#both heartbreaking and comforting to know there was at least a tangible expression of all my wasted thoughts

[prunelier]

the reflections on showing love via textile crafts, the unrequited crush story thinking about someone so much all the time and knowing you can't tell them so you make them something that encapsulates all of that but only you, the maker, can know what it truly means to spend this much time & effort on something for someone, how rare & special. god.

[prose-for-hire]

Hopelessly devoted

Pairing: Faith x vamp!reader

Request: I was wondering if I could request something for a sort of ,,reformed'' vampire(theyve had their soul for a while) falling for either Oz or Faith and trying real hard to get on their good side? similar to that of spike I think only they arent as much of a creep abt it aojsbdis thanks

Requested by: Anon

Warning: Mention of killing in reader’s past.

A/N: There... might need to be a second part 💖

Hope was a concept you had always detested. It wasn’t tangible and it made people cling to things that often should have been long forgotten. Hope was something you had tried to remove from everyone’s hearts. Something that you detested more than the lives you had taken.

You had been around for some decades now. A lot of it was very similar. Human nature, for instance. They mistrusted you and for good reason. They could sense it although they did not know what the feeling was. The hair on the back of their neck would stand on end. Their heartbeats would quicken.

In the old days, this would excite you. Make you laugh even. The fear had been intoxicating. Like a fine seasoning. But now, it didn’t interest you. It just made you feel embarrassed.

You fought for your soul. Almost half a century ago now. You had come to terms with it, for the most part. Although, it wasn’t something you could get over in a night.

One thing, that had made your life brighter since was a sudden growing affection that had creeped up on you. For a Slayer.

It had given you a feeling inside. A small ember of something you hadn’t experienced long enough to name in the recent past. Something you hadn’t believed would be possible for someone like you. After all the ways you had tried to snuff the light from everyone else.

It was Faith. You were hopelessly devoted to her. In every sense. You would lay down your un-life for her. Commit every waking moment of yours to her. It was an unending, eternal affection that consumed every inch of you.

You hadn’t known what to do with it to begin with. How to express it. It soon became clear you would need to find a confidant as you couldn’t even begin to express these feelings to her. However, when you had bumped into Spike who you had known from the old days, he wasn’t much help.

For one, he was crying over Drusilla and completely drunk. Wasted out of his mind. The only advice that hadn’t been a slurred mess was when he advised you to watch her every movement until she wore down and gave you the time of day. Which, you had told him firmly that you wouldn’t be doing.

However, tonight, it did appear that this was what you were doing. She was walking through the graveyard alone and her scent had caught your attention as you walked through the streets looking for something to fill your time. Her natural scent was like a sweet perfume. It called to you. Sung heady notes of affection.

You had followed her to the graveyard. You weren’t skulking from the shadows. You weren’t prowling behind gravestones. You were just casually walking up to her. About to announce your presence.

What you didn’t realise was that she had been listening to music. Buffy had always warned her not to take her earphones to patrol but she trusted her instincts. And plus, she was so very bored without it. She often patrolled alone whereas Buffy got all her friends around her.

So, you were about to tap her on her shoulder and say hello when she swung around, taking you by the throat and slamming you against the closest mausoleum. You had squeaked in surprise and then subsequently coughed to try and cover it up as she did.

From nowhere she whipped a stake out and held it to your chest. Your eyes widened and your mouth opened slightly but no more sound came out. You just stood there, almost in awe of her as her hand clasped tight around your throat.

A thought came to mind, that you would at least be happy that she would be the last thing you saw before being damned to an eternal hell dimension.

“You wanna move that heart away from my stake?” She asked, when she finally registered that it was you.

“Sorry, I-I was just-” You stuttered as she moved away from the hold she had on you. You felt yourself move with her, trying to feel her touch for as long as possible.

“Following me? Actin’ on this massive jones you got for me?” She teased. She was joking but it wasn’t a joke to you. You looked away as she stepped back allowing you space. Your eyes had bulged in horror as you looked down, averting your gaze.

“I’m sorry, I was just trying to help”

“Yeah, well, don’t need my own stalker” She warned and you looked so beyond embarrassed it almost hurt her. She wanted to take her words back but she knew you would notice if she did.

“No! N-no not stalking, just making sure that you were, um, okay. I sensed you and-”

“I’m kiddin’, man, don’t freak” She punched your arm in a friendly way and both of you looked at each other slightly awkwardly. You frowned for a moment before you began to smile. She enjoyed the way it made your features brighten and it instantly made her feel better for having spoken the way she had.

“Sorry, I’m not really used to modern humour, I kind of shut myself away after I got my soul… I’m getting used to it though, it was… funny!” You blurted all of this out really quickly before adding the part at the end, trying to make her feel better. Her brow was furrowing again.

She found this admittance endearing almost. She watched your lips as you spoke. She wanted to kiss you. Usually she would make a move. She could give a person a look and end up taking them home. But this meant so much more. With you. She found herself getting a little nervous around you, wanting to make a move but feeling as if she would be rejected. Laughed at, although you had never been like that.

She couldn’t express her feelings. Instead she made jokes about you liking her, trying to gauge your reaction. Which, of course was neutral. Your mental health was still fragile ever since your soul had returned and you couldn’t risk the emotional reaction you may get if she tore your heart from your chest and crushed it with her bare hands.

“I can go though, if it would make you more comfortable-” You insisted, all you wanted was for her to feel comfortable around you.

“No!” She shouted, cringing at the note of desperation she heard in her own voice, “Uh, no, it’s nice to see you y’know? B’s always there when we’re talkin’ now”

You nodded, having noticed this too. When you and Faith would talk when you were able to meet the others in the library, Buffy and the others would always have something for one of you to do on the opposite side of the room. Or just plant themselves into your conversation.

It embarrassed you, that these people could tell that you liked her so much. That they were trying to save Faith from you. Your cursed love for her. Your heart was hers but you understood that just because it was reserved that way, it didn’t mean she would want to choose it from the pile.

This, actually, wasn’t entirely true. That Buffy was ‘saving’ Faith from you. And in some sense, Buffy was trying to save you from Faith too. She knew exactly what it was like to fall and be in a relationship with a vampire. The slayer and vampire love was one she wouldn’t wish on her own enemy. Not even Faith.

You were both good people, Buffy was sure of it, and so she was trying to prevent the inevitable heartbreak that she could sense building between you.

The blonde slayer had been surprisingly accepting of you on the whole, even in your more demonic years you had been more about survival than torture. Plus, you hadn’t been cursed your soul had been sought out - so you weren’t seen as that much of a threat.

This kept happening after a while. The two of you crossing paths on patrol. Until you began to plan where to meet in the evenings rather than hoping to bump into the other. You would meet and patrol together. Both of you enjoying these moments, Faith needed the company. She had felt very lonely until you had begun to power through your worries and try to befriend her the way you had always wanted to.

She enjoyed that it was you though. Your company she was keeping. She would run your interactions through her mind as she sat in her motel room. Just as you would from your crypt.

When you first got to know each other, you had begun talking and found commonalities. Reasons to become fond of the other. You noticed how she didn’t flinch away from you when she first learned about your past the way many others had.

You had been getting on so well that one evening as you were paying for your blood at the butchers, it dawned on you. You hadn’t been doing anything particularly meaningful. Just staring at the jars of blood, salivating guiltily. Until you thought it.

I love Faith.

Such a simple thought, but with such a rush of feelings behind them. It began to descend on you at once after this. A waterfall that you were sure would never stop flowing. You adored her. The way she moved, the way she acted. The softer side you had caught from her on occasion. When you had made her feel comfortable enough to let it slip even for a second.

It was another evening, after you had agreed to meet near the gargoyle that looked a little bit like the Mayor. You walked beside the other, where you would both wish for a demon to occupy your time if you were alone, you began to hope that nobody would interrupt your time together.

You would laugh and swap stories. It was everything. You stole glances at the other when you thought they weren’t looking. Your hands became so close when you were walking that you wanted to reach between the space and entwine your fingers with hers.

Faith had some trouble with getting the hang of this fighting technique that Wesley and Giles had insisted every Slayer should know. Buffy could do it with her eyes closed, of course and Faith was feeling like the understudy again. She wanted to hone her skills like Buffy did but without the ancient old guy staring at her while she did.

As you walked through the exit of the cemetery, you steeled yourself and decided to be brave.

“I could help, if you like…” You offered with a smile. You were experienced at fighting after all.

“Yeah?”

“Sure, as long as it’s not on a sunny afternoon” You joked which made her laugh.

“Hey, you’re gettin’ it” She nodded in approval of your improved humour since you and her had been spending more time together. You grinned gleefully at the compliment and she walked ahead of you, hiding her own smile at the way your face brightened at her words. She loved seeing you smile. Even more so when she was the reason you were smiling.

She stepped into the road and turned to you, wanting to get another look. So she could picture it later, when she was cold and only had the broken tv for company. You were looking at each other and just smiling.

Your smile suddenly dropped. You panicked, sensing the danger before she did. In the past, it would have been a good feeling, the lick of terror. It snapped through the air like a whip. Struck your senses in a way that would elicit a human’s hair standing on end. Goosebumps rising.

Accidental death meant tragedy. Blood. It meant adrenaline. Easy prey. You had enjoyed the taste. You hated that you had enjoyed the taste.

But the feeling was still identifiable. The warning signals still there but it now only meant dread.

Especially when it came to her. You ran at Faith, just hoping you would get to her in time.

“Faith! Watch out!” You screamed.

You tackled her, moving her out of the way of the oncoming traffic. Her slayer senses hadn’t been quick enough for the van that was heading her way. She had been so distracted by the way your features were lit up by the moonlight.

All of the time you had been spending with each other, hidden away from the others. Not telling them that you were together so often. She held onto this, needing this. Needing you. You were sweet, which she hadn’t ever thought she could call a vampire. Even less she wouldn’t think she would have fallen for such a seemingly sweet person.

You couldn’t lose each other, not now you were just finding each other.

You landed, tumbling together onto the other side of the road. Just in time. You landed above her, almost pressed flat against her. You couldn’t help just staring. Holding yourself up slightly so you could see her face.

She was trying to catch up with what had happened, her breathing heavy. That had gone so fast, she could have been really hurt. But you had saved her. Protected her.

She had always prided herself on the way she was so independent. On how she could look out for herself. But the truth was, she wanted you to be there. She wanted to be allowed to fall into your arms, just as she would hold you in hers.

You looked at each other and time stopped. Your eyes flickered from hers to her lips, if she blinked she could have missed it. Her eyes were scanning your face. She loved the way you looked at her as if the entire world revolved around her. You were so close you could feel her breath on your face. All you wanted to do was lean in and kiss her. Catch your lips with hers. She shifted slightly and you thought she might move in, but when she didn’t the feeling of desperate yearning turned into concern.

Concern that she may reject you. That you would no longer get these stolen moments. These patrols where all that made your soul feel relaxed. Comfortable. As if your soul could only feel safe when hers was near. She meant too much. You pulled away, moving your gaze from her.

You got to your feet and heard her exhale. You couldn’t tell if it was from relief or because of the same tension you felt. You weren’t sure you would ever know. You had tried so hard to get onto her good side. To show her you wanted to be friendly. But, this was so much more. It meant too much.

You offered your hand, helping her up and she took it. As she got to her feet, your hands clutching hers. The touch lingered. Until she pulled away. You didn’t realise but she had been about to lean in. Press her lips to yours, the way she had been imagining so often recently. But you had moved away too quickly.

You both looked at each other for a moment in silence before Faith nodded her thanks. You didn’t speak, as if it would be too much after what had happened. Both of you had known that meant something. That this was new. You dared to hope that the other felt the same, but both were too nervous to say. Because rejection, the thought of losing the other. The company. The understanding. Was too great.

You wanted to be hers. Wanted to tell her what she meant to you. You wanted happiness… love. But not at the expense of her feelings should she not reciprocate. So you parted ways, as you always did just before sunrise. You went your way, she went hers.

Your souls, they lingered together like your touch had, not wanting to leave their fate. Maybe one day, they might be allowed to stay together. Once you both worked on prising open your hearts. Allowing the other in.

All you had left now was hope.

[deathisanartmetzli]

Cabin in the Woods || Eilidh & Metzli

TIMING: Current, at night

PARTIES: @BRAINDEACL​ @DEATHISANARTMETZLI​

SUMMARY: Metzli goes on the hunt for some vampires, and Macleod joins in on the fun.

CONTAINS: Domestic abuse, Emotional Abuse, Gore

Despite Metzli’s best efforts to quash any sense of anxiety that built up like a mountain on their chest, the pressure only seemed to build. After the pleasurable moments of distraction, laying in the dirt, surrounded by nature, they wished they could go back to that. Laying there with Eilidh was easy, it felt like it was a grace to not linger like a tragedy in slow motion, or a heartbreak set on pause. They walked next to Eilidh, tracking the scent of the vampires. It started so faint, and within an hour, it had thickened and spread around.

Eloy would inevitably find Metzli, even if they took out the vampires they were attempting to find. They were just prolonging the ending they already played in their head on repeat. Like a video cassette they kept rewinding of a movie that had not even been made yet. But they persisted, and used the martial arts approach to protecting their world. Fear and anger were their self defense as they disregarded the cost of going against their once master. No running, just going forward to protect. Because nothing was more precious. It was priceless. It was their home.

“The scent is overwhelming all around. They must scavenge and frequent this whole area. How do you feel about splitting up? The scent is pretty evenly coated and has been for the last few hundred paces.” Metzli explained and looked towards Eilidh, who was only a foot away. “What do you think?”

The trees watched them transgress in their territory. Gaze always, usually, a comfort for as long as Eilidh could remember. And they had felt as such, only moments prior. In those pleasant pauses. But now their presence felt scrutinizing. Tainted by the tense energy in air, radiating off Metzli. Bouncing off that bark, ricocheting down on Eilidh. She watched them with a hidden caution. Their high nerves concealed with a stoned expression. But every box got its leaks. She saw those tremors in hands, those strained breaths in chest. Soldier set to war. Without a choice but to move forward into certain peril. Eilidh had that choice, but she matched those dreaded steps. Hers tensed with anger and a hunger to rip and shred. Send those sources of anxiety to floor in tattered bits—reduced to confetti. And to sprinkles down her throat.

Eilidh saw those nose twitches. At first light but sent to frenzy as unseen predators grew closer. Her own stayed still—unaware of any approaching danger. Her mouth twitched instead, turned to grin. “Like I said. You go right. I go left.” Eyes went to that chosen destination. Only darkness met them, but mind filled in the blanks. Placed those hidden enemies in sights. Sent her hand a twitch in anticipation. Her chest rumbling in hunger. Her attentions went back to Metzli for a moment. Enough to spare a parting kiss. And to press her hand on their chest. To that concealed gift—necklace with a black pendant. A bit off her thigh providing color. Used as both beacon and reminder. That she’ll always be close, even now, when she turned and raced off into the woods. Before the darkness took her, she shouted behind. “Don’t let ‘em kill you! I’ll be pissed!”

It felt strange to receive a tender kiss from someone who used so much force, so much passion. Eilidh had given them a gift, one they were told to keep on in case of any danger. James, the ghost bound to her, who seemed antsy when they presented red eyes and fangs, he would be their walkie talkie of sorts. A piece of her attached to them so he could aid them in their search. “No promises!” Metzli responded just as loudly, and with as much light energy as they could muster. Eilidh faded into the trees, and they watched for a few moments before they turned around and continued down their chosen path. Blood and death overflowed from every tree, meaning that the clan members had been around long enough to hunt several times. That didn’t sit right with them in the slightest.

“So how long have you been, uh, dead? I think I’m going on 110 years or so. Kinda lost track.” Metzli asked awkwardly, not knowing how to talk to someone who they didn’t know and seemed to get nervous at any signs of their vampirism.

James watched Eilidh disappear. Despite the lack of visual, he knew where she journeyed. Not a feeling or a thought. But something even deeper. Like he was a passenger in her mind. His attentions shifted and felt that knowing grow quiet but not disappear. Eyes went to one more tangible, to the one called Metzli. He knew nothing but stories. But the way Eilidh described them, the way her eyes lit up. It was in the way when she found others with that ‘touch of the wild’ as she so called it. And it made him on edge. While he lacked any sort of flesh and blood the vampire could attack, he tensed. For his body remembered, despite his true one having rotted to nothing long ago. And he tried to bury this concern, like that old body. But Metzli would not let the thought of death escape him. There was a following silence as he gawked at them. “Um. That’s not really a conversational topic I start with…” His arms crossed against his chest, as if that incorporeal barrier could do anything.

Face grew dark and tense as leaves and twigs crunched, marking every step they took. There was no avoiding it, but it made them flinch every time. Giving away their position would prove fatal, but the area was chosen for that reason. Keen hearing was not only their ally, but their enemy too. Metzli trudged on for about twenty minutes, following tracks and carcasses that grew in number. Meaning, they were getting closer. Their phone vibrated with notifications, and they removed it from their pocket to see a few messages. Feet continued to move while they were distracted by the screen and James’ incoming answer. “Sorry. I’m not good at conversation starters. I figured it was fine, you know? Death, and me being a vampire. I mean, vampires are vicious, but you like Milo and he attacked our friend Bex the other day. But like she’s fine and—” They gave an update until their peripherals caught sight of an anomaly. A cabin. “Que suerte...”

James wanted to leave. Not that Eilidh was particularly better in regard to source of his anxieties. But she was a monster he knew well—knew how to talk to. And had grown to care for, despite his better judgement. And he had grown to care for Milo as well with a hope he could escape that nature. Young and new with the thought of humanity still fresh on his mind. But the news broke that illusion. Not immediately, only a crack at first. Denial trying to keep the wall up. Mind went blank. Then it was all too much. “What… what? No. He- No he didn’t.” He stammered, something of a laugh on his lips though he felt no amusement. Mouth couldn’t form words just as mind couldn’t form thoughts. Sailboat lost to a raging sea. Trying to steer clear, but he was close to drowning. Before he could be swept under, before that wall could break—he vanished.

