#[ normally twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern but.... ]

[afraidofchange]

Ilona (apparently) enjoys having her (almost always) taller partner lift her head by the chin to look up at them. That activates the immediate "🥺" face from her, I'm afraid.

[lostintransist]

Fallen Angel | Grocery Delivery

AO3

The knock at the door came as a surprise.

Opening it you found several grocery bags filled with items. Lifting the receipt from one of the bags you confirmed the address matched, and the order listed S. Riley. You know Simon’s last name was Riley. Would he be home soon? He typically messaged you a heads up to avoid, well you don’t know, maybe awkwardness? You never had men over for sexual reasons, but a group of friends for wine nights and games wasn’t out of the question.

Sending off a quick text you let Simon know his food arrived.

You got a message back almost immediately.

>Won’t be home for another week. Can you eat anything that will go bad?

Looking over everything as you unbagged it and placed it on the counter you were confused. Almost everything he bought was perishable, would need to be used in about a week and would feed you for at least a week and a half if you stretched it.

<Sure, I guess?

>Thanks.

The shop was almost bringing in a profit, a few more weeks of eating the left overs from the day and you would be able to start paying yourself more than the amount that covered rent, and car expenses.

You hadn’t been suspicious the first two times; shit happens and getting reassigned after being ready to go home was pretty normal for Simon.

But the third time? Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times? That’s a fucking pattern.

<Stop ordering food for me.

>Something wrong?

“Motherfucker you know something is wrong, you can’t just keep doing this!” You growled down at your phone.

>Watch me.

<If you put cameras up in our flat, I will smother you on your next leave.

>Better men than you have tried.

<*Lord of the Rings Meme* “I am no man.”

>No cameras but I could feel the anger radiating off my phone.

Pursing your lips you decided to leave him on read, let him suffer. Fucker.

Hours later at the shop a message pops through on your phone.

>You struggle to let people help you.

<Help is asked for, this is intrusive.

You set your phone down to greet a customer. When you returned there was one more message.

>You don’t have to earn help.

A hot spike of emotion ripped through you. Fighting back tears and nausea all at once you stepped into the cooler to cry. Sometimes having an observant man for a roommate fucking sucked.

Fallen Angel Masterlist | Masterlist

[formallake]

Plotholes with the Brothers Theory and an Additional Theory regarding Exer's magical origin.

Right! Let's get this started! Spoilers for Jackson's Diary Obvi!

The Brothers/ Sibling theory is an interesting one. If you like to read Webtoon's comment section like I do, you might see it surface from time to time.

It's no secret that Exer and Jackson are connected in some way.

- Jackson being the only one to actually see Exer's magic (until David of course).

- Exer thought box is grey like Jackson's power and Jackson's thought box is green like Exer's magic.

- The entirety of season two is literally them sharing each others braincell.

- The Diary being connected to Exer's magic.

But them secretly being brothers on the other hand is really up to debate. Some might even argue they are twins seperated at birth 🐣. However it's very unlikely! According to Paola in her QnA Instagram section their ages are different.

Exer is the oldest of the main cast, being 18 and Jackson the youngest, at 17. Yes, you can argue that they are siblings who are only a year apart. Which i'll give you a point for, as IT IS possible, what's impossible to ignore however is the fact that Exer's and Jackson's nationality are different.

Exer according to the Wikifandom, is Indian-African American. While Jackson, American. I can't clarify where they gain the info from, so take it with a grain of salt. The reason why i have a strong believe that Exer is Indian-African American is due to Paola's patreon.

(I think im allowed to share this? Since technically its public and you can view it for free? Tell me if its not allowed and im ganna edit it, okay guys!)

Its blurry since i can't afford the monthly subscription (it cost like a whole week of lunch money, if converted to my home country) so I could be wrong but my speculation is that this is Exer's mom. Due to the woman in the picture not resembling Jackson's mom and she is wearing what seems to be a sari? (A traditional South East mostly India, Women's wear.)

The woman in the blurry picture have curly long hair like Exer's while Jackson's mom have a shorter shoulder length straight hair.

[Below the pic of Jackson's mom for ref. ]

If im right that this is Exer's mom, than its prove Exer's and Jackson's mom are two different people.

This implies that for Jackson and Exer to be related, Harry must have cheated on Exer's mom. We all know that's IMPOSSIBLE! No way! Very out of character!

If they are not related than how are they super connected?

This is where we go to the second theory, Exer's Magic came from Jackson. Here me out!

So far, there are three confirm cases of magical users in JD. That being Exer, Lucy-furr, and David. And you know what they had in common? They are all written in the Diary by Jackson!

You know what they say! Once is by chance, twice a coincidence and three times a pattern.

At first with Exer it might by chance, but than Lucy came in to the picture as a MAGICAL cat! Sure it could be a coincidence, but than suddenlyDavid have the ability to see Exer's magic! It's a pattern! Jackson can give power to living beings it seems!

What's interesting is that Lucy and David don't have their power until Jackson specifically activate it. In Lucy's case she had been drawn in green crayon before, but she IS still a normal cat. It was only after Jackson drew her again back in ep 66 where she finally gain her magic.

Exer is unique in a way, since he seems to use his magic even when Jackson is not in Kingsmont. This fuels my theory of them being friends back in their childhood.

The biggest evidence for me regarding the magic being given by Jackson to Exer is this drawing.

A green stickman with a blue magical hat and a wand! Like is this evidence or what??

I must admit the blue in the wand and hat is not the exact shade of blue Jackson is. But still!!

[Below is Jackson's blue]

But its just a theory! A poorly made word jumble of a paragraph!

Thanks for reading.

[rarepears]

This is a weird mix of a drabble and just notes/outlines of the idea. Might clean it up later and post to AO3, might not.

Au idea: If MDZS considered more about the impact of war on bodies and minds ft. Jiang Wanyi...

***

Jiang Cheng hated war. There seemed to never be enough time to take a minute to breath and rest after a battle before the next strategy meeting or the next logistic reviews. His robes were always caked with grime and blood, his sword in need another round of cleaning and maintenance, but there was only just enough time to scarf down food and water while another cultivator relied updates of casualty numbers and news of more fighting between the Nie and Jin or the Lan and Wei Wuxian again.

But Jiang Cheng found that he hated the aftermath of the war even more. He was prepared to be overwhelmed by the process of rebuilding Lotus Pier; he was aware of the challenges that would befall on the nearly destroyed Jiang sect, from the lack of financial resources to the manpower and near decimated alliances with the (former) subsidiary Jiang sects. He knew that he had no clue what he was doing, but with his sister by his side again and Wei Wuxian whose mind moved faster than it had any right to, he thought he could handle anything in his way-

But Jiang Cheng never realized to consider this.

[Flashback to Jiang Cheng not thinking much as he powerwalks through the rebuilding efforts and one of the taverns is full of cultivators who fought in the Sunshot Campaign drinking away in broad daylight. It's not even noon yet! This is the 5th time this week that Jiang Cheng caught them slacking away for some drink.

Jiang Cheng still recalls how powerful and serious these men were in battle. They didn't shy away from the fighting, unlike Jin disciples. But here? In peacetime, when everything was finally starting to become normal again, NOW they decide to throw up their self-disciple and become wasteful drunks despite seeing all the hands that were needed for the rebuilding efforts? Jiang Cheng scowled and gave them all a piece of his mind, but he still found them emptying yet another bottle of the most potent rice wine the next day, only in another tavern that was located in a more quiet corner of the town.

Jiang Cheng was anything but pleased to find out that this particular hidden hole in the way happened to also be Wei Wuxian's favorite place to hide away for drinks as well. The thought about the other drunkards fled his mind as he immediately beset upon his brother and haul his ass back hom for jie to give him a stern talking to for abandoning his duties as First Disciple.

But like with the other cultivators whose personalities did a 180 since the end of the war, Wei Wuxian still continued sneaking out for more wine.

Once was an outlier, twice was a coincidence.

Then Jiang Yanli, looking for Wei Wuxian once again, found far too many empty wine bottles in Wei Wuxian's room instead of the man himself.

Evidently this drinking habit was a pattern.

Jiang Cheng scowled.]

Yunmeng Jiang Sect was far worse than he ever expected it to be. It was a clan full of crippled men and women still dealing with the lingering aftereffects of battle wounds. He was up to his neck drowning in the cost of healers and medicine, but he and his pride refused to kick out the honorable men and women who fought to avenge his parents and other fallen members of the Jiang sect. Even if they were rogue cultivators prior to the war, fighting along side them during the three long years of battles installed a sense of comrady that Jiang Cheng acknowleged.

And it wasn't like his meager sect could afford to turn away anyone willing to join it.

But he couldn't very well expect a man missing a leg, from thigh down, to help with roofing or hammering away at wooden boards. A man still haunted by warfare noises, jumping at any and all sounds of screaming, couldn't be trusted to teach classes anymore than a blinded scholar could make sense of the remaining records abandoned by the Wens who occupied Yunmeng during the Sunshot Campaign. Still, this was better than the ones who were permanently paralyzed from the neck down or the woman who received a faceful of metal shards to the face.

(Jiang Cheng wondered if death would be better than continuing to live, unable to see, hear, or smell.)

Jiang Cheng had no clue how Jiang Yanli was able to organize the logistics of it all, arranging schedules that would accommodate people's new bodies and still allow the sect to slowly but surely remerged from the ashes with newly constructed building and new recruits joining their sect. A quarter of the sect was made up of people who's only contribution was making useless noises of complaints about how their beds were too soft or making up fanciful tales of war for children to listen with great rapture. Otherwise they were just useless mouths to keep feeding and endless bags of medicine to continue stuffing.

Jiang Cheng had never thought to factor into his plans of how surviving war would be impacted by having half the members of his sect suffering from life-altering battle injuries. Nearly all of them complained of aching scars on a rainy day and Jiang Yanli was on the constant lookout to watch for people stealing extra pain-relief medication than was prescribed.

At least the sect's consumption of the meat being at an all time low was helping save many coins from the tiny budget Jiang Cheng was working with. Who would had thought that being part of the special forces that got special viewing of Wen Ruohan's torture chambers would leave such a lifelong souvenir?

Jiang Cheng could only hope that, with a third of the sect being vegetarian, now no longer able to consume meat without puking or having flashbacks to the Wen's Fire Palace, mealtimes wouldn't continue backsliding into something that further resembled the Gusu Lan's bland vegetarian fare.

---

A pair of Nie disciples served as messengers to the Jiang Sect. They were ferrying some contracts that were to renew the Jiang-Nie trade routes.

Jiang Cheng noticed that one of the disciple had two swords on him while the other had none.

The former glared at Jiang Cheng for daring to ask about it and looked ready to storm out of the receiving room, contracts be damned. The latter shrunk away in shame and embarrassment but mumbled out that his martial brother was holding onto his sword for his own good. That since the war, he was having Bad Thoughts and not having a sword on him was improving things.

Jiang Cheng's mind couldn't help but recall the Jiang disciple he saw committing suicide-

[Flashback 2: Jiang Cheng stumbling upon a Jiang disciple - one of the few who survived the burning of Lotus Pier - by the riverbank, face looking eerily calm as thought he was at peace and not freezing with his legs, up to his knees, submerged in cold water.

Jiang Cheng too late to stop the blade smoothly, swiftly cutting into the long pale neck.

Jiang Cheng didn't tell anyone what he saw. Instead, he claimed that the Jiang disciple had been hiding life-threatening injuries - a slow acting but fatal poison - and succumbed to it last night.

The Jiang disciple, having served the sect for 20 some odd years, deserved respect, no matter the ending.]

And suddenly Jiang Cheng's understanding of Wei Wuxian's refusal to touch his blade again takes on a different meaning. Jiang Cheng didn't want to admit it. Wei Wuxian was supposed to be infallible, undefeatable! He could always be relied upon to show Jiang Cheng up, fixing up his messes with not a speck of effort or thought!

But his drinking, his limping gait when he thought no one was watching, and the flinches when the smell of the kitchen cooking meat wafted through courtyard and open windows into the receiving room all pointed to the same conclusion:

The war had touched Wei Wuxian more than Jiang Cheng realized.

And he was going to lose his brother to a self-inflicted death if he did nothing about it.

[lady-ofmidnight]

The Barbie&Tumblr&Alexa conspiracy

So earlier this week, I finally got around to sitting on my couch with popcorn and my glasses (I can't see 5 feet in front of me without them) to watch the Barbie movie. On the tv.

The very next day, my tumblr dashboard was flooded with cat memes, pictures of fancy tea sets to drool over, batfam memes&art, and Barbie references. Everything except the Barbie stuff was normal. Has anyone ever heard the saying, 'Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern'? Yeah. I wrote it off as a coincidence the first day. And the second day. Plus, I was happy that I understood the 'Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House' reference! But then I started getting suspicious about the fact that I only started seeing an uptick in Barbie content after I saw the Barbie movie.

So that begs the question. If I only use tumblr on my phone, how does my phone know that I watched the Barbie movie on the TV. The TV that isn't connected to my phone. (Or any other device)

Are the devices conspiring with Alexa? Or is it just a weird coincidence...

[fromchaostocosmos]

So we have a video game with antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people, images that could have been ripped right from WW2 Nazi propaganda posters warning about the Jews and taken from images in fraudulent book Protocols of Elders of Zion.

Then on top of that it is a game that uses the very old, very dangerous, and very much still around horrific blood libel conspiracy theory as central tenet of the plot involving said Jew caricatures.

Now to add to this we have a dark wizard, an evil wizard who wants to do bad and evil things wearing a coat with buttons decorated with a six pointed star. The six pointed star most commonly know as a Star of David and most associated with Jewish people.

As the saying goes twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Not that any of this was ever a coincidence to start with.

I have to wonder what other imagery might be hiding in small details of this game and what they would reveal.

Hogwarts Legacy is foundationally and fundamentally antisemitic. It is propagating and promulgating some very old and truly horrific antisemitism.

You can not buy this game or play it and call yourself an ally to Jewish people or say you support our community.

If you care about us then you would listen to us when we say allowing a game that has blatant antisemitism to be so normalized and accepted in the face of Jewish objection helps paves a path for ore games like this in the future. It gives the game studio a financial motive not to listen to our voices and drowns out our voices.

Not giving money to something that strips the dignity of and furthers harms marginalized minority is really the bare basic action to take. The bar is so low it is on the floor.

So do not support this game and do not forget that its core the major issue with Hogwarts Legacy is the obscene antisemitism going on and how much is going on.

(Also JKR as an antisemite and transphobe deserves no money and no platform. The immense harm and danger she puts trans and non-binary people in is immoral and unconscionable. JKR has money then could be spent in lifetimes and needs no more, especially since she uses that money to fund groups that seek to actively harm and lobby to harm trans and non-binary people.)

