#again very ironic who was ACTUALLY two-faced all along

[katyspersonal]

I agree with this very much, fandoms are supposed to be about communicating about THE media fans love, and creativity is supposed to unite and provide communication, not to divide.

It is, unfortunately, not realistic that everyone will have a common decency to split their fandom blog and personal blog- heck, I struggle with this too, sometimes pulling my hot takes or mental health turmoils here where 95% of the posts are Bloodborne-related. There will always be those blogs you find through cool fanart or theory and want to check what else is there, and find like idk, horrible opinions, pinned DNI post that makes you cringe even if you don't meet the listed criteria, that they constantly reblog weird shit, vent and use slurs, you name it. But it should be your choice and your ALONE whether you want to block on the spot, follow for those things you DO like, crypto-follow (check on your own sometimes without following) or even converse. And whatever choice you make, it is YOURS. If YOU chose to block - it doesn't mean you now are entitled to run around and FORCE everyone to make the same choice. Pathetic that none of ya'll understood Djura's point /lh

It is something fandom used to understand because From's games tend to attract only mature fans. I still hate every coward who knew exactly what was going on for several months but did not mind, but it was when a manipulative post full of shit was shared when they collectively pretended to "have been bothered all along, actually" and ran away like rats. There is a difference between 'not liking a person based off who they associate with' and 'liking them despite that but running like rats when peer pressure looms over'. Such shallow, conditional "approval" has not been that big of a loss, of course, but fandom still could have done without that drama. If anything, it seriously severed the number of possible positive interactions - such as supporting each other's drawings, exchanging ideas and lore to mutually improve, encouraging each other to create more of this or that, spreading more good takes from each other. The natural system of mutual support is crippled, and even when some roundabout interaction DOES happen - people now are subjected to steal ideas without credit or draw without mentioning who inspired them. I for one cannot do that because my personal ideas of honor do not let me; regardless of WHO revealed this or that idea/knowledge, I MUST credit them, because not I came up with the idea. But I understand how safety and keeping larger number of interactions can be more important, it becomes a fair exchange of values because getting to reblog someone's darn drawing with a nice comment is important nonetheless /gen

It IS a huge relief that now people can confirm my claim on identity of the "anon" that harrasses, stalks, manipulates, lies and hate-watches blogs of users they dislike (wtf?!) was true. It won't fix the damage on the fandom (and on my formerly much nicer personality) that has ALREADY been done, but this feels justice-flavored enough to satisfy me. I've never tried to hide what I think or feel, so this is ironic that that dumbass played such a shit show with "exposing my true face" when in reality, THEY were the truly two-faced hateful hypocrite all along and THEY were the one harassing people without any regard to their feelings and comfort.

I am pretty sure that even if the news fly to outside of this mutuals circle, people will still accept what that person did and try to justify anon harassment and stalking blogs they didn't even like obsessively to find more 'dirt' with some sort of twisted delusion about them defending people I've never been a threat to outside of their DESIRED narrative, but doesn't bother me. People will be people, and they will always be glad to put even innocent victims (like Fantomette) on the altar of the battle THEY started. My goalpost personally was to ensure the truth is known, how people choose to react at it is, again, their choice.

Ok, I’m just gonna say some things real quick.

Finding out that it truly was one anon harassing my friend Fantomette for literal weeks (and me, though you’d never know because I don’t acknowledge it, nor give a damn), AND finding some pretty solid evidence about who this person really is…

Just…my God.

It was obvious enough already, I guess, but now we essentially “confirmed” it, and I find it really draining to know this person just sits comfortably in the tumblr Bloodborne fandom and is really this callous and manipulative. We are dealing with the Logarius of this fandom, haha.

I’m genuinely angry, and that’s rare. I don’t care about petty dramas and squabbles in fandom. I don’t get involved. I really don’t care. That’s why I don’t respond to harassment. I moved passed my “internet drama addict” phase a long time ago. It’s just easier to breathe when you don’t bother with things you have no real control over. You deal with enough online bullies and go through enough abusive “cyber” relationships, and it eventually wakes you up to see the obvious. It’s just an endless cycle of immature behavior.

But just this once, and mainly because I feel the need to clear it up, I will explain something.

I am aware that there has been drama in this side of the Bloodborne fandom. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I caught up on it and observed. I know who was involved, and I know who basically “won” the favor of the broader public—if you can even call this diminished fandom that.

Here are my simple thoughts on it all.

I don’t consider it my problem or business. I don’t care.

To initially avoid conflict, I have reached out to people and had private conversations that some harassing anon would never know about. I have clarified and worked out some of the really important issues that people are concerned with. There are details and elements of this story that no one even knows except me, and you wouldn’t because even some of the people that were involved are no longer around.

From this gathering of insight, I have chosen who I trust and who I believe. I listened to both sides of the story. That was all I ever needed to do, and really all anyone would ever need to do in a situation like this.

Direct communication is so important. You never get anywhere complaining about someone to yourself or your friends. It takes some minerals, but going straight to a person and confronting them is actually the most powerful and effective thing you could do. God forbid you even sort out the problem without getting others involved.

For me, I did what I felt I needed to do and was able to feel confident in my choices about to approach a conflict-torn fan group.

And guess what? It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter to anyone. Why? Because aside from this post, you will never see me address or engage in this debacle. My blog is a safe space for everyone, and I mean everyone. No matter your identity or your PROBLEMS. You can have serious issues and talk to me and be my friend. I don’t mind at all. You can also feel safe to be my friend if you have a specific background or identify a certain way. I will show only love and support. I don’t hold judgements against people in general. It isn’t my nature.

If you are a bully? Manipulative? Cruel? If you repeatedly promote something violent or extremely harmful on your blog? I may withdraw in quietude and not associate so much, but that’s for MY mental health. It’s also to protect the mental health of my friends. I won’t spread that type of rhetoric or hate. I won’t even speak about it.

I am a journalist. I deal with controversy and human depravity on a regular basis. It’s my bloody day job. It weighs me down. I get easily depressed by it. That’s personal.

That won’t effect you or anyone else on my blog, because I use this blog to engage strictly in fandom. You won’t see me post about anything else related to life beyond the realm of casual entertainment. No intercultural crises, no politics, no social commentary, no current events. This blog simply isn’t for that. It’s my break *from* those exact issues.

I need this, and I won’t have it ruined. Fandom drama be damned.

I don’t care even if I make some theory post and get condescending vague-posts clearly in response to it literally a day later. Go for it, kids! I’m gonna keep sharing my ideas, and I will not start debates over it. I’m too tired for that.

This is my nest, and it’s where I’m going to hang out. If who I choose to befriend and speak to upsets you, even if you don’t have the full story or you are judging my entire character/belief system based on that interaction, that’s fine. Block my blog. Forget about me. If it makes you feel safer, then do it.

I’m going to live my own life, and that does not include catering to the particular needs of strangers in online fandoms. Harsh maybe, but I’m sure you can handle that.

My mutuals and friends deserve this same level of freedom, respect, and security. So anon…or rather person that we know is watching us and acting as a peaceful neighbor in the same fandom…you have your first and only acknowledgement from me. Go away from us, and leave my friends alone. I promise you’ll breathe a bit easier if you forget us.

[coffeeshades]

credits to the gif maker!

GUILTY AS SIN...? - PART I

summary: one summer with the man you can't have, but can't stop thinking about.

pairing: cillian murphy x popstar!reader

word count: 5.5k

warnings: 18+ (minors dni). mentions of sex. angst. cussing, slight age gap, mentions of alcohol and divorce. no use of y/n, heavily inspired by ts and ttpd. if i missed something please let me know. (also this is a work of fiction, none of it reflects how i feel about the people mentioned in this, most importantly cillian's wife, who im sure is a sweetheart irl. it's fiction, just relax and enjoy it, and if not, move along, friends.)

a/n: hi everyone! this turned out pretty long so i will be splitting it into parts so it's easier. next part will be posted soon. i hope you all have as much fun reading this as i had writing it. enjoy!

part two

The breeze riffled through your hair as you drove, the sun warming your skin through the open windows. The Irish countryside stretching out before you, lush and green, with rolling hills and quaint villages dotting the landscape. The scent of wildflowers and the sound of nothing but the wind in the trees filled your senses.

It was rare, really. The silence, the feeling of complete freedom, and the solitude that enveloped you. A fleeting escape from the chaos of your everyday life.

The ping of your phone interrupted the peaceful moment. You tapped on the pop-up notification after briefly glancing at the directions to your destination. It was a message from Cillian. Well, two, actually. One was asking how far you were, and the other was a Spotify link followed by a question mark. Ever since he started hosting his bbc radio show, he's been sending you potential songs for his playlists to get your opinion. Not that he needs it anyway. But you always appreciate being included in his process.

Your lips curled into a smile as you clicked on the link. The familiar sound of The Blue Nile's "The Downtown Lights" flooded the car, instantly making you feel a wave of nostalgia. It's been ages since you've listened to that song. The synth-pop melody carries you up the pine-dotted path to where his house perches atop a hill, overlooking the crashing waves below. You've been here a couple of times, and yet it never gets less breathtaking. The Victorian architecture contrasting beautifully with the rugged coastline, creating a scene straight out of a painting.

The car glides right past the wrought iron gates, and you cut the engine in front of the stone steps leading up to the grand entrance. You shoot Cillian a quick text letting him know you're here, unbuckle your seat belt, and hop out of the car.

The June sun beats down on your skin instantly, heat radiating off the cobblestones as you open the backdoor to look through your bag for a hair tie. The smell of saltwater mingles with the sound of gulls overhead, sending you into sensory overload. "Gotcha," you mutter to yourself as you finally find the hair tie and pull your hair back into a loose bun.

"You drove here?" you hear him call out from behind you, his voice tinged with surprise. "And you're alone?" you turn around to see Cillian walking towards you, a curious expression on his face.

"I actually had to throw a tantrum to convince them to let me come alone," you reply with a chuckle, feeling a sense of pride at your small victory. "I was like, It's Ireland. What's the worst that could happen?"

Being who you are means being guarded against any potential danger or harm at all times, being driven to almost everywhere, and always having a security team around.

Cillian laughs, a sound that makes your heart flutter and makes you want to hear it again and again. "Well, I'm glad you made it here in one piece, love," he says with a grin. "You're not a very good driver."

Your cheeks flush with embarrassment. You did regret your decision to drive from the airport 10 minutes later when you realized you were on the wrong side of the road. But he didn't need to know that.

"I made it in one piece, didn't I?" you playfully retort, trying to salvage your wounded pride. Cillian chuckles and shakes his head with a twinkle in his eye. You stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. He looks good, you thought. Unbelievably good. Well rested. His jet black hair was perfectly styled, even though you know he didn't put any effort into it—the slightest hint of silver at the temples, his sharp jawline, and those piercing blue eyes that seemed to see right through you. Though they looked a little tired, as if he had been through a lot since the last time you saw him.

You quickly avert your gaze, feeling a rush of heat on your cheeks.

"It's good to see you," you finally manage to say, trying to sound casual. Cillian's smile softens, and he replies, "It's good to see you too." He opens his arms, inviting you in for a hug. The soft fabric of his t-shirt brushes against your skin as you embrace him, and for a moment, everything feels right in the world.

"Come on, let's get inside," he says, leading you towards the house. Once inside, you make your way to the kitchen. The house was quiet; you wondered if anyone else was home. Cillian's family wasn't by any means loud or boisterous, but the silence felt heavier than usual.

"You hungry, love?" Cillian asks, opening the fridge, pulling out a white ceramic container, and setting it up on the kitchen island. You take a seat on one of the stools while he stands across from you.

"For something sweet?" you smile, seeing the container filled with what seems to be a piece of strawberry sponge cake. His mom must've made it. "Always," you reply. He hands you a spoon and takes one for himself, the two of you sharing the dessert in comfortable silence.

Until he broke it.

"How was Madrid?" he asks softly.

"It was good, great crowd," you reply, taking another bite of the dessert. "But tiring," you add, feeling the exhaustion of the long trip settling in.

"How many nights did you perform?"

"Four."

"Jesus, that's quite a lot, isn't it?"

Your eyes meet his; confusion clear in your expression. "You think that's a lot? Didn't you used to do four or five nights in a row of the same play?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. "for months…?

"Yeah, but that was a different kind of exhaustion," he explains, taking another bite. "Performing the way you do in front of a live audience for three hours is a whole different ball game, love."

Love.

There it was again. That godforsaken term of endearment that he seemed to throw around so casually. It made your heart race every time he said it, even though you knew it probably meant nothing to him. But the way he looked at you now, with a hint of admiration in his eyes, made you wonder if maybe—

"Want the last bite?" he offered, taking you out of your thoughts. He pushed the container towards you, a small smile playing on his lips. His gaze was intense, as if silently urging you to take it.

"Oh, hello," a voice exclaimed from behind you, breaking the moment. You drop the spoon on the counter, a little startled. As if you were caught in the act of something forbidden. You turned around to see Yvonne, Cillian's wife. She said your name with a surprised tone, making you feel guilty for some reason. "I didn't know you were here," she continued, her eyes flickering between you and her husband.

You started to rise from your seat, confusion clouding your thoughts. That's weird. Cillian usually lets his wife know when you're visiting, but this time it seems like he didn't. She walked towards you, enveloping you in a hug. "When did you get here?" she said.

"Not long ago," you replied, relieved that she didn't seem upset. "I, uh, wanted to take a break and thought Ireland might be a good place to do that," you added, hoping to diffuse any tension that may have arisen. She nodded understandingly. "And you're staying here?"

"Oh, no, no," you quickly assured her. "I rented a place nearby, so you don't have to worry about me."

"Nonsense," Cillian interjected. "You can stay here. There's plenty of room."

"She's already paid for it, Cillian," Yvonne retorted, giving him a stern look.

Something was definitely off.

This was the last thing you wanted. You've specifically chosen the cottage for two reasons. First, to have space. The whole point of this trip was to finally have peace and write music. You've been stuck for months, not being able to find inspiration in your usual surroundings. Everything felt dull inside you all day—an emptiness that was smothering.

Second, you needed to stay the fuck away from Cillian. Being close to him was dangerous territory, one you didn't want to navigate right now. The plan was to come and visit and occasionally hang out and that's it. The thought of being in such close quarters with him was overwhelming. Staying here meant risking your heart and sanity.

You hesitated, also not wanting to intrude on their space, but Cillian insisted.

"Okay…How about if I stay for a couple of days and then move to the cottage?" you suggested, hoping to compromise. "Sounds perfect to me," he said.

This was going to be a long summer.

For the next few days, you dream too much, don't write enough, and try to find inspiration everywhere. As you settled into the routine of staying at Cillian's, you found yourself enjoying the peaceful surroundings and his company more than you expected. The days seemed to blend together, filled with laughter, deep conversations, and stolen glances that left your heart racing.

But you also felt constantly distracted by his presence, making it difficult to focus on your writing or anything else, for that matter.

All you could think about was him.

The piano room surrounded you with its warm, inviting atmosphere, and you found yourself drawn to it more often than not. The big windows overlooking the garden let in streams of sunlight, casting a warm glow over the bookshelf. You felt the softness of the carpet as you sat on the grand piano bench, running your fingers along the keys absentmindedly.

You started humming a tune that had been stuck in your head for days, the words appearing softly and effortlessly as you played:

Please

I've been on my knees

Change the prophecy

Don't want money

Just someone who wants my company

[Hum, Hum, Hum]

Who do I have to speak to

About if they can redo

The prophecy?

The humming went on whenever you didn't know what to say next, filling in the gaps between the notes on the piano and the lyrics:

A greater woman has faith

[Hum, Hum, Hum]

I'm so afraid I sealed my fate

No sign of soulmates

I'm just a paperweight

[Hum, Hum, Hum]

Spending my last coin so someone will tell me

It'll be ok

[Hum, Hum, Hum]

The melody filled the room until you stopped abruptly, frustrated that the lyrics weren't coming as easily as before. You closed your eyes with a groan, trying to clear your mind. "Fuck," you muttered under your breath, elbows resting on the keys of the piano.

"You good?" Cillian's rough voice broke through your frustration, causing you to look up and offer a weak smile. You don't know how long he's been standing there or how much he heard of your struggles. "Just hitting a wall with this song," you admitted, running a hand through your hair.

"Ah, I see," he nodded sympathetically. He moved towards the records stacked on the shelf and pulled one out, placing it on the turntable. "I don't want to mess with your creative process or anything, but maybe a break with some music will help," he suggested.

Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" began to play, taking over the room with its haunting melody.

"So you play one of the saddest songs ever?" you deadpanned, "Thanks."

He chuckled softly, "You were playing some pretty intense stuff; I figured it would fit right in."

Oh, so he did hear you.

"Ah, I know it's different from my usual stuff," you said quietly, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious about your music. "I might scrap that one. They might not be onboard with the change."

"And why's that?"

Thom Yorke's voice faded into the background as you contemplated his question, unsure of how to respond.

You shrugged, "I listen to sad music, not make it."

"I liked what I heard," he reassured you, "and change is good. It keeps things interesting."

His low voice was soothing, and you found yourself feeling more at ease with the idea of trying something new. Pop has been your comfort zone for so long, it's what stands out of you, but most importantly, it's what sells. At least, that's what's important to the industry. Maybe it was time to push yourself out of it.

"I guess you're right," you replied, a faint smile creeping onto your face.

"As always," he said, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. He stood leaning against the table where the record player sat, arms crossed, looking as if he had too many things to say and not enough words for them.

"Would this be a good time to ask you if everything's okay?" you inquired, noticing the weight of unspoken thoughts in his eyes. "With Yvonne, I mean," you added, nervous to bring up the topic.

That first day, when you arrived at the house, you could sense there was something going on between them. Something bad. The tension in the air was so obvious, but you didn't want to pry. However, as the days went by, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that she hadn't been around or the absence of a certain ring on his finger.

"And here, I thought you were never going to ask," he replied, his words laced with sarcasm.

"I was waiting for you to bring it up," your voice trailed off, unsure of how to proceed. "I-I didn't want to overstep."

He studied you for a moment, or at least, you assumed that was what he was doing. Finally, he averted his gaze and cleared his throat,"We've separated."

A cold feeling settled in your chest as you processed his words. The reality of the situation hit you like a ton of bricks, and suddenly everything made sense. "Cillian," is all you managed to say, the concern evident in your voice.

He still wouldn't look at you. Knowing him, in moments like this, he wouldn't want to be coddled or pitied, so you save your apologies for later.

"What happened?"

He waved his hand dismissively, still avoiding your gaze. "Nothing, really," he said, his tone final. He didn't look upset, but rather resigned to the situation. "It hadn't been working for a long time; we both knew it was coming. I guess we were holding on for the boys more than anything." You could see the sadness in his eyes, despite his attempt to appear nonchalant. The weight of his words hung in the air, leaving you feeling defeated and unsure of what to say next. You don't think there's anything you can say that will make this or him feel better.

And boy, did you wish you could take away his pain with just a few words.

Cillian walked slowly over the piano, stopping in front of it. He streched his arms over the wooden soundboard, gripping the edges tightly as if seeking some sort of solace in the instrument. He finally looked at you.

"Why didn't you say anything, Cill?" you asked softly, "I would've—"

"You would've what?" he interrupted, his voice strained with emotion. "I didn't want to worry you, you have more important things than my marital issues."

You could see the pain in his eyes, and it tore at your heart to see him suffering in silence. "You're my friend. These things are important to me, Cill," you said gently, reaching out to touch his hand in a gesture of comfort. He flinched slightly at your touch, but then relaxed, leaning into your hand.

He didn't say anything, but you knew he appreciated your words. You could tell by the way his shoulders slumped in relief and the way his fingers loosened their grip on the edge of the piano.

One morning, you woke up to the wind gently rustling through the trees outside your windows. The morning light was clear and clean, leaking through the glass and falling against the walls of the room in soft patterns. It felt too early to be awake, too peaceful to disturb the tranquility of the moment.

You roll over to look at the little clock on the bedside table: 6:20 AM. It wasn't worth trying to go back to sleep, so you threw the covers and climbed out of bed, feeling the cool wood floor beneath your feet as you walked to the bathroom.

You splash cold water on your face and brush your teeth, trying to wake yourself up fully. Holding up your hair, you tie it into a ponytail while walking over the bedside table to grab your phone and airpods. You put one in your ear and hit shuffle on one of your morning playlists. You couldn't function without some music. "Keep On Loving You" by Cigarettes After Sex starts playing.

