, I've tried." She says tiredly. "What's got you wanting to end it?"

She was surprised by his next words.

"Everything. I was hoping to see my parents for the first time when I originally died, but instead I came here. They were murdered in front of me by Slenderman." She was taken aback. What the hELL? Slenderman was real? But she knew this man couldn't be lying. He continued.

"He just came to my house and killed them both in front of me, leaving me alive on purpose." He sniffles, and then continues his story. "I had to live for the next 12 and a half years without them because of him. Scrounging around for food, stealing, even having to kill just to survive myself."

"..Wow." is all she can reply with. She feels something bubbling up in her chest- is this guilt? Sorrow? Emotions she hasn't felt since she was alive. She put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry that happened to you. I know what it's like having a lot of fear, and pain, and hurt stemming from your childhood. But trust me, it isn't worth your life. You're here for a reason, and you have to overcome this to be stronger." she pats his shoulder.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He hesitates before saying, "My name's Ski. What's yours?"

She smiles, for once, someone who doesn't know who she is.

"Most call me The Witch. You can call me Dawson."

And thus the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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When Alastor told her he'd be gone for a while, helping the princess with her "passion project" for his own mere entertainment, she was surprised. Dawson was even more surprised when he asked her to come with him.

Of course, she had nothing better to do, and it did sound like some quality entertainment.

When she agreed to go with him, she wasn't expecting to be held at spear-point by the princess's love interest, Vaggie, as soon as she walked through the door.

"Why are you here? We KNOW what your game is! You AND that-that Radio demon!" Vaggie growled, pushing Dawson up against the wall. She merely laughed.

"Of course, I'm here to help!"

Ski, in dog form, huffed out what suspiciously sounded like a laugh.

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That night, when Alastor made Jambalaya for the hotel, she wasn't expecting for them to receive a new guest, in the same night.

She most definitely wasn't expecting it to be her own sister.

#alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin #hotel #alastor x reader #charlie #charlie magne #radio demon #vaggie

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ineffably-good · 4 years

Text

The First Heist Of The Rest Of Their Lives

I wrote this story for two different people -- first it was for @tlou15, who asked for a story about Aziraphale and Crowley finding one of their skulls from a prior incarnation. And then I also worked it around to cover the heist story I promised @lovermrjokerr for their 8k writing challenge, which I signed up to participate in two months ago! I’ m two days late posting my story for that challenge -- but I had to get through the rest of my May story prompts first! Too many irons in the fire, as they say!

Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley come across a relic of one of their former corporations in a museum, and immediately realize they have to liberate it. Hijinks ensue.

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There were times when being an ethereal entity capable of dying and recorporating came back to bite you in the ass.

Over the years, Crowley and Aziraphale had become increasingly good at limiting their discorporations. It took a couple millennia of practice, however, to learn to recognize and avoid the obvious dangers in this new world of theirs. At first, the fatal accidents were more frequently and somewhat unexpected. A fall from a high cliff (demon), simply because neither of them knew that a fall could kill them. A rather unnecessary drowning (angel), simply because the entity in question didn’t know that failing to hold one’s breath underwater would result in death. A kick in the head from a large land ungulate (demon) with a grudge. A rather deep spear injury (angel) that could have simply been side stepped. The list went on and on.

Luckily, Above and Below were also somewhat more accommodating and liberal with the issuing of new bodies than they came to be in later years.

As time passed, they got to better at the protocols of losing a body, too. Go back to home base, fill out the paperwork (in triplicate, for hell, using a scratchy pencil whose point always broke off), be polite (in Heaven) or surly (in Hell) to the body clerk, and get a new one issued as quickly as possible. Make your way back to Earth and then go back and clean up the scene of the crime, so to speak, so you didn’t leave the remnants of an ethereally-issued skeleton around. Tidy up the memories of anyone involved in the incident, and reassume your old life if possible, or, if a funeral had already been held and too many people were involved, simply move on to a new location or assignment. It all worked out.

For the most part.

Being, as they were, two of the more lackadaisical, non-detail oriented entities ever stationed in this sphere, though, it was natural that here and there a few of the details got missed.

Which is what led to the two of them, standing in front of an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, filled with a deep sense of foreboding.

“Is that…” Crowley muttered.

“No, it couldn’t possibly be…” Aziraphale said under his breath.

“I’m fairly certain it is…”

“Oh, dear lord,” Aziraphale breathed. “Yes, that’s one of mine!”

In front of them, an exhibit on the Mayans did an admirable job showcasing their culture and achievements, dispelling the pervasive myths of human sacrifice, and above all showing a recreation of a temple display used to honor their dead. By punching holes in each side of a series of skulls and stringing them on a pole, like beads, to be displayed and revered.

And right smack in the center, oddly devoid of the same signs of aging and decay as the ones around it, was a brilliant white skull that bore more than a passing resemblance to the man staring at it in horror through the glass. To the human observers, it just appeared oddly pristine. But to Crowley and Aziraphale and any other ethereal entity who bothered to take a look, it was pulsing with remnants of celestial energy.

Crowley dissolved in laughter. This earned him a stern glare from the angel.

“What?” he said, snorting. “Your skull is hanging like a pendant on a stick in the Natural History Museum and I can’t laugh? How could you just leave one of your skulls laying around in – in what? Peru? Where did this come from?”

Aziraphale sniffed. “Mexico, I believe. I spent some time there, in San Lorenzo, the first Olmec capital.”

“You did?” Crowley asked. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“We weren’t speaking at the time,” Aziraphale said. “Remember that big fight we had in Persia?”

“Oh, that…” Even after several thousand years, Crowley still managed to sound vaguely resentful. “You mean when you clocked me unconscious with your fist?”

“You hit me first!”

“Not the same, and you know it,” Crowley sulked. Being hit by a snake demon who was not bred for fighting was nothing like being punched in the jaw by the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. It was like being hit by a locomotive – although the comparison wouldn’t come to him for a few thousand years.

Aziraphale glanced over at him, taking in the sulky look on the demon’s face. “Oh, come now, my dear,” he pouted. “We’ve long sense settled that particular kerfuffle. I apologized multiple times, didn’t I?”

Crowley mouthed the word ‘kerfuffle’ to himself with a grin. “I suppose we did, yes.” He stepped over a few feet and read the long and detailed card about the skulls in front of them. “Oh angel, listen to this.”

He read from the placard:

Called a tzompantli by the Mayans, these ritual displays were believed to be used to showcase were originally thought to be a grotesque display of slain enemies, placed to rally the Mayan’s support for their leaders and to serve as a warning sign to others to stay away from Mayan territory. Although rumors have abounded about human sacrifice in Mayan culture, recent evidence reveals that these displays may have been more funerary in usage, highlighting the revered ancestors and that many of these skulls shows signs of being dead long before the post-holes were cut in them.

“How, pray tell, did you become one of the honored dead for the Mayans?” Crowley said, grinning. “Or were you actually sacrificed at one of their temples? Drowned in a cenote?”

Aziraphale frowned. “That’s a story for another time, my dear.”

“Oh, but I haven’t even gotten to the good bit. The part where they talk about the gleaming white skull in the center and how it shows signs of having been treated with some unknown and lost technology that made it ‘impervious to decay’.” Crowley chortled.

“I really should find a way to remove it from the display,” Aziraphale fretted. “Before someone decides to take a closer look at it under one of those – scanning microscope thingies they have now and discovers it doesn’t appear to be fully human. Or before one of the archangels finds out about it…”

“Ha!” Crowley shouted. “Imagine the uproar. Evidence of ancient aliens discovered in Smithsonian Museum! The chaos around the world!”

Aziraphale turned fully towards Crowley and looked menacing in the way that only he could. “Whatever foolish idea you’re forming right now for mischief,” he said warningly, “I absolutely forbid it!”

“Aw, angel,” Crowley whined. “Come on, I never get to have any fun.”

“You can have some fun by helping me pilfer this exhibit once the museum is closed tonight,” Aziraphale said. “I do believe the security here is rather prodigious.”

“You intend to rob the museum on our vacation?” Crowley asked, astonished. “You could just… you know… miracle the skull out, replace it with a duplicate.”

Aziraphale studied the exhibit for a long slow moment, considering, then turned and settled a blinding grin on his demon spouse. “I could,” he drawled, “but where would the fun be in that?”

Crowley felt a warm rush of something run through him. Love? Joy? Slight anxiety? Who knew. All he knew was the angel was quite possibly the most perfect thing on the entire Earth. No, in the galaxy. Quite possibly the galactic cluster.

“So,” the angel continued. “Are you in or out?”

“I’m in,” Crowley managed to croak, through his haze of feelings. “I’m so in.”

Aziraphale rewarded him with a peck on the cheek, then offered his arm to the demon and shepherded him down to the café, murmuring something about having heard they had the loveliest cakes here. Time to do a little planning, and what better way then over a little dessert?

They hunkered down in the museum’s café, over a gaudy orange tray that held two lovely napoleons and two cups of a rather poor excuse for tea, and started making plans.

Aziraphale surveyed the room around them. “We could just – you know, hide somewhere until everything is closed tonight. Saves breaking in.”

Crowley took a sip of his tea, made a disgusted face, and nodded neutrally. “We could, of course. That’d be the sensible thing to do.” He took a smaller sip. “Or, we could really go for it. Assemble a crack team, get some tech, do that thing with carabiners and cables.” He mimes a Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible style, arms-out float down from the ceiling and manages to convey that he would also be holding a knife in his teeth at the same time.

Aziraphale smiles, noncomittally. “Well that does sound exciting, my dear. But I can’t quite imagine that we have time to set that all up by tonight. And I do think we ought to get my skull out of there as soon as possible. It could hardly be a coincidence, don’t you think, our running into it here today?”

Crowley frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, just that we have a way of stumbling onto things at exactly the right moment,” the angel said. “Who’s to say that if we put the recovery off for a week, we wouldn’t somehow have Gabriel leading a team of school children through here tomorrow for some reason and discovering it, or some stupid Earth magician about to steal it for his own magical purposes?”

Crowley blinked at him. “You’re saying it’s fate that we came here today and that we’re not meant to leave without the skull? It’s not Armageddon, angel.”

Aziraphale took a bite of his napoleon and then delicately tapped the edges of his mouth with the napkin. “Well,” he said, leaning forward. “Doesn’t it feel a bit urgent to you? I mean, underneath it all?”

Crowley had to admit, the angel had a point.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “No tech. Can we at least synch our watches or something?”

Aziraphale stared at him flatly for a moment and then pulled out his ancient pocket watch, complete with chain. “If we must.”

Crowley grinned.

It was funny, Crowley thought, that it was Aziraphale who insisted that they be appropriately attired for their heist. They’d hidden themselves away in a maintenance wing close to the Mayan exhibit, and Aziraphale had first used a miracle to suit them both up in black, skin tight cat-burglar type outfits, then another miracle to cover those up with maintenance worker uniforms and caps which made them fit right in so that no one would give them a second look.

“Stop fidgeting with your coveralls, Crowley!” the angel hissed, handing him a push broom. “You look very suspicious. Now get out there and let’s figure out where all of the cameras are.”

It was nearly closing time, and no one noticed anything awry when they wheeled their carts out into the Mayan area and began putting up bright yellow “Wet Floor” signs and started sweeping up the debris of the day. A quick, small miracle made them completely unnoticeable to the other maintenance staff – just two ordinary guys, no different than the guys they saw every day working this area, obviously well underway on their evening chores and with no need of any further supervision.

Soon enough, the building was closed and even the maintenance staff was putting away their equipment and getting ready to leave through the service entrance, leaving the building in the hands of the security staff. Crowley and Aziraphale made themselves scarce in a storage closet, until all the sounds in the building had ceased. Then they took off their coveralls and headed out to the exhibit in their dark-colored gear.

A quick miracle took care of the cameras, shifting them just slightly so that they showed everything except the skulls display. After that, they stood in front of the glass case, examining it closely.

Aziraphale rolled his shoulders. “Shall I just dissemble the case, then?” he asked quietly, reaching up to place his hands on either corner of the front panel.

“No!” Crowley all but shrieked. “Stop. Look, there’s a laser, right there.” He pointed at a small blue light that was shining on the edge of the glass door, just above the lock. “Clearly if the door is opened and the light beam gets interrupted, an alarm will go off. Don’t you watch movies, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale dropped his hands and stepped back. “Not unless you make me, no. So, what do we do about this laser?”

Crowley thought for a minute. What would James Bond do? Shoot someone and kiss a girl, probably. He failed to see how either was helpful at this point in the process. And if he was kissing anyone, it was going to be the angel, and he had that activity slated for quite a bit later in the evening. He sighed. What was the world coming to when even James Bond couldn’t provide insight?

Aziraphale looked at him, a little worried, and that spurred him into action. Crowley held out his pointer finger and concentrated until a demonic claw sprang into existence where his fingernail should be. He sharpened it, made it harder, and whittled it down to a fine, fine point.

“Stand back, angel,” he said. “If we can’t open the door without setting off the laser alarm, we’re just going to go in above that.”

And feeling just like every bad-ass heist hero he’d ever watched in a movie, he started carving a large circular hole in the glass case in front of him. This normally wouldn’t work on the specialized shatter-proof glass that the museum used, but the one thing the special chemistry of the glass wasn’t prepared to repel was demonic intention. It cut before him like butter, silently and gently, until a large, 12” circle of glass fell loose in his other hand.

Crowley turned and handed the removed glass circle to Aziraphale, who carefully put it on the floor and gave the demon a bright smile.

“Oh, that was very nice, dear,” he whispered. “Very slick.”

“Now,” Crowley said, aware he was showing off a little bit, “we just reach in there and remove your skull from the pole –”

He stuck his hand through and then froze as several things happened at once.

One, a large alarm started blaring.

Two, they both suddenly realized that the skull was affixed to the horizontal pole through both sides of the brainpan, and that they could neither straight-out remove it nor could they slide it off the pole because of the number of other skulls hanging from the same pole on either side of it.

Three, a huge puff of some kind of gas came shooting out of the display case, hitting Crowley directly in the eyes. He dropped to the floor like a stone.

Aziraphale, having a slight second more warning than Crowley did, immediately stopped breathing, picked up his demon, and bent time and space to manifest them both back to their hotel. He put the demon down on the bed, covered him up, ensured he was breathing, and then realized he’d forgotten the skull.

“Oh FUCK,” he exclaimed, using the word for what was only the third time in his life. He snapped again, miracling himself back to the scene of the crime, and used magic to remove the central skull (and a portion of the pole with it) from the display. He had just raised a hand to disappear himself home when three security guards with guns drawn came running into the room.

“Freeze!” the shouted, their flashlight beams playing over him. “Hands up and turn around!”

