#and to be quite honest. i have been a little bit paranoid about that ever since

[journey-to-the-attic]

hi !! i was curious abt whether u have any om! reading recs? :0

ahh very sorry, but i don't do much fic-reading these days, especially for obey me ^^; maybe someone else can chime in?

[eldritch-nightmare]

howdy!! hope you're having a lovely day! may i request ticci toby and any other creeps of your choosing reacting to someone harming their s/o? thank you in advance!

a/n: hi!! thanks for sending the request!! hope you enjoy <3

reacting to someone hurting their gn!s/o.

includes: toby, nurse ann, homicidal liu + sully [separate], the bloody painter, and laughing jill.

warnings: reader gets injured, murder, blood, the murder isn't detailed but some of them may be a little graphic maybe, near-death experiences, it's implied that the reader doesn't know helen kills people.

TICCI TOBY.

He would not be a happy camper, that's for sure.

Toby has already had so much taken away from him, so if someone were to try and take away the one person he allowed himself to love? Yeah, no, not happening.

Toby has taken so many lives he doesn't even know the exact number, and he doesn't normally draw out their death unless it's something Slender wants him to do.

But seeing you passed out on the ground because some sick fuck decided to take their anger out on you... it brought Toby back to darker days, and all he could think about was eliminating the danger to keep you safe.

And let me tell you, Toby draws out your attacker's death. They hurt you, so therefore they deserve every ounce of pain he gives them.

Honestly, if he could, he'd probably keep the person alive over the course of weeks just to get it through their head just how badly they fucked up deciding to hurt you, but he needed to get you help as soon as possible so he leaves your attacker to bleed out.

Once the anger he feels subsides, it'll be replaced by panic and guilt as he rushes you to the nearest place you can receive medical attention, be it the mansion or the hospital.

He won't feel better until you wake up, and even after, this situation will definitely cause him to become a bit paranoid over your safety. He really can't lose you. That's not a pain he can go through again.

It'll probably take you weeks, maybe even months, to reassure Toby that you were okay.

This situation will definitely make him more aware of your safety. If he's not off completing tasks for Slender, he's keeping an eye on you. He's not trying to be clingy or overbearing, he just doesn't want to see you covered in your own blood ever again.

NURSE ANN.

Ann can't remember anything that happened before her death and... proxification, but she does know that you've been by her side through the entire process. You're one of the very small handful of people she trusts and likes, so there was no way she'd let anyone take you away from her.

So when she sees you on the ground, bloodied and bruised because some dumb group of wanna-be urban explorers she was hunting down freaked out thinking you were her? Well, let's just say there's nothing that can calm Ann's burning rage at that moment.

Not only have these people trespassed into her hospital, but they also dare to hurt the love of her life as well? There's no fucking way she'll show them mercy now.

You're barely clinging onto consciousness as you watch your girlfriend mercilessly slaughter the people who dared to even put you in such a state. It's not because you wanted to watch, you were just too exhausted and in far too much pain to look away.

The amount of blood alone was nauseating, and at some point, you couldn't even tell what color the floor was anymore.

But once Ann has dealt with the intruders, she'll oh so gently pick you up from the ground and carry you to the nearest (and cleanest) hospital room so she can treat your wounds.

Ann doesn't speak much, but you can hear her softly apologizing to you as she takes care of you. She tries her best to be careful, not wanting to make the pain worse than it already is. She doesn't feel as if this is her fault, she knows it isn't, but she still can't help but feel bad.

This experience will definitely make her realize just how much she cares for you. It's a little scary, to be quite honest with you. It's weird being attached to someone.

She isn't going to become overbearing when it comes to your safety, but she'll definitely be more careful about hunting down trespassers if she knows you're in the area.

Don't worry, a situation like this will never happen again.

HOMICIDAL LIU.

Oh. Oh boy, what have you done?

Liu is, as we all know, not the type of person to take another's life in cold blood. He only hurts others when it is self-defense because he doesn't want to be anything like his brother.

But keep in mind that Liu is also very protective and he has a lot of pent-up anger (among a variety of other emotions) that he keeps under tight wraps. So, believe me when I tell you that you really do not want to be on the receiving end of that anger.

Unfortunately, some sad soul was completely unaware of this and decided to hurt you.

Now, for Liu, he honestly blacked out the moment he saw you bleeding out on the ground. You, however, witnessed the carnage that was about to take place. Honestly, for a moment, you thought that Sully had taken over because of how violent it got. But no, it was all Liu.

Liu doesn't make quick work of this. No, by the time he came out of whatever stupor of anger he got put in, he was drenched in blood, and the person he killed didn't even look like a person anymore.

He didn't use his gun. He used Sully's knife. You've never seen him use a knife before. He always avoided them, he only ever used guns. But he used a knife. He broke the fucking knife.

Right. Well. You'll just have to sit him down and discuss what transpired later. Preferably when you aren't bleeding out. Luckily for you, Liu has taught himself medical care. He's pretty damn good at treating wounds like this as well, so you're in really good hands.

Just... keep pressure on the wound for a moment while he quickly washes off all the blood on his hands.

You'll be okay. He'll make sure of it. He won't lose you.

SULLY.

Now, I bet you're expecting me to tell you that Sully would also go absolutely ham on the person who hurts you. No. He doesn't. Unlike Liu, he doesn't become overcome with pent-up rage.

He does get angry, don't get me wrong, but that anger isn't important. You're hurt, and you need immediate assistance, so Sully doesn't even spare the person a glance as he pulls out Liu's gun and shoots them in the head.

Sully is... less good at treating wounds. He tries his best whenever he sustains an injury, but Liu is always the one who has to take care of it.

But he does know where a certain eyeless man tends to lurk around, so he won't waste any time taking you to get treatment from him.

He'll keep the conversation topic light as you get treated, joking around with you and talking about anything and nothing at the same time. It keeps a smile on your face, and it keeps you distracted from the pain you're in.

It also keeps Sully distracted from the fact that his hands are shaking.

For a moment, he's not really sure why he's shaking so much. You're safe, and you're getting treated. It's only when you knock out after taking some pain meds that Sully finally realizes that he was scared.

You could've died, realistically. You probably would've if he hadn't been there.

He's never been so close to losing someone before. The thought alone was making his stomach churn. He's... he's never felt scared like this before.

This is probably when he realizes that he loves you.

THE BLOODY PAINTER.

Now, Helen isn't the most emotionally expressive person out there. Just one quick glance at his default expression and you'll come to the conclusion that he's a pretty apathetic person.

But you know him. You've learned how to identify his microexpressions. He had dropped by your place and walked in to see you treating a pretty bad cut on your arm. It was just a very slight shift in his expression, one that only lasted for a fraction of a second, but you could see the worry and the underlying anger.

It's actually pretty awkward as you explain to him what happened, going into detail about how some guy had just randomly decided to attack you when you were in town today.

Helen seemed to be taking in every detail you provided, and when he finally spoke up, it was to ask if you could describe the guy for him.

You had just assumed he was going to sketch the guy's face to give it to the police or something, so you didn't see any real issue with telling Helen, doing your best to describe what the guy looked like. You were honestly over the entire situation. The cut on your arm was bandaged and it didn't hurt much anymore.

The situation ended there for you. It was never brought up again, and Helen stayed the night to help you with anything that may be an inconvenience to do with an injured arm. It was sweet seeing him worried for you, if you're being honest.

It may take a few days, but Helen eventually did track down the person who had hurt you.

He treats them like any other victim, though it's obvious to authorities that this person had a particularly cruel death.

There is nothing tragically beautiful about this person's death. It is not a piece of art like all the other deaths were made out to be. This one still had their blood.

Honestly, their death feels so out of place for the case of the Bloody Painter that authorities are hesitant to consider this another one of his victims. It could be a dispute that led to murder, and in a panic was staged to make it look like a serial killer did it.

And you stay oblivious to this, none the wiser.

LAUGHING JILL.

Look, Jill truly felt as if she would never experience happiness ever again until you came into her life and made her realize that she can still feel such a thing.

You've basically become a source of joy for her, so there was no way in hell she'd ever let that go.

And when someone hurts you? When someone makes your face screw up in pain? It's an image that Jill never wanted to see. She's already lost someone close to her, stolen away from her by a monster. She can't lose you too. She just can't.

She also makes quick work of whoever hurt you, slicing them with her chainsaw once or twice before tossing it to the side and hurrying over to you.

You'll have to reassure her that you're okay as she lets you use her as a pillar of support. Even if you aren't okay, you need to reassure her that you are.

Jill doesn't know how to treat your wounds, something that will definitely change in the future once you're able to get actual treatment.

Honestly, she'll probably burst into tears and apologize profusely even though you getting hurt wasn't her fault. She still should've been there by your side. If she had been, you wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place.

She'll definitely be hyperaware of anyone who comes near you now. It doesn't matter if it's someone you're close to or if it's a complete and total stranger.

She'll immediately tense up and view them as a threat, sticking close to you just in case something happens.

It'll take months, maybe even years for her to move past this.

[specialinterestshows]

Find out the conclusion of Finn and Damian’s talk in this latest chapter of my Rhea Ripley x lady!reader fic. (Also how did this get to fifty chapters???)

Warnings for this section: Cannabis (weed), dirty talk

-

Absolute Smokeshow (Part 50 of ?): The Other Side

“I’m sure they’ll be back any minute,” you reassure JD with a smile as he checks his phone again for what must be the tenth time since you noticed him doing it. Knowing the advice you gave Damian might change whatever it was JD had with Finn made you feel more than a little bit guilty.

"You're probably right," JD sighed, eyes fixed on the parking lot, expression unchanging - anxious and a bit sad.

Looking back at Dominik and Rhea for help, you notice her whispering things in his ear, making him blush. Turning back to JD, you do your best to try and take his mind off Finn.

"So, are you a wrestler too?" you ask, unable to see any muscle due to the somewhat loose nature of clothes that covered both his arms and his legs.

"Have been for years," JD replied, finally actually looking over at you, "Are you?"

You laugh, "No, not even a little bit. Just had the good fortune to meet and end up with a wrestler." A smile makes its way onto your face, but JD's expression is still uneasy despite maintaining eye contact.

"Wish I had more bud to offer you," is all you can think to say, smile fading a bit, "Looks like you could use it."

"Ah, that stuff makes me paranoid anyway," he responds, waving a hand.

"Have you ever tried CBD?" you ask, not giving up on keeping him - and, being entirely honest, yourself - distracted.

"What's that?" JD asks warily.

"It's the part of weed that makes you calm and relieves pain," you explain, "Some places sell CBD by itself; so if you wanted to try smoking without the paranoia, you could also smoke or eat some CBD when you smoke weed in order to stay calm. Or you could try the CBD by itself, especially as a balm for any pains you might have to recover from after a match!"

"I had no idea," JD says, actually sounding interested for the first time during your conversation, "I'll have to look around for some and give it a try!"

"What are we trying?" Rhea's sultry voice asks, surprisingly close to your ear as she moves to rest her chin on your shoulder - startling you a little, but mostly making your face warm.

"C-B-D?" JD says hesitantly, looking at you, "Did I get that right?"

You nod carefully so as not to run into Rhea, making JD grin.

"Oh," Rhea says, sounding somewhat disappointed.

"Nothing nearly as sexy as you might hope, babe," you say apologetically, gently leaning your head against hers.

"I dunno," JD says, "No paranoia and less pain after matches? Sounds pretty sexy to me."

Rhea snorts at the comment as you laugh.

"Feels like I'm always late for the punchline," Damian's voice made everyone look up. His hair was slightly disheveled, he was calmer than you had seen him all day, and there was something else different about him that you couldn't quite place.

"What are you doing wearing that shirt," JD asked, looking down at the purple X on the black shirt stretched tightly across Damian's chest, voice trembling with growing rage, "And where is the man it belongs to?"

"Lo siento," Damian apologized, "But this was given to me freely" - he tugged a bit on the collar of the shirt, drawing attention to what could only be a hickey on his neck - "And Finn is fine, don't worry."

The smile Damian couldn't seem to suppress only seemed to make JD more impatient.

"Where. Is. He." JD demanded to know, getting closer.

"Still back in the rental car, I think," Damian replied, making JD's expression slowly dial back to bitter resentment - but it was Damian's next comment that made JD look completely heartbroken, "I tired him out pretty quickly and he might need a minute to recover."

Not saying a word, JD pulled a few bills out of his pocket, set them under his plate on the table, and walked off dejectedly. The guilt pierced you like a dagger as you watched him shuffle away in the direction of the parking lot.

"No fucking way," Rhea says after JD is out of earshot, "You and Finn finally got together?!"

"Thanks to your girlfriend," Damian replies, grinning harder. The happiness he exuded made you feel a bit less guilty.

"I'm glad things worked out!" you say, trying to put your feelings aside to let Damian enjoy his moment.

"So what you guys did in the car," Dominik addresses Damian, "... Details?"

"Dirty boy," Rhea scolds Dom, "You too, Priest. Finn better have the windows down; I am not driving for hours in a car that smells like sex."

"You didn't seem to have a problem with it after you and Dom had that quickie and thought Finn and I wouldn't notice," Damian countered.

Rhea smiled at the memory and kissed Dominik’s cheek before checking the time and sighing.

“We should start heading to the next location,” she said, sounding less than excited.

“Thanks for everything, babe,” you tell Rhea, holding up your gift bag and winking, “I’ll send you a picture of me with this on once I get home.”

Rhea pulls you into a hug and whispers “good slut” before pressing her lips against yours. A wave of lust washes over you as she quickly grabs your ass and bites your lip before pulling away and letting you say goodbye to the other two. Dominik seems surprised when you pull him in for a hug as well, the heat radiating from his face as you pull away. Hugging Damian requires you to jump up a bit, making him laugh and spin you around before saying, “Thanks again, chica. I’m sure Finn would say the same if he wasn’t so proud” - he looks back at the parking lot briefly - “and also probably asleep.”

[end part fifty of ?]

Part 51: https://www.tumblr.com/specialinterestshows/730125705350873088/absolute-smokeshow-part-51-of-a-prince-and

-

Tag List (thank you!)

@cherryberryshine , @littlemiss-fanficlover , @elisewithak , @babybatlover , @girlofpink , @kagome2909 , @domlynch

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

My journey through John Oliver's IMDB page that I've been doing in the last few days (summary: his old Cambridge doc got taken off YouTube, I got paranoid about how I'm glad I'd saved that but this is a reminder that nothing stays on the internet forever so you need to save the stuff you want to keep, this escalated too quickly into me buying a new external hard drive just to see how much of his IMDB page I can download and put in one place) has brought me through a documentary about Russell Howard from 2021. I previously knew that documentary existed, but I hadn't watched it because even before Russell doubled down on the Jordan Peterson thing enough for me to be done watching his stuff (I ignored the mild comments for months before he actually invited Peterson onto his show and made ignoring it impossible), I didn't need to see a documentary about how the pandemic made life difficult for an extremely rich and successful touring comedian.

However, I learned today that John Oliver had a credit in the documentary, so obviously I immediately downloaded it. To be honest I haven't watched the whole thing, I just skipped through it in search of the John Oliver bits. Because I have given up on Russell Howard, but his former connection to the Chocolate Milk Gang, and my hobby of cataloguing all Chocolate Milk Gang history, is the only thing that will make me temporarily suspend my closely held principles such as a hard line against all Jordan Peterson apologists. I did the same thing with his recent podcast, rolling my eyes when I first saw it announced because surely he doesn't need another platform and Britcom doesn't need another bland podcast, until I saw that there would be a John Oliver episode and obviously I listened to that one.

Anyway, the point is that there was some fun Chocolate Milk Gang history in the documentary, I've cut out the relevant clip:

The Chocolate Milk Gang goes by many names. Andrew Maxwell apparently called them "the guys with the bags". Stewart Lee has called them "The hanging around gang". In a discussion with Richard Herring they were labeled "the nerds of the circuit". But here we have a new one: the golden generation. A name coined by Russell Howard and then immediately and entirely justifiably ripped apart by John Oliver, what good stuff. I greatly enjoyed that. Someone should make a Chocolate Milk Gang documentary. I could probably cut together a Chocolate Milk Gang documentary from all the media files I've hoarded. See how many names they've been given over the years.

Based on the ten or so minutes I watched, I think I might genuinely be capable of putting together better videos than the person who made this Russell Howard documentary, the editing on it looks surprisingly amateur-ish for a film about such a huge mainstream star. However, it did provide me with very slightly (only very slightly, but still) higher quality versions of a couple of CMG-related images I had seen before, but had only seen in terrible quality, so it's nice to have those a little clearer:

And I hadn't seen this one before, I don't think Andy Zaltzman changed in appearance at all between 2003 and about 2017.

Oh and Steve Hall shows up at the end, which is fun. I like that guy. I like Steve Hall probably too much, given the fact that the main thing I've heard him do is be quite gross on several episodes Daniel Kitson's radio show in 2007-2008. But it was really funny. Those episodes made me laugh almost constantly and I recommend them to absolutely no one, no one should ever hear that. Though it's not the only thing I've heard him do. I have to be the only person in the world who watched the We Are Klang sitcom in 2023 just for one actor, but that actor was not Greg Davies. Oh and Steve Hall was in that Late 'n' Live recording from 2007, but that's not a lot better for making him respectable. He writes on The Russell Howard Hour and on some level I know he was probably involved in bringing in Jordan Peterson and probably if I asked Steve Hall to tell me all his political opinions I wouldn't be able to enjoy his old sitcom anymore, but luckily he doesn't have a big enough platform to tell us all his opinions so I'll just assume it's fine.

