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fateheartblog · 1 year ago

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Home - Sobfest Starless Sea event

My submission for @thehauntedair 's September sobfest fic event - making Dorian cry.

This one is, as ever, contingent upon the Fateheart timeline. Sorry about it (but not really). Also I have not even slightly read this for typos.

And it's way too long, but oh well. Dorian cries and gets hugged about it. It's a good time.

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Dorian stands up.

He sees in the window panels the faces that look to him. He sees his own. The Tokyo night beyond it is startling as it sharpens into focus. A galaxy rendered closer by attention. A star mess he is lost in, standing at the far side of the table.

The room has fallen silent.

“I have to go.”

They glance at each other. The conversation has been long and tense. The hours just as long. Empty coffee cups are little satellite dishes amongst the papers and scrawled suggestions about how to move forwards. But without the town planning information they don’t stand a chance of solving this this evening.

And he’s tired.

Shever has stood as well. “Can I assist you?”

“No, you’re alright. Is Leander still here?”

She stands down at a lift of his hand.

“Yes,” offers Farne. “He’s gone up to a room. He wanted to stay so if he was needed in the morning he’d be on hand.”

Dorian nods, thanks them, ends the meeting, leaves, climbs the stairs, makes eye contact, does not make eye contact. Wonders, amongst those littering stars and the Tokyo striplights, what is wrong.

He’s not sure. But that in itself feels wrong.

Knowing himself is half the battle. Standing firm in the centre of this maelstrom is so much of the winning. Anchorage in the face of all kinds of weather. These people - his people - who drift in the sky, catching the turbulence and following it, reporting it back to him. All tied to him.

Being ‘not sure’ can be the death of so many things. Certainty.

He is walking quickly down the corridor. He is high above the world. He has a signet ring on his left hand bearing the embossed face of an owl - sharp lines, barely signifying a creature. More of a symbol than an image. A crown etched above it. Eyes perfectly open. Sight unclouded. Sure.

The room unlocks at the touch of the ring, as all of them do. A key as well as a crown. Hidden at the heart of the owl there. A heart as well as a feather.

The symbols dance around his head in the dark.

He crouches by the bed.

“Leander.”

Leander jolts awake, turning to stare at him. He pushes himself up quickly.

“Dorian - is everything okay?”

“Sorry to wake you. There’s no emergency, it’s okay.” He lets Leander blink a few times. The light from the corridor has made a landing strip across the blanket. The room would be spartan and miserable but for the presence of a dear friend and a shelf of books. “I’m leaving. I’m going back to the Harbour. Just… just for tonight. For now. Possibly tomorrow as well. To be honest, we’re not getting anywhere with the municipal office in the foreseeable future anyway, and all the Owls assure me the consequences of going ahead without permission would be considerably more dire than waiting.” Dorian sighs and stands up again, looking out to the landing.

The light out there does not seem as bright as it does once it has fallen in here. Or maybe it is because here there is darkness to cut through.

“That’s fair. I thought it might take a few days. Happy to stay, if you need me.”

“That would be helpful, if that’s okay,” Dorian answers without turning back.

Silence.

“Dorian, has something happened?”

Dorian does not answer. He does not turn.

“Do you ever…” The crown, the heart, the feather. A faint buzzing. Some kind of story. A sword upon his chest. A key above his heart. A heart that gives a crown. A crown upon a feather. Dorian looks back at Leander in the darkness. “Do you ever feel all of a sudden that you’re in the wrong place? That there’s a place you are supposed to be - absolutely and unequivocally. And you have to be there. No matter what. No matter why.”

Leander looks at him for a long minute. “Yes.”

Dorian nods. “I have to go home. Right now.”

“Is Zachary okay?”

“Yes. Well, I’m assuming so. I haven’t… I haven’t called him yet.”

“Right. Are you okay?”

This is much harder to answer. Dorian looks back at him, feeling the answer with some difficulty. Because he’s not sure why.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Leander says, and after a brief pause he shuffles out of the bed, leaning over and turning on a lamp with a touch of a stump. Dorian takes a step back in the light.

“I don’t know… what’s wrong. I’m not sure.”

Leander looks him up and down, his hair tousled, eyes puffy with sleep. “Does there have to be a reason? Sometimes you just get homesick. That’s fair. It’s been an exhausting few days and I was only here for two of them.”

Dorian frowns.

“Do you need me to get up and like, be functional?”

“No. You can go back to sleep. I just wanted you to know what you’d be waking up to. And to ask - if anything happens, call me immediately. Please.”

Leander nods and falls back onto the bed.

“Gotcha. Go home, Dorian. Take a breather. Sounds good.” He is asleep again before Dorian has closed the door behind him.

He does not call Zachary as he descends the stairway, fourteen floors through the hotel. He does not call Zachary as he debriefs Shever in the lobby and pulls his coat on. He does not call Zachary as he walks out into the night, moving swiftly through the people and the lights and the stars the stars the stars.

And then he’s sat on a train, heading away from all those stars. And the phone is in his hand, and he cannot work out why he is hesitating.The last train out of Tokyo that night is quite empty. One man further down is reading a book. A trio of teenagers are talking quietly in the stark carriage lighting.

It takes him nearly forty miles to dial the number.

He doesn’t answer the first time.

He does answer the second time.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Hey, Zachary. It’s me. Hey.” He stares out of the window. Instinctively turning his head away from the carriage, hiding his mouth. At such an angle that even in the reflection his words can’t be read on his lips.

“Oh hey! Dorian. Hi. You okay?”

He stares at his own face in the darkness. Old instincts, an old restlessness. Running.

“Dorian?”

“I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

“Oh no - has something - I’m - hang on - what’s happened - I can-”

“No, no, nothing’s happened. I’m okay. Stay where you are, my love. I…”

“No, I’ll come, it’s okay-”

“No, you don’t need to. I’m coming home. I’m - I’m on my way back now.”

“You… you are?”

“Yeah. I’ll be, um, an hour or two. Probably closer to two, actually. I’ll keep you updated.”

“O-okay. You’re coming home?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh Dorian.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

Dorian tips his head a little, hiding from the world. Unseen, unnoticed in the darkness and the harsh white of the train carriage lights. The starscape that ricochets by is bitingly cold against his forehead. The darkness is sheer glass and chill but at least there are stars. At least there are stars.

“Could you-” His voice breaks. He shuffles a little further down in his seat. “Could you say that again?”

“I love you,” Zachary says immediately.

Dorian closes his eyes. “I love you too,” he says into the phone, and something hurtles past. An unfamiliar city. Well, not quite true. He’s lived here. He’s lived so many places. If you could call it living. One all too familiar city out of many. One train out of thousands. One fractured existence over decades of loneliness.

“I love you,” he is saying again. And again and again. “Come home for a night. Let me look after you. You said… you said it’s been going badly. Are you just… has something happened, Dorian?”

The train window is sheer cold and hard, unforgiving vibration against his head. The train carriage smells of city and breath and fatigue and it makes him so, so tired. So many lifetimes spent on trains. So many cities.

“No,” he clears his throat. “I don’t… I couldn’t even tell you, really.”

The pause is only a moment.

“Oh, Dorian.”

He knows he’s crying. Zachary can always tell. Even though Dorian himself could barely tell. Could barely have said why.

Leander’s voice comes back to him, rattling beneath the seats the way the metal panels do as the train takes him home. Sometimes you just get homesick.

He opens his eyes, which lets loose a few more tears. He sits back a little, keeping his breathing steady, though the crying is steadier.

“Something about being in Japan,” he says eventually. Hiding his mouth with the hand which holds the phone. Just an instinct. An automatic one - to hide himself, his speech, his voice. To press against that cold hard darkness as the stars slip by.

“You spent quite a lot of time there, didn’t you?”

Dorian can hear that Zachary is moving. He hasn’t asked where he is. The phone works underground now - he’s probably in the Harbour somewhere. He can hear background music possibly but that doesn’t mean he’s at home.

Home.

“I did, yeah. But that’s not bothered me so much before. I think… I realised after today. You know it’s been difficult. The whole prefecture is in Sinjuin’s pocket. We got nowhere with it today. And I was just… I was sitting there-” Dorian breaks off as that feeling from the conference room washes through him again.

He leans back into the seat, but his chest has constricted.

He wishes he wasn’t on a train. He wishes his husband was with him, to catch this, to understand him, to help his breathing ease.

He wishes he wasn’t in public. Out in a world he trained hard for years never to trust. A world he has learnt to navigate in darkness.

He wishes he was home.

“I love you,” Zachary says again, and his chest loosens enough for him to talk through the tears.

“I realised, Zachary. I realised I wanted - I wanted to go home. And that’s - sometimes when I’m - I don’t always - I don’t usually-” It is difficult to find the words. It is difficult to do anything but cry.

“Oh, my Dorian. I’m sorry. I love you. So, so much.”

Zachary sits with him in the silence. A world away. A home, waiting for him. A home to go back to. Something he has never had before.

Eventually he manages to talk.

“I realised I had a place to long for. I realised I was homesick. And so… I wanted to come home.”

He ends in a whisper. He hears Zachary let out a long breath.

“I’m gonna come up to the cave. I’ll come wait for you by the door, yeah? We can - we can do something fun this evening, if you - wait, it’s the middle of the night for you, isn’t it? Well-”

“You don’t need to come wait for me, Zachary, I-”

“But I want to.”

Dorian finds himself laughing at the slightly put-out tone in his husband’s voice. And it doesn’t stop him crying. In fact it compounds it into something that might be hiccups.

Which quiet down back into gentle crying as the train and the night and the aching for home stretches on.

He nearly falls asleep. Zachary stays on the phone with him for a bit until the battery protests. But by that time he is nearly home.

Nearly home.

He had managed to persuade Zachary not to come sit in the entrance hall, though he is half-expecting to see him there when he opens the door. The cave is cold, but the two women passing outwards into the world beam at him. And the elevator moves smoothly. And the air is warm and soothing and tastes of lemongrass and honey and a little bit of blossom and apple and wood.

And the chamber doors open to the warm golden glow of the Starless Sea. And he is being greeted by several voices in the entrance way. And there is his husband.

Dorian takes a deep breath as Zachary closes his book and rises from a bench in the alcove.

He slips an arm around him, but he is looking out at the honey. That deep wave of a strange, pulling ache breaks upon the shore of his home.

“Hey. Hey, Dorian. Welcome home.”

He stands beneath the constellations of the vaulted antechamber and holds his husband.

Dorian feels so many things ease from his constricted ribs, his hurting, releasing heart, in Zachary’s arms.

He pulls back, looking over his face.

“You okay?”

Dorian smiles. Tears are pricking again, but they feel a little more like relief now.

“Oh yes,” he murmurs, and brings his lips to his for a slow, long kiss. “I’m home.”

fin.

#the starless sea #september sobfest #Dorian #Zachary/Dorian #fic #fic event #gonna pretend I thought the brief said 10 000 words #lol

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hamliet · 2 years ago

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The Masterpiece That Is Queer as Folk

Well, right before a reboot is set to come out, I finally got around to watching a show I first heard about (albeit without knowing the name) when it came out while I was like, eight years old. I then got in huge trouble for even mentioning to my parents that a friend had told me about a show with two boys french-kissing in a shower (okay, eight would’ve been way too young to see it, but still, fundie Christian memories ✨).

And, I fell hard for this story. I genuinely think this is one of my favorite stories ever, definitely favorite TV show, with writing to parallel MXTX’s levels of wringing the most potential out of every little detail. The writing is of a consistently high quality throughout its five seasons, without a single weak season (although there was the occasional weaker plotline), which is something I don’t think I can say for pretty much any other completed TV series I’ve seen. I love, love, love this story, and those of you know have been following me for awhile know how rarely I say that.

It’s explicit, often gratuitously so, but honestly that’s part of its charm and message: it’s loud and unashamed of itself, even when that makes it crass. It’s tired of being shut up inside a closet and it’s going to make it your problem if you choose to watch (and in doing so, mimic the journeys of its characters learning to feel and love and grow into human beings without apologies).

Brian, Justin, Hunter, Ben, Michael, Debbie, Emmett, Ted--they were all fantastic characters with complexity to boot. It seemed like many of them could be stereotypes--particularly Brian or Emmett--but to call them stereotypes is blatantly wrong. There was just so much intricate complexity woven into each character’s psyche. If anything, it seemed almost like taking back the stereotypes by infusing them with humanity (one of the major themes: learning how to be human). It was existentialist, philosophical at parts, and genuinely moving.

Brian could be seen as a stereotypical promiscuous gay man, but he is really a wounded child. Melanie can seem like a typical “butch” lesbian, but she has the arguably biggest and most sentimental heart in the series. Debbie is the voice of reason and moral compass, but also can get too caught up in her beliefs that she is a good person and hurt those around her. Ted seemed like a typical “loser” character whom I actually struggled to like through the first two and a half seasons... before his descent into addiction, which felt like one of the most humanizing portrayals of addiction I’ve seen. Ben and Hunter are both HIV positive, and neither of them are characterized by their illness or have their arcs primarily be about suffering and death porn.

Admittedly, some parts haven’t aged super well. but without some of those elements (namely, the age difference between Justin and Brian), I’m not sure the story could have pulled itself off with the same poignant psychological insight, the same provocative themes, and the same character depth. So, that one I’m giving a pass on a literary perspective. Other parts that didn’t age super well are that really aren’t any trans or bisexual (although it seems like Hunter is bisexual, though the idea is never really labeled) or nonbinary characters, plus almost everyone is very white. It’s a very outdated understanding of sexuality in some ways (although in other aspects, the show is quite forward-thinking in others--for example, it says “acab” before it was cool).

So let’s break down Hamliet’s thoughts on different themes, motifs, plotlines, and symbolism. I’m going to start with Justin and Brian’s relationship, because it really did form the beating heart of the show in encapsulating, without fail, the main themes of each and every season.

Brian and Justin: Being Human Means Growing and Grieving (Season One)

Brian: Look, I don't believe in love. I believe in fucking. It's honest, it's efficient. You get in and out with a maximum of pleasure, and a minimum of bullshit. Love is something that straight people tell themselves they're in, so they can get laid. Then they end up hurting each other, because it was all based on lies to begin with. If that's what you want, then go and find yourself a pretty little girl, and get married.

Justin: That's not what I want. I want you.

Came in skeptical about this relationship, left convinced.

Through season one, Justin and Brian’s issues build into the tragic finale through the themes of growth and loss that run through each episode of the entire season. Growth is what makes us human, but growing, living, always ends in death eventually.

At first glance, Brian seems to be the character who goes after everything he wants... but he actually is running away from what he wants. Justin is the one who actually goes after what he wants: he is super clingy to start with, to the point where it’s a bit cringe--but also, surprisingly earnest and honest.

Brian has the opposite problem to Justin’s clinginess: he’s dead inside and pushing everyone away from him. Brian acts like he owes nothing to anybody and desperately has sex with every man he can, and makes a “big spectacle of everything” (as Debbie tells him), all in a childish attempt to feel something, anything at all. He wants to be human. He wants to be alive. But he doesn’t feel like he’s either of these things. His refusal to grow up is not so much a rejection of maturity so much as it is a rejection of his life in general: how can you grow, when you were never alive in the first place?

Justin’s clinginess, while initially a flaw, is actually what makes the relationship perfect: Brian would never grow if he was not relentlessly pursued by someone who also asked things of him (Lindsay and Michael, while great friends, rarely ask things of Brian, while Justin does). Justin's childlike faith in humanity in some ways (and, admittedly less-charmingly, black and white way of thinking) helps Brian experience those things for the first time. The irony of course is that Justin seems like he wants to grow up--have sex, move out of his home, getting a fake ID--while Brian claims he wants to stay young, yet before Justin avoids anything actually innocent. When he finally starts opening up to Justin and his innocence, he’s confronted with what he’s been avoiding the entire season: grief.

Brian needs to grieve his own nightmare childhood and his own issues, or else he can’t ever grow or feel human.

To be human is to accept loss, accept that you aren’t superman, that you can’t control things. Literally the entire season is about the writers handing Brian challenge to grieve after challenge to grieve and him denying it until it smashes into the head of innocence (Justin).

Firstly, Brian is tasked with whether or not to pull the plug on Ted when he’s in a coma, a choice that he thankfully doesn’t have to make when Ted wakes up. Then, Brian’s father tells him he’s dying and Brian finally tells him he’s gay (with horrifying results). His father dies (symbolic again of one symbol of his nightmare childhood passing away), and Brian doesn’t cry, which everyone points out is odd. Brian also ruins his relationship with Michael, and refuses to grieve it, pretending it’s all fine. While they do reconcile, Justin and Michael do more work to bring them back together than Brian does (speaking of, the scene where everyone leaves in disgust, telling Brian off for his cruelty at Michael’s birthday party, but Justin tells Brian “someone’s gotta help you clean this mess” was clearly a double-meaning and a genuinely heartwarming moment). Then, Brian struggles with signing away his parental rights to Gus to help Melanie and Lindsay, and does so in a bold moment without much grief. Brian treats Justin terribly on and off, but doesn’t grieve it because he tells himself that’s just who he is.

However, Justin in season one, despite being a portrayal of innocence, also treats other people pretty poorly. (Brian is largely the exception.) His father is the worst, but Justin is also a brat with an immature understanding of love and people. He does his best to alienate his mother early on. He antagonizes people when he doesn’t have to in order to show off and prove he deserves to exist (like outside of Babylon when he tells everyone he gave Chris Hobbs a handjob, a moment where Brian warns him directly that he’s now “made a real enemy”). Justin’s brattiness is clearly coming from a place of pain and repression, so to be clear there is no moral equivalence there: he only humiliates Chris because Chris has been humiliating him throughout the series.

Justin also tries to convince Brian not to sign away his parental rights at first, which hurts Melanie and Lindsay, because Justin projects his own parental issues onto the situation without considering that Brian is not his father and the people involved are so different the two situations shouldn’t be compared. Plus, if anything, Justin puts too much responsibility on others, and is challenged to accept that he cannot control other people and how they feel or act towards him (Daphne falling for him, Brian, trying to win his father’s approval by considering business school despite his father’s hatred of him, etc.) This idea of putting too much responsibility on others is childish and normal for someone his age, and makes Justin and Brian very similar while also having contrasting ways of handling their relationships (clinging vs pushing away).

This all culminates in the finale where Chris tries to murder Justin right when he and Brian seem to finally be happy at Justin’s prom. It’s only then, when Brian sits bloodied in a hospital waiting room, that we see him finally give in, grieve, cry, in the same place he and Justin named his son in the first episode.

Justin’s lost a sense of innocence. Brian realizes that he is not the island he pretends to be, and that being human hurts.

Justin and Brian: Being Human Means Accepting the Worst of Yourself (Season Two)

Michael to Brian: I think you're afraid to let anyone know you love them. That you have feelings. That you're human like the rest of us.

Throughout the second season, Brian hides the best parts of himself (literally not allowing anyone to know that he visits Justin every single night he’s in the hospital). Brian also self-sabotages himself by demanding Justin hide the best parts of himself (loving Brian) with their semi-open arrangement that fails epically, and Justin leaves him. But part of the reason is fails is also that Justin starts becoming more like Brian, even imitating Brian in word and action when he sleeps with a virgin, and... big surprise, neither of them like Justin becoming more like Brian. Justin doesn't want to be Brian, and Brian doesn't want to be Brian either.

Despite Brian’s narcissistic persona, the dude basically embodies the concept of “methinks thou doth protest too much.” See: him pissing on art of himself as a hero. After, Justin demands a real apology for that--directly telling Brian that his vague “sorry” isn’t good enough, and Brian gives i. A few episodes later, this scene then repeats after Justin starts his affair with Ethan with almost the exact same dialogue, but this time Justin is the one giving a vague apology, and Brian isn’t strong enough to ask for a specific apology.

Justin: I’m sorry.

Brian: For what?

Justin: You know what for.