I watching Jessie Gender's newest video a 3 hour deep dive into everything JKR in her hopes of it being her last video on JKR.

And on in this part where Jessie is talking about the Blood Libel and Hogwarts Legacy there footage of the ad for the game being shown.

I had my laptop close to my face so I noticed this, and either I'm losing it or the Hogwarts Legacy people made the decor of the buttons of dark wizard that the goblin is talking stars of David.

Like look at the texture on the buttons

Am I imagining things or is something here. I did my best to clip the part with buttons so you can see the full thing. I do also recommend just watching the video in general.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

The Boogeyman: Part Three

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.5k

Warnings: fluff, canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

“Excuse me?” you gasp.

Your entire team leaves the cabin to go check out the body in the woods, leaving behind some officers to watch the house. It’s still too dark to see any kind of energy out here, but with a flashlight, you’re hoping it will help you in some way to determine who might have done this. As soon as you get there, you don’t feel Fennigan’s spirit anywhere. There is nothing lingering behind, no evidence to comb through, and absolutely nothing that suggested Fennigan was responsible for the murders.

He’s been covered by leaves to hide him from anyone that walks by--not that anyone would. This part of the woods have been closed off as well as hundreds of yards from any known trail. Whoever did this knew he wouldn’t be found out here… that is, if someone did do this. You take out your own flashlight and shine it all around the woods as if there is someone watching your every move. However when you point the flashlight at Fennigan, you see the same yellow energy as you did twice before.

This can’t be a coincidence.

“Gideon, I’m seeing the same yellow energy around the body. I’ve now seen it three times. It’s turned into a pattern now,” you report.

“At first blush, it looks like Joseph Fennigan died of natural causes,” Mack says.

“His heart probably gave out while he was setting this,” Spencer states.

You point the flashlight to what he was referring to and see a bear’s trap underneath his body.

“Yeah karma's a bitch. Those coyotes were on and on for all week before the second and third murders ever happened.”

“This area's off a traveled path--it's a wonder anyone discovered him at all.”

“Is it? Those leaves didn't cover him up by themselves,” Mack says.

“He’s right,” you agree. “The deputy may not have been the first that found him.”

“Our only suspect’s been cleared.”

“Now we’re back to square one.”

“No,” Gideon shakes his head. “If Fennigan's been dead all this time, who's living in his house? Let's go.”

He doesn’t make a point about that, so you head back to the house with the rest of your team. You have to comb this entire house and strip all the evidence away so you can figure out who did this to Fennigan and these kids.

You don’t care how long it takes, even if it takes all night… which it did. Before you knew it, the sun was up and shining, putting the entire house in light. You have no need to use the flashlights anymore, but you do need a cup of coffee. JJ offered to make a run, so you’re waiting on her to get back.

In the meantime, you and Spencer are just sitting in the living room talking about the case and… other things. He’s reading some of Fennigan’s journals while you’re watching him read.

“Were you really scared last night?” you ask and lean back on the chair you’re sitting on.

“Not after that kiss,” he blushes.

“There is more where that came from,” you grin,

You peck his lips twice right before Derek walks in.

“Here's a question: if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if there's nobody there to hear it?” Spencer asks.

“What the hell are you two reading over there?”

“Just thinking.”

“The unsub found Fennigan's corpse in a lightly traveled part of the woods and no one else knew. So he was able to use his house and no one was the wiser.”

“That is, if Fennigan wasn’t murdered and placed there,” you speculate.

“You think our unsub killed Fennigan?”

“I’m just saying don’t go and assume.”

“Actually I was referring to Fennigan's wife,” Spencer says, continuing as if there wasn’t a whole other conversation going on.

“What are you talking about?”

“She was rumoured missing, perhaps killed almost fifty years ago. When in actuality, she left Fennigan for another man. He writes about it in his journals. How he would look out the window on a daily basis to see if she would come home but she never did. He never recovered and he ended up turning into a recluse that people in town misunderstood.”

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t connect with his spirit. He’d already moved on.”

“I found something,” Gideon interrupts. You, Derek, and Spencer get up and follow the older man into the kitchen. There are a ton of eaten food containers everywhere on the kitchen island. “These were delivered by the church to every elder's doorstep. Each one dated after Fennigan died.”

“So, the unsub ate everything,” Derek says before noticing there is something that’s not eaten on every plate. “Almost everything. Unopened bowls of cream spinach thrown into the trash. Each one wrapped with duct tape. One with each tray. So, we're looking for a guy who really really hates spinach.”

“Not necessarily,” you state. “If I hated a certain food, I’d just throw it away. However, because these containers are duct taped shut, our unsub might have an allergy to whatever is in there. He duct tapes it to prevent himself from accidentally eating it.”

“Take the prints and have Garcia run them for a match,” Gideon orders. His phone rings and he checks to see who is calling. “Hotch.”

At the mention of the other older agent, your heart sinks. You suddenly remember Elle and what she might be going through. It brings you back to the conversation you had with her in her hotel room.

“It's about Elle, isn't it?” Spencer asks.

“I don’t know,” Derek shrugs.

“You know I talked to her in Ohio.”

“Y/L/N, we all talked to her.”

“No, I went to her hotel room one night. She was drinking…”

“She almost died. I'd be drinking too.”

“Coffee’s here,” JJ announces.

Well, it looks like this conversation is over for now. You’ll just have to bring it up later. You take your coffee and thank her before heading into the living room with her, Derek, and Spencer. The officers in the kitchen take the trays and send them over to Penelope as fast as they can so she can pull prints from them. JJ, and Derek take one couch while you and Spencer take the one right across from it. You’ve been at this house since last night, so you need a small break from it. You take a big sip of your coffee and sigh happily, already feeling the effects of it.

“So tell me about your fear of the woods, JJ,” Derek asks with a small smile.

“I used to be a camp counselor when I was a teenager. In the woods up in Vermont, at the night shift, I tucked the girls in and turned off the lights--the typical drill. Everything seemed fine, all the kids were asleep. You know, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Until... I noticed there was some blood on the hallway floor. So I followed the blood trail out to the camp director's cabin, walked up to his bed, and he was just lying there underneath his covers… Dead. Someone stabbed him. I ran out of there so fast, out the door, and down the hall. I just remember it being really dark. Once I got to the door, there was another counselor there--I guess she heard me scream. They caught the caretaker on his way to town. I guess he still had the knife on him. Anyway, that's probably when I decided I didn't like the woods.”

The entire time she’s telling her story, you have to hide your smile. She may be able to fool Derek and Spencer, but she can’t fool someone who can connect with people’s emotions.

“You’re serious?” Derek asks, shocked.

“No! No! Come on. I don't know why I'm afraid of the woods, I just am. Why is he still afraid of the dark?” JJ points to Spencer.

“Yeah, Reid, why are you still afraid of the dark?”

“Because of the inherent absence of light!”

“Don’t be mean to him. I’ll be here to protect him from the dark,” you grin and lean your head on his arm.

“Yeah, like how you protected him last night?”

“I said shut the fuck up,” you playfully roll your eyes.

“JJ, that was pretty good. Just know that paybacks are a bitch,” Derek grins.

“I’m shaking,” she jokes.

Your phone rings and you sit up straight to answer it.

“Hey sexy mama,” you joke.

“I love our relationship. You know exactly what to say to make my heart sing.”

“You’re so weird,” you chuckle. “What do you got?”

“I pulled two sets of prints off those food trays.”

“Two? Whose?”

“One belongs to a child.”

“I knew it. I shouldn’t ignore my gut when it tells me something.”

“What did she say?” Derek wonders.

“Two prints, one is a child’s.”

“But which one of the victims?”

“Hey Pen, why don't you coordinate with the Ozona coroner's office for a match?”

“Oh baby, that's so yesterday! I already have the minions working on it. In the meantime, your intrepid hacker found you a match to the other set in the database. His name is James Charles, he's a local guidance counselor.”

“Yeah he's a local guidance counselor helping us on this case!” you gasp.

“Are you kidding? He's address is 3725 Briarwood Road.”

“I know exactly how to find him, Pen, thanks.” You hang up and look at Derek in disbelief. “Call Gideon, we just found our unsub.”

wanna be tagged? add yourself to this document! if your tag has a strike through it or it’s not linked, it means doesn’t work. find out why!

*if your tag is bolded, then the tag isn’t working. you have until next episode to get it fixed otherwise you’ll be deleted from this list*

@averyhotchner @lets-be-gay-for-the-angel @fan-girl-97 @inkstainedwritergirl @estrela-rogers @kwbaby24 @redsalv20 @joonie-centric @xs @sixpencespencee @boygenius-reid @meganskane @prophecyflame​ @happynekochan1 @babydee17 @darlingisntit @fandoms4ever97 @spencerreid-187 @snakeythesnake @nomajdetective @scarletstarrs @hc-geralt-23 @fairytalesforever @werewolfbanshee-love

[stormblessed95]

I hope it is OK to bring back yesterday's conversation about that Jimin vlive. I also rewatched it, and believe he wasn't alone at the beggining. Especially, when he says "how come THEY know it is me..." and not "how come YOU know..." he wasn't addressing the fans, but he could be talking to himself or it was an error in translation, who knows. I also heard him mumble something around that 12min mark, but who knows what he was saying or to whom. But yes, there was definitely no kiss in that moment. I just think that the person who was there with him might have went to grab something from the nightstand before leaving and jimin panicked that they would be seen on cam, but then realized it was unnecessary and thats why he was all giggly and embarrassed afterwards.

Anon 2: Talking about the kiss sound. This sound thing have happened three times with jimin involved .Don't you think it's kinda sus. 😂. That graduation video of jimin....Jm filming jk dance then kiss sound in that chaos....then the jimin v live...I mean jikookers r mature enough for giving room of doubt to jikook because if this had happened with other ship( u knw wht) then They would have made big deal out of it.

Combining these so we can just talk about it all in one go before we all officially move on from asks over this video!

I absolutely agree with the first anon. Jimin was probably not alone during the start of this video and whoever it was left shortly afterwards. We have absolutely no idea who it was though. Unlike the other hidden person vlives, there is nothing we can use to base suspicions on WHO it might be. Obviously I believe it to be Jungkook, otherwise I don't think they would have tried quite so hard to keep it a secret and how fast Jimin whipped that camera around showed he definitely didn't want whoever it was on screen at all. But for all we know it could have been staff or anyone else (unlikely in my opinion). I personally don't think this was a kiss with the other context included, but it *could* have been a blown kiss as the person leaves.

Now we technically (including this one) have 4 kiss sounds that jikookers contribute to being between Jikook. I only buy into 2 of them completely. The graduation video and Euphoria video. Those are definitely kiss sounds (blown kisses or potentially something more with Euphoria) and those are definitely done between Jikook. Undeniable proof with the sound and video showing both of them. I have posts on BOTH of those already in my masterlist. This would be another video that we have contributed to jikook, but have no technical proof that it was them. We just can't see Jimin behaving like that with a different member or staff. And they were on tour so things were normally kept pretty private and locked down in those hotel rooms, so I really think it could have only been a member or staff in there with him.

The last video people are saying there was a kiss sound for was during the V, J-hope and RM live stream during BE era. There was what sounded like a kiss behind the camera that people thought was a kiss because of how the 3 on screen members reacted to it and jikookers speculated that it could have been jikook simply because they were the only members we couldn't quite place as to where else they were otherwise and so it could have been them. I don't totally buy into this because it seems like a stretch but I have seen some pretty convincing theories. Lol and it could have not even been a kiss, it could have been staff members, there are SO MANY possible explanations for that one. So many. So I disregard it. But it IS interesting that these "suspicious kiss sounds" have occurred 4 times in connection to jikook (based on a stretch or otherwise). Once is chance, twice is coincidence, 3 or more.... well that is a pattern. Maybe one day we will get another kiss sound we can definitely link to both Jimin and Jungkook lol

Not to mention all the almost kisses we see them give each other and all the blown kisses we HAVE seen them exchange and give each other. Plus all the lip staring the two of them do. SOMETHING goes on with them. 😏

This entire Twitter thread really... and the fact that there is so so so much more of them doing this.... and their reactions to each other 😍 okay, I'll stop now because I'm getting off track here. Lol essentially yes, it's amusing we keep getting these types of moments with them. Really makes you think that they are boyfriends or something 🤔

[fanmoose12]

after death do us apart

Summary: Levi thinks his house is haunted.

Levi is in his kitchen, busy with a very important task of measuring leaves for the tea when he hears a loud, obnoxious thud, coming from his living room.

He softly curses, grabs his cane and rushes, as fast as he can with his body not as strong as it was before, there.

When he arrives, he sees that everything else is in order, except a picture frame that is now lying on a floor.

Levi's blood boils, an annoyance bordering on anger rushing through him. This picture - that one that now lies on the floor like some kind of useless shit - is his most priced possession. It is the only thing that keeps the memory of them alive, the one thing that reminds him during cold and dark nights that he might be alone right now, but there was a time where he wasn't.

It's a picture of him, Hange, Erwin and Mike all standing together with their arms around each other. He doesn't remember if that had ever happened, but that's what he had found in one of Moblit's notebook and after he made that discovery, he just couldn't leave it behind.

No picture of them exists - Mike and Erwin were gone even before they found out what a photo camera was, and in her last years, Hange was always too busy to take a single photo.

He regrets it now, not pushing her to take it, but Moblit's picture is vibrant enough. He doubts a photo could capture their essence quite like his sharp eyes and skilfful hands could.

Onyakopon tells him there are more pictures of Hange now. There are portraits made by talented artists that paint Hange as the last Commander of Survey Corps or during her last moments on Earth.

They're hanged in museums and various memorials but Levi doesn't wish to see any of them. He doesn't care about them, those pictures - they were drawn by talented artists, and Levi doesn't doubt that.

But they never knew Hange, not like he did. So how could they come up with something worthy of the light she bestowed on this world? How they could ever hope to put it on paper?

Levi crouches down, his bones and protesting, and picks up the picture frame.

Thankfully, it is still intact.

But just as his old, broken heart swells with relief, there is another thud. This time, the book falls down, nearly missing Levi's head.

He curses again, loud and vulgar, letting out the best of profanities the Underground taught him.

He whirls around, his eye searching for the offender. The room is empty, though. It's mostly silent too, the only sounds flowing around are those from outside his window. But then he hears it, a faint, feeble murmur that sounds almost like "sorry".

His heart clenches, his hand gripping the cane to keep himself grounded.

He knows that particular sorry. Heard many times many years ago - ehen he stumbled over the barely conscious, sleep deprived body, when his shirt got soaked in tea, soup or some kind of possibly dangerous chemicals, heard it repeating over and over as gentle, trembling hands inspected his injuries and wiped away the blood.

