#I think she would not forget those dark memories and trauma that easily...

[lesmisscraper]

The Difference of Mme. Thenardier's attitude towards her daughters and Cosette. Volume 1, Book 4, Chapter 3.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[bensonoliviasstuff]

“Turning Page”

Final Chapter! “Your love was my turning page”

Bucky Barnes x Fem! Reader

Masterlist for Turning Page

Summary: Once Bucky regained consciousness and was no longer the Winter Soldier, all he missed from the 40s was his wife. But maybe she's closer than he thought.

Warnings: English is NOT my first language, so I'm sorry if there are too many errors. A little bit of angst, memory loss, betrayal, trauma, Insecurities, kidnapping. And the best part: Thanos doesn't exist here

Taglist: @capswife @mostlymarvelgirl @scott-loki-barnes @bxckybxrnes24 @alliw27 @buckys-metal-arm

Bucky parked the motorcycle and quickly ran into the building, he didn't know where to start looking for you, but the first thing that came to his mind was the experiment base where they found you.

The same base of experiments that kept him imprisoned for so long.

"Doll?" He called, it wasn't loud enough for anyone to hear, But he couldn't resist just calling out to you.

What if by then they had already erased your memory again? What if they had done something worst to you?

Bucky Barnes ran through the dark structure, his heart heavy and his mind in turmoil. He had to find you. Every second without you was unbearable torture. Fear and anger mixed, forming an almost unbearable feeling.

He started to walk through the building, he felt everything inside him burn as he saw the rooms he could never forget.

He headed towards the basement, it was agonizing how he still knew that entire structure like the back of his hand.

He holds tightly to the gun he had brought with him from the compound, kicking some debris that appeared in front of him.

He finally arrived at the laboratory, sighing desperately when he realized that there was no one there.

He was starting to panic, he hadn't panicked like this since the last time Hydra erased his memory.

He needed you, once he had you back he would never be ready to let you go again.

The phone rang and he answered it with shaking hands.

“Barnes, I have a lead for you” said the raspy voice of Sam Wilson on the other end of the line. “We found something.”

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, a wave of relief mixed with apprehension washing over him.

“Steve called you?” he asked.

“Just because you needed it” he said, Buvky could imagine the smug smile just by hearing his voice.

“Thanks, I'll see you in a minute” he hung up the phone and got ready to leave, but as soon as he reached the door a voice stopped him.

“How long, Winter Soldier”

The nickname made Bucky squirm, dying to punch someone.

He turned back to see Zemo sitting on a chair in a dark corner.

Bucky quickly raised his gun, pointing it at Zemo with hatred. "What are you doing here?"

“You don't want to shoot before hearing what I have to say” He said arrogantly, crossing his arms.

“You don’t want to talk long enough to see me shoot” Bucky replied through clenched teeth.

“I have something important to tell you about Y/N”

Bucky held the gun tighter, his jaw tense “Speak”

Zemo took a deep breath before starting, always with a smile.

“Y/N is not who you think she is”

“Wrong, she is not who YOU think she is, she is my wife.”

“She is a spy, infiltrated”

Bucky's grip on the gun loosened for a moment, but then he tightened his grip even more.

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, his head was ringing, but all he could discern from that ringing were these words: lie, lie, lie

“Initially, she had a clear mission: get close to you, gain your trust, and eventually betray you and the Avengers.” He said, looking deep into Bucky's eyes as he spoke, as if he wanted to see and delight in the pain Bucky would feel. “You didn't find it very weird the way she was rescued so... easily?” He stood up, wanting to examine Bucky's pain more closely. “She was never reluctant... Always kind, always observant” He got closer and closer, a maniacal smile on her face. “Your missions going wrong”

Bucky's world seemed to crumble at those words. But he refused to believe it, anger boiling in his blood.

“You’re lying.” He pushed the gun into Zemo's chest, seeing red with anger.

Zemo slowly shook his head. “I wish it were a lie, but it's not. Her mission changed, that was very frustrating” Zemo rolled his eyes “The famous true love hm? After truly getting to know you, even if she still hadn't remembered you yet, she couldn't follow orders anymore. This put her in a dangerous position. The recent kidnapping was an attempt to bring her back under their control.” Zemo said, watching Bucky carefully to see his reaction "Unfortunately I assume that even if she forgot about you, she would never be able to betray you like we wanted her to do"

Zemo waited for a reaction from Bucky, but all he did was hold the gun tighter, Zemo frowned. “You don't look as hurt as I expected.”

“I forgive her” He said without hesitation. “That was everything you didn’t want to hear, wasn’t it?”

Zemo looked confused “What do you mean? Will you just forgive? Listen to what I’m saying, she was sent by someone who wanted you dead!”

Bucky walked away, running his hands through his hair. The pain of betrayal and the hope of true love fought within him. Finally, he stood up, determined.

He remembered the first real conversation you had, you saying that you 'felt like you should trust him', you did, you abandoned the mission. Now he needed to trust you.

He clung to the feeling that that conversation was true, those words were true, you meant it to him.

“Where is she? ” He said confidently “I will find my wife, if necessary I will make her remember again, and I will forgive her” Bucky said without hesitating in any of his words.

“This is really frustrating, I was expecting a show where you said we could kill her and you wouldn't care anymore” He said, returning to his chair.

Bucky advanced on him, grabbing the collar of his shirt. “Touch a finger on her and you will never have fingers to touch anyone again.”

Zemo laughed “This is entertainment” he sighed, letting go of Bucky “They are taking her to another small town, now they are definitely arriving at the airport” He said, satisfied “You won’t make it in time, but good luck.”

Bucky sighed irritably, running out of the building while shouting into the phone for the team to get to the airport immediately.

He was not willing to lose this battle.

After driving for some time, Bucky finally arrived at the airport, he entered the room looking for any sign of you.

He ran into the hallway of the main gates, trying to spot anyone he recognized.

The airport was crowded with hurried passengers, voices echoing everywhere, the sound of luggage being dragged, and constant announcements over the loudspeakers. Suddenly, a shout broke out in the terminal, until a loud noise caught everyone's attention.

Two men, visibly tense, they were holding a girl who clearly didn't want to be there, her back was turned but Bucky recognized it just by her silhouette.

It was you.

He felt weird seeing you for the first time after finding out about you being a “sleeper cell spy” or something like that, he felt anxious, his stomach felt like it was spinning

Surrounded by curious onlookers and staff trying to maintain order, a man in a black suit, had his jaw clenched and fists closed.

Bucky started to make his way there, Feeling the adrenaline and excitement of seeing you again, but before he took more than five steps he saw Steve and Sam arriving before him.

At least they had listened to Bucky's pleas to move quickly.

The men didn't seem pleased with Steve and Sam being around, and it seemed like they didn't give a shit about the place, they were willing to fight here and now.

The man in the suit was the first to strike, advancing quickly trying to throw a direct punch at Steve, he dodged skillfully, responding with a sidekick that made the man in the suit stagger back, almost knocking over a magazine display. People around quickly stepped back, forming an impromptu circle.

Bucky approached, helping Sam and Steve fight the two men, but his biggest effort was to get to you and get you out of that mess.

The fight continued with quick and precise blows. With each movement, you could hear the muffled sound of impacts and the frightened gasp of the spectators. Steve grabbed the arm of the men, twisting it forcefully and pushing him against a pile of suitcases. The sound of falling luggage echoed through the terminal as the man in the suit struggled to break free.

Suddenly, an airport security team appeared, running toward the commotion. The guards split up, surrounding the fighters. One of them shouted orders, trying to calm the situation. But before they could intervene, the man in the suit broke free with a sudden movement, grabbing a nearby chair and throwing it at Sam

The chair flew through the air, passing dangerously close to a family watching in horror. Sam ducked just in time, but before he could get up, he was pinned down by two guards who brought him to the ground. Steve and the other men tried to resist, but soon they were all under arrest.

Bucky and you were taken too, straight to the airport police station, all detained, but at least Bucky could keep his eyes on you.

He was anxious the whole way to the station, paying close attention to you, you were silent the whole time, he was starting to get worried.

The cops strapped one of you to a chair, leaving to take statements from Steve, Sam and the two men first.

He looked at you and pursed his lips, “Doll?” He tried the nickname, desperately wanting to know if you still remembered him or if they had erased your memory.

You do not answer, You looked at him with glassy eyes, he went into despair, didn't you know who he was?

“I'm…” he starts to say, but your voice comes soon after.

“James” you said calmly, eyes downcast. “You're James Buchanan Barnes”

Bucky he smiled, relieved that you didn't go through any torture while you were with Hydra, He couldn't put into words how happy this made him.

“Bucky, I...” You began, but he interrupted.

“I know” he said softly. “I know you were a spy, but I also know that you didn't remember me, or us, i forgive you, Y/N. We’ll get through this together.” He said sincerely, but you were outraged by it.

“That simple? Do you still trust me? Bucky, I betrayed you, I don’t deserve all this forgiveness, I don’t deserve your trust”

“I know” he repeated “You don't deserve it, but... Swear to God doll, there's no way I can't trust you” He said simply and sincerely “You could stab me a hundred times, it would take a thousand more to make me lose one percent of the love and trust I feel for you”

You looked at him in shock, you would never feel worthy of this forgiveness, yet he loved you and forgave you and all his eyes wanted was to keep looking at you, all his body wanted was to break free from the handcuffs and hold you against him.

Your eyes watered and soon you were crying, “I'm so sorry, Bucky. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know” he replied, stroking her hair. “We'll be out of here soon, and we’ll find a way to start over, without secrets this time, promise?”

“I promise”

You felt relieved, you still didn't understand how Bucky could have forgiven you so easily.

In fact, the Avengers didn't understand either.

As soon as you arrived at the complex, Bucky sent you to your room and felt like he needed to be honest with everyone, after all everyone helped you and him, they deserved satisfaction.

Steve was ready to defend you, Clint and Tony were pissed, Bruce was quiet and distressed.

Natasha was silent, sitting in the corner, apparently thinking hard about something.

“Guys, you have to try to understand her side a little, only God knows what they would do to her if she didn’t follow orders, she had no option, she wasn’t in it because she wanted to!” Bucky tried to argue.

“She might not want to be here, but she could have left this mission at any time since she got here” Tony said “She could have told any of us”

“She did, we just didn’t realize.” Natasha spoke out for the first time “I mean, I didn’t notice”

“What haven’t you noticed?” Bruce asked, crossing his arms.

“She told me once, that she constantly dreamed about you” She pointed at Bucky “And about you” she pointed at Steve. “I thought it was her memory trying to make her remember, but now it's very clear that she dreamed of you two because Hydra showed her what the next mission would be like.” Natasha furrowed her eyebrows “I believe she had no choice, and everyone here has been through things that you would do anything to escape.”

Tony sighed, irritated. “Look, I understand that, what I don’t understand is why she never said anything explicitly to all of us, it’s not like we weren’t going to keep her safe here.”

"We did? Hydra invaded and took her, we didn't keep her safe”

“I don't trust her” Clint said, leaning on the couch “She's going to have to climb a lot of steps before she has our trust again, but I'm not going to tell you to send her away, I suppose now that she remembers you she will be a different person, any mistake she makes from now on and I vote to have her away from the compound, everyone in agreement?”

Tony nodded, going to another room, the others agreed and Bucky sighed in relief, running towards his room.

As soon as he arrived, he knocked on the door to enter (the door was closed). He entered the room and saw you lying on the bed playing with the radio.

“They hate me now, don’t they?” you asked apprehensively.

He threw himself on your bed, approaching you with love “They’re just angry, It will pass, and they will forget”

“You should be angry too” You continued fiddling with the radio.

He took the radio from your hands, pulling you into his embrace, and then rolling on top of you on the bed.

“If there’s one thing” he said before snuggling his head into the crook of your neck, making you laugh “What I’ve learned from all this time we’ve spent apart, is that there’s no time to waste, I’m not going to waste time feeling angry at my lovely wife.”

That afternoon was filled with laughter, you laughed, played and, most importantly, talked.

You guys talked about everything, Bucky told you what happened to him from the beginning, making you cry a little at how much your husband suffered, it hurt to see that he still blamed himself for things he couldn't help but do.

You told him everything you remembered, the times you remembered Bucky, and the times you heard Bucky screams from the next room.

They both beat themselves up for spending so much time so close but so far away.

"Do you know what I think?" You interrupted the silence that had been established.

You were lying face down on the bed, Bucky's arm was around your waist, caressing your back.

He looked at you, listening carefully.

“That only the two of us could be perfect for each other” you spoke sincerely “I mean, do you realize how crazy it is that they tortured us and took everything from us, and they still couldn't make us separate? It’s like no matter what happens, it will always be you and me.”

Bucky smiled at the prospect “I didn’t need to go through all that to know that”

You rolled your eyes “I know, but it's just... I mean, I'll probably feel guilty forever because of the missions where I killed innocent people” she hesitated, lowering her gaze.

“Me too, doll...” Bucky said sadly.

“That’s the point” you said “I could only be loved by someone who understands what this guilt feels like, that’s why we complement each other, only the two of us understand that.” You smiled at Bucky. “We spent what felt like a million years apart”

“And I would wait a million more for you” Bucky walked over, tucking your hair behind your ear. “Nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart, doll.”

“I love you Barnes, I'm so happy to have you, it's like It's like we're trapped in that horrible story we've been through, but when I look at you i know It's enough, i feel like i could be a feather and yet bring the kingdoms to their knees”

Bucky smiled, running a hand over your cheek. “You are right, our love is our turning page”

“Yes, our turning page”

[reblogalanaartdream]

I have this mystery skulls animated theroy

I could be wrong but

Thanks to the future

We see when Arthur held Lewis locket the picture in it changed right?

Soo I know when people died and became a ghost in stories (blame my childhood of being a fan of Casper the friendly ghost movies and cartoons as well as liking beetle juice movie/ cartoon as well as other ghost themed cartoons/anime/comics/anime/manga) the ghost doesn’t always have a correct memory of how they died until a living soul helps them piece together what really happened to them

Heck man it’s only now people realise that in times in great stress/ trauma most peoples don’t always remember what really went wrong or the memories end up being wrong or flawed (there have been studies)

What if Lewis hadn’t even dated Vivi yet; like he really loves/likes her but what if he never told her he liked her yet? Like the group are all friends and a great team but Lewis never told vivi that he liked her and Vivi seemed like she was more focused on studying the paranormal wasn’t interested in dating? She might of liked Lewis back maybe

But Lewis death wish not only made her forget his death but is way to easy for his death wish to keep making her forget Lewis altogether;; it’s a lot harder to make a person forget they were in a romantic relationship with;;

Also being as Arthur was possessed and apparently Arthur seems to something gets alot paranormal seems to get drawn to him alot but was the last thing Lewis saw was Arthur but in his mind he didn’t look at the green coming up Arthurs arm and half his face he just couldn’t understand why his best friend pushed him off the cliff so he figured Arthur wanted to date Vivi and wanted him out of the way (but Arthur wasn’t after vivi at all (I mean I’m a Lewvithir shipper but when Lewis went missing Arthur didn’t even try to date vivi and was trying to find him and get vivi to remember him the hold time; he himself being as he was possessed at the time has no idea Lewis was dead that’s why in hellbent and the beginning of the future he says Lewis name in shock surprise and doesn’t even fight him & just gives a shock look like he can’t believe Lewis is dead look) ) so Lewis may have forgotten that him and vivi never even dated but thinks they did because he liked her so much?

Also the fact the van belongs to Arthur and not Lewis means Arthur knew Lewis liked vivi and would let Lewis drive the van to try and impress vivi but vivi isn’t the type to be easily impressed just by being good at driving!

I also think but I’m not sure it’s just a guess but I feel like vivi’s coworker at comic / book shop she works at when not out studying the paranormal

Think her name is Chloe? I know she’s obsessed with the idea with having some undead/ demon boyfriend; I have this guess she was mucking around with some sort of summoning thing and woke up reverb that was in that cave who in turn started to possess Arthur because Arthur Lewis Vivi and even mystery didn’t break any wards while in the cave

Like just walking into a cave doesn’t normally get you possessed; because if that was the case all of them would of gotten possessed or mystery would of keep them from walking into that cave right?

I mean I think I herd somewhere that Chole wanted to join the mystery skulls team to find herself an undead/ demon husband/ boyfriend but Vivi said she was too young and also didn’t think wanting to join the team for those reasons wasn’t a good idea being as the paranormal can be very unsafe

Just some thought I’d got running around my head atm but if any of these things are true

It would one explain why vivi keeps forgetting about Lewis

Two explain why Lewis locket picture changed to the hold mystery skulls team then to just him and vivi

And three Chole mucking around with dark arts/paranormal without a total clue how dangerous that is because you could summon something very nasty and ended up bringing about Reverb

It would mean maybe by accident Chole would be responsible for summoning Reverb evil that possessed Arthur and caused Lewis death!

I mean Chole having a hold lota green as her outfit and well reverb is well all green I believe the 2 are linked

[littlereds-fanfictions]

Chapter One: Scarifying Shadows

Gwyn and the darkness

Gwyneth Berdara liked the darkness, she liked the safety it held and how it seemed to cradle her in the worst of the moments. The moments when her mind yanked her back to those hours- those excruciating hours in which she lost her sister and a part of herself. The darkness seemed to sing the songs that brought her back to peace. Maybe the mother knew how difficult this would be for her and trained the shadows to sing, sing a song she only seemed to know about.

Sometimes the song reminded her of a certain shadow master and the shadows that whizzed around him. The shadows that liked to dance and curl in her hair, the shadows that liked to brush her face. And the shadows-those shadows reminded her of the safety of darkness. How it can heal as well as hurt. It reminded Gwyn of a scar handed, shadow singer who was kind and strong. Who had saved her and seen her at her worst but never doubted her.

He was the one who helped to remind her that the darkness was more of a comfort-that it was far safer than anyone thought. The darkness was a haven of sorts, protecting her from the memories that seemed even darker than the world around her. 

So in moments like these, moments in which she couldn’t sleep, Gwyn would wander around the library. Was she really allowed to do this? Well, Gwyn would rather not think about that. 

In the aisle she’d roam, sometimes shelving books to get a head start on the next day, sometimes just to roam. To feel the presence of knowledge around her and smell parchment and ink. 

Gwyn loved the library, it was one of the few places she felt safe… even when things seemed to spiral out of control in her mind. The library always seemed to comfort her. And ever since Nesta and Cassian took over the house of the wind, the house had been helping comfort her as well. 

Nesta had told her of the house’s heart and what it was like and sometimes Gwyn wondered what it would be like and if she should venture down. Maybe just to interact with the house, or maybe to prove that she was over her trauma. 

However, reason would always enter Gwyn’s mind. She might have to relive parts of that night again and-and… and Gwyn wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t ready for her wakely state to be dragged into the dream one.  Filled with nightmares and memories that still haunted her. 

“Gwyn?” 

Gwyn looked up to see Nesta standing at the end of the aisle, her brow furrowed and mouth bending down in a concerned sort of manner. 

“Nesta, what are you doing here?”

Nesta gave Gwyn a look before gesturing towards the floors, “The house woke me up. And it brought me here.” 

Gwyn gave Nesta a soft smile before nodding, “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get ahead on some work. Merrill is surely going to give me more.” 

Nesta tilted her head and Gwyn’s smile wavered just for a moment. Then Nesta nodded slowly. 

“Maybe if you start reading it’ll help you sleep.”

“Maybe.”

The silence between the two of them was heavy and Gwyn felt something in her chest begin to squeeze. She was lying, lying to her friend so easily. It felt wrong. Something bitter began forming on Gwyn's tongue and she sighed. 

"Tomorrow, after training... Emerie, you and I can talk."

Nesta nodded, something in her shifting as her shoulders relaxed and her face softened. 

"Of course Gwyn. I'll see you tomorrow." 

Gwyn nodded slowly, turning away from her friend towards the shelves and shadows, "Tomorrow." 

Listening to the sound of her friend retreating Gwyn let out a sigh. She couldn't keep in things like this or at least she shouldn't. That was why she had her sisters. To rely on and share burdens with. It was just difficult to remember she was included in the sharing of burdens part. 

However, Gwyn had the unfortunate tendency to forget things like this, often. Forget that she should share and support instead of just supporting. It led to problems she probably could have solved with help. But she was nearly as stubborn as her problems were. So, she kept things to herself.  

Wandering back into the darkness, she took in a breath letting it cover her and help her shed her most scarred parts. At least in the darkness, Gwyn could be strong. Strong then she ever was in places that shined brightly and brought back memories. Rooting her in the belief she would always be the same and never change. 

Humming softly, Gwyn began to sing. To herself and the shadows that helped her. To the darkness that seemed to make her whole again. 

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Waking Comfort (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader)

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language, brief violence (in a flashback), implied/referenced trauma (unspecified) Warnings: N/A Summary: Unable to sleep on a cold day, Bela Dimitrescu tries to find comfort in her favorite servant... only to end up being the one doing the comforting. Notes: This is super self indulgent, because my dreams have been murdering me recently. Reader is a selective mute/partially nonverbal, implied neurodivergent (unspecified), gender neutral but written with a non-binary person in mind, with non-specific past trauma. Basically this is somewhat of a self-insert fic but I've smudged some lines to make it more relatable for other people.

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

In the early hours of the day, when the sun had yet to reach its peak, a cold quiet fell over Castle Dimitrescu. Most inhabitants were of a nocturnal persuasion, and lay sleeping soundly at this hour. Those few that thrived in the sun moved softly, with caution, daring not to awaken their masters. Oh, if only they knew that one Lady of the house was awake, prowling the corridors with marked intent. What a chill it would send down their spines- what lovely fear would permeate the household.

Ah, but that was not what Bela Dimitrescu desired, at least not for now. No, what she needed was something she would never admit out loud. It was a “base” need, one that all humans felt, and so she feared that it was beneath her. There was only one person that she could trust for this: A servant, experienced in all matters needed of them, level-headed, compassionate… and, most importantly, selectively mute.

Over the past year, Bela had found herself growing closer to you, much to her own surprise. The two of you had started to bond through reading, after you had helped her reorganize a mess in the library (left by none other than Lady Daniela). Since then, you had proven to be a valuable ally, always finding creative solutions to the family’s problems. From jury-rigging a set of climbing gear for repairs, to proof-reading all formal letters, there was hardly any part of Bela’s life that you hadn’t assisted with. All while only ever saying two or three sentences- short ones, at that.

Neither of you would ever forget the first (and only) time you spoke out loud. A would-be hunter had infiltrated the estate, through a damaged skylight (which you later repaired), intending to prove his worth by killing the nobility inside. By the time Bela arrived, after being notified by a terrified maiden, she found the situation had already been aptly handled. There you had stood, clutching an ornate, bloodied cane like a club. In front of you had been the unconscious hunter.

“You could have been hurt!” Bela had snapped, unable to stop herself, glad that her sisters hadn’t arrived yet. Then you had glanced at the man, then her, then back to the man. Something uncharacteristically dark had danced in your eyes.

“He said he was going to save me… from you. Called me defenseless,” you had snarled, poking the man with your cane as you did. “Rude.” Before Bela even had a chance to react, her sisters had appeared, disappointed to find the fight already over. They had fought over who would get to kill the hunter, and somewhere in that chaos you had slipped away without another word.

That day had replayed itself in Bela’s mind hundreds of times in her mind. Though she would not readily admit it, that had been the day that her casual affection for you had started to turn into something more serious. These days she didn’t even know how to describe your relationship- after all, you had never told her how you felt. But you had held her, closely, fingers running through her hair while she fought off memories from someone else’s life. Held her in your arms, as she held you, staving off the cold like it was all you had ever known.

This was what she wanted. Your touch, your comfort. All that stood in her way was a familiar question: Where were you? Master of your environment, schedule constantly in flux, you were rarely where anyone expected you to be, especially when you were prone to taking on whatever tasks others hadn’t had time to finish. So Bela searches, quickly, around places the day-shift tends to gather. She’s careful not to be seen, even though she knows the maidens aren’t likely to gossip where her family might hear. In the end she catches a hint of your scent near the servants’ quarters, and curses herself for not checking there sooner.

Your room is one of the only single-occupancy rooms in this wing. Only senior staff were allowed within these places, most of them rotating out as they “lost their usefulness”. The fact that you had slept in the same bed every night for six months was a testament to your skill. It’s the kind of thought that brings Bela some semblance of warmth in her chest. Still, the thought alone is not enough, so she slowly eases your door open.

Her ears strain against the silence, listening for the pattern of your breathing, or the telltale murmurs that would announce your awakening. Instead, the first things she hears are little gasps, then the shifting of fabric. Dreams of some sort have you turning and tossing, lungs getting hungry in their pursuit of air. It’s not immediately clear whether or not you are enjoying the dream. Were these good gasps, like those that Daniela often cooed about when she praised her maiden? Or were these the same kind that sometimes haunted Bela herself?...

A whimper cuts through the air, and suddenly Bela loses all patience. Practically running, she crosses the room in an instant, concern etched into her brow. One hand cautiously reaches for your blanket, pulling it back enough for her to slide in next to you. It’s a risk, one that could make you wake up with a panic, but it’s one she’s willing to take. After all, she had asked you about this sort of thing before. Though you couldn’t form full sentences, you had experience “miming” things, and Bela was quite clever with her “yes or no” questions.

When she carefully wraps an arm around your waist, she does so with confidence. Beneath her touch you stiffen, back going as tense as possible, but you stop shaking. A few more gasps leave you, and Bela wonders whether or not she should wake you up. Less than a minute later the decision is made for her. All the sudden your gasping turns to a sharp exclamation, body jerking hard, eyes snapping open. Tension coils through your muscles, driving your already overstimulated brain overboard.

Before Bela can even try to comfort you, you sit up, quickly turning so your legs dangle off the edge of the bed. Muffled sobs pass your lips as you hold your face in your hands. Memories struggle against each other behind your eyes, blocking out every other sensation. Your jaw is clenched, hard, and you struggle to breathe between shakes. A hand touches your back, but quickly moves when you flinch in response. It takes a minute for you to even process who else is with you. Once you do, some of the tension bleeds from your body.

