#& her becoming less evil or whatever

[cloverrallover]

finished the elders questtttt

[therealsirsticker]

so in my sonic underground rewrite bartleby after shooting Sonia on an eggman airship in the middle of his morality crisis coming to a head gets exploded along with the ship after the hedgehogs narrowly escape ad he lands on angel island, very unconscious and barely alive, where knuckles finds him (and the two have not ever met each other before or know of each other’s existence) and helps this mysterious injured random guy. By the way the shooting Sonia and exploding is like the season one finale. Bartleby spends the majority of season two stuck on angel island dealing with the aftermath of his morality crisis, helping out knuckles bc knuckles helped him and what else is he going to do, they become friends (and maybe develop a Thing, I haven’t decided yet) eventually the hedgehogs show up on the island for whatever reasons and there’s a confrontation bc the last time they saw him, he shot sonia. And knuckles didn’t know this and he feels betrayed and bartleby runs off all dramatic bc it’s him, emotions cool off a bit and they go after bartleby to talk and he apologizes and tells them that he’s on their side now, but he wants to stay on angel island until he’s needed. They make up, yayyy hugs and friendship.

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[cassiebones]

The expression on Alice's face is everything to me.

Because she had a mother who loved her and tried to protect her with every little bit of magic she had.

And now she's witnessing a mother who hated her own child since the moment said child was born.

I feel in part that this is Alice realizing that she's not the only one with Mommy Issues™ and that there's a lot more to Agatha Harkness than she was led to believe.

While the argument can be made that Alice was neglected by her mother, as well as abused (forcing a 13yo to get a tattoo???), at least she's become aware just how much her mother cared about her, was scared for her, and tried to protect her.

Evanora Harkness, on the other hand, actively tried to kill her own child. She got together a group of women to kill her daughter. And said "evil" daughter then granted mercy to these killers' children, to her own detriment.

It has to be such a shocking dichotomy for Alice. Especially since, despite being raised by somebody who hated her for the first couple decades of her long life, Agatha still seems to crave her mother's love and approval, which Alice can probably very much relate to.

And then to think of the fact that Agatha was a mother herself. She probably loved Nicholas from the second she found out that she was pregnant. I kind of guess she wanted a girl (another young witch to raise and do it better than the mother who hated her), but was no less thrilled to have her son.

The grief she feels still, after losing him decades - if not well over a century - ago is palpable. She probably told him every single day just how much he meant to her. She probably held him in her arms, marveling at every little detail of his little face, his fingers and toes, his eyes, his smile...and she probably raised him with the love of her life at her side.

And then he was taken from her. Partly by whatever killed him and partly by the love of her life. And it left her broken, grief-stricken, and angry.

Not angry just because Rio took him away (because it was her job), but also because she remembered how own mother trying to kill her and she probably wondered what she had done wrong to evoke such anger in her own mother as she would never try to harm even a single hair on her son's little head.

It was clear in that episode that, as stated above, Agatha still crave's her mother acceptance and affection, even after all she did to her. It's not something you get over very quickly - the burn of your mother's rejection and ire. And, as tough and unflappable as Agatha likes to play it, she is definitely still feeling the pain.

And it's heart-breaking.

[wonderjanga]

Teen Dad Marvel

There’s some very big leaps and logic the JL has decided at Marvel is a teen dad. Billy doesn’t even know how it happened. Let’s take a look at some pass incidents that have made them think this.

To start us off, the very first incident of this occurred when Batman, Superman, and Marvel were debating how old a kid should be before they become a sidekick.

Marvel: “I wasn’t even 12 when Junior came along.”

Supes: “I’m sorry, not even 12?”

Marvel: “Nope. And then it was about… two years or so later that he got his powers and we went on the fight crime together.

To Billy, that meant that he met Freddy when he was around eight and the other boy was nine. It when Billy was nine himself that he got his powers and then a year later, Freddy gained his.

To Superman and Batman, that sounded like somehow, in some way, Marvel had a kid at a max of 12 years old. It also sounds like that two-year-old got powers before it could probably even walk.

Batman and Supes: *sharing looks*

Supes: “I… I’m sorry?”

Marvel: “For what?”

Batman and Supes: *share another look*

Batman: “Nothing, Captain. We just hadn’t expected that you’d gone through something like that.”

Marvel: “Something like what?”

They didn’t answer Billy’s question because they assumed he was playing dumb.

The second incident that convinced the JL, or just Batman and Superman, of this, happened when both Marvel and Junior were at the Watchtower. It seemed like that day was a bad day for Junior’s leg, so Marvel offered to massage it. That how they ended up in the rec room watching Cartoon Network a little too intently as Marvel absentmindedly, massaged the leg draped across his lap.

Marvel and Junior: *watching Gumball or something and sipping juice boxes*

Junior: “How do you do that so well?”

Marvel: “Freddy, I’ve been doing this since I was like nine, obviously I’m gonna do it well.”

Junior: “Yeah, but how did you learn?”

Marvel: “You know that kooky doctor on 48th Street?”

Junior: “The one that’s not evil and turned like half his patients blue?”

Marvel: “Yeah, him, so on one of your really bad days, I got really desperate and really wanted to find a way to make it less bad. So I went to him and he gave me a masseuse book for a penny.”

Junior: “Oh… Cool. Do you still have that book?”

Marvel: “Yeah? It’s probably somewhere at the Rock.”

Supes; *listening from around a corner, clenching his heart because he finds them wholesome*

And it really was from Clark’s point of view. See, most of the JL assumed that Junior was born with a bad leg. After all, he’s supposed to be a demigod, isn’t he? He’s pretty much indestructible so they didn’t think he’d gotten that injury from someone or something. In Clark’s mind, he’s imagining a nine-year-old, itty-bitty Marvel with a baby Freddy massaging Freddy’s little baby leg because he was crying.

Also, Junior’s real name is Freddy? Also, Marvel was NINE when he had him??? Wait, but then how old is Marvel now? Also how old is Junior??

Supes never got an answer to these questions because he was too chicken to bring up the topic.

The third incident came from Mary and Marvel who were also at the Watchtower when this happened. The two were baking cookies together, one of the usual father-daughter activities the JL have seen them do. Specifically, they were making dark chocolate bat-shaped cookies for Batman, on the request of Robin. When Bruce found out about this, he went to go tell them to stop because he really didn’t need the cookies even if they were absolutely delicious.

That’s how he overheard their conversation.

Mary: “Do you remember mom?”

Marvel: “Uh…” *thinking* “Nope, I got nothing.”

Mary: “How?”

Marvel: “Because the last time I saw them, I was eight years old, Mary? You were too.” *whisking something in a bowl*

Bruce took that as Marvel leaving home, at a concerningly young age, for whatever reason and eventually taking Mary to see her grandparents when she was around the age he left. Either that, or he left, and took her back to visit her grandparents when she was two-years-old.

Mary: “Yeah, but I had amnesia. What’s your excuse?”

Marvel: “I was eight?” *hands her the whisk so she can lick it*

It was this incident, and the two others that shaped this idea of teen dad Marvel. Thus, using the combined brain cells of both Batman and Superman, the two came to a conclusion: for some reason, Marvel left home, during the time he left he somehow got someone pregnant and that resulted in Mary and Junior.

Either that, or he just found them on the side of the road, though, the first theory is more believable. The only problem being their ages.

If only they could find their mother… maybe she’d be willing to spill.

[littjara-mirrorlake]

The Color of Hope: Ambition, Necromancy, and Black Mana

Black is one of the most misunderstood colors in Magic: the Gathering, not least because it appears on the surface to be so straightforward. Look at the most iconic black cards of Magic and you'll see deals with demons, necromancy, mass destruction and cruelty and suffering–the trappings of classic fantasy evil. Even the color's symbol itself is a skull, a universal signifier of death and danger.

And in early Magic that seemed to be all it was. White was the color of Fantasy Good, black was the color of Fantasy Evil, and the rest of the colors were... fire magic? Elves? Whatever odd but intriguing skeleton affairs are implied by Time Walk?

Gradually, though, Magic deepened as both a game and a storytelling medium. The color pie grew into itself as a system of complementary philosophies, archetypes whose associated aesthetics were only part of the full picture. Their arrangement around the wheel, below, is highly deliberate; neighboring colors are said to be allies with a high degree of philosophical and mechanical overlap, while colors on opposite sides of the pie are known as enemies, more likely to disagree on fundamental levels.

Black stopped merely representing capital E Evil and became the color of striving for power; unlike its peers, black felt that nothing, least of all morality, could prevent it from seizing what it wanted. Mark Rosewater's 2015 article about black emphasized the color's focus on the self:

"Black's philosophy is very simple: There's no one better suited to look after your own interests than you... Many costs require the sacrifice of others for your own advancement. Because it puts itself first, black is always willing to make this trade. The weak must fall for the strong to thrive." -Mark Rosewater

At its worst, black is an exploitative, amoral color that prioritizes itself at the expense of all others, allowing the "weak" to fall and scorning the very idea of compassion. Rosewater writes that black is "always willing" to trade others for itself. And these can certainly be parts of black's philosophy, when taken to its worst possible extremes, but they're far from the entire story.

Over time, Magic's outlook on black gained nuance. Magic story introduced protagonists like the necromancer Liliana Vess, whose craving for immortality, seemingly exploitative nature, and demonic deals called back to the oldest portrayals of black–and yet she was not one-dimensionally evil. She underwent character development over the years, learning the value of reclaiming herself and standing beside others, and at no point did she become any less mono-black for it. Remember her; we will come back to Liliana and her story later.

In addition to the usual death and decay, black cards began to feature a theme of relentless devotion. On the plane of Eldraine where each color represents a virtue, black's is persistence, explicitly as important as any other color. On the plane of Ikoria, the love between bonder and beast pulls Winota back from the brink of death. Wherever this Oathsworn Vampire printing is set, its flavor text is quintessentially black. It's the same self-driven attitude as before, but cast in a different light: black is nothing if not persistent when it's got its heart set on something (or someone) it cares about. Nothing, least of all the grave, will keep it down. After all, black will always come back for its own.

These newer cards uncovered the true face of black as a color capable of both great love and harm (sometimes even the latter for the sake of the former), and suggested a tantalizing new thread: perhaps putting yourself and yours first isn't all that bad, necessarily. Black is a deeply protective color; it says you don't just have to accept what you're handed, it's okay even to be furious about it (hello, ally color red), but let that galvanize you to do something about it. 

Vraska, a gorgon who faces extreme discrimination on her home plane of Ravnica, triumphs by reclaiming herself, gorgon powers and all–and even more radically, loving herself. She displays traits often considered the purview of white and green, such as a love of home and a drive to elevate the oppressed, but they are all filtered through the lens of her black alignment. Vraska staunchly refuses to deny herself or her people, the Golgari Swarm, of their value. Nor does she allow law or propriety to prevent her from championing them by any means necessary–even if that means cold-blooded murder, or aligning herself with a villain like the Planeswalker Nicol Bolas.

"[Vraska] thought of Mazirek, of the kraul, of the rest of the Ochran assassins and the malignant Jarad who reigned with casual ruin over the most downtrodden of the downtrodden. She remembered her years of isolation, and the heinous cruelty of the Azorius, and how no group deserved to suffer as much as those who would subjugate her own. Eliminating that hell was all she ever wanted." -The Talented Captain Vraska, Alison Luhrs

Like Vraska, black loves fierce and hard, willing to break any taboo for the sake of those it cares about. And it whispers, the entire way through, you are enough. You deserve better. No matter what others may say or do, you are enough.

"If I am to be met with disrespect, then I must first love myself with a fierceness no fool can take away." -Vraska in Pride of the Kraul, Alison Luhrs

Even black's "ruthlessness" isn't as fundamentally cruel as it appears, centering a passion for problem-solving (shared by its other ally blue) instead of a blunt disregard for others.

"People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means 'mean.' It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it." -K. A. Applegate

All of this comes together to make a black a color not of evil but of strength, integrity, and persistence. And that's all well and good, but I'm going to take it even further and put forward a new proposition: that black is the color of hope.

Of the nine mono-black Magic cards with "hope" in their names, all but Liliana portray black as an instrument of hope's destruction. This is, once again, black's flaw taken to its extreme–crushing others to achieve its own ends–but neglects black's own relationship with hope.

Black, more than any other color, requires hope to stay alive.

For black to persist, it must believe in a light at the end of the tunnel, a future in which its goals are realized. As long as it does, it will endure any hardship, walk through fire, and turn reality itself upside down on its way there. Primal, desperate ambition is the engine of hope that burns at the heart of black, keeping it always one step ahead of stagnation. Bitter and stubborn, black believes tomorrow will come because there is no other choice. After all, for black to relinquish hope is to let itself wither, regress, and die–an unacceptable outcome. 

Thus, it is monumentally difficult to strip black of hope. That only makes it all the more crushing when it happens, when black contends with the idea that there is nothing it can do.

Black's deepest, darkest fear is helplessness.

Like any mono-black character, Liliana Vess is driven at her core by a seething, desperate hope. When Liliana first unlocks her necromantic power, it is out of a sheer refusal to allow her ill brother Josu to die, even when the esis root that would cure him is destroyed by enemy witches in an undead-raising ritual. She defies her previous training as a healer, which taught her only to take the safe path, in favor of a higher-risk and higher-reward approach: stealing life from the witches themselves to restore power to the esis root she needs. It is her knowledge that her brother needs her, and her sheer stubborn will to succeed, which allows her to defeat the witches against steep odds.

"Six foes, and Liliana stood alone. But Josu's life depended on her, and the power blossoming within her was more than enough." -Liliana's Origin: The Fourth Pact, James Wyatt

Tragically, however, Liliana's attempted cure goes horrifically wrong, transforming Josu into an undead being plagued by eternal suffering. In his pain, Josu attacks Liliana. For a while Liliana holds out hope, finding the power to fight back while she determinedly searches for a spell to reverse the harm she's done. It is when she realizes this isn't possible that her strength falters.

"All this time, she had believed… that she could turn the power of death to the service of life and health. That a healer should use every tool at her disposal. But Josu was the result, a horrible fusion of life and death, and all her spells meant to manipulate the life force of the living could do nothing to harm the dead." -The Fourth Pact

Liliana learns that even her own dark magic, fueled by determination, cannot solve the problem she's created. She discovers the hard limit of her willpower, and the despair of this discovery is what causes her Planeswalker spark to ignite.

At this time Planeswalkers are as gods, immortal and near-omnipotent. Liliana spends decades enjoying this affirmation of her capability before the Mending strips her and all her peers of their power, reducing them once again to mortal mages.

"Then the Multiverse reshaped itself, robbing her—and every other Planeswalker—of the godlike power they once had wielded. Some called it the Mending, as if something broken had been repaired, but to Liliana, it seemed the opposite. It broke her beyond any hope of repair." -The Fourth Pact

Once again, it is Liliana's fear of helplessness and her refusal to accept it that drives her to push beyond the bounds of propriety–this time, to make a pact with Nicol Bolas and four demons to maintain her immortality. It is not enough for her merely to delay death; she requires the security of knowing she is fully beyond its reach, that she will never be helpless before it again as she was with Josu.

"Holding death at arm's length for whatever years are left to me? No, that's not enough. I want to be free of its shadow." -Liliana in The Fourth Pact

Black isn't like its enemy colors white and green, which are superficially associated far more often with hope. Unlike white, it doesn't believe that conviction, justice, and community will bring about rightness. Unlike green, it doesn't trust in the wisdom of the world or the natural order. Black believes that nothing will change unless you make it change; ultimately, black's self is the only one it can trust to bring about the world it needs. In addition, black lacks its enemies' idealism. Instead, it strives to be a pragmatic realist, making a final assessment of defeat all the more definite and crushing.

While white and green are more amenable to finding hope and holding it aloft as a banner, black claws hope desperately to its chest with shredded, bloody fingernails. Every ounce of hope black has, it tore by itself from the clutches of an uncaring world.

Ironically for such a self-driven color, black's fierce hope is the greatest asset it can provide to others–on its own terms, of course. It was Liliana who turned the tide of battle against the Eldrazi titan Emrakul, defiant in the face of cosmic despair. And when Nicol Bolas made his bid to return to godhood, using Liliana's necromancy to command his undead hordes, Liliana finally turned against him. In reclaiming her power, so too did she use it to free her fellow Planeswalkers from Bolas' assault. Her fear of helplessness no longer shackled her to him; agency and autonomy were hers at last.

The triumph of black, its moment of ultimate victory, is the hard-won fulfillment of its hope.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas

An aetherborn, railing against the shortness of their natural lifespan, constructs a new body for themself with their own bare hands. An artificer's grief over her lost companion causes her to push invention to its limits. A young girl who loves her brother calls on the darkest of powers to save him. As it turns out, necromancy–that original thematic keystone of black–is only one of black's many, many refusals to let go of love and hope once it has them, even in the face of the ultimate end.

Time and time again, black–in love with life, ablaze with hope–looks the Grim Reaper in the eye and tells it: "Not today."

[supernovafics]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 11.7k words

summary: in which you and steve have the brilliant (and slightly insane) idea to try to get your bosses to date because maybe it’ll make your jobs and lives easier 

warnings: modern!au, explicit language, one too many clueless references, drinking/alcohol mentions (drunk!reader and drunk!steve moment toward the end)

note: i didn’t expect this to become as long as it did but here we are now<3 set it up nation please rise! this is very much inspired by that movie (that is in fact one of my favorites) and i was rewatching it a few months ago and it made me want to do something similar-ish. enjoy<333

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: i bet you ten bucks my night is going worse than yours 

YOU: that’s definitely impossible so i will happily take that bet and your money 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: remember how i’ve been doing todd’s son’s science project for the past week?

YOU: yeah because the kid sucks at science

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: i finally finished it and gave it to todd today. he hated it and ripped it to shreds right in front of my face (i kinda blame this dumbass juice diet he’s on for him being much more of an asshole than usual). anyway, now i’m gonna have to spend all night doing a new project 

YOU: holy fuck

YOU: you win

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: i would like cash please 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: what bullshit are you being subjected to right now? 

YOU: at 8 kristen said she didn’t want dinner because she wasn’t going to be “staying late tonight.” and then twenty minutes ago she asked me where her dinner was and gave me the most annoyed look when i said i didn’t have it….

YOU: now i’m waiting in the lobby for a delivery guy to get here with pasta :)

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: ouch

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: want some company down there?

YOU: are you just asking that because you want your money?

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: maybe….

YOU: evil man!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“The joke’s on you because I don’t have ten bucks right now, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for your money,” You told Steve when he walked into the lobby. 

“I was lying. I don’t care about the money. I really came down here to keep you company,” He said as he joined you by the front door. 

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at him. “Oh, whatever.”

He only smiled at you. “So, how much longer until the delivery guy gets here?”

You took another look at your phone and then showed it to Steve. “Less than a minute. His car’s down the street.”

“How annoyed is Kristen?”

“She got pulled into a Zoom call with the team in LA right after scolding me, so I’m ninety-five percent sure she hasn’t noticed I’m gone yet.”

“That’s good.”

“Is Todd gone for the night?” 

You kind of had a feeling that you already knew the answer to your question because Steve looked more relaxed than normal; his white button-up shirt was untucked from his nice black dress pants and the tie that was around his neck and tucked under the collar of his shirt was loosened too. 

“Yeah, he left right after destroying the science project.”

You shook your head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe that happened.”

Steve let out a tired sigh that you were certain wouldn’t be his last of the night. “What’s another suitable project for a fifth grader?”

“Sorry, but I’m not brushed up on the current fifth-grade education system,” You joked, giving him a teasing smile. When he didn’t match it, you held up your hands in mock surrender. “Okay, sorry, I’ll save all my jokes for when this is no longer a problem for you.”

His lips twitched upward in the smallest amused smile. “How many do you have?”

“Oh, a full stand-up set pretty much, but I’ll save it for tomorrow,” You said, trying to make your voice sound as serious as possible. 

He smiled wider then and seeing him look at least a little less stressed felt like a success in your book. You knew that he would’ve done the same for you if the roles were reversed in this moment, and there were many times when he had done the same. Made a joke when you didn’t even know you needed to hear one, but it still made your day better, or told you a random story about nothing when you needed a breather from thinking about work. 

This friendship you two had made your job feel a thousand times more bearable, and you were so glad that you met him eight months ago. That abrupt introduction had been another middle-of-the-night lobby situation like this one; when it seemed like everyone in the building was done and gone for the day, except for you two and your workaholic bosses. Both of you were waiting for meals from the same diner, which you didn’t even realize until your separate delivery drivers almost mixed up the orders. It was a mix-up that was luckily fixed before it descended into a bigger issue with your respective bosses. 

You two ended up talking a lot on the elevator ride up to your floors and found out just how much you two had in common— both of you being assistants to insane bosses— and the rest was history. 

“Thank you. That’s very considerate,” Steve said to you now, placing a dramatic hand over his heart, which made you laugh.

Before you could say something to keep this playful banter going, you noticed the car pulling up in front of the building. You met the delivery guy halfway and let out a quick “Thanks” when he handed over the food to you. You did a quick look through of what was in the bag and smiled in relief when you saw that everything was there. 

“How long do you think you’re gonna have to stay tonight?” Steve asked you on the elevator ride back up. 

“No idea,” You took a look down at your phone. “She’ll probably eat this once her Zoom call ends in thirty minutes, and then hopefully want to leave for the night.”

“Nice, then you’ll actually be able to get more than four hours of sleep.”

“Fingers crossed.”

The elevator came to its stop on the fifteenth floor and the doors opened, which marked your cue to leave. 

You took a few steps and then turned around to face Steve again, giving him a quick wave. “Good luck tonight, Harrington.”

“Thank you. I’m gonna need it,” He responded, waving back as the doors finished closing. 

You avoided looking at all of the empty cubicles that took over the space in the office— desks that had been left hours ago— and simply went to your desk that sat right outside Kristen’s office. You could faintly hear her talking through the shut glass door. 

You used the downtime to busy yourself with random work rather than doing anything remotely interesting or simply taking a break and doing nothing. You double-checked what Kristen’s calendar schedule looked like for the next few weeks and made sure that everything was in order, and then you went to your work email although nothing new had come in in the last thirty minutes. 

When the time hit 10:03pm and you heard the door open and then saw Kristen walk out, you stood up from your chair and grabbed the bag with the food off your desk. 

“Hi, I have your dinner here.”

She gave you a confused look and it was then that you noticed that her coat was on and her purse was hanging on her shoulder. “I don’t want that. It was supposed to be an early night, remember? I’ll see you in the morning.”

You nodded immediately at her words instead of doing anything else. You, of course, did not tell her that she had asked you to get her food, and you of course definitely did not ask her if ten o’clock could really be considered an “early night” given that the night was pretty much already halfway done and it was basically Friday. 

Nope, you didn’t say any of that, because even though Kristen was nothing but contradictory at times, which made your job absolutely suck, you still liked having one at the end of the day. 

“Okay, got it. See you tomorrow,” You told her, forcing a smile. 

She nodded at you and then her eyes fell to her phone as she walked off. 

You let out a tired sigh once you were certain she was out of earshot and then sat down once again. You could’ve grabbed your own jacket and bag and followed suit, leaving for the night and getting more than four hours of sleep just as Steve had mentioned and you had crossed your fingers in the elevator hoping it would happen. 

However, you didn’t slip on your coat or reach under your desk to grab your bag. Instead, you pulled out your phone.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

YOU: kristen’s gone for the night

YOU: do you want help with the science project?

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: please yes. definitely. thank you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

You and Steve stared at the blank tri-fold poster board as you two ate the Alfredo pasta that had been meant for Kristen. 

The idea for the project had already been decided; it was some sort of chemical reaction thing, seeing how food coloring and dish soap react to being put in different types of milk. Steve showed you a video about it and it actually seemed really cool. 

After finishing the pasta, doing the experiment itself took less than thirty minutes because everything you needed for it was luckily spread about both of your break rooms and then it was just a matter of typing everything up and making the poster board look nice. 

“So, where does this situation lie on the worst things Todd has ever made you do? Is it breaking the top three?” You asked as you stood next to the printer on Steve’s desk and he typed away on his laptop. 

“Definitely,” He didn't hesitate to answer. “I think this takes the third spot that was previously held by him making me drive to the airport two hours away to pick up his mom.”

“Fuck, I always forget about that,” You told him. “If we knew each other when that happened a year ago, I would’ve happily gone with you. I love a long car ride.” 

“And I would’ve definitely taken you up on that offer because that was the worst drive ever.”

“God, how did you survive before we knew each other existed eight months ago?” You asked jokingly and hearing his initial laugh in response made you smile. 

“It was really hard, I honestly don’t know how I managed,” He responded playfully, making you smile wider. “Has your top three with Kristen changed recently?” 

“Nope, the third is the cheese incident, the second is the dog thing, and the first is still all of the shit I had to do the day she interviewed her favorite director for the website.”

You still considered that the worst day you ever had being Kristen’s assistant. She had wanted to make sure that everything was perfect for that interview she had been working for months to get with the infamous Matt Scott, so you had gotten stuck with doing a bunch of tedious tasks. It was still hard for you to look at Skittles and not feel immediate disdain because you had to sort through so many packs of them that day since he weirdly only liked the red and yellow ones. 

