#I'm sick of seeing this one same tactic being used over and over again in this show

[feltpool]

Focus Shift

Can we look at this scene for one moment instead of what happens a moment afterwards?

Because yet again we get a moment of ‘not getting to see the important moment but having it referred to anyway’.

“Remember what I said” says Hunter.

But we don’t know what thing he said that he’s referring to. Or when he said it.

So how are we supposed to be able to put this moment into any proper sort of context when we have no clue which of the many things he’s said that he could be meaning, let alone whether that’s a moment that appeared onscreen or not?

But we’re quickly hurried away from thinking about that by them dropping a bigger moment in just seconds later to take all of the focus away what what Hunter just said.

They keep on trying to lead us with this exact same distraction technique, and it’s usually very effective for the first day or two after the episode airs. But it’s a bullshit tactic and doesn’t get any better, or any more convincing, the more they use it.

[volturiprincess]

You Kill Me (Pt 2.)

Caius Volturi x vamp female reader

Summary: The confrontation after part one. Warnings: Angst, foul language, mentions of sexual harassment, Caius' sinister side peeks (I think thats all?) A/N: FINALLY! Man it took a while but I mean I got writer's block with this one. I really wanted to dive a bit deep with this and I added a couple back and forth POV between reader and Caius (I almost added a Marcus POV but I changed my mind). Thank you to everyone who has been patient with this one-shot, I hope I did not disappoint. But as always...Enjoy💙 Word Count: 6k+ (My longest one so far)

(Here's Part 1)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(This. Was. His. Era. Again Jamie did him justice🥰)

Recap….

We stood in silence, I wanted to say something but I didn't know what exactly. I must have been too deep in thought because when I looked up he was gone…..

Oh gosh. What have I done? Why didn't I just say something to him, anything really could have worked at that moment and maybe I would not of hurted him. I never wanted to hurt him in anyway, he’s my mate for fucks sake. Even if I'm still getting used to the idea of having him as my mate, or just being around vampire civilization again, I would never want to harm him. When I pushed him away the hurt his eyes reflected, hit me.

Why am I being so difficult with him? You would think finding your mate just clicks for one and everything in your life finally makes sense, you get a sense of being even but no I decided to just make this once in lifetime experience so complicated. I have been in communication with Carlisle of course via letters, and when I tell him about me and Caius, I can already picture him shaking his head in disappointment each time he reads my letters. He understands why I'm being like this but he finds it totallyunnecessary for me to act like this toward my own mate, he keeps telling me you only get one in this lifetime. 

I decided to head outside to the gardens, where I usually spend my alone time until I see Marcus there. It seems he was expecting me. 

“Hello Marcus, fancy seeing you here”

“I would say the same thing but we have matters to discuss, dear”

I guess Caius got to him already, even if Marcus never shows any sort of emotions, right now he's giving me the same look Carlisle would give me when I did something absurd. He motions for me to sit with him, which I join him instantly.

“I am already going to assume you know what I'm about to say?”

“I have a hunch of an idea”

I couldn't look at him because the look he's giving me was pure disappointment, I felt like a child being scolded by their parents. I know that feeling all too familiar, I was the ‘wild card' apparently compared to my brother when we were younger, father had a knack to always scold me even when it's something as little as forgetting to put away a cup. Carlisle had it easier compared to me, I was molded to be this lady that society would approve of, I was designed to be the perfect wife according to my father. Mother would have never wanted me to be raised like this, she was the one who encouraged me to read, she was even the one who taught me how until she passed away when me and Carlisle were 5. 

“Let’s start this off simple, how are you feeling?”

That is a very good question, how the fuck do I feel? Sure I feel confused, that's all I have been feeling since I found out about being mated to Caius but I mean I feel disgusted. I feel disgusted with myself, I heard stories over the years that the Volturi were supposedly these power hungry coven who are just ruthless but now I feel like I'm the true villain here. What kind of sick person– err vampire in this case– turns their back on someone who has been nothing but loving and patient with them? Caius, even if he has  been interesting with his tactics of showing affection, has only been patient with me, and how do I return the favor? I push him away and basically stomp on his heart.

“Terrible”

“Elaborate on that”

I really do feel like a kid currently.

“I feel terrible because I broke Caius heart” 

“And how?”

And now I feel like I'm in a therapy session.

“For months I turn away from our mate bond and refuse to give in, he does not deserve that, actually screw that he does not deserve a mate who just shuts him away for no reason”

“Oh but there is a reason to your uncalled behavior”

“Isn't there always a reason for everything?”

“Yes, which is why I'm asking you why are you being like this?”

“I dont know”

Of course I know why, I'm scared to give into the bond, what if I’m not good enough for him. What if I fuck up or something and he decides I'm not worth, that I'm not worthy in being his mate. I know you can't pick who your mate is or anything but he could do so much better than me, a person worthy enough to be his queen. Other than the fear, I'm angry. I've been forced to be here forever and don't even have the chance to see my brother. I miss him, he was all I had left of my family and now I have to be away from him. And my past trauma is always lingering.

“I doubt that”

“Marcus, no disrespect to you, but why are you invested in me and Caius? I know he's your brother and all but…why?”

I saw him look off to the distance, almost like I do on a daily basis when I'm reflecting on thoughts or events throughout the day. But I could see his expression change, instead of the disappointed look he had not that long ago, he looked gloomy which was his usual expression before I started to talk to him. 

“I told you about my…” I saw him take an unnecessary gulp ”late wife…Didyme,right?”

“Yes you did, she sounded like a lovely being, I would of loved to of meet her”

“She was, I mean she is. What i'm trying to say is I don't want to you or Caius to end up like me, I have had my brother in my life for so long and to see him finally find his mate, makes me surprisingly happy, I might not show it but internally I have a bit of peace”

Oh the guilt I have right now is no joke, the way he is speaking makes me worry more about the situation I created with his soul brother. The day he told me about Didyme was when I healed her favorite flower, he only told me a bit about her, her personality, features, how her smile could brighten any room, how with just a touch his worries and sadness would be like if it never existed. He truly loved her and the way he is barely going through life does make me sympathize for him big time. I actually make sure to check up on him at least once a day, from just asking him about the latest book he has read to just asking him to oversee my work in the garden, it's not much but I can see a bit of change in his eyes. 

“But I also do not want to see you suffer, I don't know what you are trying to accomplish with this behavior but you have become an important person to me. I view you as a sister I never had, makes me a bit envious of Carlisle since he has the honor to call you his actual sister.”

“Marcus I don't know what to say, I'll be honest with you but I view you as my brother as well, I see a bit of Carlisle in you”

“We are getting off topic but I appreciate your honesty dear, the point of this conversation is to come to your senses and accept Caius as your mate, I can see your bond with him weaken, you are doing nothing to nurture it, he was kind of trying but not in an effective way, in a way you two are acting like children, now if you will excuse me, I have matters to attend to”

He took off before I could even close my mouth at his revelation. He does make a point, I need to stop this ridiculous behavior I've been having and be willing to accept Caius as a mate. 

Caius POV

Humiliated. Disappointed. Defeated. Embarrassed. Furious. And Shameful. Who does she think she is? Was it perhaps my fault for pushing her and just throwing myself at her with that kiss? What was I thinking in doing such an action on her? I would never act like that or think to do it, I am a gentleman, I might not show it but I have never had no intentions to be this way. I still blame her. She is the one who has made me a whole different being. My brother has told me once you find your mate, everything just clicks, they are your equal side and they supposedly make you a better person. He’s wrong, since the minute I saw her I knew she would be trouble, I knew she would not be the right fit for me. 

How could she push me away like I was not worth anything. I have feelings. Wait? Do I? I never understood the purpose of expressing feelings. We feed on humans, I have no sympathy for them only that they keep my thirst down. But when I saw her, I felt the world stop, my main focus was on her and only her, not only because of her beauty but the aura she gave. I for once felt my unbeaten heart beat, I felt like I was suffocating from her scent, but at the same time I felt at ease. I still do not understand her purpose of being difficult with me, if I didn't spend our longest time together arguing with her I would've gotten answers to my questions.  

Maybe it is my fault as well, I have not been there for her. Marcus advised me to spend time with her to actually get to know her. He also warned me that I should be easy with her, she will never be able to see her family unless they come here. But what do I do instead? I basically seduced her with my charm and thought that would be enough to seal the bond. What an idiot I can be, but at the same time I at least tried to give into the bond, unlike her. She would just turn away from me and act like I was some low life, like a pest in a common sense. Who gave her the right to treat me in such a way? Maybe her brother was the one who influenced her to be this way with me? I knew that vegetarian vampire had it out for me, it only makes sense since he left, he probably knew she was my mate this whole time. 

She's such a child to top it off. Running away from a bond that is grander than any bond to existence, and yet she turns away from it like a coward. Just like her brother, always going on and off from having mortals or not. In the time she has been here, she is still not drinking human blood. I thought by now she would have converted to our diet but it would seem I was wrong. Another thing to add to my list of changes; being wrong. I have always been right and if someone goes against me then they will end up being sorry. She’s changing me more than I care to ever want.

Y/N POV

It's been a month since I last saw him, even before I would at least catch glimpses of him or he would approach me. He’s nowhere, I even asked some of the guards if they have seen him but I was met with disappointment. Not even Aro or Marcus have been any help, well I haven't actually talked to Aro yet, he still creeps me out. My mind has been rehearsing over and over in what I will say to Caius, it's all I can really think of.  And to think it's only a month, it has felt like an eternity, considering I have been around for a while now, it cannot compare to this month alone. I think I am finally losing it, I believe I am going mental now. The way my mind is being filled with endless thoughts and worries is really pushing me into a not so pretty mindset. I want to cry but I know I am unable to, I want to scream but what will that solve? I want to run away but Demetri would just track me down in an instant. I want to drown myself in books to at least distract my mind but I know whatever I read it would only be twisted and I would be thrown back to thinking about him. 

I even stopped  hunting, I haven't had not one ounce of blood since the last day I saw him. Why do I deserve to satisfy my thirst when I hurt my mate? Oh my mate, how much I am longing to be in his arms right now, telling him how sorry I am. To tell him what an idiot I have been this past half year, to tell him my fears of not being worthy of him, to tell him it's me and not him no matter how foolish that sounds. It's the truth there is nothing wrong with him, not even his anger issues bother me, on the contrary I love how he is not afraid to show his intense emotions out. Oh? I said the L word, well it's no issue to me because I think I do love him. How fucked up is that really? It took for him to stop coming up to me to finally realize I do have love for him.

I have been spending this whole month, when I was not looking for Caius, pacing in my room growing more and more mad. Not the emotion mad but like mentally losing it. But I think I am also mad, I mean I am trying to make it up to him but he won't even give me a chance. It's frustrating really. Oh no. Is this how Caius was when he was trying to seal the bond but I just turned away from him? Now I am really feeling the pain and guilt, this torment is just so painful for anyone to face. I made him go through this, I really am a monster.

I fell to my knees in defeat as I buried my face into my hands, the venom started to fill my eyes. All my walls started to crash down on me and I could feel myself almost physically hyperventilate as I was trying to remember to calm myself. I felt my old human self creep up. In my human years I would have my breakdowns after each lecture my father would give me. His talks about me being the ideal respectful woman would get to me too much.

His preaching never got easier, he even would force me to attend his social gatherings with other men so I could be viewed as an available choice as a wife. When my dad was not having an eye on me, those men would stare at me shamelessly, it made me feel gross and caused me to have a desire to be alone. Another reason why I avoided any type of civilization when me and Carlisle went our separate ways. 

Maybe that’s another reason why I was also being harsh toward Caius, I feared he was going to be like those men. It didn't  help his case to be proven wrong when he kissed me or the way he seduced me endless times. I need to talk to him. 

Caius POV

I feel foolish avoiding my own problems. I tend to get to the bottom of things but in this case it's different. How can I solve this? Wouldn’t it make sense for her to come up to me and apologize for her childish acts? The way she wouldn't even look me in the eye when I talked to her? Or how she would respond to me with a snarky remark? Gosh I think I love her attitude, even if she did hurt my feelings by rejecting me, I think I fell for her more each time I would approach her. But when she pushed me away, I noticed her attitude was true. Why would she want to be with a vampire who has the title of the ‘ruthless one’ out of the three? I never cared for what others think about me but with her, everything suddenly mattered. I wanted her to accept me for me.

My reputation means everything to me, I am the one who does not show mercy and I am the one to not give second chances. As for her, I would give her endless chances if it means she gets to be mine, only she can get her way with me. I would not let anyone know how her rejection has hit me, I would rather let my anger take over me to let others know she has no effect on me. Why is loving someone so hard? Love for me was always something I viewed as a weakness, look at me for merlin sake, I feel like being locked up in a room and refusing to be out and about. 

It is what I have been doing this past month, I been in my art room staring at a blank canvas. My muse, my inspiration, and my desire to create a masterpiece has left me. Before her I would decorate my walls with weekly original art from whatever came to my mind. And yet when she turned away, my yearning vanished like I drop my helpless dead meal fall to the ground after I drained them. 

A while ago I was painting her, I happened to decide to work outside on a little platform reserved for me only and I happened to spot her in the gardens. I never revealed myself to her but I had a perfect view of her staring off into the distance, the right lighting was even hitting her and the scenery around her was every artist's dream come true. 

I only got to sketch the background because I wanted to spend more time on just her. How she was posing unaware of my eyes on her, how her lips were slightly parted, how the wind picked up her hair slightly after each breeze. How her eyes held so much emotion while her other facial features stayed relaxed. She was and still is breathtaking to me. I could spend hours drawing different sketches of her if she were to let me, I even got an idea of a new statue to add in the gardens, it would be of her.

She’s like a reincarnation of Aphrodite, no I am mistaken she is more bewitching than the goddess herself. How have I gone a millennium's without witnessing such beauty in my life? I need her, she’s my missing muse. 

Y/N POV

When I was finally mentally composed enough I walked down one of the many hallways to head to the throne room. I have a feeling he might be there, I don't know where else he could be and nobody has told me about his whereabouts. I arrive hoping to see him there but only Marcus and Aro along with some of the guards who are within the shadows are there. I want to yell at them but I compose myself. 

“Aro, Marcus, where is he?”

Aro who as always tends to act unaware of things unless it is of interest to him decides to mess with me.

“Where’s who?”

“Look I have kept my patience for a while, but if you dare to test me today I will gladly knock you out again but this time it will be a month”

The hidden guards stepped out from the shadows after my little threat, already recognizing them I knew I could take them down. I was lucky that Jane and Alec were not around because my chances of winning would be low. 

“Why should we tell you where he is? Haven't you hurted him enough? I seen his thoughts I know the suffering you have put him through since your arrival”

I wanted to rip his head off so bad. How dare he meddle into mine and Caius' life? Soul brother or not, what me and Caius go through is our own business. I know he makes some sense about the suffering and pain but I have gone through my own pain also. Marcus settled a hand on Aro shoulder before I could think about attacking him

“Aro it is not our business to intercept into our brother and his mate's issues, my dear y/n he is in his art studio. Felix? Demetri? Would you mind taking her to his studio?”

They were both by my side and led me away. Good thing these two were taking me away, they are the only ones who would manage to stop me from attacking. It was a quick sprint and they nodded toward two large mahogany doors, it looked like it was indeed doors to an art room. It also seemed handcrafted, I had never seen such gorgeous details on a door before. I opened the door slowly to do a small peek into the room to see if he was there. He was there on a stool with a loose button up shirt that was open at the throat and he had some casual black slacks. His hair was a bit messy even and yet he was the most striking being I have ever seen in my lifetime. 

His gaze snapped at me as I was closing the door, his irises were matching his pupil from his lack of feeding. His eyes also matched mine, since I was also pushing away the need to feed. He watched my every move like a cat watches a mouse before pouncing on it.

“What do you want?”

“I-I I want to talk to you”

“Is that so? Took you a month to come to some senses did it?”

Well that hurt, I already knew he was going to be a bit sharp with his words yet that line hit me a bit hard.

Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe I still need time to be able to calmly talk to him. No, no keep yourself together y/n, I need to do this for not only my sake but for Caius.

“Well go on with it, I don't have all day”

“Look if you are going to start having an attitude with me then maybe we need to wait another day then to talk”

“I am not with attitude, I am just trying to get to the point, I don't like to dance around issues”

I took an unnecessary gulp like Carlisle would do when he would break bad news to me.

“I love you”

The pencil he had his hand fell to the ground and that was the only noise that was heard after my words. 