@lastweeksshirttonight, tagging you in case you don't happen to see this post because you'll really enjoy that video clip, it is relevant to your interests.

[narrat3333d]

no good ass art for this I’m weeping but IM YAPPING!!! (tw for like..smoking in the drawing I thinj..and mentions of death,,)

the info will be really unorganised because i physically don’t know how to organise it right now..(it’s all jumbled in my notes app..) (detailed explanations will be in smaller text because ik some of y’all won’t wanna read allat 🐺)

taps mic anyway hello narrat3333d nation (empty auditorium) im going to yap about one of my MAIN OPS in this post don’t mind the smelly ass art I couldn’t be bothered to do anything digital ❤️..also don’t mind the hands..i was doing this in legit no light and almost sharted myself when i turned on my light to photo it💔)

SO BASICALLY

this guy is dr Krüger, he’s sort of the main antagonist of my cringe ass story…(life after death🤤) he’s also the childhood friend of the main character..(sebastian nachtnebel 🤫🤫)

HE DOESNT HAVE A PROPER FIRST NAME VUT I KNOW FOR SURE IM GONNA GIVE HIME SOMETHING STUPID…LIKE HERMAN..OR GERFRIED..)

((Krüger is a villainous main protagonist of Life After Death. He is Nachtnebel’s childhood and now scholarly companion, with his mind set on one singular goal; to Resurrect the Human Soul. No matter how twisted his methods are, nor matter how many he will affect.))

he’s around 20-25 because his age varies in every little snippet I write (no motivation or concentration to actually write a full fledged story ) and he’s Swiss..i thinj..or he’s German..one of the two 😭

and he’s like 5’4 (because i hate him and hope he gets pounced on by eagles)

((He is a slender, frail man of pale complexion and diminutive stature, standing at a measly 5’4”. His face adorned with moles and blemishes in seemingly random areas, also sporting a large birthmark on the bottom of his chin. His cheeks are described as gaunt, due to malnutrition, his eyes sporting dark bags because of sleep deprivation. To put it simply; He looks sickly, unwell. He isn’t exactly the pinnacle of Health. Which is awfully hypocritical, considering his desired career.

He has green eyes that look awfully bug-like in size, yet rarely show signs of life, usually devoid of any real emotion, only that same, cold glare. His hair is as black as a raven’s feather, and is cut short. (Too short, if we’re being honest. He cuts his own hair, why waste time and money at a Barbershop?) It’s also quite greasy, as he forgoes washing his hair in exchange for continuing his work, despite this; he insists on keeping a clean-shaven face.

His nose is upturned, giving the impression that he’s always looking down upon everyone and anyone, despite his small size. A pair of spectacles adorn his face and rest upon his nose, the silver of the metal frames often catching the light and glistening ever-so-slightly.

His hands, his ‘Instruments of Resurrection’ are smallish, the skin of his right thumb and ring-finger calloused in some areas from gripping either a pen or pencil too tightly while scribbling down research notes and thoughts alike, a small freckle also visible on the loose skin between his thumb and forefinger. His nails also seem to be chewed on, especially on his left hand. They do not tremble at all, as still as stone, which proves useful during his.. experiments.))

he’s not actually a fully fledged doctor yet..he gets people to call him Dr. solely for his ego 😢

he’s a real FREAK. he’s creepy, paranoid, duplicitous, borderline hysterical if you test him. idk, little freak. i hate him, I really do 💔, why is he like this. why are you like this, man,,

IM GLAD YOU ASKED 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔊

he had always been a bit off, having a fascination with morbid topics since the day he had attended his grandmothers funeral at the age of 8..

tldr because I’m too scared of posting all my yapping; he went on to study medicine, and was taken under a rather influential scientists wing to experiment with resurrection of the sort…until a failed experiment left him accused of said mentors murder

AND then once he moved to Octhiovh’zhux (good luck pronouncing that!! I don’t know how to either ❤️❤️) he heard the call, and since his mind’s barriers were weak from the stress and vulnerability from being accused of the murder of someone he viewed as a father figure; he was quickly made as a potential host (I need a name for these thangs..they’re not hosts but they’re half under the influence of the horrors’™️ whims) for the horrors™️. he was already considering starting experiments with deaths, though he was fully convinced by the horrors™️ to begin with it.

it devolved from a grief stricken curiosity to a inhuman obsession.

and so he drags down Sebastian (his beautiful dazzling assistant/j) with him on his little journey to achieve resurrection.

IDK WHAT ELSE TO SAY I HAVE SO MUCH MORE BUT THUS POST IS SO MESSY IM CRYING WEEPING THROWING UP IM SORRY GANG..

i feel so cringe posting this,,why…😢

but anyway thank you…more will come…because this shit is my magnum opus ❤️

(‘“I know everything” mfs when i beam the entire secrets of the universe directly into their brain’…my handwriting is SHIT nobody interact…)

[21iskindafunny]

Can we know about your version of yugotalia? :D like personalities and stuff

OMG… a yugotalia ask… I’m flattered… here are the basic characteristics of my versions of the ExYUs

IDEMOOOO!!!!!!

(I’m sorry if any of the personalities don’t seem fleshed out enough, being honest I’m working on a lot of different stuff at once and haven’t ever properly characterised them LOL. To summarise they’re a mix of the canon crumbs of Hetadesigns that Hidekaz once gave, Tixs Ideas and [mostly] how I’ve seen each country/their citizens act.)

Serbia / RS

Obv an Asshole. He has the heart of a fighter(seen on his eye-scar which he gained from Ottoman-times), and takes loss of his precious land horribly (very greedy in that sense!). He’s hated by a lot of countries, but his main enemies in the current days are Croatia and Albania. He can be caring if he gets something worthy in return; nowadays he tries to be a little more western to get closer to that sweet sweet EU money. Huge Ego, and I mean HUGE. Shares the biggest Ego with his Enemies LOL

Croatia / HR

A more westernised asshole. He cares about how he looks, now that he’s in the EU and getting lots of tourism. He can be very charming if needed, but once he’s drunk (or high on coke) he releases his more.. careless side. Of course, he can also be ruthless on purpose, seen when interacting with Countries like Serbia and Bosnia. The "whore"-ist out of the cast.

Bosnia / BiH (I haven’t thought about making Herze honestly… this might change in the future)

Bosnia is quite the paranoid man, having arguably the most annoying neighbours in Europe. He faces a lot of struggles in life (you can guess why), which he often either drinks/smokes away. If he doesn’t turn to alcohol/cigarettes, he likes to draw triangles frantically. Of course, he’s also an asshole, but I think that’s a given for the ExYUs. He can be quite unstable at times.

Montenegro / MNE

Very lazy and tired most of the time. His sleep schedule is questionable, ranging from multiple hours to multiple weeks. When he’s not asleep, he does work on himself! He doesn’t have the success with Tourists like Croatia, which is why he doesn’t work as hard, but manages to do alright for the short hours he’s awake for.

Slovenia / SI

A greedy, but shy guy. He still holds a lot of the influence that Austria had over him long ago, wishful to be as amazing as any Central European country is in his eyes. A bit of a pushover, having been under the reign of others for long, though he is slowly working to get stronger in that sense. He’s the most western out of the ExYUs.

(North) Macedonia / MK

A happy girl, who loves nothing but dancing and drinking. Though when the illusion of optimism is broken, she can be just as much of an asshole as any other ExYU. Similarly to Bosnia, she has a ton of annoying neighbours who (when extremely drunk) claim to rule over her, which causes her to lash out. Despite all of that, she tries her best to once be in the EU (obv for monetary reasons!)

BONUS…… BECAUSE I FELT LIKE IT LOLOLOL

Albania / AL

Cheerful but also a fighter! Serbias Number One Enemy right now. He can be kind, but isn’t afraid to judge anyone who gets in his way. He takes pride in what he has.

Kosova / KS

In a Rough Situation, being annoyed at the constant discourse of whom he belongs to. He’s a free spirit with a huge love for anything US-related.

Vojvodina / VD (i know she isn’t a country LOL)

A lazy princess with a slow way of taking things in life. She lives in Serbias house, with the thought of leaving it roaming her mind, yet never becoming true. She was once a good fighter.

[siriannatan]

Possibly the weirdest mash-up AU ever. Or not? - ScWhip

I have no explanation for where this came to my brain from. It just appeared and now it's here :}

Hope you like it

AO3

Finding the Supreme Witch, just passed out in the middle of the woods was not on fWhip's list of things to do tonight. To be honest his only plan was to go to a nearby village and have a meal so he could spend the next month without leaving his manor. "What am I to do with you?" he spun his umbrella as he wondered. Little Mister Supreme was not breathing and his heart wasn't beating but fWhip was a vampire long enough to recognise fellow undead with ease. But even if the scrawny witch-boy was not capable of dying he was not about to just leave him passed out in the middle of a monster-infested forest.

So with some trouble due to his umbrella being still needed, he picked up the Supreme and turned back to his mansion. The villagers were paranoid enough with just a vampire around. Luckily he still had a few days to get his blood supply up before there would be any trouble. The village being so far that he needed to leave before sunset was the bigger problem than feeding itself. Or even the most powerful currently existing witch. 

No. Scrawny little witch man was more of an opportunity. Having someone with this much power and influence could be great for fWhip if he ever got in trouble with witches. Or if he ever needed something from a witch. Or the Supreme himself even. All good things for fWhip but he still could not help himself but wonder - what was the Supreme doing so far from the Witch Lands? fWhip heard of no issues anywhere near him but it wasn't like he paid it all that much attention. Maybe he could get it out the supreme over some tea.

fWhip was glad he had his tea garden, especially in situations like this. The howling half-fish man from the lake was possibly the most frequent visitor he got. But he was noisy and came over during the day. fWhip would rather spend that time napping or reading. And he wasn't even half as cute as the Supreme With turned out to be when relieved of his muddy cloak and put on a free bed in fWhip's manor. He had spare bedrooms only. Guest bedrooms invited annoyances like a certain wither to try and stay with him. fWhip liked his peace and quiet disturbed only by his own explosions. 

But back to the cute little witch he found. None of the stories he's heard about him mentioned he was a boney, pale little thing with fluffy dark hair. All the stories said was that he was a powerful necromancer and a monster. Not that monsters had to be ugly. fWhip has been called a monster on multiple occasions and would not call himself ugly. Quite contrary actually. But no amount of pretty could help him get the witch awake. fWhip knew precious little about medicine. Mostly just enough to take care of anyone he fed on and did not want to kill. 

All he could do was get the kettle going and wait. At least he did not have to wait for all that long. The sun has just about almost set when the Supreme showed the first signs of waking up. fWhip calmly took one last sip of his blood-rose tea - he could drink it well enough but it did not satiate his hunger well enough - and gave his guest a chance to gather himself. He set it with maybe a bit more noise than necessary to announce his presence.

"Who are you? Where am I?" the Supreme asked while pulling out staff from nowhere.

"I'm count fWhip," fWhip introduced himself with as much of a bow as he could muster without getting up. "We're in my mansion," he added with a toothy grin. The best way to announce one is a vampire in his experience. Saved him the disbelief and doubt that led to his fangs being flashed anyway. "I found you passed out in the woods. Not the safest place," he added before it was asked. "I have more tea if you're interested.

Scott had no idea if he was actually awake. Since when could vampires have tea without spitting it out? Just who or what was this count fWhip? Or what weird herb was he using in his teas. "Only if you first tell me exactly what goes into this mysterious tea. As far as I know, all vampires can eat or drink is blood," if the competition for the Supreme title taught him anything it was that there was no such thing as being too careful.  No matter how handsome someone was. And fWhip was unfairly handsome... Scott was a busy witch even if his original goal failed miserably. There were things he had to do that didn't have to do with handsome vampires and their weird tea.

"Of course. I grow all my tea myself and the one I'm drinking is a special Blood Rose blend..."

He barely paid any attention to what fWhip was saying. The flashing fangs were more than slightly distracting. And the unfortunately still present there even if Scott was a lich hunger started to make itself known. Wasn't the point of being dead that annoying things like that would be gone? It wasn't. And fWhip was asking something and Scott just said 'yes' because why would he say not to an attractive man. And now he was getting up and Scott was lost and confused and could only say 'heh?' when fWhip extended a hand to him.

"You said it's okay if I show you my tea garden," fWhip chuckled and it took a lot of Scott's willpower to not giggle like he was never in love before.

"I was just wondering where my coat went..." he tried to defend himself as fWhip helped him off the bed. It was a good thing he had no blood and could not blush.

"Oh, it was all muddy and wet so I set it aside to clean later if... if you'd stay long enough for that," fWhip explained as Scott fixed his robes. He was the Supreme Witch and so far did not act like it. "The name's Scott, I'm the new Supreme witch, umm. Thank you for not just leaving me..."

"It'd be a bad look on the area if I just let the local monsters rip our cute Supreme Witch to pieces," fWhip chuckled and offered Scott an arm.

Scott was fully aware vampires tended to be charismatic and smooth bastards. If one lived long enough one could master anything. What he forgot they could also do with that time was collect things. And in fWhip's case that resulted in a library that rivalled Scott's newly acquired along his tile library. It took one whole floor of his manor that was by no means small. And yes it was mostly alchemy and tinkering and not much on magic, especially necromancy but Scott could appreciate a good collection.

And fWhip's 'garden' was no less impressive. Scott was pretty sure he spotted a few herbs witches called extinct as he was given a tour of different flowers fWhip made into teas to not die of boredom and not be a bad host. He was an actual count and had the up bring to go with the title. What made Scott feel rather self-conscious when he was served dinner - he didn't really think who made it - the title of the Supreme Witch did not come with a lesson on table manners.

"If I might ask, what is the Supreme Witch doing this far from the Witch Lands?" fWhip asked while swirling what had to be blood - Scott dealt with it enough to recognise it - inside a decorative crystal goblet.

Scott had no idea how to say he had no idea what to do with himself. The title of the Supreme basically meant he was the most powerful witch currently ali... existing and that he inherited all the possessions of the previous Supreme Witches. Most notably the key to the giant library between dimensions. All that library allowed him to do was summon Milo's spirit and be told to move on and not bring him back. So now Scott was a lich with nothing to do, told by his dead lover to move on and be happy. He couldn't tell fWhip that.

"Well, I..." Scott was about to say something cool but... He could not bring himself to lie. fWhip was nice to him and even fed him a good meal and... Scott could swear that for just a second he could see a spirit of Milo shaking his head. But he was probably just seeing things. "Well, it's a long story."

"I believe we have a lot of time ahead of us. I certainly do not mind sacrificing some of it to a story," fWhip offered along another grin that almost had Scott's heart beating. 

Almost. "You'll be the death of me with these," Scott chuckled. Maybe he could try and listen to Milo and move on. Or at least try to.

"I'm pretty sure we've both already done that," fWhip chuckled and Scott groaned. What did he get himself involved with?

[hazbinextgeneration]

Demon Bride Ch14 Of Reading And Memories

(DISCLAIMERS AND IMPORTANT INFO!!!: EVERYONE in this story is in their early 20s-30s! This story will contain mentions of past abuse and death! I'll be keeping it as SFW. Some backstories have been slightly altered for this particular story, and some characters cannonically dead or harmed is alive and well. I own nothing.

Credit to @flanelltees​ for the designs I based the demons off to look more demon-like with tails and pointed ears.

This story will be sfw, but there will be some blood, implied death, fighting, some gore mentioned, and a few other things that will be made aware by warnings. Pay attention to warnings at the top of any chapters just under the summery please.)

Once in the mountain villages it was a custom that once a year on the night of the new year's first moon, an unlucky young lady would be selected and left for the demons to become one of the unlucky few who married such a husband. In exchange for this offering the demons would protect the villages and leave the humans in peace. Until one day a powerful warrior drove the demons away freeing the humans of them. Now 2,000 years later, it's become a tradition that once a year, a new young lady would be picked and wait for her future husband to retrieve her from a shrine in the mountains. And now the lucky tradition would fall upon Y/n L/n. It would be her own turn to take on the tradition and not have to worry about demons. After all that part of the old tradition was just fake, made up by paranoid ancestors. Everyone knew demons didn't exist.

...Right

(WARNINGS!!!:Mentioning of reader's injuries also reader gets a papercut and a little bit of blood is shown, also mentioning of past abuse, death, killing, and past abusive homes considering the Spider Family. Kyogai does have a garden, it looks something like the picture linked below only a bit bigger. Also spider family is Rui's actual family for this au.)

First Part Here:

Demon Bride Ch 1 Thus It Begins

(WARNINGS AND DISCLAIMERS!!! EVERYONE in this story is in their early 20s-30s! This story will contain mentions of past abuse and death! I'l

TUMBLR

Last Part Here:

Next Part HERE:

(SMALL UPDATE: Yeah. I realize this chapter is pretty later than most but irl stuff is happening that's making it a bit harder for me to get these out quick so chapters will be coming out much later. So here's what I'll be doing. I'll be writing a handful of chapters and them post them in a small bundle. Thanks everyone for their patience.

5699352924_5b8548d946_o)

"But it's strange Enmu would mention flowers." 

