#shalott fanfiction

[shalotttower]

Fractalize (part 1)

Title: Fractalize

Fandom: Hunter x Hunter

Summary: Lack of hope creates a strange kind of numbness.

Word count: 3700+

Characters: Chrollo x Reader (female)

Notes: yandere Chrollo, kidnapped, depressed and miserable Reader, Reader is dissociating a lot, morbid pondering, suicidal thoughts, explicit/triggering language/words, Reader's thoughts on possible sexual assault in future. Part 2

Fractalize - making things into smaller copies of themselves over and over again.

Sometimes you stand in front of a mirror and try to picture yourself in another timeline. One where your life didn’t take this specific turn. You try to imagine a different setting, a different apartment - perhaps the one you had before Chrollo started moving you around like a luggage bag. Maybe living in a cottage by the sea or an old farmhouse. Someplace rural, peaceful. With a garden and fresh air, far away from the city noises.

It's difficult at first, your reflection keeps slipping through your mental fingers every time you think the image is set in place. But with practice it becomes easier, sort of, so you can now see yourself clearly as you brush your hair - not here.

A blue dress on, made for nights at parties with friends. Laughing until your stomach hurts and eyes become sore. Making silly faces over alcoholic beverages. Or you can wear your favourite jeans with a high waist and head out to the pub, the same one with crooked stools and a broken sign. Drink cheep bear, eat greasy peanuts from a little bowl, listen to some small band play unknown and unheard songs.

Leave intoxicated, and everything is too fast and vibrant and wonderful until you're back home.

It's your favourite pastime now: imagine, remake and slip.

Imagine. Remake. Slip.

You don't quite remember the last time you laughed, a month ago maybe. Maybe more. Lack of hope creates a strange kind of numbness, dull, cold, you would compare it to a winter plastered all over your insides, but it's almost colder than that. It freezes everything and turns it into icicles hanging off the roof.

Remake, slip.

You have new vocabulary now.

"Mm" - is for when he asks you if you like a dress or a top and it doesn't matter how you actually feel about it, because it's going to end up being worn anyway.

"Okay" - is for when Chrollo sets another fancy meal for you on a dinner table and "Eat, don't be shy".

"I'm not hungry" - doesn't work with him, even if it's the truth. You always eat what's put in front of you, that's the rule, because he's not above shoving the spoon into your mouth, so you spare yourself the tears and sobs that will probably come with that. It's so bizarre: how much effort he puts into keeping you alive when you're anything but.

"Whatever you want" - is for when he asks you something that requires a choice, between two or three options usually. He's not one for an extensive list.

"If you say so" - for everything else.

You used to delude yourself with the idea that if you managed to appear pleasant enough, pleasant-talking, pleasant-listening, smiling a bit here and there, it would gain you some privileges and perhaps a bit more freedom. It did. But never where it really mattered. Those little things were absolutely inconsequential in the grand scheme. Yes, you can have that sweater, dear. No, you can't have your own bed. Yes, you can come shopping with me, if you give me a kiss. No, you can't take walks without me holding your hand.

Yes this and no that.

Those moments were fragile and so very takeable that they didn't give you any sense of accomplishment, just a short respite and bitter aftertaste that made you feel pathetic.

Wasn't worth it.

***

"Do you like animals, dear?" Chrollo asks out of the blue one day. He's reading something on his tablet while you're curled up on the couch, watching TV.

It's a new series that's been on the major channels for a few weeks, a mystery drama about a girl who moves into a house she inherited from her grandfather. The picture provides a distraction enough to have you forgetting where you are for a brief period three times a week.

You pull the blanket higher. "I do."

He knows it.

The girl on the screen finds a mysterious box hidden in the attic. Perhaps there's something valuable inside. Or information about her grandpa; your fingers tug on a loose blanket thread without much thought.

"What kind?"

Or maybe it's just a time capsule with photos and postcards and random objects collected over the years.

Or-

You had a cat before he took you. A foster grey ragdoll with blue eyes who liked to rest on your belly and bump her head against your chin. You called her Miss Whiskerton and kissed her little nose, because she did act like a proper lady - poised, dignified and entirely too proud to eat food mixed with medicine. The worst enemy Miss Whiskerton has ever had in her cat life was the corner of your couch. When you weren't paying attention, she would dig her claws into the fabric and leave thin lines. You hope that someone took her in.

She probably thought you abandoned her.

"Cats."

Chrollo hums in acknowledgment and continues scrolling through whatever he's looking at - maybe news or auction listings, you don't know nor do you really care. You shift under the blanket, pulling your legs closer to your body.

"We can get one, if you'd like."

"No."

Your answer is immediate and short, without thinking. You know it, you know him by now - there's nothing Chrollo does out of spontaneous generosity, it always benefits him in some way. And you've studied him enough to figure that any pet would only be a tool to keep you tamed and compliant. Puppies make life better. Happier, lighter, with goofy smiling faces and wiggling tails. Cats make life better with soft purrs and paws stomping on your chest. They're too easy to love.

"Why not?" There's a sound of tablet set on a wooden surface.

The girl on the screen is trying to solve a combination lock on the box when the TV switches off and your little world of carefully shot scenes and scripted lines vanishes. You don't need to turn around to guess where's the remote.

She almost had it, but now you won't know what's inside until Thursday evening.

Your reflection stares back from the dead screen, blank-faced and with a blanket pulled up your nose. It tickles a bit. "Because I don't want one."

A chair creaks. "Why?"

You close your eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. This is tiring. Always probing, digging, pushing. Trying to find chinks in your armor, but all you're wearing is just a flimsy dress with thin straps and a blanket you wish could swallow you whole.

"Don't need it."

"You said you like animals," Chrollo sits next to you and places a hand on top of your covered legs. He squeezes your thigh and you stare ahead, wishing he would just leave you alone tonight.

"I do." Your fingers twitch under the blanket, nails scratching at the fabric.

Strange. Sometimes it feels like he understands perfectly that you want to be alone, have time for yourself and don't want his constant physical presence. At the same time Chrollo brushes this all aside like old tin foil wrappers - insignificant. He pulls the blanket down and you cling on it stubbornly for a few seconds before letting go. His thumb and index finger grasp your chin and turn your face towards him so you have no choice but to meet his eyes.

There's such still intensity within him that made your skin crawl whenever he looked at you with this much focus and attention. You don't know what he saw there most times, it used to be fear or anger or sadness - right now it's none of these things. Everything inside you feels jammed and stiff.

"We should get a fish then," he continues, brushing hair out of your forehead. "You can watch it swim around, wouldn't that be nice?"

Chrollo talks to you like this sometimes, as if you're a child who needs to be convinced to eat veggies or take medicine. Like you're simple-minded and he's reasoning with you out of good will. It's sickening. You hate it.

"I don't want a pet," you repeat the words slowly. "If you're going to give me something only to take it away, then I don't want it."

His finger leisurely stroking your chin pauses at the edge of your bottom lip. Something flickers behind his eyes, it's barely noticeable but you've become good at catching those minuscule shifts. He smiles, yet there's nothing joyful about it. "Take it away? Why would I do that, dear?"

"Because that's what you do. Because that's how you are." You don't try to pull free from his hold, he'll only tighten it; not enough to hurt, no, he is too suave and polished for that - or wants to appear so - but enough for you to feel trapped under his palm.

There's something off about you, you can tell, but are not quite able to discern what or where. It sits in the very structure of your bones and eats away with ravenous appetite. An imbalance in the gut. Fever-warm body, cold fingers. Thoughts like potholes.

"And how am I exactly, according to you?" His voice is light, playful, a stark contrast to his eyes that study you with unnerving precision. Chrollo rarely loses his temper and never gets violent with you (yet, you correct yourself), but he has other ways of expressing displeasure, and they're petty, ugly and cold.

"Cruel," the word rolls off your tongue so effortlessly that almost frightens you; it's easy to tell the truth when you're this numb.

He looks taken aback for a split second, and the smile freezes. His hand stops midway to your hair. Then everything's gone.

Chrollo releases you and leans back into the cushions, almost thoughtful, like your observation is something that requires careful consideration.

"I suppose, it depends," he says finally.

"On what?"

"On how you choose to see things. Your perspective is bound to be biased, dear."

You don't respond.

To continue this conversation would be pointless and circular, like running on a treadmill, like everything else between you and Chrollo, really. He simply has too many answers to any possible argument, and no matter how convincing you manage to make them sound, he'll poke holes into each one. You don't want a fish. Or a cat. Or a dog, a bird, anything that moves and breathes and looks at you with big, trusting eyes.

Chrollo is cruel. Not in a way that's straightforward and brutal. Not in a way of someone who'd tear your limbs apart or rip off a fly's wing to see it wiggle. You have no doubt that he is capable of such a thing, but that would be uncouth. Cruelty in his case is a quieter, more delicate affair - in a way of a sculptor who'd chisel off everything unnecessary and unneeded, no matter the size or significance, to produce something entirely his.

His hands are soft, his voice is always composed, and he wears well tailored clothes. But the rest is sharp, clean and merciless.

"I think I'll go to bed," you say and push away the blanket.

"It's early."

"Mm."

He takes your hand just as you're about to slide off the sofa. Chrollo's always faster than you, always ahead and always observing, and that little realization while bitter is not so shocking anymore, more like another fact that you file away from your interactions.

You watch him. Wait.

"You're distraught," he says. "But you should know by now that there's no need for that."

Your hand remains in his grasp, limp and heavy.

"I don't enjoy seeing you upset, dear. Even more if you make false conclusions."

You turn to see the expression on his face - and there isn't one, at least not the type that most people would make. There are no frowning eyebrows, no clenched jaw that would indicate irritation, nothing like that.

"You're giving me too little credit," his tone is quiet as he runs his fingers up and down your wrist. "My intentions are not to hurt you. They are much, much sweeter than that."

"But you would," you say quietly and lean closer, ignoring the obvious implication behind his words. There is a hollow sensation inside of your head that prompts you to speak, everything is hollow - body and mind, heart, the space in your guts, your throat. "You would hurt me, if that's what you thought was necessary. Rip me apart and leave me deformed beyond repair, to fit into whatever framework you've laid, you would do that."

You're not being deliberately cryptic or fatalistic. These are your observations, based on a period of months spent together. They take root in no one being there for you anymore, in your phone which is long gone, in your closed accounts, your missing laptop and old clothes, the entire previous life in the city that has been discarded for something new. Chrollo was very methodical, you can give him that.

He doesn't listen, he studies your responses. Every single word. He has a talent for that, for absorbing everything about you while hardly ever letting you glimpse his interior - all that you know about him are tiny slivers which you picked up through living together, observation, accidental bits.

You expect him to contradict your statement, to offer a logical explanation why you're wrong, but instead Chrollo brings your hand to his lips and presses a kiss against your knuckles. The touch is light and dry.

"You're not entirely wrong, dear," he says and moves closer until you can smell his aftershave, something fresh.

His proximity is uncomfortable, it always is and probably always will be.

"I'm right then," you say.

"No," he keeps your hand in his grasp. "But you're not entirely wrong either. That's what makes you interesting."

There's a strange kind of fondness in his voice, it's subtle, yet undeniably present. You've never felt less interesting in your life, in a dress with thin straps that's too fancy for a lazy day at home and your bare feet and tangled hair.

"If you say so," you respond and slowly tug your hand free. "I really want to sleep now."

You get up, and he lets you go without another proposition. The blanket falls off onto the sofa, and before you slip into the semi-darkness of the bedroom, he says,

"Not beyond repair. But I like to believe we can both agree it doesn't have to come to that."

***

The drive feels endless. Houses and streets blur in a mix of colors, shapes and people, which soon change to an empty highway with greenery on both sides. Trees and fields, tall grass swaying gently in the wind and rare cars passing you by. Chrollo's hand is resting on your leg; he hasn't moved it since the car started, but you choose to ignore it in favor of your regular pastime, the one that's made of imaginary worlds and places where the timeline stretches differently.

Mostly it's just you and the layout of your fake apartment.

Imagine, remake, slip. Repeat the steps until it becomes muscle memory.

You have this daydream on loop now. Wooden floor and wide windows, lots of sunlight. Books everywhere, comfy clothes and not a single skirt in your closet. A cup of tea with honey in the morning, and Miss Whiskerton curled into a soft grey ball on your lap. You feed her salmon in a shiny bowl, occasionally she catches a lizard outside and drops the tail on your doorstep as an offering, looking immensely proud of herself.

A smile slips on your face without meaning to, a wobbly thing; you promptly wipe it off.

It would be a crime to show such blatant joy. This fantasy has become so sweetly personal that every fiber of your being resists even acknowledging it in front of Chrollo. He can sense a stray happy thought from miles away, like a hound, and will never stop prodding until everything is raw and tender. You've learned to say less in his presence, especially if it's something that has you invested. Chrollo knows how to pick things apart.

You lean your cheek against the glass. This world would never happen, never in a million years, but dreaming doesn't hurt anyone, does it?

Your grandma, wearing an apron, sets a tray filled with fresh pastries on a table, because she's amazing like that. She fusses and worries and pretends to scold you. For not calling enough, for not coming sooner, for not eating well. For leaving.

"Dear."

You almost jump.

Chrollo's voice brings you back where his hand is heavy on your leg, you're wearing a dress above the knee and aren't allowed to use scissors or knives.

"Mm?"

"That frown of yours," he says, turning into a small road. The surroundings change again, it's quiet here, not a soul in sight. "It's been there for fifteen minutes now."

You sit up straight and move your hair out of your eyes. Chrollo's a perceptive one, so this is a reminder not to sink too deep around him, unless you absolutely need it.

"Was just thinking."

"You do it a lot lately," he states and looks at you from the corner of his eye.

True, but you have no intention to confirm it. First, he won't like the reason behind these thoughts. Second, he will dig and try to worm his way in. No. Most of what you've been fixating on, staring out of the window like a mindless drone, or reading and rereading pages that you barely grasped, would fail to create anything more complex in his heart than desire to pull it out.

For whatever twisted reason, Chrollo cares for your well-being, or, more precisely, your acceptance of his advances. Yet his way of caring isn't nurturing in any sense.

Chrollo's interest (you don't dare call it love) is crushing, too heavy to carry - he'll find what troubles you and "fix it" in way that will twist it into something pathetic. Something that shows how you have nothing else to cling on but him. You're not stupid enough to keep falling into this trap. Being a slow learner doesn't mean you don't learn at all.

He's done it before. He'll do it again. So you reply, "I haven't noticed."

His thumb rubs circles on your thigh; you press your shoulder against the car door as if hoping it might open. It doesn't, much to your disappointment.

"What was on your mind then?"

Something you shouldn't tell him, that's for sure. Chrollo's watching you, even if his eyes are trained on the road.

"Random stuff," you say. Half-truths, half-truths are safe. "A weird dream I had this morning."

If you bothered to look, you'd see a raised eyebrow and the faintest hint of amusement at the corners of his mouth. You don't.

"Tell me."

You hate when he does that.

"It was boring."

"I'm interested in anything that made you so pensive."

Chrollo likes conversations with you, even if they're short. You can tell that he does, or he wouldn't be trying to make you talk and getting subtly frustrated when you choose not to. It never shows outright, Chrollo is very gifted at keeping his calm exterior, but there are certain giveaways like the slight tightening of his hand, an emphasized "dear", a pause here, or a quiet exhale through the nose. You could make a list out of these.

If you ignore him, he gets quiet and handsy or petty enough to throw away the only dress you feel comfortable in. Stop bringing you new books. Take you to places you hate.

It's always the small things that kill you, not the big, dramatic ones. The devils in the details.

"There was a lizard," you begin, and he hums in response, prompting you to continue. "It was cute with brown spots and a tiny tail."

Lies weave themselves easily, intertwine with truths and turn it into something that resembles a story.

"It was sitting on my windowsill and I wanted to pet it. A cat came out of nowhere and almost ate it, then I woke up. It's a silly dream."

There. Nothing to dissect here, not that you can see. Just a nonsensical dream, filled with random happenings and strange emotions.

"And that's why you frowned for fifteen minutes?"

"Yes, I got sad."

Yes, you think. Yes, Chrollo. I frowned, because I care for the damn lizard that doesn't exist, an animal from a dream. A stupid musing, nothing special, a very mundane and simple thing, because people do have silly dreams sometimes, and it's not a crime. It's not a crime and has nothing to do with that fact that I have a whole dream world where I'm not with you in my head.

"How peculiar. You never struck me as the type to get upset over something like this."

"You never asked," you respond flatly and Chrollo's hand on your thigh moves an inch.

It brushes up, closer to where you really, really don't want it to be, so you squeeze his fingers hard and redirect them to the curve of your knee.

"True," he says after a pause, not sounding too bothered. A month ago you would've brushed his hand off completely, probably that's why. Chrollo is convinced that with enough patience and effort he'll be able to close that final barrier between you both. Time, coaxing, a dose or two of endearment, some carefully calculated touch - but you'd rather stick a knife through your ribs than have sex with him. Or his patience will simply run out and he'll rape you. You're not delusional. Not a fool. "Well, that can be fixed. I'll make sure to ask about your dreams more often, dear."

You lean back into the seat and stare ahead, this time without anything pleasant on your mind. Of course he will. Of course he'll take this as a sign to dig deeper and invade that small bit of solace, Chrollo can't simply co-exist. He wants it all.

"Mm," you say.

Your new vocabulary is such a handy thing.

#hunter x hunter #chrollo lucilfer #yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #yandere #hunter x hunter fanfic #chrollo lucifer x reader #shalott fanfiction

[jingyismom]

Lan Wangji has known of his curse since he was old enough to run.

The first time he broke free of Shufu's arms and made his unsteady way toward the bright green world beyond the entrance of the Cloud Recesses, Shufu caught him hard around the middle, panic in his eyes.

"A-Zhan," he said, shaking him, "you must never try to go out of the gate."

Lan Wangji only stared, truly afraid for the first time in his life.

"You must NEVER go near it, A-Zhan, do you understand?"

He nodded, eyes wide and filling with tears. 

Shufu held him tight.

(wangxian, canon divergence, rated T, some angst but no warnings

imported from twt)

As he grew, and learned, and rose above his peers in cultivation and scholarship, he came to understand that his situation was unique. Others came and went through the gate with no issue, but he and Xiongzhang were not allowed.

He never asked why.

But the way Xiongzhang would sometimes stare out the gate in silence, or would shy away from the heads of deep forest paths, told him that Xiongzhang knew. That Xiongzhang was afraid. 

Until he was angry.

Every week, Shufu would lead the two of them to the house at the edge of the Cloud Recesses where their fuqin lived, and would make them recite their most recent lessons for him.

Lan Wangji hated the dim, stuffy rooms, the heavily perfumed smoke from the ever-lit brazier. He hated the sharp gaze of his fuqin, and the way he would drawl, "Good boys will will fetch good wives."

He hated the way Shufu's grip on his wrist would tighten when his fuqin would come forward to embrace him.

When he turned ten, Xiongzhang stopped coming with them.

"You will know why in time," Shufu told Lan Wangji, when he asked.

Their fuqin's sneer and Xiongzhang's refusal to speak of it made him eager to turn ten himself, if it meant he would also be allowed to abstain.

