#‘she’ll choose whoever she can’t survive without’

[madzthemenace]

the only reason Katniss pays attention to Gale in Mockingjay is because Peeta isn’t there LOL

[wistfulweaverwoman]

“She loves you, you know,” says Peeta. “She as good as told me after they whipped you.” “Don’t believe it,” Gale answers. “The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell . . . well, she never kissed me like that.” “It was just part of the show,” Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice. “No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.” There’s a long pause. “I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.” “You couldn’t,” says Peeta. “She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.” “Well, it won’t be an issue much longer. I think it’s unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it’s Katniss’s problem. Who to choose.” Gale yawns. “We should get some sleep.” “Yeah.” I hear Peeta’s handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. “I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.” “Oh, that I do know.” I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

What an odd conversation for these two boys to have. Interestingly I think Gale already knows the answer. It must be on his mind often, the way he promptly mentions the beach kiss. The conversation Katniss and Peeta have directly before the kiss says just about everything we need to know about who Katniss thinks she needs.

“No one really needs me,” he says, and there’s no self-pity in his voice. It’s true his family doesn’t need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. “I do,” I say. “I need you.”

[thewriterlyowl]

During my rereading I notice Katniss imply some sexual awakening when she hugs or kiss Peeta (especially in beach scene). I don’t recall she mention such things about the Other Guy.

This is because she actually WANTS Peeta and only gives Other Guy affection when he’s in pain or he’s lowkey manipulating her into feeling bad for not wanting him.

Think about it, she’s been his friend for at least four years. During that time she’s smiled at home, been around him, presumably touched him. When he hugs her during their goodbye? Nothing, except for observations on how his body smells (I think? The man is so unremarkable honestly I’ve read this books dozens of times and still need to fact check everything he does). When she hugs him on their return, still nothing. When he kisses her in CF, confusion. When she kisses him, again with the clinical observations. Then she wants him to forget it. Then in the last one, she specifically says their kisses taste of “heat, ashes and misery”, which is so unbelievably depressing I almost feel sorry for him.

And honestly, he knows that Katniss doesn’t want him. It’s why he says that she’ll choose whoever she can’t survive without. He knows that most of their relationship is based on survival, but that if she feels obligated to someone she’ll do whatever it takes to protect them, including kissing Other Guy because he’s in pain. Where Peeta by that point isn’t sure whether their relationship was due to love or survival because he’s been given examples of both. Lover Katniss vs Survival Katniss. But Other Guy has only seen Obligated Katniss or Survival Katniss. He doesn’t know what her desire looks like. I feel for Katniss when she says it’s cold for him to say it and for Peeta not to refute it, but that’s how Other Guy sees her, and the best he can hope to get for her. Poor Peeta doesn’t really know whether he’s loved or not, which is why he doesn’t.

He also recently asked Katniss whether he could grow wings, so there’s that.

But yes, she only ever feels attraction to Peeta and pretty much consistently affirms that it makes sense for other people to be attracted to Other Guy, but never includes herself in that group.

[daisytrails]

i think there is something interesting in gale saying “katniss will choose whoever she can’t live without”. as we see in her reaction to that statement, he was wrong, but not completely. all she has ever been allowed to do or allowed herself to do was survive. gale knows that he understands that because he too has been living like that to some degree. but i think where he goes wrong in that assessment of her is that he has failed to see how the rebellion has changed her. from the ages of 11-17 she has not allowed herself to do anything purely out of want. had they still be living under snow’s rule indefinitely, had there been no rebellion, survival would have been a part of her reasoning. she even thinks through it in the first two books, which one would help her survive more than the other. but after arriving in 13 and fully joining the rebellion as the mockingjay, that thought process begins to stop. you see her start to dream of a future where she doesn’t have to live her whole life just to survive. she starts to understand that if she pulls it off now, one day she’ll be able to be free of it all. gale doesn’t feel this change in her. i can’t really blame him for missing it because most of it is internal and it’s safe to say he had his hands full with the rebellion. it’s just interesting to look at this factor of how they grew apart.

[raxistaicho]

Who GW Claude really is

Spoilers!

As we’ve seen by now, certain people - mostly Edelgard detractors - are raising a gigantic stink over the way Claude is portrayed in Golden Wildfire. I believe this is the result of three year’s worth of a misunderstanding of who Claude is being brought crashing down.

As I said in a few months-old post of mine, Claude is not an ally of Dimitri or the Church except when convenient;

So what of Azure Moon? That’s Claude at a desperate moment, and it’s not Dimitri Claude trusts, but Byleth. Similar to Edelgard, Claude seems to naturally want to trust Byleth regardless of route. This is most notable in Azure Moon and Crimson Flower, where Claude yields to the side Byleth has chosen.

But the route where the misconception that Claude and Dimitri would work together is most obviously expressed as false is Crimson Flower, where Dimitri is available for an entire five years for Claude to conclude an alliance with, and yet he doesn’t. Claude does not actively assist Dimitri or Rhea in toppling Edelgard; he instead feigns neutrality with the intention of playing kingmaker.

So what does this have to do with Golden Wildfire Claude? Well, he’s essentially Crimson Flower Claude but playable. Who was Crimson Flower Claude? He was a person stuck in the unenviable position of commanding the weakest country and caught in the middle of a war between two powers he simultaneously didn’t want to win.

In the other three routes, he’s only able to soften up to the Church of Serios,

because he has faith that Byleth can curtail in the worst aspects of it. This is true no matter the route; Byleth simply has a magnetic effect on all three Lords, regardless of the route. See how Dimitri pleads to know why Byleth sided with Edelgard in Crimson Flower.

Conversely, he understands - and he expresses this in his support with Edelgard in Hopes - that if she crushes the Kingdom - which she intends to do because it’s too interwoven with the Central Church to leave as-is - then she’ll be in a position to do whatever she likes with the Alliance, and Claude needs the Alliance to be strong, as it’s his only source of influence in Fodlan. Without it, he can’t fulfill his ambitions.

Of course, he does end up losing in the end, so he’s forced to cut his losses and leave (and this is a post for the future, but he seems more at-ease giving Edelgard his goodbye than he does Dimitri).

But in Golden Wildfire, Byleth is on neither side. He wants neither Edelgard nor Rhea to win. Edelgard will conquer the Alliance, as I discussed earlier, and Rhea will come down hard on the Empire and expand the power of the Central Church. Neither of these results are something he wants.

Therefor, he, being the person in control of the weakest nation, has to essentially stalemate the war by taking out the Central Church with the Kingdom intact. That way, the Kingdom remains as a buffer against the Empire, but the Central Church can’t further its power. This is also congruent with his nature as someone who tries to find the least-bloody way that he can,

But naturally, in two routes this doesn’t work and he’s forced to just cut his losses and hope for the best by siding with the stronger power. This is different from Three Houses, where he’ll take the weaker side of the war, because Claude’s willing to take a gamble when the chips are down and he’d rather whichever side Byleth chose wins than allow Edelgard without Byleth to win. If he has to choose between Edelgard without Byleth and Rhea without Byleth, he’s essentially being forced to choose between two equally bad outcomes, so he just chooses whoever seems most-likely to guarantee his survival so he can try to make something work in the aftermath.

So yeah, people who perceived Claude as someone who would side with Dimitri or the Church when it came down to it misread him. Just like Edelgard and Dimitri, he’s someone who wants to do things his own way, and he can only do that in a world where those two don’t win. Though, that said, he does seem more amenable to choosing Edelgard over Rhea, for understandable reasons; their ideals are fairly similar in ways.

[fxlling-slxwly]

This discourse is 10+ years late but after rewatching the Hunger Games series, i have yet more proof as to why Peeta and Katniss are soulmates & as to why Gale was never right for her. In Mockingjay Part 2, when they think Katniss is sleeping, Gale says to Peeta that she’ll choose “whoever she can’t survive without.” He views her primarily as someone unemotional who makes decisions based off survival.

This has never been true for Katniss. THIS is why her ending up with Peeta was so right. Yes, she’s a survivor. But she needs safety, she craves safety. Peeta has always offered her that. When she starts having nightmares about the games, Peeta comforts her, he holds her whilst she falls back to sleep. When they’re apart in Catching Fire, she’s on edge, she feels unsafe, she’s only able to relax when they’re together. In Mockingjay Part 1, she has nightmares and can’t go back to sleep because she knows Peeta isn’t there to comfort her.

Even when he’s not himself in Part 2, she feels more comfortable when she can see him, when she knows where and how he is. After the death of Finnick, she tells him to “stay with me” “always” he responds. There are countless moments when she shows her reluctance to leave him, because apart, neither of them are safe.

Towards the end, her return to the village and seeing Peeta planting Primroses. That feels safe. It IS safe. Later on, they’re together in the doorway, looking out on the rain. Safe. Even later, the thunder is storming & she walks to the room he’s staying in. She gets into his bed and he immediately holds her.

He knows that what she wants and needs more than anything isn’t survival. She can do that on her own. It’s safety. THAT is what Gale failed to understand throughout their life. THAT is why Peeta and Katniss are so perfect for each other.

[toomanyfandomssss]

His Girl - Three

When Violet woke up on her first morning down on the ground she felt the familiar strong, muscular arms wrapped around her. When she opened her eyes all she saw was the bare chest she had been using as her pillow all night. She smiled to herself and cuddled even closer to him wanting to enjoy the feeling as long as she could.

Unfortunately it didn't last long as the loud voices outside of the drop ship woke up her boyfriend.

"Morning angel," were the first words he spoke. He look in the direction of the voices, "The hell is happening out there?" Bellamy stood up bringing Violet up with him. He kissed her cheek and looked at her as he said "Meet me out there once you gotten dressed gorgeous, can't let anyone see what's mine," his eyes glancing down at her cleavage that was on display due to the fact that she was only in a bra.

"But you're going out there, showing your abs off to all the girls who have been drooling over you since we got here," Violet said as she raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem fair to me," she added.

Bellamy leaned down to her level, slowly moving his head to her neck. He left a few open mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, making her knees go weak. As he lifted his head he whispered in her ear, "I'm all yours angel." With that he exited the ship leaving Violet with her heart beating rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.

✶✶✶

When Violet exited the drop ship she saw Bellamy taunting Wells once again. She rolled her eyes as she heard him say "You still don't get it do you chancellor?" She kissed him before walking off, feeling his eyes on her ass as she went.

"This is home now," Bellamy said. "Your fathers rules no longer apply." He walked over and snatched one of the shirts, making Wells lung forward to get it. Adam held him back before Bellamy stopped him. "Oh, no, no, Atom. Atom, hold up." He looked back at wells teasing him by dangling the shirt in front of him, "You want it back, take it." He smirked proud of himself, waiting for the other boys reaction.

Frustrated, Wells drops the pile of clothes cause a many of the teenagers to run and try to grab some. "Is this what you want? Chaos?"

"What's wrong with a little chaos?" Bellamy threw his shirt on before they all heard a loud scream. Both of the boys rushed over to see what was going on.

✶✶✶

Murphy was holding a girl over the fire, speaking up when he saw everyone head over. "Bellamy! Check it out. We want the Ark to think that the ground is killing us, right?  Figure it'll look better if we suffer a little bit first."

"Let her go!" Wells shouted, pushing Murphy to the ground. He looked at Bellamy, "You can stop this."

"Stop this?" he smirked, "I'm just getting started." Violet glared at him as Murphy jumped back up. attacking Wells.

"Bell this isn't okay, you can't let people get hurt just because you're on some power trip," she scolded shaking her head in disapproval. She went forward to stop the fight but was pulled back into a hard chest.

"Please stay out of this angel, I know what I'm doing." Bellamy whispered in her ear as he held her tighter to his chest.

Kids were cheering the fight on and all Violet could do was watch as she struggled to get out of her boyfriends tight grip. Wells had gotten the upper hand and had Murphy on the ground again as he turned back to Bellamy.

"Don't you see you can't control this."

Bellamy and Violet watched as Murphy got back up, this time with a knife. "You're dead."

"Wait!" Bellamy held his hand up. Violet let out a sigh of relief. That relief was short lived as Bellamy threw Wells a knife and said "Fair fight." And again, she was being held back from trying to help. Once again the boys squared up ready to fight each other. "This is for my father!" Murphy shouted as he went to cut Wells a second time. However, Wells was able to grab a hold of him, turning him around and holding his knife to Murphy's throat. "Drop it!" He shouted.

All of a sudden a voice sounded from the distance. "Wells! Let him go!" the princess demanded.

After Wells had thrown Murphy forward once more, he was about to get jumped again by said boy. Luckily this time Bellamy stopped him. "Enough, Murphy."

He and Violet rushed over to Octavia who was being supported by Monty. "Octavia are you all right?" Bellamy asked her, panicked. "Yeah," she said as she held onto him.

"Where's the food?" he questioned the other members of the group that went on the hike to Mount Weather.

"We didn't make it to Mount Weather."

"What the hell happened out there?"

"We were attacked!"

"Attacked? By what?"

"Not what. Who." "Turns out, when the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last grounder."

"Its true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors." People started murmuring to each other as Clarke continued, "The good news is that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us."

"Yeah, bad news is the grounders will."

Noticing someone missing, Wells spoke up. "Where's the kid with the goggles?"

Clarke looked at him. "Jasper was hit." "They took him." She looked down noticing something. "Wheres your wristband?" She questioned.

He looked at Bellamy and nodded at him as he said "Ask him."

Violet looked at Bellamy in disbelief. "Bellamy what did you do?" He looked at her, not answering. He didn't want her to know what he had done. What he had forced Wells to do. Her opinion of him mattered so much to him. But in order to protect the two people he loves most in this world, he has to do things like this.

"How many," Clarke asked very obvious pissed off.

"Twenty four and counting," Murphy answered her with a smirk.

Clarke shook her head in disapproval, "You idiots. Life support on the Ark is failing. That's why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wristbands, you're not just killing them. Your're killing us."

Bellamy stepped forward. "We're stronger than you think. Don't listen to her. She's one of the privileged! If they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners any more! They say they'll forgive your crimes, I say you're not criminals! You're fighters! Survivors! The grounders should worry about us!" His speech was met with many 'yeahs' from the crowd.

Bellamy's speech only made Violets insecurities go up. I'm privileged, maybe that's why he won't listen to me, she thought.

As Clarke and and Wells walked away, Bellamy made his way to his girls. When he saw the look on Violets face, he grew worried. "What's wrong angel?" She just shook her head and went to get something to clean up Octavia's leg with.

✶✶✶

Violet was crouched down in front of Octavia, cleaning her wound as Bellamy was standing above both of them. "What the hell was it," he asked O.

"I don't know, the others said it looked like a giant snake." Her words making Violet grimace.

"You could have been killed," Bellamy scolded.

"She would have been if Jasper didn't jump in to pull her out." Clarke's voice sounded from behind the three.

"You guys leaving? I'm coming too." Octavia went to stand up only to be pushed back down by her brother.,

"No, no. No way, not again."

"He's right. you're leg's just going to slow us down. I'm here for you." the blonde said looking at Bellamy.

"Clarke what are you doing?"

"Clarke what are you doing," Violet repeated the boys words.

"I heard you have a gun" Bellamy lifted up his shirt showing proof. Violet may or may not have checked him out while he did it. "Good, follow me."

"And why would I do that?"

Clarke turned back, "Because you want them to follow you, and right now they're thinking only one of us is scared." With that, she walked off.

Violet tried to discreetly follow after the blonde, failing miserably as her boyfriend noticed her escape attempt immediately, grabbing her arm. "And where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to go help them find Jasper."

"No way in hell"

"Bellamy"

"No" he tightened his grip on her arm.

"Just because we're dating doesn't mean you can control me," Violet told him. She was fed up with him acting like he could order her around.

"You want to bet on that angel?" Bellamy raised his eyebrow at his girl. Daring her to keep arguing with him.

"I'm going Bellamy. With, or without you." Violet managed to get her arm free and ran to catch up with Clarke and Wells. Bellamy growled lowly, angry and honestly turned on by his girlfriends little act of defiance.

"Murphy. Come with me." "Atom? My sister doesn't leave this camp. Is that clear?"

"I don't need a babysitter"

"Anybody touches her, they answer to me" "Lets go"

✶✶✶

"Angel wait up," Bellamy yelled. Violet rolled her eyes but stopped, waiting for the two boy to catch up. "You stay in my sight at all times"

"Whatever Bell"

"I mean it Violet"

"Okay, I get it. Let's just go find Jasper."

Murphy directed his question at Bellamy, "Since when are we in the rescuing business?"

"The Ark thinks the prince is dead. Once they think the princess is too, they'll never come down." "I'm getting that wristband, even if I have to cut off her hand to do it."

"And what about your pretty little angel here, she is Kane's daughter." Murphy looked over at Violet smirking and then winking at her.

"Come near me and I'll castrate you," Violet spoke trying to sound as intimidating as possible.

"My pretty little Angel will hopefully choose to take of her wristband soon," Bellamy said looking at her.

"My dad's up there Bell, I don't want him to think I'm dead." Violet said as she stared back at him with her big doe eyes. Bellamy nodded understandingly, pulling her close to him and kissing her cheek as the three walked together in search of the boy with the goggles.

Much more Violet/Bellamy interaction in this part! Hopefully I'll get a chapter or two posted everyday.

[therealvinelle]

I would 100 percent love a rundown of every vampire and how they would react to the option to be human again.

... every vampire..?

I guess we’re doing this.

Afton is more useless to the Volturi than ever. This changes nothing, in part because nobody notices. Afton dies of old age in a cry for attention.

Alec can have puberty?! Get tall? Have sex? Sign him the fuck up. Alec spends ten years as a human. Unfortunately it turns out he has the worst genes, so he stops at 5 feet and doesn’t grow an inch taller. He is Volterra’s short king. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the ladies still see him as a kid and would feel weird about sleeping with him, so no luck on that front either. (Somehow, Jane is both taller and gets all the hawt dewds)

Alice would not like this at all. Having a human is nice, that’s fun. Alice loves her Bella Barbie. Being a human? Oh god no.