The only good thing that came out of that day was that the interview went really well and it was what skyrocketed the website into how big it currently was, and it was still growing. 

You remembered when you randomly stumbled upon the website three years ago. It was a mix of reviews, essays, and articles discussing movies and television shows, all of which interested you a lot, and you liked the website so much that you continuously kept up with it. And the day that you found out that the woman behind the entire thing needed an assistant, you jumped at the opportunity. It didn’t take you too long to realize that you hated being an assistant, but you were really good at it and you also really loved being a part of that environment; surrounded by other people who loved movies and TV and were actually making a living out of writing about it. 

“I just learned that Todd loves one of the horror movies that that director did. ‘The Damned’ something I can’t remember the full title of it,” Steve said, not looking up from his laptop and continuing to type as he talked. He was a weirdly good multitasker; you’d learned that early on in your friendship, but it still always really impressed you. 

“The Damned Rabbit,” You told him as you started cutting out the pictures on the pages you just printed. “That’s Kristen’s favorite too. I can usually stomach most horror movies, but that one was way too gory for me.” 

“Do you think I would like it?”

“Didn’t you say that you got scared watching the Goosebumps show when you were a kid?” 

Steve looked away from his laptop and at you then. “I honestly don’t remember telling you that, but yeah that’s true.” 

You shrugged. “I remember all conversations we have regarding any TV shows or movies.” 

His head tilted a bit and he gave you a look that you didn’t take notice of because you were focused on properly cutting out the pictures. “And I’m assuming you’re using that information to judge me and my taste.” 

“No, of course not,” You told him, making your voice sound completely serious, and then you smiled. “I already know you have shit taste in movies, so there’s no need for me to collect any more data about that.”  

He placed an overdramatic hand over his heart. “Ouch, that hurts. Truly. Badly.”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you finally looked at him. “Sorry, that was mean.”

“Very much so,” Steve agreed with a nod. “Please take that back and admit that I have the best taste ever.”   

You shook your head as you smiled. “I’d rather not lie to you right now.”  

He playfully rolled his eyes at you and then went back to focusing on his laptop. He finished typing out everything and then printed it all and you helped him cut everything out once you were done with the pictures. You two then set everything up in what felt like good places on the tri-fold and glued it down. The project definitely looked rushed, but it also looked like a fifth grader did it, so in your eyes it was perfect. And by the time one in the morning rolled around, both your and Steve’s tired eyes and lack of sleep thought it was the best thing either of you had ever done. 

“I can’t wait until Christmas comes and he goes to New Jersey to visit his family,” Steve said as you two began the cleanup process. “I think I’m gonna go into hibernation for that entire week.”

You nodded in agreement, balling up scraps of paper and tossing them into the garbage and deciding against reminding him that Christmas was over two months away, and then you remembered something. “Kristen’s also from New Jersey.”

“Small world,” Steve said. “Y’know our bosses are actually really alike. Even aside from them being assholes a lot of the time, they kinda have a lot in common. From the same state, same favorite movie, same favorite food place.”

You nodded along to his words again, thinking about the fact that them both loving that small mom-and-pop diner twenty minutes away was the reason why you and Steve had met in the first place. “Yeah, you’re right.”  

“Honestly, they’d probably be perfect for each other,” Steve joked with a laugh. 

And even though you knew he was joking, you immediately didn’t see it that way. 

“Oh my god,” You stopped what you were doing and looked at Steve, who was now looking at you very confused. “You’re right.” 

His eyebrows furrowed as he shook his head. “I was kidding.” 

“Yes, I know you were, but you’re actually so right. They would be perfect for each other,” You told him. “We should set them up.” 

Steve only shook his head again. “Alright, I think the sleep deprivation is getting to you because you’re saying insane things right now. We’re not gonna get our bosses to date.”

You ignored his words. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this idea before. It’s just like Clueless.”

“Okay, I have no idea what we’re talking about anymore.” 

“You haven’t seen Clueless?”

“No.”

“Wow, and you wonder why I say your taste in movies is bad,” You said and then shook your head. “So, there’s this one part where the main girl decides to set up two of her teachers because one of them is a hard grader. And once he’s happy and in love, he starts giving all of the students good grades and whatever, whatever. Anyway, all of that to say, if we set up our bosses and they’re happy and in love with each other then they probably won’t be assholes to us anymore.” 

After a few moments of considering your words, Steve nodded. “Honestly, that’s kind of a good idea.”

“Exactly,” You said and smiled. You were still very tired, but you were now also hit with a random burst of energy at the thought of your job maybe becoming a lot less annoying.

“So, how do we do this?” Steve asked.

You considered his question for a second. “Okay, so as far as we both know they’ve never met each other, which means that we need to get them to meet and we need to give them a good meet cute.” 

“Okay…” Steve started, thinking of something as he sat back down in his desk chair and you leaned back against the desk. He looked up at you. “What about the elevator? Maybe we can figure out a way to get them stuck in it together? That’s a classic ‘meet cute,’ right?”

“That’s good, but it doesn’t feel like enough,” You said, looking away from him and trying to think of romcoms you liked, and then it hit you. “Oh, what if we got them on the kiss cam at like a basketball game or something?” 

The amused look that Steve gave you in response was immediate. “Okay, now I definitely know that the sleep deprivation is getting to you because doing that would be impossible.” 

“Yeah, but maybe not if we…” You trailed off, hoping that the rest of the idea would come to you, but it didn’t. “Shit, you’re right. It would be impossible. Elevator it is.” 

Steve nodded. “I actually know the maintenance guy that works here, so it’ll probably be easy to get Todd and Kristen stuck together.” 

Your eyebrows knit together in confusion. “How do you know the maintenance guy?”

“Long story,” He answered and you decided against questioning him further on it right then. 

“If it wasn’t one in the morning, I’d love to hear that,” You said, and then you almost asked him when you two should put this plan into motion, but you realized something. “Wait, shit, we can’t just get Kristen and Todd into an elevator and hope for the best. We need to, like, ‘plant some seeds’ first. Make them aware of each other and these few things that we know they have in common.” 

“Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

“So we just need to subtly mention to both of them that they’re from the same state and that they have the same favorite movie and food place,” You continued. 

Steve’s confused look returned. “And how do we do that?”

“Great question,” You said and for a second you considered trying to think of an answer right then, but your brain was too tired to come up with any ideas. “I’m not sure yet, but we’ll figure it out.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: todd liked the science project this time

YOU: thank god 

YOU: i hope that means he’ll be extra nice to you today<3

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: solid joke

YOU: thanks. i try

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: do you think you’re gonna have to stay late again tonight? 

YOU: i am almost certain of it (sadly)

YOU: kristen’s been extra stressed today which means extra scary which means i live here now

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: ouch 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: have you thought more about how we should do this set up thing?

YOU: no. i’ve had like a thousand things thrown at me since getting here at eight and i haven’t had time to think about anything else

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: same here 

YOU: wow we’re really good at this

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: haha i agree

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

The printer was on its last few days of life. You were certain of it, but you just needed it to survive a few more minutes before it completely croaked out on you. 

“Please just ten more pages and then I promise you can go into retirement.” 

“Are you talking to the printer again?” Steve asked from where he was currently sitting at your desk. 

After Todd left for the night at ten, Steve showed up at your floor, knowing that Kristen had been gone for the last hour, but you were still stuck in the building and working on preparing everything for a meeting on Monday.

You looked over at him. “Sometimes Jerry needs some words of encouragement.” 

“Got it. That makes sense,” He responded teasingly with a nod. 

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm tonight, Steven,” You said as you turned your focus back on the printer, and Jerry was printing out the final few pages. 

“Doesn’t me helping you right now cancel out the sarcasm?”

You promptly shook your head. “Not after the science project last night.”

“Alright, that’s fair,” He responded and once you sat down next to him after everything was finally printed out, he looked at the stack of papers in your hand. “How many packets do you have to make?”

“Twenty,” You answered. “And then I need to do the name cards and set everything up in the conference room.”

“Okay. Let me get half of the stack,” He said and you handed over half of the papers in your hand. 

You two easily fell into a routine for the next thirty minutes, a comfortable silence lingering as you focused on the mundane task at hand and let your mind wander a bit. The initial excitement you had toward the “set up” idea had worn off by the morning and instead your non-sleep deprived brain was now thinking about it all from a much more logical standpoint.

“Do you think it would actually work?” You asked once you two were in the conference room, you placing name cards down and Steve setting out the packets. “Us trying to set them up?”

He gave you an amused smile. “You’re second-guessing things already? I thought I would be the one to do that.”

“I don’t know,” You shrugged. “I’ve just started thinking that maybe it will be a waste of time.”

You decided against adding that your reasoning for thinking that way was because your and Steve’s life wasn’t a movie and maybe this idea did sound a bit too good to actually end up working as well as it did when it was a plot point in any film. And the thought of Kristen somehow figuring out what you and him were doing and firing you because of it kind of scared you too. 

“Okay, yeah, maybe it won’t work,” Steve said. “But, why not try, right?” 

You considered his words for a moment before ultimately nodding. It felt a little unexpected, but also completely reassuring, that he was entirely on board with the idea and didn’t seem to have any second thoughts about it. “You’re right. Maybe we’ll at least get a week or two of them being decent to us.”

Steve nodded in agreement. “Yeah, exactly, and that would be great.”

You shook your head and let out a quiet laugh as you thought of something. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe the bar is so low that the thought of our bosses being nice to us for a week or two sounds amazing.”

Steve laughed too, a quick one that matched your own. “Shit, yeah, that’s actually a little sad.”

It would be a thousand percent sadder if you didn’t have each other through this shitty nonsense, but you didn’t tell him that right then. Instead, you gave him a small smile and placed down the last name card you had in your lap.

“I have some ideas about how we should ‘plant these seeds’ and get them to learn about each other without them knowing that we’re doing that,” Steve said after he set down the last packet. 

You were technically officially done for the night, but neither of you made any move to leave the conference room just yet. You sat down in one of the rolling chairs and Steve took a seat in the one across from you. 

“I kinda love that the tables have turned and you’re the one that’s super into this whole thing and I’m being slightly hesitant,” You told him, the smallest amused smile on your face. 

“Yeah, you corrupted me and now you’re backing out.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at how playfully serious his voice sounded. “I promise I’m not backing out. Tell me all of your ideas, Harrington.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

MONDAY 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: i “accidentally” emailed todd the video of the interview kristen did with the horror movie director guy and he ended up watching the entire thing

YOU: solid work

YOU: and on my side of things, i mentioned the new jersey thing to kristen when she brought up thinking about going home for the holidays and she actually found it a little interesting

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: also solid work

TUESDAY

YOU: okay kristen said she wants to get food from the diner for lunch. what about todd? 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: he wants it too. it surprisingly took very little convincing to get him to quit the juice diet

YOU: great. i’ll see you in the lobby in 30 minutes

YOU: wait i’m just now realizing how horrible this can go for us if we switch their lunches just for them to learn that they have the same favorite restaurant. maybe we should just say that the lunches “almost” got switched and still make the comment about how the person that it almost got switched with really loves the place too? that’ll let them know that they have the same fave restaurant without them getting mad at us for fucking up their lunches

YOU: or maybe i'm just overthinking this

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: no you're right. that’s a better idea 

WEDNESDAY

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: slight change of plans. we have to push the elevator thing to tomorrow 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: the maintenance guy’s not here today

YOU: okay

YOU: i was gonna ask if we should take this as a sign to not do it at all but i’m not gonna say that actually…

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: it’s not a sign 

YOU: good thing i didn’t say it was then :)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

You made it to the maintenance room before Steve. Mainly because you were a little nervous to see how all of this would end up playing out, and being two minutes early somehow helped ease your worries a bit. 

When you walked in, you immediately saw a guy with long curly hair wearing a black t-shirt and dark jeans and sitting at a desk with two computer screens; you assumed he was the maintenance guy Steve talked about. 

You gave him a quick wave and then held out a hand. “Hey, nice to meet you.”

His hand shook your outstretched one and quick introductions were said where you learned his name was Eddie and he and Steve went to high school together and were now friends; which wasn’t as long of a story as Steve had initially made it out to be. 

“So, you’re the infamous ‘girl from work.’”

You let out a laugh at Eddie’s words. “Steve’s mentioned me before?” 

Eddie nodded. “Oh, he talks about you a lot.”

Before you could say anything in response to that, Steve walked into the small room.  

“Sorry, I’m late,” He said, even though he was actually right on time. He looked at Eddie and a confused look crossed his face. “Where’s Wayne?”

“He still has the flu, so he wanted me to cover for him today,” Eddie answered. “But, he told me what you guys wanna do, so I got it.”

“Okay,” Steve nodded and then he gestured between you and Eddie. “You two met?” 

“Yes, and I just learned that you allegedly talk about me a lot,” You said and gave him a teasing smile. 

You immediately noticed his face flush at your words, which actually kind of surprised you and for the briefest second you wondered what that reaction meant, but then he was playfully rolling his eyes at you. “It’s only so my friends know that I don’t completely hate my job.”  

“Glad to know that I’m the only one who makes your job somewhat tolerable,” You said, smiling wider at him. “The feeling’s very mutual.”

You looked away from him then and focused on the computer screens. Eddie had now pulled up the video feed of the security camera in the lobby on one side and the hallway where the main elevators were on the other screen. 

“So, Kristen should be getting back from the coffee shop down the street any second now,” You told Steve. “She always likes going right before they close for some reason.”

He nodded at your words. “Okay, and Todd is still in the lobby talking to Martha about getting a new building ID, and they should be done any second too.”

“I still don’t get how you managed to get her to call him down for that.” 

He gave you a smile. “The ladies at the front desk love me.”

“Honestly, that makes a lot of sense,” You responded. “You are the type of person that old ladies would love.”

“I’ll happily take that as a compliment.” 

“Remember how all the moms in town were completely obsessed with you during your lifeguard days?” Eddie chimed in, a grin on his face. 

Steve rolled his eyes in response, and you laughed while saying, “Of course, you were a lifeguard. That makes so much sense too.”

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “How?”

You shook your head. “I don’t know how to explain it, but just know that it does. And I mean it in a nice way.”

Steve tilted his head and squinted at you. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Trust me, I’m your best work friend. I’d never lie to you,” You said, holding a solemn hand to your heart, and he couldn’t help but let out a laugh. 

You looked at the screen again and saw that Todd was still talking to Martha, and Kristen was still nowhere to be seen. 

You tapped Eddie on the shoulder to grab his attention. “If one of them gets to the elevator before the other is there, is there any way that you can not let the elevator come?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Luckily, and surprisingly enough though, it didn’t have to come to that. Because finally Kristen was walking back into the building and heading toward the elevators, and seconds later Todd’s conversation with Martha was coming to an end and he was heading in the direction of the elevators too. 

Kristen pressed the up button and then her eyes went down to her phone in her hand, and Todd joined her in waiting after a few moments. Absolutely nothing was said between the two of them, not even when the elevator arrived and they got on together. Which, honestly, made sense to you because you rarely ever talked to the strangers you ended up in an elevator with. 

“How do you stop it?” You asked Eddie after he switched the camera to the one in the elevator. 

“There’s something to press that stops them for emergencies,” He explained as he got up from his chair and went over to a panel on the wall. “And there’s also an intercom here to talk to them so they don’t freak out or start panicking.”

He then pressed the stop button for the elevator Todd and Kristen were on. “Did it work?” 

You and Steve both responded with a quick “Yeah” at the same time. You noticed the confused looks cross your bosses faces and you saw Todd reach out to press the emergency button, but Eddie was speaking through the intercom before he could. 

“Hey, sorry about that, guys. It’s just an electrical issue and it should be fixed in about fifteen to thirty minutes.” He looked at you and Steve again. “Alright, let’s see if your matchmaking thing works.”

It was quiet at first. So quiet that you couldn’t help but wonder if this was actually the worst idea ever. You and Steve were “playing cupid” for two people who only had a few things in common, and it was all for entirely selfish reasons. 

“I’m just now realizing how insane this whole thing is,” You told Steve, looking away from the screen that showed Todd and Kristen still not talking to each other.  

“You’re just now realizing that? That was pretty much the first thing I told you when you suggested this,” Steve reminded you. 

“I know, I know,” You started. “But now seeing it actually happen is making me understand that.” 

Eddie turned around in his chair and looked up at you two. “Do you guys want me to start the elevator back?”

Both you and Steve had the same immediate answer of, “No.” 

You kept going after a second. “This will either be the best thing ever or the complete opposite, but I think we should just see it through, at this point, right?”

In this moment, it seemed like things were leaning more toward the “absolute worst” side of the spectrum, but it didn’t make you entirely change your mind about doing it, and it didn’t make Steve disagree with you either. “Right.”

“Okay,” Eddie shrugged as he turned back around. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is that fucked up of an idea.”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you. “Okay, cool, so we’re not completely terrible and manipulative people for doing this.”

“Well, I didn’t say that,” Eddie responded and Steve whacked his arm. 

You didn’t say anything and instead looked at the computer screen again. 

“Come on. Talk,” You mumbled. “Talk to each other.”

“They can’t hear you,” Steve jokingly whispered to you. 

Before you had the chance to make a sarcastic comment back to him, there was finally something coming from the computer’s speaker.  

“Hey, you did that interview with Matt Scott, right?” Todd asked Kristen.

She nodded. “Yeah, I did.” 

“I just watched it a couple of days ago. It was really good,” He said, and at that, Kristen smiled. 

From there, it felt like the equivalent to watching a movie; and you could inwardly recognize how weird that sounded. They introduced themselves to each other and then continued to talk about that horror movie director they both loved, and they eventually bonded over the few things that you and Steve had told them about one another too. 

Thirty minutes passed quicker than expected and you and Steve ended up sitting in two folding chairs that were in the small room and sat next to Eddie as you watched your bosses have what seemed like a really good conversation. It didn’t seem as if it was coming to any sort of an end just yet, but you and Steve still had Eddie start the elevator back up again. And before Kristen got off on her floor first, they exchanged phone numbers— which shouldn’t have at all been surprising, but it still kind of was. 

You looked at Steve once the doors closed and it was just Todd left in the elevator. “Woah.”

He nodded, agreeing with your one word that said a lot more than just that. “Wow.” 

Eddie laughed a little. “Nice work playing cupid for these two.”

You felt relieved, but not entirely so. “We’ll see if it actually works.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Incoming call from UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Steve rarely ever called you. 

It just never made sense with how crazy your jobs were, so you two always settled for texting. Apparently, this moment was different, though. 

However, before you could make any move to answer your phone, you were getting called into Kristen’s office, and your heart was abruptly falling into your stomach because suddenly the timing of Steve's phone call felt like it had something to do with whatever conversation you were about to have with Kristen. 

“Hey,” You said, trying to make your voice sound as normal, and not worried, as possible. “Is everything okay?”

She looked up from her phone and then smiled at you. “Everything’s really good, actually. I’m going to be leaving early today, so you can head out too.”

That wasn’t at all what you were expecting her to say, but you attempted to hide your complete shock. 

“Oh, okay,” You ultimately responded. “Are you sure?”

You regretted asking the question the second you said it, but this entire moment felt like some sort of trick or test, so you felt the immediate need to question it.  

“Yeah, it’s Friday,” She said as if that explained everything, which it did not. “You can have a half day for once.”

You were convinced that this had something to do with Todd, but you still wanted some sort of confirmation. “Special occasion?”

“Remember yesterday when I told you about getting stuck in the elevator for half an hour?” She asked, and when you nodded she continued. “Well, I exchanged numbers with the guy I was stuck with because we had a really nice conversation when we were in there, and five minutes ago, he called asking to go to lunch and then to see this movie that we talked about in the elevator. It’s the last day it’s playing at that small theater on the other side of town.”

You nodded along to her words. “That sounds great.”

“Oh, and funnily enough, it’s the guy that you mentioned a few days ago who works upstairs and is from Jersey, and our food almost got swapped from the diner,” She laughed a little— happily, dreamily— like a woman with a crush. “Isn’t that crazy?”

There was absolutely nothing about how Kristen said those words that should’ve made you think she knew what you and Steve had done, but still, you couldn’t help but think it. 

Which made you force a nervous smile as you once again nodded. “Yeah, so crazy. Small world. Or, well, in this case, I guess small building.” You laughed awkwardly at your non-joke and then immediately kept going. “Anyway, I hope you have a fun time with him today. See you Monday.”

Kristen’s eyes were back on her phone, smiling again as she waved at you in goodbye and you proceeded to quickly leave her office. 

You called Steve back the moment you were at your desk again. He picked up on the second ring and the first thing he said was, “It actually fucking worked. He asked her to go to lunch.”

“I know,” You whispered, even though all you really wanted to do in that moment was let out the happiest sound ever. “Where are you right now?”

“Todd’s letting me leave since he’s leaving, so I’m about to head down to the lobby.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there. I’m gonna grab my stuff and immediately run away from my desk before Kristen can call me back into her office and tell me that this was all some sort of elaborate prank,” You said and then hung up, stuffing your phone in your pocket and grabbing your bag from underneath your desk. 

You waved happily at Steve when you exited the elevator in the lobby and barely a second later he was pulling you into a hug. Even though that was something that had never happened before, you didn’t hesitate to return the action, wrapping your arms around him too and smiling into his shoulder. 

“You’re a genius for this idea,” He told you, words hitting right at your ear. 

“Technically, you came up with it,” You reminded him when you two pulled out of the celebratory embrace. 

“Okay, in that case, I’ll happily take the credit for all of this then,” Steve said and smiled at you. 

You playfully poked his arm. “What I meant is that we both should get credit for this plan working. You kinda came up with the initial idea and I came up with all the nitty gritty stuff.”

He shook his head. “That’s not entirely true, actually. Who came up with the elevator meet cute?”

You knew that he wanted you to say him, but you refused to give him the satisfaction so you simply shrugged instead. “A shitty Hallmark movie, probably.”

“Ha ha, good one,” He said as he rolled his eyes at you. 

“Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Actually, that’s not true because we finally just got a day off,” You smiled as you and Steve headed into the lobby. “This is the first time I’ve had a Friday off in the past two years of working here, I honestly have no idea what to do now.”

The thought of spending the rest of the day, and then night, catching up on sleep sounded very tempting to you, and it only felt a little sad that you’d be completely sleeping away a Friday when you finally had the opportunity to do something even the tiniest bit fun. 

“Do you want to come to a birthday party for my best friend/roommate tonight?” Steve asked. “We’re having it at our place and I thought I’d have to miss it because I was gonna be stuck here all night, but now I won’t be, and you should come.”

Initially, you smiled at his offer and you felt the urge to accept it on the spot. But then your brain couldn’t help but consider what saying yes would mean. You and Steve had never hung out outside of this building, and the few food spots that were on the same street as this building, before. Although you two were friends, you couldn’t lie and say that it didn’t pretty much start and end at work; mainly because that was what consumed most of your time. 

“Wouldn't that be kinda weird?” You ultimately asked, deciding against verbalizing exactly what you were thinking about. “I don’t think I’d want a random girl from my best friend’s workplace to be at my birthday party.”

“You’re not a random girl. I talk about you all the time, remember?” Steve said, reminding you of Eddie’s words from yesterday, and the playfulness in his tone made you smile.

Instead of asking more questions— like what it would mean to take your work friendship into normal friendship territory, and whether it would even easily happen— you were simply agreeing and saying, “Okay.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

YOU: what should i bring tonight?

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: just yourself 

YOU: that feels wrong. it’s literally a birthday party 

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: for someone you don’t know 

YOU: that doesn’t matter

YOU: so what do you need? cups? some sort of side dish? more cake?

UPSTAIRS WORK NEIGHBOR: don’t bring anything

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

“I brought alcohol,” You said when Steve opened his door and then you held up the two bottles of tequila you bought on your drive over to his apartment. 

He shook his head at you but still smiled as he pushed the door open further to let you in. Seeing him out of his typical professional work clothes and in a simple white t-shirt and jeans was a nice surprise that honestly shouldn’t have been all that surprising. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s physically impossible for me to show up to places empty-handed,” You looked around the decently sized space as Steve closed the door behind you. There weren’t that many people in the apartment yet, you only noticed two girls leaning back against the small kitchen island and talking. You turned to look at Steve. “Shit, am I too early?”

Your hands were full so you couldn’t pull your phone out of your denim jacket pocket to check the time, but you had a feeling what it would say. After working for Kristen for the past two years, it was pretty much ingrained in you to never be late anywhere, and most times you inadvertently ended up being early. 

“A little bit, yeah. But, that’s fine,” Steve told you with a shrug. “I’m glad you’re here early. It’ll probably make it easier for you to meet everyone.”

He then introduced you to the girls talking in the kitchen; his roommate and best friend Robin and her girlfriend Vickie. 

“Hi, you’re my new favorite person,” Robin told you when she noticed the alcohol in your hands.  

“Thank you,” You laughed a little as you set it down on the counter, joining the other bottles that littered it. “Happy Birthday.” 

“Thanks,” She smiled at you. “How are your karaoke skills?”

The randomness of the question slightly surprised you. “Absolutely terrible, but when I’m drunk I love doing it.”

“Perfect,” She said. “You and Steve have to do a duet when we go to this karaoke bar later. The last time we went, he got so drunk he sang Footloose three times in a row.”

“I will admit, each time was very great,” Vickie chimed in. 

“Yeah,” Robin agreed. “He surprisingly has a really good voice.”

