#“You're a liar.”

[atimeofyourlife]

Whumptober day 9

rated: t | wc: 1743 | prompt: Polaroid | Mistaken Identity | “You're a liar.” | cw: homelessness, implied neglectful parenting Steve becomes homeless after his parents sold the house. He tries to keep up the lie that everything's okay.

Steve knew he would get caught in the lie eventually. It wasn't something he'd be able to hide forever. That his parents had sold the house from underneath him, no offer for him to move with them, no offer of assistance to find somewhere new to live. Leaving him living out of his car until he was able to find somewhere new to live. Having to use the showers at the community pool, which he had access to because he'd never returned the keys after the last summer he'd worked there. Surviving off of to go meals or non-perishable food that he could eat without heating it up. Unless he was at work, then he could use the microwave for something hot. He just wanted to hide the lie long enough to be able to find a place to rent, preferably a place that didn't need a reference.

Robin would have picked it up immediately, but she'd left for college. They had a weekly phone call arranged on his Tuesday night late shift at Family Video. Originally it had been to his house, but he started claiming that his parents were home with no end date to cover up that he was no longer living there. He'd told everyone else the same lie, telling them they could reach him on the walkie if they ever needed him. Robin hadn't been happy, but she'd accepted it, knowing what his parents were like.

The kids grew a little suspicious when he started refusing to give them rides all the time, because he didn't want them to see how stuffed his car was with all his belongings, but they quickly got over it as they were old enough to drive and some of them had cars of their own. He made various excuses, from the price of gas to working over time to needing to help his parents with something. He wasn't sure how much they believed him, but none of them called him on it, and eventually they stopped asking.

It was harder lying to the adults, Mrs Henderson, the Sinclair's, Joyce, and Hopper. Steve felt like they could see right through every lie he told them. Especially as they stepped up and started offering more help to him. Hopper and Joyce inviting him round for dinner at least once a week, often more. Mrs Henderson offering the use of the guest room whenever she saw him, if he ever needed a place to stay. Mr and Mrs Sinclair extending an open invitation for him to show up whenever he wanted to, and always tried to force him into taking leftovers after every visit. He didn't think they knew he was homeless, as he was certain that they would make a bigger deal out of it, but it was obvious they knew something was wrong, most likely that he was having a hard time with his parents being home.

He moved his car regularly, never staying in the same spot for more than two nights in a row. Not wanting to get caught by the police, especially not Hopper. It was awkward, but again he made it work. He had to, if he wanted to get any sleep. On more than one occasion, if he was on a closing shift followed by an open, he would pull his car around to the back of Family Video and sleep there. And there'd been a night during a particularly bad storm where he'd done all the closing duties, and locked himself in for the night, crashing on the lumpy couch in the breakroom so he wouldn't have to try to sleep as the wind and rain battered his car.

But it was only a matter of time before it started to fall apart. He got caught sleeping in his car by the police twice in a week. First time by Callahan when he was parked at the edge of the quarry, then a few days later by Powell up near Lovers Lake. Both times he gave the same excuse, that he'd gotten into it with his parents and needed to get away from them for the night. He realized later that he should have known that information would quickly make it's way back to Hopper. That outside of government mandated ones, there weren't many secrets kept in Hawkins. After that, he tried to find different parking spots, resorting to the dark corner of a parking lot for a motel that was just outside of town. But he only got a couple of nights there before it all crashed down.

It started with Dustin calling him on the walkie just after he'd finished work one day. Declaring there to be a code red, and that Steve needed to meet everyone else at Joyce and Hopper's place immediately. Steve broke a few traffic laws on his way over, horrified that it might be starting again. For what it would mean for the town, for his loved ones.

When he got there, the place seemed strangely quiet and subdued for the Upside Down potentially starting again. He climbed out of the car, and made for the trunk, stopping when he noticed Hopper watching him from the porch.

"You don't need the bat, kid. Just come on in."

Steve felt uneasy as he followed Hopper inside, unsure what was actually going on.

Once inside, everyone was calm. Too calm. No one was panicking, no one was planning, no one was organizing weapons. They were all just sat around waiting, with the tv on low in the background.

"What. What's going on?" He asked hesitantly.

"Steve, honey, we need you to talk to us. Tell us what's happened." Joyce said softly, guiding Steve into the room.

"I. What?" Steve was confused. "I don't- what happened? Is it the Upside Down?"

"Why would it be the Upside Down?" Mike asked from where he was stood against the wall.

"It. Henderson said-"

"You called a code red?" Lucas hit Dustin in the arm. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"We needed to get Steve here without him asking questions." Dustin protested, hitting Lucas back.

"Okay, all of you, pack it in." Hopper warned the kids, before turning to Steve. "Don't worry, Harrington. It's not the Upside Down. We just needed to talk to you."

"Steve, is everything okay at home? Are you safe?" Joyce asked, and Steve froze for a second, terrified that they had found out.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Why wouldn't I be safe?" Steve lied, fighting to keep his expression neutral.

"Powell and Callahan have both told me that they've caught you sleeping in your car on different nights in the last week. That you'd got in a fight with your parents or something." Hopper said cautiously, as if he was trying not to sound accusatory.

"Well, yeah. But you know what they're like. Me and dad clash heads a lot and it's easier for me to leave so we can both cool down. It's not the first time it's happened. When I was younger I used to crash at Tommy's." Steve replied, not exactly lying this time. Because it had happened so many times, even leaving him sleeping in his car or outside before.

"You're a liar." Dustin burst out.

"What?" Steve asked, unsure where Dustin wasn't following the lie.

"You're a liar. You're lying to us. I tried calling you a few days ago and the line's been disconnected."

"My parents wanted to get a new number because they kept getting harassment calls. I guess I just forgot to let you guys know that. I'll get it to you soon." Steve still wanted to dig his way out of it, even though the look on everyone else's face said they didn't believe him.

"The kids told me that calls weren't going through, and they were worried something had happened. So I went round to do a welfare check. It wasn't your parents that opened the door. It was a new family, and when I asked about you, they said they'd brought the house and moved in two months ago. So what is going on?" Hopper said firmly, and Steve knew he was caught.

"Look it's no big deal. I'm managing." Steve got up and tried to leave, but Hopper grabbed his arm before he could.

"Harrington. Steve. You're not going anywhere until you tell us exactly what's been going on. How long you've not been at home, how you've been coping, where you've been staying?"

"We're worried about you, we just need to know that you're okay." Joyce added.

"I'm fine." Steve insisted, but knew he'd have to explain at least some of it. "My parents sold the house. I didn't want to leave, but I've not found a place to rent yet. But it's all fine, you don't need to be worried about me."

"So you're homeless? Have you been sleeping in your car the entire time?" Hopper asked, but Steve didn't answer.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Dustin demanded. "My mom has always said that you can use the guest room whenever you need it. You could have stayed with us."

"Because it's not a big thing. I've been coping just fine. No one needs the burden of me staying with them until I can find a place to rent." Steve snapped his mouth shut as he realized that he'd admitted that he saw himself as a burden.

"Honey, it's not a burden on anyone. We all care about you, and it's never a burden to make sure that you're safe." Joyce replied, her voice tinged with sadness at his answer.

"You're going to stay with us." Hopper said firmly, giving Steve a pointed look when he opened his mouth to protest. "No buts. It's safer for you, for everyone. You can have the guest room for as long as you need it. And if you want me to, I'll cosign for you to get an apartment once you've found somewhere."

"I. I couldn't accept it." Steve started, unsure of what to say about the offer.

"If you don't accept it, we'll tell Robin that you lied to everyone about your parents being home, and that you were actually homeless." Dustin threatened.

Steve knew he was stuck. Robin would just about kill him for not telling her that he'd been made homeless. "Fine. I'll take the guest room. But only until I find a place to rent."

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Won't You Go My Way?

Sigh Not So | Secrets Hid Away | Shed Tears Aplenty | Fire Down Below | Rolling Down | Won't You Go My Way? |

CW: Drugged whumpee, nonhuman whumpee/monster whump with dehumanizing language, magical branding, creepy whumper, nonsexual nudity (although gilly gets a lil gross about it), magical whump, captivity

-

Atabei knelt beside the siren on the cool stone floor of Guilford’s bedroom, carefully moving the poor creature into position.

They’d dragged him from the bathroom laid out on top of a blanket, a sort of makeshift sled that left him thumping over the bumps where the doorways were inlaid imperfectly into the floor, groaning but unable to react in any other way. The drugged fish had done its work, and if he could have any idea that he were no longer bound and gagged, well, he didn’t show it.

He lay limp even now, jaw slack after so many days forced open. His eyelids were cracked just a little, showing a glimmer of pupil and iris, each dark enough to be interchangeable. He turned to look in her direction, but she thought he didn't see her at all - or if he did, he was so far gone he couldn't begin to understand just what he was looking at anyway. The curls of his lovely black hair had dried and gone from stuck against his skin with damp to a salt-crusted, springy bounce she could wrap around one finger and watch it snap back when she let go. Little flakes of sea salt found their way onto the floor when she did. 

"Can you hear me?" She asked in a soft voice, snapping her fingers just before his face, close enough to nearly graze the tip of his slightly aquiline nose. 

He didn't even blink, or twitch. Just moaned, low and miserable, mouth opening just enough to show a hint of a slightly-rough tongue.

She smiled, a gentle expression at odds with what she soon would do. “Good,” She whispered. “Feel as little as possible before the worst begins, you poor dear. This will hurt you so very, very much."

He whimpered, and she wondered if it was only because he hated the dizzy lull of the poison in his veins, or because he understood her.

She patted his shoulder as if in comfort, then looked back over her shoulder to where Guilford was pacing nervously in what passed for his kitchen. His hands worried at each other in front of him. He’d taken off his shirt, baring a chest and back marked with the occasional scarring from life at sea, shoulders hunched, his nose scrunched up to show his nerves in an expression she knew as well as her own face in the mirror. 

It had been sweet, when he was a little boy. It just looked silly on a grown man.

He looked like a man with a wife bearing a child who was scared of the birth. In truth, what he wanted borne to him would be far more than a son or a legacy, but power.  She could give it to him, and she would, but she thought one day he would regret it.

"He is ready to be placed," She called, voice low. "And painted. Bring me my supplies."

Guilford stopped. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he nodded, grabbing the large black bag off the kitchen table. He moved into the dim, windowless bedroom, closing the door behind him and even blocking the space between the bottom and the floor with a rolled-up towel. They were left only with the light from the candles set on every available surface. It flickered along the walls like a fire in some ancient cave.

It felt… right, to do magic here, in a space like this, even if she did not like the magic she was about to do. She had learned the darker work, but rarely performed it. Eliza's husband's lungs had been her only casualty since girlhood. But this...

This was to put something old and awe-inspiring in chains that the siren could never, ever break. Still... Guilford had asked, and it was just the same as if her own blood-brother had needed her. Not that she had a brother. Even if she had, she would probably have loved Guilford better.

