#DID PHOENIX EVER APOLOGIZE TO HIM FOR SHATTERING HIS WORLD?????????

[ridragon]

Thinking about... Beanix....

[xxladyballadxx]

Open Your Heart

Joshua Rosfield x Reader

Summary: Your lover Joshua Rosfield, the dominant of Phoenix, urges you to open up to him instead of always pushing him away. 

(Note: This is quite similar to the one I wrote ages ago)

~ dividers by @/cafekitsune ~

You were never the type to talk about your feelings to anyone, even Joshua. He has been very concerned about your wellbeing. So is everyone at the hideaway. The other day, Jill knew something was wrong with you and she wanted to comfort you. You pushed her away and gave her the cold shoulder. Which made her upset and more worried. 

Next was Clive coming to try and talk to you, he even summoned you to his chambers wishing to speak to you in private. He said to you once that if you ever feel sad or angry, you can always talk to him or Jill. You did none of that. None. You continued to behave like this and not to talk to anyone about how you’re feeling. 

Clive didn’t have the urge to stop you from leaving his chambers so he just sat there, not knowing what to do. When Joshua came back from his journey, Clive had a word with him talking about you. 

Joshua told his older brother that you have been avoiding him quite a lot these past few days, he wondered why and Clive wasn’t really happy about it. He didn’t appreciate your behavior towards his own younger brother, even to Jill. Joshua promised Clive that he will talk to you. He rushed to your room and beat your door with a knock, “(Y/n)? Are you in there?” 

“Please go away…” You mumbled, urging him to leave you alone. You know Joshua, he’s not going to leave until you tell him what’s wrong. Joshua sighed, having no choice but to open the door and slammed it in anger behind him, “Do you truly mean to hurt me this way, (Y/n)? By pushing me away and not talking to me about the things that are bothering you? ” 

“Joshua, I-” Your words were cut off when Joshua marched closer to you, dropping on one knee and holding your hand, “Please do not continue to hurt me like this, (Y/n). I don’t want you to keep pushing me away…” his gaze was too sad to look at. Even though you couldn’t look away from him. By the tone of his voice, you could tell that he was hurting. Hurting for you. He sat by you on your bed, still holding your hand, “Open your heart to me, (Y/n), don’t keep it shut forever…” 

You heaved a long-short sigh of defeat, finally making eye contact with Joshua by your side. Perhaps you were too aloof towards him, to Clive and everyone. This helped you to realize that you’ve been shutting yourself away from people that care about you, even Joshua….

You buried your face sorrowfully into your hands, breaking down in tears as Joshua held you in his arms, “I’m so sorry…” you mumbled a apology in a low voice, “I’m just so fucking tired…” You looked up to Joshua in the eye with that crying face, “All this bloodshed, the war, everything. I don’t even know where to start. Ever since my family abandoned me of what I’ve become so long ago, I’ve been feeling so isolated and lost. Every night, I get nightmares of everyone I know leaving me… ”

Joshua felt a sting of pain deep in his heart, he hates to see you like this so much that it saddens him whenever you feel like the whole world is falling all around you. Tearing you apart piece by piece, bone by bone. “I wonder if I deserve to live or not. I asked myself that every day. I even wonder if people will care if I’m gone…” your words were deeper than a sword, it became a poison to Joshua. It wounded him mentally and physically, his heart shattered when you said those things. You were being very hard on yourself and Joshua is hurting because of those words that upset up entirely. 

“(Y/n), please don’t say those things like that. You know how much it hurts me!” Joshua cried with his voice breaking, his eyes were becoming watery but you couldn’t tell if he wanted to cry or not, “I would never truly be myself if you were gone.” He tightened the hold on your hand, his gaze locked on you, “I will never forgive myself if anything happens to you. Without you, (Y/n), I am empty. My life won’t be the same without you.” 

Does he actually mean that? 

Of course he does…

Your heart cried out after hearing those words from him, the little cracks on your heart were slowly beginning to fade. Your eyes created a stream of tears, sliding down to your pale-salted cheeks. 

Joshua snooped you into his arms, your head attached to his chest as he embraced you tenderly. “You are my greatest gift to me, (Y/n) and I am truly blessed to have you in my life. Never forget you will always have me…and the others too.” 

“I’m so sorry, Joshua…” you whimpered, your crying face still buried on his chest. 

“It’s alright, my love.” 

“I need to go and apologize to Clive and Jill for my unacceptable behavior….” 