Aziraphale turned slowly. “I can’t put my hands up, as you can see --” he called out in his most soothing voice, blinking through the blinding beams of light to try to see who he was dealing with, “-- because I am holding a rather priceless artifact. Please stay calm.”

He heard the safety on a gun click off and did his best to raise both hands and the pole with it over his head. The skull – his skull, disturbingly – rattled ominously as he did so. This was most offputting, he thought.

“Kneel!” the frontmost officer shouted, and Aziraphale sighed and rolled his eyes at the absurdity of all of this, but did so, carefully balancing the – his – skull overhead the whole time.

“Really, gentlemen,” he said quietly, using a tad of angelic influence. “We can talk this out. No need for those weapons.”

“You can talk it out with the police,” the front man said. “Lay down the artifact in front of you VERY SLOWLY.”

Aziraphale sighed. “I’m so sorry, but I’m rather afraid I can’t do that. You see this skull is nearly three thousand years old and if it touches the ground it might disintegrate.”

“Lay it down, NOW!” the man screamed, and Aziraphale suddenly noticed a couple of red laser sight dots playing about on his chest. This, he decided was getting much too serious.

Oh botheration. He usually left this kind of manipulation to Crowley to carry out – he was so much better at it. Nonetheless, Crowley was home and unconscious and possibly injured, and he wasn’t helping anyone by allowing himself to be shot or captured, and there was no way it was going to get back to heaven that he had been arrested – and for BURGLARY! – so with a deep, dejected sigh, he conjured up his powers and sent a wave of gentle but unavoidable exhortation and watched as all three men froze in place.

He slowly made his way to his feet, cradling the skull to his chest with one arm, and walked over to the exhibit, where he created and inserted an identical but non-ethereal copy of the skull and pole he’d removed, replaced and repaired the glass, and turned off the alarm. He checked the cameras to ensure that they were all still off. They were. And finally, he walked over to the armed men and gently touched each of them on the temple, one after the other.

“You will not remember the events of the last fifteen minutes,” he said, poking around the tiniest bit to ensure that this was true. “You will wake in a few minutes, after having a lovely dream about whatever you like best.”

And with that done, he returned to the hotel to tend to his demon.

Crowley woke up a few hours later, groggy and confused. “Angel?” he shouted, leaning up to look frantically around the room. “Angel?”

“Hush, dearest, I’m here,” Aziraphale said, sitting down on the bed beside him.

“What happened?”

“Oh, well,” the angel said. “We got interrupted. You set off a second alarm when you reached into the case and were sprayed with some gas that essentially knocked you out for a few hours. I brought you home and then went back for the skull.”

Crowley moaned and flopped his head back down on the pillow. “You mean – I missed everything? You went back without me? Angel, how could you?”

“You were unconscious, my dear,” the angel said reasonably. “And it wasn’t so hard. I removed the skull, put in a duplicate, wiped the memories of the three security guards who were thinking about shooting me, and popped back home, quick as a jiffy. No harm done.”

“Three men with guns?” Crowley said, looking suddenly very alert. “You went back alone to face three Americans with guns? You know how they are, angel.”

Aziraphale tutted. “Well in my defense, there were no men with guns when I left, so they were a bit of a surprise. However, I assure you that I was never in any danger. I turned their bullets to marshmallows as soon as they entered the room.”

“Marshmallows,” said Crowley flatly. “Really?”

“What’s wrong with that?” the angel asked, a tad indignantly. “I thought it was a rather nice solution to the problem.”

“Not very criminal of you,” Crowley muttered. He looked, the angel thought, jealous and pouty.

Aziraphale smiled softly. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to finish the heist with me, my dear. It would have gone so much more smoothly if you were there.”

“’m good at heists,” Crowley mumbled.

“The very best,” Aziraphale said, wondering if he was laying it on too thick. “Definitely as good as anyone in the Bond films.”

“Only as good?” the demon said, with the hint of a smile.

“Oh, definitely better than some,” Aziraphale replied. “I’d say you’re head and shoulders above Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan.”

The demon preened a little, although he was clearly trying to hide it. “And Sean Connery?” he asked.

“Hrm,” the angel said, consideringly. “I’d say you’d give him a good run for his money.”

Crowley sat up more fully, looking much more like himself. “And let’s not even start on Daniel Craig,” he said. “Hey, do you think the hotel television has movie channels? Maybe we can find a couple Bond films to watch before we eat dinner.”

“Might be wise of us to lay low tonight,” the angel said. “After all you were injured and we did just break into the Smithsonian. Perhaps we’ll order room service instead of going out.”

“Dinner and a movie?” Crowley said.

“That sounds just lovely.”

In the corner, in a duffel bag, a blindingly white skull with two large holes in it just above the ear canal sat quietly, a piece of ancient wood tucked carefully in beneath it. They’d take it back to London, Aziraphale had decided, and find some way to dispose of it there, or simply lock it up in one of Anathema’s spell-guarded chests if they couldn’t destroy it. It could take up a new life beneath the floorboards of the bookshop, somewhere where no one could find it or use it to cause them any trouble.

They were safe as houses, Aziraphale thought, problem averted. But just in case, he carefully warded the doors and windows as soon as dinner had been delivered so that no one could enter or leave for the rest of the night.

You could never be too careful.

#lovermrjokerr8kchallenge #good omens #good omens fanfiction #Aziraphale x Crowley #ineffable idiots #heist stories

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sonicringbond · 3 years

Text

Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey - Scene 31

New year new cour!

Hopefully the start doesn’t feel too slow. I have to establish the plot a bit as and current state of the world. and the survey I had going while writing this scene was last trending towards having more plot over anything else. So i have quite a bit that I hope will wet your appetite in...

~Things had changed quite a bit since I met back up with Sonic. I couldn’t have been happier to find Sonic out of all my friends though, because with Sonic I just know we’ll find all our friends and continue our Journey home. At least I hope so.

~Like I said, the world really changed a lot. That red lightning bolt-like crack in the sky which is like a window to another world is visible all the time. For all the mountain ranges, prairies, deserts, islands, and towns and cities I’ve run through with Sonic, it never goes away, just like that horrible little planet which is always watching me. I can hardly sleep at all because of it. It makes my skin crawl, and something about it even affects my cards. I haven’t been able to read a fortune or ask for advice for some time now.

~And I could use it too.

~Sonic was right in that I didn’t understand. The damage done by those mean old pirates was a lot worse than I imagined. And it was easy enough to learn about it as more and more people took up the life of traveling sightseers after the crack appeared in the sky and that dreadful planet stopped going away at night. Everyone is afraid the world is ending and getting really funny about it. Some people have started traveling, others have given themselves even more to their work, and then there are those affected by the pirates in the worst possible way.

~They hurt a lot of people, but this was even worse. They also inspired a lot of other people to become sky pirates and hurt people too. It was the worst possible outcome, even with the old owl beat. At least I think he is. Despite all the stories of all the new pirates flying through the skies on airships they likely stole from the Engineers, I haven’t heard one about that mean old owl who we couldn’t keep that last Red Star Ring From. But I like to think we beat him. Because if we didn’t, I can’t imagine what he is up to.~

“Nothing! To think I thought the fool fox the greatest enemy of the Battle Kukku Armada. But no, it’s little wonder why that clown Eggman always challenged him. Allowing him to live Is certain to assure complete and utter failure!”

Tossing his feathered hands up in defeat, Doctor Fukurokov fell to his knees and looked out at the ruined city he had been wandering for what felt an eternity now. The concrete structures and skyscrapers could never have been built with glass and steel as they were with the typical steam and Ring technology he was used to working with. The city was obviously ancient and from before technology had fallen to the point of early industrialism and steam craft. Yet for all the wonder that could have built such a city, there was nothing left of value and an ever-growing forest had made it its home. Should Doctor Fukurokov not find his way to actual civilization either however…

“A pitiable state for a creature of the heavens.”

The voice that addressed Doctor Fukurokov was new to his ears, but he both enjoyed the recognition of his status and hated it.

“Choose your words wisely, whoever you are,” the old, mad owl warned as he rose to feet. Turning he was greeted to a sight most peculiar. A stone golem fashioned after the long extinct echidnas, painted white and garbed in flowing purple robes adorned with massive gear like decorations. In its right hand he held a staff with half a cog for a head. Held between the two halves a crystal rose spun and glowed purple in contrast to the golem’s glowing blue eyes. “A golem that speaks?”

“Indeed, elder of the heavens. I was once known as Pir’Oth, a very long time ago. Now I am known simply as Ix the Ring Striker. How the order of the world has fallen. Evident surely in your pitiable state. Bested by meager dirt dwellers as an old friend of mine would say.”

“I suppose this old friend of yours has business with the leader of the Battle Kukku Armada?” Doctor Fukurokov probed the intentions of the golem, Ix, with a question. He was not prepared for the laughter that met him in answer.

“If my friend were so readily at hand, neither of us would be in this pathetic state we find ourselves in. No, the one who has business with you is me.”

Giving his staff a twirl, Ix slammed it into the ground and several cracks tore through it like a spider web. From those cracks, Rings burst forth and with a wave of his staff Ix gathered them to a single point. With a flash they formed into a massive Ring that anyone could easily step through, and then he looked expectantly at Doctor Fukurokov. “What I desire from you is your knowledge and loyalty. With these two things I can assure your return to glory and your rightful place in the heavens.”

“A bold claim from a man made of stone.”

“Only this body,” Ix countered,

“Come, if you desire the return of what is rightfully yours. I can show that this simple vessel is but a small part of what I am.”

Stepping through the portal, Ix left Doctor Fukurokov to make up his mind. But Ring gates did not persist indefinitely, and that with but a staff, animated stone formed one that could be used by several people and persisted at all was a curiosity he could not resist. Nor was he one to waste an opportunity to leave his would be grave.

On the other side of the portal however, he found an even greater forest awaited him. One so thick and lush that it was impossible to see the sky or daylight. It was only the glow of Ix’s staff and eyes that illuminated the darkness. Save bioluminescent lifeforms Doctor Fukurokov had no intention to interact with.

“I don’t see how this is an improvement,” The old owl sneered only to be met with more laughter.

“No, as an outsider of this abandoned world, I suppose you would not.” Turning and walking away Ix explained.

“This forest, much like the prairie you must have passed through is a prison for myself. With the Red Star Ring relieved of its power, we can access it once more. And within, find me again.”

“Your words make no sense golem.”

“And yet you follow.”

There was no argument from Doctor Fukurokov. He followed as he had no choice. His willingness was a desire to survive, and the clearing with the dismantled golems of wood that resembled almost comical puppets was a sight he felt defied that. Yet, true to Ix’s words, awaiting them there was Ix again. Though this Ix was made of carved and polished wood painted white with only his robes hiding his nature as a puppet.

“Then I am not the first to wake.”

“The second, Pir’Oth,” Ix answered his wooden double. “Only two Red Star Rings of five have been used. But I suspect from the state of the sky that we are fortuitous that you woke at all. We have enemies in this distant future that still know of us.”

“And the flightling behind you?”

“A gift for your waking and our steady restoration.”

“A gift? Doctor Fukurokov balked and moved as though to retreat. But he knew he had no such options as he again watched Ix strike the ground and summon forth Rings. “Preposterous. Doctor Fukurokov is a gift to no one. I am the ruler of the skies and–!”

“You are no ruler of the skies flightling,” the wood Pir’Oth spoke into Doctor Fukurokov’s ear from behind him. He had never even seen the movement and turned in stiff disbelief. “But I must know the state of the world.”

Caught between the stone Ix and the wood Pir’Oth, Doctor Fukurokov could do nothing as both threw out a Ring towards him. One pointed with open hand and the other his staff, and caught between the sudden locked in place Rings, Doctor Fukurokov could only let out a shrill scream of terror before falling to the ground. Twitching as he lay helpless, a swirling cloud of golden motes of light settling into him and the two golems.

There was a long silence though before at last one of the golems spoke, and the stone Ix was astonished. “This knowledge! The world beyond this abandoned husk! Who is this Eggman it houses! His creations…! Never… never have I witnessed such things. I must have this knowledge he possesses!”

Pulling Doctor Fukurokov back to bis feet, the wood Ix glared into his stupefied eyes with his intensely glowing blue ones. “This Eggman, and this fox who can make use of his technology. Tell me flightling, where are they.”

“Hehehehehe…Doctor Fukurokov laughed amused. “So, you saw inside my head and don’t even know that much. It would seem I am more useful to you than you thought. But the fool fox is mine. If you want that buffoon Eggman, you’ll have to find a way to the lands I hail from. But I doubt you can pull it off. Whether you leave the fox to me or just seek out a way to Eggman, you’ll have to face him. The scourge of all who desire power.”

“Who?” Ix demanded to know. “I would know the champion who would challenge my ambitions.”

“Hehehehehe… It’s so funny you don’t know.”

“Who, flightling!”

“Who else? Sonic the Hedgehog…”

Scene 31 · CLEARED And After That, to be continued

-----

And there we have it!

Though I’ll dash any hopes of Eggman appearing soon. He’s getting a lot of mention, but if you noticed, so is Tails. That survey I mentioned above had had tails listed as the go to character for Rosy to go after next, and as he has knowledge about Eggman’s machines and tech, it’s a nice little way to mention Eggman and set up that tails is in likely danger. but that is for another time.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you next time!

-----

Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – Lumacie Archipelago: Mystic Woodland – Tsutomu Narita – Granblue Fantasy Original Soundtrack

Fair Use Disclaimer

Sonic the Hedgehog and all affiliated characters and logos are the express property and Copyright© of SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS used without permission under Title 17 U.S.C Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 in which allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. “Fair use” is use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be considered copyright infringement. The Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey alternate universe (AU) consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”.

*Sonic Ring Bond logo created by DEE Art – twitter.com/daryliscute.

Sonic Ring Bond AU and Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey are the creation of Joshua David Tarwater/ynymbus/sonicfanj/@Joshtarwater and is to be, including all contents herein considered for all legal purposes the property of the Sonic the Hedgehog intellectual property (IP) and copyright owners, SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS. All story contributors via prompt, suggestion, written scene, art, and all and every other contribution acknowledge that all contributed material is forfeit for legal purposes to SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS upon official request from SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fan fiction #sonic au #sonic au series #sonic ring bond #the journey #classic amy #amy rose #rosy the rascal #au amy #amy redesign #doctor fukurokov #pir'oth ix

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despair-tummy · 4 years

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if you're still open for requests, maybe syo feeding a really fat byakuya?

Sure, ngl Bya.kuya is fun to write.