Your head briefly turned to the door as you heard Kaigaku's angry voice yell some kind of profanity you couldn't quite make out from down the halls before looking back to Kyogai. "Why would it be strange that excuse of man would mention flowers?"

You didn't think it was that strange this Enmu person would complain about the women around here wearing perfume. Yes it was a bit rude but everyone had different opinions on it. You yourself thought some perfumes were too strong which was why you never wore any...Aside from the fact that you were literally too poor to ever buy even the cheapest of perfumes. Plus there was mostly women servants here. Of course ladies were going to wear make up. But Kyogai only rose a confused brow in general.

"None of my servants wear perfume. In fact it's banned."

"Wait. Seriously?"

He nodded. "The scent attracts troublemakers to my home too often, and to be honest, it clogs my sense of smell which can be dangerous if an emergency were to arise. And I hate the thought of it! Perfume is no substitute for a good bath with soap!"

Well you kind of agreed with him on that part. "Then why would he mention perfume?"

Kyogai just waved you off casually. "Eh. Enmu spends a lot of time managing a train. Many humans and demons alike use it for travel, and many of them are women. He must have smelt it so many times, it's been ingrained within his insanity." With a gentle hand he patted your shoulder before standing back up. "Either way, we know what is wrong, and fortunately it is not as serious as I feared." He smiled at you happily. "You'll be able to walk again with no long term damage."

"Yes.." You slowly looked up at with a deep frown. "But now I'm expected to stay here for an entire extra month!?"

Kyogai blinked before giving a guilted look and clearing his throat. "W-Well...I mean-..You were planning on staying until this month is over and when mating season ends anyways."

"Yes. But that would've been just two weeks minimum, Kyogai. But now that man says I HAVE to stay for an extra three weeks!? Is that even needed!? You yourself said he's crazy."

"Enmu IS crazy," Kyogai clarified holding up his hands, "But he is mad in an annoying and perverse way. He is not crazy in a literal insanity seeing things that aren't really there way, no matter how much that seems to be the case. I do not usually take his words seriously but...I was not lying when I said he's very wise in medicine. If he says it's best for your health to stay here longer-..." He sighed. "Then I'm afraid it is out of my hands, and you have heard him. He will not return for a month's time, so he won't be able to give you another check up until then. You will have to wait, Y/n."

Your stomach and expression dropped. You'd have to spend an ENTIRE MONTH just-...Sitting down in a chair for days on end doing nothing!? By gods you'll go stir crazy! There was literally nothing you'd be able to do then! No walking around, no seeing others, no going outside- Just you being stuck again! ...At least your leg won't be stuck inside of a bucket of cold water anymore. That was the most annoying part of this entire ordeal. With the glass jar Enmu handed him in one hand, Kyogai excused himself out of the room with the excuse of making sure Kaigaku didn't try to start a fight with Enmu and making sure the small man didn't try anymore of his tricks. But he made sure to send Eri back to you as soon as she was finished cleaning the spilt bucket of water, and she seemed fairly concerned about your wellbeing as well. Fretting and looking almost panicked when she came running in. All four eyes blown wide open in concern.

"Mistress Y/n!," she practically broke more of your bones in her grip as two hands grabbed your shoulders and another pair grabbed your cheeks. "Are you ok?! Lord Enmu didn't do anything to you did he!? I'm so sorry I wasn't able to help you more."

You practically had to shove Eri off you before she released your poor body. "I'm FINE!," you stressed with a hiss from your sore cheeks, "And I don't get why everyone's so worried about him seeing me. Isn't he supposed to be a doctor?"

"Well...yes. But Lord Enmu's known for being a pervert despite actually knowing about human medicine."

You ended up staring at her for a solid ten seconds. "...WHAT!?"

"Yes. I'm surprised you didn't know."

"HOW was I supposed to know that!?"

"....Ooooh. Oh right. I keep forgetting you're not from around here, so you actually wouldn't know about him."

You face palmed after that.

Well what now? The same things as always, starting the very next day. Minus the constant buckets of water, you found yourself starting to get bored just sitting and talking to Eri all day. As much fun as it was to talk to Eri no matter how delightful she was, you were really starting to feel very bad stir crazy. But you did get some break from it when you read the thick book of stories both to yourself and out loud to Eri. You hadn't gotten much chance to read a lot of stories growing up despite your grandmother teaching you how to read and write from a young age and having a small (barely qualified-) library in your small village, being too busy with many things. Taking care of your elderly grandmother and barely qualified small farm, and of course working your way through that debt that always loomed over your head.  So you didn't have much time for such things growing up, but now you guessed was a good enough time to do so. Your foot also felt better and better slowly day by day as January slowly started coming to a close until later when out of curiosity you asked Eri, and she confirmed that January would be over in another three days. My. How time flew. But one good thing would come from that at least you wouldn't have to worry about anymore irrational men bothering you-

SLAM!!!

The book you were holding fell from your hands startled from the sliding door to a room being slammed open with enough force to rattle the doorway and make the sound echo out into the hallway. Luckily Eri wasn't here at the moment, otherwise she would've most likely fallen onto you from peering over your shoulder at the book like she usually did, and toppled the both of you over.

"SOMEONE GET ME SOME DAM FOOD!!," an angry voice raged from the hallway just outside your door making you snap your head to it, "AND THEN LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!! I DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED!!"

Speaking of irrational men-

There was a few stomps followed by a yet another equally as loud slamming noise signaling a door had been slammed closed. Ah. Right. You forgot that Kaigaku's room was literally right across from yours, so you'd be able to hear any yelling and raving he decided to do. Great. His muttering was so loud you could faintly hear his mumbling through both your doors, so either his voice was always very loud or these walls were very thin. Sigh. Oh well. You just had to remember.

This wasn't permanent. 

Sure. You might have to stay here for a little longer than you wanted to, but in the end you'll be out of here still. It was only a matter of time, and as much as that Enmu man was strange, he was also right. It wouldn't be good on your ankle if you pushed yourself too much or too hard so soon. It would be better to lie low and just let your ankle heal for now-

"DAM IT!! WHERE'S MY SWORD POLISH!?''

  You glanced back towards the door with a deadpanned face.

Yes. It was temporary but it would surely be a llooooonngg month ahead of you. But surely you'll be able to withstand him for the time being. Surely-

"My lady, will you please tell me again why you're insisting on carrying on like this? I must look ridiculous I must say."

"Because I want some fresh air for once! And Kaigaku's yells are getting on my nerves!''

That's it! You've had it! YOU COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! Kaigaku has been here for most of this week! How did you know if you rarely ever left your room? Simple enough. You heard him. Did that numbskull ever sleep!? You swore it was like he had a built it inferno that kept him blasting that fiery temper all the time. When you were trying to eat he'd make a sound so loud, you ended up dropping more than one tray over yourself in a startle. Poor Eri had to more than once take you to the women's bath for an emergency clean because you'd spill it all over yourself. You had to end up having Eri look to see if Kaigaku was nearby before you ate anything in order to make sure you wouldn't end up accidentally spilling it on yourself. Not to mention the inconvenient times he kept you up in the middle of the night AND day! Whenever you tried to sleep he'd be awake for so long it'd take forever before you could actually fall asleep. He'd wake up so early that you couldn't even sleep in before Eri fetched you for breakfast. You had asked Eri if maybe Kyogai could talk to Kaigaku and make him quiet it down, but unfortunately it seemed the odds were against you.

"I can try- I mean..Lord Kyogai can try, but with Lord Kaigaku being of higher rank, he doesn't have to listen to my lord. So even if he did tell him to be silent, he most likely wouldn't."

There goes that hope. Sigh. Well you couldn't take it anymore! You NEEDED some form of peace and quiet. Even if you had to have Eri carry you to get it! You rather quickly learnt there was a garden area within the back of the mansion, fenced off of course to the rest of the forest so no outsiders could get in, but a garden nonetheless. It sounded perfect! So you asked Eri about it and she confirmed it was in fact a real garden and that it was open to all the in the mansion which included you! Wonderful! With Kaigaku being angry around the mansion, then maybe you'd get SOME kind of peace and quiet outside. So early one morning, you took Eri aside and talked her into (forced her-) to agree to take you to the garden that very morning. She of course was against the idea but in the end you convinced her (otherwise you would've crawled there yourself. Which lead to the now, with Eri bridal carrying you towards a section of the mansion you haven't seen before. Some other passing servants gave you a brief glance but it seems everyone had gotten used to your presence because most just ignored Eri, going around on their own merry way with whatever work they were tasked with. 

 "Well if you ask me, it's a bit troubling. What if you trip?"

"What's so bad about going outside? Fresh air is good for you," you countered back holding up your hand, "It's also more peaceful outside and less stress would be good for me too." You gripped onto the large book harder as Eri nimbly squeezed past someone nearly making you lose grip onto the large thing. You hadn't yet finished it due to the amount of times you fell asleep awkwardly on the chair due to Kaigaku keeping you up at random hours of the night. You were feeling alright today, so maybe you'd be able to actually start reading it again. The stories were actually starting to get really good! "It's actually better than having me just sit in that stuffy room all day."

Eri hummed in thought while walking. "You're not wrong. It would be good on your weaker body to avoid stress until Lord Enmu arrives back."

You decided not to be offended by her words and just be glad you convinced her of something nice. What felt like forever of Eri walking was only in reality maybe another five or six minutes before she stopped in front of a rather unusual large sliding door which made you raise a brow upon first seeing it. It was much larger than all the other sliding doors you've seen and heavier, but you didn't get to question Eri about it as she just reached one of her many hands over to it and with a small noise, it began to just slide open until the both of you were exposed to a wave of warm air washing over the both of you. The likes of which you hadn't felt in quite a few days, the feeling of warm air suddenly blowing over your body, as well as the sudden flash of light everywhere made your body shiver and your eyes close for only a moment, hand raised up to block out that light in a failed attempt. Your natural instincts made you blink away the brought splotches and dots of light until f/c eyes were able to get used to said warm light, allowing them to see what was in front of them. And you let your eyes wonder in awe at the sight in front of you. 

It was a garden.

A very well, very beautiful, very peaceful looking garden.

It was bigger than you expected, but also a lot smaller than you thought a rich demon such as Kyogai would have. Beautifully green grass was trimmed very neatly, and looked soft enough to use as a bed in it's own right, stretching along the outside of the house until it stopped right next to a line of rocks which separated the garden into two sections. Within the grassy section was a beautiful small stream just big enough to be considered one which lead to a pond about the size of your old one room home. The clear blue water sparkled as the sunlight reflected off it's surface, and reflections of the not-yet blooming flower bushes surrounding the pond beamed at themselves. You were sure the sight would be even more beautiful when the bushes eventually bloomed later once they fully wakened from the long cold. Eri didn't say anything to your reaction but stepped down once from the building and onto the ground below before turning and began walking off towards something. You on the other hand kept looking around. There was a small red bridge stationed over the small stream for everyone who didn't feel like jumping over the small stream, and the entire garden was surrounded by a thick brick wall so high that it might've been bigger than the mansion's walls themselves, and on top of those were metal spikes jutting up from the top. Strange, but maybe that was for any intruders trying to scale the wall. A small line of rocks devided the garden in two sections. One being the showy garden Eri was carrying you through, and the other looked more like an actual fruit and vegetable garden. Having a few raised beds sticking out from the ground, as well as a few of the men servants using a couple gardening hoes as well as one pulling a plow as a horse or ox would. They were the only ones besides you out here so, out of pure curiosity, you pointed them out to Eri taking a break from your awe. 

"Those men. What are they doing?"

Eri hummed and gave the briefest of glances over her shoulder- "Oh! Them. They are preparing the garden to be used once the air becomes stable warm."

"I had no idea you grew your own food."

"Oh yes. We grow most of what we eat and hunt the rest from the forest, although we do import some things if my Lord wishes it." She finally stopped and you yelped when you were suddenly placed down on what must've been the softest grass you had ever felt in your life and Eri leaned you against something hard but cold feeling. "There you are. You should find this comfortable."

You blinked up at her before twisting your head upwards behind yourself, and saw that you were leaning against a thin but old looking tree. A-...A cherry blossom tree perhaps? But like the flowering bushes, it hadn't bloomed or budded yet. Completely Barran of any usually pretty pink petals. 

"It seems that nothing has blossomed yet."

"I'm not actually sure if this tree will actually bloom this year, My Lady," Eri sighed before leaning back up and crossing all four of her arms, "It is a very old tree I'm afraid and the gardeners were barely able to bring it to life last year as it was. Lord Kyogai's concerned that he might have to end up replacing it. Hopefully with something less messy. The visage is beautiful but raking up all the fallen leaves has it's annoyance, but then again that's usually what the gardener is for. He's usually the one who keeps the garden in keep and in charge of the food growing."

Kyogai has a personal-...No. You shook your head. You shouldn't be surprised by now. If Kyogai was such nobility by demon standards to have not only a giant mansion and servants, then you shouldn't be surprised that he would also have a personal gardener as a part of those servants. But something about what Eri said next made you pause and look at her.

"It's still a bit chilly for a human to be out, so we shouldn't stay out here for too long. I'm also a bit anxious as it's the last day of courting season, that's when some men become more desperate. But you should be safe within the walls of the garden. The spines along it are made of pure nichirin, so no one would dare try to enter even if they were stupid enough to cross a Lord."

"Ah. Yes, today is the last day of January isn't it? Good." At least you wouldn't have to worry about that after today. But now that she brought that up- You took a moment to look over at the few demon men whom still worked. They might've looked up to glance at the two of you, but went back to minding their own business. Like the many lady servants, they also had many inhuman features like insane colored hair, or animal like traits to them, or something as simple as just having a pair of horns on their head. But what caught your attention was that..Well. Was the fact that you didn't catch their attention. Obviously if you pointed out that fact, anyone would've brushed you off because why would they pay attention to you when they had work to do? Or that it could be explained that they had gotten used to a human living temporarily with them for the moment. But you couldn't help but wonder something very obvious to you. "Eri." She hummed and you pointed at the working men. "Who are those men?"

"They are just more servants. Why?"

"How come they aren't acting like the men who chased me in here in the first place?..In fact, how are Kyogai and Kaigaku a-and those others not acting like crazed lunatics?!" That had been something that had been on your mind a bit in the background but it never got to the forefront of your brain until now. "Wouldn't they also try to find a companion?"

Eri blinked before smiling and assuring you with a wave of her hand. "Oh! You need not worry about that! Lord Kyogai would never allow someone like that within his walls. All the men in his servitude are all married to one of the women here, so they have no need to seek something like that." You breathed out a sigh of relief at that small good news. At least something good was happening in your long list of bad fortunes. "And you needn't worry about any of the lords. As far as I know, none are very interested in taking any wives."

You blinked lightly surprised by her words. "Really? Why is that?"

She shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea. They're all too busy serving our Master to think about such things I suppose. The only lord I know who's been married is Lord Hantengu but I haven't heard very much about anything else, and frankly.." She rose a brow at you. "I don't think it is any of our business to know what our lords are up to in their personal lives. They are entitled to their own privacy aren't they?"

Well when Eri put it like that, she did have a solid point. You weren't going to be staying here anyways so you shouldn't dig into these demons' private lives anyways. It didn't concern you and it wasn't any of your business. It would make things easier for everyone to just mind your own business until you were allowed to leave. With a nod you just simply reopened the book to where you thought you left off last, and gestured with one hand next to you on the beautifully cut grass. Eri beamed instantly and obliged immediately sitting down with a small thud. 

"Well then, shall I continue where we left off the other day?"

"Oh yes please! I believe you were reading the story about the human and fell in love with the demon prince!"

"Oh yes! Now where was I?" F/c eyes scanned the paper before catching one sentence. "Here we go."

The music of the giant ballroom gently flowed throughout and between the beautiful decorations wrapped around the walls. The way the candles lit up the surroundings and made the shadows beautifully dance against the walls. The way the smell of delicious food and flowers wafted through the air. The beautiful music mixing with the laughter and talking of the guests around the whole place. It was almost like a dream. Everyone having a great time behind their masked faces, no one telling who they were or maybe that was all part of the game. The fun of not knowing who you were speaking too and being able to be your own person tonight. But maybe she wasn't meant to join the fun and laughter that everyone else seemed to be having. Being maskless and alone wondering the ball was the lonely fate of the girl in the flowing white dress. Blindly walking and circles, moving around. The sounds, the smells, the atmosphere. It was starting to make her dizzy. Everyway she'd turn she would catch a glimpse of a man with beautiful eyes.

Very familiar eyes. Her dizzied mind knew not to be afraid or excited about the way it gazed and pierced her soul. The way he looked at her with those beautiful eyes. Promising only trouble ahead. Well maybe she was looking for trouble, her head was kept on a swivel, always looking around herself in the see of masked laughter. Sometimes she'd catch a glimpse of it or maybe it was just her clouded emotional mind. At this point she didn't know if she was searching for him or trying to ensure she was far from him. But however she put it, the circles and laughter was starting to get dizzier and dizzier. She barely noticed when someone tall and with a mask, bowed to her. Grabbed her hand. And lead her to dance. Maybe it was because she was temporarily blinded by the mask upon his face, or the swirls of the graceful dance they spun. But there was no mistaking those red eyes. Perhaps she was crazy. Perhaps her dizzy mind was clouding any judgement. Maybe she was under some kind of spell from those beautiful eyes. But when those fangs smiled at her-

She smiled back.

