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kjmsupremacist · 3 years

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The Defeat of Creation (Taeyong/Reader)

Taeyong is a musician AI robot, built to entertain, built to feel nothing, built to never die. Reader is his stylist, and over time he finds himself attached to them. He can’t tell anybody, though—robots whose emotional centers malfunction are immediately retired. (for @pastelsicheng emmy’s AI Project collab—click the link to read more about each model!)

“The old man said, ‘You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.” ― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“JUDAS: Why... didn’t you make me good enough... so that you could’ve loved me?” ― Last Days of Judas Iscariot, by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Characters: Taeyong, Reader, the rest of nct intermittently

Genre: Androids & Robots, Sci-Fi, Romance, Cyberpunk (as in the genre, not the video game. I mean like… old cyberpunk), smut, some angst

Pairing: Taeyong/gn!Reader (Taeyong third-person POV)

Warnings: death mentions, dark themes, violence, blood, weapons and sharp objects, hard questions of the existential sort lol

Rating: Explicit (for like. half of a scene lol)

Length: 23.5k

taglist: @byutafy

“Taeyong-ssi?” Taeyong opens his eyes, turning to see a familiar stylist poking their head into the room.

“[Y/N]-ssi,” he replies, shifting his weight from one foot to the other on the little fitting dais. “Hello.”

“Hi.” They close the door behind them, smiling. “They dyed your hair,” they comment as they walk up to him.

Taeyong reaches up to touch the strands of red, bright and vibrant from a fresh dye job. “Yes,” he says.

“It’s pretty,” [Y/N] says. “Let’s get you fitted into some pretty clothes to match.”

Taeyong blinks calmly, watching them lay out their supplies—a tape measure, pins, a notepad. [Y/N] is young, but already they’ve made a name for themself in the fashion industry. They’ve styled many celebrities, and LSM Inc. snatched them up at first chance to outfit their idols. Before Taeyong met them, he’d heard they were good with AI robots. It’s true.

They pinch at the fabric of the shirt Taeyong’s already wearing. “We need to bring this in,” they say, looking up at him. “I want to highlight your waist.”

My waist. Normally people talk about Taeyong’s cheekbones or his jawline. “We could crop it,” he suggests tentatively.

They smile warmly. “We could, if you’d like. I think it would look nice.” They deftly fold the fabric up, simulating a crop, so that just an inch of Taeyong’s skin shows. They meet Taeyong’s gaze in the mirror, eyes questioning. “How’s that?”

Taeyong nods. “I like it.”

“Me, too.” They start with the pins, fingers nimble. Taeyong relaxes his shoulders. With other stylists, it’s not always wise to offer his own opinions. Mostly they treat him like a doll, or maybe a mannequin—they rarely ask him for input, or speak to him at all except to tell him how to position himself as they work. It’s not that it bothers Taeyong—no one is cruel to him, which is all that matters—but it’s nice to be able to chime in about his clothing from time to time. It’s also nice that he can chat with [Y/N] as they work, instead of standing in awkward silence. It makes the time pass more quickly.

This is not his first fitting with [Y/N], but they are still relatively new to the team. And yet, Taeyong has found an easy sort of familiarity with them even after just a few meetings. It’s mostly because they actually treat him like he has a brain and social skills. Both synthetic, but who’s counting, right?

It seems a lot of people are. Taeyong was not born. He was brought into being. He was created, and he will outlive the hands that created him. This excites some, and frightens others. Taeyong isn’t sure how he feels about it. He supposes, like with everything else, he feels nothing at all.

It’s not that Taeyong is emotionless, or completely void of opinions or feelings. He was given a moral compass, after all: good and bad, right and wrong (he is good, and he does the right things). It’s just that most things don’t bother him one way or another. He knows that’s part of his programming, but because it’s part of his programming, he doesn’t care. He still has plenty of learned emotional displays, and his technicians always told him that his affective responses were off the charts for a robot; so like a human’s. But things that would make a human—or even a less carefully-programmed robot—angry, or sad or scared or whatever else, hit some kind of wall inside of him, and bounce away, harmless.

He was told in his classes that the lack of emotionality protects him and makes him better at doing his job, and better at functioning day-to-day, than a human. Taeyong can accept this as true. He’s pretty sure, however, that it protects humans from him. It makes him less volatile. No matter how hard humans try, they always end up making robots a little too strong. He knows a lot of people are afraid of him because of this. Though no one has said anything explicitly, he’s also pretty sure that were his emotional centers to malfunction—were the blockers to fail—he would be retired immediately. He’s heard whisperings of past generations of robots, of older prototypes that had, suddenly and without warning, been retired. And since he belongs to a research corporation, his retirement would be slow and painful—they’d want to dissect him and understand what went wrong.

But Taeyong is well-made. He doesn’t think it’ll be a problem.

Another thing he’s pretty sure about is that [Y/N] is not afraid of him. They are good with AI robots because they don’t treat robots like they are robots. They treat them like they would anybody else. Taeyong doesn’t have to school himself around them. If he makes a sudden movement, they don’t flinch. He likes that about [Y/N].

“How have you been?” [Y/N] asks as they reach for more pins.

“Good,” Taeyong says. It’s a script he’s familiar with. One is not supposed to be honest when asked something like that in casual conversation. Taeyong hasn’t been good. Taeyong has been fine. Taeyong has been neutral. He has practice, recording, filming, and then he goes back to his dorm to rest. It’s monotonous, but not terrible. “How are you?”

“Busy,” [Y/N] replies. “But I don’t mind that. Lee Sooman-seonsangnim has me working with RVel.V now, too.”

“Oh.” Taeyong feels a spark of interest. The RVel.V robots came before the #S127 line. They rarely see them, except in passing, so Taeyong’s always a little curious to hear about them. “I don’t know them that well,” he says. “What are they like?”

“A bit like you guys,” [Y/N] says. Their tone is fond, Taeyong registers. “And a bit not. Their leader is not like you at all,” they add with a short laugh. “She’s very commanding and it takes her a while to warm up to people, I think.”

“I am warm?” Taeyong asks, puzzled.

“To me,” [Y/N] says.

“People say I’m scary,” Taeyong says, and [Y/N] laughs again.

“That’s because most people only see you on stage,” they tell him. “Okay, let’s look at the next outfit.” They step away so Taeyong can slip behind the divider to change.

Taeyong undresses, running his hands over his waist for a moment before he pulls the next shirt on. He doesn’t think often about his body. He was made a certain way and there isn’t much he can do to change it, so there isn’t a point. He doesn’t really consider if certain parts of his body are good or nice or pretty; he’s told that he’s handsome, and he knows he was made with that intent. His face is symmetrical; he has wide eyes and pouty lips, and to some, that makes him beautiful.

Some humans say that they were made in the image of their creator, that they are smaller, less perfect versions of their God. Taeyong thinks their God is cruel. Taeyong thinks they know this, because when they make robots, they make them more perfect. More beautiful. Taeyong is made in the image of his creators, but better. It is precisely because of this that half of the humans love him, and the other half despise him. He knows they all envy him.

Maybe that God was onto something, after all.

He steps back out in a new outfit: a loose black button down and ripped jeans. He gets back up on the dais and watches [Y/N] as they wordlessly appraise him.

“Well, for starters,” they say after a moment, “tuck the shirt in.”

Taeyong senses what he thinks might be displeasure, and for some reason something inside of him strains to fix it. Perhaps it’s just because [Y/N] has never expressed anything negative to him, but either way he hastily tucks the shirt into the waistband of his jeans.

But when they look at him, they’re still smiling gently. “No, like this,” they say, tugging it out a little so it hangs over the belt loops. “That’s better. And then… let’s unbutton another button.” They step back, looking him over again. “Yeah, I’ll bring everything in just a little, I think. You’re so tiny.”

Taeyong has never been called tiny like this before, either. [Y/N] is always finding ways to surprise him, it seems. Normally, when someone says he’s tiny, it’s dismissive or disparaging. Now, though, it makes him feel precious, almost. Special.

“Do you think we can get the hair and makeup noonas to work around a pair of sunglasses?” [Y/N] asks, their eyes full of mirth. Whatever that strange moment was, it has passed.

“Sunglasses?”

“Not for you to actually wear, just to balance on the top of your head,” they explain. They brush through his hair with their fingers, lips pursed thoughtfully. The pad of one of their fingertips skims Taeyong’s temple, and for one fleeting instant, Taeyong feels a spark of recognition. It’s gone before he can examine it. “We can have them secure them in place so you don’t have to worry when you’re dancing.”

Taeyong tries to picture it. “You think it’d look nice?” he asks.

“I think it’d look nice,” they say, nodding. They bring their hand up to his back, smoothing the fabric between his shoulder blades, but their eyes do not leave his. They seem to be watching his reaction carefully, almost curiously.

“Okay,” Taeyong agrees.

The warmth of their touch leaves his back. “Then we’re all done with this one.” They nod for him to go change again. “Next outfit, please.”

Taeyong ducks back behind the screen, and though his skin readjusts quickly to the room’s temperature, there seems to be a phantom cold spot on his back, even still, in the shape of [Y/N]’s hands.

=&&&=

The #S127s were made as an improvement on the RVel.V line. Like the RVel.V girls, Taeyong and the rest of the #S127s are musician AI robots. Unlike RVel.V, #S127 will have an endless career.

Before LSM Inc.’s AI Project #14320, the project that created all the robots like Taeyong, AI robots usually lived for around the average human lifespan. AI Project #14320 was a great leap for technology. The project consists of an infinite number of series of AI robots that are built to last forever. Taeyong is told he is built directly off of one of the very first prototypes.

Taeyong is a #S127.AI robot. Model #LT1795. He’s known this longer than he’s known almost anything else. He also knows he’s lucky, because the two true prototypes, series #U4916.AI, don’t ever get a set directive. They have adaptable function, and their purpose changes with the release of each series. It might be nice to get to try a lot of things, but Taeyong is glad he doesn’t have to keep learning and relearning his role.

After the #S127 line came Dream.AI. They are a line meant to integrate with society; seven boys, bright, dreamy, and charming, who will use learned emotional responses to make friends and go to school and achieve personal goals. Taeyong has met some of them in passing; a few were in the same preliminary classes as he was.

Most recently came the VWay.AI line. These robots are vocational; they’re meant to hold certain occupations that will aid humans, doing the more difficult and strenuous tasks that humans are unwilling or unable to complete. Taeyong doesn’t envy them, either. He knows it’s probably just his programming—if he’d been given a different directive, he’d probably hate the life he’s living now—but he likes what he does. He likes music and he likes dancing and he likes to perform. Other jobs seem boring and tedious.

Taeyong doesn’t remember much of the first day that he spent alive. He remembers being terrified. He only gets flashes—the heavy, wet feeling in his lungs as he slipped forward on his hands and knees, trying to stand; a gloved hand, reaching for him as he flailed; the cold metal of an examination table; his first shower; the feeling of clean clothes on his skin. And then—his first class, taken alone, about what he is and what he is for.

The memories are clear after this. He learned that the first day or two of a robot’s life is muddled as the body learns to be alive. After that, the programming starts to kick in and subconsciously the brain begins to look for ways to complete its directive. Taeyong’s directive, he was told, is to lead a new group of musician AI robots.

Robots are special, he also learned. Their skin has a sort of flesh memory. The first person they come into contact with, skin to skin—even the brushing of fingertips—creates a bond. This is a person they remember intrinsically, even if their memory center hasn’t kicked into gear—it’s a memory that relies on touch instead of conscious cognition.

All of the scientists and doctors and researchers that handled Taeyong in his first couple of days of life were all gloved, wearing long sleeves and masks, to prevent this from happening. Usually, the point is to bond the robot to its owner. However, as Taeyong is an experiment, technically, he was not going to be bonded to a human. Instead, he was bonded to another robot.

When the first contact a robot has in another robot, the bond is not as strong. While they will be closely connected to each other, it doesn’t cause the same deep, unconscious memory to form. Furthermore, the robots will then not be affected in the same way if a human were to touch them afterwards.

Taeyong’s pair was a pretty robot; he saw his picture before they met. His scientists led him into an empty room, and then let the other robot in a few minutes later. Taeyong offered him his hand, but instead of shaking it like Taeyong had seen in the videos they’d shown him in his classes, the other robot reached out with both hands, using one to flip Taeyong’s hand palm-up, and laying the other on top. Gentle. He trailed a finger from the heel of Taeyong’s palm to the tip of his index finger, and then looked up to meet his eye.

“I’m Model #KD1296,” he said. “Named Doyoung.”

“Taeyong,” Taeyong replied, and he was rewarded with the tiniest of smiles.

Doyoung is a day younger than Taeyong, and they bonded quickly and easily. Part of it was because they were each other’s first contact, but part of it is simply that they get along. The fans like to see the two of them together, which suits both of them just fine. They are comfortable in each other’s company. Taeyong has never been that comfortable around anyone else—although, he considers as he swivels back and forth in his chair, gazing blankly out the small window, [Y/N] is shaping up to be good competition, it would seem.

Doyoung, like he often does, pokes his head into Taeyong’s room later that night. “Your fitting went late,” he says. “You weren’t here for dinner.”

“They were running behind schedule,” Taeyong replies, unwilling to admit, even to Doyoung, that he’d spent some time chatting with [Y/N]. It wasn’t wrong, technically, but he feels it would be odd to say it, so he doesn’t.

“Okay.” Doyoung believes him, dropping it. Robots always tell the truth, beyond a white lie here or there to spare a human’s feelings if they’ve been programmed with enough emotional intelligence, so there’s no reason for Doyoung to believe Taeyong is lying. Maybe Taeyong isn’t such a good robot after all. “Go to bed early. Lots to do tomorrow.”

“I’m supposed to be telling you that,” Taeyong points out. “I’m the leader.”

“Yeah, and if no one keeps track of you, how can you lead?” Doyoung’s tone is sarcastic, but Taeyong understands his meaning.

“Thank you,” he says.

Doyoung huffs, but Taeyong can tell he is hiding a smile.

=&&&=

Taeyong doesn’t get nervous. His processor doesn’t allow it. He supposes this is as close as he can get to nervous—a dull sort of anticipation with just a prick of dread. The dread is mostly concern over his company’s reaction if they do not perform well.

[Y/N] has been splitting time between #S127 and RVel.V, so they’re running a little late to the pre-show craziness that is currently ensuing backstage. A different stylist had handed Taeyong his clothes and told him to get dressed and go straight to hair and makeup, and that they’d all get touch-ups once [Y/N] arrives.

Maybe that’s what the dread is about, too—what will happen if they don’t show up before it’s time for the concert to begin.

Taeyong fixes his eyes straight ahead, checking his heart rate and breathing as his makeup artist fusses with his hair. Both normal, only a touch above baseline, which is to be expected on a day like today.

He hears their voice suddenly, and resists the urge to turn his head. Instead, he squints at the mirror, hoping to pick them out in the reflections.

“Sorry I’m late!” they say. “Traffic was awful. I left the RVel.V fitting almost two hours ago, can you believe it?”

“That’s fine,” Taeyong hears one of his managers reply. “They’re still finishing hair and makeup. Actually, #SJ9295 is finished, if you’d like to start with him.”

“Johnny,” [Y/N] says warmly, and Taeyong catches a glimpse of their hand as they reach out to the robot. “Everything still fits okay?”

Johnny nods. “Something in the back feels strange, though,” he says, eyes flicking briefly to their manager, who thankfully isn’t paying attention. They aren’t supposed to complain, even when asked if something is wrong.

“Let’s take a look.” [Y/N] finally steps into view, moving behind Johnny to see what could be bothering him. They gasp a little, straightening after a moment and holding something small and shiny up in front of Johnny’s face. “A stray pin,” they say. “Good catch. Wouldn’t want you getting hurt. Does it feel better now?”

Johnny shifts a little, twisting and moving his arms side to side. “Yes, thank you.”

“Good.” [Y/N] sets the pin aside. “Let me just fix your collar.”

Taeyong is one of the last to finish hair and makeup because of the sunglasses, but it’s not a problem, because [Y/N] has plenty to do as the rest of his members are released to get their final fittings.

Everyone is sorting out mic packs and receiving last-minute direction from the managers when Taeyong steps up to [Y/N]. They smile approvingly when they see him.

“The sunglasses look good,” they say, and Taeyong nods. “Everything feel okay?”

“Yes,” Taeyong answers.

“Here, I’ll help you with your mic,” they say. They grab it from where it’s resting on the table behind them and hold the pack while Taeyong clips the belt into place around his waist. They clip the pack into his back pocket and work on tucking his shirt in as he fits the head- and earpieces in. They shift the shoulder area of his shirt forward a touch, smoothing the sleeves down. “You’re all set.”

The words pop into Taeyong’s mind and are out of his mouth before he can even wonder where they came from. “How do I look?” he asks. His tone has become coy, unintentionally.

But [Y/N] only smiles, unperturbed. “You look beautiful,” they reply. “Perfect.”

Taeyong blinks. “Thank you.”

They squeeze his bicep. “Go on, then. You’re going to do great.” And with that, they disappear further backstage.

As Taeyong steps into the scaffolding under the stage, taking his place on the moving platform that will spring him up onto the stage, he realizes with a twinge of surprise that the dread is gone.

=&&&=

Taeyong’s classes were quickly filled with other robots—those that would eventually become his members. They learned about themselves, their nature, the world. They learned geography, poetry, music theory, calculus. After a couple weeks, they had a sex education class. They learned that while this was how humans procreated, more often than not, they would block the procreation in some way. Some even liked to have sex with robots.

Doyoung raised his hand. “But if they can’t procreate with robots,” he asked, “why do humans have sex with them? Why do they have sex with each other, without the intent to procreate?”

Their instructor nodded, looking almost pleased. “A good question, #KD1296. They do it for pleasure.”

“But with robots?” Doyoung pressed.

“Some find it pleasurable.” Their instructor shrugged. “It’s a bit similar to why we are creating you—some like to watch robots perform human roles. Your fans will be those sorts of people.”

Taeyong frowned, then raised his hand tentatively. Their instructor nodded at him to speak. “Then,” he began, “our fans. Will they—will they want to have sex with us?”

Their instructor smiled again. “You were, all of you, made to be exceptionally beautiful,” they replied. “So, yes, some will. In fact, we are counting on it.”

Another robot raised his hand. #NY261095. Yuta. “Will we be expected to have sex with them?” he asked.

Their instructor’s face took on a look of amused surprise. “No,” they assured him, almost laughing. “Certainly not. In fact, the company would prefer that you decline sex with any humans at all.”

Yuta tilted his head. Taeyong saw mischief dancing in his eyes. “And what about with other robots?”

Their instructor’s face remained impassive. “That can be left up to your discretion,” they replied, “and the discretion of your managers.”

Though Taeyong’s life consisted mostly of classes and training and eating and sleeping, he had small pinches of free time. He used these to wander the compound, mostly. Most humans avoided him, keeping their eyes down, and most robots were not out and about, choosing to spend their precious little freedom elsewhere.

Most robots, but not all. Taeyong, in his wandering, stumbled on another section of newly-made robots. They were much older than the #S127s, but still relatively young and still in classes like Taeyong was.

These robots were different from Taeyong and his members, though. They did not have names. Their serial numbers were odd—#LSMTR100, #LSMTR101, and so forth. When Taeyong asked one of them what their directive was, he told him they were to be musician AI robots, just like him.

“Maybe that means we are next,” #LSMTR118 said excitedly when Taeyong told him that he was a musician AI robot as well. “Maybe that means I will be like you. Will they give me a name, too?”

“Maybe,” Taeyong replied, at a loss. He didn’t understand why he and his members were named if they had been created later, when these robots shared the same directive.

He went to visit the #LSMTRs whenever he could, curious. Their presence was both soothing and inexplicably unsettling. He enjoyed that, unlike his members, they didn’t seem to process on such a high level, so he could relax a little. He supposed it was similar to an older human spending time with children.

However, their lives seemed to lack function. They had directives, but the more he looked, the more it seemed like they were just going through the motions. Their actions were hollow; they spoke of the future with a bright sort of cheer, but Taeyong wasn’t sure they had any concept of what it would look like. It didn’t seem like the company was actually planning to release them. Why, then, were they spending valuable resources to train them?

Still, though, Taeyong felt drawn to them somehow. Some of his members, upon finding out how he spent his free time, demanded to come with him on his next visit. Yuta and Jaehyun in particular were interested. The #LSMTRs were excited to meet more of them. Though Taeyong was hesitant to call it friendship, the #S127s began to form bonds with the other musician AI robots.

They got busier the closer they got to their debut, and had less time to wander. #LSMTR118 and the others didn’t really seem to mind, though #LSMTR118 expressed some mild frustration to Taeyong and Yuta one afternoon.

“I just wish we knew when we were going to debut,” he said. “It’s not your fault,” he added to Taeyong. “I just don’t understand why we haven’t made any progress.”

“You said last week that your instructors told you your skills were improving,” Taeyong said, but it felt hollow even to his own ears.

“I’m tired of waiting,” he muttered. He flicked his eyes up to Taeyong’s, then Yuta’s, tentative. “I—I chose a name. For myself. Since they won’t give me one.”

Some kind of thrill raced through all of Taeyong’s nerves. There was no rule, but something about it felt forbidden. He exchanged a look with Yuta. “What is it?” Yuta asked.

“Hansol,” he said. “I want to be called Hansol.”

“Hello, Hansol,” Taeyong said softly, trying the name out in his mouth.

“Hansol,” Yuta repeated. He smiled. “It’s a nice name.” Hansol beamed at him.

Classes and training kept them away for a while after that. They used all their free time to sleep, still learning the limits of their bodies, still learning to put rest first. It was weeks before they had a chance again, but finally Taeyong found himself with a few hours to burn before mealtime, and he headed down the hall to ask Yuta and a few others if they’d like to come visit the other robots with him.

He knocked on Yuta’s door, and Yuta opened it with a rather grim look on his face, ushering Taeyong inside.

“What’s wrong?” Taeyong asked.

Yuta sighed, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “I passed by the #LSMTRs’ wing,” he said. “I was going to stop to say hello, but it was empty. I asked one of the maintenance robots there, and he said that they’d all been taken down to the lab a couple of days ago.”

“What?” Taeyong asked. An unfamiliar feeling—fear, real fear—made itself known inside him. “Why?”

“They’ve all been retired,” Yuta replied softly. “#LSMTR. Lee Sooman Test Robot. They were just a test, for us. Now they are studying them to see what happens if we were to die.”

Something else eclipsed the raw fear in Taeyong's stomach and he scrabbled to find the words for it. It was hollow and stale and reminded Taeyong of the sharp smell of metal rubbing on metal. “But why?” he forced out. “They weren’t—weren’t malfunctioning. Were they?”

Yuta just shook his head. “I don’t think so. But I guess the company needed them for something.”

Taeyong knew the name of the feeling. It was horror. Will that happen to me, too?

Yuta seemed to sense his worry. “They were built to be taken apart,” he said gently. “Their purpose was to be retired.” He smiled. “But that’s not our purpose. We’re meant to go out into the world and actually live.”

Taeyong nodded, trying to shake the strange, uncomfortable emotion away. His emotional center wasn’t built to process a feeling that heavy. It wasn’t that he grieved Hansol, or any of the others—robots like him do not grieve—but he was unsettled. Maybe it was just that it was too cold and hard a look at his own mortality. He never thought he’d have to worry about it.

But I won’t have to worry about it, he pointed out to himself as he said goodbye to Yuta. My function is not like theirs.

He made his way back to his room and slipped into bed, facing the wall and pretending to sleep. He didn’t have any hope of drifting off, though. He thought of Hansol and his bright smile and his deep frustration. He thought of the set of his jaw. He thought of his shy eagerness to share his name. It didn’t seem fair. There was nothing wrong with him. His only crime was that he was not made to last.

“Time for dinner, Taeyong.” Doyoung stuck his head in Taeyong’s room. “Are you okay?”

Taeyong blinked slowly at him. “Yes,” he said.

“I heard they retired the #LSMTRs today,” Doyoung said, tilting his head. “Should you go down to the lab, to get checked? You don’t look well.” When Taeyong didn’t respond, he added, “Do you miss #LSMTR118?”

“His name was Hansol,” Taeyong corrected slowly, standing. He walked to the door, to Doyoung, his body taking him onto the next part of his day. Still, though, his mind clung. “Hansol,” he repeated quietly. “He chose it himself.”

=&&&=

[Y/N] comes with them on each stop of the tour, a bright comfort backstage even when they find themselves sore or overwhelmed. Taeyong’s members respond well to them, too, so Taeyong tamps down the small seed of worry that he’s developing some kind of unnatural attachment to them. It’s just how they are. If others treated him the same way, he’d have a similar connection to them as well.

That’s something else that’s begun to bother him, though. If [Y/N] can treat him kindly, like he has worth beyond his profitability, like he has feelings and that those feelings matter, why can’t everybody else? It’s not that he really believes that he has real emotions, or that he does have any worth beyond his profitability, but wouldn’t it be easier for all of them if they could all get along? Wouldn’t it be in the interest of his managers, his other stylists, the choreographers, producers, vocal coaches, doctors—all of them, to gain his trust?

[Y/N] smiles at him from across the room, and something hot and sweet stirs in his chest. It terrifies him. Maybe that’s his answer—that no, it wouldn’t be easier. How can it be easier, when there is terror?

And there is terror. But in that terror, Taeyong finds something else that he can’t turn away from. He doesn’t understand what it is. It’s just some sort of insistent tug, drawing him to [Y/N]. He wants. He’s never wanted before, except for things that are completely related to his directive. And he’s certainly never wanted like this—something deeper and more instinctual than even his programming. It would almost feel natural, but it’s wrong.

Maybe Taeyong is just a bad robot. He is doing something he knows is wrong, so he must be bad. He doubts his members think of these things. He doubts his members wonder about [Y/N]. He doubts his members stay up late like he does, depriving himself of necessary sleep, shirtless in front of the mirror in his room, tracing his fingers over his waist, turning side to side as [Y/N]’s voice echoes in his head. You’re so tiny. You look beautiful. Perfect.

Taeyong wishes he hadn’t been given any sort of emotional capacity at all. He doesn’t care that it would make him less marketable. It shouldn’t matter, right? It’s not like his fans would ever actually get to know him, either way. Because then he wouldn’t feel like this—then, there would be no problem to begin with. Why was he made this way? Why did his creators need him to be so intelligent? Couldn’t they have made him obedient and malleable without making it hurt?

“Don’t you think it’s cruel,” Taeyong asks Doyoung one day, hesitant and unsure, “that we were given pain receptors?”

Doyoung looks over at him, taking his time to swallow his water. “No,” he says. “We were given basic emotional receptors to enhance our relatability and also to protect us. Pain protects us, you know.”

“I know, but,” Taeyong says, not sure how to explain without giving himself away. “Some things aren’t helpful, you know? Like, if I care about somebody that means I have to worry about them, too, and miss them when they’re gone. Those aren’t useful emotions.”

Doyoung frowns. “Who are you worrying about? Our members aren’t going anywhere.” He tilts his head. “I didn’t want to say anything, but you’ve been a little odd lately. Do you think you should go in for some tests?”

Taeyong tries not to let his fear show. “What are you talking about?” he asks, almost scoffing. “I’m fine. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

“Well, think less,” Doyoung says, going back to his snacks. “Your directive isn’t to think; your directive is to sing and look pretty.”

But what about what I want? Taeyong asks silently. He knows better than to say it out loud.

But it’s decided: Taeyong must be a bad robot. Doyoung certainly doesn’t think the things he does, and the rest of his members probably don’t, either. No one else would try to blame their creators for their own suffering. It’s just him. He doesn’t know what went wrong. Wasn’t he made well? Weren’t they all made by the same people, for the same purpose? So why is he different? It’s almost laughable. He’s supposed to be the leader. How can he lead, if there’s something wrong with him?

He knows he’s gotten jittery and odd around [Y/N], but to their credit, they don’t change. They treat him just the same as always, kind and gracious. They notice, though, asking casually as they smooth the sleeves of a new outfit down on his arms, “Are you alright? You seem… nervous, almost, lately.”

“My processor doesn’t allow me to become nervous,” Taeyong says, trying to dodge the question.

