#...threatened to kill me in the most gruesome way then she went on a random tangent about TT602

[paraonyx]

I JUST WOKE UP FROM A LOVELY DREAM WHERE ALL OF THE CONTESTANTS WERE BROGUHT BACK TO LIFE AND THE CREDITS TO THE FINALE HAD A MONTAGE IN THE BACKGROUND OF ALL OF THE CHARACTERS BEING HAPPY AND LVIING THEIR LIVES WJDISBWGWOASHDK

[baepop]

Punishment

Pining for an elusive yet bewitching stranger has its advantages and disadvantages.

Word Count: 10k

Pairing: You x Taehyung

Genre: Smut, Horror, Vampire!Taehyung

There were those eyes again. Those damn eyes that followed you around the room as if you were observing the Mona Lisa. They were the most beautiful you’d seen in a good while, alluring yet mysterious, though you suspected that was attributed to the face holding them. Surely, it too, was out of a Da Vinci painting. Flawless tan skin, pointed nose, ash brown tresses that waved out of his scalp with calculated precision. Was it possible for angels to walk amongst human beings? Surely you were a believer after tonight.

Oh. He’s smiling. Of course, he has a perfect set of pearly whites to boot, why wouldn’t he? You sipped from your glass, refusing to look away as you had previously been doing all night. No, you couldn’t deny your attraction to him anymore. The prolonged eye contact was more intimate than sexual experiences you’d had in the past. They say if someone stares at you for longer than 6 consecutive seconds then they either want to sleep with you or murder you. You wanted to find out so badly which one it was, hoping more so for the former. Either way, you were his prey tonight.

You felt an incessant tapping on your shoulder, causing your eyes to rip away from the tunnel vision you two had built. Eyeing your friend in mild annoyance, she pulled you down to whisper into your ear. “Should I leave with Mike tonight?”

You sighed deeply, a rooted exhaustion you had grown quite familiar with making an appearance as if waiting on queue behind stage curtains. Your best friend and her ex-boyfriend were a five act play of their own, and you were the sole ticket holder forced to sit in an empty theatre and react appropriately.

“Babe, we’ve talked about this. You can’t keep going back to him every time you run into him at a party.” You may as well have been reciting a monologue. That dream-like stare fixated in her gaze was telling, she had already made up her mind.

He’s gone. You did a subtle scan of the room, holding your Tom Collins drink to your lips for dissimulation purposes. The penthouse hosting this party had impressive square footage, he could be anywhere by now. You spared your friend one last glance before setting off to make your move. She was already in the arms of her previously scorned beloved, painful lessons being the only thing that could save her now.

Making your way through each room, your eyes searched frantically amongst the intimate crowds. Your coworkers were littered throughout, sometimes catching your looks in passing and drunkenly beckoning you over. Most of them were people you couldn’t stand to be around, even after a few drinks, so you had perfected the “I can’t hear you” miming down to an exact science.

Could he be in the kitchen, maybe? Your heels clicked against the marble flooring, echoing against the abundant stainless-steel appliances that lined the spotless white walls. You bit the inside of your cheek, considering the possibility that he could’ve left. You plopped yourself down on one of the stools lining the island, ready to sulk with your cocktail in hand.

Work gatherings always bored you half to death. After listening to the same stories for the 10th time, they started to lose their appeal. The only excitement that came was from the random people who’d show up or get invited to dilute the professional crowd. You wondered who had invited that Adonis, you’d be sure to send them a nice memo come Monday.

“May I join you?” A velvety timbre pierced through your reverie. You swished your drink around in your cup, nodding with a smile. There was no need to look up and see who that could be, surely a voice like that could only come from the man who had stolen your attention for the night.

A slight breeze indicated him passing behind you, his thigh slightly brushing against your bare skin as he took a seat next to you. You crossed your legs as you looked over at him for the first time, taking advantage of the close proximity to rake in his appearance in its entirety. Your eyes were drinking from a sacred river, your sexual prowess finding salvation.

Your pupils followed his sinful tongue as it dragged across his bottom lip, wetting everything in its path. Your mouth swallowed involuntarily as your eyes took a road trip down the expanse of his neck and stopped at the fork in the road at his parted button up. Maroon was definitely his color.

“I take it you like what you see?” His chuckle was sinister, each contraction of his diaphragm resonating with the deepest parts of your core.

You smirked and took a sip of your drink. “That’s an understatement.”

The padding of feet running down the hallway towards the kitchen was too distracting to ignore. Suddenly your best friend’s shaking figure approached the entryway, the trauma in her eyes evident. You slid out of your seat and hurried over to her, holding her shoulders firmly as you struggled to get her to look at you.

Her lip quivered, unshed tears threatening to spill. “M-Mike…he…” She broke down into a full sob, embracing your midsection and burying her head in your bosom. A deep sense of dread grew within you. You’d never seen her distressed like this. You glanced behind you, suddenly remembering your elusive guest. He was gone yet again.

“Did he hurt you? I’ll fucking kill him.” She shook her head adamantly, looking up at you with a runny nose and smeared mascara.

“He—He’s dead!” Your lips became pale as all of the color drained from your face. You held her head to your chest, cooing and patting her disheveled hair. It was only then that you began noticing people grabbing their belongings in a hurry. The music had stopped playing after a blood curdling scream reverberated throughout the apartment. You removed your blazer and draped it over the girl, leading her to one of the stools.

“Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back, okay?” She nodded, unable to formulate a coherent sentence as sobs continued to wrack her entire body.

You rubbed the goosebumps on your arms, a sudden chill apparent in every room and corridor you walked through. The penthouse had cleared out quickly, yet a healthy crowd of people remained in the parlor. You squeezed past frantic party goers to get to the balcony. Just as you cleared the onlookers, a meaty hand hovered in front of your chest and halted you in your tracks. You looked up at the gentleman, unable to recognize him but grateful for his concern.

You lowered his hand and smiled weakly. “It’s okay, I can take it. I’m with his girlfriend, I need to see what happened, for her.” The man sighed, contemplating your reasoning before holding his arms out to stop other people from getting past him. You took the opportunity to exit through the glass doors that lead to the balcony. The air was below freezing, but somehow you couldn’t quite feel it, the sensation of weightlessness overpowering everything else. Your breathing became shallow as you placed your hands on the icy railing, leaning just past it to look 42 stories down.

The scene was gruesome, even from the impressive height you were observing it from. To put it simply, Mike was a stain on the pavement, surely unrecognizable if not for his distinct beige sweater vest now stained crimson. You swallowed vile as squad cars blared their horns on the way to the grisly scene splayed on the outside of one of the city’s fanciest hotels.

You hurried to find your best friend in the pandemonium that had transmuted your quaint work party. She wasn’t in the kitchen anymore, but it didn’t take long to find her near the elevator, being questioned by two policemen. She was frantic and her body language was defensive, causing the two gentlemen to exchange looks numerous times. You hurried to her side with your coats and purses in tow.

“Excuse me, I’m her lawyer. My client isn’t in any state to answer questions right now.” You helped her put her coat on as she fell silent, short of sniffling. Before leaving, you handed one of the officers your business card. “I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. We’ll fully cooperate to any investigations underway in the future. Have a goodnight.” You were used to the exasperated look from law enforcement whenever you halted their invasive questioning.

Your primary concern for the night was tending to your best friend’s shattered state. She had stopped crying by the time you had arrived outside of her house, though you weren’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Her hand paused on the door as you reached out and held her forearm.

“Before you go, while it’s just us here, I have to ask. What exactly happened?” Your eyes were flooded with concern. Her nose and her eyes were crimson, her dream-like gaze now replaced with a ghostly stare. She nodded, knowing by now it was your obligation as her attorney.

“We were going to go downstairs and get a room for the night, but he wanted a cigarette first, so he went outside for a quick smoke. When I noticed he was gone a little too long I went out to the balcony to look f-for him.” Her voice began shaking, recalling the horror splayed in front of her disbelieving eyes. “H-He wasn’t drunk I…I don’t know why—"

You shushed her, rubbing her shoulder to halt her from saying any more. “That’s all I needed to hear. I’m so sorry for your loss. I know it’ll be hard but try and get some sleep. I’ll come by tomorrow morning, okay?” Your heart was breaking for her. You idled outside of her house until you saw her enter safely.

A sadness washed over you on the drive home and it didn’t quite leave you for days on end, the eerie feeling of death so close to you putrefying mundane tasks every time you remembered the current state of affairs. You had always wanted your best friend to move on from him, but not like this, not in a way that was so utterly disturbing that it’d affect her future relationships devastatingly so.

Part of you also hated the way people who died young became immortalized as saints. You held back the need to spit into the soft dirt that surrounded the plot. That cheating bastard surely didn’t deserve such a ghastly demise, but he also didn’t deserve to be honored so wholly by his faithful girlfriend. Still, you knew she needed to say goodbye to her greatest love, so you held her hand as she gave her beautifully melancholy speech in front of Mike’s friends and family.

It had only taken a couple of days to make funeral arrangements and plan the ceremony, closed casket of course. You held your umbrella with your free hand as you looked around the funeral attendees behind the privacy of your sunglasses. It seemed the sky was also intent on spitting on his grave, the brooding clouds hovering ominously above the small assembly. Most of the guests were familiar faces, but you had expected as much, the irony of the absence of his long-time frat brothers who’d conceal his disgusting behavior tugging at the corners of your mouth. There was one face you hadn’t expected to come across, however.

After dreaming of those features for nights on end, you’d recognize them anywhere. Much to your surprise, he was already looking at you, though his facial expression wasn’t as inviting as it had been that night. His expression was grave, his eyes empty and his lips set in a hard line. You wondered if he and Mike were close, and if so, you wondered why you’d never seen him until recently. You offered him a small polite smile before turning back to your best friend who was struggling to get through her speech without breaking down. You squeezed her hand, letting her know it was okay to cry, or to just stop talking altogether.

As the ceremony came to a close, and the crowd dissipated into smaller groups of mourners as they hurried to get out of the pouring rain, you couldn’t help gravitating towards your mystery man. Your best friend was busy speaking to Mike’s parents, so you decided it might be okay to leave her side even if only momentarily. You approached him carefully, not wanting to startle him from his reverie. His hands were tucked into his pockets as he stared into the grave.

After a minute, you cleared your throat, looking at the ground as well. “Were you two close?”

The man looked over at you absentmindedly as if noticing your presence for the first time. “Something like that. What about you?”

You held out strong under the immense pressure of his gaze, your knees threatening to buckle. After replaying the events of that night many times, you realized your initial feelings hadn’t been exaggerated after all. It wasn’t just his beauty that had the ability to command a room, but his presence as well. You felt the pressure around you shift, feeling oddly alone with him in the middle of an outdoor gathering.

“Hardly. I’m here for support.” You both looked over at your best friend who was hugging Mike’s mom.

“My condolences.” The man turned to you, looking down as your eyes met back up with his.

You smiled and nodded, thanking him as you turned towards him as well. “Our encounters are always so brief, and I still don’t know your name. Can I at least give you my card this time, before you go? Maybe we can get to know each other properly.” You looked up at him with hopeful eyes, watching as his irises darkened.

He drew his slender hand out of his pocket and tipped your chin up with one of his delicate fingers. “Oh, we will be seeing each other again, much sooner than you think.” An alluring smile parted his lips, showing you those perfect teeth again. You were helpless to his charm, his demeanor baleful yet deliciously inviting. You swallowed thickly, unsure of whether he was rejecting you or asking you out.

“Y/N!” You heard your name being called out in the distance like the incessant ringing of an alarm clock in the background of an intense dream. He dropped your chin as you turned to look over your shoulder. Your best friend and Mike’s parents were waving you over. “We’re leaving now!”

“Okay, be right there!” You shouted back at them, turning back to your enigmatic love interest. He was gone, as much unsurprising to you as it was vexing. You searched among the groups of people dispersing, unable to make him out anywhere. With a sigh, you trudged over to your friend, hoping that his word would come true. You wanted to see him again so, so badly.

And you did see him again, at least in the form of a fever dream later that night when you finally got to bed. The day’s events had been so taxing that you only had enough energy to strip and crawl onto your bed. You laid over the sheets, feeling the satin with your hands as you made something akin to snow angels. You hummed, your eyelids sealing shut as they bared the weight of your best friends world crashing down. The onslaught of tragic events had you so wound up and distracted that you’d forgotten how long it’d been since you felt the lustful touch of a man. Your fingers slid over your breast, tugging on your hardened nipples as they traveled further south.

When did it get so cold? I don’t remember leaving the window open.

Slowly yet steadily, you fingers crept over your stomach, then your pubic bone as they slid under your lace underwear. You hummed again as your cold fingers slid past your folds, a violent shiver wracking through your body as they made contact with the growing slick between your legs.

You thought about past hookups that were now, at best, dull memories of men without faces, indistinguishable bachelor pads setting various scenes. None of them excited you enough to get off on, that is until you thought about him.

His angelic face flashed in your mind, the devilish curl of his lips oh so telling in the things he was imagining he might do to you. You licked your lips, another chill causing goosebumps to break through the surface of your bare skin. You arched your back as you plunged a digit into your core, lapping up the juices to better lubricate your clit. Your eyes refused to open, to investigate why your room was getting so cold, but it’s not like you cared enough, not when there was a fire ablaze in between your legs.

The incessant burning began at the tips of your fingers pumping in and out of you and traveled outwards from your core. Your lower stomach twitched as the feeling of being slowly set on fire spread to your extremities. It’d be so painful if it wasn’t so delicious. You craved to be consumed, engulfed in the feeling of having your mystery man’s undivided attention. The image of his eyes on you continued to replay over and over like a film reel running on repeat. His eyes sweeping over you, blinking seductively as the filthiest fantasies shown unabashedly across his features. You were panting, removing your fingers from inside you in favor of giving in to the unknown pleasure that was taking over. A small voice in the back of your head questioned everything that was going on, but who were you to listen? You had an all-consuming need that was being tended to.

Suddenly his honey brown orbs were darkening to shades blacker than black, colder than the night you two had met. You moaned out, feeling your legs being spread apart. Your knees hit the bed and your arms laid beside your head. Surrendering yourself to the pleasure was easy. You were hot now, so, so hot that it was suffocating. Dimples formed on the inside of your thighs, his grasp staking a claim over your flesh. Your back arched as you felt his tongue licking a stripe up your sex. Sighs of relief slipped past your parted lips rhythmically. More, more, you needed more. Who was he?

Your head tossed and turned, vivid imagery of your firm party in full swing, dancing behind your eyelids. No matter where you turned, looking for your angel, he was nowhere to be found, yet the presence of his ominous eyes followed you to every room. Everywhere you looked, he was always just out of reach, both far and near. You were sick, consumed with the need to get to him, unknowing that he was with you all along. A minacious chuckle reverberated so loudly within your fantasy, you weren’t sure if it came from your mind or from within your bedroom.

His tongue was now circling inside you, making you feel full yet needier still. You couldn’t help fucking yourself against his face, the chuckle now coming clearly from between your legs. The thought of him slipping into your room in the quiet of the night excited you. You chased your high with fervor, wanting – no, needing to find your release. However, part of you knew that it was him who was pulling the strings all along, so you danced like a puppet on strings and prayed for mercy.

He was now leaning over your body, slowly circling his hips in between your legs making sure to rub your clit in the most exquisite way. His hands took hold of yours, keeping them above your head. You felt his cold fingers lace themselves in between yours, sizzling your burning flesh on the surface. His lips were at your ear speaking in that deep sultry voice you’d never be able to forget. Yet the voice came from inside your head, although you were sure you felt his distinct breath tickling your ear.

“Who am I? Darling, I’m the man of your dreams.” You hissed as he chuckled, the sound becoming deeper and deeper as you floated higher and higher into a frenzied state. You wanted to cum so badly, pleas slipping from your mouth incessantly.

“Your name…what’s your name?” You panted out, your words turning into condensation in the stale chill of your bedroom.

He leaned in, and when he spoke, you instantly came undone. You cried out in pleasure and in pain. Jolting upright, your eyes finally burst open and searched the room frantically as you came to. Your body was covered in sweat from head to toe and your fingers were wetter still as you removed them from your core, your juices dripping from your digits. You caught your breath, unable to make anything of the situation. Had you been touching yourself in your sleep? That’d never happened before.

You sighed and began stripping your soiled sheets from the bed, unable to shake the haunting feeling that emanated from within you. And those eyes, they’d kept following you even long after your fever dream had ended so abruptly. As you dowsed your body in cold water from your showerhead that night, you kept looking over your shoulder, convinced you’d see something horrifying staring back at you, the name Taehyung echoing in the depths of your thoughts like the utterances of a poltergeist.

You could no longer find peace in anything you did following that fateful night, the feeling of being incomplete always just under the surface of your psyche. Your only solace was the mountain of paperwork that awaited you at your desk every morning, mountains of mind-numbing tasks that would help you pass the time. You didn’t have to think too much when you were buried under a pile of corporate by-laws and non-disclosure agreements.

You simply loved working at the firm. While some would call you a workaholic, you preferred careerwoman. Your friends and coworkers just couldn’t understand your preference for staying late at the office instead of going out with them for drinks. The truth was that there was no one for you to come home to and therefore no excuse to limit your potential income.