The point is again that Justin is becoming more like Brian, and it’s not a good thing.

As long as Brian hides the best parts of himself, their relationship is doomed. It’s not a coincidence that after the first time Justin tops him, after Brian literally lets Justin inside, Brian immediately panics and starts causing problems. Brian doesn’t acknowledge Justin’s birthday besides literally hiring him a hustler to symbolize how he’s pushing Justin into another person’s arms (Ethan). To highlight this, we have Ben and Michael’s birthday celebration as a foil, where Ben is upset over his declining health and behaves terribly. However, Ben apologizes, and Michael tells him a major theme:

Ben: There’s no excuse for it. There’s no excuse at all.

Michael: Sure there is. You’re human.

The point is that Brian and Justin are human too, as much as Brian tries to deny his own humanity. Human beings make mistakes. And that becomes a major motif of the third season.

Justin and Brian: Being Human Means Accepting the Best of Yourself (Season Three)

When we see Justin and Brian in the opening of season 3, Brian is still so defensive over Justin despite Justin publicly humiliating and leaving Brian that Brian punches his best friend, Michael, for suggesting that he shouldn’t have saved Justin’s life. This again ties into Brian’s self-hatred: he expects Justin to leave him, even feels he should. But Brian finds it easier to fight someone else on Justin’s behalf than to fight himself to keep Justin; numerous characters comment that Justin left because Brian didn’t fight for him, and they’re right.

Brian and Justin are still stuck on each other, and shown through their indulgence of illusions (fantasy vs reality is another motif throughout every season). Brian literally hires a hooker to dress up as Justin, and Justin focuses on Ethan who is whom Justin thinks he wants Brian to be, only to discover that Ethan is Justin at his worst: brought to life by art, yes, but a cheater, and a liar.

As viewers, we recognize issues all along: for example, during a sex scene, Ethan directly tells Justin “don’t be nervous;” this stands in sharp contrast with Brian, who had previously told Justin that he was clearly “terrified” when they first got together. Brian acknowledges Justin’s fears; Ethan pretends they don’t exist. Ethan wants an illusion; Brian wants the real thing.

We also see the “real you” aspect of Brian and Justin’s relationship foiled with Ben and Michael’s struggle over Ben’s HIV. Michael almost wishes he has HIV to relate to Ben more, and this plotline climaxes in Michael holding a needle to his arm, contemplating giving himself it to be more like Ben, and this line:

Ben: I don’t want you to be like me!

There are other relationships in the show, even nonromantic ones, that emphasize that Brian can’t accept the best of himself. Brian refuses to accept any thanks for saving Ted’s ass, because he’s still denying the best parts of himself. Both our good and bad traits make us human: Brian needs to accept the best of himself, and Justin needs to accept the worst.

Brian and Justin finally face each other while having sex with other people in Babylon’s backroom, but lock eyes and it’s clear who they wish they were with. They have to accept themselves at their best and at their worst to be able to accept each other at their best and worst.

Fortunately, that’s precisely what happens. When Justin decides to win Brian back by interning at his company, he gives him a sincere compliment that Brian can only smile at (ie, Justin confronting Brian with the best of Brian’s traits):

Justin: I've already learned more than I would in an entire semester of school... Which says a lot about you, actually.

Brian: About me?

Justin: Yeah. They say the tone of the workplace is established from the top. So it's a great compliment to you that you have such a dedicated and hardworking staff.

And Justin is then able to show Brian that yeah, he knows Brian’s worst traits. And even with his worst self, he still thinks Brian’s best traits make him worth it, and that Brian can actually become better, grow.

Justin: If you had any brains at all you would never have let me leave. You would've told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life. That I would live to regret it. That what you gave me was worth a thousand--a million times more than anything he had to offer. You would have told me that you loved me, and that you would go on loving me even after I was gone.

Brian then confronts Justin on his worst traits:

Brian: That is so like you! You don't hear what you want, so you leave! Try standing up for yourself for a change!

Aaand then Justin is able to admit his best traits:

Justin: I decided you should take me back... even though I’ve made a few mistakes, I think you’d be making an even bigger one not to give me a second chance.

In other words, when they get back together, they’re able to see each other as fully human.

When they get back together, Justin and Brian are able to pretty much save the world by stopping Stockwell. Debbie outright states the season’s main theme after Brian gets fired for sabotaging Stockwell (such a smallscale Trump it’s almost eerie):

Debbie: it's your innate goodness.

Brian: *laughs*

Debbie: we all know good from evil and you’re no different.

Again, the “you’re no different” line emphasizes that Brian is human despite his denials thereof, and being human is not just about fucking and being selfish--it’s about love and community and a long arc towards justice. And then Brian finally becomes the hero Justin and Michael have always believed him to be and gives up literally everything he owns--everything except the people who love him, honestly--to stop Stockwell. Not only that, but no one except his closest friends will ever know he is the one who saved the town.

The idea of accepting the worst/best of yourself is also foiled in the finale when Ted reunites with Blake. Ted cared for Blake because Blake brought out the best in Ted--his generosity and kindness and belief in goodness of humanity--but was destroyed by the worst (Blake’s addiction). At the rehab where he once dropped Blake off, Ted finds himself a patient, and Blake as his counselor--showing Ted that there is a future, that the best in you is never dead no matter how far you’ve sunken. You can always find it again.

Justin and Brian: Being Human Means Accepting Help (Season 4)

Season 4 at its core is about learning to be weak and ask for help. Ted needs help finding a job. Ben needs help processing rejection of his manuscript. Brian needs help keeping his apartment. But none of them want to feel pitied, and so they flounder.

One of the ways people can need others is to need others to forgive them. Obviously we have Blake and Ted, Ted and... everyone after his addiction, Debbie forgiving herself for the way she treats Vic, and Brian and Justin forgiving each other and therefore forgiving themselves.

Obviously this was first set up in Season 3, when Brian forgave Justin for leaving him, but it’s further expanded on by repeating a lot of season two’s elements... in a way that doesn’t feel repetitive but instead shines a light on just how much growth the characters have undergone.

Justin’s brief foray into vigilantism is clearly paralleled with his foray into gogo dancing in season 2: both Brian warns him about, but Justin insists he can take care of himself only to get way in over his head. With gogo dancing, the boss sexually assaulted him; with the vigilantes, Justin ends up realizing that Cody is not that different than Chris Hobbs--he’s cruel, he’s hateful, he’s violent, and he only wants to use Justin for his own pride. But instead of how Justin allowed his guilt over needing Brian’s help for school to drive them apart after the gogo incident, this time Justin allows himself to get closer to Brian after realizing Brian was right. Justin also doesn’t forgive Chris Hobbs (nor really should he), but he does realize the pointlessness of revenge.

Brian then needs help but resorts to I can take care of myself when he’s diagnosed with testicular cancer. He lashes out at Justin and refuses to tell Justin what’s really going on. Brian’s lashing out becomes particularly cruel where he essentially tries to force Justin to leave him... only for Michael to show how much he’s grown by intervening and mediating. When Brian comes home sick to find Justin cooking soup for him, Brian falls to the floor and is literally struggling to get up from a fetal position (hello, obvious symbolism):

Brian: I’m all right!

Justin: You're not all right.

Brian: Then why are you asking me?

Justin: So I can tell you what a motherfucking piece of shit you are for not telling me! For shutting me out! For thinking that you could handle this on your own! And most of all for thinking that I would leave you! Why would you think that? 'Cause you had a ball removed? 'Cause you're no longer perfect? Well, believe me, Mr. Kinney, that is the least of your imperfections! And if I wanted to leave you, I've had plenty of better reasons.

Brian: Well, maybe you should have.

Even though it’s framed as an argument, it’s actually Brian finally opening up. The look on Justin’s face when he realizes that Brian has finally told him the truth that he’s not been able to admit the entire series--that Brian hates himself, that he thinks he doesn’t deserve any love--was stunning. He said some pretty cruel things to Justin, yet Justin forgave him. Sometimes, that’s the best help someone can give--even the only help.

Brian and Justin: Being Human Means You Can’t Control Others (Season Five)

Brian: My mother was a frigid bitch. My father was an abusive drunk. They had a hateful marriage, which is probably why I am unwilling or unable to form a committed long-term relationship of my own. The fact that I drink like a fish, abuse drugs, and have more or less redefined promiscuity doesn't help... much. As a result, I've lost the two people in my life that mean most to me.

Season 5 is all about everything changing and the resistance people have to change, but that doesn't mean the love that grounds it goes away. Melanie and Lindsay break up for a bit, Debbie leaves the diner only for a copycat to take over, Babylon changes when Brian buys it... and then when it explodes.

Season 5 really explores the limits of change and what can and cannot change. Brian in particular has always used being gay as an excuse for why he doesn’t feel human, when his issues are far more complex than that. His being gay won’t change and shouldn’t (despite what the homophobes scream out their cars in certain gutwrenching scenes), but his attitude towards himself and others and towards his own sexuality can and should and does.

Despite not feeling human and supposedly being very “live and let live,” Brian is actually something of a control freak, as becomes increasingly obvious in season 5. He lashes out at Michael for marrying Ben and setting up house, at Ted for pursuing a monogamous long-term relationship, at Justin for wanting commitment. Everyone moves on, but Brian is terrified of losing the only ways he feels alive... and he’s still stuck in a childish, egocentric mindset that he controls the world. (Justin has his own issues with control this season; namely around his mother’s new relationship, Michael and Ben struggle regarding Hunter leaving, etc).

Brian: Before you and your husband tied the noose around your necks he was perfectly happy! But now, he's a defector, just like the rest of you!

Michael: He was never perfectly happy! Waiting for years for you to say "I love you, you're the only one I want."

Brian: That's *not* who I am!

Not only that, but there’s certainly irony in Brian claiming he “accepts” (his term) Michael’s choice for domestic life, but he clearly does not. The concept of “home”, which has been a motif for Brian and Justin’s relationship since the very first episode where Justin points out he’s not able to go home and hence he stays with Brian, and how Brian negotiates their semi-open relationship in season two with the idea that he wants to “come home to” Justin, comes up again in this same scene where Brian confronts Michael and blames him for Justin moving out:

Michael regarding his house with Ben: It's a home!

Brian: It's a farce! It's a freak show!

Michael: ... (Justin) didn't leave because of (me). He left because of you. Who wouldn't?

Again, there’s irony here. The “farce” and “freak show” are comments Lindsay’s parents have lobbed at her marriage to Mel throughout the show. Yes, Brian, resident gay stud of Pittsburgh, has some serious internalized issues that brush up against homophobia and that just boil down to the same issues driving many of the show’s antagonists: control. Wanting to be God, not human.

Brian needs to accept the limits of being a human being. You cannot control others. When you love them--to truly love someone--you don’t even try. You give them free will. You love them. You support them. I’m sure you can see the parallels between the general portrayal of the Prop 14 supporters who are using religion throughout the season to try to control others and claim it’s love when it’s blasphemy to call that love.

As usual, Debbie is the voice of decency, not only by yelling at the religious protester “JESUS THINKS YOU STINK!” but also by saying to Brian:

Debbie: your problem is he left you. He left you, and he moved on. Only he didn't. You and he just made different choices, that's all. Doesn't mean that you don't still love each other.

Everything reaches a head when Babylon--symbolic of not just the gay community in QAF, but of Brian’s entire life--literally explodes. That scene is horrifying, disorienting, brilliantly shot and nauseating (like, I almost threw up, and it’s not gory at all--it’s just devastating, and the pure emotion hit me like a sack of bricks).

Justin and Brian choose not to control each other, which is actually a sign of love. About the finale, it has its own section below.

The High Cost of Living

Justin: time will inevitably leave its mark... we should accept our mortality with dignity.

One of the things about growing, and growing up, is that you inch closer to death. There is no growing up without wrestling with mortality.

Brian in particular is called out by the narrative constantly. By episode 4, Ted forces Brian to be his power of attorney, to make the final decision whether he should live or die, because Brian needs to make the same damn choice. It’s the central choice Brian will have to make in the series: does he want to live? Because if he wants to live, he has to grow. And the rest of the remaining five seasons constantly ask Brian to think about what that means, holding his feet to the fire and forcing him to grow.

The concept of aging is brought up in terms of this as well. From the start, Brian is terrified of turning 30 (oh boy, I feel ya there, Brian). He’s even suicidal at the thought, because he can’t fathom being older which has dual meaning for his character: firstly, that he’s stuck in adolescence emotionally, and secondly that he’s afraid to take charge of his own life. If he does, he’ll have to take responsibility for things. Being forced to take responsibility for not just Gus, but Justin, Lindsay, Michael, and other moments... it was good. Being young isn’t demonized either: in some ways, Brian being with Justin is a symbolic (literary please I’m not talking real life problematic elements) way of Justin meeting Brian at that age emotionally, and them growing together. Debbie even says that they are “pretty evenly matched” maturity-wise. It’s also a real-world psychological fact that people who experience trauma as children can become emotionally “stuck” at that age, unable to move past it.

All of this ties into the PTSD motif with both Brian and Justin suffering from the disorder post-Chris’s attack. PTSD can make you feel like you’re not really living, which the show displays. A psychiatrist tells Brian:

It's like a fairy tale, Rapunzul or Hansel and Gretl, but the cage is his mind, and it's up to you, the handsome prince, to release it.

This applies to more than just Justin’s repressed memories of the attack; it applies to their entire relationship over the course of the show. They have to escape their cages of trauma and terrible coping mechanisms in order to fully, truly live. Justin is as much the handsome prince to Brian’s trapped Rapunzel as Brian is a prince rescuing Justin--for the entire show.

In season 3, Justin even directly tells Brian that the latest comic based on Brian is about: "It's about thawing his cold heart, bringing him back to life. It's about their love. It's about commitment." Those elements give life.

Season 4 is where the motif of life and death really picks up again, when Vic dies and Brian is diagnosed with testicular cancer. Brian contemplates letting himself go out in a blaze of glory, young and handsome, but in the end goes through with the treatment (which involves removing a testicle) after spending time with Lindsay and his son Gus, with Michael, and with Justin telling him that he loves him again.

The finale of Season 4 has Brian breaking his collarbone and still insisting on finishing the bike ride. Brian is literally in front of a graveyard on the path when Michael shows up next to him and insists that if he’s going to do this, they’re going to do it together. They come to the finish line hours after everyone else has finished, and Brian, in agony, decides he’s close and enough and wants to stop.

But then he sees Justin waiting for him over the finish line, along with Debbie who loves him like a mother, and Ben (Michael’s newlywed husband) and Hunter. And he’s motivated to push forward and finish well, despite the pain because the people who love him want him to live.

The Scarf and Art as Life

That bloodstained scarf Brian buys himself for his thirtieth birthday becomes a beautiful symbol of not just Brian and Justin’s relationship, but Brian’s life, which is forever tied to Justin. Brian at first buys the expensive scarf to indulge himself (as he starts the series doing in spades), then uses the scarf to get off and simultaneously flirt with dying via autoerotic asphyxiation, and then finally uses the scarf to dance with Justin. But the scarf becomes soaked with Justin’s blood after Chris’s attack, and yet Brian continues to wear it.

He can’t take it off, because it’s their lives in a symbol. When Justin starts to remember what happened, he uncovers the scarf on Brian. When they make love for the first time after the attack, the camera focuses on the scarf lying beneath their feet.

Justin’s life is his art, which Brian directly says in the first season, and which Debbie emphasizes by telling Justin as he wrestles with whether or not to go to Dartmouth for business like his father wants or to pursue his art (his own life):

Debbie: you don't have the power to get [your parents] back together. But you do have the power to fuck up your own life. So make sure you think twice before you do it.

Chris’s attack almost steals Justin’s life and his art (literally, though the damage to his brain and hand) from him. When Justin struggles with his recovery and considers dropping out of art school and Brian buys him a computer so he can do digital art, he reacts angrily:

Justin: You can tell everyone you fixed Little Justin's problems? Well, you can't fix this. No one can.

In season 2, Brian pissing on Justin and Michael’s comic is really symbolic not just of the injustice he did to Michael and Justin’s lives, but also symbolic of how he feels about himself (as Debbie says, they literally based the hero on Brian, because “you’re their hero”).

At the end of the series, when Justin goes to New York to pursue his art fulltime, it’s symbolic of him being fully alive--and symbolic of Brian being so as well. Why? Because Brian’s life is tied to Justin’s, forever and always. If Justin lives freely and succeeds, then Brian will as well. Brian telling Justin to go was him choosing to live fully and freely for the first time.

Religion, Fathers, Mothers, and Sons

Justin: I've caused them enough pain.

Brian: It's bullshit. They cause their own pain just like everyone else.

There are so many parental relationships in the series, and they span from the horrific to the beautiful. Debbie is the mom I want to be, and good religious rep... in contrast to, say, Brian’s family, which is horrifying. I mean, Brian’s dad legit telling his son “it should be you who’s dying” when Brian tries to finally tell him he’s gay after his father’s terminal diagnosis was a moment I audibly gasped in horror.

Brian’s mother, however, while horrifically homophobic, cold, and emotionally and verbally abusive, was still very humanized in that it’s clear she has no one to love her and be kind to her. Brian’s kindness is to not take her faith from her. I also liked the priest character, because he was upfront that he never taught anything but God’s love, and God was whom he answered to. He also pointed out to Brian that he has someone he can always count on and have around: God. For Brian, that person is Justin (the religious motif is emphasized also by the fact that Justin tells Daphne “I met God” after meeting Brian the first time, and by the scene in the final season when Brian prays with Debbie for Michael to survive his injuries--although, as both say, they aren’t asking God so much as they’re “telling” (which btw is actually biblical lol). But the point is that Brian then goes and tells Justin the truth finally: that he loves him).

Debbie moms everyone in the group, and helps Jennifer learn to be a better mom to Justin as well. But Debbie can herself grow as well: she projects her fears and trauma over Vic’s illness onto Ben and Michael, and allows her own insecurities to ruin her relationship with her brother.

Justin’s father is terrible, but Jennifer is instead well-intentioned and flawed, fairly complex. She at first blames Brian for Justin’s injury, and Brian ironically chooses to believe her (that it’s his fault) over Justin (who directly says “it’s not your fault” multiple times while embracing him). Again, this is symbolic of Brian’s childishness (believing a parent over an equal), but what helps is how Jennifer grows and apologizes to Brian, asking him to help Justin instead. By showing Brian that growing doesn’t always mean turning into a miserable, angry bastard, Jennifer actually gives Brian a good example of how to stop being an asshole.

Parents can grow, because parents are human.

Injustice

Ben: Your children lead privileged lives, and you dare to laugh at my son's misfortune.

By the end of season one, the relationships we’ve been following all reach significant moments: Blake runs away from rehab and thereby from Ted, and he has to face that he cannot save Blake. Michael moves to Portland with David, taking a risk that ultimately doesn’t work out. And Brian finally makes a good choice, coming to Justin’s prom. The couple that made the best decision for each other in that episode? They’re the ones that end up in the worst tragedy, when Chris attacks Justin. It’s wrong, it’s infuriating, and it’s devastating.

It’s also unfair in another element: the narrative has been challenging Brian to grieve, but Justin being the one actually to almost die seems horrifically wrong--and that’s the point, and what makes it powerful. Justin did nothing wrong insofar as learning to grieve goes, but he pays the price. In this, the show calls out a double standard in society, shows us how unfair it is. The innocent, the childlike sunshine, pays the price for society’s bigotry, for adults inability to healthy process emotions, for all of it--burdens they should never take on.

The motif of injustice comes up again and again throughout the show: Lindsay’s parents paying for her sister’s three weddings yet calling Lindsay’s marriage to Melanie not “real.” Hunter being targeted at school for having HIV after being abused physically, mentally, and sexually his entire life, the pursuit of justice for the murder of Jason Kemp, Michael and Ben not being able to legally marry, the issues around adoption... we also never really find out who attacked Babylon. These plotlines are seldom resolved with feel-good bows (with the exception of Jason Kemp’s murder), because there’s still work to be done in the world.