“If you’d rather be alone right now, I understand,” Bela says, quietly, as soon as she thinks you’ll be able to understand her. For a moment you can’t bring yourself to respond, and you can feel her side of the mattress shifting, like she’s getting ready to leave. Panic springs up in your chest again, so you quickly reach a hand out in her direction. Thankfully she knows what to expect at this point, easily finding your hand in the dark, gently taking it within her own. “One squeeze for yes, two for no?”

You squeeze, once.

“Do you want me to hold you?” Bela asks, trying to hide the hopefulness in her voice. It makes you pause, considering, even though you’re still overwhelmed by your sensory inputs. In the end you squeeze her hand twice. “No worries, my dear. Don’t be tempted to push yourself just for my sake.” Somehow she always knew how to read you like an open book. Even with the… difficulty of communicating with you. Not that she had ever complained, or even thought about it. Knowing you, and caring for you, made any effort feel as easy as breathing.

A few minutes pass without another word being said. Sometimes Bela gives your hand a little squeeze, just to check in, and you always return it. Soon enough your brain starts to relax, loosening its vice-like grip on your motor controls. Once again you can ease the tension in your muscles. Then you find yourself rubbing your thumb against Bela’s hand, moving in soft circular motions, head turning so you can smile at her. Even if it’s too dark for you to see much, you know that her eyes see you just fine.

“Feeling any better?” She asks, donning a smile of her own. One squeeze. “Is there anything more I can do to help?” A pause, then one squeeze. Now that your limbs don’t feel as staticky, there’s only one thing on your mind: Cuddling. You’re moving before you know it, briefly letting go of Bela’s hand so you can get closer to her, pressing your face into her neck and giving her a soft kiss. Then you’re falling against the bed, on your side, looking up at your partner with a grin. It doesn’t take her long to get the message, shifting back onto her side so she can hold you for real this time. One of your hands goes to rest on her back, to serve as your translator for the rest of the night. “I love you,” Bela says, without even thinking.

She freezes up afterwards, realizing that this is the first time she’s ever said the words out loud to you. For a moment she’s scared, a feeling alien to her, but she refuses to back down. It pays off a few seconds later, incredibly so, when you return the words the best way you can: One squeeze.

[maddiwrites]

The Hybrid (I)

Pairing: JJ x Reader

Summary: The Pogues rekindle their friendship with their old childhood best friend and JJ’s first crush, Y/N. Old feelings resurface for JJ and Y/N, possibly leading to a summer neither one of them could ever forget. Due to past trauma, Y/N is reluctant to let anyone into her heart, but JJ never backs down from a challenge, even if he knows it will come back to haunt him in the end.

Note: Thank you for being patient with me as I slowly write this series. I had this idea a long time ago and I’m not finding motivation to write it but the inspiration comes and go. I smile with every comment that is left on my fics and I’m so grateful for this community. Thank you for letting me pursue my creative writing without judgement. Love you guys! (Also, yes. If you didn’t see my last note, I based YN’s family off of the Gilmore Girls characters. That’s who I picture as them.)

Word Count: 8k

 Masterlist   Prologue 

You wake up to someone falling on your bed next to you with a dramatic sigh. Knowing exactly who it is, you choose to ignore her and try getting back to the dreamless sleep you were peacefully having before you woke up.

That is, until she sighs again. 

You flip onto your back and stare up at your ceiling fan that’s quickly spinning above you. “What, Rory?”

“How did it go with Andre and that boy?”

You look at her with one brow raised. “You woke me up to hear about Andre’s love life? That hardly sounds like you. You don’t care about high school drama or hookups.”

“You’re right,” Rory says. “But I thought I would ease you into what I actually need to tell you.”

You turn on right side and look at your sister confused. “What?”

She sighs. “The cafe’s basement flooded last night. Mom needs us there to help her clean up and take inventory on what’s salvageable.”

You turn back on you backside and close your eyes, exhaling a deep sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Unfortunately not,” Rory says and pats you twice on your covered thigh as she sits up. “Come on. I made you pre-cafe coffee. It’s sitting in the kitchen.”

You throw your sheets off of you and trudge to the bathroom to brush your teeth and clean your face. It’s about 8 a.m. At least you were able to get about six hours of sleep. 

Last night, it was hard to let your brain rest to fall asleep. You kept tossing and turning, thinking about the blonde Pogue who walked you home. You missed how easy it was to talk to someone who you felt truly knew you. Your banter rolled off your tongue easily and you never had to worry about offending him because you knew him like the back of your hand. You knew what he could take and what he couldn't. 

Talking to him brought back childhood memories you had hidden deep in your mind. How JJ would constantly poke you until you ripped into a smile on days that were grey. How you used to steal John B’s bandanas until he was chasing you around his house to get them back. How you would draw a mustache and a unibrow on Pope’s face when he fell asleep by the water. 

Those days felt like they were decades ago. So far away, you didn’t know if you’d be able to reach for them again. If it was even possible to get back. 

You thought about texting him. Thanks for walking me back. We should all get together soon! You had written out. But then you deleted the whole message, telling yourself it was because you didn’t know if he even had the same number. But deep down, you were just afraid of the rejection. 

Its been about three years since the four of you had been together in one place. You don’t know what they’ve been through or if they’ve changed. They for sure as hell don’t know what you’ve been through. You don’t know if they're dynamic has changed. Clearly you and JJ can still joke with each other but what about John B and Pope? You heard about John B’s father disappearing at sea, most people believing he’s dead, but John B holding onto hope that’s he’s alive. You always thought about calling him to reach out and offer your condolences. But for the same reason you didn’t text JJ, you never called. It didn’t feel like your place. They had Kie for that now. A little part of you felt jealous of her, like she had replaced you and any memory of you. She seemed nice, but she wasn’t you.

“Ready?” Rory pops her head in to your room as you slip on a cropped plain white zip up jacket over your cropped black tank. 

“As I’ll ever be,” You say and snag the car keys out of her hands. “Don’t even think about it. I’m driving.”

Rory rolls her eyes. “I want to get there safely.”

“And I want to get there quickly.”

“Fine. But we’re taking my car. It actually has doors.”

For your sixteenth birthday, your grandparents gifted both you and Rory your own individual cars and even let you pick them out. Rory chose a black 2020 Honda Civic for it’s safety features and reputation for longevity as if she was planning on handing it down to her future kids. And you picked out a white 2020 Jeep Wrangler with a hard top that pops off along with the doors for a very open and thrilling ride. Everyone but you called it a death trap, but you found it to be the perfect summer car. 

You park Rory’s boring Honda Civic in the back of the cafe in a lot used specifically for employees. The cafe is already booming with teens and families, waiting for their morning coffees and fresh pastries. Kids your age are running around behind the counter with sweat dripping down their brow bone to get everyone’s orders out in a timely manner. 

In the back of the store, your mom walks up the steps from the basement with two large trash bags and immediately notices the two of you. “Oh good. You’re here. Rory, help the girls behind the counter. The dishwasher’s broken and poor Hailey is hand washing everything. Y/N, come with me downstairs.”

“Why does Rory get the fun job?” You grumble and follow your mom back downstairs after she tosses the two trash bags. 

“Because she’s actually nice to the customers.”

“Treat others how you would like to be treated. Isn’t that what everyone always says?” You smirk. You never agreed with the phrase ‘the customer is always right.’ It’s complete bullshit and being the employee shouldn’t mean letting yourself getting verbally abused by a ‘Karen’ on the other side of the counter. 

The basement is used for the cafe’s storage, lined with wooden shelves Steve put together that hold to go cups, back up espresso machines, boxes of coffee and food and ingredients, etc. Now all the boxes are dark and sopping, creating puddles on the concrete floor. 

“Oh my god. Mom. How did this happen?”

“Jenky water pipe busted in the middle of the night,” Steve walks down the stairs and passes your mom a knowing look. It didn’t surprise you that he was here. He’s the jack of all trades. Owns his own automotive shop, builds a lot of his own furniture, actually cooks a decent meal, and has the same outlook on customer service as you do. He was probably your mom’s first call. “Talked to the plumber. They can’t get here until at least noon.”

“Noon? We’ll be underwater by noon. I might as well turn all my employees into a swim team,” Your mom says.

Steve shakes his head. “I was able to hold the leak until he gets here. You should be fine.”

Steve was the first person that actually helped your mother out when's she moved to the Cut. Six months pregnant, she pushed her car into his automotive shop after it broke down on the side of the road. Their banter was similar to the one you and JJ have. He helped save your mom money by building yours and Rory’s cribs, changing table, and dressers. And ever since, the two of them had been connected by the hip, although they both refuse to admit it. You think the pair are just trying to deny the love they clearly share for each other. And you think the main reason for that is because of the incident four years ago with your mom’s ex boyfriend. No thanks to you.

 “Look at you constantly building your resume,” You smirk at him. 

Steve scoffs. “It’s more than what you’re doing.”

You roll your eyes. Steve is the closest thing you have to a father. He practically helped raise you with your mom. He’s the one you turn to whenever a fight with your mom goes too far, which isn't too often but it happens. He usually lets you stay at his house for the night to let you cool off. But he’ll never sugar coat his advice when it comes time for him to give it. Even if you don’t ask for it. He knows growing up with Rory has been challenging. She was clearly your mom’s favorite, or at least that’s what you thought. She has a 4.0 GPA with a realistic dream to get into Brown University and study journalism. She played by every rule, never got into trouble, and spent most of her free nights getting ahead of her school work or staying late at the cafe with an open book from the library across the street. She was an absolute angel to everyone else, making you look like her evil twin. 

You glare at him before turning to your mom with crossed arms. “What do you want me to do, Mom?”

“Actually honey. Can you go to Heywards and grab more coffee filters and napkins. The water soaked right through the plastic wrapping on our last box.”

You nod, leaving your mom and Steve to clean up the basement themselves. Before heading out, you sneak behind the counter and make yourself a quick coffee to go.

“Where you going?” Rory asks as she reaches behind you to grab a banana for her customer at the register.

“Heywards to grab a couple things for Mom.”

“Oh. Make sure to grab toilet paper while you’re out. I think we’re almost out of it.”

“Got it.” 

Heywards is only a short drive from your mom’s cafe. It’s the closest convenient store that isn’t crazy pricey. It’s where your mom gets all her supplies whenever she runs out of things before shipment gets there. 

You use to always come here when you were younger with the boys, each of you, even Pope, stealing a small bag of chips or a candy bar here and there. Little did any of you know, Mr. Heyward caught your thieving hands every time but never said anything. 

The bell above the door chimes when you walk into the store. You know this place as well as you know the cafe, finding the toilet paper and coffee filter immediately. 

When Mr. Heyward looks up from the counter, his smile grows. He can pick you out of a crowd anywhere, but he hasn’t seen you in a long time. Last time he saw you, you had braces and overgrown bushy brows. Now you had bushed hair and shaved legs. 

“Hi. Mr. Heyward,” You grin shyly at him. You don’t know how he’s going to react to see you, unsure of what Pope might have told him about you. 

“Little Miss Y/L/N? Is that you?” Heyward smiles widely, pulling your own lips into a wider smile. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy with school and my mom’s cafe...” Both of those things were a lie. You just avoid the Cut to avoid the Pogues. 

“How’s the fam?” 

“They’re good,” You say as Heyward hands you your bags. “Mom says hello by the way. I’m actually taking these to her store now.”

“Well, don’t be a stranger. We miss your smiling face around her. Anette, too.” Heyward says, mentioning his wife. 

“Tell her I said hi.”

“Of course, darling.” 

Heyward and Anette always had a special place in their heart for you and Rory. They’re not one for gossip, but they knew a little bit about what your mom’s been through and have heard plenty of stories about your grandparents. They always thought, despite your mom’s background, that you and your sister were raised impressively. Anette always hoped that one day Pope and Rory would get together. Everyone always wanted their child to be with Rory. 

As your about to leave the store, the bell chimes again with another customer. Only it’s not another customer. It’s Pope and John B. They don’t see you at first, and you wonder if maybe you can sneak out without them seeing you. But something about that felt wrong. Especially because Heyward would more than likely mention to them that you were here. 

Pope sees you first and stops in his tracks. “Y/N?” 

“Hey, guys. Long time no see,” You smile at both of them. You bite down on your lip awkwardly when you meet John B’s stare. You don’t know if you should mention anything about his dad’s disappearance. But what would you say? Sorry? What good would that do?

“How’ve you been?” Pope gives you a small side hug, then John B. 

You shrug. “You know, living the dream.”

“How’s life as a Hybrid?” John B smirks. 

You roll your eyes playfully and groan. “Oh god. Never call me that again.”

You may be considered a Hybrid by everyone else, but you would never put yourself into that category. You grew up a Pogue, the same way everyone else did around you. The only thing tying you to the Kooks are your grandparents. 

“Why?” John B smirks. “I wish I was a Hybrid.”

You smirk back. “Maybe you will be one day. I hear you have a Kook of your own for arm candy.”

You saw a faint hint of blush on John B’s cheek at the mention of his girlfriend but you don’t mention it. “Sarah, yeah. She’s not like the other Kooks.”

“I would hope not. Her brother’s a dick.”

“Yeah,” They laugh. 

“We miss you, you know.” John B says. Pope looks at you, trying to read your expression. John B’s not wrong. They do all miss you, especially Pope. He felt like you were the only one who really understood him. Of course his other friends are great, but you actually took the time to try and understand his passions. Like forensic science. 

“I miss you guys too. It’s been a while.”

“Well, hey. We’re actually all getting together tonight at my place. Nothing big. Just a bonfire and a couple beers. You should stop by,” John B says.

“Yeah,” Pope says, immediately getting hopeful that you’ll show up. 

Your smile falters. The invite makes your heart swell and your lungs contract. It’s an invite you’ve been wanting for three years. And now that you have it, you don’t know what to say. It’d be different if it was just the four of you like old times. But now there’s Kie and Sarah and although you have nothing against them, you’re afraid they won’t accept you. The thought of your boys picking them over you terrifies you. 

“Okay. Yeah, sure. I’ll try to swing by later.” 

Pope smiles wide and looks at his friend to see his reaction. John B grins and nods, almost impressed that you had agreed. But he saw the twitch in your lips when the question was asked. 

“Great. I guess we’ll see you later then.” 

You nod. “Okay. Bye guys.”

You suck in a deep breath when the fresh air outside of Heyward’s store brushes over you. Your heart thumps wildly with both excitement and nerves when you’re finally able to collect your thoughts. You don’t know what you’ll do tonight, but the possibilities can change your entire summer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You spent the rest of the day mopping up the cafe’s basement and rearranging the shelves. You smelled of sweat and coffee grounds by the time you were done and dreamt of the shower you would be taking when you got home. 

Rory drove you home after the two of you closed up the cafe for the day. Neither of you said much. Rory was exhausted from running around behind the counter and you were too busy thinking about whether you’d go back to the place you used to call your second home.

You took a longer shower than usual, still pondering what your night would be like. Your head was telling you to stay home but your heart pulled you in the direction of the Cut. You yearned to hear about what the future held for Pope, and listen to John B retell stories of when you were kids, and be able to stare into JJ’s bright blue eyes without him noticing. 

You changed into a pair of jean shorts and a plain red cropped tank. Rory walks into your room as your brushing out your hair and looks at you as if you lost your mind.

“Are you out of your mind? You can’t wear that,” She says.

You brows scrunch together in confusion. “What are you talking about? I wear shit like this all the time.”

“Not to the Country Club, you don’t.” That’s when it hits you. Today’s been so hectic, you forgot what day it was. “It’s Sunday.”

Sunday dinner at the Country Club is now a weekly commitment forced upon you by your grandparents. Each week, your mom, sister, and you are forced to spend one dinner with your grandma and grandpa. This is basically your mom’s payment back for sending you and Rory to Kook Academy. Only they actually pay for the dinner. It’s usually the longest two hours of your entire week. It’s hard to listen to your grandfather rant about Real Estate and your grandma slyly critique your mother in almost every aspect of her life. 

“Shit. I completely forgot,” You say.

“Well, you better change. We’re leaving in about five minutes,” Rory says then plucks a gold necklace from your dresser. “Oh and can I wear this tonight?”

You sigh. “Sure.”

You change into a baby blue wrap around dress and pin your wet hair into a half up half down due. It’s gonna have to work for the limited time you have to get ready. After applying a thin layer of makeup to look the least bit presentable, you meet your mom and sister by the front door.

“Finally,” Your mom says when she sees you. 

“Sorry. I didn’t realize it was Sunday.”

“It’s okay, honey. I just don’t think I can handle another late remark from Mom today.” She looks you up and down and grins. “You look great.”

Despite the many fiery fights you and your mom can have, she is also your best friend. It’s kind of like a love hate relationship. Steve says it’s because you’re exactly like your mom - almost like a sixteen year old version of her. 

You really hope that isn’t true. You’re not ready to have a kid in two years. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Your grandparents are already sitting at a round table in the corner of the country club by the two tall windows that reach up to the ceiling with a view looking out into the golf course. The best seat in the house for the richest a holes on the island. 

“Lorelai,” Your grandmother grins, but you can instantly tell it’s sarcastic. “Did you have to walk here?”

You speak up before your mom could. “Sorry Grandma. It’s my fault we’re late.”

Your grandparents are hard on your mom but easier on you and Rory, especially Rory.

“Well, you’re here now,” Your grandpa says. He’s usually the mediator between your mom and grandma. Although he’s usually sucks at it. “Sit. Sit.”

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, JJ shuffles through his many coworkers with his apron in one hand and a piece of fried calamari from Miss Carol’s appetizer in the other. 

“JJ -” She scolds and slaps his hand away from going in for a second piece. 

“Good evening Miss Carol,” JJ smirks and makes his way to the area between the kitchen and dining room where most of the servers and bust boys hang out. Some of the boys slap him on the back or shove him by the shoulder, chuckling to themselves. “What’s going on boys? Busy crowd?”

“What are you doing here? You never work Sundays,” His friend, Mitch, says. 

Luke Maybank was behind on several bills - worse than it’s ever been. They already shut off their electricity and JJ wanted to make sure the water wouldn’t be next. 

But JJ shrugs nonchalantly. “Little extra dough can't hurt.”

“Well, you picked a good day,” Raymond walks up to the blonde, rolling his sleeves. “You got Kook Royalty and their Hybrid offsprings in your section.” 

“What?” JJ looks through the small square Plexiglas on the swinging door. He knows exactly where to look and immediately sees you sitting with King and Queen Kook, looking absolutely miserable, pushing around your food with your fork. 

“Damn, Maybank. Almost broke your neck - you turned so fast.”

“Shut up, Easterling. I was just seeing how crowded we were,” JJ lied. He really just wanted to see if you were here. And now that he sees you are, he’s a little nervous to do his own damn job.

Raymond Easterling chuckles. “Yeah, I know what you were looking at. But don’t get your hopes up. There’s a reason Kooks call that girl the Heart Sucker. Not even the high and powerful JJ Maybank could get a piece of that.”

The guys around JJ and Raymond chuckle and nod in agreement, hearing the stories of how you’d reject every single guy that’s ever asked you out. Sometimes you’d go on a few dates, trying to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but then things would quickly become too much, and you’d get overwhelmed. 

JJ didn’t like the way Raymond talked about you or how the others laughed at your expense. His hands clenched into fists, tempted to throw a punch in Ray’s cocky face.  The guy’s just being a jerk because he’s one of the guys that got rejected by you, he thought. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” JJ shakes his head and ties his apron around his waist to distract his hands.

“No?” Raymond challenges him. “You think I’m wrong? You think you could pull the infamous Hybrid over there?”

JJ glances back through the window. You’re looking at your grandma with a clearly forced grin. You’re twirling your hair between your fingers, a habit you picked up when you were little to do when you’re bored. JJ would find you doing that in school all the time. 

You’re gorgeous, he thought. It’s no wonder that almost every guy on this island has tried to make a pass on you, including JJ himself, but his remarks always come off as playful, afraid of actually telling you how he feels about you. His fantasies about you went further than just getting you between the sheets. He could picture getting married, having children, and growing old together. Years ago, the two of you would talk about your future. Neither one of you cared about money or fancy jobs. All you wanted was to be free - of this island, of each other’s families, of responsibilities placed on you from birth. You hold the same values as JJ, and he’s never met another person like you. 

But JJ has a hard exterior. No one other than his best friends know his true heart, and he wasn’t going to let someone like Raymond Easterling find out about his soft spot for you. He would never hear the end of it.

JJ looks at you one last time. You’re talking to Rory, your face in his direction. This time you’re smiling, probably discussing something other than your grandparent’s expectations of you. He’d kill to see that smile every single day.

What’s the worst that could happen? You reject him? Yeah, that might kill JJ inside, but maybe you’d still be his friend, or continue to be acquaintances like you are now. As long as he gets to see you, he’d be okay. There was always the future. But who knows? Maybe you’d say yes? He’ll never know unless he tries. Right?

JJ fakes the same cocky grin that Raymond wears. “I haven’t failed yet.”

The guys around him whistle and shake their heads with smiles. 

“All right, Maybank. Let’s make a bet. I’ll give you one hundred dollars to get Y/N Y/L/N in the sack by the fourth of July.”

JJ scoffs. “You like giving away free money?” He ignored his racing heart at the thought of being that intimate with you.

Raymond nods. “Okay. Let’s put your money where your mouth is. Get her to say ‘I love you’ by the end of the season and I’ll raise you an extra hundred and cover all your dishwasher shifts in September.”

JJ raises his brows with surprise. No one offers to take the dishwashing shift. Sometimes the boys are pulled back there when the kitchen is short staffed and it’s easily one of the worst jobs at the Club.

This bet was almost too good of an opportunity to pass up. “Deal.” JJ says.

The boys shake hands on it and the other guys whisper to each other about how intrigued they are to see this play out.

JJ wipes his sweaty palms against his apron and pushes the door open to approach your table, hoping he can hear you over his thudding heart. 

“Good evening folks. May I take those empty plates out of your way?”

You look up at the voice you know so well and a smile raises on your lips. JJ meets your eyes and he winks at you, splattering your heart in flutters. 

“Please.” Your grandmother pushes her plate away from her, stuffed with filet and red wine.

“JJ,” Your mom grins up at him. Growing up, your mom always had a soft spot for the blonde Pogue. She’s heard the stories about his father, mostly from Steve, who actually grew up with Luke Maybank, his cousin. As a child, he was sent to live with Luke Maybank and his single father. Lets just say, he’s not surprised by the way Luke turned out. “Look at you. You’re all grown up now. Last time I saw you, Y/N was still pushing your head in the sand for stealing her popsicle.”

“Yeah. I quickly learned no one should mess with Y/N and her food,” JJ says.

���Never stopped you though,” You smirk at him.

“Lorelai. Who is this?” Your grandma asks, disregarding the boy himself.

“Mom,” Lorelai gives her mom a warning look. “This is JJ Maybank. He went to school with Y/N and Rory.” Lorelai knew to play it safe with her wording. She didn’t know where you and JJ stood. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him and she knew better than to ask. 

“Nice to meet you,” JJ says politely. “I’d shake your hand but mine are kinda full.” He motions to the plates in his hand.

“That’s quite all right.” Your grandma’s smile is so forced, it makes you uncomfortable. 

“I won’t hold you up. Has your server been around with the dessert menu?” JJ looks at you. “We have chocolate cake tonight.”

Heat rushes up your neck. Not because of the cake itself but because JJ remembered your favorite dessert. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles. It was safe to save you were a choco-holic. The boys use to make it for you every year for your birthday. It usually came out burnt, none of them ever remembering how to properly make it. But it was all you needed to feel like a very special girl. 

“Your favorite,” Rory elbows you.

Your grandma cringes. “Sounds like diabetes on a plate.”

“Mom,” Lorelai scolds. 

“What?” She asks, not understanding the concept of a filter.

Now heat rushes to your cheeks for an entire different reason. “He did. We’re not doing dessert tonight. Thank you, though.”

JJ nods but feels disappointed by the way your face flinched at your grandmother’s comment. 

“My pleasure,” He says like he was taught to do and excuses himself to drop the plates off in the back before he can say anything else that would probably get him fired.

Your mom looks at your with raised brows. “He’s cute, honey.”

“Lorelai, please. He’s the busboy,” Your grandma says.

“He’s a good kid, Mom.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” You stand up. “I have to use the restroom.”

Rory gives you a knowing grin as you walk away from the table. When you walk into the hallway between the dining area and the front lobby, you immediately feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Sometimes just the presence of your grandparents and their pompous judgements can be suffocating. You do your best to bite your tongue around them, excusing yourself when you feel yourself getting heated. 

JJ catches a glimpse of your light blue dress out of the corner of his eye when he rounds the corner to collect the plates off a different table. He looks over his shoulder at Raymond, who’s staring at the blonde watching you, and winks.

“Hey, Y/N,” JJ says, walking up to you.

You look up from your phone and immediately smile. “Hey. I was actually hoping I’d catch you out here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You nervously tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. “I’m sorry about my grandmother. She can be...”

JJ shakes his head. “Hey. It’s okay. I work for Kooks almost every single day. I’m use to it.”

You sigh. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Don’t apologize for something you can’t control,” JJ says. “Besides, that’s probably the nicest she’s ever been to me.”

You hide your face in your hands. “Stop. You’re making it worse.”

JJ laughs and takes your wrists in his hands, slowly pulling them away from your face. Your eyes shoot up to his, immediately feeling a tingling feeling run through your skin, straight to your heart. 

“It’s okay. I promise,” He says softly. His voice is so sincere that you have no other option but to believe him. It almost makes your feel guiltier, wondering how much bullshit he’s been through with ungrateful Kooks that it’s so easy for him to forgive and forget.

