#and in one particular scene you reach out for someone inside the void that has formed in your TV

[clownreed]

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[riddlecrux]

Light seen through the windows: an analysis of windows as a literary tool in Elriel relationship

I would love to preface this meta with my favorite disclaimer that everything that I will be discussing is based on what I have gathered from SJM writing. The quotes used in this post will serve as a starting point for further analysis. Additionally, I will be using things such as symbolism, metaphors, and literary device methods to build up my reasoning and beliefs. On another note, this, as usual, is strictly pro-Elriel meta. If they are not your cup of tea and you wish to comment, please be civil and bring arguments supported by the text.

So many of us like to gaze and stare through the windows daily. Looking at the world behind the glass often is considered a form of tranquility that we feel. Windows are essentially doors that lead us to whatever lies behind them - the last border between being in one place and then in another. It isn't then surprising that windows serve as symbols and metaphors in literature. From the start, whenever I read a passage about windows in ACOWAR I was reminded of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. You may ask why?

Emily Bronte used windows as symbolism in her work. They are very important for her characters and their personal arcs. They are symbols of barriers, misfortunes that characters face. Windows there are metaphors of various obstacles estranging Bronte's characters from achieving their hopes - realizing that the dreams they had will be not fulfilled. As I don't want to get spoilery with Wuthering Heights, I'm going to draw conclusions in a very neat manner. Bronte used windows as a connection to nightmares that one of the main characters was suffering from - it ties to the fact that in his nightmares he sees the person he had loved, haunting him. Because of the relationship with a said woman, the imagery of windows in this particular scene symbolizes death, an obstacle that stands between both of them. Throughout the book, we also get glimpses of how windows might be used as a metaphor for social classes and the contrast between them, and how Heathcliff and Catherine have to go about it. Along with the windows, doors are also used as a symbol of trapping someone in one place, obstructing them from achieving their dream or preventing them from reaching out to their loved one. Not to mention that during a very particular scene with Catherine, she wants the windows open - a symbolism of her wanting to feel free, to connect with something she knows, she longs for. This leads to the conclusion that windows in Bronte's novel are symbols of life and death, they are the in-between - a symbolic barrier.

On the other hand, windows in literature signalize something called "art of watching", and usually it is connected to a female protagonist that observes life, events through the window. Not to mention, the most famous association to windows such as "windows to the soul" - which, of course, is more metaphorical. It allows us, the audience, to connect with the character's inner feelings, struggles, as we are presented with the emotional aspect of said person. They are the bridge between the inside and outside. Windows are also a source of light, which we humans crave. Looking through the window one can absorb the light, which can resonate as a symbol of growth and change. Metaphorically we see the light from the window when we feel a need to light up the darkness inside us. They expose us, our inner feelings, and struggles.

When I read ACOWAR I have noticed that SJM decided to use windows, quite clearly, in the indication of two particular characters. Azriel and Elain. For the first time, when we met Elain again in the third book the window is a big issue.

"The suite was filled with sunlight. Every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible."

We have a clear description of the sunlit room, curtains shoved to further underline the need for light.

"And seated in a small chair before the sunniest of the windows, her back to us, was Elain."

In the brightest place in the room sits Elain, in front of the window. She is exposed to the sun, to sunlight and is absorbing that light - which is highlighted during this scene (which makes it important to note).

"Her skin was so pale it looked like fresh snow in the harsh light. I realized then that the color of death, of sorrow, was white."

The sunlight exposes Elain, its harsh light makes her pale, almost translucent. Even Feyre realizes the graveness of this picture comparing this white hue to death. As you can see the chain of events in this scene played like that: sunlit room -> curtain swept away -> Elain sitting in front of the window -> sudden comparison to death.

"She had been always so full of light. Perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. To fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been. And now nothing remained."

Feyre deducts that the need for light on Elain's part is a desperate call to brighten the darkness inside her - which perfectly aligns with the metaphorical usage of windows. Elain basks in light in a helpless cry for help. The very dark void that appeared within her after being Made eats her away. It sucks her immortal life away - the one which she yet didn't get used to. On the other hand, we as readers are presented with the fact that Elain is trapped. In this Fae life, in this room, in this situation in which she grieves for her past and many what-ifs.

Nothing. Not even a flicker of emotion. “Everyone keeps saying that.” Her thumb brushed the ring on her finger. “But it doesn’t fix anything, does it?”

Sitting in front of the window - a sunny one to be precise, which symbolizes life, growth, and change, Elain is presented in a contrast to her surroundings. To show that visible barrier that her person has to overcome. She realizes that her dreams are meant to be unfulfilled, that they are unreachable.

"My stiff, limping steps, at least, had eased into a smoother gait by the time I found Elain in the family library. Still staring at the window, but she was out of her room."

The next time we see Elain she is out of her room - her "cage", but even though she left the boundaries of her entrapment she still chooses to linger around the windows. As Feyre notices, Elain gazes through the window - we are obstructed from Elain's POV and it's hard to imagine what she could be thinking about. Yet the symbolic manner of using the window as some sort of mirror, a passage that happens throughout the series, allows me to think that the metaphorical usage of windows, in this case, isn't a far-fetched idea.

"Elain didn’t turn. She was wearing a pale pink gown that did little to complement her sallow skin, her brown-gold hair hanging in loose, heavy ringlets down her thin back."

SJM uses this sentence to highlight that it isn't just a quick glance out of the window - in fact, it is constant staring through it. It is important for us as readers to note that this thing, window gazing, is an occupation that lasts for long periods of time. It isn't something trivial, it is something that showcases the importance of said windows in Elain's journey.

��What are you looking at?” I asked Elain, keeping my voice soft. Casual. Her face was wan, her lips bloodless. But they moved—barely—as she said, “I can see so very far now. All the way to the sea.”

Feyre decides to ask Elain who is still gazing through the window. Her answer is very ominous and holds a great deal of importance, but also underlines the fact that she is drawn to the window. Not to mention that what she is seeing is the sea - another vastly discussed symbol. In this situation, I believe that the interpretation can lay in a more psychological aspect of the matter rather than a literary one. In the works of very well-known psychiatrist Carl Jung the sea "symbolizes the personal and the collective unconscious in dream interpretation". So from his notes there comes this annotation that caught my attention, "The sea is a favourite place for the birth of visions."

Elain is a seer who constantly gazes through a window which symbolizes the in-between, life and death. These two are connected to one another and SJM used many things to further develop Elain's character as a powerful figure.

"Elain only turned toward the sunny windows again, the light dancing in her hair."

After the whole conversation Elain doesn't move from her spot, quite the contrary she returns to her previous activity. Gazing through the window. Once again we are reminded about the sun and light - which signalizes that Elain tries to undergo through the process of rebirth, but also tries to break free from the unhappiness that came with lost dreams.

"Something in my chest cracked as Nesta’s eyes also went to the windows before Elain. To check, as I did, for whether they could be easily opened."

Here we have an instance of both sisters realizing that Elain spending so much time in front of windows can be dangerous, as in her attempting to jump from them. Once again, the symbolism of death.

"More steps—no doubt closer to where Elain stood at the window."

Elain is still beside the window when Lucien tries to talk to her. Even alone she seeks the place next to the window to stare.

"But sunlight on gold caught his eye—and Elain slowly turned from her vigil at the window."

Elain is still by the window, for the whole scene she is there not moving an inch from it. Furthermore, the word "vigil" is also an interesting choice. There are different meanings of it, but I find these ones very telling and suitable for this instance: a period of sleeplessness; insomnia, a watch kept, or the period of this and a devotional watching, or keeping awake, during the customary hours of sleep. We can speculate about what happened to Elain while she was in the Cauldron, what made her so withdrawn from life and so desperate for the light. I want to believe that we as readers will get our answers in the next book since Elain being a seer with unknown powers makes her a perfect target for Koschei with which she has already had connections.

She looked away—toward the windows. “I can hear your heart,” she said quietly.

Again, during the whole conversation, she doesn't move away from her spot next to the window. Windows for her, start to become a symbolism of change and rebirth - the things she probably wished while being confined to her room.

Elain only stared out the window, unaware—or uncaring.

We have another mention about staring - which further highlights how important windows are as a literary tool for Elain's character. She seeks light, she wants to overcome this barrier that was thrown at her the moment she was Made. She, perhaps, watched through the window to observe the life which was stripped away from her and turned her into this immortal being. Or, maybe she just desperately wanted to brighten up the darkness that gathered inside her because of that whole situation. Another important thing to note is that this scene is a first moment alone with Lucien - her mate, which should have been very painful for her. The conversation also held a lot of weight, yet she valiantly stood by the window as if somewhere behind it she could find an answer.

“So it can’t be a perfect system of matching. What if”—I jerked my chin toward the window, to my sister and the shadowsinger in the garden —“that is what she needs? Is there no free will? What if Lucien wishes the union but she doesn’t?”

Here we have an instance of "art of watching" in which Feyre observes Azriel and Elain through the window. By watching them she comes to the conclusion that both of them are better suited and actually can comfort each other in comfortable silence. The window here is used as a barrier to showcase parallels of two couples: happily mated Feysand and unhappily in love with other people Elriel.

"But I looked to Azriel, currently leaning against the wall beside the floor-to-ceiling window, shadows fluttering around him."

And here we are start with Azriel and windows (also in ACOWAR). He is another character that has an extraordinary connection to windows. He is often mentioned next to them and somehow parallels Elain's behavior - staring through windows, being near them.

"I blinked, realizing I’d been lost in the bond, but found Azriel still by the window, (...)."

As we can see Azriel lingers next to the window without moving away from it - as the scene progresses we know that the conversation lasts a good ounce of time, yet Azriel stands in his place by the window.

"Azriel didn’t so much as turn from his vigil at the window, though I could have sworn his wings tucked in a bit tighter."

The same wording, the same imagery. Both used for Elain and Azriel. Both of them keeping vigils at the windows, staring through them as if they could find an answer through them.

"The main room of the guardhouse was stuffy and cramped, more so with all of us in there, and though I offered Elain a seat by the sealed window, she remained standing—at the front of our company. Staring at the shut iron door."

This scene is when Elain is about to confront her lover - Greysen. It is underlined that she rejected her usual spot, which is by the window, and preferred to face the door. She was trapped, she knew that a very important discussion will take a place here. She chose to look at the door rather than at the window, which in this matter could symbolize hope for a change - she stared at the door which metaphorically means transition or imprisonment.

"(...) close to Elain’s side as she and my sister silently kept against the wall by the intact bay of windows."

Another instance of Elain and her being content with being next to the windows.

"I’d seen Elain staring out the window earlier—watching Graysen leave with his men without so much as a look back at her."

"Art of Watching", but also the window's symbolism of dreams that were unfulfilled. At that moment, we can assume, that Elain realized that her dreams concerning human life and her future with Greysen would only be unattainable dreams/hopes.

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.

At the end of ACOWAR, we have this powerful moment, in which Elain gazing out of the window sees sunny streets = life. A chance of rebirth, which also beautifully overlaps with the fact that she proposed building a garden! The in-between that she balanced on while gazing through the window for so many times turned from death and misfortunes into life and hopes of the future.

ACOFAS

"Elain politely refused, taking up a spot in one of the wooden chairs set in the bay of windows. Also typical."

From Rhysand's point of view, we can deduct that even they are aware of the fact that Elain and windows are something notable. It is a place where she feels comfortable and probably spends a lot of time.

"Beyond the windows, darkness had indeed fallen. The longest night of the year. I found Elain studying it, beautiful in her amethyst-colored gown. I made to move toward her, but someone beat me to it."

In previous quotes, we could gather information about how Elain craved the light and how desperate she was to lighten up her person. Here, we can see that she also started to embrace the darkness. She is again by the window, observing the darkness as if no one else was around her. And of course, the one person who goes towards her at that moment is Azriel, a personification of darkness in the books.

Azriel strode to the lone window at the end of the room and peered into the garden below. “I’ve never stayed in this room.” His midnight voice filled the space.

Azriel went straight to the window. And not an ordinary one, but the one through which you can see the garden. Life and light. I know many were theorizing if what kept Azriel so occupied by the window was Elain, but I would love to put some of my thoughts in this discourse. Yes, I do think that what caught his attention, or who caught his attention was Elain. However, Elain at that moment represents life and light - the things that are associated with windows. And if you spin it around you have Azriel=darkness, death staring at Elain=light, life. The in-between, the very initial symbolism of window in literature. Not to mention that in this scene we have Azriel watching the light and next we have Elain observing darkness.

“No,” Azriel said, not turning from the window.

Azriel remained at the window. “Will Nesta stay here if she comes?

“I’d still be surprised if they remember once the storm clears,” Azriel said, turning from the garden window at last.

We have a whole scene in which it is so heavily implied that Azriel was constantly staring through the window, not even bothering to move away from it. We also have another highlighted thing which is the fact that it was a garden window.

There was a tiny box left on the table by the window—a box that Mor lifted, squinted at the name tag, and said, “Az, this one’s for you.”

A small thing, yet a very sweet one. The fact that even his present was placed close to the window, which starts to become an Elriel thing.

ACOSF

"She’d barely slept for fear of Elain walking off this veranda, or leaning too far out of one of the countless windows, or simply throwing herself down those ten thousand stairs."

We have a reminder that during her stay at House of Wind, Elain was a symbol of death. She carried it on her while being associated with windows that were used as a source of light that helped her heal.

"Elain stood at the wall of windows, clad in a lilac gown whose close-fitting bodice showed how well her sister had filled out since those initial days in the Night Court."

Even when she visits Nesta, she takes the place by the windows. It is something that is strictly connected to her. As if the windows were part of her now.

Elain’s smile was as bright as the setting sun beyond the windows. “I thought I’d drop by to see how you were doing.”

Light, sun, life = Elain.

“You’ve got good coloring, I mean,” Elain clarified, striding from the windows to cross the room. She stopped a few feet away. As if holding herself back from the embrace she might have given.

SJM still used the passages to underline the passage of time that Elain spent standing next to the window. It is a place in which she feels good and perhaps safe.

"They’d sat in them, before this fire, so many times that it was an unspoken rule that Azriel’s was the one on the left, closer to the window, and Cassian’s the one to the right, closer to the door."

We also get the information that Azriel always was the closest to the window - which is an odd thing to add without a deeper meaning. As if to further build up that connection between him and Elain - that both of them are aware of the fact that they are also the symbolism of the allegory of windows. I believe that SJM really researched that light and darkness trope, with which she built and she is still building up Elriel. The windows are just another tiny nugget that further envelopes both of them as one. Because while Elain transformed from death to life, she still welcomed darkness and embraced it - and Azriel opened to the life and light, seeking it. As I said, windows are a literary tool, which perhaps wasn't the main idea in the SJM text, but the amount of parallels between both of them and even the same wording applied to different scenes tells me that it's yet another connection between them.

[calpalirwin]

The Falcon and the Newlyweds

Summary: After Steve travels back in time to reunite you and Bucky, he retires as Captain America, but you’re just getting started. (aka exactly like TFATWS but better?)

A/N: All credits to original owners/writers of TFATWS series. Added details/characters and minor storyline changes are of my own imagination. 

Word Count: 6.2k

And away, and away we go!

__

Episode 5

When Sam suggested the three of you go find John, you shook your head vehemently. “No. No, I don’t want to,” you whispered.

“Doll, we’re afraid we’re gonna hurt him, too,” Bucky admitted.

You still continued to shake your head. “I-I’m not worried about us… I-”

“Oh…” Bucky said in sad realization. “Oh, doll. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He lost control, and I think even he knows that. He’s still the idiot we hate. And yeah, by the looks of it he managed to snag a vial of the serum, which makes him like me now.” Bucky shuddered at the thought. “But someone needs to find him.”

“I don’t want to…”

“That’s okay. Sam and I can go. We can take you back to the apartment, and then Sam and I can go.”

“No. Bucky you can’t go.”

“I’m not letting Sam go by himself.”

You looked over at Sam, who was standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Look, Y/N. I know you saw an ugly side to John. I get that fear. Okay? I do. Buck used to scare me the way John just scared you. But Buck’s right. Someone has to find him, and it’s better if we do it. And look, throughout all of this, have Buck and I ever let you get close to getting hurt?”

“No…”

“Exactly. And if it makes you feel better, Buck and I will do the talking. Just come with us so we know you’re not alone. Please?”

“Okay,” you finally nodded. “But please don’t fight him if you don’t have to.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that, much less agree with it,” Bucky tried to joke. “Sam, you still got Sharon tracking him?”

“Yeah, c’mon.”

~~~

Sam led the way to a building that was closed off for construction, easily locating John inside. “Walker,” Sam started.

“You guys should see a medic,” John interrupted. “You don’t look so good.” Long gone was the high and mighty tone he usually addressed you all with. His tone was also void of any attitude or malice. It was chilling to see him looking and sounding so void.

“Stop, Walker,” Sam started again, as John started to walk past you all.

“What?” he scoffed, the attitude and raised voice coming out. “You saw what happened. You know what I had to do. I killed him because I had to! He killed Lemar!”

“He didn’t kill Lemar, John,” Bucky said simply, keeping his own tone calm to not anger the other man, and cause another outburst of rage. “Don’t go down that road. Believe me, it doesn’t end well.” Sage advice from one previously unhinged super soldier to a currently unhinged one.

“I’m not like you,” John insisted.

Bucky gave a sad shake of his head, and you gripped his hand in yours reassuringly. If John didn’t want to listen to someone who’d been where’d he’d been, and under much worse conditions, that was on John, not Bucky.

“Listen,” Sam stepped in. “It was the heat of the battle, okay? If you explain what happened, they may consider your record. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt. John, you gotta give me the shield, man.”

Slow realization swept across John’s face. “Oh… so that’s what this is. You almost got me. I should’ve known when she didn’t have any smartmouthed remarks for me.” His gaze swept over you, chillingly so.

“Mistakes happen,” you said, your voice quiet. “Let them help you so this doesn’t get worse.”

“You don’t wanna do this,” John said, his attention back on Bucky and Sam.

“Yeah, we do,” Bucky responded.

There was a momentary pause as Bucky and Sam looked at each other, and nodded. In a swift movement, Bucky guided you backwards with his arm, then advanced on John with Sam.

Two against one, you watched as Bucky and Sam tried to outfight John, punches and kicks flying in every direction, vibranium fist colliding with vibranium shield. You pressed yourself against a wall, making yourself as small as possible, heart hammering in your chest as you watched the scene unfold.

Any fear you had turned to blood boiling rage when John chucked the shield, nailing Bucky in the chest as sending him crashing backwards as John advanced, Sam lying on the floor from a hit he’d taken.

“Why are you making me do this?!” you heard John scream as he pressed the shield into Bucky, pinning him between the metal and construction vehicle. He grabbed the shield that Bucky had a firm grip on, throwing Bucky sideways across the warehouse.

Seeing red, you quietly reached down to pull out a knife. Aside from the shootout in Madripoor, you never needed to use any of the weapons strategically placed throughout your suit. And despite everything, you didn’t actually want to shoot John, mostly at the risk of missing and hitting either Bucky or Sam. But while John wasn’t exactly in stabbing range, and you weren’t all that amped to get into stabbing range, you could throw it.

With a slow breath, you adjusted the sharp steel in your hand. You took aim, chucking the knife with as much accuracy and force as you could, watching as the blade hurled end over end before sinking into John’s upper thigh, at the very convenient time that Sam flew straight into him. “This isn’t you, John,” Sam breathed heavily as both men stood face to face.

“We could’ve been a team…”

Not liking the way John didn’t appear ready to give up, Sam launched a rope that locked into the shield, engaging in a weirdly combative game of tug of war.

John lost his grip, and the rope came loose, the shield clattering against the ground. If you were fast enough, you could reach out and snag it. But with Bucky still on the ground himself, Sam holding back John for you didn’t inspire much confidence. Especially when both men dove for the shield themselves. But when Sam tackled John away from grabbing it, both men rolling further away from you, and the shield, you took your chance.

“I. Am. Captain America!” John screamed as he pinned Sam down, ripping Sam’s wings off his suit.

“No, you’re not!” you said, charging into John with the shield with all your might. John’s body rolled off Sam’s, and yours rolled with the shield, clinging on to it for all you were worth as you and John both staggered to your feet. “Shit,” you breathed with a happy grin. “That was cool!” Then, your eyes went wide, before you screwed them shut, raising the shield the block John advancing on you. “SHIT!” you screamed, bracing for impact.

The impact however, never came as Bucky jumped into action at the sound of your voice, raining blows down on John. “Don’t! You! Fuckin’! Touch! Her!” Each yelled word was a new hit, as Bucky fought John away from you.

“It’s mine,” John panted like a child who was being forced to share his favorite toy against his will.

“It’s over, John,” Sam told him.

“It’s mine!” John snarled, taking a swing at Bucky.

Bucky blocked it, grabbing the back of John’s neck with his vibranium hand, and punching him in the face with his other hand. “Y/N, shield!” Sam ordered.

Not needing to be told twice, you tossed Sam the shield as Bucky picked up John, and slammed him into the shield, the force of the impact sending all three men crashing to the floor in a chorus of groaned grunts of pain, the shield lying uselessly on the ground once more.

Bucky was the first to recover, grabbing the shield, and rising to his feet. Wordlessly, he walked over to Sam, dropping it next to him. The look on Bucky’s face said more than his mouth ever could, the anger that he had helped Sam get a shield he’d given up so easily needing no reason to be physically voiced. “C’mon, doll,” he said simply, turning and walking out of the building, leaving John and Sam where they lay.

“We’re not gonna leave Sam here, are we?” you asked in a whisper, jogging to keep up with your husband.

“Right now? Yes.”

“Bucky… It’s been a long day. And I know you still have your issues about Sam and the shield, and what it all means to you. But it’s Sam. He’s our friend, and partner whether you want him to be, or not.”

“I know,” Bucky answered you through gritted teeth. “That’s why I’m only leaving him for right now. Now, let’s talk about you, and what you did.”

You sighed. “What? Are you gonna yell at me about how I should have kept my distance? How you and Sam told me not to engage with John, and how I didn’t even want to go in there in the first place, so I’m completely batshit for doing what I did? That I could have gotten hurt, or worse? I know all that, Bucky. So please, spare me the lecture.”

“That was half of it, yes…” he admitted. “But what you did was also incredibly smart, and got Sam the shield.”

You shrugged. “I just got mad, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but it got Sam the shield. And it potentially saved us too. John was… That’s not a fight I’m eager to have again, that’s for damn sure. Between that fight and the one earlier… Knowing that you’re okay, and Sam probably physically feels worse than I do right now is really the only thing helping me feel somewhat okay right now.”

“Well, let’s get back to the apartment, and I’ll patch you up like old times.”

Bucky smiled fondly at long buried memories. “Mmm. Nurse Y/N. I always liked her.”

~~~

“The GRC is conducting raids to try and find Karli,” Sam reported over breakfast the next morning. “But so far, they only found her followers. They’ve searched a camp nearby, and just like the last camp they searched, nothing. She’s gone. We’ll never find her.”

“Hey, you got your sleeve back,” Torres’ voice chirped as he walked into the living room, and you wondered briefly where he’d come from, but you figured he probably arrived when Sam did, and given him the full run down of the GRC’s movements, much like Sam was giving you and Bucky now. Torres pointed at Bucky’s left jacket sleeve, once again reattached to the jacket he was wearing. “No? Yeah… okay then…” Torres said to no one in particular as Bucky stood there in silence, with his trademark stoic stare.

Still silent, and clearly still angry with Sam, Bucky turned on his heel to exit the room. “Are you off to take care of Zemo?” Sam wondered.

“Alright, good to know you survived,” Torres chipped again in a goodbye of sorts as Bucky stalked off down the hallway.

“He’ll come around,” you said as a half-assed apology for Bucky. “He’s… ya know. So, what else do we need to know about the Karli situation? Or the John one?”

Sam shrugged, looking over at Torres. “What’s our next steps?”

“Captain America killing a foreign national in public? It’s kinda like a big deal. Like international incident big. Folks higher up on the payroll are all over it now. So, unfortunately…”

“They’re taking jurisdiction,” Sam guessed.

“Yeah,” Torres nodded, his attention falling to a duffle bag at Sam’s feet that contained the snapped wings of his suit. “What happened to these?”

“So is there anything we can do?” you asked as Torres started examining the duffle bag.

“Not really. As I was telling Sam, they’ve cordoned off the whole camp, and Karli’s a ghost. After what went down, she’s laying extra low. Like under underground.”

“That’s why it makes sense for us to get involved,” Sam said. “The longer we let her regroup, the harder it’s gonna be to find her.”

“She’s got people helping her from all over the world, on all platforms,” Torres pointed out. “She’s really, really good at this thing.” He ran his hands carefully over the splintered wings. “How’d these break?”

“John,” you answered while Sam sighed, taking in all the information Torres was providing.

“Anyways,” Torres went on, “all we can do now is sit tight, and just chill. Sometimes there’s nothing to do, until there’s something to do.”

“That’s bizarrely wise,” Sam said with a small laugh.

“It means we can train,” you interjected. “Be prepared for whatever comes next.”

“The lady has a point,” Torres agreed with you, his eyes flickering longingly to the shield that lay on the table, remnants of the blood John had splattered on his now gone.

“Yeah, alright,” Sam nodded with a smile, looking at you. “Find your husband, and let’s get to work.”

Thankfully, all you had to do was turn your head, finding Bucky stalking back down the hallway with both yours and his suitcases in hand. “B- Oh, hey. We going somewhere?”

“Home. Well. Sam is. You and I are making a pit stop first.”

“So you finally found Zemo?” was Sam’s guess.

“I have an idea of where he might be, yeah.”

“You know, sometimes you still scare me Buck. The staring. The eerily calm voice. It’s creepy, man.”

“You wanna get to work, or not, Sam?”

~~~

The pit stop ended up being Sokovia, Bucky giving you a full rundown as to why he figured Zemo would be there on the flight over. He also told you of the plan he had. And sure enough, as the two of you walked up to the memorial site, Zemo was standing in front of it, his back facing you.

“I thought you’d be here sooner,” Zemo said as you and Bucky got within earshot. “Don’t worry. I’ve decided I’m not going to kill you.”

“Imagine my relief,” Bucky deadpanned, finger clicking the safety of the gun he had ready at his side.

Zemo turned towards you both, unthreatened by Bucky’s action as his attention focused on you. “The girl has been radicalized beyond salvation. I warned you and Sam, but you wouldn’t listen. Just as stubborn as Steve was, the two of you.” His gaze shifted to Bucky. “But you. They literally programmed you to kill. James, do what needs to be done. Karli has people everywhere. And there’s only one way to make sure she cannot continue her mission.”

“I appreciate the advice,” Bucky answered, his face conveying no evidence of whether or not that statement was actually true. “But we’re gonna do it our own way.”

Zemo chuckled at what he believed to be the naivety of Bucky’s words. “Yeah. I was afraid you’d say that.”

The gun in Bucky’s hand clicked again as he loaded what you knew to be nothing, but Zemo rightfully assumed to be a bullet into the chamber, raising his hand, the barrel of the gun mere inches from Zemo’s forehead. Zemo went pale, but kept his composure calm, even nodding at Bucky like he was giving the man permission to pull the trigger.

You watched as Zemo sucked in his breath while Bucky pressed ever so lightly on the trigger. But all that came out of the gun was an empty clicking sound. Eyes still locked on Zemo, Bucky opened his other hand, the bullets clattering to the ground.

Silently, the Dora Milaje walked up, surrounding Zemo. “Ladies,” he greeted, before addressing Bucky one last time. “I took the liberty of crossing my name off in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do. Goodbye James. It was nice getting to know you, Mrs. Barnes.”

Two of the Dora Milaje escorted Zemo away, while the third talked briefly with Bucky about their own plans for Zemo. “It would be prudent to make yourself scarce in Wakanda for the time being, White Wolf,” she added as a small warning.

“Fair enough,” he nodded. Then, “Hey. I may have another favor to ask of you.”

~~~

 After your visit with Zemo, you and Bucky headed home.

“Buck said you got a few good ones in on that new Cap guy. Good for you,” Steve smiled proudly.

“I did okay, I guess. Got out better than Bucky and Sam, that’s for sure,” you shrugged in modesty. “Have you heard from Sam?”

“Yeah, he got back a few days ago. But just as soon as he stopped by, he was gone again. Something about seeing the old man in Baltimore?”

“Bradley,” you and Bucky said in unison. “He’s uh… like you and me,” Bucky added as an extra explanation when Steve cocked his head in confusion. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, if that was a few days ago, where’s Sam now?” you asked.

Steve shrugged. “My guess? He went home to see his sister in Louisiana. You guys still not talking after what happened?”

You looked at Bucky, and shook your head. “No. Bucky won’t say it, but he’s still never forgiven Sam for giving up the shield in the first place. And now he’s even more mad he had to help Sam get it back, because-”

“None of this would have happened if he hadn’t given it up in the first place,” you and Steve gave your best Bucky impression together.

“1.) I don’t sound like that. And 2.) I’m right. None of this would have happened if Sam had kept the shield. Not the shit with Walker anyway.”

“But Sam’s still family. And we’re still Avengers. And we still have a job to finish with Karli,” you pointed out.

“What? So you want to go to Louisiana and find Sam?” Bucky asked you.

“That would be a start.”

“Doll, we just got home. Don’t you wanna be home for a bit?”

“Not when there’s still work to be done. And you and Sam gotta put this whole mess behind you once and for all, because all Riga proved was that it takes all three of us working together to take down John.”

“And that barely worked,” he reminded you.

“Which is also why we all need to train together. Not you training me here while Sam does God knows what in Louisiana. We need to be an actual team here, Bucky.”

Bucky sighed. “Alright. I’ll book us a flight first thing tomorrow, okay?”

“Why not book it right now?”

Bucky looked at Steve, clearing his throat before leaning in close to your ear. “Because of reasons I can’t say in front of your brother, doll.”

