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hourglass-dreams · 2 years

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More Encanto Headcanons because why not🕯

Isabela absolutely adores insects, snakes, lizards, etc.. She wasn't able to express her interest in them for most of her life so when she got to, you can bet she started keeping a bunch of little critters as pets. Her carnivorous plants take care of the ones that try to eat her creations 😈

The funny total opposite, Mariano is fucking terrified of big bugs and snakes, he will practically jump in Dolores' arms if he sees one while Isa will just laugh her ass off.

Bruno gave Mirabel a music box when she was 4 years old. After he left, she never played with it again because it made her sad and she forgot about it.

Before they got to know each other, Félix would play the guitar and sing a song he wrote about admiring Pepa from afar around the village.

Not gonna lie, I like the "wine mom Pepa" headcanon though I'm not sure if that fits in with the culture since wine isn't a big thing in Colombia, correct me if I'm wrong.

Dolores is attuned to the sound of everyone's heartbeats, it helps ground her when things get too loud and overwhelming. (For instance if she's there is a lot of conflict or there's just a lot going on, she can focus on Mariano's heartbeat since its usually slow and calming. She can also focus on others as well) on the other hand. There are situations where this doesn't work. If everyone's heart is pounding all at once without a single calm one, of course she's going to be just as stressed.

Camilo is A LOT like his father in that he's a major goofball and a prankster like Félix used to be when he was younger. He can also handle very emotional situations well for his age (this mainly came from growing up with Pepa). Despite this though, he's closer to his mother. 💛

Though she hates to admit it, Luisa will get muscle strain if she works too hard for too long and will be in immense pain. So to prevent this from happening as often as it did, Julieta will give her fresh food while she is working. When the family all come back home, Isabela will grow Luisa's favorite plants and make tea with them. And basically give her a personal spa treatment 💕

Speaking of tea, on discovering how much she can grow, Isabela started to grow tea leaves along with lavender, chamomile flowers, jasmine, mint leaves and other things of that nature. So she makes tea from these plants. Sometimes her and her mom with have a little mother-daughter day where they just make stuff together. It's adorable 💖

Pepa and Dolores do have a close relationship, but Pepa often worries that her storms scare or hurt Dolores because of her gift. Pepa's emotional storms only scare Dolores if they're directed at her, that probably means she's in trouble 😅

Antonio was vegan (or tried his best to be) for about a year but then he witnessed how violent the food chain can be. 😅 he asked his animal friends if they were bothered by him eating animal products and they were basically like, "we eat each other so.. nope." He just won't eat meat in front of whatever animal it came from, it still feels wrong to him.

Alma did not trust Agustín whatsoever when him and Julieta started dating. She thought he was a distraction and taking advantage of her (which is ironic considering the whole town started to take advantage of them but anyway.) It had to take them marrying and building onto the family for her to respect him.

Félix on the other hand had it a little easier. Alma saw how he was able to calm Pepa's storms and how charming he was. (Which of course was opposite to Agustín's awkwardness).

After Julieta and Pepa got married, you can bet Alma tried to persuade Bruno to find a woman and marry as well 😅. Bruno was always exponentially nervous when it came to talking to women. Almost every woman thought of him as the creepy harbinger of doom so that didn't help.

I don't really have any headcanons in place of Bruno's sexuality. If one day I'm like "nevermind he's ONLY into guys" then cool but right now, he's just into whatever I think he'd be into. Right now it's women because women are great 😅

Speaking of girls, Isabela thought she was bisexual for a long time until she started dating Maya, then she looked back at all the times she dated guys and she discovered that she never liked them the way she liked girls ^^

Maya was the opposite, she always thought she was lesbian because only ever wanted to date girls until she started interacted with guys more, then she realized that she has romantic and sexual feelings for both. So she's bi 💖.

Isabela and Maya both thought Alma was going to hate their relationship. Isa expected her to shut them out of the family but nope. Alma is wary of their relationship but mainly because she's worried about their safety. She isn't hateful but she knows there are a bunch of people that go out of their way to cause harm. She doesn't want that for her granddaughter or Maya.

Isabela still has phantom pains from the Hanahaki Disease. She'll feel like something is growing in her lungs and get worried that Maya doesn't love her anymore only to be reassured that she does 🌸

Bruno often uses his rat novelas not only as an escape but as a way to process his thoughts and emotions. The characters feelings may reflect how he's feeling in that moment. When he got out of the walls and started playing these for his family, he didn't think they would notice but they did, especially Mirabel, his mother and his sisters. So whenever a plot in his story is very sad, one of them will pull him to the side and ask if he's okay even when he is 💚

#i know a lot of these are Isabela 😅#encanto #bruno madrigal #disney encanto #agustin madrigal #julieta madrigal #mirabel madrigal #abuela alma madrigal #camilo madrigal #isabela madrigal #antonio madrigal #dolores madrigal #pepa madrigal #felix madrigal #luisa madrigal #mariano guzman #encanto headcanons

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reidyoulikeabook · 3 years

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Right Where You Left Me

Ship: BAU! Gender Neutral! reader x Spencer Reid

#Request - Could you do some angst with “you dont deserve my forgiveness?” Any ship!

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: Mention of death, violence, injury (not serious), angst, mourning, a lot of tears. Also, swearing, anger, fighting (verbal, not physical.)

Summary: You and Spencer Reid had been together for a year before he ‘died.’ You grieved him. You mourned him.

A/N: Title stolen from my (current) favourite Taylor Swift song. Not sure how I feel about this one but! Here it is anyway! My requests are open & pls feel free to let me know what you think!!

14 days and 30 minutes exactly

You don’t think about the day Spencer Reid died. You can’t, because even remembering he’s dead feels as if an ice bucket has been tipped over your head. Not even now, two weeks later, have you really gotten over the initial shock that you felt. Every waking moment felt like you were trying to solve some kind of never-ending puzzle. Each emotion was overwhelming, too much to process. It felt like things would only start to get better, like everybody promised they would, when you started to be able to name the emotions rather than describe them as the physical sensations they brought on.

And you didn’t think that’d happen anytime soon.

The shared apartment was too much. You hadn’t slept in your bed since he’d been gone, and forbid anyone else from going into the bedroom. It was a sanctuary.

You understood now more than ever why victims families never changed a thing about the room of their loved ones. Every single thing felt deliberate. Theirs. It was a reflection of the time they were most alive, living. A unique snapshot of them in motion. The mess they left that they expected to come home to.

Rationally, you knew that wasn’t true. There wasn’t a sock hanging off Spencer’s bedside table, or a clean cardigan balled up on the floor, for any reason other than he’d been in a rush that morning, and had left an uncharacteristically large mess in his wake. In more ways than one.

***

2 months, 5 days, 8 hours

Being back at work helps somewhat, but the office feels empty without him there to ramble off factoids about anything and everything, to hear Morgan calling him ‘kid’ every five minutes. He only called you that now.

Simmons is nice, really he is. It isn’t his fault he’s there in place of Spencer and you try hard not to feel personally aggrieved by his presence. He doesn’t do anything to antagonise you, he stays out of your way more than anything. You don’t do anything to purposely make him uncomfortable: you do try to be agreeable and make small talk. But it’s hard not to look at him without thinking how, if everything was how it should be, Spencer would be stood in his place.

***

3 months, 26 days, 3 hours.

There is no ‘new normal.’ You’ve heard the term tossed around a few times in relation to grief, but if there is a new normal you’re still struggling to find it. When you’re not on cases, there’s no ‘normal’. You still don't sleep in your own bed. Sometimes you stay on Rossi’s, or Morgan’s, or Garcia’s couch. Sometimes, read: maybe once, it’s in the spare room at the place you and Spencer used to share. Sometimes, when you get worried about being a burden, it’s a hotel. It’s easier to feel as if you’re choosing to stay away from home, rather than acknowledging that home, as you understand it, no longer exists.

You still wake up and instinctually search for Spencer most mornings. Sure, work is keeping you occupied and you smile a little more these days. You even allowed yourself to be dragged out for drinks last weekend. But nothing feels like it should. You don’t know if that’s normal for grief or if you just aren’t moving forward at all, doomed to tread yourself deeper into the melancholic quicksand that’s got a hold on you.

You talk at length about it with Garcia over wine one night.

“Nothing feels right,” you admit, “Everything just feels...”

Garcia waits, just tipping her chin slightly to encourage you to continue. She’s got the counsellor act down and you’d have the decency to feel embarassed if you weren’t just so damn exhausted all the time.

“I feel trapped, I guess. Like I’m frozen. I keep thinking maybe it’ll get better once the trials over. Once the whole legal aspect of it is over and put to bed, then maybe I’ll have some closure on the whole situation,” you mumble, “I just don’t know how to move forward. I don’t feel like I’ve moved forward. And I know it’s only been three months but I’ve only stayed at our apartment twice and I can’t bring myself to move any of his things and...”

She just waits. In that moment, you’re so grateful for her.

“I’m stuck here. I can’t change anything. I can’t bring myself to move any of his things. I’m paying rent on a place I don’t live in but I can’t move because how can I live somewhere he’s never been? I feel like I’m stuck. I can’t move out of the world he lived in but the world is moving on even without him. And I’m just...I’m just here, Garcia.”

She nods sympathetically, placing her hand on your arm, “Maybe it’ll help when the case is wrapped up. When you have that closure.”

“Yeah,” you agree, “Yeah. I hope so.”

“There’s something you’re not saying,” she says, gently, “And you don’t have to say it. But if you’re holding back because you feel guilty then you don’t have to feel guilty about anything you say to me, my darling.”

You start to well up then. The pressure in your chest is heavy, something akin to guilt. It slices into your chest, cut glass sitting between your ribs and slicing you open every time you breathe in. You’ve been thinking it a lot lately. Too much. It’s making you feel awful and you can’t decide if putting it out into the world verbally is going to be a release or make it feel too real.

Garcia waits patiently.

You decide to believe it’ll be the former, then whisper, “I wish I loved him less. I wish I’d loved him less so this wouldn’t hurt as much.”

And then the sobs come. The sobs that wrack your chest and sting your eyes and leave you looking like you’ve been on the receiving end of an upper cut. Because how could you? How could you possibly want to take back any of the love you had so willingly, freely, given to the person you loved most? What kind of person did it make you to want to take back the good memories: to wish that instead of having waffles on the couch that last Sunday, you’d had a fight about the library fine he’d gotten because of you? How could you want to switch the puzzle pieces to create a less idyllic picture of your life together, just so you wouldn’t feel so much loss when you looked at it?

She just rubs your back through it, knowing that no words can help but still saying the thing she thinks you need to hear most, “That doesn’t make you a bad person, sugar plum. That makes you human.”

***

4 months, 6 days, 14 hours.

Hotch calls you all into the briefing room.

“A few months ago a decision had to be made. Somebody had the potential to make an incredible breakthrough on a case that had been airtight for years. But it wasn’t possible for that individual to complete that work without cover. They needed to be officially gone,” Hotch’s voice booms but you swear you can hear a hesitation, “It wasn’t necessary at the time for you to have that information. Providing you with it would have compromised the safety of one of our agents, and the integrity of their investigation.”

You glance around the room, confused, noticing everyone is sharing the same bewildered look. Except Emily.

“I apologise completely for having to keep this from you, it was a decision that was not taken lately, and I did not have the final say. That being said, any discontent about this decision should be directed towards me,” he glances towards Emily, and she’s looking nervous now.

Hotch lets out a huff, somehow more tense than usual, “SSA Reid was not killed after the attack in Seattle. That was his cover, but he was investigating a case.”

He’s still talking but you can’t hear anything. SSA Reid was not killed. SSA Reid was not killed. You flip the sentence over a hundred times. And for the millionth time since SSA Reid was killed, you have no idea what you feel.

There’s uproar from everybody. Shouting. And then Hotch says something and everybody is looking at you, scanning you for a reaction and you have nothing. Nothing at all.

“Hi,” a voice from the doorway, nervous and shy, a voice you’ve only heard in dreams and voicemails and recordings from nights out that you must have watched hundreds of times by now, if they were tapes you would have worn them out long ago.

And you know you can’t face him. You can’t face any of them.

You look around the room, first at Hotch whose eyes flicker with what looks like remorse. Then, at Emily who just looks guilty as all hell. You don’t look at him. You can’t look at him.

The tension in the room is palpable but in your peripheral you see Garcia and J.J flock to the doorway, embracing him.

Rossi, is the one who comes to you, “____?”

You stare at him, completely blankly, “Yeah?”

“You need to speak to him. Need to hear him out.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, allowing him to help you to your feet. His reassuring hands on your shoulders turn you around and you meet his face. The face of the boyfriend you spent the last four months mourning while everybody watched you fall apart. And half of them knew.

So that’s what you feel. Anger.

“Glad you’re back,” you snipe, pushing past him, “Glad you’re alive.”

Everybody watches you go. A tense silence fills the room. Spencer clears his throat, after what feels like an eternity, muttering, “I-I’ll go after ... I’ll go and see if I can...”

It wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for, if he’s honest. Although he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting.

“____ please, just let me talk to you, I’m sorry, please just let me have a chance to explain,” He manages to catch you at the elevator just in time, slipping through the gap with his lithe body, “Please. I need to explain. I need to apologise.”

“You can apologise as much as you want. You don’t deserve my forgiveness. You’ll never deserve my forgiveness.”

The venom in your tone leaves him floundering.

“___ please,” he’s begging, and you won’t look at him because you can hear the tears in his voice and he’s begging again, “Please, please look at me, please listen to me. You have to understand, you have to give me a chance to explain, please.”

You’ve never been this angry at him before. But you are now. It consumes you, you’ve never understood a crime of passion before and you’re not going to put your hands on him, of course, but fuck do you understand it now. How a person could just snap. The rage swells in you, screaming. Every muscle in your body is tense. It takes all you have to ball your hands into fists, digging your nails into your palm so hard you’re sure they break the skin. You’re furious. Furious at every single one of them.

“You lied to me,” you spit, “You lied to me and let me think you were dead. You and Hotch and Emily. I didn’t sleep in our bed for four months, Spencer. I’ve spent the past four months frozen, like, I couldn’t move forward without you. I didn’t start to move on. I've spent the last four months falling apart and trying to find a way to put myself back together without you, and then what, you just come back? You think we can just go back to normal? Spencer, I didn’t feel alive this past few months. I’ve been floating through, barely keeping it together. And for what? A case? That was important enough for you to do this to me?"

It’s true, you’ve spent the last four months feeling like you were the one who died. That you were united in being ghosts, except you were haunting all the places you used to go together, and he was just haunting your dreams. And he’d been alive. This. Whole. Time.

You storm out of the lift, lifting your head to look at him for only the second time in four months, “Please. Just leave me alone. You’ve done enough.”

He knows you aren’t wrong. Knows he doesn’t know if he could forgive you if the roles were reversed. Knows, more than anything, that he’s really fucked things up. You’ll never forgive him. That’s what you said, and right now, seeing anger like never before in your eyes, he has no reason whatsoever to doubt that isn’t completely true.

You don’t even make it to the parking lot before you feel your resolve melt into absolutely nothing. Anger descending into relief, hot tears cascading down your cheeks as the mantra starts again on a new loop in your head: SSA Reid was not killed.

#spencer reid fanfic #imagine spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #reid x reader #spencer reid angst #spencer reid #imagine criminal minds #criminal minds x you #bau!reader

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goggles-mcgee · 3 years

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Too Late: Luka & Kagami (commission for miner249er)

Chapter 6 of the commission for @miner249er

Previous Work

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Summary: Luka and Kagami just being there for one another and trying not to drown in their guilt and grief

It was mostly quiet between the two, Kagami had taken to channel surfing while Luka strummed his guitar aimlessly till he got sad and frustrated that he couldn’t find a melody. Then he would meditate before trying again. Mostly he was trying to get back into the music for his mom and Juleka’s piece of mind, he knew they were worried about him, he knew they noticed the lack of music in his life, but he also knew they knew why. Marinette. Even just thinking her name made his heartstrings tug painfully. How had everything gone so wrong? Him and Kagami had a plan, at the time it seemed like a good plan, but thinking back on it now he couldn’t help but see it for all it’s flaws, and there were...many. He felt like a fool, but he hadn’t brought up their failed plan because he knew Kagami could not handle hearing about their failure. He could hear it in her song, he could see it in her eyes, it was seeped into her very being, and all he could feel was pain and regret. That’s why there was no more music.

The “music” he would make would sound like his heart and his thoughts, and at the present they sounded like someone threw silverware in a blender and he felt like he was in that blender himself. Constantly hurting, constantly trying to get out and heal, but never being able to because he was too caught up in the motions. Once he had gotten the Snake Miraculous, he thought he understood the saying, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” His power was all about learning from the “past” and that saying had always been something that had stuck with him. He thought him and Kagami were well prepared to handle anything with their plan, but the more he thought of it, the more he screamed at himself that they should have told Ladybug, they should have told Marinette, they should have said something, anything.

Romeo & Juliet had always been his least favorite Shakespeare play, he hated miscommunication in tragedies. It worked well as a plot device in comedies, but in tragedies it was just frustrating. Luka always believed people could be better than the famous star-crossed characters and everyone else in the play, he truly believed he was above that level of miscommunication. Sure he had trouble explaining himself, more often than not he used his music as his voice, confident it would make sure his feelings were communicated clearly. Then Marinette came and he found himself wanting to talk without his instrument as the voice, each day built his confidence, he had never been that confident in his talking abilities, and then everything crashed and burned. Miscommunication was the fuel.

He was sure if he hadn’t cried as much as he had already he would be in a fit of sobs at the moment, but as it was, Luka was all cried out. So was Kagami it would seem, whose mother uncharacteristically was actually giving her time to herself, time to grieve, and time with her “friends.” Luka knew the only friends Kagami had were him and Marinette, and there had been that air of almost more that hung above them all, but just thinking of that hurt him more than he could ever put into words or song. It was easier to deal with the heartbreak of the things that came to be and passed rather than the ones that hadn’t even had a chance to see the light, or even have the opportunity to be a proper thought that was discussed. No. No. He wouldn’t think about it. He couldn’t think about it.