On your way to the kitchen, you walked by Cillian's room and noticed the door was slightly ajar. Who the hell sleeps with their door open? Psychos, probably. Curiosity getting the best of you, you peeked inside to see him sprawled out on his bed, body illuminated by the soft morning light filtering through the curtains—characteristic warm and cool shades revealing every hollow and speck of bare muscle. He slept with every limb stretched out, a stark contrast to his usual composed demeanor. It was a rare sight, quite poetic.

He looked so peaceful, completely unaware of your presence. So you let your mind wander.

You imagined yourself crossing the room, pulling yourself on top of him. You imagined the way his bare body would look beneath you, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his dark hair messy around his face, his skin warm against yours. His hands—rough and soft at the same time—running over your thigh, your breast, your neck. You could almost feel the heat of his touch, the intensity of his gaze as he looked up at you.

But then reality snapped back into focus.

"Fuck," you muttered under your breath. This was just a fantasy, a dangerous game to play with someone who was somewhat off-limits. But truth be told, the temptation was becoming harder to resist with each passing moment. It was all you could think about ever since he told you about his troubled marriage.

It took a long time for your heartbeat to slow. You headed to the kitchen to get some coffee, hoping that the caffeine would help clear your mind. As you rummage through the cabinets for a mug, his voice startles you from behind. "Need some help with that?" he asks, making you jump.

For a moment you thought you were still imagining things, but you turn around to see him standing there with a t-shirt on as opposed to five minutes ago. Great, him walking around shirtless in his kitchen, sleepy-eyed, messy hair, and rough morning voice would've been lethal.

"I've got it, thanks," you reply, shaking the mug slightly in your hand. You quickly pour yourself some coffee and try to focus on the task at hand: looking for the sugar.

"Sleep well?" he asks, voice still husky from sleep, his accent more prominent. He's rifling through the cabinet for a mug of his own. You can't help but notice the way his muscles flex under his dark t-shirt as he reaches up. You hum in agreement, trying to hide your blush as you take a sip of your coffee. "You?"

"Grand," he replies, pouring himself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter. You exchange small talk about the upcoming day, but your mind keeps drifting back to how good he looks in the morning light.

"Any plans for today other than locking yourself in the piano room?" he teases, and you shoot him a playful glare. "Maybe I'll actually venture outside for once," you quip, laughing.

"How does the beach sound like?" he asks, "The boys are coming over, and they're bringing some friends, and I thought a trip would be a nice change of scenery."

"I could use some sun," you admit, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Let's make it a beach day then," he suggests, setting his mug on the sink. "We leave at 10, piano woman."

"Ha ha, very funny," you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes. "But I'll hold you to it, annoying man," you reply.

"Annoying man?" he repeats, raising an eyebrow. "I thought I was your favorite person."

"Only on days that end in 'y'."

•••

"Are you done with your sad boy music?"

Cillian bursts out laughing, the sound taking you by surprise. He's been playing Radiohead on repeat for the whole car ride, and you were starting to feel like you were in a melancholy music video. "I like their music as much as the next person, but I think I need a break from the sadness," you say.

"Fine, fine," Cillian concedes, reaching for his phone to change the song. The bleak atmosphere in the car lifts as "Linger" by The Cranberries starts playing, filling the space with a more pleasant vibe. Cillian glances at you, he's wearing dark shades that hide his eyes, but you can still see his stoic expression softening as he catches you smiling at the change in music.

"Better?" he asks, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Instead of answering, you start silently singing along to the lyrics, gesticulating dramatically for added effect. Cillian smiles at your antics, his own lips twitching in amusement as he watches you. The boys were so caught up in their conversation with their friends in the backseat that you were pretty sure they weren't even paying attention to the music or your impromptu performance. With a small smile on your face, you face out the window and enjoy the rest of the car ride in content silence.

When you arrive at your destination, all of you unbuckle your seat belts once Cillian puts the Bronco in park. You all pile out of the car, stretching your legs and taking in the sights around you. You close your eyes for a second and take a breath. The sea air—you loved that smell.

•••

A few hours later, after countless swims and some snacks, you find yourself lying on a beach towel, book in hand, feeling the warmth of the temperature on your skin. You're reading a book you picked up at an airport several months ago by Elin Hilderbrand, or the queen of beach reads, as many call her. You were completely engrossed in the story until you felt Cillian settling down next to you.

His hair was damp from the water, and his skin was slightly glistening. Gosh, he looked absolutely stunning. "Mind if I join you?" he asks.

"Not at all," you reply, closing the book and sitting up. "Having fun?"

"Lots," he says with a smile, reaching over to grab his sunglasses. The two of you sit in comfortable silence. The laughter and chatter of his sons and friends coming from the water redirects your attention back to the beach scene before you. You look back at Cillian, his eyes fixed on his sons.

"They love you, you know," you say softly, watching the genuine joy on his face as he watches his children.

"I don't know if I'm doing it right," he says, eyes still fixed on the boys. "I worry I might've fucked them up by letting my relationship with their mother fall apart."

He continues, "Sometimes I feel they resent me for it."

"Why do you feel that way?"

"I don't know, they just seem distant sometimes. Like they're holding back."

"Hey, that's normal for kids to have mixed feelings about their parents' separation. I was so happy when mine got divorced because it meant no more fighting, but it was also tough to adjust to the changes. It's very conflicting stuff," you say, huffing a small laugh. "Also, they're teenagers now, right? That's a tough age to navigate even without the added stress of divorce."

Cillian nods in agreement, exhaling out a yeah.

You squint against the sunlight beaming behind his head before continuing.

"You're a great dad, you always have been. Just show up and be there for them when they need you, even if they don't always seem to appreciate it. They'll remember it in the long run," you offer, remembering how much your own father's presence meant to you after your parents' divorce. "And I'm not a parent, but what parent feels like they're doing everything right all the time, anyway?"

Cillian turns to look at you. He studies your face for a moment before offering a small smile. "I guess you're right," he says sincerely.

"Fork found in kitchen," you retort, breaking the tension with a bit of humor.

He chuckles, "That's clever."

"Well," you continue, "I've been accused of many things over the years, but being unoriginal isn't one of them."

He laughs. Just like he did back in the car: a genuine, carefree laugh that makes you feel a little lighter.

"Want to go for one last swim, piano woman?"

You roll your eyes. "Will you stop calling me that?"

"Not likely," Cillian replies with a grin. "It's too fitting."

You stand up and stretch. You're wearing a one-piece teal-ish swimsuit that you swear you only chose based on comfort and not because it makes your ass and breasts look fantastic. Cillian's eyes linger on you for a moment before he looks away, and you swear you can see a hint of a blush on his cheeks. He doesn't move.

"Are you coming or…?"

"Right, one last swim," he finally says, standing up and following you towards the water.

Maybe that one last swim wasn't a great idea after all.

And why is that?

Because not even five minutes into the water, you thought it would be a good idea to jump from a high rock, and now you're sitting in the car with your knee scrapped, throbbing in pain, and regretting your impulsive decision.

•••

"You're so fuckin' stubborn."

You try to move into a more comfortable position while ignoring the pain shooting up your leg by pressing a hand against one side of the door to keep yourself steady. "And you're so clearly overreacting."

Cillian pushes his bedroom door open. He's also clearly pissed. The ride back to the house was deathly silent. Well, not silent. His sad boy music made a return, and this time with Broken Social Scene. You couldn't ask him to change the music without starting another argument. Even the kids were quiet, beyond asking several times if you were okay, which you assured them you were. Obviously a lie.

As Cillian walks around the room, you reach for your midi white beachy dress and look down at your knee in horror. It's no longer just a bruise, but a gash that is slowly oozing blood. Not as much as before, but still. It looks nasty underneath the shirt Cillian used from his car as a makeshift bandage.

He grabs the first aid kit from a shelf and turns around to face you.

"Take off your dress."

"Pardon me?"

"Take off your dress so I can properly clean and bandage the wound," Cillian repeats, his expression serious. You look down at the blood-stained fabric as if you needed any more confirmation. "Off, C'mon."

You stiffen at his demand, your body going completely rigid at his bossy tone. You watch him stride into his bathroom. He pushes aside some stuff on the counter and tosses the kit onto the counter.

Okay, yeah. He has good reason to be upset. You had no business jumping from that rock.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he'd said before, right when he went to get you. And now you can see the anger still simmering beneath the surface.

You can hear him shuffle in the bathroom while you remove your dress. You still have your swimsuit on underneath, but you feel exposed without the extra layer. Maybe the pain is catching up to you or the fact that you have upset him or that he's waiting for you in the bathroom to take care of you but tears sting your eyes as you try to process the situation. You take a moment to collect yourself. You cannot go in there like this, he cannot see you this vulnerable. At least, not now.

He's braced against the counter, head hung low, when you push open the bathroom door. You nearly back out to give him some space or time to compose himself, but his eyes meet yours and his expression straightens. He clears his throat and then freezes. "I—you're wearing your swimsuit."

"I am. Were you expecting me to change into something else?"

"No," he grumbles, "I mean, nevermind."

He turns back and starts grabbing sterile gauze, his movements slightly jerky. He gestures for you to sit on the counter. "Up."

"I'm not sure I can do that given my—" Before you're done speaking, he scoops you up and sets you on the counter. Your hands are locked around his neck, and his are firmly gripping your waist. They fit perfectly there, like they're made to hold you close.

He reaches behind him, both your faces close together now, and grabs your wrists, pulling them away from his neck and onto your thighs. He puts a hand on your uninjured leg, his touch gentle yet firm. "This is going to hurt." You stare at his impossible blue eyes and think to yourself: yes, this is going to hurt.

"Oh, shit shit," you gasp, gripping his forearm. "Holy fuuuck."

"I've got you, breathe," he commands, and you allow yourself to focus on his voice, letting it ground you. The antiseptic burns both your nostrils and knee as he continues to clean the wound, the pain shooting through your leg causing you to clench your teeth.

"I'm sorry," you breathe out.

There's nothing but silence in response.

"I told you multiple times not to go up there," he finally says, his voice tinged with frustration. "And yet."

"I know," you whisper, feeling guilty.

"Don't do that again," he commands, his accent thickening with emotion. "You could've hurt yourself even more."

"I know," you repeat, not sure how else to respond.

His head is bowed in concentration as he finishes cleaning the wound, his hands steady despite the anger in his voice. You can see his dark eyelashes fluttering slightly as he works. He applies a little more pressure to the bandage than he should've, and you let out a soft moan. This doesn't go unnoticed by him.

The air in the room seems to shift. His eyes meet yours, and for a moment, you see something soften in his gaze before he looks away.

"You're not supposed to like that."

Your cheeks heat up immediately.

He's gotten closer to you, your hands somehow made their way to fist his navy blue linen shirt. His body is between your legs, the delicate material of his pants brushing your skin. His breath is warm against your cheek as he leans in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. "But I can't say I mind it either." Your heart races at his proximity, unsure of what to do next.

His hands slide up your thighs, gently caressing your skin, sending shivers down your spine. He's going to kiss you, and you can't help but wonder if it's the right decision to let him.

But now is not the time to be rational about it.

"I'm not gonna stop you," you say quietly, "I wouldn't know how."

His eyes darken, pupils dilating with desire. He doesn't move.

It's like you're both aware of the line you're about to cross, so neither of you moves.

You keep your eyes firmly on his face. His lips inch closer to yours, and you feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Your body is angled towards his, hand gripping the edge of the counter. Your slightly damp hair, now cold, making you shiver.

He's impossibly hard against you, the material of his pants is thin, and you're aware of every inch of him pressing against your throbbing core.

"And I wouldn’t know how to stop kissing you," he whispers, his voice barely audible over the pounding of your heart. He shifts slightly, causing his erection to press even more firmly against you, both letting out a soft moan. His mouth hovers just inches from yours, just kiss me, you thought.

There's a knock on the bedroom door, which is, by the way, open.

"Dad?" You both freeze.

The bathroom door is slightly ajar, offering a sliver of privacy but not enough to shield you from any potential interruptions.

"Yes?" Cillian calls out, trying to sound casual despite the intense moment that was just interrupted. "We're ordering takeout, do you want anything?"

"No, buddy, we're good, thanks," Cillian replies, his voice strained as he tries to keep his composure. You hear the steps retreating down the hallway.

Cillian steps back, and the absence of his body against yours is jarring. It clearly would've been a mistake to take this further, but a mistake that would've felt so fucking good.

"We shouldn't do this."

He clears his throat. "Yeah."

He moves towards the door, his movements tense and purposeful. "I'm gonna—" he says, motioning the door.

"Yeah," you quickly reply, "I got it."

You watch him leave, the air heavy with unspoken words and unfulfilled desires.

a/n: thank you for reading! please share your thoughts with me, let me know if you guys enjoyed it :)

part two

[yzzart]

"𝐀 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫."

pairing: Coriolanus Snow x F!reader.

summary: how does a snowflake carry so much possessiveness?

warnings: explicit content, explicit words, playing with nipples, mention of erection, and mentions of manipulation + take a look at the masterlist!

word count: 944!

The smell of wet wood accompanied by the typical aroma of fresh earth invaded your nostrils; It was a new situation and coexistence, but it was pleasant and welcoming. — A cozy home.

Together, the sounds of wood being trampled upon with disoriented, blind footsteps with a possible goal of reaching the old-fashioned bed of the place had surrounded your ears. — That definitely bothered you. — There were unstable and old parts of the floor that complemented louder noises; it sounded so unacceptable and abominable.

But absolutely nothing could take away or take away the attention and disposition you received and gave from Coriolanus' lips. — Lips that were wise, sapient and so sweet, with cautious and dignified words; and also so dangerous. — You delighted in the sweet and poison of Snow's mouth.

Coriolanus kissed you with a flaming passion, a description so ironic, that it slowly burned your proud and dissatisfied chest; he kissed you as if his life really depended on it. — And for the Snow boy, these words were part of an affirmation in his heart and soul.

A mixture of feelings, sensations were involved and welcomed in that kiss, something easy to analyze. — Snow never knew how to explain what he actually felt or saw in his veins and heart, so when he met you he discovered how he could do that.

Your tongues moved in such a sudden way, fighting against a space that would not be properly used and animalistic; this strong word was in the right place to be used. — Not to mention the distress of contact between your teeth. — God, it seemed like it was the first time you two kissed.

For the first time, at that moment, there was a mediocre separation between your lips and those of Coriolanus; the empty, incorrect and cold sensation walked through your mouth. — Your mind closed, distressed by the absence, and a taste of despair expanded on your palate.

Those blue eyes observed your lips, already red and shiny caused by the mixture of saliva; they demonstrated desire, possessiveness and something very deep. — You didn't know how to decode what it was, at least not at that second. —But it was mesmerizing, a trap set for you.

"I have you." — He whispered with a distant and small smile, an action that used delicacy in your eyes along with the hot and uncontrolled breath that debated against your face; Coriolanos was giving you all the affection that coursed through his thin and surviving body. — "I'll always have you, right?"

Perhaps those words were an affirmation, a certainty that was written in an honorable and never disrespected book; or also a cryptic or wrong assumption? — You didn't know, much less had an answer that justified it and you didn't care about your trivial assumptions. — Your only action was to nod in silent agreement, earning a proud smile from your lover.

"My good girl." — A constant chill revealed itself in your belly when you heard that, then it was replaced by the relief of feeling Coriolanus's lips touching your again.

The kiss had much more pressure and strength than the previous one, there were conflicts in the middle of it; however, more desire, pleasure and intensity. — Emotions, feelings and reasons mixed between both sides. — A delightful tension.

Coriolanus, who was guiding your to the old and poorly cared for bed, reached his goal without releasing or interrupting the kiss. — God, you mentally thanked me for that. — And, quickly, he got comfortable on the mattress; placing his large hands on your waist in order to direct you to his lap and you didn't waste a single second.

The roughly worked fabric of Coriolanus's pants scraped your thighs and, surely, afflictions would appear later in the day. — In addition to feeling the bulge of his erection punctuating the thin noble fabric of your shorts; he had a privileged opportunity to feel a moistened region in that place. — Coriolanus would go mad and you were the cause of it.

While your arms were around his neck, a way of supporting yourself and getting deeper into him, the Snow boy directed one of his hands through the edge of your thin and noble shirt. — Passing under your, feeling your warm skin that avoided his cold fingers, until he stopped at one of your nipples.

Of course you were scared, it was surprising, in a pleasant way, and in the middle of the kiss, a few low whimpers were released from your mouth. — Like a bird on its singing day. — Snow was pinching your nipple, enjoying the soft, appetizing flesh; It wasn't easy for you.

"Coryo…" — A moan, this time loud and clear, with his name was the first thing you said when you stopped kissing him and it was the only thing that happened that day, little head. — Another pinch followed by a simple and frank affection.

Coriolanus's thumb walked along the tip of your nipple as if he were playing with a shirt button. — A very precious and rewarding t-shirt. — He was a damn man.

"Oh, Coryo…!" — Moving your head involved in such pleasure and excruciating pain, your neck was exposed and it didn't take long for you to become a fragile target for the Snow boy.

Small kisses, as if they were an apology that in reality they were not, prolonged seals and exultant bites filled the area. — Coriolanus marked you with vigor and exuberance, in a seductive passion; a prey that fell in love with its hunt. — He applied his scent to you, such an animalistic action.

It was sick, unhealthy and over the top. — It was the love that Coriolanus felt for you.

[slytherinshua]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT ITS SO SO BASIC but i crave soul fluff :( imagine playing minecraft with him and i honestly feel like it could go two ways: either extremely cute n cozy OR chaos. mans destroying all of ur stuff.

BUT ALSO IM THINKING imagine just matching his vibe so well and speaking his silly alien language, not really caring about weird looks from others … n he’s just so :( i love him btw

actually yk how soul always makes those minecraft villager noises?? MY BROTHER DID THAT TOO WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER :( so actually this is kinda nostalgic... also i forget if my brothers ever did this to me when we were playing minecraft but i always played on creative anyway cause.... i hated dying 👹 warnings: soul explodes ur house ^_^ a lil cursing. wc: ~600.

“Once we get that flint and steel, we can finally go to the nether!” You said excitedly, making your way back to your house in the Minecraft world you had with your boyfriend, Soul. He loved to play in his free time, and luckily for him, you also enjoyed the game. It was a no-brainer that you two would play together. 

You had gotten decently far in your world. You had built a cute little house, with two cats: Kamden and Mackiah. Definitely not named after your boyfriend’s junior group members (yes, yes they were). 

You had just finished a very successful mining trip, which was the last thing you needed before you could finally reach the nether. You weren’t sure what your boyfriend was doing in the world; your best guess was either exploring a desert temple or an abandoned shipwreck. He always liked going on dangerous missions. 

There was nothing that could ruin your mood, though; everything was going exactly how you wanted.

Until you reached the door of your little house. And immediately you heard a soft little click, and then ensuing explosions.

Oh, you were so going to kill your boyfriend.

“What the fuck did you just do, Haku Shota?” You asked, your eye twitching at the ‘You Died!’ screen on your computer, the score displaying only a couple hundred digits. Your mind thought over what you had in your inventory; 3 diamonds from your mining trip, along with valuable loot from skeletons and zombies you had killed along the way. A nice supply of arrows and an extra bow, your iron tools all needing to be replaced after this.

But what pissed you off the most is your cats. How could he have killed Kamden and Mackiah just like that? Did your boyfriend have no heart? 

Soul knew he was partially fucked. It had been Theo’s stupid idea to pull a prank in your minecraft world, anyway. Maybe he could avoid the blame? Then again, he was the one who executed it. Using the skills that he had honed for hours playing the game, making an elaborate explosion completely hidden in your house with ease… just waiting for you to step on the pressure plate. 

And while your immediate reaction did make a satisfied and mischievous smile grow on your boyfriend’s face, it soon dropped. You never used his full name. Ever. Not even once. Suddenly Soul was a bit scared. You were going to extract revenge, no doubt. For the diamonds, and the loot, but mostly for the cats.

You put your laptop down, turning towards your boyfriend, staring incredulously at his blank expression. What was going through his little brain behind those thoughtless eyes? Was he enjoying your pain and agony, or was he regretting his actions?

“Theo.” He said suddenly, avoiding eye contact with you.

“Oh hell no. You are not gonna blame Theo for this, baby.” You were back to calling him baby— that was a positive sign. You grabbed his wrist, forcing him to face you as you cupped his cheeks.

“You’re going to rebuild my house, right? And get my cats back. And the diamonds. I want double the original amount. Double the size of the house, 4 cats, 6 diamonds. Got it?” You were determined, but Soul could still tell that you weren’t that upset with him. It barely took more than 5 seconds for you to calm down, especially when it was a harmless prank.