She leaned forward in a rustle of skirt and petticoat, moving the siren's left wrist above his head, the blue tint of veins just visible beneath the thinnest skin marred by raw wounds rubbed by wet rope until they bled, again and again. Now swollen and inflamed as his body fought oncoming infection. His right wrist was the same. Placed next to each other with palms facing the ceiling, the backs of his knuckles just brushed each other just above his saltwater-crusted curls, a sort of makeshift halo. 

His arms were strong, but the muscle was lean, barely visible until he was stretched like this. Sirens were rare - they bred so little no one had ever seen their young, and male sirens were even less common. She and Guilford, Atabei thought, were likely one of less than a thousand humans who had ever seen a siren without dying shortly after.

She let her own forefinger gently graze the line of his jaw, softened in this artificial sleep. She could see the edges of his perfect straight white teeth. The corners of his mouth were raw, too, looking almost as if his mouth had been cut wider but then healed. A terrible rictus smile that would make, indeed. At least when this was done, Guilford would have no further need to gag him.

Purple bruises on one cheekbone and smears of darkness beneath his eyes, the ring of finger-shaped marks around his neck and welts layered in red across his chest… it all told quite a vicious story of Guilford’s awful cruel impatience with him. 

"When we were children," Atabei said slowly, finger drawing nonsense shapes on the siren's neck as she followed the story of his wounds, watching the creature shift just slightly under her touch with a plaintive whine, “You found once a little burrow of quenk babies. Do you remember this? The little piglets all alone while the herd's sows had gone off to forage? We watched them for what felt like hours…”

"Hm? No, I don't remember that." Guilford crouched on the other side of the siren, helping Atabei to spread the creature’s long legs apart as well, with the feet turned out to show the inner ankle, the back of the knee, the insides of his thighs. If Guilford's gaze and hands lingered too long and with intention where those thighs met hips and an anatomy Atabei had no interest in herself, Atabei chose not to see it. 

Maybe he was simply jealous of the creature's endowment.

Maybe that was all. 

"Your father wanted to kill them all,” She whispered, tracing little circles around the creature’s stomach, realizing he had no true navel, only the faintest indentation where an umbilical cord would have connected him to his mother. Did sirens even have umbilical cords? How did they grow their young? She’d never even considered the answer to such a question. “He wanted to smoke the babies from their burrow, drown them in a sack, and then have you pick the sows off one by one when they returned to the burrow. He wanted to teach you to shoot that way. You cried and begged him not to, you wept for them. You don't remember this?" 

"Sorry, Beibei, I don't." Guilford frowned, thoughtful, as if wracking his mind for an event that he simply hadn't found remarkable. "Did it work?"

"I suppose it did. You were so noisy that the piglets fled deeper into the burrow, and the sows came back for their squealing piglets and chased you away." Atabei pressed two fingers under the siren's jaw. His pulse beat, steady and strong. 

Good.

He would need his strength to survive the spell. 

"Your father could not make you fire on the defenseless and frightened, then. And you did not let him kill what had done him no harm." She felt herself smile at the memory of her friend as a child with his permanent squint and muddied hands and knees, the absolute grief he caused the servants tasked with keeping him clean. Before, of course, there had been no more servants. Before there had been no more money. 

Before Guilford’s father had lost it all, and his lordship besides. 

"I'll bet he was furious. He always called me soft." Guilford sat back on his heels, watching the siren's chest rise and fall with deep, even breathing. "What made you think of that?"

"You would not do harm to the helpless, then." Atabei sighed and stood, moving to open her bag of supplies on a side table. “I suppose I only wonder what changed.”

Each of her twelve brushes she laid on a small towel carefully by order of their use, from the thinnest with only a few hairs for fine line work, each brush slightly larger than the last. The wooden handles were intricately carved, and their notches and swirls warmed to her fingers, recognizing their master. Then the tiny ceramic pigment bowls. Each of them appeared to have black pigment within, but Atabei’s experienced eye knew their differences, and which she needed most right now. 

She chose one, which hummed a little when her fingers lingered on it, and moved it to one side, mixing it with a little water from a pitcher. 

Finally, she set out a squat-bottomed bottle of shimmery black setting powder. It looked like mica that had been crushed finer than sand. It came only from beaches near certain volcanoes able to birth whole islands each year. Magic, like the seeds of certain trees, could only be brought to life through heat and flame. 

“I don’t think all that much changed,” Guilford said, a little defensively. “I still wouldn’t hurt quenk piglets off in a burrow minding their own business, and I’d still happily tell my father to go to hell. My mother, too, if you’d like.”

“Your father is already there,” Atabei murmured, and smiled at Guilford’s laughter behind her. “And I imagine your mother is not far behind, if this works.”

“My mother,” Guilford said with perfect innocence, “will almost certainly bash her way into heaven simply to get as far away from my father as possible. And I imagine she will die, quite tragically, of... let's say tuberculosis. If you're amenable, of course."

"Guilord!" That made Atabei laugh, too, shaking her head as she finished mixing the first paint and picked up one of the finer brushes, moving back to the poor unconscious siren, kneeling down. She could feel the magic pulling towards the creature as she looked him over, deciding where to begin.

Finally, she shifted close to his right shoulder, looking over the mottled bruising on the side of his neck. “He must be still,” She said, voice low. “If he so much as twitches, if the brushstroke is pulled the wrong way or breaks the line, the magic will run wild and it may turn on us, or it may simply not work at all and this will be all for nothing. He must be still. Are you quite certain the poison you put in the fish will keep him that way?”

“I am,” Guilford said, but his voice wavered a little. He knew well enough to respect magic - they had still lived near to each other when she had begun taking lessons as a child, and he’d seen some of her early spellwork attempts go wrong. There was a dead tree likely still standing in the backyard of her old home to prove it, and the bones of a creature she had tried to create all by herself and failed spectacularly at. “He’ll be still, Beibei. I promise. I-I mean, it will be still.”

Atabei’s eyebrow raised, just a little, but she let it go. Guilford was insistent on pretending he was not asking her to mark a different kind of humanlike man, as though that would somehow deny the evil of this.

She dipped her brush into the paint and felt, more than heard, the way the two created a sort of harmony when they met, certain in their purpose.

“Last chance to stop,” She whispered. “Magic has a price, Guilford. It will cost you a man’s lifetime and force on you a siren’s. He isn’t very old - it could be a thousand years for you or more.“

"I don’t care,” Guilford whispered. His eyes were avid, overbright. “I want it.”

“You don’t… I promise you that you don’t.”

“I do!”

Atabei nodded. “So be it. You cannot abandon him once you have what you want. He will be always with you, and you will be always responsible for his life in order to keep your own. You will not be able to set him aside. Ever. The cost is high, Guilford. Just tell me not to do this and I will put my things away.”

She raised her eyes without raising her chin, looking at his face from beneath her eyelashes. He stared back at her, solid and unmoving, then looked down at the finely formed, handsome face of the siren, that slack mouth with red at the edges and the creature’s long lashes laying now against his cheeks. 

“I want it. I want you to do this,” Guilford said, nodding to himself. She could see him pushing past his own doubts. “I need this power, it’s going to fix everything, give me everything I deserve, everything I should have had… I’ll be like a king… no, better, I’ll be a god.”

“Maybe aim lower than divinity,” Atabei murmured.

She carefully pulled the paint out, working with an aching slowness to draw the first symbols. Her brush buzzed against her fingertips as it began to do its work. The magic moved into her hand, up her arm, took hold of her mind and heart. The shimmer of candlelight all around them became a hazy, distorted nothingness. She was no longer aware of the bed in the corner, the side table, the washbasin or even the mirror hung over it. 

Atabei was the magic, and it was her, working through her, working Guilford’s will into the skin of the siren he had stolen from the feral power of the ocean. 

The first symbol had to be set against a place where the siren’s heartbeat or pulse could be felt, to make it strong. It bound their lives together, Guilford and his captive, and gave the magic the foundation of control she needed to do the rest. It was a kind of brand. Once the paint was set, the siren would be possessed, wholly, all that it was would belong to Guilford Wentworth, for as long as they lived.

"I'm sorry," She whispered, barely moving her lips and not even breathing real sound. Guilford was distracted watching and didn't hear her.

She worked the outline of the symbols, leaving the centers for the larger brushes she would use later on. For now, the outline was enough to get her started, and filling the magic in too heavily too soon risked her letting it escape her grasp, and who knew what wild magic could do when connected to a wild man?

Time passed in a fog, a haze. Her hand ached and she switched to the other one, thankful that the difference between the two had never meant much to her. Symbols moved down his neck and along his shoulder, down his right arm all the way to the inside of his wrist, where she set the first symbol again, cementing it, going back to fill in the interiors. It must have taken hours.

Guilford came and went - he must have gone to eat, or to relieve himself - but she didn’t notice. The magic ensured her body had no such needs until the work was done. And what work it was - the beauty of it, the intricacy, the incredible cruelty of each symbol’s meaning.

Belonging. Possession. Obedience. Submission. 

Fear.

Magic did not dry like normal paint, and so the liquid stayed fresh and shimmered like new no matter how long it took her to work. Only the siren’s fingers ever twitched in reaction when she took her paint to his palm - otherwise, he stayed so perfectly still he might have been dead or carved from stone. His throat moved when he swallowed, his chest shifted when breath hitched into a whine or a pathetic whimper.

He must feel the magic, and know he should fight it and yet... and yet he could do nothing.

She could have done anything.

She took a breath, stretching her back, and then moved down to his right foot and began again. The outlines she painted from heel up to toe, over the top of his foot and along his ankle, up his calf and to the back of one knee and then over the front, up his thighs where the muscle shifted minutely beneath, along hip and pelvis, would ensure he could go in no ocean - no water - without his master’s command and consent. The siren’s own home would be barred to him forever, unless Guilford allowed it.

And only for as long as Guilford allowed it.

Guilt prickled at Atabei’s conscience, but she simply set it aside. Guilford meant far more to her than any magical being could, and this was what he wanted.

She paused to wipe away from sweat and felt a hand on her arm.

She jerked backwards in surprise as she was thrown out of her haze and back into reality, blinking rapidly as Gulford leaned in close. “Guilford William Wentworth, are you mad?! I told you not to interrupt me! What if I’ve-” She looked down, and let out a gasp of relief. “Oh, thank the gods, I was not touching him still.”

“I-I know,” Guildford said, but he looked a little ashamed of himself, which was gratifying. “I waited until you were done with that bit there. I wanted to-… to ask…” He trailed off. His face was red, and she blinked, her vision wavering as she tried to focus on him and discern why.

“What? What did you want to ask?”

Guilford’s mouth opened and closed a few times, rather like a fish out of water, and Atabei had to fight back a slight smile at how utterly ridiculous he looked doing it. There was a pause, and then he leaned over, just like when they told each other secrets as children they didn’t want the adults to hear. “Are you going to mark up its, ah…” He reddened even further, blotchy all the way to his neck and shoulders. “Its… reproductive…” He trailed off, and finally just… pointed.

Atabei followed his eyes, and then rolled her own, sitting back over the creature’s prone form. “His manhood? You want me to spell his manhood? To do what, exactly?”

Guilford swallowed, hard. He was sweating, his face shiny and hair sticking to his neck and forehead. “… anything I want.”