“Luka? You okay?” He heard Kagami’s soft voice ask. He looked to her immediately hoping he wasn’t showing the desperation he was feeling, but at the tight smile he got in return he knew he failed hiding it. “Thinking about her again?”

He made a noise somewhere between yes and no. It was harder to talk when she disappeared, but he didn’t want to leave Kagami to have to interpret all his sounds so he cleared his throat and pushed past the lump that seemed to be stuck there no matter what he did. “Shakespeare.”

Kagami nodded and took a seat beside him on the couch and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Romeo and Juliet again?”

Luka sighed and nodded as he closed his eyes and leaned his head on top of Kagami’s softly. “I know it’s not technically history, but it’s a part of history and it made me think.”

“I would say stop thinking since that’s all you’ve been doing today, but I know that is not easy and not actually achievable.”

“If I could stop thinking that would be great. I just...she would still be here if I had-”

“If we.”

“If we had just communicated we wouldn’t have lost her...I...we…” Luka growled before sitting up and grabbing his guitar and playing an angry harsh cord. He held his guitar to his chest like a lifeline, his grip not loosening, the string biting into his skin and for a moment he wished it stung or imprinted but his callouses protected him.

“I know. I know. She...Marinette was my first friend. The first friend I had ever made on my own. Not one my mother made me have because it would be good for the company or because it would make me or her business partners look good.” Kagami started to tell Luka, of course he paid attention, Kagami wasn’t really one to open up about how she felt. Even with all the time she had spent with him and Marinette and all the encouragement they both gave her to be more open with them. “I thought...I believed our plan was foolproof. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t stop to think of human error, and everything that could go wrong. Marinette...Marinette and you gave me optimism Luka. I had never looked at the world or any situation I had faced with optimism. It’s not how I was raised. Or any Tsuguri for that matter.”

Luka didn’t know what to say so he held Kagami’s hand and gave it a squeeze for comfort and a way to say to continue if she felt comfortable. There of course was an anxious little voice inside his head that was screaming that, maybe, just maybe, if Kagami hadn’t spent so much time with them, everything could have been avoided but he quickly shot that thought down. He would never regret becoming friends with Kagami. Never. She was Marinette’s and his compass. She gave them control and direction when the two of them wandered too far. Luka was the calm, he was the ship’s wheel. He followed the compass and made sure to keep them all steady and comfortable, but he was always ready to change the course if they all needed the change of scenery.

At first, Luka thought of Marinette as the sea. Beautiful, full of life and emotion, taking care of all the creatures and life in its waters, and filled with creativity. Then she changed in his mind to a lighthouse, something that would call him and Kagami home, a safe haven, something to strive for. Again the image in his mind changed to her as their anchor. She kept them both grounded, she made sure Luka didn’t get too lost in his thoughts and she made sure Kagami didn’t second guess herself. She kept them safe. Marinette was all those things and more.

“But you guys,” Luka tuned back into Kagami and berated himself for getting lost in his thoughts, “you guys gave me optimism. I was no longer just thinking about the bad that could happen in things. When we made our plan, I thought I had been thorough, that we had been thorough. I wanted to believe we were doing the right thing. The intelligent thing. Most importantly, I wanted to believe we were doing the helpful thing. I was optimistic. I was hopeful. And in the end we lost her…”

“Kagami...There is nothing wrong with being optimistic.”

“Did I say there was?” She snapped before her expression fell and she held Luka’s hand in both of hers, her eyes teared up as she looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you didn’t mean it Gami.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Maybe not but you have already apologized. That’s what makes it okay.”

“If you say so...I’m just not entirely convinced, but okay. It’s just, I love that you and Marinette are optimists. I liked seeing things positively for once and not always thinking what could or will go wrong if I didn’t do things perfectly. But the one time I do so, it bit me in return. I...I hesitated Luka. Now Marinette is gone, the media only reminds us of her akuma and only wants to speak of her akuma and not the wonderful person she is. Except maybe Nadja and Aurore’s blog. It’s all that’s on TV, then there’s the whole Agreste situation that I would prefer not to think about but again, the media is focused on it.” After Kagami let all that out it was like she deflated and sunk into the comfort of the couch. Luka decided to join in and just flopped himself back into the couch and just stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh yeah...that. On one hand I can believe it, on the other I don’t want to but yeah let’s just...not get into that today. Maybe another day,” Luka grimaced at the memory of all the Agreste “rumors” flying around, and honestly he understood why Kagami would prefer not to think about any of that.

“Or ever. That could be beneficial too.”

“Gami. You know it’s better to face something than avoid it.”

“Perhaps, but avoidance sounds like the better option considering everything that has happened.”

“Have you spoken to Adrien at all?”

“No. Not since I found out he had no spine. And now...now I don’t even know how I would go about speaking to him. I do feel for him, but he’s not someone I consider a friend anymore. If anything he’s an acquaintance by necessity.” She huffed out with a shrug of her shoulder as she once more grabbed the remote for the TV and returned to channel surfing.

“Yeah, I get what you mean. It’s....talking with Jules has been hard. It was hard before, but now it’s...I don’t know. I know she wants to talk to me, I try to talk to her, but she won’t talk to me. She used to before Lila. Then we fought...we never fought...but she didn’t want to listen to me about Lila and her screeching of a song. Juleka got mad that I couldn’t see the “true” Marinette. She said I was blinded by my...my feelings.” Luka preferred not to remember him and Juleka fighting but it had become normal ever since his sister had started listening to Lila Rossi. After everything that passed though, Juleka wouldn’t even look at him unless it was in worry, like she couldn’t look at him. Not because he wasn’t worth her time, but because she seemed to believe that she wasn’t worth his.

In the simplest of terms, it was heartbreaking.

“Rossi has been exposed now though. She knows you were right.” Kagami said full of confusion, and Luka could admit it sounded confusing no matter how you looked at it.

“I think it’s because I-we- were right.”

Luka glanced over at Kagami and saw her frowning, “She’s angry that you, that we, were right?”

“I think it’s more shame than anger. I don’t doubt there is anger there, but it’s most likely directed at herself. Her song is all over the place…” He admitted with a sigh, he just wished that Juleka would open up to him like she used to so he could help. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that something was happening at her school and it wasn’t good for her or her classmates. He hated thinking his sister was getting bullied but with Marinette’s rise to fame as an akuma and her almost cult-like following and those who raised her to martyr status all around, he wouldn’t be surprised if the “Akuma Class” was being “taught a lesson.”

“And yet she still won’t talk to you?”

“It’s...complicated. We are both not the strongest talkers, but it has always been worse for Jules. Now with everything that has happened…” Luka let out a frustrated breath and ran his hands over his face. Before him or Kagami could say anything else to add on to the conversation they heard rushed footsteps hurrying down the stairs towards them. Immediately, Luka recognized them as Juleka’s footsteps.

Juleka burst into the lounge from the deck, one look at her and Luka felt his anger rise. His sister’s clothing was ruined, her jeans that she had painstakingly sewn the lace to the outer edges of herself were splattered in paint and if he wasn’t mistaken there were rips on the knees. Her shirt looked wet and paint splattered, as did her hair, and one glance at her only visible eye told Luka she had been crying. She seemed startled to see them there and for a while none of them spoke, the only noise came from the TV where it had seemed to stop on a news channel since Kagami stopped her channel surfing in favor of focusing on Juleka’s entrance.

As soon as Luka stood up to comfort Juleka, maybe ask who the hell did that to her, she just as quickly shouldered past him and ran into her bunker with a slam of the door. That was another new thing, though not unneeded, they both got separate rooms after...after Marinette had helped Luka convince his mom they deserved separate rooms. Especially because of Jules and his ages and the fact a curtain wasn’t enough privacy but then there was the fighting due to the Lila and Marinette situation. It was just easier for them all if he and Juleka got separate rooms, his mom agreed, he knew it was because she noticed the tense silences and the loud music coming from them both during that time. So Kagami and Marinette helped Luka clean out another bunker room that had been used as a storage room and then helped him move in.

Luka didn’t know how long he stood there just looking at Juleka’s door but he came back to himself when he felt Kagami place her hand on his shoulder. He looked down at her to see her giving him a sympathetic smile and gave his shoulder a squeeze for comfort. It was grounding, but Luka’s heart still hurt at his sister’s refusal to talk to him or Kagami. He knew she needed him, and honestly he needed her too, he just wanted to be her brother again, and her be his little sister that was sometimes annoying but it was in a loving way. Everything had changed and Luka felt like he was on a sinking ship with nothing to grab onto for support except Kagami but he didn’t want to drag her down with him.

“I just…” He started, his voice tight with tears.

“I know.” Kagami answered.

“...Collège Françoise Dupont.” Both of their heads whipped towards the TV once they heard the name of that school. On the screen were two reporters that neither were very familiar with but they had seen the news channel in passing.

“Is that right? An investigation?” The male reporter asked.

“That is correct Robert! It has been confirmed by inside sources that a full scale investigation will be launched on Collège Françoise Dupont! Not only for its horrible negligence against The Protector but because of new reports made by students who no longer fear having to be akumatized since Hawkmoth has conveniently disappeared. Apparently the number of calls to the Board of Education was just appalling. As were the reasons behind the reports.” The female reporter announced with a plastic smile, but if you looked it would twitch every so often like she was fighting to keep smiling.

“I would like to say I’m surprised Madeline, but that would ultimately be a lie.” Robert quipped back with an equally plastic looking smile.

“Yes it would Robert.” The reporter called Madeline chuckled as she said that. “In other news still connected to The Protector, her parents will be getting an official apology from TVi Studios after said studio used footage of their daughter without permission written or otherwise.”

Luka and Kagami winced at the mention of Tom and Sabine as they knew the couple were having a hard time, but they had no idea that TVi Studios showed that segment without permission. Luka especially had a hard time believing it considering Nadja worked there and was a good friend of Sabine’s. Kagami looked particularly worried about this so Luka nudged her as a way to ask what was wrong. “Do you think they sued the studio? I don’t think M Dupain and Mme Cheng are in the right state emotionally to go through a lawsuit.”

“Well...they said it was an official apology so I don’t think they sued, which is good, because you’re right. They are in no state to go through a lawsuit or anything much at the moment.” Luka agreed.

“On to World News, there has been an amazing recent discovery in Northern Scotland. It has stumped the people, and historians. When we come back from the break we will talk about this historic find and what it means for the people of Scotland. See you after the break Paris!” Robert said before the commercials started up. Luka didn’t know why, but something told him that discovery was important.

Next Chapter

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sinnergetreadymp3 · 3 years

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CHAMERON FIC CHAMERON FIC CHAMERON FIC

Uhhhhh I feel like I should give this a title but I have no idea what to call so uh, nevermind !!

Anyways,I finally finished the fic I said I was writing like,a month ago lol. All my Chameron stans out there this one's for u,I rlly hope at least one person enjoys this,I rlly enjoyed writing it !! Ok sappy stuff outta the way,here it is:

As rain pounded against the window Charlie sent what was probably the thousandth crumpled ball of paper across the room.

"Jesus Charlie,is your arm not getting tired?"

Charlie smirked at that, clearly preparing to make a dirty minded joke,but a thoroughly exhausted Richard Cameron was already one step ahead.

"You know what,forget I asked, you're gross."

Getting up from the seat at his desk and ignoring an indignant retort from Charlie, Cameron thought of the rest of his friends,out for the weekend. Todd and Neil celebrating their one year anniversary, Meeks and Pitts embarking on a two day road trip,for what they still claimed to be, entirely platonic reasons (although the rest of the poets were all too aware of the almost palpable romantic tension between them). Even Knox had found something to do with himself on this miserable Friday night.

And here Cameron was,stuck in his dorm with nothing but stacks of extra homework and his obnoxious roommate to keep him company.

Speaking of that obnoxious roommate, "Oh come on Cam,you're not seriously going to bed already,it's barely eight!"

"Shut up Dalton,I'm tired."

Refusing to admit defeat, Charlie sprung from his own bed into Cameron's, attempting to wrestle the poor boy from his comfortable position.

"Charlie,get off you psycho!" Cameron managed to get out, already laughter threatening to give away just how welcome his friend's childish antics were.

After a few more minutes of "fooling around" as Charlie insisted on calling it (mostly because of how profusely it made Cameron blush),the two boys lay breathless beside each other,trying desperately to think of something else to do that would ward off impending boredom.

After a few moments of comfortable silence,Charlie suggested,looking expectantly towards the ginger, "Wanna go to the cave?"

With extreme,mind numbing boredom as motivation, it was inevitable that Cameron would say yes. It certainly helped that Charlie was gazing at him with those oh-so convincing doe eyes of his. Charlie Dalton and his stupid,gorgeous eyes. And his stupid,gorgeous smile,which Cameron was abso definitely not thinking about as he got up and grabbed his coat.

The two boys trudged through the woods,bickering lightly when Cameron complained of the cold that Charlie apparently couldnt feel at all,but always with an unusually friendly air between them. Before long they were sat together in the middle of the cave,sharing an apple that Cameron had managed to salvage from somewhere (a feat Dalton was of course impressed by),and trading stories of girls and parties galore. In Cameron's case, the stories of girls were few and the parties were from years long before even middle school,so Charlie did most of the talking.

After a while though,the boys came to discussing their friends,and the luck they all seemed to have in finding each other so easily. Charlie, ever the romantic,made no waste of his extensive vocabulary,tediously lamenting on all the opportunities of love he had missed and the everlasting loneliness he was doomed to,all because his dashing knight in shining armour would never come to find him and-

"Why dont *you* just find somebody?"

Charlie,still sprawled dramatically over a rock ,and mildly offended at the interruption,indignantly questioned "What do you mean?"

"What I said? You dont just have to wait around for somebody to come find you and fall madly in love. Why don't *you* just find somebody?"

He thought for a moment,taken aback by the ginger's harsh words,but eventually decided to humout him for a moment.

"And where exactly do you suggest I find him then, hm?"

Cameron shifted in his seat,not expecting to be taken seriously and certainly not prepared to be giving advice. Especially not *this* kind of advice. Especially not to *charlie*.

"Well,uh," he looked up to see the other boy looking at him expectantly,with that ever-present smirk on his face that, oddly enough,made Cameron feel a little more comfortable.

"Maybe,you could,I don't know, consider that the guy you're looking for has been here the whole time?"

"Wow Cam,Pittsie and Meeks' radio must've really gotten to you. All those love songs have turned you into a big softie." Charlie joked,grinning and nudging Cameron playfully.

Through a soft laugh,Cameron continued, "No I'm serious man,I think you're making this whole love thing way harder for yourself. I mean- and be honest with me, what's actually wrong with the guys at our school?"

"Other than the fact that about three quarters of them are raging heterosexuals?"

Laughing again,Cameron replied "yeah,other than that."

After about zero seconds of careful consideration,he had come to a conclusion, "Well,I guess nothing,but I dont know? Cameron, I don't see how this changes-"

"It *changes* things because clearly you don't anything about half the guys at our school. And you can't write off people you don't even know." At some point, Cameron had gotten up and started pacing around,but with the end of this triumphant speech,he finally sat down,a little closer to the other boy than he had been before.

Charlie looked across at Cameron and was suddenly met with a wave of fondness. Weird,how all it took was to sit and talk for a while before someone you thought you near hated,started to feel like your favorite person in the world. And,was he going completely crazy or Cameron at his most comfortable, without the fear of a teacher lurking nearby,without the stress of constantly trying to prove himself,was he... A little..... attractive??

All at once,Charlie made a decision,partly to try and prove himself wrong,but also because hey,if Richard Cameron was the surprise love of his life,what better time to figure it out than right now?

"So how,sir Richard Cameron,do you propose I get to know all these charming suitors?"

Cameron, completely in the dark about Dalton's recent epiphany,was still stubbornly trying to explain how much easier Charlie's love life could be,if only he would let it.

"Well,maybe by actually talking to them? Y'know,kind of like,What we're doing right now."

"So,what you're saying is,*you* could be my knight in shining armor," he said with a smirk.

"Well,that's not what-"

"No,no it's fine,as long as we're talking about this version of you. Regular Cameron is kind of a buzzkill but Cave Cam is actually a kind of.... And I can't believe I'm saying this but,in here,like this...well. You're actually a little hot."

After this, overwhelmingly romantic confession, Charlie was certain he had completely stuffed it,and sure enough,

"Gee Charlie,thanks. Really makes me wanna ride into the sunset with you." To say Cam's ego had been hit was an understatement,but before he could make a swift exit from the cave and lock himself,alone,in his dorm for the rest of the weekend,of course Dalton kept talking.

"God,I'm sorry,that was, I have no idea why I said that. I thought I was being funny but out loud- god I'm so sorry," while he had initially been mad,seeing Charlie fucking Dalton blush (and because of *him* no less) was rather funny. And sure,a little cute. So Cameron decided to hear him out.

"Can I start over? You're not saying anything so I'm gonna start over. I,uh, I really do think you're hot. Like really hot. And not just right now,all the time,like that time we were at rowing practice and I started pushing you around and we ended up on the floor and I saw like,a single sliver of skin because your sweater had ridden up,and I couldn't stop thinking about it all day,which I thought was a little weird but then-"

"Uh,I think I get it,Charlie." Now Cameron was the one blushing.

"Uh,sorry. What I meant was,that I *do* think you're hot l-"

"As you've said"

"Yeah,yeah,but it's more than that. Like,when I realized we'd basically be spending the whole weekend alone together,I was actually sorta excited for that,even though I knew I'd just be sitting by you while you did homework the whole time,I like,wanted to do that. And tonight,I haven't talked like this with anyone who isn't Neil like,ever. What I mean is,I guess,is that,I think that uh,"

Deciding to lighten the mood,Cameron tried for a little sarcasm, "Wow,Dalton, stuttering? I must be superman or something."

"I'm trying to be romantic here Carrot top," Charlie said with a grin,

"Listen,I don't really know what I'm doing here,but I think it might be kinda nice if we tried having a little romantic weekend of our own. Just to try it. If it totally sucks we can pretend it never happened and the others don't have to know about it and-"

"Charlie."

"Yeah?"

"Relax," Cameron said with yet another laugh ,he didn't think he laughed like this since... Well,he couldn't even remember.

So with a radiant smile on his face,he said,"A romantic weekend of our own sounds amazing. Gotta warn you tho I'm not a great kisser."

