#and you have to learn instead to recognize the real good and the hollowness of the fake good so you can choose the real one

[magpie-trove]

Ooooh. Spike was in love with humanity. He likes people and he wants to be a person and he’s not as into the death thing as he seems because the only way he got brought into it in the first place was he wanted to be among people (party) and they rejected him and then Drusilla offered understanding which is a thing that makes you feel like you belong. Like a person. So he’s like cool I’m a vampire I’m Evil like these my mates (he’s the first plain vampire that has like. relationships that we see) and then the second he gets among humans though he likes them! He likes the shows and cars and dogs. He likes life. But he’s dead. And then he runs into a person that feels like a cast off and he makes them not feel like that. Because he’s felt like that and it’s not good. Dawn. Joyce. Willow. Buffy herself. He hangs with Giles for months while Giles is going through his unemployed midlife crisis. They watch Passions.

Then he falls in love with Buffy and she treats him like a person and it’s cool! It’s good! But when Buffy comes back, her friends don’t treat him like part of the group. He’s narratively outcast again. The few episodes he winds up with them again he’s like oh! I must be some kind of good vampire huh! And one of us has to be alive! But beyond that, he’s an outcast in between vampire who can’t be a human and Buffy calls him a convenience and is not treating him like a person (she comes to him only for information and he’s desperate enough to mistake lust for connection—and connection is what being a person is.) Of course he’s got to be a vampire. But humanity. If he can’t be it he’s got to have it. Buffy has to be like him. Or worse, Buffy IS acting like him so he doubles down on what he thinks he should be in order to match her, to fit in the last place he thinks he has left to fit in the world

What I’m saying is Spike’s a groupie and it’s the thing that drags him down but also the thing that keeps him from actually losing his humanity altogether

[mikauhso]

Small fandom rant, feel free not to read.

I don’t really care what an artist has done as a person, unless they’re like literally hitler or someone who you’d punch in public for their crimes, I find it a bit sad and annoying how so many artists online are willing to tear down someone else’s art to say “I did it better.” It’s one thing to give constructive crit in good faith, and it’s another to make an OC-ified version of canon out of your love for something, but creating something out of spite will almost always ring hollow for me. I see so much good art duct taped to posts about how “here I fixed it” or “lol you can’t draw” and I think back to the time when I learned the phrase, “you’ll attract more flies with honey than vinegar.” It disheartens me to see artists and people I’d know to be kind and constructive not extend the same kind of care hey show irl to someone online based on their parasocial relation to them. It’s such a low-stakes game and people will act like a mid show having characters they enjoy is the end of the world, and in doing so will take personal snipes and make insults at the art instead of addressing the actual problem head on, because it’s easier to derail and funnel attention and love towards yourself instead of ask that others improve. I love redesigns born of love. I love rewrites that try to see an artist’s vision, but at a certain point I wonder if people even like what they’re making art about or if they’re slapping something recognizable over top of it in order to ride trends.

The internet normalizes clout chasing to the point where I feel like we do it almost instinctively. That little insult or sly comment at the end of a post, that’ll sway people to your side. Saying why you don’t like some person despite not knowing them. It’s valid to have your opinions but I wish people would act like they would in the real world. You wouldn’t go around and scream at someone who you saw post this one thing one time. You wouldn’t punch someone based on a rumor, or verbally berate them in a restaurant. Yet people post so much shit online and it’s so normalized that we don’t even register it as a sign to log off anymore.

I feel like social media is something incredibly important for communication, but it’s currently designed in a way that centers ourselves and how much dopamine we can get, whether it’s at the expense of others, ourselves, etc. And we’re part of the problem too, we refuse to change and recognize that maybe internet points aren’t worth it and maybe it shouldn’t matter what people think of us. And maybe it’s an opinion I have but I shouldn’t judge someone based on what fraction they put out on the internet of themselves. Maybe I should cook myself a snack or go out for a walk or sit on the balcony or in the yard, talk to a friend face to face. Again, I love what the internet has done for accessibility but every accessible thing is locked behind a service designed to ignore vitriol and anger towards one another.

I guess I fall prey to this too, but I’ve seen this pattern happen again and again and again. There are people behind everything that’s made, and unless it’s ai or something stolen, an artist put their time and heart into it. It’s part of the game to have tough skin but I wish it didn’t have to be a necessity because of spiteful people.

I guess I should add an addendum, this is about a pattern I’ve seen in many a fandom. This isn’t about the morality of a show’s crew or whatever, that’s a conversation for another day that I’m not getting involved in because the personal lives of others are no business of mine. Hah, there I go again. But in all seriousness. I’ve seen it in Hazbin Hotel. I’ve seen it with High Guardian Spice. Velma. Steven universe. The owl house. Any new show I’ve seen come out where someone decides to have a moment and say “I will create out of spite and a need to be seen.” I wish artists didn’t feel the need to ride trends and that we’d value each others’ work as much as something put out by Disney. But that too, is a post for another day.

[mossmagus]

kindness

Existence itself is unkind not in that it aims for suffering but that it cannot inherently be kind. To exist is to consume. To exist is to cause suffering.

By taking a job it is robbed from another. By eating, something is killed. Making a home means destroying an area that was once alive - digging up roots, hollowing a living tree, clearing brush.

The goal therefore is not elimination of suffering, but it's mitigation. Aiming to be kind. Eat that which is killed with the least amount of suffering. Use things that have the least negative impact upon the world. Reuse things as much as possible. Give back when able. Protest wars, protect the rights of those around you, plant things simply for the benefit of pollinators. Spread leaf cover on the ground in spots that lack it during the cold so the bugs and grasses do not die over winter. Support animal conservation efforts. Plant a small food forest for yourself instead of working with traditional home gardening. Use natural materials as much as physically possible. Educate yourself.

But this never ending list of "ways to be better" can be weaponized just as easily as it is used to do good. A combination of immaturity, lack of life experience, and changing humanity has lead to a problem of performative kindness. Film yourself crying so people know you're a real person who has a life just as deep as theirs. Speak about something that others are talking about or be accused of not caring and being a bad person. Make sure to agree with the most prevalent opinion of the time or be criticized incessantly by people who won't recognize your humanity. Make sure you cater to those who will assume your intent behind words or a sentence like the last one will get people saying "but what about nazis? what about x, y, z?" and then be accused of supporting them or being one and getting sent death threats and getting doxed.

The goal is kindness. Kind people know others have feelings and lives and relationships just as deep as their own. Kind people do not assume the worst of others. Kind people know that people are flawed and bursts of emotion can make people say things they genuinely do not mean or want. Kind people allow others to make mistakes and learn from them. Kind people understand that something does not have to be explicitly stated to be true. Kind people make small concessions because there are more important things in relationships and the world than refusing to understand what a person meant by "kind people make small concessions".

And then there are those that are proud to be petty. They are proud to refuse to let things go. They are proud to allow negativity to fester and they are proud to cause it. They do not wish the world to be a better place because they themselves are hurt and are either refusing to deal with it or they cannot deal with it. If the world moves on then what about the pain that was caused to them? Holding onto something only hurts yourself until you decide to weaponize it, which is the cycle of abuse. To be kind is to let go of the pain or to recognize it in others and not take it personally. To be kind isn't to forget but to give another chance to be better. To be kind is to communicate the pain and let them meet you with apologies. To be kind is to remain open to an apology and growth.

To be kind is to be kind to yourself as much as others. To achieve the best for all things you can touch without running yourself thin. Aiming for real possible changes for those near and far. To be kind is to realize there are enough people to touch everything. To be kind is to understand that there are enough people in the world for each aspect to have a dedicated group. Donating here and there and spreading awareness is enough. Focusing on a problem doesn't make someone a bad person. They aren't ignoring everything else. They aren't pretending it's not happening. They're not supporting it. Kindness is both big and small. A single dollar is kind. A thousand of them isn't somehow more kind, more moral, or more deserving. 1 is greater than 0 and that is enough.

To be kind is to be nuanced.

[eternitas]

Iemitsu turns up and speaks as if he knows his son but lets be re hoe much does he actually know about the intimate parts of Tsunas journey?

A lot in Reborn is done without it being said out loud. We would all believe Hibari to not be a real part of the vongola if he didnt come in clutch time and time again and had that fight against Adelheid where he spoke his own respect to Tsuna as a leader. We would still believe Gokudera to be a one sided guy who only cares about Tsuna if we disnt see him care for lambo and then slowly for the other.

So whenever we dont SEE something but are TOLD "No no i swear they feel THIS" it seems more hollow. Thats why I dont really trust the whole oh Daemon did it for Elena. I think it was consolation and trying to find something good in him when we were unmistakably shown what a depravid and incredibly cruel person he is.

And that is also why I don't believe Iemitsu to really be a father to Tsuna. We just dont see him acting like one. We are just told he is one, but only ever shown the leader of CEDEF who HAPPENS to be related to Tsuna.

I know our whole talk was about how it doesnt really NEED the sappy moments but i think in that moment I would've really liked them to either have a real conversation or Iemitsu showing actual meaningful support to Tsuna (It really doesnt help that my frienss father also is someone who was even far worse and now that he is seperated from the family he whines about how he is made out to be the villain and nobody wants to stay in contact with him. I WONDER WHY!). It feels like everyone else has at least ONE moment of actual bonding with tsuna before Iemitsu ever does.

BYAKURAN GETS SHOT BY COLLONELLOS RIFLE AND STILL HAS A SMALL MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION WITH TSUNA ABOUT HOW HE HAS CHANGED, WHICH IS LIKELY PARTIALLY WHY TSUNA GOT SO PISSED AT HIS ELIMINATION!

Iemitsu berates his son, he doesnt even explain himself or anything else. He just mentally scars his son and believes that is parenting.

Meanwhile

Reborn actually talks to Tsuna and tells him where he is going wrong. He also shows it with his fight wirh Iemitsu. Also let me point out how lovingly Reborn bonks Tsuna against the head (or pulls his hair I suppose?), point is we have seen Reborn actually hurt Tsuna physidally and this almost seems playful for reborns standarts.

Yes tsuna doesnt recognize him, but also, tsuna instinctively knows even if his conscious had not caught up to it.

I think this is why Tsuna as a protagonist is so important. I called bullshit on the elena thing but Tsuna very clearly shows thst being told "oh hey your father is kinda strong and you wont beat him by being arrogant" only leads to "okay cool. Wont do that anymore, but that doesnt change that i feel resentment."

Like with the whole "I wont be a mafia boss!", nothinf about his prior opinion changed. He wants to beat his dad now but he also is still not fucking happy about any of this. He couldve said "yeah it was fun to spend time with you!" but instead he get him rightfully calling his dad out. Because if Iemitsu truly knew Tsuna

HE WOULD KNOW THAT TSUNA DOESNT FIGHT FOR FUCKING FUN!!!!!!

Also allow me to point out how proud reborn is of him?

In reborns words he basically said "ya guys better start packing", because he sees how quickly Tsuna adapted and learned from him. and reborn is someone who constantly butts heads with others and is p harsh on his pupils. But here it really feels like REBORN is the proud father who teaches his son life lessons and Iemitsu is just... SOME GUY that happens to be related.

KHR does love and care really great but it also does imterpersonal conflict very well. If you remember that actions are usually louder than words in this series, you will be able to see through the shallow explanatory talk and notice all the small ways things do or dont match up.

I think one of my favourite moments in the series is the end of the storm battle. for one i am a die hard gokudera fan and in my opinion only the gamma fight surpasses it. And on the other-

The fact tsuna who is usually so reserved and just lets dera do his thing despite telling him quietly "you really don't have to"

Gets SO pissed at Gokudera for DARING to put his life on the line for this. A piece of jewelery and an empty title..

He calls it all meaningless if that means they cant just hang out together anymore.

Dera who links his own worth as a human being to his usefulness and position as a mafiosi is told "I just want you alive and by my side" in i think one of the most direct "this is the core of the whole series" moments we get.

When yamamoto faces ken he still holds back bc he doesnt want to get injured but as soon as TSUNA is in danger he says "fuck it" and gets serious.

In the shimon arc hibari picks up on tsunas depressive state and it annoys him so he changes that in his own way.

Its how mukuro in the rainbow trials cares for a tired fran.

Its how during the ring battles the girls and mama Sawada CONSTANTLY visit Lambo to make sure he is okay.

Its also how tsuna saves him in the first place. Fuck the rings, fuck the position, fuck this whole stupid arangement of fights- he has to save his family.

These people often get violent with each other and agressive, they bicker and they fight, but when the chips are down, all they care about is each other.

Most shounen protags have some kind of dream or goal, Tsuna just really really wants a quiet life and to spend that with his friends and family. The whole mafia buisness is just what he needs to do to keep that family he gained safe. Nothing tsuna EVER does is motivated by some ulterior motive for fame or riches. Its either him being FORCED into action bc he was literally kicked into it by reborn, or its because he has to resolve the situation to keep his friends and family safe.

The Caallone has a FUCKTON of members and so does the vongola and Tsuna really really really really REALLY doesnt care for any of that because in the end his own world is very small compared to the mafia.

I have to think of that one quote "why do you want to save this planet?" -"Because I live here!" for tsuna it would be "because my family lives here."

I mean be Tsuna isn't "heroic". Yeah he cares about other people and strangers, he helps old ladies, but when something is going on his go to isn't "I have to do something!" it's uauslly "man I hope SOMEONE does something. Not gonna be me tho!"

Sorry for the long ask i just wanted to rephrase what you said basically and send it back to you

HELLO AGAIN, thank you for the ask. Don't apologize at all for length, I'm absolutely foaming reading this.

I'm so glad you get what I was going for in the post. Those moments drive me insane. "They bicker and they fight but when the chips are down, all they care about is each other" and "Because my family lives here" I FEEL ABSOLUTELY INSANE ABOUT THESE LINES. You're so so right!!! The Vongola kids bully and tease and are nasty to each other, until it comes down to it and they fight tooth and nail for each other. Exactly what I was going for. The series doesn't need those scenes where Tsuna tells Gokudera he cares about him and they're warm and cuddly towards each other, bc it comes through in his words when meek and reserved Tsuna yells at him and tells him to stop trying to die for him or for some stupid ring. And I think that's so fun!! All the other stuff you listed also drives me so insane. For yamamoto, him letting himself get injured for Tsuna's sake was so good and Tsuna's love for Yamamoto shone through there too because Tsuna saw the injury and felt such immense guilt only apologizing for ruining everything for Yamamoto. Only for Yamamoto to go "No, I'm fine. As long as YOU'RE safe" like that's so good???

The Hibari thing?? How he sees Tsuna's depressed state over it all and all he says to comfort him is "Watch me." because that's all he could understand about the situation. That if he wins his fight, somehow Tsuna will cheer up. and its just so???? GOD ITS JUST SO FULL OF LOVE. Every character in this series shows love in their own ways and it drives me maddd

Mukuro taking care of a tired child too doesn't surprise me with his backstory. He's so gentle with people that are in "his care" even if he won't actively admit it.

The girls as well I'm so glad you pointed them out!! We so like to ignore them in this fandom and thats so sad bc the series makes it really clear that they are part of this equation too. That without their support, the fighters would not have made it. Tsuna could relax knowing Mama Sawada and the girls were watching Lambo and focus on his fight. And during future, he could focus on his training. Not to mention, they're just so supportive especially after they find out what's going on. The boycott episode and its resolution are some of my favorite scenes in Future, it makes me insane that the show gave the girls a Moment to remind us that they too are both deeply loved and ALSO love the boys just the same.

You're so right about Tsuna not being heroic, hell even in Shimon arc Enma is being bullied right infront of him and its Reborn that has to be like "STOP OR SAWADA TSUNAYOSHI WILL HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!" He's kindhearted and he's got a good moral compass.. It's hard to explain, but you basically have to be IN Tsuna's circle for you to get that sort of "I will die for you" behavior kksjng otherwise he sorta reverts back to his "who me? im just a 14 yr old boy im nobody"

Thank you for sharing Lou (Or eternitas, whatever you'd prefer!) Spreading my own brain rot back at me very nice :^)

[strifesolution]

Wait I heard somewhere that Martyn was thinking about doing ADVENTure again and thought about inviting Ren. I'm thinking about Ren learning more about Martyn and seeing InTheLittleFrost properly (I headcanon he saw some of InTheLittleFrost in 3rd Life but didn't really have the time to really take it in y'know?) and maybe meeting Martyn's Aunt and Uncle

Like I don't even know if that initial thing is true I just like thinking about this anyway

The blizzard is getting worse.

Ren holds onto Martyn's hand like a lifeline as they trek through the layered snow, darkening sky and sheets of snow falling making it harder and harder to see in front of him.

Just a little further to the station, Martyn kept saying. Each time with baited breath, quieter, and quieter. Just a little bit further.

And then Martyn stops. Ren feels it as he tries to step forward, but his companion lingers behind. He turns, surprise in his features as Martyn gives him a sheepish look.

"I- I really should've...explained this beforehand." He starts, voice weak. Ren lurches forward to hold onto him.

"What's wrong? Stay with me-"

"I didn't think it'd happen this quickly, I'm sorry."

And Ren's getting scared because Martyn's talking like he's dying or something and Ren is not having that on the way to a holiday vacation. Martyn manages a shaky smile.

"Toby will explain-"

"Dude, what are you talking about?"

Martyn's hand slips from his grasp.

He reaches, but in the split second of disconnect, a wave of snow sweeps between the space, and Martyn's gone. No crunch of boots on snow as he steps away, no fading of his form behind the sheet of falling flakes...simply nothing.

And Ren is alone.

The howling of winter wind fills his ear, heart beating in his chest as he squints through the storm, for something, anything, any sign of life.

And there is nothing,

Until there isn't.

"Hello, Rendog."

The voice comes loud and clear through the blizzard, a gap in the whistling wind. It's hollow and familiar all the same.

"...Martyn?"

"Not quite."

Turning in circles, he searches for the source of the voice, looking for anything to indicate something was really there.

"We haven't met properly, you and I. I suppose this is our reintroduction, after you've only felt my presence before."

"I don't know what you're talking about, or what you did with Martyn, but-"

The voice cuts him off.

"You didn't think Red Winter was his- my first experience with what the cold can do, did you?"

And finally, right before his eyes, with a gust of wind, a figure appears a few feet in front of him.

Cold, silver skin, frost tinted hair, warm winter clothes.

But Martyn all the same. It's strikingly familiar to how his Hand looked on his last life, but instead of the harsh blood-red of Dogwarts, he’s turned to brittle blue snow at dawn.

They stare at each other in silence. The ice-cold copy of his partner does not break his gaze. There is a mischievous glint in his eyes, childlike, as his lips turn up into a half-smile. He feels like he’s being mocked.

There’s a sound in his head, not unlike a beating heart. It gets louder and louder, closer and closer, as he and the frozen figure who has replaced Martyn stare each other down. Suddenly the sound is overwhelmingly loud, a tingling feeling in his chest as vibrations shake the ground. There’s a light through the storm, a high pitched screech, and oh, that sound isn’t in his head. It’s a train.

Through the fog, the locomotive reveals itself, track and platform to board completely covered by the snow, as it chugs to a stop just behind where Martyn’s doppelganger stood.

"That's our ride. Surely I- my warmer self, explained this part?"

He had. That's what Martyn said, before this lookalike replaced him. The station isn't far.

Ren does not give the imposter the satisfaction of an answer. His eyes flick to the train, a massive old fashioned steam engine who’s whistle blares over their confrontation. He holds his ground. Waiting for answers. Waiting for whatever weird reality he’d ended up in was over.

"HEY! Are you two getting on or what? You know Sandy will chew our head off if we're late!"

They both jump, as a head pokes out one of the train windows from the cart ahead of their platform, leaning halfway outside. Peering through the storm, the figure is a baby-faced looking brunette human, wearing a warm scarf not unlike the one lookalike Martyn wore. He waves enthusiastically for a moment, until realization dawns on his face, and his hand drops.

"Oh, did Martyn already transform?"

Ren finds his voice, and calls out in confusion. "...Transform?"

"Oh-" The stranger smacks his head with the palm of his head. "Did Martyn not tell you?" The man throws an accusatory glare at the lookalike, to which not-Martyn shrugs with a smug expression.

"Don't give me that look, I don't control what flowers-and-sunshine me does. Usually."

"Can one of you dudes PLEASE tell me what the heck is going on?"

Not-Martyn and the nameless train passenger share a look, one he couldn't help but recognize as one he'd shared with Doc, or Iskall, or False. One of silent friendship communication.

And then both of them burst out laughing. Not-Martyn sounds so much like the real Martyn does, and he feels fuzzy headed.

Ren is really beginning to think he's missing out on a joke.

"Okay, okay, we will, but we can't be holding up an entire train like this." The brunette explains through stifled laughter. "Come aboard first... Ren, right?" At his blink of recognition, he grins. "Take that Martyn, my memory is good! Anyways, I'm Toby." He gestured to the open train cabin doorway behind from where he leaned out the window.

Ren follows his hand to where not-Martyn is halfway through the door, leaning halfway on it and holding his arm out as if to let Ren go on first.

He'd been through a lot of weird stuff over five and a half seasons of Hermitcraft and lived, but weird supernatural experiences outside of it were a bit out of the norm. He's ready to believe he's passed out from bad frostbite and this is just a wacky dream.

"Hot chocolate's getting cold, guys!" Another new voice echoes from inside the train, and Toby pops his head back into the carriage.

"Last call, Ren." Not-Martyn says.

The tips of his ears are starting to freeze, and he actually is going to get frostbite if this is real.

And hot chocolate sounded really good right now.

With a deep breath, he steps towards the platform, definitely not ready for the next 25 days.

[itsclydebitches]

I kinda wonder, what could bakugou do (hori write bakugou to do) to make him less popular with the "anti" crowd. Like He was a horrid child no doubt and people who try to put blame on Deku or lessen the terrible shit bakugou did aren't great. But as we don't rly see it, we have to assume bakugous behaviour wasn't stopped, we only ever saw his mum "punishing" him when he was being rude after getting kiddnapped. Nothing will excuse what bakugou did, but he has stopped? He's overall a harsh person but he's not harrassing and bullying people anymore, specifically not deku, he's trying to attone for what he did to deku and has now apologised for it. His behaviour was never viewed as justified or good in the series, he's a scary figure in middle school, we're not meant to like his behaviour, so the series itself hasn't justified his actions.

As someone who relate to both bakugou and deku more than I'd like to admit (never told someone to jump tho, that's fucked lol) so I can 100% understand not liking or even hating bakugou but as someone who's not 15 anymore, looking back I also made a lot of really shitty decisions and like bakugou have tried to make up for it, and like deku I was 'friends' with people who hurt me.

Is there anything he can do for the "antis" to just dislike him rather that be "anti"?

(I'm very sorry if you've talked about this somewhere, you can just tell me to look for it if you have, I'll continue to look for your posts on the subject)

Hey there, anon! I think I’ve spoken about this only tangentially and/or in my main Bakugo meta, which is too big for anyone sane to read. So yeah, let’s chat here!

For me personally—and that’s all I can ever do: speak personally. I think it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single solution to please the “anti” crowd. Each fan will be looking for something slightly different in Bakugo’s character, much of which might contradict what a “stan” is currently enjoying. Given how charged a character he is, I'm not sure it's possible to get the entire fandom to like him—what I’m looking for hinges on having a different reading of the story than you seem to. Meaning, I think the series does justify his behavior. Not in any overt, super obvious way like having all the characters go, “Wow, Bakugo! I sure do love how you threaten people all the time. That’s super cool and heroic!” Things are rarely that straightforward. Rather, it’s in a more subtle, but consistent manner that paints a rather conclusive picture across hundreds of chapters.

Simply put, Bakugo is continually rewarded for his actions. Or, if not outright rewarded, his actions are ignored in a way that implies silent acceptance. Characters may not always like what he does... but they're willing to let it slide because Bakugo's heroism was always treated as a given, not something he had to earn and prove.

With the ever necessary disclaimer that I’m not fully caught up yet, here’s a list of some of the things that stood out to me in the first half of the series:

Bakugo’s bullying made him the most popular kid in school.

Bakugo’s bullying was ignored by/outright supported by the teachers.

Bakugo’s bullying did not hinder him from getting into U.A., one of the most prestigious hero schools around.

Despite acting horribly throughout his time at U.A. too, this behavior was continually ignored by the teachers and other authority figures around him.

Bakugo’s struggle to realize that other people aren’t “trash” doesn’t hurt his achievements in any way. He still gets top scores, still wins the tournament, etc.

Bakugo’s behavior gets him special attention from All Might, the greatest hero and Bakugo’s personal idol.

His behavior doesn’t make others dislike him in any manner that’s taken seriously. Everybody is still willing to not just put up with Bakugo, but—in time—start treating his behavior as a quirk (no pun intended lol) that they’re secretly fond of, rather than something he should legitimately be striving to change. Kirishima is the most overt example of this.

This is compounded by his behavior constantly being framed as humorous. Much like with Mineta’s perverted actions, characters might superficially go, “No, that’s bad!” but the story never demands any significant development because then we’d lose the “joke” of Bakugo screaming in rage at the slightest inconvenience, threatening to murder someone over nothing, constantly belittling everyone around him in a “funny” manner, etc. When fans talk about development of a manga character as archetypal and extreme as Bakugo, most don’t really want to see significant change to his base personality. Because then that would result in someone who doesn’t look like the “real” Bakugo: someone nicer, more even-tempered, more mature, etc. But for those of us who were never drawn to that personality in the first place, the continued acceptance of his rude, egotistical, and violent behavior is discomforting. The easiest comparison I can draw is between this and Bakugo’s mother slapping him. That slap is meant to be another “joke”—we see it constantly in shonen anime, something "humorous" you shouldn’t take too seriously because haha, it's just an overprotective mother—but many fans do take it seriously, using it as the basis for a whole “Bakugo was abused and this explains his behavior” reading. Well, I take the “joke” of Bakugo’s threats and insults seriously, especially in a story that starts with something like telling Izuku to jump off the roof. In the same way that many fans want others to treat Bakugo’s mother as a serious topic that has had a negative influence on his development, I want the series to take Bakugo’s everyday actions seriously as a negative influence on… well, everyone around him. But it doesn’t. His base personality is grudgingly adored.

The above two points are seen most overtly in Izuku, who never wavers in his respect for Bakugo despite how Bakugo treats him. Not just prior to U.A., but during their training too. Izuku, as the protagonist, is the emotional heart of this tale, so when he talks about how inspiring Bakugo is, it encourages the reader to see his behavior as inspiring too. Rather than, as said, something that needs to change. Izuku's continued friendship with Bakugo, his adoration of him, and his acceptance of the way he's treated has severely warped how the entire story sees Bakugo's actions. After all, if #pure Izuku can see the good in Bakugo, why can't everyone else? He must not be that bad after all.

I could get into detailed analyses of all the above—like how Bakugo was the one comforted after attacking Izuku outside the dorms at night and how the messed up relationship he has with Izuku is upheld as something to nurture; how the remedial courses he had to take were made to be rather silly, thereby undermining their supposed importance to his development; how Bakugo’s kidnapping had nothing to do with his flaws, but much of the fandom uses it as a way to dismiss any appropriate consequences because, “Hasn’t he suffered enough?” etc.—but in the interest of keeping this within a readable length, I’ll leave it at that. The point is that Bakugo has always been privileged when it comes to his behavior, resulting in others either outright praising it, ignoring it, or demanding that he change a miniscule bit, which always keeps him far below the standards of both his peers and the expectations of a hero. Everyone in 1-A must learn to be even better than the good people they already are... Bakugo needs to learn that other people aren't dirt at the bottom of his shoes. It's never been a particularly impressive development when pit against the rest of the class. All of which can make something like an apology feel pretty hollow. Yes, he’s apologized and I say with all seriousness that that’s great! But how does that apology stack up against 300+ chapters of content? As Bakugo’s words highlight, he's been a really awful person up "until now": he was consumed by Izuku being “miles ahead of [him],” he “looked down on [him]” because he didn’t have a quirk, he “didn’t want to recognize that,” he “hated that,” “grew distant,” “tried to beat you down,” “opposed you and tried to show my superiority over you,” and ends it all with, “it probably doesn’t mean anything telling you all this” before finally getting to the “I’m sorry.” This is basically a laundry list of how horrible a person Bakugo has been for the entire series, with an acknowledgement that this apology is coming really, really late. This is the moment where I could START to like Bakugo, depending on how he acts form here on out, but that pivotal moment arrived after six years of content and in the final arc of the story. It’s too late. Bakugo needed this kind of self-reflection and positive action 250+ chapters ago so he could (hopefully) grow into a better person across the story, not at the story's end. What we got instead is 322 chapters of him being a really horrible person, but the story going out of its way to excuse or even praise that behavior the majority of the time.

