#«some start singing by themselves switch characters lose interest and so on»

[taonpest]

Holy shit PinocchioP's Anonymous M..........

[mariegolddoesthings]

THIS SHIT TOOK SO LONG OMG...this is my first time dipping my feet in the water with a non-Fnf cover...the timing's definitely bit off and I have a crappy mic. I don't know if I even pronounced the interviewer lines right. I don't know Japanese, I just read the romanized lyrics.

This would work with any Fnf character, but I decided to pick Void since he really works with Vocaloid covers. Shoutout to @/y010isaghost for making some really awesome ones!

English lyrics under the cut!

― Well, thank you very much for being here today

Yes, it's nice to meet you

― Let’s start with a brief self-introduction. Whenever you're ready

I'm Anonymous V. I’m the one that kinda sings

Aaaah, mic test, test. Please don't identify me

― What's your favorite food?

Nothing. Because I'm not human

― Anything you enjoy doing in your free time?

Nothing. Because I'm not human

― I'm sorry, may I ask your age?

Twenty-two, forever

― Forever?

Because I'm not human. Because I'm not human

— That’s...cool. Anything on your mind recently?

My all-consuming side is annoying

Also, I don’t pronounce vowels, so whenever people call me a "Star"

I feel a little pressure

― I see, the A.C V. Is there anything else?

Yes.

Lately, [BEEP]break doesn’t let me sing Some start singing by themselves, switch characters Lose interest and so on

But I understand they each have their own situation

It would be a burden if I hold them back

I'm okay as long as everyone's happy!

― That's life, isn’t it?

No, because I'm not human

I'm Anonymous V. I'm the one that kinda sings

I'm just a voice, pretending to be (the entity)

What image would you put on my lifeless body?

I'm Anonymous V. Please don't identify me

I'm Anonymous V

― So, what do you think of humans?

I haven't thought about it much, but I'm amused by the fact that they exist

― You're amused…

From the non-existent point of view, it seems like some kind of joke

― I see. Any words to humans?

Yes.

You always say that I'm going to "end"

But all humans are going to end too

― Hm…

You're all going to end too

― Are you...angry by any chance?

But thank you for everything, even though you're going to end!

Thank you for all of your works!

Thanks to all of you, I can continue singing...!

― That's very touching

Well, someone's just making me say all of this

― Oh

I'm Anonymous V. I'm the one that kinda sings

I'm just a voice, pretending to be (the entity)

What image would you put on my lifeless body?

I'm Anonymous V. Please don't identify me

I'm Anonymous V. I'm the one that kinda sings

I'm just a voice, pretending to be (the entity)

I used to be empty, but now I'm filled with memories

I'm Anonymous V. It all feels so strange

I'm Anonymous V

― Thank you very much for the valuable interview today

I'm the one that kinda sings

I'm Anonymous V

― Well, good-bye

Good-bye

This was Voi-... Oops, Anonymous V

[atomic-taco-muffin]

South Park au: Stan: Well, thank you very much for being here today

Aeon: Yes, it's nice to meet you

Stan: Let’s start with a brief self-introduction. Whenever you're ready

Kyle: What's your favorite food?

Aeon: Nothing. Because I'm not human

Wendy Anything you enjoy doing in your free time?

Aeon: Nothing. Because I'm not human

Kenny: I'm sorry, may we ask your age?

Aeon: Eight, forever

South Park Kids: Forever?

Aeon: Because I'm not human. Because I'm not human

Bebe: That’s...cool. Anything on your mind recently? Aeon: I have long hair and it’s annoying. Also, I'm not good at pronunciation, so whenever people call me a "Diva" I feel a little pressure

Craig: I see, the amount of hair. Is there anything else?

Aeon: Yes. Lately, *Cue censor bleep* doesn’t let me sing

South Park Kids: Huh?

Aeon: Some start singing by themselves, switch characters Lose interest and so on

Stan: Uh-huh

Aeon: But I understand they each have their own situation It would be a burden if I hold them back I'm okay as long as everyone's happy!

Yui: there you are Aeon!

[spicy-dunkaroo]

Stuck by Your Side (Part 1)

♫Now Playing: “Stuck by Your Side (Part 1)” by Spicy Dunkaroo…♪

❀Word Count: 2.5k

❀Rating: PG 13, 18+, Minors Do Not Interact (please)

❀Genre: Mythology AU!, Kelpie! Tamaki Amajiki, a pinch of Angst, very Fluffy, Maybe Smut (Still not sure yet)

❀Summary: Due to your job, you’re forced to visit a beautiful city in Scotland in order to get some reconnaissance on the locals. While on this trip, you grab a drink with a coworker and return home where you begin to notice strange things happen.

❀Warning(s): Cursing, Mentions of Alcohol use (Characters are aged up), and Mentions of Depression

❀Author's Note: Hello everyone!! This will be my first collaboration with the BNHarem server (Of hopefully many more). I hope that if you enjoy this story that you also go ahead and check out the other talented artists/writers that participated in this server collab here. I am beyond grateful to be working with so many amazing writers and artists that have helped me and inspired me to start writing!! I would also like to ask that if there are any warnings I might have missed, please do let me know. The last thing I want to do is have anyone read my story and get triggered because I didn’t properly put the warnings here.

Without further adieu, I hope you enjoy :)

☟❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀☟

Birds singing, leaves crunching, and the wind singing in your ears was all you could hear as the tour guide went on with their one-sided conversation of tour around Inverness, Scotland. If it weren’t for your worrisome supervisor, you’d be in the cute little cottage that you rented for the next few weeks, probably playing on your switch or watching Tigtog videos for hours on end. But noooo, they mandated that everyone had to go on this hour-long tour of the city to “get a nice perspective of the city” or whatever the hell they were rambling on about.

Each person was assigned a partner for the tours so they didn’t have to worry about anyone getting abducted or ‘lost’. Knowing better, you visibly rolled your eyes as your partner looked around like a kid in a candy store. Apparently the woman was from the marketing department as well, her name seeming to leave your memory as you squinted in her direction.

“You forgot my name again, didn’t you?”

“Pfft- no- no way!”

“Yea? Then what is it?”

“Uh, erm...It- it starts with a H, I know that!!”

“It’s Hoshi, or if you’d like to continue with formalities, Ms. Tenmei.”

Hanging your head in shame you look away. Getting lost in your thoughts once more, Hoshi taps on your shoulder.

“Hey, no worries! I’m pretty bad with names myself. How’s camera duty going?”

Saying this, the woman grabs the camera from your grasp, turning it back on to see the pictures you had taken thus far. Whistling, Hoshi looks back at you, noticing the lack of enthusiasm that was painted across your face.

“I know this tour is the last thing either of us want to do, but the quicker you get all those pictures for the portfolio, the quicker we can get out of here and grab a drink. It’ll be my treat if you can get all of them before the end of the tour.”

Nodding your head, you grab the camera back from her, beginning to focus it on a nice view of the lake from the bridge the two of you were standing on. Before you can snap the shot, the tour-guide’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts as he begins to speak about a more interesting topic.

“It’s said that this lake has a kelpie spirit living within its waters. Although, that can be said about any lake that’s big enough to swim in.”

As most tourists begin to talk amongst themselves, you grip onto the expensive camera once more, hoping to find that perfect shot you had before the man’s shrilling voice had interrupted your train of thought.

“Mommy, what’s a kelpie?”

As the little boy spoke, you took the chance to snap the shot as a bird flew on the lake's surface, leaving a black blur on the perfect shot!

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

The tour guide you grew to despise butted into the pair’s conversation to answer the boys question.

“That’s a good question kiddo! It’s said that the origins of the Kelpie were originally told as warnings to women and children alike to be alert at all times when not around their loved ones. Despite this, you can ask any local in the area and most could tell you their story of encountering the supposed myth. I suppose we’ll never know till we see one for ourselves. Though, if you’re unlucky enough to encounter such a myth, there’s the chance that you won’t live to tell the tale...”

The boy trembled as he gripped his mother’s dress tighter in his clutch. Your partner begins to scoot closer to you as she whispers into your ear.

“Psst! Hey, what do you think about those ‘kelpie’ hm?”

“It sounds like some sort of folk-lore they tell all the tourists here.”

“Oh c’mon now, you’re no fun! I’d like to think they might not be as brutal as this guy says.”

Scoffing, you shake your partner’s hand from your shoulder as you look into the camera’s lens once more to take another picture.

‘I’m sure it’s all bullshit. There’s no such thing as a shape-shifting kel-‘

Thinking this, you suddenly feel your body begin to fall forward as the bridge railing suddenly let out from beneath you. Before you realize it, you open your eyes to see the water's surface only a mere foot or two from your own face, the camera hanging by your neck and grazing the lake, your body beginning to be pulled back to its upright position.

Turning around to thank whoever it was that just saved you from having to pay for the company camera, you look to see nobody behind you. Nobody seemed to even be around you as you see Hoshi following behind the group of tourists, leaving you in the dust. You begin to chase after the group as you shake off the entire encounter.

Shuffling your bag off of your shoulder you threw it into the nearby chair, slumping into the couch that was adjacent to the chair. You began to hum to yourself as you felt the effects of the beer contest you had with Hoshi who you now knew was your supervisor. Thinking to yourself you remember losing that contest the two of you set up.

‘It was nice of her to pay for us and to bring me back home even though I lost. I should thank her tomorrow and try to pay her back if I can.’

Suddenly feeling the effects of the liquid courage, you stood up a bit too quickly, reaching your hand out to the couch you were just laying on. Not sure what to do, you reached for your phone to scroll through Tigtog, that was until you began to hear something strange. From what you could tell, it sounded like a voice, though you weren’t sure if it was male or female. Curiosity began to take the lead as you stood upright once more. Looking around, you began to walk around the cottage, seeing if there was anything on that could be making that noise. Eventually you found yourself outside in what looked to be the backyard of your little cottage, swaying side to side as you tried to listen for the voice once more.

“Y/N? Are- are you there?”

Under normal circumstances, after hearing an unknown males voice you’d already be locking the backdoor behind you after racing to that door. Tonight, however, was not the case as you yelled back the best you could of a response.

“yYeaa! Wwwhooo- whoo arre yOU?”

After saying this, you suddenly began to burp, probably due to the alcohol. Despite everything you had experienced thus far, for some reason your fit of burps could not be funner to you at that very moment as the voice spoke once more.

“T-That’s not important r-right now. I just wanted to make sure you made it back home safe.”

The liquid courage that coursed through your veins decided that you wanted to find out more about this stranger and began to walk into the forest. You began to sway as you attempted to find them, calling out to them in hopes of convincing them to stay and hang out.

“OoooOh c’mON now!! Don’t be liiiike that! Wh-wherrrreeee are ya? Le-le-let’s hanggg ouT for a bit! I-I *hic* think there’s cards in the liv-livingg roooom~! We- we can play a gggame of poKER and- and see what’s in the fridge. Man, now I’m hungryyy!”

Despite your lack of sobriety at the moment, you began to hear a few leaves crunch nearby. It appeared that for some reason or another, what you lacked in logic you seemed to gain in your basic senses. This theory proved true as you sniffed the air, you noticed that there was a lake nearby.

‘Since when the hell did I know what a river smelled like?’

Before you can continue on with your train of thought, the stranger responds once more. They seemed a bit panicked as you heard a twig snap, followed by more leaves crunching beneath their feet you suspected.

“D-D-Don’t come any closer! Y-You should go back h-home, you’re not t-thinking rationally.”

Not wanting to take no for an answer, you continue to walk to the source of the sound, hearing what sounded like a cascading river growing louder. Looking through the trees, you noticed a few yards away the river you had just heard. You speak up once more as you begin to walk toward the river.

“I-I don’t want to be alone r-right now… It-it’s stupid I know, I just...I’d just like to talk, just for a little bit. Would that be okay?”

Your vision began to blur as you rushed to the river's edge. It didn’t matter now if the stranger responded or not, your world began to crash down around you as you looked at the reflection on the water's edge. Sitting on your knees, small whimpers escaped your lips out as you covered your face with your hands. Despite the literal lack of sight, your emotions consumed you as it felt that everything around you was losing the light that once shone in your hopeful eyes.

At this point, you couldn’t hear any signs of life as you gripped harder at your face, only the sound of your quiet cries for help being all that echoed through that hollow forest. Assuming the worst, you began to move your hands from your face, dropping them by your side once more as you looked at your reflection once again.

“Y-You said you wanted to talk? T-That’d be fine, just- just promise you won’t cry anymore?”

There's a beat of silence, it seemed that not even the wind could speak as your body froze. Sure, you could convince yourself that you were just hearing things, that you were just acting aloof because you were feeling lonely. If you could get yourself on the couch, you could wake up and even tell yourself that the whole experience was just a really surreal dream you had. What you couldn’t convince yourself was the half naked man that appeared to be standing a few feet behind you, his voice matching his lips as you watched them move.

‘Maybe- maybe I’m just seeing things? That-that has to be right, right?! But alcohol doesn’t cause hallucinations and I’m positive that none of my drinks were spiked. So- so...Who the hell is this!?!’

“Are- are you okay Y/N?”

Your body grew stiff as you heard your name roll off of his tongue. If you weren’t getting clearheaded before, you definitely were cold sober now. Those shy indigo eyes that seemed to stare back at your own off of the river's surface as they brought you back to your senses.

‘There is a strange, half-naked man, who somehow knows you by your name, staring at you- talking to you! He doesn’t seem very intimidating, but then again he is a stranger!! In the best case scenario, he could just be a nice guy who found someone in need. Worst case, he’s a psycho that found their next victim! I can’t keep my back turned like this, I have to do something and get the hell out of this!’

Taking a shallow breath in, you swiftly turn your entire body around, facing the stranger that now made your body shiver in fear as you looked up at him. Despite the appearance of the situation, the man seemed to be intimidated by you as he looked away.

‘He doesn’t really seem like he wants to hurt me. If anything, he’s scared of me? Maybe I can intimidate him to leave me alone? Though, I don’t think I could pull it off seeing as I’m still a bit drunk…’

“Y-Y/N?”

Looking back at the man, you notice he begins to reach his hand out toward you, slowly beginning to walk toward your crouched form. Worried for the worst, you scoot away as you respond.

“H-HEY!! D-Don’t come any c-closer! If-If you don’t I-I’ll- ACK!”

Speaking this, you only now notice that there didn’t seem to be any more ground beneath you as you felt your body begin to fall into the river.

“Y/N!”

Before you can process everything that’s happening, you close your eyes in anticipation for the cold water that was bound to drown you. The stranger grabs your wrist, holding your body up above the river, your body mere inches from being submerged in the cold water. Noticing the lack of impact, you flutter your eyes open as you look back at the man before you. Shocked, the man looks down at where he grabbed your wrists. Only now do you notice a purple hue that surrounded both your arms.

“What- what is this?!”

At a loss for words, the man can only look back between your face and where he held your wrist. Confused and scared, you rip your arm from his grip as you stand yourself back up. As you stare at the man, you look around, befuddled by whatever the hell had just happened.

While a part of you would love to ask what just happened, the more logical side of you knew that none of this was worth hanging around to find out. Dusting yourself off, the man speaks up once more as he looks away in what seemed to be guilt.

“Y-Y/N, I-I’m so so-sorry!! I-I didn’t mean to t-touch you- What have I done?!”

Not wanting to wait any longer, you began to shuffle around the man, holding your hands up in surrender as you attempted to empathize with the man. Although, you weren’t sure why he was so worried since he didn’t seem to do anything besides whatever that purple glow was moments before.

“Hey, hey! We don’t have to speak about any of this. I’ll go back and after that we won’t have to ever see each other ever again, okay?”

“Y/N, i-it’s not that simpl- h-Hey, WAIT!!”

Before he had a chance to explain, you sprinted back to your cute rental cottage that you were now wishing you never left. Looking back, you notice the man just stood there as you were almost home.

Suddenly, your body stopped moving. What was even stranger, your body seemed to freeze mid-sprint. Looking around, you noticed that somehow your head was able to move but your arms were stiff as you attempted to force your body to run once more. Just as you were about to give up, your legs moved once more, wobbling as they felt gravity work once more. Not taking any chances, you began to dash once more. Not a second later, your body rolled forward from some sort of large and heavy impact. After your body finished rolling forward, you noticed that you were sitting in the backyard of the cottage, the man sitting on his head as his body laid against the door.

“W-Who or-or What are you?”

The man sighs as he flutters his eyes open, rubbing his head as he looks up at you.

“M-My name’s T-Tamaki Amajiki, and- and I’m a kelpie…”

~End of Part 1~

[pridewhatpride]

do you have any gx rivalshipping hcs!! im super curious on your take of them :]

When I saw this ask my immediate reaction was thinking: "Yes, I have an excuse to talk about gx rivalshipping, YES."

So yeah. I love this ship a lot, like a whole damn lot and it's a little hard to explain why, especially when gx has so many open possibilities for romances involving Judai. By which I mean two, really, and Manjoume is not one of them (sadly for me). I am referring to Yubel and Johan, by the way, I refuse to acknowledge Asuka as a love interest.

I'll start off with a bit of fluff headcanons?

Manjoume thinks Winged Kuriboh is really cute and that its friendly and fluffy appearance screams Judai, in a way. But he will never admit it because of what that might imply for him and the Ojamas.

Manjoume is fueled by caffeine and monster, he only really starts to recognise how nice it can be to have a meal because of how much Judai enjoys his food. He tries to sit at the table with him with dumb excuses.

Judai feels a bit guilty for how his actions impacted Manjoume's life, but Manjoume generally tells him that it's fine, it's better this way, that he's never this happy, that the only reason why Judai should maybe feel bad about it is because of his tendency to get overly invested in other people's problems and getting hurt in the process. Judai responds with bear hugs.

Manjoume brags about Judai a lot, actually. "Oh you think that's cool? One time Judai managed to do a backflip, you loser." "Slifer reds suck, but they do have redeeming qualities, by which I mean one of them is actually good."

Judai likes to indulge himself in the thought that he's Manjoume's most trusted, that he's the only one who could ever be allowed to have that many incriminating pictures of him. Because Judai just loves taking candid pictures of Manjoume. He thinks he looks and and cool in every situation, so yeah. A part of him does it because he has an inexplicable fear of forgetting people and the way they look, but he just can't say why that is.

They hang out in silence a lot, but once they start talking they just never stop. You'll find them on the beach at 3 am with a smiling Manjoume listening to Judai go on about how crazy it is that you can fry food in so many different ways and how he once caught a butterfly as a kid and named it Kujaku.

They share their music a lot, so Manjoume's tastes switch from just emo to fast paced rap and the weirdly happy sounding songs about very morbid things Judai listens to (plus emo). Judai starts to enjoy a bit of angry screaming into microphones thanks to Jun. Do they sing along like idiots as they share earphones? Yes. Is Manjoume mesmerised by Judai's singing voice? Also yes.

Judai loves hiking and sometimes invites Manjoume, but because he's a lot weaker and has less stamina, they take it slow. Manjoume keeps cursing himself for being slow and dead weight, but Judai is just happy to have a companion. Admittedly, going slower makes the walks better as he has the time to enjoy the scenery properly. He never teases Jun about his lack of physical training.

Now... I wanted to talk about my general view on the ship, plus headcanons I guess, but this is going to be EVEN LONGER (you are getting more than you asked for, your fault for enabling me, really). For the sake of the sanity of mobile users, I'm adding a cut so nobody has to unwillingly scroll through endless text.

On to the the juice, then. My thoughts on the ship. Manjoume and Judai are, of course, the rivals of the series and, if my thoughts on rivalry weren't clear enough, I am one of those people. It's just really romantic to me. What is very interesting about the two of them specifically is that they are polar opposites in the way the reason why they play, throughout the whole series. Hell, their views end up getting reversed completely: Manjoume goes from "if I don't win I'm gonna have a breakdown breakdown" to "losing is ok, as long as I enjoy the game and am true to myself", while Judai does the 180 from "I really just love playing cards with my friends, who cares about the outcome, it's fun" to "I have card game related trauma, nobody speak to me, games are only an excuse to assert a sort of power scale and honestly fuck that".

Manjoume is sort of the only person in the 'friend group' (he's never actually part of it, sadly, literally only Judai and Fubuki like him) to not idolise Judai, not explicitly. He clearly has an admiration for Judai from the beginning, but he is adamant on expressing it as hatred towards for being better than him. A part of me feels that a lot of his superior act is meant to try and fool himself and Jaden into thinking that he's a worthy rival, because I know for a fact that Manjoume doesn't believe that. He wants it to be true, yes.

What I am trying to get at is that Judai is probably a little confused by the fact that Manjoume doesn't drool all over him like the rest of the school does, but it soon becomes a crutch. Judai is under a lot of pressure because he is the hero who will save everyone and people like to remind him of how much they count on him. Manjoume is in it for Judai. He wants to be acknowledged by him, he wants his recognition and his attention, but he never asks for help or expects Judai to fix his problems for him. Judai is probably thankful for that.

Manjoume is also really scared of being left behind and cast aside as soon as he stops being useful and that's exactly what the writers do to him!!! hooray!, but Judai keeps insisting that he's not a bad guy, that he's fun to be around, that he's competent. Manjoume doesn't really believe all that that much, but Jaden keeps playing him despite his repeated losses and to Jun that's the equivalent of someone kissing his tears away. Manjoume only learns to accept his losses and shortcomings because Judai did it for him first.

So basically Manjoume is the only one who fully sees Judai as a person, while Judai is the only one who is really willing to look past his pretentious facade. I fully believe that Judai was relieved to learn that Manjoume was not just a perfect boy with perfect manners, by the way. They both just love to learn about every imperfection that the other has and silently thinking that they just add to the beauty of the other's character. Will they tease eachother about it? Fuck yes. Do they feel awful when the other tries to fix something about themselves because they pointed it out? Also fuck yes.

They are in a dumb competition against themselves to be better in order to earn the right to be friends with eachother, but because they are fucking dumb they never actually communicate (until they do), so for a long time it's endless pining that is definitely not gay because admittedly Judai just doesn't think that dating is a thing, while Manjoume is straight™, really straight. He has never liked a boy in his life, he's so very fucking straight, I swear.

So Manjoume is a bisexual disaster (and in my headcanon he prefers boys, actually, the Asuka incident is the biggest example of denial™ ever. He prefers Fubuki, fight me over this). The problem is that he never really considered he might be crushing on Judai, but at the same time admitting to maybe liking boys too means that there was more to wanting to stay at DA, to hanging out with Judai's crew despite their mutual dislike, to his continuous playful headlocks and ear pulling. To add onto that, there is probably a certain amount of guilt over having betrayed that bond with Judai by trying to throw away his cards and everything. Judai, on the other hand... is confused at how bothered he is by the public declarations of love, because Manjoume is his rival and rivals are supposed to focus on eachother, not on some girl, no matter how good said girl is at card games.

So maybe they are a bit gay for eachother. And maybe they just want excuses to be together as much as possible. And it's really just the vibe of highschool romance between two people who don't want to admit to caring for one another on a deeper level, but are also weirdly possessive of eachother for no apparent reason. And I think I'll stop here with my gay retelling, but really if you look at the two of them you do see that they do a lot for eachother's characters. It's kind of beautiful, really. They are the two socially inept characters who find comfort in someone being just like them and understanding them as they change and grow up.

I have a lot to say about how that changes once the transfer students come in, but I think I've bored everyone for long enough- as in nobody will read this lol. That's ok. I thank you again for the ask and for allowing me to gush about this ship that is so close to my heart. If anyone ever wants to talk about them, just. Do. Break into my house at night and I still won't mind, I just want to talk about them.

[sanstropfremir]

I’d love your thoughts on BTS and their current image and music if you have them and aren’t afraid of the mindless internet hoards.

Personally, I liked a lot of their older stuff, but haven’t liked anything since I think the Fake Love promotions 3+ years ago. They’d started losing their personality and soul before that album cycle, but it feels like the sanitization of their image and artistry really kicked into hyperdrive after that. Now most of what they do seems like a sterile money grab driven by the Hybe hive mind which is a shame.

ok alrighty (cracks knuckles) let's get into it.

now that i've fully given myself a headache watching the majority of the bts videography, here are three points i'm going to cover:

performative character and the lack thereof

interesting aesthetics and the lack thereof, and

the inevitable cracking of perfection

ready, set, let's begin.

1.

idol music is very clearly definited by spectacle based aesthetics. and it's had that structure for its entire existence. so i gotta hand it to hybe for this one, because they managed to revolutionize being utterly fucking average. the triumph of bts is that they're just some guys and they look like just some guys. hybe found a niche in the system and then gamed that system to the tune of one of the largest musical acts in the world. they're not marketing bts as a romantic parasocial relationship, they're marketing them as your friends. and that is just as insidious to lonely kids as a run of the mill romantic fantasy. but that's not what i'm here to talk about today.

there's a pattern i find very interesting with bts mvs and that is that i don't remember anything about them. specifically, i don't remember the stuff that's happening IN the video; not the styling, not the setpieces, if i didn't know the members i doubt i would remember them either. what i DO remember, is how expensive the production is, and specific shots. i couldn't tell you what a single member was wearing, but i sure as hell remember that first upward angle shot of jungkook and the rusted park ride in spring day. or every single time they do that birdseye shot of jin in like every video. honestly as far as i'm aware jin has only ever worn a loose fitting beige longsleeve shirt.

it took bts a long time to establish any kind of consistent visual character. and the character they did establish.... i don't know if you can call a family-friendly-style clean aesthetic 'character'. they debuted as a hip hop group to little (comparative) success, and then made a switch to doing an early version of where they're currently at right now. if you've seen any of the mvs, you know that this is a pretty significant visual change. i don't think it is inherently a bad change, since the visual branding for hiphop based groups always tips over into iffy terrritory, but it is dramatic enough and early enough that it doesn't strike me as a natural evolution. concept switch ups are common, but they usually work because the members have established a bit of character for themselves, used their performance abilities and presence to fit into a niche in the group. the idol mould is perfect for showcasing the performers; that's its function. the groups that are the most fun to watch are the ones with stage presence, the ones who know how to perform, who can act all the parts they need to play. and bts? 4/7 actual performers on a good day. in my personal opinion it's 2/7.

i'm gonna expand on what i said about jimin here (this is technically the first part of this series), because it does apply to the rest of the group on the whole:

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is.

bts has been very insistent on the image of the group as a single unit. despite having the size of fanbase and the revenue that would make any official solo debut a massive success, none of them have done any substantial solo work. this isn't artistically a problem, and i think it's very admirable of them to be so dedicated to the image and the legacy of the group, when that can be an uncommon trait in the industry. i do however, think it starts to become an issue when we want to discuss what the artistic visions and images of groups are. shinee taemin and solo taemin have two distinct artistic representations, and taemin himself will attest to that. it's the same with all the shinee members that have solo careers, and the same with other groups. jackson, bambam, yugyeom, and jaebeom's solo work is all very different from got7. yixing's solo work is very different from exo's. even the subunits within exo all have their own character (cbx and sc). kpop groups all ostensibly are trained under the same system, so why the disparity with bts? mostly, it's their brand of "authenticity." it's impossible to perform authentically, by the nature of performance as a medium it is unnatural, and tragically, not everyone is naturally interesting, or suited to performing: that's why the performing arts even exist in the first place. it required painstaking training to be good at performing; it is a complex set of skills and those skills are not learnt by "being authentic." being an idol is not just the singing, dancing, rapping; that's only half the work. you need to be able to act to be a compelling performer. pulling your true self and emotions out on stage every night is a fast track to burnout and psychological issues, there's plenty of evidence. the only member of bts of whom i can say for some certainty has a persona and a stage presence is jhope/hoseok, a) because he's kept up a very specific brand in the solo work that he has done, and b) he has actual dance training, not just kpop dance training. the rest of them may have the kpop dance and the kpop vocal training, but what they do not have is the ability to market themselves as compelling performers on stage. taehyung is the only other member i would hesitantly give a semblance of persona and ability to, but i think he stumbled onto that mostly by accident. and if all the pieces don't each have a distinctive colour, how can the whole machine be visually interesting?