You smiled and tried your hardest not to laugh at the thought of the Steve you’d grown to know over the past eight months getting drunk and singing karaoke. “Please tell me there’s video proof of that.”

“Oh, of course,” She nodded and went to pull her phone out of the pocket of the high-waisted pants she was wearing. 

“Okay, and before things get even more embarrassing for me right now,” Steve reached out to grab your hand and pull you out of the conversation. “Let me give you a quick tour of the apartment.”

You were laughing as you let him drag you away from his friends. “You’re suddenly such an attentive host.”

He pointed out the bathroom and Robin’s room down the hall and then led you to his room. 

“It’s clean,” You said, pointing out the obvious. His bed was made and there weren’t any clothes or other random things littering the floor.

Steve let out an amused laugh at your words. “I’m scared to know what you expected it to look like.”

“I don’t know, honestly,” You shrugged as you leaned back against his dark wood desk that was tucked in a corner. “You definitely wouldn’t want to see my room right now. It’s a complete mess from me trying to decide what to wear tonight.”

You had ended up settling for the first things you had pulled from your closet— a long sleeve black shirt and a brown plaid skirt that was shorter than you had remembered but still really nice— so the clothes that had ended up making your bed a mess and floor a tripping hazard felt like a sad waste of time. And now knowing how early you had shown up to the party, you probably could’ve prioritized cleaning up before you left your home in a rush.  

“You look nice,” Steve told you, and you didn’t expect to feel so affected by his words— which you knew were just a simple compliment by a friend— but you did. “Do you want me to take your jacket?”

“Yeah, sure,” You pulled off the dark denim jacket you were wearing and handed it over to him, and he went to place it on the hook behind his open door. 

“So, what did you do after we were set free?” He asked as he sat at the foot of his bed. You got the sudden urge to join him, but you didn’t, deciding to stay right where you were at his desk. 

“I had the best four-hour nap of my life and then I played really dumb games on my phone while still in bed,” You answered. It had been the most perfectly boring evening. “What have you been up to with your past free hours?”

“I also took a nap, and then I watched Clueless.”

A smile immediately started to tug at your lips. “No, you didn’t.”

“I did,” He nodded. “It felt like good timing.”

“I think good timing would’ve been if you watched it before we did the plan, but better late than never,” You said and then asked the important question. “Did you like it?”

He gave you another nod. “Yeah. A lot more than I expected to, actually.”

“Nice, I knew there was a part of you that had, at least, a kind of good taste in movies.”

“I’m still very offended that you think it’s mainly bad.”

“You told me that one of your favorites is the first Fast and Furious movie, and that was all I needed to know,” You said and then gave him a smile. “It’s honestly funny because an article about the entire series was actually the first thing I read on Kristen’s website.”

“And did it speak highly of the franchise?”

You nodded, holding back a laugh. “For the most part, yes. Surprisingly. I’ll find the link later and send it to you.”

“Thank you,” He said and then a beat of silence lingered before he asked, “Hey, is that why you work for Kristen? Because you eventually wanna write for the website?”

“Yeah, kinda, yeah,” You started with a quick nod. “It didn’t initially start that way. I just loved the website and wanted to be a part of it in any way I could. But, the thought of actually writing has only become more and more interesting to me, and yeah I think I wanna do that sooner than later.”

“You should let me read something you’ve written.”

Your head shake was immediate. “No way.”

“Why not?”

“One, because that’s embarrassing. And two, because I haven’t even finished anything yet because of how busy I always am.”

“Well, we’re gonna start having a lot of free time on our hands, so it’s the perfect time for you to actually finish something,” Steve told you. “And also the perfect time to let me read it once it’s done.”

“I’ll think about it,” You ultimately conceded and then proceeded to shift the subject away from yourself. “What about you, though? Why do you work for Todd?”

“Honestly, I don’t really know. My dad helped me get the job, actually, which is a long story in itself. I initially hated it a lot more than I do now, but I knew that my dad would give me shit if I quit. And he probably still would,” Steve explained. Just from the brief way he talked about his dad, you could sense how tense that relationship was, and you really wanted to know more about it, but you didn’t push further in that moment. “I don’t even like this finance stuff, but I still don’t really know what I really want to do, so I’m kinda okay with dealing with Todd and all of his bullshit.”

You nodded understandingly. “That makes sense. You never once gave me ‘finance bro’ vibes.”

Steve tilted his head at you amusingly. “What does that mean?”

“You’re not an asshole mixed with a huge hint of douchebag.”

He let out a laugh which made you smile. “Thank you. That really means a lot.”

“You’re very welcome,” You told him, still smiling and matching his playful tone. “Okay, okay, enough work talk. We need to use our freedom to its maximum potential.” An idea was hitting you as you stood up from his desk. “Let’s get drunk.”

Another brief amused laugh fell from Steve’s lips, but he still nodded at your words. “Solid idea.”

It had been a long time since you drank so your tolerance was terrible. You felt effectively drunk after just two shots— one with Steve to celebrate being free from work and then a birthday shot with Robin that she made everyone do once more people showed up— and you forced Steve to keep up with you, which he happily did. He was five shots in to your three and both of you were on the same level; a level that also exceeded everyone else at the party. 

You learned that the initial plan was to “pregame” here at the apartment for an hour or two and then head to the karaoke bar that Robin had mentioned earlier and spend the rest of the night there. However, you and Steve took pregaming to an entirely different level. 

You two ended up staying in your own little bubble for most of the night— holed up on a spot on the couch as you talked only about non-work related things for the first time probably ever. You wondered if this bubble was because Steve wanted to make you feel comfortable in this space where you didn’t really know anyone aside from him, and Eddie kinda, but you didn’t question it. 

A friendship that had initially felt as if it had started and ended at work easily shifted into something else as you two learned random things about each other and exchanged silly stories that could be deemed as unimportant nonsense, but it didn’t feel that way coming from a person that you really cared about. And it was when you were laughing and telling Steve about the time you crashed into your childhood neighbor's mailbox just one day after you got your license when you were sixteen— a story that you couldn’t remember the last time you told anyone because of how embarrassing it was— you realized that there was something entirely different about Steve. 

What you and he had wasn’t just a work friendship, and even now in this space outside of work, it also didn’t feel like a normal friendship either. Maybe it was never supposed to be limited to something as simple as that. 

There was an unfamiliar feeling that settled in your stomach as you watched him happily stand next to his best friend and hold the cake that she blew the candles out of moments after everyone loudly sang “Happy Birthday” in the kitchen. You quickly pushed the sudden feeling away because it felt easier to not think about it for the time being.

You and Steve ended up back on the couch again after the cake was cut and you two shared a piece, a corner slice that you both thought was the most perfect thing you had ever seen. 

At some point, you couldn’t tell exactly how much time had passed, Robin came over to the two of you. You noticed the amused smile take over her features as she looked at the close proximity between you and Steve; there wasn't an inch of space between you two because you both wanted the plate to balance equally on your laps. “I think you guys have had more than enough to drink tonight, so you should just stay here.” 

“You sure?” Steve asked, looking up at her. 

She nodded. “Yes, I’m positive. If you puke in the karaoke bar and we get banned I’ll never forgive you, dingus.”

“That’s fair.”

You looked up at Robin and smiled. In a way, it felt wrong that your conversation with her had been so limited earlier, she seemed really nice. “Happy birthday again.”

She smiled back at you. “Thanks again.”

The apartment became empty minutes later and the quietness reminded you of when you had first showed up. There was still music coming from the speaker set up in the living room, but Steve got up from the couch to lower it and then it became a soft hum in the background.

“I’m sorry I suggested the getting drunk idea,” You told Steve as you grabbed the now empty plate in your hand and stood up to toss it in the trash in the kitchen; with your drunkenness, it was a task that felt as if it took forever. “I messed up your night with your friends.”

You saw Steve shake his head when you turned to look at him again. He joined you where you were in the kitchen and grabbed a couple cups off the counter to throw them in the trash can. “I’m happy here with you.”

“Is that because you really didn’t wanna do our duet and because I can help you clean up the mess in here right now?”

“Sure.”

You wanted to ask him what he meant by that, because it felt as if there was much more to that one-worded response, and even in your current inebriated state you could see that. Instead, though, you were asking, “Why are we friends?”

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the randomness of your question. “Because we met that night in the lobby eight months ago?”

You shook your head. “No, I mean, why are we just friends?”

You weren’t sure why you were suddenly asking this— or even where your abrupt courage was coming from to ask it— but in this moment, with you two standing in his barely lit kitchen, it somehow felt right.

Your question was met with silence, though, and that lack of a response from Steve made you suddenly feel as if you actually shouldn’t have asked that question; because maybe it said way too much. 

“Oh, actually, never mind,” You abruptly said and pulled your eyes away from his, and went to grab the half-full red solo cup off the kitchen counter to toss it in the garbage. 

However, in what should’ve been a short and simple journey to the trash can, you roughly bumped into the side of the counter and spilled the entirety of what was leftover in the cup on yourself. 

“Shit.”

“Shit,” Steve immediately echoed, looking at the mess on the lower part of your shirt and the front of your skirt. “Um, let’s grab you something to change into.”

Wordlessly, you nodded and followed him to his bedroom. You weren’t entirely sure what you were more embarrassed about— you spilling a drink on yourself and now smelling so disgustingly like alcohol or the stupid question you asked him that led to this happening.

“You can grab whatever you want from in there,” Steve told you and pointed toward what you assumed was his closet. “I’m gonna get a towel for you.”  

“Thanks, I’m sorry about all of this. I swear I’m not usually this annoying of a drunk person,” You joked because it felt like the only right thing to do in that moment. 

“You’re not annoying,” You heard Steve say from somewhere behind you. 

You wanted to follow up with another sort of playful and witty response, but you couldn’t think of what to say. So instead, you silently pulled a long-sleeved white button-up off a hanger and turned back to Steve, who handed over a towel for you. 

You headed to the bathroom that wasn’t too far down the hall and as you closed the door behind you and were left alone, you refused to think about what happened in the past few minutes. You focused solely on the mundane task of pulling your shirt off and drying your damp skin with the towel and then moving to take off your skirt. 

You weren’t sure where you thought Steve was, but you didn’t think he was standing right outside the bathroom door, so abruptly hearing his soft voice on the other side of the door made you jump as you slipped on the white shirt. 

“I think we’re just friends because…” He trailed off. “I don’t know, honestly.”

You wished that your question could’ve simply been forgotten about, and you wanted to tell him just that; to forget it. However, there was a small part of you that wanted to push the conversation forward and actually talk about it, and somehow that small part managed to take precedence over logical thinking.  

“Maybe we shouldn’t be friends,” You responded, not outwardly saying what you really meant because you knew that you wouldn’t be able to take it back once the words were out in the open and that was a slightly scary thought, even your drunk brain knew that.  

“I think you’re right,” Steve said, and somehow you could practically hear him nodding. “So, what should we be instead?”

It was obvious what he wanted you to say, and even though the words were on the tip of your tongue, you still couldn’t seem to actually say them. You finished buttoning the shirt and then let out a quiet sigh.

“I don’t know…” You ultimately answered. Selfishly, you wanted him to be the one to say it out loud first. “What do you think we should be instead?”

Hearing his soft laugh made you immediately smile. Somehow, this back-and-forth conversation between two half-drunk people who were beating around the bush about their feelings for one another was becoming more and more teasing, and you honestly didn’t mind it because it just felt so typical of you and Steve. 

“I don’t know, either,” He answered, and for a second, you thought that the conversation was going to come to its end there— without either of you mustering up the courage to actually say the words— but then he continued. “But I’ll admit that whenever I see you, it makes me really, really happy.”

You could only smile wider at his words. “Okay, and I’ll admit that sometimes I like when we’re both forced to stay late at work because it means that I get to spend more time with you.”

You didn’t realize just how true those words were until you were saying them. You had long accepted that Steve being in your life made your job a thousand times more bearable, but you were now finally seeing that it was so much more than that. You were suddenly so certain of the fact that you would’ve quit your job long ago if going to work and dealing with Kristen didn’t mean eventually seeing Steve at some point throughout the day, even if it was just for five quick minutes. 

“Honestly, those late nights are kind of my favorite,” Steve responded to your previous confession and you felt yourself nodding in agreement even though he couldn’t see you.

“I like you,” You told him. Your voice was soft but you knew that he could hear you. “And I don’t mean that in a work friend or regular friend kind of way. And I’m just now fully realizing it tonight, but I think deep down I’ve felt this way for a long time.”

“I like you too,” He responded, voice matching your softness and you could hear the smile in his tone. “And I don’t mean it in a work friend or regular friend way either.” 

Things got quiet for a second and then you were opening the bathroom door and meeting Steve’s eyes. Neither of you said anything at first; mainly because it felt as if the contented smiles on both of your faces managed to say it all. 

“I forgot to grab pants,” Were the first words you said after a minute of comfortable silence. Steve’s shirt on you was long enough and its length matched where your skirt had ended, so nothing new was really revealed. 

Steve laughed a little at your random statement because it made it seem as if a huge thing hadn’t just been admitted by both of you only moments ago. 

“We should probably get you those,” He looked down at your new outfit, or lack thereof, for a brief second and then met your eyes again. 

You gave him a quick nod. “Yeah, I guess that would make sense.”

Neither of you made any move to head toward his bedroom again, though. Instead, another handful of moments passed and then you were silently reaching out and letting your hand find his. You pulled him into the bathroom with you and softly shut the door behind him.

With two people now in it, you were realizing just how small the bathroom was, but this closeness felt perfect to you. And you could tell that the feeling was mutual because Steve’s hands were finding your hips, and then you were being shifted around so that you were pressed back against the sink. Your arms reached up to circle his neck and your hands settled in the hair at the nape of his neck; it all felt so instinctive— as if this was something that had happened a bunch of times before. As if this entire moment was something that had happened a million times before.

Your eyes drifted down to Steve’s lips for a quick second because they were only inches away from yours and you wondered who would be the one to close the final bit of distance between you two, or if you’d simply just meet in the middle and the rest would be history. 

Before anything could happen, though, the annoying logical part of you was taking over and you got the urge to ask something. “We’re not just doing this and saying all of this because we’re kinda drunk, right?”

Your words were whispered and your eyes were closed because you knew that your question had the opportunity to be a mood killer and ruin this moment entirely, and for those exact reasons, you immediately wanted to take it back. But, Steve was answering before you could. 

“No,” He whispered back. It was such a short and simple answer, but it somehow managed to say enough. 

Your eyes opened and you could tell that he was about to say more, but you leaned in to kiss him before anything could be said. It was soft at first, soft and tentative, like you both were testing the waters and trying to correctly navigate this uncharted territory. 

But then it was as if the same switch was flipping for you two at the exact same time because, after the briefest second, you both were simultaneously pushing any and all thinking to the side and simply leaning into what felt right. Steve deepened the kiss and you reciprocated immediately, pushing yourself as close as you could to him and closing any and all space between you two. 

Your hands went from softly tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck, to fisting themselves in his white t-shirt. And then, with Steve’s help too, you pushed yourself up so that you were sitting on the sink counter. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but you didn’t entirely mind it right then. Steve settled between your now parted legs and one hand was still on your hip, while the other was playing with the hem of your, his, shirt that was now riding further and further up your thighs due to your new position.  

“I can’t believe out of everything, you grabbed this shirt,” Steve said in between kisses. 

You let out a contented sound when his lips moved to your neck. “Why?” 

“Because you look very, very hot right now,” He didn’t hesitate to answer. “And your outfit earlier was really great too, and honestly you always look hot so maybe this shouldn’t even be surprising to me right now.” 

You let out a soft laugh at his rambling. “I’m hot even when we’re at work and I’m wearing a boring cardigan and jeans?”

Steve nodded and pressed a quick kiss against your lips. “Especially then.” 

It was hard not to feel so affected by the two simple words; your heart quite literally stuttered at how certain he sounded, and you leaned in to kiss him again instead of saying anything in response. Your fingers carded themselves in his hair, eliciting a soft groan from him that made you smile into the kiss. And then both of his hands moved to your hips, pulling you to the edge of the counter so that you were flush against him. 

In a way, it felt a little silly that you two were making out in his bathroom when there was a perfectly good bed right down the hall. But, it was a kind of silliness that made sense for you and Steve and everything you two built over the last eight months of knowing each other. 

There was the friendship side of things that happened so effortlessly following that night you two met in the lobby, and now there was this new side that, weirdly enough, so quickly felt the same way. Kissing him for the first time right here, right now made you wish that you two had been doing this a lot sooner because of how irrevocably happy it made you. 

“We’re stupid for taking so long to do this,” You eventually told him when you two were in his bed. You were moments away from falling asleep, but you felt the need to finally say those words. 

The two of you were under his grey covers and you had traded the button up for one of Steve’s t-shirts and a pair of his basketball shorts that were really comfortable. His warmth enveloped you completely beneath the blanket as he pulled you closer, wrapping an arm around your waist and finding your hand to intertwine it with his. 

“Like we were stupid for not getting Todd and Kristen together sooner?”

You nodded, a small smile gracing your lips that he couldn’t see because you were facing away from him. “Yes, exactly like that.”

Steve pressed a kiss against the side of your head and then his lips tickled at your ear. “I agree.”

You hummed in response and finally fell asleep moments later because you were in way too comfortable of a position not to. It was your first time in Steve’s bed, but how at ease you’d felt since you pulled the blanket over you minutes ago didn’t feel new or foreign. It simply felt right. 

And before your eyes slipped shut and you drifted off, you came to the final realization of the night that everything felt right with Steve, it always did, and that was the most comforting thought to fall asleep to.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

let me know your thoughts<333

[nellasbookplanet]

I think it's funny that I keep seeing Liliana compared to Essek on the basis of 'beloved npc the cast wants to see redeemed', with a contingent of fandom claiming Liliana to be more 'deserving' of said redemption because they see her as a victim and Essek as a villain. To me, if we are going to compare her to a c2 npc, her role is much more similar to that of Astrid (and Eadwulf, though he's less central).

As in, she’s an antagonist who’s deeply emotionally and historically tied to one of the pc's, with said pc being unable to bring themself to give up on her despite her being unwilling to stop fighting for the bad guy (examples: Liliana casting timestop to get bells hells past the vanguard; Astrid allowing the nein to flee to the fire plane; both of them returning to working for their evil boss immediately afterwards).

Like Astrid, Liliana was manipulated into joining a cult-like supremacist organisation (though unlike Astrid she was an adult, giving her less leeway) for what they thought of as good, just reasons (Liliana to save her daughter and 'free' exandria from the gods; Astrid to protect her home nation). Like Astrid she is a victim, but she is also undeniably a villain. Both of them have the lives of countless innocents on their hands and could not, for the longest time, be trusted. The fact that they are sad little meow meows or whatever doesn't change this. Even at the end of c2, Astrid may have turned on her boss, but unlike Caleb she was unable to fully give up the organisation he was part of, becoming part of the assembly herself. Liliana may be out from under Ludinus' thumb, but she has shown little indication that she has moved away from his ideas of 'let's blame the gods for all the ills of the world and exterminate them for it'.

Essek, while arguably a much darker character who acted for wholly selfish reasons, nonetheless entered c2 as a perceived ally. By the time the nein found out about his involvement there was already a foundation of trust and friendship, and he had made the decision to sever ties with the assembly (though it took a bit longer before the guilt and regret caught up) while all but devoting himself to the nein after. Liliana and Astrid both struggled for most of the campaign to turn their backs on the evil organisation they worked for no matter the pleading of loved ones. All three are morally grey characters who at some point had the potential to be redeemed or go full antagonist (WHAT would have happened if Liliana found out Imogen really knew of the assassination attempt) but their journeys and the way they are presented to the audience as well as the players differ quite strongly.

If you are going to compare Essek and Liliana, admit to their strongest similarity: the fact that they both had the agency to choose their bad actions, and that neither were an innocent victim to the consequences that followed.

[willieverseetheland]

mama?

Dexter Morgan x reader

based on this ask!

Warnings: mentions of death, blood, violence, domestic violence, all the usual Dexter stuff, very much angst Summary: Following Rita’s death, Dexter and reader become close as they deal with the aftermath.

It was a quiet evening. You were sitting on your balcony watching the full, glowing moon. You were deep in thought when your phone began to ring, pulling you back to reality. The caller ID said Dexter Morgan, you thought this was strange as he and Rita were supposed to have left on their honeymoon. Maybe they decided not to bring Harrison along after all. But when you answered, it was a woman's voice.

"Hello? This is Debra Morgan with Miami Metro Homicide, is this y/n?"

"Yes?" You replied with a slight quiver in your voice, confused. Homicide? What is happening? "There's been an incident, Dexter thought you should know. However, he's preoccupied at the moment. Rita..."

Her voice begins to shake, you can sense that she's about to cry

"Um, Rita's been murdered, I understand you two were close."

It was like the entire world stopped. Murdered? Rita was the loveliest, sweetest, most pure-of-heart person you knew. Who would possibly have wanted to hurt her?

The phone slipped out of your hand. Thankfully you were already sitting down, or you may have fell off your balcony. You can hear the woman repeating "hello, are you there?" over the phone. But everything was static. Nothing made sense. As it all began to settle into place, what really happened. You let out a loud sob. Shaking violently, tears streaming down your face. You bang your fist on the ground, screaming. Angry at the world, or whatever higher power that existed. As you sat there and sobbed, you began to think about Harrison, Dexter, Astor, Cody, everyone else who knew and loved Rita. God! Poor Harrison. He hardly got to know his mother.

You think of all the times you saved Rita from Paul. All the late nights scared it would be the last time. Scared, because you didn't know when it would be the last punch, kick, slap. There were honestly times you thought he would kill her. You thought you had prepared yourself for this, but how could you, how could anyone. When he died, you were there to support Rita of course, but deep down you were glad. You saw first-hand how he treated her, how it affected the kids.

Rita was like a sister to you. You considered yourself like an aunt to those kids. A piece of you died today, something you don't know if you'll ever get back.

--

You were awoken by the sound of loud honking. You open your eyes to see the bright morning sun over Miami. It made you angry, how could the world go on when yours came crashing down less than 24 hours ago. You look around, you must've cried yourself into exhaustion and passed out on your balcony.

You go back inside. Your cat comes up to nudge your leg. You look down at him and he just stares at you and meows. You wish you could be like him, blissfully unaware of all the evil in the world.

You go to make a pot of coffee, but you just collapse on the floor of your kitchen. How can you go on? Rita is dead. Harrison, Astor, and Cody just lost their mother. Dexter lost his wife. And yet the world keeps spinning. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, it's your boss. You look at the time, you were supposed to be at work an hour ago.

"Fuck" you sigh, leaning your head back against your kitchen counter

You answer, telling him you won't be coming in today, death in the family. He can be a dick at times, but he's understanding when it comes to this.

You scan your apartment. Eyes settling on the picture on your bedside table. You walk over to it, picking it up. It's a photo of you, Dexter, Rita, and the kids at Rita's birthday party. You place it face down; you can't bear to look at it right now.

Dexter lingers in your mind. God! How could you be so selfish? He must be in shambles right now. Grieving the death of his wife and having to be responsible for little Harrison. Maybe you should go check on him, see Harrison. Might take your mind off of things. Or make things worse. You don't know. Either way you need to do something.

You throw on a sweater and your shoes. You know the house is likely still a crime scene so you can't go there. Dex and Harrison are probably with his sister, who conveniently lives at his old apartment, so finding the place won't be too difficult. You drive like a bat out of hell, trying to get there as fast as you can.

You arrive and knock on the door, no one answers. You knock again, still no answer. You figure nobody is home, so you turn to leave. As you start walking away, you hear the handle turn, and the door unlatch. You turn around, seeing Dexter peering out from the crack in the door. You greet him with a warm smile as he opens the door fully. You immediately lean in for a hug, which he doesn't move away from but doesn't exactly reciprocate. He just stands there with his arms at his side, stiff. He does lean his chin on your shoulder though. He sighs in relief, shoulders loosening.

"Deb called me last night, told me what happened. I know it's probably a stupid question, but how are you?" You look in his eyes, sincerity and empathy written all over your face.

He knows this is hard on you too.

"I'm doing okay, I have to, for him." He turns to look at Harrison, sleeping soundly in his crib.

You two go to sit on the couch, you place a hand on his shoulder, trying to be comforting.

"I found him sitting in a pool of her blood" He turns to look at you, face empty, exhausted.

Your hands fly to your mouth as you gasp

"Dexter, my god. I'm so sorry" Tears begin to well up in your eyes

"If it's too much you don't have to answer, but how did it happen exactly? Deb told me she was murdered, but not what happened."

"You've seen the trinity killer on the news, right?" He turns to look at you

"A single cut to her thigh, slicing the femoral artery. She bled out." His voice is steady, concise.

Anyone who didn't know Dexter would think he's unbothered, but you know this is just him. He's devastated on the inside.

"I, I uh... that's horrible, I'm sorry you had to see that." Your voice is soft, comforting.

"If it's any help, I wouldn't mind watching over Harrison for a few days, while you get the funeral things figured out. And Astor and Cody, if needed."

"They're with their grandparents, they don't know yet. They're coming back today. Thank you, that would actually be a big help." He gives you a slight smile, you can tell it's forced but you appreciate the effort.