“I will come with you, love.” 

~~~~~~~~

You gave a few knocks on Clive’s door, you have this feeling that he’s going to open with that scowling look on his face. Once the door was opened by him, no sense of anger came from him “(Y/n)..” Clive looked at you with worry, he didn’t seem angry. 

“Clive I’m-” you were interrupted when Jill rushed past Clive to hug you in comfort, “(Y/n)! We were so worried about you!” you returned the hug as you apologized, “I’m sorry for the other day, I didn’t mean to upset you both. Same with Joshua and everyone else here. It was never intentional…”

Clive smiled serenely, “What matters now is that you're feeling better, (Y/n). Remember that you are never alone.” 

“All is forgiven, (Y/n).” Says Jill with a reassuring soft smile, “We will always look out for you. Just know that we support you all the way. If you ever need someone to talk to, me and Clive will be here to listen.” 

You hugged Jill once again and then next was Clive, “Thank you…I can’t tell how much this means to me..” 

All was sorted out to the end, you thought Clive would be mad for you hurting Jill’s feelings. He wasn’t at all. He accepted your apology as he and Jill comforted you. It seemed that Clive didn’t want to upset you more by being angry with you, that could be the reason why. 

Joshua dragged you to the balcony to watch the horizon with him. You motioned your body to cuddle up next to his, holding his arm with such tenderness. He smiled gracefully down to you, pecking a kiss on your forehead and looked back to the scenery with the sun’s bliss of radiant glow flowing across the horizon. 

“It’s beautiful…” 

“Yes but…” Joshua turned to you as he pressed down his hands softly onto your shoulders, leaning to collide his lips towards yours, “Not as beautiful as you are, my love.”

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

a/n - Is it just me or are there not enough fanfics of Joshua Rosfield fanfics on here? (ㅠ﹏ㅠ)

Anyways, hope you all liked this!

UNTIL NEXT TIME 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

[selfdestructivecat]

May I ask for headcanons for Phoenix and Apollo? 🙏 While I'd love to see some for Phoenix and Trucy, the 1st one sparks my curiosity just a bit more.

Oooooh this dynamic is just a whole bag a feelings!

(And if you wanna ask about Phoenix and Trucy, feel free to do so in another ask if you'd like! I also adore the two of them!)

These headcanons contain MAJOR spoilers for AA4 (Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney), so if you haven't played the game yet for some reason, DO IT!

Realistic Headcanon: Mr. Wright absolutely sees Apollo as his son. He sees all of the Wright Anything Agency's members as his children (Trucy being his actual daughter and Athena being the same in all but legality), but Apollo was his first employee, and he has a soft spot for the grumpy young attorney. He hated tricking Apollo, of acting aloof and cryptid towards a kid who just had his world shattered, but he was terrified of such a bright kid's future being tarnished by him getting close to the disgraced attorney.

When Phoenix got his badge back, he allowed himself to get closer to Apollo, to give him genuine advice and dish out praise. And he can tell how Apollo practically preened under the praise, how he starved for it like a man who had never recieved a single compliment in his life. He saw the hurt Apollo carried with him, memories of a past too painful to recall, and Mr. Wright wanted to press and comfort but he refrained. It wasn't his place. He wasn't actually Apollo's dad.

But even so, he promised himself to look after the younger man. He had a bad habit of getting attached, and this was no exception.

(More Headcanons Below!)

Unrealistic (but hilarious) Headcanon: Apollo and Trucy, despite the huge age gap and their different genders, look terrifyingly similar. The have the same eyes, same facial structure (Apollo's jawline may be slightly sharper, but there's still definitely some softness that he is slightly insecure about), and, when Apollo's hair is down, it looks very similar to Trucy's own bangs. Of course, given their wildly differing personalities and attire, no one has ever confused the two.

Except one person. Phoenix Wright.

It was an otherwise uneventful morning, Apollo's coffee growing cold as he typed frantically on his laptop. He had joined Trucy and Athena on the couch in the Agency's lobby, their chatting softened by the exhaustion of the early morning and serving as pleasant background noise while Apollo worked. He didn't even look up when Mr. Wright arrived, eyes so bleary it was a wonder he was able to see at all. He knew that Mr. Wright had pulled an all-nighter trying to figure out the mystery behind the Agency's latest case, so him coming to work an hour late was understandable.

What was slightly less understandable was when Phoenix leaned over him and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head, a familiar gesture Apollo had often seen him do to Trucy. Except he wasn't Trucy. He was Apollo Justice, and any lingering exhaustion he had felt was long-gone.

Mr. Wright was quick to realize his mistake, his gaze turning to the real Trucy and Athena, who were both looking at the scene with their jaws on the floor. He sheepishly turned to Apollo, apologizing as he turned to give Trucy her intended kiss. The spell was suddenly broken, Apollo's face turning as red as his suit as the girls finally burst out laughing, Athena jokingly asking Mr. Wright for her good morning kiss. He did humor her, pressing a kiss to her temple after Trucy, much to their delight and Apollo's mortification.

He had expected (hoped) for that to be the end of it. But it wasn't.

He could excuse the next few times as a mistake, where Phoenix would ruffle his hair or press his lips to his head or call him "sweetie" or "kiddo". But then it started happening when Apollo knew Mr. Wright was fully aware, where his hair was spiked up and his demeanor nothing like the young magician and where Mr. Wright had already addressed him by his proper name. But still the gestures wouldn't stop, and while Apollo wouldn't say that he hated them (not that he would admit it even with his life on the line), it felt entirely unprofessional and mortifying.

The others were having the time of their lives, especially Phoenix. After all, as I mentioned before, he sees Apollo as a son. While the gestures are teasing, the love and affection behind every action couldn’t be more real.

Heart-Crushing and Awful Headcanon: Apollo admires and respects Mr. Wright immensly (maybe the latter slightly less after their first meeting, given his demeanor, but that rebuilt itself once he got his badge back), but he never fully trusts him. The bloody ace was something that was never brought up again after Apollo's debut, but the resentment lingered, simmering like butter melting in a pan until the bottom was coated black. This lack of trust wasn't obvious, and it certainly wasn't something Apollo advertized, but Mr. Wright is perceptive.

Phoenix desperately wanted to apologize, to explain the actions that he took during that day. He wanted his protege to look up to him and believe in him the same way he believed in his clients. He wanted Apollo to look at him and for there to be none of that lingering hurt that the young man seemed to carry with him everywhere.

He wanted to explain the Card. Or rather, he wanted to explain the Replica.

He wanted to explain how the evidence wasn't used correctly, how it was never meant to be a substitute for the real thing, only a hypothetical. He wanted to explain the misunderstanding, of the failure to explain both on his part and on Trucy's.

(Something he would never, not in a million years, fault her for. She was still so young, despite her maturity, and he never should have involved her in something so dire in the first place. Damn those puppy-dog eyes and her giant heart.)

He wanted to explain how everything had been taken care of, how the current Chief Prosecutor was, for once in his life, lenient, allowing the mistake to be erased from Apollo's record. He wanted to do something, literally anything, to get rid of the guilt the kid obviously still carried from that trial, even if doing so meant giving him reason do doubt his very capabilities as a lawyer.

It would mean transfering the blame from himself to Apollo, who despite his stubborn and confident front still struggled with his own securities and a staggering inferiority complex, and to Trucy, whose smile hides so much pain that it makes him want to cry.

But Phoenix would never put that kind of blame on Apollo, and he would die before his daughter felt even a sliver of the guilt he carried with him everyday. He cared about them both too much. He refused to be selfish.

Maybe one day he would tell Apollo, when the incident was far behind them and the fledgeling lawyer grew into his own. But for now, Apollo's distrust was a burden he was willing to bear. He deserved it, after all.

(This headcanon is from a fic I’ve read that I stupidly forgot to bookmark. If anyone knows what fic it is, I would be so grateful!)

Unrealistic Headcanon that will probably never happen: I mentioned before in a previous ask that I headcanon that Apollo knows how to play piano. It's something he's a bit out of practice with, given how he didn't have as much time to practice with law school and his job under Kristoph Gavin, but he still loves playing. And when he saw the giant piano buried under various stage props and bills, he couldn't resist.

Whenever Trucy and Mr. Wright were gone, Trucy either at school or performing at the Wonder Bar (and wait... is that a pun!?!?) and Mr. Wright doing whatever it was he did during the Seven Year Gap, Apollo would hesitantly make his way towards the piano and play. It became a respite for him during this tumultuous time in his life, with all the confusion of his new job, his confusing interactions with Mr. Wright, and whatever was going on with that glimmerous fop of a prosecutor.

Surprisingly, it's Phoenix who catches him in the act and not Trucy. Apollo is mortified and slightly terrified when he sees Mr. Wright quietly listening, but his embarrased rambling is cut off when he sees Phoenix looking at him with more genuine emotion than he had ever seen. Wright doesn't make any cryptid one-liner or snarky comment, instead simply telling Apollo that he was allowed to use the piano anytime. Obviously, Apollo played much better than he did, and the Agency could use a reprieve from his own amateur playing.

And so Apollo did, occasionally playing when his workload felt too overwhelming or his thoughts were too loud. And every time, without fail, the Agency would fall silent, letting only the beautiful notes linger through the air. Even Trucy and Athena would be without words, saving their teasing about Apollo's hobby for later time.

And every single time, without fail, Mr. Wright would applaud his performance.

Ahhhhhhhh THESE TWO! There's SO MUCH! They're both such broken people who have not given themselves the time and opportunity to heal and they are both horrible messes, but I still love them both regardless.

Thank you so much for the ask!

Send Me a Character or Relationship (platonic or romantic) and I’ll Give You Some Headcanons!

[bioticgoddess]

Untitled O-14 One Shot

Pairing: Osiris/Saint-14 (O14)

Summary: Grief. Angst. I have no shame when it comes to these two. Set sometime between Saint's death and the excursion to find him in the Infinite Forest.

Note: I apologize for any typos and grammar issues. Wrote this in one go because I'm a masochist. Enjoy!

I. Mercury: The Gray Pigeon Osiris listened to Saint's message again. His eyes were red from tears and rubbing at them with the heel of his hands. His gauntlets as stained as his scarf and skin from them. His skin raw and throat tight. How many times had he failed to tell Saint just how much, how deeply, his affections ran? How long had he hoped to see him again? How long, trapped in the Infinite Forest and playing a deadly game of keep-away with the Vex, had he dreamed of the Exo? Or asked Sagira to show his holographic projection in the hopes it would help sleep come easier and be less painful. And now? Now, all he had of him were memories, a fragment of ribbon caught in the pilot's seat, and this letter. Pressing the piece of Saint’s accolades to his forehead, he mumbled, “This will not happen. I...I will save you.” “Osiris,” Sagira asked gently, floating to her chosen cautiously. “Are you...no...what do you need?” The care in her voice was more than he could bear, no matter what the Warlock had resolved to do. Eyes closed, tight, he tried not to cry again - for all of them. When she pressed a flat portion of her shell to his cheek. It was cold comfort but she was trying and he knew that. He knew it better than anyone. He wept. II. Earth: The Tower, Osiris’s Private Study The report was laid out across the long table. Sagira floating over them, able to read from a distance so she wasn’t in Osiris’s space. He was determined, singularly focused now, and - though she had tried - could not be convinced from his path. The little golden ghost flexed the wings of her shell. It was all there. Everything the Guardians had seen in the Forest. Most importantly, he had been there. Saint-14 laid to rest in all his glory. A fragment of Geppetto brought back though they hadn’t been able to retrieve the Exo. She watched, frowning as much as was possible, at the piece of her lost friend. Geppetto had been one of the good ones. As determined to keep her guardian safe as long as she could. Only, someone - the Vex she thought - had killed her, snuffed out the poor Ghost’s light and she was afraid. If Geppetto had been slain then what hope did they have of saving Saint? No. She couldn’t think that. She wouldn’t. Osiris needed her to believe that this insane plan might work. That it had a ghost of a chance of working and that the Light would lead them to exactly when they needed to be. “This won’t be easy, even on Mercury,” she cautioned, projecting an image of the device they needed to build. It’s schematics on yet another data pad at the center of the table. The warlock’s gloved hands on either side of it. “We’re gonna need help.” “No. This...I owe him and so I will do this,” there was a fire in his voice bordering on anger. He was right, he had to be. Which meant that if anyone could do this, could walk the corridors of time and find Saint-14 - the right Saint-14 - it would be Osiris. Her chosen would not let this be the end of their story. Not now. Not ever. Not so long as he still grieved the man who’d shown him the simple joy of the night sky over Prague. And there, as he sat and began scrolling through the data pad on his chair, making a list of the needed supplies, Sagira could have sworn she saw him weeping again. One of his hands touched a spot on his breast, the place he’d carefully hidden away the scrap of purple silk ribbon that been left behind in the Pigeon. He whispered, “I’m coming Saint. I’ll find you. I promise.” III. The Infinite Forest: Time Unknown, Mercury Saint-14 had sent Geppetto on her way, hoping she could find a way out of the forest. If anyone could it was his little Ghost. She’d been a good companion all this time but he would not bind her to his fate, not if it was avoidable. No. Someone needed to tell Osiris what had happened. To apologize for the words in his last log entry on the Gray Pigeon. He trusted Geppetto to guide his precious phoenix back from the brink in his absence. It eased his mind that she’d have Sagira there to confer with and be the voice of reason. Yes. He would take as many Vex with him as he could. If he were truly lucky and the Light was with him, it would cleanse the forest. Maybe Mercury could be a garden world again? That would be nice. Chuckling to himself, he let his mind wander and for a moment, Saint-14 was in Prague with Osiris. They were sitting in the ruins of a building from long before the golden age. It’s stone walls provided a safe haven they hadn’t known they needed. He remembered a basket, barely held together except for prayers and an old - but clean - stretch of canvas. The meal within had been simple but their conversation, he’d made the Warlock smile broadly and laugh in a way no one else ever saw. He focused on the memory of the way his eyes wrinkled at the corners. The groaning of metal bodies held together with wiring and bolts echoed, shattering his moment. Too close. He’d run too close to taking memory and letting it become fantasy. Here, especially, that could never be. No, the Vex were closer than he expected. The Exo checked his ammunition with a huff, silently lamenting his ever diminishing reserves. Worst case, he could headbutt the bastards, but he didn’t relish the idea of getting up close and personal with the Vex. He wished he could have shared one more meal with Osiris, just the two of them. Perhaps something sweet? IV. The Infinite Forest: Time Unknown, Mercury Saint collapsed, heavy under his own weight. He couldn’t breathe. Joints were going stiff. Could feel everything starting to shut down. His Light was gone. His mind was hazy, vision unable to focus. Geppetto was gone. Safe at least. He hoped. “Do not blame yourself,” he whispered to the strange golden glowing hallucination. For a moment, he thought he felt the warmth of his touch against his cheek once more. V. Earth: Tower - Temporary Quarters assigned to Saint-14 “I’m sorry,” the Exo whispered, “I should not have left.” Osiris let out a sob of a laugh, “I left first and have regretted it ever since.” Not that he’d really had a choice. Exile or not, they could at least agree that he’d left the city first. His tone, the guilt that pulled at the edges of his joy made it sound to the Titan that he thought it absurd that the Exo apologized. They were silent for a moment. Not unsure but, unbelieving. They’d come to the little apartment that would be Saint’s, for now. They’d sought solace where others would not immediately seek either of them. They’d spoken as old friends with more secrets shared between them than half of the residents of the City. Stories of what really happened in half a dozen different and now mythic adventures that they had lived. Now, sitting in this space, with no one to watch them, it was different. Under the Exo’s luminous gaze, Osiris began weaving the violet ribbon he’d been fidgeting with on the Gray Pigeon’s steps into the net of those that stretched across the left of Saint’s breast plate. “It took longer than it should have but...I was resolved not to be parted from you,” the Titan explained, head tilted and eyes fixed where he could watch his partner’s fingers work. Their gloves and helms had been abandoned to the same sad little barren counter after they entered the dwelling. Those nimble fingers gently moved the ribbons that were taught so they held this new addition in place. His gloves long abandoned to one of the flat surfaces that Saint had chosen as a workbench. Voice steady despite the hesitancy in his words, “You’ve never told me what these were for.” “I thought you did not wish to know,” there was no judgement in his tone. “I do, I have been terrible at actually remembering to ask you” he swallowed, securing the ends of the ribbon, “There. Now I will be with you, no matter where you are.” He laughed, smile broadened, eyes warm, “Then I shall tell you, once you are ready to ask. You should know, there are few things in life I have always been certain of,” collecting the Warlock’s hands as he spoke, “That you are always with me is one of them.” “And you with me,” Osiris’s relief was palpable in that moment. This. He had dreamed of

this, of having time to sit and simply be with the other Lightbearer. That and deserts, but that would have to wait. The pantries, while stocked, lacked what he needed and tonight, nothing was more important than the time they were together and on finding the new laugh lines in the Warlock's face.

[alwaysnforeverfangirl]

Dance Me To The End Of Love - Prologue

Introduction of the fic

A/N: this is my first fic in English so I apologize for the mistakes in grammar and way of writing. This is just the prologue so nothing really happens in here, it’s more of an introduction to the story of my OC. Although Fred doesn't appear in the prologue both characters will meet very soon. Hope you like it, Rach💖

Summary: Veronica Reed has a nightmare before the day her life changes forever. 

Warnings: torture, death, mentions of war, mentions of anxiety.

italics are flashbacks/memories

(gif taken from Pinterest)

There it was again. In her chest, hiding behind her ribs. The pressure that she had grow to fear. She whipped away the sweat on her forehead while releasing a sob that she had hold. The cold air of the night painted goosebumps on her skin when she moved the covers of the bed, her feet touch the carpet that decorated the floor of the room and she started to make her way to the kitchen to drink a glass of water.

Veronica Reed knew very well her condition. That's why she was so afraid of the anxiety that always came after remembering her father's death.

-Rabastan…

The voice of Alaric Lestrange was barely a whisper. In front of him a man dressed in black robes was giving him a wicked smile. Behind his long hair Alaric could recognize the features of his younger brother.

-It’s been a long time brother.- Rabastan’s voice was hoarse. He was moving around the place, searching for something while laughing at Alaric.- I didn't have the opportunity to give you my condolences on the loss of your wife.

Alaric’s body tensed up, thinking of the day Anna was brutally killed by Fenrir Greyback. She had fought in the war even though Alaric didn't want her too. They had a daughter and the thought of leaving her orphan haunted him, he had promised himself that she would have the loving family that he never had.

“She will grow healthy and free and she’ll understand what we fought for and why we couldn't hide away while the world we believe in was at risk.” With those words being said, Alaric Lestrange joined the Order of the Phoenix with her wife Anna Reed by his side. He knew she was right. He couldn't keep on running from his family and the atrocities that people like them were doing to the Wizard Community.

-She had an amazing magic ability for a mudblood…- The younger of the Lestrange brothers started to approach Alaric in a threatening way.- The child that you two had together… Where is she?

At that moment Alaric realized why Rabastan was there. He was furious about the fall of the Dark Lord and he definitely had heard about the rumors. Not only he was there to torture him like he and their older brother had done while they were kids. He was there to capture his daughter and found out if what people said was true. But Alaric knew that if Lord Voldemort followers were to find Veronica she would become a slave, and that’s the reason why he came back to the United States when Anna died. To protect their daughter and help her understand what she was able to do before anyone could use her.

-You haven't said a word yet dear brother. Has the cat got your tongue? - Rabastan left a creepy laugh.- You know pretty well what I’d do to you if you don’t show me where your daughter is.

-You’d do it even if I do as you say.

Rabastan smiled, he took Alaric’s face with his left hand and pointed his wand to his chest. This wasn't the first time both brothers were in this position, although usually Rodolphus Lestrange was behind Rabastan, with his chest filled with pride as the younger of the family showed the middle one what they called discipline. It had always been this way, ever since the three of them were kids both Rabastan and Rodolphus would haunt Alaric. They would hex him just because he was different, just because he didn't share the same ideas as his family. It got worse when he started Hogwarts and he was sorted into Hufflepuff. “Our family has been in Slytherin since that school was founded and now a miserable Hufflepuff…” Alaric would never forget the voice of his father and the disgust in his mother’s face. Both of his brothers made his life a terrible one until he flew from England, escaping from the pain that the Lestrange name brought him.

A red light came out of Rabastan’s wand and Alaric fell to the floor in pain. He could feel the cruciatus curse invading his body and he failed to silence a scream. In a wardrobe, near the window of the room a small toddler shifted at the sight of her father’s aching. The torture continued for at least five minutes and Alaric stopped trying to keep silent, he didn't want to give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him suffering but the stinging in his bones and skin was too much.

