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gay-otlc · 3 years ago

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You're A Lot Like Me

Are you fascinated by the Marella & Fintan dynamic or do you have a healthy relationship with your father?

Warnings! Death. Violence. Fire. Manipulation. Cursing. I'll add more if anyone needs.

@countingthestarsaboveourheads @rainbowtay-11 @let-conner-bailey-say-fuck @tiergan-andrin-alenefar @an-ungraeceful-swan @if-only-wishes-were-answered sorry if you didn't want to be tagged but I'm going to annoy you with my queer arsonist bullshit 🧡

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"I hate being a pyrokinetic," she tells Fintan, once.

"We're dangerous," he agrees. "It's not easy to love us. People leave until we only have ourselves, and the fire. Fire never leaves us, even if we want it to. We destroy things. We destroy people. We destroy ourselves. Marella Redek, people like us were never destined for happiness."

Determination burns in her eyes. "I'll make my own damn destiny."

The fire has other plans. Marella thinks she can escape it. She can't.

Fintan

As one does, Fintan is at a secret underground facility for human experimentation, guarding the cell of a teenager's parents. Said teenager, who is somehow not thrilled about this, seems to have collected a group of their friends and family to get those people back. Given the bargaining chip they make, Fintan isn't exactly eager to let them go free without a fight. He cackles and recites his monologue on why murder is cool and fun. Then, the petite girl in the back catches his attention.

There's fear in her eyes.

But there's also fire.

The same gravity he feels, with the fire always pulled to him- he can feel it gravitating to this girl too. She looks just like Caprise Redek. This is Caprise Redek's daughter, and she's... she's like him. But she's not quite like him, not yet. She still believes in good, still believes in Sophie Foster. She hasn't yet burned down into bitterness. If she had, she'd be on the other side of this battle.

Most of him wants to make her hate the world, hate everything except him, and stand beside him as they burn it all down together. Something quiet, something hidden, wants her to have a happier life than he does. A happier life than murder. Than running away from everyone he loves loved, who hate him. Than eventually losing this fight and living his life in an ice prison, away from the fire he needs to survive. He wants her to have a better life.

He shouldn't care. He should be old, and bitter, and angry, and he's Fintan Pyren, and he doesn't care about children. If he has to suffer, why shouldn't she?

But he insists on bringing her to his prison, on letting him teach her. Sophie's worried that he'll bring her to his side. He wants to stop her from becoming him. Something in him cares, and it won't leave him alone if he lets her become a monster. He won't.

Marella

In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to walk into a human experimentation lab with Sophie Foster and her friends, all of who have a habit of nearly dying. But here she is, trying to hide in the back and not be the one to almost die. She's just there in case they needed to light anything on fire, but if that isn't necessary at the moment, she will stay the hell out of the way. Hiding doesn't exactly seem to help, not when Fintan catches her eye.

His eyes narrow for a second, and then he smiles.

He smiles.

At her.

Does she make him happy, or something?

He makes her sick.

Fintan recognized her, recognized what she was. His smile and the- if she didn't know better, she'd call it kindness- in his eyes, looking like he's already planning to turn her into him. He thinks she's just like him. Marella will never be like him. Whatever he thinks he can do to change her mind, she won't let him. But she won't look away, either. Or can't? His stare burns into her, and she keeps staring back.

As much as she wants to deny it, they are connected, drawn to one another like they're both drawn to fire. He must be the only person alive who understands her. What all of this is like for her. All the voices in her head, the flames bubbling under her skin and threatening to bubble out at any moment. The temptation to just let the fire go, just destroy everything, and how hard it is to resist. He understands. Fintan understands, what she's like, because he's like her.

I'm not like him, she tells herself.

But even if she doesn't grow into him, their roots are in the same place.

Fintan

"-Fintan? Fintan? Are you listening?" Fallon gives him a stern look."Sorry." For once, it's not his fault he's not paying attention to Fallon. He's trying, since they're discussing the balefire lighting system in Atlantis, and being in charge of that, he should participate in the discussion. But Fallon's voice is impossible to concentrate on with the fire calling to him in the background. It's not as though Fintan isn't used to it, the need to snap his fingers and let the flames begin, but this... this is worse.

Fire is usually a whisper in the back of his mind.

This is a scream.

Everblaze. Everblaze. Everblaze.

He shoots to his feet, only half aware of what he's doing. Upon realizing the strange looks he receives, he blurts out "I have to go," and all but runs, calling Soleil the second he's out the door. "Can you be at my house in five minutes? It's arson time." He knows it's not a very thorough explanation, but she doesn't seem to need one. Once they're both at Cindercliff, he catches his breath enough to speak over the Everblaze, everblaze, everblaze in his head."I need to try summoning everblaze.

"Soleil raises her eyebrows. "The fire of the sun? That we're not entirely convinced isn't a myth? That everblaze?"

"That everblaze," Fintan confirms. "And it's not a myth. I can hear it calling to me; it's as real as any other type of fire burning constantly in our heads. I can't ignore it anymore, it's too loud. I have to try summoning it. So I figured I might as well invite my favorite ex-student."

She considers him for a long pause, but eventually shrugs. "Sure. Go ahead."

He closes his eyes, and stops trying to push the words out of his head. He lets them take over. Everblaze! Everblaze! Everblaze! His fists clench, and unclench, over and over. There's fire, and there's Fintan, and he's not sure where one stops and the other begins. Maybe there isn't a difference; maybe that's what everblaze should feel like. Him and fire, one and the same. The fire in his head roars, taking over every inch of him. He feels at home. This is the first time in his life he's felt at home. Fintan is an inferno, and it's the best he's ever felt.

Eventually, the euphoria wears off, and he blinks his eyes open, gaze focused on the ceiling. "Sol, holy shit, I did it."

Silence.

"Soleil?" He looks down.

Soleil is a pile of ashes.

Soliel is dead, and he killed her.

Marella

What happened to her mother. It hadn't been an accident. The Neverseen had wanted to recruit her, and she said no, so Ruy had the measured response of pushing her off a fucking balcony. All Marella can hear is roaring in her ears as she screams, palms facing the sky, flames shooting into it. Sophie lays a hand on Marella shoulder, and he's an enhancer, and Marella feels the power surge through her.

Marella is fire. Fire is Marella. She is a storm, a wildfire, and she will destroy everything in her path. Destroy it all. When the smoke clears, and the rage clouding her eyes fades away, she can see the scorch marks all over the ground and Ruy Ignis's broken, burnt corpse.

He's dead.

She killed him.

"I killed him," Marella says, and it should concern her that Fintan is the person she thought to confide in, but she's too numb to process this. And maybe it makes sense. It's not like he has the right to judge her. Or maybe he's somehow become someone she trusts, talks to when her thoughts are too heavy to carry alone. "I didn't mean to kill him. Or maybe I did. I didn't even know what I was doing, I was just... angry. And now I'm a murderer."

Fintan puts an arm around her shoulders, and it's almost laughable that he's here comforting her. Being affectionate with her. Like they're close. Are they? "You're a lot like me, Redek. I wish you weren't, but you are."

"I know. I hate it."

"I know."

Fintan

"I have to break up with you," Bronte says, and Fintan can't say he's surprised, but he still steps back like he's been slapped. "I-I can't be with someone who hurts people like you do. People are dying because of what you're doing, because of your fire, and you refuse to stop. You find new people to teach, to kill, and you fight anyone who tries to stop you. I can't... I can't do this anymore, Fintan, I can't keep forgiving you."

He has a point. Fintan knows he has a point. But the anger erupts out of him before he even processes what he's about to say. "You want to talk about having an ability that hurts people, Bronte? I cannot believe you. I've forgiven you every time you've accidentally inflicted on me, or anyone else innocent, but the moment I make one mistake-"

"You killed five people! That's hardly an innocent mistake."

"You're afraid of me," Fintan says. Fire rises up from his palm, facing up to the ceiling. It's Bronte's turn to take a step backwards, but he nods. "You're afraid of me," he repeats. The taste the words leave in his mouth makes him want to vomit. "You are- were- the only person who wasn't scared of me, who didn't move away ever so slightly when they learn what I am. I thought I was a monster and you were the only person to tell me I wasn't. But you agree with them, now. There's no one left who believes there's good inside of me."

Bronte's eyes don't leave the flames as he says, slowly "I believe there is good inside of you. But you're too reckless. Too arrogant. You don't care who you have to hurt to get what you want, and I can't be with someone like that. I'm sorry, Fintan."

Maybe it's the fact that his voice is genuine, eyes burning with regret, but something about him trying to show Fintan kindness after all the harsh words only infuriates him further; how dare he pretend to care!? Try to comfort Fintan with meaningless apologies after taking his heart, his trust, and ripping it to shreds? He screams and shoots a ball of fire at Bronte, who dodges just in time for it to barely graze the back of his hand. Fintan glares daggers, breathing hard. "Fuck you," he says.

He doesn't wait to hear Bronte's response.

Marella

It's a surprisingly peaceful moment at her girlfriends' house, and Marella half feels bad about ruining it. But the question has been ricocheting around her brain for weeks, gradually building from a whisper to a scream that's impossible to ignore, and she's worried that if she doesn't ask it now, it'll tear her apart. So Marella clears her throat, taking Stina's attention away from her book and Maruca and Linh's from their game of cards. "Can I ask you guys a question?"

"Didn't you just?" Maruca asks.

Marella rolls her eyes, but fondly. She's made a difficult moment just a bit easier. "Are you three afraid of me?"

The three exchange a look. After snorting, Stina is the first to speak. "Am I afraid of you, Marella, the elf whose head exploded when I got a haircut last month and looked adorable while on the verge of death from that? The elf who consistently pulls on push doors and vice versa? Who would easily lose a fight to Princess Purryfins? No, I am not."

"But-" Any other time, she would protest the accusation that the murcat could beat her if they fought, but she's too busy not accepting the compliment. "I'm being serious, Stina. Everyone's scared of me. My mom tries, I know she does, but she's never quite subtle about what she's feeling and she can't stand to see me make fire. Whenever I bring up the fact that I train with Fintan, Sophie flinches and won't look me in the eye the rest of the day. I walk through Atlantis and parents hold their kids tighter- I saved the fucking world and they treat me like a threat. Shit, I'm afraid of myself! And you guys- you can't tell me you aren't..."

"Marella."

The voice startles her out of her spiral, and she blinks the tears from her eyes. "Linh?

"She reaches out to take her hand. "Marella, I know what it's like to have people be afraid of you, and I know what it's like to be afraid of yourself. But I trust you, Marella. Trusting people is hard for me but I trust you not to hurt me, okay?"

You can't be so sure of that, she wants to say, but the words won't get past the lump in her throat. Instead, she swallows and says "Fintan told me that pyrokinetics weren't easy to love."

"Even if it's not easy, it's worth it," Maruca says, and the other two nod.

"I love you," whispers Marella, and her girlfriends pile on her in a group hug.

Fintan

Fintan is so. Fucking. Done.This system has fucked him over, again and again. The years he had to fight to get his gender recognized, the debates on this matchmaking system that he kept losing, Bronte leaving him, being forced off the council, taking away the flames he craved, needed, more than anything. He knows they had their reasons for the Pyrokinesis ban. He just doesn't care. He wants the council to feel the pain they caused him.Wants the world to feel that pain.

There's a group, called the Neverseen. Its primary focus at the moment is rounding up the humans and putting them in one sanctuary, which Fintan understands. And they have other objectives too, nearly all of which are anti-council. That is definitely something he can support. He can even make them shift their priorities.

Priority number one: Watching the world burn.

Marella

("You were wrong," Marella told him once, her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles were white. "I'm not like you."

"Who are you trying to convince?" he said.

"You."

Fintan lifted an eyebrow.

"Myself."

He nodded. "I hope I was wrong. I hope you end up better than me.")

He was right. Fintan had been right all along, and Marella had been trying to pretend he wasn't, but she can't deny it anymore. She can't. Because the memory of the Neverseen, and of the Black Swan's victory, eventually fades from everyone's mind. There had been a moment where they'd thought things would be different, now, but the glory is wearing off and the Lost Cities are slipping right back into their old ways.

The council voted to ban Pyrokinesis, once again. Oralie, still not over Kenric's death, led the movement, and the council voted in favor. They called it too dangerous. Maybe it is. But that doesn't give them the right to make a part of her illegal. She stands, staring numbly at the tribunal hall where her life had been made illegal.

Linh reaches out. "Marella, I'm so sor-"

"Go away."She nods. "I'll give you some time."

Time. Like that would fix this. It would just get harder with time. She could ignore the fire for a time, but the longer she told it to leave her alone, the louder it got, until it took control of her. She couldn't just not be a Pyrokinetic. She might as well stop breathing. If Councillor Oralie was going to take away Marella's breath like this, Marella would take away hers.

In a daze, she stumbles to Oralie's castle. Pink and glamorous and far too beautiful for someone this cruel.

Far too flammable.

Marella snaps her fingers, and as the castle burns, all she can hear is the screaming in her head- Everblaze, everblaze, everblaze- and Fintan's voice, rasping "You're a lot like me, Redek. I wish you weren't, but you are."

Marella Redek was strong, but the fire is stronger. For a long time she deluded herself into thinking she could be the fire's master. How wrong she was. Marella belongs to the fire, and she's never been anything other than a slave to its wishes.

#saturn's writing #marella redek #fintan pyren #our favorite queer arsonists #yes. yes i know i have many problems

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nebraska-is-a-myth · 4 years ago

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But we can chose to fight - part 12

tw /// lots of mentions of panic attacks, blood, and death, take care of yourselves please

Masterlist

P.s I'm sorry

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Blood.

So much Blood.

Blood on his hands.