Eyes were transfixed by the cabin, by the sheer amount of death permeating from within. Even with blurred sight from distraction, they could see James on the other side of their peripherals, he was saying something but they couldn’t make out what. There had to be at least six vampires within the residence, and that took precedence over his sudden disappearance. While their fingers hovered over the screen of their phone, something knocked them down. Someone.

Phone flew several feet away, but that wasn’t important now. A whistle of alarm reverberated against the trees, and Metzli pulled out a stake from their side and plunged it into the vampire, killing him and cutting the whistle short. It was too late though, and they could hear a door break open. Gaze locked onto four vampires sprinting from the cabin straight for them. Matching their vigor, Metzli booked it towards one and plunged the stake into her chest. Another one down. Only five more to go. The three that were left leapt for them, trying to overwhelm them. It worked, but by some miracle, the stake plunged into yet another chest, leaving only two to land punch after punch on them.

Two more vampires stepped out from the cabin, and Metzli was forced to watch as a familiar face got dangerously close to theirs. Fighting back was futile while their head was being held up by their hair and their arms were locked behind them. “Hola Metzli. Hace mucho tiempo.” Tremors overtook their body as they stared right into the vampire’s eyes. The vampire who was their partner when it came to protecting Eloy. “Chinga tu pinche madre, Anselmo.” They spat through gritted teeth, right before a bone crunching punch to the face.

Blip! Blink of an eye, James was back. Face still contorted as mind could not see past that unresolved conversation. That wall gaining new cracks—close to shattering. “Was that just a, um, weird joke or something because I didn’t think it was funny and I’d really like it if you- Oh!” More eyes than expected were watching him. He stared with just his two. Then vanished again.

Another punch landed onto their face, and Anselmo laughed. “Did you really think you could run away? Did you really think Master Eloy would let you go?” Metzli locked eyes with the vampire and spat at him. Black blood spattered over his face and rage filled his eyes. “Fuck you, and fuck Eloy!” Metzli retaliated, lunging forward and breaking the grasp that held their hair. Forehead met nose and Anselmo screamed in agitation. Using the moment of distraction, they grabbed the stake from the ground and took out yet another vampire. Three left to go. But just as the point rushed around to make impact with the other, Anselmo’s hand wrapped around Metzli’s, giving him the chance to throw them on the ground.

Their face hurt, and the pain spread throughout their body as he pinned them down and attacked their throat. Red eyes locked only momentarily right before teeth sank in, threatening to dig deeper. Deeper and deeper, Anselmo attempted to sever the attachment their head held onto their body. Metzli was going to break their promise. The fear of that grew as their strength depleted, unable to make their arms do anything. They had taken too much damage, they needed blood.

The scent of death was potent. But there was one who did not match. A flat note in the choir. And growing louder. Closer. Threatening to ruin the whole show. But the show only faltered for a moment, something of a reprieve found in their brief consideration. Barely a murmur was uttered—something deeper transpired between the vampires. An understanding was found in that veiled conference, quick and efficient to not distract from the main course. Not a moment wasted, Anselmo simply waved a vampire off before following that motion down into a strike upon Metzli. The chosen protector, or chosen sacrifice depending on the point-of-view, followed that clashing note. Foxhound on the fox. But this fox knew how to bite back. And when he found the source of distraction, woman with the chattering teeth, he came to understand just how hard.

Eilidh threw the stake in her hand. It whistled through the air, ending in a meaty thud. Coming to a quick stop inside the vampire’s chest. He had only a second to stare at her in confusion before crumpling. Dead. Stride merely slowing, Eilidh fished out the stake from his remains. Then regained her former speed, as inhuman as the glint in her eyes. Feet beat fast but light on the ground. If she was devoid of that telling scent she may have been able to ambush. But they would be waiting for her, she was sure of it. She had known even before the encounter in the woods. But time and experience had revealed tricks against that pesky disadvantage.

As that foreign scent became church bells, all those bloodthirsty eyes turned to meet it. Something humanoid, something familiar, was the expectation. A known enemy they had all replayed in their minds killing with a familiarity. What stood at the treeline had the shape of a human. Kind of. If the outline had been filled with static. The touch of mundanity made where it differed all the more jarring. All parties stood still. Until a single “¡¿Que demonios es eso?!” broke them out that trance. One vampire ran to meet the thing in the woods. But his pace was weighed with hesitation: could this thing even be killed? Eilidh rumbled with a metallic shriek—undecided form convulsing in beat. And when her arm struck out to stake this one’s chest, it looked more tree than limb. He fell as fast as the one in the woods. Returned to the Earth.

Anselmo laughed as weak arms could not grip, could not gather enough leverage to shove him off. Photos were taken unbeknownst to them, and sent off. Evidence of their struggle. Metzli grew worried that they wouldn’t be able to manage. People have hope because they cannot see death standing behind them. But not Metzli. Their eyes had been ingrained on death’s visage, losing all hope in the process. Never fearing death because it was the one thing they could count on. But White Crest had given them everything they needed to want to look away from those hollow eyes. And as reality settled in, darkness consumed their sight. A muffled and distant voice growled. Eilidh’s scent filled their nose. Metzli began to imagine what hope would feel like. And wish that they had never looked death in the eyes. That way, they could be blissfully unaware. So they didn’t have to feel, for the very first time, the fear of dying.

The punching and biting ceased as Anselmo and two other vampires Metzli didn’t notice before, looked towards Eilidh. What they believed to be Eilidh. A sharp pain caused them to groan, and even through hazy vision, they could see two knives inside of their torso. Anselmo rose off of them and leered at the crazed undead creature before him. His body was rigid, unsure what to make of the foul thing before him. This was the break Metzli needed. Looking down at the knives, they attempted to raise their arms, which were feeling like they weighed tons. And then, one of the knives came into focus. It was their old knife. The one Eloy made for them. The one they used to fight with.

Anger surfaced onto Metzli’s face and a newfound resolve formed in their chest. Fighting against the hunger and pain, they removed the knives jutting out of them, and rose to their stumbling feet, tackling Anselmo to the ground. Fangs and knife pierced skin. A foul taste filled their mouth, but they didn’t care. All that mattered were the screams of pain and the knife that plunged into Anselmo over and over again until he knocked them back, looming over them to once again gain the upper hand.

Another quickly took her opponent's place, but this vampire was faster than that amalgamated arm. Ensnaring Eilidh in her grip. Hands grappled hands, grappled bodies. Her stake tumbled to the grass in the fervorous skirmish. A third noticed the vulnerability, and made quick to exploit. Rushing into the fray, two against one. But it was actually two against two. The second was enveloped in a strange feeling. A foreign pressure. A lingering cold. Enough to preoccupy for mere seconds, but each counted in a fight. Eilidh shifted her weight, brought that first opponent—still trapped in each other’s holds—closer to chattering teeth. And they did as nature intended. Bit and tear. Severing any connection her nose had to her face. It too tumbling into the grass. Overwhelmed with pain, enough constitution was lost to let Eilidh get closer. And those bloodied teeth found her neck. And bit equally as hard. With mouth at work, Eilidh’s hand was free to slip up skirt. Gripping tight a silver dagger. Blade met the vampire’s neck on opposite side, until her incisors and metal joined in the middle.

With a twitch, Eilidh severed the last remaining tendons connecting neck to torso. The head rolled off with ease, joining its nose on the ground. James’ trick had gone stale and the third vampire was ready to try his chances. Eyes free from the glaze of distraction, completely locked on her. But her own was placed elsewhere, far away. To the confrontation between Metzli and that stranger. She didn’t like how Metzli looked. She didn’t like how this man looked at them. Not one fucking bit. A snarl burned in her throat, but it sounded like chainsaws to any near. The vampire closest tried to be a substitute for her broiling anger. He pounced at her, but she simply shoved him into the dirt. Hardly a thought to make sure he wasn’t following when she rushed to the distant altercation. Before the stranger was able to fully turn, confront that approaching death, she leapt onto his exposed back. Arms looping around his shoulders—stifling any movement. He bucked and shrieked like a wild stallion, but she had encountered worse. Those arms only grew tighter. Teeth tried to find that neck, but it jerked out of hold. Accidentally meeting an ear instead. Incisors latched on anyway, ripping off the flesh and cartilage. The shrieking grew louder. Her own primal sounds filled that air, in lieu of words. Mind having no room to translate. But there was still an intention in each grunt. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.

Wide eyes stared as Anselmo could no longer move. Eilidh’s firm and powerful grasp held him in place and he wailed in agony as a piece of him was torn away. “M-Macleod...I—” Metzli shook uncontrollably. Understanding washed over their face, but they couldn’t move, couldn’t force their body to lunge forward with the knife in their hand. A slippery grip tightened around it, beckoning them to do it. To kill their partner of thirty years. The very partner who had sworn to protect their abuser with them. No more. Those days were over and a new one was on the horizon. Finding the motivation, they rose to their feet, only swaying slightly.

“Todo lo que nos enseño Eloy fue malo. Y ahora, voy cambiar a todo.” The knife plunged into the center of Anselmo’s chest and he gasped with the widest eyes. His eyes met with Metzli’s for a split moment before he crumbled into nothing. As pieces of him fell, so too did Metzli. A hand reached out for Eilidh, but contact was never made. Their body gave way to the crushing pain, forcing them to the ground. Neck revealed the damage, the death they almost met. Black liquid stained their skin.

In spite of the overwhelming agony, a weight was lifted, and a piece of them felt free. “Thanks Mac—” Their hand reached out but fell to the ground as spots of black coated everything in sight. “Need blood.” Metzli’s voice was hoarse, throat dry from the urgent need of sustenance. Their body went rigid, as still as a statue while their body began to render itself into a comatose state of preservation.

They crumbled into her arms, and Eilidh instinctively covered that battered body with her own. Eyes surveying the suspicious quiet. She knew there were others. The one she had shoved no longer lay in the dirt. But he seemed to lay no where, absent entirely. Somewhere. Anywhere. Who knew how many were like that, in an unknown somewhere. Waiting to come back. Or waiting for her to find them. Have them join the others in that growing pile of ash. She lacked any innate warning signals—relying on average ears and eyes. And they both revealed nothing, except a peace she did not trust. And this unknowing would be fine—mysteries a commonality in her life—if she did not have two tasks at hand. Protecting and feeding. To hunt would leave Metzli exposed; to guard would leave them to starve. And either would benefit from knowing where the fuck anyone was. So, divide and conquer.

Eilidh called to James, meaning to do so in words but only squawks came out. He understood regardless—even a simple look would’ve sufficed. In his own look, there was a creeping tension. Formed deeper lines and tighter jaw the closer he got to Metzli. In another state of mind, she would have the thought to wonder. To decipher those subtle flinches and squirming. To find what hid in each wrinkle, each twitch—a practice she was good enough to be tenured. But that was too much thinking and not enough doing. He was where she needed him to be and that’s all that registered. With that confirmation, she returned to the woods. Leaving James with Metzli and a strange sense of déjà vu.

Minutes passed before Eilidh’s return. Sporting a fresh layer of crimson on her hands and face. The body she carried too covered in fresh blood. Though it only met their paws, head no longer present. Torn away by ravaging bites. Enough to appease her hunger, to allow herself to do away with the kill. Though a part did want to hesitate, to consume the coyote in entirety. But seeing Metzli again, remembering in clarity their state. It appealed to something deep inside her. It told the hesitation to fuck off. She dropped the corpse near Metzli without a second thought. Remembering how to speak, she uttered a single word. “Eat.”

Obediently and with some difficulty, Metzli navigated their body to the coyote, consumed by the ravenous need to eat. When the blood hit their tongue, a feral fervor took control and fangs pierced the corpse, draining it quickly. It tasted better than usual, and they supposed starvation would do that to just about anything. At this state, Metzli would even drink from a werewolf.

No longer able to get another drop, fangs retracted and their body was upright once again. Now on auto-pilot, Metzli took steps that teetered to one side, but they remained standing. “There might be others. We—I—” Eyes tightened shut, trying to relieve any residual dizziness. “Hunt for food. Then hunt for stragglers.” Voice was vacant of their personality, laser-focused on finishing the job thoroughly.

“Thank you, Macleod,” A mutter, but not too low so that it went unheard. Grass depressed underneath their feet as they reached Eilidh to leave a bloody kiss on her cheek. “I will find a way to repay you. For now, let's search together. No splitting up. Not this time.” Crimson eyes locked with Eilidh’s briefly before turning and limping softly in their chosen direction, waiting for her to follow and finally put an end to the encounter.

[salthaven]

 From White to Purple

   She leans into him, eyes closing as she purses her lips. She hears his gasp, feels his breath mingling with hers as he leans in, just as drawn to her as she is to him. She feels his tension melt away as his lips brush hers, and she-

   Grabs the bell off of his suit, quickly crushing it in her grasp. Out flies an Akuma, beating its tiny little wings as it tries to get away. She’s faster, though, and in seconds it’s caught and purified.

   ��Miraculous Ladybug!” She screams, and the ladybugs fly all over Paris. Ladybug grins, ready to see everything fix itself, to go home and see her own chaton, and-

   Her smile drops. Beside her, Chat Noir looks at the ruins of his timeline.

   “Princess,” he whispers, and it’s so heartbreaking.

   “How do you remember?” She whispers back, fear tangible. “I was supposed to fix all of this. You shouldn’t remember my name, you can’t, you can’t…”

   “Marinette,” Chat says, taking her hands in his. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your mistake to fix. This was me. This was my destruction, this was...this was my Akuma. Because he Akumatized me, and I...I destroyed him. I destroyed everything, my lady. But now you’re here, and he’s gone. And it’s alright now, my lady, my princess, my Marinette.” He embraces her, and he’s shaking. “You’re alright. And he can’t hurt you here. He can’t hurt you.”

   Ladybug hugs him back, lets this scarred Chat Noir wrap himself around her and cling to her like a lifeline, because maybe that’s exactly what she is. “Chat, I can’t stay here. I have to stop Hawkmoth in my own world.” The words hurt to say. Even if Chat Noir isn’t her love, she cares for him dearly and hates to see him in pain.

   Chat Noir clings to her, but he doesn’t hurt her. Even as he sobs, he protects her. “Let me go with you. Please. I can’t let you get hurt, not by my dad. Not again.”

   “Your dad?” Her heart breaks for him, lips falling into a sad frown. “Oh, chaton, I’m so sorry.”

   “Ladybug,” Bunnix calls out, peeking through the portal. “We need to go.”

   “Mari,” Chat whispers, and any rejection slips out of mind. Because Chat Noir, her future Chat Noir, is alone. He’s alone and scared, and he was forced to kill his dad (his dad, who was also the terrorist of Paris) and a future version of herself in an Akumatized form that he never wanted. She can’t leave him, she can’t leave her chaton like this.

   “Okay. Let’s go home, chaton,” Ladybug concedes at last.

   “Hey, wait, you can’t take him home,” Bunnix starts, but Chat Noir just looks to her, eyes filled with fear and sadness.

   “Bunnix, I can’t leave him.” Ladybug steps forward. “He’s alone. He’ll die here, you can’t expect me to let my partner die.”

   “I, I-” Bunnix sighs. “God damn it. The future is going to be so messed up.”

   “We’ll just have two Chat Noirs. I don’t see a problem,” Ladybug responds, and Bunnix sighs.

   “Just get in the damn portal.”

   The trip takes seconds. Soon enough, she’s back. She’s home, and life...life is usual. She’s supposed to be back with the girls, she knows this. But now?

   Now she has a second Chat Noir, and this one stands beside her. Well, he cuddles up to her arm, practically purring. Ladybug can hear her earrings beeping, and she begins to panic, but Chat just smiles down at her. “No one can see you, princess,” he reassures her, and that’s all she needs to drop the transformation.

   Tikki flies out, eyes full of confusion. “Marinette!” She starts to admonish, but then she freezes. Turning to Chat Noir, she says, “You’re not the right one.”

   Chat freezes. “What?”

   “That’s not my Plagg’s energy. You’re not-”

   “I took him home with me.”

   “What.” Tikki eyes Marinette with exasperation. “You what.”

   “I took Chat Noir back. He was all alone, Tikki, I couldn’t do that to him.”

   “What happened?” Tikki is more concerned now, looking to Chat with worry.

   “My father was Hawkmoth. He found out my identity and Akumatized me. I...I cataclysmed the whole world.” Chat folds in on himself. “Everyone...everyone is gone, but I have my princess back! I can protect her now!”

   “Your father…” Tikki whispers. “Where are you going to stay? What are you going to do, now that there’s two Chats running around?”

   “I can’t stay at home,” Chat says immediately. “I can’t go back to him, please Mari.”

   “You can stay with me,” Marinette says quickly. “I’ll just, uh, fuck. I’ll come up with something.”

   “If he’s living with you, that means you’ll have to know his identity, too,” Tikki points out. “Are you ready for that?”

   Marinette, for once, doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. If it means Chat is safe, then yes.”

   Tikki sighs. “Alright. Chat, it’s time to drop your mask.”

   “Plagg, claws in,” Chat says, and bright green lights up the alley they landed in.

   Adrien looks at Marinette with a soft smile when the light is gone.

   “Surprise, Princess?” He asks, and it all clicks. It makes sense.

   “Of course it was you,” Marinette laughs. “We’re such idiots.”

   “We are, but that’s why we’re meant to be, my lady,” Adrien says, and Marinette laughs. Or maybe she cries. It’s hard to tell, with tears on her face and love in her heart. Because this is her Adrien, her chaton, who she loves and who she holds dear in her heart. And he’s been so hurt. He’s been forced to destroy everything he loves, he’s been thrown in a battle against his own father, against Gabriel Agreste. He’s lost everything...and now he’s here, with her, but he knows it’s not the same Marinette he used to have.