He made a slightly reluctant villager noise in response, agreeing to your terms. You grinned and pecked his lips before giving him one last warning.

“If I don’t get 4 cats then I’m quitting the world.” 

↳ p1harmony taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @eternalgyu,, @kangtaehyunzzz,, @amara-mars,, @nyukyusnz,,

@blossominghunnie,, @wccycc,, @seunghancore,, @heavenfilm,, @sobun1est,,

@bananabubble,, @talkingsaxy

[acoraxia]

What are your thoughts on shadowpeach?

Fandom wise? I do not care for it.

Canon wise? I believe in men committing crimes while forming the most toxic, unhealthy attachments to one person could lead to such a dysfunctional relationship that it, eventually, turns into a functional one. And also they’re trans and aspec.

Disclaimer: this is all my opinion and people can do whatever they want, i simply have my gripes with some of the fandom stuff. this is just me explaining what i like and dislike about shadowpeach.

I think the most common thing people fall into when it comes to ships—or shipping in general—is how to domesticate these two characters without fully addressing their flaws, personalities, behavior, and their overall choices throughout the original media/show they come from. 

Macaque and SWK both suffer equally through this mischaracterization: Macaque is often painted as this shy or “edgy” character with little to no ties to his actual character in canon and, more often than not, he is perceived as this “dad” type of character when, in fact, he should not be allowed near children for I fear he will bully them nonstop until they sit there in the corner feeling disheartened and miserable about themselves; Sun Wukong is often portrayed as this dumb himbo with little-to-no means of understanding social cues, not understanding emotions in a way that’s very frustrating, and be this yearning, pining idiot who’s still longing for his childhood crush when he did not hesitate to punch this guy in the face multiple times throughout the show. So when they are paired up together it’s this weird mash of people believing Macaque is the better dad with more understanding of human behavior and Wukong is his dumb, doting husband who’s doing his best and cannot stand up for himself when confronted about things.

The amount of times people choose to make Macaque sympathetic by having Sun Wukong’s family side with Macaque when it comes to Wukong’s actions/choices is so vast I could not count them all on one hand. The common trope of having Princess Iron Fan (Sun Wukong’s sister-in-law) become Macaque’s sworn sister is so disheartening to see for someone who read through Journey To The West and thought of how silly the overall family dynamic of the Demon Bull Family and Sun Wukong’s troops was. Removing Iron Fan as Sun Wukong’s literal sister just to have someone backup Macaque and sympathize with him is funny and a bit silly. 

That being said… the canon version of Shadowpeach and its possibilities are, in fact, very delicious.

Canon wise this is what we know about Sun Wukong and Macaque’s history together: 

Sun Wukong and Macaque meet

The brotherhood is formed after Azure meets Sun Wukong, Macaque tags along with Wukong (note: Macaque is not addressed as “brother” by the characters, only Wukong is)

Macaque tries to warn Wukong about how dealing with Heaven might be a bad idea

They share a peach under a tree; Wukong reassures Macaque this plan will work

Wukong carries on with Azure’s plan anyway (yes, azure lion’s plan, not wukong’s)

The brotherhood is defeated and Wukong gets trapped under a mountain

Presumably no one comes to visit Wukong, only Macaque

During his final visit, Wukong is angry that Macaque is free and can’t see the fact that Wukong was trying to do everything for them and his kingdom

Macaque snaps back at Wukong and calls him an obsessive demon before leaving

They have another fallout and fight

Wukong ends up killing Macaque in the aftermath

500~ years later, Macaque and Wukong fight again with Wukong being more apathetic towards their reunion than Macaque is

Macaque obsesses over Wukong continuously (coughs)

Macaque is biased in his retellings of his and Wukong’s relationship (see: all of shadowplay and the scrolls memories)

They fight (again) throughout S3

They somewhat reconcile by the end of S4

We will address the fact Sun Wukong was groomed into going to war by this former celestial warrior instead of having it be because of his own want to protect his family and friends after Heaven refused to pay him the respect he wanted when he first joined their ranks later. Right now we focus on the fact that Sun Wukong is canonically a person people easily fall in love with (platonically) and have a tendency to want to stay close to regardless of what his future actions will be like and Macaque is sequentially obsessed with him throughout the show.

“The hero and the warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the hero's light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the hero.”

Fun fact: Macaque is never going to be on par with Sun Wukong’s power and he works best as support than he does a duo-attacker along side Wukong. Wukong is on his own power level and Macaque, while being able of holding his own against enemies, could be stomped to death by Xiaoijiao is he crossed the line.

Macaque’s obsession with Sun Wukong comes from the inability to move on from the past; Macaque wanting things to go back as they were is a subtle theme going through the show — he keeps latching on to biased memories and avoiding the actual problems that caused their relationship to fall apart and it isn’t until Season 3’s big confrontation with Long Xiaojiao’s Samadhi Fire ritual. He realizes he abandoned Wukong during a time of need and proceeds to flee, abandoning him again. 

Macaque has issues. More often than not people call out on Sun Wukong for abandoning Xiaotian or the Monkie Kid Crew all while ignoring the fact Sun Wukong does not purposefully leave Qi Xiaotian, he tries his hardest to make it back in time and is visibly scared/horrified when LBD attacks in his absence. Sun Wukong tries his hardest to comfort Xiaotian while Macaque tries to torment him. 

Regardless, Sun Wukong and Macaque’s relationship is unique to most media’s portrayal of friends turned enemies. Because Wukong does not see Macaque as a threat up until he teams up with Lady Bone Demon — he is only scary by association, not by anything he has done up until that point. You can tell with the way Wukong mocks him and calls him something akin to a puppet during their interaction in Season 3 when Macaque trapped him and Nezha in the ice. 

And even then Macaque doesn’t even bother trying to engage with Wukong in a friendly manner because kindness is for losers HA i’m not apologizing for anything, bye Sun Wukong, you big old LOSER [proceeds to possibly live on the streets and stay homeless until wukong allows him to return to ffm under certain house rules]

You’ll notice that Sun Wukong barely has any opinions on Macaque.

This is because Macaque is favored by the narrative more than Sun Wukong is so we have very little context as to how Sun Wukong genuinely feels towards Macaque. 

Sun Wukong sees Macaque as an annoyance, a bother, a threat, a coward, an imposter and then, finally, an ally. 

But all we get from that is Wukong handing Macaque a peach-flavored ice cream pop as a parallel to him sharing a peach with his old friend back when they were young monkeys before he was trapped under a mountain for 500 years as a result of his abuser’s power hold on him that forced him to fight heaven as a way to “make the world a better place”. 

We love to see it.

Macaque and Wukong’s relationship goes from mutual interest and a supportive friendship established years prior to the original building of the brotherhood to a very weird, uncategorized type of dynamic. The only way to characterize Sun Wukong’s “affection” towards Macaque is, possibly, the same way most people would characterize Macaque to be towards Wukong. Y’know the slightly judgmental actions and eye rolls and scoffs of affection most people write about Macaque when Wukong does something stupid? Yeah.

“But Macaque said “this guy” when Wukong was presenting his plan to defeat Azure—“ yeah have you considered Wukong does a lot of masking in the presence of the entire Monkie Kid Crew and Macaque has a tendency to present himself as this cool persona when in fact he’s just a homeless monkey who’s been crashing on his ex’s couch for the past weeks since the ending of Season 3? 

“OK…. but why QPR Shadowpeach?”

Sun Wukong throughout the course of Journey to the West and all its past and future iterations have always had him be uninterested in both men and women. There are multiple instances where he’s capable of courting women and he instead backs away or does not pay it any mind; aside from this he’s heavily implied to only care about familial love and friendships. He does not see his pilgrim brothers as anything more than family and he views Tripitaka as a mentor rather than someone whom he was chained to. And Azure was his idol and he was groomed by him, and everyone else was viewed to him as a troop — or, y’know, a family.

This and the fact that— both Sun Wukong and Macaque are over a thousand years old. Why on earth would they have a normal type of relationship? Giving them a checklist of what passes on as romantic and platonic when to them the line is so blurred it’s barely existent to them is amusing. 

Sun Wukong and Macaque having their own weird relationship where it changes from frustrated best friends to partners to angry middle aged demons to the tired traumatized immortals who sometimes cuddle while still beating each other up is so deliciously interesting and unhealthy to the point where it is healthy. 

Also Celestial bodies are not the same as mortal bodies; canonically Sun Wukong has transformed into women before and people have addressed him with female-leaning pronouns before. my personal headcanon of sun wukong being genderfluid lves on and now we can have sapphic shadowpeach with transfem macaque.

also im still feverish so if this doesnt make sense then too bad damn im sorry

[kiivg]

Your Rook is ridiculously good looking. Like, I’m actually blushing and it’s all your fault

.The initial idea for him was Grave Robbing Pirate and honestly the beard options came through for me like nothing else. Guaranteed I was going to go for muttonchops/sideburns before I even knew what the CC looked like, but idk they looked a little patchy sometimes and that is NOT what Farid is about 👏 The whatever it is he has now is iconic for him, I tried making him as an elf but it was Cursed and Never-to-Be-Seen-Again. Also the balding ponytail? I saw it, and I was like yeah that’s it, that’s him, that’s exactly what I’m about.

.Also it is absolutely insane to me that he’s the first draft, I got him in one go with a little fine tuning once I figured out how the CC works. Especially considering how ugly Goddard turned out as the Inquisitor 😭😭 but now I HC he just sends somebody over in his place to act as a go between, ain’t no way he’s traipsing around with Morrigan lmao. I did make a crummy Blackwall Inq so I could get Dorian to call him Amatus 👹 Pavwall Canon UNLOCKED. (I wonder if you could make the Iron Bull tho?? Sans wide horns ofc.)

.Also, girlie, tysm!!!!!! I am ALSO very 👀😳🥴🤫🫡 about him, I’ve just started my third playthrough of him, I’m still tweaking little bits here and there as I go along. Which means ofc I’m going to be screenshotting him in every cutscene 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️.

.Edit tho I’ve changed his name to Farid now 😘.

.Some facts about my Rook, Farid Thorne, and his story below 💕🫡.

.His mother is Therasia Thorne, a Rivaini Dalish elf who left her clan for the calling of the sea, and he is an absolute mama’s boy. Will do absolutely anything she asks with very little, if any, questioning. He doesn’t know (and most likely never will) who his father is, as the man bought Therasia’s silence over their affair with two galleons and a frigate. On a side note, Therasia was known for seducing very rich men and getting pregnant in order to blackmail them. Most of the time the fathers would pay up, and there has only been one instance of the father agreeing to take the baby off her hands, her bluff was called and she regretfully left her son behind.

.He adores expensive textures, silk, dragon scales, gold, fine lace, alamarri sheep wool, phoenix feathers. If he wasn’t a career criminal turned conscript he would have been a tailor. He owns (or used to own) several dresses/robes that he would just lounge about in naked to feel the fabric against his skin. Doesn’t really think too much of leather though, it can be stiff and often chafes the skin, which is strange because he’s very much a rope man.

.He waxes most of his body hair off, and keeps everything nice and tidy. He also puts coloured powder in his open wounds to preserve the shape of them as they heal, true to his mother’s traditions.

.Has kept his face completely bare of tattoos (apart from the fish he got when he was fourteen) in an honour to his Dalish heritage; he knows he won’t ever get valaslin because he’s only a half-elf, but the prospect of it keeps his face bare.

.Is fascinated by machinery and spent a great deal of time perfecting his own tools. His own frigate was equipped with self made trident ballistas, each one would fire three harpoons (individually or all at once) secured with thick chains, crafted to hunt and bring down large game, dragons, and smaller fleeing ships.

.In tune with his love for crafting, he follows June, and not the Maker. Though he does keep this to himself and those he considers family. If asked he just says he doesn’t believe in the Maker, and refuses to elaborate.

.Absolutely fucks, big family kind of guy. He is one of nineteen children, and has nine of his own by five different women, though he assumes there’s more because he was very much a leave before the sunrise kind of guy. Now he’s matured with being in the Wardens and has been less of a dick about it all. Whether or not he’s got any chance of knowing those kids who knows 🤷‍♂️.

.Never told anyone about his past when he became a Warden, the only people who know are those who were privy to his conscription, and the higher up Wardens upon receiving his arrest and conscription reports. Most people know he’s a conscript however, he doesn’t shy away from that, and he’s had a dozen or more rumours spread about him within the order. Evka was the first person to say he was a good Warden and back him up, and I think that solidified him as a third wheel to her and Antoine.

.He was actually conscripted by order of my HoF Andrastopher Cousland, as a favour returned. Andrastopher wanted aboard his ship when the Inquisition was seeking out a new leader,(there was no way he was becoming a religious figurehead lmao) and he stayed there for a good six months or so before Zevran joined them, and another two months before returning back to Thedas. They… uh… yeah 🥴🤫.

.If he was a companion his questline would probably follow trying to kill his older brother Galo after receiving a plea for help from his sister in law Aadiyah. Turns out Galo is either a) helping the Antaam navigate the seas uncontested or b) capturing and selling slaves to the Venatori. The big question at the end would be whether to tell their daughter that he’s her dad or to let her believe Galo was her father considering he HAS just murdered him, and she has several siblings that Galo fathered too.

.His gift would be an ornamental smoking pipe or a hookah, his room would be an observatory, full of navigational maps and constellations, there would be a small tailors work bench on one side of the room complete with mannequin and a sewn outfit that would slowly complete over his personal questline. His bed would be a row boat full of pillows.

.His almost kiss scene would be him explaining that he’s no good, his past actions are very much coming to bite him in the ass, and that you should really stop flirting with him. Does he want you to stop? No. Is he going to lean in to try and kiss you? Yes. Is he going to remember that everything is playing out as it does before and pull away because he knows he’s not good enough for you? Yes.

.His romance lock in scene would be stargazing on the beach in Rivain, he’d point out a couple constellations, talk about his time seafaring (minus all the murdering and pillaging). You’d get the option to ask about a few different ones (leading to locking out of the romance) or a secret fourth one and he’d absolutely bullshit some made up romantic story that parallels him and you, and you’d call bullshit because YES it is bullshit, and he’d say something awfully sappy about making it “our constellation” and then 💋💋💋.

.The actual romance scene would be that he turns up completely naked in your room, he’ll ask if you want the Captain or the Warden, and you uh choose and uh ye a hh haha ahaaaaa 😳🥴.

[yinyangswings]

If Sanji Had A Child

He is over the moon when Chopper gives you and him the news. That man is practically jumping for joy.

Actually he does jump for joy

He practically gives up smoking overnight for you. It does make him a bit more irritable around the crew. Zoro especially.

But he never snaps at you no matter how irritated he feels. Even when you feel slightly guilty over him having to give up a habit for you.

Has a slight pregnancy kink, not going to lie. He loves watching you and staring at your belly as it grows and is almost always rubbing it.

Granted, barring others on the crew, if some random passerby tries to touch your stomach, they’re going to get a face full of foot

Is always willing to make you whatever concoction your cravings come up with and eat it with you if need be. Doesn't matter the time of the day or night. And trust me, you try to keep your craving requests to a minimum because you don’t want to be a bother him, which he quickly refutes, saying he doesn’t mind

Feels slightly self-conscious when walking around towns and sees all the skinny and pretty women that Sanji would typically chase after, especially when you get on in the later months and it is fairly obvious that you’re pregnant

You keep expecting to find him somewhere with one of these women. And you can’t blame him if he does

When he finds out about your fears (through a very irate Nami who filled him in on it), he feels upset that he’s made you self conscious about your appearance and is quick to pull you close and reassure you over and over again that you’re beautiful and he only has his eyes set on you

That night, he makes sure you know you’re the only one he wants

Ironically, your water breaks when you’re eating some of his dishes. You hadn’t been feeling the greatest that day, and you wanted some small snack. One bite and then your water has broken

That night, the crew learns that you can curse just as bad as a sailor, and even make up some new curse words along the way all aimed at Sanji for putting you through this.

It’s several long hours before a different cry fills the air and your little daughter comes screaming into the world. You stare at her with awe and love and you cannot imagine a baby more perfect.

Sanji is just…stunned, watching as Robin helps Chopper with cleaning the baby girl.

And then she’s in his arms and it's as if the world has grown still and he can’t breathe all of a sudden. She’s tiny, red, wrinkly and she has the chubbiest cheeks, and he can see a tuft of blonde adorning her head. 

Her hands are soft, and her tiny fist can barely wrap around one finger.

And he falls head over heels for this little girl and is a weeping mess as he takes her in. You find it cute and just watch them bond as you relax and recuperate

She is never far from him for the first few months. He doesn’t want to miss anything his little princess is doing. Usually you find her with him in a sling on his chest, babbling loudly at him as he replies with responses. She’s apparently his biggest fan, and biggest critic when it comes to food. He offers her some things to taste.

He makes all her baby food. None of that pre-made, canned stuff. 

As with during your pregnancy, he is never smoking around her.

And his little princess is spoiled by him. 

Cue some teasing about what will happen when she’s older and boys begin to catch her eye. Sanji gets very…protective at that moment and firmly states she won’t be dating any time soon.

He pointedly ignores everyone mentioning his flirting with women

Sometimes at night, Sanji wakes up and finds you feeding her and he just watches. Not in a creepy perverted kind of way, just silently watching the two of you. And his mind wanders and he wonders how his father could have looked at his siblings and made them into monsters. How he  considered doing the same with him had his mother not intervened.

And he thanks his mother over and over again in his mind for giving him this chance to have his small family and to cherish you and your little girl.

Those nights he holds you close, watching his precious little girl safe and asleep now happy with a belly full of food.

A few months later Zeff and the crew in Baratie receive a simple letter with pictures of the baby. There is a loud cheer heard throughout the ship.  

Zeff may or may not have them tacked up on the wall.

Sanji receives a letter from Zeff with some small recipe suggestions and the request for more pictures in the future.

And Sanji happily obliges.

[sympathytea]

[ID in alt] Zam! The Prince in Yellow himself! This is mainly a design I mocked up to make writing him easier on my brain since having a physical image for me to reference and describe is significantly easier on my brain than not having one. Uh reason he doesn't have the trident this fic is (so far) taking place inbetween ep 4 and 5 rather than like. post finale ok? ok. more fun stuff under the cut (maskless included, along with other details on the fic that i'm writing!!!)

[ID in alt] Kept seeing everyone draw him half blind? Love that for him. I'm assuming that's a reference to his LifeSteal designs either way i think the concept is sick and wanted to work with a character that has that detail worked into the fic as something they need to work with/around since this is a combat heavy series which I'd imagine wouldn't be easy to do with one eye, but not impossible. girlboss is gonna have it rough in the fic though tried to make the scar more obviously trident-shaped? since that's where I'd imagine he'd get it assuming he was sent to the sword civilization against his will? rather than to actually retrieve the eternal sword on his own accord like Tabi was. idk hopefully s2 don't fuck me up some expression testing + additional notes on behavior

(excuse him he's been shaved for this, also IDs in alt) disclaimer uh. very minimal research was done for his behaviors. i'm not a medical professional but i did find a giant thread full of folks who had half-blindness who did mention the head tilt thing as a thing that they did, facial paralysis is from the injury assuming the trident went deep enough to do nerve damage thus the whole 'one side moves other side doesn't' my apolocheese for inaccuracy I'm sure that the tilt thing and the facial paralysis thing are probably a bit too extreme to some folks but due to my artstyle being very exaggerated, this too had to be exaggerated for it to be something noticeable, otherwise its completely hidden despite me being mostly focused towards expressions i have made a decision that might seem jarring to some to..limit the faces of characters in my fic. mainly because all of them are hiding or masking something underneath, it just suits them well to have this be a trait that everyone in pvp civilization shares in various ways Characters like Evbo, Julie, Tabi and Parrot are more obvious masking via emotional repression rather than a physical mask that they wear Wemmbu, Ferre, The Guard Friend and Zam mask due to wearing some form of face covering but once that face covering comes off then they start to be a bit more honest, not having anywhere to hide MinuteTech masks via..other means. More on him specifically later when i get around to designing him. he's fascinating is all im gonna say There are of course other characters in this fic, Marty and Ellie are two iron-sword level specific OCs I made for the sole purpose of being evil, and they are shockingly the only two people in the fic that are full on honest with themselves and others. They have their shit figured out (so I wont feel bad killing them off hehe) PVP Language guy and the similar Wooden Plank guy are the two non-main characters turned major characters that due to their species, literally don't have a face nor a proper voice for others to understand what they are thinking, but if you give them a way to talk, then they will! This project be warned: gonna take a long time. I'm notoriously slow at pumping good quality stuff out. I'm working on like 4? other character refs at the time of writing this and I am nowhere near finished with any of them. Dear god.

