#Admittedly at least one of those times his memories got erased

[kara-zor-els]

In regards to SA against men not being taken seriously in comics, I'm thinking about how Clark has entered sexual relationships with women while brainwashed at least 3 times (2 in comics, both written by John Byrne btw, and 1 in STAS, but there might have been more) and no one ever brings that up.

[channieverse]

I genuinely feel so nervous and inadequate about reblogging this, because I know that no matter the amount of words I try to express my appreciation and love for this piece with, it will never be enough. It honestly feels like being able to read this, being allowed to have my mind and my heart changed by your words, is a sin so incredibly grave. Like, how dare I read this skillfully crafted piece and live on to say I experienced such beauty. How dare I?

When I was reading this, a profound sense of guilt settled in me, the kind of guilt when you cut into a cake that's so beautifully decorated and you just can't bare the thought of eating it, or when you light the wick of the prettiest candle you own, or when you open a new album and the pretty photocard gets marked up by your finger prints. It's a hard feeling to describe and those examples might be so subjective lol. But I felt genuinely inadequate(?) reading this... like, how dare this piece be tainted by my gaze... ahhh I think I'm waffling lol, I think the emotions of reading both parts of this ingeniously crafted fic are still too raw and visceral. (Raw and visceral in the most beautiful way that I genuinely didn't deserve to experience... ahh, yes, deserve is the right word. I don't deserve to indulge in your excellence, honestly).

Despite the praise in the amazing reblog I saw this fic already garnered, I will try to share my appreciation as best as I can since it's the very, very least I could do. (wah this is saur hard I'm so nervoussss)

I can confidently say that I've never read something that touched my soul the way this piece did. It felt like your words permeated my being and changed everything I ever knew about feeling and love and patience. I genuinely cannot fathom that I've read this, haha, it feels ethereal, really.

This rollercoaster of a fic kept me at the very edge until the absolute end, I was greedily inhaling every word... and it really felt like I was committing a crime by doing so 😭 istg my thumb hovered over my screen above the link to the second part, not because I didn't need to know what more you graciously had to share, but because I was questioning if I'm really allowed to read more. (lol I really don't know what I'm even saying anymore)

I was so immersed in the story and I cried so many times. You wrote both characters' thoughts and emotions so perfectly and so vividly. Admittedly, I guiltily indulged in the way both of their perspectives were so real and incredibly well-depicted. The reality of it all was like a punch to my chest. It genuinely feels like something one can only write after experiencing it. How do you do it, and so beautifully too?

I loved the element of muscle memory you'd added close to the end, I thought it was so smart and it never crossed my mind that even though conscious memories can be erased, you can still hold onto said muscle memories. And please don't get me started on the pudding part and the tracing of his scar and how you personified the house and its walls-- my heart can only handle so much.

I usually try to avoid angst at all costs lol 💀 because it will genuinely affect me for the next few days. But I just dove into this piece and it got to the part of Minho wanting to leave. And then I physically sucked in a breath and thought that the end would be tragic and sad and will leave the population heartbroken beyond repair and that I made a mistake by choosing to read this. But. BUT. The ending so expertly waltzed along and soothed my soul. Yes, I'll probably be thinking and dreaming about the emotions and images you placed into my brain for the next few months, if not forever, but the ending was so perfect. I genuinely cannot explain it in words and it's so frustrating. I adored the imagery of the stars.

I must say, I think my favorite line was "It is a rare fortune to be chosen by you not once, but twice..." If I had to explain why (lol wow I apologize in advance for more waffling)... it's like the fic up until that point was an open wound and this line came along, caressed the reader gently, applied a hello kitty plaster onto said wound, and kissed it better. It settled my aching heart so well and it felt like I could breathe again because no longer is Minho grieving the loss of someone who's still very much alive and breathing. Instead, it seems as if his perspective of this situation has changed and there's more beauty to this situation than pain because Minho experienced y/n falling in love with him twice. I don't know what love's like, but once sounds as lucky as finding your twin flame, so what must twice feel like?

and you write Minho and his kind and gentle yet teasing personality so incredibly well. When he said "that obnoxious orange," I stopped, gasped and went, "THAT IS SAUR MINHO STFU" But really, the image of him in my mind never faltered once as I read, I clearly pictured him in every scene with ease, purely because of how expertly you pieced him together. And it's all the little things that makes the difference, right-- his moles, his scar, his teasing nature, his sparkly eyes and his jet-black hair, his cats and his gentle yet stubborn stance. I feel like if I personally knew Minho, this is exactly who he'd be. ( wow honestly at this point, I don't even know who's my bias anymore??? what did you do sahar 😖)

Lastly, I want to say thank you, Sahar. Not only are you talented, but you are indeed beauty personified.

-

P.S. (thought I'd leave some songs...)

끝나지 않을 이야기 (Neverending Story), Stray Kids Zombie, DAY6 She's In The Rain, The Rose Renee's Song, Bazzi

I feel like the words in these songs are so... obvious... like you don't have to decipher their meanings to link it to your story, which seems kinda shallow(?) on my part 😭 but listening to these songs after reading your work just brought me this sense of solace...? idk it's hard, to comprehend and even more challenging to explain. But I'd thought to leave these songs here since your work resonates with these songs for me... and it's so crazy because these are some of my ALL TIME favorite songs (especially 끝나지 않을 이야기 😭 istg it's my favorite song and i'm going to have this song carved into my headstone and tattooed onto my skin). So, for me to experience the same feelings these songs provide by reading your piece... I was genuinely speechless.

I hope you are well, happy and healthy. 🩷 with love, channieverse

Echoes of love

"to love someone is firstly to confess; i am prepared to be devastated by you."

Chapter ii. to remember

genre : memory loss trope. angst. slow burn. unrequited love except you were in a loving relationship and everything changes overnight.

pairing : minho x reader. (3racha cameo)

summary : if given the choice would you love minho again? yes, you would've once said in a heartbeat. but now, you aren't sure of your response anymore.

cw : depiction of a nightmare and anxiety attack. allusion to mc having a bad family history with alcohol. suggestive in the end (allusion to sex but no smut). reader had she/her pronouns.

word count : 11k words.

song recs : the night we met/terrible love/black friday/cover me/already gone/enough.

chapter i. skz quotes series masterlist.

A.N: PT. 2 IS HERE!!!! i hope you'll enjoy this one, she's my baby and i put so much work and thought into her, so feedback is highly highly appreciated!!! thank you to my @forlix for being with me every step of this journey, i love u the most<33

Day 33. 

With a gentle, absentminded sweep, your fingers trace the delicate contours of your wrist, a faint dance with the pulse beneath your skin– the cocoon of the soul you’re gradually growing accustomed to. It is a trying task, you've found out, to no longer yearn to flee from your body, leaving the weight of your worries for your bones and flesh alone to bear. 

A subtle fragrance floats in the air surrounding you- the familiar gardenia and honey tones of your sweet perfume. It is a scent you reserve for special occasions, such as this one- your first date, in three months according to the world, in more than a year for your memory. 

You swiftly retrieve a mirror from your pouch, checking your appearance for the tenth time in mere minutes. Your nude lipstick is still, unsurprisingly, in place, and you smile reassuringly at your reflection. She smiles back, though sometimes you half-expect her not to. In defiance, perhaps, maybe even repulse. 

The melodious chime of the café's bell captures your attention, and the man you've been awaiting finally enters. He confidently strides in, clad in a blue polo and black slacks, an evident effort poured into his appearance. 

Standing before you, his warm, gleaming eyes meet yours, effortlessly melting your lingering worries. You smile at him, he beams at you. 

“Did I keep you waiting?” Changbin, your date, asks as he pulls the chair adjacent to you. 

“No, just in time.”

Two weeks ago. 

Day 17. 

“Use me. Use me to remember,” Minho whispers, the distance between your lips resembling the thin edge of a blade. 

You close your eyes, the world narrowing down to the sound of your heartbeat, a rhythmic drum drowning out any attempt at coherent thoughts. Kiss him, your heart chants, kiss him and all your memories will flood back. But what if they don't? What if the abyss persists before the brightest beam of light?

A tender kiss lands on your forehead, gently interrupting your tumultuous thoughts. Minho’s lips are as warm, as soft as you remember them. They're now imprinted into your skin, no longer a hazy memory beyond your reach.

His hands cradle your hair, smoothing it down, making the ringing in your ears soften. You surrender to his gentle embrace, to the soft tide of emotions rippling from him to you, pulling your wounded soul to safe shores. 

“You need to forgive yourself,” he whispers, his words echoing against your skin, lips still pressed to your forehead. A rush of warmth overwhelms you, all your senses coming to life, ringing the alarm- he sees you, he sees through you.

“None of this is your fault,” he assures, a sudden cooling balm against your scorching wounds. These are the words you've been aching to hear. You didn't know, but Minho did, reading between the lines of your quivering lips and your reluctance to look into his eyes. 

He knows you better than you know yourself. 

“Don’t blame yourself, please.”

“But all I do is hurt people,” you confess, tears streaming down your face like a relentless downpour, soaking Minho's hands. 

You expect punishment to strike you, bolting lighting aiming straight for your heart as you finally admit to your biggest sin- the shadow of sorrow that trails your every step. It is the way it has always been since you were a child. It is what you fled from. 

What you don't expect is for tenderness to cradle you instead— in Minho's warm hand as he gently guides you to his chest, your ear resting above his steady heartbeat. Its rhythmic cadence akin to a lullaby- you shouldn't apologize for existing, you hear it sing to you. 

“If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. you’re forgiven, okay? I forgive you. Today and tomorrow. I'll forgive you until you'll forgive yourself.” 

“Okay,” you nod, muffled words against the fabric of his shirt.

“Now, will you please come back with me? The cats will miss you a lot if you don’t,” he suggests, pressing his cheek onto the crown of your head. 

“I don't want to leave them,” you reply in a small voice, dewdrops gathering in your eyes at the thought of running again. 

“You don’t have to. It’s your home too.”

“Okay,” you sigh in acceptance, relief, encircling his waist with your arms. He is all inviting, like an open book, and you're resting between his pages, scribbled with love confessions for you. 

The world stills, waves slowing their relentless crash against the shore, as you draw in a deep breath from the pits of your soul. You don't remember all you’ve once felt for Minho. But you know it must have been safe, like stumbling upon a haven and then learning it was specially carved for you. 

“I miss you, Minho.”

“I know, I miss you too.”

Day 19. 

“Minho, can you come to the kitchen please?” your voice reverberates through the house, weaving through the air and reaching the bedroom where Minho has been ensnared, his less-than-graceful complaints echoing loudly for the past hour. You had sealed him within without explanation, only making him promise not to leave the room until you told him to, much to his dismay, and deep down, amusement. 

He chuckles lowly to himself as he rises from the bed, before making his way to the kitchen. There, he finds you near the doorway, hands concealed behind your back, dusty flour adorning your cheek like an artist’s absentminded paint stroke.  

“So…,” you trail off and Minho smiles, crossing his arms before his chest.  

“So?”

“A situation may have happened.” 

“Which situation?” he inquires amusedly, attempting to peer past you into the kitchen. Your extended arms block his view.

“You know how I got a concussion from the car accident,” you ask. 

“I do.”

“I think it may have affected my cooking abilities.”

“But you didn't have any to begin with?” he muses, tilting his head to the side innocently. 

“Shut up,” you playfully admonish before clasping your hands in a silent plea. “Will you help me?” 

“Mm, what are you making?” he inquires, leaning against the doorway.

“Pudding.”

“Pudding?”

“For you.”

“Oh.” 

A blush creeps up Minho’s neck as he grapples to find a reply, his surprised gasp hanging into the air. You giggle faintly, entertained by his sudden speech impairment. 

In response, Minho takes a step forward, delicately brushing away the flour on your cheek, his thumb hovering near the corner of your mouth. “How did this get here?”

“Huh?” you sputter, pink splashing across your cheeks like spilled Rosé. 

Minho is testing your waters, dipping one toe in, hoping he’ll find your reassuring embrace lurking beneath the surface. Did you blush from the heat of the stove or his touch? Minho doesn’t know. Minho needs to find out. 

“And you also forgot this,” he lightly pouts, reaching over your head to the hanger behind you, caging you between his arms. 

He’s sacrificing his heart, placing it on the frontlines of hurt once again. Yet, when you look up at him, dewy eyes flickering to his lips, Minho feels a single match lighten up in his core, not enough to burn all his doubts. But enough to signal hope. 

Hope is a perilous possession, akin to cradling a fragile glass that threatens to shatter at the slightest tremor. Hope is the only thread Minho can now hang onto. 

“You forgot your apron,” he finally says, withdrawing two aprons from the hanger. He drapes one over your head before placing a hand on your shoulder, gently turning you around. He silently ties the strings into a ribbon, his fingers brushing against your spine. He can distinctly remember the feel of your bare skin beneath his fingertips, silky, smooth, intoxicating. 

“There, a pretty knot,” he whispers, not moving back an inch, waiting for you to swivel around. Yet, you remain silent, undoing your hair from its loose ponytail. Your hair cascades over your shoulders, resembling the unveiling of curtains, and Minho senses something unfurling in the depths of his stomach.

“Tie it for me?” you whisper, handing him the hair tie without looking back. Your fingertips brush against each other, and Minho inhales deeply.

“Sure,” he says, voice thick with emotion, he needs to drink water. He needs to drink you in. 

He gathers your hair strands in another low ponytail, trembling hands as they brush against the nape of your neck, akin to powerless leaves before the autumn breeze. He’s close, so close to you, so much his chest almost brushes against your back. 

As soon as he’s done, Minho swiftly steps back before doing something he’ll surely regret, like placing a tender kiss on your shoulder, or worse, confessing that he misses the simple act of brushing your hair at night. 

“So, pudding,” he clears his throat, rolling up the sleeves of his white hoodie. your eyes follow his movement, lingering on the veins protruding on his forearms. Minho feels a bit foolish for wanting to flex for you. 

“It’s really easy actually. bring me two eggs?” 

“Sure,” you grin, heading for the fridge as Minho retrieves sugar from the cupboard, throwing away the odd liquid mixture you managed to conjure. 

You stand beside Minho, eyebrows furrowed as he explains why the milk needs to be brought to a boil before adding the cornstarch, or how adding the vanilla at the very end will help preserve its flavor. You listen intently, nodding along, and the tension between you dispels, leaving place for something comforting, familiar– you’re erasing the remnants of his sobs, the sight of him crumbling over the green kitchen tiles. 

“Let's leave it to chill,” he finally says, closing the fridge’s door. 

“Okay,” you nod, packing away the butter. Minho leans against the countertop, an ember of curiosity ablaze at the tip of his tongue

“Why did you want to make pudding?” he asks and you freeze in place. 

“To see if I’m capable of not being a lost cause,” you respond playfully but the undertones of your voice indicate otherwise- laden, charged. One more match that you could light up? 

“Really?” he says softly, taking one step toward you. 

“No,” you giggle faintly and he nods, a gentle smile unfurling on his face, gradual as the eclipse of a moon.

“It was supposed to be your birthday gift. That's why I locked you in the room. I even bought little birthday hats for the cats, silly I know, and very late, but, turns out I’m a horrible-” 

“I wanna see the birthday hats,” he cuts you off.

“Really? They’re really ugly.” 

“It's my birthday gift, right?”

Five minutes later, you and Minho are seated on the floor, legs crisscrossed, three perplexed cats before you, and on their heads, obnoxiously neon green hats.

“They look so…” you tilt your head, assessing the view before you. 

“Stupid?” Minho suggests, eliciting a startled snort from you that swiftly transforms into an almost maniac cackle, which in turn, catches Minho off guard. He gazes at you bewilderedly before succumbing to a fit of giggles, which intensifies your laughter, as you punctuate his shoulder with light hits, tears streaming down your face in an attempt to regain composure.

One hundred matches light up in Minho’s heart at the sight, all at once.

“My God, they look so stupid, I’m so sorry,” you laugh harder, your body collapsing to the ground, hands tightly clutching your stomach. 

They can laugh again, the house sighs in relief, something other than sobs can still echo within my walls. 

Day 22. 

“I miss the sea,” you sigh softly, cradling a cup of chamomile tea between your hands. Minho, absorbed in his book, glances up to find a melancholic expression etched on your face—a poignant blend of sorrow and longing that he knows weighs heavy on your heart. 

“We saw it over at the bridge, no?” he ventures tentatively, setting the book aside on the living room table.

“Yes, but I miss the sand, and the waves lapping at my feet. I miss feeling the sea, not just seeing it.” 

“I’d take you, in a heartbeat,” he says assuredly, ready to bring you the moon if only you dare ask. “But it's far, and you can't get into a car.” 

“I can try.” 

“You can?” he questions, hope budding in his eyes.

“I mean- I want to, it's just… I don't know,” you retract, nails drumming anxiously against your cup, gaze lost into the amber liquid.  

“Talk to me, yeah?” he smiles softly, draping a reassuring hand on your arm. His thumb swipes across the slate of your shoulder, and an impossible knot in your throat untangles. 

“The accident took a lot from me. My health, my memories, a year of moving forward.” You quiet down, eyes meeting his in a barely veiled vulnerability. Silence speaks of your hardest loss— him. 

“Can you help me get the sea back?”

Minho’s radiant smile is louder than any spoken agreement.

…

Thread by thread, drop by drop, your fears unravel as Minho lowers all the car windows’ before gently guiding you into the car seat, dispelling any prospect of feeling confined within the vehicle. 

He remembers everything, even the panic that gripped your being when you went into his enclosed car, nearly a month ago. 

“Can I blindfold you? It might help, so you wouldn't see the car lights since it’s night,” he suggests.

“Yeah, that'd be nice,” you agree, your hand lightly gripping the car seat.

“Hey, hey,” he calls out gently, “I'm here, okay? The second you feel overwhelmed I'm stopping this car.”

“Will you drive safely?” 

“Of course. I promise you.” 

Your nod is met with the softening of Minho's eyes, as he delicately tucks a strand of your hair behind the curve of your ear. 

“I'm proud of you,” he whispers, tone laden with so much tenderness, love, that your throat becomes a garden, vocal cords bound not by thorns but the delicate blossoming of flowers. 

With a gentle touch, Minho wraps a tie around your eyes, cocooning you in a tranquil darkness. His hand seeks yours instinctively, fingers intertwining with yours akin to the wind weaving through the strands of your hair.

In this moment, every fracture within you is delicately filled by Minho.

He starts driving, a soothing piano instrumental playing out of the car’s speakers- his hand still in yours. “Breathe,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing a soothing path across your palm. 

“Follow my touch.” A gentle sweep to the right, an invitation to inhale slowly. “In,” his voice guides, and you draw in a deep breath.

Another caress to the left, a silent directive to release your confined breath. “Out,” he whispers, and you exhale, surrendering to the rhythm orchestrated by his thumb.

He raises the music’s volume, his touch becoming a maestro, speaking silently to you. You’re grateful for it, for the way in which he’s driving- avoiding curbs and speeding, safely, making the wheels float across the road. 

Your heart still constricts in your chest, anxiety squeezing your veins, bleeding them dry, but you focus on Minho’s thumb, you let it guide you, like a compass navigating the dark tunnels of your heart. 

“We're almost there,” he reassures as he stops by a red light. 

“I look silly, right?” you reply, giggling a bit. 

“What?” he asks, confused. 

“I can feel you looking,” you clarify. 

“How so?”

“My right cheek is tingling.” 

Minho snorts incredulously. “What does that even mean?”

“You have a piercing stare. You're like melting through my skin and vibrating my bones.”

“Idiot,” he chuckles. My my my idiot, Minho grieves to say once again. The human heart is peculiar, he learns day after day, mourning the loss of a myriad of minuscule things, even words. 

“And, you don't look silly,” he clears his throat minutes later, as he finally parks by the beach.  

“You look pretty,” he utters, unraveling your blindfold, and you blink, caught between the sudden light and the weight of his words. “You always do,” he concludes, a whispered confession that lingers like the afterglow of a sunset, painting your world in golden hues.

“Minho, I…” you trail off, eyes landing on the vast sea ahead, blending into the sky in an alluring shade of turquoise. “We're here!” you shout bewildered, a magnificent grin on your face. 

“We are,” Minho smiles, drinking in the delight in your expression. 

“Oh my god I missed the sea!” you giggle as you undo your seatbelt, quickly opening the car’s door and taking off running. 

Minho follows closely behind, captivated, as he watches you glide across the shore, the sand ricocheting off the soles of your shoes. You look like a fairy, bending the wind to your will, coaxing it into a choreography that mirrors the rhythm of your movements, your messy footprints marking your pathway to happiness once again. 

Upon the sand, you finally settle down, and Minho walks over, sitting beside you. Both of you quietly gaze ahead, entranced by the moon's silver glow caressing the water’s surface. Each shimmering wave resembles glistening diamonds, a celestial mirror reflecting the lights in the sky.

“Have I ever told you why I love the sea?” you speak after a while, tone softer, more content. 

“You did.” 

“Can I tell you again?” you say. Can I tell you what I still remember? He understands. 

“Of course.” 

"There was a beach near our home, back then," you reminisce, a nostalgic aura enveloping your words. “And whenever I felt lonely I used to go there and watch the waves, to calm me down. But, one time, I was really overwhelmed so I ended up crying. And then, coincidentally, it started raining too.” 

Your eyes widen slightly, a hint of amusement in your voice. “At that moment, I chuckled at the timing, how the sky was crying with me.”

“Ever since that day, I liked to believe that the sea is made up of the sky’s tears, the ones that fell in sync with those of humans, so it'd comfort us. And the tears grew from a pond to a river, to a vast ocean, as humans cried more and more. That's why sometimes the sea’s waters are gentle because those are tears of happiness falling somewhere. Sometimes they're stormy, since someone is crying out of anger. Sometimes they're melancholic, just relentlessly crashing against the shore, because someone is in pain. Like we are.”

A tranquil hush falls over the night as you quiet down, before turning around to meet Minho’s teary eyes, mirroring yours.

“And if the sea persists through tempests and tranquility, if it goes on despite the myriad of emotions it holds within, then so will we.”

Hope isn't fragile, as Minho once believed. Hope scrapes its bloody palms against the rough surface as it climbs defiantly to the pinnacle once again. Hope picks out rugged stones with weathered hands and builds a home out of them. Hope is strong, it clutches onto the thinnest threads so we’d endure and endure once more. As many times as we need to. 

“Well, the sky isn't crying right now,” Minho notes.

“I know,” you smile softly, “Because we're holding on to hope.” 

Day 26. 

Under the soft glow of the TV, Dori settles comfortably on your shoulders, nuzzling her tiny nose onto your face every now and then. Soonie and Doongie are a bit far away, playing with a piece of yarn, captivated by its vibrant red threads. 

It is an ordinary, comforting setting to watch a movie with Minho, on a Sunday night, a bowl of popcorn nestled on his lap while his cats lounge around. So familiar that the world around you blurs, like the vague brushes of an impressionist painting— a vivid déjà-vu sensation clinging to your body. You’ve lived this scene before. You want to live it again, now and in the future. More and more. 

However something is different— your skin tingles, a buzzing sensation that travels from thigh to knee to hand, as if your body knows that something’s amiss. Minho’s touch perhaps, his palm casually resting upon your skin. 

You don’t know where this urge is coming from— to lay your head on his shoulder, to have him run his fingers through your hair. Even more, to lose yourself in the nutmeg and peppermint notes of his cologne, to disintegrate your worries into his hold and rest. 

“Would you mind if some of my friends came over?” Minho speaks up suddenly, cutting off your trailing train of thought. 

“Hm?” you hum absentmindedly before clearing your throat. “I mean, no, I don't mind. Who are they?”

“Han and Chan. They’ve been asking about you for a while now.” 

“Sure, this is your home.”

“It is yours too,” he says, gaze locking onto yours. His eyes are like a dark tapestry woven with threads of stardust- you’d never tire of looking into them, into the universe they seem to cradle within. 

Do you know that there is a galaxy inside you? You almost slip out, words in an urgent race against your mind. You barely stop them at the tip of your tongue, before smiling and peeling your eyes away from his, painfully, like scratching a burn scab long before it heals. 

…

“They’re here,” Minho announces as someone knocks on the door. 

“Okay,” you smile, a tad nervous. You’re not even sure what for. 

“If they annoy you too much tell me, I’ll kick them out,” he reassures, raising his brows playfully at you. 

“That's mean,” you giggle, albeit soothed by his words.

“They already love you,” he grabs your wrist, his thumb gently swiping over your pulse. “No need to be worried.” 

He drops it, as though a countdown is ingrained into his brain— never to touch you for more than ten seconds. Wouldn't it be selfish, pathetic even, to ask him for more? 

As Minho heads to open the door, you linger in the living room, idly fidgeting with the hem of your sweatshirt. It is a weird circumstance to greet strangers who know you— you may have brushed against their shoulders in an alley and not known who they were. 

Your thoughts dissolve as two men saunter into the living room, stopping in their tracks once their eyes land on you. They’re both beautiful– that is the first thing you note, closely followed by how relieved they seem to see you. Simultaneous soft sighs escape them, gentle smiles blooming across their faces. Tentatively, you return the gesture.                          

Minho takes the initiative to introduce them. “Yn. This is Chan,” he points to the man on the right, clad in black from head to toe, his smile grows wider, his eyes disappearing into moon crescents, two dimples peeking gleefully on his cheeks. 

“And Han,” the younger man, sporting a Supreme t-shirt despite the cold, beams at you, highlighting his round cheeks, and an adam-apple that weirdly resembles a heart. 

“I want to hug you but Minho put us on a strict no-touch notice because of your ribs,” Han speaks first, a small pout tugging at his lips as he glances at Minho, who simply rolls his eyes at his words. 

“You can never keep something for yourself,” Minho sighs, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. You stifle an amused giggle. 

“And she technically doesn’t remember us so it’d be weird for her to hug a stranger,” Chan notes, offering you an understanding smile. 

“Hey, I didn’t mean it in a creepy way! more of ‘Oh my god I’m so happy you’re alive, thank you for still being here, I was so worried about you’.”

“But were you worried?” you ask, tilting your head to the side.

“Of course, I-”

“Then why weren’t you at my bedside?” you question, an eyebrow raised, and Minho chuckles at your words. 

“W-what?” Han asks, glancing worriedly at the two men by his side. 

“Why weren’t you there sobbing when I woke up? It doesn’t look like you were worried,” you muse, throwing a wink to Minho who walks over to you.

“Right, you should’ve sent her a pic of you crying,” Minho adds, as you drape a hand on his shoulder. 

“A picture for every day you didn’t come see me,” you say solemnly as Han’s face grows paler by the second. 

“I-I didn’t, I really was worried, I swear, I kept asking Minho every day about you and…” he trails off as giddy smiles break out on your face and Minho’s before you both burst out laughing. 

“You guys are evil,” Han laments, as Chan pats his back in faux sympathy, a string of giggles falling from his full lips. 

“I’m sorry. we made you dinner to make up for it,” you grin and Minho looks at you pointedly. 

“He made you dinner,” you correct with a huff, and Minho smiles, satisfied, raising his brows smugly at his two friends. 

“Let’s choose a movie then!” Han claps, turning to the TV as Minho sidles by his side.

“I’ll set up the table,” Chan announces.

“I’ll help you,” you offer, and he nods, clearly grateful for your assistance.

You’re taking out four plates from the cupboard, Chan effortlessly bringing out the glasses, clearly familiar with the nooks and crannies of your home, when he suddenly speaks.

“How are you, Yn?” 

“Do you want the truth?” you ask back, and he grins. “Always.”

“I’m okay. Right now. I don’t know if I’ll still be tomorrow, you know? It all fluctuates so much.” 

“Mm, I understand,” he says, and something about his tone indicates that he isn’t saying this just to comfort you. “And that’s okay too. What you went through wasn’t easy, but good times will come again. They always do, you know, just like the sun always comes back after the rain.”

“The sun,” you repeat, as you glance out at the living room, where Minho is laughing at something Han just said, his head tipped back, bunny teeth peeking out. 

Perhaps the sun rays were by your side all along. 

“Thank you, Chan,” you beam at him. “Truly, for being worried about me too.”

“It's nothing to thank us for. We care about you, even though you don’t remember us,” he pouts, a hand on his heart in mock offense. 

“Hey, it’s not my fault I got amnesia!” you chuckle. 

"Excuses!" he drawls with a playful tone as he exits the kitchen, and you can't help but laugh quietly to yourself. You recognize what he's doing—making light of your accident to alleviate the weight on your heart.

The night blurs in your memory, but this time it is tinged with happiness and laughter. The three men recall fun stories of their time together, a seven-year bond rooted in love and care, albeit silently. You witnessed it in the details—Chan ensuring the food was on their plates first, Minho peeling shrimp for Han, the latter rubbing Chan’s arms when he complained of being cold.

Then you saw it directed towards you– how they put on the movie you wanted and watched in anticipation as you took the first bite of food, draped the fuzziest blanket around you, and rushed to your side simultaneously when you stumbled on your feet.

You were loved, although you didn’t know of it. The accident took away your memories but it didn’t plague theirs. 

“Thank you,” you beam at the two men as you walk them to the door. Opening your arms wide, you invite them in for a hug. Han embraces you first, a large smile on his face, and you gently beckon Chan in too. “Easy,” he whispers in Han's ears, careful not to put any pressure on your ribs. They both pat your back as you wrap an arm around their respective shoulders before leaning away.

“I’ll call you,” Minho bids them farewell, tipping his chin forward. They wave to him before finally leaving

You close the door, leaning against the auburn wood. Minho watches you, a soft smile playing on his face.

“Good?” he inquires, closing the distance between you.

“Mm, good,” you reply with a smile as he halts just an inch away. His intoxicating scent envelops you, permeating your bones and flowing through your veins like liquid warmth.

A torrent of memories floods your mind—images of you pressed against this same door. It is dark, a stark contrast from your first memory, a lone lunar beam of light slashing through the night. Minho’s hands grip your waist with a fevered urgency, while yours entwines around the nape of his neck, in passion, in hunger, almost as if you were deprived of him for so long.

You angle his mouth closer to yours, his lips pressing against your own repeatedly, a desperate attempt to brand the contours of his mouth into your soul. His hair, a cascade of midnight silk, tickles your fingers with an electric charge, like the crackling of the air before a storm. His tongue sweeps across your lower lip, seeking entrance, one you willingly surrender, white flag easily thrown to the ground. With every kiss, your bodies meld together, so much so that you could merge into the door, disappearing into the shadows as one.

“What's wrong?” Minho breaks your trance and you snap out of your reverie, a bright flush adorning your cheeks. 

“N-nothing,” you stammer. 

“You’re all red, do you have a fever?” he asks, coming closer, his hand pressed to your forehead. His woody scent envelops you once again– everything about him is enticing— his cologne, his lips on you, his fingertips dragging underneath your shirt, his eyes piercing yours, undressing you before his hands ever could.

“Yn?” he questions and you grab his jaw, angling his face away from you. 

“Stay like this, don’t look at me for a moment.”

“What?”

“Just… please,” you say and he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief, and yet he complies, his side profile now facing you.

How does he live with these memories each time he looks at you? 

You take in a deep breath, focusing on his silhouette. It might seem counterproductive to fixate on the same man consuming your thoughts, but how could you not when he was mere centimeters away, his eyes averted from yours?

You exhale softly as your gaze glides along the graceful curve of his neck, a solitary mole resting just beneath his sculpted jawline, leading the way to his plump lips, a cupid's bow delicately carved by the hands of the divine archer himself — crafted to be kissed, to be adored.

Your eyes trail up, tracing the high bridge of his nose, another mole perched at its pinnacle, sharp and smooth as if chiseled by a master sculptor, one who dedicated months to perfecting his artistry. His eyes are a mesmerizing brown, punctuated with long lashes that flutter like the delicate wings of an angel with each slow blink.

Minho sweeps aside strands of his hair, his fingertip delicately fluffing them upwards. It dawns on you, a sudden revelation of the necessity of art — to immortalize such beauty for generations to come.

You imagine admirers gazing upon Minho, sighing in sheer amazement, their hearts tightening with emotions that words struggle to encapsulate in the face of this epitome of beauty. Inside and out, you reflect, inside and out. 

“You told them not to drink around me, right?” you ask softly.

A blush grows from the base of Minho's neck to the tip of his ears, like roots expanding into the soil. He sighs before finally looking at you.

“I did. How’d you figure it out?” he wonders.

“I asked Han if he wanted a drink, but he refused so categorically that I assumed he didn't like alcohol. But most of his stories were of him drunk,” you chuckle quietly, and Minho shrugs sheepishly.

“We get loud when we drink. You don’t like that,” he says simply as if it’s a given, an absolute certainty that he’d do anything but make you uncomfortable.

He's beautiful, the light of his heart basking his face in a glow that even Michaelangelo's skillful hands wouldn’t be able to replicate.  

And he loves you. 

Till when? Your heart sounds out in alarm. Till when will he love you? What if the grains of sand slip away from the hourglass before you can reciprocate his love? Two stars colliding at disparate speeds, never converging into a singular entity, destined to erupt and scatter into cosmic dust.

How long do you have left? How many more days will he love you for? 

How many more days do you have to love him back? 

Day 30. 

Minho is sick. 

He tried his best to conceal it from you, as he came back from his dance studio, strands of his hair clinging to his forehead, a thin sheen of perspiration above his right eyebrow. Yet, his uncharacteristic silence betrayed him, as he quietly retreated into the shower, emerging with a solemn expression on his face. 

Seated on the bed, book long forgotten by your side, you bit your lip tentatively. “You're okay?” you inquired, perched on the edge, concern etched in your gaze.

“Mm, just tired,” Minho responded, his attempt at reassurance falling short as he laid down on the floor mattress. “Can you turn off the lights?” he softly requested. “Hurts my eyes.”

“Yeah, of course. Will you sleep now?”

“I think so.”

“Okay then. Good night, Minho,” you uttered gently, the veins in your heart tangled with worry. “Good night,” he whispered in return.

In the stillness of the night, you were roused by soft whimpers escaping Minho's lips. He writhed in apparent discomfort, his features contorted with an unseen anguish. His pupils moved furiously underneath the thin layer of his eyelids, betraying the tumultuous thoughts raging in his mind. 

You've never seen Minho so disrupted in his sleep, mouth slightly hung agape as if he struggled to breathe in the depths of his dreams. Your worry for him came back to haunt you ten times fold.

You lean over the bed, gently shaking his shoulders. “Minho, wake up.”

“No... no-no, don't-don't go,” he whispers, caught in the vines of a restless dream, seemingly wrapping around his mind, trapping him in. “Minho, come on wake up,” your pleas grow more insistent, but so do his. “Don't go, s-stay,” he implores, voice broken, prompting you to abandon your bed and join him on his mattress.

“Minho!” you call out, shaking him until his eyes finally flutter open. He gasps for air— as if inhaling his first breath on this earth, shooting upright, wide-eyed and disoriented. 

His gaze locks on yours and he instantly cradles your face in his sweaty hands, bringing you closer to him until your noses bump into one another. “You didn't go,” he whispers, and you shake your head. “I'm here.”

“Fuck,” he swears, releasing his hold on you and sinking back into the pillow. 

“Minho, what's wrong?” you ask softly, afraid you're treading on stormy waters.

“I… I don't know. I don't feel good,” He admits, fingers tugging at the collar of his shirt, as if the fabric morphed into a vise around his throat. A flush creeps up his neck, red dots splashing across his ivory skin. A droplet of sweat traces a slow path down his temple, as the white fabric clings uncomfortably to his warm skin.

“Do you have a fever?”you ask, placing your hand on his forehead, sensing an unusual heat radiating beneath your touch. “Minho, where is your thermometer?”

“Bedside drawer,” he breathes out.

Fetching the thermometer, you gently tug at his chin, opening his mouth to check his temperature. “Stay still”" you instruct, watching anxiously as the numbers climb steadily.

“40°C, fuck Minho, you have a really high fever,” you exclaim as he shuts his eyes, an unmistakable weariness claiming him, rendering him malleable, akin to the silk pillow he's resting on. 

“I feel dizzy,” he admits, burying his face into the covers. 

“You need to take a cold shower now,” you urge a sudden lump materializes in your throat at the sight of his suffering. 

“It's okay, I'll just sleep.”

“No, no, it's far from okay!” you almost exclaim, tears stinging at the corners of your eyes as if you were peeling an onion—your own emotional layers unraveling, exposing the depth of your concern for Minho.

“Minho, please, you have a really high fever,” you plead, feeling an unexpected surge of panic at his unwillingness to cooperate.

“Yn… are you worried about me?”

“I am.”

“It feels nice. Please be worried about me more,” he mumbles, eyes still closed, eliciting an incredulous laugh from you. 