It was sometimes accompanied by cheerful, loud laughter, other times - with quiet, broken sobs.

He couldn't hear that sorry. He couldn't.

It was just a trick of imagination, nothing more, nothing less.

I am not old enough to go senile yet, he thinks as he puts the picture where it belongs to.

It was just a trick of imagination, he repeats and leaves the room.

He goes back to the kitchen and resumes his task. The skin on the back of his neck is prickling, like someone stares intently at it, but Levi chases that feeling away, convincing himself that he's simply being paranoid.

He pointedly ignores the quiet sound, the one that resembles a sigh of disappointment and the one he heard too many times too, during long nights at the lab and inside Commander's office, as well.

***

It's not the first weird (unexplained, she would say) thing that happened in his house. There are instances happening all over the place, each of them brings a different degree of strangeness

Windows and doors - close and open on their own volition, lights turn on and off, books, his clothes, kitchen ware - disappear for hours only to appear in the most random of places, bangs and knocks sound at all times of the day, merciless to his sleeping pattern.

Logically, he knows that it isn't normal. He also knows that he probably should talk about it with someone. But he was never good with that thing - talking. All the people he was somewhat comfortable sharing his troubles are now dead and gone.

He theoretically can discuss it with Gabi and Falco, but he doesn't want to, because, well, no matter how big they think they are, they're still children. Onyakopon is out of question too, because he might just get too worried and then send him into that building on the edge of the town - mental institution, he calls it.

And Levi might be old, but he's not senile. Yet.

Probably. He hopes so at least.

His mind is still his own, broken but not shattered. He knows right from wrong, sees the difference between reality and a dream.

He still functions properly, and yet those instances don't back away.

He'd ignore it, write it off as a product of imagination or strange coincidence. If only it happened once. Or twice. Three times even. Three weird happenings in a row is hard, but possible to ignore. But when it happens every damn day, for almost dozen times, it's not just hard to ignore. It's fucking annoying too.

He knows a name he can put to describe it all, of course. Born and raised in the depth of Underground, how can he not? Stories like this were well known and greatly appreciated down there. They were children of the dark, after all, friends with shadows. Everything dark and scary, anything feared above their little world was welcomed and encouraged.

Isabel used to warn him about enraged, vengeful spirits that hunt those who wronged them or those who disturbed their resting place. Kenny - when he was in a less shitty, kinder mood - used to tell him about souls that die without fulfilling their purpose and were destined to roam through the land of the living for all eternity, unable to sleep with their business unfinished.

Before putting him to bed or whenever she felt especially sentimental, his mother used to speak of those unlucky ones who died before their loved ones did.

"They cannot find peace even in death," she said. "And so they come back to our world and stay close to the ones they still cannot let go, watching them until they are able to reunite."

He never believed in those stories, though. Perhaps, he was born and raised in the Underground, but he got out of it, lived his best years with the sun shining on his face and wind blowing through his hair.

He thought ghosts doesn't exist.

But now that his best years are behind him, now that he has seen enough shit to know that anything is possible, now that some days he himself feels like a ghost, he starts thinking of them more and more.

Hange is gone, he reminds himself, she's gone and even though you miss her like crazy, it won't bring her back.

Hange is gone, and none of it is real.

But, god, does he really wishes that it was. *** It is the middle of the night, and Levi feels a presence behind him. It's not ominous like in that book about ghosts he recently found. It's quite soothing, actually. It makes him almost content.

It's not looming or hoovering over his form either. It's right next to him, as though this something - or someone - lays on a bed close to him.

It doesn't bother him anymore, nearly not as much as it did before. It brings him comfort, in some sort. It reminds him of-

No. It doesn't.

The presence behind him shifts and Levi feels the blanket slip from his legs.

No, that won't do.

He tugs the blanket back, but either he's getting too weak with age or that presence, ghost or whatever is so much stronger than him, but he can't get it back. They fight for it for a while, each struggling to get the upper hand. Levi yanks it back, applying all the force that's still left in him, but bears no result. He grits his teeth, sweat gathering on his temples as he pulls the blanket.

"Give it back, you little sh-"

He doesn't get to finish.

The loud, snapping sound of ripping cloth cuts him off.

"Fuck!" Levi yells, frustrated. It was his favorite blanket. "Is this so funny to you, you piece of shit? Why do you keep tormenting me?"

There is a bit of silence, and then lights in his room turn on. With wide eyes, Levi watches the paper levitate from a small pile on his desk. Pen appears next, and it hovers above the paper, the sounds of furious scribbling filling the dark room.

Before he can say anything else, shout more profanities or threaten the invisible fucker to get out (he may not be as strong as he was before, but he has a cane and he still knows how to use it effectively), the paper starts flying, catching him right in the face.

Levi takes it in his hands, squinting his good eye to see what's written there.

It IS funny, but i didn't wish to torment you. You know that, right?

Something resembling a sob escapes from his lips. Levi fists his hands into sheets below him, but eight fingers is apparently not enough to ground him and keep him from falling.

"Who are you?" he asks shakily, his voice breaking.

The pen starts moving again, flying over another paper. This one isn't thrown in his face. It's gently laid next to his thigh. Levi takes it, and his hands shake so much it gets hard to read. Words swim between his eyes, but Levi persists, laying the note on his lap and bending over to see better.

His whole world shakes when he finally deciphers the words.

Haven't you guessed already?

He closes his eyes and some sound escapes past his lips, he's not sure if that can be called a sob or a chuckle, or a combination of both, but his whole body is trembling as he tries to fight strength to whisper,

"Hange?"

From somewhere close to him, on his left side where she always used to be, he hears a delighted, happy laughter.

He looks around the room, his eye shifting, desperate to find her, but he sees nothing.

Fear grips at his heart.

So just a hallucination then? Simple wishful thinking?

"Where are you?" he murmurs, giving it all another chance. "Hange-"

"I'm here," a warm sensation travels up his forearm. It doesn't exactly feel like an ordinary touch would, but it's there, it seems real and it fills his chest with hope. "Right here, a little to your left," she continues. "Just look at me, Levi."

He does, immediately he does. But there is no one next to him. The gentle sensation doesn't fade, gets more persistent if anything, but Levi still can't see her.

"You need to look a little bit harder," Hange murmurs. "If you can hear me, I'm sure you can see me."

Levi stares, his eye focused on the empty place next to him. He strains his vision, moves his gaze up and down, huffs in frustration and then finally, finally, he sees something.

It's vague, indistinct, barely visible in the dark, but he makes out the outline of the body. He can see the mop of brown hair, and they're messy as always, can see strong arms and wide shoulders, that long, prominent nose, that rosy, soft lips that are stretched out in a hopeful smile, those brown, sparkly he missed so much.

"Hange," he breathes out, his voice barely above whisper.

He wants to touch her, god, he wants to touch her so much, but when he puts his hand above hers, it goes right through her.

"The situation is not exactly perfect," Hange laughs. "I don't think you can touch me, and I can't exactly touch you as well."

"I don't care," he shakes his head and moves his fingers, until his and Hange's are close. He doesn't feel much, but something warm is still there and it still makes his breath stumble.

Hange is here, she's not gone, not completely, she's here, with him. It is more than enough.

*** They fall into a sort of routine after that. It's easy with Hange, as it always was.

She disappears for short periods of time, refusing to tell Levi where she goes.

"They asked me not to tell you," she says enigmatically, and doesn't ever elaborate, no matter how many Levi asks.

At first, he still worries he's going crazy, but then Falco, Gabi and Onyakopon show up. They all sit down around the small coffee table in Levi's living room, chatting amongst themselves and sharing the last news and gossips.

"You look healthier," Falco remarks, as Levi brings the tea from the kitchen.

As soon as he puts the cups down, the chaos begins.

The door shuts with a loud bang, the windows rattle and chandelier above them starts to dangerously tremble.

Levi also notes that Hange is careful not to make any mess, but she still acts so damn loud. And dramatic. He hides a sigh as he continues to sip on his tea and watch Onyakopon, Gabi and Falco lose their shit in front of him.

Gabi ducks behind an armchair, Falco close on her heels, curling around her. Onyakopon keeps frantically looking around, his breath quick and shallow. Levi can almost hear the sound of his panicked heartbeat.

"Stop it, four-eyes," he murmurs, too softly to everyone else to hear (not that they could pay attention to him amidst all that clutter anyway).

Everything stills immediately. Silence washes over his apartment, interrupted only by Onyakopon's gasps.

Hange snickers beside him, but Levi is the only who can hear her.

"This was fun," she giggles, running a hand over his shoulder.

Levi can't disagree with her on that one.

"What was that?" Onyakopon exclaims, clutching his heart. "Was it-"

"A ghost?" Gabi cries out, looking both horrified and excited.

Levi glances at Hange, silently telling her 'she looks just like you'. She waves him off and turns back to Gabi.

"Is is the first time it happens?" Falco asks.

"No," Levi answers, shrugging. A week ago, he'd be as disturbed as his friends are, but now he moved past disturbance to acceptance to delight. "It's been happening for weeks now."

"You aren't safe here," Falco, bless his young soul, looks genuinely worried, down to the deep crease on his forehead. "We should look for another apartment."

"Don't bother. I'm quite comfortable here."

Of course, he's comfortable. Hange is here with him, after all.

"But!" Gabi tries to protest, but Levi silences her with a raised palm.

"I'm not injured or unwell," he gestures on himself, as if to illustrate his point. "And, besides, it gives house some character, don't you think?"

"A very scary character," Onyakopon notes.

"Well," Levi almost smiles, hearing Hange's laughter behind his back. "The house is not very different from its master then."

His guests leave soon after, but not before Gabi and Falco make him swear to call them if anything 'more dangerous and scarier' happens.

As soon as they're out, Levi sits down in his favorite armchair. Hange flies over to him.

"So," she looks up at him, and the bright sparkle in her eyes, even though it is still a bit indistinct, sets his heart racing. "Have I convinced you that you're not going crazy?"

He wants to ask how, opens his mouth even, but then promptly shuts it closed. Of course, it is Hange. She knows his thoughts better than he does.

And if he had any doubts about her realness, they've disappeared right in that moment.

*** Hange is almost always next to him, hovering over his shoulder and constantly chatting into his ear. It almost feels like the good old days.

Although now he can't kick her leg whenever she starts teasing or rambling too much. His trademark glare has to be good enough, though.

He brings Hange books and introduces her to all kinds of new technology. She is beaming like a child at every new thing he shows her, and Levi's heart is so full of love for that weirdo, he's afraid it's going to burst.

Hange accompanies him on his strolls too, and his poker face has never put to trial more than during those moments, when Hange starts joking or fooling around, making him almost lose all of his composure.

He can't laugh or even berate her in public, and she knows it, goddamn. And uses it for her advantage, the asshole.

Levi gets his revenge when they're back at his house, refusing to give her new books until she swears to behave.

She swears every time, hand on her chest and all that. And she breaks that promise the very same day. Levi can't stay mad at her, though. He never could.

*** "You know, I thought you were a vengeful spirit at first," he shares with her one evening.

He sits in front of the fire, his legs outstretched to the source of warmth. Hange is laying on the floor, book hovering above her. She closes and turns to Levi.

"I could be," she says. "But, unfortunately, the people I'd like to haunt are long dead as well. Floch is gone, Eren is too..." Hange scoffs, shaking her head. "And I can't very well haunt every bloodthirsty soldier back in Paradise. Too much work for the old, frail me."

Levi lifts an eyebrow. "You don't look that old to me. Especially, when compering with me..."

"Oh, Levi," Hange rises and gets closer to him. She sits down on his lap, and Levi feels warmth spread through the skin of his cheek as Hange puts her hand on it. There is a smile on her lips, the one that Levi knows too well. The one that means that Hange is going to say something very, very stupid. She opens her mouth and proves him right once again. "I was always more attractive than you," Hange murmurs. "Nothing changed since my death."

He rolls his eye and laments that he can't flick her nose.

Hange is still smiling, and when she leans in, he can almost feel a ghost of a kiss on his lips. *** "Don't you ever feel regret?" Levi asks one day.

He is sitting in his wheelchair, looking at the bright setting sun from the small garden near his house.

Hange is on top of him, her long legs dangling from the wheelchair. As he speaks up, she turns to him, and the happy expression turns into something more thoughtful.

"Regret?" she repeats, frowning. "What can I ever regret?"

"This?" Levi gestures around. "I know, you're still here, but don't..." he frowns, struggling to find the right words. "Don't you wish for something more? For us to have a proper chance?"

Hange looks up at the sky, and for a moment she's quiet. Levi thinks if he should take his words back, change the subject completely but it's something that's been bugging him for a long time. He's happy, so happy, that Hange can still be with him. But there are moments when he wishes for... more. To be able to hold her hand and share meals with her, to walk with her through the streets without worrying that someone might think he's some drunkard or lunatic who talks to himself.

He knows it's selfish to even think about it, he already received so much more than he deserved, but isn't selfishness an inherent part of a human?

Sometimes, he just can't help but long for something more.

"I'm sure you know what a method of trial and error means," Hange begins, looking back at him. Her words confuse him, but before he can open his mouth, Hange shushes him and continues. "Remember those days at my lab? Nothing ever worked out, every experiment turned into an ever bigger disaster than the previous one, and I was so frustrated I wanted to crawl up the wall. But there was a certain beauty in it all - I tried, I failed, I tried again. Over and over, until something good came out. And, boy," she chuckles. "When something worked, it worked perfectly. And, maybe, all of this, all of us," she swiftly runs her fingertips through his brow and Levi shivers at the warm, gentle feeling that spreads down to his soul. "As a failed attempt. We tried, it didn't work," she pauses, and her eyes are bright, much brighter than the sun behind her. "We can try again."

Her words stir something inside, a long forgotten feeling of hope. But he still can't accept it so easily, the cynic in him fights to make himself known.

"But you're already dead," he protests.

"And that means this attempt has failed. Not as spectacularly as that time when my experiment blew up and burned Moblit's eyebrows, but... not a perfect success either. We can try again, though. We can say goodbye, walk from each other and then meet again, in some other place and time."

"And what if we fail again?"

"Then we try again. And again, and again, until we can get it right. And when we finally do, oh boy!" she exclaims, flailing her arms into the air. "Wouldn't that be spectacular?"

She laughs, so happy and free, and Levi wishes to gather her in his arms and never let go. All he can do right now, though, is circle his hands around her waist, imagining that he's holding her.

Just like always, he trusts Hange.

They will meet again, and, maybe, it will all fall apart in a disaster worse than this one. But they can try again. They can keep trying, until... forever.