Alistair’s whole thing is that he’s living as a hermit because he’s terrified of everyone and everything. If he became human again, he would still be a hermit, but lacking any of the survival skills or basic equipment that human hermits accrue he would quickly die out there in the wild.

Amun might just be the oldest vampire in the world, and he has been a god. Going back to being human would be too low, it would be the greatest humiliation imaginable. Hard no from Amun.

Anne was Victoria’s sister, the two girls were impoverished and Anne prostituted herself to feed them. Since she was executed by the Volturi within that same century, she would be returning to that same, horrible life. All the nopes, Anne gets her creator to turn her again.

Aro would be very practical about it, I think, and find someone to turn him back before the plague got him. Though I’m sure he’d be too curious not to try for himself the modern, global, human cuisine, so whoever was turning him has to sit by and wait while Aro drinks all the margaritas and eats all the sushi. And probably human flesh, gotta know what it tastes like from the other side

Athenodora has spent a very long time in that tower tripping on Corin’s gift. As she walks into the Volterra town square she has a full on Plato’s cave allegory epiphany, as she realizes that the tower was a fever dream and the real world is blurry and she doesn’t want to eat anybody. She comes to the conclusion that vampires aren’t real.

Bella would feel like Cinderella at the end of the ball, her beautiful gown turns back into rags and she’s an unworthy human again. Edward is overjoyed she smells delicious is fragile again and refuses to turn her back. Heartbreak ensues.

Benito invented newborn wars, he’s got a million enemies. He better become a vampire again immediately, or he’s dead.

Benjamin is the avatar, which is great. He lives in hiding because Amun has him convinced that Aro would enslave him, which is less great. Being human would not solve this.

Boris was living his best life being a fake Russian noble in the court of Versailles. Being a fake noble as a human is just not as fun, and he finds himself a vampire to get turned back.

Bree was miserable as a vampire, but her life wasn’t great to begin with. She was homeless and starving. I imagine she’d say no to humanity because she had nothing to return to, but this would be a survival move that had nothing to do with what she wanted in life.

Caius has no time for this nonsense, he turns back immediately.

Carlisle I’ve outlined in this post, but to repeat it here he is quite happy being a vampire, humanity has nothing to offer him. His ridiculously large network of friends would be put to good use once again as he tries to find someone who’ll turn him. (He has a surprisingly hard time, as no one wants to risk being the asshole who ate Carlisle Cullen. He eventually comes crawling back to a delighted Aro)

Carlisle’s creator is the lowest of the low, trash who lives in the slums, gets caught by humans, eats half a mob and then lets a newborn loose in the middle of London. This guy is a slob who does not have his life in order. Without vampirism, he starts shooting up under a bridge and dies within a few weeks. He does not get turned back into a vampire because nobody’s touching that.

Carmen would probably want a baby before turning back. The problem with trying to raise a human child as a vampire is that children bleed all the time. Eleazar Jr. scrubs his knee, Carmen goes full Cronus on her son, and Dostoyevsky is proud.

Charles... I don’t know if anybody agreed with my post on Renata, I for one think Luca is horrifying, and based on that Charles would turn back immediately because he’s not leaving Makenna on her own. Not to mention, Charles is one of the few vampires in Twilight who chose his fate.

Charlotte and Peter are living happily, thinking the Cullens are crazy for appreciating humans, so no changes there.

Chelsea might actually be a bit allured by humanity, since this way she can find out once and for all if she can form organic, normal relationships. However, she’s been a vampire for millennia, which makes it impossible for her to relate to humans. She makes no friends, and comes to believe that she is unlovable. She becomes a vampire again and, after an extended existential crisis, eventually becomes Marcus.

Corin would want to try all the human drugs. Gotta find out if weed is better than she is! Unfortunately half of Volterra is hooked on her, and she’s turned before she can find a good dealer.

Didyme would immediately suffer a brain aneurism, and die. Marcus becomes Marcus, but this is ultimately the better timeline since Aro can mourn his sister normally.

Diego’s life was pretty much over since gang members were out to get him, so he’s not returning to humanity anytime soon. Although vampirism means that now everyone he meets is a potential gang member out to get him (indeed, Victoria gets him), so maybe humanity would appear comparatively peaceful.

Demetri seems to be having a cool time being a vampire, so back into the ranks of the unholy he goes.

Edward, oh boy. I can’t imagine it, and I don’t want to.

Eleazar is a pretty self-righteous and sanctimonious fellow, I am sure he would not only choose to remain human, but talk about how noble it is that he’s staying human. He would not enjoy being human.

Emmet would be a miserable human, but to turn back would be to turn his back on Rosalie, and so he would dutifully remain, even as he grew to resent her for it. Once again I have a post.

Esme would not want humanity given the choice, but if she suddenly is human then provided Carlisle was as well, I imagine she would want to get a do-over. However, trouble is that if she wants to have a baby, then she’ll have to stick around with said baby as well. Sticking around means remaining human. Honestly, I’m not sure where that would go. Terrible places once Carlisle runs off to Italy, I’m sure.

Felix is another dude who seems pretty happy with vampirism. He sticks his hand into the first fanged mouth that he can find.

Fred is having a good time as well now that he has left Victoria’s army, no arguments here.

Garrett seems quite happy to be a vampire, although he enjoys new things enough that I think he’d want to spend a few years experiencing things from this human perspective. Alas, he’d have pictured the life human influencers and fictional humans were leading - it can’t be too far off, right? Well, real humans need jobs and housing and health insurance. One thing leads to another, and Carlisle finds himself bankrolling Garrett’s human adventures.

George is a seriously amazing guy who goes around pretending to be a demon called Astaroth and making fake demon deals with people. He’s an amazing conman, but his whole schtick depends on being a vampire, so it wouldn’t work if he were human. Vampirism it is.

Heidi apparently lived a terrible life as a human and was pity-turned into a vampire, so I don’t think she’d have any happy associations with humanity at all. She buys the first ticket back to damnation.

Hilda was a feminist bleeding heart who made suffering women invulnerable. Vampirism, to her, seems to have been salvation, with humanity a miserable state. Hard no from Hilda.

Huilen didn’t want anything to do with this supernatural horrorshow that killed her sister, and I imagine she’s one of the few who’d actually fare well as a human again, even though time has passed.

Irina drowns her Laurent-shaped sorrows in booze and men.

James would be furious with everything for letting this happen to him, and want to be turned back again.

Jane, like Alec, is overjoyed that she can have puberty again. This works out great for her. Like a middle school goth phase, she sort of pretends that whole 1200-year-stint as an actual twelve-year-old didn’t happen, going “oh, yeah... that” when it’s mentioned.

Jasper isn’t eating people anymore, praise Jesus. I think he’d actually fare quite well, he’d become a dusty professor in philosophy at some college and the violence would truly be behind him.

Joham is a monster and I imagine his children would eat him before he could get turned back. Good on them.

Kachiri is quite happy with Senna and Zafrina, she wouldn’t want that to change.

Kate loves Garrett very much, but there are all these human men she won’t have to worry about killing..?

Kebi was a slave who was chosen by Amun to be... well, his slave forever. As an unchanging vampire she’s stuck, but humanity could represent real hope for her, the only hope, really. Hard yes from Kebi.

Kristie is one of the two Victoria recruits who managed to turn the army into a high school, where you were either in the right clique or you were a square. Kristie is clearly an opportunist who’ll make the best of any situation, human or vampire.

Kumboh is a highly eccentric vampire who works in a mental hospital and gets attached to the humans there, to the point where he dies for one. This is not a man I can predict.

Laurent spent his existence in a pursuit of power without understanding what power is, and ended up stuck with the white trashiest vampires ever to white trash. Several logical leaps based on 18th century French Versailles logic later he endeavors to marry into the British royal family.

Liam is living quite happily with his wife and surrogate daughter, and even if he wasn’t then Siobhan is going to want her hubby back. And what Siobhan wants, Siobhan gets.

Luca is quite happy being the family patron who sometimes takes niece-brides (or family demon who keeps stealing their daughters), so he would want his fangs back. But, I’m sorry but I think he’d seize the opportunity to impregnate one of his descendants, because if this guy is all about preserving his family line then I can’t imagine he’d be able to resist a son.

Lucy, like Maria, would be in so much trouble. Honestly, I think Maria would eat her immediately. Easiest way to get rid of competition.

Maggie might want to grow a bit older and less emaciated before turning, but like Liam, Siobhan’s gift would see to it that the coven became whole again.

Makenna wanted vampirism once, I imagine she’d want it again. She seems quite happy with her life.

Marcus is finally able to kill himself. Happy days.

Maria would be in so much trouble. She is a human in newborn war territory, all the vampires around her have terrible control, and the ones with good enough control to turn her are enemy army leaders who want her dead. She is forced to make a phone call to Jasper and ask if he can put in a good word with Carlisle.

Mary (Carlisle’s friend), it’s been over a century and she’s still living alone. Sounds lonely, so maybe she’d be down for the change.

Mary (Hilda’s coven) is living that feminist liberation life with Hilda, and humanity would throw her right back into poverty and misery. Big nope.

Nettie would be eaten by Jasper, since Maria already ate Lucy.

Noela is a member of Hilda’s coven, meaning her life was awful. She would not want it back.

Peter is living happily ever after with Charlotte, it’s a good life. Peter does not want things to change.

Randall was turned in the 1960′s, so I’m sure he’d want some of that sweet weed again.

Raoul was a gangbanger and humanity is better off without him. So are vampires.

Renata had awful circumstances around her turning, and nothing to return to. Her human family either sold her out or were unable to protect her, my money’s on them thinking that her fate was a great honor, and either option makes them someone I imagine she has put behind her. As it is now, she has purpose with the Volturi, and no one is making her be anybody’s bride. She would not want things to change, nevermind becoming human.

Riley thinks he has found true love and glorious purpose, and would remain the way he is.

Rosalie would be delighted, but she has poured years of bitterness and crushed dreams into the dream of the perfect human life. Reality wouldn’t live up to her ideal and this time she can’t blame vampirism. I think she’d start drinking.

Santiago presumably has an alright time being a vampire, he has purpose and community with the Volturi. No changes here.

Sasha wanted a big ol’ family, turning first her niece and then women who resembled her niece enough to look like her sisters, so I imagine that, like all good Denali women, she’d seduce a sexy human male and give herself a few more daughters. Disaster would ensue if they were sons, or not blondes.

Senna is living happily with her girlfriends, let nothing disrupt that.

Siobhan’s life is great, with her gift her life will be as she wishes it to be, and she seems to truly enjoy being a vampire. It wouldn’t even be a question for her.

Stefan and Vladimir (no, they don’t get individual entries) are has-beens. Without vampirism, they would be greater has-beens than ever. This makes Aro’s century, and he makes it clear to the vampire world that no one is to turn these two back. Their lives suck and then they die.

Sulpicia is above pesky human sustenance, the mere thought is revolting. She accidentally starves herself to death.

Victoria would be at once more and less paranoid. Her gift isn’t going haywire telling her about all the danger, but she’s a human, so all is danger. I think she’d start drinking too.

Victoria’s NPC army recruits are newborns who love that sweet sweet blood, ain’t nobody turning their back on that.

Tanya would be so fucking happy, oh my god. She can bang all the dudes, and she won’t have to worry about killing them! She forgets that human women have to worry about STDs and pregnancies. Now she has chlamydia and a baby.

Tia’s big problem is that she’s stuck living with this ancient and bitchy loser who takes himself way too seriously. Vampirism on its own is great, she’s down for that.

Unnamed tracker formerly employed by the Volturi was relieved of his duties in the most “oops, you’re useless now” way possible. That hurts your self esteem. Becoming a powerless human would hurt it even more. Unnamed tracker formerly employed by the Volturi does not want this.

Vassilii would grow up, and have a host of issues because being a toddler with memories of bloodthirst and killing people is bad for child development.

Zafrina is having a great time with her girlfriends and her illusions. And it’s been a very long time since they were human, I don’t think anything remains of their culture. At least not anything they’d recognize.

Hope this answers your question, anon...

Edit: Added Carlisle’s Creator, Sasha, and Vassilii. If I’ve missed anybody else, let me know.

Edit 2: Added Bree, Diego, Frank, Kristen, Raoul, Riley, and Victoria’s NPC army recruits.

[ct-multifandom]

Miracuclass Amogus Cringe

I was going back and forth about making this post, but then I saw @charming-mage ‘s and I was like screw it we’re doing this. This ended up 10x longer than I thought it’d be.

Marinette (crewmate) - tries to organize everyone into a buddy system to corner the impostors, gets frustrated when people agree to her plan and then start running rogue. When discussions start she’s leading the conversation and asking the most questions. She greatly prefers crewmate over impostor because she likes the mystery solving element of discussions.

Marinette (impostor) - whenever she kills someone she goes, “ahhhh” out loud and panics while her avatar sprints away from the body. She likes coming up with convoluted plans, especially when she can communicate with her fellow imp(s), and tries to make it seem like she’s in two places at once wether it be through venting or falsified testimony.

Adrien (crewmate) - he has to unmute and ask how to do like every individual task to the point where he’s been voted out over it before because cmon, you’ve gotta be lying about it at this point, just piece it together and stop unmuting during task time. He makes puns and sings little improvised songs while tasking. When he suspects someone but they don’t get voted out, he offers to tail them at the cost of his own safety. Same with fixing sabotages late-game. To him, getting killed is just part of the game progression, and it’s not a big deal because he trusts his fellow crewmates to avenge him and doesn’t mind ghost-tasking.

Adrien (impostor) - okay maybe he lies about not knowing tasks sometimes. But it also took him a while to learn imp mechanics and he kept asking about them out loud like, “what’s the red square task on the floor? Why’s my name highlighted?” And somehow nobody noticed while his partner(s) were like nggggg Adrien no... At least he’s good at playing innocent/fake-detective-ing in discussions. Whenever he kills someone he makes some stupid one-liner about it out loud.

Alya (crewmate) - we got Sherlock Holmes over here. She overanalyzes every tiny detail and isn’t scared to sacrifice the sus for the greater cause. When she finishes tasks, she likes to hang out by security and snoop in case of the rare satisfaction of catching someone red-handed. If there’s an emergency meeting, it’s probably because she probably saw something. She supports Crewinette’s plans to corner the imps. She thinks tasks wins are boring and that it’s a lot more fun to win through voting correctly. If they task-win or lose she stops before the new game and asks who the imps were and for a recap of their actions.

Alya (impostor) - a force to be reckoned with. She’ll wait for the perfect moment to strike someone, and then cover her tracks, join a group and win herself a strong alibi anyways. Her reputation as a ruthless detective protects her, even when the game is set to show that the ejected person was innocent. She always chooses someone to kill and someone to blame for it, but sometimes she gets carried away and they vote her off for pointing too many fingers.

Nino (crewmate) - he’s just tasking, man. If he gets killed he’s like, “oh mf” and just keeps ghost-tasking. He mostly hangs out during the discussions unless he has something solid to say, only jumping in at the end to confirm, “so we’re voting for _?”. He leads his own little crewmate squad around when he finishes tasks to protect them while they finish theirs.

Nino (impostor) - mostly plays off the strategy of his partner(s). He likes playing the protective team-player type “innocent diversion” role while the partner(s) get to killing, so when discussions start he’s totally in the clear, which gives him an opening to dodge suspicion in the future if he needs to take over killing. He pretends to fix sabotages all the time because people rely on him to do that as a crewmate.

Max (crewmate) - freakishly good at the card scanning task. People always ask for his secret and he’s like? It’s so easy? He has every map memorized to a t so he can point out the contradictions in people’s stories like an ace attorney character. It’s surprisingly really helpful. He’s the opposite of Alya in that he’s a big supporter of the “guys, stop voting off random innocent people, we have like five tasks left. Whoever hasn’t done them, just finish them” strategy.

Max (impostor) - he tries his best to protect his partner(s) in the discussion while laying low himself, and sometimes he gets voted out for it, but if he senses that there’s nothing he can do, he’ll throw them even further under the bus to build credit for himself. He doesn’t like sacrificing innocents as a crewmate, so his defenses are only sus when he’s caught being wrong. He sabotages a lot to control people’s movements and vents liberally unless he committed to a tasking group. That being said, he can go whole rounds without killing out of caution.

Kim (crewmate) - he’s the guy who calls emergency meetings early into the game only to say, “I miss you guys :)” He gets voted out all the time for doing troll-y crap and ignoring Crewinette’s plans. He’s also severely confused by some of the tasks and game mechanics, but fakes it till he makes it, until the discussion where he rarely says anything valuable and just jokes around. Sometimes, though, he’ll offer a tiny offhand detail and everyone’s like Kim, I hate to say it, but you’re a genius or that’s the piece we’ve been missing! And he’s like haha ok. He’s always behind on tasks, sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of confusion, but he’s one of the people Max is impatiently waiting on.

Kim (impostor) - he gets caught in the act a lot and it’s hilarious, but other times he gets away with everything the entire time, which is kinda scary. He’s weirdly good at introducing so much confusion and derailment to discussions that everyone gets totally lost and doesn’t know what’s going on, allowing him to survive when they could’ve easily figured him out. Unlike Max, he knows literally nothing about the maps and always says he was at the “slidey thing” or whatever and everyone’s like idk wtf the slidey thing is, and if this were anyone else they’d be gone immediately, but it’s Kim so he might actually be telling the truth. He refuses to learn the names of anything because this really helps him out.

Alix (crewmate) - always trying to convince her friends to experiment with ridiculous game settings. Occasionally, she gets to them, and they get games with comically unbalanced imp:crew ratios, awful lighting, an overwhelming load or lack of tasks, or hilariously low cool downs. She revels in the chaos. When she tasks she usually moves from place to place alone but tries to hop in with groups to confirm her movements. She’s pretty good at sussing imps out when they offer enough information, but otherwise she just makes goofy comments with Kim.