“I know you're probably thinking, how cruel can I be to say that after everything that has happened between us but it's the truth. It's always had love for you within me but I was scared to open that door, you see I wish we could turn back time and I could explain to you everything that has been going through my mind before that fateful day. I wanted to tell you something but you left before I could and-”

“Then explain to me why you have acted like a child”

His voice lost its sharpness, instead it was soft, the same softness his eyes reflected currently. I wanted to melt on the spot by how sweet he looked.

“Before I was turned, my father would display me like some doll to show others of my availability as a wife, when he was not looking the men he was presenting me to would basically undress me with there eyes, some of them would be brave enough and leave lingering touches on me after I would shake their hands, the only males in my life I trusted after that was Carlisle, even in my time when we were apart I was never near civilization, I feared for the day I would have to be around others.” He stood up from his stool but he stayed at a distance from me still.

“When I saw you I thought it was time to heal completely from my trauma, but with the way you would approach me it gave me slight flashbacks from the past, and it made me recoil from you a bit, but at the same time I wanted to be by your side. What didn't even help my case was I had a fear of not being enough for you. How can a vampire like me who has such fears be worthy of a king like you? You deserve someone who doesn't still feel an ick when she’s around others for too long. I felt if we were to talk sooner then we wouldn't be in this position but no you just did a quick and go, made me feel unworthy of your time even”

I wanted to say more but I decided to give Caius a space to talk also, I wrapped my arms around myself for comfort and looked away from him. I feel exposed and anxious just standing here in silence, waiting for him to say something. Please say something already.

“I was not expecting you to even start this with those words”

I knew it was strange to say that but I mean I wanted to reassure him I do have feelings for him.

“I think you make a great point in we should of had a civil conversation at the start of this to avoid our current issues, I-I apologize for my behavior, it was uncalled for and inappropriate of me to try to nurture our bond by seducing you in such a way, you should of been treated like a queen with respect and love. But you are wrong of not deserving me, on the contrary I feel like it's the opposite, you deserve someone better than me, after all the shit I put you through without knowing what you been through, Marcus advised me to be there for you and yet I was hardly there”

I felt my eyes fill with venom again but I was still not looking at him so he was not aware of how I was reacting to his declaration. 

“But at the same time I thought it was a bit foolish of you to try to back away from me, you should know from now on that when it comes to you, you can tell me whatever you want, no matter how harsh or straight forward your words might get, I can take it, you are my mate after all. I never want you to feel uncomfortable around me or feel the need to distance yourself from me either because I cannot bare being separated from you, incase you haven’t noticed I haven't been feeding lately either, much like I can see from your once glowing amber eyes that I manage to fall for, but back on topic we can work on your healing process together, no matter how long it takes we do have forever after all”

I looked up at him finally to be met with eyes filled with venom too. Not really having control over my mind or body I ran to him to pull him into a deep hug. His arms not thinking twice wrapped around me like if it were second nature to him. At that moment it felt as if our issues never existed and we were happy once again, so this is how Marcus felt with Didyme, now I understand why he was so worried for us. I would rather kill every being who dared to harm Caius in any way, than to see him suffer anymore than he needs. We fit perfectly into each other, it felt like we were molded into one another, it felt like home. I'm finally home in the arms of a man I can trust and…love. 

I looked up at him and gave his cheek a kiss. I was going to kiss his lips but decided to pull a Caius in this situation with a simple “Com tempo”. He smiled lazily at me at the sudden realization that I used the same two words he said to me a while back. 

“I'm willing to go into this bond fully, no more avoiding you because that only causes more harm for us. I don't want to be separated from you either because with all honesty the moment I saw your eyes I was enchanted by you, for a moment I saw a whole future with you and even though I was recoiling from you after each encounter with you, I couldn't help but fall for you a bit each time. Even that kiss made my stomach weirdly flip” 

He caressed my cheek with his thumb while his other arm was wrapped snugly around my waist as we was listening to me. Whereas my hands rested on his chest, I was trying very hard not to look at his exposed chest and or his collarbone, because even this small exposure of skin looked like art. 

“I vow to never become one of those filthy sorry excuses of men, if I could I would hunt them down one by one and drain them completely. No one will harm you, I would certainly never dream of creating such misery for you. But why don't we take some time to spend together and just get everything out. Hmm?”

“I would love that Caius”

He leaned in to give my forehead a tenderful kiss that would have woken Sleeping Beauty herself up. 

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

Epilogue 

‘Dear Carlisle, 

As I write to you, me and Caius have come to be in a better position. We are spending more time together and we have brought up any miscommunication we failed to address from the beginning and solved them up one by one. We are at a point where I feel like we have known each other since the beginning of time. I never felt more at home since before mother passed. Caius really is my other half, we even spend hours in his art room, drawing whatever. He tends to create masterpieces of me being his muse. I even included a painting to this package I am sending of the painting I did from my garden here in Volterra.

I feel more comfortable around the others even, that ick I would tell you about is finally gone and I could spend hours with the guards who I have grown close to. I can never forget to tell you how whenever I talk to Marcus, I see a piece of you in him, I miss you so much but this is the closest I have to having you near me. I hope you and Esme plus the kids are doing well enough. Maybe soon enough we'll see each other, and tell Alice I forgive her, I now know her true intentions and I thank her”

Love y/n”

As Carlisle finished reading out loud the letter to Esme he smiled at the part of seeing his sister soon. But he did not forget to mention to Esme a ‘Finally” after realizing his sister is finally happy with her mate.

[acoraxia]

(i wrote this while sick before going to the movies and then finished it after watching a movie so forgive me if it's incoherent or whateer im laying down)

do you ever think about how Azure Lion groomed Sun Wukong from a young age into being this perfect people to act as the poster child for the Brotherhood, abandoned him at his worst, was confident he could manipulate him into working for him again and then tried to do the same with Xiaotian and Xiaojiao upon first meeting them? And that, by association, he almost groomed Macaque and you can see how his manipulation affected Macaque even into adulthood when he first met Xiaotian?

No?

Azure Lion groomed Sun Wukong, tried to groom Qi Xiaotian (and Long Xiaojiao) and heavily affected Macaque's world view on Sun Wukong.

EDITOR'S NOTE:: grooming in this case does not mean anything sexual between the characters, grooming is a common trope in media and it's commonly seen as a power imbalance and manipulation tactic (see: when a father grooms his son to take over the company by inflicting him with his own ideals)

Azure Lion has a tendency to display Sun Wukong on this high pedestal and sound very confident in how he describes him. The very first thing he says in his debut is this:

“I'm flattered, truly, but if it were not for Sun Wukong bringing us together, right? Without you, none of this would be possible. Your courage to stand up to the Celestial Host has inspired us to finally take a stand. To make a true difference in the world. And I could think of none other more suitable to lead us on our conquest than you, brother.”

notice how throughout this episode sequence Azure is spoken about like he's the leader and right in every word he says. The other adults at the table (Peng, DBK and Yellow Tusk) smile and turn to him as though he's in the right. They hang on to his every word. something interesting is the fact Macaque and Sun Wukong are talked down to like they're the younger pair of the brotherhood — Peng's insults to Macaque, the way DBK asks SWK to repeat what happened during Havoc in Heaven—

heck even the way they laugh at Sun Wukong when he's being silly is a clear indicator that they see him as... silly.

It isn't until Azure Lion speaks up that they turn to him and start seeing Sun Wukong into a new light.

Not only that but the way that Azure talks to Sun Wukong raises several red flags. He looks at all his brothers the same way (e.g when he's helping Peng during a flashback in Episode 8) but it raises so many red flags when he looks at Wukong like this.

And Wukong hangs on to his every word.

Because Sun Wukong believes in what Azure Lion is saying to him. Everyone believes him in that moment. he sounds so confident in the way he says none of this would be possible without sun wukong. It's a way to manipulate him especially considering Sun Wukong was not the one to form the Brotherhood - Azure was. Azure decided to form this trio after seeing Sun Wukong for the first time according his own flashback:

And guess what? It works. Sun Wukong was minding his own business up until that point, the only thing he'd done (if the timeline matches up correctly) was become immortal and return to Flower Fruit Mountain to train his monkey army. In JTTW at this point he would've turned into a giant version of himself, scaring the other spirit kings into joining alliances with him just from witnessing that—instead we get Azure Lion believing him to be the perfect idol for his plan to come into fruition.

Fun Fact: Macaque is the only one who looks at Sun Wukong like this during Azure Lion's little speech about him and being the rightful leader of the brotherhood.

He seems more confused and shocked than the rest of them are. Mind you, he's known Sun Wukong longer than the rest of them have.

He hears Azure Lion, a veteran celestial warrior, praise his best friend and put him up on a pedestal and it confuses him. because his best friend is not like that. at least, he thinks so—but Azure sounds confident, right? he's speaking so confidently about this, so he must be right... right?

It will, eventually, lead to Macaque changing his view on Sun Wukong entirely. this is why we have shadowplay.

"That's what I believed. What Azure would have you believe."

Azure Lion affected not only Sun Wukong but Macaque in his manipulation — the timeline does not show us where Macaque went after his fall out with Wukong but the theory that he ran into the Camel Ridge Trio before fighting Wukong again works considering that line.

(Not only that but Macaque also tries to do this with Xiaotian: he introduces himself in a easily approachable way and trains him, takes him under his wing, then stomps on him the moment he stops being useful to him. he uses him to get to Sun Wukong. Xiaotian reminds Macaque of Sun Wukong and he uses similar tactics that Azure Lion used to get to Xiaotian — and it isn't until the Samadhi Fire Ritual that he realizes what he's done by being reminded of his and Wukong's fallout. He, a bystander, was also affected and influenced by Azure's manipulation.)

Additionally, Sun Wukong defends Azure Lion. He justifies attacking Heaven during Havoc in Heaven, he justifies the brotherhood's plan to go to war against Heaven—none of these plans are Sun Wukong's ideas. They are Azure's influence. In the original book, the reason why Wukong attacks Heaven in the first place is because they refuse to grant him the respect he wishes and thus Heaven is angry at him for dubbing himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. They ask the Jade Emperor to take care of Sun Wukong and he does—which, y'know, ends up with Wukong imprisoned afterwards. But in Monkie Kid it's all because of Azure's influence on Wukong.

Because he groomed him into being a faithful right hand man. And he is so confident in that that he gives these grand speeches and pep talks and says every perfect little line to make Sun Wukong want to follow him to Hell and back.

"When we triumph in this rebellion, the people will never live in fear. We're about to change everything. It's all because of you, brother!"

And, of course, he tries this on Xiaotian and Xiaojiao, too, when he first meets them.

When he presents himself to Xiaotian and Xiaojiao, he comes to their rescue. He already introduces himself as a savior and protagonist because he saves them from the scroll—even seemingly displaying himself as non-threatening because, while he laughs at them, he does so in a manner that's sincere and genuine. It's a goofy laugh. He's being goofy. He's playing to their good side.

It's the way he talks to them and laughs, introduces himself with such flamboyance and loudness that he mirrors Sun Wukong himself. He is such a direct influence to Sun Wukong that it carries throughout the few scenes we see of him that resemble what Sun Wukong has done with Xiaotian: the astral projection, the goofy displays of excitement, the sarcastic tones when talking about Tang, the way he greats his brothers when they are freed as old friends and all cheery and genuine.

He allows himself to be called uncy lion and romanticizes the past of the brotherhood while not elaborating on the fact he lead Sun Wukong and his brothers to a war while still blaming the aftermath and defeat of their party on Sun Wukong.

"Ah, well. The Sun Wukong isn't exactly the easiest person to get along with. He has quite a habit of keeping people at arm's length. We were young, mistakes were made... and some mistakes can't be undone."

He speaks of him in a way to spark doubt between Xiaotian and Xiaojiao and it works in the way they react to what he says. They are disheartened and Xiaojiao even mentions, later, how Sun Wukong has had a habit of keeping things to himself. I wonder why that is.

" [...] If your friendship with Monkey King meant anything to you—" "It meant everything to me." [....] "We're brothers. Nothing could ever change that."

It's the way that Azure talks to them about Sun Wukong. It's the way he still thinks he is close enough to Sun Wukong to say that nothing will change their relationship. It's the way that he tries to plant these ideas into Xiaotian's head when they first meet, because he is the Monkie Kid.

That and the fact that later, when Sun Wukong is bursting through each and every memory, he reaches Xiaotian and goes to him and tries to comfort him and say they'll get to safety soon and they just have to deal with the scroll curse—it's the fact that the moment

that pigsy

mentions Azure Lion

all of that gets paused for a moment

"Oh he says his name like that because he put him in the scroll, he shouldn't be here—" there is also the fact he's not fully blown surprised by this. he's also wary. he's hesitant. sure you can say he's surprised to hear they've met Azure Lion,

but then you get this

this is hatred. this is anger. this is not what Sun Wukong feels towards Macaque during Season 3 — he lunged at Macaque for putting Xiaojiao in danger, for putting Xiaotian in danger, for ruining his plan, and he hesitates to attack him, to deliver that final blow, his fist is shaking and Tang's interuption easily causes him to lose focus and he drops Macaque. He lets go.

THIS? This is him protecting Xiaotian. this is him not wanting Xiaotian near Azure. Xiaotian looks at Azure with wide eyes and a gaping mouth because "oh Azure's here?" but Wukong knows better.

And you cannot tell me Sun Wukong was not heavily hurt by Azure Lion's actions without looking at the way that Sun Wukong puts himself between Azure and Xiaotian immediately, how Sun Wukong tries to be a better person by putting Xiaotian's safety first, always, even if it means he gets possessed or hurt or thrown around.

You cannot tell me Azure Lion wasn't a manipulator or abuser or a person who used Sun Wukong's admiration of him against him, to turn him into an obedient follower and devoted friend, when the very first thing he does when he sees Wukong step between him and Xiaotian is sigh.

Sighs like an older mentor looking at their pupil and going "didn't I teach you better than that?"

And then he imprisons Sun Wukong.

Because he is of no use to him at that moment.

And the fucking kicker: Xiaojiao modeled her new sword after Azure Lion, then is blatantly disgusted by this when she figures out how much of a bastard he is and openly says so. Xiaotian looks distraught and confused. Because Azure admits to being guilty of using them and manipulating them. He aims for sympathy with them.

He aims for sympathy with Xiaotian.

He twists the narrative again when he and Xiaotian are alone.

He's manipulating him. He's using him.

He keeps painting Sun Wukong in this negative light. he keeps putting himself up as the sympathetic victim of it all.

"My former brother was sent to destroy us and all we had built."

and yet he still talks about Wukong as though he has a grasp on their relationship. he calls him brother. he has not abandoned that title. he still thinks of Sun Wukong as his brother and will continue to use him and his name in whatever way possible to get ahead.

Maybe it is not on purpose and Azure thinks he is being true and genuine with Xiaotian but it does not erase the fact he twists the narrative to paint Sun Wukong in a negative light in front of his successor. Because Sun Wukong and Xiaotian have a strong relationship, a bond so strong that Qi Xiaotian bursts with power and strength when he realizes Azure will not give him back to him. It's precision and control and Qi Xiaotian could wreck havoc among everyone for keeping his mentor away from him but he is so controlled and careful with his movements that he manages to not attack Azure, but throw him off balance to get him to release Azure.

All because Sun Wukong is important to him.

Because Sun Wukong was not going to treat his successor as though he were a weapon or a pawn in some major scheme like he was.

Azure Lion showers people with praise that they do not deserve nor want and does so in a way that makes the party feel either delighted to have aided with his success or horrified at the revelation. He does so when Sun Wukong brings the brotherhood together (which wouldn't have happened if Azure Lion hadn't seen Sun Wukong with his subjects that one day) and he does so when Qi Xiaotian for returning his brothers to him (which he didn't know he was doing, because Azure Lion told him he needed to defeat the curse without mentioning his friends would be released too, at least from what I can remember).

"His betrayal, his brutality. He took the only friends I had from me. I would have done anything in my power to bring them back. But it wasn't in my power, it was in yours. You saved my friends. You returned them to me. And for that, I am eternally grateful."

This is similar to what he says to Sun Wukong when he was thanking him for bringing the brotherhood together.

And then, what happens when all this manipulating and tricking does not work? When Qi Xiaotian teams up with Sun Wukong instead of siding with Azure Lion?

"After all Sun Wukong has put you through, how much he's let you down, you would still meet your fate trying to protect him?! (...) He doesn't deserve such loyalty, yet you insist on learning the hard way, just as I did! I should've never trusted the Monkey King! The False Sage, Equal to Nothing!"

He fucking insults Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong who rushes in to protect Xiaotian, who shoves Azure Lion out of the way, and checks on Qi Xiaotian when he glitches out and starst to lose control of his powers.

And when he's losing against Xiaotian? When he struggles to keep up with him?

"Look what he's done to you! Reduced you to a mindless, savage animal."