Love: An Unconstrained Risk

One of the main symbolic messages of the show, especially when taken in the context in which it was made (early 2000s, before same-sex marriage was legal in any state in the USA), is that love can’t be easily defined or put into a box, but love is powerful and life-giving. The fact that most of the romantic relationships in the show were, obviously, queer, highlights this. The romances also weren’t limited by age--we have younger, older, and elderly people falling in love--or by health.

Whether or not legal marriage was allowed, the love and commitment Melanie and Lindsay have is real. Ditto for Ben and Michael. Despite the weird, even creepy on the outset age differences between Emmett and George (and to a lesser degree Justin and Brian), both of these relationships ended up being really beautiful. Love isn’t even defined by time or broken by death: it goes on and on. That’s one of the main messages of the ending--that time and space have little say in the love Brian and Justin have for each other. Love will not, cannot be constrained by forces manmade or intrinsic to the universe. (That said, I still would have liked to see them actually get married, because there was foreshadowing for it... but the ending is well-written.)

Love also comes with risks, which itself is a theme that ties in with the concept of being in the present moment (another theme). Marriage is a risk for Lindsay and Melanie, Ben and Michael, Brian and Justin, Debbie and Horvath--and not choosing to marry is a risk as well in the latter two cases. Moving to Oregon with David only for it not to work out for Michael was a risk, as was choosing to love Ben despite the fact that people were warning him about Ben’s HIV positivity. Vic moving out with Rodney was a risk. Tucker and Jennifer was a risk. Ted falling for Blake was a risk that seemed to not pay off, but then later did.

There is no love without risk, and the tides may not run smoothly, but it doesn’t make it any less real and eternal. This applies to an extent to self-love as well. Drew coming out, Melanie and Lindsay giving themselves permission to get married, Brian really only learning to love himself through loving and caring for Justin.

The idea of love as a risk is honestly most fully embodied in Michael’s character as well, particularly in the motif of fantasy vs reality. Michael’s major issue early on was his unrequited love for Brian, which made him leaving with David a good choice for his character... even if it was obvious the relationship was doomed. Why? Because David clearly loved the idea of Michael more than Michael himself, and Michael loved the idea of David and the white picket-fence life (which he genuinely wants and does get) more than the reality of who David was. With Ben as a husband and Hunter as their son, it was hard, riskier than staying in reveries.

The Finale

Which is again why the finale works from a literary perspective even if my taste is to like things neatly wrapped up. Instead of marrying, they commit to loving each other without full guarantees, because they both still have a little more growing up to do (honestly, QAF is a bildungsroman). Brian’s finally saying the words “I love you” was progress; the proposal was less so because it was made out of fear, out of I can’t risk losing you, rather than a full maturation. But you have to risk in love. I honestly think the implication is that Brian and Justin will end up together for real, probably married, since it’s still abundantly clear that what they want is each other, and they are forever each other’s life; we don’t necessarily need to have it spoonfed to us to see the narrative implication.

I mean, really. The narrative showed us at the start of season five that Brian made room for Justin to move in even while not expecting him to come back from LA (showing a part of him does know they’ll be together), called out the fact that Brian didn’t return the rings, they promised to visit, and how. many. times. did the series have Brian fantasize about going to New York for some fancy life, while Justin’s fantasies were always about ending up married with the love of his life? It’s pretty clear their goals do align--there’s just still more growing to do first. Yes, no future is guaranteed, but the hint at an off-screen happily-ever-after so blatant I’d barely call it a hint. We even have, back in season 4, Vic’s post-death pseudo-spiritual visit to Brian’s dream, where he tells Brian he was lucky to get four more years after his almost-death, but “you’ll have a lot more than that.”

Also again, season 4′s finale can be seen as symbolic of where it’ll end up. Michael and Brian move towards the finish line, Brian, because he’s crippled in pain and literally broken, is running hours later than everyone else. But with Michael pushing him towards the finish line--where Michael’s husband and son wait alongside Brian’s partner in Justin... well, it’s clear they’re still pushing towards that line by the end.

And finally, all the foreshadowing of an off-screen married happily-ever-after ending for Brian and Justin in season 5: Justin going to LA and coming back, despite Brian thinking he won’t. Hunter leaving, and then returning. (Let love go, and it’ll come back.) Someone remarks that it is “magical thinking” that Melanie and Lindsay would get back together, and Emmett responds “Well, you never know.” Lo and behold, they do get back together, despite reaching the lowest of the low in their relationship and doing things to each other that could honestly be seen as unforgivable. Blake and Ted reunite at last, because it had always been “right person, wrong time” for them, and it was finally time. I kind of don’t think the main relationship of the entire series is supposed to be the exception.

Being Yourself

Michael: ...being different is what makes us all the same. It's what makes us family.

Of course, another main theme throughout the show was that of being yourself. It’s pretty expected for a queer show, but QAF gives it a unique twist in how it emphasizes this (not just in season 3). But starting in season one, Brian tells Justin he’ll go on to meet lots of other guys, and Justin replies that he doesn’t want other guys: he wants Brian. The rest of the show is precisely about Justin discovering what that means. The end is Justin still wants Brian, but he doesn’t want Brian to deny himself completely--that’s actually Justin showing that he really loves and wants Brian as he is.

But, the show also emphasizes that no person is an island. People do need each other, and the things we do with our lives do affect others. See again: Brian choosing to go through with his cancer treatment for the sake of his loved ones, Hunter desperately needing Ben and Michael as his parents, and how when the community bands together, they’re really able to accomplish the unbelievable, even the miraculous (taking down Stockwell, rebuilding Babylon).

Stuff I Didn’t Love

The season 3 plotline with Brian’s nephew accusing him falsely was a retread and not a good idea: the idea that kids often lie about that is just not particularly helpful (because it’s not true), and the plotline/challenge for Brian’s character was done much better with the sexual harassment suit from Kip in season one.

The season 4-5 plotline of Lindsay cheating on Melanie and the ensuing custody battle was another retread of Melanie cheating in season one and while it did ultimately not ruin their characters (which it could have done; to their credit the writers made it work), it wasn’t exactly the best choice of writing either.

Emmett and Ted had no chemistry so I could never buy them as anything more than filling space, which I think was the point in the end, but for a few episodes it seemed to be taken too seriously as something to root for when it... wasn’t.

Overall Impression

I’m drawn to stories about existentialism, stories that explore nuance and empathy, stories with themes like what it means to be human, stories that aren’t sanitized for the sake of a moral message (biggest fear for any reboot right here). Maybe it’s again the fundie upbringing, but I constantly feel like I have to earn the right to exist and struggle with accepting both the best and worst aspects of myself, and media that explores questions more so than hammers a message appeals to me (because I actually feel like the messages of these media pieces comes across stronger). Queer as Folk is all of those things, plus some really tight writing and excellent symbolism for any literature nerd to salivate over (most shows never use symbolism anymore! Never!)

In some ways, certain aspects make it very much a product of its time, but in other ways, it’s timeless. It’s really an artistic masterpiece that reminded me of what I love about humanity and life itself, that makes absolutely no apologies for its stance on love as something powerful (another thing missing in modern media: the concept that love wins), that doesn’t give us simple answers for what it means to recover from trauma as individuals and as a society, that doesn’t write literally any single character off as a one-note person who can never change while at the same time acknowledging how hard, long, and winding changing is, and what can and cannot change in a human.

On a personal note, realizing, after I’d finished the show, its connection to a genuinely traumatic childhood moment that actually, years later, helped me escape me a cult adds another piece of sentimental value. And @our-mathematical-universe, you were right when you nagged me to watch this over the past few years.

10/10

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inhonoredglory · 3 years ago

Note

another character based question - how do you feel about mikasa? a lot of fans dont like her, im curious about how you feel! - armin anon

Hellooooo Armin Anon. OMG it’s been forever since I had the time to sit down and do a proper meta, and I apologize.

First off, I finished the manga!!! (So, spoilers ahead for anyone else reading this.) I had to lie down after reading 139. It’s a tremendous story and I’m still taking it all in. The set pieces and personal/emotional stakes of everything that happens is just astounding. If it’s one thing Isayama does good, it’s the gut-wrenching personal anguish that underlies the action. I’m absolutely floored. My favorite bit was probably the timey-wimey stuff in Paths and Eren. That blew my freaking mind. But onto Mikasa!!

A Cruel Yet Beautiful World

I remember way back when I started the anime that I started liking Mikasa first out of the group. I liked how sullenly silent and no-nonsense she was, and I liked her loyalty to Eren. Her emotion, especially when Eren died in Trost, was palpable and terrifyingly beautiful. Her grief was incredibly realistic––rushing off with a death wish that even she couldn’t succumb to in the end, because of the drive to fight that she got from Eren. In a world like SNK, her relentlessness breaking through her grief was incredibly moving. And her philosophy is basically the driving theme of SNK: “This is a cruel world, and yet so beautiful.”

This is the same moral message she gives Eren when he can’t find the strength in him to fight Annie––and gives him that warm, understanding, inscrutable smile that allows him to finally accept his own monsters, fight Annie, and save her and Armin. (One of my favorite panels of her from the manga, actually.) Mikasa is basically the first character we meet who embodies this contradictory morality, which grows to engulf SNK and other characters as well (Levi, Reiner, and Armin especially come to mind). Which could be why I was drawn to her at the start, since the complex moral outlook of SNK was the primary reason I fell hard for this story.

(And gosh, it’s tragic to realize that it’s teaching moments like the scene above that made Eren into the person who could influence his own child self to murder, the person who could wipe out so much of humanity, the person who could take Ymir’s challenge to free her by destroying the love of the person who cared the most about him. I’m still processing yo.)

Acker-parallels

I started really analyzing Mikasa when I had to defend her from a friend of mine who accused her of resenting Levi (for beating up Eren) and that’s why she attacked him so violently in the RTS serumbowl. Because of my research into rebutting that, a lot of my affection for Mikasa now comes in seeing the little ways in which she cares and trusts other people, including Armin, Levi, Gabi, and Jean. And her quiet sensibility that goes beyond her love and protectiveness of Eren.

With Levi in particular, I find a lot I like about her. Because you can definitely see her annoyance at him, but she also trusts him more than anyone else in the Corps outside of Armin. After Levi’s violent encounter with Historia, she was the only one who implicitly trusted Levi’s judgement, backing up Armin’s more reasoned logic. She sees beyond her own emotions and even moral feelings and realizes the world is cruel enough that sometimes people have to do dark things to help others and survive.

This is very much the same statement Levi made to the 104th when he had asked them to follow Erwin’s orders when the commander’s plans were questionable on the surface: “Do you trust him? Those dumb enough to say yes… come with me.” These two understand each other on a moral level, and they ask for their comrades’ loyalty without demanding it, because they each know that everyone’s conscience is their own.

There’s a clear parallel between Mikasa and Levi, not only because of their Ackerman heritage and sensibilities (loyal to a fault to their chosen person, impossibly strong, quiet and grim), but their frustration when they cannot protect the people they are responsible for. They both know they are the strongest around, and if they cannot fulfill on that power, a lot of people will die.

There are many moments in which Mikasa puts aside her personal feelings to do her soldierly duty, from leaving Eren to help with the evacuation of Trost to leaving Eren and Armin to fight the Colossal Titan alone in Shigonshina.

And then there’s the fact that Levi’s the one who could break past Mikasa’s headspace and distraction so that she can do the right thing. He understands her strong emotion, he respects it, but he also knows when that has to be put aside for the greater good. But he doesn’t put her down for having those emotions, either.

Strength from Eren, Humanity from Armin

Mikasa’s love and loyalty to Eren challenges her tremendously after the timeskip and her sorrow at Eren’s change is what really stands out to me about her character in the Marley arc. The absolute grief in her eyes when she tells Eren what he’s done is devastating, and it shows just how much goodness and compassion she does have.

And yet she longs to understand Eren, to trust him, to believe there can be something redeeming, and not merely jaded and tired, in what he taught her so many years ago––to fight, to win, to live.

There’s such a difference between these same words said here by Mikasa, so many years later, after so much heartbreak, to the anger and flame that were in them when she first heard them, back when she realized that this was the way of the world. That death and killing happens in the natural world everyday and that’s how you survive. That the world is both cruel and beautiful.

And yet as the years wore on, as Mikasa grew closer to others, found purpose in protecting others, sought a life with Eren… as she wandered further into the forest of life and society and relationships, she lost some of that simple injunction... to live is to fight, to fight is to win. She, like so many of the 104th and the others on this journey, found that it’s not enough to just fight and live and be satisfied. We really want it all to mean something, to have our actions be redemptive. To allow ourselves to believe that we do what we’re doing because we’re not just saving ourselves, but saving others, “saving the world” like Yelena points out (in the forest therapy session pfff). And it’s that drive for something bigger in our actions that grieves her so much with Eren, because as she wants her own actions to be fundamentally good and selfless, she wants his actions to be moral as well.

So while Eren is the person that frustrates Mikasa and motivates her to become stronger and braver than she ever was, Armin is the person who humanizes Mikasa and allows her the space to be gentle and vulnerable. She comforts Armin, confides in him, puts her faith in him, and puts her life in his hands.

She trusts Armin with Eren, and she values Armin’s intellect and compassion, qualities she doesn’t have in nearly as much quantities as he does: “There are only so many lives I can value. And… I decided who those people were six years ago. So... you shouldn’t try to ask for my pity. Because right now, I don’t have time to spare or room in my heart.”

This bit from her confrontation with Ymir and Historia was a defining moment for me with Mikasa. It’s honest and realistic in a way that few of us care to admit about ourselves, and it’s just super chilling and badass coming from her, too. It also shows how much she fights for Armin and Eren both. They are the two people she loves the most in the world, and she never gave up on saving either of them––from death or from themselves.

I’m looking back on Trost now and finding so much irony with the ending to SNK. In Trost, she was the one to give up on Eren, telling Armin that it was hopeless to try to extract Eren’s personality from his Titan form. And yet, like in the end, it’s always been between Armin and Mikasa to try to salvage Eren’s humanity. In Trost, Armin tells Mikasa to leave––to go do what she’s good at (saving lives)––and to entrust Eren to him.

It’s a huge expression of both Mikasa’s trust in Armin, and her belief in Armin’s abilities and friendship for Eren. And in the end, it’s the two of them again debating on if there’s any humanity left in Eren. The bond they share is intimate and deep. With all the military doubting Eren and scheming to take away his Titan (with even Jean and Connie unavailable to them emotionally), it’s only Armin and Mikasa against the world––the only two people who can truly consider Eren’s actions and hold off on judging him. And you can feel their love for him even as they doubt him.

And like back then, it has always been Armin who understands Eren most, the one who recognizes his own evil and Eren’s and finds a redemption in having others stop you, because you cannot stop yourself.

And that’s the thing I really take away from SNK and from Mikasa’s journey, that we all have devils inside us, and yet there is still beauty to be found, within us and in the world––from the natural wonders that Armin dreams of, to the comfort of purpose and companionship that Mikasa has in Eren. Love and wonder is what redeems us of our devils. And yet love itself is complicated, and can turn ugly in its obsession. That giving up that love is what makes the love selfless and beautiful, what absolves us of the selfishness within us. That’s what Mikasa learned. And in the end, she was able to release that love for the good of the world.

So I guess to sum up, I really love Mikasa. I can see why her dogged loyalty to Eren might annoy some fans, but I think there’s a lot more to her than simply that, and in fact, her journey and growth is heart-rending and one of the most symbolic arcs of SNK and fundamental to its entire theme. She’s a badass with a lot of emotion and depth behind her cold mask.

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gotnofucks · 4 years ago

Text

Special Training

Pairing: dark!Steve x Reader

Summary: Steve takes special interest in your training

Words: 2k

Warning: Non-con, authority abuse, smut, very slight breeding kink, language, 18+ ONLY

A/N: dedicated to the sweet girl who doesn’t want to be named. She wanted some tough love for daddy Steve...hope you like it hon

MASTERLIST

+++++

You ducked at the last moment, rolling under your opponent’s legs and grabbing them as you stood up. The body fell on the mat behind you with a thud, and you panted as the buzzer finally went away. Dropping down next to the fallen comrade you blinked the sweat away from your eyes, hand reaching out to pat his back.

“You alright man?” You asked and he nodded with a strained groan.

“Damn Y/n, you keep getting stronger every day. I bet you’ll be taken in the team very soon.” He commented and you smiled. Getting into Avengers was a dream, but the training for it was a bitch. Hours after hours of slaving away in the gym and field, dodging punches, and bullets until you prove your metal.

“Thanks Nico, I hope you’re right.” You said and helped him stand up.

“Dude, you don’t need to worry. Your punch is as strong as –”

You stopped listening to Nico then, body tensing as you saw him approaching you. The training gear he had on defined every muscle on his body, and you gulped when his eyes locked yours in place. Nico followed your gaze and broke off, pulling off an awkward salute.

“Captain!” He greeted, blushing at his obvious eagerness. Every new trainee wanted to please the Captain, wanted to get noticed to increase their chances of selection. Steve’s face remained emotionless as he regarded you both, nodding once in acknowledgment.

“Agents, done for the day?” He asked and you both nodded, hands behind your backs and shoulders straight. He hummed and handed a sheet of paper to Nico. “You’re being transferred to Sargent Barnes’ training group Agent, you’ll report to him from tomorrow.”

Nico didn’t question the decision, simply agreed. One doesn’t argue with Steve Rogers, not if they wanted to stay on his right side. People may call him the kindest man they had met, but he didn’t accept any cheek on the field. He worked his agents hard, challenged them until they almost dropped dead. He made them sweat until they had shed every last layer of what Steve found problematic before accepting them. Most agents under him didn’t make it very far for they either quit under pressure or asked for a transfer under some other trainer.

Currently, only five people were under Steve’s command, including you. Well, four, now that Nico was being transferred. You had a hunch what prompted this, and you didn’t fancy knowing if your assumptions are correct.

“You’re dismissed. Agent Y/n, stay. We must have a word.”

Nico left the room without a backward glance and you fidgeted under Steve’s gaze until the door shut behind Nico. His eyes were so intense you almost couldn’t meet them, and once you did, they never let you look away.

“Come” He ordered and led you out the back door. It was a silent journey to his office, the sounds of your feet slapping the floor echoing around the hall. His huge form looked so big he seemed to dwarf the whole place and you gulped in nervousness. He let you enter first, shutting the door behind him and locking it securely though you knew no one would dare enter without knocking.

“On the desk” He said but before you could move yourself, he was already picking you up and depositing you over his work desk. Papers crinkled under you, but he gave them no notice, eyes rivetted to you.

“Captain” You whispered, and his hands were in your hair, pulling harshly to tilt your head so he could capture your mouth in a searing kiss. You whimpered, his tongue swirling in your mouth and hands tugging.

“What have I told you about calling me when we’re alone baby?” He asked in a husky voice and you pathetically sniffled.

“Steve” You replied, and his lips moved to your neck.

“And?”

“Stevie”

“And?”

“Daddy”

He took your hand in his, placing a kiss on your palm before moving it to the front of his pants. Squeezing himself through you, he let out a moan in your neck, humping against you.

“That’s right, say it again”

“Daddy, please.” You said and his gaze darkened, lips capturing yours harshly again. It was all teeth and tongue, hands squeezing tight. Your hands were around his arm, useless against his strength. His breath was fanning your cheek and you felt one of his hands pull the drawstrings of your tracks.

“You’re getting so good I think I need to train you exclusively. One on one” He said, and you shook your head, tears brimming in your eyes. You didn’t know how you caught the Captain’s eyes, or why he was so fixated with you. But you couldn’t take anymore of this. This was blatant abuse of authority and you were stuck with it. Who could you complain to? Who would even believe you?