Visits to A-niang were altogether different, but happened only once a month. Shufu did not come with them on these visits at the edge of the Cloud Recesses. They only ever entered through the back door, which faced the rest of their sect.

The front, which faced the forest, was as off limits as the entry gate. Neither Xiongzhang nor A-niang went near it—though sometimes, when A-niang would gather him up into her warm arms, she would go very quiet looking out the window beside it.

Their fuqin died before Lan Wangji ever turned ten.

At their first visit with her immediately after, A-niang was different.

"My precious loves," she murmured, each of them held close in either arm. "Sometimes, even when the fall looks steep, you must take a leap of faith."

Lan Wangji blinked at her, confused. She smiled. He had never seen her smile this way before, without a hint of sadness.

"When you learn to weild your sword, you'll understand," she said. "The fear of falling is worth the chance to fly."

Xiongzhang began, silently, to cry. Lan Wangji felt confused, sympathetic tears prick his own eyes.

"A-Huan, be brave," she told Xiongzhang.

He nodded, and wiped his eyes.

She turned to Lan Wangji, smiling again, softly.

"A-Zhan. Gentle, sweet boy," she said. She kissed the top of his head. "Be good. Never forget A-niang loves you. Never."

Lan Wangji nodded dutifully. She squeezed him close.

This is the last memory Lan Wangji has of anybody touching him outside of brusque training corrections.

He dreams of it often.

He dreams of holding on when A-niang lets go.

The next month, Shufu told them there would be no visit. That A-niang was gone. Lan Wangji did not understand. 

He knelt outside her door anyway, waiting, until he fell asleep, numb with cold. He woke up in his own bed to a lecture from shufu about taking care of one's body. He listened dutifully.

But he knelt again the next month, and the next, and eventually, the lectures ended.

The snow faded and returned with the seasons.

The cold in Lan Wangji's bones did not.

It was Xiongzhang who eventually took him aside and gave him the scroll. It was marked as forbidden, and Lan Wangji hesitated to take it.

"I am not allowed," he said. He was fifteen, and adhered scrupulously to every rule save those he could not help breaking.

To make up for those he could not help breaking. Every month.

"You are," said Xiongzhang. "It's about A-niang. It's about us."

On the scroll was a virulent curse for trapping its victim inside a boundary. To leave would mean instant death. The only chance at freedom entailed true, requited love.

Their fuqin's message to A-niang was clear: 

Love me back, or die here.

Lan Wangji read the scroll three times before the anger set in, hot and all-consuming. His hands shook where they gripped its edges.

Xiongzhang watched him, and gave him time.

When he was calm, he rolled it up, and handed it back.

"It is unclear how it might weaken from generation to generation," Xiongzhang said. "Or if it will weaken at all."

Lan Wangji stared hard at the ground.

"Shufu is reviewing eligible matches for this sect leader next month," Xiongzhang continued. "But given our circumstances, we will be allowed...input."

Lan Wangji nodded.

"In a few years, you will be old enough to join the guest lectures, Wangji. It would be a good idea to practice making friends before then."

It was not until that impossible suggestion that the awful, agonizing yearning gripped Lan Wangji's chest. His stomach opened up, a bottomless pit. For a brief, horrible moment, he understood A-Niang's choice. He understood what it meant to live without the hope of ever knowing what it might be like to fly. Understood why she might grasp at any slight, impossible chance at freedom.

But the curse had not broken with their fuqin's death, she had proven that for all of them. 

And Lan Wangji felt certain that for him, it would never break at all.

The years go by, and the guest lectures begin. Xiongzhang's hope radiates off him like a gentle glow.

Lan Wangji hopes for him, too. He dreams of letters addressed to his name from far-off places, smelling of the sea, or of spice, or of unknown flowers; things he will never see.

He is unprepared for the influx of outsiders his own age. Their noise, their laughter, their bustle. Every time a new sect arrives he is assaulted with their liveliness. With their obvious camaraderie.

He keeps his distance. Watches carefully. He knows they are meant to learn from each other, and tries to honor that spirit. He is determined to keep an open mind about this.

Until.

Until.

Until he catches the Jiang head disciple sneaking over the wall with two jars of liquor in hand.

The boy introduces himself with a cheeky smile, and pats his contraband with a wink.

"I'll share with you if you let me in. What do you say?"

It angers Lan Wangji, unreasonably so, to the point where he draws his sword.

Another rule broken, and as they fight, another, and another.

But Lan Wangji finds he cannot stop following, cannot stop meeting him strike for strike, testing him and feeling himself tested in return. He has to work at it, far more than he is accustomed, and there is a startling joy in the exhilaration. 

He is lost to it such that he leans past the peak of the roof, and feels for the first time the curse that waits for him.

It is thick and viscous, sucking at his skin like sap. If sap were alive and hissing for his blood.

He startles away, heart pounding, and lowers his sword.

But Wei Wuxian smiles at him again, glowing with exertion and moonlight, and then politely takes his leave.

Lan Wangji's anger flares. He knocks the liquor from his grasp. Yet another rule smashes to pieces with the cloud-white ceramic jar.

He drags Wei Wuxian before Xiongzhang and Shufu, shaken by the curse, and the fight, and himself.

It does not go as he imagines. Instead of punishment, Wei Wuxian is granted mercy. And then knowledge of the mysteriously killed disciple that was brought in earlier that day. Somehow, he makes observations that escaped all of them.

His eyes are bright, when he is thinking. Almost as bright as when he fights.

That night, Lan Wangji's mind is far from the calm he is so adept at cultivating. He is far from the model disciple he works so hard to be. He meditates long after curfew, his thoughts swirling with glinting blades, and sunny smiles, and the phantom touch of blackened hands that resemble his fuqin's.

Things only worsen from there.

Wei Wuxian and his shamelessness plague him. Strange voices fill his normally quiet home. Tensions are rising with the Wens. 

But among it all, Lan Wangji has noticed the softness of Xiongzhang's smile when directed toward one of the Nie ambassadors, Meng Yao. It is the same expression, yet different, from the one he wore when the late Nie-zongzhu brought his sons to visit, when they were all young.

Lan Wangji understands it much more now than he did then. He does not allow himself to wonder about either of those smiles. But his feelings about them are twofold:

Where he had fearfully expected jealousy, he finds he feels only relief. That his brother so easily makes such connections can only mean his chance of escape is greater.

Anterior to this relief is another: that Xiongzhang's hope is founded, and Lan Wangji will not have to watch him, too, fall into despair.

When his mind is most turbulent, he calms himself with this thought. When he kneels behind his A-niang's house, he whispers of these hopes to bring the both of them some peace.

The curse will end, though differently in either of their cases. It will end nonetheless. No new generation will be held prisoner.

In the dead of night, when he wakes in cold sweats, his skin crawling with the memory of the curse's touch, he imagines the day he will watch Xiongzhang step through the gate, free of its hold.

In the full light of day, however, such calm is much harder to find.

No matter how he tries to remain upright, to provide a peerless example of his sect's teachings, Wei Wuxian relentlessly works to wear down his patience. He is arrogant, and undisciplined, and altogether too concerned with impressing others. He is clever. But uses this cleverness for all the wrong things.

He shines more brightly than anything Lan Wangji has ever seen.

This only makes his conduct all the more infuriating.

Yet worse is his tendency to turn this cleverness, this brightness, toward Lan Wangji. He seems to delight in Lan Wangji's anger, in his discomfort. In his attention. He tests his boundaries, finding new ways to wrest it from him. Lan Wangji does his best to avoid him, to avoid the foreign, unwelcome fire his presence stokes in his chest. 

But Shufu finally assigns him a punishment, with Lan Wangji as his keeper. It is impossible to stay out of his way.

"Wangji-xiong, look!"

"Ji-xiong, don't be so mean."

"Wangji-xiong, why don't you go on nighthunts with us?"

"Ji-xiong, what are you reading?"

His laughter rings out, golden in the sunlight.

"Ji-xiong, I'm sorry for being rude, forgive me. Ji-xiong? Lan Wangji? Lan Zhan!"

The constant teasing is unbearable.

Worse, at times his teasing seems to target something in Lan Wangji he himself has not yet been able to acknowledge. He tears the spring book to pieces. But the image, and Wei Wuxian's use of it to goad him, linger in his mind.

"Lan Zhan! You should have seen that monkey yao today! It was disgusting!"

He is once again leaning into Lan Wangji’s space to chatter at him during the evening meal. Lan Wangji glares at him, and he sneers.

"No talking during meals, bleeggghh, and you call me boring."

But he does not speak again until the meal is over.

"Lan Zhan, when will you come nighthunting with us? We would make such a good time. Team! We would have fun."

This plucks a strange chord in Lan Wangji’s memory. The reports he has always read of nighthunts have been clinical. Precise But when he was young, in a small house at the edge of the forest...he remembers hearing tales of excitement. Of daring. Of fun.

His jaw tightens.

"Lan Zhaaaan..."

"Wei Ying," he admonishes. 

For these are the names they use with each other now. He has lost track of when they began to feel natural.

"Jiang Cheng, stop making faces! Hey! It's going to freeze like that if you--HEY!"

He dashes off, as he always does, to more engaging prospects

Lan Wangji tells himself this is a victory on his part. A successful deflection. He goes to the back hills to fly his sword in peace.

Alone.

It takes until the lantern ceremony, until their carefully-fashioned lights fill the sky, for him to understand.

When Wei Ying speaks his wish, Lan Wangji's eyes are opened. He realizes all at once what is happening, what has been happening since their first duel. It shocks him momentarily, blunt and paralyzing. He stares at Wei Ying. His earnest, hopeful face.

He sees all the places Wei Ying will go. All the great deeds he will accomplish.

Of course he is in love with such a person. Of course. Of course.

He is suspended in the epiphany until Wei Ying turns that smile on him once more, and he comes crashing down to earth.

Of course he is in love with Wei Ying.

Wei Ying is in love with the world.

Lan Wangji watches from the roof as Jiang-zongzhu tows his disciples home. He watches, fists clenched, as the vivid red of a hair ribbon grows distant down the path.

He breathes deeply. He breathes, and breathes, and thinks hard of the difference between flying and falling.

For there is a difference. A-Niang knew it. And still she leapt.

But she was leaping away. Lan Wangji has nothing to leap away from.

He thinks of Wei Ying's anger at Jin Zixuan, and the way only Jiang Yanli was able to calm it.

The spark of red disappears between the trees.

Lan Wangji has nothing to leap toward, either.

In a flash of fear, he hopes he never sees Wei Ying again. He does not know what he would do. He knows that it is in him both to fall and to grasp too tightly, and he is loath to find out which would come most naturally.

He drifts down from the roof. 

He moves into A-niang's house, with the curse camped out at its door.

A year passes in quietude. The cold in Lan Wangji's bones sets, and hardens. There is peace in it.

One day, Xiongzhang leaves.

He does it without fanfare, as if it is easy and natural, and returns the same way. Lan Wangji receives his oft dreamed-of letters. They carry no scent of far-off lands. But Xiongzhang's freedom, his happiness, is enough.

This is what Lan Wangji tells himself, in his house full of ghosts. He tells himself that one day, when he becomes one of them, this life will have been enough.

It is not a lie if he is determined to make it true.

Months later, a message arrives from Wen Ruohan. He demands the heirs and top disciples of the sects be sent to Qishan, to "learn." Shufu sighs deeply when Xiongzhang reads the missive aloud.

"He will want us destroyed when we do not comply," he says. "It would not matter why. And we do not have the resources to outlast a siege of the mountain."

Xiongzhang nods. "An outright defeat, then."

"It is unlikely we have the resources for that, either," says Shufu.

"Not without warning, perhaps" Xiongzhang presses, "and not alone."

Shufu shakes his head. "Each sect is under its own constraints."

Xiongzhang turns toward him. "But we are stronger together."

Lan Wangji watches this exchange with a tightly-contained feeling of dread in his stomach. If they are attacked, every drop of blood will be on his hands. If they are attacked and must retreat, Lan Wangji will have nowhere to go.

After a moment of dissonance, of freefall, these two facts begin to cancel each other out. Begin to seem right.

They make plans for Xiongzhang and Shufu to write to their peers, and after, Xiongzhang walks with him.

"It's not your fault," he says softly.

Lan Wangji's jaw clenches, his fist tightening behind his back.

"The curse is not of your making, Wangji."

Lan Wangji is silent, for he cannot say what he is thinking:

That the curse was not of Xiongzhang's making either, but were his presence the one demanded outside their home, he would not be holding them at the brink of war.

When they receive word that the Wen soldiers are coming, they are as prepared as they can be. But they have not heard from anyone other than Nie-zongzhu, who, at the foot of Qishan, cannot spare more than a few fighters.

The Cloud Recesses are quiet. Braced for impact. Lan Wangji has plenty to occupy his mind away from the letter Xiongzhang convinced him to write to Wei Ying.

Unanswered, like all the other requests for aid.

When the battle comes, the chaos is unlike anything Lan Wangji has ever seen.

Wen soldiers rush the mountain path on foot while cultivators rain down from the skies. The wards hold until they are overwhelmed, and then the peace of his home is soaked with blood, and sweat, and screams. Familiar pathways are filled with the clash of steel and qi.

For the first time, Lan Wangji fights to survive.

He falls back on his incomparable training, and finds in himself a vicious precision for the taking of lives. There is no time to think on it between this cultivator and that footsoldier, this sword and that fist.

No matter how many he kills, more seem to come.

And more.

And more.

He is fighting back-to-back with Xiongzhang when a strange ripple of sound goes through the battle. Many pause—a fatal mistake—and turn to look.

Though Lan Wangji has never seen either of them before, it is clear that the two men leading the fresh column of soldiers are Wen Xu and Wen Zhuliu. The Wen heir wears an arrogant smirk. The Core-Melting Hand's eyes glint as they scan the carnage.

Their command fans out, red and black now outnumbering Lan white. Lan Wangji watches Wen Xu delight in slitting the throat of a disciple two years his junior. Watches Wen Zhuliu destroy the core of one of the elders.

The weight of his guilt is crushing, even as he struggles to keep focus on his sword.

If only he were different. More likable. Warmer. If only he tried harder to be amiable, to at least feign the welcome always apparent in Xiongzhang's eyes.

But it is too late now. His defects have cost his people their lives. Soon, perhaps, he will repay them with his own.

He turns to Xiongzhang.

"Retreat," he pleads. "Take everyone left to Qinghe."

Xiongzhang shakes his head. "Wangji—"

A flash of light in his eyes cuts him off. It is followed by another, and another. They look skyward.

A small host of cultivators flies down past the rooftops. Their robes are purple, gold, red, and gray. The numbers, it seems, are once again in their favor.

Xiongzhang meets his eyes, a fierce smile on his face.

"Fight, Wangji," he says. "They didn't leave us, and we won't leave you."

Lan Wangji nods, grim hope taking root. He fights.

"Lan Zhan!" comes an achingly familiar voice. Lan Wangji whips around to look, and sees Wei Ying bounding toward him. "I got your letter! I thought you'd never write!"

Shock, and joy, and longing mix with the fear and horror in his gut. He shoves it all away. Maintains his focus. Turns away from the distraction of Wei Ying's sharp smile, somehow more beautiful even than before. He keeps his mind on the blade.

"You did not write," he says, answering the accusation.

"I thought about it!" Wei Ying says, slashing, and dodging a gout of blood. "But things have been..."

He ducks, barely missed by a wild arrow, and they toil on. Lan Wangji takes fierce delight in the way they work together. Guarding each other's backs, filling the gaps in each other's defenses without speaking. He can feel where Wei Ying will move next, can anticipate his needs and his fulfillment of Lan Wangji's own. There amidst the fear and pain and death, Lan Wangji's heart lifts. His blood sings.

This is what it is to find one's equal. One's match. The word Wei Ying once tossed out casually, almost jokingly, comes to mind: zhiji.

Something essential locks into place in Lan Wangji's chest.

He does not think of the end of the battle, when it will be taken from him again. He thinks only of protecting his home, and of catching as often as he can the corner of Wei Ying's grin. 

It goes on for what feels like centuries. Lan Wangji's strong core is depleted, his muscles aching. 

But the tide is turning dramatically. No longer are they backing away from the onslaught—dead Wen soldiers outnumber the living, and those that remain begin to flee.

That is when Wei Ying spots Wen Xu making a break for the forest.

"Lan Zhan, look!" he shouts.

Wen Xu has a small group of cultivators with him, all of them battered and bloodied and looking for escape. Lan Wangji nearly buckles with relief at the sight of them running. But then Wei Ying is running after them, and Lan Wangji has no choice but to follow.

"We can catch them," Wei Ying calls back to him, "we can take him hostage instead!"

Lan Wangji understands that this could potentially change the balance of power, could give the newly-allied sects a powerful bargaining tool. But the back of his mind is uneasy, to be heading away from the center of action. To be heading toward the back hill, and the boundary which he cannot cross.

They run, all of them lacking the strength any longer to fly. Each of Wen Xu's men eventually fall behind to be cut down by either Lan Wangji or Wei Ying, until he is alone, and not far ahead.

"Lan Zhan, your qin," Wei Ying pants as they pass the last of the outbuildings.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. He does not have the power to stop him that way.

The curse looms ahead, waiting. Lan Wangji can almost feel its anticipation. He grits his teeth, ready to call out, to stop Wei Ying somehow from going on alone.

"Wen-gongzi!" Wei Ying calls. "You may as well surrender! There's no escape this way!"

Wen Xu snarls and turns on them, a cornered animal. He lashes out with something dark and twisting, something that drags at Lan Wangji's depleted core. He gasps, and hears Wei Ying choke beside him. The sound spurs him on.

He lunges, but Wen Xu twists away, catching Bichen's tip in only the meat of his arm. He yells, and spins, and cracks down hard at Lan Wangji’s shin.

It buckles beneath him.

Wei Ying is there suddenly, rushing up behind Wen Xu, Suibian extended—

But Wen Xu is fast. Inhumanly fast. His eyes are dark—black—and he turns toward Wei Ying—

Lan Wangji sees Wei Ying's eyes widen over Wen Xu's shoulder. Sees blood spill from his mouth.

Rearing back, Lan Wangji puts all of his remaining strength into his blade, but just as he drives it forward, a sudden, blunt force drives him back, throwing him from his feet.

When he looks up, Wen Zhuliu is there, standing before Wen Xu, palms outstretched to either side. Wei Ying lies motionless on the ground, a ways beyond them.

Lan Wangji moves to get up just as Wen Xu stumbles. His hand comes away from his side bloody, and his face twists with rage. He turns toward Wei Ying. Lan Wangji's heart stops.

But Wen Zhuliu grabs hold of Wen Xu, and simply shakes his head at his furious glare.

"Burn them! Burn out their cores!" Wen Xu screams, as he grips Wen Zhuliu's arm to keep upright.

Wen Zhuliu glances at Lan Wangji. 

Ice fills his veins.

He glances next at Wei Ying, and Lan Wangji struggles and fails to get to his feet. But Wen Zhuliu merely shakes his head once more, takes hold of Wen Xu, and mounts his sword. In the space of a few frantic heartbeats, they're gone.

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji calls.

Wei Ying coughs, and Lan Wangji can see the blood even from here.