January passed by within a blink of an eye and soon the first few days of February began as did your own personal journey of building your strength back up. You had decided then and there that you had wasted enough time just sitting around and had started walking again, but slowly. Your ankle didn't hurt anymore by now but you weren't really ready to start running or jumping just yet, and you wouldn't risk hurting yourself again. But you also reasoned that you had to build strength back in your body specifically your legs if you wanted to continue treading around the mountain again. You'd need it actually. Of course Eri had been against the idea and insisted she could just easily carry you but you refused.

"I can walk perfectly fine by myself. I may not be as strong as you but I'm not weak by any means."

"B-But Lord Enmu said to stay off your legs for a few more weeks-"

"No. He specifically said to not walk on it for another week and to take it easy for a few more weeks after, and I've done exactly what he said. And I won't allow you to carry me anymore, I need to start rebuilding my body's strength."

"But Lord Kyogai told me to specifically look after you until Lord Enmu comes back!," she whined making you sigh.

"You can still look after me! I'm not making you quit. I'm just doing what must be done." 

Eri sighed in relief as she still walked after you making you roll your eyes making your way back towards the garden. It wasn't even the first week into February and it was still a bit nippy outside, but you found yourself wondering back to the garden book under your arm with Eri in tow. You missed the sunshine and the feeling of being outside out of that stuffy room of yours. Kaigaku had also taken off not too long ago so you had gotten at least two nights of good rest thank goodness, but you didn't know when he would be back and start up a fuss again. You hadn't seen much of Kyogai either. Eri had said he'd been rather busy with work and rather not be bothered if it wasn't important. You respected that. Poor guy probably had enough on his plate as it was, he didn't you further troubling him. However that didn't mean you were going to be demon free for too long. One day you went to the garden as usual after Eri had given you breakfast and the both of you had settled down once again by the tree happily able to continue on through the book. By now you had finished it and had read most stories outload to Eri, but you both enjoyed re-reading them together. However. This time. Was different. Because after a while of just sitting there, you had felt eyes on you- Well eyes other than Eri. But when you looked, no one other than Eri was there looking at you. ...Hm. Odd. But oh well. It was probably just your imagination. Or it would've been if the next day the same thing didn't happen again. Again the same feeling came over you and you looked up again not seeing anything at first, before looking to the sliding door leading back inside the mansion. There was a small crack in the door just enough for someone to peek out and you just caught a glimpse of a white blur quickly dashing away from sight. The sight made you blink and stare at where it disappeared from making Eri after a few seconds raise a brow and turn her eyes behind her towards the large sliding door as well. After a few seconds of not seeing anything, she turned back to you confused. 

"What are you staring at?"

Your response was to point at the door. "There was someone spying on us from the door." That response sure got Eri to spin her head right around again. Your brow furrowed. "And I think they were spying on us yesterday as well."

"That's not suspicious at all...Did you see who it was?"

You shook your head no. "No. But whomever they were, they were quick."

Eri hummed and narrowed all four of her eyes at the now vacant door. "...Well don't worry about that too much. I'll certainly take care of it all. "

"What are you planning on doing?"

"Do not worry about that, Mistress. Rest assured that come tomorrow, we will see who's attempting to spy their little eyes on you."

You were not sure what exactly Eri had planned and you were going to have to wait until the next day to find out. The next day did come and when Eri brought you breakfast you asked her about it but all she said was-

"Do not worry about it."

Again the both of you went through the routine of going to the garden and taking up your usual spots- Or at least you did. You were surprised when you saw Eri hanging back in front of the door, deliberately leaving the giant wooden door open a crack on purpose. 

"Eri. What are you doing?"

"Don't worry about it. Just act as if nothing usual is happening and don't draw attention to me," she said before crossing all of her arms and positioning herself in such a way that if anyone stood in front of the crack, she could see them but they couldn't see her leaning against the door-

Oh...OH!! She was planning on a small ambush surprise for your little spier whoever they were.  But there was no guarantee that they would come back again after you caught them the other day, but again you were wrong. Because not even twenty minutes of you sitting there, slightly anxious and pretending to read while taking glances at Eri and the door out of the corners of your eyes, something did happen. Small footsteps approached the door making Eri's ears perk up and make all eyes slowly trail towards the door, eyes narrowing. The small pitter patter of footsteps slowly making their way across from the other side of the door and Eri's head slowly followed them until the figure they belonged too stopped just outside the door one step away from the crack she deliberately left open. Anyone could literally peek out and see the outside if they really wanted to, and anyone with half a brain could see this was obviously a trap to catch the peeping person, but she guessed whoever this was wasn't too smart because she clearly saw someone as pale as snow step towards the crack. And that's when you heard it as clear as day-

S L A M!!!

The sound of a very heavy and hard door being slammed open with the force of ten grown men easily followed by the sounds of two high pitched screams. The screaming made you jump, the book tumbling from your hands and onto the grass below with a soft thud. The screams also made the few male servants working the garden pause in their work and turn their gazes over towards the direction of where they came from.

"So it's YOU TWO!!" You blinked and finally looked over to where the voices were coming from. Eri was standing in the doorway, back to you and hands on her hips glaring downwards at-..at..something as she spoke. "What in the Master's name do you think you're doing!?" She demanded at something. "Skulking around and spying on someone like a burglar! Didn't your mother teach either of you any manners at all!?"

....You stood up and began walking towards Eri.

"My lady is still recovering from a traumatic incident! She doesn't need to be bothered, and she absolutely doesn't need to be stalked by two little troublemakers-"

"Eri!" Said demon turned her head to you as you approached. "What's going..."

Your words died on your tongue as your vision caught ahold of a rather peculiar sight, and your eyes widened. There were two children in front of both of you!! But they weren't...human children. They didn't look human at all. Both of them looked to be no older than maybe twelve or thirteen years of age at the most, and each of them were as pale white as snow. All the way through, from their hair all the way down to their feet. The only parts of their bodies that weren't snow white you saw was their eyes which were more of a dull gray and their nails as they held one another tightly, their nails were a strange greenish-grey in coloring. Even their kimonos were almost all white in coloring. But perhaps the strangest feature about them were the red dots dotting their bodies. Both children had them, but each one had a different pattern to them. Odd. They also had slightly different hairstyles. If it weren't for the different hairstyles and red dot patterns, they'd probably be an exact mirror copy of one another. But that wasn't the worst thing about the situation. Both girls were cowering, holding one another, and shaking lightly in fear- And not regular fear. Not slightly scared like how a child would be if their mother caught them with their hand in a cookie jar, more as if they were absolutely terrified at the mere sight of you two staring at them. It's what made you pause in the first place. Stunning you with such an extreme emotion on their faces. Although...Oddly....They somehow looked familiar to you. There was a small pause in silence as the four of you stared at each other until you looked back at Eri.

"Eri...Who are these people?"

Eri blinked before shaking her head and frowning back down at the girls. "They are refuges from farther into the mountains. They came to stay with us just a little before you showed up, but I didn't expect them to be lurking around the corner spying on us!" Both flinched at her harsh to-

"Eri, stop it! You're scaring them!," your voice spoke in such a firm tone that it actually caught the other woman off guard from your frown and narrowed eyes. 

"I-..W-What?"

"I said you're scaring them. Look!" You gestured a hand at them. "They're trembling more than a hairless bear in winter! You're obviously frightening them with your tone, so be silent." Eri opened her mouth at you-...but closed it when you ignored her in favor of the two children in front of you. Their expressions didn't change even when you smiled at them. "Hello there." You spoke in the calmest, gentlest voice you could muster before kneeling, slowly as to not startle them further. "So you two were the ones watching me? If you just wanted to say hi to me you didn't have to hide." You smiled wider. "I don't bite."

The two's expression still didn't change from that seemingly permanent frightened look which made you frown a bit. Did Eri scare them that badly? Yes, she was a bit harsh but you didn't think her scolding was that harsh all things considering. ...Wait. A sudden thought crossed your mind. Eri mentioned before that not all demons spoke or understood the human language. Could it be possible that these two didn't either?

"....Eri," you turned your head to her, "Ask them why they were watching us."

She scoffed. "I just did-"

"I mean in a way they can understand." ...She rose a brow at you. "You mentioned some of your kind can't speak human language right? Like how you can't read it." You pointed at them. "We've been speaking my tongue, but maybe they can't understand what we're talking about."

It was like someone literally slapped Eri across the face with reality because the face she gave you was one of stupor before she responded again. "O-Oh. Oh! Right. T-That's possible. Allow me. *ahem*" 

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath-...You blinked as what you could only describe as a high pitched whine left her throat followed by a series of grunt noises and ended in some kind of blunt gurgle. ...Was that seriously supposed to be another language? But to your surprise, one of the girls did respond. The one who had bangs responded in a series of clacking noises from repeatedly snapping her teeth together although it was a bit shaky from the fact that her body still trembled from fear. 

"What did she say?", you asked giving Eri a look.

Eri's expression changed from annoyed to lightly surprised slowly raising a brow. "She said they heard you reading telling stories and wanted to listen. Hmph. If you ask me, they could've just asked you instead of acting like a pair of spies. Aren't spiders supposed to be the ones who're supposed to trap others?"

"Really now?" You decided to ignore Eri's other comments and smile at the two again. "If that's the case, then I'd be happy to read to you too if that's what you both really want." You guessed they must've did understand you on some level because both gave you a look of surprise at the blatant offer. "But Eri is right. If you wanted to just listen, you could've just asked me. Don't go around spying on people. Where are your parents?"

"Here!"

The sudden raspy voice had Eri jumping and the lot of you turning your heads in unison- HISS!! You yelped and practically threw yourself backwards in instinct as a large white figure came stomping up towards you, and you had to blink in order to register what it was. A rather tall woman was suddenly kneeling before you and...She looked EXACTLY like the two children! White as snow, dull gray eyes, murky green colored nails, and strangest of all those weird red dot patterns. She looked like an exact mirror copy of the children, except for the fact that she was obviously older (if you had to guess she looked somewhere around her late thirties) and had longer hair and the red dot patterns on her body was different than the two children's. She made a deep hissing noise grabbing one of the children by the shoulders and chittering away with strange sounds that only a demon could make-

"M-M-M-My lord!!" You blinked again as Eri immediately bowed and you blinked looking over at her before looking forward to stare at what she was bowing at.

....Uh oh-

You spotted a pair of legs and followed them upwards towards a..Drum? And just above the drum was a pair of blue and red narrowed eyes staring down at you with a highly unimpressed look on his face. He didn't look very delighted seeing you sitting there. Uh oh. Were you in trouble.

"I might be a little slow on everything that happens here, but I'm not blind enough to see what's in front of me. So let me ask you all a question. WHY is the human sitting in the middle of the hallway and not in her room recovering!?," he demanded snapping his gaze to Eri who flinched.

"Don't yell at her!" He seemed very surprised when you immediately stood up and frowned at him, crossing your arms. 

"Y-Y/n! Y-You're leg-"

"Is just FINE!,'' you finished for him making him be quiet for a moment, "It doesn't hurt and I can walk on it fine! And it was my idea to go into the garden, so don't yell at Eri when it was my idea. She's been taking care of me just fine thank you very much."

"I-I-.."He opened his mouth-..then closed it with a sigh and a hand reaching up to rub at his face. "Me. These things always have to happen to me. Don't they?...Why were you in the garden?" His eyes stared tiredly at you from his hand. 

"Because I'm tired of just sitting on a chair inside a mostly empty room all day only to do the same thing over again the next day. It's tiresome, and being outside has more benefits for my health anyways. Let's face it, Kyogai. My leg won't regain it's strength back if I don't use it."

"What were you even doing in the garden?"

"I was telling Eri stories?"

He looked surprised. "Wha-..Stories?" You nodded and he hummed. "That is...A rather unusual way to pass the time, but I suppose human stories would be quite entertaining to her."

"They're not human stories, I was reading them from a book we found."

Another flash this time of shock as he stopped and uncharacteristically stared at you silently. "...Did you just say that..You were reading stories from a book? You found?"

you nodded before turning to Eri and asking her to get it for you. Said demon lady looked up from her nervous bow to the shocked Kyogai then to you then back to Kyogai before just turning and running off back into the garden. A few seconds later she returned with the giant, thickly papered book in her hands and handed it into your outstretched hands before you held it up in full view of Kyogai to see. He froze, eyes going comically wide at the object in your hands. He seemed to be in absolute shock for a moment before his hands reached up in a half grabbing motion towards the book before again pausing, looking at you, opening and closing his mouth, before just staring at you further still in seeming shock.

"I-....W-W-Where did you find this!?," he demanded in a half shocked half lightly angry tone.

"One of your servants found while cleaning and gave me it to read," you answered without saying it was Nagi who actually gave it to you. Maybe it'd spare her some trouble. "It's been really entertaining so far. I like the stories written in it."

"You DO?!"

You nodded again smiling back down towards the children and their mother gently. "These two just wanted to listen to me reading it. If their mother allows it, then they can come by tomorrow and I'll gladly read to them."

"I-...Y-You..." He still seemed to be dumbfounded staring at you unbelievingly. "....You really like it?"

"Um..Yes. Are you alright?"

He opened his mouth..but closed it before quickly turning with a cough. "Fine then. You all may continue to d-do what you were, but w-when you're finished with that book I want YOU personally to return it to me." He waved a hand behind him as he somewhat quickly left making some kind of teeth clattering noise with his teeth.

"...What did he say at the end there?," you asked turning to Eri who shrugged.

"He was telling the mother to keep a closer eye on her daughters." She raised an eyebrow at said mother and children whom were semi-fretting over one another. She sighed. "Those two are always wondering off from her, so Lord Kyogai must've been helping her find them...Again."

"Oh." You watched Kyogai until he quickly disappeared around a corner. What was that about? Before you turned to the mother ignoring you in favor of her children. "..Who is she anyways?"

Another sigh. "The children's mother and another survivor."

"What are they even hiding from?"

"A month or two ago, there was battle between some family clans deeper in the mountains. Very bloody or so I was told." Eri shrugged. "I wasn't told much of what happened. The woman and her children-" She gestured one of her four hands at the mother who was now seeming to scold said girls and tugging on their clothes to get them to move. "-from what I understand, did not come from the kindest family and took the chance to flee here."

Eri's sentence made your f/c eyes widen and look back to the poor frantic woman and the two children whom had at least stopped trembling for now. "T-...T-That's horrible!"

Eri just bluntly nodded. "You should've seen when she first arrived here. She practically threw herself at Lord Kyogai's feet and wouldn't let go of him until he agreed to take her in."

"What's going to happen to them?"

"Well, they could remain here and work as it's safe, but our Master already made arrangements for them to be sent to work in Lord Douma's estate once it's reconstruction is finished."

"....Who and what?" You rose a brow.

"Lord Douma is one of the most powerful Lords of our lands, he's responsible for convincing most of the humans in my Master's lands to move to his ever growing provinces, but lately he's gotten an increase of followers moving to his estate, thus it must go under construction to be able to accommodate the influx in humans."

A flash of something crossed your face. "Wait. Isn't that the same man you mentioned your parents might've tried to marry you off to?"

She nodded with a grimace. "Yes, but I'm lucky given my circumstances. However more humans and a bigger estate will mean more servants appointed to him. The mother and her children are to be transferred from Lord Kyogai's servitude to Lord Douma's once the estate has been settled. Although I can't say I envy their positions."

"Is it that bad?"

"In some ways, many people consider Lord Douma worse than Lord Enmu and I'll keep it as that. ...Although there will be benefits to living there. Only a truly stupid man would risk trying to bring any harm to such an important place that's so heavily guarded. I'd hate to say it, but his Eternal Paradise Estate has better security than the Tsuzumi Mansion."

"When will they be going?"

"I do not know. I just know that Lord Akaza will the one who will be coming to escort them to his residence. Do not worry. Lord Akaza's very gentle to women."

That didn't make you feel better but this didn't concern you nor was there anything you could do about it, besides you wouldn't be here for too long anyways. The next day rolled around, and you found yourself again wondering to the garden with Eri behind you, but you were lightly surprised when you received three little visitors not ten minutes after sitting down. Two little children walking out the door and their mother heavily reluctantly following behind. It took Eri literally translating back and forth between herself and you to explain to her what exactly was going on. In the end, the mother still seemed very reluctant but ended up just sitting close to the children whom happily sat down near you but shot weary looks at Eri. Understandable after the scare she gave them yesterday. But the worries seemed to melt away as soon as you opened the book to the first page and started rereading the first story out loud to them. 

The thistles sent sweet kisses to the wind as midnight's blessing graced the world closely when the sun sets down for a long rest as her sister, the moon, takes her place. Shining her own light down on the world full of darkness, filling the abyss full of life of creatures who shun away the day's gifts-

It was a sweet few hours watching the widened awe on the children's faces and their mother's curious head tilts, but she seemed content to have her children finally in one place. Story after story you slowly read outload to them, once and a while Eri would chitter something and you assumed it was her translating something they didn't understand because they looked to her when she spoke before turning back to you without saying anything else. Then it happened. You were just turning a page when a small spike of pain pinched the tip of your finger making you wince and look at it.

"Ow!" You paused in your page turning to look at your finger as a small droplet of red appeared. ...And you frowned annoyed. "Great. I have a papercut." 

"Oh! Wait here." Eri was already getting up to point at the door. "I have an ointment that'll heal it right up."