“Okay,” Your voice is a whisper, taken off guard by how close he is to you and how he still hasn't let go of your hands. 

In that same moment, JJ realizes he’s still holding you and gently removes his hands. He coughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck, where sweat begins to bubble. Why is he so nervous?

“So um...” You say, suddenly feeling nervous too. “You going to John B’s tonight?”

JJ’s eyes shoot up in surprise. How did you know that? “Yeah. I’m heading over there after work.”

“I saw him and Pope at Heywards earlier today and they invited me over. I wasn’t sure if I should come or not.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Because it’s different now, you wanted to say. But you didn’t because you feel like the elephant in the room would only grow. And you didn’t want to admit you were nervous to meet Kie and Sarah outside of school. 

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You should definitely come. The boys miss you.”

You pretend like a little piece of your heart didn’t just break when JJ didn’t say ‘we.’ 

“What time do you get off of work?”

“Around 9ish.”

You nod. “I can pick you up if you’d like and we could go together?”

Your heart races after you suggest it. What if he says no? Why were you feeling this way? This is the same kid you use to make fun of for pouring milk into his bowl before his cereal. 

“Yeah. That’d be perfect.”

“Great!” Your phone pings with a text from Rory, telling you that your grandparents are wondering where you are. “Shit. I have to get back. I’ll see you at nine?”

“See you then,” JJ nods and turns back to the kitchen. When his eyes meet Raymond’s, he’s reminded of what he agreed to. Almost surprised how quickly he forgot about it. You were able to take his mind off of anything without even trying. He clears his throat to get rid of the giddy grin he was wearing after talking to you, wanting to look tough and casual in front of his coworker. “Easy.” He says to him. But that felt anything but easy. He could vomit with nerves.

“There’s still plenty of time for you to screw up, Maybank.”

JJ huffs. He’s not wrong. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

You drive up to the front of the country club and park in front of the main entrance. It’s 8:57. You’re early and will look eager. So you wait until 9:06 to text him that you’re here.

You changed into a pair of dark washed denim shorts, a yellow cropped tube top, a grey flannel, and navy converse. You changed your outfit about four times before deciding on your first one, not wanting to look too casual or too dressed up. 

For the last three years, you wondered when the four of you would get back together as a group. You wondered if it would ever happen. And now that two Kooks are involved, you feel more nervous than excited.

You jump when the passenger seat door opens, lost in the depth of your own head. JJ smiles, not seeing your reaction.”Cool ride,” he says and looks around the interior. 

“Thanks,” you say, pulling out into the road.

“I got you something,” JJ says.

You glance at him with furrowed brows. What could he have possibly gotten you since you saw him last? A book mark from the Country Club’s gift shop?

JJ reaches into his backpack and pulls out a plate with clear wrap around it. Your mouth drops when you see the chocolate cake on a plate in his hands, the smell immediately hitting your nose with pure delight.

“You saved me a piece?” You jump in your seat excitedly.

“Had to hide it good too or else Miss Carol would have had my ass handed to me,” JJ jokes and even pulls out two forks. He undoes the wrapping and cuts off a piece. He waits until you hit a stop sign and says, “Open up.”

You look at him and immediately open your mouth. He gently places the fork between your lips and you take the piece of cake off with your teeth. Like a baby.

Your eyes close with pure pleasure. “Oh my god. That’s amazing.”

“Miss Carol does know how to bake a mean cake,” JJ says and takes a bite of his own.

“Another one,” You say, glancing at the cake again. Like you said, choco-holic. “Please.” You say when JJ teases you by holding the fork away from you.

JJ laughs. “I like hearing you beg.”

You slap him in the arm with the back of your hand. “In your dreams, Maybank.”

“You got that right, Y/L/N.”

The two of you finish the cake with only a few bites each. Small but rich in chocolate that leaves you craving more. You were gonna have to meet this Miss Carol woman. 

After he puts the plate back in his bag, JJ reaches for the aux cord, but you quickly slap his hand away. “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re seriously gonna make me listen to this the entire way to John B’s?”

You scoff. “I’ll have you know Blink-182 is one of my favorite bands.”

“It’s also soccer moms’ favorite band,” JJ laughs at you.

You turn up the volume, blasting ‘All the Small Things’ and point to your ear. “Sorry. Can’t hear you!”

JJ rolls his eyes but laughs along with you, even bopping his head to the beat. You drive with the windows down, dancing and singing along to a bunch of throwback songs with JJ as if the two of you have been doing this forever. 

You pull up to John B’s and park behind his dad’s old van, better known as The Twinkie. When you turn down the music, JJ looks at you with a shake in his head. “Next time, I’m driving.”

“What was wrong with my driving?”

“We’re in the Outer Banks, Sparky, not NASCAR.”

You scoff and follow behind JJ who’s leading the way up John B’s driveway. As you get closer, you smell the smoky scent of a bonfire nearby and eventually hear John B’s laugh mixed in with a female’s. Your smile falters as nerves gather in the pit of your stomach. 

“What’s wrong?” JJ asks.

“Nothing,” You say, but JJ easily catches your lie and gives you a knowing look. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Who? Pope and John B? I’m pretty sure they like you more than me even after three years -”

“Not them, you idiot,” You shove him playfully by the shoulder as you two let yourselves inside. “Sarah and Kie.”

“Don’t you go to school with them?”

“Yeah, but we don’t talk,” You say quietly, not wanting them to hear you.

“Hm.”

“What?” JJ shrugs. “Nothing. I just didn’t think you cared about what other people thought.”

“I don’t,” You say quickly. “But they're your best friends. It’s different.”

“You don’t need their approval. You technically were here first.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been replaced,” You try to say it as a joke and even throw a smirk in there. 

But JJ stops in his track and looks at you seriously. “No one can replace you. Not even if they tried.”

You open your mouth to respond, but you’re at a loss for words. It’s not a common occurrence that JJ gets all serious on you. Warmth covers you like a blanket and the longer he holds your stare, the weaker your knees become. 

“JJ! Is that you?” John B calls out from the backyard.

“Yeah,” JJ yells back. He opens the fridge in John B’s kitchen. “Want a beer?” He offers to you.

You shake your head. “No thanks.”

For the first time, you take in John B’s home. It looks the same as it did three years ago, only a lot messier. The pull out couch looks like its been used recently with blankets and sheets tossed about on it. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts are thrown messily on the coffee tables and the air smells faintly of old marijuana. 

JJ leads you out to the back where four people are gathered around a fire. Three out of the four immediately smile when the two of you approach them, but Kie’s eyes narrow and her head tilts with confusion.

Shit, you think. 

“You came!” Pope laughs and hops up from his beach chair and embraces you in a hug.

You laugh, not expecting the embrace, but welcoming it all the same. John B’s next, giving you a quick hug and shaking his head.

“I gotta say, I didn’t think you were going to come,” John B says.

“You can thank me for that later,” JJ says jokingly.

“Actually when I heard JJ was coming, I almost changed my mind and stayed home,” You joke and smirk JJ’s way.

“Just like old times,” Pope says, looking between you and the blonde. The banter felt like the yall never separated in the first place. 

“Hey, you know Sarah and Kie, right?” John B points to the girls. Sarah stands up to say hi, and eventually Kie follows her, not wanting to look rude, but stays off to the side, keeping her distance.

“Yeah,” You wave awkwardly. 

“Hey!” Sarah says sweetly. “I didn’t realize you guys use to all hang out.”

“Y/N grew up down the street,” JJ explains and sips at his beer. 

“You want a drink or something?” Pope asks you, not knowing JJ already did.

“No thank you,” You say again.

“You don’t drink?” Kie asks. It was the first thing she’s said to you.

“Not usually,” You say and hold her stare. You try to get a read on her, but she’s had to get a tell on. You can’t tell if she just doesn’t like you or just doesn’t know you. Either way, it makes you uneasy. 

“Here, I’ll go grab you a chair,” Pope says and walks to the side of the house to grab another beat up beach chair. 

As the night goes on, you feel the tension in your shoulders loosen and your body feel lighter. Most of the night was spent retelling childhood stories the four of you shared. Sarah would laugh at most of them, occasionally rolling her eyes at her boyfriend from the stupid shit he would do, although it sounds like he’s no different to you now. 

You talked about the time you and JJ stole a golf cart for a joy ride on Figure Eight, or when you and John B pranked Pope by putting a dead fish in his locker, or how you and John B learned how to play guitar from youtube tutorials. 

Midnight came around quickly and exhaustion was slowly taking over your body. It’s been a long day between the cafe flooding, dinner with your grandparents, and now this. 

JJ was the first to notice you slowly fading. 

“You okay?” He asks you quietly as everyone else is caught up in conversation. 

“Yeah,” You say, lazily grinning at him. 

“We can leave if you want,” He says.

“You’re not staying?” You ask. It sounded like everyone was planning to spend the night here. And as much as you wanted to, you just didn’t feel comfortable enough yet. 

JJ shrugs. “My dad’s out of town tonight. It’ll be nice to have the house to myself.” Before you can say anything, he stands and brushes his hands against his pants. “All right, losers. We’re out of here.”

“Aw, you’re leaving?” Sarah pouts.

“Yeah, I’m beat and Y/N’s my ride home,” JJ says.

You were glad he didn’t call you out for being tired. You didn’t want to look lame in front of everybody, especially Kie.

“Thanks for having me,” You say to everyone. It might have been John B’s house, but it was everyone’s night you intruded on.

John B stands up to hug you. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You nod. “I won’t. I promise.”

Pope hugs you next. “Text me when you get back safe.”

“I will.”

“Bye!” Sarah waves and Kie exhales a ring of smoke from her blunt.

You wave at them before following JJ back to your car. 

“Nuh-uh-uh,” JJ says. You didn’t realize you both walked to the driver’s side.

“What? No.”

JJ nods and holds his hands out for your keys. “I’m not dying tonight.” 

“You’ve been drinking and smoking all night,” You say. You didn’t think JJ was drunk or even that high, but you were not going to let a teenager with an ounce of alcohol in his system get behind the wheel. “Next time. For now, hold on to the cupholder.”

JJ sighs dramatically and goes to the other side of the car and hops in the passenger seat. 

This time you keep the music quiet, listening to the hum of the radio instead of your phone. 

“Take a left,” JJ says.

“JJ, I know where you live. And it’s not left.”

“Don’t you trust me?” 

You snicker. “Not in the slightest.”

JJ rolls his eyes. “Just take the left.”

You hold your hands up in surrender and take the left turn. He directs you for a couple more miles until he has you park in front of a 24 hour diner. 

“What are we doing here?” You ask.

“I’m in the mood for a milkshake.”

“We just had cake!” You say.

“Come on, Sparky. Show me what that mouth can do,” JJ smirks. 

You go to hit him again but he takes off running to the front entrance and pulls the door open. You chase after him, almost running into his back at the front host stand where JJ safely smirks at you in triumph.

“Two please,” He says to the hostess. 

The old cranky woman leads you to a booth off to the side next to a window without a word. 

A couple minutes later, a waitress walks by and asks if you’re ready to order. 

“Yes. One chocolate milkshake and one black and white milkshake,” JJ orders for both of you, already knowing what flavor you’d want.

“And fries, please.” You say. The waitress nods, takes your menus, and walks off. JJ raises his brow at the extra order. “What?” You shrug. “Just showing you what my mouth can do.”

JJ scoffs. “What a tease.” 

You playfully kick his shin under the table.

“Did you have fun tonight?” JJ asks.

“Yeah,” You answer. “Felt like old times. The girls are nice too.”

You were about to only mention Sarah, but you didn’t want to cause any issues with Kie. Not yet at least. Maybe she just needed time to warm up to you.

“See? I told you they wouldn’t bite.”

A couple minutes later, the waitress comes back with your milkshakes and fries. 

“How’s John B doing? You know, with the whole Big John thing?” You ask delicately, unsure of how JJ would react to you pestering about John B’s business. “I didn’t want to ask and bring the mood down,” You explain yourself although you don’t need to.

JJ shrugs. “He’s in denial I think. Won’t sign a death certificate until he sees a body. He could be worse, though.”

“Yeah,” You say softly. You don’t know what you would do if you were in that situation. In a way you felt lucky that you never knew your dad at all. It would be harder to lose him, knowing who he was.

You take a fry and dip it into your milkshake before taking a bite. This makes JJ freeze and look at you like you have two heads. 

“What?” You say with your mouth full.

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” You say and give him a look to do it.

JJ reluctantly picks up the fry and dunks it into his milkshake. He looks at the fry questioningly before popping it into his mouth. Somehow the sweetness of the milkshake and the saltiness of the french fry complement each other beautifully and his widen in pleasant surprise. 

“Oh wow,” JJ says.

“Told you,” You smirk.

You spend the next hour catching up, trying to fit the last three years into an hour. JJ does most of the talking because you want to know more about what John B, Pope, and JJ have been up to. Your life was so boring and depressing, you didn’t want to bore JJ with the details.

You drive JJ home and talk for a few minutes more when you park. He seems to be procrastinating getting out of the car, but you don’t mind. You could talk to him all night, suddenly not feeling tired anymore.

“All right. I’ll let you get home before the sun rises,” He says and opens the door. He pauses when his feet hit the ground and he looks back at you. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I have to work at the shop, why?”

“Well, there’s a storm coming in. John B and I might go out to surf the surge before it hits. You still surf?”

You scoff. “Do I still surf?”

JJ holds his hands up in surrender. “Just checking. You think you can handle the surge?”

“Let’s not forget who the better surfer is, JJ.”

“I didn’t. It’s still me.”

“You wish.”

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Now you have a point to prove. You have to show JJ that you’re still the better surfer. 

“I'll see you tomorrow,” You agree. 

“Great, it’s a date.” He winks and shuts the door before you can tell him otherwise. 

You giggle to yourself as JJ walks up the front yard and stay there until he you see he gets in safely. 

You pull out of the driveway, wishing he had asked you out on a real date. One that didn’t involve John B.

Tag list: @super-funky-bisexual​ @sunsetswithjj​ @moniamaybank​ @throwawayfish​ @poguestyle17​ @5am-cigarette​ @jjpouggues​ @fly-away-from-here​ @buckys2thicc​

[dollfaced-erin]

Not So New Afterall (Sdv Sebastian x F!Reader)

 A/n: I would say that to all the townspeople (Y/n) has met before her parting, she’d have at least 4 hearts with everyone, (minus the bachelors and bachelorettes who were not in the timeline) and 6 hearts with Robin, Sebastian, Abby, Caroline and Jodi. 

(Lets just say Robin was good friends with grandpa and found his granddaughter a favorite)

(Caroline found her as a well-mannered and kind child when she was younger. She surely hasn’t changed her thoughts about the girl)

(Jodi always wanted a daughter and found (Y/n) a cute little baby, she really liked it when (Y/n) would come over to play with Sam and help her around the house, teaching Sam to do some housework) (the woman is fond of her)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Harvey grabbed (Y/n)’s wrist and felt her pulse. “Based on the blood she lost, she’ll need a blood transfusion! And the equipment is in the clinic!” the older male said, hoisting (Y/n) into his arms. 

“I’ll need a person with her blood type or an O positive!” Harvey said as they rushed out of the cottage. “Does anyone have that blood type?”

‘Shoot!’ Sebastian thought to himself. He’s a darn A! They had no time to scan for her blood type. But he knew who has an O. “I know someone! !’ll go!” he called out before parting from the group.

The dark haired male was running down the stairs near the river before heading to the bridge near Joja mart. During certain days, the person he was searching for would be on the bridge till late. 

And thank Yoba, these were on of the days.

He didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but he really didn’t have a choice.

‘But why are you doing this? For one girl?’ a voice at the back of his mind whispered. ‘You really aren’t like this. Why are you panicking so much?’

Sebastian stopped in his tracks, thinking about the voice. That was true. He isn’t one to help others. He mainly kept to himself. He’d usually be cool and wouldn’t talk much. Why was he panicking? 

Was it because he hated the sight of her limp body?

Probably

He didn’t want to be burdened for his faults if he didn’t do anything but just left her body there.

Yeah, that was it.

“Hey, Seb!” Abigail called from the bridge, raising a hand to greet him over. “What’s with the frazzled look? You look like someone has been chasing you.”

“Abby,” he said as he came over. “You’re an O positive, right?” he asked, grabbing her arm. 

The girl nodded, her face slightly flushing over the hold he had on her joint. Sebastian didn’t think much of it and immediately pulled her with him without an explanation. 

“H-hey! Where are we going?” The purple-haired girl began to panic, but still followed the pace the male ran, keeping up with him easily.

This really wasn’t like him. He wasn’t one to panic. Why was he so energetic and loud today? He hasn’t been like this in....Abigail bit her lip as she thought. ‘In such a long time,’ the voice in her mind responded.

But taking in the sight of the clinic, she knew this wasn’t good. Did something happen to his mom? Did something happen to her family? Did...is this why he asked for her blood type?

She kept rambling all the possibilities until she never realized that they had burst into the clinic. But her thoughts stopped as she saw the new farmer on the hospital bed.

“Abigail!” Harvey called out, surprised that Sebastian knew her blood type. “Thank Yoba your blood is compatible with hers!”

Abigail stopped. Her hand falling limp from Sebastian’s grasp. Tears welled in her eyes.

“(Y/n)...?”

The said girl was laying motionless on the hospital bed, her skin pale as snow. Her eyes closed and breathing shallow. Her hair was out of its usual hairdo, leaving the strands of (h/c) messy around her face and head. Her shirt was removed to expose the the wound to Harvey, leaving on her underwear to preserve her modesty and also exposing the bruise she got from last night.

But the scar on her right shoulder,

It unlocked her self-sealed child memories.

Tears escaped her green eyes. “She’s alive...? After the accident? It’s the same (Y/n)?” she sobbed. Sebastian placed a warm hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s her. She came back,” Sebastian said, a somber look crossing his eyes. “And this time, you need to help her.”

Abigail nodded as she stuck out her bare arm to Harvey. “Hook me up,” she said with determination, eyes still dripping with tears.

Abigail and Sebastian was sent to another room as the operation took place as everyone else was sent home since she needed to donate her blood. Sebastian was allowed to stay since he needed to accompany the purple-haired girl. Abigail was given a box of apple juice to help increase her glucose levels as she donated her blood to her former best friend.

Sebastian sat on the chair next to Abigail, is eyes blurred and tired as he looked down at the floor. The silence between them was heavy. Since Abigail had just remembered the dark tragedy of Pelican Town. Tears began to drip from her eyes once more.

“When did you know?” she asked Sebastian, her eyes looking down at the crisp white sheets of the clinic bed. He shrugged. “I...saw her scar, and at first it made no sense to me why I suddenly reacted to it. But then I think I thought of it too much, and...I dreamt of it,”

“No way. Did you like...have a nightmare or something?” Abigail told him, but he shook his head. “It’s not impossible if I woke up and everything rushed to my head in that instant,” he told her. “Plus, mom told me that it was true.”

“No way,” she chuckled. “She really came back, huh? At first I thought it was just...a person with a name that sounded familiar, but I thought it was just a common name. But that’s not the case anymore, it seems,” Abigail said with a smile. “After all we’ve done to her, she still came back here? Not to mention that we’re the ones that caused the accident.”

“It wasn’t you. It was me,” he said with a deep frown. “I really thought that she died, and I never registered what happened after. I even dared forget about her.”

“It’s not forgot. It’s...repressed memories and stuff when we were kids,” Abigail said, referring to one of the books she read during her classes. Sebastian nodded. “Extreme trauma would block out the memories in a way of coping with it.”

“But,” she said, clutching onto the hospital sheets. “It doesn’t make me feel less guilty,” tears collided with the white sheets as a green bow clip was in her sight. “She even gave this bow to me. I can’t believe I still forgot her.”

In normal circumstances, Sebastian would’ve felt awkward, but he understood the feeling. He put a hand on Abigail’s back, running it up and down as he tried to calm her. It was true, however. Knowing that they had forgotten their friend who had saved Sebastian, the person who had always made Fall better, matching their clothes during Spirit’s eve, who brought them little things to enjoy together during their visit,

The guilt was truly unbearable.

After a few hours after Abigail was released, she and Sebastian stayed to wait for the (h/c) haired girl. Both of them wanted to see if she was okay or not. Sam came bustling in soon after. Then Maru came out and gave them the thumbs up, all three of them jumped out of their seats to burst into the room.

“She’s been stabilized, thanks to Sebastian’s quick thinking and Abigail’s generosity,” Harvey said after cleaning all the blood. “She was in a dehydrated state and heavily injured. It was a wonder how she managed the strength to move with those injuries.”

“She’s fine, but she needs to stay here for the night so I can monitor her,” Harvey said again before looking up at the clock. It’s 9 pm. Three hours after Sebastian brought (Y/n) in. “It’s late, you all need to go home.”

“But can we stay with her? I asked mom if I could,” Sam started. “We’re staying just in case she wakes up,” Sebastian butted in, earning an eyebrow raise from Harvey. But the older male just chuckled.

“I suppose it won’t do any harm,” he started, “But please not make any noise before and after she wakes up. It might surprise her and raise her blood levels,” Harvey said before leaving the room with the three and one unconscious girl.

Sebastian turned to look at the girl who looked eerily peaceful, her hands placed above her stomach. Her right hand was attached to an IV drip, and her vitals were steady. Her clothing had changed to a hospital gown, probably not to put any pressure around her waist here the injury was.

“Lets grab a seat,” Sam said, removing the partition between (Y/n) and another hospital bed. “Are we even--” “It’s alright! We’ll put it back tomorrow!” Abigail butted in before helping Sam push the bed together. 

“You guys really like her, huh?” Sam started, making the two freeze from what he said. Hasn’t he-- “Oh, I know she’s the same person from the accident,” Sam said as he removed his shoes and sat down on the bed.

“I realized it long ago, actually. When Abigail mentioned it at the Saloon, I just went with it since I thought the both of you actually forgot her,” Sam confessed, leaning against the headrest. “It was hard for me to talk to her, I was the reason she got hit in the first place.”

“But when Abby told me to just talk to her, I realized that you guys probably forgot,” Sam said, bringing his knees closer to his chest. “I remembered when she first came. Mom was careful to never trigger anything, but when she introduced herself to me, I saw the mark on her forehead. I excused myself when everything started coming back to me.”

“It’s hard, to look at her without remembering the hit. I feel like she’s been hating me, never forgiving me,” Sam said. “But when I saw she was rushed in here, I was hesitant. Mom told me to go, but I didn’t want to face her,” Sam looked at the resting girl. 

“But she told me (Y/n) came back to see all of us, I bolted,” Sam chuckled as Abigail and Sebastian sat on the same mattress. But tears began to fall from his eyes. “I-I thought she would never want to see me ever again, not after what I’ve done to her,” he sobbed and Abigail slung an arm across his shoulders.

“Never really thought she’d come back,” Sam sniffled before gazing over to (Y/n). “I’m just happy she’s here.”

“Hey, Seb,” Sam called, the dark haired turning his head to face the blonde. “Yeah?” he answered. The latter gave a loopy smile, and even though he just cried, his eyes were bright of mischief. 

“Do you still like (Y/n)?” he asked, making the other two freeze in place. Abigail slightly retracted her arm and Sebastian’s shoulders went tense. “Wh-what are you talking about?” he asked.

“You know what I’m talking about. Do you still like--” “Wh-where am I?” a groggy voice spoke, quietly, but loud enough for the trio to jump to the bed next to them.

(E/c) eyes started to open slowly, but squinted from the bright light. There were blobs of shadows in her sight, slowly clearing to reveal the trio before her eyes. All of them had worried expressions, eyes either red or still filled with tears. 

“Abby?...Sebastian?...Sam?” the girl choked out as she slowly tried to sit up. “Wh-what happe--” Before she could finish her sentence, she was tackled back down by a force, pinning her back to the mattress. “Abby?” 

“You stupid, stupid girl! How dare you get yourself so hurt again?!” she cried, burying her head in (Y/n) shoulder, trying to hide her sniffles as the girl slowly got up again. 

Sebastian tackled her left side, wrapping his arms around the (Y/n) and Abigail. “You have no idea how much I panicked when you came out like that!” he shouted in frustration. 

“You had us so worried!” Sam said as he hugged (Y/n)’s right side, careful to mind the injury she got. “Never do that again!” he cried out. 

“I lost you once, I’m not losing you again!” Abigail cried. (Y/n) looked at Sebastian, her hand slowly coming up to brush his dark locks.

“At least I saw you at 6, right?” she chuckled, earning a glare from the male. He hit her back, harshly before hugging her again. “Yeah, but that’s NOT what I meant!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry guys,” she laughed lightly as they all clung to her.

The next morning rolled around, and when Harvey walked in, he chuckled at the sight. (Y/n) was laying down since her sides hurt to sit up, Sebastian was sleeping sitting up as he held (Y/n)’s left hand in his own. Abigail was cuddling her on her right, clasping her right arm with both of her own. Sam was similar to Sebastian, but had his arms crossed over his chest.

‘These four really have a special bond,’ Harvey thought, smiling to himself. They didn’t look like young adults anymore, but more like children who wont let their friend go.

Of course, Harvey knew that almost all the singles around (Y/n)’s age suffered from Dissociative Amnesia from extreme trauma as children. And (Y/n) herself has been a victim in the accident that caused it. He knew since he saw her medical records and he looked at her nicely healing scars. But the affect strongest was the ones surrounding her. The sisters just haven’t remembered just yet. 

7 AM rolled around, and (Y/n) stirred to wake up, pulling those around her away from their dream lands too. Harvey had just left the room to set up his clinic for the day. 

Harvey had agreed to let her out, and asked them to keep an eye on the healing girl. Se got 7 stitches and she had to be very careful. Abigail happily volunteered to assist (Y/n) on the farm and Sam and Sebastian would check up on them every so often.

Little did they know, Harvey had taken a photo of the quartet, sending them to their families. Of course, being the lovely mothers they were, they framed the photo and hung it around somewhere in the house.