Your eyes went wide and your cheeks turned bright red at Bucky’s insinuation while Steve clapped his hands loudly together. “Okay. I think we’re done here.”

~~~

You’re sure we’re in the right place?” you asked Bucky as you approached a dock crowded with people and supplies.

Bucky only nodded as he climbed in the back of a truck lifting a huge pallet with ease at the same time you heard Sam’s voice wonder “How do we get it off the truck?”

“You’re welcome,” Bucky said as he set the pallet aside, turning to see Sam’s shocked expression.

“Surprise,” you grinned, waggling your fingers in a wave at Sam.

Sam stepped around the truck to get closer to you and Bucky, the shock on his face now a questioning look.

Bucky set a suitcase down on the bed of the truck. “Just dropping this off. Sign for it, and we’ll go.”

“Bucky,” you hissed under your breath. This was not part of your plan at all.

“I called in a favor from the Wakandans,” Bucky explained to Sam.

Before Sam could say anything in response, or you could berate Bucky under your breath again, a pipe started hissing loudly, and a woman was rushing over. “Sam!”

Sam wasted no time in rushing over to assess what the damage to the pipe was and how to go about fixing it, grabbing a nearby wrench as the woman looked at you and Bucky.

“Hi,” you smiled at her.

“Hi,” she smiled back.

Bucky sighed, watching what Sam was doing before going over. “Hold on, hold on. You gotta go up.” He took the wrench from Sam, pushing him out of the way, quickly tightening to the loose bolt on the pipe until it stopped hissing.

“Why didn’t you use the metal arm?” Sam asked as Bucky set the wrench aside.

Bucky thought about it for a second, looking at the vibranium appendage. “Well, I don’t always think of it immediately. I’m right-handed. So, this is the boat, huh?”

“This is it,” Sam nodded.

“It’s nice,” Bucky complimented. “You want any help?”

Sam looked at Bucky, sighing deeply. “Yeah…”

You and the woman looked over at Bucky and Sam, rolling your eyes. “Men…” you muttered. Then, “Hi, I’m Y/N.”

“Sarah,” she smiled back. “Friends of Sam’s, I take it?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Mmm,” she nodded, her eyes roaming over Bucky. “And who are you?”

“I’m Bucky,” he grinned charmingly at her.

Sam punched him in the right arm as hard as he could. 

“Ow! What the hell, Sam?!” Bucky growled, rubbing at his arm.

“What is it with you and people’s sisters, man? How did Steve not beat your ass?”

Sarah’s eyes went wide as she looked at you, yours and Bucky’s name clicking in familiarity. “Oh!” she said, a hand covering her mouth as she looked at you, “I’m so sorry!”

You howled with laughter as Sam hit Bucky in the arm some more. “Seriously?! How did Steve not obliterate your ass?”

“He was like a foot shorter and weighed maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet,” Bucky shrugged. “Now will you stop hitting me? Doll!” He turned to you with puppy dog eyes to help him. “Weren’t you the one saying I needed to learn to be friendlier to people?”

“Friendlier, not flirtier,” you clarified, tears rolling down your cheeks from how hard you were still laughing. “Now help Sam with the damn boat, Sergeant Charmer.”

It was an interesting morning watching Bucky and Sam work on the boat, while you helped Sarah in the house making meals. “It’s probably a good thing Bucky’s from another time,” she commented as she caught you staring dreamily out the window for the millionth time.

“How do you mean?”

“A man that looks like that, and knows it? In today’s society? Not usually a good mix.”

“Oh, those types have always existed,” you said with a small chuckle. “Bucky and Steve used to fight them quite a bit.”

“And you? Having to fight off the hoards of women that no doubt threw themselves at a man like that?”

You laughed again. “Very rare occurrences. Bucky is, uh… attentive that way, I guess.”

“Well, you’re lucky to have a husband like Bucky. Men like that are hard to come by, believe me.”

“Oh, I know. Funny thing is, if you ask Bucky, he’d say he’s the lucky one.”

“Well, lunch is about done if you wanna bring these plates out to them for me.”

You thanked her, loading the plates up in your arms before walking outside and over to where Bucky and Sam were. “Lunch time!” you called out.

Both of their heads swiveled in your direction, Bucky clutching at his heart dramatically. “Oh, a woman after my own heart.”

“Sarah made lunch, I just helped,” you told him, handing him a plate.

Sam snickered, taking his own plate from you, “Thanks for helping her,” he told you, then in a louder voice that was almost a shout, “Thank you, Sarah!”

“You think Karli’s gonna throw in the towel?” Bucky asked, as you all took a spot and dug into your lunch.

Sam shook his head as he swallowed his bite of food. “I think she’s gonna double down.”

“Any idea on how to stop her?”

“I got Torres working on something.”

“Well, Zemo says there’s only one way.”

You all said nothing for a minute, eating your lunch and thinking quietly to yourselves before Bucky broke the silence. “Well. Y/N and I gotta catch our flight tomorrow. Gonna get a hotel room for the night. Crash, ya know?”

“So you’re just gonna set me up like that, huh?”

“Well, there’s two of us. We don’t wanna impose, or anything. I really just came to give you that,” Bucky nodded at the suitcase the Wakandans have given him for Sam.

Sam snorted. “Like Y/N didn’t all but march your ass on the plane to get here. So just stay here. The people in this town are the most welcoming people in the world. They don’t care if you wear small T-shirts, or if you have six toes, or if your mom’s your aunt-” Sam rambled.

“Okay,” Bucky cut him off with a chuckle. “I get it. I mean, you know, the people are nice.”

You and Sam laughed too, before Sam pointed at Bucky, “But don’t flirt with my sister.”

“Why would I do that?”

Sam looked at you, “He doesn’t get it, does he?”

You shook your head, “He never really did.”

“What don’t I get?”

“It’s how you interact with women in general, Bucky. They find you charming,” you explained. “Niceness is mistaken as interest.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous.”

“Just keep the charm around my sister in check, or I’ll help Y/N cut you up, and feed you to the fish.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

~~~

That night, instead of a hotel, you and Bucky slept in the spare bedroom of Sarah’s house, while Sam offered to take the couch.

Both of you awoke to the sounds of Sarah’s sons making a ruckus down the hall, and Sam’s tired call out of “Hey!”

You rolled on your side, to find Bucky already looking at you with a smile on his face. “What’s got you so happy this morning?” you asked, kissing his nose.

His shoulders shrugged. “Something about this is nice. Waking up next to you in a house. Sound of kids.”

You gasped softly in a teasing manner. “James Barnes, are you saying you want a quiet domestic life?”

He chuckled, kissing your forehead. “You knew that was what I wanted. What our lives were supposed to be like when I got home. You wanted the same thing too, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. I still do. I just didn’t know you still did, given how much everything’s changed.”

“For a while I didn’t. My focus was… elsewhere. But it’s been something that’s been on my mind again since you’ve been back. But I wanted to give us both time to adjust. Catch up for lost time, just me and you. And then… ya know. But yeah. This,” he twirled a finger about the room, and the sounds of the house coming alive, “is still something I want.”

“Well, it’s still something I want, too.”

His kiss was heavy with need as his lips crashed into yours. “God, I love you.”

~~~

The shield bit deeply into the tree Sam hurled it at. “Son of a b-” he muttered, dashing over to wedge it free.

“You need something it can bounce back off of,” Bucky told him.

“You need something it can bounce back off of,” Sam repeated in a mocking tone.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “C’mon, I got an idea.”

The idea ended up being taking rubber mats to bound around the trees, Sam giving it a test once they were done. The shield bounced off the mat, flying straight back to Sam who caught it with ease. “Yeah, alright,” he conceded. “That’s way better.”

“How’s the shield part feel?” you asked.

“That part feels weird.” He launched it again, the shield ricocheting off one mat into another before Bucky caught it. “The legacy of that shield,” Sam continued, “is complicated to say the least.”

“When Steve told us what he was planning, I don’t think any of us really understood what it felt like for a Black man to be handed the shield. How could we?” Bucky spoke up.

You and Sam shared a look, Sam jerking a thumb at you, “Well, I understood. And so did she. But glad you’re finally catching up.”

Bucky sighed, “Fine. I didn’t understand. Point is, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry.” He lifted the arm the shield was on towards Sam for Sam to take.

“Thank you,” Sam said sincerely, taking the shield.

“Whatever happened with Walker, it wasn’t your fault,” Bucky went on to say. “I get it. It’s just… that shield… For a while it was the closest thing I had to a family. Or it was a huge part in me getting my family back anyway. Because if Steve never took it up in the first place… Well, when you retired it, it felt like giving up. Made me question everything. Like first Steve retired. Then you retired the shield. Everything that saved me was done. Like I was nothing but a completed mission.”

You and Sam stayed quiet, letting Bucky spill out the confession he now found the words to express. But after a long enough pause on Bucky’s end, you reached out to squeeze his hand reassuringly. “I know both Steve, and the shield mean a lot to you. But it doesn’t define you, Bucky,” you told him softly. “You are not who you are because of Steve. He might have helped, but he is not the reason. You are. You’re the one who put in the work.”

“She’s right,” Sam agreed with you. “You gotta stop looking at other people to tell you who you are. Let me ask you, you still having those nightmares?”

“All the time,” Bucky nodded. “It means I remember. It means a part of me is still there. Which means a part of the Winter Soldier’s still in me.”

“You up for a little tough love? You wanna climb out of that hell you’re in, keep doing the work.”

“I’ve been making my amends.”

Sam scoffed. “No. You weren’t amending, you were avenging. And teaching Y/N in the process. You were stopping all the wrongdoers you enabled as the Winter Soldier because you thought it would bring you closure. But if it actually was, then your nightmares wouldn’t be happening. At least not with the frequency they still do.”

Bucky looked at you, both of you thinking about Yori back home. “You’re not allowed to talk to Sam anymore if you’re gonna blab everything I tell you to him.”

You smiled, knowing he was only teasing. “We’re a team, Bucky. Looking out for each other is what we do.”

Bucky shook his head. “Definitely not a team.”

“Nope,” Sam agreed with Bucky.

“We’re not that good,” Bucky laughed.

“Definitely not,” Sam agreed again.

“We’re professionals.”

“Definitely.”

“And uh… partners?”

“Coworkers.”

“But, we’re also a couple guys with a mutual friend.”

“But the friend’s now gone,” Sam pointed out.

“So we’re a couple of guys.”

“I can live with that.”

“Perfect.”

You snorted at their boyish back and forth antics. “The word you’re looking for is ‘family’ actually,” you interjected.

“Just uh… call us when you have a lead on Karli, and we’ll be there,” Bucky told Sam.

“Yep. And uh, thanks for the help. Meant a lot.”

“Course,” Bucky clapped Sam on the shoulder, and you and Sam gave each other a quick hug. “C’mon, doll. We got a flight to catch.”

~~~

Back home with no idea for how long, you and Bucky set to work on a more rigorous training for you.

Mornings quickly became filled with drilling you in various hand-to-hand combat techniques in which Bucky barely broke a sweat, and you ended up drenched in enough of your own for the both of you.

While you relished in your morning routine with Bucky, it was the afternoons you found particularly interesting after you came out of the bedroom to find Bucky sitting in front of his laptop. “Whatcha looking at?” you asked, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you peered at the house listings on the computer screen.

“Domestic dreaming,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen as he patted the sofa cushion next to him for you to join him.

“Oh, so when you said you still wanted this, you meant you wanted it now,” you teased as you moved around him to take the offered seat.

He shrugged. “Figured it couldn’t hurt. Thanks to Stark, everyone that’s still around is pretty well off. And I forget when exactly, but at some point Steve and I were able to get our GI funds.”

“That’s nice,” you noted, now understanding why finances had never seemed to be an issue despite neither of you actually working.

“Yeah. And I figured raising a family in a shoebox apartment isn’t part of that domestic dream. So…”

“So here we are,” you supplied.

“So here we are,” he repeated with a nod. “Oh, this one looks nice,” he said, clicking on one of the options.

“It is,” you agreed, watching as Bucky clicked through the pictures of the 3 bedroom home. “Big enough to raise a family. Small enough to not be obnoxious.”

“Mhm,” Bucky murmured, the mouse hovering over the link to schedule a viewing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you grinned.

After that, it wasn’t uncommon for yours and Bucky’s afternoons to be filled with meeting with realtors and attending open houses, weighing all your options in the evenings. And with the type of dedication Bucky had towards house hunting, it wasn’t long at all until you found a place you both fell in love with.

“C’mon, doll,” he roused you one morning like he always did. “Gotta go train.”

Normally you bounded out of bed, excited for a new day of training exercises, but today you swatted a hand at him, batting him away. “No,” you mumbled, pulling the blanket up over your head, and turning away from him, the action making your stomach roll. You let out a long, low groan.

“You feeling alright?” he asked, his voice taking on a note of concern. Hands pulled the blanket from your face, before he was feeling your forehead, checking for any unusual warmth. “You don’t feel like you have a fever,” he noted with a frown.

“Gonna be sick,” you announced, springing from bed and racing for the bathroom.

Bucky followed worriedly, one hand pulling your hair out of your face, the other rubbing soothingly at your back as you dry-heaved into the toilet. “Okay, no training today. We do have the meeting with the realtor later to sign the last of the papers and get the keys. But I can ask Steve to come keep you company while I go do that if you’re not up for it.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head and rising shakily to your feet. “You don’t have to bother Steve. It’s just a stomach bug, I’ll be fine.”

“Well, let me at least help you back to bed, and make you some breakfast, okay?”

“Fine,” you conceded, letting him support your weight as he led you back to bed. “But I’m not hungry,” you told him as you pulled the blanket close around you in bed.

“Not hungry, or worried you’ll be sick if you eat?” he questioned the validity of your statement.

You stuck your tongue out at him.

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “At least try to eat some toast for me? Maybe having something in your stomach will help.”

“If you get it to me before I fall back asleep, I’ll try,” was your compromise.

Quickly, Bucky raced into the kitchen, as you closed your eyes wondering why you suddenly felt so miserable. When you’d been sick in the past, there’d always been signs leading up to it. But this sickness had caught you completely off guard. 

“Gotta sit up for me, doll,” Bucky’s voice had you opening your eyes again, spotting him standing next to you with a plate in his hand.

You groaned, sitting up against the headboard and taking a begrudging bite of the toast.

He chuckled again. “I forgot how stubborn you get when you’re sick. Way more than you normally are.”

“Not sure how not wanting to vomit toast, and wanting to sleep makes me stubborn, but okay,” you said, taking another slow bite.

“Aren’t there usually signs before you get sick? I thought there used to be signs.”

“There are signs. Or there’s supposed to be. I dunno what the heck is happening.”

His brows pulled together in curious confusion. “You’re not…” his eyes shifted to look at your stomach pointedly. “Are you?”

Your eyes went wide at the suggestion, before you shrugged your shoulders. “Maybe?”

“Shit…”

“Would it be bad if I was?”

“No!” he rushed. “God no. Just…”

“We talked about all of this back in the forties, it became irrelevant for decades, and now that we started talking about the possibility of it all again, it’s all happening at once.”

“And we still have the Karli situation, yeah. But it’s fine. It’s more than fine. Do you want me to run down to the pharmacy?”

“Please?”

Ten minutes later, Bucky held you tight as you waited on the test lying on the bathroom counter with wide and tearful eyes. “Holy shit…” you both breathed in unison, as a small plus sign appeared in the result window. “Holy shit!”

__

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[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

I'm. The new covers, op. The new covers. Gosh. Both of them hold so much symbolism. And technically they both are canon, they are both original ideas that could perfectly be valid. Horikoshi simply found something better. But anyways, I'm going to go ahead and ramble about it because Im- Op, prepare for a long ask! Hope you like it!

So!

On the one where Katsuki's the one in the picture, he's not on his knees like he is in the other two covers. Instead, he has his face down, body forward, one hand on one leg, the other one holding out for something...He's bowing. Bowing in Japanese culture is a pretty big deal. Hes not just tilting his head a bit, his head and body are on full on commitment.

Such a tilted bow means a LOT, specially from THIS guy, Mr dont let anyone walk in front of me. Even more when hes not just bowing, but accepting such an open display of given help, Mr shonen anime lone wolf. Accepting something he always has trouble admitting to. Accepting the past, accepting the wrongs. Accepting Izukus help means so much, and that's what these three covers have in common.

His hand is sctretching out. He's ready to say yes to that hand out in the air.

(Ps. I wonder if he's watching his own reflection on the water in this panel, as well?)

Hes in middle of the picture with those childhood friend at the back, which means audience. It means letting people see what hes done, what he's sorry for. He is being open and exposed and vulnerable. That's no fighting stance.

Remember guys, in case you haven't noticed before, Horikoshi puts lots of metaphorical value in his manga and on his covers. Sometimes you've got to dig in deep and think to get the bigger picture. And in this case, the bigger picture screams regret and wanting to make things right from the start.

This cover occurs in the past, at the moment where everything started, and Katsuki fully remembers this. Katwuki has thought of this, is thinking about this. He's had eye bags for gods sake, he's clearly troubled by all of what it means.

These three covers are the visual explanation of what's going on inside Katsuki's head, because this is clearly focused on him and his perspective.

(Ps. Rivers symbolise the massage of time. If that doesnt add to everything else, I dont know what to tell you.)

So! Next!

Wow, if this isnt one of my favourite things ever. Okay. Christ.

I have two options here. Scratch that, three options. Scream into the void, scream into this post, or actually make a good presentation of my inner turmoil. I'll have to go by the third option. (Haha. Just like horikoshi did. Dont # me, I'm funny in my head.)

This cover melted my insides, froze them all over, and hit me with them like a hammer.

I know they're kids, but let me get this straight-so kids seriously look at their friends with these looks in their eyes and think "ah, yes. This is my very good friend. This gentle smile and kind look I'm giving him as if he was my whole world? Well, hes just a very good friend."

I looked at my childhood crush this way, I dont know what to tell you.

Anyway, let's actually jump to the information at hand.

This panel seems like it's making a reference to what Katsuki wishes could have been. And if that's not absolutely soul-crushing...this cover is Katsuki's feelings, guys. These are probably his very thoughts. This scene has gone through Katsuki's head at some point.

We've got Izuku in his stuck up pose all over again, in just an awkward angle. It's like katsuki isnt looking AT this katsuki right now, but at the spot where the actual past Katsuki, at some point, was. As if this Isuku is frozen in time. Dont believe too much in this paragraph, I still have my doubts about that, but I feel it's a possibility. Izukus eyes seem to be focused on the water, while Katsuki is just the tiniest bit back, reaching for Izukus hand. And gosh.

I dont think I've ever seen older NOR child Katsuki have this look plasted into his face before. He's...sheepish. Kindly, awkwardly sheepish. No hate, no anger, no shame, no nothing. His face is clear and sweet and has this "Whoops. You got me. But thanks." kind of expression on.

The hand behind his head, just the tiniest but embarassed? That little smile? It's all so soft.

Rambling about softness though- I really liked the hand scene in this particular panel. If you close up your view, you realise that theres no effort to pull anyone out of nowhere. In this panel, they are simply holding hands in frozen time for no purpose at all.

Katsuki has his hand around Izuku...simply holding there.

Again, because the angle is awkward, it's kind of messy, but you get the point.

It's all simply beautiful. Horikoshi clean likes give me life.

And lastly. The actual cover.

I screeched so hard when I saw this. My first instinct when seeing this for the first time was to straight up go trigger happy fingers and write about it to my friends. Christ.

Everything is so...SOft. horikoshi made a good decision by mixing both previous drawings in one. We have parts of the two covers in one, which is amazing. In this one, Katsuki isnt alone, as Izuku's there too. But we dont have the audience either. Probably because the main focus on this panel is no one else except them two.

Again, Katsuki looks like he's bowing, but instead of looking all the way down, he's in the middle. Not looking at Izuku nor looking at the ground, like it shows in the previous covers. Instead, Horikoshi found a middle ground. He's looking at his hand. At the gesture.

Hes not holding hands quite yet, but his hand is there. At arms reach. Not close enough but there. Wanting.

Theres so much regret and again, softness.

Again, like you Op said a bit bad, the angle is off here. This is present Katsuki remembering his past. The angle is off because this Izuku isnt holding out for our Katsuki. This is a memory. A wish. Katsuki's wish.

(Ps. Izukus trousers drenched in the rivers water. This detail was so nice. It's a subtle action that describes Izukus characterization so much. Izuku went in the river with Katsuki in mind, not caring if he got his clothes soaked in the process too. For Izuku, only Katsuki was there. And for Katsuki, only Izuku is.

As a plus, I can't believe the cover of this is literally called Bakugou Katsuki rising. They named the entire thing after that one chapter. Actually, I very much, totally believe it. It's the moment so many people have been waiting for, after all. The moment so many scenes have been amounting for, little by little.

*dreamy sigh*

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little thing, I had to get it out of my system and dont want to bother my dear friends anymore than needed.

Have a good day, OP! I'll stay updated!

You kinda just...took my heart and curb stomped it, not gonna lie. Your observations are so beautiful and so accurate. The sketch with little Bakugou taking Izuku’s hand is so...raw, and yeah, that expression is definitely one of love. Those eyes, the way he is HOLDING Izuku’s hand, not TAKING it. He isn’t taking it to stand up, he is literally just...holding it. 

That isn’t the way you take someone’s hand when you’re trying to pull yourself up. It’s an awkward angle and just...wouldn’t work right. No, he is literally just holding his hand, and that’s exactly what Bakugou wishes he did all that time ago. He wishes that he not only took Deku’s hand, but held onto it. Held it as if it were something precious, something to be cared for and protected. 

These are Bakugou’s true feelings expressed in these drawings, and I think Horikoshi released them on purpose, to show us more of what he wanted Bakugou to be feelings through all of this. Since after all, we know that Bakugou expresses himself in action, not so much words. And because Horikoshi is an absolute genius, he thought to give us these other glimpses in how he feels through these actions. 

And the other sketch with him bowing his body to Izuku, and the way the log looks like it’s on his back with his ‘friends’ on top of it. 

The pressure of needing to be the coolest, the strongest, the best. Those kids put that kind of pressure on him, even if they never realized it. They encouraged his behavior and fed his ego, and it never allowed him to see how he was wrong. But now he is realizing it, and he is bowing himself in light of that acknowledgement. He is lowering his head and putting his pride away, so he can get back what he lost all those years ago; the opportunity to take Izuku’s hand.

To take the hand of the only one of those kids that ever loved him unconditionally. Who never pressured him or expected him to be invincible. Who saw all of his flaws and was completely prepared to support him despite all of it. The only one. 

I’m just a mess over all of this, and I am so incredibly thankful to Horikoshi for creating this beautiful relationship. AND IN A SHOUNEN MANGA, NONETHELESS!!  

Thank you friend, for your beautiful thoughts. I think they’re spot on, and I am so emotional all over again because of this. 

[secret-rendezvous1d]

“you’re so beautiful.”

hello, hi.

here’s some long-awaited spencer fluff that got requested to me. it’s loosely based on this idea that someone sent in to me; you should write something fluffy about spence or the reader being sick or having an off day (something along those lines), and the other just being very attentive to them. like checking in on them before the roundtable meetings or in between briefings and maybe they go out to catch an unsub and they're holding hands in the car and just being super sweet and caring :'))))) brb gonna go explode with feels.

explode with feels is how i hope you’ll feel after reading this. it did make me go all mushy inside because having spencer take care of me whilst i’m sick would be a dream come true- but it won’t because he’s a fictional character and that sucks.

this could the last story that gets posted for a while; some things are happening and i just want to take a bit of a break from posting stories on here until i’m feeling comfortable again. i’m still going to be writing behind the scenes so don’t think i won’t be; there’s so much spencer stuff to work from that plenty of stories will be coming. i just want to say that i am incredibly thankful to each and every one of you who has supported this new venture of writing and has enjoyed it so far. 

like, reblog and send in some feedback, please. it’s greatly appreciated and it helps me work out what you want to see and what you are after. if you want something specific then do let me know! i’d love to try and write something for you.

thank you. enjoy.

-

“you’re so beautiful” spencer reid x female reader (reader insert imagine) word count; 4.6k.

* TRIGGER WARNING; very brief mentions of rape, abduction, torture. if you are uncomfortable with that, i advise not to read or read with caution. *

summary; yn falls sick and spencer likes to take good care of her when they’re working on a case.

-

YN woke up feeling like shit.

There was no need for her to beat around the bush and deny herself the truth on how her body was making her feel. Her head ached whenever she moved her vision from side to side and her temples throbbed close to her ears and she could feel her heartbeat from behind her eyes, pumping more vigorously, almost like it could have been heard throughout the entire building. Like the heartbeat effect in a movie when things got tense. Her breathing was shallow, her throat felt constantly dry and in need of hydration and her nasal passages felt like wet cotton-wool had been shoved up each nostril and had been strictly put there to restrict a clear intake and outtake of breath when she needed one. Her chest felt heavy, like she was drowning and had no way of coming back to the surface, and her eyes felt sensitive to the bright light of the pure sunshine streaming through the open curtains, which she assumed Spencer had opened when he woke up.

Despite feeling poorly and her head feeling like it wanted to involuntarily dip downward toward her chest, her eyes begging to have a few more minutes of sleep, she felt physically fine and there was no aching in her joints and no soreness around her neck and her legs felt strong enough to hold her weight and so she felt she could live the natural working day like normal. She could still hear so she could attend the briefing that morning, she could still see clearly so she could see the images of what they were dealing with when Garcia showed them on the screen in the roundtable room, she could still manoeuvre herself around and walk without getting dizzy or wandering from a straight line so she could easily be used in a chase to catch an unsub. She was fine to work and nothing but a couple of cold and flu capsules taken with her breakfast and some regular four-hour intakes of paracetamol through the day would keep her strong and feeling better throughout the day.

She left their bedroom freshly showered and spritzed with perfume and deodorant and dressed in an outfit that seemed like it was fitting attire to how she was feeling; a baggy sweatshirt, that hung loose down her upper body and covered her hands, and a pair of worn-out and black-denim skinny jeans that she kept in the back of her closet for days when work trousers just didn’t cut it for her. When she wanted something a little more comfortable and fitting. The material at the kneecaps almost worn out and torn from the non-stop crawling on her knees during cases that had them in tight spaces, the hems cut up from walking through thorns and shrubbery when cases took them into the wilderness, dried out stains of god-knows what sunk deep into the material which she struggled to get rid of when laundry day came around, and the denim around the inner thigh was wearing thin from the constant running around they had to do and with the amount of time she paced interrogation rooms and paced negotiation rooms when she felt on edge about something in particular. The jumper, she hoped, would keep her warm enough to not get worse symptoms over the next few days that passed so she wasn’t sent home for being ill - Hotch being more careful than strict because he couldn’t have her working excessively when her body couldn’t take the pressure.

What she expected to see, after closing the bedroom door behind her exit, was an empty living room that was void of anything related to Spencer. His house keys taken from the hooks by the front door, his tattered Converse trainers gone from the space beside her chunky black boots, his shoulder bag picked up from the floor by the coat-rack that was also missing his coat. Except, when she looked around and took a note of anything that had gone, everything seemed to have been left in the same place as where they had been left the previous evening when they arrived home; her boots were to the left of his trainers, his bag was hung up instead of left of the floor and his coat was taking up a hook on the rack beside her patterned macintosh. 

He was still home and it took her a moment to realise.

There was a delicious smell of bacon and fried eggs filling the entire apartment, the delectable sound of something sizzling in a pan taking her from the entryway and into the kitchenette, where she found Spencer stood amongst the smells and the sounds and the spitting oil and the steam coming from the cooker. Stood with his back facing her and dressed in the typical waistcoat and patterned shirt, one hand holding a ceramic bowl in a tight grip and the other using a fork to mash two halves of an avocado up, head darting from the pan frying the eggs to the bacon cooking in the grill to make sure there was no burning of any of the breakfast foods he was prepping for a masterpiece. 

“What’s going on here this morning? Are you burning food for an experiment or something?” She questioned, startling him in his spot, a tinkle of metal cutlery colliding with ceramic as he dropped the fork upon your sudden arrival. His body turned so gracefully in his place, the bowl of avocado being left behind on the counter, taking in the standing stature of his girlfriend as she stood in the archway of the kitchen entryway. Her hair damp from the shower but dried enough not to leave wet patches on her clothes, fresh-faced and make-up free, looking so small as she stood with a grin on her face- god, he really loved her., “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Good morning to you,” he smiled warmly, stepping across the expanse between them and reaching for her hands, curling his fingertips into hers and holding them gently in his sweetened hold. He smelt like his musky and sandalwood-scented aftershave, something that always lingered in whatever room he entered, and she loved that it made her feel so safe and secure. The smell of home when they/he were away from home. “You were tossing and turning in bed all night and I heard you sniffling this morning so I knew you were going to wake up a little ill so I thought I’d make you breakfast to cheer you up. Egg and mashed avocado on toast with some bacon to get you going since it’s your favourite at the moment.”

She smiled appreciatively. He was attentive, no matter what the subject was, and his eidetic memory came in hand sometimes when she found a new obsession or found something that she enjoyed because he always seemed to remember and never let it slip his mind. Egg and avocado on toast just so happened to be her favourite meal for the first meal of the day, which she knew would change by next week, and to see him cooking it made her heart race for him a little more than normal. She laced her fingers through his, bringing one of his hands to her lips and pressing a kiss to his skin because there was no way she was going to kiss him on the lips because she knew whatever she had could pass as quickly as it could spread. Much to her dismay, of course, because she liked to sneak the occasional and sneaky kiss whenever they could in between meetings or briefings or orders being thrown about from Hotch. 

“A little ill?” She frowned, head dipping down to her chest before looking back up at him, his eyes full of concern and worry, “I feel fine. Just a little bunged up. A head cold, I would say, Spence.”

He left the space in front of her to tend to the sizzling in the pan that was becoming a little more vicious as it held the cooking eggs, spitting oil as an indication that they were ready to be taken out and placed on a plate and ready to sit upon a bed of toasted bloomer bread that had a spread of avocado along the toasted top. Turning off the hob and sliding to the toaster, slipping two slices of bread into their toaster and allowing it to toast whilst the bacon finished grilling under the heat. And, by this point, YN took it upon herself to sit at the dining table and pour herself a cup of coffee from the cafetiere perched in the middle of the table, steaming with black coffee that had been freshly made before she left the bedroom.

“You look beautiful today, by the way,” Spencer broke the silence of the quiet apartment with a huff and a puff surrounding his words, setting a plate down in front of her and swiping his brow with the back of his hand, “you’re so beautiful.”

“I don’t feel beautiful right now, Spence,” she informed him, eyes focused on the bright yellow yolk of her egg, as he went back to grab his plate and walked back to the table to sit opposite her. She was impressed with his attempt. She liked her eggs cooked in a very specific way when it came to frying them, sunny-side up and with a runny yolk that covered everything when it broke, and he managed to get it perfectly to her expectations. “I’m all bunged up and snotting and leaking from every hole today. I don’t feel so pretty.”

“Every hole?” 

“Every facial hole, you pervert,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes, trying to hide the smirk that would have shown if she wasn’t trying to be a tiny bit serious. However, deep down, she was a little surprised that the innocent face that had sat opposite her at the dining table could even think of euphemisms so youthful and degenerative so quickly and so on subject when sex wasn’t exactly something he was confident in, “get your dirty mind out of the gutter.”

“I still think you look beautiful. Snot all around your nostrils or not,” he said, “absolutely gorgeous.”

“Shut up, don’t flatter me,” she kicked his shin underneath the table and grinned at the contact she felt with her toes, a wince leaving his mouth and a dribble of yolk trickling down his chin, the impact jerking his body and therefore jolting his arm and smearing avocado across his cheek, much to her amusement.  “serves you right, genius.”

“Hurry up and eat, we’re needed in the roundtable room in half an hour,” he shovelled a forkful of toast into his mouth, the crust catching his mouth and swiping a mix of avocado and egg whites across his upper lip.“Try not to sniffle and cough so much otherwise Hotch won’t allow you on the jet.”

“Don’t sabotage my job, Spencer. The team needs me just as much as they need you.” 