Again, Macaque's obsession over Sun Wukong makes sense now. His obsession is a result of Azure Lion's doing. His obsession is what Qi Xiaotian could have been had he not known Sun Wukong for who he really is: his mentor and friend.

What gets to me is what Xiaotian says to him when he's losing:

"That's what you were pretending to be, right? To be my friend? To care about me? When really, you were just using me to get what you wanted! To turn me against my own mentor! Well, put your hand in the monkey cage and expect to get bit, son! Come on! Come on! Come on, Uncy Lion! You're the big hero, right?! Then prove it! Show me!"

It's a perfect way of snapping back at Azure for all his manipulation.

And then Azure dies.

He learns he's being manipulated for someone else. He cries and smiles and dies.

What for?

He doesn't save anybody.

He doesn't suffer consequences of manipulating people. He doesn't do anything heroic and he doesn't even save the world by sacrificing himself because Nezha is the one who seals away the Jade Emperor's powers in the end.

He's a natural manipulator.

He's not a hero.

he's a loser

[maks-punchout-hyperfixtion]

*cracks knuckles* ay folks you get a tumbler exclusive for awhile because I'm to lazy to actually go onto ao3

Reminder time!! This is my a.u and is not a direct depiction of spo/wii aran Ryan's personality

Tw's: slightly detailed injuries, reference to Macbeth, and self harm by hot water

Thanks to: @atypical-artisan for helping with errors and formatting

“Aran! C’mon we're going to be late!”

Absolutely no response came from the guy. Having Andrew sigh as if it was a daily occurrence now.

“Give the kid a break this is the longest he’s been separated from Ardin since..” Roree took her brush and tapped it seven times before snapping. “Since that time the school separated them by accident!”

“Roree, that's not something to be excited about.” Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don't got time for this! I have a match in an hour!”

“Andy it's not until 3.”

“If you're not early you're-”

“late blah blah blah you know i think Deedee knows a german fella you would love.”

“If I wasn't pissed already I would smack you.”

“Oh I would love to see you try!”

Andrew growled and Started to head upstairs, muttering about the upcoming fight. And complaining about Lucky being a whole sea away for another disaster, as he turned and opened the door.

“Aran!- I said- down Cu- I said come on!” Andrew pushed the dog down before giving it a small pat. He looked directly at the bed that had Aran in it. “I know you ain't sick lad, otherwise we would have been to the doctors already… again…”

“i rather be there then see another one of ye go against the bi-”

“Watch your tone.”

Andrew attempted to step over the random clothing and items on the floor, the kid loved to do big projects but god forbid he cleans his room, as he then took Aran’s blanket and pulled them off.

“Hey!”

“You’re goin’. I'm not leaving you: a teenager who witnessed his twin get sent to the hospital because of a damn cheater, alone in a house with more than enough to make us wo-OW!”

Aran slid a pair of horseshoes onto Andrew's foot, and despite seeing it coming it still hurt. Andrew shook his foot before glaring at Aran and picking up the horseshoes.

“You're going, rather you're being willing or not. And I can hold up me own with you so I suggest-”

“Yeah I'm feckin’ going lieutenant bollox.”

That got a smack from Andrew as Aran got up. Who just rolled his eyes and grabbed a sleeveless hoodie from the ground. Andrew rolled his eyes before sighing.

“Ye know we care about ya right?”

“Mhm.”

“..look Aran I promise that im goin’ to remind her not to fuck around with us.”

“And how will you do that?”

Aran took a glance at the horseshoes before stuffing them in his own hoodie’s pocket.

“Going with a different style.”

There were multiple reasons why Andrew never cheated. First, it reminded him of how unfair the world could truly be, the second stemmed from Ardin who once saw Aran break his hand from the horseshoe in glove tactic and now gets on top of people who do that. The 3rd reason was self explanatory, it was just wrong. He got here fair and square and he always wanted to stay like that.

Plus hitting a girl with horseshoes that were your own brother’s seemed wrong. But after a week of hearing the girl shit talk his own family the final straw was definitely close to breaking now.

Yet at the same time, it was still cheating. Even Narcis got onto him about it. Yes he wanted revenge for putting his sister in the hospital but she was 19 and able to stand her own ground normally.

“This is a mistake,” He muttered, adjusting his gloves.

There was a faint line that showed where the horseshoes were. He had time to call for a glove check. That would make a fair fight. He turned around to his coach but before he could say anything his opponent started yapping.

“Ey! Rran! You ready to prove to your own country that your family is full of weak and pathetic people? Thought your sister would relay the message!”

Rran- I mean Andrew snapped his head back, giving his opponent a death glare as his coach tapped him on the shoulder.

“Ay, you need something lad?”

Andrew thought for a moment before the bell signaling the start sounded.

“Just have medics on stand by.”

He got up from his corner, hearing the announcer shout the name Aran Ryan, god he's going to need to change that soon, with a lot more accuracy then the bitch Infornt of him ever actually did.

God will it be a blessing for her to shut up and have a ruined face.

The referee stepped onto the mat in-between the two, not uncommon when you put two enemies together in a match, and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Ight let's get this over with. This is a time trial so you only have 3 minutes. Once those three minutes are up you both go back to your corners and I'll decide the winner. You both should know the tko and ko rules by now right?”

“Yeah yeah can we get punching now?”

“Andrew, I will personally give you 20 euros if you break her mouth.”

Punch blade looked quite offended at that as Andrew just rolled his eyes.

“Oh relax about him.”

He glared at punch blade.

“I'm going to do much much worse.”

As the bell rung again Andrew’s coach went over to the doors, specifically where Roree and Aran were.

“Shouldn't yo-”

“I'm getting the medics like he asked. Wanna come?”

“No thanks. I got the short straw with this one.”

Aran slightly nudged Roree for that statement, solely because it wasn't a wise discussion even for him to smack someone who has a metal weight on her wrist. That alone was probably 5 pounds. Let alone the fact she was kinda an official arms wrestler. He proceeded to watch the fight, only slightly noticing something was off.

“Hey Roree?”

“Hm?”

“I think he broke her back.”

“Oh very fu- wait what.”

As if on cue as Roree turned around she saw Andrew push the screaming girl off of him, and landed a kick right in the stomach. Not a signature move in the ring. But definitely a signature move outside of it. And it always landed someone in the hospital and him in the station.

“Oh shit- uh Aran im going to run somewhere you just um stay.”

Aran just gave a thumbs up as Roree ran into the hall.

Meanwhile the referee started the count as soon as punch blade hit the floor, but stopped when he saw Andrew pull another punch directly in her face.

“Hey. Andrew, that's enough! Back to your corner!”

But Andrew didn't care, he continued the punches, landing them in spots that would definitely leave more than a bruise.

The only time he stopped was when a blade sliced over his glove, cutting it open, Resulting in the horseshoe falling out and a gasp from the crowd, even Aran looked shocked at the scene.

The shock eventually wore off as punch blade took her knife out of her glove and attempted to stab Andrew with it, only for him to grab her arm and smash the horseshoe right onto it.

The look in his eyes was almost chilling as he lifted the thing up, like he was contemplating something, before he smashed the horseshoe right into her mouth. Breaking past the mouth guard and cracking a few teeth, the second time did a few in.

He then grabbed her hair and smashed the side of her head, right where her ear was. He was about to go for her neck next when something grabbed the horseshoe and yanked it out of his hand.

“Jesus fuck Andrew enough! She's down! You won!”

Roree tossed the horseshoe aside and grabbed Andrew's arm and pulled him away while a medic looked at punch blade. The ring was now stained with blood.

“Dude the hell did you do to her?”

The referee got onto the ring while looking at punch blade, causing Andrew to look too.

Frankly what was listed wasn't the only thing he apparently did, there was a gash on her head and she was spitting pieces of teeth and mouth guard out, but she was clenching the side of her torso, specifically where the ribs were. And it was clear her arm was broken, or at least fractured. Her leg was sprained. Frankly Andrew didn't actually recall what he did or didn't do, but the horrified look on the peoples faces he could see spelled it all.

He almost killed her.

“Andrew?”

No response, what was there to say anyways? ‘oh i'm sorry for nearly killing you’?

Like he could have gotten the words out, his entire body was shaking, almost near hyperventilating.

Without another word he pulled his arm away from Roree, got up and rushed off the ring. Not even stopping as his sister yelled for him, then he was just gone.

It was only an hour after statements were given and the fun of it. In full frank nobody in any of the WVBA's would say anything bad about Andrew, hell shark bite from Australia even said he should have killed Lucy, yet it was completely useless as the officials found a letter of resignation and Andrew’s locker cleaned out shortly after they went to find him. Causing quite the worry in some of the Ireland officials and his own siblings.

“I'm sure he's fine. This was just. Something out of the ordinary he’ll come back!”

“No. No Aran he isn't.”

Roree sighed as she stopped herself from putting her head on the steering wheel of the car. Aran was holding his horseshoes Andrew stole, a case wasn't opened so it wasn't used as evidence, Aran wished it was though. It was probably more blood then horseshoe now, he had it wrapped in a couple of paper towels but they didn't do a good job of absorbing the blood. And frankly he was still scared of the whole thing, funny considering the fact he wasn't scared of anything else.

“Aran. If he's home I don't want you talking to him. Not yet anyways.”

Aran was about to protest as Roree held up her hand.

“You. You don't know this side of him. Frankly I rather you don't even come inside ‘til I tell you. Just, leave us alone to talk. Alright?”

There was more worry in her voice now. As if she was contemplating what she would find when she got home.

“Actually. If he is home -call Narcis, he had a fight with an Irish rookie today he should still be here, unless he actually likes making 2 to 6 hour trips.”

They stopped at their house, seeing Andrew’s bike just tossed onto the ground.

“Well at least he made it home in one piec- wait when did bring his bike?!”

“I think he just kept it there just in case.”

“Aran do me a favor and don't do that when you and Ardin move to new york. They're worse than here.”

Roree got out of the car and tossed her phone over to Aran.

“Narcis’s name is under ‘golden bastard’- don't tell Andrew- I'm going to go talk to him.”

Aran gave a thumbs up again as Roree went inside, her first notice was the mirror being foggy, the second was hot water being run.

“Andrew, you better not have been trying to wash your hands clean of blood like Lady Macbeth with hot water again!”

The water was shut off as the sound of a towel being quickly wrapped around hands was heard. How? Because he kept hitting the sink with his hand as Roree noticed him cleaning the sink from water drops.

“Andrew.”

“what?”

“The hell are you doing?”

“...dishes.”

“What dishes? I did them this morning before we left!”

Andrew stayed silent as Roree walked over, steam was still leaving the stink as she grabbed the towel and pulled it off, seeing his typically slightly tan but still pale skin being sunburnt red. She just sighed as if this wasn't the first time.

“I'm not going to bug you on that. Why did you quit?”

“Why? Ain’t it obvious?”

Roree just shook her head at that.

“Andy, nobody in that association is going to turn you in. Hell they'll even drop the to-”

“I don't care. I still broke my own morals and almost killed someone in the ring!”

“That's.. well that's a bit of an over statement aint it?”

“Oh when the hell is it?!”

Andrew slammed his hand on the sink, before pulling it back.

“It doesn't matter, Roree. I'm not going back to a place that allows filthy cheaters to compete.”

“Aran’s a filthy cheater. I’m a filthy cheater. Are you saying-”

“You two are different. And again it doesn't and will not matter! Frankly I was already planning on quitting. This was just a send off.”

Roree was taken aback a bit from that.

“But you love boxing! It was your dream! What changed?”

“There's a difference between a dream and a reality, Roree. My dream was boxing. The reality is that no matter what somebody is going to cheat someone out of something.”

Andrew put a hand on his head. “I'm getting a headache. I'm going to bed.”

Before Roree could say anything he tossed the towel onto her head and walked off to his room. The door slammed shut as he entered it. Roree just looked onwards. Pondering if he was being serious or not. Then the front door slammed open.

“DUDE YOU BROKE THE FECKIN' HANDLE!”

well on the high note. At Least they could now replace that ugly door handle Narcis just ripped off. Roree didn't say anything, just pointed to Andrew’s room as Narcis Sprinted to his room. She proceeded to glare at Aran.

“What?”

“I told you to just call him.”

“I did!”

“You said something, what was it?”

“Just a recap of everything.”

“I'm never trusting you with calling someone ever again.”

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

Random thought about Vermont/NYE:

So at some point Tara still had CE house listing up on her real estate website right?

Once you have one address, if all of the houses he owned were held under the same Trust name or whatever, you'd be able to find the other addresses meaning you'd be able to find the place in Vermont prior to a trip you had planned months in advance with your best friend and his sister....

So, she spends a year molding herself into whatever social media and fans are saying about what his FS is supposed to be like and then shows up on the doorstep of one of his houses and takes photos on the slope next to it to troll the fans they knew had taken notice of them?

Makes you wonder about the font that originally pointed her out, I heard she got hacked too....

Still makes me question who is actually doing all of this, because it only seems to benefit her team having all of this mess cleaned up themselves to cover their tracks

Who of them is arranging fans being hacked and used?

I mean did they break into both the place in LA and Vermont?

"Ran into Scott" etc on the ski slopes and invite themselves along to Chris' place in Mass except Chris isn't there because he got sick over New Year's eve (Did anyone notice how unwell he looked in the Nobu photoshoot?)

We know he has a bad habit of letting just anyone use his places out of politeness or generosity when making a new friend but according to my timeline they didn't meet if at all until the Vegas trip

Let's see: heads to LA, takes photos at his house, hears about the drag brunch and gaps it to Las Vegas hanging out with Scott etc the whole time

Chris heads to Portugal to quarantine to catch up with Hayley (That's who the original trip to the northern lights was with?) Has to fly back to Atlanta to quarantine yet again prior filming ghosted

So he was only in Las Vegas for a day for a photo session he took for a Restaurant, and in his own little working bubble due to his next trip to catch up with Hayley?

Is that why 🐟 suddenly changed her location back to Portugal? Because she thought it hadn't worked?

So.....she really was actually stalking the guy? Or her team was helping her to?

I did hear about the last con he attended about how he was staying out of sight due to a girl stalking him that he was genuinely worried about, and this was prior to the papwalk....

The question for me remains, who sent her mother the pumpkin picture?

It could only have come from HIS team if they had it ready to post on his IG

Because that single thing is what set off the twisted change to this whole PR situation, which I'm pretty sure was originally set up as PR for Ana De Armas' benefit for the release of Ghosted

Faking a romance between co stars is not an unusual Hollywood tactic is it

👏🫠

Isn't one of Christopher's friends a computer science guy? 🤔

Oh wait he's just a website designer meaning he has Photoshop skills like I do......👏🫠

Photo dump anyone?

What a shitshow 💩

🤍🪽✨

[probssomethingorother]

🚨NEW UPDATE 🚨

Cried out, to you alone: a tlou fanfic

sorry this took so long to update I'm an ass.

Sarah's death, lots of hurt no comfort, canon compliant

Joel, Sarah, Tommy

Rating: Teen

Sarah's gone. Joel is a wreck. Tommy is caught in the middle of needing to get his brother to safety and grieving his niece. A (hopefully) sad sad continuation of that heartbreaking scene from Tommy's POV

Words: 7,790 -- last updated 10/19 :)

Read the latest chapter on AO3 here or down below ⤵️

Chapter 2:

It was the static buzz and distant sound of chatter humming through radios that Tommy focused on next, ears acutely trained to pick up on the distinctive sounds after years of carrying one strapped to his tactical vest. He took one last look at the approaching shadows before screwing his eyes shut, the sounds of their footsteps and the rustle of their uniforms getting louder and louder as his own heartbeat seemed to do the same. 

His brain was threatening to bring him back to a different life lived - younger, standing on the outskirts of a rural settlement west of Kuwait, apprehensively waiting on orders to move forward despite the firefight clearly visible on the horizon. It was nighttime then too, and distant explosions and screams wafted through the air just as they were doing now. 

The only thing rooting him to the present was Joel’s anguished mewls-more than the most desperate cries, long past even complete heartbroken sobs. 

“Drop the gun, now.” A voice sternly said behind Tommy, and he promptly and willingly complied, dropping his rifle into the grass. If they were going to shoot him, they would have done it by now- still could do it in fact. He knew he was horribly outgunned and his old rifle wasn’t going to do him any good against anything military-grade.

“Turn slowly.” 

Hands raised, Tommy complied again, taking the time to look at Joel and Sarah as he turned. His brother had crumpled over his niece’s body, now barely visible under Joel’s broad shoulders. Obscured under him, the most Tommy could see was Sarah’s legs splayed out lamely in the grass, blue jeans dirty. Yet, even amongst the grime, he could still see the pen ink clearly - a blue dolphin, a pink flower, a red heart - doodles of when she was alive and carefree. Another pair is stained with scribbles too, has a small game of tic-tac-toe she started with him. He’s glad she’s not wearing that pair now, at least then the game hasn’t died with her. 