"Well, lucky for you I am a great teacher," Charlie replied,with a somehow even bigger smile on his face than Cameron's,

"Why are you laughing,I *am* a great teacher!" Unfortunately for Charlie,his indignance only made Cameron laugh harder.

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"If you shut up and stop laughing,maybe you'll get to." After this was all it took to get the ginger to sober up, the look on his face pushed Charlie to make his final,but (in his opinion) most important decision of the night.It was high time he flirt with Cameron way more often (which was *very* difficult to explain to the other poets,at least the first time).

#yh i did proofread it #yh there probably r still mistakes #i was very nervous so #but yh uh #chameron #dps fic #dps chameron fic #dead poets society chameron #idk how to tag things properly if u couldnt tell from my other posts lol #anyway !! bye

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undertheknightwing · 3 years

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Posted by popular demand: all my dad!Dick Grayson headcanons!

I’m doing the canonverse ones first. My au ones will be in a separate post so this one doesn’t get too long! Enjoy random stuff I’ve thought of!

Important note: when I say ‘canonverse’ I mean I could see it happening in the show’s universe more than an au, I don’t mean everything is going to fit perfectly with the canon storyline we got since there’s not much I can headcanon with the real storyline anyway. Nothing is going on but useless drama and shitty treatment of the main characters. So keep that in mind,,

Dick had a hard time admitting to himself that he cared for Gar and Rach as if they were his kids because of the whole ‘i don’t do family, i work alone’ thing. Tbh the thought of loving someone again, let alone two people, with his luck of family death and misfortune was scary to him and that’s why after Asylum, he left the two in Angela’s care. He knew he was getting too attached to them (that became clear to him when he went dad rage mode on the guards). Then the Trigon thing started and when he realized he led Rachel and Gar into a trap without knowing, he said ‘fuck it they are my kids and they’re in some serious trouble, I’m going to get them out of that trouble even if it kills me’ and that’s why he ran head on into that force field with his only thought being: ‘my kids are in trouble and I will protect them. Nothing can stop me, not even a demonic force field.’

He treats the kids as equally as he can in normal life situations. Like if Rach got to choose dinner the night before, now It’s Gar’s turn to choose. But when it comes to how to comfort them, that’s when he has to change it up because both kids feel comforted in different ways. Both get nightmares and he had to learn how to handle the situation differently for the two. If Rach has a nightmare, he’ll know cause she wakes him up and they’ll talk about it together until she’s calm enough to go back to bed. Now, if Gar has a nightmare, he’ll hear it cause Gar’s usually screaming, which turns into panicking after Dick wakes him up and then him holding onto Dick while crying. Not much talking on Gar’s end, it’s Dick who’ll say a few words. Rachel needs words to feel comforted because her mother hugged and kissed her growing up but they never really talked, so she felt like she never knew her mother while Gar needs physical affection because he grew up without it and got his thoughts and emotions manipulated by words. And throughout the next day, he’ll check on the Gar or Rachel to make sure they’re doing alright.

When Dick went to Doom Manor to get Rachel, that man did not think he’d be leaving Doom Manor with another kid but surprise! he does. Why though? the show never explains why Dick just decided to take a random kid with them. Well in my headcanon it’s because Rachel refused to leave Gar with the Doom Patrol and to help Dick realize that Gar was being treated horribly here, she used her abilities to show him what Gar’s been going through. Dick saw the things Rachel saw like Chief shooting him just because he stood up for himself and the things she didn’t see, like all the times Chief treated Gar like he was worthless trash and the Patrol’s neglect by keeping him down in a basement with nothing to keep him entertained or company. Dick wasn’t going to let a child be treated like that. Since Chief was knocked out, he just talked to the other three and by talk, I mean rip into like an angry momma bear and tell them he’s taking Gar with him. Cliff wasn’t a fan of how Dick came in and acted like he’s entitled to whatever he wants. That ended with Dick and Cliff screaming over each other until Rita allowed Dick to take Gar with them, though Dick wasn’t looking for permission from them, just an agreement from Gar himself. He got that rather quickly.

He’s never raised his voice at either of the kids in anger. Not even when Gar almost got himself killed by following Jason, he made sure Gar knew he was disappointed and upset with him by calmly explaining; not yelling. No shock to anyone there that Dick has some issues with his anger and he’s afraid one day he’ll take it out the wrong way on the kids and say something he doesn’t mean just because he’s angry/stressed, ultimately harming his relationship with them. I think the only time he’d actually yell at one of them is in serious situations, like if one of them froze up during a mission, making them an easier target, he’d yell their name or something to try to get their attention and snap out of it.

Kind of on the same note, how he manages worry is very different. He will be over the top about it. He’s very dramatic. Rachel got sick and better believe he learned how to make homemade chicken noodle soup because Alfred would do the same with him. Besides that, he’ll hover around her just in case she needs him, which Rach might take advantage of just a little because what kid doesn’t? She’ll have Dick carry her to bed and tuck her in. Gar slipped during a race with Jason up the net wall in the training room and broke his arm since ya know, he fell onto that hard ass mat and since him nor Rachel can go to the hospital because they’re metahumans, Dick had to fix Gar’s arm, which he wasn’t thrilled about since he was afraid he’d make it worse, but Alfred (over the phone) walked him through it and Gar turned out fine, no further injuries. The only thing Gar got was an overprotective bird dad constantly wanting to be around him and Gar was 100% cool with that. They got some well deserved father-son time. I’m also going with Dick feels awful about Gar’s injury because he wasn’t around when it happened so he couldn’t try to catch him and hearing ‘Gar fell from the net wall and he’s not moving’ coming from a panicking Rachel threw him into a completely frantic state of mind. It’s all worry for Dick but Gar helps him feel better with his cheesy jokes and puns.

I have a feeling after a few months around him, Gar and Rach start adopting Dick’s reactions to certain things and his mannerisms. Dick feels conflicted about the whole thing. There’s a lot about him he’d rather them not replicate. But Rachel doing his pondering face where he puts his hand over his mouth and Gar folding his arms and leaning against whatever he can when people talk to him, like Dick does quite often, is fine with him. If this teaches him anything, it’s to fix his own act and be a good example.

Dick doesn’t favor either kid, they’re both his favorite but there’s certain things they do that would be considered his favorite things about said kid. Like the way Rachel hums or softly sings her favorite songs while painting/drawing and Gar’s loud bursts of genuine laughter that turn into snorts the longer he laughs. The surprise and love he felt when Rachel gave him a sketch she did of him, he put it on the fridge and probably went to cry in his bedroom so no one saw him. Dick’s not known for his laughter, and most people haven’t even seen him smile, yet Gar seems to get him to do both more than he’s ever in years. The first time Dick has laughed so hard that he started crying was to some sarcastic joke Gar made about a commercial when the living room had been silent for awhile. The day Gar’s favorite show is new is also one of Dick’s favorite days because when the episode is over Gar rushes to him all happy and tells him about it like: “dude, dude you won’t believe it I was so shocked!”. Honestly seeing Gar and Rachel truly happy is his favorite thing in the whole universe.

I feel like there’s been a few times where Dick has been sad that Gar and Rach aren’t really his kids. He wishes he could have given them a happy childhood. Rachel shouldn’t have had to be terrified of her abilities and lied to cause of them and Gar shouldn’t have had to raise himself and be shut away like he was some kind of monster.

At some point before they all reached the tower or the day after, Dick had to take the kids shopping because where did their outfits come from (and room décor?). This is the first time they’ve all been in a normal situation together and Dick learned a few things. Rachel had no problem being around crowds of people due to her more normal upbringing while Gar stared wide eyed at everyone like he had no idea what to do. Dick assumed since Gar’s been isolated from the world around him for so long mixed with his enhanced senses, he got overwhelmed by all the noises and sights. So Dick told him to focus on him and his voice until his senses get used to the many things happening around him. And that Gar could hold Dick’s hand if he wanted, which he did. He also learned that every piece of clothing Rachel wanted was either black or dark blue, there is no in-between, making Dick jokingly wonder if Rachel is secretly related to Bruce. Then with Gar, all his clothing is bright and busy,, matching his personality. I’m also going with this conversation happened at some point: “Hey, Dick, why don’t you get yourself something while we’re here?” “I don’t have enough money for me, just you two.” “You don’t take whatever you want? I do.” “Umm.. no? That’d be steali-- YOU WHAT.”

On the note of clothes, both of the kids absolutely wear Dick’s clothes. If he can’t find one of his shirts or hoodies, he’s pretty sure one of the kids took it and it’ll be obvious it’s his even if it’s plain cause his clothes are huge on them. He never asked them why they steal his clothes but goes with it comforts them in some way.

One night when Rachel couldn’t sleep, she wandered out to the living room where Dick was still awake and watching tv. She tells him she couldn’t fall asleep so he gives her permission to stay up with him. Dick’s tv show quickly turned into a disney movie after that decision was made and Dick’s not the kind of person who has an easy time sitting through all the marshmallowy stories and singing of those movies but they make Rachel happy so he’ll sit through one for her. He’d rather Rachel watch a kid’s movie than his true crime shows anyway. Rach falls asleep cuddling Dick before the movie ends and instead of taking her back to her room, he lets her stay asleep there and goes to sleep himself because she’s comfy and he’s not going to disturb her.

Gar expends so much energy during the day that when he goes to his room to chill before bed, he usually falls asleep with everything on in his room and without being covered up because he just passes out. Knowing that fact, Dick finishes the rest for him. Go in Gar’s room, take the ps4 controller out of his hand (cause he normally streams his shows on his ps4), turn everything off besides the green night light, cover Gar up and just because, place one of Gar’s tiger plushies with him, which leads to Gar the next day being like: “really dude? The tiger again. You’re not funny.” and Dick answering: “I’ll stop when you fall asleep correctly.”

Dick now knows how to braid hair multiple ways thanks to Rachel. When the original Titans returned, Dawn said how beautiful Rachel’s hair was, asking if she did it herself and when Rachel said “No, I wish I could. Dick did it for me, he’s great!” Dawn just stood there, not knowing how to respond because the Dick Grayson she remembered would chuckle and act like she didn’t even speak when she’d ask him to do her hair in the past. Gar’s s2 hair was done by Dick as well. The kids said “our hair is boring, can you fix it” and Dick’s inner Wayne surfaced.

At some point the kids are going to call Dick their dad and he’ll cry, no doubt about that. By the nature of the show, I’d imagine it’d happen during or after some serious thing. For Rachel, it’d be during the s2 premiere. After Trigon is defeated and they’re all settling into Titans Tower, Dick goes to check on Rachel. The day was pretty rough for her. At first Rachel tries to act cool, like nothing is bothering her, but Dick can see through that and she knows. Eventually they get into a deep conversation about Rachel’s destiny, her father, and her feelings about it all. At some point Dick says something on the line of “I'm sorry you never had a real father” after Rachel compares her upbringing to Dick’s. Rachel smiles and tells him she has a real father, it’s him. Sure he’s a little late to the party, but he showed up when she needed him the most and stayed. This will be the first time Rachel will see Dick cry. For Gar, it’ll be after he gets over some sickness his powers gave him since they’re connected to his system and didn’t get finished by the Chief to be properly balanced, they can get out of line. He gets weak and loses his bright green hair/eyes, turning them a dull forest green. It’s not deadly, it’s just his version of the flu. When he’s finally over it and turns back to his normal self, Dick is all overly worried parent to him and Gar, being Gar, has to joke with him first: “jeez man, you are such a parent! All that worrying and pacing you were doing yikes! I think my legs would have fallen off haha!” before going into the soft stuff: “but, it shows that you’re a good one. better than my folks.. thanks, dad-- for, like, everything you did these few days.” then cue Dick pulling Gar into a hug and crying like ‘my purest angel son too precious for this world’.

Early on, Dick kind of sucked at being affectionate through words because Bruce was never with him, so he really didn’t know how to. Instead, he’d buy the kids things they’ve always wanted or things that reminded him of them, like a wooden pencil case carved in the shape of a raven’s feather for Rach and a tropical jurassic park themed backpack for Gar. The ‘hey I saw this and it reminded me of you so I bought it’ gifts are the kids’ favorites.

Ya know that cauliflower pizza Dick makes in s2? Yeah better believe I have a headcanon for why he makes that type of pizza specifically. Dick was having a hard time forgiving himself for killing Gar even if it was Trigon controlling him and this was when he didn’t know how to talk about his feelings, so instead of trying to have a conversation with Gar about it, he decided to do something else to say ‘I’m sorry’. He’s pretty good at cooking (thanks Alfred!) and knows Gar’s favorite food is pizza and that he’s vegan, there’s got to be something he can do with that and as we know, there is. A knock on his bedroom door made Gar remove himself from a video game and see what’s up. On the floor sat a pizza box with a note typed on that read: “I know this is stupid and I need to work on my communication skills, but I’m so sorry for what happened. I hope someday you can forgive me.” now my reasoning for why Gar jokes about said pizza with Rachel is because he and Dick don’t really have a lot that’s just theirs. Dick and Rachel have a lot they share together and Gar kind of wants something he can share with his new dad. So joking about it is his way of covering up his real feelings and no offence to his sister, but he knows how she gets when she feels left out of something so it’s best if he keeps this one thing between him and Dick.

On the weekends aka no training days, Dick normally takes Rach and Gar out so they can do normal kid things. He refuses to be like Bruce and keep the kids shut in the tower all day to ‘keep them safe’ like he did with Dick in the Manor. They need fresh air, sunshine, and fun. Plus he’s with them so if trouble shows up whether by one of their powers or something else, he’ll take care of it. Day activities will be: going to places like the park or the mall, get lunch somewhere, go to the store cause grocery shopping day is Saturday, make dinner at home, then finish the day with a movie. If the daytime is busy with over-do chores and a long time at the store, then night activities will be: going to dinner, either going on a relaxing drive while the kids play their favorite songs over the radio or going on a walk. Both include slushies and snacks for Gar and Rach and coffee for Dick. The last thing of the day is still a movie but more than likely the kids will be asleep before it’s even halfway done and Dick has to carry them to bed. But that’s okay with him, he wouldn’t change it for the world.

There used to be a lot more for the canonverse but I added them into my Rewrite au cause they were already leaning towards au territory,, you’ll see them in my next post

I’ll probably turn some of these into a short fic at some point, but if you see one you’d like to write about, go for it! I’d love to read it!

tagging @not-so-mundane-after-all-97 real quick cause I know she wants to see this post,,

#titans #dick grayson #rachel roth #gar logan #headcanons #long post #if i misspelled something #or messed some sentence up #sorry #i'm exhausted

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holylulusworld · 3 years

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Bloody lips - Eternity

Summary: He turned you months ago. Now you are out for blood...

Pairing: Vamp!Dean x Vamp!Reader

Characters: Werewolf!Sam Winchester, Lisa Braeden

Warnings: angst, vampire Dean, bloodthirst, implied characters death, blood, blood-drinking, dark!fic, implied smut, murder (they are vampires after all)

Kinktober Special: Horror/Angst - Blood drinking

A/N: This is the sequel to Bloody lips and a cross-over with my Werewolf!Sam story ‘Sharp teeth’. For more read the second part of sharp teeth coming tomorrow.

<< Part 1

Kinktober 2020

Dean’s POV

Eternity. I smile at the word leaving my girls' lips.

The moment she drank from her now-dead husband she was doomed to be mine – for eternity.

My former self, the hunter, and loyal brother would be ashamed of what I became but after months with my mate, my partner in crime – I can’t find it in me to care.

“What about him?” Y/N whispers, body pressed close to mine. She always seeks my closeness since I turned her. It’s the bond we formed months ago drawing her to me like a moth to the flame.

“Or the girl in the corner,” my girl purrs. “She watched what’s mine the whole night.” There is an edge in my girl’s voice, and I know, she wants to feast on the girl.

“She came with three guys and two girls, baby girl. If we kill her, they will look for her. We agreed to not rock the boat too much,” Y/N nods, still, I can see the disappointment in her eyes. “We can mark her and get that little bitch later.”

My girl smirks, a dark look in her beautiful eyes. “I want her later, Dean,” I can tell, my cock just got harder at her words. “Can we make her scream, baby?” My girl coos, batting her eyelashes. Y/N is a wild beast, dangerous and strong but sometimes, she likes to play the innocent girl.

“We can, sweetheart. Now let’s find an easier prey for tonight and later, we will get the girl for staring at me,” I push her against the wall, roughly claiming her lips. I kiss her hard, drawing blood as I sink my teeth into the lower lip. “We will…”

Bloody runs down my girl’s lips and I follow the crimson droplets with my greedy eyes. We feasted tonight on the guy who dared to ogle my girl. It was my time to choose the victim and I choose him.

We killed him fast. Unlike other vampires, we don’t play with our food. I can’t hide we become playful now and then, toy with someone who pissed us off but most of the time, we do it fast, precise, almost painless.

“He tasted like a loser,” Y/N whines. “I want to taste someone sweeter,” She has a devilish grin on her lips and I know, she has something evil in mind when she looks up at me like an angel with bloody lips. “I want her…”

“We talked about it, Y/N. She’s got a son and,” my girl pouts, hands cupping my face she looks up at me, pleadingly. “Don’t you love me, Dean?” God, that woman can make me do the evilest things only by batting her eyelashes. “Please, baby.”

“I guess we will visit Lisa tonight, babycakes. Now be good and let’s have a shower,” I press my lips to hers, licking the blood off her soft pillows. “I can still smell him on you. He touched what’s mine.”

“You showed him I’m yours when you fucked me in front of his dying body,” my girl grins, revealing bloody teeth. “I think he got stiff when you filled me up so good.”

“You’re so bad for me,” she hums melodically, looks up at me as if I’m the sun and I can see a flashback play in front of my eyes. Y/N holding my hand, giving me that warm smile she used to wear, now it’s cold and I need to shrug the memory off.

I’m the bad guy in this story after all…

She runs. Oh-what a festival of fear, screams, and pleas Lisa offers to my girl. She hides in her bedroom, the room I used to fuck her in. I can hear her breathing and smell the urine run down her legs.

“Not sexy Lis,” I sing-song before I kick the door open. “Don’t worry, we will take care of Ben,” oh, you should see the fear in her eyes at my words.