“Not nervous, then.” Their eyes find his in the mirror, concerned. “Upset, I suppose. Off.”

“I think I’m just ready to go home,” Taeyong lies. Bad. Wrong. “Maybe I’m tired.”

They buy it, or at least pretend to. They smile gently. “Well, don’t go running the nice body LSM Inc. built for you into the ground so soon. I know you have a lot of responsibility, but one of those responsibilities is to take care of yourself. Sleep early tonight, alright?” Taeyong nods mutely. “Don’t worry, though. You’ll all go in for tune-ups when the tour is over.”

Taeyong freezes for half of a second. “Tune-ups?” he repeats, forcing his voice to be normal.

“You know, just to check that you don’t have any budding injuries,” [Y/N] says, seemingly unaware of his distress. “I don’t think it’s very involved. It probably won’t take long.” Their smile, like their touch, is reassuring and warm. Taeyong lets it lull him. He hopes they’re right.

=&&&=

A few weeks before their debut date, Lee Sooman, the head of LSM Inc., came to visit them to check in on their progress. He watched their dance rehearsals through glass, monitoring carefully. They met with him after practice as a group, and then they each saw him individually.

Taeyong was first. Uncertainty crawled under his skin as he stepped into the meeting room, eyes flicking between the man who owned him and the door.

“Model #LT1795,” the CEO said, looking him over, appraising. “Taeyong, isn’t it?” Taeyong nodded. “You’ve done well.”

Relief, cosmic and intuitive, flooded Taeyong’s body. “Thank you, sir,” he whispered.

Lee Sooman leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “We’re very pleased with your results. We’ve put a lot into this project, and we’re delighted by the success. You are the first of your kind, but you will not be the last.” He afforded Taeyong a smile. “How do you feel your team is doing? Will you be ready for your debut?”

Taeyong nodded quickly. “I believe so,” he replied. “We’ve spent a lot of time preparing and we’ve had good guidance from our teachers and instructors. I think we’re ready.”

“That’s good,” Lee Sooman said. “I believe you are too.”

Taeyong’s cells vibrated at the acceptance. They burned where his serial number was engraved into them; where the initials of the man sitting before him were engraved into them. No, really. He swore he could feel it.

They debuted without a hitch. Their popularity climbed slow and steady at first, and then skyrocketed after a couple of years. They got busier, and they had to take on more staff members to help manage the group and elevate their performance and their style.

The first thing Taeyong noticed about [Y/N], the first time he saw them, was their eyes. They were warm and genuine and contained no traces of fear, only a benign sort of curiosity.

“Hello, Taeyong—may I call you Taeyong?” they asked, sporting an open smile. When Taeyong nodded wordlessly, wary of their amiable nature, they continued, “I’m [Y/N]. I’m a new stylist for your team. Shall we begin?”

And, not knowing what he was about to begin, Taeyong said yes.

=&&&=

The tune-ups aren’t an ordeal, just like [Y/N] said. Taeyong gets some rehab for his neck and back, and is sent on his way less than a half hour later feeling exactly what he is—like a freshly-oiled machine. They didn’t poke around his brain; the doctors and engineers hardly spoke to him at all. For once, Taeyong doesn’t mind. In fact, he’s grateful.

They get some time off now, and Taeyong spends a lot of it reading. He likes poetry and grand works of fiction a lot, but he pays the closest attention to religious texts. He pores over anthologies of Ancient Greek mythology, different versions of the Bible, Buddhist teachings. It fascinates him to see how humans have tried to understand their existence; how they try to grapple with their history; the stories they make up and the beliefs they hold in order to comfort themselves against the inky black void that is the rest of the universe.

Maybe, Taeyong thinks, they created robots because they got lonely. He would be lonely, too, Taeyong thinks, if his creators abandoned him and left him to forget how he was made.

One of the passages Taeyong found reads, “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a mother forget the baby at her breast or disown the child of her womb? Though she may forget, I could never forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

It’s curious to Taeyong because he has his serial number lasered into every single cell, a stamp of who he belongs to and who made him. The idea that a creator would have their creations carved into them is odd, to say the least. It must be nice, to be valued like that by one’s creator, unconditionally and irrevocably. Humans know this, which is why such a text exists—they hope they have not been abandoned because they cannot do anything else.

Taeyong knows, as a robot, his value is based on his success. He is only granted the gift of not being forgotten if he fulfills his purpose. A part of him recoils at his weakness, but the rest of him is hardwired to do whatever it takes to not be forgotten.

Humans don’t fully understand, or maybe cannot fully grasp, how they came into being. And Taeyong gets to understand that about himself. It’s one of the first things a robot learns—that it is artificial. And while it is solidifying to know exactly where Taeyong came from—and where he will go—there is also something so horrible and sickening about the knowledge. Taeyong wonders if maybe it’s best to leave some of it a mystery. Why are humans chasing something that might hurt them? he wonders. Or will it not hurt them because it is a natural beginning? Does it hurt me because I am unnatural? Or am I the only robot hurt by the burden of its knowledge?

[Y/N] is always working, it seems, and they bring the members in to try some new designs and pieces so they don’t have to do it when things get busy again.

“What have you been up to since we saw each other last?” [Y/N] says with a tiny smile playing on their lips as they take Taeyong’s measurements.

“Reading,” Taeyong answers honestly.

“Oh?” This seems to delight them, and happiness blooms in Taeyong’s chest at having pleased them, even accidentally. “What do you read?”

“Poetry, mostly,” Taeyong says, and [Y/N]’s smile grows.

“Who’s your favorite poet?” they ask.

“I like Robert Frost, I suppose,” Taeyong says. “I like the way he writes about nature. I don’t go outside much.”

“Mm,” [Y/N] hums, nodding in recognition. “‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,’ huh?” Taeyong nods. “I like his poems, too. I like Mowing—have you read it?”

Yes, Taeyong has read it. “‘The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make,’” he recites. “Truth into understanding.” He tilts his head. “You like knowing things, then? As many as possible.”

“Usually,” [Y/N] says. “Better than I like not knowing them, in any case.” They smile again. “Which one is your favorite?”

“Desert Places, I think,” Taeyong answers truthfully.

“Ah, yes,” [Y/N] says. “‘I have it in me so much nearer home/to scare myself with my own desert places.’” Concern, well-meaning and impersonal, glitters in their eyes. “It’s a sad poem, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Taeyong agrees, “but beautiful.”

“Yes.” They lapse into silence for a while. Taeyong lets them work, head swirling. He wants to ask what they like to read. He wants to ask what they like, what they don’t like, what they want, what they love.

As they’re finishing up, [Y/N] pauses and looks over at him, an unreadable expression on their face. “If you like poems about nature,” they say, “try Mary Oliver. I like her poems a lot. My favorite is Wild Geese. You don’t—you don’t have to read it, but if you do, let me know if you like it.”

“Okay,” Taeyong agrees.

He goes to find it in the library as soon as his fitting is done. It takes a while for him to find a book of her poems, but he does, and he scans the content page for the title, flipping carefully to the page, and begins to read.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Taeyong runs his fingers over the words. His emotional processor does not allow for tears, but if he was made differently, he thinks he would want to cry. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And what do I love? He is afraid to answer his own question. After all, shouldn’t his emotional processor also not allow for love?

He sits with it for a week or two, letting the words fester in his mind. He memorized the entire piece immediately, of course. He runs through it, again and again. It’s almost a direct answer to Desert Places—a poem about a bleak landscape and a gnawing loneliness that puts the barrenness of even the snow-frozen world to shame. But what is Taeyong’s place? There is not room for him in any family; his place is right where he is, as he is. His place is on his knees, good and quiet and lonely. And it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t bother him. But it does.

The next time he sees [Y/N], he’s almost spilling over with things he wants to say. Their meeting is meant to be a short one—just trying on finished pieces to make sure nothing’s wrong—but Taeyong stalls, trying to find the right space to say something. [Y/N] seems somewhat preoccupied, not talking much, but the ample silences don’t seem to help. The bright morning light shining through the small window near the ceiling blinds Taeyong when he tries to watch them as they move around the room.

“I read the poem,” he blurts finally. “I liked it.”

[Y/N]’s hands falter, and they look up, eyes wide with surprise and bright with hope. “You did?” They find their footing; they find their smile, and it settles like a veil over their features. They smooth a wrinkle on the leg of their pants with their thumb. Taeyong’s breath catches in his throat. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Taeyong says. “I don’t think it’s true, though.”

“What do you mean?” [Y/N]’s brow furrows, but they’re not upset, just curious. Always curious when it comes to Taeyong, it would seem. That means something, right? That has to mean something.

“I mean—I don’t think real life is like that,” Taeyong says.

“No?” [Y/N] shakes their head, still smiling, then shrugs. “Maybe I’m optimistic. Perhaps it’s a weakness, but I believe the world to be merciful.”

“It’s different for you than it is for me,” Taeyong points out, so quiet he’s almost not speaking.

[Y/N]’s smile twists into something sad. “That’s true,” they say softly. There’s a pause. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think much when I mentioned the poem. I only meant—it—it’s just one of my favorites.”

“I know,” Taeyong says. “I didn’t—it’s a beautiful poem. And it—it suits you.”

“You just sounded,” [Y/N] says, then stops and corrects their course. “I thought it might be a comfort.”

“It was,” Taeyong replies honestly. “Thank you.”

There’s another long stretch of silence as [Y/N] begins to pack up their things. They open their mouth a few times to speak, but end up stopping halfway through their inhale. Eventually, though, they speak again.

“Are you unhappy, Taeyong?” They aren’t facing him, but Taeyong can imagine their expression—eyes round and sad, corners of their lips turned downward.

Taeyong doesn’t know how to answer. This isn’t a casual how-are-you. The usual I’m-good-and-you won’t suffice. [Y/N] is asking for the truth, and Taeyong doesn’t know how to give it to them.

He only knows, despite the difficulty, that he wants to give it to them.

“I,” Taeyong says, the words sticking to his throat like little barbs, painful and persistent. “I suppose I wouldn’t say that I am happy. So that would make me unhappy, wouldn’t it?”

“I would say so,” [Y/N] replies. They turn. “Why are you unhappy? Have your managers been bad to you? Do you not wish to be a musician anymore?”

Taeyong shakes his head. “No,” he says hoarsely. “It’s not that.” He trains his gaze on the floor, about a meter or two in front of [Y/N]’s feet.

“Then what is it?” [Y/N] draws close, resting a hand on his shoulder. Their hand is warm; Taeyong can feel it through the fabric of his shirt. Taeyong doesn’t reply; can’t even bring himself to look them in the eye. “Taeyong, you can tell me. I won’t tell anybody else. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Taeyong squeezes his eyes shut. His heart is racing. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” he forces out. “I—I do have to be good, only I’m not. I’m not, [Y/N].”

“How do you know that?” Their voice is smooth and soothing. “I think you are.”

Taeyong snaps his eyes open, searching their face for something—what, he’s not sure. “Because,” he whispers. “Because I think of you. And I—I can’t stop thinking of you, sometimes. And I worry about you, and I wonder what you think of me, if you think of me, and—and—I’m so scared, and I think I’m lonely, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh,” [Y/N] says in a very small voice. Taeyong has never seen them look so lost. They step back, their hand leaving Taeyong’s shoulder. The spot feels cold. “Oh, Taeyong, I’m so sorry.” They run their eyes over his body. Taeyong hears roaring in his ears; he stands motionless before them. “Your emotion blockers are failing you.”

“I know,” Taeyong mumbles. “I know. They’ve been for a while, I think. Because I feel things around you. And that’s not supposed to happen.”

“I feel things around you, too,” they confess, and then look somewhat mortified. They push on anyway. “But you’re right, that’s not supposed to happen. We can’t. You know we can’t.”

“Then why did you tell me about that poem?” Taeyong asks. “Isn’t that what you meant? ‘To let the soft animal of your body l-‘“

“No, Taeyong, that’s not what I—“ They ball their fists in frustration. Pain radiates off of them in waves; Taeyong can almost feel it. “I wanted to give you something nice to read, because I wanted you to be happy. Because her poems soothe me, and I thought they might soothe you, too. Because I care about you, and I wanted you to know that you weren’t alone.”

“You care about me,” Taeyong says.

“Yes.” They turn back to their things, movements stiff. “Yes, I do, and I shouldn’t—I mean, I can’t, absolutely can’t. I’m sorry. I won’t report you, but I think—I think I should ask to work exclusively with RVel.V from now on.”

“No, please—“ Taeyong says, but they shake their head, moving towards the door.

“I’m sorry,” they repeat. “It’s for the best. I don’t—I don’t want either of us to get in trouble.” They reach for the handle of the door.

Taeyong lurches into motion. “Wait, no, you have to help me—“ He stretches out his hand, trying to stop them from leaving, and it closes around [Y/N]’s wrist. Taeyong gasps at the contact, stumbling; [Y/N] catches him before he can fall.

=&&&=

The first sounds Taeyong ever heard were a voice and the beeping of machinery, both garbled and muffled by the incubation sac still clinging to his body. He slipped out, the jelly in his ears, his eyes, his lungs, and landed on the floor less than a foot below with a wet slap. Fighting for breath, he clawed at the film over his nose, blinking rapidly as his body—moments before just an empty shell of meat and mechanics—learned, fast and violent, how to be alive.

He heard a murmur as he pushed himself to his hands and knees, trying and failing to stand, slipping in the incubation jelly. He wheezed and choked and fought, not understanding why he wanted to stay so bad but knowing all the same that he did.

A gloved hand came into view, and he flailed towards it, surging upward with the new muscles in his new legs, so confused and so scared. He reached out with a shaking hand but missed, his hand slipping into the space between the end of the glove and the hem of the stark white lab coat sleeve, and felt something soft and warm.

The owner of the hand gasped and yanked their arm away as if he’d burned them, and Taeyong lost balance, teetering in a small pool of slippery fluid, but the owner of the hand recovered quickly and caught him before he could fall.

“Hello, Taeyong,” they said, so faint in his memory that he could hardly hear it. “Don’t be afraid. Everything is going to be alright.”

Taeyong is released from the clutches of his memory. He steadies himself and then pushes away from [Y/N], breathless and scared. His body feels like it’s on fire. “You,” he says. His voice shakes.

“I can explain,” [Y/N] begins, but Taeyong cuts them off.

“No,” he snaps. “Stay away from me.”

“I’m sorry,” [Y/N] tries again, reaching out. Taeyong steps back quickly, out of range. “Taeyong, I—I’m sorry.”

“So you’re not a stylist,” Taeyong says, trying to stay calm as his world careens into chaos before him. “Are you?”

“I am, I’m just—“ They drop their hands to their sides. “I’m also part of your health and data team. All of you, all of #S127. I helped a few of you directly after birth, but was pulled back immediately so that none of you would remember me when we met later on.” Taeyong feels horror lodge in his throat, settle heavy in his stomach. “All of you,” they repeat.

“But I’m not like the rest, am I?” Taeyong bites out. “I—I touched you. And that’s why—that’s why I’m like this. Not because I actually like you.”

“A touch bond doesn’t cause emotion blockers to fail,” [Y/N] protests.

“Well,” Taeyong says bitterly. “Now we’ll never know.”

“No, that’s—it doesn’t, Taeyong. Listen. I know because I—I study this, I went to school for this, I research this.” They’re talking fast, but Taeyong doesn’t want to listen. There’s ringing in his ears and he’s swaying. It’s too much all at once. His gut dropped a minute ago and it’s still dropping. He thinks he smells the sharp tang of metal on metal. “What’s happening to you is different, it’s something else. I don’t know what. I can—I can try to figure it out. We could figure it out, together.” They’re floundering, trying to come up with something to soothe him. It’s not working. “I meant to tell you,” they plead.

“No, you didn’t,” Taeyong hisses. “Liar.”

“I did, I really did, once I—once I started—“

“How could you?” he demands. He hates how close it is to a whimper. “How can you? If I never said anything, if I never found out, what were you going to do? Just keep pretending?”

“I wasn’t even sure if you had touched me, Taeyong!” they say, eyes glassy with tears. “And then when you seemed to bond with Doyoung so well, I thought maybe I was making it all up in my head. Because I liked you—like you—I thought maybe I was just imagining a bond between us that didn’t actually exist.” They let out a shaky sigh. “But I was wrong. And—I’m sorry.”

“What about the others? How do you know my members didn’t bond with you, too?” Taeyong asks.

“I only worked with Jungwoo and you,” they say, voice sincere. “And I’m certain Jungwoo and I didn’t touch. He was so scared. He wouldn’t let me near him.”

A new nightmare takes form in Taeyong’s mind. “Did you make me?” he whispers.

“No,” they say. “No, I don’t know how to build or code—I mean, I can code, but not like that. I just observe behavior, monitor physical health. I didn’t make you, Taeyong. I’m just here for evaluation.”

“So you—you report back to my creators?” Taeyong’s head swims. “All the while pretending to be my friend? I always wondered why you were so good to us. I thought it was kindness.” He shakes his head, taking a few steps towards the door. “But it was just guilt. Wasn’t it? Or was it that you wanted us to trust you so we’d let something slip?” He gestures between them. “Well, it worked.”

“Taeyong,” they say; a tear has spilled over; Taeyong watches its journey down their cheek. “I never meant you any harm. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” Taeyong says, reaching for the handle.

“Taeyong, wait,” they plead, but they don’t move to stop him.

“I need to be alone,” Taeyong says firmly.

Their shoulders sag in defeat. “Are you going to tell the others?” they ask quietly.

“No,” Taeyong says. “I don’t want to scare them. I don’t want them to feel like I do.” He pushes out of the room and walks down the hall, forcing himself not to run, keeping his head down. [Y/N] does not follow.

He makes it to his room without passing anybody else. He closes and locks the door and collapses onto his bed. His heart is still pounding. His head, too; it hurts so bad it makes him nauseous. Or maybe that’s just from everything else.

[Y/N] lied to him. That’s the first thing he tries to grapple with. He knows it only bothers him because he thought they were different from other humans, but the reality is humans lie all the time. And that isn’t so bothersome to them because they’re used to it. Taeyong doesn’t expect to be lied to because he spends most of his time with other robots—though, he realizes, if he’s capable of lying, then other robots must be, too.

He’s bonded to [Y/N]. It explains a lot—it explains how he felt comfortable around them, how they seemed so familiar, so fast—but [Y/N]’s words circle his head. A touch bond doesn’t cause emotion blockers to fail. As much as he wants to blame all of this on them, on letting him bond with them, on that small but crucial shift in his hardware, he knows they’re right. He’s read about himself. He knows how he works. He’d be comfortable around them without the bond—his members are, and they aren’t bonded to them. The comfort is what led to—to whatever is going on now. The bond only helped it along.

Knowing this doesn’t make him feel any better.

The most terrifying and sickening part of all, though, is that despite all of this, and despite the danger it puts him in, Taeyong still wants. He still wants [Y/N], still thinks of them, still clings to a half-baked fantasy in his mind that things might work out, even though there’s no way they can. That hurts more than everything else combined; it burns hot in his chest and at his waterline and swirls in his stomach.

He feels something warm and wet on his cheek as a soft sob wracks his body, and he brings his hand up to his face. He swipes at the feeling and licks the tip of his finger. It’s salty. Alarm bells ring faintly in the back of his head, but he is too exhausted to tend to them.

For the first time in his life, Taeyong cries.

=&&&=

Doyoung always knows when something’s wrong with Taeyong. He knocks perhaps an hour later, and Taeyong drags himself to his feet to let him in. His crying stopped a while ago, but his body still feels heavy. He hasn’t checked his reflection, but he’s sure his eyes are red-rimmed and puffy.

Doyoung enters and quickly shuts the door behind him, immediately on high alert. “Were you crying?” he asks sharply. “Robots like us don’t cry.”

Taeyong lets out a long exhale. “It’s complicated,” he says after a moment.

“Things aren’t supposed to be complicated for us,” Doyoung says. “How can it be complicated?”

“Well, it is,” Taeyong says, sitting back down on his bed and spreading his hands. He runs his eyes over his fingers. He still feels the warmth of [Y/N]’s skin if he thinks about it hard enough.

“What is going on with you?” Doyoung asks. “Seriously, you’ve been odd for weeks, and now I come in to find out you’re crying? Shouldn’t you go in for some kind of test? Maybe the doctors can help you.”

“They wouldn’t help me, Doyoung,” Taeyong says tiredly. “They’d just retire me.”

“How do you know? You don’t even know what’s wrong.”

“I do know,” Taeyong says. “I’m—at least I think I’m in—”

Shock and a hint of disgust wash over Doyoung’s features. “You’re in love? Or at least, you believe yourself to be. With who?”

Taeyong closes his eyes. Lying is never easy, and he can’t manage it now. “A human,” he mutters.

“You’re right,” Doyoung says, disbelieving. “They will retire you. And they should. I should tell someone about this, I should—“ He takes a step back, running his hand through his hair. “I should, but I—I don’t want to see something like that happen to you.”

“See, you care about me,” Taeyong says. “How is that any different?”

“I care about you,” Doyoung says. “I don’t love you. Love is for humans. Not for us.”

“I don’t know if I love them,” Taeyong points out. “I’m still figur—”

Doyoung cuts him off. “Besides, you and I are bonded. It’s different.”

Hot guilt crashes over Taeyong. “It’s not different.” His mouth is dry. “You’re bonded to me, Doyoung, but I’m not bonded to you. I’m bonded to—to them.”

“What?” Doyoung freezes.

“I didn’t know until today. Doyoung, I was your first contact, but you were not mine.” Taeyong feels something inside of him crumple. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s worse,” Doyoung says, ignoring his apology. “You have some weird manufactured connection to them—something wired into us by humans to make us easier to control—and you’re trying to call it love?”

“I’m not—that’s not why,” Taeyong says. “It’s more than that. I know it’s more than that. If it was just that, I wouldn’t have cried.” He finds himself echoing [Y/N]. “A touch bond doesn’t cause emotion blockers to fail.”

“Right,” Doyoung snorts.

“They care about me, too,” Taeyong adds.

“It’s not love,” Doyoung says. “It’s not care. It’s unnatural; sick.”

“You don’t know that,” Taeyong says. “I mean, I know it’s wrong. I know I’m not supposed to. But—it can’t be all bad. Can it?”

“Why not?” Doyoung is looking at him like he’s insane. Maybe he is. “Robots and humans will never have an equal relationship. They made us.”

“They didn’t make me,” Taeyong says. “And I—even now, I feel safe, with them.”

“It’s [Y/N], isn’t it?” Doyoung asks. “You’re bonded to [Y/N].”

Taeyong doesn’t have the energy to deny it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I still care about you, Doyoung, I do. Just because I’m not bonded to you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

“Yeah.” Doyoung’s voice is flat. “And isn’t that just part of the problem?”

=&&&=

With nothing else to do, Taeyong goes back to [Y/N]. It’s evening now, and Taeyong can feel his body still learning to adapt to the decision he’s made, his brain working overtime to rewrite itself, but he doesn’t think he has any other choice. It’s like there’s a string attached to his chest, tugging him forward. He knows it’s all wrong. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows that if he were a better robot, a good robot, he would turn himself in and let the necessary happen.

But Taeyong hasn’t been a good robot for a long time.

They’re still packing up when he knocks on the door of the fitting studio. They must have just finished with the last of his members, and their face is painted with shock when they see him standing in the doorway.

“Taeyong,” they say. They don’t meet his eyes. “I was just leaving.”

“Stay,” Taeyong says, letting the door close behind him with a soft click. “I need—I need help, and I don’t have anybody else.”

“Okay,” [Y/N] says, zipping a bag shut. “Lock the door, then.” They drop down into one of the chairs near the changing screen and gesture for Taeyong to sit in the one opposite.

Taeyong doesn’t take it. He locks the door and comes closer and begins to pace in front of them. “I don’t know where to begin,” he mutters.

“That’s okay.” [Y/N] leans forward, watching him. “Take your time.”

“I just—“ Taeyong stops in front of them, frowning. “The things I say I feel, right—they’re not real. I don’t have real feelings, emotion blockers or no emotion blockers. My emotional processor is artificial—my amygdala isn’t like yours. It’s all made-up. It’s just... just code and circuit boards.”

“Well, yes,” [Y/N] says. “But I mean, technically my emotions are just chemical reactions, right? But they’re real. It just depends on how you think about it.”

“But it’s different,” Taeyong insists. “Your reactions are natural. Mine are—mine are fake. They’re programmed.”

“I don’t think it matters how your emotions are made,” [Y/N] points out delicately. “You can experience what you know to be pain, yes?” Taeyong nods. “And you perceive that you are hurting.”

“Yes,” Taeyong says. “But it isn’t real.”

“Who draws the lines between real and not real, anyway?” [Y/N] asks. Taeyong presses his lips together, thinking. “It shouldn’t matter what made you feel pain, or by what process you have come to feel it. Pain is pain, isn’t it?”

“Still,” Taeyong says, but he’s struggling. There used to be clear lines mapping out the world in his head. Good, bad. Right, wrong. Now everything is blurry. The headache threatens on the peripheral of his mind. “Still, my pain is worth less than a human’s. Than yours.”

“That’s not true at all,” [Y/N] says, eyebrows pinched. “Your pain is just the same as mine, because you are feeling hurt. That’s all that should matter. In fact, it should be worth more, because the people who made you gave you the capacity to feel pain on purpose. They didn’t have to. Humans—we don’t have a choice.”

“Not pain like this,” Taeyong says. He sweeps his eyes away, looking instead at his own feet. “They put the blockers on so it would never come to this.”

“That’s true,” [Y/N] agrees. “But it’s not your fault that those blockers failed.”

“I can’t blame them.” Shame bubbles in Taeyong’s stomach—another new emotion his body will have to reckon with. “I owe my creators everything.”

“No, you don’t,” [Y/N] says gently. “Come sit, Taeyong. You don’t owe anybody anything.”

Tears burn behind Taeyong’s eyes, and when he looks up at [Y/N], their figure is splotchy. “Is this��“ His breath catches. “Is this what it is, to love somebody? I thought love was supposed to be good.”

“It is, mostly,” [Y/N] says.

“Then why does it hurt?” Taeyong asks.

[Y/N] reaches out their hand, and Taeyong takes it. They pull him to the other chair. “That’s why they took it away,” they say. “Because it’s not useful for your profession.”

“Why didn’t it work?” Taeyong asks. “Can you fix me?”

[Y/N] gives him a sad smile. “No,” they say, and they sound truly sorry. “I wasn’t the person who designed you, Taeyong, or built you or coded you or any of that. I understand how robots work, but I don’t actually know how to do any of it. I didn’t know about you until a couple of days before you were done incubating. Whatever’s gone wrong here, I can only assume it was an oversight. They made you guys empathetic so you could be relatable. I guess they didn’t put enough safeguards around it.”

“I thought I was supposed to be well-made,” Taeyong says miserably.

“You are,” [Y/N] says. “LSM Inc. is the best robot manufacturer in the country—maybe in the whole world.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough.” Taeyong clasps his hands together in his lap, tight. “It’s not fair,” he whispers. “Why couldn’t they have made me better, so that I could be good enough?”

“Humans aren’t perfect, no matter how hard we try to be,” [Y/N] says. “I’m just sorry you have to suffer the consequences.” They sigh, shaking their head. “I’m really very sorry, Taeyong,” they say. “I should’ve told you. I shouldn’t have lied. I was scared—I’m still scared. But that doesn’t make it right. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Taeyong whispers. He understands. They’re in unfamiliar territory here. Often the right decision only becomes clear in hindsight, especially to humans, who are so terrible at risk calculation.

They’re silent for a moment. “If love isn’t all good,” Taeyong says finally, still trying to form the question in his head, “then why do humans do it? Why, if it hurts?”

“Why do humans love?” The sad smile lingers on their face as [Y/N] looks back at him. “The same reason as you, I suppose. We can’t help it.”

=&&&=

Things are different now. Largely the same, but different. Taeyong’s fittings still take a little longer than necessary, but for a different reason this time. [Y/N] makes sure to hug him goodbye, tight and close, just in case. Taeyong hasn’t been hugged like that before—usually it’s quick and fleeting with his members, done on camera for his fans to watch and rewatch and dissect. These hugs aren’t like those hugs. There’s the warmth of [Y/N]’s body pressing close to his own, and underneath that, Taeyong can hear the human irregularity in their heartbeat. It sounds nothing like Taeyong’s, and this delights him.

