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cdyssey · 10 months

Text

Wreck

Summary: When Melissa's nana dies, Barbara is there for her.

CW: Death Discussion; Heavy Grief

AO3 Link

Melissa smooths her to-do list across her kitchen island with trembling fingers. Having been folded and unfolded several times over, marked upon profusely, tossed into her purse, crammed into her back pocket, unceremoniously stuffed into her bra at least twice, and probably stained with some cheap Chardonnay that her kid cousin picked up from Dollar General, the tear-out from a yellow legal pad has certainly seen better days.

But, hey, that’s nothin’ special.

She guesses she looks like a shit piece of paper too, all crinkled and creased, smudged and barely fit for perusal anymore.

Someone load her ass in a garbage truck and cart her off to the dump because she’s a wreck: fucked up, overwhelmed, annihilated, undone.

She doesn’t even feel like a human anymore.

Her nana died just around two days ago now, passing from the world about as peacefully as one could dare to imagine for a woman who’d been sick for the last ten months of her life. It was quiet in the end, as simple and as easy as falling asleep after a long, hard day. And the doctor-on-call promised that the sedative he was giving her would ensure that it was painless, which was a relief perhaps only because everything else leading up to that day had been so goddamn painful: the sickness, the waiting, the wrenching, bone-heavy grief.

(It was entirely possible to grieve someone who was still alive—to look at their utterly wasted body and understand that what was left was just a tangible echo, a breathing ghost.)

Melissa held her bony hand during that last hour and told her that it was okay to go—she’d be fine—and it was the first and only lie she’d ever told that saint of a woman in the entirety of her life.

She didn’t exactly ask forgiveness for doing so either.

She thought that if God knew anything about mercy, He’d understand and grant her this one sin: comforting that comfortless woman.

Nana had been ready to go, of course—sure, yeah, absolutely—she had known that it was her time for far longer than any of her headstrong relatives had been willing to admit. But she was so scared too: scared of leaving all her loved ones without their resilient matriarch, scared of their eventual (and perhaps inevitable) in-fighting, scared of a fractious future that she wouldn’t be around to mend with a homemade ziti dish and warm, jam-filled pie. She made Melissa promise—over and over again, ad infinitum—that she’d keep the Schemmenti clan together long after she was gone.

“Family’s all that we’ve got, Melly,” she once said. In the same way that Joe was the only person to call her Lissa, Nana was the only one to ever know her as Melly. It was a bit childish, maybe, but Melissa didn't mind. She always felt like she was twelve again when she was in her grandmother's presence: gap-toothed, impertinent, a hellion in patched overalls. “You gotta swear to me, on your Papa’s grave, that you’ll always remember that—no matter how balorde some of your aunts and uncles can be.”

“Nana!”She’d belly laughed at the time, bracing her hands on the edge of Nana’s steel-basin sink. They’d been in the kitchen together, as they so often were, peeling russet potatoes for her famous gnocchi recipe. This was at the very beginning of those long ten months when they both thought she just was just having bad arthritis flare-ups, perhaps. Her doctor was supposed to call sometime in the next few days with the results from her most recent labs...

“Those are your kids. You can’t just call ‘em stupid.”

(Even if it was expressly true.)

“Yeah, I can! I pushed them outta me, every one of ‘em eight or nine pounds a pop! Apple doesn’t fall far from the bush is what I say!”

It was the kind of statement that only her grandmother could pull off, something that made her want to snort and cry at the exact same time. She was outrageously funny, that stout, little woman, but she never seemed to think much of herself, especially when it came to education. She had to drop out of high school to work and help her parents raise their endless passel of kids, and then, before she knew it, she was poppin’ out little redheaded Sicilian Catholics of her own—Melissa’s own ma included.

Nana was so proud of her for making it through college and becoming a teacher, telling her as much every opportunity that she got, and constantly bragging about her accomplishments to her canasta group. She’d known how hard it was for Melissa at times.

Reading had always been a little challenging for her.

Taking exams could be a goddamn nightmare.

“Would you quit flippin’ saying that?” Melissa had rebutted, both exasperated and fond all at once, attempting to discipline her smirk into a reproving frown. “You’re not dumb either, Nana. Alright? Capito?"

She was the smartest person Melissa knew, high school diploma or not, for education was far from the same as intelligence in her book. There were plenty of eggheads out there with degrees coming out of their asses who didn't know how to haggle for the best cuts of beef or stay clear of certain Philly streets at night or change a flat with a crying kid on one hip and three more bouncin' around in the car. Before she had ever decided to become an elementary school teacher, those sorts of things were her only measures of how clever a person really was, and her grandmother had been the golden standard of them all—competent in a world that could be so arbitrary, needlessly complicated, and cruel.

At this, her sweet nana suddenly smiled, her dark eyes warmed by the golden light leaning in from the window above the sink. It was a sad smile and a profound one—the kind that little, old ladies always gave in the movies before they up and died, kickstarting the next act. It was accompanied by a slow shake of the head. She had her green rollers in; they shivered in time with the movement.

“Good God, I love you, Melissa,” she had murmured softly, each syllable laden with a certain gravity, as though she already suspected something about her health that Melissa didn’t, as though she had an inkling of what awaited her in the coming days, weeks, and months upon godawful, medicine and machine-filled months. Maybe Melissa should have known then herself—by that rare usage of her Christian name, by the way her stubborn-as-hell grandmother didn’t argue back—that something was horribly wrong.

But she hadn't.

Just ten months and some spare change ago, it was impossible for her to fathom a world where her nana wasn't in it.

She just accepted that love, basked in it, took it for granted even, and now, a little less than a year later, as she pores over a checklist of all the shit she’s gotta do to bury that precious lady—(so much, too flipping much)—she racks her exhausted brain and wonders if she’d said it back that time.

I love you too, Nana.

Of course, she’s said it about a gazillion times since then. Never left a conversation with the woman without doing so in case it was their last. But all the times she didn’t reciprocate those three words and every other missed or botched opportunity besides tangibly aches her chest, pounds upon it, like fists against an awful drum. Missed calls. Canceled lunch dates. Squandered chances to ask her about her storied life. The endless thank you she didn’t give that woman for practically raising her.

It’s irrational, of course, so goddamn stupid; she loved that woman endlessly and proved it in a thousand different ways.

But even still, what she wouldn’t give for one last tomorrow with her to tell her again and again.

Unbidden, unwanted, totally out-of-line and out-of-the-blue, tears threaten to spill over Melissa’s lashes and onto that yellow paper that’s already been to hell and back. She furiously swipes them away with the heel of her hand, doesn’t have the time to cry.

She’s still gotta call the Social Security Office and get Nana’s checks to stop comin’ through the mail. And after that, she has to take Joe’s suit to the dry cleaner ‘cuz her useless lump of a husband keeps forgetting. And when she gets back home—at who knows what time because she’s really gotta stop at the store and grab a few necessities—she desperately needs to go through Nana’s files again to see if she’s got that damn burial policy in there somewhere. Otherwise, they’re gonna have to pay for the service and the cremation out of pocket, even if she knows a guy who knows a guy who knows the funeral director, who can only get them an okay deal, which is fine.

It'll help, or at the very least, it won't hurt, but the crux of the sordid matter—the bottom line at the end of the shitty day—is that dying is so freakin' expensive.

“Fuck,” she groans, sliding her hand down until she’s palming her mouth. “Shit.”

No one ever talks about how the aftermath of death is just one cold bureaucracy after another: files, papers, tasks, and duties.

It’s unbearable.

Melissa alone has to bear it.

Her ma’s gone. Her remaining aunts and uncles are fragile. Her cousins aren’t any good with this kind of organizational crap. Her own goddamn sister’s been AWOL ever since the diagnosis, and the rest of her younger siblings haven’t done jack squat either.

It’s up to Melissa.

It always is.

That doesn't change just because someone she loved died.

The responsibilities simply take up the same air as the grief.

Just as she’s about to get started, though, reaching for her phone to start looking up numbers, her one saving grace walks in through the arched entranceway of the kitchen. Elegant as ever in a floral print blouse and black slacks, a plastic bag hanging off one arm, her comically huge purse on the other, is none other than—

“Barb,” she croaks, overwhelmed and overcome, weak-kneed with a relief that she just as immediately tries to hide. Vulnerability utterly terrifies her; it is one of the few house guests that she doesn’t know how to capably entertain.

“You don’t… y’know, you don’t have to come every day.”

But her best friend unfailingly has, bringing over various dishes and groceries, helping Melissa keep track of all the shit she needs to do, and oftentimes, just sitting next to her on her plastic-covered couch and holding her hand, palm-to-palm, their ten fingers intertwined. If Melissa has known any modicum of peace in this hellish last week, it’s only because Barbara Howard has deigned to carve out some for her, offering it to her like an alm.

God bless her—she even showed up before her nana passed away, when family and friends were just congregating in Melissa’s house, filtering in and out of the guest bedroom where Nana’s hospital bed was to say their goodbyes. And when death finally lifted Nana away—arriving as gently as a mother carrying her child to bed—Barbara’s warm arms were the first around Melissa, holding her so tightly, her lone defenses against collapsing into a million goddamn pieces on the floor.

Barbara would never let that happen, though.

She had her.

She would cradle all her shrapnel; she would salvage her from abyssal ruins.

“And you,sweetheart, know better than to think that’ll stop me,” Barbara laughs kindly, setting her purse and plastic bag on the kitchen island. There’s a twinkle in her dark eyes, a lovely playfulness curving her plum-colored lips. “I do as I please.”

“Stubborn fool,” Melissa chuckles hoarsely, a sudden thickness in the column of her throat. She’s always on the verge of crying over nothing nowadays: spilled wine on the counter, a sad headline on the news, smelling something in the kitchen that reminds her of her grandmother, being joked with, having companionship, being loved.

She knows that she’s been caught, too, by the way her friend gingerly skims her fingertips against her forearm.

It’s the lightest touch imaginable.

It nearly shatters her where she stands.

“Yes,” Barbara hums in gentle agreement, “that’s why we get along like two peas in an unshelled pod.”

“Hah,” she tries to smile. Her entire mouth feels like concrete. “Some pod.”

“Extraordinary peas, though, if I do say so myself,” the older woman declares with an air of finality as she starts to busy herself, pulling out a white takeout container and some utensils from the plastic bag. Even before she sees the familiar logo of a happy chef wedged in-between some blocky lettering, Melissa knows the rich, homely smell of fried chicken.

And not just any fried chicken, but—

“Danny's Wok?” Her eyebrows lift at least three inches from their exhausted lids. “Jesus, Barb, that’s all the way across town. You didn’t have to—“

But Barbara cuts her off with a raised hand, a familiar teacher pose. “But I wanted to and so I did. Now park your fine derrière on a stool and tell me what you would like to drink, girlfriend.”

“I’ve got things to do,” she protests weakly, gesturing at the to-do list still laying pathetically on the counter. She doesn't know why she's being so obstinate. Maybe it's just instinct; her immediate reaction to people offering help has always been a deep, gut-felt shame: shame that she can't do something by herself; shame that she's so weak, and someone else is stronger; shame that she isn't enough. (One of her deepest fears is that she's never been enough) Or maybe it's because she just doesn't want to think about the way that Barbara saying she had a nice ass made the contents of her stomach do a loop de loop.

“I can eat later.”

It’s not a sentence she’s said very often in her lifetime, and Barbara peers at her skeptically, damn well knowing this.

“But when’s the last time you did have a bite, Melissa? You look pale.”

“I had a piece of toast this morning,” she grunts uncomfortably, more than aware that it’s not sufficient by either of their standards. That was hours ago. According to the digital clock on her oven, it’s nearly five o’clock now.

But all truth being told, she hasn’t been particularly hungry in a while, not since the hospice worker sat her down a few days before Nana died and said that it’d be soon.Food has lost a lot of its flavor. Nausea is constantly doing laps around her digestive tract. She doesn’t know how to care about eating when this grief is taking up so much real estate in her body and never paying any of the rent.

“Hardly enough,” Barbara scolds predictably, first pushing the styrofoam tray in her direction, now shuffling towards the stainless steel fridge, no nonsense and all productivity. It's how she shows her love. “You need to put something substantial in your stomach, sweetheart. You'll be of no use to your list if you keel over on top of it."

“Okay, Ma,” she huffs, but it doesn’t have any real bite to it because she obediently unlatches the box anyway. She knows that Barbara is right, as she usually—(sometimes annoyingly)—is.

“Ma is correct,” the older woman hums, undeterred. “Someone needs to be responsible for you.”

It's hard not to feel chastised by such a statement, as though she's being patronized—a little kid in her own damn home; she attempts a weak smile anyway. It wobbles like a tricycle across the chapped line of her mouth.

“‘Cause I’m doing a shit job at it, yeah?”