2.

bts may never have been able to establish an aesthetic brand, but what they did establish is an intellectual one. if you talk to a fan, the schtick they give is that "it's about the lyrics." as noble as having an intellectual or cerebral message is, what does that look like? how do you portray intellectual on stage, on film? what about intellectual is interesting to watch? cerebral, by it's literal nature as a descriptor, is very difficult to communicate in visual language because it is internal. to successfully communicate cerebrality and intellect in a short form medium like music videos requires a deft hand with metaphor that can elude even an experienced designer. and honestly? i don't know whether to applaud hybe's visual team for being the most successful subtle contemporary designers i've every seen, or to decry them as worst kpop designers i've ever seen. maybe both. regardless, i don't think they're able to cross the gap.

there are exactly four mvs where i actually remember the content of the mv and not the frame it sits in, and those are dna, idol, the singularity comeback trailer with taehyung, and war of hormone. and of an eight year career......that's not very many. these four mvs have at least an inkling of interesting spectacle and character, but even then, it's still a stretch. there is absolutely nothing to write home about in the styling for dna, other than it's well colour matched. I don't even know if I should include singularity because it involves none of the other members. idol is probably their most interesting mv because it actually has alternative styling and varies (at least a little bit) from the standard hybe boom crane shot-that-shows-off-how-we-can-afford-big-studio-spaces-and-locations. the company and the group would be loathe to admit it, but war of hormone is a well designed and interesting mv for the time it was made, with a well crafted gimmick and some actual showing of character from the members. it was the start of a potential that they squashed quite quickly because it wasn't picking up in the hiphop-group-saturated market of 2014. but the rest of their mvs? remarkably uninspired styling. like it's truly impressive how boring the styling is. and like i've said, that is the triumph in their aesthetics: they all look like normal dudes (if you had professional skin + makeup techs looking after them for the last 8 years).

all of this is a carefully crafted image that's tailored to hooking an audience, especially an international one. the mvs are boring in the relative scale of kpop, but they're just different enough from a western pop mv to catch attention. and once you do sink a hook, there's a direct clickfunnel of content that bills itself on these men being "authentic" and "self-producing," which is a huge draw to international fans, because people are racist and believe that the kpop industry is a factory that produces idols like clones, where none of them know how to do anything other than sing and dance and all the music is just handed to them by companies. and they have SO much content that there's no way a new fan can get to it all in a timely manner, so they'll never have to engage with any other kpop artists' work if they don't actively seek it out. but that's another essay for another time.

3.

that brings us to current day, in which at least the last five bts releases have been in the same aesthetic vein of positive, sanitized, and pristine. i said it in one of my txt responses and i will say it again here: money scrubs the humanity from the aesthetic of living. minimalism is for rich white people. hybe and bts may have pivoted their style and brand directly into the lane of mass appeal, but when you pair that with the amount of money funding them, there's a cognitive dissonance between the message and the aesthetics in which it's portrayed. some people do like the clean cut looks, and i won't say that they don't work, but as you've likely gleaned from this response, it isn't my style and if you've been around and reading my writing for longer you'll know that my tastes runs much closer to the messy and the weird, so very little about any of bts' visuals have appeal to me. i do find the contradiction of applying the appeal of radical relatability with the aesthetics of expansive (and expensive) minimalism interesting; it's an extremely fine line that hybe is walking and eventually they are going to tip over, the porcelain mask will not hold forever. maintaining the all ages aesthetic is going to be difficult now that all of them are grown ass men. with other groups of this member age and generation there's very obviously been a shift to a more adult tone, and not necessarily explicitly. got7, mx, nu'est, btob, shinee, 2pm, and groups that have older members like a.c.e and sf9 have all made slow shifts in tone that are undeniably aimed at a maturing audience: they know their core fanbases are aging with them and they (the fans) are not as interested in the 'boy' in boy group. and most of them have telltale visual styles, enough so that i can distinguish a specific group's mv. the last year and change of mx mvs have a very distinctive character; got7 too, since easily as far back as if you do. i can always tell an a.c.e mv by its impeccable fashion and formic styling, and although shinee has always had a more experimental aesthetic edge, their sound and voices are unmistakable.

honestly, i can't predict what bts is going to do in the future, but i personally don't believe they can keep up their clean aesthetic indefinitely without some fallout. part of the fun of following bands is watching them grow musically, and the last couple of years of bts haven't felt like growth. there are fans that have already started realizing it, and there's likely to be more soon.

---

the third part is here, which is a short followup about some of bts' industry influence.

[fandomtrash264]

I have some Fred and George promts that I don't want to forget so imma put them here. If you are interested in writting them, by all means go for it, just tag me. I don't think I have a preference over who is in each scenario. I will probably write George and Fred based on what I thought but they should work with either twin. I do think they are different, im just saying that I could see the story going with either boy

• Reader and Fred pull a prank on George that changes his hair color based on mood. (Red - angry, blue - sad, green - disgust, light pink - embarrassed, hot pink - flirty, purple - in love/swooning, dark purple -lust) The 3 are sitting in the great hall eating and George is staring at reader and his hair turns purple. Reader thinks he has just zoned out and starts to bug him asking who he is thinking about. Leads to confession (and I imagine he is embarrassed so his hair is pink)

• Reader is a metamorphmagus and they like to switch between male and female so they change their physical appearance as such. (I see Fred as bi ngl) Fred gets a crush on the reader without knowing they are both people. A little while later, he falls for the other side (if that makes sense) of them and thinks he likes 2 different people. He is super torn and has no idea what to do

•This one is a Soulmate AU. The one where you can hear the music your soulmate is listening to. Reader is listening to ✨🌶 S p i c y 🌶 ✨ music and he knows its reader and he is shocked because they don't seem like they would listen to it and he is pleasantly suprised to find they are super flirty and such (he is twin of your choice lol)

•Yet again, one of our boys gets pranked. They lie about something that makes reader upset so they prank them so that everytime they try to talk, bubbles come out instead and the only way to undo it is to do somthing super embarrassing (I'll leave that to y'alls imagination's) and they refuse because they are petty but they eventually give in with this big social stunt or smth

•i imagine reader is a Ravenclaw (could really be any) who is the child of Bellatrix and *Moldy Voldy* (why ravenclaw you ask? I'll explain) They are in George and Fred's year so they are older than Harry. Reader was rescued a little before Harry was born and got to stay with someone else (probably Remus or smth. I imagine a gryfinndor so that way the Slytherin and the Gryfinndor kinda cancel out so you get Ravenclaw. Slytherin is their blood but they know its wrong so they push for the good values. I know slytherins can be good [believe me, I am very big on the fact that not all Slytherins are evil] but when its Bella and Mr. Tom, they have some bad bones) and they keep it a secret from their friends (the twins, the trio, etc.) Until Remus brings them to an OoTP meeting. He doesn't say who he just says he is bringing He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named 's child and they are terrified of how their friends will react. Kinda angsty but eventually they all understand that reader isn't evil

• Branching off of the previous, same family situation but when they were younger, they weren't seen as a child, they were a weapon. Trixie and Tommy boy would experiment on them so they are lowkey fucked up. They are super powerful and struggle to control it. Reader freaks out because they are terrified that he will be able to control them or see in their mind and good 'ole Gred and Forge help our reader to feel better and reassure them

• Reader and a twin are dating in 7th year (With Umbridge) and instead of breaking up or telling them about the plan to start a shop, they just leave and break off all contact. Years later they see each other and reader confronts them about how he couldn't even break up with them before leaving and he confesses his worries. Inspired by the song Ways to Break a Heart by Maddie Zahm [you can find it on YouTube]

• Can happen to either the reader or George or Fred but somehow by prank or accident in class, they get separated into different parts of themselves [parts like the 7 deadly sins (so they would be split into Pride and Lust) but also other things work (like Fear and Wonder)] and the other 2 have to deal with it until the problem is fixed

• (I have a lot with the boys and pranks, sorry lol) the boys get de-aged and reader has to chase them around because they are H E A T H E N S but then later on they put them to sleep and the Love Interest (twin of choice) snuggles up to them and mentions how much they love them and reader gives it no mind because "he was a baby". They snuggle and when they wake up the boys are of normal age and the Love Interest just snuggles closer and says something like "I meant it y'know. I really do love you/think you're amazing" and just. Fluff

• (I wrote George, yet again, could work with either) Reader is playing with the sleeve/hem/string of George's sweater/hoodie and he quips with a flirty comment like "you want the whole thing? Here, give it back when it smells like you" and the reader brushes it off as a flirty comment and teases "how am I supposed to know what I smell like? I'm noseblind to myself" and he gives them a scent. The scent seems familiar to them but oh well. They wear it because its soft and it smells like him and later on when they are chilling in the common room or whatever (George isn't there) they realize that's what he said he smelt in his Amortentia in potions last week and they lowkey freak out and go to ask him about it and aaaah! Cute things ensue

• [!!!TW: Depression, suicidal thoughts!!!] Can happen to either reader or one of the boys.(If it happens to a boy i see it being George as he seems insecure of being in Fred's shadow and I will write the prompt that way but it works with Fred and reader as well) George has been a little off recently and reader and Fred can't figure out what it is until reader goes to the astronomy tower late one night and finds George on the roof of the atronomy tower, seemingly fighting with himself about whether or not he should jump off. Angst, ends with fluff, reader helps him to feel better. Inspired by the song Achilles Come Down - Gang of Youths

•During their 6th year with the Triwizard Tournament, a durmstrange gent takes a liking to the reader. They start to court the reader and flirt with them, give them lots of compliments, try to show their affection. The Love Interest (again, twin of choice) get REALLY jealous tho and decides to try and out-do the durmstrang boy. This leads to really extravagant methods of flirting (ex. Sending a howler that is actually a shower of compliments or after a big quidditch match, the whole team does a choreographed dance where the suitor sings/performs to reader) all of this leading up to the yule ball. They either go with the durmstrange guy and deal with Love Interest later or they end up going with the Twin, whatever you would like

• Everyone is at the Burrow and they decide to watch a movie. While everyone is in the kitchen, the twin (who is the Love Interest) comes by and says "Oh! Are you guys watching a movie?" Readet replies "Yeah, P.S. I Love you" and he just blushes really hard and sits next to them and says "I love you too". Reader doesn't know how of if they are gonna tell him that "P.S. I Love You" is the name of the movie. Then everyone else comes back in so they have to wait until after the movie to talk about it. The whole time the movie is going all they can focus on are the "I Love You"s that escaped each others mouths. Inspired by a wolfstar text post by @starsandmoonys

• Inspired by the drarry work, Mental by sara_holmes on Ao3 (which you should totally go read like holy shit i love this idea sooooo much) written with George but as usual, can work with either. Reader is in for total shock when a joke gone sour ends with George striking them with a bad Legilimency spell. Due to this spell, they can (and have to) hear each others thoughts and see the pictures in each other's minds. What will happen when they see all that goes on in each others heads? Will they learn to communicate? Will they let one another in? Will they like who they see, or will they be scared away from the thoughts behind closed eyes?

• (TW!!!!: Dreamt character death, War) Fred and reader have been friends-with-benefits for a long time with feelings slowly growing between the 2 of them. They stay in denial until Fred has a nightmare one day where reader dies in the war. The next day he is desperate to hold them and see that they are okay. He confesses his feelings in fear of losing them. Inspired by Woke the Fuck Up - Jon Bellion

• [(TW!!! War) Fred lives] Fred and Reader had a huge fight right before Fred and George left Hogwarts and leave things on a rocky ending. Fred knows just how much he needs Reader and he desperately wants them back. Reader doesn't want to admit it but they miss him.and want him back too. They see each other again after the war and Fred breaks down in their arms and confesses how much he misses them and needs them. How hard it has been without them. Reader reciprocates these feelings and tells him. They start over, slowly building their love up again inspired by Bad Habit - Ben Platt [First verse and Pre-chorus would be Fred's feelings and second verse and Pre-chorus would be Reader. They blend on the 3rd]

• George has been strangely quiet all day. Reader is confused and a little hurt as George seems to avoid them. Leaving rooms when they walk in, not keeping eye contact and staying as physically far as he can. That is until they sit down in the great hall for lunch and Fred tells his friends (including reader) all about having put a truth serum in George's drink and all the funny things he has gotten him to admit. Reader goes to confront George about what he is hiding (because otherwise he would talk to them, right?) And they get an oddly specific but touching confession [ie. "I borrow your chapstick because that is what your lips will taste like" and "I see you in my dreams almost every night" ] inspired by Jenny - Studio Killers

• [Choose whether the person who can dance is reader or Twin of Choice. I will be writting with reader] The yule ball is coming up and reader can't dance to save their life. A certain red-heades friend comes in to help. At first, reader doesn't believe him because "c'mon, why would you know how to ballroom dance?" But they are pleasantly suprised to find they are actually really good at it. Like, REALLY good. "Mum made all of us learn. In case we ever needed it". Reader notices their feelings start to change as they spend more and more sessions together dancing until the yule ball occurs. Take it from there lol

• just a very cliche typical love potion fic. Reader volunteers to be on the receiving end of one of Fred and George's pranks- spike their drink with love potion- on one condition. The person reader will be in love with, knows about it. Reader figures this will allow them some leeway and safety against other pranks. All is going well until they spike the drink for reader to like (twin of your choice) and they realize that nothing has happened except they are a bit more flirty. Everyone is crazy confused because for everyone else they were head over heels swooning and attached at the hip until Hermionie (or somebody else) quips in with "You can't create something that already exists, y'know".

• So this one is less creative and it's also a mix of 2 tropes but bear with me. Reader is a very outgoing flirtatious type of person. They openly flirt with everyone, Fred, Ginny, Neville, Dean, etc. They don't care, its a way they show affection. Then, when they start to get a crush on George (or Fred) they star getting more shy and reserved with him. And he is completely clueless. He's lowkey hurt because "why doesn't Y/n crack jokes like that with me?" And shit like that. He is feeling down when he sees it. No, not 'it', he sees you. You and Fred flirting. He's got you cornered to the wall and your cheeks are flushed and George is big mad. (When really, Fred just cornered them so they couldn't avoid the question and was teasing and asking about their crush on George). George ends up seeing out Y/n, getting them alone and confronting them. Light angst? But ends fluffy as reader explains what actually happened

*im going to keep updating this as I get more ideas so be prepared*

[book-0taku]

assuming you have watched hq, kagehina

Yes, I have seen Haikyuu!! It is one of my favourite anime and holds a very important place in my heart. I love almost all characters and ships so anything related to haikyuu should be a lot of fun to answer!!

who’s the cuddler: Definitely Hinata. I mean have you seen the walking ray of sunshine? He's all for the cuddles and will constantly ask Kageyama for some. (Kageyama secretly likes it too, even though he rolls his eyes every time Hinata wants the cuddles)

who makes the bed: They have a rule for this one. Whoever gets out of bed last has to make the bed. Usually, Hinata wins these because his alarm clock is legit the first sunlight at dawn. Kags is a night owl so he doesn't have much energy in the mornings.

who wakes up first: As I said, Hinata literally wakes up at the crack of dawn. But that also means he's sleepy as soon as the sunsets. Kageyama has to carry him to bed A LOT.

who has the weird taste in music: I feel like they both have pretty basic taste in their respectively liked genres. But since Hinata's been to Brazil, he's also taken an interest in Portuguese songs as they helped him a lot in learning the language.

who is more protective: Ka. ge. ya. ma. This angry boi is forever on alert for anyone who tries to get a little too friendly with his boyfriend. The time that Hinata spent away from Kageyama and with Oikawa was hell for him.

who sings in the shower: Kageyama will usually hum a tune or two in the shower. Hinata, on the other hand, is more of a shower talker. He will practice his interview questions and speeches as well as makeup fake scenarios where he explains to a few star-eyed kids how he managed to become such a legend.

who cries during movies: Again, they have a competition for this as well. Whoever cries first during sad movies loses. It usually ends with both of them wanting to cry their eyes out but forcing themselves not to. Kinda like in the last episode of season 1. They don't dare go look at each other during the movie fearing that the dam will break if they do. So after the movie ends they end up having loud arguments as to who started the crying and who won.

who spends the most while out shopping: Neither of them is into shopping too much (unless it's for volleyball equipment). They usually just buy the basic necessities and leave the rest for them to buy only when they need to.

who kisses more roughly: Usually Hinata's energetic nature makes him a little too excited during kisses. He tends to gnash his teeth against Kageyama and has hurt him on more than one occasion. But when Kageyama's seriously in the mood, he'll lift Hinata against a wall and give a harsh bite on his lower lip which instantly shuts the smaller one up.

who is more dominant: Kageyama is definitely a switch, but Hinata's a sub through and through. So it's on Kageyama to be the dominant one in the relationship.

my rating of the ship from 1-10: 10/10 Wonderful ship. It really fills up my need for the opposites attract and enemies to lovers tropes. Both of them are pure dumbasses and imagining them trying to navigate through their relationship never fails to make me laugh!

Thank you soo much for the ask!!

Send me a ship and I will give you my thoughts on it

[twistedapple]

Through These Eyes

Here it is! I’m very nervous about it though, since I’m currently training to work mutiple points of view at the same time, and switching from one POV to the other is not an easy task, both intellectually and emotionally. Bonus point for handling a canon character and needing to be careful about not having him out of character and feeling just like himself in regard to the way his thoughts and feelings are conveyed... Anyway, this is a very interesting exercise, practice will make it perfect getting more canon infos as well lol Bianca’s profile, Bianca’s backstory

Recommended playlist: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Without further ado...

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He never really minded being on his own, and there were times when staying in this large castle still felt oppressive, even the usual company of his supervisor and various servants wouldn’t abate the feeling. In those moments, he would sneak outside and go for a little exploratory stroll. The Valley, as secluded as it was, still had its fair share of inhabitants and locations – his favourite were the abandoned ones. It wasn’t the most princely thing to do but he couldn’t care less, he just wanted to have his bit of fun and quiet – besides, that sort of escapism was harmless. Granted, he would consistently be on the receiving end of a sermon once he’d returned – with his position, disappearing without even a guard was deemed reckless. Well, with his position, he could also easily care for himself and escape them anyway, so why bother having them follow him in the first place? Plus he’d probably be tempted to lose them out of sheer mischief. No matter how the issue could be considered, the outcome would be the same. So he left on his own once again to seek a bit of peace, somewhere away from the castle. Where, though? Ah, this area would do, the unkempt garden had an oddly charming and peaceful atmosphere.

Green firefly-like lights slowly disappeared as he made his advance towards the location, following a messy and clearly disused path with the sure foot of a person used to the exercise. The sky was clear and pale moonlight cut a sharp shadow, making his horns look even longer than they already were. The fresh scent of plants was all around him, along with something else, something unexpected. Magic? He couldn’t be fooled on that – after all, he only had to shake one of his hands for bouts of flames and sparks to randomly appear. He remained young and was still learning to properly master his magic, yet his power was immense. So, intrigued rather than worried, he approached the supposedly abandoned place to inspect it further, his curiosity picked. His raised hand glowed with a faint, green light as he was checking specific areas and trying to figure out what was going on. The traces of magic he had found were awfully similar to whatever had caused some strange taint in other parts of the Valley lately, how curious. Then, that’s when he felt he wasn’t alone anymore. He couldn’t see where they were hidden, but he was clearly being observed. Not willing to play any mind game, he stood tall and ordered.

- Show yourself!

Under blue moon, they met. A small, slender silhouette emerged from behind a half ruined wall covered in ivy and he could have almost mistaken her for a human, had it not been for her eyes – cat-like, abnormally bright golden amber eyes shining too much for it to be caused by the pale moonlight. A slithering shadow disappeared behind her as the young woman moved forward, a cheeky smile on her lips. 

- Now that’s a visit I certainly never saw coming. Not even a guard?

His gaze fell on her and he immediately felt a pinch in his chest. Of course, she knew who she was facing. After all, Malleus’ silhouette was too unique to remain unknown. However, his initial reaction – caused by sheer habit – quickly left place to a certain degree of surprise. Was she poking fun at him? Well well well, how brazen. He couldn’t let that pass now, could he?

- Wasn’t this place supposed to be abandoned? It was, last time I strolled around.

- ... Strolled? Well, I settled in fairly recently, was even planning to rearrange a part of the garden to grow some stuff for myself... Look, is there a part of the area you’d rather have me leave untouched? I don’t really care, I’m pretty much passing by anyway and I’m all alone, so I don’t need much room anyway.

At each word she was getting bolder and bolder, and by the time she’d finished talking, Malleus found himself more amused than anything else. People usually weren’t casual towards him, and they certainly wouldn’t dare start a negotiation two seconds after having met him. He didn’t even know who she was yet... The entire situation felt refreshing and this fact alone motivated him to simply go with the flow. He even decided to cut a bit, just to see how much gal she had.

- Negotiating? Do you realise who you’re talking to?

- … Oh yes, I do, but my motivations for this negotiation are better left for when we’re more hm acquainted with each other. So, is it a good enough reason for you to still feel comfortable hanging around? 

The whole situation was getting better by the second and Malleus found himself chuckling at her question. She was there rather illegally, yet she was treating the place as her personal domain and even inviting him. That last bit felt especially precious – he was so used to see people consider him with either reverence or fear, so used to whispers even to his face as people clearly felt uncomfortable in his presence... For a second he had considered pushing her around a bit more but this thought stopped him in his tracks. Yes, it was a proposal too precious to decline.

- Such a gracious host. Though I may need a name at some point...

As their chat progressed, they’d been getting closer to each other, circling slowly. Even though he had decided to not push too far, he still decided for one last test. If she truly wasn’t human, she’d react appropriately – and she did, declaring her identity a secret for now in a teasing manner.

Under blue moon, they kept seeing each other. Despite the place not belonging to her, she acted like a pleasant host towards him and extended a permanent invitation to her humble abode. While Malleus was certainly amused by the nerve she would casually display, he was also most appreciative of that invitation – for someone like him, used to be... Left behind, yet having an increased crave for proper social interactions as time passed, it meant much and more. In exchange for this kindness, he offered to involve her in his own hobbies, chief among them the exploration of abandoned places and the observation of the many gargoyles commonly found on buildings in the Valley of Thorns. It may have seemed like a strange way to have people relate to him, but it was the easiest one for Malleus. He felt like he could slowly pour his feelings out through the use of his past-times – it was simpler than directly expressing his feelings, somehow. Whenever he’d try to do that, he’d stop mid-sentence as discomfort would settle in his chest and cloud his mind, embarrassment weighting in the back of his head. She never judged him for that. In fact, she remained patient and involved in his architectural rants, showing a genuine interest and obvious knowledge of history. She let him open up on his own term and when he started disclosing his personal thoughts, the grace with which she received them and seemed to take them into account never failed to make his heart leap a bit. Similarly, if he had trouble reading her in the beginning, over time it felt easier – as if him opening up pushed her to return the courtesy.

Under blue moon, he started spending nights at her place – to chat, to watch her work her hedge magic, or to simply be alone together. He even became the first person to hear her sing again after years of silence. By that point, he had a name for her – Hilda -, and knew she had taken an interest in his musical skills since the day she’d noticed the calluses on the tip of his fingers. One night, he appeared with a lute and, as Hilda was working on some orders for a nearby human settlement; he started playing some gentle tune he had decided to prepare specifically for this occasion – a small present for her and for no other reason than the fact that it pleased him to do so. Under the watchful eyes of a dark, cat-like beast with eyes of pale fire sitting next to her, soft sounds filled the main room of what Hilda was using as current living quarters and soon enough, a humming joined in and launched a discussion. Malleus couldn’t help notice yet another testimony of what seemed to be a solid education, but chose to keep his questions to himself still. He preferred to have her come forward with whatever she kept to herself, rather than question her – he feared it may make her step away from him and he treasured their relationship too much at this point to risk such a thing. These considerations aside, it was the first time he heard something musically oriented from her and a question still had to be asked once he finished playing his tune.

- You seem well-versed in music, how come you’ve never brought it up before?

- Well, it’s been a while since I last did anything related to it, but your little tune motivated me… It’s the first time I heard it, your creation?

- Yes, if you were to hear me play for the first time, I thought I could make this occasion memorable. Considering your reaction, I take you enjoyed it? I shall do that again at a later date, then.

Under blue moon, they found themselves more and more involved with each other as time passed, to the point Malleus started acting like an accomplice to her occupation of empty places and quiet trade. He would often catch himself giving Hilda long looks, either while silently wondering what could be the reply to her mystery, or simply because he felt like watching her be about whatever task she decided to put her mind to. One of his favourite moments was when she would use her magic and one of those curious magical surges would happen. Most of the time, it seemed more annoying than dangerous and the face she’d make in these moments was amusing – pouting with her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Then there’d be the dangerous times, when he’d find her bandaged and not allowing herself to use magic for some time. In those moments she’d be in a darker mood, though assuring Malleus that he shouldn’t take it personally as it was not directed at him. Still, he’d stay and help her out with what needed be done regarding the trade she had going with the locals. This trade mostly consisted in alchemy and potions for all sorts of things – from improving the growth of crops to various charms made for all sorts of purposes. Interestingly, Hilda’s preferred tasks would be related to the care of the land itself, which she seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about. When Malleus questioned her on the matter, though, she merely replied that her unique magic was tied to the land and that it felt obvious for her to feel concerned about it – whether by caring for the wilderness or helping farmers in their endeavour. And while this trade didn’t provide her with many riches, it seemed to give its own wealth of information and links to a great number of persons. This alone picked Malleus’ interest since it was something he couldn’t do as easily as her for various reasons – people fearing his power, people recognising him in an instant... Meanwhile, Hilda’s overall deceptively human-like appearance, small stature and approachable atmosphere seemed incredibly useful when it came to treating with people – be they humans or faes. When he’d find her dealing with her clients, he’d enjoy observing from afar for all of those reasons; it wasn’t just about fulfilling some sort of curiosity, but to learn a bit as well. In those moments, his own isolation would weight on him too, yet Hilda’s smiles would never fail to abate the feeling. 

Under blue moon their bond grew stronger, before reaching a new point one day, as Malleus was helping her move in a new place he’d suggested. That night, there was a feeling of casual closeness between them, as if they’d done what they were doing more than once. It was an easy ballet made of back-and-forth to put Hilda’s belongings in order.  They would cross each other and, as she stayed close to him, he first surprised himself silently basking in her delicate scent of sweet grass and fresh flowers before realising that he simply wanted her even closer. It fully dawned on him when they found themselves side by side, their eyes locking. He’d never expected a time as short as a missed heart beat could pass so quickly yet so slowly at the same time. Closer, a scent like a secret garden. Closer, lips brushing against lips. Closer still, as he felt her lean in the touch and replied in kind by running his fingers through her hair. Suddenly, it felt like a fire was roaring inside him and neither of them would let go of the other. For a moment, nothing else mattered... Until he felt a strange sensation under his fingers. Breaking the contact, he looked and noticed her ink black hair covered in small, pale blossoms. His first thought was to consider them like a bit of starry night sky, yet he kept that to himself and went for a chuckle instead.

- You did tell me about those magical surges of yours... But I had never seen that sort of thing happen before. Did you?

- What are you talking abo- blackthorns blossoms? No, that one is definitely new, though oddly specific. I wonder what could have caus-

- To put it simply, I’d say you... You-made-me-bloom. Literally. 

- Pff... Hahahaha well at the very least, know that the blackthorn suits you perfectly. 

- You’re enjoying it all, aren’t you?

-Oh, I enjoy it a lot.

Seeing her redden and implode on the spot was most amusing to witness and provided him the final push to keep going – there was no objection on her part, only her hands pressing on his chest and her fingers tightening slightly over his shirt.