“Please don’t. I want to train with my friends.” You plead and Steve chuckled darkly, hands hooking into the waistband of your tracks and pulling them down. He rubbed his cheek on yours, the slight stubble scratching you and making you quiver.

“Friends, is that what was happening with you and that pathetic boy out there?” He snarked and you squeezed your eyes shut. Your legs were bare, and he stepped between them, gathering you close so his hardness rubbed against your clothed center.

“We were only training. Honest.”

He humped you, leaving open mouthed kisses along your shoulder and covered breasts.

“You can forget about him or any other man from now on. I don’t want any hands touching you unless its me.”

He raised your eyes to meet his, delicately wiping the tears away. You sobbed, eyes anguished and troubled.

“Please Steve, don’t do this. I – I just want to be a good soldier. I don’t want this, I never did”

Your words didn’t even make him bat an eyelid, instead, he dipped his hand between your thighs, pushing aside your damp panty and feeling you. As his fingers probed you, a mortified mewl escaped your lips, your heart breaking at the unwanted sensations forcefully administered.

“You don’t want it? Baby, you’re weeping for me. Why can’t your heart accept what your body did all those months ago?”

You rested your head on his chest, tired and so helpless. The smoothness with which his fingers entered you made you ashamed. How could you be a good agent if you could not control your own body’s reaction. Steve could play you however you want, he could make your howl despite protests flowing from your mouth. He didn’t care if you pushed him away, for he was so much more stronger. He took you without consent, just like he’s doing now.

Holding you around the waist, he carried you to his chair, sitting down. He fumbled with his own pants, finally pulling out his thick cock that he forced into your hands. You stroked, more out of habit than anything. He had trained you well in the ways of pleasure. He taught you what he liked, regardless if you wanted to or not.

“Inside baby, I want to be inside you now.” He hissed as he pushed instinctively in your palm. You positioned him below your entrance, slowly sinking down on him. A broken cry escaped you, the initial stretch still hurting despite how many times he had taken you. Your moans mixed with sniffles, heat surrounding you as you bounced on him, slowly, finding your rhythm. He held you close, intimately close, and extremely possessive.

He rutted into you, meeting you for every thrust, hitting your spot each time. His hands plucked at your nipples, your clit been mashed between a thumb and finger and soon you were falling, crying out around him. He didn’t let up and pushed into your limp body, going almost feral. You could feel every inch of him, sliding in and out of you. You could feel his sweat mixing with yours underneath your butt, you could feel like stench settling in your pores and making you his.

“So good baby girl, so good. Come on, give daddy another one.” He said and you shook your head, too exhausted. He didn’t care about the soft no’s your muttered, he didn’t care about your legs that trembled around him. He rammed into you with abandon, grunts leaving his mouth and hitting your damp skin. He pinched your clit and the coil inside you tightened, you tried to push away, you pleaded, yet he kept up until your sensitive flesh was almost painful. With one hard, almost brutal thrust, you came undone again, falling apart one more time as he followed you.

He weakly pushed up even as he softened, hugging your body to his. The golden hair on his head were plastered to his sweaty forehead, tickling your nose as he kissed you, teeth pulling at your lip and then letting it snap away. His cum was dripping down around you, and yet he didn’t pull out. He would let it cool on your skin, dry into flakes as a symbol of his ownership. You cried, tears streaming down and he bent down to lick them away.

“It doesn’t need to be difficult Y/n. You’re mine, you were mine since the moment you entered the compound. You only need to accept it.” Steve said, his hand rubbing your back to sooth you.

“Please, I can’t take it anymore. This is wrong.”

His hands cupped your face, rubbing your plump and red cheeks softly. The blue in his eyes drowned you, a cesspool from which it was impossible to escape.

“Baby, you don’t need to worry. Daddy is going to take good care of you. You want to be an avenger, don’t you? I’m gonna make you one.” He promised you and you shook your head. You didn’t want to be in the team because you laid on your back and opened you legs for him. Not like this.

“Please Steve, just let me go. You know I won’t tell anyone. Please.”

He sighed as if you were a silly child who was taking too long to understand two plus two made four. He patted your head patronizingly, rubbing his nose to yours and pecking you almost affectionately.

“Y/n, you can be so cute.” He mocked. “It’s amazing how you think I will ever let anyone, or anything take you away from me. You’re mine, now and forever. Nothing will change that, ever.”

He pulled out of you, pulling your soiled panties back into place. He didn’t even need to instruct you now to not wash his essence away. You knew he would be back later tonight, sneaking in your room to inspect and take you again. No matter what you did, you would never be able to shake him off.

You both dressed and he pulled you back into his lap for his customary after-sex cuddle. He was tender, trying to soften you to him but it only sickened you more. He had inserted himself in every part of your life. Everywhere you went, you saw him. Your own body smelled more like him than yours.

“If I see you with that Agent or another man again, I’ll have the doctor remove the hormonal implant from your arm to show everyone you’re mine.” Steve warned, his hand rubbing over your belly. Your heart thudded painfully, the threat of a pregnancy worse than anything else. Not only will you never escape him, but your dreams of being an Avenger would be over. You nodded, letting him know you understand, and he kissed your head.

“Don’t worry baby, you’ll come around. I will fuck the acceptance into you.” He said and you closed your eyes when he started rocking you, resigned to your fate.

Taglist:

+++++

Protected : (dark!Peter x reader) literally adding this link everywhere hoping this would work for maybe some of you.

@shooting-star-love @stanmysoul @littlegasps @what-is-your-wish @bluemusickid

#dark!steve x reader #dark!steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers #authority kink

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Note

anything with jin zixuan marrying into the jiang sect, instead of jiang yanli marrying out?

ao3

It wasn’t that Jin Zixuan didn’t love his mother – he did, he truly did. He loved her, he supported her, he stood by her side in every argument. He would do anything within his power to help her get everything that she wanted.

It was only that he took a very reasonable look at the circumstances and realized he couldn’t. He couldn’t get her the one thing she’d always counted for.

He couldn’t win the right of succession to be Sect Leader Jin.

Maybe if his mother had managed to stop his father from bringing home all his bastards – there were nineteen of them, all together, and those were just the ones that were willing to admit it so who even knew – he might’ve had a better chance, given that he was after all the sole legitimate son. But legitimacy only took you so far: he was neither the oldest of the children, nor the most capable, nor the most cunning. He wasn’t even the best connected, despite his maternal family’s support; that honor went to another one of his siblings, born to an especially well-connected family through unspecified circumstances that might or might not involve rape but which sufficient money had plastered over.

The only thing Jin Zixuan had going for him was his legitimacy, but his father had long ago taught him - however inadvertently - that there wasn’t anything magical about a wedding ceremony that made him better suited to the role of sect leader.

What’s more, in his heart of hearts, Jin Zixuan didn’t even want it.

He wasn’t – he didn’t really like fighting. Or politics, or scheming, or any of it. It just wasn’t his personality. He didn’t like games of influence, he didn’t like backstabbing people that trusted him, he didn’t like gossiping and slandering and not being able to believe in people’s good faith and any of that, and no matter how much his mom pushed him, he didn’t think he’d ever like it.

But that was what Lanling Jin did, what Jilin Tower was like, and if he wanted to take up the Sect Leader’s seat and reside in the Fragrant Palace, he had to get over himself and accept that that’s what the rest of his life would be like.

Forever.

Until someone murdered him and took his place, anyway. It almost felt inevitable, sometimes.

Or, because he really truly didn’t want the job, because he really truly didn’t want to die, he could try to think of something else. Some way out.

For example, he could, and did, go to Jin Ziyao and ask him for help.

Jin Ziyao stared at him, eyes narrow and calculating as they so rarely were – he was very good at keeping a bland polite smile on his face, the best at it of all the people Jin Zixuan had ever met, and he’d met a lot.

“That’s an interesting thing to say, brother,” he said, gently eliding as always the fact that they were the same age, born on the same day to different mothers. “Very interesting indeed. I must ask, though - why are you saying it to me?”

“Because you’d be the best at the job,” Jin Zixuan said honestly. He really thought so: Jin Ziyao was smart and clever, cunning enough to wear a kind face and tricky enough to actually pull off the impression of actually being kind, since people were more willing to forgive kind people, but also ambitious and ruthless enough to survive and maybe even thrive in the political world the way Jin Zixuan wasn’t. “And because you’re smart enough to come up with a way for me to get out of this without dying, if you wanted to.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Why would I want to?”

And that was the rub, wasn’t it? Jin Zixuan was the legitimate son, the rightful heir, and his father, their father, was just as likely to name Jin Zixuan as the next sect leader no matter how unfit for the role he was on nothing more than that basis as he was to name anyone else with a much stronger claim.

It was in everyone else’s best interest to kill him, if they were ambitious.

Maybe not his sisters. They wouldn’t inherit no matter what happened to him.

(Sometimes Jin Zixuan wished he was lucky enough to be born a nobody, little Jin Ziyu, who just wanted to play with make-up and avoid all contact with his maternal Mo family. Nobody cared about Jin Ziyu, and everyone liked it that way.)

“You know my position,” Jin Zixuan explained. He didn’t need to say it out loud; he was bitterly aware that it was basically his only personality trait: legitimate heir of Jin Guangshan, the rich boy everyone thought would be the next sect leader unless someone else got in the way. “My support could be worth something to you.”

“Especially if it’s sincere,” Jin Ziyao murmured, looking thoughtful, contemplative. It wasn’t an outright no, anyway, or at least not yet. “And you would be sincere, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s a reason I said that I’m not fit for the role,” Jin Zixuan replied, his voice dry to hide the fact that his heart was in his throat. Jin Ziyao was the one most likely to succeed in finding a way to get him out of this mess, but he was also the most likely to figure out a way to kill him without being blamed for it, too. There was a reason he’d come to him, but that reason was the danger - who was to say that Jin Ziyao wouldn’t decide it’d be safer to kill him, and to use this to accomplish it? He could be signing his own death warrant. “And even if you’re smart, competent, good at managing things, well-connected, and well-liked, you can still use my help.”

Jin Ziyao had only a single fault: his mother had been a prostitute. People still judged him for that, something which made no sense to Jin Zixuan whatsoever – it wasn’t Jin Ziyao’s fault what his mother did before he was born – but it meant he lacked legitimacy even more than the others.

Having the legitimate son backing his claim would be a strong argument in favor of overlooking that.

“You know your mother won’t like it,” Jin Ziyao said. Testing, probing; he hadn’t agreed yet.

“I know,” Jin Zixuan said simply. “But I hope that she’d like me being dead less.”

He wasn’t actually sure about that. His mother loved him, yes, but he had never entirely determined if she loved him for himself or as an extension of herself – a symbol of what she would be fighting towards. A sign that her struggles with her husband had a purpose, that all her humiliation would one day be worth it.

That one day, when he was sect leader, she would become the true power in Lanling through him.

(Jin Zixuan didn’t know what she imagined would happen to all his illegitimate brothers and sisters in that situation, and he didn’t want to; it put a sick feeling in his gut to think about it – which he supposed meant he did know, after all, what she would want, but was instead choosing to ignore it.)

Jin Ziyao studied him for a long moment, presumably trying to analyze his sincerity and how firm he was on the idea.

Jin Zixuan didn’t rush him, knowing it was a gamble on his side as well: it would be worse for him to help Jin Zixuan out of the line of succession only for Jin Zixuan to change his mind down the road. It would make him look bad, make him a target for the others, and the backstabbing nature of Lanling politics meant that luring someone in with a request for aid was exactly the sort of trap someone might lay out.

Sometimes, Jin Zixuan was really, really tired of Lanling.

Maybe something of that showed on his face, because just when he was starting to lose hope, Jin Ziyao abruptly nodded – almost to himself – and said, “All right. How about your marriage?”

“What about my marriage?” Jin Zixuan asked, puzzled.

He’d been engaged to his mother’s best friend’s daughter since before he was born, and amazingly enough the engagement had held despite everything – probably because they had barely met, to be perfectly honest. And also the fact that being surrounded by brothers that hid daggers in their smiles gave Jin Zixuan enough experience to realize that he was being deliberately incited when his so-called friends started telling him that he deserved better than a girl most often described simply as being nice.

After all, he’d already started doubting by that time that he even deserved the accident of his legitimate birth, so forget deserving any girl.

Also, being nice sounded…rather nice, actually. Certainly a relief, assuming she was actually nice rather than just pretending to be the way so many of his sisters were.

(None of them liked her, which suggested she might be.)

“You should get to know your intended better,” Jin Ziyao said. “Visit her more often.”

Jin Zixuan really wasn’t seeing the connection between that and his request for assistance, and Jin Ziyao’s gaze softened a little bit, though Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure if it was with sympathy or merely pity.

“It’ll make it easier for you,” he clarified. “For when you marry in.”

Marry in?

Marry in. The Jiang sect was a Great Sect, with enough power and influence to make unreasonable demands – and his father desperately wanted the alliance with them. If they could be convinced to demand that he marry in rather than having Jiang Yanli marry out, pointing to their smaller numbers or the tragedies that had befallen their sect…

Jiang Cheng would like having his sister around. He was also notoriously standoffish around women, and had viciously rejected any effort to be matched with one of the illegitimate Jin girls; it might even be possible to suggest to his father that allowing Jin Zixuan to marry in would mean that there was a chance that Jiang Cheng would be willing to leave his sect to a nephew surnamed Jiang, winning the Jin sect both an alliance and inheritance all at once.

Best of all, it had to be him. The Jiang sect had only agreed to the engagement because of Madame Yu’s friendship with his mother, not for any political reason; if his father tried to substitute him with someone else, they might break it entirely…

And someone who married out couldn’t be the heir.

“You’re a genius,” Jin Zixuan told his brother, who smiled crookedly in acknowledgement. “What should I do? Do I just – go over there? Send a letter? I can’t write letters…”

“Let me think about it,” Jin Ziyao said. “I’m sure I can come up with something more subtle than you.”

#mdzs #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #succession #Anonymous

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astranva · 4 years ago

Text

Daffodil

Word Count: 3.1k

Category: Angst

Warning: Some strong language.

Inspired by lines from Lana Del Rey’s excerpt from her poetry book – ‘L.A, Who Am I To Love You?’

“And also I can't sleep without you No one's ever really held me like you Not quite tightly, but certainly I feel your body next to me.”

Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings.

It was suffocating.

Oxygen wasn’t always an ally, at least not there and then for Harry. He had changed t-shirts 4 times after each one got soaked with his own sweat, before finally resorting to taking a shower.

His body felt limp, like it was on auto-pilot mode and he wasn’t in control of it, only watching as his legs dragged him to the room he tried to avoid if it was anything of no necessity.

He remembers a time when he loved the full-body mirror that stood in the room. He remembers the amount of pictures that one mirror caught, the amount of kisses it had witnessed. But as he passed, his stomach flipped upside now.

He had been avoiding seeing his face for far too long, could go as far and say that he hadn’t seen himself since it happened, a month ago.

But he caught a glimpse of himself and he couldn’t help but divert all his attention to the reflection that stared back at him. His hair was greasy, red blotches on his cheeks that seemed to mock him for crying too much for his skin’s own liking, puffy eyes, dry lips that reminded him that the alcohol he sipped at wasn’t what his body needed and that it needed water. He looked…pathetically sad.

But he was okay with it, being sad. Of course he was, how couldn’t he?

He looked dull – dead. Harry grimaced at the sight, his heart seeming to break and shatter even more – if possible – at the sight, feeling as if he couldn’t really recognize himself.

He took a shaky breath, tearing his gaze away from the reflection before moving along with the simple task; showering.

He hadn’t bothered taking out clothes prior to stepping inside the bathroom, wanting to just get it over with.

Harry took off his t-shirt and boxers, throwing them in the hamper before his eyes caught sight of it. Her toothbrush.

His mind was loud, screaming at him to keep his hands to himself, to get his shit together and maybe throw the damn brush away but he shut that off, reaching to grab the vibrant green toothbrush with rough bristles, as if confirming the absence of its owner.

“Fuck,” he cursed, feeling his nose itch before he set the toothbrush back in its rightful place, right beside the hair cream she used to use.

It probably didn’t help that he used her minty shampoo and coconut shower gel, mindlessly doing so. He hated how dependent he was on her, even when she wasn’t there but he didn’t know any better and he didn’t want to.

Harry’s shower was quick, as if he was in hurry to get out of the place that held so much of her belongings. The cold water didn’t soothe his muscles either, it only tensed them more, making him shower with a clenched jaw as he struggled to get used to the cold temperature – it was too cold and he fucking hated how it made sense.

It was all too cold.

Without her.

He had dried his body quickly before reaching towards the cabinet underneath the sink to take out the microfiber towel which she had gotten him,

“The material just causes lack of friction, know what that means? Less frizz. It also dries your hair faster than the cotton ones.” She had said as she dried his hair one night after her trip from the grocery store, the pink microfiber in her hand thoroughly drying Harry’s wet hair before she began scrunching some of the long lockets of hair.

He loved the towel.

He loves her.

Walking naked and barefoot, he opened the wardrobe, taking out a pair of shorts and resting them on his shoulder before opening a drawer to take out briefs. Harry contemplated wearing a top at all, but then reached to grab one – the one right on top.

Hers.

His movement halted as he felt the material in his hand, looking at the familiar watermelon-printed t-shirt.

“H!” She ran to him the moment he stepped inside their home, a wide grin on her face as she looked at his amused face. How couldn’t he be? She was standing in a watermelon-printed t-shirt and Toy Story-themed shorts. “Look what I got!”

It was that damn t-shirt and the love they made that night that had him write Watermelon Sugar.

That t-shirt.

His chest seemed to clench around his heart, almost begging him to put the t-shirt away, and that time, he listened and folded the t-shirt and put it behind his pile of t-shirts, nonchalantly grabbing another t-shirt before speeding out of the room to put on his clothes somewhere else.

Harry wasn’t stupid, but at times like these, he really thought he was.

He was stupid enough to think that it was the room he could escape when in fact, she was implemented in every little nook, every cushion – everywhere. Hell, even the coaster he had put his cup of tea on in the morning was one she had gotten.

After putting his clothes on, he walked to the kitchen. Surprisingly, he found his phone on the kitchen table, lit up as it released no sound and he was more amused by the fact that he had forgotten he placed it there.

‘Gem’ the screen had read, showing him a picture of him and his sister from when they were kids.

Harry debated picking up the phone. They all had been checking up on him, almost pleading to visit him but he was set every single time;

“I want to be alone.” He had said, every time.

He knew they were concerned, knew they cared about him but he couldn’t not cringe and grow even more melancholic when he heard the pity in their voices and, worse, he knew that in their minds, they probably called him a few names;

Pathetic.

Coward.

Dick.

He knew they probably liked the state he was in because after all, it was all his fault.

He gulped, taking his phone in his hand before answering, putting the phone on his ear and waiting for his sister to speak first.

“Harry? You here?”

He hummed, “Yeah.” His voice came out hoarse and scratchy, making him clear his throat.

Gemma sighed through the phone and he wasn’t sure what type of sigh was that, but it seemed to be as one of relief. He really needed to assure them more often.

“How are you?”

Harry had begun to hate the question. He didn’t like lying, but how could he reply with the same miserable answer every time? If you wanted an honest answer, he would give you one that went like that:

“Never been worse. I’m sad, I’m hallow. I think I need therapy but I know I need her more. I miss her but I’m a fucking dick.”

But he didn’t settle on that one for Gemma, no. Instead, Harry moved to fill the kettle with water while balancing his phone between his ear and shoulder, and gave her an answer anyone would want to hear,

“’M fine. How are you?”

But Gemma wasn’t just anyone. She wasn’t a distant relative nor was she a friend he hung out with every other year – she was his sister and she knew him better than that.

“You can be honest, you know?” She reminded him, “I understand.”

It assured him, really. Not enough to make him smile, but it felt somewhat nice but nonetheless, he hummed.

So, Gemma went on, “I want to head to the flower market, what do you say about joining me?”