And, perhaps, that's the true beauty of life.

[deafchild2000]

TVD/Legacies: Jade as Stefan and Valerie's great-great-granddaughter

(Re-editing this because I realized I got the generations wrong!)

Two seasons late, I know. But I've read the theories and...it would make sense, just needs to be fixed. Being of relation to Valerie and Stefan started great but as their direct child? I quickly decided to fix this theory into something more realistic!

1. A miracle of a last-minute save and Julian letting Valerie believe her baby (dubbed "Jacob") died to keep her from doing anything rash...which we already know inevitably happened.

2. It wouldn't be the first time someone with ties to the supernatural went blissfully unaware of the fact and lived normal lives before they were forced into it and killed, some no more well known than the Salvatores, specifically Tom Avery and Sarah Nelson/Salvatore. So the idea that Jacob was born and lived his entire life blissfully unaware of what his father's life tied him to and it catching up with any of his future children or grandchildren would be fitting!

3. Given the math and flashbacks, the baby would've been born in 1863, and Jade was born in '02/'03 (she was 16 when she was sent to the prison world). That estimated 140-year gap is enough for 3-4 generations of Salvatore-Tulle descendants to be born (and 156 counting Stefan and Valerie being born in the 1840s). And if my math is correct and 2002 is the year Jade is born, she fits the timeline of being Jacob's great-grandchild and Stefan's 2x great-grandchild.

4. Genes get lost and resurface over the years. Jade appears to have Valerie's looks, but I wish we'd seen more of her to know who's personality she's closer to (though considering Stefan wanted to be a doctor before he was a vampire, his distant relative, Tom Avery, was paramedic and Jade was training to be an EMT...yeah, she's likely closer to Stefan's personality).

(Notice I'm not going anywhere near the topic of Jacob - and by extension, Jade - having magic since through Valerie, either could have the gene. And ignore if that active gene could have played a part in Valerie narrowly saving her son's life. For me now, it's easier to say Jacob's line was all human and it ends with Jade being the vampire.)

(And also, how does the saying go? Ah yes: once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a habit. Tom's death, as pathetic as it was and no accident, I could understand. While staying out of the supernatural may have prolonged her life, Sarah's death fit the coincidence. But imagine this whole theory coming to heel here: Jade being the 3rd lost Salvatore relative who died (cementing a pattern - fate or curse, you call it) but breaking the pattern when she became a vampire, thus surviving? It would have been INGENIOUS if Plec had done this route as it would add to Jade's character and be befitting of the show title since she'd be Stefan's legacy!)

In conclusion, Jade being Stefan and Valerie's 2x great-granddaughter through their supposedly dead (but miraculously surviving) son is a great way to connect the 3 characters in a more realistic (and Plec Verse-like) way. Gives her more screen time and arc compared to just being Josie's love interest, gives a next-gen. connection to the Salvatores (because as much as I dislike Damon's character, ain't no way would he let anything happen to the only living tie he had left of his brother), and gives fans the satisfaction of seeing what no one else saw. Plus, it could be a running gag that she and Stefan share a Ripper status, like 2x great-grandfather, like 2x great-granddaughter!

[phae-undergrove]

how can one be sure that fair folk have entered their lives? i see signs like white moths, a family of deer in a strange place once, and some of my things go missing impossibly, but i always find myself second guessing myself while talking to them! thanks so much for reading and answering!

Hey there this is a great question! So first off I would say simply ask. put out there that you would like a sign that they are near you. Think of what you want that sign to be. Maybe it’s you seeing fae imagery more often. Maybe it’s a specific animal you want to see like a pure white cat. Simply open that doorway for the sign to come. And if you think you’re seeing signs which it definitely seems like you are to me but even I do this with spells or deity’s sometimes still I always am like “okay I need a signier sign” 😂 so I try to be really specific of what I want that sign to be so I know without a doubt when that happens it is the sign. For example. One of my signs I ask for when a spell has been successful is to see a neon orange smiley face and I picture how I want that face to look. Often within a few days of the spell I will begin to see the smiley face pop up either online as I’m scrolling or on billboards or on signs and bags etc. I hope this helped give you an idea of how to solidify those signs. I do find that when I notice something and it stands out more than it normally would that is almost always a sign regardless if I’m aware of what the sign means it usually is still just a simple “hey look this way”. So Let’s say you’re walking and you see a moth for example and this moth. There’s just something about it that causes you to linger on it a bit longer than you normally would a regular moth. Or you just can’t seem to get it out of your head after the fact. You may find it useful to take these experiences and write them all down and feelings you felt. This way you will be able to pick up on any repetition.

I also if I doubt any signs use this rule Once is a fluke. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.

So having them written down can really help us go back and see if this is a repeated sign that we haven’t picked up on yet! I do hope this helped give you a few ideas on how to solidify the songs you are seeing! Please don’t ever hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions!

Merry meet ~B (Phae)

[thetriggeredhappy]

in the latest Dad!Spy fic, it seems like both of them have a degree of separation anxiety. largely *reasonable* separation anxiety because of the whole, y'know, Spy (and eventually Scout) being a mercenary thing, but it's still fascinating to see. i wonder how Spy would deal with easing Jeremy's anxiety and his own all the while knowing that he very well COULD be killed and leave his young son alone any time something goes wrong with work

spy as a dad would i think be extremely concerned about his kid’s safety to the point of paranoia, and the worst part of it all would be all the times when his paranoia is justified.

(warnings for discussion of canon-typical violence, none of it happening onscreen, and assorted mention of spy-type business)

-

Something about this felt so deeply... dishonest. Something he couldn’t quite place. Maybe some sense of irony, or... maybe just the sort of general guilt he’d had as a very young man starting to reverberate within him again. Whatever it was, sitting there and writing down the cipher of a message intended to ensure his son’s safety if he died, while that aforementioned son slept soundly against his shoulder, felt deeply morally wrong.

His eighth birthday was coming up. It was, according to Jeremy, a pretty big deal. And Jacques was aware that most children in more average situations would be having a party together, eating cake and playing games and having fun while he theoretically chatted with the other parents and talked about... school, or, extracurriculars. He wasn’t sure, to be honest, that was just his assumption. But Jeremy’s situation was anything but average, so he’d be making an attempt to do something else, something he’d enjoy enough that perhaps he would be able to put off the conversations of “why can’t I have normal friends?” for one more year. He’d heard about and marked down an annual fair, and found that this year the weekend it was taking place just so happened to also fall on Jeremy’s birthday.

It was a good excuse for why they were leaving town so swiftly. Much more justifiable to himself and more explainable to a very-nearly-eight-year-old than whispers on the wind of a pair of men he thought he’d killed twelve years previously being seen within the state and that alone being enough to make him very very nervous. He did not believe in coincidences, and moreover, he knew that him finding out about these men being alive was not an accident, it was a warning, and the only one he would be receiving before they struck to kill.

Regardless, he was still a bit troubled by it. And he knew it was an adjustment from the plans he’d been hesitantly laying for some time on where he would be and when, his route a closely guarded secret meant to be known to exactly three trustworthy people in entirely seperate areas of the world, and even then it was a risk he would never have taken previously. But him going missing would be several degrees more significant, as he’d realized roughly eight years ago.

A movement to shift, trying to keep his arm from falling asleep, was enough to wake up Jeremy, who blinked a few times down at what Jacques was writing as if waiting for the letters to make sense. “Is that Russian?” he mumbled sleepily after two minutes of silence.

“No,” he said, having to pause in his writing entirely, broken from the rhythm he’d gotten into. “It’s a cipher. Secret symbols and letters.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said simply, and went silent and still for long enough that he convinced himself that he’d surely fallen back asleep, and he was a bit startled when he spoke again. “Who are you writing secret symbols at?”

“A friend of mine,” he answered carefully, if kindly. “You’ve met him. Twice, actually. A very large man, who also wore a suit. I believe you told him you really liked his tie.”

Peter was a good man, or as good as one could be given the circumstances the two of them both worked in. He had made a very genuine effort at, as Jacques had requested, ‘easing up’ on the usual intimidating way that he carried himself when he’d been been told Jeremy would be there at one of the very brief meetings the two of them had. One was when Jeremy was three, and fully preoccupied with a gift he’d received for the holidays, and the other was when Jeremy was six. Apparently, Peter had decided the best way to appear less intimidating to a young child was to wear a tie plastered with a pattern of cartoonish bubbles. Jacques thought it was perhaps the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen, but was promptly proven wrong when Jeremy pointed it out gleefully within moments of being in a room with the man.

If Jacques died unexpectedly in most of the mainland United States and immediately surrounding territories, Peter would likely be the one taking care of Jeremy. At least until the other two correspondents could stop by and negotiate further on what would happen with him. Peter, at least, could cook and survive alone for multiple people (as he’d proven before on at least one occasion where Jacques was too injured to take care of himself and required assistance), and if he would stoop so low as to wear a bubble-patterned tie because he wanted to avoid intimidating a six-year-old, he was likely capable of stooping low enough to perform other essential activities involved with raising a child.

“I don’t remember that,” Jeremy muttered, shifting slightly.

“That is fair,” he nodded. “You do meet a lot of people, mon lapin, it is not easy keeping names straight.”

He hummed in sleepy agreement. A pause. “That one looks like a dog,” he finally said, pointing at one of the little letters on the page.

He tilted his head, squinting a little. “Hm. I suppose it does,” he acquiesced.

“Does it mean dog?”

“It is not kanji, the characters represent letters, which spell words in German,” Jacques replied.

“Is it that letter that looks like a B but it isn’t and sounds like that one dog?”

“...Are you referring to an eszett?”

“Yeah.”

“...And what dog does it sound like, exactly?” Jacques asked, fully baffled.

“The one that howls really loud.”

“Howls really—mon lapin, are you referring to a basset hound?”

“Yeah!” he agreed, sitting up a little and smiling. “That’s it!”

He wanted to further investigate why the word eszett reminded his son of basset hounds, but Jeremy picked that moment to yawn, reminding him of something.

“Well, dogs or otherwise, I do believe that it’s past your bedtime. You should go to sleep,” he said, no room in his tone for argument.

The whining noises began and were silenced by a swift kiss to the top of his head and the setting aside of the notebook he was working from, moving as if to pick up Jeremy and properly put him to bed. But then more genuine protests began, Jeremy moving to dart beneath the sheets before he could even properly set his pen down.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asked earnestly, employing the use of his big blue too-much-like-his-mother’s eyes. A slightly disapproving tilt of the head did nothing to dissuade him, so Jacques sighed inwardly, standing regardless.

“Alright, alright,” he surrendered as he moved to also get ready for sleep, “but I will be awake rather early in the morning, and you do not get to complain at me if you also end up awake as a result.”

Jeremy didn’t look upset by this caveat in the slightest, just burrowing further and smiling like he’d won some sort of contest.

And he looked asleep enough by the time Jacques was back that he was very quiet and careful about getting back into bed, but woke up regardless with the express intent of tucking against his arm again.

And he knew he would miss this one day. His son was already growing up much too fast, and at very-nearly-eight-years-old was closer in many ways to twelve, and surely only had another year or so before he would be much too embarrassed to lean against his father’s shoulder this way, to comment upon how things looked like an animal, to speak so freely. Soon he would be having secrets, a life of his own that he’d know nothing about, and he looked forward to it of course but he would also miss it so very dearly.

He’d hate to miss any more of it by dying unexpectedly.

He wished he didn’t need to prepare for the worst. He wished he didn’t feel guilty for needing to work out details about what would happen if the nightmare scenario occurred. And more than that, he wished he didn’t have to feel all the more guilty about having no plan at all for what he would do if something happened to Jeremy. It was unthinkable. He couldn’t imagine having a world without his son in it, not anymore.

And so he leaned back as well, albiet so much more carefully with the understanding of the fact that children tend to be fragile, and couldn’t imagine.

[faceless-conspiracy-buff]

I watched blue beetle fall off of the same gargoyle I watched him fall off of last time. I’m going to set up a security camera to monitor it when I’m not here

...

Normally, I wouldn't waste my time watching a fellow hero make a fool of himself in public. Everyone has off days.

But in the case of Blue Beetle... well, you know what they say. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern.

...

I wonder what it is about that particular gargoyle that always seems to trip him up?

[sonderthroughthestreets]

Hiii! I think @/skam_mix made drawing of Sobbe at a museum so I was wondering if you could write something based on that with prompt 139 pls? Maybe Robbe comes o visit Sander at his job ! thanksss

Hi anon! 🥺💕 thats really cute and reminds me of my favourite fic ever of sobbe at the museum!! This drawing is so cuteee!!

If you don’t mind I combined you with @dagcutie who gave me this idea!

139. “God I missed you”

Dialogue Prompts!

Robbe’s job was not quite boring, but it wasn’t exactly interesting either.

Not when he had to tell the same story over and over again, name the same sight-seeing locations over and over again, and hand out the same pamphlets over and over and again. As a museum tour guide, it became a little tedious as time passed and while he had his days, days where he’d meet someone in a group actually interested in the information, or find someone who cracked a joke actually worth laughing at, or see a small child light up with wonder and a smile on their face...for the most part, this was just a summer job.

At least to him.

This job actually required a lot of skills and research. A lot of walking and knowing his way around places, knowing his way around people and communicating with them. So, while he hadn’t graduated yet, he was studying for a degree in Linguistics including taking courses for French, Spanish and Italian and he learned to pick up on quite a few things as he worked here.

Finishing up on a round with tourists, he decided to take his lunch break.

The thing is, Robbe never actually liked leaving the museum during his break. He liked walking around exploring certain exhibits first, a couple of small moments to himself, and then grabbing a bite to eat. He had made it his everyday goal to visit new ones. This time it was an art exhibit, a new showing at the museum.

He made his way through the pieces, slowly staring at them, taking them in, reading up the plaques about the artists. He was so engrossed in the art that he almost didn’t notice a pair of eyes staring at him from across the room. He looked over to the stranger with bleached hair in a black t-shirt, his eyes shining, and a shy but knowing smile on his face. He looked down, smiling to himself and then looked to the art in front of him.

Robbe couldn’t say he wasn’t curious about this stranger. If it wasn’t his stark white hair, it was the look he had held in his eyes just a few seconds ago. But unfortunately, Robbe was running out of time during his break, and his stomach was grumbling in desperate need of food. -

He saw him again in a couple of days. White shirt this time, white hair, same smile on his face. Twice is a coincidence, thought Robbe. But then he saw him again another day in the same week. Three is a pattern.

By the fourth day on the second week, Robbe’s interest had piqued enough. The only reason he had visited the same exhibit a twice, third and fourth time was because of this tall, dark stranger. Okay, he was tall but he wasn’t dark, not with a smile like that. Robbe would be lying to himself if he said he also didn’t think this stranger was attractive.