“I want you as close to me as possible so I can keep an eye on you. I’m a doctor, after all. I can look after you, carry any meds you need, be your something warm on the jet,” his sentence was halted by the ringing from the phone in his trouser pocket, the fork in his hand being placed on the plate so he could dig around and pull it out, no hesitation in his thumb to answer until he heard YN sniffle and he caught himself before he pressed the green call button. “You’re still alert to everything, yeah? Still good to come into work?”

“Do you mean, am I alert that Hotch is ringing your phone right now to get confirmation that we’ll be in on time?” She wondered, a hint of a smirk on her face when he looked up from his screen and nodded, “then yeah, I’m still good to go to work and treat the any like any normal day, Spence.”

+

“Are you feeling okay?” 

Spencer’s question was full of concern, and she worried that those overhearing their conversation because of the silence inside the confinement of the plane had their ears pricking up at any noise made by any one of the team, his long legs striding across the alley of the plane and crouching down beside the chair YN had made herself comfortable in for the duration of the flight to Texas. Away from everyone else, away from where chat would have been occupied because her head couldn’t take the jokes and the laughter that came from the gentle banter shared, away from being seated next to anyone in close proximity because she feared that she would definitely give something to someone in the tight space they were spending the next few hours. Although, when she looked around the plane for any eyes on her or anyone who had stopped mid-task to focus on what she and Spencer were talking about, she saw everyone off in their own worlds and in their own quiet conversations as the plane coursed its path. 

“I’m a bit tired but I’m okay. The pills before the flight are kicking in,” she smiled and tilted her head to the side and looked at him through red-rimmed eyes and hooded eyelids hanging above her coloured orbs, his arms folded on the arm of the chair she was curled up in. Her legs felt a little achy, in the bent up position they were in, and she remembered to move them and stretch them for a little to make sure her circulation was still running well. “I think I might take a nap right now. How long till we land?”

“Another couple of hours,” Spencer looked at his watch and then looked back to YN, his hand resting upon hers reassuringly, “I’ll brief you on everything when we land, if you want. To refresh your memory. I’ll get Hotch to get me and you to check the abduction site.”

“That’ll be good.”

“YN, get as much rest as you need,” Rossi said, standing behind Spencer and placing a soothing hand on his shoulder, squeezing it to tell him he was there and to not stand bolt upright in surprise. Partly to silently reassure him that she’d be fine if he left her to sleep through the flight to pass the time and partly to keep him stable as the plane hit a bout of soft turbulence from the gusts of high winds. “We’re thankful you chose to come with us but don’t forget to put yourself first sometimes. If you’re feeling rough then tell us. We can work around that.”

She really adored David.

He was like the father of the team; much more to YN because she had joined the team a short amount of time before he had taken over from Gideon. Even though he had common ground with almost every one of the agents in the unit, the two of them still kept a lookout for one another and checked in during intense cases because Rossi knew some of the information was enough to have someone second guess their career paths. He was the one who always pulled them aside when a situation got a little hated, he was the one who always pulled together team functions outside of work, he cooked for them and taught them Italian and he always knew how to shock and surprise them to a point where they weren’t surprised that Rossi had such an emotional and bumpy road in life.

He was the good cop to Hotch's bad cop - but that usually switched from time to time.

“Rossi, I’m fine. Honestly. I feel fine, just a little bunged up in the chest and the nose area. I struggled to sleep last night so I’m just going to try and grab an hour's shuteye,” YN spoke softly, wiping a tissue underneath her nose and balling it up in her fist, “I’ll be fine after a sleep, I’m sure. My grandma always told me that sleep was the best medicine.”

“If you’re sure,” he hummed, taking a step to the left and hiding in the alcove to make himself a cup of coffee, “absolutely sure?”

“This may not be my grandma’s couch but,” she grinned tiredly and nodded, “I’m absolutely sure.”

He smiled and held his coffee cup tightly in his hands, walking back to where he had been situated opposite JJ and Hotch, taking a glance at Morgan who had found himself comfortable on the sofa of the plane, the case file spread out on either side of him as he prepped to take control of the quick brief they always made so they were ready for when they touched down at their destination and split off into pairs to gain better understanding of who they were dealing with this time around.

“Warm enough?” Before his question was over, he was already shrugging off his jacket and opening it up, “here, some extra warmth,” he draped the material over her body and watched as she snuggled deeply beneath the garment. It smelt like him, it felt like him but it wasn’t him and she wished she could be snuggled on his lap and sleeping under his arm because that's where she slept the best- “better?”

“I was fine before,” she rolled her eyes and tilted her head to the touch of his lips, a kiss being placed against her forehead “but this feels nice.”

“Get comfy, I’ll go grab you some water.”

“You don’t need to baby me, Spencer. I’m honestly fine,” she grabbed his arm and stopped him from standing up and moving into the alcove behind her, not that he was going far but she just wanted to enjoy the moment they had going right now. They rarely got the chance to have their own conversation, in their own world, without any interruption from someone who wanted to tease them for something silly, “just stay here. I don’t need any water, not thirsty.”

“You can’t finish a sentence with the letter ‘d’ finding its way to the end of a word,” he said teasingly, a grin on his face because when she rolled her eyes, her head went the movement, like she went to ignore him because he couldn’t say anything seriously when she wanted him to be serious. Except, she wasn’t doing it to ignore him and to silently tell him that she was displeased with what he had said- she was doing it because if he let her eyes move on their own, her head would have been aching for moments afterwards, “let me grab you some water.”

“Spencer, stop,” she whined, “if I want water then I can get it myself. I’m not an invalid.”

“Never said you were but let me take care of you this time,” he was practically begging. She was independent when it came to being sick and she never liked to show a vulnerable side in front of Spencer, even when he tried his best to wear her down to the point where she gave in to his relentlessness, “please?”

She sighed heavily and pulled his jacket further up her body, tucking it beneath her chin and cosying a little deeper into the seat; she supposed she could use him and his willingness to obey orders to her advantage.

“Okay, fine.”

+

Two days had passed since they had landed in Texas, the longest amount of time that they’d ever spent on a case across the borders, and they were closer to the arrest of the predator who had abducted, raped and killed multiple women over the course of thirteen months than they were when they first arrived. Just a few more hours until they solved the case, had it come to an end with an arrest, so they could be on the jet and back in Virginia come nightfall.

She was ill, granted, and that was one reason as to why she couldn’t wait to get home. In the last forty-eight hours since they’d been there, YN’s head cold had turned into a full body cold and she had taken a turn for the worst but refused to work from the hotel room she shared with Spencer and kept her symptoms more secret. Partly because she was selfish - she knew Hotch would want her working away from the case because the chances of her zoning out where pretty high and she wanted in on the arrest of this unsub, she wanted to be the one who got him in cuffs and put him away for the murders of so many innocent women. 

She wanted her own bed and she wanted to cuddle with Spencer and she wanted to sleep beneath her own covers and sleep in a mattress that Spencer wouldn’t check and inform her on all the facts about bed-bugs and larva that could linger within the spring beneath them, in a bed that wasn’t a tiny hotel bed that was put to shame by their comfortable bed at home. she wanted a decent shower to freshen up in because she always woke up feeling gross and no matter how many showers she took, she still couldn’t rid herself of the sweaty feeling that covered her skin. and she wanted 

But she couldn’t wait to get home and try to rid herself of the information and the images she had been looking at and reciting and listening to over the last 48 hours or so. The stab wounds and the lacerations and the markings on the body of a woman who couldn’t defend herself, the brutal depiction of the well-thought out scenario that made YN shudder in her boots, the toture equipment that had been used on them when they were bound and tied up and screaming for their lives, the pictures showing the faces of the women who no longer had a life to live due to someone’s sadistic behaviour. That was the biggest reason as to why she couldn’t wait to go home.

And it was her arrest.

And she felt proud, a sense of accomplishment, that she was the one to handcuff him and walk him out from his tomb in the basement, beneath the house he had stayed in all his life, and pass him off to a police official who sat him in a police car waiting to take him to the station to be put away for the rest of his sorry life. Of course, they prevented any more attacks that this man would have prepared for but it never brought her a full sense of happiness- how could it when they couldn’t save the girls he had tortured?

“Even when you’re ill, you’re still a badass,” JJ claimed, squeezing YN’s hand and feeling the adrenaline shaking through her body. Something that they had all been through and always experienced no matter how many times they brought a criminal to justice for the horrific things they had done. “You did good, YN.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a badass just-” she coughed into her free hand and Spencer was close by with a tissue from his jacket pocket, passing it to her so she could blow her nose and wipe the residue from her hand that came from clearing her throat, “just trying to be good at my job and trying to do it well to get these sons of bitches behind bars.”

JJ smiled at the two of them and jogged down the steps of the house, running toward Hotch as she filled him in and told him what had happened in the house and who made the arrest and who was their support and back-up in case things went wrong so he could write the report as best and as true to the story as he could. His eyes darted to YN and then back to JJ a few times as she explained in detail, a small smile on his face that was full of appreciation when he looked at YN and made eye contact which enticed a smile back in his direction, deep in conversation before clambering into the drivers side of the car. 

“I’d agree with JJ,” Spencer smiled, laying his arm over her shoulder and pulling YN into his side, pressing a kiss to her hairline, “full of a cold and you still put the job first. That’s badass behaviour to me.”

“Badass,” YN scoffed and rolled her eyes, looking up at him and squinting from the sunlight that seemed to be beaming directly down upon them, “I don’t think so, Spence.” 

They descended the steps outside the front of the house, his arm still holding her close, the soft feeling of grass and soil from the front lawn making a difference to the concrete they had walked upon as they exited the house. YN could feel the heat radiating all around, making her feel a little hotter than usual and she had the  big jumper covering her upper body to thank for that, and she couldn't wait to be back in Virginia in the air-conditioned office that stayed at a calm and cooling temperature, no matter the weather.

“For a genius, I’d take his word for it,” Rossi said from behind them, overtaking them in a haste to grab the passenger seat in the car with Hotch, “he knows what he’s talking about, YN.”

She didn’t need to see his face to see and hear the smirk in his voice, her arm sneaking around Spencer’s waist, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment as she received a well-done from the rest of the team who had watched from behind the scenes.

“Come on,” he leant away from her and looked down at her, “you did so good today. I’m proud of you.”

“I just want to go home now. Although, I’m not looking forward to the flight with these ears. They ache like mad,” she admitted. Her earshad only just started aching that morning, something she thought would pass if she kept clearing out her nasal passages and 

“We could drive home,” “I can make Morgan take us back. He won’t mind.”

“I will mind. It’s three hours by jet, five by car,” Morgan teased, elbowing Spencer in the arm with hopes he took it as a piece of banter and nothing more than that, “no, I can do. Of course. We can grab a bite to eat on the way home, too.”

“No, flying is much quicker and I want to be home and in bed by nightfall,” YN assured, climbing into the car and scooting over to the far seat behind the front passenger chair, situating herself comfortably and clipping her seatbelt around her upper body, “I’ll just take some meds in a second and sleep it off as soon as we get on the jet.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent, Spence,” she nodded and gave the seat beside her a pat with her finger tips, “let’s get home.”

[jungnoir]

destiny | 09;

⇢ summary: you’re just about ready to give up on life altogether; your love life is in ruins, you’ve lost your job, and your family couldn’t care less about you… and then you meet your blushing guardian angel, and maybe life isn’t so bad after all.

⇢ relationship: jeon jungkook/reader, min yoongi/reader.

⇢ genre: supernatural, angel!au, demon!au, romance, thriller.

⇢ words: 6.5k words.

⇢ warnings: mentions of depression, violence, vomiting. slightly nsfw toward the end.

previously |  next

a/n: happy new year! I know it’s been quite a while (literally an entire year since I’ve updated) but I’ve had this chapter pretty much ready in my drafts and just hadn’t gotten around to finishing because. everything. regardless, I hope this sort of makes up for it. love you all! hope you’re doing well. also WOW I swear a lot in this one.

His hand on your neck is meant to silence any screams that might slip out. He applies the perfect pressure to avoid crushing anything vital (and just by the feel alone, you know he’s got quite an amount of strength to pull that off) while simultaneously stealing all your air and forcing you to cower in fear. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this guy isn’t someone to be fucked with, and all you can think about is the fact that Jungkook is right outside and has no fucking clue what’s going on. The very thought fills you with dread.

“Then again, you’ve got someone helping you.” What once was just a particular, calculated press against your skin becomes a deliberate act of violence as he begins to choke you harshly. You know the pain of his grip might last for weeks, and that’s only if you don’t die in the next minute. “Just makes me wonder what’s so special about you.”

“Nothing!” You rasp out, clawing at his hand now in some weak attempt at breaking away. If you could make enough noise, enough commotion, surely someone-

-but the stranger has already stopped you quick. You aim to throw the door open or something but his free hand quickly apprehends you until you’re just a squirming mess on the verge of passing out. Even your legs are pressed firmly to the wall by his own body, holding you fast so that you can’t help letting a few tears fall. There was no doubt in your panicked mind that this was Seokjin, the angel who’d been trailing you from the shadows for what felt like centuries. His grand act of approaching you, something you’d dreamed up to be a major climactic brawl in a battlefield made for a spectacle, turns out to be so simple. Perhaps that’s what you got for thinking biblically. Why go through all the trouble when he could just squash the problem the minute a chance presented itself?

Now, all you can think is “I can’t die like this”. A sobering thought of pure contempt. Drowning in the river was preferable to this.

You muster what breath you can, eyes blazing, “How does it feel… being God’s lap dog?”

Seokjin is, funnily enough, stunned for a moment. All bravado slips through a teeny crack in his demeanor when you say that, and even though it’s a low blow, it’s also enough for you to thrust a semi-powerful kick to the dressing room door to make the entire thing shudder like an earthquake. That sound, coupled with your comment, makes Seokjin release you in a panic. You hear some gasps from outside, a few people inquiring if you’re alright. An employee sounds most worried amongst the voices. You’re just shy of swinging the door open and forcing Seokjin to be revealed or to disappear all at once, but then he’s grabbed the back of your collar as you scream in frustrated fury. Seconds later, you’re no longer in the dressing room anymore.

Instead, you fall flat on a rough, sandy surface. You’re overwhelmed with nausea, pain, and fear, so your whole body is struggling to pick up on the most important things outside of that, but you do realize quite fleetingly that it’s sweltering. It takes you a few seconds as you curl up on the ground to peek behind your hands that shield your face and discover that it’s blindingly bright where you are, almost like a…

For fuck’s sake. “Of all the places…” You whine with a sore throat, coughing right after from the strain.

Seokjin stands above you and uses his foot to kick you onto your back so that you’re staring up at him and the baby blue sky. His hair color plays against it in an unfittingly gentle contrast, “I thought we might need somewhere safer to discuss things. Oh, and speaking of discussion,” he waves a hand near you and you instinctively flinch back before you feel the pain in your throat subside. You wait a few seconds, but it seems whatever he’d just done had no effect on the rising bile in your throat, so you assume that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own. What an ass. “Feel better?”

“Fuck you! Maybe if you hadn’t choked me out in the first place-”

“You’d have listened?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t hunted us down to kill us, we would have!”

Seokjin frowns, “I didn’t bring you here to talk about you and that boy, I brought you here to talk about you. I am only concerned with you.”

Whatever that entailed did not sound good in the slightest.

You scramble to your feet and immediately regret the movement as it makes you sick again. The more than 100 degree weather does nothing to fix that either, the sun beating down on you and bouncing off the dusty white sands directly into your eyes. You’re feeling something nasty rising up from your stomach, ready to projectile…

Just as the scene changes, you paint a Victorian rug with streaks of your vomit.

Seokjin immediately groans out loud, placing a rough hand at the back of your neck like one would grab the scruff of a kitten. You’re far too weak to protest, rubbing at your mouth with the back of your hand, so you let him toss you into a chair. The jerkiness of the action should have sent another eruption out of you, but you recognize the relief that has overwhelmed you from the touch of his hand. Had he fixed that too?

“Never the matter,” the angel growls, waving his hand and making the mess evaporate from the very fibers of the rug, “you’re all very fragile. I should have prepared you first.”

“How can you do all that…?” You couldn’t recall Jungkook or Jimin showing off any power like that, and whether it was because of Seokjin’s status or their modesty (and adherence to rules), you were unsure. Most likely both.

Instead of answering right away, Seokjin reaches forward a moving cart and you finally notice there’s a glass pitcher of water (hopefully) next to an array of empty glasses. You take the time he spends pouring some water for you to examine your surroundings.

It looks like a secret room in an old English manor house. The walls are painted a deep charcoal and with the absence of natural light, you could mistake it for the void. The only light that does exist is a strangely dim white light coming from the ceiling. What looks like a rather ornate shell of a skylight (sans the window to actually reveal, well, a sky), seems to hide said white light somewhere in it. It’s such a vague glow that you can’t pinpoint if it’s coming from a lightbulb or magic.

The rest of the room is just as ornate as the “skylight”, filled with deep oak bookshelves, golden artifacts, and shining decorations that already look like they cost more than your house. It doesn’t really matter the longer you think about it. All of it has to be an illusion… right?

A glass is placed into your hand and you break out of your thoughts to make eye contact with Seokjin. He hovers over you with narrowed eyes and when you look back at your surroundings again, you notice all the little decorations have disappeared. Why had he- “We can negotiate those bits of the deal later if you so wish.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You ask, hesitant to drink the water despite how much the heat of the desert had made you crave it.

“Like I said before, I brought you here to discuss you. I’ve been watching you and lover boy for a while and it has become clear to me that you’ve been pulled along for quite the ride. I’m sure it’s all very daunting.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t shown up.”

“How much do you know about our Lord and Savior?”

It was tricky to say the least. You’d grown up on tales of him, an over-powered being of immense stature. No one could come close to him, not even the devil. However, you’d learned bits and pieces from Jungkook, Yoongi, and the others to the point where your ideas of the figure had become skewed. There was no linear understanding of him. You honestly had no idea, “Probably not enough.”

Seokjin huffs, taking a seat from across from you in a chair similar to yours. Crossing a leg over the other, the angel stares you down, “Do you know why I’m after you both?”

“You want to kill Jungkook. Because he committed your sin.”

“Jungkook is my main target, yes, but it wasn’t my sin. My sin was sullying myself with a demon. Jungkook’s sin was sullying you.”

You frown, “He did no such thing! You had a fucking child! Jungkook saved my life!”

“You mean to say he ruined it. You were supposed to be dead a long time ago.”

You’d known that much, Jungkook had told you already. Even if he hadn’t, that had always been the plan. “It was… it was my choice and I wanted it then, I admit it. But I was hurt. I was overwhelmed. I wanted it because I was scared there would be no reason to keep going.”

The angel angles a brow upwards, “And the fallen was that for you? A reason to keep going?”

“It was- it was a lot of things. I was reminded that I existed, and that there are people who can love me the right way,” frustrated at the situation, you glare at him, “what the fuck? Is this some fucking therapy session?”

He has the gall to smile, “God knows you need one. I’d like to be the one to get inside that mind of yours.”

Shit. What if you’d given him just the right information to use against you?

You snap your lips shut and sink back into your chair, bubbling with more dread. He notices your sudden resolve and appears to want to ease your worries, “I’m not doing this to break you. Unlike God, I find you, as a person, quite redeemable. A gentle, pained soul who fell victim to the perversion of her guardian angel. It’s all very sad.”

So God did think you were a lost cause. Jimin had been right after all. However, you don’t want to keep talking when you’re so close to getting the information you’ve been waiting for. It seems even Seokjin isn’t fazed by your silence, continuing on without missing a beat. “You see, usually these angel and human matters can be chalked up to the angel getting too big for their britches. They think they can change things like fate: God’s very flawless plan from the beginning. They are simply… glitches in the matrix, you could say? That’s where I come in. I make sure these issues are handled and that everything goes back to normal. You see, God loves his humans. Truly. He has a bit of a temper, but it’s justified, you know? He loves you all so very much that seeing you stray from a holy and righteous path is heartbreaking for him. He can only excuse so much.

“So he doesn’t. But… sometimes I help him. I change his mind. Even Jesus had to convince God not to blame his executioners. The big guy gets real impassioned about those he loves. It’s all part of the territory of being in heaven’s sovereignty,” at this, Seokjin shrugs, “you were an unfortunate casualty of it. However, I brought you here because I think that you could be saved. You’re simply confused. I’m sure I could convince God to rethink... his punishment for you.”

Your eyes widen, nearly dropping your glass, “He’d do that?”

The angel nods, pleased, “Of course! After all, he just wants you to repent. If you show that you will, well, I could put in a good word for you. He and I are very close.”

“But only for me.”

Seokjin’s smile dims some. He was so sure he’d had you on the hook just then, “Well… yes. There isn't much I can say about angels. Humans are born sinful, but angels are born knowing better. If they succumb to sin, I cannot do anything about that. But… if you feel that you’d be leaving Jungkook behind, and if that would cause you to feel guilty, I can assure you that that would be taken care of. Your memory of him would be wiped clean and you’d receive another guardian angel in an instant. You’d be granted everything you ever wanted. You’d be able to live out a new path of life contrary to the one your fallen so selfishly carved out for you.”

At this, you begin to frown deeper than you ever have. It’s not out of confusion but deep, deep understanding. Seokjin’s deal was asking you to sell Jungkook out and in return… he’d make you happy. You’d forget all about what had happened and carry on a new person, virtually safe. You could only assume that meant forgetting Yoongi too. Everything you’d accomplished so far would be rearranged until the you that you’d become would be so unfathomable you wouldn’t ever consider it.

What scares you the most is that you actually consider it.

This all could end right now and you’d get out alive, maybe all the ordinary people you knew would get out alive too. You’d be completely removed from the situation. You’d just have to forget Jungkook.

“You asked me how much I know about God,” you start, thumbs twiddling, and Seokjin perks up, “the stories humans told of him always kind of scared me. He’s so powerful… he knew everything before it was even created. Nothing can get past him. And yet, he let humans have free will and the right to choose what their path in life would be. That part always boggled my mind. God’s supposed to love us unconditionally, but if we don’t return the favor, we suffer eternally. It seemed like a pretty big plothole in the otherwise ‘flawless plan’ you claim he made.”

“Yes, well, it’s not God’s fault that Lucifer’s so conniving.”

“But it is. Isn’t it? God created him. Lucifer is the one who brought sin upon the world but God is the one that created him. If he knows everything, why make him in the first place? It’s a fallacy,” Seokjin’s eye twitches just a bit as you lean forward, “that God knows everything. Isn’t it? He wouldn’t be so stupid. He had no fucking clue what he’d made when he made Lucifer.”

“I’d watch your tone. God hears all.” The angel’s ominous reply is all that you need to hear. He doesn’t tell you that anything else you’ve said is false or not. Of course not. You know as well as he does that you’re spot on.

You’re so stunted by the arrogance of it all that you have to laugh, “Allegedly.”

In that same moment, the white light above begins to flicker. A distant rumbling sounds from somewhere and that fear you’d felt earlier comes back with a vengeance. Seokjin looks annoyed, if anything, “I only have so much time to sit here with you to chat.” He stands up and walks over to you, seizing you by the arm, “So I’m telling you now that you still have a chance. No one else has to die. Do me a solid and make that a reality.”

Did he really not want to kill you? He’d had so many chances to. Even now, he could just… what did you have that made him hesitate? “You think I believe that?”

The ground rumbles underneath you and then you fall through, Seokjin’s grip slipping off your arm… or maybe being pried off.

Where you land next isn’t as disorienting as the last few times, but it doesn’t feel any better to be ripped away again without so much as a warning. For a moment before you land, you halt, almost floating. Then your feet make contact with stone and then your knees follow under the sudden press of gravity. A quick look around tells you that Seokjin is nowhere to be seen… and that where you are looks vaguely familiar.

The stone continues up the walls to the ceiling, creating a naturally cold room that expands no more than the size of a restroom (no toilets in sight, however). The furthest edge of the room from you is completely dark, while the other is helped by a fire stretching from one long, narrow wall to the other. There is no wood crackling beneath it though, nor is there an actual controlled area for it to burn. Flames simply lick up the bottom of the wall as if commanded by magic. While the rest of your body feels chilly, the warmth of the fire keeps your head warm like a fever.

You lay crumpled up on your knees and hands, staring into the flames with the most bemused expression, wondering what to do now. You’re definitely not intent on travelling to the other side of the room in fear of being met with something sinister you can’t see, but the fire only illuminates so much of the place and there doesn’t seem to be a door in sight. If Seokjin wasn’t here, you doubted this was a place he wanted to be.

Maybe he was torturing you? Intending to keep you in a dark, scary room in order to break your resolve? You didn’t know the extent of power he was allowed to wield but this whole transportation thing was starting to get really annoying. You chance a meek, “Hello?”

Your voice doesn’t echo like you expect it to. It sounds like it’s right up against your face, like you’d spoken into a pillow, the sound eaten as soon as it came from your mouth. Where the hell were you?

“...not exact, okay?!”

You pick up on a voice to your right and turn over with such speed that you land on your ass. Some stones move on the narrow wall, and then the room is illuminated from an entirely different source of light. It takes you a few moments to gather your bearings as your eyes attempt to adjust. Voices are frantic and coming closer, you can hear that much. You pick up on one instantly, “Jungkook.”

Your voice is weak with relief just as he comes into view. He looks an absolute mess as he throws himself at your feet and wraps you up into a bone-crushing hug. The strength of his hug doesn’t even bother you as you cling back with just as much force, grateful tears beginning to gush out of your eyes. You didn’t realize until then just how terrified you’d been, really. It was always there underneath the surface, but something about Jungkook’s sudden presence makes the reality of it all hit much harder. He smells like your shampoo still.

After a couple of minutes in his embrace, you pull away to examine his face, “Are you okay?”

He laughs and the way his tears have clogged up his throat make it sound more like he’s choking, “Who cares about me? Are you?”

You smile, tucking some of his hair behind his ear, “Better. With you here. Where are we?”

“Limbo, hell’s limbo.”

You’re not sure what to say in response to that. After what you’d been through in the last… however long it’d been, that seems the most plausible to you. “Is that like purgatory?”

“No,” another voice speaks from above you and only then do you realize that Yoongi is here too. He looms over the both of you but his gaze is fixed heavy on your face, “purgatory is where the dead go on their way to heaven. This is where the living come on their way to hell. Was a hell of a ride trying to get your ass down here.”

“Yoongi…” You peel back from Jungkook and stand up, a little wobbly as you lean against the wall, “...thank you. How did you do it? The places Seokjin took me… I felt like we were in a dream.”

His upper lip ticks up in a snarl, “It was. The place where you were is a void, heaven’s version of limbo. It’s where angels bargain with humans on the edge of death to repent. It’s an open playing field for angels to present themselves to their humans without them having to be dead or breaking a rule… not like the latter really applies to Seokjin, though. It’s only as strong as your will to be there,” with that, Yoongi reaches toward you and brushes what feels like sand off your cheek, or perhaps he just meant to touch you to make sure you were really here with the way it lingered, “and that’s the only reason I could pull you out.”

It was a lot to digest. You still couldn’t totally understand how he’d pulled you from heaven’s limbo if he was a demon, but that was beside the point. Right now, you just wanted to get out of this creepy box of a room for good. And it seemed you would be getting your wish.

Another figure became clear to you through the doorway, though this figure looked much more intimidating than the two by your side. Dressed immaculately with a sly smile that felt strikingly familiar, a man makes his way into the room, pressing a hand to his chest and bowing his head to you, “He had my help too, of course. A pleasure to meet you (Name), I’ve heard very little about you.” The man holds out a hand to you and you can feel both Jungkook and Yoongi stiffen on either side of you, but neither makes a move to stop him. This had to be another demon, no doubt.

You take his hand and shake it firmly despite your nerves, “T-Thank you for your help as well. May I ask who you are?”

The man grins wider, “You can call me Lucifer. Are you hungry?”

An entire array of human food is set out before you but you don’t have much of a stomach to touch any of it, though Jungkook seems right at home as he fills up his own plate. You can only guess he’s enjoying the hell out of having so much food at his fingertips without having to pay for it.

You can hear his delighted sound effects from the left of you as you both sit on one side of a long table. Lucifer sits at the head of the table to the right of you, also refraining from really eating anything. Yoongi sits right across from you on the other side with an annoyed expression on his face, fingers tapping the heavy oak table top in a rhythm you can’t decipher. It couldn’t be any more awkward.

“No appetite?” Lucifer asks, pointing to the food. There’s meat and vegetables and cheeses that you know and don’t know but none of it seems particularly appetizing to you at the moment.

You shake your head, “No. Actually, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Ah, bet you’re bursting.” He chuckles and takes a swig of something you think might be wine. “Go ahead. I’ll try to recap the last couple of days as well as I can.”

“Days?!” You don’t mean to yell, you really don’t (especially not at the king of hell, but-), “It’s been days?”

Jungkook stops chewing to give you a concerned look, “Of course… how long was it for you?”

“Barely… half an hour, maybe more? But not days.”

“Yes, well,” Lucifer sighs, tucking his hands together in front of himself, “time works much differently in heaven and hell than it does here. Especially for those who end up in heavenly limbo. It’s essentially cut off from the rest of the universe which makes it that much harder to track those who end up there. Seokjin was smart in bringing you there than somewhere else on earth.”

Your head is throbbing at this point. If days had gone by, you could only imagine how much had changed since you’d been gone… “So… what has happened since then?”

“Apparently quite a bit, seeing as I was a last resort.” Lucifer’s tone almost sounds irritated. Like a petulant child, he glares over at his son with an unspoken tension that you would like to delve into much, much later when the important things have been moved out of the way. “These boys have been pretty busy trying to get you back. But we are all eager to know what happened while you were with Seokjin.”

Jungkook places a gentle hand on top of your knee under the table. For whatever reason, you note that his grip feels stronger than you’d grown used to. You’d thought the hug was just because he missed you so much, but even this simple touch was- “He… he found me in the dressing room, cornered me there and told me he’d been trying to get me and Jungkook alone. Somewhere he could really do some damage.” You recite all that you readily remembered, some details slipping as you focus on Jungkook’s touch. Yoongi’s eyes never stop boring into you. “He said a lot. He… he said he wanted to give me a second chance.”

Lucifer raises a brow at you, “At…?”

“Life. He said that if I… if I ratted out Jungkook, he’d work things out with God to set my life back on track. Memories wiped, a new guardian angel, the works.” You can feel Jungkook stiffen next to you.

“And did you take him up on it?” Lucifer inquires.

“No! No, I would… I would never. But he was so insistent… It sounded like he really wanted me to say yes. I don’t think he was planning to betray me if I took him up on it either.”

Lucifer heaves a heavy sigh. Folding his hands underneath his chin, the king of hell spares a glance at Jungkook, “He’s got a thing for innocents: those he believes did no actual harm in a situation. He’s always been soft that way. He has more of an affinity for humans than I ever did, but I have more reason to loathe humans than he does, so I guess it’s understandable.”

“He did… mention that none of this was my fault.”

“Of course! You were only following the path life laid out for you. It was the fallen angel you have beside you that decided to shake things up, and aren’t you lucky he did? It doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’re still alive. You’ve done nothing but suffer the consequences, it seems, against your own will.”