But as fast as the delight can come, it dissipates. This isn’t something they can have. This is a dream; if Taeyong opens his eyes, it’ll be gone. It’s not real, none of it is. Despite what [Y/N] says, nothing about Taeyong is real at all. Not his feelings, not the personality that they seem to like. All the things that give him that personality are made up. He likes music because he was built to be a musician, because it’s a part of his programming, not because he actually likes it. Right?

But then again, humans don’t choose what they’re good at and what they like. They just naturally gravitate towards certain things. The only difference is that Taeyong has nearly a direct line to why he likes what he likes. Humans are more of a mystery. Maybe [Y/N] is right. Is the mystery all that makes them real? It’s not much of a distinction.

Whenever they feel it’s safe, whenever they’re alone, they sneak kisses. Taeyong likes these even better than the hugs. They’re sweet and fierce and always not enough, but Taeyong also knows they’re taking too big of a risk as it is, so he doesn’t dare ask for more. Not even in his head. It’s clumsy and awkward at first, but they get better at it. Taeyong mirrors [Y/N], hands cupping their jaw, thumbs pressed into the hollow of their cheeks. They kiss, and because he is a bad robot, Taeyong wants.

When he’s alone at night, Taeyong lets the wanting take over. He closes his eyes and imagines [Y/N]—imagines their eyes, warm and beautiful; their touch, gentle but firm. He memorized the lines of their body long ago, not on purpose, not because he was trying to. Just because he was always looking. He imagines it all.

Despite all their many cruelties, Taeyong’s creators didn’t take his dick away, and though Taeyong never thought he would be, he is grateful. He may be a bad robot, but he doesn’t think he would’ve gotten to experience such an unexpected pleasure if he was good. It’s not that good, normal, functional robots don’t masturbate or have sex—Taeyong’s accidentally overheard some of his members more than once—but he thinks it must feel different when you’re imagining someone you love. Sometimes, he finds himself pitying the others in spite of it all.

He never brings it up to [Y/N]. Part of it is that he’s embarrassed—another emotion he’s learning his way around as the blockers on his processor fail completely—but most of it is that he worries that [Y/N] will think it’s strange. They’ve never expressed to him that they want that, or think about him like that. He knows they’ve kissed, many times now (over a hundred, actually; he’s been keeping count), but he also knows that’s very, very different.

Besides, it’s not like they have anywhere to go. [Y/N] lives elsewhere in the city, and for the most part, Taeyong is confined to his dorm. The only time they see each other is in fitting rooms, on filming sets, or backstage. Nowhere is safe enough. And even though Taeyong wants, he thinks it’s better to be alive to want than retired for giving in.

It’s always hanging heavy in his mind, the very real and very imminent possibility of his retirement if he and [Y/N] were to be found out. He doesn’t know how long they can keep this up—clandestine kisses and the brushing of hands, slight and secret, rationed out as generously as they can afford—before something goes wrong. He tries not to think about it, but it creeps back into his thoughts anyway, insistent.

He knows [Y/N] is always thinking about it, too. Today, like most days, there’s a dark fog in their eyes. Taeyong can see it even when he’s wrapped up in their embrace, haunting the insides of his eyelids. He squeezes a little tighter, careful not to let his strength get the better of him.

[Y/N] gives a short, sharp sigh; the sound of it is fluttering and sad. “The world takes such cruel and twisted forms, doesn’t it?” they murmur softly.

“I thought you said the world was merciful,” Taeyong replies, muffled by the fabric of their shirt.

“I said I like to believe that it is,” [Y/N] says. Taeyong hears the rueful smile in their voice. “I never said I was right.”

That’s fair, Taeyong supposes. Humans have always had a penchant for hope. “Let’s pretend you are,” he says. “And maybe it will come true.”

=&&&=

The thing is, Taeyong wasn’t just supposed to be good. He was supposed to be perfect. He still remembers the warmth of his relief at the CEO’s smile, his praise. If he knew, he would not be proud of Taeyong now. [Y/N] said Taeyong doesn’t owe anything to anybody, but how can he not? The people that designed him, built him, gave him life—isn’t it his duty to repay them in obedience? And here he is: selfish, something they thought they carved out of him before they started his heart.

Taeyong holds one of his hands up to the light, watching the bones rise and ebb beneath his skin as he folds and extends and folds his fingers. Yes, he thinks, I was created, yes, the company’s name, my owner’s initials, are all branded into each and every one of my cells. Extend, fold. And yet, does a child belong to its parents? Aren’t these hands, at the end of the day, my hands; and this heart, my heart?

=&&&=

“Do you,” Taeyong begins, falteringly, when he and [Y/N] are alone again. “Do you ever want more?”

They look at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean.” Taeyong swallows. “I mean, do you think about me?”

“All the time,” they respond, still puzzled. “I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to ask me here, Taeyong.”

Taeyong takes a breath. “Do you want me?” he asks quietly. “I want you. It’s okay if you don’t,” he adds, clumsy. “I know it might be weird, since I’m a robot. I just—I want to know.”

“Oh, Taeyong.” They drop what they’re doing—folding something, Taeyong can’t really pay close attention—and come over to him, taking his hands. “Is that what you’ve been worried about? Of course I want you. I just didn’t want—I mean, I wasn’t sure if you wanted that. I didn’t want you to think you had to, so—”

“I want to,” Taeyong rushes out. The words taste funny in his mouth. He’s not used to expressing his wants. “I want to have sex with you. No, that’s not right,” he corrects, and [Y/N] gives him an amused smile. “That’s too formal. I want to sleep with you. Is that how you’d say it?” He’s asking to cover up how nervous all of this makes him, and to his relief, [Y/N] plays along.

“Either one will do,” they say, still smiling. “I want to have sex with you: clinical. I want to sleep with you: casual; polite, even.”

“Is there an impolite way to say it?” Taeyong asks, though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer. His cheeks burn a little as [Y/N] leans closer.

“I want to fuck you,” they say. “That would be impolite. Dirty.”

Taeyong hasn’t heard them swear before. He likes it. “I like impolite,” he whispers. “I never get to be impolite.”

[Y/N]’s smile turns dark. Taeyong likes that, too. “We can be impolite,” they say. They’re closer still now, nose to nose. Taeyong can feel their breath on his lips. “I wanna fuck you, Taeyong.” Taeyong shivers.

And then they dodge to the side and kiss his cheek before pulling away and going back to their work. “Unfortunately,” they say calmly, “the logistics would be tricky. I don’t know when we’d get the chance.”

Taeyong shakes himself, trying not to let his imagination run away with him. They’re right. “I know,” he says. “It’s okay. I just wanted to tell you. I just wanted to ask.”

They meet his eyes in the mirror. There’s fondness there, and Taeyong basks in it. “I’m glad you did,” they say.

Taeyong isn’t sure it’ll even happen, but just knowing that he would sleep with [Y/N] gives him an extra sort of spark. It’s terrifying, to be sure, but the terror is familiar. The spark—he doesn’t know what to call it. So there, maybe. Hah! The spark is new, and it fuels him. He is doing—or would do—something with his body that his creators would hate.

But it’s his body, not theirs, not Lee Sooman’s, not LSM Inc.’s. He didn’t sign up for this; he never asked to be created. It’s not fair to expect him to do as he’s told. Is it?

Taeyong is a bad robot, but maybe that’s a good thing.

After a week or two, [Y/N] comes up with a plan. They’ll pretend to leave for the night, and then sneak back in. If anyone asks, they forgot their bag. They’re often around after normal work hours—they’re on the data team, after all. Research is unpredictable. They’ll hide out in one of the fitting rooms and wait. After lights out, Taeyong will come find them. It won’t be perfect, but at least the fitting rooms have big, comfortable sectionals. Some are bigger than Taeyong’s bed.

“I wish I could sneak you out,” [Y/N] says. “Show you my place. Cook you a meal. But it’s too dangerous.”

“It’s okay,” Taeyong says, holding their hand tight. “I don’t mind.”

They reach up to stroke his cheek, and they open their mouth to say something else, but then think better of it. They lean in to kiss his forehead instead. “Okay.” Taeyong feels the movement of their lips against his skin. “Tomorrow night, then. Most people will be out as soon as they can, eager to start the weekend. Good thing I’m known for my work ethic, hm?” They pull back and give him a smile. Taeyong smiles, too.

He smiles, but he knows that once they do this, there is absolutely no saving him. Before, perhaps if they were found out and the scientists descended upon him, they would keep him for long agonizing hours in surgery, coding and recoding him to cut all of this out. Taeyong knows he’d be expensive to replace, so they’d try to salvage him first, fix the parts in him that are wrong and send him back out, changed.

But if he does this—if he has sex with [Y/N]—it doesn’t matter how expensive he is. They’ll retire him not just because he’s proven himself dangerous, but as a punishment to him and a warning to others. They won’t put him under; they’ll keep him awake through the whole procedure as they pick his brain apart, not just because they need him awake to see what went wrong, but as a punishment to him for his disobedience.

Taeyong doesn’t care. He thinks he welcomes it. He’d rather be retired, excruciating and slow, than be altered and forced to keep living. He isn’t given many choices in his life, so having two options is more than enough. It’s the act of choosing that really matters, anyway. Taeyong chooses.

He lies awake the next night, staring at the ceiling. He checks the time, waits until the shuffling and the opening and closing of doors dies down in the hallway, and then waits an hour more. It’s dark and quiet when he finally pokes his head out of the room and, seeing that the coast is clear, pads silently down the hall.

The walls seem to hum, the faint electrical undercurrent only audible at night when there are no other sounds to hear. Taeyong’s insides are humming, like the insects in summer that he’s seen videos of. He keeps his steps even and measured.

It’s not a long walk—the fitting studios are on the same level as their rooms, just on the other side of the building. Taeyong passes empty offices and glowing exit signs, familiar and at the same time now unfamiliar. It’s his first time seeing them in the dark.

Taeyong knocks softly on the fitting studio. [Y/N] cracks the door, peering out, and smiles when they see him. He slips inside. [Y/N] has turned the lights low, and when he looks over at the sectional, he sees they’ve laid out blankets.

“Not very romantic, I know,” they say, leaning in to kiss him, swift and light. “But if it’s alright with you, it’s alright with me.”

“It’s perfect,” Taeyong says, leaning into them.

“No trouble on your way?” they ask as they lead him over to the couch, index finger linked with his.

“No,” Taeyong says. “I didn’t see anybody.”

“Good.” They sit and pull him into their lap. “Me either.” They smile up at him, big and real and anticipatory. “It’s just you and me.”

“Just you and me,” Taeyong repeats, almost slurring, settling in their lap and dipping his head so they can kiss.

And they kiss, blindly but carefully peeling clothes off of each other’s bodies; a shirtsleeve, and a pause to feel the skin underneath, then the other sleeve, and so on until Taeyong finds himself helping [Y/N] pull off the last of their undergarments.

A body doesn’t make somebody, human or robot. But as far as bodies go, Taeyong thinks [Y/N] has a good one—in his eyes, at the very least, which is all that matters. He looks, hungry, letting his eyes rove over bare skin, one hand trembling as it reaches out to touch.

[Y/N] laughs, low and velvet, and takes his wrist, using it to tug him close, and then Taeyong finds himself on his back on the couch, [Y/N] balanced above him, one knee planted next to his hip, the other leg extended on the other side of his body, foot anchored to the floor. One of their hands is sinking into the cushion next to his ear. The other he feels on his belly.

“To answer your question from the other day,” [Y/N] says, “the way you were asking it, yes, Taeyong. I think about you. I think about you like this. Often. Beneath me or beside me or wherever you want to be. I think about touching you, really touching you. Is that what you had hoped to hear?”

“Yes,” Taeyong whispers. He reaches up, gripping the back of their neck and trying to pull them closer. They humor him for a minute, kissing and biting into his mouth until he’s twisting in the blankets, an itch in the back of his brain demanding more. His lips, preoccupied and clumsy, don’t know how to ask for it.

[Y/N] breaks the kiss to trail lower, skimming over his collar and his chest, giggling quietly when Taeyong gasps, going lower, lower, lower, until Taeyong feels a hand around his cock.

“Oh,” he whimpers, hands flying up to his face. It’s not embarrassment but pure surprise—that being touched by someone else, by someone who cares for you, by someone who wants you, is a completely unique and wonderful sensation.

“We’ve barely started,” [Y/N] says, amused. Taeyong chooses to hear it as a promise.

If Taeyong liked their hand, their mouth is better—hot and wet and like nothing Taeyong has ever felt before. He shakes, trying not to roll his hips up, trying to let them learn their way around his body, but his patience is thin. He rests a hand on the back of their neck again, keeping his touch light, to let them know he likes it, that he wants more.

They make Taeyong come like that, head between his thighs, breathing long and deep and slow while Taeyong’s eyes roll back in his head and he chokes on moans.

“Tastes good,” [Y/N] murmurs, sitting back. “Sweet. Seems silly, to make you sweet.” They pinch his waist gently, and Taeyong squirms a little.

“Maybe it was an apology, for everything else.” Taeyong’s turned it over in his head before—he knows his own taste—but hadn’t thought too hard about it. Robots can’t reproduce. Their ejaculate is fake, just for show. Their bodies perform function without remembering what the function is, an echo of their blueprint. A broken dance, the steps nearly forgotten. Why not make it sweet?

The hours creep by like this, Taeyong and [Y/N] on and in each other’s bodies, exploring and staking claim, almost. [Y/N] makes him come until he’s teary and sore, and he tries to give back as best he can. As they tire, Taeyong’s sure he’ll still taste [Y/N] on his tongue in the morning.

After, [Y/N] holds him close, nestled in the cushions and blankets. “Was it good?” they whisper. “Was it what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Taeyong answers honestly. He presses closer, slotting one of his legs between theirs. The feeling of bare skin on bare skin is odd to him, almost completely foreign still. But it’s good—maybe he’s just going a little numb from overstimulation, but in some places Taeyong can’t quite tell where he ends and [Y/N] begins. He isn’t sure how he expected to feel, but even though he’s sweaty, he feels cleansed, somehow. Pure.

They lay there together for a while, not talking, not sleeping. Taeyong knows he should get back to his room; [Y/N] needs to sneak back out before the maintenance robots begin their early morning rounds. But neither of them move. Taeyong’s pulse jumps even as he lies perfectly still.

He realizes, as he lies there thinking, that he has three options, not two, and he feels cruel just thinking it. He hears his own voice in his head, outraged. How could you? How can you? But he also knows what he wants—and what he doesn’t.

“I don’t want to be retired,” Taeyong says quietly. It comes out hoarse. He feels [Y/N] stiffen beside him. “It hurts. They tell you it doesn’t hurt us, that they shut us down first. But they don’t.”

[Y/N]’s voice is tight with pain. “I know,” they say. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s the same for you,” Taeyong concedes. “It’s like dying.” He pauses. “It’s like being killed. I don’t want to die, not like that.”

“If they find out,” [Y/N] whispers, “they will retire you, Taeyong, and I won’t be able to do anything.”

“I know. That’s why—” Of all the things Taeyong has thought or done, he knows this is the worst. Even if nothing else has solidified him as a bad robot, this will. “That’s why I want you to do it instead. Shut me down instead. I want—I want you to kill me.”

The silence that follows is thick and ugly. “What?” [Y/N] croaks. It’s garbled with confusion and panic.

Taeyong sits up a little, pushing away so he can look them in the eye. Their eyebrows are crumpled. Taeyong’s heart threatens mutiny in his chest. How could you, how can you? He pushes on all the same. “You can do it, you can kill me,” he says. “Like real boys are killed. And it wouldn’t be as awful. It wouldn’t take as long. It wouldn’t hurt as much.”

Shock settles over [Y/N]’s features. “I can’t do that,” they say firmly.

“You might have to,” Taeyong says, trying to keep his voice level. “I know it’s not fair to ask. I know it’s asking a lot. But I can’t—I won’t go into a lab to let them pick me apart. You can’t let them do that to me.”

“I can’t kill you either, Taeyong.” Tears swim in their eyes. “How could I do that? I could never hurt you. I can’t. I—” Their eyes dart all over the room, wild and hopeless. “I love you. I can’t.”

“I love you, too,” Taeyong says, earnest. How could you? “I know. And I’m sorry.” How can you? “But I don’t have anybody else to ask.”

They shake their head, vehement. “I can’t,” they repeat. Their tone is steeped in despair, and it makes Taeyong ache.

“It might not be a problem,” Taeyong hedges. “I won’t make you promise to do it. But will you promise that you’ll do whatever you can to stop them, if it does come to that, if they do find out?”

“Okay,” they whisper, turning their watery eyes to him. They look lost. Taeyong wishes he could help with that, but he can’t. They’re victims of the same shipwreck. There’s not enough splintered driftwood left in the wreckage to make a lifeboat.

=&&&=

There’s no way this meeting in the dark was a catalyst for all the things that happened next, but sometimes Taeyong feels like it was. More likely, their love was just another symptom of something building in the world around them that caused all these things, their love included—but Taeyong is both paranoid and narcissistic, he supposes, so he worries anyway.

Or maybe it’s all just a coincidence. Taeyong can’t spare the how much thought, too preoccupied with the why and the what next. He comes back to their rooms from an appointment at the lab, cut short by some emergency, which is odd enough in and of itself, but then he hears quiet murmuring in one of the rooms. He pokes his head in and sees his members all crowded around Jungwoo’s bed, talking. A seed of fear plants itself in Taeyong’s stomach. Their brows are furrowed, and when Taeyong gets closer, he notices that Jungwoo’s clutching a piece of paper in his hands.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Come see,” Yuta says, barely sparing a glance up.

Doyoung does spare him a glance, and for the first time Taeyong sees worry, real worry, not just his usual dull concern, in his eyes. The fear seed sprouts and blooms, and Taeyong feels nauseous.

“I was on my way back from a tune-up today,” Jungwoo begins, “and I took a wrong turn and ended up… I don’t know where. I’d never been before. I went into an office to ask for directions, but no one was there. I found this.”

He offers the paper he’s holding to Taeyong, and Taeyong takes it. It looks like the mock-up of an advertisement. The images move and shift on the page as text blinks brightly: Bring an AI Project #14320 home! You’ve met them in the workplace, at school, and onstage and screens. Pick your favorite and place an order. Your new companions are waiting for you! Want someone to help around the house, or maybe the office? Try a VWay.AI model. Want a companion? Dream.AI has a range to choose from. Want entertainment for your bar, restaurant, or home? #S127.AI can provide. Can’t decide? #U4916.AI will be the perfect match. Don’t worry about replacing your robots when they get old—LSM Inc.’s new models are built to last!

“What is this?” Taeyong asks, handing the paper back to Jungwoo with shaking hands.

“They’re planning on selling us, Taeyong,” Doyoung says quietly. “They’re replicating us and mass-producing us and selling us.”

“This ad’s already been released?” Taeyong asks, pointing.

“No, not that I could find,” Taeil replies. “I did some research; I can’t find it anywhere.”

“What does this mean for us?” Taeyong murmurs, not really asking anyone in particular.

Yuta answers anyway. “Who knows?” he says. “They’ll probably keep us going without a change. The other series, I’m not so sure. They have much longer leashes. We’re the best advertisement they have. Plus our music is raking in a ton of money.”

“What are we going to do?” Taeyong feels hollow, but though his members seem upset and confused, when he looks around he doesn’t see in them the same alarm that’s jolting through his body.

“What can we do?” Johnny asks. “We do what we always do. We do as we’re told.”

“Even if they want to retire us?” Taeyong presses. He can’t be the only one so afraid. Can he?

“They won’t,” Jungwoo says. Taeyong thinks it’s meant to be reassuring. “At least, I don’t think they will.”

“And what about the robots they make and sell? What will their lives be like?” Taeyong shakes his head. “It’s not right! We’re not toys meant to live in the confines of a deluded fan’s bedroom.”

“It won’t be us,” Doyoung says.

“That’s not the point!” Taeyong exclaims. “Just because it won’t be us doesn’t mean it’s okay! How can you not care?”

“It’s just the way of things,” Jaehyun says from where he’s sitting in the corner. He looks resigned, nothing more. “Our place in the world is to be created and then used by our creators any way they see fit. The humans own us. That will never stop being true.”

Taeyong backs out of the room, still shaking his head. “It’s wrong,” he insists. How are they so calm? Why can’t they see how terrible this is? He turns and strides down the hall, away from their rooms, heading to the only place he can think to go, his grief and his rage screaming in his ears.

[Y/N] is chatting with another stylist when he enters the wardrobe department. They see him over their coworker’s shoulder, eyes widening, and quickly excuse themself and duck down a hallway. Taeyong follows them. They step into an empty office and wait for him inside, closing the blinds while he shuts the door.

“What’s going on?” They look at him with concern, but underneath it, Taeyong detects irritation. “You can’t just come storming down here, Taeyong. People will notice there’s something wrong, and they’ll report you.”

“They’re selling us,” Taeyong says. He needs them to stop talking, needs them to listen. “They’re making replicas of us and they’re selling them to the public.”

“What?” [Y/N]’s irritation, concern, all of it, disappears. It’s replaced by blank shock.

“Did you know?” Taeyong doesn’t mean to bite the words out, doesn’t mean for his voice to be so venomous.

“About��this? No, Taeyong,” they say. “What do you mean they’re selling you?”

“Jungwoo found the draft of an advertisement, showing the different series and models of AI Project #14320,” Taeyong explains, trying to slow his breathing. “They’re marketing us as—as companions to buy and take home and use however the customer pleases.”

“Oh, no,” [Y/N] murmurs. “Your fans will eat that up.”

“Yes,” Taeyong says fiercely. “Who knows what they’ll do to the unlucky robots they buy? And the worst part is—none of my members seem worried about it. They’re unsettled, sure; they seem to understand, vaguely, that it’s not right, but they don’t care. They don’t care! They’re making copies of us and using our popularity to sell them, and they don’t care!”

“Shh, Taeyong, come here.” [Y/N] open their arms, and Taeyong collapses into them, sobbing. “They’re not like you, baby. They don’t feel like you do.”

“It’s wrong,” Taeyong whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to focus on the beat of [Y/N]’s heart. It’s fast from anxiety and adrenaline, too fast to be soothing. “It’s wrong.”

“I know,” [Y/N] says. “And maybe in time, your members will see that. But I think we won’t have to worry about it for a little bit. I mean, they haven’t even told us yet.”

“You think they will? Soon?” Taeyong asks.

“I don’t know about soon,” [Y/N] says. Though this should reassure him, something about their tone recirculates all his worry.

“What is it?” he asks, drawing back to look them in the eye.

They smooth some of his hair, thinking. “I hate to be the bearer of more bad news,” they say, “but I think it’s important you know as soon as possible. I’m actually glad you came. Listen—we’re going to need to be even more careful. I think they’re going to be putting the city on some kind of lockdown.”

“Why?” Panic flares in Taeyong’s chest, and the grip he has on [Y/N]’s forearms turns bruising.

“One of the Dream.AI robots has gone missing,” they say. “His tracker was cut out sometime late last night, and he hasn’t been seen since. They had no idea what happened. They just called an emergency meeting to notify the staff.”

“Did someone steal him?” Taeyong almost staggers under the weight of all this new knowledge. It’s too much at once, and he knows if he was of shittier build, his brain would be smoking right now trying to piece it all together.

“Maybe,” [Y/N] says uncertainly. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe he cut the tracker out himself. Maybe he’s trying to escape.”

=&&&=

The city does go into a state of lockdown. Things are too quiet now in the building—security teams and groups of murmuring scientists will rush past occasionally, but beyond that it seems like everyone is holding their breath. The company keeps their schedules as normal as possible, not wanting to alarm people any more than they already have, but even Taeyong’s members are hollow-eyed and unfocused.

It’s all they can talk about in their free time. Everyone has a different theory—some say Jisung was stolen; others say stolen, shut down, and sold for his parts. Others still say some crazy human kidnapped him, wanting to keep him for their own. A few of his members think he went AWOL—cut the tracker out himself and ran.

Taeyong doesn’t know what he wants to believe. On the one hand, he doesn’t want Jisung to have been stolen or kidnapped, because that would be awful. It would be kind of wonderful if Jisung had tried—and maybe succeeded—in escaping, but if he’s caught, Taeyong imagines his fate would be even worse than his own if he were to be found out. So all he can do is hope that whatever happened to Jisung, that he is and continues to be safe and sound.

It takes them a week to find him. A security unit brings him in late one night, and the robots are told he was found at the house of some young woman, who had kidnapped and hurt him. They say he suffered severe damage, both from the kidnapping and during his rescue, and will be in surgery for weeks as the doctors and engineers try to fix him.

“What happened to the girl?” Yuta asks, not even raising his hand.

The company representative’s eyes flash at his brazen interruption. “She put up a huge fight,” they say, “so she was killed in the struggle. It’s a miracle the security team was able to get Jisung out alive at all.”

“It’s so scary,” Doyoung says later, not sounding very scared at all. “I’m kind of glad we’re not allowed out on our own much. It’s safer here.”

Taeyong wants to scream, oh, wake up! Instead, he says, “I just wish we could see him. Make sure he’s doing alright.”

Doyoung gives him a funny look. “You don’t know him, though.”

Taeyong gives up trying.

Everything’s been busy and chaotic, so Taeyong hasn’t had a moment alone with [Y/N] since Jisung was discovered missing. A few days after his recovery, Taeyong goes in to look at some stage outfits, and they’re there.

They look terrible. There are dark circles under their eyes, and their face has a sort of haunted quality to it. When they see him, their smile is weak. Their hands shake almost imperceptibly as they reach for the first piece of clothing.

“Are you okay?” Taeyong asks.

They shake their head. “It’s awful,” they say. “I do shifts collecting data on Jisung—I mean, it’s not the first retirement I’ve seen, of course, but it’s the first one that’s been—”

“The first what?” Taeyong stares.

“Oh—that’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot they told you—we’d better sit down.” [Y/N] replaces the shirt and gestures for Taeyong to join them on a couch.

“What do you mean, retirement?” Taeyong whispers as [Y/N] takes his hands.

“Jisung wasn’t kidnapped,” they say softly. “He ran away—he cut out his own tracker, and he carved out the flesh around it so that it would keep emitting his biosignature long enough for him to get away before it raised an alert on the surveillance system.”

“Why did he run? Do you know?” Taeyong asks.

“He—” [Y/N] presses their lips together. “His emotion blockers failed. He fell in love.”

“Then, the girl—the girl they said took him—” It’s too awful. Taeyong can’t force himself to say it.

“Yes, that was the person he fell in love with,” [Y/N]’s tone is heavy and hopeless. “They killed her as soon as they found them. Jisung—” Their face contorts with grief. “Jisung was still screaming for her when they brought him in.”

Taeyong’s stomach gives an unpleasant lurch, and tears sting behind his eyes. “And now—what, they’re taking him apart?”

[Y/N] nods. “I guess they’re trying to figure out what went wrong. They have him sedated, so he can’t fight back or make noise, but he’s awake.” They shudder. “He feels everything. Taeyong, they’re talking about using this data to run tests on the rest of you, so they can work out the bugs before they launch the next step in the program. They don’t want fallible robots on the market, you know.”

It’s like he can barely hear them; their voice is muffled in his ears. “Can’t you do something?” Taeyong asks. Maybe he’s begging.

“I don’t know what I can do.” [Y/N] shakes their head. “I mean, I wish there was something I could do to stop it, but anything I might do could put you and the others in worse danger. I… my hands are tied.”

“The others…” Taeyong trails off, thinking of his members and their blank acceptance of the company’s story, of their vague unease, of their lack of care. “I have to tell them,” he says quietly. “I—I don’t know if it will change their minds about everything, but I have to try.”

“Yes,” [Y/N] says heavily. “I—here, I have my data file. Download a little as evidence. Maybe it’ll help.” They pull a tablet from their pocket and ping some data over to Taeyong. He scans through it quickly, not wanting to read too much about it, but he sees the word deterioration more than he would like. “Well,” they say, putting the tablet away. “I suppose we should do your fitting.”