As a quick comparison to end on, I think what Bakugo needed was what Soo Jin got in True Beauty. You don’t need to have seen the drama to follow along. The tl;dr is that she has a lot of the core qualities of Bakugo: an all-consuming drive to win that was created due to abusive parents with high expectations, resulting in her bullying a peer to a pretty horrific extent. The difference between them is how the story frames their actions. When Soo Jin becomes the bully she loses everything. Rather than succeeding academically, her grades plummet, making it clear that this anxiety and self-doubt (things the fandom keeps insisting Bakugo is struggling with, but that rarely ever show up in the text) is actually impacting her day-to-day life. Her best friend drops her because she’s not going to support her choices. The boy she likes rejects her. She’s eventually forced to start over somewhere new - which importantly separates her from the girl she was bullying - and get some distance from her parents, resulting in the growth needed to become a healthier, happier, good person again. So when Soo Jin apologizes to the girl she hurt, it feels earned. The story continually recognized how horrific her actions were and put her into a place where she either had to change, or continue losing at everything else that was important to her. Bakugo? Bakugo doesn’t lose. Oh, he claims he does because he’s comparing himself to Izuku constantly, but that’s just him thinking in extremes. He still wins academically. Still wins many battles. Still wins at having friends. Still wins by maintaining the prestige of being a U.A. student. Still wins by getting All Might’s attention. Still wins by receiving Izuku’s respect and an agreement to maintain this rivalry that Bakugo is so obsessed with. Bakugo comes out well 99% of the time, he just thinks he's "lost" because he can't stand not being the absolute best.

For me, the story needed to have Bakugo face consequences for his behavior, not receive rewards and/or have others ignore it, and that revelation/apology needed to come way, way sooner. For me the issue is not a specific action that Horikoshi can have Bakugo do in the next chapter and them bam, I like him now. The problem is Bakugo’s entire concept, how he’s received by the entire cast, and his run across this entire series. "Entire" is the key word there. Which is why the “But he’s apologized. What more do you antis want?” reactions don’t sit well. What we wanted is a better written redemption arc across those 300+ chapters, not a single scene that’s meant to have us forget all the other problems inherent in the story. At this point it’s a far more complicated situation than, “Bakugo just needs to do X, Y, and Z and then we’re golden.” At the end of the day, Horikoshi failed to make me like him as a person and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to change Bakugo enough to make him likable to me. Bakugo was never the sort of character I’d be inclined towards without a serious, nuanced redemption arc, but sadly, a core, crucial part of that redemption arc took six years to arrive. At this point there’s no way to change the problems in Bakugo’s writing for that huge chunk of the series and not enough time left in the series, it seems, to do the work we should have seen across the entire run. Honestly, idk if the Bakugo we'll get going forward is someone I can just dislike as opposed to being really uncomfortable with, but my money is on there being too little story left and too much investment in upholding Bakugo's base personality for that to happen. I could absolutely be proven wrong! But I think the problems are structural and needed to be better dealt with from page one, not hastily patched over in the final hour.

[lexosaurus]

Everything Was White: Part 12

[see all chapters]

Read on: [ffn] / [ao3]

---

The alarm was blaring.

Danny recognized the noise immediately. But his eyes were still slow to open, his arms were slow to turn off the offending sound, and his brain was slow to recognize that the white ceiling above him was just his bedroom ceiling.

His body was numb. Nothing felt real.

He grabbed his phone off his nightstand and unlocked it. The screen was too bright, but he didn’t care. He’d been through worse. What was a little eye strain to him, really?

There were text messages, but Danny ignored them. The government likely already read them first, so if they were important, Danny would probably have woken up back in his cell rather than his cozy bed.

Ghosts like Danny didn’t get to have comfort. He was unpredictable. Dangerous.

“You’re a feral beast.” Operative O’s deep voice rained down on him. “You need to be trained.”

Danny opened the Twitter app only to be faced with a crushing amount of notifications and his name on the top of the trending list.

He should have felt nervous. Anxiety should have gripped his stomach. But...it didn’t.

He felt nothing.

Numb.

He clicked on his name and scrolled through the tweets. As he suspected, that damn video of him at the PHP littered his screen.

Protests have begun to break out near the health clinic Phantom is attending. [image]

I don’t understand, why doesn’t he just fly into the building or something? Can he not fly?

Is phantom over?

It’s so gross how people feel the need to harass a teenager trying to recover from trauma.

imagine being a teen trying to get emergency mental help and then THAT walks into ur class 

What the fuck did the government do to him? 

He was numb.

Nobody knew what really happened in there, and Danny wanted so badly to keep it that way. And the worst part was, he thought that if he just forgot about it, tried to move past it, then it would all go away. And no one would ever know.

Except Vlad did find out. Somehow, Vlad had managed to get a hold of classified government files about Danny, and if what he had implied was true, then he had learned everything. 

And if Vlad knew, then…

No. He wasn’t going to think about it. 

Danny knew from the moment he’d stupidly revealed himself that his life was not his own anymore. He knew that he was going to be nothing but a government possession from that moment till the day he died.

He didn’t deserve to get upset over this.

He pulled up a blank tweet and started typing. His movements were robotic. Stilted. But one slip-up, just one reason for the public to get suspicious, and Danny knew that some seedy corner of the internet would pounce on the opportunity to dig deeper into Danny’s life than he was comfortable with.

Danny Phantom @dannyphantom Thank you everyone for the support. I’m back home with my family and am healing.

Before he could question what he was doing, his finger was already pressing send on the tweet. He watched as almost immediately, notifications popped up in his inbox. 

But he didn’t open his notifications, he didn’t look at the replies. Instead, he closed the app and shut his phone off.

He didn’t care anymore.

Maddie knocked on the door and asked him a question, and he responded with the right answer for her to leave. He got up and started his new morning routine of sitting in the shower for ten minutes, getting dressed, brushing his teeth, and heading downstairs for breakfast before leaving for six hours of mandatory therapy.

He stared out the window, watching the morning traffic pass by him. He couldn’t remember if he shampooed his hair or if he just sat under the scalding water. But it was fine. He was just a government-issued robot now. Whatever.

There were people lining the highway when Danny pulled into the PHP center. They were shouting different things, holding different signs, their cameras armed and ready as soon as the GAV came into view. The police were there, making sure no one escaped into the parking lot, and there were therapists waiting outside.

They didn’t know. They had no idea what Danny had gone through, why he was there.

And it didn’t matter. Not to them, not to Danny, not to the police or the news stations filming the scene or to the government or Vlad or anyone else. 

Danny wasn’t in charge of his life anymore. 

He was only here because the government had decided he could stay free. 

For now.

The therapists escorted him into the building. Danny felt hollow. Sick.

No, he was fine.

Maddie hugged him, told him to have a good day, that she’d be back to bring him to more therapy after, and Danny nodded. At least, he thought he remembered to nod. He might not have, though.

There was a window in the lobby. A white van was parked along the street.

The APC news van.

Jazz was right. Danny was just being paranoid about the white van outside of their house before. He was so stupid. 

Even if it wasn’t a news van, what would it matter? He didn’t control his life, what would he care if they finished him off in some back alley? What would it matter if they snuck him into their van and held him captive for the rest of his life in some damp containment cell?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Danny spaced out for the morning meeting. He couldn’t remember if he managed to read off his paper for the other teens. His voice wasn’t working today. His head hurt. His chest hurt. Everything was numb.

They had art therapy today, run by a tall, lanky man with sandy hair and a clean-shaven face. He told the group to paint what they were feeling today, to channel their emotions onto their blank sheets of paper.

But Danny felt nothing. He had nothing to give.

He must have stared at his paper for too long, because the therapist tried to talk to him, ask him if he was alright, if he was having trouble with the exercise.

Danny didn’t respond, instead choosing to pick up the green paint and squeeze some of it directly onto his paper, rules be damned. It was too dark, so he grabbed the white paint and smeared it into the green. The color still wasn’t right, but Danny didn’t know enough about art to make it right, so he just kept spreading green across his paper. A dash of yellow, then some white, more green.

Time was up. His paper was green. 

“Good job, Danny. What do you think?” the therapist asked.

Danny stared at the paper, studying the streaks of yellow within the brush strokes. “It’s not the right shade of ectoplasm.”

The day continued with more emotion-managing lessons and group activities but Danny didn’t care and nobody could understand that. He was done with this, he was tired, it didn’t matter.

It was lunchtime, and Danny had no appetite. It felt like he had just eaten breakfast. His stomach was still full, but he had a sandwich sitting in front of him that he needed to eat or else they would tell his parents.

Danny held the sandwich between his fingers. It looked like sandpaper.

He didn’t want to eat it.

The therapist was looking at him. She was probably talking to him too, asking him questions about his day. But Danny ignored her. After all, didn’t he need to eat this lunch? How could he possibly eat and talk at the same time?

The teens were talking around him, but Danny blocked them all out too.

They were noisy.

It was like they weren’t even there.

Danny wasn’t human. He didn’t care. 

But you do care. 

He didn’t.

He was numb. 

Eat up like a good little dog. 

I’m not a dog.

Something inside him snapped, and he yanked on his cold core, channeling all his energy to his fingertips. His fingers tingled out of the tangible field, and the sandwich fell to the table.

“Whoa!” The blonde girl jumped, her eyes trained on Danny’s transparent skin.

“Danny?” 

There was an audience. Danny had forgotten about them. His core faltered, and the power faded from his fingertips. 

He should have felt embarrassed by this emotional display. He should have felt horrified that he’d allowed himself to act so inhuman and disgusting in front of these innocent bystanders.

But he was still numb.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was bored.”

“That was sick!” the brunette boy chimed in. “You can do that on command?”

“Usually.” Danny’s gaze flickered over to the therapist, who was giving him a strange look. He turned his attention back to the fallen sandwich. 

Maybe he would get kicked out of the program for this. For being too dangerous. That would probably be for the better. Then he could go free into the world. No more schedule, no more therapy, no more dissecting his emotions or talking about his trauma. 

Who cared about his trauma, anyway? Certainly not him.

“So you still have your ghost powers, then?” the blonde girl asked. “People were saying online that you lost them. The government took them or whatever.”

Danny brought his hand up to his face, willing his fingers to fade to invisibility. “They’re locked. But...I...they’re there. I’ll get them back.”

He would get them back. He needed them. 

Especially now.

Which was how he found himself sitting quietly outside his mother’s door. Waiting. He should have knocked probably, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. He didn’t know why, he knew he should just go back to his room, go to sleep, stop bothering his parents about this, but he needed his core back.

His mom would understand. She was a ghost biology expert, right? She would get why he needed his core back now.

He raised his fist to knock, but he must have already knocked before because the door opened, revealing his mother dressed in teal pajamas on the other side. 

“Danny?” She frowned, her brows pulling cautiously above her eyes. “What are you doing up, sweetie? Everything alright?”

“I, uh—” His voice was scratchy. He broke eye contact, staring down at his lap. “My—my core.”

“Something wrong?”

He licked his lips, his mouth dry. “I need it back.”

“Sweetheart,” she said in a patient tone. “We talked about this.”

“No. you talked.”

She sighed. “Danny, it’s nearly eleven. Can’t this wait till morning?”

“No. No. I need it.”

“I told you, hun, your core and body need time to heal properly first before we make any drastic changes to your physiology. Just give it a few more weeks, alright?”

“Weeks?” Danny’s voice rose in alarm. 

“I promise it’ll be all worth it.”

Static rang in his ears, and a steel claw clutched at his stomach.

His mom didn’t understand. Why would she? She was human. Humans would never get it. She didn’t understand. 

“No, I can’t…”

“Danny, you need to trust me. Your body needs to rest.”

“You don’t understand.”

She regarded him for a moment before opening her door fully. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk, then. You can tell me why this is so important to you.”

Danny peered inside the door, at the surprisingly average-looking bedroom before him. He could go in, tell his mother just how wrong he felt cut off from his core, how he was being blackmailed by Vlad, how there was a distinct record of every detail of what the Guys in White had done to him, how he had never felt so defenseless, so vulnerable in his life.

But he wouldn’t, and he knew he couldn’t. There was no way he could put it all into words. He was a ghost, she was a human. He couldn’t explain this to her.

Skulker and Vlad may have forced his revelation, but they gave him more secrets than he could ever have dreamt of handling.

Danny turned away. “It’s fine. Good night.”

“Hun…”

“Night, Mom.”

There was a tense silence before Maddie finally relented. “I love you, Danny.”

“You too,” he said reflexively. The words tasted sour on his tongue.

She didn’t understand. If she truly loved him, she would give him his core back right now, but she didn’t.

No, he was just being paranoid. This was just his Obsession talking. He didn’t need his core, he was just as much human as he was ghost. So what if he had to be a little more human for the next few weeks? Isn’t that what he’d always wanted?

To just be a regular human?

Maybe that was what his mother wanted. Maybe that was why she was postponing removing the chip. Maybe she was too afraid to see her son as a monster. A ghost. 

But that was crazy. She loved him.

She was telling the truth. 

His parents accepted him.

---

“You seem quiet today.”

Danny leaned back against the sofa, his arms crossed and his eyes looking anywhere but at the blonde figure sitting before him. The stress ball sat untouched on the table next to him.

He didn’t feel like doing therapy today. He didn’t want to talk. 

His mom was human, his therapist was human. No one was going to get it.

“What’s on your mind, Danny?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He was fine. There was nothing to talk about. Even if there were things to talk about—and there weren’t, this was all just his Obsession going haywire—it wouldn’t matter anyway because he was defenseless and the government was going to kidnap him again. It was only a matter of time.

“You finished your first week with the PHP group today, right? How has that been going?”

“Fine.”

“Can you tell me about some of the activities you’ve been doing?”

“I don’t know.”

She sat there for a moment, as if giving him time to elaborate. But Danny wasn’t going to elaborate. He didn’t feel like talking today. 

He looked out the window. The leaves had changed color, the ripe greens fading to yellows, oranges, and reds. In another few weeks, the ground would be littered with fallen leaves.

Summer had barely just begun when he was dragged from his house, drugged, and locked away. And yet, even though his entire world had come to a halt, time still moved on.

The clatter of the therapist’s clipboard falling on a side table jolted Danny out of his musing. He flinched, his eyes snapping over to see the therapist rising from her chair. 

She stretched her arms behind her back and walked over to the closet. “You know what? It’s been a long day. Wanna play a game?”

“Um...are we allowed to do that?”

“I don’t see why not.” She grabbed a box out of the closet and placed it down in the center of the room.

Danny peered at it in confusion. “Jenga? Of—of all the games out there, you’re really gonna make me...make me get on the floor for Jenga?” 

“Oh, come on, it’s fun.”

“You must throw some wild parties,” he remarked, rolling his eyes. Nonetheless, he slid off the couch and slowly scooched himself towards the middle of the room. As long as he didn’t have to explain why he was two seconds away from ripping his own core out of his chest, he would go along with whatever game she threw at him.

The therapist carefully tipped the box upside down, sliding the lid up to reveal a tower of multi-colored wooden tiles jigsawed together.

“So here’s our marvelous tower,” she said. “You can reach that alright?”

“Yeah.”

“So normal Jenga rules. We switch off trying to remove a piece without causing the tower to collapse. Except, for this game, after you remove a piece, you’re going to pick a card from this stack—” She pointed to a deck of large cards set up next to the Jenga tower. “—and then answer the question on the card that’s the same color. So if I take a purple tile out, I’ll answer the purple question on the card. Got it?”

Danny glanced between the cards and his therapist’s eager face. He was fairly certain Jenga never involved a set of cards before.

Maybe he’d forgotten the rules. It wouldn’t have been the first time his brain had betrayed him. “Am I being quizzed?”

“Don’t worry.” She pushed up the sleeves of her blue cardigan. “They’re just basic therapy questions. Nothing too bad.”

No. This was a trick, wasn’t it? To get him to talk?

He wasn’t going to fall for it. “I thought we weren’t—weren’t doing that...today.” 

“The questions aren’t too deep. Honestly, I mostly just use this game as an icebreaker for new clients. But Jenga’s pretty fun all the same.”

He must have still looked too suspicious, because she threw him an easy smile and went, “Here, I’ll go first.” She carefully nudged a green tile out of the stack and drew a card. “Okay, so the green question on here says, ‘Describe yourself in three words.’ Well, I’d say I’m kind, I think I’m rather nerdy, and I’m a bit of a cat lady.”

That...wasn’t so bad. Maybe this would be an easy game. 

He doubted any of the questions asked him about his core. Maybe he could loosen up a bit, go along with this icebreaker game, if only for an hour before sinking back into his internal panic. 

“Cat lady?” he tried.

She chuckled. “I’m surprised that’s never come up! I have two at home.”

Right, his therapist had a life outside of therapy. Outside of his problems.

But it wasn’t like he knew her name. At this point, it was just too embarrassing to ask. Maybe she had told him that she had cats, and he just couldn’t remember. Maybe he would forget it again tomorrow.

Whatever. It was fine. He couldn’t care about things he didn’t remember. “Uh…” Danny pushed a purple tile out of the tower. “So I just pick up a—um, a card?”

“Yup, and read the purple question.”

Danny looked down at his card and rolled his eyes. “Oh, figures. ‘If you had superpowers, what would they be?’ Well, I’m dead. Does being dead count?”

She laughed, her voice light and airy. “Of all the questions, huh? Okay, let’s modify this a bit. If you could only keep one of your powers, which would you take?”

“Probably intangibility,” Danny said, his lack of hesitation surprising him.

“Oh? Why?”

“Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. Where the chip was. “It’s the most useful, isn’t it? I can just...you know...I have no physical stuff in my way. I can just phase through any—anything I need. Or—no. Almost anything.”

Not shields. Those could still trap him.

Thankfully, she didn’t try to pry further, just offering him a kind nod and a “that makes sense” before pushing out another Jenga tile. “Blue! Alright, my question is, ‘What is your favorite feature about yourself?’ Hmm...that’s a bit tough, isn’t it? But I think my favorite thing about myself is my hair. When I was a teen, I used to straighten my hair, but then when I got to college, I stopped doing that and just let it be. Now I quite like my curly hair. Okay, your turn!”

“Okay.” Danny leaned over and pushed a red tile out of the tower. “Okay...my quest—question is…‘What is your biggest hope for your future?’ Oh...”

He did want to be an astronaut. But that was before, when he was still human. And then he was caught between thousands of volts of ecto-electricity and that future vanished right before his eyes.

What did he want to do with his life? What did he hope would happen?

He wanted his core back. He couldn’t let himself be so vulnerable for much longer. His chest felt like it was tearing itself apart, he needed to—

Breathe. And answer the question.

What did he hope for his future?

“I don’t know. My future’s kinda...ruined, isn’t it?”

“Try to think on a smaller scale.”

“I…” Danny ran a hand through his hair. He wanted his core back, he wanted to be Phantom, he wanted to protect Amity Park. But he couldn’t say that. It made him sound too ghostly. Too inhuman.

Humans didn’t have these kinds of otherworldly desires. She would think he was a freak if he told her. She wouldn’t know how to react.

“I want to finish PT.”

“That’s a good goal to have.”

“Your turn.”

Humming, she nudged a tile out of the Jenga tower and flipped over a card. “Okay, my question is, ‘What is something you were worried about when you were younger?’ Let me think…oh, here’s one. When I was young, my older sister moved out to live with her boyfriend. It was really scary because I had never lived without her, but we kept in touch and everything turned out okay.”

“I haven’t either. Lived away from Jazz I mean. Like—like for real. But she’s going to college next—next semester. I think she, uh...deferred a semester.”

“And you know, it’s common to feel worried about a sibling moving out. Periods of transition in life can be the most stressful for us, but it’s important to recognize that things will be okay.”

Danny looked down at the carpet. “I guess.”

Some days it felt like Jazz was the only one truly on his side. He was a lab rat, too well known and too hated to ever have a future, forever condemned to a vicious cycle of evading people like the Guys in White and Vlad for the rest of his life. Jazz was leaving him in a few months, his friends would follow in a few years, and in the end, Danny would be alone.

But he was fine with that. He’d accepted it. It was just his life now, there was nothing to say about it.

“It’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“Yup! Go right ahead.”

Danny removed another tile. “‘How do you think others view you and why?’” He paused, throwing the therapist a bitter look. “This is rigged.”

“Not rigged, that’s just a very lucky pick.”

“Lucky to who?” Danny groaned. 

What was with the universe finding new ways to torment him?

“Humor me,” the therapist said patiently.

Danny glared at his card, tapping his fingers against the edge. It wasn’t like the public opinion of him was exactly a secret, but it still hurt. Constantly. Like some scab he kept telling himself to ignore, but ignoring it was impossible because the public would never leave him alone.

“Not good,” Danny muttered. “People hate me.”

“Being in the public eye is very stressful for anyone, but to be unique in your way adds on an entirely different layer. People are afraid of the things they don’t understand, and that makes them forget that at the end of the day, you’re still a person.”

“Yeah.” Danny’s eyes were trained on the colorful tower before him, which was starting to blur as the prickling behind his eyes increased. He ducked his head and blinked, hoping to save face before it was too late. 

“That doesn’t mean everyone feels this way, though. But sometimes it can feel that way to you because the ones who are the most afraid, the most hateful, are the loudest voices in the crowd. But remember, Danny, you won that court case for a reason. You have more people on your side than you think.”

“I won it for now, you mean. I don’t...I don’t think…” His voice failed, and he pressed his fingernails into his palms. He took a few shaky breaths. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Danny. Why don’t we talk about the case for a minute?”

Tucker’s words echoed in his head, how it was televised. How millions of people all around the globe probably tuned in for it, or watched streams online, each person with their own opinion of him.

But he didn’t want to think about that right now. 

“No,” he said. “Can we—can we just continue the game?”

“If you’re not ready to talk about it, then that’s okay. Thank you for letting me know.”

“It’s your turn.”

“Alright.” She pushed a block out of the tower. “So...alright, my question is, ‘What memory do you treasure the most?’ To that, I think fishing with my dad as a child. He was a big support for me when I was growing up, and I really valued our times fishing together as important bonding moments for us.”

Danny nodded politely, trying his best to not appear like he was counting down the seconds until therapy was over.

He could feel his emotions building inside him, threatening to topple the carefully constructed dam guarding his secrets. This was such a simple game, these were such simple questions, so why did he feel like he was failing?

He pushed out a Jenga tile—a red tile—from the tower and grabbed a card, scanning the questions until he found the red one.

What are you afraid of?

The words echoed back to him, and he pushed the card away. He didn’t want to look at it, he didn’t want to read those words or hear her voice because saying the question would mean he would have to talk and he only agreed to this stupid game to get out of talking.

There was so much he was afraid of that he had no right to be afraid of. Because he deserved this. Getting revealed was his fault, he was being reckless. He deserved all of it.

The experiments with the Guys in White. The pain, the way his skin was torn apart. How they threw him in a vat of ectoplasm the next day to heal, and how the ectoplasm entering his lungs made him feel like he was drowning because even though ghosts didn’t need to breathe, he still used those organs reflexively as Phantom. But he was in too much pain and his brain was too hazy to fight back. He could only sink into the darkness.

The red bag. The way it tasted, smelled, how it haunted him every day and how he revisited those moments every night in his dreams. How he would wake up each day and the drawer on his nightstand would be shimmering in the morning sun, as if tempting him to open it up, grab the bottle inside, let it help just for one day. It can take the edge off, he can be functional. Who cares if he’s cheating? It’s just for a day...

The public. The people. Their judgments, their words. How he was, on a molecular level, so vastly different from them. How he could never be the same. He would never have a normal life, he could never have a normal job, a normal family, normal friendships, ever again. There would always be something there, something alien between them.

Even between him and his best friends. There was just something... different ever since the portal accident. It had brought them closer together, sure, but in other ways it had also driven an invisible wedge between them. Because Danny would always have his powers, he would always be a half ghost, and there would always be things now that Sam and Tucker would never understand. 

How much would change now? Now that he was in the public eye, now that he’d gone through government torture? Now that his brain didn’t work the same?

And his core. His humanity. Why were his parents so apprehensive about it?

What are you afraid of?

Why wouldn’t his parents let him down into the lab? What were they hiding? They said his core was damaged, but it had been months since he was ripped open. His surgical damage had healed, his broken bones were back to normal, and even though his nerve endings in his chest and spine were still fried, they had been slowly mending themselves too.

Ectoplasm healed faster than human physiology. His core should have been fine by now.

What was the truth?

“They accept me,” Danny said automatically.

“Who does?”

Who accepted him?

Sam and Tucker did. 

His family…

Did they?

“I don’t know.”

“You have people in your corner, Danny. Your parents, your sister, your close friends. They all care about you. We’re all here for you, even if those loud voices in the public tell you otherwise.”

But if they cared...

“Then why won’t they let me have my core back?”

“Your core?”

“My powers. My ghostliness. Ectoplasm.” Danny let his eyes flair to emphasize his point.

If his therapist was scared of his otherworldly display, she didn’t show it. Instead, she continued to look at him with her neutral expression, free of the judgment he’d come to expect from people since the accident.

And for some reason he couldn’t explain, that irritated him. 

“You mean the inhibitor chip?” she asked.

“Yes. They told me it was because my core...it was damaged but—but it doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t...”

“Have you talked to them about this?”

Of course he had. They kept repeating that his core was damaged. And they were probably right—for a time, at the very least. But that was months ago. 

Why hadn’t they scanned his core recently? Shouldn’t they be happy to learn it was healed? Shouldn’t that make them relieved?

What were they afraid of?

What are you afraid of?

“Do you think it would be helpful if I talked to your mother about this?” asked the therapist. “As a way to introduce the topic? She likely doesn’t know how much it’s bothering you.”

But that didn’t make sense either because Danny brought his core up every day. His parents knew how much it was bothering him. They had to have known, right?

So why were they doing this to him?

What were they hiding?

What are you afraid of?

---

Danny tried to remember a time where walking from his living room to his kitchen didn’t require a list of steps to be taken beforehand—a time where he could just get up and walk. But those memories were far too distant now.

And besides, this was his reality now. A reality where something as simple as walking made his head spin.

He shouldn’t dwell on the memories of how easy it used to be for him, he shouldn’t have snapped at Jazz for getting a cup of water for him because he knew the glasses were too high to reach from his wheelchair, he shouldn’t allow this irrational anger to overtake him every time the creeping anxiety of his future as Amity Park’s ghost hero came into question.

He just needed to focus on where he was now. Curled up on his couch avoiding his parents.

Everything felt wrong this morning when he woke up. For a moment, he had managed to convince himself that he was just being paranoid. That it was just his damaged nerve endings freaking out as normal. That once he took his medication, his problems would go away. 

But they didn’t. He still felt wrong. His chest still felt wrong.

It was manifesting in other ways too. He couldn’t walk as long today at PT. His physical therapist told him it was just a bad day and that his body was probably just tired from his busy week. But Danny knew that wasn’t right.

It had nothing to do with him being tired. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t anxious.

His core was the problem. His parents were the problem.

He tried asking about his core again on the way home from PT, using conversation techniques he went over with his therapist at the end of their last appointment, but Maddie just brushed him off. Said they would talk about it later.

But then later came and...she didn’t.

Danny tried asking his father, but he brushed Danny off too. Said Danny needed to focus on healing first.

But how was he supposed to heal when he was missing half of himself?

He felt wrong. So wrong. His body was too bound by gravity, it was too empty, it wasn’t listening to him.

He pressed his palms into his forehead. His hands were clammy. Shaking. Speckles of cold touched them—or was that his tears? Was he crying? 

No.