[[MORE]]

A Togami was supposed to be the very definition of perfection. Intelligent, sharp, witty, in top physical condition and health, skillful, resourceful and powerful. Byakuya prided himself on not only being the current head of the Togami’s ever-expanding empire but also the youngest male to ever win. He competed against his siblings from his father’s various mistresses and came out on top. Earning his place in the world by meeting and going above and beyond with each expectation placed before him. Indeed, Byakuya Togami was the very definition of what a Togami should be in all aspects...

Well, maybe he was struggling in one aspect more than he would like to admit. It wasn’t intentional, not in the slightest. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint where it started to slip from his hands, but somewhere along the line, he lost control.

It crept up on him, slowly. He was naive and didn’t see it at first, and when he did he refused to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging its existence would mean accepting the fact he was getting fat. That little flab of extra softness on his middle was hardly as concerning as the mystery shrouding the depths of this academy. And his blazer could easily hide it safely from everyone’s view. He was so confident in himself that the little extra weight would go away if he cut back on eating.

Granted, it would have if actually cut back on snacking so unnecessarily. But it was a shameful moment of weakness on his part, to give in to such overindulgence. But as much as he hated to admit it, every man had his weakness. His came in the form of chocolate cake.

It was bad enough Toko and her disgusting lack of hygiene stalked him to such annoying lengths, but her split personality was just as bad, if not worse. Byakuya believed himself to be unbreakable when it came to willpower, but in reality, he was like a block of ice. You wait long enough and it would melt.

If Toko was persistent in following him around like a puppy, Syo took that to new extremes. But much to everyone’s surprise including his own, Syo could be reasoned with. Despite being a serial killer who killed men in a gruesome manner, she too had an array of hobbies aside from murdering and harassing him. Though Syo being as unexpected as she was, she had a completely unexpected hobby... baking.

It would start with the serial killer harassing him with a slice of chocolate cake she made just for him. He refused, many times. But once Syo promised to leave him alone for the rest of the day he begrudgingly gave in. Much to his relief, the cake slice was free from hair, blood or anything else from her horrible smelling body. And to his surprise, the taste wasn’t awful. It certainly didn’t compare to the cakes his personal chefs could make, but it could pass as eatable and wasn’t as dreadful tasting as he originally thought it was going to be.

Sure enough, it became a daily thing, Syo would offer to leave him alone in exchange he had to eat whatever she baked. It didn’t take long for that little extra weight to appear, and for him to spiral out of control from there.

That small pudge just got bigger, and it wasn’t just his midsection that fell victim to the extra weight. One slice of cake eventually grew into two slices, and soon three slices, it wasn’t long before he was basically eating a whole cake a day. And sure enough, his weight skyrocketed.

The floor creaked underneath his feet with every step he took, he tried his hardest not to pant. He was the current head of the Togami cooperation, simply walking from his dorm to the dining room shouldn’t make him winded! But the sweat that dripped from his round face and soaked underarms begged to differ. Every step he took was a struggle given the massive amount of pillowy fat that hung off his legs and uncomfortably rubbed together with each step, making his feet look comically small in comparison.

But it wasn’t just his bottom half that had underwent such a change, the upper half of his body wasn’t faring much better. His stomach hung and sagged, peeking out from under his shirt just enough to expose his navel. It was embarrassing enough having to request Monokuma provide him with attire that fitted before, but he found himself having to do so regularly.

Then there were his arms, they were offering less and less useful as they grew so thick with fat that it hung, resembling a flying squirrel in flight with its sagging skin as oppose to human arms.

His face, rounder from all the weight he piled on and there was that double chin he was sporting. He was far from the slender and intimidating heir that first entered Hope’s Peak Academy, that Byakuya was long gone. Buried in hundreds of pounds of excess weight somewhere, all that remained was his usual cold and to the point demeanour... well, at least that was demeanour he tried to keep. It was hard to appear professional and collective when a button popped off from his already skin-tight suit or when he was out of breath from walking short distances.

He quickly dabbed the sweat off his forehead with the cloth he used to clean his glasses. There, hopefully, he would manage to look someone presentable, like the old Byakuya Togami did a few hundred pounds ago.

He straightened his back, despite the fact it caused the white dress shirt he wore underneath to ride up and expose his pale midsection. But a Togami never slouched, not in the history of his family line. And Byakuya didn’t intend to be the first.

After taking a deep breath, he opened the door. He was the last to arrive, one because he never cared for the morning meetings Kiyotaka tried to get them all to attend. And secondly, it was difficult to get the motivation to walk these days.

“Maaaaster~!” the ever so dreadfully familiar voice of Genocider Syo said in a sickeningly sweet sing-song manner.

There in the middle of the dining hall was Syo, waving him over along to the table which was packed with multiple desserts. He tried his hardest not to show his exhaustion, but the sweat dripping down from his fat redden face was a dead giveaway.

“I got your seat all ready too.” Syo grinned, gesturing to the row that consisted of three seats. Yup, you heard that correctly. It took three chairs for him to be able to sit comfortably.

He remained silent, trying to ignore the gazes collectively on him from the others. He huffed and sat down, all three chairs giving a less than subtle creak as his massively round rear settled into the chairs.

“I woke up extra early to make all of this for yoooou.” Syo sang, tying a napkin around his neck, a miracle he even still had one at this point. “The more you eat, the more time I get to spend with you before I got to go.” she crackled, setting a bowl of chocolate mousse before him. “Now open up,” she used a spoon to scoop a hefty spoonful of mousse.

Normally he would have protested to eating so much, and especially to Syo spoon-feeding him. But that was ages ago, he regretfully became accustomed to this. As well as everyone else, the odd stares from the other students grew fewer and fewer as time went on as they got used to this odd display, but they didn’t completely stop and Byakuya doubted they ever will.

“The things I do for peace and quiet...” Byakuya muttered to himself and allowed Syo to feed him the spoonful with great reluctance.

Sure he could opt for her to feed him somewhere more private, but Byakuya didn’t even want to think of all the crude things Syo were to say if he ate like this with her privately.

An empty bowl later she presented him with a plate full of chocolate truffles. Despite eating an absurd amount of mousse, his stomach let out a barbaric grumble, signalling it wanted more. Much to Byakuya’s embarrassment, eating so much was one thing, but actually craving it was another.

“Don’t worry, I made more than enough!” Syo crackled, popping a few in his mouth following by giving his stomach a pat.

As soon as his teeth broke into the truffles his mouth was coated in a sickeningly sweet layer of milk, dark and white chocolate.

He forced himself to swallow, sure enough, another handful of truffles and another explosion of chocolate in his mouth, and repeat.

Two dishes down, countless more to go. Next up was the one that started this snowballing, chocolate cake. Though instead of single slices like it was the first time, as of late it was whole cakes.

“Open wide,” Syo grinned, bringing a forkful to his lips.

It was a miracle he wasn’t sick of chocolate cake yet or anything chocolate related for that matter. It wasn’t long until the cake was reduced to nothing but a few crumbs.

“Are we done yet?” Byakuya asked, trying and failing to stifle a burp.

Syo just gave one of her deranged laughs before setting a plate before him. Byakuya guessed he was going to be here a while before he eventually got some peace and quiet. Donuts, cupcakes, ice cream, pudding, cookies and everything else you could think of were fed to him, all chocolate flavoured of course to stay with the theme.

The desserts disappeared and were replaced with towers of empty plates stacked on top of each other. As the last chocolate-filled pastry passed his lips, even he didn’t Have enough dignity to hold back a full burp as he leaned back in his seat. His already doughy and wide stomach was extra taut from the sheer amount of food. His suit was already clinging to him tightly like a second skin, but now it seemed to almost magically cling tighter, bringing even more attention to the collection of rolls of fat he had. Making him look more like an overstuffed sausage than a refined man.

He panted, finding himself almost as exhausted as he was when he walked up the flights of stairs to get to the library.

“There, I...I finished your baking.” Byakuya spoke, unable to help but put a hand on his swollen gut and tried to rub the ache of fullness away. “You know the deal, now leave.”

“Awwwww, but master, I have a another course just waiting for you in the kitchen. I couldn’t fit it all on the table.” she poked his soft yet somewhat hard stomach. “Though... if you rather spend the day with little old me, we could-“

“Bring on the second course!” Byakuya answered immediately.

“As you wish.” Syo grinned, happily skipping off to fill the table with dishes of sweets yet again.

#stuffed ronpa #fat kink #weight gain kink #stuffing kink #my fics

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weirdlandtv · 5 years

Text

Like the 1960s generation had The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, the Big Three of the 1980s were Prince, Michael Jackson, and Madonna. Their new albums weren’t just song collections, they were messages uttered by the Oracle up on the mountain, echoing across the valley. They were events, statements, re-incarnations. Each new album presented a new persona for fans to imitate and for critics to evaluate, or, in the case of Prince, decipher. (Artists, back then, had to change with each new release or else be considered irrelevant. David Bowie entered the 1980s a smart yuppie, George Michael in the span of 7 years went from sparkling teen idol to sensitive, searching biker cowboy.)

Michael Jackson and Prince were regarded as rival gods, with the former more commercially successful but the latter preferred by most serious music critics (though in reality, fans, like me, liked both). Michael Jackson played games with tabloid journalists, who in turn responded with growing hostility; Prince played pranks on music critics, who wilfully allowed themselves to be deceived and wowed by this inscrutable prodigy.

Michael Jackson’s Avalon was Neverland, a fantasy dream that always invited ridicule (though not from me); Prince’s Mount Olympus was Paisley Park, a place deemed so mythical that fans constructed their own maps from the few photos and bits of footage that existed of it, and then endlessly speculated on what life was like inside of it: the parties, the concerts, sacred rituals, whisperings, the spontaneous nightly sessions. “Did you know,” they’d say, wide-eyed, “Prince has this huge vault of original masters and unreleased music right under Paisley Park? Only he knows the key code.” Whole albums (all masterpieces of course) had disappeared into that vault, never to be heard by ordinary mortals. And he never slept: nobody had ever caught him sleeping. He just went on and on, creating music. That was Prince, the enigmatic wonder, the living love symbol, and flamboyant question mark.

I still find it strange to realize so many of the artists I just mentioned, who so energetically populated my childhood and early teens, are dead. Michael Jackson, Prince, David Bowie, and George Michael all died within 7 years of each other; but there’s also Whitney Houston, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, and so many more. (Compare 1960s giants Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, who are still touring and releasing records.)

When Prince died, a little more than three years ago today, I was on Texel, an island to the north of Holland, where I live. I checked my phone, checked the news, like you so stupidly do every now and then, and then saw the incredible headline. A sunny day, clouds seemed to appear that moment. Some people love celebrity deaths and follow juicy rumor sites about who punched who and who stepped out of the limo without their knickers on; me, I get depressed. It’s like having swallowed a stone. The sensationalist cries around every celeb death to me are like a beehive of bad vibes, a pest, and I have to stay away from it as far as possible if I want to protect my mental health, or what’s left of it. Prince’s death made me take things slow for a week or so. I have to mentally chew on such things, change my settings, ease into the new reality, let my heart adjust to its new weight. I’ve often had to deal with death in my life, sometimes it’s as if every high-profile death shocks me back into that familiar feeling of dread and despair.

Though Michael Jackson’s Neverland has turned into a derelict theme park that carries the curse of being unsellable, Prince’s Paisley Park has become a museum. Occasionally, browsing the internet, I see photos of it, and I’m always struck, kind of uneasily, about how soulless it seems. What does the lair of an extravagant hermit look like? What did I expect? Not something that looks like the atrium of a New Age company maybe. Looking at the interior, those sad police photos that were released last year, I can’t help but see the stupendous mundanity of it all. The building itself, somewhere in a suburb outside of Minneapolis, resembles a bunker, and though the pyramid skylights, that vaguely resemble guard towers, provide some natural light, the rest of the building is artificially lit, but dark. The recording studio is just that. Some of the walls have sayings like “Everything You Think Is True”. Stained glass with stars, clouds, and guitars. There’s a potted plant here, and an ugly tangle of phone cords in the corner there. Prince’s bedroom was sparse with empty green walls, and a plastic trash can you can buy at your local Walmart (but he never slept of course). The legendary vault reminds me of the storage room of my dad’s old electronics company, with its disorderly shelves and half-opened cardboard boxes. And everywhere, in every corridor and every space, there’s Prince iconography, but it’s rather bland, like the cover of a cheap unofficial biography.

For Prince, it must have been strange living in your own mausoleum.

The music that came from that place though. I believe PARADE (1986) was the first full album he recorded there, and then everything that came afterwards. My uncle was a real Prince fanatic, taking a slew of albums with him whenever he stayed with us, bootlegs too, so from an early age I became quite well-versed in all things Prince. Bits of his lyrics are as familiar to me as old family sayings. Personal favorites are the albums 1999 (1982), BATMAN (1989), and the LOVE SYMBOL ALBUM (1992). I like the street-smart humor of his early stuff, the raw passion, the in-your-face sex metaphors, with symbols as loud as cymbals, just the wild mercury sound of it; later on, his work became more spiritual, and harder for me to follow. His whole being though was music, every movement was a melody, every step a beat; he created music the way other people breathe. He had more songs in him than a duck has quacks. If you listen to the posthumous release, PIANO AND A MICROPHONE 1983, it’s as if the piano, microphone and artist aren’t three separate things, but one organism, bleeding and generating music; it features some wonderful, loose playing. It seems to me that towards the end of his life, in physical pain and unable to play a piano or guitar unless stuffed with elephant tranquilizers, he started to drift, and drift further, until he fell over the edge.

Like Bob Dylan, whose mystique and inaccessibility he shared, Prince had a habit of frustrating his fans, by deliberately excluding a great song from an otherwise so-so album and storing it in his vault, or by making his music hard to buy or even find (online, before he died, there was almost nothing). That’s one reason I kind of stopped following him; the other is the depressing decline of his songwriting since the 1990s. Looking at his later albums, which I first dutifully bought until I didn’t anymore, there’s hardly anything I really like. None of the best-of compilations collect anything from after the 90s. What happened? Age is part of it of course. A decline in quality is inevitable, most musical artists do their best work in their 20s and 30s. It’s also possible Prince’s brand of singing about his women like they are divine vaginas simply went out of style. Once cheeky and outrageous (his work was why Parental Advisory stickers were invented), his songs no longer shock us 21st centurians. We’ve seen so much already. Dirty sex wasn’t the only topic he sang about of course (far from it), but it’s the one he pushed forward the most as part of his image; his “royal badness” was part of his appeal. (The BATMAN soundtrack originally was going to feature Michael Jackson as Batman, the force of good, and Prince as the Joker, representing decadence, sin, evil.)