And by the looks of it, Tall Dark Stranger might’ve thought Robbe was attractive, too.

He saw him staring intensely at a painting on the wall, so focused on the piece. Then, he instinctively reached out almost as if he were to touch the painting. Robbe knew he couldn’t and he probably wouldn’t, but his reflexes worked faster than his mind and he was quickly rushing up to him all the same. The stranger‘s hand did pull away in time, just enough to flash him a smirk as he approached.

“Did you really think I’d touch it?” he asked.

Robbe looked at him, eyes gleaming with a smile.

“No,” he said. “But as a tour guide, I just act on instinct, you know?”

“A tour guide, huh?” Tall Dark Stranger’s lips curved as he eyed his uniform. “Can you give me a tour here?”

“I’m not really experienced in this exhibit. Art is not my area of expertise,” said Robbe.

“What is then?”

“Um, I gives tours on most of the historical and anthropological exhibits here. Sometimes I just like walking around looking at new ones,” he admitted.

“Ah,” the stranger nodded. “And would you like to learn something about art, Robbe?”

Robbe stared at him for a second, dumbfounded at him knowing his name. Then, he realized he had probably read his name tag.

“I would...”

“Sander,” he smiled.

Tall Dark Stranger was Sander.

As Robbe smiled, he walked beside Sander beginning the first of many of rounds in art exhibits at the museum that day.

They spent the day just talking and walking shoulder to shoulder, hands just barely brushing. Every once in a while Robbe would speed up ahead of him, running up to some artifact, a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke about it. Sander watched him get completely lost in it, explaining the facts. And at one point, Robbe noticed the smile that stretched across his face.

“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” Robbe asked, laughing insecurely.

“No, no, you’re not,” Sander stifled another smile. “It’s just...you seem to like your job,” he said. “That’s really rare. But good.

“I don’t-I don’t necessarily hate it,” Robbe swallowed uncomfortably. “But it keeps me busy,” he said.

“Busy...” Sander repeated.

“Yeah, it’s just temporary, you know? I haven’t really figured out what I actually wanna do,” he said.

Sander’s lips just curved the slightest as he looked off to the side, sipping the coffee they’d bought earlier.

“What?” asked Robbe.

“Nothing,” said Sander. Another moment passed. Another sip of coffee. “You’re really good at it,” he complimented.

“Thanks,” Robbe smiled.

Unfortunately, that was also the last time that Robbe saw him. -

It had been a month since he saw Sander and his chest was starting to ache a little. He missed this stranger that kept coming at the museum to not only stare at art but stare at him like he was art. Tall Dark Stranger he came to know as Sander. He wished he actually got to know him, though.

Taking a breath, he continued with a smile on his face, giving his tours and answering questions, ignoring that grave, deep-set, soreness making a home in his chest.

Another week had gone by and Robbe was starting to lose all hope. You don’t even know him, he thought. It was ridiculous, it really was. But if it was just a crush, some silly feeling that was supposed to go away after the first two weeks, it would’ve been gone by now.

And yet... -

He saw him!

Robbe was walking over to their favourite piece, the first one they’d been standing in front of when Sander pretended to the touch the painting and he was there lamenting his presence when a head of bleached hair peeked through the crowd.

When their eyes met, it seemed as if time slowed a little. His steps toward him seemed agonizing slow to Robbe, at least, even though in reality he was probably moving like a normal person. Sander had the hugest smile on his face and while Robbe had been upset and disappointed the past month, he couldn’t help but return that smile, too.

“Hi,” said Sander, sparks going off in his eyes.

“Hey,” said Robbe, heart beating fast in his chest.

Sander awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“So, I’m sorry I haven’t been coming here anymore, but I was on vacation with my family,” he explained.

Oh.

“And I wanted to tell you, but I think I came here on your day off or maybe you were sick,” he added quickly.

Robbe had been sick. He had eaten some bad shrimp the day before and unfortunately his stomach refused to let him come to work the next day. He was mentally cursing himself for ever choosing shrimp as an option for food. Regretting every life decision. But he smiled through it.

“That’s okay,” Robbe said. “You don’t have to explain.”

While the confident sparkle didn’t disappear in Sander’s eyes, he squinted them almost a mix between confusion and cringe.

“Is it...” he started. “Is it weird if I say that I missed you?”

Robbe’s heartbeat slowed down now.

“No,” he replied. “Not at all. I mean it is, but the feeling’s mutual, so.”

He couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across his freckled cheeks. He saw Sander inhale.

“God, I missed you,” he breathed quietly.

Robbe’s eyes dipped to the ground, lashes fluttering as he stood, still smiling.

“I missed you, too,” he said.

They both stayed in place, shuffling their toes silently.

“If you want I could give you a special tour right now,” Robbe offered.

“Wow, my very own special tour? Just for me?” Sander teased.

“Just for you,” nodded Robbe. “It’s not free though.”

Sander’s face pretended to sink just then.

“What do I owe you? Dinner and a date?” he asked, his smirk returning.

“Maybe your number, too,” Robbe teased back.

“You got it,” he winked at him.

Robbe’s job wasn’t boring, no. But it definitely did get more interesting. Especially with a Tall Dark Stranger interested in him.

[sapphiewrites-twst]

Hey hey, ya girl Sapphie’s back with another TWST reader insert. I’ve actually decided to split this into two or maybe three pieces because of its length. Anyhow, without further ado, enjoy~

Part One Part Two

Every day, I felt love only in movies, books, or dramas, that’s how I learned of love. My heart kept racing as if it was my story, pounding and fluttering. I’m so curious that I’m going crazy! It makes me wanna know…

… What is love?

IT seemed as if none of your first years friends had time for you these days. Ever since the announcement of the school festival, all of them had been working their butts off, under the insistence of their dorm leaders or by their own terms.

Nevertheless, it did not make life any easier for you, especially so considering your rather… mixed feelings regarding the five.

Flashforward to now, when you’re sitting with Grim and a couple of second and third years during lunch break because all of your first year friends are working on their various projects.

“So, Cater-senpai,” you began, swirling your french fry in the little pool of ketchup you created, watching the interesting swirly patterns appear on the surface of the red sauce wherever you drag the fry. “What did those two say they were doing at lunch again?”

The orange-haired third year paused in his attempts at taking the same selfie for the fifth time with a peeved Riddle. “They mentioned something about studying books about design to make the first year Heartslabyul stall the best of them all, or something like that.”

Blowing a strand of stray hair out of your face, you shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t as if you were uncomfortable with the upperclassmen themselves, it was rather the fact that some of them are a little… overbearing, to say the least.

Riddle had gotten much, much better than when you first met him, but the redheaded dorm leader still nags at you sometimes. Now, for example.

“(Name), Ace and Deuce are trying their hardest and I approve of that,” he started, finally having gotten away from Cater. “So as their friend, you should respect that.”

Everything out of Riddle’s mouth is true, but it didn’t fail to make you feel worse. You knew that, and you wanted to be proud of their dedication. But a selfish part of you longed for the days when you held all of your friends’ attention. The three of you were inseparable back then, after all.

Back then. You thought you’d never say those words about your friendship with the Adeuce duo.

“I know, Riddle-senpai, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less,” you sighed, stretching onto the table. For once, Riddle didn’t say anything about your lack of manners.

Placing a hand over yours, the redhead gave you a small smile. It was stiffer than normal, but it was a smile nevertheless. “I don’t especially understand your feelings, but I’ll be here to help you get over it, just like you helped me when things were… less favorable than now.”

Your eyes widened. Sure, you and Riddle had gotten closer after his overblot, but you didn’t think he was comfortable enough with you to offer mental support.

Returning his smile, you set your other hand over his. “Thanks, Riddle-senpai.”

Floyd decided this was the perfect moment to barge in.

You had about one second to prepare before he scooped you up and out of your chair. “Shrimpy!” Nuzzling into your neck, he spun you around a couple of times before setting you back onto the floor. You stumbled back, the world tilting around you.

Two hands steadied you, preventing you from falling back onto your behind. You looked up to see none other than Floyd’s brother, Jade. “Hello, (Name). What are you doing with the second and third years?”

You shrugged, “Am I not allowed to hang out with my senpais?” Jade chuckled, dipping his head in apology. “I didn’t intend for it to sound that way. I’m merely curious why you aren’t with your usual group of first year friends.”

“Well,” you frowned, the normally hilarious scene of Floyd messing with a very annoyed Riddle seemed bland to you in this moment. “They never seem to have time for me anymore.” Jade stood beside you, observing the scene with amusement. “Maybe they’re simply busy with the upcoming festival and all.”

“That’s the problem!” You groaned, spinning around to face the second year. “I know I’m being selfish, but for all of them to go MIA on me all at the same time?”

“You have other friends beside them, don’t you? Let them do their thing for the festival, I’m sure they’ll return the attention tenfold once their work is done.”

You gaped at the Octavinelle vice-dorm leader, eyes wide. Has your upperclassmen always been this nice to you? “Come hang out at Mostro Lounge if you get too lonely. I’m sure Azul will be more than happy to have you.”

“R-really?”

Your gratitude cracked a bit at Jade’s next words. Chuckling, the merman remarked, “Of course, there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t be roped into helping us handle the customers.”

Deflating a little, you nodded, commenting jokingly, “Why am I not surprised?”

—

“Hey, Sebek, partners?” You called out to the Diasomnia first year, gesturing at yourself. Today was the first-third year joint lesson, which happened whenever the first years were learning a rather difficult lesson in Alchemy.

Crewel-sensei wanted the students to get into groups of three. It didn’t matter what grade your partners were, as long as you had at least one third or second year in your group.

Sebek avoided your gaze, turning away and disappearing into the crowd of students. You stared at the place he disappeared from, confused and hurt. Your insides felt hollow, as if the green-haired male had taken a piece of you with him when he left.

Out of nowhere, a face appeared right in front of yours, surprising the living daylights out of you. Taking a step back, you recognized Lilia’s face, albeit upside down. The vice-dorm leader of Diasomnia flipped upright, landing gracefully in front of you.

“Would you like to be partners with Kalim and I?”

Taken aback, you blinked a couple times before sputtering out, “I-is that okay?” Kalim appeared beside Lilia, grabbing your hand and pulling you towards their cauldron, “Of course!” Encouraged by the Scarabia dorm leader’s cheery words, you followed them. But you couldn’t resist looking back to search the room for your green-haired friend.

He was with a transfer student, who was here in honor of the school festival. However, it bothered you that she was a girl. A very pretty girl, in fact. Was that why Sebek didn’t want to be your partner? With all these questions floating around your head, the lesson started.

—

“What could be troubling you, young one?” Lilia asked, dumping another vial of liquid into the bubbling mixture you three had in your cauldron.

You were too worn down by your emotions to tell your upperclassman off for calling you ‘young one’, instead opting to release a heavy sigh. “I don’t understand. All this is too perfect to be a mere coincidence.”

Kalim’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What happened?” Surprised that your happy-go-lucky senpai hadn’t heard about the weird coincidence yet, you explained it to him, including your confusion and hurt.

What you refrained from sharing was your conflicting feelings of love. You felt abandoned because your friends weren’t hanging out with you as much, right? Seeing Sebek with the pretty transfer student made your heart ache because of the possibility he would stop being your friend, right?

You loved them as friends and nothing more than that, right? Right?

“They’re just really busy in preparations for the festival.” Was Kalim’s final verdict. “You can always come hang out at Scarabia! We can have a parade and ride my flying carpet across the night sky!”

Lilia, however, said nothing, only watching with a knowing smile on his face. He always seemed to know everything and you had the sneaking suspicions that he knew exactly what’s going on with you, all without you saying a word to him.

“That applies to Diasomnia as well. You’re always welcomed to sort things out with me.” You knew whatever was going to come out of Lilia’s mouth would not be in your favor when that familiar teasing glint made its way into the third-year’s eyes.

“That’s what you young people would call a date, is it not?”

To be continued~

*Lyrics taken from What is Love by TWICE

[wri0thesley]

sweetness - yandere!risotto x reader

WARNINGS: sfw. yandere warning - stalking, obsessive behaviour, gaslighting. brief mentions of abuse (reader’s father is implied to be violent towards them). blood and violence. a lot of food descriptions. reader is gender neutral! 10.3k. 

Risotto finds himself in a rainstorm one busy evening and ducks into your place of employ for a brief reprieve. Your father’s sweet shop. Risotto is the kind of man who is used to having people be scared of him - nobody ever has the courage to treat him like an ordinary human being. Nobody has ever treated him like someone normal. Not until you. He leaves with a bag full of gifts for the rest of La Squadra, the memory of you smiling, and a crush that grows into an obsession. 

It’s a coincidence that Risotto Nero ever saw you in the first place - an assortment of the misfortunes that Risotto has come to accept as commonplace in his life. He had long ago accepted that the Nero family was not one for whom luck ran in the blood - a family who did not particularly care for him, the death of his cousin when he was fourteen, ending up in an organised crime syndicate with a gun in his hand and a list of names in his pocket. 

It’s a coincidence he’s glad of. 

That, at least, is not something he ever really thinks. Things that happen to him are either annoyances or acceptable; he goes home to a quiet, empty house and he grunts when he sees his neighbours but he does not offer anything more than that. He is perfectly civil to his associates in La Squadra di Esecuzione; they, he knows, think of his stoicism and his silence as strength. They look to him like a leader, because he has had to prove himself such. When he had been given control of his team at twenty one and met Sorbet and Gelato, already over a decade older than him, he had known he had to prove himself. 

If he has left some of his humanity behind, what does it matter? Humanity is not an important trait for a killer. Better for him to clog their veins with needles and razor blades instead of worrying about the family they may or may not be leaving behind. 

The day his life changed forever, he was on his way back to his mercifully quiet apartment after a day spent giving out orders to his teammates. It had not been a kind day; the pay the hitmen get, for what they are expected to do, is laughable. Risotto is keeping his roof over his head, but it is not without effort on his part - and his subordinates are still not always quite so lucky. The newest recruit, Ghiaccio, had been practically scarlet in the face when he’d been given his share--

Risotto pauses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, a persistent ache in his temples. Ghiaccio is good at what he does - or he would not be a member of Risotto’s team - but Risotto is always left with a headache after speaking to him. The day is already on a southward spiral. The cold nips at his bare skin, the sky grey and cloudy, the pavements crowded with businessmen and women attempting to get home in the rush of the end of the day. Some of them glance twice at Risotto, leaving him a wide berth on the walkway - one or two of them even cross the street to avoid coming too close to him. 