   And yet he loves her all the same.

   And he’s crying, too. He’s sobbing, and soon they’re trapped in an embrace, pulling each other closer in an attempt to comfort themselves, or maybe it’s each other they’re trying to protect from the world.

   An hour later, Ladybug and Adrien head over to Marinette’s home, the store long closed. Her mother opens up the door when Ladybug knocks, surprise evident. They’re let into the house.

   “Adrien? Ladybug?” Her father says when they enter, just as confused. “Did something happen?”

   “Not in this time, no,” Ladybug says immediately, and the two calm. “I have a...rather odd request for you two. You are the Dupain-Cheng's, yes? Parents of Marinette?”

   “Yes, why?” Her mother asks, eyes wary.

   “Well, Madame, this isn’t the Adrien of your time. This is a future Adrien, and due to some...complications, his world is no longer an option. I’d like to ask your family to keep him here. Normally, I’d ask his own family, but-”

   “My Gabriel Agreste was abusive,” Adrien says, voice blank but expression broken. “I can’t...I can’t see him, I’m sorry but I just-”

   “Don’t you worry,” Her mom cuts him off, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You can stay here. You’ll sleep on the chaise in Marinette’s room, if that’s okay?”

   “That’s more than enough, thank you so much Madame Cheng,” Adrien thanks her, gratification filling him.

   “Just call me Sabine,” she says with a smile, and Adrien nods, speechless.

   “Thank you, Madame,” Ladybug says, “but I have to go now.” And she does, swinging away and into a nearby alleyway, and then detransforms. Ten minutes later, she’s back to her house, and she opens the door with a smile.

   “Maman, I’m home!” She calls out, and pretends to be shocked when she sees Adrien sitting with her parents. “Adrien?”

   Adrien smiles awkwardly, and her mother clears her throat.

   “Marinette, you may want to take a seat. This is going to be a bit...shocking.” Her mother tries to be soothing, and Marinette just struggles to keep her own expression unsure as she takes a seat.

   “Ladybug came to us, and asked us to help her,” her papa starts, and Marinette nods. “She told us that there were some issues in the future, and as such this Adrien had to come from the future.”

   “You’re from the future?” Marinette gasps, and Adrien nods, shrugging. “Wow.”

   “Adrien had some...problems in his timeline, so he’s not going to live with Gabriel,” her maman spits out, and Marinette lets out a confused noise. “He’s going to sleep on your chaise. Is that alright, dear?”

   “Alright? I, uh, sure? Sure!” She nods.

   “You’re sure, dearie?” Her maman asks, and she seems confused by Marinette’s rather...lackluster reaction. Which makes sense. If Marinette wasn’t Ladybug, she would probably be freaking out.

   “This isn’t the most unusual thing that’s happened, maman. I’m sure.”

   Her parents chuckle.

   “If you’re sure, then show him up to your room. And don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” her papa says, then winks. “Dinner will be done in half an hour.”

   “Come on, Adrien,” Marinette says, and Adrien stands up, taking her outstretched hand. She leads him to her room.

   The moment the trapdoor is shut, they both giggle.

   “Ever the actress, my lady,” Adrien says, and Marinette snorts.

   “Thank you, chaton,” she responds.

   “Ugh. Can I at least have some cheese before I have to deal with this all night?” The voice cuts off Adrien’s next response, and Marinette freezes.

   She looks up.

   Plagg huffs. “Seriously. Did you forget about poor ol’ me?”

   Adrien’s smile breaks into a watery one. “Of course not, Plagg.”

   “Hey, don’t do that. None of that teary eyed bullshit- and you’re crying. Come here, kit,” Plagg sighs and floats down to Adrien, who cups him gently. “There, there. It’s all fine.” He pats Adrien’s thumb. “We’re fine now. Your princess is here, I’m here, we’re all here.”

   And that’s how Marinette finds herself being tackled by Adrien, who sobs into her shirt and clings to her once more.

   Her parents don’t call them down for dinner. Maybe they can hear his sobs.

   Or maybe they just know.

   When Marinette wakes up the next day, she assumes everything was a dream. She hopes it was a dream, because she never wants Adrien to feel so much pain.

   But when she rolls over, he’s laying in bed beside her. He’d cried in his sleep on the chaise, and Marinette had let him come up.

   “Good morning, my lady,” Adrien whispers, eyes opening slowly. He smiles at her, and it’s full of love. Marinette’s heart skips a beat, and she smiles back.

   “Good morning, chaton. Let’s see if there’s any spare clothes for you, I think I designed some menswear a while ago.” That’s a lie, she knows she did. She made clothes for Adrien, but not the one beside her.

   It fits him perfectly. Well, almost. He’s a bit taller now.

   “How much older are you, chaton?”

   “A month,” he responds immediately. “It’s our one-month anniversary, or… it would be.” He smiles again, but it’s haunted.

   “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, and he cuts her off.

   “Please don’t apologize, my lady. You’re back, so everything is okay! You’re all I needed back, and I have you. I’m fine.”

   They’re almost late for school, because it takes Adrien a while to let go of her long enough for them to separate and change. But they get to class five minutes before the bell, with Adrien wearing a perfectly fitted pair of jeans and a plain black top with an embroidered green paw on a small chest pocket.

   Everything is fine, if a bit more energetic than usual. After all, Marinette walked in with Adrien, and they’re talking happily. This is good, this is progress!

   Alya leans over to ask Marinette what happened between them.

   And then the Adrien of their timeline walks in, and immediately freezes.

   “Hi?” He asks, and the room promptly explodes into a cacophony of chaos.

   “There’s two of you?” Alya screams. “Which one is the Akuma?”

   Adrien, the one from the other world, flinches at the mention. Nino turns to face him, shocked.

   “You’re an Akuma?!”

   “No, no, I swear I’m not!” The blond says, voice frantic.

   “Where’s Ladybug? And Chat Noir?” Rose cries out, cowering behind a chair.

   From the corner of her eye, Marinette sees how the ‘actual’ Adrien starts to back away, ready to transform into Chat Noir. And that’s what spurs Marinette into action.

   No way in hell is she letting her chaton get hurt by, well, her chaton.

   “He is not an Akuma!” Marinette shouts, slamming her hands on her desk. “He’s from a different timeline, Ladybug brought him to my house!”

   “What?” Alya lets out.

   “She brought him to my home last night,” Marinette explains. “His universe was...complicated, and he couldn’t live there. So Ladybug brought him to our world, and asked my family to house him.”

   “So there’s two Adrien Agrestes right now?” Kim asks.

   “Yeah, kinda,” ‘fake’ Adrien says with a shrug.

   The ‘real’ Adrien shrugs. “You know what? Not the strangest thing in my life. Nice to meet you, me?”

   “Same to you.” ‘Fake’ Adrien stands. “I’ll, uh, get out of my, uh, your seat.”

   “You can sit with me, Adrien,” Lila offers, smiling sweetly.

   Marinette holds back her grin when her chaton shakes his head. “No thanks, I’ll just sit beside my Marinette.” He slips into the spot beside her, leaning into her immediately. Marinette knows she’s blushing, especially when everyone turns to stare.

   “Your Marinette?” Alya asks, eyes widening as a smile sneaks its way onto her face.

   The only response she gets is a smile back, because the bell rings.

   When Miss Bustier walks in, she turns to greet her students. “Hello, cla-” she stares at Adrien, the one who cuddles up to Marinette, then the one sitting in front of the bluenette. “I need more coffee. Max, explain.”

   “Time travel. Ladybug brought back an Adrien.”

   “I’m here to stay, sorry,” Adrien says, then nuzzles further into Marinette’s side.

   “Right. Should I just call both of you ‘Adrien’?” Miss Bustier asks.

   “Just call me B. I’m the imposter in this world, anyways,” ‘B’ decides, and it’s settled just like that.

~~~~~

   Alya has to be honest, this is the weirdest thing she’s ever seen.

   Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration. But, seriously? How is Alya supposed to feel when, all of a sudden, there’s a second Adrien? And to make it weirder? Marinette isn’t even flustered! I mean, come on! This is still Adrien Agreste, the boy Marinette has been crushing on for a year!

   And it’s odd. Because Marinette still blushes when Adrien talks, or when B makes a comment or gets too close...but it’s so toned down it’s not even funny. Really. It used to be amusing, watching the girl fumble with her words. Now, now Marinette just blushes and moves on! Sure, Alya is glad that B’s arrival is helping Marinette calm down, but why?

   And why is B so much more interested in Marinette? Why is he constantly by her?

   It’s not even in class. Alya can’t help but keep an eye on their new classmate, and she’s confused by what she sees. It’s so obvious, too.

   He’s cuddly. Alya caught B trying to sleep on Marinette, practically on top of her. He was all too happy to curl up into Alya’s best friend, and acted like it was natural.

   He’s in sync with Marinette’s actions. When she got up to go to Ms Mendeleiev’s class, she ended up tripping on the final step. Alya had winced, and was ready to help Marinette pick up her stuff… but Marinette never hit the floor. Somehow, despite falling forwards, and B being behind her, he’d ended up catching her in a dip, the two gazing into each other’s eyes. Somehow, B was ready to save her. And he did it again, when she tried to get up from the lunch table and tripped over her own feet. In the nick of time, B was holding Marinette up, helping her.

   He’s protective, but Alya can’t figure out why. Whenever Lila gets too close, B is in front of Marinette. He acts like a guard, as if letting the Italian near will harm Marinette. It doesn’t make sense why B is constantly glaring at Lila, as if Lila is some sort of threat. And she’s just the most obvious case. B glares at most people. When Kim challenges Marinette to an arm wrestling contest, B is watching the athlete intensely, as if one wrong move will be his last. When Alya swings an arm around Marinette’s neck, pulling her into a hug, she feels eyes digging into her back. Every time someone makes physical contact with Marinette, he’s on them, watching them silently. It’s creepy. He barely even lets Adrien near her, and they’re technically the same person! (It was funny, to be honest, seeing how upset Adrien got when B interfered with their conversation.)

   Alya finds herself distracted all day, watching B as he follows Marinette around. He has eyes only for her, that much is clear. He’s in love with the bluenette, and it shows in his actions. He’s constantly trying to be close to her, he’s protective, he knows when she’ll get hurt and does his best to prevent it. And when Alya overhears him whispering flirty pick up lines, she knows she’s right.

   It feels like it should be a dream come true. Finally, finally, Marinette’s feelings are returned! Adrien loves Marinette, and Marinette loves Adrien.

   But this is some weird parody of the future Alya always dreamed of. Because Adrien is from the future, exactly one month in the future according to what he told her at lunch. And Marinette? Well, she isn’t. The Adrien that loves Marinette isn’t the Adrien of this time, so it feels like Alya shouldn’t celebrate the victory she so clearly should have.

Is it even a victory? B follows Marinette like someone who follows an unreachable goal. He smiles and flirts, but he holds onto her like a fleeting dream that could leave him at any moment. Alya sees the way he flinches when someone mentions an Akuma, the way he clings to Marinette when someone startles him. She sees how B puts himself in harm’s way (even though the harm is nonexistent) as if it’s natural, as if he’s used to protecting her. She sees how B throws himself into guard mode, as if Marinette’s safety and wellbeing is the only thing in the world that matters. And it’s only been a day.

Alya wonders what could have possibly happened in a month, to make B act this way. She wonders if it’s bound to happen in this world, too, and if the Adrien she knows will become so… devoted to Marinette.

She...she doesn’t really want to know. She’s afraid of what she’ll find out.

She can only hope that the world he comes from is different from the world that she will live in.

~~~~~

   Marinette feels like the first day went well. B got along with the class wonderfully! Well, okay, he was a bit protective. And he always threw himself in front of Marinette whenever Lila walked by, that was interesting. And he somehow managed to catch her every time she nearly fell, as if in sync with her clumsiness. But it makes sense. This is her chaton, her Chat Noir who did the exact same thing for Ladybug. He took the hits, he worked in perfect tandem with her. It only makes sense that, once he knew her secret identity, he’d do the same with her as Marinette.

   She has to say, it is nice that Adrien finally stands up against Lila. Although she still wishes he never had to become so protective, so worried.

   She falls asleep with a heavy heart, her chaton wrapped in her arms. She can only hope that she can make his future better than the one he had. She falls asleep, ideas of taking down Hawkmoth, his father, floating through her head, a perfect revenge for her perfect partner.

    He does it by himself.

   Marinette wakes up to Tikki’s gentle nudging. The Kwami coaxes her awake, reminding Marinette that they have to get to school, then flies through the ceiling, most likely heading up to Plagg B. Marinette gets up-

   And immediately feels B’s eyes on her. She looks down from her bed, and spots him sitting on the chaise.

   “Chaton?” She whispers, seeing his grin. It’s unsettling, a little too wide, a shattered version of the model smile Marinette’s seen on dozens of billboards. He watches her, smiling every bit like the cat who caught the canary.

   “Chaton, are you okay?” She asks, speaking up again, and Adrien beams.

   “He won’t hurt us ever again, my lady,” he responds, standing up. He starts to walk to her, going up the stairs with a catlike grace.

   Marinette freezes. “What do you mean?”

   He’s at the base of her bed, and he sits down. He reaches into his pocket empty handed.

   He takes his hand out, and a brooch rests on his palm. A very familiar brooch.

   And then he pulls out another.

   The Butterfly and Peacock brooch lay upon her bed, glistening in the morning light. It feels surreal, it feels like a dream.

   And the manic grin flashes in her head, and Marinette feels her breathing pick up just a bit. Because what if-

   “I didn’t lay a claw on them,” B promises the moment he sees her startled expression. “Although they deserved to feel another cataclysm-”

   “Chaton!” Marinette yells.

   B just huffs, turning away like a petulant child. “They hurt you. They made me hurt you. I wasn’t risking a repeat, my lady. I couldn’t do that again, couldn’t risk endangering you again.”

   “How did you even do it?” Marinette asks, a finger brushing over the Butterfly Miraculous. It’s beautiful, a pale purple that radiates a calm energy. To think that such a peaceful object could create so much terror…

   “I snuck into my house. He never put a camera in my room. He never expected me.” B laughs. “He trusted his son too much.”

   “You weren’t transformed?! Chaton, you could’ve been hurt!”

   “They never suspected me. Gabriel,” he spits out the name, “only saw me as his perfect son. He didn’t know, didn’t even think. All I had to do was walk into his room and take it from his bedside table.”

   “He didn’t wake up?”

   “Oh, he did. ‘What are you doing, Adrien?’ He asked. ‘It’s two in the morning!’ He said. ‘I’m sorry, father, I had a nightmare. I just had to make sure you were alright.’ I said, and that was that. I was met with silence, and that’s all I needed. I took the brooch, and I left the room.”

   B shrugs, as if taking the Miraculous of his father, of their enemy, isn’t a big deal. Marinette wonders how hurt he truly is, how much he’s breaking. She pulls him to her chest, hugging him, and he practically melts into her side.

   “Who...who had the Peacock?” Marinette asks, staring at the second brooch. It’s broken, damaged. Perhaps she and Master Fu can fix that…

   “Nathalie was Mayura, but the brooch was locked in Gabriel’s vault. I took it, and his damn Miraculous book. I know you and the Guardian can use it well, it’s in your closet right now.”

   “We already have it copied,” Marinette says lightly. “Do you remember when you brought the book to school, and it went missing?”

   “You took it?” B asks, wide eyed.

   “Lila did, and I found it in the trash. I took it to the Guardian, we made copies, and then I returned it to your da- Gabriel.”

   “Why? Why would you return it, when you knew it was about the Miraculi?” B asks, gaping.

   “I couldn’t see you pulled out of school. I didn’t want you to suffer for my actions, chaton,” Marinette admits, and tears her eyes away from the brooches.

   B is looking at her like she hung the stars in the sky. And then he’s crying again, but he’s smiling and laughing. He’s breaking down and building himself up all at the same time, and Marinette can only hold him steady and hope that she can help him.

   They end up getting to school seconds before the bell, but Miss Bustier doesn’t say a word. It’s hard to, when Marinette is still consoling B, who’s clinging to her as they walk. Marinette knows that her classmates are watching the pair, but she pays them no mind, whispering into B’s ear, promising him that everything will be alright now.

   B just nods as she speaks, smiling at her like she’s the sun.

   Maybe she is, to him.

   Lunch arrives, and B is quick to pull Marinette away from the class. The two head to the roof, and spend the time in silence. B is calm, smiling at her like a smitten kitten.

   And maybe he is, with her.

   When school ends, Marinette and B head to the Guardian. Tikki heads to Adrien, and moments later Chat Noir is leaping across the skylines of Paris, heading in the same direction.

   Marinette leads B to Master Fu’s house, and she knocks on the door. Fu opens up, surprised to see B.

   “But Chat just arrived,” Fu mutters to himself, but lets them enter nonetheless.

   Chat Noir blinks as Marinette and B enter the room.

   “Princess?” He asks, and Marinette smiles sadly.

   “Hey, chaton,” she responds, and her heart aches as she looks at her two kittens, one oblivious, one all too knowledgeable.

   “Marinette,” Fu starts. “Perhaps you could explain what’s going on here?”

   “B retrieved the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculi last night,” Marinette states simply. “He also brought back the copy of the Miraculous book.”

   Fu blinks, shocked. Chat Noir seems just as surprised.

   “But he was at my place- I mean!” Chat shakes his head, trying to come up with an excuse.

   “She already knows, Adrien,” B says, and Chat deflates.

   “Oh, thank Kwami,” Chat Noir sighs. “Claws out.”

   A flash of green greets Marinette’s eyes, and then she’s looking at the Adrien of her time. Plagg floats into the air, huffing.

   “Why is there a second me going around?” He mutters, and Plagg B darts out of Adrien’s coat pocket.

   “Timeline issues. Don’t blame me,” Plagg B huffs back. “Never would’ve happened if his dad wasn’t an asshole.”