Alix (impostor) - not too worried about killing people and venting. She moves fast and dashes from place to place, joining a group on the opposite side of the map from her last body. If anyone says, “I saw someone vent but I didn’t see who” it was probably her. She likes the “stand in a clump and watch the chaos ensue when one person drops” technique as well as the gambling “hope that the UI for the task everyone’s doing covers your killing and venting” strat. Sometimes she’s forced to vent to a dead end and gets caught, and sometimes the big brain detectives catch her, but she’s usually pretty smooth.

Rose (crewmate) - a big fan of hide and seek mode. She likes grouping up for tasks, protecting each other at the cost of efficiency. During discussions, she has a hard time believing anyone’s the impostor, and everyone’s like, Rose, we know there are exactly three of them, you can’t defend every individual person. Whenever she gets killed she is like *gasp* et tu, Brute? No matter who it was.

Rose (impostor) - runs around with her squad when... oops... looks like something got sabotaged! Uh oh, wonder who could’ve done that? She’s in a battle against that task bar more so than the players, and tries to stay away from killing. She emulates crewmate behavior perfectly so no one ever suspects her until really late. If she’s the only imp left and she has to kill, it’s like an Agatha Christie locked room mystery level of drama and betrayal within her squad. But we were all together the whole time... omfg no way... it was one of us.

Juleka (crewmate) - she secretly prefers when everyone tasks alone, but goes with the squad for Rose. She only talks in discussions if she’s 100% sure about something, and she often incomprehensibly mumbles vital evidence. ~10 minutes later when they catch the imp she’s like iItoldyouso and the crew’s like ??? If she gets killed and her tasks are done, she haunts that impostor relentlessly. Sometimes she even organizes ghost brigades in ghost chat and gets everyone to follow them.

Juleka (impostor) - definitely gets a kick out of the kill button. Whenever she takes someone down she’s like heeheehee. If she was peer pressured into a task team again, she’ll anxiously try to slip away unnoticed for a second to catch someone in the hallway outside, but if she’s alone, she’s on a hunt. Nobody is safe. When she defends herself on voice chat she also mumbles incomprehensibly and everyone’s like sure, fair enough.

Mylene (crewmate) - seasoned task group leader. She also sings little task songs like Adrien. She tries to organize people into chatting regular status updates so they can tell if someone goes missing. She reports every body she finds and actively participates in the discussion, but whenever she makes good points, she gets overlooked. Then, the crew’s like Mylene, why didn’t you say anything sooner? And she’s like agjdjdhh Either that or she gets voted off for always reporting and being too eager to discuss on top of it.

Mylene (impostor) - gets her partner(s) inside her team and tries to tag-team anyone passing by, only for all the impostors to have alibis when she reports. If the ratio is right, they can destroy their own group, and then immediately point the finger at whoever is left, which works about half the time. Mylene is a pretty convincing actress, but the high IQ tricks only work a couple times.

Ivan (crewmate) - he’ll take one for the team if he has to, especially in those sabotage cases where you’d have to be isolated and vulnerable. Otherwise he’ll protect his group. He has an “innocent until proven guilty” attitude when he runs into other people on the map, and skips during a lot of the votes.

Ivan (impostor) - we all know he can’t lie to save his life. He usually gets voted out really fast if he kills someone because he gets nervous and starts saying contradictory things when questioned. That being said, he’ll do what he can to keep his partner(s) in the clear. He never vents because the risk is too high for him, instead just running around and saying, “sorry” out loud when he catches a victim.

Nathaniel (crewmate) - he’s the opposite of Adrien in that he’ll do anything to avoid getting killed. He runs around tasking on his own, but he’s usually behind because he’s so focused on avoiding everyone, to Max’s frustration. He also never reports bodies. This causes him to be sus at all times, so he gets voted out a lot. Wild Nath sightings are rare and terrifying because he’s never in the clear and he’s just standing there, menacingly. Imp!Alix sees him as a fun combo of Where’s Waldo and Assassin.

Nathaniel (impostor) - the millisecond that cool down timer runs out, someone is getting killed. Hit and run. He’s good at entering a fairly crowded large space, striking, and staying in everyone’s blind spots while he runs away, especially when the lights are out. He likes venting to isolated areas and killing as many people per round as he can, laughing when someone finally reports and everyone unmutes to go WHAT!? at the number of deaths. He tends to operate separately from his partner(s) unless they have an actual plan.

Chloe (crewmate) - gathers every single person in medbay and makes sure they all watch her scan. Yeah okay, we get, you’re a crewmate. She feels personally offended whenever someone kills her, which is often, since people tend to jokingly target her. During discussions, she accuses anyone and everyone of being sus, even if she just walked past them or saw them tasking alone. She likes stalking people as a ghost and spilling tea in ghost chat.

Chloe (impostor) - reacts similarly to Marinette when she kills. She will throw her partner(s) under the bus if it’s more advantageous in the long run, and she’s great at shifting the blame to innocents. People vote her out a lot anyways, and she says she can’t believe that they even like this stupid little game. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Unless she wins. Then it’s fun.

Sabrina (crewmate) - discussion detective supreme. She keeps track of every piece of evidence and testimony, every detail. She tails the sus at a distance, trying to catch them doing something. Sometimes it gets her targeted, but sometimes she catches them and calls emergency meetings to snitch. Somehow she manages to do this and finish her tasks at the same time.

Sabrina (impostor) - sabotages everything, and tries to get her partner(s) to do it too. Once she won because the crew just didn’t fix O2 in time. She avoids killing Chloe, but feels bad if she has to kill anyone else too. She typically just sticks to making other people seem suspicious, and likes the game mode where you can’t see if you voted correctly or not.

Lila (both) - she rarely joins these games. She isn’t even a member of the chat group they use. They occasionally invite her, and she usually lies about how busy she is, but she accepted a couple times to further her narrative. She pretends to be really bad at being an impostor to establish herself as someone incapable of trickery. Regardless of her role, whenever the body announcement pops up, she goes, “oh nooo, not [victim(s)]... nooo....” and Mari’s like stfu Lila.

Bonus Polaroid kids because,,, they <3

Kagami (crewmate) - hella efficient at tasks. Two discussions in and she’s done. She’s the interrogation specialist who stresses out the imps and crew alike with her barrage of questions. She likes moving either alone or in partners, three people maximum, unless Crewinette needs her, in which case she’ll stick to the plan no matter what.

Kagami (impostor) - you’re walking through the base / there’s no one around and comms are down / out of the corner of your eye you spot her / Kagami Tsurugi. She will have you cornered and you won’t be able to do anything about it. She always has a made up explanation for what she was doing, but sometimes it falls through solely because she’s always acting sus.

Luka (crewmate) - he likes crewmate a lot more than impostor. He’ll tag along with a task group until he’s done, and then he’ll go lurk in the corner and spy on people. He moves along the walls, and a few times this has led to him witnessing murders in the middle of the room while the imp only saw him after it was too late. Cue the mad dash for emergency meeting.

Luka (impostor) - works together with his partner(s) to perform some high level backstabbery. He rarely gets voted out unless he messes up because he builds bonds of trust with like half of the crew while he leads the rest into his partner(s)’ traps. He feels bad about killing sometimes, but he doesn’t mind sabotaging.

Zoe (crewmate) - she finds one or two other people she trusts and follows them around. She uses the logic of “well we could’ve both killed each other by now but we didn’t so they must be safe”. She immediately recounts everything that happened to her that round in discussions, even irrelevant details, just in case they might end up useful, and tends to bandwagon with voting.

Zoe (impostor) - tries to catch people in secluded corners or rooms with closable doors to kill them. She avoids taking risks, but sometimes she reports her own bodies and tries to act all surprised by the discovery. She’s a good actress, but she’s not the best bs artist, although the crew is used to her giving a ton of details right from the start, so they don’t suspect her unless there’s a hole in her story.

Marc (crewmate) - does tasks on his own but makes sure to stop near crowds when he can. Whenever he’s running around alone and sees someone else, he immediately turns around like ohmygodohmygod and anxiously dances around the other person who’s more than likely just another, equally anxious crewmate with places to be. He still gets killed a lot.

Marc (impostor) - he goes full anime villain mode. All according to keikaku. He’s one of those people who disproportionately rolls the impostor role and ends up with it like twice every five games. He plans out every move he’s gonna make, every complex lie and big brain play, and sometimes he gets that glorious evil win, but sometimes his plans are totally sabotaged by stupid things like Kim’s trolling.

[heliads]

A Pretty Thief

After Race stumbles upon what has to be the most charming pickpocket in the entire city of New York, he’s sure he has to get to know her. It’s a good thing he’ll soon get his chance.

masterlist

Race is almost sure he didn’t see it at all.

Had he moved a foot to the left, had he blinked, he probably wouldn’t have seen anything. It was quick, hands moving with the grace of a trained pianist. Not that Race would know- he’s not exactly known for hanging around establishments with a caliber high enough to warrant a pianist. No, the Sheepshead Races are his kind of entertainment, not the top level businessmen who choose to frequent the orchestra and concert halls.

It is precisely this kind of man that Race has just seen pick-pocketed. The theft was probably the smoothest he’s ever seen- a quick slide of the hand across a back pocket and it was like watching the man’s wallet leap into the awaiting palm of the thief. The thief, as it happens, not the usual scruffy boy but a girl. That’s probably why she caught Race’s attention even before she liberated the man’s wallet- she’s pretty. Far prettier than the usual thieves Race has seen on the streets.

She glanced up once at him, as if she could sense his thoughts on her. She looked startled for a second, as if not used to being caught in the middle of a theft, then quickly regained her momentum. She flashed Race a cocky grin, tossing a wink like a penny to an awaiting newsie. Then she disappeared back into the crowd, gone in an instant despite the fact that there actually aren’t that many people on the street. Race is fascinated.

This, however, proves to be a mistake. In the time it takes for Race to linger in place, watching the pretty thief go, the man has discovered that his wallet is missing. He looks around frantically, searching for a possible suspect, and his eyes land on Race. Race watches as the man points a finger at him, the words shouting from his lips: “Thief! Stop him!”

Race pauses a moment. Surely he doesn’t mean Race himself, who’s just been standing here selling papes? But it does make sense, as few things on the streets ever make sense to bankers and street rats alike- who would steal a wallet, the couple of well-dressed shoppers or the boy dressed in worn clothes and hand-me-downs, selling papes at a couple of cents each in the hopes of not starving to death? 

It’s practically obvious that the man would turn to him. It’s also obvious what Race has to do now- it’s what he’s been doing for almost all of his life. He turns and runs, sprinting down the narrow cobblestoned streets in an attempt to get away from the banker and the crowds now turning to face him. A couple of cops attempt to chase him, but Race has always been able to outrun them. No competition.

His feet feel lighter than air, his legs a blur as he darts between couples walking on the streets and around corners. He pauses for a second, noticing the cops now in front and behind him, then makes a split-second decision and ducks into a nearby alleyway. He follows the brick walls through a few twists and turns, then curses softly. He’s hit a dead end, and there’s no way he can go back. The cops have already blocked the exit.

Just when Race is trying to figure out what his next move could be, a voice sounds from above him. Race cranes his head, trying to spot the speaker, and then he sees the arm pointing to a twisting metal ladder mostly hidden by crumbling brick. Race nods his gratitude, rushing up the ladder before the cops can spot him. He’s just managed to throw himself onto the roof of a low building before the men spill into the alleyway, but even from here Race can see their frustration. There’s no way they can find him, not now.

Race watches until they turn around and head back to the street, then lets out a quiet sigh of relief. He turns to thank his mysterious aide, but freezes slightly with surprise when he recognizes her. It’s the girl from before, the girl who stole the banker’s wallet and got him landed in this mess in the first place. Race scratches the back of his head, adjusting his newsie cap. “Thanks for the tip. I wouldn’t have found that ladder if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

The girl flashes him that same dazzling grin. “No problem. I felt kind of bad that they started chasing you. I wasn’t trying to pin the theft on you.” Race returns her smirk. “And they says there’s no honor among thieves.” The girl laughs, glancing over the edge of the roof to make sure nobody can see them. “You’re the first person to see me steal something in a while. Usually I’m too fast.”

Race raises an eyebrow. “You’se that confident in yourself?” The girl shrugs. “You tell me.” She pulls a cigar from her pocket, starting to lift it to her lips. Race’s eyes widen when he realizes it’s his. It had been in his shirt pocket, but now- His hand flies to his breast pocket. Sure enough, it’s empty. Race gapes at her. “That’s my cigar!” 

The girl hands it back after a second. “Just proving a point.” Race pretends to glare at her. “Better be. Cigars are off limits.” The girl folds her arms across her chest, expectant. “Then how did you get them? I didn’t know newsies had such wide access to the best cigars.” Race leans against a nearby wall, a grin rising to his lips despite himself. “I guess we all have our secrets.”

Then he straightens up. “Where are my manners? Honestly, you meet a goil who steals your cigars and you forget everything. I’m Race.” He extends his hand, mocking formality like he’s one of the bankers this girl just stole from, and the pretty thief copies his stance. “Y/N. Nice to meet you, Race.” Race flashes her a wink. “Nice to meet you too, as long as you stop stealing my cigars.” “No promises.”

They part ways soon after that. Whoever this Y/N is, she’s not a newsie, and Race needs to finish selling the rest of the day’s papes if he wants to have enough to eat tonight. Still, he can’t pretend he wasn’t disappointed to leave her on that roof. There was something about her that he hadn’t seen in a while. She was like a breath of fresh air in the middle of this smoke-clogged city. Honestly, that should tell Race that this girl is special. She’s practically driving him to poetry.

He doesn’t expect to see her again. Something about Y/N tells Race that she’ll only be found if she wants to be found. Yet a couple of days later, Race is walking back to the newsie Lodging House when he sees a familiar silhouette. It’s late in the day, the sun already slipping back into dusk, but he could recognize her in the middle of a dark and stormy night if need be. She’s walking quietly, arms wrapped around herself as if hoping that the press of her forearms alone could keep her warm. Race has lived in Manhattan long enough to know that it never will.

Race jogs to catch up to her, shouting a greeting from down the block. Y/N turns around, a somber expression instantly glittering into a smile when she sees him. Race slings an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close like he’s known her his entire life. “You want to tell me why the best goil in ‘Hattan is walking around like she’s been living a funeral?”

Y/N glances at him over her shoulder. “You think I’se the best goil in ‘Hattan?” Race shrugs. “Maybe all of New York. Maybe the entire world. But that’s not the point. What’s got you feeling blue?” Y/N’s smile slips from her face. It’s strange how she looks without it- older, maybe. More used to the stresses of being a teenager who has to work day in and day out to survive the city.

“I usually have a job in one of the factories, stitching clothes and whatnot. I’se had it for a while. It’s not the easiest or the safest, but at least it’s indoors.” Race winces at that. He’s heard a lot about the factories, about dozens of girls crammed together in small rooms, eyes strained over tiny stitches for hours and hours until they practically couldn’t see or move their hands at all. For some reason, the thought of the flighty, high-spirited Y/N stuck inside that dim and darkened room makes his heart clench in his chest.

Y/N is continuing now, and Race puts aside his pride to listen to her. “Or at least, I had the job for a while. Today, the bosses came out and said that they was going to fire a bunch of us to make sure they had enough profits. I was one of the people they selected at random, because I’se one of the youngest and they don’t trust us kids to do the best work. They’ve done stuff like this before, but they always hire us back. It’s been a couple of days now, and I’ve showed up every day. They should have hired me back, but they haven’t. I think they’re serious about this.”

She flops her head into her hands. “I’m worried, Race. The factories are already stuffed to the gills with new workers as it is. I don’t know that I’ll be able to find a place to work so quickly. Besides, my landlord’s going to kick me out if I don’t have a way to pay my rent. It’s the smallest apartment on this side of Manhattan, but it’s all I’ve got.” Race feels his spirits sink as he listens to Y/N talk. It isn’t fair that she should have to go through this, that any of them should have to work this hard just to live. But New York has always run at double speed, and the city that never sleeps has rarely cared about the welfare of the kids it relies on to function.

Race pulls Y/N closer, pressing a kiss against the top of her head despite his head screaming at him that this is not something he should be doing with a girl he’s just met. “You can stay with me. Us newsies have our lodging house, you know. It’s not much, just a bunch of troublemakers stuck together in a mess of bunks, but it’s home. If you need a place to stay, it’s here for you.”

Y/N looks up at him through a mess of lashes, and Race feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest. “You mean it?” Race tries to force indifference, but he doesn’t think he could do it if he tried. “Of course I mean it. We look out for each other, right? Now I’m looking out for you.” Y/N beams at him, wrapping her arms around him. “You’re the best, Racer. Honestly.” Race feels like a giddy schoolboy. “Hey, it’s no problem. Want to go now?” “Absolutely.”

They make their way back to the lodging house, trading jokes and smiles as they go. Now that Y/N’s got a place to stay and at least start to stay on her feet, she’s decidedly happier. This in turn makes Race happier. He’s not sure why, but every time she looks over at him with that beaming smile Race feels like he could run a hundred miles and never stop, or jump right up to the moon and make her a place to stay. The other newsies would laugh at him and call him starstruck, but it doesn’t matter. Y/N’s curling her fingers around his, and he can’t think about anything else.

They pause in the doorway of the lodging house. Y/N looks back to Race as if double checking that he’s serious about this, and he gives her a reassuring smile. Race steps forward, opening the door and guiding Y/N into the main room of the house. From the second they enter, Race can feel all eyes shift to them. Great. It’s not often that the newsies bring a goil into the lodging house, and certainly not one as pretty as Y/N. Race can already hear the questions they’re dying to ask, and sense the stares from Albert, Elmer, and the others.