His gaze traced the length of her leg, ending at her worn white shoes. One shoelace hung loose, and he felt an inexplicable urge to tie it, even though it mattered none now. 

He always used to help her tie her shoes when she was little. She is still little - was little. 

Of all the details to notice and memories to remember, he hated that these were what he was now left with- doodles and undone laces. 

Tommy swallowed and cleared his throat, “We ain’t sick,” he called, voice shaky as he turned the rest of the way away from Joel and Sarah. Unbeknownst to him, echoing Joel from mere moments ago. 

Once fully turned he found the soldier wasn’t even armed, or at least not holding a gun in his grasp. The only thing pointing at the three of them was a flashlight. There were two other soldiers a few paces behind the lead, but even their guns were trained down towards the ground -fingers still on the triggers of course. 

The sight should have settled Tommy, but after everything that has happened tonight, a general feeling of being unsettled can’t be unstuck from his body. 

The military just had tried to kill his whole family, he wasn’t going to just drop his guard completely at the sight of lowered guns.  

“Ain’t going to make a move toward you either - no need to do anything to us, alright?” he stated, his raised left arm coming closer to his face to shield his eyes from the flashlight's piercing glare.

The soldier shifted the light’s beam from Tommy to Joel and Sarah, letting it rest on them as he took measured steps in their direction. Tommy stood still, held by the silent threat of being gunned down, his gaze intently following the soldier as he neared them. 

There was a clear question hanging in the air, even if going unsaid. 

“He - ,” Tommy gulped, “she’s gone….it’s his daughter.” He pushed out, the truth threatening to close his throat.

He yearned to add, “killed by one of your fucking friends,” but now hardly seemed the time to be picking fights. 

The soldier came to a halt, just inches from Joel and Sarah, flashlight still trained on their bundled form. Joel rocked back and forth as he whispered sweet nothings to her, still utterly distraught and seemingly oblivious to the precarious position they were now in.

“Joel.” Tommy pleaded, albeit without much force, hoping his brother would finally just key into the situation. 

But the situation for Joel was simple. The light of his life was gone. His fucking baby was dead. Bleeding out in his arms. The situation was that he would follow her to the ends of the earth, and stay by her side forever. What was happening around them could all be dammed. He was staying with his girl even if that meant following her to the other side. He didn’t care.

A ray from the flashlight hit Joel’s eyes in just the right way and he squinted, forcing them to shut, squeezing out even more tears. His gaze flickered to the source, and for a second, it looked like he finally might be cluing into reality, but just as quickly, his head moved back down, eyes on Sarah. 

Tommy lowered his arms, drooping them at his sides, defeated. 

The soldier cautiously retreated a step before pivoting towards Tommy. He couldn’t help but hold his breath as he got close, still on edge. The soldier moved the flashlight from his left and to his right, and for a second Tommy thought he was going his for his gun - would shoot him the head, done; but, instead of his hand traveling to his holster, it went up to his shoulder, clicking on his radio. 

“Two civs in the field, not with the crash,” he dictated clearly, his gaze scanning Tommy from head to toe as he spoke.

Two. 

Tommy was about to correct him, but then abruptly stopped, words falling to silence as his mouth went from open to shut with a long sigh. 

“Copy,” crackled a voice through the radio, distorted by static. The soldier waited, taking another look at Joel and Sarah, and then to his unit members, and then back to Tommy.  

For a long moment, the air was filled with no talking, just the chorus of Joel’s cries, distant sirens, the hum of the engines, and the chirping cicadas - somehow still heard amongst the onslaught of all the other noises. 

“Cleared for transport,” the radio voice crackled through one last time, ending the monotonous lull in action. In an instant, the support soldiers were on the move, heading back toward their truck. 

“We’ve got a secured zone, about three klicks north, taking people that way. Get in the truck.” 

Tommy nodded quickly, despite some reservations. His mind caught on “secured” and the logical part of him was clinging to it, knowing it was the best choice.  “Okay, okay,” he mumbled lowly. 

“Get him moving.” The soldier told Tommy, turning on his heels and walking away, leaving Tommy to it. 

It. 

Getting his brother and dead niece off the ground. Off the spot she died. Off the spot Joel’s life changed forever. Up and away, like it wasn’t the end of the fucking world, like it wasn't the end of everything. 

Tommy took a deep breath, using the brief moment to gather his wits. He made a cautious step toward Joel feeling every inch of ground under his boots.

"Joel," Tommy practically whispered, bending down beside his brother. He gently laid a hand on Joel's shoulder, squeezing slightly, trying to convey support and urgency in one touch. "Joel, we have to go.” 

Joel's entire frame trembled under Tommy's grip, but he didn’t respond. His face was buried in Sarah's curly hair, his arms clutching her tightly to his chest, hands scrambling to keep Tommy’s shirt wrapped over her. His breaths were ragged, each one sounding like it was tearing its way out of his throat. 

”Joel,”  voice soft but insistent. Tommy’s heart was breaking with every word, “they’ve got a place for us, somewhere safe, we need to move now, okay? It’s time to move.”

No response. Just strangled sounds like Joel was some dying animal. 

(Dying, yes, he was.)

Taking another long breath, Tommy snaked his arm from Joel’s shoulder to his back, coming more toward the side of him, positioning his own body closer to Sarah’s head. He minded the space carefully, not wanting to jostle her body as it hung in Joel’s grip. 

“I know this is hard man, I know…” Tommy muttered, eyes on Sarah for a moment, as his hand rubbed tenderly in soft circles. He could feel tears forming in his own eyes again, his nose itching as his jaw began to quiver. 

He wasn’t sure why it hadn’t caught him up before, but Sarah’s open eyes suddenly seemed to be bearing into his soul. Deep big brown eyes. 

He used to tease her with that song - Brown-Eyed Girl.  Make her scream the “sha-la-la’s” with him while all the windows were down in the pickup. Hair flying, music blaring, big smiles everywhere. 

He sniffed back tears as a particularly loud ring of a police siren echoed somewhere close, calling him back to attention. He looked around, momentarily dazed the last few moments, feeling almost fuzzy. The soldiers were a few paces out, looking less than enthused, borderline irritated - impatient. 

Tommy wiped his hand down his face, trying to clear the flood of somber emotions. They both couldn’t go off into a haze, someone had to stay present. 

He could hear his heartbeat echoing in his ears as he tore his gaze away from the transport and back to his family. Swallowing, he removed his hand from Joel’s back and brought it to his face, his other hand doing the same, and then gently moved it away from Sarah to meet his gaze. Although their eyes met each other, Tommy still couldn’t tell if Joel was seeing him. Or listening. 

“We are going. Get. Up.” Tommy said sternly. 

A zoom of a helicopter overhead had Tommy pulling his shoulders up to his ears instinctively, head wanting to turn up to follow the sound, but he couldn’t. He was cradling his brother's face in his hands - he couldn’t get lost in the commotion. He had to stay with Joel. Joel had to stay with him. 

“Get a move on!” One of the soldiers yelled over the increasing sounds whirling in the air. He didn’t have to say it, Tommy knew. 

He was trying. 

“Joel, it’s-” 

Another helicopter rushed above drowning out Tommy’s voice, low enough that wind picked around them, grass blowing, hair swept up.

Gritting his teeth, he began again: “You’ve got to listen to me. It’s time to move. We can’t stay here.  They’re going to take us out of here.” 

When his eyes darted around Joel’s face, it was then that he noticed his own hands were shaking, the quivers jostling Joel’s head. Tommy couldn’t tell if it was the adrenaline or if was unintentionally doing so out of frustration. 

It didn’t matter much either way. 

Joel’s eyes looked through him, red and puffy. Unblinking. He was practically as unresponsive as Sarah now. 

“Let’s go!” Their transport called aggressively, the command punctuated by the sound of a spread of heavy gunfire, too close for comfort, but not immediately a threat.  Still, it made a wave of goosebumps travel up Tommy’s spine as a distinct ringing started filling his ears. 

The tunnel vision was incoming, he could feel it. If they stayed out here like this for much longer he wasn’t sure he could stay here. He screwed his eyes shut, and then forcefully opened them, recentering. 

Joel. Sarah. Out. 

Get them out.  

Tommy’s grip tightened, fingers pushing into Joel’s skin as he firmly shook his head, exasperation bursting through his otherwise calm demeanor.  

“Joel!,” he said sternly, desperately.  

“You need to get up now. We are going. We are fucking going.” 

His chest was heaving, anger and frustration and overwhelming sadness mixing with a new wave of adrenaline - adrenaline that felt disgustingly similar to the type he would carry in his body day after day, years ago. Adrenaline that kept him fighting on the frontlines, evading gunfire, extinguishing hostiles, and dragging his battle buddies across the ground to safety. 

He never left a man behind. He wasn’t going to make Joel the first. He didn’t want to drag him - drag Sarah - but Jesus fuck if Joel didn't start moving soon he would do it. 

Thankfully, that wouldn’t be the case. 

With a slow solemn blink from Joel, Tommy released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and then released his hands too. He slid them down to Joel’s shoulders’ giving him a little pat of encouragement for him to continue to break out of his grief-induced trance.

“Just gotta move brother, that’s all,” he whispered with a flicker of hope that Joel was truly finally, responding. 

Joel’s eyes flicked back down to Sarah before giving Tommy a long slow nod and dragging in an equally long breath. He shifted in his spot, right arm looping under Sarah’s knees, left hand coming to her head to press it against his chest, as he shakily rose from the ground with her, his own knees buckling. 

She wasn’t heavy by any means, but the weight of his sorrow threatened to bring him right back down. Joel swayed for a second, feet crunching in the grass as the sought a steady stance. His eyes were hollow, but at least he was standing. There was progress.

The shirt Tommy had lent melted off Sarah’s form, landing in a heap at Joel’s feet. He watched it fall listlessly before his gaze refocused back on the now pair. Uncovered once more, he was reminded just how much blood a body can hold - fuck. 

Taking a breath, Tommy muttered a soft, “Alright,” with a curt nod, scooping his rifle from the ground before placing a hand gently at Joel’s elbow ushering him toward the trucks. 

The trio barely got more than two steps before the lead soldier was loudly barking at them from a yard away, shaking his head.

“Just two. You two. You can’t take her.”

He should have seen this coming, heard him speak it over the radio for godsakes, but still, it landed like a punch in the gut. It hit Joel hard too - automatically crumpling down with his baby girl in his arms. 

Tommy tried to keep him upright, but the flimsy grasp on only one of Joel’s arms did little. 

Joel was back on the ground, staring at his child, wiping gently at her face. 

Tommy looked at Joel and then back to the soldiers, and then once again found himself kneeling in front of his brother. 

Surprisingly, Joel was the first to speak this time.

“Ain’t leaving her Tommy. Can’t -“

“-I know, I know but….it’s time….we’ll…we’ll come back.“

Tommy hated the words coming out of his mouth, hated what he was suggesting, but he found himself saying it nonetheless. He knew if they left now, they weren’t coming back. His heart sank to the ground.

Joel shook his head, a new wave of tears pouring down his face, he knew it too and he wasn’t going to ever let that become a reality.

“I’ve got her, go… I ain’t going,” Joel said choppily, words getting caught in his throat. 

“Please Joel,” he begged- practically whined -tugging at Joel’s arm in a futile attempt to make him budge. It came out almost childlike, the sound reminiscent of when he would press Joel to go play catch in the yard or ride their bikes together. 

He just needed his big brother to listen. 

“Uh-uh,” Joel mumbled, heading falling atop Sarah’s once more, smushing his cheek into her hair, head turned away from Tommy defiantly. 

“You coming or what?” The soldier yelled again as he began walking back toward Tommy and Joel, clearly in no mood to be dealing with them any longer. “Don’t got all night,” he added, coming to a halt just above the pair, practically hovering. 

Tommy looked up and gave him a nod. 

“I know, I know….he’s just…he ain’t…” His voice trailed off, weighed down by an overwhelming desperation and a bit of hopelessness. 

He knew Joel wasn’t going to move, not without his baby.  

Tommy had been prepared to move them both,  drag them all the way to the truck, and chuck them inside, but hell, ripping his brother away from his child? That was an entirely different task - almost inconceivable. 

His eyes came back to Joel and Sarah. 

Sarah - a dainty little thing under Joel’s rigid form. She was small, and seemed even smaller now - it wasn’t going to be that much of a difference in two bodies versus three.

Shaking his head, he looked back up, anxiety and hopelessness plastering his face. Although a proud man, begging wasn’t beneath him. Not today.

“Can ya’ just let him take her, she won’t take up room - please - he’s gonna, he’ll hold her,” he pleaded, hoping that maybe this was all just about the physical space and not anything else.

“Two, that’s it,” he said loudly over the roar of another helicopter, holding up his pointer and middle finger to Tommy to reiterate. 

Two.  

It rolled around in his brain, as his shoulders slumped and his head dipped down.  

Two.

His eyes bore into the ground as he brushed his hand back and forth against the barrel of his rifle.

Two. 

Tommy couldn’t lose them both.

“I’ll stay…I’ll stay, he needs- he won’t get outta here without ya’ll. Two - take them,” Tommy begged and bargained, pulling at Joel’s arm again in an effort to get him to stand. Joel barely moved, but Tommy knew they were pressed for time and rose to stand without him.

Two.  

Locking eyes with the soldier, suddenly filled with more certainty than he'd felt in a long time, “There’s your two,” he implored, his voice teetering on the edge of a shout. “Take ‘em, please. Take’em,” the last words almost cracking with emotion. 

But it was a non-issue. 

The soldier's expression remained stony, though there was a hint of impatience in his eyes. 

“No.”

“Are you serious man? Two you said two!” Tommy spat, his face reddening with a mixture of anger and desperation. His hand gripped his rifle that hung low, knuckles going white. 

The subtle action wasn’t lost on the soldier whose own hand went to his holster, resting it there as a caution. 

“Ain’t cleared for casualties,” the soldier declared, his voice a rumbling growl that resonated with authority, clearly trying to remind Tommy who held the power right now. 

“Bullshit,” Tommy snapped back, his voice shaking with fury.

“Protocol.” The simple reply was firm, given with a definitive shake of the head, allowing little room for argument.

Tommy's eyes darted from the soldier to Joel and Sarah, his heart aching, gut tugging with an urge to fight him - maybe even pummel into the ground if that's what it took. He squeezed his fist tight, pushing his emotions there.

“Come on man….just say she’s wounded, died in the back on the way…”

His voice quivered, his words a plea rather than a demand.

The soldier looked at Tommy, his gaze cold. “Walking wounded or better, that’s all we’re cleared for. Don’t like it, don’t come."

As if on que, two long drags of the truck horn echoed through to them, the solider with Tommy turning over his shoulder toward the sound He gave a little shake of his head before thrusting his hand up into the air, finger swooping around to tell the rest of his crew it was time to go. 

Tommy's breath hitched, tears threatening to spill, eyes wide in fear that he was suddenly about to lose the only real chance of keeping his brother safe.

“No no no just wait, I’ll get him,” he quickly said, hastily dropping to his knees in front of Joel, painfully, and quickly, coming to the realization of what was going to have to happen next.

The very thought of leaving her here was like acid, burning through every vein in his body - you’re leaving a man behind, a voice in his head rang - but he had no choice - they had no choice. 

Another explosion from the wreckage of the plane crash at the far end of the field reverberated through the air, rattling the ground, cementing the stark reality that they no longer had time to wait. 

Tommy's voice was almost a whisper - his own body vehemently opposed to giving the truth any power, any sound- as he pleaded, “Joel, brother, listen to me. We’re going to have to leave her for now.” He paused, choking back his tears before continuing, “I’ll…we’ll come back for her, I promise.”

He wiped at his tears quickly before snaking his hands into the practically nonexistent space between his brother and his niece, trying to find purchase around Joel’s arm, but it was glued so tight to Sarah that there was no room for Tommy’s fingers to weasel in. Gulping down, moving quickly, his hands instead found Joel’s - they were still clutching at the back of Sarah’s head, nestled in her brown curls. Pushing his own hand into her hair, Tommy found Joel’s fingers, gripped them firmly, and attempted to pry away his digits. But, Joel’s grip was relentless, leaving Tommy to bend his fingers so far back that he worried he was about to break the knuckle joint, and at the very least, certainly causing Joel some pain. 

Not that Joel could really feel anything but pain anymore. 

“Let go, come’on,” he all but whined, putting more force into detaching Joel from Sarah. His brother’s steadfast refusal was just making his own heart feel worse, tearing it in two from the guilt of it all  - of intentionally torturing Joel. 