His height and his dark eyes and his strange way of dressing put people off - but so does that way he carries himself. That dark, brooding knowledge that seems to follow him - a whisper that says; this man is involved in unpleasant business. And on the streets of Italy, that unpleasant business generally means only one thing. 

He feels the cold splash of water droplets on his skin before he realises that it’s begun to rain. He is not usually one who minds the rain - in the right circumstances, he finds walking alone in the rain quite peaceful - but these are not the right circumstances. The pavements are already growing slick as the rain gets heavier, and the people crowding all around him are searching for umbrellas, thrusting them up into the sky--

Risotto is taller than most men, and umbrellas are hardly the most social of accessories. Awkward points bite into his shoulders as people rush by him, their sights blinkered by the canvas above them, no longer concerned by what Risotto might be now that he’s not in their direct field of vision. As yet another umbrella - this one patterned with rainbows - connects with his chin, he’s forced to stop for a moment, his eyes scanning the street beside him to see if there’s somewhere that’s still open he might take shelter in. 

Ah. There. A softly lit pale blue shopfront, a hand-lettered sign flipped to “open!” in its window. Risotto grasps the handle and steps in (stooping a little when he realises how low the doorway is), a bell chiming out across the little room to announce that the shop has just received a customer. 

He takes a moment to breathe as he catalogues his surroundings. 

It is always a good idea for an assassin to know where he is. The moment his gaze flickers around the room, he’s able to put a name to the shop he ducked into for some solace from the rain and the barrage of umbrellas; this is Dolcezza, a little sweet shop that has been on this street for three years. By all accounts, it keeps a steady enough clientele, but it hardly brings in a large amount of money - which Risotto assumes is the only reason that the owner, an older man, has not been badgered or hounded about the protection fees he most certainly is not paying. 

It’s a nice place, Risotto thinks grudgingly, looking around. The walls are lined with jars of brightly coloured candies and sweet treats - a glass case at the front of the shop features some more specialised treats out in the open. Fudges and special chocolates and neatly packaged boxes of sweet assortments. There’s an open doorway, beside the cash register, where Risotto can see a large table and some silver specialised equipment and a figure in gloves and an apron bent over, clearly hard at work on the confections. A cash register sits on top of the wooden portion of the glass cabinet, and Risotto’s gaze falls upon that bit of technology, his eyes also meet the girl behind the cash register’s own wide stare. 

He is perfectly used to the flash of fear that he sees in her eyes. He sees it constantly in people on the street and sometimes when he is dragged into restaurants with other members of his team and when he goes out to buy his weekly shopping (he does this once a week, at the same store, and buys the same things). It’s to do with the set of his mouth and the ink and blood colour of his eyes - the girl behind the counter falters. She is pretty enough, he supposes, with dark hair and dark eyes and wearing a neat pinstriped dress that he supposes is a uniform of sorts. He doesn't really care about that. What he cares about is how she watches him warily, like a cat about to run if he gets too close or startles with sudden movements--

And he has spent his entire life with people being afraid of him, and sometimes the best way to cope with the knowledge you are feared is to take control of the room. He takes one slow, deliberate step towards the counter - and, like he knew she would, she jumps. 

“I-I’m s-so sorry, one moment!” She says in a babble, her voice running into one long continuous noise, and she scrambles through the large, open doorway and out of Risotto’s sight. He’s impressed that she managed to say anything, actually - still, how predictable. The smirk curves his full mouth before he can stop it, and he finishes walking towards the cash register, looking around the little place and amusing himself by imagining what kind of sweets he’d take for the rest of La Squadra. 

With any luck, the rain will have stopped before the worker has even had the courage to peek around the corner to see if he’s still there.

Sweet tobacco for Prosciutto, perhaps. The blue and white shark sweets that look like they have the most horrific texture for Pesci. Balls of bubble gum for Melone, who will pop them next to Ghiaccio’s ears to annoy the new recruit. Illuso . . . well, Risotto has never quite managed to get the measure of Illuso, who listens more than he speaks and regurgitates the gossip of other people instead of his own. Perhaps one of the small fudge assortments, to be safe. Gelato has a sweet tooth, and Sorbet indulges Gelato in everything - he’d take a bag of the heart-shaped marshmallows for those two. Apropos on account of them being lovers, which they have never bothered to hide--

He hears a raised voice from the other room, and then a figure stomps out - most certainly not the figure of the girl who had not been able to stomach his presence through her fear. And Risotto . . . well, at first, he does not know that he’s looking at his reason for living. His reward for all of the hardships he has endured. That comes later. 

All he knows is that when you look into his eyes, there isn’t a whit of fear reflected in yours, and he feels comforted and known and not like a monster for the first time in a long while. 

~

Elisa comes tearing into the back room, where you’re industriously cutting the fudge into perfect cubes, and looks like she’s seen a ghost. You sigh, raising yourself up - your father had hired Elisa after one of your last workers had gone on maternity leave, and you’d soon realised she was easily flustered and prone to making a drama out of things. You suppose that you’ll have to stay a little later tonight to make sure that the fudge is all finished - you don’t trust Elisa to do it, and at any rate, she’s not paid to do things like that.

“What’s wrong?” You ask her, keeping your temper. Shouting does nothing good, you’ve learnt. Your father might use a raised voice to get what he wants, but that just makes you even less likely to jump straight to righteous anger. “I heard a customer come in, but I didn’t hear one leave.”

She gasps a few times, her big brown eyes wide, until she hisses out;

“I can’t serve him!”

Him? You wonder if perhaps it might be an ex-boyfriend or an awkward crush, but Elisa looks far too rattled for it to be something that simple. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask, keeping your voice even. You and her are about the same age, but you know from the few friends you’ve managed to make in your life that people have a tendency to see you as the sensible one. The parental figure in any given situation. The one who keeps the rest of them calm. “Do you need me to go out and serve them?”

“No!” The response is instantaneous. She looks terrified. You wonder if this man has threatened her with a knife or something - this reaction seems over the top, even for someone like Elisa. “You can’t!”

“Elisa,” you say softly, pulling off the gloves that you were wearing for hygiene. “I’m sure he’s perfectly fine and civil. I’ll go speak to him.”

“I think he’s part of the Mafia! Of Passione!” Her words spill out all at once. 

You look at her, your forehead creasing in confusion.

“Elisa,” you say, very slowly and carefully. “What business would a mobster have in a sweet shop? Do you think he’s here to assassinate the lemon drops? Slit the throats of our barley twists?”

“You’ll see!” She insists. She’s trembling. “You shouldn’t go out there!”

You sigh softly, and you go out to see what all of the fuss is about. 

You understand when the man, stood by the cash register, his hands casually in his pockets, turns to look at you. You understand that perhaps Elisa was a little justified in being afraid of him; he stands well over six foot, his clothes . . . unusual, a scarred and muscled torso very prominently on display. His hair is pale and plastered to his forehead by the rain - but most striking of all are his eyes. Blood red irises and inky dark sclera, boring into your own gaze as you look up at his face (he’s handsome, you realise, and try and curtain the thought) and make sure that none of the brief flash of fear you do feel shows in your expression. 

Because even if he looks scary doesn’t mean he is. You know not to judge a book by its cover! And this man, you suppose, spends a lot of time being judged for his stature and his eyes and all of the things he can’t help, and you refuse to be a part of the problem. Part of you, too, wholeheartedly believes that a gangster would have no business in your father’s humble little sweet shop. 

You’d known when you’d rented this storefront that it was in an area controlled by Passione; when you’d spoken to your father, he’d assured you there was nothing to worry about - so you assume your father pays the protection dues he’s supposed to. There’s no reason for any member of Passione to step foot in here unless they were hankering for something to satisfy their sweet tooth! 

And if they are here to buy, they are a customer and not a gangster, and you intend to treat them simply as the former. Who are you to judge how one earns their bread?

“Get caught in the downpour?” You ask, cheerfully, taking your place behind the counter. “It looked pretty bad out there! I’m glad to be inside!”

You keep eye contact with him. You notice that he seems surprised, and you chalk it up to the fact that people probably don’t look into his eyes - you suppose they are a little unnerving, but the more you look at them the more ordinary they seem. Your smile does not fade a whit. 

“O-oh,” he says, and his voice is very deep and pleasant. You watch as the faintest dark flush creeps up his cheeks. “Yes. I dodged in to avoid the rain.”

You look at the clock on the wall.

“Oh dear,” you say, meaning it. You’re sympathetic; getting caught in an unexpected rain shower is bad at the worst of times, but this man appears to be in head to toe leather, and leather is never comfortable when damp. “And at this time, too! The roads are always so horribly busy with everyone getting home from work! I’m sorry you got caught up in that, Signore.”

He pauses before speaking, as if he’s really mulling over his words.

“I kept getting hit with umbrellas,” he grunts out, eventually. 

“Well, we never have too many customers around this time anyway,” you say, smiling. “I don’t mind at all if you ducked in for some reprieve from the showers! You’re welcome to stay and look around until it goes - it’s not very big, but my father and I make all of the sweets ourselves and we’re very proud of it!” You smile, and then, you wink at him. It feels like he needs a kindness, after Elisa ran out of here practically screaming. “If you want a sample of anything, just ask!”

He blinks at you, as if he can’t quite believe that you haven’t turned tail and run - and the corner of his mouth twitches. 

“I think I frightened the other girl,” he says, eventually - he does not sound exactly ashamed of it, but he does sound sorry. “I’m sorry if I caused any problems for you.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” you say, lightly. “Elisa’s new here. She’s still getting to grips with everything, and I think she just got a little overwhelmed by--”

You hesitate. How do you tell this man that his very presence is intimidating? 

A smile breaks his mouth. 

“Yes,” he says. “I tend to have that effect.”

~

There is a smudge of flour - or some other powdery white substance used in baking, he knows it is not the powdery white substance he is most familiar with, at least - across the bridge of your nose, and keeping his eyes off it is proving to be a challenge. He wants to stare at your face for hours. He wants to memorise the shape of your eyes and your lips, covet the colour of your eyes - remember what it feels like to be looked at like a man and nothing more.

He’s not often lost for words, but in front of you, he finds himself faltering. It’s been so long since he has had a conversation that is just simply a conversation - even at the supermarket, the cashier looks up and looks down and scans his items without drawing attention to themselves, too fearful of whatever Risotto might do (even in the well-lit aisles of a public place, apparently) to do much else. You, though - you are before him, smile on your face, eyes directed at him, open warmth and sunniness diffusing everything you do. 

He didn’t intend to buy anything. He does not have much of a sweet tooth. He prefers the sour or the salty when it comes to consumables - but somehow, looking at your friendly open face, he cannot bring himself to leave empty-handed. Even though you had openly said you didn’t mind if he’d only come in to shelter from the rain (which he had done, after all), he does not want to disappoint you. There’s nobody else in the shop. How many customers have you had all day? 

If he buys something, and says he liked it . . . if he does that, that’s an excuse to come back in and see you again, isn’t it? 

It’s not that Risotto has a crush, he thinks - though now that he mentions it, he notices how pleasant he finds your colouring, how your curves and lines fill out your own uniform (pinstripes and aprons) so well, how he likes the way your hair is pulled out of your face - but rather that he wants, just for a few moments, to feel like he is being looked at as another person on the street. Before today, it had been a long time since he’d been allowed to feel normal. 

And if the price of feeling ordinary is a few bags of sweets and a lighter wallet, is that so high a price to pay?

And he could always buy things for his teammates!

He might not be planning on enjoying any delicacies himself, but if one of his teammates enjoys the treats . . . he smiles to himself at the sheer genius of his plan. 

“May I have some bags made up?” He asks you. “I’m afraid there are a few things I want, I’d rather keep them separate--”

“Of course, Sir!” You say, immediately brightening - even more! He didn’t think it was possible for that glow you had to get any brighter, but he’s proven wrong. “Are you buying some gifts, perhaps?”

“Yes,” he says, watching you reach behind the counter and put on a pair of thin plastic gloves. “Some gifts for my colleagues, we’ve just done rather well on a project.” He can’t stop watching your hands. He wonders how small they would look if he were to put his own beside them. If he were to take ahold of you.

(He does not say that the “project” he refers to is the murder of an influential government official whose demise had been reported this morning as due to a combination of old age and a rare blood disorder nobody had realised he’s had, one that caused a horrible iron deficiency. It’s much better that you don’t know that.)

“Oh!” You say, the smile not leaving your face, your eyes not leaving his. “I’m really happy for you! You must be a considerate boss, to want to buy everyone else presents! How many are you buying for? We have a couple of gift boxes and selections that might fit the bill, if you want to bring in a treat to share--”

“No,” Risotto says quickly, imagining the chaos that might break out if he were to provide a box for his teammates to pick and choose how they pleased. Ghiaccio would certainly accuse someone of having more than their fair share, and Prosciutto would berate Pesci for eating too many, and Gelato would definitely actually eat too many-- “I’ll get them all individual gifts, if you don’t mind.”

Your smile is infectious. Risotto isn’t certain when the last time the curve of his lips held this long. 

“That’s more than fine. I’ll make sure they’re all very nicely presented, don’t you worry about that! How many individual bags would you like?”

He pauses, counting in his head, partly not wanting you to move too far away from him and partly hypnotised by the tilt of your head and the colour of your eyes and the way your attention is focused solely on him. He’s used to not being seen - that’s his job description, after all. But you make being noticed seem . . .pleasant. Like it’s not something to be avoided at all costs. 

He’s grateful for the little game he played with himself earlier, assigning all of the sweets to members of his team. It means he doesn’t embarrass himself tripping over words and sounding unsure about what he wants, making you feel as though he’s incompetent - he watches as you take scoops out of the big impractical jars and pour them into sweet little striped paper bags, reaching behind you to pull out lengths of ribbon and cut them so they curl beautifully, neat little cards with the name of your shop attached to the shimmering tails--

You move so quickly and neatly and Risotto is duly impressed. He’d find this kind of work horribly dull; you seem to be having a good time, enjoying yourself as you tug on a ribbon that isn’t quite even and straighten the tag of Prosciutto’s sweet tobacco. He feels . . . warm, somehow, that you’re taking such care over the little bags of sweets, though he knows they can hardly be the most expensive things you sell. Risotto cannot afford the most expensive things you sell, he thinks, looking at the price of some of the chocolate assortments in satin boxes behind the glass. 

“There!” You say, stepping back and enjoying the neat sight of all eight bags of Risotto’s choice lined up on the counter. Risotto has to admit they look very neat and pretty - whilst he knows Ghiaccio will probably just tear into his bag of pretty pale blue peppermints, he hopes that Prosciutto or Illuso or someone will appreciate the work put into presentation. He knows he is - or perhaps he’s just admiring the one doing the presentation. Aren’t they the same thing, in the end? 