Veronica knew that her father would be upset if she got out from the place she was hiding but seeing Alaric crying of pain on the floor awoke something in her. In her chest a pressure started building and her body started to tremble.

-You’re going to die Alaric. Why not have a moment of peace before you go? Tell me where she is and I will kill you fast.

-Never…

-You and your stupid moral code. You really think that these people you defend are worth fighting for? That your filthy mudblood wife deserved a life?- The poison in the voice of Rabastan only increased when he saw how his brother was fighting the curse.- You refused to have a good life, to carry the honor of our family name, all of the glory that runs through our veins for what? A fair cause?

-I’ve never share our family beliefs…- Alaric’s voice was almost inaudible. Every inch of his body was in pain.

-Oh no, I know that very well…You and your choices throw dirt to our name ever since you decided to do the right thing.- Rabastan laughed, he kneeled in front of his brother and spoke to his face with anger.- You. Are. A. Traitor.- He spited in his face and kicked him in the stomach.

Right when Rabastan stood up the doors of the wardrobe opened up.

-Stop! Let him go!

Rabastan turned to look at the origin of the sounds and his eyes landed on a three year old. He sent the most horrifying smirk to Veronica and returned his attention to his brother.

-Found her.- He said to Alaric with a creepy smile.

Alaric looked at his daughter, she had her mother’s fire, her eyes were burning with anger and her breathing was accelerating. He knew what was gonna happen, and even though he was sure he wouldn't be able to see it, he knew for certain that his daughter was going to win that fight. While Veronica gave a regretful smile to her father for disobeying what he had told her earlier Rabastan’s wand emitted a green light and Alaric’s life left his body.

Veronica screamed and the window’s glass shattered. The light of the room became darker and everything started to shake. When Rabastan’s eyes returned to Veronica he could see clearly how the figure of a three year old transformed into a black cloud. A sudden strength pushed him to the ground and knocked the air from his lungs. Rabastan Lestrange couldn’t breath, his blood was burning and he wasn't able to do anything. He was sure that he would join his brother’s faith in any minute, but it didn’t happen.

-Same nightmare again?

Veronica put the glass down and turned to look at John. He had a tiring smile on his face and his hair was a mess due to having fallen asleep on the armchair of the living room. She tried to return the smile to the man who had raised her.

-I’d love for it to be a nightmare but we both know it isn’t.- Her voice was sweet, a perfect contrast with what was going on through her mind at that very moment.- It’s been the fourth time this week and I don’t like it. I feel like I’m losing control…

-It’s normal, given the times we live in. You don't have to worry, we’re gonna see Scamander and Dumbledore tomorrow.- John caressed Veronica’s cheek and she sighed.

-I’m afraid of it. I don’t want to loose control again, not like last time.

-You won’t do it. Try to rest. - He laughed at the bags under her eyes.- We have a long day ahead and I’m pretty sure you don’t want your first impression to be a bad one, and well, with that…- He pointed at her eyes and she whipped aways his hand.

-Fuck off…

Both John and Veronica laughed at her bluntness.

She did what he told her and decided to go back to bed. Tomorrow they’ll leave The States behind and go to England. The same journey that her parents did when she was born. The same moment in life. The same darkness over the world and the same determination to fight for what she believed in. Even almost the same group of people fighting by her side. 

She only hoped for her destiny to be not the same as her parents.

[refinedbuffoonery]

Riley + Sunglasses + Undercover (8)

masterlist.

Read it on AO3. 

This is it! The end! Thank you all so much for coming on this wild ride of a story with me. I have lots of good stuff in the works (aka what distracted me from finishing this), so stay tuned!! Now, without further adieu...

*****

Riley slept horribly, courtesy of Desi kicking her once every few hours. How Mac tolerated sharing a bed with that woman for so long was beyond her. 

Awake for the fourth time that night, Riley was too exhausted to fight off the intrusive thoughts lurking in the peripheral of her consciousness. The things she’d said to Petrov….Riley could learn to live with it. She didn’t have a choice not to. Mac’s reassurances helped, but more than anything else, Desi’s words stuck with her. 

I saw you under the mask. 

You didn’t scare me. 

You were more in control than you think. 

Mac would always tell her things would be okay. But Desi….Desi wouldn’t. Desi was honest to a fault. Somehow that made Riley feel better. 

She glanced at the woman slowly taking over the entire bed. Riley hoped Desi would forgive her for kissing Mac. It wasn’t like Mac left Desi for her, but she didn’t want Desi to think there was some ulterior motive on Mac’s part. There wasn’t...was there? 

God, this thing with Mac had barely started, and it was already so messy. It didn’t sit right with her. 

Wanting nothing more than for this mission to be over so she could go home and think, Riley rolled onto her side, lying back to back with Desi, and waited for sleep to claim her once more. 

*****

“Want to see what kind of trouble we can get into?” Mac asked, wide awake despite only getting four hours of sleep. 

“This is going to get us killed, isn’t it.” Desi’s response wasn’t a question. 

He feigned offence. “I can restrain myself.” 

Bozer frowned. “You absolutely cannot.” 

“Mac can’t what?” Riley asked, stumbling into the main room still half asleep. Her feet shuffled across the floor, like picking them up and taking a real step was too much effort. They’d let her sleep in, since Petrov didn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, although looking at her, Mac wasn’t sure how much sleep she’d actually gotten. Even less than him, probably. 

Desi answered Riley’s question, leveling Mac with a pointed look. “Can’t restrain himself from doing something stupid.” 

Riley managed a dry, “Is this supposed to be news?” She looked horrible--that soul-crushing type of horrible that seemed to always descend after someone’s world blew up in their face. She held Mac’s gaze, but there was no trace of the light that should’ve filled her eyes after a heated confession like theirs. 

Dread filled Mac’s stomach. What if she changed her mind? 

Riley plopped herself in a chair and opened her laptop. “So what stupid thing does Mac want to do? Spiderman his way into Petrov’s room with some TV cables and toilet plunger?” 

Mac smirked. It wasn’t a bad idea. If he used the cables to make a ladder…

Bozer cut off his train of thought. “Oh no! I see where you’re going with that, and the answer is hell no.” 

Mac continued working out how to pull off Riley’s joke plan while his friends jabbered. “How about I just do my thing and we go from there,” Riley finally said, yawning. No one was dumb enough to object to that. 

While they waited for Riley to do...whatever she was doing, Mac came up behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. She flinched. 

Oh. 

“Sorry,” she rushed to apologize. “You surprised me.” Mac frowned at her blatant fib. She’d never flinched from his touch before. Not even once. Tensed, maybe, but never outright flinched. Fuck. He removed his hands. 

“So what’s your great and grand plan?” he asked, forcing himself to move past the awkwardness. 

“Hack into the hotel’s system to see his check-out day--it’s today, by the way--and let Interpol know they should come pick him up.” 

That...that was a lot easier than any of the things he had been thinking. 

“When--” he started. 

“Agents will be here in twenty to pick him up.” Indifferent and professional. Like he was some random agent assigned to the mission. Not her partner of five years. Not her friend. 

Not her...person she confessed feelings for less than twelve hours ago. What the hell happened? 

He wasn’t ready for the answer to that question. 

Ignoring the churning in his stomach, Mac asked, “What about the rest of Petrov’s collective?” 

“Hopefully Interpol can use Petrov and his bodyguards for information to take them out. From what I’ve read about him, his relationships with business partners are questionable at best.” Riley craned her neck to look at him, her sleep-lined face soft and wary. “Either way, it’s out of our hands now.” 

Mac wasn’t sure if it was the dark circles under her eyes or the way her voice softened at the end of her sentence that made him throw caution to the wind. He changed his mind. He needed to know what changed her mind about him. About them. 

“Riles,” he murmured. 

Quietly, she said, “I’m not ready to talk about it.” 

Mac wanted to scream. They had everything they wanted right in front of them, and Riley was chickening out and refusing to explain why. “You have to give me something.” She didn’t. She most definitely didn’t. He wasn’t entitled to shit. 

Riley twisted in her chair to face him head-on. “Are you sure we aren’t making a massive mistake?” 

She might as well have slammed him face-first into a slab of concrete. He didn’t know how to respond to that. 

Of course they weren’t making a mistake. She was it for him...wasn’t she? 

Bozer’s warning echoed in his head. You need to take more time to get your shit together before going all in with Riley. Did she think the same way? 

She started rambling. “This is already just so messy. You and Desi just broke up, and we were so distracted she got kidnapped last night, and I don’t want to wake up two months from now and realize I was just a rebound and none of this was real.” Mac wanted to stop her, reassure her of his feelings, but that nagging little voice stopped him. 

Do you want her because you love her, or because you're afraid of being alone? 

He knew as long as Riley was alive, he’d never be alone in the world. A sickening thought bubbled up like bile. Was he just taking advantage of her? 

He wasn’t. He didn’t think he was. Not intentionally. He couldn’t do that to her….right?

Lost in his head, her words were so unexpected they barely registered at first. 

“We can’t do this,” Riley said softly. She solely focused on his eyes, reading the hurt and confusion in them. She knew, exactly, the effect her words had on him. Mac knew they had the same effect on her. 

Mac’s heart shattered into a million pieces, and in that moment he knew without a trace of doubt. He loved her. He was in love with her. 

But did he need to let her go? 

*****

A message popped up on Riley’s computer from her Interpol contact. He’s not here. 

Riley let out a string of foul language that made even Desi’s eyebrows skyrocket. Petrov wasn’t there. He probably left hours ago, if the team's recent string of bad luck was any indicator. He could be anywhere by now. Scrambling to task a Phoenix satellite to track the mob boss down, Riley cursed herself for not checking to see if he’d already left. 

She was smarter than that. 

This whole op was a mess. In every way possible. 

Matty would skin her alive when they got back to L.A. Whatever faith Matty had in her ability to spearhead an op just went up in smoke, if it hadn’t already. Fuck. 

Riley babbled an excuse about getting dressed and made a beeline for the bathroom. She felt herself spiraling, but she didn’t care. 

In her peripheral vision, Mac and Bozer shared a concerned look, no doubt silently debating who would follow her. She wished they wouldn’t be so obvious about it. She wished she couldn’t read them so well. 

From the safety of the bathroom, Riley heard a door slam. Steady footsteps approached. Mac. Those were Mac’s footsteps. God, why did it have to be Mac? 

Riley didn’t miss his hesitation before knocking. 

Everything was so fucked up. 

His voice was soft, like he was talking to a child or a frightened animal. “Hey, it’s not your fault,” Mac reassured through the gap. She hadn’t closed the door all the way, she realized. 

Some sick part of her wanted to laugh at how wrong he was. “Of course it’s my fault, Mac. It’s my op!” She yanked her jeans up. “This whole thing is a fucking mess.” 

This op was a mess. Their relationship was a mess. Hell, she was a mess. 

Dressed--in normal clothes, mercifully--Riley flung the door open with a frustrated sigh and found herself face to face with Mac, who looked like he just got punched in the gut. 

Icy blue eyes heavy with sadness, he spoke impossibly softly. “Is that what you think this is? A mess?” 

The implications of his question utterly wrecked her. She replied, equally softly, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” 

No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. Her feelings had only spilled because they were fighting--for once in their lives--bubbling up like a pot of rice boiling over. At least she didn’t admit she was in love with him. She still had that, tucked away for when the right moment arose. 

If it arose. 

She regretted ever wishing this op would end with her and Mac alone in a hotel room. 

Riley didn’t know how long they were silent before she continued. “I know improvising is what we do, but I don’t want to improvise with you.” 

“Riles,” he choked back a sob. “I can’t lose you too.” 

Fuck. That wasn’t what she meant. She scrambled to explain. “You’re not losing me. Never.” A small glimmer of hope lit his eyes. “I don’t want to improvise because I want to build something permanent.” With you, she didn’t need to add. 

There was a “but” coming, and the look on his face told her he knew it. “But,” she grimaced, “I don’t think either of us are ready for that yet.” 

Her cheeks were wet. She didn’t know when she started crying. She couldn’t stop. 

Fighting back tears of his own, Mac asked, “What do we do now?” 

Riley extended her hand. Mac glanced between her hand and eyes, hesitating. It felt like an eternity passed before he carefully laced their fingers. 

“We get our shit together, together.” Her heart threatened to shatter into a billion tiny fragments, held together only by hope that someday, they’d both have the happiness they deserved. That this thing between them, it would wait for them like a sunflower facing east, waiting for the sun to rise. 

Searching her face, Mac tugged her closer, closing the gap between them until there was barely enough room left to breathe. She knew what he was asking. Riley tilted her chin up, and it was all the confirmation he needed. His nose brushed hers, causing her breath to hitch. Mac’s eyes burned as he lowered his lips to hers, so hesitant and light Riley almost didn’t feel it at first. He kissed her so heartbreakingly gently, their free hands slowly twining together. 

It wasn’t a goodbye kiss, but God it felt like one. Honest feelings with bad timing could go fuck themselves. 

A quiet ding from Riley’s laptop finally forced them apart. For a moment, they stood utterly still, foreheads touching, just breathing each other’s air. As soon as they separated, they’d go back to being just friends. For now, she reminded herself. However long that was. 

Finally, Riley managed a halfhearted smile. “Come on, we’ve got a mob boss to catch.” 

*****

The elevator smoothly stopped on the ground floor, and Riley continued ignoring the concerned looks Desi gave her. She’d fixed her makeup, but no amount of concealer could hide the puffy, red-rimmed “I just finished crying” look in her eyes. 

“Riley--” her friend started. 

“I’m fine.” Lie. She wasn’t fine. Not even close. But she would be, eventually. 

Reaching into her bag, Riley pulled out the massive, rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses she’d worn when she first arrived. Some cynical part of herself laughed at how naïve she’d been, thinking this op would just be about looking sexy and stealing some new, fancy tech. 

As if they were a piece of armor, Riley slid the sunglasses on moments before the elevator door opened, putting up the Danika Jackson façade beneath them. 

You’ve got this, she reassured herself. 

Beside her, Desi replaced her concern for the stony glare of a well-paid bodyguard, and together, they sauntered across the lobby and out into the street beyond. 

After all, they had a mob boss to catch. 

[acidproofnotebook]

One-Punch Man Chapter 84, Update 125

As published online

Date:

Translator: u/hdx514

Rough page by page translations for those who don't want to wait. I'm skipping most pages with only sound effects.

Title page

Not lonely, but a solitary one

Pages 2-5

Bang wrecking Garou

Page 6

Genos: perfect moves that combine attack and defense into one

Ge: even though both use the same water stream rock smashing fists, the difference in master is night and day

Ge: the battle about to reach its conclusion

Page 7-11

Garou continues to get wrecked

Page 12

Garou: w…what is this

Ga: these vicious attacks are nothing like damn geezer’s style…

Page 13

Ga: bad…this is bad

Ga: my consciousness is…

Ga: it means…death…

Ga: Ahhhh

Page 14

Bang: what is that strange movement

Ba: where did he learn it?

Ba: he’s moving like a beast

Ga: I’m not done yet!

Page 15

Ga: if I use the fallen heroes as hostages, there might still be a way out!!

Bomb: I won’t let you

Page 16

Monsters get sliced up

Page 17 Bomb: Bang, we finished the monsters from the hole in the ground

Bo: it’s just Garou now

Page 18

Genos: life signals from monsters still remain

Ge: not sure why, but I cannot accurately assess their location or numbers

Ge:if we go down that hole, will we find the Monsters Association hideout?

Pheonix man: The Monster Association members were all killed? Damn, they really are unreliable.

Page 19

Phoenix man: even though we deployed significant forces to capture Garou alive

Ph: that Demon Cyborg…the power he possesses is unbelievable

Ph: even Silver Fang is here, there’s no chance we get Garou away from here

Ph: but if I leave empty handed after this crushing defeat, I might get eaten by Orochi

Page 20

Ph: regardless, I can only hope Garou can escape on his own …

Ph: ...what a desperate situation… Ph: does this mean I have to plan an exit strategy from MA…?

Ba: (referring to Bomb) if you were this badly injured, could you still be standing?

Bo: …if I were 60 years younger, I might be able to tough it out

Bo: …maybe

Bo: we’re almost there!!! Let’s finish him before the other heroes arrive!

Ba: roger

Page 21

Ga: can’t even move my wrists…

Ga: attacking your former number 1 disciple when he’s at his weakest, how despicable of you, Bang

Page 22

Ga: this other geezer, isn’t he Bomb, master of the whirlwind iron cutting fist?

Ga: to think the two reclusive masters of the martial arts world would gang up on me, shameless

Ga: even if I pretend to beg for my life, Demon Cyborg still won’t spare me

Ga: If I want to survive this crisis, I have to kill all three

Page 23

Ga (or Bang?): it’s impossible

Ba: do you know how much pain you have caused my number one disciple Charanko

Ba: Garou!!

Page 24

Garou flashback

Kids: let’s play a hero game!

Kids: you too, Garou

Kids: c’mon let’s play

Garou: huh, sure

Page 25

Kid: drum roll~~

Kid: justice man is here!

Kid: justice kick

Kid: aah it hurts!

Page 26

Ga: hey that’s dangerous

Kid: huh?

Ga: I feel bad (for the kid playing monster)

Kid: …how about you play the monster

Kid: justice cross

Ga: waa (steps out of the way)

Kid: what’s wrong with you?

Ga: s…sorry, Tatsu

Kid: I almost had you

Kids: what’s your problem, you’re a monster, you’re not supposed to do that

Kids: let’s pin him down

Kids: okay-

Page 27

Kid: justice man kick!

Kid: monster Garou defeated~

Ga: what is this, pre-death flashbacks?

Ga: these memories disgusts me

Ga: that kid…right, I remember him…Tatsu, that popular kid

Page 28

Kids: hey, what’s going on? Why are you fighting?

Kids: shall I call the teacher?

Kids: Garou is being violent

Kids: we were only playing, but he got mad! What’s his problem

Ga: I….I can’t take it any more!

Ga: come Tatsu, me vs. you, let’s figure it out

Tatsu: ha? What are you talking about, I thought we were just playing

Page 29

Ga:  I DON’T want to play monster! It’s no fun at all!

Ga: let’s duke it out, if I win you stop bugging me, that’s the deal!

Tat: Sabu, Yotsu, hold Garou down

Ga: despicable….stop…let go! I…

Ga: aah…damn it!

Kids: he’s crazy, let’s call the teacher

Kids: run Tatsu

Kids: pin him down, pin him down!

Kids: what happened?

Kids: you guys should come and help

Kids: Tatsu was being nice and Garou took advantage of him

Kids: he’s the worst

Kids: Garou got serious with Tatsu all of a sudden while playing the game

Kids: what’s this guy even thinking

Kids: I feel so bad for Tatsu

Page 30

Tatsu is a king among the kids, Tatsu is a bully, Tatsu is nasty

I’m in the dark, always alone I have no friends

Tatsu is a good athlete, Tatsu is popular

I despise the popular ones

not sure of the order of the following dialogue

Teacher: why did you get violent?

Te: I heard you got mad while playing a hero game, is that true?

Te: can you not even tell the difference between a game and reality!

Ga: no teacher, it’s because Tatsu is so popular that everyone is badmouthing me

Te: you were the violent one, weren’t you? What if a window got broken, how are you going to pay for that!

Ga: Tatsu always…always treats me like a monster

Ga: NO!

Page 31

Ga: I don’t dislike playing the monster

Ga: am I holding a grudge against Tatsu for playing the hero?

Ga: no, that’s not it either

Ga: it’s just that playing the hero game has made me realize how absurd it is

Ga: the one who’s popular can bully the one who’s hated however he wants

Te: you are in the wrong, apologize now

Te: call your parents

Ga: this is not just bullying, this is a faithful, real life adaption of a kids’ game that is accepted by the public.

Ga: you are free to choose your role, but the ones who ends up playing hero must have the support of the people, how could that ever be me.

Ga: naturally, the script in which the one playing monster scores the victory doesn’t exist in the first place. I was destined to lose.

Page 32

Ga: what is justice! What is evil!

Ga: at the end of the day it’s just following the will of the masses, and the masses wants me dead!

Ga: unforgivable! There is no logic!

Ga: I can’t explain the reason behind it, but it makes me mad!

Ga: I will make you understand! Ga: I will deliver my punch on behalf of the disenfranchised!

Ga: and I reject your notion of good and evil!

Page 33

Genos: he fell

Bang: it’s over

Page 34

Ga: no way it ends at a place like this!

Page 35

Garou shatters earth

Page 36

Bang/Bomb: what?!

Page 37-39

Garou lifts tree and swings it

Bo: this is bad, his body…

Ba: what’s with this burst of power?!

Page 40

Bang: don’t you realize it yet Garou!

Ba: if you keep going like this, you really will die!

Ge: Bang, above you!

Page 41-42

Phoenix man lands and grabs Garou

Page 43

Bo: more monsters!?

Ba: there’re still a few left!!!

Page 44

Ba: !

Ba: Genos-kun

Ge: Bang, you saw that just now, didn’t you

Ge: that thing has become monster, it even befriended one

Ge: I trust that you won’t object if I shoot both of them down

Page 45

Phoenix man (calling to Elder Centipede): Can you hear me!!?

Ph: I have Garou

Ph: just finish these guys off!

Ph: I’m leaving the rest to you!!

Bo: ???

Page 46-47

Ge: spiral incineration cannon

Ph: Elder Centipede

Page 48-50

Elder Centipede emerges and tanks Genos’ cannon fire

Page 51

Bo/Ba/Ge: What was that!?

Page 52-53

Elder Centipede breaking ground

Page 54-55

Disaster level: dragon

Giant monster insect Elder Centipede

Page 56

Bo: w..what…

Bo: is this a living thing!!?

Ba: damn, we must protect them (the fallen heroes)

Page 57

Ba: up you go

Page 58

Bomb using whirlwind iron cutting fist to save the fallen heroes

Page 59

Ge: those life signals must have been caused by it…

Ge: it’s not that I wasn’t able to pinpoint its location, it’s simply too massive

[very long -- rest under cut]

Page 60

Ge: completely unharmed after taking the cannon fire

Ge/Bo/Ba (not sure who said it): an opponent that can easily break my wrists…

Garou (I think): that centipede…

Page 61

Ga: why did you come here?