For the first time in their lives together as friends closer than brother and sister, Atabei felt... disgusted by him. "Guilford…”

“I won’t,” He said rapidly. "It's so it can happen with others, not me."

She knew the look she had seen on his face. She knew it for what it was. Her stomach turned. “You lie, Guilford. You are a liar, to me. To my face!"

“No! No, no, I’m being honest as the grave! I promise, Beibei, I am. But just… you know, if it helps me get what I want in the future, I need to control everything, right?”

She hesitated. “You tell me he is not a man, and in the next breath you ask me to make it so he can be made to bed you-"

“No,” He interrupted. “Not me. But I just, in case I need it to seduce someone else, is what I mean. I want to be able to command it to do so, right? That’s all. That’s all I want, nothing any more untoward than that, Beibei, I swear. I swear. You don’t think I would really… do that with some sort of monster?”

Yes, she thought. I begin to understand that you will, if that monster cannot fight you. That what you want is the need to fight without the ability to, that is where your excitement lies.

She swallowed back the words before they could be spoken and picked up the finest of her brushes, with its few bristles, and dipped it into the pot of paint. The creature’s skin was soft, with the unique texture this place had on human men, too. She tried to touch it as little as she could. Its whines took in a higher pitch, then, and she shook her head, murmuring apologies she dared not speak aloud.

She had to work more slowly than ever to keep from making a mistake. Over the soft length of it, down to mark even the bollocks beneath - she made a face, wondering how men managed with those clumsy things always in the way between their legs - and finally she connected the pattern to the marks that already climbed his leg and over his hips.

The creature shuddered when the connection was made, a sign that he had felt the power settle into place, too.

Once he was fully marked - his right arm and leg coated in the spellwork, as well as all of his chest, his manhood, his stomach, and hips - she stood to get the small bottle of setting powder. 

“Get behind me and prepare yourself,” She said, voice low. She kept thinking about the strange greed in Guilford's face, the thick note to his pleading that made the hairs on her arms stand up, as if feeling the eyes of a mountain lion watching her move through the dark. She was giving him far more than a simple siren’s song to get some money, she understood that now. 

For the first time, she wondered just what damage he could do with the power he was about to hold in his hands, because of her help. But it was too late to stop, or to turn back.

She had to seal the magic, or all three of them would die when it broke the barrier and turned on them all.

“Prepare myself for... what?” Guilford was back to looking like his normal self, curious and hopeful. The strange blend of greed and some kind of soul-deep need had gone, and she could almost forget she had ever even seen it. He moved around and crouched behind her.

She poured a handful of the setting powder into the palm of her hand, watching it sparkle and shine in the movement of the candlelight. “For the way he is about to wake,” She said, voice low, and then leaned over, spreading the setting powder from his foot all the way up to the mark on his neck, from pulse point to the tips of his toes, up and down again, three times. "It will not be... pleasant."

There is always an added power in threes, and she needed all the power she could draw from the great well of it she had been granted the slightest sliver of access to.

His toe twitched, first. 

She held her breath, watching, tensed.

This was the moment they would learn if it had worked, if she had truly made each mark perfect. If there were any mistakes, the whole spell would be broken, and the poor captive creature would make short work of murdering them both before the magic murdered him as well.

They would probably deserve it.

Those dark eyes flew open, so wide the whites showed all around them, nearly bulging from his face as the siren hitched in a gasping breath. The powder seemed to sink into the markings, adding a new shimmer to them as well, and then the creature shook violently. His back arched, every muscle so tense he shook, a hair breadth from snapping his own bones beneath his skin.

Then, his head tipped back, his hands slapping down against the floor, and he began to scream.

It was a deafening shriek, something far beyond a human's agony, and it seemed to hang in the air as if it would never, ever end.

Atabei clapped her hands over her ears, closing her eyes tightly as if that would somehow help her drown out the roar of the siren’s unimaginable pain. The simple paint turned to buried ink, painting becoming a sort of permanent tattoo. 

Deeper than could be seen, it settled into the siren’s blood and bones. His very nerve endings were reworked, the siren’s marrow hollowed out and reformed in a burst that had him writhing, screaming, clawing at himself until there were deep gouges on his arms bubbling up blood - and yet the marks were unmarred beneath. The spellwork, once set with the powder, could no longer be broken. The creature dragged nails over its neck where the symbol branded him as Guilford's, wailing, shaking its head violently and then rolling onto its side.

It was shrieking a word, over and over, but there was so much pain she couldn't even begin to understand what the word was. She had to guess, from the terror and edge of his voice, that he was saying no.

A word he could say all he wanted, but it meant nothing, now, to his body.

The siren curled up into a ball, desperately trying to escape pain that came from within, not without. His very body was his cage. He rolled onto his hands and knees, pushing himself up with difficulty, and the first tears finally fell, dripping onto the floor. A terrible wracking sob came from him, a sound that nearly set Atabei to weeping with him. He went to kneeling, clawing at his own stomach now as if he could rip out his own organs, whimpering in helpless fear and confusion. He kept repeating that strange word, a sound that rang oddly in Atabei's own ears.

Then he raised his eyes to see Atabei and Guilford staring at him.

She watched him see the brush in her hand, the little tub of her paint, and even if he didn’t know how she had done it… he knew it was her, that she had done this to him - she and the man who hurt him, over and over again, and kept him here on dry land where he didn’t belong. 

The illusion of humanity dropped all at once, and she saw the sacred monster beneath.

He bared his teeth in a terrible snarl, and what had been flat and white, she saw now was row upon row of yellowed razor-sharp fangs designed to rip and tear apart his victims after their ships were broken apart on the rocks. That mouth opened too wide, too large. His previously perfectly normal human hands were tipped in deadly claws, marked already with his own blood. He was webbed between his fingers and toes.

He seemed, only then, to realize that he did not have a gag. That he was not bound, that he could raise those claws and swipe, open that jaw and end the lives of his captors at once. He jerked forward, reaching for her-

And stopped.

His claws were six inches away from her - if even that. She barely dared to breathe. “Guilford,” Atabei whispered. “Tell him you are his master, and say his name.”

Guilford was breathing just as rapidly behind her, one hand clenched so tightly on her arm that it hurt, not that she could feel much with her ears still ringing with the creature’s musical cries. He had a knife in the other - had he had one tucked in his boot the whole time? - and held it out, brandishing the only weapon they had between them, ready to pull Atabei back and protect her. He swallowed, and nodded, whispering, “C-Creature, I… I am your… master. Your n-name is… Areyto. Beibei, did it work?”

“I don’t know. If it did-”

The siren lunged towards them again, and Atabei flinched, eyes closed, absolutely certain she had messed up her spellwork for the first time since she was fourteen years old, and her life would be forfeit to some tiny mistake.

Guilford yelled, “Stop that at once, Areyto! Stay there!”

There was silence.

Nothing tore her apart.

But the siren made a sound of horrified confusion.

Atabei cracked her eyes open and discovered the siren had frozen on the spot. His eyes were no longer wide with the rage of a freed wild thing, but with the fear of one who had only just seen the bars of his cage and begun to know how small it really was. His mouth opened, air forced out with an audible hiss, but without any other sound. He tried again and again.

Nothing happened.

Atabei allowed herself to relax. “It worked. He's trying to sing and he can't. It-... it worked. You are his master now, and he can’t work their power on you.”

“What about you?” Guilford asked, with real worry, although he let go of her arm now and looked the siren over, walking slowly around him while the creature watched him, frightened and confused by how he was both unbound and yet utterly unable to act. The siren's hands trembled with the urge to attack, his knees shook. “Can it hurt you?”

“Only if you command him to. Which I certainly hope you will not do.”

“God forbid! You’re the only person on God’s green earth I’d never harm a single hair on!”

She believed him. Gods help her… she believed him. Or… hoped she did, anyway.

Atabei nodded, slowly easing back and away from the siren, but every single sign she could see suggested the spell had taken hold. “He can use his song only when and how you tell him to. He’ll learn our tongue more rapidly now, and with time forget his own. He cannot harm you or anyone you care for the safety of. He can and will harm anyone he is told to harm… by you only. His very nerves are yours to command. You may cause him pain with a word, or pleasure. Congratulations, Guilford.” She swallowed, and found herself unwilling to look the siren in the eyes any longer. “You have for yourself the full breadth of a siren’s power and lifespan, and it is yours to use as you see fit.”

Guilford nodded, but where her expression had gone grave and serious, his own was brightening into a pleased, proud smile. “Beibei, thank you. Thank you. You’ve no idea how grateful I am, I can’t even begin to express-”

“I know. I know. I know you are. Now…” Atabei sighed. She felt a strange unease, something that touched the edges of self-hatred but didn’t quite cross into it. She had ruined a beautiful wild ocean thing, but the look on Guilford’s face… “The work is half done. Command him to lay still on his belly, bare his back, and not move at all.”

“What?” Guilford looked like his ears might be ringing still. He stuck a finger in one and rubbed, then blinked at her, leaning close. “Lay down on his back?”

“No, no. Lay on his stomach. Set him up just how we began, but the other side, so his back faces us.” Atabei looked at the tears running from the corners of the siren’s eyes, how he was still frozen from Guilford’s command, his claws twitching constantly as he fought against the compulsion to obey. He looked at her with a pleading terror, and she turned her gaze away.

“Fine." Guilford licked his lips, as if savoring a delicious meal. "Areyto, lie down.”

The siren bared his teeth again - but then looked down at himself in surprise as he discovered himself already obeying the command. He made sounds of alarm, speaking rapidly in a language only he knew here, but his body no longer listened to him… it listened to Guilford.

Entirely.

Utterly.

The siren laid down on his belly on the ground, panting with fear. His eyes met hers, fearful and pleading. “No,” Atabei whispered. “You will have no help from me.”

When Guilford moved the siren’s hands above his head, the creature whined and spoke more, words that Atabei didn’t know but a tone she absolutely did. Stop. Please. Don’t do this. Why is this happening to me?

Once the siren was back in position, legs spread wide and the backs of his hands facing the ceiling, Guilford nodded. “Good,” He whispered, and Atabei shuddered at the tone of his voice, slightly thickened, oddly heavy. His eyes lit up as he began to truly enjoy and understand the way the siren would do whatever he told it to do. She had given him too much power over another being, but it was too late for regrets. “Now you may breathe, but stay still. Don’t move any other muscle.”

Guilford took his time tracing fingertips along the bottom of the siren’s left foot, unmarked as it was, watching the creature’s toes twitch. The poor thing couldn’t even begin to do anything about the unwanted touch, as it slid up his ankle, tickled the back of one knee. The siren wept against the ground, back shaking minutely with sobs that couldn’t be entirely repressed even by a magical command to stillness. Guilford, thankfully, lifted his hand before it went any higher.  “Beibei…”

“What?” She cracked her knuckles, stretched her back and legs, shook the hours upon hours of stillness out of her body. For a horrified moment, she wondered if he would ask her to leave the room right here and now.

But he only gave her a look of slightly embarrassed, good-natured puzzlement she had seen on him a thousand times before. “Um. Why did we roll him over, exactly?”