Luckily, Jack is the first one to step forward. Honestly, of all the newsies to first talk to Y/N, Race is glad it’s Jack. Jack happens to already have a girl to hang about with, and such a vibrant, fearless girl is Katherine that Race knows Jack would never think twice about another girl. It’s kind of like how Race feels about Y/N. 

Jack looks between the two of them, a grin settling decidedly onto his face. “So, Racer, you want to tell us about your, uh, friend?” Race gives Jack a look. “This is Y/N, she’s a good friend of mine. She needed a place to stay so I offered up a bunk over here.” Jack grins. “I bet she’s a very good friend.” Race makes to hit him with his cap, and Jack dances away. “Alright, alright. Just teasing. Y/N, we’d love to have you. If you can stand Racer, you can stand any of us. Stay as long as you like.”

Y/N laughs, the sound echoing around the room like a bell. “That sounds great. Thank you.” Race repeats the thank-you before practically pulling Y/N away, desperate to get a chance to talk before the other newsies try their hand at stealing away his goil. Race wants to shake himself at the thought. Y/N isn’t his girl, remember? He would do well to keep it in mind, although the thought keeps slipping from his head the second she looks back at him.

At first, Race doesn’t know what he was thinking, bringing Y/N to the lodging house. Would she get annoyed by all the other newsboys? Would she like it at all? Luckily, he doesn’t have to worry. She seems so happy to have a place to stay, somewhere with a ton of new friends that she doesn’t complain at all. In fact, she seems to be enjoying herself.

When it’s time to go to sleep, Race isn’t sure what to do. They offer Y/N one of the spare bunks, and she takes it, but he can tell that Y/N is still awake even long after the other boys fall asleep. Quietly, so as to not wake anyone else, he whispers over to her. “You can come over here. If you want. You know, if you can’t sleep.” For a second, he thinks Y/N is going to laugh at him, but then she whispers a quick thank-you, hurrying across the room on footsteps almost too light to hear.

Y/N settles into the bunk next to him, wrapping the few threadbare blankets around her. Y/N lays her head down on his chest, and Race pulls her close to him. He can already feel himself starting to drift off to sleep, but he can still hear her whisper something in the quiet of the night. “Thank you, Race. For everything. You didn’t have to do all of this, you know.” Race smiles, the expression slow in the night air. “Of course I did. I care about you, you know. Couldn’t leave you there on the street.”

The words hang in the air for a second, and then Y/N’s voice comes again, sweetened with a smile. “I care about you too, Race. More than I should.” Race raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?” Y/N grins. “Yes. But now I’m going to sleep.” She pulls the blanket higher, closing her eyes despite the look on Race’s face. He considers this for a moment, what it means, what he can’t believe she just said. Then sleep threatens to drown him whole once more, so he presses one last kiss to her cheek before finally letting himself drift off to sleep at last. If the other newsies can see the two of them, holding each other close together in the quiet of the lodging house, they don’t say a word until morning.

[sylvie--laufeydottir]

an obligatory analysis of sylvie’s character (aka: who betrayed who?)

in case you can’t tell, i like sylvie. but here’s a big fuckin post where i share my thoughts on her role in the finale in a sort of disjointed kind of way.

NOTE: this isn’t about sylki. i don’t ship it personally, but that isn’t really relevant to this at all. this also doesn’t go into the criticisms i have of the show because this isn’t really the place for that. maybe i can do that later, whatever.

also, this is gonna be a long post. i have a lot of thoughts.

sylvie’s introduction and motivations

one of the first things we learn about sylvie is her opposition to the tva. (okay, it’s literally the first thing, whatever.) in episode 3, we get to see her entire plan - overthrow whoever’s running the tva, and... that’s it. loki questions her about the power vacuum that would leave, to which she shows that she’s not interested in running the tva. (this is also stated in ep 2.) her goals are clear. she wants rid of the entire organisation, and doesn’t care about or want the sort of power that would come with pulling the strings.

her reasoning for this seems pretty simple. she doesn’t want the power ruling the tva would entail because she knows what it’s like to be on the other end of that deal. she had everything taken from her as a child, and doesn’t want that to happen to anybody else. she believes that that kind of power belongs to nobody, not even herself.

this easily establishes her as a character who, despite having an ego, has principles that trump everything else. she’s very dedicated to her cause; the ‘never at the expense of the mission’ line in ep 3 just states it out loud. her entire life has been dedicated to this cause. this is a good time to segue into the next section...

sylvie’s personality, character and flaws

she’s fuckin stabby.

despite only really being present for 4 out of the 6 episodes of the show, we manage to get a pretty good idea of sylvie’s personality right from the start thanks to episode 3 being largely a character study with both her and loki. she’s shown as a very competent and strong character - however, contrary to marvel’s guidebook on writing female characters, those aren’t personality traits. what we actually see of her is that she’s very confident, and has a tendency to be rude or dismissive of other people. episode 3 has a bunch of examples of this, but the easiest one to point to is the fireworks scene. after loki does something nice to cheer her up, something which visibly works, her response is to waive it away as ‘not bad’.

her coldness in this scene even after bonding with loki is likely due to her upbringing. sylvie spent the majority of her life, including her childhood, on the run, unable to form relationships with people who weren’t moments away from dying. it feels a bit redundant for me to point this out, but this is, as they say in the medical field, mega fucking traumatic. not only did sylvie not have the opportunity to form these kinds of connections, she couldn’t even develop the ability to form them. loki is a bandaid to cover a bullet hole in this regard, one she needs years to heal from. while she does bond with him to an extent, she is physically unable to trust him to the point where they can be considered close.

another thing we learn about sylvie is that she’s very violent - and that she enjoys it. being a character that grew up running from an organisation that wanted her dead, it makes sense for her first instinct to be confrontational. however, despite having to fight to survive, she visibly takes pleasure from fighting. this was brought up in an interview with sophia (that i am not going to link here, because tumblr is kind of a hellsite and i’m not in the mood for that today). here’s a nice extract instead.

“She's not trained like Loki is,” Di Martino continues. “She can't do some of the flourishes that he would, but she's figured out how to brawl. She's a street fighter and she loves it. That was a really great key to unlocking part of Sylvie for me, was how much she just loves a fight. She knows that she's either going to win, or if she isn't going to win, she'll survive. She's that damaged character who's dangerous because she knows she can survive.”

her tendency towards violence is actually a key part of sylvie’s character. this works as both a strength and a flaw. on the one hand, she’s able to survive scrapes most other characters wouldn’t, and she knows that. she’s not one to freeze in most (note: most) scenarios, because she knows what to expect. on the other hand, violence isn’t always the answer, and she’s very unlikely to consider any other option than a fight.

her enchantment abilities tie into this - they’re another weapon for her to use, and one she’s not afraid to call on. however, her eagerness to enchant people without hesitation puts her in a pretty bad place morally. her enchantment clearly leaves hunter c-20 traumatised, and yet she’s more than willing to enchant people for the sake of the mission. she’s also relatively dismissive of human sentient lives. an early example of this is in episode 2, where loki asks her if the person she had enchanted was dead, to which she responds with a casual ‘they usually survive’. additionally, she’s more than willing to fight the guards on the train in episode 3, despite them seeing her as a threat for completely understandable reasons.

in the case of the guards, her reasoning for placing such little value on their lives is likely that they’re about to die anyways. everyone on lamentis is doomed, so from her point of view, whether they die at her hands or at the hands of the moon from majora’s mask isn’t really important. however, c-20 is a different story. sylvie places next to no value on the lives of the tva’s workers, content to slaughter them en masse for the sake of her goal. this is despite her knowing that every one of the tva workers is a variant plucked from the sacred timeline. this sets up a weird sort of transactional nature in how sylvie views other people - to her, they’re less important than the mission, and she doesn’t hesitate to eliminate threats.

was this a long section? this was a long section. i would like to call back to the fact that this is not a sylki post for this next part. and also to praise anyone that got this far, because fucking hell, is this excessively long or what? who would have the time to write this out?

sylvie’s bond with loki

i want to go back to that whole thing about her relationship with loki. he’s the first person she’s really spoken to since she was a child who isn’t about to face imminent death. furthermore, despite their differences, they have quite a lot in common - enough to hit it off surprising well for two people who kind of want to kill each other. they’re able to relate on common ground like frigga, and even though they clash due to loki’s initial carelessness, they’re overall able to get along well enough aside from occasional bickering. the blanket scene from episode 5 is probably the best example of this. sylvie allows herself, albeit briefly, to be vulnerable around loki.

except, not really. one of the first things she does is tries to ensure he won’t betray her. i’ve seen somebody cite this before as proof that her fondness towards him isn’t real, and that she was planning on betraying him from the start, hence why it was on her mind. that’s definitely possible, but i think it’s far more likely that it’s just her difficulties connecting to people stopping her from feeling safe around him even as they share a nice moment. she really does seem to care about loki - an easy example of this is her asking how he is during episode 4 without being prompted. she’s just unable to properly process these kinds of feelings due to an incomprehensible amount of trauma. as loki puts it, she can’t trust.

and loki can’t be trusted. she knows - or at least, thinks she knows - his nature as a trickster and a villain. loki embodies a part of sylvie that she considers herself completely separate from; the tva-approved liar whose purpose is to bring out the best in others. while she does show him more decency than to treat him like that, at the end of the day, he represents something that makes her deeply uncomfortable, hence her rejection of the loki name. despite what they have in common, loki is an incredibly difficult person to trust, especially for somebody who has deep-rooted trust issues. so, this brings us onto...

who betrayed who?

so, sylvie and loki make it to kang’s castle. after all this time, she’s finally about to reach her life’s goal. she’s clearly nervous - this is out of her comfort zone, unlike most fights. loki reassures her, and they head in. they meet kang, learn the true nature of the tva, have the opportunity to kill him...

and loki stops her.

loki’s motivations are left ambiguous. the uncharitable interpretation is that he wants to rule the tva for himself, as per kang’s offer. he’s expressed such an interest to sylvie before. for the loki we know in avengers 1, this seems perfectly in character.

however, for the loki we’ve seen in the show, there’s a different option. he believes kang’s threat that there are multiple of him, and that killing him won’t solve anything. to him, he isn’t willing to risk unknown horrors for the sake of taking his revenge out on kang. this is the loki who offered diplomacy and guile to counteract sylvie’s brute force.

but sylvie, who can’t trust, assumes the worst.

to her, loki was the one who betrayed her. they had a plan - find whoever pulls the strings, and destroy them. to her, loki’s hesitation isn’t caution, but treachery. taking kang’s offer to rule the tva is exactly what she thinks she should’ve expected from the guy who hurts everybody who loves him. her fight or flight responses kick in, and she chooses the one she always chooses. loki’s attempts to reassure her fall on deaf ears, not just because she doesn’t want to trust him, but because she’s physically incapable of it. she makes the short-sighted decision of brute force, just like she did back on lamentis, because it’s all she’s ever known, and the cause she’s dedicated her life to.

from the outside, it looks like sylvie was the one who betrayed loki, but things look pretty different from where she’s standing.

this is why i take issue with people calling sylvie a ‘villain’ or questioning whether this was her plan for the start. in my opinion, her motivations line up pretty clearly as a creature of habit, one who panics at the first hint of smoke and pushes away the first person she’s been able to bond with for the sake of self-preservation. did she make the wrong decision? unquestionably - the effects of her actions will no doubt plague the multiverse (and the mcu, for us) for as long as they go unchecked. but she made the only decision she was capable of making, and that’s not villainous, just tragic.

conclusion

well, this is a kind of depressing way to finish this post. for what it’s worth, though, i don’t think sylvie is a doomed character. regardless of how brief it was, she did show a real connection with loki. just because something requires a lot of healing doesn’t make it impossible. this is why i like sylvie as a character so much; she’s deeply flawed and complex, but that complexity makes her interesting, and relatable. marvel has a long history of sexy lamps and supposed ‘tortured backstories’, but sylvie is the first time they paid attention to this with their character writing without having to give somebody a wholeass prequel movie. with loki confirmed to appear in multiverse of madness, i’m hoping we see more of sylvie - not as a villain, but as a hero who can overcome her past experiences and rise to better things.

or maybe another kang shows up and kills her immediately. who knows.

[bestialchorus]

“AFTERMATH”- (Chapter 18 of “The Woman in the White Dress”) A Lady Dimitrescu Fic

The young woman is awoken by the sound of loud knocking. She grabs a nearby shawl, confusion evident on her face as she heads towards the tavern’s front door. The knocking carries an air of desperation as it bounces throughout the tavern’s walls, accentuated by the silence of the night.

“Daniela?” The server addresses the visitor while wiping sleep from her eyes. Concern immediately replaces fatigue as the woman takes in the vampire’s appearance. Puncture wounds cover the blonde’s body while dried blood stains the entirety of her arms.

“Jo….” Daniela says while nervously rubbing one of her wrists, her voice low. Jo takes notices of the puffiness around the vampire’s eyes, evidence of recent crying.

“..I did something bad….something very bad.” Daniela closes her eyes as she relives the night’s horrors, slightly shaking.

The brunette feels herself hold back as she processes the vampire’s broken state, wanting nothing more than to embrace her. She instead decides to gently place a hand on the blonde’s cheek, making her lightly gasp.

Daniela quickly leans into the touch, opening her eyes and finding no judgement on the woman’s face, only compassion. (salvation...)

Jo’s voice is soft. “Come, let’s get you cleaned up.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*A few hours later*

Alessia delicately pushes back a strand of hair that covers your face, she barely makes contact with your skin, afraid you’ll crumble under the slightest touch. But the scars your skin adorns say otherwise. The woman studies the scrapes that pepper your face, her expression both warm and sad. The girl’s marked face reminds her of memories she locked away long ago. Memories she was forced to face again after so many years.

The voices that surround the redhead are drown out by various thoughts as she guards the halfling. The dangers are gone for now and yet, she can’t help but stay by the girl’s side.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“We are forever indebted to you and your pack, Vera. I am forever indebted to you.” Alcina addresses the alpha while tightly gripping the curtain that covers her, the only fabric nearby they could find long enough for the woman’s body.

The leader politely denies the matriarch’s words, waving a hand before her face.

“Our creed requires us to protect the loved ones of our clan. If you want to thank anyone, thank the human who managed to hold off the hunters before we arrived. She seems quite resourceful.” Vera states while nodding her head in Zhera’s direction.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Do you really think she’d say no?”

“Lena. Please.” Zhera answers firmly with her arms crossed as the vampire holds onto her, gently squeezing her bicep.

“Would it be so bad to just ask. One of you is a dream but adding that beautiful alpha to our bed would be the stuff of legends. Plus, I can’t help but be curious of what lays under her partner’s bandages.” Lena explains shamelessly, while wiggling her eyebrows at the mercenary.

Despite the vampire’s light tone, Zhera takes notice of how the woman’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She decides now is not the time to comment on it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jo gently passes a small washcloth over Daniela’s cheek, trying to wipe speckles of blood without disturbing the woman’s injuries.

The vampire doesn’t look at her, instead choosing to stare down at the tub’s now sullied water. Jo silently studies Daniela as her eyes burrow into the water, wincing as she recalls the night’s events. The vampire had shut down as soon as Jo began preparing her bath. Daniela had said nothing while her clothing was removed, lost in a daze. The brunette responded to the blonde’s catatonic state by tying her tight curls up, preparing for the long night ahead of them.

She knows eventually they’ll need to talk but right now her priority is making sure Daniela is taken care of. She carefully washes the blonde’s body. Despite the vampire’s state, she can’t help but thank the gods that Daniela survived in one piece.

Jo can’t help but feel a mixture of frustration and helplessness as she washes the vampire. She never believed anyone could ever truly harm the blonde. For gods’ sake, they met because Daniela protected the server against a patron’s unwanted advances. The image of a dinner knife stabbed through the man’s hand while Daniela mocked him was still fresh in her mind. Later that night the vampire would take her bed. That night, Jo experienced a pocket of heaven only read about in stories, feelings that went beyond flesh and bone and all before Daniela even touched her.

She realized the vampire had such a strong effect on her because she was her polar opposite in every way.

Of course, the blonde was physically enticing, what with her striking features and her deadly allure. But what made her truly fall for the woman was how Daniela was unapologetically herself.

The vampire lived her life with a level of honesty and bravery she had never seen before. Underneath all the grumbles and threats was a woman who refused to settle for a life she didn’t want. It also didn’t help that she found all the vampire’s quirks endearing to no end.

Before tonight Jo always believed Daniela was untouchable. But the image of the woman in her tub tells her otherwise.

Jo wasn’t a vindictive person, far from it and yet, right in this moment she wishes nothing more than to be like Daniela. To be powerful enough to find whoever has broken the vampire and to make them suffer. She can’t help but feel frustrated by her human status. But tonight, isn’t about her anger.

A low voice snaps her from her thoughts.

“It’s all my fault.” Daniela whispers, still not looking up. The brunette patiently waits for her to continue.

Daniela squeezes her fists, digging her nails into her skin. Jo takes notice of the gesture’s intensity, quickly becoming worried she’ll draw blood.

“Dani..” She gently turns the blonde’s face towards her, gold eyes meet clear blue. Jo’s eyes always helped Daniela escape but, in this moment, they become the anchor she needs.

“What happened tonight?” The server asks softly, concerned.

And that’s when the dam breaks.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alessia and Lena slowly pull back from their mother’s tight embrace, both secretly wishing they could stay there forever, a place where it’s always safe and warm. The lady of the castle stays bent at the knee as she addresses her children, fighting back the anger that threatens to resurface as she takes in their injured state.

Vera takes notice of the moment and silently waves away any nearby pack members, giving the women their much-needed privacy. The members are more than happy to oblige, content the brutal night was finally coming to an end.