“But what about the demon he fell for? Or his child? Weren’t they killed so he could keep his spot in heaven?”

Lucifer leans forward, “I’m assuming your friends haven’t made it known to you yet, but they aren’t dead. They are both very much alive. In fact, the child in question was one of the people that helped in tracking you down. The mother… she is here, in hell, meant to stay imprisoned for all eternity. Or at least until the rapture,” with that, Lucifer drinks again, maintaining eye contact with your shocked stare, “but it was best that no one knew of their whereabouts. Only a handful of people even know that Inhui still exists. It’s become something of a legend amongst the demons and angels, shrouded in confusion. None of the angels would care for the mother, but the child would start an earthly war if they knew one still walked the earth. As far as they’re concerned, the child probably died from the natural complications of being an abomination.”

You frown, “How is that possible? An angel for every human on earth… that’s billions of angels and no one has even noticed the guy?”

“I was wondering about that, actually. He told us that he’d been walking the earth for a while now. Surely someone would have taken notice, right?” Jungkook speaks next, having abandoned his food entirely.

Yoongi snaps out of his bored stance, “Tae’s an anomaly. He’s forgotten everywhere he goes. His impression barely lasts long. Those people he encountered early on considered him a dream, or a hallucination, or a possession of the mind. His actual presence is… hazy. It’s easier to remember him by his name or his number, but everything else is-”

“Intangible.” His father finishes with a flourish. “No ordinary angel or demon could ever put a face to the name, only a feeling. Along with the rather excessive amount of glamours he employs when amongst the public, it is no wonder no one has sounded the alarm. Go ahead and recall his face in your mind, fallen. I’m sure you couldn’t piece it together even if you wanted to.”

Jungkook’s face screws up a little as an attempt, stricken dumb moments later when he can’t utter a thing. Your stomach churns at the thought, soiling your appetite even more.

It seemed like there was more to that story than you were being told, but you imagined that it would be quite a lot to relay to you in more than one sitting. After all, you still had no clue what you’d missed since you’d been gone, and it only hadn’t terrified you senseless because you were at least certain that the biggest threat to everyone’s lives had been right there with you the whole time.

“If you’re not planning to eat anytime soon, is there anything else you’d like to know? It’s not every day a mortal like you gets to talk to Lucifer.” With a small flourishing wave of his hand, Lucifer smiles at you, charming as ever. It was so strange. Yoongi acted nothing like his father, and yet you saw every bit of him in his expression.

You imagined Yoongi felt the need to distance himself as much as he could from his father’s intimidating image and had ended up creating his own in the process. Where Lucifer was inviting, however, Yoongi was… not for everyone. Even as he stares over the table at you, eyes hooded with what appears to be indifference rather than lasciviousness, you can’t help but see the other in him.

“I suppose not,” you murmur, “but now that I have the chance, I don’t really know what to say.”

Lucifer continues to smile, “Don’t fret! I’m sure after the doozy you’ve been in, you’ll need to rest up. You’re more than welcome to stay here until you feel it’s safe to go back topside.”

The thought of treating hell like a hotel to stay in was tickling to say the least. The minute you rise, Jungkook follows suit, nearly knocking his chair over in the process to follow you. “I’d appreciate that. Is there… perhaps a room I could cool down in? Maybe a bathroom?”

Lucifer had deposited both you and Jungkook in a rather nice room, fitted with all the things you’d find in a nice resort room overlooking somewhere like the Bahamas. The dark, brooding colors of Hell follow you even here, and what little light you are allowed in the room comes from fire or mysterious ambience. Still, it’s enough to splash your face with (what you’re definitely sure is) water in the ensuite bathroom.

Jungkook sits at the foot of the bed, watching you, “I missed you.”

Since the moment that the Lord of Hell and his son had left you to your devices, you���d become increasingly aware that something was off about your angel. You had imagined that it had been from the sheer worry he felt over you, but it was starting to feel different from that. Something not so easily explained. If only… if only you could figure it out.

You pat your skin dry and look over at him, measuring him up and down. Appearance wise, he still had the same haircut, same clothes, same shoes. It was the aura that felt different.

Slowly, you approach him from the bathroom and wish that there would be more light in the room to examine him with. In that same moment, what appeared to be a ray of warm light halos above you both, giving you exactly what you had wished for. When Jungkook looks up, he looks… radiant. “I missed you too…” You whisper, reaching out a hand to cup his jaw. At your touch, he shudders, melting into you, and those eyes then laser focus on your own. “Are you okay?”

“I am now.” He answers without hesitation, then turns to kiss your inner palm with such a sensual drag of his lips that you grow hot instantly. The surprise makes you yank your hand away and you swear you hear him whine at the missing contact.

“Y-You just look different.” You squeak, holding the aforementioned hand to your chest as if he’d burned you.

Jungkook’s bushy brows furrow. “Do I?”

When Jungkook had been an angel, he’d had a distinct glow about him that set him apart from others. It was cliche, but it made sense then. You knew that you were dealing with someone from another world. When he’d turned human, he’d felt softer, normal. He didn’t glow in any particular way lest the light hit him through the window just right. But now… that glow was back. In a way that didn’t feel familiar.

You reach your hand out again, but this time you let it wander. You push his fringe back from his forehead, then behind his ear, then down his neck to where a sweatshirt hides his collarbones. In a daze, you fall to your knees before his seated frame and push the fabric back some. You find… nothing. You don’t even know what you’re looking for. A vampire bite? What is so different?

Your hand starts to fall mindlessly as you wrack your brain, but it’s all for naught when Jungkook catches hold of it and intertwines his fingers with yours. His grip is warm and solid. But it’s still- “I thought he’d hurt you.”

You look back up into Jungkook’s eyes as he now leans over you with an intense stare. His hair curls around his cheekbones and twists away from his face at the nape, each strand fluttering as he inches closer until the longest ones are touching your face. “Not much. He healed what he did anyway.”

At that, your angel’s eyes narrow in their scan over you, “What did he do?”

You instinctively swallow. Perhaps because you remember the feeling. Perhaps because Jungkook looks like he could kill. “He… he had to get me to limbo. He had to…” You touch the skin of your throat the same moment you break eye contact, feeling the ghost of Seokjin’s fingers there. It wasn’t so long ago that it had happened after all. You could honestly still feel it.

The silence grows until it’s nearly unbearable, you eventually finding that Jungkook will say nothing while you continue to avoid his gaze. Against your better judgement, you chance a look up at him.

You don’t get very long to look. Jungkook takes both sides of your face and lunges forward like a man possessed and you are forced to follow. In your surprise, you stumble back onto your elbows and Jungkook slots himself between your legs, latching onto your lips in a searing kiss. It’s hot and fast and immature, the kiss of a person who has never kissed before and may never get the chance to kiss again. Youngho had never kissed you like this.

A gentle whimper escapes your mouth but Jungkook inhales it into his own. You feel something primal burn inside you when Jungkook growls out, crouching over you now like a predator cornering his prey, and he’s practically consuming you when you start to kiss back. Can you blame yourself? You easily fold into the feeling because it’s Jungkook and goddamn if you hadn’t wanted to kiss him badly before.

His inexperience does very little to dissuade from how good it feels too, and as you start to take over to guide him, he is all too eager to feel your reciprocated passion. The heady feeling he gives you in his sudden attack pushes all thoughts of Seokjin or the last few days out of your mind like a fast-acting asprin. All you can think of now is how tightly coiled you’d been and how Jungkook is loosening you up one press of his lips at a time.

He lays you on your back and you happily oblige, no cushioning found on the hard floor but you couldn’t care less. Jungkook is careful not to be too rough, aware of your needs as much as his own, and it’s jarringly sweet the way he cradles the back of your head to keep you from hitting it on your descent.

When he’s had enough of your lips (as if he could ever), he starts attacking your neck. He’s lapping at your skin and biting away as if he’s trying to remove all traces of Seokjin’s hands… as if he’s replacing the feeling with him and him only. “I’ll kill him,” Jungkook whispers, a foreign fury in his voice that makes your haze disappear in an instant while he continues to work at your neck, “I’ll kill him for ever touching you.”

Your hand shoots to his hair, feeling your heart beat faster from more than just the kisses, “Kook-” But any attempt at sobering up washes away when, to your surprise, he ruts against you. Youngho had never been that good at using his hips like that either. There was something definitely off with Jungkook.

As much as it pains you, you grab at his hair and yank back, ignoring (or trying to) the filthy groan that he gives in response before peeling away from your skin. You gasp for breath, absolutely winded, “What is going on?”

Jungkook pants past wet lips, “What do you mean-”

“Did Yoongi do this to you?” The sudden heated moment is over when you say that.

Jungkook’s blood has run cold. You have a very strong, haunting feeling that your mounting suspicions have proven correct. His eyes… as gentle as they always were when they looked at you, told you everything. He was not the same Jungkook you’d come to know. Something had happened to him. Something irreversible. You touch his face again and this time Jungkook does not move to embrace it. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. “Why?”

In an attempt to escape your pitiful gaze, Jungkook’s eyes flutter shut, cutting you off from seeing him vulnerable any longer. It breaks your heart the longer he stays silent. There’s no denying it now.

A tear of his touches the palm of your hand instead of his lips this time, “How else could I protect you?” He chokes, weak, “I’m not your angel anymore. I can’t be like you. This is the only way... the only way I could stand to look you in the eyes again.”

[sageyrage]

My End and My Beginning

This was written as my first collab piece as well as my first MHA fic! The collab is Afterlife, so please check out other amazing works here: Afterlife Collab Masterlist

I know that many people don’t like when writers put their OCs in because they want to place themselves in the scenario. However there’s a particular flow I wanted to share that required my OC to be part of the story. For this tale, please take note that my OC’s quirk is Hallucination, and I have included descriptors of attacks and weaponry that I have come up with for my OC. However, I intentionally left in “Y/N”, they/them pronouns and other descriptors for readers to add in so as to not completely ruin the story for Kirishima x reader.

***TRIGGER WARNING***

Mentions & Implications: Death

Smoke stung Kirishima’s eyes as he squinted to see where the attackers ran. Explosions, and varying colors of green and yellow electrified the skies as he heard his friends yell out their attacks. He pressed on, focused on finding the enemies that destroyed the city block. Amidst the yells for help and battle cries, he ran until he cornered his prey. Sharp shark-like teeth gleamed in his grin as his bulky shadow covered the wall of the alley. The man before Kirishima showed no fear as he grew, his body quickly covering with coarse, dense fur while a long tail grew. The head of the man transformed into that of a wolf and a loud howl pierced the darkness. The man growled at Kirishima exposing sharp fangs of his own before crouching into a fighting stance, ready to take on the unbreakable hero.

The two hulking men charged at each other and collided in a cacophony of thuds, growls and struggled grunts. Red Riot bulldozed the wolfman against the building, the hardening of his body keeping the snapping jowls of the other at bay. Back and forth, the battle of the braun went, both men clearly exhausted though neither would give up. “Why won’t you quit already?!” Kirishima grunted through his jagged teeth. The two pushed against each other; teeth, spit, sweat and determination fueled the duel until the wolfman jumped back from Kirishima with a yelp. His bloodshot eyes bulged as his paws swiped frantically at his fur. Yelps turned into terrified screams as his quirk dissolved and revealed the flesh of the man. Nails scraped and slashed at his skin, trying to remove whatever illusion he saw on his body. Kirishima turned his head to the darkness of the alley just as a shadow darker than black stepped forward.

A hood was pulled back to reveal a seemingly floating head, E/C eyes smiled at the red-haired hero. “I thought you could use some help, Red Riot. You good?” Kirishima nodded while the panic-stricken werewolf thrashed on the ground in front of them. “He going to be ok?” The vantablack clad figure nodded. “Fur or no fur, he’s really afraid of ticks. Dynamight, Deku, and Chargebolt have the others rounded up. I’m going to do search and rescue. I’ll see you after!” A gloved hand gently cupped the rough edges of Kirishima’s face. A soft ‘I love you’ whispered at him before throwing the hood over their head and boots quickly carried the hero away. Red Riot chuckled before turning to the wailing villain and pulling him to his feet and dragged him to the waiting police cars. Seeing Y/N’s cape fluttering against the dirty yellowed building, he called out. “H/N! BE SAFE!” Y/N turned and lifted the hood of the cape to blow Kirishima a kiss before ducking into the darkened building, with only the echo of thumping boots along the floor to indicate they were there at all.

Inside the ruins was an eerie stillness. Removing the hood, Y/N shone the flashlight to watch for obstacles ahead. Faint cries lead Y/N to part of the building that was dangerously crumbling, and their voice reverberating through the exposed beams and concrete. “I’m here! I’m going to get you out, don’t worry! Everything’s going to be okay!” As Y/N sprinted onward, creaking and low rumbling throughout the rubble caused even more destabilization to the wreckage. Still, Y/N continued forward, determined to answer the pained cries of the innocent.

Tremors caused heroes and police to lose their footing and stumble as the section of a building tumbled down nearby. Chatter of the officers and stable survivors shook their heads and lamented their losses. Kirishima jogged up to his friends, patting his best friend on the back. “Great job today guys! Hey, where are Deku and H/N?” Bakugou turned around, his wild scarlet eyed friend glared at him with his lip upturned. “That damn nerd is over there talkin’ to the cops and Y/N went into that….oh shit. They were in the part of that building that collapsed. Fuck!” Kirishima’s face paled at his friend’s realization. Panic set in his eyes when he turned to see a haze of dust slowly rising into the air.

Y/N blinked to see the gray of a swirling fog. The atmosphere, not cold nor hot, but… different somehow, like the pressure had been released. “Hello? Eiji? Guys? Where is everyone? What is that light? Is it the way out?” They walked onward, steps echoing around the dizzying gray fog. The silence was deafening and why couldn’t Y/N remember what was happening before ending up in this place?

The rolling fog thinned, and Y/N found themselves in a familiar kitchen. The sizzling and popping sounds of meat in the skillet. Taking the handle in one hand and a spatula in the other, Y/N flipped the cooking ham. Mumbling voices heard in another direction. The TV was on in the other room. A brief glance showed a news blurb of a villain being taken down by H/N and Red Riot. Pulling a plate from a cabinet, food was plated and placed on the table, Kirishima already sitting and ready to eat. “Hey baby! That smells delicious! Thank you for the food!” He smiled up at his Pro Hero partner as Y/N reached out to cup his cheek only to find the image of home overtaken by the grayscale fog. Confusion on their face as they looked around and continued forward. Maybe that light in the distance was the way out. “I must’ve been hit with someone’s weird quirk. Eiji has to be on the other side of that place. Then we can get this straightened out.”

He took off toward the piles of rubble screaming their name. “H/N! Y/N!” The squad of friends followed, equally worried for the fate of their friend. The reverb of Kirishima’s bellows vibrated the breaking walls and bending beams, sending chunks of concrete tumbling around the large pro hero as he ran into the dark space to search for his love. His friends followed close behind until Dynamight held his arms out. “Get back, it’s collapsing! Riot, get back here! Eijirou!”

Fog wisped away and took Y/N to the one of the training areas at UA. Standing before them stood Kirishima, Hagakure, Midoriya, and Bakugou. Aizawa, Ectoplasm, and Gang Orca stood off to the side and watched the students get into battle stances. “Begin!” shouted Gang Orca, and the populated side of the stage rushed forward toward the single combatant. Y/N’s hood blew back as they cried, “Shrouded Sabers!” Two safely capped swords ejected from the void of their sleeves. Y/N gracefully danced around her classmates, the steel of the blades connecting with Bakugou’s gauntlets while their feet connected with the side of Midoriya’s face. “Warp refraction: Say Cheese!” The light bounced off of Hagakure effectively lighting up the training area. With quick thinking, Y/N pulled the hood over their head while reflecting the light from their sword back to her friend. A yell from Invisible Girl, and Y/N bounded backwards, their eyes peeking from the vantablack hood, and watching her classmates drop to the ground with shouts of panic. “Spiders! Get them off get them off get them off!” Hagakure screeched, while Midoriya cried, “No...no! Why?!” Explosions could be heard behind them, Y/N turned in enough time to reflect the light off of the swords into Bakugou’s eyes, causing him to veer over their head. “Ah, dammit Y/N! I’ll kill you!” Kirishima activated his hardening as a sword came down to connect with his shoulder. A hard grip to either arm and Y/N looked up to see a toothy grin just before being flipped over Kirishima’s head and thrown like a ragdoll onto the ground. Unable to sit up, the dust cleared to see the unbreakable hero straddling them and smiling. “Gotcha!” Y/N raised their hands up to hold Kirishima’s face when the scene faded into darkness.

“Y/N? Where are you?” Kirishima stumbled over debris, tripping over exposed pipes, ignoring the falling concrete from the shaking building. He ran the flashlight over the dark area, the light being enveloped into a void that caused him to gasp and run forward. “Y/N! I’m here baby. I’m here.” He removed the hood to see a mass of H/C hair sticky with sweat and blood covering eyes that were closed and holding a tranquil look of sleep. He cupped their warm face, tears streaming down his dirtied cheeks. He barely heard the voices of his friends when another assault of stone came crashing down.

Gray fog eventually gave way to gray walls of a hospital. Walking along the corridors, Y/N weaved around people, careful not to touch anyone. Hurried nurses heading to check on the multitudes of patients, and doctors on their way to various floors ready to save lives. Y/N wandered floor by floor, greeting and speaking to some they knew. Upon entering one floor, the void hero saw the backs of their friends’ heads before turning eyes to the door they waited near. Reading the red haired hero’s name, Y/N burst into the room, only to find Kirishima not in the bed. Taken aback and exiting the room, Y/N snuck from the prying eyes of their friends to seek out their love, finally finding him staring out a nearby window, drink in hand.

“Hey tall, red, and handsome.” Kirishima swiveled at the sound of a familiar voice, his face immediately lighting up the rest of the hall. He scooped up his partner and spun them into a tight hug, splattering his drink all over the floor. “Apparently you’re happy to see me!”

“Of course I’m happy to see my best babe! Don’t worry, I haven’t been waiting here for long. Just had a few bumps and scratches. They wanted to keep me for observation but I’m fine. Hey… you wanna sneak out of here? No one knows where I am!” A happy Kirishima beamed as he took another long drink from the can he held. Y/N held up a hand to cup his cheek and smiled at the contact. Bringing his face down for a kiss, Y/N shed a tear of joy, excited to be reunited once again.

The unbreakable hero held out his arm, delighted that Y/N threaded their small arm through his. Y/N laughed and nodded. “Let’s go home, big red. I’ll make dinner tonight.” Neither of them heard the panicked voices of their friends around the corner as nurses ran into Kirishima’s room with a crash cart.

[aspoonofsugar]

More specific questions on your last analysis of Azula as character: you mentioned at the end she shown the potential to grow into a better person but that possibility was not explored, can you please share your take or theory on how to make that happen and what the kind of person she would be if developed properly?

Hello anon!

We have one of the show writers’ thoughts on the matter here.

I think his description of a positive development for Azula fits with what has been established about her in the series.

As I have written in the post, I think that Azula’s main flaw is “control”, which manifests itself in two distinctive ways. First of all she tries to manipulate others. Secondly she tries to suffocate her own feelings. Because of this, she would need to go through a character arc which challenges this flaw, so that she can correct it.

Let’s highlight that this is also what happens in ATLA, but there Azula is not able to overcome said flaw, so she has a tragic arc. As a matter of fact (generally speaking) the difference between a positive character arc and a negative one is that in the latter the character fails to change in time. However, true tragedy (imo) is reached through making clear the character could actually positively develop, but is still not able to for several reasons. And this is what happens with Azula imo.

In particular, this is made clear for me in Azula’s conversation with her “mother”:

Azula: All right hair, it's time to face your doom.

Ursa: What a shame. You always had such beautiful hair.

Azula: What are you doing here?

Ursa: I didn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation.

Azula: Don't pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me. You think I'm a monster.

Ursa: I think you're confused. All your life, you've used fear to control people, like your friends Mai and Ty Lee.

Azula: But what choice do I have?! Trust is for fools! Fear is the only reliable way! [more quietly] Even you fear me.

Ursa: No. I love you, Azula. I do.

In this scene, Ursa is nothing more than the repressed parts of Azula. This is made clear both by the context (Azula is hallucinating) and by the symbolism used in the scene (Azula sees Ursa in the mirror while she is looking at herself and makes her disappear at the end of the scene by crashing the mirror). In particular, Ursa represents (in Azula’s mind) a different way to love and to be loved. After all, this is what their very short conversation is all about.

On one hand Ursa embodies Azula’s wish to be loved (No, I love you, Azula. I do). Azula deep down wishes to be loved by other people, but she does not let herself be vulnerable nor does she treat others well, so she can’t obtain what she really wants. Her feelings are so repressed that she actually hides what she wants even from herself. However, she can’t lie to herself forever and her most hidden desires resurface through her mother’s hallucination.

On the other hand Ursa directly calls out Azula’s behaviour ( All your life, you've used fear to control people, like your friends Mai and Ty Lee). This phrase alone suggests that Azula has some confused grasp that she has misbehaved. Or at least it says that she is conscious that the reason why her friends have left her is rooted in her behaviour.

In short, this scene conveys to me the idea that in Azula’s character the concepts of loving and being loved are strictly tangled. She needs to love just as much as she needs to be loved. So in order to progress she should face this aspect of herself. In a sense, she starts doing it at the end of ATLA when Ursa appears in front of her. However, even if she can finally see this side of who she is, she is still refusing it. This is why she fails to make progress in the end. In order to grow she must accept this part of herself.

Let’s also highlight that at the end of the series Azula is trying to change her approach to things, but she is doing so in the wrong way.

As @echo-from-the-void pointed out:

Azula’s initial and final looks are complete opposites. When she first appears she is so obsessed by symmetry and control that one lock of her is enough to make her angry. At the end of the series Azula herself cuts her hair, so that her appearance becomes asymmetric. Similarly, she has spent the majority of the series manipulating everyone, so that she could have at her disposal a vast group of followers. However, by the end she sends everyone away. In a sense, she goes from one extreme to the other and both extremes are bad.

That said, this shift in behaviour in itself means that by the end of the series Azula has started to face the turmoil inside herself. This in itself is progress even if the result is ugly.

After this long ramble, I will finally address your question. In order to change Azula needs two things.

a) Consequences for her actions and she has received them in the series itself.

b) Someone willing not to give up on her and to give her a second chance. This is the part that is not present in the series.

As a matter of fact Azula’s ideas about love and relationships are so confused that I doubt she could change on her own. In the post linked above, the implication is that Zuko would have helped Azula without giving up on her and I think this could have been a good idea to have Azula develop. After all, Azula and Zuko are two characters strongly linked to each other.

As far as how Azula’s redemption could have concretely happened, that would have depended on many factors like the plot itself. Does Azula still need to spiral more before she can finally be redeemed? Does she need to meet her mother again? Will Zuko be able to help Azula alone or there will be the need of her interacting with other characters? After all, Zuko did not change only because of Iroh, but also because he got to meet many different people while he was travelling. He was shown humanity and kindness by these people, so he stopped seeing them as enemies.

In short, the ways a redemption for Azula could have happened are many. I think her arc in season 3 could honestly be seen as the perfect start for such an arc. In that season Azula is strongly challenged and does actually change, even if the change is not positive. If the story had not reached its end in season 3, Azula’s spiral could have been resolved negatively or positively.

Thank you for the ask!

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Webs We Weave

A spider has decided to move in. Aang has decided to let it stay.  ...Zuko and Sokka did not agree on this new roommate, and they will do what needs to be done.

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A/N: This was originally a vent-write (because I had a horrifying in-my-face encounter with an airborne spider) that #1. I had way to much fun writing and #2. Spiraled far beyond what I originally imagined lmao

(Also jumping spiders are tiny and precious and wear raindrops as lil hats and Aang would take a bullet for one.)

Rating: G (S for Short Aang is bae)

Words: 2,376

ArchiveOfOurOwn

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Aang had a considerable grip for someone more than two heads shorter than who he was trying to restrain. The young Avatar managed to hold Sokka back, nonetheless. “Stop it, guys! Please! You can’t kill him!” 

Sokka shrugged Aang off. He side-stepped the airbender before he could weasel past him. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for Aang to do a tricky-trick on him this time.

Sokka almost felt bad when Aang’s cheeks puffed red and his fists clenched. Sokka had hit his growth spurt, so Aang had to tilt his head vertical to meet his (in all but blood) big brother’s eyes. He stood on his tip-toes, and Sokka had to bank on his warrior’s discipline not to laugh when Aang couldn’t even get his head close to his shoulder-level.

“You guys can’t kill him! It’s just—It’s just wrong!”

“Yeah, we can. Easily, in fact.” 

“Sokka!”

Sokka rolled his eyes not for the first time that night.

Behind Sokka and just beyond Aang’s reach, Zuko crouched close to the very small, very fuzzy, somewhat colorful eight-legged critter not even a full half-inch big. It huddled into the corner under the umbrella of its tiny web. Its legs looked almost too short for its body. Six of its beady eyes blankly stared at them, but the two eyes at the forefront—which were so big they almost looked like they were glued on—shined with a waxy gloss that rivaled the tears gathering in Aang’s eyes.

“B-But you can’t! Every life is sacred!”

Zuko made his finger into a blowtorch and crouched like a prince performing a formal execution on a war criminal. “It’s the natural order, Aang.”

“But you can’t!”

Aang tried to dart past, but Sokka snagged him by the scruff of his robes. The short airbender yelped as his feet left the ground. He was as light as his element. He squirmed not too unlike Momo when he refused to bathe, but Sokka held him higher so his kicking legs couldn’t even toe the floor.

Aang’s face bloomed several shades of frustration and embarrassment, and Sokka made a mental note to thank Suki for teaching him some elemental chi-blocking. 

Because judging by the look on his little brother’s face, he would have been taking the brunt of all four elements five-times-over by now. 

“Sokka! Put me down!”

“Sorry, but no can do, sport.” Sokka turned his head. “Do it, Zuko.”

Aang thrashed harder. “No, don’t! Zuko, please—!”

Katara—winded and whipping her head around like she was looking for a horde of assassins—appeared from around the corner like Aang’s plea had summoned her from across the continent. A warrior’s discipline and experience let her take in the scene at a glance. Sokka nearly rolled his eyes again when her glare zeroed-in on and burned him in particular. 

Sokka wanted to rub his head. Spirits, he had thought the constant headaches he got during the war would go away, but with stuff like this always happening, it’s no wonder they were getting worse and worse. It felt like his head was about to split in two. 

Katara waterbended her liquid ammo back into her waterskin, though she didn’t become any less of a threat. “Sokka, put him down. Now. And Zuko, what—What in the world are you guys doing?”

“What must be done.”

Katara cocked her jaw at Zuko, grim-faced like a true executioner. “That explains so much and yet so little.”

Aang struggled more, but Sokka just held him higher and away from himself. 

“Katara! Katara, they’re gonna kill Bartholomew!”

Katara looked affronted. “Bartholomew?” She glared between Zuko and Sokka with equal levels of disgust. 

Zuko and Sokka shared a side-eyed glance and an exasperated sigh. 

“Katara, look,” Sokka said, gesticulating with even Aang who was hanging from his grasp like a polarbeardog pup by its scruff, “the spider has to go. It’s a pest, and Zuko and I are not going to let those things curl up and make their home wherever they damn well please. They can hide in the rafters or whatever, but not out in the most open corner of the kitchen. If you let them see that there’s no threat in places where we don’t want them, then, before you know it, we’ll have dozens of them in the kitchen.”

Zuko sagely nodded. His finger was still a torch. Bartholomew’s six small and two abnormally large eyes reflected the red glow of its would-be murder weapon but were otherwise as black as ink and void of fear. “Have to make an example out of it.”

“Thank you, Zuko, for listening to reason.”

“He’s not hurting anything!” Aang gave up his struggle and hung limp in Sokka’s one-handed grip. The young Avatar’s pooled robes made him look even smaller, and Sokka could feel the blinding rays of his wounded pigmypuma eyes getting bigger. “Bartholomew just likes to hang out and watch you cook and—”

Sokka held Aang to his eye-level and got nearly nose-to-nose with his little brother. “It is a spider, Aang.”

Aang poked Sokka’s chest. “He is my friend, Sokka.”

Katara crossed her arms. Despite themselves, Sokka and Zuko both flinched. “Zuko, put that out. Sokka, put Aang down. Now.”

Sokka, in fact, did not put Aang down. He returned her glare with his own and subtly stepped between his love and his sister as he felt the heat of her glare reach the capacity to melt steel bars.

“I can’t do that, Katara.”

“Well, you’d better figure out how before I make you, Sokka.”

The searing whish of Zuko’s finger-torch got stronger. Aang pawed Sokka’s hand on the back of his robe’s collar and cursed his genetics into oblivion for not having hit his presumed growth spurt yet. 

“Zuko, don’t! Please!”

Zuko growled. He put his torch out and threw his arms up. “Fine! Whatever! Just give me a cup or something and I’ll take it outside!”

Aang looked appalled. “You can’t!”

“Why the hell not?”

Aang fiddled with the end of his robe. “He’s—Bartholomew’s been inside too long. He won’t know how to survive outdoors. And he isn’t—”

Sokka groaned. His urge to bang his migraine-aching head into the wall was becoming more of a compulsion that bordered on a need.

“—the outdoor spiders don’t like him? And what if—” 

“Do it, babe.”

The torch was back. “On it.”

“No!” 

Aang got free of Sokka’s grip but didn’t stay free for long. Airbender or not, Sokka was a big brother, and he easily scooped the young monk off his feet again in a light but firm headlock. Aang wiggled and pushed against him, but Sokka tightened his grip. “Bartholomew!” Aang cried out as he reached out to his tiny insect friend.

Katara snarled. “Sokka, put him down! He’s not—Zuko. Don’t. You. Dare.” 

Zuko paused his finger-torch an inch away from its target. The chilly voice that bent the Southern Raiders to their knees crawled like frost freezing over into his ears. 

The pressure in the room nearly crushed them. The universe rippled in a strange way that made the hairs on the napes of their necks stand on end. He and Sokka looked at each other before turning inches at a time to face the tempest-made-flesh who was glaring them down.

Katara’s eyes held the promise of bloodshed, and her voice bellied the threat of major bodily harm. Arms crossed and hackles raised like a sabretooth-mooselion, she stalked towards them. 

“You two are not going to lay hand or foot on Bartholomew. Got it?”

Sokka rolled his eyes again and tightened his slippery grip on the escape-artist whining and wiggling in his hold. He wound one of his arms around Aang’s middle to pin him flush against him. “Or what? Are you going to freeze our—”

“Don’t give her any ideas, you idiot,” Zuko hissed. He put his fire out and stood, though he subtly-but-not-as-subtly-as-he-thought shimmied away from the heated waterbender so that he had partial cover behind his boyfriend.