Blood on his clothes.

Blood pooling onto the concrete.

Pressure.

He needs to put pressure on the wound.

Keep pressure on it.

Stop the blood.

Why is there so much blood.

It won't stop.

Please, why wont it stop.

Pulse.

Check for a pulse.

Apply pressure.

No pulse.

Try again.

No pulse.

Too much blood.

Hands.

Hands all over him.

Hands dragging him away.

No, he needs to keep pressure on it.

He needs to stop the blood.

Hands.

Fists.

Blood.

His blood?

Why is nobody trying to stop the blood.

He needs to get up.

He needs to stop the blood.

Someone's shouting.

Is the ambulance here yet?

He’s covered in blood and,

Oh.

They're shouting at him.

It’s foggy and he can't think,

He doesn't know what's happening.

Think.

Blood

Counting

Gunfire

Blood

“Don't just fucking stand there say something!”

His face hurts, did someone hit him? He feels something run down his upper lip and he tastes the blood seeping into his mouth. The metallic taste makes him gag and he runs a hand through his hair, shit, now his hair is covered in blood.

Blood?

Blood!

Tommy!

“Tommy?”

The name leaves his lips like a whimper, it’s childish and desperate. He doesn't get a response.

“Don't you fucking say his name you monster!”

Something happens around him, something moves and people shout, not at him this time. It’s hard to understand what's happening when he can't pry his eyes away from Tommy's limp body. It looks unnatural for him to be so still, so quiet. Tubbo has his head in his lap, carting his fingers through Tommy's blond and slightly bloodied hair. There is blood everywhere. Dream looks between his hand and the red handprints on Tommy's cheeks and he decides that the marks on his face are because of Dream. He remembers holding Tommy's pale face in his hands. He wouldn't wake up. His back hurts and there are bloodied tracks on the concrete, are they his? He vaguely remembers being dragged away from all of the blood, was it Wilbur? Is that why Wilbur hit him, because he was too close? He was only trying to stop the blood.

“What have you done.”

I don't know.

“What he should have done fucking months ago?”

George is here?

“So that was the plan was it-?”

Of course George was there, he shot Fundy.

Wait, he shot Fundy?

“ -lure him in when he was vulnerable and the murder him!”

No of course it wasn't, he loved Tommy.

He loved him.

Loved.

But Tommy’s dead.

Oh my god he’s dead.

Tommys Dead.

He killed him

Tommys dead

He’s shaking

Why is he shaking

People are staring

Why are they looking

Stop it

Tommys dead

Stop staring

Why are they-

Hands

Hands on his back

He cant breath

Hands

Blood

Shaking

Tears

Stop it

Blood

Breathe

He can breathe

“Thats it Dream, in and out. In.”

Breathe.

“And out.”

Breathe.

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When Dream opens his eyes again he no longer feels like there's cotton wool clogging his ears, the sun is setting and he wants to wretch at the smell of blood coming from everywhere. He is now faintly aware that he is no longer wearing his mask and the beating in his chest pounds against his ribcage louder and louder, but he feels calmer as rhythmic circles are rubbed into his upper back. Dream melts into the touch, he hasn't had much human affection in a while, apart from flying fists and painful sparring sessions. He’s sat on the floor with Fundy crouched in front of him. Fundy? Did Fundy just, help him? Dream looks up into Fundy’s eyes to find the orange haired man already looking at him, it’s strange having the man so close, but his gaze feels softer than all the other harsh stairs around him. He sees Wilbur come into focus from behind Fundy and looms over the both of them with a terrifying look in his eyes.

“Fudy what the fuck are you doing.” It’s a half mumble and Dream barely hears it himself, but Fundy takes his gaze away from Dream and removes his touch from the other man. Is it strange that Dream feels colder without it?

“I wasn't exactly going to let him pass out from a panic attack Wilbur, and it’s not like any of them were going to do anything.”

Fundy gestures over to the rest of the Dream team who were still armed to the teeth and quite frankly looked rather bored.

“Dream just needs to stop being such a pussy and get over it. So what the kids dead, plenty more annoying little prats in the sea.”

George's voice is replaced by shouting and the clacking of metal and Dream needs to stop this before someone else is killed because of him. Dream is in charge, not George. So (with a little help from Fundy) Dream staggers to his feet and crosses the line between l’manburg and Dream smp to meet the brit. He stands there for a moment, letting the confusion settle on George's face, before striking George across the bridge of his nose in one swift movement.

He hopes it hurts.

The maskless man turns from Georges curses and sapnaps confusions and walks towards Wilbur. “I want you to have independence.”

“WHAT THE FUCK.”

Dream ignores George in favor of directing his eyesight to Fundy. The man isn't smiling, but his eyes become a lot wider at the statement. Wilbur looks angry and confused and on the brink of tears. He doesn't blame the older man, the smp had taken so much from them, and all because he couldn't bear to stand against the people who he used to call his friends. He knows that this will never even come close to making up for what he has done to them, but he hopes that it's a start.

“The east side is yours to command Wilbur, you are free from the laws of the smp.”

In rage, Sapnap goes to lunge at dream, but Eret manages to grab one of his arms and pull him to the ground. “ How could you dream, after everything we’ve done.”

Dream turns to face the arsonist, his head is still spinning but his thoughts are clear, clearer than he thinks they've ever been.

“What we’ve done? Sapnap we terrorized these people, killed a child! You really think that's something to be proud of?”

George pinches the bridge of his nose and clambers to his feet, he snarls and spits at dreams feet. “The east side is not yours to give! We made you what you are, that territory is ours!”

“George you Manipulated me! You made me afraid and you put me in an impossible position. I should be dead right now, I wish I were fucking dead right now but I’m not okay. And I’ll be damned if I let you hurt these people any more than you already have. If it’s power your after then take it, take whatever the fuck you want from me, but you leave the east side the fuck alone George.”

Tubbo can hear the others shouting but he stops paying attention after Dreams outburst. It’s sad Dream said those things about himself, he knows how much the older man cared about Tommy. Tommy trusted Dream, and the list of people Tommy trusted was painfully short, but Dream had always been on that list, no matter what. Even after their little fight about Tommys disks, even after they had both almost died, Tommy probably died still trusting dream. Tubbo carts his fingers through Tommys soft hair, flecks of dried blood are stuck to the tips of some of the strands, he tries not to think about all of the blood pooling around them. He focuses on the happy things instead. Tubbo likes to think Tommy is happier up there, wherever he is. Maybe he’s finally in the arms of his mother after all these years alone, he hopes Tommy finally knows he is loved. Tubbo’s other hand is wrapped around his friends wrist, fingers placed firmly on where Tommy's pulse should be thudding with energy. He hasn't felt anything in minutes now, he knows his friend is gone, that no amount of cpr will bring him back, the blood reminds him of that. So Tubbo takes his hand from Tommys pale wrist and slips it into his friend's hand. It's cold and it feels nothing at all like Tommy. Tommy always used to run hot like a furnace, the boy always complained about how warm it was no matter what the weather was doing. It was both a blessing and a curse, yes it meant Tommy complained 24/7, but it also meant that Tubbo could use him as his own personal hot water bottle. Cold after a long day of running round the city on jobs? Go to Tommy. Run down after getting caught in a storm? Go to Tommy. Just need a warm hug? Go to Tommy. Tubbo could really do with one of those hugs right now, but he can't can he? Tommy isn't warm anymore, his paling skin is like ice to the touch, and Tubbo feels like he wants to sob until his tears run out. Will he ever be warm again?

He sits like that for a while, clutching Tommy's hand in a death grip like the boy would sink into the floor at any moment. Still overwhelmed with shock, Tubbo glances up for a second to catch Erets gaze. The older man is staring at them with this look in his eyes that Tubbo can't quite place, although he’s never really been good at reading people. He looks, sad almost, Tubbo thinks it’s regret. One day he thinks he’ll forgive Eret. Not today, he can't. But one day, when the sun rises in just the right way, and the birds call to him with a song that makes his heart pang, he will visit Tommy's grave and feel the breeze caress his tear stained cheeks and tell him that it's okay. It's okay to forgive him. Tubbo will welcome Eret with open arms as gusts of wind tousle both of their hair, rustling their shirts and telling them that Eret is forgiven, and that they can start to heal again. But the skies are clear, there is no breeze on this day, and so Tubbo tears his eyes away from his friend and back to his brother. Because that's what they were, brothers. Together forever until the very end. Although neither of them expected it to come so soon. It’s terrifying, knowing how alone he is in the world. Tommy was his everything, he was the glue that held everyone together, clichés as it may be. But that was the truth, and now that he’s gone, Tubbo can feel himself start to crumble. The Brunette caves in on himself and lets the sobs rack through his body, the grip on Tommy's hand tightens. He can almost hear Tommy nagging at him complaining at how he’s squeezing too hard.

“You're hurting my hand bitch.”

The thought makes him clutch at the cold skin even harder, tears still rolling down his cheeks. That is, until he hears the nagging again, as if this is some cruel game.

“Oi dick’ead that ‘urts.”

Wait?

“Tommy?”

The outburst catches the attention of the other gang members, although none of them quite know what's going on.

Tubbo is left speechless, he doesn't understand what's happening. It’s almost as if all the blood had soaked back into Tommy's body and he had sprung back to life.

“Tommy you're alive!”

“‘course I am idiot, why wouldn't I be?”

Tommy is more than confused. Tubbo is firing words at his head that just don't even make sense, talking about how he got shot and something stupid like that. It makes Tommy head pound, I mean he’s pretty sure he would remember getting shot right? Although, he doesn't really remember ever being on the floor, or anything after getting punched by George for that matter. The color blind man couldn't have hit him that hard could he? Surely not. I mean come on, it's GeorgeNotFound! Tommy's confusion continues to grow as more an more people crowd round him, Wilbur, Fundy, Eret, sapnap and...

“Tommy?”

Its...he...Dream..

He cant breath

Tommy's head spins, he only gets a few seconds of peace before he feels like he’s being swallowed by the void in his mind. His vision goes dark and he can feel his body start to tremble. It’s terrifying. The blackness around him is hollow and cold and Tommy screams for someone to help him, he screams for Dream, Wilbur, Tubbo, in a desperate attempt he even calls out to Eret in hope of a savior. But nothing screams back. Instead he is taunted by silence and the pressure building in his chest. But as Tommy starts to surface, the distant sounds of Wilbur's deadly counting haunt his empty wasteland.

#Okay but that thing about Tubbo forgiving Eret one day is the best thing ive every written #I almost cried writing it #Tommy death pog #one of these is not like the others #Dream sad times #I love writing dream #fundywastaken #I am so looking forward to writing more of that #tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #wilbur soot #georgenotfound #sapnap #tubbo #fundy #the eret #crime au

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jusananimehoe · 4 years ago

Note

Can we get a reader who has like 6or something siblings and a ton of daddy issues with our little ice gremlin or edgy gothic arsonist? Pls and thank you

Have some ice gremlin xx

You sat lazily back against the bed, fingers tangled in the sheets, trying to bite down on your growing desperation, it’ll just annoy him more. Across the room your pretty, pale boyfriend was still removing his parka, studiously avoiding your pleading eyes, which meant he was defintley still angry. Dinner with your siblings had gone about as well as expected, of course, meaning it had ended in a deathly silent Geten, dreaming of many ways to get even with all of them, most likely. You could hardly blame him, you were the youngest, the least loved, the most disconnected, and every family affair seemed to end in an argument or your tears, at least today you weren’t crying. You had always found it difficult, after all, to accept that they had a rather strong relationship with your father, while you barely knew the man, had anyone ever really loved you?

You whimpered softly and sat up on your knees, reaching out for Geten as he strode over to your bedside table, dropping something onto it before whirling on you, a hand wrapping sharply around your wrist before promptly shoving you down into the mattress, laughing cruelly at the soft moan that left your mouth. His icy hands ran along the small of your back before moving lower, pinching your ass harshly before spanking you sharply, drawing a choked little whine from your lips, so good when he got rough with you. You wiggled your hips just slightly, silently begging him for more and found yourself rewarded when he dragged your skirt down your legs, palms cupping your shapely cheeks slowly, before laying a stinging smack against them. You whined and gasped as he continued the assault, palms leaving harsh, red marks across your ass even as you moaned, before reaching around to pinch your nipples through your flimsy shirt, dragging a shrill cry from your lips, body arching back against him.

A hand forced your head back into the mattress as his fingers continued their deliciously painful pinching, pulling and twisting at your sensitive buds until they were hard, before pulling back and forcing all of his body weight onto you, letting you feel that firm hardness pressing against your sore ass, you keened for him desperately, cries muffled by the sheets, desperate for more. He tugged your head to the side, hand clamping tightly around your throat as he rubbed his clothed cock against your behind, grinning down as you gasped and moaned for him.

“Please”, you moaned softly, squealing when he spanked you again, “oh god, more please”, you reiterated, crying out when his fingers thrust inside your drenched pussy, gasping in relief as he set a punishing pace, bending them just right inside you, driving you relentlessly towards your release, laughing softly as your moans and whine got louder and louder, before jerking the nimble digits out of you just in time to prevent your orgasm. Your choked sob had him laughing again as he rubbed against you.

“Daddy please”, you begged, babbling for him desperately, even as he snickered and slapped your ass again, dragging a few pathetic whines from you every time his icy palm collided with the swollen skin of your behind, “please, please daddy fuck me”, you continued, eyes tearing up when his cock rubbed through your folds, when had he even gotten undressed? Your loud moans had him laughing quietly again as he teased you, rubbing slowly back and forth over your clit.

“Tell daddy what you want”, whispered huskily into your ear.

“Fuck me daddy, fuck me, god please, ruin me-OH”.