He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting this way?

The government had him in a cage. They tormented him in ways he would rather die than live through again. But then it ended, and he was freed. He was allowed to go home, he could live his life as a legal person again. 

Except, he wasn’t free. Not at all. He was still trapped here in Amity, in his house, in his body. He had no control. Not over what he ate, when he slept, where he went, what he could say, what he could think. 

Half of him was still locked up tight with no hope of escape.

His water glass was empty. It would have been too embarrassing to ask someone to help him, but he was so thirsty and dehydrated and he just really needed this to work. He needed his body to respond to him. For one moment, please, just let his body respond.

Gripping the water cup in one hand and his walker in the other, he tried to stand, to walk over to the kitchen sink. But balancing everything was so difficult, his body was still fatigued from PT, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to do it but he just needed to try.

But he couldn’t do it in the end. The cup slipped out of his hand and tumbled onto the carpet, thankfully saved from shattering on impact by some last shred of luck the universe decided to pity him with.

And now Danny too was on the floor because he couldn’t bend down to pick the cup back up like a normal person, and he didn’t want to call for help, and he couldn’t use any of his powers, and he felt so trapped. So helpless. So vulnerable.

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was too stubborn and he was too useless.

A tear splattered against his hand, and he gripped the floor, his body trembling.

“Stop crying. Stop it.” he hissed. 

He was weak. 

Plasmius, once nearly his equal, had so severely overpowered him the other night. It was embarrassing. On the hierarchy of ghosts, where was he now? At the bottom with the blob ghosts?

But those ghosts could still fly. They could still turn intangible. Things that Danny couldn’t even do.

Hell, he was so weak that even the Box Ghost could defeat him now.

“Stop crying.”

He crawled back to the couch, the thought of getting water abandoned on the floor along with the last semblance of his dignity. Another tear fell from his cheek, and he desperately tried to ignore it, ignore his dry throat, ignore the pain in his chest, ignore his core and the Y-scar on his body and his new place in the ghost hierarchy as lower than dirt, ignore everything. Just focus on getting back to the couch. Shut down, go numb.

He was fine, he was okay.

He just needed to push through this. Just toughen up, quit whining. Life wasn’t fair. So what if he was now just a regular human? Hadn’t he been human for the first fourteen years of his life? He needed to suck it up.

Dragging himself back onto the safety of the couch cushions, he pulled one of Jazz’s throw blankets around his body and pressed a pillow into his face.

Never in his life had he been so tempted to scream, to curse, to finally let the last brick fall and allow hell to break loose. But his parents were in the basement, Jazz was upstairs, and he was fine. 

He was fine.

---

Huge thank you to tumblr user and writer @imekitty for proofreading this chapter. She’s amazing and I owe her my life.

And as always, thanks for reading!

---

<previous chapter / next chapter>

[borisbubbles]

Character analysis: Vivienne de Fer (Dragon Age Inquisition)

So, if you’ve wondered where I popped off to the past two months or so, I’m going to give you an answer - I finally bought Dragon Age Inquisition (legit on my gaming wishlist since its 2014 release) and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. 

The main draw to this game however, isn’t so much the gameplay (if you want a game that feels similar but has better gameplay - Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is what you’d want instead), but the storytelling and particularly the character development are top notch. All nine companions are fascinating and fleshed out in such a realistic manner I’m still gasping in awe on my fifth playthrough.  Thus, a post on it is in order. It’s a bit different from my usual content, but don’t let that discourage you - clearing my head from Dragon Age will allow me to let Eurovision back in and continue my unfinished 2020 ranking.  In this post, I will be analyzing one of DAI’s most interesting characters - none other than Madame de Fer herself, Vivienne.  Now, I’m under the impression that this is a rather unpopular opinion but I absolutely love Vivienne. And no, I won’t apologize for it. As a Templar-thumping elitist with a icy, sardonic demeanor the sheer ‘Idea Of A Vivienne’ is meant to make your head spin. Dragon Age has always been a franchise in which mages are a socially surpressed group and to be confronted with a socially confident enchantress who likes Templars and seemingly supports the social shunning out of her own ambition is the walking embodiment of flippancy. 

and yet, I feel a lot of sympathy for Vivienne. 

Yes, she’s a bitch. She knows she’s one and she’s a-ok with it. I won’t argue with that. Sadly, the “Vivienne is a bitch” rhetoric also drastically sells her short. Vivienne is highly complex and her real personality is as tragic as it is twisted. 

Madame de Fer

So let’s start with what we are shown on the surface. Vivienne is a high-ranking courtier from an empire notable for its deadly, acid-laced political game. She seemingly joins the Inquisition for personal gain, to acrue reputation and power, and eventually be elected Divine (= female pope) at the end of the game. She presents herself as a despicable blend of Real Housewife, Disney Villain, and Tory Politician, all rolled into one ball of sickening, unctuous smarm. Worse, the Inquisitor has no way to rebuke Vivienne’s absurd policies and ideas. You can’t argue with her, convince her to listen to your differing viewpoints or even kick her out the Inquisition. She has a way with words where she can twist arguments around in such a fashion that she lands on top and makes the other person look like the irrational party.

“Thus speaks the Inquisitor who has made so many mature and level-headed choices so far. Such as releasion malcontents upon the population without safeguards to protect them should they turn into abominations. Very wise. I rearranged some furniture. Lives aren’t thrown into jeopardy by my actions. Perhaps a little perspective is needed.”

She’s Cersei Lannister on creatine, Dolores Umbridge on motherfucking roids. If you look at merely the surface, then yes, Vivienne looks like the worst person ever created. I love a good anti-villainess however, and she’s definitely one. 

Yet, she never actually does anything ‘evil’? Yes, she is ‘a tyrant’ as a Divine, but 1) the person saying this is Cassandra, whose dislike for mage freedom is only matched by her dislike of being sidelined 2) Divine Vivienne isn’t bad to mages either? (hold that thought, I’ll get to it). She never actually sabotages the Inquisition, no matter how low her approval with the Inquisitor gets. She never attempts to stop them, no matter how annoyed she is. She’s one of the most brutally honest companions in the cast, in fact. (It always surprises me people call her a ‘hypocrite’ - you keep using that word and it doesn’t mean what you think it means.) The ‘worst’ display of character is when she attempts to break up Sera and the Inquisitor and even then - are we going to pretend Sera isn’t a toxic, controlling girlfriend with a huge chip on her shoulder? I love Sera, but come on.  

Vivienne is a character where the storytelling rule of Show, Don’t Tell is of vital importance. The Orlesian empire is an empire built around posturing and reputation. Nobody really shows their true motivations or character, and instead builds a public façade. It’s like how the Hanar (the Jellyfish people) in Mass Effect have a Public name they use in day-to-day life, and a Personal Name for their loved-ones and inner circle. Vivienne’s ‘Public Visage’ is that of Madame de Fer - this is the Vivienne who openly relishes in power, publicly humiliates grasping anklebiters with passive-aggressive retorts, the woman who is feared and loathed by all of Orlais, and this is the Face you see for most of the game.

The real beauty of Vivienne’s character and the reason why I love her as much as I do (which is to say - a LOT) are the few moments when - what’s the phrase DigitalSpy love so much - Her Mask Slips, and you get a glimpse of the real woman underneath the hennin.

This is the Vivienne who stands by you during the Siege of Haven and approves of you when you save the villagers from Corypheus’s horde.

This is the Vivienne who comforts you when you lament the losses you suffered.

This is the Vivienne who admires you for setting an example as a mage for the rest of Thedas.

This is the Vivienne who worries about Cole’s well-being during his personal quest, momentarily forgetting who or what he is. 

This is the Vivienne who, when her approval for the Inquisitor reaches rock bottom, desperately reminds him of the suffering mages go through on a day-to-day basis because of the fear and hatred non-mages are bred to feel towards them and how this can spiral into more bloodshed without safeguards. 

This is the Vivienne who shows how deep her affection for Bastien de Ghislain truly is, by bringing you along during his dying moments. I love this scene btw. This is the only moment in the entire game where Vivienne is actually herself in the presence of the Inquisitor - needless to say, I consider anyone who deliberately spikes her potion a motherfucking psychopath ^_^)

“There is nothing here now” fuck I *almost* cried at Vivienne, get out of my head BioWare, this is WRONG -- people who delude themselves this is an irredeemable character. 

So, who is Vivienne really?

Understanding Vivienne requires recognizing that the mask and the real woman aren’t the same person. I think her relationship with Dorian is the prime example of this. I love the Vivienne/Dorian banter train, obviously - an unstoppable force of sass colliding with an unmovable wall of smarm is nothing short of a spectacle. However, there’s more to it than their highly entertaining snipes. As the incredibly gifted son of a magister, Dorian represents everything Vivienne should despise, and should be a natural enemy to her. And yet, she doesn’t and he isn’t.. Their gilded japes at each other are nothing more than verbal sparring, not dissimilar to how Krem and Iron Bull call each other names when they beat each other with sticks. In what I think is one of the most brilliantly written interactions between characters in DAI, I present Vivienne’s reaction when the Inquisitor enters a romance with Dorian:

Vivienne: I received a letter the other day, Dorian. Dorian: Truly? It's nice to know you have friends. 🙄 Vivienne: It was from an acquaintance in Tevinter expressing his shock at the disturbing rumors about your... relationship with the Inquisitor. Dorian: Rumors you were only too happy to verify, I assume. 🙃 Vivienne: I informed him the only disturbing thing in evidence was his penmanship. 🙂 Dorian: ...Oh. Thank you. 😳 Vivienne: I am not so quick to judge, darling. See that you give me no reason to feel otherwise.

Madame de Fer can never be seen directly expressing approval to a relationship between the Herald of Andraste and an ‘Evil’ Tevinter ’Magister’. By this subtle, subtle conversation, Vivienne indirectly tells Dorian that she considers him a good match for the Inquisitor and approves of the romance. It’s one of those reasons why I could never truly dislike Vivienne - between the layers of elegant poison lies a somewhat decent woman who never loses sight of the bigger picture. Not a good person maybe, but not one without some redeeming qualities.

The crux of Vivienne’s personality is that she, like all DAI companions, is a social outcast. She’s a mage in a fantasy setting where mages are psionically linked to demons, and grew up in a country where the majority religion has openly advocated the shunning and leashing of mages (’Magic exists to serve man’ - the Chantry is so, so vile in this game.). Vivienne’s “gift” was discovered so early in her life that she can barely remember her parents. Vivienne grew up in a squalid boarding school, learning from a young age that she’s dangerous and her talents need to be tamed and curbed. She is also terrified of demons, as her banters with Cole point out:

Cole: You're afraid. You don't have to be. Vivienne: My dear Inquisitor, please restrain your pet demon. I do not want it addressing me. Inquisitor: He's not doing any harm, Vivienne. Vivienne: It's a demon, darling. All it can do is harm. Cole: Everything bright, roar of anger as the demon rears. No, I will not fall. No one will control me ever again. Cole: Flash of white as the world comes back. Shaking, hollow, Harrowed, but smiling at templars to show them I'm me. Cole: I am not like that. I can protect you. If Templars come for you, I will kill them. Vivienne: Delightful. 😑

Vivienne’s Harrowing is implied to have been such a traumatizing event to her that she’s developed a pavlovian fear of demons ever since. (Hence her hostility towards Cole.). Vivienne is fully aware of the inherent dangers of magic, and projects this onto all other mages. 

Besides, given how Dragon Age has a history with mages doing all sorts of fucked up shit, ranging from blood magic, murder, demonic possession and actual terrorism (yes, *ElthinaBITCH* had it coming, but let’s not pretend like Anders/Justice was anything other than a terrorist), Vivienne’s policies of controlled monitoring and vigilance are actually significantly more sensible than the options of ‘unconditionally freeing every mage all over Thedas’ and ‘reverting back to the status quo before the rebellion’. They’re flawed policies, obviously. When Vivienne says “mages” she pictures faceless silhouettes foremost and not herself. Regardless, unlike Cassandra and Leliana, Vivienne is aware of the fear others harbour for her kind, and how hard it is to overcome such perceptions.  

Additionally, Vivienne’s a foreigner. She is an ethnic Rivaini, a culture associated with smugglers and pirates (Isabela from DAO and DA2 is half-Rivaini). This adds an additional social stigma, again pointed out by Cole:

Cole: Stepping into the parlor, hem of my gown snagged, no, adjust before I go in, must look perfect. Vivienne: My dear, your pet is speaking again. Do silence it. Cole: Voices inside. Marquis Alphonse. Cole: "I do hope Duke Bastien puts out the lights before he touches her. But then, she must disappear in the dark." Cole: Gown tight between my fingers, cold all over. Unacceptable. Wheels turn, strings pull. Cole: He hurt you. You left a letter, let out a lie so he would do something foolish against the Inquisition. A trap. Vivienne: Inquisitor, as your demon lacks manners, perhaps you could get Solas to train it.

This is the only palpable example of the casual racism Vivienne has to endure on a daily basis - Marquis Alphonse is a stupid, bigoted pillowhead who sucks at The Game, but remember - Vivienne only kills him if the Inquisitor decides to be a butthurt thug. She is aware that for every Alphonse, there are dozens of greasy sycophants who think exactly like he does, and will keep it under wraps just to remain in her good graces. 

Finally, there’s the social position Vivienne manufactured for herself, which is the weak point towards her character imo. Remember, this woman is a commoner by birth. She doesn’t even have a surname. Through apparently sheer dumb luck (or satanic intervention) she basically fell into the position of Personal Mage to the Duke of Ghislain. Regardless, ‘Personal mages’ were the rage in Orlesian nobility, and the prestigious families owned by them like one may own a pet or personal property. By somehow becoming Bastien de Ghislain’s mistress and using his influence, "Madame de Fer” liberated herself from all the social stigmata which should have pinned her down into a lowly courtier rank and turned the largely ceremonial office of “Court Enchanter” into a position of respect and power. This is huge move towards mage emancipation by the way, in a society where, again, Mages are feared and shunned and are constantly bullied, emasculated and taught to hate their talents. Vivienne is a shining example of what mages can become at the height of their power. Power she has, mind you, never actually abused before her Divine election. Vivienne’s actions will forever be under scrutiny not because of who she is, but because of what she is. The Grand Game can spit her out at any moment, which will likely result in her death. 

Inquisitor: “You seem to be enjoying yourself, Vivienne?” Vivienne: “It’s The Game, darling. If I didn’t enjoy it, I’d be dead by now.”

Whether Vivienne was using Bastien for her own gain or whether she truly loved him isn’t a case of or/or. It’s a case of and/and. The perception that she was using Bastien makes Vivienne more fearsome and improves her position in the Grand Game, but deep down, I have no doubts truly loved him. Remember, Vivienne’s position at the Orlesian court was secure. She had nothing to gain by saving Bastien’s life, but she attempted to anyway. That Bastien’s sister is a High Cleric doesn’t matter - Vivienne can be elected Divine regardless of her personal quest’s resolution. She loved him, period. 

No, I don’t think Vivienne is a good person. She treats those she deems beneath her poorly, like Sera, Solas, Cole and Blackwall (characters I like less than Vivienne), which I think is the #1 indicator for a Bad Personality. But I don’t think she qualifies as ‘Evil’ either and I refuse to dismiss the beautiful layering of her character. I genuinely believe Vivienne joined the Inquisition not just for her personal gain, but also out of idealism, similar to Dorian (again, Cole is 100% correct in pointing out the similarities between Dorian’s and Vivienne’s motivations for joining, as discomforting it is to her). 

In her mind, Vivienne sees herself as the only person who can emancipate the mages without bloodshed - her personal accomplishments at the Orlesian court speak for themselves. Vivienne isn’t opposed to mage freedom - she worries for the consequences of radical change, as she believes Orlesian society unprepared for the consequences. Hence why she’s perfectly fine with a Divine Cassandra. Hence why her fellow mages immediately elect her Grand Enchanter of the new Circle. 

Hence why Vivienne is so terrified by the Inquisitor’s actions if her disapproval gets too low. The Inquisitor has the power to completely destroy everything she has built and fought for during her lifetime. Remember: Vivienne’s biggest fear is irrelevance - there’s no greater irrelevance than having your life achievements reverse-engineered by the accidental stumbling of some upstart nobody. This is the real reason why she joins, risks her life and gets her hands dirty - the only person whose competence Vivienne trusts, is Vivienne’s own. 

Even as Divine Victoria, I’d say she’s not bad, at all actually. Vivienne has the trappings of an an Enlightened Despot, maintaining full control, while simultaneously granting mages more responsibility and freedom, slowly laying the foundations to make mages more accepted and less persecuted in southern Thedas. Given that Ferelden is a feudal fiefdom and Orlais is an absolute monarchy, this is a fucking improvement are you kidding me. (Wait did he just imply Vivienne is secretly the best Divine - hmm, probably not because Cass/Leliana have better epilogues - but realistically speaking, yes, Viv should be the best Divine and it’s bullshit that the story disagrees.) 

Underneath the countless layers of smarm, frost and seeming callousness, lies a fiercely intelligent and brave woman, whose ideals have been twisted into perversion by the cruel, ungrateful world around her. Envy her for her ability to control her destiny, but know that envy is what it is.  

The flaw in Vivienne’s character isn’t so much the ‘tyranny’ or the ‘bitchiness’ or the 'smarm’. Her flaw is her false belief that she is what the mages need the most. Her belief that her competence gives her the prerogative to serve the unwashed mage masses... by ruling over them. For all intents and purposes, Vivienne is an Orlesian Magister and this will forever be the brilliant tragedy of her character. She was created by a corrupt institution that should, by all accounts fear and loathe her but instead embraced her. It’s that delirious irony that makes Vivienne de Fer one of the best fictional characters in RPG history.  the next post will be Eurovision-related. :-) 

[goatbi]

You know what happened when a Hollow is killed by a Soul Reaper, right? They're purified, sent off to the Soul Society if they were good in life, and to hell if not. So why would it be so different for Arrancar?

Yes, they were, of course, infused with Soul Reaper powers and thus not fully a hollow and blah blah blah, no one listens to Aizen, but they were a Hollow, first and foremost.

So... what if the purification worked?

I'm thinking of this specifically with Szayel right now, because he would be very different from what he was before.

Waking up again, after hundreds of years spent dying, after begging for death, he's scared. He's still alive, after all, and that, that... thing, he cannot be called a man, that monster, he'll come back for Szayel, won't he? Except...

Szayel doesn't know where he is. He's somewhere, that's for sure, but it's bright, not the artificial sun of the room Aareniero resided in, but real, bright. It was growing, plants and people, and there was so much! Everything.

He's hungry.

That's one of the first things Szayel notices, that's he's so hungry, and he stands, wobbles, pats his face and finds the bone of his glasses gone. He knows, instinctually, that he has no hollow hole, he can't feel it anymore, and thus, he knows. He's not a hollow anymore.

So he wanders. What district he's in, he doesn't know, doesn't care to find out. Instead, he keeps wandering. Finds food where he can, steals it, since that's all he knows he can do, and finds a few low level Soul Reapers.

And he's terrified.

But they don't recognize him. Their gazes just pass right over him, as another faceless mob in the crowd of souls, and he's relieved, but he's still so hungry.

And when higher level reapers come knocking, looking for those stricken with hunger, he can't help it. He's hungry, and they don't know him, so he goes to them, accepts the food with dirty hands and they smile, kind, lying through their teeth, he knows it, but he follows.

They tell him about being a Soul Reaper, helping the world keep a balance. They tell him about power, beautiful and strong, and Szayel latches right onto that idea. Will he get Fornicarás back? His Resurrección? But it wouldn't be called that anymore, would it. He ponders. Then accepts.

It's a bad idea, going into the lion's den, but they promise him food, direction, his power back, and he's a weak man, imperfect as he has been forced to learn.

In that school, he learns. He's one of the first to get his zanpakuto's name-Fornicarás is glad to have him back, and having an actual spirit to represent her is amazing, beautiful-and thus shikai.

It's simple, different from his Resurrección but he assumes that, if he manages bankai, that will be where it is hiding. His Shikai, instead, is a rather simple, downgraded version of his copy mechanic in his Resurrección. His blade turns pure black, oozes, and they copy his opponent. Of course, those copies, when cut, just turn back to ooze, but it's downgraded, of course. Imperfect. As always.

Kidō is new, something to focus his efforts on, and it's that that keeps him from being labels a prodigy. He's lucky in that endeavor. Had he been labeled that way, he wouldn't have been able to fly under the rader like he did, bouncing with low level shinigami and watching quietly.

And then-

The Captains and Their Lieutenants came

Szayel sat smack dab in the middle, trying his hardest not to be noticed by them all, and learned the monster ran a science division. The Twelfth Division, he said, grinning horrible, eyes passing right over Szayel, which created works of art in science, every device that the Soul Reapers used had passed through that division at some point.

As tempting as it was, to work like that once again-

Under that thing?

He couldn't.

And that Red Hair Soul Reaper, Renji, his division was right out too. Renji posed too much of a risk, too close to him in that fight. The Quincy? As far as he could tell, wasn't here yet, or wasn't important, or wasn't in the Seireitei, it didn't matter, he was safe on that front.

That led Szayel to Squad Three, under Captain Ōtoribashi and Lieutenant Kira. It seemed safe, and the Captain especially boasted safety, after the betrayal of the previous captain, and encouragement to the things you wanted to do. He was artsy, and Szayel figured it was far enough away from both Twelve and Six that he would be safe.

Of course, He hadn't accounted for the fact that Kira and Renji were friends, but Renji was obtuse, lucky for him, and rarely paid him mind. After all, the hollow he was, he was supposed to be dead.

And thus, Szayel trained in the Third Squad, rose the ranks and felt terrified with each new promotion, but couldn't stop himself from accepting it. Soon enough he was the fifth seat, and training with Fornicarás for his Bankai. He wanted that back, desperately, as she had disclosed to him that it would be close, if not the exact same, as his Resurrección. He wanted it back. Not to use, never ever to use, it would give too much away, but god, he wanted it back. He felt wrong without it, incomplete.

The Captain, of course, noted his vigorous training, and led Szayel to find a new... hobby. Talked to him. Slowly, surely, became a friend. Szayel's first, if he thought about it. He tried these artsy hobbies, painting, music, dance, but nothing felt quite as right as the music of science, and eventually, he had to tell Rose that, because he was a friend.

And of course, Rose asked why he didn't transfer to Twelve, and Szayel's mind conjured up the horrible face of the monster, grinning at him as Szayel begged to just die already, please, I just want to die-

Later he found out he'd had a rather horrible panic attack, as Rose had said the monster's name aloud, and Szayel had ended up on the floor sobbing, begging to die, and Rose had held him through it, trying to calm him, confused and frightened for what had happened to his friend.

Szayel refused to explain, and Rose didn't ask. It was obvious to both it as still a too fresh wound, even after all these years past.

And Rose deals with it. Talks to other captians, finds the most... tolerable Twelfth member in Akon, who can go out, and still hide things from his captain somehow. And Akon gives Rose small things at first, which Rose gifts to Szayel.

It's not the glorious lab he once had, but it's enough, a small one in his room free from that monster's influence

He rises up to third seat when he gets his Bankai. Rose can tell, asks to see it, and Szayel shakes his head, tells him no, and Rose understands.

This... careful life, one that he built under lies, a fake name, everything, comes crashing down when the Quincy dies.

He looks just as he did all those years back, a soul thing, that turns them back to a younger age as to keep living comfortably. He's the last of their group to trickle in-Ichiog had come nearly a decade back, Orihime and Chad only a year apart a little bit ago, and some of their other friends Szayel has no names for came in later. The Quincy, Uryu Ishida, a name he can actually say without fear and panic, sees him and knows. Szayel looks at him, panics, and flees.

He can't ruin this. He can't, He can't let it happen.

But... Rose comes to find him, brings him back, gentle as always, and Szayel looks at the Quincy with terror in his eyes, not shaking, he would never, and the Quincy just sighs, looking back to him and tells him that its okay

Because the monster-He almost says the name, but Rose stops him quickly-hurt him too, once upon a time, and you have more than repayed for what you did when you suffered for so long, and they may never be friends, but he's not going to ruin what Szayel has.

After all, other Arrancar have come forwards as previous Arrancar, ready to try and learn, and be better. Ulquiorra is one that comes to mind, rehabilitating under Orihime.

And Szayel realizes it's okay. It's gonna be okay. As long as he can keep away from the monster, this, this tentative thing, precious and previously unheard of... It's not so fragile. And he can stop lying about the little things. He can show his bankai again and be okay, it's okay.

Of course, the monster is still there, in the side view, but... well Urahara is making noise about returning, now that all his students are here, and... there's more than enough evidence to form something against him, especially with him coming from the Maggot's Nest before, and... Perhaps he would be able to go to the twelfth division, so that this... this friendship with Rose isn't so strange. Perhaps he can branch out, away from this.

Perhaps it can be okay.

[1mechanicalalligator]

I want to talk about Britta in Origins of Vampire Mythology, because I think the episode shows her in a really bad light, and I have feelings about that.

Britta is self-aware enough in the beginning of the episode to recognize that if her ex-boyfriend Blade calls her, she will 100% go to him, even though he is the "worst on earth." This is why she enlists Annie to baby-sit her for the weekend and take away her phone so she won't be able to answer if he calls her.

This is all fine and good, but then as soon as Britta gets to Annie's she completely loses her mind and starts scheming to get her phone back, which is where things kind of take a weird turn. They treat Britta like (and basically keep referring to her as) a junkie trying to get her fix, and she manipulates Annie into giving her back her phone.

[Aside: Through all of this, Annie keeps calling Troy and Abed bad friends because they want to watch their own movie in their own home after Annie has agreed, without asking either of them, to let Britta spend the weekend over there.]

When Britta locks herself in the bedroom and starts texting "Blade," who is actually Annie (and Troy and Abed and the Dean), it becomes very clear that Britta is attracted to men who treat her badly. Which isn't really that surprising, given what we know about Britta, but I kind of find it sad that everyone's reaction to this is basically, "Wow, Britta sure is the worst."

Because here's the thing. Britta is not the worst. Britta is broken, and Britta hates herself, and she flocks to men who will treat her the way she believes she deserves to be treated.

And that sucks. I know that sucks because I've been Britta, I've spent years chasing after people who were broken like me and treated me badly, and I would come running every time they would call, even if they'd ignored me for weeks before that. I panicked when I started dating my now-husband because he was so good to me and I didn't understand, I didn't know how to be in that kind of relationship.

It's not a good way to live, and it's stressful and exhausting and just does not feel good at all. And I hate that Britta's friends, instead of recognizing her suffering, just kind of treat it as a joke. When Annie reads Troy's text to Britta that makes her stop contacting "Blade", Annie says, "Who hurt you? And why didn't it stick?" Which is just. So mean! And not how any of this works!

I think TV writers like to romanticize the idea of the "crazy ex-girlfriend" (and I'm not referring to the tv show, which I've never seen and therefore can't comment on) the same way we romanticize women who have depression or mania or eating disorders or any number of issues that are actually, in real life, incredibly dangerous and ugly and painful to watch.

I appreciate that Britta isn't romanticized in her actions, but at the same time, she's depicted as painful to watch without also being given compassion to help balance that out, and I think that's terrible for her character development. It makes Britta look bad, and it makes Annie look bad.

At the end of the episode Jeff says, "None of us have to 'go to' anyone. And the idea we do is a mental illness we contracted from breath mint commercials and Sandra Bullock. We can't keep going to each other until we learn to go to ourselves. Stop making our hatred of ourselves someone else's job and just stop hating ourselves."

I think that's the closest anyone gets in this episode to addressing Britta's issues in a healthy way. Which is, like, better than nothing, I guess? But the episode always just leaves me feeling a little hollow, and really bad for Britta.

[guqin-and-flute]

3zun are having "quality adult time" when they're interrupted by small child who just had a nightmare.

(Pff love it. There are no actual ‘quality adult time’s in this fic, just frustrated parents being interrupted making out 😂 Bonus little post-canon And A-Fu Makes 4 3zun at the end!)