“You are so unbelievable, my god,” you pull him up and he doesn't resist, nearly stumbling on his feet.

“Okay?” you ask, running your hand through the nape of his neck.

“Mm,” he hums, burying his head in your shoulder. “Sleepy.”

“I know, you'll sleep after the shower,” you reassure softly, guiding him to the bathroom, his entire body weight leaning onto yours. There, you turn on the light, your right hand holding Minho's waist tightly as you lead him to settle atop the toilet.

“Can I take off your shirt?”

“Are you planning to undress me?” he smiles lazily, hooded eyes locked onto yours.

“No, I just-” you stammer, but he’s quick to cut you off.

“Because I don't mind.”

“I can't believe you're flirting with me while you're sick.”

“I always am, I can't help it,” he says, raising his hands as a silent signal for you to remove his shirt.

“You're awfully candid tonight,” you observe, seizing the edges of his shirt and drawing it over his head. His tongue glides across his lips, his gaze drawing tantalizingly slow over your form, and you clench his shirt tighter in your hands. He's the one with the fever, yet it's you who feels ablaze, flames of longing licking at your every sense.

“Come here,” you beckon, the icy water now flowing as you turn the knob. He reaches his hand out to you, and you grasp it, guiding him under the frigid cascade, soaking you both.

“C-cold,” he stutters, and you nod, your breath escaping in short, visible puffs.

“I-I know, just a little longer,” you reassure.

2 a.m. is a peculiar time to shower, the water droplets echoing against the tiled floor is the only sound that can be heard. That, and your labored breaths in tandem with the chilly embrace of the water filling your bones. The quiet makes way for other unspoken sentiments to surge forth, electric and palpable, heightened by the way Minho gazes at you through the liquid curtain, his hands clinging tightly to your arms for stability.

Droplets of water weave seamlessly through his hair, and an unexpected pang of jealousy grips you— you envy the liberty of those water beads as they thread through his locks, tracing the contours of his broad shoulders, nestling in the enticing recesses of his collarbones, without fearing the consequences of such acts. You don't dare look further down, wary that the rivulets on his skin may lead to your own undoing. Instead, you close your eyes thanking the stars that you weren’t wearing a white shirt, which would have turned translucent by now. You don’t even want to contemplate the consequences of such a premise.

After a few minutes, you turn off the water, stepping out of the shower and swiftly enveloping Minho in a towel.

“Go change, I have some spare clothes in here. Oh, and don't wear a top,” you instruct.

Minho chuckles quietly and you roll your eyes. “Shh. Make sure to dry your hair too.”

Taking your time in getting dressed, you peel off each wet layer, depositing them into the washing machine, before donning a spare pajama from a cabinet. You stroll to the kitchen to pour Minho a glass of water and retrieve medicine from the drawer, lingering at the counter long enough to ensure he'd be dressed by the time you return to the room.

You knock softly before opening the door, and the sight of Minho freezes you in your tracks. The room basks in warm, orange hues from the lamp's glow, playing upon Minho's skin and casting enticing shadows on the contours of his muscles—a masterpiece created by the skilled hands of light. His toned arms rest between his legs, back against the headboard, and an inexplicable urge to flee washes over you, your heart sinking to your knees in the face of his long-avoided vision of beauty.

You swallow the tumultuous thoughts raging within you before handing him his medicine, which he drinks diligently. Pressing your palm to his forehead, you're relieved to find a slight reduction in his temperature. “It will go down more once the medicine takes effect,” you assure.

“One of my students had a nasty cold. I think I got it from him,” he explains, and you nod, your hand lingering near his. Your fingers twitch as his pinky brushes against yours—akin to birds fluttering their wings in anticipation, awaiting, aching for a release from their cage, at last.

“I'm tired,” Minho sighs, closing his eyes. “Lay down,” you gently instruct, and he complies, resting his head on the pillow.

“It's cold,” he whines, swaying like a child throwing a bedtime tantrum. He's endearing, melting the frost that had gathered in your heart.

“You have a fever, silly,” you chuckle, pushing strands of his hair from his forehead, twirling them around. “Your hair's gotten longer,” you muse as you braid a tiny section of his bangs, only to undo it again.

“Can you play with my hair some more?” he requests softly.

“Of course,” you reply, threading your fingers through his locks, jet black as if all the stars in the sky collided, leaving behind nothing but a dark abyss.

“Please stay healthy, Min. Take care of yourself too.”

“But I like it more when you take care of me,” he pouts, before sighing shortly after. “I'll probably regret a lot of my words tomorrow, right?”

“Why is that?” 

“Because you don’t feel the same for me,” he confesses, leaving you silent, grappling with the echoes of his words. What do you feel for Minho?

The question jolts the breath from your windpipe violently, an unyielding force crashing against your lungs till the answer finds its footing on your tongue.

“Can I ask you something?” you finally speak, cringing at the sound of your voice disrupting the fragile quiet. 

“Anything.” 

“Where did your scar come from?” you inquire, gesturing towards the mark just below his belly button.

“I got surgery a long time ago. I’m kind of self-conscious about it,” he confesses, a bit shyly. 

“Really? But it’s beautiful, it looks like a strike of lightning,” you sincerely remark, coaxing a tender smile from Minho, unfolding like the gradual sunrises of autumn.

“This is exactly what you told me months ago.”

“Did I?”

“Mm, and then you traced it with your fingertips,” he grabs your hand, hovering it over his stomach. You can easily slip out of his grasp; you choose not to. 

“Like this?” you murmur, tracing his scar gently, fingertips grazing his skin like a lit fire, subtly enough not to scorch. His flesh tenses beneath your caress, muscles constricting as you navigate from right to left—a trajectory of dusty stars akin to the Milky Way, his skin soft to the touch, rippling beneath you with thinly veiled goosebumps.

“Yes,” he breathes out, his gaze wide, running furiously over your face. Yet, your attention lingers on his skin, shadows dancing across its surface, its honeyed hue a shade you wish to sear behind your eyelids. Your hands ascend and descend, mapping his body which blushes in response, as if his very being memorized your touch, imprinting your fingerprints onto its memory. You slide down his forearms, pausing over his fragile veins, seemingly offering you his life.

Silence envelops you, punctuated only by the weighty exhales escaping you both, for there are feelings that words cannot encapsulate, no matter how much human languages strive to, ultimately succumbing to the profundity of silence— the one language only souls comprehend.

Your hands ascend to his neck, thumb grazing the tender skin cradling his pulse. It resonates throughout your bones, echoing from his being to yours as if you’re harboring two lives within you.

“You… you could've kissed me over at the bridge,” you whisper, bringing to light the question that’s been lingering at the back of your mind. “Why didn't you?”

“I wanted you to kiss me because you wanted to. Not because you longed for our past or our future. I wanted you to want me in the present,” Minho explains, vulnerability seeping into his words, like honey melting into a warm cup of tea. 

“I’m scared,” you admit, your voice a fragile murmur, even as your head leans forward, hair cascading around Minho’s face, enclosing him in an intimate curtain. Minho gently grabs your hand and cradles it against his cheek, pressing a tender kiss to the center of your palm. 

“Right now. Do you want me?” he asks simply, offering himself openly to you. 

Do you want him?

After a momentary pause, you tentatively lean in, planting a gentle kiss upon his forehead. A resonant exhale escapes him, as your lips trace a path along his cheeks, leaving behind a trail of tiny kisses. Moving to the tender skin beneath his eyes— as easily bruised as your emotions—you bestow soft pecks to it as if seeking forgiveness for every tear he shed in your name.

His eyes remained closed, his trust evident in the surrender of his being to you. The answer to your internal query is written all over his features— the hushed exhale escaping his body, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the tranquility nestled between his eyebrows. 

Yes. Yes, you do.

Your lips finally meet Minho’s in a delicate union, unmoving like rose petals folding onto one another. A surge of warmth emanates from the depths of your heart, coursing through your entire being like sunrays, submerging your soul in a tranquil white glow.

Leaning away ever so slightly, you press a tender kiss on his lower lip, enclosing it between your own. Your hand cradles his jaw, running gently through his damp strands. Your lips move against his slowly in a saccharine kiss, parting, only to meet again, in the same tenderness, perhaps a growing one as you become accustomed to the contours of his lips, to the languid moves of his mouth, following your rhythm. You were leading the dance, his lips mere puppets to your heart’s wishes. He didn't rush you, only allowed you to kiss him, whichever way you wanted. 

A pause, a moment suspended in time, your hands trembling as they rest upon his cheeks, his palm hovering above your own, offering a comforting press. The gesture reassures you in your curiosity that won’t be satiated, urging you to seal your lips on his with a tentative fervor. The world outside dissolves into a distant murmur, the seconds blending into a timeless run, you slamming the door before your worries protesting at the entrance of your mind. Tomorrow, you’ll find the answers. Tonight, you are kissing Minho.

As you press a final, lingering kiss to his velvety mouth, visions of you at peace flood your being. You see yourself sinking into the warm pool of your aunt’s country club, you see yourself walking on the beach with sand molding to the contours of your feet, you see yourself laying on the grass while observing sunrays weaving through the trees. And then, amidst your most serene memories, the act of pressing your lips to Minho stands out, the warmth of his mouth against yours eclipsing all other sensations.

Leaning away, you rest your forehead on his shoulder, and Minho's hands cradle your hair.

"Which lip balm do you use,” you giggle against his bare skin, relishing in the sweet taste of his lips.

“Yours.”

Day 31.

Minho’s nose is buried in the crook of your neck, his arm draped across the expanse of your stomach. He sinks further into you, binding himself to your body, anchoring his hold on your being. You are warm, your skin is soft to the touch and Minho doesn’t want to wake up from this tender dream, akin to plummeting into a sea of silky pillows, falling into a blanket of clouds. 

Except, he's awake, Minho realizes with a jolt. He blinks repeatedly, allowing the sunrays to stream to his eyes, his pupils dilating once they settle on you— so much their obsidian depths swallows the brown of his irises whole. You stir beneath his touch, making your cheek press upon the crown of his head. He's fully awake now, snatched from the velvet threads of his dreams made up of you, thrown into your arms once again after thirty-three days. 

A soft gasp escapes Minho’s lips, the air stolen from his lungs as if it was yours to claim. Echoes of the night replay in his mind— a fever, you tending him to me, a cold cascade of water, you tracing his scar, and then, the kiss.

You kissed him. A long shiver runs down his spine at the memory, a subtle twitch that stirs you from slumber once again. 

What does one kiss mean? The question dances wildly in Minho’s mind. More importantly, what do you want it to mean? 

Minho whines softly, closing his eyes for a few seconds, relishing in the fragrance of your hair, in the serenity that floods his being each time he’s around you. This was his most restful slumber in weeks, because you were near, his mind recognizing you, relaxing underneath your touch, drifting to a mindless sleep. 

Reluctantly, he untangles himself from you, a bittersweet departure from your arms. Work was calling his name. 

He prayed you’d call his too soon. 

….

You wake up to an empty bed, the only lingering trace of the night you spent being the tingling of your lips, as if aching to be kissed once again. You sigh, running a hand through your face. It was much easier to succumb to your heart’s wishes when it was late at night, when minho laid bare beneath your touch, so enticing in the gentlest of ways. When you were cradled by the moon’s soft glow, blanketed by the night’s cloak of darkness.

But it was light now, the sun was glaring as it streamed through the windows, exposing all the flawed ways of your mind.

What does one kiss mean? 

Nothing, if it wasn’t minho who you had kissed. If it wasn’t as tender as the meeting of your lips. 

The tomorrow you believed far quickly came, and you still beheld no answers. A few hours drifted by and you still knew nothing. What does this kiss mean? It's late afternoon and you’re strolling through the park nearby and you can't find an answer. The question rings in your mind as you sit by a bench, and you still don’t know.

“You seem preoccupied,” a voice quips up nearby and you startle. You hadn’t even noticed the man sitting by your side. His arms crossed before his chest, making impressive muscles constrict beneath the snug fabric of his black shirt, a cascade of fluffy black curls sat at the top of his head, a slight smirk etched on his lips.

“Pardon?”

“I said you seem preoccupied.”

“No i heard that,” you roll your eyes subtly, “do i know you?”

“No. You just look worried, that's all.”

“You really don’t know me?” you ask, a tad apprehensive, unsure if this was someone else your memory faulted you of. 

“No? Are you a celebrity of some sorts?” he inquires, tone much more cheerful, angling his body towards you.

“No, i’m not,” you giggle, before quieting down, an exhausted sigh escaping your body. “Is it that obvious then?”

“Yeah. I’m afraid so,” he pouts sympathetically, tone almost desolate and you huff, burying your face in your hands.

“Do you need help with something?” he offers after a while, his concern evident in the frown of his brows. You are comforted by the anonymity of talking to a stranger, you were but a blank canvas to him. You wouldn't see him again, anyways. 

“I feel lost. I can't seem to find the answers I'm looking for.”

“Maybe you’re just not asking the right questions.”

Oh. 

The guy claps his hands suddenly, long before you could dwell on his words and their implications

“I actually have a question for you!” 

“Ask away.”

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

“No?” you chuckle, amusement dripping from your voice. “I don't know you?” 

“That's the point of a date.”

“Are you this bored?” you smile, arching an eyebrow at him. 

“I'm not bored. I just need to take my mind off things,” he shrugs, a slight smirk on his face. but you somehow see beyond it, right into the dull twinkle of his eyes. Maybe he also couldn’t find the answers he was looking for.

“So you're using me?” you fake outrage and he giggles, a high pitched sound that reverberates through the playground, making some kids nearby stare at you. You stifle a surprised laugh. 

“I'm not using you if I tell you upfront why I asked you out.”

“You are right, but i decline your kind offer,” you say solemnly and he nods, shaking his head in defeat.  

“Here is my card, in case you change your mind. Or need a little escape, call me,” he smiles, handing you a sleek black card before getting up and dusting his pants. “See you,” he says, as if he was sure you'd call him back. you stare in disbelief at his retreating figure, before glancing down at the card. 

Mr. Seo Changbin, you read, CEO of Gold’s Gym— the largest gym branch in the country.

Oh wow.

The amused smile lingers on your lips as you gaze ahead, lost in thought, contemplating the words spoken by Changbin. Maybe he was right; perhaps you are afraid of asking the right questions. Sucking in a deep breath, you decide to take the longer route home, eventually finding yourself outside your favorite bakery; the one you discovered on one of your many walks with Minho.

You go to open its door when an unexpected tingling at the back of your neck freezes you in your tracks. Your heart tightens in your chest as you turn around slowly, greeted by the sharp eyes of two familiar faces—Lia and Mari, your coworkers from before your accident. A tentative smile graces your lips, but the alarms of warning in your mind intensify. 

“Hey, yn!” 

“Hey, guys,” you greet back, taking a step backwards from them. 

“How have you been since… You know, your accident,” Lia pouts, but the question lacks sincerity, as if they were wearing masks before you, concealing their true intentions. You wonder which one they'll put on next.  

“Good, i’ve been good,” you force a smile, as their eyes move up and down your body, judgment dripping from their gaze.

“We wanted to come see you but we didn’t know if you were still at your listed address. Since your boyfriend lives there.”

“Oh, um, yeah, I still live there.”

“But didn’t you forget about him?” Lia feigns ignorance and you feel anxiety picking at your skin like relentless protruding needles. You want to run. 

“Lia that’s rude. I think he's her ex-boyfriend now," Mari chuckles, mockery palpable in her tone.

“Poor Minho, he must suffer a lot. Say hey to him from me,"Lia smiles, a chilling feline grin, her eyes narrowing down like a hawk peering at his prey. 

“I will.”

“We’ll see you at work. If you’re still able to keep up with the tasks,” they leave, ugly laughs echoing after them, and an urge to throw up overtakes you, the scent of pastries furthering your nausea. You hasten your steps toward your building.

You’re almost safe, almost, keys trembling in your hand as you struggle to enter your apartment, when the door adjacent to you opens. Your neighbors smile at you, although it is a gesture tinged with pity. You painfully smile back before slamming the door.

Yeart hammering in your chest, you press your back against the door, hand clawing at your throat. 

“Did you know she got into a car accident, and apparently she forgot her boyfriend?”

“Really? They were so cute though.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame.”

Their words suffocate you, stepping atop your lungs, syllables choking you from within. Is this what everything thought of you? Did they all pity you for the accident? For forgetting your lover? Did they see you as a burden, a parasite plaguing his life? Is this what Han and Chan saw when their eyes lingered on you? Is this what the librarian and florist whispered to each other each time you passed by? 

You didn’t know these people and yet they had their minds set on you, fixated storylines you couldn’t change, no matter how much you tried to rewrite them.

Your thoughts spiral like the unloosened screws of a ticking clock. Minho, the unanswered questions, the expectations of others—everything converges in the base of your mind, making your ears ring cacophonically within your skull.

You slide down the door, fingers trembling as you take out your phone then Changbin’s card from your pocket. You dial his number with haste. You needed a breather, to talk to someone who knew nothing of you, of who you were, of who you could be. 

“Hello?” his voice booms clearly through the phone.

“Changbin,” you breathe out. “Let's go on a date tomorrow.”

You were asleep when minho came back from work, your back turned towards him, soft exhales escaping your body. He didn't want to disturb you, so, he made sure to come earlier the next day, a strawberry and cream pastry in his hand that he knew you loved. Perhaps, you’d both talk about your kiss today, what it meant for you both. 

But, he doesn’t find you home. The only indication that you had just left was the lingering scent of your perfume, tickling his nose as if to mock him. Poor minho— the gardenia and honey tones spelled out in the air; the one fragrance you strictly reserve for dates. The one you used to put for him.

It looked like you found your answer after all. 

Day 33. 

“Did I keep you waiting?” 

“No, just in time,” you smile as Changbin pulls the chair in front of you, settling down with ease, a pang of confidence coloring his movements.

“How are you, today?” 

“Better, i think,” you falter under his scrutinizing gaze, your facade cracking. “I don't know, it’s all complicated,” you sigh and he nods, signaling for the waiter to take your drinks order. Chai latte for you, hot chocolate for him. 

“Spill, what’s preoccupying you?” he leans forward, arms crossed on the table. 

“You don’t even know my name,” you giggle, looking around at the warm interior. Cozy, faint music playing in the background, taupe chairs and amber tables, the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting through the air. Minho would like it here. 

“What's your name?”

“Yn.”

“Okay, Yn,” he emphasizes, a slight smirk on his face. “Spill.”

You shake your head as the waiter places down your drinks, wrapping your fingers around the heated cup, hoping the warmth would seep into your being through your palm lines. 

“Did you want to become a therapist by any chance?” you muse, arching an eyebrow at him.

“No, it’s just fixing others' problems helps me forget my own,” he winks and you snort at his honesty. it was admirable, how frank he was to a complete stranger. 

“Fine, it’s a long story, but basically…” you lick your lips, wondering what’s the best way to go on about this. “I got into a car accident and I lost my memory of the past year and so.”

Changbin winces at your words and you sigh. “Yeah. Except I was in a relationship before…”

“And you totally forgot about it?”

“I did. It hurt him a lot.” 

Changbin nods in understanding, taking a sip of his drink. He places his chin on his palm, carefully eyeing you. 

“But how does that make you feel?” 

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You're the one who lost your memories after all.” 

“I feel guilty for forgetting such a relationship.” 

“Why is that?”

“Because everyday i can see why I fell in love with him.”

“And you don't love him now?” 

“No,” you quickly say before pausing, shoulders dropping under the weight of your questioning. “I don't know. It's complicated.”

Changbin absentmindedly tugs at the charms of his bracelet, gaze flicking down to his wrist for a couple seconds, before locking on yours intently.  

“Describe him to me in one sentence.”

“You sound like my annoying French teacher,” you roll your eyes and he huffs, not offended in the least. “Look, I just want to know my competition.”

“Do you have a retort for everything?”

“What can I say? I'm witty and all that,” he shrugs confidently and you giggle before quieting down, muling over his question. “In a sentence…” you muse, fingers drumming along your cup. You don't even realize that a fond smile has unfolded on your lips, but Changbin does.

“He's the light rain that falls during spring, that makes the flower bloom and the smell of earth waft through the air. He brings things back to life, in a way.” 

Changbin smiles softly, tilting his head to the side. “Can you really not see it, or are you hiding the truth because you're scared?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Yn, he brought you back to life.” 

“I… no.” you pause, voice faltering. “Did he?” 

You see Minho pushing you on a wheelchair to your home. Minho protecting you from your mind. Minho washing your hair. Minho making you tea. Minho baring his soul to you. Minho helping you cook. Minho bringing the sea to you. Minho holding your hand. Minho comforting you before comforting himself. Minho forgiving you so you'd forgive yourself. Minho devastating himself so you'd piece your heart together. Minho, minho, minho.  

“Fuck, he did,” you whisper in realization, as a grand feeling swells in your heart suddenly, pushing your heart against the confines of your ribs. Flowers bloom into your entire body, petals melding into the coursing blood in your veins, butterflies fluttering their delicate wings across your chest, an effulgent light flooding in like the sun was spilled inside your very core. 

“Aren’t I so smart,” Changbin grins, satisfied at the awestruck expression on your face.

“What should I do?” you ask anxiously, gripping the edges of the table. 

“Go talk to him. Don't waste any more time.”

“You are right, oh my god,” you grab your purse, standing up abruptly. “I have to go, I…”

“It's okay, don't worry about me, I'm always the side chick,” he sighs in faux sadness and you giggle, swatting his shoulder. 

“Thank you so much. I'll repay you for this, I promise!” you start walking before stopping and turning around. 

“Oh and Changbin?”

“Yes?”

“You know what to do too. They made you that bracelet right? You haven't taken your eyes off of it.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, “those are my lines.”

“They are mine now too,” Laughter dances from your lips as you flee the café, taking off running to your home. It was near, merely a five-minute walk, nestled beside the playground where you encountered Changbin. Yet, urgency propels your steps, a fervent need to reach Minho swiftly. You had wasted thirty-three days, three million seconds that could’ve been spent with Minho. You don’t know how many more breaths the universe might extend, what if the stars tire of your reluctance and blow the winds of his love to another soul? You couldn’t stomach it. 

You climb up the stairs, chest heaving, breaths escaping your being in an erratic rhythm. you didn't even know what to say, your words remained unscripted, unsure of what confessions will spill forth when your eyes will meet Minho's. Yet, you're not worried. You know that whatever surfaces would be surging from your heart. 

What you don’t anticipate is for an uncharacteristic silence to find you at home, the scent of your perfume faintly wafting into the air. Minho sat in the living room, a bag by his side, his head downcast. The cats watching you from the corner of the room. 

A desert- dry sensation clings to your mouth, your tongue heavy as if crafted from lead. Your once vibrant excitement extinguishes, much like a match blown out, leaving only a lingering stench behind. 

“Minho?” 

“Yn,” he responds, eyes actively avoiding yours. “I was waiting for you. I... I'll be gone for a few days, a week at most.”

“What? Where to?”

“I already told my parents to come pick up the cats so you don't have to worry about feeding them. The fridge is stacked, so you-” his voice falters, “so don't worry about that either.”

“Minho... what-what are you saying?”

“I need time away, alone. I'm sorry, I tried, I tried so hard, Yn, but there is only so much I can take,” he whispers, and your heart shatters, tiny million pieces blown away by the wind.

“Minho, look at me,” you crouch before him, your hands resting on his knees. He still avoids your gaze.

“Minho, please,” you plead, and his eyes finally lock on yours. They glisten with tears, reflecting light akin to a celestial mirror.

“My heart hurts so much, but it's not your fault. Loving me once doesn't mean you'll love me again, and it's okay if you want to see other people. I just... I need to go somewhere, for a little. I need to make room for the pain because it's overwhelming me,” he confesses, his words eating at your insides. Was it too late? Have you lost him?

Minho gently takes away your hands before standing up. Fear overwhelms you as you watch his shoulders drop, his eyes glazing over the walls one last time. He will come back, but not here, not to you. He's bidding goodbye to the home and you because you killed his hope. He would leave everything behind but echoes of him that you'd be sentenced to hear alone, every day, every night.

“Minho,” you seize his wrist, “Minho, don't go.”

"Why?" he asks in the smallest voice you've heard from him. He's like a river cut off by a dam, yearning to run back home, to flow the way it used to, back to you. His heart rings loudly in his ears, pain overwhelming him, yet your touch calms him down. You are the knife and the medicine, the scorch and the cooling balm; you are everything at once.

“I'll make room in your heart, I'll take out all the bad weeds and start again. Just don't go.”

“What do you mean?” He's breathless, hope inflating in his heart, clouds parting to reveal the sun.

“I know things won't go back to the way they used to. I don't think I'll ever remember everything, but I want you to tell me,” there is a lump growing in your throat, but you push it away. Your voice breaks and cracks, yet you still speak. You need him to know.

“I want you to take me to all the places we've visited and then tell me how we fell in love in them. I want you to show me how I loved you,” your hand trails down his hand, intertwining your fingers with his, pulling him closer. “I want to learn you, what you like, what you hate, what makes you angry and what makes your heart flutter.”

“And I want to love you, not because you love me, but because my heart chose you," your hand travels up his arm, settling right down at his cheek. Your thumb swipes across his tender skin. “I choose you over and over again. It's you, Minho, it's always been you.”

“You want me again?” he says tentatively, eyes wide, pouring onto yours—your galaxy to love, to admire, to peer into for the rest of your life.

“I want you. Please don't go.”

“Swear it, please.”

Instead of ephemeral words, you softly press your lips to his, as you did last night. “I swear,” you whisper against his mouth. “I'm falling in love with you,” you peck his lips, hand snaking up against his neck, moving his mouth closer to yours. “Not falling,” you say, pressing your forehead to his, nuzzling his nose against your own. “I'm coming back. I'm coming home.”

“You came back to me,” he whispers, voice hoarse.

“I'll always do,” you promise, a grin overtaking your mouth. “Can you kiss me, Minho?”

Minho blinks in amazement, his eyes darting all over your face, each blink resembling the capture of an image. He's stitching this moment into his mind, the hue of your cheeks and the gleam in your eyes. He missed the way you're looking at him, the slight shiver running through you as he brushes his lips against your own, slowly savoring the feel of you so near. His hands find your jaw, cradling it softly, and then he kisses you, just like how he dreamed of doing for the past month.

The kiss is dizzying, far different from your previous one. You’re no longer grasping at elusive cigarette smoke, fleeting through the gaps between your fingers. You are no longer awaiting a beacon of remembrance to shine upon your mind. You have minho, and he's delicately nibbling your lower lip, eliciting a soft gasp from you. His tongue glides across the tingling expanse, soothing down the pang of hurt, asking you for more. You willingly give it to him in a fervent, whirlwind kiss, his hands finding solace in the curve of your waist, while yours become poets, weaving tales in his hair, tugging at his strands the way you've always yearned to. 

It is muscle memory, to press your body against his, to gasp into his mouth, to match the rhythm of his tongue, the way it circles tantalizingly around yours, the way you groan against his mouth, as he briefly parts from you, his giggle a sweet prelude to meeting your lips once again with increased fervor. His tongue weaves words against the roof of your mouth— I missed you, I want you, I love you.

Minho snakes his hand around your lower back, guiding you back until his legs find the couch. He eases you down, fingers hooked through the loop of your jeans. You kiss him again, a cadence as natural as breathing. Time unravels, rewinding to mend the fractures in his heart, erasing thirty-three days of heartbreak in mere seconds. You kiss him, again and again, thirty three days of longing exploding in your touch.  

“Are you crying?” you whisper against his lips, your thumbs delicately swiping across his damp cheeks. Unaware of his flowing tears, he closes his eyes, embarrassment coursing through him. “I'm here,” you reassure, peppering his face with kisses – from his ear to his nose, cheeks to the corner of his mouth. “I'm here, honey. I want you.”

“Only me?” he questions, tone fragile.

“Only you,” you kiss him again, tenderly, inhaling life through his lips. “Let me show you how much, hm?”

Your lips trace a path down his neck as you draw his shirt over his head. An ivory canvas, he is meant for you to mark, to touch however you desire. Your lips graze the scar on his stomach, kissing it in the way you've ached to do since two nights before.

You're sinking to your knees before him and yet you’re the one in control, rippling shivers all over his skin. He’s impatient, needing you close, so he quickly pulls you up, before hovering over you, his hands drawing everywhere, running wild across your body. He missed the plush feel of your skin, the contours of your body that he yearned to explore once again. He's a prisoner deprived of the light for so long, sinking into the sun once again. 

Minho's eyes never leave yours, as he touches you, moves in you in ways your soul seems to remember. He's gentle, removing strands of your hair out of your eyes, smoothing down the side of your head. All encompassing, drinking in your moans and groans, burning you up and soothing you all at once. “Good?” he asks, again and again, waiting to hear your affirmation before picking up speed again. Your answer is yes each time he asks, as he seals the void in you, the one he's been carefully stitching up for the past weeks. You store his glazed eyes and scrunched eyebrows in the gallery of your mind, you make room for new memories with Minho. 

You're overwhelming him, in the most beautiful ways, contradicting feelings coursing through him like a rain flood. He's aching yet relieved to have you beneath him, lost in waves of pleasure so he grabs your hand to anchor himself, entwining his fingers with yours, before bringing it to his mouth, placing a tender smile on your palm. You beam at him, trust reflecting in your eyes as you bare your being to him. It is a rare fortune to be chosen by you not once, but twice, he can't believe how lucky he is to have you as his guiding star.  

Your eyes never leave Minho’s, a shimmering pool mirroring your emotions. You see everything you feel in him—your better reflection. You had missed him, you were home now. “Miss you,” he whispers as he buries his face in your neck, seemingly hearing your thoughts. “Missed you so much,” he mumbles as your hands tangle in his hair, tears descending gently upon your cheeks, as they are on his. “Please don't leave me again.”

“I won't- I won't,” you promise, as light floods your vision, reaching the pinnacle of your pleasure. Colors burst before your eyes in a kaleidoscope, resembling shades of Minho— the warm brown of his eyes, the honeyed hue of his skin, the pink tint of his ears whenever he's embarrassed, the red of his lips, swollen as they kiss you. Tonight and tomorrow and every day after this one. 

Day 1.

In the hushed aftermath, your head rests upon Minho’s bare chest, listening to the quiet rhythm of his heartbeat, calming down as the seconds trickle by. His arm curls around your body protectively, keeping you from slipping off the couch. Your knuckles trail up and down his shoulders, soothing the places where you had scratched too hard. His hand seeks yours, delivering a kiss as tender as the silence enveloping you—quiet and secure. The forgotten past doesn't matter; you will rewrite your story once more.

“Do you think our designated stars are sad somewhere far away?”

“Why would they be?” 

“I don't know. Don't you think it's bittersweet how they missed out on so many days of loving one another?”

“I don't know, did they?” he muses, planting a tender kiss on your shoulder. “I think mine loved you all the same.” 

[starshipsofstarlord]

Killer Inside

Pairing | Bucky Barnes / The Winter Soldier x Reader

Summary | As HYDRA’s weapon, Bucky Barnes has always felt used, but he was not the only Winter Soldier that felt this way. They look to one another for closure and comfort, only to lose it all once their brains go back in the blender.

Warnings | SMUT, unprotected sex, denied orgasm, angst, death, murder, a concussion, mention of abuse

Requested ✖️

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

Soldat closed the door behind himself, the blood on his hands a normality for the pair of you. The scientist tilted your head once more, Bucky as you knew him frowning at the action.“What are you doing?” One thing that he had not been taught was to ask the handlers questions, but a part of him, deep down in his cold exterior was warm.

It was as thought the ice of his winter exterior was refrained by a crack; a singular flaw that set him apart from the newer soldiers that had been introduced within the gloomy base. There were a whole bunch of them, though, they seemed to prefer the originals, you and him. The majority of the time, neither one of you paid your dues to resist orders, or lash out at the surrounding agents.

At least, not in the same way as the newer breed. Though, they were much larger in mass, and had far more strength behind their pushes, which was evidential, considering the bruise that swallowed up the side of your face.

And the soldat cared, as little as he did, of was made to, he still valued you. The pair of you had experienced so much harm together, endured the needles that sled through the skin in a harmony, it had to have meant something. Whether that be because of your shared traumas, or the fact you were the same, it was not nothing. The image of the world’s most efficient assassins gave him something to hold onto.

It made him feel strong, even against the new batch of winter soldiers that had been introduced. They were out of control, disobeying the instructions that were imbedded in their heads. The two of you, though strong were so meek and small in comparison to the newcomers, they would toss you around like rag dolls, seeing you as nothing more than the enemy, when in reality, you were victims all the same.

“She’s got a concussion.” The scientist speculated, releasing his grip on you chin as you tried and failed to focus on the words that were fleeing from his mouth. It appeared that you were dazed, blown out of your body mentally from the nasty hit that you had taken whilst following your own orders. It involved protecting the scientists from the small and capable of army, and it was quite evident that you had endured a run in with them personally.

“Bucky.” You weren’t sure what the name meant, but it fell from your lips, a frown contorting your face as it was the only thing that made any sense, yet none at the same time. Or at least, you guessed that it was the labelling of a person, it felt like such as it vividly rolled from your tongue, and invaded the air.

There was a tenseness within the room after you spoke it, as though it were a forbidden hymn. And it probably was, from the dissolved way that you were eyes, as though you were revealing that you had gone through time, and time travelled, which you had, thanks to the concept of cryo.

The man examining you froze, and the soldat realised that you had struck some kind of nerve within your superior. It appeared that it was a word that you were forbade from uttering, one was both familiar and foriegn on your tongue.“Who the hell is Bucky?” He asked, but he had to learn, he was not in the placement, nor did he have the status to ask questions.

The person clothed in the white lab coat reached for a device that he used to communicate, and spoke into it. “They need to be wiped again.” At that, Bucky tilted his head, glaring at the man that had suggested that your memories been erased; the action had happened far too many times.

Yet this time, the winter soldier resisted the prospect, reaching out with his metal hand, and grasping onto the wired strands emitting from the doctor’s head. With the grip that he had obtained, the soldat pulled his neck back, only to push it forwards as he slammed his face into the corner of the desk, over and over again.

The sight had no immediate affect on you, instead you coldly viewed the uninstructed command that the soldier carried out, feeling nothing towards the blood that dropped upon the floor. Bucky knew that his time was limited, that name, which he assumed to be his own, and if those soldiers that were experiencing the whims of their ability could lose control, he sure as hell could too.

He needed to break free, so that he remembered who he truly was. Here, he was nothing more than a prime asset, and now, he released his grip on the man whose name he couldn’t remember, and allowed his body to drop from the chair lewdly to the concrete floor, a harsh thud clear as his lifeless body collapsed.

“Bucky?” You spoke again, this time in question, as you squinted at your well renowned comrade, and the way that you said it, Bucky was almost certain that the name belonged to him. For a long time, he had not even thought of what his real name may have been, all the executives of this organisation had names, and yet, he was stuck with the noun of ‘soldier’, as were you.

The metal armed knew that he was on the clock, the currently dead man had called in for an order to be carried out, the others would be here soon to carry out his firm request. And then, all would be blank once more, clean from any of this, the reminder of who he was gone in a split second. And that meant that you wouldn’t remember you either, and that the foundations of companionship that you had founded, would need to begin all over again.

As you remained confused, sitting upon the examination table with little clue that was going on around you, Bucky tenderly grasped your chin, watching as your eyes fluttered with contentment. He couldn’t keep up his resilience any longer, instead, pulling your face gently closer, and locking his lips wit yours.

It almost felt like a first kiss, it was messy, and there was a lot of overlapping. His hands raked down your sides, feeling the metal grid that kept your ribs upright, after the thing that lead you here happened. HYDRA had admittedly ruined the life you had once had, yet, now, against your non existent will, you were being treated like an abused dog. They had stolen you from the possible peaceful death and trained you to be nothing short of a killer.

Grasping onto the volume to the back of Bucky’s tactical gear, despite feeling slightly wavy in the head. You understood, the same as he did, that this would be the last piece of freedom that you would have the chance of seeing, under any context. This would also not be the first instance that you remembered giving into your carnal hunger for each other, but for some abrupt reason, it felt like the last.

It was an inevitable end, one that you were being sentenced to without so much as an argument from your side. There was no point in fighting back, for it always ended the same way, with your minds spun in that hellbent contraption, coming out as nothing more than an obedient slave, until the act had to be repeated. The cycle was never ending, there was no way out from the toxic lifestyle, it was what it was.

And thus, Bucky preached the bottoms off your legs, caring not about if he tore them, as he let them hang around the middle of your thighs. He stood closer between the section, doing some shuffling himself to relieve his hard cock from its strict confines, feeling a fluttering of pride swell in his chest as you looked down at his aroused appendage, and licked your lips.