Your shrill little squeal of both pleasure and pain was far too loud when he shoved his cock inside you, but you were beyond caring now, moaning and gasping as he slammed forward to begin a brutal pace, hips slapping wildly against you as he fucked you wildly into the bed. Your eyes were rolling, your fingers curling wildly in the sheets as he fisted a hand in your hair, pulling viciously at it to adjust the angle, plunging deeper inside you as he bent your body back towards him until it became painful, it was amazing.

His other hand returned to delivering harsh slaps to your bruised ass, dragging more choked cries from you as all the sensations hit you at once, so close, you were so close.

“Oh, oh, oh daddy yes, please, I’m gon-I’m gonna cum, oh fuck”.

“Cum on daddy’s cock”.

Your scream was loud enough to be heard right through the mansion, your eyes rolling back into your head as your body spasmed against him wildly, groaning and gasping as he fucked you steadily through it, until you began to whimper from the overstimulation, and yet still, why did you fucking love it so much. It hurt now, your clenching pussy so sensitive that you jerked with every thrust, but he continued on, grinning against your ear as you sobbed softly, tears streaming down your cheeks from the sensitivity.

“Come on baby, give daddy one more”, whispered against your throat as his hips sped up again, shoving you back down against the bed again as he pounded away, your body going slack beneath him as the pleasure overtook your mind completely, leaving you in a near delirious state, tongue lolling from your mouth as you grunted quietly with each wild thrust, losing more and more of your faculties as you approached yet another orgasm.

“Such a good little slut for daddy”.

#geten #geten x reader #geten imagines #bnha geten #mha geten #geten smut

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for-a-muse-of-fire · 5 years ago

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tame your demons

the wench and the witcher

"tame your demons”

Fandom: The Witcher (2019)

Paring: Geralt of Rivia x Fem!POC Reader.

Summary: Geralt keeps pieces of himself locked away and sheathed in ice. Sooner or later, the ice does have to melt.

Warnings: Possibly hard teen - we get a little smexy towards the end of this one, but nothing graphic. We are definitely getting into some angst now, kids.

A/N: I have a lot of feelings about these two. Basically, Hozier’s quote about “trying to love a damaged person” stuck with me and I refuse to give it up. Lyrics and title for this one come from “Arsonist’s Lullaby”, which was actually one of the first Hozier songs I ever fell in love with.

@coconutxraikage - @onyour-right - @ly–canthrope - @kianya-loves - @c-s-stars - @gczanetti1 - @alwaysnatz - @agniavateira - @witchernonsense - @owillofthewisps - @hina-chans-stuff - @yespolkadotkitty

When I was a man, I thought it ended When I knew love's perfect ache But my peace has always depended On all the ashes in my wake

Gods, you should be used to the cold by now. For his kindness and warmth, your Witcher is capable of it. Biting cold, harsh as freezing rain. You try to insulate yourself against it, hoping that you can somehow bear the winter of his moods when they roll through, but it never seems to get any easier. You brace against the ice-cold of his silences and the way he draws himself away from you – steel your spine, try to smile when the flint in his eyes chips away at you.

Geralt can drop the temperature of a room without so much as a word. It’s remarkable.

And it fucking hurts.

He won’t look at you as you carefully clean the blood from his split knuckles. You kneel at the edge of the tub he soaks in, focused on the task at hand and swallowing back what feel like chips of ice caught in your throat. Even with the hearth fire at your back and the slight humidity from the steaming water, you feel like you’ve been thrown in a damned snow drift. It aches down into your bones.

The hunt had gone badly. Some alderman and his cronies unwilling to pay up for services rendered – and speaking up would have meant leaving town on the end of a rope. Geralt had blown in two weeks ago with an arctic cold around him, frosted over too thick for even you to break through, and then…

And then, there were those backwater pricks from Hagge.

You’d tried to be firm, but polite at first. The Witcher was your guest, and you didn’t take kindly to anyone speaking ill of the people under your roof, but they’d turned their drunken cruelty on you without so much as a second thought. Nothing new, there. You bore the insults when they came without flinching; it was just how it worked. They were the sort of men that didn’t much like being told what to do by the likes of you. A woman – stupid tavern wench.

‘The Butcher’s Bitch’, they’d called you.

And in all the time you’ve known him, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Geralt so furious.

You’d managed to pull him away before it devolved to a full-on tavern brawl and crushed aside the hurt when the Witcher had ripped his arm from your grasp. The instigators were summarily banned from the premises; the rest of the night had drawn to a close without incident, save for the fact that you’d practically had to snarl at Geralt to let you tend to his wounds.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break a finger,” you mutter.

Silence. The cold of it sinks in deep. You bite your tongue, standing and letting go of Geralt’s hand in favor of packing your healer’s kit up once more. The bottles clack together with a little more force that necessary as you grit your teeth; under the sting of your ego, you can feel your own anger bubbling just under the surface. Gods, you want to shake him – shout him down, throttle him around his stupid, thick head.

‘Let me in’, you want to scream.

“I’ll be downstairs,” you tell him instead, tone short and hoarse. “Need to settle the accounts for the week.”

He doesn’t stop you until you try to skirt past the tub. One big, scarred hand reaches up from the water and grips at your wrist, halting you in your tracks. His palm burns on your skin.

“Do you know why they call me that?” he growls out.

“No,” you snap. “And I don’t fucking care – “

“Well, you should.”

Geralt looks at you. Finally – finally – meets your gaze and you’re shocked to see those bright eyes have lost the ice behind them. He just looks tired; tired, and angry, with something that could be sorrow hidden just underneath. The firelight dances over his wet skin, reflects off the hammered copper of the tub to give the Witcher a gilded look about him. Pale and broad, tinged with gold. You study him, taking in the fall of his damp hair around his face. He looks so much younger.

You turn your wrist in his grip, shift to lace your fingers with his, and kneel at his side again. He stares at you and nearly seems to lose his nerve, shifting his gaze to the surface of the water. “Do you know of the Curse of the Black Sun?” he mumbles.

His other hand spins lazily over the bathwater, rippling it with a soft noise against the edge of the tub. “Heard it was shit,” you tell him. “Gave a lot of men the excuse to hurt a lot of young girls.”

The Witcher’s soft mouth twitches up, just for a moment – barely a smirk. The line of his jaw goes tense, same as it does when he’s biting his tongue. “Renfri… she was one of those girls,” he says after a moment. “I met her in Blaviken.”

It feels like the bits of ice at the back of your throat have started to melt and you find you can swallow again. Geralt’s hand is warm over yours, both from his own body heat and the steaming water. He’s silent for a long stretch, the quiet broken only by the quiet whisper of the water and the occasional crackle of the logs on the fire. His gaze stays where it is, but he finally begins to speak again.

You learn about Renfri and her men. How she called them off when they were ready to hang Geralt in the woods outside Blaviken. He tells you of Stregebor, and you can hear the sneer in his voice when he mentions the sorcerer by name. How the old man told him that Renfri was a monster, something mad and deadly that needed to be put down. He tells you Renfri’s story. He tells you about the marketplace.

Renfri’s death.

The stoning.

The Butcher of Blaviken tells you his story in a low, even, almost monotone voice. He doesn’t glance at you, not once. But neither does he push you away.

“That’s where the name comes from,” he says at the last of it, and it’s so quiet you’re not sure if he’s meant to say it out loud. “And with good reason.”

You inhale slow, taking in a breath that you didn’t realize you were holding. It catches in the back of your throat. You half expect him to shrug away, but when you lean against the edge of the tub – when you grip his hand tight and press your lips against his temple – Geralt seems to relax into the contact. He smells of your soap, and oiled leather. You nuzzle softly into his damp hair.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to him. “I’m so sorry you had to make that choice, dear heart.”

The Witcher lets out a slow breath, shoulders sinking further into the warm water surrounding him. He lets you take gentle hold of his chin, lets you turn his face until he’s meeting your eyes. You study him, carefully, taking in the sharp cheekbones and the slope of his nose. Your thumb brushes gently over the stubble at his jaw. He leans into your hand, just for a moment.

“You are not the Butcher here,” you tell him, and your tone is fiercely gentle. “You were never the Butcher here, not to me. You are just Geralt – my Geralt.”

Pretty gold eyes flash back at you. There’s a curiosity behind them, something sharp that makes your stomach drop towards your knees because you realize the implication of what you’ve just told him. Shit – shit. Your face goes warm. You bite your lip, but don’t drop the Witcher’s gaze, and you see his soft lips tilt up at one corner. “Yours, hm?” he mumbles.

Your face feels too hot, but you nod regardless. “Aye.”

He stares. Studious, intense, and the heat in your face flushes downward, prickles over your skin until you feel sweat begin to bead at the back of your neck. You duck your head. The Witcher lets you break the spell, lets you escape and stand to grab the large bath sheet hanging by the hearth. You hear water slosh when he stands and steps out of the bath; you feel oddly shy when you hand him the warmed fabric, chewing at your bottom lip as Geralt rubs the water from his pale skin. Shadow and firelight play over the cut of his torso – you watch a bead of water slick its way down the side of his thick neck before it catches on the dip of his collarbone.

All the while, he watches you. You try not to fidget and fail. Gods, you can’t stand it when he looks at you like that – it’s curious heat and shameless, open desire. It makes you feel like you’ve laced your bodice too tight and you clear your very dry throat.

“Are you hungry?” you ask weakly.

The Witcher shakes his head. He stalks towards you – for that’s the only way to describe the movement – dropping the bath sheet as he closes the distance, all pale, naked skin and solid muscle. You can feel the beat of your pulse in your throat when he crowds close and he cups your face in his scarred hands before slanting his mouth over yours. The kiss is deep, but unhurried. Geralt licks your gasp out from behind your teeth, growling in return when your hands grip the solid plane of his back. He kisses you until you feel dizzy, until your heart thunders hard against your ribs and your legs go weak.

“Are you mine, then?” the Witcher growls, low and ominous as summer thunder. He keeps one hand at your jaw; the other trails sweetly down your neck. His fingertips skate over the smooth, polished wolf’s tooth of your necklace. He tugs the laces at the top of your bodice.

“Hm? Does that make you mine, sweet girl?”

The lacing whispers free of its grommets and though the tension on your bodice goes slack, you still find it difficult to catch your breath. You can barely remember how to fucking nod, but you do it. “Yes,” you whisper.

Geralt kisses you again. The heat of it scorches.

#geralt x reader #geralt x you #geralt x poc!reader #geralt x woc reader #geralt of rivia #the witcher #the witcher netflix #the witcher fandom #the witcher fanfiction #fanfic #reader insert #tutu scribbles #the wench and the witcher

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imasyd · 5 years ago

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The Tale of the Cursed Son's Blood

Time has made it muddy as to whether the title of the story is "son's blood" or "sun's blood"

On the day Roc of Widias was born, a great thunderclap like a cry of protest could be heard throughout the city. The wailing infant was placed in a basket and delivered to the church of Su without a word exchanged between the two furtive figures darting away from their package.

Roc worked for the church all of his early life, small and devout. They gave him a long scarf that wrapped around his neck many times over, and at first the young boy did not understand. He eventually learned that it was to hide the ugly symbol at the base of his neck that stung and itched late into the night, a symbol he shared with none of the churchgoers, monks or priests. In truth, they'd all heard of blessed children, infants born with markings from the great gods, possessed by divine power. This, however, was the first they'd seen of a boy blessed by Yimatulan, The God of Blood. It shook them to their core and filled them with unease. What sort of blessing would this child even possess? There were a few incidents that the head priest did not speak of. The infant had been slick with blood when he found him at the church doors. At the time, it was presumed that it had simply been from labour, but once he'd been bathed doubts arose. Roc had been a mostly pleasant young thing, without much tendency to throw fits. But when the child did, strange things happened. Blood dripped from the crib, from the tapestries, through the floorboards and even through the priest's own fingers if he tried to hold the boy down. The mess was difficult to clean, and he felt drained and almost woozy for days afterwards. It was baffling and terrifying, he didn't know what to make of it. So he stayed silent.

Years passed in this secretive peace and Roc grew into a fine boy. His body had grown strong but his face had remained soft, unmarred by hardship. Despite the simple life he led, tensions had grown high in the city among the common people, and violence grew. The head priest tried to guide the people but little helped the situation. The church was tasked with healing people who had been attacked and providing sermons and prayer at all time of day, running the priests ragged. As the only person left not overrun with duties, Roc was sent out again and again into the sometimes dangerous streets to deliver messages and pick up the much needed supplies. He performed this job with the most enthusiasm he could muster, hoping to relieve some of the burden for the others.

It was on a day of pleasant weather and birds roosting in church rafters that the priest through an exhausted haze asked that Roc bring a letter across the city. The boy accepted easily and gave his foster father a light kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. Roc sweltered in the otherwise kind weather under the weight of his old scarf. He had been used to suffering in the heat his whole life but it did not make it much less unpleasant. Unfortunately, the recipient of his delivery found themselves a ways away from the church and he walked for a long time under the merciless sun. It was high up in the sky, at its very peak, beating down on the earth so far below. Viv was at her best that day and shone in all her glory for the world to see. With great relief he reached the shelter that the priest wished to outreach his word to. From the letter he gave them Su's blessings and from his lips he gave them his own.