"Wei Ying!"

He tries to stand again, but cannot manage it. He crawls.

The rough forest floor drags painfully at his mangled leg, and his progress is maddeningly slow. He is almost there when he feels it.

The curse. The boundary. Wei Ying lies on the other side of it.

Desperation beats at Lan Wangji's ribs as he nears, but Wei Ying is just out of reach.

"Wei Ying," he repeats.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying rasps. He tries to sit up.

"Do not move," Lan Wangji says. He crawls along the barrier, so close he could touch him, if only...

"Lan Zhan? Where are you?" A pause. "That was—are you alright? Are you—did he—"

"I am fine," Lan Wangji says tightly, holding back tears. "Do not move. I am here."

The curse hisses and churns. Lan Wangji's stomach turns.

A-niang felt this. A-niang walked straight into this hungry abyss, and did not look back. Did she think it would give way if she persevered?

Lan Wangji used to think she did.

"...Where?" Wei Ying murmurs. His voice is weakening.

"Here," says Lan Wangji, desperate. "I am here."

"You're hurt?" Wei Ying asks. "Can you not...move? Let me see."

He tries to push himself up again.

"No!" Lan Wangji says. "No, I..."

"Lan Zhan?" Panic, now, in his voice.

Lan Wangji sets his jaw and takes a breath. He summons the last of his remaining spiritual energy.

"Here," he says, and pushes his hand through the boundary, into the clinging, tarry dark.

He holds back the gasp of shock, of horror, of pain, and stretches forward, pushing his qi into the limb. Trying to keep the curse on the surface only. It is like plunging his arm into quicksand, into death. He stares at it, at the incongruous sunlight on his skin, and pushes harder.

His fingertips brush Wei Ying's arm.

"Wei Ying," he forces out.

Wei Ying's hand finds his and holds on.

"Lan Zhan...your hand is so cold."

Lan Wangji cannot feel Wei Ying's hand at all. 

He leans back, and pulls. The curse seeps through his skin, but he does not let go. He pulls, and crawls back, and pulls, terror spurring him on. Wei Ying scoots himself to the side, and together they move him far enough in. Lan Wangji looks down into his pallid face.

"You're alright," Wei Ying says with an echo of his usual grin.

Lan Wangji nods, and hauls him to sit half up, propped against his unharmed leg.

"Pressure," he says, and presses Wei Ying's hand over the wound in his side.

"Oh," says Wei Ying distantly, "right."

He is still staring up at Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji still cannot feel his arm. Or his shoulder. Or his entire left side.

Wei Ying's eyelids begin to droop.

"Stay awake," Lan Wangji says.

Someone will come. Someone must come.

"Mm?" Wei Ying says, still smiling. "We made a good team, didn't we Lan Zhan."

"We do," Lan Wangji says.

There's a sudden cool sensation on his chin. Something wet drops down onto Wei Ying's robes.

Wei Ying frowns. His lips are white. "Are you sad, Lan Zhan?"

"Stay awake," Lan Wangji repeats. "Use your qi."

"Mn," Wei Ying hums. "Not much left."

"Use it."

"So tired..."

"Wei Ying."

"Sing me a song? Sing me...keep me awake, ah?"

Lan Wangji takes a deep, unsteady breath. He does not remember breathing being so arduous. He tries to remember songs of healing, of clarity, of power.

He cannot call up any of the notes.

He hums instead a song only he knows. A song he wrote one summer for the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen. A song for the boy currently dying in his lap.

"Pretty, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying murmurs. He pats Lan Wangji's arm. Lan Wangji cannot feel it. "What's it called?"

The song dies off as Lan Wangji's lungs go weak. He forces more air in.

"Wangxian," he answers.

But Wei Ying's eyes have closed.

Lan Wangji stares. Kneeling, cold and helpless as he always has been, he stares.

"Stay," he whispers. "Please. Stay."

When Lan Wangji wakes, once again in his own bed, aching and cold, he tries to stand.

Xiongzhang gently pushes him back down.

"Wei Ying—"

"He is well," says Xiongzhang. "Or will be soon. He's healing quickly now."

Relief washes over Lan Wangji, loosening his constricted muscles. He registers Xiongzhang's pristine robes.

"The Wens?"

"Beaten back," Xiongzhang says. "They fled once Wen Xu abandoned them."

Lan Wangji looks away. "Casualties?"

Xiongzhang sighs. "Minimal. This was a victory, Wangji. If we had fled, or even given in to the initial demand, Wen Ruohan would simply have considered himself above reproach. Recovery...should be your focus, now."

His tone is strangely careful, and he will not meet Lan Wangji's eye.

"I am fine," Lan Wangji says. He feels heavy, and tired, but unhurt. "I will look in on Wei Ying."

"It would not be prudent for you to go out at this time."

The refusal is stark. Shocking.

"Xiongzhang."

"Your health comes first," says Xiongzhang. "And I do not think you would wish for people to see your injury."

Lan Wangji blinks up at him, and then moves his leg experimentally. It is nearly entirely healed. He looks down at himself, and turns back the blanket. 

His arm is covered in thick bandages.

He does not understand. He turns it, and it moves, but with a leaden slowness. It is then that he catches the glint of energy—activated talismans woven into the dressings. This would require a near-constant stream of spiritual energy. He looks back at Xiongzhang.

"The curse did not leave you unscathed," he says, "though we believe you will make a full recovery."

Xiongzhang's presence at his bedside begins to make a different sort of sense.

"You have been containing it," Lan Wangji surmises.

"Yes. And Shufu, and the healers, in shifts."

Dread and guilt grip him once more. He can feel it faintly, a sluggish hissing along the meridians of his arm. The curse that traps him, trapped inside him now. Waiting much closer to take him to his death.

"Now you're awake, you must focus on purging it, while we keep it caged."

Lan Wangji blinks, and nods, and takes a deep lungful of air. The knowledge that Wei Ying is nearby, that he could see him if only he were to go, tugs insistently at his mind. He expels it. He will never see Wei Ying again if he is dead.

Xiongzhang very graciously says nothing of how Lan Wangji was found, how he must obviously have come in contact with the curse. But it is a very loud silence. Lan Wangji is appropriately ashamed of his recklessness.

The days pass, and he is hardly aware of them. He does nothing but meditate. He cultivates, and he works against the curse, and he is hardly aware of his family and the healers changing places to keep his bandages intact.

Shufu always rouses him when he leaves in the evening, though.

"Eat, Wangji," he says each night. "You have done well. Rest."

Lan Wangji is alone for a quarter shichen to eat, and to bathe as well as he can, and to ready himself for an exhausted, dreamless sleep, before one of the healers comes in to take up the containment process. 

The curse is lessening. It is growing smaller, weaker, in the face of his blunt assault, and the unrelenting force of the bandages holding it back.

And Lan Wangji is growing lonely.

He is accustomed to loneliness—it has been his constant companion for many years. A deep, gnawing lack, a futile need for something long out of reach. But this feeling is a shade different. The sadness is the same, but more present, its fruitlessness more unbearable. He wonders if A-niang was this kind of lonely. And for whom.

One of many things about her he will never know.

He does not ask after Wei Ying again, does not wish to draw attention to his obvious weakness for him. Does not wish to know when he will be leaving. Like this, he can pretend Wei Ying has already gone, and the loneliness can shrink back to its proper size and place. Eventually.

Surely, it must.

Perhaps when the curse is gone back to its home at the border, he will feel less cold. Perhaps when he can once more go out and feel the sun on his skin, the loneliness will melt away.

He can only hope.

But one evening, when Shufu is gone and Lan Wangji has put his weary self to bed, there is a faint rustling sound from near his window.

He sits up, the sleeves of his softest, warmest robe trailing. He hugs it closer, and peers through shafts of moonlight until he sees movement. It is small. Like a bird, or a mouse. But it moves strangely, an ungainly shadow in the blue dim of night. It hops onto the foot of Lan Wangji's bed, and his heart seizes.

The paperman toddles toward him, climbing along the slope of his leg to stand proudly atop his knee. It bows, exaggerated and grand.

Lan Wangji is frozen.

The last time Wei Ying visited, he was only able to send his papermen over short distances. The idea of him waiting just on the other side of the thin wall of Lan Wangji's house, is...

The paperman awkwardly tosses a folded slip of paper on the blanket and then crosses its arms in front of itself as if waiting. It is painfully dear. Lan Wangji resists the urge to scoop it up and lay it gently in his box of memories, an apology and a friend for the crumpled red one still kept there. Instead, he takes up the proffered note.

Lan Zhan, it reads, in Wei Ying's effortlessly elegant scrawl, I'm leaving soon. How are you? They won't let me see you.

And then, at the bottom of the misused talisman paper, a crude drawing: ☹️

Lan Wangji stares at the characters, memorizing the slant of the strokes, the unique quirks of the speed of Wei Ying's mind and his hand. Absently, he runs his fingertips over the ink and finds it barely dry.

The paperman shifts, startling him, and then exaggeratedly mimics writing. Lan Wangji's pulse hammers up to speed. There are scant moments before one of the healers will return, expecting to find him asleep. Wei Ying expects an immediate reply. He hurries to his desk and quickly grinds ink into the long-dry dish, and composes his reply with shameful haste.

Wei Ying, I am well. And you?

He hands the note back to the paperman and carries it to the sill it came in through. He watches as it floats down to the earth, watches as it hurries across the garden, through the bushes and around the pond. He tracks it across the stone, following from cracked window to cracked window, until he spies him.

Wei Ying, kneeling behind A-niang's house.

Lan Wangji's heart stops altogether for several breaths, then pounds as he watches him take the paper. Watches him read the note, and shake his head.

He looks well. Very well. It is hard to see from this distance, yet all the kinetic life of him is clearly back in his limbs. Lan Wangji takes a deep, relieving breath, finally easing the part of himself that could not let go of the image of him cold and still, despite Xiongzhang's reassurance.

He is well. He is well. That is all that matters. And he is going home.

Before Lan Wangji can feel properly sad at the prospect, the paperman is sprinting back toward him, practically glowing with Wei Ying's re-infusion of spiritual energy. He catches it as it comes in, and gently plucks the new note from its hold.

You're not well, obviously! It's the resentment, isn't it?

Lan Wangji feels a stab of horror, of breathless confusion. He never considered Wei Ying might come to know of the curse. He hates thinking of the way his kindness would spill over in the knowing of it. Of his pity.

But the paperman is frantically performing a strange twisting gesture. Lan Wangji flips over the paper.

I felt Wen Xu wield it somehow. He has a new weapon. How badly did it hurt you?

Lan Wangji looses the breath he has been holding, relieved once more. But the healer will be here any moment. He takes up a sheet of his own paper and tears off a strip.

I will heal fully soon, do not worry. I am glad you are well. Safe travels.

He pauses, and then, for the mere pleasure of writing it, amends it to, Safe travels, Wei Ying.

He sends the paperman off with a pang of loss that echoes like a bell inside his ribs, and goes back to bed. He breathes, and he calms his speeding heart, and he waits for the healer to come in. Just before she does, the rustling sound returns. Before Lan Wangji can get up, the paperman is hopping up his chest.

He snatches it out of the air, hoping to read this last missive before it is too late. But it carries nothing. It merely goes limp in his careful grip.

He hears his door slide open.

Eyes shut tight against unbidden tears, he slips the paperman inside his robes, against his heart.

Lan Wangji does not sleep that night until exhaustion sweeps him away from the world.

Xiongzhang brings news of the volunteer Jiang cultivators' departure the next day.

He tries to accept it with graceful disinterest, but feels the gentle weight of a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm certain you will meet again," Xiongzhang murmurs.

Lan Wangji's jaw clenches. If he were not trapped—in this room, in this house, on this mountain—he would simply leave this conversation. He has nothing to say on the matter.

Days pass, and eventually, the curse is purged from his fingertips.

"Wangji?" Xiongzhang says, when it happens.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes, and nods.

The relief in Xiongzhang's smile reveals just how tense he has been. But he quickly hides it.

"Is it...could it be..."

The restrained hope in his expression makes Lan Wangji's stomach clench.

"No," he says.

He can still feel it. Alive and writhing just outside the door. If anything, the curse seems more ravenous now that it has had a taste. Lan Wangji shudders just as Xiongzhang's face goes serious, and he nods.

"In time," he says.

There is nothing for Lan Wangji to say. There is no sense in dashing his hopes. He does not need to know that Lan Wangji's position is the perfect foil to A-niang's, and Lan Wangji does not wish to speak his darkest secret: That in this—the unrequited, clinging love of a bright, free thing who can never love him back—he is exactly like their fuqin.

He emerges from his seclusion to find the Cloud Recesses still recovering from the attack. The damage and loss of life are devastating, but drive home his understanding of the gift they were given. Had help not come, they would have been decimated. The debt they owe is great. And all the sect is busy rebuilding, healing, preparing for the inevitable repaying of it.

Lan Wangji joins in the work. He trains harder, if only to drive his comrades to train harder as well. He cultivates, and he studies, and he works.

He also writes back and forth with Wei Ying. He seems determined to discover the source of Wen Xu's power and safeguard against it. He writes like a man obsessed. Lan Wangji treasures every letter, and scours the Lan Sect library, and begins to compile his findings. He writes to Wei Ying of a device he finds in the archives, an ancient belt imbued with a powerful ward. They begin to unspool its inner workings, to try to construct a solution that will work for an army instead of an individual.

It is invigorating, to work together. He tells himself, as is his custom, that it is more than enough. Even as Wei Ying's responsibilities grow and he writes less often, each letter is enough.

Between them, Lan Wangji fulfills his duties. He regains his strength. 

As the exhaustion of fighting the curse falls away, so does the bliss of dreamless sleep. As the nights wear endlessly on, they become plagued with nightmares. In the dark, his mind is not his own. It fills with gruesome imaginings of A-niang's death, of his own, of his fuqin's. It fills with Wei Ying's weak voice, his bloodless face. His death rattle.

It fills with the curse. Hissing, calling him a disappointment for not bringing in a good wife. Sweetly welcoming him home. Gripping his wrist hard, harder, his fuqin's fingers pulling him into the muck. Telling him they are one, now. They are the same.

He does not wake screaming. He chokes, gulping down clean air. He calms his racing heart. He sleeps again, determined to rest, to keep up his strength for his people.

When he kneels in the garden that month, he apologizes to A-niang. He knows she had greater hopes for him than this. 

He has told her of Wei Ying many times in the past, but does not mention him now.

It seems not long at all before the news comes. Lan Wangji is meditating with his peers in one of the courtyards, cultivating. He is as strong as many of the elders now, and has begun to teach some of the youngest disciples. It is a good thing he is not on duty with them when he overhears the messengers leaving Xiongzhang's meeting room.

"...hit them too fast. Nobody knew, no warning. Nothing we could do. The disciples we sent last week were something, but we may be holding their funerals tomorrow."

Lan Wangji's eyes fly open. He knows of only two sects to which Lan disciples were recently sent. Qinghe Nie, and—

"Jiang-zongzhu has some of the most powerful fighters in the cultivation world. Don't they stand a chance?" the other messenger asks.

The first does not answer.

Lan Wangji is on his feet before their footsteps fade from earshot.

"Xiongzhang," he says, bursting into the room, "is Lotus Pier under attack?"

Xiongzhang and Shufu turn to look at him with disparate expressions of surprise and disapproval. He catches his breath, straightens, and bows.

"It is," Xiongzhang says, calm and mournful. As if it is over.

"When?"

"As we speak. The Wen forces have just—Wangji? Wangji!"

Shufu joins in, and they call after him as he breaks rule after rule, running all the way back to his house.

He has no sense of time, nor of whether or not he is pursued. He does not think of the many punishments incurred by interrupting his elders, by departing rudely, by ignoring them, by running, by disturbing the peace. He simply runs until he is opening the door, and then he is running to his desk, snatching the ancient belt from its surface, and tearing outside once more.

He runs all the way to the eastern gate before he hears quick footfalls behind him, and Shufu's voice. 

Scared. Just like it was that day when he was a child.

He leaps atop the gate, and then, only then, does he hesitate. 

The world unfolds beneath him, bright, and green, and wide. It is beautiful, and it is not his. He loves it dearly, fiercely, in a way he has never before allowed himself to consider. He wants to fly, he wants to see it—he wants to be allowed to want it.

He lets himself want it. Just this once. Desperately.

He mounts his sword.

And he realizes, sudden as the breaking dawn, that he has misunderstood A-niang all these years. For it is not like falling at all if the leap of faith has any chance of saving someone you love.

He leaps.

The curse closes in around him, a void of sticking, sucking, seething hunger. He pushes hard and finds that it gives—thinner than mud but thicker than water. It drags at his skin, at his bones, at his meridians, as he flies. But fly he does. He speeds through the open air, slower than his usual pace but faster than the horse runs. He keeps his mind on his purpose and his fist clenched around the belt.

He is stronger now than most cultivators. He puts that strength to flight, and to repelling the curse.

He cannot help but think of his A-niang. Of how long she tried to keep going once it was clear the curse was not broken. Did she bother to try to hold it at bay? Did she lie down and let it take her in the hope her death would break it?

He does not think of the distance. Forest, road, and town reel below him, and he would look, would drink his fill of these first and last sights, but he cannot spare the focus. He drives on, and on, and on.

He does not know how long he lasts before Bichen begins to falter beneath his feet. His face is long since numb from the sting of the wind, his hands curled into unfeeling claws. His strength is drained, inevitably, by the dual strain of curse and sword. And what's more, he does not know the remaining distance.

He pushes harder, no longer bothering to shield against the curse. It seeps through his skin with a sigh, as if it belongs. Perhaps it does.

It is nothing. He would break his meridians if it meant bringing Wei Ying a weapon to keep him safe. He pushes, and pushes, until he has nothing left.

He goes down, sailing through leafy green canopy, branch and twig slowing his fall. He lands in a bed of moss, he thinks, for it is soft. Everything feels soft. The world is cradling him, rocking him to sleep.

His eyes close. Or at least, the world is hidden from him. It is dark.

He would weep for Wei Ying, if he could. He is briefly angry with himself for not reserving the strength for that. 

Or maybe he hopes. Hopes that Wei Ying will live, and live well, despite this last failure. Maybe that is why he does not weep.

He hears a woman's voice, somewhere. It is familiar. Kind.

"A-niang," he breathes.

He hopes he is smiling. She was always happy when he smiled.

He strains to hear her again.

But he hears no more.

Wei Wuxian hefts Xing'er up higher with his good arm, and glances back along the road. He does a quick headcount, making sure they're all still together, before zoning back in on what A-Cheng is saying.

"...not going to reach the gates by nightfall."

"No," he replies, "we'll make camp."

A-Cheng rolls his eyes. "That's what I just said."

Wei Wuxian grimaces. "I was agreeing with you, since you were right...for once."

"That last blow addled your brain."

"At least I was actually getting hits in!"

"Wei Wu—"

"Boys!" Shijie calls, behind them. "Is this really the best use of your energy at this time?"

Wei Wuxian glances at Xing'er's frightened little face, then back at the ragged group following them through the trees. He sighs.

"He started it," Jiang Cheng says.

Before Wei Wuxian can so much as open his mouth to yell something back, Shijie cuts him off.