But his supposed “badness” was an act of course. The cocky poses, flashy gestures and mean diva looks were an obvious shield against the outside world, a theatrical defense mechanism. An attempt to dazzle people before they can get to you. When you’re shy—and he of course was the shyest—you feel like everyone is constantly watching you, and you become overly aware of how you look, how you walk, how you come across; you are constantly aware of your physical being taking up space. So what do you do when you’re an artist? You perform. Everything you do becomes a kind of performance, a conscious act. It gives you a feeling of control: you know why people are watching, because you’re making them watch you. But the essence of it is always shyness and nerves.

There’s something endearing about that 1983 footage of him being invited on stage for an impromptu jam by James Brown, who a few minutes earlier had invited Michael Jackson up. Ready to upstage his rival, who had just performed some killer moves, Prince takes the stage, struts, plays some random riffs, struts some more, suddenly takes off his jacket and does some tricks with the microphone stand, claps to whip up the audience—and then as he wants to make a fast and sudden exit, he clumsily goes down knocking over a prop, stage hands hastily arriving from all sides to help him up.

He died in an elevator near the lobby, but the spot itself has been covered up by a new wall (it’s near the watchful eyes in the third image). I keep wondering what happened. Was he making his way down to the ground floor from his production offices, or was he going up from the recording studio to his bedroom to maybe sleep? One associate, questioned by police, stated that Prince had told her he “was depressed, enjoyed sleeping more than usual and was incredibly bored”, and that at his last concert, he felt like he was going to fall asleep on stage. Those were rare remarks. An intensely private person, he mostly hid his problems, not just from others, but even from himself. The end, then, was inevitable. As with Michael Jackson six years before, the drugs relieved him of his pain, and then of his life.

He never slept, and when he did, it was 4ever.

#prince #paisley park #photos #inside #interior #studio #music #pics #pictures #images #house #home

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happymetalgirl · 4 years

Text

July 2020

Machine Head - Civil Unrest

On this two-song EP, Robb Flynn once again leans into spur-of-the-moment inspiration in an effort to jolt Machine Head out of the creative fatigue that plagued the polarizing Catharsis, but unfortunately the approach that didn’t really work for “Volatile” doesn’t really work for “Stop the Bleeding” or “Bulletproof”, and it all adds up upon the revelation that these songs are constructed from scraps off the Catharsis kitchen floor. Robb’s finger is on the pulse of the tension underlying American politics and his heart is in the right place (which I commend him for his steadfastness to in the face of the apparently sizable chud subset of Machine Head’s fanbase), he just needs to take his delivery a little off the nose. Of the two songs, “Bulletproof” is definitely the stronger and more hard-hitting, while the goofy 2000′s metalcore melodicism of “Stop the Bleeding” meshes poorly with the grim subject matter Robb attaches to the track. In the grand scheme of Machine Head’s career, this EP (and the two non-album singles that preceded it last year) is disappointing filler that does nothing to lift the band out of the dry creative well they’ve found themselves in.

5/10

Khemmis - More Songs About Death, Vol. 1

A much more solid two-track EP, Khemmis’ More Songs About Death, Vol. 1 is comprised of a groovy cover of Misfits’ “Skulls” and an acoustic rendition of the folk song, “A Conversation with Death”, that the band had covered electrically for a split they did with Spirit Adrift. The band adapt well to the more original acoustic style of the latter song, as soulful as ever even with acoustic subtlety replacing their open-hearted doom metal. As for the Misfits cover, the band apply their signature harmonic doom guitar work to give it a signature seal while adhering to the core foundation of the song, and they show that the song does take to their brand of doom quite well. After Desolation and being signed to Nuclear Blast, Khemmis sure were excited to get working on their fourth LP. Now that of course sits on the list of many projects the pandemic has forcefully postponed, but these kinds of offerings and the band’s hinting that they might just come out of this with two albums’ worth of material is helping make the wait a little more bearable. Thank you as always, Khemmis.

more respect to Khemmis/10

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

Coming off the back of their magnum opus, Sulphur English, Inter Arma’s offering to hold the quarantined world over until the band’s next opus is a quick (by their standards) covers album of metal and hardcore classics, as well as some surprising classic and southern rock tunes. And the band manage the eight diverse songs with an impressive display of two-way adaptability. Turning “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” into a blackgaze blast-beat fest and “Scarecrow” and into a crushing blackened sludge-doom epic while layering their atmospheric black metal smoothly over the old-school rock grooves of Neil Young’s “Southern Man” Inter Arma show an aptitude for selecting cover songs that fit their style. It sure helps that they’re a versatile act too, bending their mammothian heaviness to suit the core appeal of covers of Cro-Mags’ “Hard Times”, Nine Inch Nails’ “March of the Pigs”, and Venom’s “In League with Satan” while shedding all that sludge to expose their southern rock roots on (slightly) more stripped back tunes like “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” (a closer so fittingly beautiful it seems almost unfair), which find them embellishing soulfully and clearly enjoying themselves in the studio. A lineup of tracks like this would make be nervous for whatever band was trying to tackle them, but Inter Arma prove that can shapeshift back to their southern roots just as well as they can bulldoze as needed to do their own justice to these several tracks, making for one of the best cover albums I’ve heard for a while.

8/10

This Will Destroy You - Vespertine

Serving as a soundtrack project for a highly rated California This Will Destroy You seemingly took a long time with this project, having released the “Kitchen” single in 2017 under the same premise. The album is entirely ambient, and not quite as experimental with glitchy electro-ambiance as projects like Tunnel Blanket or Another Language were. Instead, Vespertine highlights the serene/somber atmospheric foundation of the band’s post-metal/rock sound that made the Young Mountain EP and their self-titled LP such transcendent experiences and exemplary advocates for post-rock upon their release. And it’s a great display of just how the band’s discernible ambient style can shine through even such a minimal approach. It is basic ambient music for sure, no additives, but it’s unmistakably This Will Destroy You to those who know them, and it hearkens back to some of their best work, so I see it as a welcome addition to the band’s catalog.

7/10

Static-X - Project Regeneration, Vol. 1

Rebooted in honor of Wayne Static after his untimely passing in 2017 the original line-up and Dope frontman Edsel Dope behind a mask resembling the late singer and the pseudonym Xer0, Static-X return after over a decade of radio silence since 2009′s Cult of Static to mesh the final recordings of Wayne Static for the band with contributions from Xer0 on the first of two volumes of new material under this premise of paying tribute. Despite the lengthy absence and the loss of the band’s central creative force, the album is a mostly smooth transition from Cult of Static with some callbacks to the electro industrial metal of earlier albums like Shadow Zone and Machine. While it captures the essence of Static-X across its 39-minute track list with a handful of hard-hitting industrial nu metal bangers, Project Regeneration - Vol. 1 is a bit of a dry recount of the band’s legacy, and I hope the band saved the better chunk of songs for the second installment.

6/10

An Autumn for Crippled Children - All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet

An Autumn for Crippled Children is an anonymous Dutch trio who are helping to keep the blackgaze movement going with their eighth full-length album here. The band released their seventh not long ago in 2018, but this year’s is my introduction to the band, which has been a pleasant one. All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet is a moderately sized offering of heartfelt blackgaze as you know it from the likes of Deafheaven and Ghost Bath channeled through more second-wave-like stylings of the Norwegian black metal scene; so it sounds kind of like if Mayhem made more open-hearted music rather than deflected edginess through Satan-worshipping (not to shit on Mayhem or anything). There is more to this album, however, than just diluted or lo-fi Deafheaven worship; through the haze of the band’s fuzzy blackgaze is some pretty dynamic songwriting and impressive. More than just soaking distorted guitars in reverb and juxtaposing blackmetal screams with post-rock ambiance, An Autumn for Crippled Children capture some of that emotional diversity that makes blackgaze at its best (...Sunbather) so divinely captivating. And the spacious beauty the band conjures out of the negative space in the static-y guitars and thin percussion on songs like “Water’s Edge”, “Paths”, and the title track is surprisingly enveloping, but the standout cut on the album I’d say is the very unashamedly Ghost-Bath-y “Silver” for its overt heartfelt delivery with every instrument and its integration of what even sounds like a piano. I doubt this would convert many black metal purists who idolize Burzum and Darkthrone. In fact I bet this album would upset them even more than New Bermuda, but for those without a stick up their ass, looking for some juicy blackgaze with a different set of ingredients than your Harakiri for the Sky or Wolves in the Throne Room, this is some good shit.

8/10

Bury Tomorrow - Cannibal

I gave this one a good several tries because 2018’s Black Flame grew on me significantly after my incredibly underwhelmed first couple of listens, but sadly Cannibal strikes melodic metalcore gold far less often than its predecessor and finds Bury Tomorrow knee deep in the unflattering tropes that the genre is trying to shake off. With a pretty one-note approach to melodicism that results in a largely homogeneously flat emotional tone across the album, it’s definitely a step down from the emboldened and invigorated Black Flame that negates any sense of the band’s ambition that that album might have given off. I can point out “Better Below” and the brief breakdown on “Gods & Machines” as mild highlights in the tracklist, but they only really stand out because the rest of the surrounding tracks are so dry. I’d like to say that things just didn’t click this time or that some experiments just didn’t pan out, but it’s quite clearly just the lack of imagination and ambition that sinks this project deep into the background of forgettable metalcore, and I know this band can do better.

4/10

Kansas - The Absence of Presence

They’re hardly even metal-adjacent but for their sizable contribution to the 70′s prog rock movement that such a huge proportion of metalheads are into, a new Kansas album I suppose counts as on-topic for this blog. The band returned after a decade and a half of absence with a stuttering restart without iconic vocalist Steve Walsh on 2016′s The Prelude Implicit, and it was clear that they needed to do more than yearn for glory days to get the gears back in motion, so with The Absence of Presence the band’s new blood has stepped up to the plate to inject some freshness into the band’s compositional process. The band still sticks to that core violin-spiced prog rock that characterized their iconic 70′s albums, but the structuring and soloing style (especially the keys) are a bit more modernized than the band’s past work, and by modern I mean what Dream Theater sounded like in the 2000′s. Make no mistake, though, it’s an improvement on The Prelude Implicit, and it highlights the band’s talents and natural grandiose tendencies far more than the radio rock singles they’re most widely known for, and the cinematic bridge of the opening title track is sturdy proof of this. It’s a testament to the influence they have had on modern prog through the genre’s biggest bands like Dream Theater, and perhaps a testament to the two-wayedness of that street as well as fun, bombastic tunes like “Throwing Mountains” sound like they would fit easily on something like A Dramatic Turn of Events or as a break from all the melancholy on a Steven Wilson project. The album does wear a little thin on ballads like “Memories Down the Line”, but it makes up for its duller moments with plenty of exuberant prog expressiveness on most of the songs (the closing track being probably the standout example), which should be a good time for most of the band’s fans who fondly remember albums like Masque and Monolith, and any newer prog fans who may not be aware of the band’s influence on today’s prog metal.

7/10

Haken - Virus

Speaking of respectable modern prog though, Haken’s aptly named album this year serves as quite the easy bar to clear for prog metal so far this decade. I regretfully missed out on their 2018 sister album, Vector, but I am partially mending that ill by covering Virus here. Like I said earlier, it’s a solid record that captures the smoothness and tempered heaviness of Soen and the attitude of early Opeth with the angularity of Tool, but even if it ends up being the year’s best prog metal album, I don’t think it will be too long before one of the genre’s juggernauts (or even exciting new faces) kamehamehas this one away. The album starts out pretty solid in its first few tracks, but remains pretty meager and restrained in its explosiveness until midway through the album, relying on rather short bursts of typical prog heaviness like the opening of “Prosthetic”, whose rumbly bassline is a delicious highlight amongst the Townsend-esque choir implementation. The ten-minute “Carousel” ups the band’s expressiveness after the deceptive soothe of the second track with a clash of goth-y ambiance and pounding metallic bombast. The five-part “Messiah Complex” suite finds the band at their most adventurous, straddling the winding mid-song compositional whirl of Dream Theater with the occasional eccentricity and djenty heaviness of producer Nolly’s former band Periphery, the band still sound themselves and confident in every move they make, like true prog masters, ending beautifully on the two-minute “Only Stars”. I think it might end up being the year’s best straight-up prog metal album, and the band have worked hard to earn that honor, but I would honestly be surprised if someone else or Haken themselves don’t outdo it within a year. That’s to take away from what an exciting 52 minutes of prog this is, because with such a moderate runtime for such a tight prog album, it’s definitely deserving of the respect of a top album in its field.

8/10

Skeleton - Skeleton

Even though I tend to end up liking them, I find myself skeptical of projects whose aesthetic feels forcedly retro or whose marketing is focused heavily on nostalgia, and the self-titled debut from the Austin-based trio, Skeleton, complete with its intentionally cheesy and amateurish cover art, definitely checked those boxes. I even got the sense from 20 Buck Spin (being that I’m on their mailing list and follow their accounts and all) that they were more excited than usual to be releasing the trio’s debut. And honestly, after a few listens through of not being all too aroused by the crusty proto-death metal at the core of the band’s sound, the traditional heavy metal focus on infectious guitar riffs helped the album grow on me a good bit. The stylistic versatility of the guitar playing really is the cornerstone of the album, from the Kill ‘Em All-style riffs on “Taste of Blood” and early Sepultura-esque galloping on “At War” to the blackened punk grit of “A Far Away Land” and the even more catchy classic metal riffs on “Turned to Stone” and the melancholic old-school doom atmosphere on “Ring of Fire”. The snarled black metal vocals are gnarly in that old-school sense, throaty and raspy but kind of cheesily thin too to fit with the aesthetic the band are going for, and it’s a pretty similar story with the drums: not flashy at all by today’s standards but just right to supplement the guitar work and complete the vibe. And of course with 11 tracks not even grazing the half hour mark, the songs are pretty trim and compositionally bare bones, falling into quick, crust punk formats foregoing the typical verse-chorus paradigm. Yes, Skeleton has grown on me, and I’m curious to see if they end up expanding this sound like Ghost did from Opus Eponymous to stay creatively fresh or if they plan to draw from the long-abandoned (or less frequented) wells of musical elements they did on this album for the foreseeable future.