He was, and he wasn’t.

Failing to get his hand away from Sarah, Tommy moved to Sarah herself, scooping his arms under her body, wedging them up and into Joel’s lap.

Tommy shuddered and turned his head away when his bare arms touched hers, her skin already going slightly cold. 

He found a grip by some miracle on her side, but when he tried to pull Sarah close to him, the once stony Joel was reacting instantaneously, more alert than he had been. 

“No!” He growled, almost a snarl, as he forcefully twisted his whole body to the side, Sarah in tow, ripping her away from Tommy’s hold. 

Joel’s wide eyes bore into him, nostrilled flared like he was about to rip Tommy’s head off, before suddenly the death stare flickered out when his gaze fell away and went back down to his daughter, all within just seconds. 

“You’ve got a minute, you can’t get him to come, that’s it,” the soldier informed Tommy, still hovering a few paces away, waiting for the brothers. They had done a service in stopping, but now this had gone on entirely too long. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,”  Tommy mutters under his breath entirely exacerbated. He has literally faced rocket launchers and that wasn’t this hard. “I can get through to him. Just give me a moment,” he yelled to the soldier who was getting further and further away by the second. “Please!,” he yelled, tugging at Joel with all his strength, “…please,” he said in defeat again - to Joel, to the solider, to the goddamn fucking universe.

His every muscle strained as he pulled at Joel's arm, grip slipping against sweaty skin and clammy hands. His feet dug into the grass for leverage. 

“Joel brother, please, I know - I know…we can’t leave her here, but we have to. Okay?”

Tommy’s eyes flicked to the caravan - the soldiers huddled together talking, their eyes flicking back to him as well. He couldn’t remember a time when his heart thumped this forcefully in his chest, when he was this hopelessly desperate. Even in the theater of war, under showers of gunfire, he had been more steady than he was now. 

“I can get through to him,” Tommy whispered, entirely to himself, before moving his sweaty hands to Joel’s pant leg, tugging at the fabric in a frantic effort to find a firm grip somewhere.

Another loud boom rang through the air, some explosion somewhere. The whole world seemed to be falling apart around them, dark night turning orange with flames on the horizon on all sides. 

 “….It ain’t safe. Sarah would want this, she would want us to go, be safe,” he entreated as he pulled heartily with a gruff, making Joel skid just inches on the ground, but being largely unsuccessfully in moving him otherwise.

For better or worse, mercy was taken on the Miller brothers then. 

Invested in Joel, Tommy had become completely unaware of the encroaching military, to the now several soldiers surrounding them. Hands wrapped around his biceps, and Tommy’s body tensed, head suddenly snapping around to see who was grabbing him. There was almost no time to process it all after that- the tugging, the dragging, the thrashing. 

Tommy was being wrenched away further and further from his brother by the second, dragged backward. He dug the heels of his boots into the earth, scraping through the grass, trying to slow the soldier's pace. 

“Get the fuck off me!” he spat, struggling to break free. But the soldiers held fast, their grip firm and unyielding, contorting and holding his arms in a way that made his muscles burn. His jeans roughly scrapped across the ground, his white undershirt turning brown by the dirt. If he had still been wearing his overshirt, it would sure been ripped by now from his struggle.

“What are y-,” Tommy began, eyes going wide as he craned his neck up to keep Joel in his sights, not wanting to lose him for even a second.

No no no no.

His heart bottomed out.

“JOEL! JOEL!”

The remaining soldiers encircled his brother, side arms being ominously pulled from holsters as they stared him down. Through the spaces of their legs, Tommy could just make out Joel - still fiercely gripping his daughter, eyes looking anywhere but up at the men.

After everything, he was still going to lose them both. He never should have trusted them, never should have agreed to leave. 

“You motherfuckers… let me the fuck go,” he screamed, gutterly, just as the reached the back of the van and aggressively pulled Tommy to his feet. 

He tried to dart forward back to Joel, but it was no use, the soldiers immediately moving in an almost calculated formation to restrain and hold him back. 

“We’re trying to help you!” The soldier at his back said into his ear, still roughly manhandling his arms, forcing his shoulder blades to squeeze together as his wrists were pulled down behind him, keeping his arms in my place.  

Tommy watched as the three soldiers with Joel leaned down, and grabbed at him. One placing firm hands on his shoulders, the other two going to his arms, ripping them away. They smashed the butts of their handguns into Joel’s arms, hoping that would cause enough pain for him to instinctively loosen his hold. It seemed to do just the opposite, with Joel tucking himself more around his daughter and holding tighter, eyes screwed closed. Their efforts continued, with their hands, but the guns still were being held, and the pieces hit senselessly against Sarah as their efforts continued- a fact that made Tommy’s stomach particularly roll.  

One arm came free, and then the other, and Joel was yelling. Fighting. Screaming. 

Of all the things tonight to bear, somehow Joel’s screams then we’re the worst. Not even really conceivable words, just sounds. Desperate, painful, infuriated shrieks and howls. 

Sarah’s body was left behind with little reverence, falling to the ground in a heap when she was out of Joel’s secure grip. Her head dropped facing down into the grass, body turning back to Mother Earth. 

Tommy gagged, the sights and sounds viscerally making him sick, a small bit of vomit purging from his throat and into his mouth. He swallowed it down quickly.

There wasn’t much of a fight as the soldiers wrestled Joel away. It was three against one, but Joel fought nonetheless - elbows being thrown, fists flailing, feet kicking, quite literally clawing his way back to his child. His nails dug into the ground as he was pulled, scrapping against the fabric of pants and jackets trying to get away from the three men. Every time he made any sort of progress or got even the slightest bit of an upper hand, Joel was taken back down, dragged, and pushed away again and again. 

Tommy pushed and pulled against his own soldiers’ grip as the others began to get particularly aggressive with Joel, coming just feet away from the transport truck.  His eyes anxiously darted around the tumultuous scene. It was abundantly clear they were hurting him- mentally, physically, emotionally - and Tommy knew it was his fault. 

He wanted this to some degree. 

Tommy found himself calling out to Joel without much force, voice cracking: “Joel. Joel…brother…” The words trailed away as his heart and mind came at odds, grappling with who he wanted to stop more, his brother or the soldiers. 

For a moment he couldn’t pick a side. But then he had to. 

It happened quickly. An elbow to the groin, a falling soldier, a stolen gun. 

Joel raised the weapon up, taking a large step back and free as all the other soldiers immediately raised their own guns at him. It only took Tommy a second longer to react as well, jutting his head back, nailing the soldier in the face holding his arms, and stealing his sidearm in one fell swoop. 

His side would always be his brother’s. 

“Okay okay, let’s just take a second alright,” Tommy said, trying to bring down the extremely fragile tension. He gulped down, trying to make his own demeanor shift to as nonthreatening as possible. He didn't need this to go sideways now. 

Despite everything else happening in the world around them, the only thing that really could be heard was the constant hum of the trucks and their own heavy breaths - every single person on edge with weapons raised at the ready. 

One move could see anyone’s head blown straight off. 

Joel took another step back, and a soldier's grip twitched, pushing Tommy to react as well, training his gun on them.   

“Hey whoa. Don’t you dare,” he said sternly. “He ain’t doing anything.” 

Joel continued to take large steps back, gun raised, eyes glued on the people trying to rip him away from his baby. His Sarah. Everyone’s eyes cascaded around the ring of guns, trying to discern what moves to make. What moves they should take in a situation like this. 

“I’m not leaving her,” Joel mumbled, as his eyes softened, hand and arm going lax. The stolen gun dropped down to the ground with a muffled thump as he took another step back, shoulders drooping body neck falling just a bit, the weight of grief overtaking him again, suddenly back into a desolate trance.

He turned his back on the group and walked toward his discarded daughter.  

Cautiously, Tommy followed, slowly moving after Joel, sidestepping along to keep both his brother and the military in his sights, moving his head back and forth as he walked. 

His heart was beating faster in his chest the closer he got to Joel, hands growing sweatier against the cool metal of the firearm. He let out a long exhale as they got closer to Sarah and further from the men that had almost provided them safety, but it wasn’t a breath of relief.  

Tommy’s eyes briefly found Sarah’s bloody form and dread rolled through his body from head to toe. 

With a fleeting look at the soldiers, then at Joel, he acted swiftly without hesitation, jamming the butt of the gun against the back of Joel's head, rendering him instantly unconscious. 

His side would always be his brother’s.

[cagedchoices]

I saw a post the other day that said it's weird when people say “[muse name] is so spicy right now” because, in their words, “people who do that are just writing smut as a self-insert fantasy to get off to" I thought that was kind of reductive and untrue and it kind of highlights a growing issue I’ve noticed in the RPC and I kind of just wanted to talk about it from my own perspective.

I am an asexual, aromantic, and nonbinary afab person. My most consistently present roleplay muse for the past 4 years is a cis man I headcanon to be bisexual and biromantic. I feel like it should be somewhat obvious that this is not a self insert fantasy for me, but if it's not that obvious, I'll try to explain.

Initially, I based Caleb's sexuality off an admittedly narrow perception of his canon background. I interpreted his relationship with Francis as romantic partially because at the time, I thought “There’s no heterosexual explanation for how emotional Caleb gets whenever he thinks about Francis, so therefore he must have been in love with this man.”

In addition to that, Caleb had 2 failed relationships after Francis died and there’s nothing dictating what gender(s) those partners were.

I was also partially motivated by spite. How many times has everyone heard “ugh not every close emotional bond between two men has to be gay 😒” ? How many times has that been used to shut down any conversation on the question of sexuality when it involves two male characters? I was sick of it.

I used to say that though. Before I knew any better. I'd see two characters who had a connection I liked seeing as platonic, and instead of reasoning that it's perfectly valid to interpret these characters how you want, I would be like “no. absolutely not. these characters aren't gay because the author didn't write them to be and didn't say they were and actually it's pretty homophobic to think the only way men can be emotionally vulnerable is if they're gay” which is…STUPID lmao don't be like Past Me. That was a DARVO tactic and a particularly shitty one at that. I'm not like that anymore and I'm glad I learned to do better.

Anyways... I love shipping, but I’m less attached to looking through shipping goggles these days and I try not to look at anything from such a narrow point of view anymore. Now whenever I think about the bond between Caleb and Francis, I can see it in a multitude of ways. Which is the same way I see his bond with Dolores in season 3 and his bond with Maeve in season 4. And further how I see potential for ships I develop in roleplay.

But recently I'd been struggling a little bit with truly defining the difference between romantic versus platonic ideals. Most of the generic definitions I see out there describe romantic attraction as being “the desire to do romantic things with someone” and then the examples listed are something like “kissing, holding hands, getting married, spending time together, etc.” and I'm just like “okay what about when people do those things *without* romantic attraction involved?”

Like it just breaks my brain. People get married for reasons that aren't out of love sometimes. And as much as I like kiss scenes in fiction and I like writing them when my brain stops short circuiting long enough to actually do that, I think the entire act of putting your mouth on another human’s mouth and sometimes getting tongues or teeth involved in smushing your lips together over and over again is a really weird ritual to show someone you like them. I still write it though because it's cute. As for holding hands and spending time together?? Are we just not supposed to spend time with friends ever? What the fuck.

I stumbled across a video a few days ago by a neuroscientist who has studied the concept of love in the human brain and what she said helped me put things into a better perspective. Someone asked her if there's a good way to differentiate between platonic and romantic relationships when, especially in modern society, we don't have as much separation between the things humans do WITH romantic partners versus in non-romantic relationships and the lines blur more than they used to in the past.

What she said was that romantic love behaves similarly to an obsession or addiction in the brain. It's not just the fact that you want to DO so-called romantic activities with someone, it's more that you want to do them so badly with a specific person, you can't really let go of the thought until you follow the impulse to do it.

Kissing, for example. It's possible you might want to kiss a friend you have a strong platonic bond with, but if you don’t do it, then the interest usually fades and the brain will quickly move on. On the other hand, if you have a crush/partner/spouse/any kind of romantic connection and you want to kiss them, the brain will most likely fixate on the thought of kissing them until you actually go and do something. It will not fully move on until it gets the dopamine hit.

I guess since I’m aromantic, this means that for me, I don’t experience that addictive feeling of wanting to do something with someone so badly that it's all I think about. But I write a muse who is biromantic and does experience romantic attraction, which sort of requires me to know how it works, so I can actually write about it.

I see sexual attraction in a similar way. I’m asexual and in my case, I'm one of the ones who doesn't experience sexual attraction in any way and is not comfortable with being personally involved in sex. But my muse is bisexual and does experience sexual attraction.

So I decided to start writing smutty things last year and I had a couple reasons for it. The first is that I had never actually written smut before so it was something new to try, and practice would mean I would get better at it.

The second was that I have watched, for years, many of my mutuals routinely participate in sexy sunday and similar things. It probably sounds kind of like peer pressure, but it wasn’t like anyone was really encouraging me to do anything or not do anything. It was more like after years and years of existing in my own bubble of never engaging in it, I wanted to see what I was missing. Completely my choice.

Thirdly, after tackling the subjects of “where the fuck do you put your hands?” “does this position sound physically possible? or...comfortable?” and the like, writing simple kiss scenes or non-sexual intimacy no longer feels like a monumental task that I mentally freeze up on the second I realize I have to write.

For a while it also got very hard for me to figure out when someone wanted to ship with me versus when they didn’t. I was afraid to ask. I started overthinking everything to the effect of “what if they think I’m being presumptuous and pressuring them into writing a romantic relationship they don’t want?” or “what if they are afraid to tell me they actually Are interested in a ship in case i think they’re trying to pressure me into it instead?”

There was also quite a bit of “oh god what if they see that i wrote my muse on a date with someone in a certain location and when i put our muses in that same location for a different thread they think it’s a date too when it’s not?” or even “what if a mun of a duplicate muse sees me writing a ship with a different partner writing the same muse and they start thinking i’m only writing with them to add them to a weird little collection or something?” and all the social anxiety I fall victim to when my mental health gets tanked by stress and depression.

All of this to say, now that I’ve climbed back out of the pit of despair I fell into… I don’t think anything is as simple as “people only write shipping to fulfill the desire for a relationship/people only write smut to fulfill their own sexual desires.” I think you have to take it on a case by case basis and not make broad assumptions. Otherwise all you're gonna do is alienate people over things that really don't matter.

Plus, maybe it's just that “[muse name] is feeling so spicy right now!” is a lot quicker and easier to say than “the part of my subconscious imagination that [muse name] occupies is telling me that if this muse were a real person, they would be feeling sexually aroused right about now and I'm willing to write about it!” so like. Y’know.

[candyskiez]

3, 4, 5, and 13 for the toh ask game!

3: Oh this is HARD. I'm currently beginning a rewatch so this might change? Y'know y'know. But I think it's Eclipse Lake. It's just so....man. The nuance. The depth. Genuinely such an accurate portrayal of abuse. I've said it before but just. It's so realistic. I like that they don't make Hunter a perfect victim. He's rude, he's bratty, he's manipulative as FUCK in this episode. We see how he got so far as the Golden Guard. He's cunning. He's smart. He's just also insanely reckless with his life because he was taught it's irrelevant. He uses the same tactics on Amity that Belos used on Lilith. It's also a very raw depiction of an abused teenager that just. Doesn't pull any punches. I love that Amitys trauma doesn't go away and that it shows that trauma influences all kinds of relationships you find yourself in. I don't know what I can say about it that I haven't already said. It's just. An excellent episode about abuse that handles the subject matter properly. It's just fucking GOOD man

4. Hmmm. That's a good question. Honestly? Aladarius. They're interesting! I know it's. Nonsensical given we know scraps. But. Listen. Listen. They're FUN. They have it all. Weird sexual tension filled angsty rivalry, childhood best friends turnt awkward tension, comedic gold, divorced energy, absolutely loving and tender after canon, what more can I ask for? I just ..I love thinking about them. I love thinking about the possibility of what their dynamic with Odalia was like when the three of them were best friends. I like thinking about them both having so many regrets with how their relationship ended, but they can't say it. They can't get it out. Darius can't risk ever being hurt like that again, the idea of getting his heart broken again is too much, and the idea of having to be NEAR Odalia or having to think about the thousands of hurts near that is enough to make him sick, and hes trying to tell himself hes over it. Alador is just...resigned. He can't fix it. He feels like he can't. They both fucked up so bad and were...not very good people at some point but try SO hard to be better and they make me so emotional. God. With that being said they do not touch dating until their kids are grown up. Ty and gn. Also I love thinking about them having a conversation about Odalia and going "What happened to the friend we knew? Did she ever exist?" "I don't know." "...Would that be worse?" "I don't know." And. Eats a leg.