You tell him the total and Risotto fumbles for his wallet. It’s been a while since he paid for anything in cold hard cash - he has a fake bank card for things like groceries under a false name, but somehow he wants to ensure things here are more . . . personal. He hands over the money and his breath catches as your fingers brush his--

Did you feel that spark of electricity? That brief zip of excitement? 

“Which of them are for you?” You ask him, as if nothing has happened, waiting for your register to print his receipt. You’re thankful for your father’s insistence on pricing things in whole numbers - you’ve never had much of a brain for mathematics, and you’d felt somehow . . . discomfited by the way Risotto’s fingers had felt when they brushed your own. You’re glad to avoid touching him too much. 

“Oh.” He looks at you. “None of them are.”

You look at him, profiling him - and then, smiling, you tap your nose. You reach to one of the jars closest to you, filled with dark pinwheels the colour of this man’s scleras - you take a handful of them and pop them into one of the bags your father usually leaves for Halloween-time, black and white striped. 

“No charge,” you say, tying it with a neat little black bow. “I think you’ll like the licorice! You don’t strike me as a man who enjoys too much sweetness.” You drop it into the bag with the rest of Risotto’s purchases. “You should always allow yourself to indulge! You deserve a reward just as much as the rest of your team do!”

“I-- thank you, Signorina--”

You wave away his thanks, your cheeks pink, and Risotto decides right then and there he’s going to have to come back here, if only to see your face flush that colour once more. He knows you’re going to haunt his daydreams for days. That someone like you has existed so close to him for so long and he has been unaware. . .

“I hope you and your colleagues enjoy them!” You chirp. You point to the windows. “The rain’s stopped too! I was very glad to meet you, I hope I’ll see you again sometime--”

And you step away from him, turning your body towards the doorway, and Risotto is leaving before he shames himself by grabbing your shoulder and asking you to stay longer and just talk to him for a while. As he opens the door and the bell rings across the shop, he hears your voice:

“Elisa! He was perfectly nice, you were just being silly--”

Nice. 

He hasn’t heard that word ascribed to him in a long time. 

~ 

When Risotto hands Formaggio the prettily packaged parcel of sweets shaped like little cat faces, his subordinate looks up at him with wide eyes, as if trying to gauge whether or not Risotto is being serious about it. For one thing, gifts are not really a done thing among the members of La Squadra - for another, if Formaggio were to be handed confectionary, he would not have expected to be handed it by Risotto. Pesci, perhaps. Gelato, maybe - though he would hesitate eating anything given to him by Gelato. Illuso, maybe, if it were something elegant and not something twee--

But Risotto’s eyes are very focused and serious, so Formaggio takes the bag and drops out a confused thanks, and wonders if this is his capo’s way of poisoning him. He’s always imagined that Risotto would be sneakier than this, but maybe it’s one of those mafia honour things and he’s supposed to just eat it so that Risotto doesn’t kill him in a more painful way? Formaggio screws up his face looking down at it, and then watches as, across the room, Risotto stops Prosciutto. 

He picks out another bag of candy. Formaggio’s cat candy is tied with an orange bow; Prosciutto’s candy - Formaggio doesn’t know how to describe it, but it looks kind of like pale, sugary tobacco - is tied with a yellow one. Prosciutto looks down at it, and then back up at Risotto, and gives a halting thanks. 

A few hours later, Formaggio has ascertained that every member of La Squadra has been given a not-quite-identical bag. 

When Formaggio hesitantly puts forward that perhaps Risotto is going to kill them, Ghiaccio barks out angrily that their Capo would never do anything so stupid--

“I recognise this shop, anyway,” says Illuso, who is chewing a piece of fudge as he talks. Okay, maybe they’re not actually poisoned, then. “It’s down one of the main streets. Quaint little confectioner’s. Only been there a few years but seems to do okay business. I don’t know who owns it, but as far as I know it’s nobody who Passione or Risotto might have in their back pocket.”

Formaggio looks at the bag again, and, sighing, reaches in. His fingers close around one of the brightly coloured sweets, surprised by how hard it feels - he’d expected some kind of gummy sweet. Throwing it into his mouth, the hard candy immediately tastes sweet and warm and pleasant all at once. 

He crunches the sugar between his teeth loudly, because that is the kind of man that Formaggio is. Sorbet, across the table from Formaggio, wrinkles his nose and dutifully feeds Gelato another fluffy pink heart-shaped marshmallow. 

“Well?” Ghiaccio demands. “Are you going to die?”

Formaggio considers for a moment. Sweet strawberry aftertaste lingers between his teeth. None of the rest of his teammates who have professed they’ve already eaten some of their ‘gifts’ appear to have dropped dead where they stand yet. 

“Nah,” he says, eventually. “Don’t think I’m gonna kick the bucket any time soon. These are real good, by the way.”

“Mm,” says Melone, who pops another brightly coloured gumball into his mouth. Formaggio has heard the bubbles popping for most of the night - as Melone does it, a vein in Ghiaccio’s forehead visibly twitches. The blue haired man already looks like he’s teetering on the edge of collapse - Formaggio supposes he did not enjoy the use of the phrase ‘kick the bucket’. Ghiaccio can be a real uptight asshole. “We should ask Risotto to be rewarded like this every time a hit goes well. Really makes us feel like a team, don’t you think? I’ll give you one of mine if you’ll let me try one of yours.”

Formaggio laughs, flicking one of his cat candies across the table and catching Melone’s tossed gumball with grace, sweeping a low bow. There’s a brief hubbub on the table as Formaggio walks away, probably about who’s being allowed to try some of whose candy, and Formaggio is smirking at the chaos he’s caused as he goes to find Risotto. 

He really wouldn’t mind some more of these, actually. 

He slips it into conversation with Risotto a few days later, expecting to be rebuffed immediately - the whole thing was already so out of character for their quiet, impassable leader - but he’s surprised when Risotto doesn’t tell him to be grateful for what he has. If Formaggio didn’t know Risotto so well, he’d say that the veil that fell over Risotto’s gaze was almost . . . fond. Longing. 

After a moment, Risotto speaks. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The statement is vague, without making any promises - and yet Risotto’s tone sends a shiver down Formaggio’s spine. Formaggio himself has never been the kind of man who makes a plan and sticks to it - if Formaggio gets what he wants, it’s usually because of pure luck. But when Risotto speaks, even to say something so up in the air . . .

Formaggio gets the impression he’ll definitely be getting more of the prettily decorated bags from the confectioner’s down the main street. 

And for some reason, that certainty leaves him feeling unsettled. 

~

Risotto is a careful man. He goes into the store that you work at once or twice a week; though he quickly memorises your schedule, he makes sure to pop in every so often when you’re not working. Once, he is served by Elisa, who looks at him with wide eyes and shaking fingers and jumps when the bell rings and another customer walks in. She’s clearly been told by you that Risotto is no threat, and yet she cannot shake that human nature: fear that which you do not think you could outrun or outsmart. Risotto does not smile at her. 

Likewise, he does not smile at the older man who is working one Tuesday morning when he enters the candy-scented room to buy himself some more of the licorice. You had been right; he wasn’t a sweet kind of man, but he found himself enjoying the licorice you’d picked out for him immensely. He likes the salt and the chew of the black cables - sometimes, biting into them feels like stress relief. 

This man, he assumes, is your father. He does not treat Risotto badly by any means, but Risotto sees the way that your father looks at him distrustfully and sees that he gets much less licorice in the bag than when you (or even Elisa) weigh out the contents. 

It’s a pity, he thinks, you had to have a man like that for a father. 

When he does get to see you, it feels like all of his troubles are lifted at once. 

He had become used to the feeling of carrying all of his burdens around his heart like iron chains. He had accepted that was his lot in his life; he had accepted he was going to feel like he was drowning until he was murdered in a back alley after becoming too cocky with his stand. He hadn’t realised how bad that feeling had gotten until you’d smiled and winked and given him free candy out of the good of your heart and not because you were afraid of him, smudge on your nose and all. 

He supposes, surrounded by other men who kill for money, he had not realised that some people were just inherently good. 

Well. Perhaps not some people. In his experience, you are the exception that proves the rule. 

And that you are reduced to being a confectioner in your father’s business and working behind a cash register, doing mindless things like measuring out grams and tying ribbons makes him ache in the middle of his chest. Someone like you deserves the world. Risotto does not dislike himself - but he does not like himself either. His body is simply the prison that he lives in. Other people whisper behind their hands about what Risotto might do with a face and a body like that, what blood might stain his past, what he might do if he were given an inch of leeway and they were to take their gaze from him for just a moment--

But you do not do that. You smile at him and always put an extra scoop of the sweets into whatever he orders (Prosciutto does not like the sweet tobacco; he asks for one of the beautifully decorated boxes of candy cigarettes, and you put three into his paper bag, telling him nobody ever really buys them anyway). You ask him banal questions about his day like he’s an ordinary man. 

Once, angry about the man’s conduct on their last ‘project’,  he lets slip Melone’s name. He curses himself in the back of his brain, hating that he’s made himself vulnerable - but when, a few weeks later, you ask about whether Melone has calmed down any yet, any fear he had about you misusing the new information floats away like dust on the wind - you are simply a wonderful person who remembers things that you are told. Who cares about his life, though nobody else ever has. 

Risotto sees little things about you. Every day, he learns something new. He learns that you have no particular interest in sweet-making, but your father did not trust easily (this comes as no surprise to Risotto, even with his limited interactions with the man). He learns that you still live at home. You mention that you walk through one of the shittier neighbourhoods to get there, and that is enough for Risotto to draw a brief sketch in his mind of where you might reside--

He learns other things, too. He’s not surprised by your gentle kindnesses, but they still hit him full force in the chest whenever he gets to see one. 

It is not just him you give extra portions to, after all. Small children who come in and laboriously count out their money onto the glass, the tap-tap-tap echoing in Risotto’s brain, are rewarded with you exclaiming about how good they are with numbers and a few extra scoops of whatever sweet thing they’re hankering over. A few times, when you and he have been chatting, you’ve slipped him one of the licorice pinwheels from the jar whilst you chewed on your own delicacy of choice. 

(“Almost nobody ever buys the licorice!” You tell him, laughing. “You’re doing me a favour by eating some, really!”)

Once, a little girl comes in, sniffling. It transpires she has lost her mother in the hubbub of a busy Friday evening, and you talk to her softly and gently and fetch a chair from out of the backroom for her to sit on. You amuse her by telling her about a time you got separated from your father when you were a small child, and you give her one of the brightly coloured lollipops decorated with rainbow swirls from your display cabinet. 

When her mother eventually flies into the shop in a tizzy, she is grateful to you - and more, she’s grateful to Risotto, her eyes not once straying to his peculiar clothes or his strange eyes. To him, she is just one of the two people in this little confectioners who helped keep the light of her life safe, and her eyes are full of happy tears when she gives him a quick hug--

He doesn’t remember the last time somebody hugged him. 

Just another example of your bright sunshine rubbing off on him. When somebody is by you, he thinks, they cease to be just themselves - they are lent some of your warmth and sweetness and are made all the better for it. A little voice in the back of his brain, gnawing viciously at the knot in his chest that forms whenever you smile at him, whispers that nobody else deserves this. You are too good for this world. You must be protected and kept safe and guided away from the evils of the universe--

You give a little boy and his even younger sister who come in to browse - and admit shyly, sadness in their eyes, that they have no money, and just enjoy the colours and the smells and being surrounded by delicious things so they can imagine how they might taste - a bag made up of two sweets from every jar in the shop. 

“Don’t you lose money?” He can’t resist asking you, after the children have exchanged wide eyed looks as if they cannot believe their fortune and ran out of the door, babbling impassioned thanks. “Giving things out for free like that?”

You meet Risotto’s eyes - and in them, you see that worry that the extra sweets and the free things you slip into this man’s orders have been a burden on you - and you shake your head. 

“You never lose money on kindness,” you tell him, and Risotto remembers that for days afterwards. No.The world doesn’t deserve you. Somebody is going to take advantage of you. That voice - the one he has never been good at ignoring, the one that leads him to splattering brains on the pavement with a handgun before he turned twenty - whispers that the only place you will be safe is with him. Risotto believes it. 

He believes it even more when one night he has dropped in to buy Formaggio some of his cat candy, and you and your father are arguing in hushed whispers in the back room. You see him, and go to greet him and ask him what he wants tonight--

And your father reaches out, hands encircling your wrist, dragging you to face him too close and hissing something that, if Risotto were not intimately acquainted with listening to conversations he is not supposed to, he would have missed. 

“You’re going to bankrupt us--”

“It’s just a few sweets--”

“They’re my sweets. You’re fucking lucky you have a job at all, you ungrateful little--”

Risotto steps forward, and your father - like the coward he is - falls silent. He looks up at the imposing six foot something man with muscles the size of his head and cannot think of anything to say. Risotto’s voice is low, like the rumbling purr of a motorcycle engine when he speaks;

“Is there a problem here?” 

Your father blinks up, and you look at Risotto like he has saved you from a very dark fate - and Risotto cannot help but love that look of relief and adoration on your face. 

“No problem,” your father mumbles, and scurries away back into the other room, tail tucked firmly between his legs. 

Risotto turns his gaze on you. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, sensing that you’re about to cry or do something worse. He looks at the way you cradle your wrist protectively in one gloved hand and wonders if it’s the first time your father has ever laid his hands on you - for your father’s sake, Risotto hopes it is. He cannot describe what he would do to anyone who would hurt you more than this. 

He wants to take you away then, as you right yourself and wipe at your eyes and summon a smile for him - ever the sunny one, even when your world is raining. He envies and loves that about you. But he cannot. Not yet. 

He must plan slowly. He must earn your trust. Risotto does not rush into things. 

~

Risotto has his responsibilities. He longs to be able to devote every moment of every day to you; he wants to watch you wake up and see sunlight dapple your beautiful face, wants to see you sleep-tousled and soft in the morning. He wants to walk beside you on your way to work. He wants to cook you dinner. He wants to hold you in his arms and never let go. He wants to lock you up so that soft prettiness you have and that sweet sunshine can only be gazed upon by him and people he thinks deserves you. He wants to chain you up and keep you safe so that you might never have to interact with people who do not deserve you ever again. 

But he can’t. Not yet. 

For now, he tries to keep his longing sated by dropping into the sweet shop whenever he can. He prefers early mornings and late evenings - when you are more likely to be alone, and the shop is most likely to be quiet. He’s walked you home from your shift once, when you’d sighed that it was raining and you hadn’t brought an umbrella--

(“I owe you for the first time,” Risotto had grunted - and you, who have come to be fond of this over-protective huge man in the way one is fond of an awkward older brother, allow it. You know about your basic stranger safety - but Risotto has been so loyal in the past few months, and he’d stopped your father from shouting, and he’s never been weird or creepy towards you. You can’t help but think the man is just lonely - so you accept the proposal, although you don’t let him walk you any further than the top of your street.)