Then there was the more truthful reasoning, that growing up without had turned you into someone who was ruthless. Your earlier work was nothing to brag about, though it got you the stepping-stone you needed to launch your career in corporate law. Your fresh-faced, former self newly graduated from law school would have never guessed that bailing criminals out of serving time was her ticket to accessing the kind of money that would change hers and her family’s life forever. However, you were by no means proud of it, so you tried not to think of the kinds of things all of those guilty scumbags might be up to as they ran rampant on the streets again, thanks to you. Perhaps the only thing that disturbed you more than exactly how many victims never got justice thanks to you, was your skillful knack for doing it. You had garnered a reputation, it seemed, as all kinds of shady individuals threw money at you to make their pesky problems disappear. You grabbed at the cash eagerly for some time, but as soon as a cleaner way to earn income presented itself, you found yourself spending days on end behind your desk away from all the things you were ashamed of, almost as if you could bury your past underneath all of your new accomplishments. An impossible task, you knew, but it didn’t stop you from giving it your all.

As you sat in your office and watched your coworkers leaving together by the handful, a sudden phone call caught your attention. It was your best friend, begging you to attend church with her that evening. Having too much paperwork wasn’t a suitable enough excuse as she knew all about your workaholic tendencies all too well, so you begrudgingly shrugged on your peacoat and headed for the elevators. Organized religion wasn’t your thing, but you’d make anything your thing so long as your best friend could be comforted during these trying times.

You found yourself sitting at the end of an uncomfortable wooden bench just 30 minutes later, many just like it filling the hollow room of the sacred space your best friend frequented weekly. Though the space was filled with warm bodies, there was somehow a coldness in the air that had you draping your coat over your shoulders. Everyone had their eyes closed as they whispered in unison. You took the intimate opportunity to take in the vast room and the artwork that adorned the windows. The walls were lined with mosaics depicting what ancient peoples deemed angels might look like. All kinds of barely clothed, rubenesque women holding children on their laps stared down at the congregation with apathy in their vacant stares. Your eyes swept over the intimidating appearance of the organ that sat at the head of the room, looking out at all of the devoted attendees. Amongst the sea of bowed heads, shiny brown tresses at the forefront caught your eye.

He was seated alone, dressed in a peacoat and sweater of the same black color. Your eyes burned holes into his back, wondering how exactly it was that you kept running into him. Almost as if responding to your internal beckoning, he silently rose to his feet and slowly turned towards you. You gasped, wondering if he had seen you coming in. A wide crooked grin grew lazily on his face, his dark eyes holding you in a trance. You were so laser focused on him that your eyes caught his tongue dancing behind his teeth, even from several rows behind him. He began walking out of the church, but not before stopping at your bench and extending his hand out towards you. Your heart fluttered as you looked around. No one was paying attention to the two of you whatsoever, and your best friend looked awfully busy, so you took the opportunity to steal out of the cathedral, feeling like two kids doing something you shouldn’t be. You smiled down at yourself, feeling elementary as your hand tingled in his delicate grasp.

“Shall we go for a walk?” The tall stranger gazed down at you enticingly, bearing his pearly whites. You bit your lip and nodded as he pulled you along towards a dirt path that lead to the church’s cemetery.

You watched your feet trudge along the path for a while in silence before you finally thought of what to say. “I’m starting to think you’re following me.”

The man chuckled richly, his eyes twinkling as he squeezed your hand. You couldn’t help but smile in return, feeling as if you’ve known him for a long time. “Would it be so bad if I was?” He looked back at you, his eyes lingering on your lips.

“Well, it would explain why you were so certain we’d meet again.” You two continued along the dirt path, passing stragglers in the open field. Most were making their departure in time with the setting sun.

“And here I thought we ran in the same circles.” He smiled, enjoying a private joke.

You shook your head, “I don’t think we do. I would’ve definitely remembered seeing you somewhere.”

He hummed in response. “Is that so?” You bit your lip and nodded, the sultriness in his town making your heart flutter anew. “The feeling is mutual. I actually haven’t been able to get you out of my head.” He smiled shyly as you two came to a halt in front of one of the many plots lining the path.

Your breath stuttered at his small admittance. You couldn’t wrap your head around someone like him possibly reciprocating your feelings. You hummed, wanting to tease him a bit. “Well if that’s even a little true then you have some explaining to do. Leaving a girl guessing won’t get you far, you know.”

He tsked, pulling you to him by the hand then holding you firmly against him by the hips. You gasped, his sweet scent filling your nostrils. Your eyes took their time on their ascent towards his face, drinking in his intoxicating proximity to you. His chest protruded against your palms where they laid, the black turtleneck he was sporting doing wonders for your libido.

As you looked up at him, you were transfixed by his obsidian gaze, his arms around you tightening as if you’d ever dare leave. You swallowed thickly, your clouded thoughts fervently pleading for a taste of his lips.

“What ever happened to the mystery in romance?” He spoke softly as if others were around to hear you. Your lips parted as your glistening tongue laid in wait, your mind barely aware of how you two gravitated towards each other inch by inch.

“Turns out I’m not much of a romantic. I like having what I want, when I want it.” You challenged him, yet your cheekiness only served to urge him on. A low growl rumbled in his chest, a snarl forming on his soft lips.

“Oh, but you have me already.” He grabbed your wrist and brought it up to his nose, running it along the soft skin just past your bracelet. You stared at him in wonder as he panted with desire. You couldn’t be bothered being ashamed of your amorous public display in the middle of the field. You’d had enough of waiting as you resolved in crashing your lips against his, but before you did, you considered asking one last question.

“At least tell me your name.” He smiled wickedly as he leaned in to whisper into your ear, the eerie déjà vu feeling startling you. He squeezed your wrist tightly, almost to the point of pain.

“I’ve already told you my name. Don’t you remember? Or were you too busy fucking your fingers to remember?” He grinned salaciously while releasing your arm. You gasped as you felt your body become weightless in your descent towards the pit that was dug out just for you. You reached out to him for help, but he simply stood there licking his lips. Darkness surrounded you as your back hit the bottom of the plot with a thud. The only source of light was the narrow rectangle of sky above you. The impact had knocked the wind out of your lungs, leaving you gasping desperately for air. Your eyes searched frantically for signs of help, but all they observed was Taehyung squatting and peering into the grave. He tsked with pity as if in mourning.

“T…T—” You wheezed, unable to form his name or cry out for help. You grabbed handfuls of dirt around you, trying to find the leverage you needed to get up and out of the hole you had fallen in, but no matter how much time had passed, you still couldn’t catch your breath. Taehyung began shoveling dirt into the plot until it was completely level with the ground, leaving you burried under seven thousand pounds of dirt.

Clawing at your chest and panting in a sweat, you bolted upright. Your satin sheets slid off of your chest and formed a crumpled heap on your lap. Your hands clawed at your neck; the feeling of dirt lodged in your esophagus still present. You coughed and spluttered, expecting to expel remnants of your grave but coming up short. Your breath shook as tears fell hot and silent down your cheek. You were so shaken that you absolutely couldn’t go back to sleep.

You tried making a hot cup of tea and putting on some mellow tunes, but nothing could qualm the inner panic that bubbled violently beneath your dazed exterior. Your fingers shook as they struggled to find your best friend’s contact on your phone. The phone rang three times before a groggy voice greeted you from the other end.

“Hey,” You breathed the words with relief, willing your beating heart to slow down, “sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no it’s okay! What’s wrong babe?”

She seemed alarmed, so you tried to speak in a soothing tone so as not to worry her. “Nothing! Just…wanted someone to talk to. I had the worst nightmare and I need to get my mind off of it.” You chuckled lightly but she was unconvinced.

“What was the nightmare about?”

You took a moment to think, not knowing where to start. You weren’t exactly sure what was real and what wasn’t. Had you actually met up with him? Had you even gone to church yesterday?

“Okay, this is going to sound weird…but did I go to church with you yesterday?” There was a long pause before your friend spoke, sounding thoroughly confused.

“…Yesterday? The church doesn’t offer services on Thursdays, you know that.” You swallowed thickly, a fresh wave of sweat beading on the surface of your neck. “But I did invite you last week. You told me you would come but you never showed. Is that what you’re talking about?” You furrowed your brows while searching for the date on your phone. “Was your nightmare about church or something?”

Your bottom lip quivered as you struggled to hold back fresh tears. You were absolutely sure that you had been at work just yesterday when you agreed to go with her, yet somehow an entire week had passed since then and you didn’t remember any of it. Had you been asleep that whole time? That’s impossible.

You scrolled through your messages and saw a couple from your coworkers who had texted you worried throughout the week. You had never missed a day from work before.

“Y/N? Are you there?”

“Y-Yeah! Sorry I—it’s stupid. I’ll call you tomorrow okay?”

She paused before answering, concern evident in her tone. “Well, alright. But don’t disappear like that again! I was worried when I wasn’t hearing from you these past few days. Try and get some sleep. Goodnight.”

After the line went dead, a dreadful silence ensued. You looked around your apartment, the furniture and photographs on the walls suddenly feeling so alien to you. You grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around yourself as you settled on the couch, shivering in deep thought until the sun’s rays began peaking through the cracks of your curtains. You weren’t sure how long you sat there in thought, but it was suddenly time to get ready for work, if you still had a job that was.

The day that followed your resuscitation was strangely normal. Your coworkers greeted you with concern when you got to the office, but you had been equipped with a viable excuse for your absence, conjured in the privacy of your drive to work. Thankfully, none of them decided to pry, since you yourself still had no idea what happened to you.

The first thing you did was close your door and begin googling if it was possible to be unconscious for days after falling asleep, but only studies of narcolepsy appeared in the search results. That also wouldn’t help you, since you don’t even remember going to bed in the first place. You had woken up in the same clothes you had worn to work that day as well. You pondered the possibility of having been roofied sometime after work, but that didn’t hold much merit either.

Much to your displeasure, the workday had ended as fast as it had arrived. You absolutely abhorred the idea of returning to your cold and solitary apartment but being alone at the office afterhours had also lost its appeal. You didn’t want to be alone with your chilling thoughts under any circumstances. So, when your coworkers walked past your office in a hurry to make happy hour at a local bar, you hurried to meet up with them, much to their surprise.  

The bar was huge and already crowded by the time you all had arrived. Your coworkers frequented it on Fridays, since the venue turns into a club at night and hosts some of the best DJ’s in the city. You immediately understood the appeal as you all took purchase in a secluded section adorned with red cushioned love seats and a small table front and center. The section was a bit big for your party of four, so one of your coworkers texted an invite to a couple of guys that worked at another firm downtown. While they made their way to this side of town, you all didn’t waste any time getting loose with a few shots.

The warm liquor flowing through your body eased the tension present since you awoke and it didn’t take much at all before you were able to focus on stories being told and laughing along appropriately. You were starting to think you might actually be able to have some fun after all of the weirdness going on in your life as of late.

By the time the boys arrived, the DJ had already begun his set and the music was ten times as loud as it was before, making it increasingly difficult to maintain a conversation. On the bright side, no one was talking anymore as you all had started singing and swaying to the beats in your buzzed states.

It was your loudest coworker who had noticed them shuffling through the packed crowds hoarding the bar. She squealed and stood up, waving them over as you all shuffled closer together to make space for them. A blush joined the liquor glow that was already apparent on your cheeks. They were all extremely handsome, making it hard to maintain eye contact as everyone greeted each other. You took turns smiling at each one as they took seats on either side of the couch. When you reached the last face, your heart nearly stopped. It was your mystery man, adorned in a black suit and tie identical to the ones his apparent coworkers wore. You couldn’t help ogling at him, causing the boy to blush and clear his throat as he took a seat at the end of the couch.

Your friend elbowed you and whispered in your ear, “Oh my god, you’re staring! Do you two know each other or something?”

“Something like that.” You smiled at her widely. The alcohol was already dismantling your inhibitions.

A waitress appeared shortly afterwards to take everyone’s drink orders. You watched as the tanned adonis ordered for the table. The waitress giggled and bit her lip as she nodded to everything he said, hanging on his every word in a fashion that didn’t strike you as professionalism in the slightest. But who were you to blame her? You, too, were transfixed on the way his lips danced with every word that departed. You swallowed absentmindedly every time his tongue jutted out to wet his lip. You weren’t sure if he could feel your eyes on him, so when they both turned towards you, you froze. He looked at you seductively through half lidded eyes, his long fingers rubbing his chin briefly as a look of amusement arranged his facial features. He turned back to the waitress and finished his order while you tried to look anywhere else but at him, feeling slightly embarrassed for getting caught.

You cleared your throat and initiated a conversation with the girl closest to you, hoping that it’d make you seem more aloof than you actually were. However, it seemed you had nothing to worry about since you caught him staring at you a few times, easing your initial fears and serving as an ego boost. You started to wonder how or when you might be able to talk to him, since you were too far from each other to start a conversation.

When your coworker became distracted by the blonde with a dazzling smile sitting next to her, you allowed yourself to watch your angel nonchalantly. You still felt a bit guarded towards him, given the role he played in the nightmare that shook you to your core, but you tried your best to rid yourself of those illogical thoughts. It was silly to feel he was dangerous, especially as you watched him chat and laugh happily amongst his coworkers. You watched the way his eyebrows shot up during a punchline, the way his smile grew horizontally in the most adorable way, and how he’d lean back when something was especially funny. He seemed to be well liked amongst his group, and even amongst your own coworkers, and the staff here for that matter.

From what you had gathered by listening in on the conversations going on within earshot, they were all employed at a marketing firm not too far from here and were all well acquainted with the girl who invited them.

His words from the funeral rang in your ear once more. Oh, we will be seeing each other again, much sooner than you think. A small smile formed on your lips as you watched the waitress approach your section with your drinks. It had never occurred to you that he might’ve already known who you were, which would explain his confidence in meeting you again.

As the waitress placed the drinks on the table, everyone took turns grabbing theirs. You lifted the glass placed in front of you for further inspection. A Tom’s Collins. Looking up again in the direction of your mystery man, you found his attention to be on you once more. You quirked a brow at him and he winked cheekily at you, his suggestive smile refusing to go unnoticed. You grinned and took a sip. He’s got a good memory.

Soon enough, your group split up into smaller sections. Some headed outside for a cigarette while others squeezed their way through drunken professionals to get to the bar. You took the opportunity of space freeing up on the couch to get up and sit by the man who had captivated your interest.

He had taken a minute to check his phone, but instantly smiled up at you and put it away as he watched you approach him. He moved his drink over on the table and scooted down to make room for you as you smoothed your pencil skirt before plopping down. You were instantly pleased with your decision as the smell of his cologne wafted into your personal space. Not only did he look delicious, but he also smelled it too. This man was going to be the death of you.

He turned his attention to you, raking your appearance in dramatically with hungry eyes. They lingered on your legs for a beat too long, observing the hem of your skirt that rode further up along your legs throughout the night. He licked his lip as his head snapped up to meet your inquisitive stare. Suddenly you were reminded of how forward he had been the night you two first met, and it only enabled the growing dampness that soaked your underwear through and through.

“I take it you like what you see.”

“That’s an understatement.” You both chuckled at the callback and sipped on your drinks, instantly being transported to that cold night.

“So, what’s a girl gotta do around here to find a dance partner?” You smiled cheekily at him and he returned the expression.  

“Your wish is my command, beautiful.” You blushed at the compliment as he swiftly stood and held his hand out to you. You took it and led him to the center of the dance floor, wrapping your arms around his neck once you found the perfect spot out of sight from ogling eyes. His hands slid around to the small of your back and pressed you up against him as you two swayed to the beat. A chill ran along your spine at the feeling of déjà vu that presented itself. Focusing on swaying your hips in time to the beat, you tried to remind yourself that it really was just a dream.

Your hands shook as they settled on his chest, just as they had before. You looked up at him, feeling the warmth of the alcohol spreading to your extremities. He leaned his forehead on yours with concern in his eyes.

“Everything okay?” You smiled in return, looking into his eyes before finding the resolve to grab onto his tie and pull him into you for a kiss.

His lips overpowered yours ravenously at first, but you soon matched the intensity as your hands held onto the back of his neck for leverage. The kiss was as wet as it was sloppy, both of you clawing onto each other for dear life and gasping for air in intervals. Your tongues tangled themselves in your mouths as his hands slid further down your back to give your ass a healthy squeeze. You broke away, the sinful moment sobering you enough to look around for any spectators.

Before you could do a full sweep, his thumb and forefinger enclosed around your chin and pulled your focus back onto him. You looked up at his blown-out pupils, the look on his face tantalizing and the massive growing bulge pressed up against your pelvis proving the power in its temptation.

You smiled and brought his ear down to your mouth. “Wanna get out of here?” He smiled and nodded in return before you led him outside. Realizing you left your car at work, he held up his own car keys much to your relief.

“Mind if we go to your place?”

“Sure, but only if you stay the night.” You smiled and bit your lip, hoping he’d agree to it so you wouldn’t have to be alone in your apartment.

“Your wish, remember?” He purred in a coquettish manner that had your toes curling prematurely. By now you had already accepted your overpowering attraction to this stranger.

It wasn’t long before you were both crashing into your furniture, a trail of clothing leading to your bedroom. You stood against the wall in nothing but your underwear with your leg hooked over your guest’s shoulder. He knelt before you on the hardwood floors in nothing but his unbuttoned white shirt and his black boxer briefs. Your eyes drank in the expanse of his tanned skin which stretched over his taught pecs and toned stomach. His bulging thighs were spread as he buried his head in between your legs. His teeth pulled on the fabric of your underwear which only served to edge you along further.