5. Oh man this is a HARD one. There's so many good ones! Genuinely just ...so many. So fucking many. One that has absolutely no canon backing in any way whatsoever is Darius and His mentor but. That probably doesn't count for many obvious reasons. So I'll take actual canon. Eda and Luz. I fucking love them. They love each other SO MUCH. Eda calling Luz her kid makes me want to scream and just. God. They're what the other needed. Eda needed someone who gave her a reason to get up and keep going. Someone to make her see the outside world. If King and Luz hadn't shown up, she would've rotted away in that tower forever. She needed a purpose, needed someone who made her stop and see that there were some people worth protecting. Luz made Eda see the outside world and. God. Goddd. And Eda being the accepting mentor she needed, offering her companionship when she needed it the most. Scared and sad and lonely, she needed someone to tell her nothing was wrong with her. She needed someone who could help her figure her weirdness out in a safe environment. And Eda was that. Eda helped her so much. And the owl family gets separated over an dover and over again and then Luz breaks that cylce of pain by COMING BACK and going, no, you know what? This doesn't get to end in tragedy. I love Eda. I love King. I love Hooty and Lilith and Camilia ad Hunter and Willow and Gus and Amity. You don't get to take this from me. I'm going to live on the isles and be happy. I'm going to live. I love my family. And just. Man. Man. Considering Eda and Luz both go through depressive periods in the show it's so. Man. MAN.

13. Season two! Simply because it has the most amount of favorite episodes. It's just a really good season man idk what to tell you.

It's. Late at night for me so sorry for incoherency wah

[readingsbyawokemi]

My space to just be and be amongst like-minded individuals. Tumblr was my go to years ago when I called myself a new era hippie. There was so much inspiration. Now I'm here soley as a spirit to help others, inspire and live life.

I'm a psychic and have been a reader since 2011. It started when I would pray to my Orisha shrines my Mom gave me. I would get messages from them, or what I thought were messages and things would come to pass. Then an ex-God sister of mine came up to me randomly one day and handed me a worn out deck of tarot cards! Without saying anything. She was an Aries. Brave, because she didn't stop knowing my Mom might say no since tarot cards arent apart of Ifa (shaman nonetheless). I was so excited but skeptical. I asked it basic questions and was surprised at how accurate it was until I asked more and more questions and thought, ok they're real. Lmao. I then used a tarot phone app from time to time and merged over to Facade.com/tarot. I used the voodoo deck mostly. I love love love Facade.com and recommend them to any new comer that isn't ready to show their face in a spiritual store and buy a deck or doesn't have the money but still wants to delve in.

After years of teaching myself the cards by memory through reading after reading, question after question answered. Struggling with bi-polar and schizophrenia (yes I hear voices! Spirits! Duh!) going in and out of the hospital taking this med and that. I practiced readings on others and realized that my gift got stronger. My spirit guides are always with me and I can talk to them at any time. I have them here with me (ancestors included) to protect me, watch over me and give clarity to those I give readings to and converse with. The same tactics I would use when I was sick to experiment and talk with spirits that got me the wrong answers about my life are the same tactics I use to give what end up being accurate readings now.

Research sacred illness. It's a shaman term for an illness that ends up making you grow more than had you not had the illness. BiPolar is just a swing of moods from elated to depressed. Being schizophrenic is simply hearing voice and everything that comes with that. However according to shamans, individuals with this diagnosis are said to be gifted and a soon to be shaman of their own tribe.

So welcome to those suffering from mental illnesses. I'm here for you and I feel your energy stronger than anyone else. Normal people, from one wounded healer to another, I honor your presence. If you ever need a reading or someone to talk to you can go to my page here. (My reviews are on my FB page link at that site). No I'm not here to just take your money. it's not about the money for me but if I got paid to read I wouldn't have to do other things to make money, I could read. I'm an independent contractor so I make my own hours. Plus it's an exchange of energy. I'm tapping into the spirit realms when I read asking for answers from them. If they know that I'm being help with some type of exchange for helping another they would be more content. However I do give free readings!

Right now I'm offering 1 free question in exchange (get it?) for a review to celebrate the re-grand opening of offering readings for a fee. Again, reach out to me here if you would like a free question. There you can also again see my reviews. Overall though I will be giving readings (daily, pick a card, weekly) thoughts on here, music I'm listening to, reviews, pictures, etc. if you're still reading you should follow! I follow back! I think that's enough typing for now.

FREE & PAID READINGS

For my paid readings & reviews visit this website. (Reviews are on my FB.)

To get a free question answered (must be at least 18) message me on here. This is in exchange for a review on here or FB.

PEACE & LOVE.

[icarusredwings]

Baby lets get one thing clear.

I see you. I do. I really do. Every like, every repost, every comment I see you. I love being able to be like "man, @stucky-just-stucky is gonna LOVE this" and here you are. Eating it up.

Get fed darling.

Because I love these so much. I love that you gab and tell me your ideas (for me to steal >:)

Yes, they do assume that he's going to be a horrible teacher. They think hes going to cause huge problems and be a liability, distract the students, and be a bad influence. For the most part? They are correct. But like you said, his pranks are much smaller, like playing Brittney Spears over the speakers, threw overcooked grilled cheese at kids as 'dodge practice', and often joins Mr Howlett's P.E. to teach them skills. He's the hardest one on them. Some kids love his class. Some kids HATE his class because they think its hard. But Wade ironically uses this time and his class to raise their confidence and build connections with them. To teach them how to read their enemies' moves. A lot of students think about patterns when being taught fighting tactics, but with Wade, he HAS no style of fighting. It's quite physically so random that you never know what he's gonna do.

His SCHOOL at is literally @Suckitscotty because he voted against him coming to the school seeing how difficult he was to handle with Russel and how much of a liability he would be, I mean Logically he aint wrong. Having a mercenary who is known to betray teams, leave no witnesses, is unreliable, and has severe mental illness and a personality disorder IS infact not a good idea. If it was anyone else id agree, FUCK NO but it's Wade. The same man who purposly targeted himself in prison so a child wouldn't get beat up as much, the man who jumped for joy when told he was going to be a father, the same man who got ripped in half by juggernaut while trying to save a kid AND fight a future bounty hunter. You are going to have to get passed him if you think you're going to mistreat any one of these kids.

Even on his sick days he insists on coming to class. His head is in a trash can most of the day but he's still here and still trying his best. Sure, a kid gets puked on every now and again but he apologizes profusely and feels terrible about it. Logan begs him to stay home, to rest and just sleep because his body needs it but Wade refuses. He signed a contract to protect these kids. It's what his life is now. He can't have kids of his own (not in the Finding Home Au anyway) but all these youngsters are his brats. Bro fluctuates between Shouta Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada about teaching style.

He's the 'silly teacher' but the moment a kid starts crying it's like a switch in his brain and suddenly he wants to beat up a 13 year old boy for making one of his students cry. "Go beat his ass!"

"Wilson! You cant encourage the students to fight!"

"If he says boys are stronger then girls then let her show him other wise!"

I can so see him interrupting multiple people's classes for the sake of fun. Walking in on Beasts chemistry class to touch stuff and watch beast freak out because 'Youre going to blow up the school again!', coming to be nosey in Gambit's sex ed class as he randomly sits down in an empty desk and raises his hand to ask a really nasty- but realivent question. One that the kids might be too afraid or embaressed to ask. Like what happens if you get double dick in the ass. 'Can you still get pregnant? What if Im not ovulating?' "....wade.. you cant ovulate. Your a man." Only for wade to look down at himself and scream. The kids laugh and Remy rolls his eyes with a smirk as he watches him get up. 'I'm telling on you!' And runs off fake crying only to wonder into Jeans room to ask her what something says because he's dyslexic.

'What's this say?'

"Try to sound it out."

As embaressed as he is, he knows its good for the kids to see him struggle so they feel less bad about it. 'Hy....hype... er.. act.. i've? Hypurr act I've?'

She giggles.

"Who can tell me where the mistake is?"

And a student raises their hand.

He esspecially loves bugging Scott and borderline is up Logans ass all the time.

He adores coming into scotts Geometry class just to point out that something is incorrect or if Scott purposly asks him a hard question to awnser it "what? Thats the hardest you got teach?"

Sometimes mid lesson Wade will wonder into Logans PE class. Sometimes for a kiss, to lay on his shoulder and groan about something, or to straight up let kids throw shit at him, then tease them if they can't hit him.

Logan absolutely loves him here. He feels like it was a mistake for them to reject him so many years ago. He could have been making this much progress forever now. Already, class attentiveness and test scores have raised 20%.

I just feel bad for who ever has a room next to Wade and Logan's quarters.....

And Quicksilver.. for how much blood he has to clean up all the time from when a kid actually DOES get him. "OW FUCK- Oh my god! You did it kid! Stabbed me right in the kidney! Good job champ! Hi fiv- OH Ouch- okay no- down low maybe?" He's always so proud of them and you know damn well he cries at graduation.

xmen: we have a mansion you'll get paid regularly you can have an easy job in the offtime we can help you with figuring out your past

logan: ewww lmaooo ur weird haha nooo haha

wade: logan !

logan: *moves into 1 bedroom crack house with a 40 yearold and his mom*

[justiceamberheard]

For the first time, I'm reading the transcripts of that phone call and I feel so sick. After being abused my whole life, it is so clear to see, all of Johnny's tactics. It's textbook abuse tactics. The "i love yous" being repeated again and again while she's trying to present facts. The not responding to her arguments, but instead making "veiled" (not so veiled) threats about how he "doesn't want" to tarnish and hurt her but he will he if he "has to" (aka if she "forces" him to). How he keeps going back and forth between those two, saying it'll be "bad for them" but "worse for her" and then bouts of "i love you and i will fix all of this." Only to then, as she continues bringing up facts and proof and is not swayed, him finally trying to flip it on her, the question "do you honestly believed you were abused?" (i've had that question asked to me before by a sibling about my mother and FUCK it hurts like nothing else), and then the attempt to make it all her fault, when he'd just spent the last however minutes defending her, and agreeing with her to try and appease her, and get control over the situation again. The ultimatum of "this is it, this is the last drop," when she's kept calm and rational, if shaken, and keeps going back to facts, and he presents none. How "offended" he is, that she would say this, that she would do that, that she would say she was abused. The way he keeps using pet names, and calling her baby to try and make her smaller. I've had 6 years of therapy to first accept I was abused, and then learn to recognize and fight those exact same tactics. I'm from an entirely different ass country, and he uses every single tactic my mother used on me my entire life. This just proves how horrendous people's education about abuse is. I would need no other proof (even though there are countless ones) if I just read those transcripts (also guess what? whenever i argue back, or refuse to engage in the abuse, my mother cries like i'm the one who's just abused her. deep, hurtful, minutes long, dignified tears too. every. single. time. pretending to be the real victim is just another tactic, nothing else, real victims tend to struggle with the concept of being one, and accepting what was done to them, and though there are exceptions to everything, that is clearly the case here, we see her saying "I never wanted to think of myself that way" while he wastes no time in calling himself a victim, it's almost like he doesn't meant it, so it has no emotional baggage behind it). It's black on white, and clear as day to anyone that has ever been through abuse before. And it's PAINFUL to watch her not be believed, her being belittled, this way.

thank you for sharing this with us.

[2dmenenthusiast]

"You're not even my favorite sibling, really."

(John Seed x Deputy Gn!Reader)

It's here, besties. My hiatus is (somewhat) over, and I'm proud to present this baby. It's a bit of a short one, but there will definitely be more John in the future cuz I am a whore for that man and I had fun writing for him. Anyways, I hope ya'll enjoy 😌

Summary: You're trapped in John's bunker again, and rather than exposing one of your sins, you discover his instead.

Word Count: 1k

Warnings/other info: swearing, kidnapping, slight use of knives, John being a little shit, reader is gender nuetral

You’d been here before.

This dark room, in the same chair. Your fingers flexed, wrists uncomfortably rubbing against the duct tape wrapped around them, and you took a deep breath. John’s bunker, a place you had become very familiar with in the past couple of weeks. It smelled faintly of John’s cologne, and you couldn’t decipher if it was because he’d been down here so much that his smell became a permanent part of the room, or if it was because he’d been near you recently. Probably a combination of both.

You heard a metal door squeak open and footsteps soon after, each footfall growing closer until they stopped directly behind you. It was so quiet, you were sure he could hear your thundering heartbeat, and you had to hold in a gasp when you felt his fingers sweep over the back of your neck, a shudder rolling through you that you hoped he didn’t catch.

“Deputy.”

You let out a breath through your nose, shoulders relaxing, and you didn’t bother to look back at him as you let your lips twitch up into a smirk. “John.”

His fingers moved, hand settling at the base of your neck and digits curling around it, and he gave the sides of your neck an experimental squeeze.

“You don’t seem surprised to be here. I was expecting a little more resistance from you.”

You scoffed. “I’m sorry to disappoint. What is this, the third time you’ve kidnapped me? If you wanna surprise me, maybe try something a little different next time.”

“Oh?” He stepped around the chair and crouched in front of you, and you finally made eye contact with his crystal blue eyes as he looked up at you with a grin. “And what would you suggest I do?”

“Well, if you’re accepting requests,” you leaned forward in your seat, close enough that you could feel his breath on your face, “maybe instead of using your snipers and little bliss bullets, you can come out and face me yourself. Take me down like a man.”

His jaw visibly clenched, and he stood to his full height as you leaned back in the chair. It was always the same song and dance with him. You’d destroy his property, he’d taunt you over the radio, he’d have you kidnapped, and then you would escape. The cycle repeated over and over, and at this point, you thought it was becoming a lame tactic to actually see you. Like these little “visits” you had were the highlight of his week. You couldn’t lie, it was fun. Messing with him, taunting him. You hated to admit that you enjoyed getting a rise out of him, that some sick little part of you craved his attention. But you weren’t the only one. You swore that if you weren’t out destroying his shit and making his life hell, he’d probably be bored out of his mind.

But you had a feeling this was the last straw. You’d just destroyed his monstrous “YES” sign, leaving it as nothing but a pile of debris, and it was safe to say he was not happy with the situation. He could practically see your smile when he heard you talk through the radio afterward, fingers clenching tightly around his walkie until he thought he might just break it. That’s when he knew he had to have you back in his chair. He had to see you begging, pleading. He had to hear you say yes.

Grabbing a knife from the table, John rolled up a chair and sat down a couple of feet away in front of you. He then crossed one leg over the other, tapping the knife against his chin as his eyes meticulously swept over your form. He didn’t utter a word, and you wondered if he was contemplating how he wanted to mark you, how he wanted your sin to stand out on your skin for everyone to see. Reaching across the distance separating you, he grabbed the bottom of your chair and yanked you forward, the action so sudden that you let out a short gasp as your knees knocked against his.

“There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Sure, I love being uncomfortably close to the enemy.”

“Enemy? I thought we were closer than that, Deputy,” John said, his free hand moving to grip your thigh.

“I don’t know. You’re not even my favorite sibling, really.”

He hummed, knife tapping against your other leg as his mouth formed a tight-lipped smile. “Who is then?”

Letting out a huff, you rolled your neck and let your head hand to the side, pursing your lips in thought. “Well, Faith is nice. And Jacob is kinda cute-” You felt his grip on your thigh tighten, and you shifted your gaze to him with a smirk. “Does that upset you?”

“What? That I’m not your favorite?”

“No, that I said Jacob was cute.”

John scoffed, letting the blade press a little harder into your leg until there was a hole in your jeans, but he stopped before it could cut you any. “Why would I give a shit about you whoring around with my brother?”

“I don’t know.” Your eyes narrowed, almost analyzing him as you watched the muscles in his jaw twitch and his fingers slightly flex around the knife. “But you do.”

Rolling his eyes, John stood from his chair and walked back over to the wooden table, leaning his hands against it, and you could see the muscles in his back shift as he decided to forgo his usual vest today. You knew he was upset. That you had wormed your way under his skin, but he hadn’t broken yet. Not like you wanted him to.

“You know, I’m not planning to go and fuck Jacob.” He glanced at you over his shoulder, and you smiled. “If I was gonna whore around with anyone, it would definitely be Joseph.”

He whirled around so fast your eyes could barely track him. Kicking the empty chair to the other side of the room, you heard it crash against the wall as his hand tightly gripped your jaw and forced your head up to look at him, rage swirling behind his blue eyes.

“Is that your sin, Deputy? Lust?”

“Maybe. But I know yours. Is envy already written on you, John? Or do we need to find an empty space to carve it into?”

A shuddered breath rolled through him, fingers digging into your cheeks painfully before he let out a humorless chuckle and let you go. You watched his movements closely as he took a step back and ran a hand through his hair, but then he muttered your name, and your heart stopped as your eyes widened. The sick bastard smiled when he noticed, and he said it over, and over, and over, until he was placing his hands against the armrests of your chair and leaning forward to get in your face, letting the syllables of your name roll over his tongue one last time.