7/10

Burzum - Thulêan Mysteries

I know that in a lot of circles (including some I consider myself a part of), saying something even vaguely positive about Burzum invites a wave of disapproval for supporting (or at the very least, excusing) the black metal world’s most notorious villain’s racism, but I can’t say with a straight that Varg Vikernes didn’t play a huge part in shaping Norwegian black metal as we know it or that I don’t like Filosofem or Hvis lyset tar oss. I don’t think that amounts to supporting the guy’s racist bullshit, and luckily Varg has made it pretty easy not to support his racist bullshit because Burzum has been shit for a long long time now; in fact I’d say Filosofem was the last worthwhile Burzum album, with his pathetically bad ambient records during and after his time in prison and the three stale black metal albums that welcomed him back from prison. After such a weak return to music from prison and Burzum’s discontinuation-turned-hiatus, it seemed overdue that Varg finally retire the Burzum project after the unimaginative ambiance of The Ways of Yore. I mean the project has thoroughly emulated the trope of the white guy who views everything he touches as way more genius than anyone else does, which is pretty rich for a guy so willing to dismiss the current black metal scene as derivative, and he’s seemed more invested in whatever it is he’s been doing on YouTube or his blog. Nevertheless, Varg remains an infamous figure in metal probably to a lot of dudes who think there’s some esoteric genius to decode in his lore, to an extent I find kinda disturbing. The weird reverence a lot of the metal community has for the neo-nazi murderer’s cult of personality (the vast majority of whose discography is masturbatory throwaway doodling) is astounding. So this guy’s back, with an hour and a half of, by his own account, ambient scraps of dungeon synth music that he built up over an extended period of time and basically figured he’d compile into an album (because, like I said, everything he touches must be gold in his eyes), and goddamn it sure sounds like exactly what he pitches it as. The first track, “The Sacred Well”, is actually pretty soothing and decent helping of ethereal ambient music, but it doesn’t take long for things to go downhill. The annoyingly repetitive acoustic motif of “ForeBears” and the absolutely amateurish improvised piano plinking of “A Thulêan Perspective” quickly shed light on just how lazily patched together this thing is, while the subsequent “Gathering of Herbs” literally cuts off awkwardly like the full track didn’t upload fully. A few tracks like “Jötunnheimr” and “The Road to Hel” offer some fleeting promise in their eeriness, but they disappear as quickly as most of the tracks here do, in a flash of confusion as clearly incomplete ideas piled into an album for no reason that even Varg can justify. The last third of the album contains some of the longer tracks, but the swapping of fragments of half-assed keyboard doodles for half-assed demos spread thinner than tissue paper is a trade-off akin to the upcoming general election and it’s too little and way too late. I have to highlight the laughably farty synthesizer horns on “Ruins of Dwarfmount”; I mean thank god it’s quick because it’s absolutely awful, but the chuckle I get out of how bad it is is probably the best experience I have from this whole album. Just about everything on here is some combination of irritatingly repetitive, blatantly incomplete, or grossly unprofessional, and the thing that gets me is that it’s not like ambient music or dungeon synth is any sort of rocket science. I’m not at all the kind of music genius Varg’s weird devotees see him to be, but given the same equipment, even I could undoubtedly make a better ambient album than this. Although I’m not nearly as well-versed in ambient music as I am in metal, I have heard enough of a chunk of it to say I know the good shit and the bad shit, but honestly, this album is a new low for me. I didn’t know an ambient album could suck this much. It’s like an extended Daudi Baldrs with a slightly better keyboard, but with no excuse this time for the cheapness of the sound and certainly not the length. Yeah, piece of shit.

2/10

Boris - NO

Tokyo’s prolific sonic shapeshifters have all but given up on giving up, and I suppose the title of this year’s record summarizes their brief questioning of if they stop making music. The band’s first intended farewell album, Dear, which found them (not really) bowing out to the sorrowful drone doom of their most iconic record (Pink), was followed them by last year’s LφVE & EVφL, which saw them revisiting various shades of their career as comfortably as ever. NO finds the power trio on another stylistic tour of sorts, this time through some of their heaviest and most grimy territory, starting from brooding sludge doom to spending most of the album on Slayer-esque thrash and hardcore punk ripe with gritty attitude. The production is thick and nasty as is usually best for Boris, but the writing on this record is just kind of absent-minded for such a stylistically varied project. While the more drony opener, “Genesis”, rides its runtime well on the raw heaviness that the band put the pure simplicity of their slow groove through, the farther the band step away from their wheelhouse, the more apparent sparseness becomes of the more underwritten songs like the meatheadedly punky “Kikinoue” and “Fundamental Error”. We get some crushing riffs like that on “Anti-Gone”, but also some clumsy wailing about like on the song “Lust” that calls into question the effort Boris put in at the drawing board. The sheer power is there, but it’s being used generally inefficiently on a sizeable portion of NO. Still, it’s pretty cool to hear Boris at this pace, and the pure energy they pour into this project is enough to get the job done.

7/10

Tuscoma - Discourse

Tuscoma’s follow-up to the wildly eccentric Arkhitecturenominus is gets off to a slow start with its rather generic churn of blowtorch-blackened post-metal through its first two tracks and is short on risks for the reputably ambitious duo, but Discourse does eventually kick in to dig deep to tap as much of the frightful potential of the band’s sound and showcases a decent example of what the New Zealanders are known for and of lies out in left-field of post-metal.

6/10

Executioner’s Mask - Despair Anthems

Making their debut as a collective for Profound Lore, the quintet of seasoned post-punk creatives embark on an eccentric voyage through darkwave on a ship of modern gothic rock, and the results are as fascinating as they sound on paper, recalling the cerebral ritualism of Children of God-era Swans as much as the energetically veiled despair of Type O Negative and AFI while dipping the rock elements into the industrial side of darkwave every now and then. And again, the product is an effortless immersiveness into the record’s moody journey, not through atmosphere-building, but through the infectiousness of the goth dance numbers take you on. It’s certainly more of a metal-adjacent album than a bonafide metal album, but the way the band captures the despair they set out to is as effective through more subtly seething means as DSBM’s best, and the band’s adventurousness with their sonic palette alone makes for an interesting listen, or several, as I will certainly be giving this project more than its fair share of my ears.

8/10

Ensiferum - Thalassic

Very similar to Amon Amarth’s longtime solidification of their sound, the Finnish talents seem able to simply exhale exhilaration through their both tried-and-true and continually honed black-reinforced power folk metal. And it’s clear the band are on autopilot at least to some degree on Thalassic here because the writing is pretty homogeneous and formulaic nearly all the way through; that being said, the sheer energy of the band’s performances into a sound experience allows them to wield so effortlessly more than carries them across the seas they sing of.

7/10

Bedsore - Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Stepping out from the shadows of Italy to present the great big world of metal with their forty-minute debut-album, the four-piece on the 20 Buck Spin label make their grand atmospheric aspirations for their brand of death metal immediately known across seven tracks of hellish wails and haunted ambiance. Taking ominous clean guitar motif-writing and structuring influence from Neurosis to the point of uncannily resembling “Souls at Zero” on the second track, “The Gate, Closure (Sarcoptes Obitus)”, Bedsore still inject plenty of their own distorted flair into the cavernous death-metal-flavored howl they espouse on Hypnagogic Hallucinations. The band do bank rather heavily on the immersiveness of the atmosphere they try to conjure, leaving a blind spot in the album’s dynamic beyond the fluctuations between clean and distorted nightmare. Compositional shortcomings aside, this is a solid debut to set the Italians on a bright prospective future.

7/10

Spirit Possesion - Spirit Possesion

Blackened thrash metal is one of those smaller subgenres within metal that feels more like a niche occupied by a few stalwarts like Aura Noir, Goatwhore, and Deströyer 666, but now Spirit Possession is making the bid to join those ranks and potentially turn more spotlight onto the specifically hybridized style. The band’s self-titled debut brims with the thrash enthusiasm of Bathory and the old-school riffing that shaped the way the early progenitors of black metal composed theirs, and not only is the Portland duo’s riff-game on point, but goddamn does it sound savory and spicy as hell through the more flattering production and against the backdrop of modern black metal a la Watain. The nasty chug on the song “Swallowing Throne” really highlights the benefit of the thicker, tastier production. The exceptionally grand “Amongst Inverted Castles and Holy Laughter” is a fine example of the band straddling old and new with impressive flexibility, while the bulk of the album's indulgence into early black metal and thrash is impossible not to want to indulge with, like a really fun party with a good crowd that makes it so much easier to have a few more drinks than you originally intended to.

8/10

Defeated Sanity - The Sanguinary Impetus

Through just enough delicious riffing, memorable accentuation, and technicality on par with Dying Fetus packed into structurally creative bite-sized portions, brutal death metal stalwarts Defeated Sanity somehow make a pretty persuasive take-it-or-leave-it case for the genre.

7/10

Paysage d’Hiver - Im Wald

The boldly two-hour debut double-album from Paysage d’Hiver is also a bit of a double-edged sword, basing partly its very ethereal black metal atmosphere on the homemade sound that regularly kneecaps the grander feel the project is going for. And the album does indeed reach some soaring heights of blizzard-stung ambiance, which the biting sound of the tinny, but engaged, percussion and the vexed swooning of the tremolo-picked guitar playing across the album’s several indeed well-organized lengthy tracks. It takes a lot to trudge through the long path covered in thick snow that this album sets out on, and the lo-fi production often doesn’t help the individual elements that make Im Wald enjoyable stand out, and it can be all too easy to get lost in the homogeneous whitewash of the hazy winter wind. It’s a rewarding journey to finally make it all the way through with unbroken attention, but blame for the easiness of that attention being lapsed can at least partially be placed on the shoulders of Paysage d’Hiver for its mastermind’s one-note approach to an otherwise well-arranged and well-composed album.

7/10

Gaerea - Limbo

Despite the members’ faceless appearances behind their fully-covering black cloth masks, Gaerea’s music does not hold back its sorrowful outpour through heavy atmospheric black metal that crashes through and drowns like torrential flood waves as much as it tears at the heartstrings through unabashed languishing. The massive weight of the band’s sound invokes the feeling of being in the presence of an incarnate deity weeping at the ills of mankind and the destruction they have forced this deity to bring about. Abstract descriptors of the album’s experience aside, the band aren’t really doing too much new for the atmospheric black metal they’re making, not breaking any rules or pushing any boundaries, but everything that makes the genre so attractive is turned up to eleven. I was ready to be as critical as ever, but I could immediately see not long into my first listen why Season of Mist were so excited to hype up the Portuguese outfit’s incredibly accomplished sophomore release. The guitar playing is simultaneously powerful and beautiful, much like that of the Ulcerate album from earlier this year (Stare into Death and Be Still) that I also loved, and the drumming is just as ceaselessly thunderous in support. The lamenting screamed vocals are possibly the least exaggerated facet of the album, but certainly not the the point of being unfitting, in fact they fit the chaotically despondent mood quite well, or a detriment to the record’s overall barrage of mourning. As for how all these massive pieces are arranged, they all crash in synchronized waves in a fashion, again, not at all unfamiliar to anyone who’s heard blackgaze, but the raw passion of the band’s performances exemplify why this strategy is so widely adopted for atmospheric black metal. Gaerea have made quite the statement of intent on this one, and I will definitely be enjoying it repeatedly throughout the year and beyond.

9/10

Upon a Burning Body - Built from War

Upon a Burning Body went full Lamb of God last year with their very trim and direct 31-minute fifth LP, Southern Hostility, focusing their efforts on making their southern brand of groovy deathcore as tastily whiskey-soaked as possible, laying on the groove heavily and unrestrained in a way that I thought definitely worked in their favor. Just a year later, the band are back with a 17-minute addendum to their infectiously brash display of muscular bravado, and it’s pretty much as brutishly intense as expected as the band bounce through single-string grooves and ripping drum rhythms to the same conclusions they did last year, only this time it feels so much more fatigued, like they’re trying to artificially replicate this genuinely pissed off attitude that produced results for them despite just not being in that kind of headspace at the moment. The songs are pretty baseline for them and generic as fuck, missing that X factor that made Southern Hostility’s distilled rage so tangible and fun. Built from War has some of the staple features that made its predecessor such a good time, but despite its few high-energy moments across the five tracks, it feels like an unnecessary rehash of the lightning in a whiskey bottle they had last year, just no lightning, so empty whisky bottles that bear the smell to remind you of what was previously in them.

5/10

The Acacia Strain - Slow Decay

I have been pretty harsh on The Acacia Strain in the past; they haven’t come up much on my blog, but the times they have, I feel I’ve been a little overly critical of their use of elements that I’ve perceived as excessive that they’ve used to forge their recognizable sound. The band released a mini album (It Comes in Waves) on Closed Casket Activities just before last year was over and I didn’t even hear it until a few months in to this year, and honestly, I wasn’t all too broken up about it because it was some of the band’s most lethargic, meandering material to date; dragging aimlessly until the last two tracks of the album, a significant step down from 2017′s already middle-of-the-road Gravebloom. So with those albums in recent memory I was kind of not looking forward to Slow Decay all too much, but a few days before its release, I refreshed myself on the band’s 2014 album, Coma Witch, which I remember as a culmination of what The Acacia Strain had been trying to morph their horrific, hardcore-tinged deathcore into since Continent, and it was a great time, that album, and it made me a little more hopeful for the band’s tenth LP (if you count It Comes in Waves). And Slow Decay indeed has The Acacia Strain back on track after the stuttering of the past two releases. The burgeoning metallic hardcore movement over the past few years has certainly vindicated The Acacia’s Strain’s steadfast adherance to their hardcore roots, and with there really being no time like the present for that kind of energy, the stars’ aligning has indeed brought the best out of The Acacia Strain. And on Slow Decay, it’s not like the band have changed up their hardcore-driven approach to djenty deathcore all too much from what they did on Coma Witch, they just sound energgized through a good batch of songs this time, the many situations at hand showing their influence on the rage the ban draws from bleeding through the lyrics ranging from critiquing anti-vaccine sentiments to blasting the snobbishly entitled attitude of boomers. The fiery disdain for the state of the world comes through hard on the blood-pumping chug of “Crippling Poison”, the punchy, pissed-off groove of “Inverted Person”, and the rest of the dissonant horror-tinged riffing all across the album, and it just goes to show that The Acacia Strain have found a groove that works for them and when they have the right fuel for their fire, they can incinerate anything in sight.

8/10

Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

After revolutionizing the method of jazzification of metal music on 2018’s Vile Luxury, I was ready for a satisfying continuation of jazzy death metal from Imperial Triumphant, but I was not prepared for the wildness of the band’s ambition with their sound and beyond and the incredible success of their sonic expansion on Alphaville. The band are still jazzy as fuck on their successor to Vile Luxury but they’re not advertising it as blatantly like a product-placed soda can this time around, partially because they can’t with so much else going on in the nightmarish mix of sounds. The combination of dissonant grand piano chords over palm-muted chugging and merciless blast-beats on “City Swine” is perhaps the most overt example of the trio’s love for the traditional sounds of the type of jazz often associated with the big apple, but the palpable jazz influence in the winding guitar lines and dizzying drumming all across Alphaville continues to set Imperial Triumphant apart even within their wing of metal’s avant-garde. Indeed, their sound reaches beyond mere genre hybridization; the band incorporates various avant-garde elements in an experimental, yet clearly well-engineered manner all over the album. From the haunting fuzzy dissonance and disorienting electronics of the title track and the odd inclusion of taiko drumming by Meshuggah’s Tomas Haake to the gloriously frightful choir climaxes on both “Atomic Age” and “Transmission to Mercury”, Alphaville is full of surprises, and a size-able step forward for a band already bounds ahead of the curve on their previous album.