"He also started the advance warning system that saved Lotus Pier today," she says. To Wei Wuxian's smug look, she says, "And A-Cheng defended the gates while you were at the water."

He grimaces again.

"We should make camp soon, so that we can gather supplies and make dinner before dark," she goes on. "None of them have strength enough to go without."

"Cooking and babysitting and taking care of the wounded," A-Cheng mumbles. "How did we get stuck wi—"

"A-Cheng," she admonishes.

"Yeah, come on, we're the most trusted disciples," says Wei Wuxian. "Of course they sent us to defend the defenseless."

"YOU volunTEERED!" A-Cheng says, pointing. "As soon as we got word the infirmary was destroyed you piped up!! 'Gusu is closest!!'"

"I did not," Wei Wuxian says, even though he did.

"Ugh. Ridiculous, just because of your precious Lan Wa—"

Something flashes in the sky, and then a crashing sound breaks through the woods to their left.

"What was that?" A-Cheng finishes.

Wei Wuxian is already setting Xing'er down.

"Stay with Lao Pei and the others," he murmurs, and draws Suibian.

"Something fell," Shijie says, a hand on his arm. "Don't look for a fight."

He pauses, and nods. Nothing too dangerous would have made all that noise. He lowers his sword but keeps it bare, just in case, as he follows A-Cheng into the trees. Shijie follows, too, and Wei Wuxian tries to keep her behind him until she gently pushes his battle-wounded arm out of the way.

"Let's split up. Stay in shouting distance," she says.

As they move away from each other, he feels as if he hears each and every tiny movement in the entire forest. He's still on edge from the attack, wary of Wen stragglers looking to win back their lost glory. It's like he can hear insects breathing. He tries to settle, and remember what Shijie said. If there's something wounded here, it'll probably need to join them, not fight them.

"A-Xian!"

Shijie's voice is panicked. He runs.

"A-Cheng? A-Xian!"

"Shijie! Where—"

"A-Xian, here!"

He weaves through the trees until he sees her kneeling on the ground beside something large and white. A-Cheng is beside her, standing still. Wei Wuxian rushes forward.

And stops short.

His pounding heart stalls.

He feels A-Cheng staring at him, but he can't look up. Can't look away from. From.

"Lan-er-gongzi," Shijie says, panic still thinning her voice. She shakes one of his pale white arms. "Lan-er-gongzi, wake up. A-Xian, what—"

Wei Wuxian collapses to the earth on Lan Zhan's other side, and grips his other arm.

"Lan Zhan," he finally manages.

"What happened?" A-Cheng says. "Why is he...what's wrong with him?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. His chest feels tight, and he can't...he can't think. Lan Zhan almost looks as if he could be asleep, if he weren't so pale. He's like a statue, like actual jade except for the angry red scratches on his face and throat. Bichen is a good stone's throw away. He fell. Out of the sky. And now he's. He's...

"A-Xian," Shijie interrupts, holding out a crumpled paper. "This is from you. And this..." 

She lifts a threadbare strip of fabric decorated with small, bronze discs. He takes the paper from her and forces his eyes to scan it, forces his brain to understand. It's the last letter he wrote him. The page about how that old, warded Lan belt could be activated, expanded—

"He..." he breathes.

He picks up the fabric. The belt. He clears his throat.

"He came to help us," he says. "This..."

"What's wrong with him?" Jiang Cheng repeats.

"JIANG CHENG," Wei Wuxian shouts, livid. "What's wrong with YOU?! LOOK! Look! He—he died for US, and now YOU—"

Jiang Cheng is staring at him strangely. "Died? He's breathing."

Wei Wuxian breaks off, the sudden taste of salt in his mouth shocking him almost as much as the words. He wipes at his face and looks back down at Lan Zhan. At his perfect, horribly still face.

Shijie is holding a hand above his nose, and then touching his throat.

"He is," she says, low and shocked. "He's alive. He is. But why—"

Wei Wuxian knows what she means even as she's unable to finish the sentence. After a day so full of it, they know—Lan Zhan feels like death. He feels empty. He feels like a candle that's just been blown out.

"He's cursed," he says. 

He puts two fingers to Lan Zhan's wrist, and feels first relief, then fear. Relief at his steady pulse. Fear at the deep, thrumming resentment in his meridians, proving Wei Wuxian's old theory correct.

"Cursed? How? Since when?" says A-Cheng.

But Wei Wuxian is already pulling at Lan Zhan's arms, lifting him, trying to get him off the ground.

"I don't know," he says, struggling with his wounded arm. "Since we've known him? It was a hunch. I don't—can you—can you help—"

Shijie unhooks one of Lan Zhan's torn, trailing sleeves from a root, and Wei Wuxian finally lifts him, then gets his other arm under his knees. He's not heavy. His head lolls back. Wei Wuxian resists the animal urge to press his face to Lan Zhan's throat and cry.

Shijie's hand on his shoulder steadies him. He realizes he's breathing fast and shallow, and takes a deep breath.

With a nod, Shijie gently lifts Lan Zhan's head, and lays it against Wei Wuxian's chest.

He looks to A-Cheng.

"Keep everyone safe," he says, half expecting a scolding, or an attempt to forbid him to go. But A-Cheng just nods. "I'll see you soon."

He calls Suibian from where it lies on the ground, and steps up onto it. He staunchly finds his balance. And he flies.

He flies as fast as he can, keeping in mind his lowered spiritual energy and the distance ahead. He knows he can make it, he just doesn't know how long Lan Zhan has.

He ignores the weight of his head on his chest, and the shape of his ribs beneath his fingers.

It's always felt like a violation, thinking and feeling the way he does about Lan Zhan, when Lan Zhan holds himself so separate and trusts so few. But this is worse. Lan Zhan hates to be touched, and this is...so much touching.

He wants to hold him closer. But he doesn't.

Lan Zhan deserves respect above all else. He can give him that. Even if he fails at everything else, fails to save him. He can give him that. He hopes Lan Zhan knew—knows. Hopes Lan Zhan knows, despite all the ridiculous antics, that he's always, always respected him. Even when they were young, and silly, and Lan Zhan was always so angry at him, he always—

He stops that train of thought. His vision is beginning to blur again. He can't have that. Instead he goes back over what he knows, to try to determine how the curse might work. To try to determine if Lan Zhan will even survive this flight.

It can't be something the Lan doctors can cure, or they would have done it by now. Unless they don't know. But they must—they knew Lan Zhan could never leave the Cloud Recesses, that much was obvious even to him as a teenager.

So no cure in the sect, though he remains hopeful they can keep him alive until the cure is procured, or found, or...invented. He's good at that. He can invent something, he knows he can. As long as Lan Zhan—

Boundary curses. It has to be a boundary curse. Which Lan Zhan knew the borders of. And feared enough to never try to break.

Until he thought Lotus Pier needed help. Until he thought. Until—

Boundary curses vary in strength, so it might not be too difficult. But if it were a weak one, then surely they would have dealt with—or maybe it's just creative? Something he can work with.

He can't feel Lan Zhan's breath through his mere two layers of robes. He should be able to, his face is right there. He should be able to feel his breath, his warmth, he should be able to feel him, but he still just feels like nothing. He could already—could already be—

Maybe it's not strong, or creative, but rare? He'll journey a thousand mountaintops to find the answer if he must, that's not an issue. He'll do anything, and nobody will be able to stop him. He'll steal that new weapon off Wen Ruohan’s corpse and use it to leach the resentment away.

He just has to...he just has to fly faster.

He shatters the wards at the Cloud Recesses without a second thought, and breaks their precious law against flying within the bounds of the sect. There is no pause between dismounting his sword and running for the healers. Nobody stops him, nobody so much as calls out. At least, if they do he doesn't hear. Not until he's almost reached his destination, and a familiar, if rattled voice says his name from just behind.

"Wei-gongzi!"

He doesnt turn. "Lan-zongzhu."

Lan-zongzhu follows him into the bare, herb-scented rooms as three healers rush to greet them.

"Wangji, is he—how did you find him?"

"In a ditch," Wei Wuxian finds himself growling, "unconscious. Barely alive."

"Alive," Lan-zongzhu breathes.

He lays Lan Zhan gently on the nearest pallet. Two of the healers rush forward, one transferring energy and the other assessing his pulse and core.

"Wei-gongzi—"

"How could you let this happen?" Wei Wuxian snaps, cutting off whatever Lan-zongzhu might have said. "How long have you done nothing? How could you let him just...just..."

Lan-zongzhu's face slides smoothly from distress into diplomatic calm.

"There was nothing for any of us to do. Wangji has long been beyond need of guidance."

Wei Wuxian grits his teeth, and looks back down at Lan Zhan. So lifeless despite the red of very living blood congealing over his cuts. He can tell the spiritual energy isn't taking. It's going nowhere, the curse filling all the strong pathways of Lan Zhan's qi.

"What will you do?" he asks the healer who assessed him. "What does he need?"

She steps back, and bows her head. "An end to his curse."

"Which is?" he persists. "What's keeping it alive? Who cast it?" He looks at Lan-zongzhu. "Why hasn't it been dealt with?"

Lan-zongzhu sighs deeply, and then eyes him shrewdly.

"Our fuqin cast it. On our muqin."

The idea of such an act blindsides Wei Wuxian. He stares at him.

"He inherited it? He was born cursed?"

A nod. "As was I."

"But..." He's seen Lan-zongzhu in Qinghe. He knows it.

"The curse is an old one," Lan-zongzhu says, "and impossible to circumvent. Wangji nearly died confronting it for you once before. Do you remember?"

"Yes," Wei Wuxian says slowly. "I remember."

It was the thing that solidified his guess. But he hadn't thought of it as done for him. The suggestion makes his skin crawl with guilt.

"He knew both times it could kill him," Lan-zongzhu goes on. He pauses. "As it killed her."

Wei Wuxian looks into Lan Zhan's cold, still face. It's more relaxed than he's ever seen it. There’s none of Lan Zhan’s determination, none of his pride, his fire. 

He hates it.

"Why?" he murmurs.

"Thank you all," Lan-zongzhu says to the healers. "Please give us some privacy."

They leave. Wei Wuxian is alone with the two brothers, both of them now cold as stone. He waits impatiently, Lan Zhan languishing beside him.

"It is a love curse, Wei-gongzi," Lan-zongzhu says, when the door has closed. "Requited love will break it, nothing else. Effectively a death sentence, and a deliberately cruel one. Its effect on us was, I believe, unintended...but not regretted."

Wei Wuxian can do nothing but stare yet again.

A love curse. Cast to kill a woman trapped in an unwanted marriage. He feels numb with the knowledge of it. With the knowledge of all the life stolen by one man's rapaciousness.

And then the hopelessness descends. He closes his eyes, and his heart falls through his stomach.

There's no one on this earth deserving of Lan Zhan's love. If there were, the curse would already have broken.

He can't stop his hand from gripping Lan Zhan's wrist. Can't stop the awful sound his lungs make as they try to keep working.

"Wh...he..."

He wrests back control of his voice.

"He's strong," he says. "He survived, before. He's still breathing. Do something."

Lan-zongzhu shakes his head, watching him all the while.

"By all reason, he should not have lived—then or now. The curse should have taken him immediately."

Wei Wuxian shakes his head, uncomprehending. Tears fall from his eyes.

"Wei-gongzi. Something is keeping him alive."

It takes effort to resist the urge to get up, to pace, to run. But he can't leave Lan Zhan. He won't. Not even to escape Lan-zongzhu's knowing gaze.

"It doesn't matter," he says, in answer to the implied accusation. "He's still dying. It's not enough."

Lan-zongzhu's voice is soft. Gratingly gentle. Painfully kind. "What is not enough?"

Wei Wuxian squares his jaw. He meets his eyes.

"That I love him," he says. "It's not enough. It's never been enough."

There's a moment of heavy silence.

And then Lan-zongzhu smiles.

"It could be."

It jolts Wei Wuxian, sets fire to his skin like lightning.

"How? Lan-zongzhu. How? You must tell me."

"I have told you everything we know," Lan-zongzhu says. "Only requited love can render the curse ineffective."

Wei Wuxian shakes his head again. "Then how—"

"Think, Wei-gongzi," Lan-zongzhu interrupts, fierce and uncharacteristically short. "Wangji is unconscious."

He repeats himself, speaking slowly.

"Unconscious. But alive. Do you not think it possible that things might change, if he were...made conscious of certain things?"

Wei Wuxian's own loud breaths are the only sound in the empty room.

"What?"

It is Lan-zongzhu's turn to shake his head.

"I would not dare to speak for Wangji, however...of what has been clear to me for a long time, his very heartbeat now speaks for him. You must listen. And then you must make him hear you in return."

The shift in Wei Wuxian's worldview is seismic, and seems to begin deep in his gut. When it has finished turning him on his head, his panic returns twofold.

If Lan-zongzhu is right, Lan Zhan's life rests in his hands.

"But how??" he asks again. "He's. He's unconscious. How can I..."

Lan-zongzhu's expression goes somber. "That, I do not know. But you must try."

He lets the command, the plea, sink in.

"No one can help him, if you do not find a way to reach him." He takes a deep breath. "I will leave you."

He goes out, and shuts the door silently. And then Wei Wuxian is alone with Lan Zhan.

Or, what remains of him. His unmoving, battered body. His dear face with its disapproving brow, its sharp eyes that go soft with wonder at the most unexpected times. His hands, strong and skilled and elegant.

Lifeless, all.

"Lan Zhan," he croaks, and that won't do. If this is really so important, so possible, he must speak clearly. He tries again. "Lan Zhan, listen to me," he says.

He takes one of Lan Zhan's hands between both of his own. It feels wrong.

It should be clenching into a fist, or flinching away from his touch. But it doesn't move. 

He holds it tight.

"Your brother seems...seems to think. That you...that if you knew, somehow. That I. If you knew how I felt."

He stops. It's too hard to say to him, even unconscious. Too embarrassing.

"Lan Zhan, I've said it already. Didn't you hear? You should...you should wake up."

He doesn't even look like he's breathing anymore. Wei Wuxian's heart stutters, then gallops faster. He checks Lan Zhan's pulse again.

It's so very weak. He can barely feel it now.

"No," he says. "No. Lan Zhan. Wake up. You wake up now, right now. Listen, Lan Zhan, listen to me."

He shakes his hand, his arm. There's no resistance. It shakes his entire limp body.

He presses his palm to Lan Zhan's soft, red-striped cheek.

"Please," he says.

He leans down, closer.

"Hear me," he begs. "I want to do everything with you. I want to see the world, to fight by your side. I want...I wanted. I've wanted so much, and I thought it was too much, but all I want now is for you to wake up."

He's struck all at once by the futility of thinking this might work. By the naive, ridiculous hope of one brother for another, completely divorced from reality.

He buckles, and lets his grubby, wet face fall on Lan Zhan's pristine shoulder. He cries.

Ugly, wracking sobs come and go, interspersed with short periods of calm. He begs again, each time more desperate, Lan-zongzhu's voice ringing in his mind.

"Lan Zhan," he says again and again, hoarse. "I want...Lan Zhan, I'm sorry. I don't care if you love me or hate me, just wake up. Tell me to fck off. Tell me to copy lines until I die, I'll do it, I swear. I'll kiss you every day or never speak to you again. Just stay."

No one can help him, if you do not find a way to reach him.

He keeps his fingers pressed to the inside of Lan Zhan's wrist, desperately chasing the fading thud of his failing heart. Until he can feel it no longer.

He sobs into the front of his robes, his hair, the side of his throat, his face.

"Lan Zhan," he murmurs, "what do you want to hear?"

He presses his lips to his cool cheek. To the corner of his soft, full mouth.

He cries, and he whispers, "I'm sorry."

He kisses him gently. Reverently.

A goodbye.

"I love you," he breathes in his ear. "I'm so sorry."

Beyond the silence of this room, beyond the pall of death, the sun is still shining, and birds still sing. The merry sound of water bubbles somewhere nearby.

Wei Wuxian looks up, out the high window, and sees the shadows of wings as they pass. The glint of light on a leaf. He does not understand how each of these things, by virtue of simply existing now, when Lan Zhan does not, can be like a dull knife to the heart.

He cannot let go of his hand. He does not know what he will do when they try to make him.

He closes his eyes against fresh tears, and waits. Lets the silence fill him.

"Wei Ying?"

He looks down, and the movement feels strangely slow. Impeded. Suspended. He looks down, and sees Lan Zhan.

He sees Lan Zhan looking back at him.

Air fills his lungs, burning and heady as liquor. He can't speak.

Lan Zhan looks around, sluggish and confused. "Wei Ying?" he repeats.

Wei Wuxian almost laughs at the sharp joy of his own name in that low, steady voice. It's been so long. And he really thought—

He feels for Lan Zhan's pulse again, his meridians. All are strong and steady and clear. There's no trace of the curse.

He feels as if his face might split open on his smile.

"Lan Zhan."

Lan Wangji watches as Wei Ying's face lights up, blindingly bright despite the tears not yet dry on his face.

"What has happened?" he asks, feeling dazed.

The last thing he remembers is flying. And falling. But now he is here. At home? In the infirmary.

He becomes aware of his hand because of the way Wei Ying is squeezing it. He looks down at them tangled in Wei Ying's lap, yet more confused. Wei Ying has never touched him this way. No one has ever touched him this way. Not since A-niang.

"You woke up," Wei Ying says, wiping roughly at his wet face. It is ineffective. He is still crying.

Lan Wangji blinks. He does not understand.

"What of Lotus Pier?" he asks, shamefully unable to so much as dread the answer with the miracle of Wei Ying beside him.

Wei Ying lets out a brief, damp laugh. "It's alright, we won the day. It's—it's not—how do you feel?"

This is a question that requires some thought. Lan Wangji focuses inward, and takes stock. His core is depleted, and he feels...worn. Battered. But well enough.

"Fine," he says.

He wants to repeat his earlier questions, but restrains himself. He is afraid to speak with his hand cradled between Wei Ying’s. He does not know what he will say.

Wei Ying swallows, nodding, tears still periodically dropping from his eyes.

Lan Wangji watches one catch in the corner of his mouth, and his heart thumps hard.

He dreamed...he thinks. He thinks he might have dreamed—

"Your curse is—is broken," Wei Ying says. "It's...you’re free."

Lan Wangji’s eyes snap to Wei Ying’s face. To his watery smile, his reddened, puffy lips. For a brief moment, he has a wild, impossible thought: that not only nightmares can be true.

But he grounds himself in reality, reminding himself that Wei Ying is nothing if not a genius, and a determined one at that.

"How?" he asks. A thought occurs to him. "The belt?"

Wei Ying's face does something he has never seen before—it shows hurt. It makes him look young and vulnerable, before he twists his mouth into a more rueful shape.

He shakes his head. "I, ah..."

He glances toward the door.

"I should. I should tell them you're alright. Everyone was...we all thought..."

He smiles again, brief and only partly sincere, and tries to stand.

Something stops him. Lan Wangji realizes it is his own hand, still holding tight.

"Wei Ying," is all he can say.

His throat is thick with a strange mix of fear, and anticipation, and something yet more choking that tastes almost like hope. It takes the space of several shallow breaths for Wei Ying to look at him, but when he does, his gaze is steady.

