#but god every time i get angry i imagine stabbing the corpse of a person vaguely shaped like all the hatred evil and hell in this world

[mycomori]

i should legally be allowed to stab someone i think like i don’t wanna hurt or kill anyone but also i really wanna fucking stab somethin over an dover and over again until i pass out

[literaryfic]

Chapters: 1/?
 Fandom: 빈센조 | Vincenzo (TV) 
Rating: Explicit
 Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong/Hong Cha Young
Characters: Hong Cha Young, Vincenzo Cassano | Park Joo Hyeong
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Italian Mafia, (i know nothing about the mafia so this will be very inaccurate!!!), basically vincenzo & cha-young being mafia bosses in italy


Summary: When Vincenzo Cassano came back to Italy, no one expected to see someone by his side. Or how Cha-young and Vincenzo became the head of the Cassano family. a mafia couple au inspired by a discussion with @ourgalaxybangtan @ghostrights & @whovie-reloaded

  Vincenzo had been handling most of the family business since their adoptive father’s health had started to decline. As the consigliere of the Cassano family, he was Fabio’s most trusted man, his advisor, his lawyer but also his second-in-command.

It hadn’t been easy, all these years, to climb the ladder. He wasn’t a native, he wasn’t blood, and so not many people had welcomed him at first. That’s why he had to become ruthless, so that no one could deny his authority or even dare to try. He had killed and tortured many men, broken their minds and their bones, burned their flesh and cut off their limbs, ashes and screams trailing behind him. If he wasn’t proud of the blood on his hands, he was at least proud of his work. All the hours he’d spent training, fighting, preparing, scheming, studying, all his efforts to erase Park Joo-hyung from the face of earth had paid off. The scared, weak little kid was gone, buried with all his other victims. ‘An eye for an eye, and then some’, Vincenzo lived by that, and he would stop at nothing except killing the innocent. There was no doubt he was the best at what he did and anyone who did not respect him feared him enough to not threaten him. His success was the Cassano family’s success, yet he knew that members of his own clan would not hesitate to have him killed if they could. Two clear factions had formed in the past five years, those who supported Vincenzo as the next head of the family, and those who supported Paolo, his brother. Paolo and Vincenzo had never gotten along, and Paolo’s inferiority complex and jealousy grew deeper every time his older brother had to clean up after one of his rushed job. Paolo had a particular taste for violence. Whereas Vincenzo killed and tortured because he had to, Paolo got a kick out of hurting others, be it children, women or elders. He loved to assert his dominance, to feel almighty. Vincenzo didn’t think himself much better than him, (regardless of the reasons behind his murders, he’d probably killed way more than him), but he wanted Paolo to be punished for his sins. It was only a matter of time before some influential family members whispered plans of assassination and of ‘restoring the rightful heir’ into his ear. Paolo was an angry, frustrated man who wasn’t particularly good at his job, an easy puppet to control. He’d been watching them carefully but he knew that as long as his father was alive, no one would dare to touch him. Back then he had thought he would take care of them when it came to it, become the head of his family, and continue to rule the underworld. Then, the incident happened and everything changed. He hadn’t been able to sleep for weeks, his victims’ screams haunting his dreams. He started avoiding mirrors, his reflection taunting him. He barely ate anymore, and Fabio had reminded him to get a grip. So he had done just that. He drank himself to sleep or took sleeping pills, and he went on. He knew, however, that he could not go on like this much longer. He had to get out before he buried himself next to Park Joo-hyung and all the others whose lives he’d taken. He’d started to plan his escape secretly. He would wait until his father died, staying loyal to him as long as he was alive. When the time came, he knew Paolo would try to kill him. The power struggle between them would start as soon as the head of the family would die, but instead of destroying his opponents, Vincenzo would seize the opportunity to leave. He would go back to South Korea, get the gold and leave to an island, where he would spend the rest of his days. The death of his previous Chinese client was perfect timing. As expected, Fabio, his boss and adoptive father, had named him the next head of the family in his will. It came to no surprise to most members, but murmurs spread quickly, “Can you imagine? A foreigner, as the head of our family? What has the world become?”