Of course she is; she's a disaster with good hair.

“Absolutely not,” comes an exceedingly gentle reply, thrown over the other teacher's shoulder, landing as gently as a kiss. “It’s just that you seem to think it’s your God-given duty to be responsible for everyone else in this world except for yourself. Let me—no, wait, I insist upon—doing the same for you, Melissa."

A new lump surfaces to Melissa’s throat as she digests this unadulterated tenderness; it’s unfamiliar to her, even after so many years of receiving it from the angelic woman standing in her kitchen. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She holds it in her like a rain cloud, just waiting for it to pour.

“It’s scary that you have my number like this,” she finally says, and it’s the type of thing that she’s not supposed to mention aloud—she knows. She’s well aware. She’s spent an entire lifetime avoiding emotional honesty like it’s a summons for jury duty. But sometimes—if only sometimes, and usually only when a hell of a lot of booze is involved—she and Barbara can transcend their mutual understanding to never talk about the way they secretly look at each other when they think no one is watching and arrive at the undoctored truth of their shared experiences.

They know each other.

They love each other.

Far more intimately than should be allowed.

Barbara freezes where she stands, shoulders squared, hand gripping one of the fridge handles; she doesn’t turn around, possibly can't.

“Well... that’s what friends are for,” she returns in a stilted voice, picking her way around each individual phoneme like it's a landmine. It’s a warning tone even, begging Melissa not to press, and so Melissa doesn’t, swallowing painfully—just as submissive as a dog and far more devoted.

The sticky moment passes—it always does. Barbara retrieves a half-empty jug of sweet tea from the fridge, and Melissa slowly legs herself onto a stool next to the island. Her feet ache—her head, her chest, her entire goddamn body—but when Barbara joins her a few moments later, having poured them glasses of tea and grabbed napkins and condiments, both of them proceed as though nothing happened at all. Melissa picks at the chicken in an exercise of politeness, tearing off a little piece here or there and trying to chew it in slow, methodical bites.

It tastes like burnt rubber.

She attempts to wash it down with her drink, but the sickly sweetness of the tea just as quickly nauseates her.

Barbara can’t keep up the ruse of not paying attention to this sad ritual for very long.

“I can make you soup,” she offers pleadingly, already halfway off her own stool. "Potato? Broccoli-and-cheese? Vegetable?" Melissa places a hand on her leg to force her to sit down again.

“Nah, you’ve done enough,” she says firmly. “I... just don’t have it in me right now, Barb.”

And without flinching or glancing away, though every nerve in her body itches to bundle her present fragility away from view, she allows the other woman to search her face and confirm this unsavory truth. She bares every line and gaunt shadow; they surely adorn the curvature of her face like bruises.

“You can only do what you can do,” the older woman replies reluctantly, as though it’s the thing she knows she’s supposedto say and not necessarily what she actually believes. Melissa almost smiles at that assessment, smug in her assurance that it's the correct one. Barbara’s never been exceptionally good at hiding her feelings. People think that she is. Hell, even Barbara herself thinks she has others fooled.

But Melissa can see right through her, all those hundreds of things that she doesn’t say, that she entraps behind those tightly pursed lips for fear of being construed as ungodly. She thumbs through the Book of Barbara almost daily—with all the reverence that such a project deserves—and her diligence has rewarded her with all the beautiful fine print.

“Advice you gotta listen to yourself, hon,” she muses fondly, patting Barbara’s leg again before finally withdrawing her hand. “You’ve gone above and beyond for me these past few days. It’s not your fault I’ve got a sick stomach right now.”

“I know,” she admits in that same grudging tone, “but still, I’d do anything to make things better for you, Melissa, to relieve the burden on your shoulders even the tiniest bit.”

She gestures emphatically at the to-do list between them with one of her manicured friends.

“It’s far from fair that you’re in charge of all this when I know for a fact that you have other family members who are perfectly capable of helping to lighten the load. For instance”—she picks the paper up, scanning it briefly—”Joseph’s dry-cleaning! Why in God’s precious name isn’t your husband doing his own dry-cleaning?”

“He’s busy,” Melissa says in a clipped voice, less offended that Barbara is criticizing her husband than she is annoyed that her friend arrived at the same question that she did so easily. “At work. Fightin’ fires.”

Spending his paychecks on booze and scratchers and God only knows what else. Sometimes, he comes home smelling like strange perfume.

The kindergarten teacher emphatically shakes her head. “That doesn’t abscond him of his duty of being a responsible adult in a time of crisis.”

“Yeah, well—” She starts to defend him and then just as abruptly stops, suddenly cornered and violently choked.

Melissa doesn’t know what to fucking say to that, if there's anything to be said at all. If she argues, she’d just be lying to herself, to Barbara, and to almighty God—an unholy trinity of delusion and willing deceit. There’s just no excusing the inexcusable, no dressing it up in rouge and calling it pretty.

She’s alone.

Oh, God—her nana died and left her.

She's got a husband and he sleeps in the same bed as her, but somehow and nevertheless, she’s all alone.

Her eyes begin to water, her breathing quickly turning shallow, as everything inside of her falls apart and implodes.

Barbara quickly places the list down again and exchanges it for a tissue that she plucks from a nearby box, reaching up to wipe the tears away. Her cool palm skims the side of Melissa’s feverish face, and the contact is so tender that it’s almost too painful to bear. Melissa reaches up and curls her fingers around her friend’s wrist like it’s a lifeline, unable to form any words, her throat throttled with vile, her stomach sick with it. And the tears continue to well, no matter how many Barbara capably catches.

She heaves out one ugly sob and then another, covering her mouth with her free hand as though that would help with the inconvenience and the noise.

(She's spent most of her adulthood trying not to be inconvenient to make up for all her loudness and her noise.)

“Oh, Melissa—” Barbara exhales, her own dark eyes filling. She continues to stroke the side of her face, holding her cheek, cradling it, cradling her. “Oh, baby—it’s okay that you’re hurting. It’s okay to feel this pain.”

“I-it’s freakin’ not, though,” she moans, the sound muffled behind her hand, the unspeakable anguish leaking through anyway. Her nails curl into her lower lip. “I… I gotta keep it together, Barb! I can’t just—Jesus—I can’t just fall apart. I don’t, I can’t, fuck, I can’t—”

She can’t breathe. Surely, there’s a vice in her chest, squeezing her ribcage into mere molecules and skeletal dust. Surely, her lungs have burst, her veins, her bleeding heart, one massive supernova of flesh and gory tissue, and this moment's all she’s got left. Minutes. Seconds. Nanoseconds. She’s going to die right here and right now, while Nana is unburied, and her to-do list is still unfinished, and—

“You can, Melissa Schemmenti,” comes an authoritative voice from above, shaking but somehow utterly unshaken, ringing like a decree from the Lord God on High. And then Barbara’s warm arms are around her, filling the encroaching darkness with all the flowers on her shirt: sunflowers, poppies, lillies, and roses. Petals everywhere. A garden of beauty and impossible delight. “You cando this because I’m here, and I’m not going to let you go under. You hear me, sweetheart? That’s my promise to you, my solemn, unbreakable oath.”

It’s the loveliest combination of words Melissa has probably ever been told in her life; she cries all the harder, weeping her horror, half-vomiting it. Her mouth tastes like tea and salt.

“Breathe,”Barbara instructs her, pressing a gentle kiss against the crown of her head. One of her hands finds its way to the hollow of Melissa’s constricted throat; she splays her fingers against it, palm resting on her chest where the divot of her shirt exposes some of her skin. “You have to breathe, Melissa.”

But it's hard.

It's so fucking hard.

Every hitched breath still becomes a sob, and every sob reverberates through her beaten body like a shock wave. But Barbara is patient where she isn't, a sturdy monolith when all of her vertices have become undone. She begins to rub slow, methodical circles into Melissa's sternum, perhaps modeling a rhythm that she can pattern her breathing against. As the seconds limp past, every bit as injured as she is, she learns to inhale on one revolution and exhale on another, doing this until her heart rate begins to slow again, until the tightness in her chest recedes long enough for her to rationally confirm that she’s not, in fact, dying.

She's living.

(And after someone dies, that's one of the bravest damn things that anyone can ever do.)

Even after her pulse somewhat returns to normal, she and Barbara remain tangled together for what feels like hours, even though it’s surely only a handful of minutes.

Melissa finally lowers her hand from her mouth and twists it somewhere in the paradise of Barbara’s blouse.

Barbara kisses her head again, a little lower this time, near the peak of her red hairline.

Neither of them makes any move to extricate themselves from each other. Melissa doesn’t have the strength, every ligament in her body wrung with incalculable exhaustion. (She’s not exactly sure what Barbara’s excuse is. As secure as she is in her companion's embrace, she currently can't bring herself to care.)

“... I shouldn’t be this weak,” she eventually rasps, and it’s a confession. She’s glad she can’t see her priest’s scandalized face. “I had plenty of time to prepare for this. I’ve known forever she was gonna go.”

“As though that means a hill of beans when you loved her so much,” Barbara murmurs, now running slender fingers through her hair, the motion soothing and rhythmic, reminding Melissa of all the times that Nana had done the same when she was a small child. She briefly closes her eyes, simultaneously endeared by the memories and made sick by them. “You can’t prepare your way through grief. Believe me, girl—I’ve been there, tried that, and it went about as well as can be expected, which is to say not even remotely well at all.”

Melissa chuckles at the convoluted explanation; they both do; they laugh so hard that it almost sounds like they’re crying. She finally pulls back, wanting to look her friend in the eye, but Barbara still grips her by the arms, refusing to let her go.

And they simply drink each other in, mesmerized, tears standing in their eyes, an interwoven statue unto their own: locked limbs, glassy eyes, and a hushed silence that descends upon them like snow.

Maybe they would have stayed like that forever had one of their phones not chimed: her own, laying face-up on the counter. She sees that it's a reminder letting her know that she can take another Prozac in an hour if she needs one. If Barbara sees it—(and with the angle of the phone being the way that it is, she absolutely does)—she's kind; she doesn't say anything; there isn't really anything that needs to be said.

“Shit." She tries to wipe her face on the sleeve of her shirt. It's not a successful endeavor. “I’m a wreck.”

“Maybe so," Barbara agrees, grabbing more tissues for them both. She mops Melissa's face up before delicately attending to her own. "But you won't be forever, you know. it's a transition, not a permanent way of being."

"Doesn't feel that way," she hears herself grouse. It's petulant, a little childish even in her low voice, but it's what she feels; it's her personal nightmare of a lived-in reality.

"I know." The older woman reaches up to thumb away a new tear that has formed at the corner of Melissa's left eye. "But grief rarely ever does."

It's not an especially comforting thought, but Barbara clearly knows her well enough to understand that comforting isn't exactly what she needs right now.

She needs the truth, however ugly it happens to be, however unkind, and the ugly truth is that grief is far from fucking pretty too; it is certainly not kind.

"I love you, Melissa Schemmenti," Barbara adds quietly—in the same hushed cadence that all of their unutterable truths seem to be encased in.

It's dirty, this confession, this boundless and eternal love.

It can't ever be spoken in a normal way and tone.

"You know that, don't you?"

The pad of her thumb is still pressed against Melissa's skin, and there is such little space between them, mere inches and other inconsequential measurements besides; temptation has never been a shorter bridge to indecorously cross and just as deliciously burn. This isn't simply a tender moment between bosom friends, she innately knows, and yet, by the virtue of who they are and their relationships with other people, it can't be anything more than that either, she implicitly understands. She's married. Barbara's married. God is watching. Society is judging. Neither of them will make a move that that they can't just as quickly take back.

"I love ya too, Barb," she replies anyway, leaning very slightly into the intimate touch, as though she could pretend for a moment that they don't have to play that awful game.

Just this one evening.

Just this singular time.

They inevitably will, of course—no doubt about that.

One of them will certainly pull away, and the other will instinctively follow, and together, they will tango themselves out of this senseless mess that they have made; they will offer each other plausible deniability as their highest and most sacred form of love. But for now and until that unwelcome moment, in this fractional sliver of a shared existence and eternity, Melissa dares to rest her tired cheek against Barbara's hand as though she's allowed, and Barbara doesn't flinch like she's been burned.

Silently, they construct a mutual fantasy where they can hold each other without hurting.

Or maybe more accurately still, where they can hurt together and not have been each other's sole and ruinous cause.

"Don't ever leave me," Melissa demands a little unfairly.

It's an unkeepable stipulation.

People leave all the time—by necessity, by choice, by coffin, or in Nana's case, urn.

But nonetheless and all the same—

"Wouldn't dream of it," Barbara promises softly, and Melissa chooses to believe her.