Normally, you enjoyed tons of foreplay, but it felt as if you two had began the foreplay weeks ago when you had first laid eyes on each other. Now, you didn’t want to wait any longer. You whimpered as your moistened underwear snapped back to your sex with a crack. He groaned, digging his nose into your clit and repeating the torturous act.

“Fuck, please just take them off already.”

“Feeling needy already?” He teased you further before chuckling profoundly and pulling your underwear to the side. He looked up at you and inhaled deeply, reveling in the way you squirmed and blushed over him. He wet his tongue before licking at your hole and up towards the apex of your lips. You shuttered at the overwhelming feeling of relief. You were finally getting his attention where you needed it the most. Your thighs began closing on instinct as the electric pulses that radiated from him flicking your clit became almost too much to take. He massaged your thigh with his broad hand to get you to relax while the other massaged at your entrance. You jerked your hips, welcoming his fingers inside of you. He held them just at the entrance as he looked up at you from between your legs. When he was satisfied with the view, he plunged two fingers into you and began easing them in and out of you languidly, taking his time to find your g-spot. You couldn’t stop moaning as your arousal leaked out of you endlessly. Once he found the fleshy mound inside of you that instantly made you want to scream, he stopped licking at your clit in favor of watching you fall apart for him. And it didn’t take long at all. You had immediately surrendered to the feeling of the pent-up stimulation threatening to break free. He stood up without letting his fingers cease their motion, milking you for everything you had as you held onto him for support.

He bit his lip with unadulterated lust as he crashed them into you once more. You were limp against his hard body on yours, your head still swimming from your high. In one swift motion, he brought both your legs up to his hips and carried you to your bed. Once his knees met the edge, you both fell back onto the mattress with a bounce earning a fit of chuckles from you both. He got ride of his shirt and your soaked underwear, taking his time to take in your naked body as he palmed his massive erection over the fabric of his underwear.

Your chest heaved with desire, not ready to call it quits even after the amazing orgasm you had just had. He looked like a god standing over you, even with the light sheen of sweat that shown on his chest and the dewy strands of hair that stuck to his forehead. He was absolutely perfect in every way, and the fact that his sole attention was on you had you glowing from the inside out.

He spread your legs wide and gazed at your sex then up at your face, sinking down onto you to give the rest of your body some much needed attention. Goosebumps broke out all over your skin as he trailed sultry kisses from the base of your ear, down your neck, across your collar bones and onto the softness of your breasts. He took his time licking and sucking on the engorged buds before that familiar feeling began resonating deep inside of you and causing the orgasmic sensation to build up again. You breathed shallowly and circled your hips under him, wanting to feel him rocking into you already. He ignored your needy response in favor of continuing the thorough service that your body so readily responded to.

Your stomach heaved as he planted kisses and licked some of your most sensitive spots. You watched him silently, wanting him to fuck you so badly but also wanting to see what he’d do to you next. Your eyes met each time you reacted to his touch, eliciting a smile from him and a blush from you. When he planted a kiss just under your naval, he blew on your core and thoroughly enjoyed the way it made you squirm under him. He came back up and caged your head in with his arms, brushing his lips tenderly on yours before you began kissing him eagerly. You moaned into the kiss as he began rocking his covered erection onto your clit. Your legs quivered involuntarily, welcoming the feeling of slight overstimulation that ensued.

When your walls began clenching, you broke away from the tender kiss, panting. “How long are you going to keep me waiting?” He smiled and brushed his nose along your skin on the way to your ear. When his gravelly voice vibrated on your eardrum, a full body shudder wracked your body.

“Turn around and bend over for me.” You bit your lip and nodded, excitement blooming in your chest. You knew his length was massive from the intimidating silhouette outlined on his briefs.

You obeyed his orders as soon as he got off of you, getting on all fours and perking your ass up for him. You felt his broad hand on the small of your back push you onto the mattress which elicited a carnal groan from him. His hand came down hard onto the skin of your bottom with a loud smack. You whimpered at the stinging feeling as our walls clenched once more. He grabbed at the flesh greedily, a string of curses freeing his bottom lip from his teeth. He took turns smacking and groping your ass, enjoying how the marks that bloomed on your skin became physical proof of his time with you.

When he had his fill, you felt the bed dip and groan as he got on his knees behind you. He grabbed you by the hips and pulled you against him, but this time, you could feel the bear skin of his cock resting along your slit. He moved his hips a bit, and with it, his length along your dripping sex. You moaned softly and wiggled a bit, wanting him to indulge you so badly. His hand returned to your back, but this time, it slid upwards towards the nape of your neck and grabbed all of your hair. Your head was yanked back as his fist acted as a ponytail, the curve of your back bending further at his will. Your fingers grasped at the sheets as you waited impatiently, and thankfully, he seemed to finally be taking mercy on you.

Slowly but steadily, the head of his leaking cock pushed into you, meeting some resistance from the tightness of your walls but was lubricated enough to slide in undeterred. Your answering moan was more of a cry since he instantly began pumping in and out of you with ferocity. Your knees spread to allow him better access to which he took the opportunity to speed up.

“Fuck, yes, just like that,” You sank onto the bed while keeping your ass in place for him, “fuck I’m going to cum again if you keep this up.”

You could hear the smile in his voice as his fingers tightened around your hair. “You’re a needy little slut, aren’t you?” You could only moan in response, his words getting you impossibly wetter. With his free hand, he began smacking your ass again, biting his lip as it jiggled with each thrust of his hips. “Look at you, bent over like this for some guy you barely even know. You get off on that kind of thing? Hm?” He pulled on your strands when you didn’t answer fast enough. You struggled to agree, your eyes crinkling shut at the feeling of your orgasm fast approaching.

When the pitch of your moans grew higher, he quickly pulled out and slapped his blushing shaft against your clit, sending intense pulses to your core. You turned around to face him, realizing exactly what he wanted as he licked his bottom lip and eyed you wickedly. He held his glistening cock straight out and took your chin in his other hand, leading your pretty lips to the head of his dick. Taking hold of your hair again, he watched you open your warm and inviting mouth then slowly led you down his length. With a loud groan, he tossed his head back and began fucking into your mouth, hitting the end of your throat. You moaned around his dick which only served to fluster him more.

“Fuck. You take my dick so well. And you look so pretty doing it too.” He looked down at you as he wiped a stray tear from your cheek. Your hand inched towards your core, rubbing circles on your clit as he continued to use your mouth. He was too hot for words.

When he noticed you fingering yourself, he pulled out and flipped you over on your side. Positioning himself behind you on his side as well, he hooked his arm around your thigh and lifted your leg up as his slippery cock eased into you again. This time, you both groaned in unison.

His lips were at your ear, causing your high to come back much quicker with every guttural sound that left his sinful lips. Your walls clenched around his girth each time his lips were at your ear, uttering the filthiest things imaginable to edge you further. His fingers left dimples on your thighs as his hips refused to falter in their relentless motion, a mission to get you to fall apart all over again. You relished the erotic details of his fucking you as your high picked up where it had left off.

“Mm, you’re good at this.” You closed your eyes as you both chuckled at your appraisal.

“Don’t compliment me just yet, wait until I give you something to scream about.” You moaned loudly as his fingers found your clit and began circling expertly. “Now, be a good little slut and say my name so I can let you cum.”

You quirked your brow and smiled at his cheeky command. “But you never told me your name.” You humored him with feigned innocence in your voice.

His answering laugh was a few octaves lower than you were expecting it to be, causing your eyes to snap open. Just then, the feeling of your orgasm approaching was too much to bear as your thighs threatened to close again, but his hold on you was ironclad. “Oh, but you do know it. You called out to me, don’t you remember?” He hissed as your slick walls made a vice grip on his throbbing member. His hips continued relentlessly while you hovered in a state of pure pleasure and helplessness.

“I—I did?” You panted, feeling yourself on the verge of falling apart.

“Mhm” He cooed into your ear as you recalled your infamous dream.

“Taehyung.” You whispered, faintly noticing the condensation of your breath in the air as you spoke his name. His answering ministrations had you rigorously falling apart on his fingers and his wet cock.

“Good girl.” He purred, sounding impossibly distant. Once your orgasm hit it never left as you laid on the bed in a pile of useless limbs. A feeling of drowsiness washed over you, yet you remained acutely aware of him talking to you, his deep voice sounding inside your own head. You were too lethargic to panic, instead, humming peacefully as he continued speaking. You’d never get enough of that sultry voice you had grown to love so much. ”It’s a shame, truly. I would’ve loved to enjoy this at least a few more times. But alas, I can’t help myself.” You shivered in the cold of the room, finding it odd that him spooning you brought no comfort to you. However, you didn’t have to endure for long. As Taehyung plunged his growing fangs into the crook of your neck, a blazing heat that originated from the puncture spread outwards, engulfing your body in a comforting blanket of warmth. “I have to punish those who’ve done bad things, and as sweet and beautiful as you are, you, unfortunately my dear, are one of them.” Suddenly, an array of criminals you had helped years ago began playing in your mind like a slideshow. “It was a pleasure erasing that wretched boy from this plane of existence, but I can’t help but feel sad at your departure, my dear.” You moaned weakly at the feeling of being drained. Taehyung sucked on your neck one last time before removing his mouth from your skin with a pop. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, his obsidian irises expanding until they covered the entirety of his eyes. “I just want you to know,” He caressed your stiff cheek thoughtfully, “you were my favorite, okay?” You could barely muster an acknowledgement of his adieu, the timbre of his voice lulling you further into a deep sleep from which you’d never awaken from.

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is. 

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes. 

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children. 

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children. 

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo. 

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode. 

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust. 

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

[isometimeswrite132]

Taugust IT!au

This is a little thing I just wrote for one of my friends and I actually really love it. I have two random OC’s that I love, Teddy and August, and they are super gay!

Enjoy!

The sewers sucked. There was shitty water everywhere, there was vulgar spray paint covering almost every surface, and there was a giant scary clown threatening to kill and eat them. You know? Teddy waded through the waters, April and Marcus on either side of him. Mark was holding a wooden baseball bat that he stole from his brother, and April held on tightly to a large metal spoke she found out on the front yard. With a turn to the left, a large, half open, metal grate came into view. Teddy didn’t care about anything else at that moment. It was as if his legs just started moving on their own, a burst of energy coming straight from his heart lighting his body on fire.

Pushing the grate the rest of the way open, it hit the old and mold brick wall with a loud muted clang. Teddy didn’t see the foot drop, immediately falling flat on his face into the gravel and dirt. He just got back up, leaning on his heels as he swiped the dirt from his face. “Teddy, don’t you dare run off like that again!” April yelled and she jumped down from the slight ledge. Marcus was right behind her, looking around at everything around.

“Sorry AJ, I just, I don’t know. I need him to be alive,” Teddy said, his voice straining from the lack of fresh air. His lungs burned, his skin wet and cold but the air was warm and thick.

“Guys?” Marcus whispered, staring up at all of the floating children. The spire of lost items and children's toys being the centerpiece of it all.

April rolled her eyes at the younger male, wiping water droplets from her glasses with the back of her sleeve.“We know Teds, but you can’t just run ahead. You could’ve gotten mauled!”

“Guys?” Mark said a little louder as he notices the blood covered floor now beneath his feet. He walked farther into the lair, eyes darting around the lair for any trace of August.

“AJ, I can’t do this by myself, but I’m sure I can handle a hundred legged dog again,” Teddy joked, causing both him and April to burst out into laughter. It was almost as if they forgot the stakes of the situation, but Teddy was just trying to keep spirits high.

“Guys!?!”

“What?” Teddy and April both said at the same time, turning the where Marcus was now standing several feet away. Only now did they pay attention to the death trap that they were caught in, children floating through the air all around them.

Marcus swallowed the lump forming in his throat as he pointed up at a floating red-head that was lower than the others. “August is up there, with the others…” Teddy immediately stood, running over to where Marcus stood, leaving April behind again. She rolled her eyes, picking up her spoke again before running after her two friends.

They stared up at August’s lifeless seeming body, taking heavy shaking breaths as they tried to wrap their brains around the situation. He looked very dead from down here, his multi colored eyes being shadowed in a bright yellow light.

“Help me get him down from there. He’s not dead, he’s just being mind controlled or something, we need to help him. April, let me boost you up, grab his legs,” Teddy practically screamed, jumping up to try and grab onto Augusts foot, but he was just out of reach. April and Marcus shared a glance with each other, both thinking the same thing as they watched Teddy continuously jump up to try and pull August down. Teddy stopped for only a moment, turning to his friends. “April!”

She shook her head, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that august was probably gone, so she just went along with it. Teddy wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her small frame into the air with ease. She grabbed onto Augusts legs, gently tugging him back towards the ground. From the ground, Marcus grabbed onto the red-heads arm, making the final movement to get him to the ground. Teddy rushed to place April back on the ground, making sure she had her footing before moving towards the newly grounded August.

Placing his hands on either side of August's head, Teddy gently squished his freckled cheeks, hoping it would knock some sense back into him. But it didn’t. August just continued to stare straight forward, as if he was deaf to anything going on around him.

“Auggie?” Teddy croaked out, not realizing that he had started crying, “Auggie, I need you to wake up. Please? Please! You can’t be dead, you can’t. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair. I never got to hug you, I never got to hold you, I never got to… to…” Teddy couldn’t continue. He tried to force the words out, but the sob caught in his throat made it almost impossible. Admitting defeat, Teddy welcomed the tears with open arms and embraced August, planting a small kiss on his cheek.

“What’s happening?” A raspy voice asks, and Teddy froze for a moment. He pulled away slightly, still holding onto August’s shoulders, studying his freckle covered face. His eyes were back to normal, the right one being a creamy chocolate colour, the other being the same colour of honey. It would look odd on anyone, anyone but August.

“I thought you died you ass,” Teddy laughed, hiding how happy he was that August was okay. By now, April and Marcus had gone off to try and find the stupid clown, leaving the two boy’s by themselves. Before August could notice, Teddy reached up and wiped the tears from his cheeks with the palms of his hands.

August chuckled, shrugging as he thought about what to say, “Really? Me? Die? Not a chance.” It was true, no matter how many times he had gotten close to death, nothing had gotten to him, not yet anyways. It would happen eventually, but August wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Where did you go?” Teddy asked, looking back at his best friend with a quizzical look. He wasn’t serious, not fully anyways. It would be nice to know what he was going through, but Ted’s wasn’t about to pry at fresh wounds.

“Nowhere, I’ve been right here, the whole time… I think,” That was a lie. He was just getting visions of the future. It was them, he didn’t know how he knew that, but they were older. Exactly where they were right now, fighting the stupid clown, all of them dying multiple gruesome deaths. It was just more scare tactics, August reasoned, nothing real.

“Just get over here idiot,” teddy mocked, pulling August in for another hug. It was short lived, like most hugs with the teen were, but it was nice nonetheless. August chucked, the most adorable little laugh on the planet, before his face fell flat again.

August went completely serious, just for a moment, thinking. He then broke into a small smile. “Yeah, now let’s go kill this damn clown.”

[writehardwhumpharder]

Carson Drabble - since it's not whumpy enough I've decided to give Carson CRippLing ViSioNs

Carson walked into the bookshop ten minutes late, a little out of breath. He weaved through the shelves, passing a few customers on his way toward the back office. Muffled voices drifted out through the closed door, they sounded... tense. When he opened the door they were gathered around the old oak table.

"This is a police matter." Riley snapped, sounding as if she had said it several times already, leaning over the table toward Daniel.

"And this is my bookstore." Danny said with that casual stubbornness that drove people crazy. He had his arms crossed and feet propped up on the table as a display of how little he cared about their "procedure".

"Finally. It was getting awkward." Riley breathed as she looked up at him, dropping whatever arguement they'd just been having.

"No kidding." Daniel muttered.

Carson took a seat between them and reached for the stack of books Danny had set aside. They were researching what looked like ritual remains at a crime scene. Candles, blood, trace metals, the whole shabang. He hadn't done much ritual magic himself but he at least knew how it worked and what to look for. He looked up to see Danny staring at him.

"What was it this time?" He asked.

"Nothing, just didn't sleep well." Carson deflected.

Daniel just barely caught himself before he said that he knows what it sounds like when he "doesn't sleep well" and nothing happened last night. Which brings them to this morning. "Come on, I want to know, what was it? Stop me when I'm close, cat, bird, squirrel, raccoon-"

Carson groaned in frustration. "It was a baby possum okay? Ugh you suck, Danny." He said with an anger in his voice that wasn't quite genuine. His friend smiled smugly.

Riley had taken it upon herself to start skimming through one of the books in the pile. She noticed that Carson did look especially tired when he came in. Small beads of sweat formed on his brow which, unless he ran all the way to the bookstore, didn't make much sense in the growing cold outside. She figured it was best not to join in on Daniel's teasing and got straight to work.

Within seconds of opening the old leather-bound book, Carson got completely immersed in the text. It wasn't exactly an exciting read but he flipped through the pages quickly, only pausing to study certain diagrams. Riley noticed his lips moved slightly as he read over important parts. He probably didn't even realize he had the habit of mouthing the words as he read. It was kinda cute. But to be fair, his rapid page flipping and note taking was impressively methodical. She looked across the table to see that Daniel had been staring at Carson at the same time she was. They made awkward eye contact before returning to their research. Along with the books Daniel had a black notebook filled with handwritten notes that more or less matched the style of the old books they were looking at.