Ph: don’t worry, Elder Centipede will handle the rest down there

Ph: that guy is a literal natural disaster that swallows everything

Ph: his indiscriminant power of destruction is truly shocking

Ph: an anti-climactic “hero hunt” as usual, wouldn’t you say?

Ph: you  can’t just knock them out, they must be eliminated permanently

Ph: heroes who are knocked out will be always come back bouncin’

Page 62

Ph: …you just rest easy

Ph: Elder Centipede will end it all

Ga: ! (starts struggling)

Ph: stop wasting your energy

Ga: those heroes are my prey

Ph: yo yo, stop moving!

Ga: damn you, let me go! Unforgivable!

Ph: hey hey, don’t get angry

Ph: it’s your fault you didn’t finish them off after all

Ph: plus, this is a golden opportunity for us to off 2 S-class heroes

Ph: the S-class heroes are the biggest threat to the Monsters Association

Page 63

Ph: you experienced it firsthand, didn’t you

Ph: there is such thing as battle compatibility

Ph: if our advisor Gyoro is right, in the entire Hero Association, there are only four who could take on Elder Centipede

Page 64

Ph: The wielder of unparalleled supernatural power, “tornado of terror”

Ph: The sole commander of a military force that’s beyond even HA’s control, “metal knight”

Page 65

Ph: The strongest human “King”

Ph: And…the one who almost killed Elder Centipede, the strongest hero, “Blast”

Page 66

Ph: Elder Centipede is working with Monsters Association in order to seek revenge against Blast

Ph: he just can’t wait to lure the hermit Blast back onto the battlefield

Ph: unfortunately…those two down there (Bang and Genos) do not possess the power to turn the tides in their favor

Ph: Silver Fang has obtained unmatched power through martial arts, but that only works on opponents of a similar size

Ph: Demon Cyborg’s capabilities are terrifying

Ph: but he carries nothing on-board that will threaten a monster of this size.

Ph: He cannot go beyond the destructive firepower of his weapons

Ph: that is the limit of Demon Cyborg

Page 67

Ph: with a lineup like that, they are surely doomed

Ge/Bo/Ba: It’s coming!!!

Page 68

Page 69-70

Elder Centipede charging against the three

Page 71-72

Ba/Bo: Whirlwind water stream air-blasting sky-splitting fist

Page 73-75

Impact, Elder Centipede cracking, Bang and Bomb posing

Page 76

Ge: what a technique (flashback of Bang and Bomb talking about their technique: it’s a killing blow, but it has openings, my understanding is they needed Genos’ attack to act as decoy in order for their combo to land, because it’s not yet perfect)

Ge: it even shattered such hardened shell…

Ge: this must be

Ge: the pinnacle of technique/skill

Page 77-78

Ba/Bo: it’s not over yet x 10

Page 79

Elder Centipede pushes Bang/Bomb back

Page 80

Ba: ouch…that was careless

Bo: but we got it

Bo: the impact will ravage its body

Bo: turn into powder, monster

Ba: for two old folks like us, using this grand technique once is our limit

Ba: great thing we landed

Ba: a little help, Genos

Page 81

Ba: it’s over

Page 82

Elder Centipede molting

Page 83

Ba: it can’t be

Page 84

Ba: this guy just molted!!!

Ba: and it’s even bigger than before!?

Ba: how could this be

Page 85

Bo: we cannot defeat that thing…!

Bo: and we need to protect the unconscious heroes…

Bo: what shall we do!? Bang!

Ba: it’ll catch up to us if we tried to run

Ba: this forest park is just outside the city limits …

Ba: if we leave we’ll get civilians involved

Page 86

Ge: Bang, I will fight it

Ge: try my best to lure the centipede over here

Ge: you guys grab the injured heroes and get out of here

Page 87

Ba: Genos kun

Ba: you want to go alone

Ba: can’t say I agree with this plan…

Bo: I know there’s little chance of success, but don’t be reckless

Bo: the future belongs to the youths

Genos’ flashback of Dr. Kuseno: whatever you do Genos, don’t be reckless

Page 88

Ge: am I really going to…

Ge: leave this monster be

Page 89-90

Ge: That is not

Ge: possible

Page 91-92

Genos fighting Elder Centipede

Page 93

Ba: this is madness

Ba: cannon fire cannot harm it

Page 94

Ge: whether it’s this thing

Ge: or the monster from yesterday (Gouketsu)

Page 95

Ge: or Garou

Ge: they’re all part of the Monsters Association

Ge: this fight

Ge: is unavoidable

Page 96-97

Genos attacking Elder Centipede from above

Page 98

Ge: Dual Blade Rush

Ge: that’s what you have to do to fight them

Page 99

Ge: I’m participating

Ge: destroy

Page 100

Ge: if this is me being reckless

Ge: !

Page 101

Ba/Bo: Genos kun!!!

Ge: at this rate, I’ll…

Page 102

OUT OF THE FIGHT

Page 103

Genos recombines

Page 104

Ge: Jets drive arrow

Page 105-106

Genos kicks Elder Centipede tooth, which cracks

Page 107

Ba/Bo: he’s inside its mouth

Elder: it’s over…

Page 108

Ge: ! digestive acid

Elder: I’ll melt you in a few seconds

Ge: it’s you who are going to melt

Page 109-110

Ge: Super Spiral Incineration Cannon

Page 111

Aftermath of Super Spiral Incineration Cannon

Page 112

Bo: …!!!

Ba: he finished it!!

Page 113

Elder Centipede tanks the hit, is fine

Page 114

Ge: at the end…

Ge: I am unable to…defeat…

Ge: nor able to protect…

Page 115

Ba: let’s get out of here

Ba: Bomb!

Ba: grab the rest of them!!

Elder: futile struggle

Ph: what’s the matter

Ph: you were still responsible for taking out half of the heroes, it can’t be that bad

Page 116

Ga: not like that!

Ga: This is not what I had hoped!!!

Ga: I…I wanted to beat them with my own strength!

Ga: only then I can be a symbol of terror…!!

Ga: that’s the purpose of the hero hunt!!!

Ph: symbol of terror? You? Hahahaha…

Ph: in your current state, if you went back there, you’ll just end up getting trampled to death with the rest of the heroes

Ph: right now, you do not possess the strength to disobey Elder Centipede or executive members of the Monsters Association

Page 117

Ga: crying…

Ga: sooner or later…I’ll show you what I’m capable of…

Ge: how could I…

Page 118

Ge: what am I missing…!?

Ge: are there several others like that?

Ge: in front of those monsters…

Ge: what can I do, besides look on with envy…?

Bo: Bang! This is bad

Bo: at this rate it’ll get outside the forest park!

Bo: there will be casualties in the city!!

Page 119

Bo: at this rate…I won’t be able to walk

Bo: how old do you think I am

Ba: I’ll leave it to fate…

Ba: brother

Page 120

Ba: for the last time in my life, I’ll give it my all

Page 121-122

King: Elder Centipede~!!!

K: yo! Pest!!!!!

K: I’ve brought your target – “Blast”!!!!

Page 123

Ba: !?

Ge: that voice…King!!?

Ge: Blast!?

Ba: what…!

Bo: !!!? Look!!

Bo: it’s stopped chasing and is going towards another direction

Page 124

Elder: Blast…?

King: thaat’s….riiiight!

K: the very one that beat the crap out of you and made you wet yourself, the hero Blast!!

K: if you want to fight him again, come over here!

K: why are you so scared you can’t move?! Straighten up!!! Hey, if you’re about to shit yourself you should go home!

K: a bug like you, you must want to run back underground and suck on your mom’s tits!!!!

Page 125

Association staff: King arrived at the location near S city where Elder Centipede has reemerged!!!

Staff: thank god! It’s King, he’ll have a solution…

Staff: …there are several other heroes onsite

Staff: when I warned him their battle might cause collateral damage and injure the innocent, he told me “I hope you could give me information that can provoke Elder Centipede”

S: he might have wanted to lure the monster to him and fight it one on one.

Page 126

Staff: it sustained grave injuries at the hands of Blast in the past, but escaped with his injuries underground

S: it would be great if we could finish it off this time…

S: even though it’s top secret information, I still told king the past between Blast and Elder Centipede

S: and explained to him if the battle were to become dragged out or increase in scope, it might causegreat disaster for the surrounding areas …

S: what did he say?

S: he just said “understood”.

The roar of the King Engine……

Page 127

K: luring it here so no one else gets involved…

K: finish it off with one shot before it escapes underground

K: damage must be contained…blowing it back into the city is not an option…

K: there’s very limited time to make your decision

K: that’s it

Page 128

K: …

K: …Saitama?

Page 129

K: Saitama~!!!?

K: it’s about to

Page 130

Shot of Elder Centipede charging

Page 131-138

SERIOUS PUNCH

Page 139

Saitama: ah

Page 140

Sai: Genos, is that you?

Page 141

Sai: you really are here

Sai: just like King said

K: by the skin of my teeth…that was a close call…

Sai: it’s all good, we’re here aren’t we

K: huh? Saitama, you sound…happy?

Sai: I feel awesome for some reason

Page 142

Sai: it’s a great stress release after getting owned by you in video games

K (thinking): it’s still bothering him …

K: that’s not it…I thought I told you it’s because of your inflexible, singular approach towards battles

Ge: Saitama sensei, can I ask you a question

Sai: what?

Ge: what am I missing?

Sai: huh

Sai: power, I guess?

Page 143

Ge: …!!!!

Ge: thank you very much

K: aaaaaaahhhhhh…that’s no good Genos…

K: you cannot use Saitama as reference

Ge: sensei has guided my path with his battle

Ge: the symbol of great strength, that is my goal…

Ge: I will be there

Page 144

Ph: Garou…he has finally lost consciousness

Ph: rest easy

Ph: we’ll soon be with Orochi

END

[lectophile]

Words of Wisdom: Crooked Kingdom

He had become a great beast, and yet that beast would devour him.

A card game is like a duel. It’s the little cuts and slashes that set the stage for the final killing stroke.

The really bad monsters never look like monsters.

Words like to ride the water.

Why build such monuments to death?

You’re a stolen painting...

I’m pragmatic. If I were cruel, I’d give him a eulogy instead of a conversation.

We meet fear... We greet the unexpected visitor and listen to what he has to tell us. When fear arrives, something is about to happen.

Better terrible truths than kind lies.

No, you’re the man who sits idly by, congratulating yourself on your decency, while the monster eats his fill. At least a monster has teeth and a spine.

Could forgiveness come if she killed not to survive but because she burned with living, luminous hatred?

You are forsaken. As you have turned your back on me, so will they turn their backs on you.

She could not pretend those words had been conjured by strategy or even animal cunning. The magic they’d worked had been born of belief. An ugly enchantment.

He felt free, dangerous, like lightening rolling over the prairie.

His only crime had been putting his faith in his son.

Trust but verify.

Because the law here is profit.

He feeds corruption with corruption.

Even better men can be bested.

Patience would bring all his enemies to their knees in time.

You build in safeguards for failures, but something in the safeguards ends up causing an unforeseen failure.

Never underestimate the public’s desire to get something for nothing.

We are not our fathers.

You don’t win by running one game.

He was just a boy fueled by a white flame of rage, one that threatened to burn the pretense of the hard-won civility he maintained to ash.

The Saints hear prayers wherever they’re spoken.

Praying and wishing are not the same thing.

Sometimes the trick to getting the best of a situation was just to wait. If you didn’t like the weather, you didn’t rush into the storm—you waited until it changed.

The silence between them was dark water. He could not cross it. He couldn’t walk the line between the decency she deserved and the violence this path demanded. If he tried, it might get them both killed. He could only be who he was—a boy who had no comfort to offer. So he would give her what he could.

But that debt is mine to pay.

...that fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.

You sink into trouble like it’s a warm bath.

I wait with open ears and a ready heart.

Your enemies are my enemies, and I stand with you against any foe...

There is no greater honor than to stand by your side.

Meeting you was a disaster, but I am grateful for that disaster. I needed a cataclysm to shake me from the life I knew. You were an earthquake, a landslide.

You aren’t a follower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming.

He didn’t need to be popular to survive.

You were angry. Angry wears off. I needed you righteous.

There’s always a price to be paid for greatness.

Everyone can shoot, but not everyone can aim.

I cannot be anything other than what I am, and if my gifts can help people, then it’s my duty to use them.

What kind of mother would I be to my son if I hid away my talents? If I let fear be my guide in this life?

You knew what I was when you asked me to choose you... Do not now suggest that I be anything else.

No matter the height of the mountain, the climb is the same.

It was a planet and she was its moon.

What a luxury to turn your back on luxury.

You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are.

We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.

Our work is death, and it is holy.

You cannot fear death and be it’s true emissary.

But I ask no money for the lives I take. They are the jewels I wear. They are my glory in this world and will bring me honor in the next.

I don’t hold a grudge. I cradle it. I coddle it. I feed it fine cuts of meat and send it to the best schools.

We want to create something that outlasts us.

But if you couldn’t open a door, you just had to make a new one.

When they backed you into a corner, you cut a hole in the roof.

But he couldn’t fix something he couldn’t catch a hold of.

It was all black desert, starless sky, barren earth.

That had been heat, fire, light. This was a cold flame, one that burned low and blue.

We are tied to the power of creation itself, the making at the heart of the world.

But maybe death wasn’t just one thing.

It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dark. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore.

The city had come alive, and it was angry.

There’s no time to constantly be apologizing for existing.

But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.

This action will have no echo.

Stop treating your pain like it’s something you imagined. If you see the wound is real, then you can heal it.

I’m dying anyway, I’m just doing it slow.

I love you with all my lying, thieving, worthless heart...

He’s the house. He has the resources to play until your luck runs out.

I can’t live in a city where I can’t hold up my head.

It was a mad, spiky monster of a plan, and that was what it had to be for them to succeed.

There was always an angle, and he was an expert at finding it.

Words have not been invented for such an occasion.

Every sin makes the shadow stronger, until eventually the shadow is stronger than you.

The distance between them felt like nothing. It felt like miles.

Violence was easy.

He clung to the tether of her voice.

It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms.

He ignored the sting in her heart.

He didn’t deserve peace and he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but if he was going to die today, maybe the one thing he’d earned was the memory of her—brighter than anything he would ever have a right to—to take with him to the other side.

He might as well go to meet his death in style.

Crazy enough, but not stupid enough.

This city’s price is blood, and I’m happy to pay with yours.

Why run from the amazing things you can do?

This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire.

Rich men want to believe they deserve every penny they’ve got, so they forget what they owe to chance. Smart men are always looking for loopholes. They want an opportunity to game the system.

The toughest mark is an honest one.

Sometimes, a proper thief doesn’t just take. He leaves something behind.

The dead will wait, but I won’t.

But this was different. This was decay.

And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.

So let’s go show them they picked the wrong damn fight.

Maybe she should feel ashamed, maybe even frightened. But she hadn’t been made for shame.

But just as surely as life connected everything, so did death.

She was the Queen of mourning, and in its depths, she would never drown.

It willl be your honor to serve me in death.

The blood you spill is the blood of kings. You are not fit for such a gift.

We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

There is no shame in meeting a worthy opponent. It means there is more to learn, a welcome reminder to pursue humility.

She had chosen to live freely as a killer rather than die quietly as a slave, and she could not regret that.

Even now, n this last moment, she looked like a girl from a story, destined for greatness. She was a queen without mercy, a figure carved in ivory and amber.

May you make more than misery in your next life.

Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.

Fate has plans for us all.

It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.

There’s so much in the world you don’t have to be afraid of, if you could only open your eyes.

Lightening doesn’t like a master.

Be free, as you were meant to be. Be a warrior, as you always have been.

I have been made to protect you. Even in death, I will find a way.

You will meet him again in the next life, but only if you suffer this now.

Funny thing, when you train an animal to obey, sometimes they get too easy to command. Better to keep them a little wild.

You don’t win by running one game.

You can only sharpen a blade so far. In the end, it comes down to the quality of the metal.

Loving you made him better.

He went easier into the next world knowing he’d done good in this one.

Laughing at my jokes. Forgiving me when I was foolish. Never trying to make me feel small. It doesn’t matter if it’s next month, or next year, or ten years from now, those will be the the things I remember when I see you again.

Try to catch hold of me and you’ll find you’re trying to hold air.

But it was one thing to be a thief in a house and quite another to be a guest.

He had been so much of her world for so long.

Be the thing they all fear when they close their eyes at night.

She’d need only move the smallest amount and they would be touching. He was that close. He was that far from reach.

She understood suffering and she knew it was a place she could not follow, not unless she wanted to drown too.

She would fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying.

Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And then people who wrong them too.

Her mind refused the image before her. This could not be real. It was an illusion, a false reflection, a lie made in rainbow-bird glass. She would breathe again and it would shatter.

The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent.

Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

You think you’re finished with a place, but that doesn’t mean the place is finished with you.

[orangetail-works]

A Phoenix and a Raven: Fear

A/N:  This one takes place just after the wedding in Ulstead when everything began to calm down and people began to reflect on what was lost.  So, yes, there are spoilers for the sequel on this one.  The prompt for this one was a combination of different dialogue options.  I went with what I thought would provoke some feels.  It gets fluffy, you have been warned.

Chapter: Fear

Relief.

That's all he felt when he saw her with Aurora, both standing tall and so alive.  His little fledgling and his mistress were happily hugging just feet from him.  Aurora was safe in her mother's wings and her mother was alive and very much herself.  He stopped to their side and couldn't think of what to say to either one of them.

Maleficent was the first to say anything, “I missed you.”

Relief fell from him as confusion took its place, “Did you bump your head, then?”

Her eyes lifted up slightly as if in thought and she nodded tightly, “I did.”

For once in a very long time, he had no come back for her and only breathed out a whisper of what could have been a laugh.  His face softened and he shook his head at his luck.  They were going to be just fine.

That was hours upon hours ago.

Diaval now sat on the railing outside of Maleficent's chamber in one of the Ulstead castle towers just reviewing the day through his mind. Since the end of the wedding he hadn't been more than ten feet from her at all times.  He didn't want to lose sight of her as he had an overwhelming and irrational fear that if he couldn't see her, she would disappear once again.  And that this time she wouldn't come back.  He didn't have to worry as she never left him behind.  She stayed close by Aurora and Phillip for the most part.

When he did take a few steps away to gather drink or food for them he would turn back to find her eyes searching for him in the small crowd around her.  He would retake his place at her side and offer her some of the food he had just gathered which she would take easily.  If he was in his raven form he would have rubbed his head against her cheek to remind her that he was never going far from her again.  As it stood, he was in his human form and could only offer her the snacks from his plate or a warm look to ease her worries.

A few of the Dark Fey would come and talk with her, meet the almighty phoenix who defeated death and were introduced to her very human-like raven.  She would grin politely, but he felt her tense at their many questions.  She hated the extra attention.  On top of that, it was her daughter's wedding day, not any special day of Maleficent's. Something akin to her protectiveness toward Aurora would bubble near the surface as some of the Fey, still not aware of human customs would go so far as to completely ignore the bride.  Maleficent's temper could be seen through her eyes as a light sheen of green would overcome her irises.  Diaval would be quick to put a supporting hand at her back and she would relax instantly, her feathers brushing against the back of his hand as they resettled.  Always her savior from herself.

Now, here he sat on the balcony as his mistress made ready for bed inside.  Down below, he saw the many campfires of the Dark Fey as they camped for the night.  Many would begin their journey to settle in the Moors come the morning.  Then there was also the grieving to be had.  Both sides lost entirely too much in Ingrith's war.  He, himself almost lost his whole world.  For a few heart shattering moments he actually did.

“Just what are you thinking on so intently?” Maleficent asked from the doorway into the room, “I have barely heard anything from you all evening.”

“Day's events mostly,” Diaval answered and turned to her.  She had unwrapped her hair and it laid over her shoulders on either side of her slender neck.  Her black dress was changed out for a heavy night shift that was probably borrowed from Aurora or one of the many ladies in waiting.  He noticed that it was one that had tied in the back, thankfully perfect for her wings.  He also noticed that it was much too plain for her to wear.  She deserved something more, but she still made anything look beautiful.  Her bare feet lightly tapped on the stone work underfoot as she took a few steps toward him.

“You're staring,” she frowned slightly and pulled at some of her hair over one shoulder.  

“Apologies, Mistress,” he bowed his head to her and then jumped down from the railing to stand at her side.

“Just what about the day were you thinking on?” she asked for conversation sake.  She needed distraction that Diaval often provided, “The yummy cakes and food that you pilfered during that hasty reception?”

“Pilfered?!  You say that as if those tasty morsels weren't meant for me,” he smirked after he noticed the light tilt of the corner of her lips and shook his head, “No, I was actually thinking on you.”

“On me?” her brow lifted in curiosity, “How so?”

“In the fact that you disappeared days ago, and that you reappeared just as suddenly and weren't really you,” Diaval took a deep breath and turned to look out over the hamlet of Ulstead and toward the hills of the Moors, “Then you died.”

Maleficent looked down at her hands that were folded on the railing that he had been seated on, “I came back.”

“That you did,” he nodded and turned to lean back on the railing to face her.  He looked her over and saw the same Fey that had saved his life more than two decades prior.  Her eyes downcast, a little lost and a bit sorrowful.  He shook his head just a bit, “... but you didn't know that you would.”