#work wives #reginianwrites #I wrote this for myself because it's been a long damn week #and I'm so sorry for your loss if it ends up being for you too #s: abbott elementary

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shadowofroses · 1 year

Text

I'm actually writing a proper Isekai and I just crack myself up aaaa

“Hm….Well at least your death looked painless!” your head turned sharply towards a woman with pink hair floating on an Oar. You blinked seeing her big purple eyes, and her grinning just happy-go-lucky like there wasn’t a dead body below you.

You scratched your head, “Am I dreaming about Yu Yu Hakusho? Makes no sense, Botan has blue hair…”

Her eyes brightened and a beautiful laugh fell out. “Oh no. I’m one of the reapers similar to her actually! You can call me Sakura!” you gave a confused look. “You know multiple worlds slash universes slash dimensions exist right? Well, there is a Yu Yu Hakusho one if you’d like to see it.”

“Tempting but I’ll pass on that one.” you replied nonchalantly. “Alright, so does Heaven and Hell actually exist, and which one am I going to?”

Sakura hummed, licking her finger as she went to flip through a small book, “Actually you weren’t supposed to die for another thirty years, you were actually going to become the first Wiccan President of the United States and start on a plan for world peace.”

You frowned at that, “Just wiccan not woman?”

“Oh no in about ten years the United states is about to have a Trans Woman President.”

Your eyes brightened at that, “Way to go USA! But I’m not going to be around for that.”

“Hm… well I was talking to the HMFiC and we were actually discussing this.”

You tilted your head and furrowed your brows. “Uh…HMFiC?”

“Head Mother Fucker in Charge.” she plainly responded as your eyes widened and you let out a noise between a cough and a choke. “Reapers are actually stretched thin lately, so we’ve been taking on cases in other countries. King Enma decided that he thought HMFiC was hilarious and wanted to be called it. BUT ANYWAY, We decided to give you a chance at another life in these other worlds. Isekai if you will. You’ll be able to keep your first name, memories, knowledge etc.”

“Oh great so I’ll be keeping my attention span in regards to hobbies too right?”

“CORRECT”

You cried, “I just want to finish a project for once…” Sakura giggled at that, covering her mouth with her purple kimono sleeve.

“Fine you’ll be granted ONE project to finish in your next life. Make it a good one!” Sakura teased.

You pouted, “My luck that’s going to be a kindergarten drawing…”

“Hm…you may be right actually, now we’ve already did a personality test on you, I was bored and ran multiple simulations and did a lot of those internet quiz things, and I discovered the best world for you would be Boku no Hero Academia.

You tilted your head at that, “Huh…well at least it’s not Dragonball Z I don’t want to die and be revived multiple times.”

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT!” Sakura high fived you and then giggled, “heh…Spirit…” causing you to deadpan as lights and sirens started to fill the air. She gripped your hand and started to fly off into the air. “There is no limits, no rules. If you decide to join the villains or Heros or be a civilian that is completely up to you we’re not going to judge. Your birth family, having a Quirk and everything else is going to be like rolling a D 20. You’ll keep your first name.”

You looked down at awe as you flew over the land. “Uh so where we going?”

Sakura smiled down at you for a moment, “I’m looking for a portal at a point where two ley lines converge. Once we get there, you will be born again!”

You thought back to your earlier questions, “Wait you never told me if Heaven and Hell was just a concept or actually exis-”

A bright light flashed, next thing you knew you were crying and being held. Being passed off to a woman muttering about how you were her miracle. Cooing, which instantly calmed you down, you flexed your small left fist over a finger of hers and relaxed.

Feeling safe.

D 14 on birth.

#TW Character death #x reader #bnha #mha #yyh mention #dbz mention #isekai #story idea

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decks-writing-blog · 1 year

Text

Loyal Lamb

I saw a post a while ago talking about an AU in which Lamb gives up the crown but the One Who Waits has grown fond of them and thus doesn't kill them. This is my take on that general idea, though, technically he does still kill them but immediately brings them back. so Content Warning temporary character death.

“Approach, vessel, and lay your life down at my feet.”

Well, as Forneus had put it, ‘how can one say no to a god?’ So, on quivering legs, Lamb forced themself to continue their approach. In truth, their death had occurred long ago at the hands of the Bishops. The borrowed time the One Who Waits had granted them was just that, borrowed. They were grateful for it and the taste of power and vengeance it had granted them. It had been more than they could’ve ever asked or hoped for.

So upon reaching their god, they dropped to their knees, bowed their hand and with only a little hesitation, lifted the Red Crown from their head to hold up towards the One Who Waits. It floated up off their hands and to him.

His triumphant chuckle was loud enough to make Lamb flinch back and look up. Next came the chains, they broke with a wretched ear-splitting screech of tearing metal. Lamb covered their ears against it but it did little good to block the sound.