"Wow are those all your notes, Danny?" She asked, eyeing the notebook that was bulging with loose papers and crudely drawn symbols.

"Yeah, I write down everything that might be useful when I get new books in about magic. Some of it is just lore, but every once in a while I find a book that's actually legit. Oh, and it's Daniel." He said, despite the fact that Carson had called him Danny less than two minutes ago.

"So where are the books that you know are real?" She asked.

"Besides these? I imagine they're all on Carson's bookshelf at home."

"I already looked through those." Carson added, apparently more in tune with their conversation than they thought.

Daniel flipped through his notes until he came across a set of loose papers that looked related to the crime scene photo Riley provided. He grabbed the small stack and slid it over to Carson.

"I think I found something." Daniel said with a hopeful smile. Carson looked down at it and frowned.

"Um, Danny, this is your character description for Dungeons and Dragons." Carson said.

"Oops. Under that." He said. Maybe it was just Riley's imagination but it looked like Daniel blushed a little. As if it wasn't already obvious that he and Carson where total nerds. Not in a bad way but they did spend an awful lot of time holed up in this bookstore reading fantastic novels for "scientific purposes". Carson's eyes widened and his lips started doing that thing again like he was deep in concentration.

"Yeah, yeah this makes sense." Carson said after a moment. "Powering a circle is easy. It's directing the spell that's the hard part. So you found the body by the river, but the spell was set up in her apartment? They must have needed something there to make it work."

"Yeah." So far she had only shown him the photos from the apartment. The photos of the body were a lot more gruesome. "There's... more you need to know." She added.

Carson looked up, his brows furrowed. "I can't help if you're holding out on me. What else is there?"

Riley grimaced as she pulled another folder from her bag. "The photo of the girl in the center of the circle, see how her eyes are crossed out? And the dagger is standing straight up from the floorboards?"

"Yeah... you said she was dead. Obviously they meant to kill her using that knife." Carson said, a little confused. It seemed simple. They did the ritual, made a connection between the circle and the girl, and it's all stabby stabby from there.

Riley took out another set of crime scene photos from her folder and Carson immediately realized why she'd been hesitant to show it to them. His stomach flipped at the sight and he felt himself pale slightly. He's not squeamish but there is something distinctly wrong about seeing a person's face when they're missing their eyes. Without them it's just empty sockets. Empty...

When he looked at the photo his gaze naturally settled on the most gruesome part of it, the eyes. There was nothing there but he felt like she was... looking at him. A shiver went up his spine. He couldn't look away, not even to blink. Carson was dimly aware of someone saying his name but it was like the world narrowed until it was just him and the dead girl. It felt eerily like she was looking straight into his mind, or maybe he was looking into hers. It made his skin crawl. Suddenly the picture vanished and the room faded away.

He blinked and suddenly he was somewhere else. A walking path by the river. It was well lit but he couldn't imagine a young woman wanting to walk on it alone late at night. He felt troubled, no, she felt troubled. She looked over her shoulder every few seconds, clutching a small green purse to her chest as she walked briskly. Things started to blur and tilt as the connection got cloudier. He could feel his consciousness desperately trying to return to his body, but something kept him there. At the last second she turned, startled by something. But there was nothing there. She started running in a panic, stumbling off the path and onto the rocks, not because she was afraid, but because she couldn't see where she was going, he realized. She couldn't see because her eyes were being burned out of her head. A warmth grew from the center of her face, it burned right behind her eyes like a headache at first, the pain becoming more unbearable with each passing second. When the knife slid into her stomach it was almost merciful. She died before she could realize what was happening to her.

It happened fast. One second Carson was staring hard at the photo, perhaps looking for some small detail in it. The next his eyes were rolling back in his head. Eyelids fluttering shut as his body pitched forward. His head made contact with the table before he slid sideways out of his chair, knocking it over in the process. It all happened before Riley or Daniel could react. Luckily it was a gentle slide and he didn't hit his head too hard but now he was on the floor and--

"What the fuck?" Daniel blurted, abandoning his own chair to kneel next to Carson.

"Has he ever done anything like this before?" Riley asked with the dim hope that maybe this was some sort of totally normal magic thing she didn't know about. It wasn't

"No, never." Daniel's voice was grim. Panic welled up inside him but he fought it back down. He wouldn't be any use to Carson like that. "Hey Carson, can you hear me?" He asked pointlessly.

It was obvious his mind was somewhere else entirely as his body began to twitch. Random muscles flexing and unflexing. He started making small moaning noises that didn't sound like he was in pain but broke Daniel's heart a little to hear anyway. Without thinking he folded his sweatshirt and slid it under his head, moving to sit behind him so he could run his fingers through Carson's hair gently as his legs kicked and his hands moved spastically. Daniel and Riley had both gone silent so the only noise in the room was Carson's shuffling and ragged breathing. A small trickle of blood dripped from his nose and suddenly it was over. Carson's body relaxed into the floor and his breathing settled until it looked like he was just peacefully asleep.

Riley sat by his feet in complete shock, holding her hands up to her face, covering her mouth. Meanwhile Daniel started to try to wake him up gently. The whole thing couldn't have lasted longer than a minute but for Daniel it felt like forever.

"What just happened?" She whispered.

Daniel let one hand continue sifting through his hair and used the other to pat at his face which was pale and clammy under his hand. "Come on Carson, wake up. Open your eyes." He said.

Carson didn't immediately respond but he did make some feeble attempt to roll over onto his side. Daniel helped position him. The blood continued streaming from his nose until it threatened to stain the floor and Carson's shirt. There weren't any tissues around so he wiped Carson's face with his own sleeve. They took it as a good sign when he groaned and swatted the hand away weakly.

"Can you here me, Carson? It's Danny, I'm right here." He spoke softly, expecting Carson to be more than a little confused as he came to. When he finally cracked his eyes open the first thing he saw was books, then more books, and some shelves filled with books. It didn't take him long to figure out where he was.

Once Carson was awake Daniel stopped touching him and gave him some space, only helping when he wanted to sit up. Carson's head throbbed with the motion and he touched two fingers to his nose, frowning when they came away bloody.

"I'll go find some water." Riley said, trying to make herself useful. Carson caught her sleeve as she moved to stand.

"Wait... I... saw something." He said. "It doesn't tell us much more than we already know but, I did see that she died on the rocks, someone didn't move her there. And the spell was powerful I felt-" he stopped and shook his head as he remembered the pain and fear she felt. He raked his hands over his face and shuddered, as if checking that his own eyes were still there. He didn't dare look at the photos again to check, but one detail did stand out to him.

"What was in her purse?" He asked. The woman had been holding onto it pretty tight, maybe just out of fear, or maybe there was something important in there.

"We didn't find a purse with her body." Riley frowned, wondering why she hadn't thought of it before. Of course the young woman would have had some kind of bag with her. It wasn't much but it was something to look into.

"It was green." Carson muttered, staring off into what looked to be the Historical Asian literature section.

"Thanks Carson. I'll look into it. Let me know if you guys find anything out but there's no rush." She stood up and found that glass of water she was looking for then gathered her things and left Carson in Daniel's care.

Leaning against one of the tables legs, Carson signed, trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. He hoped this was a one time thing. A minor fluke on the universe's part. Magic was like that sometimes. But he couldn't help but feel obligated to solve this case now. He was already too involved to back out and even though Riley said there wasn't a rush, he knew that wasn't true. Two people already died in strange circumstances and if no other actually qualified magic users would step up to help, it was up to him.

"You okay?" Danny asked. Carson nodded slightly, careful not to aggravate his budding headache. "Let's get your face cleaned up then."

His nose had stopped bleeding but his face was still a mess of a combination of fresh, dried, and smeared blood. Carson didn't feel much like standing up but he took a few sips of water then braced a hand against the floor to push himself onto his knees. The floor wobbled under his feet but Danny was already helping him the rest of the way up.

He staggered to the staff bathroom at the back of the store and took a good look at himself. There were new dark circles under his eyes. He didn't know whether it was from using his healing skills that morning or the uh.. the other thing. The word "attack" came to mind, since that's exactly what it felt like.

"You should go home and rest." His friend said from the doorway. "I can leave the store for a bit and walk you home." He offered.

"No," Carson said, "we'll stay until we figure this out. Grab the books, we're taking this party to the couch." He said with newfound determination. The book store had a reading nook with a giant second hand couch, some beanbags, pillows, and a few decorative soft lit lamps. If he was going to lay down, which he definitely was, he might as well stay productive. Carson settled down in the corner, laying sideways to take up two out of the three cushions. Daniel returned with the large stack of books and set them down with a thud before settling into the other end of the couch. The spent the afternoon reading and taking notes in comfortable silence. Daniel didn't wake him up when Carson inevitably fell asleep with not one, but several books in his lap.

[barbika1508]

The awakening (Demon! Yoongi x Reader)

Part 1

Word Count: 4,4k

Genre: Demon! BTS, Demon Au, Prince Au, Angst, Romance

Pairing: Demon! Yoongi x Reader

Character appearance: Park Jimin, Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon, Jung Hoseok, Kim Taehyung, Jeon Jeongguk

Warnings: Cursing, Graphic violence, Blood

Authors Note: I wrote this sometime ago, woke up during the night with this scene in my head, so I took it from here…it’s basically the end of a story before the finish so I went with it.

The spacing, and the words written in Italic means it’s a flashback/ memory.

also the whole Death bringer nickname I’ve been wrecking my brain for some time for a better nickname but came out with this, so if anyone has a suggestion tell me I’ll change it if its better XD

Summary: Y/N is a mere human, who one day unsuspectingly fell into hell. And not just a random part of hell or the top level, no she fell right inside the mansion where the prince of darkness lives. Instead of casting her back to earth, or imprisoning her because it’s hell after all he decides to spare her life. But the prince of darkness who may be the most powerful demon to walk to earth and rule hell, still is a growing young man who has to face all types of threats. Maybe she is one too?

Part 1 / Part 2

Its hazy, everything is hazy. I feel as if I’m not even in my own body because I don’t feel anything. I stare blankly without a trace of fear as a droplet of blood runs down and then falling hitting the ground rather quickly. I feel more trickling down my chin and I know it’s my own. My knees do ache on the harsh bare ground that haven’t softened my fall, hands dirtied from the soil and colored into a crimson color all the way up till my elbows. I can feel the liquid trail down gravity doing its job. Its warm on my skin. My fingers twitch as does my body, another cry going of in distance, meaning another life has been lost. But that’s happening away from me. From us. Yet I can hear it so clearly as if I’m standing right next to the dying soul. But I can’t bring myself to look up, I should but I can’t…I can’t…

Looking to the side I stare as Jeongguk gets knocked onto the ground, his head getting slammed into the earth to render him immobile probably, or just going for the kill. He looks unphased by it, grinding his teeth together, face contorted into a grimace as his hands push into the werewolf’s throat trying to keep his snapping muzzle away. It seems as if its irritating the giant wolf even more. If I didn’t know any better I would assume the always strong maknae has this handled. He’s not one of the best warriors for nothing after all. The truth it different though. I can see it even from this distance with my weaker human eyes that there’s fear in his. He’s losing the fight. I always teased him about this, of the day he’ll lose. But I never thought I’d witness or experience it. He can’t lose. He’s the golden soldier, the most noble knight, the last barrier, our protector, and my friend. He can’t die.

The numbness from the initial shook edges away fear raising up my spine like an unwanted cold breeze. It makes me want to cower away, back inside the mansion back to the safety of Yoongi’s room, to hide underneath the blankets where nothing and no one can touch me. Well besides Yoongi himself. Its his bed and room after all I’m just the stranger, the human who got onto his good side.

I bet he’d creep up on me like he always does thanks to his damned abilities. Sneaking up to me for no particular reason, sometimes simply out of amusement too.

Another cry vibrates around us but this one familiar which makes my head snap onto my right, eyes unmoving from two figures. If I thought I feared for Jeongguk a moment ago now it grows worse. Taehyung loses his footing but it’s only for a split second, and yet the demon fighting against him manages to slash against his side, blood spluttering around. Despite the groan that sounds more annoyed than from pain, he holds the demon’s arms away kneeling down as the foul creature who has transformed into a hairless goblin looking motherfucker with black eyes, and claws which he’s trying to keep away. I flinch seeing Seokjin charging forward into the bastard from the side tackling him and Taehyung over.

The breath of relief that was about to leave from between my parted lips gets stopped at the weird unpleasant sensation that tingles up my shoulders. There are more enemies coming. I don’t know how, and why I just know I can feel them from the g…from the ground. My head falls forward eyes staring at the dark dirt that’s drinking up the blood that’s still trailing down from the gash on the side of my head which should be inflamed but I barely feel it being there.

It doesn’t hurt. The hit shook me till my core, literally rattled my bones maybe even detached my very soul from my body for a moment, because I saw a light. And it was blazing gold before I was back in my body and in the darkness. The initial dizziness and haziness its not present anymore, and its not logical as to why I’m feeling like this…I feel…fine. No.

I feel angry. Angry to be a useless human. On top of it this meat sack, without any recollections of who I was before, who I used to be. I feel anger because they are all fighting to protect me, anger because they are all willing to risk they’re lives in exchange of my completely useless one…me a pesky human. I’m fuming because I can’t do anything myself, haven’t been able since the day I woke up in the throne room randomly. Not even the muscle memory that saved me a few times, isn’t useful now.  I’m just so plain.

I’m fuming because of how useless I really am. I feel as if the anger is eating me alive, the guilt, the worry, the heartbreak cracking my soul. I can’t compare to the powerful beings around me…the ones I started calling family…they are fighting the battle all alone…it’s my battle to fight my…

‘’Y/N!’’

A howl fills up the air, fear clutching at my heart making me feel as if its going to burst inside my chest. My fingers still trembling dig into the dirt, my joints flaring up in pain but briefly. A hiss joined with a threatening growl from somewhere behind me alerts me that someone is charging at me as that sensation when someone creeps on you gets me to stop breathing briefly. Glancing back and to the side I watch as the demon two sizes bigger than anyone here gets knocked over roughly with a bat, Jeongguk marching towards it looking like he’s fuming Hoseok at his side ready to behead anyone with the machete he still clings onto.

But what gets my immediate attention and alert are the shadows that have risen up from the ground materializing in thin air. I stare as they retreat into the earth, gaze trailing after feeling them slither away. My eyes widen as my head straightens up and forward. It was inevitable.

Oh no. You idiot. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Why?

What follows behind fear? Terror and despair. It’s as if Deimos and Phobos are mocking me.

Both emotions swirl in the pit of my stomach, making my soul restless all my lingering thoughts disappearing as my mind goes blank and I can only feel these two things while I watch the true horror that’s happening a few feet before me, at a safe distance he told me before to stand behind.

Yoongi is in a similar position as I was redeemed into. But he is on his knees hands clutching onto the demon’s hand desperately that is angled in a weird manner hovering too close to his chest. Or is it in his chest? Said demon is standing right in front of him with a wicked grin over his gruesome but still humanoid features, the resemblance between the two almost uncanny.

The shadows that were raised near me in a protective manner a moment ago should have risen around him instead. And they are to some extent but have stopped midway into the air and are slowly retreating disappearing against the ground and not into it. I almost whine when Yoongi spurts blood from his lips meaning the hand is much closer to his heart that it seems to me. The other vile creature remains unphased even with droplets of blood landing on him.

This can’t be. Yoongi he…he can’t be kneeling like that! He’s the crowned prince!!! He has sacrificed so much already, went through many hardships in his long life he’s not supposed to kneel to anyone let alone that piece of shit. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt, he promised me…he promised that he will stay with me! He promised to keep me safe to…you idiot. You fucking idiot.

I’m angry and absolutely fuming in rage because he knew the outcome! He knew or at least estimated that he wasn’t going to survive this. Ever since that kiss, that first brush of hands that first night under the pale full moon he told me I was his priority. Nothing else mattered. And he knew going into this because it was inevitable, you can’t just keep killing off ants without killing its queen first to be able to live normally. They don’t leave you alone. And the moment is finally here. The moment I’ve had nightmares about for a strange reason which no one had figured out. It all comes to this.

What is death? It’s a single word.

‘Goodbye.’ The word, his voice echoes in my mind. That bastard. That fucking prick!!!

‘’Y/N! We need to go now!!!’’ Namjoon’s voice comes out of the blue bringing me back to the present making me realize that I’m not safe in the first place. And I don’t give a shit anymore. There’s no point really ‘’Y/N!!!’’ he keeps calling my name urgently, and I’ve never heard him raise his tone so high before. He’s always calm and collected, and a true cutie pie despite being a demon who can take your soul at any given moment with a press of lips to seal the deal.

My eyes remain on the person that is dearest to me. He is my life, my whole reason to live. Has been since that confession of his, which revealed that he’s not a monster as everyone portrays him to be. Yoongi’s head turns the slightest towards me, grey eyes staring at me. Even like that, infused with pain and agony he choses to look at me. He doesn’t need to say anything for me to understand him ‘’Go, please go love.’’ I can hear him in my mind seeing his eyes plead me to go.

‘’…Y/N c’mon…’’ his tone turns more desperate ‘’We need to go, you’re in danger here…’’ Namjoon’s words falter as the ground shakes at the exact same moment my fingers twitch again. It’s like someone has pulled out all the oxygen from the air, making it toxic as it runs into my lungs which weights me down. I feel as if it searches and goes for my heart terror and despair both squeezing it tight.