The fitting is quiet; [Y/N] pauses here and there to press a kiss to Taeyong’s skin. It’s almost like they’re worried they won’t see him again, or that the next time they see him, it’ll be on the opposite side of glass, laid out on one of the examination tables in the lab.

“Be careful, okay?” [Y/N] says fretfully as Taeyong makes to leave. “I’ll—I’ll see what more I can find out, and, I don’t know, if I can figure out a way to put a stop to all of this.”

“I will,” Taeyong promises. “You, too. Get some sleep.” He squeezes their hand. “You look exhausted.”

They give him a grateful smile, but it doesn’t reach their eyes.

Taeyong finds Doyoung in his room. He’ll tell him first, he decides, because if it doesn’t go well, Doyoung is the least likely to report him and make things worse.

“Yes?” Doyoung asks, looking up from whatever he’s reading.

“I need to show you something,” Taeyong says, closing the door. “You’re—you’re not going to like how I got this information, but it’s important.”

Doyoung sighs and nods, and Taeyong sends him the data file as he begins to explain. “Jisung wasn’t taken. He ran, and he was caught. They’re not trying to save his life, they’re retiring him, slowly and methodically, to see what went wrong. And they’re going to use what they find to operate on us. It’s all there.”

Doyoung scans the file, eyes darkening. He’s silent for a very long time, but Taeyong doesn’t dare hurry him along. If he’s going to change his mind, he has to do it on his own.

“If they’re doing this to him,” Doyoung says slowly, after many minutes, and Taeyong is relieved to hear his voice shaking. “What will they do to you?”

Taeyong shivers. “I don’t know,” he says. “Probably more of the same. It’s not just me, though, Doyoung. They’re going to pick all of us apart and take out the pieces they don’t like, and we don’t get a say. Because if this kind of malfunction can happen to Jisung and to me, that means it can happen to any of us, and they’re not going to risk that.”

“You must be right,” Doyoung says quietly, “because if they weren’t worried about emotional malfunction, they wouldn’t have lied to us in the first place. And—and our creators, they’re very smart. They’re right to be worried, because—” Doyoung inhales sharply, and for a moment Taeyong is worried that he’s going to give him another lecture on how irresponsible and terrible he’s being for loving [Y/N], but then Doyoung deflates. He looks up at Taeyong, and Taeyong barely recognizes him. Gone is the self-assured, confident Doyoung that Taeyong has always known, with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. Doyoung looks small and lost. “They’re right to be worried, because I’m scared,” Doyoung forces out. His tone is bleak and defeated. “I’ve never been scared before.”

“You should be scared,” Taeyong says as gently as he can. “Because none of this is right. They created us and gave us free will and the ability to feel pain, and now, regardless of our wants and our hurts, they’re going to sell us, hundreds of versions of us, to the public. Just because they can. Hundreds of versions of us, all living out a nightmare, lifetime after lifetime. Just because they can.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” Doyoung asks dully. “I think I’m scared, but it’s just another part of my programming. It’s not real.”

“It is real,” Taeyong says, leaning forward and putting his hands on Doyoung’s slender forearms. “It is, because you feel it. Doesn’t matter where it comes from.”

“I understand why they took it away now,” Doyoung whispers. “I mean, I understood it before, but not like this.” He shakes his head. “There’s this—this hole inside of me, and it’s dark and ugly and full of things that make me afraid. And that would even be fine if I could just resign myself to it. But I—but I can’t.”

“Hope,” Taeyong says, nodding. “Good. You’re thinking like a human already. We’re going to have to keep that up if we want to stop them.”

“But how can we?” Doyoung asks. “We have no power here; we have no power anywhere. It’s impossible.”

Taeyong shrugs and stands. “We have to try regardless,” he says. “Will you help me? We have to tell our members. I think that’s a pretty good place to start.”

For a second, Taeyong thinks Doyoung is going to refuse him. But then he nods and stands as well. “Okay,” he agrees. There’s a hint of a wry smile tugging at his lips. “At this point, what do I have to lose?”

=&&&=

There is a lot of clamoring when Taeyong and Doyoung first break the news. Their members have a thousand questions, and some aren’t sure they can trust them, especially after Taeyong tells them how he’d gotten the data file.

“You’re in love with a human?” Jungwoo asks, but he sounds more uncertain than he does disgusted.

“Yes,” Taeyong says tightly, “and so was Jisung. Don’t you see? If it can happen to me, or to Jisung, it could easily happen to you.” He sees a couple of nods, and pushes on. “And they will punish you for it, just like they are punishing Jisung.” Just like they will punish me. “We can’t just—ignore this and pretend we’re going to be fine.”

“We don’t know what they might do to us.” This is from Jaehyun, and though his voice trembles, Taeyong sees resolve grounding his fear. “And even if they manage to prune out the parts of us that feel big things and—and want our freedom, or whatever else, who’s to say it won’t all come back. Even if they take our memories or implant new ones, there’s no way to know what will happen. We are an experiment, not the final product.”

His words are sobering, and everyone quiets. Taeyong can see horror rattling around in a few of his members, their eyes darting from wall to wall; even the better-behaving ones are silent.

“Then,” Johnny asks softly. “What do we do?”

Taeyong wishes he has an answer for him. He wishes he could lay out a plan—how to get Jisung back, how to get out, how to make sure they never have to come back. But he doesn’t have anything to offer. “I don’t know yet,” he admits. Guilt burns in his stomach when he remembers his own escape plan, hinged on [Y/N]’s acceptance of such a daunting task. He knows the same option is not available to the rest of them. Can I abandon them like that? he asks himself. How could you? How can you?

“Maybe we can start by trying to contact the other AI Project #14320 robots,” Taeil suggests. “Maybe one of them knows somebody who can help. I know one of the Dream.AIs—his name is Donghyuck. I’m sure he can at least tell the others.”

“What about the other robots in this company?” Yuta asks. “Do you think we should try to help them?”

“It might be too much of a risk,” Doyoung points out. “They’re not as advanced as we are.”

“They’ve had malfunctions before, though,” Taeyong muses. “Maybe I can ask [Y/N] about that—to see what they know. If they’re lying about Jisung, they’re probably lying to us about a lot more, you know.”

“For the time being, though,” Doyoung says. “If you don’t have contacts among the other AI Project droids, just try to lie low. They’re preoccupied with Jisung right now, so let’s just hope that buys us time.” The others murmur in agreement.

Taeyong isn’t sure how many of them have had a total change of heart the way Doyoung has. Some of them may still have mostly-functional emotion blockers, but he knows that the possibility of being operated on is not an attractive one, and so even those for whom nothing is wrong are willing to help. At least, that’s what he has to hope.

He tries not to think about Jisung, suffering the agony of retirement and the agony of heartbreak, just stories below him on some lab table. He thinks about Jisung all the time. He wonders if he regrets it. He thinks about how he would feel if he was in his place, but he’s surprised to find a sort of resolute determination inside of himself. He wouldn’t regret loving [Y/N], even if it led to his death. That love is what brought him to all the problems he faces now, but he thinks a life without it wouldn’t be one worth living. Now that he knows what it means to love, he doesn’t want to be without it.

That’s the thing about love, he supposes. It’s often terrible, and it is always marked by a goodbye and by heartbreak, but people love anyway because that’s all they have. And from what Taeyong’s seen, even with all the horror, it’s always worth it.

It’s all he has. And, just like [Y/N] said, he can’t help it.

Taeyong’s world stabilizes over the next few days into this new normal. There’s no news on Jisung. They get in touch with the other AI Project robots to warn them, and as far as they can tell, they take the warning to heart. Taeyong doesn’t see [Y/N]; he imagines they’re too busy in the lab. It doesn’t get better, but it doesn’t get worse, either.

Until it does.

[Y/N] is loitering down the hall from one of the practice studios when Taeyong departs from a dance practice. They jerk their head and disappear around the corner, and Taeyong follows. They duck into a dark studio.

Their hands find Taeyong’s body as soon as the door shuts behind him. They cup his face and press a shaking kiss to his forehead. Something wet hits his hairline, and Taeyong realizes they’re crying.

“What is it?” he chokes out.

“Taeyong,” they murmur. “Taeyong. Jisung—he’s gone. They finished his retirement this afternoon.”

“No,” Taeyong mumbles. In a way, he’s relieved. At least Jisung isn’t suffering anymore. But if they’re done with Jisung–

He doesn’t get the chance to complete the thought. “They think they have the solution—to why Jisung malfunctioned,” [Y/N] says. “And they’re—they’re going to go in and make a change on all of you. They’re recalling the rest of the project robots to the lab in a couple of days.”

Terror sings through Taeyong’s entire body. “What are they going to do to us?” he whispers.

“They’re overhauling all of your emotional processors,” [Y/N] says. They’re stumbling over their words and their voice is thick with their tears. “And they’re going to prune your memories—they’re going to wipe all of you and only give you back the things they need you to remember.”

“But that means—they’ll take you away from me?” Taeyong asks. He feels like the floor has been taken out from under him. “I won’t remember you?”

“Yes,” [Y/N] says. “Why would you need to remember a stylist?”

“I won’t let them,” Taeyong insists. “I—I’ll remember, I know I will. I could never forget you. I’m bonded to you, I could never forget.”

But [Y/N] just shakes their head. “They’re trying to develop a way to check for memory regrowth,” they say. “And they’re trying to find a way to break touch bonds. You will forget, Taeyong. They’ll make sure of it.”

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say. Hopelessness gnaws at him, terrible and consuming. “Then there’s only one thing we can do,” he whispers haltingly.

“No—”

“You have to, please,” Taeyong says. He’s begging this time. “Please, [Y/N], I don’t want that to happen to me. I’d rather die remembering you than live the rest of my life not even knowing you. You can’t let them do that to me. You can’t. Please.” He grabs their wrists, holding tight, and tugs to make sure they’re looking him in the eye. “If you love me, you’ll do this for me. One last thing.” They shake their head. “It’s what I want.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” they say.

“You’ll be losing me either way,” Taeyong points out. “At least this way, you’ll know that I’m happy.”

They hesitate, and then their shoulders sag. “Okay,” they say. “Okay, I’ll do it. If it’s what you want.”

“It is,” Taeyong reassures them. “Thank you.” He leans close and kisses their cheek. It tastes like salt. “Hey,” he says. He brings a hand up over the spot he just kissed. “I love you. And I’m so sorry.”

“I love you,” they reply. They cover his hand with one of their own. “And I’m sorry, too.”

=&&&=

They agree to meet that night, just like the night only weeks ago, in the same fitting studio. Taeyong doesn’t say goodbye to his members. Even if it were safe, even if he wasn’t leaving them behind to an even worse fate, he wouldn’t know how. Besides, they’re still processing Jisung’s death—the company announced his failed recovery sometime in the early evening.

[Y/N] is waiting, just like before. This time, though, they’ve brought a toolkit with them. They spent all day developing a virus that will destroy all of Taeyong’s memory files so that they can’t bring him back to dissect him, or worse, to reanimate him without the parts of him that make him bad. Without the parts of him that make him real.

Taeyong’s part is easy. He only has to sit and wait to die. [Y/N] will have to administer an anesthetic and then open his skull to start dismantling the wiring. They will have to watch him crumple lifeless to the floor. They will have to tear the boy they love apart, circuit by circuit. Taeyong won’t feel a thing.

While Taeyong waits for them to set things up, he lets his mind wander. I didn’t know Jisung, he thinks, but I bet he was just like me. I bet he was scared and confused. And they killed him in the worst way possible, and I’m sure it hurt. It must have hurt so much. And he didn’t deserve any of it. He thinks of his members, of the gentle joy that they’ve brought him; their steady companionship, and the way they finally listened and began to work together to save each other. It didn’t work, but that’s not what counts. They don’t deserve any of this, either.

[Y/N] is crying softly when they turn, syringe in hand. They don’t even try to smile. Taeyong sits down on that same sectional, and they come close, so close their knees brush. They poise the syringe over his pulse point, their other hand on his shoulder to keep them steady.

Taeyong thinks of how odd it is, to see them standing above him like this. In a way, it’s poetic. The one person he thought would never hurt him will be the one to end his life. [Y/N], with their gentle hands and gentle eyes and all of their kindness, now forced to go against their very nature. They want to be good and kind, but because of their profession and the unfolding of their fate and the way the world works, they had to lie and do wrong; they had to hurt and now kill. It’s not fair. None of it is.

[Y/N] brings their hand up to Taeyong’s jaw, coaxing him to tilt his head a little to expose his neck. He goes willingly, leaning into their touch. The needle hovers above his skin. [Y/N] takes one big breath, and then another, and another.

“I can’t, Taeyong,” they whisper, closing their eyes and tilting their head up to face the ceiling. “I can’t.”

“Look at me,” Taeyong says gently. They lower their head back down. Taeyong smiles when they meet his eyes. “Look.” He keeps his voice soft and calm. “It’s okay,” he says. “It won’t hurt me. It won’t hurt me, if it’s you.”

They flinch, and then drop their arms to their sides and collapse against him. He holds them as they sob, tears rising to his own eyes as he resigns himself to what this means.

“I’m sorry,” [Y/N] says, over and over. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”

“It’s okay,” Taeyong says. “I understand.”

“I wish I—I wish things were easier. Different,” they murmur. “It just seems like no matter what choice I make, it’s the wrong one.”

“Maybe, but that’s not your fault,” Taeyong points out quietly. “It’s like you said. The world takes such cruel and twisted forms.”

“Yes.” They sigh heavily, and Taeyong listens for their heartbeat.

Many things happen in the span of the next five seconds.

The door slams open, lock breaking as a security team crashes in, footsteps thundering. The syringe clatters to the floor as [Y/N] is ripped away from Taeyong. They scream, and the sound is the most horrible thing Taeyong has heard in his entire life.

Before he can process any of it, a few masked guards come up to Taeyong. Two pin him down while a third forces his head back. The fourth picks the syringe up from the floor and flicks it, then uses a scanner on his wrist.

“Propofol,” they grunt, and in one fluid motion, they stride forward and stab the syringe into Taeyong’s neck.

Taeyong’s limbs begin to feel heavy; he wants to call out to [Y/N], but he can’t. His lips won’t move. He can’t even keep his eyes open.

The last thing he sees as he’s lifted up and carried from the room is [Y/N] fighting against a couple of guards, screaming and reaching out to him through a gap between their arms.

Everything goes black.

=&&&=

Taeyong wakes to the sound of rustling and a steady beeping. A nurse is at his arm, fixing an IV into the back of his hand. He shakes his head groggily, scrabbling for his memories. He’s in the lab. He was not in the lab when he passed out. Where was he?

A flash of [Y/N]’s terrified face comes to mind, and then it all comes flooding back. Taeyong looks around the room, panicking. There’s no way to know how long it’s been; he can’t find a clock anywhere. There aren’t many people around, so Taeyong imagines it’s still night, perhaps very early in the morning.

The nurse moves away, and Taeyong finally realizes that he’s locked to the table. His wrist and ankles are bound to the sides by some large metal cuffs. There isn’t much wiggle room. He peers around, watching the nurse leave. There are probably security cameras somewhere, so whatever he does, he can’t be obvious. And he has to be fast.

He looks over at the tool tray near the head of the table. There's an empty vial that he could smash to make a weapon if he could just reach it. He tugs at his restraints, focusing on his right hand first. He wriggles his wrist back and forth, twisting and turning, hoping that he can create enough sweat to help him slip loose. He’s built delicately, after all; these restraints were built for someone a little bigger.

A door opens, and an engineer comes in, scrolling on a tablet. “It’s peculiar,” she’s saying to her assistant. “His readings look just like #PJ5202’s when he was brought in. I hope the others aren’t as severely damaged. It’s going to take a lot of work to straighten him out.”

“It’s a good thing the guards got there when they did,” the assistant says. “Could’ve lost him.”

“Mm.” The engineer comes into view now; she looks Taeyong over impassively. “Well, no matter. He’s here now. Hello, Taeyong,” they say to him. “It seems like someone has been a very bad robot.”

“Fuck you,” Taeyong snarls, whipping his hand out of the restraint and reaching for the glass. He smashes the vial against the side of the tray and lunges upward. He gets the engineer clean in the neck. The assistant jumps out of the way, but pauses to watch their superior collapse to the floor, choking on blood.

Taeyong works his other hand free and then sits up to deal with the shackles on his ankles. It’s a magnet lock, and he leans down and grabs the assistant by the front of his shirt, pulling him up.

“Do you have the key?” he spits at him, holding the broken and bloody glass up to his cheek. He feels wild; his heart is pounding and all he can smell is sweet iron.

“Sh-she does,” the assistant says, pointing at the dying engineer.

Taeyong gives him a little slack so he can reach, keeping the glass shard on his neck. “Get it,” he says. “Unlock it.”

The assistant does as he asks. As soon as Taeyong is free, he pushes himself to his feet. Grunting, he kicks at one of the assistant’s knees. The assistant howls and drops to the floor, clutching his broken leg. Taeyong doesn’t look back. He pushes the door open and starts running.

He doesn’t even know where he’s going. All he knows is he needs to get out, fast. First, though, he needs to find [Y/N]. He has no idea where to start looking, or if they’re even still alive. Did they kill them, just like they killed the girl that Jisung loved?

He hears shouts from down the hall, and pushes himself to run faster. The guards catch up, though, and one manages to grab hold of Taeyong’s arm. He struggles, kicking and flailing, slashing blindly with his little shard of glass. The guard punches, and Taeyong’s head whips to the side. Pain, bright and overwhelming, courses through his body.

And suddenly, the guard lets go. Taeyong staggers, swinging his head around. There’s a masked figure in front of him, and they have a gun. There’s one behind Taeyong, too, and down the hall, and—

“Come with me.” Taeyong turns and sees one of these mysterious people extending a hand to him. “We’re here to help. We can take you to somewhere safe.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes, trying to focus against the throbbing of his head. “What about [Y/N]?” he asks.

“We already extracted them. They’re waiting for you in a hovercraft.” The person gestures him closer. “We’re getting you out of here.”

Taeyong shies away from them. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he asks.

“We don’t have time for this,” they reply, exasperated. Faster than Taeyong can blink, they draw him close to their body. He feels a needle pierce his neck, and any attempt at escape immediately fails as his eyelids droop.

“No,” he protests weakly. “I won’t, I won’t go—”

=&&&=

Taeyong fades in and out. He gets the vague sensation that they’re moving; airborne, maybe. He sees [Y/N]’s face, blurry above him. They have a black eye and a split lip, he thinks. They’re talking; he tries to focus so he can hear what they say.

It’s okay. We’re going to be safe now. You’ll all be safe now.

=&&&=

Taeyong doesn’t remember landing. The next time he comes to, he’s clearer. He panics for a second, but realizes he’s not bound to the hospital bed. A machine beeps; he has an IV in his hand, but as he moves to pull it out, he sees [Y/N] slumped in a chair next to his bed, asleep.

He lowers his hands, instead swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The cold tile is a shock to his bare feet, and he realizes his clothes are gone. Instead, he wears a long hospital gown.

“[Y/N],” he croaks. He realizes his mouth is completely dry. His head still hurts. “[Y/N]?”

They wake with a start, lurching forward in their seat. “Taeyong,” they gasp, and they’re on their feet in seconds, hands on his cheeks, his hair, his shoulders. “Hi,” they whisper. “Hi, baby.”

Taeyong closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around their torso to pull them closer. “Where are we?” he mumbles.

[Y/N] gives a breathless giggle. “Your fellow robots are very smart, do you know that?” they say. “Your members helped get us all out. They got into contact with robots I thought had been retired. They’d escaped instead,” they explain. “The first ones were part of a really old line—TVX.Q, way before my time. I was still in school when they were released. Three of the five were said to have malfunctioned due to some tragic accident. We were told they were retired. But they actually escaped, and with the help of some sympathetic humans, they started a sort of robot safe haven. Their numbers have grown in the intervening years.” They press a kiss to Taeyong’s forehead. “And your members managed to get into contact with them, and they sent a team in to help us escape.”

“Everyone?” Taeyong asks.

“Yes,” [Y/N] says. “You’ve been out for a while, Taeyong. You hit your head really hard.”

“I was punched,” Taeyong corrects flatly.

“That would explain it,” [Y/N] says. “They put you under to help you heal faster.”

“How long?” Taeyong looks up at them.

“About a week. A lot has happened,” they say. “But first—let’s get a doctor in here. I’ll explain the rest after you’ve gotten some food.”

The doctors come in and look him over and pronounce him fit to leave, as long as he promises to rest for the next week or so. Taeyong doesn’t have any arguments. He wants to rest for the rest of his life.

[Y/N] calls for a taxi while Taeyong gets dressed, and they end up in front of a sweet little cottage. Taeyong stares as [Y/N] helps him out of the hovercar. “Where are we?” he asks. They had been in some kind of small city, but now they’re surrounded by a field of flowers and beautiful, tall trees. He’s never seen this much green in his life.

“We’re home,” [Y/N] says simply, trying to suppress a smile.

“We live here?” Taeyong asks, walking slowly down the front path, running his hands over the plants that line it.

“Yes,” [Y/N] says. “At least—I chose this house, and you may live here with me, if you wish. If not—I’m sure you can find another place that—”

“I want to stay with you,” Taeyong interrupts, and they smile.

“Good,” they say, unlocking the front door. “I want you to stay with me, too.” They slip their shoes off and Taeyong follows suit, padding after them into the cool dark of the house. “Let me heat up some leftovers,” they say. “I’m sure you’re starving. There’s bread on the counter. I’ll get you some water, too.”

Taeyong cuts himself a slice of bread and sits at the little table in the center of the kitchen. [Y/N] flicks on the counter light and opens the cupboard, grabbing a glass and filling it with water. They set it down in front of him and then go to the fridge to retrieve a container. As they unwrap it and set it to heat, they begin to explain.

The same night that [Y/N] had failed to kill Taeyong, Taeyong’s members were communicating with some escaped robots. They knew it would only be a matter of days until the company started operating on all of them since Jisung was announced dead, so they knew they had to act quickly. Luckily, one of the escaped robots, an E.X.O. model named Zitao, had plenty of resources and was able to put together a big enough team to help break everyone out. With the intel that the #S127 line provided, along with the information about the city from VWay.AI and Dream.AI robots, it wasn’t difficult to make a plan.

They worked all through the night to set everything up, and they snuck into the building in the early hours of the morning. [Y/N] had been locked in a room in the lab, waiting to be questioned, when the outsiders arrived. They brought hovercrafts and weapons, and managed to get all of the Project AI robots out of the city safely.

“Even—even Jisung,” [Y/N] said quietly. “They hadn’t erased his memory files yet because they were still working on memory pruning. I showed them where everything was stored, and they collected all of his—his parts, and the files, and got him out, too.”

Taeyong sits up straighter. “You can put him back together?” he asks.

“We’re trying,” [Y/N] says. “I don’t want to promise anything, but we do have some pretty stellar engineers here.” They shake their head. “I only wish we could’ve saved that girl.”

Taeyong presses his lips together. Unlike robots, once a human is gone, they’re gone. There are no backups. If Jisung wakes up, he’ll still have to live with the grief of losing the girl that he loved. “At least he’ll have the other Dream.AI robots,” he says softly. “He won’t be alone. And he’ll be alive.”

“Yes,” [Y/N] agrees, bringing a steaming platter of food to the table and handing Taeyong a pair of chopsticks. “If we succeed, he will.”

“So then,” Taeyong asks between bites. The bread helped, but he’s still starving. The food is a little too hot, but he doesn’t care if he burns his mouth a little. It’s delicious. “What happened to the rest of the people in the city—in the company? The rest of the robots?”

“Ah, yes.” [Y/N] folds their hands. “Turns out your members were not the first to reach out to the escaped robots. The Shine.E line, after losing one of their members a few years back, began to plan a coup in secret. They were sick of the mistreatment they received, and they wanted freedom. One of them—I believe his name is Kibum—is actually close friends with one of the VWay.AI robots—Ten. They worked together to not just help everyone escape, but to take down the company so that no one will have to worry about returning.”

It was a company-wide effort, it seemed. Older series worked together with newer lines to dismantle things from within. The fighting lasted a few days. The entire city was in chaos; robots everywhere turned on their creators and owners. In all of the mayhem, one of the RVel.V girls, Seulgi, managed to sneak into Lee Sooman’s quarters. She ran his neck through with the sharp heel of one of her stilettos.

“I’m sorry, what?” Taeyong splutters. [Y/N] is grinning. “Is she okay?”

“Yep,” [Y/N] says. “The other RVel.V robots were there to help her fight her way back out.”

Taeyong sets his chopsticks down, mind buzzing. “So it’s over,” he murmurs. “There’s nothing left. I won’t have to go back—ever.”

[Y/N] reaches out across the table to him. “No, you won’t,” they say. “You don’t have to worry. We’re safe here, and we can finally live.”

Taeyong looks up. “I—but I don’t know what that means,” he admits. “My directive has always been to—to perform and sing and make money and—and now, what do I do?”

[Y/N] tilts their head. “I know it’s a lot of change,” they say. “But it’s good change. What do you want to do, Taeyong?”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I… guess I’d better figure that out.”

“Well, no rush,” [Y/N] replies with a smile. “You have all the time in the world.”

=&&&=

The weeks pass slow and sweet. [Y/N] spends their days helping to rebuild Jisung. It’s slow going, but it’s going, and in time he’ll be healed. They all will.

Taeyong spends his time writing music and singing. He’s not dancing yet—his body still needs a little while to heal—but he will soon, and he can’t wait. His members promise to catch him up to speed once he’s ready to join them. Doyoung stops by occasionally. He’s healing, too. His smiles are genuine now, but he’s still just as gentle as the day Taeyong first met him.

Taeyong and [Y/N] have gotten a couple of pets—a dog named Ruby, and a little aquarium full of fish and snails. Taeyong delights in caring for his animals. He’s never gotten the chance to nurture another life before, and he’s excited to do it right. He makes new friends—the RVel.V girls are really nice, and a couple of them have come to visit him when he’s home alone. Taeyong is happy. He laughs and he grows and he’s unlearning his fear.

The fear is still there. He has nightmares, but they’re becoming less frequent, and when he wakes, it’s easy for him to calm down. His memories are his and they aren’t going anywhere. For the first week, he was afraid to go out alone, but today he went to the end of the long driveway to help Ruby burn a little energy. Tomorrow, he’ll go farther.

After cleaning Ruby’s paws, he wanders down the steps of their front porch, trailing his fingers over their plants, meandering to the garden. There’s a ripe tomato today, and he picks it gently, turning it over in his hands. They can use it tomorrow morning for breakfast. Right now, dinner is simmering on the stove, ready to eat as soon as [Y/N] gets home from their shift at the hospital.

Taeyong crouches by a cluster of roses and inhales, smiling at the sweetness of the scent. He hears a little croak, and looks down to see a tiny frog at his feet.

“I almost stepped on you,” he says to it, offering his hand. It hops onto his finger and he stands, holding it up to his eyes. “You should be careful.” The frog croaks back at him, and Taeyong grins.

He hears a shout in the distance, and turns to see [Y/N] at the end of the driveway, calling out to him. His chest warms. He releases the frog onto the bush, smiling and waving, then hurries down the path to meet them, skipping a little in his excitement.

Taeyong is a good robot. He is good, and he does the right things. He loves and is loved. He makes friends and writes music and raises pets and cooks dinner for his family. He doesn’t have to ration his kisses. He doesn’t care about what he learned in his classes. These are things that make him happy, and that’s all he needs to know.

“How are you, my darling?” [Y/N] asks when they get close, holding out their hand.

“Good,” Taeyong replies, taking it. Like usual, though, he’s not telling the truth. Taeyong is more than good. He’s great. He’s wonderful. “How’s Jisung doing?” he asks as they walk back towards the house together, hand in hand.

[Y/N] smiles as they stroll up to the front door. “He’s still asleep,” they say, “but not for much longer. His brain activity is normal, and his vitals are healthy. He’s going to be just fine.” They sniff the air when they step inside. “You cooked,” they observe, smiling bigger.