Alcina softens her expression, focusing on how internally grateful she is for her children to be alive, for all of them to be safe- at least for tonight. The matriarch takes a small breath in, trying to keep a steady voice as she speaks, “there is so much I wish to say to you, sweet ones. Words that could fill a lifetime as I try to process the idea of someone ever putting my sweet daughters in harm’s way-”

Alcina squeezes a fist under the curtain, drawing blood but feeling no pain- only anger and sadness. “We know this unfortunately won’t be the last time this happens…it is both the curse of our nature and of life itself.”

The mother closes her eyes with a small sight as she processes the weight of the statement, missing the slight twitch in Lena’s eye. The brunette tries her best to keep her expression neutral as flames burn within her, feeling a mixture of emotions she hasn’t felt in centuries. The  vampire wonders if this is how her younger sister feels before craving a hunt; pure, raw energy that demanded to be let out.

Normally Alessia would have taken notice of her sister’s underlying reaction but she’s too fixated on how soothing she finds her mother’s voice. After a night like tonight, she simply wishes to escape; to disappear into every touch and sound that eases her mind. Alcina’s presence was slowly helping her escape away from the night’s horrors but there was something that kept gnawing at her, something that kept her from moving on. The redhead knew there was someone she needed to talk to, the only person who could rival her mother when it came to making her feeling safe.

“But regardless of whomever dares to cross us, to harm us, to make us feel we are less worthy of life and happiness- I need you both to remember one thing.”

The women lock onto the intensity in their mother’s eyes as she holds their hands in hers and squeezes.

“Remember that I love you more than my very existence and if there was a way to love you more, I would.” Alcina says softly, looking at her children with tender admiration.

Lena feels tears prick at her eyes at her mother’s statement, overwhelmed by the honesty behind it. Alessia instantly squeezes her mother’s hand back, feeling her own eyes get watery.

“Being your mother is the greatest privilege I will ever have. You all give my life a layer of meaning and purpose that goes beyond the mortal realm. Heaven and hell could send every soldier they have, and it still wouldn’t be enough to stop me from loving you. I love you girls and I will never stop loving you.”

Alcina flashes the women a small smile as she gently wipes the tear that runs down Lena’s face. The women immediately embrace their mother again, tightly hugging her as their tears freely fall, no longer holding back.

Lena’s voice cracks as she tries to address the matriarch, “Mother-“

But Alcina gently interrupts her with a whisper, “Shhhh, my love. I’ve got you- I always will.”

The brunette continues to further stain the curtain as she sobs into her mother’s shoulder. Alessia shamelessly buries her head deep against her mother’s body, equally staining her outfit as she sniffles. The surrounding world melts away as the women they give into the moment, releasing hours of built-up emotions onto their mother’s presence. Alcina happily absorbs her children’s fears and frustration, if possible, she would transfer all their pain into her at the drop of a hat. [I would be nothing without you.]

“My beautiful, beautiful girls.”

Alcina speaks again as her children pull away. “Now-“

She gently places a hand on each of their cheeks. “I know there’s nothing you need more than to go be with certain people.”

The matriarch highlights, clearly knowing her children and their needs.

Alessia opens her mouth to refute the claim, only for her mother to stop her. “It’s okay, Alessia. We’ve all had a long night and I want nothing more than for both of you to be with your sanctuaries…. I have a feeling that’s where our dear Daniela is tonight…. at least, I truly hope so.”

The redhead nods with a sigh as she accepts the rebuttal, knowing deep down her mother was right.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lena aggressively swings her bedroom doors open, resulting in a loud bang as wood slams against the walls. Had it not been for the weight and quality of the doors they surely would have broken under the vampire’s force. The brunette shows no concern as she makes her way towards her vanity.

Her partner quietly follows behind her, deciding it best to not comment on the vampire’s aggressive behavior. Zhera instead goes to gently close the doors, quickly noticing the fresh cracks that stretch up the wall behind them. She takes a small moment to look at the damage with a sad expression. The mercenary seals off the room, well aware that she was locking herself in with the storm that surrounded Lena. She quietly sighs as she braces herself against the entrance. The woman had single handily slain creatures only seen in nightmares, escaped death more times than she could count and yet, right now she feels anything but capable.

Does she address the night? Should she give Lena alone time? Would it be better if she took her home, away from the castle for the night? Questions swirls around Zhera’s mind as she feels completely out of her element. Lena had unsurprisingly always been the one who was better at comforting others. The mercenary was more than capable at treating wounds, patching someone up, etc. but there was always an invisible wall present whenever someone needed emotional support, this is where Lena shined. There’s a reason why she called Lena “a light”, the woman naturally illuminated the world around her and sometimes just with her smile alone.

At first the mercenary assumed the woman’s charming personality was simply a ploy to toy with her, get her to lower her guard so she could bleed her dry. Zhera originally believed the brunette must have been desperate because she just refused to leave her alone. Lena would “coincidentally” show up on jobs she had been hired for and flirt with her excessively, again, she refused to crack. But one day the mercenary found herself on death’s door, just barely defeating a giant as she braced herself against her sword, unable to support her own body weight. As her vision started to blur, she saw the brunette show up out of nowhere, concerned riddled on her face as she threw the warrior over her shoulder. Zhera didn’t have the energy to refuse, more confused as no one had been able to carry her since she was an adolescent.

When Zhera finally woke up she found herself in an infirmary, the nurse highlighting a panicked young woman had brought her in the night before. She wasn’t stubborn enough to believe the vampire was still trying to hunt her when she had a clear chance to kill her. Lena eventually showed up again, bringing her a care package of extravagant pillows, blankets, and foods that only nobles could afford. When Zhera asked the vampire why she was caring for her, Lena answered without skipping a beat. “It would be a shame to let someone so attractive die, don’t you think?”

The mercenary rolled her eyes, but the vampire quickly followed up, “I’ve watched you long enough to know you help a lot of people. People who wouldn’t be able to afford your services if you actually charged them what you’re worth.”

The woman didn’t know how to feel about the confession, staying silent as Lena continued. “But even past your kindness…because I could…and wanted to.” The brunette finishes with a whisper.

The statement only fueled Zhera’s mind with more questions but she instead laid there in silence as she stared up at the ceiling. Lena had assumed her silence as negative reception, preparing to leave and give the mercenary the space and rest she needed. But as she said her goodbye, she felt a large hand weakly grab her.

“……you can..stay if you’d like.” The patient said with a rasp.

She wants to be here for Lena, the way she’s always been here for her. (….abuelo, que hago?) -[Grandfather, what do I do?]

“Remember, Zherazita. When you love someone, you always have to try to listen and look.”

“Well, that sounds easy, I already listen and look when I talk to someone- that’s just how talking works, abuelo. I think you’re getting old.”

The older gentleman chuckles at the child’s bluntness.

But I mean REALLY listen and look because their tone and actions will tell you what they need, not their words. That’s how I know whether it’s a good day to slip you an extra piece of chocolate, if abuela’s in a good mood then it’s fine, even if we get caught.” The man finishes his statement with a cheeky wink.

The young girl only looks at the man with confusion, unable to find the meaning behind his message.

==============================================================================

Lena examines the prominent scratches that cover neck, frowning at their deep purple and maroon colouring. The vampire quietly hisses as she gently runs a finger over the wounds, feeling the slightest groove between flesh and scar. She’s unfortunately forced to take in her overall appearance and saying she looked abyssal would be putting it lightly. All of her sobbing had made her makeup run, her eyes puffy, hair dishevelled to no end and covered in lacerations from the head down. There is only one time she remembers looking such a way.

Lena tries to shake her head of the painful memory…. unfortunately, to no avail. Without warning, the face of the woman who sentenced her to death appears in her mirror, smiling back at her with contempt.

“To think, a heretic like yourself got eternal life while your aunt rots away as we speak.” The chaplain sneers.

Lena’s eyes widen as her mouth hangs agape, struggling to speak as her breathing quickens.

“I’m just glad we stopped you before you could corrupt her body with that disgusting dark ritual of yours. If you really think about it, it’s because of me she’s in heaven right now while little Lena’s soul is now forever tied to hell, how fitting!” The woman finishes her statement with a maniacal laugh.

The statement tears away the final piece holding Lena together, releasing every bit of rage that bubbled under the surface. Her body begins to vibrate on anger alone, feeling fire course through her veins. The beast within the woman didn’t break free, it was let out.

Heavy breathing breaks Zhera from her thoughts. Before she can react, Lena slams her fist against the mirror, instantly shattering it. Despite the glass sticking out of her hand, Lena continues to brutally punch the vanity, completely lost in a trance.

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You slumber away in complete darkness, completely cut off from the outside world. You float in a sea of black while in a comfortable fetal position, focusing on your soft breathing. Time doesn’t exist here and because of that, neither does the past or future, there is only now. Whatever wounds, aches or sores you originally felt are no longer existent, not here.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The sounds of the night are heard from a nearby open window, allowing a light breeze to enter the space. Alcina’s room was untouched by the raid, maintaining an alternative reality where it never happened, despite this, its habitants reflect otherwise.

Alcina gently lowers her sleeping companion onto her bed, overly paranoid the soft mattress could somehow further add to your wounds. She knows the thought is irrational, but this doesn’t stop her from making sure she positions you “just right” against the plush pillow. With the halfling now safe in bed the vampire should be able to join her and finally get the rest she desperately needs but she can’t, not yet. Alcina instead ignores her aching body as she continues to prepare you for bed, covering your small body with the large comforter. Alcina didn’t have the healing knowledge of Vera’s pack, the ability to understand what your body was going through as you rest but she could at least make sure you were comfortable to an extreme. She begins tucking you in, wrapping you in a warm cocoon but freezes once her face is just a few inches from yours. The face she awoke to this morning is not the same as the one that greets her now. She finally gets the privacy to look at you after everything, to REALLY look at you.

She looks down at you with sadness in her eyes as she ruminates over your wounds.

[The pain you must have felt…]

Guilt sits heavy in her gut as she studies every scratch, mark, and bruise, the most pronounced being a small line that crosses over your lips, she knows it’ll leave a prominent scar. A mark indicating survival, yes, but also an active reminder of this night, a night she doubts she’ll ever forget.

Alcina’s hand instinctively makes it way to the scar, hovering above it for a few seconds before pulling back, ashamed she had reached for it in the first place. She wants to touch you, yes. To embrace you in her arms and to never let go but not now….not like this, you deserve to rest. After everything you deserve that much.

Her gaze travels further down your body, only to immediately stop at your neck. She looks away for a moment as she tries to process the rich bruising that greets her. Deep purples mixed in with accents of green, blue, and yellow cover your throat. It doesn’t take Alcina long to guess who could have possibly done this, instantly filling her with rage and disgust. The image reminds her just how close to death the girl was, how she could have easily lost her and with that thought, Alcina finally cracks.

Her eyes begin to water as the weight of the night catches up to her. She convinces herself she can take this moment to not be strong, just a moment. A moment where she doesn’t have to worry about being Lady Dimitrescu…..but simply, Alcina. She quietly begins to sob into her hands, releasing a weight she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“…I couldn’t protect you…I couldn’t protect any of you.” She whispers completely defeated.

“…..I wouldn’t say that….the foyer sure looked like a bloodbath when I got there.” A voice quietly rasps next to her.

The vampire’s eyes widen as she jerks her head towards you, she watches in shock as you lay up with ease. You stretch out a kink in your neck, still feeling slightly sore overall but nowhere near as bad as when your world went black.

Your eyes fall back onto the vampire, and you can’t help but feel a rush of excitement fill you. “Alcina!-“

Without thinking you throw your arms over her, pulling her in a tight embrace. She instantly melts under your touch, only adding to her theory that this must be a daydream of sorts. Even if this isn’t real, she’s in no rush to leave this world. It feels as if you absorb her sadness, your joyful energy infectious as usual.

You pull back to cradle her face in your hands, gently wiping a lingering tear from the corner of her eye. The subtle gesture isn’t lost on the vampire.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!….unless this is paradisio? Maybe purgatorio? I’m not sure which applies in this situation.” You say earnestly while trying to process which would make the most sense, your eyes slightly narrowing while looking around.

Alcina smiles at how hard you try to think, finding humour in your look of confusion, letting out a small sniffle. She brings her hands over yours, looking at you tenderly. “I was about to ask you the same thing, considering Vera told me it may take you a day or two to wake up.”

(Vera?)

Hearing about your teacher instantly reminds you of another warrior. “Zhera-“

You instantly jerk your head towards the door as you continue, “Wait! is Zhera okay? She snuck into the castle-“

Alcina bites back a smile at the statement, well aware of how many times the mercenary has “snuck in”, mostly because Lena was always overly excited on those days. One time the matriarch actually caught the woman in the middle of the night as she made her way towards the cellar, she’s never seen Zhera look so embarrassed. The mercenary immediately sputtered out excuses as to why she was infiltrating the home at night, each more ridiculous than the last. Alcina quickly glossed over the topic, not wanting to embarrass the woman further by reassuring her she was always welcome in the castle, regardless of time or day. The vampire remembers Zhera grumbling something to herself in Spanish as she swiftly made her way towards the west wing AKA Lena’s bedroom.

“ and she saved me…and then I remember we made our way to the foyer but then…um….”

You hold a hand to your head as you try to remember, looking away for a moment as you draw a blank. “For some reason…I can’t really remember anything past that… Why can’t I remember?”

The matriarch feels the slightest hint of relief as she actually has an answer to your question. She grabs your attention by gently taking your hands and holding them in her lap.

“Vera informed me you may have gasps in your memory-“ She starts rubbing her thumb over your hand as she finishes. “Apparently, it’s common when one first shifts, it does a lot to the body.”

Her gaze travels over you. She quietly watches for signs of your status, prepared to send you to bed if you still seemed a bit woozy or off.

(Shifted.)

“I shifted?....that’s right, I guess I did shift…wow.”  Your realization ends with a whisper.

Overall, the news should have overwhelmed you, but you realize just how soothing Alcina’s presence is. Any level of anxiety you originally felt has quickly dissipated under her touch. Without thinking, you release a relaxed sigh while closing your eyes, losing yourself to the moment…only to quickly remember your original worry.

“But Zhera? And what about the girls? Are they okay??! Where is everyone?!” You question while jolting out of her grasp, your anxiety raising once again. Your hands suddenly begin to shake, you feel as if electricity courses through your veins, sending uncontrollable tremors throughout your body.

It’s now Alcina’s turn to hold your face in her hands, trying to calm the abundant energy Vera had warned her about. Her voice is soft, but firm as distress covers your face, red flickering in your eyes.

“Look at me, my love.”

Your gaze locks onto hers, you take notice of how your trembling has slightly subsided under her touch. She begins caressing her fingers through your hair as she continues, instantly comforting you. Tenderness fills her eyes as she looks down at you.

“Everyone is okay. Vera has generously set up scouts to guard the castle in case any remaining hunters return.” She answers while pushing back a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

“Vera’s here?” You ask almost in a whisper while looking up at her.

Alcina gives you a light nod, “She’s nearby, yes. I was informed it was her and her pack that helped fight off the rest of hunters.”

[we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.]

The vampire takes notice of how the flashing red in your eyes starts to disappear after the reassurance. She smiles contently in response to it, surprising you with a chaste kiss to your forehead, hoping it’ll calm you down further but also because she can no longer hold back.

The kiss suddenly reminds you how much you’ve missed her lips, you need more, much more.

You instinctively lean up to grab her face, only to freeze in place once it’s just a breath away.

For the first time in the entire night, you really look at her.

The air feels warmer as Alcina’s eyes flicker over your lips before locking her gaze back to yours, patiently waiting for you to continue. It takes every fibre of her self-control to not crash her lips against yours, still not sure if you’re in the right headspace for it.

[…but you make it so hard, my love, when you look at me like that.]

You feel yourself gulp as you slowly lift a finger towards her face. Her eyes follow your every move, her body perfectly still as anticipation floods her.

You gently graze your fingers over her bottom lip, and she softly sighs while closing her eyes, losing herself to the sensation. The sound ignites your hunger.

And just like that you feel it again, the world disappearing around you as all that exists is her.

You suddenly feel her fingertips slowly run down your thighs; the tantalizing sensation sends a chill through you. You’re tempted to look down, but you know the image of her hands on your body would overwhelm you to no end and you still want to focus on her. You lightly move your fingers over her face, admiring her cheekbones as she keeps hers her eyes closed while leaning into the touch.

The intensity of the moment makes you realize something you find almost impossible you didn’t notice earlier, save for fabric around Alcina shoulders, both of you are essentially bare. Your eyes linger on her chest, and you feel your breath get heavier as heat begins to flood you. It almost feels like you can’t breathe, like there’s not enough air around you both.

You try to ignore the pulse in your core as you speak, feeling little self-control left.

“Alcina…” You whisper into her lips.

Brilliant golden orbs meet your gaze as she opens her eyes. Her cheeks begin to burn under your touch as she processes the hunger looking back at her, your pupils are blown out and a dark maroon. You give her a feral look she’s never seen before. There is tenderness there, yes, but also something carnal, desperation mixed with passion. It sends a chill down her spine.

She feels engulfed by your gaze, as if her entire life has been leading to this exact moment.

She wants nothing more than to offer herself to you, to sacrifice her body to your hunger, she wants you to take her, all of her.

Your hands begin to tremble again as you speak.

“I want you….but I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back anymore..but I understand if you don’t want that-“

You’re interrupted by her mouth crashing against yours.  

“Take me, please take me.” She pleads against your lips and with that you finally decide, this must be paradisio.