Thats all for now, though. Until I post again!

[cpattersonevans]

A Love Letter to My Inquisitor

As my first ever post, I felt compelled to write a love letter of sorts to my Inquisitor Lavellan. I have been playing RPGs for a long time, but have never been very good at the 'role playing' aspect. Until recently I had always played Dragon Age as a female human, struggling to make decisions that I would not make in real life. Prior to the announcement of Veilguard I had not played a DA game in probably 6 or 7 years, but to reacquaint myself with the world I decided to replay them (starting at DA2 because my computer hates DAO). This time, I was determined to play as an elf for the first time ever in Inquisition...and romance Solas for the first time ever. I enjoyed the Solas romance. I knew going in that it would not be a happy ending, but I knew nothing of how it would actually develop. I absolutely loved this playthrough. So much so, that right after I finished it the first time all the way through to the end of Trespasser, I restarted a new game to play as Lavellan again, willingly choosing to slog through each collection quest (maybe I'd finally find that one last mosaic piece - I did not). Not because I wanted to relive the romance, but because I missed HER.

In Inquisition, my Lavellan was cold and stoic at first, angry at those who blame her for something she knows nothing about...she literally woke up like this. However, she starts to show her true self to those who slowly go from mere acquaintance to respected friend. She was somewhat tactless and blunt, not having much experience interacting with the human world. She was reluctant to accept the position as leader, always asserting that she is NOT the Herald of Andraste. Seriously, how many times does she have to say this! She continues to express her anger and reluctance when the title of Inquisitor is thrust upon her. She never wanted this! She gets shit done, always focused on the task at hand. She hopes that once she fixes everything, she can go back to her old life. Oh how she was mistaken. As time went on she leaned more into her Dalish identity and enjoyed making decisions in favor of the elves (bye bye Celene). She realized that, although she never wanted to be Inquisitor, she may be able to take advantage of this opportunity for the betterment of her people. Dorian, Cassandra, Varric and Iron Bull became her besties (Sera never stopped thinking she was too elfy). As for the romance. She (me) was not attracted to Solas at first, I still found myself very much liking Cullen (had romanced him and Blackwall previously as female human). I even laughed that Cullen is probably the one people would tell her she should be with, but Solas ended up being the one she was fated to be with. Over the course of the game she realized her attraction towards him was growing. The more conversations they had, the more missions they found themselves in relying on each other to survive, they slowly grew closer and fell in love. Plus...that voice. This relationship was different than any I'd experienced in a game before. It felt like, for them, more was expressed in what wasn't said...or how it was said. I could feel the passion between them. When the break up came, she was ANGRY. I will take any chance I get to yell at Solas in Elven. But, she had a mission to complete. She was fine.

Then Trespasser came. Two years later and still the leader of a massive political organization. How did she get here? She never wanted this. She could still care less about politics. Everyone, please stop asking her about Solas. She doesn't want to talk about it. She is fine. Except...she's not. The closer they get to Solas, the more those repressed feelings come to the surface. Solas was HeLpInG us with the Qunari all along! Face palm. I hated this delulu response, but had to do it. When they finally meet face to face, turns out she's still ANGRY. Cue more angry yelling in Elven. HE SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED HER. Not understanding the full extent of his plans, she offers to help. He won't let her. She vows to save him, this isn't the only way. Bye bye hand. Angry Inquisition book drop. Bye bye Inquisition. She never wanted this.

Now comes Veilguard. I will preface that I have not read any fanfiction. I have only been a solavellan for about 4 or 5 months, so I understand this influences my perspective on how things play out in Veilguard. I had no headcannon. I had no expectations for both the Inquisitor's reappearance and the possibilities of closure. I, of course, hoped her and Solas would reunite, but also knew there was a very strong chance one or the other (or both) could die by the end of the game, because Dragon Age.

I actually liked how Lavellan was portrayed. I don't think it's fair to judge how she has lived for the past 10 years based on the few moments we have with her in the game. I don't think she sounds pathetic or sad. To me she sounds, wise, mature, and like someone who has just seen too much shit. Her voice was filled with sorrow. She has had 10 years to ponder everything that happened during Inquisition, replay every moment, every conversation had with Solas. At first she was so so angry, but over time that anger turned into understanding, then forgiveness. This is not to say that the anger is gone completely, sometimes anger reappears when we least expect it, as it often does when we mourn what was lost, but it does not drive her. Over time, she learns how to manage it, to navigate it, to accept it so that each time it hurts a little less. This is the closest they've been to catching Solas. She finds a memory statue of his. She can feel him, feel that it has something to do with him. It is after this that all those feelings, emotions, start flooding back to her. She never stopped loving him. However, the world has gone to shit. She never wanted this, but knows her title, her position, still carries some weight. She steps up to lead once more in the South. To be the person that people need her to be. She doesn't fully express her feelings about Solas until after she hears about the events that occurred in Arlathan, that he helped save Dalish elves from Elgar'nan. Hope returns, maybe, just maybe, the Solas she knew is still in there somewhere, but...she has a world to save first.

The atonement ending is a great ending. I had no expectations, but I wasn't expecting this. I don't think a game ending as ever made me cry so much. It was very cathartic. Maybe because I had played all of these games back to back then straight into Veilguard, so emotions were high.

Lavellan was never going to turn Solas from his path on her own. Her appeals to him didn't work in Trespasser, why would that be any different now? But she vowed to save him from himself, and those that knew him from the Inquisition truly believed he wanted to be stopped. That it was his pride, himself, getting in his own way. She had to try, but this time she has back up. Solas is released from his duty, he is free. She reassures him that there is another path forward, together. Sure, she could have walked in there, spewing more angry Elven at him, but she is not the same Lavellan she was 10 years ago. She is wiser more mature. This does not mean that this anger won't come up later, but she understands that this is NOT the time for that. It's not about her in this moment, it's about him. It's about saving the world. She accepts her fate. Before joining the fight in the North, she made sure all of her duties were appropriately delegated in the South. When her best friend asks her if she will be leaving again after all of this is over, her reply - "something like that." She knew. She joins her vhenan in the Fade to heal both each other and the blight. I do believe that the Fade prison will not be as bad with them together. She will help him confront his regrets and one day they will be able to leave just like Rook did (Rook's regrets honestly pale in comparison, so it will take him more time), but they will have calmed the blight in the process. Someday they will be able to travel the Fade freely and visit old friends, both spirit and corporeal.

She left the world she knew, left behind the title of Inquisitor. She never wanted this. In Trespasser, Cassandra tells her "Being Inquisitor has brought you good things. Many good things. But only a few have been by your choice. Take what happiness you can from those, and do not let them go." And she doesn't.

This turned into a long post, but all this to say...Lavellan holds a special place with me - for not only being a wonderful, bad ass, protagonist, but for finally allowing me to fully embrace the world of role playing games. I have had an amazing time going on this journey with her, one I will surely repeat many times. I love her.

[shady-tavern]

Perfect Nemesis Part Two

Part One Here.

***

You woke in the hero hospital, feeling like you had gotten run over. Aches and pains seemed to fill your entire body. You peeled your eyes open to see Peony across from you, asleep and bandaged, with some stitches along one temple. He wasn’t wearing his mask and you saw his face for the first time since you met him.

Your brows furrowed briefly as you groped for the button that called the nurse. Was it the first time you saw his face? Your head hurt and felt stuffed with cotton.

The nurse working for the Society appeared a second after you sloppily pressed the button, only for your eyes to fall closed halfway through her explanation of the severe overextension of your abilities and how that had translated to damage on your joints and tissue. How you would have killed yourself had you used more of your powers.

When you woke a second time you were just barely more coherent and it was the middle of the night. A dimmed light across from you let you see that Peony was awake, speaking softly with Endless, who sat in the open window, also without his mask.

They both paused and looked over when you made some kind of low sound. Your mouth felt dust dry and your limbs heavy. Everything hurt, but in a bone-deep bruised way and you instinctively knew right away you’d do some serious damage to yourself should you try to use your powers again anytime soon.

"How are you feeling?" Peony asked hesitantly and cautiously, voice quiet but clearly audible in the silent room. You blinked at him, weakly and sluggishly patting around to call the nurse again. You were barely capable of stringing a single thought together.

It was only when your hand bumped the button that you realized you weren’t wearing your ring. You weren’t wearing it and you felt…fine. You felt like you were whole and very much not cursed.

You blinked at them. "Huh," you croaked and passed out again just as they straightened, attention firmly fixed upon you.

When you woke a third time, your mind clear enough that you could actually cling to consciousness, it was to your mentor sitting in a chair beside you.

"Thank fuck," she said the moment you blinked your eyes open and focused on her. Her relief was strong in her voice and openly visible on her face. "You were out for nearly a week. What did you do, kid?"

"Not a kid," you mumbled, but that only made her smile a little. She’d never drop that stupid nickname. Instead of answering, you made yourself move your heavy arm until you could look down at your hand.

Your mentor sobered immediately and you let her take your hand, looking at the spot where a dinged up iron ring had sat for years. You hadn’t taken it off once, not for training, not for bathing and especially not for your last boyfriend who had hated the damn thing. Not that you had liked it, but you had needed it. It had been vital for so long.

"What happened?" your mentor asked quietly. "Did they manage to break the curse?" You shifted your head slightly to peer past her, only to see Peony’s bed empty. "Ah, your buddy is getting a check-up and then he’ll be released later today." 

Your mentor leaned forward a little, turning serious. With more emphasis she said, "Kid."

You had never once been able to hold back when she used that tone of voice. The story spilled forth just as every other story had back when you had been a sidekick and later a fledgling new hero. But you were safe, here and now. 

Your mentor was one of the safest people you knew, she’d go to bat for you at the drop of a hat. You had grown into the hero you were today under her protection and guidance after all.

She was silent for a long moment after you were done and you found it hard to keep your eyes open. 

"I’ll go talk with Peony," she said, giving your hand a parting pat. "Sleep, kid. You really fucked yourself up this time. It’s going to take a while for you to recover."

You mumbled something that was some kind of vague agreement, your eyes falling closed.

*.*.*

Peony was gone when you woke again and you continued to sleep more than you were awake. Sometimes you had visitors, sometimes not, sometimes you woke to people having left gifts at your bedside table.

The time you fell asleep to your superior berating you for destroying 'six and a half fucking buildings you goddamn unbelievable idiot' you were glad to get out of the harsh reprimand. You hadn’t cared about the damage when you had been without empathy, but that hardly mattered. Not when you had caused nearly five million in property damage.

You were very relieved that no one had died. That the people who had gotten caught in the crossfire had been rescued by Peony and, to everyone’s surprise, Endless.

You hadn’t seen your colleague or the villain who had been so eager to be your nemesis since that night in the hospital. You had no idea what to feel when it came to them, but every time you found yourself thinking about them, you touched the spot where the ring had been.

The curse was gone entirely.

The magical expert the Society sent to examine you confirmed that as well, clapping you on the shoulder and congratulating you on getting rid of that horrible thing. You got questioned extensively, but you found yourself skirting over details, citing that you didn’t remember much. 

Your mentor had spoken with Peony once and had said that he would explain himself when and if you were ready to see him again. She had given you a card with his private phone number on it.

"And that Endless fellow will be there too for the conversation, if you want him to be," she had added. Then she had paused, looking at you. "You made quite the impression on him. He had nothing but praise for you."

You had looked away, shrinking bit into yourself. You had too many questions to not want answers, even if everything was kind of a mess. You had no idea if you still wanted to be Peony’s friend or…whatever Endless and you had had previously. 

But they had gotten rid of your curse, even if things had become a bit ugly after they had taken off the ring. Still, that moment of intense betrayal kept hounding you, your ignored pleas, how you had been tied to the ground, utterly helpless.

You found yourself touching your hand over and over, startled alarm finding you for a split second when you didn’t feel the ring, before you remembered that it wasn’t necessary anymore. It was both the greatest relief of your life and something you still had to wrap your head around.

It took some time to adjust to living without a curse after so many years with one.

When you were released from the hero hospital at last with strict orders to take it easy for another month before you could be allowed back to active duty, you were glad to go back home.

You unpacked the bag your mentor had brought you for your stay in the hospital. She was puttered around your home, opening windows to let in fresh air. Your mentor at last opened your fridge and immediately closed it again.

"I’ll go shopping," she said and left briskly with a little wriggle of her fingers.

You tentatively opened your fridge, only to immediately close it again yourself. Well. Taking a deep breath, you rummaged around beneath your sink to get gloves and cleaning products and you got to work, removing food that had had plenty of time to go and rot and mold.

You were just finished with that very disgusting task when your mentor returned and she shooed you away, grumbling that you had to take it easy.

You did take it easy the rest of the day, barely getting up from the couch. Your mentor made sure you had food and left some meals you just had to heat up in your fridge.

"Call me if you need anything," she said after dinner. "I’ll stay in a nearby hotel for another night before returning to work."

Even then you knew she’d drop everything in a heartbeat if you said you needed her help. You resolved to find a good gift for her, to thank her for all her care and her sometimes no-nonsense encouragement during your recovery.

You hadn’t known that overextending your powers could result in a month of bedrest. Then again, apparently you had badly damaged your body in the process and there had been quite a bit that had needed healing.

Empathyless-you was an asshole in all regards.

As you sat alone on your couch you found yourself fiddling with the card Peony had given your mentor. You wanted answers, but you had no idea if you wanted to see him or Endless again.

Maybe a part of you was afraid of what those answers were. Of finding out that the friendship and flirting and banter and easy companionship had only existed so they could trick you.

But, in the end, you wanted to know why they had tricked you more than you were afraid. Why they hadn’t just told you about their plans to remove the curse. You would have let them. You had no idea how much you still trusted them now, if at all, but you had trusted them that much before they forcibly removed your ring.

You leaned back with a sigh and fiddled with the card a moment longer, before you drew up the sort of courage that let you step into costume on a bad day, that made you face villains that sometimes, secretly, frightened you.

The sort of courage that let you keep your head held high the two times you hadn’t been able to save civilians, carrying their limb bodies.

Peony picked up near immediately, his voice tentatively hopeful. "Imagination?"

"Yeah." You were glad that your voice sounded steady even if your heart was beating faster nervously. "You said you were willing to explain?"

"Over the phone or in person?" he asked, voice going a bit softer in a way that made your throat tighten a little. "Whatever you’re more comfortable with. I’ll make sure to get assigned to another city too if you want. I have the paperwork ready to be submitted."

You closed your eyes for a moment. That was all a bit much at once. "Just…why?" It came out more hurt than you had intended.

Peony was quiet for just a second. "I’ll answer, but it would be best if Endless were here," he suggested, voice going a bit tentative again.

"Aright. Sure. Call me back when he’s there." You ended the call before he could say anything else, rubbing a hand restlessly over your face. Your emotions were kind of messy, but at least you had those feelings. You were rid of your curse and that…that meant so fucking much.

It was in all honesty the only reason you were willing to hear them out.

Peony called back quicker than you had expected and from the slight change in audio quality you could tell that he had put you on speaker.

"Hello," Endless said, voice soft and hesitant in a way you had never heard or expected to hear from the confident villain. "I hope you’re doing well?"

"No smalltalk," you found yourself croaking out, your voice cracking a little despite your best efforts. You grimaced and took a breath before you continued. "Just tell me why."

"Why the deception and trickery and why we used your trust against you?" Endless asked and you swallowed past your dry mouth. "It was the only way to lift the curse."

Thankfully, he continued before you had to ask him to elaborate. "The villain who hurt you once met up with my old mentor, ranting and raving. I overheard a lot that day and in all fairness, I had mostly forgotten that day until I met you." His voice turned a little softer. "It took me a bit to remember that you were the hurt sidekick in that public trial."

"What do you know about the curse?" you found yourself asking, worrying the hem of your sleeve between the fingers of your free hand.

Endless made a low, dark noise. "It’s one of the vilest things I’ve ever encountered and that says a lot. The curse isn’t particularly complex, but it’s removal is. For one, it cannot be removed if you want it removed by the person in front of you. As long as you let someone try to take it away, it would not work."

Which was why none of the Society heroes or independent vigilante with magical abilities had been able to do anything.

"We could not tell you about what we had planned," Peony said quietly, regret thick in his voice. "I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, but just one mention about it would have made you expect the removal sooner or later. We would have had to wait years to make you actively forget about it for it to work."

"I’m so very sorry as well," Endless said softly. "I wouldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t minded your curse, but it was clear you hated it for both of us. If you never want to see me again, you won’t."

You closed your eyes as the two men fell silent, giving you a moment to work through everything. You ended the call, rubbing your hands over your chin before pressing your face into your palms to just breathe.

Your emotions were all over the place and you had no idea what to think or feel for the longest moment. In the end you texted Peony 'give me some time' and shoved your phone under your couch cushions.

You did not sleep that night, staying awake until the first hint of dawn, staring out across a city you had been protecting for years with Peony at your side. Your friend, your companion, your partner.

And then Endless had shown up. The exciting villain who had shaken your world up in the best of ways for months. Who had made you stop worrying about that damn ring on your finger.

A ring that was no longer needed because of them. You had no idea where that ring was now, but you didn’t want it back either. You never wanted to see the damn thing ever again.

In the end you called your mentor and, as so many other times, laid your troubled heart at her feet.

"That’s a right mess, kid," she said with sympathy and you couldn’t help but snort before, at long last, you found yourself crying. Pent up stress and relief and confusion all poured out in a mess of tears. "There, there, let it all out." And quieter, so you barely heard her, "Maybe I should go rogue and kill that asshole in jail after all."

And then you were laugh-crying and when you calmed down again, you did feel better.

"I’d say let them grovel a while," your mentor said. "If you think you can ever trust them again."

Could you? You wanted to, you realized as you ended the call and sat curled up on your couch, watching as the city came alive the more the sun rose. You wanted to trust them, because…because they made your life better, both of them. Meeting them had brought so much good into your life.

But you couldn’t forget the betrayal and being pinned to the floor. The panic as your ring got stripped away, your pleas ignored. 

You understood why they had done it, considering the nature of the curse. But the mind and the heart were two different beasts and you were in the very fortunate position that neither of them seemed to be able to come to a proper decision.

So you puttered around for a few days, mulling things over until you realized you were just turning in circles. So you called Peony again after staring at your dirty dishes for a long moment, mind far away. He picked up and from the voice in the background that immediately became easily audible when you were put on speaker, Endless was with him.

Despite all the things you wanted to ask and say, somehow the first thing out of your mouth was, "How do you two know each other?" 

Peony huffed softly, "We’re childhood friends, actually. I always knew he was Endless and he always knew I was Peony. I, uh, I was the reason he switched cities in the first place. I had some trouble that he helped me with. Civilian trouble," he added quickly and you felt an unexpected, fresh stab of hurt fade again.

It was Society policy to not share your private lives with each other when you hadn’t been told each others identities. You had always made sure to respect that, never prying and not commenting on slip-ups from Peony or yourself.

"After helping my friend out I didn’t want to go back to Imperia," Endless added. "It was easier to establish myself here than go through the hassle of clearing my old territory from the rabble. And, well, Imperia didn’t have you either."

You had no idea what to say, so you changed the subject. "Why were we in the same hospital room, Peony?"

"You don’t remember? My mask got eaten by the void," he said and it took you a moment to recall, that, oh, yeah, he was right. Your memory was a little blurry, especially with how fast it had all happened. "Along with half my outfit. Any longer in there and I probably would have lost some pieces of me too."

Endless was audibly grimacing when he added, "I tried to negate the damage as much as I could, but the void really, really doesn’t like anything that’s not me."

That didn’t surprise you. Every brush of the void during fights had told you as much, even though you had trusted that Endless wouldn’t use it against you.

"Was my mask still in place?" you asked, because the nurses would not have unmasked you without your permission, no matter if your partner had shown you his face or not. Both men made a low, unhappy sound.

"The glue we used apparently couldn’t withstand the amount of power you put out in order to make that dragon," Peony explained. You blinked in surprise, you hadn’t even noticed that. "Which, by the way, what the fuck? I didn’t know you could do that."

"Neither could I," you admitted after a moment. "Having no empathy meant I didn’t care about you or myself."

Peony’s mirth noticeably fell away. "I can’t tell you how sorry I am. About ambushing you and making you think we betrayed you. We tried to come up with so many different ways to get that ring without you catching on, but you always guarded it like your life depended on it. Which, knowing what we know now, it actually did."

His words gave you pause. "Wait, what?"

"Oh, you didn’t notice?" Peony sounded surprised. "My frie- I mean, I stole your gloves on multiple occasions, but you always had backups. I tried to 'stumble' into you a couple of times if they got damaged in fights too when Endless was nearby to try and yank the ring off. Endless tried to tug them off too."