On his journey home, he itched at the scarf and pulled it this way and that, careful not to expose the marks he hid there. He froze when he heard the sound of shouting not too far down the winding streets. Scuffling, curses and thuds. With growing anxiety he understood that fights had broken out. He had of course known this was occurring more and more often, but he had never been present for one. He hurried along, desperate not to get caught up in something bad. He turned down one road and collided with a young woman. He began to apologize but stopped abruptly when he saw the fire in her eyes and the dripping rags balled in her fist. A tinderbox lay at her feet and cold fear spread through Roc's veins. "Someone started them, it's time now," she told him, seeming to have some point to drive home but lacking coherence. Her blazing eyes settled on his scarf and she wildly swung for it, narrowly missing plucking it from his neck as he stumbled back and away from her. "You don't need that, give it to me!" She cried, rushing towards him, oil from the rag coursing down her hand and staining her skirt. He defensively put his arms up, guarding this secret he had never been told why to keep. He did not see a second arsonist come from the back and rip the scarf away from him, dousing it in oil before sparing even a glance for its owner. He only looked up when the woman shrieked in terror. She pointed right at Roc, jaw agape, accusing finger trembling. "The god of blood has delivered his curse upon this city! This boy will doom us all!" She proclaimed. The man, moving quickly, lit the scarf on fire and threw it into a nearby doorway. His eyes had no inferno, but dim hatred. Roc put his hands around his neck, placed them over the symbol. He hid it from view, from their terrible and judging sight. An eye contained within a droplet, so horribly ominous, why had the gods given him this sick gift? Had they known whom he would be and altered the course of such a destiny or had it been random and cruel luck, just one pick among an endless list of possibilities? Suddenly his hands felt hot and wet, and he pulled them away in horror. Thin streams trickled down his forearms. Over that mark was stained a bloody handprint. The woman picked up a loose stone from the path they stood on and chucked it at him, hitting him on the cheek. The man followed suit. Soon other people on the street, some observing the same curse the woman had and some simply revelling in the violence, joined in. Roc ran away from this group of fearful and angry folk, ran for what may have been in that moment his life. Bruised and dazed, he took in the state of this chaos. The fights were spreading and people either spilled into the streets like ants from an anthill or made themselves scarce. He did not know why they rioted, he did not know anything other than a need to escape.

When he found a blissfully unoccupied corner to catch his breath, his gaze fell across the skyline of the city. Smoke. It blew up from straw and tiled roofs alike. It jumped nimbly from one to another like a thief in the night. Under the forceful glare of the summer sky, everything caught much too quickly. His throat tightened and he looked in the direction of home, his insides turning to both ice and fire all at once. The greatest of the blazes roared back there, choking the air around with such thick darkness you couldn't see the buildings anymore. The church lay behind that veil, concealed. His feet moved before his thoughts and he coursed towards those great fires. The wind was hostile and searing, exhausting his lungs and stinging his eyes. How could his good god have allowed this? This destruction and flame? It hurt, it was terrifying.

He came out of the gaping mouth of an alley and stopped dead. Stained glass glinted all across the stone street from windows bursting outwards under pressure. No one seemed to be leaving the building, he couldn't see movement inside. A body had collapsed just inside, so close to the exit yet just far enough to not have made it. Roc sunk to his knees and screamed. A few local residents were trying fruitlessly to put out some of the nearby fires and jolted to look at him, afraid and startled. He heard an anxious muttering start among the people choking on smoke and heat desperate to save their homes. "Please!" he called to them, "have you seen anyone make it out?" he pleaded. Wide eyes shook no. They darted up and down between his neck and his face, between him and their neighbours. Afraid. They had known him, he'd lived here his whole life, but still they feared him.

He felt something like nothing ever before well up inside of him. An overwhelming whirlwind of grief, fury, indignation and anguish. He felt a tug deep in his body and blood welled up from every part of him. He stared up through the suffocating black clouds at the distant shape of the sun, red blurring his vision. All of the helpers that had looked at him with those fearful eyes crumpled like lifeless dolls. A small dot appeared in the centre of that sun. He could not understand this strong instinct that possessed him, it was like he had been overwritten. The dot seemed to spread across the visible surface of that hateful sun. Viv's colour, her gold, had been replaced. But this was not Su's brilliant red that came to substitute for her when she visited her love, this was a dark and thick red, the red of blood.

They say that on that day, from that sky came pouring a great torrent of blood. It coursed through the streets of Widias. Hundreds were found dead and drained where they had stood, for the blood flooding their city had been their own. And Roc? He had perished with them, his death the last. Of the god's blessed, he had been Yimatulan's first, but alas; the god of blood knew only to curse, no matter his intention.

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 5 years ago

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Six Baudelaires AU, Part Three {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Eleven → in which Carmelita gets adopted

After Nick had stalked off, Solitude kicked Klaus. “Put me down.” she said.

“Soli?” Klaus asked.

“You deal with her.” Solitude gestured to Esme. “Put me down.”

Klaus glanced at the others, and then he slowly placed the toddler on the ground. She ran off, holding her skirts up and following Nick out.

He had stopped at the edge of the headquarters, sitting down on a dusty step and gripping tight onto the edge of his jacket, shutting his eyes and breathing hard. Solitude moved up slowly, but she made sure she was loud enough that she wouldn’t scare him into thinking someone was attacking him.

“Nick?” she called once she was a few feet away.

“Go away.” he said.

“Nick.” she said again, finally managing to reach him. She sat beside him, putting her small hand on his arm. “Nick.”

“What?” He wasn’t even looking at her.

She leaned her head onto his shoulder and said, “Why?”

“We’re getting Sunny back, no matter what.”

She bit her lip, trying to find a better way to phrase her question.

“Why are you so happy about it?”

“I’m not.” Nick huffed, curling up. “I hate it, too, Sol. But we have to get her back, and that won’t happen if- if she doesn’t think I’ll-” he shut his eyes. “I don’t enjoy hurting people.”

“Her?”

“I just…”

Solitude crawled onto his lap, looking up at his face. He still wouldn’t open his eyes and look at her. “You want her to feel what she made you feel?” she guessed.

He nodded.

“Because she hurt you. She hurt you bad.”

Nick made a sound that confused Solitude for a moment; she thought he might have gasped, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d just restated what he’d told her. Then she realized that the noise was him trying to hold back a cry.

Solitude leaned over to hug him again, and then she said, “How’d they hurt you?”

“I can’t tell you that.” his voice was all choked up.

“Will it help you?”

“It won’t help you. I don’t want you… thinking about it.”

“But you want her to think about it?”

“Because she’s evil. Her and her stupid boyfriend and…” Nick was breathing very hard. “And everyone. I feel like… like the whole world’s against us.”

Solitude thought hard about that, her eyes widening. The whole world? That sure was a lot of people, and they probably had better supplies than the rest of them. Bigger numbers, more money and food and luck and…

That didn’t matter.

Soli hugged him tighter, and then said, “If they are, at least we’re on the same side.”

Nick finally opened his eyes to look down at her, and he started to sob.

Sunny may be a toddler instead of a baby now, but it looked like Solitude had grown up, too. She wasn’t a toddler anymore.

A long while later, Lilac approached them cautiously, and when Nick turned, she said, “We got something.”

Nick wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and then he said, “O-okay. How are we getting the bitch up the waterfall?”

“Mush! Mush!”

Nick whipped around and shouted, “Esme, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll make you, alright?”

Violet and Lilac had figured out how to get them back up the slope; they’d taken the toboggan Esme had used to get down and tied it around all of their waists; they quickly added the rest of the forks to everyone’s shoes, while they managed to get Esme strapped to the sled. She was oddly quiet most of the time, aside from the occasional snark. The only one not pulling the sled was Nick, who moved slightly above them and tapped the ice, Solitude strapped to his back, Babbitt snugly stuck into her pocket. She’d actually managed to fall asleep on the way up, rocking against her brother’s back.

Her other siblings and Quigley were definitely not as relaxed, and not just because they were dragging a villainess up a slope in order to ransom her off for Sunny’s safety. Firstly, Nick still was barely looking at them, and seemed much more furious and violent than they’d seen him before; he kept stabbing his forks into the waterfall as if he planned to impale it completely. Secondly, the slope itself was creaking and groaning and did not seem like it would hold for long; the multiple fork punctures, the toboggan ride, and the increasing temperatures of False Spring were causing the ice to thin quite a bit. The Baudelaires and Quagmire were not sure that it would hold for very long.

“What are we going to say to Count Olaf?” Klaus asked. “What if he doesn’t trade Sunny for Esme?”

“We could tell him he’s surrounded.” Lilac suggested quietly, nervously glancing at Esme, who thankfully didn’t seem to be listening.

“He can see everything from up there, he’ll know we’re bluffing.” Violet muttered.

“We’ll think of something, I know it.” Quigley said. “Don’t worry.”

“Worry a lot.” Nick said, turning towards them. “We’re almost there.” Then, quietly, he said, “Who wants to go first?”

They fell silent, and then Lilac said, “You go up behind us. Make sure Solitude’s awake.”

Nick nodded, and Lilac said, “Alright, guys. Now or never.”

She hoisted herself and Violet over the cliff first, as they were in front, and then Klaus and Quigley followed. They dragged the sled up, and just as they got it, they heard a call of, “Who goes there?”

“Us, you asshole!” Violet shouted.

Nick climbed up, just as Olaf moved around the black car, giving them very frustrated looks. Behind him came the two mysterious arsonists, also looking incredibly angry. As the Baudelaires stepped forwards, Quigley sticking very close to them, they could see the rest of the troupe, as well as their former coworkers, climbing out of their tents to watch.

“Miss us?” Klaus asked, crossing his arms, as Nick moved to stand by him, taking Solitude off of his shoulders so he could hold her.

The woman with hair but no beard scanned the group, her eyes narrowing and her voice dropping in a way that made them all feel very worried. “Baudelaires.��

“I thought you said they were all dead.” said the man with a beard but no hair.

“They’re supposed to be.” Olaf snarled. His eyes darted between them. “How did you escape the cliff?”

“That’s not important.” Lilac said, straightening herself up and trying to look sure of herself. “What’s important is we’re offering a trade.”

Olaf raised his eyebrow. “A trade?”

Lilac nodded, struggling not to break under his stare. “We want to trade Esme Squalor for our sister.”

“You can’t trade Esme, she’s right there.” Olaf said.

“Only because we captured her, you fuckwit.” Nick said, his voice strangled as he spoke through his teeth, his eyes burning into the Count.

Olaf turned to him, a flash of surprise in his eyes, and then he said, “Why, my dear Nick, I thought you knew better than to talk back.”

Nick’s eyes darted to the ground as his breathing quickened, and Solitude hugged him tight. He glared back up and spat, “We’re trading Esme Squalor for Sunny Baudelaire. And then maybe we’ll let you all live. How’s that?”

Klaus and Lilac flinched, giving him a concerned look, but Violet just grabbed Quigley’s hand, stood up straighter and said, “We want our goddamn sister.”

“That’s funny.” Olaf said, not looking worried at all, crossing his arms and smirking. “Because we already have Esme.”

The group turned, and Quigley and Lilac swore under their breath as Esme stood up. She had a large knife in her hands, which she’d used to cut the ropes binding her to the sled. She strutted past the kids, waving the knife around.

“You see,” she said, as Nick’s face fell into a horrified stare, “I was going to just threaten them into carrying me back up, but it turns out they just volunteered to bring me up themselves.”

She gave Olaf a side-hug as Solitude stared quickly whispering comfort, and Lilac said, “You little…”

“Hold on, weren’t there five of them?” asked Colette, who was sitting on the hood of the car and didn’t seem to quite understand what was going on.

“Hello.” Quigley waved awkwardly. “I’m a Quagmire.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Olaf said, turning to the Baudelaires with a wicked grin. “You know what? I’m very glad you’re not dead. Now I can have some fun with you.”

Klaus instantly jumped in front of Lilac, and Quigley grabbed onto Violet’s arm, as Violet put an arm around Nick. Nick, who had started shaking again, turned to Olaf with a very dark glare.

“Where. Is. Sunny?” he hissed.

“The freak’s in her casserole dish.” Olaf shrugged. “Not that it matters.”

Nick took a deep breath, and then said, his voice breaking, “Don’t act like I don’t know what you’d do to her. If you have laid a single fucking hand on my sister, there will be hell to pay.”

“Oh?” Olaf laughed wickedly. “What are you children going to do about it? In fact, you know what?” He walked over to a small casserole dish behind the car, picking it up. “I have all of you now, and you’ll get the fortune much sooner. I might as well toss the baby off the waterfall.”

“No!” Lilac screeched, about to jump forwards.

“Let go of her!” Klaus shouted.

Nick let out a cry, and Violet had to hold him back, though her other hand flew to the knife still in her pocket. Quigley glanced down at his shoes, wondering if the forks would make effective weapons.

“Boss, wait!” said the Hook-Handed Man, looking incredibly concerned.

“Well, then, orphans,” Olaf said, swinging the casserole dish around, “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t!”

“We can still trade!” Klaus shouted, desperate.

“What could you possibly give us?” Esme asked.

An idea came to Lilac, and before she could think about whether or not it was a good one, she blurted it out.

“We will take Sunny Baudelaire in exchange for the location of the Sugar Bowl!”

There was a deathly silence as everyone stared at the Baudelaires.

And then Esme screeched, “You know where it is? Give it to me! Give it to me!”

“Give us the sugar bowl!” Olaf shouted.

“We’ll- we’ll trade it for Sunny.” Klaus said quickly.

“Give us our sister, and then we’ll tell you where the Sugar Bowl is.” Violet said.

“I can’t just give up the baby!” Olaf shouted. “She’s our ticket to the Baudelaire fortune!”

“The Sugar Bowl is more important than some silly fortune!” Esme shouted.

“Silly fortune? They probably don’t even know where the Sugar Bowl is!”

“Yes, we do!” Quigley shouted, thinking quickly. “Jacques Snicket told me before he died!”

“You never met Jacques Snicket, you were in that statue the whole time.” said a White-Faced Woman, confused.