"You know, Lan Zhan," he says. "You heard me. I know you did, because it worked. You woke up. You can keep on pretending, or forgetting, that's alright. I understand. But don't ask me, when you know."

Lan Wangji stares at him, and stares at him. And stares some more. His mind is utterly, entirely empty.

Save for A-niang's voice.

My precious loves. Sometimes, even when the fall looks steep, you must take a leap of faith. The fear of falling is worth the chance to fly.

He thought he took his leap of faith when he rode Bichen out into the world, to his death.

But somehow...this fall looks far steeper.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying says. He looks alarmed, and then terrified. "What's wrong?"

His hands fumble for Lan Wangji's wrist.

"Is it—are you—I'll go get the healers back. Hang on, don’t—"

"Wei Ying," he forces out, still holding on.

He pulls until Wei Ying is facing him, waits until he knows he is listening.

"You spoke to me," he says. "You..."

He touches his free fingertips to his own lips. He still cannot believe it. But Wei Ying's expression confirms it.

"I heard you," Lan Wangji breathes.

He is airless, hollowed out and light with disbelief. Feathered with hope. Wei Ying is looking at him as if he does not know whether to run or to devour him whole. 

This, he has never dreamed of. Such a look in his eyes. It makes everything real.

"I have—" Lan Wangji's voice stalls, lodged in his throat under the weight of all his years of believing himself to be one thing, which he is now not. "I have always—"

He reaches out. Clasps the knot of their hands, wordless. Wei Ying knows him all the same.

"Lan Zhan," he says, broken.

He is crying again. He hauls Lan Wangji up, crushes him close. Lan Wangji crushes him back, yet closer. They shake in each other's arms as the new shape of the world, open wide and full of Wei Ying, settles over his mind.

"Don't cry, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, crying.

He pulls away enough to wipe at the tears on Lan Wangji's face. With only the barest hesitation, Lan Wangji returns the favor, brushing a thumb across Wei Ying's sharp, tanned cheek.

He loses track of himself somewhat, in the act. He finds his fingertips trailing down, searching out the touch he only half-remembers from his sleep. Wei Ying's lips are sorrow-soft. He wonders if they would have tasted of salt.

He comes to his senses at the thought, and snatches his hand away. But Wei Ying takes up his wrist, and pointedly presses his mouth to Lan Wangji's fingers. To his palm.

Their eyes catch, as he does it.

"Wei Yi—"

Lan Wangji's voice is cut off by a kiss. True, and hungry, and deep. When it ends, he no longer remembers the urge to speak.

He kisses Wei Ying back.

Days later, a leader and an heir of the great sects stand at the Cloud Recesses gates. They speak lightly, of the fine weather and of the even finer goods that travel between their lands. They are not there for serious discussion. That will come soon enough. Now, they wait.

At length, two cultivators—one in white, and one in black—approach.

"Wangji," says the sect leader, smiling.

It is his truest smile. The one that few people know.

The cultivator in white bows. "Xiongzhang."

"Travel safely," the sect leader says. "Your mission is dangerous. Take no unnecessary risks. Come home soon."

The cultivator bows to him once more.

Then the sect heir crosses his arms. "If you get killed showing off, I'm not making you a shrine."

But the cultivator in black only grins.

"Maybe Gusu Lan will be the ones in charge of my shrine," he says.

The sect heir splutters. "You—Wei Wuxian, you—"

The black-robed cultivator laughs, and laughs, and tugs the sect heir in for a rough hug.

"Stay safe. I'll see you at home," he says into the embrace.

The sect heir grimaces and pushes him away, but only after he's squeezed him back.

They all exchange bows of farewell, and the matched pair turns to the gate.

As they walk through, they find each other's hands, and hold on.

Neither of them look back. Only forward.

(They turn Wen Ruohan's weapon against him, and win the war. After that, it's all happily ever after. The End!)

#wangxian #theuntameddaily #mdzsnet #wangxian fanfic #the untamed fanfiction #my fic #this was a threadfic i took ages to finish #i wanted lady of shalott lwj simply because it Felt Right...and then of course. sleeping beauty lwj. we need him #debating throwing this on ao3 as well but that's tbd #so for now: here u go! <3

[crymeariveronceagain]

Do you have any recommendations for someone trying to get into poetry? All I've read so far is some Lagston Hughes and Edgar Allan Poe stuff. Like not even specific types just poetry.

I TOO STRUGGLE WITH POETRY! I AM A PROSE GIRL THROUGH AND THROUGH. I do have a deep appreciation for the poetry and those who enjoy it, though, so your interest is commendable and I love that you want to get into it.

but, basically, my favorites are the old guys from england

Willy Shakes, probably my all time favorite poet, from his plays to his sonnets, love pretty much everything he does.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Just. Vibes. Yeah. I love it. So much.

I love Tennyson. I'm a fool for him. I love is style, I love his writing. It's beautiful.

But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights        And music, came from Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead Came two young lovers lately wed; 'I am half sick of shadows,' said        The Lady of Shalott.

it's just so pure and crystal clear and i live for that kind of poetry, honestly. The simple, clean way of speaking through the poetry really makes me happy. I know a lot of people don't necessarily read poetry like i do(very literally. i love deep meanings but when it comes to poetry i usually aim for the most literal sense i can grasp).

Emily Dickinson is amazing, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is so good with words. Keats is good if you like pages and pages of flowers. Literal flowers. I enjoy that on occasion. Robert Frost makes me want to take a nap either in the sunshine or cuddled up under a blanket. I love his poetry. Elizabeth Butler isn't bad, although she's not my favorite. T. S. Elliot makes me want to write kotlc dystopian fanfiction. I could live and die in the discussion of religion and progressivism that Wallace Steven's Sunday Morning poem brings up.

I would say to stay away from poets who don't have any sort of rhyme scheme or meter. They bug me on an intellectual level. It's like, why are you writing your prose all chopped up. Like. If you're gonna write flowery short form prose write that. Don't pretend it's poems. Idk. People are welcome to their opinions and this is mine. I'll die on this stupid highbrow hill of what I think makes poetry poetry.

But yeah. These are some of my favorite poets! I hope you like what you find of them!

Also. Langston Hughes. 10/10. Love his stuff. Poe is good too. They're both excellent picks, imho. :D

#hope you enjoy! #thanks for the ask! #not fandom content #english major rant #poetry #william shakespeare #alfred lord tennyson #tennyson #shakespeare #robert frost #poets #thoughts on poetry

[cielphantxmhive]

✒┈┈┈┈┈ 𝙒𝙀𝙇𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀 !! 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰+𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵...↴

𝔚elcome to my blog! I'm Ciel / Leo, and here I will write fanfiction for various fandoms. If anything seems familiar, it may be because some of these have been previously posted to Wattpad.

You can request a fanfic, if my requests are open, from the fandoms and characters listed below. I ONLY write gender neutral or male reader.

Request ONLY 3 characters at a time, please!

Please, do NOT repost any of my works ANYWHERE without my consent.

__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊

┊ ┊⋆ ┊ .

┊ ┊ ⋆˚         

✧. ┊         

⋆ ★

𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧!!

— Love Unholyc

when they play games with you (hi, leo, sol, william, eater, shalotte)

- JungHi

- Leo

- Sol

- William

- Eater

- Shalotte

— IDOLiSH7

when they play video games with you (iori, yamato, tamaki, sogo, mitsuki, nagi, riku)

with their little sibling (iori, yamato, mitsuki)

- Iori

- Yamato

- Tamaki

- Sogo

- Mitsuki

- Nagi

- Riku

- Tenn

- Gaku

- Ryuunosuke

- Haruka

- Minami

- Touma

- Torao

— Hypnosis Microphone

- Ichiro

- Samatoki

- Jyuto

- Rio

- Ramuda

- Gentaro

- Dice

- Jakurai

- Hifumi

- Doppo

- Sasara

- Kuko

- Jyushi

#hypmic x reader #hypnosis mic x reader #hypmic x gn reader #hypnosis mic x gn reader #hypmic x male reader #hypnosis mic x male reader #love unholyc #love unholyc x reader #love unholyc x male reader #love unholyc x gn reader #idolish7 #idolish7 x reader #idolish7 x gn reader #idolish7 x male reader #idolish seven #idolish seven x reader #idolish seven x male reader #idolish seven x gn reader

[sentinelmania]

Virtual Season Hiatus

Rumors are flying about Jim and Blair, much to their surprise...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/638808

Something lighthearted for the 1. of April   :-)

Check out lady of shalott’s AO3 page, she wrote a lot of Sentinel stories way back. She is also a co-founder of AO3, because she was annoyed, how slash fanfiction was constantly deleted. She wanted a place for the adult slash fans to be safe and happy. A safe space for fans with an unusual hobby.  ;-)

#the sentinel #the sentinel tv show #the sentinel fanfiction #Jim/Blair #JimBlair

[fineillsignup]

From r/NarutoFanfiction: one of worst fic ideas I’ve seen. What if an anarcho-capitalist found themselves in the Naruto? I expect only cutting-edge commentary from a libertarian in Naruto!

#why can't we have nice things #the curse is come upon me cried the lady of shalott #why i hate fanfiction #i hate everything #naruto #ancaps #madlads #submission

[goldilockswrites]

Hello, friends!

♪ I AM AXE.

It’s very nice to meet you and I am happy to see you here. :) On this blog you’ll find posts about my current obsessions, fanfiction and of course, occasional rants. I promise, I only eat people on Fridays, so don’t hesitate texting me. (Unless it’s Friday of course, because then...) For anyone interested, I can speak English and Bulgarian, as well as Turkish (I’m not all that fluent there though). Currently learning German, French and Latin.  Absolutely obsessed with art and literature (especially the Modernism period). My free time is divided between programming and workouts. I love sunflowers, conversations about the weather, colours and sunrises. (Yes, I am in fact the main character in every romantic book out there. Or if you are reading horror the one that gets murdered... Or is secretly the murderer.) 

(Also let’s thank @geocitiesdig​ for our beloved kitten)

♪ REQUESTS!

Requests are now OPEN!   My ask box is open for any questions or ideas you might have. :)

♪ RULES!

Well, these are pretty basic, but:

Absolutely NO hate towards anyone will be tolerated on here. You can keep your negativity inside. (No, I am not sensitive to negative comments, I just don’t want the mood of all the amazing people who check out my account to be ruined by assholes :) All my responses to hate are in the #anons are trying to feed my degradation kink tag so mute that if you don’t want to see them.)

NONE of my works are to be translated, re-posted elsewhere or used, without asking for my permission first. (Of course, even in the case of receiving said permission, credit is necessary. No, I am not trying to be an asshole, I just value my time and effort.)

That’s all. I think. 

♪ MASTERLIST

All the NSFW/smut content is marked with a *. If you notice, I’ve missed said marking somewhere please notify me.  Also pay attention to the TW at the begging of every fanfic, for any possible triggers of yours. 

Add yourself to my taglist here.

Love, Y/N! - Damiano David 

Summary: Y/N and Damiano’s relationship began with a note, scribbled on a lilac piece of paper, left in the boy’s locker, signed with a “Love, Mia”. After a while the singer figures out that Mia is one of his closest friends, but will her feelings end up being  reciprocated?

Tell Me Everything - Damiano David 

Summary: Will Y/N let the stars take full control of her life or will she let go?

Happy Birthday - Damiano David

Summary: Just some morning fluff with Damiano, that’s all.

After You Leave - Damiano David

Summary: A story about an illicit affair and a crazy chase.

Heartbreak Boulevard - Damiano David (the completed series)

Heartbreak Boulevard: Immortal Whispers - Damiano David (part 2 of “Heartbreak Boulevard”)

Canyon Moon - Victoria De Angelis  

Summary: Victoria and the reader have history together, when all of a sudden an unexpected encounter makes their lives clash together. What happens? Do they end up together or do they decide to just keep the beautiful memories?

Ghosts - Victoria De Angelis 

Summary: Victoria meets a girl, but is she real?

The Lady of Shalott - Victoria De Angelis 

Summary: A fluffy park date between Victoria and her artist girlfriend.

Friday Never Happened - Victoria De Angelis 

Summary: A store clerk's life is crazy enough, but how much more wild can it possibly get?

Idyllia - Victoria De Angelis

Summary: Y/N looks for inspiration and that took her on a crazy roller coaster between different countries and many careers. Will she find her muse?  

Happy Birthday! - Victoria De Angelis

Summary: Y/N surprises her girlfriend for her birthday.

Thorns - Victoria De Angelis

Summary: Victoria meets her ex-girlfriend (Ava). The unplanned “date” upsets her and she decides to drink and smoke to cope. When she wakes up in the morning her best friend Y/N (who she also happens to have a crush on) is there to try and reason with her.

Nightmare - Victoria De Angelis

Summary: When Y/N has a terrifying nightmare and wakes up screaming, Victoria is there to comfort her.

Unspoken - Thomas Raggi*

Summary: The reader and Thomas have been best friends for a while. Recently they’ve started catching feelings for each other, but will they be brave enough to face reality and admit their fancy?

The Bloody Chapel - Thomas Raggi 

Summary: When Y/N is asked to be featured in a music video for a popular rock band, she doesn't think she will find love. Yet she finds herself getting close with the guitarist of the group and soon enough she is completely in love with him.

CARPE VINUM - Thomas Raggi*

Summary: Two music students share a room together, but what happens when it’s discovered that one of them has a scandalous career, way outside of music?

A Jar Of Stars - Thomas Raggi  

Summary: Thomas comforts his girlfriend after her eating disorder gets out of hand once again.

Mr. Coffee Man - Thomas Raggi 

Summary:  Y/N is a complicated story of her own, that Thomas is desperately trying to understand. What will happen when the second he gets a hold of her gentle heart he breaks it?

A Hero’s Last Days - Thomas Raggi

Summary: The story of a set-up marriage and the sound of waves.

Happy Birthday - Thomas Raggi

Summary: Just some morning fluff with Thommy, that’s all.

CHARTREUSE MISERY - Thomas Raggi 

Summary: Thomas confesses his love.

Let's just cuddle? - Thomas Raggi

Summary: Thomas and his girlfriend go back to her apartment after a concert. Thommy is being a cute, tired lil bean and Y/N is taking care of him.

The Part Of Me I’ll Always Need - Thomas Raggi

Summary: Y/N’s boyfriend decides to surprise her, by bringing his bandmates to her hometown. The girl suggests they take a walk through the forest and have a picnic. As it turns out after a good hour of wandering it seems they can’t find the spot. Just as they begin doubting Y/N’s knowledge of the trees surrounding here house they find out she’s been planning a surprise all along.

First Choice - Thomas Raggi

Summary: On a day in which Y/N is feeling hurt and upset, Thomas is there to help her through it all and soothe her.

Underneath the singing moon - Thomas Raggi Series Masterlist

Charm bracelets, memories from Cannes and sketches - Ethan Torchio 

Summary: The reader has taken a stroll around the streets of London looking for a book, she’s wanted for a quite a while. However when she wanders into one particular antique store, she finds a lot more than just a tome of risqué poetry.

Pumpkin - Ethan Torchio

Summary: When Y/N decides to make pasta she doesn’t expect for it to end the way it does.

The myth of sunrises and sunsets - Ethan Torchio 

Summary: Ethan and Y/N are half-Gods, that were once in love with each other. But will destiny allow them to be together?

Pathetic - Ethan Torchio 

Summary: Ethan spots the reader flirting with someone else and reminds her who she belongs to.

Soulmates - Ethan Torchio

Summary: Alexandra has an event to celebrate publishing her novel. There she meets someone, she never expected to meet.

Tea - Ethan Torchio (the completed series)

Chill - Maneskin*

Summary:  Artist Y/N and writer Ethan have a relationship consisting of occasional fucking, with a slight twist - they are both vampires. So what happens when Y/N finds her "friend" in the middle of a murder he was hired to commit and when all three of his blood-drinking roommates pile into the apartment.

Happy Valentine’s Day! - Maneskin

Summary: V-day blurbs with the Maneskin members!

Happy Birthday - Harry Styles

Summary: Just some morning fluff with Harry, that’s all.

Thunderstorm - Eddie Munson

Summary: When reader has troubles going to bed, because of her fear of thunderstorms, Eddie swoops right in and saves the day... Well, the night.

Also here is my playlist, filled with all the songs I relax and write to. <3

#masterlist #myblog #maneskin #maneskin fanfiction #maneskin x reader #damiano david #victoria de angelis #thomas raggi #ethan torchio #harry styles #stranger things #eddie munson

[olderthannetfic]

Let’s take a break from specific fandoms to talk about:

Platform Wars

In 2020, we’re all asking what’s next after Tumblr. This is nothing new. “Is thing X killing thing Y?” is a question fandom has been asking since long before Escapade. But these panels offer comfort and insight into our current fear of change.

They’re also fucking hilarious.

So, without further ado, here are some past Escapade panels on the subject of Change Is Scary:

1997 - Effects of the Internet on Fandom & Slash (On the upside: more fans, more conventions, more excitement and a 24-hour party. On the downside: are the connections more shallow? Are the changes made to "fandom as we knew it" change what we enjoy? Do print fans have something to fear? Or is this simple another wave?)

2000 - Less is More: Gluttony & the Decline of Quality in Fanfic

2004 - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Fannish Discourse in the the Age of the Internet By sheer quantity, has the quality of our conversation declined to predominantly static?)

2004 - LiveJournal, Boon or Bane? (Has the advent of LiveJournal brought about the demise of mailing lists? Has it splintered the venue for discussion to the point where it's impossible to have meaningful conversation? Is the LJ phenomenon just one big egotrip? Come join us to discuss these and other questions.)

2007 - Is F’locked the New Black (Is the flocked post the future of fan communication? Are we returning to the dark ages of closed lists, zines under the table, and "have to know someone"? More and more LJ posts are locked, communities are closed, and groups are invitation only. Is there a way to protect our RL selves (and our fannish selves), yet share our fannish commentary and fic? How does this all look to a newbie? Where is our new comfort zone? And how do we keep track of all of this?)

2008 - The Organization for Transformative Works (The Best Thing Since Ever, or the End Of Days? The OTW is an incorporated nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans in multiple ways, including by providing open-source archive software (and an archive), legal assistance, and various efforts to preserve the history of fanworks and fan culture.)

2011 - Delicious - Rumors of Death Greatly Exaggerated? (Delicious, fandom's favorite bookmarking site may be getting shut down (or at least sold out) by The Man. What to do?)

2016 - Fandom Is Fic: from BNF to TL;DR. (From paper through Usenet to Livejournal, text was king. On Tumblr, long text is an imposition—isn’t it? Has fic been dethroned from its place at the top of the heap and fic-writing BNFs along with it? Discuss the dirty little social dynamics of the shifting patterns of fannish value and how we define 'fandom' itself. And what of zines and zine eds?)

2017 - The Kids Are Not the Problem (In recent years, media fandom has grown enormously. It has also scattered, spreading out to new platforms and meeting spaces. You often hear talk about "the kids" vs. "the olds," Tumblr vs. LiveJournal, or the problem of recruiting and retaining new fans. In this panel, let’s try flipping that script. If kids are not the problem, how can we change and grow? What awesome things are other fans doing/trying that people at Escapade should know about? Most importantly, what strategies can we use to leave our fannish bubbles and more fully experience fandom in 2017?)