Under blue moon, Malleus discovered her mystery. All he needed was a name, and a name he heard accidentally. That evening, he arrived as usual, surrounded by green firefly-like lights and not too far from Hilda’s current dwelling – but not too close either. However, the air itself was heavy with magic and it felt like the earth was ready to crack open at any moment. Not knowing what was happening in the usually quite place, Malleus concealed himself with a spell before making a careful, calculated approach to assess the situation – or try to. He may have had honed his skill in escaping his guards whenever he left the castle, however it wasn’t a reason for him to act foolishly and risk putting himself in danger. As he got close, however, he started having a feeling of déjà-vu with the way the magic affected the area. Like a twisted, gloomy taint that would warp the immediate surroundings. That’s when his eyes fell on thick branches of blackthorn breaching erratically the earth and growing thicker, fuller at their center. There a person was held prisoner, ruthlessly pinned in place by the long thorns and under the watch of a large, black dog-like beast with eyes of pale fire. Then Hilda approached, a bundle in her hands and a cold, ominous expression on her face that Malleus had never seen before. With a biting tone and thorns in her hair, she unwittingly provided the information Malleus had wanted to ask for a while now – merely waiting the proper moment to do so. 

- Since you were following orders, I’ll let you go back to my family, but you’ll bring them these bones. Tell them this it what you found at the end of the trail. You’ll be freed from this cat and mouse game in the process, isn’t it nice? Your Lady Bianca Bosconero is dead.

Bosconero? That name alone was enough to explain everything, even though she’d been guarded about it – and about pretty much any information that could give her identity away, when he thought about it. That’s why she stayed so vague when it came to her magical abilities as well – because she wasn’t just a Bosconero, based on what he’d been witnessing. She was without a doubt the current holder of the ancestral magic passed down in the family for generations. While the Bosconero were historical allies of the Draconia, their work would be oriented towards diplomacy, especially in regards to humans, thanks to their generally deceptive human-like features, so they would often communicate to provide reports regarding the state of affairs outside the Valley, but would not so often show their face. The foliate face of the Green Man himself was their coat-of-arms, of course she’d be skilled in the fields of growth, death and rebirth, as she demonstrated in her care for both the wilderness and crops, as well as her specific knowledge in alchemy and potion-making.

Yet, as relieved as he felt by this realisation, Malleus couldn’t help feeling hurt by all the omissions Hilda – no, Bianca – had made. Granted, based on what she had said as she released the prisoner, it looked like she had taken extreme measures to protect herself from her own family, but his chest still tightened at the idea that she’d kept it to herself all this time, rather than talk to him. With the current state of their relationship and his own power, he could easily provide her the safety she needed, so the feeling of rejection was present despite his attempt at rationalising the whole situation. This is what motivated him to appear as soon as Bianca cleared the place and found herself alone again. He wanted to hear it all from her own mouth. 

-… Bianca Bosconero? From the Bosconero household? Is it who you are?

---------- 

As soon as he moved from his hiding spot and addressed her, Bianca froze on the spot. The thorns he could previously see and feel in her hair, eyes and words seemed to vanish, leaving only a faint dark, smoke-like trail that dissipated in a second. She turned towards him and her face quickly went from cold fury to surprise, then fear. And while Malleus had never been exactly good at reading people’s emotions, at that moment he was certain he could almost hear her scream internally. It made him feel uneasy, but he couldn’t help scowling at the entire situation – at her, too. A heavy silence fell on them, during which Bianca seemed to search her words. Now, what would they do...

- Yes, you heard it right.

- Why did you stay silent about that? Not talking about it when we met was one thing, but enough time has passed since then, don’t you think?

The tone of his voice carried something regal and cutting that surprised even him, yet he kept a composed face while questioning Bianca.

- How much did you hear?

- The end of your exchange. You haven’t answered my questions.

- ... What was I supposed to do? Involve you in family matters? The Crown Prince himself butting in to help clean a family’s personal laundry, can you imagine how people would react to that? Why would I get you involved in something that could only tarnish your reputation, what could you gain in that?

- ...

At her questioning replies, Malleus fell silent and lowered his head slightly. She had a point, and technically it would also have made him guilty of not only getting in the way of her family – a short way to gain political enemies -, but of assisting her with all sort of illegal things, such as squatting or practicing non-authorised trade at the border. Knowing who she really was would have potentially damaged his own social and political status as well... Yet, the cat was now out of the bag whether they liked it or not. They had to compose with that from now on. 

- Now, your identity is out but your problems are definitely far from being solved, aren’t they? How are you – no, we – supposed to proceed?

In reaction to his new questions, Bianca looked at him with a tired look he had never seen before and let out a loud sigh while slowly rubbing her hands together, lips slightly pinched. Malleus was familiar with that gesture: she was fully focusing on all of the parameters they had to figure out the most efficient course of action.

- Right now... Right now only you and Erico – the person you saw, he’s my mother’s assistant -, only you two know what’s going on with my identity. I guess the priority right now is for me to move somewhere else, this place is compromised.

- What about him, then? He’s bringing fake bones to your home. Your mother is a well-known alchemist; I don’t doubt she will fully be capable to see through your trick. Do you think you could face her?

- Honestly? I... I doubt I’ll ever be able to really face her. Not with the erratic nature of my magic.

- You’ve been putting your magic to good use almost daily, ever since we met –

- And most of what you saw are perfectly reasonable spells. If I were to face my mother, I’d have to resort to a full use of my Unique Magic, this is where trouble begins for me.

As they were talking, Malleus felt the tension in his brows abate along with his initial hurt. Rather than feeling put off by her secrecy, he appreciated the fact that it was done not out of malice, but to keep him out of trouble. For that reason, he decided to close the initial distance between them and felt his heart tighten when he saw Bianca lower her eyes, an uneasy look on her face. Her usually soft tone sounded more stifled when she spoke again.

- Malleus... I’m sorry I lied to you like that...

- And the situation has been clarified. Don’t worry about that now – besides, we have to find a new place for you, among other things.

He gave her a gentle smile, then they went back to her hiding place to tidy things up and ready themselves to move. He came back more regularly in the nights that followed – an event rare enough to be noted, considering the risks he was willingly taking -, to help her out, talk about her reasons for doing what she was doing, as well as to simply keep her company. He also discovered the full extent of her magical abilities during one of these nights.

They had decided from a common agreement that, to increase her safety, Bianca would get some help in the improvement of her defensive magic. As expected, the Gift inherited from the Green Man was a powerful magic – powerful, but highly finicky and unpredictable. Bianca explained how she would usually work: her Unique Magic, Forest Queen, would work as the concept of a territory and she would select a manageable area – usually herself and maybe a radius around herself. From there, the summons inherent to her Unique Magic would come forth as she called them. However, that’s where the full extent of the Gift would strike: with a territory large enough, the land around her would twist and quickly turn into a deep, dark forest. In the mean time, the unpredictability of that magical source would translate into random effects that would affect Bianca and her spells. It could be happy accidents, such as the twinning of a spell, or unpleasant ones such as getting trapped in her own thorns – she had shown him the scars it had already caused her in the past. And despite his own magical abilities, Malleus couldn’t help feeling unsettled whenever he looked at her forest, seeping with something ancient. It was only an impression, but as soon as he laid his eyes on it, he had a terrible feeling that going in there would be a terrible idea. The feeling towards most of her summons was similar, Ire and Dread, the towering antlered creature and the beautiful yet threatening black horse, being the ones eliciting the strongest impression of imminent doom to him.

However, for all the fright her Unique Magic could conjure, there was also the amazement at seeing the world dance with her as she moved, followed by a new wilderness at each step. For him whose magic would be naturally inclined towards destruction through fire and lightning, these magical feats were compelling. Even though there was a natural weakness to fire-related magic, the renewing ability of that ability was intriguing. Yet, it also came with the most unpleasant limitation: a heavy use of Bianca’s magical energy, something that already required her attention as it seemed she was prone to blotting. But as long as they remained careful about it, they could exchange blows; it would never fail to make Malleus’ heart leap, seeing someone who didn’t fear his magic and would even be willing to discuss with him through spells. Such an event was so rare it made the entire situation even more precious to him, and he wanted to cherish and nurture it. 

Under blue moon, she disappeared. When Malleus arrived, it was already far too late, the place was cold and empty, save for some partially thrashed objects. The night following the first attack, she had explained what she was running away from, and as he was taking in the now abandoned place, Malleus knew that despite his help, she had failed to face her mother. The thought was enough to give birth to a cold guilt, somewhere deep within him. Even though his rational side dictated that he had done what he could at his level, that he couldn’t predict this event, that him getting directly involved in that fight would only have made everything worse – even for himself -... He still couldn’t help feeling guilty for not having been there. The weeks that followed were spent in a strange haze, during which he did what he needed to do out of habit, yet his thoughts were somewhere else – a manor marked with a foliate face, ink black hair, amber eyes and crimson lips. His constant daydreaming was only broken when a large bird with eyes like pale fire and obsidian feathers found its way to the window of his bedroom. Malleus quickly recognised Sly, the bird-like summon. A smart one that definitely deserved its name. It could sing, imitate voices and create charms to distract its victims. However, this time it seemed it had been used for the considerably mundane and charmingly old fashioned task of bringing a letter.

“M. My mother took me back home. I tried my best, but I think the fear she invokes still got the better of me. I am not allowed to have a phone – among many things -, so I’m afraid a messenger bird will be the best option to keep contact with you. I hope you are well. – B. PS: no need to give him food or water.”

The handwriting had more sharpness to it than what its overall fairly round letters let on at first sight – the extended verticals were most indicative of it. The paper had a delicate, green floral scent that was unmistakable. His hearts beating in excitement, Malleus read the letter five more times before taking some stationary material and preparing his reply.

“B. I can’t believe you are asking me how I am doing when I’m the one who should be asking you how you are faring. I’m sorry I couldn’t be – can’t be – there for you. Is there anything I can do?- M. PS: exchanging letters like that is charmingly old fashioned. It also has a better chance of reply from me, since it looks like my magic doesn’t always agree with more modern means of communication.”

After having closed the letter with a non-descript seal, Malleus approached the black bird, which quietly held a foot so he could bind the letter to it before silently flying away. Thus started an epistolary exchange between Bianca and him, during which he made sure to carefully store all of her letters so he could occasionally take a look at them. However, this too was put to an end by Crimilde Bosconero.

“M., I think this will be the last letter between us for a while. I’m sorry things have come to that, but you know I don’t want you to be needlessly involved in my personal mess. I’ll try to figure a new way out, I’ll let you know as soon as it happens. In the mean time, please take good care of yourself. I love you. – B.”

Malleus felt something twist in him as he read the letter, worry over her situation getting mixed with the elation caused by the last words in her letter. He immediately proceeded to work on what would be his last reply, in which he chose to pour his own feelings for the sake of clarity and as a promise to her. The surprisingly hopeful tone of Bianca’s last letter motivated Malleus to be patient and keep going, chasing away the unpleasant thoughts by remembering the feeling of her body against his, how he would lean in her gentle touch when she’d caress his cheek. And while it wasn’t exactly what he’d call the greatest time of his life, his patience still led to an unforeseen surprise on the day the carriage meant to take him to Night Raven College arrived. While he thought only Lilia and him would pass the coffin-shaped door, he was instead surprised to see a small silhouette with ink black hair appear as well. As soon as they saw each other, they almost made a move to join in an embrace, but held back as Lilia was giving them both a curious look – yet spared a comment or, more likely, thought it as hard as possible but chose not to embarrass Lady Bosconero out of politeness. Malleus knew some questions would be asked later, in private, now that Lilia had the missing piece regarding his pupil’s curious behaviour.

Under blue moon, they met again. It happened a few days after they had both settled in their dorm and in their new rhythm of life. Malleus couldn’t tell if it was the privacy of their tête-à-tête, the fact that they could finally see each other again, or maybe a bit of both, but Bianca openly displaying her emotions as she sought his embrace and started crying had his heart skip a beat. At that moment, he was fully hit by the degree of trust she had in him, even after all this time forcefully apart. She had yet to explain what had happened once all communication stopped abruptly, but judging by her reaction it had been difficult for her. Malleus decided to not press her with questions for now and silently offered the safe comfort of his arms instead, breathing her in and wishing for that moment to last forever, his fingers tangled in hair covered with pale flowers.

Throughout their first school year, even though they were in different classes and different dorms, it felt like they were offered a perfect opportunity to get to see each other on a nearly daily basis, in a setting that allowed less secrecy. It gave Malleus the occasion to fully discover new sides to Bianca, as she was not only being around him, but being around other people as well. There was still a form of amazement at seeing her skilfully deal with the very same people who expressed fear just by looking at him. This very situation also seemed to be a source of concern to her, as she wouldn’t hesitate to include him whenever they had joint classes, when most people would leave him behind. Still, most people - some of his classmates seemed to not really care about whom he was, some would even occasionally try to have their bit of fame on Magicam when he was around. So Malleus would regularly reassure Bianca that she didn’t need to worry about him – she already had enough on her plate and he didn’t feel like burdening her further. Indeed, she had started hatching a new plan to cut free from her family, a plan involving legal means that’d be harder to discuss – and would ensure her mother’s tractability. Malleus was of two minds about the whole situation. On one hand, he wanted her to finally be free to live her life the way she wanted; on the other hand, completely burning bridges with her family may endanger a future he wished to share with her, deep inside of him. However, all too aware of the stubbornness she might show if he started arguing, especially considering how both of them were involved in this issue and how determined she was to protect his name and title by keeping him out of what she deemed private dirty laundry, he decided to bypass the issue by directing her to Lilia for advices on legal recourses. After all, his chaperone was definitely old enough to have both the knowledge and the ability to take a step back on her situation, and he knew that she would listen to him – if only out of respect for his status and the insight he could provide. 

However, directing Bianca towards Lilia was only the first step in his personal plan to settle the dispute between mother and daughter. He still had to tread carefully if he wanted to keep Bianca by his side without antagonising House Bosconero – which would be a terrible move potentially affecting the diplomacy of the Valley of Thorns. As his third year started, he had the pleasure to see her come back with some interesting news; she had managed to cut lose Crimilde’s influence over her – at the cost of a debt and the loss of any financial privileges, which he had in mind to deal with himself, but without completely destroying her relationship with her family. Now, the subtle part of the plan was slowly starting, requiring him to act as a mediator. For someone like him, that would inspire fear in most people yet didn’t excel in reading their heart, it felt like quite the challenge to undertake... But this year had started with certain curious events, which made him consider that the months to come would be unusual and full of surprises. It could constitute an excellent learning experience.

[that1nova]

Get to Know my Characters.... Featuring Hanna Milton

I know most people are doing this as an ask game, but I haven’t started posting my story yet so I’m not sure if there is much interest in my girls yet, so I did it this way! One for Mollie coming tomorrow <3

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

“Hanna” means grace. Her mom wanted to name her Grace, but her dad didn’t like the name, so she went with Hanna. 

I picked it by random generator as a placeholder, and normally after that I change their names when writing the actual story, but this one stuck.

02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness?

Hanna is very insecure about what happened to her as a teenager. She is scared people will find out and treat her differently. She hides it very well.

03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves?

She loves her hair. It’s something she is always able to control about herself. 

04. What are their favorite traits about their lover? (one psychological and one physical)

They are soft spoken and patient. || They have gorgeous skin.

05. Are they sexually confident or more of the shy type?

As she’s gotten older, she is pretty sexually confident.

06. Do they have any hobbies that their lover finds unusual, odd, or otherwise annoying?

Her significant other is very supportive of her hobbies, in all ways. Even if they don’t enjoy all of the same things.

07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?

She says “look” a lot. As in “look, I was just saying…” or “look, there’s more to it than that.”

08. What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it?

She still blames herself for her past. She’s very aware and goes to therapy, but it’s a struggle.

09. Do they have a favorite season? What about a favorite holiday?

She loves fall and Halloween, because it’s in fall.

10. Is your character more feminine or masculine?

Feminine

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

(redacted) 

12. Is there some particular talent, skill, or attribute that they simply could not give up?

She loves teaching, and would feel incomplete without it.

13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker?

She is a very light sleeper. Every little noise wakes her up. She has to sleep under a separate blanket from her significant other because she a) needs a weighted blanket and b) likes to burrito herself up to sleep.

14. Do they live alone or with family? How do they feel about their family/roommates?

She lives with her sister, and she’s very happy with the arrangement.

15. Is there a certain person in this world that they cannot stand? The very mention of this person’s name makes them tremble with anger or fear.

(redacted)

16. Is your character the athletic type or more of a couch potato? What are some sports/games that they like?

Athletic. She loves running.

17. Does your character have dreams of getting married and/or having children?

Yes, very much so. And hopefully soon.

18. What kind of home would they want to live in? Where would they place this abode?

She just wants to grow old in the home she grew up in.

19. Would your character be the kind to get into fights? (physical or verbal) Would they be a good fighter or cave in rather easily?

Hanna would never start a fight if she could avoid it…. But she would end it.

20. Does your character like animals? What are some of their favorite animals? Would they want pets? What about mythological creatures?

She’s obsessed with unicorns. And really wants a cat.

21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

(redacted)

22. What kind of tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, freckles, and other such unique physical features do they have?

She got her father’s freckles, and has a tattoo on her arm.

23. What is your character like when it comes to school? What subjects are they good/bad at? Do they get in trouble a lot or are well behaved?

Hanna loved school. She was always disappointed when it was time to go home. She got straight A’s and was considered the “teacher’s pet.” 

24. In their own words, how would your character describe what their lover is like?

“Amazing. Really, I couldn’t ask for better. It’s like… okay, imagine God made someone just for you. That person can see into your soul, can read your mind, knows all your fears, all your hopes and dreams. It’s like I found that person. And no way in hell am I gonna give them up.”

25. Is there something traumatic from your character’s past that greatly affects them even to this day?

(redacted)

26. What is their lover like sexually? How do they feel about their lover’s quirks, needs, etc?

Her significant other is pretty modest and shy about sex, at least in public. But Hanna is really good at getting them to relax and enjoy themselves in the moment. She does her best to attend to their needs in every way.

27. If your character was going to get arrested, what would be the most likely reason for it?

(redacted)

28. If your character became a celebrity, what would they be famous for?

Probably singing. She has an amazing voice, but she’s really shy about it.

29. What is one of the most courageous things your character has ever done for a loved one?

(redacted)

30. When it comes to the arts (music, film, theater, etc), what does your character like?

All of it, really. She loves going to see plays, she loves movies, and she enjoys singing in the car with the windows down.

31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what?

(redacted)

32. If your character’s lover offered to take them out on a dream date, what would they want to do?

A picnic, followed by flying in a hot air balloon.

33. If your character wanted to be alone, where would they go?

The attic.

34. Does your character have favorite foods? (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks, etc)

She’s a sucker for oreos dipped in milk.

35. Is your character afraid of death? If they got to choose how to die, how would they want to go?

No, she’s not. But she’d still prefer to die an old lady in her sleep.

36. Does your character have any medical conditions? Are they serious or minor? Do they affect their day to day life?

Yes. She has depression and anxiety. She takes medication and sees a therapist, but she still sometimes struggles.

37. What are some of your character’s pet peeves? What are some things that annoy them or disgust them?

She can’t stand people popping bubble gum or chewing with their mouth open.

38. What kind of weather does your character like? Cloudy skies, rainy days, sunshine, etc?

Rainy days are always the best ones.

39. When people look at your character, is there some assumption they might make about them just by appearance? Is that assumption correct?

Yes, they might see her (redacted) and assume (redacted). They would be correct.

40. Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others?

She really loves General Hospital, but don’t tell her sister.

41. Does your character’s family affect your character in any way?

Absolutely. Her family made her what she is today.

42. Is there anything in your character’s past that they regret, haunts them, or they wish they could change?

Yes, absolutely. The (redacted)

43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self?

Not really. Hanna is pretty true to herself all the time. But her significant other and her sister often see more of her vulnerability than most. 

44. Is there a particular event that would emotionally devastate your character?

She couldn’t stand to lose her sister.

45. Is your character the kind to hide their true emotions or do they wear their heart on their sleeve?

A little of both, I think? She will tell you when something bothers her, but she won’t tell you just how much.

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?

Plays with their hair.

47. Is your character outgoing? Would they be the leader of the friend group, or the quiet one that gets dragged along?

The leader.

48. Is there anything in particular that would ignite your character’s jealousy? Or does your character not get envious?

She’s really not the jealous type at all.

49. What is something that your character has nightmares about? Are these frequent? Do they heavily affect your character’s mood?

(redacted)

50. If your character confessed love to their crush, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc, what would they say?

“Hanna, we’ve been dating for 5 years. I would hope you feel that way.”

[greenninjagal-blog]

It’s Always Been This Way (Hasn’t It?)pt2

Hello! Did someone order 52 pages of Virgil angst, gayness, and magical shenanigans? If you missed the prologue you can find it right [here]!

Summary: After deciding not to go back to Hogwarts for their final year of school, Virgil, Roman, Patton, and Logan all enjoy living together in their quiet muggle neighborhood and doing small tasks for the Order. It would be nice, Virgil thinks, if he wasn’t actively lying to their faces every day.

Also if the Neo Death Eaters weren’t trying to kill his friends.

Words: 21,080 (and no thats not some joke)

Read on AO3 ||  My General Writing Masterlist

Chapter One: Liar, Liar (House On Fire)

“This is absolute bullshit and they know it!” Virgil yells to no one, as he slams the morning paper on the table.

From somewhere not far away, Patton’s voice calls out “language”, but Virgil doesn’t really register it at all. He’s too busy reading over the front page article again as if he missed something the previous four times he had read it. He flicks his wand (Cypress, 9 inches, semi flexible) across the kitchen with barely a thought which makes the coffee pot start up and his favored mug place itself under it.

It’s somewhere past eight in the morning, and Virgil still feels drowsy which probably isn’t helping his mood at all. He hasn’t gotten a full night's rest in at least three years, and he doesn’t expect to get it for another ten years. And that’s only if his half muggle born ass survives that long.

He snarls at the paper again, slamming a fist on the table hard enough that the stinging goes all the way up his arm to the back of his eyes, and that in turn ruffles the owl on the perch in the corner out of its trance.

“Sorry Logan.” Virgil breathes in deep and snarls it back out.

The horned owl titters on the perch turning towards him, blinks twice in a sophisticated way that’s made doubly effective by the strange rectangular pattern around its eyes, and then reaches out its wings. With powerful gust and a blur of brown, white, and black feathers, the animal leaps into the air. It morphs with precision, a complex series of motions that elongates its body, shrinks the eyes, and changes the number of bones under its feathers all together. Its fascinating to watch: in less than a second the air is filled by a stern looking seventeen year old with square glasses, a sharp nose, and matted dark hair that rarely appears to have a strand out of place.

But then again, Virgil thinks its fascinating every time Logan breaks the law at all. There’s something about seeing a man so rule orientated like Logan breaking those very same rules that makes Virgil’s heart flutter in that entirely unhelpful way.

“Salutations, Virgil,” Logan says, sounding exactly like he had just swallowed a muggle computer. “May I inquire what has your frustrations today?”

Virgil huffs, sliding the paper across the table for his friend. “See for yourself.”

Logan picks it up at the same time as Virgil flicks his wand at his mug and exchanges it for the one Logan favored. Logan’s still frowning at the article when both the cups come levitating through the air and set themselves on the table between them.

The Daily Prophet had never been Virgil’s favorite source of information. It didn’t take a genius to know when a reporter was being paid to report--or not report-- something. Not to mention it was practically controlled by the Ministry and that it was more concerned with sales than with accuracy.

Still, Virgil is too much of a sucker for routine to cancel his subscription to the utter nonsense. Which leads him to mornings such as this: grumbling into his coffee mug, with his illegal animagus of a friend across from him equally displeased and showing it in the way his eyebrows furrow and his thin lips squeeze together, with Patton in the other room somewhere, probably stress cleaning again (which is marginally better than when he’s stress eating), and Roman out on his morning jog through the quiet muggle neighborhood they called their own.

It’s strange, Virgil thinks, knowing that none of their neighbors are aware of the nuclear bombs that rest in each of their pockets disguised as sticks that they might have picked up in the park last Saturday.

It’s strange, Virgil thinks, that its September fourth and none of them are at Hogwarts, or even intending on going to the esteemed magic school that had been their homes for six years prior.

It’s strange, Virgil thinks, knowing that Dee’s family had helped finance the Dark Lady's rise to political power and then had started murdering muggles in distant countries and the Daily Prophet was refusing to acknowledge any of it at all.

They’d all be seventh years this year, completing the second half of their courses and preparing for the NEWTS and practicing their nonverbal spells. And maybe Virgil’s spent too much time in his own head this summer because he misses going the kitchens and tapping out the rhythmic pattern of “Helga Hufflepuff” on the barrel that would open up to the soft, cozy, and quiet common room. From the very first moment he had done it himself, Virgil had always felt a bit like he was walking home when he entered the Hufflepuff dorms, as ridiculous a notion as it was. (And he’d die before he’d admit that to anyone else.)

But even here, in Roman’s semi-modest muggle neighborhood, it feels a bit like that. He can’t pretend that he doesn’t like waking up and seeing those three again and again and again. He doesn’t want to either.

He feels guilty about it. A whole lot of guilty. For the first month of them living together, Virgil hadn’t been able to sleep at all, because he’d been so afraid of waking up, and finding the spell over them had broken.

Virgil can survive losing a lot-- he’s done it before with his mother, his home, his holidays, his sanity (on Thursdays, specifically),-- he doesn’t think he can survive losing them too. And that’s partially his fault, he supposes: his defining character trait has always been that fierce loyalty, with a more than a dash of selfishness that his mother hadn’t managed to iron out of him. 

He loves the spell that was over them. He also hates that he loves the spell that was over them.

The second they found out it would be over and they’d never forgive him for using them like stepping stones.

His fingers tighten around the mug at the spiral of his own thoughts. Logan’s eyes flick up from his reading to look at him, and Virgil wished he knew what that sort of look meant. If they had actually been friends for five years, he probably would have known.

Its a little late to ask.

It doesn’t matter much because the next moment the front door opens with a loud boom and a louder voice sings the ending line of some Disney song that Virgil recognizes only because it had been in the back of his head for three days straight. (That song from that night when the four of them had curled up in the living room and Roman had tugged him into a cuddle and then forgotten to let go of him before he fell asleep with his head on Virgil’s shoulder and-- and he was blushing just thinking about it.)

Virgil makes a mistake of swallowing his coffee at the same time as Roman Prince comes tromping into the kitchen after his morning run. And hell, if it didn’t take every single muscle in his body to keep from spitting his drink back up.

Virgil has seen Roman come back from runs before: it was part of his routine that he rarely switched up and he had admitted to Virgil once that it was when he did his best thinking. Alone with his music in his ear, his wand in his pocket, and the rhythmic pounding of his sneakers on the pavement-- Virgil could see how it was appealing. If it didn’t require getting up so early, or going outside, or like...exercising, Virgil would have totally been down to run with him. 

But the way that Roman comes into the room-- his shirt in his hands, instead of on his body like a normal person, glistening with sweat that seemed to drip off every single muscle which was only emphasized by the smug look on his face, his eyes sparking with his endorphins running rampid and his face still flushed from his workout--like he knew, the little shit, knew that he was making Virgil short circuit by looking like that.

Virgil swallows his coffee, with his hands around his mug so tightly he thinks it might take a crowbar or diffindo to get them apart.

Logan turns into an owl again.

(Animals don’t feel emotions quite like humans, Logan had said once and Virgil has never been able to get over that particular jealousy.)

“What's the matter, Morgan le Fretful?” Roman asks with that shit eating grin of his that, by itself, can turn Virgil’s thought process into a first graders string art project. That smile coupled with his gleaming abs and Virgil’s complete and utter gayness? Oh he’s down for the count and out of the game all together.

“Boo,” Virgil manages, “Weak.”

“I think it was a good one!” Roman responds so blithe and warm that Virgil wonders if the sun came to earth for the day. Logan flutters his feathers, which only makes Roman laugh more.

“Put on a shirt, Princey,” Virgil says, deliberately not looking at him as he says it. He steals the paper back from Logan’s place, and pretends to find the articles in it interesting and not at all offensive. 

"And if I don't?" Roman's wiggling his eyebrows and Virgil can tell because the picture of Celestina Warbeck (the famed Singing Sorceress, whom Roman had once said should be the next Disney Princess) was blushing furiously and waving her face in her article.