“I’m not Duncan or Isadora!” Quigley hissed. “I’m Quigley Quagmire, I survived the fire, and Jacques Snicket told us where the Sugar Bowl is, and we’ll trade that information for Sunny!”

“Well,” Olaf groaned, “Some days you just can’t win, can you?”

“Darling, give them the biting brat!” Esme hissed.

“Stealing this fortune is for the greater good!”

“Getting the Sugar Bowl is the greater good!”

“Enough!” ordered the man with a bear but no hair. “We can’t have you arguing all day long! We have recruits to pick up.”

“Don’t you fucking dare-” Nick began, gripping tightly onto Soli, who looked about ready to cry, her eyes fixed on the casserole dish.

Olaf sighed and passed the dish over to one of the White-Faced Women, who was joined by her sister to help hold it. Then, the two mysterious arsonists stepped together closer to the car, and pulled two shiny whistles from under their coats. They blew, and the children instantly threw their hands to their ears, hearing an enormous rustling above their heads. They turned and saw, to their astonishment, hundreds and hundreds of eagles soaring above their heads.

“When the schism occurred,” cried the woman with hair but no beard, “The volunteers may have won the carrier crows and reptiles, but we have the two most powerful mammals in the world to do our bidding- the lions and the eagles.”

“Eagles aren’t mammals!” Klaus cried out in frustration. “They’re birds!”

“They’re slaves.” said the man with a beard but no hair. “And they do what we say, if they want to avoid these.” He shook his coat slightly, enough that the children could see a sturdy, thick whip tied underneath. “And in a few moments, they’ll carry away those idiot children who think they’re going to celebrate False Spring.”

“Oh no.” Quigley’s eyes widened.

“Those uniformed brats will be captured,” said the woman with hair but no beard, “And each one of them will be given the exciting opportunity to join us.”

“They’ll never join you!” Lilac shouted.

“Either they’ll join us or be our prisoners, it doesn’t matter.” the woman shrugged. “But one thing is for certain- we’ll burn down every single one of their parents’ homes and take their fortunes for ourselves.”

“Once you tell us where the Sugar Bowl is,” said the man, stepping forwards threateningly, “You’ll be given that opportunity, too.”

“No, thank you.” Quigley said.

“We’re not interested.” Violet said.

“Get fucked.” Solitude said.

“You won’t succeed.” Lilac said desperately, looking to the casserole dish the White-Faced Women still held. “We have- we have backup-”

“It’s too late to bullshit us, Baudelaires.” Count Olaf said. “Here they all come now.”

The villain pointed in the direction of a rocky path, and the children gasped upon seeing the uniformed Snow Scouts, walking in two neat lines, maskless and bored-looking, and following Carmelilta, who was wearing a tiara and a smirk, and Bruce, who had a spring pole in one hand.

Carmelita stopped after a few feet, glaring at the crowd. “What are all you cakesniffers doing here?” she demanded. “I’m the False Spring Queen, and I order you to go away!”

“Why, hello, dear Snow Scouts.” said the woman, a false smile painted onto her face. “We’re here to help you celebrate!”

“No! No, they’re not!” Lilac shouted.

“It’s a trap!” Violet cried.

“Turn around and run!” Klaus shouted.

“Pay no attention to these children.” Count Olaf said quickly. “The mountain air has gone to their heads. Take a few steps closer and we’ll all join you in this special celebration.”

“We’re happy to accommodate.” Bruce said. “After all, we’re accommodating, basic-”

“No!” Nick shouted.

“There’s a net hidden under the snow!” Quigley shouted, spotting the edges peeking out around them.

“And those eagles are going to help them kidnap you!” Klaus added.

“The net is decoration,” Esme waved her hand, “And the eagles are wildlife!”

“Please listen to us!” Klaus begged.

Carmelita narrowed her eyes. “You cakesniffers look familiar.” she said. “Do I know you?”

“We were your classmates!” Lilac said. “But that doesn’t matter-”

“Oh! Yes!” Carmelilta grinned wickedly. “You’re the cakesniffing orphans from the orphan shack!” She glanced at Nick. “You punched me in the face.”

“They’ll do worse.” Nick said, almost too quiet for anyone to hear.

“You’re just cakesniffing orphans trying to ruin my special day!” Carmelita huffed. She ripped the pole from Bruce’s hands and marched across the field, stepping onto the ice of the waterfall and laughing. “I crown myself False Spring Queen!”

She slammed the pole into the ice, and a large crack appeared, rushing through and down the waterfall; it looked like the mountain was about to split in two.

“Now, why doesn’t everyone come forwards and dance the False Spring Dance?” Esme called, clapping delightedly.

“Sounds good to me.” said Kevin, as he, Hugo and Colette stepped into the center of the net. “After all, I have two equally strong feet.”

“And we should really be accommodating.” Hugo said.

“Absolutely!” Bruce agreed. “Come on, Snow Scouts, we are-”

The Snow Scouts began to recite, marching right into the center of the net, but the second they were all inside, the woman with hair but no beard blew her whistle, and the eagles dropped.

Several eagles swooped down, grasping onto the edges of the net and lifting i high into the air. Carmelita, who was standing outside the net, screamed and jumped back, covering her head with her gloved hands. Nick clutched Solitude to him as tightly as possible, his face going white and his shaking getting even worse. He let out a scream, as the Snow Scouts gasped and shouted, and Bruce called, “What’s going on!”

“What’s happening?” shouted a Snow Scout.

“I’m scared!”

“Honestly,” said one bored-looking girl, “I’m just happy something different is going on this year.”

“Why are you recruiting us, too?” Colette asked, peering from the net. “We already work for you.”

“We’ll pick you up on the way to the Last Safe Place.” Olaf waved his hand.

The man with a beard but no hair blew his whistle, and the eagles flew off. Esme giggled and ran to grab something from the tents, while Carmelita stepped back, confusedly staring after the birds.

“Now that we have the eagles,” said the man, “We can finally catch up to that self-sustaining hot air mobile home.”

“No!” Quigley shouted, his eyes flashing with terror.

The woman and man just gave him a smirk, and then whistled again, and two eagles carried them away.

“Don’t you dare!” Nick shouted.

“No!” Violet cried. “Don’t-”

“This is getting tiresome.” Olaf said. “I’d forgotten how annoying you all are together. I only need one of you alive to get your fortune and the Sugar Bowl, and you’re already here for us to grab.” He turned to the White-Faced Women, and said, “Throw the brat over the waterfall.”

“No!” Lilac screamed.

But to their surprise, one of the women also said, “No.”

Olaf looked just as shocked as they did. “What?”

“We said no.” said the other White-Faced Woman, and the two of them placed the casserole dish on the ground. “We don’t want to be part of your schemes any longer.”

“We lost our parents and sibling in a fire.” said her sister. “And we don’t think that was a coincidence anymore.”

Olaf gaped. “Obey my orders this instant!” he yelled, but the women just shook their heads, turned away from the villain, and began to walk away. Olaf took a deep breath, and then said, “I don’t need them! I don’t need anyone to complete my plans! I can throw the baby over myself!”

He raced over and grabbed the casserole dish, and hastened to the side of the waterfall. Lilac screeched and ran forwards, followed closely by her siblings, only to watch as Olaf hurled the casserole dish over the edge.

“No!” Nick screamed, as Solitude let out a loud wail.

“Sunny!” Klaus shouted.

Lilac’s voice broke in a cry, and then Violet shouted, “You fucking piece of shit!”

“Well,” Olaf smirked, “At least we got rid of the baby.”

“I’m not a baby!”

Everyone jumped and turned to see Sunny herself crawl out from beneath the villain’s car, beaming, her hair still tied back. Soli cheered, and Lilac ran to her and lifted her up, hugging her tight.

“What the hell?” Olaf shouted, looking down the waterfall. “I just-”

“Eggplant!” Sunny giggled.

“She put an eggplant in the dish.” Klaus said, smiling.

“Wow, you’re all fucking idiots.” Quigley said.

“Nothing is going right for me today!” Olaf huffed. “I’m beginning to think washing my face was a waste of time.”

“Now, now, Olaf,” Esme emerged from her tent, slinging a bag over her shoulders, “We still have the Baudelaires within our grasp. Just toss five of them over the cliff.”

“That’s true.” Olaf said, as Lilac retreated to stand in front of her siblings, and Violet put her arm around Nick again. The Count smirked and said, “Now, Lilac is the eldest, so we’ll have to wait the least amount of time.”

Esme glared at him. “We don’t need that ugly girl. Having an infant servant was fun.”

The Baudelaires backed up, with Violet grabbing Quigley’s arm, just as Carmelita, who had been watching this all in some kind of daze, volunteered, “Oh! You could smash Klaus’s glasses and watch him bump into things!”

“That’s an excellent idea.” Olaf said, turning to her.

“Why, you’re an adorable little girl.” Esme said, stepping closer to the girl. “Would you like to join us?”

“Join you?” Carmelita asked.

“I could buy you all sorts of In outfits.” Esme said. “And we can give you some exciting adventures.”

“Don’t believe them, Carmelita!” Quigley shouted. “They’ll burn your parents’ house down!”

“Who are you going to believe, Carmelita?” Olaf asked. “Those orphans, or the adults?”

“Carmelita, don’t listen to them!” Violet cried.

“Carmelita, don’t join them!” Lilac shouted.

“You’re making a monstrous decision!” Solitude said.

“Carmelita,” Olaf said, in a sickeningly sweet voice, “Why don’t you choose one orphan to live, and push the others off the cliff, and then we’ll all go to a nice hotel together.”

“You’ll be like the daughter we never had.” Esme said.

“Or something.” added Olaf, as he approached Carmelita.

Carmelita glanced to the children, and then back to the adults. “Do you really think I’m adorable?” she asked.

“I think you’re the most adorable little girl I’ve ever seen.” Esme said.

“Don’t listen to them!” Quigley pleaded.

“Carmelita, run!” Klaus shouted.

Carmelita just smiled and gave Esme a hug. She turned towards Olaf, starting forwards, and just then, Nick thrust Solitude into Violet’s arms and raced ahead of her, pushing her back.

“Hey! You cakesniffer!” Carmelita shouted.

“Get away from her!” Nick shouted.

Olaf snarled and swung his hand, slapping Nick across the face. Lilac screamed and started forwards, but Klaus pushed her back, gesturing to the wide-eyed Sunny in her arms, before he started running.

Nick let out a terrified screech, as Olaf grabbed tightly onto his arm, yanking him closer. Nick screamed again, tears springing to his eyes. He ripped his arm back, barely managing to break Olaf’s grip, and he shouted, his voice cracked and choked up, “Touch me again and I’ll skin you alive!”

“Now, now,” Olaf chided, stepping closer to him, “That’s no way to talk. Apologize.”

Klaus threw himself in front of his brother, holding out his arms. “Get away from him!” he shouted, as Nick grabbed onto him, burying his head in his twin’s shoulder.

Olaf started forwards, and Quigley and Violet ran forwards, too, grabbing onto Klaus and Nick and dragging them back. Solitude flipped Olaf off, and Lilac, still holding a now angry Sunny, ran to help her siblings.

“Oh, stop being so annoying.” Olaf said. “You’re at a disadvantage, Baudelaires. We can just throw you off the cliff right now. There’s nowhere to go.”

Sunny narrowed her eyes, and then said, “Rosebud.”

Her siblings understood.

“Sled! Now!” Lilac cried.

They ran to the toboggan, rushing to squeeze on. Lilac pushed Sunny into Klaus’s arms and started pushing as everyone pressed together, and then she leapt onto the back as it went right over the waterfall.

“We’ll be right behind you, Baudelaires!” roared Olaf, but they could only barely hear him over the sound of cracking ice.

“Oh, shit.” Klaus said, looking back at the waterfall; droplets were starting to splash out as the ice cracked.

“We’ll have a head start, we punctured his tires.” Violet shouted, clinging to Solitude and Nick, who looked like he was going to throw up, and not from the sudden drop.

“He’ll have to take the path down!” Quigley added. “Maybe we can reach the Last Safe Place before he does!”

“Hotel Denouement!” Sunny cried. “Overhear! Hotel Denouement!”

“Good work, Sunny!” Violet said proudly, grabbing onto the leather straps at the front of the toboggan, steering it away from a ledge.

“I bet I can find it, I have a city map somewhere-” Quigley said.

“Fuck!” Violet shouted, as the sled jolted to the right, hitting onto a large crack.

“What did you do?” Lilac cried.

“The steering mechanism is broken!” Violet said. “Dragging Esme up must have weakened it!”

“Son of a-” Klaus said.

“At this velocity,” Lilac said, eyes wide, “The toboggan won’t stop!”

“What do we do?” Solitude asked.

“Drag your shoes across the ice!” Violet cried. “The forks should slow us down!”

Lilac, Violet, Klaus and Quigley stuck their shoes against the ice, but it didn’t seem to help much. “Hold on!” Violet shouted, pulling the bread knife from her pocket and thrusting it into the ice.

The blade hit the crack, and the Baudelaires heard what sounded like a huge shattering.

In one crash, the ice burst apart, breaking to pieces, and the waters of the Stricken Stream rushed down the slope. The Baudelaires barely managed to take a deep breath just as the toboggan was forced underwater, as Lilac reached forwards and put her arms around Klaus and Violet, who had their arms around Nick, and Solitude and Sunny clung to their older siblings.

But as the toboggan reached the surface, tumbling down the Stricken Stream, they realized someone was gone.

“Quigley!” Violet screamed, whipping around.

Quigley was barely bobbing above the water, barely gripping onto a piece of wood that might have been from headquarters. “Violet!” he called, terrified.

“Quigley!” Violet screamed, and her siblings joined in, calling for their friend.