[96dys]

hydrangea ; johnny seo

money makes the world turn. there was so much of it, and yet so few people ever saw it. maybe if it weren’t for the money, johnny might have acted differently. maybe his family’s badgering wouldn’t have weighed on him as much as it did. maybe he wouldn’t have taken you, because finding a wife this way wouldn’t have mattered. he didn’t like the circumstance, but he couldn’t keep himself from liking you—the dirt-poor girl who worried more about helping others than feeding herself.

ceo au

taglist: n/a

masterlist

00 | prologue

you often wondered what it would’ve been like. what kind of life would you have lead if you were born just a lifetime ago? your mother used to tell the strangest stories about her childhood, stories that often made your head spin. putting on a clean set of clothes and eating a full breakfast before getting on the bus to go to school each day. that all seemed so impossible, so out of reach. what if that were you?

then, when she was just seven years old, everything changed. the war altered everything. all you’ve ever known is poverty; if the world would ever see better days, you’ve completely lost hope. you grew up sleeping on the thinnest mat every night, right next to your younger brother. then, in the morning, you would split the smallest chunk of bread, only to wash it down with the murky water your father had collected the day before. even boiled clean, it never ran clear.

your parents would go off to work each day, but very little money was ever seen. survival was far more important; your mother would much rather be given vegetables, bread, or even soap in return for weaving bags and baskets for whoever came to her. your father would work on cars for a few dollars a day. no one really drove where you lived, but the rich often employed men to do whatever odd jobs their business required. tenvack manufactured cars, and so your father worked at their nearest factory, building them piece by piece.

school wasn’t an option. times have changed the slightest bit, and although you only have two volunteer teachers at the tiny makeshift schoolhouse now, there were none when you were growing up. instead, you and your brother canvassed the town in search of plastic bags, as well as whatever else you could find that looked usable. your mother would always call it treasure, but you knew better. you watched her sometimes while she worked, tearing the bags into strips and stretching them out in order to weave whatever she could.

now there was no treasure left in your life; that candle had burnt out so long ago. it fizzled out when your family did, leaving only the smallest wax drippings as proof they were ever even there. a few of your brother’s books, your father’s tools, an old bag your mother made—that was all you had left. for the longest time, a life that was already so bleak had completely faded to grey.

you were familiar with death. there was so much sickness and poverty that people in your neighborhood often died. it was so common that anyone who disappeared for more than a day was assumed dead, to have succumbed to one of the many illnesses that lived in the meat and in the water. the grim reaper was no stranger to people like you, but it’s different when he knocks on your door.

you didn’t eat meat. it didn’t sit well in your stomach, and so you ate vegetable scraps on the nights the rest of your family shared the smallest piece of beef amongst themselves. to this day, you’re not sure if you’re thankful for this or if you resented it. you don’t think about it often; you can’t. you choose to remember the good in their hearts instead of the days they spent coming to a slow and painful stop.

your head was spinning, but you thought of them then, as the light began to shine. it was so painful to look at, you had to squint through watery eyes just to make out the figure leaning over you. in that moment, you thought the grim reaper had come back to collect you too.

keeping your train of thought on the rails was difficult. every time you tried to concentrate on the the figure, it was like you were being forced to think about something else. so many things were running through your mind, too many to distinguish one from another. but still you watched with burning eyes as he backed away. you could’ve sworn you heard him talking to someone, but you weren’t entirely sure it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you.

suddenly, the light went out.

doyoung closed the trunk, sighing to himself. he hated what they were asked to do, but at the same time, he was thankful you didn’t struggle or try to fight. he didn’t want to hurt you anymore than he already had.

“she’ll probably fall back to sleep,” he told jaehyun. he didn’t have very much experience with whatever new experimental drug his partner had been given, but you looked so out of it, he doubted you would be fully conscious for a really long time. at least until they reached the seo residence. “i don’t think we’ll have to give her any more.”

jaehyun only nodded. capturing you was very taxing mentally, but orders were orders. life working for johnny wasn’t perfect, but he had a roof over his head and food to eat. jaehyun felt like he was losing a piece of himself when he snuck up on you, and his heart completely shattered when he forcefully took you into his arms, but he did it because he didn’t want to become like you—always wondering if you were even going to be able to eat that day, never able to sleep without fear of being attacked in the night, having to fight tooth and nail just to survive. he hated the task, though he enjoyed his life more.

he tossed doyoung the keys before making his way to the passenger door, which had been left open since they pulled the car over.

funnily enough, no one liked this arrangement, not even johnny. you were to be his girl, his wife, but his hand was forced just as much as doyoung and jaehyun’s. tied down by years of tradition and vicious family members, he had no other option but to select his bride. he’d put it off so long already, it would’ve been a matter of days now before one of his uncles challenged his position as head of the family business.

just like jaehyun, he’d been living in wealth for so long that the idea of living a life of poverty scared him more than shattering his morals.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Just A Dream Away

Chapter 5/13 read here on ao3!

for @harringrovebigbang

~~~~

Robin gets to the phone first.

Steve was too busy wallowing in his bed to get up and answer, though he figures it might be worth seeing who it is that’s calling. None of the kids call him anymore, but he always considers, even if it’s for just a moment, that it could be an emergency. He’ll know whenever he decides to get up, or if Robin even decides to pick it up.

Its ring echoes shrill and loud in the apartment, the tone making him want to wrap himself in a blanket and never come out, so he slides out of his bed, calling down the stairs in search of a solution to end the noise, “You gonna get that Rob?”

For a moment, he wonders if she’ll even respond. It’s barely been a couple of hours since he made her cry, but she calls back, “Are you expecting a call?”

Relieved to know she at least still tolerates him, Steve answers, “Nope.”

“Then no.” Comes her simple response, and the phone ringing promptly dies out, “Guess it didn’t matter anyways.”

But almost immediately, it starts up again, somehow sounding more sharp than before. Steve tells her just to get it so the ringing will stop, coming down the steps to see for himself who it is calling.

He watches Robin pull the receiver from its base, in the place of a greeting going straight for, “What do you want?”

Steve takes note of the fact that her mood isn’t entirely better yet, though he’s definitely glad she’s taking those feelings out on the telephone and not on him, but, despite her abrasiveness, she still receives no response.

It looks like she’s going to hang up before she hears something, her features closing off as she focuses on whatever comes through the other end, “Hello? I can’t hear you. Who is this?”

There’s a whining static loud enough for even Steve to hear from the other side of the room, getting louder, and then a pop that makes the lights flicker and the phone die out, making Robin shriek and drop it, shaking out her hand.

“Son of a bitch shocked me.” She mumbles, picking up the dead receiver and showing Steve the two burnt ends.

In the moment though, something he’ll perhaps feel bad for another time, Steve isn’t worried about his friend. He isn’t rushing to see what happened and check if she got burnt, he instead just freezes up, filtering through the overwhelming questions filling his head to ask, “Did you hear who it was?”

“No, it just sounded like it was all distorted.”

Her answer is nonchalant, but it makes Steve feel weak and panicky, sitting down at the table as pale as a ghost.

That’s obviously not a normal reaction, and Robin asks, tone more afraid than concerned, which he thinks that’s appropriate for what just happened, “What’s going on Steve?”

Grimly, he explains, “Mrs Byers’ phone did that twice before, blowing up after a call just like that.”

“Okay, well maybe there’s just a storm coming and it’s just a coincidence that happened to her too?” She tries to reason, but Steve already knows, he's felt this dread before. “No, Robs. It happened because Will called her from the Upside Down.”

“But then that means-“ Robin starts, working through the implications, Steve finishing the statement for her, “Someone is trapped over there.”

“Holy shit, but the gate, hasn’t it been closed for a year and a half now?“

“Unless someone else opened it, yeah.”

Stiffly she nods, asking hesitantly, be it because of her questions or the disagreement between them earlier, “Well what do we do?”

A reflection of his lack for anything but pessimistic doomsdaying anymore, Steve worries, “What can we do, Robin? I’ve only ever fought the things that end up in our world, and you’ve never even seen half of the monsters that come from over there. We’re too overpowered here.”

More rational than her friend, Robin suggests, “I think we should get a hold of Eleven. You said she's the one that really understands any of this other dimension stuff. She can help.”

But Steve shakes his head, “Her powers are gone. She might know what to do, but I don’t think she’ll be able to do anything.”

“So you just want to leave whoever it is over there?”

“No, fuck no. That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what should we do?”

“I don’t know..” Steve frowns, thinking hard before he answers determinedly, “But whoever it is, they reached out to us. We have to help them.”

~~~~

The phone doesn’t work.

What is Billy supposed to do? He’s tried everything, and with his last resort at reaching out a dud, he’s not sure what else he even can do.

So, in true Billy Hargrove fashion, he lashes out, cursing and unnecessarily yanking the phone jack out of the wall, the plastic handheld skidding across the kitchen tile into the corner, “Goddamnit!”

The noise may have been a mistake though, because, despite how sure he was the dogs wouldn’t find this place, he hears a chitter, and the click of claws on hardwood floors. The damn thing is in the house, and his machete is by the door.

A recurring theme with these hell beasts, is that there’s never enough time to run, but unless he wants to use decorative mugs or a cookie jar to fight it, he doesn’t have much of a choice but to try.

He makes two mistakes as he runs, the first being that he hesitates, not wanting to leave Steve. Even if he couldn’t find him he had gotten so damn close, but a snarl from the dog puts things into perspective, and, with a heavy feeling of remorse in his chest, he leaves through the backdoor as quietly as he can, bolting down the rotting back steps.

His second mistake is looking over his shoulder. Just as his boots touch brittle grass, he decides just to glance back and see how much space is between him and the hellhound, but the second he sees it, he just freezes up.

Because it’s fucking big, for one thing. It has to force itself through the door frame, meaning it’s wider than he is. It has a lot more teeth than the others. It’s skin is pale and it’s limbs much longer. Something tells him the others he’s seen are immature, and this one is close to its final form, whatever that may be. Either way, he’s decidedly not fucking around with that.

The daunting unfamiliarity of this part of Hawkins, intimidating as it is, isn’t Billy’s main concern right now. He just bolts like a coward, hoping against hope that there’ll be anything along his path he won’t have to corner himself to get that can be used as a weapon, basically his only other option for surviving this that this amped up dog will get bored of him fast.

But, and really, he knew this was the case, he just hadn’t wanted to admit he was prey yet, it easily charges him, going up on its back legs to knock him off his balance. It misses at first, so he thankfully doesn’t get pushed to the ground, but his reflexes, especially when blurred by emotion, are no match to a monster of this size, and before he can even process its next move, it clamps its teeth on his arm.

Now, he’s been here for a while. He’s had scratches and cuts and welts from their tails, but he’d always been quick enough, smart enough, prepared enough to not get bit. Which he really wishes was still something he could still attest to, because it fucking hurts. Razor sharp teeth from too many mouths tear into the muscle, a stinging pain all the way from the point of impact in his wrist up to his shoulder.

It’s his fault, all this stuff with Steve was getting to his head, feeling his presence and hearing his voice again for the first time in god knows how long only to be unable to reach him. It was doing things to his judgement.

But this is still bad. Really fucking bad.

As soon as it lets go, he knows it’s going to latch onto him again, so he does what he does best in a situation where he’s hurt and scared and alone. He cries, for one thing, but he also fights. But where he’d normally just use his fists and his ego to prove his strength, this world is built differently. Even with a pocket knife to stand up for himself that’s not enough to survive, but he’s still going to make it count. If at the end of this he goes down, it won’t be without a fight.

A fight to just get back to the way things were. To prove to himself he could do this and survive. For once in his fucking life, just to overcome hardship and move the hell forward, no cycles of hatred and pain, love and respect drawing him back. Nobody else in control of his body. Nobody else holding him back from being happy.

He just wants to survive this.

There’s blood on his jacket sleeve, but Billy refuses to look at how bad the wound truly is yet. There quite frankly isn’t enough oxygen down here to afford a panic, but from the pain and the blood alone, he knows it’s not going to be good for him.

The fighting isn’t going too well either, with only one arm not weighed down by injury and a knife the size of his palm his last standing lines of defense, it’s mostly him dodging the creature and flailing his limbs to either stop an incoming bite or confuse it, both of them too confident in its ability to tear him to shreds to advance further than that.

But it gets bored of fucking around with him, and it rises to its back legs again, and Billy knows he’s fucked, squeezing his eyes shut and blocking his face, but the attack never comes. There’s a huge crack of lightning in the ever looming storm above, and a chorus of eerie chittering from more dogs at varying degrees of closeness to where they are, and it draws the attention of the big one away.

While the monster is distracted, he uses that opportunity to his advantage, takes charge of his circumstances to give himself a fighting chance. That strategy never worked for him before, only ever got him into deeper shit, but he can’t exactly just stand here and be monster bait either so, though it breaks his heart to put that distance between him and Steve, Billy chooses to run.

[rainbowvamp]

I Will Never Love Again

Hi friends. My eyes are shaking and I think I might be sick, but here’s the next chapter. Please check ao3 for warnings. I can’t type anymore. 

wc: ~5000

---

The day of the presentation comes, and her mother forces her to make a grand entrance, sequestering her upstairs while her hair is done and her dress is laced on. She isn’t to leave the room until the maid comes to get her. They have only been at the manor house for a week and already she aches to be back home, on the farm that reminds her of Lancelot.

She hears her father making an address to the crowd, thanking the king and crown prince specifically for being there for his only daughter’s first formal presentation to society, and as soon as the clapping starts, she rounds the corner and descends the stairs. 

The room goes quiet, and Morgana doesn’t look at any of them. Her beauty is unavoidable, but she makes her face purposefully harsh, sucking in her cheeks slightly to make her cheekbones sharper, holding her head high and keeping her eyes narrow, unwelcoming. 

Lancelot’s ring is hidden in a pocket in her dress, and it is the only thing she cares about as her father takes her hand at the bottom of the stairs and music starts to play. 

Her father has the first dance with her, and she doesn’t smile once. Not even when her father whispers a slight against their least favorite lord for his gaudy choice of costume for the evening. She doesn’t speak at all to him when he hands her off to the crown prince.

Her father she could ignore, but ignoring the crown prince would be an offense punishable by death. So, when he bows, she returns it with a curtsey, but she doesn’t put on airs, or try to impress him. She doesn’t smile, but when he speaks to her, she answers.

“You look lovely. My father is very impressed.” 

“I’m so glad you’re pleased Your Highness.” Morgana’s tone is blank, face expressionless. There is nothing in the world she cares about less than impressing the King. 

They dance in silence for a few moments, both equally knowledgeable of the steps. The Prince is a good lead, and never once steps on her toes. The soft dancing shoes she wears would probably not survive the stomp of his boot, let alone her toes beneath. 

“For the woman of honor, you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.” The Prince says, spinning her when the music demands it, then bringing her back into his arms. 

She wonders what it would have been like, to dance like this with Lancelot. She would have had to teach him the steps, probably. Country boys don’t get taught these kinds of formal dances. But he had always been so sure of his movements, graceful even in the way he walked, surely he would have learned quickly.

“Your mind is elsewhere.” Arthur takes her by the waist to pick her up and spin her again. She isn’t ready for it, so she doesn’t brace herself like she should, and he has to hold her close to keep her from falling over. 

“It has been a very long year, for me, Your Highness.” Is all she says to him, and the prince frowns.

“You can call me Prince Arthur. It is my name, you know.” 

“Of course, Prince Arthur.” She smiles, but it manages to be cutting, almost mocking, but in a way that no one could prove. 

He smiles back, almost earnestly, shaking his head as the song winds to an end. “I hope you manage to enjoy yourself at your own party.” 

“It isn’t likely, Your Highness.” She bows to him and turns to accept whoever’s hand is next to be offered, only, there isn’t one. Every guest is either dancing with someone else, or standing to the side, watching them without watching. 

“I’m afraid I might have scared away your suitors.” 

You can’t have suitors if you don’t intend to marry. She thinks, but does not say. Instead, she only turns back to him, and waits to see if he’ll escort her off the dance floor or simply release her. He holds out his hand, and she takes it, thinking he would place it at his elbow and take her off the floor, but instead he steps closer to her, like he means to dance with her again.

“Isn’t it cruel, to dance twice in a row with a girl you have no intentions with?” Morgana asked, hoping to dissuade him from trying to take a third dance as the music began to pick up speed. 

“Who said I had no intentions?” 

Morgana scoffed, unbecomingly, and looked very briefly over the Prince’s head, like she couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re a prince. You’ll marry a princess of some foreign country to create an alliance, or establish trade between our countries. I’ll marry the son of a neighboring lord to join my father’s land with his father’s land. We have different roles to play.” 

“I’m sorry you think of marriage as a duty.” Arthur frowns, and Morgana can’t be bothered to respond to this. She follows the steps to the dance, letting Arthur lead her, and as soon as it is over, she excuses herself to get a drink. 

He comes with her, and is quickly lost in the crowd while Morgana is crowded by men young and old, asking when she’d like to dance with them. 

Never is the answer to when she’d like to dance with them, but she has to keep appearances up. She can only push her mourning noncompliance so far before someone starts to get suspicious. It wouldn’t do for someone to find the coins she’d begun storing among her jewelry, or the supplies she’d begun stockpiling in recent weeks. 

She chats and dances with nearly every eligible lord and lord’s son before the evening is done. She forces herself to smile when she wants to scream, and keeps her face neutral even when she wishes to scowl. The few times she catches glimpses of her mother, she looks happy, so she must be putting on a good act. 

She intends to sit out the last dance of the night. Her feet are sore from too much dancing and from the terrible, drunken, pig of a man who had stepped on them three dances ago. However, her social standing is nowhere near high enough to refuse the crown prince a dance. 

“Lady Morgana,” Prince Arthur bows and offers her his hand, and she accepts, attempting to look gracious even though she wants to scream at him. He doesn’t look particularly pleased to be here himself, so that’s something, at least. 

Many guests have already left, but the King and Crown Prince would be spending the night, so he could afford to stay latest. When she looks around the thinned crowd, Morgana sees both her father and the King watching them, heads bowed together and whispering. 

_____

“You look upset.” Arthur says, turning them, not quite in time with the music, so he could see what she saw. His own mouth became a hard line as caught sight of his father. “Ahh. They’re plotting.” 