. After wrapping things up in Italy, Vincenzo promised himself to never return, throwing away the key to the graveyard of his sins. …. There’s no going back from this, he thinks. Vincenzo is still holding Cha-young’s face, unable to look away from her lips, still wet from the kiss. Her pink cheeks, her smeared lipstick, the freckles under her fondation. Her. Hong Cha-young. His heart is soaring in his chest, all the emotions he had desperately tried to silence erupting all at once. There was no point in denying it, he had fallen in love with her. All he could do now was break his own heart, hoping it would heal. …. He realises he can’t live without her after she gets injured. They’re trying to get more information on Jang Han-seok’s paper company, and this time they’re trying to prove that some of the transactions made to European bank accounts were bribes. They’re breaking into none other than the Minister of Economy and Finance, Cha Do-won’s house. Miri had made sure to deactivate the security system and cameras, and Vincenzo was in charge of securing the place while Cha-young searched for the secret ledger the Minister kept hidden in his office. Cha Do-won was making a speech right now, and they had assumed most of his personal security would be with him. Vincenzo had quickly incapacitated the few men around the house and Cha-young looked for the ledger. After a few minutes, she found a hidden drawer in his desk. There it was, a thick documents labelled 'Accounts’. Subtlety wasn’t one of his strong points, apparently. They were about to leave when suddenly, a dozen men started to raid the place. Vincenzo fought them off as best as he could, and he was grateful that Mr. Lee barged in to help. They thought they had them all beat, and so Vincenzo made a mistake. He turned his back to the door to look for Cha-young, who he thought was behind him. “Vincenzo!”, he heard her shout his name. He sees her across the room, about to get struck by a man. He rushes to her and knocks him out quick enough. “Oh my God”, she says, “Did you see that? I almost died! He had a knife as well, and I dodged it, and then I ran—”. She keeps rambling while they get out of the house and into their car, clearly in shock. She’s getting paler as time passes, and he only notices the blood that pooled on the seat when she tries to get out of the car. She was stabbed, but the shock and adrenaline had prevented her from feeling any pain. “Oh”, she says, looking down at her wound. Vincenzo jumps out of his seat and rips the bottom half of the T-Shirt he’s wearing. “I don’t think now’s the time for that, Darling.” Even in a life-threatening situation, Cha-young is joking around. Vincenzo’s mind stops, he feels paralysed by fear, the fear of losing her, of her dying in his car, because of him. He pushes those thoughts away as he holds the fabric to her wound. “Hold this, as hard as you can.” The rest of the car ride to the hospital is a blur of running red lights, speeding in between traffic and repeating “Hong Cha-young, stay with me.” Vincenzo had faced death everyday for the last 20 years. He had killed, had seen people kill and had almost died countless of time. “There’s no limit to fear”, he’d once said to Jang Han-seok’s informant. Only now, waiting for Cha-young’s surgery to be over, does he understand what those words truly mean. During 6 hours, Vincenzo pleads and begs God, the devil, anyone willing to listen (Don’t take her. Everyone but her). He makes empty promises (I’ll do anything. I’ll stop hurting others, I’ll disappear from her life) and meaningless threats (Don’t you dare take her. I’ll kill you, too). In the end he doesn’t know who answers his prayers, and what promises seals the deal, but Cha-young wakes up and he doesn’t care. He holds her hand, stays by her side, and vows to never leave her. He starts to plan for an escape route shortly after that. In case they can’t stay in South Korea and need to take off. First, he thinks of Malta, or another island. But they would need to go somewhere they have allies, somewhere with an easy access to emergency money and resources. Italy. He contacts Luca and sets everything up, a two bed-room apartment, two bank accounts, and everything they could ever need like cash, some guns, and a car. “Consigliere, will there be another person with you?”, Luca asks. “Hopefully it won’t come to that”, he avoids the question. He knows he promised not to come back, but some promises need to be broken out of necessity. He needed to make Cha-young was safe, at all cost. His brother’s betrayal had made it easier. He’d been caught in the crossfire of their fight against Babel, killed by Choi Myung-hee in order to frame Vincenzo. But they had proved his innocence, and sent back his corpse in Milan. After Fabio’s death, Paolo hadn’t been the best replacement, and after he was killed in South Korea, they’d put in charge one of their cousins who had neither Fabio’s experience, nor Vincenzo’s mastermind. The family was in a crisis, which didn’t go unnoticed by their rivals. Soon, business started to slow down, their clients stolen by the competition and their allies started to switch teams. Money ran low. For that reason, Vincenzo didn’t run into much opposition when he came back. Most members and people in their business thought he had killed Paolo after he’d unreasonably followed him to South Korea and tried to finish him. Paolo only left disappointment and resentment behind him, and so no one missed him much. What they had not expected, however, was for Vincenzo Cassano to come back with someone.