The detail that there wasn’t enough room for foreplay within the gap of time that you were gifted was well apparent. You wanted nothing more than to come undone beneath the soldier in every single way that your body ceremoniously ached for, however, there just was not enough moments to spare, and instead, nothing more than penetration was offered on the table.

Wrapping his hand around his precum leaking cock, he stroked it a couple times whilst it was in his grip, before rubbing the desperate head around your exposed pussy. He could feel how wet you had become in such a short amount of minutes, and that factor seemed to do nothing more than fuel him further. And so, without a second though, he pushed into your entrance, giving you no time to adjust as his hips clashed with yours in colliding thrusts.

Animalistic and loud grunts escaped the soldier, for once, he was able to voice his pleasure, it wasn’t in the secrecy of the corner of the shower as he took you from behind, or in one of your bunks during the dead of night. He didn’t have to avoid being caught, because they were definitely on their way here anyways.

You didn’t hold back your noises either, gasping into Bucky’s open mouth as he rutted against you, causing a prominent squelching of your combined essences to fill the air. Not only was that prominent, but the room now reeked of sex, the hormones rolling off the starved pair of you in euphoric waves. His metal hand reached down, rolling your clit between his cold fingers, causing you to screech the name Bucky out into the air, loud enough for everyone within the compound to here.

“Cum y/n.” At that, the pair of you froze, staring into one another’s eyes as you took in the detail, prolonging the peak of your orgasm. It was undeniable, that was your name that he had just spoken in a breathy matrimony. The bar caused shock in both of you, but was quickly replaced as soldiers entered through the door.

Bucky couldn’t help himself, at their presence, he began to wildly thrust inside of you, trying to reach your edges before the pair of you were removed from each other’s lustful union. As one tried to peel him off you from the shoulder, he raised his hand to hit them from where he couldn’t see, and continued his administrations. He needed to empty inside of you, and complete this own personal mission of his.

You clung to him, trying to hide yet be stuck in his embrace, well aware of the men that were trying to separate the pair of you. The sounds of his skin upon yours, and his balls slapping against you reverberated around the room, only aiding you to come closer to your orgasm. “Bucky.” You moaned, almost reaching your climax, yet it was stolen from you, as a needle was injected in the back of Bucky’s neck, causing him to wobble for a moment, until he fell out of you, his dick flopping in the open from his forced exit.

You cowered at the sight, your walls clenching around nothing as you felt the emptiness. Though, there was not only an emptiness inside you, but there was one gleaming behind your eyes as you watched them hold the super soldier up, and drag him out of the room, not even having the decency to tuck him back inside of his trousers.

It was well assumed that you would be granted a similar treatment, and so, you did not fight as the dismissing injection was moved towards your pricked skin, welcoming the darkness that would accompany the side affects, but not the name that you would lose once they put you in that grand metal chair, and erased the slate of your mind for the unknown anniversary number.

[mae-gi-writes]

Obtuse | Bang Chan (Stray Kids) - PART ONE

Summary ☆ "I don't know. I want to be his friend but then again, I don't. I mean, how can you simply be friends with someone when every time you look at them, you're thinking about how much more you really want?"

Genre ☆ bestfriends to lovers au, angst, slowburn, suggestive themes, college au, fluff, soft Chan x oc (Micha)

Word count ☆ 6k ish

. ° ☆ ° .

PART ONE

. ° ☆ ° .

Micha hated being wrong.

Her fingers tapped an unsteady rhythm over her notebook as she stared at the block of text she had been supposedly studying for the past hour, her desk lamp casting a yellowish hue over her page as if the book itself was a sickly entity with the sole goal of rendering her mad. Attached to her ceiling, her fan kept on whirring in a noisy hum which -- while she normally managed to tune it out --  grated at her nerves. The world bustled outside, cars honking in the distance while soft rain splattered over her bedroom window as she sighed for what must’ve been the nth time that evening, slowly lifting her arms up in a stretch. 

It wasn’t in her nature to be so scatter-brained, for once she set her mind to something, there could be little to stop her. That was one of the qualities she could pride herself on considering that there was hardly any skill she could flaunt to the world -- surely there were far more interesting things than reciting off a long list of human body parts and their required functions? 

But this recent issue popping up in her brain was doing a great job at knocking her off her feet. Dear god, she felt the same sense of unbalance as when she was five and her mom had enrolled her into ballerina lessons. 

Long story short, it hadn’t ended well.

Micha’s eyes darted to her phone that she’d tossed onto her bed a few minutes ago. The cause of her restlessness, the cause of unease stirring inside her stomach like an angry beast prowling back and forth.

The words from his earlier message felt like they were etched into her memory: 

Chan: SHE SAID YES

Just three words. Three little stings that made her wince every time she thought of them. Three little needles that pierced at her heartstrings.

Why? 

Her grip tightened onto her pen. So hard her knuckles turned the colour of chalk.

Why didn’t she feel happy for him as she was supposed to? 

Micha’s tongue poked at her cheek. 

Why did it feel so wrong? Why did she feel wronged when she’d done nothing of the sort? 

Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that she had spurred Chan's obvious interest, urging him to hustle a little closer to that particular girl in question when she had caught the said young man casting her quick, shy glances over the rim of his drink?

"Just ask her," Micha told him when he'd sought her out looking like a lost puppy amidst the heavy bass of the music. It had been the summer right before their final year of University and on this special occasion, Minho had thrown a small party to which every high school classmate of their year had been invited.

"You know I can't. I don't know how...you know," he scratched the back of his head, dark locks ruffling as the summer wind. It was in those small, stolen moments -- where Chan was the most vulnerable, where he let down his guard to deploy his array of unspoken feelings -- that she remembered the young man for who he was: the familiar fullness of his full lips, the curve of his nose, the simplicity of his monolids.

"You won't know till you try," she took a sip of her rum and coke.

Truthfully speaking, Chan had never been in a serious relationship. He was friends with everyone, the kind of person that was easy-going and who could engage in any kind of conversation with anyone and everyone. The only consequence was that Chan was thrust into the friendzone without even trying.

But then again, he was a nice guy. And nice guys finished last.

“What’s the worst that can happen anyway?” Micha joked as she downed the rest of her drink, “she’s been eyeing you since we got here.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

He leaned closer with squinted eyes as he tried to find the lie in her words, “you’re not just saying that to be nice?”

He was so close she got a whiff of his scent. Reaching up with her index finger to push him away, Micha proceeded to roll her eyes, “I don’t do nice, Chan. We both know that.” 

She shouldn’t have been surprised to see him slip away a few minutes later to seek her out. Ayeong was her name. Beauty, in Korean. And which suited her perfectly, what with her tiny waist and her big set of doe eyes that could make any man weak at the knees, her supple legs that seemed to go on and on forever and that cupid bow’s mouth that was always puckered in that innocently cute, yet sensual way of hers.

And if not for her physique, Ayeong was known for her kindness and for her outgoing, free-natured and confident spirit. That was the killer blow for any man that sought her out. 

Micha had known her since high school, hung out with the same friends and admittedly could classify her as one too, even though college life had pulled them apart like boats that had left the harbour only to find each other after a year.

Memories of Micha’s last night flickered behind her open lids and leaning back into her chair with a sigh, she gave way to the sudden urge of homesickness suddenly flowing through her heart. 

Their last movie night had ended and despite Micha’s frantic eye movements towards Ayeong’s figure, Chan had immediately volunteered to walk her back home. 

Micha kept her gaze forward, noticing how the golden glow of the street lamps did little to light their way. She turned her head to the right, where the road gave way to the landscape littered with golden lights, now bathed in deep hues of blue as light slowly slithered from behind the mountains. 

“So this is it huh?” Chan’s murmur sliced through with a hint of sadness in his deep alto, “you sure you’re not going to come back home for Christmas?” 

It was tradition after all. They had made it adamant to travel back at least every three months and up until now, they had kept that promise. 

Now though, with Micha’s piling workload and with Chan’s busy thesis schedule, this year might be the one exception.

“I can’t, Chan. I have my internship,” Micha didn’t dare look at him, fighting the tightness winding in her chest, “you can always drop by. My university is just a train ride away I suppose.”

"You’re not gonna kick me out if I turn up at your door one day?” 

“I can’t promise that.” 

He gasped, grabbing onto his chest in mock hurt, “Ouch. Okay, what if I turn up with your favourite bubble tea?” 

"Then we might have a deal.” 

They both laughed softly, pushing each other with their elbows as they walked up Micha’s street. At one point, Chan had looped his arm around hers before shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets and as they talked about their recent adventures and all the dumb things they’d done, it was clear that he was avoiding the pain of saying goodbye right until he stopped at her front door.

She turned to him and forced down the tears burning at the edges of her eyes. The morning light had slithered through the landscape now and hit the side of Chan’s face in a scarlet shade of golden, reflecting the caramel of his orbs pinning her down with a sadness that made her throat choke up.

“Stop it,” the words flew from her mouth without warning and Chan blinked, head tilting with confusion, “What? Stop what?” 

“Stop...looking at me like that,” she finished her sentence in a mumble while she averted her eyes in growing embarrassment.

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re going to cry.” 

“I’m not!” 

“There are tears in your eyes!” 

“N-No there aren’t!” And he quickly wiped at his face before angling his head to the side, “why would I cry for you?” 

“You tell me.” 

“Well I’m not!” He turned away to walk down the driveway in a huff, “bye now!” 

“Ugh bye loser!” 

Micha turned so quickly she almost smacked her face onto her front door, hurriedly trying to erase the image of Chan’s back walking away from her before she broke down into a pool of hot tears.

She didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to linger upon the way her throat seemed to choke up as she fought the emotion--

"Micha?” 

Chan’s voice. It floated between them, a lingering question. The said girl felt rooted in place, fighting the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. 

And when she turned, she was met with his arms lacing around her middle to pull her close. 

His chin on her shoulder, head pressed against hers. Holding her tight. 

“Video calls every week,” he murmured, “at least one text per day.” 

"What are you? My boyfriend?” 

“Micha.” 

“Fine, fine.” 

Chan's warmth felt like sunshine on her back. If she closed her eyes hard enough she could travel back to that very moment she allowed herself to be swayed back and forth in those strong arms of his.

In the weeks following the start of their final year Micha had plunged headfirst into her studies to avoid the slow build-up of homesickness crawling through her heart. And the more work piled up, the less she found time to update Chan on her life. What with her endless hours spent in the library and the small bursts of freedom that she spent with her course mates, it made it close to impossible to sit down and have a proper talk.

So when Chan video-called her one day, her burst of excitement was soon rendered to something akin to annoyance when the only reason was to tell her about Ayeong’s visit to his campus. She couldn’t ignore the slight sting of jealousy coating the back of her tongue as he blabbered off like an excited child, eyes shining and all. 

“I think I might ask her out at the end of this week,” he grinned with dreamy eyes, “I think there’s definitely something.” 

“Good for you.” 

He’d noticed her irritation, as if there was an itch under her skin she couldn’t quite reach, “You okay, Mi? I didn’t even get to ask--”

“I’m fine,” she snapped and softened almost instantly when hurt flashed through his face, “I’m sorry,...just stressed out.” 

“Hey,” concern immediately clouded his features over, “you gotta take care of yourself too. Are you eating well? Sleeping well?” 

A sigh of frustration escaped his lips when she’d shook her head reluctantly, “Don’t make me come over. You know I can do that.” 

“That would be nice,” came her mumble which didn’t reach his ears, for he asked, “What?” 

“Nothing,” she sighed, brushing off the wistful thoughts swimming inside her head and focusing back on Chan’s face at the other end of the screen, “keep me updated with the Ayeong thing.” 

She’s not right for you, her brain seemed to scream. 

But Ayeong did. She did say yes.

And Micha wasn’t sure why she was feeling so bitter about it.

. ° ☆ ° .

"Please sign here, miss.” 

Micha’s surprised orbs quickly flitted up from the large cardboard box to the postman’s clipboard being shoved in her face, “Uh--sure.”

She scrawled her initials, gave back the clipboard with a muttered ‘thanks’ before the postman shoved the box in her arms and walked away without even giving her a second glance. 

Had she ordered something online by accident? That wouldn’t be surprising. Since midterm season, time had been irrelevant to Micha, flowing like a ticking time bomb the more the days approached towards her final deadlines.

To say that she was a walking corpse on campus was not an understatement. 

She got her answer a few minutes later when she answered the phone from a very excited, puppy-like Chan. 

“Did you get it?!” he bellowed with barely contained excitement. Still wrapped up in his blankets with his hair dishevelled and his eyes barely open, Micha couldn’t help but grin at the comical picture he presented, “did you get the package?” 

“By package, you mean this big-ass box?” Micha turned the camera to the floor, causing him to squeal like a child who got his Christmas presents early. 

“Oh nice! Open it, come on!” 

“Chan, I swear if it’s something like one of those scary muppets you like so much--”

“You have so little faith in me.” 

“Can you blame me when you were the one who put salt in my coffee?” 

“It was just to experiment.” 

“That coffee was of good quality!” 

“Just open it." 

She tore open the package while grumbling under her breath at how bossy he was being, cracked open the box to blink at the different flavours of tea filling it up to the brim. 

“You--” she couldn’t help the laughter from bubbling up her throat, “you got me tea?” 

“Wait--unless I got this wrong -- you like tea right?” 

His panicked tone made her burst out in even more laughter, “Oh my god Chan!” 

“You always tell me to spill the tea--I was just trying to be punny.” 

“It’s--Oh my god--” she doubled over laughing and Chan joined in with giggles of his own, “Chan, you’re so bad.” 

“Admit it, it’s funny.”

“It’s lame!” 

She grinned back at her phone as warmth spread through her middle. It was admittedly in moments like these that she missed Chan the most. The longing to see him suddenly surged through her with such ferocity in the form of tears slowly brimming at the corner of her eyes and she had to turn away while changing the subject. 

“Got any plans this weekend?” she asked while looking over the various flavours of tea.

“Oh didn’t I tell you? Ayeong’s coming.” 

She almost choked on her own spit. Right. She’d forgotten about the whole Ayeon situation and Chan hadn’t updated her since then. 

"We’re spending the weekend together, I think I might bring her to the aquarium. Oh, I was gonna ask you -- what do girls like on their first dates?” his face was now alight with such a joyful glow, a spark in his eyes, that it almost hurt to look at him. 

“Does Ayeong like aquariums to start with?” Micha asked even if she secretly adored going to aquariums herself. It was admittedly a very romantic notion, to hold hands in the darkened rooms as you would watch the fish swim about. 

Chan shrugged on the other side of the screen, “dunno, thought it might be romantic.” 

You thought right, Micha’s subconscious responded, “what about just dinner?” she proposed, “maybe Ayeong wants to spend time talking. You know, getting to know each other.” 

"Hm, true. Yeah, I might look up a good restaurant. Girls don't like fast foods do they? Or anything that makes them gain weight?"

The angry creature was slowly rousing in her stomach, growling, "how would I know?"

"Well, you're a girl."

"That's exactly what the lame redheaded sidekick in Harry Potter said."

"FYI, his name is Ron and he’s not lame."

"That's not the point I was trying to make."

"Michaaaa~" Chan whined, wriggling his shoulders with a pout, "I gave you tea, stop being mean to me."

But it was useless. All the giddiness that had erupted through her at his sweet gesture was eaten up by a bitter taste on her tongue and with that she hurriedly made up a petty excuse about having class before quickly cutting off the call.

She brought her phone to her chest as she looked down at the tea boxes with growing tiredness. That was probably it right? She was in a bad mood because she was tired.

Right?

. ° ☆ ° .

"I still don't get why we have to watch it with you," Micha grumbled, plopping down beside Felix's lanky frame on the couch and careful not to jostle the bowl of salted caramel popcorn in her hands.

"Because I can't be the only one who can't sleep tonight," Changbin stated dryly like that statement totally made sense. He plopped down on her other side while Jisung settled himself against Micha's legs, "if I go down, you go down with me."

Felix snorted, "that's just a nice way to say that he likes bullying us."

Midterms were over, meaning that reading week would be a pleasurable moment of calm and serenity before assignments picked up again. It was a liminal space between deadlines, a gap that Micha and the rest of her course mates had gladly welcomed with open arms. Being the movie fanatic that he was, Changbin had jumped at the chance of hosting movie night, much to the group's displeasure for they knew that his taste in entertainment was rather jarring. Sometimes violent. And sometimes, brought about nightmares that lasted a week.

"What are we watching again?" Jisung twisted his head to look at the trio, causing both Micha and Felix to shoot Changbin accusatory looks.

"The nun," Changbin replied.

Felix whistled as Jisung jumped up crying, "Do you want me to die?!"

"No. But do you mind if we sleep in the same room tonight?"

"Fuck you I'm out of here," Jisung was already scrambling to his feet when Micha's hand shot out, clamping down on his forearm, "oh no no no, you're going down with the rest of us, Han."

"Do you know how scary that movie is?!"

"Yes, which is precisely why we're going to murder Changbin once it's ov--"

Felix's phone sprang to life amidst the conversation, "oh Chan's calling!"

The group wasted no time squishing up, limbs entangling and elbows pushing onto ribs as they all crowded around Felix's small smartphone that he held at arm's distance before sliding his finger over the green button.

"Hey mate!" Felix's Australian accent slipped out the moment Chan's face appeared onscreen and Micha would've lied to say it didn't sting a little seeing her best friend's face after so long.

"What's up Felix? Oh you're all here?" Chan's grin widened.

" Changbin's forcing us to watch the Nun with him," Micha said.

" Tattletale," muttered the said hooded-eyed man as he shoved her head. Micha laughed.

" And you? What are you up to?" Felix asked while Jisung was struggling to push Changbin's arm to get into the camera frame, " Bin, fucking move."

"Language."

" Oh I'm with Ayeong right now. Hyunjin and Minho are playing FIFA," Chan moved the camera around until Ayeong's petite face came into view, causing a knot to form in Micha's abdomen.

"Hello!"

" Ayeong! Lookin' good!"

" How's Channie treating you?"

" Has he farted in front of you yet?"

" Guys!" Chan's checks proceeded to flood with colour while the said young woman giggled in the background.

" As a matter of fact, he's been nothing but respectful."

Ugh. She was so sweet that it made Micha feel sick in her stomach. But as though Ayeong had read her mind, she immediately asked, "Micha, are the guys treating you well? How's your thesis coming along? Chan tells me you practically live in the library."

" What?” Jisung snorted, “that's not true, she--" 

Micha elbowed him before he could splutter out the truth when she had been lying to Chan all along and blabbered out, “Yeah I've been trying to finish my thesis in time because the first deadline is in two weeks. And you? How’s your internship at the hotel going?” 

Micha was thankful when Ayeong chatted on about her experience as a hotel management trainee at one of the best hotel chains in the country. It was a close call and she smacked Jisung some more for good measure, throwing him a narrow-eyed glare which he returned with a scowl of his own, rubbing the sore spot on his arm. 

As the conversation moved on to the topic of the holidays, Micha’s eyes automatically drifted to the diminished space between Chan and Ayeong’s shoulders, noticed the way he kept leaning back with his arm slowly crawling its way to Ayeong’s backside. Something tugged at her heartstrings, caused her to swallow hard. It was clear from the obvious grin on her best friend’s face that he was the happiest he’d ever been since...well, since.

All Micha wanted was to be happy for Chan. Genuinely happy. 

Not the kind of happiness that made her wish she was miles away and blind, not the kind that made her chest ache and her heart hurt as though someone had just gutted her insides out.

At some point, she excused herself and walked out into the backyard, hands shoved in the pockets of her hoodie as she looked up into the murky, cloudy sky above. How long had it been since they’d last spoken? There was no one to blame for that. They were both sprinting at a hundred miles an hour and she couldn’t blame Chan for falling so hard, so quickly, too quickly for a girl that was so easy, so loveable. Ayeong was the perfect match for him, now that Micha thought about it. 

And plus, Chan had been talking about her for ages.

But she still didn’t get it. Still didn’t understand why it constantly felt as though someone was slapping reality in her face. 

Over and over again.

“Micha!” 

Felix’s head popping out from the kitchen doorway made the said young woman swivel around, quickly rearranging her features in a cold mask of indifference, “Chan wants to talk to you.” 

“Why?” 

Even in the dark she saw Felix’s eyebrow quirk up, “you’re asking?” 

That was stupid, Micha’s subconscious rolled her eyes as she reluctantly trudged to the kitchen door and grabbed the phone from Felix’s hold. She waited for the door to close behind her before lifting the camera to her face.

“What?” 

Chan’s arms were crossed in an attempt to appear mad, though they both knew it would take a lot more to ignite that anger in him, “ Well hello there, stranger. Nice of you to show your face after weeks of going off radar. No messages, no phone calls. We were supposed to call every week. What have you got to say for yourself?” 

In any normal circumstances Micha would’ve shot back with a witty comeback without thinking as she usually did. That was the nature of their relationship after all; that endless bickering, that back and forth sibling relationship that made her feel so at ease in her skin that she sometimes forgot Chan wasn’t even part of her family.

Right now though, she felt her free hand twitch, index finger pressing onto her thumb as she nervously grated at her skin.

Biting onto her bottom lip, the only thing she managed to muster out was, “sorry.” 

Surprise flashed through Chan’s face. There was a heavy silence for a minute.

“Micha,” Chan murmured, “what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.” 

" Sure. Care to tell me what 'nothing' is about?"

"Chan, please," She rubbed a tired hand over her face, " I'm just not feeling it today."

He stared at her for a whole minute. Micha felt herself starting to squirm.

" Okay," he mumbled out, " Okay."

Regret instantly bit at her subconscious. She loathed the slight disappointment on his face and in a half- hearted attempt to lighten the mood, she quickly veered into another subject and ignored the poignant stare he kept sending her way. She'd rather be oblivious than try and extort some coherent sense out of the tangled ball of feelings in her stomach.

When they said goodbye though, Chan leaned a little closer to the screen, an undecipherable expression on his face, " call me when you feel better."

Micha nodded and swallowed thickly.

" I mean it Micha," his voice was stern, " call me."

Maybe it was the guilt whispering at the back of her conscience, maybe it was the way she saw a flash of his face in a stranger's every time she walked the streets that made her reach out to Chan once more in the next few days after that, willing herself to make as much effort as he did. Because Chan deserved that much.

They would text in-between classes, a mixture of casual jokes and an exchange of anime-related jokes that he kept sending her and causing her to burst out laughing in the middle of her classes. But while she was glad to see that Chan had no grudges to her lack of response, she still tried to steer clear of mentioning Ayeong.

That was starting to become more and more problematic.

Chan: Ayeong is allergic to crab. Did you know that?!

Micha: No

Chan: we went to eat at that snack stand, the one near the skate park we used to go to. She blew up like a goldfish.

Micha would've given anything to see that ridiculous sight. That was quickly overtaken by the stubborn pang of jealousy at the thought of them going to places she visited so frequently with Chan. 

It didn’t stop there. 

A few days later, Chan had texted her about their dinner to his parents' house and her stomach dropped like she'd just fallen down an elevator shaft.

Chan: They loved her. They actually loved her. I think my heart is gonna explode.

Micha had to force out a reply:

Micha: what did your mum cook?

Chan: guess.

Micha: pork ribs and braised beef?

Chan: yess omg! You actually remember. Ayeong loved it. She eats a lot for her size. And dad sat her down after dinner to show off his chess awards. The nerd.

Micha: cool.

Thankfully, her internship started a few weeks later, which meant that it was easier to ignore the glow of happiness in Chan's face and the way he seemed to be drifting away from her arms, slipping through her fingers no matter how much she tried to grasp at the strings of their relationship -- or what seemed to be left of it.

"You sure you don't want to come back home for Winter Break?" Felix asked once when he'd turned up at her shared flat uninvited just as she was closing the door to hurry for her night shift. He’d followed her down the staircase, long legs easily matching her pace as she took two steps at a time. 

“I can’t,” Micha replied breathlessly through her scarf, “I’ve got my internship.”

“Surely you can ask for a few days off? Just for Christmas?” 

"Nope."

Beside her, Felix grumbled, "You're no fun."

"Never said I was."

Micha had to admit that the reason why it hadn't been as hard to ignore the growing hole in her heart where Chan was supposed to be was all due to the three young men standing by her side. As childish as they were, they all had good intentions and it made Micha's heart fill with warmth whenever they did make it obvious that they cared.

Her phone buzzed suddenly just as the pair reached the bus stop. She quickly fished it out of her bag, eyebrows pinching in a frown upon seeing her father's name flashing across the screen.

"Hello?" She gave Felix a shrug when he mouthed whether everything was okay from her side. Nothing. 

She repeated, "hello? Pa? You there?"

"Micha."

Her frown deepened at the sound of her father's voice. He sounded breathless, a tone higher than his usual alto.

"Pa, what's wrong?"

"It's your mother. There was an accident."

. ° ☆ ° .

"What happened?"

Less than six hours later, Micha sat in the hospital corridor right outside her mother's room. She still had on her nurse uniform, completely dismissing all of her responsibilities and obligations the moment her father had informed her of her mother's accident.

If she were to be honest, she wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to make it back without her knees giving away. But Felix had been there, a silent stone figure at her side as she'd thrown a bunch of clothes in a carry-on suitcase and grabbing the laptop from her shaky hands to book the earliest flight which was to depart in merely two hours.

Nothing had mattered then. Nothing but the need to see her mother and make sure that everything was fine. She didn't remember going through security, didn't even remember the plane taking off while gazing out of the window with a glazed look in her eyes and forcing down all the tears strangling her throat.

Micha's brain only came into focus the moment she was greeted by none other than her father’s face, heavy bags under his eyes and the tip of his nose red. 

Multiple lacerations. A broken femur. Heavy concussion that might result in potential brain damage. Words that Micha knew off by heart, could recite them in her sleep if she wanted to. Words that she’d spent months and endless sleepless nights poring over. 

Words that shot bullets through her, each one leaving an open wound. 

“She was waiting for the bus.” 

Her father’s voice, old and gravelled and shattered, brought her back to the reality of the hospital. His alto strung through the air of the corridor like a tightly coiled string about to snap. 

Micha took a shaky breath.

“I...I was late. At the restaurant. Too many people,” all the time that her father spoke, his gaze was glued to the operation door where Micha’s mother laid as if he could will her back to good health if he stared at it hard enough, “So she went back home first because she had to feed the cat. That stupid cat...If it weren’t--If it weren’t for him she wouldn’t have gotten hit--” he choked on his words, “--by the bus.” 

Cold dread threaded through Micha’s stomach and squeezed so tight she thought she would pass out. Her brain was already trying to put two and two together; finding the solution, figuring out the case, the damage. The solution, the--

“They said there’s little chance that she’ll wake up.” 

Reality struck like cold ice.

“What...” her mouth was dry, “...percentage?”

“fifty-fifty.” 

Her eyes slipped closed, squeezed tight. Silence trailed on with only the bustling sound of medical equipment and a hushed flurry of voices in the distance. 

Do something, her brain screamed at her, just do something! 

There was nothing she could do. Nothing. Her hands clamped into fists so hard her nails stung her palms. All she could do was wait.

So she did.

She must’ve dozed off at some point. Time seemed endless as the hours ticked by and by the time her mother was wheeled out, exhaustion was pulsating through her every muscle, her every limb. She stayed awake long enough to listen to the doctor’s statement, only to storm out in frustration upon realizing that there was no real answer and that the only thing that had been possible to do was stitch up her mother’s wounds as best as they could. 

In short, the doctor himself didn’t know when she’d wake up.

Micha was so intent on walking out for some fresh air that she barely processed a familiar alto calling her name in the distance, until a pair of arms snatched her shoulders back. 

She whipped around, “What?!--”

Her eyes fell upon Chan. 

Time stopped. Her mouth parted. 

Red-faced and with his beanie all the way down to cover himself from the cold, she would’ve barely recognized him if they were passerby’s on the street. But as he stood there with his runny nose and eyes that looked like they’d just cracked open, a wave of emotion hit Micha with such intensity that tears brimmed through her eyes. 

“Felix told me what happened. I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, I--”

And that was when Micha broke down into ugly sobs, legs giving away only to be saved by Chan’s arms wounding around her middle to pull her against his chest. 

Amidst it all, she swore she heard her heart breaking.

She wasn’t sure whether it was because of her mother. Or because throughout it all, even in the worst of times, she had come to a realization that knocked the breath out of her. 

She loved Chan. 

. ° ☆ ° .

Tagging: @elysianxshepherd​ @maedesculpaeusoubi​ @missskzbiased​ @freckledquokka​ @allyg-onz​ 

[epicspheal]

Heya! I hope your doing well!

Ever since swsh gave the rivals something to do after the fact( something that I believe only happened to Blue), I can't help but think of the rivals prior who haven't. What do you think they end up doing? I know that Blue ends up becoming a gym leader, but would still be interesting what you plan for him too! :3

Hi there @ihopethisendswell! So actually, it's the norm typically for the rivals to have something to do, even if it's just continuing being a roaming trainers. Being a roaming trainer is still just as valid of a career path as other routes given the way the Pokemon world works, it's just not as solid of a career path as say gym leader or research assistant. Pokemon Sword and Shield is one of the only main games that really puts emphasis on the rivals' alternate careers paths as part of the plot outside of the gen 5 games. So like you have Blue who becomes gym leader and also helps his grandpa with his research by still be a roaming trainer (much to the frustration of anyone trying to challenge his gym). By the time of Sun and Moon/USUM he has ditched the gym to become battle facility which ultimately given his status as a former champion ends up being a much more fitting role. Granted he needed that time as a gym leader as long standing humbling exercise so it wasn't a bad call at all. Then we have Silver, who remains a roaming trainer, though he kind of mainly sticks around the Dragon's Den because he really wants to avenge that loss to Lance and show how much he has changed. Then we have Brendan/May (when not the protagonist) who end up going back to being full time assistants professor Birch. Wally on the other hand, is much like Silver in that he continue to be a roaming trainer, with him staying around the Battle Resort in ORAS with him eventually going to the Battle Tree by the time the SM/USUM events occur.

Barry also follows the roaming trainer route with him staying Stark Mountain in Diamond/Pearl and with Platinum he hangs around the Survival area.

Gen 5 is where the rival's future goals get the most attention, and was the best well done (SwSh in my opinion failed hard on the rival's goals bar Klara and Avery's). Bianca is still my favorite "how to do a future career path" ending in the entirety of series which is she really doesn't know. She ends up taking up a position as Professor's Juniper's assistant. However it's this linefrom Bianca in Pokemon Black 2/White 2 that I really enjoyed:

"Actually, I'm not sure being a professor's assistant is really what I want to do... But when I do the work, I have lots and lots of fun!" I really appreciated that they allowed Bianca to have doubts that this is her final career path. She's still a child and I can remember when I was her age (God, I sound so old) how many career paths I thought about in that time frame...and only one of those comes even remotely close to what I'm attempting to go back to school for. I liked how she's just trying to things and aiming for experiences while not trying to commit herself to one specific path. Now obviously this could theoretically be true for any number of the rivals as with the exception of Blue (and Wally although for some odd reason they didn't give him an aged up model considering he'd be just as old as Red and Blue are) we don't see them as adults and their ambitions could very well have indeed changed over the years. Then you have Cheren who after that scolding from Alder really begins to question his pursuit of strength and what he really wants to do. Cue 2 years later in BW2 where we see him as the Aspertia City gym leader as well a lecturer at the trainer's school. Fitting as it shows his desire and capabilities as a trainer but also allowing a more concrete goal than just pursuing strength but actually overseeing the future generations. And Hugh, another one of my favorite characters, concludes his story arc on forgiveness (since he had absolutely none for Team Plasma at the beginning of the story) ends up a roaming trainer but also helping the good side Team Plasma in Driftveil City reunite Pokemon that were stolen during the events of Black/White to their original trainers. So he has a goal and really touching one I might add, one of the few that doesn't revolve around battling or researching.

Then there's the XY rivals who were admittedly the most shafted. They all pretty much end up as roaming trainers except for Trevor who already had the aim of completing the Pokedex for Professor Sycamore and he continues to do so.

The no specific aim works the best, in my opinion, for Shauna as she really didn't have much of a goal to begin with outside of travelling/making memories, and much like I said with Bianca, it's okay for characters to not have a specific end game (although I personally see Bianca's route as better as although she isn't quite sure what she wants to do, she does take initiative and actively pursue a goal to gain experience and see if it's for her).

Serena/Calem (again when not the protag) having no set aim also works because they were most competitive of the group and continuing to be a trainer makes sense, but since they get hardly any development it just feels hollow and not satisfying. At least with characters like Wally, Silver and Barry who are roaming they all went through some major development. Lack of major development plus no end game just makes Serena and Calem unfortunately just not stand out.

Then Tierno...poor Tierno. He's my favorite XY character and I hate that screwed over so poorly. He actually a goal but the game doesn't allow us to see how a dance team would work. Kalos really could've benefitted from a Pokemon Contest/Musical like sidequest where Tierno shines in. So him being a roaming trainer is just...meh.

Now moving on to Gen 7 and best boy Hau (Hau's up there with Blue and Leon as one of my favorite Pokemon characters PERIOD). In both Sun and Moon and USUM he's a roaming trainer but I argue that Sun and Moon actually wrapped up his character better, despite USUM giving him much more in the way of development. By that I mean he explicitly mentions to the player that he wants become strong enough to find his father who fled Alola because the pressure of being the Kahuna's son was too much. So yeah he is still just a regular trainer, but he does have an explicit goal that goes beyond just trying to continue to measure up to the player. He also helps to train the reforming Team Skull grunts in the art of Alolan SuMo. In USUM this is erased for a more generic roaming trainer scenario unfortunately. Gladion's fate also changes depending on what version of the Gen 7 games you play. With Sun and Moon he ends up taking over as Aether's president but also still trains on the side as he is one of the challengers that can come for your title in the post game. In Ultra Sun and Moon he actually takes the "I'm going to Kanto" route instead of Lillie although he actually back and is essentially a roaming trainer since Lusamine's villainy was nerfed and therefore allowed to stay as Aether's president

Then there's Trace who ends up champion then loses it, but keeps on going in this endless circle of trying to reclaim it from the player. And then finally the Gen 8 rivals where we have Bede, Marnie, Klara and Avery all become gym leaders and Hop is a professor. Despite this cast having the most focus on their future paths since the gen 5 rivals I don't think they were done that well. Like Klara and Avery's worked, really well and they're probably the only rivals bar Trace and Blue who actually their goals (with them actually maintaining there dream status because their goal didn't involve becoming champion).

I've talked about Hop's on this post before but the lack of genuine foreshadowing just made his sudden declaration of wanting to be a Pokemon Professor just come out of nowhere. And honestly considering the fact that he had just come out of a depressive stage and still hadn't quite addressed his idolization issues I think he would've been served better with the Bianca route where yes he becomes Sonia's assistant, but it's clear that he's still trying to find his new path and that he's just open to trying out research rather than making a rather bold claim that this was his new career path. Either that or do better in the foreshadowing where he shows he has a much clearer interest in academia but feels like he needs to be a champion like his brother.

Then there's Marnie who I've also stated was kind of screwed over. Because she made it rather clear to Piers she didn't want to be gym leader (which makes sense given that she saw how that position screwed over older brother that she admires). She's pretty much doing this because she still has the motivation to save her hometown which is extremely admirable and mature. But also it's sad, like if she didn't have to do this, would she honestly still be gym leader. I think not, at least not immediately. Considering that gym challengers can still compete on the big stage with the champion's cup rematches and some even can be invited to the Galarian Stars Tournament, I think if I had of written that I would've focused on how with Leon as the head of MC he's going to actually work with Spikemuth to revitalize without shouldering the responsibility on one single person, especially a minor. And let her be a roaming trainer and live for herself and not continue to be Spikemuth's martyr.

Then there's Bede who quite vocally states when crashing the Champion's Cup that he was ready to retire. Like poor boy goes from being used as Rose's wishing star collector and fall boy to Opal's reirement plan. Like yes it's great that Opal actually remembers his name and gives him a support system and teaches him some discipline. But still it's kind of sad as he was very much okay with retiring but more or less gets goaded into staying because of the stadium audience.

So this post got way longer than I what it was going to be but hey that happens. But yeah too long don't read, all of the rivals do have a goal, even if a lot of them end up as roaming trainers. If I'm honest in most cases (bar the gen 6 rivals because they lacked developent) the roaming trainer thing works. Because they're kids and they still have their whole lives ahead of them and they don't need to have concrete job just yet. Especially because in some cases the concrete plan just doesn't always fit the character. It works best when it feels like an organic part of the story and not just trying to wrap things up for the sake of wrapping things up.