“I will have so much fun with you tonight,” Y/N pushes my ex-girlfriend on the bed, and I snatch her wrists to pin her hands above her head. My girl enjoys every moment of Lisa’s defeat before she leans over her latest victims’ body to lick the tears off her face.

“Relax, Lisa. You will taste so much better when you are scared. Y/N will make it fast,” I look at my girl who reveals her beautiful teeth to Lisa, “right babycakes?”

“Let me have my fun, Dean,” Y/N scolds and my heart aches. My creation, the new Y/N is mad at me and I don’t like it one bit. “You promised I can play with her for a bit longer than usual,” I sigh deeply but agree in the end. “I wanna see the light in her eyes fade.”

My girl's bloodthirst should scare me. Not even I are that cruel to toy with my prey but Y/N, she likes to scare her victims before she feasts on them.

“Please…I got a son,” a slap silences Lisa’s pleas and I scold my girl to not waste her blood.

“You stole Dean from me! I should've had your life, not you! You owe me a life!” Y/N screams, suddenly retreating from the bed. Her eyes turn normal again and I can see the struggle all over her face.

A new-born vampire is still connected to its past, which means flashbacks and memories will make the killing harder. At least for me.

“Y/N, calm,” I let go of Lisa to calm my girl, but she slaps my hands away, shaking her head furiously. “Y/N, sweetheart.”

“Y…you made me like this,” tears run down my girl’s cheeks when I reach out for her once again. “I had a life, a husband.” The struggle gets worse and I need to bite my wrist to feed Y/N with my blood. It calms her to taste me, so I let her drink from me instead of Lisa.

“I know, and I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I whispers, running my hand over her back to soothe Y/N. “We will go home, okay. We just need to finish…” the door to the bedroom bursts open and I see someone I never thought I’ll meet again.

“SAM?” something is off with my brother. His scent is so strong it makes my nose scrunch up and his eyes, fuck his eyes are glowing like mine. “Leave or you’ll be next.”

Sam puffs his chest when I shove Y/N behind my back. “I’m warning you, Sammy. I can’t be saved. I drank from Y/N,” Sam’s eyes sparkle when he steps closer to me. He looks at me, expectantly, before his large hand wraps around my throat to slam me into the wall.

Fuck, I struggle against Sam’s inhuman strength and just now I see his glowing eyes and sharp teeth.

“We need to be fast. The neighbors called the cops, Dean. Let’s clean this mess,” Sam snarls in my direction before he looks at my girl. “You don’t have to kill people, Dean. Not only you changed, but I did also, whilst I had to hunt on my own. I got bitten months ago, I’m an alpha now, a werewolf,” I laugh at Sam’s words, giving my baby brother a dirty grin.

“I guess this means we are a family of monsters now,” a howl escapes my brothers’ lips as I wrap my hand around his wrist. “Let’s end this here and now. She can’t tell anyone what she saw,” I want to fulfill my promise to my girl, but she shakes her head.

Y/N crawls onto the bed. Unlike minutes ago, she softly coos something into Lisa’s ear before she bends Lisa’s mind to her will.

“You had a nightmare, Lisa. You never met anyone called Dean Winchester. There was no vampire in your room nor a werewolf. The reason you peed your pants is that you drank too much. Now be good and sleep,” I smirk at my girl’s powers. She learned so much in such a short amount of time.

“Back to business, Dean. I got to be somewhere else,” I nod, looking up at my monstrous brother. “I think I found my mate and need to get her, Dean. Will you help me?”

“Let’s get your girl, bitch,” I grin, watching my girl hug Sam from behind. “We need to make sure my brother can fuck too.”

“Romantic as always brother,” Y/N snickers at my brother’s words before she pats his back. “Let’s get my girl, jerk…”

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Divider by @talesmaniac89

#lulu's kinktober #dean winchester #vampire dean #vamp!dean #vamp!dean x vamp!reader #darkfic #tw: blood #tw: blood drinking #angst #dean winchester x you #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester SPN #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fanfic #vampire!dean #Kinktober 2020 #bloody lips eternity

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simpbur · 3 years

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hello! i would like ur 40 song wiblur playlist

anon thank you so much for asking <333 while it would’ve been easier to just drop the link i have so many thoughts about everything so i explained why every single song has its spot on this list which was IMMENSELY fun for me

(also: if anyone does want the link i can provide both apple music and spotify but if u would like the apple music link i’d rather it be through dms or an ask off anon that i can make private!)

another also: i bolded all the songs for ease of perusing if you don’t want the director’s commentary and bolded + italicized the ones that i think fit Very Well

another another also: wrote the second bit of this on my laptop and the keyboard is p funky so if there are any typos or things that do not make sense i will try to fix them asap haha

saint bernard by lincoln: this is one of those like. Dream SMP Songs that i added because it fits into so many different relationships and plot lines and arcs but i think there’s some connection to c!wlbur somewhere out there. idk i asked my friend and he said to add it so this one goes out to him

amnesia was her name by lemon demon: ghostbur song ghostbur song! mostly comes from this lovely animatic

o valencia! by the decemberists: okay this is one of those songs that only really has one lyric that fits but is an absolutely banger so it’s here anyway. you’ll also notice a trend of quasi love songs that i relate to c!wilbur’s perception of l’manburg and i think this song shows this in a really cool way, esp with the chorus (‘and i swear to the stars i’ll burn this whole city down’ is The Line)

achilles come down by gang of youths: another one of those Dream SMP Songs. i think this fits better with c!tommy but i like it too much to remove it. this is a somewhat common trend with the earlier songs on this playlist (i’ve been building this thing since january, for reference)

brave as a noun by ajj: another Dream SMP Song. i think certain verses fit better than others when it comes to wilbur’s character but that ones that work really work

harness your hopes by pavement: a song that is one here for vibes alone. i have no idea what these lyrics mean. all i know is that i heard it, thought of c!wilbur, and put it on the playlist. thank you all for being here

evelyn evelyn by evelyn evelyn: sad-ist made this a tommy and tubbo song (as she should) so it’s validity on this playlist is questionable but folks used to compare it to wilbur and tommy’s relationship during the pogtopia arc and i think some points were made there

the execution of all things by rilo kiley: i’m so excited to get here because this was the first song i put on the playlist that i think really works and i thumb nailed an animatic for the last verse and november 16th so! i think it’s a good l’manburg song and the last verse has some good ghostbur lines (‘and lately you’re all alone with nothing left but sleep/but sleep never comes to you, it’s the guilt and forever wakefulness of the weak’)

i’m just your problem from adventure time: this ones a bit tricky since at is my favorite show of all time and i cannot detach this song from its in-show context very well but there is a very cool animatic with this song that landed it a spot on the playlist

man burning by josh ritter: almost became an animatic but the audio i wanted to use (which i recorded at a josh ritter concert and it’s just him and his guitar and there’s echo and it’s very haunting and pretty) has my stepbrother singing in the background and i could not edit it out so. that will probably not happen. but anyways the only hole i would pick in this song is that it’s mostly about self sabotage which isn’t really applicable but i think the imagery is cool

mamma mia by abba: here me out. here me out. this is another song that fits so well and i have spent so many hours thinking about this and somewhere there is a note on my phone explaining how every single line relates to c!wilbur’s entire arc from founding l’manburg to the resurrection (made when we thought gbur was going to get resurrected in january) and just. the metaphorical ‘you’ is l’manburg does this make any sense (another almost animatic except now that wilbur’s actually back it might become an actual animatic)

the other side of paradise by glass animals: no idea why this is here other than being a Dream SMP Song. it’s good tho

infinitesimal by mother mother: they saaaaay it stared with a big bang but they saaaaaaaay it came out of a small thing latelyyyyy i’ve been feeling like a big bang You Know

curses by the crane wives: had a thing drawn out for this song showing the comparisons between c!wilbur and c!niki because of the chorus and i think the last two lyrics of said chorus are the best thing about this one

lonely eyes by the front bottoms: gotta admit that i have no idea how this song got on here but i’ve come to associate it with ghostbur based on vibes alone. it’s a friendly song he’s a friendly ghost it works. the other tfb song coming up fits a bit better methinks

king of new orleans by better than ezra: not to put better than ezra on my c!wilbur playlist but like. something about the whole ‘tasing something up to let it fall’ motif makes me think

get me away from here, i’m dying by belle and sebastian: another almost animatic song (there’s a trend here). not only does the story told in this song work i like the lines ‘play me a song to set me free/nobody writes them like they used to so it may as well be me’ in relation to my l’manburg

montgomery forever by the front bottoms: certain bits and pieces of this song fit so well, specifically the chorus and those bits in the last two choruses Yeah (’montgomery forever and ever and ever and now they’re blowing it up/(x2)/as you started laughing and crying and trying to explain how all you want to do is leave’)

don’t look back in anger by oasis: out of all my almost animatic songs, this one got the furthest. the animatic, which I got pretty far in thumbnailing, was about wilbur and tommy and kind of drawing comparisons between their characters, also about the revolution in general. maybe i’ll finish that animatic one day idk

snow by ricky montgomery: i wish i had a link for this so bad but!! saw art on twitter!! with the lyric ‘bury me six feet in snow’!! and went ahfsdjfk!!

burning pile by mother mother: a Dream SMP Song. also a jam there’s no real specific connection for this one but i think it could fit in a couple of ways

rounds by the oh hellos: in the same position as snow except it was on tumblr..... @ whoever made this comic i saw these lyrics in your brain is massive and your art is incredible

lovely by mt. eddy: on here for vibes alone. there’s something in the lyrical content too, but my thoughts in that regard are not very fleshed out

adventures in solitude by the new pornographers: ah yes..... the song that prompted this all...... this is a beautiful and incredibly well written song and if you’re going to listen to any song off of this playlist i’d encourage you to listen to this one. it’s place of here is mostly cause of the chorus but the imagery in the verses could all represent a part of c!wilbur and i’d love to explore that more

caught in the middle by paramore: obligatory paramore song. i think it got on here because limbo = ‘middle’ but i’m not quite sure. on the verge of being deleted if i can find a better pmore song

delicate by damien rice: one of the oddest songs on this list and i am well aware that it sticks out like a sore thumb. a song that’s on here pretty much because of one lyric, which is ‘and why’d you sing hallelujah/if it means nothing to you’ which i related to both eret’s betrayal and how my l’manburg is hallelujah yknow

bang! by ajr: almost animatic song. i think we all know what the bang is here

somewhere only we know by lily allen: ik i said don’t look back in anger has the most potential to get made into an animatic but this song might actually take it place. on par with adventures in solitude in terms of how pretty of a song it is, and probably even moreso. it’s kind of turned into a ghostbur song in my head, and makes me cry like an infant child every time i hear it

a pearl by mitski: i cannot defend this song’s place on here past the line ‘it’s just that i fell in love with a war and nobody told me it ended’

eight by sleeping at last: the official c!wilbur song needs a spot on here <3 if i can dig up the clip of cc!wilbur talking about this song in relation to his character i’ll add it but until then yeah <3

always by rilo kiley: no idea why this is on here but it fits well!! could not tell you why!! banger!!

celebration guns by stars: it’s a hauntingly beautiful song about war, and kind of one of those that necessarily isn’t about wilbur but moreso his place in the story? idk how to explain it but yes

passerine by the oh hellos: it’s. it’s from the . the fic. yeah h

oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet and hold the earth in place by bright eyes: added this after the real resurrection and i think it’s because fo the imagery? also the last verse

we are beautiful, we are doomed by los campesinos!: all i have to say is ‘i cannot emphasize enough that my body/is a badly designed, poorly put together vessel/harboring these diminishing, so called vital organs/i hope my heart goes first, i hope my heart goes first!’ has always made me think of pogtopia era wilbur :(

dead weight by jack stauber: no real connection other than eret played this song during a break during the ghostbur’s january ‘resurrection’ and i heard it and went :0

point me at lost lands by tired pony: gives me season on l’manburg vibes..... i love how free and passionate it sounds and that's p much the only reason it’s on this list haha

ghosting by mother mother: added this five seconds ago because i could not BELIEVE it was not on here. ghostbur song. mans sang it on that one stream with the reverb and everything. the lyrics ‘i will be kind and i’ll be sweet/if you stop staring straight through me’ hit particularly hard back when everyone thought that ghostbur was actually wilbur in disguise

#oh man. oh man #this was so fun ty anon #i'll do some spell checking after i write my english paper but for now take this #wooo boy #also if i interpreted canon wrong i do apologize i am here to have fun and think about fictional character #anon #ask

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raguna-blade · 3 years

Text

Ok and before I forget and i Likely will and I don’t have the attention span to actually try and take this anywhere right at this precise moment but there’s one musical thing that’s likely as not a just a musical ref cause haha I can do it it’s my soundtrack, my game you can’t stop me but-

There’s this song I ran across ages ago that toby fox did also compose. 74, Sung by Itoki Hana, and I Honestly have to wonder how much of it is also supposed to link in thematically. Like this wouldn’t be the first time Toby’s done this, what with Megalovania being from 1 and then 2 different stories and each pulling a generally similar vibe and intent behind them near as I can tell (there was an essay that explained this way better but I cannot for the life of me tell you where I actually read it save the greater seas of Tumblr so you know, that’s probably lost forever)

And I’m sitting here looking at the lyrics of this song, and Where I at least hear the music parts, it is in Welcome to the City, which is the bit where it’s just Kris, The Soul and Noelle, and given the whole song and all i have to wonder if there’s any intended link.

Cause man, looking at the picture used, and then the lyrics it certainly feels like it.

Now purposes of this here analysis I suggest you go listen to the song. 74, Itoki Hana, Toby Fox should get you where you need to be. If nothing else it’s a good song.

Now probably not, but it does at least put me in the mind to look at it like it does even if it’s only more a thing i vaguely heard that sorta sounds like this sparked an idea and honestly there’s worse places to grow your thoughts.

So, in 74, the song more or less comes from the pov of the Princess in a tower, watching a brave knight ascend to rescue her, through the various traps and trials that are within the tower...That she set and put there. And she is not (or she is in addition to being) actually a princess. She’s a dragon, pretending to be a princess to lure in knights to feel a degree of validation, to feel well...Important. Valuable. Special you know?

And I guess it’s not hard to see some potential parallels going on given that we find that Kris is opening the Fountains. Or is ALSO opening the Fountains. We’ve seen one for sure, and the implication SUGGESTS that they’re the one doing it in general, but we won’t know for sure til the game’s completely out. But for now, let’s assume they’re doing them all.

With that, We have Kris the Hero fighting through a land of trial and tribulation that he made himself to do...Something. Like in the song, the Knight in question looks gallant cool and really shows their stuff, even though in the end they bit it.

So that’s something, but then, we’re still asking why is Kris doing this? It’s shown that basically any Lightner can open a Dark Fountain whenever they want (Berdly got slapped out of it like 3 times in a row, and he seemed to be doing it pretty trivially as far as difficulty was concerned. Now that was in the Dark World, so perhaps it was easier there, but the Queen didn’t even really consider Berdly Strong enough to do it, though part of that likely as not had to do with her concern for Noelle.

But like...I dunno, I go back to the Knight in all this, and that’s a position of special import in the game. It’s very actively called attention to it, and the Knight is positioned as an apocalyptic force that’s...Creating Worlds, giving life and value back to the Darkners, who were cut off from the Lightners, which has seemingly left both sides lesser. The Darkners seeming to be doomed to fade into the dark, while the Lightners are unable to interact with this world that seems to have the ability to massively improve their wellbeing.

Like, Knights are typically heroes in stories with princes and heroes and kings and queens you know? When the story takes place in a kingdom, it’s the loyal knight who, while perhaps not the main hero, is a steadfast compatriot. Well that’s the general idea right?

But the Knight is positioned as a terrible force of ruin and destruction...Except in chapter 2 here, we get the notion that creating the Dark Worlds really can be an improvement life. Indeed, the game doesn’t even seem to suggest that creating more Dark Worlds is inherently a bad thing, but there’s the critical issue of the balance between the two being off and that’s a critical problem that at least as of now doesn’t seem to be able to be addressed.

Still, if this game is keeping on with Parallels to Undertale, The Knight isn’t all bad. Hell even the Spade King wasn’t all bad and he’s pretty objectively the most evil character in the normal route of the game.

And the game really does seem to posit that the interaction between the dark world and the light world is inherently good for both of them. The Town looks Way healthier and lively in Chapter 2 than it did in 1. Susie’s Rude Stat has been dropping since go, and Even Kris, while we don’t get to see their thoughts, seems to be becoming considerably more expressive. Now admittedly pretty much every expression we do get to see from them that isn’t prompted from The Soul seems to be negative and frustrated and angry and all that, but then, I think that’s probably a better place to be than shoving everything down and being completely unresponsive and not acknowledging anything that they’re feeling, which seems to be the case whenever you start to touch on anything remotely intimate.

I mean The Soul seems to be a part of them as well as apart from them, which is confusing at the moment, but they’re capable of scarfing down a whole entire pie, slash their moms tires, and open up portals to parallel realites without it so it doesn’t seem to be something that they particularly NEED to survive or do anything.

Going back to the song though, and i suppose the most basic barebones aspect I wanna look at, is that Someone who’s Apparently In Trouble is actually the Threat, or more generally, that the Appearances Are Opposite to the Actual Reality of the situation I’m wondering.

Because last thing before I cut this off, is that We have the Queen going all in on her plan and being unaware that going through with it would lead to the end of all things, I have to wonder if the Knight is Similarly Ignorant as to what they’re actually doing.

I’m also wondering if Perhaps Asriel is perhaps actually the antagonist. Because while the game’s claim of your choices having no meaning is inherently unquestionably suspect, the game also makes it extremely clear, doubly so as of the point of chapter 2, That there are people you’re simply going to have to fight, and perhaps you’re going to have to fight them with the full intent of killing them, and that that is an option that you genuinely may need to consider. Or at least, that you may well need to destroy that relationship and cut them out of your life. Not everyone should be recruited, so to speak.

Which is advice that shows up, if my memory isn’t failing me this quickly, in the manual that Ralsei provides...And advice that, if taken to extremes as shown in the Corruption route, can cause genuine problems.