Something lifted them off the ground, levitating them up and up until they floated several feet in the air between the One Who Waits’ – if such was still his title, given that his waiting was done – hands. They flexed and Lamb’s body spasmed and shook, taking their breath away. It didn’t hurt though even as darkness quickly took over their vision. So they’d at least earned a quick, painless death. Probably the best… they… could’ve hoped… for.

~~~

Awareness returned to them all at once. Much like all their other deaths except this time as they opened their eyes to see the One Who Waits, he looked different. His chains were gone, his crown returned to him and… he was slightly smaller? … No, Lamb was bigger. At their feet their old form lay broken and still.

“W-what?” was all they could think to say as they lifted their hands to look at them. Same as before but… bigger to match their larger body.

“I reward those who serve me well,” the One Who Waits said, drawing Lamb’s gaze back up to him. “You are far too valuable to throw away. I have granted you power and a new form, you will use them to continue to serve me as the newest member of my retinue.”

His two guards! Lamb had always wondered about them, seems now they would join them as a third guard. “Thank you!” Lamb clapped their hands together and bowed low. “I am eternally grateful.” Again and still and forever more.

“Good. Now come! We have a lot of work to do.”

Lamb nodded as they straightened. Having been granted life yet again, they would gladly and willfully follow him to wherever he may lead. Which was likely to a place that would involve violence and death for many. Lamb couldn’t wait to witness it, hopefully even participate in causing it.

#cult of the lamb #the one who waits #the lamb #halloween 2022

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yyamask · 4 months

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(the horrors)

" – then again, i don't usually get such intact bodies on the autopsy table. a single bullet wound? be grateful it wasn't up to me what they did to you after you got caught. i suppose it was somewhat admirable you got that far with your foolish escape attempt, " a hand goes up to his chin in thought, lips curling into a smile. " have you ever thought about how much your individual organs weigh? most don't. it was a chore to cut through your ribcage, though, i couldn't figure out the reason. i almost wish i would've had more time examining you before the incinerator, but as you know, the examinations are dealt with in order of importance. i did store away your DNA. just a standard procedure. as mildly intriguing as your dead body was, it seems your afterlife is even more so. you got your punishment, yet here you still are. more or less, " the three houndooms circle the scene, fire breathed through their open mouths. " odd. it's almost like you got away with your cowardly deserting this way. "

This was all... a lot more information than he ever wanted to know about his own body. Especially from Archer. At least his soul had already left his body before the executive got to him. As horrifying as it was to wake up next to his own corpse in the freezer, it was evidently better than the alternative.

Why was storing his DNA "standard procedure?" No, he didn't want to know. There was sure to be a horrifying explanation. Worse still was the implication that Archer wasn't satisfied with his fate. That he was disappointed that Aiden had found a loophole in the rule that the only ex-Rockets were dead ones.

"L-look... Giovanni and I made a deal that if I handed over all my data on Plasma, then my death would be quick and painless. I held up my end and he held up his. I-it's over..."

Though granted, neither of them had any expectation of him coming back when that deal was struck.

#reiketsui #aiden vc: thanks archer very cool. can I go back in the blender please?

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writer59january13 · 7 months

Text

October 7th, 2023 upon third anniversary of mine papa's passing...

Death no longer jars, nixes,

and rattles mine sense and sensibilities

without pride nor prejudice no matter (even with marginal persuasion)

wit and wisdom of Jane Austen ill mixes

with what emotional state my poem fixes.

Father long since journeyed

into afterlife destination alone,

October 7th, 2020 mid afternoon

with Earthlings ministration did attone

where night enveloped

and date stamped his lovely bones

rendered devoid of any groan

courtesy Roxanol (morphine)

and Ativan finding him prone

to experience painlessness, and no

his dying wish, plus last will and testament

won't include burial and/or headstone

cuz, he wants to integrate and did intone

cremation as ecologically friendly option

scattering ashes to parts known

someday... yours truly will too

succumb to the dead zone,

where misery in the ascendent.

Stark reminder to live fully an urgent yen

to live life fullest between now and when...

ever yours truly exits

stage door left, perhaps ten

twenty, thirty... eighty, ninety, one hundred...

additional orbits around sun

a remarkable human phenomenon

(me) courtesy mine burning ken

bequeaths modest minute man

near accursed immortality

longevity totaling even

score of years counting (crows)

and father time among his brethren.

Distress unavoidable which mortality doth bring

nevertheless, tis impossible mission

to eradicate pain and suffering, which doth sting

consolation assuages grief, viz prayer

and buttressing coping with spiritual wing

profound absence augments biting zing.

Biological reproduction begetting offspring

lodging within uterine abode

subsequent in utero development

regarding accretion embryonic node

biological algorithm doth automatically encode,

nevertheless longevity invariably affected

no doubt courtesy lifestyle mode.

Random crapshoot luck of the draw offspring born

genetic blueprints also decree existence transient

parents emphatically teach progeny

got no choice must inform

daughter(s), and son(s) ineluctably forsworn

demise bound with birth certificate presents horn

of dilemma conscious the next generation

granted only so many Earth orbitz around sun.

Once grim reaper deftly

communicates I must bid adieu

eternal hasta la vista to kith and kin

please don't shed a tear for generic

germane admirable bad company crew

member, albeit healthy as an ox

never got the flu,

an atheist doubting thomas

though genealogy records

incorporate many a cynical Jew

at least one legendary antiestablishmentarian

gleaned within mine purview

non-prodigal son edging closer

to the afterlife while livingsocial

within mortality queue shunned, ostracized and banished to Xanadu.

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dgcatanisiri · 2 years

Text

Also, one more thing on the Cyberpunk thoughts before I shift gaming gears, in the ending where V chooses suicide... I don’t particularly think that Panam or Kerry really come off well in their responses. I get that being angry at someone is a natural response, but... In their cases particularly, they KNOW a lot of the situation with V, that they’re dying because of Johnny in their head, and it’s clearly not painless. So choosing to go out without pain... I do not like passing that kind of judgment on someone, who wants to die on their terms, rather than let their brain liquefy.

Like, I feel for Judy, especially given that this isn’t the first person who she cared for who’s killed themselves (however you want to view her relationship with Evelyn), so her getting upset with V makes sense. But Kerry and Panam lashing out so bad at them... Sure, there may be some lore material that I’m not familiar with that helps to justify their reactions, but Panam basically telling V that she hopes they rot in hell for this? Kerry dismissing it as a “Romeo and Juliet” romanticizing death thing?

Like... Okay, maybe this is my own life and experiences coloring how I view things, but I’ve sat and watched as people I love wither away. Not just chronic diseases but degenerative ones. And it has made me aware since I was NINETEEN that, as long as the choice is mine, I would sooner arrange it so that I go to sleep without waking up while I am of sound mind and body, rather than wither away due to these degenerative diseases and conditions, these things that destroy the person you have always considered yourself to be.

So I take a harsh view of condemning someone for making the choice to die on their terms, rather than lose themselves.

At least River seems to get it - he might be disappointed that V did this, but he understands it. But the overall attitude that the people V cared about basically want to tear them a new one for doing this for themselves... I am not happy about that particular kind of end note.

Granted, it’s probably not an ending I’d take on the regular either, considering I don’t necessarily think just giving up is where my V’s would be at, and they’re of the opinion that, if they have to go, they’re going to take Arasaka down with them, but...

#dg plays cyberpunk

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genelutz · 2 years

Text

MY FIRST (AND LAST) FISHING TRIP

The first time I went fishing was at the “Senior Sneak” (a short vacation granted to high school seniors at Kodai School) so we all got in a bus and went to Mandappam. Mandappam was on the West Coast of India, some kilometres south of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, on the Indian Ocean. An old retired British bloke had a beachfront property, and we were invited to his place. He had a motorboat. A bunch of us went out on the trawler, and we took turns holding a fishing pole at the back. I had never gone fishing before, I had never had any desire to, though it wasn’t because I had anything against fishing or thought of it as being cruel to fish, nor did I feel any antipathy towards those who liked to fish as a sport. I was eighteen years old, and I had eaten meat all my life. It was just another kind of food that had been prepared for me and put on my plate, so I ate it, thinking nothing of it, although in later years, I learned about the cruel farming methods employed in the US and elsewhere.

I was offered a turn at the fishing pole, and so I took my turn, and a minute or two later, I hooked a fish and reeled it in. Everyone was happy that I’d caught the fish and they were congratulating me, but the experience was emotionally neutral for me. I suppose I’d felt some excitement at the time, but it wasn’t a happy type of excitement, nor did I feel any guilt or negative feeling that I had been the one who caught it, and it never occurred to me that the fish must have been experiencing pain and terror at the moments prior to its death, though this occurred to me at some time later, probably not that day or even in the near future, but I never had any desire to go fishing again, and I never did. Maybe I am a reincarnated Hindu since I’d been born in India, although I was not Indian racially–my parents and grandparents were both of German lineage, though both my mother and father were born in England.

As I thought about it in later years, although sport fishing to me seemed to be a weird sport, I could understand there was a kind of primordial instinct, and I could understand that there was some kind of pleasure in killing animals, and I had no objection to someone catching a fish or killing an animal in the wild as long as they ate it, since it was less cruel to kill an animal who had enjoyed freedom all its life even if the last moments of its life was filled with pain and terror, even though the killing of farm animals was swift and relatively painless. I had never known there was such a thing as fish farming, which I think is also unnatural and it imprisons large numbers of fish in small area, so the fish have limited freedom. I also understand that nature is full of terror and cruelty and animals and non-agrarian hunter-and-gatherer humans who live off the land have to inflict cruelty to eat. Either you kill or you go hungry.

To this day, however, I cannot understand why anyone would catch a fish and release it, and I abhor the practice, although the fisherman may consider this being kinder to the fish than catching it and letting it die. Can you imagine having a large hook thrust through the bottom of your mouth and being dragged out of the water by your jawbone? I think if any fisherman had this experience, he would immediately give up fishing as a sport anyway (unless he just enjoys being cruel to animals or just has no empathy), or at least try to find a less cruel way to kill fish, such as a net.

THE RATIONALE BEHIND BEING VEGAN

When I was living in India, if you wanted to eat chicken, you would go to the market and buy a live chicken and kill it yourself. We did that, and we would let the chickens (or in one case, turkeys) run around freely in the backyard at least for a few days, and we’d even watch the cook kill the chicken or turkey. I remember one time for Thanksgiving, my parents bought two turkeys and one was big and the other small. The big turkey would spread its wings and tail and go “thump thump” and the small turkey would follow behind in a more submissive fashion and never thumped or spread. The big turkey was killed and the small turkey who survived now seemed sad and confused, and I felt sorry for it. Some time shortly after that, however, we bought a chicken, and now the chicken and turkey hung together and the chicken was its new friend, and the turkey happily spread and started thumping.

Although in many if not most places in India, at least where there was a Hindu government, “cow slaughter” was illegal, since the cow was kind of a sacred animal, and many paintings of Hindu gods showed the god with a cow as a pet. Where my parents lived, we regularly bought pre-slaughtered beef at the market, and at places where cow slaughter was prohibited, there was a black market for beef so the cows had to be killed and sold secretly. The missionaries in the prohibition areas had no compunction about disobeying the law since most or all of them thought the law was stupid and senseless, because Europeans and especially Americans love beef, and the phrase “holy cow” is really a contemptuous racial slur against Hindus. At the time I lived in India, from (1951-1957, I was born in 1951) and from 1965-1969, the human population was 400 million and the cow population was 200 million, and the Europeans saw emaciated cattle everywhere, so they considered it more cruel to let the cattle live and starve than kill them, and in the more arid regions like Tamil Nadu, there was not much or no grass growing.. At the time, I agreed that it was better for them to be killed and eaten, and I’m kind of still in favor of that idea. Since then, as more and more of the younger generations have turned away from traditional religious beliefs, it seems to me that a lot of the 200 million cattle have been eaten, presumably by secularized Hindus and maybe because a lot of the cow slaughter laws have been revoked, but I don’t know the facts or statistics on this.

The Indian beef was often tough and sinewy and not very tasty, as much of the beef came from oxen who had been pulling oxcarts all their lives, and maybe the meat came from oxen, or maybe because the oxen were male, they were not considered sacred cows, though I’m not sure of this either. The American cattle, I know for a fact, are mostly corn-fed rather than fed their natural diet of grass, which produces a beef that is rich in fat, and since the cattle get little or no exercise, the meat is more tender. Unfortunately, the raising of cattle in America is largely done on “feed lots” where cattle are massed together in a small area rather than grazing on pasture, since pasture requires much more acreage than just growing corn. I never actually saw a feed lot close up, but I remember driving up a highway in California and we passed one such feed lot about a half mile or so distant from the highway, and there was a strong stench of cattle shit (not to be confused with the bullshit you hear on the corporate news media) that was overwhelming, and I felt a sense or compassionate sadness for the cattle who had to breath this close up 24 hours a day seven days a week until they’re turned into yummy McDonald’s hamburgers.

I did see a dairy farm barn where the cows were all lined up ready to be milked and was surprised at how large their udders were compared to the Indian cows, huge, as big or bigger than a beachball, and the farmers had a machine with hoses that attached to the cows’ teats and sucked the milk out. I learned later that the calves who had not been turned into veal were fed milk in buckets rather than let them drink directly from the mothers’ udders, which to me seems an udderly stupid thing to do. The male calves were apparently mostly slaughtered since they were monetarily useless as milk producers, and I learned that the sperm from the surviving males was somehow collected through some probably cruel form or masturbation and cows were artificially inseminated no doubt because if you let the bulls have normal sex, you’d have to feed all those bulls, decreasing the farmers’ profit. Since cows produce milk only when they have calves, they have to be kept constantly pregnant, so they are kept constantly pregnant through the process or artificial insemination. A stainless steel device is inserted into each cow’s vagina and the sperm is squirted in with a syringe so we can all gorge ourselves on that yummy milk and ice cream at the lowest possible prices.