Finally, to answer your question about how I deal with Blue. Well in my Pokeverse (dubbed cactusverse in case you see me refer to my AU as this), I tend to be fairly canon compliant to the games. So after he loses his champion title to Red he becomes Viridian gym leader, slightly patches things up with grandfather by helping with the research and eventuallya head of the Battle Tree as an adult once he gains the Battle Legend Status (which is an actual legitimate title in cactusverse held currently only by him, Red and Leaf, although one of my OCs gets this designation as well). So nothing that really deviates from canon except for some offscreen events. Basically the battle legend status is bestowed if a major event happens that is taken care of by an already established powerful trainer. So there's a rather major plot thing the Kanto Trio gets involved in that once they take care of gives them their status.

Also for cactusverse there's the whole issue of the Viridian City gym. So it eventually it gets passed down to Trace as Blue has shown that he's become a bit too powerful to be a gym leader. He was honestly when he first got it probably still a bit overkill for an 8th gym leader, but he also really needed an attitude adjustment. And with Lance being a far better father figure to him than Oak could ever dream of, with the help of Agatha tried to rein in his egotistical and self important ways by giving him the position. Which worked very well. Still in cactusverse there's rules on the win percentage a gym can have and that's determined by position. Win too many for your rank and you get moved, vice versa if you lose too many, and sometimes you might even lose your position. The first and last gym leaders are always the most at risk of losing their status. This actually happens to Wallace, Iris and eventually Raihan because they just end up exceeding the strength of most challengers who try to challenge them. Hence why all three of them end up champions at some point cactusverse (Raihan does not become Galar's champion, but Johto's champion since I really like the idea of him spreading his wings beyong Galar).

Blue between the time of BW2 and SM had ended up getting to a point that no one had gotten a gym badge off of him in a couple of years which is unacceptable by league standards and he would've gotten booted out sooner had Lance not personally asked my OC Terra to come kick his butt and get a badge off of him. And cue possibly the most iconic and brutal gym battles to have ever gone down in a region of outside of Galar because two heartbroken champion tier trainers, who broke each other's heart is a recipe for a frightening battle. Lance happened to referree that match and might be a little traumatized. Terra won and he was able to give out his last badge before Red came back from his latest global trip and said let's go to Alola.

[wanderingwolfwitcher]

"Perhaps so. Though to be fair they have the naivete of youth, a misguided belief in chivalry, and have never been outside their sunny fairy tale land... while I have about a century of hands on, practical experience, wandering the Continent and meeting its worst folk. Perhaps Witchers are not the only ones who should walk the Path. Does wonders for insight into people and reality... if you survive the experience."

Eskel's deep, amused voice observed and reasoned, marred features smiling again faintly between further bites and sips of his breakfast. Memories stirring of the times he had been as naive as any knight in shining armor, when he had first set out on the path long ago. It hadn't taken long to gradually awaken him to what the older Witchers had warned him about where people were concerned, at Kaer Morhen, in their preparing him for the Path. They had proven as dangerous or more so than the monsters, in a variety of unpleasant ways. And that had been before even the pogrom, back when Witchers had been more or less treated better than they were now. The better part of his scars had probably come from people. Women especially, he silently noted, absently rubbing his itching, mutilated cheek. He had learned quickly not to underestimate them... not having grown up around any. He hadn't even seen one before until he first set out on the Path as a young man. All he had known was what the older Witchers had told him, which had admittedly been biased and not always helpful.

Then Syanna rummaged and brought out something he hadn't been expecting. The sight of the paper was entirely welcome, liable to save them a good deal of trouble, at least. Less complications on the Path, and another break by destiny. Assuming those they used the paper on swallowed the story, and word hadn't spread from Toussaint, the search for them expanding. Given the Duchess' reputation, she was liable to call for bounty hunters and such if her beloved knights in shining armor failed at their task. Though he welcomed the prospect, bumbling fools or not he had little desire to harm naive, well meaning knights. Not a moral restraint that would have to apply to professional, cutthroat bounty hunters. At any rate, it was liable to be enough to get them to Nazair, at least. She had certainly thought ahead for their journey, thankfully, had not fled without thinking it through. The Witcher chuckled under his breath when she tucked it back away, slowly shaking his head, taking another drink of his Mahakaman Spirit, raising it towards her as if in a toast, smiling faintly, before speaking again.

"Your little sister will probably blow a gasket for that alone, have another royal temper tantrum, if she finds out. Heard from Wolf how she can get. Never mind us vanishing suddenly. Still, there's a tool for every task, an old Witcher proverb, we'll make good use of that seal. Of everything we got. Might not have to mind control or erase as many memories now, at least. I do try to restrain myself, where using magic on others is concerned. Enough scheming bastard mages in the world running around abusing the stuff as it is."

@starwrittenfates

"Mmm. Lucky us. Always welcome to have something good to look forward to on a journey. Aside from the no less welcome prospect of dragging Stregobor from his tower and hunting down Eltibald, of course. Sounds like a plan then, pretty lady."

Eskel's deep, calm voice returned to the dark haired noblewoman with a nod and faint smirk on his marred visage, enhanced senses picking up her quickened pulse at his flirtation. Silently pleased to have such an effect. Well, at least the interest seemed to be genuine and mutual. Time would tell where it would lead, but he had a fairly confident feeling which direction, by now. He was no more innocent than she was. The wink didn't hurt the odds either. For now, he willed himself to focus on the present, taking things one matter at a time. He went to fetch some leftovers from the other night's stew while she prepared herself a breakfast, taking the time to heat up his stew before he dug in, along with eating some bread and having some Mahakaman Ale. Perfect early morning breakfast for a Witcher. From her past experiences Sylvia Anna was used to roughing it at least... he seriously doubted her lavish younger sister could undertake a similar journey without luxuries. Between bites and sips, the Witcher looked outward to the mouth of the cavern, focusing his senses outside to the early morning light. Sensing the weather and movements of the wind and animals amid the trees, before nodding with satisfaction, viper eyes returning to her lovely sapphire pair and low tone speaking up again between bites.

"Weather seems like it will be on our side, at least. For the moment. Should make good progress today. Hopefully be around human civilization by nightfall. Of course that will present other challenges... but never been adverse to those. Survived this long facing them daily. Though I'll grant this is unfamiliar territory, unfamiliar folk. Get the feeling my Axii Sign is going to see a fair amount of usage, in Nilfgaardian territory."

@starwrittenfates

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon, im gonna start combing the two separate submissions again cause its getting too short to have them separate I think?

1: His possession messed with memories Ranbob had before, so memories of school friends or playing with Ran were distant to erased. Though after Dreams possession it was also harder to make and keep memories. But thankfully as Ranbob was recovering from Dream and got futher away making memories came eaiser to him, though he'll never get back the memories he lost. 

3: Oh he would very quickly grow to regret his decision, but it would be funny. And Benjamin would later admit that while it was annoying and stressful, it was also fun and he was very happy to have his two families meet and generally get along. 

8: Everyone is just in shocked silence before Cletus just goes "YEAHHHHHHHHHH!" Oddly happy that Ranboo committed so much arson. Oh definitely, after all the outcasts of society where put there. Of course people would make such negative rumors about Mizu and treat the people as the scum of the earth. Though this also means, people don't know what happened in Mizu, and anyone who knows, view it in a more happy and a "Their finally gone" type of way, then viewing it as the tragedy it was. 

Spoons is a card game technically. A group of people sit in a group and everyone gets 4 cards, and you keep discarding at least 1 card of yours to the person on your left, who then does the same to their person on their left, the last person in the group puts a card into a discard pile. The goal is to get 4 of the same cards, and once someone gets 4 of the same cards, that person goes and grabs a spoon in a pile in front of them (let's say there's 5 players, theres only going to be 4 spoons cause there's always a spoon less than the people playing), once they grab one anyone can grab a spoon. And the person who doesn't get a spoon gets a S added to them, once Spoons is spelled the person gets out of the game, and a spoon gets removed to continue the game. Basically for flowers its played the exact same way but with flowers in the middle expect for spoons.

11: I just imagine Dream sulking in a corner as you yell at him and him going like "well I didn't know…" as he kicks a stone. And he wasnt sure what it was, but quickly jumped on the idea that maybe it was the fact that Ran was still alive somewhere, and that that's causing Ranbob to willingly let himself become weak and defy him. Causing Dream to become angrier at Ran and punish Ranbob harder. 

----

3: During the brothers fight in the storm, and after everyone runs off to find Ranbob, Ran is left alone. And he decides to just wander off into the storm, not protecting himself from the rain so he does get burnt. The whole time he's lost deep in thought and isn't really paying attention. He continues to wander for a whole day unfollowed (because after the Gladiators and Fishermen came back to the cave after finding Ranbob they are in no rush to find Ran and decide to look for him after the storm passes, which takes a full day) and at some point Raq finds him wandering. Which Raq then uses Rans distraction to his advantage and attacks him. At first only really the gladiators where concerned when they found Ran gone. But once they found him blinded and terrified everyone felt awful and a looming sense of guilt. And everyone continued to feel that way, even after they got the antidote and Ran started to see again.

4: They would just leave Ranbob alone and check in on him every now and again. But generally let him deal with it himself. They'd feel guilty leaving him alone, but they also know that they can't really do anything for him as their not prepared or briefed on how to help him in this situation. 

10: Oh definitely, even with Ran blinded they would've been kicked out immediately for fighting, without even a second glance. Dont forget, Ran still cares for his brother. And maybe, losing his sight made him face the side of him that wanted to become family again with Ranbob, maybe it brought enough to light that he just can't ignore it anymore. Mostly only negative potions can be permanent, like posion, blinding, wither, and nausea (I know the last like 3/2 are effects but they've also found a way to make effects into potions.). You already know what a antidote for blindness would be. A antidote for wither would be, a ghast tear (actually a basic ingredient for almost every antidote), blaze powder, and glistening melon to make a overpowered healing potion. Antidote for posion would be ghast tear, swiftness (so it acts fast to get rid of the posion), and the 3rd ingredient depends on what kind of posion it  was (posion that has a side effect of constricting or filling the lungs with water? Pufferfish and Turtle shell for last ingredients. Posion that has weakness? Blaze powder, and glistening melon) And antidote for nausea would be ghast tear, and potion of slowness to allow the person to slowly feel better, so their nausea doesn't hit them all at once before disappearing, which can cause them to throw up or have side effects. 

13: Thats exactly what they did. 

14: Jackie will 100% attempt to fight God and no one can stop him. :) (to be honest im not sure yet, I know I want to do more with Raq and have the idea that maybe he could be the person that finds Dream and gets him out of Mizu, but that's pretty often used in stories and I want to try to think of something more unique. Maybe I'll have it so Raq actually manages to capture the brothers or at least one of them and uses them as blackmail?)

15: When Ranbob was a child and Ran was just a baby Ranbob would often take Ran out of his crib and take him to go watch the fish swim by. When Ran was old enough he'd follow Ranbob everywhere, even a few times he managed to sneak into Ranbobs class room and almost wasn't caught. Ran got extremely clingy one day and managed to gather his haunting all up into his arms and carried them around, even though he was obviously struggling. And Ranbob used to complain about his teachers and idiotic classmates whenever he got home, which is funny when you consider Ran was very impressiable at the time and Ran started mimicking Ranbob, leading to him cursing, much to Ranbobs dismay. 

And im curious, do you have any questions that I havent answered? Or do you have any ideas for anything? I'd love to hear whatever you have to say about anything honestly!

Course! I dont have much lore wise other than they go to Kelalen and when they hear Dream is still around they decide to stay back to help fight him. But the idea I have is that Karl is just kinda hanging with everyone I listed, talking about allies or treaties when his time traveling clock/watch starts to go off, and he panics, but sadly in his haste to stop it he makes it worse and it grabs everyone, where they end up in the future. After hours of confusion and explaining they calm down. When 2 days later they find the Gladiator and Fishermen group, at first Karl is strongly against going to then for help, but everyone basically ignores him and go to ask for help. Hours of explanation and proof giving later the GF (Gladiator and Fishermen, got tired of writing it out) group sadly tells them that they cant really help. Until Ran (who was previously gone searching the surrounding area and making sure it was safe) appears high up on a tree (cause I just can't get the image of Ran on a tree and looking comfortable and confident as hell out of my head), and says that maybe Kelalen can help, if not going to Foolish may be a good alternative. Isaac, and Grievous are extremely against going back (at this time a 2 months have past since they left Kelalen)n saying it could be dangerous but Ran just aboustely shoots them down, along with Watson and Jackie agreeing with Ran, and Karls group agreeing to it. They head off to Kelalen. And Jackie is extremely excited at the potential of going to see Foolish finally. And it'd probably be like a sub au where the brothers au is the main backbone for it but at a certain point it separates from the au and becomes its own.

1: Okay, ouch. Can you imagine if Ran brought one of those memories up, and just had Ranbob look confused, or horrified, depending on how quick he realizes what happened? How would Ran react to that realization, both before and after he forgives Ranbob?

3: If nothing else, everyone got some laughs from it-even Benjamin, once his friends were far, far away from his family and not able to teach them more chaos. 

8: Cletus, why are you so happy? Do you just enjoy knowing chaos existed back then? Are you an arsonist? What’s up with you? 

Also, wow. Not cool, other city people, that’s very mean.

Spoons sounds like it’s interesting, I might try it sometime. Did the group just have those cards on them? What other games did they have?

11: Good, put Dream back in the corner, I’m gonna be yelling more. Because, seriously dude? I know you probably exist solely out of spite, but c’mon. Admittedly, from a certain point of view, it could be considered amusing that your first thought was that Ranbob was making himself weaker out of defiance/spite but like. From a more responsible and mature viewpoint, that’s incredibly stupid, and I-just. Buddy, hate to tell you, but I’m pretty sure that’d just be a you thing. Besides you were in Ranbob’s head, didn’t he think Ran was dead? It doesn’t even make sense. Good lord, I’m half-tempted to get the broom and chase you around like you’re a particularly unruly barn cat. 

------

3: First of all, that sounds really scary for Ran. Second of all, are we getting an overprotective arc?

4: Kind of sad, but understandable, they’re dealing with the situation as best they can.

10: Even if the group was provoked by the townspeople? Potions sound really cool, wish I could make those in real life, tbh.

13: W-what do you mean ‘that’s exactly what they did’? Anon, is your friend, like, a legit gremlin? I’m spooked. 

14: Foolish takes one look at Jackie, wearing a smile that exactly matched Tubbo’s when he was about to cause chaos, and immediately nopes out of that. He knows that face, and he will not be getting tangled into a fight with a goblin child today, no sir. I’m sure Jackie tries regardless though. (Also, that sounds like that goes horribly, do we get an overprotective ender-sibling, for whoever gets captured or used as blackmail, if that’s what you do?)

15: I love all of these so much, oh my gosh. Baby Ran seeing the fishes and following his big brother around. Poor Ranbob’s face when his baby brother cursed one day, Ran trying to carry all of his haunting. I’m in tears, honestly. 

Umm...I can’t think of anything right now, to be honest. If I ever do have a question or idea though, I’ll through it on the Brothers AU tag for you to check out, I guess. 

Oh, this sounds really cool. The part about them just ignoring their local time traveler when they’ve just time traveled particularly amuses me, as does Jackie wanting to see Foolish-I feel like Foolish may be a little more than terrified to see both Tubbo and Jackie back, honestly. Why was Ran willing to help them so much? What did they do to offer proof? How did Ranbob react once they proved who they were? How does all the group get along? Are they Ranboo’s haunting, and if so, if Ranboo gets close with his descendants, does he merge his hauntings with theirs? How does the time group feel about the Brothers fighting, and Ranbob’s possession?

[cyclone-rachel]

“You seem to be very close with your mother.” Brandon remarks, after finishing Kenny’s soup.

“Yeah.” Kenny says, Brandon not meeting his eyes. He ignores the soup thing- it’s petty, especially considering that Brandon’s risked his life just to get to Earth, and he surely has an appetite like Kara’s given how many chips he’s eaten so far. And besides, Kenny can always get more soup from the fridge. Brandon… really can’t. “I mean, of course, she’s my mom.”

(He didn’t elaborate on all the times that they’ve felt distant- when the strain of keeping secrets from her gets to be too much, when he has to keep making up excuses and pretending to be somewhere he isn’t. He’s just lucky that, sometimes, he and Kara actually do study- and that his mom likes Kara, and is glad that she’s in his life.)

“That... is not applicable to every mother and child relationship.” Brandon murmurs, from where he sits on the air mattress Kenny had made for him. (Well, to be fair, Brandon had helped move it soundlessly out of a closet in the hallway- with his ring, which Kenny was still incredibly curious about- since either of his parents would want an explanation as to why he suddenly needed the mattress, and he didn’t want to have to deal with that when there were so many other important things going on.

But they’d gotten it into the bedroom, Kenny had inflated it, and now they’re here- Brandon sitting cross-legged on his mattress, soft-looking black pants and a long-sleeved shirt with an upside-down triangle of circles on it serving as his pajamas, and Kenny on his own bed, wearing his own pajamas and still very much awake and hoping to talk to Brandon about… well, everything about him.

Or at least, as much as he wants to tell him. Kenny isn’t going to pry.

Too much.)

Kenny isn’t sure whether or not he’s supposed to have heard that- or whether Brandon wanted him to.

“Do you mean yours?”

Brandon sighs.

“Without getting into specifics... yes.” he says, twisting his ring around his finger- the ring that he still hadn’t explained, that was somehow able to lift a spaceship into the air while causing him no strain whatsoever. “Admittedly, I have not seen her in several years. And, by now, she may not even be a-“

He cuts himself off.

“There is still a chance that she could have changed, since we last saw one another. But I highly doubt it.”

“Why?”

“You want me to get into specifics.” Brandon notes, raising an eyebrow. “That is fair. Very well, then. My family... does not have a good reputation, across the galaxies. We- they- are collectors of entire worlds. Conquering them, simply to have them, shrink them down and hold them in bottles. Like... what is the Earth trinket... snowglobes.”

Kenny hopes that Brandon doesn’t notice how much he’s staring right now, trying to absorb all of this information, but he doubts that too.

“Really?”

“Yes. Trust me, it is far more horrific in person. And my mother...” Brandon continues. “She perpetuated that. Even when I was a young child, just about exactly eight years old, she expressed a need for me to follow in her footsteps, take my place alongside her.”

“And you didn’t.” Kenny answers. “Did you?”

“If you can believe it, there was a time when I wanted nothing more than to be like my mother. Becoming exactly who my f- who so many worlds feared. I thought that I had no other choice, so why not be who they expected?”

Brandon looks at him, an expression on his face that tells Kenny that he’s said those words before, in defense of himself- and makes him wonder what else he isn’t saying. Then, he continues.

“But eventually, yes, things changed. I saw that I could change, and use my abilities for good, in defiance of everything my family had done. I... became familiar with one specific hero, who gave me hope. They made me believe that even I had a second chance. And since then, they have been my beacon through the darkness.”

He smiles, looking past Kenny, like he’s Kara and using X-ray vision. But in an instant his eyes are back on Kenny, his face turned serious.

“What about you, Kenny Li?” he asks- and right then, Kenny doesn’t remember if Brandon was told his last name.

“What about me?” Kenny echoes, not sure what his guest wants to know. “My life is way less exciting. I mean, before Kara, I was just trying not to get pushed around by jocks, and accidentally learning their secrets to get them to do me favors. But then…she invited me to sit at her lunch table, we started talking, and I invited her to see my new telescope, out in the woods. That’s when everything changed.”

Brandon is looking up at him, intently, as he’s speaking- and when he pauses, Brandon seems to be waiting for him to continue.

“Or… actually, maybe everything changed when I got a picture of her- saw her flying. I always thought she was special, just never guessed she might be…”

“An alien?”

Kenny nods.

“And I thought for a while, afterwards, that she… if someone found out about her, and she knew, she would leave. Or someone would take her- the point is, I thought I would lose her. I thought she’d move away from Midvale and go somewhere she could train to use her powers- maybe directly to Metropolis, to Superman. And I didn’t think she would want to stay with me.”

Brandon looks up at him, resting a hand on Kenny’s mattress.

“Of course she would want to trust you. I’m… I’m psychic- I read her thoughts, she cares for you a great deal. And as much as you think she is the strongest girl you’ve ever met, she thinks similar of you- you make her feel like nobody else, and you are remarkable in your own right. Take pride in that.”

Kenny smiles, but soon turns serious again, looking at Brandon and remembering why he’s here in the first place.

“Brenda said that you guys were escaping from a dying world.” Kenny notes. “Was your family responsible for that, too?”

Brandon stares at him for a moment, then blinks, and looks up at him once more, with recognition in his eyes.

“As a matter of fact… they were.” He says, turned away from Kenny, fiddling with his ring again. “One of them, whom I thought was dead, in actuality was not. And he created a plague that would affect all… of our kind other than himself. Brenda and I were fortunate to escape in time.”

“Sounds like. Well, at least you’re on Earth now, and can go anywhere you want once we fix your ship, right?”

“Indeed.” Brandon says. “Thank you, Kenny Li. For taking me in, and helping me get what I need.”

“No problem.” Kenny answers, meaning it.

Anything to help Kara.

And it’s also nice to have another friend, at least for a little while. Especially when this one is an alien who looks more like me.

He smiles at him again, before lying back on his bed, and turning out the light.

“Night, Brandon.”

“Goodnight, Kenny.”

(Querl, for his part, considers telling Kenny everything- but he has already said too much, and knows that he will probably need to erase at least Kara’s memories of this encounter before they say goodbye to one another. Still, however, though even this conversation was probably unnecessary… it is at least nice to have someone trustworthy to talk to, in this time)

[otherworldly-healer]

Raine sat down at her office desk warily examining the envelope that held her name on it. She had placed it there earlier after checking the mailbox. Taking a shower and getting into clean clothes after trekking through the forest all day was a more pressing matter. Then dinner, lesson plans, and a few chores stole her attention. After everyone else had returned to their rooms for the night she finally got around to investigating the letter. 

She noted it didn’t have a return address. It was rare if ever that she got mail that wasn’t some sort of advertisement for a business or an announcement of activities at the University or other community hub. Most correspondence was much easier on the telephone or meeting in person, so whatever it was it must have been formal. She unfolded her reading glasses and turned on the lamp to begin reading.

Professor Raine Sage,

I've been told I'm better at expressing myself in written word than spoken, and I'm inclined to agree. Even so, I'm not looking forward to writing this; I haven't written a letter in some years, and our relationship is complicated enough in normal circumstances.

I'm writing several letters now as a contingency. In the event I should disappear from the island before I find the courage to say these things aloud, I've given instructions for them to be delivered. If you're reading this, then I am no longer in Spirale. I suppose it's possible that you're reading this letter while I'm still here, but as I've entrusted these letters to one of my dearest and most reliable friends, I won't bother entertaining the thought.

A part of me is grateful that I won't have to deal with the fallout when these letters are first opened. For that, and for everything, I am sorry. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that I will return tomorrow and have to face the immediate consequences. But there's no way to predict what will happen, and I'd rather have those difficult conversations than leave, potentially for good, without a word.

Out of all of Spirale's victims from our world, I chose to write to you because I trust you are the most capable of understanding my intentions.

In my wake, I've left a path of devastation almost as wide as Yggdrasill's. I can't excuse the things I have done, nor would I want to; to try would be an insult to every life sacrificed, and despite what you may think of me, I cannot accept such callousness.

And yet, I must try to convince myself that there is a way to atone - that I am not irredeemable. I must believe that I can make a difference. It's naive - childish, even - but if I consider my current actions as useless, what hope can I have to actually make a change?

If I can't undo the past, I will do what I can to better the future. That is what I believe. It has taken me six years since my arrival to put it into words, but I believe I have felt that way deep down for a long time.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to act on that belief in Spirale, at least for some time. And that brings me to the point of this letter: I want you to remind me of this.

When people leave and return, their memories are sometimes altered or erased. I believe it due to the nature of the differing timelines between the island and its targeted worlds, but that's all I can say. Ironically, I can't remember if I ever told you this. It's a very real possibility that, should I return at all, I will not remember any of the experiences here that have shaped me.

I can remember who I was when I first arrived. The thought of being like that again scares me.

That isn't to say I expect you to restore my memories, nor do I expect you to try. If I do return as the bitter, apathetic person I was before, I doubt you would be able to convince me anyway. I simply ask that you tell me what I have said here - that no matter how hopeless it must seem, I must try.

I won't burden you with any other messages, though you are free to tell the others what I've written here. I pray that we get the chance to meet again, even if it is while I am someone else.

Take care, Yuan Ka-Fai

She had to reread the contents a few times before fully processing what was written. Even then she felt a rush of conflicting emotion that she couldn’t quite describe. He was really gone? Just like that?

She couldn’t understand him. He would write to her because he felt she was the most responsible one? He didn’t say that he trusted her personally, just that he trusted that she could understand his intentions. It made some sense, admittedly, rather than burdening one of the younger members of the group. Still, she couldn’t help but feel weighed down by this task that he had given her. To always have to be the mature voice, to be composed and weigh all perspectives, felt a bit unfair. Yet she had never been one to ever vocalize that she was being overwhelmed. Yuan and her weren’t close. Would this task not be better served to someone else? Was she just a last-case scenario, in case others had disappeared as well? Surely that must be all.

She had had little reason to keep checking her phone during these eclipses. Ever since Genis had arrived, she had little reason to keep obsessing over who had come and gone from this island. And while she felt a stinging loneliness when Colette and a melancholy when Six had disappeared, they had come back the same people. In her experience it seemed to happen more often than not. She knew from prior conversations with Yuan himself that it was possible for people to come here differently—Mithos had once been from four thousand years ago, and many of her companions such as Sheena had come from different times in their Journey. 

Of course it was possible. But she didn’t want to think about it. If she allowed herself to, that bubble of optimism that she’d been trying to build would surely burst again-- as fragile as it already was. She wanted to enjoy her time here to just be herself. She wanted to have a home and not have to be a historical figure, a leader for her race. Despite setbacks she was happy here; at times more content than she had ever been in her entire life. But time and time again the reality of this place threatened to take that all away. How long would it be before someone she was closer with would be spirited away back to their home plane? What if they came back, but had no recollection of ever meeting her? 

No. No. No. I’m so damn tired of starting over! That’s all my life has been! Hit a dead end, regroup, turn on my heel, and set off again. Pretend that it doesn’t hurt. Pretend that it is inevitable. Right when I’d been foolish enough to begin to feel comfortable in this city.

Yuan had done it again. What a frustratingly cowardly man. Even going so far as to say he’d be glad that he wasn’t there to deal with the fallout of the letters. He would speak with her briefly and leave her with some worrying information while having no answers for what to do with said information. No plan of action. Just a looming threat to be wary of. Raine could feel anger welling up as she ran her hand through her bangs. Her fist pounded the table, rattling the cup set next to her on a coaster. 

Of course after four thousand years he had never had answers before, why should she expect it to be any different now? A man of inaction. Indifference. And yet he still insisted that he had changed. Waver had insisted that his past didn’t matter in this place, but she couldn’t agree. Experiences and memories formed who people were. Yuan had admitted to his mistakes but she hadn’t known him well enough to tell if he had really devoted himself to changing. Besides her, how many of her companions had he approached and expressed his desire to atone? To build that better future?

She still had so much to say to him. So much to ask him. She hadn’t had enough time. As infuriating as it was, Yuan had been incredibly helpful with acclimating herself to the city. He was a straightforward voice that helped dispel confusion. She wanted to understand him better, but to the professor it felt like he was always trying to hide from her and the rest. Complicated was right. She had respect for him. She hated his guts. They shared more commonalities as half-elves that she cared to admit. Raine could never forgive how he hardened his heart to overlook the damage he caused through negligence. How turning into an angel had tainted him and his view of mortals as expendable. She was conflicted. In another time and place, she could have even seen them as friends with their common interests. It was just too hard to divorce him from his past actions in her mind. Not completely.

Yet…she had to admit there was a heart there somewhere deep down. She’d seen it, briefly, on more than one occasion. The one time that Yuan had let a glimmer of his emotions show. That one argument they had at the club. He was desperate to make amends. He repeated that wish here in the letter. To acknowledge how much of a hand he had in perpetuating the cycle of violence and hatred in Aselia. Even if those things could not be forgiven, at least he was not running from them. That alone proved that he had changed. 

She didn’t want to believe that it was too late for anyone. 

She needed to have hope that people could change if they wanted to. 

She refused to ever let go of that plea.

In her eyes he wasn’t irredeemable. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still too scared to actually face any of them. Meetings were always sporadic, and they had spent a fair share of their time working in the same place avoiding one another. She’d said it time and again…adults were troublesome creatures, stubborn and often stuck in their ways. Deeply complex and entangled in their own doubts and fears. Her included. She had to have compassion for that.

“You better believe that I will hold you to that, Yuan,” she whispered. Raine let the letter rest on her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her eyes stung as if forcing back tears.

No, I refuse to be upset by this!

...though it was much too late.

 The half-elf closed her eyes and took a deep breath, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling. Her hands curled around the sides of the letter, causing the page to wrinkle. “To write me of all people a last message. What are you thinking? It sounds almost like a will.” She reached over to her phone to check the contact list and…sure enough, Yuan’s name had vanished.

“If you come back with all of your memories intact, you’ll truly be sorry.” She folded the letter back into its envelope and took her glasses off. 

“Whatever happens next, don’t ever stop trying. You’ve gotten too far to give up now.” But she was merely talking to herself. Her words would no longer reach him. Hopefully someday in the future she would have the opportunity to say that to his face.

[maskyartist]

Smoke Break (RWBY Necromancer Clockwork Orange)

yall @bowl-of-shortness REALLY got me with this new Necromancer AU content finally i have an excuse to write my favorite rarepair :D

tw: heavy descriptions of smoking, if that messes with u then tread with caution

=====

Ozpin was used to Roman's nightly breaks. Leaving their bed to head to the balcony to get some air. At least that's what he claimed, but Ozpin knew there was more to it. Most nights are fine. He can handle it. He can handle the warm left of the bed slowly growing colder until Roman came back to pull him right back into his arms. It was routine.

But tonight was...different, to say the least. Nightmares never play fair, and comfort doesn't come easy to cold sheets and a chilly back. So, Ozpin wraps the blankets around his shoulders and shuffles off to the outside where he knows his lover sits.

Just as expected, there Roman stands, leaning against the wall, sitting on the cold concrete. Winter in Vale can be cruel, but Roman either wasn't awake enough to realize how cold it was or simply didn't care. He sat there in his pajamas and brought the cigar between his fingers back to his lips. Ozpin stands in...not shock. It's not shock, but it's not...not surprise, either. He had a feeling this was what Roman was up to on his nightly breaks, but to see it in person felt more...obvious. A sign he chose to not seek out.

"Those are bad for you, you know." Is Ozpin's first word, making Roman jolt at the sudden interruption of his silence before letting his shoulders relax.

That stupid smirk Ozpin fell in love with graces Roman's tired face. "I wouldn't be doin' it if it were good for me." He teases. "Criminal mastermind here, Ozzy. What're you doin' outta bed, anyways? You look exhausted."

He feels exhausted, but that's not the point. Ozpin shakes his head. "Nightmare. Couldn't fall back asleep. Not without you, at least." He says quietly. When Roman opens an arm, Ozpin easily settles into his side, sitting next to him with the blankets covering his seat so he doesn't need to feel the concrete below. Even with the blankets around his shoulders, Roman's side, his arm, it's more comforting then anything else. Ozpin easily leans into his warmth and sighs.

"Well aren't you sweet." Ozpin pouts as Roman presses a kiss to the top of his head. One day he'll hit his growth spurt, then he won't be laughing anymore. "You wanna talk about it? It's fine if you don't."

Gods no he doesn't want to talk about it. If anything, Ozpin could kill to erase every single memory of Atlas he has. So instead, he simply shakes his head. "...not tonight, please." One day he'll tell Roman. About everything. About what he had to endure. But that day is not today.

Roman, thankfully, nods in acceptance. "Fine by me." He brings the cigar back to his lips, drags slow and deep, and lets the smoke bellow out of his mouth. "You don't gotta tell me anything. I'm always here for you either way." Ozpin always liked these moments. The rare private ones where Roman is able to be sweet with him. It warms his heart and makes him snuggle deeper into his side.

But his shoulders are still tense, and his back is still straight, and there's a shiver that doesn't come from the cold making Roman tighten his grip on Ozpin just a tad in hopes of scaring that fear away. It doesn't, but you can't fault the man for trying.

He knows Ozpin's like this after nightmares. All the time, he gets stiff and shaky until he's able to fend off his own demons. And since Roman can't just listen to him, hear what truly goes on in that head of his, he can at least try one thing.

"You want a hit?"

Ozpin whips his head over to Roman, who holds up the cigar expectantly. "...do I what?"

Roman smirks at him. "A hit, babe. A drag. Whatever you call it." He wiggles the cigar between his fingers teasingly. "Why do you think I smoke? Calms me down. Helps me relax so I can head back to bed. You look like you could use it." A pause as the smirk slips off his face. "You don't have to. I'm just offering."

Ozpin pauses, looking away as he thinks on it. Really thinks on it. All his life he was told smoking was bad. That's just to be expected. And Roman's coughs aren't...the best when he does have them. But anytime he comes back, he smells like nicotine and it's becoming so comforting to the silver haired Necromancer, and he always sleeps easy, barely even a twitch in the night. It clears his mind, at least that's what Ozpin's gathered. So maybe...

"How do you do it?" He asks, feeling a little stupid when Roman chuckles at the question. Though, that changes when he sets the cigar between his lips for him.

"Breathe in through your throat." He can do that. He can totally do that. Ozpin does as he's asked, slowly breathing in. The smoke feels thick and there's a tingle in the back of his throat. "As deep as you can." He keeps going until he feels lightheaded. Before he can think of coughing it all up, Roman uses a hand to close his jaw. "Hold it. Just a little longer, babe." The holding isn't all that fun, admittedly, but he can almost feel the smoke drift further down into his lungs. How unsettling.

Finally, Roman releases his mouth, letting Ozpin cough it all up into big cloud-like piles of smoke that drift off into the sky. Roman can't help but laugh, making Ozpin hit his chest offendedly as he tries to get rid of the invading feeling in his lungs. "You-!" Cough cough. "-are so-!" Cough cough cough. "-RUDE!"

Roman snickers still, even when Ozpin calms down. "Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean nothin' by it, doll." He shakes his head. "Don't worry, I was the same way when I started. It gets easier."

That's...a tad unsettling. Your body adapts to the constant nicotine. It makes it easier for you to continue the addiction. The habit.

Even still, Ozpin sighs and holds his hand out. "Let me try for myself."

They spend a good ten minutes like that, Ozpin leaning against Roman, guarded from the cold of the world and the cold of his memories as he holds the cigar close to his lips, breathes in, and breathes out. It's a horrible habit, he knows that, but Gods only know if he'll ever be able to kick it. This is the calmest he's felt in years. And his sleep once they return inside, cuddled up together under the chilly blankets, is practically perfect. No dreams to be seen. Just a quiet, dark, empty sleep.

The next morning, Roman leaves a few cigars on the bedside table. An offering. A gentle nudge, but not a push. Not a force. Ozpin could always leave them behind for Roman to gather up for himself later.

Instead, he heads outside for a morning smoke and forgets his worries all over again.

[crushpdf]

I was tagged by @anoiseofgloriousdisdain to list my seven comfort movies. I’m actually going to use this as an excuse to practice my gif skills and make a gifset for each! Will do after I finish up the last of my TRC prompts (rip).

All of these movies I’ve seen at least three times! They’re definitely films that I put on when I’m sad and need a pick-me-up, and they make me feel all warm again. But full disclosure, some of them are actually super intense and morally fucked -- not all happy feel-good movies.

Tagging people up here and then putting under a read-more because uh, it got long. @dameferre @sunflowremoji @halflingkima @stamatis @betterbeehufflepuff @peoniesandsmiles

Not necessarily in order:

1. Kill Your Darlings, John Krokidas 2013

The portrayal of the events that inspired Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs’ And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, when Allen Ginsberg attended Columbia and helped found The Beat Generation with Lucien Carr, who gets caught up in a nasty act of murder and homophobia.

A comfort film for me because the direction is exactly my aesthetic to a T. It’s the right colors, the right pacing, the right characters (fucked up queers making bad life choices!), the right time period, the right music, the right editing -- it’s just the exact kind of art I’d like to make, only I’d like to make it with less white men.

2. Matthias & Maxime, Xavier Dolan 2019

A French-Canadian film by my absolute darling Xavier Dolan who once again is a one-man show, writing, directing, producing, editing, and starring in this film. Lifelong friends Matt and Max share a kiss for a student film, and it unravels their relationship as they grapple with what they mean to each other.