--

The days go by, each one as painful as the previous. Everyone tells you to take it one day at a time, but nothing is changing. Nothing is getting better. Her funeral was devastating, you cried the entire time. You tried to stay strong, for the kids, but seeing her lying there, you couldn't. She looked beautiful, like she was sleeping. Astor and Cody went to stay with their grandparents in Orlando, which you know is hard on Dexter. He really loves them. You switched your hours around so you could work nights and watch Harrison during the day while Dex is at work. Harrison has been the only highlight of your life recently, one of the only things you have left of Rita. He's truly an amazing child, and thankfully he doesn't seem to be affected by what happened. You know Dexter was really concerned about that.

You've tried to be there for Dexter as well, but he hasn't been as accepting. You understand though. However, it's what Rita would want you to do. She always trusted you to take care of her family. You considered Rita to be like a sister, and it's what you would do for family.

You take Harrison back home that afternoon. Dexter has the biggest smile on his face as he takes Harrison into his arms, he's a great father and loves Harrison so much.

"How was he?" He questions

"Wonderful as always, he's such a little angel" You smile

"But the real question is, how are you, Dexter?"

"You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine" There's a hint of irritation in his voice

"Dexter, but I do worry about you. You've just suffered a great tragedy. I just want to be sure you're okay"

"I just told you I am okay, why do you care so much anyways?" He shakes his head and places Harrison in his crib

"It's what Rita would've wanted!" You exclaim

He turns around to look at you, you can see that he's distraught. Being a single parent is never easy, especially one that's grieving.

He sighs

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I really am okay, I promise" He gives you another one of his classic fake smiles, you know he doesn't want to talk about it anymore, so you don't press

"Alright, if you insist"

--

It's been almost a year since Rita's death now. You still miss her like crazy, but things have gotten easier. Harrison is walking and talking which has been very emotional, you wish Rita was here to see it. He's become a part of your regular routine now. Dexter offered to pay you to be his nanny, but you declined, quite aggressively. Dexter kept insisting but you would not accept under any circumstances. Spending all this time with Harrison has also meant spending quite a lot of time with Dexter as well. You've grown to really care for him.

One morning, you were over at Dexter's feeding Harrison breakfast. Dexter was getting ready for work. He came out of the bedroom, shirt unbuttoned. You couldn't help but stare, which made you feel guilty. You admired his hands as he swiftly fastened the buttons, his arms as he rolled up his sleeves, his sculpted chest peeking through the top of his shirt. You felt wrong. He comes over to give Harrison a kiss on the head. As he walks by, his shoulder brushes yours. You blush, in embarrassment and due to your true feelings. As you airplane another spoon of yogurt into Harrison's mouth, out comes something that shocks you to your core.

"Mama" Harrison babbles

You and Dexter immediately make eye contact. Your eyes are blown open wide, mouth agape.

"I'm so sorry, I have no idea why he would say that" You panic

"It's alright, he doesn't know any different" Dexter reassures you

You and Dexter just stand there, looking at each other. He smiles, a genuine smile this time. Something you've missed seeing.

He wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you close. He brings his hand to your cheek and leans in, placing a tender kiss on your lips. You immediately melt. You felt so guilty for feeling the way you did, falling for a man who was grieving his dead wife. You bring your hands up to hold his face. Deepening the kiss. When you pull away, you can't help but smile a big goofy grin. Dexter is smiling too, which makes your heart flutter.

You stand there in comfortable silence, before Dexter announces he has to go, and that he wants you to be here when he gets home. He kisses your cheek and leaves. Your heart feels so full. However, you still feel guilty, like you're betraying Rita, but you also feel like this is what she would want. You know her family well, and you love them like they're your own.

You lay Harrison down for a nap, kissing him on the forehead. You grab a cup of coffee and go outside. It's a chilly spring morning. As you're looking out over Miami, a white butterfly lands on your finger. A tear rolls down your, cheek. You've never been much of a spiritual person, but you know it's her, and suddenly everything starts to feel like it's going to be okay.

...

Literally almost cried while writing this, I love Rita so much. I hope I did your vision justice! Sorry it's so long lol

[speedwayy]

Can you explain more about dean martin and Jerry lewis? I dont go here but my interest has been peaked

okay i don’t know what to say so i’ll try to give you the rundown off my dome. bear with me it might get hefty.

Martin and Lewis were a comedy duo that lasted for 10 years to the day from July 25, 1946 to July 25, 1956.

Jerry was a teen dad trying to make it in the show biz world to impress his vaudevillian parents, Dean was an easygoing drifter without a care in the world, not even his wife who was living in her parents house with two kids and another on the way. It was a match made in heaven.

Jerry, as I mentioned, was the child of two vaudevillian parents, Daniel “Danny” and Rachel “Rae” Levitch. His identity crisis can be traced back to the day he was born, seeing as even he doesn’t seem to know if he was named Joseph or Jerome. As an only child with parents who were constantly on the road, Jerry lived a solitary life, being passed around the homes of various family members. He recounts as a child aged six or seven, he wandered the streets alone looking for his mother, only to find her entertaining a saloon of noisy drunks. On another particularly egregious occasion, Danny and Rae neglected their son’s Bar Mitzvah.

“Here’s a famous one from when he was a kid.”

His favorite childhood memories more than often were of his grandmother, who cared for him when his parents would not. She became the ideal woman he would search for in all others, the immaculate maternal figure, which he would soon find in his more experienced wife, Patti Palmer. But the spectre of his life was his father, Danny, who had abandoned him as a child, needled his talents as an adolescent, then jealously leeched off his famous name as an adult. He was the one whom Jerry always strove to emulate and impress, and whom he resented and did all to avoid becoming like him.

“In some incomprehensible way I felt guilty, as if everything I had become only made [my father’s] life more painful, much harder to bear.”

Only a few years after he left school at 15 for the allure of the stage his parents couldn’t resist, Jerry would meet the man his biographer, Shawn Levy, dubbed “Danny’s evil twin”: the handsome, lady-loving, baritone club singer Dean Martin.

Danny and Rae Levitch; a young, pre-rhinoplasty Dean Martin. I’ll let you decide if there’s any resemblance.

Whatever Jerry Lewis was, Dean Martin was not. Dino was born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio, the second son to more humble parents of Italian origin, Gaetano “Guy” and Angela Crocetti. Where Jerry knew he was born to be a star, Dino never seemed particularly ambitious one way or the other. And while Jerry was singing his little nine-year-old heart out to Al Jolson tunes, Dino was filling his time with various jobs from boxer (of his twelve fights: “I won all but eleven.”), to steel mill worker, to illegal casino dealer, pocketing money from the house. Singing might not have been his great passion, but he liked it, and he knew he had a pretty enough voice, and so did others, and sooner or later, he ended up singing in bands all the way up to Cleveland. When he was 24, he married pretty and athletic Elizabeth Anne McDonald, and soon enough, Dino was an up-and-coming singer with a new name, an agent, and enough bookings to move his steadily growing family up north.

When they finally met performing in the same club in Atlantic City, circumstances weren’t exactly great for Dean or Jerry. Jerry was floundering with his act that consisted of him putting on outfits and lip-syncing goofily to records (not sure why anyone hired him to do this tbh), and he had to do what he felt was stooping: becoming an MC like his dad to make ends meet while his wife was pregnant. Dean was married too, and already had a couple kids of his own, but was feeling the pressures of fatherhood a little less than Jerry. Dean wasn’t made for marriage. Dean lived his life Dean-style, which consisted mainly of girls, midday naps, gambling, and Saturdays with the boys. Already, Betty was becoming troubled with her husband, and hated her life living between her parents in Philadelphia and the New York apartment Dean was leeching off a friend.

“Suddenly, at Broadway and Fifty-fourth, Sonny spotted someone across the street: a tall, dark, and incredibly handsome man in a camel’s hair coat. His name, Sonny said, was Dean Martin. Just looking at him intimidated me: How does anybody get that handsome?”

They would meet a few other times after crossing on the street that one day. Playing the same clubs, hanging out with friends of friends. They weren’t officially friends yet, and Dean likely gave the scrawny 19-year-old little mind, but Jerry was in love from the moment he set eyes on him. He was nine years older than Jerry, incredibly attractive, charming, cool, “worldly”, as Jerry would say.

“Following Danny around burlie houses and Borscht Belt rec rooms was all Jerry ever wanted out of his childhood; now, following Dean as he catted and sang around New York looked like a marvelous career. Just as he’d wanted to marry every girl singer who’d paid him attention, Jerry was smitten with Dean for deigning to spend time with him. That Dean possessed so many of Danny’s attributes—dark good looks, sexual confidence, a great voice—only made the attraction that much stronger.”

Forever after that, Jerry would use Dean as a fulfillment for his ultimate fantasy: to have an older brother, someone who could be his companion, to love him unconditionally, to care for him and understand him. Years later, Jerry would still reminisce about his “big brother” that “[he] had always longed for”.

Dean, a youngest child himself, was probably not so eager for a new member of the family, but even he knew Jerry was an asset that couldn’t be lost.

I’m convinced that there’s no way to describe in words Martin and Lewis’s act that makes it sound funny. It’s a “you had to be there” thing. Hearing a singer shout at a guy spilling water all over patrons for an hour isn’t my idea of a good night out, but it must’ve been something, because people loved Dean and Jerry even before they were Martin and Lewis. Their days of crossing paths evolved into a casual friendship where they would heckle each other and do little bits in the middle of their respective acts. Jerry lived to get laughs and attention from the crowd and his beloved big brother, and Dean’s lazy, unaffected exterior made the perfect foil to his outrageous shenanigans. Then came the fateful day in July.

“He smiled, and it was like the sun coming out on the rest of my life.”

Long story short, a club Jerry had booked had an empty spot needing a singer, and Jerry, having realized very early on he wanted to be with him forever and always, suggested Dean. Somehow, it worked. And everything from there kept on working.

For the first time, they were billed together as Martin and Lewis, contrary to the normal convention of billing in alphabetical order. In no time at all, Martin and Lewis would be appearing above every club in America, and sooner, on magazine covers and movie theater marquees.

The formula was stupidly simple. Dean was the playboy and Jerry was the Idiot. Dean looked perfect as is, Jerry perfected his signature high-pitched whine and had his hair buzzed into an overgrown crew cut to appear closer to an eight-year-old.

“It was like watching the two halves of a personality you wished you could have: insane and unrepressed on the one hand, smoothly poised and confident on the other. And serendipitously enough, they actually enhanced one another, sanding away each other’s brittle edges.”

Throughout their 10 year run, there was very little variation on this dichotomy. There was very little originality in their jokes too, of which they had approximately five of. But it worked. Maybe Jerry was right when he said that people liked to see two men in love (fujoshi ally).

In those years, Martin and Lewis managed a radio show, regular spots hosting variety show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, 16 feature films, endless T.V. appearances, live tours, 12 combined children, and a stinking amount of fame and money. They were the hottest couple in Hollywood. Everyone knew you couldn’t have Dean without Jerry or Jerry without Dean. The names “Damon and Pythias” would quickly become one of Jerry’s favorite ways to describe them.

And they were close, genuinely. When Dean’s marriage imploded, Jerry was the best man at his wedding to his affair partner, Jeanne Biegger. He accompanied him on his honeymoon, and he was just as eager to let Dean a room in his house when the two fought. Jerry found the companionship and security he always longed for in his “big brother” (whom he affectionately called Paul, his middle name), who got physical with anyone who said a word against Jerry, and tearfully accompanied him in the ambulance after a pratfall gone wrong.

Such was it that Jerry felt he was the only person in the world who understood Dean, and vice versa. He would refer to them as twins separated at birth, or like one person. Another was that they had a telepathic bond and felt pain and illness at the same time (I honestly believe it. Explain the Jerry getting sick while filming The Bellboy at the same time as Dean’s Ocean’s 11 cancer scare, and their shared Percodan addiction. Little Charlie voice “Do you believe in telepathy?”)

“My fantasy big brother.”

Their act was more risqué than how Jerry recalls them in the “innocent ‘50s”, between Jerry’s exaggeratedly effeminate affectations and the amount of innuendo they manage to cram into those 100 minute family pictures (see: Jerry spraying Dean’s face with milk and Dean forcing Jerry to lick and eat a cigar— in the same movie! Where Jerry is pretending to be a 12 year old boy, nonetheless!) And most sketches on Colgate involve the two in bed together, or kissing, or groping one another, etc etc. Honestly don’t think they could pull off the bits where Dean plays Jerry’s dad and they end up on top of each other in 2025. Mostly because those are advocating for beating your kid. Idk.

“There was an edge of cruelty to Dean—especially on screen, where he was always cast as a conniver who at the last minute turned good—while Jerry was more like a puppy dog that kept wagging its tail even when it was being kicked. It was a new concept in comedy, and it was widely imitated: A case can be made for their being the models for Gelsomina and Zampanò, the innocent clown and the egoistic brute of Federico Fellini’s La Strada[.]”

While the audience became so accustomed to Martin and Lewis that they struggled to extricate their comedic personas from their real identities, so too, it seemed, did Jerry.

In his 20s, he was still a child desperate for validation, with a paralyzing fear of being abandoned. I suppose most comedians must be like that, but Jerry was truly a severe case. Like a child, he swung from sensitive and cloying to selfish and cruel. But children are only like that because they’re only children and still figuring out people also have feelings and needs and shit. Jerry never seemed to reach that stage.

He loved Dean, but was petty and jealous when it came to him. Whenever Dean would come up with an ad-lib that got a particular amount of laughs, Jerry would coincidentally wind up with a terrible stomachache that required the attentions of everyone in the room. It’s embarrassingly immature to the point where you can’t even get mad about it.

More sinister, he told David Letterman that one time he dosed Dean with Seconal then went on stage alone.

“Each person is really two people.”

You may be wondering, what’s Dean’s feelings about all this?

Listen,

I don’t know.

He’s just too enigmatic. Maybe Jerry was right in saying he was the only one who really knew him. Maybe Dean was right in saying no one knew him.

I think maybe Mack Grey had it figured out, but he’s for a different post.

Anyways. Jerry is too simple. It’s all Psych 101. But what does Dean have going on? It’s either genuinely nothing, or inside he’s more fucked up than anyone can possibly imagine. Jerry would chalk it up to simple repression. Dean’s parents told him having feelings was for fags so he resolved never to have one again. I. Don’t. Know.

Surely, he must’ve felt some type of way about Jerry. At times, he was referring to their relationship in the terms of a marriage (“Till death to us part,” and sorta weirdly, “We’ll be together until Jerry dies.”) at other times, he seemed more or less indifferent. He clearly loved and was affectionate towards Jerry, but I wonder how much he considered the actual depth of Jerry’s feelings. His son, Ricci, wrote that a motivator for the break-up was that Dean didn’t want to father Jerry, and that the latter “seemed to want more warmth and compassion than [Dean] provided.”

The truth may be that Dean was a tulpa manifested by Jerry’s overwhelming desire to have a brother to freak on. The truth may be that Dean was destined to die in a horrific steel mill accident, but he somehow evaded his fate and was living as a half-zombie. The truth… we shall never know.

"Those close to him could sense it: He was there, but he was not really there; a part of them, but apart from them as well. The glint in his eye was disarming, so captivating and so chilling at once, like lantern-light gleaming on nighttime sea: the tiny soft twinkling so gaily inviting, belying for an instant, then illuminating, a vast unseen cold blackness beneath and beyond. The secret in its depth seemed to be the most horrible secret of all: that there was no secret, no mystery other than that which resides, not as a puzzle to be solved or a revelation to be discovered, but as blank immanence, in emptiness itself."

The real reason for breakup, in my opinion, was kind of simple. They were burnt out on each other. Jerry had ambitions of making films on his own, just like his idol, Charlie Chaplin, and Dean was sort of a pleb who didn’t think movies were real art. Plus, his tolerance for Jerry’s antics was hitting its threshold, and he was fed up with the roles he was getting in their movies (asshole, asshole but he’s a gangster, asshole but he’s super rapey, list goes on) and Jerry undermining him to the public. Dean was lazy, Jerry was controlling. Dean was unsympathetic, Jerry was needy. They feuded, but made up, for the most part. It was likely easier for Dean, who treated the rest of the world like water off a duck’s back, than for Jerry, who spent his entire adulthood thus far attached to Dean. By 1954, their fighting hit its peak on the set of 3 Ring Circus, but they had two more years to tough out. It was very easy to send Jerry to the hospital by stressing him out. Times were hard.

“My partner was drifting away from me. Or had he drifted away already? The uncertainty tapped into my childhood fear of being deserted. An icy look from Dean would turn me into a scared nine-year-old.”

Still, they would make up, and continue their going around in circles. It lead to some memorable moments: Dean kicking and stomping on Jerry’s bicycle after an argument, Jerry knocking Dean’s head around during his performance of That’s Amore, Dean maybe breaking Jerry’s toe, Dean waterboarding him in a giant tank. And of course, Dean’s infamous “You can talk about love all you want, you’re nothing to me but a fucking dollar sign.”

There were four more movies after 3 Ring Circus. Actually very impressive. Jerry did a lot of public crying about how Dean didn’t love him. Dean, who had a valid enough reason to hate Jerry, might’ve actually kept the partnership together despite it all, worried that he’d flounder without Jerry and that public opinion was already against him. But for Jerry, the world he had built around Dean Martin was gone forever and there was no coming back. Anyways, he needed the freedom to make the greatest comedy film of all time: City Lights Part Two: Return of the Tramp.

Their last show was played at the Copacabana, exactly 10 years after their debut. They ended with the title number from their second to last film, Pardners (Hollywood or Bust wouldn’t be released until after the breakup). “When other friendships fail / We’ll still be on that long, long trail…”

It is said that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

And when the show was over, the only thing that made everyone feel safe that Jerry didn’t hang himself was the three hours of wailing coming from his dressing room…

“We had some good times, didn’t we, Paul?” “There’ll be more.”

Jerry would go on to become one of the most polarizing figures in film with works like The Bellboy and The Ladies Man. His most popular film, The Nutty Professor, is really also his most psychological. But really it’s my least favorite… Anyways, some people would tell you that Buddy Love, the evil bisexual that Jerry turns into after drinking his potion, is supposed to be a parody of Dean, which I don’t really see. Jerry conflates himself, Dean, and his father a lot, and I think that’s what The Nutty Professor is about. There’s not enough time now to go into it.

Dean, as everyone predicted, flopped a little at first. But it was a very minor bump, and soon he started palling around with Frank Sinatra (an obsessive, lonely, only child from New Jersey in his own right) which made him into the Dean Martin we all know today. Though, Dean would lapse into some familiar old ways, getting laughs out of a crowd by heckling Sinatra while he crooned, or pretending to be a busboy and getting in the way of his show. But Frank Sinatra was really no Dean Martin (not intended as hate because I love Frank like a sonboyfriend).

In the immediate aftermath of the “divorce”, as they all referred to it, they had their run going at each other in the press. Dean got bitter and snide, blaming Jerry’s immaturity and accusing him of being jealous of his wife (which was true, as Jerry would be the first to say, but he didn’t have to say it.) A weird one was when he got really heated about Jerry removing all photographs of Dean from his home. He was going on about how Jerry was an asshole for that since he was still genial enough to leave up a picture of Jerry in his kids’ bedroom (which is true. On an Architectural Digest style program where he gives a house tour, the only decor on his children’s walls are a wooden crucifix and a picture of him and Jerry.)

Jerry was wandering the moors and shit. He wrote columns about how Dean broke his soul and held him back as an artists and about how he had to go to therapy and his therapist told him to stop looking at Dean as his father and instead rely on the maternal support of his wife. Good ol’ 1950s style psychoanalysis.

"Everybody likes to hear ‘I like you.’ Now because of Dean's personality and the way he was with his bravado, yet, I think, scared of his innermost feelings, I'd have to rush these things. That's a terrible frustration. That's like loving a girl or boy for years and years, and waiting for them to tell you that they love you too, and just at the exact moment when they are getting ready to say it, being yanked back into the real world only to realize that your happiness was a flimsy dream that didn't come true. That's what it has been like for me."

In 1966, Jerry picked up his 24 hour Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons. Martin and Lewis had been associated with the charity, but Dean wasn’t ever into that kind of thing. It was on this Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, September the first, 1976, 20 years after their break up, that Dean and Jerry had their great reunion.

“I got a friend who loves what you do every year…”

It wasn’t really that great. Thanks Frank Sinatra.

To clear a few things up: Jerry and the rest of the world want to have you convinced they really hadn’t spoken for 20 years. This is not true. They had varying degrees of contact from the late fifties to early sixties, and had mini-reunions performing short bits if they happened to be in the same club. Dean had even expressed that he wanted to be friends again, but with the implicit understanding that the relationship would now be on his terms. For Jerry, it was incestuous roleplay codependent marriage or bust.

The next thing is, Jerry told an extremely easily disprovable lie that he and Dean became close friends after this moment and spoke every day. Idk why he said that it’s actually sad. He tried sending a heartfelt note to Dean, but he never responded. Just one time, did Jerry confess that he was on pills at the time and he didn’t actually remember that Dean had come on.

They wouldn’t speak again until 1987, after the death of Dean Paul Jr., Dean’s fifth child and the first from his second marriage, in an Air Force training accident. Since Jerry had telephoned his sincere condolences, they rekindled a long-distance friendship. They were never to achieve the intimacy they once had, and that Jerry had once dreamed of them having when they were both older and more mature, but Dean, who already seemed septuagenarian since his youth, was now matching that physically, and he liked Jerry best two or three arms’ lengths away. He had divorced Jeanne years before for a short-lived marriage to 26-year-old receptionist Catherine Hawn, and after that, he never remarried. He had also met the fate that all members of Frank Sinatra’s inner circle suffered sooner or later: he got booted, or rather he quit, in the middle of the Rat Pack’s 1988 Together Again tour. His spot was filled by Liza Minnelli.

By all accounts, Dean spent most of the later years of his life eating alone in his favorite restaurant. To Jerry, who had divorced his wife of nearly 40 years and was re-wed to SanDee Pitnick, and was still puttering along with films (notably, King of Comedy and his last directorial effort, Cracking Up/Smorgasbord) and MDA work, this listless existence seemed miserable. But Dean always took things as they came.

They would meet again face-to-face in 1989, when Jerry surprised Dean on his 72nd birthday while he was playing Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas. They embraced, Dean was nostalgically warm: “I love you and I mean it.”

“I gotta kiss you on the lips.”

On Christmas day in 1995, Dean passed away.

He had never dreamed of fame, rather it was “thrust upon him by ambitious friends”, as Shawn Levy puts it in Rat Pack Confidential. But today, Dean Martin is remembered as a symbol of the good ol’ days, when men were men and Vegas was run by the mob. His songs are ubiquitous, his sleazing drunk character beloved by oldheads globally. Life has a funny way of working out.

A New York Times article published in 2002 (for the release of the made for T.V. biopic, Martin and Lewis) described the two as America’s Catherine and Heathcliff. And so it was, for Jerry who had dreams of Dean after his passing. He penned his 2005 memoir, Dean & Me (A Love Story), he played the clip of the two reuniting in 1976 at his shows, mentioning Dean's name in interviews was an easy way to get the old man in a bittersweet, reminiscent mood. Until the day he died (in the year of Dean's centennial, coincidentally), Jerry remembered Dean as the greatest love of his life, the singular person who was more important to him than his parents, his wife, his children.

“I always wanted to do good for him. I wanted him to be proud of me, my big brother.”

"I happen to love the kid like a brother."

"He was my hero. He was my father, my brother, my friend."

There's still so much gone unsaid. There was the time Dean bought Jerry a scooter and he fell off and hit his head and had to go the hospital. There was the time he wrote a love song for Jerry's birthday. There was the time they were reported to the FBI for being on a list of known homosexuals. There was the time Jerry misread Dirk Bogarde's name as Dick Bogarde. There was the time they were at the same Judy Garland show in 1958, but Jerry was also making out with Frank Sinatra. There was the time they owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS and Jerry had to get them out of it without letting Dean know because in his 78 years of living, he never seemed to fully understand the concept of money. There was the time Atom Egoyan made an erotic thriller that was very obviously based off of them, written by the guy who wrote the piña colada song and starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth, and Colin Firth, who’s the Dean of the situation, tries to stick his dick inside Kevin Bacon during a threesome and then kills himself. There was Martin Scorsese and there was Rainer Werner Fassbinder. There was Wiseguy and there was The Sopranos. There were tears of sorrow and tears of joy. And most of all... There was Amore.

(If you made it this far, thank you, and you are entitled to a free shirt at the door.)

[g1rld1ary]

lifeguard!james potter x fem!reader 8

prev

wc: 2168

cw: drowning and resuscitation, near death experience, inaccurate medical descriptions, happy ending ofc

me: i have a delicious lifeguard!james request in my inbox which will for sure be the next part but i really wanted to get this part out first sorry anon!!!!! ik this is a little less horny than most of the other parts but i kinda loved the idea of the softness and love of their relationship developing after being braindead horny?? but as always pls feel free to send lifeguard!james reqs bc he's my man fr im feral for him

TAG: @stanzie

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the pool was packed. you didn’t know what was different from any of the other hot, sweaty days you’d encountered, but suddenly there was hardly a sun bed free or an inch of space in the pool.

it was disappointing, sure, but nothing your friends couldn’t handle, snatching a piece of grass a bit further from the pool to lay your towels down. it did mean you didn’t have the benefit of an umbrella to hide under, and the direct heat was driving you all mad.