"I also tried to remove them with my powers, but that was too finicky while we fought," Endless admitted. "I’m not really good at that delicate stuff when it comes to my powers. It takes so much concentration that I usually just get a headache."

You stared at the opposite wall and the framed artwork on the wall, baffled and unsure what to say. All this time you had thought that you had just forgotten your gloves, especially since they always turned back up. You had thought Peony had just been tired or injured whenever he had tripped and you had adjusted to catch him.

"I couldn’t invite you out to drinks either or I would have gotten you wasted enough to let me pull the ring off," Peony added after a moment. "Which would still have been a major asshole move, I know that, believe me. You were always very firm on not telling each other who we were, so that plan would have never worked."

"And I didn’t want to ask you out knowing I was going to do…that," Endless said, voice lowered and laced with a quiet sort of ache. "Doesn’t matter that I have no chances now, I never wanted to taint whatever we had that way."

You struggled with finding your voice for a couple of seconds, Peony and Endless waiting patiently for you to speak again.

"Why didn’t you trick me sooner?" you asked and they were silent for a long moment.

"I like you, you know," Peony said at last, his voice heavy. "As does Endless."

"More than that, really," Endless added so quietly you almost hadn’t heard him. You suspected he actually hadn’t meant to be heard by you at all.

Peony continued, "We care about you and the more we did, the more we hesitated. It became harder to go through with it the longer we waited."

You slumped back against your couch, feeling conflicted all over again. 

"I’m truly so very sorry," Endless said softly. "If you are willing to let me I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

"As will I," Peony said firmly. "But if you never want to see us again, one word is enough and we’ll vanish from your life."

"We’d still see each other during seminars and Society meetings," you found yourself pointing out and Peony hesitated in a way that made you frown and sit up. "What?"

"I would leave the Society," Peony said. "I’ve wanted to go independent for a while now, so I plan on going somewhere else to open my own office. Just, uh, just so you know, you’d be welcome as my partner. If you want."

Independent hero offices existed everywhere, they worked together with the Society and the government as well as companies. They could be quite successful if done well and you didn’t doubt that Peony was quite capable. He’d make it work.

Peony hesitantly added, "In all honesty, I think I’ll go independent regardless. I’ve been a bit unhappy with working for the Society for a while now."

The Society wasn’t perfect, that was true, and you could admit that the idea of being your own boss was an unexpectedly interesting and, well, rather tempting. You would have said yes, you realized, before this entire mess with the ring.

A part of you still wanted to say yes.

As you tipped your head back to stare up at the ceiling, you came to a decision. You had no idea if you would regret it, but it felt like you’d regret it more if you just…gave up. Ran away. You shifted your fingers to press your thumb of the same hand against the spot where the ring used to sit.

"No more secrets," you said at last. A high demand in your field of work. Secrecy was a big part of the business, both for villains and heroes.

"Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you," Endless said without an ounce of hesitation.

"Aren’t you scared I’m going to use that against you?" You couldn’t help but ask, pushing just a little, because if he told you everything you wanted to know you could easily sell him out to the Society.

"You are a truly good person," Endless answered, voice firm and once again without a hint of hesitation. "And should you decide to betray me in the end in answer for my transgressions, I will only bow my head and call it fair."

He sounded like he meant it. 

"Why don’t I start," Peony said and you heard the careful hope in his voice, could imagine the little smile that curled in the corner of his mouth. Like a small flower yearning to bloom. "Hello Imagination, you know me as Peony, but my real name is Florent Quill and I visit hospitals and nursery homes in my free time to leave bouquets for the people there."

That was so very Peony. Florent. You turned the name over in your mind and found it fitting.

"And my name is Ashton Bach," Endless answered, a smile audible in his voice. "At your service. I’m not nearly as nice as Flori, but I do enjoy making share holders and PR teams panic over stocks on the weekends. But I think you already knew that. Oh, I have a cat, Powder, she’s very sweet."

You found yourself smiling a little at his description and the way his voice grew fond and warm.

"Also, I’m deathly allergic to peanuts," Ashton added. "And I cry every single time I watch Pride and Prejudice."

"I can attest to that," Florent answered dryly and Ashton barked out a brief laugh, raspy and brightly amused.

You curled up against your couch, hiding a smile against your knees. You were still quite upset, deep down, but something about this conversation eased your heart a little. Took away some of the ache and that unsure uneasiness that you felt around them.

"Anything else you want to know?" Ashton asked.

"Not now," you said and hesitated. "But maybe we can talk again later?"

"Anytime you want," Florent promised. "We’ll be here."

You said your goodbyes and hung up and slumped sideways into the pillows. You felt better and even hesitantly hopeful. You fiddled with your phone and wondered if rebuilding trust was that easy. 

*.*.*

It was not that easy, not at all, but slowly, with every conversation you felt less hurt, less backstabbed, less unsure. You knew that they had only wanted to help, but sometimes you woke up from a nightmare where you got the ring ripped away, frantically searching for it. It always took you a moment to remember that you didn’t need it anymore.

Sometimes you dreamed of tearing them apart and it didn’t matter. Not even in the nightmares where you died too along with them. A lack of empathy meant a lack of…anything, really. Anything that mattered, that made you human and kind and stupid and passionate and lazy and all the things that made up this existence on earth.

You had hard conversations with them and it helped that they never shied away from you when you allowed some of the hurt to bubble to the surface. You still hadn’t seen either of them, but bit by bit you allowed your closed off heart to open up again.

And before you knew it, you were ready to return to active duty.

"Don’t worry, I’m taking time off," Florent had reassured you. "You won’t have to see me until you’re ready."

It felt weird to return to work alone and changed. To no longer need the intently protected gloves and to walk the streets with only some occasional fights against a handful villains who wanted to test their mettle against you.

You used your powers faster than before, imagination leaping to your fingertips, eager and hardier and bigger than before. You created things quicker than ever and every creature was just a tad more dangerous than before.

Florent and Ashton did stay away like they had promised. And as one week turned to two, then three, you noticed their absence more and more. The break room remained empty, no friend and colleague there to greet you with smiles and flowers. No powerful and genuinely fun to fight villain seeking you out and handing over the off-switch for the world for a little while at the same time.

No warm hugs and friendly nudges, no promisingly lowered voices and excited grins, no flower crowns on your head and no murmured words that were promise and flattery all at once. 

You ended up calling your therapist and you had a long, tough session. When you left, your eyes were swollen from crying, but you felt like you could breathe properly for the first time in far too long. Your mind and heart felt blown clear at long last and you knew what you wanted.

"Hey," you said when you called Florent, the call getting picked up nearly immediately. Ashton was present too today, he wasn’t always, but often enough that calling Florent first was just easier. "Let’s meet."

*.*.*

Seeing Florent and Ashton again, entirely out of costume, was a little strange, but you were glad to see their faces. They smiled at you and Ashton’s faintly glowing eyes were soft and hopeful, never once straying from you.

A small flower bouquet laid on the table of the café, all your favorites rolled up in pretty paper.

"Hey," Florent said, the faintest of nervous undertones to his voice. "It’s good to see you."

You sat down across from them and realized that seeing them out of costume helped. You were still rather more nervous than you had expected, but the hurt was only a quiet ache now, no longer the fresh, bleeding stab that it had been previously.

"I still want to say sorry again," Florent admitted with an apologetic smile. You had told him to stop apologizing after the sixth time and you pinned him with a look.

"I heard you," you said. "I just…needed some time."

"You are entitled to that and more," Ashton agreed easily and waved over a waitress. "Order whatever you like, it’s on me."

"On you or the businesses you like to rob?" you couldn’t help but ask and his grin got delighted, his eyes going a bit sharper, a bit more intense like they did when you fought.

For a brief moment you wondered what battling him felt like now with your powers having grown fiercer. You wondered how far you could push, how little you’d have to hold back with Ashton. If you’d have to worry about actually hurting him at all when you fought him or if he’d meet you every step of the way.

Florent just sighed in fond amusement. "Don’t get him started," he said in a conspiratorial tone, though he didn’t bother to lower his voice. "He is quite passionate about that topic."

"They are just so stupid," Ashton said as though he couldn’t help himself. "And quite awful, really. Besides, I don’t touch the businesses that are actually good to their employees, you know."

You did know. You knew more about both Ashton and Florent than ever before now. The waitress arrived and you ordered and she left with a smile and brisk steps.

There was a beat of silence, before Ashton leaned forward and asked, "Have you seen the newest announcement for Janet’s books?"

You couldn’t help but light up, as did Florent and before you knew it, you were deeply in a discussion about your favorite book series. A book series Ashton and Florent were big fans off as well. And now those books were supposed to become a TV show and it was rather exciting.

Your conversation moved naturally without much issue at all, rolling from topic to topic as you ate and drank. You laughed and smiled and before you knew it, Florent excused himself.

"I’ll be meeting up with my mum in ten minutes," he said regretfully. "I’ll see you soon?"

"Yeah." You found yourself smiling up at him, then hesitated and you bumped your shoe lightly against his. "Come back to work, alright?"

His face lit up, relief and something warm and bright making him look as happy as you had ever seen him. "I will. And just so you know, the offer of partnering up still stands if that’s something you can see yourself doing." He glanced at his phone when it pinged and winced. "Shit, she said she arrived early. Please excuse me."

He briefly touched Ashton’s shoulder as he got up, sent you another smile and hurried out of the café.

"Want to go for a walk?" Ashton offered, gesturing at the good, if a bit cold weather outside. "We could talk more privately if you want."

You considered the offer, then nodded. Ashton paid and left a generous tip, before you got up. You made sure to take the flowers along and you soon found yourself walking through the nearby park with your former nemesis. Or maybe still nemesis? You weren’t quite sure what the two of you were now.

"You know, I still want to apologize too," Ashton said, looking ahead, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. "I know it sounds like I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I just can’t forget the way you looked at me."

Your light mood turned serious and you looked ahead yourself, watching some teenagers jostle each other, laughing at whatever one was showing the other on her phone.

"I wish you would have done it sooner," you found yourself saying at last. "Before I got so attached. Maybe then it would have been easier."

He winced. "Yeah, you’re probably right. I just…" He hesitated, then sighed and his shoulders slumped a little. He smiled a little as though he couldn’t help himself and it was the softest smile you had ever seen. "I think you don’t know how amazing it is to fight you. How you light up when you get to cut loose a little or how little you are afraid of my powers. You never were. Most people run away the second they get close to the void."

He huffed a soft noise, amused and so warm it made the slight chill of the early autumn air disappear. "And then I got you to talk to me, to banter with me. You’re so quick on your feet and you are so damn funny." His small smile faded. "But you are right. In my desire to hold on to those moments for just a little bit longer I ended up hurting you worse."

He tipped his head to look at you, those faintly glowing eyes serious. "I’m usually a pretty selfish person and petty as fuck too, but I messed up here. I shouldn’t have let my feelings get in the way." 

He looked ahead, a wry twist to his mouth. "When I realized what you meant to me, I knew I’d never get to be close to you again if I went through with our plan. That I’d never get to talk with you like that again."

You fiddled with your phone in your pocket, shifting your other hand to once again press your thumb against the spot where the ring used to be.

"I don’t want you to stop," you found yourself saying quietly. Ashton beside you jolted, his surprised gaze meeting yours. Hope made his eyes a little brighter, even as he visibly tried to reign himself in.

"Are you sure?" he asked softly. "I will respect your choices, no matter what." His expression turned hard as he looked away, his shoulders tensing and hunching a little, making him appear smaller. "I will never again ignore what you say."

You looked ahead and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly.

"If this is going to work, we’re going to couples therapy," you said and you heard the sharp breath he took. This time his hope was almost painful to look at.

"Of course," he said. "I’ve been seeing my therapist about this mess myself. Do you have a couple’s therapist in mind? Or should we go to one of ours?"

You mulled that over. "Let’s try ours first, if they agree," you said. "If that doesn’t work, we’ll look for someone specialized."

Ashton nodded with an open, still so very hopeful smile. You noticed the way he pulled his hand out of his pocket, as though he was about to reach out, when he immediately pulled back again. Without much thought, you offered your own hand, not looking at him.

His skin was warm and his palm and fingers calloused when he took your hand as though it was the most precious thing in the world. It made your chest both feel tight and too full.

"Can I still flirt?" he asked after a moment of silence and you found yourself laughing briefly, softly.

"Don’t you dare not to."

"Nicknames?" Ashton asked, that excited, wild-edged smile appearing on his face as he shuffled a step closer to you, still holding your hand so very gently.

"Let’s hear it," you said, unable to stop yourself from smiling back.

He lit up as though he had waited for this moment for ages. "Darling Treasure, brilliant Menace, amazing Foe, my lovely Nemesis -"

You couldn’t help but laugh and duck your head at the same time, flattered and flustered. "Those are just compliments."

He leaned forward a bit to meet your gaze, that wild smile looking downright, well, downright goddamn besotted. "Maybe," he said. "But they’re all true to me."

You had no idea what to say, but whatever expression was on your face, he seemed quite happy about it.

"So, darling Nemesis," he said, that wild-edged smile still on his face even as his voice turned soft and low, the way it used to during your most exciting fights when he’d murmur right by your ear. "Will you let me take you out to dinner?"

You looked up at him and your smile took on a teasing note. "Should I?"

His smile grew into a grin, eyes glowing just a little brighter. "I’d say so. I could take you somewhere cozy and private or fancy and expensive. I do have company money to spend." His grin got a little toothy at those words. "Or I can go and cook you something, set up my little backyard with fairy lights and flowers and in the end we’ll still eat on the couch because Powder will trap one of us the second we dare to sit down inside."

You felt yourself softening. "I haven’t had a good home cooked meal in forever," you said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. His hand shifted, his fingers interlacing with yours. 

For once you didn’t need a reminder that the ring was gone and no longer needed, not when his skin pressed warm against yours, his hold secure. There was no space for dinged, cold iron.

"Then I better do my best," he said softly. "Maybe I’ll even get you to fall in love with me one of these days."

You didn’t tell him that you were halfway in love with him already. That you had been for months and that, once you had worked through a large part of the emotions of the ring incident, those feelings had slowly, gently, bubbled to the surface again.

"Maybe it won’t take as much effort as you think to get there," you said and when you glanced at him, his expression was so open it almost hurt to look at.

"Darling Nemesis," he said, quiet and reverent and so very lovingly. "You are truly the brightest, most amazing person I ever met." He reached up with his free hand and you realized you had stopped walking. His fingertips brushed your cheek, leaving streaks of warmth behind.

"My perfect nemesis," he whispered. "If only you knew how brightly you shine in my eyes."

And when you tugged him a little closer, shifting up to meet him, he pressed a warm, smiling kiss against your cheek. Maybe not everything was perfect, you certainly had some shit to work through together, but you knew you could do it.

His hand was gentle, his touch loving, his fingers elegant and strong between yours and you smiled at the lack of rings you felt, the warmth that was there instead.

Yeah, things were going to be just fine.

*

Taglist:

@permanentlydepressedpigeon @thesaltofcarthage @those-damn-snippets

[necroromantics]

🧺 —Laundry And Taxes

chapter 6. // (masterlist)

Toby woke up the next morning to a distant sound of something sizzling coming from the kitchen, accompanied by the song of the wildlife outside of his window. It was a cloudy day, the bright blue skies were hidden behind a sheet of gray. On these days, Toby had a particularly difficult time dragging himself out of bed. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, and he didn’t want to do anything. The boys tired, heavy eyes stared up at the ceiling. There was water damage which stained along the edges - it reminded him of the motel room back in Alabama. Toby caught himself toying with the idea of his past again, as if there was a secret to getting back to how everything used to be that was dangling in front of him. It taunted him like a piece of fresh meat to a hungry dog. His body slowly raised to a sitting position on his ragged and torn mattress, as he forced himself out of bed. As he shuffled out of his room, he felt as though there were weights tied to him, dragging him down.

The boy lingered outside of the kitchen, watching Jack as he cooked eggs on the stove. The smell filled the air of the open room, making Toby’s stomach growl as he breathed it in.

“I don’t have any bacon, so I hope you’re fine with only eggs and toast,” Jack spoke, without once looking up from his handiwork cooking slowly on the pan.

“No bacon for breakfast? You’re a freak of nature,” Toby teased back, making his way to the fridge to see what there was to drink. As there was no working power in the cabin, everything was cooled with ice. The way Jack lived was something very familiar to Toby. His small, old, isolated cabin in the woods felt more like home to the boy than when he was in the house he was raised in.

“No bacon. I don’t eat meat.”

“That's ironic,” Toby chuckled to himself, taking out a jug of milk and glancing over to the other. Guilt dripped down Jack's face as thick as tar, it screamed out from his dark brown eyes. It looked as though it was choking him. Toby couldn’t help but stare, before he realized. That guilt, the sickness Jack felt when he ate meat, the fact he couldn’t even bring himself to cook bacon for breakfast, or be around other humans, because of what he had done. All of those things, the guttural remorse, were exactly what made Jack so human, even when he was a monster, and it was everything Toby himself had lacked.

Toby had never felt bad for the things he had done, he never cared about anybody but himself. Nothing mattered to him, not even himself. It was a dog eat dog world, every man for himself. Toby had no intention of letting himself be as weak as to care about such unimportant things. If anything, Jack’s guilt was only a hindrance. It annoyed Toby, almost to the point of rage. ‘Bacon tastes good’, Toby thought to himself, ‘I’m not going to change my diet just because Jack is a pussy’.

Toby poured the milk into a glass, watching Jack finish the last of the eggs. Sunny side up, two slices of toast on the side. No bacon.

“So what? Are you vegetarian now? No meat at all, or just bacon?”

“Yes, I’m sticking to a vegetarian diet now. I can’t bring myself to eat any kinds of meat.”

“I heard human flesh tastes like chicken. Does bacon have the same kick or what?”

Jack ignored the question as he placed the sizzling eggs onto the plate next to him, and handed it to the pestering boy. The man took his own plate and left to eat on the front porch. Toby followed behind him, walking out into the cool open air of autumn. The two sat in silence as they ate their meals. It was a calm, still, sort of silence. Jack was always a quiet man, he never dared to say too much.

“You lucked out with this cabin,” Toby spoke through a full mouth as he gulped down his breakfast. Jack nodded in agreement.

“Back home, yknow in the other world, I had a cabin like this. I uh, I actually shared it with Natalie. Sort of,” The boy rambled to himself, as Jack sat silent looking at Toby, who always seemed to struggle to find the words he wanted to speak.

“Do you miss her?” Jack finally said, after a moment of watching the other pathetically grasp at an excuse to talk about the girl.

“Nat? Why would I miss her? She was a bitch.”

“I thought you two were friends, no?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. That's why we shared a cabin, it was our place to meet up,” Toby smiled to himself as words began to fall from his mouth, “I remember all the times she’d get pissed at me, or I’d get pissed at her, and we’d start going nuts. Throwing things, breaking glass. Man I can’t fucking count how many holes in the wall from my hatchets there were in that cabin. And don’t get me started on all the times she’d storm out, and I’d see her again the next day. Talk about crazy.”

“I’m sure you’ll see her again someday, Toby.”

“I hope not.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at the boy's rejection. He could tell that the girl was important to him, he saw the way his face beamed when he thought about her, he saw the way his body eased away from the tension he always held onto so tightly. The sun had never shone so brightly.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was cool. But it would just be awkward, and I don’t think she wants anything to do with me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know man. I guess it’s like… She spent so long trying to get away from me. It felt like every time I saw her, it ended with me angry, and her leaving. If she is in this world, I can only picture her happy alone.”

Jack was easy to talk to. He was an active listener of sorts, he was the type of person who never judged or shamed. Someone to trust, something solid to lean on. Toby found solace in the company of the man, a type of friendship he had never known. The monster man and the feral mutt. It was a running joke in the old world that Jack was Toby’s babysitter, and everybody would tease and ask how Jack could tolerate that troublemaker like he did. Only Jack saw the moments in the boy when the violence dripped away, and humanity seeped out from the callouses in his aching hands, and ducts of his desensitized eyes. The man kept this image of the reckless, callous boy in his mind, so close to his heart, it always shocked him when he heard the boy speak about himself as if he weren’t anything but a weapon. Because Jack knew, more than anyone, that humanity was found on mornings like these, while listening to a boy like Toby talk about a girl with his thumbs twiddling, and his eyes fixed to the ground. That image of Toby sitting there, cracking his chest open to the one person he could ever begin to trust, scrambling to find the right words to describe how it feels. That, to Jack, was what it meant to be human.