Harry’s movement halted, standing straight and holding his phone with his hand, “Which?”

She was glad he didn’t decline right away, but knew she still had to choose the right cards to play. “Columbia Road’s.”

“Th-I-That’s one of her favorite places.” He commented.

“What are the odds that she would be there, Harry?”

“Yeah, what if she was, Gemma? I-I can’t, ‘m sorry.” He shook his head, feeling anxious at just the mere possibility of seeing her.

“Please,” Gemma said gently, “You love that place.”

Because of her, he wanted to say. It was her who made him love that place despite the amount of people with their phones out, taking picture after picture of the flowers instead of actually buying or learning about them.

“I’m telling you; some people spend so much money on carnations and boast about their blue colors, but they always have no idea that they’re actually dyed.” She had told him once as they strolled through the market, hand in hand.

Gemma knew she was making a risky move, but she took her chances. “What if you see her? What happens if you do?”

Harry’s heart dropped, his palms got sweaty and millions of scenarios raced in his head.

Gemma knew he had heard her, but she wanted an answer, whatever it could be. “Harry?”

“She hates me,” He began, rubbing his hairline in distress as he felt his eyes grow tearful, “I-I can’t see her and see the amount of hate she has for me. It’s already killing me, Gem, I can’t.”

“But she doesn’t,” Gemma said, hearing him sigh in annoyance, “No, you listen to me. You’re feeding yourself bullshit and you’re forcing yourself to believe it. Did she say that? Did she tell you that she hates you?”

“She fucking implied it!” Harry shouted, “She said she regrets falling in love with me, what does that sound like, for fuck’s sake?!”

“Sounds like disappointment to me, Harry!” Gemma exclaimed, growing frustrated with how thick her brother could be. And to be honest, she was getting tired of tiptoeing around the truth – one he needed to hear. “Sounds like she was hurt that the one person she trusted and loved for years decided to tell her one day that she couldn’t fit in his life and he couldn’t fit in hers! Sounds like she was hurt to me, Harry, especially because she didn’t expect you to break up with her, no one did!”

That was the last straw for him. Harry’s tears fell, plopping himself down on one of the kitchen chairs, burying his face in his hand as he cried.

Gemma’s heart broke at the sobs she heard through the phone, but she knew he needed it. “You have been scared to see her, to talk to her since the moment she walked out of that door, Harry, but till when? It’s not doing either of you any good.”

Harry sniffled, “D-Did y-you talk to her? Know anything about her?”

“Yeah,” she said sadly, “She’s not okay.”

Another wave of tears hit him, shaking his head at himself.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” He repeated to himself, over and over.

“I’ll pick you up in 10. I was already on my way before calling you.”

Harry gave her no response except for a sniffle.

“Harry?”

He hummed in question.

“I love you, alright? I’ll help you fix this.”

---

Harry wasn’t lying when he said the flower market was all about her.

Without her by his side, it seemed like all flowers lost their beautiful blooming colors, devoid of the saturation. It seemed like his mind loved playing tricks on him so much that it refused to make him smell anything but her scent, even when surrounded by dozens and dozens of petals.

A pair of sunglasses hid his puffy and red eyes, and he hadn’t bothered to change out of the sweat shorts and t-shirt, only put on a pair of socks and jogging shoes.

Gemma was beside him, walking quietly with a pair of her own sunglasses perched on her nose, her arm linked with his.

She dragged him to one vendor, checking the flowers and bouquets before pointing at pretty, blue carnations. “Look at these, they look beautiful, don’t they?” She asked her brother.

“They’re dyed.” Harry had instantly replied, Gemma more surprised by the fact that he talked than by the statement.

“Ah, you know a secret,” The vendor smiled at Harry, “You read a lot?”

“My girlfriend d-“ He paused at his slip, feeling Gemma give him an assuring squeeze on his bicep, “Someone once told me that.”

“Better hold on to them, not everyone is interested enough to learn about stuff like that nowadays.”

Harry felt bitter, like he wanted to tell the man to shut up and ask him if he knew anything about what happened, ask him if he was mocking him, but he knew that that was his mind playing another goddamn trick on him.

He was getting sick of the tricks and the amount of times his mind mocked his state, because when he turned his head away from the man and spotted her, he wanted nothing more than to have a one-on-one fight with his mind.

His jaw dropped, his green eyes widened from beneath his sunglasses, and he felt like he no longer was in an open-air place.

There she stood, in flared jeans, a half-sleeved shirt and eyes hidden beneath a pair of Seven Wonders sunglasses that Gemma had gifted her when she launched her brand. In her hands was one single yellow daffodil, holding it gently and with care, reminding Harry of the days and nights when she would hold him, exactly as a flower.

“Ha-“ Gemma stopped, following his gaze before her eyebrows shot up. She couldn’t say she was very surprised, because she knew how much Sundays at the flower market meant to her friend and brother’s ex.

Gemma also knew it was the first time since the breakup that Y/N visited the place and she couldn’t be any happier for her friend for kicking herself out of the bed and to the one place she enjoyed being at.

Y/N seemed oblivious to the Styles siblings’ fixed gaze on her, carrying herself with grace despite the ache in her heart and the memories that clouded her mind with that one special someone – someone who was standing nearby.

Time seemed to go slow, as if someone had added a slo-mo effect. She had turned, and she was going to miss him if it weren’t for her double taking.

The daffodil almost dropped from her hands, and her knees almost gave out on her.

As if she was pulling the leash on her heart, she turned away quickly before beginning to walk away in big steps, Harry’s heart aching.

“Go!” Gemma urged him, “Fucking go after you, you shit!” She pushed his back.

“I-“ Harry shook his head at his sister, not being able to tear his eyes away from Y/N’s figure as she walked among the crowd, leaning to the side as to not lose sight of her.

“You can, Harry!” She groaned, before tugging on his arm, making him look at her stern face, “It’s now or never, Harry. Your call.”

More often than not, Harry was thankful and grateful for his older sister; like when she took him sightseeing in London for the first time when he was 16 during the boot camp stage of The X-Factor, or when she would help him with his science and English coursework back when he was at school as a kid.

Like that moment, as he ran after his love.

It was easy to spot her. It was easy to run towards her.

Reaching her, Harry gently held her elbow, halting her movement before she turned, and fuck,

what now?

He expected her to shout at him, tell him that she wanted nothing to do with him but she was quiet, looking up at him as she waited and Harry didn’t know whether he was thankful or despised the fact that he couldn’t see her eyes – was she glaring at him? Was she not?

He opened his mouth before closing it again, slowly removing his hand from her arm, unaware to her longing for his touch.

“Say anything, Harry, dammit.” She almost pleaded, pushing her weight to her right leg and – finally – putting her glasses on top of her head.

Harry definitely wished she kept them on.

Because the moment he saw her puffy eyes, clearly from crying, he wanted nothing but to cry out himself.

As if to assure her though, Harry mirrored her and placed his own on top of his head, letting her see how the eyes she adored so much, the color she decided was her favorite, was hidden beneath the puffiness and red.

“I don’t know what to say, fuck me,” he cringed at himself, reaching up to aggressively rub his eyes with his palms as to calm himself.

But then she gave him that look, that one look she gave him before walking out of the door a month ago – she was disappointed.

She shook her head at him, eyes judging him. “Forget it.” She was about to turn again when he, again, held her, but that time, Harry’s hand reached for hers.

“I’m sorry.” He blurted.

God, what exactly was he sorry for? What exactly was he apologizing for? Kissing her one moment then breaking up with her the other? Not calling her? Standing in front of her and being a coward?

But she had always been patient with him, and as much as her friends advised her against, she was still patient with him that moment.

“I can’t read your mind.” She said gently, stepping closer to him and looking him directly in the eyes, searching them. “Use your words.”

“I can’t do this without you,” Harry’s tone matched hers, staring down at her and stealing a glance at her lips before going back to her eyes, “I was- No, I am a dick. I’m an idiot. It’s taken me too long because I’m just an arrogant son of a bitch who can’t admit when he’s sorry and,” he shook his head, “But I am. I fucking hate myself for letting you leave, for saying the bullshit I said, for- for disappointing you,” he gulped down the tears that threatened to fall,

“I can’t sleep without you. Can’t eat, can’t function like a normal fucking human without you and I am to blame.”

Y/N listened, eyes getting glossy before she took a breath in, gulping as she tore eye contact before looking back at him, “Would you have said all that if you hadn’t seen me here?”

Harry stared at her a moment.

“Would you have called me? Visited?” One single tear betrayed her and fell, “Because I waited for you, all damn month.”

Before he was even aware, Harry nodded, taking the risk to reach forward and cup her face in his hands, watching as she closed her eyes at the feeling. “I would have.”

“I can’t-” She let out a sob, looking up at him with an almost childish frown, “I can’t afford having my heart broken by you again, Harry, because it fucking sucked.”

His breath hitched in his throat but it didn’t stop him from pulling her into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her, hiding his face in her hair, his senses waking at the whiff of her shampoo.

“Never again.”

Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings.

#wellbeafinelime #harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles angst imagine #harry styles angst #angst #angst imagine #harry styles angst one shot #angst one shot #hs #harry x reader #harry x y/n #harry styles fluff imagine #harry styles fic #harry styles fiction #harry styles writing

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nyx-aira · 4 years ago

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Hold me just a little bit longer (part 6)

Summary: Things are spiralling more and more out of control. Is love strong enough to hold it together?

A/N: This is my favorite chapter so far. I really had fun writing it and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Tag list: @escapetodreamworld @midnight-lestrange @king-star @nataliahaslosthershit

You've been having a rather uneventful day so far. Getting out of bed you made yourself a cup of tea, reading one of your books and just enjoying your morning. You hadn't talked to Agnes after the strange occurrence yesterday, too tired after you had run through half the city.

Looking up from your book you heard footsteps and saw your girlfriend walking down the stairs, a weird look on her face, almost as if she was surprised to see you.

"Morning Agnes." You said, a little bit salty, not looking up from your book. She owed you an explanation, because clearly something was going on here and you wanted to know why. No excuse, no nothing, you wanted answers.

"Good morning darling." She eyed you warily, clearly aware of your mood. Making her way to the kitchen she poured herself a cup of tea, her eyes never leaving you, she knew something was going on, and she didn't like it.

Sitting down next to you she eyed you questioningly. "Is there something wrong darling?"

Closing your book you turned around, facing her. "How about you tell me?" Opening her mouth to speak you interrupted her, having had enough of her nonsense. "No, no excuses. Something is going on here, strange things are happening and I wanna know what's going on Agnes. Now." Looking at her you saw confusion written all over her face but with all the time you spent together you knew how to read her expression, she was hiding something and you were determined to find out what. "Agnes. What. Is. Going. On?"

Getting more frustrated every second you got up from the couch, pacing through your living room. Growing more agitated as the silence stretched out longer and longer, only your angry footsteps making a sound.

"You know I think I'm gonna head over to Wanda's."

Wipping your head around you looked at her, already halfway out the door.

"Agnes!" You yelled but she ignored you. Clenching your fists you stormed after her, grabbing her arm.

"What is your problem?!" You yelled, not understanding what was going on with your girlfriend, she always told you everything.

"I'm heading over to Wanda's, have a nice day darling." She said, voice monoton, as if she didn't care about what just happened. Prying off your hand she walked away, leaving you fuming on the sidewalk, your blood boiling.

Not wanting to go back inside you decided to go for a walk, trying to calm your thoughts. What was she thinking, going to Wanda's. As if running away from you would fix her problems. No, no, no, no. When she would come back you two would have a talk. Explaining to you what the fuck was going on.

Talking yourself more and more into a fit you realised that this wouldn't get you anywhere. Taking a deep breath you tried to relax, focusing on the scenery instead of your own racing thoughts.

You had been gone for longer than you expected, because when you entered the house nobody was there. You looked around but it was completely silent, well not exactly. The TV was on, some kids show with some monsters. Confused you walked into the kitchen, two more mugs of tea on the counter, cold. You had a strange feeling, the same feeling you had when you were running home yesterday. Peeking into the other rooms you found them empty, a feeling of dread and fear starting to creep you out. Damn it, where was Agnes when you needed her? You just wanted to call out her name when you heard a noise. Whipping your head around you realised it came from the basement. Great, you thought to yourself, that's the start of every horror movie.

Grabbing a knife from the kitchen you made your way downstairs, the dim lights and creepy shadows amplifying your fear. If you thought about it you've never been down here before. Squinting at the dull lights you tried to make out the way, the rooms getting darker and darker the more you moved forward. How big was this basement? You were just contemplating to go up again when you stumbled over something. Cursing as you fell to the floor, scraping your knees in the process. Getting up from the floor you noticed something in the dim light. The floor was covered in strange vines and roots.

Confused you started following them until they led you in some sort of lair. There were stone pillars holding up the ceiling and symbols were carved into the stone, old glass cabinets lining the walls, filled with skulls and bones. Looking up to the ceiling you tried to find out where the vines came from but it was too dark. This whole place was creeping you out, sweat dripping down your back, your hands shaking. Whatever this was you didn't want to stay to find out.

Turning around to leave you came face to face with your girlfriend. You let out a scream, stumbling backwards, dropping the knife, heart racing with fear.

"You weren't supposed to see this."

"A-Agnes?"

"Let's just go back to the living room shall we?"

She offered you her hand, expression blank, a pleading look in her eyes.

Shaking your head you stepped back, determined to get to the bottom of this.

"No Agnes, I need to know what's going on here."

Dropping her head she sighed, sadness in her gaze. When she looked up again her eyes were purple, glowing. With a twist of her hand she slammed the door, locking you inside the room, the vines starting to glow purple, some sort of energy moving through them. You looked around the room and then back to your girlfriend, confusion, shock and fear written all over your face.

"Y-You..y-you..."

"Darling let me explain..." She demanded, stepping closer, reaching for you but you were scared, scared of the woman you thought you loved. Hurt crossed her features as she realised that, taking back her hand.

"Agnes.."

"It's Agatha." She interrupted you, guilt on her face as she saw your face drop.

"What?" You voice was a mere whisper, shocked and hurt by the revelation. She lied to you, you weren't even sure anymore if her love for you was real.

"Please darling let me explain. I know I haven't been honest with you but I can't bear the thought of loosing you. Please."

You saw the pleading look in her eyes, desperate for you to listen but she broke your trust. She lied to you.

"No." You said determined, voice breaking. "I'm sorry but it's over."

"No!"

Grabbing you by the shoulders Agatha slammed you into the wall, pinning you against the stone pillar.

"No!"

She lunged forward, your lips crashing, she kissed you hungrily. Pressing herself against your body, holding you there in an iron grip you were sure you were gonna get bruises from. Shocked and angry at her actions you tried to resist her at first.

But you soon found yourself kissing back, all the anger and rage fueling your kiss you gripped her by the waist, not gently, not caring, just wanting to feel something.

The only thing you cared for was the feeling of her lips on yours. This kiss was different then any of the kisses you shared before. You were both desperate to come out on top, wanting to assert dominance, your rage and bottled up emotions intensifying the feeling, none of you willing to back down.

You felt like your life depended on this, loving and hating the way you reacted to Agathas touch, craving more but also detesting yourself for yearning for her touch.

Grabbing her by the collar of her shirt you deepened the kiss, needing more, not wanting to think anymore, just feel.

This was getting out of control, both of you knew that, neither one making a move to end it.

You felt her grip on your shoulders tighten as you both fought for dominance, feeling her magic pulsing through your body you let out a shocked gasp. Agatha used that chance to take control of your kiss, pressing you further into the wall.

You ignored the hard stone pressing into your back, the hands painfully gripping your shoulders and the fact that you didn't need to break away for air, just wanting to make her feel like her life depended on this, like your life depended on this.

All the secrets and lies, all the anger and rage, betrayal and sadness. Everything felt more intense, more real than ever before. You never ever wanted to feel like that again. Never.

Giving in to the sensation nudging your brain you let Agatha take over, feeling her magic pulse through your body, showing you what she couldn't tell you.

It was madness, letting her take over your mind, it felt like you were one, not knowing where you ended and she started. All you could feel and see was her.

Getting overwhelmed you got pulled back to reality at the feeling of Agatha caressing your cheek.

Pulling away in shock you looked at her. Eyes and hands glowing with magic, a hungry looked on her face. This wasn't Agnes, the nosy neighbour you had met and had fallen in love with. No. This was Agatha, the ruthless, powerful witch, centuries old, malicious and dangerous but you couldn't bring yourself to care.

Pulling her closer once more you crashed your lips into hers. Ignoring the voice in your head telling you that this was wrong.

Yes you had fallen for the villain but wasn't it more fun that way?

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #vision #agnes #agatha harkness #agnes x reader #agatha harkness x reader

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judyhopps934-mt-zd · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Lies

Warning: Spoilers! And possibly having your heart torn into pieces. Other than that, have fun!

We open up with Marinette figuring out the recipes for the power ups as the new guardian.

I am disappointed that she still has not stopped oogooling over Adrien when he appeared on the news. Especially since she was allegedly with Luka by then. (I'll explain what I mean in just a minute)

Adrien was tired after the day he had as Adrien, which is a contrast of what Marinette believes his life is like. But being Chat Noir is the highlight of his day...

...only to not see Ladybug show up for patrols. And we see that it was all due to her figuring out the powerups.

Also, the patrols are a thing in cannon and I am still not over it after "Truth".

Chat Noir hoping for an akumatization so he can escape his civilian life radiated the same energy as Alya asking for akumatizations to interview the temporary heroes on her IG post. I get it, but still! We do not have people in danger for our needs.

Plagg being the one who announces any voice messages for Chat and asking for cheese through the feature on the Chat Phone brings me a whole other level of life.

Also, the whole milk thing at Le Grand Paris bar counter. It was hilarious, but also very sad. He really missed his m'lady

He ends the patrol after he saw Kagami training with her mom. And the smiles on his face! *Cries in Marichat and Ladynoir*

Plagg is the one that encourages Adrien to move on from Adrien, just like he applauded him from doing so in Loveater.

Kagami apparently said that fencing lessons are scheduled an hour in advance and Adrien (with that goofy grin on his face) knew what was up!

Both Ms. Tsurugi and Gabriel are very pissed at one another for the schedule change. That's hilarious, although everything comes at a price.

The parallels! Kagami is apparently learning Russian at her mother's request. Truly is a reflection of Adrien, civilian life wise.

Kagami? Lying???? The hell???? Who are you and what have you done to Kagami????? (Why am I surprised, y'all did this in Desperada)

She lies to their parents and the teacher to be in the art room with Adrien. I get it, teenage rebellion after being under an uninvolved parent, but still!

I like how the writers gave Kagami another dimension by saying she loves art, but her mom does not like her passion for drawing.

To Kagami's mom: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR DAUGHTER IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH???!!! HER DRAWINGS BELONG IN A MUSEUM!

Also, art reflecting the truth? Hmmm.....

Since people like mentioning that Marinette has a thing for people with absent parents after "Truth", I will now say that Adrien has a thing for people who are great at drawing. I do not take criticism.

Kagami is hinting that Adrien's civilian life is not his true self (thank you for understanding him!)...

...but also says that being a "clown" (it was the Chat pose) is also not who he really is. The fandom would disagree with you. Although that brings up the question of whether both personalities merge to form who he really is and cannot be seen completely by anyone in any part of his life. But he is more like Chat Noir regardless.

Also, I want to see Adrien and Kagami spend more time together prior to this episode to see why she was not pleased with him being a clown if that's who he truly is, because her repositioning him against the wall made me feel like she is trying to place Adrien into a mold that reflects the image she might have created in her mind. (I don't know, this was just the first thought that came in my mind.)

They almost kiss, with Adrien being taken into shock (not terrified as we thought) until the alarm saying they have fencing lessons starting interrupts them and Adrien runs out, not before BLUSHING LIKE HELLO?!?!?