Or I suppose I guess to put this in another context, the first words of advice you’re given, that are a full on lie, in Undertale is that this is a world of kill or be killed. Asriel tells us this is a world where you do not have to kill anyone, and while the game has yet to have you actually bring the axe down on anyone in the Normal Route, it’s also extremely explicitly stated that it’s not so simple as spare everyone or fight everyone. There’s shades of grey here and you shouldn’t just ignore them. There are people you can’t just spare, you have to fight it out (and interestingly, those people do not include the secret bosses, who seem to have a greater level of understanding of the world, if also are borderline incoherent in both cases.)

I dunno. There’s more to percolate on here i think, though obviously some of this isn’t gonna be answered until we get the rest of the game.

And as a last note, there’s 7 showing up again as a recurring number so that’s...Interesting.

#Deltarune #Music Stuff #Analysis #spoilers #Rambling

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everamazingfe · 3 years

Text

You Can Ride On My Rocket 69 - Chapter Ten

Fic Summary: Jeremy has recently awoken in this strange world, 210 ten years after he was put to sleep, and is now the lone survivor from his vault. Trevor's a radio host from Diamond City who's barely left the station, lonely in his own right and isolated from the rest of the Wastes. When they meet, Trevor finally gets a chance to see the rest of the wasteland like he's always wanted, though Jeremy becomes more of his bodyguard than Trevor does his companion. They meet various people along the way, some being friends like the odd throuple they meet in one of the neighboring city, or foe like a certain Diamond City guard. Both are wary about bringing up their pasts, but the wasteland has a strange way of bringing people together.

Chapter Summary: Jeremy and Trevor learn the truth about Vault 111, and Trevor takes a little vacation to Good Neighbor and makes some strange bedfellows. This chapter's song is "Maybe" by The Ink Spots.

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Words in this chapter: 4296 Pairings: Jeremy/Trevor, Michael/Gavin/Lindsay, Jeremy/OC Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of death, minor character injury, alcohol use

Notes: There's a link to the first chapter of this fic as the source of this post! Click it to go read this fic over on A O 3, or you can search up the title or ‘everamazingfe’ on the site! This is also my longest chapter ever, and there’s some art to go along with it, but that’s in a separate post.

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The vault had clearly remained untouched since the pair had last been there, the dust that coated everything undisturbed aside from handprints on the cryopod and dust wiped from the terminal's keyboard. Trevor was back at that terminal, typing and clicking away as if it would get him any closer to accessing the menus hidden behind the password screen. Jeremy stood at the pod, his forehead and hand pressed on the glass.

A groan of frustration came from the computer, followed by a soft thud as the side of the monitor was hit, and Jeremy turned his head. "No good?"

"Nope. No good," Trevor muttered, shaking his head and huffing in frustration. "I'm gonna try and find another terminal, maybe one of the others won't be so broken. Just... Hang out here." He let out another huff as he picked up his bat, leaving the room to explore the vault more. There were radroaches everywhere, but with the mods Jeremy had made to the swatter in his hands, it killed them in one swift hit. He didn't remember there being so many the last time they were there, but maybe they were just getting bold.

Trevor figured his best bet would be the overseer's office, maybe the computer there would have some sort of master control system. He didn't know. Computers weren't really his thing, but he was trying his best to be helpful. He made his way down the hall towards where he figured the overseer's office, but before he reached it, he found another room full of those same pods. That terminal was unharmed, and though he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it held, he looked anyway.

What it held was rather appalling. Whatever malfunction had caused Jeremy's pod to open had shown mercy on him, because he was the only one to make it out of there alive. The cryogenic array and life support systems had long gone offline, and everyone left in the pods had thawed and begun to rot. It was easy to figure out that something similar had happened in the room that held Jeremy's husband's pod, and in every other room in the vault. The realization that he was standing in a room full of corpses, already entombed with their family and friends, made him stagger back, bile rising in his throat. He'd suspected it, but the confirmation was something he wasn't ready for.

The overseer's terminal didn't bring Trevor much better news either. The all-clear that was supposed to come from Vault-Tec never did. The resulting incident, as staff of the vault rioted and overthrew the overseer, was one of chaos and horror. The skeletons littered about the vault had made that clear, but somehow those were easier to stomach. They didn't still look like people, and from the sound of the memos he found, they weren't meant to make it out of the vault alive either.

Trevor let out a long sigh, scrubbing his hands over his face as he tried to process what he'd learned. It was all so much. Vault-Tec was pure evil, that much was certain, and he was glad he never had had to deal with them. The Institute was bad enough as it was. He slid down the desk until he was sitting on the floor, looking over at the skeleton of the overseer nearby. "Were any of these people ever supposed to leave? Were you?"

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Jeremy hadn't budged from the pod since Trevor had left. His eyes were still fixed on it, on his husband inside. The harsh reality of the situation was all around him, but he refused to accept it without concrete proof. The man couldn't be dead. He had fought for years in The Great War, only to die a week after getting home? It just seemed too cruel, Jeremy couldn't accept that as the truth. But he knew that the man inside didn't deserve a life out in the wastes, either. Maybe he was better off in the pod.

"I wish I was still in mine," he whispered, examining the lines of the other man's face. "I wish I could remember you." He put his palm flat on the glass, his fingers curling against it. "I remember us. I remember... Our life. But not you."

Something about coming out of cryofreeze must have fucked his brain up, maybe he'd gone without the life support functions for just a little too long after thawing, before his pod had opened. Or maybe his mind was protecting him from something bad. Jeremy didn't know. But luckily, his eyes still worked fine. At least he could still see him clearly. He inspected him closely, committing his face to memory and filling in the gaps where decay had caused the skin to fade away. The man inside the pod still looked as handsome as he did in all those photos from before the war, in Jeremy's mind. But what was underneath wasn't muscle, or bone.

Jeremy pressed his nose right up against the glass, almost like he was trying to push through it to see better, his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

"What the hell?" He squinted and looked even closer, and all at once his breath was ripped from his chest.

When he got it back, all he could do was scream.

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"Trevor!"

The pained cry echoed off the walls of the vault, and Trevor's head snapped to attention. It was Jeremy. For a moment, he was excited, thinking that maybe he'd finally gotten the manual release switch to work, but as the other man screamed again, he knew that it was anything but joy in his voice. He'd never run faster, but the vault was maze like and confusing. When he found Jeremy, the man was no longer standing calmly and staring pensively into the pod, but repeatedly punching the glass.

"Jeremy, what-"

"-He's a fucking synth!" Despite Jeremy punching the glass again and again, his knuckles bloodied and bruised, there wasn't a single crack in the surface. "That's not my husband, that's a fucking synth!" Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he hit the glass one last time before he turned to face Trevor. "He's... Trevor, he's..." He choked on his words, covering his face with his hands as he dropped to his knees. "This is worse than him being dead."

Trevor approached slowly, kneeling down in front of him and tentatively putting a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. It was shrugged off, so he decided not to push it. Looking towards the pod, he saw that Jeremy was right. How had they missed it? Wires and metal, all on display. A false bone faceplate and synthetic skin that didn't look quite right upon close inspection. One of the earlier models for sure, the newest ones had no differences from their human counterparts, but he didn't think that they existed before the drop. "That's sick. That's... That's downright disturbing." What business did the Institute have with a Pre-War corpse? "I don't even know what to say." What was there to say? 'Sorry that the man you love turns out not to be a man at all?' Bones were easier to break than that thick glass, especially when Jeremy was the one throwing the punch.

"Was my whole life a lie?" Jeremy took a shuddering breath, trying to keep everything from fading to black around him. "Was he even real? Did he ever even love me?"

"No, no... The Institute... It wasn't around before the bombs. There's no way." Either the man was somehow always a synth, or they came and swapped his body out. But that didn't answer the question of why? What was so special about him that they'd sentence everyone else to death? He realized now that this was probably the source of the malfunction that had doomed the other pods, and they'd probably cut off the manual release to keep anyone from finding out. "He was real when you knew him. I'm sure of that."

Jeremy scoffed. "Great, so then the Institute is a bunch of graverobbers. What are they, the fucking Resurrection Men?"

"I don't know who that is."

"They're... Fuck it, nevermind. We need to find those fuckers." His tears had gone from distraught to furious, his whole body running red hot with anger as his fists clenched at his sides again. The Institute had taken so much from him. They'd taken a peaceful death from him, and now they'd gone and taken away the only thing that had ever made his existence bearable. That hurt more than all the hits he'd taken out in the Commonwealth combined.

"No one knows where they are, Jeremy. Otherwise they would've been taken out decades ago."

"Even better, we'll be the first!"

"Where would we even start?"

"I don't know!" Jeremy was shouting now, standing up abruptly and startling Trevor in the process. Pointing at the pod, Jeremy continued. "He might still be out there! He could be out there, alone and scared and wandering the wastes like I was before I met you, or the Institute could be doing shit to him, and I don't know which is a worse fate. We have to find him." He lowered his hand, hauling Trevor up. "I have to find him."

Trevor just stared down at Jeremy, finding his footing and freeing his arm from his grip. "I don't know if I'm gonna be able to help you."

"Then forget you, I'll do it myself." He started to walk away, but Trevor grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him, and Jeremy met his eyes with a flare.

"Stop! Wait. I meant I don't know how to help you. But... Remember how I told you 'bout how I was brought up by Nick Valentine?" Jeremy nodded, though he was uncertain. "He's a detective, back in Diamond City. He can help you."

"Oh." Jeremy instantly relaxed, his glare being replaced with a softer expression. He'd thought that Trevor meant that he wouldn't help him. "Well, I guess we're going back to the city, then."

"Guess so," Trevor agreed, letting out a sigh. At least Jeremy seemed a bit less worked up now, but he still felt a bit on edge. "All this back and forth is fucking exhausting."

Jeremy nodded in agreement, shaking out his hand and pulling a bundle of gauze from his pocket to wrap it with. "Hey, Trev?" He said once they were back on the elevator platform, looking at the other man for a few long moments before he actually hit the button to take them back up.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. And... Thanks."

Trevor shrugged, looking down at his feet. "That's what friends do, right? Help each other?" He looked back up at Jeremy now, a soft smile on his face. "And when they can't, they point them in the right direction."

"Yeah, exactly. But, uh... We gotta be careful out there, alright? I can't lose you too."

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

"I can't lose you too."

The words echoed in Trevor's head as he stared up at the sky. They were camped out in some abandoned house somewhere halfway between Sanctuary Hills and Diamond City, Trevor's own exhaustion nearly making him collapse and Jeremy's injured hand making it hard for him to hold a gun well enough to protect them. The roof was long gone, but the walls were intact enough that they could barricade the holes, and there were some mattresses left on the floor that were perfect for sleeping on. Only, Trevor couldn't sleep. Jeremy was snoring way too loudly beside him for that, and his armor was uncomfortable.

The sky was always so clear, aside from the occasional radiation storm that rolled through, and he wondered if people before the war ever got the chance to appreciate it like this. Jeremy had said no, that the lights of the cities were so bright that you couldn't see the sky anymore, when he'd asked. He couldn't imagine living without being able to see the stars. They'd always brought him some sense of comfort, and if he was a smarter man maybe he would've taken the time to learn their names. But he wasn't, and that information wasn't available to him anymore even if he was.

Trevor let out a sigh and rolled over, his eyes on Jeremy now. The words still replayed in his head, over and over. They had since he'd said them. Maybe he was putting too much meaning into them, but to him it felt like proof that someone finally cared about him. No one ever had before. His parents had abandoned him, leaving him to end up just another Diamond City orphan until Nick took pity on him. Nick had cared for him as much as a synth could, but he'd still said, "My hands are tied," when Trevor had gone to him with complaints about Ian. Everyone in Diamond City shunned him and didn't do anything to protect him, that had all been Jeremy. Because he actually cared about him. And he realized, as he lay there listening to the ambient noise of the wastes and the loud snoring, that he cared about Jeremy too.

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

"I'm not going back to Sanctuary again."

"Not asking you to, Trevor."

"But Nick said he wants to go look at the vault, take a look around. So we gotta go back."

"You don't have to go."

"Yes, I do."

The conversation had been going on like this for around ten minutes now, Nick and his assistant Ellie standing by and politely pretending that they weren't eavesdropping. Trevor was reluctant to let Jeremy leave without him, despite being in no shape to travel. Whether it was because he was too scared to be on his own, or too scared that he wouldn't be there to help Jeremy in case things went bad, Trevor didn't know. But regardless, staying in Diamond City without Jeremy sounded terrifying. For all he knew, Ian could be back on duty, just waiting for a chance to catch Trevor alone.

"Look, Trev... You're exhausted. I am too, but... I gotta go back there with him, I have to start trying to get this figured out. And you? You need to rest, I'm sorry but you look awful." Jeremy didn't like the sound of leaving Trevor alone either, but there was really no other choice. He at least had army training under his belt, he could run of too little sleep for far too long if he needed to, but Trevor didn't have that. And, admittedly, he'd been pushing the other man a bit too hard since they'd gotten back out in the Commonwealth. "Look, I'll take you to Goodneighbor, how about that? I'll bribe Michael to keep an eye on you, set you up with enough caps for a room at the Rex. How's that sound?"

"Sounds a lot better than staying here."

Jeremy smiled at that, clapping Trevor on the shoulder. "Great. Nick, I'm gonna go do that, then I'll be back."

"Don't worry about it. Take your time," Nick assured, waving them off. Both he and Ellie watched them as they left, the pair still bickering quietly. When the door shut, he turned to her and spoke. "I'm glad the kid's found a friend, but I thought he had a better head on his shoulders than that."

Ellie shrugged, returning to her desk and writing up a report to go into the case file. "I dunno, Nick. Seemed like they're more than that to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing, it's just..." She smiled. "Intuition, I guess."

"Right. 'Intuition.' Just be careful you don't end up like Piper, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

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

Good Neighbor without Jeremy was just boring, Trevor decided. It wasn't the comforting retreat he thought it would be either. Instead of worrying about the people around him, he was just worried about Jeremy. Spending time with Lindsay, Michael, and Gavin at the Third Rail was a decent distraction during the day, but there was nothing like that when he had to go back to the hotel alone.

"You should check out the Memory Den some time," Gavin said one afternoon a few days into his stay, passing Trevor a Nuka Cherry with the cap already off. "Some people like taking a trip down memory lane when the real world stops being interesting enough for them."

Trevor scoffed quietly, taking a long sip from the soda. "Yeah, I'll pass. Most of the memories I've got, I don't wanna revisit."

"Not even your night with Lindsay?"

Trevor spluttered, nearly spilling his drink all over himself as he stared at Gavin in shock, who could only grin wryly back at him. "You know about that?"

"Course I do, it's not like I don't talk to them," he said, chuckling as he popped the top on a Gwinnet Stout for himself. "We're quite close, y'know. The three of us are. We talk. And Lindsay loves to talk about you, they'd been dying for you to some back ever since you left."

"I don't think that's true at all." His cheeks were as red as his soda now, and he just wanted to run away and hide.

"Oh, but it is. You really impressed them." Gavin was getting a great deal of joy out of making Trevor squirm the way he was, and he glanced behind him towards the stairs that Lindsay was coming down right then. He winked at them, putting a finger to his lips when he made eye contact, quickly lowering his hand when Trevor was looking his way again. "So, tell me Trevor-boy. Were they as good of a neighbor as their songs claim? Oh, come on! Don't be shy now."

"Okay, well... Honestly? They were great. I mean, just... So sweet, and so perfect, but... I don't think that's gonna be happening again."

Both Gavin and Lindsay's face fell, and he leaned in close. "Why not?"

Trevor bit his lip nervously, hoping he hadn't upset the other with his response. He swirled his soda around in the bottle, staring down into it before he looked up at him. "I don't think I was that good of a neighbor." Saying that he was dealing with some complicated feelings about Jeremy felt like he'd be confessing too much to someone he barely knew, and it wasn't Lindsay's fault that those feelings had only gotten more complicated since the last time he'd been around.

"Oh, Trevor." Lindsay's voice came from behind him, and they wrapped their arms around him from behind him, making him bristle. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I think you were the best neighbor, but... I'm not against giving you a chance to redeem yourself."

"You... You set me up!" He cried, pointing at Gavin accusingly, but the only response he got was a wink as he knocked back the beer. "This is the worst. You're the worst, Gavin."

Lindsay laughed and unwrapped their arms around him so they could sit on a stool beside him, asking Gavin for a glass of wine when he was done being a dick. "I'm sorry, darlin', but it was just too cute watching you get all flustered like that."

Some version of the same antic happened every day, and he didn't know how he hadn't gotten wise to it at that point. After the fifth day of being in Good Neighbor, he took Lindsay up on their offer of redeeming himself because he just couldn't stand how lonely his hotel room was anymore. It was much the same as the first time they had spent the night together, and it didn't really fill the void.

The next night, Lindsay invited Trevor back to the apartment they shared with Gavin and Michael. Not for sex, but just so he wouldn't be alone at night anymore, because it really seemed to be getting to him. He'd swapped his Nuka Cherry for whatever beer Gavin had on hand, and they'd all started to get concerned. They all considered him a friend, they thought he was sweet and fun to talk to, and he had good choice in music, and they weren't going to let their friend be miserable if they could help it. Trevor was better after that, switching back to soda after his nights were filled with games of Blast Radius instead of listening to his own voice on the radio, staring up at the ceiling because he couldn't see the sky from the window.

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

Jeremy wasn't doing much better, either. Nick Valentine, as nice as he was, just wasn't as good company as Trevor. That was his biggest problem with the synth, really. That he wasn't Trevor. The man's voice did play over the radio, but he knew it wasn't the real deal. The real deal was, hopefully, safe in Good Neighbor.

The trip back to Sanctuary had been easy enough, but a tour of the vault didn't really tell Nick anything that Jeremy hadn't already told him about the situation. He'd expected as much, but it didn't hurt to look for any sort of calling card that may have been left behind. Their trip had taken quite a few detours, too, because of Nick wanting some help looking into other cases that he had on the docket. Jeremy had been reluctant to help, but he figured since he was being helped for free, it was the least he could do to pay him back. Once they were back in Nick's office in Diamond City, he relayed the information to Ellie for her to write up and add to the case file, and spoke with her to try and figure out the next step. She said something, and Nick's face lit up, knocking on the desk to get Jeremy's attention.