“You would have rather that I let her kill Aurora?” she asked with a growl and turned her head from him.

“Of course not,” he bit out and rubbed at his eyes in frustration and exhaustion, “I would have undoubtedly done the same.”

“Then why does it upset you?” she turned back to him, looking a little more worn than she had ever before.

“Why?” he asked with a little laugh in his voice and looked away toward the sky, “I don't know.  Could it be that when you fell from the sky and disappeared, I fell too?  Shifting in the air between man and raven, unable to know where you were or if you were injured. Wondering where you were for days  and hoping that maybe you had just left and weren't-”

He stopped himself and then began to pace the small balcony.  He licked at his lips before he continued, “Then you came back and all I wanted to do... was something I couldn't do as a bear.  And then the moment that you were gone- that you died... I turned back into a raven.  I turned back into my beautiful self and tried -desperately tried to fly to that tower.  Because I knew that something happened to you.  Something was gone from inside me and I didn't feel like me anymore.  Something was missing and my whole world stopped.”

His legs ceased pacing as he paused in his tirade and looked at his hands as if they were still his wings.  Wings that were only able to fly him measly feet from where he had fallen down as a bear.  Wings that weren't as impressive as he once thought.  Wings that were no longer hers because she was gone.

Maleficent didn't move from her spot at the railing as she knew that this was something he needed.  He kept this inside all night to make sure that Aurora would remember the good of her wedding day.  She knew this because she had done the same.

“Diaval-”

“I am not done,” he put up a finger toward her and finally turned to her, “For those agonizing moments that you were gone.  I was afraid.  I realized that you were dead because it didn't feel like it was when you were missing.  It didn't feel like it did when you disappeared.  It felt like everything changed for the worse.  It felt like nothing... numb and empty.  Where you had given me so much more soul and being was just gone.”

His breathing was ragged as he stood in front of her, his eyes glossy, but no tears fell.  He rolled his shoulders and shook his head as he took his turn to look at his hands, “And then you were back.  This exquisite, majestic phoenix that silhouetted the sky. Everything that I lost in those moments before rushed back- then I promptly fell to the ground back in a man's form. My face flush against the lawn.”

She couldn't help the small snicker that came unbidden.

He looked back at her with a sad smirk on his face, “It took me a moment or two to realize I needed to get back up to run.”

“Away from me?” she finally spoke, a slight crack to her voice.

“Towards you,” he corrected with a confounded look.

“Didn't you say that you were afraid?”

“When you weren't there, yes.  As a phoenix, you took my breath away.  You were the most amazing bird I had ever seen.  Your voice shook the very foundation of all of Ulstead.  Your wings caught and saved Aurora.  And your feathers, though they were black as night, radiated in beauty.  I was in awe of you.”

“Awe can go both ways,” she turned away again and faced the open air of the night.

He heaved a breath and stood directly beside her, his shoulder touched hers, “There is only one thing in the world that I'm afraid of.”

“Me?” she asked half joking and half seriously.

“Losing you,” he said confidently and risked to grab her hand in his.  His fingers curled around hers and he brought her hand to his chest.  Her breath hitched slightly and she spun her head to look at him.   He looked back into her eyes with hope, “I felt what it was like to lose you completely.  I now know for a fact that I can surmount anything that this world throws at me, as long as you are still in it.  Please don't leave it again without taking me with you.”

His hand squeezed hers and she felt what had to be tears gathering. She took a shallow breath, “Do you know what my biggest fear is?”

“Losing Aurora?”

“Besides the Beastie?” she nodded as she acquiesced to the exception as it was probably one of his as well.  He shook his head as he didn't have another guess.  She put her free hand on her heart and looked him directly in his eyes, “This.  This, that's happening right now.”

His brows furrowed.

Her hand left her chest and cupped the side of his face, “I am so afraid of everything that has to do with love, that I refused to see it in your eyes.  Until now.”

“So, you're afraid of me?” he asked, his eyes narrowed in the attempt to understand.

“I could never be afraid of you,” she shook her head, “I am afraid of what I may do to your heart and to my own.  I am so afraid that love will always lead to disaster.  My love will always lead to a horrible end.  That's why I am afraid.  Because I will hurt anyone that dares to love me and I am not worth it.”

Diaval dropped the hand he had held against him.  Both his hands came up and held her face gently so that her eyes didn't leave his.  She looked so defeated that she didn't even try to fight against him.  He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers and took a deep breath in through his nose to take in her scent.  He felt her hands grip at his wrists.  She didn't try to pull away, she didn't try to escape him.  She pulled herself closer to him and his warmth.

“You are worth it all,” he said slowly and didn't release her gaze, “You are worth the million and one shifts from bird to human – to horse – to bear – even to dog.  You are worth every moment that I am without my feathers.  You are worth everything.  You are worthy of love.”

“Even of yours?” she asked quietly.

“You're the only one worthy of mine,” he answered with a smile, “I love you and I refuse to let this end horribly.  It won't, because it won't end.”

She searched his eyes quickly and then leaned forward to catch his lips with hers.  Her hands tightened at his wrists so he wouldn't run from her, but she didn't need to as his hands tenderly ran in through her hair and pulled her closer.  The kiss broke a moment later and he nudged the side of her face with his nose much like he would do with his head as a raven.

“What do you fear now?” he whispered.

“Losing you.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

[edgeworst]

Miles Edgeworth & Javert

Has anybody else ever noticed the parallels between Edgeworth and Javert from Les Misérables?

Javert’s entire story is based around the fact that he is an extremely devout man of the law, and his belief that breaking the law is inexcusable. It is his sworn duty to uphold the law, because that is his version of justice. However, this all comes crashing down on him when Valjean saves his life. Javert had put him through so much hell, so why had he been shown mercy? At this point Javert realizes that he jailed a good man for ten years and pursued him for another twenty. Everything that he did in the name of justice turned out to be the opposite, and everything that he had stood for his entire life was just proven to him to be unrighteous. He commits suicide, in part I believe due to the guilt. On the other hand, when we first meet Edgeworth in AA1, he is portrayed in a similar manner. He’s cold and ruthless— but everything he does is in the name of the law. He believes that putting every accused criminal behind bars is the closest thing to justice that humanity can achieve. Obviously, he abandons these convictions when Phoenix comes into his life; but that stark shift in morality didn’t come without trial. When Phoenix saves him, he realizes that justice is more than black and white. That justice is not always the pursuit of punishment, but rather the pursuit of the truth. This realization shattered everything he had fought for, and I’d imagine he felt deep shame his pride towards the fact that he probably sealed the fates of innocent men. He needed to escape. However, unlike Javert, he doesn’t kill himself. He only fakes it. Edgeworth has a redemption ark, eventually growing as a person and ultimately becoming thankful that Phoenix set him back on the path of genuine pursuit of justice. This is what sets him apart from Javert, who is too far gone. He wants to resent Valjean, much as Edgeworth tried to resent Phoenix— but he could hide from virtue no longer. During his suicide scene, Javert delivers a line that goes something like « is this man from heaven or from hell? » This line in particular beautifully exemplifies the way I believe Edgeworth felt towards Phoenix initially.

Of course, this would leave Phoenix to be compared to Valjean. Perhaps the most distinct connection here is that like Valjean, Phoenix fights for the people. He is an underdog, and will fight to the end for the rights of the common folk. He fights for the oppressed, the weary, and the misunderstood. No matter how many times he is stepped on, he is never jaded. He rises from the ashes each time with the same well-meant convictions. From the beginning, neither Javert or Edgeworth were bad men. They were fighting for that they believed was right, even if their perspectives were clouded. Each man realized the error of their ways when challenged by someone who stood fast against the selfish versions of themselves. The real beauty here is that Edgeworth is able to push forwards when his entire world is shattered. He finally lays down his pride, and builds a new, more righteous world from the rubble. He realized that justice is bigger than himself. This is something that Javert failed to understand. Justice is an elusive beast, with devastating grey areas. It is all a man can do to fight tirelessly for his version of it. I apologize if this was a bit incoherent, but I hope that somebody out there can appreciate this trope between two of my favorite pieces of media as much as I do.

[oh-goldeneyes]

CNCO comforting their s/o after fans are harsh on them

Requested? Yes! By @prettyboypimentel

(I thought this was a great idea btw)

Warning: none ?

Christopher

- probably started happening recently

- like a week or two now

- you don't really pay attention to them tbh

- you knew this was going to happen when you agreed to go out with Chris

- so you were fine with it

- -until Chris said something reallyyy dumb

- you'd be on the couch together watch a movie one night

- when the girl on the screen is seen cheating on her husband with another guy

- Chris kinda laughs and goes " damn she should stay with that one he's WAAY hotter just saying"

- you got reminded of all the messages saying Chris was probably cheating on you with someone else since he was a bit of a mujeriego

- you got really quite all of a sudden

- Chris looked over at you like "Estás bien, bebé?"

- you just smiled before rushing upstairs to your shared room saying you weren't feeling good

- you could hear his footsteps behind you so you quickly rushed into the bathroom

- he started calling out for you from the other side but all you could focus on was your phone which was now full of those messages

- Chris was knocking softly on the door begging for you to talk to him

- I can practically hear his heart shattering when you walk out with red eyes and a tear stained face

- "ay bebé, please tell me what's wrong it kills me to see you like this"

- he says pulling you into his lap and sitting on the bed

- when you do tell him what's wrong... his face is so full of emotions

- he looks angry, confused , sad , disappointed

- he lifts you head up with his finger and smiles softly

- " you want to know why I stopped being like that? Going after any girl who showed any interest in me and then doing it all over the next time we go out? Carajo Y/N it's because I met you. And - and I realized I didnt want any other girl, I wanted you. No amount of hate comments or edited pictures are EVER going to change that, bebé"

- and now you're both crying

- I dont think he'd go off on a rant on social media but you can expect a picture of both of you on his Instagram later with the caption:

- " oh yeah you're stuck with me for a looong time count on that "

Richard

- Oh, homeboy notices

- you two would be on your way home from a date when you’re phone vibrates

- He sees your face go from giggly to sad REAL quick

- You close your phone and keep joking around with him hoping he didn’t notice

- Once you guys are at a red light he says he forgot to tell Chris or Joel something and if he can borrow your phone since his is in the back seat for some reason

- you let him and he goes straight to Twitter

- 4 words my friends

- RICHARD

- IS

- NOT

- HAPPY 

- Clouded a bit by his anger he asks you about it immedieatly

- like “??? WTF is this???”

- oH SHIt

- trying to convince him it’s nothing and he should just drop it

- yeah, you just fueled the fire

- “drop it? DROP IT?! How can I drop this Y/N they’re literally calling you a slut how AM I GOING TO DROP THIS!”

- You two ended up in a heated argument on your way back home

- Once back at the house you don’t feel like fighting anymore

- “RICHARD there are SO MANY fans who actually like me ok? They’re just - just not as noticeable when 3/4 of them are saying the opposite..”

- He feels like a dick

- He should’ve talked about it with you not attack you on it

- Apologizes before bringing you into is arms letting you shed as many tears as you needed into his chest

- When you’ve both calmed down, you actually talk about it

- Probably heads to Twitter and says something along the lines of 

- “ The worst feeling in the world? Having the people who support you hurt the love of your life”

- when you wake up the next day the amount of compliments you got over shadowed the mean ones by a long shot

Zabdiel

- I feel like you 2 would be the couple who tells each other everything you know?

- so when they started bothering you he’d know

- THAT IS... until they started getting worse

- you didn’t tell him about it after a while so he thought it was getting better or no longer happening

- poor sweet clueless bb

- every night when you felt Zabdiel holding you closer you’d think back to all those tweets saying shit like

- “Wow can’t believe I’m saying this but can we get Gwen back?sjsks”

- he’d start to worry he did something wrong when he feels you getting distant

- so one day ya’ll are binge wathcing the Harry Potter movies and half-way through the goblet of fire you’re phone vibrates

- you were in the kitchen so he decided to look at it

- “probably her mom again”

- SURPRISE it’s not your mom

- Get’s teary eyed just seeing what his fans think of you

- we know Zabdi is one sentimental boi

- you come back with more popcorn and find him looking sadly at your phone and you freak

- grabbing out of his hands and quickly trying to delete the messages even though it’s too late

- the damage is done : he’s seen them

- You have your back to him and hear him getting up off the couch 

- at this point you’re both holding back tears cuz neither of you want to talk about it

- You both stand there in complete silence for a few minutes until you feel him tugging you into his chest

- and every ounce of strength you’ve had over the past few days trying to keep it together breaks right then and there

- You’re knees feel week and you’re both slowly sliding to the ground crying into each other

- You feel him turning you around and putting your foreheads together 

- “ay... ay mi amor. Why didn’t you tell me? You tell me every thing... why- why not this?”

- So you tell him everything you’ve been feeling for the past week and his heart breaks a little every time your voice would crack 

- You both fall asleep on the couch holding each other tight while the beginning of the order of the Phoenix played in the background

- He doesn’t go to social media for this, he just focuses on seeing you smile for the next few days and he makes you promise to tell you every thing and he’ll do the same 

- guys I’m crying why do I do this to myself

Joel

- Buckle up

- he knows when his baby isn’t feeling well

- prides himself on it haha 

- like you don’t have the time to tell him you’re sick and he’s already serving you chicken noodle soup

- so when you don’t finish vine references with him on time he like ???

- Doesn’t know how to ask you what’s wrong

- does he ease into the question or just go straight forward with it??

- he decides to finally ask you when he sees you distracted for the sixth time that day

- tbh you don’t know how to tell him either

- how do you tell your boyfriend you don’t think you deserve to be with him because you aren’t talented enough or EXTREMELY hot or funny or anything

- how do you tell him the people who support him the most got those ideas in your head...

- So you lie and tell him some shitty other story

- “uM... I saw a duck ....in the park...the other day that kind of looked like.... Richard??”

- Yeah, not buying it

- So he starts to insist on what’s wrong and GOD he is not making this easy on you

- after like 9 minutes of him asking what’s wrong and asking you if you don’t trust him anymore you just start shedding tears

- he’s too sweet you really don’t deserve him

- he goes into panic mode

- “shit I made her cry oh- no shit shitshit asshole - fuck”

- You tell him it’s not him that’s making you sad (he said that out loud dummy)

- you take a deep breath and let everything you`re feeling out

- Joel gets emotional because he used to feel those things about himself too

- Hugs you so tight, as if if he let go the world around him would crush you

- Carries you to your shared bed and wraps you into a burrito using the blankets

- Holds you in his arms again and spends the whole night telling you all of the reasons why he loves you

- Once you’re asleep this bb DIVES to Twitter

- to everyone’s surprise not to rant or fight with the CNCOwners 

- he posts a video of he filmed of you balancing a chopstick on your nose and failing many times while he’s laughing hard on the other side of the camera

- the caption?

- “ I’m gonna marry you one day, I swear”

- (I’m melting guys)

Erick 

- CLUELESS BABY BOYYY

- The minute you guys announced you were together the fans went crazy

- most of them really happy for you two they saw how happy you made Erick and loved you instantly

- ... the other half.... not so nice

- by that I mean hitting you straight in the insecurities... and HARD

- “ oof chubby much?” “seriously he could have anyone and he goes for THAT?” “awn she really thought she looked cute in this picture HAHA”

- yeah...

- so everyday whenever Erick told you a joke (cuz he loves seeing his baby smile) he noticed you’re smile wasn’t the same

- no matter how good you were at faking them, your eyes held so much sadness it made him sad

- so he tried to cheer you up by coming home early one day 

- oh boy

- he’s outside the door leading to your shared bedroom when he hears a sob from the other side

- he rushes in and sees your phone buzzing next to you

- and there you are your knees hugging your chest and you head down

- you look up and see him standing there

- *sniffling* “Erick? Que haces I thought you were getting here late-”

- he’s holding you in his arms 

- letting you cry into his shoulder as he peeks over to see your phone

- his heart breaks into a million pieces

- he’s holding the love of his life (he’s sure of it guys) , his world in his arms and the reason you’ve been upset all this time is because of his fans

- he doesn’t understand 

- how can someone not love you? 

- The way your nose crinkles when you smile, or your singing voice that sounds like angels to him no matter what you say, or even the corny jokes you two share all the time... your eyes that hold all the stars in the sky to Erick

- he doesn’t understand one bit

- he finds himself also crying into your neck

- You tried to explain yourself but he shushes you telling you it’s ok, he’s there and he’s not leaving

- and that he loves you 

- so so much

- *actually crying while writing this*

[izumitate]

don’t linger

So, I was trying to write something sad, but jury’s out on whether it worked, haha. This one is for my favorite angst queen @audriel89 !

Content warnings: this one’s about ghosts, so there’s referenced character death.

“Hey, Kuroo. Nice hat,” Sawamura says, wearing the same beautifully wry smile as he did when he was still alive.

“Thanks, it was a gift,” Kuroo replies numbly, reaching up to grip the brim of his hideous tiger stripe cap. Yamamoto had given it to him as a present a couple of years ago, and now he wears it when he ducks out of the apartment on rainy days for a short errand and doesn’t want to carry an umbrella. It protects his head well enough, but he can still feel the light patter of rain on his shoulders. The sound of droplets rustling against the plastic bag in his hand reminds him that he only stepped out to grab a bottled milk tea and box lunch for tomorrow, because he knows he won’t have the time to stop by during his rush for the train. There weren’t supposed to be any ghosts included in this little excursion.

“It keeps your hair in check, in any case,” Sawamura says. He gestures with one pale, translucent hand at Kuroo’s forehead. It’s dark all along this road, but for the beaming lights of the konbini storefront and Sawamura, glowing like moonlight. Still as young and handsome as Kuroo remembered, just a bit more ethereal now. A bit less grounded.

“Yeah, but it makes the cowlicks worse when I take it off.” Kuroo’s voice is steady, to his surprise.

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“A limitation of your imagination, Sa’amura-san.”

“I suppose so.”

“So,” Kuroo says, dragging out the word. “This is new! Taking a little postmortem stroll around Japan? Where have you been so far? See anything good?”

Maybe if he acts like this is normal, things will make sense again and his brain won’t shatter. Or he’ll just go insane that much faster.

Sawamura shakes his head, amused by Kuroo’s valiant attempt at nonchalance. He floats a little closer; Kuroo wants to reach out and touch him. “Not really. You were my first stop; I thought it might be fun to visit you.”

Kuroo blinks. “At two in the morning?”

“Sorry, is this an inconvenient time for you? Should we reschedule this haunting for a little later?”

Kuroo laughs at the unimpressed look Sawamura sends his way. Still so sassy, even as a ghost.

God, what are they doing here? Is this even real? Or did Kuroo trip on his way down the stairs and fall into a coma without knowing it? Is there any explanation more logical than the conclusions he’s jumping to?

“Is that what’s happening? You’re haunting me? That’s a bit unfair. What’d I ever do to you, Sawamura?”

Sawamura grins back, floating all the way over to hover by Kuroo’s side as he begins walking back to his apartment. If they’re going to have a conversation, might as well do it somewhere warm and comfortable. Kuroo doesn’t explain where they’re headed, but Sawamura doesn’t ask, content to just go along with it. Even in the past it had always felt natural to fall into step with one another. No need to waste words when they somehow knew how to read each other’s body language fluently enough to translate without thinking.

“What didn’t you do to me, is the real question. I have a whole list of complaints, Kuroo. It’s why I came so early in the morning; it’s gonna take me until at least breakfast to get through all of them.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to cook for you, too. I only have one egg.”

“And you’re not offering it to your guest? I didn’t take you for the stingy type.”

“Take pity on me,” Kuroo whines. “I’ve got tests to grade and and club activities tomorrow. I need the energy. Which reminds me, I’m also hoping you don’t expect me to stay up all night. I have to wake up in a few hours.”

“You’re so high-maintenance,” Sawamura jokes as they ascend the stairs to Kuroo’s place. “I should’ve chosen an easier target. But seriously, you can sleep first if you want. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

Kuroo gets to putting his purchases away once he lets himself inside, while Sawamura peeks curiously around his not-very-interesting apartment. Sawamura seems preoccupied with the photographs on Kuroo’s wall, so Kuroo leaves him be for a moment to go change back into his pajamas.

“Are you saying you’re going to watch me sleep?” Kuroo asks while Sawamura scans his bookshelf. Sawamura turns to see Kuroo vigorously brushing his teeth, and shakes his head.