This is what I referred to in my second point and confirms what everyone was saying about this episode: this is "Truth", but through Adrien's perspective. Finally, an Adrien-centered episode!!!

To continue, every time Adrien and Kagami are together or were about to kiss, a sentimonster appears, with Ladybug trying to do something about it. Just like Lukanette, just like Adrigami: being a superhero affects your love life as a civilian.

Chat being thrown off the roof by accident and being rescued will never get old or less funny lol.

Montages continues up until the boat scene, where Adrien missed the intro to the performance, but I will never get over the fact as to how Adrien made it there before Marinette. It is beyond me.

Kagami not letting Adrien stay for 5 more minutes. Hmm...

Their cute moment together was what will lead to the demise of Adrigami as Kagami noticed he dropped the infamous lucky charm bracelet. *le gasp!

Why *le gasp*? Because 1) I fear it symbolizes that something will happen to Adrienette or that Adrien has forgotten about her, and 2) Wait until later.

Kagami revealed she lied so she can spend more time with Adrien alone, lying about leaving rehearsal earlier, lying about the fencing lessons rescheduling, and who else knows what else so she can be with him.

She tells him she loves him. But Adrien notices Ladybug and an Akuma. Oh boy, he wasn't able to give her any attention.

Because he left towards the direction of the boat (and said he left something there), Kagami used that to conclude it had something to do with Marinette. Oh boy.

Either I missed an entire scene about Ladybug knowing ShadowMoth's name, or we were not supposed to know how they know until this episode. It feels out of place to me, but oh well.

"I..am...AN INCREDIBLE SWIMMER!" still cracks me up even when I know how important it was in protecting her secret identity.

Happy Birthday Prince Ali!

Apparently, Kagami lied that her mom was in charge of watching over Adrien (or maybe not? I can't tell at this point.)

Yep, Kagami believes that Adrien is going after Marinette and probably resents them both if her facial expression says anything

We get to see that Ladynoir moment from "Truth"!! I love these two and their banter.

Adrienette stans, not much has changed. Adrien was concerned that he lost the Lucky Charm bracelet, for real. But said again because he though he would be clear of the lie since he thought he had it on him.

Kagami confronts him with it. AND THIS IS HIS SHOCKED FACE SCENE FROM THE TRAILER!!!

Thinking that she lies to get out of being with her, she leaves. With the bracelet. The leaving part is understandable, especially because she does not know about him being Chat Noir or what entails him to do. But why take the bracelet???

Adrien is also saddened by what happened. He also liked her.

We've never seen that part of city hall. Well designed in my opinion.

She was the akuma in City Hall with the glowing sphere! We were right!!!

Adrien feels guilty, though it is not really his fault. He has a duty to Paris!

Why is the music sounding different in French.

Jagged Stone. How do I feel about you after learning you purposefully abandoned Luka and apparently Juleka? Also, what's with the song??? (Rhetorical question. Do not answer)

We were wrong about Kagami's power: it paralyzes people who lie, not kill everything in its path.

Jagged, you abandoned your children. And you apparently lied about your age?!?!?! Both episodes show something about Jagged Stone that make him seem like an awful person on the inside.

Ladybug, how do you know about Lies's powers?!?!? There is a hole in the plot here! Unless there were other paralyzed civilians that gave her power a dead giveaway.

Chat Noir, if you lie as a civilian for whatever reason, of course Ladybug will too, since as a civilian, you need to lie to keep your secret identity a secret. Same rules apply to Ladybug, especially as the guardian.

The Lucky Charm is a drone, not a camera like I thought. How the hell did I get into an ivy if I can't tell the difference?!?!

Chat Noir pretending to lie is funny. It might also be his peppy attitude to lying. Also, his funnier version of ShadowMoth's name.

Ladybug finds the akumatized object and gasps. I wonder if its only a eureka moment or also the fact that she recognizes the bracelet, especially if its custom made.

Brutally honest people does not exist (we have all lied at some point, even Kagami who is usually brutally honest with people), but animals can't lie.

Fang being involved in destroying the akuma is cool.

This is the moment that we dreaded so much, yet knew was coming: CHAT NOIR DIES!

JK! He actually is paralyzed by truth because he jumped into the glowing orb. We were right that this is an anguishing scene to watch, but we're wrong about the part that he's killed. Yet, he still unnecessarily sacrificed himself and caused Ladybug to be angst about it.

WHAT IS UP WITH CHAT NOIR BEING HAPPY ABOUT SACRIFICING HIMSELF?!?!? AND DO NOT SAY ITS BECAUSE HE TRUSTS LADYBUG!

Yes Ladybug. Chat is crazy. And also crazy for you. And you are right about the crazy unconscious part. My Ladynoir heart!

ShadowMoth almost won until Fang bit off the charm bracelet. Thanks Fang!

Chat backing away from Fang licking him is a mood.

My favorite Ladynoir moment of the evening: Ladybug telling Chat to stop sacrificing himself and Chat saying she likes her adorable angry face. Her smirk afterwards.. And then their pound it.

But no seriously Chat. You need to stop doing that to Ladybug. She cannot take it anymore

Plagg said that even if Adrien loves someone else, he is likely to go back to Ladybug. Just like he goes back to Camembert. Seriously, despite his cheese analogies, he gives great wisdom.

Not Kagami almost beating up Adrien during his fencing lessons. And Mr. D'Angercourt notices this too as he stopped Kagami's final blow.

Also, isn't it illegal in fencing to push people? Oh boy.

And there's the Adrigami breakup scene: Adrien telling Kagami that he enjoys their time together and Kagami knowing their is sincerity in him. It is sort of unclear who actually ended things when Adrien asks if they could still be friends, but Kagami ends it all by saying that she will let him know once she can face him again. Ouch.

Adrien is hurt and stares at the lucky charm bracelet with what looks like sadness. Once again ouch.

Like Lukanette, I want to see Adrien and Kagami be happy together at least until halfway through this season. The issue is that it will hurt them more in the end.

Also, I noticed the difference between Luka and Kagami when ending their respective relationships. It hurt them both, but Kagami was more forward about it and Luka was somewhat passive. It could be based on what they know about their now exes (Luka knew that Marinette had feelings for Adrien and was not secretive about it even when they were together if the truths her friends said and the opening scene to this episode reflect this, whereas Kagami only has a suspicion and Adrien does not say anything regarding to it.

Also, I really did not like how the breakup on this end resulted in. While more realistic for a lot of people, it did not help that it involved Kagami as there are people who will go after Kagami after watching this episode, and I believe that the writers know this. Kagami is a good person who has a different response to the trust issues and lack of communication, as well as lies in their relationship. Not saying its a perfect one, but an understandable one. In conclusion, don't trash Kagami, especially if you saw this coming.

I take back what I said before; this is my favorite Ladynoir scene. I want to hug them both because they have to lie and keep secrets from everyone, even have some secrets between themselves! But at least they can trust each other! Excuse me while I cry over how much we are being fed. Also, the fact that they broke up with their respective partners makes this both heartwarming and heart breaking.

Overall, this episode is just as good as Lies! It is the first fully Adrien-centered episode, which makes this a first and already exciting. While I did not like how their breakup was handled, it was realistic and showed that honesty and communication are important. Also, can my children be happy together for longer than an episode??? I swear, their pain hurts me.

But at least Ladybug and Chat Noir have each other's company to get them through. May us Ladynoir stans continue to be fed!

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creativeashproductions · 4 years ago

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Banjo Riff // Platonic!Reggie Peters

IN WHICH: Luke rejects Reggie’s ideas for country music one too many times leading to the friendship fracturing and putting the bands future in question. Luke, with the help of his girlfriend the reader and his friends scramble to make it up to the bassist.

Warnings: Swearing, hurt!Reggie, Luke being an ass, fighting, angst, and fluff

Words: 3.2k

A/N: This idea has been sitting in my notes for MONTHS now. Song referenced is Lay Here With Me by Maddie & Tae (featuring Dierks Bentley)

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX/ASK PLEASE!

Masterlist

If there was one thing Sunset Curve, then later Julie and the Phantoms would rely on, it was the battle between Luke and Reggie. Since the conception of a band between the friends, Reggie had always wanted to play a country song. He had learned how to play the banjo in preparation, but Luke rejected both the idea and songs as always.

"You said our sound was vintage '80s and '90s rock music Luke. The band evolved into a pop-rock sound-"

"Because our band changed from Sunset Curve to Julie and the Phantoms. I love you, man, but there's no way we're going country." Luke finally snapped with a heated glare on his face. Luke didn't mean to snap so severely, but it happened.

Luke watched as Reggie's face completely dropped into the kicked puppy expression that tore everyone apart. Instead of making light of the conversation, Reggie mutely nodded in response before turning to grab his bass for the band practice. Luke's stomach dropped at the rather odd behaviour, but Luke blamed his response on his current writers' block.

"Let's start with Flying Solo." Luke proclaimed, hoping Reggie's favourite song would cheer him up. Alex's curious gaze bounced between the two other males in the band just as Julie wandered into the garage.

Before Julie could even question the tension, Reggie had started the beat on the pad stationed on the keyboard. The young female immediately jumped into the first rehearsal song with ease. Every attempt Julie was about to question Reggie's uncharacteristic quiet, the bassist started a different song.

"What's his problem?" Julie questioned as Reggie packed up his stuff and practically sprinted out of the studio. He'd rejected the offer of a pizza movie night.

"Luke here decided to be an asshole again." Alex's tone of voice was sugary sweet in comparison to the glare he sent his guitarist.

Luke flinched at the furious expression on his bandmate's face. It wasn't a secret Julie and Reggie gravitated to each other in sibling bond. The two had been friends since infancy through their parents; Julie was there when the Peters started fighting. Reggie was there when Julie's mom passed away.

"Don't kill me!" Luke pleaded, scrambling around the piano from the intimidating Puerto Rican who had a solid punch. Julie's anger faltered at the guilt on the boy's face, "I was frustrated, and I shouldn't have taken it out on him!"

"What did Reggie do to deserve it?" Julie asked from the other side of the piano, acting as a barrier between the teenagers.

"He asked about the band doing a country song," Luke admitted with a grimace. His hazel eyes dimmed once more.

"What is your issue with country music? Your girlfriend is literally a country singer Luke!" Alex cried, stepping in between the two feuding bandmates.

Rock n' Roll Luke Patterson had been dating a well-known country singer for close to two years now. Luke had always been adamant that country wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but if you looked in the false bottom of the console in his car, you'd see a different story. Beneath the Eagles, Nirvana, AC/DC, and Gun N' Roses CDs, you'd find countless CDs of his girlfriend. He even had a playlist with a name that concealed the music in it.

Luke was a secret country fan, but he'd take that to his grave before he let anyone other than you know that.

"I don't have an issue! I don't think our band would benefit from branching into that music genre!" Luke argued with his bare arms crossing over his chest. Both Julie and Alex were about to respond when the studio gained another inhabitant.

"Would anyone like to explain why Reggie stormed into my house holding his songbook? He literally dropped it in my garage and tried to light it on fire?" You asked from the double doors with said book in your hand.

All three out of four members of Julie and the Phantoms recognized the book with a country landscape. The sight caused all their stomachs to drop at the obvious symbol of Reggie's hurt feelings.

"Funny story-"

"Luke Patterson...did you hurt his feelings about his love of country?" You asked through clenched teeth. Your response was Luke wincing at the anger blistering in your tone, "Did you ever think that country music is his comfort music? Fix this, Luke. Reggie, of all people, doesn't deserve your frustration."

You turned on your heel with Julie following in the attempt to find the forlorn bassist, most likely being hard on himself. You checked the beach house Reggie's dad had gotten in the divorce to no success. The school auditorium was empty, and so was the stable where Reggie worked part-time for the horses. You had returned back to Julie's house to sit on the porch to brainstorm.

"Isn't this the week he's with his mom?" Julie questioned with a furrowed brow. You could only shrug as Julie pulled up the calendar she shared with Flynn.

Reggie's parents had somewhat amicably divorced two years ago after attempts of reconciliation through therapy. Reggie had sat down with them to tell them how he felt with them fighting, if you recalled. They decided to do a trial separation for a few months and, in the end, had mutually agreed to divorce.

"I think Mr. Peters is taking care of his mother in a different state. She broke her hip, and now she's being moved into a retirement home." You offered the girl the encapsulated sunshine in just her smile.

"I suppose we'll try the Carter-Peters home." Julie breathed, bouncing on her feet to your car parked in front of her house. Julie's fingers tapped the screen in a chat thread she hadn't touched for months.

Your keen eyes easily read Carrie Wilson's name at the top of the thread that had been dormant since the end of their friendship. Apparently, Julie received little help in the frustrated sigh she released and the increasingly violent tapping of her screen.

"As usual, Carrie is no help," Julie announced with disgust in her voice. She squeezed the hand you placed on her knee before your hand returned to the wheel.

"One day, you'll have to tell me what happened between the two of you."

"Old news. Happened just before you moved back from Nashville." Julie once more avoided talking about the issues.

It was the same response every time you questioned the friendship that had fractured in the few years you'd been in Nashville. Before you left, Carrie and Julie had been attached at the hip, and when you came back, they were at each other's throats. Well, mostly Carrie was because Julie had too big of a heart to stand up to her former friend.

"Well, the beat-up van is still there." Julie caught the van, more of an eyesore, to be honest, sitting in the three-car driveway. The van was shared between Reggie and Flynn as a joint gift from their parents when Reggie's mom moved in with Flynn and her father.

"We both know Reggie-"

"Would walk to work through his problems. The number of times I've found in walking downtown…" Julie trailed with a shake of her half up half down hairstyle she left uncovered by a hat. Another symbol of her finding herself outside the grief that had concealed her.

"Oh, thank god." Flynn moaned from the front porch with her headphones resting on her shoulders instead of her ears, "He's been playing his old bass that makes that odd high pitch squeak noise. I couldn't take it. Get him out!"

You opened and closed your mouth with the inability to find the words, but Flynn knew already, "Doors unlocked. He's in his room."

"Thanks." You informed the fashionable teenager before brushing passed into the house. Not much had changed since Reggie had moved part-time into the house; his parents shared custody.

Flynn was right; the sound of that screech was like a bread trail to the last bedroom in the hallway to the left. The door opened a smidge to reveal Reggie sitting in the dim room with just his bedside lamp on. He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Hey, Reggie." You breathed from leaning against the door jam, "I'm not sure what Luke said but don't give up on writing. Your songs mean something, Reginald."

"Then why doesn't Luke even read my lyrics? He barely read the title of my last one before tossing it aside!" Reggie whined before taking on a caricature of Luke's voice, "'Home is Where my Horse Is'? Reggie, stop putting your songs in my book!"

You couldn't help the snort at his interpretation of Luke, "That's a...uh...an accurate voice?"

Reggie didn't even crack a smile.

"Okay, maybe don't push Luke's buttons but imagine turning this hurt into songs!"

"Okay. Can I be left alone?"

"Sure." You sighed, turning to leave the room again, "But first. Don't get rid of this Reg. You have good songs."

You left Reggie's songbook on the dresser by his door on your way through the Carter-Peters household. Flynn sighed in relief when Reggie didn't continue using his old bass and even waved as you and Julie pulled away from the curb.

Reggie's eyes had stayed on the songbook you left on his second-hand dresser as if it would get up and bite him. All he could see was Luke rolling his eyes when Reggie had opened the book to show him a new song he'd written. Reggie was tired of only being known for playing bass.

"I brought you some leftover pizza." Reggie wasn't aware he'd been staring at the songbook for hours by then. He was only aware of Luke when he offered a peace offering in the form of Reggie's favourite food.

"I-"

"I'll go grab a soda from the fridge." Luke retreated just as quick as he had entered the bedroom. Seeing Luke was like rubbing salt in the open wound, and once more, Reggie's emotions flared.

Reggie was already at the fire pit in the backyard when Luke had argued with Flynn overtaking one of her sodas. The soda that had dropped on the back porch as Luke saw Reggie's fingers about to drop the songbook in the crackling fire.

"Reggie!" Luke shouted, ignoring the cold spray of soda on his bare arms. The hazel-eyed guitarist shoved Reggie away from the fire.

"What the hell, dude?" Reggie groaned, rolling onto his stomach to push himself to his sit on his knees. His blue eyes seeing Luke stomping the ignited corner of the songbook that had caused them issues.

"What the hell were you doing, Reggie?" Luke demanded with the songbook held tight in his grip. The glare on the messy-haired teenager directly pinned on his best friend, "Why would you try to destroy the book?"

"What's the point of having something our band won't branch into?" Reggie shrugged, moving to sit with his knees pulled to chest, "I've tried to keep the peace but Luke. I'm starting to understand why Bobby left the band."

Luke's heart clenched at the honesty Reggie was revealing, "What do you mean?"

"Screw the blood pact." Reggie grumbled, recalling the oath Alex, Bobby, and he had done to keep the truth from Luke, "Bobby didn't leave because he got an early acceptance into Juilliard."

Luke's eyebrows furrowed together, "What?"

"Luke...you tend to get possessive over the music we make. You brushed off Bobby's opinions, and we all didn't want to hurt your feelings. You've had a shitty time with your parents, but like Bobby, I feel like you don't appreciate our talents."

"What? Dude, you're killer on the bass! Alex's insane on the drums!"

"We know that. Maybe Bobby should have told you the truth on why he was leaving. I don't think you noticed but

"Luke. The songs we perform are all written by you. It was fine, but then when Julie joined, all of a sudden, you were okay with someone else writing with you. But you've never even looked at the songs I've written."

Luke silently listened as Reggie rambled on about how he, along with Bobby, felt underappreciated by the guitarist.

"And now you've been bit by the writers' block bug, but I think the band should take a break. Get our heads back on straight. Before we destroy the band, destroy our friendships." Reggie told his best friend with tears rolling down his face, "Just a week or two."

Luke's mouth hung open as Reggie circled around him to enter the household, but the telltale sound of the lock engaging broke the teenager. But Luke wasn't one to give up, so he created a group chat with Alex, Julie, Flynn and you. A single text that had all of them meeting at the studio.

"He quit the band?" Alex demanded, taking the songbook from Luke's hand, "What the hell?"

"One second he's in his room, and the next he's about to burn that! I may not like-"

"Luke, have you even read a single song he wrote?" You asked your boyfriend with your arms resting down on your knees. The boy in question half-heartedly shrugged with his eyes on his battered shoes.

"How are we gonna fix this?" Julie asked with a frown marring her pretty face usually lit up with sunshine. Her question was left to waft in the forlorn atmosphere in her family's studio.

"Give me that." You demanded towards the band's drummer with determination lit up in your eyes. Alex hesitantly handed over the songbook to your grabby hands.

The other individuals in the room watched as you settled into a chair with a stray acoustic guitar you'd left. Your eyes focused on the notes Reggie had placed around one of the unfinished songs. The soft melody was played a few times before you noticed Alex creating a beat with his drums.

"If I just tweak the song to make this piece the verse instead of a chorus." You mumbled under your breath with a pen scratching the paper. In a different colour, you jotted down the lyrics of a song you'd been working on previously. It was a song you'd struggled with the ending.

Alex huddled around you to add his own notes for the drums, "Definitely a song with a soft backing beat."

"Perfect. I just joined what he has with a song I'd given up a while back. The two songs are the last two pieces of a puzzle." You informed the drummer. Both of you unaware as Julie, Luke, and Flynn watched your brainstorming.

Luke felt out of sorts not being included in writing a song, but he thought it was suitable to not work on it. It gave Luke insight into how Reggie felt not being included in songwriting.

"I have an idea." Luke interjected with a grin, "Reggie's always wanted to see a real ranch. Do you think your uncle would be okay with us staying at the ranch?"

Your eyes flitted up to the mischievous hazel of your boyfriend's scheming gaze, "My uncle adores having people on the ranch. He'd enjoy teaching Reggie the ways of ranch life out of a city."

"How are you gonna get Reggie out to Nashville without it being band business?" Flynn questioned from her position on the couch, "He did just ask for a break from the band."