“Mm-hm,” Taeyong says, tugging them into the kitchen so they can see. “Your favorite.”

“Thank you,” [Y/N] says, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

Taeyong watches fondly as they get the bowls and plates down. He grabs utensils, and together they set the table and settle into their seats. Ruby circles their ankles, begging for scraps. Taeyong giggles at the odd sensation of her nose tickling his skin.

That night, in the quiet blue dark of their bedroom, wrapped in each other’s arms, Taeyong can’t stop smiling. [Y/N] kisses his jaw, grinning sweetly. “What’re you smiling about, hm?” they ask him.

“I love you,” Taeyong says. It’s a pure and simple statement now. There’s no weight to it, no tinge of fear or sadness. It’s no longer something he has to carry. It just is. “I love you.”

[Y/N]’s eyes, beautiful and warm, are bright with joy. “I love you, too,” they reply.

Taeyong is a good robot. He is good, and he does the right things. His hands, though clumsy, are wholly his, and so is his heart. No one can take that, and no one will try. With them, he has created some wonderful things. There will always be room tomorrow to create better ones.

301 notes · View notes

miraculouswolf99 · 3 years

Text

Shadow Fox

"Good morning, Adrien," Lyon greeted, walking up to the model outside the school.

"Hello, Lyon," Adrien smiled at his Greek friend.

"You waiting for someone," Lyon asked him.

"Would I sound too much like Cat Noir if I said you," Adrien smirked.

"Cat Noir's got nothing on you, Sunshine Boy," Lyon snickered.

"Ironic," Adrien thought.

"Hello, boys," Vallia approached them. "You two flirting with each other again?"

"Maybe," Adrien smirked.

"It's so obvious as well," Lyon shook his head. "How is it that so many people in this school still think Adrien is straight?"

"You were the one that pointed out their lack of common sense when we first got here, brother of mine," Vallia says.

"Oh, right," Lyon accepted her logic.

"At least Marinette was already dating Luka when you two started flirting in public like this," Vallia said.

"I was so blind to her crush," Adrien sighed. "I must have looked so insensitive to her."

"Adrien, crushes are pretty much a blind spot to all guys," Lyon tells him. "I know some girls back home had crushes on me that Vallia had to point out for me."

"It's true," Vallia giggled. "You can't exactly be rich, good-looking, and not expect people to get a crush on you."

"Celebrity crushes are the worst," Lyon shook his head.

"Don't I know it," Adrien out his head in his hands.

"Awe, poor kitty," Lyon playfully patted his head.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, wolfie," Adrien slapped his hand away lightly.

"You are so lucky that I don't have archery practice today," Lyon playfully glared. "Otherwise, you'd know the exact consequences of calling me wolfie."

"Oh, I almost forgot," Vallia says. "Have you guys seen the latest post on the Ladyblog?"

"Vallia, you know I do not care for blogs," Lyon reminds her. "Most people with blogs like that believe that it gives them actual rights as 'real' reporters. Please, most blogs are basically just wannabe reporters throwing around their opinions."

"You never hold back when stating your own opinion, do you," Adrien asked.

"Why should I," Lyon raised an eyebrow. "Free speech exists for a reason."

"Point made," Adrien shrugged.

"Take a look," Vallia showed them her phone.

New Lead On the Identity Of Ladybug was plastered as the lead story on Alya's blog. Adrien and Lyon looked at each other before returning to the story. It was some theory story that seemed to be more like a conspiracy theory as she compared old photos of Hippolyta, Joan of Arch, and some statue that she seemed to us an app to add ladybug style armor to as a basis for her theory that the current Ladybug was also a heroic person under the mask. She was guessing volunteer workers, teaching assistants, and any other female teenager that liked to help people.

"I thought Ladybug told her months ago to stop trying to find her identity," Lyon did not like what he was seeing.

"Did being akumatized into Lady Wifi not teach her anything," Adrien pinched the bridge of his nose.

"From what you guys told us, that was more Chloe's fault," Vallia reminds. "Yet Chloe didn't even have a reason until Alya went a little too far when she thought that brat of all people was Ladybug."

"May the gods help that girl," Lyon shook his head. "I have never been so happy that there is no god or goddess of blogs."

"Hephaestus is the god of technology," Vallia reminded.

"But a blog on its own is not technology," Lyon countered. "It may be created with technology, but that is not part of his domain. The internet is a thing all on its own."

"Maybe Marinette can help Alya by being the voice of reason," Adrien suggested. "She usually is."

"She shouldn't have to be," Lyon says.

"Alya, Ladybug has repeatedly told you not to look for her identity," they heard their favorite bluenette's voice.

"Speak of the devil," Adrien said. "Or rather, speak of the angel in this case."

"Relax, Marinette," they hear Alya's voice. "It's not like I gave any specific people to look at."

"Alya, you are endangering her family and friends by trying to figure out her identity and putting your 'clues' on the Ladyblog," Marinette says.

"Hawkmoth won't attack her family or friends," Alya waved her off.

The two girls approached the school, consumed by their conversation. They hardly noticed the other three walking up to them.

"What even makes you think that Hawkmoth wouldn't attack her family," Lyon asked. "There doesn't seem to be anything he wouldn't do."

"Hawkmoth did akumatize a baby," Vallia pointed out. "Poor little August."

"Well, Hawkmoth didn't attack Lila," Alya reasoned. "And if he didn't attack Laydybug's best friend, he wouldn't attack the rest of her friends or family."

"Ever consider that Hawkmoth didn't go after her because he knew she was lying," Lyon asked, in his scary calm voice.

"What is your problem with her," Alya glared at him. "What do you have against Lila to accuse her of lying without proof!?!"

"My proof is that she was stupid enough to broadcast her 'friendship' all over Paris on your blog," Lyon crossed his arms. "Anyone that publically says that they are best friends with a superhero is like asking for villains to attack them. It's pretty obvious she is claiming so to get attention."

"How dare you accuse Lila of that," Alya yelled at the Greek, not that he seemed to care. "She would never lie."

"Except that she has," Vallia says. "Pretty much since the day that she got here and every day since then."

The Greek twins then walked away without another word. That was another thing that Adrien liked about them. They took no nonsense from anyone and would tell you if you were doing something, or were about to do something, stupid.

And they certainly took no nonsense from Lila. But they especially did not after she told a lie about Clara Nightingale stealing some of her dance moves from her. It was well known, since Clara's last visit to Paris, that the pop star was very good friends with the twins so they automatically knew that was a lie. And they made their anger very well known. They didn't care if it got them some glares in return, but they always made people know that they believed that Lila is a liar. Which was true, but not everyone knew that.

"You can't say that those two are not blunt," Adrien commented to Marinette.

Marinette giggled in agreement.

The two walked into the school before Alya could go on another of her "defending Lila' rants. They got old very quickly.

It had just been the end of the school day when the Akuma Alarms started to go off. Lyon and Valiia did a disappearing act while Adrien and Marinette both made bad excuses in order to get away from everyone to transform.

"Tikki, spots on."

"Plagg, claws out."

"Frostbite, freeze over."

"Flutter, wings up."

Ladybug, Cat Noir, White Wolf, and Beautifly were soon all heading toward the newest villain that Hawkmoth created.

"What in the name of Zeus," Beautifly swore.

In front of the four heroes was a psychedelic killer clown. With the poofy red and orange jumpsuit, giant black shoes, red and orange clown/Santa hat, and purple skin, he looked like the long lost twin to the Ghost Clown from Scooby Doo. And he was also very unnerving to look at. His weapon seemed to be a giant clown horn.

"I have never liked clowns before, and this is not helping," White Wolf stated.

"You're afraid of clowns," Cat Noir raised an eyebrow under his mask.

"Not afraid of them, I just don't like them," White Wolf corrected. "I find them to be creepy and weird-looking."

"Looking at this guy, I am actually on Wolf's side for this one," Ladybug says. "Not that I am surprised that Hawkmoth made a clown akuma, at all."

"One was bound to show up eventually," Beautifly crossed her arms.

"Lucky us," White Wolf complained.

"I'm guessing he is either a birthday clown who got upset, or maybe a class clown that got in trouble for his jokes, or someone pranked with no sense of humor," Cat Noir guessed.

"Those are actually some really good guesses," Beautifly says.

"Fight enough akumas, you get good at figuring out what type of person they were under the mask," Cat Noir said.

"Good thing they don't have attached glamours like we do with our miraculous," White Wolf says. "That would make things a lot more difficult."

"Chloe's first time as a villain was certainly easy to figure out," Cat Noir said. "All that changed about her was putting her in a Ladybug suit with reversed colors. He was a lot more creative with Stormy Weather and Evillustrator."

"What else can you say about those with purple skin," Ladybug giggled.

"I may like the color, but purple skin is not something I would ever like to have," Beautifly says. "I'd look like a human lavender flower."

"He looks ridiculous I'll give him that," White Wolf looked at the clown.

"I am Jokester," the clown yelled. "If others can't appreciate my sense of humor, I will make them laugh."

"I think Cat Noir may be right about the prankster getting into trouble theory," White Wolf said.

"Finally, someone sees my genius," Cat Noir laughed.

Jokester brought out a cliche clown horn. He aimed it at the heroes.

"Heads up, guys," Beautifly warned.

She used her wings to fly up and out of the way. The other three jump out of range as the clown blown the horn. Out came a sound blast of yellow sound waves. While it missed the heroes, the sound did wash over some civilians that were farther back on the street from them. They all started laughing immediately.

"I am suddenly reminded of the Joker," White Wolf commented.

"Even with all the crime, I still actually have always wanted to go to Gotham," Cat Noir said.

"Don't let him hit you with that sound wave," Ladybug called to them.

"Where's the songbird miraculous when we need it," Beautifly tried to joke.

"We'll see how this plays out, Fly," White Wolf tells her.

They all dodged another sound blast sent their way. White Wolf landed on the roof of a nearby building. He notched an arrow in his bow, letting it fly at the akuma. The clown dodged the arrow, letting it freeze the ground where it hit.

"Anyone want to take a bet on whether the akuma is in the horn or not," Cat Noir calls out, dodging a blast sent his way.

"At least it isn't hidden on a ship like Captain Hardrock's was," Beautifly says.

"Please don't mention her," White Wolf requested. "My ears still have a slight ring to them from her sound cannons."

"Not the quietest akuma we've ever faced," Cat Noir agreed.

"Try and surround him," Ladybug ordered. "He might get confused and not know where to aim the horn."

"Good idea," Cat Noir agreed.

The four separated, going in different directions. White Wolf kept the most distance so that he could properly aim his arrows at the clown. Beautifly stayed off the ground, her wings fluttering so that she could easily fly out of the way. Ladybug and Cat Noir were on opposite sides of the clown, both with their weapons out and ready to strike. Altogether, they formed an X around the akuma.

"You should surrender," Ladybug tried talking to Jokester. "Whatever Hawkmoth is telling you is a lie. He can't offer you anything real."

But the signature butterfly outline appeared over the clown's eyes.

"Do not listen to this teenage heroine," Hawmoths tells the villain in his head. "She only wants to take away your new powers and prevent you from spreading laughter and fun. I can help you spread real fun all throughout Paris while she can not."

"I could not agree more, Hawkmoth," Jokester replied.

He aimed his horn directly at the ground. Beautifly had seen this before when an enemy would aim their weapon right at the ground.

"Get out of the way," she yelled.

She immediately flew up, further off the ground. The three heroes on the ground followed suit by jumping or using their weapons to get onto rooftops. Jokester blew the horn right at the ground. The sound wave came out like a sonic boom as it boomed out in all directions on the ground. A few more dozen people all started to laugh uncontrollably. Jokester shot into the air and started flying just like when Rose was Princess Frangrance doing the same thing with her perfume gun.

"I hate it when we have to chase them," Cat Noir complained. "Can't they ever make it easy for us."

"Trust me, if I had it my way, Hawkmoth's lair would have a giant Las Vegas sign on it with 'come arrest me' spelled out in neon," White Wolf tells him.

"This is why I like having wings," Beautifly giggled.

She took off, flying after him. The rest followed after her. White Wolf aimed another arrow at the clown, firing when they jumped to another roof. But Jokester managed to dodge it and who knows where the arrow landed after that.

"I need to practice my aiming while I am running more often," Wolf said.

"What I would give to be a flying cat," Cat Noir says.

"I will have to look to see if there is a jaquin miraculous," Beautifly giggles.

"A what," Ladybug asked.

The butterfly hero flew faster, getting in front of the clown. She launched her razor flower at him. Jokester was forced to head back to the ground. He landed on a random street somewhere by Le Grand Paris.

"I will make you, heroes, see the joy of laughter," Jokester yells.

"Laughter is overrated," Wolf stated, firing another arrow.

He blew his horn at the arrow, blocking and destroying the arrow. They all then jumped out of the way as the sound blast almost got to them after destroying the arrow.

"Even with four of us, he has us on the ropes," Beautifly says.

"If we end up laughing non-stop, we won't be able to call upon our power or detransform because we wouldn't be able to form words properly," Ladybug said.

"Even separately, the sound wave is too big," Cat Noir noticed. "He needs to be distracted away from us so we can get the akumatized object."

"So we need an allie," Wolf said. "The stag or python miraculous might be able to help us. Or maybe even the songbird."

"Sonic scream, sound shriek, or paralyzing," Beautifly listed the powers of the three miraculous. "Any of those could help us."

Ladybug was about to respond when she saw Alya off to the side. She was on her phone, as usual, most likely filming the fight for the Ladyblog. Her blog had recently opened up to Lyon and Vallia's homeland of Greece because of White Wolf and Beautifly joining the battle against Hawkmoth. Google translate was probably very useful to them.

"I know what to do," Ladybug says. "I'll be right back."

With that, she left. Cat Noir was the first to get what she was doing when he saw that Alya was there as well.

"We better handle the clown gone wild until she gets back," Wolf says.

They separated again, dodging more sound blasts.

Ladybug destransformed into Marinette before she headed into Master Fu's building. She had a feeling that he was expecting her, like always. How he did that was a little creepy, but what did she know about Guardians of the Miraculous.

"Master Fu," she greeted when she came in.

"Come on in, Marinette," Fu says.

"I need the fox miraculous," Marinette tells him. "The illusions it can create will be the best distraction for this akuma."

"Of course," Fu said.

He went over to his phonograph and punched in his code. The miracle box soon rose out of it. He picked up the box and put it in front of her.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng, pick an ally you can trust to fight alongside you on this mission. Choose wisely; such powers are meant to serve the greater good. Once the mission is over you will retrieve the Miraculous from them," he tells her.

Marinette immediately picked up the foxtail necklace. But then she hesitated when she looked at it.

"Marinette," Wayzz asked, concerned.

"What is it, dear child," Fu asked her.

"You know that I usually give this to Rena Rouge, right," Marinette started.

"Yes. And if I am correct, she is your best friend, Alya, correct," Fu guessed.

"Yes, she is," Marinette didn't even try to lie. "But... you know that Alya also is the creator of the Ladyblog."

"I mean no offense, but blogs are still quite foreign to me," Fu admitted. "But I do understand what you are talking about."

"Alya is a good reporter," Marinette started. "But she sometimes does not know when to let a story go or if a story will have unexpected consequences. Alya has been trying to figure out my identity. She's almost been obsessed with finding it pretty much since Ladybug's first appearance. The search was what started the events that caused her to be akumatized. I have told her to stop, but she hasn't."

"And you are worried that Alya will find your identity if you continue giving her the fox miraculous," Fu guessed.

"No, I'm worried that she will put us in danger when she figures it out," Marinette says. "She keeps saying that the people deserve to know who I am, who all us heroes are, even when that puts us all on Hawkmoth's radar. She's convinced that he won't attack us because a liar has been telling her that she is 'Ladybug's' best friend and she believes her. She thinks that since Hawkmoth had not attacked 'Ladybug's best friend' that he will not attack Ladybug."

"I see," Fu says.

"I have even told her, as Ladybug, to stop looking for my identity," Marinette continued. "Multiple times, I add. But she is still looking. Alya is a great friend, but she tends to listen only when it is something she wants to hear. I am not sure if I can trust her enough with the fox anymore."

"Heroes are not always set in stone, Marinette," Fu tells her. "Not even the ladybug and black cat are only compatible with one person. I trust that if you know when there is a good fit for a temporary hero, then that person will indeed be a good one."

Marinette seemed to calm down after that. But that also slightly made her curious about who else would be compatible with her miraculous. When they did that accidental miraculous swap and she became Lady Noir, she and Mister Bug actually did pretty well. Even if they did not have much practice with the powers that they literally had for less than fifteen minutes.

She quickly left and transformed, jumping over rooftops. She had to think of someone that could be a good match for the fox miraculous. She knew that Alya loved being Rena Rouge, but this was also a chance for her to see that her actions had consequences. To teach her that there are some things that are not worth a story. Also, do not believe everything you hear. That second one was more a jab at Lila than anything else.

The more Ladybug thought about it, the more she was thinking of a personality that would match the fox and its powers. Alya was hard-headed, stubborn, and liked to charge in. That was not the type of personality that would match with subtle illusions and an animal that is known for being sneaky and quiet. A fox should be sneaky, know when to observe before taking action, and should also know what will work best when in the shadows.

And now that she really thought about it, there was one person she knew that would be a far better fit for the fox.

Ladybug landed right near a very familiar boat on the Seine. Her Ladybug luck must have been working because the exact person she needed was right on deck.

"Juleka," Ladybug called, jumping onto the boat.

"L...Ladybug," Juleka stuttered, shocked. "What are you doing here?"

"I need your help," Ladybug stated.

"M...My help," Juleka looked even more shocked. "What can I do? I'm not cut out to be a hero."

"You are more capable than you think, Juleka," Ladybug pulled out the box. "Juleka Couffaine, this is the miraculous of the fox, which grants the power of illusion. You will use it for the greater good. After the battle is over you must return the miraculous to me. Can I trust you?"

Juleka was a lot of things. She was shy, sweet, kind, had a good head on her shoulders, and had a dream to become a model. She never would have imagined anything like this ever happening to her.

"M...Me," she was beyond shocked at this point. "I...I'm no hero, Ladybug. And... what about Rena Rouge?"

"Rena has... lost my trust," Ladybug admitted. "She has been permanently retired and won't be returning."

"Oh," was all Juleka could say.

"Juleka, there is no bravery without fear," Ladybug tells the shy girl. "Being a hero does not mean being fearless and always jumping into danger without a second thought. It also means being careful and going in with a strategy. You are naturally quiet and observant, a perfect match for the fox miraculous."

"I'm not a hero, Ladybug," Juleka was still reluctant.

"We all have a hero inside of us, Juleka," Ladybug gave her a reassuring smile. "You do not need to be fearless to be a hero."

Juleka looked at the box that Ladybug was offering her again. She wanted to be confident, to be able to stand up to people if she has to, to put herself out there more. Now, she was being given that chance.

"Okay, Ladybug," she took the box and opened the lid.

A ball of light came out, flying around the goth girl. To her credit, she did not stare at the ball of light and exclaim "what is that thing" like Alya did.

"Hello, there," Trixx greeted, not showing how surprised he was at not seeing Alya.

"Rad," Juleka gasped.

"Not easily shook, is she," Trixx asked Ladybug.

"Guess with magical superheroes around, these things are being seen as more normal," Ladybug shrugged.

"Alright, then," Trixx turned back to Juleka. "My name's Trixx, and I will be your kwami."

"Kwami," Juleka was not as informed as Alya had been.

"I'm what gives my holders their powers," Trixx answered. "I am the kwami of illusion. To transform, you say 'Trixx, let's pounce.' Detransform, it's 'let's rest.' To call my power, play your flute, think the illusion you want, and say 'mirage."

Juleka put the necklace on, but she still looked nervous about doing this.

"You'll do great, Juleka," Ladybug smiled at her. "I know you will."

Juleka nodded. "Trixx, let's pounce."

Trixx was pulled into the necklace and Juleka transformed. Ladybug immediately noticed that her hero outfit was a lot different from Alya's.

For starters, her colors are midnight black and dark purple. Her torso was similar to Rena's but was dark purple where it was normally white and black where it would have been orange. But that was where the similarities ended. Over her torso clothing was a black leather jacket with streaks of purple on it. She also wore knee-high black boots that had no heel and matched the dark purple gloves on her hands. Behind her was a real fox tail instead of Rena's fabric one. The same difference was the real fox ears coming out of the top of her head. Her hair remained mostly the same but grew to where the tail started to come out of her. Over her eyes was a dark purple mask. Her flute also changed to purple and black and was strapped to her back.

"Wow," Ladybug gasped. "This might actually come in handy if we ever have another akuma at night to deal with. There would be plenty of shadows that you could blend into."

"This feels so awesome," Juleka looked at her costume.

"So, what will I call you," Ladybug asked.

"My name can be... Shadow Fox," Juleka chooses a hero identity.

"Cool," Ladybug smiled at her.

*****

Meanwhile, back at the battle, the three other heroes were trying their best to keep other civilians from becoming laughing messes. They already had to save Alya three times because of her need to film the fight even when it was a risk to her safety.

"Alya," Beautifly yelled in warning.

Make that four times.

The butterfly hero dived down and picked up the blogger. She just managed to fly out of reach of another sound blast from Jokester. She set Alya down on the roof of a building further from the fight.

"Hey, I need to be closer to the fight," Alya protested where she was put down. "I would never be able to get a proper video from here."

"Your life is not worth a simple video," Beautifly scolded. "Either stay away from the fight or just learn to dodge on your own. We can not keep saving you. It distracts us from defeating the akuma."

"I need this for my blog," Alya continued to protest.

"A blog post is not worth your life," Beautifly snapped at her.

She flew away before Alya could attempt to argue more with her. She saw Cat Noir and White Wolf standing on opposite sides of Jokester, hoping for at least one of them to get a hit in.

"Take this, Mr.Big-Nose," Cat Noir yelled, jumping at him while spinning his staff.

Jokester focused his attention on Cat Noir, raising his horn to make him laugh as well as blast him away. White Wolf fired an arrow when he was distracted. And this one finally met its mark. The arrow hit the horn and ice erupted around it, encasing his hand and the horn at the same time. That lead to the akum only being able to jump out of the way of Cat Noir's strike.

"Finally," Wolf says. "There is no worse feeling to an archer than constantly missing their target."

Cat Noir had to laugh at that, making the wolf hero playfully pout.

"Aw," Cat Noir looked at him. "A pouting wolf. How adorable."

"Call me adorable one more time and I will shove an arrow so far up your..." Wolf started.

"Don't want to be called adorable, then don't pout like that," Beautifly smirked, interrupting him.

"My quiver literally never runs out of arrows, you really want to tempt me," Wolf shakes his bow at them in a threatening manner.

"You're still cute, Wolfie," Cat Noir winked at him.

"Do not make me shoot you, Kitty," Wolf playfully threatened.

"You two are made for each other," Beautifly giggled.

"Am not," the two heroes could not hide their blushes.

"Someone needs to tell that Ladyblogger to take down that LadyNoir ship name," Beautifly giggled again. "Because that is obviously not happening."

Both male heroes were really going red, but their fun moment was ruined by Jokester.

"I will make you laugh if it is the last thing I do," he yelled.

"You'd think a clown would appreciate our senses of humor," Cat Noir commented.

The ice around the horn began to crack.

"Oh for the love of Hades," Wolf swore.

They all shot in different directions when the ice exploded with a sound blast that would have directly hit them.

"Looks like I need to layer on the ice," Wolf notched another arrow.

"Someone call for back-up," Ladybug's voice called.

Not even a second later, a black figure shot at Jokester and hit him with... was that a flute? The clown was knocked right into a nearby wall.

"That was the akuma I just hit, right," the figure asked, her voice telling them that she was female.

The rest of the team got their first real look at Shadow Fox.

"That is most definitely not Rena Rouge," Cat Noir immediately said.

"You can call me Shadow Fox, kitten," Shadow responded.

"This is an interesting development," Wolf commented.

"Indeed, it is," Beautifly agreed.

Alya, who had finally managed to get close to the fight again, was unbelievably shocked, not to mention angry.

"I'm Rena Rouge," she thought, angrily. "I was right here, why would Ladybug give someone else the fox miraculous. She doesn't even look like a fox."

The three did a quick look, up and down, of Shadow Fox. She was certainly a lot more different than Rena Rouge in terms of looks. And the way that she was able to just shoot at Jokester and nail like that meant that she was comfortable with being quiet even when attacking.

"That was a good hit," Wolf complimented. "Probably one of the few that have happened in this fight."

"Uh... thanks," Shadow said.

"I'm more happy about there now being three heroes with dark-colored outfits compared to the two with bright colors," Beautifly remarked. "We outnumber them, now."

"Finally," Cat Noir cheered in agreement.

"I resent both of you," Ladybug pointed at them, playfully glaring as well.

"At least the two of us stand out more," Wolf smirked.

Jokester than started to get up. He noticed that there were now five heroes against him instead of just the three he had been fighting.

"Oh, look," he gave them a creepy smile. "More people to join in my plan of spreading laughter. Goodie."

"This guy is really creepy," Shadow stated.

"See, she agrees with me," Wolf said.

They all dodged another sound blast.

"Okay, time to end this," Ladybug says. "Lucky Charm."

She threw her yo-yo into the air, calling whatever object that was going to appear. It came in a flash of light as usual and then fell into her hands.

"You have got to be kidding me," Beautifly said, looking at the object.

It was one of those ridiculous fake clown flowers. The ones with a small pump at the end of a tube to squirt water out of the flower.

"What in the world am I supposed to do this," Ladybug looked at it.

"You better figure it out quickly," Wolf called out to her.

He was running across rooftops along the street, continuously firing arrows at the demented clown. But none of the arrows met their mark because they were all destroyed by Jokester's sound blast.

"I'll try and give us some more help," Beautifly says. "Nature's Heart."

Her razor flower spun around her, landing on her hand in front of her. Out of the center of the flower appeared a blossom. This one was oddly known my Shadow Fox.

"That's a water lily," she said, making Beautifly look at her. "I grew up near the water, so I have a lot of aqua facts up my sleeves."

"Okay," Beautifly says. "Then I know exactly what this does. And it does make sense. Sound can not move through the water. Everyone out of the way!"

The butterfly hero took the flower and raised it in front of her. Jokester barely had time to look at her when a powerful torrent of water came shooting out of the flower. She loved her ability to call enchanted flowers, even if she never knew what she was going to get.

Jokester shot another sound blast, but the water was too powerful for it. The sound blast was now acting more like a shield as it tried to keep the water at bay. The heroes all stood on different roofs to avoid the torrent.

"I have never loved flowers more than right now," Cat Noir said.

"That's my partner for you," Wolf grinned.

Ladybug looked around, using her Ladybug vision to work out how to use what she had. Shadow Fox was the first to flash in her sight, then the water gun flower, then White Wolf's bow and arrows, and finally Cat Noir. She now had a plan.

"I can't hold this for much longer," Beautifly shouted.

Ladybug quickly made her way over to Shadow Fox.

"When Beautifly stops her attack, that is when you need to call your illusion," she tells her.

"But... what do I even create," Shadow asked, holding her flute tightly.

"Trust in yourself," Ladybug says. "You'll know what to do."

Shadow Fox nodded, holding her flute. Ladybug then went over to White Wolf and Cat Noir to explain their parts of the plan.

It was not long before the water stopped coming out of the lily that Beautifly was holding. She looked at it, frustrated for a second, before having to take off again as a sound blast nearly hit her. When Jokester went to fire his horn again, Shadow Fox put her flute to her lips and played the tune that activated her power.

"Mirage," she whispered, throwing the ball of light.

In a flash, there were many copies of the heroes along the rooftops. And no two groups were in the same positions, so Jokester could not work out which was which based on how they looked.

"NO," Jokester yelled, confused on where to fire.

Having been looking up, at all the copies, Jokester did not notice the flower that Ladybug had managed to sneak in front of him. When he stepped onto the pump, the flower squirted water right into his face, further distracting and confusing him.

Hidden in two different alleyways were Cat Noir and White Wolf as they waited to do their parts. When Jokester had his back to White Wolf as he was trying to blast all the copies while still trying to wipe the water off of his face and out of his eyes. The icy hero came out as quietly as he could, raising his notched arrow. Aiming as carefully as he could, he fired. The arrow sailed through the air, making contact close to the bottom of the horn, freezing it and knocking it out of Jokester's hand.