Sometimes, he lets Metallica out, and he blends into the walls behind him, and he watches you go home. He follows you and watches you go into your shitty little house that you’d tried so hard to keep a secret from him - he thinks you must be ashamed of it. The front door looks as though it’s been kicked in once or twice. The flower garden out front has gone wild. The windows are grimy, and one is smashed. The sweet shop cannot be doing so well, then. 

It’s alright, he thinks to himself. When you and he have your future together, he’ll make sure the house is perfect. You will not have to worry about vandals or criminals. You won’t walk down a street to get home that is lined with used needles and empty bottles. 

He finds out, coincidentally, it is not the first time your father has laid hands on you, and he aches for justice. That anyone would have the nerve to hurt you! That anyone could try and dull that sparkle or rain on that sunshine! 

Risotto knows he is not a good man - but he knows you are good, good, gooder than any person has a right to be. If you are his, perhaps some of your goodness will rub off on him - and if it does not, at least he will be able to ensure that you never lose it. 

It’s enraging. 

And though he promised himself he would wait . . . well. Patient men who can control themselves do not end up the capo of La Squadra. They do not end up in Passione’s employ. They do not develop stands that are suited for nothing so much as death--

And he thinks about how your father does not pay Passione’s protection fees. He thinks about how your father clearly thinks he is too good for that - thinks he is too good for you, though Risotto knows that is the opposite of the truth. His stomach and his brain and his bloodlust roar with anger, for the world to be set to rights, for your father to pay for his transgressions. 

And Risotto Nero, capo of La Squadra di Esecuzione, fool who has fallen irrevocably in love - he sets the cogs turning, and his plan in motion. 

~

It’s early Tuesday morning and you’re opening the shop today. Your father stayed late last night - when you’d woken up, he was still not in, and you assume he’s spent all night working. He does, sometimes, when he’s concocting some new flavour or messing around with some new way of doing things when the old ways have sufficed perfectly well for hundreds of years. 

You do not share your father’s passion for the art of confectionery. You’re only working this job because he hadn’t been able to find anyone else he trusted with the machines and the shop - though you do not want to spend the rest of your life here, he always guilt trips you when you mention moving away, and you’ve accepted you’re going to be stuck here for eternity. Your feet are dragging on the ground, putting off the inexorable boredom of working something you do not care about, when you hear a voice behind you. 

“You’re late today.”

It’s faintly amused - low and deep, and you turn and see Risotto. 

(You’d laughed at his name and he’d laughed too at your reaction. It’s one of the few times you’ve heard him laugh, and you wish he did it more. He always seems so serious. You feel awfully sorry for him.)

“Just putting off the daily grind,” you tell him, slowing down so he can fall into step beside you. You trust Risotto, insomuch as one can trust a customer. “Are you stopping by for something?”

“Ah,” Risotto says. “Melone has ran out of those cinnamon candies shaped like women’s mouths.”

You nod. Melone is one of Risotto’s colleagues; one of the ones he mentions a lot. You think that Melone is a ladies man, a flirt, and someone who evidently does not take his job half as seriously as Risotto himself. 

“Well,” you say, smiling still. It’s nice to talk to him. “You’re welcome to come in and wait whilst I get the shop ready, as long as you promise not to nab any of our licorice whilst my father is watching! He never came home last night, so I can only assume he’s been at the table in the back like a mad scientist.”

Risotto holds up his hand - you can’t help but notice how big they are. Sometimes, little flashes like that remind you of why Elisa was scared of him. He hasn’t eased up on showing off the skin or the black leather or the intense eyes - still, you know not to judge a book by its cover. You’re glad that you hadn’t, when it came to Risotto. You look forward to him coming in. He feels like a friend. 

“On my honour,” he says, and you laugh - and then, abruptly, the laugh dies in your throat. 

The glass door is smashed. Your neatly written sign lays on the floor, “Closed” side up. Your lip wobbles as you look down, and Risotto breathes in sharply as he sees what’s given you pause. 

“Be careful,” he intones, lowly. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“My dad--”

You step up into the building, eyes flying around the room. The jars of candies are in disarray. The bonbons are on the floor, where they must have rolled when their jar came crashing down - all around you are shards of both glass and of brightly coloured hard sugars. 

The devastation of the main floor of the shop is not what worries you, though. 

Not even the cash register, emptied onto the floor, the drawer a little way away from the body of the thing with what is clearly absolutely no money in it, makes you worry as much as the red substance that is smeared across the tiles beneath you. 

“Oh, dio mio--” you whisper, your heart beating double time in your chest. 

You turn to see that Risotto has followed you into the shop, his eyes taking in the scene around him, his shoulders hunched. He sees you looking. 

“Do you want me to wait outside?” He asks, and you feel a pang in your chest. “I’ll stay, if you need me--”

If whoever did this is still here, you think, you might find yourself glad of the offer. You nod at him, trying to force past the lump in your throat to produce anything that comes close to being intelligible. 

“Please,” you whisper, and Risotto nods and comes to stand behind you. Together, you two advance past the chaos of the shop, through the scattered sweets and the glass jars and the ribbons and bags that have been disturbed during whatever tussle took place here. You two creep through the doorway - and when you see it, your breath catches in your throat and you think for a moment you’re going to scream. 

Your father is on the floor. His chest is moving, but its faint - your eyes are drawn to the blood around his head, haloing him like he’s an angel. You have often disliked your father, hated him even - but seeing him like this still makes you feel like bile is rising in your throat. 

“Wh-who would do this?” You whisper, your hands shaking. Risotto moves slowly and carefully, inching past you (you don’t notice how warm his body is or how hard it is in your grief, though Risotto notices how soft you feel against him). He picks something up from the big wooden-and-metal table you use for rolling out hot sugar and cutting fudges and all of those things. 

(You won’t be using it for those for a while, you think. It’s horribly unsanitary now! The very thought makes manic laughter bubble to your lips, though when it comes out it just sounds like great gulps of air). 

“Passione,” Risotto says, his voice flat. He hands you whatever it is he’s holding; with shaking hands, you take the matte black calling card. There is no name on it; just a fancy design, etched in the cardstock so that you can only see it when you tip it to the light. “This is . . . their symbol.”

You know about Passione. Of course you know about Passione!

“B-but--”

“I can only assume he didn’t pay protection fees,” Risotto says. You’re grateful for the monotone way he’s speaking to you, the slow enunciation - you’re not sure if you could take emotion right now. Not when your heart is beating so frightened against your ribcage. Not when you can’t breathe. Not . . . not now. 

“I--”

“Do you need me to call someone?” 

Risotto’s voice sounds very far away. 

He repeats your name. 

“There must be someone,” he says.

Someone. 

Your father’s unconscious body. 

An ambulance, perhaps. 

But if it’s Passione related. . .

You speak, and just like Risotto’s voice, your own sounds very far away. 

“My fiancé,” you manage to say. “He’ll know what to do.”

Oh. 

You don’t know that saying this is a mistake. 

You don’t know that Risotto’s heart feels like it’s turning upside down. 

You don’t know what’s about to happen.

Poor you. 

If only you had.

~ 

Risotto has followed you and watched you and dreamt about you, tossing and turning in his sheets, wishing you were there to hold onto. He has seen your home, seen your family, seen you walk to and from work and talked to you more than he’s ever talked to anybody he wasn’t supposed to either work with or kill. And he’s never come across even the slightest mention of a fiancé. You’ve never implied that there was anyone in your life! 

His heart is vibrating. His throat is dry. His fingers twitch idly. You look up at him, eyes wide, lip trembling--

There’s a cut on your hand. You must have brushed against one of the cracked or broken jars. Risotto’s eyes fixate on the bead of dark red--

Nobody but you has ever seen him as anything but a monster. 

Nobody has ever seen past the dark storm clouds in his heart - nobody has ever even tried! You’d walked into his life, all sweetness and sweet foods and laughter and treating and touching him like he was just another human, no thoughts as to whether he was involved in shady business or whether he’d ever been at the other end of a gun. He’d seen your smiles and your laughter and the light in your eyes and thought he was getting somewhere!

Something in him snaps. 

If you’ve never mentioned a fiancé before, perhaps it’s not something you want. Perhaps it’s someone you’ve felt indebted to, like working for your father - oh, Risotto can see that easily. You’re such a bleeding heart. Too gentle and too kind for your own good, never the kind to want to upset someone. 

If that’s it, he thinks, he’s doing you a favour - and he thinks of his car, parked one block away. He thinks of the tinted windows. He thinks of his house, on the outskirts of the city. 

Doing you a favour. Taking you away from all of this. Keeping your light safe and bright and making sure nothing ever dims it. 

He crooks a finger, and you blink, woozy on your feet suddenly. The little faces of his Metallica peek out from the cut on your hand, and he imagines them in your bloodstream even now. He imagines them melding together, taking the iron flowing through you (even your blood is pretty, he thinks, as you make a distressed noise and reach out for him and he steps towards you) - and he visualises the iron disk blocking your windpipe. Your hands clutch uselessly at your throat, eyes widening and closing, a horrific noise falling from your lips--

(Oh, he’s glad he’ll only have to hear that once. You should never be in pain.)

And your eyes flutter closed, your body falling heavy into Risotto’s arms. 

Risotto is more than strong enough to carry you out of the door. A passerby sees him and you - Risotto calls out to her, and she ducks her head, not wanting to attract attention. Risotto is used to that. Risotto is used to being hurried past. Risotto has never considered it a right for people to treat him as they treat other human beings. 

“I’m going to the hospital,” he calls out, even though the woman clearly does not want to know. “Passed out.”

She hurries past, and Risotto carries your body to his car. It’s still early in the morning. Nobody but that lady is around to watch the man take your body and bundle it into the back seat. 

He eases the disk away, but continues to pull iron from your bloodstream. Better for you to be dizzy and unconscious and unaware whilst he takes you away. He doesn’t want you pounding on the doors of his car and attracting attention - or worse, realising where you two are going well enough to find your way back. 

Somebody else will deal with the mess in Dolcezza. You - beautiful, wonderful, lovely you - will never have to worry about cleaning up after your father again. 

He drives. He thinks about how safe you will be in his home. He thinks about coming home to you after a hard mission - he thinks about how your hands will feel on his shoulders, how your smile will warm his cold heart. He thinks about the brush of your lips on his - he wonders if you taste as sweet as the things you make. He thinks about your skin hot against his whilst he’s asleep, your head on his chest. 

Risotto has never entertained thoughts of a domestic life before - he’s never thought he’d ever find anyone to share it with. He’s been thrown his fair share of admiring looks, of course, but he’s seen the darkest parts of the world. Most people disgust him. 

But not you. 

You stir, groaning, and Risotto uses Metallica to draw more iron from you until your breathing evens out. 

Nearly home, he thinks - he feels almost giddy when the thought flickers in his brain. He has always thought of it as his house. It has never been a home - but with you there, in his bed, in his arms, in the kitchen or the living room or anywhere at all . . . with you there, it is certainly a home. 

One of his neighbours is out, a hosepipe in his hands. Risotto takes a moment to remember his name. Clemente. He is old and infirm - even now, he stoops, watering his garden. 

Risotto does not need to think twice. He parks his car neatly and goes to the back door, opening it to scoop you out - and Clemente looks at the man he has lived next to but never spoken to because he is too afraid, and puts the pieces together. 

Before he can scream, there are razor-blades in his throat and knives in his wrists and needles in the vital arteries pumping blood to his heart. Risotto is strong enough to drag the body to his door with one hand and support you with his other arm. 

It is not exactly a spur of the moment decision, really. Risotto thinks as he locks the door to his house behind him and carries you up the stairs, leaving the still gasping but far too weakened to move Clemente in the hallway to bleed out. 

It makes sense, Risotto tells himself, that you might be afraid at first. You do not know Risotto Nero that well. You have only ever known your life with your father. You are leaving behind all of those other people who ate at your time and basked in the glow of you that they did not deserve. He expects an acclimatisation period. 

And with fear, he knows, comes a desire to escape. He is not so selfish as to think you will not try. Risotto is a smart man. He drops you on the bed carefully, making sure your head is cushioned by soft pillows. He goes down the stairs to fetch Clemente - with the man’s body, he is far less careful, his fetching a drag. 

Clemente’s blood bubbles from his mouth, but that is unimportant. Risotto will dispose of the corpse later. 

The iron in Clemente’s body does well for forming the shutters over the window - it blocks out the natural light, but Risotto has lamps - and the light of your smile and your laugh and your voice will be enough for him. In time, perhaps you’ll win the light back. But for now, the windows are too much of a risk. 

He uses more iron to make the caged bars that come down outside and inside of the door - inside first, and a key. There is just enough left in Clemente to make the outside cage - and then Risotto is left with a shrivelled corpse. He’ll deal with that at a different time, by cover of night - he knows all of the best places in the city for such things. He has used them plenty of times. If worst comes to worst, he will take the corpse in his car to the rest of his gang and ask Illuso to toss him in a river in the mirror world. It will hardly be the first time the other man has dealt with clean-up detail. 

Iron shutters. Two locks. The bars too strong and thick to bend. 

Yes. 

He knows this will be the best for you. 

You will be away from the life that you never wanted. You will be with him - you’ll love him, Risotto is sure of it. 

No. 

You already love him! For if you do not love him, how could you bear to look into his eyes? Why would you laugh like a silvery bell when he tries to tell a joke? Why would you trail your fingers across his hand just so when you hand him his goods and his change? Why would you talk to him and not run from the blackness and the evil and the rot inside him? 

You must love him. You’ll realise you love him. 

His teammates will miss the sweets, of course. Risotto will miss his licorice. 

But that’s a small price to pay for the sweetness of your body and your mind and you, every day to come home to for the rest of your life. 

Click. Clank. Click. Clank. Click. Clank. 

He is alone in the room with you, the doors secured, no light creeping in through the iron shutters on the windows. He approaches the bed - and brave now that you and he are finally alone, he leans down and smoothes a kiss over your forehead. He lets the iron drain slowly back into your body. 

Any minute now, you will come back around. 

Any minute now, Risotto will be able to introduce you to your new life. Show you your new room. Whisper to you about the future he has already built in his head for the two of you - a rose-tinted future he’d never have been able to even imagine had you not smiled at him and given him those free licorice pinwheels. Had you not had sparkling eyes and a smudge on your nose and the sweetest laugh he had ever heard--

Oh. 

He can hardly wait.