Later in the afternoon, Jack had decided to take Toby along on a walk. He said there was a place deep in the woods that he wanted to show him. Without having anything better to do, Toby followed closely behind the man as he led the boy through a hidden path winding between the tall trees that stood over them. The cloudy skies had begun to part, revealing a soft blue from behind the gray blanket, and a bright light peeked out, gleaming through the ceiling of orange and yellow autumn leaves that branched overhead. The overgrowth cracked and crinkled beneath their feet as the two continued through the nature, taking in all of the earth's beauty.

As the two men walked along the dirt path, Toby found himself picking at the tall evergreen trees that mixed in with the oak. When Jack questioned him about it, Toby shook his head.

“Natalie hated flowers mostly. But I remembered how much she loved evergreen trees. She always smelt like pine needles.”

He picked off another needle and flicked it onto the ground as he walked past, jogging ahead of Jack.

“I hated the smell,” Toby insisted as he shoved his hands into his sweater pocket.

Jack quickened his pace to catch up with the boy who was now huffing to himself in disdain. It seemed as though the more time that had passed, the more thoughts of that cruel girl filled the boy's mind. He wished to be able to forget about her, and he didn’t understand why.

“Do you still carry your hatchets with you?” Jack questioned.

Toby slowed down, glancing awkwardly over at the other like a bad dog.

“Uh, just one, why?”

“Why don’t you come out here some day and chop wood for the stove? You can put your skills to use.”

The boy thought about it for a moment. He had rarely ever used his hatchets for their intended purpose back home, he knew how to split skulls, not wood.

“I guess if I need to. But I’m trying to keep it sharp in case I need to… Yknow,” Toby said, dragging his thumb over his throat in a slitting motion and grimacing.

“Why would you need to kill anybody here?”

“You never know!”

Toby ran off ahead, hitting at tree leaves as he hopped along the path, occasionally glancing back to make sure Jack was keeping up. He would jump onto fallen logs, and climb branches. He seemed to have much more energy than he had in the morning, and much more restless. Jack smiled to himself at the sight of the boy carelessly fooling around in the woods, it was a nice sight to see. A teenage boy being something more than a cold-hearted weapon. It seemed as though, for a moment, Toby had reclaimed his innocence.

Jack led Toby off the path, and through untouched land, pushing past the growth and out into an open field. The two stood on top of a large, towering cliff which looked out over a twisting valley. The brilliant warmth of the sun beamed down, the skies were now clear and blue, the fall trees swayed gently. The wide green earth sprawled from the tall hill the men looked out from. It was magnificent, beautiful. Standing there on that peak, everything beyond seemed so small. They were on top of the world. The forest below lived on with orange and yellow hues, like a sea of rust. The sky appeared endless as it draped overhead.

For a moment, as he stared out at all of the grand radiance, Toby lost his breath. The colors were vibrant, and the sounds of the wildlife around him sang symphonies of nature. He had never witnessed anything like it before. The forest back in the old world was dim, dark, devoid of animation. He resided for so long in a place where life was something to be taken, and as he stood out over the sea of mother earth, in all of her vast entirety, he felt his chest sink into his stomach.

He took a deep breath in of the crisp, clean air. A light breeze swayed past him. And in one sharp exhale, Toby hollered out, and threw his arms up. He stood there, atop the hill, laughing and shouting out in victory. He looked over at Jack with a big smile plastered on his face, and Jack smiled back. There was a fire in his eyes, and he was so young. Toby grabbed Jack’s arm, and lifted it up with his, as he continued to shout out. Soon, Jack joined him.

The pair screamed their lungs raw as they laughed at the beauty beyond them. On that late afternoon, in the midst of that forest, on top of that hill, they were alive. It was horrific, and it was painful, and it was terrible, but they were alive, and they were more human than they had ever been before.

Finally losing his breath, Toby fell back, and laid chuckling to himself through heavy inhales and exhales, his back pressing into the meadow beneath him. Jack quickly joined him, and took a seat next to the boy, both catching their spent breath, smiling widely to themselves.

“That… That’s how I want to feel, every day of my life,” Toby panted.

“It’s wonderful.”

“I just need to work harder, do more. I think I’ll take your advice and put my hatchet skills to use.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Jack said, smiling to himself that for once, Toby had actually listened to the words Jack so often preached.

A few days had passed, and October had come rushing in. Toby had begun going off on his own for hours on end. Jack never knew what the boy was up to, and he knew better than to ask. The man always did his best not to push Toby too much, worried that he might push back harder if he did. But there were nights when the boy would stumble back into the cabin, dirt crusting his jeans, and his eyes fixed into a glare. Jack would always warn the careless other not to push his body past its limits. Toby never listened.

“Be careful not to overwork yourself, Toby.”

“Hop off my ass.”

Toby pushed past the man, and placed his hatchet down onto the kitchen table. His hands were calloused, dirty. He never brought back wood.

“You need to let yourself rest at some point,” Jack suggested, looming over Toby.

“No, I need to work harder. I need to do more. Make all of this shit amount to something.”

“You talk like you’re fighting for a badge that says you deserve to live. You do not need to earn your place in this world, Toby. You’re going to hurt yourself pushing your body like this.”

Toby slammed his hands onto the surface of the table as he turned around to face the man standing behind him.

“I don’t give a fuck what happens to me, Jack. I don’t care if I’m overworking myself, I don’t care if I’m pushing myself too far. Get it through your thick fucking skull that I don’t care!”

Toby gritted his teeth and dusted the mud off of his clothes, before heading off into his room. There was a deep feeling of indifference to his existence, as if he had done far too much to have a place in the world. He was left with no choice but to continue fighting. If he couldn’t do that much, then what was to become of him? He couldn’t let that flame expire, he was hungry for revenge, to prove everyone wrong. He wanted to prove that he, too, deserved a spot in the colosseum of the living.

Jack couldn’t seem to get it through to the stubborn boy that he didn’t need to destroy himself to live. He couldn’t get him to relax. There was lightning in his eyes, it sparked from his tongue as he shouted, and it was in Jack’s best interest to stay out of his way.

The next morning, Toby stood out at the edge of the forest, swinging at a log, as Jack watched from the front porch sipping a cup of tea. Despite his handiwork with his hatchet, and how he gripped it as if he knew what he was doing, Toby couldn’t seem to chop wood in any way that worked. It felt sloppy, like he was missing the mark. Shouting out in frustration, Toby threw his hatchet down to the ground and kicked at the log, which prompted Jack to stand up, and walk over to the temperamental boy.

“You said I had skill! I can’t even fucking chop this log in half,” The boy complained.

“What do you envision when you swing your hatchet down?”

“Well I just go at it like I’m chopping off some heads.”

“There’s your issue, Toby. This is wood, not a neck. Different situations require different responses. You have a lot of skill with that hatchet of yours, but you use it as a weapon, not as a tool.”

Jack bent down, picking up the tool off the ground and handed it back to Toby who had anger worn on his face like a party mask.

“Try again.”

Toby glared daggers at Jack as he reeled back his hatchet as far as he could, before throwing it hard at a tree, and past Jack. There was a loud thud as it hit the bark, sticking out from the oak. Toby mouthed off silently at Jack as he kicked dirt and stormed off into the forest. Jack sighed to himself at the difficult situation, and went to pull out the tool which was lodged into a tree behind him.

Mid October had soon rolled in, and the woods had now turned into a decaying orange rust, leaves had begun to pile up onto the forest grounds. The nights had gotten longer, and Toby’s attitude and defiance hadn’t seemed to improve. He had begun to get restless, often attempting to start petty disputes with Jack, in which Jack never bothered to entertain. The man was very collected and calm, he never lost control over himself. It was a skill he had learnt as a demon, in all those fights against himself. Toby, on the other hand, often lost himself to dramatics and pride. Everything was a battle to him, and he needed to come out on top.

Toby had returned back late into the evening, as he typically did. Jack was standing in the kitchen, reading silently to himself, the light of candles illuminating the dark cabin. It was a quiet night.

Not looking up from his book he was immersed in, Jack took a breath in, smelling a strange fragrance. He felt sick to his stomach as the putrid, metallic scent strangled his nostrils. Lifting his head up towards the smell, he watched as Toby dropped a dead rabbit at his feet. The two stood silently, both looking down at the carcass which Toby had brought home, the blood of the animal staining his hands. The boy eyed the man's expression, which showed nothing but indifference. Jack remained quiet.

“Just thought I’d bring home some supper,” Toby spoke out, nudging the animal with his muddy shoe.

Jack looked up at the boy, before turning back to his book.

“You shouldn’t make messes that you aren’t willing to clean up,” Jack responded softly, flipping through the pages to find where he had left off.

Frustrated at the lack of response once again, Toby rolled his eyes and left for his bedroom, hatchet gripped in his bloody hand.

Once the boy had made his leave, Jack exhaled deeply, as if he had been holding his breath. He looked down at the decaying corpse at his feet once more, before picking it up by the ears, and bringing it outside. Jack placed it under a tall oak tree that stood on the edge of the forest surrounding his cabin, letting nature take care of the rabbit. He entered back into the house, and washed off his hands, before heading to Toby’s room. He knocked gently on the door, waiting for approval that it was alright to come in. There was only the sound of awkward shuffling for a moment.

“Come in,” Toby called out, prompting Jack to open the door, closing it behind him.

“Tomorrow I’m going into a nearby town. We need more ice, and food.”

“Get some more orange juice, maybe some peaches,” Toby requested as he laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“You should come with me. We can stop by a local church,” Jack suggested, making Toby groan and sit up.

“Church? Seriously? Why the fuck would you of all people want to go to church?”

“Because, Toby, sometimes people need something bigger than themselves to look towards.”

“And that's supposed to make us feel better? Some random fucker in the sky saying we need to kiss his ass in order to be free of everything we don’t feel like carrying?”

“I’m not asking you to devote yourself, but it does help act as a guidance. To help you understand that you can let everything go, with no strings attached. You can give back what you’ve taken, and make your peace with the world.”

“Maybe try asking the world to make peace with me first,” Toby muttered to himself as he ran one of his hands over his other one, the rabbit's blood still stained into his skin.

“God can forgive you for the sins you’ve committed.”

Jack was never a religious man. He was brought to church every Sunday as a child, which ended up with him in college, where he wouldn’t have touched a Bible even if asked to. But Jack spent so much time alone, bastardized, demonized, he knew nothing else but to cling to the idea of retribution and begging to a God he was terrified of. He had spent too much time as a not-man who couldn’t kneel in church.

“I can’t imagine anyone would forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“I do. I forgive you,” Jack said. Toby scoffed.

“Don’t bother.”

The air grew heavy with tension. The fire and the deep sea.

“I know what it’s like to kill somebody, Toby. I know how heavy that burden is.”

“You don’t know shit,” Toby lowered his voice, his eyes darkened. Something of a warning for Jack to watch his mouth.

“It seems we always come back to these pointless conversations,” Jack sighed.

“Yeah? Well maybe say something useful. Preach some bullshit that actually fucking helps me for once.”

“You know, Toby. There is nothing I can say to help you. I realize that now.”

Toby’s chest tightened, he stood up face to face with Jack, his brow furrowed.

“You gonna just drop me off somewhere else like Tim and Brian did now too?”

“That’s not what I’m saying-”

“Oh really? No, you’re just saying that I’m helpless, right? That nothing is going to ever get better? Is… Is any of this ever going to go away?” Toby’s voice cracked as he choked back all the things he wanted to shout out.

“There is no big epiphany or deep conversations that can fix this for you. You need to take steps every day to learn how to do better for yourself, and I can’t take those steps for you, and I can’t make you do anything. I wish you would help yourself, but I see you make the choice every day to ruin yourself.”

“I don’t know how to fucking help myself!”

“You learn.”

“I’m sick of learning and I’m sick of this and I’m sick of you. I should’ve left as soon as I got here,” Toby spoke loudly, grabbing all of his things scattered around his room, and packing them into his backpack. Jack watched as the boy desperately grasped at straws. He knew better than anybody that he couldn’t save Toby, that he could only watch as he crashed and burned. There was nothing anyone could do for him, but gather around and look up to the sky as they watched his wax wings melt. Dread built in Jack’s weary heart. The terrible sight, seeing the beeswax drip away, as Toby recklessly disregarded his own limits, and the limits of everyone around him. He pushed and pushed, and Jack had no choice but to witness Toby wear himself down.

Throwing his backpack over his shoulder, he pushed past Jack, sniffling to himself as he held his hatchet tightly in his hand. Without another word, the furious boy stormed out of the cabin and into the night, as Jack silently watched. It was a quiet mid-October night, and the stars were dimmer than usual in the brooding dark sky. The waning crescent barely illuminated the gravel road. The silhouette of the boy was quickly engulfed by the dark abyss he walked out into.

Jack sighed to himself, once again in his lonesome company, and made his way back into his cabin. He repeated to himself that there was nothing more he could’ve done, but the guilt consumed him. His old friend had been right once again - it was his own mind that would be the death of Jack. The man climbed into his creaky, old bed, and tried not to think too much. He prayed for the first time in a long time that night.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Fictober 2024

Day 7: Follow Me If You Want to Live 

“I hope you aren’t expecting five-star accommodations, Mr. Allen. Maybe the dirty money you were collecting from the Candy Man would’ve let you live out the rest of your life in luxury if you’d managed to escape to the Caribbean, but it’s not going to buy you any special treatment in state prison.” 

Barry Allen wasn’t sure what the most sickly ironic part of this situation was. The fact that it had been his own beloved Iris who had brought attention to the corruption in the police department? The fact that he had been framed for bribery and tampering with evidence by the very young man he had advocated to have hired as a new police scientist? The fact that his crusade for justice as the Flash had created the absences that his crooked cohort had used to cast further suspicion on him? It was a crowded field. 

“But I—” 

“You disgust me, Allen. The only thing worse than a crook is a crook who hides behind a badge,” the guard said. Barry actually agreed with the guard’s general argument—just not that it applied to his specific case. Because, of course, he hadn’t actually committed any of the crimes of which he had been accused. 

“But I’m innocent!” The guard snorted. 

“Sure you are. So’s everyone else in here.” As the guard led Barry along what felt like a never-ending cell block, he could see various prisoners pointing at him and whispering to each other. He couldn’t hear everything that they were saying, but what he could hear left him with the distinct impression that he wasn’t especially popular amongst the prisoners who had seen his trial on the news—which, given how televised it had been, was probably most of them.

Barry swallowed hard. Maybe he should have taken the intake guards up on their offer of solitary after all. Loneliness and boredom couldn’t kill him, but getting jumped and shanked could—and there was only so much he could use his super speed without revealing his secret identity. 

Suddenly, the guard stopped short in front of one of the cells and rapped on the bars with his baton. 

“You’ve got a new cellmate, pal.” 

“Oh, boy. I’m on cloud nine to hear that, really.” Whoever was currently inhabiting the cell was too far away from the bars for Barry to really see him, but his voice definitely sounded familiar. That being said, given the sheer number of criminals he encountered either as the Flash or as police scientist Barry Allen, he imagined that there were probably quite a few convicts in state prison whose voices he would find familiar. 

“The two of you’ll get along great, I’m sure. Now stand back—and don’t try anything funny.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just don’t take all day with it. It’s drafty enough in here as is.” The convict’s voice really did sound very familiar, but frustratingly, Barry just couldn’t place it. A few seconds later, the guard unlocked the cell door and slid it open with a loud clang! 

Barry wanted to run away and never stop running, but he couldn’t. Running away at super speed would be as good as telling the whole prison population that the Scarlet Speedster was secretly perpetually-late police scientist Barry Allen, and running away at normal human speed would just get him tackled to the ground and probably sent to solitary. Instead, he took a deep breath and let the guard pull him into the cell. As soon as he was inside, the guard slid the door back into place, producing a loud screech and then another clang!, before locking the cell shut again. 

“Play nice, boys.” With that, the guard started walking back in the direction he and Barry had come from, and Barry started glancing around his cell. 

Four gray walls. One small window. A rather large pin-up of…was that Daphne Dean? It was. Barry supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to find that his cellmate had a crush on her—she was, after all, a famous and beautiful movie star–but it seemed very wrong to see the face of his childhood sweetheart in a place like this. Of course, it wasn’t any less wrong than the fact that he was in a place like—okay, bad train of thought. Focus on your surroundings. That’s less painful. 

Toilet. In a shared cell? How did that work? Did he even want to know? Probably not. Barry liked his privacy, and he was getting the sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to be having very much of it until Iris and Wally managed to prove his innocence and get him out of here.  If they ever got him out of here. No, bad train of thought. Keep your mind on the physical details of your cell. No sense in having an emotional meltdown. 

Okay, what else? Grimy sink. A surprising number of novels—all by Mark Twain, for some reason—-strewn all over the floor. One very rickety-looking bunk bed, that looked like it might collapse in the middle of the night and crush whoever was on the lower level—which, with his luck, would probably be him. 

“Not exactly the Ritz, huh, Crewcut?” At the sound of the very familiar voice, Barry snapped his eyes up to the top bunk, where a slender man with brown skin and wild black hair was lounging casually.

It was official. He had found the crowning irony in the series of cruel ironies that was apparently his life now. 

His new cellmate was the Weather Wizard. 

“You…you’re…” 

“Mark Mardon. But unless you’ve been living under a rock—which I can’t rule out, given that haircut—you probably know me as the Weather Wizard.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in maximum security?” 

“You’d think so, huh? But no, the warden says that he’s more concerned with keeping the murderers and drug dealers on lockdown than ‘a bunch of guys who play dress up’. It’s embarrassing, really. What’s the point of being a weather-controlling supervillain if nobody takes you seriously?”

 If I ever get out of here, Barry thought, I’m going to have the Flash pay the Warden a visit. If a man who can create tornadoes doesn’t warrant maximum security to keep him from escaping, what in the world does? 

“So, Crewcut, what are you in for?” 

“First of all, my name is Barry Allen, not ‘Crewcut’. And second of all, I’m innocent.” Weather Wizard laughed. 

“Almost everyone says that, Crewcut, but I’ll play along. If you’re innocent, what are you in for not doing?” Barry was almost surprised that the Weather Wizard didn’t already know. 

“Do you not watch the news?” 

“Not unless I’m on it—and I’ve been here for the past seven months. You’re my third cellmate so far.” 

“What happened to the other two?” 

“The first guy—he was a second-storyman, I think—finished his sentence and got released two weeks after I came in. The second guy—he was definitely an arms dealer for Handsome Jack Giacomo—got transferred to solitary after he made the brilliant decision to tell everyone that he had an affair with the boss’s wife. And he was lucky to even make it there—some of Giacomo’s other boys jumped him and stabbed him three times.” 

“Well, if you had watched the news, you would know that I was convicted for dealing heroin out of the back of my laboratory—I’m a police scientist for the CCPD—and for falsifying evidence on behalf of the Candy Man,” Barry said. The Weather Wizard let out a whistle. 

“Well, what do you know? You actually are innocent.” Barry looked up at him in confusion. 

“What makes you say that?” 

“Because if you weren’t innocent, you’d know better than to say you were convicted for being a corrupt cop. The only thing most of the guys in here hate more than a cop is a corrupt cop.” 

“But I’m not a police officer. I may have a badge, but I don’t make arrests.” 

“I hate to rain on your parade, Crewcut, but you work for the CCPD. That makes you a cop.” 

“But there is a difference. While I have nothing but respect for my fellow officers, I’m not a law enforcement official in the same way that they are. The requirements for being a police scientist are different from the requirements for being a police officer. For one thing, you have to have a degree in forensics in order to be a police scientist, which means earning at least a bachelor’s in the field. For another, you spend much less time out in the field—I’m not even authorized to carry a gun in most situations. You see, the primary function of a police scientist is to—” Barry was cut off by another burst of laughter from the Weather Wizard. 

“What do you think this is, Crewcut? Career Day at an elementary school? You are in prison, and the only aspect of your job anyone is going to care about is the part where you work for the CCPD. And trust me, you can’t weather the kind of storm you’ll bring if you keep running your mouth about where you used to work.” 

“Well, what do you expect me to do if someone asks me? Make something up? I’ve always believed that honesty is the best policy, so I’m not a very convincing liar,” Barry replied. It was, in fact, that very inability to lie convincingly that was partially responsible for him having been convicted in the first place. Since he couldn’t tell anyone that he was the Flash, he’d had to make up another alibi for where he had been while the crimes he had been framed for had taken place—and even he had thought that the stories he’d been forced to come up with had sounded very fake indeed.

The Weather Wizard gave Barry a funny look. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said that there was almost a fond expression on the man’s face. 