"Lucky for you, where you're gonna want to go next is where you have to go anyway," Nick said finally, turning to Jeremy, who'd nearly fallen asleep in the chair he was seated in. "In Good Neighbor, there's a place called the Memory Den. People usually use it to try and look back on fond memories, but I think in your case, it may be the key to figuring out what happened while you were on ice."

Jeremy was glad to not have to roam all over the Commonwealth again, and even more excited that he'd get to see Trevor again. Next time, he wasn't going to be leaving him behind. "Great, I'll look into it."

"Come back to me if you get anything useful."

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

It was another day at the bar for Trevor, another day wishing that there was something he could use to get in touch with Jeremy somehow. Letters were useless, and he was pretty sure that a Pip-Boy couldn't receive any messages from terminals without being hooked into it.

As usual, he was leaned against the bar, chatting with Gavin who stood next to him, and Michael and Lindsay who were seated on the other side on the stools. The Third Rail wasn't open just yet, but Trevor had taken to helping Gavin get the bar set up and keeping the other two company as they waited for opening time. And though it wasn't open, it seemed like Michael had forgotten to lock the door back up behind them, because heavy footsteps started coming down the steps. The conversation immediately stopped, Trevor and Gavin ducking down below the bar as Michael moved to stand in front of Lindsay.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Trevor heard Michael say, but it wasn't in anger like he'd been expecting. He and Gavin glanced at each other in confusion, the Brit silently reaching to grab a pistol that was stored beneath the counter just in case.

"I'm here for Trevor. Guy at the Rex said he'd been hanging out with you guys lately."

He recognized that voice, and he knocked the gun out of Gavin's hands before popping his head up to confirm what his ears had heard. "Jeremy! You're back."

"You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you?" Jeremy asked, a grin spreading across his face when he saw Trevor stand up from behind the bar. Barely a moment passed before Trevor was stepping out from behind the bar, running up to Jeremy and wrapping him in a hug. "Whoa, okay... Guess you did," he laughed, awkwardly raising and lowering his arms a few times before he settled for wrapping them around Trevor, hugging him back tightly.

"No, I didn't, I just... Missed you." The confession made Trevor's cheeks go red, and after a minute he pulled away from the hug. "But... I'm glad you're back. How'd the search go?"

Jeremy made a noncommittal noise, gesturing vaguely. "It was kinda pointless, to be honest. But I know where to go next. Some place called the Memory Den?"

"Oh, well I could have told you that! You didn't need some crackpot gumshoe for that," Gavin said, "That's where I told Trevor he should go when he started getting bored." Michael reached across the counter to thump him across the head. "What? I did!" The ghoul just cut him a look, and Gavin stuck his tongue out at him in response before quieting down.

Trevor cleared his throat, turning back towards Jeremy with a smile. "Hey, at least we know where to go. And it's not very far, either. I bet you're even more sick of wandering around the wastes than I am at this point."

"You've got that right," Jeremy said with a chuckle, heading over to the bar to take a seat and motioning for Trevor to join him. "Mhm. But we're not going there right now. First, I need a drink."

#ragehappy #rpf #treremy #doollins #jeremy/trevor #mavinsay #juggey #gavinsay #mavin #fallout au #fallout 4 au #fic #fanfic #my fic #my writing #everamazingfe

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mcfanely · 4 years

Text

The Ice Emperor and the Earth Dragon

Nothing ever really stays the same. Peace doesn’t last, it is simply the absence of turmoil.

Chapter 07 - Snow Fall, 2390 words

Fishing, Cole had to admit, was relaxing. Or probably the most relaxing part of his routine recently. There was just something enjoyable about standing on the riverside, listening to the water still flowing freely below the layer of ice that was acting as a seal over the top. Back in Ninjago, back at home, he'd never really understood the appeal of it, not really. Standing still for hours on end, staying as silent as possible, Cole found those things hard to do when his life wasn't dependent on it. His foot always tapped lightly to an internal rhythm in his head, he paced sometimes if he was bored enough.

Silence, though. That was something he could do. Internally, it may have been a constant vortex of thoughts and songs and an incessant internal monologue that Cole used to keep himself occupied; with all that going on, externally, he was absolutely stone cold silent. Even his breathing was measured.

The environment seemed to reflect this too. It had been a nice day when Cole had stepped out of the cave and for that he was grateful. Snowy landscape did not necessarily mean a biting and unbearable cold. The sun still rose in the east, it bounced off the white blanket in a beautiful way and it warmed the area to a degree. The snow didn't melt and the ice didn't get any thinner, but Cole didn't have a constant chill in his bones.

Even though the sky had clouded over a bit back, Cole was still enjoying himself. Then when the snow had begun to fall in light fluffy swirls, he let out a small breath and allowed the calming silence to descend.

Zane had explained it to him once, around a year ago when Ninjago was experiencing a white Christmas. Snow had descended and the world had quieted, and Cole had turned to his friend and simply gave the observation that the world seemed to fall silent when it snowed.

Apparently, it was a thing that happened and he wasn't imagining it.

Large flakes of snow take up the sky as they fall, Zane had said, Cole remembered fondly. This means that when there is a sound, instead of it travelling straight to your or my ears, it gets interrupted by these falling flurries. He'd reached out and caught one in his hand, the flake stayed solid, in perfect condition. All because Zane ran cold.

When snow falls, the world really does become quieter. I, for one, find it calming.

It really was calming. Cole had situated himself on a low hanging branch of a tree, his leg dangling over one side and his fishing rod and line suspended over the other and in a large crevice broken into the ice by a solid stick and a few dropped rocks.

He would fish for hours, but sitting down on the ground or finding a rock to get comfortable on would be stupid. The ground sapped away warmth like it was nothing, and Cole didn't have any he was willing to risk giving away.

This was just routine, and feeling cold was always part of that. It was a constant presence now, even in the safety of the cavern where the mech was kept, where it was a slight bit warmer, it was nothing like home. Home with a heating system, working lighting, any creature comfort that Cole would never take for granted when they got back there. If they got back home at all.

It was one thing waiting for a rescue, but a whole other thing hoping for one that probably wasn't going to come any time soon. The realisation that anyone's first assumption would be that Aspheera's magic had been the end of the both of them had been hard to get his head around.

Cole was, in reality, still trying to accept it.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. If he could be anywhere in that moment, he probably would still pick the frozen wasteland they were trapped in. If only that it provided the knowledge that Zane was okay, Cole wouldn't trade that. He liked knowing that his friend was alive, anything was better than fearing him dead.

Thinking that he'd given his life for yet another noble cause, that he was never coming back. Crouching down in the barren and frozen streets of Ninjago city with a part of Zane's facial plating held loosely in his hands, looking around and not finding him anywhere. Snow fell, everything was silent, and Zane was gone.

Cole snapped sharply back to reality when he felt some resistance on the end of his line. He reached out and grabbed the wire, situating the wooden rod between his legs so he could reel the fish in the manual way, pulling on the wire until his catch was successfully out of the water. He had the method down, this process was basically muscle memory already. The amount of fish he'd caught over the past week or so was more than he'd ever thought he'd need to catch in his lifetime.

Maybe he was getting tired of the mundane and repetitive action of catching the fish, scaling and slicing them up using a dagger that was made for combat and definitely not Cole's first choice of weapon in battle, using the blowtorch they had sparingly since that fuel wasn't going to last forever to heat it up just a little and hopefully kill off any bacteria. Rinse and repeat. Daily.

Well, better to be bored of fish but have something to eat than have nothing and starve.

He set the fish on the thick branch he was situated on, next to the others he'd already caught that day.

Maybe he could figure out a way to dry them? Then they'd keep for a lot longer, which would mean less time being spent fishing.

Which reminded him.

Cole began wrapping the wire up; packing away his job for the day he used the last bit of its length to tie around the tails of the fish for easy transportation.

Then he hopped down from the branch to continue with his day.

Or at least, as much as he could do. A glance to the sky showed a nearing tundra of dark clouds that could only mean that a snow storm was coming. Though they looked fairly far off, Cole had faith that he had a little bit more time.

More time to tread through the snow with his fishing pole resting on one shoulder, listening to the sound of the fresh blanket crunch and buckle under his weight as he made his way deeper into the surrounding forest. Though he wasn't going to get lost. He'd been this way already, if the deep score marks on the trees around him was anything to go by. They marked a path, a way home in a way. All he had to do was turn around and keep the marked trees on his left side, and he'd be back at the cavern in no time.

The carved trees also marked out how far both he and Zane had trekked during their stints outside, each day they would go a bit further, score off a few more trees; yet currently, staying closer to their home base was more important.

As time went on, and as circumstances would evidently change if they got the mech working, they could venture further easier.

For now Cole was content with walking around the area he already knew, specifically, searching for dead trees, or one with snapped and dying branches.

If they didn't get the mech working, then they'd need other ways to get warm, and as much as Cole knew they'd gotten lucky with very few storms and generally nice days; he also knew that they had in no way experienced the worst of the cold this realm could bestow.

Dying and dead wood meant it was already pretty dry, a few days out of the elements and it might have a chance of being firewood. Though it was an ongoing and long process.

Cole had collected wood last week and laid it out uniformly over the cavern floor, yet any attempts to strike a flame and start a blaze had ended with very sore and tired hands and a pile of splintered wood. He'd tried the blow torch, that was the first thing he'd done. Everything was just so saturated with damp that nothing took.

It didn't mean Cole would stop trying, and by collecting wood today in order to dry it off for a later date, it meant that he and Zane could be better prepared for whatever the realm threw at them in the future.

They were in it for the long haul, after all. What with no way home.

No way home and no rescue team coming to get them.

He sighed lightly as he used the dagger to sever an already hanging branch from a tree and held it under his arm as he walked over to another tree.

Then another.

And another.

Until Cole was walking around with a substantial assortment of thin branches and some smaller fairly dry twigs in his hands, coupled with his fishing rod now being balanced on the opposite shoulder, there wasn't really much else he could carry without dropping anything.

So he made the, most likely smart decision, to head back to the cavern for the day. Sure, there was daylight left and the storm clouds were still far off in the distance, but Cole wasn't going to do much more with full hands.

He was stepping gingerly over the frozen lake when he felt the temperature take a sudden drop around him. The temperate weather of a sunny winter day took a stark and tangible shift. The wind picked up and blew through the torn gaps in his gi, pelted over his bare arms and made him involuntarily drop his carried items in favour of wrapping his arms around himself to ward off the bitter chill.

Cole felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up, and that wasn't just due to the cold.

He glanced down at the branches that he'd dropped, at the strung up fish that laid on the top of the frozen river. Then he looked past them, looked past the surface ice and down to the flowing water below. Or at least, what had used to be flowing not a few seconds ago.

Fish that had been freely swimming beneath the ice were now frozen in place, suspended in their final actions by the water that had apparently undergone a flash freezing. The river, once topped with both thick areas of ice and slightly more dubious spots were now a solid chunk of ice all the way down to the river bed.

Then Cole glanced at the trees just as snow began to fall and a once clear sky was soon overtaken by a wall of darkened clouds. Frost was visibly crawling over the bark in frozen spirals, and honestly it was an extremely pretty sight. Watching as they grew and danced, creating pattern after pattern.

Yet, it didn't stop the feeling of a lead weight dropping in his stomach.

The snowfall was speeding up now, becoming heavier, thicker, more blinding. It was getting worse by the second.

It was getting colder by the second too, he could feel the numbness edging into his fingers, the cold chill nipping at his face, reddening and numbing his cheeks.

Then when frost started to form on the front of his gi, Cole didn't even take a moment to collect his belongings from the floor. He just broke into a sprint, running headlong into the snowstorm and the growing fresh blanket of snowfall.

He needed to get back to the cavern. It didn't take a genius to realise that the weather wasn't natural.

Snow didn't fall from a previously clear sky, clouds didn't form and blacken the sky within seconds from nothing.

Water didn't freeze so suddenly.

It required a catalyst for something so abnormal, a force behind it.

Raw energy and power.

Like an elemental master and the scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu.

Zane.

This time, finding his way back to the cavern was muscle memory. Cole didn't look around to see if he was following the right path of trees, he was just running. He had to get to the cavern, he had to prove himself wrong.

This had to be just one huge overreaction; maybe this was a weird event that happened in this realm every once in a while? A sudden freeze.

Internally, though, he knew that he was just lying to himself.

The temperature only continued to drop the closer he got to their shelter, Cole didn't even spare a second thought to the giant bird that sometimes circled the area; even that thing seemed to be staying away.

He could see why even through the blinding rage the storm had developed to. The sheer blue light was a guide towards the mouth of the cave, but also a sign of what was waiting for him inside.

That knowledge didn't halt his step. If Zane was in fact holding the staff, if he was causing the shift in the weather that was so sudden and severe as it was, then something wasn't right. His friend needed help and danger or not, he wasn't going to go anywhere but the eye of the storm.

He did slow at the entrance though, his footsteps falling silent as they moved from the crunch of the snow to the solid stone floor. Cole just walked inside, his hands pinned under his arms to try and get some feeling back into them now that he was sheltered from the wind and snow.

"Would you advise me to do so?" Zane's voice echoed around the room, it had a dubious note to it. Confusion.

Why was he talking to himself? He furrowed his eyebrows and was about to step out into the expanse of the cave when,

In a gravelly tone, "Most certainly."

An unknown voice. An unknown third person.

Cole felt the hair on his neck prickle, and it wasn't due to the power of the scroll.

There was someone in there. With Zane.

From the beginning

Ch 06 > Ch 07 > Ch 08

AO3

#The Ice Emperor and the Earth Dragon AU #The Ice Emperor and The Earth Dragon #cole #zane #cole brookstone #zane julien #cole ninjago #zane ninjago #ninjago #lego ninjago #lego #The Ice Emperor #General Vex #mcfanely writes #mcfanely aus #mcfanely

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hlupdate · 4 years

Link

Here he comes, one of the planet’s most conspicuous young men, stepping out of the London drizzle and into a dusty suburban pub. If there was an old vinyl record player in the place it would scratch quiet. Instead, the two-dozen punters turn hushed and intent, as if a unicorn has just trotted in off the street, and nobody wants to scare it off. “That’s frickin’ Harry frickin’ Styles,” whispers a young man at the bar, “in this pub.” The pop star is asked what he wants to drink and in a voice already inclined to undertones, quietly orders a cup of tea.

A former teen star who is now 25, a happier and rockier solo artist since his boyband One Direction split a few years ago, Styles has hidden himself inside a large, swamp-green parka. He’s tall, around the 6ft mark, and carries himself with a slight stoop. If Styles could only do something about his appearance from the neck up (elfin brow, wide Joker smile, a face that’s recognisable across multiple continents) you sense he could drink in pubs like this anonymously enough. As it is, cover blown, he removes the parka. A woolly jumper beneath has a picture of the planet Saturn on it. Maybe they’ve heard of Styles there, too.

We take a seat in the corner. On nearby tables, conversations start to sputter as people try to keep their own talk ticking along on autopilot while straining to hear what Styles says. I ask him about the sheer strangeness of this and other aspects of fame. Full stadiums, swooning admirers, an excess of opportunity and cash. Why isn’t Styles an absolute ordeal of a human being by now? Keith Richards, at a comparable stage, imagined himself the pirate leader of a travelling nation-state, unbound by international law. Elton John was on vast amounts of cocaine. Meanwhile, here’s Harry, known in the music industry as a bit of a freak, medically, having maintained abnormally high levels of civility in his system.

Styles tilts his head, flattered. There are others, he promises. “People who are successful, and still nice. It’s when you meet the people who are successful and aren’t nice, you think: What’s yer excuse? Cos I’ve met the other sort.”

Styles read Keith Richards’ autobiography a while back, and he recently finished Elton’s, too. (“Soooo much cocaine,” he marvels.) We talk for a bit about whether extreme dissolute behaviour and artistic greatness go hand in hand. Styles, who has just released his second solo album, Fine Line, the penultimate track of which is called Treat People With Kindness, has to hope not. “I just don’t think you need to be a dick to be a good artist. But, then, there are also a lot of good artists who are dicks. So. Hmm. Maybe I need to start scaring babies in supermarkets?”

A couple of lads hustle over to offer drinks. A photo is requested; they say they’ll wait. I’m weirdly anxious about Styles’s phone, which is slung on the table in front of him. What must be the black-market value of that thing? If fans were to get hold of it, would they want to open Styles’s music app first, to listen to tracks from the new album, or rush to see his messages and calls, to find out who Styles has been flirting with late at night? The interest in his music has always run at a ratio of about 50/50 with the interest in who he is dating.

It’s a ratio Styles tries to adjust in favour of the music by being vague about his ex-partners, real and rumoured (Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Parisian model Camille Rowe), diverting to discuss his songs about failed relationships. A year ago, when Styles was floating around near this pub in north London, where he lives, and California, where he tends to record, looking for inspiration for the new album, his close friend Tom Hull told him: “Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up… Let it affect you and write songs about it.”

Styles, who writes in collaboration with Hull and producer Tyler Johnson, sounds as if he took the advice. The new album, Fine Line, is at its best when capturing late-hours moments, drunk calls, “wandering hands”, kitchen snogs. A golden-haired lover recurs. There are up tracks, down tracks, some with the trippy delirium of harpsichord-era Stones, others with the angsty Britpop swell of strings. While I listened, I couldn’t help scribbling down names, possible subjects. On the lyric “There’s a piece of you in how I dress” I wrote: maybe Kendall? In a song about a lover “way too bright for me”: surely Taylor.

Styles says he keeps to a general rule: write what comes and don’t think about it too much afterwards. The only time he worries about an individual lyric is if it risks putting an ex in a difficult position. “If a song’s about someone, is that fine? Or is that gonna get annoying for them, if people try to decipher it?” Has he ever got that judgment call wrong and taken a bollocking from an angry ex? Styles raises an eyebrow. “Maybe ask me in a month.”

I quiz him on something I’ve often wondered about. Why are the very famous so inclined to hook up with the very famous? From the outside it looks twice the hassle, with twice the odds of ending badly. “Don’t we all do that, though?” Styles asks. “Go into things that feel relatively doomed from the start?” I ask him why he doesn’t date normals. He seems tickled: “Um. I mean, I do. I have a private life. You just don’t know about it.”