2019 - The fall of tumblr (Fans have always looked for a good place to build communities on line. Recent events with Tumblr and other platforms like Facebook are restricting our gathering places and even blocking and purging our self-made content. How are people dealing with this? Fandom will survive, but where? Come discuss the problems and options out there.)

And below the cut, a whole bunch more panels on platforms and change:

1991 - Quality Control in Zine Publication/Economics of Fandom (Who is making money in fandom? Should they be? How accountable are fans? Editors? Artists? Have you ever written an LOC?)

1993 -  Supply and Demand in Fandom (Can we have too much of a good thing? How many cons or zine is too many? Are we glutting the market?)

1994 - Changing Nature of Fannish Communication (E-mail, and virtual zines, computer video editing and morphing -- all the new toys at our disposal...)

1996 - Internet—Will it eat your brain? Or take you to the poorhouse? (Nearly everyone has or can get access to a computer and thereby the Internet and the World Wide Web. What's out there for fans? What should you look for? What might you want to watch out for? How can you protect your pocketbook at the same time?)

1997 - Net Fiction & Print Fiction (Is the very existence of net fic changing the characteristics or reducing the quantity of print fic? Are there really stylistic and/or content differences? What makes some shows predominantly produce netfic, while others happily generate both? How do the barriers of access to each affect the fan community?)

1997 - History of Fan Socialization (Was fandom really different in the "old days"? Was there a feeling of community that we're missing now? Or is that just nostalgia clouding our memories? In today's net-connected fandom, what is (or should be) different? And what elements of the past should we try and retain?)

1998 - Professionals: Is the Circuit Dead? (Or has it just moved on-line? Is Pros fandom split on the subject of the internet? Many old circuit writers don't want anything to do with the new on-line library. They have objected to having their stories retyped an sent out, even on private e-mail. Has the paper circuit given way to the on-line library?)

1998 - Netfic Formatting A: How to Print It Prettily (An instructional panel, covering the basics of formatting, macros, and other time-saving tips to get the results you want.)

1998 - Privacy and Community: Pseudonyms, Screen Names and Face-to-Face Meetings (As more and more fandom is found online, how are we adapting to the anonymity that comes with it?)

1998  - Netfic Formatting B: From Word to Web, Making Shapely Net Slash (This panel is for everyone who wants to venture into the world of online slash, but gets nervous when faced with the myriad technical difficulties. Relax, it's easier than you think. We look at stylistic conventions, how to make your work newsgroup and e-mail friendly, and the dreaded subject header alphabet soup. We'll also cover some basic info on how to make a www archive site user friendly.)

1998 - Crossing the Line (An instructional panel on how to get what you want (more stories) in a world that may be unfamiliar to you (the web for print fans, and the insular world of zines for net fans).)

1999 - Does Print Fandom Have a Future? (In the age of instant, free net fic, is print fandom a dinosaur on its way to extinction, or a promise of reasonable quality in a sea of mediocrity? What are the key differences between zines and netfic, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Can the two coexist happily? )

2000 - Promoting Critique on Mailing Lists (How to promote critical discussion and attention to the mechanics of writing on email lists?)

2000 - Changing Power Dynamics in Fandom (With the decline of zine editors and growth of the Net, what's changed, and how does it affect us and our fanfic?)

2001 - Website Workshop 2 by the lady of shalott (Setting up and maintaining a fanfic archive, and in particular how to set up the Automated Archive software used by 852 Prospect and the Due South archives.) [NB: Yes, she went through a bunch of name versions before ‘astolat’.]

2002 - How to run a Fiction Archive (and Maintain Your Sanity)

2002 - Nobody Here But Us Sockpuppets (How multiple personality disorder takes on a whole new meaning in the world of mailing lists.)

2003 - Getting slash onto your PalmPilot for computer free reading

2003 - Recs Databases! Creation and Commiseration (Do you run a recs database and want to commiserate? Do you currently have a recs page and want to become database-driven? Want to talk about the relative merits of using PHP, MySQL, or Access to organize smut?)

2003 - How to Set Up and Maintain Fanfiction Archives (If you're thinking of running an archive, or already do and need some help, this is the panel for you. We'll cover everything from choosing a method of archiving, handling fandom growth, dealing with troublemakers, and just how much time, webspace and money are we talking, anyway? Come pick the archivists' brains.)

2003 - Has Escapade Run Its Course (Scuttlebut says: It's not like it used to be. My old friends don't come any more. My new friends can't get in. It's too big. It's too small. Oxnard, for god's sake? I'm getting sick and tired of the same shit year after year. Is Escapade old and tired? Does it need to be retired?)

2004 - HTML and Website Introduction (if you don't have a website and want to create one. where doyoustart'This will cover creating basic HTML pages and common webhosting options, as well as things to think about as you set iin vour first website.)

2005 - Where Have All The Good Conversations Gone? Rise & Fall of the Escapade Panel (Are people still interested in talking about the characters, plots, and themes of their shows? Has in-depth analysis of our fandoms been abandoned in favor of meta and fannish introspection? The forums for analytical discussion are disappearing as self-censorship and over-moderation increase. Can we change this? Do we want to?)

2005 - The Fannish Wiki (So we have the directorium, the directory of All Things Fannish. We visit it and it's just so cool, and we look for our fandom to see what it says... and it's not there! How to add it? What sort of info belongs there? How does a wiki work?)

2005 - I Was So Much Older Then, I'm Younger Than That Now (We've all heard about or lived through the tumultuous era when fandom moved online. But how has slash fandom, particularly slash fandom, changed since then? Are the changes the result of online fandom, or simply of a change in culture?)

2005 - Fanfic Archives (Setting up and administering fanfic archives: concepts, considerations, techniques.)

2006 - Putting your fic on the web (Basic skills for putting your fic on the web, including building your own very basic website, using LJ as a fic-site building tool, various options for labeling adult content, and using the standard upload interfaces for popular self-submit story archive software.)

2006 - Nifty Technology and the Future of Fandom (Fandom is quick to adapt to change and continues to bring fen together and to create fannish product. Fans have thrived regardless of how they communicate; via the post office, mailing lists, message boards, and Livejournal; they've pushed the frontiers of video and audio technology; and have managed to survive changes in copyright, pornography, and other laws. What are the upcoming trends and shiny new technologies on the horizon and how will fen use them to enhance fandom?)

2006 - Intermediate Webmastering (Designing your website for usability, options for restricting access to your website, making your stories easily accessed by mobile devices, and things to consider so fans can easily locale your site.)

2007 - Free Webtools and How to Take Fandom Advantage (Lots of free tools are available on the web to help the needy fan! Tools to edit pictures, make icons, write stories, share recommendations, share stories, and be fannish are becoming more available and more user friendly. Come chat about tools like del.icio.us, google docs, pxn8 audacity, itunes, the gimp, bittorrent, imeem, youtube and lll other things that you come and tell us about!)

2008 - E-book Readers (Sony PRS-505 or Amazon Kindle what's all the fuss about? Introduction to E-Ink and other mobile devices. What are the pros and cons of various devices? Where do you find e- books and fan fiction, and most importantly how do you get fan fiction formatted so you can read it on your ebook reader?)

2008 - If You Build It, Will They Come? (Roundtable on meta fannish infrastructure building strategies. bethbethbeth can talk about some of the specific challenges OTW is facing in its brave new fan territory, while oulangi can talk about why metafandom has flourished while very similar projects have failed, while we'll both discuss some of the challenges of the established meta/fannish structure of new communities, new fans, new technologies—and most of all, how do you keep the meta-fan conversation moving forward?)

2008 - Livejournal: Should Fans Take Their Business Elsewhere? (A discussion of the pros and cons of fannish communication on the various blogging entities.)

2008 - How to Find and Use Free Stuff on the Web (All kinds of free webapps are available for fic, art, icons, communication, and all sort of other fannish stuff. Come share favorite sites—we can bookmark everything we talk about on del.icio.us in real time!)

2009 - The Organization for Transformative Works (Off the ground and starting to soar! Come here about the latest developments in the OTW's projects and discuss where you'd like to see it go next.)

2010 - Is Somebody Taking Notes On This?: A Discussion of the Role of Fannish History (In honor of Escapade's 20th anniversary, let's talk about recording fannish history. What are the challenges? Is it worth doing? Can it be done in a fair way? What are we afraid of happening if we try? Is Fanlore the right vehicle for the project?)

2010 - The OTW in Its Third Year led by Elke Tanzer and Shoshanna (Okay, sure, the Organization for Transformative Works bought its own goddamn servers and hosted an archive (that hosted Yuletide) and published a journal (with a special issue on Supernatural) and saved a bunch of Geocities sites and testified at the DMCA hearings (supporting the FFF's proposed exemptions for vidders and other remix artists) and made a bunch of lolcats—but what have they done for us lately? [5] What do you want them to do?)

2010 - We Are All Naked (On The Internet Now) led by treewishes (Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are conspiring with Google and your ISP to out your slash pseudonym to your RL friends, and to tell all your slash buddies your real name. Is there any way to stop the wave of facial recognition software or your oh-so-helpful friends who type your birthday into the cloud? Or is all this an inevitable consequence of evolving technology? Come on in and let's talk conspiracy theories!)

2011 - Fanlore: Are BNFs Writing Our History?, led by Sandy H (Fanlore has an official policy of 'plural points of view', but is that really happening? Have you ever looked up a kerfluffle you were involved in, and seen how your side of the battle was portrayed.' And on the other side, are we afraid of conflict, to the point that Fanlore is bland and safe?)

2011 - OTW/AO3 Wish List Conversation, led by Sandy H (Do you feel like you don't know how to get your A03 or OTW wishlist through the bureaucracy? A03 is getting better all the time, but there's a ways to go. Let's brainstorm and turn a list over at the end of the panel.)

2011 - The Reccing Crew (Recommending a fanwork is deeply woven into our culture. Are there new social mores at work when we make public recs? How has the move from letters to mailing lists to Livejournal and Delicious affected reccing? Delicious was conceived as a bookmarking site, but often operates as a recs and comments site. If it goes away, what would replace it?)

2012 - Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinboard, Oh My (and GetGlue, too!) (In the past year, the ongoing fannish diaspora has picked up speed, as more fannish activity has moved away from LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, and onto sites like Tumblr and Twitter. And then there was the Delicious implosion. Now there's GetGlue, a social network specifically for entertainment. Let's talk about navigating these sites—their strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them.)

2012 - The Kids These Days (Ever wanted to tell someone to get offa your lawn? Strangle the next person who said that? Revive a dead fandom? Joined a fandom you were 20 years "too old" (or young!) for? Did you go from Usenet to mailing lists? From zines to livejournal? Are you eyeing Tumblr and Twitter with alarm? Let's talk about weathering changes in fandom with grace—or at least a little humor.)

2013 - Privacy, Secrecy, and the Fourth Wall (The fourth wall between fans and The Powers That Be is shrinking day by day. Are the technologies we're using changing fannish etiquette {from invite-only mailing lists, to friends-locked journals, to all public all the time tumblr)? Should we run for the hills or embrace the change? Discuss!)

2013 - The What With the Where Now?! (Every time you turn around fandom is playing on a new site that has new functionality, new ways of interacting and new lingo. Join us in surveying places like tumblr, twitter and getglue.)

2014 - Tumblr: Missing Missing E (So you've just gotten the hang of Livejournal when all of a sudden fandom has jumped shipped to this new "microblogging" platform called Tumblr. What is "microblogging" anyway, and where do you even start? Join us in this tutorial/discussion on creating an account, deciphering the culture, finding fandom, and making Tumblr work for you.)

2014 - Out Of Step With the World (You have no current fandom. You can't even get Tumblr to load. What do you do when you're feeling disconnected and alienated, but you don't want to leave fandom for good? If this sounds like you, come join us to figure out some strategies for rekindling the love, making new friends, and finding your place.)

2014 - Real Fannish Community (Has AO3 ended the era of real fannish community or has it ushered in a new era of increased connectedness? Is Tumblr better or worse than the old days (and were the old days livejournal? yahoo groups? APA snail mail zine groups?)? I'm hoping for equal parts 'get off my lawn' and 'the future's so bright I gotta wear shades' debate here.)

2015 - Tumblr 102: Into Darkness. You’re here, now what? Here we talk about etiquette and xkit and making the most of your fannish tumblr experience.

2017 - Home on the Web (LJ's Russian overlords have removed HTTPS support and are moving the server activity to Russia; some say a shutdown of US services is on the horizon. Yahoo fails to make money with Tumblr. Dreamwidth is slow, and doesn't have media hosting. Email lists are a hassle. Imzy, a startup, places branding aesthetics over design usability. Where's the next place for fandom, or should we reclaim one or more of the platforms from the past?)

2018 - How to Tumblr (Like it or not (often, mostly not), tumblr is where fandom is most active right now. How do you find anything? How do you have conversations? How do you archive the bits you like best? The good news: the answers are not, "you don't; you don't; you don't." Bad news: Those aren't actually good questions for being fannish on tumblr.)

2019 - Social Network of Our Own (SNO3?) (Between FOSTA/SESTA, Article 13, Facebook's new "don't mention that sex exists" policy, and the Tumblrpocalypse, is it time for our own fannish social site? Or are Dreamwidth and Pillowfort enough?)

#escapade 2020 #fandom history #fandom meta #escapade con

[kelseyfitzherbert]

can we pls have some tangled fic recs?

uh, absolutely! a lot of these are staple fics in the tangled fandom. but most importantly, this is a list of my personal favorites and I dont speak for the rest of the fandom! :)

Hangman’s Noose - this one is by doodlegirll and it really tugs at your heart strings!! its about eugene being sentenced to the gallows and it keeps you on the edge of your seat! All That Really Mattered - this one is by sheep1215 and it also pulls at your heart strings! rapunzel is forced to leave eugene and marry a man who was assigned to her at birth. it tugs at your heart strings! Shalott - this oneshot written by avelera is about how rapunzel does get taken by gothel at the end of the movie and eugene starts a search for her. it gets a little dark, just a fair warning, but has a good ending. 

and, because I have no shame, and because this list is WAY longer, here’s all my smutty recommendations (because, lets face it - who doesn’t love some good new dream smut) (under the cut for you underage kids who better not read these!)

Anything by Airplane! my favorite, and one of the most well-known stories in the  fandom is What You Don’t Know. it’s smutty goodness, mostly from eugene’s perspective, and details their first months in the castle as they adjust to their new lives. after that, you know I have to recommend Fabulist! she has two uncompleted stories that are amazing, even if they aren’t finished: Freudian and Her Everything. she also has some smutty goodness at her livejournal!

oh! another great story is Inked by j. metropolis! it’s a modern time au where eugene is a tattoo artist. it’s smutty, but not really descriptive smut. so, if that’s your kinda thing….there you go.

another smutty oneshot is The Lighthouse by beta gyre, which is about rapunzel selling her magic. its a little dark and possessive, but its dark and different. and if you’re look for good, explicit smut, Read Me, Instead by running thief is good. 

of course, where would I be if I didn’t recommend anything that ForeverTangledUp writes!! and a good, pull at your heart strings and make you cry kinda story is Yes Or No, a complete thread of an old roleplay between runningracingdancingchasing and strawberryfitzsherbert! also, pretty much anything LokoteiBex writes is good! 

last off, miranova23 has a story called Prison is a Marriage that has just begun and is rather heartbreaking and interesting! I can’t wait to see where this one goes! 

and just because I can, i’ll plug my Fanfiction and A03. I suck at posting, so don’t expect much. you can find tumblr “my writing” tag here, where I post a lot more little drabbles that are usually sad in nature and make you cry. sorry not sorry >:D 

so there you have it. I probably missed some, but these are my main fic recommendations! remember, a lot of these are adult in nature and contain sexual themes. if you are under 18, you aren’t supposed to read them. to the rest of you - proceed with caution! read descriptions, because some of them are a little darker, and it may not be what you’re comfortable with! 

#fic recommendation #im exhausted after making this #but I needed to do this at some point!!! #sorry its all smut I have no shame

[gwyndulac]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lancelot du Lac/Gareth, Lancelot/Gareth, Gareth/Lancelot Characters: Lancelot du Lac, Gareth (Arthurian), Elaine of Astolat, Elaine (Arthurian), Galahad, Galahad (Arthurian), Lancelot, Lancelot (King Arthur) Additional Tags: PWP, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Okay maybe a small amount of plot, very small, because the last part was plot-heavy, this is Lance and Gareth getting the vacation they deserve, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, a bit - Freeform, they're still coping with shit, oblique reference to past Bad Things, Kink Negotiation, Masturbation, Power Dynamics, Past Rape, very brief reference, Cuddling, Fluff and Smut, Bath Sex, tags updated as I post Series: Part 3 of Stand By Me

Summary:

Following the dramatic events of Part II of this series, Arthur sends Lancelot and Gareth off to Lancelot's home for a well-deserved rest ("rest"). Lancelot and Gareth take full advantage of two weeks alone to enjoy themselves - and each other - thoroughly.

#arthurian mythology #King Arthur #Lancelot #Lancelot du Lac #elaine of astolat #the lady of shalott #Galahad #ao3 update #fanfic #fanfiction #Stand By Me #update

[shalotttower]

Fragile Things

Title: Fragile Things Fandom: Hunter x Hunter Summary: Sometimes Chrollo really wishes you were more demanding of him. Word count: 600+ Characters: Chrollo x Reader (female) Notes: yandere Chrollo, kidnapped reader, implied murder (not reader).

Sometimes Chrollo really wishes you were more demanding of him. You are polite and soft-spoken, never rude, never angry even when he deserves your anger, and always so very cautious, as if tiptoeing around an alligator pit. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that you are afraid of him. A scaredy little thing. Yet you don’t beg or plead for him to release you. Perhaps you already understand the futility of it, or maybe you're simply wary to do so.

The first time he brings you a gift – an elegant chainlet studded with pink sapphires – you stare at him with something akin to terror. Your hands shake when you reach out and accept the velvet box he places onto your lap.

Chrollo wonders what would you do if he told you how he got it. No, better you don't know. You already shrink and jump every time he moves too fast, no need to add fuel to the fire.

"Thank you," you murmur, just a tiny bit hesitant before setting the box aside.

You wear it for a theatre outing when he asks you to, but apart from that Chrollo doesn't see you touch it again.

It would be easier, if you demanded something from him - clothes, books, movies, food. Anything. You don't. Apart from absolutely necessary things like the skincare products you use or feminine hygiene items you ask him to pick up once a month, you never mention anything else. It bothers him more than it should, this docile acceptance of yours. Makes him want to make you beg and cry and demand.

But you're fragile. He can't push fragile things too hard or they tend to shatter like intricate glass figurines. You can put them back together with a proper amount of glue, but the cracks don't go anywhere.

"Dear," Chrollo touches your cheek and waits until you look up from the book he brought you last week. You glanced at it in the shop, but didn't ask, despite the obvious interest. So he bought it. "Would you like something special for dinner?"

Your eyebrows furrow. "Special... Special like what?"

Ah, that sweet caution. Chrollo finds it endearing somehow, just as much as it's annoying. "Anything you'd like."