9/10

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roadkilln · 4 years

Text

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION — KARA DAVIDSEN.

by unpopular demand, a new emotionally unavailable asshole brought to you by rylan! name: kara davidsen. age: thirty-four. affiliation: wicked wolves. role: manager of the drug dealers. gender identity: genderfluid (she/her + they/them). sexual orientation: pansexual. (warnings for abuse, child abandonment, drug abuse, violence, medical abuse) —

personality: words to describe kara’s character would seem, in most cases, too vivid and exaggerated. truth be told, she hardly looks to have a character at all: upon first meeting her, one might think her apathy is the only thing that characterizes her. she appears cold, unfeeling, something close to stone or the thick, hardened wood of beaten trees. once or twice she might crack a smile, offer a sharp-edged remark that will often result unwanted, unnecessary. her exterior personality (the side of her that gets dealt to most people, whether customers or fellow wolves) is caustic, carefully crafted to be a warning, a threat — it means do not get too close, i can’t protect you from what’s within. and what’s within is a thick pool of black tar she’s constantly trying to navigate (and constantly failing). it’s the part of her that’s tender, feeling: it’s the part of her that’s constantly grieving, holding on to guilt and regrets for she fears they make up the most of her identity, at this point. it is also the part that attaches herself to people: it is the part that leads her to protect, sometimes, rather than attack, the part that can laugh and find an unexpected sense of camaraderie in her position within the gang. yet this part is fragile — because of this, she protects it fiercely. her behavior, at times, might resemble that of a dog’s: angrily defensive, favoring aggression over diplomacy, often giving into animal-like instincts and impulses. you could perhaps call it over-compensation, as there is a part of her, deeply hidden and inaccessible, that is frightened and insecure, the way a child might be. it is the part of her that fears what she might become and lacks something to hold on to — the part of her that most heavily resents the lack of a family, the unknown origins of her heritage, the loss of the only other person she ever called home. it is the part of her that’s most fragile, and yet to defend it, to keep it from harm, she has been slowly turning into the very monstrous creature that part of her fears. positive traits: loyal, observant, clever, headstrong, generous, determinate. negative traits: proud, aggressive, cold, hot-headed, cruel, resentful. ___________

bio (trigger warnings : child abandonment, abuse, substance abuse, rehabilitation, medical abuse, death).

the two twins were left, discarded like unwanted leftovers — they found them in a cardboard box, half-freezing, on the doorsteps of the charming orphanage. they were given names that were supposed to be temporary, until a family would pick them up: the girl was named kara, the boy erik. their last name davidsen, from the nurse who found them, moira david.

it was clear from the very beginning that the two would have to fight teeth and nails for their place in the world, but while kara had a natural instinct when it came to barking and defending her and her brother’s freedom, erik was different — softer, less inclined to embody the ugly side of the world. the two barely ever left each other side, and kara, in particular, soon developing a violent protectiveness over her brother. this bond would allow them to sustain the abuse, the violence, the difficulties of their life in the orphanage. yet erik began suffering from the hardships of that life, and kara could see it — they’d turned twelve when she promised she would get him out of there. escaping the orphanage was easy, surviving was harder; as they neared the edge of starvation, kara was forced to begin stretching the lengths of what she’d do for her brother. on a chill autumn night, she broke into a farm to steal food for the two of them. erik followed close behind, stumbling — alerting the owner. the farmer found them, offered an ultimatum: i’ll call the cops, he said, unless you do me a favor. turns out the farmer, old mr. lowell, had various traffics for which two young, skinny kids could come in handy. they’d do work for him — carry packages across town, deliver messages, hide weapons. this life was not much different from the one they’d had at the orphanage — they’d still get beaten for speaking out of turn, they’d get starved for withdrawing a penny from lowell’s earnings. somehow, they got by. growing older, and angrier, and hungrier, they got by. until the day lowell got too drunk, too angry, and got too close to taking it out on erik — kara was quicker, his own shotgun aimed at him before he could harm her brother. lowell died, once again they were on the road. another kind of mr. lowell ended up taking them in. a gang of sorts, someone who had use for their talents. kara’s attitude for fighting and taking one, two, a hundred punches, proved her to be a great resource for the needs of criminal enforcers. erik’s charm, instead, proved to be a fruitful assets in selling drugs: they found a life of their own, as unlawful as it was, and kept surviving on their own. erik was too soft for this world. she’d known from the beginning, and yet it still caught her off guard. the drugs got the best of him, swallowed him whole — after he’d given in to a manic episode in public, he was forcefully committed to a rehabilitation facility where the limits of ethics were more than a little stretched. they’d abuse him verbally, physically, use prescription drugs on him too liberally until he was left a screaming, aching mess of a human being. once kara learned of this (once she was able to track the place they’d taken him to), she followed through with the promise she’d made him years before: them against the world, no matter what. somehow, she managed to break him out of the facility. somehow, he got his hands on drugs again. erik overdosed at the age of 27. though she’d known anger before, this was the first time kara experienced pain. on her own, with no destination, or even a reason to keep moving forward, she ended up back in the place where she’d began. charming, california — old contacts allowed her a way into the gang of the wicked wolves, where she soon found erik’s old ability for drug dealing to be innate. she was good at dealing, even good at fighting for respect. within years, a promotion of sorts put her in charge of the drug dealers - in a way, she thought, this was still her looking after erik. though she didn’t care about the feud going on in charming, never did, really — she found the conflict, the violence, to be the healing balm for her aching soul. she soon began fighting at renegade gym: though lacking discipline or any sort of training, she’d been fighting since the day she was born and could take punches for hours. the pain became a shelter, a relief. it kept her alert and out of her sorrow, out of her weakness. her life became a pantheon for violence — the fights, the wolves, and the drugs she wouldn’t use. each of them a replacer for something she couldn’t get anymore. each of them filling the fight she couldn’t lead with her brother anymore.

#charming.intro #FILE / now i think alike birds.#hello i did the stupid thing

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corvidry · 4 years

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Tell us about your gemsona

First of all, thank you for indulging me, this was unexpected.

Secondly, a cool fun fact about me is that I struggle to create anything that could be called any kind of -sona. I’m pretty indecisive when it comes to designs that are supposed to represent me. The closest I have is probably that little bird friend I draw on everything. I did have a moonstone design that I called my gemsona for like 5 minutes but I ended up not liking it very much. The design was kinda neat but that’s about it.

But I did have some pearl OCs back in the day when I was writing this big old au. Jokes on me half that shit is canon now lol. I’m actually in hell bc I I wrote down a ton of lore and worldbuilding stuff for that verse that I remember really well, but I wrote hardly anything about the OCs I put in that story. I don’t remember them super well which maybe means I ought to scrap and rewrite everything for the modern era. Here is some things I remember. Sorry if it’s uninteresting as hell.

Pearl OCs under the cut.

One (1) Big old tired looking reddish pearl

Unusually tall for a pearl. Very long. Highly desaturated color palette. Less “conventionally beautiful” than most other pearls by Homeworld standards purely because she wasn’t made against the existing standard. She is the only known pearl in existence who was made naturally and not born of artificial means, found by gems colonizing a planet that had a lot of water on the surface. White Diamond was so enamored by this strange and beautiful type of gem that she put resources toward discovering how to cultivate pearls artificially on Homeworld. Modern pearls look a little bit different from her, but the resemblance is undeniable. This pearl goes by “Red” most of the time in my head, primarily bc she is my only reddish pearl and because I was writing with friends who were using “Nacre” as a name already. She is held in slightly higher regard than your average pearl. She has the tiniest bit more freedom than other pearls. She is also one of the few gems every single pearl ever made knows of, as her primary job is overseeing the creation and culturing of of new pearls. She takes great pride in her work and she is generally loved and revered by the pearls who were made in her image.

One edgelord troublemaker pearl who is basically a Tahetian Pearl but if you bought it from Hot Topic

jk jk she’s a pretty sincere gem but she understands the system she lives in and really only acts out in subtle ways where she is unlikely to be caught. She’s around average height for a pearl if not slightly taller and dons a monochromatic color palette. She’s fairly high contrast, mostly in that black to white spectrum. I can’t for the life of me recall what this pearl goes by, but she’s known by other pearls for being dangerous and for engaging in risky behaviors. Well, risky by pearl standards.

I had originally written this pearl as having a relationship with our canon Crystal Gem Pearl early in their lives when they were brand new. They lived in the nursery where pearls are made waiting to be sold into service. She considered CG Pearl to be naive but found her eccentricities entertaining. One of the ways this pearl went about getting her kicks was in trying to goad CG pearl into breaking small rules with her. Rules about talking, about being too close to another, about being too social, and about being in the wrong place for a little too long, etc. Easier to do in a crowded understaffed pearl nursery than when the two of them would eventually graduate to actual service. They got up to a decent amount of trouble even if one party was always straying toward reluctant.

Ultimately they would have a very sweet relationship and part into service to not see each other again for thousands of years. For this pearl it becomes really jarring to learn that the extremely timid, mild mannered, well behaved pearl that she knew would be the one who went on to start the rebellion against homeworld. All this while she--the notorious rule breaker--slipped easily into a life of total submission to the system. They cross paths again by chance and she has a sort of crisis of identity when she realizes that she doesn’t know her friend anymore and neither of them turned out how she would have expected years ago. After years of falling complacent to the system, she begins seeking subtle methods of rebellion like she did years ago.

A little tiny peach/orangey pearl who is Illegal As Hell

This is a pearl who is both fortunate and unfortunate enough to live entirely outside the system that most pearls are subject to. She doesn’t have societal freedom for all the reasons every other pearl doesn’t, but she isn’t really beholden to her owner in the same way most pearls are. She and her “owner” have a strange arrangement, all things considered. This is because she is stolen and the gem she lives with isn’t exactly making her living above board. They have a sort of unspoken agreement that as long as she doesn’t turn her owner in and does what is needed to support their lifestyle, said owner does what she can to keep the pearl comfortable and largely invisible to the powers that be. This pearl may as well not exist on paper.

This pearl is extremely emotionally distant and largely doesn’t discuss her feelings, her past, or her thought process with anybody up to and including her owner. She’s extremely hard to know, even with gems she is close to. Because of her position as an illegal pearl she has a lot of access to other gems on the edges of society who are deviant or otherwise live counter to the system. I recall writing a bubbly love interest for her, well-groomed pearl who is extremely loved as a companion by her owner and how has a lot of freedom. It’s not that this particular pearl was any better than most people at getting the peach pearl to open up, rather, she is the kind of person who will stay interested in you even if you’re slow to open up. Because she has such a good relationship with her owner, she has a lot of insight into the unspoken aspects of peach pearl’s relationship with her totally-not-official illegal owner.

That’s mostly what I can think of right now. Pretty sure that story also had some interesting quartzes but I remember next to nothing about them. Again, I remember mostly lore and world building stuff so AU fans hit me up for gem lore I guess. Not sure if this is even a little bit interesting but thanks for the ask :)

#steven universe #my oc #gem oc #pearl oc #gemsona #long post #vulpine poltergeist

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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775

Do you always carry breath mints? No, I don’t find it essential considering I only get (or got, by now) a certain allowance per week and my budget is usually just right to fit in food, gas, other necessities, and maybe one or two nights of eating out. JM always brought a pack of those every day though and if I felt like I needed one, it was easy to ask him for one. On a side note, it’s so weird having to type these out in the past tense now that that part of my life is virtually over... What is the point of scented pens/pencils/erasers? I don’t think they have one. They’re just fun to have around if they’re new to you and you have a bit of extra money to buy them. Do you buy/wear band-aids with cartoon characters on them? No but we do have packs that come in different colors, which is entertaining enough for me. Are you amused by celebrity fashion flubs? Egh, not as much these days but it’ll sometimes be fun to look at what people are wearing at major events like the Oscars and Met Gala to see who hit the mark and who didn’t. What do you think your reaction would be upon entering the White House? Political feelings aside, I think I’d be as excited going there as I would be going to other tourist destinations. Bonus points if they’ve got a museum inside.

Do you buy and wear crazy looking socks? I wouldn’t call them crazy-looking, but I do like socks with wackier designs like if they’re sushi-themed or burger-themed haha. Would you run down the street wearing a tutu, fishnets, & flippers? That literally just sounds like a task that other college orgs make their applicants do as part of their application process. I’d do it if it was a dare or if something’s in it for me, but I wouldn’t on my own. Have you ever grown your own sea monkeys or dinosaurs? I don’t know what you mean. Would you want to travel into deep space? You kidding? I’ve wanted to go to space since I first read about people going to the Moon. I’d for sure do it if it was offered to me. Have you ever thrown a game controller (or the game) and broke it? Nah but pretty similar; I’ve often smacked my laptops when something goes wrong, like if the internet isn’t fast enough or if it hangs.

Did you ever own an Etch-a-Sketch? No. I think my mom did though. Do/did you ever have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling? Nope, but my dad’s family in Tondo had these, in my cousins’ room. When we went over to visit we’d typically spend the night, so every time it was lights out the stars were my favorite thing to see cause they felt pretty magical to me. Does your house have an attic that had stuff in it when you moved in? No. We don’t have an attic but our third floor is our rooftop. What movie were you really worked up for that ended up disappointing you? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. And this is gonna get so much flak, but The Shawshank Redemption. Does/did your school have special dress-up days? No for both schools I’ve been in. I do appreciate the fact that my current school has no dress code though. What cartoons did you watch when you were little? A lot, since kids are supposed to watch cartoons anyway lol. My favorite ones were Spongebob, Fairly OddParents, Mr. Bean, The Wild Thornberrys, Jimmy Neutron, House of Mouse, and The Emperor’s New School. Do you eat peanut shells along with the peanuts? I don’t. Have you ever gone white-water rafting? Nope. What part of a paper is hardest for you to write? Introduction. It sets the tone for your entire paper so if it isn’t good or appealing enough, it’s hard to follow through and come up with an excellent piece overall. Does your grandma wear an apron when she cooks? I never saw her wearing one, no. This is your chance to get it out! Place random rant here: Get me the fuck out of this house. How often do you need "me" time? These days I’ve had so much of it I wouldn’t even want it anymore for a while after this lol. Normally though, it’s important for me to have this at the end of the day. I’m always with a bunch of people and friends everyday in school and recharging by being alone is vital to me. Does it bother you that almost everything is done on computers now? Sometimes it can feel impersonal, like if you get invited to a debut or wedding through Facebook. But most of the time I find it convenient because everything is instant now. Have you ever gotten stuck in a revolving door? I don’t think so. There was a time I had fun going around a revolving door at the City of Dreams entrance for a few turns because I hadn’t seen one in a while hahahaha but I didn’t get stuck. Who is your favorite superhero? Not big on that whole genre. I guess I like Wonder Woman. KFC Chicken: original or extra crispy? Original please. What class in school do/did you secretly love? Idk, if I like a class I’d be vocal about it lol. What animal do you most resemble while eating? A human? Pop-Tarts vs. Toaster Strudels. Discuss: I’ve never had the second one and I really like Pop-Tarts, so the verdict here is prrrrretty obvious. Do you believe there are subliminal messages in songs? Like...Illuminati-wise? Lmao not at all, but people sure were busy trying to prove this about Beyonce and Lady Gaga back in 2009. I do think other intentional forms of subliminal messages exist, like how Hayley was actually singing the word ‘mercy’ when she sang the chorus to Simmer. Think about your first kiss. Did you have any idea what you were doing? No, she had to teach me how to move my lips and to not be scared and just go with the dance, because I was very nervous. Would you play Jumanji, if given the chance? I’ve never seen the movie, both original and remake.