"A papercut's not that big of a deal, Eri."

"Maybe not, but it gives me something to do other than repeatedly translate for you, and I haven't really done anything remotely interesting since you gave Lord Enmu that thrashing."

Well you suppose she did have a point, she must've been as bored as you with the repetitiveness of everything. So you let her go before turning back to the children, one of which (the one with the bangs) pointed at your hand and have a cat-ish like noise in question but you waved her off.

"It's just a papercut, so don't worry. I'll be fine. Let's just continue the story while we wait for Eri, she's already heard this one anyways."

You continued on reading for the next few minutes, ignoring the light sting of your papercut. Stupid paper! Too concentrated on reading to the small snow colored demon family. Hm. Perhaps that was why you never noticed the other figure approaching until the girls squealed out in fright suddenly and you looked up just as a black nailed hand snatched up your wrist and two blue and black eyes pierced into your purple ones.

"You...Your blood...It smells of peach blossoms....I like that."

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver says that he can't lie in his Sonic Channel intro story, I don't know if I agree that he's supposed to be gullible since he's been shown to be both paranoid and perceptive at times and even the specifics of Mephiles deceiving him and Blaze have been debated. Outside of comics no one has tried to deceive him since the Rivals games so I can't say for certain.

In '06, while I think a large part of Silver's actions can be explained by his desperation about the world being destroyed and his frustration about Iblis being undefeatable, I do feel that he simply is gullible there. A complete stranger shows up and rattles about chickens and eggs and origins, and what he says checks out and provides Silver the exact solution he's been looking for! And Mephiles furthermore never tells Silver any actual lies or direct misinformation! But Silver is not shown to question anything about Mephiles' motives, why he only shows up now, why he is interested in saving the world, and why he suddenly disappears when Silver and Blaze are sent to the past to strangely reappear later and not even offer them more help. And to me, that does indicate a sense of naivete and gullibility. It's what I described in this post as well: the way I interpret is is that Silver is so honest and straight-laced and direct, he expects everyone else to be the same, for no other reason than that he is and he wants the world to be just and fair. Because he wants to save the world and undo Iblis, he expects Mephiles to share those exact same desires, just simply... because. Because it's the right thing, for him, and his line of reasoning at that point in '06 seems to be that if he thinks it is right, it is right. And that comes off as naive and not at all grounded in reality to me.

As for whether Silver is gullible in Rivals 1 and 2, I'd say a little bit yes and a lot more no than in '06. I've remarked before that Silver in the Rivals games can definitely be shrewd: he deduced correctly that "Eggman" was actually Eggman Nega based on context clues, paying good attention to what got actually said, and "Eggman's" own strange behaviours that were too familiar to the Nega he knows. He does let "Eggman" goad him into unnecessary fights with the promise that he'll be given answers if he defeats his opponents, which is then not fulfilled when he wins. But, well, the entirety of both Rivals games is built around that premise, so it wouldn't be fair to blame solely Silver for it if the manner of excuses used to start fights is nothing much deeper than "Rouge tripped Shadow", lol. So for Rivals, Silver seems to be less gullible, but his straighforward honesty mindset is definitely still present. He enters agreements with people (heroes and villains alike) who promise him information if he can fulfil their requirements multiple times despite nothing ever coming from it, and a simple "I believe you" from Espio with no further clarification for this change of heart is enough for Silver to immediately suggest a team-up despite the earlier antagonising between them. So not outright gullible and definitely more on top of the facts than in '06, but still not giving some of the situations he's in the thinking-over they require, I see it as.

The only two attempts of someone trying to 'deceive' Silver in the more recent 2010s that I can think of are Sonic in Generations where Silver states he thinks Sonic might be an imposter trying to get the Chaos Emerald, and Infinite in Forces waxing about crushing heroes and hopelessness. The former is solved easily enough with a battle ending in Sonic's favour, the latter is shot down by Silver accusing Infinite of lying and going on to the attack. But I quite like how Sonic Channel says that Silver cannot lie in his story (I believe he even specifically says it himself, right?); it aligns very well with his honest mindset, in my opinion! But overall, I figure Silver has actually become less gullible over the course of the games; he's a lot less trusting of whatever Eggman tells him in TSR and goes to his friends for help immediately after gathering information. So I do think he's come a long way from that specific bit of characterisation in '06!

[druckkugelschreiber]

If you're accepting prompts, I would like to submit

well, getting there is one thing. getting back's the problem.

For dealer's choice of fandom/ship

Hello yes! Thank you so much for sending this! I am accepting prompts. Tbh I am always accepting prompts.

Here is the link if anyone is curious.

This also has been what feels like ages sitting in my inbox, but looking at the date it wasn't that long. I just had the writing finished for a while and it got wildly out of hands. It's so long. It nearly spiraled into a whole fic all on it's own.

Anyhow, you only get the first part in this post :) Which is 4k words long.

It's OFC x Natasha Romanoff. So MCU but MCU if it had the Fae Folk. Also I expected the prompt to have an entirely different result. When I first saw it, I wanted to write about stealing a dragon egg, but the evening I sat down to write I wanted to write about Nat, so here it is.

Tags: fictional racism

Also I don't think there are any other tags as it's mostly just conversation

Life was always interesting as a half blood. You never knew if half the world wanted to kill you because you were obviously not of their blood or because they needed something from you because you were not of their blood and blessed with the ability to do some weird shit. I was never quite sure what days I liked more to be honest. However, I wanted more days where I just didn’t get bothered by anyone. Considering my phone buzzed wildly in my back pocket, this was not going to be one of those days. 

I pulled out my phone and mentally halted at the name on the screen. I didn’t let it show in my body simply out of practice, though she probably would have noticed anyway if she was watching. 

I cast a glance around the dark street. The street lamps cast more shadows than light and even my sharp eyes had trouble making out the details in the gathering darkness. I couldn’t see anyone. I couldn’t smell any smells that weren’t supposed to be here and I couldn’t hear anything, but she was an expert at being in places she wasn’t supposed to be in. Namely my life. 

I answered the call. “What happened now?”

“Why do you think something happened?” Natasha tried to sound innocent and failed even with her amazing acting skills. 

“You never call because you want to invite me for tea!” I’d instantly sit down to have tea with her though. “You only ever call when you need something.”

“Would you want me to call you for tea?” I could practically hear the frown on her face. 

My house came into view. It was technically too big for a single person living in it, but I had inherited it from my grandma who had way too many children. That I didn’t want to have a single one wasn’t my fault. It was also technically too old fashioned looking for little old me, but I liked it. It had a certain charm. 

“Yes, that would absolutely be a nice change in scenery”, let’s try not to admit my woman sized crush on her. “Also would make you a bit less predictable.”

“Predictability can be a problem”, Natasha admitted. 

I had to smile. Like screw it if she was watching. The spy had a paranoid streak to her. I knew calling her out on her predictability would get a reaction. I walked up to my porch and dug around in my little backpack for my keys. The door opened before I had found them. The inhuman growl slipped over my lips before I could think better of it. 

Natasha smirked that little smirk. Tiny, only on one side and the most infuratingly sexy thing I had seen in a long time. “Good evening, Kas.”

“One day my wards are going to set you on fire”, I stopped rummaging around my bag. 

Her smirk widened a hint and my heart beat faster. “They haven’t yet.”

Yes, because I didn’t want to harm her. Natasha might be able to sense a hint of magic in the air, but she wouldn’t be able to survive a full blown ward. Not that I was very good at setting anything but alerting wards. It would take ages. 

I scowled at her. 

She stepped to the side. “Don’t you want to come in?”

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kind of strangle her for invading my space constantly and leaving her scent everywhere and driving me insane or if I wanted to kiss her. Not really. I stepped inside my own home and Natasha closed the door behind me. I scanned her. She still wore her boots. “Are we leaving tonight? Should I keep my shoes on?” 

“Depends entirely on the information you’re about to give me.”

Oh great. I kicked off my sneakers, dropped my backpack next to the stairs and walked into the kitchen. 

Natasha followed me on silent feet. She should not be able to be that quiet in combat boots, but I swear she could sneak better than some cat fae.

I got myself a glass of apple juice without offering her any. She had made herself at home here so I would not play hostess. I was griping a lot, but honestly I wanted nothing more than to find Nat here more often. 

I leaned against the kitchen counter and drew in Natasha’s appearance. She wore her shoulder length dark red hair open, inviting me to run my fingers through it. Her clothing was on first glance civilian, but the cargo pants were sturdy and mixed with the combat boots it did make her look like she was prepared for anything. She wore a simple red shirt with a leather jacket on top, which would be good against blade attack and claws alike. “Well?” I prompted her. 

“I need to get into the faery realm.”

Of course she did. Because I was not only her magic booty call but a chauffeur as well. If I hadn’t had my glamour on my cat ears would have pinned sharply against my head. “That’s awfully unspecific”, there were a lot of different realms and all were slightly different to enter. 

Natasha crossed her arms and leaned sideways against the kitchen isle. My eyes did not flicker down to her hips, nope! Nope! I was focused. My mind was a steel trap.

“More specifically we have gotten intel that the Tinkeres have gotten their fingers on some alien materials we really don’t want them to. I’m supposed to get it back and you’re going to get me there.”

“You want me to take you to the Tinkerers?” just to be clear. Before I got more irritated. 

“Yes.”

“Do you know where they are?” 

“Aren’t they sort of the inspiration for the legends of dwarves? I assume somewhere underground?” Nat’s eyes flew over my face, reading every single micro expression. “Why? What’s the problem?”

“Everything is the problem”, I threw one hand in the air. “You’re right, the Tinkerers are the inspiration for the legends about dwarves. They live in what we call the Underworld, which is the most fucking awful place to get to.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard and dangerous. It can fuck you up more than the Shadow Realm. The magic there is thick and inflexible like stone”, also I hated the feeling of being underground though the Underworld wasn’t necessarily underground. It was weird, but Fairy Hills were always weird. 

“But you can do it right? Cat Fae can travel anywhere.” 

I made a face. “Well, getting there is one thing. Getting back is the problem.”

“Why?” her moss green gaze was so intense as if she wanted to read the thoughts straight from my brain. 

“Because they don’t care who breaks in, but they want to make sure no one breaks out with their inventions”, which would make it even harder to get her weird alien shit. 

Natasha frowned. “What sort of resistance do we have to expect?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gone there since I was six years old and got the tour from my dad”, and I did not want to go back any time soon. “I just remember that it felt like passing through quick sand as we travelled back to the Cat Paths.”

“Well, I have all the shield assets at my disposal. Iron Bombs, Smoke grenades, anti magic fields, stingers. Surely between the two of us we can make it work?” was she being optimistic or determined? 

I levelled her with a look. 

“Kas, this isn’t something we can just turn away from. Do you have any idea what could happen if the Tinkerers plug in their magic into an alien power source?”

“No, do you?”

She glared at me. “No, do you want to find out?”

“I don’t care. The Tinkerers don’t leave the underworld.” Tinkerers didn’t get in trouble. 

“They did for this.”

I paused. “What?” 

Nat pushed herself off and walked over to me. Her proximity distracted me more from the topic at hand than it really should. Her scent invaded my nostrils and I had to keep the very cat like urge at bay to rub against her and start to purr. My god, this woman really had me acting like a teenager all the time. She pulled out her phone and showed me a video. 

My focus returned to the video as I saw the figures on the screen break into a shield facility. “That’s halfbloods.”

Nat hummed in agreement. “It’s how they got around the wards we have against full blooded fae. An oversight on our part.” 

“Nothing is completely break in or breakout proof”, my voice was a bit unfocused as I watched the six people work their way to the SHIELD vault, get a purple glowy stone and then back out. “This are exclusively Tinkerer halfbloods”, I looked at Nat. “Do you know how rare that is?” 

“No, why are Tinkerer Half bloods rarer?”

“Well for one Tinkerers don’t leave the Underworld, which means a human found their way there. Secondly, Tinkerers are obsessed with keeping their bloodlines clean of outsider interference because they have such specific skills and high intelligence. Breeding with a human would be to them having Einstein have a kid with someone with like less than half his IQ or something. And thirdly if there is a Tinkerer halfblood, they usually get killed for the second reason. If they don’t get killed, they get treated far worse than other halfbloods if they are acknowledged at all. So five of them? That’s like winning the lottery just a bad lottery for us.”

“The Tinkerers sound like assholes.”

I chuckled mostly against my will. “Only if you’re a Tinkerer halfblood, they don’t care about you as long as you don’t distract them and if you give them complicated stuff to work on they might even be polite”, a thought struck me. “But it makes sense why they evaded your defences so easily.”

“Because they got some of the specific skills?” 

“Yes, I’ve never met a Tinkerer Halfblood, but just based on genetics, they should be very smart and still have a lot of their bloodline skills in them.”

Nat didn’t look happy to hear that. “If we steal the stone back, how do we keep them out then?”

“Depends on their skills I guess and before you ask, no I don’t know what they are, but you could ask the Bright Court.”

“Speaking of assholes”, Nat muttered. 

I chuckled. “Yeah, but they can keep almost everyone out. Or you hide it so they don’t find it.”

“Do you think they sensed it somehow or do we have a mole?” her glare made me think I never wanted to betray her. 

“Depends on the energy signature of the stone.”

“Can you tell once you have it?”

“Sure”, I shrugged. 

Natasha nodded. “We are getting the stone back.”

I sighed. “Can I say no?”

“Only if you want me to do something stupid.”

I eyed her. “You never do stupid things”, otherwise she’d already have fucked me. 

“No, but we do have a travel scroll.”

I sneered. “You, Missy will not use a travel scroll! That’s as likely to turn you into goo as it is to travel you anywhere.”

Natasha’s smirk was back. 

“Don’t smile at me like that”, I snapped. 

Her smirk widened. 

I wanted to kiss her so bad. “So when do you want to do this fucking stupid thing?” 

“As soon as possible, but you can rest the night if you want.”

“Nah, who needs sleep”, something that might be a bitter smile pulled at my lips. “I’m nocturnal anyway.” I pushed myself off the kitchen counter. “So we’re doing this now?”

“Yes.”

“Cool, let’s go and end up in Tinkerer prison.”

Natasha frowned. “What would happen if we end up in Tinkerer prison?”

“Depends on how bad SHIELD wants you back. If they get the government to talk to the Courts, the Tinkerers would probably give you back.”

“What if they don’t want me back?”

I locked eyes with Natasha. “They would find out your true name and make you their slave.”

Natasha’s face froze. “And what about you?”

I shrugged. “Depends on if they want to deal with my father or not. Or if he wants to deal with them. He will be informed. If he does not care for me, I would probably be executed or they’d put me in the mines or something. Maybe pull the magic from my bones, which would also kill me.”

“Capture is not an option”, Natasha’s eyes were still cold. “You will not die and I am no one's slave.”

Huh, it almost sounded like she cared about me. “Well, I need to dig through my toolbox, then we can go”, I left the kitchen to head to my office. 

Natasha followed me. She tried not to be a nosy busybody but she absolutely was. 

I unlocked the office with my handprint. Not technology but magic. 

“You know I’ve never managed to get in here”, Natasha stepped into the room. “Wow.”

The walls were littered with weapons. Swords, bows, axes, but also magic weapons chains, wips, amulets, stones, gloves, tiaras. It was a collection that was the envy of some, but as a Halfblood mercenary you got really interesting payments. 

“Don’t touch anything”, I plucked an amulet of the wall and put it around my neck. It hummed with subtle magic and joined my heartbeat. 

“I’m not stupid.”

That was true. I turned around hands on my hips and considered my options. The amulet was the last way out, but bringing Natasha I needed something for her. I grabbed a little silver tiara from the wall and handed it to her. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to put that on?”

“Yes, it’ll protect you. Trust me.”

She took the tiara and put it on her head with a doubtful expression. 

“And you look cute in it.”

She scowled. 

I grinned and turned back around. A couple of magic daggers. My trusted sword. A bracelet that could do some nasty shit. Some of the crystals. My toolbelt with the herbs mixtures, iron powder and good old salt. I turned around again. Oh and my favourite hair needles! I wound them into my silver blue tabby hair. “I’m done!”

Natasha scanned me from head to toe. “You do look battle ready. More so than ever before”, at least now she sounded slightly concerned. 

“I haven’t even put on my armour yet”, I shooed her out of the room and locked it again, heading into the one opposite that held all the human stuff. Tac gear, pistols, assault rifles, grenades, that sort of stuff. It also locked with a ward. 

I quickly changed into an outfit similar to hers. Cargo pants, combat boots. A sturdy shirt with a armsheaths and some other armour additions. The sword went in a modified backsheath. I briefly scanned myself in the mirror. I did look battle ready. I bared my teeth. The canines were always sharper no matter how much I tried to hide them with glamour and my cat green eyes stood in contrast to my silverblue hair. No earth cat had that coloration. For me it just signalled that I was a royal bastard. 

“Where do you want to do this?” Natasha asked. 

“The basement, as per usual”, it was easier to travel through portals if they were always in the same spot. Funnily enough it also hid them better. “Wait”, I stopped in front of the basement door and turned around to Natasha. “Do you actually know where the stone is? Because traipsing through the Underworld without a plan is actually a suicide mission.”

Nat pressed her lips together. 

“Natasha!”

“Okay, listen, we have this new prototype shielding which should allow technology to work in a magic environment”, Natasha nearly hurried through the words. Nat never hurried through anything. 