   Adrien blinks. “What does my dad have to do with this?”

   Marinette feels B’s grip on her hand tighten as he speaks. “Adrien, Gabriel is...he’s Hawkmoth.”

   Marinette has never wanted to harm anyone, that’s for sure. She’s always shied away from violence.

But seeing Adrien and B look so hurt? Seeing the look of betrayal on Adrien’s face, the look of suffering on B’s?

Marinette is tempted to cataclysm Gabriel by herself.

Adrien looks to Marinette then, and his eyes widen. “Wait, does that mean you actually are Ladybug?” Marinette can only nod to this, but it’s enough for Adrien to gain the hint of a smile. “I always knew you were special,” he says softly, and Marinette can’t help but blush in spite of everything.  

   “She is,” B speaks up, and Marinette looks at him. He’s gazing at her, eyes filled with sincerity. “She’s the only thing that matters, Adrien. Trust me. You don’t know this, but we- we’d do anything to keep her safe. We’d do anything for her wellbeing. She’s worth this whole damn planet combined.”

   Marinette feels tears rise in her eyes. “Chaton, don’t say that-”

   “I’m right!” B insists. “Marinette, you’re my lady, my princess. You’re an angel, Marinette. You’re amazing and perfect and...and I love you.” He smiles. “I love you as much as I loved you when I asked you out the first time, and I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Will you go out with me?”

   “Chaton,” Marinette whispers, and then she’s pulling him into a kiss. When they part, both are smiling, ignoring the tragedy around them. “Of course. I’ve loved you for the past year.”

   Marinette doesn’t see Adrien’s wistful gaze, but B does.

   Fu clears his throat, and Marinette blushes, looking away from B. “As glad as I am to see true love,” Fu starts, “I have to bring up something more...upsetting. Plagg of the other world, we can’t have two Kwamis of Destruction in one world. It’s not natural, it will upset the balance if you’re here for so long.”

   Plagg B grins, and it’s bittersweet. “I know, Master Fu. You’re right, just like always.” He looks to B, and Marinette is shocked to see tears. “I can’t be away from my Sugarcube for so long, B. The Tikki of this timeline? She’s not the one I know. The one I love, she’s...she’s gone in my world. I can’t be with her if I’m stuck here. I’m sorry, kid, really..”

   “Go find her, Plagg,” B says, reaching out a hand. Plagg nuzzles into the boy’s hand, and a single tear falls. It leaves a scar on B’s finger. “I know what it feels like to lose your other half. And I found mine again. I found her.” B looks at Marinette, teary eyed but smiling. He looks back to Plagg B, and slips off his ring. “So go find your half.”

   “I’m coming, Sugarcube,” Plagg B whispers, and then touches the ring.