Eggs are also efficiently produced by caging each chicken in a separate cage. The floor of the cage is tilted so as soon as a chicken lays an egg, it rolls down onto a conveyor belt to save the cost of paying humans to empty each nest. Since most eggs are unfertilized, no male chickens are needed, so at least we don’t have to extract sperm from male chickens, so they are made into yummy chicken patties produced by prisoners in private prisons being paid nineteen cents per hour, unless they want to spend a few months in solitary confinement for refusing to work.

I saw this in person, and those pesky animal rights activists have publicized this, so now we have the more humane cage-free and free range chickens, which is thousands of chickens crowded together like concentration camp prisoners in a barn, with their beaks cut off so they don’t fight with each other, and of course fed antibiotics in their diets, which produces antibiotic resistant diseases—you can’t win…

Then there is the “pasture raised” chickens and eggs. I’m perfectly OK with this. but they are five or six dollars a dozen as opposed to seventy-nine cents per dozen of the caged chicken eggs. I don’t know if the added cost of hiring humans to collect the eggs justifies this, but God bless them anyway for at least not torturing the chickens, so if you gotta eat eggs, this is the best option. If the farmer is price gouging and selling the eggs for ten times the price, the chickens won't have to lay ten dozen eggs to make the farmer the same amount of profit. Anyway, what the chickens are getting paid for their labor (going into labor?) is just chicken feed.

As far as chicken meat, I haven’t seen it advertised as “pasture raised” meat, so I don’t know, but if the useless male chickens are raised in cages, the chicks grow up to be full size quickly since they are fed steroids or whatever, I don’t know the facts on this.

Now because of the War in Ukraine, for some unfathomable reason, the price of chicken has mushroomed. It may be price gouging, but I think it is more likely Putin’s fault.

#fishing #fish #agribusiness #farm animals #humour #humor #stories #funny story #blogspot #blogger #blogs

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lumienyx · 3 years

Text

Anders Belly Dancing Because Reasons™ | Part I

Part II is here

Anders — The Belly Dance Version 1 (Soundless)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPwKhmn4WTQ

Anders — The Belly Dance Version 1 (Mage Pride)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HpMyhEA77s

special thanks to @un-shit-yourself because i was literally battling to the death with how tf 3d textures even work and had almost given up but their fic excerpt featured Anders and belly dancing and so my brain short-circuited in the morning and by evening, this was born

#the reasons (TM) being t h i r s t #anders #dragon age 2 #handers #because anders is diligently practicing for hawke🥰#you can see that from the absolutely stoic expression of intense and total concentration #i am sorry for my crimes against humanity #i hope anders forgives me #or at least grants me a painless death #p.s. forgive me for the horrible fire effect i just couldn't be bothered to spend more than 10 seconds on properly editing this bs #today has been WILD #da edit #da2

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endeaavorr · 3 years

Text

PAPA!ENJI AU CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

hello ! this is some new content idea that i thought would help everyone understand their dynamic better, and if this turns out well i’d turn this into an event too, i hope you enjoy. with love, moon. cw : mentions of death, violence, suicide, slight yandere tendencies.

“if you (have to) choose between the fate of your partner or the fate of the world, what will you choose ?”

y/n’s answer : them

y/n is very selfish when it comes to her relationship with enji. there’s something with the way she thinks, that’s just different and not even i, her creator can fathom or tell if it’s good or not. she’s so emotionally intelligent it boosts her and even enji’s publicity. but at the same time, to her nothing matters other than enji and her brothers. she would gladly knock on devil’s door and put a bargain on things no one wants to know what is just to get her way.

enji’s answer : the world

this is pretty obvious. enji is officially japan’s number one hero, with a successful agency to lead aside from it. it naturally makes him a leader that will have no choice but to put others first, it’s his responsibility, it’s his fate.

“will you sacrifice yourself for the other person ?”

y/n’s answer : will

after all the todoroki discourse, y/n considers enji her life and death. she vowed to herself to do everything in her power and beyond to make sure enji can be happy with her. to her, death is painless. it is life that brings misery.

enji’s answer : will

this is self explanatory. even if their relationship remained platonic, enji’s parental love would still let him give up his life for her.

“can you kill your partner if they become a monster ?”

y/n’s answer : can not

as i stated previously, y/n is selfish when it comes to enji. she would rather sit back and watch the world gets consumed by hellfire if it means she can be with enji.

enji’s answer : can

he has his responsibilities as a hero, and sacrificing personal matters is at the top of the list. he knew what it’s like to lose a child, so he can have a better judgement of what he would do. it’d crush him though. he’d be on distraught for a long time.

“will you take revenge if your partner is killed ?”

y/n’s answer : will

enji is a hard man to kill, if he somehow got killed it would be because he was distracted like when dabi revealed himself as touya, or it would be because reinforcement came late. the latter would be worse though, there’s no limit to how far she would go.

enji’s answer : will

unlike y/n’s egocentric temper, enji wouldn’t blame it on reinforcement or other survivors. he’d use all his connections and power as the number one to find whoever’s responsible. i haven’t thought this enough but it’s possible that the grief gets too much for enji to handle, it completely dulls his hero tendencies. he not only will let your killer die a slow and painful death, but also their kid too. an eye for an eye.

“will you follow your partner to death ?”

y/n’s answer : will

there are two scenarios where i thought about this possibility may occur. scenario one would be if enji’s sacrificing himself to save everyone like fighting a villain or gets trapped etc, if that’s the case she’ll stay and let life play whatever joke it has on them, as long as she has him, it doesn’t matter. scenario two would be if enji died without her like for example in a hospital or a battleground where she’s not present, if that’s the case she wouldn’t straight up kill herself, she’ll see what happens after like if it was accidental or planned or anything, but im not disclosing anything though, she can be unpredictable when it comes to enji.

enji’s answer : will not

if the conditions are like as i stated with y/n, on scenario one enji would sacrifice himself with y/n so ‘she at least won’t be alone in her last moments’. meanwhile on scenario two, he’s gonna prompt for revenge, and maybe find a way to bring her back.

“possibility of marriage ?”

y/n’s answer : there is not

enji’s answer : there is not

enji is legally still married to rei in this au. even if their marriage wasn’t built on love and it’s practically ended, a divorce will stain his and his family’s name. they had a talk about this about two years after both of them became a thing, and there’s a mutual agreement on this matter. the todoroki legacy that has been built is way too valuable to taint. enji feels bad though, y/n has sacrificed way too much, even more than rei did. so enji did give her a promise ring, making it clear that he’s not messing with her feelings or taking her for granted. he wears that ring in place of his first one that he got with rei. on a more simple answer, i’m sure incest marriage is illegal. (too bad)

“at the end of the world will you be with your partner ?”

y/n’s answer : will

enji’s answer : will

there’s no need to elaborate further on y/n’s answer. however enji’s a bit tricky since he should be trying to save people, right ? but no. he’s still a person with his own desires before he is a hero. it’s not like the world ever sacrificed its life for him anyways. enji would stop by rei’s place where natsuo and shoto lives to give a last apology, then go somewhere nice with y/n to watch the skies darken for the last time.

“will you tell lies to your partner ?”

y/n’s answer : will

enji’s answer : will

both of them are similar in this. i guess this is where the todoroki genes take place. she would only do harmless lies like birthday surprises and when she’s hiding her struggles or something because really there’s nothing for her to lie about, while enji would lie to protect her from the harsh knowledge of the grown up’s world. he thinks you’re still too innocent for the world, and he’d like to keep it that way.

“your partner has been killed to end their hellish suffering, will you revive them ?”

y/n’s answer : will

by now, it’s clearing up that she has some yandere tendencies. it’s not to the extent that she beheads any woman breathing the same air as enji, but it’s enough to be delusional at times. in this case, if enji was killed then she’d go into a craze frenzy. it’s even worse because people will come up to her and say shit like “he’s happy now.” she’d think “he was happy with me too” and mutter it lots of times. kinda scary to the people around her, and if given the chance to revive him, she’d take it in a heartbeat. she’s sure she can make him happy.

enji’s answer : will not

well, how do i say it. enji do loves her, but the years difference in life experience between him and y/n makes all the difference. he thinks rationally, like a normal person do. he’s not that confident in making y/n happy in the first place either, it’s not like she was free from his shitty jerk behaviour back then, if not she even sometimes took the hit for his brothers too. he’s not sure if he ever really made you happy despite trying his best. thus if given such situation, his insecure ass would consider it best if he lets what has happened, happened.

“can you live your position and responsibility for your partner ?”

y/n’s answer : can

y/n’s still quite young, only a few years in her hero career. she doesn’t really have a lot to stake on to be frank. especially with her pesonality, it won’t be a hard choice. hell if enji asks her to be a homemaker she’d be delighted to resign.

enji’s answer : can not

he has too much responsibility, having achieved that much in such a young age means he has a lot in stake. it’s unprofessional too, it irks him to be anything other than that.

“what are the last words you will say to your partner before you part ways forever ?”

y/n’s answer : i will care for you always, that was my part of the deal.

enji’s answer : i’m sorry.

in my au, i only consider this possible to happen if rei wanted to get back together and enji had no choice but to agree. it would be a long shot though, it’s canon in my au that y/n despises her mother, she’d be on her neck the moment she got off the hospital, keeping her away from enji as much as possible. but if this scenario did somehow happen, i think y/n would give in. he’d do anything for enji at the end of the day. (as long as they still fuck regularly tho)

“would they want to meet each other again if they were reborn ?”

y/n’s answer : i want to

enji’s answer : i want to

maybe this time, he won’t be so insecure and flawed. maybe this time, she would fight harder for him.

“finally, one word to describe their relationship ?”

moon’s answer : romantic.

maybe they were doomed from the very start, but they loved each other with all they had. maybe it was wrong, and ugly at times, but still they were two romantics yearning for each other.

this is the end of the character breakdown, thank you so much for making it this far and enjoying my papa!enji au. i appreciate all of you so much.

#papa!enji #endeavor x reader smut #endeavor x reader fluff #enji todoroki #enji todoroki x reader #enji todoroki x reader fluff #endeavor headcanons #enji todoroki headcanons #mha headcanons #bnha headcanons

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obaby-me · 4 years

Note

TIME FOR ANGST. After leaving the Devildom Diavolo gets the news that MC died in an accident. How do the brothers react after Diavolo breaks the news to all of them.

Author’s Note: How could you ask this of me? How could you do this to them? Cruel, anon. Cruel.

Lucifer

It was quick, it was painless. There’s something to be said for that.

Isn’t there?

Humans are fragile and fleeting beings compared to demons. It was inevitable that one day you would be separated from them by way of death.

But not this soon. Lucifer wasn’t prepared for this soon.

His face is steel and stone—unwavering

The sound of another piece of Lucifer’s heart shattering is subtle but poignant: another room is locked quietly away, and hidden out of view—a shrine to a memory they’ll cherish, as much as suffer.

Mammon

It’s not true. Mammon is not willing to believe it to be. It can’t be true. He protests loudly that Diavolo is lying. That it’s another one of his pranks, his tests, and it’s gone too far. Or, he’s keeping some sort of secret. The prince was filled with secrets.

It took him days to let the news to really sink in. Days of letting it slowly weigh down upon him while he searched desperately for proof that you were still alive. Days of sneaking out to the human world to find your home. To check newspapers, hospital records.

To attend your funeral.

He should have been there. Or maybe he should have never let you go back. You should have been at his side, where he could keep his eyes on you, his arms around you.

His brothers used to wish Mammon would learn to shut up once in a while. Now they do not so much as see him. He can’t be home. It’s much too hard.

Leviathan

This isn’t fair.

No, fair hardly quite describes the severity of how wrong this is. Unjust. Cruel.

But life isn’t fair, just, or kind, and Levi thought he understood this truth long ago. Good people suffer while the bad thrive. That’s why 2D worlds are better than 3D: because the good and the bad get exactly as they deserve. Heroes win, and bad guys lose (and those who sit within the shades of gray in between get their karmically gray wins and losses as well.)

The 3D world just isn’t worth his time any more. Better that he focus solely on the 2D now.

Satan

There was something that could be done, couldn’t there? Diavolo had done it once before when you’d died at the hands of their youngest brother. Diavolo had even granted Lilith a chance to be reborn.

But Diavolo says there is nothing that can be done.

Satan refuses to believe it. There were ways to bring you back to him. Though Diavolo denied him two options already, surely there were other ways.

All he needs to do is some research, the right books, with the right spells, with the right power.

It means sleepless nights in libraries and archives. It means skipping meals for just one more page, one more chapter, one more book.

Asmodeus

Diavolo sure likes to tease them. Likes to put them through dramatic motions. He kidnaps Lucifer, and leads them on wild goose chases, and sets them up all the time.

It’s just, this one’s not funny. This one’s not fun in the least. Diavolo’s really gone too far. His heart drops into the pit of his stomach and sweat beads over his skin.

Tell him you’re joking, Diavolo. Tell him.

But Diavolo’s face remains stern.

He texts you, and there’s no response. He calls and it goes to voicemail, but voicemail is a good sign, right? He checks your socials. There are no new posts, but you could just be busy.

Every nerve in him is on fire, and tears escape him in his fear. It can’t be real. It can’t be true.

He checks every day. Your phone, your socials. That it doesn’t change slowly settles the truth in.

And then one day he calls and the robotic monotone voice tells him that the number he has dialed has been disconnected. And he knows. And he weeps. Every time he thinks of you, it will be so in tears. And he thinks of you so often.

Beelzebub

Somehow, Beel feels as if he has failed you.

He knows he hasn’t. He was in the Devildom, you were in the human realm. There was nothing he could do.

But what if you hadn’t gone. What if he’d put more of an effort in convincing you to stay? What if he’d gone with you? What if he’d had popped in for a visit like you two had only just been discussing days before? He could have surprised you and been there for you and you wouldn’t have…

The ever-stoic demon says nothing, but his body says it all. He slumps, curling in on himself. He wrings his hands so tightly he bruises them. So caught up in his own thoughts, he hardly notices his brothers speaking around him, to him. His eyes water and tears fall opening, but not a sound escapes him.

Hardly any words do any more.

Belphegor

How ironic that you had been safer in the Devildom than you were in the human realm.

Certainly, you’d died in the devildom at Belphie’s hands no less. But you came back. Barbatos had saved you then. Why then couldn’t he do it again?

Diavolo says there’s nothing that can be done.

Bullshit, Belphie calls out. There’s a way and Diavolo is withholding it from them. Withholding you from him.

Belphie’s never hated Diavolo more. He may have hated humanity and the human realm before meeting you, but there’s more hate in him for this one man than the whole of humanity now. Openly he threatens the prince, who