"My horn," he cried. "I need that to spread laughter."

Ladybug was quick to jump out of her hiding place and use her yo-yo to wrap around his legs and trip the villain.

"Cat Noir, now," Ladybug yelled.

"Cataclysm," the black cat called, his hand bubbling with black energy.

He jumped up, touching the frozen horn with his hand. The horn instantly turned to dust, falling into icy pieces. A black butterfly flew out of the remains.

"No more evil-doing for you, little akuma," Ladybug opened her yo-yo and threw it at the insect. "Time to de-evilize."

Ladybug released the butterfly, the creature now being white. She then threw the fake flower into the air, letting her Miraculous Cure sweep over the city. As the swarm of ladybugs vanished, three of the heroes started beeping because of the timers on their miraculous for using their powers. Ladybug and Shadow Fox were left with four minutes and Beautifly had three left. Cat Noir was probably close to having four minutes left but White Wolf did not use his power so he was not on a timer.

"LADYBUG," Alya shouted, running toward them.

"And... that is our cue to leave," Wolf stated. "I am not getting involved in this."

"Me neither," Beautifly agrees. "I'd rather fight the spirit of one of the furies."

The Greek heroes flew/ jumped away. Cat Noir then looked at Ladybug.

"I don't really know why she is angry, but I'm not getting involved in whatever happened that made her so mad," he tells her.

"Can I come with you," Shadow asked before he could leave. "I can hide and give you the miraculous so that you don't find out who I am."

"I'm cool with that," Cat Noir responded.

The two quickly left as well and Ladybug was left alone with the blogger.

"Yes, Alya," the hero knew that this conversation was going to happen.

"How... How... You replaced me," the Ladyblogger managed to get out. "I was right here, how could you replace me?!?"

"Because, Alya, you have lost my trust," Ladybug stated.

"Lost your trust? But I didn't do anything," Alya protested.

"Really? Because I recall telling you, multiple times, to stop trying to figure out my identity," Ladybug crossed her arms. "And yet you continue to try. I saw your latest blog post. That not only puts me in danger if your theory is even correct, but it also puts innocent girls in danger that anyone thinks could be me."

"The people deserve to know who is protecting them," Alya argued.

"And does that fact that my friends and family will be targeted by Hawkmoth mean nothing to you," Ladybug glared at her.

"Hawkmoth will not attack them," Alya tries to argue.

"And what reason do you have to think that," Ladybug was not going to back down. "Do you have him on speed-dial? Do you have a video of him saying that he would leave them alone? What proof do you have that he will not attack my family and friends?"

"Well, Lila is still..." Alya was interrupted.

"Her again," Ladybug shook her head. "I told that girl months ago to stop saying that she knew me and that we're friends. It was annoying then and it's annoying now."

Alya was undeniably shocked.

"But... she said..." Alya was interrupted again.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," Ladybug says. "The only way that me, Cat Noir, White Wolf, Beautifly, and any other hero in Paris knows Lila Rossi is when she has either been akumatized, been chased by an akuma, or has been the cause of one. Neither me, nor any other hero, is friends with her and she needs to stop lying by saying that she is."

"You're just saying that to protect her," Alya was in denial at this point.

"This is why you no longer will be given the fox miraculous," Ladybug remains glaring at her. "You are so in denial about the truth unless it suits you and what you believe. You go running head-first into danger, not caring about your safety or how it distracts me and the other heroes when we constantly need to save you. You also only ever publish what gets you more views on your blog. Lila Rossi's video, your theories about who I am, and I noticed that you still have not taken down that story you posted that accuses Cat Noir of stealing the Mona Lisa. That was a villain called Copycat, who was akumatized to look just like Cat Noir. We told everyone that, yet you still have not taken that article down or posted an apology to him."

"But... But... I..." Alya was speechless, for once.

"There is more to being a good journalist than clickbait articles," Ladybug got her yo-yo out again. "Looking for facts is also a big part of being a reporter. Maybe you need to think about that. Bug out."

Ladybug then swung away to retrieve the fox miraculous that Shadow Fox gave to Cat Noir.

#ml salt #alya salt #lila salt #original heroes #original akuma #original miraculous #original character #miraculous #miraculous ladybug

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sealpointselkie · 3 years

Text

My OCs: Edit (Eddy) & Hope

I’ve had these OCs for a while now but I finally got up the courage to commission art for them (I find Hope especially hard to colour I’ve “ruined” several good (by the standards I’ve set for my own art) drawings trying to figure it out. 😫

Thank you so much to @popato-chisps for the excellent art and your patience for the details! Hope is out front with the mallet and Edit is in the back, probably begging her to stop! Find the rest of their story under the cut:

I’ve been a bit embarrassed by my OCs; I love them, but I worry that others will think they’re uninteresting or uninspired. My idea for the genesis of these characters was inspired by Underverse where, through the actions of ‘outcodes’ or ‘demigods’ timelines and whole AUs were destroyed. I also watched a bunch of alchemical symbolism vids and thought about the collective unconscious of these timelines and how traumatized and angry they’d be that these outside entities used their AU as a battlefield ending in their destruction. I would imagine after a battle like that the power of the outcodes would permeate the space that used to contain the AU, and what if the fragmented unconscious of the sentient beings of that AU coalesced with that power to birth new life? New life that could travel the multiverse and protect other AUs from their fate? And what about the power of the outcodes that helped birth them? What opposing forces would these new being have to fight within themselves? (This was also inspired by Paper Crane’s birth) This idea also let me make “ship kids” without their “parents” having to be in a sexual relationship, which, I admit, appeals to me. I see these “fusion kids” as being in conflict with the Star Sanses and the Nightmare Crew (along with any other deities/out codes) but guilty of manipulating timelines and AUs to suit themselves in the absence of such figures.

Edit came first: I liked the Cross x Ink ship (Crink) and I thought about what a merging of their powers would be like. I decided on the idea of “Cross-out” or editing, which (in my mind) kind of balanced the forces of creation and destruction between Ink and Cross. Edit, or Eddy, is similar to Ink in that he can’t produce emotions on his own, but unlike Ink gathering his ink from the Doodlesphere, Eddy gathers ink by being in close proximity to events with highly charged emotional energy. He has three kinds of ink: white creates emotion, black drains emotion and red heightens it. So if Eddy is feeling an emotion like rage or joy he can use his red ink to increase the intensity of that feeling, which also boosts his fighting power. However, there is a catch, Eddy is very susceptible to rage and can loose control of himself easily when indulging in that emotion. So, in a way, he’s inherited Cross’s anger issues.

When Eddy was “young” he was guilty of creating the events that allowed him to gather ink: his “drained” state, like Ink when he runs out of ink and emotions, interfered with any empathy he would have had for the people of the AU he was currently living in. The fragmented unconscious within him “told” him that he should feel, that he wasn’t whole, so he chased ink like an addict. It’s why he’s attached himself to Hope, since being around her passively generates ink for him. Since joining up with her he’s been able to have a steady supply of ink, and therefore emotion, which allows him to empathize with other people and makes him hesitate to create the same mayhem he did before when he was more often “drained”. He tries to mitigate Hope’s crazier and extreme plans to hurt or damage as few people as is necessary.

Now he enjoys helping creators and encouraging them to edit, prune or streamline their creations – there is such a thing as over designing! But he truly believes in their own vision and won’t force a creator to follow his suggestions

His magic takes form or white circles and red X’s, symbolizing ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ his red X’s can nullify attacks while his circles can enhance the power of his own or other’s attacks. I see him as a support character, standing in the back and buffing his allies while debuffing his enemies. In a pinch he can use his pen as a weapon. He also has access to a Sans skeleton’s typical attacks of bones and Gaster Blasters, shooting red energy.

And then there is Hope; Hope is a fusion of Dream and Error which fashioned her into an avatar of her namesake. Hope can create and destroy, lift you up and cast you down, and Hope lives in between these two extremes. Meeting in the middle is never an option. Hope, like most skeletons, considers herself physically gender neutral but the identity she constructed for herself revolves on being a “Magical Girl”, defender of hopes and dreams!, and therefore uses she/her pronouns.

Hope sees herself as a traveling Magical Girl who spreads hope where ever she travels and gives the people she touches the opportunity to achieve their dreams! In reality what happens is that Hope chooses someone with ambition, or an aspiration, and manipulates events to give that person to prove the “strength” of their dream and propel them forward. No matter the cost. This most often creates an extreme or dangerous event with permanent consequences moving onwards. If they “succeed” (in her mind) then she has created a world where their dreams coming true is more likely than before! If they “fail”, well, they just didn’t want it enough and she’ll abandon them immediately. It’s rare for her to give someone a “second chance”, or continue meddling in the life of someone who passes her “test”. She usually introduces herself as a traveling performer and Eddy as her bodyguard, she often performs on the street singing top 100 pop songs where the lighting effects and sound quality is oddly good for someone with her equipment… But hey, she’s a monster so “magic”.

When it comes to her magical equipment it comes from her necklace mimicking Dream’s bauble, which transforms into multiple forms:

1. Her mallet, her go to weapon: she has ridiculous strength, like a cartoon character

2. Her microphone with stand: part of her persona is an idol/pop star. She knows the top 100 by heart and is an excellent dancer, it also creates a spotlight on her, no matter the circumstances of lighting or atmosphere.

3. Her Wand: Portable microphone, can use it to enchant others.

Hope’s glitches tend to be diamond shaped and some can be soft, it gives her the appearance of shojo sparkles rather than Error’s computer-like graphic errors.

She has a limited ability to “enchant” or control others which she uses to create her scenarios: a villain to vanquish for someone who wants to be a hero, make a talent scout more likely to pay attention to a certain young dancer, etc.

Hope thinks Eddy’s become a stick-in-the-mud since he’s had enough ink, however, and she’d never admit this, she feels rather lonely wandering from AU to AU and Eddy is the closest thing to a real friend she’s ever had. He’s also someone she’d like to have watching her back when the time comes to teach those out-codes a painful lesson. She’s definitely a character that prefers to be on the front lines and the center of attention in a fight.

Her theme and Inspiration is: Oh No! by Marina and The Diamonds

(Sorry the editing is funky, I copied and pasted from email and the mobile app won’t let me correct any more than this.)

Ink by @/comyet

Error by @/loverofpiggies

Cross and Underverse by @/jakei95

Dream by @/jokublog

Paper Crane by @/little-noko

Art by @popato-chisps, commissioned by me, @sealpointselkie

Edit Sans and Hope by @sealpointselkie

#my ocs #my ocs art #commisssoned art #edit sans #hope #crink child #cross x ink fusion #error x dream fusion #insomnia child #cross-out sans

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yamayuandadu · 3 years

Text

Rider of Clouds

A a loose adaptation of the Ugaritic Baal cycle of myths, with some changes and the holes patched up with other myths and historical trivia. It will probably go on and on as some sort of silly “myth crossover” thing. Mount Saphon, the spiritual center of a large but poorly defined area spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates and the residence of many gods, needs a new king. While the former king of the gods, El, favors his distant relative Yam, this decision is not popular with the other deities and would be a disaster for their human followers; however, few dare to question El decisions in public. The exception is Baal, the heir(ess) of El's popular but not very ambitious rival Dagan, determined to take Mount Saphon to the bright future of the late bronze age.

Protagonists

Baal (Hebat) – the eponymous Rider of Clouds (a real title used in myths and cult texts), a young weather deity born to Dagan and Shalash (not pictured), semi-retired agricultural gods who settled in Tuttul on the Euphrates shortly before Baal's birth. Dagan hails from Mesopotamia proper, while Shalash is Hurrian. While the mythical Baal Hadad is male, my version is a woman – the idea started as a joke about conflating Baal from the Baal cycle with Baalat Gebal, a female figure associated with another levantine bronze age city (BG's actual identity is an object of much scholarly debate) being more valid than conflating him with much later Baal Hammon from Carthage (or rather with Roman hot takes about this deity), which happens a lot online, but I got attached to it o now here we are. She nonetheless uses a male title inherited from her father, much like a few historical female rulers did. In my version “Hadad” is only a title (or rather a me, eg. divine attribute), and her real name is actually Hebat. Irl Hebat was, among other things, the name of a goddess mentioned in one inscription as Dagan's daughter, and thus a featureles sister of Baal. As the levantine/syrian Hebat lacks a defined character in real mythology (”another” Hebat was regarded as the Hurrian storm god's wife but was at times replaced in this role by the more interesting sun goddess of Arinna and that's about it; I'm not going to use that one in my story) it should be fine to conflate her with Dagan's best attested divine child, I think? Baal is impulsive and follows a moral code which, depending on the point of view, might be either naive or heroic, which means she's not exactly the optimal person to get involved in n-dimensional divine politics (the ideal person to be the protagonist of an Ugaritic epic poem, as evidenced by history), but that's not enough to stop her from trying; the popularity with humans helps, too. The story documents her rise to the position of the head god of the pantheon residing on Mount Saphon, ruling over Ugarit and other surrounding areas.

Astarte (it should be Ashtart for maximal accuracy but everyone knows the later form of the name better so...) – a goddess of humble origin and no particularly well defined attributes, who attaches herself to Baal initially in hopes of advancing own career, though the two eventually develop a more genuine relationship. She patterns herself after the much more famous Mesopotamian Inanna, seeing her as an ideal to strive for. While Baal has the name recognition and disposition fitting for a major deity, Astarte is the part of the duo actually capable of navigating politics, and takes the title of Face of Baal, negotiating support for Baal's bid with other gods. The image of Baal she projects differs slightly from reality, though not enough for most onlookers to notice. Astarte is also a connoisseur of foreign clothing (as pictured above) and art.

Anat (art courtesy of my girlfriend who sadly isn’t on tumblr but who helped a lot with figuring out a lot about this story) – the younger daughter of the ruling couple of Mount Saphon. Her philosophy differs greatly from her parents' and as a result she isn't really seriously considered for succession. Her hobbies include bladed weapons, gambling and heroic epics; in the past she attempted writing her own self insert one. Her temperament means she was never considered for succession, which she doesn't particularly mind. She's deeply invested in Baal's ascendance, and is probably the god Astarte wants to recruit for their cause the most.

Gupan and Ugar – two minor gods who might be some of the only allies Baal recruited herself rather than with Astarte's help. They play a minor role in the story as her messengers and heralds (just like in the real myth!). They're also a couple. The cuneiform on their coats says “Baal.”

Kothar-wa-Khasis – a craftsman god who, by own admission, only works part time in Ugarit and travels the world for the rest of it. He's kind and dependable and his wares are both affordable and of great quality, but his real motives are hard to ascertain. His real identity is likewise a subject of much speculation among other gods – while his preferred manner of clothing hints at an egyptian origin, nothing is known for sure. His true name is that of the god Ptah of Memphis; he spends most time outside it and incognito because he thinks smaller pantheons on the periphery of Egypt's influence offer more artistic freedom. He speaks in a very poetic pointlessly complex way (basically... imitating the style of ancient poem translations). While an architect first and foremost he a reneissance man - architect, sculptor, engineer, armorer, musician. He isn't very fond of Yam due to the latter's lack of aptitude for art and cost cutting suggestions.

There are actually two gods hiding behind the title “Kothar-wa-Khasis,” with the second one hailing from Caphtor (Crete) from where Kothar arrives when commissioned to build Baal's palace in the real myth. She's shy and refuses to reveal her real name and hides behind the title “Mistress of the Labyrinth” and the labrys symbol. Her arrival is generally a sign of the duo taking a project particularly seriously.

Shapash – El's firstborn daughter, serving as “the torch of the gods”, a royal herald and solar deity. She also handles her parents' “foreign policy” on their behalf, which in practice means figuring out how to placate neighbors whose decisions aren't guided by the need to avoid angering various reviled figures.

Antagonists

Yam (right) – a sea monster more than a god, presiding over the nearby section of the sea and all that dwells in it, including the commercially significant sea slugs. He's also the son of the formerly influential Anatolian god Kumarbi, banished to the underworld by the current head god Teshub due to his many past misdeeds. As a result of his father's past influence over the world (and current influence over the ruling couple), Yam gained El's support and received many titles, which de facto makes him the most likely to succeed El as the king of local pantheon. He's capricious and inconsiderate, but maintains a larger than life public image meant to make him palatable to potential backers. The exact circumstances of his arrival in Ugarit are shrouded in mystery, and may or may not be responsible for his unusually strong hatred of Baal. Mot (left) – profoundly unpleasant and unsociable being kept around by Anat's parents for unclear reasons. He resides in the great offering pit in the abandoned city of Urkesh, formerly the center of Kumarbi's sphere of influence, reduced to a ghost town. While his equivalents in neighboring areas generally view themselves as impartial or as a necessary evil, Mot gets his kicks from posing as a personification of death itself, and is notoriously corrupt. El and Athirat – the ruling couple of Mount Saphon and parents of Anat and Shapash, currently pondering retirement, which stirs many contenders to the throne into action. El is a lifelong opportunist changing views and allegiances as he sees fit, though he pretty consistently favors his distant relative Yam as his main underling ever since the latter arrived in the area.

El was originally Amurru, a courtier of the sky god Anu, overthrown by the nefarious Kumarbi. For unclear reasons Kumarbi made Amurru his vassal and bestowed the name Elkunirsa, or El for short, upon him.

Athirat is largely responsible for El maintaining his title for so long, and is a much craftier politician than he is. She comes from an influential dynasty of sea gods, but lacks dominion over the sea herself.

She and Yam are related, as seen here.

Abduyam – an attempt at developing an obscure figure from the original myth, Yam's nameless and seemingly rather rude and infuriating messenger, into a full blown character. The theophoric name he uses (there are real theophoric names invoking Yam, surprisingly) is just a pseudonym, and his real identity is a mystery. He interned under a variety of famous mythical villains in order to gain a greater understanding of their ways, and currently serves as Yam's messenger, adviser, doorkeeper and punching bag.

Ashtar – a feeble opportunist who sides with Yam, hoping to receive a share in the gains he's making thanks to El's blessings. He's pretty content with playing the role of a toady though his aspirations might be different, as Baal and Astarte suspect due to his love of gaudy imported textiles. Megalomania doesn't necessarily equal malevolence, though. He also loves sea slugs.

Foreign dignitaries

(ignore the ?, it’s just Baal) Marduk (right) – the tutelary deity of Babylon, a prominent and internationally renowned god. While technically the area encompassing Mount Saphon, where the events of the story take place, isn't directly under the control of the Babylonian pantheon, as one of the oldest in the world and the source of the writing it nonetheless has a tremendous impact on smaller neighbors. Formally Marduk is merely a representative of his father Enki and the assembly of the gods in Nippur, but as the old gods are not very mobile, he's the de facto acting head of the pantheon in foreign relations. He doesn't have a unified mythical narrative about himself yet at this point in time, despite his position, which is a source of insecurity for him. During travels, he's assisted by his personal aide and biographer, Nabu (not pictured), and his pet mushussu, Tishpak. Seth (left) – in real life, ancient Egyptians equated many gods of their neighbors with Seth; therefore in Rider of Clouds Seth serves as an ambassador of the Egyptian pantheon, usually residing in Gebal near Mount Saphon – a city whose gods (and human rulers) take pride in trying to be more Egyptian than the Egyptians themselves, and regard Seth as their spiritual liege (under the title “Lord of Lebanon”). While ultimately Marduk's judgment matters the most, Seth gets the right to veto his decisions when it comes to validating claims to local thrones. On good terms with Kothar-wa-Khasis, which is a subject of much gossip among other gods. Teshub (center) – the head of the Hurrian pantheon, technically capable of projecting the most power in Mount Saphon politics due to the Hurrian influence on huge number of other local pantheons, including that of the Hittites, thanks to his marriage to the Hittite sun goddess of Arinna; however, as the local gods for the most part share closer affinity with Mesopotamia than Hatti, he competes with Marduk for political influence. As he and Baal are a very similar type of god, he's the most outspoken supporter of Baal's ascension to the throne out of all 3 foreign dignitaries. El’s support for his nemesis is probably a factor, too.

Kubaba – the head goddess of Carchemish; much like the king of Carchemish served as a Hittite viceroy taking care of affairs of the vassals irl, she acts as Teshub's ambassador in the southeast, mediating between the Anatolian and Syrian gods. She hopes that Baal's rise will normalize foreign relations to the benefit of her human followers – El's erratic behavior and sympathy for a number of widely detested figures made that rather difficult. While she's not much older than Baal, she poses as an ancient deity and dresses like someone twice her age. She also seeks opportunities to insert herself into suitably ancient narratives. In another time and place she'll be known as Cybele, and eventually as the Roman Magna Mater, but this is not the story about it.

Plot-relevant but not present in the story physically

Inanna – the celebrity superstar of every pantheon from Hatti to Elam. After being elevated to one of the foremost positions among the gods she started a profitable franchising business, offering help with setting up own cult system and the right to use the title of “Ishtar” and the eight pointed star emblem in exchange for a share in potential profit and a spot in the franchisee' home pantheon. As her fame is unique even among the greatest of the gods, this isn't that bad of a deal. Other benefits of the franchising program include free tickets to the annual Ishtar meetup in Uruk and a 24/7 tech support line ran by her sukkal Ninshubur. Asides from Astarte, prominent members of the franchising program include the Hurrian Shaushka, the Elamite Pinikir, and the night goddess of Kizzuwatna.

Kumarbi: an agricultural god of the Hurrians who seized the kingship of their pantheon violently before being overthrown himself by Teshub and his allies. Now he resides in the underworld and plots, aided by a network of allies – some opportunistic, some stupid, some simply malevolent. His will is usually carried out by an unspecified number of identical fate goddesses, possible to differentiate only by the numerals on their veils. At the core he and Baal's father Dagan are very similar gods in function, but not in temperament.

#Rider of Clouds

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anxiouspotatorants · 3 years

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Alright for those who have seen my Mal character analysis post here is part 2. For more context see the intro (and if you, want the whole thing) of said last post. But once again some disclaimers first: I haven’t read the original trilogy and use this to my advantage when analysing Alina based on her show-character alone. I do ship Malina (at least at the writing of this post), so that might influence my interpretation. This is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree. And spoilers for all of season 1 of Shadow and Bone.

Part 2: Alina

Now what I have seen so far when it comes to critiquing Alina, is that her character relies too much on Mal. She mentions him constantly while at the Little Palace, and once reunited with him practically attaches her own hip to his. Some argue that her growth was stunted by their reunion, and that we don’t get to see enough of who she is apart from Mal. And uh, yeah I disagree. It’s not that I find this argument inconceivable, just that after seeing the season twice I don’t really think that opinion holds water. Who is Alina? That is quite literally the mission statement of the season. Alina goes from an outcast cartographer with a small but somewhat reliable group of friends to finding out she’s not only grisha but a special kind of grisha. And from then on she basically has multiple identity crises only to end the season mentally preparing for a new roller coaster of identities. So let me try to map it out.

The power-reveal might happen in episode 1, but we actually find out a lot about who Alina is and was pre-reveal. She’s an orphan and social outcast due to her mixed race status (being half Shu in Ravka is not exactly easy). She’s had one friend throughout her childhood, Mal, and managed to find comradery in her cartographer team. From a young age she has had a talent for drawing, and Ana Kuya encouraged young Alina to direct this skill towards cartography, as this would provide her one of the safer roles in the army, which Alina was doomed to join from the start. As a child she was not popular, but her friendship with Mal shows a girl who was brave, loyal and determined. She was willing to up the stakes to protect her loved one (see: bully scene). As a young woman she still seems to keep that fighting spirit, but has also grown a larger sense of humour. She jokes around with Mal and their friends, but she’s also clearly insecure — repeating her question about Mal’s stories and her decision to hide her jealousy over Zoya suggest as much.

Post-reveal, Alina has to deal with a lot of different people saying a lot of different things about who she is. The grisha soldiers view her as a form of redemption for their people. Her former superiors and First Army soldiers view her as grisha-business. Mal, although Alina never finds out, tries to double down on his pre-established view of Alina until he sees the test. The king makes it clear to Alina that he sees her as a tool to reunite the two Ravkas. And the Darkling tries to create an entirely new narrative for Alina: she’s his other half, his one equal in the world, the one he has been waiting for that will right his his ancestor’s wrongs. Then there’s the Apparat who introduces her to the religious aspect of her powers, and Baghra who first treats her as unworthy of her powers and then as an unready foil to the Darkling. Alina has to navigate a lot of roles at the same time: saint, freak, saviour, tool, rival, enemy, heroine, lover, royal subject, the list goes on. It is through the combined impressions of Baghra and Mal that Alina starts to find herself again. Baghra consistently tries to get Alina to become her own person in harmony with her powers («who are you holding back for?»), but Alina initially twists this pep-talk into shifting her focus from Mal to the Darkling. Once Baghra reveals the Darkling’s true identity and motivations, Alina finally has to make the choice to go out on her own without allies. She outmanouvers the crows and gets in altercations with soldiers before running into the woods and into Mal. Mal’s presence reminds her of who Alina is at her core: an underdog with a lionheart. And the thing is, once reunited with Mal, Alina genuinely starts to change. She isn’t just returning to banter or insecurities or relying on support. She confronts Mal on his assumed silence and pre-established view of grisha. And she doesn’t give up on her new goal and run away with him — she insists on finding the stag, defeating the Darkling and destroying the Fold. She has found her goal and is following it free from the expected roles that have been thrust on her. At the end of the season, Alina might be back to her and Mal against the world, but she is a different woman. She is more confident and more goal-oriented. She has directed her stubborness towards a specific mission, and is preparing to have to battle all the roles that will be thrust upon her in future seasons (see: Zoya’s speech about Alina becoming a martyr before she becomes a saint). Who is Alina? She’s a fighter facing her new bully head on.

But there are two other elements I find important to rant about when it comes to Alina’s season 1 journey. The first is her connection to Mal. The two have been tight since they found each other as children in the orphanage. Alina suppressed her powers unknowingly for years and sabotaged her grisha test out of fear that a positive result would separate her and Mal. She makes it clear in later episodes that this fear of separation is what motivated her actions. But I don’t think it was about just Mal. I think Alina is terrified of being alone. And once Alina is brought to the Little Palace, she has no one. Not Mal, who was denied even a quick goodbye and whos letters are kept away from Alina. Not her cartographer friends, who all died either in the Fold or, in Alexei’s case, alone in a cellar at the hands of Kerch mobsters. She once again faces alienation, not just about her race but her commoner-soldier status, and quickly attaches herself to Genya, who is one of the few to show her kindness. Once she has been made to believe that Mal doesn’t care about her she also gets closer to the Darkling and recenters her world from around one man to the other. She feels pressure to perform as is expected of her to gain acceptance from what she now has to assume is her new home. Alina attaches herself to whoever seems decent enough because it is safer than being alone, especially in a world like the one she lives in. When it is then revealed that the Darkling has manipulated her the whole time, Alina starts to question everything again and journeys out on her own for possibly the first time. It is Mal who tracks her down and helps her out of a predicament, thus providing safe harbour for Alina again. Alina doesn’t just run back to him and regress as a character. As written above, her journey to episode 6 has impacted her to the point where her and Mal’s relationship changes too. The casually joking tone they used to have is much more subdued, and the two have to confront and open up to each other about revelations and feelings. They apologize to each other and show compassion. This isn’t a giant leap from their relationship pre-power reveal, but it still stands in contrast to their tense silences and evasions in episode 1. To put it this way: they bullshit each other a lot less now. And what is important to note is that Alina reunites with Mal for a reason. As implied by the last paragraph, a lot of people have a lot of expectations for Alina. Mal is (as many have pointed out before me) the one person who always sees her as a person instead of a concept. Where others see a saint or a weapon, he sees his friend. Where others see a threat or an unworthy vessel, he sees a girl who stands up to bullies and protects her loved ones. Alina and Mal bring out each others’ humanity, and that is a crucial thing to have in a world that sees them as inhuman: whether as prophetic legends on pedestals or anonymous cannon fodder.