   It dissolves immediately, and so does the Kwami.

~~~~~

   Fu lets B keep the Butterfly Miraculous.

   “He deserves a better holder to remember in the future,” Fu claims, but B knows it’s to protect Marinette from harm. It’s to protect her, because she’s his treasure, his lady. She’s his reason to live, his light in the darkness. She’s the one who saved him from his father, from himself, from the world he ruined.

   As they leave the building, Fu promises to fix the Peacock brooch. With those final words, B heads back home, with Marinette between him and Adrien.

   B can see the way Adrien looks at his lady. And he knows exactly what the blond is feeling, because they’re the same person. He sees the wonder, the complete love that pours out of their souls.

   And so he speaks up. “You know, I don’t mind sharing her with you. She’s our lady.”

   “Chaton,” Marinette murmurs, but she’s blushing.

   Adrien blushes, but his eyes are glimmering too. He looks to Marinette. “Princess? How does a date with two alley cats sound?”

   Marinette giggles, and smiles sweetly at B and his original. “It sounds meow-velous, my chatons.”

   Seeing that smile, everything feels alright. Walking by her side, B knows that everything will be fine. Even if his family is in ruins, and will likely be thrown in jail the moment Ladybug, Chat Noir, and the new Butterfly expose him. Even if he had to leave a world behind to be with his lady. Even if it means hurting someone, if it means actually getting his hands dirty in order to prevent another mistake...it’ll be fine.

   And seeing the way Adrien gazes at Marinette, like she’s the freedom that they both hold so dear?

   He knows he’s not alone, and they’ll protect her forever.

   And they’ll all live happily ever after...because B won’t allow any other option. 

@autumnlover13moni8 you said you wanted to be tagged? I’m sorry, I think I veered off course on what you wanted, haha!

[booksoanahasread]

Cuvinte în albastru intens by Cath Crowley

Sometimes you need poetry, sometimes you need science. Nevertheless, this book will make you want to reread it at least a couple hundred times. It is fantastic and heartwarming, two things that I can’t get enough of. 

To be honest , this is such a great read. It makes you empathize sincerely with the characters. Watching the story unfold, you wish you were there right beside them to comfort them or just make them feel better.

The characters are very well built. They are extremely relatable, be it Henry’s desperation to keep his girlfriend Amy or Rachel’s sudden fall into depression. The author doesn’t ignore the characters’ need to express themselves. 

Rachel is absolutely phenomenal. She is such a powerful woman. She knows exactly what she wants and what she needs. She is calculated and scientific. The way she was fearless before the death of her brother Cal is only a testimony to her optimism. Her heartbreak after her brother’s death is understandable. She loses her will to live and any ambition she previously possessed. 

It is a tragedy that Rachel has given up on her life. She had so much potential, she just didn’t want it to come back. She thought it would be a betrayal to Cal. Her mother is just as traumatized as her, they aren’t of much help for one another. Rachel’s grandmother sends her to the town she used to live in for work. 

Once she’s back in Gracetown, she reconnects with her two oldest friends, Lola and Henry. Their rekindling is not steady at all, they don’t seem to understand each other, mainly because Rachel refuses to tell anyone about Cal. 

As she starts working at the second-hand bookstore owned by Henry’s family, she begins her healing process. She doesn’t want to fall in love with Henry again, knowing that he will inevitably go back to Amy whenever she wants him. 

Henry is trying his best to understand Rachel this whole time. Until she tells him about Cal, her moods are just undecipherable. When she comes clean, they are finally able to recover together, their friendship blooms and they’ve begun writing each other letters again. 

The way they fall in love is sweet and slow, even though they both didn’t think it would happen. Their love story is absolutely heartwarming. They support and encourage one another constantly and there is never a moment when they don’t think they other doesn’t have their back. 

Henry is a poetic and romantic guy. He loves reading and talking about books, like his family. He isn’t rich, but he doesn’t care as long as he has the book shop. When Amy leaves him for a different guy who has more money, he believes money is the reason she broke up with him. 

Amy is so toxic for Henry. He just lets her walk all over him, as if his life and feelings didn’t matter. He deserved better than Amy right from the beginning. It’s crystal clear for the reader to see. 

The way Henry could recite poems was so incredible, even drunk he had no problem doing it. I just found it so wonderful, knowing that most guys in my generation don’t care for literature. It’s absolutely astonishing his love for books and people. 

The whole premise of the Howling Books and the letters left in the shelves of the letter library was marvelous. I would love to see it in real life, it’s just what any bibliophile would adore. It’s magnificent.

The side story of George and Cal was absolutely gut wrenching. Cal was so sweet and so was George and it was so obvious how they fell in love with each other through those letters. The ending of their story broke my heart, just thinking about the last letters brings tears to my eyes.  

On the other hand, George and Martin were absolutely adorable together. Their feelings for one another were unmistakable. The way they kept writing letters was absolutely delightful. Their chemistry was tangible and it all seemed like it was plucked straight from a fairy tale. 

The fact that the Jones family had to sell the bookstore was tragic, especially when it meant so much to each of them. I really hope that they find a new bookstore to open. I just wish they had found Frederick’s book. 

This whole book is a masterpiece. Its depiction of love, loss, and literature is fitting and fascinating. I loved this book with every atom in my body. This is a book that I will cherish for years to come. It is going to be one of my highly recommended books in the next couple of months. 

[berriebun]

Goo to the Rescue

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Pairing: None Character(s): Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko, Female OC Rating: PG 13 - Mentions of Abuse, Hurt & Comfort, Rescue, Happy Ending Word count: 1,358

A/N: @villainmonth Day Two: Butterfly Effect. Honestly, the first thing I thought of was Tomura. Here we go lads

Generally, it was regarded as proper to keep your nose out of other people's business as it was seen as rude to butt in where you weren’t involved. But there are times when such actions can be forgiven, and Tsubaki decided that now was one of those times. 

She had been walking home from work, tired and starving for dinner when she had heard the screams and cries coming from across the street in a fenced-in yard. Shouting followed by the sound of someone getting smacked over the sudden barking of a puppy. Tsubaki didn’t have to assume what was happening as she pulled her phone out of her purse and called the nearest Hero Agency, and then the police station right after before racing across the street.

She could barely process what was being said beyond knowing that the cries were quite obviously those of a childs, and while she knew it wasn’t right to use her quirk, she at least wasn’t using it against someone. Taking the quickest route, she launched herself over the tall fence and stumbled onto her feet, not quite practiced. “Hey!”

Her sudden appearance seemed to be a surprise, and she was able to briefly recognize who the family was and her stomach dropped. That was her boss... Well, this is awkward, but at this point, she didn’t care if she was to be fired for her actions. She couldn’t just sit by while a child was being hit. 

“Higanbana-san?” Of course, the wife and her parents recognized her from visits to the store and she instantly pinpointed that it was little Tenko who was the subject of the attack. Tsubaki didn’t seem to have much time as Shimura was about to swing at the five-year-old again, calling upon her quirk to quickly reach out with an elastic black gooey hand and scoop up the child and bring him to her.

“Shimura-san that’s enough!” She cried, crowding the sobbing boy behind her as the corgi that was barking at the businessman made a b-line for her and its child. Everyone seemed to be staggered at her action in the wake of their own inaction. “I’ve already called the police and heroes.” She stated firmly as black goo bubbled over her arms as she spread the tangible substance into a small wall to hide Tenko away from his father.

She didn’t much care for the chaos that ensued. There was another child, a little girl that Tsubaki was having a hard time remembering the name of- Hannah or something like that, who was also sobbing and clinging to her mother as the grandparents started weakly talking down their son-in-law as he started shouting something about heroes. 

Tsubaki didn’t relax until she heard the sound of sirens, leaving the black gooey wall up as she turned her back on the feuding family and carefully sat down as her adrenaline crashed- believing them safe.

“Tenko-chan? Hey, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” She said softly, her own voice shaking as she reached out to pet his hair and shoosh him gently. The little boy launched himself into her chest sobbing as the corgi scooted in against her side. Tsubaki couldn’t help it as her own tears started prickling over her gaze as she wrapped her arms around the shaking preschooler as he sobbed into her chest with broken ‘thank you’s.

That night went quickly after the police and heroes showed up. Tsubaki refused to leave Tenko’s side, arguing that she wouldn’t stand to have the child left in her boss's care and much to both her and the child’s surprise, the mom and her parents backed her up. They felt guilty for standing by and allowing Shimura to treat Tenko he had been for the past year.

At the police station, Tsubaki sat crying once more as Tenkos’ mother shakily asked her to take care of her son. Saying she still wanted to be apart of his life, but she couldn’t in good conscious any longer allow the boy to live under her roof with everything that had happened. Of course, Tsubaki had never expected to ever have kids, much less have the financial stability to raise one either. She expressed this, telling the women that she would love to care for Tenko but she didn’t know if she had the means to do so.

Shockingly her boss stepped up, admitting that he had gone too far, and knowing that it would do nothing to truly fix the wrongs he had made, offered to give her a raise to help as well as monthly payments to support both of them for the foreseeable future. It was all truly overwhelming and Tsubaki felt nearly uncomfortable with accepting such a generous offer from the boy’s abuser but took it in the end. As the parents filled out the paperwork, Tsubaki made her way back to the room where Hana and Tenko were sitting on opposite sides from each other.

“Tencchan...” Tsubaki made her way over to the boy as he nervously rubbed his eyes and scratched his cheek, looking up at her with a mixture of fear and hope. “How... How would you like to come and live with me?” 

For a second time that night, Tenko threw himself into her arms with new tears and a shaky smile, nodding as he clung to her as tightly as he could with his tiny hands. She held him close and rubbed his back, whispering that she would take care of him the best that she could. She wasn’t expecting anything else to happen after that until suddenly there was a spike of pain pinching against her upper arm. Her quirk reacted, encasing both of Tenko’s hands and pushing the boy away just enough to remove physical contact.

The boy looked terrified and she was quick to coo after him, petting his face as she winced slightly. Hana screamed at the sight of exposed tissue and muscle causing some policemen to burst into the room. In an attempt to calm things down Tsubaki was quick to assure the men that she was okay and that she was pretty sure that the little boy’s quirk just manifested which was completely understandable.

Tenko still crying started apologizing for hurting her and asking her to still want him and it was so heartbreaking. As the police tried to separate them Tsubaki waved them off and sternly told them to fuck off as kindly as possible. “It’s fine. I’m going to be okay Tencchan, see? Look.” She said soothingly, showing him her upper arm as the skin and tissue started to stitch itself back together as if nothing had happened. “See? It’s apart of my quirk. I have regenerative properties because of my goo.” She said calmly, wiping away the boy's tears as she assured him that she still wanted him.

She addressed the offers, asking them if they had a spare pair of children's gloves that Tenko could have to cover his hands since his quirk seemed to be touch activated. One of the men left in confusion to find some gloves as the other calmed the little girl and double-checked with Tsubaki that she was alright.

“What a messy night huh, Tencchan?” She smiled at the boy as they waited for the gloves, petting his ruffled black hair. He nodded and sniffled.

“Your quirk feels weird.” He mumbled shyly, giving a wobbly smile.

“You can say that again!” She laughed softly. “And hey, you got your quirk too, now! I bet it’s going to be a wonderful quirk for hero work.” She said reassuringly.

And Tsubaki wouldn’t know until years later when Tenko was 18, freshly graduating from U.A High, just how grateful he was for her interference way back then. He didn’t like the dark assumptions of where he might have ended up, had no one stepped in. She didn’t want to think about that, but she was proud of him regardless as he chased his dreams of being a Hero for others regardless of the abuse he suffered and told him so as she hugged him tightly.

[lem-cup-rev]

4.12&13 | Destiny

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

🌸🌸🌸🌸

A strong finale, but not one that has me keysmashing!

All of the plot parts worked together really well, and at its best it felt really exciting as all the storylines raced toward their looming conclusions. There were some special character moments in there that I loved seeing. Whereas at its least interesting points, I think it was just a little bit skeletal and didn’t have as much of the fun or emotional meat that makes episodes really special.

The Adora/Glimmer conflict really hit the metal! Both storylines had a thrilling sense of danger and really clear, immediate stakes. It was very tense and eerie to have each of them kind of have their best friend as the ‘big bad’ of the finale! They both really seemed afraid of what the other might do.

Entrapta was here!!! My angel!! My little 30-year-old darling! She hasn’t missed a damn beat hanging out on murder island, she’s as unique and funny and creepy and full of really fun hair-based movement choices as ever. I really liked how it initially seems like it’s her paradise to be there with the tech, but then we realize that’s really her signal despair world, because it means giving up on relationships like what she had with Hordak.

This show’s approach to navigating the presence of an autistic major character in a story of epic fantasy stakes continues to be [roboticist voice] fascinating. She interacts with the major themes of danger and caring about others in such an unusual way, and I’m often not sure if I think it’s dismissive and insulting or fresh and brilliant. I’m not really interested in declaring it bad or good, but I love how unpackable it is.

I was struck by the sheer condescension from Adora when she tempted her to check out the First Ones spaceship. I think it felt a little disappointing to me when Entrapta confirmed she was not swayed by Bow’s expression of kindness, only the wow cool robot. But then, she also confirmed it did mean something to her, which it should, since we know connection is important to her deep down. Her hurt from feeling abandoned was such a mirror to when she first joined the Horde, but much more interesting! Does it retroactively make that scene more interesting? Maybe.

I loved the little Shadow Weaver scene where she tries to mommy Glimmer more than ever. The way she squishes her cheek… Seeing the way she constantly just gravitates to young people and does this, creates an emotional dependence and manipulates them like she doesn’t even need to think about it, is so scary. She’s such an awesome character.

It’s so neat that Glimmer is helping Scorpia do something that’s really healthy and meaningful for her, yet for a bad purpose! It’s a really interesting sort of “conflict of interests” for the audience that stories don’t usually do.

I think it’s so cool that Glimmer hired Double Trouble! The way she’s crossing lines now is so tangible and exciting. I both think it’s badass that she did it and really enjoy the tension it reflects between her and Adora.

It was so compelling and heartbreaking the way Catra wanted so badly to be friends with her Horde squad again, but ended up freaking out at them exactly the way they expected because of how messed up she is now. And I really liked the little scene where Scorpia meets the squad on their way out of the Horde. Their calm certainty about deserting was so satisfying in a way, it felt like such a fulfilling and dignified resolution for their story.

When it comes to Scorpia’s little hurt/comfort arc, some of it is affecting for me. I think the smaller the detail, the more I feel it. Like when she pulled back from hugging Glimmer, but Glimmer pulled her back in? Oh, honey… 🥹 It definitely has an impact to start tossing lots of kindness her way after she’s been a kicked puppy for 37 episodes.

I LOVED seeing Double Trouble tear apart the Horde exactly like they did to Bright Moon. The way Catra’s and Hordak’s relationship was just waiting to explode because of one little secret, and Double Trouble just had to identify it. I honestly forgot that was such a looming tension between them all season, that Catra hurt Hordak in the worst way possible and then hid it, and it was so cool the way it instantly changed everything.

The Catra-Hordak fight was metal as hell. The single shot where she jumps straight onto his laser arm and punches him straight in the face is by far my favorite. Every time his laser chopped straight through buildings, it almost took me out of the moment in a way, cause I was like “Oh my God! Does he even realize how dangerous that is??” But seeing parts of the Fright Zone half reduced to ruins afterward was extremely cool. I love a visual metaphor for interpersonal devastation. It was awesome seeing Catra get so scratched up and shaky – the fight really felt messy and desperate and dangerous. And the way Hordak instigated it trying to punish her, and yet she ultimately shredded him, felt so intense and climactic and scary.

The way Double Trouble tore Catra apart was so powerful. It was almost jarring in that it felt like they ought to become the main villain after something that utterly brutal and dominant. I love what it did for Catra’s character – the ultimate climax of all the choices she’s made so far and how they’re tearing her apart inside. And that tiny moment with Glimmer was so strong – her basically doing the last thing Glimmer would ever expect from Catra by not trying to posture or defend herself, and then relating to her about being all alone…

I’d say the scene with Light Hope is one place it felt thinner for me. We’re hitting emotional beats that are powerful in themselves, but the presentation is very straightforward and doesn’t have the kind of emotional detail that would draw me in. And I guess scenes where something visually ultimate and climactic is happening, like a huge wave of rainbow energy, are never gonna be as interesting to me as scenes full of mundane, expressive details.

I really liked the moment where Hordak was trying to just club Glimmer to death in a last desperate act. That was a special kind of scary and disturbing.

Meeting Horde Prime just made me so sad. And not in the sense that I didn’t like it. But it didn’t achieve an exciting, scary villain feeling that they might have intended. It gave me such an intense feeling of despair to see him casually obliterate Hordak’s power and ego, and to think about how he’s conquered tons of planets with no sign of stopping.

He’s sexy though!

And I liked how he was about to just kill Glimmer on the spot. In what way? He had his hand on her cheek, was he going to explode her head? *shivers*

“We’re gonna save the universe” has got to be one of the least interesting lines you can end on. Sorry, no offense! But please give me something more characterful and evocative.

This season was so much fun!!

I’m so happy I decided to rewatch the show and close-read every episode, because I’m getting more from it than ever. I remembered the series being pretty, fun, romantic, and having my favorite princessy vibes, but I had no idea just how much there was for me to like.

Time for the home stretch, girls!

Next time: She-Ra… IN SPACE!

[davidfostercomedyblog]

Dude in Headlights: Story of when I ran from a deer!

It was a beautiful summer night. I’d just gotten home from completing an unsuccessful 15-year pursuit of stand-up comedy, and for the first time in 20 years was living with my parents.

Believe it or not I wasn’t terribly depressed. The joy of being no longer in Los Angeles and back home in the greatest city in the world actually outweighed the heartbreak of my dreams’ flushing down the shitter, and the humility of that shitter being the same one I sat on as a 4-year old.

I’d spent the evening with one of my oldest, closest friends, “Biz,” aka. “Riz,” aka. “Do-Riz,” aka. “Adam Rochman” – what a treat. One of the sweetest, funniest human beings you could ever meet, as a kid he was known for smelling all present parties’ butts in immediate investigation of any fart odor. As an adult he’d grown to be one of my idols: a happily married, financially successful man who didn’t live with his parents. Suddenly, I had many idols.  

Riz treated me to the Mets game (his team), whom I felt I could appreciate that much more, having now personally experienced adult failure and disappointment on a such a grand scale. We had a blast.

I don’t recall whether the Mets won or lost, partially because I didn’t care, but also the only person I know who talks more than me is Riz. In fairness we had infinity to catch up on, not the least of which being he was newly pregnant, and supposedly I got the very first reveal. After the game we’d part ways on the 7-train, Riz to his beautiful midtown apartment, I to Mom’s house, via a transfer to the A-train, and another to a brief bus ride on good ol’ Rockland Coaches, the criminally unreliable, dog shit of an undoubtedly going-to-hell bus company that ironically holds a special place in my heart as my medium between home and the city through my juvenile delinquency.

My hometown is just 14 miles from the Bronx, but its suburban landscape makes the Bronx look like Manhattan. From the bus stop were two options… really three:

1.     A two mile walk through the pitch black, deadly silent beyond chirping crickets, a half mile of which is up a huge hill fit only for those just embarking on their first career in life.

2.     A half-mile walk along part of the same route culminating with a 20-yard trek through the miniature forest that set the backdrop for my backyard for all of childhood (MOST POPULAR OPTION).

3.     Get Mom or Dad to pick me up from the bus stop. On the ride home I spoke to my (Jewish) mother who insisted on coming to get me from the bus.

“No, no, are you crazy?” I responded, in an obvious adoption of the martyr role, desperately grasping at any opportunity to feel like a man with some semblance of integrity. I may live with Mom and Dad and have to use their car daily to seek employment, but I’ll be damned if I need a ride home from the bus stop.

We argued for a few minutes like George Costanza and his mother, until finally she gave in. Mom had to wake up early the next morning to go to work for her customary 12-hour day, which helped yield resistance. I would walk home.

It was a beautiful late, summer walk. New York’s weather compares to Los Angeles’ about as closely as Los Angeles’ personality does to New York’s, but the humidity doesn’t much bother me. I looked forward to a before bed shower to wash off the Mets; otherwise I felt great. I listened to Eric B. and Rakim in my headphones, feeling like I could be Rakim, “the Rakim of acupuncture:” my second lifes’ passion (actually third if you include professional skateboarder, which never could have happened).

The final road before the aforementioned forest was always dark, even relative to the suburbs: One of those barely lit suburban back roads where you could streak naked in the middle of the night and it wouldn’t even really count. No one would see you. How do I know? I’ve done it.

As I approached the final bend I came suddenly face to face with her. She was beautiful. My three years in L.A. had been the least successful romantically (and “romantically”) of my life, and I’d so looked forward to dating human beings again on planet Earth once I returned. Of course that was completely irrelevant in the moment, as “she” was a deer. Not even in my weakest California moments would I have done a deer.

While growing up in Rockland County seeing deer was a rare and special treat, not terribly unusual, nor terribly common, as they had plenty of wood area separate from society to have their own society. Magically, we co-existed. Sadly, in the past ten years I’ve noticed deer sightings to be much more common. I see them every day that I visit my folks, and usually not one at a time, not even always on the periphery of the woods. I see them on the block, often standing in groups on the street corner, as if they’re the ones gentrifying our hood, not vice versa, and instead of trendy restaurants they’re selling drugs. “Anti-gentrification?”