“I don’t even know if it matters if you’re a good liar or not. If somebody in the prison grapevine knows you’re in for being a corrupt cop—and trust me, somebody knows—- everyone in the prison’ll know by tomorrow morning.” 

“Well, I am supposedly on the Candy Man’s payroll. Maybe that’ll be sufficient to keep me from actually getting attacked,” Barry said. 

“You know, the sad thing is, if you were guilty, you’d probably have a point. The Candy Man looks out for his pawns, if only to make sure that they don’t testify against his operations. But since you’re innocent—well, he’s not going to waste any time trying to protect someone who’s not on his payroll,” the Weather Wizard replied. 

“To be honest, I don’t know if I could have used his name to protect myself anyway. The idea of pretending to work for a drug dealer makes me feel ill.” Weather Wizard gave Barry that strange look again. 

“How long are you supposed to be in here for?” Barry sighed wearily. 

“Ten years. The D.A. wanted to make it longer, but the judge said that because I was a first offender he would be lenient.” The Weather Wizard’s eyes went wide. 

“Ten years for a first offense is lenient? I got six months for mine!” 

“You weren’t convicted of falsifying evidence and dealing drugs in the employ of the biggest crime baron in the city,” Barry pointed out. 

“Yeah, I guess that would be a bit of a step up from going through someone’s unlocked back door, grabbing a few hundred dollars, and then tripping over a lamp and twisting your ankle. I barely managed to get out of the house before I got arrested.” Barry had known that Mark Mardon had been arrested for burglary three times before he became the Weather Wizard, but this was the first time he had heard the specific details of any of the cases. It seemed that he had been an ever more pathetic small-time crook than Barry had initially assumed. 

“How old were you?” 

“When I was arrested the first time? A lot younger than you, that’s for sure. Maybe two months past my eighteenth birthday. The news came as a real disappointment to my parents. I hadn’t contacted them since I ran away at sixteen, and I think they were hoping that I had died,” the Weather Wizard said casually. 

“You think your parents were hoping that you were dead?” Surely not. If Wally ran away, didn’t contact him or Iris for two years, and then showed up again as the result of a burglary arrest, Barry knew that he would be deeply disappointed—but also that he would be absolutely thrilled to know that Wally was at least alive and unhurt. 

“I was a lot less embarrassing to them that way. If I had been dead, they could have just forgotten that they ever had a pathetic failure of a son named Mark. Me dead would have been very convenient. But me being alive and arrested? That was a problem. It meant that they were constantly being reminded of the fact that they had a son who wasn’t a genius scientist with plans to save the world.” 

Barry had never met Dr. Clyde Mardon, but he had known of him by reputation. He really had been a genius—a prodigy who graduated from high school at seventeen and had somehow earned his doctorate in meteorology at twenty-one. His dissertation, which Barry had perused when it was published in one of the most respected meteorological journals, had been on the theoretical principles that could be used to construct a weather-controlling device, and he had barely graduated when LexCorp, Wayne Enterprises, and S.T.A.R. Labs offered to collectively fund his construction of the first prototype. 

Dr. Mardon had also, somewhat notoriously, been something of a hermit. As soon as he graduated college, he moved out to a small cabin on the isolated Big Water Lake and converted it into an observatory. It had been in that observatory that he had started his work on the prototype—and it had also been in that observatory where he had died of congenital heart failure at twenty-three. What no one had known, at least until several weeks later, was that Dr. Mardon’s prototype had been much closer to completion than anyone had thought. It had been so close to being finished, in fact, that his younger brother had been able to get it in working order merely by following the notes that he had left behind. 

Mark Mardon, a cheap crook so desperate to avoid going back to prison that he had jumped off a moving train, had gone into Dr. Mardon’s observatory and found his brother dead. When he came out of the observatory with his brother’s magnum opus, the weather wand, he had become the Weather Wizard. And Barry knew from his extensive experience as the Flash that the Weather Wizard did not like talking about his brother. 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. 

“It’s a good question. I shouldn’t be—I don’t need anyone telling the rest of the prison that the Weather Wizard used to be a two-bit wannabe burglar—but you…you remind me of him.” 

“Of who?” 

“My brother. Claudio. If you’ve heard of him—you probably have, actually, you’re a scientist just like he was—you’d know him as Dr. Clyde Mardon. He was a good man. The best one I’ve ever known. A bit of a chump—I mean, really, what did he think LexCorp was going to do once they got their hands on the wand, use it to feed starving orphans?----but a good man. He actually wanted the best for everyone, even his stupid screwup of a brother. You’ve got that same golly-gee-whiz earnestness that he had. It makes me want to smack you, but—-it’s also why I’m going to be watching your back in here.” Barry’s mouth fell open in shock. Who would have ever thought that the Weather Wizard had a sentimental streak? 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that if anyone wants to mess with you, they’ll have to go through me first. And trust me, nobody’s stupid enough to tangle with a guy who can put a tornado in their guts,” Weather Wizard replied. 

“But you barely know me!” 

And you’ve made a career out of trying to fry me with lightning, not that you know that. 

“Maybe not, but you remind me of my brother—and he died five years ago today. I figure that after I stole his wand, I owe it to him to do one good deed every once in a while. Might as well protect the first person I’ve ever met who’s as earnest and good as he was.” 

“But—” “Do I need to put this in nerd talk or something?” 

“Nerd talk?” The Weather Wizard ignored him.

“Who am I kidding? You’re like Clyde, of course I need to put it in nerd talk. So here you go, Crewcut: Follow me if you want to live.” In spite of himself, Barry actually laughed. 

Who would have ever thought that the Weather Wizard would volunteer himself to keep his greatest enemy safe? 

[uwuyangeppie]

I just had the most deranged and out of pocket thought and I need to tell someone so hear me out.

So imagine yan!Gepard right he fell in love bla bla bla ok now what if when we got kidnapped we were studying something similar to mara (oe js Mara itself) how to make someone immortal so we start to study gepard. (Yk his constellation thing that makes him be able to live again) And eventually we tell him “oh yeah I just wanted to try some stuff out on you if it’s ok” and gepard being his ol reliable self says yes and it’s basically us killing him over and over and then injecting him with like the marastrucks blood or smth to keep him alive basically using him as a test subject and by the time he realizes the truth and that we don’t actually love him we were just manipulating him into letting us use him for tests and research it’s already too late. RAAAAAAHHhHH

LOL

i actually love this idea lol but i’m not creative enough to come up with something that’s mara-like so mara it is :3

you swear to the preservation, you will get nous to gaze upon you.

haha, look. you’re speaking like them now.

truthfully, you’re not even remotely interested in the preservation. a researcher from the xianzhou-luofu, you’d run into the astral express at the same time as the mara disaster went down, and asked if they could drop you off somewhere.

you’d ended up finding about gepard landau and his special abilities, and so now you’re here, on belobog, researching. you know about mara. now you can learn about whatever gepard has going on too- it can’t just be iron will. there’s something else going on there.

you WILL find out the secrets to immortality, and nous will cast THEIR gaze upon you, and then you can join the genius society and do other genius things. you’re already accomplished in many other fields- this should be your breakthrough!

gepard is such an interesting case. you can’t help but adore him. you’ve never met a more willing test subject. as long as you keep him happy with a couple of platitudes (for example, “i love you”) and a few kisses, he’ll pretty much do whatever you want. he’s definitely not normal, but someone else will have to research that. that’s below someone who would be in the genius society.

off he goes to the killing fields! goodbye geppie! you’ll miss him! come back soon! mwah! and when he comes back, you’ll kill him then, too. he will die and die again and again, and you’ll inject him with some complicated serum mix of abundance and preservation, and wow! up he gets!

huh? no, no, it’s fine. he loves it. the ethics might be a bit questionable, but he’ll do anything if it keeps you happy, because you make him happy too.

the guards say he seems more resilient. even when he goes down, he comes back up, repeatedly, more times than he used to. oh? so is it working? you decide to give him a bit of extra love as a reward.

one day, many years after you’ve arrived on belobog, you realise he hasn’t sprouted any grey hairs. not a one. you rifle through his hair (he takes it as a sign of affection- aeons, he makes this so easy), to find that it’s all blond.

all…?

you haven’t felt nous’ gaze on you yet. perhaps you need to take the final step and inject it into yourself.

the day you plan to do it, though, goes a little haywire. you go out shopping and come back to discover gepard holding your notepad full of research notes. he looks very upset.

“what’s this, darling?”

“my notepad,” you say carefully, well aware of the strength difference between the two of you.

“yes, but what’s all these notes…?” he seems lost. you decide to help him along a little.

“i think you already know, gepard.” you drop the nickname. you’ve done what you came here to do- but the heartbroken look on his face makes you a little sad yourself.

“did it- did any of it mean anything to you?”

he goes back to the book, flipping through pages. carefully avoiding him, you slide over to a little wooden box, and take out its contents. the probably-immortality serum.

“no,” you answer calmly, sticking the needle into your arm and injecting the liquid into your body. for a moment, there’s nothing. and then, like a ray of sun-

nous has set THEIR gaze upon you.

alas, THEY’RE not they only one. gepard has also set his eyes on you, but no longer the warm ones that you’re used to. he sets his jaw, a serious frown on his face.

well, it’s nothing a genius can’t solve.

right?

[andradrawsstuff]

Third chapter of my fic ✨

Uhhhhh, this is a bit of a long one lmao but I promise the story picks up the pace a little here

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Fate is a funny thing, isn’t it?

The engine of the toy car buzzed as they sped down Jefferson Street, turning heads and almost causing a few car crashes along the way. The smell of salty sea air grew stronger the closer they drove to the shoreline. This smell was bliss to the birds. They do love fish, after all. The sky was a beautiful azure blue and the breeze was lovely in the scorching heat. Seagulls squawked and shouted profanities in the distance, circling tourists in hopes of snatching some food, and cars started to gather round the pier. They were here. They stood before pier 39 and the Aquarium of the Bay, admiring the grand infrastructure. Parking their car in the parking lot, they took up an entire slot for their miniature vehicle, which no doubt would have infuriated someone. But alas, they marched on.

“So, what exactly are we looking for, Kowalski?” Asked Private

He replied joyfully. “Uh… honestly, I’m not entirely sure!”

“You’re kidding?” Skipper chipped in.

Rico mumbled some sort of iteration of “Dear me…”

Ironically, Kowalski had spent so much time trying to find this thing, only to have no idea what it actually looks like. All he had to go off of was a tracker and some information Phil and Mason translated from the dark web in some library in Toledo. Very reliable. Either way, they made their way through the dark blue aquarium, dodging humans and trying to camouflage. They passed the bustling touchpools and entered the gallery, spotting a seemingly vacant habitat they could lay low in. Kowalski set up his tracker and attempted to figure out what it was showing.

“Are you sure that thing works properly?” Private commented.

Kowalski was offended. “Wh- of course it does! Why wouldn’t it?”

Private raised a brow. Kowalski got the message. As the two debated the efficiency of Kowalski’s inventions, Skipper noticed Rico who seemed on edge. He stepped closer, only to feel a growing presence lurking in the shadows. They exchanged a glance. Rico choked up a wooden bat and Skipper assumed a combat position. Soft, slow steps grew closer and closer, as the boys braced themselves for an ambush – the other two completely unaware and still continuing their discussion, until the shadow suddenly revealed itself.

“Hi!”

Skipper pounced onto the lurker, throwing question after question at them with such speed that they could be considered brute force.

“Hya! Yelled Skipper. “Who are you? What do you want? Who do you work for? Dave? Classified? The government of Denmark?” He aggressively interrogated and shook the lurker. “ANSWER ME, MAN!”

“WHAT? NO! WHO ARE YOU? LET ME GO, YOU ASSHAT!” Replied the figure.

The others stood in shock as they watched the events unfold in front of them. They froze, Private signalling for him to turn around. Skipper looked at the boys in confusion, still gripping the poor creature. He slowly turned to the victim in front of him, quietly scanning them. They had a long, sleek build and dark chestnut fur with an almond neck and marking on the right foot. He studied their face, attempting to profile the exact species. Front-facing eyes, round snout, pink nose and a little fang protruding from the mouth - but only one. Lutra lutra. In the grips of Skipper was a mere… Eurasian river otter. A TERRIFIED one, at that. It was Dublin all over again.

“Oh…” He painfully murmured. Skipper let go and looked back and forth at the boys, then the otter. He seemed to be re-evaluating his life choices in a flash.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, I LIVE HERE!” She yelled.

Skipper mustered up the courage to reply. “So… you’re not here to take the thingy?”

The otter was as confused as ever. “What thingy? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She panicked.

Skipper realised his mistake – he just attacked an innocent civilian.

“Shit.”

Kowalski explained that they were looking for a special “element”, keeping most details to a minimum. He showed the otter his tracker and explained what they were looking for was somewhere in this aquarium, hoping to clear up the misunderstanding. She looked confused, but offered some advice.

“Okay, I have no idea who you guys are,” She stated. “But in hopes of you leaving me alone, I will say that down the hall, there is a dolphin.” They listened intently. “A mad scientist dolphin, if you will. Your thing seems pretty sciency, so go ask that guy instead.”

“Much obliged.” Skipper awkwardly saluted.

Private apologised for his brother’s behaviour. “Sorry about Skippa,” He uttered. “He can get a little… paranoid.”

The otter rolled her eyes as they left one by one, only to chip in with a word of advice. “Oh, hey, wait up!” They paused and turned to her. “If you guys see another otter there, just be careful. He gets a little… snackish.” She urged. Ha, that won’t be a problem for the boys, though. They’re the elitest of the elite. They confidently marched on to continue their quest.

As they closed in on the entrance to the dolphin habitat, an eerie emptiness filled the atmosphere. No fish, no animals, just a tank full of dull plastic coral with paint chipping off and a hilariously fake volcano. Whoever lived here must be miserable. Despite the huge size of the tank, no one could have a good quality of life in here. It was too depressing. The silence seemed to echo on forever too. Was that otter sure someone actually lived here? Even a mad scientist needs some sort of liveable space in their life, and this was not it. Either way, this had to be it. Kowalski’s tracker was the only thing to break the silence, pinging louder than ever before. The core was here… but finding it would be a challenge.

Skipper took a plunge into the water. Kowalski gave his tracker to Rico who swallowed it for safekeeping, and the rest of the penguins followed their leader. They swam around scanning for something. Nothing. This place was as empty as the Atacama desert. They almost gave up hope until they saw something hidden behind the fake volcano. It looked like… a cave entrance? It was odd, but they closed in on it. They paused and exchanged glances. They pressed on, only to surface inside the fake volcano. After glancing around, they saw that it was so much more alive than outside. Screens built across the walls, different contraptions thrown around, test tubes with multicolour liquids decorating the entire space, and lobsters everywhere. Is this where everyone went? Either way, this was obviously some sort of secret lair.

Rico started mumbling incoherently, pointing towards his belly which was vibrating vigorously.

“The tracker!” Kowalski remembered. “We must be really close!”

The sound of tires echoed around the room, as a squeaky voice called out. “Otto! Get down here, look what I’ve found!”

The penguins quickly dipped behind a rock to conceal themselves. The sound of tires grew louder and a huge menacing shadow blocked the only light source. This must have been him. That mad scientist. The penguins quietly observed the aquatic mammal as he seemed to be riding some sort of segway. It looked a little ridiculous, to say the least. Whilst the others were peering at the segway, Kowalski spotted something he was holding.

“That’s it!” Kowalski shouted quietly. “That’s the core!”

Skipper wasn’t fully convinced. “Are you sure? It just looks like a metal ball…”

“Yes!!” He exclaimed. “It’s what’s inside that’s important. I’d recognise a radioactive container anywhere, and let me tell you… that is it.”

Private chipped in. “Okay, but how do we get it?” He was asking the real questions. “It’s not like we can just waltz in and take it!”

A wide grin stretched across Skipper’s face. “Maybe we can…”

Uh oh. The others could feel another one of those elaborate Skipper schemes coming along. There was a difference between their leader’s plans, though. There were the meticulous and elaborate schemes, and then there were the loud and impulsive schemes. The three grew concerned, as Skipper’s grin only widened as he scanned his surroundings. This plan, seemed to be the latter. But little did they know that this split-second decision would determine their future for many years to come.

“Rico,” Skipper ordered. “We’re gonna need some grappling hooks.”

Rico wasn’t as concerned as the other two. He thrived off impulsivity and chaos. If one person was up for the task without a fuss, it was Rico. He barfed out some sticks of dynamite in sheer excitement and asked the legendary question.

“K-kaboom?” His mouth watered as he turned to skipper, practically twitching.

“Yes, Rico. Kaboom.”

Kowalski and Private exchanged a concerned glance.

“Take a stick of dynamite or two.” Skipper commanded as he handed out the explosives to his team. “We’ll split up, one in each corner of the room, and set them off one by one.” He continued. “Kowalski, you take the top right. Rico, bottom right. Private, bottom left. And I… top left.”

Private questioned Skipper’s plan. “Skippa, what exactly are we trying to do? I don’t see how this has anything to do with taking the core-thingy…”

Kowalski chipped in. “A distraction.” It finally clicked.

“Bingo.” Uttered Skipper

Rico was practically vibrating at this point. He couldn’t wait much longer. “K-kaboom… ka…BOOM! HAHAHA, KABOOM!!”

Skipper ordered them to split up before things went awry. They slid over to their respective corners, and planted their explosives, waiting for Skipper’s signal. Kowalski studied his surroundings, unable to help the slight feelings of jealousy taking over. This place was decked with cool gadgets and fancy tools. Everything looked so professional. “Why do the bad guys always get the good stuff?” he thought. He had to stop and remind himself of his task at hand – creating a distraction.

Skipper placed the last stick of dynamite and scanned the colourful room. He pointed to Rico, who was eagerly awaiting his signal. It was kaboom time. Rico coughed up a lighter and lit the explosives, quickly grappling away. It was showtime. The dolphin was driving around his lair, holding what the boys presumed to be the core. He paused for a moment, admiring himself in the shiny silver reflection of the metal orb. He grinned. He then pressed a purple button on his segway, when out of nowhere – KABOOM!

“WHAT THE-“ He steadied himself, processing what just happened. “Charlie!” he shouted for his lobster henchman. “What the hell was that?”

The lobster was unable to speak before another BANG could be heard, only now in the top right of the room. The dolphin sent more lobsters to investigate both sites of explosion. But before they could reach, a third KABOOM shook them. This was strange, he thought. How could all of his inventions suddenly set off and explode in one go? He was sure they were all wired correctly and that no water had come into contact with them. And finally, the last KABOOM echoed from the top left. The commotion seemed to catch the attention of another resident of the secret lair, one that the boys were warned about – a large, caramel-brown North American river otter with a sandy neck, sleek build and pointy black nose. He was just as confused as the dolphin.

“What… is going on here?” He asked urgently with a husky, gravelly voice and arms flailing up and down. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what did I do?’ Do you really think that I would BLOW UP MY OWN PLACE, OTTO?” The mad scientist yelled back.

Admittedly, this did seem a bit extra. Perhaps two explosions would have been enough to create the same desired effect, but alas, these were the penguins after all. “Extra” was their middle name. They witnessed the argument taking place between the two aquatic mammals, all whilst the core was still in the dolphin’s flippers. Skipper saw the window of opportunity, and went straight for it. His grappling hook shot towards a crevice in the ceiling, latching on securely. He tugged it to ensure it was safe, and he swung towards the clueless dolphin. A ‘clunk’ was heard as his flipper smacked the hollow metal container, sweeping it from the dolphin’s grasp like the wind.

“Yoink!” He shouted cheekily.

“WHAT THE-“ Exclaimed the dolphin in sheer bewilderment.

“Thank you for your service!” Skipper winked, with swagger in his stance.

The dolphin was at a loss for words, struggling to form a sentence that was urgent enough. “Wh- but my… oh, for the love of- GET THEM!!” He pointed.

Skipper swung over to Private, passing the orb over to him. Still swinging, he shouted to his brother. “Rico, Boston us!”

“Wahoo!!” He squealed. He choked up some sort of MP3 player and fiddled with it for a few seconds.

The room was utter chaos. Penguins swinging all over the place, lobsters running around aimlessly, and the dolphin and the otter frozen in complete disbelief. Nothing could get worse, they thought. Until…

“It’s more than a feeling!”