Okay this film got panned but I love it. There’s such a dichotomy between ultra-realism, with this gang of friends all just talking over each other and actors fucking up their lines and stuff like that, and high art with these intense long shots of the landscape and dramatic music playing. It’s also one of those films where you cannot tell if it’s going to end happy or sad and I love the tension.

3. Pride and Prejudice, Joe Wright 2005

I mean. I assume everyone knows this movie. Rich brooding man falls for smart independent woman. Everyone is beautiful and haughty.

The score. The colors. The fact that everyone is beautiful and haughty. It’s funny, it’s vibrant and real, it makes me feel warm.

4. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, specifically Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest

Everyone knows PotC. Swaggering pirate meets long-dead pirate’s long-lost son, who is in love with smart independent woman.

The high seas. The romance. Yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me. The ships clashing. The you best start believin’ in ghost stories Miss Turner. The skeleton pirates and their underwater march. Will Turner seizing his destiny. Johnny Depp is admittedly very good in the role and Orlando Bloom walks around with heart eyes and Keira Knightly does that thing with her mouth while wearing low-cut corsets. What’s not to love.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry 2004

I’m actually not going to go into plot because this is one of those films that I believe should be watched blindly the first time, and then with rapt attention the second time. Essentially, Joel chooses to undergo an experimental treatment to erase the memories of his ex-girlfriend Clementine. It’s a love story.

The love story is achingly beautiful, and the characters are achingly real. So flawed! They have so many flaws! They have more flaws than virtues! And yet you’re rooting for them so badly. It gives me a lot of hope and maybe that’s why it’s become a comfort film.

6. The Social Network, David Fincher 2010

Mark Zuckerberg gets a new boyfriend and Eduardo Saverin sues him for damages to a broken heart.

I was obsessed with this movie when it came out and I have most of it memorized and honestly I just think that alone is why it’s such a comfort film - it’s just familiar and homey at this point. But Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg give amazing performances in all honesty, and the script is, dare I say, flawless.

7. The Harry Potter franchise, specifically Order of the Phoenix if I had to choose

I mean. If we’re talking comfort movies. Watching a HP movie is always going to feel like coming home <3

[theshopkeepofremnant]

For JanuRWBY day 19, I present (sort of) a missing scene. I wrote this a while ago; it’s my take/expansion on what Yang went through after the Fall of Beacon. I would say enjoy, but it’s admittedly kind of heavy...

I’m not dead. Part of Yang knew this was an odd assertion to need to make regularly, yet it was one she found that came to her mind unbidden most days. It wasn’t something she used to do before. Before everything had changed such a thought would have made her laugh at its melodrama, would leave her shaking her head and wondering where such nonsense had come from. But that was before her world came crashing down. Yang rarely laughed now, and certainly not at that thought. Where once the spark of her life was undeniable, a thing of such heat and intensity that people often commented that the room felt a few degrees warmer when she entered, now she struggled to find evidence that her body had ever held such a spark at all. In that absence, a reminder was needed to ensure that Yang kept going through the motions of life. In part this was for her dad; he would see her moving around and putting on the facade of a living person so he would feel reassured that she was healing. This was pure farce, but the part of Yang still capable of caring didn't want to cause him any more harm than necessary. Beyond that was habit; years of tending to the endless needs of a mortal body had carved grooves into Yang’s mind deep enough that even her current malaise couldn’t erase. In death, Yang would be free of the Sisyphean task of bodily maintenance, but for better or worse she was stuck with it for now. Thus the reminder. Not exactly a mantra, certainly not a defiant declaration, simply a statement of truth. At first, she had felt like she was answering a question, a plea, but that puzzle belonged to memories too delicate to explore, so it was quickly dropped. Regardless, the statement had taken on a meaning of its own through repetition. Some days she tried to use it as motivation to pick up the shattered pieces of her life and body, to attempt to put them back together into some semblance of a living person, to move on. Those were the good days. Most days, like today, it was merely a fact, empty of joy or sorrow. Today was not a day where she made her declaration aloud. Today it was merely the whisper of a thought. Intentionally formed but lacking the momentum to make it to her lips as she let out a long exhalation. She noticed herself doing that a lot. It wasn’t a sigh. There was nothing wistful in it, no emotional release. It was just a realization that she was holding her breath. Waiting. Not ready for the next to come and signal that the world was still spinning and nothing she did could stop it. She let go of that train of thought. Today was a normal day, normal by her new standards anyhow, and she didn’t want to ruin that. While days like today weren’t worth celebrating they were important not to waste. For there were days when she worried about herself. Days when she felt bitterness and inertia build inside her and in an attempt to fight it off she would take a breath and say it: “I’m not dead.” And all she heard was disappointment. No. Today was not one of those days. She’d had so many of those right when she got to Patch and so many more right after Ruby had left. But Ruby was long gone, and Yang...well Yang was still here. Best not to dwell on the dangers real and imagined Ruby may be facing while Yang struggled to simply exist. There was nothing she could do about them anyway, not anymore. She had always done her best to protect Ruby, to protect her team. Look how that had turned out. No, no dwelling. Not today. Too easy for a day like today to head in the wrong direction. Too easy for memories to drag her down like anchors to the depths of her mind. A place once filled with light and easily navigated, perhaps with a shadow or two on the fringes but nothing fearsome or dangerous, it was now a place she hardly recognized. It stretched infinitely in every direction, an ocean with a capricious sky and no sign of safe haven on any horizon. Even in times of stillness, there was a constant tension, an anticipation of the gentle breeze growing to become a gale as the gray clouds quickly swirled to black and for the momentary respite to be lost in the crash of thunder and waves. Yet the ever-changing surface was not the worst of it.  The true danger lay below those swirling waters as barely seen shadows; leviathans prowling the deep, waiting for her to descend to their realm, knowing that she would find her way there eventually. If not during her waking hours then inevitably during her fitful sleep. Their siren song was at once terrifying and terribly seductive, and Yang did her best to ignore the promise of pain so intense it could bring oblivion. No. Consciously unclenching her hand, realizing that the life raft it sought was not in her bed, Yang forced herself to get up and get dressed. Yang had always enjoyed mornings, before. The air felt fresh and the light seemed purer, there was so much potential. Nightfall was all about endings, conclusions, but mornings were about beginnings. Or at least, they used to be. Now there was just nothing, day bleeding into tortuous night fading back into another identically empty day. All of her beginnings apparently behind her. Yang let out yet another held breath, tied back her hair, and padded out of her room. As she passed Ruby’s door she couldn’t help but feel an ember of shame smoldering in her chest. She still didn’t know if she had done the right thing. She had known Ruby was going, she even took it upon herself to hide it from Tai while Ruby was very unsubtly planning it. At first, she didn’t know quite why she was helping. She certainly didn’t think it was a good idea, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to let it fall apart. Eventually, she realized it was guilt. Not guilt over not going with her. As far as Yang could see those days were over. No, it was guilt at her own seething anger. Deep down, in that place that she didn’t want to recognize as her own, was pure, raw fury at those around her who could just keep living as though nothing had happened. How dare Ruby and the others go off on this quest, full of hope and light, like the world wouldn’t do everything it could to smother that... But Yang couldn’t let herself act on that dark emotion. She couldn’t be spiteful, even then. So maybe she overcompensated. Maybe the right thing to do would have been to let Ruby’s machinations fail, let Tai find out and put a stop to it before it got out of hand, got her hurt. But she couldn’t give into that petty part of her that wanted Ruby to fail, so she hid the coming and going of letters, concealed the very obvious supplies Ruby was collecting, and quietly made sure her little sister would keep that innocent hope for a little longer. Yang may not have felt that hope herself, but she would be damned if she let that darkness inside snuff it out in Ruby. Unfortunately, keeping the monsters at bay had used up so much of her meager store of energy, once so vast she could hardly contain it, that Yang failed in the most basic ways. She was distant, cold, hardly acknowledging either Ruby or Tai during that time. Part of her knew that, but she thought that her efforts should speak for themselves. That she was up and moving at all seemed such a miracle to her that it never occurred to her that those around her would be hurt by her seeming indifference. Yang still regretted that time. Still regretted not telling Ruby that she still loved her, still cared. But she had been so tired at the time, so weighed down by all that had happened, all that now would never happen, that she just couldn’t muster the will to say the words. She hoped her deeds, meager as they were, would speak for themselves. Empathy is so hard when one’s heart is consumed by pain, and Yang had been blinded by pain in all of its forms to the point where she didn’t know how to navigate even this relationship, the most stable she had known in her entire life. So instead of satisfaction that she helped her sister toward her goals, she was left with this shame. Shame at letting her go alone, shame at wanting her to succeed. Shame at wanting her to fail, to come back, defeated. To keep her company in her misery. Yang shook her head, trying to pull herself to the present, tenuous as her grasp on it was. Ruby was gone now, no amount of shame would change that, and it certainly wouldn’t bring her back. That left Tai. Yang felt a fresh wave of guilt every time she thought of her father, once among her closes confidants he now seemed utterly lost faced with the walls Yang had erected around herself. He had never had to deal with defenses before and found himself without any tools to overcome them now. Yang had always intentionally promoted a “what you see is what you get” narrative with most people; obviously there was more below the surface but she found others were more comfortable around her if they thought she was simple, one dimensional and symmetrical. Her dad actually saw her, the real her, so with him, it was the truth that she was what he saw, and Yang always appreciated how easy it was to be herself around him. Ever since she was a teenager and she and Tai had grown close enough that she never bothered with walls or masks, she just told him what was going on inside. Part of her felt bad when she saw his look of pained confusion now when she shut him out; he wanted so badly to help fix his broken daughter, but couldn’t even get close enough to try. The connection that he was so used to simply wasn’t there, and there was about as much hope of fixing that as the CCT network. Part of Yang wanted to console him, to apologize for putting him through this torture rather than letting him patch up her wounds like he would a skinned knee when she was a kid. But another part, that dark pit of rage and hurt, was all too happy to cause misery. She tried to crush those emotions deep within her; tried to compensate as she had with Ruby, but it wasn’t enough. Tai didn’t want anything from her, nothing concrete. He just wanted to help her, but she couldn’t bring down the walls, so he was stuck at arm’s reach. So close but so impossibly far away, and Yang was alone. Alone with her grief, with her darkness, but most of all, alone with her pain. —— Pain. That was the first thing she was aware of when she regained consciousness that night. Pain so extreme she couldn’t locate its source. All-consuming, nerve-rending pain. It was only when she tried to curl up in a ball and felt a weird sense of asymmetry did she look down and to her right. What she saw wouldn’t register as real for several days and at the time she had larger concerns. She looked around frantically and saw chaos. People ran in all directions, loading survivors onto airships that were being brought in from all directions. She looked for her team, her teachers, anyone who could tell her what had happened; if everyone had made it. She didn’t understand how she had come to be here alone, and through the fog of pain could swear that her left hand felt warm, that the air around moved as though filling a void that was occupied but moments ago, echoes of tearful apologies ringing in her ear, of a single pleading command issued from a delicate mouth beneath golden eyes: “You...you can’t die. You can’t.” But those impressions were dim, and the fierce pain from her arm wouldn’t allow her to escape the immediacy of the moment, try as she might.  So instead she searched the chaos around her for a lifeline, anything familiar. It wasn’t long before she saw a shock of blonde hair and realized Sun was striding past where she lay in a makeshift cot, looking about frantically. She reached out with her left, and now only, arm and grabbed his hand, apparently more forcefully than she intended as it nearly took him off his feet. “Where’s Blake?” Yang said through gritted teeth, every motion a fresh agony. Time slowed as Yang watched emotions flash across Sun’s face: surprise, grief, fear, and resignation. Had she known what was coming next she would have savored this moment, pain and all. For though every movement was excruciating, though she had lost so much, hope still burned bright in her chest. “How are you even conscious Yang? You should rest, they’re going to get you on a ship and take you home to...” “WHERE. IS. BLAKE?!” The last was said through gritted teeth as Yang pulled Sun down until his face was inches from her own. She knew that Sun could answer the question, that he was trying to dodge. While part of her was terrified of the answer that guttering spark of hope flickered on. The last thing she had seen before passing out was red. The red flames dancing through the building where she had heard Blake cry out, the red hair of that demon from Blake’s past, his red blade extending from Blake’s torso. She had never felt a rage like that, and through that crimson haze barely even saw him move, didn’t register the severing of her own limb or spilling of her own blood. All she knew was that she was failing, falling. As her whole world came crashing down she found herself in a pool of blood, both hers and Blake’s, with the terrible knowledge that they were going to die and it was her fault. But she was here, alive, so there was more to the story. As she stared at Sun she was certain that Blake’s death would elicit a different response. He would have just told her, right? He’d be heartbroken, a mess, barely able to hold it together. Sun’s feelings for Blake were no secret and he had never concealed a thought in his entire life, so why this hesitation? “She left.” Sun looked stricken, and not solely on his own behalf, Yang could almost see herself reflected back in Sun’s face, could feel her light going out. “...What?” “Once she saw that you were ok, she got patched up and then took off before I could stop her. I don’t know where yet, I’m sorry.” Yang tried to press him further but the blood loss was finally catching up with her. She tried to formulate a thought, anything, but it was all so much, too much. As she lost her grip on consciousness she felt her soul shatter, making a mockery of her body’s condition; her last little spark of hope remaining flickered and went dark along with everything else. ——

The time following was all fractured images and too-loud noises. People coming and going seemingly at random. What seemed like moments after Sun had left but could have easily been years Qrow found Yang, and gently laid a frail girl in a red hood on the cot next to hers. It took Yang a moment to recognize her own sister. It had been so long since she had thought of her like this; for the past few years Yang had seen her grow into an impressive warrior, and seeing her laying so still and quiet reminded Yang that she was still a child, that they all were. Or had been, at least. Yang looked imploringly at Qrow. “Is she...?” She left the question hanging in the air, unable to finish it. Qrow reached out and rested his hand on Yang’s left shoulder, trying not to let her see him inspecting her right side. “She’s ok, you know how tough she is. How are you holding up, firecracker?” The look in his eyes was too much for Yang, she couldn’t answer truthfully and couldn’t bring herself to lie. The pity she saw there ate at her, and she looked away. “What’s going to happen?” was all she could manage. Qrow sighed,  saddened but also slightly relieved to not talk about the goliath in the room. “I’m taking you and Ruby home to recover, there should be an airship available to take us out soon.” “What about Weiss?” Yang asked, noting the odd look in Qrow’s eye. “Her father’s airship is on approach, he’s taking her back to Atlas while things get sorted out in Vale. On our way over here I could have sworn I saw your other teammate in the crowd...” “I only asked about Weiss” Yang cut in. Somehow, despite the copious blood loss her temper still managed to flair enough for her eyes to flash briefly red. “Ok kiddo. I’m going to step out for a bit to check on some things, I’ll be back when it’s time to get you two on board” Some time later Weiss came in and roused Yang. She kept looking over her shoulder as though she wasn’t supposed to be there and despite her best efforts couldn’t stop a renegade tear from sneaking past her guarded eyes. Not much of substance was said, but even on a good day it was tricky to get past her icy defenses, and today was not a good day for either of them. Weiss kept glancing quickly at the tiny, inert form of her partner, concern escaping despite her attempts to remain composed. It was clear to both of them that they were talking to the wrong person, but neither could reach the one they sought.  In the end that knowledge bridged the gap between them more than anything they could have said, and Yang actually took some small measure of comfort when Weiss uncharacteristically, almost tenderly, laid her hand on her forehead and looked her straight in the eyes as she promised that they would all be together again. For a moment Yang almost believed her, and then she, too, was gone. Leaving Yang alone with her grief; alone with her pain. —— Yang’s memories faded out suddenly and she found herself in front of her bathroom sink, the water running for some unknown period while she drifted, her teeth long since brushed. Grimacing at herself in the mirror Yang turned off the tap, replaced her thoroughly rinsed toothbrush, and headed downstairs. Tai was no doubt out and about, running errands or gardening, being painfully normal. Most days Yang didn’t mind the quiet. It gave her space to move around in her solitude, to try to find peace in it if not joy. On days like this she focused on her chores, trying not let her mind wander (with mixed success) so as to avoid brooding. This focus brought about an emptiness of self that Yang savored. She wasn’t Yang Xiao Long, monster hunter defeated at Beacon. She was Yang, the girl figuring out how to use a blasted broom with one hand and doing a wonderful job, thank you very much. If she focused enough she was less even than that, she was an anonymous hand pulling up weeds, or cleaning dishes. Until she wasn’t. Until something interrupted her focus and brought it all back. It could be anything, the flashing red wing of a bird flying by the window, a dark cloud obscuring the sun, or a dropped glass. Whatever the cause, she would suddenly snap back to that night when everything changed. When first her body, and then her spirit were shattered. Scattered. Scarred. Those memories always left her with the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears, the same blood that not so long ago was pooling beneath her, mixing with that of another. And that was when the real pain came. This was the part she couldn’t explain properly to anyone, not really. Her bodily pain had largely passed, doctors and pain killers had seen to that, and even the fear brought on by her new sense of vulnerability was nothing next to reliving that soul crushing truth over and over: Blake was gone. Yang would have gladly given both arms, both legs, her life, anything to keep Blake safe and by her side. According to Sun she was indeed safe, but she was gone, and that fact ate at Yang in a way she couldn’t verbalize. She knew she should have been able to, it was yet another vacancy in her life left by a loved one, but this felt different. Maybe it was because she had honestly thought Blake was different, or maybe it was because she hadn’t realized the depth of her own feelings until that night. The crush had started innocently enough, just a gentle flutter in Yang’s chest as she dragged her sister over to make friends with the quiet girl sitting alone in the corner. No love at first sight, no sign from the gods, just a feeling like a warm breeze on a cold night as a pair of dazzling golden eyes looked up from a book. Then seeing those same eyes hovering above a smirk in the forest, so clearly directed at Yang, choosing. Again that faint heat, like the sun poking out from behind a cloud, just for a moment. It was nice, but it wasn’t something Yang was going to lose her head over. They were partners, that was what mattered, and soon that bond became such an integral part of Yang’s life that she didn’t even notice it most of the time. They could read each other’s bodies in and out of battle so well that they could predict an attack or need for an assist as well as a changing mood or thought. It never occurred to Yang to put a label on it because it didn’t need one. What they had was so natural, so real, even if it was unspoken. Then came that night. Suddenly in a flash all of the words she hadn’t sought came rushing to her mind. Words like forever, like promise, like need and want and cherish. Words like love. And in the moment she saw all that could be and all that could be lost and she acted without hesitation. Better to die trying to defend such things than live without them. But here she was, living without them despite her efforts and well aware that her assessment had been correct. Better to have died. But she hadn’t even managed that, had she? Slamming her fist on the counter Yang brought herself back from memories still fresh, still razor sharp on the edges, still tinted red by blood. Looking down she saw the shattered glass that had triggered this flashback and scowled, more at herself than at it, and went to get the broom. —— Dinner with Tai was quiet, as usual. He did his best to make little jokes and get Yang to banter like they used to. She appreciated that he tried, and told him so, but it rarely yielded any levity. After mostly pushing her food around the plate for a half hour Yang excused herself and went to watch TV. Much of her downtime was spent watching television, especially in the evenings. Not that she really cared what was on, but she could only do so many chores and when she wasn’t moving or doing something it helped if there was some background light and noise to distract her from thinking. Thinking for too long rarely did her any favors. Her nightly ritual was to stay up watching until her dad mentioned once or twice somewhat pointedly that it was late and he was headed to bed. Eventually Yang would go to her own room to appease him but with no intention of sleeping. This was another of those things she couldn’t fully explain to anyone: her hatred of sleep. Even if she had wanted to she could hardly fall asleep before one or two in the morning now, her mind simply too full of unsettling images to allow for rest. And beyond those thoughts lay the dreams. Every night she relived the attack in one form another. Relived her fear, her pain, her helplessness. And at the end of every dream the same thing, a pair of golden eyes, cold where they once were warm, turning from her and disappearing. The dreams were nothing compared to what came next. What Yang dreaded more than almost anything was waking. Every morning, without fail, she would open her eyes to the golden light streaming through her window. She would blink, and yawn, whatever dream had startled her awake fading in the morning light. And then, after two or three heartbeats of life being completely normal, she would remember. Her sleep addled mind would clear and all of weight of the past several months would crash down on her. She would look down at her arm, remember her injury, her defeat. Her loss. Blake. Every day she fought the tears. Some days she actually won. This was the thing no one mentioned to her when they tried to talk about her loss, maybe they didn’t even know. Why couldn’t her traitorous mind just wake her with the knowledge intact? Why that moment of peace, of normalcy, just to have the wounds ripped asunder again and again. Even on her good days these first moments of the day were always the worst. These were the moments that inspired her darkest thoughts. Though she knew she would never do herself any harm, these moments made her wish she could go to sleep and never wake. The words came unbidden, almost mocking, straight to Yang’s lips and out into the air above her head. “I’m not dead” She listened as they quietly echoed through her empty room, felt them resonate harshly in her ears. This was not going to be a good day. —— Most of her days were a blur, with little to differentiate one from another. Yang found that she didn’t necessarily mind feeling disconnected from time, but she noticed that it made her interactions with people somewhat awkward, as if they no longer inhabited the same world, and perhaps they didn’t. Yang found herself referring to the “other day” and talking about something that happened months or years ago, while dredging up memories from minutes or hours ago left her head spinning from the enormity of time in that span. Had she lost her arm mere moments ago, or was she always just a lost, broken, scared girl wandering aimlessly around her childhood home? Was she a ghost, a wraith long dead, going through the motions of a human life and not accepting her own non existence? This was a common musing for Yang, but one particular instance was thrown into sharp relief when it was interrupted by one of the few harsh points of clarity in a time otherwise bereft of temporal landmarks. The first was Ruby leaving, an event that signaled a definite turning point for Yang, a final separation from her old life. The second was this: a package brought to her by a beaming Tai. The arm. Maybe it was his excitement at something that was so emotionally loaded for Yang, or maybe it was just a bad day, but the arm was the last thing she wanted to see. It was a mimicry of what she now lacked, a symbol of all she had lost, and did not have the intended effect. She did her best not to show her anguish, knowing that her father truly meant well and thought this would be exactly the thing she needed to get her back to normal. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that normal was so far outside of her current reality that she couldn’t even conceive of it. Besides, the only way even try to get to normal was back through those dreaded memories, and those were already being forced on her every morning and every night. Why spend any more time with them than absolutely necessary? Even if the arm was perfect, better than the original, did that undo the damage that had been done? She was broken, her body was a puzzle that would always be missing a few crucial pieces. This arm wouldn’t bring her back to a time when she was invincible, when she gladly took damage not only to fuel her semblance, but to prevent those she loved from needing to take it in her place. Now she knew all too well how breakable she was. Worse, she knew how inadequate she was. She had given her body and soul and been found wanting. Now she was alone. Alone, and broken. She looked up at her father’s expectant face. So many emotions warring within her that it was all she could do leave the room without running, fleeing as much from memories of the past as this thing that was supposed to be her future. At the last minute she remembered her father was still standing there and made the appropriate noises of thanks before retreating to her room. Yang could feel a storm blowing in, and as tears formed in response to the thunderheads in her heart she buried her face in her pillow, surrendering herself to the tsunami of emotion that was washing over her. Several hours later exhaustion granted her a temporary respite, but it wouldn’t last. The arm waited patiently for her in its box, unmoved by her reaction. It was a beautiful device made with the utmost attention and care to its form and function, yet somehow not a single thought had been given to what it would represent to the girl who actually had to wear it. —— Eventually, to appease Tai, Yang forced herself to retrieve the arm from the living room. She didn’t know how long that horrid reminder of her failure sat on her bedside table, staring at her, taunting her. Maybe it was a day, maybe it was a month, maybe a lifetime or more. She only knew that abhorrent mockery of everything she lost was dragging her from her self imposed purgatory down to hotter depths. Right as she was reaching a breaking point, ready to stamp a return address on the box the abomination had come in with a note scrawled in her still unsteady left handed writing telling General Ironwood where to shove this miraculous piece of technology, another arrival changed her plans. Changed everything, in fact.   Ever since that package had shown up sleep had been nearly impossible. It was as if the arm sucked up all the air in the room, leaving Yang to suffocate as she tossed and turned, measuring her time spent asleep in minutes rather than hours. One day her exhaustion was too much to stand. Without a word of explanation to Tai she got up from the dinner table and staggered up to her room where she dropped into a deep, if not dreamless, sleep. Some hours later she woke in a cold sweat not to the bright light of morning and chirping birds, as she was accustomed, but to the softer glow of the moon accompanied by uproarious laughter from downstairs. Knowing that sleep wasn’t going to find its way back to her any time soon she decided to head down and seek comfort in the sound of other’s voices. Hoping they would be loud enough to drive out the sound of her memories, that the gravity of their beings would cancel out the pull of that cursed device she pointedly ignored on her way out of her room. Unfortunately for her the sources of that laughter had other plans. She was surprised to find her father in the kitchen with Professors Port and Oobleck, both of them occupying roles in a life she only half remembered these days. They welcomed her warmly, however, and it was nice to see familiar faces that didn’t seem burdened by her condition. Unfortunately, her comfort was to be short lived. It didn’t feel like they had coordinated it, but the discussion became very pointed very quickly, and Yang could tell they weren’t going to let her be. Talk of normalcy, of fear, it was all well and good, and sharing a genuine laugh did lighten her heart somewhat, but none of it penetrated those walls; so sturdy in their first construction and seemingly getting stronger every day. It wasn’t until the men were leaving that everything came crashing down. Ruby. Words said directly to her hadn’t really landed, but the name of her wayward sister spoken when they thought her out of earshot found its way through her defenses, losing no momentum as it struck the very center of her being. She had let her sister run off to Mistral on her own, believing her own fight to be done. At the time it seemed that there was nothing to do. Ruby was their leader, a capable warrior, she was going on a mission and Yang couldn’t stop her. So she let her go, helped her even. At the time it had seemed a noble act but now she saw how wrong she was. Worse, she had hamstrung her father’s ability to help Ruby. Tai couldn’t go off and protect her stuck as he was babysitting his other, broken daughter. She rolled all of her excuses around in her mind, tasted the lies for what they were: Fear. She had been afraid, so she let her sister run off without her. She had been abandoned by Blake so she abandoned her duty to watch Ruby’s back. Her dad had been right about one thing this evening: she was Yang Xiao Long. Two arms, one arm, no arms, it didn’t matter. Her whole life she had been good at two things: taking care of her sister and kicking ass. Ok fine, it mattered a little. Having two arms was probably preferable. She looked at the arm, reflecting the light of a shattered moon into the eyes of a shattered girl from its perfect surface. It was so smooth, unbroken. Unnatural. Horrible. Wonderful. She put it on. The sensation of the connection driving home was uncomfortable, to say the least. She had been warned it would be, and that while she would have sensation in it she shouldn’t expect it to feel like the original. In that moment she didn’t care. This arm wasn’t a replacement, she didn’t need it for anything delicate, tender. It was a weapon. An extension of herself like her gauntlets were, but a weapon nonetheless. And though she was so far from ready, part of her reveled in it. Her weight instinctively shifted back to center as she realized she’d been crooked all these months compensating for her imbalance. Her knees bent slightly, and she could feel a touch of that fire, the power she had thought forever lost. She threw an experimental jab with the arm, noting similarities and differences to how it used to feel. Without thinking she reached back to brush a stray hair behind her ear and felt the cool metal run across her temple in place of warm skin. It was too much, too soon. She felt something within her crack. The next thing she knew she was on the floor, sobbing and wrenching the arm off. It took her a few tries to figure out how the stupid release worked, but once she did she threw it as far across the room as she could given how hard she was shaking. The tears streaming down her face burned trails of fury down her cheeks, her ribs heaving so hard she worried she would throw up. When she stilled herself enough to think at all images started flooding her head. Blood, fire, blades and terrified eyes. With a colossal effort she pushed those aside for the one that mattered: Ruby. Ruby, on her way to Mistral and gods knew what danger with the remnants of team JNPR. Yang wasn’t ready. She wasn’t, but she had wasted so much time already, too much. She knew this was like any other injury, aggravating it before it was healed might mean it wouldn’t heal right, or wouldn’t heal it all. But that didn’t matter, she didn’t matter. Finding Ruby, protecting her, that was what mattered. For Ruby, she would pick herself up, right now, and do what needed to be done. Golden eyes burned in her mind, welcoming, afraid, then cold, then gone. Yang shook her head. Not for her, never for her. Not again. For Ruby. She walked across the room and picked up the arm. Releasing the breath she was holding, the breath it felt like she had been holding for months, she spoke with as much determination as she could manage with her still shaking diaphragm, staring herself down in her mirror. “I’m. Not. Dead.” Suddenly that statement carried with it something she had set aside shortly after returning to Patch: obligation. She could put down her burden when she no longer drew breath, but that day wasn’t today. She braced herself to try again, knowing she was in for a long night. —— When she walked outside the next morning she had half a mind to depart immediately, but her father was right, she needed to train. Without time to adjust to the arm and regain her fighting stamina she’d be less than useless to Ruby and the others, she’d be a liability. So train they did. The first thing she noticed was how stiff she was. Her joints creaked like they had rusted over sometime last century and were being forced to move despite being quite happy in their immobile state. The second was how much more like herself she felt in combat. The flow was even better than her focused chores. When she was in the middle of it she had no fear because she had no memories, no self. She was the fight and nothing else, until her father landed a solid blow or something distracted her, then she found herself shaking, fighting back tears. In those instances Tai would quickly stop the fight so Yang didn’t hurt herself and could simply collapse until her traitorous mind and limbs could be trusted again. Eventually she learned to mostly control those episodes, to let herself use the rush of combat to tamp down her more extreme emotions. If she was lacking her former joy in battle, she more than compensated with focus. Finally, she noticed the arm. In some ways she grudgingly had to admit it was an improvement. It’s strength and durability were undoubtedly better than flesh and blood, and she learned to make use of those. She did find that she had to adjust to its movements, which weren’t quite as fluid as her natural arm. Over the weeks she was proud to discover that this, too was becoming a strength. What little unnecessary flourish she had ever had in her fighting style was gone, her movements had become precise without becoming predictable, and it was showing. Add to that guidance from her father, welcome or not, and it was all coming together to make her even more formidable than she had been back at Beacon. Tai may have lost a step (or three, or four) when he lost Summer, but he was still one of the best hand to hand combat specialists Yang had ever met, and she was winning. At first she suspected he was going easy on her, but she started to see him push himself harder and harder and still she won more and more frequently. Never with ease, mind you, but she was undoubtedly getting stronger. One of the things Yang was most grateful for during her training was the sheer physical exhaustion of it. Sleep was coming easily by pure biological necessity, and she could hardly process dreams in the depths of her slumber. Mornings still held their terrible moment of peace, but she found that having something to do helped her power through her daily remembrance. She even found herself joking more than mechanically over meals and during breaks with Tai. In some ways the temporary nature of this time was a blessing. There was a goal, something to strive for, and that gave her a clarity and focus she hadn’t felt in months. Knowing it would soon be over also made that time feel somehow lighter, as though weightier matters were being saved for another day. There were no decisions to make, just training. But the temporary nature of this phase meant that all too soon it came to an end. After beating him three times soundly in a single session she knew it was time. Any longer and she would be stalling, buying herself time for a someday that would never come. She knew she was still broken, that doing what she was about to do would guarantee her mental scars would be with her forever, but this wasn’t about healing, it wasn’t about Yang at all. Ruby needed her, nothing else mattered. Well, almost nothing. In a moment of self indulgence that Yang didn’t even know she had left in her she decided that the Atlesian scientists, while gifted at mechanical engineering, didn’t know anything about color schemes. At this point Yang had already taken apart the arm and inspected it , learning it like she would any weapon. She had even modified it to match her remaining gauntlet with a cleverly hidden muzzle and dust rounds, but all of these things were practical. She was pleased with herself as a bit of the old Yang peaked through and she found herself stripping the arm down once more, this time to give it a paint job that would leave a bit more of an impression. After all, she thought, I’m not dead. For the first time this brought a smile to her face. A half smile, a crooked smile. Maybe more of a grimace. But still, it was a start. She shook the spray paint can and got to work. —— Decision made, the time to leave came with startling speed. Before she knew it Yang was hugging her father goodbye. They had talked about it at length, and despite his reservations Tai was allowing her to make this trip alone. He grudgingly accepted that Yang needed to strike out on her own or risk hiding behind him, negating all the time she had spent training to regain her confidence. Yang also suspected he wasn’t too keen to take part in her plan. She was going to Raven. After years of searching she was finally seeking out her mother when she finally couldn’t care less about finding her. According to Qrow Raven’s camp was dug in and large enough to be readily found. Easier than a handful of kids in an entire continent anyway. From there it would be a quick hop to Qrow via Raven’s semblance, and hopefully he would be with Ruby. Easy. Ok, not easy, really hard actually, but simple. That’s what Yang needed, straightforward and efficient. The look on Tai’s face when she told him her plan made it clear that had she not argued so vehemently for her need to go alone already he would have started looking for excuses. After months of feeling that he couldn’t possibly understand her pain Yang saw it’s twin in his face and felt like a fool. Of course he would understand, if anyone could it would be the man who was abandoned by one love and lost another shortly after. But it was too late now for more than an unspoken moment of understanding to pass between them. Maybe someday Yang would find a way to open up to him and give him space to open up in return. But the days from that realization to her departure passed in a blur with no time for a heart to heart, and then it was time to go. Air travel was still in shambles, even after all those months, so the only real option Yang had was to go by sea. Fortunately the trip from Patch to Anima wasn’t far, but she was going to have make good time across the continent, it was a long way to Raven’s camp. She had plenty of time to plan though, the voyage was quiet and people seemed willing to keep their distance. At first Yang didn’t notice, but eventually she saw a few people, usually men, approach her only for their opening line to die on their lips. She wondered at this until she caught a look at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t how she was dressed (though she had intentionally gone for a less flirty and far more practical look in her new threads) it was in her eyes, the set of her jaw. It was in every line of body. Before, Yang had been incredibly approachable, when she wasn’t angry of course, and she liked to be that way. Inside and out she was all gentle lines and inviting curves. Attractive to some but more importantly to those who knew her best she was soft and safe, like a warm blanket you wrap around yourself to keep out the chill as well as the monsters under your bed. Physically she hadn’t changed. Well, most of her hadn’t. The arm was new, but that wasn’t the real difference. Not the one that mattered. One look at Yang revealed little that could be described as soft. The process of reforging her broken self far too quickly had left her jagged and raw, all sharp edges and hard points. She may still be useful at keeping the monsters at bay, but get too close and you would find her to be anything but soft. Yang saw that and part of her, a distant memory of girl she once was, wept. But she was the past, and the present Yang saw those hard lines and was proud. They were a sign that while she wasn’t invincible she was resilient. She could be broken and put herself back together because she had to. The world could do its worst, she wasn’t worried. She nodded her head appreciatively, if somewhat grimly, pleased with what she saw when she looked in the mirror. This was not the face she had grown accustomed to seeing, the broken girl who needed to convince herself she wasn’t dead. She was no ghost, she was a phoenix rising from her own ashes. The resurrection was far from perfect, she was jagged and crooked where once she had been smooth and symmetrical, but those details paled in the face of the power bursting forth like flames from every pore. So what if anyone standing too close got burned? That wasn’t her problem. Needless to say, she had plenty of privacy for the remainder of the trip. The only company she couldn’t escape were her dreams.  On the ship there limited opportunities for Yang to exhaust herself. There was a meager gym below deck but she had to be careful not to destroy the ancient heavy bag that swung with the motion of the waves, and there was little else of interest. Yang never could stand exercise bikes or treadmills. She wasn’t a hamster, and even those poor creatures deserved more interesting forms of exercise than they got. So her dreams came back, but in a different form. The waves had an oddly soothing effect on the contents of the dreams. At first Yang was grateful to not have to relive her dismemberment every night, but she quickly began to fear her new batch of dreams nearly as much. Every night was Blake. Mostly memories, strikingly detailed for things Yang had tried to bury. The way she would quirk an eyebrow when Yang had made a especially atrocious pun or inappropriate joke, pretending not to laugh but so obviously wanting to. The subtle motion of her mouth nearly reading aloud when she was particularly absorbed in a book. If Yang watched carefully enough she could almost follow the story in the movements of her lips. The play of muscle in her lithe figure as they fought side by side. Yang becoming intoxicated with the sight of her to the point of giddiness. Seeing a matching smile on Blake’s face, wondering if she felt the same elation. Wanting so badly to pause the fight so she could lay her head on that lovely chest, listen for the heartbeat that she knew would be in perfect time with her own. Those eyes. Too often the dream turned to darkness. Blake would be wrapped in shadows until all that was visible were her burning eyes. Turning from beacons of a home that Yang didn’t even know she was seeking to stony indifference, and then turning away to vanish forevermore. Yang wished these dreams would leave her in the morning, wake to find herself muddled and oblivious like she used to, even if that meant wading through the crash of emotion that followed. But these dreams were too gentle, lasted too long, faded too slowly. She inevitably woke to see those eyes turn away, leaving an aching hole in her very core that she was beginning to accept was simply part of who she was now. Eventually that emptiness was just another reminder that she wasn’t the girl she used to be. Sure, her step no longer bounced with underlying optimism, but she also wasn’t that fragile shadow rattling around her father’s home. So when her dreams were particularly haunting she would take a breath to steady herself, and go searching for that girl with a look that could cut, who stood strong on her own, was built to protect others and needed nothing in return. She tried to pretend she didn’t see the rest, the parts of her still broken, still crying out to the void for the one who shattered her to return. No, that was the past. Despite her constant protests to the contrary, that girl was dead. Her world had ended and she with it, so every morning Yang would stare in the mirror until she couldn’t see her shadow anymore, and if she found herself wiping away tears she didn’t think anything of it. They didn’t belong to the person she had become. —— It was a relief when she finally got off the boat. No more moving at a pace set by others; it was time for her stand on her own two feet. Tearing off from the port on Bumblebee Yang felt free in a way she hadn’t in months. She had the wind in her hair, a full tank of dust, and miles to go before she reached her goal, but she was finally doing something that mattered. The right thing. It felt good. Pulling out onto the main road she was reminded of team RWBY’s first real mission, out to Mountain Glenn. Professor Oobleck had slyly asked all of them but Ruby pointed questions, digging into what drove them. At the time she had found it annoying, invasive, and unfair when she found out Ruby hadn’t been grilled, but now she saw the genius of it. He had seen right through Yang, through all of them, and what he saw was a group of girls who thought they knew what they wanted and had no idea. Yang hadn’t been lying when she replied, she had sought adventure, novelty. But why become a huntress instead of literally anything else? When she searched her mind for the answer now she found only one that felt honest: she was good at it. It was a simple, boring, blunt answer, but it was true, and she saw that now more than ever. She wasn’t surprised that Ruby had found another mission so soon. Ruby wanted to be a huntress, that was her driving passion, just as it always had been. Yang had always envied her that. They had spent their lives being told to follow their dreams, discover their purpose in life, and Yang never could find that thing. Sure, she felt strongly about a lot of stuff, but there was never any one thing that was obviously her calling. So she went with the flow; she was good at fighting, it was in her blood, and it was a respectable career that let her help other people. Plus, it was fun, what’s not to love? Of course, that was before. How nice would it be to be sure? To know that all she wanted to be was a huntress, to never question it? Yang assumed it must be comforting for Ruby, to know without a doubt that she was doing the right thing with her life. Still, Yang realized as she was riding down the beginning of a long and lonely road, maybe her way was what was keeping her going now. She was broken, and honestly unsure if she would ever feel desire or passion for anything as she had before. But she didn’t need passion to direct her path, she chose for herself. And right now she chose to get up every day, no matter how much the simple act of rising out of bed hurt, and put one foot in front of the other. She would find Ruby, she would undo her mistake of all those months ago and say words that should never be left unsaid. Most importantly, she would protect her. If she got wrapped up in some grand mission as a result, so be it, but that wasn’t what mattered. Yang was not seeking the heroes path, she didn’t want fame or fortune or even adventure anymore. She sought only to protect those she loved. That thought, so simple and pure, brought a smile to her face. Not a grimace, not a sneer, a smile, small and true. Maybe she had more edges than she used to, maybe she wasn’t soft or innocent or whole. Maybe the shadowy corners of her mind were haunted by golden eyes, but maybe that was ok. Yang inhaled the country air as she leaned through a series of turns and shouted into the wind: “I’m not...” But her breath caught, the feeling was suddenly different, the words all wrong. At first she was worried that the tears in her eyes were a new form of sorrow, for in the strange sweetness she felt a trap. But sorrow was not the feeling she was struck with, it was more like the pain of taking your first breath after nearly drowning. Looking around, Yang saw a world full of color and life unlike the one she had inhabited for so many months. Danger still lurked just out of sight both within and without, but life went on and that realization was almost painful in the startling clarity it brought. Yang found her voice again and and with a smile on her lips she whispered, somewhat in awe of the truth of it: “I’m alive.”