If there was one thing that could be lamented in all of Nie Mingjue’s parenting experience, it was bedtime. Patience was not a thing that he was known for and there was something about the whole bedtime process that just made him want to pull his hair out. One would think that living at least half of his time with a clan that prided itself in such a strict sleep schedule would rub off on the boy but no. No.

Every night, it was either sudden selective deafness or running around like a hyperactive little squirrel attempting to rile himself up or ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I’m thirsty’ or ‘I need to pee’ as soon as the time came. ‘I’m lonely,’ he would insist. ‘I want to know where trees come from all of a sudden.’ Once, it was even a straightforward ‘You are all going to have fun out there without me and I don’t think that should be allowed.’ That last one was accompanied by a very Xichen-like reasonable eyebrow raise but a haughty sort of finality in pursed lips. Nie Mingjue was torn between laughing and grinding his teeth. “We will be doing boring adult things, child. You need to sleep.”

“What sort of things?” he demanded back.

“Budgeting,” Nie Mingjue responded, dryly, folding his arms.

Sometimes, it would actually be something of the sort--Clan business and whatnot. And sometimes it was some nice, relaxing, patiently-awaited intimacy. Since they knew their son very well, nothing all that interesting would be attempted in the first 2 hours after putting him to bed--with good reason, for he tended to pop up at the most inopportune times to announce that he wasn’t actually that tired and so this was a perfect time to tell a story, I think. “No, little one,” Lan Xichen would remind him with a patient smile as he walked him back to his room. “This is the perfect time to sleep. Goodnight.”

That child could shoot little daggers with his eyes and it was a struggle not to laugh and rankle his 5 year old pride at the injustice of it all. Nie Mingjue wondered who he had gotten that look from. 

He would usually let Lan Xichen handle it, or Jin Guangyao if he happened to be around, because by the gods they seemed to have the most infinite well of patience when it came to small child chicanery. Nie Mingjue, on the other hand, had long had to deal with Huaisang’s mischievous schemes and world-class ability to whine. His patience for such things was a finite resource he had mined dry very early in childhood. Oh, he loved his brother--but he did not love it when he got in trouble as the oldest for Husaisang deciding to sneak out of his room repeatedly (as if Nie Mingjue was supposed to have foreseen and stopped this!) or wail at his door in the middle of the night because he was, of all things, bored. It was night time--you sleep at night. 

Or other things.

But that, of course, was in an ideal world, where partners lived together and children stayed in their rooms when they were told to. Generally, they didn’t like to assign a night babysitter to A-Fu when they visited each other--they saw him so little as it was and Nie Mingjue would feel too guilty leaving his responsibilities as a father to a relative stranger. He didn’t generally discuss these things with Jin Guangyao, but he knew him well enough to know that he felt the same way. And to know that such interruptions happened between Lan Xichen and him, as well. There had been many a morning when he had come to one of their room’s to greet the pair of them to find a bleary eyed, borderline crabby Jin Guangyao curled around a sprawled out A-Fu as Lan Xichen meditated nearby with a small smile.

“Late night interloper?” he had asked, once--knowingly--when this had happened during a joint visit to Koi Tower.

Jin Guangyao had scrunched up his face and shoved his head under the plush pillow as Lan Xichen had risen, still smiling, to tuck his nose under Nie Mingjue’s jaw and murmur, “There was a cricket in his room. Apparently, this was unacceptable. As was the walk to your room.”

“Long night?”

“He kicks. So much,” came Jin Guangyao’s pillow-muffled voice.

Nie Mingjue had snorted with only a little smugness.

And yet he could still muster a bit of sympathy, even for him, because he knew how it felt to just want a moment with Xichen and all the nice, long, shapely bits of him. 

Like right now. Because night time was supposed to be for ‘quality adult time’ and he would absolutely love to get to actually spend it with his lover during one of the first times he had seen him in 3 months. It had been a long day of playing in the Unclean Realm and snuggling with, and in general enjoying the presence of their beautiful, sweet, rambunctious son. 

But now it was night. And they had put said wonderful son to bed at least 2 and a half hours ago and he was setting about leaving some very nice and artistic marks on the junction of Lan Xichen’s shoulder and neck when the door to his quarters squeaked and he could practically feel his pulse throbbing in his temples. All of that lovely anticipation just up and fell into annoyance as gracelessly as a tree crashing over. At least they were both clothed but really. He bit back a growled curse as Lan Xichen slithered back away from him with a slightly aggrieved grimace, tugging his lapels back into place. “A-Fu, it is time--” Nie Mingjue began to grit out, sitting up and preparing to pick his son up and put him in Huaisang’s room and see how he liked whining then---but stopped. 

A-Fu’s eyes were huge, his crumpled face wet with tears as he hiccuped silently. Quiet crying was always real. “Oh, A-Fu. Come here,” Nie Mingjue immediately dropped his voice down low and quiet and held out his arms as Xichen sat up behind him, his night robes collar already tucked back into proper order. 

The boy darted to the bed and threw himself into his arms, practically knocking the wind out of him. “Nightmare?” Nie Mingjue asked gently into his sleep sweaty scalp and felt him nod frenetically.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lan Xichen murmured, smoothing what he could reach of A-Fu’s hair around Mingjue’s enveloping embrace. A-Fu shook his head just as violently.

Well, there was nothing for it. Nightmares beat fun every time, no question. “Do you want to stay with us for a while?” 

He gave the tiniest, wobbliest, “Mm-hmm,” and sniffed loudly. They tucked him in between them, snuggled into Nie Mingjue’s chest with Lan Xichen’s arm over the both of them. After they had all settled, Lan Xichen began to hum, quietly, into the moon soaked darkness. Nie Mingjue might not have an ear for music, but he did recognize the habitual soothing that spread through his muscles, his veins and washed over him like warm, sweet water. The Song of Clarity. Almost instantly, he felt A-Fu go completely limp, dropping back into sleep with impressive speed. (If only it were always so.)

Lan Xichen kept humming, combing his fingers slowly through Nie Mingjue’s loose hair, smiling gently at him through the dimness, his eyes black and bright. Leaning forward, Mingjue pressed a chaste kiss to his chin and closed his eyes to listen, letting the vibrations buzz through his lips and the peace of the moment seep through him. This was also quality time.

-BONUS 3ZUN-

It was still new, the three of them together, learning what had changed and what had not after all these years, but Nie Mingjue was more than willing to put the work in to figure it out. Unfortunately, it was months before any of them had a few weeks free for travel that didn't involve politicking and could instead just be a relaxing exploration, an integration of a relearned relationship dynamic. 

And ever the strategist, ever the impeccable planner, Jin Guangyao had scheduled a specific night, set up a sleepover with Jin Ling for A-Fu over with Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, and had prepared everything at Koi Tower. And it had begun oh so well with plenty of enthusiasm and excitement--that is, until the familiar, distant, ever-approaching siren wail that was their child reached them even through the wall not even 5 minutes in. They froze.

“Maybe it’s not him,” A-Yao muttered against Nie Mingjue’s mouth, not moving a muscle.

“Oh, it is,” Xichen sighed with more affection than exasperation as the sound grew even closer and regretfully peeled himself away from A-Yao’s neck, making the man growl in annoyance.

Usually, this was when the irritation might set in for Nie Mingjue as well, but seeing the break from A-Yao’s usual cool collection was actually quite amusing. With a groan, he let his head fall down onto Nie Mingjue’s shoulder with a thump, hands still fastened in Nie Mingjue’s hair as Lan Xichen swiftly slid on one, two, three layers, fastened them deftly and slipped out of the room. “Oh?” Nie Mingjue questioned the growl indulgently and grinned as his head came back up, eyes burning as his mouth locked into a wide, very fake smile.

“I love that boy,” A-Yao said deliberately, through his teeth.

“You do,” Nie Mingjue affirmed, at least trying to hold in his chuckle for courtesy’s sake. “We know.”

“I love that boy,” he repeated, tightening his fingers and shaking Nie Mingjue’s head a little, as if for emphasis, eyes growing wider still. 

Mingjue couldn’t help it; he laughed, even as he tried to placate him. “A-Yao, we have time, we can wait.”

“You would think,” A-Yao agreed fiercely, not-smile not wavering. “But considering the effort it took to get us all into bed together, I would really rather not have to.”

Though he leaned down and nuzzled into the soft hollow beneath his ear, he kept grinning against his neck. “Who knows, maybe he can calm him enough to send him back.”

“When has Er-ge ever sent him back?” A-Yao muttered above his head, voice almost petulant. 

“You usually don’t either.”

“Extenuating circumstances. There was a plan.”

Nie Mingjue chuckled. The wail petered out abruptly as it reached its loudest point, just down the hall, and was replaced by distant, wordless murmuring. The both of them froze again, listening closely to the voices, unable to glean the content of the conversation--2 adults, one of them their Xichen, the other a woman--perhaps Jiang Yanli-- and a small, tearful A-Fu. They waited, Nie Mingjue thoughtfully skimming his mustache over the thin skin over A-Yao’s artery until the other man gave him an irritable tweak on the ear. 

A low, kind question. A sniffly affirmative. A-Yao cursed, quietly and viciously, and practically threw himself off of Nie Mingjue’s lap to collapse on his back onto the bed. Grinning again, Nie Mingjue stood and pulled his under robe back on. “You love that boy,” he reminded over his shoulder as he opened the door to their room. 

“You know what else I love?” was hissed back as the door closed behind him, and Mingjue almost hurt himself stifling his snort. Apparently, he was wrong--only Xichen was in possession of infinite patience, after all.

[samwrights]

I Found You

I have no excuses for this one except I’m a dirty dirty Overhaul fucker.

On the real though, this one was very loosely inspired from Yagami Yato’s plot lines for Dabi and Overhaul. These routes inspired the Underground and Dabi and Kai’s occupations, otherwise everything else was just me being a simp.

⤞ Pairing: tattooed!Reader x Former Villain!Chisaki Kai

⤞ Word Count: 16,850. Yes you read that right.

⤞ Warnings: language, arson, awkward questions, reader smokes, I shafted Dabi again and made him the best friend...again, slightly vivid gore, mentions of death, male masturbation, daddy kink, age difference, breeding kink (ish), dirty talk, dom!Kai, 

I’m sorry this is so long. Just kidding, no I’m not. I love writing really long fics. Honestly, I’m trying to see how much I can push the boundaries of my writing and how long I can keep one idea conhesive and consistent and how much I can flesh out. Eventually these longer oneshots will be cross-posted to my AO3, I just really need to do my paper. Also Tropium Tattoos is pronounced as Tro-Pie-Um.

The color of fire always burns in accordance to temperature as well as the material that it’s burning. Watching the local Underground clinic slash orphanage burn not only red, but an almost ethereal green from the copper couplings and details of the building felt like an early Christmas warning—like the Underground was a target and the rest of the hidden city would soon follow by the holiday. That warning was only followed by disgust at the thought of someone feeling the need to go after a free clinic and orphanage in a city built out of a hollow sewer full of exiles for whatever fucking reason. 

Your heart is an amalgam of aching and sorrow and anger as you watch the flames burst through the windows of the shoddy building from a safe distance. From where you stood outside of your tattoo parlor only two blocks down, you see a crowd beginning together. Much to your surprise, most of them were only kids with one adult herding them—a man you recognized to be the owner of the building currently meeting its demise. 

The doctor of the clinic is as calm as ever, or rather trying to be, quietly attempting to do a headcount of his children. It seemed that concentration was alluding him, given the situation, because he swears up and down that he knows he has nine kids. Yet, he seemed to be unable to count past eight. He’s trying not to panic, but one of the kids speaks his greatest fear into fruition. “Daddy, Eri’s not here!” Golden eyes widen until the sclerae are fully round, pupils constricting in fear. This ‘Eri’ was special, you realize as you observe from a short distance away. The doctor is looking back at his children who are all in some form of tears and shambles then back at the burning building like a ferocious game of ping pong. Chisaki Kai can’t just leave his kids out here—not when he is almost certain that this attack was premeditated. But his daughter, his eldest daughter at that, was still inside potentially being engulfed by flames. 

Back and forth. 

Back and forth. 

Your body moves without a second thought. 

Your body moves, ignoring the screams from other bystanders for you not to go inside the burning clinic as you burst past the dilapidated red door. Upon entering, copper decor and steel support beams had fallen from the ceiling, sparking flames that were separating you from the stairwell that led up to the orphanage. There was no way you would be able to find this Eri person through the wreckage—not alone at least. Maybe your dumb quirk was good for something. 

You didn’t even realize you had a quirk until the age of twenty when you had gotten your first tattoo. It wasn’t anything crazy—a traditional-style three-eyed wolf’s head on your arm—only to wake up the following morning with no soreness, no tenderness, and no ink on your body. The wolf laid beside you, curled up in your bed, somehow manifesting into real life. At first it was terrifying, of course, but after learning how to return the creature back to your body you realize it might not have been a total waste of money. Your quirk, something you jokingly called the Magic Pencil quirk in reference to a Spongebob Squarepants episode from your childhood, was officially registered through the government on the Surface as Life Canvas. Again, it was a pretty dumb quirk unless you knew just what to utilize. Now your body was littered with dozens of creatures, weapons, hell even a telephone just in case you might need it. But the wolf was your favorite, as it was your first, and he was just the one to call for in this situation. Activating your quirk, you pinch at the ink on your forearm until it begins to peel off before setting it down on the ground. The line work stands on its own before the ink fills out into a three-dimensional mass and a now recognizable creature. 

“There’s a child somewhere here. Help me find them,” you implored your creation, cautiously climbing around the shambles while it did the same, though much nimbler than you. Fragments of the stairs were missing, some of railings were in flames—it was hard for you to get anywhere at the moment. A scream rips through the walls, a young girl you realize. She’s probably now seeing your large and somewhat creepy three-eyed wolf. Maneuvering carefully, you find spots that have yet to burn until you see a little girl cowering away from flames in her bedroom and away from your quirk. “Take my hand!” You try to scream, but the way building was going down was deafening. Instead, you cross a patch of fire to scoop the frail child in your arms and trapping the both of you behind a brazen wall of flames. Patting the wolf on the head, as if deflating it with your magical hands, it flattens back into a two dimensional drawing and returns to your body to grant you the ability to switch out to a manifestation that would prove to be more useful in this situation. You repeat the process, this time with a Phoenix from under your bosom that emerges just outside the window closest to the two of you. “Hold on tight,” you tell her as you pull her flush against your own body before smashing through glass to land the back of the Phoenix, covering her head to make sure the shards didn’t mar her skin. With a gentle descent, you place her feet first on the concrete with her family. 

“Eri!” The doctor of the clinic calls out in relief, arms wrapping around his daughter tightly. Your lips purse in a small, tight smile before you’re off on your way again, riding off into the horizon on the back of your strange creature. And for a moment, Chisaki Kai is torn between going after you to thank you while Overhaul wants nothing more than cleanse his children and you for touching his precious daughter with a vile quirk. He settles on the former, golden eyes watching your back disappear into the dark cavern of the Underground city. 

Weeks had passed since the fire burned down the orphanage clinic. Tabloids were published trying to figure out who the mysterious hero was, though most of the articles feared that an actual Hero was among the residents of the Underground. The Underground welcomes Heroes like the human body welcomes the plague—they tried to be eradicated and killed off. Not to say that quirks themselves weren’t welcome, no. It’s just that most of the residents were quirkless and those that did have one were all registered in a public database, separate from the government mandated one up on the Surface, so that quirk wielders were no secret. 

All but you, anyway. 

One of these well-known resident holders was Chisaki Kai. Quirk: Overhaul. Local doctor and caretaker of the orphaned, quirkless kids. Though, whether their powers had yet to manifest or he had removed them himself due to his vile distaste for the genetic mutation was unknown to the public. 

Another was the leader of the Underground: Dabi. The Cremation user who was presently lounging in one of your dingy, beat up sofas of your tattoo shop. “You know, most of the people just want to know who you are,” he supplies, flipping through the most recent news article. Instantly, he knew it was you that had rescued the little girl from the burning building, knowing full well of your quirk regardless of how rarely you used it. 

“And half of them want my head because they think I’m a Hero,” you spit the last word out as you finish tidying up your workspace. Your last client of the evening had just left, leaving you to close up shop while Dabi came to bother you as you did so. Not that you complained considering he had been a close friend for a long time. “Like I would ever be a Hero.” Heroes were the reason you and many others here in the Underground existed in this hidden sewer metropolis. Whether the Heroes had destroyed their livelihoods, their families or, in your case, accidentally killed your parents while you were still a teenager and you had nowhere to go, they were at fault for the creation of this cozy, dingy city. 

“Says here that Eri wishes to personally thank you,” Dabi adds, turquoise eyes flickering in your direction as you stop at the mention of her name. “We could hold some little rally, get you a medal—“

“Dabi, no.”

“—or you could just stop by town hall with me. Overhaul and the kids have been staying there while the clinic gets rebuilt.” You mull his words over in your head while capping all your ink bottles and putting them away in their respective drawers. Dabi takes your silence as a gesture of you thinking, even more so as you aggressively sanitize your client chair. “Come on, [ name ], she’s just a kid.”

“Yeah, but I hate kids.”

“Then stop acting like one.” With that, the leader leaves your shop, bells tolling as he exits. You weren’t being childish, you internally bite, silently and stubbornly. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t want to just announce that the lone tattoo artist of the Underground had a quirk that the public didn’t know about. It wasn’t your fault that your body moved without thinking. And it certainly wasn’t your fault that you rescued the daughter of the most notorious quirk hater in the city. 

Chisaki Kai was not quiet when it came for his distaste of quirks despite having one himself. Rumors floated all around the Underground that all of the children in his care had their quirks removed by his own hand, Eri included. What kind of monster did that? To his own child, no less. The thought made you sick to your stomach, only reaffirming your initial decision to not meet with Eri. 

But thinking of her brings great sadness to you. She was merely a child—a child who probably didn’t understand her father’s distaste. A kid who just wanted to thank the woman who saved her and nothing else. A sigh passes your lips as you head up the stairs from your shop to your attached apartment, turning off the lights to Tropium Tattoos. It’s not fair to deny her, you think. 

Maybe you’ll just sleep on it for now. 

��The following morning was quiet, as it was every morning in a city built out of a sewer. But eerily...too quiet. The sound of chirping nature and wildlife was a foreign concept now, especially years later. But there were no sound of bikes or clunky old cars passing by or arguing neighbors—if noise was present at all, it was in the form of faint crackling and crinkling of papier-mâché but somehow on a grander scale. It was new. There’s a grotesque smell in the air; a cross between a stale bonfire and rotting wood and warm smoke. 

Oh no. 

Oh fuck.

Panic fills your veins, throwing your nearly bare body out from under the covers. Ripping open your bedroom door and flying out the narrow entryway that led to the stairwell, you’re met with orange flames burning the wood of your staircase leading down to your shop. There’s no time for you to think about anything other than retreating back to your living room, to where the flames had yet to enter the threshold. Glancing out the large bay window behind your couch, you debate how steep of a drop it is from your second story down onto the cold pavement without sparing a second thought to how you could break your own fall. Contemplation wears down at your time to escape, you realize, as the fire is now entering your living space and burning brightly like a firework and catches onto the wooden console table in your entryway as well as the walls. Without another moment’s hesitation, you throw yourself through the window, bracing for impact from both the glass and the inevitable shattering of at least one bone. 

“[ name ]?!” You hear Dabi yelling over the sound of collapsing support beams from the inside of the building. All that’s on your mind is pain—throbbing pain and an ear-splitting cry as you try to cradle your probably broken arm from the back alley of your shop. Dabi calls out your name again, running over towards you while still trying to be somewhat mindful of all the shards of glass in fear of accidentally kicking more in your direction. Between rapid breaths, a few heavy coughs escape your lungs, no doubt from smoke inhalation. “I got you,” he murmurs as he picks you up gingerly. Another groan leaves your lips—your whole body hurts and were you more coherent and not in shock, you probably would have realized sooner that you’d broken more than just your arm. “Find who did this and bring them to me,” Dabi snarls at the small squadron behind him attempting to put out the fire that was destroying your livelihood as he makes his way back to town hall. 

It takes everything in Dabi’s body to not stamp his entire way back into his living quarters and the only reason he isn’t is because he’s carrying your busted body. This is the fourth fire in two weeks with no discernible pattern. All he knows is that it started with Overhaul’s clinic and now has somehow reached your quaint and quiet tattoo shop. As a leader, it makes Dabi want to tear his hair out. As a friend, he’s just pissed off. 

He’s thankful you’ve passed out just so he doesn’t have to deal with you bitching about how gruff he’s being. Though, it certainly dawned on him that you had probably fallen unconscious from the sheer agonizing pain of breaking multiple bones simultaneously. He sets you down, far from gently, in the residential living room upstairs of the Town Hall building. “Overhaul!” He bellows out, not even caring if the children heard his angry tone right now. 

“I told you to stop calling me that,” the doctor appears from around the corner, a clearly agitated look on his face, even beneath a simple black mask. The irony isn’t lost on Dabi despite his composure—he remembers once upon a time when Kai only went by the name of his quirk. Funny how years go by. “Her again?” Overhaul all but sneers, looking at your limp body that was covered only in a thin tee shirt and a pair of panties. Ignoring that little fact of seeing so much painted flesh, he notices the distinct smell of burnt wood and swelling under the skin where the breaks were. “What happened to her?”

“Someone set [ name ]’s tattoo shop and apartment on fire. She jumped out of a window to get out.” Dabi is absolutely seething, little sparks of blue flames leaving his nostrils as he lets out tufts of air. “Idiot had no idea how to break her fall and busted her shit. Can you help her?” 

“I suppose that would make us even.” The doctor snarks back thoughtlessly, but he can’t help but wonder why you didn’t use your little quirk to save yourself as you had with Eri. 

“Good. I’m gonna go find this fucker.” With that, Dabi storms out of the living room and out of the town hall building, leaving Kai with the woman that saved his daughter’s life. At least maybe now, Eri could say thank you like she had been asking to do. He could say thank you. 

Chisaki adjusts you on the couch so that you’re entirely flat on the cushions, mindful of the glass that’s embedded in your skin. If anything, he should probably remove those first. With gloved hands, he picks out all the shards he can see with his golden eyes while his mind wanders as he looks at the lines and colors of the tattoos that covered your body. From neck to toe, there was ink on nearly every inch—even the one dragon-snake hybrid on your face that wrapped around your temple and cheekbone. Despite your [ hair color ] locks matting your skin, Overhaul found all of your tattoos rather intriguing to look at; almost as if it weren’t flesh because the contact wasn’t causing him to break out in hives. Like your body told a story without you even needing to speak. 

After getting all the glass cleared up, Kai gently pushed on your arms and legs, checking for any signs of bones out of place from where they should be or cushioning and swelling to protect the damaged areas, outside of the very obvious ones that nearly looked like softballs. Two breaks in your femur, four in your ulna from what he could feel—nothing that Overhaul couldn’t fix. Though, he had to make sure that everything had set the way it was supposed to and that you were able to use your limbs after he did the repair. That meant he would actually have to speak to you, and he comes to the realization the two of you never actually had the chance to speak to each other before. Maybe he shouldn’t be as judgmental of the fact that you had a defect—maybe you were like him and abhorrent at the fact that you had a mutation to begin with. 

After using his own quirk, Overhaul checks for a pulse on your neck with two fingers, making sure you at least had a heartbeat before patiently waiting for you to regain consciousness. In the meantime, he continues picking out the fragments of glass that escaped his initial sweep—a task made slightly easier when the shards caught the light contrasted the dark lines embedded in your dermis. For a brief second, you stir against his touch before your eyes snap open. “Holy fuck, what happened?” You all but howl when you come to. You let out a deep gasp for breath, suddenly aware of the dull throbbing in your arm and leg as you attempt to make sense of your surroundings. 

“Can you tell me if this hurts?” The doctor to your left says evenly, emotionless even, as he holds your wrist between his thumb and middle finger, moving your arm in all sorts of ways. A sharp inhalation sucks in between your teeth as it twists in ways you weren’t sure it could before. A grimace touches his lips underneath is plain, black cloth mask—maybe he didn’t set the bones correctly? Overhaul lays your arm flat, ready to make his adjustments, but as his gloved fingers padded closer, you found yourself retreating further into the depths of the couch cushions. 

“I-I’m good,” your words come rushing out, desperate to dodge his touch. Why did you wake up with Overhaul over you? Did he take your quirk away? You’d have to investigate further when you were alone, test it out in private. Ignoring the dull hums of pain coming from your arms and legs, you manage to sit up, slumping over your knees before you realized where you were. “Town hall?”

“Yes. Do you remember anything?” You shake your head—you remember waking up to smelling the smoke in your apartment. You remember the fire creeping up the stairwell and the way orange painted your once tan walls. You remember jumping out the window, but everything else after is met with a blank slate. “You broke your arm and legs in a few places—I reset them with my quirk.”

“Oh,” is all you have to say. “Uh, thank you.”

“Speaking of thank you,” Overhaul palms his knees before pushing off of them from the wooden stool he’s sitting on, standing at his full height and smoothing out his black dress shirt and slightly creased slacks. “My daughter would like to thank you for rescuing her a few weeks back.” 

Dammit. 

It wasn’t like you could just say no to Eri’s father when it was only the two of you—that would just make you look like an asshole or worse; he could just kill you and say you died in the fire. It was even more difficult to decline considering the young, silver-haired girl was peeking her head from behind a partition, wide-eyed when her dad mentioned her. With your own eyes softening at the sudden contact, you offer an awkward smile that you pray comes off as welcoming. Overhaul beckons her to come closer, holding one hand open until the young girl is tucked underneath his hip. 

“U-Um, t-thank you for saving me,” a squeak spills past her dry lips before she runs out of the room as quickly as she came. You didn’t blame her. Even if Overhaul is her father, he gave off an intimidating air that surely would frighten any child. It made you wonder how such a man ran an orphanage. But to your surprise, Eri returned, though this time not alone. A flock of children was accompanying her, each of them with bright eyes and big smiles adorning their unique appearances. 

“Thank you for saving our sister!” They chime in unison. The sight made your heart swell and soften, even if only slightly. Eri steps forward cautiously, pushing through her own trepidation as she stands before you and throws herself at you, hugging you tightly with arms around your neck in gratitude. As if triggering a domino effect, a few of the other children felt the need to express the same sentiment. An uncomfortable laugh bubbles past your lips as you awkwardly wrap your arms around the gaggle of kids—you may not like them, but you weren’t that much of an asshole to deny them a hug. 

Kai’s typically hard, cold expression mellows at the sight. It’s heartwarming, he gave it that, but a part of him cannot stave off the tiny bubble of envy he feels seeing his children so ready to embrace you when they initially had such a hard time adjusting to life with him. He loved these kids—and it was quite clear you felt the opposite—so why hadn’t they gravitated towards him like they did you? Underneath his mask, he grimaced before internally shaking his head. They were his children, they loved Kai regardless and he knew that. “Alright kids, why don’t you go play and let [ name ] rest? It’s been a rough morning for her.” The use of your name shouldn’t have shocked you, or maybe it was fear that crawled up your spine at the doctor’s endearing tone. You weren’t aware that he knew who you were. The kids let out a collective groan before listening to their father and exiting the living room. As soon as each of their little, youthful heads is out of sight, you breathe out a sigh of relief. 

“S-sorry,” you mumble out, suddenly reminding yourself that it was probably rude of you to make a sound as such and you wanted to make sure you did nothing to insult Overhaul to his face. A huge part of you felt that one wrong word out of your mouth meant the end of your quirk or your life. 

“It’s alright, I know they can be a handful. Though, they seem to be quite taken with you.” His tone is still rather polite, you notice, and his voice is entirely different than what you’d thought it would be in a one on one interaction. You thought it would be deeper, as whispers and rumors of Chisaki Kai being an incredibly cruel, bitter man painted a different picture in your head. But the man standing before you looked every bit as broken as you felt on the inside—as if a part of him had an empty chasm residing in his chest that could not be filled by the nine children in his care. 

“I can’t imagine why,” you reply. 