Your hands fidget on the pages, bending the corners before you seem to catch yourself doing it. Hastily you straighten the paper, and Chrollo really wants to take your hands into his and kiss each knuckle to soothe them. Maybe he will, later. But first - "Name anything and I'll cook it for you."

A moment passes. And then another. When he almost expects you to tell him that you'll have whatever he chooses - again - you speak.

"Can you bake an apple pie?"

A pie. A pie is not exactly dinner, it's a dessert, but he's wiling to indulge this small request. Still some proper nourishment is needed too.

"And for dinner?" He asks and then takes one of your hands in his after all. It's warm and soft, trembling when he brings it to his lips.

"Butter chicken and rice," you fidget, discreetly trying to tug your hand away and he almost snorts at this. Chrollo doesn't loosen a firm hold of your wrist until each finger is properly kissed. Only then he lets go.

You're looking anywhere but him, cheeks slightly pink and eyes jumping from one point to another - from the floor to the sofa to the window, back to the floor.

"Very well," Chrollo rises from the couch and heads towards the kitchen area. He feels oddly pleased, as if a fresh batch of spoils was just delivered to his doorstep.

Fragile things can bring much joy, it seems, despite their propensity to break.

#hunter x hunter fanfic #hunter x hunter #yandere chrollo lucilfer #yandere chrollo #chrollo lucilfer #yandere #chrollo lucifer x reader #shalott fanfiction

[psychologymajor226]

for Daken fanfictions: Shalott Drabbles by Sand3 is very good too!!

Thank you!!!! 😍😍😍

[shalotttower]

The Devil Is a Gentleman

Title: The Devil Is a Gentleman

Fandom: Hunter x Hunter

Summary: You wake up in the middle of the night with a headache.

Word count: 800+

Characters: Chrollo Lucilfer x Reader

Notes: Yandere Chrollo, captive Reader, my head is murdering me so I wanted some soft Chrollo stuff.

You shift under the covers and for a moment it seems that maybe this state of half sleep, half consciousness is here to stay. Just for a bit, until you slide all the way back into a dream, where the dull throb in your skull doesn't matter. No such luck; angry blurred dots start swarming behind your eyelids and the longer you lie there, the more evident it becomes that sleep isn't coming.

3 AM.

The red numbers from the alarm clock glow way too intensely in the dark. It's quiet. Chrollo's breath tickles your shoulder. No matter the position, he somehow manages to do this every single time - wrap himself around you like it's no tomorrow, with tangled legs and chest pressed to your back. Sometimes it's annoying, sometimes sickly comforting, but not now. There's a faint feeling of nausea in your throat, the whole world is spinning and swaying from side to side even though you're lying still.

Sharing a bed is a recent development. Previously the floor was your choice, but two weeks ago Chrollo simply carried your sleeping body to the mattress. You woke up trapped between him and soft pillows, then the pattern repeated two times, four, six, until it became clear that this arrangement was going to stick.

Carefully, inch by inch, you wiggle out of his embrace. An awful taste coats your tongue, clings to the palate - not something you expected upon waking, but not unusual either.

The kitchen light is bright and unpleasant. It stabs right through your eyes without remorse, making you promptly settle for a dimmer one above the stove. One cabinet after another, the fridge - no pills. Of course, why would Chrollo keep anything like that lying around? You probably have to wake him up for medicine, but it's honestly the least tempting scenario. You don't want to talk to Chrollo, don't want to ask him for help, don't want him to see you in pain or sick.

So you brew a cup of coffee and hope that the nausea plaguing your throat will eventually subside. What you should know by now, however, is that Chrollo doesn't need more than you breathing wrong in order to wake up.

"Dear?"

His voice has a slight raspy edge to it.

You glance over your shoulder and see his figure standing at the door frame. The light from the hallway throws a shadow cutout across the floor, and it's the only time beside after shower you ever see him all mussed hair, loose pants and, of course, no shirt. You suspect its absence has some relation to the attempts at wooing you which range from subtle to not so subtle these days.

You make a non-committal sound.

"It's 3 AM," Chrollo says and steps into the kitchen. "What are you doing up?"

His fingers brush a strand of hair away from your neck, linger there, feather-light and warm. You take a small sip of coffee.

The pulsing in your skull feels like someone decided to tap a small hammer against your brain. Well, he's up, so might as well do something.

"Headache," you say and press your forehead to the cool marble of the counter. It feels nice for a short moment.

Chrollo doesn't respond. He does place a hand on your nape though, thumb drawing circles, massaging the tension there. It's so peculiar. His tenderness leaves marks wherever it goes - light trails on your skin, hands on your forearms - a constant reminder that in this current reality he's everywhere and everything.

'Stop,' you want to say, but instead a quiet "mm" comes out. Maybe you're too tired to muster up any spite. He takes the cup out of your hand and sets it aside with a quiet clink.

"How bad?"

"Bad. Don't get too close," you warn. "I feel like throwing up."

He does anyway, and wraps an arm around your waist. Chrollo knows very well that you'd rather jump into boiling oil than lean on him out of your own volition, maybe that's why he uses every given opportunity to hold you.

"You should have woken me up," his words are muffled, lips pressed against your temple. Chrollo smells of shampoo, sheets and himself. "I'll get you something from the pharmacy later, but for now you should try and sleep, dear."

Then you're up in the air, carried out of the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" you frown, fingers gripping the muscles of his arm.

He hums something akin to a simple melody, the devil. "Taking you back to bed, where you can keep being miserable with more comfort."

This time you don't protest; the pillow has cooled down, and as soon as you lower your head on top of it, it feels like bliss. The bathroom door opens and closes, followed by quiet splashes of water. There's a pause before the mattress dips on your right.

Cold cloth covers your forehead.

"You should have woken me up," he repeats. "Next time do it, dear."

"Mm," is all you manage, when the bedside lamp clicks off, and then there're covers lifting, fingers rubbing your temples and a low hum somewhere above you.

#shalott fanfiction #yandere #hunter x hunter #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucifer x reader #hunter x hunter fanfic #yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer

[shalotttower]

A Natural Benefit

Title: A Natural Benefit

Fandom: Death Note

Characters: L Lawliet x Reader (female)

Summary: L wants to try something new, you want to be left alone. So an offer is on the table, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement after all.

Word count: 2100+

Notes: yandere!L, kidnapped Reader, dub-con kissing, manipulation, captivity, L and Reader were together at Wammy's House

"Would you indulge me?"

Your eyes dart up from the page to his face. L looks at you like he always does ─ an intent yet oddly distant stare that used to make goosebumps appear on your arms. Nowadays you're somewhat re-accustomed to his mannerisms. He doesn't blink much, tends to stand behind your back whenever possible, likes to play with his food and enjoys invading your personal space far too much to be deemed socially acceptable.

His habits are strange but harmless.

"No," you say, just to be contrary.

L is fond of making things sound simple, and then — snap! — the trap is shut, and you find yourself doing a completely different activity than initially expected.

"I want to kiss you."

"N-" You blink and lower your book down, not bothering to mark it. "What?"

"Kissing is an act of physical intimacy between individuals," he says like it's an obvious fact and you're merely slow on the uptake. L's expression doesn't change, neutral despite this being anything but a normal conversation starter even by your standards ─ admittedly low.

"Thank you for enlightening me about the definition," you lean back against the cushions, "still no."

"Why not?" He asks after a momentary pause.

"Because I don't want to."

A simple answer to a weird request. You try to resume reading, but there're other things currently occupying your brain ─ namely the attempts to understand what prompted such inquiry.

L never asked for physical contact before; platonic or otherwise. Sure he tried to entice you into spending time with him through bargain and manipulation, and you pretended to be oblivious enough to earn an Oscar for your acting skills. However, there never was any talk of kissing involved. Any kind of touching, actually.

He hums. "Would you like me to explain my reasons?"

Sometimes you think that the sole cause of L's existence is just so he could annoy people for kicks. His questions are always peculiar, and you've learned that every single one of them is designed to lead towards some specific conclusion, preferably the one he wants. You have a feeling that if you say 'yes', L will proceed to list a hundred points about why kissing is good. And then another hundred why kissing him specifically is beneficial.

"No."

He looks at you. You look at him and raise the book higher.

"Indulging me would benefit both of us," L says, undeterred. "You're very curious by nature and I find it quite fascinating that you're able to deny your curiosity in this particular case."

Has a more obvious bait ever existed anywhere in human history? Probably not, and you'll bet your entire life savings on it too.

"I'm not curious," you lie, "now leave me alone. I want to read."

He leans forward. "You haven't focused on the book since I asked my question."

Smartass. You purse your lips and pretend that the characters are suddenly so interesting, that it's hard to look away from the intricacies of the plot unfolding inside this fictional world. At least things there make sense; no need to figure out the hidden meanings behind other people's words, because they are mostly transparent when there's a whole paragraph dedicated to the protagonist's feelings.

He reminds you of those spider-like creatures from documentaries ─ their actions seem random at first glance, yet upon further scrutiny prove to be anything but. Instead, they're meticulously crafted and executed to obtain maximum results.

L studies you for a little while longer, and eventually pads towards the kitchenette. The kettle whistles soon after as he makes himself tea; mint flavored, judging by the aroma wafting through the air.

______________________________________________________

You should have known that he won't give up ─ L is just as persistent as you are stubborn. If anything, you've set a challenge before him, and he tends to fixate on those until they are solved: a fact well-known and accepted among those who ever had a (dis)pleasure of interacting with him.

He doesn't outright ask you again, not the next day or the one after that. No. Accidentally, the only type of movies you're able to watch now are rom-coms or dramas with lots of kissing scenes sprinkled here and there between the banter bordering on cringe; sweet confessions spoken over candlelit dinners; passionate declarations whispered during sunsets... Clichés, amore, and kisses galore.

"I'm not sure this is the best movie for the evening," you say, as the screen flickers with images of two leads gazing into each other's eyes like they found the answers to every single question asked.

"The reviews are quite positive," L replies, munching on caramel popcorn.

"Reviews can be faked. And the trailer was misleading. I thought it was going to be an action movie."

"It is an action movie. The genres are listed right there," he points at the screen, and the words 'romance and action' stare back at you.

You frown and settle deeper into the couch cushions. It's uncomfortable ─ watching romantic scenes with L in the same room. His presence doesn't feel oppressive or demanding, yet you can't shake off the squirmy, twisty feeling. The kind when you enter an elevator with someone else and get slightly agitated for no reason. And so you try to slow down your breathing, but it only makes things worse. Your heart beats faster, palms start sweating and the hypothetical elevator stranger inevitably thinks that you're weird.

L isn't an elevator stranger. He's the owner of the elevator, and the entire building, and the city.

"He's going to die in the next ten minutes," you mutter.

"No, he won't."

"Yes, he will."

L hums. "Want a bet?"

Your eyes narrow.

"If he survives past the fifteen minute mark," L says slowly, "you indulge me."

"And if he doesn't?"

"I leave you alone for two days."

There's no hesitation on his side. None whatsoever, which proves suspicious immediately ─ L never offers something unless certain about the outcome beforehand, whether by logical deduction or calculated gamble. Probability factors run inside his brain instead of blood cells and grey matter, calculating risk vs return ratio quicker than any computer ever could.

You glance at the screen. It's a simple plot. There were a twist or two earlier, sure, but overall nothing extraordinary that would require hours upon hours of critical thinking to unravel.

A man, a woman. A handsome villain who wants them dead, for various reasons. They run and fight, shoot guns, dodge punches, and kiss between those because apparently there's time for romance even when a life is on the line.

It's a very simple plot; and two days are a lot to pretend that L doesn't exist. That you got rich enough to buy this kind of apartment.

"The speakers?"

"Switched off."

"The cameras?"

"Those will stay."

Of course, they will. You wouldn't expect anything less ─ privacy issues are non-existent here in more ways than one.

L isn't always a presence. Sometimes he leaves and you're alone with nothing but books and TV to pass time, but two days sound wonderful regardless. There's something in empty spaces that's enticing, even if they're temporary. L, for all his peculiarities, isn't too bad of a company. He's quiet, and often busy with his own matters. But he also has this way of looking at you that is unnerving. Like you're interesting. Or important. Or simply fascinating.

Sometimes he wants to talk, he wants to listen, he wants to ask questions and give answers until everything blurs into an amalgamation of words. It's exhausting.

Two days sound good. His hand is dry and slender. You grasp it and shake it once.

"I'll start the timer now," L says after your hands separate.

______________________________________________________

Twelve minutes.

Three more and he's dead.

You wish that he'd just kick the bucket already, so you could spend the next forty eight hours in pure, undiluted bliss.

_______________________________________________________

The male lead dies after seventeen minutes.

When the credits roll over, the apartment is silent except for the soft buzzing of electronics. You look at the screen, stubbornly, because you don't want to look at him, the owner of the elevator, and the building, and the city.

"It was close," he comments, as if trying to comfort you, which makes it even more of a sore spot.

That’s what L thrives on ─ technicalities, loopholes, small and seemingly insignificant details which are easily overlooked, yet make a great difference. You're not sure if you're annoyed, or disappointed. And what’s more important ─ at whom.

You have known for years that L tends to get his way eventually whenever there's something specific caught up in that head of his; a fixation which refuses to leave until satisfied, and sometimes even after. Snap. You can get up and head out of the living room, you know you can. Will you though is another question entirely.

L isn't a typical captor ─ he doesn't demand or force you into things. He simply presents a possibility and waits. Not aggressive or domineering, not sadistic. But oh he is a PhD of holding a grudge. Leaving now probably means waking up tomorrow and finding that every single disk has vanished without a trace, along with the bookshelves being switched for some obscure scientific texts on chemistry, physics and other things that require an advanced degree to fully understand.

Because someone decided that you don’t deserve entertainment anymore. Because someone is petty enough to deprive you of basic mental stimuli, and is stubborn enough to hold onto that decision even when reasoned with. Unsuccessfully.

It's a talent really, this particular brand of making your life miserable in many small ways, so they accumulate into something greater over time until you feel like the walls are closing in slowly but surely.

You can't back out, even though no one openly stops you from doing so. And L knows that. And he knows that you know. His lips twitch and curl upward before flattening again into neutral territory.

There's a theory that if you pull a band-aid fast enough, it won't hurt as much. The credibility behind it is questionable.

You exhale and meet L's gaze ─ his posture hasn't changed from the beginning to the end of the film, knees tucked to his chest, eyes two dark pools that stare without blinking. His fingers drum a steady rhythm, and that's probably the only sign that gives it away.

Anticipation.

"Fine," you say finally.

His mouth opens before closing back again. L doesn't move a bit.

He wants you to do it, you realize. Wants you to initiate instead of just allowing it. What an ass.

You squish his cheeks between your palms until his lips pucker outwards. L makes a soft noise of surprise but doesn't try to fight back.

Black lashes cast a shadow across his skin. There's no perfume or cologne, no distinct smell ─ he uses plain soap and shampoo which don't have a discernible aroma.

"I believe I was promised an indulgence," L says, voice muffled a bit by your hands on his face.

He looks like a fish this way. A silly, ridiculous image that would make you snort if not for the situation at hand.

Band-aids and ripping them off.

You sigh, lean forward, and press your mouth to his.

He tastes like caramel popcorn.

Mint tea.

Indulgence.

The angle is awkward, and L doesn't move an inch to accommodate the position. He stays still like a block of solid rock, not a single muscle twitches, and doesn't even attempt to reciprocate. You have half a mind to think that maybe he's mocking you, but then his fingers lightly curl on the fabric of his jeans. L's eyelids flutter half-closed when your noses bump, then open again right after. Another oddity added to the pile.

It lasts no longer than ten seconds before you pull away. L blinks. Touches his lower lip with the tip of a finger and rubs it like searching for traces left by the contact.

"You were promised an indulgence," you remind him, trying to sound calm, collected, but your ears and neck feel hot, "not a make-out session."

Technicalities and loopholes.

L has that look you can't quite pinpoint yet know far too well. You've seen it many times before. When he thinks about something but keeps it to himself for now.

"You look more lively," he remarks eventually. "Healthy complexion suits you."

You don't need to hear what he says next, because the words already ring through your head.

"I told you it would benefit us both."

#shalott fanfiction #shalott imagine #yandere #death note #yandere l lawliet #yandere l lawliet x reader #yandere l x reader

[shalotttower]

Permanence

Title: Permanence Fandom: Hunter x Hunter Summary: A simple evening at an art gallery turns into a daring decision to slip away from Chrollo's grasp. Word count: 2400+ Characters: Chrollo Lucilfer x Reader Notes: yandere, kidnapped reader, exploration of power dynamics, power imbalance.

Tonight you spend in the shower longer than you normally do. There're no tears, no, just exhaustion, both mental and physical that seems to be seeping into your bones deeper than ever. Waiting is the worst part. You don't know whether there will be any kind of consequences after the stunt you've pulled. You don't know if the extent of Chrollo's composure has stretched to anger - and that's after you've tried so hard to keep yourself from pushing him - or it's just annoyance. Which is not ideal, but workable.

It was supposed to be a nice, as much as it can be, evening. Just a walk through the gallery, a little bit of art admiration here, a little bit of talking there, maybe getting some dinner.

After the shower, you sit on the closed toilet lid, naked, and stare at the mirror that's still fogged from the steam. You don't like looking yourself in the eye lately, or rather what you see there. Fear doesn't become you. Neither does hopelessness. Your reflection seems foreign, unrecognizable at times when it should be familiar and safe, a thing you grew up with and are supposed to know by heart.

***

"I want to leave," you whispered when Chrollo put his arm around your waist. Yet another painting by an unknown artist; names that didn't ring a bell and suffering deities depicted on canvas twirled in an odd dance.

He didn't react immediately, so you repeated yourself. Something hinted that you should keep quiet and admire in silence, but something else entirely urged you to push. Perhaps it was too hot. Perhaps too many people were surrounding you and Chrollo's touch felt stifling rather than reassuring.

"Can we get out of here?"

He looked down at you, expression calm, and you could almost call it considering. The hand on your hipbone tightened just a notch, as if making sure you won't slip away.

"Not yet, dear. We haven't seen everything."

A sigh died somewhere in your chest before it got the chance to escape your lungs. "We've been here for over an hour," you managed. And while art usually caused pleasant emotions in you, right now it did nothing of sorts. People brushed past, paying little mind to the couple blocking one of the main hallways. You tried to not fidget under Chrollo's gaze.

Maybe he would've granted your request - who knows? Chrollo wasn't the type to deny you anything reasonable, not after almost four months of compliance - if a man had not appeared right next to you like a ghost out of thin air. You remembered him from a fine dinner, one of many. The memory was hazy, you had a glass of martini at Chrollo's indulgence which proved to be a bit stronger than expected. But the feeling, that sinking sensation of unease you got back then from the man's presence remained. As well as the smell of his cologne, leathery; it lingered behind him even after he left the table.

One look of his dark eyes was enough to make your stomach clench.

And then they started talking.

When you were a child you hated shopping with your mother. Groceries or clothing - no matter. It was not the process itself, but rather occasional encounters with other adults she knew. The chit-chats about everything and nothing could last forever, and you stood there, tugging on her hand to remind about your existence. Can we go? Can we go home, are you finished?