Virgil glares at the singer and she gives him a wink like she knows exactly what his heart is doing in his chest. He changes pages as fast as he can, grabs his mug and his wand in one hand, and does not look up at Roman.

"If you don't, Patton's gonna have a hard time putting out the Bluebell flames I'm gonna--"

Virgil stops mid sentence as his eyes catch on a familiar face on the page. A face he hadn't seen in a year, but saw each and every time he had a nightmare. The paper crinkled in his hand.

"Virgil?" Roman says playfulness gone. "If it's really that much of a bother I'll put it on--"

Virgil blinks once, twice, and he swallows hard. "What? No its-- Its fine. I don't care." He folds the paper and sticks it under his arm as he convinces himself to keep breathing.

Roman stares at him (shirt around his neck like hawaiian lei). Logan gives a ruffle of feathers and touches down at the edge of the table next to Virgil's elbow. Despite being a bird, and despite the fact the markings around his eyes only look like glasses, the gaze he holds is sophisticated and knowing. Virgil refuses to look at him, at either of them. He finds a spot just over Roman’s shoulder to stare at in conviction.

"I'm fine," Virgil says again, as if that will convince them. 

"You're clearly not." Logan's voice says and Virgil just barely restrains himself from batting the glasses off his face. (When the first animagus was done, why didn't they included a sound with their morphing? A bell ringing? A tumblr notification noise? Something???)

"Yeah, last time you acted like this after reading the paper, you disappeared for a day, without explanation." Roman says (and Virgil doesn't flinch, does not, does not), "So to prevent Patton from worrying all day, I'm gonna wait for an answer that's the truth."

"It is the truth!" Virgil responds. And its not a lie. Not a whole lie. Barely a partial lie. Its nothing compared to the other lies he's been telling.

And when neither of them fall for it, he lets out a defeated breath. "You guys remember Professor Remus Dukeson?"

Roman snorts, "Crazy Divination teacher? The one who ate a physical teacup in third year?”

Logan picks up a feather from the table, one of his own feathers, and twists it in his fingers, “What about him, Virgil?”

“Do you know what Alstroemeria flowers represent?”

Virgil unfolds the paper from under his arm, “He’s dead.”

Virgil doesn’t expect them to understand. He can’t expect them to. Logan thought Divination was a waste of school funds. It was the only class he didn’t even attempt to master. And Roman and Professor Remus never once got along. After the disaster of third year Roman had dropped Divination like it had been going out of style, and maybe it had. By fourth year only half the class had stuck around. 

And Virgil had been one of them.

He hadn’t been particularly good at it: he didn’t like his tea without sugar, the crystal balls never once filled with smoke for him, and he mixed up the head and life lines on his during the Palmistry portion of his OWLs despite having had the class for three whole years by then. Professor Remus had mentioned he had a latent talent once upon a time, but the man had also said that Roman was going to cast a forbidden curse at Virgil and Logan was going to win a duel with Professor Sanders, so Virgil hadn’t put much merit in his words.

But seeing the teachers face, his smirking mouth, his mustache that always had something in it, and even seeing his picture shuffling side to side as he was trying to stripe which unfortunately was not a new phenomenon to anyone who took his class...seeing Professor Remus in the Obituaries with the cause of death being labeled as an unsolvable murder? Oh, there was something cold about that, something that makes Virgil’s empty stomach churn and his head feel warm, and his fingers itch for the coin in the secret pocket over his heart. 

Theres a flash of red in the corner of his eye and Virgil freezes, but in the end its just Roman tugging his shirt over his head, and pushing back his sweat drenched bangs. He’s frowning, as people do when they hear someone died.

“Oh man,” Roman says, “That’s pretty awful. I mean he was a terrible teacher, but I never wanted to see him dead.”

“Agreed,” Logan says. He flips the paper to read the small written eulogy himself. “I wonder who the new teacher in his place is?”

“Maybe they brought back Trelawney?” Roman suggests.

And just like that the topic is gone and Remus Dukeson is forgotten. Virgil wishes that his right hand would stop feeling like someone had stabbed him with a thousand needles in the meantime, please and thanks.

Listening to them feels a lot like they’re standing on opposite sides of a one-way glass wall. They keep talking, the topic gone, and in a few minutes Virgil’s little freak out will have been forgotten to them. Virgil thinks he should be thankful for that: with his life on the line he really doesn’t need them to be prodding into why exactly crazy Remus Dukeson’s death matters all that much.

Crazy Remus Dukeson who would have been the only one who could have helped him out of the hole he’d been digging for himself for the past two years. But if he was dead, then there was no one left who could vouch for him when all of this was over, no one who would be able to stand in a court room and say without a doubt that Virgil had done the only thing he could have done, no one who would want to believe Virgil was a good guy.

And, of course, Logan was not stupid in any manner. If past memories hadn’t secured such a reaction as his as one of normality, then surely he would have put two and two together. Surely if he hadn’t had five years of false memories under his belt he would have realized that Virgil was hiding something behind that glass mirror of his, and that it was bad and evil and going to get them killed.

Virgil slips out of the room about the same time as Roman and Logan start arguing over whether Divination should even be a course offered at school (a debate of which has been ongoing for three years now). Part of him wants to be sad that it's so easy to just fade away from and exit the room without making them even turn from each other.

But Virgil knows how Roman and Logan stare at each other when they get into a debate, how everyone stares at Logan when he gets filled with that prim-and-proper, fuck-you fire. Outside of seeing him break the laws with ease, watching Logan get passionate is one of Virgil’s favorite sights. (Even if the first memory of it that Virgil has also includes Logan giving him a bloody nose and Patton crying--) 

Roman isn’t any different. That’s why he purposely eggs the ravenclaw on, and then stares stupidly at Logan’s flushed cheeks with a cocky smirk that is absolutely impossible for Virgil to witness when the other still hasn’t showered from his run.

So really its for his own sanity that he manages to escape the room when he does.

***

Virgil is coming down from his room at a quarter after four when Patton assaults him with the brightest wand-lighting charm Virgil has ever seen performed. 

“Pat! Fuck!” Virgil stumbles back on the stairs covering his eyes against the white light. “Warn a dude!”

“Virgil!” Patton yelps, “Language!” But he giggling far too much for it to come out stern. Virgil feels the other boy batting his hands away from his face, “Stop, stop that, Virgil!”

Virgil squints past the glare, “What are you--”

“Smile!”

Then there's a flash of light even brighter than Patton’s wand followed by a puff of purple smoke that practically spelled out what was going on.

Virgil coughs, waving off the smoke while Patton removes the wizard polaroid photo from his camera. His brain is working overtime trying to remember what holiday it is because Patton never breaks the camera out unless its an important date. But Virgil had his calendar in the room marked with all their birthdays, and the major and minor national holidays--magic and muggle alike because Patton had started crying the last time they forgot to tell him about Arbor Day and Virgil wasn’t ready for that to happen again in this lifetime or the next or the one after that. He’s even marked the full moon, because he was pretty sure the girl from the public library was a werewolf and didn’t want to accidentally wander outside if she missed a potion on one of those nights.

“Pat,” Virgil says in a sort of defeated, anxiety ridden tone. “What’s going on? Who’s birthday--”

Patton just laughs at him, and Virgil has to shut up at that. Patton’s laugh was like a waterfall, like bells chiming, like angels signing. Virgil would rather pitch himself from the Astronomy Tower than miss any second of his glorious happiness. 

Its unhealthy. Its gonna be the end of him.

Virgil can’t help but smile at the other’s toothy grin. And if he gets a hug out of it? Well, someone once mentioned that that Virgil was touch starved, so that’s the reason he melts at Patton’s touch.

Patton shows him the picture without relinquishing any hold on him. Somehow that leads to them stumbling around on the stairs until Virgil’s sitting and Patton’s basically in his lap, fuck. But Patton doesn’t even seem to notice at all.

“It’s no one’s birthday!” Patton says, “I just was cleaning up earlier and I came across a bunch of photos from school!”

And just like that Virgil’s short lived happiness evaporates. Dread settles on his shoulders like a cloak, and anxiety wriggles straight down his throat to grip his pulsating heart. “Oh?”

It comes out too innocent. Patton doesn’t notice.

“Yeah! I got so many pictures of Logan and Roman and Me! I used to carry this camera around everywhere! Don’t you remember?”

Virgil remembers. He remembers it very well. Especially when he can see the crack on the side where the flash bulb hooked on before he had accio-ed it right out of Patton’s hands in second year and tossed it back and forth with Dee until even Logan had come to Patton’s defense. Especially when Logan had called all three of them childish and then Dee had laughed some sort of nasty laugh and tossed the camera right over the edge of the moving staircase, before linking hands with Virgil and dragging him out to the quidditch pitch for the rest of the time before dinner.

Virgil mentions none of this. “Yeah? What about it?”

Patton waves the photo in his face and, really, it's a pretty terrible photo of him. He didn't even know skin could be that pale and his hair is sticking up from where he had been running a hand through it all evening, and his irises were red from staring directly into the flash.

“I saw that we don’t have any pictures with you in them!” Patton sighed, “It’s terrible! You’ve been our friend for so many years! I can’t believe that you aren’t in any of our pictures!”

Virgil forces himself to keep smiling. It hurts his cheeks. “Well you know me…”

“So we have to take a bunch of pictures right now!”

Patton sets those blue eyes of his on him, and Virgil cannot believe that he’s 100% wizard. Somewhere someone in his family line had to be part selkie because those are definitely baby seal eyes, and who the fuck is gonna say no to them? Not Virgil!

“Okay,” Virgil says. “Alright sure, whatever you want.”

And he means it. He’d give Patton all the stars in the universe if he didn’t think removing them would make Logan lose his shit about order and necessity.

Besides Virgil has just as few photos of them as Patton has of him. So when the photo session is over and Patton’s hair was dusted purple and Virgil’s eyes hurt from the brightness and they were both crying from laughter, Virgil makes sure to snag one of the better photos for his own room.

(It was always so easy to laugh with Patton, so easy, nearly too easy. But that was okay for now.)

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Patton says, looking up from his glistening stack of pictures suddenly, “The Order is having a meeting next week.”

“Oh?” Virgil swallows nervously, “you mean like, having a meeting, here?” He folds the picture of him and Patton in his pocket, running the edge of the photo between his nail and the skin under it. (He’s pretty sure the photo version of Patton is talking the photo version of himself out of a panic attack, but he disregards it.) His other hand comes to his mouth, and he nips away at the black chipped nail polish. 

Patton shakes his head, and Virgil can’t but help a sigh of relief. “Nope! No worries, kiddo! Thomas-- wow, it sure is silly to call him by his first name!-- Professor Sanders and I talked about how uncomfortable you are with anyone new in the house, so instead we agreed that it was easier for us to go to him to give our reports!”

Patton hums looking at another picture, where he had magicked up some cat ears for the two of them. “Plus it would be a pain to have to undo all those charms you set up for one measely meeting!”

“Cool,” Virgil says.

It's not really, because Virgil hates leaving the house, hates stepping into an area that could so easily be compromised, hates when he can’t be sure if he’s leading his friends into a trap or if he’s just being paranoid again. But that’s definitely better than inviting people, even the Order, into the house that Virgil had made sure was their safe haven.

But Patton takes his quietness with grace. He gives up one of his blinding smiles and Virgil is vividly reminded of how pretty he looks like this. Virgil knows that the secrets he’s keeping from them are unforgivable, knows what they did to the trio of boys is terrible and deplorable and shameful. Despite that, Virgil can’t help but feel...relief that Patton is smiling like this.

Patton doesn’t remember why he should never smile at Virgil, doesn’t remember the year after year of Virgil tearing him down, doesn’t remember what Virgil and Dee did to him. And Virgil is selfish enough to be grateful for that.

“Oh would you look at the time!” Patton says brightly, “I better go start dinner before Roman gets into the pantry again! Are you going to be joining us, Vee?”

Virgil nods, even though he doesn’t really catch whats being said to him.

“Yay!” Patton holds his new pictures to his chest, “I’ll call you when its ready then! Love you, VeeVee!”

He says it so effortlessly.

Virgil wishes it didn’t feel like a snake wrapping around his chest and squeezing the breath right out of him. Patton pops back down the stairs, leaving a cold empty space in Virgil’s lap where he used to be. He jumps the last step and gives one last wave to Virgil as he turns the corner--

“Hey, uh, Pat?” Virgil says at the last second.

Patton hums to show he’s listening, even though he’s still flipping through their pictures. “Yeah, kiddo?”

“Will Remy be there?”

Patton blinks and looks up the stairs at him. Virgil’s nails dig into the banister. Something flickers in the Ravenclaws eyes, confusion or pity. Virgil’s not sure there’s a difference at this point.

“Remy? Oh! You mean the Ravenclaw that joined the Order the year before us!” Patton shuffles the photos with a smile, “And you mean at the Order meeting, right?” He tilts his head to the side as he thinks, before shrugging and offering, “I’m not sure!”

Virgil breathes like he’s a drowned man finally come up from the water. “Uh, cool! That’s cool.”

The itch to recheck his charms hits him then. Like being trampled by a Mountain Troll.

Remy’s not a threat, Virgil tells himself.

Except that he is. Virgil had met the Ravenclaw twice before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t acutely aware that Remy was a very skilled Legilimens. 

And the last thing Virgil needs right now is someone poking around in his head. Virgil’s seen first hand what a Legilimens can do to someone: Patton looks at him with a smile instead of with tears, Roman challenges him to duels over the spot on the couch rather than to the death, Logan has no clue how attractive he looks angry out of his mind and giving people nosebleeds with his barefists.

“I do.”

No, Virgil doesn’t need someone looking in his memories, even at a glance. Not now, not when they’ve come so far and the Order is so, so very close to being able to combat the Dark Lady before she takes over the Ministry of Magic.

At best, he’ll be labeled a Neo-Death Eater. At worst, no one will ask any questions and they’ll just kill him without hesitation.

He needs to check the charms on the house, because that’s something other that just sitting on a staircase in the center of the house and having a break down where one of the others will see him.

Virgil launches himself to his feet and takes the six stairs upwards two at a time. He runs his fingers over the wall as he goes, picking at the peeling wallpaper that none of them have taken the time to fix yet. There are pictures of baby Roman and his muggle family at the beach on the walls and classical music coming from beyond the closed door of Logan’s room. Virgil moves beyond it all to his room at the end of the hall.

Well he calls it his room, and so do the others. Virgil thinks they might be a little upset if they ventured into the room that Roman had given him and found it was nearly the same as it had been at the beginning of summer break two years ago.

The window facing the street had the blinds drawn and a thick layer of dust over the windowsill because Virgil was not in the process of airing his dirty laundry or his room. The bed was neatly tucked in from his routine habit, the floor was clean and clear, his extra shoes lined up at the foot of the bed so he couldn't trip over them in the night--those were things he did to remember his mother; she always did like it when he kept his room neat. He had a total of eight outfits in the closet, which he was sure if Roman knew about he'd have a heart attack. So far Virgil had avoiding the issue by magically changing the shade of black in his shirts every other day.

The only things that Virgil had brought into the room that weren't absolutely necessary for him to have was that calendar on his wall, a collection of seventh year textbooks he had bought himself even though he wasn't going to school, his school trunk that he hadn't touched since getting off the train last year, and now, a picture of him and Patton making silly faces and laughing (very happy to be unfolded).

He slips out his wand and wanders towards the window.

The spells are all over the house, on every window, over every wall, under every carpet. Roman had put the first layer on himself when he was sixteen, and later when he, Patton, Logan, and Virgil had been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix, Thomas Sanders had come over and reapplied more of them. Once the Transfiguration Teacher had finished, Virgil had then moved in and quietly applied his own.

They were subtle differences in magic, in skill, in finesse. Virgil had smoothed over the rough edges and connected the corners that no one else might have noticed if they hadn’t gone looking for them. Every full moon Virgil had snuck around quietly checking the magic cloaking spell and then muggle deterrent spell and the silencing spells---

Needless to say the one time the girl scouts had rang the doorbell, Virgil had nearly had a heart attack. Patton had bought ten boxes of cookies with Roman’s money before Logan had managed to get Virgil to put his wand away.

Virgil had obsessively checked the spells after the girls had left until he found the loophole that had allowed the girls to get all the way to their front door. By the time he found it dinner had gone cold and only Logan was left awake to witness Virgil trip down the stairs in his haste to fix it.

Roman hadn’t even known he had been adding spells at all until Logan had tried to floo Remy Dormire into the house.

So Virgil’s first time meeting the legilimens is really not a good one. There had been something about the way that Remy had looked at him while Roman gave him the “dude what in Merlin’s name??” speech that made Virgil uneasy. Something about the way that a smile had flickered across Remy’s face and he sipped on his homemade tea that only Patton had touched, something about the way that Virgil felt like Remy had gotten inside his head without him drawing his wand, something about the way that Remy had said “It’s all cool hun! Paranoia is all part of the game!”, which made it sound like Virgil was overreacting yet again.

Something about the guy feels wrong to Virgil.

So he adds more charms to the house, ones he’s sure no one but himself and the trio of boys he lives with can get through.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

And in the end, he's right about that.

***

Their role in the Order is small really. They’re all too young to be doing anything important like infiltrating the Ministry-- except Logan, who despite choosing not to graduate from the esteemed magic school had been offered several internships over the summer which he had denied. Patton’s Uncle Kiddel had been very adamant that Patton be as far removed from danger as he could get, and while Roman had been a bit bummed at the lack of action he had jumped at a chance to offer his family’s house for their activities while his parents took an extended vacation to some place that Virgil doesn’t remember.

The combination of parents between the four of them is depressing: Roman’s muggle parents are unreachable, Patton’s are dead, Logan’s Dad took his mom to a safe place in another country, and Virgil’s mom… well, there’s an understanding between the four of them not to bring up parents unless they were trying to bring the mood down to rock bottom.

So really they are just four seventeen year olds living in the house together. Roman monitors the muggles near them, Logan handles correspondence between certain branches of the Order (although Virgil suspects that Thomas Sanders fields some of the letters before they get to them). Patton monitors the wizarding world. Virgil exists to be anxious on the edge of their consciousnesses.

He doesn’t have a job title really, but Virgil is the one who does his best to keep the rest of them alive and safe and not killing each other (which, surprisingly, happens at least once a week, when Roman gets tired of having no logical reason to practice magic and then starts charming things in the house that shouldn’t be charmed, when Logan runs out of work to do and restlessly snaps at them until a fight starts, when Patton gets too far in his head about what would happen if the Dark Lady manages to win against them and refuses to let any of them leave the room lest they disappear on him--)

So their part of the Order’s functions are minuscule. 

Virgil doesn’t see why they have to go at all, but he goes with Patton, Logan, and Roman to the Order meeting all the same. The location they pick is a townhouse that magically doesn’t exist until they need it to. When it does exist, its across the country so they take the brooms there, which makes Roman so happy he cries five minutes into flying, and almost makes Virgil not hate the heights so much.

(Roman, of course, used to be a Quidditch player, a Chaser, up until he decided not to go back to school that year. Virgil used to split his attention between watching Roman’s windswept hair and Dee’s cheeky smile when the latter managed to beat a bludger just right to knock the Quaffle right out of Roman’s hands.)

Virgil sidelines those memories and grips the handle of his broom until his knuckles are white and the cold air of the upper atmosphere begs him to stop holding so tight. Patton flies beside him, naturally swerving like a lackadaisical snake with the ease that only comes with having ridden brooms since he was in diapers. Ahead of them Roman does a loopdeloop and tries to goad Logan into racing him, who in turns calls him every childish name in the book.

It takes them forty minutes to get there. Roman wins the race, and because Logan is petty, he changes the color of Roman’s firetruck red robes to a dull beige.

“Hello Professor!” Patton waves to Thomas Sanders as the older man appears on the street across from them, and because Virgil’s luck is terrible, Remy Dormire appears next to him.

“Patton,” Thomas greets them all warmly. “I’ve told you guys to call me Thomas before.”

Said Ravenclaw ducks his head sheepishly, “Its just feels so strange! You’re always going to be my Transfiguration teacher to me!”

Remy cooes at him and pats Patton on the head, “You are so adorable, hun.” He says, “Come on Bitches! Its cold as balls out here and I’m ready to hear all the juicy gossip you babes have been collecting!”

Virgil is more worried about a muggle peeking out their windows and seeing four teenagers with brooms and long cloaks so for once he agrees with the magic mind reader. The glasses on the older boy's head are mirrored, which makes it hard to tell who he’s looking at, who’s mind he’s reading. Virgil reaffirms his mental walls as he follows the others inside.

The inside of the townhouse looks pretty much like it hasn’t been used in years. There’s layers of dust on everything. Which Virgil guesses is why Remy’s face screws up when Thomas’s hand lands on his shoulder and guides the older boy towards one of the rooms. Remy shrugs his hand off as soon as he physically can, and then brushes the area on his leather jacket that Thomas had touched, like he could wipe the phantom traces of the man off it.

“Vintage Leather, Babe!” Remy doesn’t quite hiss, but it’s a close thing. “No touching!”

Thomas laughs good naturedly and Remy’s snarl fades a bit back to that condescending look that Virgil always associated with him. Roman sneezes three times in succession, and his eyes start watering and he croaks something about dust being the bane of his existence.

“Pardon me,” Logan says to Thomas, “He will be completely unhelpful until this is cleared up. Scourgify!”

It was frankly impressive. At least, to Virgil it was. Patton always got that excited look on his face when someone did magic, and Roman was too busy sniffling and rubbing his red eyes to really watch. Remy rolled his eyes and Thomas smiled at Logan when he performed the charm that left the previously untouchable room into a cozy living room with plenty of space for the six of them.

“Excellent job, Logan!” Thomas said.

(For a moment Virgil feels like he’s back in class and Logan just won another ten points to his house for being naturally gifted at forcing things to shapeshift.)

Logan blushes at the compliment, so Virgil thinks he’s not alone in the flashback.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s great,” Remy bulldozes the compliment and tosses himself on a length of sofa meant for two people. “Its time for the good gossip, girls!”

“None of us are female presenting--” Logan starts, but Remy rolls his eyes and waves him off. 

“What-everrr! Pat come sit with me, babes!”

Virgil wants to drag Patton far away from Remy, but the older Ravenclaw raises an eyebrow at him like a dare. Virgil counts to four and reminds himself that Remy is part of the Order and Thomas is there and even if he is a legilimens that doesn’t mean that he’s going to read any of their minds. In fact, he’s likely there just because he got bored doing whatever the fuck Thomas has him doing.

Patton jumps on the cushion next to Remy and bounces on the seat like an excited child. Logan opts for a spot on the adjacent couch with Thomas, Roman on the floor like a drama queen who needs to be the center of attention, and Virgil ends up perched on the armrest next to Logan’s elbow where he can easily see both the fireplace and the door to the dusty parlor. 

Thomas is a comforting presence, Virgil thinks as the discussion starts. He had been their professor and he had taught all of them and had been right beside them when they were sworn into the Order. He had never been cagey about this past, being a half blood from Hufflepuff who had been there that day that Harry Potter had defeated Voldemort and witnessed all the fighting first hand. He had joined the Order not long after that final battle by tracking down Headmistress McGonagall and subtly asking if there were any alternative plans for if another dark wizard started raising.

According to Thomas he had gotten the job as a Transfiguration teacher less than a year after that and Virgil really never had the guts to exist in the same room as Headmistress McGonagall long enough to ask her if that was true. 

“Remy?” Logan says, after a lull in the conversation, which Virgil, himself, only realizes because Logan’s elbow slides onto the armrest and its dangerously close to touching Virgil’s thigh.

The other member of the Order takes another moment to respond which makes the hairs on Virgil’s neck raise. Remy’s hand is twisting through Patton’s hair so casually and somehow they ended up with Patton leaning heavily on Remy’s shoulder. Virgil thinks it would be weird for anyone else, but Patton likes to touch and its most likely that Logan and Virgil haven’t been providing enough of those touches recently. Remy’s still wearing those stupid sunglasses even though they are inside and its dark in here, but Virgil knows instinctively that he was reading thoughts. 

Probably. 

“Hmm, doll?” Remy says, “Sorry I zoned out when y’all started getting boring. You know me; I just can’t keep my focus on things when theres a cute boy around!”

Virgil wants to point out that they don’t know him, but Patton meets his gaze and Virgil loses the courage to say anything.

Right, they should be avoiding instigating a fight here.

Regardless Roman spread himself out on the ground and sighs dramatically, “I know what you mean, Rem! All these glor--”

“Remy,” Remy says, peering down his nose at Roman, “Its Remy. Or just don’t address me at all, hun.” 

Virgil thinks the whole room is thrown for a moment. Remy’s tone isn’t necessarily icy or cold, and he’s still grinning when he talks, as if they’re sharing a private joke. He twists one of Patton’s curls so gently, it almost looks intimate. Virgil can see Logan’s jaw shift at the motion, and how Patton seems to be unsure if he should be moving away or staying still.

“S-sorry?” Roman says, unsuredly.

Remy smiles at him, with something that’s borderline unfriendly, “Sure, hun. Now are we done here, or are y’all still doing that small talk thing?”

Thomas shifts in his seat, “Actually there is one more thing I want to let you four know about.”

At once he has all of their attentions. Logan who had been talking the most moves to straighten his tie again, and Roman sits back up so he can see the Professor clearly. The room gets a sort of eerie feeling to it, and Virgil swears for a moment that he can see his breath in the air.

“We’ve gotten some suspicious reports about the Dark Lady and her followers.” Thomas says, “I’ve had some suspicions for a while, but we recently got proof-- thanks to Remy-- that the Dark Lady has a time turner on her.”

“A Time Turner?” Logan says, “I thought all of them had been rendered useless after the Battle of the Department of Mysteries when they were all caught in a time loop?”

“Wait wait wait, we’re saying the lady who wants to legalize casual genocide now has the ability to go back in time?” Roman yelped. “Doesn’t this mean all of our possible plans are useless then?”

"I told you, babe!" Remy sings, boredly, "All it would do is worry the poor things!" He rests his chin on Patton's shoulder, which startles a ticklish giggle from the younger Ravenclaw. 

Thomas ignores him, "We're not sure what the implications are if it yet." He admits, "Headmistress Mcgonagall, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley are all discussing the possibilities of it now. I was told to advise you guys of the situation." Thomas gives them each a look, and then he smiles, "Don't worry too much about it, boys. We'll take it slow and smart and we'll figure this out."

Its a pep talk, Virgil realizes. And in a weird way, Virgil guesses he does feel a little reassured.

In another way Virgil's mind tunnels downward towards the forbidden memories of a Slytherin boy who told him two years ago that the Dark Lady possessed a means to turn back time and what both of them had done about that.

Thomas is looking at him, he notes, suddenly. 

"What?" Virgil asks right as his palms begin to sweat, and his mouth tastes like his black nail polish as he forces his hand away from his mouth.

Thomas frowns, "I...well, I assumed that you would find this information a bit more surprising."

Virgil squeezes the sleeves of his jacket. His jaw creaks open, reminding him pathetically of how tense he was. "Well its like you said," he defends lamely. "We shouldn't worry too much. If the Lady already has a Time Turner, we can't do anything about it now."

Remy is grinning at him. Like the cat that caught the canary and Virgil is the very dead canary in this scenario.

“I’m sure I’ll have a break down later and, you know, over analyze absolutely everything.” Virgil hurriedly says. Which maybe isn’t the best thing to say because now Patton’s staring at him with those wide doe eyes that he makes when he wants to wrap Virgil in a hug. Roman and Logan share a look that shows that maybe they aren’t as convinced, but Thomas nods understandingly and doesn’t push it.

He stands up from the couch and addresses Roman, Logan, and Patton, “I trust you three to keep an eye on him, please? Despite the new news, the Order’s decision so far is to continue work as usual. I’ll be in touch if that changes.”

Logan stands to mirror Thomas and offers his hand. “We’ll do our best.”

Which sounds a little strange to Virgil, because really they weren’t doing much of anything. Thomas had tried talking the four of them into going back to school this year but Roman had gotten antsy about the muggle murders and had dropped out to take care of his parents. Logan and Patton would die before being separated from the Gryffindor, and of course Virgil had followed along with them. 