"Uh...I could pretend to enter a music competition." You offered hesitantly as you'd never actually performed on a stage for the group. You'd kept your personal life separate from your successful career as a country musician.

So you conspired with your friends to make amends with the bassist.

One Month Later, Nashville

The beat-up van pulled into a parking spot in front of a building. The band had seen the building in pictures on your Instagram. Alex, Luke and Julie all shared a look Reggie couldn't catch with his mouth wide open at the city.

"So, where's this competition?" Reggie inquired with his steps in line with Julie. The distance between Reggie and Luke is still noticeable.

True to Reggie's word, the band had come back together after two weeks of a break, but the bassist and guitarist's friendship was still fractured. A particular cloud of awkwardness followed each attempt; Luke tried to branch it together.

"Uh, not here. Y/N invited me to tour the recording studio she uses through her label." Luke offered to the confused bassist. As usual, Reggie barely cast a glance at the guitarist.

"C'mon!" Alex called out from the open doorway with the new addition of you by his side.

Luke was quick to nearly tackle you in a hug and a lingering kiss on your lips. The band all made sounds of feigned disgust. Even Reggie joined in the usual banter within the group.

"Hey, Reggie, do you want to see how us country artists do it?" You quipped with your arm interlocking with his. The cold leather of his jacket raising goosebumps on your arm as you dragged him to the recording booth.

As soon as he was comfortable on one of the spinney chairs by the producer's side, he watched like a hawk. The band had never been in a real professional recording studio owned by a label. It was interesting to everyone, but mostly they all watched Reggie's reactions.

"I was working on this song." You spoke from inside the booth. With a nod, your producer began playing a portion of the song.

"Is...is that-" Reggie was cut off by as Luke interrupted him.

"Your song? Yeah."

Reggie stared at his best friend, "What?"

"You were right, Reggie. I didn't appreciate what you could bring to the band, and I'm so fucking sorry about that. You have excellent songs even if I'm not a fan of country music." Luke genuinely informed his best friend with his hands clasping his, "I want you. Both you and Alex to have a bigger role because we started this band together. We all share responsibility."

"So for now. Alex and I finished one of the songs you had written. I was wondering if you'd like to make it a duet? Release it as a single with a full writing credit."

Reggie absolutely beamed in response to your question. He was in the recording booth beside you in mere seconds.

For the week the band stayed on your uncle's ranch, Reggie was in the studio with you going over the song. It is a song you released as the leading single for your upcoming studio album with Reggie and cemented his career. It wasn't the last time you did a song with Reggie. In fact, he set himself up as a sought after country songwriter.

"Holy shit!" Luke shouted as soon as Reggie told him the success of one of the songs had brought interest to Julie and the Phantoms, "I could kiss you! I'll never doubt your skills!"

Reggie and Luke's fractured friendship healed with the promise of a yearly visit to the ranch in Nashville. Plus, Reggie impressed Luke and Alex with the banjo riff in a country song the band released on their third studio album featured by you. Reggie would always be thankful he had the chance to record ‘Lay Here With Me’ with you.

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harryspet · 4 years ago

Text

dimensions | peter parker

[Warnings] peter parker x reader, dark peter x reader, historical au, royal au, prince Peter, mentions of noncon sex, physical abuse, spanking, alternate dimensions, fluff, hella angst, alternate peter is basically ramsay bolton

A/N: This is an angsty idea from an anon “Angst thought: Peter's got a girlfriend he super likes but she gets switched with an alternate dimension's version of her who alternate him was the worst to (like one of your dark Peter fics bad) and she's terrified of Peter now”. I decided to make this like a historical au but it can basically take place at anytime in history.

THIS CONTAINS TRIGGERING MATERIAL AND ADULT CONTENT

main masterlist

word count: 2.7k

Wine dripped from his lips as Peter stared at you like a hungry wolf. What a beautiful prey you were. He was so lucky that he had decided not to kill you like the rest of your family.

The kingdom you came from was made of sunlight. Sun dripped from the sun and kissed the skin of your people. You were a peaceful people. You had never seen war until you came to know Lord Parker.

In Lord Parker’s part of the world, there was no sun at all. His fortress sat on a hill between a dark forest and a storm-ridden sea. His followers were loyal but this was because the family ruled with fear. They conquered and pillaged for power and your kingdom was just another line on his roster.

You were nothing to him. Nothing except a toy.

You scrambled backward, your back hitting the headboard of the bed you shared with him. Peter’s eyes trailed over the bare skin of your legs and up to the white nightgown you wore. He loved you in white, the contrast to your skin, and the innocence it represented.

No matter how he tried to beat it out of you, that innocence was still there.

Peter pulled the sheets all the way back and your body began to tremble, “My sweeting,” His words were kind but his intentions were anything but. He had his claws around your heart and you felt any wrong move would lead to him ripping it from your chest, “I recall informing you that you should refrain from speaking to my servants.”

Nothing. There were no words on your lips.

Had Peter already diminished your fire? He thought he had mastered the art of pushing you all the way to the edge but not allowing you to fall over.

The room was filled with grays and black, the only light in the room came from a few candles in the corner. You could hear the waves beating against the cliffs from outside the window. You let the cold hit your skin, allowing you to feel something other than sadness.

Peter’s hands touched the mattress as his body leaned in closer, “You want to run from me, do you not?” You were frozen now. He cocked his head to the side, an evil grin decorating his handsome face, “That is why you asked your guard to help you escape. You thought he might take pity on you? Do you think the honey between your legs is that sweet? That any man would risk their lives just to taste it?”

Breathe, you had to remind yourself. Why had you done that? You should’ve known not to trust anyone. Anyone including those with sweet, forgiving eyes.

Peter sighed, taking a seat on the edge of the large mattress. You recalled the memories of the last few nights. On your wedding night, he had forced himself inside of you with a force you couldn’t bear. You still ached between your legs.

“I do try to be good to you. I try to be a good husband but … it seems the Gods have cursed me with anger …and your behavior lights that flame inside of me. Is it so much to ask that you be honest with me? To tell me what I hear is not true?”

Nothing. Again, no words escaped your trembling lip. Peter was starting to grow annoyed. He liked it better when you were screaming.

“Answer me!” He screamed, causing you to hit your head against the wood as you flinched back, “You dare run behind my back!” Peter pounced, unable to resist the sweet touch of your trembling flesh. You resisted, but that only made the member in his trousers grow even more excited.

Peter dragged you by the curls in your hair, forcing you to scramble forward until you were positioned across his lap.

“My lord, please! Please, don’t!”

Peter smiled wide as he held you down, his elbow pressing into your back. “There she is! I knew my sweet princess was a fighter,” He pulled up the skirt of your dress, revealing your bare bottom. He could still see the evidence he left behind hours ago dripping down your thighs, “Continue to scream for me, my sweeting. I do enjoy your voice.”

You cried out, trying to wiggle from his grasp, as he landed several hard spanks to your bottom. You could feel it turning colors beneath his touch, the burning pain flowed through your body, “Please, please, I won’t do it again!” You begged, “I’ll be good!”

He didn’t stop until your bottom was raw and his own hand was bleeding. Tears streamed down your tired face, a complete look of defeat crossed your features, and ultimately satisfied Peter.

“What is your name?”

You didn’t even remember anymore, “Nothing. N-No one. I am nothing but yours, My Lord.”

He dragged you from the bed though every step you took was like feeling fire against your skin.

“No ones coming to save you!” Peter shouted as he dragged you out of the room, past your guards, and to the outside balcony that overlooked the entire fortress. Everyone was used to causing the scene with his cruelty so no one even batted an eyelash as you were pulled around like a ragdoll.

He pressed you against the wooden railing, making you look out into the snow-covered court. The snow that was now soaked in blood. He was in pieces but you recognized him. It was the young guard you had talked to you. Stupidly, you asked him when the guards normally changed shifts in the compound.

His legs were separated as well as each of his arms and then …. his head. His eyes were still open. “We cut off the head last,” As you closed your eyes, he pulled at your hair tightly, “He learned what happens when you try to steal my treasure. Treasure I bravely sought and retrieved on my own.”

It was all your fault.

He was gone before Peter even stepped into that room.

Your body was only protecting itself by shutting down and causing you to faint. Peter caught you as you fell into his arms.

You awoke on a soft cloud. Everything smelt of sweet vanilla, even your hair. You touched your hair and found it longer and much softer than usual. Your eyes could barely adjust to the blinding light in the room. When were thing’s ever this bright on Lord Parker’s land?

Had he finally set the place ablaze with you trapped inside? The thought of it was delightful. You even considered closing your eyes again but, the room you were in, gave off an entirely different feeling than the fortress.

You sat up in the bed and your mouth gaped as you took a look around. You stumbled as you stood up on the bed. The room was ginormous, even bigger than the over-sized bed. It reminded you of the great hall in the manor you grew up in … except it was a bedroom made of gold.

You looked down at your body. This was not the white gown you were last wearing. There were no stains of blood or tears down the chest. There was also no burning on your skin, on your bottom or around your neck.

You paused as the tall gold doors opened to the room. You stared as he entered, clad in a royal suit of blue, and wearing a smile. A smile? You had never seen him with a real smile, “Did you use to jump on the bed when you were younger?” He asked a tone you weren’t quite used to. It sounded pleasant, like there was happiness on his lips, “That was my favorite too.”

Had he slipped hallucinogens into your drink? Or was this just a nightmare of your own creation?

As he moved closer to the bed, you panicked, moving down to your knees, “M-My Lord,” You addressed him, your head tilted down.

Peter paused, taking in your appearance, and his smile turned to concern, “Your Lord?” Peter asked softly, moving towards you. He reached for your hand and, although you didn’t pull away, he felt you shaking, “Y/N, what’s going on?”

You lifted your head, facing the demon, “W-Who is Y/N?” Peter searched your face for some symbol of amusement. He thought you might be pulling a prank on him but it was now clear that something was very wrong, “Where did you take me?”

Peter pulled away his hand, realizing he was only causing more unease, “I didn’t take you anywhere. This is my home. Our home. Should I call in the physician ...”

“We don’t live here …” You looked around the large room again.

“Y/N, do you promise me that this is not some sort of game?”

You shook your head quickly, “No games, My Lord.”

“My name is Peter. I am not your Lord …” Peter’s voice trailed off, his mind racing with concerned thoughts and confusion. Peter beckoned you with his hand, “Why don’t you come with me, Y/N? We will have a talk with May.”

A trick. This had to be some elaborate trick then.

“I only talk to you, My Lord,” You assured him, “I won’t speak to anyone else, I promise.”

His eyes seemed to sadden. Sad? You’d only seen anger from him before, “Y/N, you can talk to other people. I am your husband but I do not control you. You have friends. You have a family.”

A sick joke then. You stared at him dumbfounded, before shaking your head, “You killed them. They were not worthy. You spared me despite my unworthiness.”

“I-I never-” Peter stopped himself, realizing that it was becoming useless to argue at the moment. You seemed to flinch at the slightest raise in his voice, “Walk with me, please?”

You were hesitant but you crawled from the bed, your bare feet touching the cool, marble floor. The fortress was grays and black. The fortress was soot and wood. This was a palace and the man before you were dressed like a prince.

Peter noticed the distance you kept from it. Yesterday, you were madly in love with him. You held each other through every royal meeting and you spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms. He remembered how nervous he was when Tony announced the plans for his marriage but, the moment he saw you, he realized his luck. He was even luckier that you felt the same.

You glanced around the long hallways with tall white walls and ginormous windows that gave a view of the sun over a calm sea.

“What city is this?”

As the name of the city left his lips, your heart stopped. It was the same city you were kidnapped and taken to but you saw no sign of the darkness that you remembered. Had the darkness all been a bad dream?

The woman named May attempted to explain everything to you. She noticed your uneasiness around Peter and kindly asked to have a moment alone with you. You were frightened to speak out of turn, for fear of Peter punishing you, but the woman encouraged you to talk to her.

She knew all about the kingdom you hailed from, about your family and your peaceful people. They were all alive, Peter’s forces never led an attack against them. In fact, your father and King Tony arranged the marriage between you two. Peter was a Prince. The prince of a kingdom that did not wage war against innocents.

She checked your vitals, not noticing anything that was physically wrong with you. You didn’t even have the scars anymore.

Despite all of this, the thing that made everything sink in was seeing your family. Both your mother and older brother had not returned back to your kingdom, and you were able to embrace them after believing you had lost them forever.

Peter wasn’t sure what to think of everything. So much had changed that he wasn’t sure if he was looking at the same girl anymore. He didn’t want to be a villain to his own wife. He regretted that the bond that they now shared was indestructible. To divorce was a sin and they’d both be shamed by their countries.

“I can find somewhere else to sleep tonight …” You looked up to Peter, seeing how he was trying to hide his sadness. Your chambermaids had prepared you for bed, bathed you, and put you into fresh nightclothes made of the softest silks.

“It is your room,” You told him quickly, “I should not deprive you of the comfort … the comfort of sleeping next to your own wife.”

“I can tell you do not want me to, my love,” His words made your heart pang. Love. Did Peter love you? At least, did he love the old you? “I will allow you to have all the time that you need. I do not wish to be the source of your nightmares.”

Peter had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to change that fear she felt.

“Please stay,” You told him as he made a move to leave, “I do not want to be alone.”

You had spent the entire day with your family, and now you just didn’t want to fall asleep in the silence.

Peter thought for a moment, deciding his plan of action. You couldn’t help that your breath caught in your throat as he approached where you laid on the bed. He didn’t reach to touch you, only to grab a pillow.

He laid it on the ground beside the massive bed and proceeded to make himself comfortable on the hard floor. You rolled over in the bed, looking over the edge at him, “The floor is no place for a prince, your grace.”

Peter instantly shook his head, “I do not know what you mean, my love. It feels great down here,” You could tell her was lying and a small grin pulled at your lips. He was willing to sleep on the floor just so you could be comfortable?

“Peter?”

Peter couldn’t help how his heart fluttered when you simply called him by his first name. He liked knowing before that you liked him as a person, not as an authority figure.

“Yes, Y/N?”

“What kind of things did I use to like?”

Peter didn’t expect the question, but as the memories rushed, he couldn’t help but smile, “You loved your family. You always talked about them, about your people. You wanted everyone to know that you were a princess of two, great kingdoms, not just my own. You made sure they were never forgotten.”

You continued to listen as you pictured it. You hadn’t realized they were memories of your own.

“You liked to garden. It reminds you of your time with your grandmother. You love the life you can create, the beauty you can make.”

A tear slipped down your face as you remembered the older woman.

“You liked it when we went out on the boat and rode in the bay. You liked the sound of the ocean and the sun on the skin. You hated that we kept the fish we caught. You hated how they had to die and you insisted that we give them to beggars on the street.”

You realized that this wasn’t some past you that Peter was talking about. The girl he was talking about was still you. She just had a better chance at life.

“You loved looking at the stars. You smiled for days when I showed you the telescope my father purchased from that French merchant, I swear it.”

“Peter, I-I am sorry,” Peter noticed you were crying and shot up from his spot, reaching to hold your hand, “You are nothing like him. You are nothing like him.”

“Do not cry, please,” Peter begged, rubbing soothing circles on your skin, “There is nothing to apologize for. Whatever this is, we will get through it.”

As his thumb brushed the tear from your cheek, you saw him clearly. You could look into those brown eyes and know he’d never hurt you.

Hope you enjoyed! (Also sorry, please don’t ask for a second part)

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livesincerely · 3 years ago

Note

The scene that comes to mind is your first chapter for the run away with me fic. The symbolism really stands out so beautifully and it made me so hungry for more it was like I had a hummingbird vibrating in my chest and I had to take 10 deep breaths before I was able to calm down and be patient. (Still being patient by the way 😉)

💕💗💕💗💗💕😭✨💗💕🥰💗✨😊💕💕🥰

(Please accept this working draft of chapter two as a sign of my unending appreciation for you)

00000

“You look tired, honey,” Medda says, cupping Davey’s face in her hand. She holds his gaze, then pats his cheek⁠—carefully, caringly⁠. Davey closes his eyes against a wave of tears that threaten to spill over. “You think this is gonna soothe that bleeding heart of yours?”

“I don’t know,” Davey answers, achingly honest. Admitting it hurts, but like how a antiseptic hurts when you’re cleaning a wound⁠—a necessary kind of pain. “But I can’t keep on like I have been.”

“A little space can be a good thing,” Medda says nodding. “No shame in taking some time for yourself, finding some room to breathe. Just as long as you don’t let yourself float away.”

….

Spot rubs at his eyes, hair and clothes rumpled from sleep.

“You couldn’t have waited another couple of days?” he asks, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. “We’re literally about to get out for spring break.”

There’s no censure in Spot’s tone, no heat in his words, but Davey can’t help but sink in on himself, guilt and shame creeping in once again.

“That probably would’ve made more sense,” Davey murmurs, eyes trained on the floor, worrying the hem of his sweatshirt between his fingers, “Would’ve been smarter to wait⁠—”

“This couldn’t’ve waited,” Jack says, a hand landing low on Davey’s back, gently drawing him in, and the expression on his face is as steadfast as stone. He looks Davey dead in the eyes and repeats, in a voice that’s soft and serious meant only for him, “This couldn’t’ve waited. Not even for another second.”

Davey doesn’t know what to do with this declaration. He ducks his head, swallowing heavily.

Spot glances back and forth between the two of them, brow furrowed, then seems to come to some kind of conclusion, his expression and posture easing all at once.

“Yeah, alright,” he says.

00000

Davey watches the scenery rush past in a blur of hazy shadows and electric lights, eyes unfocused and mind whirring. Something’s buzzing in the back of his throat, something fluttering inside his lungs, his pulse tremoring in his chest.

He can’t tell if it’s the car rumbling along the highway that’s shaking beneath him or if that’s just him, the rush of adrenaline fading away into quivering aftershocks that make Davey feel like he might vibrate right out of his skin.

Jack reaches out and turns the radio down, the music quieting into a gentle hum.

“Davey,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Davey sucks in a shaky breath.

“I don’t know,” he answers for what feels like the hundredth time. He can’t tell if it’s gotten easier to say or not. “But I definitely wasn’t going to be okay back home.”

“Yeah, alright,” Jack says after a second, nodding to himself. “We can work with that.”

We, Davey notices, heart giving a nervous jolt. We.

He’s heard the word used far to often, lately⁠⁠⁠, mostly in regards to things that should be Davey’s alone, but that he’s been forced to relinquish: his choices, his plans, his dreams, his life. But it sounds different coming from Jack⁠—like sharing instead of taking.

“—ve? Davey?”

“Sorry, what?” Davey says, pulled from his musings.

Jack slants a look at him, the concern in his expression thrown into soft, golden light every few seconds by the string of street lamps lining the highway.

“You wanna catch some sleep?” Jack suggests. “I’m good to stay up for a few hours if you need’ta rest for a bit.”

Davey shakes his head, a jerky little movement. “No, that’s not… I can’t sleep, I’m too keyed up.”

“Okay,” Jack says, all ease and understanding. “How about some food, then? You hungry? Thirsty? When’s the last time you ate somethin’?”

Davey fiddles with the hem of his sweatshirt. “Dinner last night, I guess.”

Jack frowns, immediately picking up on the guilty, uncertain note in Davey’s voice. “What is it?”

“I…” Davey takes a steadying breath, then quietly admits, “I threw it all up right before I called you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”

Davey senses more than sees Jack’s jaw tightening unhappily in response to this confession. He hits his indicator and starts merging right, heading for the next exit.

“I’m sorry,” Davey says miserably. “I didn’t mean to, it’s just a thing that happens, sometimes, if I get too stressed, I can’t help it⁠—”

“Davey,” Jack cuts in firmly. Davey’s mouth closes with a soft click. “I’m not upset with you.”

“You sound like you’re upset,” Davey says.