I choke on nothing my arms giving out body crumbling down almost making me crash into ground. I use the strength I got not to eat dirt literally as I try to understand what’s happening with my surroundings. Or maybe it’s my body that’s at fault.

I feel Namjoon rush towards me faster, but his closeness changes something. Its as if an elastic band snaps off. The pained groan reverberates through my chest up my throat halfway turning into a growl. Each time I breathe out I feel as if a fire has ben literally ignited inside me.

And it burns. Oh, how it fucking burns. Boiling in me, spreading through my veins, arteries, my blood my skin my insides, everywhere. It’s too much, way too much…it’s inferno.

‘’How pathetic.’’ Comes a pleased snarl ‘’What a weak mate you’ve chosen yourself cousin. I barely touched her and she’s already panting like a bitch in heat…’’ I can hear them shuffling as my head hangs low. I can hear them moving around shadows which; I can hear now. I can hear them. Literally. A chilled shiver runs down my spine as I listen to they’re whispers. They sound so gentle, so alluring. The word serene crosses my mind. Even though the surroundings are far from it.

‘’Don’t…ever dare too…’’Yoongi inhales sharply shadows starting to hiss before they settle back into whispers which are rushed. The calmness has been broken. I can hear the growl between the faint whispers, I can imagine the beast that is laying just beneath them.

‘’Before I send you to oblivion, I want you to know that I’m going to enjoy wrecking her, defile her in every possible way until she awakens.’’ The threat has me cracking my neck to the side, the movement setting of a chained reaction which shifts my bones under my skin rearranging them all from head to toes. Ouch.

‘’Hyung what are you waiting for, don’t just stand around...aishhhhhhhh!’’ Jimin hisses in pain sounding as if he touched something he shouldn’t. His skin is sizzling but heals quickly thanks to his special abilities. I can hear that perfectly in the back of my mind not even having to turn around.

‘’…over my dead body.’’ Yoongi growls with spite ‘’You won’t lay a single finger on her.’’ his shadow gets this high-pitched tone, whispers raising in volume into tiny little screams of fury. I feel as if they are making my ears bleed. The sound hurts. But it fills me up with rage of my own stacking it all up.

‘’I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s a spell. A curse that’s setting a fire barrier around her. We didn’t think he’d stoop so low to call in a warlock to perform dark magic.’’ Namjoon rambles in the back sounding distressed and pissed.

‘’You and your fire tricks, Y/N. The real fun begins when you use your own two hands.’’ The voice sounds amused the chuckle sounding like thunder.

‘’Doesn’t sound fun to me.’’

‘’Not everyone can be like you. It is why you need to be fair and square towards them.’’ the voice goes on wisely triggering a big chunk of my memory of years’ worth spent learning how to fight in many different techniques and weapons ‘’Even if they do deserve to be killed instantly.’’

‘’…what are we going to do?’’ Jimin asks worriedly.

‘’…you can’t stop me. I’m taking the great General L/N with me. The world known Death Bringer. She will make a fine weapon and mate…’’ he gets interrupted by gurgling noises. I can hear someone spitting probably they’re own blood ‘’Ah dear cousin, by this rate you’re only going to kill yourself faster by your own hand.’’

The threat is meant for the man I love which now sounds more serious like he’s going to go any moment now. The feeling that goes over me is a freezing, numbing one. It makes my head snap back to the pair of demons who are standing behind me, concerned still with getting me safe when in reality I’m the monster they should fear. They are only kids. I want to smirk because they are children compared to me. I stare blankly at them, one flinching visibly as I met his eyes.

‘’Ah hyung?’’ Taehyung calls hand slapping against Jimin who has his own arm outstretched forward, his icy powers trying to spread over and cool down the protective shield that my subconsciousness formed. It’s not a barrier it’s a shield. And he’s trying to bring it down. Not appreciated.

‘’Y/N-ah’s eyes are glowing red and are screaming bloody murder that’s…that’s not supposed to happen. Right?’’ his voice gets slightly higher more panicky as he tries to turn away to the other boys that are still around us fighting demons and all kinds of monsters and creatures off. Leaving him alone my eyes snap to Jimin whose glaring at me with icy blue eyes, the concentrated expression on his face shifting into a frown.

‘’Ave atque vale, dear cousin.’’ (Hail and farewell)

And then it all fast forwards before my eyes, head falling down on the ground so my forehead rests on solid earth, as my head begins to fill out with memories. It’s as if a flood has been released, the memories not pouring in my mind because they were there all the time, but they are being refreshed played before my eyes, in my ears, scents swirling in my nose, and body getting washed over with different senses and touches.

It only takes a split second and half of an exhale to make the ground shake all around us. Every creature standing on the field falters. Every one. I can hear the air moving, hear the tinge of metal in the air that formed out of nowhere, ready to strike down. I can taste blood on the tip of my tongue, my muscles tensing up bones having settled in they’re places.

And then everything happens so instantly.

Getting up is easy, my body doesn’t protest as it hums with energy and reawakened power that has been lying under my fingertips this whole time. I just didn’t realize it. But the power that has been at bay this whole time, settles into my bones again making me feel whole again.

I blink only once and it’s enough to find myself in a completely different position and place. My brain quickly catches up on the events and the movement my body did automatically. I take only half of a second to jump start my brain.

Standing in between the two demons, I reach out with my bare hands grabbing onto Yong-joon forearms with an iron grip that probably burns him at first, and only a moment later the pain registers from the grip I have on him. But he lets go of Yoongi automatically, as I drag him sideways forcing him to turn away. My ears pick up on the hisses of the shadows, that die down in confused murmurs picking up with intent a moment later as my lover registers its me whose standing in front of him.

Inhaling deeply in the air I get a good whiff of the bastard’s scent that has me, scrunching up my nose as his pale grey eyes stare at me ‘’I knew I smelled a rat right from the start.’’ I snarl forcing the demon to back away, his resolve faltering horns appearing on top of his forehead. And there it is. The shame. Only one horn is intact, the other cut off years ago by my own very hands.

‘’You fucking…ughghghhhh…’’ he hisses as I force him down onto his knees arms starting to lose circulations from how tightly I’m holding onto him, leaving imprints in wake.

‘’I thought I told you to stay the fuck away from me.’’ I growl my fingers crawling upwards, as he tries to resist and get out of my hold. My attention snaps upwards towards the second wave of soldiers that have been sent. I spot giants easily mingling with elemental demons this time around, the scum having done its job with dying but tiring the boys down in the first wave that has been killed off behind us. What a fucking copy can’t, he copied my strategy from years ago.

‘’You belong to me…’’ he dares to growl eyes showing his true nature and intent, the want and greed as they almost turn pale from hatred ‘’Father should be proud I captured your eye, you’re not as invincible as you think you are General, you can’t change his fate! He’s not fit to be king!’’ he hisses tugging one arm away from my hold breaking his elbow successfully but he does to reach for the ground to unleash his power. I block him by sliding my foot enduring the powerful punch he meant to throw at the ground that would swallow Yoongi whole and probably crush him on spot. A dirty trick he was taught from the dark warlocks. I trick I’ve picked up randomly when meeting said warlocks and sparing they’re lives millennia ago.

I bite into my cheek ignoring the pain, letting my head rotate so my neck snaps and cracks as I lean closer and over him, holding the scum that he is now with one hand the other snapping around his neck tightly. I want to kill him, so badly I crave the bloodlust to be sated…but I made a promise that bounds me. A promise that had me cut his horn off in the first place.

‘’What a pest you are.’’ Both his hands reach up to grip my own, but I glance sideways hearing the whispers again, past my own thoughts that chant ‘I want blood, give me blood, he deserves it, he tested me long enough’. Yoongi stares at me with the silver in his pupils still settled on his knees, bleeding visibly from his chest, heart having almost been ripped out. But the shadows are caressing his skin, mending the wound together. It’s the glare that gets to me, that raises the rage towards the demon before me.

The man I fell in love with the one I promised to dedicate my life to…he’s staring at me like I’m a stranger.

A hand suddenly shots up fingers digging into my stomach. Head and attention shooting forward I raise an eyebrow seeing shadows have crawled up and over me which have just now protected me from this blow. Not really fatal but it would be an annoyance till the end of the day.

‘’You’ve brought this onto yourself little boy.’’ I can’t help but to mock him. Outstretching my left hand, I spread my fingers open and wait. It only takes a moment but the steady blazing steel that’s infused with not only titans and blood of many gods, but also made from the very essence of one of the sacred stars itself from the world above starts forming the handle fitting perfectly between my fingers. The demon’s eyes widen in realization, panic and fear settling in his eyes as he stares at me, mouth opening wide to protest or shout. To later for despair now.

A swift movement of my wrist and the deed is done. What surprises me is the hand wrapped around my wrist stopping the sword on the other side, to hang in the air my eyes meeting familiar grey ones again.

His jaw is set tight, cold harsh anger radiating from his graceful smooth features, skin pale against the murky colour of blood that has dried on his revealed chest clothes having been ruined in the process.

‘’So doubtful.’’ I coo as his eyes snap to his cousin that’s crying out in agony. Letting go of him he falls on the ground still very much so alive but having lost both horns. It’s a very painful thing to experience, they are part of our skulls. It’s why this doing is the lowest of them all. I’m not unfamiliar with doing this, having had cut both my horns right from the roots a millennium ago.

I receive a growl in return making me smirk, but tug my hand away switching my sword into my other hand as I turn to him, to examine his chest. As my hand reaches up his stops me, making me face his eyes again ‘’You remembered?’’

‘’I did.’’ I reply getting serious again. Despite it all, despite now knowing who I was, who I am…it doesn’t change anything ‘’Did you know?’’ I ask through my teeth hardening my expression.

‘’I did not. I suspected it but couldn’t associate a mere human with the cruellest general that lead the second war against the angels. A human who could barely look at the sight of blood pretending it didn’t make her sick, when in reality she bathed in it for years.’’ He growls in the end.

The second wave of soldiers is getting very close towards us, and it’s surprising that he hasn’t made a move yet. He is in no condition to fight, and the boys aren’t in a good shape either.

‘’You should head back to safety, your majesty. You shouldn’t be here.’’ I speak the last part through my teeth daringly leaning in closer. Yoongi is one of the most powerful demons in the kingdom, and this realm. It is why he’s meant to do great things, why he alone survived this whole time. He can wipe out the entire army that has been sent to kill us. But he does have a weakness that lead him to this position. He met me.

‘’This is not your war to fight Y/N-ah.’’ The way he addresses me brings a smirk to my lips and to take a step back tugging my arm easily away from his firm hold.

‘’It became my war from the moment, you smiled at me for the first time.’’ I admit my true feelings, which in the past, okay let’s be honest only months ago before I found myself here I would never do. Glancing backwards I swing my sword around checking out if it still fits my hand, trying to get used to the feeling of it once again securely in my palm. The other boys are finishing up with the lower-case demons, making sure that they are all dead. They were underprepared despite reassuring me all along that they are strong enough for anything. And it’s still a big accomplishment to take down over 1000 demons only the 7 of them.

But now it’s time to turn the tables. I briefly meet each and every one of their gazes before nodding and turning to Yoongi who reaches out for me. I brush my hand in a way that dislodges his own from forming contact with me ‘’Get inside behind the walls where it’s safe. I’ll come back to you.’’ His lips tighten, as I rattle the bracelets that had ridden up my forearm, the metal begins to expand after a mere though and a password crossing my mind ‘’And unlike you I keep my promises, jagiya.’’ I tease in the end, armour securely wrapped round my body having formed from the bracelet that was gifted to me lifetimes ago.

Not wasting any more time, or thoughts I turn forward and start to march shield growing from the bracer on my left hand. I start to hit it with the steel of my sword imitating a marching pattern. Its one of the sounds I'm known for making. It got me several victories as the enemies ran away or surrendered just from hearing it. It was all mind games back then. Now it’s time to show how cruel and ruthless I really am.

They caged me in my own body, into a mortal flesh without memories leaving me lost and helpless to die. They forgot how thick skinned I am, forgot to look for my weaknesses, forgot that even half dead I’m deadly to anyone approaching me.

But the fact remains persistently so in the back of my head: my newest and only one weakness. Its him.

And I’m prepared to lay my life down for him to keep living. Let’s test that theory.

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

/ Part 2

Copyright 2018© by barbika1508. All rights reserved.

[animesshadow]

Did I create a monster?

It was late at night already. Erza was enjoying a book while comfortably sitting on a couch in her apartment in Fairy Hills. Every now and then the sound of thunder could be heard from outside. There was obviously quite the storm outside. Lightning could be seen flashing frequently from the window behind her. She was so absorbed by the content of the novel that it took her a few moments to realize that someone was knocking on the window behind her.

Eventually, she snapped out of her book and shifted her attention towards the window. She looked outside to see who it was that came knocking on her window at this late hour.

Through the rain, there was a small hooded figure standing on the branch of a tree that was close enough for a person to reach Erza’s apartment. It didn’t take her long to figure out who it was. The boys signature white scarf gave it away immediately.

Erza opened the window in surprise.

“Natsu? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Can we talk?... It’s important”

The small Natsu said a little nervous. 

Erza knew well that no boy was allowed in these dorms but she realized that it must have been something very important for him to seek her assistance at this hour. It must have been something that couldn’t wait

“Alright, get in.”

Erza said with a sigh and gestured him to climb through the window. Erza stepped aside and Natsu effortlessly climbed through the window.

Natsu was still a child. A child that Master brought to Fairy Tail a few years ago. Apparently, he was a so-called dragon slayer and the dragon Igneel who was a father figure to him went missing. He was completely on his own from that point so Master took him in hopes to give Natsu a place to stay and people he could see as family.

Master Makarov told Erza to keep an eye out for the boy. She was the most disciplined and reliable S-Rank mage in Fairy Tail so she was the perfect person to look after someone with such a strange magic. Natsu was typically a shy boy and didn’t talk out much to other people but over time Natsu seemed to grow kinda attached to Erza. He thought of Erza as something like an elder sister to him. She was basically the only person he can open up to in the entire guild.

“So, what’s wrong?”

Erza asked the troubled Natsu in front of her. She was worried because Natsu seemed to avert her gaze for some reason.

“Oh.. yes.. umm...”

Natsu fidgeted around before hesitantly pulled something that he hid in his wide raincoat. 

It was a bloody knife.

Erza’s eyes widened in surprise. She knew exactly what this meant. You see, Natsu had a few... problems. 

Before Master Makarov took Natsu in a few scientists found him by himself. They were fascinated by the human child that had the magic of a dragon inside of him. Apparently they did experiments on him to make a human-dragon hybrid weapon out of him. Even though Natsu was able to flee, these experiments didn’t leave Natsu unscathed. He developed some kind of bloodlust that always clouded his mind.

After Erza found out about this she tried everything she could to suppress these twisted emotions. However, none of her actions seemed to help. Recently Erza secretly let Natsu help out a butcher in his slaughterhouse. There Natsu could vent his bloodlust by killing animals that would have been slaughtered for meat anyway.

At first, this seemed to help. Killing animals helped Natsu reduce his bloodlust so much that it didn’t affect his mind. Natsu’s sadistic desire to torture and end lives was not something to take lightly. Erza watched Natsu at the slaughterhouse a couple of times. The sadistic joy on his face as his took an animal life with his own hands was outright horrific. Even with Erza’s experience the sight of a child that only seemed to feel alive by joyfully killing others made her turn pale in anxiety.

“... What happened?”

Erza asked. She still hoped that her worst fears didn’t get real and this was just misunderstanding. Deep down she could already feel that that wasn’t the case.

“It happened Erza-neechan... I... I killed someone...”

Natsu softly replied with his head hung low. He knew he did something terrible. That’s what everyone else would say at least.

“I see..”

So it finally happened. Even after everything they tried Erza knew that it only a matter of time until Natsu crossed the line.

“Tell me what happened. Every detail”

Erza looked sternly at Natsu expecting to hear the full story.

“I went to the graveyard again because it’s the only place I can fully relax... There was a man. He forcefully dragged a woman with him to a dark corner. The woman tried to scream and resist but the man was too strong and overpowered her easily... I went after them to see what happens. The man made a disgusting face... he took out a knife and threatened to slice the lady’s throat open if she continued to resist. He ripped off her close and started touching her while the woman could do nothing but cry in agony... There I felt it. This person was scum... So I took out the knife I took from the butcher-san. I crawled out of my hiding spot, ran up to him and sliced his carotid artery open before he could react. He would have bled out in a few seconds but I forcefully stabbed him in the chest multiple times until he finally stopped moving... Everything happened so fast. My mind went completely blank and everything I felt was the desire to end his life...”

Natsu explained what happened in every detail. That explained why Natsu’s coat was soaked in blood even though it was raining heavily outside. 

Erza listened to the story in silence. She noticed how Natsu’s eyes lit up as he relived the memory of his first kill. There was no hint of regret on Natsu’s face. Erza could fully imagine the wicked smile on his face as he overpowered a full grown adult and stabbed the life out of him. For him, it was probably the best moment in recent years. A moment he finally felt alive again.

“What happened with the woman? Did she see your face?”

At this point, Erza knew that talking about the morale of his actions was pointless now. Natsu has tasted human blood and he loved it. The euphoria he felt in the moment of his first kill was something that could never be achieved by killing animals anymore. Natsu was still a child. A child Erza promised to protect so she had to make sure the woman didn’t identify Natsu as the killer.