[themoonandotherslikeit]

Painted - Chapter One

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Y/N has moved on, her scars are barely noticeable anymore, and she’s finally stable. Or at least she was.

10 years after the worst day of her life, Y/N found herself staring face to face with an unimaginable horror. In the wake of her worst nightmare come to life, she finds herself reunited with the man that saved her all those years ago - Agent Dean Winchester who had left her a decade before broken and wanting.

Dean Winchester has spent the last 10 years trying desperately to forget Y/N and the tragedy that he pulled her out of, but when she called asking for his help he dropped everything to come to her aid as he knew he always would.

Can Y/N and Dean solve the mystery that has resurfaced after all this time? Will they be able to resist the pull between them? Or will this be the final brush strokes on a canvas, sealing their fate for good?

No Beta currently, all mistakes are my own!

Pairing: Dean/Reader

Tags: Dark!Fic, Agent!Dean, Serial Killer Fic, Smut etc.

Chapter One

Everything has a color. To Y/N, violence was red. She pulled back her arm, her fist colliding with the heft of her punching bag with a soft thud . One, two, kick. She liked training alone, it centered her, cleared her mind. She didn’t have to worry about pulling her punches, avoiding the knees when she kicked. The biggest danger was the skin on her knuckles, which were expertly wrapped.

It all started as self defense, a way to ease her mind as she walked back to her Jeep on the dark nights, but it had evolved to something else altogether. She didn’t fight because she was afraid, she fought because she was pissed . She was pissed that she had to learn to defend herself; that other women did. She taught classes so that her community would be safe, so that they’d find less women abandoned in ditches beaten to death.

But when she was alone, it was something else completely. The why of the thing was a mystery most of the time, even to her. People used to ask her if she was afraid she would see him again. She wasn't, not really. But she kept fighting anyway, and she would be lying if his face wasn’t the one she pictured every time her fist collided with the bag.

The beat of her music throbbed in her ears like an angry heartbeat as she went for an uppercut that rattled the bag. She was panting, sweat rolling down her temple. Each hit was a beat of her heart, causing the bag to come alive. With each swing she made, it swung back at her. She was strong, and she wasn’t holding back. One, two, kick.

Her watch chimed to alert her that she hit her workout goal for the day, but she had more fire within her that needed to be extinguished. It was a long workout, even for her, but she had a lot on her mind. If she was thinking about the ache of her knuckles and burning in her biceps, she was less likely to obsess over the things she couldn’t control. So she hit the bag again and again.

The sun was starting to speckle through the blinds on the storefront window, making the sweat on her arms glisten like diamonds. She considered, just for a moment, how the coast would look against the purples and oranges of the sunrise. She could have a coffee and just enjoy the silence. Or she could keep fighting. That answer was easy. She didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty in life. She hadn’t for a long time. All of the colors had lost their brightness, the depth that he used to talk about so frequently. The thing that kept him mixing until it was just right.

She hadn’t thought of him in so long, so when the thought came to her, she didn’t react fast enough to the bag swinging back toward her from her last hit. It collided directly with her face, sending her backwards onto the mat. A loud, painful crack echoed through her skull as her nose collided with the bag. She laid there for a moment, groaning. She tried to sit up, her nose throbbing and her mouth filling with blood from the hit. “Fuck me,” she whispered to no one in particular.

Trauma was black. According to her therapist, there were different types of trauma. Y/N learned that they all could be sorted into one of three main categories: acute trauma that results from a single incident, chronic trauma that is repeated and prolonged such as domestic violence or abuse, and complex trauma which is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature. More so, there was capital T trauma and what she called little t trauma . Capital T was the big stuff, the stuff that wrecks a person in an irreparable way. Little t was less so. It is possible for a traumatized person to get over a little t trauma.

In Y/N’s life she’d seen her fair share of trauma. Probably more than a thirty-three year old woman should’ve. She’d seen trauma happen to others, happen to herself, and continue to happen in case after case that she worked. She saw trauma that others didn’t. The kind of trauma that couldn’t be seen from the outside. The kind of trauma that a person inflicts upon themselves.

She was always told that trauma healed over time, like a bruise, but for her, trauma was a cut that kept reopening. It was a scab that she couldn’t stop picking at, a bruise that seemed to deepen to a darker purple before it ever yellowed. Her eyes stung from the hit, and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

The only way she knew how to heal was to move on, leave the trauma behind. Her therapist told her to imagine herself placing the memories in a box and locking them away. Sometimes, when she was alone, she could hear that box screaming, banging, and begging to be opened. She resisted the urge, especially today.

She forced herself to stand, her head spinning. She leaned against the wall to regain her balance before she walked out to her car, her head tilted back. She could feel the blood roll down the back of her throat since it was unable to escape her nostril. She’d be pissed if she broke her nose, but, from what she could tell, it seemed intact even though it hurt like a bitch.

Her headphones were askew, but still playing her workout mix. She adjusted them and spit some blood from her mouth. She wouldn’t be thwarted by a fall; no, she wouldn’t be taken down so easily. If she fell in the gym and no one was there to witness her humiliation, did she even fall? The answer to that depended on if anyone would notice her bruised nose after the fact. If they didn’t, as far as she was concerned, she had a perfect refreshing work out with no issues whatsoever. Maybe with enough makeup her secret would remain her own.

10 years earlier

The sound of his paintbrush swiping delicately against canvas was soothing to Y/N. She sat on the edge of the bed, atop black satin sheets, resting on her hands, her back arched and her legs spread just right. Her long strawberry hair fell down her shoulders in loose waves onto the sheets.

“Just like that,” Lucifer murmured, a blonde wave falling into his eye. He was focused, his tongue partially out of his mouth, his eyebrows knitted together. She wasn’t able to see the painting from her vantage point, but she knew what it was. It was always the same. I just can’t get you right, he’d complain, his voice laced with pain and disdain. She thought he made her more beautiful than she ever could be on her own.

When she’d met him, he was so focused on his art. He would eat, sleep, and drink his paintings. His clothing was speckled with oil colors, his fingers calloused from gripping paint brushes for hours on end. She found him sexy and mysterious. She was dying to know the man behind such beautiful pieces of art.

It didn’t take long for his obsession to shift from his art directly to her. He doted on her endlessly, showering her in flowers, candy, candlelight dinners. They made love constantly. He couldn’t get enough of her.

“Let me paint you, Y/N,” he’d purr between her legs. “I just want to paint you.” It took her weeks to say yes. She’d always brush him off, blushing and insecure. “You’re exquisite. Please let me paint you.”

She struggled to deny Lucifer’s requests when he asked as his breath tickled the inside of her thigh. It was hard to deny him of anything , if she was being honest. The first time she said yes, he arrived in her bedroom and asked her to drop the floral robe she was wearing. He’d seen her naked dozens of times, but she was still nervous, vulnerable, staring at him. She brought him a bag, insisting that he look inside before she disrobed.

He stared at the bag, confused.

“They’re body paints,” she explained. “I thought you wanted to paint me.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. They made love on the apartment floor, painting designs on each other's skin until she was swollen and wanting, gasping his name into the night.

When she woke up in the early hours of the morning, she found him painting her image onto a canvas laying splayed out, covered in swirls of sex and paint. “Don’t move,” he instructed calmly. She wanted to be angry, but she still felt drunk from being ravished, and his eyes examining her were sensual and slow. She watched his wrist spin and curl, and a chill ran up her spine.

“Lucifer, how much longer? ”

“You’re just so beautiful, Y/N. You know that, right?”

“No,” she murmured, and his eyebrows knitted together.

“We will fix that,” he promised. “You will always be this beautiful.” He was talking to her, she logically knew that, but from her vantage point she could’ve sworn he was speaking to the canvas.

Present

Y/N entered the code to unlock the front gate to her property, leaning half out her car window. Thankfully, her bleeding had stopped, but her upper lip and chin were still crusty with blood. She looked like a mess, if she was being honest, but the only one there to judge her was her chocolate brown pit bull, Castiel, and Y/N figured that Cas wouldn’t care much either way.

The iron gate opened with a groan, sliding to her right. She slid back into her seat and shifted out of park to pull forward down the driveway toward her house. It was modest, nothing too big or magnificent. The outside was grey brick, a two story home with a large green yard and a pool in the back. As she pulled up, she could already see Castiel’s nose pressed against the window, her head through the thick curtains. Y/N smiled, her heart warming at the sight. She wiggled her fingers at Castiel in a small wave.

Castiel greeted her at the door, his tail wagging excitedly. She knelt down to pet his chin only to be met with deep blue eyes and a pink tongue. “I know, buddy. I need to shower somethin’ fierce.”

She kissed his nose and murmured. “I’m good. We’re good.” Half the time she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. She locked the front door behind her and kicked off her shoes. Her arms ached and her heartbeat was still residing in her sinus from her fall. She let her hair out of the tie that kept it up in a high ponytail, letting it fall down her back. Her head was sore from her hair being up for hours. She massaged her scalp with a wince. Everything hurt and she couldn’t wait to wash her problems down the drain and start fresh.

Her work out clothes were discarded on the bathroom floor, the sound of running water and the steam accumulating in the air were already starting to soothe her. She took a deep breath in through her nose with a wince before stepping into the shower and closing the curtain behind her.

Y/N faced the water, letting the heat roll down her skin. The water ran brown from sweat and blood. She braced her hands on the walls of the shower to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes, letting the baptism wash her worries away. Time has a way of wrecking a person, she knew that much. It gave a false sense of security, a sense of growth and change. She spent so much time trying to put her past behind her, locked away inside of a box.

She opened her eyes and looked at the half sleeves covering her wrists and forearms. The flowers and vines twisting around her arms, climbing, and growing out of thick, pink scars - creating something beautiful out of tragedy. She had hoped, when she got them, that they would help her heal and forget. She could laugh now at that naive girl who thought anything would let her forget. Time heals wounds, yes, but the greatest ones still ached in the cold and the rain.

Suds from soap and shampoo swirled down the drain, and she reached down to turn off the water. She wrapped her hair in a towel and slipped into her robe. She could hear Castiel whine outside of the bathroom door, unusually unhappy with not being able to see her. “You’re good, Cas,” she called out, wiping the fog from the mirror. She examined her nose. It was a little swollen and already beginning to bruise. She cursed to herself and just hoped that it’d be dull enough that her painted foundation would cover it. The last thing she needed was to worry those around her.

Castiel scratched at the door again, and she opened it, her dog circling her legs impatiently. “What is your deal?” Y/N reached down and scratched behind her ear, eliciting licks from Castiel.

Towel drying her hair, she stepped out of the bathroom and rounded the corner. Her eyes were heavy, and her head pounded from the hit. She needed coffee, bad . As she turned the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks, her towel falling from her hand. Castiel whined insistently, nudging Y/N’s leg with his nose. She stared face to face with something so familiar that it made her gut tighten, acid crawling up her throat.

A painting hung at her eye level in the hallway near the bathroom. Fine brush strokes of pale peach skin, strawberry twists of hair splayed out on black satin sheets, flushed cheeks, parted lips, and freckled legs spread out, exposing a delicate pink vagina tucked between them.

Y/N stared at herself. Her eyes closed, her swollen mouth, her pink cheeks on a face and head that belonged to her. Her freckled neck blended downwards onto heavy breasts with dark nipples and a mole under the right that she’d never seen before.

Her knees were weak, and she stumbled back, bumping into Castiel and tumbling backwards. She fell, hitting her tailbone on the wood floors with a hard smack . Tears burned in her eyes, from pain or fear she wasn’t sure. Castiel came to her, licking her cheek in concern.

Anxiety crept into her chest, pressing down heavily. She gasped for breath and clamped her eyes shut. She pictured the box inside of her mind, thrashing and pulsing with anger, begging to be opened. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she forced herself to stand on shaking legs. She made her way to her bedroom and quickly spun the code on her safe, pulling her gun from it. She clicked the safety off and held it in front of her.

With each room that she checked she only found an emptiness that overtook her home with a heaviness that seemed to engulf her completely. Nothing seemed strange or out of place other than the large depiction of her naked body that hung on her wall.

She kept her gun positioned outward and pulled out her cellphone, dialing the number that she could never forget. All she could hope for was an answer, and as a ring met her ear she let out a sigh of relief. It had been so long, she had expected a disconnected tone. She pressed the phone closer to her ear as she heard his voice.

“Y/N?”

“He’s back.”

------

Chapter Two

Read on A03 Here

Tag List: @lyarr24

@dean-winchesters-bacon

@waywardbaby @akshi8278

[fighter-spirits]

Thinking about how traumatized the Hagure Leaguers probably are...

Note: I mention Narcissistic personality disorder in the last segment. I do not have it, nor know if anyone I know has it, so I wrote my understanding of it. If it is wrong, please tell me.

Gold Arm is likely in constant fear of forgetting what he knows. Dark clearly has messed with his memories; They made him forget Silver Frontier.

Gold Foot hurt Gold Mask during the arc; He likely fears hurting his family again.

Gold Mask saw first hand what happens to the soldiers, they're likely terrified of losing their family again.

Gebara is traumatized by being abandoned, and likely worried about being manipulated again

Wild Hawk is a difficult case, as he was mostly a Stray due to hubris, but he was unable to find work. The way his eyes light up when he's told people want to hire him again should tell you something.

Deus and the rest of his team desire nothing but to be defeated in a game, knowing they are "useless" and "defective". Dark has ruined their self esteem, and they are so desperate to prove themselves, but as soon as they lose their flight, they feel helpless.

Dyson is one of the most obvious cases of trauma; He fears everyone has come to dispose of him, his former employer instilling in him the worst paranoia ever. This man thinks children are out to get him.

Sisley is a little different, as we have no clue to what he did before becoming a pirate, but he obviously is very distrustful of Dark. It's possible that he is not directly traumatized, but lashes out on behalf of his crew, which is a bunch of Leaguers abandoned by Dark.

The Earth Pulse Miners were easily manipulated, but they are seemingly young, and have not let life beat them down. Despite being abandoned and manipulated, they still trust easily. They are probably a little scared of being manipulated again, but they know that they can trust Windy.

Alucard is probably simply lost in life, no longer having the sole purpose of bringing oil back to his master, and struggles to understand society.

Jet Setter is an example of how trauma can make people into their worst selves. He saw his team killed, almost died himself, and his response was to start taking Leaguers that were already meant to be scrapped, and make them fight for his entertainment. Those who did well would be scrapped later. He never once thought about how easily he could have been sent to that arena, outnumbered and overwhelmed, and literally crushed. While he did destroy the facility and free those that still lived, he is likely going to need a while before he stops trying to hurt people.

Amp is traumatized by her own sister turning against her, but she is likely more concerned about losing Watt again than whatever Watt might do to her. She turned to police work to try to help everyone she could.

Watt learned life was unfair, and took it into her own hands, not thinking about her sister at all. She probably fears hurting her sister again.

Thirteen is SO traumatized. First off, he's always been alone, it's only natural as an Iron Golfer, as golf has no teams or teamwork. It's everyone for themself. So he has never had reason to trust anyone, and never worked with anyone long. Secondly, he is a hitman. He turned to literal murder as a job opportunity. And he was efficient. When Juurouta stopped his attempts, he nearly pleaded for another chance, so desperate to prove himself useful. He wants, needs, to be useful, because otherwise he is alone in the world. I recently read a bit about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and how it can come around from never having the affection and praise of others, so the person has to hype themselves up, and end up having to do it so much they end up seeming obsessed with themselves. Thirteen was so confident in himself, and likely had NPD or was on the path to developing it in himself. We can see how he starts to crumble as soon as things don't go like he calculated, and he starts to doubt himself. As soon as he knows he has lost, he says "I lost... You can dispose of me as you see fit." Thirteen sees himself as useless at this point; he has failed and therefore is no use to anyone. He has fully accepted that he is going to die, and he is so shocked to learn he will not be killed. His entire world is shattered by the revelation that failure is okay. And then he is once again left alone by Magnum. Like, Magnum just walks away. It's kind of surprising Thirteen didn't just kill himself after that.

[shihalyfie]

Neverland, the role of “nostalgia” in Kiuzna’s narrative, and the 02 quartet’s unusual immunity to it

In general, the 02 quartet (my shorthand for the four human characters introduced in 02 who weren’t in Adventure, namely Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) have a position in Kizuna that you can call “shockingly favorable” in that they’re kept safely out of the most dangerous parts of the plot in ways the others aren’t. This especially sticks out when we get to the Eosmon incident reaching its climax, when Takeru and Hikari are placed in the same situation as their Adventure seniors, despite the movie and its surrounding media generally portraying them closer in line with the others in the 02 group than the Adventure group.

To be a bit blunt about it, the obvious main reason the story is set up this way is meta -- a lot of the climax’s effectiveness depends on the audience getting sensory impact via recognizing things from the original series (including 02 as well; how convenient it is that all of the international Chosen are in the positions 02 fans would recognize!), and so it’s obvious that said climax would evoke imagery related to the series that was Digimon Adventure, while the 02 quartet would be treated extra-kindly by the narrative due to the need to give them compensatory action screentime given certain real-life events. But just because the originating reason is meta doesn’t mean there isn’t also a story reason for it, especially considering the relevance of 02′s themes in Kizuna’s narrative, and the surrounding circumstances regarding both series.

Before we get into anything else, the first thing that needs to be established is that Menoa and Eosmon’s lure is pretty obviously depicted as working on a subconscious level. This is why everyone else in the narrative agrees that what they did is “kidnapping”, despite her insistence that she’s just doing what they wanted. While they can’t not admit to having moments of weakness, nevertheless, it’s likely that most if not all of the people Menoa kidnapped consciously knew better and had learned better lessons than this a long time ago; if Menoa had consciously offered Neverland to her victims, most of them would have probably said no! But as Daisuke said back in 02 episode 49 -- when he witnessed his own friends being subjected to something similar at the hands of BelialVamdemon -- there’s no sin in having feelings of worries or troubles (and, by extension, irrational feelings in general), and Eosmon’s abilities and Neverland happen to be able to directly target them. In fact, we ourselves got to witness this internal conflict when Menoa made her direct offer to Taichi and Yamato to join Neverland; they briefly considered it because of the circumstances, but were snapped out of it quickly with Agumon and Gabumon’s intervention, and were really, really mad at themselves for considering it shortly after.

We saw the process of how Ayaka became one of the kidnapping victims at the beginning of the movie -- it happened right after she complained that she wasn’t fond of the idea of becoming an adult at this point. So it does lend some truth to the idea that Menoa’s working off something with these cases, and that Eosmon did specifically target people who had those wishes to some degree. Moreover, note carefully how this kidnapping (and some others in the movie) is portrayed; Eosmon doesn’t actually emerge from the device in question (it’s obvious that nobody notices the giant butterfly monster), and the victim’s consciousness and partner are whisked away thanks to being caught by the device camera. In Ayaka’s case, because her phone was sitting on the table, pointed at her. The fact that this is not how the kidnappings are portrayed all the way to the end of the movie is a very significant point.

So let’s talk about Neverland and its construction. The whole thing is based on Menoa’s own very, very warped view of what “happiness” is. This means that Neverland is only an “ideal world” or “utopia” in a way that makes sense to her -- and once you learn the full extent of her backstory, it becomes apparent how she came to the mentality she did, and, more pertinently, how she ended up projecting that on everyone else. Hence, how she came to decide that she knew better and should decide for everyone, because she thinks she gets the right to decide on everyone’s happiness based on her own experiences. (She doesn’t.)

The way Neverland is constructed is that everyone has “their own places” -- their own individual islands that recreate “memories” of everyone being able to be together with their partner, forever. So in other words, it’s not just that everyone’s being turned into children; it’s that they’re being kept in an eternal loop of their best memory and unable to “move forward”.

Here are three very significant parts about this, which will be important to keep in mind as we go deeper into this analysis:

Menoa’s view of this utopia requires people to be separated -- for all she claims this is a utopia where people can play together, she discourages fraternizing and encourages everyone to stay only with their own partners. This is, presumably, to lessen complications with said memories, because what might be one person’s best memory might not be for another, and also because she thinks one person being alone with their partner is happiness enough in itself. As we’ll be seeing later, this is very much not the case for everyone.

A lot of these memories in Neverland -- and Menoa’s own mentality, as we eventually find out -- are heavily dependent on the concept of rose-colored nostalgia, or, that is to say, conveniently omitting or forgetting about all of the bad things about one’s past in order to portray it as such a wonderful thing that nobody should ever move on from. And in the end, that probably applies to real-life childhood in general, too; as much as it’s so often put on a pedestal for being a time when “everything was simpler”, you can also easily argue that it wasn’t actually all sunshine and roses, it’s just that the process of forgetting things or the grass-is-greener phenomenon makes you conveniently forget all of the bad things and frustration that came with it too.

Because the concept of needing to stay in the past forever is based on the idea that it’s preferable to growing up, these memories thus have a strong premise of “things you cannot do anymore” -- something that, bar going back to the past and never moving from it, you will never get back or be able to sufficiently recreate. It’s unlikely the islands themselves are one-to-one recreating their specific memories in the way they happened, but rather seemingly presenting them the opportunity to “constantly do over” things they want to recreate or do again, as long as those things are associated with a happy thing that isn’t as easily accessible anymore.

In the case of the five Adventure group members who were brought into Neverland, these “memories” that they’re seen trapped in are, of course, from Digimon Adventure.

It is of course foolhardy to pretend that the main reason for this wasn’t meta, since, of course, there’s a huge point to be made here about the relationship between Adventure and nostalgia, plus the simple fact that this is what we’re most likely to recognize and be nostalgic for, but it also makes sense within the context of the narrative; Menoa has an extreme bias towards the happiness of her childhood revolving almost entirely around her partner, and, of course, Adventure was when these kids first had their most formative meetings with said partners. (This is also probably the in-story explanation for why the other international Chosen from 02 appear at or close to their 02 selves; beyond the meta reason of it being a way to make them recognizable when we only knew them for such a short time, it also approximates when they met their own partners.)

On top of that, Adventure was not all sunshine and roses for its cast! After all, there was a ton of drama and emotional trauma and stress from running away from enemies trying to kill them, or trying to save the universe, and glossing over that is also foolhardy -- but this is also where our concept of “rose-colored” comes in. Menoa’s not offering the kids the entire adventure; she’s offering them a small slice of the moments when they were able to be happy, the moments that made them want to stay in the Digital World for a whole 110 years’ worth of time at the end of Adventure -- she’s basically offering them that very thing they wanted and had ripped away from them at the end of Adventure when the time dilation phenomenon stopped. Take out all of the bad stuff, and suddenly, the events of Adventure seem outright romantic -- it’s the whole school of thought that fueled Adventure’s inspirations of Two Years’ Vacation and Stand By Me, in which a lot of stressful stuff happened and yet you still can’t help but think there was something magical and romantic about it. (I cannot emphasize enough how much of a cultural impact Stand By Me in particular had in Japan, to the point where it’s considered the epitome example of a “coming of age story” and “summer adventure”.)

Let’s take a closer look at what’s on each of the Adventure kids’ personal islands:

Hikari is probably the one in the most unusual position among this group, since she didn’t join until over the halfway point, and the first arc she got involved in revolved around everyone wanting her and Tailmon dead. Thus, the memory we get to see her involved in is the Numemon factory in Adventure episode 49. Although this was in the middle of the Dark Masters arc (and, uniquely, very close to the end of the series where a lot of stress was involved), due to the limited amount of time she got to be in the Digital World, this was the one time she got to do something really cool and awesome and impressive for herself that had nothing to do with the others (again: see how the requirements for these islands require not fraternizing with friends and being isolated).

One thing that the Adventure kids got to do that wasn’t in play in 02 was that there were a lot of “romantic experiences”, involving strange adventures and things like phone boxes on the beach, and, very significantly, “Digimon friends” -- ones that the kids made a huge note of bonding with over the course of the series. This contributes to a certain sense of whimsy that was involved in this adventure that the 02 quartet ultimately never ended up getting to foster, because the lack of the time dilation phenomenon meant that they spent much less time in the Digital World overall (more on this in a bit), and once the time dilation stopped, it meant that these kinds of “whimsical” experiences were ones the Adventure group was permanently torn away from once that adventure ended. That dropping of the time dilation phenomenon not only cut that initial adventure short, it also prevented any future ones like it from ever happening again.

And, of course, this is an extremely rose-colored memory, because shortly afterwards, the Numemon ended up all sacrificing themselves for Hikari. But hey, when you’re in a space that can eternally loop good memories forever, everything’s fine as long as we conveniently never get to that part, right?

From this point on, you’ll notice that all of the memories that show up on these islands are from before the halfway point of the series, because after that, things started getting increasingly pear-shaped and much more difficult to disentangle the stress, mental breakdowns, and witnessing of deaths from. (Hikari’s probably wouldn’t have come from such a late incident if she hadn’t joined the party so late.) Although there still were looming threats around the horizon in the beginning of Adventure, they weren’t always immediately apparent to the kids at every turn, and in fact, the beginning of the series involved more of a “well, we’re in this situation and probably need to get home somehow” aura than it did a “the world is in danger and all of us might die” aura. (It’s also in direct contrast to the 02 group, who were given the details of the crisis and what they needed to do roughly from the get-go.) So in other words, if you want to have some rose-colored nostalgia about the romanticism of this adventure, these are some of the best episodes to pull from.

Takeru’s is obviously from the Village of Beginnings, corresponding to Adventure episode 12, when he and Patamon got to have a fun romp through the village, play together, meet Elecmon, and learn about how Digimon are born. It’s also very much something he did without the others, only with Patamon, and had a lot of “fun and happiness” associated with (later solo episodes with Takeru had a lot more upsetting events more intrinsically tied with it), and, again, it’s extremely rose-colored -- it wasn’t even a day later when Angemon died in front of Takeru’s eyes. But hey, that’s even more reason to pick a moment from before then to stay in forever! Can’t have trauma if that trauma never happens, right?