“Oh. I told you already.” She settled back on her knees, and set the paintbrush back into the little dish, wetting the bristles. “You don’t know why?”

“Well, I just… oh. I guess I”ve been… distracted, haven’t I?”

When she looked up at him, his face shone with excitement, and it made something in her stomach flip in uncertain, hesitant disgust - a feeling she refused to name. A promise of torment the siren would experience that she would not let herself admit to. “Yes. You have been.”

“Apologies. It’s just… is it because we have to do the back, too?”

“Yes.” She laid the first stroke of the paint, starting at the siren’s nape, a long curving line down. “Yes, Guilford. This will need redone every ten years for the spell to hold, and it must be on both sides for the control you have to be truly complete. Once we finish this… you will have your tool to gain riches and power. You will have your false divinity."

If he heard the condemnation in her tone, he didn't show it. His smile was wide and adoring, and gods help her, she adored him in return. She would have worked this evil for no one else. 

He clasped her free hand in his, clammy and sweaty, and she pulled herself free so it wouldn't mar her work. His voice was low and soft but sincere and earnest. “Beibei, again, I just, thank you so much for doing this for me. I am grateful, I will repay you a thousand times over for what you’ve done, you'll be so rich you can't even imagine the wealth, the influence, just… thank you.”

The haze of magic began to settle over her once more, but she kept herself together long enough to say what was on her mind, halting and slow. “I have done this for you, Guildford, and not for wealth or influence. You asked, and I gave. What we do here may before our deaths cost you your soul and me my peace.” 

She listened to the siren’s pitiful weeping and laid a hand in his hair as some thin comfort as her other hand worked the spell. Soon enough, the poor thing would be screaming again. 

She set her jaw against the racing of her own heart, and added, “Just… please, my friend… please don’t thank me for what I have done."

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Taglist: @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10

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Look at me keeping up with including @whumptober prompts!

[sephyathredon-writing]

Whumptober #9: So This Is How It Feels To Fall

Summary:   Both Ballister and Ambrosius’ lives had begun to spin out of control when they realized that they had been caught having an intimate kiss in Ambrosius’ room by someone discreetly taking a photograph and what was supposed to be a private intimate moment was plastered on the front page of the newest issue of “GARD” magazine. An Entry for Whumptober under the prompt "You're a Liar"

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Note: Whenever "The Danks" are mentioned in this fic, I mean the poor part of town where the commoners live. The Nimona Artbook confirms that's what the place is called.

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It really happened, the thing Ambrosius had been dreading might happen since he got with Ballister.

  Both Ballister and Ambrosius’ lives had begun to spin out of control when they realized that they had been caught having an intimate kiss in Ambrosius’ room by someone discreetly taking a photograph and what was supposed to be a private intimate moment was plastered on the front page of the newest issue of “GARD” magazine.

Ambrosius remembers staring at it in horror, he remembers pushing it into Ballister’s face and demanding that he see what they had done, anger clear in his voice. He remembers breaking down in Balister’s arms, sobbing about how things were never going to be the same. Ballister tried to soothe his worries, but Ambrosius could tell that he was upset too, just trying to hide it for the other’s sake.

He had been right on all accounts to be cautious about not revealing the true nature of his relationship with Ballister. For the next few weeks Ambrosius was plagued by that picture, by people trying to talk to him about his relationship with Ballister and trying to talk him out of it.

He had to sit through a lecture from the Director on how he couldn’t marry Ballister because he was a man and Ambrosius being with a man meant that an heir to Gloreth’s legacy could not be produced. Ambrosius listened to all this holding back tears, with his nails digging into his palm.

Todd had found it hilarious that Ambrosius was in love with Ballister, he made it his mission to mimic some very obscene motions and laugh whenever Ambrosius or Ballister were nearby and he knew he could do it without getting in trouble.

People all over the Kingdom put in their two cents about what they thought was best for Ambrosius, which was usually something that had to do with breaking up with Ballister. He recieved endless requests for interviews about it and the few that he accepted ended in disaster.

He was exhausted by the end of the week. He found himself laying in bed in the dark, head on Ballister’s chest sobbing while the man ran fingers through his hair.

“I can’t do this, Ballister. I can’t do this…” He sobbed, “They always talk about what’s best for me, but they don’t know that you’re what’s best for me… and they won’t let me tell them. They only see that you’re a commoner and I’m sick of it…”

“Shhh,” Ballister soothed, “The only thing that matters is that we know we’re good for each other.”

“But what if they try to tear us apart?” Ambrosius’ voice was full of fear as he buried his head into Ballister’s chest, “What if they hurt you? I don’t think I can take that…”

“If someone tries to hurt me, I’ll fight back. You know me, I can take a hit and return it well enough. Now please, love. Go to sleep.”

Ambrosius’ eyes darted around the room as if he expected to see someone, to see a camera. That front page picture has made him paranoid now. At least it was dark so they couldn’t get a good picture without having to use flash, which would instantly alert the two of them.

Eventually, Ambrosius calmed down enough to fall asleep, tears still running down his cheeks even in his unconscious state. He kept his arms wrapped around Ballister’s waist as he slept.

When he awoke the next morning, Ballister was gone. Instead he held a pillow in his arms. Ambrosius could sense that there was something wrong with Ballister not being with him. A stone of dread that he didn’t quite understand settled in his stomach as he got out of bed and went about his morning routine.

“It’s okay, Ambrosius… he’s okay…” He told himself in a faint whisper as he brushed his hair. It was a weekend so they didn’t have class. Ballister didn’t have any other friends, especially now with the news that alienated him so much from the other Knights in training.

Ambrosius’ breath hitched as he paused in the middle of running his brush through his hair. A thought occurred that Todd and his lackeys might be hurting him. Of course Ballister had learned to deal with Todd’s physical abuse since he joined the academy, but what if he rallied other knights to outnumber him.

He couldn’t shake the thought from his head. He repeated Ballister’s words in his mind as an attempt to calm himself down, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that settled over him.

He slammed his hairbrush down on the counter and stared at himself in the mirror. Disheveled was an exaggeration for how he looked, but his mind amplified every imperfection he had tried to cover every single morning. His routine lasted easily over an hour.

He couldn’t do it today.

He watched his lips move in the mirror as he spoke.

“I’ve got to find Bal…”

----

It wasn’t long until Ambrosius spotted a crowd gathering in one part of town. The crowd wasn’t huge, but it was so big he couldn’t see what was in the middle of it, the people in the middle were moving though. Most of the people in the crowd wore the bright colors that marked them as nobility. It wasn’t until he heard shouts that he really realized what was going on.

“Go back to the Danks, where you belong!”

“How dare you taint Gloreth’s descendant!”

“He deserves better!”

“You’re just using him for his status! There’s no true love there!”

Ambrosius stumbled back as if he had been punched, eyes wide as he realized he could hear shouts and cries that sounded familiar, a voice he’d recognize anywhere.

“Ballister…” He whispered, hardly even able to breathe as the full extent of the situation donned on him.

He looked around for Knights to see if he could get their help, and he could spot them on the outskirts of the crowd, their armor reflecting the sunlight. They just stood there watching, not making any move to stop people from hurting the love of his life, a few of them even jeered along with some of the others in the crowd.

“You’re just a gutter rat, you don’t belong here!” Ambrosius heard one of the people close to him shout.

It made his blood boil and his eyes fill with tears. His expression was one of determination as he pushed his way through the crowd. Their shouts were closer than ever.

“Go back to the shadows and leave Ambrosius alone!”

“You’re a liar!”

“There’s no way a commoner could ever love a noble!”

“You’re a monster just looking to use him!”

Ambrosius hissed at that last one. It hurt him hearing someone call Ballister a monster. It hurt more than anything else in the past week, but he kept pushing on, angrily shoving past people. A few noticed his presence, but most of the people were focused on Ballister.

“Bal! No! Leave him alone!” He shouted, but his voice was drowned out by everyone else’s

Soon he got far enough in the crowd that he could actually see Ballister among the people in the center. He recognized one of these people as Todd, who currently had Ballister’s head pinned between his boot and the pavement.

Ballister’s teeth were gritted and his expression showed how much pain he was in.

It appears that Todd didn’t see Ambrosius yet because he was looking down at Ballister.

“Did you really think you’d have a place here? The only reason you were even considered is because the Queen is too nice. There’s no place for a charity case in the Knights, and there’s no place for a commoner in the arms of nobility.”

That was it, the final straw. Ambrosius snapped, pushing the last of the crowd aside and delivering a punch to Todd’s face. He was sent sprawling back into the crowd, knocked out cold.

Ambrosius saw someone aim to punch Ballister out of the corner of his eye and he moved to intercept it, the blow hitting harmlessly off his armor as he gathered Ballister in his arms and tried to wrap himself around the other as best he could to keep him from getting hurt.

“Enough!” He cried as loud as he could.

Everything stopped.

Ambrosius looked around. Some people had stopped mid wind up to a punch, others just stared at him.

Now would be the time to talk, Ambrosius realized. They wouldn’t hit their beloved descendant of Gloreth.

Ambrosius showed everything he was feeling in his expression. The sadness, the fear, the anger.

“I love Ballister.” He spoke confidently, looking around at the crowd, “I have loved Ballister for a long time now. He has been what kept me going all these years ago. You may believe his love is fake, but I know it isn’t.”

Ambrosius looked down at the man in his arms, gently caressing his face. He bit his lip as tears threatened to spill.

“Now here you are, hurting the man I love most in the whole world.”

He looked up at the crowd with a different expression on, anger.

“You hurt him. You all hurt him. I knew this was going to happen. This is why I didn’t tell anyone about our relationships, because I knew he would get hurt. I knew none of you would be able to just leave it be and go ‘well at least Ambrosius is happy’. No. It has to be a whole controversy over Ballister’s class, doesn’t it?” He looked away, “Everyone always thinks they know best for me and then they try to talk over me whenever I correct them. Well I’m sick of it. You do not get a say in my love life.”

He looked around at the crowd again and found that many of the people were looking at them with sympathetic expressions. He went back to looking at Ballister.

“He isn’t using me, he’s not trying to worm his way into my good graces to take advantage of my status, and he is not a liar. He’s my Ballister. We’ve been best friends since I was a kid and we’ve been together since I was a teen. There is nobody else I’d rather have at my side. There is nobody else I would experience life with.”

He leaned down and pressed his forehead against Ballister’s, a sob finally breaking loose.

“Ballister is my everything. I adore him.”

He didn’t say another word, instead he stood with Ballister in his arms and moved toward one part of the crowd. They all parted for him to make his way through, giving him plenty of space. A few of the people shuffled and fidgeted nervously.

“Hey! Get back here!” Ambrosius cringed at the sound of Todd’s voice behind him. He must have woken up, “I’m not finished with that sewer rat yet!”

Ambrosius turned around and fixed Todd with an even angry glare.

It didn’t stop him. He aimed a punch at Ballister’s form curled up in his arms.

Ambrosius responded by bringing his leg up and delivering a hard kick to Todd’s stomach. He was lucky Ambrosius didn’t aim further down.