“do you think we’ll even fit?” you asked, not hopeful when you could barely even see the water.

“we come here every other day, they have to make room for us,” lily joked, tucking her magazine back in her beach bag.

“you could always ask james for help,” mary teased with a singsong emphasis on his name. you rolled your eyes, attending to your sun cream to hide the girlish grin that was fighting its way out.

“yeah, bat your eyes at him and he’d clear the whole facility,” marlene laughed, jumping up and holding a hand out to help you stand, “now let’s go fight the old ladies for a spot.”

“hiya,” you called up to james on the elevated lifeguard chair. he brightened as soon as he noticed you, pushing his dark sunglasses up to his forehead so he could make direct eye contact.

“hey, good looking! not in your usual chair?”

“got beaten out by hilda. embarrassing, really. got eyes on any spots for us, baywatch?” james took his duty seriously, scanning the pool for any spots of blue for you to occupy.

“how about down there by the wine mums? good bit of room and i’ll be able to keep an eye on you.” he winked, gesturing down to the group of middle-aged women.

“okay perv,” you replied light-heartedly, but you couldn’t help your smile when he used your nickname for them. the wine mums were a group of women your friends adored from afar. they weren’t drunk as the name suggested — no alcohol allowed inside the pool fences — but all year round they could be found about town, gossiping and laughing well into the night over glasses of red or white. you couldn’t go an encounter with them without at least one of your girls wistfully dreaming about you all becoming wine mums like them in thirty years. it made your heart glow that james had picked up on the nickname.

you slipped into the pool, sighing contentedly as the water immediately brought you relief. there was a group of children playing some sort of ball game, maybe a casual version of water polo, which habitually splashed you all, but you weren’t in the mood to care.

the chaos only became unpleasant after another group of schoolboys came barrelling in, joining in on whatever game had started. even the wine mums climbed out of the water, muttering complaints about their behaviour.

the pool was overrun with adolescent boys, jumping and thrashing and tossing a few balls around recklessly. james had blown his whistle several times, but he couldn’t exactly stop them from playing around.

the next several moments happened like you were watching from an outside perspective. the exact moment you opened your mouth to speak, the ball smacked into the back of your head with an aggressive thwap, dunking your face under the water, your lungs filling with water as you gasped and floundered. in the most evil twists of fate, the mob of teenage boys flocked over to you in hunt of the ball, pushing you down to the pool floor.

if you were in your right mind you might’ve acted differently, more rationally. but you weren’t in your right mind. you were under the water, being pummelled by at least six pairs of feet with water filling up in your lungs. you weren’t the dramatic type, but you were genuinely scared for your life, the possibility of resurfacing in time rapidly dwindling. your already blurry vision under the surface darkened and you tried to make peace with the fact that you weren’t getting another breath in.

the next thing you knew, your chest was heaving and something warm was resting over your mouth. your eyes shot open, body jerking even more dramatically. james potter, in all of his wet, hot glory, was giving you mouth to mouth as you lay helpless on the hot pool tiles. you’d clearly been out for a few minutes as someone had been able to lay a towel beneath you so your skin didn’t blister and burn on the scorching terracotta.

you hacked and coughed a few more times as james gave you a few inches of space, water spitting up and out of you, splashing pathetically on the floor. you noticed the alarming silence that had fallen over the facility, and looked up to face two dozen pairs of eyes fixated on you. it made you nervous in a way attention never had, fighting your body’s automatic reaction to expel water in order to keep some of your dignity.

“alright, everyone, show’s over. give us some space.” james’ usual boyish mischief was long gone, serious expression only intensifying as you locked eyes. “you go with lily to the medical room. i’ll see you there soon to make sure everything’s really fine, but i’ve gotta wait until someone comes to cover, the pool can’t be unsupervised.”

“i get it,” you sighed dramatically, leaning on lily as she helped you up, “duty calls.” james shot you a look that was clearly meant to be unimpressed, but you could see the hint of amusement in the twitch of his smile.

“i’ll see you soon.”

lily escorted you inside the tiny, outdated medical room, sitting you up on the examination table.

“that was hands down the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to us,” she said, sitting in the seat usually saved for the parent.

“you’re telling me,” you managed a laugh, “what happened?”

“god, it all happened so fast we could barely keep up. you got separated under that group of dickheads and it was all so loud we couldn’t get them off of you so we had to call james for help. now, i’m only saying this because you’re okay and i know you’d be mad at missing it, but it was the hottest thing i’ve ever seen.” you interrupted her retelling with a snort, not not disagreeing with her. “he was full baywatch; olympic level dive, across the pool in seconds, carried you out of the water bridal style like some sort of superhero. i could’ve been watching a movie! did some legit looking cpr while absolutely ripping those boys a new one for being so irresponsible — think one of them cried.”

you laughed at lily’s dramatic recount, imagining it like you’d been conscious to witness.

“i’m so upset!” you jokingly whined, “nothing fun ever happens and the one time it does i’m unconscious! i didn’t even get to see him use all those stupid muscles.”

“you know you can just ask, right? you all tease me for my ego but never use it for good.” james rounded the corner, looking extremely satisfied with himself. you and lily exchanged mortified eye contact at being caught, but both dissolved into embarrassed giggles as james’ disarming nature charmed the room.

“do you want me to stay?” lily asked as james gathered his things to examine you.

“it’s okay,” you shrugged, “i trust the doctor.”

“good, i think marlene and mary are pretty shaken up, i should probably walk them home. call me tonight to prove you’re still alive.” you agreed easily, making lily promise to assure all your friends you were perfectly fine.

that left just you and james alone in the medical room, tension blossoming between you.

“are you okay? really okay?” he asked, beginning the checkup.

“yeah,” you answered, hesitating to think through your reply, “shaken up a bit i think. and my lungs hurt. but you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“good.” james smiled, listening to your heartbeat for abnormalities.

you sat in silence for a few minutes, observing as james did his thing, admiring the way his eyebrows furrowed when he was focused.

“thanks for saving me,” you broke the silence first.

“don’t thank me, it’s my job.”

“no, seriously. i could have died, james.” james looked up with a start, his eyes finding yours. he couldn’t remember if you’d ever called him by his real name and not some nickname to tease him. he liked the way it sounded coming out of your mouth.

“you know i never would have let you drown, who else would stare at my body all day?”

“shut up.” you swatted his bicep, secretly grateful for the tone shift. you wanted james to know you were sincerely grateful, but it was hard to sit in that vulnerability. you liked having the power in conversation, controlling it so you always had something witty to say. today had been one big knock down, leaving you to feel powerless and out of sorts, like nothing you did was right.

james had you taking deep breaths in and out, describing how they felt and if you could feel any water in your lungs or other disruptions in the process. his hand on your back was burning a print into your skin, his presence beside you a reminder of everything wonderful about him.

you suddenly groaned, throwing your hands up to cover your face in embarrassment. when james asked for an explanation, you almost couldn’t provide one.

“that is so not how i wanted our first kiss to go.” mouth to mouth? definitely one of the least sexy kisses of all time. blowing air into an unresponsive mouth was certainly not what you’d consider a successful make-out, and you were sure james agreed. to your surprise, james looked amused rather than disgusted or judgemental, his casual demeanour once again bringing you peace.

“nah, that wasn’t a kiss. a kiss is supposed to be fun. and consensual. that was just me saving your life.” you rolled your eyes to cover your smile. you both pretended you couldn’t see the other’s giddy grin at the implication that you did in fact plan on kissing james.

“so what’s the diagnosis, doc?” you changed the subject again, nervous sitting so close to him in a private room (especially when his bare chest was still out in his work uniform, glistening with sweat).

“you’re all good to go, but i’d go to a doctor if you feel weird. be cautious for a few days.” james held out his hand to help you off the bed.

“well if it’s really that bad, i could call on you, right? i’m sure the good doctor wouldn’t mind supervising my bed rest, hm?” your flirting was back with full force, paired with some batted eyelashes for good measure. you delighted in watching james understand the implications, blush rising to sit on his already sun-kissed cheeks.

“what about we start with me walking you home, hm? i don’t think your mother would be pleased with me supervising any activities happening in your bedroom.” you laughed at that, tipping your head back as james took the moment to take your beach tote and sling it on his own shoulder.

“that’s why i have a window, stupid.” you let yourself be led home by james, the two of you laughing and talking until you reached your front door.

you stood on the first step of your small porch, making you closer to level with james’ towering height. you could tell he was about to say something, no doubt flirt or make a dumb joke, but you beat him to it, wrapping your arms tightly around his midsection.

you’d clearly caught him off guard as james took a moment to react, but matched your energy, wrapping you tightly against him until you could practically feel each individual muscle in his body — not that that would be a bad thing.

“i’m really glad you’re okay,” he said softly as you finally pulled away, “you had me really scared there, lovely.” you only smiled in response, unable to produce the same openness that seemed to come so easily from james. you liked to have the last word, though.

“you really earned your title today, baywatch.” you kissed his cheek softly before disappearing into your house to giggle in a way usually entirely unlike you. you were scared this thing you had with james wasn’t just about his lifeguard’s body anymore.

[jiinxswife]

Jinx x fem!reader relationship headcanons

Ahhh, today’s post came out late because tumblr sucks and it didn’t post the writing, making me loose it all and have to write it all over again >:(

Complain to it

Warnings: SFW headcanons, spoilers season 2

•you don’t catch her eyes, she’s too busy dealing with life to even think about a relationship, she catch yours

•it’s hard to approach her, really hard, principally after she becomes q Zaun hero. Everyone wants to hurt her, everyone wants to manipulate her, no one knows how she truly is, at least, that’s what she thinks

•has a hard time trusting you on the start, what would a stranger that she had never seen before want with her other then maybe status, money or the reward for her head?

•when you finally manages to approach her, just enough for her to let you spend some time with her, you two grow close rather fast. She’s touch starved, has no one to talk with, no one to share her ideas other then the voices of her old family, so she tells you about everything

•you probably are the one to ask for a relationship, she would never allow herself to get that vulnerable, and she says yes, even if she’s a bit confused about what she feels about you (don’t worry, soon she realizes that you’re the woman of her life and that she loves you)

•loves public display of affection, is there any better manner then to show to the whole Zaun that you genuinely love her? That she found someone that can love her as she is? Without trying to change her, without seeing her as Powder, but Jinx. If you start it by yourself or immediately contributes with her affection, she will get even happier

•as Said before, she loves public displays of affection, and as much as she loves your physical touch, she struggles to take it well sometimes, she will tense up and yelp when you start the affection stuff, blame that on her whole life, she would only get affection from dying people (silco COUGH COUGH) and when being manipulated (ALSO SILCO COUGH COUGH)

•will zone out sometimes, you will be cuddling her, dancing with her, whatever, and she will just stare at you, a frown forming on her face, her eyes expressionless, muscles tense, just waiting for you to hurt her. With time, these episodes become less

•isn’t vocal about her affection, she will never say “I love you”, not when you ask her out or even on your first time sleeping together, the closets you get of these three words are small, almost hidden “ily” ‘s written on gifts that she makes you

•talking about gifts, she shows how much she loves you by giving you gifts, so expect to have a room full of grenades and pistols that she made herself!

•will definitely ask you do to her nails, even if you suck at it, she just wants to feel your warmth

•follows you around when you leave, principally when the voices are louder, telling her that someone can hurt you, that someone can steal you, kill you. She makes sure you never know it though, she follows you from shadows

•please, wash her hair for her, it makes her feel so loved and cared for like she never was as a child

•if you like to whisper sweet things for her when she’s asleep and she finds out, she will definitely pretend to be asleep just to listen to you

Now, since im evil, let’s finish this with something sad. >:3

•expect her to either become sightly paranoid, defensive and somewhat even possessive once Isha dies or try to leave you completely, not wanting you to have the same destiny as everyone she ever loved.

•silco died, isha died, everyone she ever loved did, she will try her best to leave you, to protect you from her

[sanakimohara]

[ BOUND BY BLOOD ] - H. H.

master lists <> + CHRISTMAS EVENT: day two (n/a yet)

pairing: Hyunjin x fem! reader

summary: A seductive vampire who has been watching you for centuries finally reveals himself. As Hyunjin pulls you deeper into his world of immortality, the line between love and obsession begins to blur.

date: December 21st 2024

playlist:

warnings: MDNI + NSFW + BLOOD KINK + ORAL + LOTS OF EXPOSITION + MENTIONS OF WITCHCRAFT & PAGAN HOLIDAY + EXTENSIVE PINING

Yule is more than a concession of sacred days ending in immense celebration. You knew of this from a very tender age, of course.

Your mother impressed upon you how vastly more important it was than any other festivity held throughout the year in your small village. A place nestled in the rocky edges of the St. Romanov mountains, just below the everlasting castle at the very top of the harsh scenery. In a dreary land, everyone would be just the same—sulking like the grey, cold clouds that hung high above, even in mid-summer, and bitter like the bark of the evergreen trees and pines occupying the surrounding woods. Many who lived far and near the little ancient plot began to whisper of its strangely happy and content inhabitants centuries before books made of linen and leather were being traded for secrets on the land they lived on.

Some talked of how women resembled eerily beautiful statues on a winter's night. Others told tales of men who never seemed to age past their prime but nearly always perished under terrible circumstances, whether in secret or for all to behold. You were born to a family who pressed truth into these oh-so-beguiled wise tales made up by outsiders. Yet, that was natural within a family littered with witches and warlocks of every kind.

Young and blessed with slow aging and graceful wisdom, your mother and father took it upon themselves to grant you a moderately lavish life within the strangely quaint village. You went without very little, and whatever your kind heart desired was promptly given. Your demure features disarmed many, growing enchanting as you neared the age of two centuries, looking nothing past the age of two bright decades. One might call it luck -especially living in a jagged and whimsical place. But many who lived beyond called it witchcraft at its finest point -the undead's evil doing.

You paid the assumptions no mind. Content with living a life in your studies of the dark arts under the teachings of your nearly pestering and frazzled mother and her less distracted and elated partner -your father. To some extent, he was a patriarch of the town, never fully taking on the title of its Baron and never desiring to when asked. He helped people experiencing poverty, aided people in need, and advised those who did have a hand in village affairs. On the other hand, your mother saw to the population's superstitions and unusual ailments and guarded their shaken resolves with practiced and refined magik. You had undoubtedly become their most prized offering to the masses. A beauty many could behold but could never understand being kept so hidden away at your family estate.

In turn, you were plagued with loneliness that could only be ailed by knowledge of the arts for so long. Years shifted into another half a decade of unbound youth and restrained confidence for you. Thinking of another century in such a state made your heartache and your head spin with sound worry. The terror struck you at family dinner in the dining hall, and you nearly opened your mouth to suggest an alternative to your parents. However, you were halted in a speech by your ever-so-live mother, who'd been unable to stop smiling since you stepped foot into the candlelit room behind your father's usual late arrival.

"I have grand news for you, my dear!" she beamed, and you perked up in your seat in interest. "Mother?...' you cautiously egged her on, sipping from the blackened wine glass set before your plate of half-finished food. She waited to hear you swallow your blackberry wine before glancing at your oddly silent father. "I and your Papa have a gift for you...well, a surprise, to be more specific."

Please, Mother of Darkness, do not let it be another grimoire. I've already filled in four others.

You prayed to the powers that be in a single silent breath, glancing between them as they observed you. "Oh...please do tell me of it. You know how little patience I have for surprises." The sweetest smile crossed your face, pulled tight by subtle anxiety and held there by a need to seem mildly normal about the implications of receiving a new and unknown gift.

Yet, it fell into a quivering line as your mother excitedly spilled her heart out for you to hear.

"We have found you a match, and he is rather eager about it. More than we are if my senses ring true!"

The light wave of shock that gripped you dissipated into relief. A hot flush rushed through d your veins like a flame catching the edge of fresh linen. Any other woman being told of a secure match might feel her heart turned to icey malice, but all you could taste was wild freedom being attained without much fight.

And you couldn't be happier to have it.

Who this match was and why he was so eager to be one with you was another mystery for different times. Now, you wanted a moment to relish in a world to be discovered outside the village you'd known an entire lifetime and mask that joy from the two beings who gave you such power over life as if their announcement hadn't changed a thing in your reeling mind.

With a deep and steadying breath, you replied, "How fortunate. I look forward to beginning our union."

Your mother nodded, sipping wine while your father grumbled a phrase of contentment. She offered you an all-too-tender smile, her bright gaze sparking as you tilted your head in curiosity. "Is there something more you'd like to tell me, Mother?"

She sighed, humming melodically, then set her glass down to speak again, her tone genuinely matter-of-fact.

"You'll be traveling to meet him at his estate within a fortnight."

This wasn't unexpected, yet hearing it aloud stirred a peculiar thrill within you, an undeniable pull toward the unknown that lay waiting.

The fortnight came within a whirlwind of a day. Your belongings were packed and shipped off early at noon, and your father blessed and sealed your treasures an hour before your departure. Your mother sent you off with genuine gifts of goodwill and more excellent fortune, refusing to speak on the mysterious author more than she already had -which only gave you a semblance of a surname from which to paint a picture of him.

Hwang.

It was all you'd know of him until the moon reached its height and your horse-drawn carriage stopped in the gravel walkway in front of his glaringly cold estate. You imagined his features, charm, voice, and sway over those within his power. Sketching his imaginations in a tattered leather-bound grimoire and writing earnest anecdotes of goodwill under each one. You wrote and drew until your hand ached, glad to see the semblance of a large mansion coming into view far across a snow-touched meadow.

The book snapped shut as you refined your focus on the blatantly grand estate. Your mother had called it magnificent when describing where this Hwang hailed from, but she left out the fair detail of how larger-than-life it seemed, with its gardens packed with mere hundreds of people.

A party.

A celebration.

An honoring of Yule.

You had never, ever seen such a large and lavish gathering. Granted, your mother and father never threw one as grand as the one you witnessed now from afar, but the edge of awe was still present as you observed it. People -men, women, the moderately young, and the wise old roamed about.

Some wore masks of gleaming gold, amber, and cherry red. Others wore black veils and cashmere shawls. Everyone in attendance held prestigious looks from afar, dressed in sacred colors starkly contrasting with the pure white snow coating the grounds.

Candles and lanterns were lit to perfection, leaking light into the moonlit night and casting a golden white glow on those who swayed beneath and through them. Shadows danced as many grabbed for waltz partners. A quartet strummed at their instruments and rang their bells into the air. Laughter and speech leaked into the music, piercing the sky.

It was life.

It was passion.

It was beautiful to see.

You ached to join the fun. Think of it constantly, even as the carriage stops at the steps leading straight to the heavy dark oak wood doors carved with the face of Medusa and sealed shut with iron wrought doubles of the letter 'H' leading straight to your new home.

With the help of a kind footman and the relief of a soft gasp, you took tentative steps to the top of the staircase, undeterred by the ice under your heeled boots and the gentle crunch of snow under your every movement. With a step left, the doors creaked open for you, a sudden chill wrapping around you before a steady warmth replaced it. You stopped short, unaffordable of the sudden eeriness, but perplexed to see not a soul standing behind the door.

"Mother of the moon.." you whispered in timid amusement, gazing up at the white sphere gleaming down on your clocked form before allowing its energy to steady your shaken nerves. When your mind could focus again, you bit the inside of your left cheek, slipping into the estate's front doors with a quiet huff, passing by the eyes of Medusa with a solemn smile of thanks.

The doors slammed shut as your feet hit the marble floor inside, loudly clicking its locks with finality as you spared them a final glance before sauntering further into the massive household. The small palace was lit, and not a corner was left cold or void, but not a life in your sight. It seemed as if the tree outside was merely a dreamscape and a phantom of reality within the world you stood in now - a wonderous opener to the spectacle within your suitor's less-than-humble abode. You reached another set of winding staircases. The embroidered carpet gently glistened under an amber-lit chandelier, never seeming to stain your wet footprints and littered with mistletoe, pine, fresh herbs, and trimmed garland. It was neat chaos at its finest, but what took your breath away was the line of blackened roses lining the center. Their thrones were pricked clean off, and their stems meticulously swirled in on themselves and tied off in an alternation of crimson red and deep violet silk ribbons. "How strange..." you thought aloud, pricking one from the warm floor, examining it until its petals were paled compared to the folded letter hidden underneath it.

It simply read in practiced well, done calligraphy,

"My Dearest Love,

The hour is late, and the world outside lies shrouded in slumber, save for me and my kin—ever wakeful, ever longing. I have watched you from the shadows, not with the eyes of a stranger, but with the gaze of a soul tethered to yours by threads spun long before this life. You do not yet know me, but I have known you for an eternity, each passing moment a cruel reminder of my yearning to claim what fate has promised me.

I am writing to you now, my beloved, because our meeting is near. The winter moon will shine brightest on the eve of the year's final breath, casting its silvery veil upon the snow-laden earth. In that sacred hour, I shall come to you. Do not fear the chill in the air or the stillness accompanying my presence. Know that every step I take toward you is born of reverence and an unyielding desire to protect, cherish, and love.

You may wonder why I have chosen you among all others, why I dare to speak of binding our lives together in the sacred vow of marriage. The truth is as eternal as the stars: I did not choose you. Though it beats no longer, my heart has always belonged to you. In your laughter, I hear the echo of joy I have long since forgotten; in your gaze, I see a light that pierces the veil of my darkness. You are the warmth my cold existence craves, the embodiment of all that is pure and eternal.

For centuries, I have wandered through this world, untouched by its beauty and unmoved by its offerings. Yet, the barren void within me stirred from the moment I beheld you, even from afar. My soul cursed as it is, recognized in you its redemption—a love that transcends time, a light strong enough to shatter even the deepest shadows.

I write this letter not to frighten you but to offer you a choice. When we meet, you will see me as I truly am. My nature, my curse—it is not one I would impose upon you without consent. But if your heart, as I suspect, already beats in harmony with mine, I ask for your hand, trust, and love. Together, we will defy the passage of time, weaving a tapestry of eternity that no force can unravel.

Await me on the night of our destined meeting. Do not despair the hour, for it shall mark the beginning of a love that poets and dreamers could only hope to capture. I shall kneel before you, not as a creature of the night, but as a man who has waited lifetimes to call you his own.

Until then, my love, guard your heart, for it is already mine. And know that no force on this earth, nor in the heavens above, could keep me from you.

Yours eternally,

Hyunjin..."

A weight lingered over your shoulders as his name slipped past your lips like pure honey. As if it were planned to happen, and for one explicable reason or another, he had pined for it to be that way on this very night. You pieced things together in the moment it took you to realize them. Every night since your 118th risi, you'd felt a presence -not nearly a calling- but something tethered to your existence. Had that been him for all these years? Watching over you in the smallest of moments. Moving when you moved. Listening when you spoke. Caring when it seemed no one else could. Being there when you felt further trapped in an unintentional isolation.

Were the sharp and bloodborne eyes trailing every move in glimpses of mirrors.?Was he the lurking shadow hovering above your own in the light of a single candle? Was he the one leaving gifts of your desire at the foot of your bed? Each one left with no note or card of recognition but instead wrapped neatly and meant for you to find and enjoy. Wasthee soft chill of breath you felt through the coldest nights? Twinged with a peculiar warmth and steadily streaming against the crook of your neck and behind the shell of your ear.

You thought of the possibilities, fueled by a deep curiosity and security, as you followed the trail of roses left along the ststastaircathrough staircase-through rooTandyandy stopped at a particular door on the second floor, previously leading through the tre right-wing amenities before the abr.aWithhith one big push of both your hands, you revealed what lay within the last unlocked room.

A man, dressed in fine clothing with a more captivating charmed beauty to match, stood before you in a moment of tensed admiration.

He seemed to hold in a breath, lips pressed into a slow-growing smile of recognition as his eyes scanned you in familiarity. Your heart thumped twice its normal speed as he did, and your feet shifted closer to each other as his gaze halted on your flushing face. "He-Hello..." you muttered, unsure what else to say and completely startled to see another person standing in the emptied estate.

Hyunjin did not hold your lack of recognition and frazzled greeting against you; he accepted them. I expect much worse, and he was glad those assumptions did not come to fruition upon your timely arrival.

He found the words to speak and the will to be heard when you took a half-nervous step back, shuffling closer to the doorway in a plain attempt to close it shut if prompted to. "You're quite alright. I've been waiting for you for some time now, so I would like you to stay even if it's for a moment..."

The cadence of his words and the gentle tone of his voice sounded the same as the whisper within your most common dreams. It was healing, charming, sweet, and meant to cause delirium to anyone who heard it without warning. You unconsciously paired it with the letter you'd found. Gripping it in your right hands, your mind collected subtle connections.

This had to be him.

Your allusive and eager suitor?...

"Hwang...Hyunjin..."

"That is my full name, yes..." he jested a bit, treading carefully through your observation of him. However, when your stare found him again, you seemed neither displeased nor perplexed.

"Are you to be my match, then? " you asked, hoping his answer would satisfy your growing uncertainties.

He nodded, nibbling at his lush bottom lip for a split second of tension relief. Then, you noticed his edged canines glinting in the soft light filling the room. Your heart jumped, but your breath slowed at the minuscule sight.

You'd gotten yourself a walking undead of your own, it seems.