Satan has the right of it: there must be a way. And in spite of Diavolo, Belphie aims to find it.

#obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #headcanon #ya'll out here to hurt me #sadists the lot of ya #i'm just kidding by the way #send on the angst #i don't mind

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nicotinemaiden · 2 years

Text

I almost do

[Infinite Songs for her Smile - Ch.20]

[TW: depression, suicide, self-harm]

Read on AO3 →

And I just wanna tell you it takes everything in me not to call you.

And I wish I could run to you.

And I hope you know that every time I don't… I almost do.

[Taylor Swift]

The voices... kept talking. They kept talking and talking and talking. It was an uninterrupted sound on the back of his mind, always constant, always present. Some days they were just a whisper, a quiet murmur easily ignorable, easily replaceable. Other nights, like tonight, they were shouting, crowding his thoughts with things he couldn't hear, memories he shouldn't remember.

The peaceful and silent room acted like a stadium for them, a microphone where he wanted to scream, where he wanted to accept what they were saying to him and repeat the dreadful memories out loud just to see if that way they would shut up. Maybe if he followed their orders, if he embraced the pain his own mind was inflicting, he would be free.

He always dreamed of freedom. Not the kind of freedom someone in jail would wish for, not the kind of freedom a key could grant. He dreamed of total freedom. Being free from himself. Being free from his voices. Being free from the demon he knew he carried inside. The demon he himself caged away and the same demon that once in a time would break out and ask of him things he didn't want to do or say.

He knew he was foolish. That beast was part of himself and, while he stayed alive, so would it. For that reason, he dreamed of real freedom. Painless freedom.

He didn't want to force himself to smile anymore. He didn't want others to smile at him as if everything was right. He didn't want to lie, not to the people that earned his trust at last. He didn't want the pain of seeing her look at him without any barriers just to answer her with a hidden wall that, luckily, worked both ways. She was the only person, the only thing in the world he'd known that could silence the voices. The only way they would just… shut up.

And, as it happened so many times before, his feet carried him to her door. He looked at it: an ornate white wooden door, completely shut. He imagined himself walking past it, without permission, without a valid reason. He imagined telling her everything the voices told him, every fault, every kill and death that weighted his conscience. He imagined her taking his hand, stroking his hair, mumbling sweet words to his ear and making everything, every voice except hers, disappear. (She would hate you. If she knew every person you’ve killed and how you’ve enjoyed it every time she won’t ever look at you again. She would only see your demon. She would only see your true self.)

And the voices were right. Or not. He didn’t even know who he was anymore. He didn’t even know if he was more than his beast - if there was really a part of him worth saving. He realized, as every time before this one, that no, there really wasn’t and so, he continued walking. It wasn't fair, not to her at least.

He didn't even know what came before: Him falling in love with her or her making the voices disappear. Yet he was sure as hell he didn't want to use her, he didn't want to think he fell in love because of that and so he was building more and more walls between them.

That was also somewhat unfair and he was conscious of it. But this way was better, he repeated himself. Again and again, between the voices. (You don't really deserve anyone, least of all her. You are, after all, a cold blood murderer, a mercenary, a slave. Your own life doesn't belong to you, why would you think of giving it to anyone? Your hands are dirty, your words are tainted with lies. Someday they will come for you, they will make an example, they will hang your mutilated body on the main entrance, where everyone can see what happens to people like you.)

And wouldn't that be a pleasure? Knowing he can't feel anymore. Knowing all his past errors are paid for and forgotten. Knowing no one would really miss him… it almost made him smile. He wasn't needed in the world, his existence until now has just been selfish, searching for a reason to live. So selfish it was that he found one. One that allowed him to live more than four extra years. One that allowed him to be walking on the tiles of the roof at this very moment.

He stopped counting the times he found himself up there after the eleventh. There had been so many. Not all on the same roof, just the same situation, different elevated places.

He liked to look at the sky, wondering if they'd accept someone like him in their ranks. Yet he preferred looking at the floor, wondering, measuring how much would cost if he took an extra step. No one would really believe he was clumsy enough to fall but did it really matter?

Not to him, it would be too late for him. It seemed so easy, so simple… The voices kept telling him. (You'll be doing the world a favour, they would rejoice, some would even dance on top of your corpse.) He knew that wasn't completely right. He felt loved and accepted here. But it wasn't worth rebating it because part of him believed it. Part of him was sure he was just a hindrance.

He counted his breaths slowly, one by one.

In. (People who trust you can only end up killed.)

Out. (You already know it, it happened before.)

In. (It happened again last week and won’t be the last.)

Out. (Why are you alive and not them? Are you better? Did you teach them enough?)

In. (Why didn’t you protect them? They had families, they had all their life to live. Things you have not. And yet, here you are.)

He stopped breathing, he stopped counting.

His arm was bleeding, his skin torn apart by his own nails in an effort to feel a different kind of pain. It was impressive he didn’t realize until now, the mixture of lines above his wrist, vertical and horizontal. The red was such a contrast to the ones that had already faded. At least this time they won’t leave scars, at least this time his knife was still carefully sheathed. He wasn’t ready to explain why in case someone found out. He wasn’t ready to talk about him, about his past and about his present. And least of all was he ready to talk about how he wasn’t sure he could see a future. Not for himself.

He clutched his chest, almost kneeling, without a way to calm the voices, the feelings that blinded him. Looking once more at the stars he wondered how could the sky be so bright and clean when he was in the middle of a raging storm? (You don't want to live.) Yet he did. (You don't want the pain.) He did not. (You have nothing to offer.) He didn’t know, he wasn’t sure, he wanted to - so much.

Between the black that flooded his mind, he could see a bit of red, a bit of green and he reached for it while his feet paced the tiles once again. The colours… they made a formless cluster which said warm words, worried words. They smelt of gauzes and medicines. They showed her hands, lightly touching his scars, apologizing without words for not being there when they were made. He could almost touch them, stop them from their work because, really, it wasn’t worth it. Yet he could actually see her below him, her red mane of hair decorating her balcony, searching for something in the courtyard.

He looked at her for a minute, his mind soothed for the first time that night, the voices lowered but not quiet. She was wearing a golden dressing gown nuanced in black. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her on it and, like the first time, he couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful it seemed on top of her skin, a cascade of stars. It would mix so well here, at his side, higher than every other building and accompanied solely by its sisters on the horizon.

He almost called to her.

(You are a coward. You're only going to annoy her, to ruin her night. Look at you, crying, screaming in silence. Do you really think you’re what she needs right now?)

Almost.

#sorry sorry sorry for taking so long to do ANYTHING #im so busy usually even when i want to write i dont have time #but im still alive #still in love with obiyuki #and i love you guys and the community #i hope i've captured the essence of such a difficult theme as it is this one #i've been clinically depressed for years (luckily not anymore) but it has been a large part of my life #obiyuki and its community actually helped me a lot to overcome it #but...this chapter is a bit more personal because it doesnt matter how long you've been depressed or how long you have felt happy #there are things that always come back #things we cannot help and can only do our best to stop them from reigning over our life #but i promise you there are days worst than others #i haven't feel this way for years and i dont feel that way now #you can be happy #even if you dont remember how happiness #must feel #infinitesongsforhersmile #obiyuki #ans #fanfic #isfhs

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onenerdtwonagas · 3 years

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((So I got the idea of an au where Orpheus and Uriah meet because the pantheon is still worshipped and occasionally, human tributes are offered. Whether it’s for pleasure or sacrifice is up to the deity in question. Uriah is forced into being his society’s offering. What does the god want with him?))

“Move it.”

Uriah stumbled as he was shoved forward, his wrists bound tightly in front of him. One of the elders pulled him along like a dog on a lead, the other prodding him from behind as the line of offerings to the god moved on. He hadn’t volunteered for this; they’d picked him to avoid sending one of their more ‘valuable’ members of their society.

‘What will it matter to the god?’ they had mused. ‘If a god wants a sacrifice or a plaything, it won’t make a difference whether they’re high born or not. They’ll be glad for a body either way.’

Uriah stared down at the ropes around his wrists, so tight they burned into his skin. He didn’t want to be there. He knew others volunteered for such positions, but he had no grand illusions of a being of higher power being interested in him beyond a ritual or base need, as the elders had surmised. He’d likely be dead by the following morning.

Maybe that was alright. Maybe, after years of endless work and abuse, death would be a peaceful release. Supposing the god didn’t want to make him suffer for it...

“Next.”

Perhaps if he remained calm and obedient, the god would grant him at least a quick and painless passing—

“Next!”

“Pay attention and move, wretch!”

He almost choked as the rope around his throat pulled tight, yanking him forward.

“What offering do you bring to the Night God?”

“A living tribute,” the leading elder answered.

A nymph with ethereally pale skin looked down at him. They seemed to contemplate the young man for a moment before sweeping an arm forward into the temple.

“The god will decide whether to accept your offering or not. Proceed.”

Uriah swallowed thickly as he was moved inside, lined up amongst other living tributes. Some wore ornate robes or jewels. Their skin and hair were pristine. Nobility. They scoffed down at him and turned up their noses, all seemingly assured they would be chosen instead. It didn’t matter much to him; either way, he resigned himself to one form of discomfort or another.

Nymphs lined the sides of the pillared hall, organizing the material offerings already given. Ornate fabrics, pelts of rare animals, jewels, precious metals, heavy tomes and so many other things that Uriah couldn’t identify. His gaze slowly traveled from the nymphs and their duties to the throne on the other end of the hall, and he felt a chill run through him.

There sat the night god, in all his splendor and strength. Orpheus, he was called. His powerful body looked so elegantly poised as he occupied his throne upon the tiered steps, his glistening scales draping over them and seeming endless in their length.

“Your living tributes, my lord,” a nymph announced to him.

The god peered down with his head propped up by one hand, cool, luminous eyes scanning every mortal that was presented before him. He didn’t seem to have a terribly strong interest in any one of them in particular—

The quiet of the hall was disturbed by a short yelp as Uriah was forced forward, stumbling to his knees.

“Kneel before your god, boy!”

“Quiet in the presence of our lord,” one of the god’s servants barked, but Orpheus held up a hand to silence him.

He rose from his throne and descended the stairs, his four clawed hands folded behind his back as he began a closer inspection. Yes, yes, they were all very pretty...but were any of them of any real substance? Was there something more to them than appearances? How many times had he picked a tribute for them to merely be greedy and vain? Too many. Far too many. In truth, he was tired of such offerings, but when people insisted on sending them...

He paused at the end of the line, looking down at a fragile-looking man on his knees and his head hung low. The elders shrank back as he lingered, his eyes flickering to them in a form of silent question.

“H-He was a servant to the scholars of our citadel, my lord,” one of them stammered. “We have no nobles to offer, but we hoped he would please you.”

Orpheus merely blinked at them, his face expressionless. They fidgeted and took another step back. His eyes slid to the ropes on the man’s neck and wrists. It seemed a little much; he wasn’t exactly built to fight, so preventing him from fleeing wouldn’t have been hard. Perhaps the men were simply cruel.

“You.”

Uriah flinched.

“Look at me.”

He trembled slightly, his gaze flickering up before his nerves overcame him and he stared back down at the stone floor. Star-speckled scales came into his field of vision as the end of the god’s tail slid across the floor and curled beneath his chin, lifting his head properly. It slithered up along the side of his face and pushed his hair back and away from his eyes.

“That’s better.”

Uriah winced, suddenly aware of the raw strength this being possessed. He stared up at the god in helpless silence, watching his eyes wander over him. The god’s vision lingered on his bindings once more, and Uriah let his gaze drop in shame.

“...You will do,” the god said quietly. Even so, his voice had a power of its own. As the other tributes began voicing their protest, the god snapped his head in their direction and growled. He glowered at them, eyes piercing.

“Silence. Leave.”

The god turned to his servants.

“I will take no more offerings today. See that the others are sent away.”

Uriah let out the air he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding in his lungs. The god chose him? Out of so many other more beautiful people?

The tail that had held his chin released him and instead curled loosely around the end of the rope tied to his neck. The god beckoned to him with a hand, but did not pull.

“Come with me.”

Uriah stared at him, hesitant. He glanced back over his shoulder as the nymphs ushered out the last of the other mortals. He was alone, left to whatever fate waited for him. The god didn’t speak, but repeated the gesture for Uriah to follow. He couldn’t very well disobey a god.

Uriah remained silent and did his best to avoid stepping too close to Orpheus’s tail as it wound along behind him through the halls of the temple. He tried not to let his mind wander, but that only made him more tense. It was ridiculous; he’d consoled himself with the idea of death not even an hour before. Why was he so afraid it then?

At last, the god led him into a room far away from the reception hall, quiet and unoccupied by any others, not even the god’s nymph servants. Uriah swallowed thickly as he briefly observed what he assumed was Orpheus’s personal chambers. He felt himself shaking as the god gestured to a flat stone near the wall.

“Sit.”

Uriah obeyed. The god watched him for a moment, then approached. He held the loose rope that hung from the man’s neck contemplatively, and then brought a second clawed hand close to his throat.

“W-Wait!”

The god froze and blinked at him, perplexed. Uriah stared up at him pleadingly.

“If... I-If you’re going to kill me, just—just please make it quick,” he stammered. “I-I’m not afraid of dying, but...I d-don’t want it to hurt...”

Orpheus continued to look at him blankly. Dumbfounded, even. The hand that hovered near Uriah’s throat remained still a moment more. It rose and stroked through Uriah’s hair, and down to rest against his cheek. Uriah squeezed his eyes shut and stifled a whimper, and then...

He felt the rope fall away from his throat. The god’s palm dropped from his face. Uriah hesitantly opened his eyes again, looking up at the god uncertainly.

“That’s one. Now, about these...”

Orpheus’s used two hands to cradle Uriah’s, the other pair feeling the knots for weak points. The human barely dared to breathe.

“You...Y-You’re not going to kill me?”

“Of course not. What in heaven’s name gave you that idea? Now hush. Let me get these off of you.”

“I-I don’t under—“

“Unless you fancy the idea of me accidentally cutting your wrist open and you bleeding out, dear one, quiet would be appreciated,” Orpheus sighed dryly. Uriah held his tongue.

The god’s claws deftly cut through the cords, one at a time, until the final binding slipped loose to the floor. Uriah felt relieved to no longer feel them digging into his skin, but the mildly bloody marks weren’t exactly pleasant to look at. Orpheus tutted.