He fell to the ground and stayed there. He was not knocked out, but reluctant to get back up. He glared at Ambrosius as he watched him walk away.

----

Ambrosius was quiet the whole walk back to the Institute, lost in his thoughts, not really caring who saw him carrying Ballister in his arms. If they were smart, they’d stay quiet on the subject. Ambrosius’ heart was still racing and he was likely to snap at anyone that said anything.

Ballister was out cold until Ambrosius finally laid him down on the bed in his own room. Ballister shared a room with one of his classmates, so taking him there was not an option. One of the perks of being Gloreth’s descendant was that he got his own room in the academy instead of having to share it with Knights.

Once Ambrosius laid Ballister on the bed, he was finally able to get a good look at the damage. He didn’t like what he saw. Bruises, a swollen eye, a split lip that tinted parts of his mustache red.

His eyes fluttered open as Ambrosius was looking him over and as those brown eyes met his own, he felt his heart swell with emotion.

How could this happen? How could he let Ballister get so hurt? He wanted to protect him from harm, always, but he was too late this time.

“Ugh… feels like I got hit by a hoverbike…” Those were the first words Ballister said.

“Please… please don’t move.” Ambrosius’ voice betrayed how much emotion he was feeling, “Save your strength, I’ll call a doctor.”

As he moved to turn away, Ballister sat up and grabbed his wrist.

“Amb… what happened? When I try to remember, everything is a blur…”

Ambrosius stood like that for a few moments, facing away from Ballister.

“Nothing good…” Was what Ambrosius replied with.

“Must be… if I’m in this kind of shape…” Ballister let go of Ambrosius’ wrist, laying back on the bed. His breathing is labored, “I feel like I have a few broken ribs.”

“You probably do.” Ambrosius replied as he pulled out his phone.

Ambrosius spent the next few minutes explaining Ballister’s condition over the phone to someone from the local hospital and asking for a doctor to be dispatched for a house call.

When he got off the phone, he laid down next to Ballister, who had fallen unconscious again during the phone call. Absent-mindedly, he ran his hand through the others hair, watched as his chest rose and fell with his breathing, listened to every groan of pain. He was close to tears again as he thought back on everything that happened, how eager they were to hurt him, all because he was in a relationship with a descendant of Gloreth.

Ambrosius shuddered and the tears broke free. He buried his face into the closest of Ballister’s shoulders, dark thoughts drifting through his mind.

He came to the conclusion that Ballister would never have gotten hurt if they weren’t together. Sure he’d still get the same insults and other things thrown his way, but it wouldn’t be this bad.

Truly, being a descendant of Gloreth was a curse.

He made the decision then and there, and it was the hardest decision he’s ever made in his life.

Shakily, he got up from the bed, tears still falling down his cheeks. He bent over it and looked down at Ballister’s sleeping face.

One last kiss for the road.

“I’m sorry… Ballister,” Ambrosius leaned down and captured his lips in a deep kiss. Tears dripped down his cheeks and fell onto Ballister’s face as he held the kiss. Ambrosius figured this would be his last one, so he tried to savor it.

“I love you. Goodbye…” Ambrosius bit back a sob, standing up straight. He threw on a cloak and headed out the door.

He met with the Doctor out in the hall and stopped to address him.

“Please… take good care of him…”

And that was it.

He began his walk out of the Institute, hand clutching his chest, his entire form slumped over. He was the very picture of sorrow, but he kept going. Step by step by step.

It was raining outside.

Ambrosius planned to find somewhere to spend the night and then to figure out some way to go over the wall.

He barely paid attention as he walked, so lost he was in thought. Images of the time they had spent together flashed in Ambrosius’ mind. He felt like he was throwing it all away.

The further he walked from Ballister, the worse the feeling got. He realized as he was making his way through the Danks that the feeling was heartbreak.

He stumbled, bracing his arm against a wall as he clutched his chest, trying to remember how to breathe. He tried to shake it off, now was not the time to panic.

He tried to continue onward, but tripped, falling to the ground, being showered in rainwater as a hover car drove by.

A cry left Ambrosius’ throat as he hit the ground with a fist. He couldn’t even leave properly.

This was the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He made a frustrated noise, getting back to his feet, and then broke out into a sprint. He needed to get out of the city. He needed to go somewhere Ballister couldn’t find him. He was dangerous.

He was dangerous.

There was no slowing down until Ambrosius cleared the treeline. When he did, he leaned heavily on one of the trees, catching his breath, and then looked back at where he had come from, at the city he’d spent his entire life in.

His eyes narrowed as he spotted the Gloreth statue at the center of the city.

He wasn’t like her after all, more like his father who abandoned his duties and left them on the shoulders of a young Ambrosius.

Biting back another sob, Ambrosius just scoffed and turned his back away from the city, heading deeper into the woods. He walked at an even pace this time, the water from the rain slowly seeping into his armor. He didn’t care.

It wasn’t the rain making him numb.

At one point, Ambrosius could swear he heard a voice on the wind, calling him. He chalked it up to his longing to be back by Ballister’s side. He was hearing things.

He didn’t even look back. He had resigned himself to his fate.

“Ambrosius!” The familiar voice cut through the rain, but still he ignored it.

It wasn’t until he felt a warm hand on his that he stopped and turned.

Ballister was there panting heavily from an exhaustion that clearly showed how fast he had to run to catch up with Ambrosius. He was bandaged but still heavily bruised, his expression full of fear.

The wind kicked up around them, but it didn’t matter, Ambrosius was lost in those big brown eyes full of hurt and betrayal.

“I… I can’t believe you were just going to leave…” Ballister sounded close to tears as he spoke, “After everything we’ve been through.”

He let go of Ambrosius’ hand and wrapped his own around himself.

“Bal, It’s not like that… they hurt you because of me. I’m dangerous. I-”

Ballister looked away and took a deep shaky breath, “It’s okay. Truth be told, the crowd ambushed me on my way out. I was going to leave you too. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I thought it’d be the best decision…”

“Wha- Bal. You know you’re the only thing keeping me at the Institute.” Ambrosius grabbed Ballister by his shoulders, looking him in the eye, “You know how much you mean to me. For you to leave without a note or anything… it would break my heart…” Ambrosius paused, “Oh…”

“Now you know how I felt, the sheer panic I felt when I woke up. I know you and I know that you wouldn’t leave my side for even a second if I was this injured.”

Ambrosius could swear he felt his broken heart healing itself.

“I love you so much, Ballister. When I made the decision to leave, it was so hard…”

“I love you too,” Ballister replied.

Things were quiet for a moment before Ambrosius spoke, “Bal, I had to listen to the Director tell me why we weren’t supposed to be together. I had to sit there and listen to her call you a filthy commoner. You don’t know how much I wanted to hit her…” He looked away, “The thing she was most worried about was that we couldn’t have children… Gloreth’s legacy can’t continue.”

Ballister sighed, “I’m tired of the Institute telling us what to do, telling you what to do with your body, Ambrosius. You know what I say about people who don’t like our relationship? Fuck em. Fuck the Institute.”

It was rare for Ballister to use such language, even though the knew it since he was young from growing up in the Danks. It had always been in an attempt to be polite and maintain his carefully curated appearance of a man worthy of becoming a knight. So to see him curse now was surprising. When he cursed around Ambrosius it often meant that he was serious about what he said.

Ambrosius wrapped Ballister in a hug and slumped forward, resting his head on Ballister’s shoulder, showing just how tired he was. He can’t remember the last time he hadn’t felt weariness in his bones, he always assumed it came with being Gloreth’s descendant.

“Yean… but I’m tired Bal… I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to risk that happening again.” Ambrosius mumbled, enjoying the feeling of Ballister running his hand through his hair.

“Then we won’t.”

Ambrosius pulled back and looked Ballister in the eyes.

“Where do you suggest we go?”

“Over the wall, where they can’t get us. The Institute can spin whatever rumors they want, but in the end, maybe we can find a place where we can be happy…”

“But there are monsters past the wall.”

“Says the Institute. Let's go and see for ourselves. Whatever happens, we’ll be together.”

Ambrosius thought about it for a few moments and then nodded.

“Wherever you go, I’ll be right behind you. I don’t ever want to leave you again Bal. I just… I”

Words failed Ambrosius so he captured Ballister’s lips in a passionate kiss, pressing their bodies together with one hand while pushing on the back of his head with one hand to make it deeper.

They didn’t part until they realized they needed air. Then they kissed again and again, like lovers who hadn’t seen each other in months. It didn’t matter that it was raining. It didn’t matter that Ambrosius was soaked to the bone, it didn’t matter that Ballister was still covered in bruises. All that mattered was each other.

The two of them stayed in a run down castle structure in the forest that they stumbled upon that night, and soon the two of them executed their plan to go over the wall.

Gloreth’s line was officially ended by the disappearance of Ambrosius. Knights searched the kingdom high and low, but there was no sign of them. Many people expressed their condolences, but few acknowledged the real reason why Ambrosius disappeared, citing it as just anything between ‘Ballister kidnapped him’ and ‘he just got lost, he’ll turn up.’

When Ballister and Ambrosius went over the wall, the truth dawned on them. There were no monsters, just miles and miles of untouched wilderness.

It was hard for the first month or so, but soon they had put together a home and were living off the land, happier than they had ever been under the thumb of the Institute.

They didn’t have to worry about anyone disapproving of their relationship, Ballister didn’t have to worry about his reputation or whether or not people liked him, and Ambrosius didn’t have to worry about his Gloreth duties anymore.

For them, It was truly a happy ending.

[riahlynn101]

Whumptober: Day Eleven - "You Said You'd Never leave." + You're a Liar."

Apologies for the slight delay in posting this :D!!

Takes place in the FNAF movie universe.

Trigger warnings: Implied/referenced kidnapping and murder, children in distress, and grief.

Thank you, guys, for all the support <333 It's much appreciated!

Small side note: These prompts come from two different days (10 and 9, respectively).

--

For the last three nights, it’s been the same exact routine. 

Mike arrives at the pizzeria. 

He does a five-minute patrol. 

He sits down in the office chair. 

He falls asleep…..

Tonight is no different. 

Mike sits down. The monitors he’s supposed to watch for the next five hours are already on. Nothing particularly interesting has happened yet, the animatronics haven’t moved a muscle. Which is probably a good thing, but it also means that the next however many hours are going to drag on. 

He yawns, checking the monitors for the outside cameras. Vanessa hasn’t said anything about coming here tonight, but he kind of hopes she does. It’s nice having someone here that knows what’s happening. 

(And he might kind of, a little, sort of like her company.)

Mike continues to watch the monitors, eyes growing heavy. He yawns again, sinking deeper into the seat. The animatronics stay in place. 

Mike rests his head on his folded arms. The allure of sleep is too great.

He dreams….

-x-x-x-

It started, like all the bad things in Mike’s life, just after his little brother was taken. His insistent need to sleep. Doctors and psychiatrists told him it was because he was depressed, but Mike wasn’t so sure. 

He was prone to the weirdest dreams when he slept. Dreams where it felt like-and perhaps it was simply his overactive imagination at work-his little brother was trying to reach out to him. 