Also, note that Takeru is one of the few here who’s confirmed to be aware of the partnership dissolution issue at this point, and, unlike Koushirou, isn’t confirmed to have accepted a forward-thinking mentality about it yet -- this is a very, very prime time for his fears of being separated from Patamon again to have a nasty relapse.

Mimi’s is the closest to the midpoint of the series, from the affair with the Geckomon and Otamamon castle (from Adventure episode 25; the metal railings here resemble the stage railings from that episode). It’s from the period of time that was a “lull” -- when nobody actually knew about the encroaching threat of Vamdemon quite yet, and for all it was worth, there was no longer any danger. So Mimi got to live happily in the comfort of the castle and play around with the Geckomon and Otamamon...which, of course, also conveniently excludes the affair where she went on a power trip, made everyone miserable due to her selfishness, and immediately felt guilt over it.

Mimi’s associations with this incident are not entirely negative; she was clearly still having fun singing for them in the end (note how her clothing during that scene involved her regular outfit, which she has on here), and she still had a positive impression of her relationship with the Geckomon and Otamamon as per Adventure episode 47 and 02 episode 6 (and as per 02 episode 15, even though everyone’s initial encounter with TonosamaGeckomon ended badly, nobody actually has any lingering grudge against him). So if you filter out that whole affair with the power trip and the resulting embarrassment, it was a meeting with a bunch of fun Digimon friends, a romantic little castle, and a fun stage session where Mimi got to sing.

Jou’s refers to the Infinity Mountain incident in Adventure episode 7, and even from the get-go you can already see the level of rose-coloredness in Jou’s gesture -- in the actual incident depicted, Jou went to the mountain out of a sense of obligation and stress, and the initial climbing involved him having a bit of a bickering moment with Gomamon. But once they did get up there, it was actually their first time the two of them got to really “bond” -- and not only that, their encounter with Unimon had Jou even look on it with fascination, before the Dark Gear had ever come into play.

So in the end, Jou really would have found the incident enjoyable and worthwhile if not for that, and from there you can understand why it would be appealing for him to revisit that setting and finally get to have a bit of calm fun with Gomamon there -- especially since, again, the Neverland islands have a very strong preference for isolating the kids from others, and this was one of the few times Jou got to have a major moment of calm like this alone with Gomamon, with a slight reprieve from the constant feeling of stress and duty.

Koushirou’s most prominently resembles the “sealed room” in the factory in Adventure episode 5, and while Koushirou certainly continued to make a large number of exciting discoveries after that, this was the situation where Koushirou, with no one else but Tentomon to worry about in the immediate vicinity, got to have the largest sensation of “novelty” -- where he first came upon the fascinating discovery of data manipulating reality around him, and he actually got to see the world change around him by wiping things off a wall.

And, of course, there were other things going on like Tentomon confronting him with his first existential crisis, and how things quickly went south with Andromon...but we don’t have to remember that part for now, right?

An interesting thing about Koushirou: the circumstances of how he was “kidnapped” in the first place are actually somewhat obscured compared to the other four in this scene, since Menoa presumably needed him conscious in order to get his list out of him, resulting in his kidnapping scene also involving an emerging Eosmon and not having him be instantly taken the way we see Takeru and Hikari (more on this in the section below). It’s thus unclear whether he’d be in their boat had his position in Menoa’s plan not been unusual -- said memories in Neverland involved “gathering information and learning more”, something he still actively involved himself with even after the events of Adventure, and he’s also the first one to reach a forward-thinking mentality about the partnership dissolution phenomenon. Either way, once he was already dragged into Neverland, it’s natural that the place could find a good memory for him in the same way it did for the other kids who were “manually” dragged in, but the actual method of entry and whether Koushirou's post-Adventure life put him in a mindset similar to that of the 02 quartet (again, see below) is a bit ambiguous.

So here’s an interesting part about how the 02 quartet gets involved in this story: their own encounters with Eosmon happen during a part where the method of kidnapping has abruptly changed. As many have pointed out, this is also when the degree of the targets Menoa wanted had also suddenly escalated, because while her previous claims had involved the idea of kidnapping like-minded adults (who, indeed, were entertaining thoughts of nostalgia to even some degree), she was now kidnapping actual children, ones who weren’t even nearly at the point of the supposed drudgery of adulthood that Menoa claimed they would eventually have, and with her arrogantly deciding she knew better for all of them. The part that becomes particularly intriguing about this is that the exact same thing happens with Miyako -- she is explicitly stated to have connected her laptop to the Internet, resulting in an Eosmon physically emerging and chasing her instead of instantaneously snatching away her consciousness through a camera like her own fellow 02 group members Takeru and Hikari.

So in other words, the 02 quartet’s favorable position in this incident doesn’t just have to do with being lucky enough to have gotten Koushirou’s warning about the Eosmon early; they (or at least Miyako) also seem to have a certain degree of outright immunity to it, much like the young children who aren’t old enough to have nostalgia yet. (Also, keep in mind that Takeru was caught thanks to a security camera; “excess caution with electronic devices” alone wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed their safety.)

Recalling that, for the most part, Takeru and Hikari are usually treated more like 02 group members in the context of this narrative yet are, in this one case, treated as being potentially nostalgia-prone, it stands to reason that the main difference between the two of them and their fellow members in the 02 group is the fact that Takeru and Hikari went on the adventure in 1999, and the quartet did not. So in other words, the reason the 02 quartet isn’t as prone to this is not so much that they’re fundamentally different-minded people, as much as they have a distinct lack of an experience they can be attached to the way the Adventure group is to their own 1999 adventure. (Remember that Menoa’s kidnappings work heavily on subconscious feelings; you can’t blame anyone for having these kinds of feelings no matter how much they’ve consciously learned.)

As I said earlier, it’s foolhardy to pretend that Adventure was all sunshine and roses, and, likewise, it’s also foolhardy to pretend that 02 was nothing but suffering for everyone involved. Both series involved a lot of balancing of funny, silly moments to be treasured as much as they involved stress (which is why people are so attached to both, after all). So the question is not so much how happy they were in their childhoods as much as the nature of what that happiness came from, and what relation it has to their current lives. And when you look at what experiences the 02 quartet had back in 02, you might notice a thread of the fact that it is significantly harder to romanticize the events of 02 than it is Adventure.

Let’s put it this way: Let’s say that the 02 quartet was kidnapped into Neverland and placed onto islands that fit Menoa’s view of happiness. What, exactly, would you pick from 02 itself that would work? What kind of “happiness” did they have back then that’s so romantic, so impossible to replicate now, that they’d want to go back to because it’s better than their lives now once you disentangle all of the bad stuff?

...Not much. Not much at all, actually. Hanging out in the computer room together? Doesn’t seem like they cared that much about the computer room part as much as the fact the others were there bantering with them (which would put a huge nail in Menoa’s islands mandating isolationism). Going out on a picnic together? No reason they can’t just go on another picnic again (and if the BD box is to be believed, that’s exactly what they did, and they even added Ken to it while they were at it). Hanging out with their Digimon in real life and doing silly hijinks? They’re...probably still doing that now, actually. Getting to find true happiness at a Christmas party? That’s a party from the real world (again, something they most certainly continued to do thereafter), one where the happiness came not from the romanticism of anything that happened to do with some adventure, but just the happiness of being surrounded by true friends, which, again, Ken is still clearly getting to do by the time of Kizuna.

Once you look at the circumstances of what the “adventure” of 02 was to the 02 group, you may realize that it doesn’t really resemble the traditional romantic image of an “adventure” much at all. Sure, they were blessed with being able to regularly go back and forth between the Digital World from the get-go, but it meant that -- especially without the time dilation in play -- the Digital World became much less of a picturesque area associated with a one-time memorable adventure as much as something they had to squeeze in their after-hours while juggling it with their school. The circumstances they encountered their Digimon and the Digital World in were at a point where it had a certain level of “mundane” to them, compared to their seniors; it wasn’t a “fantasy adventure in the Digital World” when so much of the story also revolved around real-world events as well, and you can’t really find many “mysterious fantasy” events in 02 that resemble much of those in Adventure. The closest might be...Daisuke seeing Numemon pile out of a vending machine in 02 episode 1? (Not very romantic.) Daisuke getting chased around by a Tortomon in 02 episode 22? (Really not very romantic.) Iori getting to tour the ocean with Submarimon? (Implied to more about relief from how much he was holding himself back than the uniqueness of the experience in itself.) Ken’s long-time-ago flashback from 02 episode 23 about meeting Wormmon for the first time? (Defeating a Gazimon is hardly that impressive; the important part was him bonding with Wormmon, which he’s...uh...still doing now?)

There weren’t any lasting relationships with Digimon friends like the ones in Adventure, maybe encountering some civilians once and not seeing them much again after that, especially since the lack of time dilation meant not getting to spend as much time visiting them much at all (think about all of the really fun experiences that the Adventure group probably had that weren’t shown in the actual Adventure TV series, just because it probably didn’t have enough drama that would make a good TV episode plot). This means that there’s very little, if at all, of 02 that represents something this group would want so badly to recreate that they can’t already do now; everything from back then was either something comparatively mundane, or something they actually would not want back. Unlike with Adventure, where a lot of the kids had irreplaceable moments that only happened to be spoiled a bit later, a lot of the “really awesome accomplishments” from the first half of 02 were explicitly against Ken, someone whom they’d probably rather not dwell on fighting again because of how much they love him now; many of those good memories are “retroactively poisoned” because of that, and it’s much, much more difficult to make a rose-colored version of those memories disentangled from the bad, because of how fundamentally intrinsic that retroactive poisoning becomes.

And, when you think about it, the mandate of “you have to be alone on your own island” would pretty much break these four in particular, especially since the 02 group is portrayed as the type to need mutual support more than anything else, and so many of the events that represent “happiness” specifically involved the happiness of each other being present. It’s not to say that the 02 quartet had no moments of happiness when alone with their partners, but, rather, being with each other provided so much more fulfillment to them that Menoa’s offer of a memory of their past that requires them to be alone probably pales in comparison to anything they could do now in each other’s presence. Maybe, like with the other kids depicted in these scenes, they could be buttered up with something nice if you successfully got them into Neverland, but it’s not like they have any real wistfulness about anything from back then to the point that they’d be subconsciously drawn towards it instead of having to be dragged in kicking and screaming -- and especially in the case of Miyako, the same one who managed to evade an Eosmon here, who was offered a similar “chance to be alone” back in 02 episode 49 and didn’t take very long to decide she hated it because of how much of her happiness comes from getting to be with others.

By the time of the end of Adventure, the Adventure kids’ ideal situation was to have a romantic and fun 110-year adventure with the sights and fun of the Digital World, with all of the weird fantasy surrealism and less of the world-saving, and that’s something they never got to have (and that Menoa was inherently offering them). By the time of the end of 02, the 02 quartet’s ideal situation was...to find a way to get back to normal life and hope their friend feels a little better, and that “ideal situation” is still persisting even into the time of Kizuna, so it’s hard to imagine they really want more than that.

And, again, when you extrapolate this into what Kizuna’s trying to say about real life, adulthood, and nostalgia: it is true that Menoa’s projecting a belief that absolutely does not apply to everyone. While it’s true that many people feel that childhood had a certain kind of magic that you can’t get back in adulthood, there are possibly just as many people who aren’t really all that nostalgic to begin with, either due to trauma or something about their childhoods being miserable, or, even in the lack of such miserable events, simply enjoying the added freedom and expanded range of ability that comes with adulthood to the point they consider it to be more than worth the tradeoff. The 02 group basically represents this crowd -- Ken’s life right now beats out his past in pretty much nearly every respect, and while there are certain concerns about not being able to meet up as often, they’re finding the same ways to do the same kinds of over-the-top hijinks they did back in 02, with arguably even more range now that they get to exploit Digital Gates to do world travel and act without worrying about their parents. They’re basically like the adults who see Menoa’s creed of “childhood is better because adulthood sucks” and go “sorry, can’t relate.”

That said, remember: this isn’t because the 02 quartet is somehow mentally stronger or anything, but rather just a byproduct of what experiences they've had and haven’t had. Takeru and Hikari’s position is unique here -- for all intents and purposes their mentalities are portrayed as closer to the 02 group’s, but they did still have the experience their seniors had and are thus still capable of being close to their position in this one regard. In the end, everyone is different, it’s no sin to have feelings based on those differences, and “being able to relate” to one’s position is also an important key here; because the 02 group’s position is so alien to Menoa’s, it’s unlikely they could have tackled her problems nearly as intimately as their seniors could.

What we learn about Menoa’s backstory establishes that she forced her vision of nostalgic happiness on everyone based on her own perception of her past in such a warped, rose-colored manner. She conveniently omitted or forgot about details such as the fact that her life as a “child” involved feeling ostracized from everyone and that she herself was guilty of neglecting Morphomon. Not only that, she herself claims that she’s the only one who knows what this feels like -- that nobody relates to her -- and thus, you can see that she came to her conclusion that her experiences are universal by the power of sheer extrapolation, hence why she thinks everyone inevitably loses their partner upon reaching adulthood despite pretty significant amounts of evidence to the contrary. (For all it’s worth, the fact that she still considers herself as having “become an adult” at 14 just because she got into university at that time is pretty conceited.)

Menoa’s existence as being so starkly in contrast to the 02 quartet’s is very likely because her entire character was built up from the ground that way -- her entire backstory of skipping grades into university is heavily based on 02′s initial development premise and Ken’s own backstory, meaning she explicitly represents the path that Ken and the other 02 kids chose not to take, and the timing of certain events in her backstory seems almost deliberately engineered to prevent her from witnessing some of 02′s important answers to Kizuna’s conflict, most notably her inability to witness the final battle and the important lessons everyone present learned about following one’s dreams without restraint, and how that relates to one’s partner. Menoa’s mindset is basically that level of incompatible with 02′s themes of “moving on from the past” and “not caving to arbitrary societal expectations”, to the point her character could only get to this point by going out of the way to exclude her from 02′s story and events, because she’s fundamentally built as a character who started off on a very similar path as them (getting to integrate her Digimon partner into normal life, having a similar backstory to Ken) before veering off on a very different one.

Moreover, about that backstory, and the reason why 02 was conceived as such a criticism of the concept of “skipping grades into university”: the concern that someone in this position will be kept from making any friends their age. Menoa puts the moment of “being with one’s partner” on such a pedestal and considers herself to be “the only one who knows what this feels like” partially because she has a fundamentally warped view of friendship itself. Even the Adventure group, which may not have had quite the absurdly tight level of bonding the 02 group had, still broke out of the illusion via Taichi and Yamato reaching out to them, and Taichi and Yamato giving each other mutual support helped them make the decisions they did in the movie. The movie is titled “bonds”, and “bonds” doesn’t just refer to those between human and Digimon partner, but also bonds between each other; Taichi, Yamato, and Sora slowly drifting away from the others at the start of the movie has very strong relevance to their respective existential crises, and the role that Taichi and Yamato play in supporting each other, and Mimi’s in supporting Sora in To Sora and even beyond that, say a lot as to how they’re already expected to be much better off than Menoa was.

It’s not that adulthood is inherent drudgery; it’s that Menoa’s own circumstances really are that warped to the point where she sees her very unusual experiences as fundamentally synonymous with how life is supposed to work in general. She was so obsessed with “being independent”, “being useful to the world”, and “being on her own” that she had no mentality of making friends or connecting to others besides her own partner, and once her partner disappeared, she seemed to make no attempt to rectify that. So of course her life in university following that ended up being not nearly as fulfilling as she’d hoped, since she was getting no real emotional support from anywhere, and, as 02 itself also drove home, apparent “approval from society” only ever makes you as “happy” as a Dark Seed-implanted child if you’re not also being supported by your loved ones in the process. Her adulthood sucked, and she decided that everything about her rose-colored childhood meant that childhood is fundamentally superior in every way, and thus decided that keeping everyone else in it would be “saving” them from the terror it involves -- even though (even if they’re not aware of the specifics of everything) the 02 quartet is not the kind to be able to relate to this at all, and, eventually, Taichi and Yamato, who do understand her position a bit better due to their own experiences, are able to get her to reconsider a little.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

By the king’s hand 🐍 XIII

Warnings: noncon/rape, violence, trauma, allusions to torture, mentions of suicide.

This is dark!fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You struggle with the past, present, and future.

Note: So now that the holiday rush is over and my province is in lockdown, I can write so yay? But also, stress anew hahaha. Anyways, I’m enjoying it so it’s not too bad. :D

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Your stomach curdled as you walked between the guards. For whatever foolish reason, you’d assumed Loki would accompany you. And even more foolish, you were disappointed when he did not. He was king and had much more pressing matters; his usual excuse. As true as it was, you were still irked by your task.

Your thick winter wool had been replaced by your former satin. The gown was not so sultry as before but it offered little protection against the chill of the palace corridors. You were allowed a cape woven in the king’s green, though the hood was to be kept up until you reached your destination. As before, you were the royal shame.

The further you descended, the more your nerves stormed. You remembered your first journey to the dungeons; the night felt long ago. Like many of your memories, it had faded since your time with the prince and his heartless accomplice. It was fragments but still sent a shiver through you. You could, at least, recall, the fear, the anger, the helplessness of your time in the capital.

Your slippers whispered over the stone floor as the gaoler showed you past the cell doors. The stink of unwashed bodies mingled with that of stale blood. There were coughs, some murmuring, and the occasional maddened shout from down the row. The cell you’d been left to was empty and open as you strode by and you refused to look within. It was at the next, that you were stopped and the thick key was shoved in the slot.

You touched your stomach, a thoughtless habit forming as each day saw you a little rounder. Your middle could still be hidden beneath loose fabric. Birger said not yet halfway through your time; maybe for months and with over a month of deprivation, you weren’t so big as you could be.

The door opened and the shriek of the hinges made you tremor. One prison to the next. You were no different than those locked behind these doors. You were kept and controlled. You had no voice, no will, no wants. You only did what was needed to survive.

One of the guards entered first as the gaoler stood with arms crossed beside the door. You heard a scramble within and you were ushered through by the other armored man. He grabbed a stool from against the far wall before he followed. You pushed your hood down and closed the cloak around your body as the frigid air nipped at your gown.

Gilla was dragged away from the wall where she huddled. She didn’t struggle as the guard brought her to sit at the center of the cell and the other planted the stool behind you. You sat and your hand dropped away from your stomach. Her hair was dirty and her face smeared with tears and grime. She was terrified and sniffled quietly as she blinked away the fog of her imprisonment. Your name on her brittle lips made your heart knot.

You recalled what Loki said and cleared your throat. This girl was not your friend.

“Gilla,” you said flatly.

“Have you come to save me?” She clutched her hands. “They found you! Oh, I’m so happy you’re safe--”

“And do you know who took me away?” You challenged. She shook her head in confusion. “So the man you sold yourself to never mentioned me. You never spoke in those times he came to you? Were you so easy to roll over to him?”

“The prince? Oh, if you send for him, surely he can get me out--” 

“Do you have no idea why you’re here?” You sneered, “Even if the prince could, do you think he would save a peasant?”

“The king… the king took you from the dungeons…” she batted her lashes.

“He did and what did he make of me but a prisoner elsewhere,” you looked away from her.

“I don’t… understand,” she lowered her chin. “I don’t know why they’ve brought me here.”

“Well, you best think on it and figure it out. The prince cannot help you for he is a criminal himself.” You looked down at her. How had that little girl you’d grown up with become this? How had you come to this point? “He plotted against the king, surely you must’ve known.”

“How could I?” She babbled as her tears began to fall. “He never spoke to me of such things. He only wanted… love.”

“Love?” You scoffed and stopped yourself from laughing at her naivety. “Do you truly believe these noble men could feel anything for us but the basest desires? That their favour is little more than fodder for their egos? That they delight in our degradation rather than our pleasure?”

“Thor was always kind--”

“Thor used you.” You insisted. A lump rose in your throat. “As he did me. He… as he gave you jewels you have no use for, he got his use off me. He would have worn me until I was dead.” You inhaled and quelled the flurry of emotion inside. “But you never truly cared for more than your own self, eh?”

“What? I… we’re friends.”

“Are we?” You bit down. “I remember my time down here.” You looked around. “I remember how I was even dumber than you. To have begged the king to spare me. You left me behind that night and I was locked up like some animal. Whipped like some braying donkey.” Your mouth was bitter as you spoke, “Bred like a mutt. And when you saw me, still alive, what could think of but the silks and the gold and the crown?”

“I didn’t--”

“You must’ve been so worried for me to have fallen into the prince’s arm’s so easily,” You snorted.

“We all thought you’d run.” She squeaked.

“Oh? Yes then, I suppose it was easy to forget about me.”

“I never did. I…”

“This is the last favour you will have from me, Gilla.” You declared. “And I pray you are smart enough to accept it.”

She blinked, confused, and quivered as she stared back at you.

“Do not lean on your ignorance. The prince is a traitor and you laid with him. Who would believe that in all your time together, he never mentioned his intent against his brother?”

“He didn’t--”

“Listen to me.” You hissed. “The prince will be brought to trial for his crimes, but a whore like you can be cast away and forgotten by all. If you did abet him in his offenses, you will be dealt a cold steely justice. You will not be afforded the same hearing or the same grace as his highness. You are just another commoner fed to the jaws of the rich and their squabbles.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

“Think. Hard.” You stood as you snarled, “And perhaps by the time the inquisitors come to you, you will recall.”

“But--But I--”

“If it had been you that night, I wouldn’t have left you behind. Even if it was your stupidity which led us to trespass. I would have stuck by you.” Your chest tightened as you spoke, “I wouldn’t have abandoned you but I realise now, Gilla, that you never did care for anybody but you.”

“I love you, I do.” She pleaded.

“No,” you uttered, “I don’t think you do, but I did love you, my friend.”

“Please…” She sobbed.

“I will not see you again, I expect,” you said as the guard retrieved the stool, “So let us part without hatred. Take this last generosity from me and save yourself. Perhaps you might live to learn from it.”

“I didn’t know he… I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe you,” you backed away. “You’re not sorry for me, only sorry for yourself.” You turned and bent your head. “Goodbye, Gilla.”

You strode through the door and the guards followed, signaling the gaoler to lock up behind them. You raised your hand and bit into your knuckle as you were overcome with despair. Your old life was over. The last remnant of your former existence was extinguished. 

It was your final surrender. You belonged to the king completely. Your body, your mind, your child; every part of you was his.

🐍 

You returned to the chambers exhausted. Those days, you were always tired. You hung your cloak and stood by the fire to warm your numb fingertips. You undressed quietly and retired to the bedchamber. You sat in your shift before the hearth and watched the embers beneath the tent of logs.

You thought of the baker’s daughter and that first day you’d met her. She had been sweet, once. When had she grown so… greedy? How could one raised in simplicity come to want what she had never known? You closed your eyes and refused to cry. She would not break you; if nothing else had, she could not.

You floated in a haze as the orange glow of the fire shone against your eyelids. There was much yet to worry for. Would the king’s men arrest the prince before he could evade them? Would the kingdom overcome the rent caused by the royal siblings? Would your child survive the months before you?

Hours passed and you did not move. You stayed as you were, held by the moment. A taste of solace you hadn’t known in ages. No anxiety of your tormentors’ return, no fear of what was to happen in the next instant. It was just you and the hearth; you and your child in what could be the only peace you had together.

When at last you were disturbed by the gentle open and close of the door in the next chamber, you still remained. You listened to the king as he moved around and sensed his shadow as he appeared in the door frame behind you. He was quiet as he neared.

He said nothing, as if he believed you were asleep. You knew he didn’t but he let you think so. You listened to the rustle of his clothing as he shed each layer. As stubborn as he was, as much as he insisted nothing had changed, something had. You were both afraid of it but would not admit it.

You felt a tug at the bottom of the blanket spread over your legs. You tried to ignore it, thinking perhaps he had passed too closely. A rush of air flew up below the wool Loki’s fingertips tickled your ankle. You opened your eyes and looked down at him as he reached below your shift.

“Your majesty,” you yawned and shifted but he caught your knees and kept them apart. “What--”

He hushed you with a soft his and dipped his head below the blanket. You braced the arms of the chair as your body went rigid. He wore only his undershorts as he bent and plied kisses to your thighs in a torturous trail towards your pelvis. You grasped his head as he rolled your shift higher and higher and his breath grazed your cunt.

“My king,” you begged. You were trembling. You knew you could not stop him.

He ignored you still and kneaded your thighs as he pushed closer. His hands slid up your sides as he nuzzled the patch of hair between your legs and you gasped. You weren’t ready. You never truly were. His tongue surprised you as it flicked along your folds and he purred. He cupped your tender breasts as he delved into you, your core alight at his command.

He dragged his tongue along your bud and lingered on it, teasing it with small swirls and hungry suckles. Your arms flew back to grip the back of the chair and he rubbed his thumbs over your nipples as they stood out beneath your shift. He groaned as he lapped you up. His gentleness was disarming though he remained as adamant as ever.

“Please,” you begged as your body responded against your want. “Please…”

He purred and kept on, his head moving against your bunched up skirt and bobbing beneath the blanket. You arched in your seat, unable to resist the bloom deep inside. You felt the release and suddenly you needed it. All your stress, all your fear, anger, and hurt, bundled up and brewed inside you as ecstasy muted them.

You cried out as every muscle in your body tensed and eased in a split second. You moved your pelvis against Loki’s mouth as you rode out your climax and he didn’t relent until you were limp and breathless. He sat back on his heels and let the blanket drop to your feet. His hair was tangled and askew, his lips glistening as he grinned at you.

He rested his hands on your thighs and came closer so that he leaned against the front of the chair.

“My brother has been arrested,” he said. 

Your lashes fluttered and you nodded, speechless. He bent and the tip of his long nose met your stomach. He slid his arms to hug you as he turned and pressed his ear to your middle. You froze as you watched him, as if he was listening for the stirring of his child. You were startled by his tameness. He kissed your stomach as he drew back to look at you again.