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “ACE Operatives”

We’re back, folks! I have to say, I think overall this is one of the strongest episodes we’ve gotten since “The Lost Fable.” Are there still concerns? You know it, but on the whole I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. So with that unexpectedly optimistic mindset, let’s dive in.

We open right on the group’s first mission and for a moment I was worried that, like with Oscar’s shopping, this time skip would be passed right over. Especially after we hear Pietro apologize for “holding onto your weapons for so long,” telling us that between the Academy tour at the end of last episode and this mission today, at least a few weeks have passed. Long enough for one guy to re-design multiple combat outfits and weaponry, plus an additional boost here and there. Luckily, the first part of the episode cuts among three distinct times: when they got their weapons, when they first heard about the mission, and this present day flight/landing, which as a technique I like quite a bit. It gives us a sense of each time while keeping us moving forward. No one is thinking, “Ugh. Do we really need to hear a mission briefing when most of last episode was learning about this plan in the first place?” because we already know this is taking place in the past. Just sit through the snippet and then the rest of the info will come through voice-overs while the group jumps out of an airship. Good balance of exposition and action.

What we learn in these flashbacks is that Ironwood wants to use an abandoned dust mine for the satellite’s launch. Only problem? It’s inhabited by a very old, extremely dangerous geist. Kudos to the writing team for the Volume Two callback. I’ve always been intrigued by Oobleck’s comment that grimm are capable of learning if they continue to survive and here we finally see an example of that. This geist isn’t just strong, it’s smart enough to hide in the mines themselves.

Shot over all this we see Atlas military personnel taking out the everyday grimm in the surrounding area, proving that their weapons can handle that task in most situations. Why doesn’t Ironwood’s robots have that then? Or as others have pointed out, something even more powerful like Penny’s lasers, or some of the upgrades the team gets? Chock it up to lack of funds... or simple plot setup. If the robots had been able to take out a bunch of grimm easy-peasy then there wouldn’t have been any cool premiere fight for our group. Then again, all of this casts their snarky comments about Ironwood’s defenses in a new light. Clearly they’re a force to be reckoned with when the plot actually allows it.

We likewise see the group receiving their new gear and... okay. Here’s where the griping starts. Though it’s admittedly small compared to most of my criticisms. First off, why is Jaune receiving a random scrap of Pyrrha’s outfit? Logically this makes no sense to me. Pyrrha’s body disintegrated into a bunch of dust. I can buy Jaune incorporating other armor and fabric into his gear because they were living together and Pyrrha must have spares, but where did this come from? Did Pietro go ask a family member for a random memento for the (from his perspective) equally random teen that showed up? It’s entirely possible that I’m missing something---I’m sick as a dog at the moment and am probably one fever degree away from mild hallucinations---but the whole setup seems incredibly weird. We see Jaune open his box. We see his look of shock. He see him fingering a torn piece of Pyrrha’s skirt. But how does all that come together in any logical way?

More importantly... why? Why is this still a thing? I get it, Jaune is grieving, but to be frank this has been his one-note characterization for over three volumes now. More importantly, everyone else is grieving too. This is another case of the writing prioritizing what the audience knows over what characters know. Meaning, we got to see how close Jaune and Pyrrha were. We know they were in love, but outsiders like Ironwood and Pietro see them as a unified team. Why not give a scrap to Jaune, Nora, and Ren? Really, that’s what rankles the most: this continuing focus on Jaune over the rest of his team. Especially when that focus just leads us in circles of the ‘Jaune is sad’ variety. I thought we were supposed to be learning more about Nora this volume, so why not give her something to remember Pyrrha by? I realize we’re only through the third episode, but in a series that averages twelve each volume, that’s a fourth of our material gone. Please. I’m begging you. Enough about Jaune. We’ve watched him cry and rage and lash out for three years now. He’s gotten to move through every type of grief the writing could throw at him. Let someone else take the spotlight for a change.

(It’s also just all around weird because Jaune is smiling sadly, implying he’s moving on, but then we have Clover narrating about how they’re “going to kill this thing...” which reminds us of Pyrrha’s murder in a way not really conducive to the whole ‘moving on’ vibe... it’s just odd.)

Second gripe: why doesn’t Oscar get anything? I’ve written before about how overall the group still treats Oscar as the outsider and boy oh boy, do we see that trend continuing here. I’ll speak about this more in a moment when we get to the Ozpin situation, but for this scene in particular there’s no reason he shouldn’t be included. If Jaune can get a cool addition to his shield after updating his own outfit, Oscar can get a cool addition too. Take five seconds to have Pietro point out that, as a random farm kid buying combat gear for the first time, he didn’t totally hit the mark. Here are a few things to keep you safer. Hell, you could even have Pietro---who we have established goes above and beyond in his inventions---pull Oscar aside with an updated weapon and Oscar could have gotten all quiet, examining his cane, eventually thanking Pietro, but emphasizing that he doesn’t think he should change things just yet. Or without anther’s input. Or, if Atlas doesn’t want to waste funds on the farm boy let him get a haircut like literally everyone else! We could have allotted Oscar a few seconds of screen time instead of getting what we always get: the team banding together and him nowhere to be seen.

He’s a part of this mission. He’s integral to this mission. He is a main character now. It’s about time the writing started acknowledging that.

The final flashback, at least, includes Oscar a little more. I realize my screenshot isn’t the best, but the expressions here really do say it all: Ruby mindlessly geeking out over new tech while Oscar stands sadly in another doorway.

We hear him say, “Hey... Ruby?” before he’s cut off and we return to the present.

We’ll get back to him in just a moment. For now, the airship opens to reveal everyone’s new look, which isn’t actually a reveal because this scene dominated the trailer. 

Ah well. I have to say though, from here on out one of the main reasons why this episode feels strong to me is because of the overall dynamic among the characters. First, it was smart to break everyone up into different teams to search for a hidden grimm. If they’d tried to cram twelve characters into the same shot for the rest of the episode it would have been a disaster. Second, these smaller teams allow for the sort of teasing/comfort/playfulness we’ve grown used to among these characters, but have largely lost over the last two volumes. One of my favorite moments is when Yang is caught staring at Blake’s new haircut and we get a look at this massive blush.

Not to ship on main, but please note the parallel between this moment and Nora/Ren, two characters who are more firmly established as a canonical couple. Although... here when Nora compliments Ren’s hair he shuts her down pretty hard. There’s none of the casual indulgence we’re used to from him. Since when does Ren insist that Nora take a mission seriously, outside of making those requests in an equally teasing manner? Nora notices as much too, clearly upset, and Jaune is just... dense. It makes me wonder though if this is the direction they’re heading in for Nora. Give her romance troubles in the form of Ren pulling away now that their relationship has had a chance to sink in.

Not sure I’m a big fan of that. Granted, it depends on how they handle it, but on the whole I’m not really invested in reducing Nora’s rare and much needed development down to a cliche ‘Oh no. A boy doesn’t like me’ plot-line. We’ll have to see though.

I also really liked the moment between Weiss and Blake a little later. This is how you tackle racism in your story. Not by having the group risk their world-saving mission by Weiss impulsively throwing civilians into the trash, but by having an incredibly privileged woman acknowledge her privilege. Weiss mentions how angry this mine’s failure made her father, but she doesn’t use the abuse she suffered as any sort of excuse, like she would have in the earlier volumes. Instead, Weiss acknowledges for herself how hard that time was and then apologizes not only for what he’s done to the faunus, but also for “all my complacency in it.” Weiss was a child. We can’t hold her to the same level of responsibility as Jacques. But as a privileged woman in this world Weiss’ complacency does perpetuate her father’s active sins. So it’s fantastic that she admits as much to Blake. In front of all the others, no less. To me, that’s a far better sign of growth than what we got last week.

It’s also during this time that we see Blake eyeing the SDC boxes with anxiety. It could just be bad memories. It could imply that she had some hand in this particular attack. I hope it implies that she’s thinking about Adam because... is anyone going to bring him up? Seriously? Two teammates killed a guy. The self-defense aspect doesn’t erase the fact that they each rammed a piece of a blade through his stomach and watched him topple over a waterfall. We should be dealing with this! Not reducing it to one hug from Ruby right before a major battle. Hopefully this is setup for some (now long overdue) reflection.

Meanwhile, an interaction that doesn’t work as well is when Ruby comments on how freezing she is and Weiss notes that without proper equipment or aura insulation you can freeze to death in an hour. So... is that what the group is doing then? Wasting precious aura whenever they’re outside because Blake wants her arms unzipped, Weiss wants bare spots around her chest, and Yang needs to artistically keep one leg and one arm totally unclothed? The issue is not, “How does the group stay warm?” because plenty of stories have logistical questions like that and unless you’re a fan overly invested in the minutiae, you shrug it off. When is the group going to the bathroom during these endless missions? Who’s carrying pads for when three of them hit their periods at once? No one cares. Rather, the issue is that the writing draws attention to the question and then fails to answer it. Just like they did when suddenly death via cold was something that had to keep them in the creepy town when death via cold was never a concern up until then. Where was hypothermia when Yang insisted Ozpin hash out all his secrets in the snow? It’s a rather convenient ‘Sometimes it’s an issue, sometimes not,” situation. Obviously aura isn’t doing much to keep them toasty though if Ruby feels the need to comment on how cold she still is. And that attention then invites further questions like, “Why then are they still dressed inappropriately for the weather? Should we expect them to fall more quickly in battle because aura is going towards making sure they don’t freeze to death in under an hour?” Better to just leave it alone.

Talk of the cold leads into Oscar though because Yang comments, “I suddenly don’t feel so bad about leaving Oscar behind.” Which... no. You did leave him behind. Don’t try to make that palatable with stupid upsides like, ‘Well at least he’s warm!’ Worse, the group does nothing to justify that decision. Realistically I can buy why they’d leave Oscar out of this mission. We’ve established that this particular grimm has already taken out a lot of people and, without Ozpin, Oscar is still a newbie fighter. With the exception of the train and one grimm in the premier, I don’t think Oscar has fought many grimm at all. So really, it would take two sentences to establish this. Tell us that this mission is way out of his skill range and throw out that he’s training with Ironwood or something. That’s it. That’s all it takes, but the writing bypasses that and leaves us with, ‘The group left Oscar behind... for reasons?’ Which, in the context of his entire time with them looks really, really bad. Because they left him out of the dinner in Haven. And the hunt for supplies at the farm. And in retrieving the relic. And left him alone at the Argus house. And left him out of the upgrade joy. We’ve now established a trend of the group outright ignoring Oscar, whether it’s during bright celebratory moments or agonizing traumatic ones. Doesn’t matter, he’s left out of the loop, and now we see the same thing happening here. Rather than a simple and logical, ‘Oscar isn’t ready to fight a super old geist,’ what we’re left with paints the situation as, ‘Oscar is left behind because Ruby disagrees with him.’

Because without clarification, that’s the context. We get another (very short) flashback where he (thank you, thank you) points out that what they’re doing to Ironwood is precisely what Ozpin did to them. (Although Oscar tries to soften this by saying it only “feels like” the same thing.) Ruby looks guilty for a second... and then that’s it. We’re back to at least a day later where they’re on this mission, they’ve left Oscar behind, and Ruby is re-explaining why her morals are sound.

I’ll admit I’m pleased that Yang points out that they agreed no more lies and no more half-truths. I honestly didn’t expect her to say even that much against her precious sister. But still, on the whole this dilemma isn’t much of a dilemma at all. It’s reading precisely like the airship debacle: a few characters giving token disagreements but when push comes to shove whatever Ruby wants, Ruby gets. You know how above I pointed out how much I like the split present/past business so that we can have a balance between talking and action? Yeah, that only works if the talking is generic exposition. We don’t need a long-winded discussion about the details of this mission. We do need a substantial discussion about the absolute hypocrisy the group has fallen into. That split between past and present is important. Are you honestly going to tell me that over all these days---if not, arguably, weeks---the group never once had a conversation about this? That we don’t get to see that downtime filled with some actual growth? And we could have easily achieved that with the current setup. Extend Oscar’s flashback into something significant, leaving the geist battle for next week. Let him be angry for once, furious that after all the shit they put Ozpin through, and by extension him, they’re just going to turn around and do the exact same thing without even an apology? An acknowledgment that they were wrong? Or create space to have that discussion now. Harriet comes out of the mine saying a part of it has collapsed and they need time to clear it, giving Team RWBY the chance to really hash some things out and disagree for once. Instead, as expected, secret keeping is framed as the right decision without anyone but Oscar acknowledging the hypocrisy in that. They even go so far as to say, “Why don’t we play along for a while before me make any major decisions.” Newsflash:

Graphic design is my passion, all.

Overall it’s not quite as pro-protagonist as it could have been, but it’s not great either. We’re left with the fact that the group has this time sitting with their own lies and apparently, after all that, what they’ve settled on is denial. Great. Fantastic. I hope Oscar finds new friends at the Academy who encourage him to really call them out on this later.

We also learn that Ruby gave the relic back to Oscar. So the writing is self-aware enough for her to acknowledge that carrying it around on her belt is a horrendously bad idea, but not self-aware enough to keep her getting it back in the first place? Imagine you hired someone to transport a priceless painting to your super safe vault and then when it finally arrives you go, “Actually, you did such a good job getting that here I think it’ll be safer in your hands as you go about your life. Rather than the vault I specifically built for it.” Except the painting is a magic relic, the vault is also nearly impenetrable via magic, and the transporter is now a 14yo who, as established, is the weakest fighter of the group. For the love of Ironwood’s characterization, please let that relic be a fake.

Really, on the whole that moment could have been touching... but again, context. ‘Here’s the relic back that I basically stole and then ripped all Ozpin’s trauma from him by wasting an invaluable question.’ Yeah. All the while everyone is still talking as if Ozpin isn’t even there. Ironwood, in his ignorance, has been the one person to actually address him, despite the fact that the entire group knows he’s listening in. You know that feeling when you’re sitting with a bunch of people you’re not particularly close with and it’s clear they’re deliberately not including you in the conversation? Yeah, it’s like that only a thousand times worse. No wonder Ozpin still hasn’t tried to come out. No one cares about his vessel, they still actively hate him, and they’re all hypocritical to boot. I’d stay hidden too.

Anyway, back to the actual plot. Qrow has been paired off with Clover and at first we get a really excellent conversation about teamwork. We as the audience know precisely why Qrow prefers to work alone, but when he slips and Clover manages to catch him, it functions as a fantastic counter. See? Qrow might have bad luck, but this is precisely why he does need to be around others. They can help him when things get tough.

However, that message is severely undermined when it’s later revealed that Clover’s semblance is good luck.

Not only does that remove the previously stated wonderful message---because now it’s not about Qrow learning to accept help, it’s about how Clover’s semblance just conveniently cancels his out---it’s just an iffy stretch of my suspension of disbelief. Really? Out of all the people they could have met, that Qrow could have been paired with, he happens to find the one guy with the exact opposite semblance to him? Clover is an incredibly handsome and charismatic guy. He’s the leader of the strongest kingdom’s strongest team. He just happens to have the best version of Qrow’s greatest weakness. I know I said I wanted more passive semblances, but I would have preferred something other than this heavy-handed introduction.

Although... are they passive? I had to pause the episode for a moment when Qrow throws out, “sometimes I can’t keep it under control” because excuse me?? There are times you can keep it under control? Since when? How? I know we’re loose on our semblance rules here, but c’mon. Is Qrow’s entire life governed by a trait outside of his control or not?

We see a similar issue cropping up at the end of the episode when Harriet informs Ruby that there’s “something else” going on with her semblance. Look. RWBY isn’t Dragon Ball Z. The characters don’t need to tap into unheard of powers every season to keep things interesting. As Yang herself points out, Ruby already has super special silver eyes. 

Her semblance is speed and transformation and transforming other people along with her. Weiss is already a super special Schnee with a super special hereditary semblance that creates glyphs and summoned fighters of whatever she’s killed. Blake is already a super special Belladonna with ties to the world’s biggest resistance group. Yang... okay, Yang is admittedly an ordinary girl with an ordinary background and that’s one of the things I still love about her. She grows stronger through more training, better strategy, and turning any weaknesses into strengths---like her arm. It’s so much more powerful to give characters that kind of arc than to fall back on, “[gasp!] You were secretly special all along.” So who knows what else they’re going to add to Ruby’s semblance. Whatever it is, it’s not needed.

I will say though that semblance issues aside, I’m liking the Ace Ops way more than I thought I would. Given that introducing five more characters was, objectively, a bad move. But they’ve got real personality attached to them. I appreciated that Clover thanked Qrow for the save (they could have made a guy that ‘perfect’ way more arrogant) while the rest spent a good portion of the time teasing RWBYJNR like they’re little siblings. Which I adored. For the first time in volumes we got to see our heroes portrayed exactly as they are: teens in training. Nora says that it “feels like we’re an actual huntsmen team,” acknowledging that they’re not yet. They’re the students following the professionals, helping out without getting in the way. It stood out to me that the geist fight is identical to the one we got in Volume Four, with the exception that it’s way, way better. They come up with Jaune’s strategy to remove the limbs in an instant, rather than taking the entire fight trying and failing to do damage. I don’t think a single member of the Ace Ops took a hit, despite the fact that this geist was a huge threat to the rest of the Atlesian army. Like Team RWBY at times, there was seamless communication, perfect execution, and the one time they made a mistake? Ruby was there to help them out. I really appreciated that the writing had RWBYJNR sit this one out until their particular skills---in this case Ruby’s speed---was actually needed, as opposed to an arrogant, ‘How dare you not let us fight!’ where they endanger themselves and others by insisting that they know best. 

This is the RWBYJNR I want to see more of. Ozpin remains a huge, glaring issue, but if the writer’s can keep this sort of attitude in mind we’ll be making good strides away from the horror that was Volume Six. No more, “We don’t need adults,” please. As a bunch of adults just demostrated, they’re way out of your league.

Finally, we end the episode on Tyrian again. Showcasing RWBY’s new love of horror tropes, he appears beneath the flickering lamp light (complimenting the jump scare we got with Blake earlier on). He approaches Forest, the activist from the airship, and we end with Tyrian’s tail coming his way. Did he just poison him? Did he kill him? What’s the end goal here? Just sow chaos by leaving a bunch of bodies lying around? It’s unclear, but whatever is going on, Tyrian sure is busy.

Also, RIP #FRWBY.

Until next week!

Minor Things of Note

I like that Jaune and Blake both looked at their hair before we cut to them with new looks. Still not over Jaune’s style though. He’s french fry head now and no one will convince me otherwise.

It looks like Blake’s blade has been welded back together with a bit of yellow something-or-other...

Bad execution on an otherwise cool introduction to Marrow’s semblance. That was epic how he managed to stop both centipede grimm at once, but then Harriet just... slams them? Awkwardly? They don’t even disintegrate? Idk. Her end of that team attack didn’t live up to Marrow’s.

Team JNR has a very “headfirst approach.” True enough. Although, it’s not like they had an easy way to stop like their Ace Operative teammates. They did the best they could under the circumstances lol.

Jaune also has a landing strategy! I would have rather the writing just acknowledge that than give us that weird moment with Pyrrha’s fabric.

Not sure if I like Qrow’s new outfit or not. To be fair, that man would look stunning in a paper bag, so I’m not sure I’m an objective judge of any change here. Also to be fair, my own fashion ‘skills’ leaves something to be desired. So I think I’ll just bow out of this particular conversation.

[bigskydreaming]

@dargeon-lissa I saw your note on that post, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time or energy to dive down that particular rabbit hole this week, lol. I generally avoid getting into the ‘who stole what from whom’ arguments in the first place, just because I really do love all the Batkids when fandom isn’t getting in the way, and I firmly believe there’s no need to treat characteristics or even plots as though they can only belong to one character. 

So like, I happily butt in when someone says something like “YJ Dick’s hacking is stolen from Tim” because like, its not like its a knock against Tim to point out that “no, Dick’s been portrayed as an expert hacker since before Tim was created, they can both be great hackers, stop being dumb.”

And like I was saying just the other day where I think its stupid and juvenile to emphasize some idea that Dick never reads for pleasure or educates himself for the joy of learning, because some people seem to think that takes something away from Jason, if they’re also writing him with an emphasis on those characteristics.

That sort of thing. 

The rest of the time though, I think it really just comes down to intent, otherwise its just a moot point.

Like, I’m not a fan of Court of Owls fics that center around Tim and basically transplant him with all of Dick’s canon connections to it....but that’s because its like...what’s your point with that fic? If its just because you like the Court of Owls and Talon plotlines but you don’t like Dick, so you’re just cut and pasting one swapped out for the other, then you’ve lost me, not because you’ve ‘stolen’ from Dick, but because you’re not doing anything NEW with the material you’ve applied to a new, different character...while disregarding its source connections. 

*Shrugs* I don’t think that’s about being possessive of Dick’s storylines, its about being like....this is boring. If someone wrote a fic about Tim and the Court of Owls but doesn’t just use him in place of Dick, and still acknowledges their connection to Dick instead of trying to pretend like it or he doesn’t exist...in and of itself, I don’t have a problem with that, it just comes down to whether or not I like what they do with that. Much in the same way that I’d read fic about Dick going up against Ra’s in some specific plot, but if its set after a point in the comics where Tim’s stories started intertwining with Ra’s a lot, I would still want to see that acknowledged. 

Because I do think its disingenuous to pretend that Tim’s stories don’t use Ra’s a lot more regularly than Dick’s canon stories do, even though Dick has prior interactions and stories with Ra’s that go way back before Tim existed. But like....these things don’t need to come into conflict. I can imagine a story that’s Dick vs Ra’s and that doesn’t take away from the respect (or his creepy version of it) that Ra’s has shown Tim as well. He’s allowed to regard more than one of Bruce’s kids as a worthy adversary, and it makes sense that he would. It doesn’t threaten Dick’s central role in a story like that, or his competence, to allow for the fact that Ra’s has a preoccupation with Tim as well, even if that’s not his focus in this particular plot. 

And by the same token, if I were to write a story that springs out of the events of Robin: Year One, for instance, where Dick gets tangled up with Ra’s and Talia and the League because of Vengeance Academy or Boone, something like that.....and I don’t even mention Tim, because its years before Tim would have come into the picture....that’s not me stealing anything from Tim, because those prior connections existed, why shouldn’t anyone make use of them?

Oh fuck it. I clearly went down the rabbit hole anyway. Whatever, more under the cut. Why am I like this.

It goes both ways too. Yeah, sure, I think its dumb when Jason stans act like focusing on Dick’s death takes something away from the typical focus on Jason’s, like he’s less special now or this is Dick ‘stealing Jason’s thing.’ Its comic books. More characters have died and come back then haven’t. Few have their death and return be as central to their character as Jason’s is, like, the Death of Superman is an iconic story but even with that, Clark’s death and resurrection isn’t like....regarded as a fundamental part of his stories....but that doesn’t mean no one’s allowed to write stories that focus on the deaths and returns of other characters, for whatever reason. 

That’s not taking anything away from Jason’s stories, its not copying him, and neither is the way Dick was believed dead for a year like, a rip off of when Steph’s story went the same way prior to that. Characters believed to be dead being revealed as alive is an equally long-running comic book trope. It applies to far more than just the two of them, and no one has proprietary claim over it, its about what you DO with it.

Now, stories that focus on Dick’s death and how he was believed dead and revealed otherwise.....that involve the rest of the Batfamily and make a point not to mention any parallels with Jason or Steph’s stories, act like nothing similar ever happened with them....then I’d be equally wary of that story because I’d be like...why? What’s the point in pretending there are no parallels, acting like Dick is the only one this has ever happened to? He doesn’t need to be, in order for it to have impact, so enough with this Highlander “There can only be one” philosophy.

Like, Dick’s one of the most iconic DC characters and has been around for 80 years. He was going to die and be brought back at some point. Deal with it. It was always inevitable, just like its pretty inevitable that its going to happen to Tim for real at some point too. It just hasn’t yet.

All that said....there have been a number of stories over the years that have posited Dick being killed by the Joker and coming back as Renegade or Red Hood. Similarly, I have no interest in reading those, not because I’m opposed to a Renegade storyline or an exploration of a darker version of Dick, but because they’re usually just a blatant cut and paste job. *Shrugs* I’ve already read that story with Jason and UTRH. I liked that story, with Jason and UTRH. Why do I need to read the same story, just with Dick now instead of Jason? I’d rather read something brand new.

Then we get to ‘stealing characters.’ Like Jason stealing Kory and Roy, and Dick stealing Kon in YJ, etc. I have the same philosophy here as I do about characteristics....its weird and not cool to me to treat characters as having ‘claim’ to any other characters...but that doesn’t mean I always like when this happens either. But its not because they’re taking what belongs to another character, its about why, and what they do with it.

Like, when its a cheap grab of established characters being now associated with a different character to give them a supporting cast with minimal effort, as opposed to building them their own supporting cast with time and care and putting thought into it...THAT’S my problem with that. I don’t typically like Jason being besties with Kory and Roy, either in canon or in fanfics....but that’s not actually because they’re Dick’s friends and can’t be Jason’s too, its because I don’t like the stories that result from that, and I don’t think they make a case or put any effort into convincing me that this needs to be a trio....the way the comics have decades worth of stories establishing a connection between Dick and Roy and Kori and Dick, and with that being why they’re so associated with him. 

I don’t like Jason, Roy and Kory in canon because I just don’t like the New 52 versions of Roy and Kory period, lol. I hate what they’ve done with them, they feel watered down and tweaked in ways that add nothing to their characters, and their association with Jason irritates me not because it exists, but because of how rarely it allows their association with Dick to exist, and acts like mentioning him in their stories threatens the validity of them being with Jason. You wanna write them being Jason’s friends, DO THAT. But put some EFFORT into it. JUSTIFY it. And....don’t erase their connections to Jason’s brother because they’re not allowed to have connections with two brothers at the same time or whatever. Like, even without all their pre-Flashpoint history, New 52 Roy and Kory SHOULD show way more of a connection to Dick than their stories with Jason ever allow for, and that’s the bigger issue to me. Not that Jason ‘stole’ them, but that writers act like he can’t have stories with them without pretending their stories with Dick don’t exist. 

Even in New 52, like, the Rebirth version of Titans was crap, lol, but it still existed, and like....there’s hardly any acknowledgment of Dick and Roy being long time teammates even AFTER the Titans got their memories of each other back in Rebirth. Even if they’re not the best of friends in New 52 the way they were in Flashpoint, they still had way more history in even current canon than Jason’s comicbook writers or fic writers seem willing to allow mentions of. Similarly, we barely know anything about Dick and Kory’s relationship in the New 52....but we do know they HAD one, and fucking amnesia was involved there too, lol, but like. It exists. You want to write her mostly hanging out with Jason now, fine! But like....there’s no reason her past with Dick can’t still exist, and that it would never come up.

Instead, I read way too many fics about Jason, Kory and Roy where the latter two just fucking full on hate Dick, because the writer does. Or just act like he’s a total stranger to them and their loyalty is solidly with Jason and always has been and always will be. And that’s cheap and lazy writing to me, and makes no sense and wouldn’t appeal to me even if it wasn’t Dick that was being bashed and it was a different character in a similar context. 

So its not like they CAN’T be good friends with Jason, because they were such good friends with Dick first. Its just...factor that in, at least, you know? But admittedly, even were writers to do this more, it still wouldn’t be ideal IMO, with these particular characters....because I’m always gonna wonder WHY. Why them? Why these two in particular, when giving Jason more friends? Like, especially if you’re still incorporating large amounts of pre-reboot history into your characters, Jason and his dynamics with Dick and the Batfamily in particular.....its always going to be a little weird to me to have Jason of all people become besties with one of his big brother’s most iconic and longterm friends, and his big brother’s ex-fiancee and mother of his child in other timelines.

Like....its just a matter of....you couldn’t come up with anyone else? That’s why when I headcanon giving Jason more friends and teammates of his own - BECAUSE HE TOTALLY DESERVES THEM AND I WANT HIM TO HAVE THEM, I AGREE, LOL - like, I focus on characters who have no strong connections to Dick or Tim or anyone else in the Batfamily already. And its not because I don’t want to steal what ‘belongs’ to anyone else already, but because....Jason should get to build and have strong connections with characters on his own. I’d rather look through DC’s vast library of characters and find ones that I think FIT him best, have the most potential to play off his character and add to his storylines....then try and take a shortcut by seeing who’s been popular with his big brother but isn’t currently being used in big brother’s storylines, and thus can become besties with Jason without needing to put too much effort into writing that happening.

And that’s why I don’t have a ton of interest in writing Jason with Kory and Roy....because I still prefer their dynamics and history with Dick and don’t really feel they make a ton of sense to go live with his younger brother instead, so I’m happy to just have them friendly with Jason, maybe even the friends of Dick’s he’s closest too and they’ve occasionally teamed up on their own....but for Jason himself, I’d rather build him connections with Tomcat, Damage, Ray, Jade and Obsidian, Anima, maybe the aged up version of Chris Kent....characters he has a blank slate with, no prior strong associations with his older brother that innately make any connection Jason has with them at least somewhat complicated....people I feel he could play off of well and they could add a lot to each others’ characterizations and storylines, and I can easily and without conflict write them being fully in Jason’s corner in ANY kind of disagreement with even Dick or the other Titans....without there always being this weird edge where its like, are Kory and Roy on Jason’s side here just solely for his sake, or is it also because they’re pissed at Dick or the other Titans for their own reasons, or what’s going on here?

Now jump back to where I brought up how YJ Dick has been accused of stealing Kon from Tim. Like, this I think is fully dumb, and again, people can think its because I’m a Dick stan and think he should have everything lol, but its exactly what I’ve been saying all along. Its about what you do with the characters. And its about that none of them belong to any other character in the first place.

Like, can I just say I hate the whole ‘so and so needs their own super, their own speedster, their own archer’ mindset? They’re not collector’s items. They don’t go up in value once you have a complete set. If you’re trying to configure a team and make sure you have certain different archetypes and powersets because of what that allows for narratively? I’m all on board. But once you start going well Kon is Tim’s super and Jon is Damian’s....then I’m like. LOL. No. Kon is Tim’s FRIEND. Jon is Tim’s FRIEND. 

And also because...that’s all Connor actually is, in Young Justice? He’s Dick’s FRIEND. And teammate. He’s not “Dick’s super” because tbh, I don’t see how he’s any more closely associated with Dick in YJ than any of the other original core cast. He’s got the exact same degree of closeness and familiarity with Dick in YJ as he does with say, Artemis. Did Artemis steal Kon too? Or are they just all friends by virtue of the YJ showrunners deciding to make Connor one of their age group, because they wanted their team to have a character with connections to Superman and Lex, not because they wanted Dick to have his own Super.

*Shrugs* And if you don’t like moving Connor to a different age group and generation of heroes in and of itself, that’s a valid complaint! But it doesn’t need to be about Dick stealing something from Tim. I hate that Raven and Beast Boy were aged down in the New 52 and the more recent animated movies and are more in Damian’s age group than Dick’s.....but that’s because I love the classic 80′s Teen Titans lineup and miss Raven and Gar’s dynamics with ALL the older Titans characters. Not because Damian stole them from Dick. I also hate Vic on the Justice League because it was nominally supposed to be to boost his profile but I think its only resulted in a regression in his stories as while a Titan, he had a LOT more narrative focus and a lot more character connections than he’s ever been given since being made an original Leaguer in the New 52′s version of the Justice League. And I don’t hate the JL for stealing Vic from the Titans, I hate the DC editorial staff for making dumb, flimsy creative choices in the name of headlines and hashtags instead of solid character choices and strong narratives.

Like, I went off for a bit there, admittedly, but god. I just hate this whole ‘so and so stole this and that from so and so’ in fandom, because its so pointless, IMO. And people take it so faaaaaar.

LOL, you know how I talk a lot about shipping Dick/Kyle? I’ve had people accuse me of ‘stealing’ Kyle from Jason....because enough people ship Jason/Kyle on the basis of the one comic they were in together and had tension in, that he’s now apparently ‘Jason’s’ and the only reason anyone could possibly have for shipping him with Dick is because Jason’s not allowed to have nice things.

I can’t even express how dumb that sounds to someone who’s been shipping Dick and Kyle ever since there like, two interactions in the Obsidian Age JLA arc that came out years before Jason was even brought back in the comics, let alone starred in a comic with Kyle. Where absolutely, yeah, he had far more interactions with Kyle than Dick and Kyle have ever had! But like, there’s not a fucking quota for non canon ships, lmao. Its not like whoever has the most interactions with someone gets to call dibs. 