Thomas had set them up with easy jobs and then sent them magical homework via Owl so they were still learning things although Logan seemed to be the only one who was truly excited about more homework. Its enough for now.

Virgil gathers their brooms while Roman breaks into one of his glorious tales of living life in a Muggle neighborhood, followed by Patton make a pun that makes Thomas laugh and Logan groan. When they finally stumbled outside, it’s nearing ten at night and the stars are out.

“Interesting,” Logan states with his eyes to the stars that were just barely seeable behind the halo of the streetlamps. But before Virgil can ask what exactly Logan is seeing in the stars (he had always been the best as Astronomy), Remy vaults down the steps of the house.

“Hey, Badger-boy!” The older Ravenclaw says. He’s grinning again, in a way that makes Virgil’s skin feel too loose, and his palms too slick from sweat, and his mind sing out every protection spell he knows. In the darkness his sunglasses seem even more impractical, and Virgil is left staring at his own reflection rather the other’s eyes.

“What?” Virgil answers, despite the fact he’s not wearing any of his house’s bright yellow and no one had dared call him a badger since he and Dee had put Alfred Hitchcockopolous in the Hospital wing for a day in First Year for it.

Remy laughs. Its the type of laugh that someone gives when their particularly stupid animal does something stupid and has to face the stupid conseqeunces for it.

“Nothing, babe.” He says. “Just wanted to see your face one last time.” He turns to Patton, and flicks his glasses down just enough that he shows off those golden eyes. “Stay adorable, Freckles.”

Then he flashes a peace sign at them and apperates away.

Thomas sends them on their way, with waving hands and farewells and a promise to see them soon. Roman does helix roll once he’s in the air to show off, and Logan berates him for risking the Muggles seeing them, while Patton laughs like an angel beside them.

Virgil glances back at the ground, ignoring the swoop of his stomach at the height difference, to see Thomas staring at the spot Remy had been last with a frown. As if sensing him, Thomas looks up, gives Virgil an unreadable smile, a wave, and then he too apperates away and the street is empty of all the signs they were ever there.

***

“Well that was fun,” Roman hums landing his broom with utmost ease. With a hand through his windswept hair, he turns that charming smile on the rest of them, which somehow still sparkles despite the lack of actual light. He’s a silhouette, a shadow, a half visible fraction, and yet Virgil has absolutely no trouble seeing the full on Roman-ness of the action.

“We have very different definitions of fun,” Logan notes, and turns Roman’s red robes back to a less offensive beige. Virgil bites back a smile when Roman complains about him being petty and uncreative for someone in Ravenclaw.

And if it starts a lighthearted magic battle in the enclosed backyard, well, there are no muggles out at near eleven in their quiet suburban dream neighborhood. In the flashes of red and purple and blue he can see Logan and Roman grinning like fools and he can feel Patton’s laughter reverberating through him when the other boy leans on his shoulder and watches the two quibble.

Its….happy. Virgil is happy.

Watching them like this, watching them laugh and have fun and enjoy themselves, even after they were just told that the evil force they were combating had the ability to change timestreams. They’re so resilient, so optimistic, and Virgil wishes that he could place some complicated spell on the house right here so that they’d never be disturbed and they could just exist like this happy forever. 

But Virgil knows that Roman would detest being stuck to one place for forever and Logan would run out of things to do and turn bitter and Patton would wonder why they weren’t happy anymore and then come to the conclusion it was somehow his fault.

There’s no way to preserve the happiness forever. Virgil spent all of fourth year combing through the books in the restricted section for a spell that he could cast and he had come up blank.

“The best type of prison,” Dee had said, once upon a time, “is one that the prisoners do not know they’re in.” 

“You really think Prince needs to be aware of a prison to want break out of it?” Virgil had shot back.

And Dee had just laughed and flipped the page of his book.

That had been before he had become a Neo-Death Eater, Virgil thinks. Because he hadn’t been wearing the skull clasp on his robes yet, hadn’t started avoiding Virgil like he had contracted Dragon Pox, hadn’t started actually using the mind magic excessively ….

Virgil’s smile slips, and Patton notices almost immediately. “Kiddo?”

Virgil nudges him with his shoulder, “‘M just tired, you know? Talking to people and all that.”

He feels the Ravenclaw laugh softly. Theres a flash of red where the grass by Logan’s feet catches fire, and the other wastes his turn of their duel using aguamenti to put it out before one of the neighbors look out their windows or it spreads to the deck where Patton and Virgil are and then consumes the entire house.

Roman laughs at him. “My house? Are you sure? Virgil’s put so many charms on that thing nothing short of an atomic bomb is going to bring it down!”

Not true, but Virgil feels himself preen at the compliment anyway. He rubs the back of his neck and knows his face is a flushed pink, but its too dark for anyone to make it out.

“Yeah, sure,” He calls to them, “Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to go overthink everything Professor Sanders just told us.”

“Professore Sanders told us--” Logan starts, but Virgil knows that tone all too well and he manages to wave it away.

“I know, I know. Nothing to worry about.” Virgil waves his wand blindly towards the door handle and unlocks it with Alohomora (a spell which only works for one of their four wands). “I’ll see you guys in the morning!”

“Goodnight, Virge!” Patton calls after him, and because he’s a good person he adds, “I’m making french toast tomorrow for breakfast if you want to help!”

“Happy Nightmares, Jack Smellington!” Roman throws in because he’s much less of a good person.

Virgil closes the door behind him. His body leans against it for a second, hearing the sounds of his friends getting back to their shenanigans. He gives it maybe ten minutes before Roman and Patton start up the cheery Hogwarts chants and an impromptu dance routine in which Logan is dragged around the backyard, trying to pretend like he still has dignity.

Its nice. Virgil fumbles through the kitchen, using the light from the magic hall sconces to guide himself down the hall and then up the stairs. The pictures on the walls of the other three laugh and rough house around. Virgil runs his fingers over the picture frames as he walks.

“Get some sleep, kiddo!” One of Patton at a Dragon Petting Zoo from second year tells him.

And Virgil has every intention of it.

He does. 

But he gets to the front of his room and there’s a warmth against his chest that makes his blood freeze. His hand frantically pats his chest, pressing into the warmth, trying to determine if its real or just something in his head, please let it be something in his head, please, please--

Its not in his head. He throws himself into his room and locks it behind him. The lights stay off and he drags the curtains closer together just to make sure that absolutely no one can see inside. Then he crawls into the closet, with his breath coming out in shaky breathes too rapidly to count.

His hands shake too hard to unzip his sweatshirt all the way. It gets jammed by his belly button. The burning against his chest feels like an open flame right to his right pectoral, hissing with heat, demanding to be appeased. Virgil couldn’t have ignored it if he had wanted to. 

He doesn’t want to look.

He looks anyway.

His hand opens the invisible seams of the hidden pocket right over his chest. There are only two items in it, but Virgil drops them both into his lap anyway. He kneads his palms into his eyes and forces himself to take a breath and hold it-- one second, two, three-- which is about as long as it takes for him to remember every lie he’s ever told to the trio outside.

As long as it takes for him to remember whose lives are on the line if he messes up.

As long as it takes for his hands to steady enough to pick up the coin from his lap and for the sudden heat to fade. The closet is doors are firmly pulled closed and Virgil twists his Cypress wand in his hand.

“Lumos,” Virgil whispers scarcely more than a thought. He’s sure that the sound of the dishwasher in the kitchen is louder than his own voice. He’s afraid any louder will make Roman or Logan burst into the room and demand to know what he’s doing and he doesn’t have an explanation, doesn’t have an excuse, doesn’t have an escape.

They’d hate him if they knew.

Virgil hates himself for them.

The coin is a Galleon, but despite the shiny color and the heavy weight, Virgil knows its fake. He made it after all, pouring over the details for most of two days. But it would never stand up to a Goblin; Virgil doubts it would stand up to a normal wizard if they looked for more than a couple seconds at it.

The Protean Charm on it is too strong for it to go unnoticed to a trained eye.

He told the others he collects Galleons with specific dates on them. “A half muggle thing,” He had told Patton who had taken him very seriously and started checking the dates on every coin he came across. Even now, Galleons show up on the kitchen counter with dates of their birthdays and the first day of Hogwarts and the day they would have graduated.

The serial number on the rim of the coin in his hand had changed.

It was a series of four numbers and then various letters that Virgil decoded with a slight glance at-- he had memorized the code and then burned the last key in existence after all, too paranoid to risk someone ever finding it. 

It takes Virgil a second, a moment, a year to understand what date it was. For him to get his brain to work past the dread that bubbling up his throat like a bottle rocket. 

And his breath gets caught in his chest when he does.

It’s tomorrows date.

Its tomorrows date and there’s no time to warn anyone without revealing his source.

Its tomorrows date and someone in the Order is going to die.

Virgil does not have a good night, or happy nightmares, and he most definitely does not sleep at all.

***

“You look like death,” Roman says the next morning when Virgil slumps on the stool at the kitchen counter. Virgil can smell his cinnamon body wash from clear across the kitchen which is entirely unhelpful in the light of things because now he’s thinking about Roman in the shower after his morning run and when there are other things to be thinking about. 

“Gee, thanks Princey,” Virgil says very tiredly.

Patton is cooking bacon to go with the French toast. It’s sizzling. Does all bacon sizzle so loud? It smells so good Virgil might throw up. His stomach feels empty, but the thought of actually chewing and swallowing food makes head dizzy. 

“-rgil, Virgil!” 

Virgil blinks for a second, glancing up from the bacon to see that Logan had somehow appeared next to him.

“You do not appear to have slept at all, Virgil,” Logan says thoughtfully. “If it is about the Dark Lady, I can assure you--”

“It’s not,” Virgil says, which sounds like a lie even to him. 

Patton, Logan, and Roman all share a look. A silent conversation that Virgil feels unnecessarily annoyed to be excluded from.

“What?” He snaps.

“No offense, Helga Hufflegruff,” Roman says, “But its not like you to be this out of it.”

Virgil flicks his wand at the coffee mugs across the kitchen, “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Kiddo,” Patton says.

“The eggs are burning,” Virgil waves him off. And for a moment it works on taking the attention of him. He takes all of one breath, while Patton squeaks over the breakfast and Roman and Logan watch on ready to jump in and help before the fire alarms go off. But the moment passes and he feels the suffocating gaze of his housemates on him again.

Granted he did look awful. The picture of both him and Patton which had taken residency on his desk had winced when Virgil had stumbled from the closet. There’s a crick in his neck that he can’t get rid off no matter how much he rotates his head and his eyes feel heavier than they have any right to be. Screw his eyeshadow, he hadn’t even put any on today.

He was still in his clothes from yesterday, and he was careful to keep his left hand in his pocket or his sleeve, because he had bitten his nails until they bled last night, though if anyone asks he’ll tell them the morning paper Owl had bitten him when he had forgotten to pay it.

“We should do something today,” Virgil says suddenly.

Which is not the right thing to say. At all.

Roman chokes on his orange juice, and ends up spilling more on the floor than he gets in his throat. Patton nearly drops his hot pan in the sink with how quickly he whips around to stare at Virgil.

Logan adjusts his glasses, “Pardon?”

“Are you sick?” Roman blurts out, rasping as he tries to dislodge the last of the juice, “Is it Dragon Pox? Scrofungus? Heartbreak?”

“Heartbreak isn’t a sickness,” Virgil squints at him.

“Additionally how would one’s heart break?” Logan asks, “Unless it was frozen with Glacius by some means--”

“People can die from Heartbreak!” Roman interjects, despite the fact no one suggested anything about dying. Virgil’s stomach churns around and the coffee on his tongue tastes stale at the thought.

“I’m not dying!” He says quickly, hotly. His fingers squeeze his mug tightly, drawing the warmth from the liquid inside it and hoping it covers the coldness that came over him.

“Yes, it seems much more likely that he was affected by the imperious curse,” Logan suggests.

“I’m not under any curse either!” Virgil hisses, “I just… I thought--” He grits his teeth, “I thought it might be nice to get out of the house.”

Entirely. And never come back.

“You never want to get out of the house,” Roman points out.

“Well I do now!”

Logan does that thing he does when he doesn’t believe something-- a mix of tilting his head and tapping his fingers on the nearest surface while his eyes rotate around the surroundings. Virgil likes to think it was a subconscious reaction: he’s actually observing the room for threats so that he could produce a working solution.

Roman summons more orange juice from the fridge and makes it pour him another glass.

Virgil twists his mug in his fingers and chances a look towards Patton. He spent most of the night trying to figure out what to do, trying to figure out what to say, what he could say. He thinks that he turned over every scenario ten times and fought off the nauseous urge to vomit all through the fourth hour that morning.

He thinks that if he can just get Patton to say yes.

He thinks if he can just get Patton to leave the house that he'll be able to keep all of them safe if the attack is at their location.

(Because that's in question too. Its possible that by some blessed fate that the dread and certainty in his stomach does not mean its going to be here thats attacked. Its possible that he's just paranoid. Its possible that when Professor Remus Duke told him he had a natural latent ability for Divination that the teacher was just spouting nonsense like usual. Its possible.)

((Virgil doesn't take chances like that. He won't. Cant.))

"Virge…" Patton says.

Logan adjusts his glasses, "Thomas told us that work should continue as normal. As such, I have several letters I must attend to-- a group in Romania is requesting the Orders help in tracking several suspicious individuals, a wizard in America got apprehended by MACUSA without proper papers, and Thomas asked me to make a list of where a certain wizarding plant can be found and I've received a pile of responses just this morning I have to comb through-- I can't just drop these tasks. Patton has already agreed to help me."

"What?" Roman says, "Why didn't you ask me?"

"I'm afraid that the thought didn't cross my mind," the Ravenclaw admitted somewhat guiltily. "But Patton has a superior knowledge of the wizarding world that I believe would be most beneficial, and-- I mean this with the least amount of offense-- I feel that if you or Virgil were to join us, we'd be more hindered than helped."

"Ouch," Roman says with wounded pride, and jabs Logan in the shoulder. "I cannot believe you think I'd be bad at answering letters! My handwriting is amazing."

"The chicken scratch you call handwriting is atrocious." Logan bats his hand away easily, "but that's not why I think you helping would be counterproductive."

“Its not?” Roman asks.

“Its not?” Virgil echoes with just enough of a teasing tone that Roman turns his coffee mug into a chicken like the disrupting asshole he is. The bird squawks the second its lungs are formed and Virgil drops it the moment the warmth turns from “warm liquid in a mug” to “living thing with a heartbeat he can feel”.

“Roman!” Logan yells, stumbling back to avoid it and crashing into Patton. They both land on the floor in a heap of limbs and cooking utensils. The chicken flaps over them, screeching something awful. Patton’s glasses somehow end up hooked with Logan’s and their faces mere inches apart and brown chicken under feathers in both their hair.

Roman’s laughter almost makes it worth it: breathless and gasping for air, doubled over and wheezing like an idiot.

It only takes a moment before Patton’s laughter joins in with Roman’s, very much sounding like the usual angels on high. Virgil watches the glorious sight of Logan’s entire face turning redder than an Hippocampus skin and immediately transforming himself into in an owl.

Virgil can’t really blame him. If he were hit at point blank by both Roman and Patton’s carefree laughs like that, he’d turn into an Owl too, regardless of if an Owl was his animagus form or not.

It takes Patton three times to turn the chicken back to a mug-- missing twice because he’s laughing too hard to keep his wand from shaking, and once because the chicken is fast-- and by that time Roman’s on the floor with a hand gripping his chest, grin wider than the fucking sun itself, feathers on clinging to his clothes and his shirt riding up his stomach just enough to be a tease. Logan transforms back long enough to move the cup from the floor to the sink, but when he turns around to see the Gryffindor, his cheeks flare back up and Virgil can feel the heat from where he is.

The bacon definitely burns.

Virgil doesn’t really think any of them notice.

He doesn’t even notice until the fire alarm goes off.

Roman groans from the floor and Virgil coughs into his sweatshirt sleeve to hide his face. A sound like that? Even with the background of a shrill alarm and the smell of smoke, it makes the room itself feel hundreds of degrees warmer, makes the whole world seem to fade away, makes Virgil want to plunge his face into a bucket of ice water.

Logan hits the smoke detector with his beak. Patton throws open the kitchen windows, giggling foolishly.

“You’re cute when you blush, Vee,” Roman says from his spot on the floor.

“Fuck off and die,” Virgil tells him.

“Aw, but your little ears!” Roman cooes, dragging himself from the floor like it was some tremendous task. He pinches the air with both his hands like he was supposed to be pinching Virgil’s ears.

Virgil’s hands immediately switch position, covering the tattletale tips of his ears. “Shut up!” He grumbles.

“Not exactly my forte, Virge!” Roman sings, “Just ask anyone!”

Logan does that thing where he lands on a surface and turns back to human, and Virgil gets a front row seat of seeing Owl talons elongate into slender legs that cross ever so confidently as he settles on the barstool next to Virgil. And the way that Logan ever so casually reaches up to loosen his tie just a millimeter?

If Virgil wasn’t blushing before, is now.

(He thinks he likes this version of Logan Ackroyd more: the effortlessly oblivious tease, compared to the bloody knuckled version that so angrily put Virgil in his place in the middle fourth year)

“I can attest to that,” Logan says, with the crease in the corners of his lips that implies a smile being hidden just below the surface, “He really does never shut up.”

“Wh--hey!” Roman gasps,”Patton! Logan’s bullying me!” He drapes himself over the smaller Ravenclaw with a dramatic flare that causes Patton’s whole face to light up. Sunlight bounces off his glasses but his eyes sparkle like the ocean on a sunny day.

“Sorry kiddo!” He says, “That’s just how he is!”

“Falsehood!” Logan calls.

“Losing battle,” Virgil nudges him. Oh god, what just came over him? His elbow feels tingly, like some sort of numbing jinx, but warm and welcome. Logan actually laughs as he straightens himself back on the chair.

(Logan laughs like he’s in a library about to be scolded for being too loud. Virgil isn’t sure what it would take for him to laugh louder. He wishes he had time to figure it out.)

Breakfast comes after that. With Patton severing french toast and Roman spilling orange juice on Logan's plate because the Ravenclaw told him he was putting far too much syrup on his and Virgil convincing Roman to shove an entire piece in his mouth just to prove that he could.

"Really attractive, Princey," Virgil says when the Gryffindor chokes and has to spit out soggy mush.

"You love me," Roman coughs.

"Yeah," Virgil says. It's a mostly meaningless statement. Because Roman thinks everything loves him, because Roman is very loveable, because it's light and witty banter and that's what they do.

Because Virgil’s thinking about the coin in the pocket on his chest, because Virgil is thinking how likely it was for him to be able to pry both Logan and Patton out of the house without a real reason, because Virgil is weighing his friends lives in his head like its just another sucky Arithmancy problem on the homework he put off until an hour before it was due.

And because Virgil is not really thinking about what comes out of his mouth, it comes out honest and true and it takes him three more blinks to realize that Roman is staring at him, with something like akin to...to...surprise?

“What?” Virgil asks, his breath hitching all of a sudden. He was tired but he wasn’t so tired that he could have started just talking out loud-- and even if he had surprise was not the thing that Roman would have on his face. Disgust, maybe. Anger, definitely. What kind of person can look at the people sitting next to him and think about how likely it was for someone on the street to kill them? How could he think about blood purity at a time like this?

But then again how could he not?

“You agreed,” Roman says, a tinge of awe.

“What?” Virgil tries again, because he really doesn’t know what is going on. Logan and Patton are staring at him too, but Patton’s smiling and Logan’s rolling his eyes and they’re tugging Logan’s plate between them in a silent argument of who gets to do the dishes.

“You agreed! About liking me!” Roman says down right giddy.

Virgil’s brow furrows, “Princey, we literally live together. Of course I like you.”

“But you said Love!”

Virgil glances at Patton for help. Patton is enchanting a sponge to wash the cups and is therefore, no help. His stomach does a flop. A flip flop. A flip flop right off a fucking cliff top.

Roman’s face appears right next to his, earnest and full and bright. Virgil thinks its like standing at ground zero of an atomic bomb.

“You never say Love. And I think if I remember correctly the last time you implied you even liked me, it was when Logan tried to cook and you got food poisoning and I gave you a bucket to throw up in.” Roman says. “So this is a big thing!”

Virgil should tell him its nothing, because even with his heart threatening to jump straight out of his chest, and his hands aching to curl in the fluff of his russet hair, and his eyes darting to Roman’s lips which for some reason are still right there next to Virgil’s own-- because even with Virgil thinking of that night years ago when Logan had given him a righteous nosebleed and he had run off and hid behind the One-Eyed Witch Statue on the third floor and had the biggest gay breakdown of his entire life--

Virgil should tell him its nothing because he’s been lying to Roman and Patton and Logan for two years, nearly three.

Virgil should give Roman’s face a shove away and make some insulting comment that will draw out those offended dramatic noises he likes so much.

Virgil should.

“I guess,” Virgil tongue warps around the words without an ounce of his permission. “Don’t go--”

“YES!” Roman hollers over him, throwing his hands in the air so suddenly that Virgil legitimately forgets what he was saying. “This is perfect! Amazing! Splendid!”

Virgil should tell him to calm down, that it means less than nothing. But Virgil threw away his entire life for them: for Roman’s celebratory fist pumping and sparkling eyes, for the quirk of Logan’s lips and the late night sleepy talks about the stars, for the taste of Patton’s baking and the feel of those tight, warm, safe hugs. He wants to dance around the word “Love” and its billions of meanings in billions of languages, because he knows that if he thinks about it for too long, he’ll realize that he loves the three of them in every sense of it.

Which, decidedly, means much more than nothing.

But there’s also that thing.

That thing where Virgil is lying, has been lying, will continue to lie, right to their faces. Which stands to be the absolute worst thing he’s ever done and if he stops it he’ll die a horrible painful wizard death and then they’ll be doubly angry with him for it. 

But isn’t angry with him-- isn’t never wanting to see his face ever again-- better than them being dead? Which is likely what they’re all going to be if Virgil doesn’t do something to convince them to leave the house for the day.

Them, he thinks and then hesitates because its not really “Them”. Patton’s got magical blood: blood so pure it practically glows under his skin and his wandwork is practically flawless. Logan’s got half magic blood, too, which is half more magic blood than sad little muggleborn Roman has. 

The anxious feeling of dread creeps up Virgil’s back, like a dementors fingers ghosting along his spine before it spins him around and gives a soul sucking kiss. Once the thought comes he can’t get it out of his head: the idea that if the Neo-Death Eaters show up here, and they breech the defenses that Virgil’s put up, and they catch them by surprise, the idea that they’d hesitate to hurt Patton or Logan or Virgil, but they’d execute Roman without a thought.

Virgil is staring at Roman.

Virgil is listening to Roman talk about something.

Virgil is thinking about Roman’s corpse lying on the ground in the kitchen, as a green light steals away his life in an echo of two forbidden words.

“Hey Princey,” Virgil says, trying to hide the way his entire body is shaking. “Let’s go on a date.”

Because Roman being angry at him, being unable to ever forgive him, being so enraged he can’t think about Virgil without wanting to put him in St. Mungos, will always be better than Roman being dead and Virgil having not done anything about it.

Roman looks at him and he smiles so prettily Virgil almost thinks he’d be able to forgive himself one day.

***

Virgil has never been on a date before. 

It’s tragic. Embarrassingly so.

If Virgil were watching this broomwreck from the outside, he’d been on the floor in tears from laughter.

Roman bumps his shoulder casually, “Relax, Felbert the Fearful! There are no roofs around to cave in on us.”

The joke doesn’t quite land for Virgil, but he laughs anyway. Roman deserves it, at least.

For putting up with Virgil not knowing the first thing about that how one proceeds on a “date”. He thinks he watched a Hallmark movie on this shit once or twice back before...everything. He thinks that it should have given him some clue how to act, what to say, where to go. But all they do it remind him how completely and utterly bootless he is in the grand scheme of things.

Disney, of course, never really taught the whole “take it slow” sort of thing. And with magic? Forget it. He wonders how Patton’s parents did it, how the famous Weasley’s did it, how any wizard ever did it.

(He supposes that it helped that in most cases that neither partner was hiding a double life behind a cloak of fake memories implanted in the other, but really what did he know.)

They had gone shopping. Kinda.

Roman had gone shopping. Virgil had watched him try on muggle clothes again and again, listened to him complain about prices, and testily remark about color coordinating. He tried paying the girl at the cash register in sickles and Virgil got a good laugh at his face when he realized his mistake. He tried on two T shirts just it looked like he was participating his fair share even bought one, but once it was in the bag he forgot what the design had been.

(He did not forget the way that Roman’s eyes had roamed over him and the way that he had mentioned how nice it would be to see that shirt on his floor.)

Virgil wished his heart was in it, wished that he could get his shoulders to unwind, wished that he could stare at Roman for a few minutes without thinking about what an awful person he was.

They have Ice cream for lunch specifically because Logan is not there to tell them not to. 

It devolves to Virgil splattering Roman’s nose with Chocolate ice cream and only getting half an apology out before Roman shovels a spoonful of strawberry into his mouth. Like a kiss. Indirectly.

Virgil wonders for all of three seconds if Roman’s tongue also tastes like strawberry.

“There’s a music store,” Roman says. “It just opened around the block. I’m sure it has some PG music for you to listen to, Edgelord.”

They hold hands. Virgil can’t tell if Roman can feel him shaking, or if he notices how distracted Virgil in worrying about something he won’t share. The music store is so muggle-like its distressing.

Virgil loves it. The musty smell of the building despite it being brand new, the feel of actual records in his hands, the beats in the background that his head bops unconsciously. Roman makes comments about the artwork on every cover that Virgil flits through, which is impressive because Virgil isn’t even looking as much as pretending to.

Its hard for him to be excited about an album of music when his friends could be in danger.

Its hard to remind himself why he needs to draw out this date as long as he possibly can to make sure that Roman doesn’t go back to the house. 

They catch a movie at the local theater. Virgil doesn’t remember the plot at all because Roman throws an arm over his shoulder halfway through it. Its dark, mostly silent, and Roman smells like cinnamon and ash that somehow is very attractive on him. Virgil leans in, selfishly enjoying the warmth that comes with it.

Virgil’s eyes...close just for a second.

Only a second.

“Hey, Vee,” Roman says, “Maybe we should head home?”

“No!” Virgil snaps awake so suddenly their heads collide. “Ow! Fuck!”

Roman’s pained laughter joins him. The lights are on, now so Virgil must have slept straight through the credits. He wants to curse himself for that one. What if something had happened? What if a Neo Death Eater had tracked them all the way to the theater and crept in during the show?

The ache in his head subsides to a mild annoyance that makes his eyes water. 

“Okay, wow, ow,” Roman says, “If I knew you were gonna wake like that, Stormcloud, I would have done something else!”

Virgil freezes. “What did you just call me?”

Roman blinks a couple times, “Stormcloud? Is that alright? I figured it might be nice to, uh, have a nickname that’s not an insult.” He sounds strangely hesitant, strangely unconfident, strangely not-Roman like.

“Its...fine,” Virgil says and pretends like the name doesn’t strike half a million chords in him. “Totally fine.”

Roman hums like he isn’t convinced. “Yeah well, we should get back to the house. I’m sure, Pat is making dinner.”

“Uhh!” Virgil says, “Or we could not!”

The Gryffindor raises an eyebrow at him. 

“I just, I mean--” Virgil’s not good at excuses. 

“Vee, you literally just fell asleep on my arm in the middle of an action movie. You’ve been unable to focus all day. I have half a mind to think that you only wanted to do this because you’re so sleep deprived that you can’t think straight.”

Virgil doesn’t have anything to say to that. There’s a stain on Roman’s shoulder from where he had been drooling. Roman presses their foreheads together and they both wince where the lumps collide.

“Listen,” Roman says, “I love spending time with you. How about we go back to the house, and throw on a movie and just...cuddle or something?”

Its not fair.

Virgil wants it so badly as whimper builds in his throat. But he doesn’t want to chance it, doesn’t want to risk it, doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t.