“Oh. I will have fun tearing you apart, Deputy.”

[god1ngs]

━‎ release

synopsis; a visit to the prison doesn't go as you planned

contains; manipulation, implied character death, major violence, swearing, power trip, bunny as a petname

c!dream / reader, 1.3k wc

note; this is for @cr0wbonezz-wr1ting-inc 's 600 writing contest! congratulations & i hope you like this :)

masterlist

   this would be your last time. your last time standing outside this wretched obsidian building, with the smell of death lingering inside. the promise of corruption haunted the atmosphere, one you cringed at whenever you walked inside. this would be your last time visiting dream.

   your last time ever seeing him again.

   coming back to the prison every week had taken a mental toll on you, causing your figure to slump more. your sobs after each visit to the prison didn't get easier nor did it get better. the prison, a symbol of a man who had once caused more evil than good, plagued you. you could see it.

   you could see how it had been affecting you, dream and the prison had. both of them had caused damage to you, however dream won that twisted race. your fists clenched, staring the building in the face. "why are you scared of me?" it whispered, taking pleasure in the shiver crawling up your spine.

   "no way in hell am i scared of you."

   it was always cold in the prison, you noticed. perhaps it was the promise of once forgotten memories, and once forgotten people as well. it reeked of death, death of a once good man who let power corrupt him.

   it was always depressing to be in the main room of the prison, a wave of unknown feeling washing over you ─ a sadness you couldn't quite describe. a pit in your stomach deepened at the call of your name by the warden, the queasy feeling of nausea guiding you towards him.

   "you're here to visit dream, correct?"

   "yes, sir, i am."

   the routine you had done several times in the past had become daunting now, a task seemingly hard to complete with each of your visits. you put your possesions in the first locker room, the memory of the first time you were forced to do this making you sigh. you nearly choked up on yout resolve, running out of the prison with a deafening sob.

   your feet only followed the same mantra every other time though, following the warden as if your body was programmed to. it didn't listen to your commands anymore, only the one of the prison; of dream. the process was the same old by now, reciting the instructions you would be given.

   by now, when the warden pulled out his sword, you knew to only close your eyes and clench your teeth. there was little to expect with this visit, only expecting what would happen each time: you'd visit dream, talk to him for half an hour, only to go back home with yourself. you hadn't noticed the difference between this visit and every other.

   one would soon come up.

   the lava highlighted your features, the bright liquid making you shudder. it wasn't new, yet it had felt like you were coming face to face with it for the first time again. however, instead of fleeing as you would usually do, your feet only stayed in place. and soon moved with the platform, towards the stranded room in the middle of the ocean of lava.

   dream stood there, calculated green eyes watching your every moment. the same amusement as when he was out danced in them, rejoicing with the pleasure manipulative tendencies brought him. you swallowed harshly, and with that, the platform was brought back towards sam and the gate was opened.

   the lava cascaded down, the image of sam becoming a memory now. it was only you and dream, along with the taunting voices bouncing off the walls. voices wishing for your demise, however you knew better than to give it to them. you stood there, unwavering. dream only smirked.

   "come to visit me again, bunny?"

   that horrible pet name. it was used in a way that made your stomach turn and your thoughts twist into raging ones. you shuddered, a reaction you could feel dream enjoying. before he was boxed in the prison, he would often talk about how you and him were like wolf and bunny; predator and prey, similarly.

   it was the excuse he would use whenever he would scare you, laughing as he told you: "you're just my prey, bunny, and i'm the wolf on its way to hunt you." they replayed in your mind, a sick reading of the same syllables that made you choke on your words. you couldn't focus on the past right now though, not when he was right in front of you.

   "it's my last time." you spoke, breaking the violent silence. your unwavering force you promised to be was getting harder to keep up, especially when he stared at you like that ─ eyes wide, yet filled with manic thoughts instead of surprise. you flinched when he stood up from his place in the corner.

   he stared at you for a few minutes, before throwing his head back in a series of chuckles. your thoughts went into overdrive, confused and fearful shouts in your mind mixing. "last time? really? you're going to leave me?" there was no hint of desperation in his words, only unfiltered anger being masked by something else.

   he strided up to you, head tilted and frame towering over you. he held the same air of death as the prison. you scrunched your nose and took a step back, yet he only followed until you had been pressed against the wall. he didn't touch you, but his stare was enough to hold your shaking form in place.

   being strong was hard when the one person to break through your defenses was standing right in front of you. he broke down the walls gaurding your feelings and left them broken and unchecked. "you're not allowed to. not coming to visit me, are you crazy?" he told you, the force in his words making you gulp.

   you almost apologized, his old manipulation tactics flashing in your mind. you couldn't let him get the best of you; not right now, and not ever again. your brows furrowed and your teeth clenched, pushing the masked man away from you. "don't try to tell me what to do! i'm never coming back, and you can't change that!" you shouted at him.

   you had never shouted at him before. it was always good and obedient [name], following his orders with little to no complaints. you didn't want to be his doll anymore, you didn't want him to take everything from you only to never give it back. you were tired of being pushed around with no credit being given to you.

   your rage had carried through your words, a force not even dream knew you had. but with every word you spat at him, his vision got tinted with red. a ferocity like no other had shown on his expressions, yet you couldn't tell underneath all the rage you were experiencing as well.

   his fist clashing with your throat had stopped your ranting, effectively making you be quiet. you gasped for air in front of you, the harsh awakening making you fall to your knees in front of him. you held your throat in your hands, and with the time you had managed to get oxygen back in your lungs, he had kicked you in the ribs.

   "stop fucking yelling. cut it out! you're not stronger than me, you're not better than me; you're weak! you're just a plaything for me to use when i get bored!"

   the words cut deeper into you than you had realized, sobs racking your body at the harsh truth. he had stopped attacking you for now, but his words cut deeper than daggers. your eyes fluttered close, and by the time you opened them again, dream was crouching in front of you. the smile on his mask mocked you.

   "if people don't know their place," be continued, voice low with rage. "they don't get a place at all." with that, his fist drove into you again. left and right, he punched you. left and right, you took the beatings with slurred pleads of mercy. none was granted and, by the time he had taken a break, you were still begging and pleading for your life.

   "please, dream, we can talk about this!"

   "there's nothing left to say."

   the lingering smell of death inside the prison got stronger.

[captainkurosolaire]

Prompt #24 ~ Forgiveness

Reference - ♫Not Over Yet♫

The ability of confrontation had resolved inside a pirate's walk. His first destination appointed him to the Far East. His stature and posture resumed on purpose; as if knowing everything required to be done. Determined to turn back his clock. He couldn't reverse the scars or damage etched to the past. But you can relieve the pressure of them. Exorcising them like the ghost they are. A chime-bell rang as an eastern sliding door came, presenting itself before an old-worn Kugane ramen store. He was given a bow and customarily a happy greeting to the House of the Raising Sun. He spoke to code, "I come from far. I think I'd like wisdom, n' one form." Adjusted morning-red sunglasses of the worker came. Almost a sizing up-gaze, suspicious. Then that wayward wanderer drew his index at the point of a bowl of fortune cookies. A particular and odd purchase. This place was a front in the underworld. Mysteriously tethered to a web-line of dangerous individuals. By the scrawny worker, none would ever assume much. An exchange was made from what the client wanted with a marble. The Seeker took his departure cracking open his cookie and reading the slip. 'Happiness is not a pleasure, it's a victory' This was all by purpose standardized. Once the ramen shop cleared out the last customers. The business worker took to the back of his shop. A Magpie awaited perched near a window giving that messenger the marble from earlier and sending it fluttering off. There was a process of demanding a conference with those who thrive in shadows. The pirate ate up and headed to the next location. Heading before a hidden bay of Shirogane in the residences before torches of shore were lit. Breeze flashes through before that wind suddenly felt an feather push of unnaturally distortion against his tail-hairs. A quick cloaked dagger in the dark came hurling forth at the pirate who was centered and faced away. Who blocked barely unscathed with plated wrist-guards.

Out of the trail came a soft-padded step. Disbelief, arm's crossed into a kimono. "Son." Came at the scoundrel. Who, shockingly, was alive. "Nice greeting' ol'man. Gotten a bit sluggish... How b' that arm?" He gave a cheeky-grin, turning to face another. A reunion of fatherhood and child brought to life. The older, more senior man's left arm came out prosthetically augmented. Taken by his own child in an old battle beyond mind. There was a bit of tension, but Father's blindfolded visage loosened, he felt unconditional, his heart restored, believing his own boy perished. It nearly worried him into an early-grave. This was a meeting of revelations waiting to explode. Although the father's eyesight was obscured. He could detect and use his scents to identify his son had grown in the respite of silence. He lived off existence, even outside where phantoms go. "Listen, I'm make this quick. I need ye... pops. You'll b' thrilled t' know ye've got yourself a granddaughter, not that ye haven't before but there's one n' my stead who found me, dare I say she may outdo you. I feel my methods of training would be obsolete. However, under yer tutor. She can waver closer t' my orbit, safer... When I dawn to storm's above skies. --- I want you to meet her." That already was a bombshell that continued by his resurrected son. And although haste surfaced in the boy's inflection, that still showed, he didn't like to share these touchy moments. Especially with the geezer who bastardized him. Left him abandoned and fending to cruelty, there was also less disdain, of that. He was offering back his Father's presence to his inner world. They couldn't outright sew or be fixtures of what happened. But, he gave his Father a reason to make his retired sword-hand raise; alongside give him a future to uphold; breath into lungs. "N' lastly. I need yer expertise. Th' illustrious darkest shadow ye once resided as. The man who brought resistance and forged peace in where no light goes... I'm going t' assassinate, some assassins." A crazed declaration said nonchalantly. His Father exhibited stun. This wasn't the same boy with a sick heart, or the same renegade attitude of a pupil he trained incognito. "You just came back alive... Before me. Yet you wish to wander so dangerously close to death again? Why do you pressurize yourself so much? This world doesn't need you to prove anything." His father imparted with concern, hints of humbleness, more clarity. He blamed this recklessness and attitude on himself, for being incapable of removing himself from prior commitment and engagement sooner. Finding peace, only until now, when nearly too late, at least it felt-like. Yet alarmingly this aura of willpower, sheer command blazed. "I had t' relinquish a lot of my, findings, plunders t' contractors, to not only keep myself alive, but my Crew... What they don't know is, I've ways t' track where they went with my belongings. Rule number one ov' the seas, if ye leave a pirate alive and take his belongings, they'll come with their greed, all t' back. They'll haunt themselves, into ghostly projections, t' devour n' haunt their own. However, th' people I hired for espionage, all faded and failed. I can't get a read how many there are, or if there's just the two, that i was confronted. I don't go into enemy bases, especially one's n' this skill-regard, aimlessly. Although you, have specialty. When comes t' stealth, you're still far better. I'm more of a break yer door down, and set off fuses, and light th' place up, I leave people with recognition, t' know my presence. Knows I'm horribly outmatched, if I don't get the first-advantage against these foes." Was his son actually considering a tactical approach... Even using reason and coming from a more intelligible, before would abandon his life and go-at things alone. This difference was drastic from the impatient and hot-headed pupil before. Whatever events cultivated these ironwork changes. The elderly and Father felt a catastrophic relief. "I will help you son." This moment was uncomfortable but so was this

itchiness of his wardrobe. Being all exposed like this was still a process, undergoing the pirate. He cared not to give exposure to this.

"Meet me again in a Sennight on these same shores, I'll come t' pick ye up. N' old man... This isn't some mission where I want you t' go n' die into silence. You'll track the hideout and leave, and then, afterwards, you've got someone to live for eagerly; if not me." Ruffian youth in pirate gave a little shoulder nudge to his guardian as he walked onto splitting from their ways. The Shadow Father of Echo Past muttered, "It was... good... to see you too." He recognized really what was expressly told through actions, beyond formed words, they were translating signals in silence too.

[hot-wiings]

The One Where Dabi Gets Involved With Overhaul’s Girl. Part Fifteen.

Edited: 1-29-2021

You walked with Kai down to the infirmary. It was a pristine and clean place. It was attached to the Shie Hassaikai but felt like a separate building on its own. Once you opened the door, it took you down a long hall. Several doors led to a hospital-like room. The ones on the left were room with beds for the injured, the ones on the right held chairs you sat in for checkups, and held several different types of equipment used for checking your vitals and various things like running bloodwork.

Kai opened one of the doors on the left and let you go in before him. He followed after you and closed the door behind him, if you both were infected it was good to keep it confined. 

"Take a seat. I'll check my blood, then I'll check yours."

You stepped up on your tiptoes and wiggled yourself up on the patient's chair. It was tall and your feet dangled before you turned your body so your back was slightly reclined and your legs were up on the end of it. Kai sat on a rolling chair that you would typically see in a doctor's office and rolled over to the drawers that held various blood drawing equipment.

Kai rolled his sleeves up before he washed his hands thoroughly and pulled a clean pair of medical gloves on himself. He took a long piece of elastic material and tied it around his upper arm, making a tourniquet. He opened up an alcohol wipe and wiped down the area where his upper and lower arm connect. He pressed his finger down on the skin, looking for a good spot to poke a vein before he swiftly punctured his skin.

He did it so fast and swift, without a moment of hesitation. Kai was in his element when he was doing medical procedures. You had to wonder for a moment if he had been placed in a better environment, somewhere better than the yakuza, would he have gone on to be a doctor, rather than dabbling in drugs and experimenting on Eri. With a quirk like his, he could have easily cut and removed tumors. He had so much potential, but it was all wasted on the life of a criminal. 

You watched as the tube inside the syringe attached to the needle filled up with Kai's dark red blood until he untied the tourniquet and pulled the needle out, along with a now filled tube of his fresh blood. He pulled the tube out of the syringe and put a lid on it before rolling over to the biowaste can and throwing the used needle and syringe inside. He rolled over to the counter and pushed the vial into a machine attached to the computer. It sucked the vial in the machine and unscrewed the lid before taking the blood in and testing it. 

"This machine takes the blood and tests it for anything and everything out of the ordinary. It takes a few minutes for it to read the blood, then it displays it on the computer." 

Kai crossed his arms as he stared at the computer, patiently waiting for the results to flood on the screen. You sat there, quietly as possible with your hands folded on your lap before Kai turned to you. He looked like he was hesitant to open his mouth, but he opened it anyway. 

"Do you want to know where I was the last two weeks?" 

"If it has to do with Eri, I don't want to hear it."

Your tone came out fast and hard, you bit your lip as soon as your mouth closed. You needed to control your tongue. You were supposed to convince him you loved him, not make him angry. Love him, don't agitate him. You weren't sure what he was thinking, what he was feeling. He had an undecipherable expression on his face, still, you tried to deescalate it. 

"I love you, but she's my sister."

"I wasn't away on business. I wanted time away from you, time to think to myself. Time to think about us."

The computer behind Kai chimed, he swiveled around in his chair and rolled over to the computer which now held his blood result transcripts. Your chest bubbled at the sight of him going through his test. It bubbled both with nervousness and a tickled feeling. Seeing him like that, in such a setting brought back those feelings from earlier. He could've ended up so different, had he not been dragged into a life of criminality. 

Your grandfather saved Kai, he took him in when no one else would. He fed him and housed him, he had to join the yakuza as a result. You partially couldn't help but resent your grandfather for that. He could've pushed Kai to be something better. He could've pushed Kai to use his quirk for something better, he would've excelled as a doctor. Maybe you would've finished your psychology degree, and maybe you would've met like that in a different setting. You would've had a better, more normal relationship. 

Yet there was no use thinking about this. It wasn't Kai. It wasn't who he chose to be, nor would he ever be that. He was Overhaul, the leader of the yakuza. You shouldn't dwell on it, not when you'd already chosen to betray him by sneaking around with Dabi.

Kai's words also left you with a bubbling nervous feeling. What did he need to think about? What was there to think about pertaining to your relationship? You watched him with careful eyes, analyzing his every move as you tried to say something. Was he sick of your disobedience? You'd given him a hassle as of late before he took off. Between sneaking off to see Eri then taking the blame for Dabi's action, and overall just giving him lip, you were sure he'd finally gotten fed up. You took in a shaky breath and silently prayed he wasn't going to do anything sudden and drastic to you or Eri. You weren't sure whether he would hurt her to get to you, she was his precious merchandise, but she was still your sister.

"Why'd you need to think about us?"

"It's not important."