“She was in shock but after a few moments she snapped out of it and hugged me real tight. She repeatedly said ‘thank you, thank you’ for a while... Her trauma didn’t seem to allow her to fully grasp what happened there.”

Natsu said in a monotone voice. He didn’t seem to care about that woman at all. Of course, he didn’t. It no act of justice, vigilance or anything like that. Natsu didn’t step in to save the woman, he just wanted to kill someone.

“Did you... Did you kill her too?”

Erza was not so sure anymore if Natsu was able to tell the difference in those two people at that moment. She hoped that the criminal was the only one that died by Natsu’s hand tonight.

“No, of course I didn’t! That would have been wrong, wouldn’t it?... I told her to please not to tell anyone about what happened... She agreed and went home after she wiped her tears and put her clothes back on.”

Erza was a bit relieved. So Natsu did seem to have a small sense of morality left. Of course, she couldn’t be sure if it was just his bloodlust that was satisfied with one kill or if he really held back because the woman was a victim in the first place. But after seeing the face of the small boy she promised to take care of, she couldn’t help but believe him. 

“Let’s hope she really keeps her promise..”

Erza had no option but to trust the words of this random woman. Even though she knew it was wrong, she did not want to lose Natsu. For some people, this small kid may have been a monster. A monster that put on a human act to fool those around him as he felt no real emotions anymore. Something that has to be locked up or even killed but during the time she spent with that boy she couldn’t help but grow attached to him. She did not want to lose him!

“Listen Natsu. We both know that you won’t be able to stop killing at this point.”

Natsu was a bit embarrassed at the disappointment in Erza’s voice. He tried to look away to avert his gaze from her worried face. He may not feel any real emotions but for some reason, he always felt uncomfortable when he realized Erza was sad.

“I now fully realize that there is nothing I can do to erase your bloodlust. If it goes on uncontrolled like that you will one day be captured and imprisoned or executed... To be honest, I don’t want that to happen. After everything you’ve been through in the past, I know that it is not completely your fault that you are like this. You are a member of Fairy Tail now, a part of our family. You are important to me and I don’t want to see go on a mindless rampage.”

The worry and anxiety in Erza’s voice made Natsu feel even more uncomfortable. Nothing he did made him feel even remotely like that. He always put on a facade and acted like he cared about the things other people told him about. He put on a smile and acted like a regular child in the guild but honestly.. he didn’t care at all. So why did he feel this annoying feeling when Erza is worried like that?

“I can’t believe I am saying this but...” Erza mumbled to herself. “I know that it is impossible to fully suppress that ‘emotion’ completely. So we have to vent it in a controlled way.”

Natsu was surprised, to say the least. Is the righteous Erza-neechan in front of him really suggesting what he thinks it is?

“You will not, under no circumstances, kill an innocent person!”

“You mean...”

“As much as I hate to admit it, there are criminals out there that the law alone can not punish. People that are beyond saving. People who did, or still do, gruesome and horrible things...”

Memories of her past flashed back in her mind. Erza hated to remember these events so she shook her head to get rid of them immediately.

“If you ever want to kill someone again, it will be one of those criminals. Fairy Tail is one of the strongest guilds in Fiore so we regularly get information on dangerous criminals and dark guilds in Fiore.”

“Are you telling me, I can...?”

“I am not saying that you can go and kill those people as you see fit! Only when it gets impossible to suppress those emotions again I will consider pointing you to the right way.”

Natsu couldn’t believe it. Sure, it was shocking that Erza was pushed far enough to even consider something like this but for the most part, he felt happy. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a time when they can kill those criminals together. Those thoughts made Natsu almost jump up in anticipation. In his own twisted mind, he considered killing together the most intimate two people can get. 

“But beware! You will always have to make sure no one will be able to trace you back after ‘that’... I will have to teach you how to get rid of all the evidence.”

Erza hated herself for going that far. She was basically helping a murderer. But she couldn’t help herself, her disgust was overshadowed by the wish to protect this cute little boy. She didn’t know herself what it was that made her feel so attached to Natsu. She just didn’t want a child that had a terrible past to destroy himself by having no one to help him.

“Now, did you understand that?”

“Yes, I did!”

Natsu shouted out in confirmation while making an exaggerated nod.

Erza made a sigh of relief. She still felt troubled over what they discussed just now but she couldn’t bring herself to imprison that small child. She loved him too much to do that. 

“It is a promise, okay? I trust you that will not break that promise. From now on if it gets too much for you to handle, you will only kill those that can not be redeemed in any other way.”

After that, Erza set a strict set of guidelines to help Natsu channel his need to kill so that he can satisfy his ‘needs’ and, in some sense, do some good. Natsu would always make sure to remember these guidelines as the Code of Erza.

‘Did I create a monster?’ Erza finally thought to herself. She knew that it would not always be easy to live with Natsu’s actions but she had no other choice but to help him. She didn’t want to lose Natsu. ‘Or did I point it towards the right direction?’

[ridgies]

I know it aint Wednesday anymore but 10, 19, 29, 42 and a wildcard for that ask meme!

Lordy I wasn’t expecting it but thank you so much anon! long.

10. Have any of your dragons suffered a grave, but non-lethal injury due to a battle? How does it affect them (physically or emotionally)?

Quite a few of them, actually! The thing is, my clan is pretty pacifistic (as a whole), so none of those injuries were acquired during the dragons’ stay in the clan. Here’s a couple of ‘em:

Stories say Efahlel fell from the heavens. Unconscious and with her right wing torn to shreds, she suffered grave injuries due to the fall that would’ve killed any normal dragon. The elders who remember her first days in the clan theorise that the energies of the other world that peers through the scar on her badly patched-up wing kept her alive.

Hastur (her canonical appearance requires accent layering, woe is me) was beheaded in an ancient battle against the Shade. Eons passed, and the malevolent energies coalescing in the perfectly preserved battlefield started to have an effect on some of the other corpses of warriors. The Mother intervened and brought Hastur back to life,deeming her sacrifice too precious. She is now voice of the Mother, even though she has no voice herself.

Lath’s gruesome, skeletal appearance was caused by a battle between her Plague clan and the Beastclans. At the end of it the beasts feasted on what they thought was her corpse. Nearly torn apart limb from limb, she found determination deep within herself, rose and defeated the enemies. She spent days on the site of the massacre, fungi feeding on her flesh and blood, but would not let go of life, until she was found by one of the wanderers from the Triumvirate.

19. How famous would you say your clan is in the local area? In their flight? In all of Sornieth?

The Matriarchal Triumvirate is not widely known throughout Sornieth, but it was an important stop for every dragon travelling between Shadow and Plague. The guides from the clan know every path, shortcut, ruin and cave on the border of the two flights’ territories, and were sought after by other clan’s leaders, healers and other important dragons. Since their exodus into Sunbeam ruins, however, the clan has been struggling and will likely fade into obscurity.

29. A member of your clan has ran afoul of a friendly clan. How would you prefer they be dealt with; by your laws or their’s? How would you deal with the reverse situation?

Depending on the type and severity of the transgression Iustitia and Prudentia would make a decision on whether to judge the offender themselves or to send them to the other clan. If the offence was theft, destruction of property or a similar material crime, they’d let the other clan deal with it. If the offence is murder, injury, or a similar crime that is universally loathed, they’d judge the transgressor themselves.

42.What would most of your dragons say the biggest threat to them is right now?

If you’d asked a month ago, I would’ve answered the rise of the Shade in a territory adjacent to the clan’s. Since they moved into the Sunbeam Ruins, they’ve been living a peaceful, if unremarkable life. Their lives turned upside down and livelihoods pretty much obsolete, they’re searching for a new way to make a living, and good name for themselves.

Now, what does wildcard mean? I can choose my own question to answer? Correct me if I’m wrong. :) I’ll do a random one with the help of a number generator... 40!

40. If your clan leader went off the deep end, who would stand by them no matter what?

This is a very interesting question considering my clan is led by three queens (hence triumvirate). Let’s see:

If Hastur (see above answer to question No. 10) went coocoo Efahlel would remain by her side no matter what she did. Hastur is an ancient spirit who perished in battle so there’s really no telling what she’d do in this situation, but Efahlel has no moral compass so she’d just stick by Hastur. Since the relocation into Light Hastur’s connection with Mother has been severely weakened, and is threatening to sever completely, so this scenario might be more likely than you think and soon.

If Loevetann ever goes postal she’s most likely to just paint the all of the clan’s walls and pillars with various abstract, if a bit inexplicably disturbing images. At the end she’d collapse of fatigue and it’s likely the whole clan would come to her aid.

If Hildr ever goes off the deep end, within .2 seconds there’d be no clan anymore and noone to stick by her as they’d all be turned into ashes and char. Think that ep of GoT with Drogon burning the Lannister army.

That’s all folks! Anon thank you again so much!

[samtheflamingomain]

welcome to death note, where the plot makes no sense and the rules don’t matter

Unless you've been living under a rock the past few months, you're aware that there's a live-action American Death Note movie on Netflix.

I wasn't going to watch it because I knew it would be bad and I am a MASSIVE DN fan. I didn't want it to ruin one of my favourite things.

While I wouldn't say it did that, I will say that it was, without exaggeration, the worst screen adaptation of anything I've ever seen.

I went in with low expectations and knowing they'd have to change the plot around to fit into 90 minutes. The bar was so low and yet they managed to disappoint me at every turn.

So let's get into the details. Spoilers ahead, but who cares this movie is garbage.

I'll break it down into several aspects: acting and characterization, pacing and plot, visuals and sound, and finally, the sheer amount of nonsense and bullshit this film vomited into my face.

Okay. I hated every single character's personality. NONE of the characters were even remotely similar to the characters in the manga/anime. Light is a stupid, naive teenager who thinks with his dick. Mi(s)a is a sociopathic, manipulative cunt, Light's father is EXTREMELY stupid, Ryuk is not a neutral character (which is extremely important), and, finally, L. Oh, lord, L.

L is a cold, detached, calculating super genius detective. In the original. In the movie, he's a ballsy, irrational, emotional mess who somehow knows how to drive and wield a gun - unthinkable of OG L.

And to touch briefly on the acting: Nat Wolff is the only one I really have a problem with. He wears a constant look of confusion the whole movie and acts like a troubled child, not like a fucking serial killer.

Now, to your immense surprise, there is one character that I found was nearly spot-on: Watari.

And finally, the movie lacked in sheer number of characters. The ones I listed are, quite literally, the only ones in the film who speak. I get it, they didn't have time to do the Near, Mello, Takada, or Mikami plots. But I guarentee this movie would've greatly benefited from a Matsuda character, a Rem character, and Light's mother and sister.

Onto pacing and plot.

Again, I know they only had 90 minutes, but within the first ten minutes, Light has the notebook and hooks up with someone he barely knows (Mia), shows her the notebook, and they’re instantly dating and having some creepy murder sex. Within the first 30 minutes, nearly everyone knows Light is Kira.

Now to the main problems with the plot itself: there is no reason to give Light more motive to become a killer. It's his personality and his worldly outlook that causes him to take up killing. In the movie, they sloppily throw in some bullshit about his mom being killed, but they don't make that the actual motivation for killing. How do we know this? Well...

In the movie, his first kill is a bully at school (something OG Light was smart enough to realize is fucking stupid) and when told to add a cause of death, he immediately jumps to "decapitation" - revealing instantly that he's a sick fuck. Sure, bullies suck, but do they deserve to be fucking decapitated? Light Yagami only killed actual criminals (until he has to kill people investigating him).

This might seem petty, but it's actually super important: Ryuk shows up before Light kills anyone. In the original, Light needed no prodding from a Death God to begin his murder spree. In the movie, it's Ryuk that goads him into his quest. This goes back to the fact that Ryuk is supposed to be neutral. It takes away Light's agency and makes it feel like Ryuk is controlling him.

L makes WAY too many guesses with little logic or evidence. It takes a lot longer for L to deduce Light is Kira in the original. Movie L makes some very uncharacteristic leaps of logic just for the sake of driving the movie on.

There's a scene pretty early on that mimics a similar scene in the original with Light and L sitting in a diner together. In the original, it’s not super important. Movie version involved L outright accusing him of being Kira on flimsy-at-best evidence, and then, in what might be the worst event in the movie, Light readily admits to being Kira and taunts him about not knowing how he kills.

After some bullshit about Light mind-controlling Watari (more on that later) to try and get L's name and Watari dies, L goes on a destructive car/foot chase with Light. In the original, it's important for L to figure out how Kira kills before killing him. This movie L doesn't seem to care about anything but revenge and being proven right.

I keep saying this, but another horribly-written thing happens that might be the worst part: L has Light cornered with a gun on him and someone randomly comes and knocks L over the back of the head, the very epitome of a Deus Ex Machina.

Then we get to the climax, which is an extremely long scene where Light and Mia hijack the Seattle ferris wheel, take it to the top and fight over who should own the book. They've both written each others' names down and the pages need to be burned by midnight if they want to live (groan, unnecessary race-against-time). They spend a good 5 minutes dangling from the wheel when RYUK causes it to collapse; something OG Ryuk would have NEVER EVER DONE, because, as the movie fails to explain, Ryuk’s motivation is supposed to be boredom. I’ll touch more on why this happens in a bit. Mia falls to her death, Light falls into the water, into a coma, and wakes up two days later.

Okay, now I do have to give the movie a bit of credit here: it seems at first like a bunch of ridiculous coincidences that lead to Light outliving Mia. Turns out he saw all this coming (somehow) and had quickly used the book to ensure that: the wheel collapses, Mia falls from the wheel and dies, the page with his name is burned so he will live, that he's rescued from the water after his fall, that he's in a coma but murders continue via a random criminal writing in the book before delivering it back to Light just as he wakes from the coma. I'll pick this part apart in a minute because there is just so much wrong with this sequence of events that I can’t even.

And finally, the ending, if you can call it that. The writers were VERY clearly trying to be clever and leave us with a cliffhanger.

L is "proven wrong" about Light being Kira because the murders continued while he was in a coma, and is supposed to go back to Japan, before he suddenly remembers that Mia has a page of the book at her house. He gets there and finds the page she used to kill invesigators behind Light's back. The movie ends with L, shaking in uncharacteristic anger, about to write Light's name. Fade to black.

Finally, one last thought on the plot before I touch on other elements: this is a terrible adaptation, but an even worse movie. As a stand-alone movie, viewers new to Death Note would no doubtedly leave feeling confused and like nothing important was said in the movie. It does nothing to touch on the ambiguity of Kira's actions vs. L's. It has no underlying takeaway besides "Hey look at this cool book!"

Okay, quick thoughts on visuals and sound. Visuals are great (minus whatever bullshit paper mache project that is Ryuk). They dont' shy away from gruesome depictions of murders. I'd cite the incredible series of events that lead to Kenny being decapitated as the best example.

Hated the audio. Random songs start playing where score would've been better.

Okay, now onto the nitty-gritty details that make this movie absolutely fall apart.

Most of them are to do with the mechanics of how the Death Note is supposed to work. The original only has one page of rules and no names in it yet. Movie Book has pages and pages of rules and names filled in. There are rules that don't exist in the original (like the burning of the page to save the life of the victim, the fact that Mia can't see Ryuk after touching the note*, and most deplorably, the rule about "must be physically possible" being shattered into pieces at every turn.

*When Light first shows Mia the book and has her touch it, he assumes she’ll be able to see Ryuk WITH NO REASON TO BELIEVE THIS. In the original, Ryuk has to tell Light about this rule. In the movie, Light GUESSES that that’s how it works. And he’s wrong: unlike the original where Mia would’ve seen Ryuk, Ryuk claims in the movie that only the owner of the book can see him - super convenient for Light, who walks around school with the book in full view.

But there's a lot of other bullshit that ruins this monstrosity. There's a turning point in the movie where Mia tries to convince Light to kill his own father. The prompting event doesn't happen in the original, but I have no doubt that OG Light would've killed him without hesitation, as he outright says in the original. Because OG Light would be smart enough to know that leaving his father alive in that situation would immediately implicate him.

Here's one of the worst offenses (again, I know): Light writes the name "Watari" in the book. And it works. Watari is not his real name, and even if it were, who only has one name?

L does the whole "taunting Kira to kill him on TV" as in the original, but this event leads him to the conclusion that Light needs a name and a face - something that makes absolutely no sense for him to instantly know after one test.

Now, about the ending sequence at the ferris wheel and the hospital. The police are chasing Light and Mia, the two threaten the wheel's operator with a gun to take them up. And then he's later "officially" exonerated because the murders continued while he was in a coma, but because Light killed his mother's killer, his father "knows” he's Kira, which, of course, Light admits. If he's "officially" not Kira, why did he run from the cops and hijack a ferris wheel? L knows the power of killing can be transferred to another, yet doesn't explain this fact to anyone when the killings continue during Light’s coma.

And the biggest shitshow of nonsense? The way Light kills Mia and ensures he lives and ends up with the book again. Waaay too much of it is contingent on luck, along with some great rule-breaking.

Light writes: Mia takes the book, the wheel collapses, she falls to her demise, and the page with his name on it is burned. That's not how it works. There cannot be a passive action in a Death Note murder. He would've had to write: Mia takes the book, burns Light's page, then falls to her demise.

He also writes that he himself falls but goes into a coma, set to wake up in two days. Also impossible. You can't create a sequence of events that affect someone other than the murder victim. And you especially can’t use it to (directly) save someone’s life.