And no amount of medicine or therapy ever made it better. 

It wasn’t until his mom and dad were dead and, in the ground, and his Aunt Jane got him put on a vastly different antidepressant that the dreams stopped. 

All that to say, it’s strange for Mike to be back in the same dream again. 

His brother stands in front of him, furrowing his eyebrows. “Mikey?” Garrett asks. “Are you okay?”

Even if this is a dream, Mike refuses to waste a single second with his brother. For years he looked forward to going to bed at night, knowing that, even for a short while, he could see Garrett.

“Yeah…I’m fine. Sorry.” His voice is slightly higher, childlike. He glances down at his hands. Mike thinks of asking why he’s a child again but stops himself. 

It doesn’t matter anyway. 

It’s a dream, and dreams aren’t known for following the rules of reality. 

“You’re fine,” Garrett says, taking him by the hand. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Mike follows, holding tightly to his brother’s hand. His eyes mist up a little, and he has to rub his face on his shirt to avoid crying. The familiar weight of his brother’s hand is comforting as it is upsetting. 

Garrett says nothing, chattering on and on about anything and everything. Though, the slight squeeze to his hand is acknowledgement enough. 

They arrive at a park. The same park that….

“No!” Mike shouts, yanking his brother back. “We need to leave!”

Garrett tilts his head. “But I wanna play with you.”

“I…I…can’t. This place is-”

“I know, but no one can hurt us here. I want you to swing with me.”

Mike trembles, nodding reluctantly. “Okay.” 

“Yay!” 

He follows Garrett to the swings. His little brother hops up into one. He then looks expectantly at Mike. Mike sits on a swing. It creaks. He closes his eyes, unable to look at the park where his….

“It hurts.”

Mike opens his eyes. “Huh?”

“It hurts. This place, seeing it, being here. It causes you pain,” Garrett says, still swinging. 

He swallows past the lump in his throat, wiping a hand over his face. “No….I’m just worried.”

Garrett giggles. “You can be worried and in pain, silly. You can’t lie to me, you know. We are connected. I can feel your pain.”

Mike opens his eyes. “What?”

“Your pain. I can feel it.”

“But…you said we’re connected?”

“Yeah, of course we are. We’re brothers.”

“That explains nothing.”

Garrett shrugs. “I don’t know how to explain it. It just is. After I died-”

“You aren’t dead,” Mike snaps. 

His little brother just gives him a pity-filled look. “After I died,” he starts again, “I was stuck. I couldn’t speak, or move. It was…scary.” Garrett stops swinging. “I remember calling out for mommy and daddy, but no matter how hard I screamed, they never came. And then I called out for you.”

Mike feels his entire body tense up. The lump in his throat is slowly becoming harder to ignore, and his eyes are starting to mist up again. “Yeah?”

“Uh, huh,” his little brother says, tightening his hold on the swing’s chains. “I called out to you, but you didn’t come either. But then, one night, something amazing happened.”

Garrett looks at him. “The dead can’t sleep, like the living can. Like you are right now. But sometimes, we can force ourselves to enter a dream-like state. It helps pass the time. The first time I did that, I ended up here. I didn’t want to be alone here as well, so I called out to you again. And unlike the previous times, you came.”

Mike nods along, listening intently. 

“It felt almost like we were together again….” A stormy look crosses Garrett’s face. “And then, you left.”

Mike shakes his head. “No. That’s not what happened.”

His little brother glares at him. “You told me you’d never leave. You promised, Mike. But you lied.” Tears slid down his brother’s cheeks. “Why’d you lie?”

He freezes, unable to handle the new wave of guilt. “I…I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Suddenly, he’s nauseous and dizzy. Mike closes his eyes, trying to block out all the sights and smells.

His brother starts to sob. The sound feels like a knife in his gut. 

Mike’s tears feel like acid, burning his skin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he repeats, over and over like a mantra. 

His brother’s sobs get louder until it’s the only thing Mike can hear….

His eyes shoot open. A very concerned Vanessa stands in front of him. “Mike?” She asks, searching his face. “Are you okay?”

Mike rubs a hand down his face, feeling tears. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Just a bad dream.”

Vanessa doesn’t press any further, though she also doesn’t look like she exactly believes him either. “I brought donuts,” she tells him, gesturing to a box in her hands. 

Mike forces a smile. “Thank you.”

[whumpshots]

Whumptober #9

Tope of the day: “You're a liar.”

_

Whumpee's eyes widen in shock. When whumper walks through the door, their heart skips a beat and nausea makes it hard to swallow. An invisible hand clenches them, makes it impossible to breathe. They want to curse, want to scream, but nothing comes, their mouth doesn't even open.

Darkness.

Sudden darkness as the only thing they see is whumper, lurking, grinning like a predator.

"Unhappy to see me?", they coo, voice echoing in whumpee's head as the hand clenches and makes them gasp.

"This is real. I am back," whumper whispers, their voice coming from everywhere, the darkness now surrounding them completely.

"No. No ... You're a liar. You have always been," whumpee manages to gasp and fights against the hand around them, the voice getting louder and louder, but whumpee screams “You're a liar.” Over and over again, until their throat hurts.

"It's a dream. It's just a dream," the repeat in a coarse rasp when their eyes finally snap open.

[savebatsfromscratch]

No.9 These chains COULD hold him, as it turned out.

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50704096

(Part one link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42721356)

Words: 1,017

Cws: Mildly creepy behavior, being chained up, mentions of brainwashing and cults, crying, threats

Notes: This concept has me on my KNEES. (I wrote a part one to this last year. I just HAD to revisit it.)

Prompt: No. 9: “Learning everything ain't what it seems, that's the thing about these days.” Polaroid | Mistaken Identity | “You're a liar.”

When Hareta woke, he found that he was still chained.

“Not sure what I expected,” he muttered to himself, kicking his legs out as far as they would go and sliding away from the wall a bit to get into a position a bit better for breaking the chains. He spun to put his legs against the wall, putting his back to the door of his cage as he strained against the cold metal that wrapped him, but no matter how much he pushed, it wasn’t snapping.

“That might be a problem,” he muttered to himself.

He was just getting ready to try again when a low chuckle from behind him made him jump. “You really thought you could break out by yourself?” Charon tut tuted as Hareta bent his head back to look at him. (How Hareta had not noticed him the first time he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t very excited to find out why

“I prepared those chains just for you,” Charon said, scooting his chair a little closer to the iron bars on the front of the cage, a crazy look in his eye, “I studied you, I made these just to combat your weaknesses,” he broke off to cackle, giving Hareta time to roll over onto his knees again, “I’m not some idiot-”

“Yeah right,” Hareta muttered, trying to fiddle with the chains on his arms, even though he knew Charon was right

“-who would try to wrap you in some weak rope, Hareta,” Charon smiled at him, and Hareta’s hair seemed to stand on end, something was very wrong here, “I wouldn’t be one to underestimate you, we’re both on the same level after all,”

Hareta grit his teeth and fought the urge to squirm back against the wall. Something about Charon made him want, no need, to get out of his chains in a way that no other threat had ever made him feel before. 

“So Hareta,” Charon purred, standing and leaning against the bars, causally sticking one arm through as if to offer him a hand to stand up, “What’ll it be? Will you join us now?”

Hareta looked at Charon, any confidence from before his nap dissipated as he realized that he couldn’t even read the man. Charon, whose glasses sparked with light at just the right angle to block his eyes. Charon, whose lab coat was stained an old bloody brown. Charon, whose other hand was still holding that awful remote control.

Hareta still didn’t know what it did, but he still didn’t want to know.

“Come on Hareta,” Charon said, still faking niceness but clearly losing his patience, “You’d be a valuable asset to us,”

Was that what he was to these people? An asset? Hareta felt his heart beat against his ribs like a Starly in a bird cage. Why was he surprised? That’s what they had done to Mitsumi, wasn’t it? Manipulated her. Tortured her. Forced her into unthinkable situation after unthinkable situation. They had made her think that she was no more than an object. 

Truly, it was no surprise that Hareta looked the same in Charon’s hungry eyes.

“You’re a liar,” Hareta’s voice was shaking to an uncharacteristic amount, and he pressed his legs against his chest as he fought for eye contact with the evil man in front of him, “You don’t care what I can do-” Charon balled his hands into fists, and a loud snap alerted both of them to the fact that the remote control was no more. (Though Charon’s brief sting of cursing could have told Hareta that much.) “-you just care what you can do with me,”

Charon stood straight up, yanking his arm back onto his side of the cage, a glowering rage reddening his face as he stared at Hareta. (For some reason, the way his eyes traced over Hareta made him want to hide even more desperately than he had before.)

“Even though you don’t want to,” Charon whispered, deadly calm and just barely loud enough for Hareta to hear, “you will find that you will be joining us,”

Hareta couldn't even say anything as Charon spun on his heel to walk away, still muttering curses about the ruined mechanical instrument in his hands, no doubt off to fix up another one to enact whatever terrible punishment the first had been ready to give him. Hareta felt himself go limp as he struggled to catch his breath. He hadn't been in a fight, he hadn't even tried to break the chains for very long. Why did he feel so limp?

And then Hareta couldn't help it.

He began to cry.

Not soft crying, not something that he could hide from the security camera in the top corner of his cage, but huge loud sobs that shook his entire body from head to toe. He couldn't take this, he knew /exactly/ what that monster wanted from him. (And he knew that, with whatever threat that remote embodied, he wouldn't be able to fight it.)

In the past, Hareta had always gotten himself out of dangerous situations. He had always been a fighter as much as he was a survivor. But now... 

All he was, was trapped. 

Cold chains wrapping his body, cold metal at his back and on every wall, and only cold concrete tiles and the security camera to keep him company. Despite everything, despite all his joking and false confidence, Hareta knew that Charon was right. He couldn't break these chains. The idea that he ever could seemed ridiculous to him now, like, how could he have ever believed that?

Something about Charon's face when Hareta had refused him, even after that evil man played nice... 

Hareta knew he wasn't safe here. He knew he was only days away from getting roped into what Mitsumi had been, and though he liked to think of himself as strong, deep down, he knew that he and Mitusmi were strong in similar ways, and she had lost to this.

This… horror.

As it turned out, it seemed that these chains could hold him, after all.

[jianghushenanigans]

Whumptober Day 9: "You're a liar."

She stands there, hiding in the shadows of his house. She stands there, watching and listening as tempers rise and fall, as the man who hides behind his own nonchalance, who knows Mei Changsu better than anyone else, hands over a bottle and stalks away with tears in his eyes.

Three months.

Three months.

He had promised her ten years. He had looked her in the eyes and told her that they would have that time together. That they wouldn’t be able to grow old together, but they would have back some of that time they missed, some of that time they lost.

She had taken that promise, that ten years, had held it close to her heart. Had let herself, in secret, in the dark in her own room with no one to see her, had let herself be a child again. Let herself imagine her life with Lin Shu-gege again. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to get married. Maybe he would be too ill to ride from one end of Da Liang to the other like they used to joke about. But he would be there and with her and alive.

Three months.