“Not unless you want me to,” he says with a laugh, and then floats over to the window. “Go to sleep, Kuroo. I’ll be back tomorrow; we’ll talk then.” His form grows thin as he passes through the glass and then Kuroo is left standing alone in his apartment with toothpaste froth on his mouth, wondering if he just had a really weird fever dream. Because, what? Just happened?

Kuroo shuffles blankly back to bed and slides under the covers. There are too many words forming into too many half-woven questions; they tumble around his brain without direction. For some time he just lies there, staring at the ceiling and the dark, until an uneasy sleep overtakes him.

--

True to his word, Sawamura is back five hours later when Kuroo is packing up his bag for the day.

“You came back,” Kuroo says as he watches Sawamura fall back into place beside him, like it’s natural to belong there. It doesn’t feel as wrong as it should. Kuroo may have grown too accepting in recent years.

“Of course I did; what kind of ghost haunts someone for just twenty minutes?”

“I did think it was kind of a letdown, but it felt rude to mention it.”

“And everyone knows that you’re never rude, right?” Sawamura teases as they walk to the train. Kuroo has headphones in – the kind that also function as a microphone, so that he at least looks like he could be talking to someone on the phone. The train is crowded this morning, so Sawamura floats up to sit atop the baggage rack, to avoid phasing through anyone. Kuroo stands facing up toward him, gripping a hand strap and pretending to look at the screen announcing the next stop, but their eyes keep catching on one another’s, and they exchange sheepish smiles.

When most of the morning crowd clears out, they move over to an empty corner so Sawamura can stop perching like a cat about to strike.

“So, are you back on unfinished business?” Kuroo asks, like they’re discussing weekend plans. He’s seated, looking up toward Sawamura, who shifts out of people’s way as if he still has solid mass. He still smiles at children and the elderly like they can see him. But sometimes Kuroo catches him watching people with a certain intensity that feels unfamiliar. Maybe being dead makes the world look a little different.

Sawamura returns his attention to Kuroo. His hand is resting against the wall as if to brace himself and Kuroo has to wonder absently about how the laws of physics apply to spirits. “Mm, I wouldn’t quite put it that way. I’m just here to hang out for the day.”

“Did- um. Did you want to see something in particular? I have work today, but we could go somewhere afterwards.”

“No, I didn’t come expecting you to provide entertainment. I just thought I’d drop in and see what you get up to these days. If that’s okay?” He looks momentarily lost, and Kuroo quickly shakes his head.

“Yeah, you know I’m always up for fun. I gotta tell you, it’ll probably be kinda boring for you, but if you don’t mind chilling out and making fun of my students, then let’s do it.”

“Let’s do it,” Sawamura echoes, with the same brightness in his eyes Kuroo remembers from across the court. Phoenix fire and marble.

Behind and through him, the world blurs green and powder blue outside the train window. It’s a beautiful day.

--

Kuroo’s homeroom class is rowdy and clever and terribly annoying this morning. It takes a while to get them settled, and by the time he leaves them for his first class, Sawamura already knows them too well.

“You knew what you were signing up for when you became a teacher, right? Was corralling your team not enough for you?” Sawamura asks during his free period. Kuroo just spent the last hour going over last week’s test and listening to a whole lot of groaning. He’s marking more exams now as he sips his milk tea; Sawamura leans against his desk and looks around at the other teachers too busy to pay mind to Kuroo basically talking to himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about; Nekoma was team of pure, good-hearted angels. Now, if I’d been in your shoes, then I probably wouldn’t have wound up here.”

“Oh, you would’ve gotten a handle on them eventually. Just like you’ve got these ones under your wing. I have to say, you’re a lot better at this than I expected.”

“Thank you a million times over for your faith in me,” Kuroo says dryly. “What do you think Amagi wrote here? An eight? An ugly five?”

“Looks like a five to me,” Sawamura says. “Give her the full points.”

“You’re too soft,” Kuroo tsks, and they finish grading in this same manner for the rest of the period.

Kuroo doesn’t wonder at the fact that no one else in the school can see Sawamura. He assumes it’s because Sawamura has no ties to anyone else here, or that it’s because of some other ghost business that Kuroo doesn’t understand. Sawamura does accidentally float through another teacher at one point, and she sneezes right afterward.

They spend lunch outside, watching students milling around in little clusters. Somehow it feels easy to be together like this, despite all the oddities of the situation. Sawamura asks after all the old group, and Kuroo tells him everything he knows, though he has to apologize for not keeping up as much with all the ex-Karasuno members. Sawamura just laughs, telling him that knowing anything at all is more than he really expected.

“Do you have any good tricks?” They’re watching a crowd of kids exchanging flirtatious banter, and it makes Kuroo want to play a prank on them.

“What am I, a dog?”

“I’m just saying, ghosts usually have some fun powers. Like telekinesis.”

“Nope, I’ve got nothing.”

“Boring,” Kuroo says with a pout, and Sawamura rolls his eyes, floating backwards until he’s hanging upside next to Kuroo’s head.

“Yeah. I went to the afterlife and all I got was this lousy intangibility,” he says, and Kuroo feels suddenly guilty. Sawamura is literally dead and here Kuroo is, making a stupid joke about it.

“Shit, that was insensitive. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’ve gotten pretty used to being dead. Don’t feel too bad. C’mon, tell me which of your kids is the most likely to embarrass themself in the next five minutes.”

Kuroo gladly latches on to the change in subject. “Oh, definitely Sakurai. Watch, when he goes over to Kanda…”

The day is uneventful as far as school days go, but Sawamura never seems bored, even when he keeps relearning the same math lesson over and over. By club time he seems even livelier, floating around in amusement as Kuroo oversees the Exercise Club. The small group of students are doing stretches and jumping rope in the yard.

“Before you ask, yes, we do play volleyball sometimes. I put up a net outside when the weather is good.”

“Do you ever play?”

“Yeah, but not for long because they start complaining about uneven teams,” Kuroo says, keeping an eye on a girl chasing her friend around with her jump rope.

“Play six on two. That would even things out.”

“Too much, maybe. I’m not that fit anymore.”

“You still look pretty good to me,” Sawamura says with straight-forward honesty. Kuroo’s heart skips a beat until he follows it up with, “I mean, your face is what it is, can’t do anything about that, but the rest isn’t bad.” He gestures broadly at Kuroo’s body.

“I see you haven’t gotten any more charming since I last saw you,” Kuroo snarks back, and Sawamura laughs. He looks like he wants to bump his shoulder against Kuroo’s, but they both know it’ll just be a reminder that this can’t last.

“It’s hard enough for people to change as it is; us dead guys are totally stuck in our ways.”

--

After club wraps up, Kuroo returns to his desk to send out a few emails before calling it a day. They’re standing at the train station again, waiting to return home when Kuroo thinks to ask, “Are you sure you don’t want to go do something? Normally I just go home and crash on my couch after dinner, but it’s Friday evening, and you’re in town.”

“Are you saying you wanna go out?”

“I mean, it seems like a waste for you to come all this way just to watch dumb reality tv with me while we eat takeout. Uh- while I eat takeout.”

Sawamura shrugs. “To be honest, that plan sounds just fine to me. But maybe you’re right. I only have twenty-four hours. I should probably make them count.”

Twenty-four hours? Kuroo wasn’t aware of this.

“Is that when you have to go back? To the, uh,” he makes a sweeping motion with his arm and probably makes everyone in the vicinity want to avoid him, “the great beyond?”

“Yeah, I could only afford a one day pass,” Sawamura says like he’s joking, but Kuroo’s chest seizes painfully anyway. If he had known, he wouldn’t have kept Sawamura here, hanging around aimlessly instead of using his time for better things. Before he can get all tangled up in guilt, Sawamura puts his hands in his pockets and asks, “So what should we go do?”

Kuroo had found it a not-unwelcome change to return to the countryside once he graduated from college. The slower pace of life, the abundance of nature everywhere, the wide open spaces and quaint houses tucked among the foliage. He kept his house closer to the town center, preferring to commute over to his school, and it’s worked out well enough for him so far. The downside is most places of interest are at least a few train stops away. He thinks for a moment about where they could go on such short notice, where Sawamura might actually enjoy himself.

“We’re close to the water,” Kuroo finally offers. “It’s a little cold this time of year, but the shore is pretty nice.”

Sawamura doesn’t take more than a second to think about it. “The beach? Sure, why not. Take me to the beach.”

They have to ride into the main station before changing lines, and by the time they make it to the ocean, it’s early evening and the sun is starting its descent. There are few people around; the April weather is pleasant but growing rapidly cool now that the day is coming to a close. It leaves Kuroo space to openly talk to Sawamura without looking too strange – insofar as a man alone at a beach is ever strange.

“Do you swim?” Sawamura asks as they walk along the shoreline. His not-quite-there feet swish through the water that crashes gently against the white sand. The foam tickles at Kuroo’s bare feet, and he hops a step further from the water. It’s a touch too cool for his skin.

“Yeah, though it’s been a while. I used to go on beach trips with Kenma’s family all the time when we were kids. We’d have matching floaties,” he says with a laugh as he remembers the time Kenma got a sunburn on his shoulders and was cranky for weeks.

“I can see that. You used to splash him while he was huddling on the beach, I bet.”

“You know it. Were you a swimmer?”

“Not really, but now that I can’t do it, I feel like I miss it? That’s how it goes, I guess.”

“Well, I’ll swim twice as hard next time; you can live vicariously through me.”

Sawamura shakes his head with a smile. “Sure, you do that.”

After walking to the cliffside, Kuroo jogs back the way they came, trying to beat Sawamura back to his shoes, but ghosts can fly surprisingly fast. He collapses into the sand afterward, wheezing as Sawamura laughs at him. Since neither of them are equipped to go swimming today, Kuroo settles for making a damp, slouchy sandcastle as they talk about the current Nekoma team under Coach Naoi’s instruction.

The sun is near the horizon now, a deep molten core streaking the indigo waves with gold. Sawamura sits across from Kuroo so that the sunset shines through him, and Kuroo’s words stick in his throat for a moment when he notices.

He’d never gone to the beach with Sawamura while he was alive. There was never time, just like there was never time for any of the other thousand things Kuroo regrets not taking a chance on. Taking that art class in university. Going skydiving with Bokuto. Asking Sawamura out for a drink.

It isn’t like Kuroo had burned for Sawamura. Or tore up flowers and sheet music and journal pages trying to capture some fraction of the feelings he felt for him. Nothing ever so far-reaching or soul-wrenching.

But he had always thought that perhaps there was a greater than zero chance they might someday find their way to each other. Two lines not quite parallel, that might meet somewhere down the road, once they’d stretched far enough in the same direction. Sawamura had occupied a place in Kuroo’s life that no one else could fill – some cross of friend, rival, and if-only.

It was fondness folded into a summer daydream: wispy and weightless, with no expectations, but a whole quiet world of possibilities. And then all those possibilities came to an abrupt halt, and that was that.

Sawamura had never been his to lose. But Kuroo had hurt, nonetheless.

“Kuroo, help me dig up that little thing right there,” Sawamura says, interrupting Kuroo’s spiraling thoughts. His translucent hands comb against a shining patch of sand.

“Here?” Kuroo crouches down and scrapes his fingers through the spot Sawamura was just touching. He unearths a chunk of green sea glass the size of a stamp, and rubs it clean of sand. “Oh, nice find!”

It’s a lovely mossy color, frosted and worn soft to the touch. Sawamura runs a pale fingertip over the surface and then withdraws, floating a few feet into the air.

“Sorry, I can’t buy you anything, so that’ll have to do for a souvenir of our trip.”

“That’s more than good enough for me,” Kuroo says, finding himself stricken by the expression on Sawamura’s face.

He looks like he’s at peace, smiling at Kuroo with the same fondness he’s seen directed at Hinata or Suga or Tsukki. The sea glimmers dark like gold-embroidered velvet through him, but he looks and sounds so heartbreakingly familiar in this moment that Kuroo thinks he could forget about the last five years if he were to close his eyes.

Forget the way his heart stopped cold when he first heard the news. Forget how serious and still Sawamura’s face had looked in his memorial portrait. Forget how he had ached, sitting there with Kenma as they watched Hinata on the international court, knowing that there was someone who would never get to feel that pride when looking down at the court.

It’s past six p.m. now. Kuroo only has Sawamura again for today. This short, unsatisfactory slice of time. Eight hours left, and Kuroo doesn’t know how he’s going to say goodbye at the end of it.

--

It’s a quiet ride home, and then Kuroo brings them to a hole-in-the-wall yakitori place where he likes to grab a bite to eat after long days at work. They get a tiny booth to themselves, and Sawamura watches with patient amusement as Kuroo eats.

“What food do you miss most?” Kuroo asks, because he always loses track of his tact when he’s tipsy, and because Sawamura has proven to be awfully nonchalant about no longer existing.

“Actually, I think it might be yakiniku. Part of it probably has to do with the atmosphere; y’know, sitting around a table with your friends, fighting over the last piece of beef.”

Kuroo can see it, especially after that last day of training camp. God, they’d been so young then. Even now, he can imagine how it would be: Sawamura, crowded in his seat up between Azumane and Suga, arguing with Bokuto over the next piece of meat, making sure the pork is cooked just the way Kuroo likes it.

Kuroo waves his skewer in the air like an addled conductor. “Next time…the next time we do yakiniku, I’ll put a plate aside for you. I’ll even buy you a drink,” he promises drunkenly. “Come back and join us.”

“Well, I can’t say no if you’re going to be so generous.” Sawamura rests his chin in his hand, watching Kuroo with undivided attention. With the smoke in the air and the lights gleaming dimly against the wooden walls, the space feels suddenly intimate, and Kuroo takes another deep swig from his beer.

What if he had asked, one of those dozens of times he wanted to? Would they be sitting in a restaurant together on a night much like this one, laughing at each other’s jokes and flirting lightly as they wait for the check? Would Kuroo finally know more of Sawamura’s touch, beside those fleeting handshakes and hugs shared over the years?

Could Kuroo have changed the path of Sawamura’s life? Or do all roads lead to the same destination – with Kuroo mourning Sawamura as a lover instead of a friend?

There are no answers at the bottom of his bottle, but he drinks as if there are. Sawamura doesn’t comment, but he does pull the conversation back toward easier matters: Kenma’s promotion, Kai’s wedding, Yaku’s visit last month. Kuroo focuses on telling the best stories he can, because he thinks that if his mouth stops moving he’ll fixate on how Sawamura’s hand always rests close enough to touch, but never close enough to feel.

It’s approaching midnight when they leave the restaurant, and Kuroo takes Sawamura on the meandering path home. There’s a small park near his apartment block, and Sawamura insists that he take a seat on the bench for a moment to find his balance when he almost trips on the sidewalk.

“C’mon, I thought you could hold your liquor better than that.”

“ ‘m not even drunk anymore,” Kuroo grumbles. He slumps down, legs outstretched, and lets his head loll back. “I just get a little clumsy when I’m tired these days.”

“I don’t believe it,” Sawamura says brightly. “Not with those reflexes of yours.”

“Hey, lay off, I’m getting old!”

“You’re still in your twenties; don’t act like such a geezer.”

Kuroo pulls a face. “Not for long, I’m not. I’ll be using a cane soon. You’ll see.”

“Don’t be in such a rush to grow old. You’ll get there eventually.” Sawamura, seated on the bench beside him, floats up a few inches so he can reach out as if to brush Kuroo’s fringe out of his eyes. Of course, he only passes through Kuroo’s face like a winter breeze, but Kuroo gives him a watery smile back anyway. This is a tenderness neither of them is used to, but it feels like it’s been overdue. If only for tonight.

“Yeah, I’ll sit outside my house and yell at my grandkids’ friends when they come around.”

“At least offer them some snacks, you jerk.”

Above, the stars are brighter than they ever were in Tokyo, and Kuroo wonders if this is the sky that Sawamura used to see, looking out his window as they reached for the same dream. It’s easy to waste another hour just talking to Sawamura like this, because this is the relationship they always had, in those scant moments they shared together over the course of their friendship. Sawamura wasn’t lying when he said he just wanted to visit: it’s like he’s been dropped back into Kuroo’s life after a long trip abroad. If Kuroo were a little more idealistic, he would hope for another day like this, another chance to catch up a few years down the line.

But something in the core of his heart tells him this isn’t an ordinary occasion.

It’s a quarter to two when they finally reach the main street that leads back to his apartment. They pass by the konbini silently, and then the criss-crossing little residential streets until they’re standing only meters away from Kuroo’s building. Kuroo’s never been an expert on the supernatural, but he can feel the space around Sawamura growing blurred, like it wants to pull him back across the veil. He’s about to make an ill-timed joke about it when Sawamura stops them in their tracks and turns to look Kuroo in the eyes.

“Thanks for spending the day with me, Kuroo. I had a lot of fun.”

There’s a heavy finality in his voice. It fills Kuroo’s lungs with lead.

The alcohol is wearing off, but enough of that liquid bravery, like magma in Kuroo’s stomach, remains that he wants to say something stupid in response.

I mourned you.

I grieved for something I wasn’t even sure I understood. A lingering promise, a missed chance. A dream that faded before I could wake.

...I think I could have loved you.

But there are only a few fleeting minutes until Sawamura has to depart, so Kuroo will be civil. Kuroo will be kind, to both Sawamura and himself.

He intends to just accept Sawamura’s gratitude, but one question sticks in his mind so persistently that he’s asking before he can find the self-restraint to stop.

“Sawamura. Why did you- why come and see me? I know there are so many people who would’ve given- who would be delighted to see you one last time. So why choose me?”

Sawamura pauses, his mouth slightly parted as if to speak, before his expression shifts.

Years ago, lifetimes ago, there had been a morning in Tokyo, misty and gray, when Sawamura had stumbled into Kuroo’s corner of town and they spent a handful of hours together before he was expected at the airport. They’d done nothing exciting, but Kuroo will never forget it, if only because of the expression that Sawamura wore while they were waiting for the bus as the fog lay thick around them, blocking out the rest of the world.

Kuroo had long gotten used to being admired, or glared at, or sized up as an opponent. He’d seen all three cross Sawamura’s face in the past, though usually he met Kuroo with either amusement or teasing exasperation. In that moment, however, it had been something wholly new. Something Kuroo wasn’t sure he was reading correctly.

Sawamura was watching Kuroo like he wasn’t sure he was real, those dark eyes wide and wondrous. As if Kuroo was something special to behold, something not quite within reach. It only lasted a second, before Sawamura shook himself out of it and gave Kuroo that sly grin that he knew so well. But Kuroo could never get that sight out his head, letting it haunt him in sleepless hours.

It’s how Sawamura looks at him now.

“I just wanted to see you, I guess,” Sawamura says, eyes soft. After a second, he laughs quietly and ducks his head, in a gesture that feels painfully true to life. When he looks up again, his gaze is clear and focused, the way it always was on court. The way Kuroo remembers him best. “I wanted to catch up with an old friend. So, thank you. Maybe we can do this again sometime.”

They both know that they can’t.

Kuroo swallows, and it hurts his dry throat. “Y-yeah, of course. Just, uh, drop by or whatever. You know where to find me.”

“I do,” Sawamura says, laughing once more. Kuroo’s heart aches.

He wants to say something to prolong the moment, but if there’s anything he’s learned over the last day, it’s that any chance they had has long since been lost. Regret lies heavy in his bloodstream and his breath comes short when he inhales. Kuroo is pushing thirty now, settled in his life and happy about where he’s headed, and Sawamura?

Sawamura will never look a day past twenty-four.

Kuroo clenches his right hand, trying to remember how Sawamura’s palm felt against his, calloused and strong and searing. But nothing remains except the faintest sense memory.

He extends his hand regardless, knowing it can’t be the same.

“Goodnight, Sawamura.”

When Sawamura’s fingers brush against Kuroo’s palm, a chill runs through his skin and he tries to close his hand around the flesh that isn’t there. He gets a rueful look in return as the other man withdraws.

“This is where I tell you I won’t lose again, isn’t it?”

“And where I tell you we’d be happy to take you on again any time,” Kuroo agrees quietly.

“I think that rematch will have to wait.” And Kuroo can see his outline going threadbare.

Sawamura lifts his hand back into a wave, slipping backwards toward the light of the street lamp. The honey glow of the lamp intersects briefly with Sawamura’s own light, painting him angelic gold for a second, and for just this moment, with the veil of reality pulled thin, Kuroo can see the yearning clear as daybreak written in Sawamura’s eyes. Like a perfect mirror image to Kuroo’s own.

It’s instinct to step forward, reaching out toward Sawamura to try and touch him, to catch him before Kuroo can lose him, yet again, but already the distance is too wide. Sawamura smiles, even as he fades.

“Goodbye, Kuroo.”

And he’s gone.

Kuroo stares for a minute longer, willing the streetlight to shimmer and reveal Sawamura’s ghostly form again, but there’s nobody here on this road except Kuroo and a few sedate cars passing through. The whole world is quiet, giving him a moment of silence to find his breath, steady his heart.

The spring air embraces Kuroo with cold familiarity as he begins slowly walking up the stairs home, alone again. Above as below, the world spins on, once more without Sawamura. Kuroo unlocks his door, but stands there in the threshold for a long moment, just looking in. Finally, he takes a deep breath and steps inside.

It’s late. He should go to sleep, and wake early to greet the new day. Maybe tomorrow he’ll go for a swim.

[slivermxgic]

{cis female; she/her; heterosexual} – esme cullen who comes from twilight has been spotted in sydney. they are twenty six/one hundred+ years old and are a vampire. they have been called +kind, +caring -emotional. it seems like their memories are intact i’ve also heard that they are a dead ringer for sofia carson. 