Now, nothing could get worse. The lobsters resorted to stacking themselves in order to reach those pesky birds, which pushed them to swing around even more aimlessly, destroying an array of things in the process. As the lobsters reached to reclaim the core, the penguins passed it to each other like it was a game of hot potato. The scene turned from chaos to pandemonium. What little remnants of order that were there had been completely eradicated. Rico coughed up more dynamite to throw around, and Private created piles of knocked-out lobsters. Skipper swung around carefree with a flipper reaching out, smashing every last test tube. All while Kowalski tip-toed his way out with the orb, as instructed by Skipper when they claimed it. This was the real distraction. By the time he reached the exit, the whole lair was in complete disarray, not a single ounce of peace in sight. He waved to the rest of the team, who swiftly made their way over. The dolphin spotted the small thief and grew enraged.

“No one steals from me, especially not some two-bit, teeny-weeny birds like you!!” He roared.

“Hehe! Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr Ocean Man, but…” Skipper replied arrogantly.

It was too late. They already reached the exit, loosening some rubble to block the exit. All he could do was watch as they swam away with his precious orb containing his all-powerful elemental core. All the dolphin could feel was fury. No… fury and a thirst for vengeance.

“Urgh! My name is Doctor Blowhole… and you will RUE this day, I swear to you, pengu-ins!!”

The four rushed to the surface, jumping out and hopping their way through the aquarium towards the exit. They reached the parking lot and sprung into their car which was still taking up an entire parking space. They placed the orb in the middle back seat like it was a living being. Of course, they had to stop for a mandatory hi-one session.

“Good work, boys.” Praised Skipper. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

“And never return?” Hoped Private.

“Agreed.” Added the other three.

[thevoidofwinter]

this is SUPER late bc its been A Time lately and i also kinda forgot for a while oops. BUT. a little bit of rambling about my cccc/hms designs + interpretation as requested by @keruukat :]

so first off, all three of them in my "main" designs for them are incredibly creature coded. this is literally just because i wanted to and enjoy that type of theme. mind is dragon themed, heart is... bird creature thing. themed. and soul is cockatrice themed which was actually not my idea and a big brain suggestion my friend @atticustimestwo came up with (thank you forever atticus btw. probably never would have thought of that myself sLJFKSL) !!! as a result of this, they're all incredibly instinct driven and highly reactionary. yes mind hates this.

side note, i also have different names i like using for them! mind is helios, heart is lunaris, and soul is anularis. this was mostly just to separate them when doing rps with friends but i've come to really enjoy these names :]

but with that out of the way! i'll start with my mind design bc i'm biased towards blue and dragons oops.

originally, he started out being the least creature coded of the three, both in terms how i was messing around with design and actually in how i read the "timeline" of the album, as it were. in character wise, he absolutely hated being "inferior" to the other two. he didn't have any claws to speak of, no scales, no feathers. he was the most human looking and he didnt like that. so what does he do? oh yknow.

design wise, i realized i liked leaning more into the robotic theming like a lot of people do bc idk! it's fun. why not. and then my dragon bias hit when i heard that One Line in RoE while drawing one day and the gears started turning. i still haven't ironed it out 100% drawing wise, but here's what i have so far:

a good part of the left side of his face is a screen! its default is just an eye, though it can be just about anything. it definitely turns to a clock during RoE and i do imagine it becoming super animated during TME. also glitchy from Be Born into TME as well.

his floating crown is a hologram he keeps up at most times, but the sun halo is just kind of. always there.

there's a lot of metal. like. a LOT. his neck is plated + his modulator is built into that. his entire spine is reinforced with metal. metal arms, probably some metal patches elsewhere too. and yknow the robotic dragon tail

he glows ominously in the dark. you can see that here- just kind of an aura type thing along with the glowy robotic bits on him.

he has irises and pupils, though most of the time they aren't visible bc he is. Tired. they snap into visibility when he's focused or angry though. (i have a very vivid mental image of them snapping into focus during the intro of TME)

he has mechanical wings! they're retractable and mostly are just there because, again, he couldn't bear to be "inferior" to heart and soul, who both also have wings. he can fly with them, though most of the time they're literally just for threat display. also yes, there are slits in the back of his jacket for the wings i just forget to draw them lol

he has an innate need to Be The Tallest. they're literally all the same height but this bitch wears heeled boots with metal on the soles to make himself taller.

the sun patch on his right jacket sleeve was put there by heart; the crown on the left he did himself.

he kinda??? has electricity abilities that he gained over the process of turning himself more robotic. this is important to note for a later note with soul :)

...that's all i can think of for now but i'm sure there's more i'm forgetting. its fine! onto heart :D

heart has always been the most creature coded to me, as the representation of emotion. and yknow. emotions can be pretty damn innate, instinctual, and visceral. or maybe that's just my take on it cause mine sure are lfsdkjhdfjk

i couldn't choose between black and white wings so his are both! a gradient from white into black with white speckles and purple heart-shaped markings on a few of the primary feathers :] he also has a lot of feathers in other places, such as covering his ears, his neck, chest, arms, legs, and of course tail.

his eyes aren't actually physically damaged! his near-blindness and extreme light sensitivity are actually a result of mind glowing blindingly bright (something something don't stare at the sun) after the shot, and then later the harsh red glow of soul's trident when he got the scars on his face.

his halo is a crescent moon most of the time, though it can change to different phases either on command or in reaction to his emotions. i haven't quite decided which phase stands for what yet, i'll figure it out eventually...

he loves loves loves putting patches on things, especially different textured ones. the heart patch on his hoodie sleeve is soft!

his blindfold has the phases of the moon on it! they weren't initially there as the blindfold was given to him by soul, but mind later embroidered the phases onto it during a concord loop.

his tail is actually kinda prehensile and really strong- he can totally use it to hang onto stuff and even hang off a branch upside down.

he used to be able to fly easily, but after getting his wings broken one too many times in scuffles, it's a lot more difficult to do so now. theoretically he still could with enough adrenaline, though.

he slouches a lot because of his wings, so he usually appears to be the shortest of the group. he can and will stand up straight for threat displays, though.

guy really doesn't like wearing shoes most of the time. socks it is.

aaand i think that's all i have for heart atm!

soooo, soul moment :] soul is such an intriguing guy to me. we really don't see (or hear, ig) a lot of him for a good part of the album, so tbh even to me he's still kinda an enigma. i do adore him a lot though. this guy is SO tired and done with heart and mind's shit, please let him have one (1) nap.

i went back and forth on this guy's design a whole lot before atticus suggested the cockatrice idea, and even a little bit after that i debated it for a while. should he be the most human, or appear so far disconnected that he's barely recognizable? WELL. turns out i went kinda midline with that lmao.

he has both scales and feathers to mirror heart and mind's respective features. i love a symbolism

he has a mane of feathers going down his spine, though it's usually only visible on his tail cause. yknow. clothes.

his wings are summonable, and he doesn't usually have them out cause they're HEAVY. they're a mix of draconic and feathered wings as well. he can also fly with them, though it's usually too much effort for him to even consider.

he has four red diamond-shaped lights hovering above his head at all times, like heart and mind have their respective permanent halos.

when under extreme stress/emotions, he has three light horns that manifest, reminiscent of his trident. he also glitches the fuck out

^ the visual glitching is actually a result of mind. what happened during the shot was that heart shot at mind (and missed, but the fact that heart even tried was the problem) -> when he finds out, soul unintentionally snaps and freaks the fuck out, attacking heart and mind -> mind panics and absolutely electrocutes soul, causing his form to glitch and go black and white -> ever since then, extreme emotions causes him to start glitching again!

the shadow half of him is also reactive to his emotions, though is there more often and easier than the glitching. it's pretty much his default, especially during cacophony. (i have a pretty vivid mental image of it fading into view during dream)

the back of his jacket has a trident, crown, and heart embroidered on it, something that all three of them worked on together :]

this is literally just for comedy reasons, but soul's shirt is usually a basic t-shirt, but sometimes it has text on it and the text can change at will

also have a few misc notes that i think are fun :]

while i do adore these creature-esque designs, i also want to do more abstract designs (that they're probably liable to shift to under extreme stress/it being their "true" forms), as well as closer to human designs :]

same thing with clothing designs. i'm so indecisive help. i think im gonna do all of one or two color designs, and then some alt designs where they mix and match colors some!

i do like to imagine heart is physically the strongest out of the three, mind mentally the strongest, and soul the strongest overall. just in relation to each other, of course.

...and i think that's all! at least all that i can remember right now lol, i'm likely to come back and edit this or reblog with additions when i think of more things. it's kinda intimidating to finally be posting this bc im usually so quiet on this front, but i hope whoever manages to read this giant wall of text enjoys! :D

[lemissingmask]

[ID: Sketch in black and white with only blood shown in red of Jacob Stone chained up to a wall by his wrists, and his head lolling forward in unconsciousness, as a silhouetted figure walks away through a door into a lighter area. There is blood soaked into Jake's shirt sleeves and front, and spattered over his neck and the side of his face. End ID]

-

Day 20: Dehumanization

Jake being held by a vampire and fed on regularly

Ficlet below the cut - warning: blood and hurt with very little comfort (there is a follow on later in the month)

-

Jake really hated vampires.

He had hated them from the start, questioned slightly his hatred after meeting a not actually evil vampire, and now he hated them absolutely, completely, entirely again.

There was no daylight in this place, which made sense for vampires, but it meant he had no way of knowing how long he’d been here.

The intermittent periods of unconsciousness from blood loss didn’t exactly help with that.

At least at this point he was so exhausted from the repeated feedings that he didn’t really feel, or maybe his mind didn’t register, the pain anymore.

His wrists used to hurt from the metal restraints, especially if he tried to move.

And there had been the waves of intermittent piercing agony and dull throbbing of the side of his neck, the insides of his forearms, the insides of his thighs…all the sites the vampires bit into him…five or six vampires or maybe more…it was dark and seemed to be getting always darker, like shadows encroaching from the corners of the room.

There was one vampire in charge.

That was the only one who ever fed from his neck, and he was taller than the rest. Much taller than Jake. He had a grip tighter and more relentless than the iron that bound Jake to the wall.

During moments of consciousness and lucid thought, Jake hoped to himself that Cassie had got out safe.

He remembered them coming across the vampires while trying to retrieve an artefact. He put himself between them and Cassandra, shoved her towards the door that Jenkins had just opened, but he was unconscious before he saw whether or not she got through.

There was every possibility she had not. That she was chained up in some other dark, cold room in this place, subject to the same torments that he was.

But she would have got through.

She definitely would. There was no way she didn’t make it out safely. Jake just couldn’t accept that as a possibility.

He would probably have seen her if she hadn’t, back on his almost successful escape attempt, back before these chains. Back when he had the ability to sit and walk and move around, before he had become nothing more than an on-site buffet for the vampires and the plaything of their leader.

That escape attempt had taken him out of the cell after punching two vampires who had come for him and making a break for the exit. He had made it all along a corridor to the elevator at the end. He had made it inside, hit the button for the thing to rise above the basement level, but before it could move the doors were wrenched open and the leader strode in, absurdly cliche leather coat swathed around him.

The bastard had laughed, amused by the attempted escape, by Jake’s efforts to fight back as four of the creatures cornered him in that elevator.

It had probably been a hell of a piece of work to clean the blood off the walls. And even more of a piece of work if the vampires had tried to explain it to anyone else who might be in the building, using that same elevator.

After that, he woke up chained to the wall.

Not once had they removed those chains.

He still tried to fight. To kick or headbutt or something, but it was always a wasted effort, and each attempt was weaker than the last.

They bit through the fabric of his clothes until it was torn too much to be in the way at all. If Jake lived long enough, the feeding sites would probably fester, become infected, with the patches and threads of his jeans and shirt shoved deep into the wounds.

And maybe he would live long enough… The vampires were keeping him alive. They were making sure that he stayed alive. And if they kept him alive longe enough, or his friends would come and save him. His fading mind fooled him repeatedly, making him think one of them was there, taking out the vampires, turning them to ash, coming to save him…

But if they hadn’t by now, they probably never would.

He heard the now familiar ping of the elevator doors opening and closing.

He counted the seconds.

One, two, three, four…

The door to his cell opened.

He readied himself to kick out at his assailant. Make it difficult. Make them work for their meal.

He threw a sluggish right thrusting kick towards the tall vampire who stepped up before him.

His leg was caught, yanked forward, straining his shoulders with his wrists still fixed to the walls. The monster held him there for several seconds before shoving him roughly back against the wall, his back and head slamming into the hard surface.

No time to breathe, not time to try again.

The vampire stepped up close, crushing him against the wall, pinning him into it.

Jake tried to resist as the vampire grabbed his hair to yank his head to the side, but he didn’t have any more resistance to offer.

The fangs sank deep into his neck, some blood spraying at the initial puncture, overlaying what blood had been left to dry on his skin before.

It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt eternal, the blood being pulled from his body, slowly, indulgently, until the darkness crept closer.

It would engulf him soon and bring the peace of unconsciousness, long before the vampire had finished.

-

“Stop!” Eve had reached her limit a long time ago, but even still she checked her anger and softened her voice when she repeated the word, “Stop. Please.”

“Stop?” Flynn frowned, “Stop what?  Stop why?  I thought we were-”

“Stop talking. Please. Just…stop talking,” she sighed, “Unless something you’re saying will help us find Stone.”

It had been over a week.

Cassandra had been the only one to return from what should have been a routine artefact retrieval, being propelled with unexpected violence right through the back door.  And then the door closed sharply behind her.

When they opened it, stepped back into the passage she had been in, ready to fight, it was empty.  There was no one there.

Some signs of a struggle, of a fight, but Stone was gone and there was nothing there to lead them to him.

They’d been following dead end leads for nine days now, and each passing hour gave whoever took him more time to hide.  The probability of finding him, and finding him alive, dwindled each day they failed.

Most of all, she was angry and frustrated because there was nothing she could do.  She had exhausted all her expertise and knowledge and even connections in the initial stages of the search, and they had yielded nothing.  The task necessarily fell on the librarians, who were far from the coherent unit they usually were, with Cassandra blaming herself for Stone disappearing, and everyone else trying to stay positive to lessen her pain.

Eve looked up from the book she had been failing to read on known magical entities in the part of Los Angeles Stone had disappeared in.  The back door had opened, admitting Ezekiel and Cassandra.

And they were smiling.  Or, as close to smiling as they had managed in weeks.

“We have something!” Cassandra declared, “The Monkey King’s staff has a very distinctive magical signature, which we theorised Stone would have too because of the mark it left on him, and so we…”

Eve half blanked out the complex mathemagics explanation that she launched excitedly into, relieved when Ezekiel summarised in English, “We have a possible location for Stone.”

He held up his phone, revealing a map with a red circle on it.

“Where?” Eve moved around the table as Flynn took the phone, examining the map.

“Multistorey office suite in downtown San Francisco,” Flynn mused, “Not where I would choose to hold my hostage.”

“This is assuming the spell actually worked, and the staff’s magic is a match to Stone’s.”

Cassandra shot Ezekiel a desperate look.

“Which it probably did and it probably is…so, what’s the plan?”

“We need a breakdown of everyone who has offices in there,” Eve began, her spirits rising with the very real, very immediate, problem to solve, “How long have they been there, are they a legitimate business, and so on?”

“On it!” Cassandra raised her hand.

“Jones…”

“Security profile of the building,” he nodded, and disappeared with Cassandra to get to work.

“I’ll go look into the history of the building and the location,” Jenkins said with a slight awkwardness that was explained after he followed the others from the room, and she turned right into Flynn’s unexpected embrace.

“We’re going to find him, Eve,” he said in that soft, gently, kind voice that was so rarely used that it held such a greater significance when it was, “Alive.”

He pulled back, taking her hands in his, “I’m sure of it.”

Eve hadn’t realised she had been so obviously afraid, so clearly rattled by this whole thing…but, maybe she wasn’t as good at hiding her emotions as she once was.

Stone had seen right through her when she was heartbroken over Flynn leaving again, and that was over a year ago now.

Her walls were getting progressively lower.

“If we don’t…” she began the sentence but there was no way to end it that she could voice.

“But we will.  Stone’s stubborn,” Flynn smiled at her, “Maybe more stubborn than me, and you know how bad I am.”

“I do.”

“So he’s going to be fine.  Whatever’s happened and wherever he is.”

Whatever happened and wherever he is were both solved only a few hours later.

“The basement,” Jenkins stated, “For many years, centuries, in this precise location, there was a vampire’s…ah…commune, of a sort.  Now, one of the listed occupants of the building is a company known as Angler’s Avenue.”

“So, vampire fishermen?”

“No,” Jenkins gave a disapproving look at the disruption, then seemed annoyed at himself before he continued, “Sort of.  The leader of that commune, who has gone by many names over the centuries, was known to many as The Angler.  So called not because of a love for that particular style of fishing, but rather because he would bait humans with a variety of temptations in order to take them into his commune.  Or, in most cases, simply feed upon them.”

Bewildered, Flynn raised an eyebrow, “And no librarian ever got rid of him?”

“Two attempted, and two failed.  The Angler has since been very much off the radar.”

“Not anymore,” Eve glared, “So, den of evil vampires in the basement of an office building…not done that one before.”

“Of course not.  If you had ‘done that one before’ none of you would likely be sitting here now,” Jenkins continued, “These are not vampires to be trifled with.  Some are very old, very skilled killers.  Going in even with a plan of attack and suitable weaponry is a considerable risk.”

“If we go in the day?” Ezekiel suggested, “They’ll all be sleeping right?”

“And they’ll all be there,” Flynn nodded, “At night some may be out, but not necessarily…we need a way to thin their numbers.  Take out several at a time, if needed…”

“Even the odds,” Eve concurred, “Is there an artifact we can use?  Something that creates a sort of sunlight or garlic spray or general vampire vanquishing aura?”

“What about the sun?  Can we harness some of that?”

“Maybe there’s a spell we can use?”

“Or, maybe we just lure a bunch of the vampires out of the basement?” Ezekiel said as if this was the most obvious plan possible, “Look, they’re in that office building as a business, right?  They don’t own it, and they need to keep looking legitimate to keep it and keep themselves from being noticed by the cops or librarians or whoever else has issues with kidnapping people.  So, we trigger some kinda security alarm or inspection or something else that will force at least enough to seem like a real company to leave the basement, then someone else goes in while they’re distracted.”

Eve nodded, “It could work…alright, Librarians, we have a plan!”

-

They drifted into his nightmare like fog over the ocean.  He knew what, who, they were but they seemed formless, and moved without really being seen to move.

They had been here before.  Eve, shooting a vampire in the heart with a bullet that steamed and hissed on impact, Flynn with Excalibur, slicing through the vampires just like Jenkins had.

But they had never been here at the same time, and never when he was alone.

They came when the creatures were here, catching them in their meal, appearing in his vision as his consciousness faded.

And they never actually reached him.

But now, here Baird was, her hands on his cheeks, looking into his face with painful concern and tears in her eyes.  And Flynn, holding his arm, his wrist, inspecting the chains and muttering words Jake couldn’t hear.

“Baird,” Jake’s own voice held no sound.  He knew he had tried to say the name, but nothing came out.

“Hey,” she smiled, “You’re okay.  We’ve got you now.”

Suddenly there was a weight to his right, dragging him down until he was caught painfully by two sets of arms.  The weight was his own limb, freed from one chain, and too weak for him to hold it up on his own.

Eve held him while Flynn worked on the other chain, then he was free.

The pain that blossomed through his shoulders, down his back, along his arms, was nothing in comparison to the burn down his throat as he attempted to talk.

He wanted to warn them.  To make sure they knew about the vampires.  That they were there and they might come back.

But his bare feet, where they touched the ground as his two friends practically carried him out of the room, brushed over ashes briefly.

There had been vampires.

At least some were now gone.

Ahead, a familiar blue light.  The back door.

Behind them, the elevator pinged.

Jake froze.

He knew what came after that sound.

One, two, three, four…and the vampire would be on them.  Sooner if he chose.  He would kill them.  Or, worse, so much worse, imprison them.  Turn Flynn and Eve into nothing more than sources of blood and sick delight as well.

They were still moving towards the glow of blue, not looking back, carrying Jake with them.

But Jake did look back, twisting painfully to get a glimpse of the elevator. He saw the vampire there, standing still.  Just watching, watching, and then he was gone in the dizzying rush of time and space.

The annex.

Home.

And Cassie, running at him, throwing her arms around him in spite of all the grime and blood covering his skin and clothes.

He hugged her back as best he could, raising one arm to her side but unable to do more. Eve was still behind him, supporting him from behind, keeping him from collapsing.

He looked beyond Cassie’s red hair to where he had heard Ezekiel’s voice, but he didn’t manage to say anything in response.

What blood he had left froze at what he saw.

Judson’s mirror. 

Cassie in the reflection, clear as anything ever was in that antique glass.

But where his own reflection should be, there was nothing.

-