“Neither can I,” he says without skipping a beat, his tone still airy and light. Before you can rebuttal with your quick wit, Dabi storms in with his eyes locked on to your now conscious body. Gesturing with his head, over exaggerating the folds of his damaged skin, he encourages you to follow him downstairs to the mayoral study. Silently, you sauntered off behind him, leaving Overhaul alone in the living room, while you could feel the internal flames burning within Dabi. Pissed didn’t even begin to describe the look on his face.

In the office, photographs of burnt down buildings, rubble, and the skeletal framework of Underground businesses were littered across the large, maple desk. All the while, the leader of the Underground was grumbling to himself repeatedly while tugging at his raven locks in frustration. Not only had someone burned down local businesses in the city, let alone a close friend’s business, but it seemed that someone was attacking his city from the inside. “I wasn’t able to save Tropium.” You offer no response, mostly because there isn’t one to have. You felt anguish over losing your home, sure, but knowing how hard Dabi worked to protect the Underground, you can’t quite imagine how he’s feeling.

Instead, you respond with, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I should be asking you that. Your home is gone, [ name ].” He had a valid point. Perhaps you could find a few local contractors and give them some work—it wasn’t like you didn’t have the money to spare. But that would probably take some time considering, from photo evidence, the place—all of them—was going to need to be built from the ashes. “Stay here while you figure it out. It’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t you already have Overhaul and the kids staying here?” Maybe Dabi didn’t notice the way your voice trembled as you spoke his name, even more so after having woken up to him by your side. But the thought of you, a quirk wielder that kept that little fact hidden from the public, temporarily boarding with a man who was vehemently against the abomination of quirks gave you severe anxiety. Additionally, there was the nine little children that also were a factor and the thought of one of them waking up in your temporary residence and intruding on what little privacy you would have—

“And?” Dabi asks, pulling you from your reverie. “[ name ], I know I don’t say this enough, but you’re one of my closest friends. I don’t feel right not giving you a place to sleep.” His quirk may be Cremation, but Dabi was a master manipulator when it came to pulling at your heartstrings whether or not he was aware of that. You let out a sigh of conceding, knowing you wouldn’t be able to argue your way out of this one. 

“One condition, bud,” you hold up a single index finger, the black quill feather tattooed there standing erect, “find me some contractors to help rebuild all the buildings that were burned dow.”

“That’s gonna cost ya,” Dabi hums, as if contemplating. And he was, but rather in estimated cost as opposed to the proposal itself. Physical currency was a rarity in the Underground, as the city ran on a merit and bartering system. Real Surface money was only used for certain occupations. Realistically speaking, he knew money was no object to you considering the wealth, or rather hush money, you acquired from your parents’ death, so there had to be another reason. Knowing you as well as he did, it was probably the fact that the faster your homes were rebuilt, the less time you would have to spend sharing walls with Overhaul. Very smart, the leader mused. “You got a deal, doll.”

 You lost count of the days that had gone by since you took over the project of rebuilding the structures that had gone down. While the orphanage project had already begun, you had hired two additional bodies to help the progress go faster so that Dabi could return to his duties without the addition of eleven more mouths to feed. Simultaneously, you had been at your own construction lot from metaphorical sunup to sundown, helping contribute and manage the two men that were hired for your location. 

You weren’t avoiding Overhaul, you told Dabi repeatedly when he asked where you’d been all day. 

This project was an opportunity for you to set up shop in a reimagined way—to be able to design both your studio space and your living space exactly to your tastes. It had sort of become your baby and you wanted to be as hands on as possible. 

You weren’t avoiding Overhaul, you kept telling yourself. 

Tropium’s new store front was stunning, albeit a bit ill-fitting with its new modern style in contrast to the Underground’s more rustic, steampunk look. But the charcoal grey stone walls with chunky white trim filled your heart with a sense of pride that your business would hopefully rise from the ashes much like that of the Phoenix tattooed under your bosom. 

Currently, you were upstairs with the tiny team of contractors while going over the floor plan of your currently bare apartment. Given the space of the empty building, you managed to enlarge your rooms at the cost of downsizing your entryway and living room. It still felt homey and, with the addition of a small office that served as a spare bedroom, you figured on nights that Dabi hung out and didn’t feel like going home, he had a space too. After laying out the floor plan and going over schematics with the team, you ventured back downstairs to continue sanding down the counters for your studio space. 

“So, this is where you’ve been spending your time?” Oxygen freezes in your throat as you’re met with Overhaul’s golden eyes and black mask. Albeit he wasn’t in his normal dress shirt and tie for once, but rather sporting an oversized hoodie and tight denim jeans. 

“W-what are you doing here?” Is all you can say back. You aren’t sure if you’re moving or even breathing at this point. The pressure you feel from a man whose face is half-covered is terrifying—liquid gold was dull in comparison to the intimidating eyes of Chisaki Kai. 

“Dabi told me about your little deal,” his voice rolls like honey straight from the dripper as he makes small flits toward you that subconsciously leave you retreating back up the stairs one step at time. A deep groan rumbles in his chest when he sees your reaction—not that he blames you in the slightest. Overhaul is more than aware of his notorious reputation both in the real world and in the Underground and is accepting of strangers’ reluctance to be around him. He knows he’s partially to blame for not trying to quell the stigma around him by formally introducing himself prior. maybe not being such a condescending jackass when he first officially met you would have helped as well. 

But he can’t squash the little bouts of jealousy that filled him seeing his children flock to you like dragonflies in search of water that almost make him bask in your trepidation. 

“Take a walk with me,” Overhaul adds, torn between offering you a gloved hand as a metaphorical olive branch or simply turning around to see if you follow. He opts for the latter merely for the fact that you’re covered in dust and paint from your days’ work. Bounding after him, you stuff your hands into the pockets of your loose overalls as you try to catch up while bearing in mind to keep a short distance between the two of you. The two-block walk is brief and silent as you end up at the construction site of the clinic. Perhaps your memory of the building you never visited beforehand was skewed, but it you were certain it was much larger now. “Feel free to look around. After all, you’re paying for this.” There’s a twinge of malice that paints his invitation that isn’t lost on you, but you decide to forego the welcoming regardless. 

Passing through the threshold cautiously, you’re greeted with what looks to be a regular, two story home. The skeletal structure foreshadowed a kitchen, dining room, living space, and a hallway leading to two rooms. One staircase that lead to a basement, one that lead upstairs—it was strange to see the clinic become more of a home than anything else. “Where are you putting the clinic?” You ask meekly, careful not to touch. Just because Overhaul invited you to check out the specs, doesn’t mean he wanted your lingering fingerprints ingrained in his space. 

“Basement. I figured it would be better for the children to have majority of the space.” A pregnant pause takes over the conversation once again, leaving you to roam around the new space in appreciation. A part of you was pleased with the work the contractors did for this family, a large part even, but there was a small nagging voice in your head that was still telling you to retreat back to your own project. “Why did you do it?” 

“Do what?” A brief chuckle that is muffled by his mask dances on his lips. He’s not sure which of his theories he wants to start unraveling first. So he starts with the one he believes to be most ludicrous—the conspiracy that you or somebody you worked for was trying to take this children away, or Eri at the very least. If people on the Surface knew about her and her quirk, Kai doesn’t doubt a bounty would be on her head. But truth be told, he knew this seemed unlikely. You had never bothered to even engage with him or anyone else in his family until recently, despite having come to the Underground shortly after its establishment. 

“Rescue my daughter, for starters.” Of course he starts with the question you don’t have an answer for. To which you can only respond with the truth—your body moved on your own when you saw the panic in his eyes. Also knowing he had to watch his eight other children and ensure their safety prompted your body to act automatically. “You used your quirk to save Eri, but not yourself. Why?” Your eyes narrow slightly in both suspicion and out of confusion. It was strange that Overhaul kept demanding answers and logic and reason for things you did as a knee jerk reaction. Considering you’d only discovered your quirk just before going to the Underground, it wasn’t exactly what you would call a natural reaction. Plus, weaving through danger for someone else wasn’t as simple as just running in and out of the building as it was to jump out your bay window. Judging by his silence, it seemed he accepted that answer.  “And the contractors?”

“I just want all of our lives to go back to normal, including Dabi.” It wasn’t exactly a lie—rather just a short omission of the truth—and it wasn’t like you could tell him that you couldn’t stand living in such close proximity with him due to fear. But Overhaul had a knack for pinpointing a fib like a honeybee in search of something sweet. 

“You’re lying,” he bites. You shake your head almost violently, as if the movement will deter your mouth from telling him the truth in its entirety. There was no way you could admit the fear he instilled in your bones or the anxiety you felt standing close enough for him to touch you. Sure, you may have felt that your quirk was less than impressive but that didn’t mean you wanted him to take it away or worse, your life. Knowing that he knew about it too, while the public didn’t which was a requirement for living in the Underground, only reaffirmed your worries. “Do you fear me?” Overhaul asks, making note of the way your fingers were trembling and way your eyes constantly averted his. 

“Yes,” your voice comes out as a mere whisper, barely rising above the hammering and drilling of the construction workers. A part of you wished that your admission made you feel better—like it felt like a weight lifting off of your shoulder rather than making it feel like you were denying some greater truth—a part of you just wanted to run and hide and pretend this interaction wasn’t happening. 

It shouldn’t have hurt Kai as much as it did to hear you say it out loud, considering you were nothing but a stranger. But you were a stranger that his children were so utterly enamored with and all he wanted was to understand. Yet, the feeling of disappointment is a dull thrum in his chest, long forgotten with a wide array of other emotions and coming only second to his envy. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, though the monotone voice almost sounds insincere. 

Perhaps, his jealousy is misplaced, he thinks. His children may be drawn to you, but at least they didn’t tremble or wrack their bones with trepidation the way you do when you see him. If anything, his jealousy is replaced with empathy. Despite your clear distaste for youth, you got along swimmingly with his kids and they clearly wanted to be present with you. It must have been difficult for you to be near them, even more so considering you trembled in their father’s presence. The two of you stand in silence with you looking away pretending to soak in your surroundings of the plastered walls. Overhaul is observing your nervous ticks—the way your twitching fingers are exaggerated by the ink in your skin or the way your knee bounces impatiently along the hardwood. 

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, come look at my roo—oh! [ name ] is here too!” Bounding down the unfinished staircase was one of the orphans in Overhaul’s care; Shura, if you remembered correctly. 

“Just stopped by to see how the place was coming,” you offer in addition to a sheepish wave. Before you know it, Shura is grasping one of your hands with both of his while guiding you up the stairs. 

“Come see our rooms, [ name ]!” Overhaul watches with curious eyes at the way one of his sons is so overzealous to include you in their little world. The appeal makes no sense to him—you were just a stranger with skin like a Monet painting that had made little to no effort for these children outside of rescuing Eri and allowing them to shower you in their affection. 

Why did acknowledging that their enthusiasm to include you hurt Kai even more so, knowing you were afraid of him?

Trudging behind, Overhaul peers through the open doors upstairs to see each of his kids decorating their freshly painted walls. In Shura’s room, you were sitting on the floor with your arms wrapped around your knees while the little boy explained to you that he wanted his room to be decorated with narwhals. The excitement he had, and the knowledge of even knowing such a creature existed, was quite charming. “[ name ], are you gonna join us for dinner this time? Dabi says you’re always working, but daddy always makes you a plate just in case!” Your eyes glance over to Overhaul and his leisurely pose as he rests one arm on the door jamb. For a moment, your mouth open and closes repeatedly as you try to stutter out some semblance of an answer. 

“Just in case,” the doctor adds, as if to add more pressure to his son’s convenient question. The golden orbs you normally deterred from swirled with an intensity that, much to your surprise, didn’t wrack your nerves like they normally did. It was as if they were filled with remorse rather their typical bitterness, maybe sympathy even, imploring you to consider Shura’s inquiry. 

“I should go finish my work for today then so I can be home for dinner,” pushing yourself off of the freshly carpeted floor to stand. At some point while Shura was giving you the grand tour of his room, your legs had fallen asleep, causing your first step to hobble and throw you off balance and trip. 

“Careful,” Overhaul chimes, bemused at the way you flail to recover from your stumble. To your surprise, he’s pushed himself off the door jamb, crossed through the threshold of Shura’s room, and has his arms locked underneath yours to keep you steady. “Drink some water before going back to work.”  

“R-right,” you stutter out, hyper aware that his hands are touching you. He feels the way your tendons bunch together in your arms at the contact, even more so when your pupils lock into his. It untangles one more thread in his theories, one he figures he’ll push on later because it’s a theory just as farfetched as his last one. “I’ll, um, see you at dinner,” the last syllable rises in intonation as you squeak, flitting away and ignoring your numbed legs and blood burned cheeks. Meanwhile, Overhaul chuckles as he watches you scurry away, the blush painting your cheeks burning into his mind just as well. The way you moved was reminiscent of when he had reset your bones and the way you recoiled thereafter. But through thorough observation, he knew that reaction wasn’t fear this time around, no. Fear made you quiet, not nervous or jittery or force your pupils to dilate. 

This was something else entirely.

Something else entirely to the point where Chisaki Kai is unsure if he even wants to entertain the possible theory that maybe, maybe, you’re the slightest bit infatuated with him. 

“How nice of you to join us,” Dabi sneers teasingly when you set foot into the private entryway of town hall’s attached home. The makeshift family of ten is already seated at the extended dining table, an empty seat awaiting you on Dabi’s left with Overhaul on his right. Each of the children that you had come to be familiar with over the last few weeks had lit up like your presence was a treat—a strange feeling, considering you’d done the most to avoid being in the temporary residence. 

“Go wash up, we’ll wait for you,” you had never seen Chisaki Kai without his mask, let alone heard his voice so clear. The angelic lilt rivaled expert fingers rimming crystal glasses, hypnotizing you to do as he said without so much as a fight. Entering your room, you immediately discard your dirty work clothes and shower hastily, scrubbing off flecks of dried paint and dust. In seven minutes and nineteen seconds, you’re out of your en suite bathroom and shucking on leggings and a long sleeve tee before joining everyone else at the dinner table. 

To your surprise it felt quite...normal. Was this how families had dinner together? You were unsure, considering your parents had never been one to have the three of you gather together for a meal—they were always too busy working until the day they were killed nearly a decade ago. 

It surprised you how natural the flow of conversation was, even with nine children ranging from ages four to seven. Even more to your shock, Dabi was more than willing to indulge the kids in their stories. But the creme de la creme was seeing maskless Overhaul smiling and laughing and attempting to get his kids to eat their vegetables. Was this the real Overhaul? Had his notoriety preceded him so greatly that you feared him for no reason at all? Your intuition tells you no and, perhaps, to some degree it’s right. There was still a dangerous air that encapsulated Chisaki Kai, but it wasn’t one that made you instantly retreat like touching a cake pan you’d recently pulled from the oven with a bare hand. If anything, it was alluring as opposed to intimidating. 

The kids were so happy you finally joined them all at dinner. Rapid fire questions from any one or even two of them made you hesitate to answer but you did your best to keep your face even and amused. Children may not have been your favorite, but however the heck Overhaul was raising these ones, especially all nine of them, was truly wonderful. Throughout conversation, Shura and even shy little Eri had scrambled into your lap with each one of them taking a leg while the three of you ate. Initially, Kai had scolded them both, saying they were being rude to which you only shook your head and allowed them to stay, much to his surprise. 

After dinner, the children cleared the table. Those that were able of the younger ones brought stacks of dishes to Eri and Shura whom were in the kitchen washing plates and silverware—their duties as the eldest of the nine. Dabi has pardoned himself after thanking the family for the meal to hole himself up in his office. According to the leader of the Underground, the investigative team was still working around the clock to unearth who was responsible for the fires. You had found yourself in the garden of Town Hall, tablet and digital pen in one hand with a cigarette in the other. Drawing was the only leisurely activity you indulged in when not working on rebuilding Tropium. 

Typically, Dabi would join on you on these evenings with stacks of papers and a cigar between his lips as he bounced ideas off of you to figure out potential perpetrators. Needless to say, it surprised you when Overhaul enters the makeshift garden that was really just a manmade pond with lily pads and rose bushes aligning the sinkhole. “Hi,” you offer meekly, averting his gaze by keeping your own glued to your tablet screen. 

“Hi,” he returns, twisting up a shapely brow at the cigarette between your index and middle finger. For a moment, he’s torn between asking what you’re working on or if you had any ideas to who burned down both of your homes or even how the rebuilding of Tropium was coming along. But he can tell by the way the filter of the cigarette squeezes between your fingers that you’re tense, that you can sense there’s a reason for his presence and decides to forego small talk. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” his voice is small and unsure and drastically different from the Overhaul you were used to. Nonetheless, his statement catches your attention and pulls it away from the screen of your tablet. 

“I’m more afraid of what you can do,” you admit quietly, “I don’t want people knowing about my quirk. Dabi was the only one who knew and now your entire family knows and—“ you pause for second, hesitating on whether or not you should continue. But Overhaul was brave enough to tell you had what been bothering him, even if only a minuscule issue, you figure you owe him the same. “And I don’t want you to take it away.” The broken syllables leave your lips bare above a whisper, reaffirming at least one of the theories the doctor had about you. Of all the conspiracies, it made sense that this one was the most likely to explain your reactions to his presence, no matter how much he had hoped it to be some strange, magnetic attraction. 

You had bought into the whispers of the Underground that said Chisaki Kai’s life mission was to overhaul the population and remove quirks. 

Dejection fills his chest as he lets out a sigh. Maybe this was being too honest, his inner voice argues as it debates on his next words cautiously, but he feels the need to burn clean. “[ name ], what do you know about me?” 

“That you were a Yakuza leader and you think quirks are a plague that need to be eradicated.” Overhaul closes his eyes languidly, peeling them back open at a snail’s pace while the warm, golden orbs stare off into the never-ending tunnels of the Underground. 

“I became the leader of the Shie Hassaikai when I married my wife at twenty-three and took over for her ill father. It was a quirk marriage, but a happy one, nonetheless. At twenty five, my wife had Eri and while most children’s genetic code didn’t activate the gene for a quirk until a few years later, Eri was born with her quirk activated,” you listen deeply, soaking in every word leaving Overhaul’s maskless lips. His eyes drop down to stare at his gloved hands before burying his face in them for a moment to swallow his guilt quietly. “Eri can rewind time on living things and the first person she used it on—“

“—was her mother,” your voice barely vibrated past your lips as you made the connection. Bile rose in your throat, threatening to spill the contents of your gut not out of disgust, but rather an overwhelming surge of sorrow. 

“I lost my wife when I was twenty-five. The rate that she was being rewound at was too much for her body to handle and I had to overhaul my own daughter at birth just to get her quirk to deactivate so she didn’t destroy everyone she touched,” had Chisaki Kai not come to terms with the truth a long time ago, he would have shed at least a single tear recounting these memories he had buried. Either that, or almost hurled recalling the way his wife’s body had imploded until chunks of skin and muscle tissue and blood ended up spewing all over his chest and face. There was a reason he constantly wore gloves and a mask—the smell of cooking carcass and burning meat never left him and the exaggerated mask stuffed with lavender was the only scent that eased him. “I was angry at the world for a long time.”

“I am so sorry, Over—“

“Kai,” he interrupts, “or Chisaki, at the very least. I don’t go by that name anymore.” After a bout of silence, Chisaki continues further. Eri never grew up with a mother or siblings and after things had gone south on the surface, he wanted to raise Eri in a place where people didn’t know the truth about her or the mother she never had the opportunity to meet. So he fled to the Underground with Dabi; he started helping tend to the ill and taking in quirkless children who had lost their parents on the Surface to Heroes. 

In a moment of vulnerability, you felt the need to offer the olive branch and share your own story with this man after he bared his soul to you. And so, you tell him about the accident. How, while in pursuit of a villain, the small mom and pop diner that your parents frequented on Friday afternoons was accidentally set on fire by Endeavor and trapped and killed of the patrons inside. You were in your first year of high school at the time—fourteen and preparing for university until you realized you would need to work full time in order to continue paying the bills until the settlement from Endeavor came. University was down the drain. It took years for the dividends to be decided and the lawyer managed to get you a considerably high amount thanks to emotional damages, but riches and wealth would never quell the resentment you held towards the then number two pro Hero for being so reckless. That was nine years ago. Somewhere along the way, you’d met Dabi and he granted you a home and space to continue to hone the craft of tattoo artistry that you had picked up from working part time in a parlor, as recompense for his father killing yours. Though, you’d left that last little tidbit out, unsure if Kai knew of Dabi’s lineage. “I’ve been in the Underground for the last three years, give or take.”

You had always been rather indifferent to the concept of heroism until that day. Even more so when you had met Dabi—a man who was wanted and was supposed to be a villain. Yet he extended warmth and welcoming to you, offering you refuge in a new city he had created for the exiled and wandering. 

The grey areas only widen with this conversation with Chisaki Kai. A notorious man, an infamous man, known for causing utter chaos on the Surface both as the leader of the Shie Hassaikai and as a super villain, was sitting across from you and sharing the most intimate moments of his life. 

Maybe the concept of heroism was skewed to begin with, you think to yourself as you put out the cigarette in the ashtray in front of you. Maybe Dabi and Overhaul weren’t the real villains—only designed that way because of the way some omniscient creature in the stars that you couldn’t see. 

“I remember when you first opened Tropium,” Chisaki hums bemusedly, “the children said you looked like a coloring book.” The only fitting response you have is laughter. Neither of you thought laughter would be something the two of you would indulge in together. But the way your cheeks cinch together at the corner of your eyes or the tufts of air leaving your nostrils in a short snort and the somehow smooth staccato of your chuckle sounds like holiday bells after the first snowfall. It was a peace that Chisaki Kai hadn’t known for some time now. It was a peace he didn’t know he needed, and it makes him wish that his magnetic attraction theory had some truth to it. “Your secret is safe with me,” he says finally after the laughter had died off. 

“Thank you, Chisaki,” 

 You started coming home for dinner every night, figuring the two contractors didn’t need you there to micromanage them, until you stopped dropping into the worksite all together. With a full house, Dabi was out more frequently, preferring to be in the field to investigate the fires as much as he could. This left you with Chisaki and the kids more often than not. On occasion, you would run to the local market with Eri and Shura or had even done arts and crafts with some of the younger ones. As a sort of inside joke, you had bought each of the nine coloring books. 

Currently, the kids were playing volleyball in the makeshift garden while you and Chisaki supervised. It was no longer tense between the two of you, a sort of bond forming since that one night. You should have seen the inevitable question coming. Though you more so imagined it would come from Dabi in the form of some snide comment with sexual implications regarding how close you and Overhaul had become. Never did you anticipate his oldest son asking, “[ name ], are you going to be adopting us? Are you going to be our new mom?” 

“I-I—“ you were a deer in headlights and the question was a freight truck gunning in at ninety. Looking over at Chisaki for help, who seemed almost unwilling or at the very least unsure on how to, you shake your head before staring back at Shura’s big blue eyes. These children had begun carving a special place in your heart due to how they came to be in Chisaki’s care, sure, but you still had your reservations about kids in general. Not that the doctor blamed you—maternal instincts didn’t necessarily apply to every female. “I-I don’t wanna take you away from daddy, he works so hard to take care of you all and he does such a good job,” for a second, Shura’s expression becomes crestfallen. 

“But we all like having you around, [ name ],”

“I’m not going anywhere, buddy, I promise,” the seven-year-old boy promptly wraps his arms around your neck, squeezing tightly as if you were going to dissipate into the air in front of his very eyes. Without hesitation, you hug back briefly before telling him his siblings were waiting for him to start the next set of volleyball. “Was that okay?” You ask quietly, looking over to the doctor. From underneath his mask, you can see the twists of pain coloring the dusty gold hues of his irises and the way his jaw tenses. When he remains quiet, you anxiously reach for an e-cigarette—a fruity one that wouldn’t alert the kids or burn Chisaki’s nostrils from the scent—and pull the tip to your lips. Maybe you shouldn’t have said that to Shura, you think as you exhale a large cloud of smoke. 

But Overhaul’s stomach is twisting and churning, and he crosses his legs over the knee to squeeze his legs together tightly. He’s thankful for the black cloth mask that covers majority of his facial features as he bites his lip and his nostrils flair while he tries to control his breathing. Think of anything else, his mind snarls. Think of the days in the Shie Hassaikai, think of the children, think of literally anything but the way you called him “daddy” and how the blood rushed from his brain and straight to his dick at an alarming rate. It was so innocent—there was no reason Kai should even be thinking of it in any other way—but primal instincts were taking over, twisting into a delusion in his brain into hearing you repeatedly call him daddy while he fucked you from behind. 

“Can you watch the kids?” Chisaki chokes out, standing up abruptly and fleeing inside the temporary home. He doesn’t even have the chance to hear you ask if he’s alright as he’s rushing upstairs to his en suite bathroom. Entering his room, he rips off every shred of fabric covering his body before turning on the shower to the coldest temperature he could tolerate. But there wasn’t enough cold water in the Underground or gruesome thoughts of his wife’s sudden death that could stave off the erection he was currently sporting. “Fuck!” He snarls out viciously, mind running rampant with salacious daydreams. Out of sheer need, Overhaul wraps one hand around his cock, the other bracing himself on the shower wall while the cold water runs down his spine. 

Chisaki Kai is livid—raging over the fact that he is reduced to such actions over a simple word that he hears multiple times on a daily basis. It wasn’t that he was abhorrent at the thought of masturbation in the slightest—he was a human with natural human needs, after all—but this desperation that filled his gut and fueled his hard on was less than desirable. But he can’t stop the aching he feels to hold onto that blip of memory of you calling him daddy. He savors it like the first bite of a meal and indulges it in the same way he’s trying to coerce his own orgasm. 

Throaty groans and grumbles wrack in Overhaul’s throat as he fists his angry, weeping cock, twisting and turning it as he prays for reprieve. It’s not enough; it’s not your mouth or any other oriface he would rather be shoving into, but the friction rubbing against his veins would have to be enough. He’s far from gracious at this point. Cupping and massaging his balls with one hand while thrusting into his enclosed other at ferocious speeds was all in the name of merely getting off. “Fuck,” he hisses out once again as he feels the very start of his orgasm. As much as his natural instinct is just telling him to sit back and enjoy the ride, his common sense tells him otherwise, tells him that he’s filthy for doing this and he doesn’t deserve to indulge in these thoughts. 

But he needs that extra push to satiate his natural instinct. 

Succumbing to his deeper, carnal desires, his imagination wanders back to you. With golden eyes screwed shut, he pretends it’s you he thrusting into, that it’s you stringing together languid profanities between your lips; that it’s you begging for daddy to fuck you harder. 

That it’s you begging daddy to fill you up and make you into a mother. 

“Oh, shit,” Chisaki is gasping for breath as he cums on the shower walls—the last thought to flood his mind serving to break the dam. He licks his lips and swallows hard, his skin becoming dry despite standing in the cold shower. After his ragged, uneven breathing returns to some semblance of normal, he peels his heavy lids open and stares at the fluid coating the shower wall. For a moment, shame washes over him because he feels pathetic and small. But the moment is brief before it was replaced with a dull burn of hunger that may never be quelled. 

Pathetic, Kai thinks again as he scrubs his body clean, before exiting the arctic shower. Never before had he been in such a state, even at the ripe age of thirty-two, to masturbate to the mere thought of another person. Perhaps he was that touch-starved, all things considered. 

He can’t bring himself to gaze at his reflection as he gets dressed. Adorning grey joggers and a red zip up hoodie, in addition to his usual mask and gloves, he maneuvers his way back to the makeshift garden where the children are still playing with together. But rather than you sitting alone at the patio table as you were, Dabi had joined you in the seat directly across from you. 

Both of you were sporting matching cigarettes in your respective hands with matching distressed looks on your faces. 

“We’ve been waiting for you,” you say in an almost indifferent tone, a departure from the way Kai had heard you in his mind seconds ago. It was a sentence typically accompanied with some sass, but your eyes were devoid of emotion at the moment. Cautiously, Chisaki took a seat beside you at the patio table, propping an elbow on the armrest closest to you before resting his temple on the same closed fist he had just used to beat himself off. You pay it no mind, how close he is to you, but rather put out your cigarette on the ashtray on the table as a courtesy to him. “Dabi,” your tone is thoughtful as you say your best friend’s name, making a hand gesture that signifies him to speak. 