Quigley barely managed to stay afloat, and he called, “Wait for me! The Last Safe Place! Wait for-”

The Baudelaires heard no more, as a sudden fork in the stream jolted their toboggan to the right, and Quigley’s plank was forced to the left.

“Quigley!” Violet’s voice broke, starting to cry.

“He’s alive!” Klaus shouted over the rushing waters. “He’s alive, Violet!”

“He’ll be okay!” Lilac promised, but Violet just sobbed.

The sled rushed down the waters, and it was all the Baudelaires could do to hold onto each other as they rushed towards the sea.

“Are we all here?” Klaus asked, not able to see a lot without turning around, which might threaten to break his siblings’ hold.

“Sound off!” Lilac said, also starting to cry. “Like when Mom and Dad took us to the zoo and it got crowded! One!”

“Two!” Violet barely managed to say.

“Th-three!” said Nick, through his sobs and shakes.

“Four!” Klaus said.

“Five!” Solitude called.

“Six!” Sunny shouted, clinging tight to Lilac.

They heard a small chirp, and then Solitude cheered, “Seven! Babbitt’s awake!”

“Just hold tight!” Lilac shouted, as the sled hurled out of the river and into the ocean.

For several hours- or perhaps some very long minutes- the Baudelaires just held each other as the toboggan rushed through the cold waves of the sea. Nick was sobbing and shaking, and him and Violet just cried and held each other, and Klaus and Lilac kept their arms tight around everyone, and Solitude and Sunny clung to the older Baudelaires and tried not to think about the treacherous waters beneath them.

After a while, the toboggan slowed enough that they didn’t feel like they were in imminent danger, and Nick burst out, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Don’t be!” Klaus said, pressing himself against his brother for comfort. “Don’t be, Nick!”

“It’s my fault!”

“No! Don’t think that!” Lilac said. “This isn’t our fault, okay? It’s his.”

“We just need to get somewhere safe.” Violet said, barely over her own tears.

“Eye!” Solitude shouted, and everyone turned and stared.

In front of them, as the waters slowed, what seemed to be a giant eye peered out of the water. But as they watched, it rose, and they realized the eye was made of metal.

“It’s a periscope!” Klaus said. “From a submarine!”

“And it’s got their symbol.” Nick sobbed, and they realized that the eye, indeed, made a VFD.

The toboggan slid to a stop, bumping against a bit of metal, attached to the periscope.

“There’s a submarine beneath us.” Lilac gasped, as they all struggled to breathe normally.

“Hello?” Klaus called to the periscope.

Sunny pointed, having spotted a hatch against the metal. The closest Baudelaires, Violet and Solitude, started to pound on it.

“Hello!” Violet cried.

“Shalom!” Solitude added.

Over the sound of the water, they heard a voice, from beneath the hatch, very echoey.

“Friend or foe?”

The Baudelaires looked to each other, confused. “Well,” Lilac said, shaking and clinging to Sunny, “There’s only one answer that will get us in.”

“Friend!” Solitude called.

The echoey voice spoke again. “Password, please.”

The Baudelaires glanced to each other, confused. “We don’t know a password.” Klaus said.

“We can’t just stay out here!” Violet said.

“It’s a VFD Submarine.” Nick said, leaning against his siblings and trying to stop crying. “So… so it’ll be…”

Lilac realized first.

She leaned forwards to the hatch, and shouted, “The world is quiet here!”

There was a pause, and then the hatch opened.

#asoue #asoue movie #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events #six baudelaires au #the slippery slope #six baudelaires official fic #mine #my fanfic

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arsonistsanarchy · 6 years ago

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[🔥] — “You guys all know what Pride Month means, right?”

“Time to be gay & do crime!” — [💢]

#Angry Arsonist;; ic #You're Going On The List!;; Main Verse

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laplaces-angels · 5 years ago

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@mightyzeta || x

[🔥] — ❝No shit it wasn’t an accident. Besides, the place was horrible anyway. I did the community a favor by destroying that lousy monocle company.❞

❝Seriously, who even wears monocles nowadays? Nobody, that’s who! They wouldn’t stop sending me these stupid flyers in the mail, so I had to do something!❞ — [💢]

#💢Angry Arsonist {Dan IC}💢#💢You're Going On the List! {Dan v.01}💢#mightyzeta #((God I just want to punch him in the face))#((He's horrible))

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daysixdreams · 7 years ago

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as certain dark things are (to be loved) | Sungjin [3/4]

Nobody ever told you ice can burn, that it could sear into your skin and leave a hot angry brand. It had always been fire that people had warned you about, how dangerous it is, how destructive it can be.

a/n: because i have no self control (and because i’m experimenting on a thing) here’s part three of vampire!sungjin. you can blame @jaechicken for this because that’s what i’m doing. insp.

as certain dark things are (to be loved)

flangst, paranormal…romance? | ~2k words

[ One ] [ Two ]

The attacks went like so: arson, murder, and now slander.

It’s going to be a long night.

You fall to a seat on the floor next to your bed and bury your face in your hands. Sungjin remains in his side of your bedroom, contemplating the best way to kill every single person, human or otherwise, involved in this mess. He can make his way up from the bottom. Pick them off one by one. He’s already dealt with the arsonists— he’d have killed them if it weren’t for you stopping him, saying they have information you could use. Once he gets what he needs to know, it will be so easy. Too easy. A few more nights starving and he’d go mad in hunger and feast on these fools who’d tried to hurt you. Then, when he reaches him, Sungjin will take his time. Make his death slow, painful, make him wish he were dead.

It’s been weeks of preparation, weeks of being distracted with having to rescue kidnapped Fae children, shifters locked in laboratories, dryads losing their natural habitats, and the general unfair treatment of Otherfolk in society. Not once has it left his mind that there’s a greater plot afoot, and hey he’d still been caught off guard.

Burning down the Moonrise studio, murdering a known contact, and blaming it on Dowoon? That’s taking it too far. But not far enough, because in the same night an article went viral detailing how you had staged all your rescues, how you’d paid off thugs and traffickers, how all this is a clever ploy to make you appear as some hero.

Sungjin is more than mad. He’s furious. And right now, it rendered him helpless seeing you slumped on the floor, curling into yourself. The flames had been doused now, they’d been waist high when Sungjin made it to you. And you, frantically killing balefire with water. Thankfully, Jae is a stronger wizard than anyone— not even himself— gives him credit for and had subdued the blaze. Though it came a price, and he’d badly burned himself in the process.

Of course, the fire was only a distraction. You recognized this just as Sungjin did, and he followed you into the editing room and archives just in time to find two men rummaging about. He then dragged them out and tied them up before Jae performed a mind spell on both of them to keep them quiet, at least until Brian Kang from Paranormal Investigations came in to question them.

But it was Dowoon who took the blunt end. One of your known contacts in the Red District had been murdered by a werewolf, and all the evidence linked back to Dowoon and Moonrise. It was chaos from then on. Sungjin can’t even begin to sort out the figurative pieces scattered all over the floor.

He can never put a name to the feeling that assails him when he sees you like this. You don’t break down often, and perhaps it is that which leaves him powerless. He can’t even touch you, his hands will literally cause destruction, and he’s never been good with words.

“Jae and Dowoon are safe,” he starts, “they’ll be safe with that Minjun guy. He’s a good healer. And Brian will make sure Dowoon’s name is cleared.”

You already know this, but it bears repeating. To assure you that none of this is your fault. It’s past midnight now, all the debris has been cleared and what could be salvaged had been moved to the only room barely resembling a room. Magic wards were set in place as well as flesh and blood watchmen. For now it would have to do.

Your studio had been your only known safe space, somewhere you felt powerful and useful and important. To have it taken away from you, Sungjin knows exactly what that’s like. If he had a heart, it might ache for you. But all he has is a monster inside him, roaring to wreak havoc on a world who dares to hurt you.

“What do I even write about this?” you ask, looking up at the darkness surrounding you. You’re looking straight at him but you can’t see him. Not really. The only illumination comes from the moon spilling through the curtains, but it’s not enough.

But Sungjin sees you clearly as though it were daytime. “The messy story, the ones you love to write so much. The difficult one. The one you know only the strongest stomachs can read. But not tonight. You’ve done enough tonight. There is nothing more for you to do but rest.”

In his mind, he reaches out for you. Wanting to touch you. But even in his mind, he doesn’t lay a hand on you. He can feel the warmth of your cheek, but he will not taint your light with his darkness. He pulls back and shakes his head.

“Go to sleep,” he says. Softly. As softly as he can muster.

“I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ll stay with you.”

He shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t even have thought of it at all. But it was too late. It’s too late to even think of all the should nots when it comes to you. And you, silly girl, inviting him inside your own home, your bedroom, your life. It’s too much. He’s dangerous, and you know it. Yet here you two are.

You look up, and this time you see him as the light flashes across his face. “Promise?”

“Wrong answer,” he says, yet he hears his own voice betray him. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

You lean back and rest your head on the side of your bed. You blink up hazily at him, fighting sleep. With your hair falling down your shoulders, eyes not quite focused at him, Sungjin fails to recall seeing anything else so beautiful. And he’s lived a long life, far more than he deserves. He wishes he were capable of whispering sweet nothings to you, assure you that he’s not going anywhere. That he will protect you. He will take care of you. That all will be alright and you can sleep.

A desperate thought sidles into his mind, so dangerous he feels fear for the first time since...since he can’t even remember anymore.

He could lay next to you, hold you, love you. Nothing will harm you.

“It’s funny,” you say, “that you think, after all this time, I still don’t trust you. You keep reminding me not to, but I could fling myself over that window right there and you’d catch me even before I could take one step toward it. Who’re you fooling? Because it’s certainly not me.”

He falls to silence.

You let out a shaky breath. “I’m afraid to sleep. I’m...afraid.”

“Shouldn’t you be?”

“I have to be strong, you know? Because Jae and Dowoon depend on me. A lot of people depend on me. I can’t be afraid of something like this. I’ve been through worse. I’ve seen this coming and I was still afraid when it was happening.”

“You don’t always have to be brave or strong. Everyone feels fear. And you have all the logical reasons there are to feel what you feel.”

“Are you ever afraid?”

He can lie if he wants to. He can refuse to answer and change the subejct. He can do so many other things but tell the truth. “Yes.”

She tilts her head up at him. “I can’t imagine what of.”

Of himself. Of the hunger inside him. Of the monster he is. He’s afraid all the time of wanting what he can’t have. Of wanting at all. Wanting more and knowing he can never have it.

Most of all he’s afraid that he’s falling in love with you. He didn’t even think he had a heart that can fall in love. Especially not one that works and beats like a living thing.

“Once long ago, before all this, was a war between the Children of the Night. Three vampire courts and three very angry princes. It was very bloody. Unnecessarily so. No one was spared. Nowhere was safe. Brother against brother they fought, and for what? For power. To prove one was better than the other. You couldn’t imagine it. Friends becoming monsters, creating more monsters for their armies, spreading the plague of evil over innocent lives. I’ve seen bodies ripped to shreds in front of me. I’ve seen parents poison their own children just so they couldn’t be Turned. In the end, everything burned. What wasn’t burning, was splintering or decaying.”

For a long moment, he says nothing else. He can’t.

You’re still looking at him. Still just looking at him. He wishes he can read minds just to see if you thought of him less now. “I don’t like these fights,” he admits. “Or small spaces...or fire.”

“See,” you whisper, “how am I supposed to not trust you when you were the first to come into the fire for me?”

“Sleep now,” he mutters. “You need to rest.”

You stand to your feet and do the exact opposite of what he’s asked. You come to him, slowly and carefully, as if you were afraid you’d frighten him. As if though he were a feral kitten to be approached calmly, earnestly waiting for trust to be given before you could give them the care they deserved.

“I’m so sorry.” You’re standing directly before him now, so strong and brave. “I’m so sorry you had to live through that...and so many other wars between your kind. I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do.”

You’ve already done so much, he can’t even begin to tell you. “You can go to sleep now.”

You purse your lips and a confused expression goes over your face. You sweep your gaze down from the floor— at his feet— and all the way up to his eyes.

The hunger lunges forward, but he pushes back against it A war between brothers is nothing compared to a war within yourself and your demons. You smell so good, he might go insane. “What is it?”

“You’re very tall.”

A laugh slips out of his mouth— another occupational hazard of being around you. Somehow, you could always make him laugh. You light up any room, his skin reacts like he’s been torched by high-powered electric cables. “Not any taller than most.”

You bite your lip and look at him uncertainly. “I can’t figure out what kind of vampire you are.”

“Best that you don’t.”

“One of the ancient ones, I’m sure.”

A void opens up and seems to swallow him whole. Smart girl, you’d have found out even if he didn’t tell you. “Are you implying that I’m old.”

It’s your turn to laugh now. “Sorry. You’re just…”

You reach out to him, fingers hovering shakily in the air. A part of Sungjin wants to stop you, another— much demanding— part of him has already given up and given in. He closes his eyes and shivers under his skin. He lets you touch him. Gingerly, at first. The tips of your fingers like a wraith over his cheek.

He turns his face and lets it rest on your palm. For a while, you stand together like this. His icy skin against the warmth of your hand. Then comes pain. Pain so unnatural, so unreal, courses through him as if he were struck by lightning. He only pulls back, jerks away from your touch, because to destroy himself would leave you open for the vultures to attack.

You gasp as you pull your hand away. You’re not hurt. It’s him. Even if he can’t see it he knows his cheek is raw and blistering.

Sunlight, he can fight. Emblems of faith have no effect on him. Garlic? He’s too powerful to even be affected by that. Sungjin’s one weakness? Love. The touch of someone he loves. Someone who loves him in return.

You look up at him, understanding dawning in your eyes.