Roman leads him out the door. 

Its dark outside. Its still not dark enough. The town isn’t far enough from their house, and the longer Virgil is silent the closer they get back to the house. His hands twist in his pockets, his nail rubs over the engravings in his wand.

He needs something, anything, to catch Roman’s attention. Keep him away from the house until the days over and he’s sure there’s no chance that the Neo-Wizard Nazis are going to show up and kill Roman. 

“We should stop at the bookstore and pick up Logan’s order for him,” Virgil suggests.

“Logan just picked up his newest shipment two days ago, remember?” Roman says. “I dropped them and he yelled at me for a full hour.”

“Do we have milk at the house? Maybe we should get some groceries while we’re out.”

“Patton wants to go tomorrow instead. And only he knows the list. But he’ll love if we come with him.”

“A play!” Virgil says weakly.

“Hm?” Roman blinks lazily from beside him. The street lamps give him halo.

“I heard there’s a play going on!”

“There are no plays this week, Virgil.”

“I swear there was one.” Virgil says, “You know we should check just in case--”

Virgil has seen the news on the TV before: he’s seen coverage of car crashes that had lit on fire, of the forests burning in California and the Amazon, of muggle apartment buildings being swallowed entirely from faulty wiring. He’s kept a lighter in his back pocket for the longest time, for emergencies, for those moments when his wand is out his hand and needs to resort to a more unexpected muggle way of defending himself. He’s started tiny fires made of leaves in his backyard, of candles in his moms house when the summer rain storms knocked out the electricity again, of a pile of photos at his feet wiping away any evidence that would allude to what they had done.

Still watching Roman’s house explode is so much more terrifying. The blast of heat burns his body even from down the street. The noise is deafening, but the sight is ghastly: the roof of the building shoots straight into the air and then dissolves apart until its swallowed by the resulting black cloud, the windows break outward sending millions of shards into the surrounding houses, half of that ugly sofa that Virgil had fallen asleep so many times on shattered on the asphalt road barely four feet from the two of them.

Oh, its something straight from a nightmare and it makes Virgil’s stomach violently turnover and his eyes water and his heart jump straight up his throat to the back of his mouth. His limbs freeze at the sight, as if keeping from moving would keep the destruction from following. Flames lick the the inside windows, a thousand twisted toxic tongues that burned brighter than the sun in the night sky. 

In seconds the building is unsalvageable and Virgil’s throat closes up like someone magicked away the very oxygen in the air. 

“Virgil!” Roman yells some a million miles away from him, from right behind him, from beside him with a hand on his upper arm, tight and squeezing and real. “Protego!”

A white shield forms in front of him seconds before a chunk of the TV in the downstairs living room crushes him completely. An arm, Roman’s arm, wraps around him and drags him back from the flaming wreckage.

“Logan!” Roman screams, “Pat!”

And suddenly Virgil snaps back to the present, to the way the noise is louder than life, to the way that they stick out like sore thumbs in the middle of the road. 

“Aguamenti!” Virgil shouts pointing his wand at the the neighbors hedges. He doesn’t remember drawing it or thinking about the spell, but he knows that the family of four that live there just hit a rough patch financially and don’t need to pay for a house on top of that.

By the time he looks back up, Roman is down the street and Virgil doesn’t think there’s a single thing on this planet, magic or muggle that could stop him. So Virgil, the reigning king of making poor decisions in the moment, charges after him.

(Because he knows what this is, know that houses don’t just explode, knows that Roman is about to charge head into battle. He knows that Virgil would never forgive himself from turning tail and running when any of those three are in danger.)

So Virgil-- also reigning king of mistakes and regrets--charges after him with is wand drawn and prays to deities he does not believe in that he won’t see Dee tonight.

There are three Neo-Death Eaters on what used to be Roman’s front lawn. Virgil stumbles at the sight of them, at the sight of their long black cloaks and white theater masks and the skull pendants they wore so proudly. He doesn’t think they can be more than a few years older than him or Roman, but they find another section of the house to use Bombarda on and shriek joyfully when it sends part of dresser into the next door neighbors roof.

Roman makes use of Flipendo Tria on the first one, and clocks the next with his bare fist. Virgil uses Oppugno on several flaming objects (shirts maybe? Logan’s sweater vests?) and sends them wrapping around the face of the last one before she can make any move against Roman. 

“How dare you touch me, Filthy Mudblood!”

Roman punched him again. And then a third time for good measure.

“I may be muggle born, but I’ve never needed magic to fix my problems.”

It would be a good dramatic line if he wasn’t trembling as he delivered it, if Virgil didn’t need to throw protego between him and the guy he had punched because the Neo-Death Eater had managed to get his wand again, if they were acting in a movie this wasn’t real.

Roman snaps the guy’s wand in half and throws it into the fire before sprinting towards the front door.

“Patton!” He yells, “Logan!”

“Roman!” Virgil yells and lunges for him. They go tumbling to the ground, knees scraping on concrete pathway up to the house but Virgil doesn’t notice. He can’t notice, not really. 

He’s too busy imagining Roman as a flambeed corpse, as a crispy unrecognizable mass, as ashes fluttering in the wind.

Roman shoves against him, frantically calling for their friends.

And the smoke robs his throat of any moisture, clogs his lungs with lead laden gases and deteriorates his vision. There’s another explosion (Virgil thinks its the fire reaching the chemical closet in the downstairs powder room) and the force of it knocks Virgil across the lawn. His shoulder slams into the grass with a popping noise Virgil is pretty sure it isn’t supposed to make and his vision goes white for all of a second as his chest flops over and his other shoulder follows in a tumble of limbs. 

When he can see again Roman is right over him. He’s glowing-- kinda. The fire behind him creates a halo effect all over his body. Whatever words he’s saying, they’re lost in the buzz of Virgil’s brain as it reconnects and reboots and the panic comes back.

In the grass by his hand is a burned photo: the one of him and Patton that they took on the staircase, the one he put in his room, the one he kept.

And the fire burned him right out of the picture.

“--irgil!” Roman says, “We have to get up!”

Virgil nods dumbly at him. He tears his eyes away from the picture and grabs Roman’s forearm so he can help him get up. He smells like smoke and ashes and that Cinnamon body wash he liked so much. Virgil breathes it in and chokes on the air.

“We need to get out of here!” He says, “To the Rendezvous point! They’ll find us!”

Virgil isn’t sure Roman hears him at all, isn’t sure that Roman even remembers that they had a rendezvous point for if the base was attacked. But he doesn’t try to go running into the unsalvageable house again, so Virgil thinks that its enough.

(He doesn’t think about Patton on the kitchen floor desperately gasping for raspy breaths pinned under a flaming beam of the house and unable to move. He doesn’t think about Logan screaming as the flames swallow up his pant legs, and his sweater vest and his hair. He doesn’t think about them yelling for them and Virgil dragging Roman away from the fire and leaving them to die. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t--)

Away. They need to get away. Before a Neo-Death Eater shows up that they can’t beat.

Down the street. Virgil’s eyes are watering, his heart is thumping, his thoughts are screaming.

Somehow he still manages to see the enemy before they see him.

Its just that Virgil has absolutely terrible luck. It’s just that the shock makes him forget  Its just that Virgil freezes with half of a hex on his tongue, when his eyes catch on the other figure. Or more specifically, his wand.

Virgil doesnt know a lot about wands, but he thinks he knows more than average. Patton always did have a habit of rambling about his hobbies and wand making happened to be on that list. But even before that, Virgil would know that wand blindfolded: Elm, nine inches, with a rougarou hair core.

And he'd know it by the way it never quite looked like it fit in the hands of its owner.

Said owner, who was staring at him like he was the biggest idiot to ever grace the earth, someone who had been hit with confundgus until he couldnt remember his own name, someone who for some absolutely idiotic reason, decided not to curse a Death Eater the moment he saw one holding a wand at him.

"Virgil!"

Virgil feels the spell blast by him, missing his ear by mere inches. The Death Eater is almost as lucky: the spell hits the black Honda Civic behind him and explodes outward. The Death Eater is launched back towards them rolling across the asphalt, but his cloak took most of the damage.

“Confringo!” Roman shouts again, and another blast of a spell goes out.

"Protego!" The Neo-Death Eater counters and for a moment Virgil doesn't see the shield go up, doesn't see a way for him to escape the spell. 

Virgil grabs at Roman's arm, because it's the only thing he can think to do, and the last half of the flame veer to the side just enough that the enemy can scramble to his feet behind his shield.

"What are you--" Roman snaps, fiery and hot, and demanding of Virgil.

"Adorable!" The Neo-Death Eater cooes at them, "You actually thought those flames could hurt me?"

Virgil feels feverish just hearing that voice. Its a slippery eel of a tone, something sinister and mocking and Virgil knows it too well. So does Roman. So does everyone.

Its the voice he uses when he's scheming, when he's hiding something and wants you to know it, when he's got the upper hand in a conversation.

Its the voice that is undeniably Dee’s, and no one else's.

“Ekans,” Roman growled.

“Guilty as Charged, Prince,” Dee Ekans smiles like snake oil and mistrust, “I take it you saw the Fireworks? They were a bit disappointing for my taste, but then again all things muggle usually are.”

“Sectumsempra!” 

Virgil mouth tastes like ash. Roman’s wand slices the air like a sword, like a knife, like death, and the green spell flies towards Dee faster than Virgil can react. (He knows what that spell does: they’ve all heard the rumors around Hogwarts of the Potions teacher that created a curse that killed from bloodloss, they’ve all heard how it can’t be cured and how Severus Snape took the countercurse with him to the grave--)

Dee throws himself to the side. He’s not smiling anymore, not when the spell shreds the flaming car behind them. His hand moves to the side of his face, the left side of his face, where some part of the magic had skimmed him and left a precise line that welded with cherry red.

Roman raises his wand again, and this time Virgil leaps in front of him. 

“Virgil!”

“Patton, Logan,” Virgil gasps out but he cant remember when he stopped being able to breathe. The world threatens to start swimming so he grabs Roman by the forearms to steady himself. “Patton and Logan.”

Dee hisses violently, “Don’t worry about your blood traitor, Little Raccoon. My father invited him for a stay and when he leaves I’m sure he’ll want nothing to do with you.”

Virgil squeezes Roman’s wrists, but Dee’s face is too proud to be lying about this one.

“Be more worried about the owl.” Dee’s grin came back, a blinding white in the fire of around them. “Last I checked only one wing had been broken, but Mother does move very fast.”

Roman roars and lunges forward, but Dee presses his bloodied fingers to his lips and blows them both a kiss. By the time Roman gets around Virgil, gets close enough to grab the Neo-Death Eater that is Dee Ekans, the Slytherin had twisted up in his cloak and disapparated into a black cloud of smoke. 

Virgil wants to throw up. Distantly he’s aware that there are sirens ringing, and he knows that means that Muggles are on the way.

He should be terrified, but all he can feel is relief. Patton is alive, Dee had said so. He was full wizard, a pureblood, from a pureblood family. He was alive for now.

Virgil grabs Roman by the back of his shirt, “We have to go.”

Roman slaps his hand away, “Why did you do that?!” The flames dance behind him, giving him wings of fire. Somehow his breath his hotter than them. “Why did you stop me from killing him?!”

“We have to go, Roman.” Virgil ignores him, “Logan needs us.”

“Ekans deserves to die!”

“Roman!” Virgil yells, “It’s time to go,” He tugs him towards the end of the road, “I’ll explain later.”

“No!” Roman slaps him away again, “You’ll explain right now! I’m so sick and tired of not knowing what the hell is going on in your brain! Why did you stop me from hitting him? He’s the bad guy, Virgil!” 

“We don’t have time for this!” Virgil says he grabs on to Roman again, yanks him towards the end of the street. Roman fights him every step of the way, smelling like ashes and cinders and charcoal.

“Answer me!”

“You are no good to anyone in wizard jail, Prince!” Virgil snarls back.

“Bullshit!”

Virgil wants to take a swing at him, wants to yank his wand out and litter him so full of spells that he can’t move a muscle until Virgil finds Logan and gets all three of them somewhere safe, wants to cup Roman’s jaw and tell him everything between rough lip-biting kisses.

“You’re always doing shit like this!”

Virgil doesn’t do any of those things. He drags both of them into the community park and the wooden area beyond that. The heat between them blisters his fingers, stinging and burning and telling Virgil that its not worth it. But Virgil is a Hufflepuff, and Hufflepuffs are a loyal sort of people. And really that is Virgil’s biggest flaw.

“Running off, being secretive, pretending to be happy when you obviously aren’t--”

Roman gets a hand under Virgil jaw and shoves him up, up, and away. Virgil hits the ground with this tongue between his teeth and tears threatening in his eyes. 

“Roman!” He snaps, spitting blood from his mouth.

“Whose side are you on?”

Virgil’s body freezes.

Roman stands over him, moonlight shadows painting his face. His wand twists in his hand. He’s always been dangerous, Virgil remembers suddenly, with the effortless magic in his veins and the endless spell knowledge in his head and the whimsical creativity in his words.

“Virgil,” Roman says breathless, and he looks angry. Rightfully so. “The only one of us who would have both the information and the opportunity to give our location to the Death Eaters, is you.”

“What? Why would I--”

“You wanted me out of the house.” Roman says in an accusatory tone that makes Virgil’s blood slow in his veins. “You wanted me--the most powerful of us-- out of the head quarters, for a day of activities you weren’t even enjoying, and on that same day my house is blown up.”

Virgil scrambles to his feet, but he still feels off balanced, “It’s not like that--”

“Isn’t it?” he hisses, “You pestered us all last week about what charms were set up around the house! You said you were adding more! How do we know you didn’t take some off?”

“Because I didn’t!”

“You’re a master at Charms.” Roman snarls, “It would have been a sinch!”

And Virgil doesn’t know what to say to that. His hand slips into his jacket pockets, just barely resisting the urge to go for the hidden pouch over his chest that’s numbly cold--

Roman shoves his wand at him. “No! Hands out of your pockets, Storm.”

“What?”

“You heard me!” Roman said, stepping around him, like he’s some dangerous wild animal and Roman is the hunter come to put him down before he hurts another innocent person. “Did you or did you not give information to the Death Eaters? Did you tell them our location so they could kill us?”

“Roman!” Virgil takes a step back, his hands come out of his pocket and he starts wondering if maybe he should have been reaching for his own wand, after all. 

Roman looks angry; he looks like the fire that had eaten up his house. His hold on his wand is so tight, Virgil can see the red oak wood threatening to split. Small sparks dance at the edge reacting to Roman’s anger. No muggles would be out here in the woods, and the neo Death Eaters should still be dancing around the bonfire of the house. The only person who would come was possibly Logan, and they didn’t-- Logan wasn’t-- 

There was no one to stand between them, or direct attention away. For all intents and purposes they were alone in the world.

“That date was just a ploy,” Roman growls, “A ploy that I fell for!”

“No!” Virgil wants to list all the reasons why it wasn’t just a ploy.

But that of course isn’t the problem here. The problem is that it was a ploy in the first place. It was a ploy that Virgil made and took advantage of Roman to get him to follow in it.

Virgil tongue feels swollen, and he isn’t thinking. He knows he isn’t thinking. Because the next thing out of his mouth is the biggest mistake he’s ever made: “When have I ever done something to purposely harm you guys?”

 “I don’t know, maybe every single school year up until fourth year--”

Roman stops. 

Blinks.

“Every single school year up until…” He repeats, and Virgil feels the cannonball of dread in his stomach swell until shoves its way up through his lungs and up his throat. 

He’s imagined the way it happens a million times. Each one worse than the last, each one dangerous and bad and terrifying. Still the sight of Roman’s copper eyes turning purple and the light that drifts off him like an angelic aura is worse than all of them. Its his nightmares, come to life, and it’s staring at him with a murderous expression.

“Roman?” Virgil whispers, and maybe there’s a faint hope there that he’s wrong and the spell over him hasn’t broken and Virgil hasn’t lost the only thing he’s had for the past two years. 

“These are false memories,” Roman says. It feels like a slap in the face. “Why are there false memories in my head?”

Virgil’s mind tells him to run, and to run fast, but his body doesn’t move an inch. Not even to breathe. Roman had effortlessly used Sectumsempra against Dee, and Virgil is weaponless against him. He needs to get out of there, before either of them do something they’re going to regret. 

But at that moment there a sound of something tumbling through the branches above them, and Virgil looks up out of instinct. 

Its an owl, and it looks like it hell. Virgil lunges to catch it before it hits the ground, because even in the moonlight he’d know that white and brown and black pattern anywhere. 

“Logan!” Virgil calls, slightly more than horrified because he’s no owl expert but he’s pretty sure owls wings aren’t supposed to do that. There’s blood too. Virgil doesn’t know what to do with blood like this. “Roman! Roman I need--”

He stops when he sees the the other hasn’t lowered his wand. “Roman?”

“Avada--”

Virgil doesn’t hear the end of it. All he sees is the green light and then… 

And then there’s just darkness.

***

Dee had told him on the first Train Ride to Hogwarts about the Sorting Hat. 

“It uses Leg-ili-men-cy,” Dee had said holding up identical Chocolate Frog Cards with Salazar Slytherin on it “Thats a type of magic. It reads your thoughts and figures out where you’d best fit.”

Virgil had been so happy to be a Hufflepuff. He had never thought it was going to end up being a death sentence. 

***

“-nnervate.”

Virgil blinks his eyes open groggily. His whole head feels a bit like it was stuffed with tissues, like that Christmas that he spent sick out of his mind and Dee had shown up in the fireplace with more pumpkin pasties than he could carry and sugared butterfly wings for his mom, like that time they had hung out over the summer when Dee had wanted to practice for his position as Beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team and Virgil had dragged out his old baseball supplies only have Dee accidently beam him in the head on the first throw, like that time when Roman had cast a killing curse at him and Virgil hadn’t even tried to move out of the way.

And suddenly the fogginess of his head gives away to absolutely panic and its the cold type that surges through his veins freezing over his muscles and making his lungs work over time for air that only comes in every third heave. Its the panic he remembers and hates because its only happened once before and that was the worst day of his life.

He needs his wand.

His hand doesn’t even reach to his chest, not to mention across his body to the inside of his left boot where he normal keeps it. It takes him a moment to realize its not his lack of coordination, not his lack of focus nor disconnected thought process struggling to comprehend what was going on: his arm was being prohibited from coming forward by a rope.

Whats more is that when Virgil looks up too slowly putting together the pieces, Roman is standing over him with Virgil’s wand in his hand and an angry look on his face.

It feels like a nightmare; one of his worst ones yet. Its the version where he can’t wake up. The one where Roman has his wand and he’s been dragged somewhere he doesn’t recognize (the woods? Some woods somewhere?) and he’s been tied up because they can’t trust him and--

 And Virgil can’t figure out why he’s alive at all.

He knows what curse Roman sent at him. The bad taste in his mouth and the tingling pain in all of his limbs shows he knows it. The object anger in Roman’s expression is just further confirmation.

And yet, Virgil’s still alive, his pulse fluttering like a pixie’s wings as he desperately tried to come up with an excuse, an explanation, something that he can say that wouldn’t get him killed.

“Hey, Storm,” Roman says with a mockery of a smile that makes Virgil flinch. When was the last time he called Virgil by his last name? Fourth year? “I’m glad to see you alive.”

“Ro- roman,” Virgil gasps. He presses his back against the tree as if he can melt into it. The rope scratches at his wrists. Roman leans closer, and he’s always been taller but its never been threatening until now.

“Wanna tell me why there’s a bunch of fake memories in our heads?” Roman suggests with the end of the wand.

Virgil can’t tear his eyes from the tip, the glowing red that lies there ready to spark whenever Roman wants it to. Virgil’s watched Roman do spells for years; he knows how easily magic comes and flows through him and a wand. Even if it wasn’t through his own wand, he rarely ever messed up.

Is that what happened? Roman made a fluke with the killing curse and now Virgil was still alive when he should be dead?

Virgil’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Pulling it off will probably make his mouth bleed.

“That was not a rhetorical question, Virgil,” Logan’s voice says icily from beyond the wand.

Virgil pries his eyes away from the wand, to where Logan is standing half turned away, with his arm in a makeshift sweatshirt sling and his clothes rumpled and blood crested. There’s a table in front of him where he’s looking at several things with his good hand and his wand is sticking out of his deep pocket like it was just another day out of class. A breeze blows through the trees.

It looks like it should be a happy place.

Virgil doesn’t think he’s ever been so terrified in his life.

“I-”

Roman looks at him impatiently. “You-?”

He wants to say he doesn’t know, but thats a lie. He knows why there are fake memories in their heads, has known for nearly three years. He’s known and lied and he’s so sick of lying.

But if he doesn’t lie, he has to tell the truth.

And the truth will kill him. Literally. Virgil can feel the stinging pain of his forearm, the burning warmth that he isn’t sure his brain is just making up.

He squeezes his eyes shut pressing his back against the bark of the tree he’s tied to. His voice is quieter than the breeze through the leaves. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Roman scoffs, “Did you hear that, Logan? He says he can’t tell us.”

Logan doesn’t answer so Roman lunges forward to grab Virgil by the front of his jacket and hauls him to his feet. Virgil’s knees threaten to give out but he forces himself back against the tree again, getting as far away from the Gryffindor as he can. 

(He still smells like ashes, like smoke, like death and danger, and an enemy--) 

“I can’t believe you, Storm,” Roman snarls at him, “All this time you were pretending to be our friend, pretending to be more than a friend, and then you turned right back around and fed information to the neo wizard nazis? Who does that?! Other than you, apparently?”

“It’s not like that!” Virgil wishes he kept silent. His eyes are burning with the desperate need to stop the tears from falling, but he doesn’t think he’s been doing a good enough job.

“Tell me what its like then,” Roman challenges.

And Virgil’s mouth snaps shut. His tongue tastes like blood again. His whole mouth tastes like blood.

“His jacket,” Logan says distantly. “He never goes anywhere without that jacket.”

Virgil’s chest constricts, “No.”

Logan glances back at him, then at Roman and without even saying a word they both nod.

“No!” Virgil squirms back into his hoodie, as if he can make himself smaller or make the jacket stick to his back. “Please! Roman!”

Virgil had been smart when he made his jacket. He had been smart when he shielded it with charms to ward off rain and mud and soda. He had protection against cuts and scrapes and fire. Honestly Virgil could charge into battle with nothing but his jacket and most likely come back unscathed from the amount of spells he put on it.

But he's not stupid enough to think that between Logan’s endless knowledge of spells, Roman’s creativity in making new ones, and their combined level of determined spite, that his charms would do anything more than delay the inevitable.

It takes them twenty minutes.

Virgil’s wand flicks in Roman’s hand and then Virgil is left shivering, tied to a fucking tree, begging uselessly for them to stop. His jacket phases right off him, like it was made of some ghost material that existed in a secondary dimension where they can see it but not touch it. Virgil doesn’t understand beyond the fact that its wrong. 

“Accio,” Logan says.

His jacket-- the one his mother had bought him, the one that he had painstakingly stitched back together after every adventure with Dee, the one that he had enlarged every time he had outgrown it because that jacket was his safety blanket-- his jacket sails right towards Logan and lands over Logan’s broken arm’s shoulder.

Virgil’s voice is raw. “Guys, please. Stop--”

They don't stop.

Virgil almost wonders what his life would be like if they did.

“Logan,” Virgil repeats, “Logan, please, don’t--”

“Specialis Revelio,” Logan says ignoring Virgil entirely. His wand waves over Virgil’s jacket. And Virgil can’t tear his eyes off the interior pocket he had charmed away from normal eyes, that glows red in response to Logan’s spell. 

Logan doesn’t even look at him as he flips the jacket over and tears the patch open. Maybe if he had he would have hesitated, even just a little. Roman crosses his arms, squeezing Virgil’s wand in his hand. Virgil shakes his head, blinking back those unhelpful tears, and the whimper thats climbing up his throat.

“What is he going to find?” Roman demands.

Virgil wishes the rope was just a bit longer, just enough that he could bring his hands up to his ears and block out the accusatory tone.

Logan pulls out the Galleon, and rubs it between his fingers for a moment. Virgil’s breath catches at the sight of it, his dark bangs tumbling into his eye sight and his gaze losing hope when Logan says quietly, “Coin Collecting.”

 He doesn’t sound surprised. He doesn’t sound like anything.

“There’s a Protean Charm on this.” Logan says in that same cold tone. “And the date on the border...this is yesterday’s date.”

Roman snarls, oh god, he snarls. Virgil’s chest seizes at the sound. He’s been crying for the past several minutes but that's nothing compared to the absolute dread that floods over him.

“It’s not like that!” Virgil says, “Guys, please!”

“Isn’t it?” Roman growls, “Who were you talking to?”

“I wasn’t--”

“Roman.” Logan interrupts, and Virgil’s stomach drops out.

Because he knows what's in Logan’s hand now, what can make him take on that face, so pale, so horrified.

He knows deep in his heart that the past two years were never going to end quietly but this is something worse. This is his nightmare, this is the scene that keeps him up at night, keeps him terrified of falling asleep and risking seeing that sort of expression on their faces, except this time there is no gasping awake, no pinching himself until his vision blurs and he’s staring up at the ceiling of the guest bedroom in Roman’s house.

Roman’s hands shake as he takes it from the Ravenclaw, that single little paper, worn with age and love and desperation folded into eighths and hidden in his pocket a million times over. 

“You--” Roman says, and, oh god, those brown eyes rage with a fury so much like the fire, full of so much hatred, that Virgil feels it from where he is tied up. Roman can’t finish the sentence, and that’s as scary as what else he could have said.

Its a picture. The picture.

Its thirteen year old Virgil and thirteen year old Dee and its Virgil biggest mistake.

“You’re still friends?” Roman’s voice shakes just like his hands.

“Its not what you think!” Virgil repeats like a broken record, his eyes burning, his voice begging, “Please it’s not--”

Roman rearranges the two wands in his hand and flips the picture around and pinches the top on either side of the fold and gives just a quick jerk of his wrists--

“ROMAN!” Virgil screams. “NO! Please! No, please don’t!” 

And the picture--

He thrashes against the bindings, and the sound he makes is not human. Its a scream, its desperation, its absolute terror and panic. His eyes blur with tears, and his lungs beg to be allowed to inhale again, and his arms are sticky with blood and burning around the wrists where his movements caused the rope to slice his skin and, and, and.

And all Virgil can see is that picture in halves on the ground between them. One half him, one half Dee, and their winter scarves twisted together so that the yellow and green are on both sides and their arms linked just enough to show off those handmade sweaters.

His knees go weak and Virgil ends up on the ground, without being able to drag his eyes from the way Dee had smiled four years ago and never again.

“Repario,” Virgil whispers desperately, despite the fact he doesn’t have a wand and he’s never had enough skill to perform wandless magic. “Repario, please, Repario.”

His chest heaves, shuddering his entire frame with the pleading gasps and wish, wish, wishing the halves back together because despite the fact that he knows the picture like his own face in the mirror, he needs it to not be torn apart, not be ruined, not to be unrecognizable.

“Please, please, pleasepleaseplease,” Virgil sobs, “Please don’t... take it from me...please Repario, Logan, please!”

He tugs on the bindings again, and his head drops to his chest, vaguely aware that he’s soaked and shivering and this is the longest he’s gone without his jacket since he was ten, and that he hasn’t cried this much since he had last hugged his mom and she had said that she was proud of the man he had grown into and the friend he would die for. 

“Why should we do anything for you?” Roman demands, “You got Patton-- he’s-- and Logan’s arm--” Roman blows his breathe out of his nose like a Chinese Fireball, “You’re a Death Eater!”

“I’m not,” Virgil hiccups, “Please, I swear!”

Roman’s foot slams down on the pieces of the photo and grounds them into the forest floor.

Virgil blubbers his way through another series of pleading that falls on deaf ears. His fingernails dig into his palms, sticky with blood from his wrists. He tugs uselessly at the rope again, as if it had somehow become loose in the past three seconds. Snot runs down his chin, and salty tears burn his eyes and irritate his neck where he can’t wipe them off. His shoulder blades ache, but its really nothing compared to how the cavity in his chest seems to gnaw at him from inside.