“But not with you,” Jack says, almost biting the words as they fall out of his mouth. “Not with you.”

It takes Jack a while to find anything open, given how early it is. Davey points out a convenience store sitting on a corner, the lit interior a promising indication, but Jack waves him off, muttering under his breath about a hot meal.

Eventually they pull into the drive thru of a 24-hour burrito stand.

“What do you want?” Jack says, rolling his window down.

The speaker buzzes, a worker calling, “What can I get you?” in an accented voice. Jack responds in Spanish instead of English⁠—asking for a second to think about it, presumably⁠—and turns back to Davey, expectant.

“Whatever is fine,” Davey says, picking at his nails.

“Davey,” Jack says. “C’mon, work with me here.”

“No pork,” Davey offers, unsure of what else to say.

Jack sighs. “Yeah, I’d figured that much. You want chicken or beef?”

The worker says something over the loud speaker⁠—Davey can’t understand the words but the tone of it screams impatience. Jack cuts in with rapid Spanish and the voice falls silent again.

“Chicken or beef?” Jack patiently repeats.

“Chicken.”

“You want your rice on the side?” Jack asks.

“Yeah.”

“Extra pico?”

“...Yeah.”

….

“I’m so fucking tired of crying,” Davey mutters, scrubbing furiously at his eyes like that will prevent the tears from spilling. “I’m never gonna be able to do this, I can’t even keep it together⁠—”

“Hey,” Jack says, gently knocking Davey’s hands away.

00000

@livininmyhead

#ahhhhhh thank you friend!!!#😭😭😭🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼#hope you enjoy this!!#I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of it before but still 😅💕#run away with me fic #*ask #*the writing desk #*editor's note

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yandere-daze · 4 years ago

Note

How about Yandere Giorno w/ fem s/o who’s a stand user like at first she planning to escape then she get caught and that’s when she start to fight back, like almost the same thing like koichi did with yukako XD (episode 9) but of course he win the fight. That’s what it came out of my mind 👉🏻👈🏻

Ooooh I like it!! Thank you for the request!! <3

This ended up being way longer than I intended lol

Cut for length!

Yandere! Giorno with a stand-user s/o that tries to escape

You were tired, so very tired. Your body felt as if it was going to give out at any moment now. You were barely able to pay attention to the young man that was standing in front of you, your mind fading in and out of consciousness. The situation you were currently in was dire and you were absolutely overwhelmed. The blond-haired man in front of you seemed to notice your stressed-out state because his brows slightly furrowed as his face showed clear concern for you as he softly grasped your right hand.

“Is something wrong caro/cara? You look unwell”, his voice carried a hint of worry as he raised your hand a bit further up while moving his head in the opposite direction, his mouth soon making contact with the skin of your hand as he placed gentle kisses on the back of it. You felt your insides squirm uncomfortably as he trailed his lips lower, peppering kisses all over it before coming to a stop at your ring finger. He then looked up to stare directly into your eyes, a look on his face one could only describe as love-struck, as he then leaned down once again to place a final kiss on the golden ring adorning your finger. Giorno, your captor, closed his eyes and let out a hum in contempt before slowly letting go of your hand once again, taking back his own hand that carried the same ring as yours. As you let your hand fall down to your side once again, it felt heavier than ever, the figurative weight of the ring almost pulling you down and on your knees. You felt a knot form in your stomach as the reality of what the ring really implied settled in once again.

“Are you feeling better now y/n? It´s not good to be this stressed out on the happiest day of your life”. After a second of silence he then added;

“OUR life. After today we will never be apart again, I promise you.”

Yes, you knew how true his statement was, after all Giorno wasn´t one to make empty promises, he was always serious about what he said.

Just a few months ago, a blond-haired stranger promised you he would do anything to ensure your safety. Now, you were in the possessive arms of your “fiancé”, almost getting crushed from the sheer force of his protectiveness. You spent most of your days in a luxurious golden cage that he liked to call your home. You were never alone here, even when Giorno had to leave because of his work. Even though he never directly told you, you knew that there were guards loyal to him, hiding in the shadows. And though you weren´t ever able to see them, you could always feel their gazes on you, silently watching you from a distance. To say it was unnerving was an understatement. And of course, you weren´t allowed to leave. Oh, how desperately you wanted to leave! Giorno had mercilessly ripped you from your previous life, from your friends and family and you wanted to go back to the people you loved so dearly. But there was no reasoning with Giorno, he insisted that he took you in to protect you and to care for you, that he would never wish any harm onto you. And that he loved you. Oh, how often he had repeated these three simple words.

“I love you.”, he had whispered before knocking you out at the front door of your home.

“I love you.”, he had said before forcefully stealing your first kiss from you.

“I love you.”, he had proclaimed before going down on one knee and proposing to you.

You had had no chance to refuse in any of these scenarios, only being able to stare at him in fear as you stood motionlessly. In all of these moments, all you wanted to do was disappear from his sight and flee, never going back to him. How you wished that he had never noticed you that one fateful day when you grabbed a scoop of ice cream from your favorite parlor. You yearned for your freedom and the outside world but he seemed intent to keep you locked up. And as the day of your supposed wedding had grown closer and closer, you too had grown more and more desperate to escape. And one day when Giorno was off to work again, something truly bizarre had happened to you.

As you were blankly staring into the bathroom mirror, tears running down your face as you contemplated your hopeless situation, you suddenly heard a high-pitched screech. Whipping your head around, you weren´t able to see the source of the noise until you heard light scratching noises from the left shelf. Carefully making your way over there, you wondered what could possibly be in there. After all it should be impossible for anyone to get in here! Standing in front of the shelf you were surprised to see what looked like…. a bat? Only it was bigger by a good amount and the fur on it´s belly was littered with little heart symbols. Okay so that was definitely not normal. What was going on here? You were tempted to take a step back but as soon as you slightly moved your feet the bat looked down and promptly fluttered it´s wings before taking flight and… oh god it was heading towards you! What were you supposed to do here?? But while you were wondering about what to do, the bat flew right at you and landed on your shoulder as it lightly started to nuzzle your face. It´s soft fur slightly tickling you, you were once again thrown for a loop as it´s shape started to rapidly shift. It´s wings stretched out and grew longer while it´s head also changed size. It had happened so fast that it took you a moment to realize that it seemed like the strange bat-like creature had wrapped itself around you like a sort of cloak. But your earlier surprise couldn´t possibly compare to the pure shock you felt when you looked back into the mirror to see…nothing. Absolutely nothing. You were able to see the wall behind you and the shelf but it was as if you had completely disappeared, as if you were…. completely………invisible. Invisible?! Was that true?! If that truly was the case then could you possibly use this to your advantage to finally escape this cage you were in and go back home? You couldn´t help your excitement at the prospect that you started to jump up and down only to notice that all of your jumping hadn´t caused any kind of sound to appear. Walking back and forth you noticed that all of your steps were completely muted. It was as if you were a ghost of some kind. Wanting to test out this new strange “ability” of yours further, you headed out of the bathroom, noticing the little sound the handle made as you pressed it down, the door opening with a little screech. Huh. So only your steps seemed to be silent, all other sounds still occurred as they normally should. That was good to know. As you ventured out further, you decided to leave your room and headed into the hallway. Looking around, you saw one of the many maids that worked here in the mansion sweeping the floor while whistling a cheery tune. It aggravated you how these people could just carry on with their normal life and pretend nothing was wrong when they all knew that you were trapped here without your consent. They knew how you suffered, how often you had sleepless nights as you cried into your pillow, the one they had to wash, and yet they seemed not to care at all. If you were honest though, deep down you knew that they weren´t the ones to blame. That damn Giorno was. He took you from your old life without any concerns and shook of your cries and complaints as if you were just being unreasonable and confused. Realistically speaking, the people working here probably didn´t have any other option, how were they supposed to defy the Don of the mafia? Deciding that there was no more time for such useless thoughts, you shook your head as you thought about what you were going to do now. Taking a gamble, you practically ran in the direction the maid was currently working in, feeling a rush of excitement as she didn´t even look up from her work as you soundlessly approached her rapidly. Coming to a stop in front of her, you waved your right hand in front of her face but she kept ignoring you. So, you truly were invisible? It´s not a dream? Right in this moment you could cry tears of joy. So there was still hope for you to escape this hell?! As you internally celebrated your small victory, you almost jumped in surprise when you suddenly saw Giorno walking through the hallway, seemingly wanting to visit you in your room. As you wondered why he had returned so early you scrambled to run back into your room, not wanting to see what might happen if he saw that you weren´t there. You didn´t want him to further restrict your freedom, then you would have no chance to get away, even with this invisibility-ability. As you came to a stop in “your” room, you then soon came to realize that you didn´t know if it was even possible for you to become visible again. And what if you weren´t able to become invisible again after this? Panic filled you but as you saw the door handle begin to move you felt a weight on your shoulders lift. The coat fell from your form, shrinking again and shifting form before turning back into the bat from before and then suddenly disappearing into thin ear. But you weren´t able to think over what happed just now as the blonde stepped into the room, a smile on his face. And as he led you somewhere else, deep in your mind the desire to escape started to take root. You knew it was possible and you had to do everything you could to plan your escape. You would use the following days to prepare for it.

Later, you found out with quick relief that you were indeed able to go invisible again, just simply wishing for it seemed to do the trick. And even when you were visible, the bat really seemed to like to being around you. The little animal spent most of it´s time hanging onto you, no matter if it was your shoulder, your back, your arm or even your head, quietly falling asleep on you in the process. You had to admit it was kind of cute and you were grateful for the company it offered, even if it wasn´t able to communicate with you. Well actually, that didn´t prove to be exactly right. You already knew bats used echolocation to coordinate and find things but it stuck you as especially particular when you found out that you were able to see abstract pictures in your head of what the bat was able to locate. You weren´t able to tell the difference between different people or anything of the sort but you could see moving, big objects in your head. You were confused as how this came to be but decided to just accept the fact that this was happening now and started to embrace this new ability. You decided to use this to your advantage in preparing your escape, sending out the little bat to scout out the mansion without having to actually leave your room and thus preventing any suspicions. As it turned out, no one except you was able to see the bat so you deemed it the safest method. Though you soon found out that you weren´t able to use the echolocation while you were invisible. You guessed that there just HAD to be some kind of restriction to your ability.

You were startled from your thoughts of the past, back into the present day as your fiancé gently grasped your cheeks and rubbed them in what you assumed was supposed to be a comforting manner as he once again had a worried look on his face.

“Y/n are you really sure you are alright? Maybe you need to rest a bit? It wouldn´t do us any good for you to be unwell on the day of our wedding. Let me grab you a glass of water.”, Giorno said as he hesitantly let go of your face to presumably get you something to drink. Looking left and right you saw that you were completely alone now. Was this your chance? After all, after you two were married against your will you didn’t think you would have any time alone anymore. Also, you wanted to prevent a “wedding night” at any costs. Just thinking about it made you shudder in disgust, a chill going down your spine. While he might be looking forward to it; in fact, he TOLD YOU that he was; you wanted anything but that. So, deciding to set your plan in motion you called out to your bat-friend, which soon appeared and settle onto your shoulder. Nodding your head, it seemed to get what you were trying to say as it hopped of your shoulder and started to fly past you and down the hallway. You soon concentrated as the abstract images started to appear in your head as your mind processed the information it was getting sent. Due to the wedding preparations, everyone was in disarray and scurrying around the place, no one was at their usual position and with absolute glee you found that someone had left the door to the outside open in a hurry to probably carry out one of Giorno´s orders. Seeing that this was the perfect chance for you, you called back your bat and as it flew past the kitchen, detecting some kind of movement in there, you mentally already celebrated your freedom. You were so close to getting your old life back, you could hardly contain yourself. Holding out your arm for the animal to settle on, you saw the ring that still adorned your hand and settled your gaze onto it with a frown. It was a symbol of Giorno´s possessiveness, something you wouldn´t need anymore after this. It was a beautiful ring but you weren´t going to accept any of the gifts he had gotten you. You were your own person and didn´t need a reminder of the dark time spent with him. So, with one quick forceful tug, you pushed the ring off of your finger and let it fall to the ground.

Clingggg

The ring made a semi-loud sound as it hit the ground but at this point you couldn´t care anymore. You felt an immense sense of relief as you saw it there, feeling as if a huge weight had just been lifted from you. Looking down at your hand you saw that the ring was now replaced by your dear bat-friend that had flown to you in the meantime and settled onto your hand. Giving it another nod, you watched as it once again started to transform, it´s wings stretching out and slowly wrapping around you, as you started to grow invisible.

Thud thud thud

You heard fast footsteps approaching you, getting closer and closer as the sounds kept growing louder. But looking at your reflection in the gem of your engagement ring on the ground, you weren´t able to see yourself anymore. The process was already over. You had won. You were free.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, you sped up and ran towards the door you previously saw in your head. You the saw who the source of the footsteps was: Giorno. He held a glass of water in his hand, just as he had promised you but there was a sense of urgency in his steps as he approached your former location. Seeing him one last time, you couldn´t help but let a grin slip on you face as you sarcastically waved at him while mouthing “Bye bye!” at him. He obviously wasn´t able to see it as he mindlessly ran by his object of obsession, but right now you just wanted to be petty.

After having to endure his presence for so long and being locked up in this golden cage, you wanted to see his reaction when he realized you were gone. You wanted to see that smug and satisfied expression turn into one of panic as he couldn´t find you. So for a moment you stopped in your tracks to see the whole thing unfold.

His fast steps slowed down as he came to the place you conversed at before, only to see that you weren´t there.

“Tesoro? Where are you dear?”, he called out, his voice slightly wavering. He then proceeded to turn in every which direction, frantically scanning his surroundings with his eyes.

“Y/n? Y/n answer me! Where are you?!” Now he sounded truly panicked and you couldn´t help but be delighted in the sound of that. All this time, Giorno had never really been too emotional with you, being annoyingly calm all of the time, even when you screamed in his face or cried your eyes out. Sure, he looked a bit concerned but he always used to tell you that there was no reason to be upset. That you were being irrational, too emotional, unreasonable. That everything was fine. But seeing him look around frantically now? Well you didn´t deem yourself a sadist but it felt you with a sense of pure satisfaction.

CLASH!!

With a slight jolt, you noticed the now shattered glass on the ground, the water spilling out on the floor in a puddle. Giorno was now kneeling down, as he shakily reached down and pulled his hand through the shards of glass, seemingly not caring about the blood that was now staining his hand. His hand then came to a stop as he grabbed at something and picked it up. Seeing the familiar golden material in his hand, you recognized it to be your engagement ring. Upon seeing the object, Giorno´s whole body started to shake as he let out heavy breaths. From where you were standing it looked like he was about to lose it, no doubt in despair thanks to realizing that you had thrown away the ring that he had so graciously given to you. You felt no regret.

Then he started to turn around and you were expecting to see pain and anguish on his face but to your great surprise, all you could see was a deranged-looking smile and huge relief reflected in his eyes. Your eyes widened even more in both surprise and confusion as he then started to laugh out of nowhere. Was he really losing it now? Thinking that you had now seen everything you needed to see, you turned around again and started to run towards the door. You didn´t need to see him completely lose his mind now. You didn´t want to feel some strange kind of guilt in your stomach for seeing him in such a state. You realized how dangerous a feeling like that was so you wanted to get away as fast as you possibly could now.

“Y/n….oh y/n. I´m deeply hurt but also so glad you threw away the ring! Don´t worry I will be with you soon. You can´t hide from me!”, you didn´t know what he meant you felt that it promised no good so you picked up the pace.

“Gold Experience!”, you heard him shout behind you and asked yourself if he was really gone now. No matter, you would soon be gone.

Looking ahead once more, you saw that you were getting closer and closer to the door. Your ticket out of this hellhole of a cage you had to live in the past few months. Away from the controlling and possessive person that Giorno proved to be. You could finally be free again. You could go back to your old life, to your friends and family. All you had to do was walk through this door and-

You felt something pull your leg back as you promptly tripped and fell onto the floor. Your whole body ached and you rubbed your head as you looked down in confusion. You were trying to see what could have possibly caused you to trip like that. You felt your entire being grow stiff as you saw that a large snake had somehow wrapped itself around your ankle. You didn´t understand how this could have happened. Where the hell did that snake come from? And how was it able to see you? I mean it had to have seen you somehow, right? How else could it have found you?

Thud thud thud

You once again heard footsteps approaching you. This time the steps were thundering, almost frantic as you saw Giorno run towards you. This was bad. You had to somehow get this snake off of you and get away. But you didn´t really know a lot about snakes. Would it bite you if you were to move your leg now? It didn´t matter too much. You would gladly take that risk if it meant getting away from here. So you started to shake around your leg while trying to get the snake off of you, but to no avail. In fact, it only seemed to cling on tighter the more you moved around. It seemed insistent on not letting you run away.

When you saw Giorno come to a stop in front of you, you felt panic well up inside of you. He wasn´t able to see you, you reasoned with yourself. He would walk right past and once this snake stops being stubborn you could still get away. But Lady Luck seemed to have something against you today because Giorno slowly kneeled down so he was at your level. He reached out his arm almost hesitantly as he reached down to the spot where the snake had caught onto you. To your dismay, you felt his hand make contact with your leg, causing you to start trembling. No way. This wasn´t happening. Not when you had been so close to getting away. You tried to desperately shake your leg once again to possibly get rid of the snake but you felt Giorno´s grip on you tighten as you did so. Anxiously looking up in his face, you saw him sigh in relief, a smile on his face that quickly turned into a frown, disappointment now clearly visible.

“Tesoro”, he began with an edge to his voice, making you shake in fear. “I can´t believe you tried to run away from me. Why would you do that? Especially today.”

You just kept quiet, not feeling like giving him a response after everything that had just happened.

“Staying silent? Please that´s not going to help you now. I´m disappointed in you. I know you´ve been very…disagreeable in the beginning and I understand that it was a drastic change for you but I thought we had grown past that by now. You were so nice and sweet to me the last few days, was all of that just an act?!”, he raised his voice a bit at the last part. It was true, you had tried to be more docile and accepting of his advances the last few days to make him lower his guard.

“I don´t understand. Don´t I provide you with anything you could ever wish for? What more could you possibly need? Why would you try to run away and endanger yourself? You´re safe here with me, do you still not understand that? I love you so much y/n, I don´t know what I would do without you. What I felt when I saw that you were missing… I don´t think I have ever felt this sense of panic before.”, at this he tightened his grip once more as if afraid that you would disappear at any moment now. Trying to compose himself once more, Giorno took a deep breath before continuing.

“This invisbility- is it part of your stand? I didn´t know you had one.”

Now you were just confused.

“What´s a stand?”, you asked before being able to stop yourself. Shit, now he knew for certain that it was you. You really weren´t going to get away now.

“Yes, your stand. It seems to grant you invisibility. I too posses a stand and only thanks to that I managed to find you again. To think that you might have been truly gone. My heart aches at the mere thought of it.”

“But no more of that. I will think of an appropriate punishment later. Maybe giving you access to the garden was too tempting for you. For now, let us go back, alright? The wedding ceremony is starting soon and we wouldn´t want to be late for that now, would we?”

With that he took your hand and pulled you off the ground. As he slipped on the ring that you had previously thrown away you couldn´t help but notice something. As if fate wanted to mock you even more for your failed attempt to regain your freedom you made a quick observation.

The ring you were wearing was now stained with the blood that spilled from Giorno´s hand.

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

I hope you enjoyed this one! Probably the hardest part of this was coming up with an appropriate stand. My thought process while creating this stand was mostly like: If I was trying to escape a kidnapper, what kind of stand would I want? And I thought invisibility would be nice! I did think about a name but I didn´t think it would make sense for reader to know the name of the stand when they don´t even know what stand are to begin with.

Tho a name that was flying around in my mind was “Haunted House”! Because of the whole appearing and disappearing like ghost thingy lol

Anyway hope you liked this!

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