“But you’ve never tested it?”

She had the good graces to look slightly ashamed. “We have never tested it inside a fairy hill.”

“And you thought this mission was a good idea?!” I whispered instead of yelled. Anything louder than a whisper and I would have yelled. I didn’t like yelling at people. 

“Well I didn’t think you’d like me to hop by and ask for prototype testing in a random fairy hill. You don’t like it when I call.”

Do not strangle your crush, Kas. Do not. Let’s talk about the more pressing matters at hand. “You think I don’t like it when you call?”

Nat frowned. “You said as much!”

“No, I said I don’t like you only call because you need me! For stupid dangerous magic work”, I motioned around wildly. Was she seriously this dense right now? Did I need to spell it out for her? Take me on a date, Natasha?! Like wave around a sign or something? Maybe I should just ask her. Or she really didn’t like me and that’s why it didn’t occur to her that I wanted to spend time with her. No, wait she didn’t smell like she didn’t like me. This was getting way to stupid. 

Nat’s frown didn’t let up. “So what now?”

Oh great she just ignored what I had said. I stared her down and held back a growl. See, I could smell that she sometimes reacted to my proximity, but maybe it was just a body reaction and her mind didn’t agree to it? Maybe she disliked Halfbloods? “Do you have something against half bloods?”

Her brows nearly touched in utter irritated confusion. “What? No!” 

That was the truth. I could taste it in the air. Which didn’t help me discern if she liked me like I liked her, but we really had more important things to do. Maybe instead of strangling her I should just strangle myself. 

“Kas, we need to focus! Will you still go to the Underworld with me?” 

“Yes, yes, but if your prototype doesn’t work, we’re screwed.”

Nat’s brows furrowed again. Really couldn’t make that woman happy tonight. “And you're willing to risk your life for that? I mean it’s my job but”- 

“Considering you pay me, technically it’s also my job”, I kind of had to point out. Well, not she herself paid me but SHIELD. I was a mercenary after all for everyone who could pay the fees. 

“Yes, but I’m giving you shit intel.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Do you not want me to come? Do you have a better idea?”

“No, I don't want you to come!” 

Ouch. 

Something  must have shown on my face because Nat stepped closer, instantly sending my heart rabbiting. “I don’t want you to come because you’re at much higher risk of dying on this mission than I am. I am a government agent, we both know even high born as you are, your risk as a half blood is much higher.”

Yes, thanks for reminding me, but I couldn’t be cross with her because she didn’t want me to die. She cared! “We don’t really have a choice though”, and if it was between my life and her life, I’d always make sure she got out. “You can’t go down there alone.”

She didn’t look happy at all. “If this mission wasn’t so time sensitive I’d say we go and test the prototype.”

“If it doesn’t work, we’re not any smarter in the first place.” 

She sighed. ��Yeah, I suppose.”

I held out my hand. “Give me the prototype.”

She reached into the pocket of her cargo pants and pulled out a tablet. It wasn’t as sleek as most modern devices. It was a lot thicker, with as sturdy frame that had warding runes scratched into it. “Huh”, I examined the piece of technology and magic closer. The magic hovered over it, causing a very light shield but the thick frame kept it from messing with the technology inside. Or so I presumed. It was kind of smart. The big question was just if the shield was strong enough to work against the pure magic of the fairy hills. 

“What?” Nat asked. 

“This is kinda smart.”

She levelled me with a look. “Kinda? You’re calling the smartest minds at SHIELD kinda smart?”

“If it works, I’ll call them brilliant”, I bared my teeth in a fake smile, “but until then, kinda.”

Nat snorted. “Give me that back.”

“Who did the warding?”

“That’s classified.”

“I think I should know considering my life depends on the warding working”, and the runes were exquisite. 

Nat scowled. “That’s not how this works and you wouldn’t know them.”

I held her gaze without moving. 

“Kasriel.”

I didn’t change. 

“Kas, just staring at me won’t change anything.”

I kept staring. 

Nat muttered in angry russian. “It’s a halfblood witch.”

She was working together with another halfblood?! Wait, was I jealous?! Okay, problem for another day. “What’s their name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I know a lot of the halfbloods and those runes are exquisite”, also half blood witches were rare. 

Nat considered me, but then sighed. In a battle of wills apparently I won or maybe she really wanted to get this mission done. “Damira Storms.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Didn’t know she worked with SHIELD. She had some very choice words to say to me last time she heard I took your blood money.”

Natasha shrugged. “I think she’s the crazy scientist type who wants to know if it is possible.”

“Yes, if it is possible, she’s going to cause a lot of trouble”, I tilted my head. “Or she’ll be executed for making it possible.”

“See, that’s why I shouldn’t have told you!”

“Do you think I’d rat her out?” I all but snarled.

“Wouldn’t you for the right price?”

An ugly snarl pulled at my lips. “No, I wouldn’t. I would only call for her death if her actions started a new blood war or she directly harmed innocents.”

Natasha opened her mouth, something softer shimmering in her moss green eyes. 

I opened the door to the basement. “Let us go”, I marched down the stairs. 

Natasha sighed behind me. 

I was quietly fuming. If I had dropped my glamour my cat ears would have been pinned and my tail furiously lashing. I was glad I only had to keep my face icy and didn’t worry about my other body parts betraying my emotional state. I always had Nat’s back, I had never betrayed her. Hell, I had gone far beyond what my contracts required for her and she still thought I’d sell her out? Or something she told me in confidence? She thought like that off me? Cool, cool, put everything else so far in perspective. 

I walked into the pitch black basement and turned on the crystals with a wave of my hand. 

Natasha followed quietly and stopped outside the portal circle. She knew how this worked by now and took the candle I gave her without comment. 

I lit all the candles the old fashioned way with a lighter, hers last. I stepped inside the circle and dropped my glamour. I needed the extra energy to open the circle. I let out a long breath and closed my eyes, honing into the magic around me. The fire flickered. I dribbled a bit of water on the bare earth of the basement. The entire room quivered. 

I let my magic slip in the cracks between the worlds. Human, fae and everything else that existed out there. The doors between the worlds opened. Countless possibilities. Realms even I had never visited. I held out my hand for Nat. She took it and stepped into the circle with me. We had done this so often by now the magic didn’t even quiver. She was practically a part of it. 

I pulled us backwards. Magically rather than physically. It felt like I was falling somewhere deep down. Like Gandalf in Moria. Everything turned pitch black.

[antoh3rnde]

Chapter 1

September 6, 1996 - Quinn

That morning, I couldn't tell if I was scared or just excited. All I could think about was making a good first impression; otherwise, I would never be taken seriously.

I was entering the Blue Whale, the old well known diner in town, near the coast. Me and the guy who had called me, agreed to meet there to discuss the case he needed to entrust to me, in person.

My first real case. During my apprenticeship with Scott, my mentor, I had only solved small cases, an arson and a man cheating on his wife, and even then, not alone. However, when this guy, a certain Chase Coleman, had called me, I had immediately felt that this case would mark a turning point in my career, now that I had finally managed to get to open my little private investigative agency.

I composed myself, trying not to show my anxiety, tucking a small blonde strand that had escaped my low ponytail behind my ear. I took a deep breath and, with trembling hands, pushed open the door of the Blue Whale.

It wasn't the first time I had entered that diner, and I knew it wasn't a very crowded place. It wasn't that day either, so it wasn't difficult to spot my appointment: a guy sitting alone at one of the tables in the back, looking around a bit. So, with a determined step, I approached the table.

"Hello... you must be Mr. Coleman?" I said, standing next to the table.

"Yes, you must be Detective Becker. Just call me Chase," said the guy, standing up and offering me his hand in a friendly manner.

He didn't seem too strange, just extremely messed up. Overall, he was quite handsome, with brown hair and bottle-green eyes, and he seemed to be about my age. It was evident that he was exhausted from life; he had clearly tried to clean himself up, dressing well and shaving his beard, but the dark circles under his eyes betrayed him. He wasn't much taller than me, and even though he wore a fairly loose sweatshirt, it was clear how skinny he was.

"Very well, Chase. It's a pleasure to meet you," I said, sitting across from him after shaking his hand. The waitress arrived, the same one for years, and we both ordered a coffee; while waiting, I took the opportunity to take out my recorder and insert the empty tape.

"So, on the phone, you were very vague. Explain to me in detail why you called me."

"Alright, I'll get straight to the point. But you must take me seriously because no one ever has, and I swear I'm not crazy. Okay?"

At that moment, I started to wonder if my hunch had been wrong, and if the handsome guy in front of me was actually just paranoid. After all, Scott had told me that in this job you deal with a lot of strange people.

"Sure, let's hear it."

Chase leaned toward me, over the table, so he wouldn't be heard by others.

"I think my father is a murderer." Amazing, he’s mad.

I cleared my throat.

"Would you mind explaining?"

"Do you remember the Oregon Ripper, between '85 and '86? The sixteen children who died?"

Oh God, a conspiracy theorist.

"Where are you going with this? The killer was caught."

I have to admit I felt a bit guilty. Clearly, he was struggling, Chase's hands were trembling around the coffee cup, and my not-so-gentle questions were not helping at all.

"Let me explain. I believe some of the children were killed by my father, even though the murders were still attributed to the Ripper."

"Okay, but why would he have done it? What do you think the motive is?"

I saw Chase swallow, taking a deep breath and a sip of coffee.

"I'll be honest with you, it's not a topic I like to talk about, so bear with me." He admitted, leaning back against the worn leather of the diner booth. I nodded and tried to give him a small smile to encourage him and maybe help him a bit; although I think I failed miserably.

"When I was little, about thirteen, one summer for my little sister's birthday, Charlotte, my mom took us to the public pool. All of us, me, her, Charlie, and my dad," he said, smiling with bitterness.

"In the afternoon, my dad and mom left to go to the bar, asking me to watch Charlotte, who was still just a child of barely six, while she was in the pool. Like many kids, I was a bit of a rebel and had no desire to be there."

Tears started to form in Chase's eyes, he tried to hold back a sob, unsuccessfully, and I have to admit, I felt a bit like a jerk.

Technically, the rules of the job forbade me from forming any emotional attachment with my clients, and I cared a lot about making a good impression, but I cared even more about being a good person. So I threw professionalism out the window and reached across the table to hold his hand, squeezing it slightly.

"Of course, I didn't listen to them and put on my headphones. My... my sister drowned that day, and I will never forgive myself."

At that moment, I wished I had something more to say than "I'm sorry, Chase"; but I had never been very good at comforting people. Moreover, I had to respect the professional boundary, so I just held his hand and offered him a tissue, which he declined.

Chase caught his breath, wiped away the tears with the back of his hand, and continued his story, while I unconsciously held my breath.

"My dad changed after the incident. He wasn't the same anymore, and the people closest to him noticed. I noticed. He was irritable, grumpy, spent hours locked in his office, and avoided me like the plague. When we were at the table together, he always looked at me with hatred and contempt, and I... well, it wasn't easy."

"So you believe your father went crazy and killed some children who were then attributed to the Ripper?" I asked, starting to think and letting go of the young man's hand.

"Not exactly." Chase had somewhat recovered and was back to being the confident guy I had shaken hands with half an hour earlier.

"I think my father certainly went mad, but he planned everything in detail to avoid being caught. I believe he took advantage of the murders to unleash his madness."

I nodded, taking a sip of coffee. I started to think. Maybe accepting the case was madness. Maybe I would never be able to solve it. Maybe the guy in front of me was just delusional. I looked up and saw Chase: his eyes were still wet, and he was clearly thinking the same things I was. He recognized that he seemed like a desperate person who couldn't accept his sister's death after years, and maybe it would have been rational for me to think the same, but something inside me made me accept.

"I imagine you want to decline the case at this point. I understand, I-"

"I accept the case."

[paralianprince]

... Huh. Maybe it hadn't been a politeness thing after all. Maybe he actually is coming after Peter with earnest, honest-to-goodness curiosity. That, or he's very committed to this bit, which is worthy of respect in and of itself.

It's a little uncomfortable, being sort-of-interviewed like this, by an actual nation. It gets a nervous, breathy giggle out of him. It feels somewhat like a test, perhaps an evaluation of how self-important he thinks he is, or something like that. Uneasy, like a slight change in temperature could make the room start to shift beneath him.

"Well...! Er, you know... we can certainly hope so! Y'know, somethin' came out recently-- you know the thirty-year rule, is that a thing for you? That some kinds of government documents become public automatically, thirty years after they were made? Anyway... apparently, that entire time, if we had ever left my house totally unmanned, they were plannin' to merk me then and there! And I never knew!"

This still is not as bad as it would've been the other way around-- not as stressful and awful as every time he had tried asking nations about their own pasts, heaven forbid that, he's learnt that lesson-- but it comes quite close.

Why does he have to feel this way in a room he and his friends made for themselves? That sucks!

"I dunno whether I think they'd still do it... things ain't as contentious as they used to be, and I ain't as paranoid... loads of our sort get that kind of thing, at first, and it usually relaxes given enough time. You can't build that tower there, or that weird house, or that road, and we're like, bloody watch me then... and there's this massive row about it, though I'm not sure who else ever got the chance to cut up their knuckles on the Royal Navy, or whichever equivalent... Oh! Christiania, probably, sort of. He's a total hard case!"

"I guess, unless you meant, like, as people... that's a bit different, like, apparently Connor didn't even know I existed for the longest time-- actually, there you have it then!"

He snaps his fingers, having just solved the puzzle!

"He went decades not knowin' I were there and we get on just fine! 'Twas a huge relief to finally properly meet him, to be honest... So, it'll go just as well for you, I bet!"

"I suppose so... I-I can't say I remember the beginning all too well. The first few centuries is hazy."

He was definitely around before there was any written record of his people, but that was very different from being around before there were any people at all. Not all nations were quick to pen their histories, and even those that were didn't necessarily have any of those relics left. The Crusades wiped out written records in countless places. Between that, different systems of tracking time, how long ago it all was, and how hectic things were, it was hard to pinpoint when he came into being. Was there a period before his people banded together when he would have been around just in case? By nation terms, Peter might as well have been born yesterday. He'd have clearer memories of those first days than any of Raivis's peers. "But you are close with them now, aren't you? The United Kingdom. They did not end up blowing you up in the end, s-so... that means good terms, right?" Gave up on killing you is a pretty decent start to a family relationship. Family bonding with a dead person isn't easy. There's room for forgiveness and growth when neither sibling is sunk to the bottom of the sea. He sets his elbows on the desk, chin resting on his palms as he watches Peter closely.

[luveline]

you know, I'm coming right back [Fred Weasley x Reader]

summary: you're a lonely artist and Fred is your adoring model

word count: 2.4k

tags: reader insert, lonely reader, artist reader, seventh year, kids in love, first kiss, getting together, pining, fluff, friends-to-lovers

It was easy for you, usually, to act fine. To feel fine. Any loneliness that clouded your life was pushed firmly into the depths of your thoughts. You tried to focus on the things that mattered, essays and charms and your art.

You loved to draw. You had sketchbooks filled to the brim with sketches, some half finished, others coloured and lined. You drew everything, though you struggled to bring anything from your memory. Everything you drew had to be done right there, right then, with unsuspecting models. You sketched students eating their dinner, scribbled side profiles when you managed a spare minute in class. But you're most impressive artwork was done in the library, where nothing moved. Everyone was silent. You had pages and pages of bored, tired looking students. When exams approached, you hurriedly copied down the expressions of people on the edge of depression and panic.

You had friends, ish. You knew people. You'd had intense friendships that somehow always ended in awkward drifting aparts. Well, you thought. There must be something wrong with me. They liked me before they didn't, so the fault must've been mine.

You huffed out a sigh, pressing your face deep into the textured page of your sketch book, breathing in the smell of charcoal. You were sketching the illusive Fred Weasley, who you'd never truly drawn before. Maybe you had scraps from your second or third year when you'd still attempted to draw moving objects before getting comfortable and accepting that still life was your forte.

He was maddeningly good lucking when his eyebrows puckered in concentration. He seemed to actually be studying for once, sat at a table with his brother, George, and housemates Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet.

You were sat by yourself, and couldn't help listening to his lilting voice as he bantered with his friends. They were talking about Umbridge (the current victim of the Hogwarts' student body hate train), and quidditch, and their recent ban from quidditch. You'd never played.

"Watch out, dolly fell asleep," said one of the girls.

You bit your lip. You'd been nicknamed dolly by the girls in your dorm because of your porcelain doll you'd had since childhood. Even though this year was your last, you still hadn't felt the need to hide her away. She made you feel much less anxious and alone.

The whole school knew, naturally.

"Don't get any funny ideas," said Angelina,  to the twins.

"Come on Angie, you think so little of us?" said George.

"Yesterday I watched you trick a group of forth years into taking puking pastilles." Angelina said.

"It was hardly a trick. We told them they were multi-faceted," said George.

You could hear your heartbeat if you focused. It was in your ears. It bump, bump, bumped.

Bump bump. You flinched, a hand settled on your shoulder quickly moved.

"Wake up, dolly. Library's closing."

You squinted up into Fred's face, head halo'd by candlelight. Lifting your head from the wooden table, you stretched your neck to the left. It clicked.

"Uh..."

"Hmm?" You prompted him, smoothing your hair behind your ears.

"You have - dirt. On your face. Here-" He said, reaching forward. You closed your eyes as he gently wiped the skin above your eyebrow.