You wanted to huff and cross your arms, but that would just be showing Kai what a defiant attitude you held when it came to him. You tried to calm your breathing as you watched Kai read his transcripts. His body was tensed up, worried he was infectious with some disease, and anxious to see his results. Perhaps the reason he hadn't divulged you in a conversation was that his mind was preoccupied with his test results. He got so overworked with things in this manner, of course, he didn't want to indulge you with a conversation. 

You shouldn't work yourself up over something you don't know the truth about. For all you knew, it was something stupid and minor. For all you knew, this was another attempt at making you submit yourself over to him. Another manipulative tactic that he had hidden up his sleeve. 

"I'm clean. There's nothing in my blood."

"Good."

"Even though I'm clean I still want you to get tested."

Kai pulled out more syringes, tubes, and needles from the same drawer. He neatly set them on a tray, then he pulled out a tourniquet and a clean pair of gloves. He rolled the tray over to the patient chair you were sat in then he pulled the clean gloves down on his hands swiftly, a sharp sound resounding in the room as it snapped against his wrist.

"Put your arm out for me."

You put your arm out immediately to show your obedience to him, but your other hand was grasping a tight hold onto as much excess material from your pant leg as you could. You watched cautiously as Kai rolled up your arm sleeve and then proceed to rip open an alcohol wipe. He grabbed onto your arm and lightly pulled it open further, giving him better access to your arms midsection. He wiped your arm, rubbing the wipe in a meticulous motion, careful not to go over a spot he already wiped. He was gentle and careful, he did it in such a manner he hadn't treated you with in such a long time. 

Kai took the wipe and discarded it in a small metal bowl on the table, then he proceeded to grab the needles and syringes. He pulled them all out of their packaging before attaching the correct pieces together, then he gripped your arm and carefully, yet firmly pressed his finger down in various spots, looking for the right vein. Once he located it he pressed the tip of the needle to it. 

You felt your heart stop beating as the needles cold metal made light contact with your skin, but it was barely a graze. It wasn't even in yet, you felt stupid really. Kai had inflicted such pain, yet you were afraid of a tiny one-inch needle.

"This is going to pinch you, alright?"

You gave Kai a little nod. It was almost like he noticed your fear and uncomfortablility. He never cared before, and he wouldn't have hesitated just to push it in without giving you a forewarning. You were truly grateful. You closed your eyes as the needle went in and a sharp pinching feeling went through your skin like Kai had said. You kept your eyes closed as you waited for the tubes to fill up. You didn't open your eyes again until you felt Kai pressing a bandaid against your skin tenderly. 

"All done."

Kai took the blood vials and walked them over to the machine. He took his out and replaced them with yours, then he walked his blood over to the biowaste can as the machine sucked your blood vials in and began to run the blood test. You looked down at the bandaid as you waited for your blood results. It was pink. You didn't know they made pink band-aids, let alone that the Shie Hassaikai would buy them. 

"I bought them for Eri. Figured if she's going to be littered in bandages, she might as well have kid ones." 

Noticing your prolonged stare at the bandage, Kai answered the question you didn't ask. You didn't want to smile for him, at least not genuinely, but the words elicited a small but undeniable smile from your face. You worried about what kind of treatment she received. You knew he was experimenting on her, but you worried— more so not being able to see her—that her quality of life wasn't good. Knowing that Kai was taking care of her, even going as far as getting her girly kid bandages, made you feel more at ease. 

"Thank you. She likes pink." 

He walked over to you and leaned against the chair as he stared at the computer screen. You supposed he was really anxious to see your results, whether he actually cared and valued your life, or was concerned with you infecting everyone else was unknown. You liked to believe he actually valued your life, or else keeping you captive here was for naught. Experimenting on Eri would be for naught. After all, he claimed he was doing this for you. 

"I've been thinking about that night a lot. I want you to genuinely love me, coaxing you into it at such an extremity wasn't how I should've gone about it."

The computer chimed, signifying your blood results were done. Kai sat back down in the wheelchair and rolled over to look at your test results. You were glad for the distraction from your conversation. He was referring to that night he took his need for you to love him one step further. The night he coaxed you into being his 'good girl'. He seemed like he was regretting it and he was being gentle with you, but you weren't ready to forgive him, and you weren't sure you would ever forgive him. 

You stared at the back of Kai's head as he silently read your test results. Maybe if he hadn't been experimenting on your sister, you might consider forgiving him. Maybe if he hadn't already previously hurt you, you would consider forgiving him. But you just couldn't. He hurt you too much, you couldn't possibly consider forgiving him. You would just have to fake it. Fake forgiveness, fake your love until Dabi could get you out. 

"Odd."

"What? Is there something wrong with my blood?"

You had thought that your blood would've been perfectly normal and healthy. It wasn't like you had been going anywhere outside, of course someone in the Shie Hassaikai could've given you something. If Kai thought there was something odd with your results, then you should be worried. 

"Your blood volume is thicker than average for females your age and size. Your platelets are low, and your white blood cells are high. I'm going to have the machine run a deeper search on your blood." 

"Is it bad if my white blood cells are high and platelets are low?"

Kai turned around to look at you. He let out a light chuckle as he ran a hand through his hair, he was trying to remain calm, but you could hear the stress behind the chuckle. 

"Yes, in some cases it's dangerous. There shouldn't be so many white blood cells considering you haven't been injured as of recent and platelets are responsible for your blood clotting. In other words, take away your platelets then get cut and you'll bleed out."

The computer chimed again and Kai swiveled back around to check the deeper results. You anxiously waited for him to read the results, he was starting to get you worked up and you began to think the worst. Finally, he stood up and walked over to you with a tight smile on his face. 

"You're completely fine and healthy. I checked your hematocrit and HCG levels, you're just pregnant" 

"Pregnant."

You say the words in disbelief. You couldn't be pregnant. You couldn't be. You were too young, and you slept with Kai once. But then there was Dabi. Your stomach quaked at the realization that you had been not so careful with either of your partners. You had been so picky with your eating, overly hungry at times, peckish at others. Horny one minute, sad the next. This wasn't ideal. You were trying to escape this place, not up your security. 

"Yes. Your platelets go down during pregnancy, and your blood volume rises to create better blood flow to your uterus for your child."

Kai took his gloves off and placed his hand on your stomach gently. He looked genuinely happy. Of course, he was. He claimed to love you, and he just said he wanted you to genuinely love him. What else would tie you to him even more besides a child. What else would make you his more than bearing his children? 

"I'm with child."

You say the words again but in different phrasing. You were still in a slight shock. A baby was growing inside you. In the coming months, your stomach would begin to protrude, making space for an infant. You would be achy, you would hormonal and hungry all the time. 

"You're with child. You've got a baby growing in there. Our baby."

[theclockworkmonk]

Another Way

Read on AO3

Summary: With Aang desperate for a way to stop the Fire Lord without taking his life, Zuko suddenly remembers what Katara did to the commander of the Southern Raiders.

******

"Aang, we do understand," said Katara, as patiently as she could, "It's just—"

"—Just what, Katara? What!?"

"We're trying to help!" she was yelling now.

"Then one of you figure out a way for me to beat the Firelord without taking his life!" Aang spat back, his voice choking with emotion, "I'd love to hear it!"

He turned away and stormed off out of the courtyard back into the house.

"Aang, don't walk away from this!" Katara called after him. She made to follow him, but felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Let him go," said Zuko, "He needs time to sort it out by himself."

Every instinct in her told her to never let Aang deal with something on his own as long as she could help him, but she had to admit that Zuko might be right, and she could just make things worse.

"I guess there really isn't much more to say anyway," she muttered reluctantly and sat back down on the stone steps. "I certainly don't know how to talk Aang into being a killer."

"None of us do," said Sokka sternly, "and none of us will. The only thing that will convince Aang is time. As we get closer to the comet, he'll have to eventually face the fact that there's no way out of this."

"I just don't know what this will do to him," Katara said miserably, hugging her knees to her chest, "I've never seen him this helpless, even when we lost Appa. He just feels so trapped, he wants another way and I feel trapped since I can't give him one."

Zuko's usual moody frown was replaced with his eyes widening in realization. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Katara.

"Hey! Maybe that's it!" he said, excited now, "We can't give him another way, but maybe you can, Katara."

"What do you mean?" asked Katara, "I certainly don't know how to remove the threat of the most powerful firebender in the world, supercharged by a comet, while also not killing him."

"What about that technique you used against the commander of the Southern Raiders?" Zuko asked.

Fear struck Katara like a hammer and her breath caught in her chest. In a panic, she looked around to discover that the others had indeed heard the worthless idiot, turning toward her with curiosity.

"What technique?" asked Suki.

"Nothing!" Katara said forcefully, but Zuko was looking away from her so he couldn't see the deadly glare she was sending him.

"Come on, Katara, like you said, we're desperate for ideas, and so is Aang," Suki pressed, "It certainly won't hurt."

"I suppose a waterbending technique would be ideal to defeat the Fire Lord," mused Sokka thoughtfully.

"Yeah, they say to 'fight fire with fire,' but that always sounded stupid to me," said Toph, picking at her toes, "Makes much more sense to fight fire with water, right?"

"She moved her hands, and the commander's entire body just went limp," said Zuko, "and then it was like she could control his arms and legs."

Katara winced as Suki frowned in confusion, Toph gaped in shock, and Sokka scowled at her in fury.

"YOU BLOODBENDED SOMEONE!?" her brother shouted at her, springing to his feet, "How could you possibly do that again! Have you been doing it this whole time?"

"No, I swear!" said Katara defensively, trying to shrink into the floor, "It was just that one time, I thought he was the one who killed mom."

"I'm sorry, but we seem to keep forgetting that I haven't always been here," said Suki, raising her hand, "What exactly is bloodbending?"

"It's when a waterbender bends the blood in someone's body," Sokka told his girlfriend, "It's turning someone's own body against them and exerting complete control over them." He turned back to stare daggers at Katara. "It's a disgusting perversion of waterbending that only a cruel coward would use!"

"Before the eclipse, we came across this crazy old lady," explained Toph, "She was a waterbender living in hiding in the Fire Nation. She'd abduct people at night, take them prisoner, and control them like puppets."

"Yeah, and she took control of me and tried to make me kill Aang!" shouted Sokka, throwing his hands in the air, "I honestly can't believe this!"

Katara just hung her head and didn't say anything.

Zuko was frowning and looking back and forth between the two of them.

"I'm….sorry, but am I the only one who doesn't get what the big deal is? You've got a way to instantly, non-fatally incapacitate someone. I can think of a hundred scenarios where that would be useful, like, oh I don't know, the one that we're in right now! Sure, it can do terrible things in the wrong hands, but that's true of all bending. Heck, that's true of every sword that's ever been made."

"Not to mention what this could mean for healing," said Suki, "If you can control the blood in someone's body, there's all kinds of injuries and illnesses you could treat with that."

"I'll agree it's a pretty dirty tactic," said Toph, shrugging, "but we don't really have the luxury of fighting 'honorably,' on account of, ya know, the whole world about to burn. I'm pretty sure Aang will feel better after tying the Firelord into a knot than killing him."

Sokka was scowling deeply at all of them. "None of you understand. You weren't there, you didn't have it used on you. You're a prisoner in your own body. Every inch of you is crawling, like there's something inside you, like you're about to explode or get turned inside out." His voice began to break, and he stared at his trembling hand as he slowly opened and closed it.

"When someone does this to you, you stop being a person. You're just….a thing. Just some meat. It's inherently evil, it's nothing like any other kind of bending or weapon. I don't expect any of you to understand.

"But you do!" he rounded on Katara again, "You had that done to you but still did it!"

"Will you back off already!?" Katara finally spat back at him, jumping to her feet to get on his level, "I already said it was one time! I'm never going to do it again!"

"I'm sure the people of the Earth Kingdom will take comfort in the wake of their nation being burned that you and Aang didn't have to corrupt your beliefs," said Zuko dryly, "I kind of expected something like this from him about taking a life, I never would have thought we'd have to worry about this squeamishness from you, about something that doesn't kill! If you can't do it yourself, at least teach Aang how to do it."

"No," said Katara resolutely, crossing her arms and turning away from them, "If I feel sick at the idea of bloodbending again, Aang will be even more against it. He's a better person than me, after all."

Zuko was taken aback by that last part, exchanging an awkward glance with Suki and Sokka, before continuing uneasily. "Um...isn't that Aang's decision? He's being torn in two and I think he'll take any way out of taking a life."

"Yeah!" said Toph, "The Air Nomads strictly considered all life sacred, but I bet they didn't have any rules regarding a form of bending of a different element that didn't exist yet. Loophole!" she cried cheerfully.

"I'm going to go at least suggest it to him, he can make up his own mind," said Zuko. He went to follow Aang into the house.

"NO!" Katara cried, spinning back around. Her unease had given way to outright panic and fear. "No Zuko, please don't say anything to him! The rest of you too, he can never know what I did!"

The rest of them just sat for a moment, surprised by the desperate tone in her voice.

Sokka shuffled his feet and hung his head. "Look Katara….I'm sorry I blew up at you. I don't think you're some heartless witch like Hama or that you're gonna start bloodbending left and right. You know how patient and zen Aang is, I'm sure he wouldn't react the same way."

"Yes, Sokka, I know he wouldn't yell at me," said Katara, "don't patronize me. It's still the worst thing I've ever done, and would rather no one else find out about it if I can help it. If Aang found out what I did, there'd be no going back from that. It would….he'd never look at me the same way again." Her voice caught in her throat and she turned away from them so they couldn't see the tears starting to sting in her eyes.

Aang had been so relieved when he found out that she had decided to spare the man who had killed her mother. He had smiled at her with such pride and affection that it made her heart ache. But also queasy with guilt, because he didn't know just how close she had come, and what she had done on her way there. If he knew just how dark she allowed her thoughts to get sometimes, she was certain that he wouldn't have said those things during the play.

It was part of why she couldn't bring herself to explore her feelings for him. He had such an inflated opinion of her that she felt she didn't deserve. Every time he gave her that look of complete adoration, she felt like she was lying to him.

Sokka carefully walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Katara, you know that Aang isn't immune to losing control himself. You saw how crazy he got with the people who took Appa. If he found out, he'd understand. It wouldn't…" he took a deep breath and steeled himself "...it wouldn't change how he feels about you."

Katara's breath hitched and she jerked away from him, spinning to face them all. She could feel her face burning.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she hissed at him, staring daggers into his eyes.

There was a brief pause, then all four of her friends (including Zuko) burst into raucous laughter. She blushed even harder and wished she was an earthbender, so she could sink into the ground.

"Seriously?" asked Zuko, raising his remaining eyebrow, "We're still doing this?"

"What do you mean, 'seriously?' You just got here," moaned Sokka, "I've been dealing with this since we cracked open that stupid iceberg."

"Hey, at least you don't have to feel their hearts going all a-flutter every time they look at each other," Toph fake-swooned, clutching her chest dramatically.

"Okay, I'm going to be completely honest," said Suki, still laughing, "I actually thought you two were already a thing for weeks after we got back from the Boiling Rock. That's just the energy you guys are giving off." That made the other three laugh even harder.

"Shut up!" yelled Katara. Eventually, the laughter died down when they saw how serious she was.

"We promise not to tell Aang," said Zuko, "You can tell him if and when you're ready."

"But it's probably a good idea to clear the air about it before your wedding day," said Toph.

"Thank you," said Katara, ignoring Toph, "it was a valid idea, Zuko, but in any case, even the woman who invented bloodbending was only able to do it on the full moon. I doubt me or Aang would be able to do it on the day of the comet."

Zuko's smile vanished and he looked at her blankly. "Really? Why didn't you just say that at the start? We could have avoided half this conversation."

"Yeah, I know," she said Katara, angry at herself for getting upset and not thinking.

"It's just as well," sighed Zuko as he sat back down on the steps to the house. "Even if you could disable him, that's just a temporary solution. He's one of the two most powerful firebenders in the world, we'd never be able to contain him forever. And half the Fire Nation worships him, almost literally. As long as the possibility exists for him to reclaim the throne in some glorious Agni Kai, the country will never be free. There's no other way, he has to die."

The laughter from just a few moments ago was long gone, as everyone was reminded of the extremely un-Aang thing that Aang had to do. There was nothing more to be said, everything came down to him.

"If there's another way, he's going to be the one to find it, not us" Katara said quietly, "Aang is the best of us, he'll never stop trying, right until the last moment. But if he doesn't find it, he'll do what's necessary to protect the world."

"To protect you, more like," muttered Sokka under his breath.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Oh, would all of you grow up?" and she stormed into the house, leaving her friends snickering behind her.

******

In 2008, we all watched Aang yell at his friends that he needed a way to defeat Ozai without killing him, and I shouted, out loud in my living room, "just bloodbend him!"

This story is a result of that knocking around in my head for 12 years.