“I need you.” He murmured, “I ache. Badly.”

You felt the stone set in your skull. Ever as you were, his plaything. You knew his meaning; it never differed. And he never asked, only demanded, 

He took your hand and stood. He pulled you up and you let him. You hadn’t the strength to deny him. There was no denying him. You didn’t want that Loki; cold and callous. So you would cede to his needs and hope they were met quickly.

He let you go as you neared the bed. He rolled down his shorts and his desire stood up before him. He lowered himself across the mattress and beckoned to you. You lowered your eyes and chewed your lip to keep from showing the turmoil raging inside you. You lifted your shift over your head and dropped it. 

He guided you over him and stroked his cock as he did. He pressed his tip along your folds, his hand on your hip as he urged you down. You sank to his hilt and he sighed. He stilled you and looked at the joining of your bodies. The silence enshrined you and you closed your eyes. He took your hands and placed them on his chest.

He gripped your waist and moved you atop him. Slowly so that your clit rubbed against him. You hated how good it felt, hated that you couldn’t stop, hated that he was being so… nice. You dug your nails into his flesh and sped up. He held you tighter and forced you to slow. You grunted and opened your eyes, frowning down at him.

“No,” he spoke at last, “Not like that.”

You shook your head. When had he ever wanted anything but hard, fast pleasure. You pulled your hands from him and he forced them back as they were. You struggled with him for only a moment as he squeezed your wrists in warning.

“Slow,” he bid as he stared into your eyes. 

His hands returned to your sides and he rocked you again. You shuttered as the tide began to roll inside of you, swelling as it grew. You moaned as you began to quake. Loki’s deliberate stride had you confused. His pace matched your pleasure, quickening only as your voice rose louder.

You came again. You twitched atop him and he moved you as your wits left you entirely. His own voice filled your ears and his thick breaths intermingled with his lurid groans. His hand snaked around to your back and the other spread over your stomach. He stilled you and tilted his hips into you over and over from below.

He exclaimed as his orgasm struck him and impaled you entirely. He slowed and eased you down against him. He embraced you as he laid you over his chest and cradled your head as his chin rested against your head. 

What was that? You wondered as your heart raced with his. His petered out but you couldn’t help as your mind struggled against your body.

When you calmed enough to move. His arms fell away and you parted from him, his seed spilling down your thighs. You fell back on the mattress, your flesh still buzzing. You couldn’t look at him. Why would he do that? Like that?

You were his whore, he’d told you time and again. You rolled onto your side, your back to him and crossed your arms. He ran his fingers along your spine.

“Are you unwell?” He asked.

You didn’t answer. Why would he even ask that? Your eyes tingled and you fought to hold back your tears. He was just torturing you. That’s all this was.

“Speak to me, mouse,” he grabbed your shoulder and forced you flat on your back.

You gritted your teeth and stared at the ceiling. “Why?”

“I was gentle…” He said, his voice tinged with confusion.

“Yes, why?” You repeated.

“I…” He paused and the silence was thick as it choked you.

“When your wife arrives, what will she think of me, your whore, and the bastard inside of me?” You spat. 

He sat up and leaned on his arm as he watched you. You refused to look at him.

“I’ll deal with my wife.” He said, “And I’ll deal with you. Don’t forget yourself, mouse.”

You scoffed and tried to turn away from him again. He held you down and let out a long breath. His hand came up to frame your face. “I am heartened, mouse, that you do remain so stubborn.”

🐍

Sleep did not come easy that night. Not to you. Loki was hardly bothered as he snored beside you. His arm was across you as if to remind you of his power over you. Your thoughts strayed back to all your worries. Gilla, Thor, the man beside you, the child in your stomach.

Your life was not your own. It had never been. As you thought, you realised you had only ever been used by others. You had only ever been a footnote to someone else’s will. You had nothing, not even your own body, your own mind.

You slowly slipped from beneath Loki’s arm. Your thighs were sticky still with his cum and you were sickened by the sensation. You stood and went to the bath chamber and cleaned yourself with the cold water of the basin. You saw yourself in the looking glass. You looked hollow; you felt it.

You went back to the bedroom and covered yourself with the silken robe allotted you. You bent, awkwardly, to feed a log to the ashes and stirred it until you found ember. As the flame began to lick at the pale bark, you stood with a groan and passed into the front chamber.

You wandered around the space; it was smaller than the king’s former residence. You neared the table placed against the wall and stared at the peculiar object left atop it. Careless, you thought as you pulled the leather-sheathed dagger towards you. Or deliberate?

Loki had a wife coming and brother to be tried. You were trouble for both. He was ever a trickster, ever deceptive, and perhaps, you had been dumb enough to believe him. Again. He didn’t want you back, didn’t want a bastard to muddy his inheritance; he’d only wanted a reason to be rid of Thor. Surely, he was so intent on keeping you hidden so that none would notice if you were gone.

Had you been foolish enough to think he felt anything towards you but the need to sate his own lust? That he had any loyalty to you beyond a warm cunt? That you had any place here once he married? That your child would be welcomed as anything but a nuisance?

You sat and freed the dagger from its cover. You held the blade up in the dim and felt its sharp edge with your fingertip. It sliced easily into your flesh. You turned it in your hand and thought of bringing it to your throat or plunging it deep in your chest. Your eyes welled and at last, the dam was broken.

You cried into your palm as your other hand gripped the dagger. You trembled and peered down at your stomach. Would he care? If he found you in a river of your own blood? It would be a favour to all. 

You wept until your eyes were swollen and your throat was hoarse. You were a coward. Why couldn’t you just do it? What did you have to live for?

“Mouse,” Loki’s voice was cautious. “What are you… give me the knife, mouse.”

You dropped the blade and flinched as it bounced between your feet. You shook your head and mopped up the last of your tears from your cheeks. Loki neared slowly and bent to lift the dagger. He took the sheath and replaced it on the silver. His jaw squared as you avoided his gaze.

“What were you thinking to do with this?” He growled.

“Nothing,” you croaked. “I was only curious.”

“Don’t lie to me.” He hissed. “Whatever you were thinking, I don’t want it to ever cross your mind again. Understood?”

You nodded and hung your head. He moved away from you and opened the chest atop the side table. He tossed the dagger within and locked it.

“I told you. It is treason to spill king’s blood.” He stomped back to you. “Death cannot save you from my wrath.”

“I didn’t--”

“You thought to.” He snarled. “Get up.”

“Your majesty--”

“I will not tell you twice.” He barked.

You stood and he seized your arm. He turned you and marched you back into the bedchamber. He sat you down on the edge of the bed and you expected him to tear open the robe. You expected the same as he had been. You were certain he would be atop you in an instant.

But he passed you and went to the cloak hung beside your own. He fished around the pocket sewn into the lining and took out a bundle. He returned to you and held out the folded linen, bound with a length of hide lace. You frowned and he dropped it into your lap.

“Go on,” he loomed over you.

Your hands shook and you pulled free the bow looped atop the bundle. You unfolded the linen and revealed a pair of green booties, winding snakes sewn into the soles and golden ribbons woven along the top. They were small, meant for an infant. You cradled them in your hands as your throat tightened.

“My mother sewed them,” he said. “I found them after she died. I had almost forgotten them before I moved from my own chambers.” He sat beside you heavily. “I don’t know what else to do with them.”

You peeked over at him. You lowered them back to the linen and set them aside. “They’re meant for a prince.” You muttered.

“No, only for my child,” he said, “Prince or no.” His cheek twitched and he stared at the carpet, “Don’t make me hide them again. I couldn’t bear it.”

You were quiet. You’d never seen him so vulnerable. Angry, annoyed, longing… but never so solemn. Despite all your loathing for him, your heart squeezed. You took his hand, he winced, but let you move it. You put it to your stomach.

“It is my child, too,” you said softly. “I couldn’t…”

He nodded and pressed his palm firmly to your midriff. You sat, silently, the crackle of the fire the only noise. Loki did not move, nor did you. A wordless pact forged between you. The child would live. It had to.

[rosecolouredmind]

Savior

Nicholas Scratch x Reader

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Part Four:

The Angel of Mercy

First, it was his soul.

Nick never regretted the fact that he was born a warlock. He had powers, longevity, and led a lifestyle of envy. So, when he came of age, he signed on the dotted line in the Book of the Beast. Ever since then, the word ‘regret’ had never once entered his vocabulary.

There was a slim chance he’d ever be called upon to do something untoward, and if it did happen, well...what’s one sin in exchange for a life of frivolity and debauchery?

But next...it was his heart.

Lust, power, knowledge; dedicating his soul to the Dark Lord came with massive perks, and he wasn’t exactly complaining when one of them manifested in the appearance of Sabrina Spellman.

No...Sabrina Morningstar.

He couldn’t explain exactly how or why. His devotion, his loyalty; It had been stolen away by yet another Morningstar, his heart charmed and mind swayed. The powerful capabilities the young witch displayed did nothing but endear him to the demure, compassionate mor(t)ality she fought so hard to keep.

Sabrina Morningstar-Spellman was both the enticement and innocence of the flesh of the lamb... and it would have done Nick well to remember that the lamb is but the spawn of the Beast.

Suddenly, Nick found himself dancing a little too closely with the Devil; twin stars he pledged himself to ended up with him finally learning the word regret once the last pledge left his lips:

Nicholas Scratch, for the love of his life and the containment of it’s keeper, volunteered to be the flesh acheron.

And now, Nick found himself trapped in an everlasting Hell even the darkest of his nightmares couldn’t have begun to manifest.

The Baphomet and the lamb; the Degraded and the Pure. Both were sides of the same twisted fate he’d found himself a part of, desperate to escape. His mind had long since melted into a pool of chaos and intense fear. He’d tried countless ways to just end it all, if only Lucifer were so kind. He no longer had a life to speak of; just endless suffering and eternal doom. His life wasn’t supposed to be like this…

Not like this.

Nick thought himself a pretty gifted warlock, and had long since placed protection charms upon his mind and body should anything or anyone with malicious intention attempt to try him.

He doesn’t know what he was thinking at the time he convinced Sabrina, the coven, and himself that it was a good idea to use his own body as the flesh acheron, but he does admit that hubris and naivete played a part. And at the moment of that final “I love you” to Sabrina, he accepted his fate and was determined to face it no matter what happened to him.

Unfortunately for Nick, you can’t guard against the Devil.

Lucifer made quick work of him, and Nick soon found himself in a never-ending cycle of pain and torture he couldn’t have even fathomed beforehand. Suddenly, his life’s outlook was being eternally violated by the Dark Lord without reprieve. And from what it looked like, it was only a matter of time before he completely broke and the Dark Lord once again took up his mantle of dominating Hell and eventually Earth. All that would be left of Nick and his sacrifice would be any empty shell of a person who no longer knows how to exist as one.

So when the lamb arrived and saved Nick from the Baphomet, he supposed he should have been grateful. Happy, even. Nick had gone to Hell for Sabrina Spellman, and she’d gone to Hell to save him.

But as time still seemed to stretch on without end, he started to break.

Though it wasn’t exactly her fault, Sabrina could never understand what her father put him through because of her. Coupled with her lack of even really trying, her wish for him to just sweep everything under the rug and go back to how things were left him feeling more than a little resentful.

The resounding silence of his once scrambled mind did nothing but make for a much effective echochamber of his worst memories; memories which were exceedingly numerous and fresh. Nick looked for something, anything to fill up or dull that silence; most of which were methods not exactly healthy for him and definitely not healthy for his relationship.

It didn’t take long for the Morningstars to steal away Nicholas Scratch, and it was with resounding disgust that they spat back out all three parts of him they’d taken, broken beyond recognition.

Now stuck dealing with his many issues alone, the tortured boy clung to the only achingly fleeting memories that kept him grounded in rationality instead of spiraling into illusions of the dreadful abyss looming in his haunted mind. And as he replayed the images of the illuminating figure who reminded him that he was still human and that his heart was still beating, to his displeasure he’d found that he wished he had more.

She visited exactly 12 times.

Twelve blessed encounters, each one increasing his fervor more than the last; her presence was like a drug to Nick, a sustenance that he would easily admit to himself he couldn’t go without any longer.

While (Y/N) did explain to him that her powers were limited inside Hell and there wasn’t much of a chance she could directly free him, he couldn’t stop himself from pining after her whenever she was absent. At first, images of Sabrina had been what kept him going. He constantly reminded himself that she was probably doing all she could to save him, and when she actually did, he told himself that everything would finally be okay again.

Nick and Sabrina picked up exactly where they left off, eager to get back to each other again. He reminded himself, Satan be damned, he loved her; otherwise he’d have never sacrificed himself for her to begin with.

Nick had gone to Hell for Sabrina Spellman, was tortured by the Devil himself, and at the time, he had no regrets.

But things couldn’t go back to the way they used to be. He couldn’t go back.

That doesn’t mean that Sabrina didn’t try to help him in whatever way she could, but once she revealed her new royal status, Nick’s remaining feelings of responsibility towards the blonde Morningstar withered away along with the rest of the kinders of their relationship.

Nick was back amongst his coven, friends, lover; but he still felt so achingly alone and afraid all the time. He wanted to feel something, anything other than the despair Lucifer Morningstar so thoroughly imprinted into his being. Despite the love he told himself he felt for the little Morningstar, the literal spawn of his trauma, the only beacon he could rely on to keep him sane was the memory of you.

And as he reminisced on your serendipitous encounters, to his shame, he couldn’t help but compare.

After a while, it had become hard for Nick to separate the daughter from the father, the lamb from the Baphomet. In his intense resentment, he’d gotten to the point where his mind was becoming absolutely blank as it gave in to the invading presence of the sheer evil he’d been fighting against for so long…

And then an angel descended, and he’d nearly cried out in tears and praise for the false God.

It had taken him a while to realize that Lucifer’s presence couldn’t be felt anymore, and even longer to convince himself that it wasn’t a trick. He would close his eyes and see his demons warping beneath the surface, twisting his psyche into a weak, chaotic mess. He would open them and still see red, the color of a neverending hellscape created specifically to terrorize his soul and break him apart piece by piece, rebuilding and breaking again until nothing original was left. He saw despair, and he felt it as well. A gloom so deeply settled into his being that it would have been impossible to get rid of; a shell of the person he’d once been.

So no, Nick couldn’t tell you if his eyes were ever open or closed, because it made no difference to him at all. And one day in that eternity of Hell, Nick finally came to realize he regretted being all alone...

So, pray tell, when a lonely, broken boy suddenly feels someone wipe away his tears, what ever should he say?

He could only posture himself and pray.

The warmth and comfort his angel brought him blessed him with a near orgasmic experience, abruptly tugging him from the brink of despair. For a moment, he questioned if she, if he — was even real, or if Lucifer was really trying that hard to live up to his name as the harbinger of lost home and doom. But when the blessed hands caressed his face, and those saintly eyes pierced through the darkness forever in his view to meet his own, all he could feel was intense relief -- and shame.

Shame over who he was, where he’d gotten himself, and how he’d gotten there.

Surely someone who dedicated their life and soul to the Devil himself didn’t deserve the presence and grace of a literal angel in the darkest moment of his life?

So, with his eyes wide open once again, he cried. He cried at her grace, and at her mercy. Even after she coaxed him down from his delirium and explained who she really was, he wept at the sheer exuberance he felt that she even appeared -- let alone helped him -- just when he was forgetting what it felt to feel anything but pain and suffering. She was his angel, godly or not, and he thanked his lucky stars that it was his fate to be able to meet her in that moment.

Soon, between visits, it became her face, not Sabrina’s, that he’d found had kept him going. (Y/N) had become his symbol of hope, his new god, his only savior. Disillusioned with giving his life to people who only harmed him, (Y/N) became his new religion as he found himself praying to the stars and the Fates for her speedy return. Every time he was graced with her presence, he understood that whatever was written in the stars for him couldn’t have been so bad if he was able to meet her in between the lines.

And when Nick found himself finally out of Hell and in Sabrina’s arms again, he was fully prepared to keep his newfound faith close to his heart and out of the sight of others. Everything that had happened to him was incredibly personal, whether it be his time with you or with the Dark Lord. But when Sabrina revealed her new status as Queen of Hell to him and effectively admitted that everything he’d been through -- his sacrifice, his loss, his pain -- was all for nothing, Nick felt as if time had stopped and his heart had caved in.

He tried his hardest to be okay; with his life, with his coven, with Sabrina. He began coping in the only way he knew how, which admittedly did more harm than good. But without your presence to pull him from the brink, Nick found himself spiralling down the dark depths of his memories with no foreseeable end and without support. Eventually, the pent up resentment and mind games the Dark Lord still insisted on playing with him even after his escape got to him, and he lashed out. The Morningstars took everything from him; his heart, his body, his soul. The coven, Sabrina; no one actually understood him or the anguish he had experienced -- still experienced -- every second of his existence since that final pledge left his lips. The increased sense of isolation brought up his darkest thoughts and feelings, and soon he found himself not only cut off from Sabrina, but from the rest of the coven as well.

As the witches found themselves caught off guard by the arrival of the pagans, Nick instead would find himself staring up at the night sky, alone, searching for his hope.

And while the witches were more concerned with the moon, Nick was waiting for the stars.

As it was predestined, one very particular night Nick felt a very particular warmth bloom across his chest. He smiled, and smiled as wide as his face would allow at that. Because as he watched a very particular star fall from the sky, he knew finally:

The person he placed his faith in didn’t let him down.

*

Author’s Note: Here’s part 5! Next chapter should be out next Sunday.

Please ask to be tagged! Reblogs, comments and asks are appreciated as well but not required 🤠

Tag list:

@insomniac-nerd-posts-things

@jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet

@sophia-of-sass-gard

[malakian]

i’m finally reading lorrie kim’s Snape: A Definitive Reading, and even though i don’t share her views on some of the analysis presented, there are some pretty magnificent bits in the book. i finished the OotP chapter last night and a lot of it is really interesting. there must be around 2 years since i last read the OotP itself and i didn’t remember many details of it — i even made a small mistake on my last fic which i need to correct lmao but anyway, there’s this really fascinating bit in one of the occlumency lessons:

“Let’s go again . . . on the count of three . . . one — two — three — Legilimens!”

A great black dragon was rearing in front of him. . . . His father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror. . . . Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring at him. . . .

“NOOOOOOO!”

He was on his knees again, his face buried in his hands, his brain aching as though someone had been trying to pull it from his skull.

“Get up!” said Snape sharply. “Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort, you are allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!”

Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was.

Kim uses this lesson as an example of how Snape connects to Harry after viewing their somewhat similar traumas, and she also points out that it must have been a shock “for Snape to see [Lily and James] through Harry’s eyes and know that their presence in his life is ‘the deepest, most desperate desire’ of Harry’s heart.” (p. 129)

however, this is interesting for me due to other reasons. up to this point of the lesson, Snape had been acting pretty controled, even praising Harry just minutes before when Harry strikes him with a Stinging Hex (OotP, p. 534), and then, out of nowhere, there is the angry professor we know back again. but he is not just angry: as highlighted in the text, he looks paler and angrier than usual. these adjectives could be reactions to the memories he’s just seen but also to Harry’s performance. here are some possible readings:

it could be a reaction to seeing Lily. he probably didn’t expect to see her there, because theoretically Harry shouldn’t even have actual memories of her. there’s a strong possibility that this is the first time he sees adult-Lily, since we don’t know if they ever met between their graduation and her death. no wonder he’s paler than usual, huh? (it also makes me think that he was very lucky not to see Harry’s memory of her death, that would absolutely break him);

at the same time, if we consider Snape’s journey as someone who’s actively working to avoid people (specially the innocent ones, the young ones) from dying, seeing Cedric (his former student, a kid) dying like that, so close, so real, it must’ve been a shock, a raw reminder that they’re at war, of how the conflict is in motion and many lives will be lost, no matter what he does — and we should remember that at this point the war is not in full-force yet, it’s more like an information/influence war for now, so this death is pretty impactful;

seeing Harry failing in repelling him from his mind can make Snape forget niceties and go back to his usual self, but it can also be a trigger for him to realize once again the dangers surrounding Harry and how he’s going to die if he doesn’t make an effort (which is, tbf, the image Harry has built in his 5 years as Snape’s student).

BUT everything gets better if we put all of this together. being reminded of how vulnerable and in danger Harry is, and being reminded of how reckless and uninterested Harry can be as a student, the possibility of Harry not dedicating himself to learn occlumency becomes even more real and horrifying to Snape in face of what he’s just seen: the reminder that he’s swore to protect Harry for Lily, as well as how cruel and raw the boy’s death will be, just like Cedric’s, if he (Snape) fails in his mission.

that’s why Snape — who had kept his temper until then, not only to make sure Harry would learn but also to preserve himself as a spy in case Voldemort sees these memories in Harry’s mind — snaps and goes back to how he usually treats Harry. he’s unable to keep it cool when all of this (Harry’s recklessness, Cedric’s death, the rawness of the war, his dead friend with whom he’s in debt) has just been thrown in his face, all at once.

“I — am — making — an — effort,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I told you to empty yourself of emotion!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,” Harry snarled.

“Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!” said Snape savagely. “Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!”

“I am not weak,” said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.

“Then prove it! Master yourself!” spat Snape. “Control your anger, discipline your mind! We shall try again! Get ready, now! Legilimens!”

look at the verbs and adverbs used to describe his actions: spat, savagely; look at how many exclamation points!!! he’s wild. he’s lost it completely.

another fascinating thing is the part where he talks about fools who wear their hearts on their sleeves. it has been pointed out before how he’s actually taking about himself, how he’s the one trying to control his emotions all the time to avoid being an easy prey to Voldemort. however, he’s not talking about himself just in general — he’s talking about himself at that very moment. look at him, exposing his emotions, making himself vulnerable, yelling because he was provoked so easily. when he screams at Harry, he’s not only trying to make Harry understand the seriousness of the classes and the dangers he is in, Snape is trying to calm himself down, trying to shut down whatever feelings those memories awoke in him. he’s not yelling just at Harry, he’s yelling at himself. because he’s sad, desperate, and completely terrified that not only Harry will fail learning Occlumency because he’s weak, but also that he — Snape — will fail Lily because, despite whatever he’s done to convince himself otherwise in the last years, he’s just remembered that he can be weak too.

[wondernimbus]

home — george weasley

pairing: george weasley x female!reader

prompt: after the battle of hogwarts, reader comes across a familiar face in paris and finds that he, too, needs healing.

T/W: brief mentions of death & blood, trauma, recovery, angst w/ a happy ending

a/n: i have never been to paris n have no idea what it’s like and it SHOWS but anyways .. please be mindful of the trigger warnings before reading!

The battle of Hogwarts left many people wounded.

It left behind marks of fractured bones and countless bruises from all sorts of dark curses and nasty jinxes; injuries that took a while to heal, but did, in the end, as most do. But while there were wounds that were temporary—those that faded and healed eventually—there were also those that didn't. Some scars stayed; the kind that were brought about by the pain of loss. Of trauma. Of witnessing death and destruction and carnage in the very walls the students of Hogwarts had come to call home.

They were children. Teenagers. They were young and barely even knew the workings of the world, but that hardly mattered because the wizarding world was at stake—and everyone who knew how to hold a wand had to fight. Including them. And even though they were supposed to be at school worrying about homework and petty things like crushes or which tie went with which shirt, instead they had to worry about far greater things; they had to worry about their lives and that of their friends, of their families. They had to fight in the crumbling stone corridors of what was once the Hogwarts castle, watching people die both because of them and for them, trying to ignore the bodies strewn across the ground in fear of finding a familiar face.

No one walked out of the battle unchanged, and just like so many others, [Y/N]—twenty-year-old [Y/N], who once dreamed of becoming a Healer but could no longer look at blood without hyperventilating and recalling memories of battle—returned home not quite the person she once used to be. She walked through her front porch and greeted her five-year-old sister with a poor attempt at a smile that only lasted for a few seconds before she'd started crying again.

Because, like every other child who'd fought that battle, she'd returned home bearing the burden of having killed someone. Of having failed to save a friend. Of having watched walls crumble in on people her age and some even younger who had so much life ahead of them but had it torn away in the blink of an eye.

She could have been one of them. She really could have.

But there she was, alive but not quite feeling like it, crumpling to her knees in front of her little sister as she hugged her as close to her as she could.

I killed someone, she wanted to say. They could have been someone's sister, just like you.

"Did you miss me?" were the words that left her mouth instead. And it was worth it—keeping thoughts like that to herself—because when her little sister pulled away, smiling, eyes gleaming with youthful innocence, [Y/N] believed that maybe, maybe there was a little sanity in this world left that she could hang onto.

Because the scars those memories leave behind aren't permanent. Nothing is, really—they just take a much longer time to heal. Those kinds of scars need patience and gentleness and comfort. Need understanding. Space. But most importantly, they need time.

So that's what [Y/N] gives herself. Time and space away from everything around her that reminds her of things she'd rather leave in the past. She finds herself traveling, even though her parents were against it at first—"You can barely even make your own food, honey, are you sure about this?"—they'd understood, in the end, that [Y/N] couldn't bear waking up in a place where everything held memories of war. The owls would come in the morning bearing news of recovery and rebuilding and those bloody obituaries. She'd made the mistake of looking at them once, only for her eyes to quickly land on a face she'd fought alongside during the battle. Some young Gryffindor boy no older than seventeen who wrenched her out of the way when a column had collapsed.

Colin Creevey.

That was his name, apparently, according to the cursive underneath his picture right next to the words may you rest in peace.

It took her a while to calm down after that. But the panic attacks always came. Her little sister once made the mistake of trying to surprise her once, by hiding behind her bedroom door and jumping out when she walked through it. [Y/N] had screamed, fallen to the floor, and started crying, and it frustrated her because she wasn't sure why but there was that horribly familiar, inexplicable feeling inside her chest that squeezed the breath right out of her and the tears along with it.