"It's charcoal."

"What?"

"It's not dirt," you said, peaking at him through your eyelashes. "It's charcoal."

He looked mildly surprised. You shifted, hoping to cover your sketch before he caught sight of it.

It didn't matter.

"It's me. My gorgeous dolly, you've created quite the masterpiece right there, haven't you? I look vexingly handsome, of course. Thought if that's a consequence of your skill or my handsomeness is anyones guess."

You were lost for words. "Uh, quite."

"Yes, yes, quite. Say, could I keep it?"

"... You want the drawing?"

"I'd love it, if that's okay."

"I," you quickly dug your thumbnail into the paper, tearing carefully at the centre. The paper came away a little ragged and smudged. "Of course. It's yours."

He handled it with care.

The librarian jingled her little bell again.

"Thank you. So, see you?"

"Yep," you agreed.

He nodded his head and bowed out with his friends. You tried not to feel paranoid at their laughter.

-

You were curled up in a hidden alcove, though it was hardly hidden. Most students knew where to seek privacy in the castle. You just so happened to get there first that evening.

You were trying to sketch Fred again. It felt weird to be missing a page from your book, and weirder still that you couldn't remember his face when he wasn't right in front of you. You tried, but it kept going wrong.

When you finally managed one you liked well enough, you had accidentally ruined it with a heavy hand and the wrong shade of brown.

He looked much too brunette.

You carefully rolled your coloured pencils back up, securing the leather ties tightly so as to keep every pencil confined.

Sighing morosely, you flipped to a new page. Things got so complicated sometimes, it made you agitated. You doodled a little sad face in the corner of your page. When the one thing that you enjoyed in life started to go wrong, it set off your whole mood.

Your birthday was coming up. It had been on your mind a lot lately. You'd spend it alone. That's what you figured. Nobody would know it was your birthday, or if they did, you weren't friends now, so...

You began with an arching circle, bisecting the lines appropriately. Feeling out the familiar lines of your own face came easy, the slight upper tilt of your brows, your hair and your pursed mouth. You always looked sad in the mirror, and it showed, dotted here and there when the only thing to draw was your own face.

The rudimentary outline of a birthday cake took form. The candles were unlit.

In a fit of unhappiness, you scratched out your mouth. It was never smiling.

"What did that piece of paper ever do to you?" said a voice.

You jumped. Fred was peering down at you curiously, wringing his hands. You put your pencil between the soft cover and smashed it flat, closed.

"Hi, dolly."

"Weasley."

"Oh, not even a first name?"

"You neglected mine first," you reasoned, rolling the words. He smiled at your joking tone.

"How rude of me. Hi, Y/N," he corrected himself.

"Hi, Weasley."

He smirked.

"Anymore of me in that blessed vessel?"

"Nah. You never stand still."

"If I pose for it?" He asked. You patted the ground in front of you.

He was a lovely model. He stayed infinitely still, more still than you imagined possible for him. He sat at a 3/4ths angle, chin up but not too far, mouth tilted and eyes open.

His eyes were the one thing he couldn't keep still. You tried not to flame in the cheeks everything you'd catch his gaze on you.

You sketched fast, choosing to hatch rather than render, big swooping lines to give the illusion of a depth that wasn't really there. You would've loved to do a full render, maybe even a colour portrait, but he was beginning to look a little antsy.

You set the book on the floor to face him and pushed it into his eyesight softlt. He turned. He looked nice like that, face bent, hair falling into his eyes.

After a moment, he began scrounging through his robe pockets. He set down a box, a lighter, a pair of gloves.

Finally, he set a galleon onto the floor close to your crossed legs.

"For you," he said, smiling at your inquisitive look. "For the drawing."

"Oh, I can't accept that. And I'd like to keep this one, if it's alright."

Fred thought for a moment. "Alright, you keep it. And the galleon, too, for the one you gave me the other day."

You bit back a smile. "I can't take your money, Fred."

"I can't keep having you draw me for free. It's as valuable a service as anything else. Plus, I'm not sure if you know, but I run a lucrative business these days."

You picked up the coin, rubbing your thumb against the engravings thoughtfully. "It's hardly a service."

"A talent, then. A skill. You're very good."

You're neck almost snapped as you looked into his face, wanting to assess his expression for genuineness. He looked earnest, and kind. You blinked away the gathering heat behind your eyes.

"Thank you."

He waved a hand at you. "Think nothing of it."

"Really-" you cleared your throat, "-you're doing me a favour. I'm not good at drawing things that move."

"I'm sure you're better than you think," he said.

You shook your head, smiling smiling smiling.

"What's in the box?"

"Oh, this old thing?" Fred weighed the box in his hands. It was soft at the corners, like a simple jewelry box that you had in your trunk. He offered it to you. You opened it carefully, the lid sliding free with a shhhhh sound. Inside was an evil looking fruit pastille, a match stick and a dried up flower petal.

It felt like a very private thing to see, suddenly. Such an eclectic collection of items couldn't be random.

"The first puking pastille George and I made. Or rather, the second - the first was forcibly fed to Lee Jordan in our third year. The match stick is from my Uncle's matchbox. I never met him. And the flower was from Ginny, when she was 9." He sounded nervous.

"It's a memory box."

"I- yes. It is. Things are sometimes so miserable now, with Umbridge and you-know-who. Scary, even. I look at them when I feel like it won't ever end."

You took them in for a little while longer and then placed the lid onto the box with nimble fingers. You scratched the lid with a fingernail.

"It's nice. You're right. Things are so awful right now, it's good to have reminders of why we keep going."

"Exaclty. Dolly, can I interest you in a fruit pastille?"

"Not on your life."

"They're perfectly edible!"

"Sure, Fred."

-

The honest conversation you'd shared with Fred was a catalyst between you. He often came to find you, each time whining and nagging you to just sit in the library like most people do.

"What, so your housemates can throw paper balls at me?"

"They thought you were sleeping!"

A likely story, you thought. He sometimes asked you to draw him, posing with the elegance of a natural born model. It was great for you personally, you felt that you were really getting a feel for his face. Eventually, you were able to draw his face from memory, the details of his nose coming to your fingers as easily as a first year spell.

It became about capturing emotion. You could capture his likeness now without a second thought, but his emotions were much more complicated. How would you show his veiled frustration the day Umbridge kicked him off the quidditch team? Through the clenching of his jaw? The shy veins in his forehead? How did you showcase the fear when he'd come back to Hogwarts after Christmas break, through his eyes, downturned and squinting just a little?

Today, it was poorly hidden elation. "How come you're so happy?" You asked, pencil between your teeth. He grinned. You measured his face with your thumb in the air, forming an L.

"Is it a prank?"

"You're thinking too small."

"A new product?"

"Still need to go bigger!"

"Hmmm," you hummed. Measure twice, cut once. Or in your case, sketch once.

"George and I, we're gonna open a shop."

"A section at Zonko's isn't enough for you?" You asked, casually, though you were very very happy for him.

"It's going to be amazing. We're going to run it, just the two of us, and you won't catch me in these scrappy long sleeves anymore. The next time you see me, I'll be in a full suit and tie."

"The next time? Is that not tomorrow?"

Fred closed his mouth, realising his mistake. He had revealed something he hadn't intended to. "We're leaving," he confessed. "We were going to wait for our NEWTs but... Well, we won't need them. This is going to work."

"So. You're leaving today?" You asked, crestfallen.

"Hey," Fred said, rubbing a placating hand over the curve of your shoulder. "Tomorrow. During the DADA OWL. We have a plan."

"This is goodbye?"

"No! No. Not if you don't want it to be. Actually, I've been meaning to ask you something, and maybe now isn't the best time, I had this whole letter planned and I didn't want to distract you from your exams and-"

"What do you want to ask me?"

Fred straightened. "I wanted to ask - will you go out with me? Not, you don't have to be my girlfriend if it's too soon, I'd love to take you for food someplace, I was going to ask you to Hogsmeade, but when the shop officially became ours, the plans changed so fast and I didn't know if you'd still want-" you cut off his rambling.

"I'll be your girlfriend," you said.

"You will?"

"Sure, if you'll be my boyfriend," you murmured.

Fred moved the arm that had been on your shoulder to the nape of your neck. "That's a dealbreaker," he said, leaning in.

He kissed you chastely on the lips first and then pulled back to look into your face. You chased him, a moment of bravery, and opened your mouth to taste him. He was sweet, like sugar. Your sketch pad crinkled beneath you both as he pressed forward. Your chests touched, heaving.

"You're not gonna be my boyfriend?" You asked against his mouth, breathing hard.

"I'm gonna be much more than that, dolly," he said heatedly.

Your mouth was tingling. "Kiss me again?"

You gasped at the force of him, laughing. He laughed too against your lips, and the sound tickled. He gave you a multitude of short and sweet kisses before pulling away again.

He wiped the wetness from your lip with his pinky finger. "Godric, you're cute. Look how flushed you are! You're insane."

Something churned in your stomach. The butterflies had acquired a trampoline. You felt happier than you had in a very long time. "You're not half-bad yourself, Weasley."

[neocityjs]

Clingy - LJN

Pairing: boyfriend!jeno x reader

Genre: a lil angst, fluff

Warnings: established relationship, Haechan is a bit annoying in this one I’m sorry (Haechan best boy)

Words: 3k

Summary: hurt after hearing your boyfriend and his friends calling you clingy, you decide to show them how not clingy you can be.

A/N: everything is fictional, including the characters’ traits. English is not my first language, therefore I’m sorry for the errors.

Movie nights with your friends were your favorites.

Well, it’d be more correct for me to say “with your boyfriend’s friends”, since you didn’t know them before meeting Jeno. But that doesn’t matter, because in no time you managed to bond with everyone, especially the clumsy yet adorable kid, Jisung, and the loving caffeine addicted boy, Jaemin.

Movie nights with your friends consisted in you eight – even though today you were only seven since Mark was out with some of his friends – sprawled on one couch –  don’t ask me how, but all of you always manage to fit in since no one wants to sit on the carpet – with a blanket covering you and some snacks passing between. Those represented some of those moments you swear you would cherish for all your life.

Tonight seemed to be no different. Jeno had come picking you up at 7 p.m., you spent some time together, walking around, talking and giggling like usual, and you dropped at his house where other five – well, four boys (Jaemin lost to rock paper scissors so he had to go shopping for snacks) – were waiting for the both of you. Donghyuck always got to choose the movie you would watch, not without complaints from every one of you, yet at the end you’d always like what he picks, but Donghyuck doesn’t need to know that.

And there you were, all sprawled on the couch – though not in a very comfortable position –. You had already seen the movie which was playing loudly on the TV, hence you decided to pay more attention to your boyfriend instead. You were all cuddled up with him: he was hugging you, stroking your back from time to time. Your head was on his shoulder while your hand rested on his chest. Sometimes you couldn’t help but leave a furtive and quick kiss on his jaw, praying no one would notice you. He’d smile at you – gosh his eye smile UWU – and then he’d hug you closer.

About one hour after the movie’s beginning, you felt some physical needs pressing, so you quickly excused yourself and got up from the couch.

“Should I pause it?” Renjun asked, the remote already between his hands.

“No, don’t worry. I’ve already seen it anyway”

You made your way to the bathroom only to find out that the toilet paper was missing.

You sighed. Boys.

So you went back to the living room, where everyone was gathered.

You were about to open your mouth to ask where they kept the spare paper but something odd caught your ear. You backed up, hiding behind the wall. You obviously knew that eavesdropping was not by any means honest, especially if it was a conversation between your best friends. But you were almost certain that they were talking about you, your name dropping from one of the boys’ mouth.

“Enjoy being free while you can” Donghyuck joked with Jeno. You furrowed your brows.

What was that supposed to mean? You peeked your head cautiously, not wanting to be seen.

“You’re just jealous you don’t have a girlfriend” Jisung laughed at him, to which the boy responded with a sharp stare.

“Seriously, Jisung? When you haven’t even had your first kiss?”

“Ya ya ya! Shut up and don’t fight you two” Jaemin intervened, throwing a popcorn at them.

A brief moment of silence followed. You still didn’t understand what they were talking about.

“She’s just affectionate, that’s all” Jeno finally spoke, at which you held your breath.

So they were talking about you being clingy with your boyfriend. And this response from Jeno meant that he didn’t mind it, right? Or else he would have agreed with the boy. The thing is, you never thought about it: you supposed that a little kiss every now and then was a way to show your love and affection to him, plus he never complained about it, or never backed away.

“I know, but don’t tell me you don’t find this suffocating sometimes” Donghyuck continued.

Okay, now he was seriously getting on your nerves. What the heck did he care if you were clingy with your boyfriend? This was something between you and Jeno, and he wasn’t allowed to interfere with it, especially in front of everyone in the room. You thought he was making fun of you by now.

At this point you expected something to come out of Jeno’s mouth, anything that could have proven Donghyuck wrong, but he said nothing.

And silence means consent.

How did you know this? Well, Jeno wasn’t one to back out from speaking his opinion, especially with his friends. Especially with Donghyuck, for God’s sake, this guy was constantly bickering – though not with malicious intentions – with everyone.

“We shouldn’t talk behind her back like this” affirmed Jaemin with a severe stare. Jeno looked down: you didn’t know it but he was feeling suddenly guilty, agreeing with Jaemin. Everyone then went silent, the only sounds that could be heard being the dialogues in the movie.

You pressed your back against the wall, processing what you just heard.

Why didn’t he ever tell you? Why did he act like he loved it while, actually, he hated it? Then you thought about every time you held his hand in public, or hugged him, or kissed him, and then your thoughts went to five minutes before, when you were hugging him on the couch. You started feeling sorry.

Maybe after all it’s true, and he didn’t tell me anything because he didn’t want to hurt me.

But well, now it hurt twice as much since you weren’t aware of what your friends and your own boyfriend thought about you. Maybe every one of them, except for Jeno obviously, thanked God they hadn’t a girlfriend like you, who was suffocating and clingy.

And it was at this moment that your guilt turned into anger.

You just wanted to show all your affection and care to your boyfriend who you loved with all your heart, but apparently you were only bothering him. And Donghyuck - oh Donghyuck – you were so angry at him right now. What was the point in making fun of you in front of everyone when you weren’t even there? At the same time, you took a mental note to thank Jisung and Jaemin, the only two people who stood to defend you.

Okay, tonight you were proving everyone how not clingy you could be. Indeed, you were going to interact the least possible with Jeno. He wanted space? Good, you were giving him tons of it.

You eventually went to the toilet using one of your tissues since you were not asking any of them where the hell was the toilet paper, you washed your hands and went back to the couch.

But this time you didn’t hug Jeno. You simply forced a smile and sat next to him with your arms crossed. You tried not to be too obvious, you still didn’t want them to know that you heard everything, but you were sure your face was saying otherwise, and the confirmation arrived when Jeno asked you “Is everything ok?” full of concern.

You just called me clingy and let Donghyuck make fun of me. Yes, everything’s amazing.

“Yes, of course. Why?” you replied, using all of your acting skills in the process which, by the way, were very poor. But apparently they worked, because Jeno smiled at you and shook his head. “Nothing”.

But if you were successful at lying to him right now, then by the end of the movie he understood that something was wrong. You were avoiding all of his attempts of skin ship because “it was too hot”, but then you were grasping at the blanket like there’s no tomorrow. You were also laughing at everything remotely funny that came out of Jaemin’s mouth while you simply ignored all of Jeno’s attempts of making you laugh. Hell, you didn’t even argue with Donghyuck when he murmured something about Jeno being the most unfunny guy he ever met. Oh and you were playing and laughing with Jisung who was sitting next to you.

In short, you were avoiding him.

But he decided to shrug these thoughts away. Maybe he was being paranoid, he thought: you were just enjoying your friends’ company, plus it wasn’t written anywhere that you were allowed to talk and give attentions only to him.

Little did he know, this was just what you were trying to do: shower everyone with attentions except him.

Eventually the movie came to an end, and while everyone was pronouncing their goodnights and heading to sleep, you just remained there, with your phone between your hands, scrolling mindlessly on your Instagram feed.

Usually you and Jeno would have gone to bed together, sharing your thoughts about the movie you just watched, or simply talking about everything and nothing at the same time. But not today. He wanted space? You were giving him space.

Jeno already stood up to make his departure, but soon noticed you weren’t following him like you always did. “Are you coming?” he asked you, stopping on his tracks.

“I’ll just reply to a few messages and then I’ll go to sleep too. Don’t wait for me, you can go”

“Y/N are you sure everything’s okay? You’ve been acting quite weird. Are you alright? Did something happen?”

“Of course not, Jeno. Nothing happened” you replied rather coldly. Then you sighed. “I’m good, don’t worry for me” you added, softly this time. Although you believed he deserved it, you didn’t want to be too rude to him.

He nodded, and without saying anything more, he left.

At this point you started feeling a tiny bit guilty, still you couldn’t simply pretend nothing happened: their words hurt you and even if you really wished to just forget everything, you couldn’t. You just couldn’t, it was stronger than you.

By the way, you had no intention of sleeping with Jeno tonight, so you grabbed the blanket all of you once shared when watching the movie, and struggled a little bit to find a comfortable position. Eventually, after some tears escaped from your eyes, you drifted into a restless sleep.

It took a couple of hours for Jeno to realize you were not in bed with him.