Sokka turned to him with half-lidded eyes and a half-blinding migraine. “Not you, too. Come on, guys, it’s a spider. It’s not like it’s a puppy or—”

Sokka looked down. The kicked puppy trapped in his arms was looking up. Aang’s grey eyes were miserable puddles of pleading that were so dilated that Sokka almost fell into their tear-filled abyss. 

“Please, Sokka?” 

Aang’s voice broke, and when Katara clasped her hands to her chest in a heartbroken aw while simultaneously letting her brother know her very clear intent to shed blood should Aang shed a tear, Sokka rolled his eyes so hard that his whole head nearly rolled with them. 

Aang tugged the arm around his neck with his one free hand, and he somehow changed his facial anatomy to make his eyes even bigger.

“Pretty please?”

Sokka sighed. “Fine. You can keep the damn spider.”

Aang smiled so brightly that Sokka had to look away to save himself from being blinded. He let Aang go and tried to nurse the now full headache he had. 

Aang raced to his pest-pet and cooed it like it was a newborn. Zuko touched Sokka’s shoulder to offer his condolences and share his frustrations...and to shimmy further out of Katara’s path.

Katara smiled and nodded like they were soldiers in battle who had satisfied their honor. Sokka stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture in kind. Zuko backed him up, and Katara grumbled and looked away in defeat.

Zuko and Sokka, without looking, shared a small high-five.

Aang zoomed up to them and gave his de facto big brothers a group hug. He jumped on the balls of his feet and thanked them profusely. Thankfully, he couldn’t see the moment when the two of them went braindead to his rambling and just nodded when he stopped for breath.

Behind her boyfriend, Katara kissed Aang’s arrow. She plopped her head on top of his as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Aang placed his hands on hers and smiled so wide that the force of it had Zuko and Sokka bracing themselves from being blown backward.

Katara tugged her rambling boyfriend flush against her chest, and she protectively curled around him. When her eyes met their others’, she stuck her tongue out again.

Sokka huffed. He side-stepped Zuko and mirrored his sister’s maneuver with his boyfriend. 

Zuko blushed in Sokka’s arms, Aang redirected his smile to his Sifu Hotman, and Sokka returned his sister's stuck-out tongue with a hidden middle finger in addition. 

Aang, with his smile creeping dangerously close to a supernova, looked back and forth between the water tribe siblings until Zuko, done with this and ready for a nap or a drink or both, gave the airbender a partial head-pat like he really was a polarbeardog. 

...(later that day)

“No! No, Sokka, wait! You can’t!”

“I can! I will! I’m gonna! And you will watch me! Now get out of the way, Aang!”

“But it’s true love! Petunia is his Forever Girl!”

“I cannot put into words the depth and intensity of the fuck I do not give! Now move!”

“Think of their children, Sokka!”

“I AM THINKING OF THEIR CHILDREN!”

Zuko saved his and Katara’s boyfriends from bodily harm while Katara quickly but quietly set up the terrarium she and Zuko had special-ordered for Bartholomew (and Petunia, now, as well).

Aang still kept it in the kitchen, though. He didn't want to stress out his ‘lil babu’ and his ‘lil babu’s babu’ by moving them to a change in scenery.

Sokka (gently but with passion) flicked the corner of the glass whenever he walked by. Zuko flipped it the bird.

Aang saw neither action. He just smiled and melted into Katara’s hug as he relished thinking about how well all of his friends were getting along.

Bartholomew and Petunia watched on from their new home in the corner on the counter.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And though they were nocturnal, they always crawled out of their hide when the humans’ voices drew near so that they could watch them some more.

...That night—Petunia’s first in the house, to Sokka’s dismay—Bartholomew and Petunia crawled onto the clump of bark and moss outside their burrow. The moon was full, and some of its light reached the terrarium just like Aang had hoped their minor change of scenery would do. 

They curled their thin legs together and sat in the strongest of the moon’s rays. And, once everything was quiet and all were asleep, Bartholomew turned to his companion and shared his thoughts with her.

/This Avatar is a strange one./

/Very./  Petunia curled closer to his side. /The two males are very quick to violence, it seems. The Avatar’s mate, as well. I’m surprised you didn’t blast the firebender into the Spirit Wilds./

/I was going to, but I was curious to see how the situation would unfold. I probably should have taken a different form. The lemur and skybison said their master would take interest instead of offense to this form. They failed to mention the opinions of the others sharing his dwelling./

/I’m sorry, my love. It won’t be too much longer, now, will it? Because I swear on the Ancients themselves, if the firebender’s mate flicks the glass one more time, I will flick him into—/

/Calm yourself, my dear. It won’t be too long. The web is woven, and we need him near if it is to work./

/I suppose that is one benefit to this form, then./

/Aye./ Bartholomew drummed all of his legs like he was shifting his weight impatiently. /He is the last one Hei Bai took into his forest during the Solstice. Thankfully, it hasn’t festered long enough to corrupt his spirit./

/Because of the firebender?/

Bartholomew pawed the bits of a dead leaf and would have grumbled if he had a voice. /Yes. And he’s lucky, too, because otherwise I would not have hesitated to banish him and his mate to the Spirit Wilds./

Petunia touched her legs to his and gently herded him back to their den. One of her legs gently tapped his back. /I’m sure you would have, dear./

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The spiders know all

(Many thanks and more to @coldmentalitystudentme @thecaroliner for helping me settle what these dorks’ reactions to spiders might be!!!)

[justimajin]

A Lone Wolf’s Howl ☾ Epilogue 

⇾ Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

⇾ Genre: Angst, Fluff, Action

↳ Werewolf AU

⇾ Words: 4k

⇾ Warnings: spoilers for endgame 

⇾ Summary: Jungkook and you have been like two peas in a pod for the majority of your lives; whether it was going through the ups of downs of the horrid teenage change, to transitioning to the racing world of attempting to be adults. Simply put, you’ve been inseparable and glued to each other’s sides longer than you can remember. But one fateful day seems to completely change everything you had faith in and you begin to wonder if there was ever a time where you and your best friend even knew each other’s true colors.

⇾ A/N: Last part of the series!! Thank you for all for reading and I hope you enjoy ^.^ 

gif credit.

⇾ Moodboard Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11(M) Part 12 Epilogue — in the making process

The dreary ash clouds begin to part, separating from each other when the sun peeks through the shadows. Its rays shine down on the six exhausted wolves, their forms immersed in a vicious bath of blood and sweat as they are surrounded with fallen forms, black eyed wolves and sword wielders alike.

Similar to a snap of fingers, the colour in Namjoon’s orbs slowly dissipates when they make contact with the brightening sky, the blue hue seeping away the gold in his eyes. Reverting back into their comfortable brown, they narrow into the far distance when hope begins to dwell in his eyes after so long.

The fog vanishes; a caramel brown wolf trudges its way as it limps over to the pack of wolves, which instantly peek up their heads and dash over. There’s an arm hanging over his side, the wolf holding the body in place with its canines until it completely collapses, its eyes finally fluttering shut when the six wolves around him are unharmed and most importantly, his family.

***

You wake up with a harsh gasp, body aching when it feels like someone has just drowsed you within scorching fire, the heat in your veins drawing hot tears to your eyes. Vision distorted; your ears are blocked when you can only catch onto the faintest of movements with mumbles in the background that you don’t have enough energy to decipher.

The pain only escalates, as if someone had pricked a thousand of needles through your skin, tugging at the opened flesh until a low scream is pulled out of you. Your whole body jerks from the movement, shoulder bumping into another when a familiar scent floods through you, granting you a desperate amount of relief when the throbbing doesn’t stop.

Fluttering your wet lids open for the briefest of moments, your vision focuses to view damp black locks, his eyes screwed shut as he breathes slowly next to you. His cheek is pressed against the pillow and he’s completely bare from waist up, but your eyes catch onto a glimpse of crimson splayed all across his back and suddenly the need to shut your eyes soars up again.

Threading your hand slowly underneath the sheets, you take a deep breath when your hand touches his, letting your vision cloud completely once again.

***

“Y/N.”

A faint pressure is on your shoulder, pushing you back and forth, “Y/N. Wake up.”

You groan, turning in the opposite direction when you can hear an audible sigh, “I know you can hear me Y/N. It’s time for you to wake up.”

Both your mind and body are equally exhausted, the last thing you want being to awaken either of them. However, the next words the voice gives out has your lids tugging up right away.

“Don’t you want to see Jungkook?”

Your brows furrow, the bright light sharply meeting them when you blink a couple of times, the room finally coming into clear view. Your eyes dart over to the man standing in front of your bed, his arms crossed as he lets out a sigh.

“You’re alright now. There’s no need to worry.” He smiles, creases appearing near his lips when he rakes a hand through his blue hair.

“J-Jimin?” You croak, voice coming out low and hoarse. He wraps an arm around you instantly, assisting you in getting up when you take in the empty room, not recognizing it.

“W-Where am I?”

“This is a room where we treat injured wolves. After what happened at Crimson, we brought you and Jungkook here, as well as some of the others to get treated.” Jimin explains.

The word ‘Crimson’ brings icy chills to your warm body, a shiver cascading through every single fiber despite you fighting against it. You overlook the prickling sensation, mind desperate when it sparks at the sound of his name.

“J-Jungkook, where is he?”

“He’s fine.” He assures you, “We brought both of you here together, but he was moved to a different room to rest when your treatment was taking longer.”

You raise an eyebrow at that, eyes immediately enlarging when you take in your heavily bandaged arm, barely seeing an inch of skin beneath it.

“What happened?” You question, mind still feeling numb from everything that occurred, wondering if it was just a mere illusion or actually part of a fragment from your reality.

“After you and Jungkook left, the rest of us followed through with the plan and took care of the remaining slayers and rogue werewolves.” Jimin explains, “Although we were fine in the beginning, their numbers suddenly increased and Namjoon suspected they knew about our attack, but then Jungkook came and told us you were keeping their leader preoccupied.”

You nod, the events linking together with a steady line, “Thanks to him we manage to pull through, until he said he was having a bad feeling and get to you as soon as possible.”

“Right when we were getting closer to victory, Namjoon saw Jungkook and you come back, but before we could even ask what happened, he collapsed and both of you looked badly injured.”

He points to your arm, wincing, “It was cut open and there was blood spilling out everywhere. We managed to stop the bleeding for now, but I would be careful if I was you.”

Humming, you recall being close to winning before the Elder had slashed your arm, rendering you immobile. However, your mind only seems to hinge onto a particular set of words, especially those mentioning the person that managed to bring you back in one piece, despite also being heavily injured from your fight.

“Jungkook.” You whisper, eyes wide with surprise, “Can you take me to him?”

Jimin nods, kneeling down so you can loop your mobile arm around his neck as his hand rests on your waist, tugging you up and letting you put your weight on him. He slowly walks, meeting your pace when he opens the door and brings you into the hallway.

The volume inside your mind is raised, thoughts swirling around blank flashbacks you have from defeating the Elder to Jungkook bringing you back. You feel faint, recalling how enraged you had felt when the Elder had simply brushed off all she had conspired, her thoughts void when you couldn’t come to believe what she had done to you and your family.

You also feel sick, your body recoiling when thoughts surrounding her demise enter your mind. The scene flashes past your eyes like its on repeat, a wrangled image of you sprouting out the sword before plunging it into her form, watching her dissipate right in front of you.

Despite the room being warm, a shiver runs down you involuntarily. You keep your weight against Jimin, appreciating that he was letting you because you knew you would have fallen right then and there if he hadn’t. The door opens and you’re greeted to a similar room you had waken up in; brightly lit with white walls and lined with several beds.

Your eyes roam around until they freeze, landing on the individual currently slumped on a bed, his back facing you.

Jimin seats you down on the opposite bed, letting go of your weight when your eyes catch onto Jungkook’s form spurring, shifting underneath the sheets.

With a nod of his head, Jimin quietly closes the door on his way out. Your eyes remained glued to the person in front of you, a faint smile emerging on your lips when you hear a low yawn.

When his eyes come into contact with yours, an instant array of relief hits you, noticing that although they seemed more tired than ever, they were still alive and healthy.

“Y-Y/N?” Jungkook mumbles, shifting himself to sit up. The sheet falls down his torso and your eyes instantly latch onto the sheer number of bandages surrounding him, the bulk of it all attached to his back.

Moving your eyes up to say something, you notice he’s doing the same thing with you – eyes stuck on the way your arm is barely visible.

“Are you okay?”

You blink, recognizing the traces of concern leaking into his eyes. However, you do know his question is targeted towards more than just inquiring about your injuries.

“I followed through with the plan.” You blankly state, “Crimson is gone.”

You don’t realize Jungkook’s beside you until the bed dips, his hand reaching out for your own. “You saved us.”

His voice doesn’t waver, saying it more like a well-known fact. There’s a small smile on your lips, looking up to gaze at him when he gives you an approving nod. The door outside creaks, causing both of you to shift your sight to the man standing at the corner.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

You shake your head and Namjoon takes it as an answer for him to come him, however the smile on your features fade when there’s a shining blade on his side, the familiarity immediately flooding through all of your senses and leaving you paralyzed.

“What you did wasn’t easy Y/N.” Namjoon says, “The rest of us were fighting against something we’ve fought against before, but you had to fight against your own home. An essential part of you,” He reaches out to take your hands, placing them onto the crafted designs of the sword, “Which I don’t want you to ever leave behind.”

Drops of water begin to stain the metal, now cleaned and established before it was raised against you. It was a sword that welcomed you in with open arms, that steadily grew you in the person you were today and guided you up until this point. It’s not a vague or torturous memory, just a simple part of you now.

“It was retrieved afterwards, so all of us thought it would be best if you kept it.”

“Thank you Namjoon.”

Your voice comes out low, but it holds such a large amount of solace within it that Namjoon smiles, watching you clutch onto the sword as if your whole entire life depended on it.

***

The sword is perched up onto the wall, a faint smile on your lips when you take a couple of steps back to view it.

“You want this one?” She questions, turning to you puzzled.

You furiously nod, hands clasped in front of you, “You told me I need to choose a sword soon. I choose that one.”

She chuckles, shaking her head when you maintain your determined stance, “This sword belongs to me Y/N.” She explains, “You will need to find a new one to choose.”

“But there’s no other sword like yours!”

She sighs, her long robes following her when she examines the fine walls of lined sword, plucking one right after contemplating, “Here. This one will be your choice.”

You frown, taking the fine blade within the palms of your hands, “It is similar to the one I have.”

She raises her sword and your eyes spark, a huge grin lining your lips.

The Elder smiles, “We’ll match.”

There’s a similar grin on your lips the longer you stare at the sword, but it’s mixed in with tender reminiscence. With a heavy sigh, your sliver eyes shift, looking at the framed picture of two woman hanging right beside the sword.

A roaring fire is in the background, the living room filled with an irreplaceable glow when you stare up at two pairs of eyes. One of them has brown orbs, warm and gentle, hands moving closer to engulf you into a surprise hug.

Giggles tumble out from your lips, getting spun around with excitement as you wave your small arms around, before being placed onto the ground again. The brown orbs continue to watch you, until they are soon joined by another pair, tender eyes gazing at you.

Instead of brown however, these orbs radiate with a bright glow of silver.

A dreary sigh escapes you, eyes glued to the walls and thoughts being whisked away with pieces of memories, lost in your own world until a voice suddenly draws you out of it.

“Y/N?”

Your head snaps up, eyes trailing over to a confused Jungkook staring at you from the door, dressed in a black hoodie as he munches down on the popcorn he pops into his mouth.

“Oh, Jungkook.” You grimace, “Sorry about that. Did you start the movie already?”

He shakes his head, walking over to you and offering you a piece of popcorn, “I was waiting for you, but it seems like you were somewhere else.”

He stares up at the wall, his eyes flickering over until they land on the picture frame.

“She has your eyes.”

“She was a slayer.” You lightly laugh, “We all have the same eyes.”

Jungkook follows you when you walk out of the room, closing the door behind you. “Except for you. You have that double colour thing going on.”

“Yeah, thanks to someone.”

You grin but Jungkook scoffs, “I already told you, it was wolf instincts!”

Walking over to the couch, you plant yourself down and Jungkook does as well, “Because of your instincts, I’m stuck with you for the rest of my life.”

Jungkook stops snacking, pouting as he whines, “Is that such a bad thing?”

“We’ll see, depends on if you can treat me right.” You lean over to grab some of his popcorn, cheekily shoving it in your mouth.

“You weren’t saying that when we spent our first night together.”

Your jaw drops and Jungkook snickers, causing you to snatch up a pillow and toss it over at him. Unfortunately, your aim is horrible compared to your sword wielding skills and you miss, causing it to hit his bag of popcorn which spills all over the ground.

“Y/N, my popcorn!” Jungkook exclaims when there’s a puddle of the snack all over the carpet. You plant a hand against your mouth, trying to conceal your giggles until Jungkook is suddenly lifting you up, causing you to squeal when he drags you over to the kitchen.

He plants you down onto a chair, crossing his arms.

“I lost my popcorn because of you, so you have to make me more now.”

“Oh come on.” You whine, yet still grab another bag to pop into the microwave, “Don’t you want to watch Endgame? It’s such a great movie, actually in one scene there was a part whe-“

His sleeve clamps over your mouth and he glares at you, “No spoilers!”

You frown, punching the numbers into the microwave, “You spoil everything for me anyways, why does it even matter now?”

“Because I waited to watch this since forever!” Jungkook protests, “You can’t go around watching movies if you’re in a pack and have to protect them.”

“You make it sound like I had all the time in the world too.” You grab the piping hot bag out, tossing it into his direction, “Which I actually did, because I managed to watch it.”

“Without me though.” Jungkook mumbles, opening the bag eagerly. You snicker when he takes a mouthful out, hurriedly stuffing it in his face.

Getting up, you’re about to tell him that you should probably start the movie right away before he whines about it again, but the doorbell rings and draws your thoughts away.

Furrowing your brows, you stare at the door before turning to Jungkook. He dons the same confused expression, hand paused halfway through his popcorn bag in silence. “Did you call someone over?”

“No, you?”

“No?” You question, carefully threading over as Jungkook puts the bag away, quickly shuffling after you. Light pulsates around your palms, slowly forming when you grab a familiar black umbrella near your door, gripping it tightly in your hands. A low growl is heard from behind you and your eyes catch onto Jungkook glaring at the door, canines on full display.

You both quickly stand on either side of the door and you throw him a silent look, to which he nods.

In an instant, the door is pulled open and both of you move within a flash, glowing umbrella raised and hands covered with brown fur.

However, the man before you is left in frantic wails, staring at the two of you as if the very sight paralyzed him. “T-The pizza y-you ordered.”

A shaking box is handed over to you and immediately the two of you freeze, the umbrella drops flat onto the ground and canines retract when the man shuffles up, running down the hall as fast as he can.

You remain there frozen, until Jungkook moves to pick up the pizza from the ground and reads the tag, “Ordered by Y/N L/N…”

Uncomfortably shifting, you give him a sheepish look, “I knew you were coming over so I thought it’d be nice…”

Your voice grows small, realizing that perhaps if you had remembered your own order, the delivery guy wouldn’t have experienced the heart attack you were so close to unleashing onto him.

Jungkook just chuckles, amusement in his eyes, “I think it’s about time we realize that not everyone’s out to get us.”

You muse at that, a soft smile on your lips when he walks back into the apartment and you shut the door, “You can’t really blame that on us though.” A wistful sigh escapes you, watching Jungkook eagerly open the box to beaming when he realizes you’ve ordered his favourite, “Adjusting back will take its time.”

He nods, agreeing with you instantly but you laugh when you see a slice already settled in his mouth.

***

You reach over, straining your hand when the soft material meets your fingertips. Snatching one out quickly, you bring it over to Jungkook, who gratefully grabs it as tears continue to stream down his eyes, small sobs leaving him.

You softly smile, the credits running down the screen as you remain huddled up in a blanket together, watching him sniffle and wiping the tears away.

“I wasn’t expecting Tony Stark to make you cry so much.” You comment, but he sends you a saddened look with still wet eyes, as if the memory was too fresh to even be brought up.

“W-Why didn’t you tell me?” He questions in exasperation, dabbing furiously at the tears that don’t stop leaving his eyes.

“Because you said no spoilers.” You shrug, “I held up to my word on that and– are you okay?”

He suddenly jerks his head to the side, whisking all the tears away in an instant that only has you raising an eyebrow.

“There.” He firmly states, as if he was proud of getting rid of the excessive water even though his eyes and cheeks were still marked with red.

“Do you want some pizza?” You question, leaning over to the half empty box next to you but he shakes his head, blinking his now dry eyes.

“I can’t believe I missed out on this.” He sniffles, a small laugh leaving his lips, “I should have just watched it when it came out.”

“Fighting against slayers and wolves, remember?” There’s a knowing smile on your lips when you lift the box up, moving it to the kitchen and ruffling Jungkook’s hair as you walk by.

“Wait,” He frowns, “When did you watch it then?”

“When I was staying at the pack house,” You wave your hand around, “Aside from training, I wasn’t really given anything else to do.”

“You should have just invited me to join you! We could have cried together!”

You laugh at that, giving him an absurd look, “You wanted to cry together? And besides, finding out you were a werewolf didn’t really help that situation much.”

“Oh.” He sets his lips into a firm line, “That’s right, but I would have still kept you company either way. We could have–“

His vision narrows, eyes latching onto why that fear-stricken expression on your features looked so recognizable, until it flickers inside him, “Just ignore it, it won’t hurt you Y/N.”

Your head instantly snaps up, seeing him give you an impassable look when you attempt to explain yourself, “I-It’s near the popcorn.”

Jungkook’s eyes suddenly widen and soon he’s lurching off the couch, dashing over to your side. “Where?”

A trembling finger is pointed near the counter, “T-There.”

Right when Jungkook turns, it moves, jumping onto the ground and scurrying itself safely underneath the fridge. You immediately jolt, hands tightening around Jungkook’s hoodie and he lets out a groan.

“Y/N, you’re a slayer.” He side-eyes your shrunken form, “You can use a sword, but you can’t get rid of a mouse?”

“It’s scary Jungkook.” You protest, jolting again when you hear it scratch against the wood. You shift closer to him, desperation leaking into your voice, “Please, just do something about it.”

He sighs, eyes looking around your kitchen, “Do you have a bucket or something?”

You nod, hurriedly walking in the opposite direction of the mouse to find it. Jungkook meanwhile stares at the bottom of the fridge, securing his hands firmly against the frame.

You soon reappear, a white bucket in hand, “I’m going to shake the fridge and scare it out. When you see it, put the bucket over it so it can’t escape, okay?”

“W-What?” You frantically whisper, the instructions going over your head until Jungkook moves and suddenly your arms are outstretched, the bucket sticking out.

A small blur of brown scurries across the floor, causing a squeal to escape you when the bucket falls and you place a heavy hand over your racing heart.

“You did it!” Jungkook exclaims, a bright wide smile on his features as you remain as solid as a statue, staring at the bucket speechless.

“I-I did.” You’re as pale as a ghost, but his words bring you out of it and you’re filled up with confidence, “I did!”

You slip out of it though when Jungkook tosses the bucket to the side, grabbing the small creature with his fingers as you gasp in horror. “What? I need to get rid of it.”

He walks around aimlessly with it, stepping out for a few moments as you slowly register the shock. Returning back, he shakes his hands together and shuts the door. “It’s gone Y/N.”

 You exhale in relief, waiting for him on the couch. He settles himself in the blanket again, arms wrapping around you. “We really need to work on this if you’re still scared. Mice is the last thing a wolf should be scared of.”

“I’m technically half-wolf.” You mumble, eyes slowly fluttering shut and lulling into sleep now that he was back, “So the other half of me is allowed to be scared.”

Jungkook softly chuckles, head resting against yours as he lets out a gentle sigh. It’s in moments like this he truly wonders if any of this was ever going to be possible, to have you by his side, to have you see him more than a friend, to have his identity revealed to you and for you not to run away, only to accept him just as he is.

Although you also had your fair share of secrets tucked away, he knows that despite everything – the anguish that initially sparked in your eyes when you found out, the large ripples forming within the clear water when it felt like you had lost all of the remaining pieces left in your relationship, when you were so close to having that cord completely snap, at odds with each other as there was a deep line separating you – both of you managed to be okay, resting in each other’s arms as if you hadn’t even been pulled away to begin with.

The thought alone makes his dazed eyes flutter shut, a smile on his lips when you’re back to where you had first started, this time together and having no more secrets to hide. 

[jojosbizarreadventur]

Time’s Crusade: Chapter 3 (03)

also available on AO3 (under emih)

This chapter: A love-hate relationship with an Arrow, served with a side of flesh.

warning (just in case): canon-typical violence (it’s Dio for God’s sake)

Summary: Yesterday in 2011, your husband Noriaki and close friend Jotaro were both murdered together just months before your university graduations. The day before yesterday, you discovered that your nerve-wracking IUI procedure was successful. Two months before that day, said close friend made a proposition to the both of you due to your husband’s recently-discovered infertility.

Today in 1988, you’re over 20 years into the past of an alternate universe, suddenly tasked with trailing after different versions of your late husband and close friend as they travel with unfamiliar faces to Egypt, determined to confront the man you now work for.

And in the following days, you discover how easy it was for your sentiments to change.

03

The Wife of an Important Man, Part 1

November 1988 || Cairo, Egypt

It’s a little after midnight now. 

Vanilla Ice can tell when Lord Dio awakens to go about his night, based on the faint yet resonating sound of his footsteps down the halls, or even the various screams of pain and pleasure erupting from his chamber. Admittedly, there were times when even the long-haired man fantasized that he be the one to let out those screams, to experience the might of Lord Dio firsthand. 

He could only dream, however, as a mere servant.

Recently, Lord Dio had taken the time to feast on two French women simultaneously, but it hadn’t once occurred to him that they’ve already been here before. Vanilla Ice knows this— it wasn’t every day that he saw a woman with pink and black hair, or a woman with a terrifyingly hideous face. Strangely enough, they both bore slight silver stretch marks on their lower abdomens, though Vanilla Ice scoffed at the absurd thought he had right after.

He trained himself to remember everyone who steps onto and into the premises, including the ones who have willingly given their blood and bodies to the man that reigns over them… over him and every other lowly human in this very mansion.

Because during most nights and days, Vanilla Ice patrols the hallways. 

Actually, he insists that he be the one to do it. It’s very important. 

There’s been an influx of traitors recently, with many of them recklessly throwing accusations of low pay and terrible trade-offs— as if! These old henchmen were the same ones to calmly head inside the mansion and approach Lord Dio with murderous intent, not knowing that he’s a… night owl of some sort. 

Nevertheless, Vanilla Ice had always been successful in dealing with a good portion of them in such a clean fashion. He’s been grateful for his Stand, which had ensured the walls and floors to be spotless when he’d get rid of them. The rest of these traitors would either be handled by Pet Shop— the falcon that guards the outer gates— if they were unable to get inside, or Lord Dio himself if they somehow manage to get past the falcon and him.

To Vanilla Ice, at least, what he does around here is certainly more useful than what the other servants have been tasked to do inside. 

There was Kenny G, who literally only casts illusions to the mansion’s rooms when guests came over. He liked to work with the college-aged butler with the beehive hair and strange facial tattoos, who often played video games with him or asked him to cast illusions around the mansion just for ‘fun’. Vanilla Ice usually ignored him in particular, thinking that he should be back home getting drunk at college or fucking his girlfriend or something. He shouldn’t be here, messing around in a mansion as sacred as this one. 

Yet, Lord Dio himself still seemed to tolerate him, and Vanilla Ice had no clue as to why.

Then there was Nukesaku, the little shit who kept trailing after him and the others. Vanilla Ice couldn’t believe that someone as idiotic as him was a vampire like Lord Dio, but here he was being an absolute nuisance. It was insulting.

In fact, one of the rare traits that Vanilla Ice had in common with the others was the intolerance for Nukesaku’s presence, tasking him themselves to only do the janitorial work. Should he interfere with what they do, whether it may be Vanilla Ice patrolling or Kenny G and the butler playing that stupid baseball game (it sucks, by the way), they had no hesitation to end him right there and then—

—he’s already there at the source of the thud and crash… and the groan.

No one else had bothered to come down. 

Lord Dio was presumably still in his chambers at this time of night, though he knew the mansion inside out. Surely he’d be aware of an unwanted presence in his own house, even if he was stories up. Vanilla Ice scoffs— it’s no surprise that all of the other servants wouldn’t come down at a time like this. They clearly did not have the dedication that he, Vanilla Ice, had for their boss.

Vanilla Ice’s eyes dart around the living room, ready to use his void when he sees… her.

There’s a woman moaning and expelling coughs, but he knows it’s not one that has been with Lord Dio as he doesn’t recognize her voice. 

She’s on the cold, stony ground beside the embroidered sofa, arms trembling as she attempts to hold herself up. One arm proceeds to carry her upper body weight as best as it could as another reaches for her own throat. He isn’t sure what she’s trying to do; the general darkness of the room actually obscures most of her altogether, especially with the slit of moonlight refusing to shine anywhere near her. What he’s able to make out is some medium-sized lump, with one of its straps wrapped around her supporting arm. It’s most likely some sort of bag or backpack.

The heels of his boots click against the stone floor as he approaches her with caution. Even though her body continues to tremble and half-ass in supporting herself up, her head starts to tilt up at him. He isn’t able to see her face as her head suddenly dips, letting out a series of dry coughs again. Her body sways ever-so-slightly afterwards; her supporting arm shifts across the floor and causes the bag to move with it. Vanilla Ice swears he hears the jarring sound of broken metal hardware pieces.

This intruding woman is just hacking and coughing on the floors in front of him— who the hell is she? 

…how did she get past Pet Shop? 

…how did she get past him?  

…lastly, how did she get past Lord Dio?!

“[—Don’t kill her, Vanilla. She’s meant for Lord Dio.]”

Vanilla Ice freezes in his stance. The second he recognizes the other voice, he lets out an irritated sigh.

Right. He forgot to mention this piece of shit— servant. 

Of course.

He maintains a frown as he witnesses the man in the orange robing sauntering in from the small space between the tall bookcase and the stone wall. Vanilla Ice makes no effort to conceal his growl at the sight of the man blatantly pushing the bookcase aside to make room for himself as he enters. Sure, its placement could easily be fixed by Nukesaku later, but to disrespect Lord Dio’s belongings in such a fashion… 

Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now. Neither does the small, flat, and strange ‘flashlight’ that he had in one hand as he walked towards him. 

Vanilla Ice’s attention averts back to the woman who remained in her spot on the floor.

Who are you?

——

The man in the orange robing knows he’s already ticked him off by not using his full name, Vanilla Ice. He admits— for someone tasked for a generally-important job around the mansion, it seems like the guy’s just never satisfied.

Nonetheless, the long-haired man lets out a low chuckle at the sight of him.

“[Goodness, you’re back already?]” he sneered.

If there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that Vanilla Ice despised him the most. Initially, the man in the orange robing was oblivious to his hatred. He wasn’t aware that he’d have the talent of acquiring a dedicated hater so early on in his ‘career’, but once they were out of Lord Dio’s sight, Vanilla Ice ensured to display his contempt for him as much as possible.