She stands there, still, watching Mei Changsu watch Lin Chen leave. She can’t… she can’t work out how she feels. She would say heartbroken, but she was heartbroken fifteen years ago when the news first arrived that Lin Shu-gege had died, and this isn’t the same. She would say devastated, but she was devastated fifteen years ago when almost everyone she cared about was accused of treason, was slandered and left unmourned, and this isn’t the same.

She is still heartbroken. She is still devastated. But she’s also fifteen years older. Thirteen years of mourning, of learning how to live without him, two years of hoping, of learning how to live with him again.

She’s heartbroken. She devastated. She’s furious.

She tries to beat it down, to suppress it. But she can’t hide in the shadows of his house forever.

His eyes widen when he sees her. Mei Changsu, who always knows everything, hadn’t known she was there.

Part of her wonders if he would have made a different decision, if he had known. The rest of her knows he would have just put aside the conversation to have later, in private. Mei Changsu, her Lin Shu-gege. He would never have chosen any differently. He would never have chosen to let her know.

She wants to shout “You’re a liar!”, wants to rant and rage.

She can’t let herself. She’s the Duchess of Yunnan, the Princess Mu Nihuang. She can only take a shaky breath. Can only let her eyes fill with tears. Can only leave.

One day, and soon, they’ll part, and three months will be over before she knows it.

Crossposted here on ao3

[the-graves-family]

9. "You're a liar."

“Hey, Ada— Ace. Right. Sorry.”

Adrian’s lighthearted greeting is met with silence. Very hostile silence.

Something’s off with the twins. Something had been off with them years ago, and it seemed like it had not been fixed in the years they had been apart. Aaron’s turned into quite the cunning little monster, and Ace…

Doesn’t talk to them anymore. Barely wants to see them. It’s so different from the quiet but eager teen Adrian remembers.

Of course, he kind of knows whose fault that is.

The twins have been joined at the hip each time they’ve come to visit. Aaron does all of the talking, draws all the attention away from his brother easily. Makes it almost impossible to get any one-on-one time with the older twin.

But Aaron's being reprimanded in the study over something or other, which had left Ace standing next to the door. Waiting.

It's fucking weird, Adrian has to admit.

Usually, Ace doesn't really bother with lifting his gaze from the floor, not even when he's spoken to. But something about Adrian must have upset him, because he is now full-on glaring at his older brother.

You know why.

Adrian's smile wavers as the silence stretches, and he ends up clearing his throat. "How have things been? We haven't talked in a while." If their talks could even be called that. Mostly it was him talking and Ace not giving him anything to work with.

Deservedly. 

More silence. Ace's gaze feels heavy on his shoulders. He's not sure how he manages to do that with little to no expression on his face.

“Has… everything been okay, between you and Aaron? Smooth sailing?” It’s a polite enough way to ask if their brother isn’t being too hard to live with.

Even though you know the answer.

The look Ace gives him is enough to make him feel like his blood has frozen in his veins. Okay. He hadn’t expected his brother to be capable of that much silent venom.

It doesn’t sit right with him. Everything feels off, but he feels powerless to do anything about it. Adrian clears his throat again, and decides to try another approach. “You know you can… talk to me, if anything’s wrong?”

That was not the correct thing to say.

Ace blinks, then pushes away from the wall suddenly, stepping right up to his older brother. He’s glaring, eyes alight with anger, and Adrian has to step back to keep some distance between them. 

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

His younger brother is deceptively tall. He hunches a lot, rarely stands up straight, which makes it easy to underestimate him. Even with all the scars and the quiet voice and the missing limbs, Ace looks ready to break Adrian’s face in.

“You did not just fucking dare to—”

“Ah ah.”

Aaron’s voice cuts Ace off, and the change is instantaneous. Ace falls silent, hangs his head, and steps back, giving Adrian some space to breathe. The tension in the air is far too thick for three brothers who are supposedly fine.

There are no more words. Aaron just cocks his hips to the side and hums, looking between both men, before he walks away, and Ace follows him silently. Adrian is left simply standing there, confused and a little scared, to be honest. He should be thinking about the way Ace had looked terrified for a moment, there, he should be bringing it up to Father, he should, he should, he should—

All he can think about is how much he wants a smoke.

[scarlettohairdye]

What's up, I made a meme that I'm sure is extremely broad-audience and relatable

[getsusun]

Love will construct a gravestone

1 whump point out of ten? probably? Timeline: something like eight hundred years before main bleach plot. Naumi Kuchiki rejected his zanpakuto and then died. (Hooray! Finally!)

For some reason, Koigetsu - Nameless now - still wakes up alive.

Koigetsu… No, Koigetsu did not existed anymore, after his master rejected him – and then died – zanpakuto did not feel that the name was his. Nameless spirit wandered through Soul Society, half-aware of his surroundings. At first he walked aimlessly, simply waiting for inevitable death, which for some reason had not taken him immediately after Na… After his former master cut all ties with him. Neither it happened when Nameless felt his former master’s reitsu disappear completely after a splash of energy from Hell’s gates. Nameless fell to deep, dreamless, death-like sleep soon after, not hoping – not wanting – to wake up, but for some reason he eventually did.

Judging by the colors of leafs and colder temperature, several months had passed while he slept. Or it could have been years, but it does not feels like it, so he decides to assume months. Soul Society is in early autumn, with sun still shining brightly but with earth halfway cooled down.

He ends up in somehow familiar landscape – groves and small fields, neat paths. His fingers tingle from proximity of kido barrier, and it is this feeling which finally allows him to recognize where he is. Pretty close to main Kuchiki manor. And… Cemetery.

Cemetery, where his former master’s grave would be. Even if Kuchiki were not entirely happy with Na… With him, a second seat in Sixth Division was a pretty high position. So the body would have been buried, if it didn’t disperse into reishi particles too son – and Nameless was sure that it would be not, since his former master was strong and powerful. Even without body, tombstone would be made, to immortalize the memory.

Nameless actually didn’t even know how exactly his former master died. May be there would be something written on gravestone. Or he can ask… Somebody from the Clan? May be… May be even stay there, to fix some of the things Na… His former master said or done. Or just spend the rest of the time he has left – whatever it would be, hours or days – in Kuchiki’s library. He would be quiet and almost invisible, he would not bother anybody.

And if Kuchiki will think that he had stayed on this side of life for too long… Well, they can kill him. Make it fast and not ugly. May be this time it will stuck.

But first. First Nameless wanted to see the grave. To grasp the reality of his former master’s death.

And the first step would be going through this kido barriers. They were good enough to detect Nameless even when he shifted his presence halfway to another layer of reality, almost not-existing for normal souls. They also technically should have let him in, since his reitsu would be as Nau… As his former masters. Theoretically.

Nameless squinted on colorful tangle of energy, and suddenly felt a strong urge to pick this kido lock. The feeling was like a mix between nervous need and exiting want. Well. It is not like he is going to break it, right? Just play with it a bit, warp a few minor energy flows to persuade them into ignoring his reitsu signature…

It was actually really easy. Nameless spent less than ten minutes, and he was sleepy and half-numb from exhaustion. The moment the barrier yielded to his prodding Nameless felt an echo of satisfaction. It was weak, but it was a positive emotion, something Nameless did not expected to feel at all.

Well. He could have become a little crazy, after all. No one could say he did not have a good reason!

Feeling a little guilty, Nameless ended up fixing the barrier and simply walking through. As he expected, kido did let him in, after just a little hesitation – must have been because of minor reitsu signature differences with his former master.

So. Cemetery. Nameless never was there before – his former master’s mother’s grave was far away, in small household where Nau… Where they spent their childhood. ...Do zanpakuto have a childhood? Did it counted like one, if Nameless was aging in parallel with his former master for some time? Not the point.

The cemetery had no fence, only a path of white sand marking the boundaries. Nameless went slowly, trying to catch the logic of gravestone’s placement. Seemed pretty easy – chronologically, from oldest to newest. There were names Nameless knew from old lessons on Clan’s history, or from diaries and records. Twenty five gravestones, the biggest ones, for previous Kuchiki Clan Heads. Others for Captains, Lieutenants and high-seated Gotei officers. Names, dates, the most remarkable achievements. Some didn’t have the last category – must have been something not for everyone’s eyes, even on Kuchiki’s lands. Be Nameless in better state, he may have tried to guess unwritten words, but the proximity of the newest part of the cemetery – the one where the new burials were made – washed the colors from Nameless’s world again.

There. Nameless was one gravestone from the beginning – or the end – of the line, and he remembered the face behind the name on the second last. Not yet old Kuchiki, accidental death, was considered a great poet and philosopher. Well, the place on this cemetery was given to him probably not for the literary successes, but for espionage activities on the good of the clan…

Nameless closed his eyes, breathed in and out and finally looked at the last gravestone.

And blinked, trying to make the world make sense again.

The name on the stone… It was not Na… His former master’s. And the date was two weeks later than his former master’s death, so it could not be that the grave was not here yet.

It was not here.

Kuchiki deemed his former master not good enough to be remembered.

For some time Nameless was just standing here, slightly wobbling from side to side (his left knee was starting to feel like in fire again. Seemed like it would not, in fact, heal anytime soon (or that he will be dead sooner than that)). It is hard to think, his thoughts like water drops leaking through the fingers.

No, it must be something else. Some type of error, may be. Or just a delay.

(It is hard to believe in it, but Nameless throws the doubts away).

Well, then he may as well fix it.

There is a small shed nearby the cemetery, half-hidden in tree’s shadow, where Nameless finds a pile of empty gravestones. They are not really heavy (at least for zanpakuto spirit), but his left arm is still not good enough for any consistent load, so it takes time to move one stone to the next empty spot. The previous grave does not look very fresh, so Nau… His former master’s body probably already dispersed into reishi particles. But Nameless would not let the world to forget.

Nameless sits on the earth near the stone, left leg awkwardly stretched out to hurt less, and looks at the empty surface. For a second he thinks about using the sword – but no, the other way would be better. Closer.

Nameless concentrates, and calls to the surface tingling in fingers on his right arm. Metal claws grow fast. They are dark, almost black, like his bankai blades, but unlike these ones, growing claws does not hurt. He leaves them pretty short, since they are not for fighting this time. The stone surrenders, crumbling under the pressure of live metal, and Nameless takes his time, trying to make every line smooth and clear.

The simple and repeated movements help to clear his mind, but they also make the fact of what he is doing – carving the name of his former master on the gravestone­ - closer and more… Real. For some reason – must be tiredness and overall sense of surreality – Nameless feels strange thoughts filling his head.

For example, that his former master has only himself to blame for the inscription on his tombstone being not ideal. It would have been better, if Nameless could use his left hand, and Nameless can’t because his former master broke his – their – bankai, and Nameless’s left arm, and now pretty often his accuracy of movements is really not great lower than elbow.

Nameless blinks and drops this thought. After all, he himself is also to be blamed for it. He wronged his master, so there was no other choice for him – or there was, but Nau… But his former master could not see it because Nameless was not good enough.

That… That certainly is an interesting trail of thoughts. Nameless frowns and tries to make sense of his mind. He feels conflicted. There is too much of everything, and so it all dissolves into a gray mix – pain, sadness, anger, despair, denial.