“i know you cheat” 

ℕ𝕒𝕞𝕖: esme anne platt (birth name) , esme evenson (when she was married as a human, formally) esme cullen (current name) 

ℕ𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕟𝕒𝕞𝕖: none

𝔸𝕘𝕖 : twenty six/one hundred+ 

𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕤: vampire 

ℍ𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕠𝕨𝕟:   Columbus, Ohio

𝕆𝕔𝕔𝕦𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 : unemployed 

𝕊𝕖𝕩𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝕆𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 : heterosexual

𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕤: married 

𝔹𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕙𝕕𝕒𝕪:  February 15th, 1895

𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕡𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕥: the confrontation with the volturi

𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝 𝔸𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 : good

character life: 

human life: 

esme was born to mr and mrs platt on February 15th, 1895, unknown if she had any siblings or if she was an only child , she grew up on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio

she had a happy childhood , as a teenage however her playful and mischievous nature got her into quite some trouble 

at age sixteen in 1911 she fell out of a tree and broke her leg , this was the first time that her future second husband would enter her life but of cause she didn’t know it at the time . the local doctor was out at the time so she got treated by dr carlisle cullen

not long after she meet the doctor/vampire for the first time did he moved out of town but this not the last time she would see him but that was not going to be a while unknown to her. also she would never forget the kind doctor .

esme originally wanted to move west and be a school teacher but her parents convicted her to stay in hoping for her to get married 

a naive 22 year old esme wanted to please her parents so she married she married Charles Evenson,how she would soon realized her was abusive. 

her parents told her to keep quite about it , so she had no chance but to have to endure the abuse 

lucky for her her so call husband was drafted for world war 1 she would finally get some peace she enjoyed the time where it was quite and she didn’t have in live in fear but eventually that ended when he returned home in 1919 , the quite was over and she would had to endure the abuse again

sort after his return she found out she was pregnant and she refused to let her child to grow up in a dangerous environment so she ran away to her’s cousin’s in in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unfortunately he found her there so she fled again to ashland where she got to live out her dream for a sort time of being a school teacher 

her child was born in 1921 unfortunately he died 2 days late due to lung fever she was devastated she felt like she had no reason to live so she attempted suicide by jumping off a cliff, she was in bad shape when she was found 

the only was she survived was she was turned into a vampire by carlisle

vampire life : 

when she woke up after her transition carlisle  explained what happened and that he had to change her in order to save her life , she wasn’t mad .she easily accepted her new life the only challenge she had was the bloodlust and only lost her thirst  a few times

sometime after her transition and before spending centuries with carlisle she and him had fell in love and married 

esme might have a soft spot for Edward since he was the first to join the family but she loves all her adoptive children and has a special bond with all of them 

she was very friendly and welcoming to bella, she was thankful for the girl who loved her first adoptive son, she in kitchen when she first meets bella making her something to eat . she acts if she was already part of the family

she is at the baseball game with the family and bella, her and bella are the umpires so certain members of her family can’t cheat in the game 

the baseball ends when a group of three nomads vampire come and one tries to atack bella , from there and out she and Rosalie swap clothes with bella so james gets off track of her scent (esme is more willing to do this then rose) 

she and Rosalie stay in forks to watch over charlie while the rest of the family beside alice and jasper go to phoenix (since alice and jasper were the ones to take bella to phoenix ) 

she is at bella’s eighteenth birthday , she and carlisle got her plane tickets to jacksonville so she could go visit her mother renée

bella gets a papercut while opening the present, jasper goes to attack here which in result has Edward pushes her back onto a table shattering glass and open harms bella more and causing more problems including everyone wanting bella’s blood including esme , she follows rosaline and Emmett out who are carrying jasper outside , on her way out she is apologizing and is a deeply ashamed , after bella is fixed up she passes esme who is cleaning the blood up on her way out

when the coven moves up north to Ithaca, New York (minus edward) she kept herself busy by herself with restoring a 17th-century house in the forest

she along with Carlisle, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie go to pick Edward, Alice and Bella up from the airport after alice and bella stop Edward from committing suicide in Italy , esme is grateful towards bella . she tells Edward not to scare her like that ever again

she votes yes for bella to join the family and become a vampire , she comments that she already see bella as family 

she along with her family (minus Edward cause he is in jacksonville with bella) is chasing Victoria along with some Wolfes 

esme is at’s jasper’s alice’s bella’s and Edward  graduation

when a vampire one they don’t know is sneaks into bella’s room she and her family aligned with the uley pack to watch over bella and charlie 

when the Denali coven refused to help esme genuinely accepts the Uley pack's willingness to join forces with them when they find out someone is building a army of new borns to destroy the cullens and bella

Esme's fighting skills is weaker then the rest of the families but she does have enough skills to know how to hold her own against opponents 

she is active in the battle against the newborns with Carlisle by her side 

she comes across a scared newborn known as bree she does she best to save her but in the end bree in killed by Felix on Jane's command. 

esme in the front row with the rest of her family on edward’s side during bella’s and edward’s wedding. during the reception she gave a lovely speech.  she helps bella changed into into her going-away outfit after the ceremony and reception party. before the wedding she grew close to bella’s mother Renée, she lets bella and edward used the island for their honeymoon that Carlisle gifted her years ago for their honeymoon isle esme. 

when bella falls pregnant, esme side to rosalie and emmett to protect bella and her baby this is something that would affects Carlisle

She is affectionate towards Jacob’s pack  the black pack (which is only him, leah and her brother seth) when they break away from the uley's pack to protect her daughter-in-law. she and Carlisle especially are extremely grateful for their sacrifice.

 Esme provides Jacob and his pack with clean clothes and food, and offers to let them sleep in the beds in the Cullens' house, though almost all of them would decline

the uley pack when renesmee was unborn decided to attack the cullens in fear of what the unborn baby could do , the cullens are suffering from starvation esme’s is doing her best to care of her family and the black pack

toward the end of bella’s pregnancy esme, carlisle and emmett go to feed escaping the pack’s pack's observation, esme is separated from carlisle and emmett when she is surrounded and almost attacked by two wolfs from uley’s pack ( Brady Fuller and Collin Littlesea) she is saved by Emmett and Carlisle. the three of them arrive in time to prevent the rest of uley’s pack from killing the rest of their family 

after bella give birth to a baby girl named  renesmee, a human/vampire hybrid and bella is in the process of becoming a vampire esme looks after the baby along side rosalie just like she did with bella she welcomes the baby with open arms 

three months after Renesmee's birth , irina mistakes her for a an immortal child and reports the cullens to the Volturi

esme is devastated when she learns that jasper and alice left without an explanation (not knowing alice is gathering witnesses of her own)

she and the rest of the family gather up witnesses of their own to prove to the Volturi they didn’t break any laws 

after the confrontation with the volturi esme welcomes back jasper and allice with open arms 

[morsmordrehasbeensaved]

♔ MY SELF-WORTH IS NOT DETERMINED BY OTHERS ♔

✤  Remus Lupin. ✤  Gryffindor / Seventh Year. ✤  Halfblood. ✤  Order of the Phoenix. ✤  Open character.

After the bite, things were different. People who knew were suddenly afraid of you. You were afraid of you. It felt vile, to be this kind of creature. You hated it, you hated yourself. Who could love such a thing? Could such a thing even return their love? It turned you cruel, thinking the world despised you ━ until you met people who didn’t. Despite your affliction, they loved and cared for you, went to the ends of the earth for you and you felt the exact same way. And that was the changing point, you found what it meant to love. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t show the enemy your teeth every now and then.

BIOGRAPHY.

Trigger warnings: Self-harm, Depression

Remus John Lupin, even from a young age, had known of the evil that lurked in the shadows, the sounds and stories of the dark creatures who stalked the earth, and he knew of the mystery that shroud the things that go bump in the night. His father was an expert in such things after all, and what was there to be afraid of when your father, your hero, knew the secrets of every last monster and assured you that you were safe from them all? Perhaps that was why he slept so soundly that night, even at the tender age of five years old, when Fenrir Greyback slipped into his room from the window and changed Remus’ life forever. His own screams and the sting of claws in his skin and the bite on his shoulder were some of the most vivid memories he had of his childhood and they were the memories that replayed in his mind each night of the full moon where he became the monster of his own worst nightmares.

His condition had a name; lycanthropy. At least, according to some. Others termed it werewolfry, but Remus didn’t much care what it was called. Though his father could explain every facet and nuance of the condition to a scared and confused Remus, who now jumped at the very sight of the moon in any phase, Lyall Lupin, the famed expert in dark creatures, could not cure him. Neither could the hundreds of healers the Lupins took their son to, desperate to reverse the effects. Spending nearly everything they had and coming up empty-handed, it was devastating for Lyall and Hope when they finally accepted that there was nothing to be done and that their beloved son would be forced to live with this condition for the rest of his life.

Hope Lupin handled the news surprisingly well, though Remus suspected this was partly because she didn’t quite understand the condition as well as Lyall, but she always did have a particularly optimistic attitude even at the darkest of times. Her arms were always open, ready to pull Remus into a hug or sneak him bits of chocolate when he was feeling especially low. But despite her warmth, she could never fully ward off the chill deep in his bones at the approaching full moon. Still, she encouraged him to count his blessings and to find the silver lining behind every grey cloud and promised him that he was no monster.

Lyall Lupin had handled the news of his son’s lycanthropy much harder. Perhaps that was because he knew of the discrimination his son faced in the wizarding world, and the trials of his future. How could his son ever complete a proper education, find a job, or even someone to love him? Remus’ lycanthropy turned his father into a bitter man, the weight of his own guilt crushing as he took the blame for the attack when his son was so small. If only he hadn’t spoken out so publicly against Fenrir Greyback, if only he had placed additional protective charms over the home, then perhaps his son would not suffer from the monster he held inside. It broke his heart each night of the full moon to pull his frightened son out to the shed and lock him inside, listening to his screams as his sharp teeth and claws tore at his own flesh in his frustrations at the transformation and the confinement.

Each morning after, Lyall would unlock the doors of the shed, pull his son into his arms and weep with him before taking him inside to tend to his wounds. Hope would be just inside, dark circles under her red eyes from a sleepless night of listening to her little boy’s screams. Remus could see the burden resting on their hearts and at first welcomed their loving embraces, their gentle hands tending to his self-inflicted wounds, and the small pieces of chocolate they gave him with the promise that it would make him feel better. After a few years, however, he grew tired of the routine. Out of pain, fear, and confusion he would push their gentle hands away and lock himself in his room. A monster in a cage, he supposed. That’s what he was, wasn’t he? It was what he saw in the mirror anyway. He hated it, he hated the monster and the bitter resentment building inside of him. The shattered mirror couldn’t bring him seven years of bad luck when he was already living in hell.

Receiving his Hogwarts letter was not the joyous experience his classmates gushed about now and then when they recalled their fond memories. He only remembered his father’s hand on his shoulder, a choked apology, another warm hug from his mother and the bitter disappointment of losing something that he was supposed to have. Lyall promised homeschooling, that it would be safer and he would teach Remus everything he knew, but they all knew it wasn’t the same. The real joy came with Professor Albus Dumbledore’s visit where he assured the Lupins that Remus would be able to attend as any normal boy, with a few special accommodations to address his condition. Normal. Remus Lupin could be normal. With a chance for a fresh start amongst peers who knew him as nothing more than another student, Remus had eagerly promised Professor Dumbledore to do whatever was necessary to ensure the safety of the other students in order to attend.

Remus knew he was different from the other boys in his dorm or the rest of the students sitting around him in the Great Hall, however, and the weight of his secret was heavy on his shoulders. The fear of how his friends might react should they realize what he was, was even heavier. In second year, when Peter, James, and Sirius uncovered his secret, Remus had feared his time at Hogwarts was over. It wouldn’t be long before everyone knew what he was, parents would write to the school to have him removed, and he would return home to his lonely isolation. It had come as a shock to him when the other boys didn’t run from him in fear, nor did they share his secret with anyone else. Instead they carried his books when his arms were too weak to lift them himself, they shared their notes when he fell asleep in class out of exhaustion from being up so late, and they covered for him when other students questioned his frequent absences or the marks on his skin.

Never before had Remus Lupin had friends like this, who saw his condition as nothing more than the occasional ailment. They overlooked his greatest flaw to see him for everything else that made him who he was. He did like charms class, and of course he knew what that creature was on the DADA exam. His favorite color was blue, and he didn’t think pumpkin juice was gross. He was a person, maybe a little different, but wasn’t everyone? Even the Prewett twins who were absolutely identical in looks had their own unique personalities and struggles as well. It was at Hogwarts that Remus Lupin realized that his struggle, though apart of him, didn’t have to define him.

In fifth year when his friends, his brothers, managed an incredible magical feat to become animagai did Remus find that the monster within could be tamed. It was only when locked away in isolation did his condition lead to frustration and rage, which manifested itself in the wounds he suffered for years. But with the company of his friends, and the freedom of the grounds of Hogwarts in the moonlight, he found that he was much more in control than he had ever believed he could be. Of course James and Sirius were able to keep his actions in check should they stray too close to the village, but after countless nights roaming the grounds and without a single fatality or injury caused by Remus, he found he was growing more comfortable in what was once his dreaded form and thus more confident in himself.

Remus had found his silver lining. For too long he had merely been coping with his condition, enduring the worst of it and trying to move on with his life otherwise. He had been successful in such endeavors, able to find happiness and peace despite his condition. To realize his friends had embraced his lycanthropy, and found a way to celebrate what made him different, well Remus realized that he didn’t have to merely cope any longer. For once, he didn’t dread the nights of the full moon, he looked forward to them. What had been his greatest fear for so long was something he actually enjoyed. Moving forward with a new confidence and a sense of true belonging, Remus flourished at school. He joined clubs, made other friends, he was even appointed as a Prefect. If he could do all of that, he supposed anyone could and he dismayed at the way the muggleborns and his fellow half-bloods were treated. He’d known discrimination for far too long and resolved to fight against it, eagerly joining the Order with his closest friends. After all, if his differences could be accepted and celebrated, shouldn’t everyone else’s?

CONNECTIONS.

JAMES POTTER, SIRIUS BLACK & PETER PETTIGREW ━ Marauders, best friends. AMELIA BONES ━ Partner up sometimes to do Prefect rounds, friends. ZHENYA SELWYN ━ Used to be friends with, doesn’t know what happened, misses.

THIS CHARACTER’S FACECLAIM IS ALFIE ENOCH (SEMI-NEGOTIABLE).

[archivesdiveronarpg]

Congratulations, NELLY! You’ve been accepted for the role of HIPPOLYTA. Nelly, you have no idea how ecstatic I am that someone has finally swept up Hippolyta. She's a warrior in her own right, fighting whatever battle Fate throws her into. You captured her voice that could charm the likes of the Devil himself. In your plots you showed no fear, knowing exactly where you wanted her to go and what path she should take. That's where you won my heart. Thank you so much for taking Halcyon -- I can't wait to see her on the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours. 

                                                                                 WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Alias | Nelly Age | 21 Preferred Pronouns | female Activity Level | The days I work, I’ll likely be inactive because I work grave so (2 - 11 am) and sleep most of the day. But the good news is I work like 3 days a week lol so the other days I’ll be on all day. Timezone | EST Current/Past RP Accounts | Optional. Feel free to give us any current or past roleplay accounts that you think best showcase your writing! In Character Character | Hippolyta / Halcyon Santos What drew you to this character? | I like the idea of this person who had it all, only to fall and instead of lying there she rose with raw passion and determination. I feel like Halcyon has two sides to her. On one hand, she’s this beautiful and kind soul. She’s the type to do anything for a friend and go way beyond what’s expected for a stranger. I wouldn’t say she’s gentle but despite what she’s gone through there’s a pure goodness about her that draws people in. But on the other hand, she’s… Hardened. Like coal turned to a diamond, she was put through fire in the form of the ultimate betrayal (her parents paying off her lover, and her lover accepting it) yet though she came out changed, she was stronger for it. That’s why I don’t think she cried over her husband’s death. I honestly think she smiled when she saw it. Not because she hated him or particularly wanted him dead, but she wanted her freedom. His death was like a weight off and she could finally breathe now that he was gone. And that’s the kind of edge she has now. She is nice but she doesn’t trust easily at all. What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

Eventually, I want Halcyon to be displaced from the Capulets if possible. I feel like she needs to go through one more major fall and rise before she can settle and plateau. If that’s not possible, then I’d like her to fall all the way to the bottom and have to be an emissary, then a soldier, then work her way up again. Where does her determination end? I just want to push her limits and she how far she’ll go to reclaim the glory she once had.

Then I want Halcyon to find love again. But this time, it won’t be as easy as the first (as ironic as it is, her first love happened basically overnight. It was the kind of fast love that can only happen when you’ve never felt love before. Almost like puppy love, it was true but it also wasn’t.) I want this love to be real and sustained and I want Halcyon to give this person hell but they keep fighting because that’s what adults do when they’re in love. It’ll be passionate and ugly and difficult and utterly beautiful. Of course, this love won’t come for a while as she’s completely closed off to the idea of it at the present.

Finally, I want Halcyon to break so completely that she’s just out for vengeance on someone. She enters such a dark time in her life that she forsakes her religion - a staple of her childhood and beyond. She isolates herself and everything she does is a shade of grey morally. Perhaps it makes sense to her but to others it doesn’t seem as great. In Depth The following THREE questions must be answered in-character, and in para form (quotations, actions written out if applicable, etc). There is no minimum or maximum limit for your response - simply answer as you would were you playing the character. What is your favorite place in Verona? “That’s an easy one,” she smiles, all light and ease and grace, “the Phoenix and the Turtle cafe by far. I love open spaces and coffee - it’s my strongest vice.” She speaks as though to have coffee as a vice is something worth an apology. “So to have both and a bit of quiet away from work, it’s all I can ask for in a day.” What does your typical day look like? “Well I wake up and, this is an insider exclusive, I rub my wrists with oil. Every morning. When I was younger I learned about anointing oil and there was something so comforting about taking the presence of God with me through the day so it’s a habit I’ve kept up for a few years.” She speaks in a low voice, her words warm and private. Yet there is no fear of discovery. Speaking to her is like speaking to an old friend that you would hate to betray. She makes you feel included and trusted and safe. “Then I’ll proceed as normal. Brush my teeth, eat, the usual. Some days I’ll meet with Rafaella, other days I won’t. Some days I’ll eat lunch here, other days I won’t. My typical day is a beautiful combination of multiple possibilities. I will never do the same thing twice in a row.” What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues? | For once a glint creeps into her smile. A long moment passes before she speaks as if weighing her words to perfection. “I believe that… Old habits are hard to break. Lucius Capulet, to me, was a man much like myself. Someone who rose up again and again and..” She smiles a full smile now, the steel gone completely from her face and replaced by warmth again. “Where there is good, bad will follow. It is the way of life: so it has been and so it will be. This war is inevitable and will last until the end of time.” In-Character Para Sample:

The hollow keys plunked under her fingers, filling the halls with empty notes penned by a dead man. Once again, Halcyon found herself alone on a Friday night. Her husband was gone, the man’s grave still warm in the ground. Her phone was was a skeleton, all metal parts, with no messages to bring it to life. She was utterly alone. Oh how the mighty fall. Once, she would have had more messages than she could answer. Halcyon the Godess. Small town royalty, breezing through life with ruby red lips wrapped tight around a silver spoon. She was blessed, they told her, and blessings were only such if they were shared. And share she did, with any and everyone that entered her presence. Halcyon shared until it felt like she belonged only to the world….

What a beautiful girl - like a little bird.. Halcyon the Songbird. Chirping so sweet. You’re a blessing to us all, little bird. But beware, it is your life’s work to serve others. Never must you forget to cater to those who cater to you. “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” Remember that, Songbird, lest you find yourself with a large head and no room to house it.

Maybe they’d been right… But God - forgive me Father -  how she’d loved it. The stares, the adoration, the love. Everywhere she went, there was love to be found. Even when her mother rapped her on the wrist - how will you ever be anything if you get lazy? again! do it until it’s perfect - it had been love. In all her life, Halcyon had only known love. Perhaps she’d been spoiled. Perhaps she should have known from her parents’ tight lipped smiles that they only wanted love in the eyes of their Father. And perfection, as a reflection of Him, was the only sort of love they’d allow her to receive. But God - forgive me Father - her love had been the closest thing to perfect Halcyon could ever dream of.  

“You’ve never had sex before?” She was laughing that beautiful laugh. The kind that, though Halcyon knew was at her expense, made a laugh bubble in her chest as well. They sat under cherry blossoms. The world was bright, it was gold and pink and blue and red. Spring air ruffled her hair carrying with it hints of Chance Eau Vive. Living water - how appropriate. “Well my parents wouldn’t allow me to date and when they did, they preached chastity and - Quit laughing!”

“How was that?” They lay under silk sheets. The world was theirs. That day and all the days to follow. Theirs was a future of love and passion and fire that moved like water. She burned to look at. She burned to the touch. She burned her whole. Halcyon inhaled her beautiful scent, her cheeks still aflame. “Perfect.”

“There was no time for goodbyes.” She sat on cold concrete. Somehow the truth of it came to her quickly. Her parents were never going to allow this to happen. And in the end they didn’t. The world was a mix of grays, like a factory of bird cages. Everywhere felt like a prison - none more binding than when she said “I do.”

She’d watched the crash. She’d seen his car falling into the lake, heard the shattering of glass and squealing of tires. But it wasn’t so bad in the end; he wasn’t exactly her true love. You couldn’t mistake true love. No, true love had burned her alive, this man only ignited the perpetual embers in her gut. There’d been no passion in their placid relationship. He was nothing more than a boy she let kiss her sometimes… She waited for the tears to come but found it easier to wait for the bell to ring. They should be here any day now, just as she thought they would be.  The notes assaulted the air, her fingers aggressive on the keys. Bach screeched through the empty halls, angry perfection.

Screw them. Screw him. His death was inevitable and she would not cry for such a man as he. He’d treated her like glass. And maybe that’s who she had been. Halcyon the Hollow. Fragile and alone. A body of bones… But she was also fire, raw and fierce. Holding out for the next moment - because there would be others, there always were. Even for dried out little songbirds looking for their notes. For there was no song as pretty as one of redemption.

So maybe right now she wasn’t anything at all…

No.

But soon she would be.

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here!

The Santos’ love was not completely unconditional, as is evident in their bribery of their daughter’s fiancee. They loved her, yes, but they loved her most when she was perfect. When she sang pretty songs and brushed her hair until it shone, when she recited all the Bible verses and went to Church without complaint. They loved her most when she was complicite. When she followed all their orders and demands like a pretty doll, theirs to control and play with, then their love shone. The moment she diverted from the path of perfection laid out to her like the Yellow Brick Road, they made a scheme to return her to it. No matter the money or time, their daughter would be perfect.

Halcyon sings and plays the piano (as evident in the self bio.) She gained practice in her church’s choir. Little Hal shone brighter and longer than all the rest because she spent countless hours practicing. Music is her peace now, one of the few things she doesn’t allow her bitterness to taint.

Halcyon was a virgin until she was 24. That’s when she met her lover and that’s when she finally felt brave enough to break her parents’ chastity vow. She’d always been curious about sex but determined it wasn’t worth her parents’ wrath to explore it until late in her life. Their reaction had been awful the first time she came home with a hickie - it had taken a long time to even get the boy (she’d only dared to date boys first) to kiss her neck. But the reaction had been worth it, she’d gotten what she wanted; even if a week later the boy stopped answering her calls completely.

Her house is sparsely but beautifully decorated. She keeps plants and flowers in every room, to remind herself that there is life where she lives. Hal also has a cute little chow-chow puppy to keep her company, to remind herself what it’s like to be loved unconditionally.

Hal’s main motivation is love. She grew up with it and though she claims coffee is her main vice - and she truly is addicted to coffee - love is the one thing she’d die for.

(submitting from my RP account because… well… if I log out I may never log back in lol I forgot the password. But at any rate, I hope this app is okay. You all have a beautiful group.)

[thetrumpdebacle]

Courtney Allen says she has spent a year and a half living in a state of perpetual terror. A wife and mother from suburban Seattle, Allen said what started as an online flirtation led to a dogged, diabolical campaign of cyberstalking.

“I’m having nightmares that my husband is dead, that my son is being taken away from me,” Allen told “Nightline.”

She says playful banter in the chatroom of an online video game curdled into a tsunami of threatening phone calls, emails and text messages, as well as intimate videos of her being sent to her colleagues and the police being called to her home to investigate reports of child abuse.

Courtney Allen is seen here during a “Nightline” interview.

She said the months of harassment and humiliation she and her husband, Steven Allen, endured led her to even contemplate suicide.

The man the Allens blame for the torment is Todd Zonis, a 44-year-old married man from Arizona.

Courtney and Steven Allen got married in 2001, and when they had their son, Rand, Courtney Allen quit her job and became a stay-at-home mom. That’s when she said their marriage began to change.

“Steve was not home a lot,” she said. “I felt abandoned and then having no time to talk to friends or anything, I really just felt very secluded.”

She began playing an online game called “Grepolis.” Set in ancient Greece, the game lets players use the powers of the gods to protect them and forge alliances with other virtual players. It was while playing this game that she met Zonis. At first, she said he was “rude and crude” but she thought he was funny.

“And we just began conversing through the online game,” she said.

Then Courtney Allen said they began emailing each other.

“We started flirting and then that turned to texting, sexting,” she said. “And that’s mainly how the relationship started to evolve.”

ABC News

Courtney Allen is seen here during an interview for “Nightline.”

Courtney Allen was having what she calls a secret online affair, even though she and Zonis had never met face-to-face.

“I felt like he [Zonis] was my best friend,” she said. “I told him very private things about myself, things that I really didn’t tell other people. He replaced my husband.”

Then, she said, things turned sexual.

“He had this idea where we should exchange some illicit videos of ourselves,” she said. “So he sent me several and then asked for one in return, and I obliged.”

In September 2013, Steven Allen discovered the relationship.

“It was devastating to me,” he said. “You just don’t ever think that your spouse would do that.”

ABC News

Steven Allen is seen here at the family home during a “Nightline” interview.

Steven Allen confronted his wife and she told him she would end the affair with Zonis. But, she didn’t and instead hid her and Zonis’ interaction inside a password-protected tablet.

Months later, Steven Allen caught her again.

Disappointed but unwilling to give up on their marriage, Steven said he began searching for answers and found a website called MarriageBuilders.com. The website says that in order to end an affair, it must be exposed to “family, friends … and especially the lover’s spouse.”

The website’s author says, that while controversial, overall the advantages of exposure far outweigh the disadvantages and that it’s just “a part of [his] complete plan for marital reconciliation.”

So Steven Allen told his parents and then sent individual Facebook messages to “about 40 of our common friends,” telling them, “I feel it is very important to inform you that Courtney has been participating in an internet, sexual affair, which has shattered my heart. I am asking that you pray for us … and use whatever influence you have to encourage her to work on our marriage.”

But then he took it even further and emailed Zonis’ wife and parents, telling them, “He’s having an internet affair with my wife.… This involves texts, emails … and shared recorded videos of masturbation.”

According to the Allens, Zonis was furious and he focused his anger on Steven.

Steven Allen said his bosses started receiving anonymous emails “saying bad things about me, lies about me, trying to get me fired.”

Then the couple said there was a death threat sent to Steven’s grandmother.

“She called me up and said … a man threatened to burn down the house with us in it,” he said.

Courtney Allen said the next year and a half was an “all-out attack” on their family. Hundreds of emails began pouring in. One email sent on Dec. 12, 2014, at 9:25 p.m. read, “Where are you? Are you OK? … Are you just hoping I fade away so you can enjoy twisting the knife?”

Another email that same night at 9:26 p.m. said, “God damn you, why won’t you talk to me?” There were more emails that night, sent at 9:30, 9:42, 10:00 and 10:34.

“I just kept trying to think, ‘There’s got to be a way for me to get rid of this guy in a nice way where he’ll leave me alone,’” she said.

She said she received five more emails. “What the —-? … Are you joking?” one email said. “You are cruel,” said another. Another asked: “Have you even thought about me at all in the past month?”

More emails arrived, angry and abusive ones, followed by ones looking for sympathy or demanding apologies.

Then came the voicemails.

ABC News

Steven and Courtney Allen are seen here during a “Nightline” interview.

“Now it’s all just payback and fun. … Hope Steve’s credit didn’t take a hit. That would be a shame,” was one voicemail received on Feb. 2, 2015.

“I’m telling you, passion is passion. I did nothing wrong. I’m not going anywhere,” said another received on Feb. 26, 2015.

“There’s no job either one of you guys can have that I won’t know about and be there,” was one received on Feb. 27, 2015. “I will tell you, I’m going to make this as painful and expensive as possible.”

Steven Allen said he received so much of this sort of harassment at work that he had to quit his job.

“I remember going to Steve and saying, ‘This is scaring me. I’m not able to sleep anymore,’” Courtney Allen said. “I don’t know what he‘s going to do next. … I tried emailing and saying, ‘Leave me alone,’ and kept getting progressively firmer” but the harassment wouldn’t stop.

Steven Allen said he had his moments where he thought if his wife hadn’t had this affair, they wouldn’t be dealing with this. But he said he knew “she’s not doing this, he’s doing this.”

“He could choose not to,” Steven said. “He, for whatever reason, felt the way to go was to harass and stalk her and that’s on him.”

The Allens changed their phone numbers, but the calls kept coming. One evening, Courtney Allen said she received more than 200 text messages.

“Like a switch was flipped, like he’s just gone crazy,” she said.

But then the cyber torture became even worse. An explicit video of Courtney Allen masturbating was posted to a website called YouPorn and sent to her bosses and Facebook friends from a Facebook account of someone named Jennifer Jones.

“It was a full-out attack,” she said. “It was personal.”

Cyber harassment attorney Carrie Goldberg said, “Sharing an intimate image with one person doesn’t license that person to then share it with the world. But even more importantly in this case, it doesn’t license the recipient to destroy her with the image.”

Sometimes perpetrators can feel that there’s been “some sort of injustice” and they want revenge, Goldberg said, but “it’s also a sadistic need to control and dominate another person.”

The Allens called the police, but said they were told there was nothing the police could do. They live in Seattle and said the officer they spoke to had told them they could try relocating.

“The police officer told us … because he [Zonis] is in Arizona, ‘Our hands are kind of tied. We don’t really know what to do with this,’” Courtney Allen said. “So he told us … that a detective would contact us.”

It’s not uncommon for local police department to not know how to handle cyberattack cases, Goldberg said, “but stalking is stalking, whether it’s through a computer or a phone, in person, and certainly this offender broke many, many laws.”

A few days later, the Allens were relieved when a detective did knock on their door, but then they were blindsided again.

“The detective … says, ‘I’m here on a welfare check for your son. You’ve been reported for child abuse,’” Courtney Allen said. “And she apologized and said, ‘I’m sorry. I need to see your son’s body.’”

Courtney was terrified, thinking that her son could be taken away from her.

“And then I think my son was playing with my dog the other day and he’s got a tiny scratch, they’re going to see that scratch and they’re going to take him away,” she said. “My son comes down and he sees me upset so he doesn’t want to show the detective anything, and so through coaxing, me and the detective are able to take his shirt off and see that there are no bruises.”

“I break down and I’m like, ‘We’ve got a stalker. I think this is his doing. He told me something was going to happen and this is it,’” she continued. “And she [the detective] told me … ‘We’ll figure this out. I’ll call you in a little bit.’”

But the next day, Courtney Allen said their neighbor came over and told her she had gotten a letter in the mail accusing Steven Allen of abusing and psychologically torturing his wife, urging the community to act and hold him accountable. The letter had been sent to the entire neighborhood and was postmarked from Phoenix, Arizona.

“I stopped being able to function. … There was always a threat hanging over my head and I didn’t know what to do,” Courtney said. “These threats are not vague threats to me. They’re very real because I believe him.”

The Allens then went to the FBI and an agent picked up their case. But then death threats started coming in. One message sent on April 25, 2015, at 2:25 p.m. said, “They are going to hurt you, maybe even kill you. You deserve it.” Another one sent on May 1, 2015, at 7:05 a.m. said, “You and Steven are garbage and he’s gonna die.”

Courtney Allen said the FBI agent told her to call 911 if she felt like she was in danger. While she had a documented death threat, she said, the issue was that not all of the messages were traceable. This was because whoever had been harassing the Allens was using Tor, anonymity software that makes tracing emails and identifying the sender impossible.

After months of brutal harassment, Courtney Allen said she considered taking her own life.

“I got … an anonymous email [that said], ‘It’s better for you if you just die,’” she said. “And all this guilt came crashing down that I introduced this maniac into the lives of my family and into my life … and maybe there’s some way I can protect my family and maybe this is it. Maybe if I die, you know, if I kill myself, maybe that will be the end.”

She said she went as far as to take a gun out of the family’s safe.

“And my son popped into my head and I started to think about the times that I would miss if I weren’t there. … I wouldn’t get to see [his] first date or to teach him how to drive a car,” she said. “And I stopped. Got up, stopped crying and went about my day and I was like passing a test… The thoughts of my son and my husband, that’s what saved me.”

The Allens took Todd Zonis and his wife, Jennifer Zonis, to court in June 2015. Proving he was responsible for the cyberharassment would have been impossible if it hadn’t been for the handful of emails the Allens’ attorneys linked to the Zonises’ IP address.

One such email that was sent March 17, 2015, at 9:35 a.m., said, “OK, isolation, shaming and ridicule, coming right up.” Another that had been sent on March 29, 2015, at 2:05 p.m., said, “I’ll be in Washington [state] real soon. I think we will be seeing a lot of each other for quite a while.”

The jury found the Zonises responsible for intentional invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation to the sum of $8.9 million.

ABC News

Todd Zonis and his wife Jennifer Zonis are seen here during an interview with “Nightline.”

The Zonises agreed to sit down with “Nightline.” Todd Zonis said he had met Courtney Allen while “playing an online game for the first time in my life,” but that’s where his and the Allens’ story diverge.

Todd said he and his wife Jennifer Zonis had befriended Courtney Allen and that Jennifer was even involved in the correspondence with her.

“She [Courtney Allen] sent me gifts,” Jennifer Zonis said. “She made little tags for the things in my garden, stuff like that.”

Todd Zonis said that Courtney Allen’s claims that their online relationship was more emotional and romantic are “not true at all” and that the story they heard in court about the Allens being harassed for months on end was “very difficult to contradict because we’ve never heard [it] before.”

Todd Zonis said that Courtney Allen had told them her husband Steven was “very controlling” and an “abusive kind of guy.” They also said that she had propositioned them for sex. But Jennifer Zonis said, “We turned her down.”

The Allens’ attorneys argued in court that the explicit images of Courtney Allen that were sent to the Allens’ friends from the Jennifer Jones Facebook account was an account that had been logged into from an IP address at the Zonises’ house.

“That wasn’t me,” Todd Zonis told “Nightline.”

He also denied sending the emails that the Allens’ legal team referenced in court. In fact, he said some of the emails accessed from his IP address, and the calls to police alleging child abuse, were actually done by Steven Allen pretending to be him.

Todd Zonis gave “Nightline” a drive containing evidence that he said was proof of his innocence. But “Nightline” found very little on it that hadn’t already been presented in court. He also repeatedly stressed in the interview that he wasn’t good with computers.

“Literally, I’m a computer moron,” Todd Zonis said. “I’ve never done any of this before. So, no, I had no involvement in any of that.”

As for the letter that was mailed to all of the Allens’ neighbors claiming Steven Allen was abusive, Todd Zonis said Courtney Allen had written it herself and asked him to send it for her, which is why the letters were postmarked from Phoenix.

“Because he [Steven Allen] had … done an exposure of her to all her family and friends,” Jennifer Zonis said. “She was pissed and wanted retribution against her husband.”

When asked about the threatening voicemails the Allens’ received, Zonis admitted that it was his voice on some of them but that, “all of these [voicemails] could be explained if they’re taken in context.”

Todd Zonis claimed that Steven Allen had sent an email to Zonis’ wife and parents claiming he and Courtney were having an affair, “three or four months before any of this happened.”

The voicemail that says, “It’s all payback and fun,” Todd Zonis said, “Do you know what ‘the payback and fun’ was? The Super Bowl was here that year. … I’m a sound guy and I work those shows. … That’s a lot of money.”

“Steven Allen … intentionally hired lawyers down here to move the date of the hearing,” he continued. “He intentionally dragged his feet on it and then switched it to four different times during that week. I lost the Super Bowl [gig].”

The Zonises claim they never got a fair trial because the judge wouldn’t let them submit their own evidence or claims. Their biggest claim is they lost out on their inheritance after Steven Allen emailed Todd Zonis’ parents exposing the alleged affair.

“I mean in my case, it’s $2.5 million, plus the home that I grew up in,” Todd Zonis said. “I mean my parents kept saying we had a great relationship … and all of that was gone. I was trying to contact them. They wanted nothing to do with us.”

“You haven’t heard any of this stuff and there’s a reason, OK?” he continued. “They didn’t want you to. There’s a reason that you weren’t provided with any of this stuff or that it’s not available. That’s why I started my blog, which by the way we get death threats on now.”

“And some of them are very … very personal,” Jennifer Zonis said.

Today, the Allens said they are trying to move forward.

“What I did … [wasn’t] to try and ruin our life,” Courtney Allen said. “Those are his [Todd Zonis’] actions. They’re not placed on me. I may have helped with ruining our lives by providing that information but that’s not my fault. It’s him and his actions.”

“We didn’t have a stalker until we had one,” Steven Allen added. “You may think you’re fine now but something [is] going to happen. You’ve put all that stuff on the internet and it could be there for decades.”

Cynthia Hetherington, an expert in internet intelligence who trains military, law enforcement and security professionals, said anyone posting online can make themselves vulnerable.

“Your profile might be set to private. You think you’ve locked yourself down, but now the person you’re commenting about has an open profile. You’ve just opened yourself up,” she said. “All I need is a name and the general area of where you live. And thank you for also putting pictures up there because now I know what you look like … and I’ve totally stolen your identity.”

Hetherington said posting photos and information online, such as pictures of a car, a new home, the kids’ first day at school, a vacation spot or a neighborhood can contain subtle, identifying details that can be used to compromise your privacy and security.

Chances are, she said, your most critical information, such as your address, Social Security number and phone number are already available online. She recommends contacting the major credit reporting agencies and placing a fraud alert on your accounts. This requires them to call you to verify loan or credit applications.

“I’ve watched every major public record vendor admit to a compromise,” Hetherington said. “Everyone in this country has had their information stolen. … It’s just they haven’t used your information yet.”

The Allens feel this ordeal is far from over. They fear that the media attention on their case could possibly make them targets again, but they also want to warn others.

“We think it’s important that people understand what can happen,” Steven Allen said. “You don’t have to be a celebrity, you just have to meet the wrong person. Put your trust in the wrong person. And this can happen.”

And the Zonises have already filed an appeal.

“This is all going to be overturned on appeal,” Todd Zonis said.

via The Trump Debacle