Even looking outside of her room window reminded her of Hogwarts' own stained glass windows. Of the sound they'd made when they shattered once hit by a curse gone astray. Of the fear she'd felt when Acromantulas crawled their way in through the window frames and devoured anyone in reach. Of all the blood.

The death. The screams.

She couldn't take it, so she left. it would take a while for her to come back—to heal—but she would. She knew she would.

— 

Paris is beautiful at night.

[Y/N] sits on a ledge overlooking the cityscape and watches the sun dip below the buildings.

Sitting so far up above everything else and not weaving through the stone alleyways, it looks different from here. Like a toy city. Tiny buildings sturdily built and easily moved. Sometimes it feels like she's on top of the world, towering over everything else as she watches the scene unfold before her like a moment frozen in time with the sunset reflected in her eyes. And sometimes they'd be filled with tears, but today they aren't.

In a city where everything is constantly moving, it's easy to forget things. Easy to lose herself in the bustling streets and the friendly people and the music that seems to come from everywhere she goes, always hanging in the air, the source unknown.

But when it's quiet—when she has no one but her thoughts for company and she sits away from everything else with her heart lodged in her throat and memories trickling back in despite her efforts to keep them locked away—that's when she remembers.

The blood. The death. The screams.

All the lives lost. The lives she couldn't save. The lives she took.

But she is healing.

It hurts, still. Of course it does. She doesn't think the pain really ever will go away, but it should, to an extent. And it will happen.

It will. She knows it will.

— 

When she comes across him—the boy with the smile like the sunrise and eyes like the stars, like diamonds in the sky, [Y/N] doesn't know right away what he will come to mean to her in the future.

She sits in a pub hidden somewhere along the cobblestone streets away from the main city. The bartender knows her by now, and she him; an old Muggle with a toothless grin and a kind voice. The first time she'd walked through the wooden door a few weeks ago he'd tried to ask her about her life—what she was doing in Paris, how she was liking it so far—the same way he would do to any traveler, but [Y/N] hadn't had much to tell him aside from the same story she'd practiced so many times before; that she was on vacation.

The Muggles buy it all the time. It's at times like those that [Y/N] is grateful for their obliviousness, and in a way, she finds comfort in how little they know. How they don't know about You-Know-Who, about the war, about everything that had happened mere months ago. Because it makes it easier for her to forget.

Until the wooden door to the pub opens and a familiar face walks through it, and [Y/N] is hit by reality again.

He doesn't notice her, at first, and strides straight to the bar. [Y/N] wonders if she's hallucinating—if somehow her mind has had enough of her pushing old memories aside and started making things up as a reminder of the past. But he's standing there and he's smiling at the bartender, who slides a tall glass of beer over the counter-top towards him.

"Thank you," [Y/N] hears him say, and then he's turning around and before she knows it they've made eye contact from where she's sitting in the corner of the room. A flicker of surprise crosses his face, and for a moment all the two of them do is stare at each other, both seemingly in just as much disbelief as the other.

[Y/N] does what's appropriate: she raises her hand in a wave.

Still looking incredulous, George Weasley's mouth falls open a little in what is probably a dubious laugh if [Y/N] were close enough to hear it. And then he's striding towards her table, sliding into the seat opposite her still looking pleasantly surprised.

"[Y/F/N], was it?" George asks her, and his eyes are still alight with wonderment.

She smiles at him. Nods. Wonders if he's thinking—remembering—the same things she is. "I didn't think I'd come across anyone I knew here."

"Can't say I was expecting to, either." He doesn't look like he is; he's grinning. But then again [Y/N] is too, and for a brief second she realizes once more how easy it is to pretend like everything is okay.

And judging by the look in George's eyes, he hasn't forgotten either. But they are so far away from Hogwarts. From home. From the remnants of war. So she decides not to address it, and even though it is unsaid, George decides to do the same.

She went to school with George. Just like everyone else at Hogwarts, she'd known him and his twin brother for their troublemaking antics, but to call them friends would be a bit of an overstatement; [Y/N] was a Hufflepuff and George a Gryffindor, and apart from the few classes they had together, she rarely ever had a chance to speak to him. But in the rare times that she did, she could tell that George was sweet and kind and certainly very witty. He would have made a good friend, if [Y/N] had been given the chance.

But they don't ask each other why they're there, thousands of miles away from England, because in a way they already know. So instead the pair of them talk about anything and everything else. About Paris. has [Y/N] been to the Eiffel tower yet? Yes, duh—it's the first place she went to. How was it? It was breathtakingly beautiful. George tells her that he thought so too, and asks her if she's heard of the festival next week. She tells him he hasn't and George tells her that he'd love to accompany her there if she wants to go.

And admittedly, part of [Y/N] wonders whether it would be better to turn him down. She could walk out of this pub and leave George Weasley, who brings back memories that she'd rather forget at the moment, behind, but the courageous part—the part of her that still takes chances and waits to see where they take her—nods and says, with a soft smile on her face, "I'd love that."

Come midnight, the pub closes and [Y/N] and George are practically kicked out, a little intoxicated but not enough to be drunk, waving exaggeratedly enthusiastic goodbyes to the barkeep who grins toothily right back at them.

They find themselves standing outside of the pub, faces dimly illuminated with orange from the street lamps lining the streets. George, with his hands shoved into his coat pockets, asks her where she's staying.

She tells him the name of the hotel she's been living at, and the smile on George's face is downright joyful. "Lucky me. I'm staying at a hotel not far from there," he tells her, grinning, and she can't help but grin right back at him.

And it feels like the proper time to be saying their goodnights and apparating away, but before she does, she finds a tiny sliver of bravery in her to address what has been looming above the pair of them since the moment they spoke to each other tonight. In a quiet, almost hesitant voice, like she's treading on thin ice, she says, "I heard about your brother." Her eyes are downcast, staring down at the stone underneath her feet. "I'm sorry about what happened to him. I truly am."

George falls silent. When [Y/N] brings her eyes back up to look at him, she almost, almost cries, because there's a pain in his eyes that [Y/N] has seen far too many times in the mirror. But he's smiling, anyway, and that just makes it all the more worse because there is nothing that hurts more in the world than pretending like everything is just as it should be when it's not.

In a quiet voice, he says, "I'm here for the same reason you are. I'm here to heal. To move on." Even under the dim lighting, [Y/N] sees the way he swallows like there's a lump in his throat. "And when I have, I'll head back home and pick right back up where I left off. But right now I'm just a twenty-year-old English bloke in Paris who's just come across a beautiful woman and wants to know if she'd be interested in spending the night with him in the city."

So maybe it's not quite time to say their goodnights. Not just yet.

[Y/N] smiles at him, with his smile like the sunrise and his eyes like the stars, and says, "Lead the way."

— 

George Weasley, [Y/N] learns, is a man of many charms.

George knows how to crack jokes when needed, how to make her laugh. George knows how to make her feel comfortable but not so much that he oversteps his boundaries. George always seems to know what to say and when to say it. But perhaps most importantly, George knows how to help her do the one thing she finds the most difficulty in doing: forget.

So in turn she does the same for him, and not much later than their opportune meeting at the pub hidden away from the city, they become friends. Or something more than it. What they are, [Y/N] really isn't quite sure, but all she knows is that she's found something in him that she wouldn't have if she'd decided to turn him down a month ago—and good grief, is she happy she didn't.

Because if she had, then she would have never learned that George likes his coffee sweet, with three cubes of sugar and lots of milk. She would have never learned that he has a fascination with anything related to electricity and only just barely suppresses his excitement whenever the pair of them would come across some form of Muggle technology he hadn't been aware of before. [Y/N], who is Muggle-born and is far too used to the "ordinary" world, finds amusement in his enthusiasm. (He damn near faints with excitement in his seat the one time [Y/N] drags him off to the movie theater to see a film.) [Y/N] also learns that George finds joy in poetry—something that comes quite as a shock to her, as he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would. But on a night out by one of the canal bridges, he turns to her and starts reciting something by Hamlet—"Have you heard of him? Old Muggle bloke, apparently, I think he's dead but he was quite good with words"—and [Y/N] stares at him, incredulous, and bursts out laughing.

"Well, aren't you romantic?" she teases, grinning, eyes curving when she smiles. "Reciting poetry on a night out in Paris. Really very touching."

George puffs out his chest, all pompous and suddenly very snooty. [Y/N] is laughing again, because she's started to do it a lot ever since they'd met. "What can I say?" says George. Judging by the slight smile on his face as he stares at [Y/N], he's pleased with her reaction to his antics. "I'm quite a passionate man."

George has a smile like the sunrise and eyes like the stars and a laugh that reminds [Y/N] of sun rays and clear skies. And it's odd because when she'd first seen him at that pub, she was instantly reminded of the war, but the more time she spends with him the more he reminds her of quite the opposite. George reminds her of a time in her life when she was at peace—when she was a young girl who didn't have to worry about blood on her hands and guilt on her shoulders.

But George, she knows, has worries of his own. And just like her, he's good at hiding them, until he chooses not to anymore.

— 

Two people alone in Paris who have gone through so much and lost so many. Two people who have found something that feels like peace in one another after everything they have been through.

George and [Y/N], who look at one another when they think the other isn't looking to admire the way the light catches in their hair. The curve of their throat. The way their eyes crinkle when they smile.

And it's only a matter of time before they finally find it in themselves to venture further into what has formed between them over the past three months they've been together, and before they know it they are kissing, gentle and slow and a little hesitant in [Y/N]'s hotel room, standing out by the balcony with that tiny city below them and the stars hanging above them.

[Y/N] learns that George's lips are even softer than they look. She learns that he kisses with a closed mouth. She learns that he is slow and intimate when he pulls her into bed, and she learns that he has truly come to value her when he asks her tentatively if she is sure she wants this.

[Y/N] learns, that night, just how easy it is to fall in love, how little effort it takes. How, the moment she tells him that yes, George, I want you and makes that brave decision to surrender herself to that almost constricting feeling inside her chest and she lets herself fall, that is all she has to do—fall. And let her heart do the rest.

Touching George's skin feels like falling into oblivion, and [Y/N] lets herself spiral down into him.

Come midnight, the two of them are still awake but only barely. George has his arm tucked underneath his head and the other on her waist, and [Y/N] with her head on his chest, arm draped across his stomach as she stares up at him, eyes dancing over the planes of his face like she's trying to memorize them.

There is a necklace around George's neck. [Y/N] can recall catching glimpses of the chain, but never of the pendant. She acknowledges it now, when the adrenaline in her has died out and is replaced by a drowsy sort of calm, by reaching out a hand to run her thumb across what looks like the metal arrow.

"This mean anything?" she whispers, and in the dim moonlight streaming through the window she makes out a picture at the base of the arrow.

She feels George tense underneath her, and knows the moment the light catches on the picture—the face imprinted on it—what exactly it means to him.

"Fred," she whispers, and it's not a question.

It takes him a while, but she feels more than sees him nod. And his voice is tight, riddled with emotion, but he gets his words out anyway and [Y/N] appreciates it, because she knows that talking about it hasn't gotten any easier. But he still does, because he trusts her enough and he has grown braver over time, and some of his wounds have begun to stitch themselves back together, even by a little bit.

"We have a clock back at home," he tells her, and his words stick in his throat for a second as he takes in a deep breath. His grip on her waist grows firmer, like he needs something to hang onto, and [Y/N] lets herself be an anchor to him. "It's got all of my family's faces on each hand. No numbers—just whereabouts. Work. Home. School. Garden. When we came back home after the battle, we found Freddy's on the ground."

Something wet lands on [Y/N]'s cheek. George has started crying.

"It fell off the clock," he whispers. [Y/N]'s heart breaks. "When he died."

And then [Y/N] is sitting up, gathering him into her arms despite him being broad-shouldered and so much bigger than her. At the moment he doesn't seem like it. Right now he is a boy who grieves the loss of his twin brother, and [Y/N] aches for him.

She knows far too well that no words will ever be able to soothe the pain, no matter who they come from. So all she does is hold him as close to her as she can, pressing comforting little kisses to the top of his head, his forehead, his cheeks, which are wet with tears.

Eventually, George falls asleep—or at least she thinks so, until she hears him whisper, just when the moon is beginning to disappear below the horizon, "Thank you."

Holding George in her arms feels like holding a promise, and seeing him lit softly by the final traces of moonshine, she thinks she might be able to keep it.

— 

But even still, part of her can’t help but fear that she might not mean as much to George as he has begun to mean to her.

When she wakes in the morning and finds that the other side of the sheets is empty, panic seizes her lungs and she scrambles out of bed.

Only to find that he is in the bathroom, washing his face, cheeks flushed pink from having just woken up.

But all it took was that one brief moment to realize how terribly big her bed is, and how cold, and how horribly empty without George to fill it.

And even though she knows fully well that George isn't the kind to make love and leave, she is still scared. Still a little uncertain. So she seeks reassurance, and her eyes shining with hopefulness, asks him to stay.

George, with his smile like the sunrise and his eyes like the stars, says—no—promises, "Of course I will."

—

When the two of them find the courage to come back to England many months later, it seems they've found a new kind of home—the kind that isn't made of walls or doors or windows but the kind that's built on promises.

Promises of healing. Promises that the two of them will bear the pain of the past together, and move through it together in baby-steps that may seem tiny but take a lot of courage.

And when George slides his fingers through the gaps in between hers as they apparate away, and the two of them leave behind Paris and return to England with scars that have faded but still remain, [Y/N] thinks, for the first time in a long time, that things might turn out to be okay.

[kurt-nightcrawler]

Decay: part II

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐈𝐈 𝐱 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Warnings: this talks about alcoholism, implications of sex, mentions of technical assault (Jessie kissed Warren while he was drunk and she made him think she was Mother Nature!), also we get into Warren’s backstory a bit. I’m not trying to make anyone out to be a villain, but the story overall is much more upsetting than usual.

Word Count: 5.4K

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy! Not exactly the mood needed right now— I am very sorry, but I’m working on a much happier piece for Mother Nature and Warren! I’ll try to have it out before the end of the month!

Part 1 if you need a refresher!

Warren didn’t want to tell anyone about what happened. He wanted to pretend it never happened. To just hole up the memory of the night deep into his mind. He always hid and pushed away trauma. Why should this be any different?

His friends wanted to get Alex or maybe even Charles involved, but he protested. 

“It’s my word against her’s.” 

“Yeah, but everyone’s going to support you, and Jean and Charles are telepathic—”

“What can I really do? Press charges? If I do that then and use Jean or Charles to back me up, it becomes a whole mutant’s rights issue. It’s not worth it.” 

(Y/N) hated seeing Warren look so defeated. Jessie going about Xavier’s unscathed by everyone who wasn’t close with Warren, and him thinking it was his fault. 

(Y/N) had said she must have eaten something bad at the Halloween party, causing her to feel sick and sprout poison ivy. Also why all the plants died. 

If Hank and Charles could tell she was lying, they didn’t say anything. 

Rumors started amongst students about what had happened at the party— if Warren had actually cheated on (Y/N), if he did something to Jessie, or if Jessie forced herself onto him. 

Warren didn’t like the rumors involving (Y/N) in the mess. He didn’t like the stares and whispers they got when people saw them together. 

“Poor girl, staying with him even after he cheated.”

“Maybe she’s too naive to realize.”

“I knew they’d never work out— (Y/N)’s too good for him.”

“I bet he forced her into going out with him.” 

“I mean… he’s not ugly—”

“Yeah, but he’s not a good person and (Y/N) is!”

It made him sick to his stomach. Warren didn’t force her into anything— and he thought he had changed, that people were finally trusting him. 

Guess he was wrong.

—

Warren wasn’t even paying attention in his environmental sciences class. They were watching a video on how a plant species can be invasive, required to take notes on it. 

Warren was texting (Y/N), phone brightness turned down all the way. He just wanted to go to bed for a while and ignore the real world.

When the bell rang, dismissing students, Alex told everyone they’d finish the video, next class. 

Warren got up to leave, but Alex stopped him. 

“You doing alright?” 

“Uh, yeah.” He lied. “I’m not in trouble am I?” 

Alex hesitated to answer. 

“No.”

Warren nodded, noticeably nervous. 

“There’s a rumor going around saying you assaulted Jessie Rowe.”

Warren’s heart fell into his stomach. “I didn’t.”

“Okay… But something happened, didn’t it?” 

Warren didn’t respond.

“Warren, you have to tell me what happened.” 

“I got tipsy and she kissed me. I thought she was (Y/N), but then (Y/N) walked in and Jessie tried to act like I tried to kiss her.”

 Warren’s eyes were pleading— pleading for Alex to not get mad at him for drinking, or mad at him for not speaking sooner. 

“Um, no one got hurt, and now there’s just a rumor going around, so you can like, give me detention for drinking or whatever it’s fine—”

 “I’m going to have to tell Professor Xavier,” Alex told him. 

“Please don’t tell him I was drinking! I can’t— I won’t—”

Alex could see the desperation in his eyes. Warren had nowhere else to go. He, like many other students, depended on Xaiver’s entirely.  

“You’re a good kid Warren— you’ve opened up to others, you were sober for almost six months, you have a good group of friends and even a girlfriend— Charles isn’t going to punish you. I just don’t want you to spiral down and lose all the progress you’ve made…” 

“I just,” Warren rubbed his eyes. “Don’t wanna make a big deal about it. I’d rather it just blows over. Everyone will eventually forget about it anyway.” 

“Are you aware of the rumors involving (Y/N)?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, so, this involves her and Jessie. I know—” 

Alex and Warren turned their heads to the door. Someone was opening it. 

(Y/N) stepped inside. Warren hadn’t shown up to the library during their shared free period like he said he would, so she was worried about him. Plus, he hadn’t been doing too well since the Halloween party…. Neither of them had been. 

Her eyes were pink and purple— she was full of worry for her boyfriend. 

“Oh!” She gaped, soon as she saw Warren and Alex sitting at his desk, in the middle of what looked like an important conversation. 

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” She asked. 

“No. You can stay.” Warren told her. (Y/N) dragged a chair over and sat next to him.

“Right, as I was saying, Charles isn’t going to expel you, but he might want to make a police report. I’m not sure what good it will do, but—”

“I don’t want to. It’s not going to do anything but cause problems.” 

(Y/N) was immensely confused. She had no idea what they were talking about. 

“We’re gonna talk to Jessie, maybe a few of your friends, and knowing Charles, he won’t expel either of you. We’ll do everything we can to get the rumors to stop…” 

Oh! It finally clicked in her mind. 

It was about the party. 

“Okay… Thank— thank you, Alex.” 

“Yeah, we should go to Charles’s office— what class do you guys have next?” 

“I have lunch.”

“AP art.”

“That’s… Ms. Burnwood, right, (Y/N)?” 

She nodded.  

“I’ll make sure your absence is excused.” 

“Thanks.”

Alex took them up to Charles’s office. Warren then explained everything that happened, while trying to not get his friends in trouble for also drinking. 

Jessie was brought up to Charles’s office and questioned. She caved pretty easily, with (Y/N) glaring at her the whole time, and amid their telepathic principal, lying wouldn’t do her any good. 

Jessie was “grounded”— she couldn’t leave campus during the semester until after Thanksgiving break— she was also to stop encouraging the rumors, and had to talk with one of the school counselors once a week until they deemed it no longer necessary. Jessie’s parents weren’t in the picture, so notifying them wouldn’t do any good. 

Warren’s punishment was less severe, he couldn’t be out later than nine on weekends, (just until Thanksgiving break) and he was required to go to group therapy to help him deal with his former alcoholism and past traumas, for the rest of the school year.  

—

“You don’t have to tell me what goes on at group therapy.” (Y/N) told him. 

“I know.” 

“You don’t have to tell anyone.” 

Warren smiled a little, “I know.” 

“Okay…” (Y/N) kisses his cheek. 

Warren wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I hope it goes well… it should.” 

(Y/N) nodded, “Yeah… Here,” Her hand was in a fist. When she opened it, she revealed a daisy and a four-leaf clover. 

“You don’t really need luck or anything but, um, I thought, you know—“ 

Warren accepted the small gift, taking it from her hand. “Thanks, baby. I love it.” 

—

Group therapy was awkward. Warren hated it. He knew it would be good to talk about… well, everything, probably, but he had a hard time opening up to total strangers. 

“Alright, in case you’re new or don’t remember, my name is Allison… We have a new member with us today, he’s going to be with us for a while.” Allison looked at Warren. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“Okay… Um, my name is Warren.”  

Everyone replied with, “Hi, Warren.” 

“And um, I’m a mutant.” 

Allison smiled, “That’s great! Do you go flying a lot? 

“Uh, yeah.”

“What kind of metal are your wings made of?” A girl with washed-out blue hair asked.

“Titanium, I think.” 

“Well, Warren, welcome to the group,” Allison interjected, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Now, we’re going to do an ice breaker of sorts, and then just have like, regular conversation. We can all go around and say our favorite color and why.” 

Warren blinked. He didn’t— he didn’t have a favorite color. 

“And don’t say you don’t have a favorite color. If you can’t pick a favorite, choose one you hate the least… We can start with Trey.” 

Warren thought of color options—

Black?  No. Black wasn't his favorite, despite being 95% of his wardrobe. It absorbed the most light, helping him blend in with the darkness and look tough, something he needed in Germany. 

Blue— The color of Kurt— his roommate and friend, who he tried to kill. Twice. Something he still felt remorse over. And Apocalypse. The man who gave him the metal wings and tattoos, forcing him to aid in mass destruction, only to leave him for dead when he was no longer useful.

Red— the color of Alex’s plasma beams. And how the Horsemen were a result in him almost dying.

White and Silver— the colors of his wings. Past and present. How each reflected hardships from Warren’s life. How he hated them and a child and almost resorted back to that self-deprecation when they shifted into metal and the consequences finally sank in. 

But what about green? The color of healthy plants that thrive. The color of (Y/N)’s eyes when she’s happy.

Warren liked the color, despite (Y/N)’s eyes rarely being green around him. However, it didn’t mean she was unhappy with him.

Her eyes were pink around him. A way of saying “I love you” without actually saying it. The pink meant she cared about him more than most people— that she trusted him, accepted him for who he was despite his past, and that she would be there for him when he needed her. 

Not many people could say they would do those things for Warren, or that they had.

His father cared more about the family name and how his son couldn’t possibly be a freak. His mother didn’t want his wings to tarnish her image, and while she was still his mother, she left him on his own most of the time. 

And how all his past relationships and flings— they didn’t have much meaning. There was never any real affection behind them. They saw the cage fighting king and wanted a piece of that. 

(Y/N) looked past all of that. She saw how he responded to what life threw at him. She saw the tough guy act, the big softie, the broken boy who ran away in fear, the man who thought he wasn’t good enough— she brought out his good side, making him realize he deserved happiness, love, and a home, that when you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from there. 

He decided pink was his favorite color, because it showed someone cared for him in ways he wasn’t used to. He would do anything to keep it around forever.

“Warren, what’s your favorite color?” 

“Pink.” 

He got a few funny looks. They were probably expecting him to say black, based on his general aesthetic. 

“And why is that?”

“Um, it’s my girlfriend’s eye color… she’s also a mutant.” 

Allison smiled, “That’s very sweet.” 

She moved on to the next person, “Rose, what’s your favorite color?” 

She said, “Green.” But Warren wasn’t paying attention to why. 

The ice breaker eventually ended, and Allison shifted the discussion to other things. 

“Now Warren, since you’re new, usually new members spend most of their first meeting talking about themselves. Just so we can get to know you and whatnot.”

“Okay… um… anything specific you want to know?” 

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” 

“Okay… So, I was born into a really small family. Just me, my mom, my father, and his brother. I don’t really know what happened to my grandparents. I never asked... 

When I was three we moved from Westminster to Centerport.”

“Where’s that located?”

“Oh, uh, Westminster’s close to London.” 

Allison looked impressed. 

“I went to a private all-boys school when I was little. I don’t remember the name of it though.” 

“Were you born with your wings?” Allison asked.

“No.” Warren responded. “They started to grow when I was eleven… I was terrified. I spent almost every day trying to rip them out… but once all the feathers are gone, you’re left with nothing but bone. It hurt like hell, but I used a pocket knife and a razor to try and cut them or at least file the bone down.” 

“It wasn’t hard… but it hurt a lot. I spent so much time worrying about my wings and if people would discover them, that I started to fall behind in school… I wasn’t like failing or anything, I had access to all kinds of tutors and everything, but my parents quickly found out I was falling behind. My father was barely aware, telling my mom to ‘deal with it.’ She tried her best, but I was so scared of them discovering my wings…”

   Warren sighed, “My parents had a beach house in Italy, and we were supposed to go there for my fall break. I was so terrified. I couldn’t go swimming, they’d see my wings… But I couldn’t find a way out of the trip. I was twelve at the time and my mom… She saw my back when I came out of the shower...”   

“She screamed, and my father came running to us. When he saw my back, he was disgusted. The look on his face was drilled into my skull for years. And it wasn’t even that bad, they were just growing back after being cut, so they weren’t even that big… but I just remember how scared my mom was, and how disgusted my father was… I just started crying and apologizing, but it didn’t do anything.” 

“We left our trip four days early and I was pulled out of school. My parents decided to homeschool me, which basically meant, cut all contact with everyone from school and have a few tutors come to the house.” 

“Did you have contact with anyone outside of your home?”

“I saw some family friends, and one or two kids of my parent’s friends… my parents hired countless doctors and all kinds of people, doing tests on me, trying to find a “cure”. Every time they failed my parents just got more upset— I was becoming a waste of time and money. They were becoming more distant and cold, wrapping themselves up in their work, and I was locked up.”

“What happened to your wings?”

“My mom said the scars they would leave were ugly, but I was forced to let them grow out.” 

“My parents were arguing a lot, always sad or angry… mostly because of my wings… I was getting tired, tired of hiding, tired of the arguing, I wanted it all to stop…”

“Can you please stop?” Warren thought he was going to cry. 

His father glared at him, disgusted by the wings, and how his son was on the verge of tears. 