I don’t dislike white people. As a matter of fact I consider the expression, “white privilege” to be a form of prejudice, and neo-Liberals as racist as Republicans, just via a different mechanism. My belief is that all cultures are prone to their own unique flaws, and one of white peoples’, in general, is a short sighted tunnel vision of devaluing culture, nature and community in exchange for commerce and material gain. “We” are doing to the deer exactly what we’ve done to Brooklyn in recent years and the Native Americans 500 years ago. 

I digress.

As I looked into the eyes of the lovely beast we both froze, and I realized we both were afraid. The deer wasn’t moving and if I wanted to complete the short cut home I had no choice but to walk in her direction.

“Afraid of a deer?!” said every single fucking person I’ve told this story to.

Yes, afraid of the deer. Why?

Well, for one, I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DEER. THAT GOOD ENOUGH?! I’m not a fuckin’ veterinarian, nor a zoologist. Sure, I grew up in the suburbs, but now I’ve spent the greater (and latter) half of my life in the city and genuinely feel more nervous walking past a deer on a pitch black street than I do through a housing project in the Bronx. Why? Because I’ve seen people successfully do the latter. Conversely, I’ve never observed another human being walk past a deer, or a monkey or ostrich, or any other wild, Goddamn animal that isn’t sold at pet stores as further accessories of gentrification. I’m aware of reputations, and obviously I was 90% sure I’d be fine if I strolled towards the deer. But is 90% good enough when it comes to being attacked by a beast?! I couldn’t rationalize making such a decision based on hearsay alone.

As we stood there on the dark road, I fully clothed with a miniature suitcase in tow, she vulnerably “buck naked” in my direct path I decided to consult the omniscient web. I took out my phone and googled: “Do deer attack people?”

I expected what George Costanza did when he asked the doctor if his skin discoloration could be Cancerous: “What are you crazy? Deer attack people?! You’re nuts! Get outta here! You’ve got a better chance of her walking up to you and whispering ‘I love you’ in you ear and giving you a $100 bill!”

That wasn’t what it said at all. Instead the top links were much more to the tune of: “Although it is rare…” which was more than enough for me. The last thing I wanted to do was turn and walk back the long way home; then again apparently not. The last thing I wanted to do was get mauled to death by some deer bitch in the suburbs. The second to last thing I wanted was compromise my manly martyrdom and call Mom to come get me, and the third to last thing was retrace my steps and take the long way home. I checked out a few more links, desperately seeking comfort that no deer ever attack anyone. When I didn’t find it, without a moment’s hesitation I turned an about face.

It was a long walk, even longer than the original one from the bus stop to home would have been, including up and down two small hills with my fake-ass/big-ass carry-on bag rolling behind me. Still I chose to not get angry. My temperament and frustration comes up when I’m convinced there’s something better either I or someone else could have done to avoid a crisis. Instead there was no one to blame for this inconvenience. I couldn’t blame the dumb, poor beast for standing in the middle of the street, and the consequential bottom line was just an hour later to bed on this non-school night, because there were no “school nights,” because I was unemployed. Besides, it was hard not to find the humor in the situation.

40 minutes later I’d arrived at my block, this time via the Google Maps car path, and I was relieved. By this time the humidity had begun to get to me, not to the same degree as California’s culture and psychology, but still… I was hot.

I walked down the road that I had literally tens of thousands of times and my childhood home was finally in sight. I was just three houses away when suddenly I noticed directly in my path another Goddamn, FUCKING DEER!

Was it the same one?! I had no idea. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. If it wasn’t then what the hell are all these deer doing all over the streets? If it was then what kind of sick, strategic genius of a deer was I dealing with, and also what the hell are these deer doing all over the streets in the middle of the night? Was I being directly targeted? FUCK!

This time was a greater distance between us, maybe 40 yards. I had more space to run if need be, nevertheless the deer was as frozen in the headlights of my crystal blue eyes as the last one, staring me down from afar, immobile and directly planted in my path home. The situation had become that much more humorous, also that much less so in the experience of the moment.

I side-stepped the road onto my neighbor’s front lawn. I figured in case the deer decided to charge me they had a fence I could hop into their backyard that would offer a tangible barrier between the murderous animal and myself.

I had to make a choice: Swallow any ounce of pride left from my time in L.A. and wake Mom up by calling her to come pick me up two houses from our home in a comical exhibition of cowardice, or risk my life. I took out my phone again, this time not for more Google research but for option A.

“What?!” my poor, exhausted mother exclaimed into the phone. “Where did you say you are?”

Long beat before: “I’m two houses down.”

“A deer?!”

“Yes, a deer, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Obviously I didn’t even want you to pick me up from the bus stop an hour ago, let alone our neighbor’s house now, but I ain’t walking past this deer. I’m just not doing it. I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God, David… really… I’ll be right there.”

It was like I was 17 again and she was picking me up from the police station. It wouldn’t be until the next day, and all of her days to come, that Mom would find the humor in the situation. As if I hadn’t sufficiently disappointed her in life, 38-years old without a girlfriend or dollar to my name, and now I was requesting rides home in the middle of the night out of fear of deer.

The bitch-ass deer scattered as soon as the garage door opened and the engine-fueled car came barreling out. So much for “frozen in headlights.”

Mom picked me up, and the Costanza family dialogue instantly resumed.

“Where’s the deer?! I don’t see any deer!” she demanded.

“What?! It ran when it saw you coming! What do you think I’m lying? I just wanted to wake you up in the middle of the night so I could stand around sweating for ten minutes on the Cahill’s front lawn? You think I’m tellin’ stories about deer?!”

“I think you’re nuts! That’s what I think. A deer?! Really, come on.”

“Well, what the hell do I know about deer?! What am I, a deer expert? I know their behaviors and tendencies?”

“What?”

Mom was tired. She continued though. “Deer do not attack people.”

“That’s not what Google said.”

“Google?!”

“Yes, Google! You know? The world wide web.”

“Oh, God, gimme a break. Deer only attack if you try to attack them.”

“Oh really?! You know that?! What are you, Wildlife Jack--?”

 “—Jack?! Why am I a man? … I’d be Jane. Wildlife Janie.”

Finally we were home. By the time I went to my shower and Mom to sleep I got a laugh out of her, and Dad thoroughly enjoyed the story over breakfast. I have no beef with the deer – only sympathy – as we are both simply products of our environment, theirs’ overrun with American commerce, mine without any life necessity of understanding them. Maybe if we spent more time with the deer and understood they have all the same fears and desires as we do we wouldn’t so thoughtlessly displace them out from their homes, all the while avoiding them interpersonally at all costs. Maybe if the deer had access to better education and greater opportunities then their contributions in the long run would pay even greater dividends than the homogeny of more homes and fancy restaurants. Maybe then the world would be different. I would have succeeded at stand-up comedy and Mom would have slept through the night.

[divinationcentral]

Anon: J.H.

Here it is! All about your fated encounter. :) 

So you're going to meet your soulmate after a period of heartbreak. Possibly the both you have experienced a bad situation. What that situation is could easily be a string of just bad lovers, or something actually happening in your life that leaves you feeling emotionally at a loss. 

At first you won't recognize this person as your soulmate, but because you have The Lovers there, the attraction is going to be immediate. So you'll notice each other - - but when that turns into a relationship is going to be dependent on whether or not  you approach this person with some type of an offer (to either get to know each other, or if you become friends, to take the relationship to a commitment; and yes this can be vice-versa, if your person decides to approach you - though in that context you may have trouble recognizing this person as your soulmate at first). So I would just be attentive after something like this happens (both to your needs and the people who decide to be there for you - they could be amongst many, but will be significant in the way this person approaches you). 

So. After your moment of anguish, you're going to achieve something really great. This is something that you are particularly proud of. If that sounds familiar? Keep working towards that goal. I think even if you encounter set backs, don't stop yourself from trying to reach your goals. It's gonna get you out of your future funk, and will allow you to be open to possibilities, including a new relationship with your soulmate. So work hard on your passions. If there's something you're going to be studying, I recommend you devote yourself to that study. 

Your person is going to be in a place where they are very happy, but learning to navigate their own feelings none-the-less (because they have experienced an intense betrayal - may be work related or otherwise; family, friends, just wasted effort - so seeing you on top of your game will inspire them to do some good for themselves). 

Regardless of the gender of your person: the only archetype I see here is the King of Pentacles. This is the card of Earth signs generally think Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn), but it doesn't have to be strictly an earth sign. 

You'll recognize this person because their personality is very stable. They don’t bend to the whims of others, but can be the type to reconsider if it benefits their cause. 

You'll find it hard to make them angry (but they like their space and can be very generous). Earth signs are pegged for being a little too serious, which I think isn't true. They are very passionate people, who value hard work, their money, and their inner circle. 

If they deem you someone important, they will invest their time in you, and that's how you'll know. But you'll be expected to give in equal exchange to the relationship. So invite this person out and include them in your life despite how things appear (like if they don't seem interested haha). :) 

TIMING: The Ace & The Tower

This is something that will happen unexpectedly. I could easily tell you that it will happen soon, since the Tower is very sudden (and it might actually mean that you’ll recognize this person when you feel it is too late). 

But you have to read the context of the reading, and tell me if this is something you're going through for it to be considered happening soon. 

If so, then you can expect this soon. If not, it will happen at a time you least expect it to (both the sad thing and the good things <3). That said I wish you luck when you meet this person. You are fated to meet, yes, but because you both need something during your times of stress, where you need to explore something new. 

The Lovers is a choice to commit to someone. And I always view it as the card of priorities. Because a new person can challenge our beliefs (any belief systems we've held that seem antiquated, as well). So when you meet this person: ask yourself if you're ready for a commitment. Because you’ll both be prioritizing each other in your lives. 

Likewise, the other person will have to find a way to fit you into their schedule. :) 

And like I said: it will be a choice to stay together, and maintain the connection (despite how big of an attraction their is to you, likely because this person is still trying to walk away from heartache themselves). Just show them you mean them no harm, especially if they felt you’ve ignored them (maybe their past partners or people in their life neglect them) - let them know what you went through, and they will open up~ no problem. This may be something you struggle with in your connection, actually, because they have this sore spot. 

I have come to find that Earth sign types tend to actually be pretty sensitive - I blame their sensual, physical needs. They require hugs and kisses and cuddling hahaha holding hands, etc. they need a person’s presence, not just their kind words. They desire proof, and that can only be seen in the tangible, practical sense of the word. So if you back up your claims about how much you love them - ooh, my friend. That is something they will reward with loyalty. 

Alternatively: You could be comforting this person in their time of need, and they may not recognize how you feel. 

When they are better - express how you feel. You’ll come together when they can accept that you aren’t trying to hurt them or their feelings (maybe you’ll unknowingly hurt their feelings? haha).

They’ll like you, because you have a creative way of thinking, and you care for yourself like you care for your things. Sounds odd, but practical people value tangible things. If you take care of yourself as though you are important/special/or a little bit like a treasure -- they like that. Hahaha. Makes them want to take care of you like a treasure (again - they value the tangible; personally, I see nothing wrong with that). 

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 30: Lost Things

March 18, 798/489. In the Empire, Reinhard’s fleet prepares to warp Geiersburg Fortress into the Iserlohn Corridor. On Iserlohn, Yang prepares to submit to a dubiously lawful inquiry by the hostile—but democratically elected!—Alliance government. Hilda convinces Mecklinger to pay a visit to her sick cousin, who teaches us all about the importance of having hobbies. And Geiersburg’s test warp, thanks to Kempf and Mueller’s adept leadership, goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Reinhard sinks deeper into depression, Julian blows off steam at the shooting range, and Reuental and Mittermeyer (you guessed it!) go on a date.

Reinhard Alone

Reinhard may be dead inside, but he still looks amazing. Episode 30, in particular, has some of my favorite animation in the series, so please enjoy all the ridiculously beautiful heartbreak as much as you possibly can through your tears.

We haven’t spent much time with Reinhard since the traumatic season 1 finale, so we’re long overdue for a check in with our fast-rising Empire-side hero. How’s he been doing?

Not great! (From episode 28.)

Once you're immersed in how LoGH tells stories, it’s tempting to say that Reinhard’s newly sour affect “should come as no surprise,” given what he’s been through. And though that is true on an in-universe level—nobody who suffered the tragic loss of a long-time romantic partner only months ago should be expected to have recovered already—it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that surprise at the way LoGH treats Reinhard’s grief is unwarranted.

In my episode 26 post, I talked about how my past experiences as a queer consumer of media had primed me for LoGH to handle Kircheis’s death poorly, and what a surprise it was when my expectations were subverted. In that light, Reinhard’s grief—the way it changes him, the way it has a tangible presence, the way other characters tiptoe around and discuss it—is a surprise. It’s a constant reminder not just of how important Kircheis was (and still is) to Reinhard, but also of how committed LoGH is to treating its queer characters and their relationships with respect.

LoGH can be a difficult show to watch. Not only does it have over a hundred incredibly dense episodes to get through—some of which are basically impossible to parse unless you watch them more than once—but it’s also deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly sad. Depending on the context, though, that can be good, or at least validating. And Reinhard’s grief, upsetting though it may be, is fundamentally important to a queer reading of LoGH.

Like I said during episode 26, Kircheis’s death is a turning point for the slow dissolution of LoGH’s heteronormative surface reading. And the unflinching portrayal of Reinhard’s grief from here on out is evidence of an ongoing decision on the part of LoGH’s creative team to allow what was formerly confined to subtext to remain above the surface.

The Locket

The way Reinhard’s voice softens when he talks to “Kircheis” via his locket is dramatic and says a lot more on its own than is possible to express in a mere text caption. If you missed it the first time, definitely go rewatch this scene in episode 28 (the timestamp is 3:45) to get the full effect.

The most obvious manifestation of Reinhard’s grief is, of course, his locket, in which he keeps a family photo and a lock of Kircheis’s hair. Some of Reinhard’s colleagues, as I’ll get to in a minute, worry about him because of how much he’s changed since Kircheis’s death. But I would argue that a lot of what’s so disturbing about Reinhard’s transition into Life Without Kircheis is the lack of change, at least in one respect: He still relies on Kircheis for emotional support, as is evident in the gifs above, and for strategic advice, which we see a bit of in episode 30 (below), and will see more of in the future.

Hilda is particularly attuned to Reinhard’s new habit of playing with his locket whenever—were Kircheis still alive—he might have looked to him for input, approval, pushback, or whatever.

There’s nothing inherently unusual about accessing one’s memories of a departed loved one for guidance, but Kircheis was Reinhard’s only intimate relationship before he died, and now that he’s gone, Reinhard still shows no interest whatsoever in diversifying his support network. As a result, his only intimate relationship is now with an inanimate object—or, to put it another way, he has nobody.

Of course, Reinhard’s isolation isn’t entirely self-imposed. Annerose was also a source of strength and comfort before she voluntarily withdrew from his life. If things had gone differently and Annerose had stayed, Reinhard might not feel so lonely—but would that have been healthier, for either of them? I’m not sure. My guess is: not significantly.

Other People

I’m not sure Reinhard realizes how obvious it is to everyone around him the extent to which he’s been utterly destroyed by Kircheis’s death. The fact that he wouldn’t care even if he did realize is, well, not unrelated.

From the relatively trivial to the life-altering, rumors and hearsay play a substantial role in our understanding of LoGH’s world and characters. Reuental and Mittermeyer, who have already spent a good deal of time gossiping about Reinhard and will continue to do so far into the future, are responsible for a good portion of the Empire-side gossip that we see—probably as a factor of their daily standing date. In episode 30, Reinhard’s two highest ranking admirals discuss the depths of his grief in vague terms:

It’s worth mentioning (as always) that Reuental and Mittermeyer’s bodies during this scene are beautifully aligned, without being symmetrical. The line of Mittermeyer’s torso is precisely parallel with Reuental’s left arm! Look at it! In case you hadn’t noticed, I am in awe of the animation team’s treatment of these two.

Reuental and Mittermeyer’s discussion of Reinhard and Kircheis is, of course, about more than just Reinhard and Kircheis—this is Reuental we’re talking about, after all, and he is pathologically incapable of saying one thing without also meaning at least five other things. For the time being, though, this scene mainly adds another, third-person dimension to Reinhard’s grief: We already know how it is affecting him personally; now we also know that it is affecting the people around him, that they’re aware of it, and that these are important enough facts to merit scenes of this length devoted to conveying them.

Hilda, on the other hand, is a lot less prone to gossip than Reuental and Mittermeyer—or maybe she just hasn’t found the right gossip partner?—so her feelings about Reinhard’s situation are communicated to us differently, mainly via looks (above) and internal monologue:

Worry not, dear reader: I’ll be spending tons more time on Hilda and her well-articulated emotional intelligence in the very near future. For now, feel free to repeat “Hilda knows everything” to yourself whenever you see her on your screen, because that basically sums it up.

I also love this little exchange, after Reinhard shuts himself away (again) in the room on Geiersburg where Kircheis died:

Kempf and Mueller’s quick look of mutual understanding here is so simple, but goes a long way towards expressing that the topic of Reinhard’s grief is never far from anyone’s lips among the admiralty.

These are all—even the lengthy conversation between Reuental and Mittermeyer—comparatively small moments in the overall landscape of LoGH. But taken together, they convey that Reinhard’s grief is not small; not for him, not for the people around him, and not for the galaxy.

Reinhard’s Oberstein Eyes

On a subtler character note, remember a few episodes back when Rebecca likened Reinhard’s eyes to Oberstein’s? Well, you may have thought she was being facetious, but she extremely was not. Allow me to demonstrate:

Here are Oberstein’s eyes as they appeared in episode 4. Their most noticeable trait is, obviously, the fact that they’re flashing red. But another distinctive characteristic of Oberstein’s eyes is that they don’t have any highlights or other details beyond the pupil and flat, uniformly blue iris.

In contrast, this eye-heavy moment from episode 28 is a good example of how eyes are typically animated throughout LoGH—with the remarkably consistent exception of Oberstein’s which are, of course, artificial. Mittermeyer and Reuental’s eyes here both have distinct highlights, and seem to move naturally.

Here’s an example, from episode 9, of how Reinhard’s eyes in particular have been depicted before now: Note the visible highlights that change and move with his expression. Reinhard’s eyes do a lot of characterization work for him, and obviously got a corresponding amount of attention from the animation team.

Compare that to Reinhard’s eyes here, in this moment from episode 27. Like Oberstein’s eyes, Reinhard’s irises are now flat and lifeless. They don’t move with the rest of his face and have none of the energy we’re used to seeing from him.

But unlike Oberstein’s, Reinhard’s eyes aren’t synthetic. So when he lets his guard down—which he can only do when he’s alone with his memories of Kircheis—we see unbridled pain and anguish flood back into them. Poor Reinhard.

Stray Tidbits

Can someone please explain to me exactly what is going on here? Why does Yang’s desk only go up to Schenkopp and Cazellnu’s knees? Why is Yang proportional to his weirdly tiny desk? Why is his entire head smaller than Schenkopp’s crotch? This single screenshot keeps me up at night with questions.

Maybe the furniture store that sold either Mittermeyer a tiny chair or Reuental a huge chair also has a location in the Alliance.

Try to imagine something more suspicious than not having a pet. How about liking books more than pets? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Time for some fun facts: Other than Da Vinci, the three historical figures that Hilda’s cousin mentions are Cao Cao, Lazare Carnot, and Tughril Beg. Biographical info on Cao Cao and Lazare Carnot makes it pretty clear they were both, like Mecklinger, Renaissance men who had a wide variety of cultural accomplishments in addition to their political/military careers; it’s harder to find information on Tughril Beg but my guess is that he falls into the same category.

[xaphrin]

I Know That I’m Damned

“What did I do wrong?”

The question was so innocent, but Shirayuki sounded completely dumbfounded, as if she had no idea what could have possible made her date leave right after dinner. Obi felt his lips tug at the edges, pitching forward from his perch on the back of her sofa to watch her a little bit closer. This particular date must have hit her hard, because instead of her usual fresh fruits and veggies and everything healthy in the world, she was shoving nearly half a pizza into her face. Although, to be honest, Obi wasn’t sure why she was in knots over that douchebag. The guy hadn’t even bothered taking his shoes off like she asked, even after he touted what a great listener he was.

Ugh.

“Can’t tell you, Miss.” Obi propped an elbow up on his knee and cradled his chin in his hand. There was a brief pause as his stare flicked to her downcast eyes. No one should have the authority to make her feel like that, and something possessive and protective snarled in the hollows of his chest. The longer he was around her, the stronger these feelings were growing, and he wasn’t sure how much longer it would be before something snapped inside him, and then… well, who knew? He’d heard only stories, but he hadn’t seen proof yet.

His lips twitched and he tried to look at least a little more understanding. “You know, it’s not always you. Sometimes guys are just dicks.”

“You’re not.” She looked over at him, her head tilting to the side.

His smile tilted to the side. “I’m a special case.”

He leaned back and let his eyes move over the slice of pizza in her hand, smelling the sweet scent of it slide into him with all the force of a freight train. He barely had any of his senses still working after all this time, and his memories were shattered and frayed around the edges, but he remembered pizza. God did he remember pizza. He remembered the salty taste of cheese, mingling with basil and tomato and gluten. He remembered that his favorite place was two blocks away called d’Gordianos - which was a made-up name to make the restaurant sound more authentic since the owner doubted anyone would buy pizza from a man named Kowalczyk.

It was weird what pizza could make him remember.

“Okay, so… what did I do wrong?” Shirayuki shoved another slice into her mouth, making her cheeks puff out and stretching her freckles into oblong little circles.