There’s a whole laundry list of reasons I ship Dick and Kyle together, based on their core characterizations and their storylines, and various parallels I’ve seen in both over the years. And any story I wrote with the two of them as a couple would absolutely reference Kyle’s previous history with Jason and Donna in Countdown, and have him have his own interactions and dynamics with the two of them, separate and distinct from what he had with Dick. And none of that has anything to do with wanting to ship him with Dick because he’s usually shipped with Jason and I’m jealous and want him with my fave instead, lol. I actually do ship Jason and Kyle as well at times, in other story ideas, and that actually has very little to do with their Countdown interactions as well. If anything, the reason I ship Kyle with both Jason and Dick in different scenarios is because I’ve always seen Dick and Jason as very similar in a lot of regards....and thus they both share a lot of the characterizations and story points that I parallel with Kyle’s, and are what makes me think he’s a viable love interest for either of them.

To wrap this up, I can FEEL the inevitability of someone out there saying “Big talk, but what about you insisting that Jason STOLE Robin from Dick?”

Like, I can just FEEL that on the tip of someone’s tongue, lmao.

And to that I would have to answer....uh....I’ve never ever ever even once said or suggested that Jason stole Robin. I’ve always maintained that the fault there was Bruce and Bruce’s alone, and its Bruce who has something to account for there. From an IN STORY perspective. Because of the CHARACTER reasons for Dick feeling protective and possessive of the mantle, not for any meta reason about it being his and his alone.

Because I do like all of the Robins. I’m glad all of them were Robin. My repeated insistence on stressing the importance of the name for Dick, and hating how little that’s acknowledged...is literally just that. I can like all of the Robins and still think that as the creator of the mantle, and having created it to honor the legacy of his first family, the Flying Graysons, NOT to be an extension of the Batman, I just happen to think that even with all of the Robins sharing in the legacy at this point and adding their own bits to the mantle and what it means and represents, Dick’s motivations for becoming Robin in the first place and the fact that he was not the one given the choice of turning it into a legacy is something that deserves to be upheld as the most important factor in narratives about passing on the mantle and conflict over the mantle.

Not because Dick’s the best Robin or the most important or anything that requires or suggests RANKING the Robins according to some completely arbitrary set of parameters....

but simply because Dick’s creation of the mantle and his reasons for doing it and what it meant to him from the start and to this day....are the most RELEVANT to stories about the passing on of the mantle or conflict about the mantle.

Because simply in terms of causation....without Dick’s motivations...the mantle they all fight over would not even exist. Voila. That makes them innately relevant to any discussion of the mantle in a way that say, Tim’s motivations for becoming Robin aren’t necessarily relevant to a conversation about the mantle between Dick and Jason, or Jason and Damian, or any other variation not involving Tim. Dick’s motivations are the only ones that always bear relevancy in anything pertaining to the Robin mantle, because he’s the singular commonality for it, no matter who holds it and how they got it....because he’s the one who created it.

That’s all. Its got nothing to do with best or favorite, its about....just wanting fandom to stop treating his feelings about Robin as the most irrelevant, when he’s the only single common denominator wherever Robin is concerned....and thus the most relevant. 

[halothenthehorns]

THE HEIR OF SLYTHERIN

THE HEIR OF SLYTHERIN

James kind of got the worst chapter on this, again, didn't he?

HPHPHP

James began, feeling like ice was trying to freeze him over. He really didn't want this chapter, but he also was dying to know what on earth had happened to his son down there. Steeling himself, he forced out.

Harry found himself in yet another long chamber, with the ceiling so high up he couldn't even make it out, and no light source visible though everything had a green tint to it. Stationed and spaced around the room were stone carvings of snakes larger then Harry, all seeming to watch him walk. Which only reminded him of where the Basilisk could be.

"The Basilisk still isn't my biggest concern right now," Remus grumbled, "I want to know who dragged Ginny down there, who's been doing this stuff all year!"

Harry just looked at him miserably, as hungry for those answers as any of them.

Still, his biggest concern was, where was Ginny?

Then he nodded to himself, this question was still number one to him. Despite his gut feeling that Ginny was okay, in this particular moment anyway, he still had no idea what to make of that other memory flash, he desperately wanted to hear the book confirm this.

Still walking along as quietly as possible, he tried to ignore the paranoid feeling that the frozen snakes were watching him, and a few times the shadows made it seem as if they were moving.

"Creepy," Sirius said, drawing the word out for emphasis.

The end began creeping into sight, and Harry found himself facing a huge wall that climbed high above his head.

James bleakley remembered just a few hours ago when he'd made a joking comment that he hoped Harry found this place. It was something new, a part of the school's history that hardly

anybody would have known about. He'd wanted his son to find something like that, now he just wanted to drag him out of there as fast as possible.

Harry had to tip his head all the way back to make out the person etched into the stone, whose features seemed monkeyish.

All three boys couldn't help but release a snort of mirth at the beginning of that description. All five of them had a very good guess that this statue was of Salazar Slytherin, and the three boys were picturing someone walking up and calling him a monkey to his face.

The dry humour only lasted for a moment, but it was appreciated nonetheless in the tense silence. As much as they were all praying Harry would simply find Ginny and get out of there without running into anything, if history had taught them anything so far, Harry's life wasn't going to be that easy.

Laying facedown at the foot of this, was a small body with bright red hair.

"Ginny," they all breathed, Harry in relief, the others with trepidation.

So Harry had found Ginny like they were hoping, but the fact that she was face down meant absolutely nothing good. Could Harry's gut reactions finally be wrong, and the poor girl was

already dead? James wasn't going to sit around speculating, he blasted on.

Harry ran forward without thinking, throwing his wand away in a panic,

"You did what!" The four of them screamed. It must have been quite a racket, even upstairs, because the baby went off again. Gently placing the book aside, James blasted off to the stairs,

while Lily demanded, "Harry, he was joking right? You didn't really-"

Harry didn't even begin to deny it, his abashed face was all the answer they needed. His only defence was, "I'm sorry. I panicked, it was in my hand and I wanted both hands to-" he trailed off giving a helpless shrug, "I know now it was stupid."

"At least you recognize that," Remus sighed, flopping back against the couch.

"Honestly, remind me again why we don't have an elementary wand-safety class?" Sirius demanded. "Don't put your wand in your back pocket, don't toss it around like a stick, don't go

waving it around like a toy." He said all this in a very huffy tone of voice, clearly mimicking someone Harry couldn't place as he continued in his normal tone, "I didn't even like her and I

listened to those stupid rules."

"You can't call them stupid and then say they're needed," Lily pointed out as James came back down the stairs, childless and only slightly less grumpy than when he left.

"I thought you said you put a silencing charm on his room?" He directed at Sirius, pretty sure he was the last one to be up there.

"I did," he defended at once.

"Well it must have worn off then," he sighed, flopping back into his spot, "good lord how long have we been at this?" He demanded of nothing, rubbing at his eyes, then directing at Harry, "I

assume they all told you why that was stupid then?"

"We didn't have to," Lily defended, "he recognized it was stupid himself."

"Atta boy," James said, grinning weakly, "guess I can't blame you too much. You were in a pretty awful situation."

"Merlin," Sirius said in shock, causing the three of them to turn their attention to the other two, "has anyone seen the time? We've been at this all day, it's no wonder the charm wore off."

James really did check his own watch then and let out a low, throaty whistle while saying, "damn, we missed dinner."

Lily released a snort of mirth before saying, "well, we'll have a late one then. I don't want to delay this any longer, and I want Harry out of there. So keep reading James."

He shrugged, in no mood to argue the point, and began a little more easily now that he'd had time to clear his head.

so that he could grab her shoulders and roll her over to find a face whiter than snow and so cold. Her eyes weren't opening, which meant she hadn't been Petrified. His mind jumped to the only other thing...

All five of them shivered in disgust. The four of them never having even met Ginny, and still horrified at the mental image of the dead girl. Harry felt sick inside, even knowing it wasn't true, that was one memory he would gladly erase away all over again.

Harry kept shaking her anyways, watching her head move lifelessly as he begged her to wake up. Then a voice behind him whispered that she wouldn't.

They all started then, not having expected that. They had thought whoever had dragged Ginny down there must be with the Basilisk, so if someone was talking to Harry then they didn't need the book to tell them something really awful was about to happen.

Harry turned around to find a dark haired boy leaning against one of the stone snakes and watching him.

"You didn't recognize him?" Sirius asked, puzzled at once that a name hadn't been in there.

"He must be someone at the school though," Remus said, brow furrowing in confusion. "Admittedly we haven't come across anyone this year who it could be, but no one but the students

and staff are in the school enough for him to not stick out and be suspicious."

Harry was frowning for a different reason this time, somehow knowing the answer was going to be far weirder than anyone would see coming.

The longer Harry stared, the more he noticed that this boy was blurred around the edges, like looking at him through fog.

This just piqued their interest even more. By that description, it clearly meant whoever this boy was, he was wasn't really there. But they'd never heard of this type of communication before, which still didn't bode well for Harry.

Still the name jumped into Harry's mind, and he whispered Tom Riddle.

"Wha-" James began, triple checking that he had read that right.

"That arse who framed Hagrid all those years ago?" Sirius demanded. "You must be joking?"

Harry shook his head sadly from side to side, saying aloud, "no, it was him, or else he has a twin brother who looks and sounds just like him."

"But, fifty years later?" Remus demanded. "I don't care about genetics, that can't be the same person, or even his son. No one looks exactly like someone else. This isn't possible, he still

wouldn't look the same."

"I think you're all missing the point," Lily whispered, eyeing the book with high trepidation, "which is, why is he down there with Harry?"

That brought them up short. The odd realization that some kid who still looked the same fifty years later was weird, which had derailed them from what Lily had reminded them. After a drawn

out pause, James finally asked, "how?"

"With any luck, he'll explain, 'cause I've got nothing," Harry sighed, looking longingly to the book. He was very sure that the headache that was pounding away at him would finally be at ease

after this horrid year. Unlike last year, he'd gotten none of his answers slowly throughout the year, but more questions on top of questions. Now here he finally was, at the climax of this disastrous year, and he felt it was high time to get this over with.

James relented that if there was any justice, this wired ghost Riddle kid would explain something, soon.

Harry turned his attention back to Ginny, asking what he meant? Riddle admitted that while she was still alive, it wasn't by much.

Even with Harry's reassurances and Riddle's own declaration, that still wasn't making anyone in the room feel any better. There were some worse things to be then dead, and Ginny seemed to be heading that way.

Harry felt distracted once again by watching this boy, who by records should have been fifty years older, not the exact same sixteen year old Riddle as Harry had seen in that diary. Harry asked him if he was a ghost.

"That's not how ghosts look and you know it," Remus said, not reprimanding even, just being his typical self in pointing things out.

Harry pointed out right back, "like you, I wasn't exactly expecting that. It was the first thing that came to mind."

Riddle told that he was a memory, who had been saved in a diary all these years.

"That's, possible," Sirius said, slowly and uneasily, "but not to this degree. The most advanced form of that is the magical paintings, and even they can't leave their bindings. Since that diary is his binding, he should not be able to leave it and 'walk' around."

Harry was very curious to hear more about that, but now didn't seem the time.

He gestured to the little black book at Ginny's feet Harry recognized as having found in Myrtle's bathroom all those months ago.

All of them puzzled at this, indeed wondering how it could have made its way down there, and how it was all connected? This still didn't even answer their question of who was doing all of this, it actually managed to raise more!

Harry remained frozen in shock for a few moments before deciding he'd deal with that later, and asking Tom to help him with Ginny, trying to lift her into his arms himself. He voiced that the basilisk could be coming even as they spoke, but Riddle didn't even twitch.

"I didn't like him before," Lily began, notes of unease already creeping into her voice, "and I'm liking him less and less as this goes on."

"He's unnatural," Remus agreed, "whatever is going on here is something very Dark. How Ginny got mixed up in all of this still blows my mind."

Harry was frowning and shaking his head from side to side, somehow he just knew all of the pieces were right there in front of him in that moment, and so he begged his father on so that they would finally come together.

Harry only got to his feet with her for a few moments, before he reached for his wand and found it wasn't there.

"Not good," James hissed, beginning to bounce in place, though stopping quickly as this made it very hard to read, "very not good."

He began to ask if Tom had seen his wand, when he looked up to find said Prefect twirling it about in his hand.

"He shouldn't be able to do that," Lily yelled, her voice an octave higher than was normal.

"Nothing like this should be happening," Remus snapped back, then immediately apologized and said, "sorry Lily, just on edge."

She acknowledged the apology with the barest of nods, not having been the least bit offended by him. They were all beyond off edge by this point.

Harry thanked him for grabbing it, reaching out his hand expectantly.

Sirius had to restrain himself from laughing out loud at this. His poor pup, there was no chance that this would simply be resolved that easily. No, Riddle was there for some very Dark reason, and giving Harry back his wand most likely didn't involve those plans.

Riddle only smiled a bit, but didn't even move one bit towards giving it back. Harry's knees began to shake with the dead weight of Ginny.

Harry shuddered at that figure of speech, still not appreciating its meaning.

He tried to convince Riddle that they really were in a hurry, as the basilisk would be here soon, but Tom cut him off by saying it wouldn't come until called. Harry finally lost the battle and lowered Ginny back onto the ground, then asked what Riddle meant, then demanded his wand back. Tom only smiled wider saying Harry wasn't going to be needing that.

"I don't like this," Lily moaned, her hand beginning to dig into Harry's again. She really needed that reassurance right then, that her baby really was going to be okay.

Harry returned the pressure with a reassuring squeeze, the only comfort he could offer right then.

Harry began to ask what he meant, but Riddle cut him off by saying he'd been very eager to see Harry for a long time.

"Why?" James demanded through gritted teeth. "What on earth could he possibly want with you?"

Harry had no answer for him, except the instinctive one that they weren't going to like his stay in the Chamber.

Harry's temper was wearing in now, saying they could talk later, but they needed to get out of here now! Riddle shot back that he was in no hurry, and he wanted to talk now, then he put Harry's wand in his robes. Harry started to get a prickling feeling up his spine.

"Glad you picked up on that," Sirius said weakly, not mocking really. Harry was only twelve at this time after all. Any normal student wouldn't really question too far what was going on, except trying to get out of danger like Harry was.

He asked the first thing that came to mind, what had happened to Ginny?

"I'm getting a really bad feeling about that," James murmured, his words not nearly covering the feelings of unease that were still rampaging through him.

Riddle seemed amused by the question, saying that was quite a story. It started with the fact that Ginny had been talking to a diary for nearly a year.

Remus' mouth opened with a little pop. Upon questioning though, he just shrugged and murmured, "just, processing is all. I knew I didn't like that diary, but I really don't like what he's

implying. Just keep going James, I want to hear this."

James wanted to do the exact opposite in fact, and simply take Harry's word for it that everything was fine and move past this already. Still, he couldn't very well leave it like this now could he.

How the book that Ginny'd been writing in all this time had been so kind to her, how she'd bemoaned about her life of being poor and how the noble Harry Potter would never even look at her.

"This is foul, beyond loathsome," Lily hissed. "How dare he mock her for this! What on earth, why-" she sputtered out of air then, simply waving James on when she realized he still hadn't

really answered anything. He was just insulting the insecurities of an eleven-year-old, which in itself was awful.

The longer he spoke, the more hunger swam in his eyes as he kept staring at Harry.

"He's creeping me out with that," Sirius muttered, mostly to himself.

Riddle sighed about how boring it had been trying to comfort her, but she'd eaten it right up as she constantly thanked him for being such a good friend. Then he laughed, such a terrible sound that it made all of Harry's hair stand on end.

That had already happened to James a long time ago, and he wasn't even there to hear this in person. Just listening to his cruel depictions of mocking Ginny was enough to give him the creeps.

Riddle congratulated himself that it had always been easy for him to make others see the better side of him. Ginny had poured her heart and soul into that diary, and her soul had been just what Riddle needed.

Remus shuddered in disgust, not really wanting to answer when Harry asked, "I don't get it? Why would he want that?" He didn't seem able to bring himself to say those exact words Riddle had.

"Not for any good reason, I'm sure," Sirius almost whispered.

"What exactly is this thing?" Lily demanded. "I've never heard of anything like it?"

"I'm positive I don't want to know the answer," James huffed, before forcing himself to keep going anyways.

Finally Riddle had been feeding off of Ginny long enough that he could start giving her a little of his soul back.

Sirius actually did retch then, going a funny green colour at the thought of that.

Harry still dearly wanted to ask what on earth was going on, what this thing was, but one look around and he realized they had no more idea than him, which was the opposite of comforting.

He concluded by saying that Ginny Weasley had been the one opening the Chamber of Secrets.

'She can't have' James wanted to snap, but really he had no way to say it. All the air seemed to have gone out of him.

"Is it, possessing her?" Harry asked, looking from the book back to the others very quickly now.

"Seems like," Remus forced the words out, "but again, I've never heard of anything, anything, like this."

"Which is, above all, the creepiest thing," Sirius said in a ghost of his old teasing voice, "we're supposed to be able to use you as our walking dictionary."

Lily let out an almost hysterical laugh, which died quickly.

None of them could really think of anything else to say, though the dominant thought was 'why Harry?' Why on earth had he been the one to come across this, and why was this thing so transfixed on him? Of course they all had a pool of concern for poor Ginny as well, she was clearly a victim of something very wrong going on, something that still managed to tie into Harry.

James hated every word out of his mouth as he choked out.

Riddle continued in a happy voice that Ginny had been the one to tell the snake to attack those Mudbloods, and Filch's cat. Harry tried to deny it, but it hardly made it out of his mouth.

Harry very dearly wanted to interrupt again, with questions like 'why hadn't any of them noticed Ginny was acting weird all year?' At least her brothers should have noticed something! These questions though, would never truly be answered.

Riddle laughed, still speaking as if of the weather as he admitted that she didn't realize she was doing it at first, which had been the most amusing of her entries into the diary.

"Amusing?" Lily hissed. "Did he really just say that? I can't imagine what must have been going through the poor girl's mind, but amusing is far from it."

"This thing is a sadist," Sirius grumbled.

Harry couldn't really feel the horror on his face as he listened,

None of them needed to imagine that, since it was on Harry's face right now, and most likely mirrored on their own.

to Tom explain that her entries were now of how she'd woken up covered in rooster feathers and red paint. She had no idea where she'd been on Halloween night, how she had no recollection of what she'd been doing when the students were attacked, and she feared she was losing her mind.

By the end of this, Harry wanted to yell and rage and scream that he needed to shut up now, but it would be pointless yelling at his dad for that.

Silence seemed to have struck the room as Riddle just seemed to keep talking, none of them able to think of anything to add to how horrible this was.

Harry felt his hands tense up, white knuckled, as Riddle admitted that Ginny finally came to realize she shouldn't be trusting her diary and tried to get rid of it, when Harry found it.

'Which is when the attacks stopped', Lily realized, wanting to slap herself for not having linked that together before.

"Of all the-" Remus began, but quickly cut himself off. If Harry hadn't found it, then some other unsuspecting soul would have come across it. Since it had been in a girl's bathroom, even a mostly unused one, Harry finding it was almost, barely, a good thing. For if another girl had found it, she possibly would have gone through the same process as Ginny all over again. At least Harry had never written in it more than once, saving him from this horrid fate.

Riddle couldn't have been happier, as Harry was the one person he wanted to meet more than anything.

Sirius opened his mouth to repeat the question that was on everyone's mind, why on earth this demon seemed so intent on Harry, but James quickly kept going.

Harry could hardly spit out the words he was so angry, but he managed to ask why? Riddle told how Ginny had given him the story of the Boy Who Lived, and how Riddle must reach Harry and talk to him about this.

Sirius then had to bite his tongue to keep himself from making a 'fan girl' joke. Now wasn't the time, nor would it be appreciated.

Tom had chosen to show Harry the vision of capturing Hagrid, insulting the man a bit, just to get Harry to trust him.

"Don't insult him," James snarled. "While I'd love to burn this thing, I can't wait to find out where on earth Ginny got it, and drag it to the Ministry and prove it wasn't Hagrid you-" he cut himself off in a muttering of curses.

Lily blinked in surprise, this question hadn't occurred to her yet, but it was a good one. Where had Ginny gotten a hold of this thing? She couldn't imagine it would have been anywhere at her own house, her parents would probably die before bringing something so Dark into their home, and it couldn't be at the school. Where had she come across this?

Harry spat back that Hagrid was his friend, and Riddle had framed him! Riddle laughed again, clearly pleased at Harry's retort as he admitted it wasn't hard as he'd been the perfect school boy, very heroic, a prefect, perfect grades,

"Crazy, psychopathic, sadistic-" Remus had to poke Sirius in the ribs to get him to stop.

while Hagrid had been the opposite, always sneaking around wild animals, trying to take care of werewolf cubs,

All three boys were in too much of a towering temper to correct such a ludicrous sentence. On top of everything, this idiot didn't know the first thing about werewolves, and the fact that werewolf cubs didn't even exist!

Harry dearly wanted to ask about this, but still held his tongue.

or sneaking into the forest to fight trolls,

"This thing knows nothing about magical creatures does it?" James really did scoff this time.

"While there are forest trolls, there aren't any in the Forbidden Forest."

"You would know," Lily said, trying for a bit of good-natured humour, which really was appreciated right then.

but even Riddle had been shocked when people bought his story so easily. Anyone who looked twice at Hagrid should have realized he couldn't be the Heir.

"That is a very good point," Harry was loath to admit and agree with anything this thing said, but since it was about Hagrid...

Riddle had spent the past five years learning about the Chamber, then scoffed that Hagrid didn't have a portion of the knowledge to do half of this.

"And he's got an ego on top of all his other lovely qualities," Sirius grumbled.

Dumbledore had been the only one who didn't believe Riddle's story.

"Really?" Lily demanded. "Only Dumbledore? No other teacher, hell anybody with a brain, bothered to question this?"

"Prejudices," Remus offered bitterly. "I'm sure most anyone can guess Hagrid's half-giant. So when someone like Riddle would have come along and accused Hagrid of doing this, they ate it

right up."

"This is disgusting," James growled, he might have even kept going, but Harry was quick to get him back on track. While he hated this idea as much as anyone, there was no good in sitting about and talking about it, when they could possibly fix it.

Dumbledore had been the one to convince Dippet to hire Hagrid as the gamekeeper, and Dumbledore had also been the only teacher never to fall for Riddle's charm.

"Can't imagine why," Remus said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "Could it possibly be he didn't fall for your demented act?"

Harry wasn't surprised, saying he was positive Dumbledore had seen right through Riddle. Tom agreed Dumbledore became a bit of a nuisance after all of that, it hadn't been safe for him to reopen the Chamber in his own time, so he'd laid aside the diary to do the work again for him later.

"With the blackest, cruellest kind of magic I've never even heard of," Remus said through clenched teeth.

"There's no way a sixteen-year-old did this," Sirius said weakly, "this is the darkest, most advanced magic-"

"Can we not," Lily moaned. "I don't want to be sitting around thinking about this. It's dark, and twisted, evil and weird, we all agree, but I want to see Harry getting out of there before midnight."

That silenced them for now anyways.

Now he could be free to finish Slytherin's true calling! Harry laughed aloud this time, pointing out no one had died this time, not even Mrs. Norris.

"Do you think," Harry began hesitantly, "is there any way Ginny was somehow, I don't know, trying to influence so that these set of circumstances happened? It can't really be a coincidence no

one's died."

They puzzled this for a moment before James said, "you know, I wouldn't be too surprised if that were true Harry. Everyone who's been attacked had a means out, Ginny may have been semi

influencing the choices to give them a chance."

Harry beamed, knowing this could never be proven one way or another, no way would he ever ask such a thing, but liking the idea anyways.

Riddle didn't seem concerned, saying that he had switched goals. Now he felt his job was to kill Harry.

James choked out that last word as if he'd had a dung bomb tossed down his throat. The horrid idea that someone wanted his son dead was awful enough, let alone him having to say it.

"Why?" Lily demanded of no one in particular, "this is, I don't even know what this is! What on earth does this creature have against you?"

Harry just shrugged, feeling frustrated he couldn't remember, though he was sure he found out in a few moment's anyways.

Harry just gaped at him. Riddle kept talking, speaking of his surprise about how the next time someone had written in his diary it had been Ginny again.

"Why would she go back to it?" Sirius grumbled. "If she had the ability to throw it away the first time, why didn't she just try again? Or better, go get a teacher, or-"

"Oh, now I understand," Remus cut him off, "it was Ginny who stole the diary from Harry. Ginny pieced together what had happened to her, which is why she got rid of it, she must have

recognized it was doing something to her. When she saw it in Harry's possession though, she was afraid the same thing would happen to him."

"That still doesn't explain why she didn't take it to someone," Lily sighed.

"I think," Harry said slowly, then broke off as soon as he had begun. Growing far beyond annoyed at his inability to give these answers, he instead said, "I know I understand everything

before the night's over. Let's please just hear about Ginny getting out of here, then we can keep questioning this" he all but pleaded in the end.

Nodding in assent, James forced himself to read on.

She must have seen Harry with that diary and feared Harry would use it. What if Riddle told Harry everything she'd written? What if Riddle had even told of how Ginny had been the one doing all of this?

All five of them grimaced as they got their answer anyways. Yes, the fear that Ginny would be blamed for these attacks would certainly hold the girl's tongue about this evil diary.

Riddle wasn't too concerned though, now knowing that Harry would go to any lengths to solve the mystery, especially if a certain muggleborn friend of his was set upon.

Harry gritted his teeth so hard he could almost hear them cracking. Riddle had targeted one of his friends on purpose that time! If this spectre didn't die this night, he certainly was going to soon.

For an added bonus, he'd made sure to have Ginny sign herself away and come down to the Chamber. She had tried to fight it off, becoming quite boring to Riddle.

'So now it's boring to watch a child beg for her life' James howled in his head, but didn't interrupt himself to say it aloud. Everyone here looked on the brink of yelling themselves soon.

Then all he'd had to do was wait, and sure enough Harry had come. Riddle added that he had a lot of questions for Harry.

Remus swallowed hard as he realized something else, he was feeding off of Ginny. The longer this conversation went on, the closer she was to dying. That's why all the talking, and explaining. He was purposely drawing all of this out. He very dearly wanted to point this out to the others, but either they had already realized it for themselves, or it would do no good in the end. So he decided against it, knowing it would only hurt Harry.

Harry growled that what could he want? Riddle's first question was, how had he done it? How had a baby defeated the most powerful wizard to exist, Lord Voldemort?

"Voldemort?" Sirius asked in genuine confusion "What on earth has this got to do with him?"

Harry opened, and just as quickly closed his mouth. He had known there was something significant about the name Tom Riddle, and he just knew they were on the brink of figuring it out. He tried his best to explain this, and now very curious James read.

Harry asked why he'd want to know, as Voldemort had rose after Riddle's life, but Tom gave a small smile as he said Voldemort was his life.

All five of them felt themselves going slack-jawed for a moment, but James wasn't giving anyone the chance to say anything until he read.

He used Harry's wand to spell out the name TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE. Then he gave it a flick, and the letters moved around until they instead formed I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

"Voldemort is just an anagram?" Sirius said, almost laughing in shock.

"I suppose that makes sense in a certain light," James agreed. "After all, it's not a surname or anything of the like. I guess Riddle or Tom just wouldn't have the same spooky effect."

"Are you kidding me?" Lily screeched, going white as a ghost. "How are you laughing about this? What, how, why is Voldemort's... I don't even know how to phrase this it's so ludicrous."

"How is a bit of Voldemort walking and talking through a diary?" Remus offered weakly.

Lily nodded quickly as she said, "yes, that."

Harry very dearly wanted to answer, but the price was yet another stab at his brain, a very powerful one this time he was sure. He had known from the get-go that there was something very

particular he should remember about this diary, and it related to that question...but what?

The others were so stumped, they couldn't even begin to speculate on this. They had never heard of anything like this, even Sirius who had heard of some pretty dark magic growing up around his kind of family couldn't piece this one together.

Only taking a brief comfort in that Harry was still here now, and his insistence that Ginny survived this, was James able to read.

Riddle seemed quite pleased now as he explained that he would never keep the name his family had given him, his wasteful Muggle father.

Sirius suddenly snorted so violently, Remus leaned over him in shock and concern before Sirius began laughing, hard. James had to reread that sentence almost a dozen times, and he was still

frozen in shock.

Coming out of his laughing fit, only slightly, Sirius said in a breathy voice, "V-Vol-Voldemort's a half-blood! Oh Merlin, I can't breathe-" and he really didn't seem able to keep sucking in air as he continued laughing.

"The pureblood supremacists of the world, is a half-blood." Lily said the sentence slowly and distinctly, tasting the words and cracking a smile herself. "Well, that's certainly something I never saw coming."

"I'll bet his followers don't know that," Remus cackled. "I've always said there's no way possible every Death Eater's a pureblood, there's just not that many of them! It's no wonder Riddle's so lax."

"Is that what we're going to call him now?" James asked in a conversational tone of voice. "Riddle? I am completely okay with this."

"Well he certainly doesn't deserve the title of Voldemort, supreme ruler of liars any more," Sirius agreed, finally gaining back his breath. He still had a gleam of victory surrounding him, he had been contemplating going over to his 'oh so proud' parent's and informing them a little bit about their 'saviours of the wizarding world.'

James pressed further, asking, "so, Dumbledore knows this, right? After all, Ollivander knew Tom Riddle turned into Voldemort, and I'd bet my wand Dumbledore must know this! So Dumbledore would have looked into this, and known about him being a half-blood. Why hasn't he spread this around? It would put a real cramp in his regime if everyone knew."

"Maybe he can't prove it," Lily offered. "I mean, I'd love to look into this myself, but what if you just can't. Wizards aren't very good about birth certificates or anything..."

"This is fun and all," Harry said, a silly smile still plastered across his face watching his family enjoy this revelation, "and I hate to break the mood, but can we please finish this year? I'd still feel better seeing Ginny get out of there."

"What's a matter pup, don't trust your own gut?" Sirius joked.

Harry merely grinned, not willing to admit that this was it exactly. He knew by now though that if he said this aloud, they would all tell him that they trusted his gut, but he dreaded the idea that sometime soon his gut feeling was going to be wrong, and it was going to lead to something awful happening. So he brushed off the joke, and James decided to keep going.

He, who had the fortune of Salazar Slytherin's own bloodline from his mother, would never consider keeping such a Muggle name of the man who'd abandoned his wife when he found out she was a witch.

"Really?" Lily said, looking truly upset at this. "The worst wizarding war that's existing right now, all stems back to the fact that Voldemort has daddy issues? I'll admit, it's absolutely horrible his father abandoned them, because his mother was a witch, but-" she broke herself off shaking her

head sadly from side to side, unable to continue it was so pathetic.

Sirius couldn't help but release another snort of mirth, putting it like that made Voldemort look like

some bratty child rather than the darkest name in their history.

Riddle wouldn't stand for it, so he created his own name, one that the whole of the world would one day not even dare to say, and become the most powerful wizard there was.

"Cause that's not, you know, the most big headed thing I've ever heard," James scoffed.

"That's rich coming from you," Lily poked fun, grinning over at her husband, "considering how big your head was through most of school."

"Aw, I deflated, kind of," James grinned, not looking nearly offended by that as he once had been.

Sirius and Remus both gave appreciative chuckles, while Harry watched his parent's curiously. The two of them seemed like two people with completely opposite personalities most of the time,

so he was genuinely curious how they had gotten together. He really wanted to ask that question eventually.

Harry shot back that he had failed, that Dumbledore was!

This time Remus began applauding Harry, backing him up on that one hundred percent. Sirius and James considered it for a moment before deciding that they agreed, there wasn't another living

person who had done half the thing's their headmaster had done.

Lily was the only one who looked about disagreeing, but she was also just that little bit sore from last year. Still not completely convinced he hadn't set Harry up last year to do all those dangerous stunts, and he had hardly done anything this year to prove otherwise.

At this moment though, she would have gladly taken Dumbledore, or anyone for that matter, down there with her son. So she wasn't going to go around disagreeing with what he said either.

Despite the situation, James still had a bit of a goofy smile on his face as he said.

Voldemort scowled down at Harry, pointing out that Dumbledore had fled the school because of his memory!

"Actually, it was a corrupt government board, headed by a pompous arse," Sirius corrected, "and even then he won't be gone long. I'm still positive there's no way he made that injunction legally, so someone's going to be able to get around it soon."

Harry wouldn't let go though, saying Dumbledore was never gone so long as there were those to remember him! Riddle made to say something back, but was cut off by music.

"Music," Lily puzzled, wondering if she'd heard that wrong.

"Did you decide to start singing or something?" Remus asked.

Harry deigned him with a 'you're not funny look', but James didn't even look up.

Both of them looked around in confusion to find a bird flying towards Harry, bright red in plumage, and music coming from its windpipes.

"Fawkes?" James breathed in surprise.

"Unless there's another phoenix loyal enough to Dumbledore to respond like this," Remus agreed, grinning wildly.

"Does this explain the music?" Lily asked. "Why is it cawing music?"

"Phoenix music is rumored to embed those it trusts with bounds of strength," Sirius told her brightly, "it's supposed to encourage bravery and make you fearless and stuff."

"I give you half points for that explanation," Remus laughed out right at him, "you sounded pretty smart until you finished with 'and stuff.'"

Sirius just rolled his eyes at him, while James still continued on now more curious than ever.

The bird came swooping down towards Harry, something dark crumbled in its sharp claws,

No one stopped this time to ask what on earth Fawkes could be holding.

which it dropped at Harry's feet, and then settled on Harry's shoulder. Riddle was eyeing the bird with dislike as he pointed out that was a phoenix,

Remus gave a slow sarcastic clap this time, giving Sirius the joyful opportunity to smack him again and get him to stop.

and then noticing that it had dropped the Sorting Hat.

"Do what?" Lily couldn't help but ask this time.

"Why," James couldn't help but agree, "would Fawkes bring that? Is he planning to try and convince Riddle he didn't belong in Slytherin, and ruin his life further?"

Harry chuckled in amusement, but none of them had any idea what could be going on right now.

Then he started laughing again. Mocking Harry that he should feel so much better, with a stupid bird and a random hat. Harry felt like vomiting. Riddle didn't seem to care as he decided to move on, pointing out that Harry had already met him twice,

"Thanks' for that awful reminder," James muttered in disgust.

and Harry had lived both times. If Harry told him how, it would keep him alive all the longer.

"Something you'll never understand," Lily hissed viciously, wanting more than anything in that moment to be there for her son again, to stand in front of him and curse this demented creature into oblivion for threatening her baby.

Remus couldn't help but wince, remembering all over again why Riddle was drawing out this conversation.

For the first time Harry once again noticed the odd blurred lines around Riddle, and how the longer they'd been talking, the more they'd been vanishing. Harry realized that Riddle was still feeding off of Ginny, that the longer this drew out the more powerful Voldemort was getting.

Remus looked around and noticed no one seemed too surprised by this, so they had all worked it out then. They all looked equal amounts pissed off that Harry was being threatened like this,

again, and worried about his situation at hand. How had Harry made it out of this alive? Did he summon the basilisk and have it kill this evil spirit?

Harry shot back that he wasn't positive of how it had all happened, but he did know it was because his mother had died to save him!

"Personally, I wouldn't have told him that," Sirius scoffed, "not that he can do anything against you, but it still would have been all the more fun for him to never know the answer to that."

Harry shrugged, he had just enjoyed that one moment of lording that over the Dark Lord.

Mocking Riddle that he'd been overcome by his muggle-born mother!

James voice rang with pride for his son as he read out that last part.

Riddle considered this, admitting this was a very old bit of magic, that could be quite useful.

"It genuinely bothers me that he knows about that, and I've never heard of it," James huffed.

"Guess we should just be happy we don't really know the same things as this nutter," Sirius offered.

"Plus, we know now," Remus added vindictively.

Admitting how this didn't really change anything, as it meant Harry was nothing important.

"I disagree," Lily snapped with pure venom, "his very existence as being a loving person makes him infinitely more special than your heartless arse."

Harry blushed furiously at the compliment, while the other boys couldn't help but agree.

Riddle had been wondering on this, as there were similarities between the two of them,

James smile vanished at once, he looked like he was being force fed vomit as he continued.

that they were both half-bloods, orphans, and brought up by Muggles.

Sirius was muttering a couple of foul things under his breath, very much wanting to deny those last two, and hating that he couldn't.

The rare gift they both possessed in being Parselmouths, most likely the only ones since the original Slytherin. They even had a bit of the same features.

James was grumbling and snarling that these were all circumstantial, stupid things. For anyone to imply his son was the smallest bit like Voldemort made all four adults in the room want to curse something into oblivion.