Hyunjin's quick eyes caught yours wondering towards his mouth, fixated on the slip-upphe'ddd ma unconsciously but nowhere near frightened or frazzled by the reveal. It eased his rare nerves and allowed him to speak more freely as you inched further into the room to get a closer look at him. "I know stepping into this new life may be very odd to you now, but as I explained in the letter-"

"I've read it twice since my arrival..." you confess in one uttered breath, unable to keep smiling softly at him, "You're a lovely admirer and a gifted writer by all means..." You paused, unsure what to call him and afraid you'd begun to ramble, seeing his head lower at your words. However, Hyunjin flashed a charmed grin your way after half a moment. His pale cheeks flushed a tinge of rouge you thought was a trick of the light. How could someone so confident in their presence be so easily flustered? The answer was beyond you, but it was a question you cherished watching him watch you from across the room.

His smile fell to a slight smirk, eyes cutting to the side for a moment before he spoke again, "You are one charming doll... do you know that?" He chuckled, and you shrugged, eyeing him as he wandered closer with steady strides. "I've been told otherwise..." you confess in a whisper, accepting bated breath as he flows above the top of your head.

A pull surged in your chest, urging you forward into his immobile warmth and drawing your head up at an angle so his face remained inches from your own. Hyunjin stared back, eyes downcast in jaded concern as you hid a coy smile. "Wel, my love, they don't know you as I do."

He spoke of your intentional grace and earned your trust. He is unafraid to let you witness the flicker of vulnerability behind his maroon irises.

It was then that you knew what he thought of you, how he felt, with only your eyes to capture him.

A life to live in the eternity he found himself in.

One year came and went in the Hwang estate; in that time, you'd grown to love hearing that surname replace your own. Hyunjin was far more than a dashing husband and far better than any other living man you had encounteredHisis obsession with you was infinite and dedicated. It showed in every little thing he did for you and was present in every intimate interaction you had with him - even if he took each one no further than a heated kiss and a passing touch of his cold hands over your warmer flesh.

There were times it drove you mad.

His withholding of passion in fear of harming you during such acts was maddening, to say the very least. Sleeping with him had begun to be the only thing you could think of. You are noo longer able to keep such thoughts within the confines of your still-separated rooms during the dead of night and are frazzled by the visceral need to feel him take you.

He knew of your struggles but never acknowledged them. Hell-bent on sticking to his version of affection for as long as possible and undeterred by your subtle begging far longer than you had expected him to be.

That is until the very night you met him came around again.

Sweat shined your skin from the heat of the broiling water you sank into only moments ago. Herbs, spices sprinkled, and citrus shreds floated to the top of the scented bath. It was a relief to feel each component working into your tired body and slowly bringing life back into it as moments of solace trickled into a calm, quiet passage.

Finally, you could rest and not answer another question about decorations, food to serve partygoers of the evening, or what musical set to be played throughout the night. Taking on the task of planning for the Hwang household Yule was tedious and meticulous. Every detail was meant to be perfect, just as you had seen upon your arrival a year prior, but against Hyunjin's well-meant wishes, you took on the assignment with vigor for perfection.

It was overwhelming in all aspects, but you'd done it to the best of your ability, and now you wanted nothing more than to relax before the celebration began. The guests slowly showed themselves.

Your eyelids lowered, fully closing as the hot water sank deeper into your skin—the smell of fresfragranceses swept under your nose in gentle wafts. For a while,nt the world went utterly sti, ll, and you could hear the wind and snow softly blowing outside; your lonely peace was dissolved as a tender kiss was placed at the of your head by familiar lips.

"My love..." Hyunjin greeted you humbly, and you returned the sentiment by peeking your eyes at him. "My prince..."

He smiled at the neverending nickname you'd decided long ago to give him. You held his lingering gaze, tracing the lift of his lips as he leaned in to place a meaningful kiss against your lips. Your hands floated from the water, gently cupping his face as his lips pressed into yours. They were tinted with red wine and the lingering taste of iron blood, but you paid the bitterness no mind, delving for something more profound as he trailed a hand through your damp hair and brushed back the strands sticking to your flushed cheeks.

A fire stirred in your stomach, spiraling as the swipe of his tongue over your own melted the taste of him into your senses. Hyunjin pressed to shift backward, understanding the intensity of your exchange, but had no room to do so as your freshly manicured nails gently dug into the skin of his unblemished face. He stayed still, falling into a pattern of returning slow and wet kisses with you in the quiet of the large washroom. You hummed at his intentional sweetness to please you, smiling as he tilted your head back to rest on his thigh, your right hand cupping your chin firmly as his left raked through your hair and massaged the roots at your scalp. A trickle of drool seeped past your lips, tainted with blood a moment later, as he bit down on your inner lower lip with the tip of a fang. You whined softly as the sudden and short infliction of pain pleasured that he took joy in marking you in such a discreet place and was not timid about savoring the reward of your blood on his tongue, but the mix of elation didn't last long. Hyunjin snapped away from your lips, pressing loving kisses to them as you frowned and whimpered from the loss of connection. "Please do not torture me..." you huffed, legs closing instinctively to put pressure on the throbbing heat between them.

“Don’t…do this to me, “ you repeat yourself, stirring into a fever as his touch on your jaw slid to cup and caress the side of your face as if to lull you back to sanity.

He failed, a rare thing to happen, but something he couldn’t help as you stared up at him with the most unforgiving and pleading stare. “Please…” you utter to him, bottom lip catching between your teeth as his eyes settle across your body in a languid dance. His gaze stops at your chest -barely hidden in the cream-filled water, and you’re tempted to slip out of the bath and let him have a full view if it’ll coax him to give what you so desperately want from him.

Hyunjin needs no further persuasion than a flicker of sadness and disappointment in your eyes. You’re prepared to handle your growing frustration of heat alone and hope it will be done by the time guests arrive, but a simple phrase from him shatters your ideas of doing so.

“You’ve waited long and well enough.”

The sound of praise in his tone has you turning in the water to face him like an excited mutt being given a treat. Your smile returns, and your hands fall to rest on his thigh. “You won’t back down from me?…” You ask out of fear he will, knowing his quick change of mind could be fickle and turned again if you weren’t careful with your intent. Hyunjin stifled a chuckle, unbothered by your eagerness and thrilled to see you smiling at him brightly again.

That generous lift of your lips always made his cock twitch to life no matter when, where, or why it happened.

It was such a curse to him that even now, he failed to think straight enough as you rose a bit more from Luke's warm water to press a slow kiss to his parted lips. The cherry stain on your lips seeped onto his tongue, your tongue slow and delicate against his, steadily licking into his mouth a sweet confidence. He swallowed your noises, smothering them with nips and licks before easing your mouth open for a singular line of his spit to slide down your tongue. You purred at the feeling, sinking into the water a bit as he stood up and spat straight into your throat as if he owned it.

Because he did…and you adored him for it.

“Come with me…” Hyunjin grunted against your ear, not caring about the mess made, as he wrapped a strengthened arm around your waist to pull you from the cold bathwater. You helped lousy in excitement as he did, completely fine with being tossed over his shoulder like a sack of packed sugar cane. “I wasn’t finished bathing-!” You start to scold him despite not having the heart or right mind to mean anything by it, but a tender prick of his fangs to the flesh of your thighs startles you into a fit of giggles.

“And I don’t care anymore, my love…”

“Ca…c…can’t…” you choked on your words, falling to pieces as Hyunjin laid his head between your legs, hair sheened with sweat as your fingers traveled through and gripped every strand it touched tight. “Third time a charm,” he muttered, all too focused on the task in front of him and unbothered by your shaking thighs and rolling hips. “N-no..” you protested in half-sought agony, unsure if he’d even heard you when he earned another shout of his name with a slow and deliberate swipe of his tongue pressed flat to your entrance. He let the wet muscle rest there for a second, nudging it into your creamy walls inch by inch until you tugged at his hair and groaned in pleasurable despair at the feeling.

He added to the pattern, tracing the inner folds of your cunt and circling your bundle of nerves in repetitive motions. You quivered every time, leaking cum onto the fresh linen, and overstimulated in every sense you had left.

Hyunjin groaned loudly, with a collared shirt falling from his broad shoulders and your legs lazily hanging over them. A tug in your hips brought your scented body an inch closer to his face before he buried himself in your cunt again. Licking, searching, and finding exactly what he wanted. You squirmed and tossed above him, gripping at anything soft and mailable to have a steadying grip, but you couldn’t sit still or stay calm. Hyunjin wouldn’t have it any other way, sinking his fangs into your plush thighs and the soft skin just above your left knee to keep you on edge.

“N-ngh ugh….ah! Ah! Hy-Hyunjin…” you called for his attention, on the of unraveling, feeling his lips wrap around and suckle on your clit generously before his tongue went right back to exploring your insides in a practiced dance. He refused to settle down, looking up at you through fallen strands of dark and damp hair and devouring you with intent as your moans climbed to new octave before a scream tore from your throat at a final flick of his skilled tongue.

It nearly hurt how fast and how intensely he’d thrown you over the edge. A third instance is not more straightforward than the first two; a fourth is meant to top it all off immediately. You panted, feeling wild and shaken but unable to care as a buzzing heat flooded through your veins and leaked onto the sheets in arousal. It stained the soft fabric, your inner thighs -painting the darkened marks he’d left and smearing the trickles of blood he’d caused with small bites, and coated the bottom half of his face as he raised to hover above you.

You caught him in a delirious kiss, too tired to sit up and lock him in your arms but glad he felt no desire for you to do it. Hyunjin caved into you, letting your hands wander over his skin, across his shoulders, down his back, around his waist, and stopping right where his heart should beat in his toned chest.

There wasn’t a throb of life left in him, and you trusted that he saw yours as valuable enough to change.

One day…but not yet…

He answered your lingering question without a word, peppering the corner of your upturned lips with gentle kisses and soft sighs you returned. Your legs remained parted, allowing his free hand to lazily touch and spread your slick along the expanse of your cunt. “Such a pretty little flower for me…so sweet…and so,” he trailed off, nudging your head to the side to sink his teeth into your heated neck, drawing blood and a pleased moan from you as he took slow sips of your blood.

“Soft…” he finished.

His fingers plunged deep into your core, stretching the gummy walls within in slender but tasteful thrusts. You shook from the contrasting actions he was committing. Awed at how full he made you feel despite draining you in the same breath.

Was this the true love of an undead man?

Does the obsession of another once alive come back to life?

You hadn’t the slightest clue to answer both inquires, fixated on watching his fingers pump into your soaked entrance as your head spinning from the lack of blood beginning to take effect. Hyunjin refrained from sucking you dry, driven mad by the taste of you no matter how he got it, but aware of your limits as part of the living. Still, he detached from your neck with a soft and crisp sound, focused on pulling another climax from you.

You were on the verge of another, lashes fluttering as the syllables of his name faded into breathy gasps as your high tiptoed closer, but the slow drag of his fingers from your cunt slowed it to a standstill. “No..!” You yelp in disbelief, ready to shed tears if this was his way of putting a stop to your feigning for him, but your disappointment was short-lived and replaced with pleasant surprise as he shifted to kneel on the soiled sheets between your spread legs.

You watched in particular excitement as he stared you down, rolling his neck once to release tension in it, and licked the remaining droplets of your blood from the corner of his lips while reaching to undo the confines of his trousers. He said nothing as you marveled at the sight of his cock. Your face flushed a bit as he brought it into your view with his large hand wrapped around its inches more considerable length. You refused to speak a word, having imagined the sight of his cock more than once before, but speechless at its true nature being revealed.

Thick, full of stock, and neatly groomed.

You couldn’t take your eyes off of it -merely glancing up at Hyunjin in awe when he leaned forward to press the length of it against your sensitive folds, but shifting your gaze right back to it as he passed over your folds.

“Oh!…mmm..” you shuddered into a gasp and fell into a moan at the sensation. Your insides flipped and twisted, eager to know if his cock could reach new places you’d never forget. Hyunjin clicked his tongue, sparing a glance downward between your bodies before lowering his head to rest against yours, hips set back slightly to prod the tip of his length to your aching entrance. You whined, prepared for the stretch but intolerant of his ever-waning patience. “We’ll miss our first guests if we continue like this…” He hummed, sensing approaching carriages and steeds from afar in the low blizzard rousing the night air. You cup his face, eyes set on his as your lips curl into a coy smile. “Let them wait…Let them wonder where we are the whole night if that’s what must be done..”

He raised a brow, licking his lips while his cock inched into your untouched entrance, watching the fall of your smile into a small ‘o’ shape as he did so. “Your wish is my command, Lady Hwang..”

A/N: I’m sick so this is late but it’s a double feature (Changbin is next)

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[a-simple-imagine]

Don’t They know a Rabbit Can’t Cry - a life once lived

synopsis: ye olden era. The reader is sick so Agatha and Rio look after her but it begins to cause tension between the trio

pairing: Agatha Harkness x fem!reader x Rio Vidal

Words: 5.1k+

A/N - you don’t have to read this to follow the main story it’s just me writing whatever I want. This can also be a stand alone. I have a few ideas as to why the reader might be immortal but I can't decide which one I prefer??

WARNINGS - Sickness, brief mention of blood and dying. not period accurate

The luminous sun and rhythmic chirps of overhead birds should have made for the backdrop to a lovingly peaceful afternoon. After days held up in her stuffy cabin, you had pleaded with Agatha to let you go outside. She agreed, eventually, when you convinced her that it would be good to get some fresh air. So the two of you (mostly Agatha) set up a homemade blanket of a deep maroon colour by the side of the lake. Agatha sits reading some dusty old book she's been obsessing over for the past two days. Her legs make for the perfect makeshift pillow as you bask in the warm rays of bright sunlight; drifting. A faint throbbing in the front of your skull. A rattle in your chest with each careful breath. Body heavy. Tired eyes search for hers as you shift somewhat, making sure she knows you are awake.

"how are you feeling?" a question you hear far too often as of late. A soft groan slips into the air as you wrap your arms around her waist. Burying your face in the fabric of her skirt. It was warm. Fresh. Comforting. a faint floral scent that tickles your nose. "oh, sweet girl," a hand comes to trace lightly over your back. "should we head back?" in truth, you probably should but being inside was driving you crazy even if most of your time was spent sleeping.

"no," answered quickly, muffled against her clothes. "I like being out here,"

"I know you do but the chill on the breeze will do nothing for you," Agatha explains. "you should be warm in bed."

"I am plenty warm," it wasn't a particularly cold day. Signs of autumn were only just starting to show. Green leaves beginning to morph into beautiful reds and yellows. A slight cold beginning to infect the wind. Daylight grows shorter. Agatha was right though. The chill was affecting you more than you cared to admit but your stubbornness outweighed her use of logic. "a while longer. please?"

A few stray pats on the back as the older woman gives in. "fine but just until the sun begins to set." the deep blue sky suggests that sunset wouldn't be for a while now so you agree to her terms. Stifling a yawn, you look up at her but her attention is already back on that stupid old book. Bound in a strange leather jacket with symbols you don't understand the book is rather small in size but from this angle covers her face. The pounding in your head becomes a little less intense as you adjust to the bright light of the waking world. You try not to move around too much but your body seeps with discomfort. Shuffling against the blanket, your eyes drift towards the lake. Minuscule waves twinkling in the daytime light. It was slowly becoming too cold to swim these days. Not that you would feel up to it even if it wasn't. It does make for a nice view during picnics or moments of rest.

"What are you reading?" you question, poking the bottom of the book with your pointer finger.

"do you actually want to know or are you merely seeking attention?" her book lowers revealing her twinkling eyes. You debate telling the truth.

"I would like to know," you offer a slight smile. There's a short pause before the book lowers so you can see the pages too. They're yellowed and bent but eligible.

"it is about old magic and healing runes," your finger traces the large symbol on the right page before flipping it over. Even now the idea of magic was still new to you or more so the fact witches weren't ugly, evil women who worshipped the devil and practised dark magic. Agatha possessed magic, rio too; neither of them seemed particularly evil and they were some of the most beautiful people you've come to know.

"healing runes?" you repeat. Smile fading somewhat, you look up to Agatha through your lashes.

Agatha nods a little. A delicate smile. "it is quite interesting. You may read it next if you like. Although I know you prefer stories of fantasy." she closes the book, resting it on your chest. "what is wrong?"

You shake your head. Such a subtle change in expression, you are surprised she even noticed. "I am just tired," she watches you. And for a second you think she is about to push further but alas the subject falls to the wayside.

"As long as you're sure"

There is a moment of pause before you nod. Agatha returns to her book and you adjust so you're staring out ahead of you both. A sense of guilt mixed with an already unsettled stomach. "Agatha," your voice hushed. Almost like you don't want her to hear but she does.

"yes, bunny?"

"do you think I will get better soon?"

"of course."

"do you promise?" you glance up at her but she is once again hidden behind those pages.

"you will not rid of me so easily"

"not sure you have a choice in the matter," but lips curl into a smile. "I hope Rio returns soon."

"as do I," Agatha agrees ultimately setting the book aside when she realises she's not gonna get silence from you. "she can be your pillow for a while."

"do you not wish to bring me comfort?"

"I wish nothing more," Agatha admits, a hand brushing your cheek. "I just would also like feeling in my legs."

With great exertion, you push up. Haze clouding the front of your head. "if I am a bother you can just say,"

"do not push yourself," Agatha expresses. "I speak merely in jest."

"I am sorry for being such a burden."

"you are no such thing."

"but you would tell me if I was?" Agatha nods but you still doubt her words. She was much too kind to admit such things. At least to you anyway.

"rest, my sweet, I am fine."

You lay back down, getting comfortable once more. "can you sing something?"

"Like what?"

You shrug. "anything. Surprise me." her body shakes with a chuckle before her voice fills the space. It's light. It's joyful. It's... "pitchy."

She taps your forehead gently. "if you want me to sing you must keep those comments to yourself." a little chuckle, quickly killed by a cough.

"Sorry. Please continue." and she does. It is a melody you don't recognise. Words you have never heard. But they're soft. Gentle. And wrapped in enough feeling to let your mind drift off.

Two weeks. It had been two weeks since you had first fallen ill and yet you continue to suffer. Normally it would go away rather quickly. Whether naturally or with the assistance of magic. Nevertheless, Agatha tried using her magic but it didn't help. Healing just wasn't her speciality. Rio was much better at it but she had been away working for a long while now. You know with each passing day you grow more tired. Even on days when you feel a little better. The day is a little brighter. You know deep down it is temporary. But tomorrow will be worse. After every up comes a seemingly even worse down. Agatha worries for you. She pretends not to. Hides behind frivolous songs and bowls of soup you struggle to keep down but it's there when she thinks you're not looking. It's evident in her small sighs or the fade of her smile. Eyes that look at you like it very well might be the last time. You agreed to stay inside today. Largely too tired and achy to face the outside world. So instead you stay snuggled up in bed while Agatha goes about her day. You're uncertain of the time when you wake again. Weary eyes reluctantly opened to a much too bright cabin. Your head aches. Your limbs hurt. A muted groan as you nuzzle against the pillow. And then you hear her. Agatha. But she's not alone. Another voice that you would recognise anywhere. You rub your eyes as you force yourself up.

"Rio?" a meek inquiry comes out before a chesty cough that shakes your whole body. "you... have returned?"

Rio moves to sit at your bedside. "to see you,"

"you should be resting bunny," Agatha walks up behind Rio. "did we wake you?"

You nod slowly. The pounding in your head was only made nastier by the movement. "you were arguing?"

They glance between each other and then back at you. "how are you feeling?"

"I am fine," you declare, "happy you have come home."

"hmm," she seizes your chin with her hand pushing your head from left to right. Eyes boring into you. "you are lying."

"I am not," you try to shake out of her grasp but it hurts and you can't disguise it. "just a little tired."

"Oh," her grip a little tighter. "so Agatha is the liar? She tells me you have fallen ill."

You shrug a little. "maybe,"

"If it is just resting you need then," Rio lets go, "then sleep."

"But you have just come back," you insist. "I am fine. promise."

"bunny," a clear firm tone advising you to not overdo it. You sigh softly, laying back down.

"I am sorry I didn't have flowers waiting. I have not felt up to it,"

Rio laughs, standing up and tugging the covers back over you. "sleep."

You shut your eyes. Curling up into the warmth of the bed. A stillness envelopes the room. "Rio, will you still be here when I wake?"

"of course," she ensures. You focus on sleeping. Their voices are now but a whisper it's hard to make out their conversation. You periodically hear your name. It matters not.

It hurts deep and sharp in your stomach dragging you from your restless sleep. A cry crawled up your throat. Your eyes open to darkness. It's late. Agatha sleeps beside you. Rio on the other. "bunny?" a tired voice, as Agatha sits up in bed. You collapse into her arms; seeking comfort and her skills. "I got you." this wasn't the first night you had woken up feeling like your stomach was going to explode. Such strong cramping and nausea bring tears to the eyes. The only relief came from Agatha using her purple. She holds you close to her chest. Rocking back and forth slowly. "You are okay."

"what's wrong?" Rio's voice comes later. Less urgency. Waking up a little later.

"help her," Agatha demands

"I can't- what do you want me to do?"

"soothe her," Agatha instructs. "I used my purple already and have not been able to leave her alone."

"Agatha,"

"Rio," she shoots back. "it is simple. There are no rules against this." she shoves you away from her and nausea settles in your stomach. You haven't consumed anything today so there was nothing that could come back up. It would just be gross and toxic. "lay back down. Rio will help make it better," she doesn't wait for a response. A hand against your chest lowers your back against the bed. They exchange a look. "just place your hands on her stomach. Please." Rio eventually does as instructed. Her hand drifts gradually over your lower stomach. A tingling left in its wake, the pain fading. You roll onto your side and seek comfort in Agatha once more. She wraps you up in her arms. "is that a little better?" you nod against her. "do you want me to rub your back?" and again you nod. "do not empty your stomach over me like last time," it makes you smile a little. Agatha shuffles down the bed so she's lying down too. Allowing you to rest against her side. A gentle hand running up and down in slow motion. "go back to sleep, my love."

"how long has this been happening?" rio wonders.

"Long enough," Agatha answers. "you should rest too. She will be fine until morning."

When you wake up the next day, their absences are notable. Your head feels fuzzy but you're grateful that your stomach has resolved at least a little. "Agatha," you call out but instead rio arrives at your bedside, a cup in hand.

"Agatha has gone out," your brow furrows.

"out where- when will she return?" you haven't been without her for a couple of weeks now and the idea unsettles you.

"calm yourself," Rio murmurs. "she'll be back soon enough, now drink,"

"no," replied sharply.

"you must,"

"I do not want to,"

"it will make you feel better,"

"no," you shove her hand away, and some of the liquid slips over the edge. "I don't want any. Where is Agatha?"

A sigh from Rio, "It was Agatha who insisted you must drink some,"

"I do not want it," you huff. "it always comes back up,"

"a small sip and we can be done,"

You watch her before snatching the cup. A small sip of tea. It's warm and earthy. Like drinking soil. You cough as it goes down before handing the cup back. You fall back against the bed and snuggle into the covers. "can we go for a walk?"

"I don't know if that is a good idea?"

"a short one. Just to the far side of the meadow?"

Rio agrees. It's easy to get your way when you're sick. She has a supportive arm around you the whole way letting you collect flowers every now and then. They always looked a little brighter when Rio came home. Like they grew just for her. Once you felt you had enough, she brought you back to sit on the front porch. A blanket draped over your shoulders to protect you from the chill. Each flower is carefully laid out in front of you. Rio is sitting in Agatha's chair. Bouncing a leg and seemingly carving some wood with her blade. "Will Agatha return in the morning?"

"I do not know," Rio responds. "do you not like it being just us?"

"I do, it is just strange being here without Agatha," you express. "this is her home."

"it is our home," Rio corrects. "I just have to travel."

"I know," you reply, glancing at her. Rio was always back and forth in a way Agatha never was. Everything about this place you have come to associate with Agatha and Agatha alone rather than Rio. It was Agatha's chair that she always sat in to have her morning tea. "I hope she returns soon."

"not even a full day without her and you already seek her company once more?" there was a playful edge to Rio's words. "do you miss me as easily?"

"I always miss you," you answer. Each flower was carefully laid out before you. Organised by colour rather than type. You pick one up a purple one. Twisting it between the pads of your forefinger and thumb. "But it is different when Agatha leaves because it is a surprise. What if something happens? I am too ill to assist."

"I will deal with anything," Rio answered back. "I am capable of being left alone and looking after you. Besides she will not be long."

She will not be long? That could mean anything. days. Weeks. Months. You couldn't go months without seeing Agatha. "why didn't she tell me she was leaving?"

"she did not want to worry you. It would not serve you well," Rio explains.

"sneaking away is not better," you huff, stems of green now crushed.

"I am just giving you an explanation," you glance at the wood shavings that surround the other woman. So messy. "I know as much as you." a heavy sigh. There was more to this than they were willing to share but you don't push. Settling for the explanation Rio shared. "are your parents not worried?"

"they do," you hum. Of course, they are worried. "but they trust Agatha as a healer."

"they don't know the truth? Agatha is no healer."

"they would trust Agatha regardless," you explain. "we spend most free time together."