Obi laughed and leaned forward again. “Nothing. I thought you were the perfect date.”

Her eyes narrowed and she chewed slowly before swallowing. “You’re lying.”

“Would you like me to lie to you?” He let his voice slide an octave lower, knowing he liked the way her cheeks flushed when she heard him speak like that. “I’d be happy to tell you how you were absolutely awful and that you had spinach in your teeth, and that you talked about your cat way too much-”

“I just said his name!”

“-and that you wore the most hideous dress I’ve ever seen, and that your perfume smelled like an old lady’s, and that-”

“That’s enough. Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Shirayuki pursed her lips and she looked up into his face again, her expression trying to make sense of everything he said to her.

Obi hated when she looked at him like that, like he was corporal and real, and that she wanted to reach out and touch him. She had tried it once, when they first met months ago and Obi had been relaying the blankness of his memories, that he couldn’t remember how he died or what had killed him. And, Shirayuki - ever the comforter, had reached out to stroke his hand.

It felt like nothing, and that was more than heartbreaking. It felt like his own hope just shattered inside him, leaving him as empty and hollow as the form he took. All he could feel was just her slender fingers sliding through what was left of his molecules tied together by some unknown force. But, dammit, he wanted it to feel like something, and he would have sold what was left of his soul to just have one moment where he could touch her. Where he could slide closer to her, run his own fingers through her hair, feel the silken strands curl against his skin, and drag her lips to his own. Where he could feel her breath sliding over his skin, his name pressed between the soft little gasps she would make sometimes - he wanted it to all be real and tangible and within his own reach.

He would have given anything for just a few seconds of something real.

“Guys are just dicks.” Obi shoved his thoughts to the back of his mind and sewed on his best smile. That would make her forget about his teasing for a little bit. “That guy especially.” He paused and slid down the cushions to sit next to her on the sofa. “Where’d you find that one, anyway? Please don’t tell me Yuzuri set you up with such a… winner.”

“No. She wouldn’t… not with him anyway.” Her lips twitched and she lifted her eyes to his again before grabbing another slice of pizza. A second slid by and he watched her cheeks grow darker as she picked off a tomato and shoved it in her mouth, avoiding the question for a few more precious seconds. “I… had a moment of weakness.”

His eyebrows raised, curious. “Oh?”

Her expression turned sheepish, and she looked away before coughing quietly. “Tinder?”

Obi bit the inside of his cheek to try and keep himself from out-right laughing in her face. His stomach tightened, and he could feel a few sharp bites of giggles escape. “You did not.”

“I said it was a moment of weakness!” She scrambled for her phone, showing him her app screen as if to prove something. “Look, I already deleted it. I learned my lesson, never again. I vow never to use it again.”

“You know…” Obi started conversationally, his voice teasing her. “…if he finds out where you live, you might have to move. And that would be an absolute tragedy.”

Her expression fell and she scrunched her nose as if she was going to say something rude to him. He doubted it. Shirayuki didn’t have a mean bone in her body. A few seconds passed and her face eventually relaxed, as if a thought was clawing at the back of her mind. She shifted, watching him from beneath the dark fringe of her eyelashes. “I don’t think I could ever leave you… at least, not unless you came with me.”

Obi felt like someone had punched him in the gut, and he felt the need to evaporate into nothingness and escape. He couldn’t leave the house, could barely step into the little garden out back, to follow her to another location would be impossible - they both knew it. He knew she didn’t mean it flippantly, but at the same time, her words hurt him in a way that he couldn’t explain to her. He couldn’t tell her that she needed to live the life he didn’t have, and that she needed to find someone special and fall in love, and that he was… he wasn’t. That’s it. He just wasn’t anything at all. No matter how much their friendship had grown, no matter how close they grew, she needed to be a person, not hanging out with him.

But… the thought was nice. The thought that she cared for him, that she wanted to have him close, that they were best friends. He didn’t want to admit how starved for attention he was, and how desperately he wanted someone to just be close to him.

And here she was - Shirayuki.

The stupid girl was best friends with a dead jerk.

Great.

Obi offered her a smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes, making the conscious decision to avoid giving her a response. This would all be easier if she could forget about him and just walk away when this was all over.

He tilted his head towards the TV. “Isn’t that movie you want to watch on?”

[norihisahyuga-archived]

“I’d kill for a coffee…literally.” Issa+Teshima

Teshima had left Aoyagi in charge of their second-years out on the track practicing and the students still determined to make it into the club last year when it became apparent something was wrong with their new sprinter (contrary to whatever Issa called himself). He has experience and he isn’t blind and he recognizes the way Issa keeps pausing to grab his stomach, the dark circles under his eyes that suggest he must not have slept well last night, the paleness of his complexion and the way his temper is even shorter today than it usually is.

He suffers from cramps far worse than Teshima ever has, and during a good part of his first year he had been in pretty terrible pain. But Issa’s are unusually worse and when Teshima had quietly voiced that he might need to go see a doctor, his response was simple: the pain might be high and the rate unusual, but it runs in his family and there is nothing otherwise wrong with him.

The thought is a little depressing but Teshima can only hope Issa will be lucky and eventually his cramps will even out and the pain will lessen. He knows that exercise only tends to make the bleeding heavier and when he had found out from Danchiku that Issa needs iron supplements during the worst of his days, he had decided to put an early end to Issa’s practice for the day.

Not that it meant Issa had gone home to rest. Instead, he had stretched himself out in the office where Teshima is going over plans and papers and humming softly to himself as he does, a can of tea not far from his elbow. He likes more expensive stuff but this does just fine in the office and it’s easier to transport than anything he might have to brew or heat up.

A low pitiful whine makes Teshima look up from his paperwork, aware of the groove forming between his eyebrows. “Kaburagi, if you’re not feeling well, you really should go home.”

Issa gives him a look for that— he had already told Teshima once that he was going to stay here until Danchiku was done and that the two of them would leave together, but that doesn’t mean Teshima is happy enough with that to let it go. Instead he only finds himself more concerned that Issa would be happier and safer at home where he can grab a hot shower, snack on anything he might have around the house that will make him feel better, and maybe catch a long nap.

“I don’t want to go home until Danchiku’s done, and then we’re going together,” he says, slow and with a patient tone suggesting he’s talking to a kid. “I’ll be fine until then.”

Teshima sets his pen down, tapping the tips of his fingers on the top of the desk. “Well, is there anything I can get you right now? Something to make it a little easier for you to bear?”

Issa looks thoughtful for a minute, then winces and wraps an arm around his middle. “I’d kill for a coffee,” he says, scowling when someone outside whoops loudly. “Literally.”

Teshima picks through his bag until he comes away with a bill, pushing himself up from the desk and walking toward the door. “Okay, then stay right here and I’ll go get you one. It’s going to be in a can but it’s the best I can do right now. I’ll tell the others to quiet down so you can rest.”

“You’re the only good bicycle captain who’s ever existed,” Issa says, and Teshima rolls his eyes at the words even though a slight smile threatens to tug at the corners of his lips.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Now, stay put and try to relax. It’ll only be a minute or two.”

Aoyagi cocks his head at him, positioned not too far away from the office with a clipboard in hand and a curious expression on his face. Teshima holds up the bill in answer and walks up to him, peeking down at the clipboard, chewing on his lower lip at the list of times and other information written down carefully so far. He has a lot to sort through before he can make any real tangible decisions about their alters, but he has Aoyagi to help him out at least.

“How’s he doing in there?” Aoyagi asks him, scowling when one of the first-years yells out something loudly enough that even Teshima pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You!” Teshima points to the boy in question, who shrinks down at the volume of his voice. “You have a teammate resting and you’re disturbing him. Be quiet!” He lowers his voice when he turns back to Aoyagi, rolling his eyes a little. “He’ll be okay. He’s just having some cramping.”

“He’ll be okay as long as he has you to watch over him,” Aoyagi says like it’s fact, pressing a quick kiss to Teshima’s cheek before he finishes his walk to the drink machine.

Teshima retrieves the coffee and comes back to the office to find Issa lying still with an arm stretched over his eyes and the other folded carefully over his stomach. He opens the can of coffee for him and Issa perks up, sitting up slowly and gingerly before reaching his hands out, curling and uncurling his fingers in a very gimme way. It makes Teshima smile as he hands the coffee over, watching Issa sip the drink gratefully with a grin on his face.

Caffeine is hardly a fix-all, and it might not do too much for the pain, but it can help the fatigue and the bloating and Teshima knows this better than anyone else. Part of the reason he started drinking tea so seriously was in an effort to chase away his own painful cramps.

He takes a seat back at the desk and keeps an eye on Issa as he works, watching as he drinks his coffee and endeavors to find another comfortable position to sit in, not that any of them can be all that comfortable. What he needs to do is go home and go to bed, or take a hot both, or if anything stretch the muscles that are causing him so much grief so that the pain will ease minute by minute. But he looks so pitiful when he’s in pain and Teshima doesn’t have it in him to try to chase Issa away from practice and home where he needs to be. At least there’s only an hour left before Teshima will be satisfied the others have worked hard enough.

“Do you have really bad ones too, or something?” Issa asks, and Teshima looks up at him, raising an eyebrow at him, getting what he means just after Issa clarifies for him. “Cramps, I mean. You kind of knew what was wrong before I ever told you. I know you’re, like, out and stuff but I don’t really know anything else. Are they really bad for you, too?”

That’s a logical question. Teshima wonders if Issa has been bearing this pain silently, or as silently as he can with Danchiku knowing, since he started getting periods in the first place.

“They used to be about as bad as yours seem, to be honest. There are some teas that help with cramping and pain which is why I started drinking tea in the first place. I also got lucky and they started getting easier to handle over time.” He still remembers the first time he broke during practice, lying in the grass beside the track with his head in Aoyagi’s lap, Aoyagi stroking his hair back out of his face while he tried hard not to cry in front of his teammates. “It’s hard.”

The relief on Issa’s face is a little heartbreaking, but Teshima gets it. He does. If not for Makishima, then he might never have had a team that understood what he was going through.

“Danchiku knows about them and he carries stuff around for me just in case I forget it. I forget stuff sometimes, you know.” Issa shrugs like it’s no big deal but Teshima knows all too well how a sudden period can be impossible to deal with without the proper supplies and he knows that Issa already deals with quite a lot of pain. “It’s good to have a captain who gets it, though.”

Teshima feels an odd warmth at those words and tries not to let it show too much on his face because he doesn’t want Issa thinking he can butter Teshima up to get what he wants. “I’d do this for any member of my team that I thought needed it, that’s all.”

“But it’s different when you’ve gone through it yourself. Or have someone else that does. Like, Danchiku’s… The best.” Issa grins warm and soft and Teshima wonders if he looks like that when he’s talking about Aoyagi. “But he doesn’t go through it. Do you know what I mean?”

Teshima does. People can sympathize and empathize, people can be warm and compassionate even in situations they are not familiar with, but it’s different to have someone around who knows the very real pain. Someone you can talk to about what you go through without having to worry that they don’t really understand or might just be going white noise on you. And people, plenty of people, already act like a uterus cramping can’t possibly be that bad to go through.

Issa finishes his coffee and pulls his arm back, quiet and calculating for a moment before he launches the can across the room. It bounces off the wall with a frighteningly loud clatter but falls into the trash can and he looks triumphant, throwing his arms over his head before yelping and grabbing his stomach. “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that. Oh, I forgot what would happen.”

“Be careful and lay back down before you hurt yourself worse,” Teshima says, and Issa pouts at him before finally relenting and lay back down. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

The two of them sit in more or less companionable silence together until practice ends and a soft knock at the door signals Danchiku coming to collect Issa and take him home. Teshima watches silently from behind his desk and out of the corner of his eye so he doesn’t look like he’s paying any attention to them, giving them the slightest bit of privacy he can given the size of the room. Issa throws his arms around Danchiku’s neck gratefully and the two of them stand there like that for a moment, Danchiku’s arms holding Issa close and no doubt partially supporting his weight. He must be unsteady and tired right now.

“Are you going to be able to get him home okay, or do you need to call someone?” Teshima asks, straightening up the papers on his desk so he can head off home as well.

“I’m going to pull him home so he won’t have to pedal as hard and can rest as much as he can. We’ve done it before, so it’ll be okay.” Danchiku bows his head in Teshima’s direction, an expression Teshima can’t quite read on his face. “Thank you for watching over him and taking care of him for me, Teshima-san. I was worried about him. I tend to do that a lot.”

“He’s the best captain,” Issa insists, and Teshima lets himself feel a little warm at that.

He makes sure the two of them have all of their things before he locks the office up, giving Danchiku a sharp look over Issa’s head. “Make sure you take care of him. We need him.”

Issa throws a companionable arm around Teshima’s neck and squeezes with seemingly all of his strength before he lets Danchiku take him by the hand and lead him toward their bicycles, and Teshima hides a small smile behind his hair.

[blairkrasimir]

hellebergs

The blooms were full and sweet, and everything was blanketed under the big, blue sky. It was grand and vast, stretching into perpetuity like the hopes and dreams she had pleaded for against the universe in her youth. It was not odd to find her languidly stretched in the garden. Though she might appear serene to a wandering eye, a vexing storm roared beneath her surface. Helle was often left faltering under the weight of her own inner-workings. Hazel hues rolled towards the heavens. It was tangible yet undecipherable. There were different realms, different gates, different things she could slip between to coax a soul back to a mortal coil (or immortal, for that matter. There were times she had debated about slipping within, not seeking a someone, but a something. Answers. Helle propped herself up on an elbow when a figure darkened her peripheral. It was a face she knew well, though it bore an expression she didn’t have to analyze. She rose from the earth, her brow creasing in concern and query.

“Blair??” Helle steadied herself for the whirlwind she would potentially be swept into. It was one she would join in a heartbeat. A mangled heartbeat that the other knew the bloody history of – shared over the centuries when a tail was traded for legs. They were a constant in the chaos and turmoil, a hand extended ready to pull out of self-inflicted carnage and the wreckage of a life well-lived… or at least, their best attempt. She opened her mouth to extend a greeting but the truth soon shut it. There were a solemnity and heft in the few seconds offered to process before the barrage started. “Wow.” It was all she could offer in response.

There was something devastating and raw to be found in romance and its vulnerability, yet it was something Helle found herself running towards with arms outstretched. There was a dark poeticness about it — the despair and passion she drew together in a single, shallow breath. It was a beautiful, painful mistress she longed to submit to. One that had claimed many victims along the way. It was one she had vowed never to return to, uttered with Blair as her witness then and as the witness when she relapsed. Helle shifted once more and nodded towards a flask and a small, etched silver cigarette case. “Pick your vice, you certainly need it more than I do.”

She let it fill the space between them. She had heard the details, listened to many lamentations. They had gotten blind drunk in attempts to dull grief – not entirely the same, but mutual despair. If only the dead stayed buried. “Love can make someone irrational, yet it can feel like coming up for air,” Helle offered, “or whatever equivalent analogy you deem appropriate.” She wasn’t sure if any were. “Everything aside — what you did, what she did — she’s alive. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing??” The answer might not be that easy, but it might just be a start.

Wow, indeed. He felt stupid. Laying on the grass, eyes closed to avoid the sun, lungs out of breath. Blair just bursted. Allowed all the heartbreak, outrage and relief to take control. Without warning, composure, dignity. And by the goddesses, how he hated to lose his own balance. Specially for someone else. -- Though, if he was to be honest with himself, Blair would probably notice she always had that ability. Advantage, really. The one of many first times she owned in Blair’s long life. It was infuriating... but was also thrilling. To relinquish control, to watch himself be taken by whatever she brought back to life inside him. This was it. The thing that made him want to give up the world he knew, the home he had and the freedom he loved. This was her.

And instead of admitting any of that out loud, Blair just followed Helle’s nod, stretching his hands to pick both poisons. He could use as many dulled senses as he could master right about now. “I actually do need them,” he sighed, the words weighting on him as if they were poisonous. To need anything was rather unbecoming. To revel on his own abuses was the preferred position. But as Blair sat up to open the flask and swallow as much of its content as he could, he realized preference was no longer in the picture. Not with Nimiane in it. “For fuck’s sake, Helle, what am I doing with my life? I hate these... feelings,” Blair looked at his friend, the last word coming out as if it was dirty. Pointless. And with the flask closed again, he went on to burn his frustrations through one of her cigarette’s, the nicotine tuning him down.

“No, coming up for air is extremely accurate. It hurts like hell for me. Almost as if air burns, you know? First time around I thought I was dying... so, it’s perfect,” Blair offered, an ironic smile on his face as he looked at the fey. The analogy served him right, at this point. Graphic, dramatic, precise. “I want to say it���s bad. I really do. But if I’m being honest? It’s fucking amazing,” and yet, somehow, Blair could still hear his words torn between anger and bewilderment. If he couldn’t understand what went on inside his mind, how could he even search for his peace? “I forgot how she smelled. I mean... she’s still just as beautiful. Meyrfolk hardly aren’t. But her smell... it’s like coming home after years. It’s oddly familiar, comfortable, unsetting. I don’t even know who that woman is now, but it drawn me to her. I couldn’t help how I felt and that’s frustrating. Because, in the end, she stills fits me. Like there were parts missing and those were hers, and I don’t want to feel this. I want to be in control of my own chaos and turmoil. But her smell... I swear to all the goddesses. I just can’t shake it off.”

[feywildatheart]

Darna, I hate this planet.

Elyn convinced me to leave Nosirion-1 behind with the temptation of witnessing vast mechanical cities moving through the desert like insects scampering across logs, and instead all we’ve found is sand and upset and strife, an endless series of labyrinthine tunnels and so very, very many dead. I should have stayed with the Silver Tree and helped the scientists explore the planet and got to see Loren and Devon settled in properly and spent my evenings singing halfling ballads in the inn with Ren.

…I don’t really mean that, I suppose, but I’m so tired and I’m so angry, and everything that’s happened since we landed here has made my heart heavy. We spent most of the day walking only to discover we were walking in circles, and it’s my fault and I should have known better. You taught me better. I wasted everyone’s time and maybe now more people are going to die because we’ve had to stop for the night before we’ve found Rihash, and that’s on me. I should have seen it. I was so busy worrying about falling into illusioned pits that would have damaged little more than my dignity that I failed to see that I’d led us into a much more devious trap, and this one of my own making. I don’t know how my maps failed me so badly, I don’t know how your training failed me so badly, but I just wish we could leave this place and be done with it.

You can’t know what a comfort your letter was to me. I don’t even know how I managed to get signal enough to receive it, when we’re buried deep under the barren desert, with any cities (any cities that are still standing, in any case) most of a day’s travel away. But I woke this morning to the beep of my LICD as your message came through, and it could hardly have been timed better. Thankfully, Pika was too distracted with some sort of fervent praying this morning to comment on how I was crying openly into Squirt’s fur, not that she’d have been likely to say anything anyway — though then again, perhaps she would have. I’ve stopped thinking that I can do anything like predict her. And Elyn at least was kind enough to only ask me if I was all right, and then leave it at that.

I’m very glad to hear your work is going well. You’ll have to send me what you’ve charted so far, and once you jump to the next site, so I can find you whenever I do manage to make it back to the Feywild. What sort of pattern have you found in them? Don’t think just because I’m half a galaxy away that I’m not just as keen to understand them as I was when I was drawing maps at your side. Please, tell me everything. Tell me everything you would if I were there, if I’d never left.

I… Look, darnaneth, you know me. I don’t think you’d believe me, if I did promise to stay safe. I am your daughter, and you’re my mother, who took up sword and bow to protect Cylla and me while she carried me. I can’t not help, when I see others who could use my assistance. I can’t hang back where it’s safe if it means letting others face the dangers instead.

Even if I wanted to, my companions are both too keen to throw themselves into the fray instead of keeping themselves safe, and so I must be my mothers’ daughter, and trade bow for sword, and wade in to keep them both from getting themselves killed. I did try to convince Elyn, after she nearly died at my feet in this last fight, that she ought to at least consider the merits of fleeing to safety when she finds she’s outmatched, but she doesn’t like the idea of letting others face danger while she hides from it any more than I do.

(I know, I know. The irony of this isn’t lost on me, believe me. But honestly, I’m hardier than either of them are, and I’m not too proud to retreat when it’s prudent.)

I do promise to try, though. I’ve no wish to die, nor do I relish the thought of being grievously injured. I’m trying to be as safe as I can be, and still do the things that need doing. I’m still not entirely sure what it is we’re facing here on Rugira Prime, because Pika’s been even less forthcoming than she ordinarily is, but she’s jumping at every shadow, so I have to imagine the danger is particularly great. And that’s not even counting the cities being swallowed up whole, or whatever it is who’s been stalking the fallen cities and picking off survivors. But I can’t turn my back when people are dying and could be saved, and whatever government there is here— Well, Pika’s told us little of that, too, but I’ve got nothing kind to say about them, when two cities got swallowed up by the desert and, so far as we can tell, there’s been little or no effort on the part of the authorities to discover what happened to them, or locate survivors. Nida — she’s one of the few survivors we found in Arkard, though I’m getting ahead of myself here — she seemed to be full of excuses for why they wouldn’t, how it’s treacherous in the desert and a search-and-rescue mission might be too dangerous, how there might be little to find if an earthquake just swallowed a city up whole, but— honestly, darna, we’re three women (three women and a dog if we count Squirt, which you know I always do) and we found them inside of two days. They’ve been down here for months and months. People could have been saved, and so far as I can tell the authorities have just… done nothing. Just shrugged and chalked both cities up as a loss and continued on their merry ways, and have I mentioned I hate this planet? It’s not just the sand and the heat and the desert, though they’d be miserable enough on their own. The Feywild is a treacherous place to live, and so we looked out for one another. But here, where they need each other the most, they just… don’t, so far as I’ve seen. They just let whole cities be swallowed up and continue about their day because at least it’s not their city. Pika’s so focused on her own objective here, and I pointed out that perhaps we ought to be concerned about what happened to these two lost cities, because if it had happened to them what’s to stop it from happening to the city her objective lies within, and she—