Heels softly thudded against the stone floor as he approached the man with the orange robing, whose clothes shone from the small slit of moonlight in the room.

“[‘S not like she was hard to find],” he shamelessly confesses. The flat… flashlight continues to be twirled around in his hand, its projected light moving in a small circle. “[A park in Tokyo at night; very close to an area of a recent crime scene… heh. Doubt you’re going to find anyone willing to go near that place besides her.]”

“Her?”

The man in the orange robing tells Vanilla Ice your name. 

Yes— it didn’t happen at first, but he recognized you. He’s unsure about whether to tell you or not.

Vanilla Ice repeats your name, tone dripping with utter disgust. Whoever you were— he thought— you were the outcome, a product of Lord Dio’s growing preference for the man that stood before him… the man who should have no business with Lord Dio.

Nevertheless, he feels the need to pry. There’s no way in hell he’s letting the two of you stand before Lord Dio without any background, without any context to your sudden appearance in the mansion.

“Hm… where did you travel?”

Questions like these are a common occurrence; he isn’t stupid.

“Another dimension.”

Vanilla Ice grunts at his vague answer. He takes one glance at where you sat.

“How old is she?”

“Well, she was going to graduate university next March.”

“Oh, she’s quite young, then,” Vanilla Ice snidely comments, narrowing his eyes at the man with the orange robing.

The man with the orange robing turns away to roll his eyes at his colleague’s passive jab at him. He wasn’t even that young; hell, he’s actually older than you. He wasn’t even as young as the nerdy butler that got hired right before him, and he thinks you two are closer in age if not a year apart. In Vanilla Ice’s presence, it always seemed like some sort of covert dick measuring contest to see who had more worth around here in the mansion. At least Vanilla Ice was a lot closer to the mid-life crisis age than he was.

Sourly, the man with the orange robing replies, “I suppose.”

Vanilla Ice then asks with haste, “What is her business with Lord Dio?”

“That… I cannot tell you.”

He gave him a pointed look in response.

“It’s confidential,” the man hissed, abruptly stepping closer to his fellow servant. “If I spill info, and any word of our conversation spreads, I will know you’re the source. But obviously, Lord Dio will know that I revealed his objectives, and our heads will be displayed to rot.”

Vanilla Ice tsked. The man fumed.

“Of course you’d care about your own outcome,” he retorted, now eye-to-eye with the younger man. “You do this— all of this— to acquire riches and respect and reputation like all the other servants. You do not care about anything but yourself. You are not worthy of doing errands for Lord Dio— you are not worthy of being in his presence, you—!”

“—wh… wh— what…”

Both Vanilla Ice and the man whip their heads to you.

You’re finally starting to get up— shakily, at that. The backpack you hold almost falls out of your grasp, though you manage to grab it. Your attention currently isn’t on the two men in front of you. 

With a trembling hand, you slowly unzip the bag before distress contorted your face.

Everything that you knew was there remained, and— shit. Out of everything you didn’t want to be damaged, your laptop got fucked up beyond repair. Not only did it absorb the impact when you got thrown and tumbled into the room, but the textbook inside your backpack had also crushed it. You mean, you spent an extra shit-ton for the better processor, more RAM, and two SSDs— there’s no way in hell you wanted that to go waste—

—okay, not the point here. As long as you have other necessities such as your phone, it’s fine. You’re not sure why the laptop was the first thing you worried about.

“The journey wasn’t that bad, don’t you think?”

Your eyes shoot up to the speaker, the man in the orange robing. Seeing the strange flat flashlight in his hand— wait.

When did this fucker find the time to take your phone out of your backpack?

Gaping at him, you nearly drop said backpack again.

“Are… no, no, are you— fucking— kidding me?” you shout with a strained voice. His grasp on your neck had left quite the influence on your vocals.

The sight of this dark room of worn stone, the unlit fireplace, the walls covered with bookshelves (save for one, which was out of place), the… dated embroidered sofas with bullion skirts, the large imported Ghalitcheh-format rug beneath them, the… everything. You’re having a bit of a sensory overload— you don’t fail to quickly observe all of these sights, these… smells.

By the way, it smelled faintly of… 

Well, you start to wonder if there are any carcasses nearby. You resist the temptation to retch.

Your other hand travels down to your lower abdomen, quietly sighing in relief when you don’t feel any pangs of pain or discomfort there.

They’re fine.

But… you’re not. No, you’re… somewhere— you haven’t a clue where— and not of your own free will. You’ve been forcefully dragged through the space of a goddamn hedge and tree trunk and now you’re here. You stand before the American man— the man in the orange robing with his stupid crotch-high boots— but it’s not like the other guy looks any better. The guy’s wearing a blue leotard under a black waistcoat, you mean, come on.

“Where— where am I? Tell me, where am I?” you now demanded, facing them directly. You step forward— into the moonlight’s luminescence from the open slit— and it’s the first time Vanilla Ice sees your face. At the very least, he thinks you’re better looking than that hideous French feast of Lord Dio’s.

The man in the orange robing says as if it’s obvious, “Egypt.”

Already knowing that you would like your phone back, he simply places it in an inner pocket of his robe. Okay, you’re not sure what it takes to get your phone back from him unless you want to die, so you reluctantly put that aside for now. What you focus on is that single response.

Egypt.

And you’re sorry, but what?

The transcontinental country simultaneously located on the corners of Africa and Asia… Egypt. 

Egypt… where a revolution had happened months ago— there was coverage about it on NHK World that time. 

A place that is, geographically, not Japan. Which is where you actually live, and have been living in for nearly seven years— not Egypt.

“...what?”

He rolled his eyes. “You heard me the first—”

“—no shit I heard you,” you interject, scowling at him. You began to collect your thoughts as you continued speaking— babbling, really. “What— what do you mean I’m in Egypt? Why am I in Egypt? There… the… there’s no reason I… husband said… parliamentary elections…  what the hell…”

Late husband.

You conveniently forget that last string of thought.

Vanilla Ice blinked at you. “What?”

You turn to the towering man, briefly astounded by his sheer height. Who was this? Was he a part of this plan too? What was this plan, anyway?

“What do you mean ‘what’? I mean, if you’re here in Egypt, I figured you’d know what’s going on in the country you live in… didn’t you all have a constitutional referendum back in March and everything? Or is this not really Egypt, and you all are just screwing with me?”

Noriaki visited the country with his family some years ago. The topic of international travel always induced him to bring up that trip— he used to point out how memorable it was for him. So of course, he’d take the time to know what’s happening in a place that he associated with good memories. And then proceeded to tell you everything he found out.

Suddenly, you were snapped out of your reminiscing when Vanilla Ice responded to you in a tactless manner.

“What in the actual hell are you talking about? Egypt has not had a constitutional referendum since 1980. That was eight years ago.” He resorts to facing the man in the orange robing, who had his arms crossed over his chest. “Pray tell, why is this woman reserved for Lord Dio? She is as dumb as a post.”

…1980.

“Are you describing yourself? I told you, Vanilla, it’s confidential.”

That was eight years ago.

“I assume you’re only saying that to get me off your back and leave you be. Let me tell you—”

You turn away from them.

“A little over 77% of people voted ‘yes’ on the constitutional referendum. That’s over 14 million voters.”

“Oh, seriously? When did these results come out?”

“Eh… on Saturday, the 19th. They haven’t had a referendum since 2007, the year my parents and I visited for summer break.”

Luckily, you would remember most— if not all— of what Noriaki tells you.

“—you’re lying,” you denounced, facing Vanilla Ice again.

He deadpanned. “I, Vanilla Ice, can tell when people don’t make any use of their brains—”

“—that’s ironic—” the man in the orange robing grumbled.

“—no! You’re a goddamn liar! Egypt had a constitutional referendum this year, eight months ago— not years ago,” you snapped, stomping your foot in front of the long-haired man. “What type of shit are you trying to pull?”

“I hardly understand you in—” Vanilla Ice countered, glaring down at you.

Abruptly, he pauses. His magenta eyes avert from you to the man in the orange robing, who only donned a look of suspicion for his fellow servant.

“Does she not… know?”

What do you not know?

Your eyes dart back and forth from Vanilla Ice to the man in the orange robing. It occurs to you both that he’s been staying unusually silent during this conversation.

“Know what?” you asked slowly, though your glare at the man in the orange robing doesn’t do much.

To Vanilla Ice, the lack of explanation only comes off as incompetence. Or perhaps, was he keeping his motives a secret from you especially? In order to have the ‘suspicion’ reach a crescendo?

Oh, hoh. If anything, his ‘task’ sounds like a shitshow waiting to occur. Vanilla Ice mentally notes to ensure his own presence when it happens.

The man gives him a pointed look, which is enough of a response.

“This woman is your responsibility,” is all Vanilla Ice says as a reminder before he steps back and storms away, heels loudly clicking against the hard floor. 

It starts to become obnoxious after the first few steps. 

You don’t even consider what you do next. The man beside you only stands in his spot, scowling at Vanilla Ice’s back as he walked and walked and walked.

Because of his long legs, he’s able to extend his distance from you and the man in the orange robing even further, but you could hardly care less. You begin to go after him— backpack on your back again— and you’re close to him, you’re ready to pull at his large-muscled arm, you’re going to interrogate and demand answers from him because there’s no way the orange-robed guy is telling you anything—

“Do not follow me.”

Vanilla Ice abruptly turns around to face you once you catch up to him. He’s already standing in the vast corridor, a large runner rug beneath his boots. You freeze in your stance— he’s still tall and a bit terrifying— but you know you can do this. It’s not like you have any other person to resort to speaking with. What’s the worst that could happen?

He glares down at you.

“Did you not use your ears either when I said that you were his responsibility? If you were mine, there wouldn’t be anymore left of you to approach me in the first place.”

“But, I just…” you trail off, turning your head to see smoke slowly wafting towards the both of you. Strangely enough, you couldn’t smell it. “I need…”

Vanilla Ice tsks at you.

“I don’t have time for this—”

“—I need you to explain all of this to me!” you bellow at him. “What the hell is going on?!”

Stepping towards you, your breath hitches at the sudden proximity with him. He’s still glaring down at you, and it only occurs to you now that you’ve rightfully pissed him off. So… now what? 

As you thought earlier while you were still in Japan, were you going to die tonight? Not by the man in the orange robing as you assumed, no, but by Vanilla Ice? What was he going to do to you? You can’t call for help because someone stole your phone, you can’t run to anyone because you don’t know anyone here, so what…?

He turns around in a way that makes you get a face-full of his hair. Dumbfounded, you find yourself practically rooted into the runner rug as you stare at him. Vanilla Ice gives you one more sour glance before he disappears.

You don’t see him at the end of the corridor or anything. He hasn’t opened a door and left. As far as you know, there aren’t any secret openings that you can see.

He’s just… gone.

For some reason, each line of smoke seems to split into two as soon as it reaches the area in front of you, though the lines vaguely reconnect and drift in your direction. It’s as if there’s some obstacle before you, but it’s invisible. When your eyes glance downward and upward, you realize that the obstacle has to be floating. The smoke beneath and over it traveled normally.

There has to be something there, but you can’t see it. Your brows furrow, continuing to watch the ‘sight’ in front of you for signs of movement or of Vanilla Ice. Nothing. You felt cold all of a sudden, but nothing else.

Then, without thinking, you decide to step forward and reach out to… it.

It only occurs to you afterwards that that was a shit idea.

Out of nowhere, you abruptly find Vanilla Ice’s glaring expression open up out of the nothingness, and only that. It’s as if the rest of his head and body are covered by some invisibility cloak, because you literally only see his face. You yelp, you hurriedly move in a fashion that nearly makes you trip, your heart starts to palpitate—

—and you feel yourself being yanked by the forearm.

As if he had gotten caught, the view of Vanilla Ice’s face had shut again and vanished. In the corridor stood you, and now the man whose grip you vaguely recognize. The drifting smoke returned to normal.

“No,” the man in the orange robing bluntly tells you as you tumble backward. “You think I’d let you get out of this so easily? You think Lord Dio would allow that?” 

…who?

You’re struggling to get away.

“Let me go—!”

“—he’d have my head, and he already has loads of donations, so please … just wait patiently— you are not going to commit suicide! You are not going to die in my supervision!”

Giving up on your search for the disappeared Vanilla Ice, you manage to jerk your arm out of the man’s grasp. As you take deep breaths, you scowl up at the man that resorts to crossing his arms over his chest.

“Wh— who is ‘Lord Dio’? What did that guy mean by ‘1980’? Where the hell did he go? Why am I in Egypt— you never even answered me!”

The man in the orange robing irritatedly sighed.

“…I have no obligation to tell you.”

Is he serious—

“But I know that you will pester me. That’ll disrupt my concentration, and if I end up doing anything out of line because of that, we both die. I’ll answer all of your questions, provided you don’t try to leave.”

He never promised that you wouldn’t get harmed or die.

You frowned, unsure of how to feel about this. “I… wasn’t trying to leave— I don’t know where or how to leave anyway. Nor was I trying to commit suicide like you suggested for… some reason. I was just trying to talk to him because I thought you weren’t going to tell me anything.”

Calming down, you realize that you might have a chance of leaving all of this behind alive if you cooperate with this. Said chance might be slim, but you hope that there’s a sliver of sympathy from him. Maybe this was just some huge misunderstanding.

These thoughts were only a foul attempt at making yourself feel better. 

There’s still a better chance that you’ll die than live to get the hell out of here. At this point you were still wondering what you’ve done in your lifetime for something like all of this to happen to you. Everything you’ve done so far since you’ve been thrown into this place was done out of tiredness and desperation, even what you decide to do next.

He sighed.

“What Vanilla Ice used is called a Stand. It’s a physical manifestation of a person’s ‘life energy’ or ‘fighting spirit’,” the man explained first. He gestured for you to return to the room with the dated embroidered sofas. “Thing is… you couldn’t see him use it because you’re not a Stand user… you don’t have a Stand.”

Actually, forget if you were going to die tonight.

You’re probably already dead based on his bizarre explanations. There’s no way any of it is real.

——

It’s as if you’ve taken a freezer bag full of psilocybin mushrooms before having this conversation with the man, and that stuff’s not even legal back in Japan.

Nevertheless, you try to tolerate his presence as you both sit crisscrossed on the Ghalitcheh-format rug.

“You came from a dimension where Stands were shamed,” the man with the orange robing revealed. “Every method of obtaining a Stand later in life was damaged and disposed of as a result. The only remaining way to receive a Stand was through genealogy, but even then, the ability was treated as a mutation, a disease.”

According to the man, you’ve apparently traveled to a different universe as a result of his Stand. If you were a… Stand user… you would’ve been able to see the ‘pathway’ between yours and this one. It was more of a blink-and-you-miss-it trip to you.

Oh, and when Vanilla Ice said ‘1980’ being eight years ago? He also wasn’t kidding. This universe was 23 goddamn years into the past compared to yours. You weren’t even born yet. The specificity of traveling to 1988, however, wasn’t explained any further. Said he was under Lord Dio’s orders.

‘Lord Dio’ was apparently a man that he and Vanilla Ice worked for. Reportedly, he never went out during the day, so his ‘servants’ ended up doing a portion of the less-important work when the sun was up. Nighttime was a different story, the man in the orange robing commented, as Dio would partake in tasks he thought was only fit for himself. This included going through rounds of ‘candidates’, either sexually or murderously. 

You didn’t need that last detail. The last thing you wanted was to imagine his faceless, godlike (his words) boss pounding into someone before torturing them.

“Now, I need to tell you this,” he starts, staring into your eyes. You realize that his eyes are dark blue. “But if you react negatively in any way— as in attacking me verbally or physically— I’ll divert from my task’s objectives and beat you to death and, subsequently, risk my own life. But I can get out easily. So‘s your call, really.”

You deadpanned. “I’ll try not to. And… and what is your ‘task’, exactly, I’d like to know—”

“—your husband, Noriaki Kakyoin, was born with the ability to use a Stand.”

…what?

“No,” you immediately deny, brows creasing. For some reason, you don’t question how or why he knew about your husband. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” he insisted, resting his elbows on his knees. How he managed to sit crisscrossed with his crotch-high boots was a mystery to you. “You’re not a Stand user, so it’s not like you’d be able to know.”

Frowning, you argue, “Well, yeah. But… but, I mean… he would tell me. He’d tell me that he’d have one. He wouldn’t keep… we made a promise…”

“It’s practically a death wish to have a Stand in your dimension,” he reminded impatiently, though it didn’t curb your confusion. “Also, your friend, Jotaro Kujo, had one as well. We Stand users tend to be familiar of other users, and in my case, even the ones who are in different dimensions.”

You didn’t know any of this.

To be honest, Noriaki and Jotaro did an excellent job hiding that aspect of them then. You hadn’t suspected anything different— they just seemed so… normal. If anyone else there had known that they had ‘Stands’, then they might’ve thought the same. Those two were the least expected people to possess something so otherworldly.

And you met and knew both of them.

You start to wonder if they made some pact to never tell you. Granted, they must’ve decided on something of the sort since they became friends in high school, vowing to never tell another soul about it for fear of ridicule. Especially considering how close you got with Noriaki and… well, what happened, it was definitely a secret that he took to the grave. Despite both of you promising to be transparent with one another after the first fertility clinic visit months ago, you didn’t feel upset or betrayed in the slightest anymore. He didn’t have a choice. He didn’t choose to have a ‘Stand’.

In the meantime, the man in the orange robing was sitting in contemplation. His eyes were focused on some corner of the room. Once he spoke up, you got snapped out your thoughts.

“What has started to preoccupy my thoughts is your predisposition to being in proximity with a Stand user,” he disclosed, crossing his arms over his chest. He then proceeded to lean forward to you, causing you to lean back with a sheepish face. “Meeting one Stand user is one thing, but… meeting two is a whole ‘nother can of worms you haven’t exactly opened yet.”

You blink at him. “So what if I meet… two ‘Stand users’? Why does it matter?”

The man in the orange robing abruptly straightens his back, hands resting on his knees.

“Because,” he stressed. “Back in 2011 in your dimension, there’s roughly seven billion people living on Earth. Here in 1988, it’s only a little over five billion— two billion less— but even in both populations, the likeliness of a non-Stand user getting pulled into a Stand user’s mess is rather slim… and I don’t mean as a mere casualty. No, it’s more complex than that.”

“Mess…?” you repeat, trailing off with a raised brow.

“Yes— mess,” he confirms. “It can be difficult to live a quiet life as a Stand user, because there will always be another user inexplicably attracted to any Stand-related predicament of ours. I’m not aware of any coherent reason; it’s just how our fates work. We’re bound to get into a little trouble from time to time.”

You scratch the back of your neck.

That could be another reason why Noriaki never told you about having a Stand.

“Anyhow, you would think there’s no reason for you— a non-Stand user— to be pulled into… this, right?” he inquired, now staring at you again. “Involving two Stand users, then… me, another Stand user, making three.”

“Maybe it’s just a weird coincidence,” you challenged. Honestly, this guy was about to go lengths to mind-fuck you with whatever he’s spewing at you right now.

Immediately, he shakes his head as he chuckles. He looked a little too pleased with himself, and you didn’t know whether to be worried or not.

“As far as I know, there are no coincidences with Stand users.”

His words eventually sink in.

You stiffen.

Time came to a standstill as you stared at him, dumbfounded.

Is… 

Is he insinuating what you think he is?

“In 2011, I was traveling to Tokyo to… uh, see someone. I don’t go to Tokyo often, so I actually got lost afterward. However, while I was there… there was something in me that compelled me to traverse a particular route, even if it initially made no sense for me to go there. That particular route… lead me to you, in front of the apartment complex.”

There’s no way.

You scoff in disbelief.

“Last time I checked, I’m clearly not a… ‘Stand user’,” you say with a deadpan expression. “I don’t have one, like you said. You told me that you had one, Noriaki had one, Jotaro had one, and… I don’t. I can’t see yours and couldn’t see theirs. I don’t even know what a Stand is supposed to look like, I—”

“—no shit, I know you’re not a Stand user,” the man interjects, narrowing his eyes at you. “At least… not yet.”

“…not yet,” you flatly repeat.

“Not yet,” he reassures.

That’s all he says.

“But, why… ‘not yet’?” you ask.

Before he could respond— probably with something vague— he’s interrupted.

Out of the blue, a new male voice echoed off the walls and floors.

“You did not inform me that the woman with the Joestar child had no Stand.”

Joestar?

The man and you lock eyes for a moment. You swear you see a hint of fear in him, considering how his pupils dilate. Though, you could also feel your heartbeat getting faster for some reason.

Your brows furrow and your eyes dart around, trying to find the owner of the voice.

Shooting up from the floor, the man smooths out wrinkles from his robe and fixes the top hem of his crotch-high boots.

“I didn’t think her lack of a Stand was relevant,” the man in the orange robing admitted with partial confidence as he fixed himself.

The new voice let out a low hum.

“If I’m not mistaken, the father of the child had a Stand, correct?”

…uh, last time you checked, you were not showing at all. How did they even…

The man in the orange robing glances at you before responding, seemingly talking to the air.

“Yes, that counterpart of Jonathan Joestar’s great-great-grandson had a Stand, though it seems to be genetic. I don’t believe he got it by… any other means.”

You don't recognize the name.

“I see. You shall see yourself being rewarded within the next day or so, Piper.”

Hm.

So that’s his name.

“Kenny G already prepared the place. Escort her.”

After he gestured for you to stand up, you did as you were instructed. The sound of your broken laptop continued to clink and screech in your backpack as you walked out of the living room with him. You both return to the corridor, where you both stand on the runner rug once again. It’s strange to think that about an hour ago, Vanilla Ice’s Stand would’ve consumed you right here. You weren’t given any description as to what his Stand looked like, so that was going to be a missing piece of information in your memories.

“So,” you start, raising a brow at the man beside you. “Uh, where are we go—”

—the end of the corridor.

The aged stone walls are now directly in front of you two, and two sets of high double doors were on the left and right. 

You slowly blink in confusion; you turn around to see meticulously-carved archway entrance to that room with the embroidered sofas. 

That was all the way on the other end of the corridor. Though, it quickly became obscured by the recurring wafts of scentless smoke, and you couldn’t see it anymore.

It’s as if you’ve been teleported to a different part of the mansion. You blink and poof— you’re not in that end of the corridor. You’re on the other side.

Piper rubbed his face with one hand before tapping your shoulder. You returned to face him, which at that point he stepped towards the double doors on the left. He stares at you with an expression you can’t exactly pinpoint, but you follow him.

“This may or may not be the last time I see you,” he says, pursing his lips.

You donned a look of puzzlement. What did he mean by—

—again, he abruptly opens one of the double doors, shoving you through the space once again.

Fuming, you realize that you had almost forgotten that he did that to you when bringing you here. Hell, if you were insane enough, maybe you would’ve forgiven him as well.

Abruptly, you turn around to face the now-white door to bang your fist on it several times. The dark handleset door knob was no longer there; instead, it was a silver lever door knob. Much higher than the key lock was a door chain, also both silver. When you ‘knocked’, Piper never answered. You tried to unlock the door, but it was as if it was locked from the outside. The door chain just seemed redundant if that was the case.

The walls beside the door were white too. Beside your shoes is a small weave basket filled with house slippers. The flooring beneath that and your feet reminds you of a genkan, despite your location. But… it looked like yours.

Furrowing your brows, you turn around.

Holy shit.

You’re back at your apartment.

Narrowing your eyes at the familiar place— which was oddly clean, considering Friday— you take the time to see if this is really your place. Taking off your boots, you head into the cramped semi-open kitchen on the left. The cabinets and drawers are all the same style and placement as you remembered. Hell, even all of the appliances were the same.

Once you look past the open wall, you jolt backwards in shock. Your backpack nearly hits the back of the counter as your heart pounds.

Sitting at the round glass top table was a blond burly man. His sharp golden eyes locked with yours; a hint of fascination was in his look. Back straight against the chair, he continued to watch you as you slowly exited out of the kitchen and walked over to the dining table. There in the center was a crystal ball, though the small potted houseplant that was once there was now moved to sit on the floor beside his bare feet.

“Please, you must sit,” the blond man offers to you, gesturing to the chair across from him.

It’s the same voice as before.

Could he be…?

Eyeing him in suspicion, you pull out the chair and sit after taking off your backpack. He continues to stare at you, though you start to become a little uncomfortable. Not only by his eyes— which seem to never leave you— but by the fact that he’s also shirtless. Every muscle on his body seems to be bulging; you didn’t think that it’d be possible to get this muscular, but here he is. Luckily, he still had his pants on, which were golden with unused green suspenders.

His ridiculously long legs nearly intertwine with yours under the table. You notice the somewhat-faded scar that circled around his throat.

“I give my utmost sympathy to you,” he starts, expression softening. “I imagine that you are not coping well since becoming a widow, correct?”

Your brows furrow. 

How did he know that too? What the fuck?

You feel the need to ask, but there's a part of you that thinks that it's a bad idea to do so. So you don't, as much as you want to.

“Before you assume otherwise, Piper had been the one to inform me of such matters. I take it that you are… aware of his abilities?”

“Uh, yeah,” you say offhandedly. “The dimension-hopping, the… ‘knowing-about-other-Stand-users’ thing. I guess that explains how you knew my… status, and all.”

“Yes.”

For a moment, you both continue to stare at one another. Neither of you say anything.

You clear your throat in awkwardness. 

In response, he lets out a low hum.

“You’re… Dio, aren’t you? ‘Lord Dio’, as Piper calls you?”

Dio nods.

“Okay, anyway, um… what’s with the crystal ball? It’s just been sitting here, and uh, well… you moved my plant.”

He tittered.

“What your heart desires will appear here,” Dio says, gesturing to the crystal ball that sat before the both of you. His large, oddly smooth hand hovers over the sphere for an unusual amount of time, and you feel the hairs at the back of your neck stand up. There’s a look of uncertainty plastered on your face; you’re not really getting the purpose of him… showing what you ‘desire’. But there’s one thing you ask yourself.

Would… would your husband appear?

Inside the crystal ball was only fog for a few seconds. There wasn’t any distinct shape— it kept twisting and twisting and you lean forward in anticipation. Your eyes continue to watch the crystal ball, and they continue to do so until you start to make out an eerily familiar sight. Your breath hitches.

Noriaki, now alive and well, appears in the lens of the sphere as hypothesized.

He’s radiant as you remembered him, cherry earrings shimmering from the light he stood under. The second he turned around, a wide smile was plastered on his face. It’s as if you lock eyes with him again, his lavender-grey eyes glinting and its outer corners crinkling. From the neck down he seemed to be nude, but that was the least of your worries. You watch him bring a hand up to his red hair to comb the voluminous side bang.

It suddenly occurs to you that this is the last time that you’ll ‘see’ him, but yes, you desperately wanted him alive again. There’s a part of you that wanted you to disregard all of this, to think that this was just an intricately gruesome nightmare all along. You wanted to deny the fact that your husband would no longer stand beside you, and only now does it really and fully sink in. 

You will never see him again. 

You will be alone.

You felt the sting of your eyes starting to water.

Dio had been watching you the entire time with creased brows. He asks with a gentle tone, “Do you see… him?”

Silently nodding, you wipe your eyes with your sleeve. His hand— the one not hovering over the crystal ball— now resorted to holding your other hand, his thumb lightly brushing your skin. His golden eyes lock with yours as you look up at him; you see his sadness, his sympathy. Though you haven’t known him for very long, you somewhat appreciate his unorthodox form of consolation. Dio must’ve known deep down that you desired Noriaki’s return some amount of time before you did. There was a part of you that started to feel useless for not noticing from the get-go.

“You are a woman burdened with grief,” he whispered, calmly lifting a hand in between you two. The sight of Noriaki in the crystal ball immediately disappeared like mist. “It would be inconvenient for you to live the remainder of your life without meaningful direction.”

Yeah, it does seem pretty inconvenient… 

Dio’s eyes briefly avert from yours; in fact, he turns his head to the corner of the apartment, to the window beside the television. You’re not sure what he was trying to look at.

His hand seems to be reaching for your face now. Was he… going to stroke your cheek or something? Honestly, that’s a little weird—

—gah—!

Dio decided to go for a more… direct approach.

Everything during and after this happens so quick you can barely comprehend what’s happening.

First of all— what the hell— his fingers dart to your forehead, and the second you feel your skin being stabbed through by the tips of his fingers, you scream. It’s like needles, yes, it’s a small bundle of godawful needle-like things that pierce directly into the layers of your skin down to your skull and what—

—you scream even louder, and your hands immediately move up to grab onto Dio’s forearm. His fingers don’t budge; it’s as if they’re cemented onto your forehead, and you feel like you’re going to pass out from the intrusive pain that he unleashes. As you attempt to pull his arm away, your fingernails create deep scratches into his otherwise flawless skin. You see the skin swell up directly under the scratches as his blood starts to spill out of the thin slits. The feeling of light-headedness starts to surge through you, and you feel the slow ooze of blood from your forehead down the bridge of your nose.

What… what is he doing?!

You have to resort to your other senses, which in that case you hear footsteps rushing away and slamming the ‘bathroom’ door.

Out of nowhere, everything starts to fall. 

The white walls of your apartment are slowly eaten by the dark walls of the mansion, the brown hardwood floor beneath you vanishing piece by piece in replacement of the stone floor. The windows slowly disintegrate and no longer are you or Dio being illuminated by the fake light ‘outside’. The two sofas, the television, the coffee table, the rug, and the rack of video games all disappear from the living room. The glass-top dining table and wooden chairs beside it transition into the cracked wooden table and cushioned high-back chairs— you feel it, in fact— yet the crystal ball remains. That’s all that remains, and you remember where you are again. Everything had been an illusion.

In your peripheral vision you see… flesh-colored tentacles of some sort. One of your hands reaches up to your forehead in an attempt to grab it, but your hand is struck and smacked. No, not by Dio, but by the tentacle-thing itself— its attack creates a thin slice on your hand, the sound of you gasping at the cut and the slow rush of blood makes Dio simper. The tentacles return to where your skull had been practically drilled in, swiftly rushing through your head like a series of mini bullet-trains.

His fingers continue to hold onto your forehead, restricting any possible movement. You can’t even move your own legs to kick at him or get up or anything . It’s as if you’ve lost all feeling to the lower half of your body— you’re stuck. You’re stuck for heaven’s sake. Your eyes are wide, helplessly darting from the high ceiling to the walls to the floor to Dio and his too-satisfied smirk to… the corner of the room.

One of your senses still works, at least.

You hear quiet footsteps.

At a distance behind Dio was a short elderly woman, face embedded with wrinkles. She’s approaching slowly, though this might be due to her old age. Your body remains paralyzed as your eyes attempt to focus on her.

Who is she?

Was she part of this too?

“You are fortunate to be in the worldly presence of Lord Dio,” the old woman compliments, sadism seeping from her voice. “If potential is what he sees in you, then as his most loyal servant, I must take his beliefs to heart. Hehe! As such, there has been a change in plans.”

...potential?

“You will be thankful for I, Enya Geil, for this, should you live.”