Styles doesn’t particularly like being asked about his love life, but is amused all the same, as he is about most things. When I ask about the logistics of someone as well known as him dating someone anonymous (“Do you need to give them, like, some sort of primer?”), Styles snorts with laughter.

“Uh-h-h. Like any conversation, I guess, it’s easier if you’re honest. But I try to let it come up when it comes up. Cos that’s a weird thing to talk about, y’know? If you’ve just started seeing someone, and you’re, like: [he adopts a throaty, mission-briefing voice] So! This is what’s gonna happen!” Styles holds out his hands: no, ta. “I don’t wanna have that conversation, man. It would be fucking weird.”

And not very sexy, I say.

“Not sexy,” Styles says, “no.”

A quick aside about his accent, which is hard to capture in print. (“Nat sexy, no.”) After a workout in a hotel gym recently, Styles says he was taken aback (“taken abeck”) to be asked by a stranger whether he was speaking in a fake voice. He was appalled. But after so long crossing borders and time zones, living and working between England and the US, the accent has undergone a jazzy remix, and tends to get farthest from its Cheshire roots when he’s around strangers. Once Styles begins to get comfortable in the pub, the flatter, no-nonsense sounds of his youth return. Nowpe he says, for nope. Fook, for fuck.

“What the fook are they?” This was the response of his childhood pals, he remembers, back in the village of Holmes Chapel, when little Harry had the gumption to show up in the playground wearing Chelsea boots instead of the approved chunky trainers. Styles’s parents had separated when he was very young, but there is no origin-story trauma: he has always stayed close to both. His mother, Anne, would praise his singing voice in the car, and when Styles was 16 it was agreed he could audition for a singing contest on TV.

“The craziest part about the whole X Factor thing,” says Styles, who auditioned for the ITV reality show in 2010, “is that it’s so instant. The day before, you’ve never been on telly. Then suddenly…” Suddenly you’re a piece of national property. “You don’t think at the time, ‘Oh, maybe I should keep some of my personal stuff back for myself.’ Partly because, if you’re a 16-year-old who does that, you look like a jumped-up little shit. Can you imagine? ‘Sorry, actually, I’d rather not comment…’ You don’t know what to be protective of.”

By the winter of 2010, Styles was a fan favourite, a key member of One Direction, a five-piece that enjoyed enormous national exposure and gathered millions of fans before any music had been released. Cameras filmed every part of their rise. There wasn’t any time in the dark to practise, test things out, mentally brace. “We didn’t get to dip in a toe,” Styles says. “But, listen, I was a kid, all I knew was: I didn’t have to go to school any more. I thought it was fucking great.” He remembers having a lot of fun, and being well taken care of. He jokes: “Maybe it’s something I’ll have to deal with a bit later. When I wake up in my 40s and think: Arrrggh.”

In February 2012, One Direction were feted at the Brit Awards, hours before they were due to fly to the US for the first time. On TV that night they looked young, silly, chuffed – on the precipice of something huge, and with no clue at all. Their subsequent wonder-run (five platinum albums, four world tours) had its foundations in their ridiculous popularity in the States. Right away, Styles remembers, “We were fuelling a machine. Keeping the fire going.” He remembers it as a stimulating time; maybe overstimulating. “Coming out of it, when the band stopped, I realised that the thing I’d been missing, because it was all so fast paced, was human connection.”

I first met Styles in 2014, around the time the lack of human connection was starting to bite. One Direction were promoting their penultimate album and I’d been commissioned to write about themthe Guardian. Management felt the boys were so exhausted that my minutes in their presence had to be strictly counted. Inside a circle of cripplingly hot lights, while someone ran the stopwatch, we interacted as humanly as we could.

I remember how jaded the best singer in the group, Zayn Malik, seemed. (Malik was weeks away from quitting.) I also remember how flattered and bewildered the others were to be asked a few grownup questions – and not what Louis Tomlinson would later describe to me as “who’s-your-favourite-superhero… all that shit”. Styles was watchful and quiet that day. By total chance, a week later, we were in the same London cafe and he tapped my shoulder. He was having lunch with friends. “Will ya join us?”

t struck me as a quietly classy move. I was fascinated to see him interact with mates he’d chosen for himself. Styles was dry and funny, older than his years. After lunch we said the usual things about keeping in touch, and followed each other on Twitter. I kept an eye on his updates, about leaving One Direction, releasing an impressive, self-titled debut album in 2017, playing for 36,000 people in Madison Square Garden in New York, acting in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-nominated war movie Dunkirk. Meanwhile, I did my best to manage the mess that had been made of my own account after Styles’s Twitter follow ignited a small explosion of teenage longing in my mentions. For at least a year I received weekly, sometimes daily, pleas from people who wanted messages conveyed to “H”. Still now, every few days, fans in America, Asia and Europe follow me to “see what H sees” in their timeline.

He has around 50 million social media followers, and with that comes the ability to ripple the internet like somebody airing a bedsheet. I’ve noticed, though, how rarely Styles directs people to support specific causes, last doing so in 2018, when he encouraged people to join a march against gun violence. Why don’t you use your influence more, I ask? “Because of dilution. Because I’d prefer, when I say something, for people to think I mean it.” He runs his fingertips across the table. “To be honest, I’m still searching for that one thing, y’know. Something I can really stand up for, and get behind, and be like: This Is My Life Fight. There’s a power to doing the one thing. You want your whole weight behind it.”

It’s one of the things that sets Styles apart, the way he puts his whole weight behind the different aspects of this strange job. If you watch footage of him as a guest host on Saturday Night Live last month, Styles plunges in, fully inhabiting the silliness of every sketch. He has good songs in his repertoire (2017’s ballad Sign Of The Times stands out), and would probably admit to some middling songs that attest to his relative inexperience as a writer. But whichever of his songs Styles performs, he goes all-in, trusting that his zest and energy will hold an audience’s attention. He approaches this interview in roughly the same spirit, not enjoying every question, fidgeting, pleading for clemency once or twice, but giving everything due consideration.

I bring up something Styles joked about earlier: the possibility of waking up in his 40s with deferred mental health problems.

“Mm,” he says

Have you thought about therapy, I ask, to get ahead of that?

“I go,” he says. “Not every week. But whenever I feel I need it. For a really long time I didn’t try therapy, because I wanted to be the guy who could say: ‘I don’t need it.’ Now I realise I was only getting in my own way.” He shrugs. “It helps.”

Lately he’s been reading a lot (Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women stood out). He’s watched a lot of Netflix (crime thrillers and music docs). He recently cried through Slave Play on Broadway. I sense in Styles, at 25, a pent-up undergraduate hunger, maybe a desire to make up for lost time. “I’ve definitely been wanting to learn stuff, try stuff,” he says. “Things I didn’t grow up around. Things I’d always been a little bit sceptical about. Like therapy, like meditation. All I need to hear is someone saying, ‘Apparently, it’s amazing’, and I’ll try it. When I was in Los Angeles once, I heard about juice cleanses. I thought, yeah, I’ll do a juice cleanse.”

How messy were the results?

“You mean…?” Styles raises an eyebrow, recalling the poos. “They were all right. I was just hungry. And bored.”

One notable feature of Styles’s solo career has been his headlong embrace of unconventional clothing. A 2017-18 tour could have been sponsored by the Dulux colour wheel: mustard tones in Sydney, shocking pink in Dallas. In a more serious sense, some of Styles’s choices have fed into an important political discussion about gendered fashion. In May, as a co-host at the Met Gala in New York, he stepped out in a sheer blouse and a pearl earring. One evening’s work challenged a lot of stubborn preconceptions about who gets to wear what.

He says: “What women wear. What men wear. For me it’s not a question of that. If I see a nice shirt and get told, ‘But it’s for ladies.’ I think: ‘Okaaaay? Doesn’t make me want to wear it less though.’ I think the moment you feel more comfortable with yourself, it all becomes a lot easier.”

What do you mean, I ask?

Styles is leaning forward, hands folded around his cup of tea. “A part of it was having, like, a big moment of self-reflection. And self-acceptance.” He has a habit, when he’s made a definitive statement, of raising his chin and nodding a little, as if to decide whether he still agrees with himself. “I think it’s a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, ‘Why not?’ a lot more. Which excites me. It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring…”

Sexuality, too, I say.

“Yep,” says Styles. “Yep.”

There’s a popular perception, I say, that you don’t define as straight. The lyrics to your songs, the clothes you choose to wear, even the sleeve of your new record – all of these things get picked apart for clues that you’re bisexual. Has anyone ever asked you though?

“Um. I guess I haaaaave been asked? But, I dunno. Why?”

You mean, why ask the question?

“Yeah, I think I do mean that. It’s not like I’m sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back. It’s not a case of: I’m not telling you cos I don’t want to tell you. It’s not: ooh this is mine and it’s not yours.”

What is it then?

“It’s: who cares? Does that make sense? It’s just: who cares?”

I suppose my only question, then, is about the stuff that looks like clue dropping. Because if you don’t want people to care, why hint? Take the album sleeve for Fine Line. With its horizontal pink and blue stripes, a splash of magenta, the design seems to gesture at the trans and bisexual pride flags. Which is great – unless the person behind it happens to be a straight dude, sprinkling LGBTQ crumbs that lead nowhere. Does that make sense?

Styles nods. “Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No.” As for the rest, he says, “in terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”

In our musty corner of the pub we’ve somehow passed a couple of hours in intense discussion. We’ll lighten up, before Styles heads home, with some chat about clever films (Marriage Story), stupider viral videos (the little boy who’s just learned the word “apparently”), that favourite-superhero stuff that, after all, has its place. He talks about the curious double time scheme of a pop star’s life – those crammed 18-hour days and then the sudden empty off-time when Styles might find himself walking miles across London to buy a book, afterwards congratulating himself: “Well, that’s an hour filled.”

Before we stand up I ask if he’s minded any of my questions.

He pushes out his lips, possibly recalling them one by one, then shakes his head. “What I would say, about the whole being-asked-about-my-sexuality thing – this is a job where you might get asked. And to complain about it, to say you hate it, and still do the job, that’s just silly. You respect that someone’s gonna ask. And you hope that they respect they might not get an answer.”

I tell him I do.

“Cool.”

Styles has to find those lads who wanted a photo. He scoops his phone off the table and flicks his thumb around the screen. Lately, he says, when he messes around on his phone in an idle moment, it’s mostly to look at videos – clips that his friends have sent him, in which their kids sing along to music he’s made. “Never gets old,” Styles says, beaming.

A few years ago, when he emerged from the boyband, blinking, shattered, he set himself three tasks: prioritise friends, learn how to be an adult, achieve a proper balance between the big and the small. Full stadiums, provocative outfits – Styles genuinely loves these things. “But I guess I’ve realised, as well,” he says, “that the coolest things are not always the cool things. Do you know what I mean?” He grabs his parka and his phone and, a little stooped, heads for home.

#harry styles #the guardian #stunt mention #131219

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letsbenditlikebennett · 4 years

Text

Sound of Settling || Solo Scene

TIMING: Current SUMMARY: After speaking with Athena, Ariana looks into local artists as she contemplates offering another artist to Lydia in place of Sammy/Ace. CONTENT: Abuse mentions

You can give them a replacement person to feed from. Then the person can leave, sometimes.

No matter how many times she read the message from Athena, she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. It left her stomach in knots and her palms sweaty. While saving Ace was the priority, she wasn’t sure how to feel about offering another human in his place. To doom someone else to the same fate Ace faced, even if she was getting more and more desperate to save him. It’d been weeks since she’d seen him last and she’d brought Luna with her to their spot in the woods every night. Every time he didn’t show up, she became more and more weary. Did Lydia already draw his last breath away from him? She refused to believe as much could be true. Her efforts would be focused on saving him.

That very mission was what drew her to the open mic night one of the local coffee shops was hosting. Lydia would only accept an exceptional artist and where better to find them than at an open mic night. She sat at a little table in the corner of the cafe slowly sipping on her cappuccino. The caffeine did nothing to settle her nerves or her stomach. Every part of her knew this wasn’t right, but outside of turning him into a werewolf, she was seeing little to no options at her disposal. She couldn’t lose him, not after everything. Not after she promised she’d save him and that everything would be okay.

A few poets and singers had made their way to the stage, but none struck her as particularly talented. She doubted a leanan-sidhe really craved a mediocre artist. Maybe this was a bad idea. Actually, Ariana was positive this was a bad idea. Maybe Athena was right. Maybe Lydia should be killed, but she promised Ace and she intended to keep his promise. She’d already broken his trust by not ignoring the hunch she had. Not that she regretted it, but more than anything, she wanted to do right by Ace. She wanted to keep her word and save him from spending the rest of his days confined to Lydia’s basement as she literally sucked the life out of him.

She’d been ready to give up and call it a night until a girl named Kelly introduced herself on stage. Already, her voice was velvety and she hadn’t even begun singing. Apparently, she was a musical theater major and Ariana perked up in her seat. “I’ll be singing a song I wrote for a musical I’ve been working on. It’s called In the Night.” Brown hair flowed over her shoulders as she gave a small bow and the spotlight seemed to sparkle against her sun kissed skin. There was definitely a certain quality that screamed rising star. Surely, Lydia would be more than happy feeding off her instead of Ace.

As Kelly’s voice rang through the cafe, Ariana found herself completely mesmerized. Her voice was as smooth as honey and she hit every note in a way that seemed effortless. The emotion shone through every verse. It was impossible to not be moved by the performance, but she had to shake that feeling away. No, she couldn’t find any connection to Kelly or surely she’d back out of what she needed to do.

She clapped as Kelly finished her song and kept an intent eye on her as she walked off the stage. The table Kelly was sitting at wasn’t far from her and it appeared she came here alone. Perfect. She stood up, coffee mug in hand, and approached the young singer. “Hey,” she greeted with a warm smile, “I’m Megan. I have to say, that’s one of the most beautiful performances I’ve ever seen. Mind if I join you?”

Kelly’s cheeks seemed to darken as she smiled and cheerfully answered, “Of course!”

Ariana took the seat across from Kelly and kept her features soft and inviting. This felt so wrong, but she couldn’t focus on that. Instead, she asked, “So you mentioned you’re writing a musical? Is it something you’re writing for school or to have performed for the masses? Based on that song, I do think you have a real hit on your hands.”

If she framed this the right way, she could basically hand deliver this girl to Lydia. It didn’t make her feel any better. Even if Ace was safe and could live a normal life, Kelly would then be slowly dying in his place. She swallowed back the lump rising in her throat and struggled to keep the facade going as Kelly explained, “Oh, I’m not really sure yet! It’s based a lot on my own experiences with loss and trying to move forward. I needed to get all of that out somehow, but sharing it all with the world still feels… scary, I guess? But vulnerability is part of any good art. We’ll see.”

She wanted to segway into knowing someone who could help her get this musical on the map, get her on the map, but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead, she questioned, “Loss? I know a thing or two about that. I’m sure others would be able to relate to something like that well.”

“Yeah, my brother was in an accident a few years back. The whole writing process has been cathartic for me. I suppose you’re right, though. Finding art that mirrored my own grief really made me feel less alone. Being able to offer that to others seems like it could be rewarding. You mentioned you know loss well?”

Her brother died. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. She knew all too well how much losing a sibling hurt. How could she possibly subject this poor girl to more pain? “Oh, uhm, yeah. My sister died a few months ago. I guess that’s why I connected to your song so well. I’m sorry about your brother.”

Kelly’s head tilted and gave her a sympathetic look. Of course, she just had to be a compassionate person. “And I’m sorry about your sister. I know-- You’ll never stop missing her, but somewhere down the line, moving forward in life gets a little easier.”

“Yeah,” Ariana responded, trying not to choke on her words, “I’m sure you’re right, but we don’t have to talk about all of that. Can I get you a tea or something?” She resigned herself to not being able to do this. Was that a bad thing? Not necessarily. She wanted to be a good person that Celeste could be proud of, but she also wanted to save Ace. There had to be another way and she was more determined than ever to find it.

#sound of settling #wickedswriting #lydia #ace #npc kelly #abuse tw

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vitosscaletta · 4 years

Note

Erin and Mitnick... >:)

ehehehehehe weirdo ships >:) thank u 💕💕💕💕

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?

when she was looking for Gary in the Warrens & just checked out every door without knocking first 🙄

What was their first impression of each other?

Erin thought he was kinda weird but in a cute way (after he stopped ignoring her for his spam mail of course)? Almost none of the other vampires were that nice to her and none of them were this enthusiastic about being one.. she’s already not having a great time with the whole sarcophagus thing and voices and all that so that was kind of a fresh breath of air. She doesn’t really think much of him at the beginning beyond that but also. she thinks Nosferatu are kinda hot in general so there’s that... monster fucker ass

omg you know. he didn’t actually notice her for like a solid minute but when he did he was like... 😳😳😳😳😳😳 wrow... 😳😳😳😳😳 (but only internally) because you know... pretty girl standing in his room and all that. Not love at first sight but he did find her kinda hot.. the whole malkavian.. ness creeped him out a bit when he first saw her blacking out and having a vision about doom.. also she knew what he was talking about with the ~~secret network~~ and was like “oh Schrecknet? I know what that is 😌” and he thought she read his mind.. she just saw it on his laptop though.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

Not really... the only thing that could apply as family are Gary & Imalia and they’re both like... ew no. Erins family thinks she’s dead and the other anarchs don’t really know what she’s doing down in the sewers so. She’d probably tell Samantha she’s still alive (somewhat) so she knows about it but the vampire thing is already a lot for her so she doesn’t have much of an opinion on it lol

Who felt romantic feelings first?

Mitnick. duh. it was more of a crush though rather than love at first sight or something. Erin technically too but it was more the voices telling her weird things about love & she’s like.. what does it mean.. what does it all mean 😓

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

nope 😌

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

he’d probably not think too much of it i guess? Erin more so.. she believes in stuff like that so she’d be surprised but also :))))))

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

I haven’t thought much about that yet but Erin duhhh... I imagine it was something along the lines of her dragging him out of his room to idk take a walk.. the romantic atmosphere of the acid lake of the warrens 💕 and she did that thing where she “”””accidentally”””” brushed her hand against his and.. [Data expunged]

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Goooodddd actually outside the warrens but he had to wear a hoodie & keep his head low to avoid a masquerade breach... like in that one Ariana Grande pic you know which one. They can’t really go anywhere to eat out or anything so they probably just went to blockbuster or something. Or the cinema since it’s dark there 🤷‍♀️

What was their first kiss like?