His hand slips, and sharp edge of stone cuts the skin on the finger pad. It suddenly hurts, even if Nameless should not even feel that small of a wound, and he looks at the drop of blood slowly sliding across the stone.

The inscription is actually almost ready, only the last date not here yet – because Nameless is not quite sure which one it should be. How long had passed from the moment his former master said the words of rejection and until the death found him? Hours, days? Weeks?

- It seems that even Hell is not good enough for you, Naumi!

The voice pushes Nameless out of his thoughts enough for zanpakuto spirit to grasp on the reality and dodge the attack in time. Aimed in his back sword clanks on the gravestone, leaving an ugly scratch over the unevenly carved words. The sensations drop on Nameless as a tsunami: strong distantly familiar presence nearby, another twenty or so reitsu signatures around, those much weaker, not shinigami-level. Most of them hide under kido barriers, which he feels like a sand creaking on his teeth.

Nameless stands and turns around in one movement, and half-stumbles, barely keeping balance. He does, in fact, know the man in front of him. It would be hard for anyone not to recognize white silk of scarf and smooth curves of bone in middle-aged man half gray hair.

- Lord Kuchiki.

Nameless bows politely, which is hard, because he still feels half-dead. It is even fun that these are the first words he had said since… Since he lost his name. Well, he did come to Kuchiki’s cemetery, so it is not that unexpected to see a clan member here. Head of the clan, from the other side…

Head of the Kuchiki Clan, who is currently looking at him strangely, as far as Nameless can see – and feel from reitsu, because the world again becomes a little blurry and the flows of energy a little too bright to be comfortable.

- You are not Naumi.

The name cuts on Nameless’s soul as a sharp knife, and it hurts, it hurts so much to even hear it, so he forbids himself from thinking about how there is no bond anymore, no soul to guard, no voice to hear.

- No, I am not.

There is silence for a few moments, and Nameless should have been realized that Lord Kuchiki must be waiting for an elaboration, but Nameless’s thoughts are a little too tangled into tight knots.

So he just waits until Lord Kuchiki starts speaking again. Guards – ninjas in purple clothes – still mostly hide under kido, but their presence now feels just a little less threatening.

- Then you must be Naumi’s zanpakuto spirit, Koigetsu.

Nameless startles and rises his head, looking into approximate direction of Lord’s eyes.

- No, I am not. He rejected me. I am not his anymore, nor is this name mine to own.

It should sound bitter and may be even angry, but his voice ends up being just tired. His old name sounds strange falling from wrong lips, but it also does not sounds completely wrong. He is not sure what does it means.

- And Clan rejected Naumi, therefore our cemetery is not a place for his tombstone.

Nameless forgets how to breath. “You’re a liar”, he wants to say, but he always knows when the lie is spoken, and the words just before were truth. Was… Was his former master deprived of everything, not only his life in Soul Society, but also his family, his clan?

- Why?

This time there is despair in his voice, and also pain, but Lord – and his guards – seems to take this tone as a threat. Ninjas, still invisible under the kido, move to surround Nameless, and Lord Kuchiki has his hand on katana’s handle again.

- Leave now, spirit, and do not invade my land again.

Nameless is frustrated, and exhaustion rolls over him like a big wave. He stumbles, grabs the gravestone to keep balance, and his metal claws, which are still there, stained by stone crumb, grinds on stone, striking sparks.

It seems to be the last drop in Lord’s patience. Short gesture – and ninja in purple clothes attack as a unite force, all strikes aimed directly on Nameless.

For a short, very short moment Nameless considers just. Not moving. Staying in one place, being pierced by a dozen swords. A loyal zanpakuto, dying on his master’s grave. Poetic. Simple.

Stupid and pathetic.

But then there is anger, not on Kuchiki Lord, but on Nameless himself. Was all he went through not enough? Were all the tortures not enough? The images flashed before his eyes: dark stone pit, cold water of deep lake, white pillars under a scorching sun, an acid burning his face, fire, hunger, pain, pain, so much pain…

“No”, decides Nameless, and dodges the strikes, may be very gracefully, but here the result is more important. “No”, thinks he, crushing the metal of someone’s sword – not a zanpakuto, not even an asauchi, dead metal crumbles under his claws, “I am not dying today.”

He does not attack, just defends and dodges, and then runs, and soon looses ninjas somewhere behind, their reitsu fading away. The short burst of energy allows Nameless to move far away to consider himself relatively safe, and he stops in the middle of the forest.

The autumn is bright around, leafs of all shades of yellow, red and brown. Nameless looks up at the sun, and laughs, feeling a little mad.

What the hell is next?

[starry-bi-sky]

my martha knight au in a nutshell:

Danny/Martha: see up here?

Danny/Martha: *taps skull*

Danny/Martha: intense psychological damage

-----------

Danny/Martha: *upon finding out she's pregnant*

Danny/Martha: oh my god i cant be a mom, I'm fifteen and homeless--

Danny/Martha: im going to be a terrible mother--

Danny/Martha: i live in a cAR--

Danny/Martha: what if the baby inherits my powers? Oh no--

-------------

Danny/Martha post giving birth: i've only had Bruce for a minute and a half but if anything were to happen to him i won't even need to fuse with Vlad, I'm razing this goddamn planet to the ground myself

Danny, to Baby Bruce: you are the last remaining thread of my sanity. I'm going to give you the world :)

---------------

Danny/Martha prior to getting pregnant: Fuck it, if everything in my life has led to this moment, i'm allowed to make one stupid decision. I'm getting drunk and getting laid

---------------

Danny/Martha while Bruce was a toddler: i swear to fucking god i am going to kill the next person who talks to me--

Bruce: hi mommy!! i brought you something!!!

Danny/Martha, immediately flipping on a dime: hi baby!! what do you have?

Bruce, a weird child like his mother: a spider :)

---------------

Danny/Martha, talking to Falcone after he made an unsavory comment at her and Bruce: If you ever come near me or my son again, I will dig up your shithead father's corpse and make you eat his skin.

Danny/Martha: do you understand me

Falcone:... crystal, ma'am

---------------

Danny/Martha new in Gotham: *getting mugged*

Danny/Martha: *grabs man's arm*

Danny/Martha: I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF LIKE A TWIG, FUCK BOY, DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH--

(she then proceeds to terrorize Gotham's night life for the next extended period of time, mostly unintentionally)

---------------

Danny/Martha: Danny Fenton?? No. you must be mistaken, my name is Martha Knight.

Danny/Martha: this here is my littlest knight, Bruce.

Danny/Martha: I made him all by myself :]

[katich-pigeon]

[sophsun1]

Interview With The Vampire – 2.07: I Could Not Prevent It

[mellosdrawings]

What's that? I finally took the time to make an actual character sheet for my Yuusona?

Yuu

17 years old, 1st year

They/them, probably on the aro/ace spectrum though they never really thought about it (they do get weird when people show interest in them)

Half Japanese half french

Probably has some flavor of AuDHD

Back home: Before they were kidnapped forcefully moved to Twisted Wonderland, they were the main caretaker of four younger siblings while their parents were busy working. One of their main worry now is whether their siblings are doing alright without them. Their deepest wish is to at least be able to phone call their family to reassure them that they are ok.

Personality: They usually prefer to stand to the side and observe rather than talk and engage with others. They tend to be very prudent with their actions, up until their patience runs out. They're actually pretty perceptive and great at reading others, they just keep everything to themself without realizing.

They make up their absence of magic with their fists and wits. People tend to underestimate them due to their size and quiet demeanor, but they can be vicious and ruthless when push comes to shove. They are not very expressive physically.

At school: Yuu has a terrible focus so they struggle a lot, even when the subject interests them. They are very fond of History of Magic but also hates it because learning a whole world's history in a few months only is a nightmare and a half. They also hate flying with a passion since they are scared of heights. If they could choose a club, Yuu would go for photography and/or filming.

At Ramshackle: Yuu cleans the dorm as a past time, it keeps their body moving while they're thinking about what problem they currently have. They hate cooking though, so when the cafeteria isn't accessible they try to cram themselves in whichever dorm will have them to enjoy someone else's cooking. They aren't very time savvy so they and Grim keep leaving late in the mornings.

Relationships (with Housewardens/OB)

Yuu has a soft spot for Riddle. Unless it's some rule they find completely nonsensical they tend to do whatever Riddle asks. Whenever Yuu comes to class with a clean uniform, it's because Riddle was around to correct their appearance.

Yuu and Leona's relationship is peak siblinghood. Once Yuu figures out that Leona won't act on (half of) his threats, it's over for him. He's one of the first Yuu comes to when they have a problem.

Yuu and Azul regularly try to outsmart each other. At first their interest with Azul is very transactional since he can help with everything Crowley can't be bothered to do (ie give Yuu an actual legal presence in this world) but since they have somewhat similar mindsets they end up getting along very well.

Yuu values Kalim's presence a lot. He's one of the rare pure hearted people at school so Yuu doesn't have to be hyper vigilant around him. It's a breath of fresh air. He is a bit too active for Yuu though, so they tire very fast around him.

"It takes one liar to know another" would be Jamil and Yuu's relationship starter. They had weird vibes from each other from the very start but Jamil did end up underestimating Yuu. Yuu is obsessed with Jamil's hair and regularly takes pictures of him.

Yuu is kinda scared of Vil (in a good way). If they were a tad more outgoing they'd be asking Vil to pose for their camera 24/7. Instead they quietly worship him.

If Yuu could, they'd adopt Idia (and Ortho). Yuu tends to miss their siblings all the time so they get a bit emotional around them both.

Yuu loves to observe Malleus. He's some kind of very strange entity that they can't get enough of and they don't understand half of what he talks about which tickles their curiosity a lot.

Yuu treats Grim like their own cat and plushie. They hold him in their arm as much as possible (until Grim gets tired of it and wanders off somewhere else) because it reassures them. They do fight a lot, a bit like siblings, but they also look out for the other all the time. Yuu sometimes agree to cook for Grim despite hating it.

Relationships (the less fun kind):

Since they're in a world they don't know with students who try to kill them every couple months, Yuu is very defensive in how they approach relationships. Everything starts as transactional and about how "useful" someone can be to keep around. They try to keep even the people they don't really get along with close for this reason.

They are actually very emotional (despite not showing it) so their heart takes precedence over their brain eventually. Despite not being particularly proactive they do go out of their way to help the ones they're close to.

[diaz911]

"Because you're the fastest runner."

Bitch you literally beat him up the stairs earlier that day. We saw you!

[imminent-danger-came]

One detail I've noticed is that Wukong's outfit is different before and after Tripitaka places the circlet on him (and Wukong was notably unwilling to be chained):

Which is distinctly different than every other iteration of this scene we've been shown:

Other retellings of this moment have Wukong kneeling in servitude...when the reality is he was kneeling after being subdued—continuing lmk's tradition of biased/false narratives (like what was done with the multiple explanations of the samadhi fire). I think it's interesting to see the ways in which Wukong's past was made easier to swallow as time went on (or if you were Azure and didn't want to believe that Wukong had been changed by his journey lol)