You weren't a child anymore, yet the impression of your own invisibility and being a silent accessory to Chrollo, although he occasionally looked down at you, brought those memories back.

The gallery room was too small. There were too many people.

The nape of your neck tingled.

You wrung your hand out of Chrollo's hold faster than any reasonable thought could stop you. He blinked in surprise, and that was the only time in four months you saw him taken aback for a small particle of a second. Before having a chance to see his composure settle back or properly regret your actions, you slipped through bodies like a fish. Stupid heels of elegant shoes with ankle straps and pointed toe tips hindered your every step. Your heartbeat hammered in your ears as if someone hit them with blunt force repeatedly. The dreadful dress he chose rustled against your legs, black velvet fabric clinging to your thighs when you tried to maneuver between visitors. You wanted to get out. Just to have some air. Just to take a breath.

"Dear," Chrollo's voice reached you from behind, but you didn't slow down. You passed paintings one by one. Saints screaming at your hasty steps and angry expressions seemed to judge you. "Dear." Louder now. People were throwing curious glances at you both.

You did not spot a waiter who stopped abruptly before you with a tray of wine glasses in time.

It was really supposed to be a nice evening.

***

You towel dry your hair until it feels acceptable enough and pull the pajama on, a silky set Chrollo gifted (replaced yours with). It is more comfortable than anything you've ever owned, but still too short on your frame and reveals way too much skin for your liking. He won't let you sleep not in the bed tonight, this much is obvious. The makeshift mattress you've made on the floor is nowhere to be seen just like you expected.

So be it.

Quietly you slip under the covers and turn on your side, facing the window. The sheets smell fresh and clean and there's even a hint of lavender underneath if you focus hard, but right now all you can focus on is getting through this night. Sleep comes quick. Or so you think because when Chrollo lies down next to you, you jerk awake. His body radiates warmth, not close enough to touch just yet, but the knowledge that it'll change soon causes a surge of nausea within you.

He shifts with a faint rustling of silk sheets. An arm comes to drape around your middle like a shackle; you move closer to the bed edge, curling yourself into a ball. It almost seems like you might fall off, and perhaps you will, really, your leg is already hanging in part.

A delicate kiss is placed at the top of your spine, bare where the shirt doesn't reach your shoulder blades. Another one follows on your vertebrae and then he pulls you flush against him. Your heartbeat speeds up and palms become cold; his - is slow and steady, like always.

"You're going to fall off," he whispers.

"Fine by me." You whisper too for some reason, despite there being nobody else to hear you.

There's a soft exhale from behind and his hand begins to rub circles on your tense stomach, lazy motions that go up to your rib cage and down to the belly button. Chrollo's breath tickles your nape and you know that if it wasn't for four months of constant touches, caresses and brushes, you would've pushed him away. Careful conditioning - that's what it is, you're not stupid. Your body knows him, his scent, his hands and voice now, even though your mind screams at them to keep their distance.

He hums when you shudder.

"Cold?" Chrollo asks. One of his fingers traces the hem of your shorts. Your hand comes over it and halts it midway.

"Please stop," you say, and it's the first time since this all started your voice is actually cracking, like an eggshell. Fragile at the edges.

He doesn't say anything but the motion ceases. Slowly, his hand retreats to come rest on your hipbone where it grants you a gentle squeeze.

Chrollo kisses the back of your head.

"Sleep," he tells you.

Easier said than done.

***

The new penthouse looks pretty much like any other you've stayed in – large bed and luxurious decor. It even has a grand piano standing in one of the corners which you have no idea how to play. Chrollo releases your hand and heads into the bathroom while you wander around, poking at things just for the sake of having something to do. A glass figurine of a little ballerina catches your attention. She seems frozen in her sorrowful stance, looking downwards to the ground beneath her tiny pointe shoes. You turn it this way and that, watching light catch on the shiny surface.

The shower starts running.

It's been only three days after the incident in the gallery and Chrollo hasn't commented upon it in the slightest. Maybe he's simply biding his time, you wouldn't be surprised.

Eventually you settle down onto the soft mattress and grab the first random book from the side table. Reading helps. Immersing yourself into fiction distracts from reality.

You thumb through the pages and find out that it's some sort of a romance novel, a period one judging by the writing style. Some duke-like character seems to be enamored with one of his maids but can't do anything about it because of social stigmas. The woman herself is poor as a church mouse yet beautiful beyond words - a bit cliché if you're honest, still there's nothing wrong with it per se, everyone can enjoy their guilty pleasures.

Chrollo emerges from the bathroom after some time, drying his hair with a towel. He moves about the room: unpacking your luggage, hanging up clothes in the closet, etc. Your eyes follow him without meaning to. There are times like this when Chrollo almost feels like a normal person. What he is doing seems domestic enough to trick your brain into short periods of blissful ignorance. Then your gaze falls onto the cross tattoo on his forehead and the illusion breaks like a soap bubble on a sunny day.

You turn another page and read half a paragraph before realizing you've absorbed absolutely nothing.

"What are you reading?" Chrollo sits by your side after he's finished unpacking. His voice is light, almost casual. Almost playful. It puts you on edge.

"Something I found." You close the book and show him the cover. "It was next to the bed."

He leans forward, glancing at the words written on the page. When Chrollo speaks, there's amusement in his tone. "Interesting."

Interesting. What's that supposed to mean? You keep your eyes trained on the text, but try as you might, the words seem meaningless, jumbled. Chrollo rests his hand on your calf. He keeps it there for a few moments before sliding it upward, slowly, toward your knee. You give him a look. "What are you doing?"

"Getting your attention," he responds with the simplicity of someone stating the weather outside.

"You have it. What is it?" It's that type of a stare he gives you that had almost transformed into his personal form of art. One that takes everything in without any effort – from your eyebrows furrowed in suspicion to the corners of your mouth turned downward into a frown.

"You know," Chrollo says thoughtfully. "I've been thinking."

Isn't he always?

He squeezes your leg under your knee, where skin is more sensitive and then you're cornered - right between him and the headboard.

"Your behavior in the gallery, dear. It was rather unexpected," he tells you and the sinking feeling turns into full blown nausea in your throat.

You knew it. Knew that he was going to get back to this, sooner or later. Fuck. "You've been behaving so well these past months and I wonder what prompted this."

Chrollo tilts his head.

"I'm sorry." You reply and shift. "I got anxious."

"Go on," he says when you don't elaborate, not sounding angry or upset, just curious. The warm thumb traces patterns on your knee cap - you hate how Chrollo does this, makes you talk when he could leave you alone and drop the subject.

You have to continue now.

"New spaces isn't really my thing, and yesterday I felt... Pressured. It wasn't intentional, I simply," you shrug your shoulders, "got overwhelmed and acted on impulse. I shouldn't have."

Your voice doesn't crack once and you're proud over that.

"Hm." Chrollo hums but it's neither approving nor disapproving, more like pondering. He moves closer so your knees bump against each other. This is dangerous territory – him being close while questioning you, you know better than to pull back now.

"You're sorry," he says, a strand of damp hair falls onto his forehead. "Are you sorry because you understand what you did wrong," each word is precise as if to drill into your head. "Or are you apologizing because you're afraid of the consequences?"

You stare at his shirt instead of his face. The top three buttons are undone, revealing a patch of pale skin. You want to button them up - knowing him, it's hardly a coincidence.

"Both, I think." You opt for honesty, because lying to Chrollo would most likely end with him seeing right through it, regardless of your efforts.

His frame effectively blocks out everything else from view: up close like this he's handsome, there's no denying it. Dark eyes framed by long eyelashes and soft lips and high cheekbones that make him look like a model out of a fashion magazine. And yet there's also coldness underneath it all, hidden behind those charming smiles and polite remarks. It sometimes gives you an uncanny impression: Chrollo seems frozen, suspended in that state of perpetual calmness, like time stopped ticking inside of his chest.

"What now?" You ask, heart thrumming somewhere deep near the bottom of your rib cage. The book lays forgotten next to you, pages bent after it slipped from your grasp and hit the mattress.

Chrollo cups your cheek with one hand, "Now we continue the evening."

Continue?

The confusion must show on your face because he chuckles. "You apologized," it feels patronizing but you try to ignore it for the sake of getting over with whatever this is. "And admitted your faults. I can overlook a single instance of defiance–especially since you explained yourself so well."

Relief washes over you, making your shoulders sag. You take the book, careful not to let your fingers brush, he seems to like skin on skin contact.

"I expect better behavior next time, dear."

"I'll try," You mutter under your breath.

His hand slips away from your thigh and moves to grab the remote - news, of course, - Chrollo watches news almost religiously every night before going to sleep. "I appreciate when you behave," he adds smoothly. "It makes everything much easier for both of us."

He settles his head on your lap, and it feels heavy, and his damp hair tickles, but you don't dare push him off.

#hunter x hunter #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucifer x reader #yandere #yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #shalott fanfiction #hunter x hunter fanfic

[shalotttower]

Fractalize (part 2)

Title: Fractalize Fandom: Hunter x Hunter Summary: "You do this sometimes," he continues, tugging a bit harder. "When I ask a question and it takes you longer to respond. When we watch a movie, and I'm sure you stopped following at least twenty minutes ago." Word count: 2100+ Characters: Chrollo x Reader (female) Notes: yandere Chrollo, kidnapped, depressed and miserable Reader, Reader is dissociating, morbid pondering, morbid imagery, psychological manipulation, intrusive thoughts, non-con touching, non-con kiss. I start thinking that sad is probably my favourite genre to write at this point. Part 1 Part 3 is in question. I have some drafts, but not sure if it'll become anything.

Fractalize - making things into smaller copies of themselves over and over again.

Your mother always smelled of fresh linen and something powdery, like her face cream which you tried once in secret. The fragrance held you mesmerized, and when the jar accidentally dropped from your hand, shattering into pieces, it lingered everywhere: on the bathroom tiles, in the cracks and narrow space under the sink. Her silent disappointment was so overpowering that you cleaned the mess three times.

That scent clung to her knitting needles too when she sat with yarn on her lap. It made way into your mind place, waiting for the most inappropriate of moments to resurface: she would show you how to knit, loop after loop, and eventually you were able to create your own tiny scarf.

Hideous, that's what it was.

But also the first thing you ever knitted, so you cherished it, not caring for the holes and loose threads. She called it pretty, mothers do lie like that.

"I was thinking," Chrollo begins. Clean plates are stacked next to a dish rack, ready to be dried. You help him sometimes with this mundane chore out of boredom or a faint allusion to the life you had.

"Mm."

When you stand so close, his shoulder occasionally touches yours, and a lump forms in your throat, a very unimportant physical aspect of your being that you've stopped paying attention to long ago. You swallow it away, like every single morning before putting on the same shirt for the eighth day in a row.

Dry and repeat.

"Is there anything specific you'd like to do today?"

You pick up another plate. How odd. A few months ago this question would've made you ecstatic. Not that there was a real chance to sway Chrollo's plans, but it was a gesture, the pretence that your input mattered, and you took everything from it, until it started tasting stale. A shy kind of feeling, misplaced and fragile, would bloom in your chest, and prompt you say something soft, silly and naive: 'maybe we can have a picnic?', 'I'd like a carrot cake', 'yes, I want to watch that period drama for the hundredth time.'

And he would agree sometimes. Or suggest his alternative instead, which turned out more often than not to be less favorable, but you accepted it because what else was there? In-between the walls decorated with expensive paintings, books you already read three times, between Chrollo who listened intently to every word and a faint buzz of some high-end place, you chose to take whatever you could.

It doesn't bother you anymore, going or not going. Doing nothing or doing something. Being with him in a room or being alone, even though the last one is more compelling. The initial excitement that came with having small choices has passed. You think sometimes that if you took a knitting needle and sunk it deep into your chest, the surface around it would start crumbling and bare a hollow cavity with just ribs and dusty spaces.

Chrollo's suggestions are very thought out. Aimed to convince you that this arrangement isn't that bad after all, but also aimed to bring him something from it, be it sitting uncomfortably close to you on a sofa or holding your hand the entire walk. His presence is stifling in more ways than one, and you've been choking, choking, choking on it for so long, that finally all those cracks running across your insides started to feel liberating.

"No," you say. "Not really. Anything you want is fine."

Chrollo's been asking this more often lately. What you want to eat and what you want to do. Even whether you want to go out sometimes (with him, of course, never alone). Perhaps he's trying to figure any new preference you might have. Or a part of him can sense this deterioration that's slow to set in, but once it does - it stays.

"Dear," there's a tone in his voice. It's not worry per se. Chrollo doesn't worry for you, he worries for that little world of his, made of forced interactions, silk bed sheets and fake domesticity, which you're a part of, an intricate cog he can keep closely tucked to his side. Sheltered, protected, cared for - these words don't fit. So you use other instead, like imprisoned, kept, thing. He likes to have them, from trinkets he steals to human beings - you. Maybe it comes from years of owning nothing at all, having nothing at all, and now the allure of having much and more is like second skin.

You've heard stories about children abandoned to their own devices. Those who were left to roam the streets, scavenge through trash and fight other kids for a half-eaten sandwich or a can of beans. You wonder if he was like that, with messy hair, bony limbs and a desperate need to own something that no one could take.

Bit by bit you slip.

That tone means he's sensing it already, that bit by bit you're trying to leave him behind.

Chrollo always catches up with things easily. From the way he grips your arms, you wonder if that's what he did just now, caught up.

"Yes?"

The dishes are all done, clean and sparkling. The sink shines too, almost mocking you with its perfectness - there's nothing to do anymore. Your mind space of fake wooden floors and wide windows is waiting to be occupied, but it would feel wrong to retreat there so soon. Chrollo will ask questions, and if you're not able to keep up, he'll notice too. He slides both palms down your skin, squeezing a tad harder at the elbows; and so you stare into the sink.

His hands aren't soft at all. They're a little dry from soap, callused around fingertips. How effortless it would be for him to break your bones, one by one, starting from the wrist, but that won't happen; no, all that comes from him is words whispered in your ear, caresses and cruelty wrapped in kindness - it sounds poetic when phrased this way.

Your reflection stares back from the stainless metal. She doesn't look bad. Chrollo takes good care of her, makes sure she eats balanced meals and drinks enough water. She looks alright, with shiny hair and healthy nails.

The eyes is what doesn't match this picture of okay-ness. Not empty. Not vacant. Just frozen in time and very, very still.

Chrollo presses closer until his chest is touching her shoulder blades. You wonder if he considers it a victory, this silent compliance. It's not acceptance really, because that should be accompanied by a sense of peace or fulfillment and none of the two are currently present. It's not even resignation - that requires energy to acknowledge defeat.

If neither of those, what is it then?

"You've been awfully quiet today."

A drop of water falls from the tap and slides down the drain.

"The whole week in fact," his thumb strokes her stomach through the fabric. Slow circles, up and down. Chrollo enjoys physical closeness so much that it should be surprising for someone like him - reserved, calm and collected - to thrive on such things, but you suppose when it comes to her there's an exception.

"Not that I mind it, but if something's bothering you, you know that I'm always ready to listen."

There is something bothering you actually. Many things. You want your cat back. You want him gone, away, to see your mother again and bake with her. Eat fresh pastries while listening to old songs on the radio and talk about silly things or whatever she liked to ponder over before you were swept off your feet like in those old fairy tales. You want your phone and accounts unlocked so you could message friends. You miss your grandmother with her apron, the way she laughed at corny jokes and told stories about her youth. You want many things that Chrollo would never agree on - you're well aware of that, that's why you keep them safely tucked away and rotting.

You also want him to stop pressing against your back, and this is far easier to achieve. Slowly you untuck yourself from between his body and the counter, then turn around. He watches your face calmly like always, with this unblinking gaze full of strange fixation; there are small lines in the corners of his eyes, barely noticeable ones. You count them - six in total, three for each eye.

Then you blink.

"I don't think there is anything."

"Really," Chrollo hums, playing with the hem of your shirt, and you wonder if he knows something you're not aware of him knowing. "You've spoken less than ten sentences in two days, yet there's nothing bothering you. I must say I don't believe that."

So this is how it's going to start. This is how the conversation begins, and it'll flow from here until Chrollo finds what he's searching for.

"I've been paying close attention."

You don't doubt it.

"And what did you notice?"

"Nothing pleasant," his finger finds a loose thread and wraps it around. The pull is light, as if testing whether it'll prompt you to move closer into his space. "Quite concerning things actually."

You don't budge an inch.

"You do this sometimes," he continues. "When I ask a question and it takes you longer to respond. When we watch a movie, and I'm sure you stopped following at least twenty minutes ago. Or when you go over the same page until it's clear that I'm looking."

Chrollo's collarbone is a crisp line with a faint old scar; your attention skims over it to the sharp edges of his jaw. No smile today.

"And I wondered where you have been going."

He tugs a bit harder and the thread snaps.

It should've stunned you how fast everything crumbled - the imaginary wooden floors, Miss Whiskerton on your lap and the lizard, the wide windows - but no, it's surprisingly anti-climactic. Nothing breaks dramatically, just splits the middle, leaving you with cold kitchen tiles underneath your bare feet. You thought about this scenario - Chrollo cornering you, many times, and the words you would choose when he did, yet they fail to manifest and nothing fills the silence except a mute sensation of acknowledgement which settles over your head and shoulders. Your knees don't buckle. Your breath doesn't hitch, there is no shivering, and perhaps that's the most terrifying reaction of all.

So what, you think. And it's such a simple thought, plain and ordinary, so what.

Chrollo has his ways, but you have yours; they are slow and small, and squeeze you very tight. You can't comprehend this new expression on his face, haven't seen it before.

"My dear," he says in a quiet voice, so unlike his usual smooth, charming tone. "Broken thoughts and forlorn dreams can't fix what you want them to."

He taps your forehead, as if to engrave those words into the soft tissue of your brain. They slip away though, like running water.

"Wherever you choose to wander, there's not a single spot where I'm not right behind. Delusions don't suit you and it's simply sad to watch."

The kiss comes without warning; Chrollo doesn't bother to say anything else, just cups your face. It's warm and deep, a full-mouthed kiss that tastes faintly of tea you two drank during breakfast.

It's rot, you realize with a ten minute delay; and this slack mouth he's caressing isn't yours. There's a plant behind his shoulder, some small cactus with white needles sitting on a windowsill. The sunlight creates patterns on the glass, soft yellow circles and lines. They shift every passing second.

He's going to do this now, isn't he. Kiss you when you slip too deep as a way to break the pattern and remind that this is where you're supposed to be - with him. In the kitchen wearing a thin shirt above the knee, with cracks that spread across your insides, seeking for every small space they can fill. You'll grow older by his side, he'll bring you material pleasures to compensate for the lack of mental ones - books, clothes, jewelry, a pet if you decide to ask (you won't). Chrollo is going to kiss you often until age creeps onto your faces, and you'll watch each other turn old together.

The plant on the windowsill looks so dry.

"Dear."

He pulls back a few inches. You meet his eyes.

"Mm?"

You will let the rot dig under your nails and wait for it to eat away until his hands eventually become empty; rot is something to grab onto. It's slow to set, but spreads fast once does and never runs out of supply.

#hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter fanfic #yandere #yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo lucifer x reader #shalott fanfiction