Your face contorted in anger— what the hell did she mean by that? What the hell did you get roped into? Why—

The sight of her expertly drawing a Bow and Arrow in your direction made you squirm, but Dio’s hold on your head restricted all other movement. You wanted to scream, swear, shriek but goddamn for some reason you couldn’t bring yourself to do so, it’s like Dio was controlling your mind and controlling every one of your thoughts and words and processes and… and… 

Before you realize it, you got thrown back, the chair you sat in toppling over with you.

Lord Dio’s fingers were no longer cemented into your forehead, but you were on the floor. The back of your head is throbbing from the sudden impact with the stone.

You’re… choking.

Holy fucking shit — did… oh my fucking God…

The fletchings of the Arrow is all you can see, but barely.

You feel the searing, sharp pain of the Arrow’s head stabbed into the start of your trachea— your neck, it’s paralyzed— you’re paralyzed even more— though you’re not sure if it’s the nerves getting hit or your emotional shock from being hit with the projectile. There’s no way your desperate need to scream again is getting fulfilled anytime soon.

The Arrow’s intrusion causes your gag reflex to trigger, but it’s lodged well into your throat. You feel a long vertical cut on your tongue and on the roof of your mouth from the Arrow’s intricately-carved head— you hack up blood, the warm and metallic-tasting liquid splattering and dripping down your mouth and chin due to its short trajectory. Tears start to build up and flow down your cheeks with little effort. You’re getting blinded and the darkness of the room isn’t helping one bit.

This old bitch fucking shot you. 

You mean… who in their right mind decides to shoot someone in the fucking throat with a Bow and Arrow out of nowhere? Why did Lord Dio not react like a normal person? No shock, no attempt to help, he’s just… watching you slowly bleed to death. His chair screeches as he slides it back to stand up. Your blood continues to spurt and drip, staining the Arrow’s head and that half of the shaft. Beside you on the floor is your backpack, still containing the broken laptop parts. The hardware’s edges through your barely-durable bag start to make marks on your legs. You’re waiting, you’re waiting… you’re waiting for the onset of death, for your eyes to stop darting around, for your head and arms and legs to stop slightly twitching, for your heartbeat to come to an end.

…either dying is taking up much more time that you expected or… you don’t know. But you’re not getting dead for some reason.

Suddenly, you feel the upper half of your body being hoisted up from the floor.

With one of his large, smooth hands, Lord Dio firmly grabs the side of your face and keeps it still. Your pupils shift to see the alabaster skin the best you could in your position; his thumb is right under your lower eyelid, fingers buried in your scalp. His hand is surprisingly cold.

Then, with the other hand, he wraps his fingers around the Arrow’s shaft. 

He tugs.

A wheezed scream erupts out of your vocal cords. Your body tenses up at the feeling of Lord Dio trying to pull the Arrow out of your throat. You feel the cuts on the roof of your mouth and your tongue getting deeper— it’s like he’s trying to make the slashes worse. Yet, your body continues to betray you. You still can’t move. What he does is hurting you, fuck, why is he struggling, why is it taking Lord Dio so long to pull a fucking Arrow out of your throat, you mean, he has the muscle, he should have the capability to do so… goddamn he is taking way too long to pull this piece of shit out of your throat and… and you know what? 

You know what?

An… android’s hand… forcefully grabs onto the shaft of the Arrow, aiding Lord Dio in the effort of pulling. Once he successfully yanks it from your throat, he steps back, grasping onto the Arrow as he stared down at you with wide eyes. There’s a genuine look of surprise on his face as he watched you fall forward. As you fall, you see Enya with the Bow, you see the table with the crystal ball, you see Lord Dio’s long legs, you see the floor, you’re ready to smash your face into the stone.

But you don’t.

You hear the clank of metal. You feel your limbs— your entire body— enveloped with the metallic material. Your clothes are no longer on your body, and it’s as if they weren’t under the metal either.

Their voices become mumbles to you as you continue to rest face-down on the stone floor, unable to move your body. You can’t bring a hand to your lower abdomen to hold in a motherly fashion. During that whole situation, it just seemed like you’ve lost all strength. Were you ever going to be able to move again? Did they just incapacitate you? What… what exactly have you done to deserve this?

If only Noriaki could see what was happening to you.

“She…  wears  her Stand?”

——

[STAND NAME]

???

[STAND MASTER]

You

——

--> To Be Continued -->

Up Next: Plane tickets, Polaroid photos, and yours & Jotaro's response to Noriaki's infertility.

Link to the Table of Contents

[alisonembers]

Cogs and Queens (D&D Eberron Fan Fic) - Week 6

This one is a longer one, I hope you enjoy it.

Content Warning: Blood, Course Language, NSFW scene included in full version inside Google Drive link.

—————————————————–

Google Drive Link for correctly formatted version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-jnvaN0ui2c-7yUR0BzSNwkpD63Lzhmo/view?usp=sharing

Cogs and Queens - Part Six

“You’re just the cutest little thing,” Elisen says, standing almost a foot taller than Mercury.

“Oh? Am I?”

Elisen unwraps a leather pouch, revealing medical tools. “So, Mercury, how did this happen?”

“I tried to get back at a man and failed.”

“Ah,” Elisen kneels before Mercury, pulling out a pair of tweezers and a scalpel from the leather pouch. “Have you ever been operated on, my dear?”

Mercury wiggles the damaged fingers on their left arm, hearing the slight whirring of stuck motors.

“Of course. Is it okay if you take your top off? It will make getting at the wound easier.”

“Oh, sure,” Mercury slides their coat off and then unbuttons their shirt. They slide it off their shoulders, sitting topless in the chair.

“Oh dear,” Elisen says. “What happened? Your shoulders…” Elisen stands, looking over them, noticing large bruises on their back, along with scaring and cuts. “Are you okay?”

“Just the life of a Mercury.”

“Excuse me, good woman, but getting yoursel-”

“Please don’t call me a woman,” Mercury says sternly.

“Ah.”

“Now, are you going to fix the damn hole in my stomach?”

“Oh, of course,” Elisen kneels back down and applies pressure around the wound. “You’re lucky it hit nothing important.”

“Oh, that’s good, minus the blood loss.”

Elisen pokes around with the scalpel. “Found the bullet.”

“Yeah?”

Elisen reaches for the tweezers. She reaches towards Mercury’s stomach, poking them into the wound.

“Ah, lords!” Mercury screams.

“You said you’d been operated on before!”

“I was unconscious, okay!?”

“Almost got it. Stay sill.”

Mercury clenches down on the arm of the chair with their right hand, their toes wriggling in pain.

“Got it!” Elisen pulls back with the metal bullet held by the tweezers. She places her hand over the wound. “By the shine of the flame, heal this poor soul.”

Mercury hisses in pain as a searing devine burn impales their stomach. They bat Elisen away. “What in Mabar did you do to me!?” they look down and notice that their wound was completely healed.

“Better?”

“Divinity.”

Elisen stands up. “So, where are you off to now?”

“Honestly… I have no idea. I kind of need a nap.”

Elisen looks over her shoulder. “Bed’s large enough for two.”

“It is,” Mercury says.

“Don’t get any ideas, little devil.”

“Lady, please. I just got shot, fell thirty feet onto a roof, and cried in pain from divine magic. I just want to sleep.”

Elisen giggles. “Be my guest,” she gestures to the bed.

       V

 “What are you doing!? You can’t just leave, *******,” a taller human man says, wearing a black cloak.

“Stop calling me that, for waste sake!” Mercury yells back, standing in a small doorway.

“And what of the deal, *******? Do you not care what the headmaster will do to us if you leave? To your own mother and father?” a human woman in purple robes says.

“Burn for all I care! I want nothing to do with you and this cursed place!” Mercury storms out the front door.

“ *******! Stop! Come right back here, you disobedient child!”

“The same child you cursed at birth!? Made my life not my own, but a guaranteed pre-paid sacrifice to your patron!? You disgust me, you vial humans! I hate you!”

Their father rushes towards them, grabbing them by the collar, and starts pulling them towards the house. “You will not leave us. Your life is here. In this sanctuary.”

Mercury pulls grabs a dagger from their belt and spins around. They cut their father all along the bottom of their arm. “I am not your experiment! Your sacrifice! I will claim a life you deny me!”

Their father lets go of them, cursing a thousand times.

Their mother runs out with a look of horror. “How could you do such a thing!?”

Mercury pulls their ragged coat closer and pushes into the rainy afternoon, ignoring their parents in pain.

        V

 Mercury opens their eyes, spotting Elisen lying beside them, reading a book. “Where…”

“Bad dream? Your tail was thrashing around quite a bit.”

“It’s always bad dreams. You get used to it…” Mercury pulls themselves up, back against the bed head. “Didn’t say anything in my sleep, did I?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Tell me, Mercury, what is it that you do?”

Mercury begins laughing.

“What’s so funny, pinky.”

“I raid cargo, shoot criminals, get shot, drink alcohol, gamble. That’s what I do.”

“I see.”

“The sharn guard is included in criminals, by the way.”

“Ah.”

“What do you do? You’re a doctor?”

“A psychologist. I work in the upper city, and sometimes the skyway. Though I am practicing to be more than a psychologist. These are… practice tools.”

“Of couuurse you work for the elite. You’re an aristocrat,” Mercury lays their head against the back of the bed.

“We’re not all bad, you know.”

Mercury looks at them with dagger eyes. “Really.”

“I helped you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“Does that not count for something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t decided if I like you or not… Why are you staying in a tavern if you’re from here?”

“Ah, in the middle of a divorce with my ex-wife. Better to stay in a tavern away from them, give them space.”

“How old are you?” Mercury turns to them, legs crossing.

“Never ask a woman their age. It’s rule number one,” Elisen says, giggling. “Two hundred.”

“Elves, huh?” Mercury says.

“Yourself?” Elisen asks.

“I don’t actually know, and I’d rather not find out,” Mercury lies.

“Odd. Where were you born? Surely there’d be a record.”

“Demon wastes.”

“Oh, you’re a tiefling. Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Tieflings cant be born elsewhere?”

“I didn’t say that!” Elisen yells.

Mercury smiles.

The sound of shouting erupts from outside the room. “Find me that fiend! I’ll make an example of it!”

“This is my queue to leave, princess!” Mercury runs for the window, vaulting out of it into the alleyway once more. Shit. Where do I go from here?

 They moved on from the alley looking for a way down,

They sought for another night under the queen's crown.

Their metal hand was ruined from a hard days fight,

They’d need to get it fixed before the end of night.

The Dwarf man would mend it getting further into debt,

But Mercury would push on hard and never seemed to fret.

 “Mercury, when are you going to stop?” Dandran asks, leaning over the railing of the store's porch.

“Stop what?” Mercury asks, sipping ale.

“All of it. Theft, taking part in heists, killing people. You need to stop,” Dandran says.

“Why should I?” Mercury takes another sip.

“Because you’ll end up dead, Merc.”

“I’m gonna end up dead soon anyway. Not much time left, right? Tick tock, Dandran.”

“Listen here, you son of a bitch,” Dandran walks over to Mercury. “You’re like a damn son to me. I taught you all you need to know about this damn city, raised you from when you were a weed. I don’t want all that work dying.”

Mercury looks at him, taken back. He had never come at them this aggressive before.

“You should take what life you have left and use it for good. Not wasting your days away,” Dandran begins breathing deeply, trying to calm down.

“Dandran… That ain’t me. You know it ain’t me.”

“Mercury, from this day onward, I am no longer repairing that arm of yours. You work out a way to do it yourself or find another artificer willing to tinker with it. If you’re going to get yourself killed, go get yourself killed. I can’t stop it anymore!” Dandran storms into the store, slamming the door behind him.

Really fucked it up, haven’t ya, Merc… Mercury walks down the stairs into the empty street, continuing to drink their ale. Time to buy some equipment, I guess… I could use a drink.

             V

 Mercury watches the street, quieter than usual, out the front of the Cogs and Queens tavern. As they take a sip of whisky from a small glass, they cough. The liquid turns a vibrant red as strands of blood weave through the liquor. Fuck. They tip out the whisky into the street.

A black cat runs through the street with a rat in its jaws. Its eyes glow like a candle in the void.

Mercury sighs, squeezing the glass with their right hand.

Davil walks out of the tavern, spotting Mercury. “Hey, you okay? Wondering where you went.”

“Just a mid-life crisis, I’m afraid,” Mercury says.

“Anything, in particular, going on? Or…”

“You know that man who took my arm? Yeah, well… I tried to take him on.”

“How did it go?”

“Terrible. Got shot in the stomach, killed some men… I did break the join at his elbow, though. So, for what it’s worth, he, too, also has one working arm.”

“That it?”

“I fell about thirty feet or something, destroyed an expensive prototype weapon, crashed a rich girl's room, bled on her floor, slept in her bed- not with her, just…”

They both watch the silent street for many moments, the sound of steam engines and elemental machinery whirring in the distance.

“I don’t know how you do it, Mercury.”

“Do what?”

“Keep fighting. Your life is so complicated. Do you ever think about just settling somewhere with what you got, earning honest money? I mean lords, I’m a prostitute, and that’s a stable enough income here.”

Mercury turns completely facing Davil, gesturing with open palms.“Well, in my years, you come to learn that the world hates you, no matter what you do. You can make friends, maybe even love someone, but in the end, the elite just fuck ya over and take it all away through exploitation.”

Davil squints at Mercury. “You look young. Didn’t realize you were so old.”

“That change your opinion on me?” Mercury teases.

“Not if I get another taste of cupcake.”

“Is that so?” Mercury smirks. “Cupcake?”

“I mean, well, if you get pink icing, you know, you’re pink,” he leans against the outer wall of the tavern.

“I’m sorry, it seems I am all out of coin,” Mercury says.

“If I’m the one asking you to sleep with me, shouldn’t I be the one paying you?” he chuckles.

Mercury moves closer, their tail flicking behind. “A bottle of the cheapest wine you can find, pay for the room, and you have a deal.”

“Oh, do I now?” Davil says.

Mercury moves their tail across Davil’s crotch as they walk by, pushing open the tavern door.

Davil follows behind, ruffling through his pouch for some coin.

              V

Time passes as Davil and Mercury listen to the rain drop into the lower city through gaps above, the cold air wisping through the cracked window they watch out of. Mercury rests their head against Davil’s chest as they sit between his legs. They hold the wine bottle upward to Davil.

Davil takes the wine and sips from it.

“You know, I could live in this moment forever,” Mercury says. “Never have to gun sling again.”

“I’m not gonna comment on that. It’s all your choice,” Davil says, passing the wine back to Mercury.

“Sometimes I think about leaving…” Mercury takes a sip.

“Leaving? To do what?” Davil says as he strokes Mercury’s jaw.

“When it’s over, and Coltan is dead, I might leave to the outskirts. Maybe find a small town to settle down in, become a farm ranger.”

“You, Mercury, ‘The Pink Fiend,’ horny Mercury. You. You are gonna go out and become a simple farm ranger?” Davil takes the wine, taking a larger sip.

“What? Just because I like sex, it doesn’t mean I can’t work a farm.”

“I just can’t imagine an outlaw like you doing such a thing.”

“The only reason I am even considered an outlaw is because the Sharn guard, who are corrupt, deem me so. The Sharn guard is nothing more than a gang of thugs working for rich thugs.”

“Have you ever killed an innocent? I’m not going to judge you.”

“No, never. No member of the Sharn guard is innocent. So don’t even start that.”

“What about tavern patrons I watched you get into fights with?”

“They were outlaws themselves! Worse than me too!”

“True…”

“Look, if fighting the guard makes me evil, so be it. I embrace it.”

“You’re not bad, Mercury… Just a different approach might be better.”

Mercury shrugs, gulping down the last of the wine. “I don’t know. People see a price on my head and want to cash me in. I’m lucky I got you,” they say as they wiggle deeper into Davil’s arms.

“I think I’m the lucky one,” Davil says, keeping Mercury close.

To be continued.

[shorties-unite]

I Might Even be a Rockstar (HannahMontana!AU)

Part 1/?

Summary: Roman is a normal boy with a very normal life who also happens to be a teen pop sensation. Virgil is a normal boy who also happens to have a debilitating crush on a teen pop sensation. Stuff happens I guess 

“THANK YOU GUYS FOR COMING, YA’LL HAVE BEEN A GREAT AUDIENCE. GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!!” Princey gave an enthusiastic wave as the pyrotechnics let off there final sparks and confetti erupted from the cannons. Red and gold flecks of glitter raining down into the front section of the screaming crowd. He placed the microphone back in it’s place on the diamontie studded mic stand, before turning and exhaling. He loved this post show high. As he wondered his back to his dressing room he always felt lighter than air and his mind prickled comfortably with static. Someone from the crew handed him a towel and He smiled gratefully and tapped the sweat from his brow as he opened the door to his dressing room, promptly being engulfed into a hug. “You were amazing out there Ro!!” He relaxed after a moment into their arms and laughed softly. “Thanks Patton, that’s really sweet but these contacts are stinging my eyes so can you please let go?”. Patton laughed. “Fair enough,” he replied, as he moved away, allowing Roman to reach the makeup table on the other side of the dressing room, digging though the box of makeup and accessories searching for his contact case. Once found, he opened the container, and placed it on the table, already digging one of the nuisance lenses out of his eye. He glanced up into the mirror surrounded by flashbulbs. The reflection staring back at him had straight, fire engine red hair, perfectly styled into a quiff that took a lung damaging amount of hairspray to maintain. Gold glitter surrounded his eyes in a why which seemed haphazard but was in fact a very particular and intricate type of simple-yet-extravagant glam. Behind the glitter peered two eyes, one a piercing shade or emerald green and one muddy brown. Inconspicuous, boring, basic. Nothing special in the slightest. Swiftly, he removed the second contact, sweeping up their container and placing it neatly back inside the makeup case, which Patton had begun to carefully pack away, handing Roman a pair of oversized, red embezzled sunglasses from the depths of the case, which he promptly slipped over his face as someone knocked at the door. “Come in!” he called, trying to muster up as much pep as he could when in all honesty his eyes were burning, his head was itchy and he may as well have been asleep on his feet. Adieu, post stage high! Until next time. “It’s just us darlin, great show tonight,” came the reply as the door was pushed open to reveal a man with long red hair and a thick moustache along with another, younger man who would look strikingly similar to Princey himself, had most of his face not been obscured from view by tinted sunglasses and a large cap with the words SECURITY printed in bold lettering across the from. “You about ready to go?”. Princey nodded and crossed the room to meet them, adjusting the lopsided cyan wig on Patton’s head on the way. “We’re ready, let’s get this magic trick over with,”. 

*Oooooh yeahhh* 

Logan LaMottie let out a frustrated sigh, pointed glare focused directly on his best friend. “Virgil, we have school tomorrow morning and the chances of you seeing him, is completely infinitesimal, much less anything actually of interest”. Virgil rolled his eyes, but didn’t quite manage to wipe the small smile or the slight flush off of his face. “Are you still mad about that Lo?” he responded with a mischievous smirk, earning another sound of annoyance from his companion. He peaked at his reflection in the surface of the chrome pole that segregated the crowd away from the scarlet carpet leading to the black limousine with windows so tinted it seemed almost impossible that even the driver would be able to see through them. “Look,” Logan began again, shuffling closer to his friend in an effort to stop the girl next to him from standing on his foot. “Crowds aren’t my scene, and the really aren’t yours either, can we just go? You can just look up photos of him on the ride home or stare at your bedroom wall for a couple hours or something. You already know what he looks like after all”. Virgil turned to look at him for the first time since they’d arrived outside the stadium, literally hours ago. There was something in his eyes that Logan couldn’t quite place. He raised a hand, combing it through his hair before sighing for what must have been a record breaking third time in 45 seconds. This time in defeat. “Fine,” he replied. They could stay for his best friend to fulfil his dream of catching a glimpse of this Princey that he was oh so obsessed with. In the grand scheme of things, Virgil wasn’t one to ask much of him, so he supposed he could give a little just this once. Even if the level of infatuation his friend felt for the superstar was borderline nonsensical. Suddenly the crowd surged forward and the sound around them increased tenfold. Logan, unprepared for this sudden change in his environment was almost engulfed by the crowd, only saved by his friend sheer determination, grabbing his hand and barging anyone who dared to interfere with their prime position. Virgil could only see the very top of the blood red styled hair over someone else head, but as he moved along the carpet with his entourage following en suit Virgil swore he could drop dead right then and there. Princey smiled a wide, perfectly straight, perfectly white grin as he waved to the crowd, blowing kisses every so often. He now wore a red leather jacket over the silver glittery undershirt he had worn on stage, both tailored perfectly to fit his broad shoulders and slim waist. His white jeans were slightly scuffed at the ankles and knees, torn along the front in just the right places, making the olive skin peaking through appear even more tanned. Large sunglasses obscured most of his face but that didn’t matter to Virgil. He didn’t need to see those piercing green eyes to know that it was him. Right in front of him, if only for a moment. It was him. And the look on his face was something else. It was him, and he was so happy to be there. In a place with so many people he had reached and helped and who loved him for it. And though he knew the thought was ridiculous, that he was just another head in the crowd, Princey was so happy to be there with him, too. Logan found himself staring too, although his expression was drastically different than Virgil’s. Virgil’s face contained the kind of euphoria the he seldom let himself feel, much less express. The kind that would allow him to come out the other side of any awful experience still as peppy as Patton Truscott midway though a halftime show. Logan on the other hand, was completely lost in thought. Part of him was amazed that they had managed to pull it of. Part of him wondered how he hadn’t seen it before. Now that he was here it was obvious. The Remus and Roman Stewart did make a habit of acting rather stragely. Micellaneous doctor and dentist appointments pulled one or both of the twins out of class far too often for it to fit to any kind of regular health schedule. Their facial structure resembled Princey's to a tee, excluding his hair and eye colour which could easily be manipulated. For christ sake his first song to take off last Summer was literally called BEST OF BOTH WORLDS LOGAN HOW DAFT COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN. As the star and his posse reached the limousine, Logan snuck a look at his starstruck best friend, then back at the limo as another familiar face with less familiar electric blue hair stepped into the car behind the quote unquote “Rockstar”. “Okay they’re in the car, they’re leaving, time for us to go too.” Logan pulled Virgil by the wrist slightly, almost surprise when his friend followed willingly. He was quiet as they walked back to where Logan had parked, and most of the drive to drop him back home, unable to come up with much more than a couple of breathy half-words as Logan pulled off of the highway and into Virgil’s neighbourhood. He didn’t mind. This certainly was an interesting development, which he hypothesised would more than likely lead to equally interesting results. But first, an adequate circadian rhythm needed to be maintained, and further investigation was required. 

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

A/N: SO hey void here’s the first part of the thing I was talking about a while ago bc I felt like it was too good for ya’ll not to see and also I’m scared it’ll get lost in my unfinished writing tag forever. Don’t expect a part two until at least the end of next week cause homegirl has hella exams, anyway, onto the story and special thanks to the people that helped me figure out a direction for this story in the first place. (@frikijedai @datfearlessfangirl ya’ll are real one’s, sorry I couldn’t make them both miley lmao)

Tags: @nadja-chamack16 

[im-up-to-shenanigans]

Fairy Tale

Read on ao3

Read on fanfiction.net

Summary: After getting Chinese takeout together, Ladybug and Cat Noir must battle an akuma and discover that maybe dreams really do come true. Ladynoir July 2020, Day 5: Banter

Rating: K+

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Cat Noir, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Cat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

~*~*~*~

A/N: Credit to someone on YouTube (not me, but I couldn't find the original comment, so I can't give you a name. I did ask - and got- permission to use this idea, though) for coming up with the idea for this. I made some minor tweaks. Also, this is my first fight scene for anything ever (also first original akuma). Anyway, have some Ladynoir! (Also, yes, I put a Once Upon a Time easter egg in here. No, I’m not ashamed of it.)

~*~*~*~

Patrol had been quiet that night, which was a relief. After several consecutive days filled with akuma attacks, the heroes of Paris were grateful to have a peaceful night. Ladybug and Cat Noir were currently sitting upon a beam of the Eiffel Tower, swinging their legs back and forth as they talked and laughed. Ladybug had brought some Chinese takeout to eat (It wasn't as good as her mother's authentic Chinese food, but Cat Noir didn't need to know that.).

"That was pretty good! I've never had Chinese takeout before," Cat said as he finished his food. He looked at her with a bit of awe and wonder in his eyes, as if she were his everything.

Ladybug blinked. "Wow, really?"

Her partner nodded. "Yeah, my father has my diet regulated, and I don't get to eat much food like this." He smiled.

"Then I'm glad I introduced it to you." She smiled softly back at him.

Cat Noir's smile turned into a toothy grin, and he leaned forward. "I'd be willing to try anything for you, M’Lady." He winked.

Ladybug rolled her eyes and pushed him away gently. "I'm having second thoughts about this."

"Too late, ‘Bug. Food's already gone." He gestured to the empty white boxes. He turned back to her, his face void of any goofy expression, suddenly serious. "But honestly, it was amazing."

Ladybug shrugged. "It was just takeout. I wouldn't call it amazing."

"You are the one who brought it. It is wonderful because it came from you.” He stared into her eyes, his own filled with conviction and sincerity.

Her heart did a funny little flip in her chest. Not wanting to figure out the reason behind it, she turned away, digging in the bag from the Chinese restaurant. "I nearly forgot the best part." She produced two small packaged treats of some sort. "Fortune cookies!" She gave one to him.

He watched as she opened her cookie and took out the little slip of white paper before doing the same.

Ladybug popped the cookie in her mouth as she studied the paper. "What does yours say, Kitty?"

He glanced down at the white slip that came out of his own cookie. "Follow your dreams."

Ladybug paused. "Huh, mine says the same thing."

Cat Noir scooted closer. "Maybe it's a sign." He grinned at her again.

She laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. "Down, Kitty. They are probably just running out of ideas to put in these things." She crumpled the fortune before gathering the empty cartons, shoving everything in the bag.

Cat shrugged before looking over the city, his eyes gaining a thoughtful look. "I guess that's a possibility. I just think it's strange that I would get this particular fortune today of all days."

Ladybug paused, glancing over at her partner and taking in his thoughtful expression. "Why's that?"

"I had a pretty great dream last night. It was about you."

She snorted. "How is that different from normal?"

He looked over at her and scowled, crossing his arms. "Haha, very funny." He pouted.

She giggled before reaching over and ruffling his hair. "Oh, lighten up, Cat." She pulled her hand away. "Tell me about your dream."

Cat leaned back on his arms, face turned to the stars. "Well, the two of us were walking hand-in-hand in a park along a moonlit path. We came across André and his ice cream cart and decided to get some.” He smiled softly up at the stars. “It was amazing.”

Ladybug felt the corners of her lips pull up in amusement. “The ice cream or the dream?”

He turned to look at her, a smirk forming on his lips. “Why not both? Care for some ice cream, M’Lady? After all, the fortunes did say to follow our dreams.”

The spotted heroine cocked her head in thought, her gaze falling over the streets of Paris lit up in the night. “Well, since we're talking about dreams, I had a pretty interesting one about the two of us last night as well.”

Cat Noir smiled. “Really? You dream about me?” He laid a hand on his heart. “You flatter me, Bugaboo,” he said, a silly grin on his face as he pretended to swoon.

Ladybug mock-scowled at her partner. “Didn’t we agree that you’d stop calling me Bugaboo?”

“Maybe you did. I enjoy the way you get all worked up over it too much to agree to any such thing.”

When she gave him a legitimate scowl, he started laughing. She huffed, crossing her arms. “Well, I guess you don’t want to hear about my dream.”

Cat calmed down, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Sorry, LB. What was your dream about?”

“Well in my dream, we were being chased by a bunch of knights, wolves, and witches out of a castle, past a giant gingerbread house, and up a hill in the woods with a well on top. Suddenly, we slipped on a giant broken egg laying next to a wall and went rolling down the hill.” She paused, looking over at him with the faintest smirk on her face. “I'm sorry, Kitty, but not ALL dreams come true...”

~*~*~*~

She was going to kill Hawk Moth. Because seriously? Who akumatizes someone at 3:00 in the freaking morning? She had tests in class tomorrow (today), and she did not have the time or patience to deal with this. Stupid Hawk Moth. He probably has no life. Probably never leaves his house and just sits in a dark room all day waiting for someone to akumatize. She was going to be dead to the world tomorrow and probably fail all her tests because of this. Great.

Grumbling a few choice words under her breath, Ladybug dashed over rooftops to the source of the screams. Upon arrival, she crouched behind a chimney to avoid detection while she surveyed the situation.

There were trees everywhere. The streets of Paris were being turned into a forest. People were screaming and running in all directions. Some escaped, but most were shot down by a beam of light, knocking them to the ground. Ladybug watched as the civilians hit turned into witches (with broomsticks) and knights with black armor (complete with black plumage on their helmets, mind you), rising from their place on the ground and walking to the center of all the commotion. Man, it’s like Darkblade all over again, she thought.

They joined a circle of black knights around who Ladybug assumed was the akuma victim. Ladybug could barely make out a figure in the middle of the circle due to all the black knights surrounding the akuma. With a huff of mild annoyance, she pulled out her yo-yo and used the camera function to zoom in.

The villain of the week was a little girl in a dress that came to the ground. The skirt was covered in lace and ruffles. The entire dress was sparkling and shimmering and was the color of cotton candy. On her back rested a set of wings that resembled a fairy’s. They were the same color pink as her dress with light blue undertones and accents. Her long, chocolate brown hair flowed down in waves, stopping halfway down her back, and an elegant tiara rested upon her head.

What really caught Ladybug’s attention, however, were the items in her hands. In one, the girl held a wand which she used to transform people into her black knights. In the other rested a large brown book. “Once Upon a Time” was written across the front in gold letters, and there was gold trimming around the edges of the cover to match the text.

“Good morning, M’Lady,” Cat Noir said as he dropped down beside her.

“You are way too chipper for 3 a.m.”

He chuckled softly. “So, what do we have here?”

“A little girl dressed like a freaking fairy princess holding a wand and storybook turning people into freaking knights and Paris into her own personal freaking forest.”

“Someone’s grouchy tonight.”

Ladybug shot him a glare.

Cat raised his hands up in a soothing manner with an easy smile on his face. “Let’s get this akuma taken care of so Sleepybug can go back to bed."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the scene. The black knights were escorting the akuma toward the Eiffel Tower, the witches following behind as they flew around on their brooms.

“We better follow them. Whatever they’re up to, it’s probably not good,” Ladybug said as she started spinning her yo-yo. Not waiting her partner’s response, she took off after the crowd, Cat Noir following close behind.

~*~*~*~

Mistakes were made. No sooner had they reached the Eiffel Tower than the akuma had turned into into a castle with a flash of light coming from her wand. Ladybug and Cat Noir had followed the entourage inside… and were immediately surrounded by the akuma’s minions. They desperately tried to fight against the akuma and her posse. Eventually, Cat Noir managed to grab hold of her wand and snapped it over his knee. No akuma. The akuma victim spawned another wand for her use.