“They had no need to be so cruel to you...”

Uriah inhaled sharply as his wounds were touched and instinctively pulled away, but Orpheus held him in place. He lowered himself and placed a hand over each wrist.

“Shhh. Be still.”

Whatever language he murmured, Uriah didn’t understand it. It flowed like water and whispered like the hissing of a serpent. It was soothing. Lyrical, almost. Orpheus moved his hands and bent his face down towards Uriah’s injuries, uttered several more lilting words, and kissed his skin. Uriah shivered as a chill ran through him, up from his injuries and to his core. The cuts in his wrists sealed themselves shut as both of them watched.

“W-W-What was th-that?” he asked through chattering teeth.

“Magic,” Orpheus answered simply, satisfied with his work and rising. He slid over to a massive pile of cushions and woven blankets, and tossed a few aside before deciding on a weaving made from bright threads and brought it to Uriah, draping it around his shoulders.

“The chill will wear off soon.”

Uriah grasped the edges of the blanket and pulled it tighter around himself as the god situated himself across from him, using his coils for a seat. He couldn’t bring himself to look at him. Orpheus watched in silence for a few moments.

“Now, what made you think I would kill you, hmm?”

Uriah fiddled with the fibers of the blanket.

“You may speak freely; I won’t harm you.”

“...Well, I-I know that’s w-what some gods want. S-Sacrifices,” he answered, still shivering. “A-And compared to the others, I-I-I’m not really much to...t-to look at, so... F-Figured that was the o-o-only use you’d h-have of me.”

Orpheus cocked his head.

“You sell yourself short. Perhaps I find you aesthetically pleasing. Are you saying I have bad taste?”

“N-N-No, my lord, I-I didn’t mean—“

“Orpheus.”

Uriah looked at him.

“You can call me by name, dear one. I give you permission.”

His smile was kind, and patient. Uriah felt the warmth of the blanket finally beginning to help. Still, he folded his arms around himself and tucked the blanket against him tightly.

“I-I’m just a servant. I n-never had any say.”

“Were you brought by force, then?”

The man nodded.

“I see.”

Orpheus thought in silence. He gazed at the bundled mortal across from him, taking in his freckled skin and red, curled hair, and his vibrant but gentle green eyes. There was a humble sincerity about him that was oddly endearing. He could see himself growing fond of this one, doting on him in ways he wasn’t used to... It had been an awfully long time since he’d had a companion.

“I don’t believe you told me your name, dear one?”

“Uriah.”

“Uriah,” Orpheus repeated, testing it on his tongue. A soft name. A sweet name.

“Well, Uriah, suppose I have an offer for you. I am not in need of sacrifices, but of company. I’ve been alone for some time, now, and as I haven’t found anyone new on my own, I thought that, perhaps, accepting tributes would be one way to do it.”

“Oh. That’s...something.”

Orpheus rose from his coils and knelt in front of him. But even lowered as he was, he still looked directly into Uriah’s face with ease. He placed a hand on the mortal’s knee.

“But I am no tyrant. I will not keep you here if you do not want to be here. Do you have a home you would like me to return you to?”

Uriah grimaced and shook his head.

“No. I was separated from my family some time ago.”

“My condolences.”

“You... You’d really want me here?” Uriah asked, looking at him with doubt. “I’m not sure I can offer you what you want. I-I don’t even know what a being like you would want with someone like me...”

Orpheus turned his hand over.

“Give me your hand, Uriah, so I can make a promise to you.”

Uriah’s hand wriggled free from the blanket and rested in Orpheus’s palm. He placed a second hand over the man’s, stroking the back of his hand with his fingertips.

“I promise that as long as you are here, as long as it pleases you, you will have every comfort. In exchange for your company, I will give you my protection and my affections. I will never harm you; if I touch you and you do not wish to be touched, I will stop. You’ll never need to fear me. I promise, on my honor as a god.”

Warmth rose to Uriah’s cheeks as Orpheus held his hand and stared up at him, soft and serious all at once. He hadn’t ever been offered even a fraction of what this god was giving him. His chest fluttered.

“If... If you really mean that, then... I’ll stay.”

Orpheus smiled and bent his head to kiss Uriah’s hand. The tingling left behind wasn’t the chill of magic, but pleasant warmth. The god rose and brushed a hand through his hair.

“Very well. I will inform my nymphs so they can prepare space for you. You’ll be needing new clothes as well, I can imagine.”

“Th-Thank you.”

His claws combed through Uriah’s hair once more, and he turned to go.

“Umm... O-Orpheus?”

“Yes?”

“I-I-I haven’t, uh, that is... I...haven’t ever been with a...a-a man...before,” Uriah stammered, his face burning. “W-With anyone, a-a-actually...”

The god blinked, and then smiled with a soft chuckle. The end of his tail curled playfully beneath Uriah’s jaw.

“All things in due time, dear one,” he said gently. “Let’s get to know one another first.”

#onenerdtwonagas #not an ask #uriah #freckle muffin #orpheus #starry scales #freckles and stars #lit #lit post #tribute au #au

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ghetsis · 2 years

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18, 17 and 10 :D

Munday meme (accepting)

10. Would you be friends with your muse if they were real?

I pray to a God I don't believe in that Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius never becomes real and if by some horrid twist of fate he does, that I will die a quick and painless death before he can ever find me.

So no, not really.

17. Least favourite trope?

Uhhh, probably the Romeo and Juliet trope just because it's so tired. Granted, I see more of that in mainstream media than RP.

18. Are there any AU’s you’d like to explore but haven’t had the chance to yet?

Hm, maybe a verse where he already won?

Or an RR verse where he has to suffer working for Giovanni while he plans a way to take over this world and bring the power of the multiverse back to his own timeline.

Or a verse where he last everything and has to rebuild his power from the ground up.

#memes

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yandearest · 4 years

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May The Odds Be Ever in Your Favor (Hoseok x Reader Hunger Games AU) Chapter 1: The Reaping

Summary - Living in District 4 you never thought you would have to worry about being selected for the Hunger Games. With a training centre right near the dock of the houseboat you lived and fished from, your district was known for volunteers who trained their whole lives for a shot at glory and riches. But at age 18, your name is called and no girls volunteer to take your place. Your devastation is answered when Kim Namjoon volunteers for the males shortly after. Tall, muscular, highly intelligent and charming, the years of diligent preparation have bestowed Namjoon with the expectation of being the next District 4 champion after Finnick Odair last won 3 years ago.

Fishing for a living has granted you skills with a knife but, as your mentor Finnick is quick to describe, your beautiful face may well be your best asset.

Upon arrival in the Capitol you are quickly faced with the reality that Namjoon may not even be the biggest danger inside the Arena. Especially when you capture the obsessive attention of District 2′s own volunteer, and killing machine, Jung Hoseok. Hope soon fades from ‘survival’ to ‘the mercy of a painless death’ but Hoseok certainly has other plans.

Pairing - Hoseok x (fem)Reader

Genre - thriller, angst, yandere

Word Count 4.6K

Warnings - [in later chapters] major character death, graphic depictions of violence, swearing, obsession, dubcon-smut (smut will be marked so reading is optional), gore, unrealistically beautiful oc because I’m a sucker for that shitty trope and want to live vicariously through my writing (sue me)

The following is a dark fic featuring a yandere character, violence, obsession, and coercion. By no means does writing about this in a fictional setting condone any of those behaviours, much like Stephen King writing horror doesn’t mean he approves of psychotic killers in reality. Please avoid reading if any of these warnings makes you uncomfortable.

Cross posted on A03 so people can subscribe for updates/notifications

What little shred of hope for survival you may have had, after hearing your name announced from the reaping, was immediately squashed minutes later by two simple words. “I volunteer”.

Volunteers from District 4 were not uncommon. There was a not-so-secret training complex the capitol turned a blind eye to, in a warehouse near the docks. During your time in school you knew of several kids who trained before and after classes. At the age of twelve some of them dropped out all together, with the sole purpose of training every waking second of the day so they could volunteer at eighteen. There was no need for an education if your only purpose in life was to compete in a death match that offered a lifetime of rewards to the winner.

After the misfortune of having your name drawn you looked around, silently begging for one of the girls to come up and replace you, only for no takers. But when Kim Namjoon eagerly announced his intentions of volunteering (the reaped twelve-year-old boy on stage immediately bursting into grateful tears and rushing back to his mother in the square) it was easy to understand why no one had stepped up this year. Back when you had attended school, before dropping out to assist your father on his fishing boat after your mother died, Namjoon had been in some of your classes –although he very rarely showed up. He was immensely popular with everyone; in part because of his handsome physique and model like dimples, partially because of his superior intelligence, but mostly because it was well known he was by far the leader from all the kids in training.

You had never attended a training session (more fool you for thinking you would never be unlucky enough to have your name drawn, and banking on one of the girls who did train to take your place if you did) but the center near the wharf was close to where your family’s boat — that functioned as both a fishing ship and your house — was docked. During the many occasions you had walked past, you sometimes stopped to peer through a crack in the doorway and watch. A majority of the times you had seen Namjoon inside amongst the group of around twenty regulars; working out with weights, sparring with an array of weapons, or climbing the rope attached to the ceiling that was surely 30 feet high with nothing but cement to drop back down to. The years of work had turned the dimpled twelve-year-old you once shared a math class with into a lethal killing machine. And now you were going to be stuck in an arena with you as one of his targets.

You stood frozen as Namjoon strode up on stage, a grin on his face, waving to the camera before shaking the hand of the capitol’s representative — a pastel blue haired woman by the name of Periwinkle Eveweather. You could tell Periwinkle much preferred Namjoon to you from the twinkle in her eye at how well he was playing up to the camera. There would be no need for her to have to force him to act like being slaughtered like an animal was an honor, like she would for you. The next moments passed far too quickly in a blur, being lead off stage to bid farewell to your families. As you sobbed in your father’s arms, an only child saying your last goodbye, Namjoon was getting a pat on the back from his older sister, a previous volunteer and victor. Shortly after you were ushered on board to the train where you now sat, Namjoon at your side and your mentor sitting across the table.

A small part of your brain found it difficult to take Finnick Odair as a mentor seriously given he was younger than you. But your rational side was quick to silence that judgment with a reminder that exact dismissal of his age was a major contributing factor to his win three years ago. The feeling of despair ate away at your insides as Finnick took an immediate liking to Namjoon. You couldn’t blame him for it, Namjoon was by far the more likely of the two of you to survive, so it only made sense for him to put more attention on the candidate with the best chance, but it still made you feel awful none the less.

“And what about you YN?”

You jumped feeling Namjoon’s hand tapping your leg softly under the table, his head wordlessly nodding in Finnick’s direction without making any eye contact to you. You had become so distracted by the mug of tea in a decorative porcelain cup in your hands, you failed to recognize your mentor’s piercing sea green eyes were now focused on you.

“Sorry, what about my what?” you mumbled dumbly, feeling incredibly insecure at Finnick’s sigh.

“Your skills, what do you bring to the games?”

Well that explained why you had tuned out, there was no need for you to listen to Namjoon describing all the potential ways he was going to kill you within a week or so. And there were a hell of a lot of ways.

“I don’t know really, I’m not someone who’s trained like Namjoon,” you paused to think, pretending not to notice Namjoon’s smug smirk in the corner of your peripheral vision as Finnick frowned slightly.

“Neither was I, and that caused a lot of the careers to underestimate me,” Finnick replied, shooting Namjoon a pointed look which caused his smirk to disappear. You tried not to smile at that, settling instead for relaxing slightly into your seat.

“I can fish, so depending on the arena I can potentially find food, but more importantly I know my way around with a knife,” you declared, feeling a little more confident. The hopeless despair was still overwhelming but the least you could do for yourself, and your father, was to go out with honor.

“Very good,” Finnick nodded “don’t underestimate your face either.”

“My face?” You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “How am I supposed to kill anyone with that?”

Finnick sighed, leaning further back into the lounge he was occupying on his own, pinching the bridge of his nose on his handsome face in exasperation.

“Both of you listen, this is potentially more important than all of those little training sessions or fishing catches the both of you have ever made combined. You’re clearly genetically blessed to continue District 4’s reputation of having the most beautiful tributes, you in particular” He paused to lazily point in your direction. “If you actually want to win the games, you want the people of the capitol to adore you. And they’re a city of shallow cunts,” another pause to shoot a charming smile in Periwinkle’s direction “no offense”.

“Offense taken!” Periwinkle gasped indignantly but Finnick was already speaking over her without a care.

“And as shallow cunts what these people love, more than anything in their pathetic little vapid lives, is beauty. You,” a point to Namjoon, “have been training your whole life for this and will have a body to represent that. Show it off. They love flair, they love confidence, they love a show. Flex those biceps for them, they’ll go mad. Flash your abs and they’ll fall in love. And work those dimples, cause these suckers sure worked for me, got me a trident,” Finnick grinned to show off his smile and twin indents on each corner of his mouth, Namjoon mirrored the gesture and you felt your heart clench at how easily he seemed to turn on his charm. Tall, well built and handsome, he was just as gorgeous as Finnick. Too bad he was very likely about to be the literal death of you.

“And you,” Finnick turned his attention to your direction and you felt Namjoon’s eyes burning into you from the side “you’ll be the prettiest thing they’ve seen in years, possibly in the history of the games”

Your face flushed at the comment, even though you knew it wasn’t intended as a compliment. There was no point in sweet little lies to butter you up and the fact of the matter was you knew you had an aesthetically pleasing face. Your facial features were in perfect balance, skin clear, thick hair that fell to the middle of your back and eyes that you had been told sparkled like stars in the night.

“They’ll love that shit,” his finger lazily circled around pointing to your cheeks that were flushed in embarrassment at his candid assessment of your appearance.

“These people are so used to artificial, that something so beautiful and pure will be coveted like the fattest diamond they could possibly hang from their necks. You ever fucked a guy, sweetheart?”

“Excuse me?” you balked at the invasive question, earning a sharp laugh out of Namjoon, a scandalized shriek from Periwinkle, and an eye roll from Finnick.

“I’ll take that for a yes and don’t worry I’m not interested. The capitol thrives on corruption, greed, and a need to claim rare treasures for their own. Put an innocent little dove like you, with a face like yours, in front of them and they’ll go insane. Act right at the parade and in your interviews and you’ll have sponsors gifting you everything you could ever need in that arena”.

You sat wide eyed not even knowing how to respond. You didn’t bother with arguing over the status of your supposed virginity because whether it was true or not didn’t actually matter, it was all about the perception. If getting dolled up and fluttering your eyelashes could potentially result in a knife being dropped from the sky in the arena, you could suck it up and give these disgusting people what they wanted.