And was that not the greatest tragedy of them all?

#day6writersnet #day6 fanfiction #daysixnet #day6 #sungjin #fic: vampire!sungjin

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kktxt · 7 years ago

Text

calamusgerent replied to your post “calamusgerent replied to your post “YOU KNOW, I THINK THE ICING ON...”

I LIKE TO THINK I'VE BEEN OPEN-MINDED AND PATIENT THROUGH THIS PROCESS, BUT IF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS TRUE, WHY NOT JUST BECOME AN ARSONIST AND ENACT MY VENGEANCE? IN A WORD, THIS SUCKS.

HERE’S THE THING, IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER. SURE, MOST OF US ENDED UP GOING THROUGH SOME TOUGH SHIT THAT SCARRED US FOR LIFE, BUT IT EVENTUALLY SHAPED US INTO........ KIND OF ALRIGHT LEADERS? I WOULDN’T SAY GREAT LEADERS, BUT WE GOT SOME SHIT DONE.

THAT’S SORT OF THE ROLE WE PLAY IN MOST TIMELINES. THE LOUSY, ANGRY LEADERS BARKING ORDERS AND GETTING SO FUCKING PISSED AT EVERYONE’S INCOMPETENCE OUR UTTER RAGE SINGLEHANDEDLY CAUSES THE MULTIVERSE’S ASSHOLE TO PROLAPSE AND SPAWN TIMELINES WHERE WE’RE NOT, IN FACT, THE LEADERS.

SO, DEPENDING ON HOW SHITTY YOUR UPBRINGING WAS, YOU’RE EITHER A PRE-MULTIVERSE-ANAL-PROLAPSE KARKAT, OR A POST-MULTIVERSE-ANAL-PROLAPSE KARKAT. I’LL LET YOU FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU STAND BY YOURSELF.

#calamusgerent

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robininthelabyrinth · 7 years ago

Note

Coldwave Fic Prompt: Len is, very reluctantly, the DC-verse equivalent of the Sorcerer Supreme. Meaning he is a VERY powerful magic-user, who - tends to ignore magic as hard as he can, for the most part. (Based on that GIF set of Len snapping off handcuffs and sarcastically calling it 'magic').

Fic: Magic Trick (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends, ConstantinePairing: Leonard Snart/Mick Rory

Summary: “Do you wanna see a magic trick?” Len asks.

“Seriously, Snart?” Barry shoots back, clearly annoyed. “We’ve been captured by an army of - and I still can’t believe I’m saying this - super-intelligent ninja human-dinosaur hybrids in the middle of a rescue mission to save Iris and Mick, and you want to show me a magic trick?!”

(in which Leonard Snart may be the Sorcerer Supreme, charged with protecting the world from horrors that would destroy it, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor)

A/N: A/N: I’m 100% unfamiliar with Dr. Strange or the Sorcerer Supreme mythos, although I once saw the Dr. Strange trailer a few months ago (and I still don’t know what that movie was about). Long story short: do not expect any accurate Sorcerer Supreme canon here.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you wanna see a magic trick?” Len asks.

“Dead serious,” Len assures him, even though he agrees that the entire situation is rather ridiculous. “And they’re not ninja dinosaurs. They’re pirate dinosaurs. They’re acting like pirates.”

“The costuming is clearly more ninja inspired - you know what? No. We’re not having this argument. Not again. Five times was more than enough!” Barry pauses. “Wait, what were we talking about?”

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks, very patiently.

Barry stares at him incredulously, and then that innate sense of humor, that sense of the ridiculous that lets him keep going, that lets him have hope in every situation, takes over. That’s why Len likes him so much.

“You know what,” Barry says, shaking his head. “Sure. Go ahead. Show me a magic trick.”

Len smiles.

He’d hoped Barry would say that.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” the dying man says.

There’s no one else around, so he must be talking to Len; Len, who was hiding in the trash behind the building in the alleyway because his dad would find him otherwise. He’s really well hidden, though, so he doesn’t know how the dying man - and he is dying, badly, his eyes and ears and nose and mouth all bleeding - knows that he’s there.

“I can see your aura,” the man says. “I know you’re there. I know that you’re as hard and cold as ice on the outside, but I can see -” Here he coughs wetly. “- I can see the gold of you on the inside. You’re a good man, deep down.”

Len doesn’t respond.

“It wouldn’t be my first option, you know,” the man says. “Giving this to a stranger. But the man I chose as my apprentice - he became corrupted by it. By the power of it. When we first met, his aura was so pure, like you wouldn’t believe - though I guess that was part of the problem - I know to look to the core, now, beyond the surface -”

He coughs again.

He’s dying.

Len’s mom died. Len knows what it sounds like.

“My apprentice did this to me,” he says. He sounds - not sad, not really. Resigned. “He was convinced to by the Others.”

The way he says Others sounds pretty ominous.

“Before he could finish me off, I locked away everything he had,” the man says. “Cut him off. But he’ll figure out a way to get it back, and then we’re all going to suffer. He’s angry. Always angry, and when he gets back, he’s only going to be more angry. He’s going to hurt people.”

Len swallows. That sounds like his dad. He’d always been angry, shouting and throwing things and grabbing hard enough to hurt, but when he’d come back from prison he’d been so much more angry.

Things hurt so much more now.

If someone who could kill like this man was dying was that angry…

“If I don’t give it to someone, he’ll get it,” the man says. “And people will be hurt. Please.”

Len doesn’t want to, he’s never wanted anything that might make him more of a target, but he can’t let someone like his dad get power. He doesn’t care what type of power this guy’s talking about - whether it’s politics, or Family, or even just a really powerful gun - he just knows that it can’t be allowed.

He climbs out of the trash.

“You’re just a boy,” the man says, sounding disappointed.

Len’s used to being disappointing. He just stands there and lets the guy make up his mind.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” the guy sighs. “I don’t got long left. Not long enough to take the time to be picky - and you’re gold on the inside. At least, you are now. Gotta hope for the best. You read a lot of fantasy, kid?”

Fantasy?

“No,” Len says honestly. “I don’t really got time to read.”

He has to steal to keep his dad happy, and he’s got to feed and care for Lisa, and he’s got to go to school and do just enough of the homework there that the state doesn’t come asking any more questions than they already do about the boy who’s in the hospital so much that his dad has started refusing to take him even when it really, really hurts.

“Shit,” the man says, rubbing at his face. “Well, I asked for a worthy successor, and the power brought me here, to you, so I guess I’m just going to have to trust it.”

Len has no idea what the man is talking about. Only that the blood is flowing freer now, from his mouth and his eyes and his ears and his nose. If he keeps bleeding like this, he won’t have any left on his insides.

That may, Len thinks warily, be the point of it.

What a terrible way to die.

“At least it’s unexpected,” the man muses, more to himself than to Len. “They won’t know to look for a child. All right. I’ll do it.” He looks at Len. “You’re ready for this?”

No, Len’s not ready. Not at all. But he can’t let men like his dad win. He can’t.

He nods.

“So, kid,” the man says, and he coughs, long and low and deep, and his voice is kinda weird when he continues, “you wanna see a magic trick?”

Len says yes.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks the boy who’d rescued him.

The boy - Mick Rory, the guards said his name was - just grunts.

There was no way he’d known that the other boys had been seduced by the Others to kill Len, lured in by glittering promises that hid the darkness behind; the Others, trapped in their alternate universe or whatever the pocket that kept them far away was, were only able to reach out in little ways, whispers, promises and lies. They wanted Len to die because then his power would leave him and go to the next best person if Len didn’t name a successor while he was alive, and then they might be able to convince someone to open the door for them at last.

That’s what they wanted: to get out of that pocket of darkness that they’re trapped in, to come into the world of light - and then to devour it, piece by piece.

They’d tried the whispers and the promises on Len first, of course. The voices slithering over him at night, kind and gentle, sad and pathetic, old and wise; they offered him fortune and fame, the love of women and men, power beyond his wildest dreams.

They offered him revenge against the man who hurt him.

Len doesn’t say no to them because he’s the one that nameless dying man chose to save the world, like the chosen ones in those fantasy books he checked out in the library afterwards to try to figure everything out. That wasn’t the reason at all.

He says no because he just doesn’t dream that big.

Len doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want more responsibility than he’s already got. He doesn’t want any more of any of it.

But he doesn’t want to give what he’s got away, either.

It’s Len’s power now.

No one else’s.

So what if he doesn’t use it for anything big, saving the world by stopping some undefinable bad guy?

So what if he only uses it for stupid stuff, like making Lisa smile, or using the portal to walk between worlds just to get away before the cops catch him?

Not that it works that way every time, if he wants to keep his power secret from his dad. He has to keep it a secret, because the only reason the Others haven’t been able to get his dad on their side is because his dad just ever can’t believe Len would ever have any power.

That’s why he got caught on that last job. That’s why he’s in juvie, just after nearly getting shivved by Others-inspired kids.

Len hadn’t realized they’d been taken in by the Others at first, either. He’d feared discovery more than he’d feared the kids, so he hadn’t fought back with everything he had - a mistake. He hadn’t realized how serious the murder attempt was until it was very nearly too late.

Mick jumped in and saved him. He didn’t have to - there was nothing in it for him except trouble - but he did it anyway.

Mick’s a good kid.

Len doesn’t care about the rumors that run through juvie, the rumors that say Mick’s a pyro and an arsonist and that he burned his whole family down. He’s pretty sure it’s all true, and he doesn’t care.

Mick saved him when he didn’t have to.

That’s enough for Len.

He’s recovering in the bottom bunk; he’d been paired up with Mick after it all, because the guards didn’t want someone to try to stab him again and Mick at least had helped, not hurt. Len could’ve told them that any of the six who’d attacked him weren’t likely to try again - when the shiv had scraped Len’s side, drawing blood, the Others had come to watch, unable to stop themselves, pulling themselves as close as they could to the world of light, eyes avid and greedy, and the kids had gotten a glimpse of what the Others that’d made such promises to them really looked like.

They weren’t going to fall for those promises again anytime soon. Even if it was only because their sleep would be too full of nightmares for the sweet words of the Others to penetrate.

Len’s not going to say anything, though. He’d rather have Mick.

Mick. Mick’s an interesting question. Len’s been here, recovering, for a few days now, and he knows the Others whispered all sorts of promises to Mick, all in exchange for him just popping down and smothering Len in his sleep - easy for a big boy like Mick, strong and sneaky - Len knows they’re trying it, because Len can hear them, the stupid fucks, he knows what they’re planning and they know that he knows and they don’t even care that he knows because he wouldn’t be able to stop Mick anyway - but it doesn’t work.

Mick rejected them all without even thinking about it twice.

Mick’s a good guy.

Mick might even be safe.

(like the dying man’s apprentice was safe?)

Still, Len has to try. He can’t do this alone anymore.

So he asks, again, “Do you wanna see a magic trick?”

Mick sighs and pushes his head over the railing to look at Len. There’s a strange, puzzled sort of fondness to his expression, like the kid that’s been irritating him these last few days has actually somehow managed to grow on him; Len’s not sure how, because he doesn’t think he’s ever made a good impression on anyone but Lisa, and she’s just a dumb baby and easily tricked.

“Sure, kid,” he says, shaking his head, like he thinks he’s humoring Len. “Show me a magic trick.”

Len raises his hands, cupped together, to Mick, and summons flame for him - the essence of flame, the magic core of it that hides in every fire, and Len cuts through all the crap to produce the purest version of it he can find, a small flame flickering in his hands, safe and limited and, to a worshipper like Mick, everything.

After that, well, they’re more or less inseparable.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks Lisa, ten years old and sobbing, because for all of Len’s powers, he can’t fight his dad. Blood against blood - if every religion says it’s wrong, it’s gotta be wrong, right?

But Lisa’s bleeding from a broken bottle to her arm, and Len’s bleeding from a hell of a lot more than that, and there’s some Family men who are coming upstairs to, quote, “do as you like with ‘em” because their dad has debts to pay and no means to pay them with.

At least he had shame enough to leave before anything happened.

(are you sure you won’t take our offer, an Other hisses in Len’s ear, we could save you - save her - we could hurt him like you’ve been hurt)

Lisa, though, wonderful Lisa, she just sniffs and nods. “Yeah, Lenny,” she says. “Show me a magic trick.”

And he takes her through the portal of worlds, the great old Doors that he imagined from a book series he’d read to Lisa a million times over the last few years, and he takes her to her favorite place - an elderly dragon’s hoard, where he’s collected all the gold he can find and more besides, where he loves it and cares for it but doesn’t mind visitors since he’s too fat to really care about defending it anymore as long as no one takes any away from him - and he lets her sit and laugh and play, and forget everything that’s happened today.

And he tells the dragon, “Watch her”, and the dragon straightens up his massive body, the size of a train, and nods, taking the duty upon its shoulders, and then Len goes back and makes sure there aren’t any Family men to cause problems anymore.

He’s gotten good at covering his tracks when he does this - bullets not created from nothing, but summoned from the guns of an opposing Family; hairs and nails and blood plucked from other crime scenes; no evidence of his own presence there.

Mick meets him outside when it’s all over, bundling an exhausted Len into the back of his car and driving away.

“You gonna keep doing that?” Mick asks, looking at him through the rearview mirror.

“Doing what?”

“Killing Family,” Mick says. “You’re good at it, and it’s a decent thing to be good at doing.”