Harry, who had begun to look rather upset at what he clearly did see as parallels, smiled around at them all again. Clearly, his family wasn't reading into these things, so he had no inclination to do so either.

Riddle was more than satisfied now though, realizing this was all unimportant. Harry stood stock still, readying himself for a fight as Riddle continued that it was high time the question be answered, and to pit the Heir of Slytherin himself against Dumbledore's greatest weapons.

"Well this can't be good," Lily moaned.

"What even would happen if he tried to use a spell with Harry's wand?" Sirius asked curiously. "I mean, he's tangible enough to hold it, but I still don't even know what he is! Will the wand

recognize magic in him, and perform the spell, or..."

"Maybe this memory doesn't know itself," Remus shrugged, "and he's not going to risk it. Whatever he is planning though, I agree with Lily. This isn't going to be good." He mentally

added that, if Ginny did die, this thing very well might likely be at least some kind of human again and could possibly do whatever the real Voldemort had done was doing now. Time travel was making this way too complicated, since his instincts now was crawling at the idea of two Voldemort's existing at once, while he reminded himself that in this timeline Voldemort had died

and this would be a rebirth of him?

He stopped his brain from trying to continue the paradox as James continued.

Riddle turned away from Harry, now looking up at the statue as he spoke in hissing tongues.

"He's summoning the Basilisk?" James asked wearily.

"Well this shouldn't be too bad," Sirius said with far more confidence than he really felt, "since Harry can control it just as well as Riddle."

"But," Lily began, then bit at her lip again. Then, sucking in a deep breath, she voiced, "but, Riddle obviously has far more experience with this. He's also been controlling this snake longer, so what if..." she couldn't even finish, the idea swimming around was too awful to put into words.

Since none of them really had any idea how Parselmouths worked, James simply hoped the book would explain.

Harry began backpedalling in fear as he realized what was going on, and Fawkes took flight from his shoulder. Harry didn't get a chance to see where he was going, as he slammed his eyes shut at the same time something heavy hit the solid floor. He wanted to call the bird back, he didn't want to be by himself, and he had no confidence this phoenix could do anything against the king of snakes.

"Quite a bit I'd wager," Remus offered weakly, "as highly intelligent as they are. Fawkes might not be able to win this fight, but he will be of use."

Harry turned blindly to start running, and heard the hissing command from Riddle to kill him.

James couldn't help but retch all over again at having to say that, dearly wishing he'd never have to hear those words again in relation to his son, let alone have to say them as many times as he had in this chapter.

While Harry began to blindly stumble along, feeling the snake in pursuit, all he could hear was Voldemort laughing behind him.

'Is Harry not even going to try speaking to it?' Remus wondered, but kept that thought to himself.

If Harry didn't think of it himself, well he could hardly blame his cub since the act of speaking and controlling snakes was still new enough to him.

His feet failed him, he hit the ground hard and felt blood spring into his mouth. He felt the beast rearing up behind him,

All four of them recoiled from that disturbing mental image, now willing to give up their lives all over again if they could have just been there for Harry in that one deadly moment.

but he was saved this time when something hard smashed into him and he went sailing into a wall. He must have been struck by the snake's tail rather than teeth. He remained stock still, waiting for something else to happen, but all he heard was jumbled hissing.

Harry felt very bad for his family, who all looked akin to corpses they were getting so pale. He floundered, trying to come up with something to help distract them again. Clearly his mental imagination was going to be the death of them all. The only one that came to mind was to offer up the explanation to them that this particular Basilisk never actually spoke to him in words and a language like he knew he could understand in the Chamber. Maybe it couldn't speak its own mind when under the command of someone telling it what to do, but Harry got the impression none of them knew enough about this to offer their own opinion, and wanted too much to hear of anything else but the giant killer snake for Harry to start a discussion about it. So Harry in fact had nothing of comfort to offer them. In his young life, this was by far the scariest thing that had happened to him yet, and words of comfort just weren't going to cut it this time. So he instead remained quiet, hoping the book would get past this quickly, and skip to however he got out of there with an alive Ginny in tow.

Finally Harry's curiosity won out, and he cracked his eyes open to find Fawkes flying around the snake's head, pecking furiously at the yellow eyes and avoiding the fangs that were longer then Harry's arm.

James at least no longer sounded like he was reading his own death warrant. Harry wasn't as alone down there as he had been thinking. Admittedly a bird, even a phoenix, wasn't the kind of help he would have been for his son then, but it was better than nothing. Even if Fawkes tipped the scales just that little bit, made it possible enough that Harry could get out of there, then he'd be just a tiny bit happy again.

Blood was starting to go in rivulets down the scales, and Harry was so transfixed by the sight that he had no time to close his eyes again when the head swung around and Harry should have been staring at the deadly eyes,

Then James voice choked off all over again when he realized Harry was looking into his own death. No one had air in their lungs to question the fact of Harry's survival. James himself only managed to keep going out of the will to see this miracle.

but nothing happened, because the eyes were gone. In their place were bloody sockets, with holes jagged into them from the furious phoenix who was still streaming around its head and cawing as the snake roared in pain.

"It's blind," Sirius finally broke the long stream of silence.

"Thank Merlin," Lily practically sobbed.

"Thank Fawkes, or even Dumbledore for owning the bird, or-" Remus broke off in semi- hysterical laughter.

"How come Fawkes didn't die if it was looking into the Basilisk's eyes?" Harry asked, a bit too late, but finally coming up with another random question.

James was more than happy to respond, saying, "phoenix's are damn near indestructible. They have healing tears, so their eyes are the most invulnerable part of their body. No one's ever put this to the test, but I guess phoenix eye's beat basilisk eyes."

Still shaking a bit, though now in relief, James was finally able to keep reading in almost normal tones.

Riddle realized what was happening, and howled at the snake to forget about the bird, go after Harry. The snake could still use its other senses to kill him!

"Guess it is still poisonous," Remus muttered to himself, "and how big again?"

The others ignored him, now confident this bird was the reason Harry had survived. Had Fawkes even somehow found a way to kill the Basilisk? They certainly hoped it got to that part soon.

The snake responded as told, still as deadly as ever as it blindly lunged, but Fawkes wasn't having it as it began scratching at the green nose.

Sirius released a semi-hysterical giggle as he said, "now he's trying to make it lose its sense of smell too. Next thing, he'll be trying to rip out its teeth."

Harry could do nothing as he lay on the floor, whimpering for someone to help him.

While none of them had exactly been back to a 'happy place' in this story, this verbal reminder from Harry himself needing help made them all want to take him up in a hug and never let go.

Fate be kind, the snake's back end was still waving madly, and flashed something across the floor right into Harry's face. Harry blinked in shock to find the Sorting Hat.

Well this was a pretty easy distraction. Had any of them ever figured out why the Sorting Hat was even there? Why had Fawkes grabbed it? None of them bothered voicing these questions allowed though, since no one had any answer, and they were all just too eager for Harry to hurry up and get out of there.

He didn't stop to consider it, shoving his head up under the material and begging the hat to do something, anything.

Lily felt such a tightening in her throat, it was almost impossible to swallow and continue breathing. Her little baby, reduced to cowering on the floor from a deadly snake, alone with

nothing but a rangy old hat. She had never wanted that mental image, and now wanted to burn her mind for giving it to her.

He wasn't expecting to nearly black out when something hard smashed over his head.

James tone finally changed from outright fear, to genuine puzzlement. A much better way of reading then every other word pondering if his son was going to die.

Half dazed and more than confused, he groped above his head and had to pull the hat off for quite a bit longer then he would have expected, when he was done a sword came toppling into his lap, the hilt inlaid with rubies as big as his fist.

"A sword?" Sirius burst out. "Not some nice advice on, I don't know, summoning a rooster or something, but a bloody sword? What the bloody hell is Harry supposed to do with that, duel the

stupid snake? Why, where did the sword even come from-" Sirius had been silent and pent up for so long, it seemed he would never stop his fountain of questions, but then Remus gave him a very sharp poke, causing Sirius to go silent again. None of them had an inkling of an idea how the Hat worked, that was old Founder magic. They wouldn't get an answer to any of these questions, until the book said them. If the book even did answer.

Riddle was ignoring all of this, still yelling for the basilisk to kill Harry already! The snake tried to respond, turning on Harry and with one, precise strike, came forward, only managing to smack into the wall as Harry rolled away.

"Ha!" Remus and Sirius both breathed, taking relish in this small victory.

He ended the manoeuvre by landing on his feet, sword poised and ready. When the snake moved and went for him again, Harry was ready, point perfectly positioned for the snake to come forward and the whole of the blade to run through the top of its skull.

Then their mouths flopped open in horror at all the horrible implications of that. Harry had stabbed it in the roof of the mouth, most likely hitting its brain and killing it, but that also meant Harry's whole arm was in between all of those poisonous deadly fangs! Each one of them took a moment to inspect the boy again, as if confirming he still had that arm and it wasn't snapped off.

The snake froze up before slumping forward and Harry felt a fountain of blood running down his arm from the twitching animal. He was more stunned to find a fang had managed to stab right through his own arm right above his elbow.

James couldn't help it, that was the final straw. He actually did twist over the side of the couch and vomit. Harry leaped back in shock, looking to the others in genuine concern. His mom was openly crying as she produced her wand and vanished the steaming pile. Remus and Sirius looked ready to keel over any moment.

Harry's mind scrambled about wildly as he finally blurted out, "are you okay?"

James brushed the back of his hand against his mouth, giving a weak chuckle as his hazel eyes met Harry's green ones. "Am I okay?" He repeated, as if he'd never heard such a sentence in his life. "Harry, I just read a sentence, that under any normal circumstances, would have meant that you would be dead. Not sitting there, but dead. On the floor-" he broke off before his mouth could keep going, shuddering all over again.

Harry looked about the room again, then offered, "did you want to me to finish? You know I'm not dead, but if this is too awful-"

"No," James said, bolstering himself up again after one more furtive look at his only child. "No," he repeated with conviction, "you did survive. There's a phoenix in the room," he reminded the others, the only explanation remotely possible as to why he was talking to his son, "and so Fawkes is going to save you, and I will later be embarrassed for my overreaction."

"That wasn't an overreaction," Sirius told him weakly, "since I actually did black out there for a minute."

Lily was brushing tears furiously from her face, and Remus was rubbing his eyes hard like he was trying to prevent himself from joining her. Harry felt something stirring inside himself, warmed beyond belief that these four cared about him so deeply like this.

Sucking in one, two more deep breaths, James forced out.

His body began seizing up at once as his limbs failed him, he grasped for the long white point and yanked it out of his arm, knowing it was no good, that the poison was already eating away at him as the colours of his surroundings began swirling out of focus.

Despite his own words of comfort, James still couldn't help his upper lip from curling in disgust as he continued reading about Harry dying like this. No one could muster themselves up to interrupt, the only comfort any of them had right now was the red and gold bird that just had to appear any second now...

A bright flash of red flew past his eyes, and Harry could just make out the sound of talons clicking across the floor towards him.

They all released a collective breath of relief at this confirmation.

Harry managed to choke out a thanks to Fawkes, telling him he'd done great.

Sirius had to choke himself off from saying something along the lines of 'you would thank the bird, while you're dying', but even the thought of those words being put through his mouth made

him want to pass out all over again.

Riddle came over to gloat, laughing that Harry was dead now, and even Dumbledore's pet was crying over it.

Remus actually did release a funny sound, like a laugh but strangled with emotion. Clearly Riddle didn't know the properties of phoenix tears, his ignorance would be Harry's salvation.

Harry's fuzzy eyes did manage to focus in on the bird, who was laying his head against the puncture in Harry's arm, bright tears trickling into the wound. Riddle clearly didn't care as he continued by saying Harry could take his time finishing up dying, he enjoyed watching.

James very dearly wished his son found some way to murder this apparition of Riddle soon, just to get him to shut up. He was still so emotionally wrung, he didn't think he could take much more of this taunting over his son's body before he really did curse something.

Riddle found the whole thing rather funny, how Harry was to die alone in this Chamber, with no friends,

Lily muttered something indistinct under her breath. The boys might have caught a few words, but they were all so disturbing they pretended they hadn't.

who was finally vanquished by Voldemort who he'd foolishly challenged all those years ago.

"Challenged," Harry grumbled out loud, "I'd gladly avoid him for the rest of my life! He keeps bothering me!"

All four of them really did laugh then, a genuine sound of amusement at Harry's truly annoyed look. His use of 'bothering' to describe constant attempts of murder was just slightly

underwhelming as well.

Harry would have the joy of being back with his Mudblood of a mother in a few moments.

James then groaned again, pressing his face into the pages of the book in utter disgust. Pulling away, he asked the ceiling, "what are the bloody odds I got every single stinking chapter, where someone said that horrid word!"

Lily reached around and gave her husband's shoulder a comforting squeeze, which James took gladly.

Harry wasn't listening all that much anymore, he was starting to think that dying wasn't all that unpleasant as the pain started to go away from him.

They all obstinately ignored that putrid sentence, since they knew the opposite was happening.

It was odd though, that instead of everything going dark, his surroundings were instead coming back into colour. His eyes were focusing much better now on Riddle hovering nearby, and Fawkes who was still crying into Harry's wound, then he blinked again and realized there was nothing there.

All five of them couldn't help but beam with pleasure. They had known without a doubt this was what was going to happen, but hearing it in words made the whole ordeal bearable.

Riddle realized this at the same time as Harry, and he pulled out his wand and shot a spell at the bird who flew away.

Then they all grimaced when they realized Riddle really had grown so powerful he could use spells now. This didn't bode well for Ginny, or Harry for that matter. Now the snake was dead,

but how had Harry gotten past Riddle?

He was cursing himself for having forgotten that phoenix tears could heal anything.

"Twat" Remus snapped, more than happy at this psychopath's lap in knowledge.

Then he glanced down at Harry and decided he didn't mind, he'd much rather be the one to kill Harry with his own power. He began raising up Harry's wand,

James couldn't help but wince all over again. Harry had just skipped death, and now his very own wand was being thrust back into his face for yet another go! Was Fawkes going to take this spell to? How long could they keep playing this game before someone's luck ran out?

but Fawkes reappeared above Harry and dropped something onto Harry's legs, the diary.

"While I agree that thing needs to be burned," Sirius said slowly, "what good is it going to do now?"

"Riddle said it himself," Lily pointed out, going bright eyed with glee now, "he had put a bit of himself in that object. So maybe, if Harry destroys it, this thing will finally disappear."

James fervently hoped so, now reading eagerly, almost praying this is what happened.

Harry only hesitated a second, then he reacted on instinct by picking up the fang that had nearly taken his own life, and stabbed it into the binding of the book.

"If that doesn't do it nothing will," Remus beamed.

Riddle had no chance to stop him, he was clawing at his chest in obvious pain, screaming at the top of his lungs, and then, he was gone.

"And good riddance to rot in hell you-" Sirius finally did get all of his pent up emotions out by spouting every foul word that came to mind. The others sat there and let him, venting in his own way until he finally ran out of steam.

Harry's wand fell to the floor, while the diary continued dripping ink. Harry got unsteadily to his feet, gathering up the hat, and wrenching the sword out of the dead snake.

"Souvenir," James said weakly, causing Remus and Sirius to burst out with renewed genuine laughter at what was clearly an old joke between them.

Harry and Lily smiled indulgently at each other, more than willing to put up with all their inside jokes if it meant nothing this awful ever happened again.

Then he heard a faint noise behind him, and he turned to find Ginny sitting up. She was blinking sluggishly as she glanced at her surroundings, then her eyes found the diary in Harry's hand, and she began to sob.

"The poor thing," Lily almost sobbed with her as she remembered all over again the traumatic experience this eleven-year-old had been through, "it'll be a miracle if she isn't scarred for life

because of this."

She began brokenly trying to explain herself, saying she hadn't done it on purpose, that Riddle had made her, the last thing she really remembered was Riddle appearing out of the diary.

James read all of this with a miserable look on his face. What Harry had just endured was the epitome of awful, but this little girl had been through something equally as tormenting all year.

She wasn't even his kid and he wanted to hug her in comfort.

Harry showed her the now destroyed book, comforting her that it was all over, but Ginny wouldn't be comforted, wailing in anguish that she was going to be expelled.

"Never," Remus vowed at the suddenly heartbroken look on Harry's face. "If there's any decency in the world, no one will look twice at Ginny once you tell them what happened."

"But I broke the diary," Harry seemed unable to stop himself from arguing back, "what if she really does get in trouble for this?"

"It's not going to happen," Sirius all but growled, "it's just not possible anyone could believe Ginny could do something like this."

Harry nodded, feeling relieved for once his first instinct was to agree with them, it was just his pessimistic side that was trying to say otherwise.

She'd wanted to go to this school her whole life, and what were her parents going to think?

"Thank god you're alive," Lily stated at once, "and the only reason you wouldn't come back next year is because they'll be worried sick to let you out of their sight again."

"Can't blame them," James muttered sadly.

It took a bit more soothing words from Harry before she hiccupped herself into sense again, and Harry supported her to her feet and began leading her back through the tunnel to the sound of rocks being pushed around.

"Ron," they all said in relief, the distant memory of his wand cursing Lockhart seeming like a gold mine of happiness compared to what they had just been through.

Harry called out to his best friend at once, telling him his sister was okay! Ron's face appeared in the hole of rocks he'd created

"Damn," Sirius said in congratulations, "and he did that without magic. Props to that kid."

shoving his arm through it and grasping hold of his sister, pulling her into his chest with a tight hug and screaming in relief that she was okay, then getting distracted by noticing the bird and asking where that had come from.

"Long story," James said weakly, drawing the first word out in remembrance, and dearly hoping he wouldn't have to reread that story himself, again.

Harry explained it was Dumbledore's, then Ron asked where Harry had got the sword from.

"A question I'd still like answered," Sirius said in an almost chipper tone. Their utter relief that Harry was finally out of there was more than palpable, and finally bringing normal conversation back around.

Harry promised to explain later, still keeping an eye on Ginny who had her face buried in Ron's chest. Harry didn't want to go into details of who'd been opening the Chamber with her in the room.

"So sweet," Lily sighed, unable to stop herself from grinning at her son who was still trying to put the girl's feelings first.

Then Harry asked his own question of where Lockhart was, and Ron said he'd taken him back to the entrance, he was in bad shape.

"And I still regret nothing," Remus said in full glee, "he deserves every bit of that irony."

Ron led them back to where Lockhart was leaning against the wall absently, smiling vaguely into space. Ron explained that the man's memory was gone, the spell had backfired, and he had no idea who he was, let alone where.

'Know the effects of that all too well' Harry thought bitterly, an inkling of pity beginning to form for Lockhart.

Harry then asked how they were supposed to get back up the tunnel, and Fawkes saved the day again by landing in front of him and waving his tail in front of him.

"And he saves the day again," Lily grinned, "you know James, I'm genuinely thinking I want one of those."

"First a jarvey and a crup for our garden, now you want a phoenix, we've already got Click and Hickory. Exactly how many pets do you want?" James demanded good naturedly. To be perfectly honest he didn't mind one bit, he would always indulge his wife in whatever she wanted.

Lily shrugged, not looking the least bit deterred at the animal count that was beginning to stack up.

"I'm wondering though, that there must be another way to get up," Remus voiced. "I suppose I can think of a spell or two, but you'd really think Slytherin would have given some kind of ladder back up."

"Let's not have Harry stick around to find out," Sirius grumbled.

Harry correctly guessed that the phoenix could fly them all up, and had them all hold hands, Professor Lockhart at the end.

"I think you can finally stop giving that bonehead such a title," Remus told Harry pleasantly.

Harry shrugged, it hadn't yet occurred to him, he had too much other stuff on his mind at the time.

The moment he took hold of the golden plumage, he began to feel light as a feather himself as they all rose up the pipe, Lockhart swinging along below them and calling out how cool this was, it was just like magic.

Despite how much all five of them genuinely hated this guy, they couldn't help but weakly laugh at this childlike innocence.

Before Harry could even really enjoy the ride, they were being set back down in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, with the entrance closing behind them.

"And may it stay that way forever," Lily muttered in disgust, to general nodes of agreement except for Harry, who had an odd feeling he'd find that Chamber opened at least once more, but not for anything bad...

Myrtle seemed shocked to find Harry back, pointing out that he was alive.

"And a good day to you to," Sirius grumbled, not really appreciating how close that sentence came to not being true.

Harry told her she sounded far too unhappy about this, while getting rid of some blood from his glasses.

"Ew," James huffed, trying to distract himself from why that stuff was there.

Myrtle blushed a bit by admitting that she'd thought Harry would die down there, and if he'd come back, he could have shared her toilet.

"Oh yes, that's just what Harry needs," Remus said, trying his very hardest to suppress a grin, "another admirer."

Harry didn't even have the energy to glare at him for that joke, he was just as ready for this year to be over as them.

Ron couldn't help mocking his friend for that bit as they went outside of the loo, telling Ginny she may now have a competitor.

"Really Ron?" Lily demanded of the ceiling. "Is now really the time to be poking fun at your sister?"

"I find it rather appropriate," Sirius countered, "it's kind of his way of saying, the world goes on. You nearly died, but I'm still going to poke fun at you."

Lily was beginning to understand why Sirius and his little brother didn't get along very well. Then again, she wasn't all too clear why she herself put up with him. If he wasn't James best friend, she was sure she would have strangled him out of pure annoyance ten times over. Never mind the fact that in recent years she had come to see him as her own sort of brother.

Ginny didn't react, still silently crying. Ron gave her a concerned look as he asked where they should head, and Harry gestured after Fawkes who was leading the way to McGonagall's office. They followed him, knocked, and then went in.

"Why did you knock if you were just going to go in?" Remus couldn't help but ask.

"Why did you knock at all?" Sirius grinned, "I think, in this particular set of circumstances, you really could have just waltzed in."

Harry just shrugged as Sirius took the book, having no response to any of them.

[iamonlypartlymajestic]

What's the Opposite of a Gazelle? (Middleditch & Schwartz “Dream Job”fanfic)

*Co-written with @awildtrashcan*

AO3 LINK

Chapter 1 - A Lion?

 “Ah-ah-achoo!” 

 The force of Sawson’s sneeze echoes along the metal walls of the very cramped vent he is currently crawling through. 

 A faint female voice arises from an opening a few feet ahead of him, “What was that?” 

 Sawson quickly squirms up to the opening, furiously whispering, “Nothing! Don’t worry about it!”

 Through the vent’s thin crevices, he sees the tight bun of the well-dressed woman below him wobble slightly as she looks around the room. “Hmm…” she replied, “Yup, nothing suspicious at all.”

 She continues typing and Sawson smirks. Works every time. 

 He squirms onward, but not before remembering to cover his face with the collar of his shirt. No need to risk another sneeze. 

 He finally arrives at the aperture leading to his target: Mr. Times’s office. 

 Sawson punches open the air duct, again whispering, “Shhh! Stop making noise.” In panic, he flails at the falling metal cover, just barely grasping it with his fingertips. He freezes for a moment. Did anyone hear him?

 Complete silence.

 Nope, he’s good.

 He releases a sigh of relief and shoves the air duct cover behind him. 

 Sawson hooks his harness to the top of the air duct and lowers himself down carefully. All according to plan.

 Hours before Sawson found himself traversing the dusty vents of the New York Times building, Timothy III had taken a break from hate-watching Keeping Up With the Times to send "Kyle" a personal automated message about how he had a hunch that Mr. Times was hiding potentially unfavorable footage from airing on the show.

 He mocked the head of the media company’s hypocrisy regarding reporting the truth and ordered Sawson to retrieve the footage from Times’s office. He explained how he had taken the time to impersonate the admittedly very cool professor of Mr. Times’s law class and make up some emergency about alien boys and digital contracts (mocking him once again for actually believing such a ridiculous lie) to provide a window of time for Sawson to infiltrate the building.

 All of Sawson’s questions regarding the legality and ethical issues of the assignment were interrupted by the automated message stating, “This video message will now self-destruct in five seconds.” He took the allotted time to open his office window and chuck the tablet before it exploded. He was left staring at the remains of the tablet plummeting down the New York abyss as Timothy III’s dramatic laughter echoed from down the hall.

 And so, infiltrate the building he has.

 Sawson readies himself as he slowly descends to the floor. Now for the difficult part:

 Lasers.

 He straightens his body like an arrow and slips through a parallel pair of red sensors, but immediately arches his back, butt up in the air to avoid a lower level layer perpendicular to his body. As he twists and turns his body through the maze, he reminds himself to save a copy of the security footage before deleting it. He imagines the video will be just like the scene from Entrapment. 

 Sawson hopes he makes Catherine Zeta-Jones proud. 

 He finally makes it to Mr. Times’s desk. He grabs the edge of the table and turns on the computer. Keep it cool. Everything is going great. All he needs to do is grab the footage, and—

 "Hey, Mr. Times," a man drawls, pushing the office door open while double checking the contents of a folder in his hands. "I got those photos of a kid rolling down a ski slope during Andorra’s successful invasion of Spain you asked—"

 He looks up and immediately makes eye contact with Sawson, who is still dangling from the ceiling with a hand holding a very suspicious piece of tech. "For…uh, okay, those lasers definitely weren't here yesterday," he mutters, looking up and down the cable spanning the height of the, for some reason, very tall room.

 “Kyle?!” Sawson's free arm knocks into a stack of papers in shock. “Shit! I-I mean, I’m not here!” Still hanging from the ceiling, he turns himself upside down to reach the documents on the floor. “You can’t see me!” He only ends up successfully twirling in the air, unable to stay still enough to gather up all of the papers. 

 "Sawson, you know that doesn't work on me." Still spinning, Sawson can only get intermittent glimpses of Kyle, but Sawson assumes Kyle has his hands on his hips and is rolling his eyes. "Best friend immunities." 

 “Well.” Sawson attempts to glare at Kyle, but the spinning is making him nauseous. He starts again with his eyes closed. This time however, he crosses his arms to display his annoyance with the situation. “If you’re my best friend then, help me down!”

 Eyes still closed, all Sawson hears is a sigh before a pair of hands stabilize his levitating body. Now free from the danger of puking all over the floor of the New York Times head office, Sawson opens his eyes. He contorts his neck as far back as he can to watch Kyle. 

 It’s been years since he’s seen his best friend, and they haven't been able to make time to really meet up, what with their respective employments and newfound obligations. Well, it admittedly hasn't been the ten years they promised to meet at the top of the Empire State Building, but quite a few. Enough to forget the details of his original body. Sure, Sawson remembers the basics: his original hair color, the general shape of his face, etc. But with his pre-ancient-ritual body in front of him, he realizes he actually forgot the color of his eyes. Hell, he misses his short nine. 

 His musing is interrupted by Kyle’s very last-minute heads up. 

 “Fuck!” Sawson faceplants on the thankfully carpeted floor.

 “By the way…” Kyle brushes his hand through his hair and turns to help Sawson who’s still trying to untangle himself from his harness. “How’re those pics of Timothy III going?” 

 Well, that's one way to break the ice. Sawson shrugs as much as he can with the belts and buckles looped around him. "It's alright, I guess."

 Kyle raises his eyebrows. "Alright, you guess?"

 “Yeah, ol’ Timothy is actually kind of…” Sawson slaps Kyle’s hands away from his body. He got this, okay?

 “Eccentric?” Kyle’s voice rises unnaturally high at the end, so Sawson takes a brief glance at the other man as he fiddles with the harness. Sawson then watches his former eyes glaze over as Kyle stares deep in thought. 

 “That’s…” He thinks back to the exploding tablet. “A word.” Sawson yanks at the last buckle and the harness slips down to his feet. He picks up the harness and waves it in Kyle’s face with an "Aha!".

 "So," Kyle bats the harness out of his face before humming, clapping his hands together and pressing his lips into a thin line. "Are you going to explain why you're reenacting Mission Impossible in the middle of my boss' office?"

 Sawson not-so-inconspicuously kicks a few of the documents scattered on the floor under the desk and stutters. “Uhh…” 

 Kyle’s face goes deadpan and steps way too close for Sawson’s comfort. “Sawson...Sawson.”  

 Sawson smoothly doesn’t make eye contact with Kyle. Yes, smoothly. 

 It unfortunately does not deter Kyle. “Sawson...why were you hanging from the ceiling?”

 “Uh, I. I got—” Sawson tries to continue to avoid eye contact but Kyle just steps even closer. 

 “And don’t say ‘kids’. I’ve been taking care of Pawson for years now, and I’m pretty sure you’re still single.” 

 Sawson stomps his foot and points his finger at Kyle’s face. “Okay! First of all, I wasn’t going to say kids. So, there! And second, I-I could be with someone, have a new family in a big house with a pet dog.”

 Kyle just raises an eyebrow and looks at Sawson pointedly. Ugh, Kyle could at least pretend to believe him. 

 Sawson huffs and pushes his friend away to finally clean up the documents strewn on the floor. He drops them haphazardly on the office chair. “Fine. If you’re going to be here anyway, keep watch while I find your boss’s stupid TV show footage.” 

 “Wait, what? You mean Keeping Up With the Times?”

 “Is there any other reality show about the family of the head of a major mass media company based in New York?” Sawson plugs in the flash drive and immediately, a mini version of Timothy III’s AI takes control of the computer. Folder tabs open and close rapidly as the AI searches for the videos. 

 “All of the seasons are on Netflix, what’s up with the breaking and entering?”

 Sawson rolls his eyes, “If you must know, Timothy wants—”

 “The third. Timothy the Third.” A feminine monotone voice interrupts Sawson from the computer’s speakers. “When speaking of the Timothy the Third, head of sketch comedy show—”

 “Wait, I remember that voice.” Kyle shoulder checks Sawson out of the way and his eyes flick back and forth across the surface of the screen. “You were the voice automated system during my interview, weren’t you?”

 “I am an AI capable of many important tasks and services. I have the memory storage and processing power dedicated to solving the world’s greatest problems...of course, I remember both of your less than stellar interviews," states the AI, shutting down any further conversation. Sawson frowns at its comment. He doesn't think he did that poorly...

 A soft chime sounds. "Blackmail located."

 “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Kyle turns back to Sawson who busies himself with erasing any trace of his presence from the room. “Blackmail?!”

 “I don’t know if you remember, but Timothy considers—”

 “The third.”

 Sawson glares at the computer monitor, “Right, Timothy the Third considers Mr. Times his business and personal rival.” Finished cleaning up the rest of the papers, he lounges in the office chair and rests his feet on the shiny wooden surface of the desk. He deserves it, okay? It takes a lot of core strength to descend through lasers like a super spy.  

 "Yeah. But that doesn't explain why you're partaking in corporate espionage."

 Before Sawson can reiterate the bullshit his boss told him through a self-destructing tablet, the AI lets out another chime. Download completed.

 "Well, my friend," Sawson sighs, retrieving the flash drive and the incriminating files it carries, "it appears my work here is done. So if you'll excuse me…"

 "I will not excuse you." Kyle steps into Sawson's path. "We're going to sit here and talk about your questionable actions like the two healthy, functioning grown men we are. And besides," he gestures to the array of lights and the cable left swinging lightly in the breeze of the A/C above them, "how do you plan on getting back up there?"

 Sawson points a finger in the air and opens his mouth to reply, before promptly closing it. "I-I…um," he stammers, and averts his gaze, "I never actually considered...getting this far."

 Kyle pinches the bridge of his nose in between his thumb and index finger, “You’re telling me, you can slip through literal lasers and have an advanced AI system in the palm of your hand, and you didn’t make a plan to escape?” 

 Sawson shrugs, “I sort of thought I’d leave the same way I came in.” He then attempts to pull himself up the line of cord still hanging from the ceiling. He grunts as he actually makes a few feet of distance, before the part of the ceiling that he attached the harness’s hook to gives way and he falls. Again. 

 “Jesus Christ,” Kyle says as he pulls Sawson back up to a standing position. He keeps his hands around Sawson’s elbows as he reorients himself. “You’re an idiot.”

 Sawson shakes his head to clear his mind. He really needs to stop almost giving himself concussions. “Alrighty then...I admit I do need some help to get out of here.” He picks up the fallen cable and winds it around his arm. 

 Kyle crosses his arms and narrows his eyes, “Only if you show me what’s in the video and tell me why Timothy the Third wants them.”

 Sawson rolls his eyes and tosses his hands in the air in surrender, “Fine, alright, I will! So...please?” He flourishes his other arm in a fancy “go on with it” gesture. 

 Kyle removes his tote and stuffs the harness inside before telling Sawson to put the cord in also. He slips it back around his shoulder. “Come follow me, and act natural! Thank god you’re not wearing some dumbass jumpsuit or this'd be way more difficult.”

 Sawson responds with silence and awkwardly looks to the side. He decides to not think about his late-night Amazon window shopping.  

 Kyle's eyes widen in realization and he leans back to stare judgmentally at his friend's face. "No. Never do that. This compliments you so much better." He stiffly waves his hand in front of Sawson’s all-black turtleneck and fitness pants ensemble. "Well. Compliments me, I guess."

 “Just go already!” Sawson pushes Kyle ahead of him towards the door. After scanning the room one last time for any remaining evidence, he follows Kyle outside of the office. 

“Ah, yes! Newbie intern Saw—Ky—ARL, CARL. This is the office of our great MR. TIMES, the leader of our wonderful mass media company, the NEW YORK TIMES.” Kyle says in a much too loud voice while not-so-subtly looking around the hallway. 

 Sawson stares incredulously at his friend until Kyle elbows his side and tilts his head at an upcoming employee. Oh! “Yes, yes! Thank you very much, SAWSON! For this TOUR OF THE BUILDING. I am SO GLAD TO START MY WORK HERE SOON.” 

 The employee gives them an irritated look but otherwise ignores their existence as she walks on. The two best friends nod at each other in confidence. They've totally nailed this whole corporate espionage thing. 

 Kyle leads Sawson to the main elevator. “Okay, just take this and head straight down. I still have to do a bit more work before I can clock out. You want to meet at that one Italian place?” He gives Sawson his tote bag with his gear. 

 “The one with the really tasty meatballs?” The elevator dings and Sawson walks inside, holding his hand out to prevent the doors from shutting. 

 “Yeah, that one. I’ll text you when I’m almost there.” Kyle gives Sawson one last nod before the elevator doors close and Sawson descends. 

 ~O~

 His vision goes white.

 Sawson shuts his eyes, a hand pressing against his temples to soothe the searing pain in his head. His actions do nothing to defend himself from the sharp wave of nausea that hits him, and he's grateful he hasn't ordered anything yet because he's definitely sure he'd be throwing it all back up. Man, today is just showing no mercy to his poor stomach.

 "—think we should be dealing with this, Sawson?"

 The vertigo abruptly melting away is almost as disorienting as it being present, and it takes a couple seconds before he's finally able to register what was said.

 "...Sawson?"

 And what, or rather, who is in front of him.

 "Sawson, I am talking to you," Mr. Times looks unimpressed with the lack of response.

 "Y-yes, sir, I—" Sawson stutters, buying himself a few more seconds to confirm that yes, he is back in Times's office, hacked computer on top of the polished oak desk and all. "—D'uh, I…think…"

 Mr. Times "hmm"s for him to continue.

 "...we should," Sawson gulps, "m-make peace with the aliens?" He winces and tenses his shoulders, praying his answer is acceptable to the head of a reputable media company.

 His now (he supposes)-current-boss purses his lips and nods in contemplation. "Yes, offering an olive branch to foreign powers, even the extraterrestrial, is a wise first move." Holy shit, what— "But still, there's no telling whether they will respond positively, or we'll end up with a repeat of yesterday's lecture."

 The man trails off to think to himself before waving a hand as if to shoo that train of thought away. "No matter. Just a hypothetical question in the grand scheme of things, and the Times doesn't focus on hypotheticals. We focus on the now, isn't that right?"

 "Of course, sir," Sawson agrees. Finally, a question he knows the answer to.

 "Well, I've kept you here long enough. I'll ask you to entertain my philosophical musings tomorrow," and Mr. Times turns his attention to the monitor in front of him, giving Sawson the time to question how the hell he went from waiting for Kyle to meet him to dealing with New York Times Interview Anxiety Part 2: E.T. Go Home.

 Sawson walks out of Mr. Times’s office into the unknown. Upon checking that the hallway is bereft of any other employees, he first spends a few seconds outside of the closed door muffling his screams into his hands. 

 Alright, he feels better. Somewhat. Now to get out of here before anyone else tries to talk to him about the supernatural.

 He turns towards what he remembers to be the direction Kyle showed him earlier, but stops.

 Wait a minute, hold on!

 If he's in here, and here happens to be the New York Times, but he was just in the Italian restaurant's men's restroom, and he was Kyle, but now he's Sawson…then where was Kyle?

 Sawson's brain finally calculates the math, and he buries his face back into his hands.

 "...Fuck."