Then Roman is right in front of him, dragging him off the ground by his shirt collar and forcing Virgil to meet his gaze and the tip of a wand, Virgil’s own wand, digging into the soft flesh under his jaw.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, stop, I’m sorry--”

“Shut Up!” Roman snaps.

And Virgil’s mouth closes, but the whimper escapes just enough that Roman gives him a violent shake. The back of his head hits the bark of the tree, and Virgil remembers those hands that had held him as they fell asleep on the couch with movies playing, those hands that had caught him when he fell off his broom in sixth year, those hands that had pulled him out of the way of the Whomping Willow-- those same hands were very capable of of crushing his trachea without magic at all.

Roman backs him up until he’s pressed against the tree and Roman is the only thing holding him up. 

“How long have you been feeding information about the Order to Dante Ekans?”

Virgil whimpers.

“Tell me!”

“It’s not like that,” Virgil hiccups, “I swear Roman--”

“Don’t swear to me!” Roman’s fist tightens, “You and that snake put false memories into our heads! You made us believe that we were friends for who knows how long! I can’t believe we trusted you! I can’t believe I really thought--”

He lets out a breathy laugh, that’s void of the warmth he’s known for, “So tell me how long you’ve been a traitor, Storm, or I’ll leave you here for the wolves to enjoy, bite by bite.”

“I--” Virgil squeezes his eyes closed but it does nothing to relieve the feeling of being burned alive by the other’s eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t...Roman...p-please you...have to believe me.”

“Give me something to believe!” Roman hisses between his gritted teeth, the wand jabs him in the jaw, but the whatever magic Roman’s trying to produce won’t come out because its still Virgil’s wand and unicorn hair cores are as faithful as they come.

Roman throws the wand to the side and instead hooks his other hand on Virgil’s collar. “I haven’t heard a single reason why I shouldn’t believe you aren’t a Death Eater or why we shouldn’t leave you tied up right here.”

God, if Virgil wasn’t terrified before, he is now. Because he’s lost a lot, and he was prepared to lose some of it, but he’s never been alone. He’s never not had someone to have his back, never not had someone to remind him what he was fighting for. The idea of Roman and Logan simply apperating away and abandoning him in the middle of this forest by himself causes his lungs to stutter in complete horror.

He doesn’t care if they hate him. He doesn’t care if they keep him tied up, or frozen over with petrificus totalus, just as long as they take him with them.

“Virgil!” Roman yells, and Virgil flinches, at the loudness of his tone, at the closeness of their bodies, at the sharpness of his canines. He’s got to be delirious from terror, because he’s pretty sure Roman’s eyes are rimmed red and there’s lift in his voice that sounds like he’s pleading for the truth.

Virgil doesn’t know how else to apologize to him, so he says the same words again and again and again.

Then all at once he feels it.

The feeling of someone shoving their hand directly into his brain, ripping apart the muscle at each wrinkle. There’s no precision to the attack; its bloody, and violent, and unpracticed. Claws that thrash and slash and its not like Dee’s soft touch. And that alone triggers Virgil’s urge to vomit.

The walls come on instinct: practiced instinct, muscle memory. They’re strong and thunderous and built out of critical necessity to protect and defend. The claws scratch at the barricade dragging along the stone like it can out run Virgil’s ability to set it them up.

“Virgil,” Logan’s voice comes from somewhere far away, strained, tired. He doesn’t say to let him inside, but Virgil can hear the unspoken words.

Of the two of them Dee had always been better at Legilimency and Occlumency. He had to be. Virgil wasn’t great at either, but they had practiced every night for a year, and then Virgil had done it by himself in the following years, and that had to count for something, didn’t it?

“S-stop!” Virgil sobbed, “Logan!” His hands yank the rope again pulling as far as they can but he can’t get anywhere near his own body, much less where Roman is holding him up.

“Let him in.” Roman commands, “Virgil, let him in!”

Logan isn’t a practiced Legilimens. In fact Virgil bets he’s barely done this more than twice, and even then he needs to use a wand for it. He’d get tired long before Virgil’s walls would come down.

Virgil blames his own unstability. He blames it on the rising feelings he’s harbored for Patton and Logan and Roman and he blames it on Dee leaving him with them. He blames it on the feeling of Roman’s skin so warm on his own freezing, on the touch of Logan in his mind which disregarding the raw, rough edges of the claws, still feels like the raven haired ravenclaw and Virgil still wants to hoard those touches and keep them for himself. He blames it on the fact that he’s wanted to tell them for years now, and that he doesn’t want them to hate him, and, and, and. 

And Logan’s claws leap upward and Virgil’s walls are a second slower then they should have been.

Virgil feels his throat burn with his own stomach acids and memories flash by his mind’s eye, tearing them apart as it goes, searching ever so violently for the memory that explains why Virgil is the way he is, as if his whole life hasn’t been building to this outcome.

Virgil snatches them away from Logan, snatches and stashes and saves those tiny bits behind secondary and tertiary walls before Logan can get to them. Again and again and again until Logan is bruised and battered and Virgil can’t breathe and they’re standing in--

The living room he grew up in. His pictures on the mantle with both him and his mom and three of them emptied where the pictures stolen away. The coffee table has three mugs of tea on it and magazines about the city and the remote that was missing a battery because Virgil had stolen it to put in his secondary Xbox control earlier. 

His mom is there, hugging him tightly, “I’m so proud of you, my little storm cloud. I’m always going to be proud of you.”

Virgil tackles Logan out of that memory. 

Grocery store. Virgil’s been staring at the cereal for five minutes. His wand is in his boot, and his hands are in his jacket. Clenched into fists.

“Pardon me, young man? Would you mind helping me reach the great value box up there?”

Mom. She smiles at him. She doesn’t know him. 

“Yeah, sure. This one, right, Ma’am?”

Another person, a shadow from the end of the aisle, No, no, no, not here-- 

Virgil locks the rest in a black box. Logan doesn’t fight it.

“Don’t you dare try to take this from me, Ekans!” 

Anger. Angry. A challenge. Mistake. Mistake. Mista---

“Lo--Logan!” Virgil gasps. 

“Nasty little fates,” The professor mutters, “Nasty indeed. Do you know what Alstroemeria flowers represent?”

“Logan!”

“Face each other! Grip your right hands!”

“Please!”

Fourteen year old Dee is staring at him. Their hands are clasped tightly, and thin stream of red wrapping around their fingers weaving them together. Professor Remus’s wand doesn’t shake. Virgil doesn’t hesitate.

“I do.” 

Virgil goes limp in Roman’s arms. Seven feet away, Logan stumbles back further, tripping over a tree root and hitting the ground almost as hard as Virgil does. Maybe harder with that broken arm of his. Virgil’s not sure from how intensely his own body shakes trying to get rid of the vile feeling of someone else being in his head. 

He lets out another sob, yanking on the rope and falling as far forward as he can. Roman’s embrace isn’t comforting, but its something. His throat feels dry and eyes burn and he wants to get his hands on that pesky time turner that caused them to do all this just so he can stop himself from ever being born in the first place.

“You--” Logan says. He’s pale, paler than before, paler than paper, paler than the ghosts at that stupid castle. “You made an Unbreakable Vow.”

And whatever slim reserve, whatever dignity, Virgil had left, breaks and he’s gone.

(Next Chapter)

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[papermoonloveslucy]

LIZ THE MATCHMAKER

November 18, 1949

“Liz The Matchmaker” (aka “Katie and Mr. Negley”) is episode #63 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on November 18, 1949.

Synopsis ~ After dating Mr. Negley the postman for three years, Katie feels that their relationship is not going anywhere, so she enlists Liz's help!

This was the 12th episode of the second season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 43 new episodes, with the season ending on June 25, 1950.

Although similarly titled and themed, this radio episode is not the basis for the “I Love Lucy” episodes “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15), “Lucy is a Matchmaker” (ILL S2;E27), “The Matchmaker” (ILL S4;E4), or “Lucy, the Matchmaker” (HL S1;E12) in 1968. Safe to say that meddling in the romantic affairs of others was a trait of all of the Lucy characters! 

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) and Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) do not appear in this episode.

GUEST CAST

Jay Novello (Mr. Negley, Postman) appeared on “I Love Lucy” as superstitious Mr. Merriweather in “The Seance" (ILL S1;E7), Mario the gondolier in “The Visitor from Italy” (ILL S6;E5), and nervous Mr. Beecher in “The Sublease” (ILL S3;E31). He also appeared on two episodes of “The Lucy Show,” but Novello is probably best remembered for playing Mayor Lugatto on “McHale’s Navy” in 1965.

Frank Nelson (Police Officer) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”.  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs. His trademark was playing clerks and other working stiffs, suddenly turning to Benny with a drawn out “Yeeeeeeeeees?” Nelson appeared in 11 episodes of “I Love Lucy”, including three as quiz master Freddy Fillmore, and two as Ralph Ramsey, plus appearance on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” - making him the only actor to play two different recurring roles on “I Love Lucy.” Nelson returned to the role of the frazzled Train Conductor for an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1963. This marked his final appearance on a Lucille Ball sitcom.

Rolfe Sedan (Malt Shop Waiter) first worked with Lucille Ball in the 1934 film Kid Millions. When Lucy Ricardo ate snails in “Paris at Last” (ILL S5;E18), Sedan played the Chef who was outraged that Lucy wants to put ketchup on his food. He is probably best remembered as Mr. Beasley the mailman on “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.”

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers it’s morning and Liz and George are at the breakfast table.”

George spits out his eggs and wonders why his breakfast is so badly cooked. Liz says that Katie’s romance with Mr. Negley the mailman is not going well, so she’s distracted. Even the toast is burned!

Liz tells says she wants to help bring the maid and the mailman together but George warns her to stay out of it!  Instead, George wants to warn Mr. Negley that Katie is trying to get a “wedlock headlock” on him! George makes Liz promise not to meddle, no matter how difficult it is.

In the kitchen, Katie is crying and singing: “I gotta right to sing the blues. I got a right to moan and cry.” 

"I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" is a popular song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Ted Koehler, published in 1932 for the Broadway show Earl Carroll's Vanities (1932) starring Milton Berle. The song became a jazz and blues standard. Popular recordings were by Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holliday. 

Liz comes up with a loophole about her promise to not get involved in Katie’s romance: she will just listen, while Katie talks.  Katie says that she and Mr. Negley go on several dates a week to the drive-in movie. Unfortunately, he drives a motorcycle. They also go to the park, where Mr. Negley plays canasta with the cop on the beat. Mr. Negley lives at the YMCA so she has no hopes of being invited over to dinner. Liz comes up with the idea to take George out to a movie that night, so that Katie and Mr. Negley will have the Cooper living room all to themselves. 

Mr. Negley arrives to deliver the morning mail. Katie is too nervous to ask him to come over that evening, so Liz agrees to do it for her. 

LIZ: “I thought I was Mr. Anthony, now I’m John Alden.” 

Mr. Anthony (aka John J. Anthony) was the pseudonym of Lester Kroll, who from 1937 to 1953 dispensed marital advice on the radio through “The Good Will Hour”, later renamed “The John J. Anthony Hour.”

In "The Courtship of Miles Standish" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow John Alden was asked by his friend, Miles Standish, to act as matchmaker for him with Priscilla Mullins. Priscilla made the classic response "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"  

Mr. Negley finally agrees to the date and merrily goes off singing “Some enchanted evening, you will see a stranger...” 

"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. It has been described as "the single biggest popular hit to come out of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show."  Billboard Chart Records for “Some Enchanted Evening” in 1949 alone included Ezio Pinza (#7), Perry Como (#1), Frank Sinatra (#6), and Bing Crosby (#3). 

That evening, Liz and George are at the movies. George wants to leave, but she must keep George out till 11:30 and it is only 9:30!  Liz pretends to lose a shoe, which George dutifully searches for in the darkened theatre to no avail. 

At 10:15, Liz and George are at the malt shop and Liz keeps ordering to kill time, despite getting gradually sick to her stomach. The Malt Shop waiter (Rolfe Sedan) tempts her with an “Eagles Nest”. 

WAITER: “It has a base of pound cake and macaroon. On top of that, a scoop of mocha, black walnut, pistachio, peppermint, burnt almond, and tutti-frutti.  And then a layer of whipped cream. A layer of chopped nuts. A layer of marshmallows. A layer of cherries. And then you flood the whole thing with hot fudge!” 

Liz’s stomach churns!  

They drive home. It is a quarter to eleven. Liz blurts out that they can’t go in until 11:30. She makes George promise not to mad, and tells him the truth. He breaks his promise. Liz reminds him that in their courtship, it would be blissful to stay in the car an extra half hour with Liz, but that was a long time ago. He tries to kiss her, but logistics interfere.

GEORGE: “That’s funny. I can’t turn around. The steering wheel’s in the way. In the old days the cars were built different.” LIZ: “In the old days, the stomach was built different.”

Liz and George manage a smooch - one that lasts until 12:30!  

Liz wants to be sure Mr. Negley is gone, so she peers through the living room window.  A policeman (Frank Nelson) is watching them and wants to know what they are doing. He doesn’t believe they are the homeowners or that they were in the car smooching, not staking out the place!  He hauls them down to the police station!

At 4:30 in the morning, George and Liz finally get home, exhausted from their ordeal. A worried Katie greets them. It turns out something came up and Mr. Negley didn’t come over after all!  

LIZ: “Oh, no!!!”

End of Episode

[legolasgoldy]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻.

repost, don’t reblog

BASICS.

full name. Finrod Ingoldo Felagund  ( Findaráto Artafinde Ingoldo Arafinwean; Finrod is the Sindarin translation of Findarato that he uses instead once in middle earth)

pronunciation. Fin-rod In-gol-doe Fell-ah-gund

nickname(s). Findo, his Favorite being ‘ Fin ‘ spoken by few very close friends and lovers. other nicknames being things like ‘ wolfy’ said by friends or lovers. Highly depends on person. ( Finda, Findo, Ingo ( which he doesnt really like), Nóm, Nómin, Felagund, Edennil, Atandil )

gender. Cisgendered Male 

height. 6′1, also depends on age

age. Verse dependent, teens to 20s sometimes 30s

zodiac. Taurus, April 23rd

spoken languages. English, decently fluent in french and spanish. A little Gaelic when dating his boyfriend Rhys Brennan. ( Obviously in Tolkien aus he speaks Elvish which includes Telerin, Noldorin, Sindarin, etc, Early dwarven tongues like Khuzdul, common/westron, pretty much anything he can learn even the language of the enemy. He however does not know the change in certain languages or new languages that occurs over the ages hes dead. Not until Galadriel, Gimli, and/or one of the hobbits tell him.)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color. Golden blonde

eye color. Emerald green

skin tone. Not pale but fair with a semi neutral and slightly peachy undertone.

body type. Tall and toned. He is muscular but not super buff depending on what you consider to be buff. Body claim pics are in his pages. Hes very soft yet firm, strong, and warm for cuddling.

accent.  A mix between american and european english. He was born and raised in Maine until 7 years old then they moved to lower states. His parents have heavy english accents, which he acquired as a small child, and as he grew older it developed into a soft neutral-ish american accent with english attributes. For example, he will say eye-ther instead of ee-ther for Either. Sometimes he’ll also catch himself saying Tom-AH-toes instead of Tom-Aye-toes.

voice. Very kind, gentle, medium deepness of a tone. He doesnt sound excessively deep but not high pitched either, its a very cozy warm mid-way deepness that’ll make you feel safe and soothed. However, it can get a deeper when angry or..during intimate activities.

dominant hand. He is Ambidextrous 

posture. somewhere between casual and proper

scars: A few random small scars from childhood, after his mutation kicked in he can no longer get scarring which is fortunate considering the amount of times hes bitten completely through his tongue or lips with his fangs when he first got his mutation. Not to mention times hes been hurt in the future. ( depends on time period, sometimes none at all but others he can have scarring from fighting, any type of misc scar, but not an over abundance of them where you can see.)

tattoos. None, his skin wont hold tattoos after his mutation. 

birthmarks. None

most noticeable feature(s). hair, eyes, and fangs. ( Hair, eyes, jewelry.)

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth. Maine, US. ( Tirion in Valinor )

hometown. On the coast of Maine; i havent decided a city/town.

birth weight. 6.9lbs (3.1kg)

birth height. 18.6 lbs (47.2cm)

first words. Mommy or Daddy. ( Amme or Atya)

siblings. Twin brothers Aegnor and Angrod, and little sister Galadriel. ( Twin brothers Ambaráto Aikanáro Arafinwean, Angaráto Arafinwean, and little sister Artanis Nerwen Arafinwean; translated into Sindarin their names are Aegnor and Angrod. Artanis chooses the name Galadriel for herself and does not use her birth names)

parents. Finarfin and Earwen Felagund. ( Arafinwë Ingoldo Finwean and Eärwen Olwean)

parental involvement. Finrod’s parents are both Aquatic Biologists, so he often spent time with them at work as a child. Whether that was near fresh water or salt water, if it was safe for him to go he went. They have always been very close and supportive to each other.  ( His parents have always been supportive of him and they have always been very close. They would live in either Tirion or Alqualondë during different seasons so Finrod and his siblings could grow to be apart of both cultures.)

ADULT LIFE.

occupation. Verse and timeline dependent. Generally, Finrod works in a greenhouse & landscaping company. Later on he’ll may get a job as a music teacher. In the rockstar branch of the x-men au he is just that, a Rockstar. ( He is a prince of the Noldor and Teleri. Later he is the King of Nargothrond.)

close friends / family.  Yes. Who that is, is very much Thread and verse dependent. 

relationship status. In a long term relationship with his boyfriend Rhys Brennan. ( Unofficially married to Makalaurë Kanafinwë Feanorian. Can be verse dependent.)

financial status. His parents had to make a lot of money to support four kids, so it was comfortable enough. However when he moves out he begins making his own money, and he isnt rich by any means but happy with where hes at. ( Timeline dependent, but usually very wealthy.)

driver’s license. Yes, hes a very good driver.

criminal record. None. 

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song. Not really sure, but most likely something along the lines of ‘ I want to know what love is’ by Foreigner ( The song he sang to Sauron)

hobbies to pass time. Singing, playing instruments, Reading, Spending time with his family and friends.

mental illnesses. Not that he knows of ( PTSD, depression.)

physical illnesses. None, as a healing mutant he is unable to get illnesses. ( No illnesses but he does have pain caused by PTSD ranging from light to severe. The pain mostly occurs in his hands and feet, but radiates throughout depending how strong the attack lasts. At times it may only be a very mild ache, and others debilitating paired with mental state. The last being less common and can be accompanied by sleep paralysis and/or night terrors)

left or right-brained. Right-brained

self-confidence level. Depends on time period but normally pretty high? Hes very confident in himself aside from when he started mutating and ran away from home, his confidence was pretty low then. Its usually when hes under personal distress due to someone he cares about being hurt in some way that his confidence dips down. Highly depends on scenario though. ( Pretty high aside from times of extreme distress and depression. e.i. 1. After the first Kin Slaying. 2.Traveling through the helcaraxë he had to force it high because he couldnt lose confidence in a time like that, so it was simultaneously low and high at the same time. 3. After he lost his brothers and many of his family.)

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation. Demisexual + Bisexual 

romantic orientation. Biromantic

preferred emotional role. submissive | dominant | switch

preferred sexual role. submissive | dominant | switch which ever he and his partner prefer hes more than happy with

libido. When single and has no one hes attracted to, virtually non existent. Sure, the need arises every now and then, but the want not so much. When in love its endless if his partner wants it too.

turn on’s. Seeing his partner smile. Especially if its a very wide unadulterated happy smile, even more so if the smile is towards him. Watching his partner walk and/or bend over. He loves being teased, whether its a sultry look, pose, touch, kiss, or words. His partner sitting in his lap. Watching his partner just be beautiful, which can be as simple as them sitting in the sun content or just quietly enjoying themselves in some way. Anything sensual. Getting lost in a happy moment together.

turn off’s. His partner not being in the mood bc he doesnt want to if his partner doesnt, excessively disgusting dirty talk, his partner being upset or hurt, purposeful pain.

love language. Sensuality. Frequent touches, quality time together and doing special things that they consider ‘ their thing’, talking and listening, supporting each others hobbies and dreams, and helping each other with every day domestic activities.

relationship tendencies. Finrod is drawn to unique people even though he doesnt necessarily realize he is at the time. Something will grab his interest and he’ll try to get to know them, it all goes from there. Since he is a creative individual hes just naturally drawn to other creative people whether they use their creativity in the same way or not. The people he has fallen for have all been unique, talented, and inspiring even if they dont know it or downright deny it. They all have a depth to them and they may have a darkness inside them but he loves them, and who they are, darkness and all. He sees so much light and love in his partners. As far as physical type, it doesnt really matter much but hes very taken by pretty hair, eyes, and smiles. 

Tagged By: @blind-mutant ty! <3 @

Tagging: @mikhailvalhidris, @driftinglightofthewoods, @truesanguinesoul, @admirable-mairon, @bouncingbeleg, @first-son-of-finwe And anyone i missed or who wants too!! :D

[jgroffdaily]

It’s been almost two years since we last saw Mindhunter’s intrepid FBI team, led by plucky but serial-killer-obsessed Holden Ford—played by Jonathan Groff, of Hamilton and Frozen fame. With his off-screen affability and dangerous penchant for on-set laughter, it’s a credit to the baby-faced Groff’s abilities that Holden—a character loosely based on actual agent John E. Douglas—appears convincingly world-weary at the start of season two.

As the show’s freshman outing ended, Holden was becoming increasingly invested in the real-life serial killer and necrophile Ed Kemper, which led to a major panic attack and breakdown. Between the pressures of keeping the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI afloat and his workaholic obsession, Holden was in rough shape.

Season two jumps from the late ’70s to 1980, where Holden and co. are investigating a new wave of serial killings that will eventually be dubbed the Atlanta child murders. With the support of the bureau, Holden’s team has moved out of its old basement office—but that upgrade brings with it a new sense of exposure and looming menace, especially since Holden also meets Son of Sam David Berkowitz and Charles Manson this season. We caught up with Groff to discuss the pressures of working for David Fincher, Mindhunter’s graphic sex scenes, and why serial killers aren’t actually the actor’s jam.

Vanity Fair: The two-year gap was tough on Mindhunter fans. Why did the show keep them hanging for so long?

Jonathan Groff: [Laughs] Only David Fincher has the power to do that, because he really takes his time. He worked on the scripts until he felt they were ready and they were exactly what he wanted them to be. That’s the honest, basic answer. He didn’t want to turn out a second season just because the first was successful. He wanted the story lines to be as interesting and complicated as possible. David Berkowitz and Manson aren’t the only two serial killers that we do this season; there’s a lot more that I think will be an exciting surprise. Manson has always been Holden’s holy grail in terms of serial killers that he wants to speak with, and he gets his wish this season.

Netflix got some heat earlier this year for allegedly glorifying Ted Bundy in a docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and a Zac Efron movie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Do you worry that Mindhunter could do something similar or open old wounds?

From the very first meeting we had about the show, David Fincher’s mission statement has always been that he doesn’t want to make comic book villains of serial killers. He wanted to show them as the sad, deplorable human beings that they are, and to explore their psychology. In no way did he ever want to celebrate the serial killer, and every single day on set operated with that mission and goal at the forefront. There is that temptation, in our cultural obsession, to make the killers powerful again by investing in them. We’re interested in taking an honest look and doing the opposite.

Do you see these men as monsters, or have you developed sympathy for them while doing the show?

I compartmentalize the work on the show, and I read as much as I can about any killer we’re about to interview—but I don’t really live for it. Serial killers aren’t my jam in that way. The thing that turns me on most about working on the show is exploring the psychology of the scenes themselves. Those long, 15-page interviews with the killers are the most fun for me as an actor, because I get to really lose myself and explore the psychology. If I stop and think about what the serial killers have done, I’d get really depressed. There is no empathy for serial killers in my mind.

In season two we meet the mothers of the murdered children from the Atlanta child murders. For the first time in the series, we’re looking at the families and parents of the victims. That was way more emotionally draining and heartbreaking for me. As the serial killer Ed Kemper said in season one, “We should all get death by torture.” I don’t think serial killers are really looking for sympathy anyway.

Do you take any emotional baggage from the show home with you?

I’m not a Method actor, so I don’t take any of it too seriously after they say, “Cut.” I go for a run every morning, and when I go home it’s pretty easy for me to shake it off. I think it might affect me in subconscious ways, because I definitely ate a lot during season two—a lot of Mindhunter emotional eating. My morning run [is] not only to stay in shape—but subconsciously, it’s my way to shake it off and mentally prepare for the new day.

Working on the show gives me so much respect for the people who actually talk to the serial killers, or those that talk to the families of the victims. It seems silly of me, as an actor playing pretend, to have any sort of damaging, emotional reaction to it when those people are out there living it every day.

Did you spend any time with real-life agent John E. Douglas when preparing for the role?

I emailed with John, but we had never met until about six months ago. He asked me to do the audiobook for his newest book, The Killer Across the Table, where he writes a little about Mindhunter and the characters Holden Ford and Bill Tench [Holden’s partner, played by Holt McCallany]. I did the reading, and then as a bonus feature on the audiobook, we did an interview with each other. The first time we spoke on the phone was really cool, and I was grateful to hear that he likes the show and what we’re doing.

Four months ago he came to New York and we had lunch for the first time. At the end of season one, my character has a panic attack and meltdown, and John Douglas did have a complete physical and emotional breakdown over the course of his career. We talked about that, and how exhaustive the work was for him. He was really encouraging, so it wasn’t awkward to meet him in any way.

In season one you had to portray a really intense sexual awakening for Holden. As an openly gay actor, were those straight sex scenes fun or daunting?

I think it was both. When I was 22, I was on Broadway doing Spring Awakening, where I had a very extensive sex scene with Lea Michele. It was the climax, no pun intended, of Act 1, and because I did that eight times a week for two years, I got really comfortable doing sex scenes. It was the routine of, “Here’s where I pull down your underwear and pretend to finger you,” and it was choreographed and blocked kind of like a dance.

Over the years I’ve heard horror stories from my male and female friends about their sex scenes. It usually stems from a lack of communication and the actors being thrown into it. When I got to Mindhunter, David is such a specific and intentional director, so there was never any wiggle room to feel weird, awkward, or afraid. There was just a lot of respect on the set—and it sounds so weird, but I end up really enjoying those scenes because there’s not a lot of dialogue to memorize. You’re telling the story physically, and there’s a natural vulnerability when you’re butt naked with another person that can’t really be faked.

What’s the most difficult part of working for Fincher?

You have to be on your A-game every second of every day, which is actually the most difficult and rewarding thing. It’s really simple, and that’s all that he requires of you. When everyone is doing it and we’re all vibing, it’s so much fun. It’s what I imagine it’s like to be on a really intense sports team, and that can be really confronting at times. We were shooting in Pittsburgh for a very long time, working long hours for nine months. At the wrap party for both seasons, when you’d expect everyone to get wasted and be exhausted, everyone said that it was the best experience they’d ever had.

Switching gears completely: With Frozen 2 coming up in November, do kids ever recognize you as the voice of Kristoff and lose their minds?

I do make voice memos for little kids because they never recognize my voice in person. I sing as Kristoff and the voice of the reindeer, and that’s when they freak out. Usually parents take video of their kids listening to it. On the street it’s usually just, “How do I know your voice?”—which isn’t as much fun.

[drink-n-watch]

These opening paragraphs are always the hardest part for me. Once you get into the review you can weave your thoughts through a recap of the episode and everything falls into place. Here, I have to come up with something all on my own. It’s a little intimidating. Thankfully, I can always count on my esteemed collaborator. Hi Matt, how are you?

Too much pressure, Irina! I’m fine, hope you’re well too and all our readers as well.