"I forget you two are inseparable," Rio muses softly. Almost sadly. You wouldn't exactly say you are inseparable but you do spend a lot of time together. It made sense. You had lived a pretty sheltered life at home in the woods. The nearest little village wanted pretty much nothing to do with you outside of your business. You only really went to visit the bakery or haggle for supplies. More often than not you're met with dirty looks and hushed whispers. Mean-spirited comments on a bad day. Agatha gave you company outside of just your family. She was beautiful and caring and wanted to spend time with you. She didn't think you were weird or strange but then again she was what a lot of people feared. The only difference between your relationship with Agatha and your relationship with Rio is time.

"you are never here,"

"you exaggerate,"

You shake your head just a little, focused on the crown you are making. "I do not, I-" A tickle in your throat brings a cough from deep within your chest. Loud and dry. Painful. It seems like maybe it'll pass as you grab the handkerchief Agatha insisted you always carried. It was ivory white with hand-sewn stems of green and pretty flowers lining the edges of each corner. But the tickle persists. Spreading through your throat; any attempt to avoid resulting in watery eyes. Rio is immediately knelt by your side. A curious brow. "you okay?" probably not. Giving into the dire need to rid yourself of the feeling in your throat. Each cough builds with a sense of desperation. Raw and dry. Burning from the inside. a much-needed moment of respite seemingly out of reach. You can't stop. A hand slapping against your back is unexpected; it was forceful but not enough to hurt. An attempt to help. The green witch repeats the action a few more times. A body starved of air. It helps. Profound breaths as your eyes flicker to Rio. Wide eyes convey a semblance of concern to her otherwise calm demeanour. Fist tightens around fabric now stained with tiny dots of red and shoved out of view. "we should get you inside."

"I... am fine..." you lie between breaths. You were no better off inside than out. It was merely an attempt to get you back into bed. It's not like being inside was helping in any way.

"That was not fine," Rio insists. Her hand still rests on your back.

"Rio... please..." fixated on the flowers. An almost finished crown. A moment ruined by this unexpected illness. You breathe deeply. Leaning in, the other plants a kiss delicately against your temple.

"Agatha would kill me if something happened to you." whispered against the skin. Warmth shivering through your veins.

You reach for her arm, carefully pulling it away from your body. A shaky small smile on your lips. "it is okay." even with reassurance, you can sense her reluctance to leave you be. A sign she cared too much. Returning to her spot in Agatha's chair not too far away, you can feel her eyes still on you. Watching and waiting. You are grateful Agatha was not here right now to make a fuss. She worries over every little thing. She also probably would have dragged you back inside if she had to. Silence falls as you return to your hobbies. Just a little too uneasy to speak in case another coughing fit occurs. However, with silence comes uneasy thoughts. Thoughts about Agatha leaving you alone with Rio. A sickness that just won't stop. A green witch forced to look after you. "rio?" she just hums some kind of response. "can I ask your opinion on something?"

"If it is about your crown then I will be biased," she urges. "I always like it when your creativity includes flowers."

"it is about Agatha,"

"Is she all you ever talk about?"

"I am serious," you reply.

"what about Agatha?"

"do you think," a moment of hesitation. "she grows tired of me? Is that why she left without saying anything?"

"where does this come from?" rio wonders. Fingers fiddling with the leaves plucked from flower stems. "you are her most precious person,"

"that is not true," it makes you laugh a little. Compared to her relationship with Rio, yours was just a drop in the ocean. You also weren't anything like them. Rio was teasing and confident. A force of nature you weren't sure you would ever figure out. Agatha was commanding but caring. She had a real nacht for making you feel like the most important person in the world. Not to mention they were both witches. They could do remarkable things. You felt like a burden to both of them regardless of your sickness. "she has you."

"she does," Rio agrees. You tear the edge of the leaf pulling straight through until you're left with two parts. "but that does not make you any less than. Why would you think otherwise?"

A shrug of your shoulders. Tearing the rest of the leaf up into tiny pieces and sprinkling them on the ground. "I am not like you. She does so much for me and now she must do even more because of this stupid illness," it wasn't your fault you had gotten sick but that didn't stop you from feeling guilty. So much time was spent reading books about healing. Or making special teas of different soups. Even just ensuring you're comfortable was a challenge that wasted her magic. "she must grow tired."

"you will be better soon."

"you do not know that. Agatha does not know that. I am not even sure I believe that anymore," With a soft sigh, you pluck a petel from its flower. So small. So soft. So delicate. "I wish I could make things better so she does not have to waste energy worrying about me."

"my love," Rio comes to sit beside you on the porch. She takes the plant you have been destroying from your hands. "It is not wasted."

"easy for you to say" you snap. A bitter tone. Rio does not understand. How could she? You get that she has to work and it's important to her but still. How could she possibly understand what it's like for Agatha? or even you? "You're never here."

An arm snakes over your shoulders allowing Rio to pull you against her. and despite your attitude, you melt into the embrace. Your anger is such a confusing emotion. You wish she was around more. You wish you weren't such a burden for Agatha. You wish you weren't sick anymore. A deep breath, you find comfort in the other woman's earthy scent. The way she cradles you against her side. A soft kiss was placed upon your head. "eres todo para mi," whispered against you before she pulled back. "we just want the best for you. This sickness will not last forever."

"so you say," s soft sigh. One way or another this will end but you might just not be around for the latter. A silence settles. Rio is content with sitting on the floor beside you now as she works with wood. You have no clue what she is making. You continue to fiddle with flower stems and small twigs. Weaving them into a beautiful circle to wear. You have had a lot of practice.

"it grows late. We should head inside." you brush yourself off as you stand. Offering a small smile. "for you," the crown of flowers placed gently on her head before she stands too. "I hope you will stay for a while this time."

A gentle smile. "remember how I said I would always return if you will it?" rio reaches for your hand, placing something small and hard in between your palm and hers. "I am grateful you called." her hand slips from yours and she heads for the door. You glance at what she gave you. a small rabbit made of creamy-coloured wood. It was a little jagged in places but no less cute. "come," Rio calls. She stands in the doorway waiting. "I will make us some tea."

Agatha does not return in the morning nor the one after. Rio has been on the receiving end of your bad attitude. Everything was just off. Tea a little too hot. Soup a little too thick. You know it's not her fault; your anger is misguided but irritation was more abundant when your body ached. A constant reminder of how much you just wanted Agatha to return. You missed her dearly. She knew how you liked things. She was much more tender than Rio and that's what you needed when sick. Tenderness. a gentle touch. Rio was trying but it was just grating. It is almost a week before you see her again. She brings all kinds of things with her but mainly herbs. And most importantly her magic. Her purple. She explains that the reason behind her trip was to recharge. Whatever that means. You didn't quite understand how it worked. However, the older witch's return may bring more attempts at comfort. More tea with supposed healing properties. But it does not bring better days. Your sickness seems never-ending. Seeping into your bones. Aches in every muscle. a raging fever. Short little sips of water every minute or so are the only thing that doesn't make you nauseous. Agatha still makes you tea but it's rare you ever drink it. Most days are now spent in bed drifting. Agatha does not dare leave again. Instead sending Rio off on silly errands.

The sun hangs low in the sky. The light in the cabin beginning to dim. You sit upright in bed, cradled in Agatha's too-tight embrace. Her grip on you was bruising. Almost painful. They were arguing. Again. that is all they seem to do these days. The constant back and forth makes your head hurt. You have tried to get them to stop and sometimes they will at least while you are awake. Today is different though. The air feels heavier. Suffocating. Take deep weighted breaths that rattle your chest: your lungs burning. Agatha feels different too. Angrier. More aggressive. Desperate. Rio walks closer, handing over a cup to Agatha.

"This is too hot, she will not drink," Agatha shoves it back. Rio sighs heavily. She could do nothing right these days according to Agatha. Everything was wrong. Her tone is ever so harsh.

"it will cool in time,"

"you could just do it right in the first place," Agatha mutters quietly. "leave it to one side. I will retrieve it later."

"fine," there is silence fora wink before you hear the door. "I am going to tend to the gardens. I will return later." you feel a breeze against your cheek. Cold and brisk. "the mint should be ready."

"no," Agatha urges. "I'm sorry, don't."

"I won't be long. The mint will do her some good."

"you must stay," Agatha insists. "I... I cannot do this alone."

"Whatever do you mean?" if it's a genuine question, it's undercut by an overly sarcastic tone. It was understandable. A breeze cut off by the closing door. "you did not want my help before. I can do nothing correct."

"please rio... just stay," Agatha squeezes you gently and you look up to her. "I... I worry for her."

"I know but-"

"no," snapped. Her grip somehow tenser. You cough a little. "you don't- you do not understand. I fear she needs more than I can give her but you..."

"Agatha," there's a tenderness to Rio's voice despite Agatha's tone. "you know I cannot."

"you have the means to help her,"

"it is forbidden,"

"And since when were rules your priority?" Agatha shoots back. "you share this home with me- this relationship with us. Does that not go against everything?"

"it is not the same thing," Rio responds calmly. "and you know that,"

"It matters not," Agatha sighs. "Rio, please. She gets worse each day and you're the only one who can do anything."

"my love-"

"Don't!" she cautions sharply. "I do not want to hear excuses."

You nuzzle against the older witch's chest,a weak groan. Willing her to quell the arguing. "Agatha," mumbled softly from your lips but she did not pay you much attention even as you tugged on the fabric of her blouse.

"Rio, please," anguish in her voice. You feel the bed dip.

"Agatha. You cannot expect more than I am capable of," Rio's voice was closer now. Agatha's body shifts moving you with her in the process. It's sudden. Makes your head spin.

"do you not value her?" Agatha questions. "lover her?"

"you know I do,"

"then do something- anything," Agatha pleads. "what use is your power if to not help the few who care for you?"

A hand comes to your forehead. It's cold so it must belong to Rio. "she is weak."

"I know," Agatha nods a little. "I- I cannot lose her Rio."

"but the end is not guaranteed." her hand shifts lower, thumb skimming against your cheek. "there is still a chance.”

You begin to drift again. Listening to Agatha's heart beating in her chest. A soothing sound. "leave," Agatha huffs.

"my dear-"

"Now," Agatha snaps. "go... tend to the garden since you care so little." Rio doesn't argue. And doesn't defend herself. You feel her rise from the bed and then the breeze once more. A loud band and suddenly you are alone with Agatha. Her body relaxed as if she had been guarding you from Rio.

"I am sorry," you express gradually. Your voice but a whisper into the early night. "it is my fault you are fighting."

"do not say such foolish things," Agatha hums. "Rio is persistent. She cares more for her duty than anything."

"her duty?"

"I am sorry I cannot heal you," Agatha replies. "I have tried everything but-."

"you do not need to apologise for anything," you interrupt. Tears beginning to form. This was all your fault. You cannot get better. You cannot stop them fighting. And now Agatha blames herself. You never wished to bring hurt to either of them. "maybe if I rest some more, I will get better."

"I am..." she lets out a shaky breath. "sure you will."

"Agatha?"

"yes, bunny,"

"Do not hate Rio," you express warmly, shutting your eyes as you nestle against the older witch. She is trying her best. And sometimes that is not enough, but at least she is trying."

// NEXT

[ncillary]

Self Aware AU (Sylus)

Summary: You have the lowest Affinity with Sylus. The reason is because he is a red flag. As red as his eyes. Spawn of the devil. Unless, he is actually not as evil as you label him to be. Does this change something in you? Yes? No? Maybe so?

Note: Japanese dub, English sub

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Masterlist Self Aware AU

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|  1  |  2 [current] |  3  |  4  |  5  |

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The recent update probably had been messing with the game. Yours especially.

(What's the point of sneaking around to only touch it? Come here. Take my hand.)

(Fine. I'll be the one to hold your hand out in the open. Better?)

You shook your head.

Every time you tap his hand, either, that prompt hasn't failed a single time to appear.

If you tap somewhere else, he'll just not move. Or talk. No dialogue without voice either.

You pinched the bridge of your nose.

"Ever since you showed up, you've given me headaches. Maybe I shouldn't have gone through with the Main Story after all."

He gave a coy smirk without you noticing.

"Whatever. Nothing else changes so I guess it's not that bad. Gotta get ready to work."

+-------------------------+--------------------------+

*Pop*

Your stretched successfully relocated stiff bones and muscle from their rigidness after sitting the whole morning until after lunch break. Data entry was easy, unless, the data played hide and seek with you. Customer service was not your forte but you wing it somehow.

"Heuh... Glad I pushed through over lunch. I'm free all day starting now."

Working remotely has its perks. You can save more expenses by cooking. No transportation fee and so on. The only downside you could think of was, your social life. How awkward you've become with real interaction except for people you know. But that doesn't mean you're timid about it. Life goes on.

"Right. How about I use Quality Time when I cook? The Weekly Plan isn't complete yet."

Blinking, your eyes met red gems.

"Fancy meeting you. I think you've conquered my cafe far more frequently now."

"The lights here are just too bright."

You looked at him, unimpressed.

"Nocturnal creatures sleep during the day. Not sauntered into a cafe looking ready to have a nice walk under the sun."

He somehow gave a cheeky smile at you. Then asking you if you could let him continue checking in on the auction.

"Be my guess." You tapped 'Yes'.

The screen flashes. He sat down while scrolling on his phone to watch supposedly an auction. Not that you could see it.

You propped your phone, letting him accompany you while you're in the kitchen nonetheless.

Somehow you feel bad about forcing him to have a Quality Time with you after he said that. But you kinda want a company too.

You prepared your charger port in the case your phone alerted you on low battery. Eyes briefly glanced to your phone.

His eyes stared at you then they turned back to the phone less in milliseconds.

You shook your head, "Must've have imagine it."

+---------------------------+-----------------------+

"Have you seen the one with the rocking chair?"

"My eyes are clean, thank you. Spare me from that."

"Pleaaaaaaseeee... Just stay in the room with me. Hold me down if I look like I'm about to throw my phone away. I don't trust myself."

You sighed, "Someone save me."

+--------------------------+------------------------+

"Aaaak! Why did you do that?"

Your friend smirked as the Wish Pool animation began it ten pulls.

"You've been staring at it for a long long long-"

"Quit it!"

"And it's your finger who did it. Not mine."

You pinched both of her cheeks, "YOUR FINGER force MY FINGER-"

*Tring*

The golden light shone on your phone.

You both turned to it.

"Can't be him. Can't be him. Can't be him."

You chanted as you hold your phone close to you.

"If he did appear in JUST TEN PULLS then you have my blessing with Crow Crow." Your friend caress her aching cheeks while smiling cheekily.

"I'm not going to accompany you watching Snowy later."

"oOh come on...."

Her complained was drowned out as your focus changed to your current predicament.

One. Two. Three taps. You exhaled.

Four. Five. Six taps. You exhaled.

Seven eight nine ten!

Red. Black feathers. Your breathed stalled.

White hair. Half naked. Head down. Red gems looking at you mischieviously.

Silent. Rustling.

"Oh, wow. It really is Crow Crow."

You pulled her cheeks again.

+---------------------------+------------------------+

"Why didn't she watch the new memory?"

Long finger tapped the table. He smiled.

"Playing a little game of cat and mouse, I see."

+--------------------------+------------------------+

You groaned, "Did you see this guy? Am I a sack of potatoes this time?"

"Yours? Did you see mine? WHY ARE WE ROCKING AGAIN?" She blushed.

You patted her back in sympathy.

+------------------------------+---------------------+

"Ready? One two..." *Tapp*

"How many times?"

"The 8th time. I hope he comes this time even with the rocking-theme still there."

You patted your friend's back.

"You?"

"Third and probably my last-"

*Tring*

Both heads looked at their respective phones. Both had the golden sparks.

Two pairs of eyes looking at each other. Disbelief. Nervous.

They looked back at their phone and started looking through.

A gasp. Snowflakes. Your friend's mushy face as she buried her phone in her chest.

"Careful." You took it away from her before she destroyed it with her love-death hug.

"AH! LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!" She pointed at your phone.

Feathers scattered. Your breath hitched. There he was, carrying MC, with that smug face of his.

You raked your hair, "Wow. I was just... testing it out."

Your friend nudged you, "Crow Crow flies straight to your heart, huh?"

Cheeks being pulled.

+-----------------------------+-----------------------+

You let it play out this time.

You were too shy to watch the previous one in-game so you just let it marinate there. Besides, you've already watched it from fan's sharing.

Currently, you were getting a simple dinner ready as you glanced at your phone once in a while. Bluetooth headphones were on.

You've watched it with your friend on another platform. Both of you watched all of the character's new banner. You can't help it but wanting to know how this one played out.

Every scene looks fine.

You particularly like that one scene. Hearing it alone was enough. You rather not have a repeat of redden ears when you watch it previously. Almost being caught by your friend.

"Shavanika." You stopped on your track.

Ears warm. You chance a glance as he said it for the last time.

His face was close to the screen. You knew that. What you just realised was that it stopped there for a long time.

Confused, you approached your phone, noticing the Auto icon was off. You tapped it back.

"How did that happen?"

"You're finally in front of me, kitten."

You stared as you heard an unfamiliar dialogue coming from him. He patted MC's head and walked backwards.

The animation continues playing. Your eyes never leaving it. Your body and attention was locked until it was over.

Hand move up like a robot. You played that part again. The dialogue was back to normal. Finger steadily tapping the back button until you saw him looking at you in the cafe.

His slender finger tapping his temple. Face at an angle as he smiled at you cheekily.

You tapped his head.

"Next time you do a sneak attack, give me a heads up. I'll remember to lean down and cooporate."

You finally let out you breathe.

"I've heard that one before."

"Oh, but have you heard of THIS one, sweetie?"

You moved backwards in alarm. Your focus never wavers from the red gems looking at you beyond the screen.

A hum.

You stilled instinctly.

"Good fight mode but it was just me, kitten."

He's watching you as much as you're watching him

"Not to be alarmed but I hope you don't mind me barging in. Unintentionally."

*CRASH*

Your breath ragged. Your mind reeling. Your phone...

Decorated the floor after hugging the wall nearby.

It happened too fast. You didn't even know how you moved instantly to grab the phone and throw it away.

"What in the actual fantasy I've been smoking?"

You crumbled to the floor, trying to calm yourself down.

+-------------------------+-------------------------+

Chuckling.

"She'll make a good pitcher with that throw."

He dialled a number.

"Send her a new phone. The game included."

The sunlight shone through the blinds. He squinted a little before feeling the slight breeze.

"Let the game begin."

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| 1 | 2 [current] | 3 | 4 | 5 |

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Masterlist Self Aware AU

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[writersdrug]

Nectar and Bane - Pt. 1

Pairings: Hunter!König x Witch!Reader

Pt. 2

Summary: König is hired to hunt down a pesky witch by a warlock, who paints you as the most evil thing in the past three centuries. With the promise of finding true love (or, the closest thing the warlock can offer: a brainwashed woman who is forced to dote on the hunter), König sets out on his journey. However, you aren't what he was expecting at all, and he develops a newfound obsession with making you become his.

Warnings: dubcon, mentions of rape, manipulation, kidnapping, sex pollen (kinda? If you squint? not really, but better safe than sorry), corruption kink, mentions of blood and violence, mentions of consuming human organs, unrequited pining, angst at the end, death (not for main characters), cowgirl, missionary, mating press, biting, hair pulling, nipple play, power imbalance, handjob, obsessive thoughts and behaviour (please let me know if I missed any!)

Notes: thought I'd try my hand a fantasy au version of cod, or at least of König. This is really long (over 15000 words) so I split it into two parts. The next part is pretty much done, I'm just exhausted and wanted to at least crank out half. Let me know if you would like to be tagged in pt 2!

ps if anyone has any suggestions or tips on how to make collages or banners for fics, pleeeaseeee lmk

translations at the end

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Watch your every step. From the moment you step foot into those woods, you can’t trust anything you see.

That’s what the sorcerer had drilled into his head before he had begun his journey. He called you dangerous, cunning… “A sneaky, meddling bitch…” he had grumbled over the table in that crowded tavern.

Two small pouches, one of silver, one of gold, sat in between the two patrons on the table. Stains of ale and coffee rings littered the unvarnished wood. The wax of the thick candle had trickled down and formed small, hardened pools at the base – its flame flickered weakly, casting unflattering shadows against the man’s weathered features, and making the portentous hood covering König’s face only that much more ominous.

He'd listened warily as the sorcerer described the witch – you. Tens of centuries old, too much knowledge and too little wisdom to use it sensibly. You take whatever you want by whatever means possible, and your favored method was using your physical assets and the promise of sexual devotion to coerce those within your web to do your bidding. “Sometimes it’s for her personal gain – sometimes, she does it for fun.” The warlock added bitterly. “Akin to a serpent, she winds you into her embrace, and then crushes your bones before she swallows you whole, saving your heart for last.” You’d done it to him, ensnaring him into your alluring trap, before stealing his spellbooks, his potions, his most prized collections… and vanishing into thin air.

An enchantress, König had concluded.

The warlock’s request? “Kill her. And be quick with it. The sooner this earth is rid of that swine, the sooner we can all rest. And, better yet – bring me her eyes! Potent things, witches’ eyes can be – of course, that is if they’re still working. If the bitch has gone blind, don’t waste dulling your dagger. A handful of her hair would do just fine.”

König had killed much worse for much less, and this sounded like it would be on the simpler side of things. A few days’ worth of hunting and a quick, efficient kill – hopefully, one of his easier jobs, although with the way the sorcerer described you, that might not be. He’d dealt with magicians before; up until now, they had been rather boring to hunt – tedious, but nonetheless, boring. Most of the time, they tried to end him with some elaborate incantation in the few seconds remaining of their life after he’d ambushed them. His silver blade would be slicing across their throats before they could utter five syllables. They were always so intent on murdering their victims slowly and in a flashy manner. With König’s preference for a more immediate result, he was usually the one collecting the fingernails, teeth, and tongues.

(Over time, he’d had noticed that it was always sorcerers ordering the assassination of other sorcerers. He wondered why they had so much of an issue amongst themselves, but he didn’t question it. Whatever kept him fed and paid for his room, he would do it.)

The picture the warlock was painting of you, however, made you seem much craftier and more calculated. You couldn’t resist the glamorous ways of murder via magic – it was written in your nature as a witch. But you played the game with your charisma and wit, too; something magic users didn’t typically rely on (half of the time, because they weren’t charismatic, nor witty). You waited until your assailant would fall to your wicked charm, before dissecting him like nothing more than a toad for your cauldron. If not an easy kill, you at least sounded like you would be an exciting one – but König knew he could get something more from this client for killing you.

“What more can you offer me?” he asked.

The warlock chuckled. “The gold is insufficient, is it?” he leaned forward and hunched his shoulders, speaking in a hushed tone. “Tell me, what do you desire? Recognition and respect? Revenge against someone who’s crossed you? To bring back a loved one from the dead? Or, perhaps, to find a love of your own?”

König’s shoulders tensed, and the rest of the warlock’s utterances fell on deaf ears. Could he possibly give him a chance to find himself someone to love? Someone that he and only he can worship? It was true that he would be happier to live alone, in whatever way that would allow him to be independent of society… but the thought of being able to live alone with someone, someone who was devoted to him, someone who could decorate his hut with signs of life and warmth, someone with a kind smile and a sweet voice, someone who he could spend hours upon hours with, memorizing each curve of their body, the taste of their nectar on his tongue…

He called it love. Others would call him insane. He’d heard it all before – how no one would ever love him, given his profession, his awkwardness in carrying a conversation about anything normal other than how sharp his knives are, and how he uses them… that, and the fact that he never shows his face (“He must be hideous under there…” they would speculate). Nonetheless, he still craved the devotion of an obedient, warm body waiting for him in his cabin at the end of the day – once he did get a cabin. Why should he be denied what everyone else wants?

He knew he was a hypocrite; he couldn’t expect someone else to be so willing to leave everything and run away with him. Not with his insane ideations and obsessions – hell, not with who he was as a person. But if he killed enough healthy rabbits to keep her fed, and if he fucked her hard enough that her eyes rolled back into her head and she couldn’t muster enough strength to escape the mattress… would she ever care about what kind of man he was?

The warlock smiled slowly. “Of course… that’s what all of you sick bastards want.” He said, leaning back and folding his arms. “If it will seal our contract, I will give you whichever woman you choose. I’ll make her yours, and only yours, with unconditional love – even for your damned soul.”

A fair deal, König had thought. Which is exactly what had him currently trudging through the dense woods, searching for any traces of a witch – a sack with two loaves of bread and some apples hung over his shoulder, along with his well-worn tashka stuffed with the coin he had earned over time. His sword was strapped to his hip in its sheath, his dagger (a short sword, when it was compared to the average person) stuffed into the lead-lined, deerskin sheath on the side of his boot; and a pelt, heavy and thick, hung around his shoulders. All he had to his name.

König had done a day of research on you – testimonies and sightings of you ghosting the perimeter of the woods at an early age, hoping to lure some poor soul away as your very first victim. “I imagine she was a succubus in her previous life,” the warlock had spoken, “maybe too much of a whore for even the devil to handle.”

He had caught you one night by luring you to his cabin with the scent of a savory meal. Guessing by your inexperience, and the way you avoided using words as you snarled and thrashed in the warlock’s grip, he assumed you had not yet reached one hundred years old. You were still young and fresh-faced, appearing no more than twenty to human eyes. “After a few decent meals, and reintroducing her to the work of her past life – she’d settled in as the perfect student. It almost felt like having a pet.” He added with a smug smile.