Warren could hear his parents arguing from down the hall. That’s all they seemed to do when they were home— fight. 

Warren blamed himself. If he was just normal. If he didn’t have those damn wings!

He wanted them to stop. He’d do anything to make them stop. 

Warren thought about getting on to the roof and jumping. Not even flying down, just falling to his end. His end of suffering, and his loveless, lonely existence. 

“Are you going to do it?” 

Warren looked over his shoulder to find his father standing behind him. Watching him peer out the highest window in the house. 

“No! I— I’m sorry! I wasn’t—”

His father scoffed. “Did I raise a coward?”

Warren couldn’t look him in the eyes. “No sir.”

“I’ve scheduled for you to have spinal surgery next week. Your doctor is coming to prep and evaluate you for it. This surgery should fix you.”

Warren’s eyes were closed, trying not to imagine the pain, trying to not cry in front of his father. 

“Or you can fall out the window… in a freak accident.” 

“So I jumped out the window. I didn’t fall to my death as he had hoped, but I flew. I flew far away. I flew across the Atlantic for a few hours before I started to get tired. I spotted a ship and I got close. It was a fishing boat, a large one. The crew let me stay for the night until they went back to land… After that, I flew from São Miguel to Cascais. From there I just kind of fucked around Europe.” 

Warren sighed. Allison told him to take all the time he needed and he could stop if he wanted for the day. Let someone else talk. 

Warren nodded and kept quiet for the rest of the meeting. 

—

Alex picked him up when the meeting ended. Alex didn’t ask about the meeting. It wasn’t his business and he knew Warren would talk when he was ready. 

“Where do the others think I went?” Warren asked. 

“Training. They’re busy anyway, most didn’t notice you were gone.” 

Warren silently nodded. 

Alex pulled into Xavier’s garage, parking and letting Warren slip out and go up to his room. 

Warren kicked his shoes off and laid on his bed, putting in his earbuds and playing some soft songs. 

(Y/N) was heading up to Warren’s room to use his shower. She was covered in paint, for she helped clean up after the fourth graders used the art room. 

(Y/N) knocked on the door, making sure no one was there before she entered. 

Warren didn’t hear her and (Y/N) almost didn’t notice him laying on the bed. When she did, however, her entire demeanor changed. 

“Hi, Angel!” She went over to practically smother him in light kisses. 

Warren pulled out his earbuds and smiled. “Hi, Flower.”

“When did you get home?” She asked, scooting over to the open side of the bed. 

“Like ten minutes ago. What have you been up to?” 

“I got paint all over me,” (Y/N) frowned. “I was going to take a shower and wash it off.” 

“You can do that. I was just kind of laying here.” 

(Y/N) bit her lip, unsure of how to handle the situation. 

“If you disassociate your whole day will feel off. You should take a nice relaxing shower with me, instead.” 

Warren chuckled. 

“Not like that, Bird brain!” She exclaimed. “We can use one of my lush bath bombs and my rose-scented exfoliator.” 

“Are you saying I smell?” Warren joked. 

“Eh,” (Y/N) shrugged before slipping her bra off and throwing it in the hamper. 

Warren scoffed and wrapped his arms around (Y/N), peppering her neck in kisses. “How dare you!” He teased. 

“Ah!” (Y/N) laughed. Warren’s lips on her neck tickled her skin. “That’s why I’m going to bathe.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll join you.” 

(Y/N) hummed in victory, wiggling out of Warren’s grip, and headed into the bathroom to grab her stuff. 

The last time she used the girls’ communal showers was before they were even dating. (Y/N)’s toothbrush made its way into Warren and Kurt’s bathroom, then her shampoo and conditioner, and then eventually most of all her other hygiene products. 

(Y/N) set her soap and other things on the edge of the tub and drew up warm water, filling the bathtub up about halfway. 

She sprinkled in rose petals and got Warren into the bathroom. They both stripped off their clothes and stepped in the tub. A bit difficult, for Warren had to fold his wings back and get in first, with (Y/N) practically sitting in his lap, face to face, but they made do. 

(Y/N) dropped an orange bath bomb in the water and grabbed her jar of exfoliating scrub, rubbing it on her arms and legs to help remove the paint. 

Warren closed his eyes and rested his chin on her shoulder. 

“How’d it go today?” (Y/N) asked as she grabbed a bar of soap and rubbed it onto her skin. 

He didn’t respond. 

“I’m sorry…” She murmured. 

“Don’t apologize. It wasn’t terrible… I talked a little bit about my parents.” 

(Y/N) nodded as she applied her rose exfoliator onto Warren’s skin. 

“I’m really sorry…” Warren let out. He sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. 

“Baby,” (Y/N) looked into his eyes. “it’s okay.” 

“I— I just—“ Warren hiccuped, letting out a choked sob and releasing some tears from his eyes. 

(Y/N) rubbed his back, avoiding the tender spot around his wings, whispering, “Let it out, it’s okay, Angel.” 

Warren silently cried into (Y/N)‘s shoulder. Her arms wrapped around him in comfort. The emotions he felt almost made him sick— love and affection— and a lot of it too. He couldn’t remember a time before when he felt like that. He never wanted to leave (Y/N)‘s embrace. 

Warren lifted his head up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“Sorry— um—“ 

“It’s okay.” (Y/N) cupped his face in her hands, leaving a kiss on each cheek. “Want me to wash your hair?” 

Warren nodded. 

“C’mere—” (Y/N) grabbed the shampoo from the bathtub ledge, pouring some in her hands, and then lathering it into Warren’s mop of curls. 

Her hands gently massaging his scalp felt like a touch of heaven to Warren. He didn’t want to cry again, but he couldn’t help himself.  (Y/N) was heartbroken at her boyfriend’s demeanor, but it was good he was letting it all out.  

She finished washing his hair and drained the tub— them both getting out— Warren holding onto (Y/N) as she gently dried them both off. 

“Thank you, He mumbled.

“Of course, Baby…”   

—

Most of their dates shifted to either being at the mansion or during the day. Warren felt bad, having to limit things for them, but (Y/N) didn’t care. 

“We can do more stuff during the day… And at night all our friends will be gone… We’ll be all alone…” (Y/N)’s tone was almost teasing. Warren had to chuckle to himself, she was doing her best to make the situation work.

His second group meeting was set a bit later in the day, around 6 pm on a Saturday. Warren told (Y/N) he probably wouldn’t be back until after dark. 

“Call me if you need me. I’ll be here—” She motioned to her empty bedroom. 

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” He teased.  

“You too, Baby.” 

Warren drove himself to his second group therapy meeting. Alex offered to drive again, but Warren felt bad having him taking time out of his day to drive him to group therapy. 

Not everyone who was at the first meeting was at the second one— but Warren saw some familiar faces. 

“Hey, Warren! Welcome back,” Allison greeted him. 

“Hi.” 

He took a seat near a guy in a grey hoodie with an eyebrow piercing. 

“Alright everyone, we’re going to go around, say our name, and if we have any pets. If you don’t that’s okay! You can say, what kind of animals you’re interested in. Let’s start with Collin…”

Warren zoned out for a bit until it was his turn. He didn’t have a pet, and he didn’t really have an interest in a specific animal. People made jokes about him being a bird, but he didn’t necessarily have a connection with them. 

“I don’t have a pet… My girlfriend has a lot of plants though…” 

“Ooo! What kind?” 

“Um… Almost all kinds— her mutation helps grow them and stuff…”

“That’s cool.” Someone commented.

Warren awkwardly nodded. The ice breaker continued around the circle, and when finished, Allison had some people give updates on how they had been since the last meeting, others talked about how they were feeling in general. 

“Warren—”

“Yeah?” He asked. 

“Do you want to continue talking from where you left off last week?”  

“I can, sure.” 

The floor was given to him, and Warren continued his “backstory”. 

“I ended up in Germany. Messing around, staying overnight on stranger’s couches. I tried to find work, but it was hard being almost 15 at this point and no papers… I ran into muggers and they tried to, well, rob me, but I fought back. I wasn’t very good but it got them off and away from me… I ended up in a bar… The last thing I remember was falling asleep and then waking up in a locker room of sorts. A bunch of men shouting in German, um, some in English, but basically I was told to go out into ‘the ring’. People were watching— shouting and cheering, for the other guy in the ring. He was kind of short and hairy, but he had these claws, and he could really kick ass. I barely made it out of there— I didn’t win— but I didn’t die. People enjoyed watching us. They cheered, calling him Wolve-something, and they called me, Angel.” 

“I wanted to leave, but the people running the ring gave me some money and I found a place to stay for the night… the job offers weren’t exactly lining up… so I agreed to more fights. I got really good, fighting other mutants, probably in the same situation as me, but I quickly realized, kill, or be killed…” 

Warren quickly realized people had very concerned looks on their faces. “I didn’t kill anyone! But I did beat them up pretty badly— the more fights I won the more money I got— and it was that or die… I did it for about two years before I met someone… 

I was alone at a bar, I was bruised and a bit bloody, and this girl with purple hair came up to me. She was one of the guards in the fight club— she worked for some guy named Caliban, I think. I don’t remember… Anyway, her name was Betsy. She said she’d been watching me for a while, saying my fighting was impressive but could be improved… Uh, She offered to help me out, and we went back to her place. She helped clean up the blood on me, and um, then we made out, and I spent the night… This went on for a while, she’d watch me fight and give me tips and pointers, and we’d make out and stuff…”   

“How long is, awhile?” Allison asked.

“Um, Like two-ish years? I don’t know— but um, we had this like thing going on, and I thought we were maybe dating? I dunno. But whatever we had I fucked up.”

Warren groaned as Betsy aggressively pressed her mouth against his. He had just won another fight and went back to her place to “celebrate”. 

“God, B… I love you...” 

 Betsy froze, her body tensing up. 

“What?”

Warren panicked, her face did not seem pleased. “It slipped out— I’m sorry—”

“No… You don’t mean it… We can’t be together.”

“What do you mean?” He asked. “I thought we were together.” 

“Angel— this isn’t a relationship— we just fuck while I give you some pointers on your punches.”

“I know this isn’t traditional, we don’t go out on dates—”

“You don’t love me! We’re too young— I’ll lose my job. I spend all this time one you so I don’t lose my job, you’re the best fighter—”

“You keep me trapped here?” Warren asked, slowly piecing things together. 

“It’s not like that—” She tried to explain. 

“I’ve tried to quit fighting for almost a year now! I told you I wanted to leave, and this whole time you’ve been keeping me here?” 

“You’re young and naive, and I’d lose my job, everything—” 

Warren stood up, ignoring Betsy’s excuses. 

“Where are you going?” 

“Away. Since we’re not together and I don’t love you.” Warren slammed the door behind him and headed back to the ring. He needed to let out his anger. 

—

Warren went on a winning streak— he won ten fights in a row— the feeling was borderline euphoric, the crowds cheering for their champion, Warren getting to sink someone’s teeth in or watch them fall to the ground. 

Warren was amped up for his eleventh fight— the announcer was talking about his next opponent— 

“The Incredible Nightcrawler!” 

A lanky, devil looking, blue boy fell out of a cage onto the floor of the ring. Warren circled him for a moment before meeting him on the ground. 

He wasn’t fighting, just teleporting around the cage in small bursts. 

“Fight!” Warren yelled at him. “Or they’ll kill us both!” 

The blue boy looked terrified, but he fought back when Warren attacked him. 

At one point he managed to drag Warren against the side of the electric cage, burning his wing. 

“Ah!” Warren cried out in pain. Suddenly he saw the blue devil escape from the bottom, so in a risky move, he flew up and ripped off the upper walls of the cage, and flew out. His flying was wonky and jagged for one of his wings was broken.

Warren had nowhere to go, so he went back to the one place he shouldn’t have— 

Betsy’s place. 

—

“I was drunk as shit and angry and this blue wrinkly man came with Betsy and some other girl I didn’t recognize, and he just held his hand out and metal grew out of my back and on top of my wings. I was healed, in a way, but also it kind of ruined my life. The blue man also just held his hand  out and gave me these tattoos…”

“You weren’t one of the horsemen with Apocalypse, were you? Like last spring I think… Out in Cario?” One girl in the circle asked.

“Yeah… Um, I never killed anyone, and I don’t do that anymore. The X-Men took me in and I’m trying to get my shit together.” 

“We don’t judge here, and from what I’ve heard, the X-Men do great things! Like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.” Others in the group murmured in agreement. 

“You’re built like a transformer dude,” The guy sitting next to him commented. 

“Thanks…” 

“I think you can do a lot of good, Warren. You’ve spent a lot of time running from your problems, but you seem like you’re grounded now… I was told you came here because you relapsed.”   

“It was an accident— I haven’t drank since.” 

“And that’s good! It can be really hard to open up and talk about your past, but you did it…”

Warren nodded along to what Allison said. 

“I think you can do even better if you acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them… and don’t be afraid, don’t push them into the back of your mind… I think— if you haven’t already— talk to your girlfriend about some of this. Doesn’t have to be a lot or all at once, but being open and honest does good in relationships.”

“Yeah, um, sounds good.” Warren’s heart fell into his stomach. He was terrified to talk about all of this with (Y/N).

She didn’t deserve the burden. (Y/N)  was this innocent, happy, light in his life. Warren didn’t want to ruin that. 

He thought (Y/N) was too good for him, and she would eventually realize that and leave him.  

But he trusted her. He trusted (Y/N) with his life. Perhaps a bit foolish, but he rarely ever felt sure about those types of things. He decided to trust his intuition.

—

Warren drove home in silence. 

He pulled into the garage and put the keys on the key rack before heading up to (Y/N)’s room. 

He didn’t even bother knocking on the door. He just walked right in and flopped onto the bed, in (Y/N)’s lap.

She was surprised, but she quickly came to her senses and tried to figure out what happened. 

“Baby?...” (Y/N) looked down at Warren’s face as she tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear. 

“I…” Warren burst into tears, all his bottled up emotions coming out at once. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Warren sat up and (Y/N) hugged him tightly. 

“I have… things… I want to tell you… about my past…” Warren scrunched his nose. 

“My parents and other stuff… but I’m scared.” He admitted.  

“Warren, baby, I’m not going anywhere. Tell me whatever you need to, whenever you feel ready, okay?” 

He slowly nodded, still crying. 

(Y/N) kissed his forehead and rubbed his back, being silent and supportive. 

“Can… Can you promise me… Promise me you won’t leave because of my past. I’ve done really bad shit and—” 

“I promise I’m not going anywhere. I mean it.” She reassured him.  

Warren wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his tears slowing down.

“Thanks…” He mumbled.

“Of course, anything for you, Angel.” 

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 51-56

This is the “Seras Coming of Age” part of Hellsing, but the chapters are all one-off titles: “Last Mission”, “Get Away”, “Yaksa”, “The Man I Love”, “Ogre Battle”, and “Angelous,”

Last time, Zorin Blitz’s company invaded the Hellsing HQ, and Seras managed to kill them all except for Zorin herself, and then she used her psychic whammy, forcing Seras to relive some traumatic moment.   We saw one of the Wild Geese get this same treatment, and he briefly saw his dead daughter before Zorin killed him.  As for Seras, she relives the deaths of her parents.   Years ago, two guys barged into their home and shot them.   The circumstances aren’t entirely clear, but they must have had some forewarning, since Seras’ mom hid her in a closet and told her not to come out no matter what.   But when she saw what they did to them, Seras became so enraged that she attackedthe men and stabbed one in the eye with a fork.  

The other guy shot Seras, and while she must have survived, she remembers laying on the floor as the guy she stabbed decides to rape her mother.   I’m not even sure “rape” is the right word, since she was already dead, but the guy doesn’t care because the body is “still warm.”   You’d think he’d be too upset about losing an eye, but maybe he’s high on cocaine or something.

I don’t think you need me to tell you this, gentle reader, but hol-ee shit this dark.   We knew Seras’ parents died when she was young, and it wouldn’t be hard to speculate that they died in some violent crime, but Seras watched it happen, and she stabbed a dude in the face, only to get shot herself, and she watched her mother’s body getting molested before she passed out.  

And this gives us some insight into what Alucard saw in her that night in Cheddar.  There, Seras was surrounded by ghouls, many of them her comrades in the police department, and a vampire who promised to rape her before drinking her blood.   Alucard found it remarkable how she persevered in this horror, but now we see that may not even be the worst thing that ever happened to her.  It’s not even the first time she got shot!  

And from the earlier flashback we saw, Seras was hellbound to become a police officer like her father.  After a trauma like this, it’s amazing that she’d want anything to do with the police, since those men killed her father for digging “too deep” into whatever they were involved in.  But Seras quietly, defiantly chose to follow in her father’s footsteps, only to suffer a similar fate. 

Because, let’s not forget, Seras is dead.   She died in Cheddar, because Alucard had to shoot through her to kill the vampire who had taken her hostage.   Then she agreed to become a vampire like him, and join the Hellsing Organization.   Once more, she has quietly, defiantly, chosen to carry on in this life of public service.  

But none of that matters to Zorin Blitz.   She just wanted to dredge up all this trauma to keep Seras preoccupied long enough for Zorin to do this...

Oh, also she lopped off Seras’ left arm, but I liked this impalement panel better. 

On top of that, Zorin slashes Seras’ eyes, which was pretty gruesome and shocking.   When I started watching the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, so I trawled YouTube for clips of Seras, so I had a pretty good idea where the character was headed, and noticed that late-story Seras was missing a left arm.   So Zorin cutting it off didn’t surprise me much, but everything else she did to her was a surprise.

Then, just as Zorin seems to be ready to finish Seras off, Pip Bernadotte gets the drop on her and whacks her with the butt of his rifle.    Machine gun?   Semiautomatic?   I don’t know from guns.    He hits her with it, is my point.   Then he shoots her with a different gun to put the exclamation point on it.

There’s two other guys left in the Wild Geese, and they toss smoke grenades to cover Pip as he tries to carry Seras to safety, but he’s wounded, and then a Millennium soldier wakes up and shoots him in the thighs.   Was that guy playing possum?  The Geese take him out, and Pip even makes it back to them, but I’m not sure what good that does anybody.   Then Zorin gets back up and cuts him down with her scythe.    I don’t think she chops him in half or anything, but he’s not getting back up again, that’s for sure. 

Seras calls out to him, and he steals another kiss.   I guess he forgot about the last time, because he acts like he “finally” managed to do this.   Then he asks Seras to drink his blood, which will allow her to win.   I guess someone must have explained enough vampire lore to Pip for him to have figured this out.    Maybe Seras herself told him how it worked, which makes it doubly-meaningful for him to say this to her now.  

And Seras starts wailing with grief, before Zorin finally mocks her for it, calling Pip an insect.   I’ve seen a few people poke fun at this scene, because it’s kind of weird for Zorin to just stand by while Pip and Seras have this final moment together, but Zorin’s a sadist.   Much of what she’s done in these past several chapters has been about reveling in her enemies’ suffering.    She took her sweet time with Seras earlier, which was the only reason Pip managed to help her, and now she’s taking her sweet time again, like she’s enjoying this drama. 

So Zorin uses her psychic whammy again, but this time it doesn’t work on Seras.   Maybe because Seras is already in the middle of a terrible trauma in the here and now.   She couldn’t do anything to avenge her parents back then, and she was powerless against the Cheddar Priest, but this time?   This time she knows exactly what to do.

VENIT AEVUS ILLE, O MESSIAH, O MESSIAH

YUDULIYA-VELE YUDULIYA-VELE

EN ESE MOMENTO ZORIN BLITZ SINTIO EL VERDADERO TERROR.

So yeah, this rocks.    The anime version does this cool thing where all the blood soaks up into her clothes and stains them red.   Maybe the manga was going for the same thing, but it’s harder to tell in black and white.   I find it kind of strange how Seras’ eyes grow back, but her left arm does not.    I’m pretty sure she could reform her arm, but chooses not to.   Instead, she’s got this black ectoplasm-y thing, like the same black stuff that Alucard uses when he’s not holding back as much.

Then Seras starts slaughtering Zorin’s men.   Didn’t she already kill them all?  Yeah, but there’s more.   The anime tries to cover for this by having Zorin explain that some “late arrivals” showed up.  Well, they did have to enter the building single file to get past the mines, so it makes sense that Zorin would keep some in reserve in case there were more traps inside. 

Seras is my favorite character in this whole thing, and since these pages of her kickin’ ass speak for themselves, I guess I’ll talk about why I like her so much.    I’m pretty sure I saw a cosplay photo of her on tumblr, and I found the design intriguing.   She’s a vampire, but dressed in something like a military uniform, kind of like the “Bridge Bunnies” in Macross. I looked up Seras to find out what she was from, and I was like “Oh, Hellsing was the show Team Four Star has been abridging, I guess I need to watch that anyway so I can watch the Abridged version and get the jokes.”

Mostly, I just like the idea of a vampire with a very professional mentality, as opposed to the whole Lost Boys/What We Do in the Shadows/Buffy kind of aesthetic.    Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we see that sort of thing all the time.   I’ve also seen a lot of “reluctant” vampires in my time.    Vampires who try to avoid doing any vampire stuff, or going about their business like the vampirism is just this inconvenient obstacle.   Hellsing presents this other option, where vampires like Alucard are used for the purpose of anti-vampire countermeasures.   He’s been turned into a weapon, but he’s basically just Dracula with a fresh coat of paint.   Seras is more firmly rooted in the concept.  Alucard was a vampire who became a sort of cop, and Seras is a cop who became a vampire. 

And while I liked the idea of Seras being like “Oh, well I didn’t want to be a vampire but I’ll try to make the best of it”, I quickly found out that she wasn’t just a cop with pointy teeth.   There’s moments where she can be scary and creepy too.   “Sir, yes sir, my Master.”  It sums her up very neatly.   This is a vampire who can be polite and respectful and professional, but she can also get very deep into the more horrific aspects of this thing.   She’s got layers.  Zorin Blitz tried to peel them back, and look how that’s working out for her.

Once the rank and file goons are dealt with, Seras goes after Blitz, and just wrecks her shit.   Blitz tries to punch Seras in the face and it does nothing.   Seras just bites all her fingers off and spits ‘em out.   Then she announces that she refuses to drink Zorin’s blood, not a single drop. This is important, because Seras was always reluctant to drink blood.  She said she feared that drinking blood would mean the end of something inside of her, but now she’s crossed that Rubicon.   One might suspect that she’d suddenly want to drink more blood, but no.  She drank Pip’s as a means to an end.   Zorin’s blood would serve no higher purpose, and I think there’s an implication that she doesn’t want to dishonor Pip’s sacrifice.  Desperate, Zorin tries to use her power on Seras a third time, and then this happens:

  Okay, so at first Zorin sees Seras’ memories, like before, but now there’s all this stuff from Pip’s memories, and then Warrant Officer Shrodinger, of all people, shows up.   Zorin is confused by this, but he explains that he’s “everywhere and nowhere,” which means he can appear in this psychic vision just as easily as he can teleport between Brazil and England.

Schrodinger is here to pass along a message from the Major.  See, Zorin disobeyed his orders, and he would normally punish her for this, but he and the Doctor are busy with a “most interesting toy”, so they’ll just leave it to Seras to take care of punishing Zorin.  

Yesterday, I think I figured out what Zorin’s disobedience was.    Before I was confused because she didn’t start attacking until Seras opened fire on her blimp, and that only happened because Seras was shooting at the rockets fired by the Major.   Everything that Zorin did afterwards could be considered a matter of self-defense, but therein lies the problem.    Namely, what was Zorin’s blimp doing in the line of fire to begin with?  

Because once Seras shot her down, everything Zorin did next was sort of her only option.   She pretty much had to attack the mansion, and brave its defenses, whatever those happened to be.   And the Major knew that this was a big unknown.   He warned Zorin about Seras Victoria and while he didn’t seem to know exactly what her abilities were, he regarded her as an “arch-enemy” on the same level as Alucard.  That’s why he wanted Zorin to hold off and wait for the rocket attack.   It was intended to probe the mansion’s defenses, and once it became clear that they had anti-aircraft guns, and that Seras was eagle-eyed enough to shoot down their rockets, then the Major could have ordered Zorin to find a different way.   

But instead she was too close and gave Seras a target, which precipitated everything else, up to and including this:

Yeah, Seras just drags Zorin across the walls until her whole head smears apart.   Cool!

With Zorin dead, Seras delcares her intention to take the fight to the enemy, and the last three Wild Geese salute her before she leaves.   One way or another, they realize that Pip has become a part of Seras now, and they pay their last respects to him through her. 

Then Seras flies toward London, using her left arm-thing to make cool bat wings.    And this is a good illustration of what Seras is all about.  Once, she might have been horrified at the thought of doing something like this, but now she sees it as a way to carry on with her duty.    This was what Alucard had been trying to get her to understand, but sometimes you just have to work these things out in your own way.   Seras is about utility, and now that she has a use for these vampiric powers, she’s finally prepared to embrace them as her own.

In London, Schrodinger reports back to the Major and informs him of Zorin Blitz’s death.  He’s not surprised, and even declares “our ruin has begun”.   Schrodinger points out that he’s leading everyone, friend and foe alike, into destruction, and the Major simply observes that this is war.   Millennium didn’t come to London to win, they came to London to fight.

Then the Ninth Crusade shows up.  Recall that, earlier, Enrico Maxwell organized a military response to deal with the Millennium invasion of London, but he hasn’t come here to save the civilian population.   Instead, he’s treating them as enemies, just like the Nazi vampires.    Somehow, there’s still living people in the city, and as dawn approaches, they see Maxwell’s helicopters putting off some sort of light show.  I don’t know what you call this, but the people on the ground think it’s angels, and then Maxwell orders his men to open fire.

I want to point out that the newly promoted Archbishop Maxwell is riding into this battle in a special truck with a glass box for him to sit in.   He’s surrounded by microphones so he can address his troops and the people below.   Also the truck is hanging from a helicopter.   It’s stupid and pointless and over-the-top, so naturally the Major is highly impressed with Maxwell’s style.