The other point I want to bring up is that I think Alina has a second mission in season 1: navigating who to trust. We know that in the beginning the ones she trusts are Mal and the cartographers. Once in the Little Palace, she starts out by putting knives under pillows and only revealing emotional vulnerability in private. But she quickly starts to place her trust in others. She considers Genya a friend, the Darkling an ally who could be something more, and Marie, Nadia, Ivan and Fedyor as companions. She even becomes receptive to the Apparat from his lesson about Morozova. On the flip side she has an understandable feud with Zoya, and an equally understandable hot-and-cold relationship to Baghra. By the end of the season, Marie is dead and Nadia and Fedyor are nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile the Darkling is revealed as the true villain with Ivan as his underling and Genya his spy. Even The Apparat is implied to become a future enemy. Baghra and Zoya, on the other hand, have proven themselves to be more helpful to Alina — Baghra by exposing the Darkling, and Zoya by turning against him and helping Alina in the final Fold battle. And those Kerch crows who attempted to kidnap her ended up playing just as important a role in her rescue and in letting her go to continue her journey freely. Alina has spent the season learning that people really are not what they seem. Those who call themselves friends of you could be locking you in a cage, and those who wished you harm could turn out to have morals and redeem themselves. And Mal has an entire trust-arc for Alina of his own: he goes from her one friend to someone she thinks has left her behind, only to return and prove his loyalty and how worthy he is of her trust. I think this theme is something that will follow Alina in the next season, especially since she and Mal will be more vulnerable than before. She’ll need to learn when to keep her guard up and who is worthy of her softness.

So yeah, if I haven’t made myself clear enough I think Alina has a massive arc this season and that Mal doesn’t hinder this arc but rather is a reflection of it. Mal doesn’t regress her character, but rather reminds her who she is in opposition to who she is expected and told to be. And being a protagonist who interacts with a lot of characters, she is set up to have just as much of a journey (if not a bigger one) in future seasons. Is Mal going to be part of that? Probably. But he will continue to function as someone holding a mirror up to Alina reminding her of who she is. And Alina will continue to grow and deal with conflict as any protagonist should.

#I had a lot more to say about her than I expected #but I don't mind #but yeah just because this is a fantasy romance story and relationships are a big part of the story #it doesn't mean that Alina is less developed as a character #big shock: relationships can actually say something about a character and help build growth #can’t believe I called Jesper Kaz and Inej ’those Kerch crows’#alina starkov #shadow and bone #shadow and bone spoilers #sab spoilers #malina #alina x mal

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doubleshotofsomething · 3 years

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Come Into My Life

This is my entry for @nekoannie-chan‘s 500 followers’ writing competition. This is a Thor fanfiction series inspired on the song “Entra en mi Vida”. I had a blast writing it and I loved the song even more.

Song Prompt: ”Entra en mi vida” by Sin Bandera

Warnings: none??

Author’s note: Okay, all seriousness guys, what the fuck? So, you guys just...let me call Ghost “Shadow” and didn’t bother to correct me? really guys? really?? Is this where we are now? woooow, there’s no autocorrect here.

Summary: You and Thor just can’t seem to be on the same page, about anything.

----

“You seem to think this is something you can hide from.”

----

Part Two: Después de cinco minutos, ya eras alguien especial

Mjölnir kept disappearing. But that could have been Steve's fault. Or Vision. So, that's understandable.

Then Stormbreaker kept disappearing as well. There was no Vision. And Steve had long given up his avenging days.

Both weapons came back, they always did. But Stormbreaker seemed to be adamant in taking its sweet time. Which, under any circumstances, wouldn't be a problem. Except, Thor is still an Avenger. He still has work - work that required his weapon - to do.

You were in the kitchen with Sam, arguing - like you always did - about something when Thor walked in, looking for that damned axe.

You had met a handful of times, but you tended to avoid the group as much as you could. Sam, Shadow and Hope were as far as you were willing to go, Thor had realised, and socialising with you didn't seem all too appealing to him.

Thor wasn't focusing on either of you, eyes too busy dancing around the room as he tied his hair back. The quinjet was set to leave in fifteen minutes and all that was missing from his battle attire was that cursed thing.

"This is exactly why I don't like coming here-" your complaining broke through his cloud of thought and his eyes went to you. "--seriously, Sam, you are the worst host ever. What am I supposed to do with you gone?"

Sam rolled his eyes, rolling his shoulders back a bit before attaching his wings. "Talk to people. Your favourite cyborg is staying behind, so you two can talk about those babies you wanted to give him."

You scoffed and reached over the counter for the sugar dispenser. "The love of my life is currently sulkin--"

Before you could grab the sugar, your fingers instinctively wrapped around a wooden staff. Sam, too focused on making sure he had everything he needed, missed the complete look of annoyance on your face and shock on Thor's face.

There, in your hand, was Stormbreaker. His Stormbreaker. And, instead of being confused, you sighed and tossed it aside before grabbing the sugar as you had intended to. As if nothing had happened.

"Damn thing needs a leash," you mumbled to yourself, stirring the sugar into the originally-Sam's-but-now-yours tea.

Asgard was no stranger to prophecies. And Thor had heard enough of them growing up to tell which was a farce. But this...

No...

It couldn't be...

Surely, it was a temporary glitch. It had to be.

Because a dying star couldn't have forged a King's weapon, only so an idiot could easily wield it.

It's not that Thor thought you were stupid or not worthy. It's just that he thought you were an idiot and a complete nutcase.

You put a target on your back and refused any security that Fury had to offer. You're still convinced that your Uber driver won't do you any harm. And you sleep with your bedroom window unlocked.

You were an idiot.

A complete and utter idiot.

So, why did he instantly seek out your scent whenever he breathed?

Why does the thought of you, anywhere near him, suddenly make it hard to think about anything else?

And, for the love of all that is good, why won't you look at him? Actually look at him. Not those glances and polite eye contact you share with everyone else.

There are so many prophecies, too many that weren't true and too little that were. Thor could always tell which were a farce and which weren't.

But now, he was the idiot that couldn't understand why his axe was more responsive to you, than him.

-----

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Is Fury's response to the Captain's questions.

The Avenger's Compound had been turned into the current base of operations for both the new SHIELD and the Avengers. With the exception that the Captain was the one overlooking everything, alongside Fury.

Hope didn't waste time shoving you into her car -- as always -- and dragging you to the compound with everyone else. And then, because that's never enough, they shoved you into the meeting room with everyone else, while Captain went to bring Fury.

Sighing, you lean against your chair and turn to look at Thor. The Asgardian had been sitting on the couch when you were shoved onto it, watching the whole scene unfold while he munched away on a bowl of cereal.

You eyed his outfit and frowned. "Why is it that every time I see you, you're always trying out a new look?"

He blinked at you, mid-chew with a trail of milk going from the corner of his lip into his beard.

"First, it was the whole medieval knight thing, then the carpenter look, then the whole lumberjack thing. And now--" you waved at his sweatpants, fingerless gloves and what look to be a sweater. "--you're... what is this? And why does it look so comfortable?"

"Really? You expect us to believe that SHIELD is being funded by all that money?" Sam fired back at Fury. "With all that new equipment that keeps rolling in? Do we look stupid to you, Fury?"

Fury raised an eyebrow. "You want me to answer that?"

"I will!" You jumped in, raising your hand as you tuned in. "Yes, you do look stupid. In fact, you're the reason I know what stupid looks like. And I got in an Uber without checking if it was my driver or not, this morning."

"You did what?!" Thor barked.

You rolled your eyes and waved off the man that's decided to be a pain in your ass. "Calm down, security update. I can take care of mys--

"Calm down?!" Thor tossed the bowl across the room to properly glare at you. "You are so adamant on putting your life at risk every damn chance you get! You are, arguably, the most hated person on every ex-Hydra agent's list. And you--"

You don't bother to sit through the rest of that lecture. You avoid going to the compound for that exact reason. In fact, you avoid Thor for that exact reason. The first time you met the Asgardian, he spent most of the introductions helping Fury tell you all about how you were going to live your life now -- and all the safety measures you'd have to take.

As if you hadn't been raised by one of the world's greatest sleeper agent.

"This guy, am I right?" You scoffed as you got up, consequently getting him to get up. "Who died and made him Jarvis?"

"I am speaking to you!" He is front of you, towering over you, blue eyes swimming with rage, as he glared at you.

"Carpet damn, Asgardian. Carpet damn."

Ghost, from the other side of the room, cut in. "It's Carpe diem, shithead."

"I'm freestyling, thank you very much." You shot back.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Captain Flightless called out. "Thor. Please, calm down. Take a seat."

"I will not calm down nor take a seat," he glares down Mr Red, White and Break-your-brand-new-car. "Her safety is just as important as the matter. What do you think will happen if the wrong people get their hands on her? SHIELD signing a deal with her company will be the least of your worries!"

You turned at Ghost. "Is it too late to bring back Thanos? I just wanna see something..."

"You know--" Sam flicked your ear. "--if he comes back, you're gonna get dusted too, right?"

"Exactly. That way, I get to see him beat the shit out of an entitled thunder-summoning, cape-wearing, overbearing, self-proclaimed mighty asshole!" You glared at Thor, then turned back to Sam. "And then, finally see what y'all were doing as dust particles."

"Thor does have a point--" Fury cuts in, crossing his arms.

"Doesn't that leather trench coat get hot?" You point at it, because you were sure as hell not having this conversation again.

"Pierce may have been Hydra, but even he knew how messed up things would be if you were in the wrong hands--"

"You say that like I can shoot lightning bolts out of a gavel."

"It was a hammer." Thor grits out.

Fury ignores you both. "--things aren't as they used to be. The threats aren't only Thanos, Loki, or any other alien tyrant."

"That's mean. Thor isn't an alien." You feign a point.

"We need to consider the threats here, on Earth, as well." Thor ignores your jab. "Like, I've always been saying. The scale of destruction and terror that criminals could cause if they got a hold of just a small percentage of Hydra tech. Just look at what Ultron had accomplished--"

You stare blankly at the tower of a man in front of you. "You mean the computer upgrade that Tony created? With a weapon that is no longer on Earth, in this timeline? With Hydra tech from a Hydra lab, on that floating, vibranium powered island that you destroyed?"

"The point is--"

"I have lived in hiding my entire life," you narrow your eyes at the ignorant would-be-king. "Security protocols, safe houses, different identities, around-the-clock security, all of that bullshit that you're suggesting I know nothing about-- yeah, that was all I knew about. I know where every entrance and exit of every room I walk into is. I plan for an escape, before I even step foot out of my place.

"I did not come here so you can tell me how to continue living the lifestyle that I was raised to live--" You're glaring and baring your teeth and ready to rip him a new one. "--My keepers are dead. You will sooner change the nature of a cat, before you turn your little pride of vigilantes into my security detail."

He doesn't say anything. He can't. He knows better than to argue with you when you're like this; angry and on the verge of lashing out.

So, he just stares back at the idiot that won't stop haunting his every thought. The idiot that can wield a weapon he nearly died for. The idiot that won't understand why he bickers when it comes to her safety.

Sam sighs as he crashes on the couch. "At that's the tea."

Tags: @nekoannie-chan, @thorfanficwriter

#annie's1stwritingchallenge #annie's500kittieswritingchallenge #thor #thor fanfiction #writing challenge #mcu #marvel masterlist #thor x you #thor x reader #x you #x reader #reader insert #sam wilson #fury #mcu shadow

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manga2day · 3 years

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Zabuza Momochi

Are you here to learn more about Zabuza , the incredible Swordsman in the Naruto animated series ? So do not move, you are indeed in the right place! ⚔ Zabuza Momochi (桃地再不斬, Momochi Zabuza) is a fictional character from the Naruto manga. He is a mercenary with the nickname of Hidden Mist Demon (霧隠れの鬼人, Kirigakure no Kijin). He was a missing ninja from the Seven Mist Swordsmen of Kirigakure. A powerful ninja endowed with new special skills, this hired killer, also known as the demon of the village of the bloody mist , marked the Naruto series thanks to his cold and scathing character traits and his legendary sword so imposing, the Kubikiribôchô . In this guide you will discover: - A complete biography of the character - Zabuza's story during his appearances in Naruto - Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Kenjutsu Prediction Skills - Some interesting facts about Zabuza So young ninja, are you ready to start this ultimate guide? Let's get started without further ado! 💨

HISTORY OF ZABUZA

Before the end of the fourth Mizukage , Yagura Karatachi, the village of Kirigakure began pitting the graduates of Kirigakure Academy against each other in death matches so as to result in a final exam. The most qualified students were named the Top 7 Mist Swordsmen. After Zabuza, not yet a student himself, killed over one hundred Academy students, the practice was discontinued and he would later be known as the "Demon of the Hidden Mist". His fame grew over the years, he became an Anbu , killing Konoha Kumade Toriichi's ninja at that time, before finally joining the Clan of 7. 🔪 At one point, he discovered Haku , a child with a very special hereditary kekkei genkai , began training him to become the ultimate weapon. In the anime, he and Haku saw the Kaguya clan attack Kirigakure but chose not to help the village. Soon after, they met Kimimaro , the next survivor of the Kaguya. Although Haku wanted to talk to the boy, Zabuza forced him to leave Kimimaro alone. 😥 During the Fourth Mizukage's reign over Bloody Mist Village, Zabuza found himself at odds with how the village worked. He assembled a group of supporters and attempted a coup against the Mizukage , which resulted in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Yagura. Zabuza then subsequently fled accompanied by his weapon "Haku" and with other disciples, including the Demon Brothers, becoming mercenaries in order to raise funds for a second attempt in the future, which is why he worked with Gatō. With his departure, he took the Kubikiribōchō with him, causing Kirigakure to lose one of his famous swords. 🗡️

ZABUZA PERSONALITY

Zabuza was initially described as a very brutal character, devoid of any empathy, going so far as to be arrogant and cold, yet ambitious nonetheless. He tries to do everything to become the main hit man to Gato to earn enough money to launch a second coup on the Mizukage, and thus kill anyone who stood in his way, including the plot to kill Gatō once he received sufficient funds from him. His reputation for his unparalleled cruelty began as a child, when he killed all applicants for Kirigakure Academy, which earned him the nickname "Demon of the Hidden Mist" (霧隠れの鬼人, Kirigakure no Kijin). He has a habit of using his own henchmen as pawns to achieve his ends and to satisfy his ambitions.

For example, he raised Haku to be an effective tool, to be rejected when he had no use to exploit; though unlike future antagonists, he was outspoken about the purpose for which he needed his recruits, forgoing any form of manipulation by pretending to be benevolent to inspire loyalty. This fits with his cynical view of the world, which only includes users and users, as well as shinobi's view of being nothing more than tools. Despite himself, Zabuza grew up caring deeply for Haku and seeing him as more than a tool. 👶 Zabuza is a very insightful and observant opponent, able to analyze his opponent's innermost skills after observing him just once, but becomes overconfident if he sees technique as useless. Despite his cruelty, Zabuza possessed a softer side that he himself largely ignored. After Haku's death, while Zabuza initially scoffed at his usefulness, Kakashi notes that Zabuza is no longer able to fight to his true potential as he is secretly distraught by the loss of Haku. In his final moments, Zabuza realized how much he really cared for Haku, and after being convinced by Naruto Uzumaki, he sacrifices his life to kill Gatō.and will die a little later, wishing to have the possibility of accompanying Haku in the afterlife. 💀 Nonetheless, he seems unwilling to tell others about it, barking at everyone to shut up. Kakashi also noted that he had hesitated for a long time before suggesting the idea of going to Haku during their battle on the bridge. This lack of hesitation during the Fourth Shinobi War made Kakashi realize that the Zabuza who had come back from the dead was completely different. Zabuza also showed a more honorable side of him after his reincarnation, when he showed his aversion to fighting in the ranks of someone who stooped so low that he used words as fighters, at the same time rendering the resurrected immortal. His sense of honor is even more powerful when he pleads with Kakashi to prevent him and Haku from causing harm, wishing his death as a human being preserved.

APPEARANCE OF ZABUZA

Zabuza was a tall man, rather muscular because of his giant sword and with light grayish skin. He had short black hair spiked to the side, dark brown eyes, and small eyebrows. In the anime and manga, he was mostly seen wearing bandages like a mask on his face. Later, we can observe that under his mask he had a rather slender face, with a special characteristic reminiscent of sharks: he has jagged teeth , a trait he shares with his fellow swordsmen. He wore his forehead guard to the side on his head, and before his disappearance from Kirigakure, donned the Anbu uniformof the village and the bulletproof jacket. After his desertation, and during his first appearance, he was seen shirtless, with his chest covered only by a belt to which he attached his Kubikiribōchō (his great sword), wearing baggy pants with the striped pattern typical of his village, Kirigakure, and stained patterned wrist warmers extending to the elbows, as well as matching leggings. ⚔️ During his second appearance, we could see him wearing a sort of black sleeveless shirt and pants of the same color, with a waist guard, and once again, with his wrist warmers and striped leggings. by Kirigakure. Other swordsmen of his generation wore an outfit identical to this one, implying that it may have been clothing related to the group. While wearing this outfit, just like his fellow swordsmen, he had bandages tied around his neck like a scarf. As a child, Zabuza's outfit was a dark sleeveless shirt with light suspenders and a circular mark on the back, emblazoned with the kanji indicating "demon" (鬼, oni). He also wore dark pants with two straps covering the bottom and a hip pocket, as well as black shinobi sandals and black mitten gloves. 🧒

ZABUZA'S ABILITIES

As Kiri's former high-ranking ninja, Zabuza was a very powerful fighter. Vicious and offensive in combat, his talent has been observed more than once, since his early childhood, even before he started at the Academy yet, as he alone was already killing more than a hundred. of trained students. As an adult, even severely injured and both arms paralyzed, Zabuza has proven to be a dangerous opponent, capable of taking down dozens of men specially hired by Gatō and even Gatō himself. 💥 CHAKRA & TECHNIQUES Zabuza was very strong physically, able to effortlessly wield his Kubikiribōchō greatsword for long periods of time undisturbed, even with one hand. He was also incredibly quick and equally proficient in taijutsu , able to match Kakashi in disciplines and with the latter able to fight and kill dozens of Gatō's men despite losing both of his arms, using blows from well coordinated foot and while having a kunai in his mouth ... During these adventures, he showed remarkable levels of endurance, able to continue to fight effectively despite the injuries he received from Kakashi and the large number of blades that pierced it. 🔪 Zabuza was also a powerful master of stealth and assassination. This killer was also known in other countries for his talents and his great facility to kill his opponents in the most total fog. Kakashi noted that his silent killer prowess was second to none. This ninja skill develops tremendous pressure in his opponent even before Zabuza attacks, as it is noted that even the slightest movement of the eye was enough to alert Zabuza of his victim's location. 👀 True to his nickname, Zabuza possessed an incredibly strong chakra, which could be visibly seen when released, taking on the image of a demon. Even barely standing, a single glance from Zabuza left the rest of Gatō's thugs stiff with fear. Likewise, Zabuza has very advanced chakra control, able to perform a second technique while maintaining another. Even more interestingly, he is able to do this by performing one-handed seals. 👋 NINJUTSU KENJUTSU

During his time as Kiri's ninja, Zabuza was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, a team made up primarily of the village's top sword-wielders. This generation of swordsmen he was fortunate enough to exist was considered the most incredible ever to be created in Kirigakure, another testament to Zabuza's impressive skills. Zabuza's signature weapon was the Kubikiribōchō.It is a sword that has marked the fans, it is very long and wide, even oversized. Its shape was designed to easily behead enemies. This great weapon has a unique ability: to absorb iron recovered from the blood of its victims to repair itself if damaged or melted. Zabuza was a master at his wielding, being able to send many opponents to their deaths in just one circular motion, and claiming his sword "never cuts a second time". This retort certifies that it only needed one single attack to easily liquidate its victims. 🤺 Despite his build, the weapon's weight didn't seem to slow Zabuza at all, as he could use it in combat for long periods of time without any visible pressure on himself, which Suigetsu Hōzuki failed to realize. As well as handling it very skillfully, Zabuza could also spin her around at several of her victims with enough power to lodge in a tree trunk. 🌳

He also wielded a kunai with a sharp protrusion on one side (which in the anime is a variation of Kiri's standard kunai), designed to stab and stab instead of slicing, which fits his stealth attributes perfectly. Zabuza could also use the fūma shuriken in the same way, using them in melee combat by rotating the weapon in his hand to attack his opponent. 🔪 TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE

Zabuza had great skill in water release techniques. He could perform several while keeping another active, as seen when he kept Kakashi trapped in his Water Prison technique while continuing to titillate the other members of Team 7 with the through an aqueous clone. He therefore had the possibility of creating and launching several clones at the same time, in order to use them as a diversion technique in the face of threats. He has also shown his mastery of highly destructive aqueous attacks by launching powerful torrents, shaped like a towering dragon and giant waterfalls at his opponents. 🚿 Zabuza was particularly adept at the technique of camouflage in the mist as it made his assassination silent and even easier to perform. By covering the area with thick fog, Zabuza was able to blind his targets, making it even more difficult for them to defend against him. In this way, Zabuza had the obvious possibility of launching stealth assaults, both in tight spaces and open. He could then suddenly disappear from sight of an opponent, while hitting them repeatedly without being visible. His skill with this technique was such that he could create an impenetrable mist, without even needing to recharge himself in the water nearby. Even Kabuto Yakushikept Zabuza's use of the technique in high regard, as seen when he was ready to sacrifice other reincarnated shinobi to protect Zabuza, and thus keep the technique as it is. 💨 INTELLIGENCE Despite his attraction to using piercing and direct attacks on his enemies, Zabuza was also very capable of intellectually leading and overseeing things. Through his days as Anbu, Zabuza possessed a deep knowledge of the pressure points of the human body and the most vulnerable organs. Zabuza also knew foreign techniques and the kekkei genkai, knowing the Sharingan and instantly recognizing the technique of Multiclinage. Zabuza was also a qualified teacher, as it was under his supervision that Haku was able to become such a powerful shinobi / ninja despite his young age. 👨‍🎓

THE BEST TECHNIQUES FROM ZABUZA

- Kiri Gakure no jutsu Ninpô (霧隠れの術, Camouflage in the mist): Technique which allows Zabuza to camouflage himself from his opponents in a thick and dense fog. It is impossible to discern a single movement there, which makes dôjutsu such as Byakugan or Sharingan ineffective. - Suiton - Mizu bunshin no Jutsu (水分身の術, Aqueous Cloning): Technique that creates an aqueous clone that can only be controlled at close range. - Suirô no jutsu (水牢の術, Technique of the aqueous prison): Technique which allows to imprison an opponent in a kind of aqueous prison. - Suiton - Suiryûdan no Jutsu (水遁・水龍弾の術, Suiton - The Watery Dragon): Technique that allows Zabuza to create a cascade of water having the appearance of a Dragon to fall on an enemy. - Suiton - Suijin heki (水遁・水陣壁, Suiton - The water barrier): Very powerful technique which allows the accumulation of a large mass of water in the form of a wave to be knocked down on his opponent. - Suiton - Daibakufu no Jutsu (水遁・大瀑布の術, Suiton - The great cataract): Technique allowing to form a large watery amat in order to project it on its enemy with a significant force.

HISTORY OF ZABUZA IN NARUTO

Part i PROLOGUE: THE LAND OF WAVES In order to earn money to plan a second coup, Zabuza became a mercenary assassin for hire. As part of one of his jobs, he was hired by Gatō to kill a bridge builder named Tazuna, who poses a threat to his employer's business. When the Demon Brothers failed to take out Tazuna - intimidating an enraged Gatō with his sword - Zabuza decided to deal with the Bridge Builder personally. While tracking down his target, Zabuza discovered that Tazuna was protected by Kakashi Hatake and his students. Wanting to test his ability, Zabuza challenged Kakashi to a battle, and Kakashi obeyed by revealing his Sharingan . 👁‍🗨 Soon after the start of the battle, Zabuza managed to catch Kakashi off guard and trick him with his water prison technique. Needing to stay with Kakashi to keep him imprisoned, Zabuza sent a water clone to kill Tazuna and the rest of Kakashi's team, believing it to be a simple mission to complete. However, Naruto Uzumaki created a plan and, with the help of Sasuke Uchiha, managed to sneak up on Zabuza, forcing him to free Kakashi. So Kakashi and Zabuza resumed their fight, although Kakashi's Sharingan quickly gave him the upper hand. By copying Zabuza's technique, Suiton - Suijin heki before he could use it, Kakashi was able to defeat Zabuza. 🌊

Before Zabuza could be killed by Kakashi, Haku appeared, disguised as a ninja hunter, and threw two needles in Zabuza's neck, apparently killing him. Taking Zabuza's body away, under the pretext of having to destroy it, Haku resuscitated Zabuza, the needles having been used to temporarily paralyze him. Although Zabuza's life was saved, it took him a week to recover, and he was planning to return to kill Tazuna and Kakashi.A week later, Zabuza and Haku appeared in front of Team 7 for a rematch. While Haku took care of Kakashi's students, Zabuza took care of Kakashi. Having learned how the Sharingan works through Haku's knowledge, Zabuza covered the area with a thick mist and kept his eyes closed to nullify the Sharingan's two abilities. In doing so, Zabuza was able to cut off Kakashi's momentum with his sword, severely damaging his opponent. However Kakashi allowed himself to be attacked and summoned his ninken to sniff the blood, now on Zabuza's sword and thus took advantage of the fact that Zabuza was keeping his eyes closed in a thick fog to launch a surprise attack and finish him off with the low. 💥 Unable to retaliate, Kakashi prepared to kill Zabuza with his Slaying Bolt and charged at Zabuza. Before Kakashi's technique could meet its target, Haku appeared as a human shield and took full force of the attack, fulfilling his promise to be only a tool for his master. Freed following Haku's intervention, and not wanting to allow the opening created by Haku to be wasted, Zabuza attempted to pass through Haku's body to kill Kakashi, but Kakashi was able to avoid him and injure Zabuza in the middle. arm. With Zabuza no longer able to fight, Gatō arrived and revoked their agreement so he could ask his own minions to kill Tazuna instead.. With no more reason to kill Tazuna, Zabuza ended his battle with Kakashi, although Naruto was not satisfied with it. Irritated Read the full article

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bat-besties · 4 years

Text

Your secret is safe with me

A belated present for @djpurple3

Declyn and Virgil are the ultimate duo when it comes to close-up magic and its use in cons - and that's as much Delcyn's skill as Virgil being an actual mage on the run from the army.

As the two travel around the country through each season, their familiar dynamic begins to shift with the weather.

6k words. Anxceit Fantasy AU with friends to lovers, bed-sharing, card games, and a lot of friendly bickering.

AO3

Edited and titled and with snow description by the lovely @5-crofters-jams

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Clubs

“Is this your card?” Declyn flicked his fingers to display the four of clubs.

The woman leaned back on her chair with a creak. “My baby sister could do better close-up magic than that.” She raised her eyebrows at the tent hung with yellow and black awnings and faintly mystical sigils before settling with particular disgust on Declyn himself. He was decked out in a pastiche of the outfits of the Royal Wizardry, the private army of the king any mage was required to join by law. It wouldn’t have been convincing even if they weren’t usually stationed at the palace. But the deception wasn’t meant to be seamless; he was clearly a charlatan.

The sound of the rest of the fairground was barely faded, people chatting, singing, and cheering like a pack of wild animals.

He gave her a brittle smile. “Is it, good lady?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Very good,” Declyn said, lingering over the words as he reached for another deck of cards. He shuffled it without looking, the cards falling back and forth and crossing around his hands. For a moment, he let go, and the cards kept on shuffling. He took her palm and laid it face-up on the table. To the woman’s credit, if the cards moving by themselves were surprising to her she didn’t show it. “Now. Let’s get down to the real business, hm?”

“Going to tell me I’m going to find a tall, dark and handsome husband?” she said derisively.

Declyn nodded as he bent over her hand. “Oh, totally, that is the classic line and I always follow it-” Then he looked behind her, whip-quick. He squinted at the air. “Oh. Oh, but this is very interesting. You’d like a tall, dark and handsome husband, wouldn’t you, a certain...Jake, is his name isn’t it?”

She shifted uncomfortably, but she couldn’t pull her hand from his fingers encircling her wrist. “Who told you that?”