The train ride to the capitol took just under three days in total. During that time Finnick and Namjoon spent a lot of time together, which you weren’t surprised with in the least. It was only natural to favor the tribute with the better odds, as much as Finnick’s little speech on the first day tried to make you think you could have a chance. Finnick still made some time for you though, which was mostly spent on guiding you how to attract sponsors. You spent a majority of the time in your room, a lot of it crying, most of it sleeping, and some of it playing around with technologies you had never had access to before in your life. The only time you really saw Namjoon was during breakfast and dinner where you ate together with Finnick to discuss district strategy. You weren’t surprised at all by Namjoon’s plan to join the career pack, but you were slightly surprised when he spoke of you as a part of that plan. You were a little annoyed he didn’t even think to ask your opinion, but logically speaking it’s not like you had any option. It was either join them or make yourself an easy target. Plus, any alliance with Namjoon reduced your need to have kill any other tributes personally. The only thing now was to hope districts 1 and 2 were as receptive to the idea as you were.

When you arrived at the capitol you were immediately ushered into a clinic that was like a fusion between a spa and a hospital. You were stripped, examined, and assessed by a doctor before being dressed in a paper thin hospital gown. After a painful injection (“that’s your tracker dear, so the capitol can monitor you in the arena”) you were passed over to the beauty department who scrubbed, exfoliated, waxed, showered, moisturized, treated, conditioned and polished your entire body from head to toe. But at the end when you were standing before a mirror, you could see the results were worth it.

As Finnick had stated, you were already beautiful to start with, but it was like taking an uncut gem and polishing the stone to make it shine. Your hair was a couple of inches shorter with all the damage from years of saltwater being trimmed off. A treatment of conditioners you couldn’t care to remember had tamed your thick locks into smooth waves that had been layered to frame your face and flow prettily down your back. Whatever impurities that existed on your skin before had been entirely lasered away, and your whole complexion was now soft and glowing. Your eyebrows had been plucked into identical manicured arches and some sort of needled gun had permanently filled them in. A gel had been applied to your lips to boost their plumpness, without overly inflating them or drastically changing their shape, giving your mouth a cherubic quality. Staring at your reflection you raised a perfectly manicured finger to poke at your cheek, feeling the new silky smoothness beneath your fingertip, watching as your mirror image copied the action. It was surreal. You recognized the person in front of you as yourself, all of your features were still the same, but just somehow perfected?

You mostly ignored the gushing of your newly assigned stylist team — a set of triplets named Ruby, Garnet and Quartz — as they picked out garments, stretched measuring tape across and around your body and argued over what colors would bring out your eyes the best. They were sweet and well meaning with their compliments, but the growing nerves over being prepped for the chariot parade in a few hours made you unreceptive.

The concept they eventually decided on for your fishing district was ‘Rulers of the Sea’ and you were dressed in a Grecian inspired gown. The iridescent blue and green material, that sparkled like the sun reflecting off the ocean, was clasped at the top of your left shoulder with a silver broach in the shape of a starfish. Intricate embroidery was patterned around around the waist where the fabric was cinched tightly to create an overly enhanced hourglass silhouette. The bottom half flowed to your sandal clad feet and seemed to sway with the slightest of moments, a split on the right ran to the middle part of your thigh. Your eyes were a smoky combination of the colors from your dress, lashes coated in extensions and a layer of mascara to give you a seductive yet doe eyed appearance. There was a strange dichotomy in your styling where they were attempting to preserve your ‘natural’ and ‘innocent’ traits whilst simultaneously taking full advantage of the fact you were eighteen in order to market sex appeal.

Your favorite part (that you hated to admit even liking given the circumstance you were even in) was your hair. A section from each side had been pulled away and pinned at the back in a princess style, with numerous tiny clips of glowing sea shells and starfish holding it in place. Glittery extensions had been clipped in tastefully creating an appearance as if your hair was literally shining. This was then finished off by an ornate tiara placed on the top of your head.

By the time you were finished your stylists were practically in tears, fawning over you and calling you’re their greatest masterpiece. They mistook your eyes watering as pride in their work and not disgust at their pride in dressing a cow off before sending it to the slaughterhouse.

“No dear, you can’t cry and ruin all that make up we just spent so much time perfecting” Ruby chided, dabbing at your eyes with a tissue as Quartz and Garnet guided you out the door and into the small vehicle which was about to take you from the clinic to the parade. You didn’t dignify her with a response, merely grabbing the tissue from her hand as you were forced into the car. As soon as you were inside the car sped off, arriving at the destination very shortly after. From behind your tinted windows you could see horses being lead to empty chariots and your first sight of the other tributes, the people you were either going to have to kill or be killed by.

When the car stopped, Finnick was the one to open your door and offer you a hand to get out, which you accepted. As you stood up he appraisingly ran his eyes over all the details of your make-over, before nodding his approval.

“They did well,” he stated and you nodded your head in passive agreement as he dropped your hand to press his to the small of your back and guide you towards your chariot. Namjoon was already there, dressed in his own Grecian toga of the same fabric with a crown on the top of his newly styled hair. Sensing your arrival, he turned to look at you. Namjoon’s eyes widened comically before quickly composing his features almost as instantly as he had reacted. “Very well,” Finnick whispered, and you allowed an amused puff of air out.

“Your chariot awaits my dear,” Finnick said with a mock bow as he nudged you towards Namjoon, who extended his arm for you to hold on to. Not sure what else to do, you placed your hand delicately on his forearm, his other hand then coming to rest over the top. For a brief moment as Namjoon guided you both into the chariot, you could almost imagine you were a princess being taken to a ball by a handsome prince, but any such delusions were ruined by what Namjoon whispered next.

“It’s such a shame there can only be one winner, you really look good by my side.”

Your jaw clenched and you moved to rip your hand off his arm but his grip over yours instantly tightened with a laugh, as if expecting that exact reaction.

“Calm down princess, I don’t plan on killing your pretty little face for a while yet.”

You looked up at him like he was insane as the chariot began to move forward. He thought your reaction was from fear he was going to kill you now? And not that he perceived your life as only having value from being pretty enough for him? You were furious and about to rip into him before you heard the approaching roar of the crowd ahead at the end of the tunnel. Namjoon was oblivious to your rage, a perfectly poised smile, flexing his dimples that Finnick would be proud of, already painted on his face. You paused, for all you knew that could be an attempt to psych you out before facing the crowds, potentially losing you sponsor opportunities. Turning away from Namjoon, you took a deep breath to try and compose yourself. You plastered the docile soft-smiled wide eyed expression on your face that you had practiced with Finnick on the train, as your carriage emerged form the tunnel and onto the road lined with screaming spectators.

The entire parade was a blur of flashing lights, fireworks, thunderous cheering and echoes from the microphone that distorted whatever message the president greeted you with. By the time your chariot returned to the tunnel your mind was entirely blank but with the satisfied nod from Finnick as he waited to welcome you both back, you knew you had done well.

“If District 2 is anything to go by then you’ve won yourself a lot of admirers tonight” Finnick practically sang as he helped you down. Confused by his words you turned around looking for the other district to see the duo from two, the carriage over from yours. Dressed in gladiator styled garments, that was common from them every year, the girl was fiddling with a ruby dagger (you hoped was just a prop) whilst the boy was staring straight at you. ‘Boy’ was the wrong word to describe him, as he definitely had to have been the same age as you, if anything he looked slightly more mature than the legal age to even be here. He was tall, though not as tall as Namjoon, and lithe. Beneath a decorative breastplate you could see his sun kissed golden skin adorned with the toned definition of his pectoral and abdominal muscles. His face was incredibly handsome, by far the most handsome of any of the male tributes. Rich copper hair had been styled to frame his aristocratic features; a high bridged pointed nose, high cheekbones, sharp jawline and rich dark chocolate brown eyes that were intently focused on you.

“Speaking to other tributes before training is technically not allowed, but it’s enforced the same way as your training centers are, so not at all. You’ve got five minutes until those cars arrive to take you to the living quarters, go talk to the careers and work out an alliance,” You broke the eye contact to look at Finnick as he spoke, clearly having witnessed your little interaction.

Namjoon took the lead, confidently stepping off the carriage with a winning smile and striding towards the pair from two. With a sigh you hitched up the long material of your dress and followed behind him. You could still feel the male’s eyes burning into your skull as you looked across to notice the pair from District 1 also making their way over — their own mentor likely having given them the same advice as your own.

“I’m Namjoon and this is YN,” you weren’t particularly pleased by Namjoon deciding to speak on your behalf, but chose to roll your eyes behind him rather than interrupting. “We’re interested in continuing a long standing tradition of successful career pack alliances. I assume from you joining us over here, that you are as well.”

“I would typically say that to assume only makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’, but in this instance you are correct,” the other male from District 1 spoke. You tried to stifle a laugh, but the warning glare Namjoon shot you from the corner of his eye told you that it wasn’t successful. You merely smiled back and blinked innocently with a shrug.

“My name’s Yoongi, and an alliance would be in all of our best interests.” He was shorter than Namjoon and District 2, only an inch or two taller than yourself, but somehow still just as intimidating. His pale skin was contrasted by pitch black hair and sharp coal like eyes that were openly assessing the group of you.

“Krystal,” his district mate offered by means of introduction, and you wondered if the two were siblings. She shared his light complexion, dark eyes and her sleek midnight hair was dead straight down past her waist. Both were dressed in black, their outfits embodying the luxury their district was known for; Yoongi in a tailored suit with subtle embroidery detail, Krystal in an elegant fitted gown made of the same fabric, both topped off with luxurious fur capes draped over their shoulders.

“I’m Athena and he’s Hoseok,” the girl from two spoke. She appeared to be the same height as Yoongi but you noticed a heel on her sandals giving her an extra few inches. You couldn’t bring yourself to look across to Hoseok, knowing his gaze still hadn’t broken since staring at you from the carriage.

“Is that real?” you asked, gesturing towards the dagger Athena had been playing with before that was now held limply in her right hand.

“Why don’t we find out,” she replied with a smirk, instantly flipping the dagger in her hands to point the tip between your eyes.

“Athena!” Hoseok hissed dangerously, slapping the dagger from her hands and cause it to fall onto the ground below. The lack of metallic ‘clang’ revealing it as fake.

“Calm down, it was a joke!” Athena snapped back, reaching down to pick it back up, whilst shaking her head in annoyance. Before you could assure her it was fine, Hoseok stepped forward to present you with his own version of the prop. Reaching out he grabbed your wrist to place the ‘dagger’ in your hand.

“See, the material is just a type of fiber that gives the illusion of metal, but is really not hard at all.” Gently he ran the blade along your palm, and true to his word there was no edge at all. But the image still looked real and seeing a blade dancing across your skin, knowing someone was going to try to kill you with a real one very soon, made you feel ill. Sensing your discomfort from the trembling hand, Hoseok immediately pocketed the knife, but still maintained his hold on your wrist.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you, angel,” he spoke softly and you frantically looked to the others to see if they could hear him. Namjoon who was the closest merely looked amused, Athena was showing Yoongi the fake dagger, whilst Krystal had her eyebrow raised in your direction.

“I hope not,” you awkwardly tried to joke, pulling your wrist slightly to subtly try and break the hold, but he only tightened his grip forcing you to look up and back into his eyes again. His gaze from a distance had already been intense but up close it was heart stopping. There was a passion in his eyes you had never seen before in your life and it was solely focused entirely on you. It was frightening, you couldn’t imagine what you had possibly done to warrant being on the receiving end of something so intense. You tilted your head down and away from the others, humiliated over being so easily intimidated. If an attractive man holding your wrist and making eye contact with you was all it took to fluster you, you may as well just sign your own death certificate now.

“Hey, look at me,” he whispered, dropping your wrist to place his finger on your chin and raise your head back upwards, though you kept your eyes lowered, staring at his jawline to avoid direct eye contact again.

“I’m promise I won’t hurt you, love. Not now, not ever.”

You were about to ask him how he could possibly say something like that given you were about to become direct competitors in a battle to the death, when a sharp whistle stole your attention. Snapping your head to the side you saw Finnick jerk his head, indicating for you and Namjoon to return. You exhaled in relief, grateful for the reprieve.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Namjoon said to the group, moving next to you and causing Hoseok to pull his hand away. You nodded to show your agreement with Namjoon whilst making eye contact with the other three you barely had a chance to speak to. You hoped they didn’t think that you were somehow forming something just with Hoseok based on his actions. You were going to need all the help you possibly could get if you wanted a chance to survive.

“Tomorrow,” Krystal agreed, making proper eye contact with you for the first time. She was smaller in height than you, thinner too, but somehow carried a cold and intimidating aura. You offered her a polite smile in return and a nod, relieved when she nodded back, before you returned to Finnick with Namjoon.

“How did it go? Looked pretty good” Finnick asked just as the capitol vehicle pulled up to take you to the tribute quarters.

“It seems our little dove here won’t just have the capitol for an admirer,” Namjoon smirked, getting into the car.

“So I saw,” Finnick muttered as a reply to Namjoon’s back, then turned to face you.

“Don’t let him psych you out,” he said, stepping aside so you could follow Namjoon into the vehicle.

You glanced at Namjoon before turning back to see Hoseok standing by his car but staring directly at you again. His eyes were still radiating the same intense passion from moments ago, you had no idea what to make of it.

“Who?” you whispered back to Finnick, ducking your head as you stepped inside. Finnick moved to shut the door.

“Both of them”

This is basically an introductory chapter to gauge reception. Future updates should be longer. I have the whole fic plotted and the outline itself is 5.9K words and this chapter was only based on the first paragraph. The next update will focus on the training sessions/interview with Caesar and the update after should be the one where they actually enter the arena.

Feedback is much loved, but please avoid asking for updates. I don’t have a schedule but I do have crippling depression so I write when the motivation hits lol

#yandere hoseok #yandere bts #bts x reader #hoseok x reader #yandere bts fic #hunger games au #hoseok fic #hoseok au #hoseok x you #yandere jung hoseok #yandere #dark jhope #dark bts #dark bts au

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