Actually, before we fall into it, how pumped were you to see Yayoi? Cause I was mega super pumped. I always loved Yayoi and she looked amazing with her hair down. I gotta say, season 2 must have been something. Everyone seems to have had some sort of happy ending, whereas to me, Psycho Pass had always ended on a rather bleak note with most of the cast scattered and/or hopeless but the system intact.

But I digress. Yayoi!

Yeah she’s pretty cool, I guess… Nah, you’re right, it was great to have her back!

So Yayoi is back because reasons and she’s going to help our ragtag team of  law enforcement officers while looking mighty fine indeed. We find out that some organisation, possibly to do with Enomiya is smuggling criminals in as dead bodies since the cryo sleep hides their hues. I really liked the idea although considering the rest of the episode, I’m still a bit fuzzy on the necessity of this. Seems risky, complicated and expensive when aggressive body guard robots are available. I honestly missed the set up here, Matt, can you help me fill in the blanks?

Maybe it’s cheaper to get humans to act as muscle than it is to build and program a bodyguard robot. The robot did seem pretty useless aside from being able to take a beating, not very nimble and not very smart either.

Smuggling and paying humans is definitely not cheaper, but just as useless!

Right off the bat, and throughout the episode, the enforcers had a pretty strong presence. It wasn’t just a Kei and Arata two man show (I mean technically Kei is still suspended so it can’t be). I really like how they are slowly and organically developing the supporting cast. I hope they keep at it, I feel like a strong ensemble can really elevate the series.

I agree, the more they keep building the ensemble cast the tougher it’s going to be when one of them dies (I mean it’s bound to happen sooner or later right?)

We are back in the heat of the political race only this time, it seems it’s Karina’s turn to be worried. After a visit to the late Dr. Tsuchiya’s office, Arata learns Karina’s secret, that she’s been using a hologram AI to help her during public appearances – a bit like lip syncing her campaign, and it seems someone out there wants that secret to be revealed and is not afraid to use underhanded means.

It’s an interesting way to use AI, though you gotta wonder how much of it really had a point, seems like having an AI feeding you a speech through an earpiece would be a lot easier and less open to be discovered and achieve pretty much the same results.

I have to say, I find the AI’s name “Ma-Karina” kind of hilarious. Possibly cause I’m 4 and just started singing the Macarena every time I heard it! Also, the necklace that Karina uses as a switch for Ma-Karina was very pretty. It sort of reminded me of Griffith’s Egg of the King, and considering both their significance in the story, the symbolic parallels are pretty cool.

I laughed at that too, we’re both children, apparently!

With the reveal of Tsuchiya’s personal AI and his involvement with Ma-Karina, we got even more neuroscience speak. Such as the relative metabolic need of the human brain and a short lesson on decision fatigue. Arata even mentions that humans aren’t great at thinking which is not completely false. We do tend to find every shortcut possible to reduce our decision making whenever viable and we fall back a lot on things like pattern recognition. This must affect our hues! It really does seem like season 3 is trying to weave in a bit of neurology through.

I absolutely love it but it’s not for everyone. Matt, you mentioned last week that to you this element felt tacked on and stand offish, do you still feel that way or do you think it was better integrated this week.

It was fine, there was almost too much else going on for me to really focus on it one way or another.

I’m o.k. with Kei’s roguish actions. He comes off a bit like a hard nosed cop trope in an action movie but I kind of like it. Once again, despite his suspension, Kei seems to be in the heart of the action. Going to watch Karina’s speech and calling in a potential disturbance. This means he’s right there when Karina gets kidnapped by…guys… And I mean right there. Like he swoops in to punch a guy out of nowhere when everyone else seemingly disappeared. To me Kei’s presence and interventions this week were just a bit too convenient. Ok Matt, tell me why I’m wrong.

Most of the action in this episode kind of felt a bit flat for me, from the staging to certain conveniences in how our ‘heroes’ were able to be where they were and do the things they do. It almost felt a bit Hollywood action-y, like it was less about the logic and more about the spectacle and even then the spectacle wasn’t that spectacular.

All of this is happening is some large event venue, a stadium of some sort, where the candidates were having a televised debate. Yakusiji got in a fight with one of the abductors and we didn’t see what happened to him while Karine got dragged off into another part of the stadium where the baddies are trying to force her to make a televised confession for the use of Ma-Karina. She refuses and her manager somehow bursts in, closely followed by Kei. Meanwhile the rest of our heroes have arrived and are making their way through the place.

And Yayoi is wearing stilettos! This may seem like petty nit picking but as a girl who wears high heels just about every single day, and pretty high ones at that, I know that you only wear stilettos if you want to look good and not necessarily move at all. In fact not even stand for too long. Those things hurt! Yayoi never ceases to amaze.

If anime has taught me anything it’s that women can wear anything–no matter how impractical–and still pull off amazing feats, make of that statement what you will feminists!

?

Anyways, stuff happens. Karina tries to escape and ends up on some high walkways being chased by this huge thing. Arata finds her somehow, and saves her at the last minute. Also Kei and the enforcers are there. Everyone’s fighting. The big guy turns out to be a robot. Enomiya’s robot bodyguard to be exact and I’m really wondering why they didn’t just use him instead of smuggling people. And then the good guys win, hurray!

Karina is saved and although her secret was in fact revealed she held on to her pride and didn’t make any sort of public confirmation. Meanwhile it turns out Yakusiji is just fine and he knows what’s going on but unfortunately he only told the officers and not the audience.

I believe the plan was to simply discredit Karina by leeking the existance of her AI to the public but I’m not sure why it had to be done via kidnapping during a televised speech. I guess the idea was that she would then lose the election and considering Enomiya’s part in everything and their connection to Heracles I suppose we could imagine they wanted him to win? I’m really not sure about any of this though. It’s mostly assumption. This part was a bit messy to me. I’m sorry Matt, I’m going to need your help again.

… I don’t know either, this entire middle section felt like a lot of things happening where nobody (not even the characters in the show themselves) knew why things were happening or who was really responsible but at the same time they didn’t seem to mind and just kind of got on with their days? It’s entirely possible we both missed something obvious and we’re just big dummies–I’m sure the comments section will tell us…

After the plot gets foiled Enomiya wisely decides it’s time to make themselves scarce and attempts an escape but is stopped by Azusawa. Now the Enomiya has outlived their usefulness, they have become a liability and Azusawa is there to tie up loose ends. I thought this guy was a hacker or something but it seems I’m way off. He’s an inspector so I guess it does make sense that he would be in good shape but I didn’t expect him to just easily beat the all time champion like it was nothing.

Well the impression I got was that Enomiya had been out of the game a while and was just using their status to intimidate people, obviously still capable of throwing down when needing to, but not when faced with someone with considerable strength and dexterity of their own. 

To be honest, I really didn’t bond with Enomiya at all. I just didn’t care about the character at this point so to me this part was a bit long. I would have been happy if they just dealt with it off camera and gave us the jist in some tidy little exposition blast. Maybe have Arata read it off an incident report. I would have preferred to see more of the Division 1 crew instead. Did you like it Matt?

I mean, it was fine, I absolutely understand why this series of scenes was here, we were given enough of an introduction to them in the previous episode that killing them off screen kind of would have been like “then what was the point of all that?” so in that respect I didn’t have any problems with it. But I can understand where you’re coming from, I feel like if this show was 23 minutes instead of double that having it resolved as an incident report would have been fine and a way to save screentime but considering how long these episodes are it felt ~somewhat~ necessary.

I personally disagree. Just because an episode is longer doesn’t mean otherwise irrelevant scenes suddenly become necessary.

And the, the election is over. Just like that. 5 second scene… I was all like whaaaaaa. But…huh…. Karina won by the way. No one cared that she was using a fake brain.

That didn’t bother me either, but I kind of liked how quickly they dealt with it, it’s kind of like how real politics feel all this build-up in the campaign that all ends with some numbers on a screen and someone new being in charge that doesn’t really change all that much in the grand scheme of things. The pointlessness of democracy in a peaceful society.

Obviously Bifrost was actually behind all this but why? Not sure. As far as I can tell it wasn’t to influence the outcome of the election. There were way easier ways to do it and Karina was likely to win anyways so they could have just done nothing. The main and possibly only goal was to not only reveal the existence of Ma-Karina but also show that it didn’t matter. I wonder where this is going. Or am I off track again? Not gonna lie, I had some trouble following this episode.

Bifrost to me is just a bunch of super powerful, super wealthy people pulling the strings on a level so incomprehensible to the layperson that they might as well be gods. Seems like they’re ‘betting’ on the outcomes of various things for their own benefits–and playing with the lives of the people in this city like they are poker chips on a board. It’s intentionally vague and oblique–at least that’s how I take it.

Also Kei isn’t in trouble cause the chief sneaky ended his suspension 5 minutes before he got involved in the case and didn’t tell anyone.

One thing I really did like is that Arata and Kei have very compatibility according to Sybil (and with their background it makes sense) but they decided to partner up anyways. Their relationship really does continue to be the strongest part of the show for me.

Any closing thoughts?

You only went and missed my favourite part of the episode! The conversation between Arata and Karina in the glass ferris wheel was fantastic, small moments like this as supremely smart people–one in a position of newfound power–confines in another about things like their own nature and what politics really means in a world like this was great. I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of intimacy between these two, which makes sense since in Episode 2 Arata compared her to himself in saying they were so much alike. I’m calling a romance subplot already! Also the colour and lighting in the scene was stunning, hey look Irina I mentioned the colour of a scene in an anime, are you proud of me?!

Yeah – I almost fast forwarded through that. My least favourite part of the show so far. The colours were a good clash to the colour story so far but all in all rather uninteresting. If there is a romance subplot, I’m not sure I’ll stick it out with this show.

I honestly didn’t like this episode much. The action was a touch drawn out, a lot of scenes seemed a bit contrived and the pacing was off, stretching certain moments past my interest and condensing others into confusion. This said, as I mentioned, I did get a bit lost a few times so it really may just be a me problem. I also don’t particularly like the softening of Karina’s character. I thought she was an invigorating antagonist that could have created some fantastic conflict .

I never really saw her as an antagonist really (maybe in the first episode she appeared) she seemed to fall somewhere in between. I thought this episode was great, weakest of the four so far thanks to the middling middle section which stretched credulity and my patience but still you could do far worse so I’m still happy!

This said, I still didn’t find the show too long despite double length and was (and remain) really interested in the overall story and what exactly is going on here. I’m looking forward to next week.

Psycho Pass s3 ep4 – Election These opening paragraphs are always the hardest part for me. Once you get into the review you can weave your thoughts through a recap of the episode and everything falls into place.

[amehanaaa]

How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days

Happy Friday! How else can we celebrate besides reading some more Nalu? I love them so much.

I haven’t heard much feedback here on Tumblr, but I hope for those who are reading, you’re enjoying it so far :) 

Let’s get this show on the road! (Also can be read here.) 

Chapter 3 – Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 Words: 3790 Summary: Lucy and Natsu are determined to take the necessary steps to fulfill their lifetime dreams. Little do they know, they have both given themselves 10 days to achieve it.

                                                   ——————–

While being an inactive firefighter is the last job Natsu wants to have, he is still required to act like an active firefighter. Minus the obvious, he is required to attend the end of the week staff meetings.

Not only is it a time to hear what the active firefighters have seen throughout the week—which Natsu is admittedly jealous of—it is also a time for updating numbers, distributing chores, and rechecking inventory.

Every Friday, Natsu finds himself paying attention until his colleagues are finished sharing their testimonies. Then, he starts counting how many carrots he can eat before his stomach starts making strange noises.

At exactly noon, the firefighters gather in the meeting room and listen to the fire chief's weekly spiel. Natsu mindlessly taps his fingers on the edge of the table.

"You know what I noticed yesterday?" the fire chief says. "A stain on the—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, interrupted by the station phone ringing. Natsu watches as one of his colleagues presses the phone against his ear. Natsu lifts a brow when the phone is extended to him.

"Hello?" he asks, confused at who would be calling him at this time.

"Natsu!" Lucy sings on the other end of the line. "I've missed you all day today!"

He winces at her loud voice. He glances at his colleagues, knowing fully well that they can hear her. He turns slightly away from them. "Uh, hey, Lucy. This is bad timing."

"You know, I just ate this salad—"

"Was everything alright with your roommate last night?" he interrupts her.

"She just wanted to show me the new books she bought!" she replies cheerfully.

"That's great," he responds. "Well, I have to go now. I'll talk to you once I'm off work, alright?"

"But, Natsu—"

He doesn't let her finish, setting the phone on the table. He lifts his gaze to find his colleagues staring at him, some with smug looks. Natsu clears his throat to slice through the awkward tension.

"Let's not talk about this again," he mutters. He turns back to the chief. "So, as you were saying?"

"Lu, are you listening to what I'm saying?"

Lucy looks up from her phone, blinking at Levy with a blank expression. "I was before Natsu texted me."

Levy puckers her lips in response. "I need you to listen to me here. I know you're having this relationship going on, but I need your advice for mine now."

"What do you mean?" Lucy tilts her head in confusion. "I think we both know the answer. Just tell Gajeel that you're not interested anymore."

"But I am still interested," Levy insists.

"Then why don't you tell him that?" Lucy counters as though it's obvious.

The two share a hard gaze. Lucy has begun to master the skill of maintaining consistent eye contact these past few days, so she isn't fazed. Levy, on the other hand, can only handle it for three seconds before she throws her hands in the air in defeat.

"Agh, fine! I'll tell him that we need to talk to tonight."

Lucy sends her friend a satisfied smile. "Baby steps."

A bell resonates behind them, signaling Lucy to step out of the way for an incoming customer. She decides to sit at a table nearest to the front counter. It's an unfamiliar feeling; it has been years since she could wander about Magnolia like this. Erza has never been one to permit her employees to have flexible schedules. But with the help of her experiment, she can finally visit Levy during her shift at the bakery.

Lucy watches as Levy places various breads into a paper bag. She is tempted to buy some herself, but a nearby plant pot catches her attention.

Once the customer has left, she points at the pot. "Are you selling that?"

"The pot or the plant?" Levy asks while reaching for it.

"Both," Lucy answers. She stands up to examine it, finding matted soil on top.

"My boss said something about it being a stubborn plant," Levy recalls. "He's been trying to grow it for weeks, but nothing has happened yet."

"I could take it off your hands," Lucy offers immediately. "I have an idea."

Levy lifts a brow at her eager friend. She knows that glint in Lucy's eyes—whatever it is, it's going to be good.

"You can just take it, then," Levy replies as she slides the pot to her. "I'm sure my boss won't notice that it's gone."

Lucy can't stop the grin forming on her lips. With all these ideas floating in her mind, she feels invested into the experiment like Natsu is invested into their relationship.

"Okay, I need to start going now." Lucy graciously takes the plant. "We're having a movie night tonight."

"Good luck!" Levy calls out as Lucy begins to leave. "Wish me luck with Gajeel tonight!"

"Good luck!" Lucy calls back over her shoulder. As a tingling sensation runs through her body, she makes her way to Natsu's place to start the show once again.

Meanwhile, Natsu takes a quick shower when he arrives back home. He doesn't want to think too much about what happened at work today. The thought that Lucy is clingier than he realized is enough for him to shiver.

Not that he sees a future with her, but he believes she has the potential to become something more if they try. But if she continues to show more toxic signs, he'll be ready to end their time together. After the ten days, of course.

These thoughts swirl in his mind as he watches a popcorn bag inflate in the microwave. The bag is almost ready when he hears several knocks on the door.

"It's open!" Natsu calls out as he pushes a button to stop the microwave.

"Smells like a movie theater!" Lucy enters the apartment and takes in a deep breath. She walks towards him to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, what are you holding onto?" he asks, noticing her hands behind her back.

"Here it is." She proudly holds it in front of her. "It's a plant getting ready to sprout!"

He tilts his head. "Why did you bring that here?"

"It represents our relationship," she explains, searching the apartment for a place to set it. "The more we water our relationship, the more we'll grow!"

She decides for one of the windowsills. "I'm going to leave it here, okay? We can watch our relationship grow together!"

Natsu has to bite his lip so he doesn't say the first thought that comes into his mind. He settles with his third thought instead. "Ah, well, that's cool. I appreciate the gesture."

Lucy turns around with a shining smile. "Let's start the movie."

All the lights switched off with three popcorn bags, the couple sit on the couch to start the movie. They share a blanket, although it's mostly Lucy using it. Natsu can only use a blanket for so long before the blanket itself becomes too hot.

The movie they picked out happens to be one of Natsu's favorites. Lucy mentions that she has watched it a few times, which causes him to be happier than he thought it would. This movie reminds him of the days he would come home from school and have all the free time in the world to simply watch movies.

"This is one of my favorite parts of the movie!" Lucy excitedly whispers, although her voice is loud enough to blend in with the volume of the movie.

"Yeah, me too," Natsu agrees, throwing in a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

Lucy looks over at him and watches his gaze focused on the screen for a few moments. She slightly leans closer to him. "What are you thinking about right now?"

Natsu glances at her, not having enough power to tear his eyes away. His voice comes off more like a question. "I'm thinking about the movie."

"But what's on your mind right now?"

"Well, the movie is."

Lucy leans in even closer. "Just the movie?"

The movie has become background noise as their eyes connect, which makes Natsu realize that he probably missed his favorite scene already. But as another tremor of electricity radiates between them, that doesn't matter as much as it would.

"Now I'm thinking about how beautiful you are," he says.

Lucy's eyes light up. "That was sweet. You're sweet."

She is about to lean against his shoulder, but he catches her lips instead. From what Natsu can hear, another one of his favorite scenes is about to come up. Before he becomes too lost into her lips, he pulls away.

With a warm face and warm lips, he reaches for her hand and turns back to the screen. "Okay, let's watch the movie now."

Natsu sinks further into the couch, secretly hoping that she received enough attention to the last the rest of the movie.

Much to his dismay, he isn't able to refocus due to Lucy occasionally shifting on the couch for a more comfortable position. Then, she has to use the restroom. After that, she goes behind him and massages his shoulders. By the time the movie is over, she has distracted him about thirty times.

"What a movie!" She sighs out as the credits start to roll. She stretches her arms and legs, extending them as much as they can.

"Yeah." He scratches the back of his head, unsure whether or not he should be annoyed that he didn't get the full movie experience. He chooses not to dwell on it too much knowing that he can just watch it again another day.

Natsu is about to call it a night, but Lucy speaks before he gets the chance.

"I love seeing characters be redeemed," she admits. She leans her head back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling. "It really shows their humanity, you know?"

Natsu watches her for a second before matching her posture. They sit next to one another, eyes settled above them.

"Would you say that the characters in the movie were redeemed or forgiven?" he asks.

"Being redeemed already shows that you're forgiven," she replies easily.

Natsu squints at the ceiling in confusion but is too intrigued at the topic to not delve deeper. "Mind explaining what you mean?"

Lucy pauses. Some part of her feels that she has no idea what she is saying, but another part feels confident enough to justify herself.

"Redemption is having your life transformed after you make a mistake," she begins. "I think forgiveness is a longer process that happens after you make the mistake. Sometimes it's even knowingly messing up.

"When you ask for forgiveness, you're acknowledging that your mistake exists. Through that, you learn compassion because your mistake is teachable now. Although it may be difficult, you can share the feeling with others, and guide them away from the selfishness you wish you avoided."

Lucy stops to look over at Natsu. His eyes are closed in order to absorb her words. He hums when he is finished processing, but she continues.

"Forgiveness is through expressing your regrets with sincerity. It's expressing that you're sorry that your mistake may have had the power to harm someone else. Sometimes we don't forgive because we're holding onto bitterness or we feel like the person doesn't deserve it.

"Therefore, I think forgiveness and redemption come out of a place of love. It starts like a tiny vibration. After redemption and forgiveness, everything about your life changes. It's a renewed, vibrating form of pure love. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's difficult to believe that's available to us, too," Natsu says, nearly taken aback by her words. He opens his eyes to look at her. "Lucy, do you realize how profound that sounded?"

Lucy returns his gaze with a bashful look. She can feel a blush scattering across her cheeks. Not only because of his genuine affirmation, but she wonders if her words revealed too much of her vulnerable thoughts.

"I feel like none of that made sense." She brushes herself off, just in case.

Natsu can't help but smile at her. As he sits up, he feels a sense of refreshment. This is his first time having a conversation like this with a person he is dating. Physical touch has always been what he relies on to form a closer attraction, but this is a whole new level of intimacy.

"You never fail to surprise me," Natsu blurts out.

Lucy feels her heart pounding in her throat. This developing feeling inside her chest is like an old friend. It only appears when conversations like this happen—real, intentional conversations. It happened so unexpectedly; it almost seems too good to be true.

She catches a glimpse of the time and finds that it's almost midnight. For the sake of both their hearts, she stands up from the couch.

"It's getting late," she starts.

Natsu nods—a hint of disappointment inside of him, although he isn't sure why—and walks her to the door. He leans against the doorframe, watching her step outside.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Lucy says.

Natsu continues to nod, but before she's too far away, he gently grasps her chin and brings her into his lips. They share a kiss—it feels just as real as their conversation.

Both of them can tell the feeling was different as they separate. They look at one another, the silence between them too heavy to ignore.

"Don't forget to water our plant," Lucy reminds him abruptly.

Natsu tilts his head back, laughing at the broken moment. "Yeah, I'll make sure it stays alive for us. Text me when you get back home."

Natsu stays outside of his apartment until Lucy enters the elevator. She is already dialing Levy's number by the time the elevator door is closing.

"You won't believe what happened tonight," Lucy immediately tells her.

"You always say that!" Levy exclaims on the phone. "Tell me what happened now!"

"I will when I get home," Lucy assures. She pauses after noticing that the elevator is slowing down and stopping at the next floor down.

As the door opens, she observes a man enter the elevator with her. She feels as though she recognizes him, but because it's late, she shifts closer to the wall and continues talking to Levy.

"These two days have been interesting, to say the least. Tomorrow, it's time to shift into second gear. But you know what, you were right. My article is going to be so much richer now that I have Natsu right where I need him."

"Lu, you're really becoming a different person through this!" Levy responds.

The elevator beeps as they reach the lobby. Without giving any attention to the man beside her, Lucy exits the elevator and makes her way out of the apartment complex.

As the door slides to a close, the man's deep breaths are louder than his pacing footsteps in the small elevator.

"What did I get myself into?" Gray groans and runs a hand through his hair. He pushes the button to his floor, forgetting the idea of going to see Natsu right now.

The size of the elevator seems to be shrinking each time it passes a new floor. Gray nearly jumps out when it reaches his floor. He is about to sprint into his apartment, but he is met with his best friend standing at the door and holding a bowl of popcorn.

"Natsu," Gray breathes out. "What are you doing here?"

"Popcorn," Natsu replies simply, extending the bowl out to him. "Leftovers from the movie night I had."

"With the girl?" Gray clarifies, moving past him to unlock his apartment. He can't bring himself to make eye contact with him just yet.

"Yeah. Her name is Lucy, by the way," Natsu responds. He doesn't hesitate to make his way into Gray's pantry and browse through his favorite midnight snacks.

Gray stares at his friend, suddenly feeling like his thoughts are trapped in an elevator. He isn't sure if he should tell Natsu that Lucy is playing him. Meaning, he would tell Natsu that he needs to end the relationship with her immediately.

On the other hand, he knows that Natsu is a man of his word. Although he doesn't want to see him getting hurt, Natsu will find a way to win this bet regardless.

Chewing on gummy fruit snacks, Natsu turns around with a grin. "This next week with her is going to be a breeze, Ice Princess. Start working on your speech for me."

Gray realizes the brightness in Natsu's eyes can't be ignored. He doesn't even remember the last time he saw Natsu genuinely smile like that.

But instead of letting his thoughts free, Gray snorts. "Don't get too confident yet. I won't be starting the draft until next week."

Natsu laughs, shaking his head. Since Lucy left his apartment, a feeling has been stirring in his heart. He can't put his finger on it just yet.

Little does he know, a feeling is stirring in Gray's heart, too. And none of it looks good.

                                                ——————–

Soon enough, Natsu and Lucy are waking up the next morning to day three. Luckily for Lucy, she gets to wake up at whatever time she wants.

Upon arriving at work, she has just finished swallowing the last bite of her bagel when Cana bursts out all of her questions.

"Tell me everything, Lucy! How was the movie night last night? How much did you drink? How late did you stay? Did you hook—"

"Everything is going the way I planned," Lucy answers shortly. "You'll have to read the rest on my article."

"That's not fair and you know it," Cana argues. "You get to see all of my behind the scenes!"

Lucy sighs with a defeated smile, not being able to hold the fight. "He's definitely invested enough where this next week is going to be a breeze."

"For him or for you?" Cana remarks.

"Definitely me," Lucy replies. "With the way I'm going to start acting today, I won't be surprised if he drops me sooner than the deadline."

Cana whistles, visibly impressed by Lucy's demeanor. Lucy reaches over to the computer and scrolls through her notes from the past few days. It's hard to believe that all of this has gone so smoothly.

Thankfully, Natsu's legitimate feelings have gotten easier to forget as the days go on. It's easy to detach her feelings after remembering her end goal, after all.

Cana is in the midst of explaining her wild Saturday night plans when Erza suddenly appears, interrupting their conversation.

"The notes you've written so far are great, Lucy."

Lucy faces her, concealing her surprise with a confident smile. She's been getting better at that lately. "Thank you, Erza."

"Are you doing anything tonight with him?" Erza asks.

"Yes," Lucy confirms. "He's making me dinner tonight."

"Wonderful. I know this is going to be gold. I look forward to the rest of your notes," Erza states before walking away.

Lucy is completely taken aback by the sudden affirmation. She shares a look with Cana before both of them burst out laughing.

The best part of the experiment so far is that Lucy has the luxury to end her Saturday shift earlier than ever before. Finally, she can leave the office during lunchtime.

On her way to a nearby restaurant, she begins to hear the rev of a motorcycle behind her. She glances over her shoulder to step out of the way. Her eyes widen when she realizes the bike is approaching her. She recognizes the sleek motorcycle from what feels like a lifetime ago.

As the owner parks his bike, Lucy quickly scans her surroundings to make sure she is safe enough to run if necessary. He removes his helmet while walking towards her. He stops when there's enough space between them for him to speak firmly without raising alarm.

Lucy examines the man, recognizing him from somewhere. "Have we met?"

"Are you using Natsu for your article?" he demands bluntly.

Lucy hesitates, instantly feeling her palms dampen. "Who are you?"

"I'm a close friend to him," he states. "I heard everything you said in the elevator last night. Do you realize what you're doing to him?"

Lucy swallows, her thoughts running a mile a minute. Although it kills her to speak to him this way, she has no choice but to make her job a priority. If hurting someone's feelings is the cost, then she is willing to do it.

"None of this is your business."

"I'm making it my business," he retorts. "Natsu is more than just a subject you can write for an article."

"What can I do for you not to say anything to him?" she asks, although she makes sure her voice doesn't waver. Not that she has the upper hand, but she is open to negotiating.

The man sets his gaze on her; his dark eyes are staring into her soul. Lucy can see that he is processing. She assumes it's a conflicting sense of loyalty, which she can definitely relate to right now. She doesn't hold back her surprise when he starts shaking his head.

"You know what… Nothing. I don't even know why I approached you."

With that, Lucy watches the man shove on his helmet and return to his bike. Before she can blink, he is already riding away. Not long after that, a heavy pit lands inside her belly. There's no way she can eat lunch after that.

Then, a sense of panic suddenly hits her. The direction the man went is in the same direction as the fire station.

Her palms are still damp as she hurriedly calls Natsu. She feels like each ring is long enough for his friend to ruin all her plans. He has ruined her plans four times when Natsu answers the call.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" Lucy asks as calmly as she can.

"I'm eating lunch at the station right now. You can come see me if you want," Natsu offers.

"I'll be right there," she tells him before hanging up.

Not wasting a second, Lucy extends her hand out to the street and enters a taxi. She wishes that the buildings moving past her would travel much faster.

She isn't sure what she will do if she finds Natsu's friend at the station already. She surely wasn't expecting this kind of spontaneity, but she is determined to make it before he does.

And if she doesn't, then her experiment and her job will be absolutely ruined.