The leader of the Underground opens the manilla folder that was harboring the photos of both of your burnt down homes as well as the two other destroyed businesses. “It’s been a challenging investigation, but after eyewitness accounts and working with local law enforcement from the Surface, I’m pretty sure my bastard brother was behind this shit,” Dabi grits out. 

“Brother?” Kai asks, confirming your suspicions of him being unaware of Dabi’s genealogy and family tree. To this, the leader pulls out a mug shot of Todoroki Shouto. The face wasn’t entirely familiar to Kai, save for the small resemblances to Dabi. Same jaw shape, same blue eye with the same dead look. 

“Why us?” You ask, flipping the photo over. While it had been awhile since you had resided let alone visited the Surface, you knew that there was some rumors in the air about the start of a war, but what possible reason did Todoroki have for going after the Underground when everyone kept to themselves? For Chisaki, who ran a free clinic, and his children? What about you—why go after you?

Outside of Dabi, hadn’t the Todoroki family tortured you enough?

The city leader takes a deep breath, exhaling smoke as he extinguishes the dead cigarette on the ashtray. According to the patchwork man, Todoroki had confessed that he was selected for a covert mission from the Hero Association. The primary goal was to eradicate any and all quirk wielders within the Underground so they didn’t procreate further, so no overpowered quirks would mutate in the next generation of Underground born children. Overhaul lets out a scoff at the explanation—leave it to the Heroes to act so recklessly and selfishly. 

If quirk mutation was the concern, only him and Eri would have been targeted, maybe Dabi as well. Probably Dabi as well. But they burned down Tropium Tattoos, the home of you whom had the legally registered quirk Life Canvas up on the Surface. They burned down a farm whose owner had a quirk that could manipulate light and sunshine—whose farm fed the patrons of the Underground. They burned down the house of the guy who had a weird magnet quirk. It sounds more useless than he actually is—Dabi ended up capitalizing on his manipulation of magnets to create magnetic elevators up to the surface for supply runs and other necessities. 

This was about population control. 

It was a form of genocide that Overhaul himself was all too familiar with. 

“Well that’s fucked,” you sneer, reaching for one more cigarette, “the fuck is wrong with your family, dude, and why are they all trying to kill me and my family?” Chisaki turns his head in curiosity, no longer resting on his knuckles. The only time you had brought up your family, around him at least, was when Endeavor killed your parents—

Oh. 

He pretends he doesn’t feel disappointment when he realizes you weren’t implying he and the children were your family. 

“Why the hell do you think I left, [ name ]?” Chisaki almost feels as if he shouldn’t be present for this conversation; like it was meant to be private between the two of you. But he can’t bring himself to leave your side, not with the way anger is crinkling in the form of crow’s feet at the corner of your eyes. Dabi excuses himself after a long bout of silence, leaving you to stew in your bitterness while Overhaul directs the kids to wash up for dinner. You don’t realize all nine of them had left the garden until the doctor is standing over you, despite the small wisps of smoke billowing from your cigarette with a hand extended towards you to pull you from the patio chair. You’re sure to extinguish the stick, knowing how the smell often offended him before taking it. 

“Why don’t you go rest inside for a minute and wash up while I make dinner?” He offers quietly as he pulls you to your feet. The entire time, Chisaki maintains eye contact, his golden orbs unwilling to break their trance with your form. But thanks to the distress and the rapid pace that your brain is moving, you aren’t even aware of your surroundings or the way Chisaki is just standing in front of you until you’re running into his broad chest. Instinctually, you recoil away from him. Not out of disgust or fear like before, but rather respect, knowing how he is about touch and physical contact. 

“Sorry—“ his arms are nestling at your waist to keep you in close proximity and you’re suddenly reminded of the time your legs fell asleep at the orphanage and you had stumbled trying to walk. Chisaki had been there then too, holding you steady much like he was now. There was something drastically different to the scenario now compared to back then. The doctor didn’t shy away from the contact anymore, didn’t draw his hands back like he touched a freshly stoked lump of coal or break out into itchy hives. If anything, his gloved hands lingered just a little bit longer—too long even for Chisaki—before gingerly patting your head and retreating inside the home. 

And maybe if you weren’t trying to process the fact that the Surface was attempting to start a war with the Underground, you would have dwelled more on the warmth and security coming from Kai. The poise he held coupled with the fire and desire in his eye would have been enough to reassure that everything was going to be alright.

Dabi never came back that night. Rather than leaving his head seat at the dining table empty, Chisaki sat to your left with his daughter filling his space temporarily. You sat directly across from Eri, the girl who was once too timid to thank you now smiled brightly every time you looked at her. Other than your best friend’s absence, dinner was relatively average. Conversation went on as normal, sharing laughter and smiles between all of you—it was a nice delusion that for a moment, you were all a complete family and you weren’t so enrapt with the heartbreak of knowing these ten humans were targets to the surface. 

The children cleared the table as they always did, but rather than having the two oldest do the dishes, you offered to clean up instead. “Why don’t you kids gather up in the living room and have daddy put on a movie for you?” Clearly excited from the reprieve of duty, the orphans all head off, touting something along the lines of Frozen versus Tangled. But your back is already turned away from the family, getting started on putting away leftovers and scraping away scraps on plates and entirely missing the way Kai’s eyes drain from gold to a murky mustard. It misses the way his jaw clenches tightly as he settles the debate for his children, turning on Tangled—the clearly more superior film—before he returns to the kitchen. 

The sleeves of your ragline tee are pushed above your elbows as you hum an unknown hymn, unaware of Kai stepping cautiously toward you. Despite having just eaten, the doctor is filled with a renewed hunger entirely as his grip finds limp purchase on your hips much like they had before dinner. “You know, I think we need to have a talk about you calling me ‘daddy’ in front of the children,” he murmurs hotly against the shell of your ear, causing the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. Your blood is torn between running cold from the predatory drawl in his words and boiling from the sudden close contact. 

“I-I’m sorry, should I stop?” Kai licks his lips before running his teeth behind your ear and down your neck, suckling on the flesh as he mumbles a response. 

“Do you want to?” You contemplate his question in full, though it proves to be a challenge with the way he’s pressing warm, open mouth kisses to your neck and shoulder and the way his hands are kneading at your hips. “Are you afraid of me, sweetheart?” He asks again, his voice a low grumble yet somehow is louder than thunder as it isn’t hidden behind a mask. Had this been months ago when he had asked you an identical question when you were perusing the reconstruction of the orphanage, you would have said yes again. But this wasn’t fear—fear wasn’t a word you associated with Chisaki Kai anymore. 

Warmth. Strength. Dedication. Resolve. 

Love. 

Those were the words you associated with him now. 

“No,” you finally respond, shutting off the water before turning to face him. It was a rare, momentous occasion when you got to gaze upon his bare face outside of having meals together. His golden eyes swirl with elation, even more so as your painted fingers brush stray locks that fallen just over his brows. Despite a rather simple appearance, especially in comparison to yours, there’s something elegantly charming about Chisaki Kai that had never gotten the full appreciation he deserved. 

Tentatively, you nudge him closer to you from the back of his neck until your lips are pressed against his. For you, it’s an experiment just to feel him in such a manner. For Kai, it’s torture in every sense of the word because it’s a tease after all of the salacious thoughts that have marred his imagination. Taking a leap of faith, his arms tighten around your waist, pulling your body flush against his because right now there isn’t enough contact in the world that would satisfy him. 

The once delicate, experimental kiss becomes hungrier at his hand as he’s exploring your mouth with tongue, groaning as he does so. The scent of smoke and fresh cotton wafts into his nostrils between his sharp intakes of breath as he refuses to break contact. It’s as if he’s trying to commit the moment to memory, to burn it into his brain. 

As if this was never going to happen ever again. 

“Kai,” you whimper out his name, his true name, between pants of breathlessness for the first time. Just as gingerly as before, your fingers are cradling the man before you by the temples. You’re gazing at him fully, unabashedly, as you run a thumb just below his distinct lower lashes. Chisaki’s head dips a bit further into your brief touch before you skip away from him. 

“Wait, where do you think you’re going?”

“Come on, let’s go watch the movie with the kids,” you chime, holding a hand out to him as if he didn’t just have you all but pinned to the kitchen sink. 

“I was serious when I said we needed to have a talk.” Despite his verbal protest, he takes your hand in his, trailing behind as you saunter off towards the living room where the children are fully invested in the film. Plopping down on an empty space on the couch, you bring Kai with you until he’s nearly resting on top of you. For a moment, he releases your hand, opting to wrap an arm around you to pull you closer. “Back to avoiding me, angel?” The doctor grumbles into your ear, low enough so as not to alert the little ones. 

“Figured it would be better to not risk being interrupted,” you whisper back, smirk twisting your lips. Chisaki’s licks his own dry plains, tugging you even closer so that you’re sitting on one of his thighs instead. That predatory miasma that surrounds him on a day to day basis is seeping out of him tenfold, but intimidation when it came to Kai was now a foreign concept to you. It brought back that same seductively dangerous feeling you’d felt the first time you had dinner with the family or, thinking back further, to when you went to scope out the renovations. A part of you wonders if that fear you once had was displaced as soon as you knew he was going to keep your quirk a secret. Displaced with an attraction to him that was easily confused with fear. 

A part of you wonders if you ever really did fear him at all. 

Maybe you didn’t. 

Your mindless thoughts wander to anything other than the screen, casually leaning back so that your head settled on Kai’s clavicle. The doctor looks down at you with a curiosity that is replaced with a warmth that temporarily quelled his lust. As much as he had been fighting his day dreams of fucking you, having you in his arms surrounded by his kids stoked a different fire inside him. 

He didn’t want this domestic moment to end. 

He hopes that desire translates into the simple gesture of his lips pressing into your hair. 

Chisaki Kai was finally caving into his wants and being honest with himself. He doesn’t want this makeshift family to go back to normal when you finally returned to Tropium or when his family returns to the Underground clinic. There isn’t a single cell in his body that believes having you in his lap and curled into his chest feels anything other than right. He’s overwhelmed with the idea, the fantasy, of you moving in and being with the family. Your family—in the collective sense—with Kai by your side with your nine orphans. 

During the lantern scene of the film, he presses another kiss where the roots of your hair meet your forehead, lips lingering a little longer than normal. In response, you look up at him curiously to find his muted golden eyes staring right at you. There was a plethora of different things that Chisaki wanted to say to you, especially with the way you look so heavenly in his arms. But he settles with the murmur of, “I don’t want things to go back to normal.” 

“Neither do I,” you whisper, gracefully accepting the way Kai’s lips mould over yours almost lovingly. In a sense, it’s your way of finally admitting to yourself the feelings that worked and wriggled their way into your chest. The thought of returning to your lonely little two-bedroom apartment by yourself just seemed daunting now, despite the initial rush to get to work on the remodel. No more waking up to bright eyes at the table for breakfast or coloring with the kids; no more having Kai cook a delectable meal or having him accompany you in the garden for a smoke. It broke your heart just thinking about all you would be missing out on when life returned to somewhat normal, war aside. 

The doctor sucks gingerly on your lower lip, nipping slightly with his canines as his tongue wholeheartedly dances with yours. The kiss is full of longing and desire and it made his brain go fuzzy with strange thoughts. A part of him can’t remember ever feeling this recurring surge of wanton lust and infatuation when Kai would kiss his wife and, in regular circumstances, he would have felt guilt over it. But this warm, wet entanglement of your tongues is more loving than he was accustomed to and it excited him. Than you were even accustomed to. 

“So stay with me, sweetheart,” the nickname he’s given you sounds almost patronizing. But the admiration that seems to be laced in with it sends a shiver down your spine and leaves the hairs on your arms standing at full attention as the film comes to an end. “Time for bed, children. We’ll be by in a little bit to check on you,” Chisaki calls out to his protesting kids, though making no motion to move from his planted position on the sofa. When he’s certain that all nine of them are out of earshot, he adjusts you in his lap so that both of your legs are draped over his thighs. You call out his name, pulling him from his thoughts that take him far away from the present. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” you remind him. A part of you is afraid to start conversation because you aren’t sure what direction he wants to take this. Chisaki could have an entirely different meaning of returning to normal than you, but for you...

You didn’t want to wake up every morning without him being nearby. In the rawest form, that was the only way you could piece it together into a coherent thought. But even more than that, you felt as if there was so much more you wanted to see from Chisaki Kai. He was becoming more open with touch, no longer breaking out into hives when he touched others and even going so far as to hold you, albeit very languidly as he was now. Another part of you wanted to know if he would be beside you when it came to the impending war with the Surface. 

Mostly, you just wanted to know if he wanted to be by your side too, even if logic wanted to tell you this was a bad idea. 

“Will you stay? With me?” Kai implores quietly. His eyes are locked with yours, the gold shining brighter than ever. 

“You say this after I renovate our homes?” A short, lighthearted scoff leaves his lung in lieu of laughter at your attempt of a joke. Because, despite him echoing your own deeper, innermost thoughts, a part of you refused to believe this was reality. As if reality was actually playing a prank on you. 

Of course he had thought of that little fact. It was the longing desire he felt in his bones to have your presence that he hadn’t taken into account, but that need burning at the pit of his stomach had outweighed any semblance of logic that urged him to keep his thoughts to himself.

“The kids will grow up eventually and need their own space away from the orphanage. We could always save it for them.”

Answers you were expecting from Chisaki Kai: not that. 

Had he invested that much into the idea? To the point where he planned on you still being a part of the orphan’s lives until they were adults?

“‘We’?” You ask. “And what if “we” don’t work, have you considered that?”

“No,” Kai’s voice is clear and calm as ever, exuding the very confidence that once made you tremble, “I want you in every sense of the word. I’ve already said my vows and had my shot at forever. I want that sort of permanence with you and I know that some part of you wants me too.” At a loss for words, you opt to brush the backs of your nails along his cheeks endearingly, trailing them down until your hands find purchase around his neck to bring him close enough that you can feel his lashes tickle your cheekbones. The silence between the two of you was deafening and damning, yet welcoming as it’s broken with him pressing his lips fully against yours. 

For a moment, it feels as if the hunger stirring within his gut is satiated—satisfied with the even the tender, loving gesture of pulling you closer still until you’re straddling his lap. As if you were trying to fuse your bodies together because there was no such thing as too much physical contact right now. Kai encircles your waist with his arms, hoisting you up as he motions to stand and causing you to wrap your legs around his midsection. You don’t ask where you’re going; partially because your tongue is too busy just indulging in a private dance with his, partially because it doesn’t matter where he takes you. You’d go with him anywhere, no questions asked. 

It’s a challenge and a half maneuvering up the stairs with you anchored around him so tightly—even more so that with every step he took ended up grinding your pelvis along his ever-growing erection. Kai felt liberated this time around, shamelessly rubbing against you this time rather than scurrying off for a cold shower and a five-minute session with his hand. Your eyes open as he unceremoniously tosses you onto the plush blanket of your borrowed bed. Immediately, you’re greeted with the sight of Chisaki Kai hastily shredding off his tee shirt and lounge pants, leaving the doctor in strained boxer briefs. 

Briefly, you’re blown away by the sheer beauty of him—like a statue of Adonis come to fruition before your eyes. Even with the uncomfortable twinge in his golden orbs from your unnerving gaze. It was different, to say the least, to have you gawking at him with such adoration when he felt he was the only one doing so. “C’mere,” your voice comes out as a near broken whimper, a call to which Kai heeds graciously. The bed dips as he kneels at the edge, crawling closer until he’s hovering above you. Gingerly, your fingers trace over the smooth skin of his cheeks, tracing down his lips and neck until they ghost over his collarbones. 

“Sweetheart,” Kai groans out, snatching your hand in his as it continues to trail further down his bare skin. “As much as I want to bask in the romance of all of this, you called me ‘daddy’ earlier, and I think it’s time you suffer the consequences.”

“Yeah?” You sneer sardonically, pushing into your elbows until you’re both touching nose to nose. “Like it when I call you that?” His breath is hot as it fans over your features, the wanton lust tangled within the golden hues of his irises becoming overwhelmed with feral desire. Kai’s hand that isn’t supporting him over you grips tightly at your baggy tee, pulling harshly to tear at the fabric keeping your bare body from him. For a moment, his breath becomes caged in his chest upon seeing your semi-nude form for the first time. But the moment is flitting as he’s reminded of his aching, hard cock twitching underneath his undergarments. 

“Hands and knees, baby,” the slow, torturous movement you give in reply grates at Kai’s nerves, prompting a resounding smack to the ass of your joggers the moment your bottom is visible to him. “Daddy’s already impatient, dear,”

“And what’s Daddy going to do about that?” 

Similar to the treatment he gave your shirt earlier, Kai dug his fingers into the waistband of your joggers. Though he did not have nearly as much luck tearing off the thicker material, the gruff motion is enough to expose you, leaving your bare, pulsing core in plain sight while the cloth gathered at your knees. His chest presses against your back, his skin searing hotter than hellfire, as he places languid kisses along your shoulder. “I promise, I’ll spoil you with attention later. But right now, I need you,” his voice is something reminiscent of begging, only amplified by his suddenly bare cock dancing along your slit and smearing pre-cum along it before cautiously slipping the head in. 

Throaty groans leave both of your lungs simultaneously. Kai swears up and down that this was heaven manifested into reality. Part of him thinks this is all a dream, the way your walls are squeezing him to tightly as he pushes in centimeter by centimeter. “K-Kai,” you whimper. The calling of his name awakens something gutturally primal within him. 

“Uh uh,” the doctor tuts, ceasing his movements. “What’s my name, baby?” In lieu of a response, only pants of shortened breath escape your slackened jaw. There was no way Chisaki Kai was human, you decided. Not with the way his words sent every cell in your body into overdrive or the way his fat girth stretched you so deliciously without even entirely plunging his engorged cock. Not with how, despite his notoriety once proceeding him, he was often blatantly honest with you and certainly not with how utterly enamored he was with you and vice versa. “Say my name, baby, and I’ll give you a reward,”

“D-daddy, please,” you whisper in between breaths. Abiding by his word, Kai works his thick length into you, albeit still slowly, until your bones presses into his pubis and his whole cock carefully bottoms out inside you. His right hand trails up your tummy and dances along the skin of your sternum until his fingers encase your throat gingerly. Keeping still within you, the doctor tugs at your throat until you’re only resting on your spread knees as his lips ghost along the outer shell of your ear while he gives slow, deep, steady thrusts.  

“You like having daddy’s fat fucking cock in you, angel? Feel so fucking good around me, yes you do,”

A real poet, Kai was. 

Turning your head to face him, your fingers lace themselves in his messy locks and pull his lips to yours in a kiss that is entirely devoid of lust. He can bring the heat all he wants—it was your mission to make sure he understood that you wanted him in more than just sex. Even if the slow torturous withdrawing of his cock was absolutely divine. 

And he felt it too. Even with his hand delicately cupping your throat or the way his pelvis greets your plump ass with every thrust or the way your wet walls clench on him as if trying to expel his cock from inside of you. Kai can feel it in the way your nails are digging into the flesh of his arms or in the tufts of breath that leaves your nostrils because he leaves you absolutely breathless. He feels the love, and he wants to bask in it. 

Now that he’d quelled his hunger slightly, Chisaki pulls away from your endearing lip lock while simultaneously withdrawing his length from you. A small whimper leaves your lips at the loss before Kai turns you over, pressing your back against the mattress and sliding home once again. The passion and intimacy he feels is overwhelming, boiling his skin through every pore as he bears weight on one arm while the other caresses your cheek. “I meant it, you know,” the murmur dances like air along your own lips, warm breath inviting. “I want you in every possible way. I want to wake up next to you in the morning, experience every season that doesn’t pass for us in the Underground with you.” 

“Kai...” in return, you seal you mouth along his, wrapping your arms around him to pull him closer and coaxing him to move. Slow and steady, he withdraws himself from within you before snapping his hips once again until he’s fully sheathed. Each thrust feels like thunder. “M-more,” you choke out, breaking apart your kiss momentarily to beg. His focus shifts down to where you’re connected—where each vein of his throbbing erection greets and becomes acclimated for every crevice within your cavern. Angling his hips along with your own with the assistance of his hand, he manages to welcome that spongy weakness that makes your knees buckle and regurgitate a scream in response. 

“Right there, princess?”

“P-please!” The hand under the small of your back moves to hook around your knee, it’s twin mimicking the gesture and leaving you entirely at the mercy of Overhaul whose mission at the moment is to rearrange your insides in an entirely different sense. Pinning your knees to the bed, Kai is at the perfect angle to ram into your g-spot over and over at a rapid, even pace until you’re clenching around him deliciously, silently coercing his orgasm. “Oh my fucking god,”

“Mm, you’re so tight, baby. Ya gonna cum? Gonna cum nice and hard for me? Cum for daddy,” his words are almost enough—almost. And it was as if he knew the filthy, slopping sound of his cock reaming you wasn’t enough. Though whether enough for you or him remained a mystery, his thrusts are becoming erratic as he’s panting and grunting an unabashedly as he chases his release and oxygen. “I love you,” Kai’s voice is broken, “love you so much, just wanna fill you up over and over until your body only knows the taste of me.” And you aren’t sure if it’s his nasty, vile words or the way he is utterly knocking away at your g-spot that is causing you to convulse around him—that brings you over the final hurdle and over the dam. Screams rip past your lungs as your back arches as much as it can from it’s confines while your fingers twitch out of necessity to grip something—anything. 

You’re granted no reprieve in that regard, but it matters not with the way Kai is still smacking his hips into yours, dragging out your orgasm even longer while in pursuit for his own. There is no amount of physical contact in this moment that is enough for him, even as he slats his lips over yours and slides his tongue inside your mouth to greet yours. Hips beginning to stutter, Kai is fighting every fiber in his soul—torn between the dichotomy of wanting to cum and stave off his orgasm because he wants to feel the welcoming, convulsing walls of your pussy forever. And though you’d already came at least once, the pressure was building again rapidly from the stimulation of the uneven rhythm of Kai’s hips. Part of you is thankful his tongue is hungrily dancing with yours to keep your screams muted so as not to wake the children down the hall. But the rumbling in his chest from his own throaty groans become overwhelming, forcing him to break away to and let his grunts and slew of curses fly from his mouth freely. 

“I love you, Kai,” the moans are just as bad coming from you, but those four words coming from your lips are what do the aforementioned man in. And he can tell there is no lie dripping from a silver tongue here—you mean every ounce of these four little words. For everything that is Chisaki Kai—the former Yakuza leader, the former villain, the doctor, the father—you loved the man before you. 

“Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck, ‘m gonna cum,” he wails, the rhythm of his cock head tamping against your womb matching the pacing of his broken speech, “daddy’s gonna cum so fucking deep in you, gonna make you mine forever, angel.” Another hissed out string of profanities pass through as his dick twitches almost violently, shooting out ropes of seed and painting your walls white. You can tell he meant what he said, even in his lustful spew, by the way he leaves his softening erection inside of your spasming cunt and sealing his emission inside until he was almost certain his claim held permanence. 

“I meant it too,” you mumble into Kai’s sweaty neck as he collapses on top of you. Though he’s boneless at the moment, having spent all of his energy, you feel the breath of his questioning grunt beside your ear before his face is attempting to look at you while half buried in your pillow. Gingerly, he removes his now flaccid member from you, adjusting himself so that his form molds around you and wraps his arm securely around your stomach. 

“You know,” Kai starts off slowly. The rich timber of his voice is thick with exhaust but is warm and welcoming all the same. “I was jealous before.”

“Jealous? Of what?” 

“My children love you—a woman who was nothing but a stranger who doesn’t even like kids. They warmed up to you so easily, much easier than they did with me,” there’s a brief pause between his statements, causing you to adjust under his grasp until you’re touching nose to nose with the doctor. His eyes are closed for a moment, his long and feathery lashes greeting the tops of his delicate cheekbones. “So I tried to understand. Tried to figure just why they gravitated towards you.”

“And what did you find?” Peeling back his eyelids, Kai’s rich amber eyes bore into your own. Irises swirling with admiration before the view is flooded with a sudden closeness and the press of his plush lips against yours in the most loving fashion.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how to answer. 

He had found determination and independence, qualities of a strong woman that his daughters looked up to. Free and proud and brave, he thinks, are the reasons his sons admired you. But there’s something more. There’s a love and warmth that you bring to the family, yet a sternness that doesn’t allow them to run rampant (not that they would under Overhaul’s upbringings) that spoke so motherly to each of his nine children. And somewhere along the way for the last six months that the Clinic had been under remodel, Kai found himself gravitating to all of those exact qualities in you, the envy transforming into an admiration of his own. It was an error in his initial magnetic attraction conspiracy theory; he thought that your fear had changed to attraction when it was his all along. 

But Kai’s not always the greatest with words, and the thought of spilling his deepest thoughts of you seems a daunting task that he’d rather replace with kissing you instead. Considering you asked a question, however, he did feel the need to respond with something—anything. 

“I found you.”

 “Honey, I can still help, you know,” you whine for the umpteenth time, folding your arms over your chest as you stand in the mayoral office of Dabi with your partner. It’s been a year since Todoroki Shouto had burned down Tropium Tattoos and the Underground Clinic and tonight was finally the night that the Underground had planned on mobilizing their forces. It had taken a full year of investigating, planning, building alliances with those on the Surface, and patience for the citizens to finally strike back. 

Enough was enough. 

All of you had been exiled at one point or another, but now the Surface was trying to exterminate all of you. 

“Angel, no,” Kai chides sternly, igniting the twitch on the leader’s face. Granted it had been six months since you and Kai had first declared this little relationship of yours and, as your best friend, Dabi was still slightly hesitant on the idea. Not that his opinion had much weight considering—

“Kai, I am only three months along. I can still fight!”

“Hell no,”

“Absolutely not,” both men snark simultaneously. Best friend or not, personal opinion aside, there was no way in the ninth circle of hell that Dabi was going to let you go to war while you were pregnant. And with Kai being the father, the chances of you getting your way in this moment with him were even slimmer. The doctor pinches the bridge of his nose underneath his black cloth mask with his thumb and middle finger before letting out an annoyed rift of air. “Dabi, I’m gonna take [ name ] home before we go over invasion plans. Do you mind?” 

“Nah,” the leader waves his purple and nude hands in dismissal, “besides, we should wait for Hawks to get here before we start all that.” With that, Kai grabs your wrist with his gloved hand and drags you away from the office. He knows you want to fight, and he knows you want to protect your family—all eleven with himself and the embryo included. But as a father with another—biological—one on the way, Chisaki Kai just can’t bring himself to allow you to put yourself in harm’s way. 

“Sweetheart,” he calls out, stopping just outside of the currently closed Tropium. The grey and white building looked crisp and clean and everything you wanted it to be but you often found yourself closing up shop early and coming in late to spend more time with your nine children at home. At the very least, you were grateful that your parlor was only a block or two away from the clinic. “I need you here where you can keep our children safe in case anyone slips through the cracks.” Even with his mask on, you can tell that Kai is trembling ever so slightly. The thought of someone making their way into his home and hurting his kids, hurting you, was enough to unleash the beast within. 

“I know,” you respond quietly. Using his grip on you to your advantage, you pull the doctor towards you until he’s towering over you and looking down directly into your eyes. “But you know me, always ready to jump headfirst into the fire,” his amber eyes soften, thinking back to a year ago when you had saved Eri from the burning clinic. To think that a year later, you would be living with him and carrying his child and occupying nearly every cell in his brain. 

“It’s your turn to watch the kids,” he jokes pulling down his mask below his chin to slat his lips over yours lovingly. It’s only half a joke—he knows better than anyone you would do anything to protect them. He’s known that since day one. 

“You better come back to us,” your demand is quiet and breathless and laced more with concern than it is with threat. The thought of Kai dying while on the Surface has plagued you for the last six months, even more so when you found out you were pregnant. He knew it too, knew how much worry and panic had disturbed your sleep when the realization that war was an option had settled in. Despite the knowledge that he carried about different afflictions and ailments; Kai had been at a loss for how to quell your anxiety. He hopes that circumstances aside, him reaching into the right-side pocket of his heavy, army green coat and pulling out the small black velvet box is the correct move. Gingerly holding up said box until it’s in your line of sight, he takes a step back before peeling back the lid to showcase a single, solitaire diamond set in a simple gold band. 