Essentially, Light is writing things he'd like to happen in the book. It's a Death Note, not a Life Note, and certainly not a Wish Note.

He also writes that criminal number one retrieves him from the water and revives him. The criminal would have to know there's a kid in the water, where he is, and how to revive him. Possible, but not foolproof because of the "physically possible" rule. If dude didn't know CPR, Light would've died.

Then, he has criminal number two retrieve the Death Note and continue writing names in the book for the two days he's in the coma, and then return it to him in the hospital. This is less about "physically possible" and more about somehow being able to brainwash him. The events leading up to his death have to be something he could conceiveably do on his own. See also: the brainwashing of Watari.

Let me explain a bit more: in the original, Light experiments with the "physically possible" rule. In one test he writes: (criminal) draws a perfect likeness of L's face on his prison wall before dying. This isn't physically possible because the criminal doesn't know what L looks like, so it's inconcievable that he could, under any circumstance, draw L's face.

Similarly, there's no way that Watari would think of going back to the orphanage to get L's real name, nor is there a conceivable way that a criminal would think to go to Light's specific hospital room and leave him the book. It has to be something they could potentially think of themselves.

Now, I know these are a lot of extremely fine details, but to people who know how the book is supposed to work, it all looks messy and contrived.

Finally, let me leave you with one last gripe/thought. Death Note is an IP originating from Japan. I get that it's a purposely American adaptation meant for American audiences, but something in the movie happens that kind of pissed me off:

Light chooses the name Kira (instead of his fans choosing the name) largely because it means "killer" in Japan, then decides to try and throw people off his scent by focusing his murders in Japan. I have no doubt that this was meant to be a nod to its Japanese origins, but it comes off as... kind of like kicking the original when it's already down. You're taking a Japanese IP, taking it to America, then using Japan as a scapegoat for American Light. Maybe it's just me, but it really made me think, "Haven't they suffered enough just by the fact that this movie exists?"

I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I've missed due to repressing the memory of ever seeing this terrible movie, but those are my major (and minor) problems with it.

Don't see it. It's bad.

And DEAR GOD, PLEASE DON'T MAKE A SEQUEL.

Stay Greater.

[ozjpg]

[         Among the monotonous usual mail lays an old, yellowed envelope. It bares no return address. Whoever has sent it has not used the postal service, an oddity in its own right. It begs the question of how it was sent at all… or has it been placed in this pile by the sender themselves? Is it one of the neighbors playing a strange practical joke? No. A quick inspection of the parcel makes that quite clear.          ] 

[         For starters, the seal is decidedly not made of wax. A light-hearted neighbor would not go through a gruesome amount of trouble on a letter that might be tossed out with the bills. No, whoever has sent this has more serious intentions in mind. Are they watching to make sure it is received? Maybe home is not as safe as it once was. Maybe you are not alone.          ] 

[         Once opened, a folded and an equally as worn sheet of paper slides out. Computerized text makes up the short letter, which further confirms that this has not been sent in jest. It is clear that someone has been watching you closely. Very, very closely.         ] 

ᴇʀɪᴄ ʀʜᴏᴅᴇꜱ,                               

               ʏᴏᴜ'ᴠᴇ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴡᴏɴᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʀ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʜᴀꜱ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴋᴇᴘᴛ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛᴏᴏ ʟᴏɴɢ, ᴀꜱ ɪ ᴀᴍ ꜱᴜʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴀɢʀᴇᴇ. ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇꜱᴘᴏɴꜱɪʙʟᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ ɪꜱ ᴄʟᴏꜱᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ.

               ɪɴ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ, ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴇʀᴠɪᴄᴇꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛᴇᴅ. ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ, ʜᴇʀᴇ, ᴏᴜʀ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇꜱᴛꜱ ᴀʟɪɢɴ.

               ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴏꜰ.

               ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪꜱ ɴᴇᴄᴇꜱꜱᴀʀʏ ᴛᴏ ᴇɴꜱᴜʀᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ. ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛ ᴅɪꜱᴀɢʀᴇᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʏᴏᴜ.

               ʙʀɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ʀᴇᴍᴀɪɴꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴅɢᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴏʀᴛʜ ꜱɪᴅᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛᴏᴡɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄʜᴇᴅ. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴏꜰ ɪᴛ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴏᴛ ʙᴇ ɪᴍᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛᴇᴅ.

               ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀᴡᴀʀᴅꜱ, ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀᴄᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪꜱʜᴇᴅ.

               ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ.

Signed, A Concerned Citizen

Oz leaned forward in his chair as he reread the note. He had almost ignored it when he saw it lying amongst his junk mail. Most of his mail was in the club’s name and sent to the club. For the most part his mail consisted of small bills, random menus, and coupons that were addressed to ‘current resident’. He had assumed that the envelope was just another piece of junk. As he went through that days mail, getting ready to trash it, his brow furrowed as he noticed this specific letter had not gone through any postal service. A smile had come to his face as he was almost eager to see who was bold enough to find his home and leave him something like this. This eagerness almost instantly faded away when he felt the seal. A new anger had risen in him, who was trying to threaten him? This fucking boldly too? When he saw ‘Eric Rhodes’ on the top was when he understood this was not a threat, and it had taken him only a few seconds to know there was no way to disagree. 

Now, he shoved the note back into his shirt pocket as he felt a breeze fly in from the window next to him. They had made it almost too easy for him to get into the home. He knew this house like the back of his hand even if it had been over a decade since he last lived here. The Rhodes in all there northside pride had even hid the spare key in the same place, the code to the security was the same, and every piece of furniture remained the same making it easy to navigate around. He entered the study, looking around as the memory of the night they kicked him out flooded back. He thought himself crazy for ever returning here, and even crazier for remaining as calm as he was. 

He placed himself at the huge wooden desk “So, this is what it’s like to be an actual Rhodes” his laugh coming out as an annoyed snort. He sat for a bit before he noticed the family photo on the corner of the desk. There was his biological father with his pristine family. All of the kids were young. Apparently, he had convinced some poor girl to marry him after he and his father had thrown Oz and his mother out. They probably thought the world of their father, but then again they weren’t forced to stay hidden on this property for fourteen years. Another bout of anger began to rise through his body causing him to throw the picture across the room before he could stop himself. It shattered on impact, and he knew it was loud enough to draw someone to the study. Even if he hadn’t meant to act just yet, Oz accepted it, and as he sat back in the chair awaiting the impending reunion.

It was only a few minutes before he heard footsteps approaching the doors, a few more and the door was slowly opening, and a few more and he was face to face with one of the two men he hated in this world. In all honesty, Oz had never been sure if the note meant his grandfather, his father, or either of them, but it seemed the logical conclusion for him. The ‘her’ connecting to his mother, and what’s closer to a person than their parent. Obviously, it wasn’t a close in friendship, but in blood. Oz’s mind thought over his choice of his father over his grandfather as he sat their quietly. His father made threats about police action or physical harm as he swung a bat around, but Oz remained still. Oz just sat there waiting for him to realize who exactly was in front of him. It was strange to see a man with almost the face as his staring at him. Oz’s features were softened by his mother’s, but the same blue eyes looking over to him is what finally pissed him off. He didn’t want to think he was anything like his father “Are you really that fucking stupid? Look at me” Oz laughed as he stood up, sliding the gun from his pocket and forward on the table. A slight smirk came over his face as he saw the other’s face pale and his lips whisper ‘Eric’.

What really had sold him to this twisted plan was the fact he wasn’t going to be implicated for it. Whether or not he should trust whoever wrote the note or not was another thing entirely in his mind. If he had the chance to avenge his mother, why wouldn’t he take, especially if it was the Rhodes’ fault she was dead? So, he took the gun in his hand, looking down at it. He ran his fingers over the silencer. He had decided he didn’t need more people involved than necessary so had taken the part as a precaution. Oz held it up, his father’s voice begging in his ear, but no words coming through. “I knew you fucking killed her” he said as his finger slid over the trigger.

The shot had gotten him right in the heart. The expertise of the shot making Oz laugh as it was the Rhodes who had showed him how to shoot all those years ago. He wrapped his own coat around the body to minimize the blood spill before effortlessly slinging the body over his shoulder. It had been done, “Simply and quickly” he thought as he made his way to the back door and toward the forest line at the edge of the property. For years he had thought of some revenge he had craved, but never deciding to take the time on such a pathetic Northie. Oz had never wanted a huge scene for his revenge. The simplicity of the murder was perfect for him as his father was dead and he knew he’d never feel a shred of remorse for it. He dropped him down as the letter instructed, taking one more look at the hauntingly similar face before placing the note on him. As soon as he turned to walk away, he was already returning to his normal life. Now eager to find his way out of the Northside, he sent out a quick text. In the corner of his eye he noticed the blood on his clothes and figured he could just throw them in some hobo’s campfire as he passed, or fuck it maybe he’d frame them.

[hannahindie]

Not What She Seems-Chapter 3: The One Where Sam Is Right

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters, although if I did, that would be pretty sweet. This is rated M for language, violence, and sexual situations, both consensual and not. The non-consensual will not be very graphic, but the rest will be eventual smut and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. If any of that offends you, this might not be for you. I really have enjoyed creating Sebastian, and I hope that you guys enjoy it too…even if he is a grade A jerk. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Description: Sam and Dean finally see what carnage is being left behind and Sam makes a realization that Dean is not happy about. Sebastian lets his temper show, and Ava finds out more about Ben.

Dean had been quiet the entire drive. They’d barely spoken while they packed the car, and when Sam noticed the smell of alcohol on him first thing in the morning, Dean was quick to tell him to sit and spin on it before Sam even said anything. So, they’d spent the three hour drive to Wichita in silence. Sam had spent the time combing through reports to see if there were any patterns he’d missed the night before. The car slowed to a stop and Sam looked up to see they had arrived at the coroner’s office. Sam dug around in the glove box, pulled out two sets of credentials, and tossed one to Dean.

“FBI?” Sam nodded.

“Yea, Agent Tyler, sure are.” He paused. “Are you okay?” Dean rolled his eyes and popped a couple of aspirin and chased them with a mint.

“I’m peachy keen, brother. Let’s get this over with.” He strode off towards the building and Sam had to jog to catch up.

“Fine…right,” Sam muttered and Dean stopped short.

“You got something to say, Dr. Phil?” he snapped.

“What is your problem? We have taken cases with way less information and you’ve been fine. Hell, you’re the one that usually insists on it. Why are you being such an ass about this?” The muscles in Dean’s jaw clenched as he tried to keep from tearing into Sam.

"Sam, I am tired. We have gone non-stop since the trials and the angels falling. Why does it always have to be us? Fun fact, it doesn't need to be. Yet here we are, chasing after some sick bastard that just kills for the hell of it. So can we just go in here, get this over with, and go home?" Sam looked like he wanted to argue but instead he shoved past Dean and into the building.

“You must be Agent Perry, ” the coroner said as he shook Sam’s hand and turned to Dean. “And Agent Tyler?” Dean nodded. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, boys. I’m Dr. Jim Meade. This one is a doozy. Could use all the help I can get.”

“Well, we sure hope we can help. We don’t want to step on any toes, but six bodies is a bit of a body count to ignore.” Dr. Meade nodded.

“We have a decent department here, agents. They’re good at what they do. But this…this has been hard for even the most tenured officers. It’s been…brutal.” Dean cleared his throat.

“Have you ever seen a murder like these before? Could they be related to anything, a cold case or something?” Meade shook his head.

“No, sir, nothing like this. We’ve had our fair share of violence, mostly gang related, but even the one-offs can’t compare to these last six. I’ve never seen anything like it.” His voice broke and Sam glanced at Dean. The coroner cleared his throat and walked over to one of the slabs. A sheet covered it, and Sam tensed, knowing that if the seasoned coroner had a hard time dealing with it, it wasn’t going to be pleasant. He swept the sheet back and Sam heard Dean groan. The brothers had seen a lot of violence, their own friends torn apart, blown up and tortured, not to mention what they’d been through and had to do. But nothing prepared them for what they saw. This wasn’t a monster randomly tearing into someone, or a ghost looking for revenge. The injuries to this man were deliberate. He had obviously been beaten; both eyes were swollen almost completely shut, his lips were both split, and the right side of his face was a rainbow of black, blue, and purple.

But it was more than that. The man had practically been filleted. And not just random strokes, but expertly made cuts that caused the most damage while drawing out the torture. Large strips of flesh were missing, exposing the muscle and nerves beneath. Deep cuts covered the flesh that hadn’t been removed and were deep enough to strike bone. He had been split open from sternum to belly button. Sam leaned forward to look at the wound.

“Was there anything missing?” Meade pulled the skin back further and Dean had to look away.

“Nothing is missing, but take a closer look. What do you see?” Sam stared for a moment, brows knitted in concentration. Meade gave Sam a grim smile when he looked back up at him, a mixture of confusion and horror on his face.

“Really? Did the killer do this?” The older man nodded. “Dean, you need to look at this.” Dean looked at Sam sharply at Sam’s casual use of his real first name.

“I don’t think I need to, it seems like you have it under control-” Sam nudged him forward, interrupting him.

“Look.” Dean sighed and looked down. He wasn’t well versed in anatomy, but he’d seen enough to be dangerous. Despite the roiling, uneasy feeling of his stomach threatening to rebel against him, he stared, trying to spot what was wrong with the gruesome scene in front of him.

“Isn’t the appendix supposed to be on the right side?”

“That’s not all. Every single organ is exactly where it is supposed to be, but on the opposite side. All the cuts were made with surgical precision and missed every major artery. Even the pieces that were flayed were down with an extremely sharp scalpel, and then were cauterized before he moved to the next section.” Dean looked up in surprise.

“You mean to tell me he was alive when this was happening? The entire time?”

“Yes, for a majority of it. I’m not sure how he managed to keep him alive while he switched the organs, but all signs point to him being so. Although it’s my professional opinion that he didn’t last long after that. The throat being slit seems to be an afterthought. I think Benjamin here eventually went into shock, and the suspect got bored.” Dean snorted.

“Oh, sure, get bored and slit someone’s throat. Jesus.” Sam gestured to a group of markings near his throat.

“Are those bite marks?” Meade sighed.

“Son, I honestly…I don’t know. I’m inclined to say yes, but I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s what is going on the report, it’s the only thing it could be.” Sam and Dean exchanged looks.

“What about the girls? Were they tortured like this guy?” He shook his head.

“Not quite. Don’t get me wrong, they went through it. They’d been beaten, cut up, bitten. Each one seemed to get worse. The flaying and the organ swap were missing on all the women, but the last two girls were sexually assaulted, probably multiple times. Mr. Taylor had been bound, but more like to a chair or something upright a majority of the time. There was some rope burn and bruising around his torso and wrists. All five girls appeared to have been shackled to something while lying down. Their wrists and ankles were deeply bruised, but I believe he is using something soft, like leather cuffs.” He threw the sheet back over the body. “Like I said, you have your work cut out for you.” Sam smiled gently and Dean had to hold back a grin. He could always tell when Sam was getting ready to turn on the charm, those patented puppy dog eyes that almost always got him what he wanted.

“Dr. Meade, we need to get all the files you have for these cases, is there any way you could help us with that right now? We have some other interviews to conduct.” He nodded.

“Sure thing, son. It’s going to take awhile, there’s a lot.” Sam smiled in earnest now.

“That’s not a problem, sir.” Meade left the brothers, and before the door could even fully close behind him, Sam had flipped the sheet back again and was looking closely at the bite marks on Ben’s neck. Dean made a face.

“Dude, how? How are you not ralphing all over him? That’s disgusting.” Sam rolled his eyes.

“Someone had to do it, and since you’re being such a bitch about it, I thought I might try,.” He covered the body back up. “Well, they look like vamp bites, but I don’t think they are. And you aren’t going to like what I think it is.”

“You’d better say human, Sammy.” Sam shook his head.

“I’d love to, but no.” Dean narrowed his eyes.

“I’m getting real sick of you making me guess. What the hell is it?”

“I think it might be a vetala.”

“Rise and shine, Ava! It’s time to get some food in you!” Ava had to practically force her eyelids open. They were gritty and dry from crying, and all she wanted was to go back to sleep. Sebastian had laid the tray across her lap. On it sat a glass of orange juice, a bowl of oatmeal, and a small vase with a single lily in it. He smiled. “It’s not much, but I thought we should take it slow. You haven’t eaten in days.” He helped her sit up and placed a pillow behind her. “I hope you like oatmeal. I added honey and cinnamon…one of my favorites.” He settled in next to her and picked up a spoon. “May I?” Ava nodded weakly, sickened by the thought of him feeding her but so hungry that she forced herself not to care. He carefully spooned oatmeal into her mouth. Ava had to admit that it was delicious. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Delicious, isn’t it? It’s been…passed down, you could say,. Simple, but very tasty. He held the orange juice to her mouth and she grimaced as the citrus hit her throat. "Whoa, slow down.” He sat the glass on the tray. “Maybe we should have stuck with water. He smiled and tucked a rogue strand of hair behind her ear.

"What happened to Ben?” Ava looked at Sebastian and he looked away, absently swirling the spoon in the oatmeal. “What happened? Sebastian sighed.

"You don’t really want to talk about that right now, do you? I thought we’d have a nice breakfast, talk a little bit before…” He trailed off.