The heroes were getting overwhelmed and exhausted. With only a glance shared between them, both heroes turned and fled out of the castle, away from the witches and knights now chasing them. The akuma, who they now knew was named Fairy Tale, flew above them, turning cars that had not been destroyed when the city had turned into a forest into rabid wolves who joined the chase.

“We’ve gotta lose these guys.” Ladybug shot off another rooftop, both superheroes doing their best to avoid the streets because of the huge pack of wolves snapping at their heels while simultaneously dodging bursts of magic sent their way by the witches and running from the black knights that had followed them onto the rooftops, occasionally fighting off the ones that caught up with them.

"Couldn’t agree more, M’Lady. I know normally black cats are friendly with witches, but these guys seem to prefer the wolves.” He was right behind her, sometimes growling and hissing at wolves that got too close for comfort.

It was way too early in the morning for this.

"We’ll lose them at Notre Dame!” Ladybug ripped the sword away from a black knight and hurled it at a nearby witch. The witch tried to dodge, but lost her balance and fell from her broomstick. Cat Noir launched the swordless knight off the roof, and the heroes raced to the cathedral.

At first, Notre Dame seemed to be a bust, as the superheroes saw that the once glorious church was now a gigantic and elaborate gingerbread house that threatened to crumble whenever they touched it.

Ladybug glanced back at the oncoming horde, then back at her partner with a grin on her face, a plan forming in her head. “What do you say we give our guests a little snack?”

Cat smirked. “Read my mind, LB.”

The two rushed inside and hid behind one of the grand gingerbread pillars in the back of the church. Soon enough they were joined by Fairy Tale’s minions.

Cat darted out from behind the pillar waving his hands and shouting. As the mob closed in on him, Ladybug snuck back around to the front door and quickly shut it behind her.

Once he saw that she was outside with the door closed, Cat raced back to one of the pillars. “Cataclysm!” Cat quickly launched himself through one of the frosting windows in the back, while the entire row of connected pillars crumbled, bringing the rest of the church down as well and burying the horde in a mess of gingerbread and frosting.

The two heroes ran away from the rubble, heading back to the Eiffel Castle. Fairy Tale had made some adjustments while they were busy with her henchmen. It was now complete with a moat and drawbridge. A few remaining knights were standing guard while a few witches flew around the castle.

“We’ll be able to easily cross the moat and take the knights and witches, but the drawbridge might be tricky since I’m down a Cataclysm,” Cat muttered to Ladybug as they crouched on a nearby rooftop.

“Hmm, we’ll have to draw her out then.”

A few minutes later, as they were racing up a hill with two tall stone walls on either side of them instead of trees with an extremely angry Fairy Tale on their heels, the two heroes were regretting taunting her so much.

“I don’t remember the Champs-Elyseés being a giant hill.” Cat spotted a well at the top. “Or there being a well at the top.”

“Must be Fairy Tale’s magic. She’s been taking a lot of things from fairy tales and putting them in Paris.” Ladybug paused for a moment as they dodged a blast of magic. “Is-Is that the Arc de Triomphe?”

Cat consulted his mental map. “I guess so.” He glanced behind them. “Uh, Ladybug? She’s getting closer.”

The moment they reached the well at the top of the hill, Fairy Tale opened her book and shouted, “Once upon a time, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!” She waved her wand and a beam of light shot past the heroes.

Before they had a chance to react, a huge egg fell from one of the walls and crashed right in front of them, cracking open. Ladybug and Cat Noir had no time to stop their momentum and slipped on the egg yolk, tumbling and rolling down the hill.

As they picked themselves off the ground, both covered in egg yolk, dirt, and grass, Cat’s miraculous beeped, signaling he had three minutes left. They searched for Fairy Tale and spotted her flying over the top of the hill. “Now might be the time for some luck, M’Lady. Y’know, before she gets here.”

She nodded. “Lucky charm!” A red ball of yarn with black spots fell into her hands.

“Ooh, a ball of yarn! Christmas came early for this feline!”

Ladybug hummed. “Not yet, Kitty. Would you be so kind as to distract her for me?”

He bowed. “As you wish, Mademoiselle.” He looked up and winked before taking off, shouting to catch Fairy Tale’s attention.

While she was distracted, Ladybug ran back up to the well and crouched behind it. Then she got an idea. She scramble up the nearest tree, breaking off a few branches. Soon, with the wood and the yarn, she had fastened the frame of a net. She opened up her yo-yo to text Cat. When I give the signal, lead Fairy Tale back to the well. That’s where I’ll be.

Once he sent a confirmation, she scrambled back down the tree and hid back behind the well. She peaked over the stone structure to see her partner still being chased by Fairy Tale. He doesn’t have long. Need to do this quickly. She took her yo-yo and wove it into a net for the frame large enough for the akuma.

She peeked back out and caught Cat’s eye. When she nodded, he nodded back and began running her way.

Ladybug took a breath. She needed to time this just right. She watched as Cat led Fairy Tale closer and closer. When he jumped between the stones and the wooden roof of the well, Ladybug brought the net up, waited a beat, then brought the net up as Fairy Tale passed through.

The akuma cried out in surprise, as her flight was interrupted. She went crashing to the ground, scrambling to get out of the net. She gave up, opened her book, and began to shout. “Once upon a time—” Cat Noir reached through a hole in the net and ripped a page from the open book.

An akuma fluttered into the air.

Ladybug untied her yo-yo and the yarn, freeing the victim and caught the akuma.

After everything was cleaned up and the little girl was given back to her mother (who just happened to be one of the remaining witches guarding the palace), Cat Noir looked over at Ladybug. “You remember that dream you told me about earlier?”

She raised an eyebrow and stood akimbo. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, you followed it.” He shrugged. “Everything you said happened actually happened.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes before they widened again. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

Cat Noir stepped closer, tilting his head and smiling. “So, since yours came true, and we got the same fortune…”

Ladybug sighed. “When do you want that ice cream?”

~*~*~*~

When Marinette finally got back to bed that night, she would deny the smile on her face, no matter how much Tikki insists it was there.

~*~*~*~

A/N: So, I hope you enjoyed that. It, uh, kinda took me a while since I first got the prompt. Oh well. It happened eventually. (Also, this is my first fic on tumblr, so I hope this goes well.)

@ladynoirjuly2020

[alj4890]

And Then I Met You

Part 23

What happens when the one you thought you were meant for turns out to be meant for someone else?

A\N Choices Fan Fiction with characters from The Royal Romance, Red Carpet Diaries, and Perfect Match.

*Sorry for being so late in between posts. Health problems keep cropping up for both me and my family.*

@lxaah11 @alleksa16 @penguininapinktuxedo @blackcoffee85 @stopforamoment @hopefulmoonobject   @krsnlove   @annekebbphotography  @cora-nova @bella-ca  @hopelessromantic1352 . @sunflowergirl05 @desiree-0816 @greywitchyshots @lilyofchoices @emceesynonymroll @dr-nancy-house @aworldoffandoms @ab1901 @lolablackwrites @flyawayboo @i-bloody-love-drake-walker​ . @trappedinfandoms​

Masterlist

Part 23

"Lord Tariq and I were discussing that very thing last night over dinner." Lauren explained. "We both hope that Prince Liam is thinking of who is truly best for the citizens of Cordonia."

Ana and the rest of the reporters continued to throw questions out to her.

"Is it true you are no longer a part of The Earl's Undoing?"

"Yes, it is." She answered with a smile. "Once I met Lord Tariq, my heart was too focused on him rather than acting. I hope my fans can forgive me for following my heart."

"How has this affected your relationship with Thomas Hunt?" Ana asked.

Lauren laughed and shook her head. "Thomas and I only had a professional, working relationship. All those rumors about us spending every moment together are ridiculous. He is a happily married man and I would never try to tempt him away from Lady Amanda. There is only one man that I have had any type of love for and that is Lord Tariq. I would like to think that like Thomas, I too have managed to capture the heart of a Cordonian.

One of the younger reporters scratched his head. "Wait a minute, Ms. Benefield. Weren't you the one that called us with offers of sharing what you and his grace had privately together?"

Her smile became brittle while trying not to scream at the man. "You're mistaken. I only called to talk about our upcoming film. I would never slander someone like Lord and Lady Hunt."

"But--" he stared at Ana when she elbowed him. The seasoned reporter shook her head and continued to question Lauren about Tariq.

"Are we going to hear details about a possible wedding soon?"

Lauren's smile brightened. "I believe we will all be pleasantly surprised."

_______________

"I would love to knock those perfectly capped teeth out of her mouth." Nadia clinched her fist.

"Babe, you're going ultra violent again." Maxwell warned.

Riley and Hana stood with them and quietly observed Tariq join Lauren to answer more questions.

"Where are Thomas and Amanda?" Hana asked once she checked no one was close enough to overhear her.

"Er...well..." Maxwell stuttered.

"While scouting out locations to film, they decided to spend some special couple time alone. With all the Lauren mess, they needed a moment to remind them of what they have." Nadia promptly answered. She ignored the look Maxwell gave her for bending the truth.

"Oh." Riley turned as nobles were called toward the hedge maze of Applewood. "I guess we won't see them until we travel to St. Orella in a few days."

Maxwell's eyes widened. "Yeah. We won't." Once the ladies walked away, he grabbed his wife. "Nadia, Amanda is supposed to host the court next!"

Her anger disappeared as worry set in. "We have to find Olivia." She pressed a reassuring kiss to his cheek. "Call Holly and tell her to get Hudson on preparing for everyone's arrival."

_____________

Nadia burst into Olivia's room without knocking and locked the door. "You have to bring them back!" She exclaimed.

"You're interrupting me doing that very thing." Olivia motioned for her to be quiet. "Harris, it's time to retrieve our guests." She ignored Nadia mouthing her worry. "Yes. The vial is in the--" She covered her mouth and whispered it into the phone. "Use the same amount as last time. That should make it easier on you and the others and give me an opportunity to make it home before they wake up."

"There." Olivia ended the call. "They will be back tomorrow."

"I can't believe it has taken almost two months for this." Nadia flopped on Olivia's bed. "I wasn't meant for a life of subterfuge."

"Clearly." Olivia wrinkled her nose as a thought occured. "You have done better than I expected."

Nadia grinned at her. "Really? You think so?"

"Amazingly, I do." Olivia wondered how her original opinions of Nadia had turned to viewing her now as a comrade of sorts. To be impressed with her loyalty to their shared group of friends was unexpected. "Thank you...for helping with this."

Nadia surprised her with a swift unwanted hug. "Of course! I would do anything for my friends." She hurried out with a promise that they would all go with her to help explain.

_______________

That same day in St Orella...

"We have to go!" Holly interrupted the ballroom scene's dress rehearsal. "Olivia is bringing Thomas and Amanda back."

"Is this a have to go leave the country and create new identities trip or a go to Lythikos and explain why we were all a part of this venture?" Ryan asked.

Chris blanched at the possible outrage that awaited them. "I vote first option."

"Come on guys." Addison put her hands on her hips. "Once Thomas sees how we fixed everything, he will be thrilled that we--"

"Had him and the only person he loves drugged, kidnapped, and left stranded in a frozen wilderness with no explanation." Holly finished while sinking weakly down in a chair. "How are we going to be able to explain this? We should run away."

Addison turned toward Jessica and Matt. "Any chance you want to go in our place?"

"No thanks." Jessica said with a nervous laugh. "I prefer being alive."

"I think Thomas will kill the messenger in this particular case." Matt groaned when Addison appeared hurt, as if he had betrayed her. "I will come along as moral support if you want."

Holly read through the text messages she was still receiving. "Drake said Liam is going to be able to come too. He has made some type of excuse to travel early to St Orella."

Addison turned around quickly. "We get to see him again! I feel so much better knowing Liam will be there. He is perfect at keeping everyone calm and, well, pretty much everything else." She sighed at the memory of dancing with him and every other encounter.

Matt narrowed his eyes at Addison's sudden happiness over the prince going too and noticed Jessica watching him closely. He coughed and excused himself before anyone else noticed his jealousy.

"When do we leave to face our imminent doom?" Ryan asked.

"In one hour." Holly announced.

________________

The cabin? Late at night...

"...and because I met you, I am stuck in this godforsaken cabin! My reputation as a successful director that is closely associated with my time management skills is deteriorating by the moment due to your friend leaving us out here!" Thomas gripped the mantle and lowered his head after his outburst.

Amanda remained eerily silent. The only sign she had heard any of his tirade was the undiluted rage sparking her hazel eyes.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said any of that." Thomas turned to look at her. "I don't regret meeting nor marrying you. I am--" his eyes widened at her disappearance.

The front door was open. It bounced against the wall each time an freezing burst of snow sprinkled wind blew in. He stepped outside in the dark and called his wife's name. Icicles hanging from the eaves shimmered in the faint light coming from inside.

No answer.

"Amanda!" He called out peering into the icy void that seemed impenetrable to light. "I'm sorry, please--"

Thomas gasped in pain and looked down. The sharp tip of an icicle was protruding from his chest. It was yanked out and a burst of blood came from his mouth. He turned slowly to look at the one who stabbed him in the back. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"You are nowhere near as sorry as I am." Amanda said in a calm voice. She shoved him off the porch. He landed on his back with a soft thud in the snow. His blood began to pool around his body.

She knelt down and raised the icicle to stab him once more. He weakly grasped her wrist.

"Why?" He managed to choke out.

Amanda leaned down close to his face. Snowflakes began to fall around them. Her lips curved into a bitter smile.

"Because you ruined my life with your decisions and now this incessant complaining!" She screeched before stabbing him through the heart.

Thomas jerked awake and touched his chest. His breaths came in short bursts while he reached for a lamp.

Amanda turned over. "What's wrong?" She mumbled, half asleep.

"You..." He took a deep breath. "Just a bad dream."

"I'm sorry." She pressed a kiss blindly to his cheek and snuggled down in the blankets. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No...I...you stabbed me." He frowned at the ceiling.

"I did?" She asked, yawning.

"With an icicle." He added.

Her eyes cracked open. "An icicle? How creative of me."

He softly snorted. "You said I ruined your life when I asked why you were killing me."

She placed her hand over his heart. "You know I don't think anything close to that, quite the opposite."

He turned on his side to face her. "I did in a way by casting Lauren."

Amanda groaned and flopped onto her back. "Thomas, we have been over this. You have to stop beating yourself up over that one decision."

"I know. I plan on doing all I can to make it up to you." He vowed.

"There is nothing to make up because we are fixing it!" She said in a surprisingly loud, commanding tone. "You apologized and are trying to think of a way to rid ourselves of her for good. The one thing you are doing to me that is unforgivable is interrupting my good dream about you. Now I'm tempted to find an icicle."

He choked on his laughter. "I'm sorry." He managed to say while thinking how much he adored her. "What can I do to stop that from happening?"

She slowly smiled and tugged him close. "I suggest you distract me from searching for the perfect murder weapon by finishing my dream." Their lips met as she pulled his shirt off.

_______________

Outside the cabin in the middle of the night...

"They are bound to be asleep by now." Harris whispered.

Williams crept to the door and used the tools he had brought along to pick the lock. He snuck quietly into the cabin. All was dark and silent, save for the dying fire crackling in the fireplace. He added the contents in the vial to both the coffee pot and the tea kettle that had been prepared for the next morning's use. He retraced his steps and locked the door once he was out.

The servants walked a few miles in the snow draped forest and returned by snow mobile to their hideout.

________________

Late the next morning...

Williams and Harris, along with a team of servants, collected the sleep induced couple and all their things. They bundled them up in warm clothes and blankets before setting off back to Lythikos.

______________

Lythikos, mid afternoon...

Olivia smiled in approval at their quick and efficient work. She had them set the two in one of the guestrooms. She returned downstairs to everyone sitting around the dining room table for lunch.

"Now, we wait."

_____________

Five hours later...

Thomas gripped his head and tried to sit up. Once the room stopped tilting, he looked around at the ornate decorations and groaned. It hit him that they had somehow suffered a repeat performance from Olivia. He had no idea where they were this time.

He gently shook Amanda. After a few times of this, she opened her eyes. "Please don't shake me." She pleaded, throwing her arm over her eyes. "What happened? Why is everything spinning?"

"We were drugged again." He weakly motioned around the room. "Where are we?"

She propped herself up on her elbows and blinked a few times to try and focus. The room decided to remain in one position, allowing her to recognize her surroundings. "Lythikos." She fell back on her pillow.

"We are? Are you sure?" He was afraid to believe they could actually escape this time.

"Yes." She mumbled into her pillow.

He stood up on wobbly legs. "We're getting out of here."

"I can't. I'm too sleepy." Amanda yawned, pulling a blanket up. "Save yourself. Forget about me and make a new life."

He ignored her sarcasm and hefted her up. "Come on. We're leaving." He wrapped his arm around her waist and half dragged her out of the room.

"Which way?" He asked looking up and down the hallway.

"Thomas, just leave me. I'll escape later." She murmured, dropping her head on his shoulder.

"I'm not leaving you in the clutches of a deranged individual! What if she decides to lock you up somewhere else and I can't find you?" He pulled her more snuggly against his side. "Focus for me, Amanda. Which way?"

She groaned and pointed to the left. "That way."

They slowly made their way toward the stairs.

"Ah, your grace. I see you are awake."

Thomas whirled around with Amanda dozing on his shoulder. "Stay back." He ordered.

"But sir," Harris began. "I only wish to tell you and Lady Amanda that--"

"Not another step. We are leaving." Thomas backed up against a wall. He kept his eyes on the servant that was watching him with a great deal of confusion and edged sideways.

He made it to the stairs and shook Amanda. "Wake up." He ordered. "We have to go downstairs. I need you actively helping me right now before Olivia catches us."

"Thomas, Olivia hasn't lost her mind." Amanda let go of him and leaned against the banister. She tried to concentrate. "She must have had a reason to--"

"Drug and kidnap us twice? Twice!" He ran his hands over his face. "Short of saving us from being murdered, I can't think of one logical reason to do this to us two times in a row."

"Oh I definitely have a reason."

The two looked down at Olivia. Their other friends came out and fanned around her. A proud smirk appeared on her red lips. "We all had a reason."

_______________

A comfortable den at Lythikos...

The couple remained silent after everything was explained. Shock at the plan not only being thought of but also successfully executed kept them from being able to speak.

Thomas shook his head no when Olivia offered him coffee. He then quietly pushed back the tea cup set in front of Amanda. His dark eyes touched on each face. "Let me see if I understand this. You did all this to cause Lauren to break her contract?"

"That and change her story in front of the press." Holly added. "And wait until you see Jessica in the part! She brings an innocence to Elizabeth that Lauren could never fake."

He ignored that last part. "Why wouldn't you simply tell us your plan?"

The group shared loaded glances. "We didn't think you would go along with it." Addison admitted.

Maxwell leaned forward, his deep blue eyes flickereing back and forth between the two. "I say this with nothing but love: you two are incredibly stubborn."

Everyone nodded while muttering examples of the couple's hard headedness both individually and combined.

"I would have gone along with it." Amanda replied.

Thomas slowly nodded. "I can see the benefits. I would like to think I would have at the very least been open to it."

"I would have chosen somewhere else to hide out though." Amanda muttered.

"That's another reason you were drugged and not let in on the plan. You wouldn't have chosen a place where no one would have a chance to see you." Olivia explained.

Amanda hesistated. "I guess I wouldn't."

"And you wouldn't have waited so long past your shooting schedule." Ryan added to Thomas.

He rubbed a hand down his face. "I suppose not."

"Did you at least have a good time together?" Nadia asked, worry over them being mad at the group weighed heavy on her mind.

Thomas leaned back and met Amanda's gaze. Her eyes dropped down to his scarred bottom lip while his touched on her recently healed black eye. They shared a brief smile and nodded simultaneously.

"Once we got over the injuries," Amanda began.

"And I quit complaining about being unable to start filming." Thomas added.

She laughed and slipped her hand in his. "It ended up being nice with no one around."

"Injuries?" Drake cocked an eyebrow. "What happened?"

"Oh the usual." Amanda muttered. "Some silly person getting scared in the cellar and delivering an elbow to the face."

"Catapulting off the porch due to some idiot chopping wood at sunrise." Thomas continued. He smiled at her laughing again. She seemed to relax once more into the woman he had known before everything had occurred with Lauren. He put his arm around her when she rested her head on his shoulder.

"You're not angry with our interference in both your personal and professional lives?" Liam asked.

Amanda tilted her head up to look at Thomas. "I'm not. Are you?"

"No. I'm grateful for the meddling. I have struggled to come up with a plan to be rid of Lauren once and for all. You have saved me a great deal of stress." He bowed his head to the group. "Thank you."

"Do my ears decieve me or did Thomas Hunt say thank you?" Chris asked. "Quick Olivia! Where else can we stash him away for a few more weeks?"

"I can always take back my thanks." Thomas warned.

"Welcome back, Mr. Director." Chris quickly said. "May you never leave our prescence again."

________________

The next evening, St. Orella...

"I have never been so happy to be home." Thomas announced as he crawled into bed. "I am tempted to film everything here to avoid being stuck in hotel rooms."

Amanda set her book on the nightstand and rolled over to face him. "Thomas, this is the first time you have referred to St Orella as home."

His brow furrowed. "Surely I referred to it as such at some po--." He moaned at the heated kiss she gave him. "If you are going to kiss me like that then I will call this place home in every sentence."

She laughed and kissed him once more. "I have thought of your house in California as our home for quite a while now. Knowing you feel the same for this one makes me so happy."

He gently cupped her cheek. "After the ball, we must begin filming. I need to get some footage shot before Liam's coronation."

She nodded. "Why do you sound worried?"

"I know you have to participate this week and the next in social events. I hate leaving you on your own with Lauren now as an unwelcome part of them." His thumb softly stroked her cheek. "Actually, I don't like the idea of being apart period."

"I have dealt with worse people than Lauren. Hopefully she will be so wrapped up in Tariq that she won't bother trying anything else." Amanda grinned and snuggled closer. "As for our being apart, you have been stuck with my company for nearly five months, two of which you were cut off completely from any part of civilization. I believe you have more than earned a reprieve from me."

His arm slid around her. "I have not once wished for a reprieve as you phrase it. Since I first picked you up at the airport, I have enjoyed and craved your companionship more than anyone else's. I only wanted to leave the cabin for work. It was never to take a break from you." His hands rubbed up and down her back. "Each moment we have spent together has proven over and over that you are the only one for me."

She pressed a tender kiss to his lips. "That might be the sweetest compliment anyone has ever given me." Her laughter was muffled against his chest when he muttered that she should feel free to voice her reciprocated feelings for him.

"You know I love being with you." she responded. "Being stuck in the cabin that I have always hated showed me also that you are the only person I will both willingly and gladly be trapped with. As long as I have you, anyplace we are in will feel like home."

After a sweet kiss, he pressed his forehead to hers. "I am going to miss you." Thomas admitted. "I know it is only for a week or so..." He closed his eyes in mock frustration. "You have done quite a number on me. Making it to where even sleeping without you beside me will be impossible...you should be ashamed of ruining me for anything different."

"I'm sorry." She said in the midst of smothering her giggles. "If you want, I can sleep in a different room so that you will begin to get used to not having me around."

"If you do, I will be forced to follow you." He warned. His lips curved as she placed a kiss on his stubbled jaw.

"Good." Amanda muttered. She turned the lamp off and smiled at the warm body pressing against hers. "I intend to keep you close for as long as I can."

She yawned and closed her eyes. "We have much to do tomorrow before the rest of the court arrives. It will be our official announcement of our marriage with the hosting of this ball."

"They don't know we are married yet?" Thomas asked.

"They do, but a newly wedded noble couple hosting the court is a sign that they share the same motivations and ideals. The couple is united as one in anything presented politically and socially." She explained.

Thomas grunted his understanding while cuddling her close. "Then it is past time we showed the court that very aspect of our marriage." He closed his eyes and relaxed. "We will make certain the ball goes off without any problems."

[yannsscarf]

A personal selection:

every favorite shot from every episode of Skam France season 3.

episode 1: the moment when lucas made up his mind and took the first step.

to me, its a hard one between the moment when eliott walked in le foyer and that facial expression lucas made. it's like a hit to the head and something was growing inside from that moment. but again to me the story of lucas begins here. he chose his fate, his instinct. he hesitated, swallowed, yet he still walked forward. i just love this moment so much.

episode 2:  the moment when lucas becoming the Polaris of eliott.

specifically this shot. lucas looked back and its almost like he was searching for acceptance. its so telling with his careful, longing, slightly doubted face. he cut himself open and presented his heart to his crush, it's so bold of a move but it's so beautiful, heartbreakingly beautiful. and you can see eliott’s eyes, they are lightening up like there’s nothing brighter than lucas.

episode 3: the moment when they challenged each other.

where do I begin? or do I even need to? lucas’ eyes are telling everything. if there’s any moment that they are confirming things between them, this is the moment. lucas is challenging, eliott is challenging, they dare each other to take the first move. the tension, the desire, the nameless butterflies flying around in the air. name one stronger eye contact in tv history I’ll wait.

episode 4: ‘i’ve watched your project.’ ‘guess we have to marry now.’

this particular shot is hands down my fav in this season. just how it resembles the dream of eliott, how it shows that lucas is definitely the polaris to eliott, how brave and beautiful it is for lucas to take a lead and show his pure admiration and love to eliott. at this moment they stopped questioning, they stopped guessing and teasing, they found each other. I might be the weirdest person but to me, locking fingers is waaaaay more poetic, sensual and significant than other physical contacts. and this moment completed me.

episode 5: the ending shot.

how do you say, disappointed, hurt, brokenhearted, numbed and despaired? this ending shot tells you how. I don't know where to begin or how to begin to describe the feeling that I had after this scene. or how much it is enough for me to appreciate the cinematography in here. every time I watch it I'm always amazed by that certain amount of blurriness in the ending shot, as if its seen through the eyes of lucas, blurred out from time to time, losing focus every now and then, crushed by rage, despondency, and hopelessness.

episode 6: utter vulnerability, emotionally raw, and friends become family.

I love how lucas is being the one who comforts people in the beginning and tried so hard to get himself together, yet failed in the end. the whole blue in this shot, tone-wise and emotion-wise, is thoroughly conveyed. somehow in the mood of sadness and sorrow, we felt the warmth. in the moment of taciturnity, sadness was flowing under, and the tears were their way out.

episode 7: a fascinating dance in the rain of oil paint.

I probably rewatched this episode 200 times before i made my decision. what can say besides the fact that this clip is not only a tribute but a poem of its own. the way they swing, how they hold onto each other, the holy intimacy, and colors are everywhere as if we just walked into someone’s dream. the shot is so perfectly done it almost feels sacred to me, and nothing there should be violated. hold your breath, stop whatever you are doing, drop your phone, take a seat, and enjoy one the most beautiful shots in tv history.

episode 8: lucas’ ability to love people.

episode 8 is probably the hardest one. too much has happened and too many need to be remembered. i actually made a final 5 and then ditched them all, come up with this one. funny thing is that no matter how many times i watch this clip, especially this scene, i can't tell if its an improvisation or its actually in the script. but either way, they have given a whole new layer of lucas’ character, his ability to love. he stares at eliott until he has gone from sight, he blows a kiss to him even no one is there to catch. this moment is when i go, this boy is far gone in love, its so silly so pure so heartwarming yet so full of strength. he has the world’s strongest empathy even tho he’s gained less during his childhood. this level of devotion and loyalty made lucas the most loveable, angelic and relatable. (btw the tip of his nose bounces when he blows kisses I’ve watched it for two hours no regret.)

episode 9: remember stopped and lucas whispered, ‘T’es plus tout seul.’

kudos to the editing team because how many of us had goosebumps when remember was put on hold, as if the whole world has stopped and all you can hear is lucas’ mad heartbeat, following the line, ‘you are not alone anymore.’ its so simple, so heartwrenching, yet so powerful. they way lucas put himself in a lower position, forehead against eliott, hands cupping eliott’s face, you don't need to hear it to know how much he loves him. its written on his face.

episode 10: the tears of Juedi 17h32.

lucas has cried many times during this season. too many times to the point some pious, mindless people started to complain about it. I’ve said it before but I gotta say it again, be grateful, be devoted, it really is a privilege for us to sit there and witness them all. his emotions through his tears in this season are priceless. and how amazing the whole crew is because they aren't afraid to show it to the audiences. society tells men that its a shame to cry, and most of them act along. lucas said, fuck it, I’ll cry whenever I feel it. and isn't it just the most beautiful, important thing in the world? to me, episode 10 has blessed us some of the most accurate, sincere, on-point reactions. eliott’s honest monologue about his mental health, lucas’ overprotective status and his strong empathy showed up everywhere in those little details. but nothing hits me harder than this shot. the bus drifted, then the camera started pulling away but remained closeup, lucas’ emotions was poured out, everyone is feeling it through the screen. his tears are shed for sadness from parting, happiness from love and tenderness from eliott. his tears are the proof of living the moment, that lucas is living in the moment and feeling everything. and it has to be in our recognition that no one should be reserved from showing basic human emotions. 

I specifically took some of those out and highlighted some frames just to show that I really really love them. it’s not ranked, its nearly impossible to rank them. I already had a hard time choosing between scenes. again it’s only my personal taste and some might not seem to be important at all to others. but they are truly my favourite, cinematography wise, symbolism-wise, just anything.

I can’t even say its a tribute or anything to season 3 because it’s just my simple modification of the original work. I only picked them just so I can show my genuine appreciation to the whole crew. they are the real MVP. they have to know that I for one appreciate every second of the season and every piece of transmedia content. I laughed, I cried, I got upset, I became furious, I smiled, I rolled my eyes, I looked into the void, I sighed, but most importantly, I learned.

lucas lallemant, being the little hero he is, really had me fall hard. i don’t even know how to use my pale, plain, tasteless words to describe how much i love him. i love him knowing that i could never reach his level of bravery, and it doesn’t matter. i have thousands of words for him yet somehow I can’t say anything.

I guess if parallel universe does exist, maybe I’ll meet him, hold his hands, might even say thank you even if it sounds strange as hell. but I do thank him.

thank you lucas, for you being you, for always choose love. Thank you for never quitting, for never stop fighting. Sometimes I take a look at you and I tell myself, somewhere in this universe you exist, and that’s such a bliss. I don’t know what did I do to deserve you, such a gentle soul, such a golden heart. Thank you for just, your whole existence. I take a look back of the teenager me and seeing the things that I’ve missed, people who I’ve been wronged. And there’s you, lucas, there’s you. You did things that i never had the guts to do, you choose the one that I’ve lost a long time ago. And I’m so happy that you did because you deserve all the love.

You are my little hero and always will. It’s been such a short amount of time, if only I knew parting was this hard, I would give up anything just to live through these all over again, just so I can meet you one more time, just so I can see your beautiful goofy smile, hold your hands, and give you the biggest hug in the whole world, and say a proper goodbye instead of being a mess and totally out of breath because of all the tears.

I’m gonna miss you so much.

Goodbye Lucas, I love you so, so much, I really do.

Until next time.