Len shakes his head. “I don’t want to be a superhero,” he says, and means it. He has enough trouble with the monsters he already faces: the Others trying to fight their way into their world, the Witchhunters who are searching for anyone with a trace of the Gift, the Order of the Path that worships at the feet of the Sorcerer Supreme and is looking for their lost God - and which don’t really feel like taking ‘no’ for an answer when he doesn’t seem inclined to go with them back to their mountain fortress to let himself be worshipped the way they think is proper. And worst of all, out there, distantly, Len knows that He is there, the dying man’s apprentice, the corrupted one, the one who thinks that Len stole his inheritance when Len accepted the mantle of successorship in his place. He’s looking for Len too, and when he finds him… “I just want to be a thief.”

And that is both true and Len’s greatest defense, because no one suspects the guy who’s robbing ATMs of being the Sorcerer tasked with keeping the world safe from other-dimensional creatures.

He’s even been tossed in jail a few times, a sitting target unable to defend himself, and all his enemies walk straight on by. He’s felt them, searching, but they don’t search Iron Heights.

They’re looking for a hero, not a criminal.

“Where’d you leave Lisa?” Mick asks. “With old Snaketooth?”

“She always did like gold,” Len says, vague enough to answer Mick’s question without actually confirming her location in case some shifter’s taken Mick’s face again.

Mick shakes his head. “Of course she does,” he says, fond as ever. He doesn’t stay by Len’s side just for the flame anymore; he knows the dangers and the risks and everything that could go wrong - much of which already have, in one way or another, all but that final confrontation with Him - and he stays by Len’s side anyway.

There’s a ring on Len’s finger, now. A quiet promise, vows sworn while standing together in the heart of a star - a reminder of the real reason Mick stays.

Sometimes Len curses his misfortune. Other times, like when he looks at Mick and his heart feels so full of joy it could burst, he can’t bring himself to.

“Pigs incoming,” Mick says, glancing out the window, frowning. “You got enough juice to make us incorporeal for a bit?”

“Sure,” Len says. It’s one of the easier tricks, actually - just shift everything you want to affect (here, a car and two men) a half-universe to the right, and suddenly you’re as invisible as a ghost and able to walk or drive through walls just the same.

“Great,” Mick says, and grins. “Show me a magic trick, boss.”

Len does.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks the empty air.

Empty, because he’s alone. He doesn’t like to be alone. Being alone means he has time to see all the awful horrors pushing up against the thin magic wall that protects the world from them, and time to see means time to think, and time to think makes him feel like he ought to be doing more to stop them.

Never mind that he’s the longest lived Sorcerer Supreme in over a century, or that the other practitioners of his craft tell him he’s been remarkably successful at repelling the Others and to keep up the good work.

Never mind the crippled old fortuneteller that he has tea and tequila with on every off-month’s second Thursday, that everyone else rejects because of her history of crimes and Len rather likes for the same reason, who tells Len that it’s his ability to be restrained and discreet about fighting that has helped him survive this long.

“Most of 'em, they’re arrogant snots,” old Madame Xanadu spat out in her creaky old voice, the last time they’d spoken. “I’d know better than most -” She’d been an apprentice to one, years ago, and she’d been corrupted, too, all unknowing, but with dreadful consequences. She hadn’t gotten the power, in the end, but she’d broken the hold of the corruption that’d grabbed her. She was resigned to the fact that she didn’t have it and she’d never have it and honestly she didn’t want it anymore: what she’d lost to the corruption had been so much worse than anything she would have gotten out of it. “- and I tell you, the more you use, the more trouble you’re in. Rescuing the world, pah! It’s bad enough to try to keep it intact. Fix, fix, fix, that’s what you ought to do.”

“Sure, Nims,” Len said, fond of her as ever, even though she kicks him under the table every time he calls her that. She likes to grumble that she told him her history to teach him a lesson, not to get a dumb nickname, to which Len liked to respond: why not both? “I’ll be careful.”

“You can never be too careful,” she replied, her eyes mistier than usual, and that’d been his only warning to start stockpiling power, because the dying man’s apprentice had found him at last and was coming to collect his inheritance.

He’d made the worst sort of contracts, with Others and Witchhunters and deranged Path monks and even worse creatures besides, with those that pretended to be gods and those that might not have been pretending, and he’d pulled back everything he was, bursting through the bindings the dying man had put on him, and he’d come after Len.

They’d fought forever and a day.

It was the worst fight Len had ever been in, magic to magic, weapon to weapon, soul to soul.

The apprentice didn’t make stupid assumptions the way some of Len’s other enemies did, didn’t think Len was going to be foolish and heroic and dumb, and he’d thrown everything he had at Len.

And Len? Len had thrown everything he had back.

His love for Mick and Lisa against the apprentice’s love for his master, however twisted that love had become.

The apprentice’s pain against Len’s own, the perception of a master’s betrayal against the slow, dripping realization that Len’s father never loved and never would love him the way fathers ought.

The apprentice threw the captivity of his magic being bound against Len; Len threw back Iron Heights, that yawning pit of despair and blackness and lives cut off by society long before death took them away.

The apprentice summoned monsters.

Len called upon his friends.

That old bastard Constantine was sober, for once, his eyes flashing as he cast spells and incantations with a fluency Len would never be able to achieve; his own enemies were supporting the other side.

Madame Xanadu did what she could to rebalance her books, her blind eyes no impediment as she reached out hand and will to crush anything that skittered and crawled on a plane different from the one they stood in.

Zatanna - Len still has no idea why Zatanna’s there, after that whole awkward one-sided crush and rejection business. He thinks Constantine may have blackmailed her. The reason is immaterial, though: she’s there.

But it hadn’t all just been magic and darkness.

Len has friends well beyond the realm of magic, and he called upon them, too: Mick, his beloved right hand, and Lisa, of course, but others as well. The man with the knives he’d roomed with at Iron Heights, the mother with the dead eyes and the rifle that lived next door, the strangely friendly cannibal he’d met as a child: they all came to fight by his side, and never mind that they didn’t entirely understand what they were fighting.

Old Snaketooth the Dragon - he’d liked Mick’s name so much, he’d taken it on as one of his own, taken it and treasured it with a dragon’s jealous love - roused himself from his long-guarded hoard and came, the size of a train twice over, long and writhing and bellowing flame and poison gas both with equal ease, batting wing and tail, wielding sharp claw and sharper tooth.

But there were more yet to come, more than even Len had realized.

Len’s crews came for him, he who’d treated them fair and cared for them as long as they obeyed his rules, he who had rescued them when they’d gone astray and disciplined them and given them the wealth they desired without the fear of betrayal.

Len’s neighborhood came for him, he who’d protected them from the Families and paid their debts and told their kids with long-suffering grace to go to school despite everything.

Len’s cities came for him.

Tears streamed down Len’s face for the first time in years, when they came forth into the battle, and even the apprentice’s jaw dropped open in surprise.

The Twins did not rouse themselves lightly.

The Gems, they were called by those that loved them, and whether that was their rough-accented city dwellers’ admiration of their finer qualities or a shortened nickname for the sleeping Gemini, no one yet living knows.

They’ve always been there, ever changing but ever constant, growing and shrinking in size but their attraction eternal: a thousand names they’ve gone through, and a thousand more they’ll go through before the end.

Central is the elder, Keystone the younger, and the great Cities of the Midwest Plains are as mighty as their fellows in the East and the West for all that they were less accustomed to battle.

For the first time in a thousand years, they roused themselves, strengthened by the souls of their residents, of the thousands upon thousands of them that melted together by years and close proximity, and once they were roused, they came: the Cities came forth in all their splendor to do battle for their true-born son who’d always loved them best of all.

Len hadn’t even thought to call for them, but still they came.

Every person he’d put love into over his life, each one and everything: they all came.

And so the battle was won, in the end.

The costs were terrible, the casualties great: Mick burned with starfire and left for dead, unconscious in the hospital bed not far away; Lisa angry and distant; the Dragon slain; the magic scattered.

But they survived.

The world survived.

Len buries his head in his hands and wonders if it was worth it.

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” he whispers to himself.

He doesn’t know.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len shouts, gleeful, as he wields his new weapon, a cold gun, the sister of Mick’s heat gun. They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder again, just the way it ought to be.

“Even your best magic trick won’t stop me from beating you!” the Flash calls back, superhero bravado unable to disguise how much he’s enjoying their combat.

This is fun.

He’s going to have to bring Lisa in, if she can take time off from her duties as the Dragon’s heir. Old Snaketooth had died knowing that his hoard would be cared for by one who loved it as much as he, and he had been well pleased.

Mick laughs in glee and shoots a line of flame down the street that the Flash dances around in a crackle of lightning.

Len smiles at his cities, who are watching their antics with the fond eyes of mothers gazing upon two favored children playing, and he summons a fire hydrant that was actually located a block away a few minutes before (not that anyone will notice but sanitation, and even that not for a few months - the indifference of government at its finest) and cracks it, the water spurting out all over the streets for him to ice just as the Flash goes by, his eyes going wide, his arms starting to pinwheel as his feet lose their grip.

The way the Flash falls on his ass and slides into a nearby wall is enough slapstick to make his cities (and his Mick) laugh in glee.

“Better luck next time, Flash!” Len calls, pulling Mick and their loot away. They had a car prepped for a getaway.

Mick flicks on the radio, which they’ve set to the Flash’s comm channel.

They drive away safe, listening to the Flash’s helpless laughter at his well-earned and rather hilarious defeat. He’s gotten into full-on hiccups by the end of it, his friends in no better state than him, and even Joe West, who tries to be serious, unable to keep from guffawing.

“And you know what the best part is?” Cisco Ramon asks, voice audible over the line even through the static and his giggles. “I have video.”

Mick twists to look at Len in silent plea.

“Okay, fine,” Len says, still grinning and high on adrenaline. “Our next heist can be to go get a copy of that.”

Now that was magic.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks, his hands in the guts of the machine, Time Masters all around him.

Mick is gone away safe, Sara hoisting him onto her back and sealing her promise to keep Mick safe with a kiss for good luck.

Len doesn’t know if even his magic can survive the destruction of the Oculus, but he knows this: the Oculus has to go.

It’s twisting time, hurting it, and each twist tears through that fragile boundary that protects the world just a little bit more.

The Others are the gods here, their dreadful power come too close for human sanity to prevail; Len can see their madness shining in the eyes of the leaders of the Time Masters. He wonders what promises they made to tear these false monks from the path they swore to tread.

He wonders what promises could ever be worth the terrible damage these men have wrought upon themselves and others in the service of the Others.

He doesn’t, at this moment, much care, though.

They tore Mick from his side and tormented him; Len returned to him his sanity and his sense of self, but the scars in his mind remain, just as the scars of starfire burns remain on his shoulders despite Len restoring his mobility as best he could. It doesn’t matter: they made Mick suffer.

The Time Masters have destroyed so much, killed so many, and yet Len is not too proud to say that those many deaths meant less to him than that injuries they did to the one he loves.

He knows he may not survive this, this final explosion, this final battle. Before he made this choice, before he came to this crossroads, he stood with his hands held high and cast the name “Lisa” in the air, naming her his successor should he die - she deserves it more than anyone else, born and raised in the safety of his power and the risk of his love. The Dragon’s heir knows the risk of what he does and will take on the duty that he has borne so long; she does not want it, no, but she will take it, and she will shine like a starburst of gold with it.

He hopes Mick forgives him for dying.

“You bastard,” one of the Time Master shouts, the only reply to Len’s question.

It’s okay.

Len wasn’t really expecting an answer.

He lets the budding explosion he’s been growing between his fingers go.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?”

Len opens his eyes.

“Thought I was the one who was supposed to say that now,” he grumbles.

He recognizes the man who stands before him, even without the bleeding eyes and ears and mouth, even though it’s been near on forty years since he last saw him.

He never did get the man’s name.

“Old habits die hard,” the man says with a shrug.

He’s not alone. There’s a figure behind him, massive and mammoth and serpentine -

“Snaketooth?!” Len exclaims. “What’re you doing here?”

The man before him chokes. “You named one of the Great Wurms Snaketooth?!” he demands.

“No,” Len says, rolling his eyes. “My husband did. Obviously.”

“You have a -” the man pauses, then shakes his head ruefully. “On second thought, who am I to criticize? You’ve lasted so long and done so much; perhaps it was best, then, that you were never taught the old ways.”

Len’s gotten some idea of that already from Madam Xanadu, all about how he was supposed to forsake all friendships and romances for “their own good”, as if they’d be any less of a target if he loved them from a distance.

Letting a disaffected blinded corrupted former student be one of Len’s teachers would definitely not have been this man’s preference if he’d lived, but hey - it worked out, didn’t it?

“Am I dead?” Len asks. He thinks it’s a reasonable question, given that the two in front of him are definitely dead.

Old Snaketooth laughs, and the world shakes when he does - a Great Wurm, one of the pillars of the rotten apple core of the world; he was so much more powerful than Len, young and bumbling, had ever known he was.

“That,” he lisps through his big front fangs, “is the magic trick.”

—————————————————————————————————

Len’s pretty happy, all told. He’s gathered up all the most powerful of the Flash’s villains (speedsters not invited) into the Rogues and disciplined them to follow his rules - no killing, no going after friends or family of the Flash, and keep your eyes on the prize; his cities rested safer, now, and were supplied with endless entertainment as they fought and helped the Flash in equal measure.

He’s gotten Mick back from the Waverider, and Lisa from her hoard (she’s courting Cisco and some girl name Cynthia, which involves being around a lot), and even Barry’s happy to see him.

So, yeah.

A minor pirate-maybe-ninja invasion aside, Len’s life is looking good.

“Well?” Barry says challengingly, smile curving his lips. “You gonna show me a magic trick or what?”

Len’s smile widens.

“Just you wait,” he tells Barry. “I’m going to blow your mind.”

And then he shows him a magic trick.

Best one he knows.

#dccoldwave #leonard snart #mick rory #lisa snart #john constantine #my fic

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