“Before what? Why am I here and what did you do to Benjamin?” Sebastian looked at her for a moment, dark eyes narrowed. He slammed the spoon on the tray and shoved it off the bed and into the floor. Everything scattered as it hit the stone floor, glass shards and food going everywhere.

“You are determined to ruin this wonderful day I had planned, aren’t you?” he snapped. “Fine. If telling you will get it out of your system, then I guess we will just have to go out of order. But don’t blame me if you’re too upset to enjoy the rest of the day.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and to Ava’s surprise, it looked familiar.

“Is that-”

“Ben’s? Yes, I ran out of storage on mine. I’m a sucker for those Candy Crush games and selfies.” He unlocked it and began scrolling through pictures. “I adore this one.” He flipped the phone to face her and she bit back a sob. It was a picture of her and Ben on a recent hiking trip. Ben had taken it, his long arms the only way they’d both be in the picture. Ava was smiling at the camera, eyes squeezed shut as she laughed at something he said, her long blonde hair blown back by the wind. He wasn’t looking at the camera, but at Ava. His eyes shone as he watched her laugh, and Ava remembered never having felt so loved. “That’s happiness. I bet most people don’t appreciate that enough.” He turned the phone back and flipped through more pictures. “I wonder, did you appreciate it, Ava?” He smiled. “Here we go!” He turned the phone around and Ava immediately closed her eyes. Sebastian gripped her face tightly. “I will not ask more than once. Look.” Ava slowly opened her eyes, and the scene that greeted her was far worse than she could have anticipated. Ben was tied to a chair in their kitchen, just like in her dream, but was far more bloody and beaten. His head hung against his chest, and his arms, which had been tied when she had seen him, hung limply by his sides. They were covered in blood and she could tell that he’d been cut up badly. It was hard to tell if he was still alive in the photo, but for his sake, she hoped that he hadn’t been. She shook her head.

“But why? Why do that to him?” Sebastian began scrolling through pictures again.

“Well first, he hit me. Of course, he really didn’t do much damage, but it was annoying. And also it was just rude. Second, I wanted you. And boy, let me tell you, he did not like that. I even told him that we could share, but that didn’t seem to interest him either.” His face lit up. “I forgot about this one!” He turned it to her one last time. Ava felt as if she would be sick. Ben was laid out on a table, his midsection bare and bloody. Sebastian stood behind him, holding his head up by the hair, smiling his cold style, holding a scalpel and giving a thumbs up. He had taken a selfie with Ben as he laid there dead or dying. “Selfies, I told you! I can’t get enough of them. I guess technically it’s not, it was on a timer…you know what, that doesn’t really matter.” He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

“I think I’m going to be sick, ” Ava muttered. She leaned over the bed and retched, the meager breakfast she’d had leaving just as quickly as she’d eaten it. Her shoulder ached as she leaned as far as her binding would allow, nothing but bile left to ride herself of. Sebastian looked at her with a combination of confusion and disgust.

“See, I knew that could have waited. I forget your kind have that unfortunate…function.” He grimaced. “Very unpleasant.” Ava leaned back and fought to catch her breath. She glared at Sebastian,.

“What did you expect? You killed…no…tortured and killed the one person that meant anything to me, and then showed me-” Her head snapped to her right as he slapped her, hard. She looked at Sebastian with wide, wet eyes. He sighed.

“I’m sorry, Ava. It’s just…that’s negative talk. I supposed you don’t realize it yet, but I’ll mean something to you soon, too. More than you know. Maybe even more than Ben. I’ll explain soon, I promise.” He ran his fingers gently over the red mark his slap had left. “This will be worth it. You’ll see.” He leaned in and kissed her, much more gently than before, and sighed. “Now,” he said as he bent to pick up the discarded tray and pieces of glass, “I’m going to get you some supplies. Ava hated to ask, but he was looking at her expectantly and her face was still stinging from the last slap.

"What supplies?” He grinned.

“Drawing supplies, of course! I’d like for you to draw my portrait. If you’re very good and you do that, I may let you have a little more freedom. I’m sure that this room is getting a bit boring, isn’t it?” She nodded. “That settles it then. Behave yourself, and maybe we’ll have ourselves a little field trip.” She had already begun thinking of ways to use it to her advantage when he paused and looked back at her. “I’d be careful how much plotting you do while I’m gone. It’s going to be much easier to care for a child if you still have all of your limbs.” With that, he quietly left, and Ava stared after him with eyes wide, wondering what he meant.

@wheresthekillswitch @sassyspn67 @trexrambling

Chapter 4: The One Where Dean Is Taken By Surprise

[madamedeher]

When You Hear the Sirens Coming

I did it. Another DA fic. This time Dorian with my inky Julian! This fic is modern au where Julian is a detective and Dorian is a lawyer. Enjoy chapter 1! Also for those who prefer, link to ao3 here

+++

From the other side of the shop, Bull turns to Julian and throws a look approaching annoyance.

“Do you like them?”

Cole’s voice rings soft and clear as it always does. In his spindly hands is a large box of donuts, two of which are long gone from the box and stuffed unceremoniously into Julian’s eager mouth. They’re maple bacon flavoured which is his all time favorite, of course. Finding the young man’s bakery was the detective’s best and worst decision according to the ever expanding waistbands.

“Obf courth I lige mem—”

Julian reaches for another before Bull finally steps in, pulling Julian’s arm out the shop and into Bull’s giant truck.

The truck, of which Julian has to wipe his fingers on his slacks so he doesn’t make the leather greasy, is almost comically large to account for his partner’s size. Julian stands at 193 centimeters yet the truck made him feel like he’s in a Barbie car.

“You know, man, the whole ‘cops love donuts’ thing isn’t helped when you pig out like that.”

Julian shoots him a glare before pointedly licking his fingers.

“Yet, here I am, loving Cole’s donuts. Besides, we’re detectives, not cops.”

Bull snorts something about a hole euphemism and drives to their next scene. Julian read about it briefly before they set out for the morning. A seemingly random man disappeared out of thin air, leaving a heavily pregnant wife behind him. Usually a case like this just means some scumbag guy couldn’t handle the pressure of settling down and skipped town, but the house had been trashed and looked like a bad robbery.

The house is deep into the suburbs, where all the houses look printed out and the lawns are all fake bright green grass. Personally, Julian hates going out here. The inner city of Denerim is real, hard, and fast. In the suburbs you saw the true dredges of society and Julian always left feeling more depressed than curious.

It took about 20 minutes to get to the home. It’s a sick yellow and has the same fake patch of grass front yard like every other house. If it wasn’t for the broken window and clear trail of blood leading from the door to the driveway, it would look like just another cog.

The inside of the house on the other hand is a trainwreck. Furniture is flipped, it smells so heavily of bleach it makes Julian’s eyes water, and pretty much every fragile object in sight is shattered to pieces. It looks damn more than a robbery, that’s for sure.

Bull ducks behind him to enter the house and sighs softly.

“That ain’t good.”

Julian shakes his head. No, it isn’t.

Snapping on gloves, Julian steps carefully around the home. Voices came from another room, presumably the dining room, and as Julian got closer he hears faint sobbing and the fake sweet voices of cops trying to console someone who is clearly hysterical.

Turning a corner, Julian is greeted by shattered dishes and several broken appliances. Sitting at the dining room table is a blonde woman with short hair sobbing into her arms. Cassandra and Blackwall stand on both sides of the woman, gently patting her and looking very awkward.

“We are very, very sorry for your loss Mrs. Cousland.”

“Fergus wouldn’t just leave! Someone to-o-ook him!” The woman, Mrs. Cousland? Punctuates most of her syllables with hearty sobs.

Blackwall is the first to see Julian and pleads with his eyes for the man to walk over and turn on the charm so they could walk away from the situation. Julian relents and puts on his most buttery voice. He needs information, and a sobbing victim made no use.

“Miss? My name is Julian Trevelyan,” he flashes a badge at her when she looks up with puffy eyes. It’s pretty obvious he is another worker bee around here, but flashing his badge always comforted scared civilians.

She sniffs loudly and nods curtly. “M-my name is Oriana, Oriana Cousland. Are you one of the, um, detectives they were talking about?”

Mrs. Cousland motions towards to the two officers behind her who are slowly drifting away from her and out the room.

“Yes, my partner, Bull, is looking around the house.”

Speak of the devil, Bull saunters in, ducking under undoubtedly one of many doorframes. Julian sits down while Bull stays standing. Chairs too small.

“Ma’am.” He tilts his head towards her and does his best to look as least-threatening as possible.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright with you.” Julian pointedly ignores his partner’s arrival to keep her attention on him.

Mrs. Cousland sniffles and thinks, nodding after a moment.

“Yes, that’s fine.” she croaks, wiping her red nose on the sleeve of her dress.

Julian hears Bull pull out a notebook and click a pen.

“First of all, I’d like to know how you’re holding up, Mrs. Cousland.”

Mrs. Cousland waves her hand, “Please, call me Oriana. And terribly. Thank you for asking. It feels like everyone here doesn’t even see me. I’m just another person to interrogate, my husband, the father of my child is missing for Maker’s sake!”

Julian sighs. Knowing Cassandra and Blackwall, Oriana no doubt got the reaming of a lifetime.

“Okay, Oriana. I have no plans to interrogate you. I simply want to ask a few simple questions.”

The woman visibly relaxes. With a heavy sigh, she nods. Julian continues,

“So, to start off, I’d like to know about your morning. Tell me about your routine.”

“Well, Fergus wakes up before I do. He was gone before I woke, but, but that’s normal.” Her eyes gloss over and stare out a window as she speaks, “I get out of bed, take a shower, and have breakfast. An omelette. Then, hm, I watched television for a couple hours, then went to have brunch with my mother-in-law.”

Oriana’s nose begins to scrunch with unshed tears as she recalls the day’s events. Julian puts a sympathetic hand against her shoulder which seems to comfort her just slightly.

“And when you got home, you saw the house as it is?”

She nods, hot tears rolling down her blotchy cheeks.

“Yes, I came home to— to— to this.” she motions her hands wildly around them before she begins sobbing again.

“Right, I’m sorry. When you came home, what exactly did you see?”

“My home a mess! Everything absolutely disarray. I called Fergus, but he didn’t answer. I called his work, and they said he never showed.”

Bull can be heard scribbling on his tattered notebook. Julian simply raises his eyebrows.

“Hm. He left before you woke, but seemed to have stopped home while you were away and then..?”

“He disappeared! Fergus wouldn’t just up and leave, he wouldn’t.”

The edge of her voice causes Julian to backtrack. He honestly wasn’t trying to imply anything. Taking a breath, Julian collects his wandering thoughts and zones into Oriana.

“I believe you.” He lies, “I just want to get all the facts straight.”

“Right, right, I apologize.” Oriana dabs daintily at her nose, suddenly remembering she’s in front of people. “Yesterday, did everything seem normal? Fergus didn’t act out of the ordinary?”

“Oh, well…”

Julian looks back at Bull who’s giving him a hard look that says, ‘oh, here we go.’

Oriana frowns and looks down between her shoes. “We had a fight.” she says very quietly, as if she was a child caught in the candy.

“A fight? What kind of fight?” Unless this woman is a makeup wizard, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious signs of a physical fight.

“Over the baby. He… he wants us to move into his family’s estate. So he’ll have more room to learn and play.” She lovingly pats her swollen belly, continuing, “I didn’t want to. I like this area. It’s quiet, and saf-” she stops on the word safe. Obviously, it isn’t as safe as she thought. Julian is still having a hard time at the thought of a grown man getting kidnapped. Probably killed and dragged off to be dumped somewhere.

“Is there anything stolen from your home?”

“That’s the thing!” Oriana jumps at the subject switch. “Nothing was taken! Not one thing. I checked, the police checked, everything is here.”

Bull grunts behind him and the scribbling stops at the sound of the pen clicking.

“Interesting.” is all Julian can say without furthering the woman’s worry. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a look around.”

Oriana nods softly and turns away from them, lost in thought.

Once out of the room Julian finds himself back in the living room. Large smears of blood stain an off-white wall leading into the house’s hallway. Fingernails seem to have dragged across the floor in an effort to hold onto something as to not get dragged away. Huh. Julian figures it must be more than one person who dragged away Fergus Cousland. The force’s photographer, Dagna, bounded into the room with her large, expensive camera. She stops at the fingernail marks, steadies the camera, and Julian hears a stream of shutters.

“Hey, Jules.” Dagna doesn’t look away from her camera, adjusting and fidgeting with whatever is going on in there.

“Hey, D. Anything particularly gruesome you want me to take a special look at?”

Dagna chortles to herself but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Yeah, did you check the bedroom?”

Julian walks past her and pushes open the creaky door. He certainly wasn’t expecting what he saw.

The bed is absolutely covered in blood and gore. It’s clearly a king size and every inch is drenched in some sort of human. Oddly enough, the rest of the room is spotless. Julian takes a sample of whatever… parts were on the bed and goes to patrol the rest of the house.

The bathroom, second bedroom, and backyard are all clean. In fact, the they’re the only spots on the land that weren’t tainted in some way. It didn’t take long for Bull to finish up his business and Julian is back in the truck on their way to their headquarters.

Another thirty minutes and Julian manages to submit the evidence he collected and sits down at his desk. Bull skulks off to the break room of the office before Julian can discuss what they found. Bull was never a quiet man, but after every introduction to a case he goes to compartmentalize whatever it is he just absorbed. Julian, on the other hand, hates that, and is buzzing to bounce ideas off the first person who will listen to him.

He’s about to go search for the new temp, Krem, that Commander De Fer hired when a bustling at the front of the station draws Julian’s attention.

Loud voices and a haughty laugh follow. If Julian strains, he hears Cullen’s sputtering at some joke and Sera’s shrill laugh.

Suddenly, the group appears into the main office.

A finely dressed man swaggers into the room absolutely glowing. He has a nicely trimmed mustache that matched the perfectly swooped hair atop his head. He wore an immaculately fitted black suit and is followed by an equally perfectly groomed tall blonde woman. The pair didn’t fit into the office’s environment at all.

Sera, permanently stained by mystery substances is absolutely enraptured by whatever the blonde woman is telling her, while Cullen, stubbly and tired looking still seems to try to keep up with the beautiful strangers.

Cullen and Julian catch eyes and before he can stop himself, Julian is standing in front of the group.

“Julsie!” Sera bounds over to him and pulls his tie so he slouches closer to her level. He feels slightly guilty for being over a foot taller than her. “You’re gonna love these guys! They’re from Tevinter. And dirty.” She giggles that evil laugh she does and Julian’s drawn back to the strangers.

The first stranger holds out his hand to shake and smiles— well, no, smile would be the wrong word. It’s more of a shit-eating grin, even though Julian can’t tell what the man has done to earn that smile.

“Dorian Pavus, charmed, I’m sure.”

Julian isn’t charmed, but the man, Dorian, has a fantastically confident attitude that Julian loves to feed off in a group setting. He takes his hand and shakes once. Firm grip. Nice.

“Julian Trevelyan. But my friends call me Jules.”

Dorian grins genuinely this time, quirking his brow and snorting.

“Your name is Jules?”

“Yeah, something wrong?”

“Oh, no, it’s just such a frilly name and,” Dorian stops himself before he puts his foot in his mouth further. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you’re just rather striking to have such a name, is all.”

Julian can’t help but bark a laugh. He already likes this guy.

“Is that a roundabout way of calling me handsome?”

“I don’t know, is it?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

They share a look before Cullen coughs and rolls his eyes.

“Oh, Maker. Don’t tell me you’re like Julian.”

Julian feigns a hurt expression and clutches his imaginary pearls.

“Whatever do you mean, dear Cullen?”

Cullen turns to leave muttering something about serial flirting under breath.

“What a chipper young man.” Dorian comments.

“What!? He can be a right twat!” Sera bounces around them and it takes Julian all he can to keep from snickering. He loved Cullen, he did, but he needed a break. Badly.

Behind them, the blonde woman makes herself known by clearing her throat.

“If you two are quite finished, my name is Maevaris Tilani.”

“Julian Trevelyan. Pleasure to meet you both.”

Julian shook her hand, too. He noted how dainty and pale her hands were. They reminded him very much of Cole.

“These two are lawyer leeches.” Sera made sure to really punch out the word leeches, causing Maevaris to roll her eyes and Dorian to act offended.

“I’d think you were nicer to fellow crime fighters?”

“Ha! Since when were lawyers righteous? Shove that up your arse.”

Dorian looked at Julian for some defense which Julian has a hard time coming up with.

“Well… I guess it depends on what kind of lawyer.”

“Maevaris is the defense attorney, not me.”

Maevaris glares at Dorian and pinches his earlobe. He yelps and clutches it tenderly.

“Still, I’m happy you two are around. Was wondering when we’d get some new blood around here.”

“Vaguely suspicious. What happened to the last ‘new blood’ that wandered around here?”

Julian smiled mischievously before looking out to the backlot of the office.

“Ran far, far away. Only the real ones stick around.”

Dorian immediately bristles at the challenge.

“Ha, I suppose I now have to stay for as long as I can out of spite.”

“Meh, probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. We need eye candy that isn’t Vivienne around here.”

“My my, you’re brave.”

Sera makes a gagging sound. “Can you two stop being gross n’ shite? You met 2 minutes ago. Don’t starting rutting, nasties.”

Maevaris tugs at Dorian’s arm to pull away at the conversation that apparently she’s also done with.

Julian loves new people.