He just fell asleep, a part of him believing that later you would have joined him. But when he woke up, he immediately sensed that something was off. Still sleepy, he touched the other side of the bed only to find it empty, and immediately stood up. It was 3 A.M, why weren’t you sleeping? What the heck were you doing? Did someone kidnap you? At this point he was surprised of how paranoid he could be.

His thoughts came to an end when he saw you, on the couch, with a blanket shielding you from the cold, all curled up. He didn’t see the dried tears that stained your face, though.

Sitting slowly beside you, not wanting to scare you, he gently shook you, not sure himself if it was the right thing to do. He was just so confused, he genuinely didn’t have any idea of what was happening. But he knew one thing for sure: you had been acting cold with him and he wouldn’t had moved until you confessed what was going on. Was it something he said or did? Was today your anniversary or something and he forgot it? Poor boy absolutely couldn’t find peace unless he knew what he did.

Soon you opened your eyes, still heavy from the – lack of – sleep.

“Hey” he murmured softly.

You considered pretending to sleep but nah, as I said earlier, you weren’t a good actress.

“Hey” you replied, stretching your limbs a little bit.

“I got worried since you weren’t sleeping next to me” he chuckled awkwardly. Sure thing, he didn’t know how to handle this situation since this was the first time you were acting like this.

“I… umm… I just fell asleep here” you replied looking at your hands, which you were scratching due to the nervousness.

Another lie.

Then silence.

“Y/N look at me” his voice suddenly changed, turning colder.

You swallowed, a knot forming again in your throat, as you forced back the tears that were trying to escape. You didn’t want to give in so soon.

But how could you, when he was getting angry at you? You should have been angry, not the opposite. And you know what? He was right, you were taking it too far. He didn’t deserve this. Look at how nice he tried to be all night, you managed to anger a calm and patient man like him. How stupid could you be at this point?

With a quivering lip you turned your head, facing him. He was watching you intently, with a serious frown on his face. Your grip on the blanket got tighter, almost ripping it with your nails.

You stayed silent. Then he spoke.

“Why are you being like this?”

You swallowed. What should you say? Were you even allowed to say anything at this point?

You tried to open your mouth to say something, but as soon as you tried your eyes were filled with tears, rapidly falling on your skin. You just couldn’t take it anymore, so you just faced away and buried your face in the pillow, trying to muffle your sobs. You didn’t want to look so pathetic in his eyes, although by now you thought you were being beyond pathetic.

If earlier there was any anger in Jeno, now every hint of it dissipated at the sight of you crying, curled up on the couch. He suddenly felt guilt taking over him. But the amount of confusion and frustration was bigger, so, as much as it pained him to see you cry because of him, this didn’t prevent him from trying to find out what had gotten into you. He was honestly so tired, he just wanted to sleep with you on his side.

He gently, almost scared, touched your trembling frame, and when he noticed there was no sign of rebellion from you, he lied down and hugged you tightly from behind.

And you kept on crying silently, a loud sob escaping occasionally, as he murmured sweet nothings into your ears, shushing you gently and telling you that everything’s fine, I’m here with you. Just let it out.

When you finally finished crying, he placed a soft kiss on your neck, then another on your wet cheek.

“Wanna talk about it?”

There was no point in lying by now. So you faced him, face full of concern and arms still tightly secured around you. And you just let out everything, from how you overheard their conversation – including how sorry you were for doing it and promising it would never happen again -, to how you were hurt by Donghyuck’s words but mostly by Jeno’s lack of words.

On the other hand, poor Jeno didn’t have any idea this could have affected you so much, and because of this he didn’t even think this could have been the cause of your sudden behavior. He just listened everything silently, surprised, just like a kid to whom the newest things are explained.

“I just got so angry at you for not defending me, and for letting Hyuck make fun of me. So I wanted to distance myself from you as much as possible to have my revenge” you openly confessed, hiding your face in his chest.

“I’m really sorry I took this so far. I should have talked instead” you add.

“Well, that’s true” Jeno replied, “but I can’t say I’m in the right either. First thing, we shouldn’t have talked about you like that, plus I’m really sorry I didn’t say anything to Hyuck, I understand this hurt you a lot”

“But do you really think I’m that clingy? Because if so, all you have to do is say the word and I’ll try to respect you space more” you asked, looking up at him with watery eyes.

And if your ears were sharp enough, you could have heard the sound of Jeno’s heart shattering.

Now he was the one who was on the verge of tears.

“Y/N please don’t ever say such a thing. You don’t have to change anything about yourself. I love you because you are you, including your touchy and loving nature. Besides, don’t look at me this way or I’m seriously gonna cry” he added whining, causing a smile – a real one – to appear on your face.

“Now it’s a lot better” he affirmed, tracing your curled up lips with his thumb.

“Can I kiss you or you’re still mad at me?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I was thinking about making you suffer a little more” you joked.

“Oh my God, you’re unbelievable”

“I think so too”

He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I should kiss that annoying attitude of yours away”

“I don’t know, should you?”

“I’ll take that as a yes”

And with that he kissed you, the fight of moments ago long forgotten. A slow and gentle kiss, a mixture of emotions being shown: remorse, love, affection. It was a way for the both of you to say “it’s all in the past now”.

After you parted, one thought snapped in his mind.

“Wait, how will you manage the matter with Donghyuck? I can talk to him if you want” he pointed out, concerned. He perfectly understood if you were angry at the boy in question, but he also wished all of you to be as bonded as a big family, his family.

“There’s no need, I’ll just confront him by myself, beat him up until he asks for forgiveness and then forgive and hug him”

Jeno looked at you, almost scared. “What…?”

“Just kidding” you said, laughing at his funny face. Still hugging, you made yourselves comfortable enough to sleep.

“Or maybe not”

[rozmariflowers]

story stuff <3

tws/cws: death, suicide, emotional/psychological abuse, murder (please let me know if i missed anything)

other notes: this post has possible spoilers for the main story for jennifer, which has not yet been written. so if you wanna wait until that comes out do that! if it… does ever get written

also, i hope you like how i format my posts! i try my best to make them nice to look at :)

@ratscraftz <3

gonna start off this post with some happy stuff!! i wanna talk a bit abt jennifer and her sister first!

while jennifer’s family situation is a bit… messy, she has a really good relationship with her sister, elizabeth. the relationship between jennifer and elizabeth is actually loosely based on the one between me and my older sister :)

jennifer and elizabeth affectionately call each other “jenny” and “lizzie” :D elizabeth is significantly only than jennifer (5+ years) but they still kinda grew up with each other. even when elizabeth became an adult, she decided to stick around at home mostly because of jennifer. elizabeth has always been very supportive of jennifer and has always cared for her.

even when elizabeth starts working at their parents’s company and jennifer starts university, elizabeth always makes sure to stop by every now and then to make sure jennifer is holding up okay.

okay, i also wanna talk a bit abt “jennifer’s” personality, without the dark stuff!! her personality is the closest to florence, but actually takes some traits from jennifer due it being her body. “jennifer” is theatrical and eccentric in her behavior, she likes attention. she’s very expressive, you can always very clearly tell what she’s feeling. she’s also passive-aggressive. i’ll continue about “jennifer” under the gif

the sad stuff is under the gif!! this is the section where the tws/cws apply!!

continuation of talking abt “jennifer”. she very much takes joy in the hurt of others, part of the motivation to murder ya know? she’s well… a very, very horrible person. like i said, “jennifer” is most similar to florence’s because well,,,, it technically is florence, just with jennifer’s body.

to start off with the sad stuff, i wanna talk about the relationship between jennifer and florence.

to put it in the simplest terms possible: florence is very much abusive towards jennifer.

florence knows if she can break jennifer completely, she’ll put up less of a fight, be less… resistant if you will. florence actively feeds into jennifer’s paranoia. she will threaten jennifer, she will manipulate her and she will do any possible thing to keep her down. florence knows very well what she is doing, she just doesn’t care because it benefits her.

and to be honest, i don’t think jennifer will end up surviving the main story. by the later parts of the story, she’s exhausted, paranoid and has lost any will to keep going. if she doesn’t get caught by the law, i think it’s likely she’ll just… end her life. she would be so tired of being nothing but florence’s little puppet used to hurt others.

if she does get caught by the cops, do you really think they’d believe her if she said she was possessed by the ghost of a dead serial killer? quite unlikely. if she just gave in and took the blame, getting a death sentence doesn’t seem to unlikely to me. or, if she kept going on about the possession stuff, maybe she’d manage to get through with the insanity defense. but from what i know that’s not easy. though i don’t really like this ending possibility and i’ll probably not go this route.

a very last possibility is that she just… runs away. though within the actual canon of the story i highly doubt this as a possibility.

i just think it’s unlikely she’ll be alive in the end. she’ll have no good or satisfying ending, it doesn’t fit neither the story nor her character.

maybe i’ll just make the ending vague.

over the course of the story, she also isolates herself more and more from her friends, partly due to her growing paranoia but also because she’s terrified of what florence might do. by the end, she probably barely interacts with them anymore, if she does at all.

in the end, she’s… really not much more than an empty husk if the person she used to be.

[astaroth1357]

More undateables with a demigod hades mc???

By request, have yourself a part two!! 

Demigod MC Series: Hades Pt. 2 (Un)Dateables Edition!

I will ask that y’all please don't ask for continuations of other gods unless I say it’s okay to do again. This series already fills my inbox something fierce and this is a one-off that I allowed for during the request window.  If I have to make ideas for new gods while continuing a bunch of old MCs, it'll burn me out fast...

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena, Hades Pt. 2

Diavolo

Oh, he has no problem at all hosting a child of the Underworld, hell he even throws them a welcome banquet when he finds out! Hades is a dear friend - and practically a parental figure to him growing up - so he's more than happy to take in one of his children for a year.

Diavolo is actually one of the few people that the MC can talk to about their home with any kind of fondness. Usually when they bring up things like the comforting wailing of the River Coctyus, the brothers will give them weird looks... but Diavolo knows where they're coming from!

He spent numerous summers in the Underworld growing up doing things like pestering Charon on the River Styx or playing games with Cerberus (the other one) in the Asphodel Meadows... His beach house is actually modeled after his childhood summer home in the Isles of Paradise! Really, it can be a lovely place if the gloom doesn't bother you!

So in the spirit of his fond memories, Diavolo really tried to make their time in the Devildom a fun one!... in his maybe trying a little too hard way…  

Poor MC found themselves offered pretty much everything under the moon… Tickets or exclusive passes to different cultural events/festivals, invitations to gala events, and tours of nearly every inch of Hell by the Prince himself - it was… it was a lot for the poor introverted thing…

It didn’t help that Diavolo would have a hard time gauging if they were having any fun due to their naturally melancholic nature, which only pushed him to try harder… He means well, he does. He’s just not the most in touch with what would make an anti-social doom child happy...

It took Barbatos and Lucifer stepping in for the mortal to actually start getting some much needed space and that improved their experience significantly. Sometimes less is more, Dia… Less is more. But they appreciate his efforts anyway.

Barbatos 

Also has a pretty amicable relationship with the Ruler of the Underworld, though his is much more professional compared to Diavolo’s. He actually has a good deal of appreciation for the man for taking good care of the Prince during his visits, so he sees this as an opportunity to return the favor.

Like Diavolo, he’s rather focused on making sure the MC is having a good stay in the Devildom, but he’s much more subtle about it. He’ll come by the House often to check up on them and make sure everything is to their liking... 

Even the brothers notice that he treats them like anothering visiting Lord/Lady in that way, which he would argue they very much are and should be respected as one. It’s the least the Devildom can offer their father at this point.

His visits may also be an excuse for keeping an eye on the brothers to make sure they don’t do anything to inconvenience their “young guest…” To be honest, the entire House is a little paranoid about that… Nobody wants to know the punishment for hurting MC if Barbs is the one dishing it out...

Apart from watching out for them, Barbatos tries to encourage the MC to accept the Young Lord’s gifts (while also actively advising Diavolo to go easier on them at the same time). It would be so disheartening to him if his Prince feels like he hasn’t offered them the best experience that he could… He’s sure they understand.

Any time that he invites the MC to tea, they usually end up talking about their father in some way. Barbs knows a surprising amount about the god… He’s been around about as long as Chronos - preceding the birth of Aether and Chaos themselves - so he has some stories to tell.

The MC did once ask him why he doesn’t just run everything if he’s really been around for so long... his answer was: “Kings and their kingdoms will rise and fall… Worlds upon worlds are born, then cease to be. But time is what brings about all changes… So, I think I’m perfectly content with the power I possess. Wouldn’t you be?” 

Annnd they never asked Barbs another question like that again… and people think death is scary… 

Simeon 

He was honestly a little worried for their new companion for quite a while… It’s not like there’s never any sadness in the Celestial Realm or anything, but they seem to have something else entirely…

He’s heard stories about the Underworld. He’s never been himself, that’s usually a job for the Seraphim due to the… dreary nature of the place - but he’s heard it would make the Devildom look downright festive…

If he were being honest, he had half expected the MC to be obsessed with skeletons, ghosts, and other elements of darkness but that wasn’t the case. They certainly knew a lot about those things, but they appeared to have a healthy interest in the afterlife in general, so they asked him a lot of questions about the Celestial Realm, angels, and how the souls of the blessed are treated up there… It was surprising to say the least.

Of course he did the same and, frankly, Simeon found it incredibly wasteful that so many Greek followers find themselves just wasting away in a field of nothing for so long… but that’s neither here nor there.

He was also surprised by how gentle of an influence the MC ended up being on Luke as well. He had always suspected that the little angel just needed a bridge between him and Devildom to start finding appreciation for it, and the MC fit that bill perfectly - nothing he was used to, but still approachable enough to make everything less frightening. He thanks them a great deal for that… but...

It’s just that… Well they’re just so… depressing sometimes…! He doesn’t want to blame them because it hardly seems like their fault! They’re a very kind person, it’s just an atmosphere around them… It brings him to tears if he isn’t careful…

He’s invited the MC to Purgatory Hall on multiple occasions to chat and try to make them smile… When they do, the gloom is dispelled - even just a little - and they’re a truly beautiful creature regardless. It’s just so unfortunate that their life brings so much sadness...

Even so, he actually likes the MC enough to consider basing a character on them if he ever wrote another book. Something about a gloomy but sweet protagonist at home in a world of darkness sounds appealing… doesn’t it?

Luke

He didn’t know how to feel about the MC when they met. At first, he actually thought they were just as unhappy as he was to be there due to how depressed they looked but when they told him that wasn't true, he was really confused...

The Devildom is a dark, brutish, and dangerous place. Why would anyone feel at home down here??

But… well… He would spend time with them at RAD between breaks (partially to help scare off their many, many demonic suitors) and it might be weird to say, but they really made the Devildom look beautiful… literally.

The world just looks better when they’re around! It’s really hard to describe because it’s not something you notice much until they leave, but when the MC is around everything looks more vibrant and inviting! The grass gets greener, flowers grow bigger, and butterflies/birds hover around wherever they are like they have their own gravity - the realm loves them!

It started getting hard for Luke to hang onto his disdain for the place when they made it look so appealing… And then they started talking to him about the Underworld and the creatures they’d befriended there… creatures a lot worse than any demons he’d seen there...

Like. If the MC can be good friends with a bunch of rude walking corpses, then he could probably make friends with a demon right? There’s nice ones… kind of… 

Beel. He can make friends with Beel.

Like Simeon, he does feel bad that they seem so sad all the time… but unlike the older angel, he’s a bit more understanding that this is just how they are and enjoys his time with them regardless. (It helps a lot that just being around this little bean of a boy can lift their spirits anyway).

And you know what’s even better for him? When Lord Diavolo gives the MC tickets to things that they don’t want to go to, sometimes they’ll invite him along or give them to him instead! 

He’s gone to the Devil’s Coast with MC and Simeon sooo many times by now and he loves it!! Maybe the Devildom isn’t so bad after all, I mean, it can be a lot of fun when you go to the right places, anyway.

Solomon

Oh, he finds them both deeply fascinating and utterly terrifying - so just his sort of test sub-er, person!

He kids (somewhat), Solomon isn’t that dumb/lacking in self-preservation instinct. Experimenting on a child of death in a land of the dead (even if it’s not their “home turf”) would be asking for trouble. They’d have more than enough ammunition to fight him off and if their father found out? Immortality wouldn’t even begin to save him...

That being said, questions aren’t necessarily experiments… and oh boy, does he have a lot of them.

If the MC isn’t being pestered by Diavolo or the brothers, then they’re probably having to put up with Solomon nipping at their heels trying to get them to use their powers or answer all sorts of “innocent” scientific questions…

“MC, reanimation of Greek dead requires a blood offering, correct? Do you have to sacrifice animals for that process or do you allow them to feast on your own?”

“MC, when you’re controlling a skeleton do you move the body as a whole or do you have to animate each individual bone due to their lack of ligaments?”

“Think fast!! Oh look, you just caught the skull of my good friend, Richard! Could you bring him back from that, or should I fetch the rest of him?” 🙂

They put up with it because, believe it or not, he’s not nearly the weirdest person they’ve ever met (a lot of crazy people drift in and out of the land of the dead…) and well… they’re a pretty lonely person too so it’s not like they have a lot of standards when it comes to friendships anyway.

But the second they breathe a word of this to Barbs or Diavolo, this boy is on his way to a royal restraining order… Where does he even get those skulls…?