“Must be. Father never looks that happy unless he’s up to something.” This isn’t strictly true. She’s very upset, and it’s clouding her judgement. She’ll regret saying such a cruel thing about her father in the morning, to the crown prince no less, but she doesn’t care right now. 

“Well, you said yourself, we have different roles to fill.”

“I only hope they remember that.” 

Arthur tilts his head and considers the hard way she speaks. “You don’t want to be married.” This is an assumption, a bold assumption, but he isn’t wrong.

“I loved a man more deeply than most women ever dream to.” He spun her out by the hand and pulled her back in, the dance winding down. “He died. I will never love again.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” 

Morgana looks up at him and he does seem genuinely sorry. If it weren’t so late she never would’ve told him that, but her body was about to drop from the exhaustion of a long night, she’d had too much wine on an empty stomach, and her defenses were down. 

“So was I.” She looks away from him, because she can feel her tears stinging her eyes and she has no desire for the crown prince to see her cry. 

She slips her hand into the pocket of her dress, feels the ring that she’d sewn in herself to keep it from getting lost with her free hand as the music comes to a stop and he bows, kissing her knuckles as he does. 

“I hope you live a very long, very happy life, Lady Morgana.” Prince Arthur’s smile looks genuine, if a little sad, and she can’t do anything more than nod. She thinks it’s cruel to wish her a long life, when it’s doomed to be spent alone. 

He escorts her back to her father, a kindness that was much appreciated considering her weariness, and Gorlois took her from him, excusing himself from the King so he could walk his daughter back to her room.

“The prince quite likes you.” 

“I told him I loved another. He’ll never choose me of his own accord.” She winces at each step she takes up the stairs, her feet and legs protesting against the movement. “If they weren’t here I’d make you carry me. I’m dying.” 

Gorlois laughs, completely nonplussed by her admission. “Nonsense. Your youth is made for dancing. You’ve done good tonight. Your mother will be proud.” 

Morgana slipped her hand back into her pocket, touched the tip of her finger to her ring, and used it to remind her of what was important. 

“I don’t think she will be, for long.” She tries to make it sound like a joke, the inevitable cycle of her mothers disappointment, but Gorlois frowns at it, rather than smiling. 

“I know she’s hard on you, but she wants the best for you. She wants you to be happy.” 

“I would be happy on the farm. I will never be happy here.” She would never be happy without Lancelot. 

“I’m sorry. I thought the farm would do you good, but I’m afraid it’s put too many ideas in your head. You’re not cut out for living on a real farm, Morgana. Yes it’s nice to be so close to all the goings on, but the life you’ve lived is nothing like the life a normal commoner lives. If you were up at dawn on a farm, you’d be rising late. Every bit of cooking and cleaning in the house would fall to you, and you’ve never cooked or cleaned in your life. You’re nobility, Morgana. You don’t dress like it, but you have always acted like it. I think it would be best if we didn’t return to the farm after your presentation.” 

Morgana wonders if Gorlois can read her mind, or at least her intentions. Maybe he’s right, maybe she can’t cook, or clean, but she would learn. She would teach herself if she had to. 

She added this to the list of things she would need to know before Winter’s end, and said nothing to her father.

—-

The next morning she has to dress for breakfast. She cannot get away with wearing one of her peasant dresses because the King and crown prince will be there. Probably along with whatever knights were accompanying them. 

Her maid does her hair for her, the style less intricate but still far more elaborate than her preferred single braid. By the time the last pin is placed, Morgana’s head is already throbbing, but she puts on a smile when her mother comes in because she doesn’t have the energy to fight with her.

“Give it to me.” She said without even saying good morning, and Morgana is honestly confused. 

“Give you what?” She looks at the vanity table she’d been sitting at, and can’t see anything on it her mother might want.

“You know what. Give me that silly little farm boy’s ring.” 

Morgana’s eyes widened and she clutched at the ring where it sat beneath her bodice. “No.” She felt her heart start to race when her mother stepped forward, and Morgana got up, backing away from her. “No, you can’t take it from me. It’s mine.”

“Morgana, The crown prince saw you to three separate dances last night. You are going to give me that ring, and go downstairs and make a good impression on his Majesty or by the gods-“

“What, you’ll send me out on my own? Good. I’ve always hated it here.” 

She doesn’t mean this either, just like what she’d said last night about her father, but she feels like an animal backed into a corner, and she can’t attack her predators any other way. 

“You wouldn’t survive a week outside. Give it to me.” Vivienne lunged for the chord just peaking up above Morgana’s neckline, and Morgana jerked back, back hitting the post of her bed. They struggle, but eventually they each have a hold of the chord.

“Morgana, you are 18 years old, and you need to be married soon. You don’t want to be a spinster for the rest of your life.” 

“I don’t want to be married.” She doesn’t let go on the chord, takes a painful hold of the ring even as her mother draws it out by the chord and tugs, tugs, tugs.

Her fingers are steel. She won’t release it. She doesn’t care about mannerisms or propriety. This is the only thing she has of Lancelot’s and she will not be parted from it. 

It’s the slap that shocks her just enough that her mother manages to tug the chord free from her neck and take the ring. Her cheek stings where her mother has stricken her, and tears are starting to well in her eyes. She grabs for the necklace, consequences be damned, and pushes her mother down to take it from her. From the bed where she’s landed, Vivienne has a perfect view or Morgana fleeing the room. She doesn’t call after her, because the door is open and their home is large, but not so large the King might not hear her yelling for her daughter. 

She gets up and she dashes after her, but it’s too late. She’s nowhere to be seen. She’ll have to find her before anyone realizes she’s missing. She tasks a few servants with helping her and sets off to find Gorlois. 

—

Morgana is saddling her horse on her own when one of the stable hands find her. She’s in a dress that is far too clunky for riding, her hair hurts, and everything is harder to grab because she refuses to let go of the ring in her palm even to put it on. Her mother had tried to take it from her, tried to take Lancelot from her, and she would not have it. She would run right now with no money and nowhere to go if it meant saving her memories of Lancelot. 

How could her mother strike her? Morgana had never been an overly good child, but she had never been wicked. Morgana’s cheek still stings, and she bets it’s red and flushed. She felt so unwanted and unloved the only thing holding her together was the thought of getting on her horse and getting away. 

“Your mother is looking for you, I think.”

Morgana is struggling to adjust her horse’s saddle into the right position, but she recognizes the voice from last night. Prince Arthur is the last person she wants to see, and so she doesn’t even look at him.

“You caused me a lot of trouble. I’m going for a ride.” 

“You aren’t exactly wearing riding clothes.” Arthur comes forward without prompting and takes the saddle from her hands. He finishes doing it up for her, and she is too angry to be grateful, right hand still clutched to her chest, protecting the precious ring inside it curled in her first. “Where will you go?”

Morgana is surprised he’s not alerting the servants or her mother, but this doesn’t make him her ally, and so she lies. 

“I was just going to ride to the nearest village. I needed to clear my head.”

“A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t ride alone. It can be dangerous.” 

“I have done it many times.” Though never in clothes that so obviously gave away her station. 

Arthur raises his eyebrow at this, like perhaps he hears what goes unsaid. “Either way, let me accompany you.” 

“You and how many of your knights?” She scoffed, and Arthur shrugged.

“Just me. My knights are all eating breakfast. That’s where we’re supposed to be as well.” He says this as if he’s reminding her. As if she could have forgotten that their planned breakfast together is the reason her mother had tried to take her ring.

The memory of it makes her voice colder. “I’m not hungry.”

“Perhaps a ride will work up your appetite.” He removed one of the stirrups from her horse so she couldn’t climb on before his own horse was saddled, and she grabbed a stool and seated herself without it, just to be contrary. 

He leads his saddled horse back to hers and replaces the stirrup for her, and she looks down at him haughtily. “You’ve made your point. You’re very independent.” 

“I am. If you insist on riding with me, then hurry up, I don’t have all day.” 

“I’m the crown prince. You have all day if I say you do.” 

First, she think that he is threatening her in some way, but then she realizes what he means. “You’re helping me avoid my parents.” 

“It would seem so. Under the guise that I’m becoming better acquainted with you, of course.” He looks down at her fisted hand, barely able to hold a rein. “You should put it on, so you don’t have to worry about dropping it.”

The very idea horrifies her, and she slips the ring back onto it’s rightful place on her ring finger. “People will talk.”

“Your reputation will stay in tact. My servant is just at the door, keeping an eye on us.” 

“And what about once we ride off.” 

Arthur laughed. “He’ll be following.” 

Morgana rolled her eyes, but she set off, her dress was really not made for this kind of riding. She should be riding side saddle, but she had always felt side saddle to be useless and demeaning. Her dress will smell like the stables and hay when she comes home, and there will certainly be mud to be cleaned from the fine fabrics, but Morgana doesn’t care. It preserves her modesty well enough, and she can’t be bothered with anything more. 

The ride into town is a slow one, sure enough, accompanied by a servant. Usually, their chaperone should be a man who is a member of Morgana’s family, preferably her father, but her mother is probably so thrilled she’s spending quality time with the prince that she won’t care about propriety. 

Or maybe she’ll strike her again when she gets home.

Now that the prince is accompanying her, she can hardly ride off. She’ll have to distract him first. Unfortunately for her, he seems very adamant about sticking to her side. 

“Why are you helping me?” She finally asks, when they’re half way between the manor and town. 

“I’ve had to accept my duties as crown prince. It’s exhausting. I wish someone had been there for me to give me space and time to breath during the worst of it.” He glances at her, and it’s oddly sincere. She hadn’t expected that. She find she almost appreciates it, if only he weren’t ruining her plans to run away.

“I tried to leave, once.” Arthur told her, entirely unprompted. “I was so unhappy with my lot in life, with all thing I’d have to do that would be beyond my control. I took my favorite horse and some coins, and I left the castle. Told my father I was going on a hunting trip.” Arthur isn’t looking at her, keeping his gaze firmly ahead, but Morgana glances back at the servant following them, wondering if this is a conversation appropriate for him hear. “I was gone for a week before I ran out of supplies and money. My father’s men caught up with me a few days later.” 

“How old were you?” 

“Fourteen.” He smiled wryly at her. 

“What made you decide to leave? What was the final straw?”

Arthur made a discontented face. “My father started negotiations with the father of a terrible girl, trying to get me to marry her. I had no interest in her, or in marriage, but my father insisted I’d need an heir one day, and she would do well.” 

Morgana scoffed. “We aren’t so different then.” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

—

They wander town for a while. Prince Arthur very courteously buys her breakfast and a couple of little trinkets her eyes catch on. She tries to refuse them all, but he insists and Morgana is hungry now that she’s away from her mother and the stinging in her cheek has faded. 

She decided that today is not the day to run away. She has no money or supplies and she wouldn’t make it long. That would not do Lancelot proud. She’d wait until Spring, just like she had always planned to. 

When he returned her to her parents, her mother looked like she was going to tear her hair out, even while she looks serenely and gratefully at the crown prince. 

“That was incredibly inappropriate, Arthur,” his father chastises him, but it’s just for show. There’s no real heat in the words. When Morgana looks to Gorlois, who seems reassured by Morgana’s unruffled hair and calm demeanor, she knows that she won’t face any consequences either.

Lancelot’s ring sits on her middle finger when Arthur kisses her hand and wishes her farewell. He says something, just loudly enough for her mother to hear, that they had plotted on the ride back. 

“I do like this ring. Always wear it if you’re coming to see me.” 

“It’s very presumptuous of you to think I’ll come to see you.” She puts on a smile that she knows the men will think is flirting, but her mother will know for what it truly is. Distaste.

“A man can hope.” His smile is genuine, but she thinks it’s more for the trick they’ve just pulled than it is for any real desire to see her again. The crown prince is kind, even if he does make his servants walk several miles into town and back rather than getting them a horse. She had been sure to say it was unkind on the way back, and he had looked at her like it had never occurred to him. 

She waves from her bedroom window as the party rides off, and Arthur is sure to look back for her. It is to play up the ruse for both their parents. He’s agreed to help her stave off suitors as much as he can, in exchange for her doing the same for him. In all likelihood, this plan won’t work out well for him, but so long as her mother thinks she has Prince Arthur’s interest, she won’t push any other suitors on her. If she can stay blissfully unmarried until Spring, just another half year, then she will be free of this place and it’s expectations, just like she always wanted. 

—

Autumn puts a pin in her plans. Her mother takes ill, and Morgana spends all her time at her beside. Even if she sometimes loathes what her mother has tried to turn her into, Morgana remembers being sung to by the fireplace, and told stories beneath thick trees, hidden away from the summer sun. She remembers being taught to ride side saddle by her mother, and being gifted her beloved horse. Even if she thinks her mother is cruel to her now, she’d never wish for her death.

And yet it comes, while her father is away at the castle, seeing to his Lordly duties. She sends a messenger to tell him, to bring him home. The messenger returns. Her father doesn’t. 

He’s killed in a raid on the ride back. He’d returned alone, unguarded, trying to get back to his daughter and he belated wife as quickly as possible. Word doesn’t come for nearly two days that he is dead. 

She buries her mother alone. 

They never find her father. 

—

King Uther doesn’t just send regrets, he sends his son. His son, and a whole hoard of servants and knights.

An unmarried woman living alone in her father’s home is uncouth, but it hardly calls for all her possessions being moved to the palace, and her along with them. 

The letter Uther wrote is given to her by Prince Arthur himself, his face hard and lined with worry. For her or for what this means for him, she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care. 

She’s in a mourning dress. Simple and toneless colors. Her sleeve almost matches the parchment he hands her as she reads it off. 

Lady Morgana,

I send my deepest regrets regarding your mother and father. Gorlois was a dear friend of mine, and I wish to honor his legacy however I can. Preparations have been made to move you to the palace, where you will be housed until you are married. You will be well cared for here, and while you are gone, I will see your land and servants well attended to by the Lord Agravaine, my late wife’s brother.

Fret not, child, all will be well.

King Uther

“I’m being kidnapped,” she whispered, twirling Lancelot’s ring on her finger while she thinks. 

“I tried to convince him to let you stay here, but he wouldn’t hear it.” He leans in closer so no one will hear what he says next. “I’m sorry. I did try.” 

“I appreciate it.” She said back, watching as servants walked out the door and filled carts with her things. “I don’t think either of us will sway him.”

“No, I don’t think we will.” His lips are thin as he thinks. “If you have anything you’d rather not be seen, I would pack it yourself.” He hands her a bag that she recognizes as the saddlebag for her horse. She doubts that she will be allowed to ride the whole way there on her own horse, but she will try.

“You mean like the money I’ve been stockpiling to run away?” She asked with a half grin, and he smiled back at her, looking at their feet and shaking his head.

“Yes, I would say like that.” He laughed. 

The ride is long, but she has made it before. It wasn’t often that she visited Camelot, but she did remember the way. Also remembered a stream that had flowed near the path from when she made the trip nearly five years before, just a girl of thirteen who’d still be allowed to play sometimes. 

When the stop for camp and she recognizes the little deer trail that leads to the stream, she’s insistent to the nearest two knights she can find that she wants to go to it.

The knights assure her that a tub can be filled if she truly wishes to bathe and she scoffs at them.

“I’m not going to bathe in the woods like an animal. I only want to see it.” 

And that is how she ropes two knights into coming with her to the stream. The one who speaks, Sir Leon, is very polite, and she doesn’t have a problem with him. She also doesn’t feel bad ignoring him when she reaches the steam, leaving her shoes beside him while she edges close to the water. She hasn’t been allowed to walk on bare earth since the farm, since before she had confessed her love the Lancelot, and it feels surreal to have the ground so solidly beneath her again. She wades ankle deep into the water and the current laps lightly at her, making her feel welcome. Her dress is not pulled up an improper amount, but she she turns back to look at them, both knights are looking away. 

In the distance, she sees another one making his way towards them, and she knows it must be Arthur. His shock of blonde hair and grim face were very recognizable.

“Did it occur to you, Lady Morgana.” The crown prince asked from the edge of the clearing between her two guarding knights, “To tell someone before you left camp?”

“I told Leon. I even brought him with me.” She smiled and found his answering frown amusing.

“Excellent, I think I see where our wires are crossed. Because you brought him with you, Sir Leon couldn’t tell anyone else where you’d gone. So instead, I had to trek into the woods looking for you, with no idea why you’d gone.” 

“Afraid for my honor?” She asked with a soft laugh, kicking one foot and splashing water in his direction.

He frowned down at her bare, wet feet, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Afraid for your safety, is more like it. These woods could be filled with any number of ill intentioned men.”

“That’s why I brought Sir Leon with me.” Her heart is light for the first time in months and she doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

“Put your shoes on. We’re going back to camp.” 

“You sound like my father.” She flicked water in his direction before turning her back to him and wading in deeper, to her mid calves now. “Be responsible, Morgana. You have to wear the right clothes, and say the right things, look good for the right people.” Morgana closes her eyes and feels the power of the world around her, like it’s the only thing that matters. “My mother and father did the right things their whole lives, denied themselves basic pleasures for the sake of propriety. And they’re dead now. So if I want to wade into a stream, I will do it.” 

Arthur says nothing to this. She doesn’t hear him leave, and when she’s finally ready to return to camp, she finds him leaning against a tree near Sir Leon, her boots ready and in his hand.

He hands them to her, and she nods her thanks.

“I don’t mean to take your joys from you. I only want you to stay safe.”

“I was safe. I brought two of your best knights with me. I’m broken hearted, and terribly young to be an orphan, but I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.”

“So believe it.” 

[rkived]

drabble #4: a look back into pediatricsurgeon!jungkook’s and generalsurgeon!reader’s friendship throughout med school. 

or, what those infamous ‘‘med school vibes’’ are all about. 

(hospitalplaylist!au)

↩ previous | 📍drabbles masterlist | next ↪️

JUNGKOOK’S FIRST YEAR OF MED SCHOOL.