A little awkward... she’s more uhh experienced with these kinda things so it’s not like. the best kiss she’s ever had but she liked it nonetheless 🥺

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Not really?

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Again, no heights but he’s a lot taller than her hehehehe... The age difference is about 3 years, she’s 22 and I’d guess he’s about 25, give or take 😳

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Like I said, Gary and Imalia are the only ones who’d qualify for this - Gary doesn’t like her that much and thinks she’s annoying (is also pissed that Mitnick is into a non-nosferatu chick.. betrayal) lol. Imalia isn’t that fond of her at first either because they knew each other from their party girl days & she’s pissed that Erin got to remain hot (albeit very weird, clan curse and all that). They do hang out from time to time though, she’s the only one in the warrens who knows who Christina Aguilera is so :/

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Erin!!!! It doesn’t always go well because she’ll have visions out of nowhere or just starts to speak malkavian nonsense :(

Who gets jealous easier?

neither I think?

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

Erin 😌

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

Often.. she’s more bold in the beginning than he is but after a year or so it’s both who initiate that kinda thing :^)

What are their favorite things to do together?

goddd she’d probably try to introduce him to all her weird ass hobbies, tarot card reading, past lives stuff & all that :/ They watch movies together though.. mostly either vintage horror/scifi OR those really bad movies that are fun to watch. They probably quote the room or something and no one knows what they’re talking about :/

Who’s better at comforting the other?

I really don’t think either is that good at it :(

Who’s more protective?

Erin, it’s not that he’s not protective at all. more that she’s more badass so he knows she can handle most things :^)

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Physical.. everything they do verbally ends up being weird as fuck

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

omg... Buddy Holly by Weezer 😌 their nr. one song. also I guess Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus (for the nerd/prep vibes... mostly a joke but also. not)

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

uhhhh you can’t do anything with their names so. probably babe or something

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

They don’t... I remember blood marriages (i think that was the term) being a thing within the camarilla but they’d NEVER do that :/

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

no wedding :(

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

They can’t have kids... they’re both vampires🙄

Do they have any pets?

The rats in the sewers (not really. Erin thinks they’re cute though :/)

Who’s the stricter parent?

no kids! If they had any hypothetically... neither lol

Who kills the bugs in the house?

Erin

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

he is.. :^)

Who’s the better cook?

No cooking because they’re vampires

#just hacked the fbi #hehehe thank you. there's not much lore about them but you know #jennystahl #they're probably both imitating that 'youre tearing me apart lisa' line all the time & gary is like... wtf.

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female-overlord-3 · 4 years

Text

Bring Them Home Ch 13

I wish you talked to me <- ao3 link

Prev - Next

I CALLED THAT LINE (he's easy to love) BEFORE IT AIRED. I WROTE IT DOWN MARCH 17TH.

I am airing out my grief and anger for Maria's character as well as the show. Season 2 has lost all the things I loved about Roswell. ALSO TYLER. THAT SONG. EXCUSE ME. Please let me know if I need to tag anything!

They wait another day to do more research and make alternate plans that include Maria if she agrees to help. It takes a whole day of Liz asking if Alex is sure and then Isobel not so kindly kicking her out of the Crashdown to go see Max before giving Alex and Michael a pep talk that's borderline actual threats.

"Oh." Is the first thing they hear when they enter the Wild Pony. They came after it closed because it would make it easier for everyone.

Michael walked in through first but both he and Alex see the way Maria's face lights up before falling at the sight of Alex and then this overwhelming feeling of something she's never felt before.

"I- what is that?" She questions and braces herself against the counter.

Alex's sad acceptance from walking in and seeing Maria's face, falls away to concern now. "Maria?" He takes a step forward, ready to go to her still.

She shakes her head and takes a couple of breathes, trying to recenter herself.

"Someone tell me what the hell I'm feeling right now. I can't- what is that!” She asks again.

Understanding hits Alex and he steps back.

"It's that strong?" He whispers in awe.

Frowning in confusion and the pressure inside her head, she blinks at him. "What is?"

"Alex?" Michael questions, having some idea but mostly lost on what's going on.

Maria winces when the pressure increases.

"Michael could you wait outside?"

He makes a face at Alex but the pleading look Alex gives him makes him nod.

"Sure thing. Holler when you want me back." Michael wants to touch him, some form of reassurance but he thinks that'll just make whatever's going on with Maria worse. He lets himself work through the last minute, sure he has a pretty good idea of what's happening.

Alex waits until Maria's hands relax on the bar and her shoulders slump in relief.

"Can I come near you now or will it be too much?" He asks.

"First you tell me what it is." She demands and reaches behind her for a glass then something strong to ease the pain that lingers in her head. She takes a long gulp of tequila that makes Alex's throat hurt.

"Don't laugh but apparently that's how much Michael and I love each other."

It's quiet, one that hangs for a couple seconds too long for Alex's liking because it just affirms what he saw the second he came in. It hurts because he's always seen Maria as his sister, one of his best friends who he's trusted since they were kids but apparently the distance and time have weakened that connection just like with Liz.

"It's okay. I know he's easy to love."

Alex says as he makes his way to the counter top.

Maria looks up at him with a pained look on her face, filled with regret and slight horror before she takes one more drink and keeps her eyes trained on her hands.

"It didn't help that I never said anything until now and he's probably the only good thing in this shit town besides you, Mimi, and Arturo." Alex continues and settles on the bar stool seat to ease some weight off his leg. "Takes some time and he tries to hide it, but he's always trying to take care of people while also trying to survive."

"I- I didn't-" Maria tries but cuts herself off. Her minds a mix of wanting Michael, of this immense love that Alex and Michael share that's so strong it hurts, to forget her growing mountain of problems about work and her mom, of wanting something for herself for once but the realization that she can't have it, of what she would've done for it regardless, guts her.

Alex sighs and gently takes her closest hand.

"I was never honest about him and what we had because I was scared it would get taken away again. That I'd finally be happy just to have it ripped away, just like the first time." He lets go of her hand and sits up straight, the certainty and set determination giving Maria a second to pause and take in that when Alex starts talking she needs to listen.

"So I'm going to be honest and tell you the truth so there's no room to misunderstand."

There's a moment of silence, for whatever reality they've both been deluding themselves was real and possibly this friendship they've tried to maintain poorly during these years trying to keep what they had in the past.

Maria swallows down the almost choking well of emotions and nods, giving Alex her consent to speak his truth because they can't keep doing this; the not talking, avoidance, and guilt of what they and their friendship has become.

"I've loved Michael since we were 17. I will always love him even if he did decide to be with you because I just want him to be happy. To me he's my home and my family which will never change, even if he doesn't see me that way. It's been a decade of me trying to protect him by staying away but that meant this push and pull because even when I told myself to stay away, being with him was the only time I found peace, even when it meant pain and heartbreak every time I had to leave."

He gets this far away look, cherished and painful memories obviously flashing through his mind before he focuses back to the present.

"So much has happened since I've come back. I know you've been around it and that's why we asked to talk because we want you to be part of it. Before I get into that and you know the truth about everything, the whole truth, I need to know we can trust you Maria. I need to know you won't put Michael and the others involved at risk because if you do I will do what I need to protect them."

That fierce look on his face, the one that's a punch from the past for Maria though now more deadly and firm on a much older face. It scares her because that face has never been turned on her before.

"You're going to be told some truths that will be hard to hear and knowing you, you're going to want to do something. You're going to want blood." His gaze holds steady. "You're going to need a day or two to process but when you're calmed and clear headed, you will get the chance to go after whose fault it really is. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Alex searches her face but finds the same one from before, the one who said Michael was just a one time thing while her eyes said something else.

"Maria this is serious. You need to be honest because I'm not risking this." Alex demands with an even but firm tone.

She swallows and slinks back.

"I don't know! I don't- this is all too much but I know I'm tired of being in the dark, of missing all the facts!" Her eyes look to the entrance like she's trying to see past them to Michael. "I need a minute to understand everything okay. I want to hear it from him too." She pleads.

Alex shakes his head. He knows bringing Michael in will hurt her, both with however she's able to feel them and the truth that she never had a chance to truly be with Michael even if he did choose her. The truth of what happened to Rosa would've ruined it. The secrets and lies of Michael trying to find some comfort in normal would've doomed it from the start. It wouldn't last and it would've destroyed them both.

"Not until you tell me if I can trust you or not. Not until I know you can handle what I'm going to tell you."

There's pain in her eyes as she stares at him. "Why don't you trust me? You've always trusted me! You're one of my best friends Alex!"

Taking a breath to calm himself, Alex looks Maria in the eye and tells her why.

"Because you lied to me and sadly we haven't been best friends in a long time Maria."

Maria gasps at him as both of their eyes begin to glisten with tears.

"I didn't tell you everything before because I was protecting not just myself but Michael too. Michael who I know does care about you and saw someone else who needed help."

Alex swallows past the thick feeling in his throat to continue.

"Michael who you say you have feelings for but I've yet to hear you say something nice or good about. You who didn't talk to me about it because you felt guilty and who outed Michael to Liz even if she's one of our best friends."

Maria's face is frozen in shock as tears fall from both of them.

"I- we trust Liz." She whispers. "I know they've been hanging out and they're friends."

The disappointment in Alex's eyes pierces right through her.

"You didn't even think about it did you? You only realize it now because I said something. How can you say you have feelings for him if you don't actually care about him?"

There's anger in his words, anger and disbelief.

"You're the one who told me Alex." She argues weakly as anger slowly builds in her too. "Liz said we can't help who we fall for than-"

"Why fall at all right?" Alex finishes. He shakes his head at her. "I talked to Liz, she's the reason why Michael and I are even here. She wants you to know the truth but she also apologized to me about that, that she realized she was being a bad friend because she told you that without knowing all the facts."

The anger dies into sadness as Alex looks down at the counter.

"Why didn't you come talk to me?" He asks when he meets her eye again and watches as her anger fades away as well.

"I didn't want to lose you but I also wanted him for me. I wanted something for myself because everything's falling apart with my mom! I- he's nice and he's been there when I needed someone and he's fixed things and-"

"You could've called me or Liz because that's what friends are for. Michael is a giver once he cares about you and that's really what you want. You want what he can do and not who he is." Alex wipes his eyes and stands. "You're not ready for the whole truth and I'm realizing now that I can't be the one who tells you. Talk to Liz if you really want to know but right now I think we need to take a step back and reflect on what we talked about."

He makes it to the doors before turning his head to take one last look at Maria.

"I'll always love you Maria because you're like a sister to me and I'll forever be grateful to you and Mimi but I- I don't know what happened to us and I think we both need some time to figure that out."

With that Alex lets himself out and walks over to Michael who's been waiting with worry leaning against his truck.

Michael is in front of him in an instant as he takes in how shaken and sad Alex is, his arms wrapping around Alex without thought and Alex just sinks into him.

"Alex?"

Alex shakes his head and his throat bobs as he tries to swallow with eyes scrunched up to stop the tears from falling again.

"Text Liz. I couldn't do it."

Michael holds him tighter like it might keep Alex from falling apart.

"I said if she really wants to know then talk to Liz. I- I need to go home okay."

Michael nods but doesn't let go for a couple more seconds until he feels Alex start to pull away.

"Ya of course. Come on let's get you home. I think I saw everything I needed to make some stake and potatoes. Finally use a kitchen that isn't my grill or my siblings." Michael voices and gets Alex into the car and making sure they're both buckled as he backs out to head to Alex's.

Alex keeps his eyes closed and his hand gripping Michael's the whole ride home.

#malex #malex fic #BTH #Alex Manes #Michael Guerin #Maria DeLuca #the talk between them I needed #cause it's not like we're gonna get it anytime soon #or at all

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sodalitefully · 4 years

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1-30 hehehe

Anon you’re a ballsy motherfucker and I love you. BUT you didn’t choose a fic for 24-28, or a word for 29!

What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for? Uh, probably Danny Phantom when I was like twelve 😂

Do you participate in any writing events or challenges throughout the year? If so, what do you like about them? Nope bc this is a small fandom and we don’t do many of those.

Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around? I usually start at the start and then when I get stuck I’ll just skip that part, keep going, and come back to it later. If I have an idea and I’m afraid I’ll forget it, I might also skip ahead and write it.

Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? I love outlining more that actually writing lmao, the longer the fic the more I outline. I usually stick to it pretty closely, which isn’t aways good for my writing...

What is the perfect environment for you to write in? Quiet and private. Other than that I haven’t figured out the tricks to getting myself to focus :(

If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day? Occasionally when I’m really inspired I’ll write like 1000, but more often I just write a paragraph or two.

Which part of writing do you struggle with most? Too many ideas, too little actual writing capacity. It’s hard to focus on finishing fics bc I get too distracted by my other ideas, and I rarely write sequels bc there’s so much I haven’t gotten to share yet.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, share a song that’s been inspiring you lately. Nope, can’t write with music, I get too distracted.

Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic? AUs!!!

Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most? Probably dialogue? Exposition is great bc I get to explain the AU, but It’s not good for the flow of the fic. Dialogue can be really satisfying to write when you get in a groove with it.

If you could only write angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your life, which would it be? Fluff!

Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to? Oh god so many. I have notes on tons of tropes I’d like to write... I’d like to do a college AU (and I meant to do it while I was actually in college but oops). I posted a soulmate AU once but I’d like to do another. Oh and I have lots of ideas for crossover AUs and I’m still deciding how to handle those.

Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth? Honestly probably not. I’m not huge on character death, genderbends, or reader inserts, for example, but I have ideas for fics involving all of those.

If you were stuck on a desert island with only two characters, which would you pick? No one from gnr that’s for sure, that’d be a disaster. How about... Percy Jackson and idk Wonder Woman?

A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics. Which fic would you want it to be? Hmm out of the fics that I’ve posted... maybe Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ actually? I abandoned that poor fic but I still really like the plot. And there’s plenty of longer, more plot-heavy fics I have outlined that would be cool to see as films. In general I often imagine concepts visually instead of with words.

What is your most underrated fic? Saving Grace didn’t get a lot of notes and I get why – it’s kinda niche and there’s no actual romance. But I think it’s well-written and I’m proud of it.

What fic are you most proud of? Maybe the whole cat!slash universe? I don’t think it’s my best writing per se, but I’m still really attached to the concept and it was a pleasant surprise that other people seemed to like it too.

What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene. I’ve always been partial to the paragraph in Sweetness that ends with “Their coffee has long gone cold (and so has Duff’s spine - snakes give him the heebie-jeebies), but Slash’s enthusiasm is sweeter than the Duff’s half-eaten bowl of melted ice cream, and Duff is eating it up with a spoon.” Just... the coffee is cold and so is Duff’s spine, Slash is sweet and so is the ice cream, and using “eating it up with a spoon” idiomatically while it’s also thematically relevant to a sentence about dessert... I really like to layer meaning when I can.

Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why? Slash tends to be the center in most of my writing, but actually I think it’s easier to write from Duff’s pov. Maybe bc when I’m writing sluff I can just channel my crush on Slash through Duff lmao. Interesting tho bc when it comes to the real people, I find Slash much more relatable than Duff or the others.

What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written? Hah maybe Slash in the funeral home AU, it’s a duzzy ficlet so he’s just a side character but I got a kick out of writing his and Steven’s background antics.

What is the one fic that got away? Well, I really wish I’d finished Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ before I kinda lost interest in Motley Crue, that fic was gonna get more dramatic from there. Would it be worth it to just post the outline? Plus there’s a few potential longfic ideas that I’ve put a lot of love into, but I doubt they’ll ever be posted or completed considering the way I can’t seem to focus on one idea long enough to write more than a one-shot :( But hey I guess you never know.

Have you cried while writing a fic? Nope. I do have some angsty ideas though, hopefully they’ll surface someday.

If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it? Someday I’d like to rewrite the cat!Slash fic from the beginning, make it a real multichap or at least a proper series of vignettes. Id also be interesting in a darker version of that AU, since there’s definitely potential for that in the concept. But I’m pretty attached to the fluffy little universe I made, so I’d probably prefer to explore those darker themes in a different (but maybe similar) universe – I have a few ideas.

How did you come up with title for [x fic]? Most of my fics have self-explanatory titles or none at all, the only one I have much to say about is Saving Grace. Duff needed a miracle to get out of his situation, Slash was his saving grace. But also, Grace is the name of Duff’s oldest daughter, and Duff’s motive in the story is trying to “save” her. Despite the double meaning in the title, I avoided referring to the child by name or as Duff’s “daughter”/explaining how they ended up together. I wanted to maintain some of the mystery of the apocalyptic genre: characters with mysterious origins, found families, aliases, etc. That’s definitely one of the ways that Mad Max and DOOM influenced this fic. (Oh, also Serpentine is a dick joke via a wttj reference: “My serpentine.” That’s it tho, the rest are pretty straightforward.)

Which idea came to you first in [x fic]? Feel free to send a fic for any/all of the next few questions! Generally speaking, my ideas are character driven, I want to portray a character or relationship a certain way and I build a world that allows me to do that.

Which part of [x fic] was the hardest to write? Always the end.

If you were ever to do a sequel to [x fic], what do you think might happen in it? Whichever fic you have in mind, there’s a very high chance I have ideas.

In [x fic], what is a happy, post-fic headcanon you have about [pairing]? Same as above!

Send me a word. If it’s in your WIPs, include the sentence and a short summary of the fic. – Send me a word anon!

Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future. Ok, so I have three main longfic ideas, but the easiest one to explain is an AU set in a version of the 1980s where ancient greek deities exist, Axl’s life is parallel to that of Perseus, and Slash is cursed like Medusa. Lots of drama, lots of influence from greek theater, untrustworthy gods, unrequited feelings, dramatic irony... fuck I hope I write it someday.

Alright mad respect for anyone who got through all that! Thanks for the ask, and feel free specify a fic for those last few questions if you wanna

#reply #sodafics

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