König questioned how happy you were with being reintroduced to the work of your past, but he didn’t comment on it.

After living with the warlock as his student and whore for a few centuries, you turned into a strong, young witch. You didn’t care to go into town, preferring to stay at the cabin and watch over the brews whenever he had to make deliveries or run to the shops. The warlock had no complaints about your desire to stay holed up in his home – fewer people to ogle at you, fewer glimpses into a more civilized life that might tempt you to run away. He’d much rather you be a brooding, antisocial bitch, than watch one of his clients stare at you with a yellowed, lustful grin, like you were some harlot in the window of a brothel.

On one particular day, without any indication of what you were planning, he had returned home from his rounds to an empty cabin – not just empty of you, but of his potion stock, his rarest ingredients, and his most prized spellbooks. He’d run into the woods in fury, screeching your name and hurling threats into the trees around him – but you were gone. Not a trace of you could be found within a five mile radius of his home.

It was like you had never been there, save the absence of his personal belongings.

In König’s opinion, you didn’t strike him as an extremely dangerous individual. Sure, the warlock had harped on and on about how cunning and deceiving you were – but all you had done was lie to him. And from the way he had described the conditions you were under, König didn’t exactly blame you for running away. Maybe this job was a waste of his time…

Still, he couldn’t find it in him to complain, despite the nip of the mid-autumn air, and the fact that he was embarking on what might be one of the most treacherous endeavors of his career. He was getting a decent payout for it – that is, if he lived to finish the job. Additionally, the scenery was a comfort to his journey; wiry birch trees stood high and thickly clustered, their brown and black spots like ever-watchful eyes, staring at the gargantuan hunter as he moved. Their golden leaves mimicked the light of the sun, the real thing blocked out by the overcast skies. A whisper of wind flew by his ears, carrying down and blowing the leaves further along his path with a gentle sigh. As if nature herself was telling the world to be quiet, be still, and prepare for winter.

It was times like this where König became unsure of himself. What if he hated having someone else to care for? What if, deep down, he preferred the silence and the solitude? But then, the loneliness would strike him. The longing to be understood (if that was humanely possible), and the desire to have something warm, alive, and sentient to acknowledge him. It consumed him on those sleepless nights, perfectly warm by the hearth of whatever inn he resided at, yet so hollow without having someone to wrap his arms around.

A swaying movement in the branches above pulled him from his thoughts. Hanging down by a twine thread, tied to one of the spindling birch branches, was a tiny, burlap pouch. It reached a few feet above König’s head, and was drenched in a dark, thick liquid that dripped rhythmically onto the forest floor. Looking to where the drops landed, he noticed the matter on the ground was decaying – a steaming pile of rot was all that was left of the leaves that were once there.

He frowned. The trap was clever – for a witch in their first century. König had expected something a bit more dangerous for someone your age. Maybe the last hunter had been too gullible, and you stereotyped them to all be oafs. Or, maybe you were too old and couldn’t craft traps with the same skill and precision as your younger self.

He drew his dagger from his boot and quickly sliced the twine thread. The pouch dropped to the floor with a squelch, landing in the very puddle of death it had created. The liquid beneath it bubbled and hissed, and the bag soon dissolved to reveal its contents: bits of bone – a kind of reptilian foot, from the looks of it – dried pomegranate seeds, and a fuzzy layer of mold, all appearing to be drenched in some kind of blood.

He carefully stepped around the stinking mess, his eyes turning back onto the path to continue his hunt. He both hoped for and against finding more evidence of your existence. He wanted to get back to town as soon as he could, so he could hole himself up in an inn until his money began to run out – all the same, his mind craved a puzzle and a chase. Though, with how old you were, he doubted there would be much of a chase.

More leaking, swaying hex bags hung from branches as he trudged on, pointing him in the right direction. He didn’t bother to quiet the sound of the leaves beneath his footsteps – the rustling of the wind through the foliage was doing the job well enough. He held onto his dagger tightly, his other hand on his longsword, as he carefully toed through the dense forest. He had to be close – the smell of fennel and turmeric settled around his presence, along with the babbling of a nearby stream.

The sound of a distant tune danced through the trees. The voice was soft, yet clear, and whoever it belonged too was much too confident that they were alone in these woods. König wondered if it was actually you, and not some poor soul who had been foraging for the autumn mushrooms and berries – but he was nearly a day’s trek into the forest. No one would dare come out this far, unless they wanted to be alone. And, they were potentially hiding from something; their own past, perhaps.

He cautiously followed the sound of the tune, still disguising the sound of his own steps within the rustling leaves and wind. His heart thrummed with both uncertainty and excitement; he always did get too thrilled at the idea of a struggle and blood covering his hands. He took a deep breath in through his nostrils, focusing his attention on the voice that carried through the trees, pulling him closer and closer… He gripped his dagger tightly as he crept, reminding himself of the warlock’s warning: cunning, sneaky – be on your best wits.

The voice brought him to the edge of a clearing. The birch trees parted and encircled a few meters of earth, and a few bushes huddled along the far edge, dotted with purplish berries and thorned branches. A wicker basket, woven clumsily and rather lopsided, sat on the ground and caught each berry and branch that was tossed into it. A figure knelt in front of the bushes, carefully plucking the berries with thin, delicate fingers, stained purple from the juice of the berries, and nails that might need a trim soon, unless they were intended to be claws.

The cloaked figure confused König. The voice was too melodic, too clear and fresh for an old witch. He had assumed you weren’t much younger than the warlock, but still old. He remained a few yards away from you, shrouded by the trees and dense foliage outside of the clearing.

It was when you turned your head, dropping your handful of berries into the basket, revealing your face, that he realized how wrong he had been in his assumption.

Your skin was soft, he could tell even with the distance between the two of you. Your lips delicately moved as you sang your tune, your eyes sparkled in contrast to the dull autumn colors that surrounded you. Small wisps of your hair danced around your cheeks as the wind caressed it. Your entire body looked soft, warm, and pliable… exactly what he needed. Craved.

It wasn’t hard for him to imagine it: leaves tangling into your hair as he pressed his fingers around your neck, pushing you to the cold ground and watching as you gasped for air. He’d use his knife, but not to kill you. He’d drag it over your hardened nipples, watching them perk up even more at the prickling sensation, before he’d carve his name into your stomach. Smear your pretty blood all over your pretty face, watch as your eyes widen with horror, as you question how someone can be so deranged and cruel, how he can take so much pleasure in something so vile and horrible-

Or maybe, he could convince you that he just wants a fuck. You looked like you could use one – when was the last time you’d had someone’s lips on your breasts, or their cock in your cunt? It had certainly been too long for him… he couldn’t imagine how long you had gone without being thoroughly ravaged, living in these woods all alone. He could take care of that. He could be gentle, for a little while; holding your wrists above your head as he pushed you against a tree, whispering praise and encouragements into your ear, “… so gut, so Schön, genau so…” taking you from behind as your nipples perked up from the rough texture of the bark, listening to you whine and moan in that sweet voice of yours as he lets out months’ worth of pent up frustration by thrusting his cock into your warm pussy, over and over and over until you scream and tighten around his length, milking the cum right out of him as he fucks you deep, maybe sinking his teeth into the junction of your neck-

He growled quietly, palming his rapidly-growing erection as he tried to clear his head. Stay focused. Kill the witch, and then you’ll get what you want.

Remember the warlock’s promise.

Even if he didn’t need you to satisfy his needs, he could still make this interesting. Not like you could outrun him, anyway.

He stepped into the clearing, and as if by some ironic joke, the wind died down immediately. The crunch of his heavy boots was enough to make his presence known to any living thing within a mile radius.

Your singing stopped. You whipped your head in his direction, and immediately a look of fear fell upon your face. For a moment, the two of you were frozen in a staring contest. You reminded him of a doe, staring at the crossbow of the hunter you had noticed, wondering if this being was actually dangerous, or nothing you needed to worry about. He wondered what he must remind you of, and he wished to hear the panicking thoughts flitting through your mind.

Finally, you broke the trance – you gasped, stumbling backwards and awkwardly standing as you ripped a pathetic, little knife from your boot. You faced him and pointed the knife at him – you held it improperly, and if he truly wanted to make this messy, he could easily make you stab yourself in a struggle. He wondered what it would feel like when your nails dug into his rough skin, dragging marks down his forearms (or his back, if he played his cards right).

You pulled the thick cloak tighter around your body – you were tiny. Well, everything was tiny compared to König. But you were unexpectedly small. With the way the sorcerer had described you, he had expected you to reach his shoulders at least. But there you were, craning your neck to look up at him with fearful, owlish eyes.

“State your business!” You demanded, your voice cracking slightly.

König chuckled in response. You really were too pathetic for your own good, weren’t you? He took you in – your lips were pulled into a frown, parted slightly to reveal your perfect teeth, the way the fabric of your cloak quivered where it bunched in your fist… perfectly ordinary things that ordinary people do. But, besides the fact that you were a witch, something about you made it all so captivating.

“Hey!” you shouted, bringing his eyes back to your gaze. Your fear had given way to a judgmental ire. “Gods, have you ever seen a woman before?!”

König scoffed. “Woman? Yes, of course. I’ve seen witches, too. None as young as you, however.”

Your eyes widened in panic once again. You stretched your knife out towards him as he stalked over to where you stood. “S-stay back! I’ll kill you!”

Your meek threat didn’t slow him down. He continued his advance until he had corralled you against a tree, your one hand bracing against the trunk behind you, and the other holding the knife under his ribcage. The only thing between his flesh and your blade was his linen tunic, which wouldn’t do much to protect him should you decide to stab him – but were you capable of that? Your eyes were so filled with fear as they stared at him, your chin to the sky to take all of him in. Your fingers trembled around the handle of your knife as if the prospect of having to nick him made you uneasy.

“Not with magic?” he asked, his eyes flitting to the bush next to you. He plucked one of the berries between his thick, gloved fingers, rolling the onyx sphere between his thumb and middle finger before squashing it.

You pouted (a sight König could never grow tired of). “I’m not a wi-“

He snatched your forearm, and you yelped, dropping the knife to the forest floor. His fingers easily wrapped around you; he wondered how easy it would be to break it.

“Don’t lie, now.” He ordered, his eyes narrowing with a hint of annoyance. “You’re not good at it.”

He released your arms with a shove. You scrambled back with a fearful expression, swiping the blade from the ground. He watched with interest as you stood several yards away from him, pointing your weapon towards him once again.

“Fine.” You said, holding yourself a bit taller. “You’re right. What’s the crime in that?”

For a moment, König was lost. Why weren’t you trying to weaponize your magic? It was almost as if you had forgotten you weren’t a human. For someone who was supposed to be a cunning bitch, as the warlock had put it, you weren’t very smart.

“I’m not here for justice.” He replied, wiping his glove on his shirt. “Just doing my job.”

“Hunter?” you asked.

He extended his arms – gods, he could have crushed a pillar between those arms – as if presenting himself to you. “Was it not obvious?” he asked, and you could hear the smirk in his tone.

You huffed. “Well, you’re not a very good one. Most hunters don’t make conversation with their prey.”

Prey. He liked that you understood your position, that he was the one in charge here. Maybe you were a clever girl…

“I like to listen to the begging.”

“Begging?”

“For your life.” König folded his arms over his chest, inspecting you closely. The only thing you had to protect yourself was your cloak, and that hardly provided a shield against the wind. Even though you were obviously wary of him, it wasn’t wary enough. You had spoken too many words with the hunter, and had it been anyone else, you might have been dead long before now.

You seemed malleable – book-smart and spitfire, yet all too gullible. Easily manipulated. Just what he needed to brainwash you into loving him. Or, at least, being his pet. You’d never truly love him, he had come to learn that from experience. But maybe, if he could somehow convince you that you needed a big, scary man, who could protect you and fuck you nicely, it would be enough to make you stay. After all, you were too naïve to be alone out here, weren’t you?

Could the warlock perhaps make you his prize? It’d kill two birds with one stone, he could convince you to return whatever knickknacks you had stolen, and your presence would never bother anyone ever again – besides him, but of course, it would never be a bother to bed you every night.

Your expression turned sour. “I don’t beg.”

The tone of your voice sent a shiver down his cock. He’d have to pound that little attitude right out of you.

“Who hired you?” You asked indignantly. The knife in your hand had slowly lowered, now pointing at his feet. Your initial fear seemed to have worn off. Were you brave, or just that stupid?

“It doesn’t matter.” König replied.

“It does to me.”

“You don’t know? How many people have you wronged?”

You scoffed. “I haven’t wronged anyone. People just don’t like it when you call them out on their atrocities.”

König hummed. You had a point. “Your teacher – the warlock.”

For a moment, you scrunched your face in disgust. Teacher. Only a fool as mad as the warlock himself could consider he was any such figure in your life, other than a torturous one. Then, you sighed, shoulders slumping defeatedly, the knife now aimed straight at the forest floor. “That old toad can’t even kill me himself…” you muttered. “What payment did he offer you?”

“He promised me anything I desired of your possessions.” König replied, taking note of the change in your presence. He purposely left out the warlock’s promise to find him a “companion.”

“And what would you do with cursed fig seeds, or stag’s blood?” You asked, folding your arms over your chest (which, König noted, framed your breasts perfectly). “I have no gold – not enough to be a reward for the trouble of killing me.”

“He gave me three hundred gold coin, too.”

Your lips turned down into a scowl. “That’s all?! That absolute hypocrite!” You lodged your knife into the tree behind you and placed your hands on your hips. “I took everything from him, save that disgusting old shed he called home, and that’s all he’ll pay to kill me?!”

Your outburst pulled König from his obsessive staring. “You’re… insulted?”

You turned back to him and huffed. “Well, obviously.” You retorted. “I stole all he had to his name, and he treats me like a fly buzzing in his ear. I deserve a bit more recognition than three hundred gold coin.”

“You admit to it, then.” König said, stepping closer. You appeared to be too angry to notice how near the hunter was to you. “You are a thief.”

You laughed – a sound that König did not expect to be so sweet. “I’ve done much worse than thieving, mind you.” You shook your head. “And he’s done even worse to me.” You sighed, pulling the dagger from the tree trunk and sheathing it back into your boot.

Once again, he was reminded of how small you were. Why weren’t you afraid of him? Sure, you had the advantage of magic while he did not, but you weren’t even acting defensively anymore. You treated him like a traveler who had stumbled across your path, starting up conversation and sharing your story.

“What has he done?” he asked, his interest in you growing by the second. An outcast, despised, hated by others. He felt that the two of you were kindred spirits, and he would not risk losing a connection so rare – one he had never felt.

“You mean he didn’t even tell you?” you said, sounding more hurt than anything else.

“He did.” König sheathed his own dagger as a peace offering. “But I’m coming to think he was not entirely truthful.”

You sighed, looking down at your basket, then back at König. “I suppose I could tell you, since he brought you all this way to kill me. Walk with me – but keep your dagger away. And if you try anything, I’ll slit your throat. Understood?”

He suppressed the urge to laugh. Could you even reach his throat? “The warlock said you would lure me away to your hut, and carve out my heart.”

You huffed disappointedly, walking back to the bush near König. Completely calm, like he had only ever come up to you with the intention of finding a friend. “And yet, he’s still alive, after all the chances I had to kill him. We can stay outside of my hut, if it eases your mind. I’ll let you make your own tea, too. But if you aren’t set on killing me right this minute, I really should return to start drying these out.” You held up your basket. “Before too much time passes, and I can no longer use them.”

König had never given his prey more than a few moments to try and beg their way out of his crushing hands. He couldn’t believe he had even given so much lenience to your baseless trust in him – what he should have done was take the opportunity to grab your face and snap your neck. But he was starting to doubt the warlock’s testimony; you were a thief, yes, but had you really committed any crime? Or were you simply just taking the revenge you deserved from your captor – or, as the warlock called himself, your master?

König sighed. He gestured his hand out, signaling for you to lead the way.

You frowned. “First, give me your word.” You demanded.

“I will not harm you.” He said, with a hand over his heart. He didn’t care about forcing you to make the same promise – you were harmless enough. He did, however, make sure to avoid saying that he wouldn’t touch you. Although he was developing a few ounces more of respect for you, who knows? Maybe you would find a reason to drag him into your hut and satisfy both of your needs – and, if he was lucky enough to get that far, maybe you’d offer for him to spend the night in a warm bed, and he could be saved from sleeping on the cold earth for one night.

His word seemed promising enough to you. Threading your arm through the handle of the basket, you began marching through the woods, watching the ground carefully as you stepped over roots and twigs.

König followed by your side, watching you from the corner of his eye. You really were helpless – all it would take is a strong push from him, and you’d be tumbling down, maybe hitting your head on a stone, or rolling down the mountainside until your neck snapped. Even if the fall didn’t kill you, he could easily land one hit to your chest and pierce your lungs with your own ribs. But here you were, worrying more about the uneven forest floor than the lumbering creature by your side.

“What did he tell you?” you asked, pulling him from his fantasies. “About the beginning, when he took me.”

König laughed in pity. “He made it sound like he caught you, not that he took you.”

You sighed. “He didn’t catch me… well, I suppose he did. More like how animals are caught.” You adjusted your grip on the basket, still watching the ground beneath you. “I was the botanist’s assistant before he came along. Stared at me like I was naked. He would come more often than he needed to -  asked me where I was from, who my father was – things I didn’t understand why he needed to know. I still don’t.”

König didn’t understand himself. He continued to listen, the sounds of his footsteps drowning out your quiet ones. He began to wonder just how much of the warlock’s testimony was true.

“He came to the shop one night.” You continued to recount the story. “I was lighting the lanterns in the greenhouse. It was storming, and I didn’t hear him. He bludgeoned me and dragged me into the streets like I was some sort of animal.” You paused, turning your own words over in your head. “I suppose I was, to him.

He brought me back to his cabin – that’s when he started the curse. All I remember when waking up is feeling sick. I tried to stand, but it- everything felt heavy, like I was stuck in mud. I managed to crawl outside, and he was there. Saying my father wouldn’t recognize me, that he had killed the old lady at the botanist, that everyone would think that I had killed her… that I would be burned if I returned to the village. That I would forever be an outcast as long as I lived – as a witch. As what he made me.”

You paused again, for longer this time. König looked down at you, observing how your face twisted in… disgust? Anger? Your eyes were somewhere else, possibly somewhere where you could light the world on fire, drain the life from everyone who had ever done you wrong. König had felt that same hatred before, and he had learned to let it pass. You were still stuck there, wishing you could drive a blade into the warlock’s neck – and more.

“You stayed, then?” König asked, returning his gaze to the trees before him. “Why?”

You scoffed. “It’s not like I could go anywhere, not during the change. For the first fortnight, I couldn’t do anything but crawl on the ground and wail. And he let me – I’d get to the edge of the woods, and he’d be there to drag me back. Drug me into the hut at night and held me, fucked me, saying he was protecting me and similar bullshit. Of course, he was right; at that moment, I was as good as dead if I had ventured out on my own. And once I’d gotten my strength back, I was still a new witch. I’d never be accepted into the village – witches never are, despite the warlocks being the vile ones – and I had no idea how to live as one. So I relied on him for a while, until I knew enough to make it out on my own.”

König hummed in thought. Despite the initial desire to snatch you himself and have his way with you, his fists clenched at the thought of you being dragged around by the warlock. This life wasn’t one you had chosen, and yet the very person who had forced it upon you was killing you for it. It made something within him boil, something deep and buried, that he had thought had been tucked away for good.

You didn’t deserve any of this. He was fighting with himself in that moment, but the desire to show you what you should have been given was consuming him. He wanted to tell you that he knew what it was to be an outcast, he knew what it was like to feel lonely and crave being alone at the same time. To wish that you had the power to hurt anyone you deemed deserving of it, yet to have that someone who would never hurt you.

He would do it. He would be that person for you, he would be the one to kill for you. He knew he was getting ahead of himself – after all, he was hired to kill, you, not fall for you. And he knew it was just another one of his delusional fantasies… but he couldn’t help himself. You were like him, which was something that he had not yet been able to find. Something primal in him told him to sink his teeth in, to hold onto you until you stopped your struggling and realized that this would be good, for the both of you.

He was insane. But did it matter what he was, as long as he could give you what you needed?

“So, yes-“ you continued, bringing König out from the depths of his thoughts. “- I stole from him. Took the books he used to teach me, maybe a few ingredients for potions, a few seeds to start my own garden… but compared to what he took from me, I might as well have taken a loaf of bread.”

You stopped suddenly, and König came to a halt beside you. You nodded your head to the scene before you. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

König looked ahead: the trees parted into another clearing, larger this time. A rickety hut leaned against a wall of rock, made of thin, birch logs and mud slathered on top to keep out the wind. In the center of the clearing was a large stone, positioned near a pile of ash and rocks. A log lay near it, possibly another place for someone to sit. A small garden sat closer to the creek before your hut – it didn’t look to be doing very well, but that was expected as winter approached.

By the creek, there was a large, twisted oak. Its roots hung directly off of the bank and down into the water. Its leaves had fallen to the earth and mingled with the rest of the foliage by now – the entire thing had crimson paths winding around it, hauntingly similar to blood-filled veins. Several pieces of clothing and fabric hung from the branches and swayed in the autumn wind.

As you marched ahead, placing your basket down by the makeshift firepit and disappearing into the hut, König took a few, cautious steps forward. He was both charmed by the simplicity of it, and despondent that you were forced into this lonesome sort of life. He wanted to drag you from this measly hovel and show you something better.

But how? He was no better off than you were. All his earnings were spent on a room at the nearest tavern and a decent amount of ale to help him fall asleep. He never cared about having a home, as long as he had a place to keep out the cold. He didn’t think it would be good enough to drag you back to the village and convince you to spend the night with him in a thin-walled, noisy inn… but, even if he didn’t end up killing you today (something that seemed more and more likely with each passing second), he refused to leave you in this hell. If it was a cozy cabin, built so far away from civilization for the sole purpose of privacy and comfort, he could understand. Maybe even plead his case to you so you would let him stay. But this – this was a last resort. A broken down spot in the woods that you made for your banishment, for hiding. This wouldn’t do.

Call him insane. Call him crazy, hopeless, sick in the head… maybe his desires were founded on the thought that he would give you what he had never received.

You emerged from your hut, the thin, wooden door clanging shut behind you. You looked at him with a puzzled expression. Why was he still standing at the edge? You wrapped your cloak tighter around yourself and made your way over to him, your hair blowing across your face.

He watched as you stopped in front of him, your brow creased with question. Your head tilted back to look up at him, yet any traces of fear that you had shown earlier were gone. You looked at him like you’d known him for the past hundred years. It made his heart ache within his chest.

How could anyone have painted such a wretched picture of the woman who stood before him?

“Is everything alright?” you asked, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “Like I said before, if you’d rather we stay outside-“

König interrupted you, reaching down and grabbing the sides of your arms firmly. You sucked in a breath warily, but you were still not afraid of him.

“I- you-“ Scheisse, what is he trying to say? He wanted to take you away, he wanted to show you how similar the both of you were to each other, he wanted to show you what (he thought) love was – slow, gentle, possessive, and strong. He wanted to keep you in his pocket, both to keep you safe from the world, and to make sure you couldn’t be taken from him. He wanted you, you, you –

This is insanity. He knew it. But that didn’t stop the fire in his chest, and the questionable throbbing in his trousers.

You knew. Your eyes said everything as they softened, as your lips pressed together into a knowing, sad smile. Were you going to turn him down? Would you say that you preferred it this way, that you liked being alone and living like a prisoner on the run? You took his face in his hands, and he had a foreboding sense in his gut that you might tell him to leave.

Quickly but gently, he cupped one hand at the back of your neck and pulled himself down to you, pressing his lips to yours before you could speak. It was only right, he thought, as he held the kiss – you didn’t understand that he could help you, he could build the life you deserved and keep you safe from any other hunters and warlocks. He placed his other hand on your lower back and pulled you in, moving his lips against your own and praying you wouldn’t deny him.

Like an angel answering his prayers, you tilted your head and wrapped your arms around his neck, standing on your toes and kissing him back. He tugged his teeth at your bottom lip, and you so graciously allowed his tongue to slip past your teeth, letting him taste you. He whined, flooded with relief that you didn’t try to shove him away and call him deranged.

His cock was quickly growing hard, but he ignored it. Right now, he needed to figure out exactly what he needed to say to make you-

A raven’s call tore through the air, piercing his thoughts. It was much too close than any bird would naturally be.

He tried to turn his head in its direction, but you dug your fingers into his hair, making him stutter and freeze on the spot. He grabbed your hips, about to pry you away-

You pressed your lips firmly to his, and he heard you faintly muttering incoherent words against him. The world around him was suddenly showered with colors: purples like the berries that had stained your fingers, oranges like the leaves that were scattered across the ground, silvers like the thick clouds that blanketed across the sky… The black spots on the birch trees suddenly blinked and flitted across his vision; thousands of them stared at him, and he heard your sweet laughter echoing in the distance as the world spun, spun, spun…

He felt the cold earth press to his cheek, and the last thing he remembered was a sickening ache in his stomach.

He should have heeded the sorcerer’s warning.

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

"… so gut, so Schön, genau so…”

... so good, so beautiful, just like that...