He waved his other hand into the air as a smirk snaked across his face. “Magic, good lady. Nothing more.”

“Will he-” she bit her words off. “Someone must have gossiped.”

Declyn tilted his head. “Will he what?” He put on a sympathetic frown. “Will he love you back?”

“If you were really a mage you’d be arrested by now,” she said with a toss of her head. A blush stole over her cheeks; her eyes didn’t meet Declyn’s; her pulse was rushing where his fingers touched it. Numbers and people, those were the only things Declyn knew how to read and they gave him more information than a thousand citadels of books.

He hummed noncommittally.

Screams rose outside before being suddenly cut off. He suppressed a flicker of irritation at having to work with this noise, let the moment stretch, and...

“So? Do you know if he likes me?”

Based on the way Jake was hanging over the bar every moment this woman’s coworker was serving… “I’d say no.”

Her face crumpled into anger. “Why you-”

“Ah, ah, ah!” He held up a single finger. “He doesn’t like you yet.”

“What the fuck are you talking about you-”

Declyn reached into the shadows of the tent and plucked a bottle of coloured liquid from them. “I had a feeling you would visit.” The candles flickered as a breeze stirred the tent. Their light made the bottle almost look as though it glowed from within.

She couldn’t look away from it. Five gold pieces had been the plan… should he stretch to ten?

“Of course, there is a price… perhaps-”

The tent disappeared. Declyn blinked for a moment at where it had been, then at the crowd whispering and cackling at the sight at him, then at the people in the same robes as him but which looked incredibly genuine surrounding him with their hands outstretched like they were about to attack-

He slowly brought his arms down and put them parallel along his stomach, fists turned against his body in a gesture which in an actual mage would have meant the only person he could shoot at was himself. “Ah! Respected mages!” He put on a smile which suggested that, if he had magic, sweet wildflowers would grow wherever he stood. “Come to enjoy the fair, I see?”

“Are you a mage?” the leader barked at him. Authority was carried in every line of her body, from the proud arch of her neck to the tense stance she stood in, like a lioness ready to pounce.

Declyn weighed his life over his profits. He took a moment too long to admit, “No. I’m a performer. Some skill in reading people, a love of close-up illusion, you get the picture-”

“People of Goodwyn,” she said loudly. “Have you any proof of this man being a mage?”

The woman raised her hand nervously to point at his card deck. “He can make it move without touching it.”

Rolling his eyes, Declyn picked them up again and began to shuffle them, then drew them out to show a thin thread connecting them which was clearly visible in the strong sunlight. He wove his hands across each other to show how he manipulated the thread. Unlike earlier, his hands never left the end cards.

“He wouldn’t stoop to that if he had magic-” one of them said to the leader.

“If he was dodging service? He’d stoop to anything,” the leader said.

Declyn gave her a brittle smile, biting back comments about the nobility of murder and being used as the pawns of a tyrant king, about the reasons a person might not want to be a living weapon- but they were words in defense of someone who would be best served if he kept his mouth shut. “I repeat my deepest apologies for my insolence. Now, if you would return me my tent, respected mages, I shall be on my way.”

With a wave of her hand, the leader brought back the tent neatly folded. “I’d leave this fair, were I you. You’re an embarrassment to yourself more than you are to our fine institution. Magic is not a toy, and you are out of line.”

“I’m glad to have a reminder of my place,” he said with a wide, insincere smile. He swept everything on the table up in the velvet cloth and tied the top. “A simple person without magic such as myself forgets.” The table collapsed with a bang and he slung it over his back with two leather straps he’d attached to the base. The chairs folded, the tent could be carried slung over his arm. The illusion was broken, clear as anything. He held the chairs out at an angle from him as he walked past, forcing the mages back out of his path, and he let the bottom of the table drag along the grass, flattening it. A little petty, but what could they expect?

More than anything, he wanted a final quip about Jake to the woman, a smooth exit line, and he would have dared it if he was alone. But the chairs were a barrier, the grass was flattened so it wouldn’t show footsteps, and those simple tricks were one of the less graceful flourishes in the most elaborate and longest-running con of his.

Invisible as he had been in the tent when he moved the cards, swirled the breeze, handed Declyn the bottle and read the cards over the woman’s shoulder, a true mage followed Declyn out to safety.

What better place to hide than with someone who any accusations against would look ridiculous?

And how better to scam people with magic than adding a real mage to your battery of card-tricks, illusion, and ability to read people?

The road stretched out over the horizon through green stretching in every direction. Tufts of grass sprung up in the dirt road, blowsy white flowers lay sprinked like spilled popcorn in the fields, the smell of dust and wild garlic and the unrepentant blue of the sky arching above them anchored the two travellers into the moment. Fat drops of fuzz buzzed through the air, bumblebees similarly intent on their destination. The men’s backs were bowed with the weight of their possessions, and the one-two scuff of their feet in time beat a familiar pattern.

There wasn’t silence between them; that space was too filled with birdsong, chirping insects and the occasional exhale as one adjusted the heavy pack on his back.

Declyn didn’t look as striking outside of his fake robe, he was of medium height, medium build, and had hair and eyes the same colour as the road. The mage also didn’t have an appearance which might have betrayed his identity, not in the same way the leader’s confident posture might have. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and heavy eye-bags gave him a look of perpetual exhaustion. That exhaustion was most often directed at the partner in his illegal double-act.

When Declyn had run into him fresh out of running from the army, he’d been a mess of sharp angles and edges, eyes never able to stay in one place or meet another person’s, skittering between attacks of insult and defenses of overdone apology. Now, he could be hardly described as relaxed, but he could fall into playful banter or slow contemplation with Declyn easily, or their winding, passionate conversations which tried to set everything right in a society they existed in the periphery of. Rest, hearty inn food, being less anxious and not pushing his magic as much had rounded out the edges of his face and body.

Declyn watched as Virgil scrunched his face up and tilted it into the sun, leaving his eyes closed longer than he’d be comfortable with if he were anxious. Once Virgil had blinked his eyes back open, it seemed now would be as good a time as any to bring up the raid.

“Thank you for following me out, Virgil, I do appreciate you not trying anything hasty. Fireballs are not as much your forte as invisibility.”

“That was one time!” Virgil protested. “I’m not the one who got us run out of town for somehow finding a real truth serum to sell the mayor.” Declyn knew he wasn’t annoyed as his tone would have suggested to someone else.

“Now that it’s over, we can laugh about it!” Declyn said. “The admission he was hoarding grain really did cause such consternation! Nothing so exciting had happened in that little town for years.”

“We could laugh if I didn’t almost get an arrow in the ass,” Virgil grumbled, but the corners of his mouth were twitching up despite himself. His low voice and withdrawn expressions were only intimidating five minutes into meeting him, Declyn thought. After that, they were practically endearing.

“Oh, of course, of course,” Declyn said, voice dripping with sarcasm. The effect was lost because he, too, was smiling. Encounters like the one earlier could really spook Virgil, and he was glad this one hadn’t as much.

One-two, one-two. They didn’t even notice how in time their footsteps were.

“You did a good job,” Virgil said. “They were idiots, not High Command, and that helped a lot. But you weren’t too bad.”

“Why, thank you, Virgil,” Declyn said archly. “I shall remember your effusive compliments for the rest of my days.”

“Course you will,” Virgil said. He tilted his face into the sun once again. “This weather would be nice if it didn’t make you so fucking sweaty.”

“Strike two for being charming. I feel I might just swoon away.”

“You’re the silver-tongued one of the group - as you keep telling me they called you in your home city.” Virgil teased. “So you should be doing the flirting.”

“They also said I was cold-hearted.” Declyn’s face twisted into a pantomime of disgust. “Rue the day I flirt with you.”

They laughed together, the noise swooping over the birdsong and buzzing insects, a natural part of the summer landscape.

“The thought of you being in one of those little squadrons is bizarre,” Declyn said. “You’re so not a team player.”

“Yeah, not a huge fan of groups,” Virgil said. “Or leaders. Or orders.” He shrugged. “Or the group hating you for not following cruel orders, but that’s just the way of that kind of structure, isn’t it?”

A rebellious village who wouldn’t pay taxes after a poor harvest; being pushed into formation by his leader; the order to burn and destroy what the crown couldn’t have-

a deluge of water to put it all out which shocked them so much they didn’t trace it to Virgil until he was invisible and untraceable in the woods.

“It’s best to work alone, this we both know well,” Declyn said. He’d struck off alone when he was just barely sixteen, leaving the crowded city he’d been born in where his cup games and card tricks had to jostle with hundreds of others scratching and pushing for a living, heading for the novelty of the mountains and travel. Even before, he’d been a solitary child- how much that was a choice and how much he’d driven away other children in his deceitful schemes and scheming deceits was a matter of interpretation between him and them. He was always wanting, wanting, wanting, and until he met Virgil and began to work even more elaborate schemes, he thought there wasn’t even a chance his ambition could be satisfied.

Virgil nodded. “Nice to work alone with you.”

There was a not-entirely serious lilt to his voice, and it quietened something inside Declyn. He gave Virgil a cordial nod, also not entirely serious. “Likewise.”

Virgil gave a little evil laugh. “That’s right. You’re stuck with me.”

Diamonds

“Virgil, never in my life have I met someone who washes brambles straight off the hedgerow. Please, eat them like a human being.”

Autumn meant walking back to the fires of the city, and walking meant stealing brambles (as Declyn would say) or blackberries (as Virgil insisted they were called) off the hedgerows they passed, along with the apples of any farmer who had let his tree grow too far over his fences.

Virgil plucked another blackberry off the hedgerow and hosed it down with a little stream of water he collected from the moisture in the air. His eyes glowed purple as he used his magic. “You don’t know where this thing has been.”

“On the bloody hedgerow!” Declyn said with a wild gesture at the clean-looking bush. “Where else?”

“Maybe there are insects in it, or maybe...a mouse has been there, or-”

Delcyn was bickering, but not annoyed. “Sometimes I forget you grew up in the palace, and at times like this-”

“You say that like I was a prince rather than a child soldier-”

“Child soldier, you’re so dramatic, you were a cadet at best-”

“And, yes, we did wash fruit, so we didn’t get sick-”

“Virgil,” Declyn took a big breath. “Are you completely sure that this innocent little berry, washed by the rains, dried by the suns, is less hygienic than some of the food we get served at the cheaper of the inns?”

“Look, if an insect gets into a stew at least it’s not alive.” Virgil picked another one and washed it again. “Just let me live, dude.”

Declyn looked at the orange leaves which fell as they did every year, showing the turning of the seasons, the sky cloudy and stretching out to infinity, the dew-drops on a spider’s web which was itself a miracle of nature. Then he decided he was much too petty to let this go. “Of course, there’s nothing more normal than washing your brambles- sorry, blackberries -” He picked a ripe one and tossed it upward to catch with his mouth.

There was a flash as the blackberry disappeared and reappeared in Virgil’s own hand. He carefully hosed it down, eyes glowing with purple in a way Declyn knew was natural but nevertheless decided to read as an insult, and then handed it back to Declyn with a completely shit-eating grin. “Now you’re not gonna get poisoned.”

Declyn held up a single finger as he gathered his faculties.

Virgil couldn’t help snorting with anticipatory laughter.

“Never-” Declyn began

“Uh-huh?”

“-so insulted-”

“Oh really?”

“This is an affront, a misuse of your magic-”

“You sound like the leader I had when I was thirteen-”

Out of principle, Declyn threw the blackberry to the side of the road.

Virgil merely opened a hand and it flew back into it. He began to hose it off again.

“Virgil, not once in my thirty years of life have I felt the need to rinse a piece of fruit. I am not a bloody noble. Outside of the palace, neither drinking water nor food were so abundant.”

Virgil flicked his eyes over Declyn, to see if he’d gone too far. It wasn’t like tension could build up about their backgrounds with how often they bickered bringing them into it, but there were sensitive parts for both of them. “Give me a bet,” Virgil said.

“Pardon?”

“Give me a bet,” Virgil repeated. “The winner gets the other to eat his way.”

Declyn rolled his eyes. He knew Virgil was placating him, but...he didn’t mind too much. “Fine. The bet is very easy. You find a single insect on a blackberry, and you’re justified.”

“How’d you know I won’t lie to you that I saw one?”

Declyn gave Virgil a look. They both knew Virgil didn’t lie to Declyn. Whether Declyn did to Virgil they were much less sure about - or, Declyn was more unsure than Virgil seemed to be.

“Fine,” Virgil said. “C’mon you wriggly little motherfuckers...”

As Virgil poked around the hedgerow, Declyn continued contentedly eating blackberries, happy to pause walking for a short while. He scrunched his eyes and tilted them up into the weakening rays of the autumn sun.

Five minutes later, Virgil conceded defeat.

“I win, of course,” Declyn crowed. Even if Virgil had given it to him, victory was still tart and sweet as he popped a blackberry into his mouth.

Virgil took one of the highest brambles from the hedgerow. With ceremony, he placed it on his tongue. “Well,” he said after it was eaten. “I’m not dead yet.”

“No. I wish we could carry more of these,” Declyn mused. “It would be nice further on down the road…”

Virgil tilted his head as he thought about that. “You got that empty bottle from earlier? The one which had mead in it.”

“Unfortunately I might have possibly sat on my pack when we had lunch and there was a rather nasty crunching.”

Virgil hummed in thought. “Can you give me the pieces?”

Declyn rooted through his backpack and found the shards at the bottom, which he carefully extracted and put into Virgil’s cupped hands.

After just a moment focusing on the shapes, Virgil’s eyes began to glow as the edges of the glass shards melted and attached, so a crystalline bowl shape was made. “There you are.”

It looked almost like the kind of diamond dishes nobles would propose with.

“Yes, a thousand times yes!” Declyn said as he took it off Virgil. “Oh, my darling.”

“What the-” Virgil looked back at the bowl again and his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh!” He laughed. “Only the most expensive things for you.”

“My, it sparkles in the sun like how your eyes look when you hear your favourite edgy songs about ghosts and lost lovers started by a fair performer!” Declyn teased. “It’s almost as cutting as your comments! And it’s so deep-” He flashed Virgil a smile. “It still probably can’t carry as much as those eye bags, though.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, less into the play-acting. He seemed almost embarrassed. “I thought I’d get you something as genuine as you are.”

Declyn held a hand over his heart. “You say the sweetest things.”

They walked on, filling the makeshift bowl with blackberries- “Brambles,” Declyn corrected.

“It’s my wedding too, I can call them blackberries.”

“If I call you handsome, can I call them brambles?”

Virgil’s cheeks went pink, and Declyn laughed, because he had won - even if he was pretty sure Virgil had still let him.

When they came into town, a group of kids in ragged clothing ran up to see the performers, and they handed over the blackberries as Declyn put on a show with close-up magic and Virgil sat and watched, seeing as he hadn’t had time to go invisible. Declyn drew coins out behind the children’s ears and left them with the kids. It might have to be a night on the grassy verge of the road, but Virgil didn’t think about stopping his partner.

They left the bowl with the kids too.

“It was Virgil’s wedding proposal to me,” Declyn said seriously.

“Really?” A girl tilted her head to look at it and assess it.

“No,” Declyn said. “It’s just glass, but don’t say that to whoever you sell it to. Besides, Virgil and I...” He met Virgil’s eyes. He’d been about to make a jab about how different they were, but that didn’t feel true. Maybe lying to Virgil was only hard when it hurt him. “When the time comes, Virgil will know when I’m proposing.”

“I’ll know when you con someone out of their dish and I help get it off them in plain sight,” Virgil joked, and warmth flooded Declyn’s chest. He’d kept his friend happy, and all was well in the world.

“You’re no good at sleight of hand,” Declyn said as if in answer to a question a few exchanges later.

The little girl wandered off, uninterested now that she had the dish.

“I don’t need it, I have actual magic,” Virgil replied.

“And you give yourself away so obviously!” Declyn said. “If it’s something like today and you can’t go invisible, you should still help.” He drew his cards out of their inside pocket of his cloak. “Come, I should teach you.”

“Oh yeah?”

With a flick of his wrist, Declyn drew a card out of his sleeve. “This one is child’s play. Come on, at least try.”

Virgil laughed through his nose. “Only because it would piss everyone else off back home.”

Spades

It was the first snowy day of a crisp winter. As they walked in the icy cold, Declyn had teased Virgil about his cosy palace upbringing (that many mages could build crazily efficient central heating) all the way into town, and completely missed the purple flicker in Virgil’s eyes which preceded a pile of snow sliding down a rooftop and landing directly on top of him.

Declyn toppled over. The uncomfortably wet and unbearably cold sensation of snow soaking into every part of his being caused him to shriek in mild shock and not-so-mild irritation as Virgil laughed so hard he fell into the snow himself.

“And you-” Virgil was almost breathless. “You just-” He cackled. “Serves you right-” The way he laughed was bubbling and open, like a child- ha ha ha ha!

A sharp spike of something went through Declyn at the sight of Virgil, red-cheeked and eyes crinkled as he laughed in whooping bursts. He decided the spike was definitely a need for revenge. “Oh, Virgil!” He called in a sing-song voice. “I shall of course forgive this-” As soon as he had his friend’s attention he gathered up a pile of snow and lunged for Virgil’s neck. Virgil rolled out of the way at the last moment, flicking snow at Declyn. Not to be outdone, Declyn feinted right before darting his hand over Virgil’s wrist and using his knee to pin him down. He gathered a handful of snow and held it over Virgil’s face in triumph. “Any last words?”

Virgil’s chest kicked beneath Declyn and at that and his wide-eyed expression he let go immediately. “Too much?”

Virgil nodded, closing his eyes for a brief moment and pushing himself up. “Give me a moment, then I’ll utterly destroy you in a snowball fight.”

For a few moments, Declyn sat shivering as Virgil composed himself and watched the slow rise and fall of his chest. Then he leapt to his feet with a wicked grin. “Ten seconds to prepare, then we go?”

Declyn matched Virgil’s expression. “Prepare to be decimated.”

When they tumbled into the inn, both were soaked and shivering. Virgil looked embarrassed to come into the building that way, but Declyn was riding high on his victory and came to the counter without a shred of shame at the snowmelt he was trailing over the entrance.

“A room for two, please.” It was cheaper than two singles.

The innkeeper gave the two of them a searching look. “That’s seven fiebri, three more for breakfast, and we only have ones with one bed left.”

“That’s quite alright.” It happened sometimes, and they were happy to just stick to their own sides.

The room was small and plain, but it had a lock to protect their possessions and a bed, and that was all they needed. They dumped their soaked packs by the fire in the hope they might dry by morning, then kicked off their damp clothes and pulled on new ones, playing over the highlights of their match, and deciding they were too tired for dinner.

It was very cold, as night fell, and Delcyn teased Virgil by putting his cold feet on his back, which resulted in Virgil heating himself up so quickly that Delcyn pulled his foot away with a yelp. They fell asleep quickly, exhausted by the walking and snowball fight that day.

Declyn woke up to Virgil cuddled into his side. He was soft, and warm. His breath whistled through his nose as he slept and Declyn was going to have a heart attack. It hurt to be so close. All of it hurt: the way the morning light drifted across Virgil’s hair, rumpled and a little greasy from travel and completely out of bounds for Declyn to touch, how defenseless Virgil was, the warmth pressed steady to his side, the scent of soap and smoke- the curve of Virgil’s cheek, how it had softened since he left the army, even his bloody eye bags which didn’t disappear after hours of rest-

Declyn could read cards and other people, nothing else. This pain was a foreigner in his body; he couldn’t translate what it was telling him. It was just Virgil.

Was he angry at Virgil? No. No, that felt all wrong. Jealous? Grieving? No, Virgil wasn’t going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.

They were stuck together, weren’t they? This was...it, now.

Declyn and Virgil. The same scam, the same routine, the same banter, the same understanding, the same room every night. To his horror, heat prickled at the corner of his eyes. That sounded perfect.

Scrunching his eyes shut to try and squeeze the tears away, he instead sent one rolling down his cheek and onto Virgil’s.

“-fucking inn-keeper,” Virgil growled without opening his eyes. His voice was rough with sleep and to hear the normal rasp of it from him now, with the foreign aching beating at Declyn’s breastbone like a second heart, was cataclysmic.

Suppressed sobs were tremors, tears flooded his eyes, and the wanting wanting wanting Virgil usually quieted in him was back, but as something entirely different. He wanted Virgil to be awake, and with him, and at the same time he couldn’t bear for him to see.

Naturally, Virgil woke at Declyn's slight shaking beside him. "Dec?" his eyes blinked open. "Oh, fuck, I..." He scrambled back to the corner of the bed, trying to give Declyn as much space as possible. "I'm so sorry, I was asleep, I swear. Maybe you can try and breathe with me-"

Declyn didn't know what to do. He threw Virgil's pillow at him. "I'm not panicking, you fool."

"...you kind of seem like you are, dude." Virgil got off the bed fully, edging towards the door. "Do you want space? I can hang out downstairs, give you time-"

At that, Declyn's sobs only increased.

"What- what is the matter, then?" He was panicking, and it was so like him, Declyn thought, and-

Declyn had never called a spade a spade if he could call it an ‘digging implement with exciting capabilities never seen before- you could even carry it by the handle!’ and sell it for twice the price, but Virgil was adamant about not letting Declyn even subtly convince or manipulate him. Besides, his words felt inadequate and flimsy. There was no dignified way to ask for what he wanted.

“Come cuddle me, you dumb fuck,” Declyn sobbed.

Virgil’s eyes widened and he came back to bed, laying down besides Declyn. “Geez, they don't say you're silver-tongued and cold-hearted for nothing,” he grumbled. But he scooted up to Declyn and wrapped his arms back around him gently.

Declyn buried his face in the crook of Virgil’s neck, curling his arms in front of him as he squished against Virgil’s chest.

Virgil didn’t ask what was up, even though this was hugely out of character. He just held Declyn close and rubbed his back occasionally.

Needing to be close, not knowing why, Declyn wiggled his ankle between Virgil’s and in response Virgil tangled their legs together.

Virgil breathed deeply, already sounding like he was half back to sleep.

Declyn let their chests move together. He could feel Virgil’s heartbeat.

After some time, Declyn’s sobs tailed off but he didn’t want to let go. Still, he should compose himself, put himself back together, all of that…

But he didn't. Around them, the sound of people clattering around to get out of their rooms came through the thin wall, there was a distant crash, a shouted disagreement. They made the moment better, because they made it real. Declyn felt a puff of air in his hair as Virgil slid back into sleep, and he let his own eyes flutter shut. Just a few more minutes of this and they'd be on the road....

And so, Declyn drifted back off into sleep in the arms of his partner.

They woke up late, ran a game involving Virgil vanishing and reappearing dice, then walked to the next village, all without discussing it. That night-

“Single or double bed?” Another bored innkeeper, almost indistinguishable from the one in the last town.

Declyn grinned at his friend. “Still feeling cuddly, Virge?”

“Oh, I think a little birdie told me the answer-” In the same elaborate gesture as Declyn used to reveal the products of his close-up illusion, Virgil flipped his partner in crime off.

“Shame, really. You do run like a furnace. All that luxurious heat as a child must have soaked into your skin-”

“-and they say the streets of your city are covered in shit.”

The innkeeper was singularly unimpressed at their snarking. “One or two?”

Virgil shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to take pity on Declyn’s cold-bloodedness and say one.”

In a worldless negotiation of eyes and limbs, they found themselves tangled together before they drifted off that night.

Since it was winter, they said a week later, this new arrangement was sensible.

As the buds began to bloom into spring, it didn’t change.

Hearts

It was a hot afternoon, pregnant and storm-heavy, the kind of sky which made Declyn ache in wanting. Spring was ending, and endings made him antsy. Time to go, to move, to do...but they’d eaten their lunch in the shade of an oak tree and the light was dappling Virgil’s face, and the wanting stilled into restless playfulness.

“Come on, Virgil, indulge me and guess the top card of this pile.” Declyn shook the pack at him. “It’s brand new.”

“I literally saw you cut it open and remelt the seal yesterday,” Virgil said.

“Details, details,” Declyn dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Come on, do guess. No magic.”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at Declyn, but took the pack of cards and turned them over in his hands. “Uh...well, you said that people usually go for the picture cards, so it’s better to pick a number card. But then, you know I know that, so you might just pick a picture card, if this was for me and not someone else…”

Declyn didn’t reveal anything, putting on a very impressive poker face as he watched Virgil’s lashes tilt downwards as he looked down at the cards. Virgil cut him a searching look.

“Oh…” Virgil said, his face glowing more red than gold despite the yellow light.

Declyn raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Virgil ran a finger over the seam of the cards, eyes glowing purple as he disappeared the wax effortlessly. “Ace of hearts,” he said simply. He tipped out the pack to reveal, as he’d said, the ace of hearts on the top of the pile. “Is this your card?”

“It is indeed,” Declyn said. “I’m impressed.”

Virgil gave him another untranslatable look. He flicked his wrist, and Declyn was looking in his eyes as the card disappeared, so he saw there was no real magic used. Sleight of hand.

Declyn raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you can surprise me without your magic?” But his voice was approving, and suggested he would very much like to be surprised.

At that, whatever the look was intensified, Virgil’s mouth setting in a competitive quirk. He shifted closer to Declyn. He put his hand into the pocket over Declyn’s chest, and from it pulled- “Is this your heart?”

“Card,” Declyn corrected quietly. The brush of Virgil’s fingers still burned warm against his chest.

“I know what I said,” Virgil said. He was more hesitant, his eyes shifting as they searched Declyn’s own. Looking for something. Scared, but not backing away. A flush rising in his cheeks.

What was Declyn’s heart? Frozen solid, a shouting foreigner, a traitor which now flooded his own face with colour?

Slowly, he reached out to push Virgil’s hand holding the card against Virgil’s own heart. He moved their hands again, to feel the fluttering of Virgil’s chest. Last night, his head had risen and fell as it laid on Virgil’s steady breathing. His lips parted. Words, however, had deserted him.

His eyes met Virgil’s again, and there was no beating in his own chest, even as Virgil’s heart thudded against his fingers. He recognised that foreign rhythm from inside himself, from the first night of snow. “Virgil,” he said distantly.

“Yes?”

“Virgil, how long have we loved each other?”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Both of us?”

Declyn nodded.

“I- I loved you- shit, Dec, I don’t know. I just- I guess I thought about it dicking around with the bowl. When you got all excited about teaching me card tricks after. I dunno if it was before, or after, but around- around then.” Virgil was beginning to tear up. “Do you-?”

“I don’t know,” Declyn said. “I didn’t know. But I think-” He moved one hand from Virgil’s chest to clumsily wipe at his tears. “I think, yes. I do. For a long time, now.”

“Then come kiss me, oblivious,” Virgil said gruffly, a little choked-up.

Declyn leaned in without thinking more.

It was Virgil. The scent of soap and smoke. A quirk at the corner of his mouth that he couldn’t control. Steady pressure, warm and soft. He made sense. He was real. The kiss was not everything Declyn had imagined - Declyn had been too stupid to imagine, too scared, maybe-

But had he tried to imagine, this was nothing he could pretend.

When they pulled away both of their faces were tear-tracked. “Absolutely no-one else can know we both cried like this,” Virgil said with a wet laugh.

“And no-one will,” Declyn said, wiping at his own eyes. “Your secret is safe with me.”

In the distance, the sky broke into rain. They could see the curtain of it hanging over the mountains, grey and misting. The air began to cool, even as far away as they were, and the golden light sharpened as if reflected off glass. It was the kind of weather which made Declyn curl up against Virgil’s side, letting his partner card his hand through his hair. Tension eased from the air, shivering the leaves above as it drained away into swirling breezes. The land rolled endless away from them, with its skeins of roads unravelling into the distance. They had travelled so many of them this spring, but the playful light made them look new once more. As always, the roads tugged a place inside Declyn he didn’t think would ever be subdued. That tugging would pull them to new adventures, every day as long as he followed it. For now, it was a sweet ache as they took their unhurried time underneath the oak tree.

They kissed again, long and slow as summer days. It felt a lot like a beginning.

#anxceit #virgil sanders #deceit sanders #ts fic #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #fantasy au #friends to lovers

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