Name a song lyric you heard wrong the first time and what it really said: I can’t recall an instance at the moment. Do you text/call while going to the bathroom? (Go multitasking!) I’ll bring my phone so I can scroll through Reddit or play games. Do you always make sure your cell phone is charged before going somewhere? Most of the time. I’ll still forget sometimes, though. Did you get Happy Meals just for the toys as a kid? No. They weren’t my kind of toys so I didn’t really ask my parents for Happy Meals. I asked for other toys I knew I’d have more use out of instead. Have you ever seen your parents cry? If so, how did it make you feel? My mom. She was crying because my sister did a very kiddie mistake, and I was mostly indifferent because at that point our relationship was severed, and also why the fuck would you cry over a little booboo your 8 year old daughter did? She was being dramatic that day and I had no fucking time nor pity for it. What are your thoughts on Chuck Norris? I mostly know him as a 9GAG meme but other than that I know nothing of him. Did you answer that last question with a random Chuck Norris fact? No.

What is the most annoying sound in the world? Boomers complaining and getting their uninformed opinion out in the open. Do you honestly care about calories and fat content? No. How do you feel about animal testing? Fuck outta here. Do you often shift blame towards others? No. This is what my mom did and continues to do, and like I’ve said before I’ve made it my life’s mission to not do the things she did. Do you ever feel like you're smarter than your boss? I don’t have a boss. But I definitely didn’t doubt my internship boss, she was obviously very wise and had gone through a lot to get to where she is today. Your very first best friend: Is he/she STILL your best friend? No. Do you add condiments to your ice cream, or just eat it plain? Nah dude what the hell? Have you ever witnessed a crime? I saw a car very nearly run over a group of pedestrians walking on the pedestrian lane, but the driver was able to hit the brakes before they hit them hard. What's the coolest personalized license plate you've ever seen? Not a lot of cool plates here considering we’re only allowed a maximum of three letters and three numbers. If a plate is personalized it’s usually the driver’s initials and birthday, and that is hardly interesting lol. Did you ever have a piggybank that literally ate your money? No.

#survey #surveys

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sunflowerspectre · 4 years

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Stranded | Dungeons and Dragons Commission Piece

This is a 5k commission piece for an anon with their DND characters.

Title: Stranded Fandom: Dungeons and Dragons (DND) Summary: Neronvain never expected anyone to find him after he left his family, but here he is. On a stranded island after getting 'caught' twice by the same dragon slayer who is determined to do her job and get him back home to face his punishment only for their ship to get completely destroyed. Character(s): Neronvain, Algatharas, Original Tiefling Character (Desire) Rating: Teen Warning: Suggested depression/mention of wounds and tending to said wounds

Requested Word Count: 5k

Final Word Count: 5,856

Read it on Archive of Our Own

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Stranded | Word Count: 5,856

Neronvain likes to think of himself as a strategist, a genius on his best days. He has seen the results of the impulsiveness of his brother, the folly of immaturity. He has prided himself on being smart - clever. Plotting out each of his actions, each possible route that he may take and thinking of all the different outcomes that can happen. He always thinks of everything.

It has saved his life as many times as it has almost doomed and condemned him, but he likes to think that the pros out way the cons. But there are certain things that, try as he might, he cannot plan for… Things like Chuth still living, the cult of the dragon queen still keeping him ensnared… Desire.

That blasted woman is part of the reason that he has to deal with this in the first place. If she were smarter - meaner, without mercy - than she would have killed him instead of taking him back, just as the rest of so-called heroes had wanted to do. He would have welcomed it - he could have accepted it with grace, knowing that he deserved it, that this was the only way that everything could be put to a stop.

But her mercy has saved his life - she saved his life - just as much as it has ruined it. He is amazed that someone as reluctant to unnecessary kills as her has even managed to get this far. He knows that he couldn’t take her in a fight - he couldn’t otherwise he would never have even been on the mercy end of her sword in the first place - but still, just how strong is she that she’s lived this long? How skilled is that - that idiot? How did that buffoon manage to do this to him?

That damn woman had taken him back to the kingdom that despises him. His life has become a secret scandal - the black sheep of the family being shoved into a dark closet hoping that no one will look too closely to see it there. His family wanted him brought back alive, so he says let them deal with it. If they wanted him alive so badly, then they can face the backlash of the council. They can handle the drama of his ‘rebellion.’

He was fully prepared to accept the ‘punishment’ of being in his room for all eternity. It was a childish move on his father’s part. Grounding him to a room like an unruly toddler. It is more of a punch to his pride than a real punishment, but he will gladly accept the tameness of it instead of the snares of some rotting cell. After all, the glories of such a mild punishment is that he knows he wouldn’t be there long.

He had already planned it all out. All it would take is a few whispers sent through the wind here. A few rumors there. Well planted and watered seeds. Someone would find out what happened. Someone would ignite the fire that would unleash the flames that would set him free.

Unlike him, his father never fully thought out his actions. Not the way he does. They fail to see that them hiding this all from the public lets him spin the public to his side. A chance to weave whatever story he wants the public to hear before his father can. Anything that his father would say after the fact would only condemn themselves. The public wouldn’t trust them, but he had the chance to make the public trust him. It would be perfect.

But that blasted woman. This is all Desire’s fault. She is the reason that all of his plans are crumbled. If she had killed him when she laid eyes on him, then none of this would be happening in the first place. If she at least killed Chuth, like the ‘dragon slayer’ she’s supposed to be, then he would be free from the cult. Then the cult wouldn’t have even broken him out and he wouldn’t be stuck in an even worse predicament.

After all, what is he supposed to say to a dragon that thinks he’s on its side? No?

__________________________________

“We’ll bring him back, Alagarthas,” Desire tries to keep her voice even - political - but her stomach turns. Hesitantly, she continues more firmly. “I’ll bring him back.”

Alagarthas paces frantically, looking more disheveled than she’s seen him. She eyes the destruction behind him, the remains of Neronvain’s room - his ‘jail cell.’ The ruckus wasn’t exactly quiet, far from discrete, but it is just minor enough for them to spin a story to tell the public to keep this all on the down low, secret. She hates all of this political nonsense - this drama.

Her eyes glance over Alagarthas. But it’s not so bad. He finally meets her gaze, his eyes glistening with worry. It makes her chest constrict - the idea that Neronvain is out there, doing whatever the hell all of this is, while he has family here that cares about him, worries about him.

Alagarthas gives her a ghost of a smile and takes her hands in his. The gesture takes her off guard - a deep flush spreading on her cheeks as she glances away from him, trying not to focus too much on the tingling sensation in her palms.

“I know that you will.” There is a full sincerity in his voice and she takes his hope in her to heart. “You’ll bring my brother back here, I’m sure of it, and I cannot thank you enough for it.”

“I - uh -” Desire sputters, she can feel her face getting warm, “-Don’t mention it.”

Alagarthas gives her an understanding nod and just as fast as he came to her, he’s gone, giving her his goodbyes over a fleeting shoulder as he mentions talking to his father about raising her payment for this. She mumbles under her breath, kicking the rubble under her feet, before she makes the decision to head out and get this over with.

__________________________________

The sooner she can get Neronvain and bring him back, the sooner she can put this all behind her.

Neronvain is not sure if he can think his way out of this one, if he’s honest with himself. The exhaustion may be playing a part in it, but every time he tries to think of a possible plan, he is coming up blank - nothing, nada, not one tiny possible escape. Honestly, if Desire had killed him, that would be the best possible escape from all this nonsense, but he doubts that she will be strolling around again anytime soon. He’d be lucky if his family sends anyone after him again at all.

And he never has been a fan of relying on other people to get him out of his mess either, which means he really is on his own this time. Each possible idea that he has, he can think of a million ways why it won’t work, why it would just get him killed, and if he is going to do this by himself, then he will be sure that he will get out alive. Just to spite them. With each failure, he begins to think that maybe he is not meant to get out of this after all. Maybe this is his fate and it’s time that he accepts that his hands will always be covered in blood.

“Heads up, you fucker!”

That sounds oddly familiar - why does it sound familiar? It certainly doesn’t sound like one of the members, the cult hardly speaks to each other as it is, so he has high doubts that any of them would be shouting at the top of their lungs especially with Chuth being so close by.

As he glances outside, just to see what the ruckus is, he realizes with horror just why the voice sounds so familiar.

Desire.

Oh. Oh she is most definitely going to kill him this time around.

__________________________________________

“Why didn’t you just kill me?”

Desire can feel her headache forming as she glances toward her prisoner. Neronvain scowls at her as he awkwardly shuffles forward on the desk of the ship that she’s acquired. His hands are bound, expertly she may add. It is only because no one wanted to carry him that his feet aren’t bound tightly and are just loose enough for a few steps. She looks him over carefully this time - after going through all of this trouble, twice, she can’t see why this guy is so worked up.

He doesn’t look like a cult member or the type that would be interested in it. She’s seen that type - his other cult members fit the bill perfectly, with that deranged look in their eye. Usually quiet unless you catch them on some world-ending rant, when they start spewing some nonsense about ‘cleansing the world’ or ‘being reborn as so and so if they do this’. Neronvain, however, looks kept together. Sane. Clean pressed and almost elegant.

She supposes that technically he is a prince so he shouldn’t look like the normal type of cult member, but still.

“Your family wants you alive,” Desire states simply, “...Your brother is worried about you too, you know?”

Neronvain looks away from her, almost in a huff. He doesn’t comment about his brother, instead shifting focus as he eyes the skies. He doesn’t like the darkening clouds in the distance, the thickness in the air. He can hear roaring in the distance. Something in his eyes shift, resembling almost fear - frustration. He tries to shuffle to turn toward her, but only manages it with little success.

“What type of dragon slayer are you if you can’t manage to kill Chuth,” Neronvain spits out.

“You know, technically, my job is to get you,” Desire points out, “I’ll get Chuth eventually, but I gotta get you home first.”

“I wish you the best of luck,” Neronvain’s voice drips with sarcastic wit, “Considering we are heading right toward a storm.”

“We are not -”

Desire stops. The roaring in the distance is drowned out by the growing rumble of the thunder. The dark clouds on the horizon are starting to look much bigger.

“Okay so maybe we are heading toward a storm,” Desire admits, “But at the storm will keep Chuth off our tails. Just - don’t do anything.”

Neronvain huffs, shrugging his shoulders to raise the shackles on his wrist as if to say what do you expect me to do? Desire winces, but doesn’t comment as she dashes off to prepare for the storm.

____________________________________________

No amount of preparing could have saved them - or their ship. The rolling waves only grow stronger and taller until their ship is encased in so much water that it threatens to break apart as the waves crash against them. Harsh sea water soaks them all as they struggle to salvage what they can, as if there is anything that they can do to keep their ship from falling apart into shambles.

Neronvain struggles to get back up on his feet each time a wave or the rocking of the ship knocks him to his knees. He spits up water and can taste the dirty salt on his tongue as his knees take a hard hit against the deck. He glances up with throbbing lungs to see Desire. She’s knelt down, looking panicked but still more kept together than the rest of the crew.

“Do you know how to swim,” Desire asks desperately, and when Neronvain doesn’t answer, she repeats herself more frantically, “Do you know how to swim?”

“Yes,” Neronvain finally speaks up.

She looks relieved as she starts to undo the bindings on his hands. He watches her with confusion, the rest of the chaos blurring around them, his brows furrowing. She even hands him - him, the prisoner - the knife to do the ones on his feet.

He makes frantic work of it, trying to recover from each wave that hits him fast enough that he will be free before the next one overcomes him. He glances up, almost prepared to return her knife, but she has already shuffled to somewhere else. He tucks the knife into his pocket.

_______________________________________

Desire wakes up spitting sea water, surprised that she is waking up at all. She doesn’t bother moving, not at first. Taking a moment to take in the clear skies above her and the warmth that is beating down on her face; it makes it tempting to just close her eyes again, go back to sleep. Figure it out later.

She can feel sand underneath her hands, some of it getting under her still semi-soaked clothes. She coughs, turning to spit up a bit more water, and decides it is best to figure out where she is now then work from there. She sits up and slowly stands, stretching out her muscles as much as she can.

The good news is that she did wash up on an island - not some sandy patch of land that’s only exposed during the low tides. An island can be good - means more resources, more land to explore and less likely that the rising tides will be a threat.

The downside is that she doesn’t spot anyone else on the island - not yet at least, but if it was a well populated island then someone would have already spotted her. She starts to walk around the shore. She’s not sure how deep the trees go and she can’t risk getting lost. But walking around the shore, she can get an idea how big the island is and it is more likely that she will come across someone.

She doesn’t even see smoke from any chimneys or fires or hear anything other than some sparse birds and insects. It’s all just trees and sand. Her hopes of finding someone start to dash as she gets the sinking feeling that the island isn’t as big as she first thought it was.

She almost gives up the idea all together when she spots a figure in the sand in the distance and makes a fast beeline for them. The closer that she gets to them, the more familiar that they look. Despite wondering just what she did to deserve being stranded with her apparent ‘prisoner’, she still rushes to them to check to see if he is still alive.

His eyes are closed and he looks in bad shape with bruises and cuts along his body. Unlike when she washed up, he is closer to the tides and she is sure that constantly being soaked isn’t helping his condition. She checks his pulse first - it’s faint, but still there.

Mumbling curses under her breath and with the memory of Alagarthas asking her to bring his brother back alive, Desire checks Neronvain over for any external head injuries or major wounds before she puts her hands under his arms and drags him away from the incoming tides.