Well.

I’ll get to that.

The point is, people as individuals may be kind and may look out for others — Nida seems to be sheltering a small group of fellow survivors, and Tace sent us out here to discover what had happened, after all, and Snapdragon’s been more generous than I could have ever expected (but, no, I’ll get to that, too. Have patience with me, darna, I’m trying to work myself up to it but it’s no easy thing to talk about) — but Rugira Prime as a whole seems a wretched, unkind, self-centered place. There’s such poverty here, darna, and such incredible wealth, and it’s heartbreaking to the see the two side by side and see no one trying to help those who need it the most desperately.

Nida offered us water and provisions before we left to try to find Rihash, offered it to us, when we’ve got full packs and they’ve been trapped down there for months, using up what supplies weren’t damaged in the fall and unsure of any rescue. There are kind and generous people here, but they’re not the ones who have the power to make a difference in any sort of lasting, meaningful manner, that much is clear.

I’m sorry it’s hard and strange, darna. I hope you know it is for me, too. I miss you both every day. Sometimes I lower my bow and take a breath at the end of a battle and for a moment it’s startling to realize you aren’t both there fighting next to me. Sometimes I have to catch myself before I turn to ask you a question, or tell you a thought that I know would make you laugh. I still don’t regret leaving, but sometimes I wish there might have been a way to do so but still have you with me, more tangibly than just these letters sent between us.

Oh— Oh, darna, I never thought you might read that letter and think it was written by someone else. And I’m sorry I was so short in it, I wasn’t trying to hide something from you that I thought would worry you. I promised you both that I’d tell you everything, and I meant it. I just… I didn’t know how to tell you what happened. I thought maybe with some time I could put my thoughts in order and figure it out, but I still don’t. I’ve spent this whole letter trying to work my way around to it and I still don’t have the right words. But I can’t bear the thought that it’s made you worry more than I know you already do. I’ll just have to do it poorly, then, and I know you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit of a mess through it.

I told you about making that comment to Pika, expressing concern that the thing we’re here for might end up swallowed up beneath the sands next, if everyone keeps shrugging off the disappearance of these other cities. And, I still don’t understand how or why when all I wanted was to ensure that it stays safe, but she took it as a threat somehow, and before I could so much as blink had spun on me and pressed a dagger against my throat and snarled something at me that I can’t even remember now, I was so startled and taken aback and hurt. Not physically hurt, I should say, before you and Cylla both pack up your things and come tearing out here to have words with her, just. I never expected it of her. I’m still shaken, if I’m honest, and feeling like I have to be guarded with her now where I was only ever open with her before. But Snapdragon says it’s borne of fear. She used some terribly lovely metaphor that I’m probably mangling as I try to recall it, but she said that she’s seeing sandstorms in every bit of shifting sand. She also offered me sanctuary, if I felt I needed it, and Elyn warned Pika that if she drew steel on either of us again that she’d quickly find herself left on her own, which was an unspeakable relief, too, to have someone there at my side speaking up on my behalf. And I wrote to Athan, too, asking advice about how to handle a situation like that should it arise again, since it made me all too aware that I may be good at a distance but I don’t know what to do with myself but freeze when I’m taken by surprise like that. He sent some good advice back to me, and I’m planning to ask Tace to spar with me so I can practice his suggestions, once we leave this damned desert behind us and get back to the city.

I love you both so much. You’ve made me cry all over again, just rereading your letter. I have been meaning to see if I couldn’t find a temple where I could make an offering to Cernunnos, once we get back to a city, if for no other reason than because he answered my prayers when I spoke them unthinking in regards to the Yeruses, and perhaps he might be equally inclined to help with our task here on Rugira Prime. I haven’t decided whether it’s more or less likely that a desert people might give offerings to a god of green and growing things.

You are both a comfort to me, in your own ways. I couldn’t ask for better mothers than you. And I don’t care how grown I am, I’ll always welcome and value whatever advice or encouragement either of you might see fit to offer. You two and the things you’ve taught me are at least half the reason why I didn’t find my way into some sort of horrible disaster five minutes after leaving the Feywild.

I’ve just given Squirt a hug so tight that I think I may have alarmed him. Hug each other for me, please, until I can make it back and do it myself. I promise I’ll come home to see you both when I can, if ever our path takes us anywhere near Caliz Beta, or any of the rings into the Feywild.

I love you. I miss you. Please be safe, and send me those maps, so I can know how to find my way back to you.

Love,

Maliah

[nightskiedarchive-blog]

 SUPERNATURAL AU :  naomi hale .  in which she  finds out  dean is dead and that sam and bobby have been keeping it from her for about three weeks . @sacrificialheart .

     the past weeks had been quiet .  well ,  not quiet .  more like  murmuring behind shut doors into the phone late at night  quiet ,  vacant stares and working until late .  needless to say ,  bobby had been acting sketchy ,  off ,  but naomi didn’t make it a habit to seriously ask him what was up unless she knew something was going on ,  ever the private ones in that house .  nothing was up anyway . 

     it’s easy to fall into a routine when things become quiet .  get up ,  make coffee for the two of them ,  help around with the house and the business ,  work on her car that always needed some fixing done ,  train or go out for a beer and unwind ,  find  something to do in the stillness .  it’s times like those when her mind wanders off ,  when the stillness is uncofortable and she wants something to get off of it ,  something that’ll make her blood pump faster through her bloodstream and she  craves  old poisons that make her feel like a  GOD  .   no more ,  no more ,  what would dean say ?  what would bobby tihnk ?  

     it’s about  half past eight  when she walks down the stairs ,  silent in her steps ,  drowsy still from the early awakening .  sam’s voice ,  which she hasn’t heard in about three weeks ,  comes from the common room .  now there are two things possible to be done :  one ,  she walks in and goes through with her usual morning routine or ,  two ,  she  waits .  stops mid -  staircase and  listens .  it’s wrong but so is wanting to summon a  CROSSROADS DEMON ,  that much she knows   ( players ,  tricksters ,  bearers of bad news always )   ,  so she listens .

              ––  that’s not going to  bring him back ,  sam  ––  who?  naomi freezes ,  barely even breathes ,  absolutely motionless .  bobby’s voice is a hoarse whisper ,  sorrow  clear in the cutting edges of his answer .

              ––  you don’t  get  it ,  ––  if bobby’s voice had sorrow in it ,  sam’s angry half - plead was a stab straight to the heart .  naomi could feel a knot forming at her stomach .  it had been  too quiet  lately  ––  I HAVE T’ TRY !  

              ––  keep y’r voice down ,  kid !  ––  in the end ,  it’s not sam’s strained tone or the secrecy that wraps the whole subject the two men were arguing over that makes naomi jump out from her hearing spot .  in the end ,  it’s the worry in bobby’s voice when he says that .  she can practically see his eyes widening in warning ,  the wrinkled gesture tensing and his knuckles becoming white at his sides .  sam falls quiet ,  or he mumbles something .

     that’s when she hops into the livingroom ,  arching her brows and ignoring the anxiety that’s risen in her chest and spread throughout her whole body .  the sight of sam ,  sammy ,  is a pitiful one .  plainly put :  he looks like  crap .  dark violet bags under his eyes ,  he looks like he hasn’t eaten or slept in  weeks  .   green hues dart quickly from him to bobby ,  who’s shaking his head and shuffling some papers on his desk .

               ––  who’re you tryin’ t’ bring back ,  sammy ?  did you finally come outta the bicloset ���nd fell for a demon or somethin’ ?   ––  and will she  ever  take anything seriously ?

                ––  nothing .   ––  sam is easy to read for her .  he’s so  emotional  that she can  tell  she said the wrong thing   ( wasn’t that what she wanted to see ? ) .  

     he grabs his leather jacket and seems about ready to take off ,  his expression even darker than it already was .  but  no ,  something was up and they were  KEEPING IT FROM HER .  and there was no way sam was leaving without telling her .  so she sprints for the door ,  a few long strides and her hand is grabbing the doorknob ,  her body barricading the door before sam even manages to reach it .

                ––  who’s dead ,  sammy ?  ––  green hues search his face ,  trying to find something that will make the bubbling anxiety calm down .   ––   who’s dead ?

     and then she sees it ,  sees the exact moment in which his jaw  locks ,  and he drops the jacket back at the couch ,  nostrils flare as his tired ,  angry  eyes tear themselves away from her own ,  settling on the morning sun that comes pouring through the windows .  naomi knows what he’s doing ,  she’s done it one too many times .  if he  stares  long and hard enough ,  then the tears that now threaten to rim his eyes will  go away .  and they do ,  it never fails ,  but not before she catches a glimpse of them .  she’s terrified .

                ––  move ,  naomi  ––  but she shakes her head ,  remains right where she is ,  her breathing becoming shallower as panic starts to settle in her chest .

                ––  NO .  who’s dea ...

                ––  DEAN IS DEAD ,  NAOMI !  ––  he interrupts her ,  his voice shaking just like his hands at his sides ,  balled up in fists . 

                ––  DAMMIT ,  KID !  ––  bobby snaps up from his chair ,  unsure of what to do ,  where to look ,  or who to hold back .

     all the while ,  naomi is frozen in her spot .  it doesn’t hurt ,  no ,  because suddenly there’s no  body  that can ache ,  and no  mind  that can be shot through and through with the pain of the reality that sam’s words carried .  it had been too silent  .    her eyes are still settled on sam’s face ,  but his words are far away .  if that’s what she wanted to hear ,  if she felt any  better  now ,  if she can  move  now because he has to  GET HIS BROTHER BACK  .   and she stares ,  like a fool just stares ,  swallows thickly and doesn’t mind as the salty tears glass over her eyesight .  instead of moving away from the door ,  let sam go ,  her fingers clutch the doorknob harder ,  like a  lifeline ,  like the only tangible reality that she can hold onto in those moments .

                ––  w- what ...  what d’ you mean he’s ...  HOW ?  ––  her voice is small ,  quivering and frail and something about it seems to make sam calm down ,  or at least swallow thickly and relax his hands at his sides ,  burrowing them into his pockets .  there’s something strangely comforting about seeing  one’s sorrow reflected ,  like a mirror ,  in another’s face .

                ––  he ...  he made a deal .  he made a deal with a demon an’ now he’s  ––  sam  stops ,  clears his throat ,  looks away .  they’re both acutely aware of bobby shaking his head ,  though he knows defeat when he sees it .  and defeat is right before him ,  with naomi  knowing  this  ––  he’s in hell .

     it doesn’t take a  genius  to figure out how come dean made that deal .  there’s  ONE PERSON  on this earth that he would do  anything  for ,  including spending an eternity in hell for ,  and he’s standing right in front of her .  she shouldn’t be mad ,  she really shouldn’t  snap  at him but as the tears overflow her eyes and roll down her cheeks ,  her eyebrows knit together and she shakes her head .

                ––  so ...  so you mean he’s in hell ...  because of you  ––  bobby says something then ,  naomi doesn’t listen .  it’s  IRRATIONAL  to blame him   ( not to mention she’d been  as  heartbroken when sam died ,  it never quite made sense how he was back all of a sudden ,  UNSCATHED )  ––  and -  and  HOW LONG  has he been dead ?  huh ??  

                ––  YEAH ,  because of me ,  so ‘m gonna go  fix it ,  ‘re you happy now ?  I’LL FIX THIS !  ––  his words overlap with her own but when she asks for how long he’s been dead ,  he  stalls  and can’t hold her gaze any longer .  naomi’s eyes narrow .

                ––  what ?  he’s been dead for  WEEKS  and you  chose  not to tell me ?  ––  turning back to bobby ,  she sees that he looks exactly like sam and scoffs ,  wiping her cheeks with both her hands ,  seething  ––  IT’S EXACTLY THAT ,  ain’t it ?  an’ now you’re too fuckin’  ASHAMED  t’ look me in the face and tell me .

     she doesn’t need the verbal admission ,  really  doesn’t .  it’s written all over sam’s face .  the remorse ,  the  guilt  and the grief .  she doesn’t need the verbal admission because the silence  SCREAMS  it .  shaking her head ,  naomi lets go of the doorknob ,  feeling her knees weak but still willing herself to stand up tall .  mutters  “ I’M GONNA BE SICK “  and runs into the bathroom ,  kicking the door shut with her foot as she leaned over the toilet, pushing her hair off her face .  she dry heaves for a while ,  feeling the tears run down her nose ,  fall into the toilet water like some gross metaphor for a lake and whatever that could even  mean  to her .  a poet could perhaps make beauty out of her grief ,  the pain that breaks her through and through .  somehow she misses not feeling her body , not understanding her mind .  it hurt less .  bobby’s voice from the other side of the door and sam’s pacing ,  everything’s far away .

     finally ,  she spits into the toilet and flushes ,  looking into the mirror and seeing her marred reflection .  it’s  heartbreaking  and she hates it ,  she hates herself for what she told sam ,  hates them for having lied to her like she was a six year old ,  hates dean for not having told her what was going to happen ,  hates the pain that makes her want to unhinge her jaw like a snake and  scream  until she runs out of curse words ,  out of deities ,  out of pain .  most of all ,  she hates dean for being dead . 

     sniffing ,  she leans over the sink and washes her face ,  braids her long hair and pushes the stray locks behind her ear .  toothbrush ,  eyeliner ,  nothing else she needs from the bathroom .  she slams the door open and pushes past the both of them ,  ignoring bobby’s words that try to explain why they kept it from her .  “ ‘M NOT A FUCKIN’ KID ,  BOBBY ! “  she barks in response ,  climbing up the stairs two steps at a time ,  throwing some clothes ,  the grimoires she’s been studying and all the spare cash she has under the mattress into a bag that she tosses over her shoulder .  again ,  pushes past bobby .

               ––  dean wouldn’t want you t ... 

               ––  dean is dead ,  sam .  and that’s thanks to  you .

     this time ,  she’s the one that reaches for the door ,  grabs her own leather jacket ,  fastens her gun around her thigh garter   ( there are ammunitions in her car’s glove compartment ,  she’s covered ) . 

               ––  fuck you both .

     the slam of the door makes the windows rattle in their hinges .  it’s easy to drive away ,  to toss the bag into the back of her car and check the mirrors ,  floor the accelerator and leave only dust in her wake .

     it’s been too quiet anyways .

[because3am-blog]

Preceding My Conclusion..

Sooo.. A short while ago a dear friend of mine suggested I put pen to paper. Someone I admire, and perhaps friend feels like a belittlement of this individual's meaning in my world, she has in fact been instrumental in my life as of late, and helped firmly fix a smile to my face during a rather turbulent period; alas I digress. I believe she lives firmly in the delusion of my intellect, the blessed fool, however, nothing ventured and all that! As to what I should write I haven't the faintest, I think beyond my humility (remember I said that), the firm belief that what I have to divulge is of little consequence, I have never felt the pull to write for lack of topic and motivation. Yet here I am, at least I suppose this could indeed prove useful as a backlog, a point of reference, proceeding my probable institutionalisation. So to you, the reader, my condolences, I can only imagine the misfortune that bestows you to end up with either the time or the inclination to humour my pen (or buttons, it is like 2017 after all, why do we even still have pens, surely we're beyond such a primitive medium of expression)! Maybe, this, right now, is one of those grounding moments in life, you, and at great haste, should take a minute to reflect, and forge a different path forward? You're right, it's not my place to say.

The only thing I feel I could possibly impart with much grounding in use, would be a glimpse of the world through my eyes, novel huh? But perhaps, I like to question things, actually everything, and maybe this could evoke a thought in you, or maybe better yet you have an answer for me? I have always appeared as a well disguised alien to many of my peers, my family especially, for reasons unknown I struggle in equal measure with a childish inability to accept the world in the condition it is in and the inability to invoke change in any capacity. Fundamentally I appreciate change starts at home, but it never seems enough, and that alone in itself is a struggle. But to my eyes (dazzlingly blue, in case you were wondering) we have fallen, almost unknowingly, into an experience of mediocrity. Perhaps it is with the advent of technology, perhaps with our busy urban lives, or could it be some sort of Palio deficit, where we have moved so far from our roots as a species we have lost track of our senses. Most likely it is my own pessimism coming into play. But I cannot shake the belief that we, here and now, are not living well, at least not to what we deserve. Allow me a minute to explain.. (Please also refer to my previous comment on humility). Life, whatever it is, is a sensory experience. We can get into all kind of long debates on its meaning, or purpose, or even its tangibility. I confess to knowing almost nothing on many of these matters, and all of the above topics could never be bought into the realm of scientific scrutiny and quantified as such, so each and every person should and will have their own personal relationship with these questions. But as to its application, that is where we do get a degree at least of authority. So it's on the up! And yet we appear so frivolous with it? I think my mind started pondering this issue when discovering the amount of people who cannot remember what they did, yesterday, last week, a month ago. And you know what, I couldn't remember either. And these are people young, people with quick lively brains, eager and waiting to pour in memory's, to catalogue your adventure, and hopefully, with any luck, to enjoy and relish in when old age arrives. In plato's republic a particular line has always stayed with me, it is within Socrates dialogue with an elder, on ageing, it's toils and  blessings... "To the man conscious to himself of no unjust deed, sweet and good hope is ever besides him". But what of the man who is not conscious of the majority of his existence? Regardless of good or bad, morals and ethics, what if you, and I, are living unconsciously. If I cannot remember now, what happened last Tuesday, in 50 years I stand less chance still. And at what consequence comes of this. On one hand I would muse that you cannot learn or grow or develop without appreciation of the effect (or affect, does anyone really know the difference?) of the events occurring in your life; and that's important. Alas I do not feel I have the patience now to further explore why this is the case ((however I can thoroughly recommend the book Descartes error (Damasio Antonio) for anyone who cannot persevere any further into this text without an informed perspective on the importance of cognitively processing experience, it is quite possibly explained even chapter 1, go wild, catch you soon!)). But fundamentally, I think it is more prudent to focus on the fact that if you are not readily absorbing your days you are probably not using them correctly. And you don't get many, really you don’t. For all that I have forgotten, I can remember with great certainty what happened on Thursday 21st of November two years ago. On that day I parted with someone more dear to me than I believed was possible, for one reason or another our union came to an end, and as if it was yesterday I can recall the feelings and emotions and memories with better resolution than a Sony super HD 4K 10578479479 megapixel display with full Dolby surround sound. And you know what, I'm glad of that. It is a moment in my life so bleak, yet so meaningful, and I carry daily the things  learned from that. But shouldn't every day be that way? Obviously by this I do not mean heartbreaking and depressing, but vivid! We seem to have coloured our days in mono. We no longer seem to relish in taking in the full splendour of each moment. We no longer notice birds in the sky, absorb the smell of the air after a heavy rainfall. (Should my aforementioned friend ever stumble upon this I am sooo going to get a comment about my needing to partake in some kind of late night adult activities, perhaps she'll be obliging?) We take the company of our dearest for granted. We no longer listen to music, at least little further than as a mild distraction from the peripheral noise of the world going about around us, or indeed our own thoughts, let's keep those dragons at bay huh? We take no comfort in the luxuries of necessity, cooking a good meal at the end of the day, tending the garden. Without another paragraph on what it is (I feel) we do not seem to appreciate I will resolve my point. It appears we are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the beauty in the world, and if we do catch a glimpse of it not nourishing ourselves on every morsel of it, but by what, if our days are so forgettable. And the pessimists in us hold on so closely to our worries and woes, we stress fitfully on matters yet to even come into fruition. I forbid the realist within a voice. Of course these phenomena can be easily explained away. But they do not have to be, what probably feels like ages ago, I attested the fact that this is one realm we can gain at least some purchase. So of late, I have been endeavouring to absorb as much of my life as I can. Not just the good, the bad too. It almost seems taboo in our sociocultural mindset to feel negative, even with negative feelings seeming to be the predominance of our days. It is appreciated that you will 'get over' whatever grievances come your way with haste and as little fuss as possible. And whilst I agree it is best to rid yourself of upset sooner rather than later, I do not believe it advisable to skate over feelings to the comfort of escape. The most sobering moments in my life have bought about great changes in my outlook, given me an appreciation of aspects of life I might have otherwise overlooked, and above all reinforced a courage within. You learn you can cope with a lot more than you expected, often better than expected. And with that courage comes the ability to navigate life confidently, freely, openly. I still have a long way to go down that path, and am far from the authority on living a life free from the restrictions of fear, but all progress is progress. I guess what I am getting at is that there is benefit to be had from all that comes your way, if you do indeed take note of it, and apply it to your advantage. If you're happy feel really really really happy, if you're sad feel really sad, love unconditionally without fear or strings, give of your heart, what benefit becomes anyone by exerting half measures of emotion, it's the only medium we have to appreciate life! I have again fallen away on a tangent. Apologies. I resume. So in an effort to absorb experience, I have spent the time to reason with myself the parts of life that make me happy, the aspects I aspire to, and at heart keep those as the focus of my days and see what benefit my way come. One thing I will give myself credit for is the ability to wonder, my brain is both my biggest asset and my greatest daemon. I have to know all things about all stuff, because what how why and when and who. Apart from sports, sports are just rubbish! Anyway, with my nice concise introduction over.... I hope you gleam I am not as pretentious as my words may suggest, I know I am as useless at life as everyone else, probably worse, and I make no claim to possess anything other than my own thoughts and beliefs; which will vacillate with the weather! And use these words as an attempt at maintaining my focus and even maybe drawing in yours.