‘‘Okay, let’s begin.’’ 

Taehyung’s face is puffed up, barely awake. Just five minutes ago he was dreaming about being the mayor of Springfield, the fictional town in The Simpsons, and now he’s quizzing his roommate, Jungkook, before his big Pharmacology exam. 

‘‘What’s bioavailability?’’ 

Jungkook hums ‘‘The amount of medication in your blood that’s available to produce an effect.’’ he answers and Taehyung nods, yawning, moving on to the next question.

‘‘What is azithromycin used for?’’

‘‘Viral In─?’’

Taehyung shakes his head no.

‘‘Oh! Bacterial infections!’’ Jungkook corrects himself and receives a nod of approval from his roommate ‘‘Kinda forgot for a second.’’

Taehyung ignores his excuse and continues quizzing him for a few more minutes, the tiredness still evident in his face, but his anxious friend had him slightly worried. 

‘‘Dude, you’re flunking this shit.’’ Taehyung mutters, counting down how many right answers his roommate had gotten ‘‘You only got six out of fifteen questions right.’’

Jungkook mumbles a curse and places his head over his hands. He couldn’t afford to fail this class, Pharmacology was a pain in the ass and he did not want to take it again. 

Taehyung hums as he stares at his nervous friend, his leg bouncing up and down with nervousness. The older friend understood his position, though he didn’t experience much trouble when he took this class two years ago, he had definitely felt pre-exam jitters before. 

‘‘Did you not study or?’’ Taehyung asks him in a gentle tone, not wanting to put him under the spot even more. 

Jungkook sighs and runs his hand through his short hair ‘‘A little, I uh─I was supposed to take a book out from the library to do more research, but a girl from my class wanted it so I gave it to her because━’’

Taehyung’s eyes open wide like saucers and he doesn’t let his younger friend finish his explanation. 

‘‘You gave up a book for a girl? Because she wanted it?’’ 

So long for not wanting to put him under the spot.

Jungkook already felt bad, but the amused tone on Taehyung’s voice made him feel worse. 

He knew it was a dumb decision.  He handed the book over to her a week ago, when he grabbed it and was ready to take it out to study until she popped out of nowhere and asked him if she could have it, pleading eyes and with hands placed together as if she was begging.

And Jungkook was a first year student, he was still slower than his seniors. He was kinda lucky having Taehyung, a third-year student, as his roommate. The more knowledgeable guy had shared with him most of the tips and tricks he needed to know to survive in Med School. 

Though Taehyung was now regretting forgetting to tell him that when it came down to being ‘‘nice’’ to other students, he had to think smartly and be a little selfish. Especially when a big exam was coming up and you weren’t particularly the best student in the class. 

‘‘You’re a dumbass and you’re failing this exam fair and square.’’ 

Jungkook frowns, not appreciating his roommate’s words ‘‘Thanks, I’ll try my best not to.’’ 

With this, he takes his backpack and snatches the papers from Taehyung’s hands. 

---

Which of the following is a short-term side effect of amphetamine?

Constipation

Hair Loss

Suicidal Thoughts

Depression

‘‘Isn’t it all of them?’’ Jungkooks whispers to himself as he reads the options over and over again, getting himself more confused rather than obtaining a clear answer. 

This was a starter question! A basic one, if you may. He knows he’s supposed to be able to answer this without hesitation, but he’s looking at the question as if it was a foreign topic. 

He sighs and decides he’ll come back to it later, maybe the answer will come to him later.

When choosing to supplement, what type of vitamin D do most healthcare professionals prescribe and why?

Cholecalciferol because it cannot cause adverse effects

Vitamin D because there is only one type of supplement available.

Cholecalciferol because it is the naturally occurring form in the body.

None of the answers are correct.

‘‘Fuck, I know this.’’ Jungkook mumbles, hand coming to scratch the side of his head. 

It’s A. 

No, it’s B. 

But what if it’s C? 

It can’t be D, that’s a trick answer and─

‘‘Psst,’’ he hears from behind him, but he’s too deep in thought wondering which option is the right one. ‘‘Pssst,’’ Jungkook’s eyes raise from his paper and into the sea of students taking the exam around him.

Jungkook stares at his Pharmacology professor, sitting on his chair as he tries to stay awake to keep an eye on his 40+ students. The class started at 7 AM and even he hated waking up early.

‘‘Pssssst,’’ he hears again, this time a little more intense and he’s trying his hardest not to turn his head and see where the noise is coming from, fearing he might get mistaken for cheating. 

He decided to ignore the sound and after that, whoever was making the noise, decided to stop as well. 

An hour and a half later, Jungkook was out of the horrible exam and ready to cry it out for a little in his room. He was hoping Taehyung had left for his exams by then. 

If Jungkook could grade his exam he’d give himself a C, nice try kid. 

‘‘Gosh, are you deaf or something?’’ he hears from a voice behind him, turning around to find the girl from the library. The one he had given the Pharma book to, sacrificing himself to please her. ‘‘I was trying to get your attention!’’ she complains and Jungkook’s just staring at her. 

‘‘What?’’ he speaks up, but it comes out as a mere whisper because he’s confused as hell. 

He’s still thinking about the exam and now he has this girl looking at him like he’s a weirdo. 

‘‘I was trying to help you, I saw some of your answers and they were wrong.’’ She explains and his eyebrows raise slightly ‘‘Hair loss is a short-term side effect of amphetamine? Really? That’s basic Pharmaco.’’ 

‘‘What?’’

‘‘And don’t even get me started on your answer for the vitamin D supplement, that was a piece of cake!’’ The girl continues to complain about his wrong answers and Jungkook is left speechless. ‘‘I was gonna give you my answers, which I know are right because I studied, but you never turned around.’’

Jungkook’s brows furrow. 

The reason why he was able to recognize her in the library last week was because she was an avid participant during lectures. Always had something to say, a question to ask, ready to share a random fact that not even the professor knew about. 

Jungkook’s not surprised she didn’t recognize him back then, not even now. He’s the total opposite of her. Never speaks in class, all the questions he wishes he could ask are kept inside his head and he doesn’t know anything about Pharmacology because everything is a big question mark to him.

‘‘You studied because of me.’’ he states and her eyes go wide like saucers.

‘‘Whu─?’’ It seems that the realization doesn’t hit her after her eyes narrow at him and a lightbulb lights up over her head ‘‘Oh! You’re the guy from the library! You gave me the book!’’ 

‘‘Yeah,’’ Jungkook replies bitterly ‘‘so if my answers are wrong, it’s because of you little Ms. Know-It-All.’’ 

He’s had enough of this and he still wants to cry, the added tension of this random girl mocking his failure has become another reason as to why he needs to get to his dorm room immediately. 

But she won’t let up so easily. 

‘‘Wait!’’ she says, grabbing Jungkook’s arm as a way to stop him, but the taller guy yanks her hand away and continues to walk as she trails behind him ‘‘I swear I didn’t know then you were my classmate! I even asked you if you needed the book, you said no.’’ 

That was true, but Jungkook’s a first year student who obviously thinks being nice will get him A’s on his exams. He doesn’t need books. Being nice will get him that degree. 

Jungkook shrugs it off, but she’s relentless and holds onto his backpack straps instead. 

‘‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so bitchy,’’ she apologizes as Jungkook continues to drag her through the building’s hall, hoping she’ll let go of his straps soon. ‘‘I just got frustrated because I really wanted to help you and—Ow!’’ 

Jungkook suddenly stopping makes her collide with his back abruptly, he gasps and quickly turns around to find her massaging her forehead that’s now sporting a red mark from the impact. 

‘‘It’s okay, I deserve it! Karma, right?’’ she chuckles and he sighs. 

‘‘If I forgive you will you leave me alone?’’ 

She frowns with a pout ‘‘No,’’ she states and he groans ‘‘because if you get a low grade, I’ll feel extremely guilty.’’ 

‘‘Then you’ll just have to live with it, I guess.’’ he shrugs. 

Jungkook promises he’s usually not like this. 

She ignores him instead ‘‘If you get a low grade, you can take the exam again! Professor Lee is really nice and understanding—”

“I know nothing about this class.” Jungkook interjects firmly, hoping that it serves as an answer for her.

She hums “I can help you study!” she offers and he looks at her with surprise “Not to brag, but I’m really good at Pharmaco.” she smiles, but it comes off as less than humble to him.

Jungkook would rather flunk this class than have her tutor him. Actually, he rather have Taehyung flick him on the head every time he gives a wrong answer until he gets them right.

She can tell he’s about to say no and so she pleads “Please! Please let me help! It’s the least I can do.” 

Her begging is very reminiscent of the one she did in the library last week. Jungkook had to give it to her, she could throw quite a convincing act.

And free tutoring is a hard offer to come by. One thing that reigned over med students was this superiority complex, the “I’m a better student than you” idea that would blind people into thinking they shouldn’t help their peers. 

So, yes, maybe she was annoying and a little bitchy, but just like Jungkook, she’s just being nice. 

He sighs with defeat “Alright, I’ll take your help.” 

She gasps with surprise and claps her hands with excitement, making the taller guy laugh through his nose. 

“I’ll give you my number! You can call or text me if you need any help.” she quickly adds and it’s not like he can object because she’s already writing her number down on a pink post-it note. 

“Y/N?” he reads the name once she hands the piece of paper over, she smiles and nods. 

“At your service! I’m good with Pharmaco, Biochem, and Pathology!” she informs and he nods slightly “Don’t ask me about microbiology, though, it’s my weak spot.” she shyly admits

His eyes light up at the mention of his favorite course “I love that class!” he comments and you tilt your head to the side, how could he possibly? “If you need help, you can ask me!” 

You both smile at each other, realizing this small deed turned out to be perfect for you both.

—

JUNGKOOK’S THIRD YEAR OF MED SCHOOL.

“Could you like—stop that?” You mumble, pushing Jungkook off of your shoulder as the sleepy guy shuffles in the tiny space of your bed “Jungkook, seriously! We have a test tomorrow, you wanna flunk it?”

He yawns “You’ll help me if I do.” 

“That was a one time thing only,” you narrow your eyes at him “this time it’s not gonna be on me!”

You try to make some sense into your friend, but he’s not bugging at all. Though you try to understand, you’ve been cramming neurology concepts for the past four hours with no breaks in between. 

Sometimes you forget Jungkook’s study method is very different from yours.

“Shhh,” Jungkook hushes you with his eyes closed and a frown in his brows “‘’M trynna sleep.” 

Jungkook falls asleep to the sound of your mumbling complaints about how he’d fail the test and how you’d have to help him like you always do. He smiles to himself because your bed is really comfy and the air freshener that you spray every other hour smells like fresh laundry. 

You stare at him, peacefully snoring into your pillow, mouth slightly open as he breathes in and out. You should be angry, he was the one who proposed studying together after all.

But all you do is cover him with your favorite fuzzy blanket and pat his shoulder before you go back to the lessons in your book.

The silence is comfortable. It helps you study better and it gives him peace as he dreams of whatever. It’s always like this for you two.

—

JUNGKOOK’S FIFTH YEAR OF MED SCHOOL.

The packed boxes and bags placed on Taehyung’s bed throw Jungkook off because it finally hits him that, after five years of rooming with the older friend, he’d have to find a new roommate.

He enters a frenzied state of questions in his head.

Is my new roommate going to be messy?

Is my new roommate going to listen to music so loud I won’t be able to sleep?

Will my new roommate hate video games and won’t let me play my FPSGs? 

Jungkook hadn’t realized how well of a dynamic he and Taehyung shared until today. Always thought that they kept rooming because they were friends and not because they actually were able to coexist with each other.

And now that Taehyung’s graduating, Jungkook is left to wonder what will happen next.

He was in that state of mind all day long. 

When he watched his soon-to-be ex roommate pack his belongings in boxes that were divided by categories. As he sat in the crowd of attendees for that semester’s graduates, Taehyung in between the handful of fresh new M.Ds. And now, as his fellow group of friends were singing their drunk asses off into the microphone of the karaoke room they had rented for the night.

Jungkook doesn’t know what song Taehyung and Namjoon are singing, but it’s definitely one that came out when he was just a baby. 

“You know you look really funny when you space out, right?” 

He blinks and you’re sitting next to him, giving him a raised brow as you wait for him to answer. 

Jungkook’s been told this multiple times, mostly by you. His doe eyes go wide, mouth shut into a line as he just stares into space and even he would like to know what it is that goes through his head during those moments, he always seems to forget when he comes back to reality.

“I’m so glad those two decided to become doctors instead of singers.” you joke, looking over at the two friends who were trying, but failing, at reaching a high note. 

He doesn’t laugh, though. 

“Are you okay?” you carefully ask, noticing his unusual behavior. Jungkook was…a special kid, for the most part. But you weren’t used to looking at him this quiet and so out of place. “Should I worry?” 

Jungkook shakes his head no and sighs, realizing his mood is changing yours as well and this is supposed to be a happy occasion, because Taehyung just graduated and he should be excited for his friend.

“Ahhh, I see,” you say with a nod, realization hitting you “you’re sad ‘cause Taehyungie is leaving, right?”.

“No.” Jungkook mumbles, hoping that it was convincing enough for you to buy, but he knows that you rarely ever let up.

You smile, finding it endearing how he’s embarrassed to admit that it does hurt. You’ve been there before when Namjoon graduated two years ago and you were a sobbing mess because it felt as if your older brother was leaving and never coming back. 

It sucked that Jungkook and you were the youngest ones in the friend group. You didn’t get to interact much with the older friends due to how ahead they were of you both, but they served as good mentors as you and he made your way along Med School.

“If it makes you feel better, you still have me.” you say with a smile and a squeeze to his shoulder, Jungkook stares back at you with an expression you can’t quite pinpoint “Only two more years.”

Saying it out loud feels unreal. He actually has stuck it out for that long. And as he stares at you giggling about your drunken singing friends, Jungkook realizes he hasn’t been alone during this journey.

You have to pretend his unwavering eyes are not making you feel under pressure.

—

JUNGKOOK’S SEVENTH AND FINAL YEAR IN MED SCHOOL.

“If you don’t tell her now, you probably never will!”

Jungkook gulps as he fixes his robe in front of the mirror. Taehyung is behind him, glaring at him with so much force that the soon-to-be graduate feels like he has to hide.

“Why would I tell her?” Jungkook mumbles “It’s just a silly crush, that’s it.” 

And it’s true, just a silly crush! One that he had been hiding for the last couple of years until a few weeks ago, when his friends took him out drinking, between drunken words he had confessed to his older friends the feelings he had been harbouring for you. 

“We know.” they all said in unison

And ever since then, they —especially Taehyung— had been pushing him into coming clean to you. With graduation happening today, it felt like it was Jungkook’s last chance to tell you before it was too late. 

He knows where you’re going to specialize after this and he knows he won’t see you for a couple of years and vice versa.

Jungkook will be able to go on about his life and get over whatever he’s feeling for you and that gives the opportunity for you to continue ahead with the idea that he’s your best friend and that he’s never felt anything for you. 

“Because maybe she feels the same way!” Taehyung argues and by the look on his face, it’s clear that he’s frustrated with his youngest friend “Like, y’know how Y/N is super smart, right?” He asks and Jungkook nods “Well, every time she’s around you she goes dumb! That’s the love effect.” 

Jungkook chuckles at his friend’s comment. The idea of you liking him back is actually sweet, makes his heart beat a little faster. But it’s just that, a mere thought. 

Because in reality, you’re always smart and never dumb enough to like him back.

He has a front row seat as you receive your diploma, the biggest smile on your face as you pose for the cameras and thank your adviser. Spotting Jungkook in the crowd as he claps excitedly for you, you send a wink his way, making his heart flutter in the process. 

And he feels like he should tell you. What’s the worst that could happen? 

Losing his dignity? He lost it years ago.

Rejection? He can handle it, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Congrats, grad!” you say with excitement, after finding each other in the crowd of families and graduates “We did it!” 

“Yeah,” Jungkook chuckles, his heart is full of endearment as he watches you bounce with excitement in your heels “we made it, barely.” 

His heart is yelling at him to just do it now. He won’t have time later, what with your family wanting to take you out to celebrate and maybe his group of friends suggesting the usual post-grad Karaoke night. This is probably the last time Jungkook will be able to have you alone. 

In the corner of his eye he’s able to spot Taehyung, he’s far away but it’s clear that he’s dramatically mouthing TELL HER NOW! Seokjin, Namjoon and Yoongi are behind him, tugging at his suit’s sleeves so they’re able to drag him out of sight. 

“Hey, so…” Jungkook doesn’t mean for his voice to come out so shaky and you look at him with glowing eyes, excitement still bubbling in you “Uhm—“ 

Say it, you idiot. Just say it.

“Where are you going out to eat?” 

Fuck.

You chuckle as you tell him they’ll probably take you to some BBQ place and suggest if he would like to come. Jungkook quickly denies the offer and a few seconds later, you’re telling him that you should go and find your family.

Not before giving him a big hug and a kiss to his cheek, a friendly one “Don’t get too drunk tonight!” 

Oh, yeah... 

The worst thing that could happen if he tells you how he feels is that he’ll ruin your friendship. No biggie, right?

And you’ve been there for far too long, have put up with him through all his shenanigans, been too nice to him and he won’t fuck all of that up just because of a silly crush. 

Jungkook’s left to watch as you hurriedly spot your family, jumping with excitement into your father’s arms. The next second Taehyung is pulling at his ear, scolding him because he knows the graduate didn’t confess. 

He’s calling his older friends for help, but they let Taehyung have this, just this once. 

a/n: hello!! i decided to write this bc for the past drabbles the ‘‘med school vibes’’ have been mentioned n here’s a backstory to jk n reader’s friendship back then. i think this is a lil too long to be considered a drabble but wtvr. i did research those pharmaco questions n verified with my med student friends to fact check them lol hope all is well <3