“I promise you I will come back. And when this is all over, we can finally enjoy our life in peace, so long as you’ll have me.”

[crookswithbooks]

Never the Favorite

Day Five - Declan has always hated the holidays but when Ronan brings a new person into the chaos of their lives he finds himself learning to finally appreciate them.

Declan had never liked the winter.

For as long as he could remember, the entire winter/Christmas season served only to be a nightmare and constant reminder of how estranged their family truly was. When they were younger and Niall was still alive, things had gone smoother but there will still small little inordinacies that you would find if you were willing to look close enough. Whether it was the tree that lit up despite having no visible lights, or the way he was often called away for “business reasons”, there was always something that gave away how different they really were.

Then, after Niall had died, Christmas had only worsened. Ronan was angrier now, less manageable, and Matthew would question why they didn’t have so-and-so decorations that year, or why whoever’s present showed up weeks after the actual date of Christmas. Pulling their family together for the holidays felt more like a chore than a vacation nowadays, and on top of school and dealing with Niall’s messy seconds from the fairy market, Declan didn’t have the energy or time for it. The return of January was always a relief.

This year, however, they had Adam with them. Declan had planned on just Matthew and him for this year, deciding he would skip the obligatory invite that Ronan had ignored for years. Instead, it was Ronan who approached Declan, asking about what their plans for Christmas were. 

“I figured we would just have a small celebration,” Declan had replied skeptically, unsure where this was going but not foolish enough to get his hopes up. “Just family.”

Even as he had said the words, they had been hollow in his mouth. “Family” really meant Matthew and him, something that had been understood for years now. Now though, he decided to stick with the vague term.

“I’m going to bring Adam,” Ronan said as fact, ignoring the fact that Declan had said just family and that Ronan didn’t come to Christmas anymore. He had already walked away before Declan could even attempt to reply.

Now Declan found himself standing at the kitchen counter of the Barns, a tray of cookies on one side of him and hot chocolate that burbled in a pot on the stove on the other. He had been up since five in the morning preparing the abandoned space for guests, and now, five o’clock on Christmas Eve, he exhaustedly finished the last of the tasks he had set for himself. Matthew had been recruited to help out at first until it was revealed that Matthew’s method of helping out was singing Christmas carols and undoing all the work Declan had put time and effort into. He had quickly been removed from helping after that.

Ronan was on Adam duty and was currently picking him up from Stanford. The two should be on their way home about now. Declan had been skeptical about Adam at first, the one person aside from Gansey and Matthew that Ronan had chosen to let into his heart. He had been worried that Adam would break the shakily taped together pieces that made up Ronan and that Declan would have to put him back together after Adam left as he had when Niall had died—not that he had done a very good job of it then. Once he saw the way Adam looked at Ronan, however, like a starving man gazing upon an unexpected feast, he allowed himself to relax a little. Adam loved his brother, that much was clear, and he made him happy. Declan hadn’t seen Ronan happy in so long that he almost hadn’t recognized it when it surfaced.

Now he wasn’t worried Adam would break Ronan. He was worried he would destroy him.

The knock at the door signaled the arrival of the couple in question. Declan smiled, knowing that the courtesy of knocking was Adam’s doing; Ronan hadn’t knocked on any door since he was five. He smoothed out his suit, a gentle gray that Matthew said made him look like a corpse and Ronan said made him look like a douche. He turned off the heat on the stove, whirling around the corner and opening the door.

One of Ronan’s hands was placed securely on Adam’s hip, the protective curl of his fingers a warning sign to anyone who would raise an objection. Adam’s head was turned partway towards Ronan, his lips open on an unspoken sentence, but he cut himself off when he noticed Declan.

“Oh,” Adam said, the word perfectly formed. “Hey.” He glanced up and down at Declan, an involuntary action, and frowned a little. “I didn’t realize it was a formal occasion.”

“It’s not,” Ronan interjected before Declan could say anything. He himself was dressed in a rumpled jacket and jeans that were torn from years of Gansey and he’s excursions. He was wearing neither a hat nor gloves, though Declan noticed the near imperceptible shiver caused from their absence. Adam was wearing a leather jacket that, instead of dwarfing his small frame as it would have a year ago, fit snugly around his torso. He seemed almost more grown-up than when he had left for college, and Declan could see from the way that Ronan stared at him that he had noticed too.

“Matthew’s upstairs,” Declan said, stepping aside to let them inside. “I’ll go grab him. Dinner should be ready soon, I’m just finishing up the last little touches. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

“It is my home, dickweed,” Ronan muttered, only to have Adam’s elbow dig gently and discreetly into his ribs. Ronan elbowed him back, but the gesture was affectionate without any real malice. The two made their way into the kitchen, bickering all the way.

Upstairs, Matthew was staring out his window. His attention was held by the snow falling in soft spirals to the ground, some of it pasting against the window. He held his hand up to it, so that each one of his fingertips was touching a different snowflake. Declan watched him for a moment before coughing, knocking on the doorframe. “Adam and Ronan are here.”

Matthew didn’t look away from the window, though his hand fell limply onto his lap. “I don’t want to have Christmas this year.”

Declan paused. Since the moment he was born, Matthew had been Declan’s to look after, a precious new baby brother, a dream in the form of a boy. Whenever Matthew had a problem it was Declan who fixed it, quickly and unquestionably because the reality of Matthew’s pain was one he never wanted to face. When Niall died, Declan had been there to curb the storm. When Aurora came back, Declan was content to sit back and let Matthew have a mother again. When Aurora was gone he was also the first to come to his side. He gave Matthew everything he wanted because when Matthew was smiling he was happy and when Matthew was happy Declan could be okay.

Now though, he felt his stomach clench unpleasantly and he dropped his hand from the doorframe. He sat down next to Matthew, the mattress creaking under the combined weight, and stared out the window with him. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a lie,” Matthew said, and with those simple words the world shattered around Declan. “I don’t even know if I like Christmas or if that was just something that was programmed into me. What if all the happiness I’ve felt with you and with dad and with Ronan was just a fairy tale that you guys let me live? What if none of it was ever real?”

The only one who hadn’t known Matthew was a dream had been Matthew himself, and it was a secret that the two brothers had kept for seventeen years. Both of them had agreed that the information was something that Matthew was better off not knowing—it was about the only thing they did agree on. Unfortunately, secrets are only kept for so long, especially when they relate to the person in question. Declan had never seen Matthew as desolate as he had been that day on the dock when he first found out about his true identity, and he had promised that he would never let him look that way again.

It was a promise that he realized now, looking at the pinch between Matthew’s eyebrows and his bitter frown, that he had failed.

“None of it was a lie,” Declan said after a moment, unable to look at Matthew as he spoke. “Ronan can’t influence your decisions. He only brought you into creation, like a mother would.”

“But that’s not how his dreams work,” Matthew protested. “A mother doesn’t get to choose her child—Ronan chose me. He…” He struggled for a moment to find the right words to explain and Declan waited with a growing sense of unease. “He picked my eye color and the shape of my hair and the fact that I’m happy and that you’re not and that I love him and that you don’t—”

“I love him,” Declan interrupted, Matthew’s words hurting more because he could tell he meant them. “Why would you say I don’t love him?”

“You’re always fighting,” Matthew muttered, picking at a scab on his arm. “And yelling at each other. The only time you ever talk to each other is because of me. I know that. I’m not that dumb. And I say I love him all the time. You never say that you do—not once.”

From downstairs, Declan could hear the clattering of plates that meant Ronan and Adam had started to set the table, and the soft murmuring of voices. He forced himself to look at Matthew, needing him to understand him, needing this Christmas to be a good one because if it wasn’t it meant that they truly could never be normal and Declan didn’t want to have to deal with that fact.

“I do love Ronan—and you. I love you both because you’re my family. And just because you’re a dream doesn’t mean that you’re not a person. Ronan’s dreams don’t always do what he wants them to. They evolve and they grow into something more than just a dream, in the same way that people do. You’re just as real as any of the rest of us. You’re just… different.”

Matthew glanced up at him shyly, a child uncertain at the love of a parent. “Do you… do you really think that? That I can be a real person?”

“You are a real person,” Declan assured him with a confidence he wished he could feel. “Now let’s go have dinner with the others. I’m sure they’re wondering where we are.”

Adam and Ronan were kissing when they finally came downstairs, though kissing was a polite word for what they were actually doing. Evidently the two had figured that Declan and Matthew wouldn’t be joining them for quite a while, as Adam’s body was pressed against the corner of one of the living room walls, Ronan’s body bearing down on him. From the looks of it, Adam’s tongue was halfway down his brother’s throat and Ronan’s hands were unaccounted for under the other boy’s shirt.

Declan opened his mouth to announce his presence, but before he could diffuse the situation delicately, Matthew bounded into the room oblivious to the scene, and starting serving himself up mashed potatoes. Adam jerked back from Ronan, the tips of his ears burning an embarrassing shade of red. Ronan simply leaned back, seemingly uncaring of the two new people in the room with them.

“Table’s set,” Ronan said, shark teeth flashing, a dare for Declan to say anything.

“Thank you,” Declan said coolly, not rising to the bait. “Matthew and I were just having a talk. Sorry to take so long.”

“I’m sorry—that wasn’t—” Adam blustered through a couple more half-sentences before Declan’s smile assured him it was nothing he wasn’t already aware of, knowledge that did nothing to help Adam’s already mortified state.

Dinner, usually a quiet affair for such events, was unusually lively. Ronan and Adam fell into easy conversation with Matthew joining after a moment, the boy seeming to have no end of things to talk about. Even Declan himself managed to get a sentence in or two without having his head chopped off, mostly due to the inclusion of Adam who defused most of Ronan’s snarky remarks.

In fact, as the evening went on Declan found himself having a genuinely good time. Adam and Matthew softened Ronan’s sharp edges, the presence of two of his favorite people together serving to curb his usual anger. There were even moments in the night when Ronan would laugh at a joke Declan made or respond to one of his questions genuinely without being his usual asshole self.

They ate cookies and drank hot cocoa that Ronan had apparently spiked with something, a fact Declan didn’t learn until the warmth in his gut was too pleasant for him to be sincerely angry about it. Matthew was the first to fall asleep, the unexpected alcohol being too much for him, and Ronan and Adam quickly followed pursuit. Ronan’s rested on Adam’s collarbone, their two bodies intertwined on the couch that was to be a makeshift guest bed, and Declan listened to their breathing slowly even out into a gentle hum.

Declan stood up, drawing a blanket over Matthew and going about the process of cleaning up and wrapping presents to put under the tree. Half an hour later, he stood over the pile of bodies in the living room and wondered at the people who had slowly become his family, his real family. Never before had Declan felt like he belonged, always seeing himself as a protector to his brothers and merely a colleague to his parents. Throughout the years, Christmas after Christmas had gone by, and every time Declan only found himself feeling worse as the night went on. In that moment, however, with Matthew’s face smiling and serene in sleep, and the sight of Ronan and Adam curled protectively about one another, he realized he had finally discovered a family that he could not only care for but that might care for him back.

He decided to join them in the living room instead of going to his bed like usual, and as he lay besides Matthew’s gently snoring body, he found himself content for the first time in his life.

[apothecarinomicon]

Spring week 4, part 2

We found the guy staggering down the creek. We heard him before we saw him—he was wading through knee-deep water, half hunched over and groaning in pain. As he got closer, I was able to make out that he wasn’t human but crocodilian, and dressed for fishing. His pants had torn away below the knees, and I could make out bright green vines with vermillion buds snaking up his legs. He was bleeding where they burrowed into his hide. He looked up at us with glassy eyes and weakly called for help, reaching out with both hands. 

Automatically I moved to support him but Calder held me back. He told me he recognized the vines as marshbloom, a particularly nasty plant native to Blastfire Bog. An opportunistic parasite, it latched onto any skin that came into contact with it and fed on its host, growing until they were entirely overtaken and drained of their minerals. Once the marshbloom had fed all it could, the buds would open and spread their spores to find new hosts. 

This guy already looked to have been wandering for a couple of days; we didn’t have much time—probably only about another 24 hours. I told Calder to watch after him and make sure he didn’t wander off. Since Calder didn’t technically have skin, we agreed he might be able to physically restrain the afflicted man as a last resort. Meanwhile, I raced back to the cottage to scour my predecessor’s notes.

I found that her overall knowledge of the bog and its flora were spotty at best, but she did have an entry on the marshbloom. Her notes said that it should be treated like any other virulent parasite, but with extra focus on healing the skin. With the entry wounds closed, she noted, the portions of the plant inside the host’s body would be unable to photosynthesize and would simply die, and the portions outside would lose the necessary minerals and fall away.

With a little more research, I knew what I had to get. I dumped out the remaining breadcrumbs from my pack, had Ailean hop up on my shoulder, and set out for Hero’s Hollow.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I told the guards at the entrance that I was foraging and expected to be inside for less than an hour. Then I headed in, map in hand, to find some liquid fire.

It’s not quite lava, this substance (lava is molten rock and this is more akin to superheated magic), but it is quite hot. You need special gloves to handle it. It won’t burn you, but it will certainly feel as if it had. It’s great for clearing parasites if you can get it down—like a flash fire fever. I found it fairly easily, flowing right out of the wall (turns out Hero’s Hollow has a lot of natural deposits), and collected it with little issue. It was as I was headed back out, however, that I heard heavy, clanking footsteps sprinting towards me accompanied by a “what ho!”

I turned and looked to find a suit of armor approaching me fast. The visor was flipped up, showing that the helmet was clearly empty. “I, the Baron, challenge you to a duel, brigand!” The voice sounded more like a jester’s than a knight’s—or a baron’s, for that matter. I backed away and tried to tell this Baron that I really didn’t have the time (or the equipment or the skill) for a fight, but as I said so my back bumped up against the wall. The suit of armor ignored what I’d said, unsheathed its sword (the thin kind with a point, rather than the kind with two sharp sides), took on a cartoonish stance, and cried “en garde!”

I stayed very still for a good long while, and so did the armor. Every few seconds it shouted something like “you shan’t best me, scoundrel!” or “your scourge ends here!” Its accent was all rolled ‘r’s and rapidly fluctuating pitch. After about three minutes of this I finally went to try and just walk away, and the suit of armor immediately lunged forward and skewered my thigh.

I cried out, more out of shock than anything. It was a relatively shallow wound (I wrote “skewered” but it was more like “scraped”), but the sudden movement and prick of pain surprised me. The Baron, for its part, seemed delighted. It immediately turned and began to skip away, occasionally clicking its heels in the air and crying “tee-ha! Tee-hee! I, the Baron, have bested thee!” It disappeared around a bend in the corridor, but I could still hear it for a long while after as I bandaged my wound.

What a blighting nuisance. I supposed though, as I limped out of the dungeon, that it could easily have been a lot worse.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I headed back to Glimmerwood Grove next, to look for wild roses. The hip seeds promote skin health, and I thought they theoretically should be fairly abundant. But, as is my luck, they proved to be frustratingly elusive. I was already pretty annoyed when I ran into Kendre.

Kendre was a satyr, and (as they volunteered immediately upon seeing me) a druid who lived in the forest. Their arms were wiry, the rest of their human torso obscured by what appeared to be a grass-stained burlap sack with arm and neck holes cut out. The fur on their goat legs matched their russet hair. They wore complex jewelry, with earrings and necklaces and adornments to their curled horns all connected by small chains to form one large piece.

I asked how long they’d been living in Glimmerwood and they said just about their entire adult life. They mentioned a shack deep in the heart of the grove where they lived and gardened and kept to themselves. They said they didn’t normally forage this close to town but they were looking for something elusive.

I asked them if they had seen wild roses around and they thought for a moment before saying that roses had been an unusually rare sight this year. They apologized, and offered instead the location of a different plant: the coffee cap. Though unrelated to the bean (it’s actually a mushroom), it does contain about the same amount of caffeine and releases it into the body quicker when consumed. When added to a potion, its only real effect is to sharpen the patient’s senses—not useful for the task at hand. Still, I thanked them and followed their directions to find some—it’s always better to have more and more varied reagents on hand, just in case.

Kendre was the second denizen of Glimmerwood Grove I’d met who seemed to have no connection to the human society in Greenmoor or High Rannoc at large. As I plucked a mushroom and put it in my bag, I wondered if there were any more.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I didn’t have to wonder for long. After retrieving the coffee cap I headed back towards the path. I took a right that should have led me straight back onto it, but instead I found myself in a beautiful (if dilapidated) courtyard. I must have been caught in some kind of dimensional fold, as I surely would have noticed the high, ornate walls that now surrounded me had they been present before.

The walls themselves were ornate but clearly weathered, dotted with tall thin windows and covered with hanging moss and climbing vines. The floor was made of smooth bricks that must have once been an intense shade of lapis or ultramarine, but that had faded to a (still gorgeous) azure. They were cut and laid in a pattern that was symmetrical but irregular. It took a good bit of staring for me to realize it depicted the phases of the moon, running from right to left across the space’s center. At the corners of the courtyard were raised plant beds that may have once been carefully maintained, but now grew wild. Each had a great tree at the center. Three of them had a least one side that had cracked or buckled, allowing dirt to spill out and their tree’s great roots to spread less impeded. The fourth one, the one in the far left corner, held a smaller tree, mostly obscured by—to my surprise and delight—wild rose bushes!

I began to hurry towards them before the sound of a clearing throat stopped me. I had completely overlooked what was clearly meant to be the courtyard’s central feature: along the far wall was a great, ornate throne. It gleamed golden in the light, its high back intricately molded with dozens of humanoid figures in myriad combinations and contexts—probably recounting the plot of some long-forgotten myth. Seated on the throne, still regal and imposing despite being dwarfed by it, was a man. As I approached him I realized he was much taller than me, or for that matter any human. His skin was extremely pale, his form rake thin, his hair a nearly-white blond. He was dressed in a garb unfamiliar to me, though the dense ornamental fur of his cloak and the rich purple of his tunic and pants communicated his status anyway. He regarded me cooly with orange eyes as I took in the sight. Finally, I noticed his long, pointed ears and it clicked: this prince was an elf.

Belatedly I dropped to one knee and bowed my head. I hoped that was the correct gesture of respect for elven royalty; it had been many years since I took politesse classes in primary school, and I’d never had much use for what I learned from them before.

He chuckled and told me to rise. His voice, though a fairly high tenor, had a commanding sense of depth. He told me it had been far too long since he’d had a visitor, and I should feel welcome to stay as long as I like. I asked for his name, and he raised an eyebrow before telling me I could not have it, but that I could refer to him as His Majesty, the Crown Prince of Sovereign Go’ed-Wigg. I quickly apologized for my careless wording, and told him he could call me ‘F.’ Given the Crown Prince’s care with his own name I figured care of my own was in order. I decided to let it be ambiguous whether this was an initial, a random pseudonymous letter, or if I had chosen “Eff” as a name.

I asked the Crown Prince (as I decided to think of him because that full title was simply too much) if I might have one of his roses, so that I could heal a patient. He thought for a moment then said I could on two conditions: I had to give him a gift in return, and I had to listen to a story. I told him that my patient’s time was limited, but that so long as the story was of a reasonable length (I believe I specified no more than fifteen minutes), and so long as I myself got to choose my gift to him I would be happy to agree to those terms. His expression was unreadable enough that I couldn’t determine whether I’d wiggled my way out of some trick or not, but he conceded my conditions.

As the gift, I gave him the coffee cap I’d just obtained, and explained its uses. He told me he had heard of coffee caps before, but seemed satisfied with the gift anyway. He said with my limitation we wouldn’t have time for the full story, but he’d tell me the first part anyway. I can’t recount the Crown Prince’s exact wording—he spoke for a long time—but I’ll summarize as best I can.

Once (he told me), there were three queens. A queen of spades, who ruled over those things on the earth, a queen of diamonds, who ruled over those things below it, and a queen of clubs, who ruled over those things above. The queen of spades and diamonds neither one had a king, but each had one knight. The queen of clubs had no knight, though she did have a king—but he was perpetually absent.

The realm of the queen of spades was verdant and teeming with life, both plant and animal. The queen of clubs’ domain was bright and open and free, always fresh and always changing. The queen of diamonds, on the other hand, ruled a territory rich with minerals, precious metals, and gems, which all things that lived would eventually join as they decomposed and returned to their base materials.

The queen of diamonds, though, was uncaring of these gifts. She surveyed her realm and saw rot, slimy worms and scuttling insects, and tons and tons of dirt piled so much upon itself that there was barely room for plants or animals at all. She looked over the queendom of spades and the queendom of clubs, and all the light and life and variety and air they had, and she grew jealous. She resolved to take the other queens’ territories for herself.

The queen of diamonds knew that going to war immediately would be foolish. Her two rivals (the queen of spades especially) had dozens of subjects in fighting shape, and she had next to none. So, she worked on expanding her population. She promoted immigration, emphasizing the riches to be found in her domain. With her (previously unmentioned) magical powers, she engineered those denizens she already had over the course of generations into stronger, smarter, better fighters. She was raising an army.

What the queen of diamonds didn’t know was that her knight and the knight of spades were in love. They kept their affair hidden from their respective queens for obvious reasons, but met in secret regularly. Wishing to limit the chance that they might have to meet in battle personally, the knight of diamonds told the knight of spades what the queen was doing.

The knight of spades took this information to his own queen, who thankfully didn’t probe too deeply into how he’d learned it. Instead, she immediately set about raising an army of her own, and passed the information on to the queen of clubs personally.

The queen of clubs, then, faced a rather pressing issue: like the queen of diamonds, she did not have enough subjects in fighting shape to raise an army. Unlike her counterpart, however, she did not have several generations’ notice with which to rectify that weakness—nor did she even have a knight of her own.

So, after obtaining permission from her new ally, she searched far and wide in the domain of the queen of spades to find a champion, one who could inspire their peers to fight their hardest, with the knowledge to select the generals and lieutenants and foot soldiers who would be able to defend her queendom.

And find one she did. The champion was such an effective leader, so adept at rallying people to follow her with true deep-seated conviction for the cause, that she would come to be known as the queen of hearts.

It was at this point that the Crown Prince stopped and gestured to the rose bush. I realized that I’d become so thoroughly engrossed in his story that I’d lost track of time, and I was thankful I’d thought to set a time limit. He sensed this too, and as I went to pluck a rose hip he asked if I was enjoying the story. I asked him in turn where he’d learned it. He said that he was the only one in the world who knew it. I asked if he meant he’d made it up, and he didn’t respond.

Instead, he said I’d have to come back later to hear more of it. I told him I didn’t even know how I’d gotten here in the first place, much less how I’d return, but he insisted that I’d find my way. As I left the courtyard, he turned his attention back to the mushroom I’d given him, turning it over and over in his hands.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I was just about set to head back to Calder’s stream when I realized something all of a sudden: I couldn’t touch my patient, which meant I wouldn’t be able to force him to swallow the potion—he’d have to do it voluntarily, without spitting it out or spilling any. Liquid fire, one of my major ingredients, was notoriously both very hot and very spicy, making it difficult to stomach. I would need something to cover the taste. I remembered that I had the candy rock back at the cottage, but I was honestly closer to Moonbreaker Mountain. So, I decided to just run over and find some on my own.

I took a path I hadn’t been on before. About halfway up the mountain, I came across Mòrag McKinney, knelt at a shrine. It took her a long time to notice me, but when she did she smiled and bade me sit down next to her. She told me this was a shrine to Cernunnos, the antlered god of nature, hunters, druidry, fertility, and warriors. She said those going on journeys often placed offerings at it hoping for his favor. I asked if she was going on a journey and she said no, she’d just started coming here recently. Something about it called her.

She traced little circles in the dirt with her finger as she told me about Cernunnos, his ability to call animals to him, how wild-growing plants were considered his bounty. I had heard of Cernunnos before, even if I hadn’t studied him closely, but I let her speak. When she was finished, I apologized and told her I was on a deadline. I asked her where I might find the candy rocks. She seemed disappointed to see me go, but directed me a little ways up the path. I hurried off and found a large cluster easily. The rocks (crystals, really) were extremely brittle—I could break off a good-sized chunk with my hand. Once I’d done so, I hurried back to Calder’s river.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

Here is how I made the potion:

First, I crushed the rose hip seeds with my travel mortar and pestle.

Then, I collected some water (Calder was kind enough to let me borrow a bit of his)

Then, I combined it with the seed powder, liquid fire, and candy rock.

Finally, I shook it until it was all combined.

I decided to call the potion Bog’s Bane—a fitting enough name, as it ended up looking like orange mud. My crocodilian patient was staring vaguely off into the distance, so I gave the potion to Calder so he could help get it down. Once he’d finished it, the patient gasped and his eyes unclouded. Already the visible vines crawling up his legs were withering, their yellow buds falling off. I told him he ought to go see Dr. Ardor-Knox in town, and to tell them that he was seriously drained of vitamins and likely anemic. I didn’t know if the doctor had the requisite knowledge of crocodilian physiology to treat him, but I figured sending patients their way might help smooth things over with them. The crocodilian was still a bit out of it but seemed to understand well enough. He paid me for the potion and stumbled off in the direction of Greenmoor.

When he was gone, I turned to Calder to apologize that my work had cut our picnic short. He said to think nothing of it—the man would have stumbled into his creek anyway, so it was good that someone who knew how to treat him was present when he did. Nevertheless, I asked if we could have a do-over soon, and he said he’d like that.

It was far too late by that point for anything further to happen (though if it’s not wishful thinking there was certainly some tension), so I resigned myself to trudging back home. Now that I’ve recounted the day's events, I’m going straight to bed. Here’s hoping that tomorrow isn’t quite so hectic.

⇦●〇●⇨

[sailingintothenight]

“HAPPY.” T.H. Imagine.

Tom meets a little angel and you, her mom.

A/N: This is the second part of this imagine. Thank yooooou so much for the love you all gave to the first part. It means the world to me. Thank u♥ Hope you like this one as well. Feedback is always welcome!!!

Sitting on the cold floor of the elevator, the pain finds a way to sneak through the cracks in his heart.

Let's talk about love.

Some say it's best to keep our emotions on the sidelines, to draw a line and never cross it, never fall in love, because losing a loved one can drive you crazy, and the line between sanity and madness is as thin as a thread. Explaining a love like the one you had was like explaining the origin of the universe, too deep as the sadness of losing him, forever. In Tom's case, loving and not being loved is bad, but loving and not being able to be loved by your lover is even worse, because you know that no matter how much you cry or ask heaven why it took him away from you, there will be no answer from the other side, only the infinite emptiness within a cold and lifeless body. But it makes you feel, oh, yes, it burns you skin until you can no longer breath, like being on the edge of the abyss and falling, again and again and again.

That's how Tom feels right now.

"So... have you always lived in London?" His brown eyes hide the tears at the edge of his gaze, and at that moment, you wish you had not heard the anxiety in his voice, or been able to recognize it in his eyes, because life gave you the experience of recognizing the pain in the heart of others. 

Because that pain came after losing someone, like you when you lost the great love of your life, with whom you were inseparable, becoming stronger regardless of the season. But the frozen blizzard of bad times had passed, melting into nothing more than lessons learned and old stories. Some say that you cannot run away from your past, only learn from it, so you did that, you took the lessons of the most painful moments and turned them into null feelings that you kept in a corner of your heart, managing to get out alive from that blizzard and get the prize as a winner. Although from time to time it is good to take a look at the past, open a door that you kept closed and search for those moments that you kept warm within yourself, remembering them with affection, and after that, put them back in the place where they belong.

"If I'm honest with you... I came to London to escape."

His curiosity awakens in his innocent gaze: Tom doesn't consider himself very smart, sadly, but the pieces of his mental puzzle fit together perfectly, creating a one single thought.

"From Marley's father?"

"What a subtle way to wonder if I'm taken." You say, and you chuckle, because his gaze is tender like that of a small child, like Marley's eyes when the world presents her with a new adventure, but then Tom's lips part as the coherent words have vanished from his mind. "Just relax. I'm kidding."

Tom laughs, relieved.

"Sorry, that was very personal."