Alright one thing at a time, Desire thinks sourly as she tries to focus on what should be done first. She thinks that she will save drying him for last since eventually she’d have to make a fire and shelter. Hesitantly, she lays her ear against his chest and hears the rumbling, struggling breaths in his lungs. She eyes his still-unconscious form, the blue-ish tint to his lips don’t look good.

Cursing, she does her best to pound his chest the best that she can without injuring him further. She takes a small break in between each beat to check on him. She prays that this works - she really doesn’t want to do mouth to mouth if she doesn’t have to. To her relief, he spits up the water and starts to take deeper breaths.

His eyes flutter open and look at her curiously before they flutter close again. She sighs with the realization that getting him better so she can fulfill her promise to Alagarthas, will be harder than expected.

_______________________________________________

She starts each morning with the same routine - getting water from the creek, boiling it and splitting it between the two of them. She makes cups out of the coconuts that she finds - mixing their milk with the water in hopes that it will perk him up. She gets him to drink his first. It’s always slow, always barely enough, but it is enough. Then she drinks his water. She repeats the process with breakfast with whatever fish she can find - sometimes it’s a bird, but they’re faster than she gives them credit for.

She’s hesitant when it comes to his wounds - at least at first. The knife that she has is dull and smaller than the one she usually has on her - the one that she used to cut his ropes was one of her better knives. But the small slightly rusted blade does its job at cutting away some of the fabric of his clothes to reveal his wounds.

She uses the spells she knows. It helps to a degree, it at least stops the bleeding and keeps it from getting infected. She has to apply some of the spells daily on the deeper, darker gashes. But the makeshift bandages that she makes from the torn pieces of her own clothing, the pieces she cut off of him, and an odd combination of dried seaweed and leaves.

There are a few times where he comes to - with fluttering eyes and mumbling elvish that is too soft for her to catch even if she did speak the language. Sometimes he acknowledges her presence. Most of the time he doesn’t. But he’s never conscious enough for her to talk to him and never long enough to ease her worries about him surviving. Healing him takes time - more time than Desire thought it should, to the point where a part of her wonders if she needs to start preparing for the worst case scenario.

But as long as he is still breathing when she gets up in the morning, then she’ll keep trying. As long as there is a chance for him to survive, she’ll continue and refuse to give up.

_____________________________________

Neronvain has to admit, venomously, that Desire did a decent job at tending to his wounds - just as the shelter and food that she’s tending to is passable. Or at the very least the food is edible and the shelter keeps the rain off of them.

He eyes the start of the rain just outside of their makeshift shelter and looks up. At least there are no leaks. His stomach rumbles and he huffs in annoyance and shifts, every bone in his body protesting the movement.

“Why did you free me,” Neronvain’s voice speaks up as he eyes Desire nonchalantly, making no effort to help her maintain the struggling fire.

There is no curiosity in his voice, nor sincerity. Instead, his voice is laced with mild annoyance and irritation. Frustration that he is still alive.

It’s not the first time that he wished that she would have finished the job off when they first met. But by now, she’s had multiple chances to simply finish him off. Feed him to the sharks for all he cared. To get rid of him. But each time, she has gone out of her way to keep him alive.

It’s annoying.

Desire’s brow twitches, her patience thinning at the constant nag from Neronvain. She expected him to be grateful that she saved his life, but she supposes that’s asking too much of the rebellious cultish prince.

“Considering that you’re no help, I wonder the same thing,” Desire spits out between grinded teeth before letting out a cheer as the fire starts to roar. “But I don’t make a habit of killing people that I already promised to bring back alive.”

She pauses and then adds, “-or you know, killing people in general. It seemed right to at least give you a chance.”

Neronvain scoffs, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard. Bringing me back alive doesn’t benefit you - my family would pay you for even trying in the first place and it doesn’t take a lot to make some lie about my death.”

“I don’t make a habit of doing things just because they benefit me,” Desire spits, “It’s always a plus if it does, but I’m not going to just sit back and watch someone die when I can help - just like I don’t go back on my promises. I said I would bring you back alive, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

“You really think that you’re so much better than everyone else because you keep your word? Because you don’t bloody your hands?”

Neronvain’s words are laced with venom and anger that Desire has a hard time not matching as her shoulders tense, her voice rising to match his.

“Of course fucking not!” Her voice strains, “But when your morals are all you have, you tend to hang onto them, not that I expect you to know much about that considering I’ve had to drag your ass out of a cult twice! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to make it a third time.”

A part of her hopes that that would be the end of the conversation as she works on rotating the meat that she obtained. The minor pause of silence that follows makes her breath a sigh of relief until Neronvain speaks up again.

She is ready to bite back against whatever criticism he has to say, but stops short as he speaks.

“I wish you would have killed me,” Neronvain spits out venomously, his lips curling in a snarl, “It would have been easier on everyone involved.”

Neronvain doesn’t even look at her, just absently leaning back with his eyes closed. The anger that’s been boiling in her veins simmers as she swallows thickly.

“Don’t get your fucking hopes up. If I killed you when I had the chance then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of your company on a stranded island. Instead, I would have resorted to talking to a coconut.”

He goes quiet, the tension slowly starting to thin out in the air. He sits up without a word. She almost smiles, believing him to help her until he simply plucks a piece of the cooked meat off the bone and then sits back with his haul.

Dick.

_____________________________

Desire doesn’t question the odd barrel of liquor that she finds on the shore, nor the chances of it washing on the same abandoned island that they’re on. Instead, she is quick to check it over and after confirming that it is not water-logged and still tastes fine, she starts to make quick work of it.

Neronvain has a bit of it, reluctantly and more out of boredom than anything. There is only so much boiled river water one can drink before getting tired of it. He doesn’t complain when Desire drinks more than her fair share, not particularly caring if she emptied the entire barrel herself. It’s almost amusing to see her stumble around, making a fool of herself.

But his few drinks slowly start to add up and while he’s considerably behind Desire in amount consumed, he can feel the numbing, foggy effects of the alcohol starting to take hold.

“I have to ask,” Desire finally addresses him, her breath reeking of the liquor. She is uncomfortable close and Neronvain gently pushes her away with the tip of his finger with disdain. She looks down at his finger with confusion and bats it away, not taking the message.

Irritated, Neronvain settles on huffing and giving up on trying to push her away.

“You don’t look like a cult member,” Desire confesses, “All the other guys, sure. They ha- had that whole crazy look in their - their eyes. Wouldn’t stop screaming about the dragon and all that shit. But you - you seem - normal? Put together?”

“Not a crazy cult leader,” Neronvain offers and she nods frantically.

“Yeah! How the fuck did a prince like you end up so high up in a dragon cult?”

Neronvain takes a large gulp of the coconut shell that they've been using as their makeshift mugs. He mulls it over a minute. When he blinks, he can see himself arguing with his dad over the betterment of their kingdom, arguing for change, arguing to fix the broken system. He can still hear his father’s voice echoing in his eyes, stripping him of his title. Handing it over to Alagarthas on a silver platter.

Documents. Plans. Blueprints. All gone to waste. Everything he had dedicated his life to - granted, he was still young at the time but still, that was his life’s dream - all for nothing.

“My father abandoned me first,” Neronvain reasons, “So I abandoned him. I tried to change the kingdom so he named Alagarthas the crown heir.”

Desire sputters, musing over his response and twitching her nose. She is all too familiar with politicians - old kings and dukes refusing to fix anything, refusing to change because if the system benefits them then what is so broken about it? Kings turning a blind eye to their people. She imagines that Neronvain wasn’t the favorite among any of them, even before all of this happened.

She thinks of Alagarthas. Kind eyes. Nice smile. Soft hands. She imagines that he would be a good king - he seems to really listen, really care about his kingdom. The people certainly like him. The redness on her cheeks deepen, but she blames it on the drink.

“For like what 100 - 200 years?” Desire presses, “ Alagarthas thought you were dead.”

“I may as well have been,” Neronvain sighs deeply, “The truth is, they were the first ones to listen to me - encouraged my ambition, no matter how misguided it may have been.”

Desire nods and to Neronvain’s relief, stops pressing and asking questions, leaning back away from him with a thoughtful look on her face.

“I understand.”

Her simple declaration takes him by surprise, but he masks it with a suspicious glare. Desire isn’t quite looking at him though, just staring into the coconut shell as she idly stirs the liquor it holds.

“We all make mistakes, get caught up in the wrong crowd sometimes,” Desire admits, “That doesn’t completely excuse what we did, but it definitely makes sense. I mean, if I’m - I’m not doing okay, then some guy says hey if you join this cult and worship this dragon then we’ll take care of you, I think I would have said yes too.”

She stops there, humming slightly as a melancholic understanding passes between them. She looks to him briefly and raises her coconut at him. He gives a curt nod and raises his shell to hers before they finish off the barrel.

____________________________________

Desire is the first one to spot the ship on the horizon. The setting sun basking its silhouette, distorting it like a heat-induced mirage, only made it harder to believe. It didn’t stop Desire from trying - standing ankle-deep in the tides of the shore with waving arms, shouting at the top of her lungs as if the gods themselves were going to come get her.

Eventually Neronvain realizes that the distortion caused by the sun and distance is just a trick of the eye. That really is a ship that is starting to turn, toward them, sails fanning out in the wind. Desire’s shouting only gets louder, more frantic and hopeful. He looks on in disbelief, a sense of almost relief in his chest that turns to dread when he sees the colors of a familiar flag.

He sits back with a numbing sensation spreading throughout his body, his hands starting to tingle. His mouth starts to go dry as the realization that what is Desire’s saving grace is going to be his doom. The fact that his father really sent other ships out just on the off chance of getting him back home tells him all he needs to know about what they plan to do with him when he arrives.

The sand starts to feel comforting between his fingers - the grainy sensation reminding him that he is here. That this is real. That this is happening. He wasn’t sure what his punishment would be, but the chilling knowledge of what is going to be waiting for him now - an angry father eager to get him back to send a message - it makes him almost not want to leave the island at all.

But he stands up, on slightly shaking feet. Desire offers to help him, but he stops her before the words out of her mouth. His eyes are dead on the ship as he rolls his shoulders and lifts his chin. For all his talk, he never really thought that this would happen. He never really grasped the belief that the kingdom would be finished with him when he got back - a very small part of him thought that for as much as they all hated him, that there was always a small chance for him to do better. He doesn’t want to die - and especially not by the order of his father.

But he can’t deny it now. He feels it in his bones. He can feel the glistening in the corner of his eyes. He’s not sure if Desire mistakes it for the relief of being rescued or if she simply does not notice it, but either way, she doesn’t say anything as the ship starts to get as big as the idea of going back home.

______________________________

Desire is thankful that they’ve been rescued, really, she had fully expected to just survive on the island until she simply couldn’t any longer. She didn’t expect any ships to see them, but she supposes if she were as eager as the king to get Neronvain back and had the money to send out as many ships as it took just to get an answer, then she isn’t going to complain.

But the compliments - first from the ship’s crew, then as they find themselves back in the kingdom, she gets it from the maids, the servants, the politicians - the king. Thank you for keeping Neronvain in check until we arrived. I can’t imagine being stranded on the island for two months with that monster. You’re a hero for bringing him back to us, I imagine that it must not have been easy.

It makes her uncomfortable. Sick. It doesn’t feel right when she receives her payment from the king. It most definitely doesn’t feel right when Neronvain is taken away in chains and shackles that weigh more than he does. She glances toward Alagarthas who looks close to biting his own nails out of anxiety. He meets her eyes and shares the same worried gleam in his eyes. He almost looks surprised to see it in hers too.

Desire sticks around, overstaying her welcome to a point, but when she simply claims that she still feels seasick, most people leave her alone. They give her a small, cramped, room to stay in until she gets better - claiming that it’s the least that they can do until she gets better after all the trouble she went through. She accepts it with grinding teeth and a locked jaw.

When she sticks to the shadows to overhear their plans - what punishment that they have decided - she expects to get relief that she did the right thing, but when the word execution is spoken, she feels fire under her skin. She has to bite her tongue, dig her nails into her palms, to keep herself from speaking out.

She doesn’t think that anyone is on to her until Alagarthas pulls her into an empty closet. The close quarters makes her heart skip a beat and her cheeks flush as Alagarthas puts a finger to her lips as a signal to stay quiet.

Alagarthas listens closely through the door before he takes a deep breath and removes his finger from her lips, seemingly oblivious to the way that she licks her bottom lip afterward.

“We have to save him,” Alagarthas whispers, his voice frantic and desperate, “They want to kill him. They want to kill my brother.”

A cold chill runs down her spine, a single icicle hitting her right in the heart. She never really thought about what may happen to Neronvain after she brought him back, but she had figured that it wouldn’t be too harsh considering their first punishment was just locking him in his room. She thought that the king would have mercy for the firstborn.

She can see the way the colors of Alagarthas’ eyes swirl together and she tries not to lose herself in them.

“How do we save him,” Desire asks, meeting his gaze evenly as the butterflies in her stomach settle.

“I have a plan - I think if we both vouch for him, if we make them see that he still has some good left, that they may consider rehabilitation. I don’t think they’re willing to put him in a cell after seeing him break out the first time.”

“You were stranded with him,” Alagarthas looks at her pleadingly, “You didn’t know him very well, but you were stuck with him for two months. As an outsider who was stranded with him, your word on it has weight to it! I’m sure of it.”

Desire doesn’t think about it - not too long nor hard. She sees the desperation in his eyes, the pleading in his tone. Alagarthas is grasping for something - anything - that he thinks may save his brother’s life.

“I’ll do it.”

___________________________

Desire is tight-lipped and uncomfortable as she takes her leave, her things gathered on her donkey. At least the castle stable has kept Carrot in good condition while she was away, she was sure that they would have auctioned him off by now. She gives a few pats to the mule’s head, but still hasn’t spoken a word.

What can she say? She didn’t expect Alagarthas’ plan to work, at least to a degree. The council had more or less decided that if she was so eager to save the life of Neronvain, then that makes him her problem. All while under the disguise of ‘rehabilitation.’ There are conditions of course, but ultimately, they thought that if anyone can handle Neronvain then who better suited than the dragon slayer? The same one who had been keeping him in check for two months on an island without ‘dying by his hands?’ The same who brought him back twice. Alive and mostly unscathed.

She isn’t sure if she can explain this one to the rest of her party - to her friends - when she finds them.

She glances toward Neronvain. He refuses to look at her, looking more frustrated about this than she does. She imagines that considering he wasn’t thrilled about her saving his life the past two times now - that he is even less thrilled about being rescued a third time.

“Well,” Desire finally speaks up, popping her mouth. She gives a cheeky, oops sorry smile to Neronvain. “I guess you’re stuck with me now.”

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #forgotten realms #cult of the dragon #neronvain #algatharas #original tiefling character #fanfiction #fanfic #commission #myworks #mycommissinos

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