"It's okay." You shrug and expertly, keep your emotions behind the line. "Marley's father was the best thing that ever happened to me, we had a story like those old love movies, but he left this world too soon."

Tom's heart is on fire, cutting his breath and closing his throat as a terrible fear trickles through his body.

“I think you are very brave, really. I don't… I don't think I can handle something like that.”

But you smiled sweetly, like the person who keeps a big secret.

"I can tell you that I had to be strong, and then I understood that I was." You tilt your head forward, and your cheek touches Marley's hair, which smells like chamomile. Tom can smell it on you and Marley, too: you both smelled like a childhood memory of his, somehow innocent, very different from what he felt being with Hanna. "I feel like you're the type of man who believes that all people act with good will, Tom, and although I'm sorry to tell you that not everyone acts like that, there are people who do: what I mean is that you shouldn't lose faith, because there will always be someone who deserves your love."

His name spills from your lips naturally, as simple as if you knew him, as if you had been good friends in another life. Tom knows, and feels it in his heart, that because of the confidence in your words and the way your gaze deepened when you look at Marley, you had survived because you had found someone to love without fear of being hurt. And if loving was like jumping off a cliff without knowing if we can fly, you had discovered that you had wings, because she had given them to you, because that is how we should feel a real love. But Tom bites his lips, pushing them into his mouth, and frowns with the weight of the pain he feels, because suddenly the memories of his life pass before his eyes like the saddest movie he has ever been a part of.

"And what if you're wrong? What if the person you thought was the right one turns out to be a bad person?"

Your lips part to speak, but the sound of the elevator coming back to life snatches the words from your mind, and the relief, returns to your soul and the body.

"Do you know what is the bad thing with not having Marley's father here?" You joke, but Tom is still waiting for an answer that gives him instructions on how to survive a deadly love. “That I don't have someone to hold Marley so I can stand up. And the truth is that my legs are numb.”

And then Tom does the weirdest thing, he smiles, he smiles and chuckles at a bad joke that should have made him even sadder but instead, makes him forget his sad thoughts.

"I can do it for you."

Tom places a knee on the ground and wraps his hands around Marley's body, taking her in his arms to place her against his chest, expertly, as if he had done it many times already. In dreams, and perhaps dreaming of a father she never knew, Marley recognizes the warmth of his body and clings to him, wrapping her little arms around his neck, hiding her face in the hollow of his neck. The image is like an example of what Noah would have been like with Marley, a painful thought that trickles down your memories as Tom reaches out his hand and helps you to your feet, so that finally the 3 of you can get out of the elevator to the parking lot in the basement.

"You know, Tom..." You say, breathing the cold air from a wide place, and empty at that time of night. "If you chose to love someone and you lost, it's sad, but you can't blame yourself for that because you didn't do anything wrong. Happiness is a choice, and I think happiness after sadness is a choice too."

For a moment, Tom feels his common sense slipping from his grasp, and it's almost impossible to control his emotions that overflow the edge of his wounded heart as it free-falls into sadness, hatred, and rancor, but at this very moment, he feels that it is as light as the breath he can take.

"Thank you." He says, and that word comes from the bottom of his heart.

"You're welcome." You respond shyly, because talking about feelings has always been your weak point. "Well... uh, I can take you home if you want."

Tom smiles, and again, his smile resembles that of a child who has no scars on his heart.

"That would be great. Thank you."

You nod once before leading the way to your black car not far from you, a gift from your older brother for your brave decision to move with him to a quiet London neighborhood. The key in your hand turns off the alarm and you open the back door for him, so Tom can leave Marley in the seat, so she can keep dreaming all the way back home.

"Would you mind if I sit with her behind?" Tom looks at you with his brown eyes, eyes like the color of autumn, innocent and sweet on a well-defined face and a well-worked body, a lethal combination. "I think Marley is too comfortable to let me go."

And she is, Marley sleeps peacefully against his chest, and that image is like a memory of something that never happened between her and her father. You mumble an okay, managing to make him smile before getting into the car with your daughter still in his arms. With the door closed, you walk around the car and enter the driver's seat, turnkey to turn it on and drive out of the hospital and into your new home. The weather is cold at that time of the year, but the heat of the car wraps you all in a warm hug as the London rain hits the window. Through the rearview mirror, you steal glances from Tom, who has his eyes on the landscape, with his hands around Marley's body, her big eyes are closed and hidden behind her long eyelashes, cheeks pink from the heat, her little body warm by Tom's jacket around her.

"So... do you live around?" His gaze returns to the front and makes you look away, back to the empty street.

"Uh, kind of... across the bridge, near Kensington Gardens."

"Great, me too." Tom smiles, and the feeling of living close to both of you squeezes his heart with happiness.

15 minutes later, you enter a quiet neighborhood with beautiful front gardens and lamp posts that shine above them in the solitude of a sleeping place.

"What other secret are you hiding from me?" He asks when you park the car in the third house, 4 houses away from his.

You laugh.

"I'll let you find out for yourself." Your gazes meet in the mirror, and your eyes smile before looking away, missing the moment when his eyes smiled back at you. You get out of the car to open the door for him, so Tom can leave Marley back in your arms and go home, but on your way to his side of the car, Tom is already outside, holding her back against his chest, his muscular arm at the height of her thighs to carry her as if she were his daughter. "I can carry her inside, Tom."

"Let me, I think even asleep, she doesn't want to let me go." Tom chuckles, and closes the door quietly so as not to interrupt her sweet dreams.

Confused, you follow him down the wooden path into the middle of a beautiful garden that your brother took over, to the wooden door that you open before you step aside and let him walk in. The lights come on and Tom blinks in the amber light, admiring the warmth of the place thanks to the hardwood floor and salmon-colored walls.

"Her room is upstairs." You say, and you close the door behind him so you two can go up the wooden stairs.

Austin's study had become Marley's new room: the desk and shelves full of books were off to the side, children's books added to them, a bed in the center, and a corner full of animals plush of all sizes. Tom walks in first, feeling the warmth of a girl's room and pulling himself away from her as he lays her down on the bed under the blanket, listening to her soft breathing that fills the silence of the place as he watches her sleep, his eyes full of peace, just like you when you saw Marley sleep when she was only one day old.

"Good night, angel." Tom whispers before walking away, giving you a peaceful look on his way to the door.

The room sinks into a slight darkness and you both walk down the second-floor hallway toward the staircase.

"You are very good with children, Tom." You smile. "You will be a good father someday."

"Thank you." Tom lets out a small laugh, shy but eagerly awaiting the day when he can call himself a father. "I hope I have a daughter as beautiful as Marley."

A crimson blush stains your cheeks when you arrive to the first floor.

"The future Mrs. Holland will be a lucky woman." You say honestly as you open the door for him, because from the bottom of your heart, you want a noble soul like him to get nothing but happiness, and never, never, have to cry for a love that would never return. "Thanks for being so sweet with Marley."

"I should thank her." Tom mutters, and his gaze travels behind you, towards the place where the little angel sleeps and finally, towards your eyes, the guardian of her dreams. "Thank you."

His gaze is deep, and he makes you tilt your head in confusion.

"For what?"

"For..." As easy as it is to think of the words Tom wants to say, saying them is difficult because of the lump in his throat. He wants to thank you for being the person you are, for being so kind to him, for being as bright as a star and for saving a part of his soul that night with the arms of the angel you created of the love you once felt for your lover. "Just... thanks for showing up in my life tonight, darling."

You smile, because the name he calls you by is loving, and because you know that Marley had somehow helped him heal his wounded heart.

"Good night, Tom."

"Good night, (y/n)."

------

@seapandora @hollandsdream @littlekidsteve @lyzalovealk @blueevelvt @the-endoftime​

I tagged the people who commented on the first story, sorry if you didn't want to!

[the-gay-prometheus]

AU Segment - “Try” (rewrite)

Frankenfandom is asleep (not really I know but seems p inactive right now lmao), time to post my rewrite of “Try”

Rewrite complete! Finally! I’m actually somewhat (somewhat) happy with how this turned out. I realized that my first version of this scene was so ridiculously out of character, especially on Henry’s part, so I really took the time to focus on making sure I got the characterizations right.

Important Warnings for this one!!!! There is a brief mention of a needle, brief mention of violence, and discussion about death/dying in a general sense.

There is some important background info for this one: This takes place long after ‘What’s in a Name’ and a few months before ‘We’ve Got Work To Do.’ By now, things have really mellowed out between the three of them. Victor and Henry are officially ‘married’ and now husbands (that’s a scene for a different time when I’m writing more happy things instead of angst again), Agape (the creature, for those of you who are new here) is their well-loved son. Not all is entirely well, though. Victor has recently been plagued by nightmares, though he won’t explain what they’re about. On what he swears is a completely unrelated note, he’s been dabbling in science again, and at his request, Agape has built a new section onto the cabin as a laboratory for Victor to work in. Victor spends most of his days in there, Agape usually accompanying him either to learn or to assist, as well as staying there alone well into the night, but recently Victor has been starting to neglect himself for the sake of whatever it is he has going on behind that door...

As always, likes, reblogs, and comments of any kind (including constructive criticism!) are much appreciated!

Rain steadily tapped on the roof, the only sound to be heard other than the scratching of a pen as Henry wrote by the light of the last lit candle in the bedroom. The gentle scratching stopped as he read over what he wrote, followed by one final scratch and the gentle snap of his journal as he shut it and set it on the bed stand closest to him. He stretched with a yawn, absentmindedly reaching over to the other side of the bed before suddenly snapping his gaze over. In his deep concentration of writing, he had failed to notice that Victor had still not yet come to bed. Slipping silently out of bed, grabbing the burning candle on the bed stand and walking out of the room as quietly as possible. He passed through the common area, embers still glowing softly in the fireplace, and walked down the short hallway on the other side. The door to Agape’s room was slightly ajar, and, curious, Henry gently pushed it open further and peaked inside. Sure enough, Agape was there, sleeping soundly in bed. With a sigh of relief, he pulled the door mostly shut and continued down the hall to where the door to Victor’s makeshift laboratory was located. 

He pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped in carefully, gently closing the door behind him. “Victor?” he called out softly, walking past the rows of shelves and tables, each covered in a mess of tools, beakers, and jars, weaving through them along the familiar path. Toward the back wall was a softly glowing light emanating from a nearly spent candle upon a messy table covered with beakers that glinted in the light. Sitting slumped over in front of it all was the silhouette of the exact person he was looking for. As he approached, the light from his own candle further illuminated the workbench, revealing various tools he didn’t recognize, a mess of papers, and a large beaker filled with a grimy-looking dark fluid sitting atop what had likely once been a lit burner. “Oh, Victor,” he whispered softly with pity in his voice. He set his candle down and reached out, gently placing a hand on his sleeping husband’s shoulder. Victor awoke with a start, nearly falling off the stool he was sitting on as he jumped at the touch of Henry’s hand. Henry couldn’t help but smile as Victor looked back at him, his brown hair a shaggy mess, his goggles crooked on his face. “I thought you were coming to bed,” he mused quietly as he lifted the goggles up off of Victor’s eyes. Victor squinted as his goggles were lifted, raising his black-gloved hands to rub the sleep from his eyes - only pausing to realize that maybe touching his eyes with gloves he had just been handling dangerous substances with wasn’t the best idea. He yawned as he slipped one glove off and rubbed both eyes before tugging the glove back on.

“I am,” he muttered, speech somewhat slurred as he turned back toward the table. “Justg.. Just gotta, finish- this…” He rolled a hand in the air, then dropped it back down to his lap. “..thing.” Henry chuckled softly - it was amusing, albeit concerning, to see Victor so loopy.

“I think this thing can wait until you get some proper rest, love,” Henry replied, smoothing Victor’s messy hair with his fingers. 

“Mm.. nooot really,” Victor answered, sorting through the various tools and beakers strewn about the table as though he were looking for something, then finally settled on one beaker that looked to have once held some kind of dark liquid in it. The scientist picked it up, inspected it closely, took a few long, slow blinks, then tilted his head back to look up at Henry. “...I needm… more coffee,” he mumbled with a sleepy smile. Henry gave him an odd look.

“More? I just brought some back for you two days ago.”

“Well that- that was… that was two days ago and this is now.”

“Please tell me you haven’t finished an entire tin in two days, Victor.” Victor groaned and set the beaker down.

“More like finished half in two days and half in… maybe one night,” he muttered, slowly starting to wake up more. “It’s all a bit of a blur, really.”

“This is why you need sleep,” Henry pointed out, running his hand from Victor’s hair back down to his shoulder.

“No, no. No I don’t need sleep,” Victor replied, starting to sound much more like himself. “I need… I need um…” He glanced around, his eyes falling on the beaker full of dark grimy fluid on the unlit burner. “Gah- nonono- noooo…” he grumbled, nearly knocking over the beaker that once held coffee as he fumbled for the one on the burner. He grabbed it, took one whiff, then unceremoniously dropped his head onto the table. Henry jumped slightly, gently nudging him as he was somewhat concerned that the smell of the concoction had somehow knocked him unconscious.

“...Victor?”

“I’m fine,” Victor grumbled. “Fine I just. I have to start this over.” He set the beaker down on the floor next to the table and slowly stood, somewhat wobbly at first, before wandering off to grab another one.

“No, I think you need sleep,” Henry called to him, turning and leaning back slightly on the table as he watched Victor grab a new beaker along with various jars filled with substances he couldn’t recognize. 

“I am- I am a god, Henry; gods don’t need sleep,” Victor called back to him with a hint of sarcasm in his tone as he plucked the ingredients he needed from the shelves. Henry chuckled and shook his head.

“Oh, silly me. How could I ever forget,” he mused, rolling his eyes. “Of course you’re a god, darling.” He turned out of curiosity to look at what was on the table, his eyes catching sight of something that Victor had been obscuring while he was sitting there. It was an odd thing, or the makings of an odd thing anyways, just barely started. There were gears and a crank connected to them, a tangled mess of wires - some attached to the thing and others lying nearby, various empty vials with tubes dangling from their cork caps, and sitting directly beside it all was a frighteningly large hollow needle. He leaned in closer to inspect the device. “Since when did you start tinkering?” he asked as he looked at how each gear was connected.

“Since I needed to for this project,” Victor answered as he sifted through more jars to find exactly what he was looking for. “Agape has been a big help. You’d never guess it but he’s got a knack for that sort of thing. Tinkering and such, that is. Well… he’s got an interest in all of it but he can be a little careless with the chemicals,” he continued, suddenly realizing he didn’t have enough hands to hold everything he needed and placing the beaker in his mouth to hold it.

“Can’t imagine where he gets that carelessness from,” Henry muttered sarcastically as he glanced back to see Victor on his tip-toes sifting through jars with one hand while holding far too many other jars in his other and a beaker between his teeth.

“I’s a real ‘ys’ery,” Victor answered sincerely with the beaker still in his mouth. Henry smirked and shook his head.

“Sure is.” He turned back toward the table, his eyes catching sight of an open journal, dark-stained pages covered in writing and sketches. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he picked it up and moved further into the candlelight to read as Victor returned and carefully set everything down on the table. “So is this what the two of you have been working on?” Henry asked as he flipped back a few pages to start reading closer to the beginning.

“Oh good god no,” Victor answered as he refilled the burner with oil and lit it using a match he ignited from his own nearly spent candle. “I’ve just been doing simple things with him. Common chemical reactions, a few lessons in physics, electricity, etcetera.” He began filling the new beaker with some of the ingredients from the jars he had grabbed. “This is more of a… personal project.” As he continued, he paused once he opened one jar, thought for a moment, then began rummaging around the table, searching for something. “Henry, you haven’t happened to see a journal lying around anywhere have y-” He cut himself off as he turned to see Henry standing there, journal in hand, a look of somewhere between shock and horror on his face. He felt his heart skip a beat as he froze.

“You’re…” Henry began, his voice low and quiet. Victor lurched forward suddenly, snatching the journal from his hands, though Henry still held his hands as though the journal still lay between them.

“What did I tell you about touching my things,” Victor snarled, holding the journal behind him. Henry didn’t acknowledge him, instead staring straight ahead almost unnervingly.

“You’re making another one…” 

“And you just broke my most important rule,” Victor remarked, eyes narrowed. Henry swallowed hard and took in a deep, shaky breath.

“...You’re right. I apologize - I shouldn’t have taken it without asking but-”

“But nothing, Henry. Go back to bed and let me work,” Victor snapped, flipping the journal back open and scouring the pages to find the correct amount of the ingredient he was working with.

“Victor-” Henry reached out to him, placing his hand on Victor’s arm gently.

“Just-” Victor started, voice raised in anger as he knocked Henry’s hand away. He paused, seeing Henry was clearly emotionally upset, and sighed, returning his eyes to his work, as he muttered, “leave me be.”

“No, Victor. We need to discuss this,” Henry managed to mention softly.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Victor growled, pulling his goggles back over his eyes as he placed the beaker over the burner and began stirring the contents with a glass rod. 

“Then at least talk to me,” Henry suggested, sitting on the floor beside him. Victor ignored him, choosing instead to continue his work. There was silence between them except for the twisting of jar lids and the clinking of scooping tools against glass, only broken as Victor held out a small piece of cloth to Henry.

“Cover your mouth and nose with this until I say so,” he muttered, his voice muffled behind a cloth that he had tied around his own mouth and nose like a bandana. Henry didn’t question him and tied the cloth around his face, peeking up over the table as Victor carefully poured one substance into the heated beaker, which immediately began to furiously boil and bubble while emitting an eerie green light. Even through the cloth Henry could smell something atrocious, and he did his best to hold back a gag while Victor simply sat there observing as though this were something he was entirely accustomed to. After a few minutes the smell dissipated and the light dulled, at which point Victor held his hand back out - which Henry interpreted meant he could remove the cloth, so he did. “I have my reasons, you know,” Victor mumbled, taking the cloth and setting it on the table along with his own.

“I have no doubt about that.”

“Then why is there anything to discuss?” He turned toward Henry, looking down at him though his eyes were masked by his goggles.

“I feel I should have a say in this matter,” Henry replied. “None of this is just about you or me anymore. It’s about us together.” 

“I don’t dictate what you do in your own daily life or what choices you make, why should you dictate mine?” Victor countered, turning back to continue to work on the solution he had started.

“There’s a difference between choosing whether to spend my time writing or climbing, and choosing to create an entire living being that we both will be responsible for,” Henry pointed out.

“I never said you would be responsible for it.” Henry sighed, realizing this conversation was getting them nowhere.

“Did he ask you for this?” he asked, changing his direction. “Has he decided that this is still what he wants even after all this time?” Victor didn’t answer, instead paying close attention as he measured out a powdered substance on a small scale. “Victor-”

“No, Henry. He has nothing to do with this,” Victor interrupted with an exasperated tone, scooping the measured substance up and pouring it into the solution, which instantly swirled into a dark red hue as he stirred it in. He tapped his stirring rod on the side of the beaker, then dropped it into a dirty yet empty flask nearby. Resting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward and raked his fingers through his hair, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth before exhaling harshly. “Not directly, that is.” Henry reached up, placing a hand on his back, which Victor responded to with a silent shudder.

“Then why now? Is it…” He paused, wondering if he should press further with his question. “Is this related to your nightmares?” There was no reply, other than that Victor raised one foot slightly off the ground, his leg bouncing - a typical nervous behavior of his.

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does concern me. I’m concerned about you, Victor. You’re withdrawing yourself again, and I’m… I’m frightened for you. I want to help you, but I can’t do that unless you let me.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Then why am I still here?” Silence. Victor put his foot down, suddenly all too still. “If you really didn’t want my help, you would have chased me out by now. I know you, Victor, and you know that.” Henry leaned over, resting his head against Victor’s leg and reaching upward. Victor slowly removed one glove, his hand slipping down from the table and falling into Henry’s outstretched palm.

“I don’t have a choice, Henry,” Victor said quietly, his voice cracking slightly as though he were on the verge of tears. “I have to do this. For his sake- I-” He sucked in a shaky breath, tilting his head upward. “This is all my fault.”

“What is?” Victor squirmed his hand out of Henry’s and began sifting through the clutter on the table until he found a piece of paper covered in messy handwriting, some words smudged and bled as though water had been dropped on the page as it was being written, and handed it down to Henry. 

As Henry read the writing on the page, Victor removed his goggles and set them off to the side, taking his ungloved hand up to rub the tears away from his eyes. About halfway through reading, Henry slowly stood, moving behind his husband and wrapping one arm around him while he continued to read. Victor practically collapsed into him, leaning back and nestling his face into Henry’s arm in need of some comfort. “Victor…” Henry whispered his name, tears dripping down his cheeks as he set the paper down and wrapped both arms around him, clinging to him tightly. “I’m so sorry.” All at once, everything made sense. The way Victor would wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of each night in panic - sometimes running out of bed and and returning moments later with a sudden need to be as close to him as possible, his sudden reinterest in science, the way he’d lock himself away in his laboratory for hours on end, his sudden need to spend as much time with Agape as he could and to teach him everything he knew, how he had suddenly insisted on tucking Agape into bed each night even if he himself wouldn’t come to bed until hours later… all of it made sense. Victor removed his other glove, turning in his embrace and holding Henry with as tight a grip as his exhausted body could muster. Henry held him tighter with one arm, lifting his other hand to gently run his fingers through Victor’s hair. “I know it seems so real, and I know the pain it’s causing you is very real, but it’s still just a bad dream, Victor. It’s not going to happen and- and it concerns me that you would go so far as to make such a rash decision like this based on a recurring nightmare,” he explained softly. Victor looked up at him, eyes red from tears and a lack of sleep.

“But it is real, and it is going to happen and I-” He paused, voice breaking. “I can’t let it happen Henry I… I can’t just pretend everything will be ok. Everything isn’t ok. Everything won’t be ok. Not until I fix this.”

“Victor, you can’t fix something that hasn’t even happened yet- or that likely never will happen, for that matter.” Victor pulled back, looking up at him pitifully.

“But it will, Henry. If I don’t do this, it will.” Henry hushed him quietly, holding him tighter.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked sincerely. Victor trembled, clutching tightly at the back of Henry’s shirt.

“Because someday he’s going to be alone.” 

“Most children lose their parents someday. He’s just… going to have to learn how to cope, like any other does.”

“No child is alone for eternity, though.” Henry glanced upward, pausing the movement of his fingers through Victor’s hair.

“Eternity?” Victor buried his face into his chest.

“He will never die of old age, Henry.” He heaved a deep, ragged sigh, pulling back and shakily rising to his feet. Henry watched with worry as he began to pace. “All because I was too… too careless to think before I actually made him.” Henry almost wanted to say something, but he kept quiet, realizing that it would probably only make things worse. “I was so caught up in proving to the world that alchemy is a viable science and-” he paused, spinning on his heels and looking at Henry directly, “it is a viable science, I think I have proved that well enough by now.” Henry nodded along with a half shrug, signaling for him to go on, and Victor continued his pacing. “I just- I didn’t stop to consider what actually using it to create an entire new life would fully entail. I mean I- I knew that using the elixir of life on something already dead would never work on its own. It was just a matter of starting the heart. One beat is all it takes, Henry - just one beat and so long as something has the elixir coursing through it veins, it is alive.” He slowed, coming to a stop and standing with slumped shoulders. “What I hadn’t thought about was that the elixir also provides everlasting life, even to something once dead.” Despite his hanging head, he raised his gaze to Henry. “So long as there is blood in his veins, so long as his heart is able to beat, so long as his brain can still function… he will never die.” A crack of thunder sounded from outside, rattling the glasses in the laboratory and causing Victor to jump and cringe with a yelp. He began to shiver, wobbling where he stood as anxiety and exhaustion began to consume him. Henry ran to him and caught him as he collapsed, holding him tightly as he slowly brought him down so they were both sitting on the floor.

“Take it easy, Victor,” he uttered softly, resting his head against Victor’s. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.” Victor clenched his eyes shut as he steadied his ragged breathing, and pressed himself closer to Henry. “I’d like to think that… maybe after all we’ve done with him, all we’ve done for him, it won’t come to that. Maybe he could be content just to be alone,” Henry murmured, trying to be optimistic.

“Not after what I’ve done. Not after what he’s been through. I-” Victor curled up slightly, hiding his face away. “His fear of abandonment, his need for companionship, both far outweigh any of the progress we’ve made. He may survive for a few years and cope with the grief after we are dead and gone, but it won’t last, Henry. He’ll go searching for friendship and only find hatred and violence.”

“Perhaps we could start trying to find him a friend before it’s too late,” Henry suggested, running his fingers along Victor’s back. “Then we could be sure that he won’t be alone without worrying about what may happen if he tries to find one on his own.” Victor shifted and looked up at him, eyes red and puffy with tears.

“And then what? What happens after that friend dies? Who does he turn to then?” Henry went quiet. Although he was ever the optimistic one, Victor was right - this would be a never ending cycle, and who could possibly know how long it would take for poor Agape to finally cave under the pressure of it all. “If I… if I can manage to create a second one like him, perhaps even perfect my original experiment and create one even…” He hesitated. “...Not better, necessarily, but… more like my original concept, I suppose - if I can do that, he will never have to be alone again, and maybe - just maybe - I could prevent him from making such a decision.” Henry sighed softly, moving his hand up and gently wiping away Victor’s tears.

“We can’t even be sure another one would turn out anything like him, though. And there’s no guarantee that they would get along. I know you’ve thought this through and it all seems very reasonable in your own mind but… Victor there’s more to it than what you’re saying. For example… it could turn out to be inherently violent, unlike him, and wind up hurting him, or us, or others as well. Their personalities could clash - there’s no telling that they would even stick together for their entire lives. If anything it’s more likely they would have their own separate hopes and desires, and need to go their own separate ways. And even if they did manage to keep each other eternal company, why would you want to bring another being into such a lonely existence?” Victor sniffled, glancing away from him.

“I… I can’t guarantee that any of that won’t happen but…” He wrapped his arms tightly around Henry. “If there’s even some semblance of a chance that I could ease the pain for him, enough to stop him from causing his own destruction, then I have to take it. I have to try. I’ve sworn responsibility for him, and thus have sworn responsibility for his future regardless of whether I am present for it or not. This is my mistake, all of this is my mistake, and I intend for this to be my greatest solution.” A sudden hiss and pop caused him to snap his attention to the table, where the substance in the beaker over the burner sat smoking, now looking entirely like that which had been in the beaker that was there when Henry had arrived. “No- NO!” Victor shoved Henry away and scrambled to his feet, leaning onto the table and staring at the ruined solution with wide eyes. Henry stood and walked over to him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder as he suddenly broke into sobs.

“Victor-”

“Henry this has to work! It has to!” Victor managed to cry between sobs. “It has to…”

“I know, love. I know,” Henry reassured him quietly. “Come on… you can try again tomorrow but… for now, you need rest.” Victor trembled as he tried to calm himself, standing frozen as Henry blew out the flame from the burner as well as the nearly dead flame from the candle Victor had been burning for light. “I’m not going to stop you from making preparations,” he mentioned as he turned Victor away from the table and began helping him unbutton his lab coat. “But you need to promise that you’re going to take care of yourself, and that we-” He paused, lifting Victor’s chin and looking him in the eyes. “-and by we I mean all of us, including Agape-” Victor shakily and slowly nodded as he slipped his coat off and set it to the side. “-will have a very thorough conversation about the actual details of it before you go through with anything. Am I clear?” Victor nodded again, embracing him suddenly and tightly. Henry held him close, gingerly kissing his cheek. “Thank you. I’m here for you, Victor, and I know he’s willing to be there for you too. Just, please - don’t shut us out.”

“I love you,” Victor managed to whisper, shaking as Henry released him and took his hand.

“I love you too, Victor,” Henry breathed in reply, bringing his hand up and kissing his wrist gently. Taking the candle he had brought from their bedroom with his other hand, he began slowly leading the way toward the door, Victor stumbling along with him. Just as they reached the exit, Victor hesitated, glancing back over the laboratory one more time. Another rumble of thunder sent shivers down his spine and he gripped Henry’s hand tighter. “Everything will be ok,” Henry reassured him as he pushed open the heavy door and helped him to step into the hall, being careful to close the door behind them gently. “He’s going to be ok. We’re going to be ok.”