[animeyanderelover]

Hey can you write yandere Tooru with promo 21

Who would have thought that Tooru would be so beloved?

Warnings: Yandere themes, mental unstableness, killing, blood, violence, split personality

Prompt 21: “I don’t care if I’ll go to hell as long as I drag everybody who dares to touch you, talk to you and look at you with me!”

“I don’t care if I’ll go to hell as long as I drag everybody who dares to touch you, talk to you and look at you with me!” They had just snapped, you knew it from the way the whole atmosphere around them had just changed. It was the way all shyness had suddenly disappeared from them, the normal blush they always had on their face being completely gone. Instead this weird grin was on their face, and being put together with their quivering pupils and not even to mention the blood that was splattered all over their face and clothes made them look like a complete psychopath. The person under them, a ghoul who had tried to attack you, was by now long dead, the bloody puddle in which Mutsuki was sitting leaving no doubt about it. But that didn’t make it less shocking for you. You were used to killing ghouls, it was part of your job. But what shaken you to your bones was the way Mutsuki had killed her. You had chased after her for a while now, she had been A-rated and known under the name “Mistress”, telling everyone already what they could have imagined her like. She lured her victims with her body and looks away, flirting with them only to devour them, didn’t matter whether it was a man or a woman. She had been damn close to your district which had been the reason why you had wanted this case, fearing that your friends might get in contact with her.

So if you tried to look at it from the perspective of an investigator, you shouldn’t be angry at all. Mutsuki wouldn’t be the first crazy fellow the CCG had, you thought about a special stitched up boy who currently led his own squad, not to mention the legendary Mr. Mado. And sometimes a few crazy fellows were needed in a messed up world like this. But those two were a different kind of crazy, a good kind of crazy. But Mutsuki...You didn’t know what to think about this. You hadn’t even known that they had followed you in the first place. Weeks of tracking Misstress down, weeks of planning and taking her down had proved unnecessary. Not only that, but Mutsuki had just taken down an A-rated ghoul on their own. Sure, they had catched you both off-guard, but still. The sheer violence they had used together with the repeatedly chanted phrase they had murmured every time they had stepped her still being way too present in your way, even though it had happened just a few moments ago. “Stay away from (y/n)-sama. Stay away from (y/n)-sama. Stay away from (y/n)-sama.” And you, you had just stood there horrified, not being able to move. You-you had been afraid of one of your one people! This shouldn’t have happened, especially not since you had always supported Mutsuki since the day you had first bumped into them. But on the other hand, was this really the Mutsuki you had once known?

“(y/n)-sama.” You tensed up the moment they addressed you directly, their intense stare burning right into your heart and soul. You were afraid, you knew that from the way your heart started beating fastly against your chest and you felt sweat coating your forehead. Nothing new as a ghoul investigator, but this was a new kind of fear, a new kind of nerve wrecking situation. One with which you were faced for the first time, meaning that you didn’t know how to act and you doubted that even if you would have someone older with you, they wouldn’t have known how to handle this either. Ah yes, the fear of the unknown. “(y/n)-sama. Why are you looking so scared? I killed her. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” They slowly stood up from the corpse, revealing a bit pretty sight and you guessed that every other person would have broken out in tears, vomited or fainted by now. But as sad as it may have sounded, you were faced with this kind of view on a daily base. “Bitch.”, Mutsuki mumbled, glaring heavily at the ghoul and kicking her dead body, in your opinion completely unnecessary, but you didn’t dare to say anything. How could you when Mutsuki was clearly not in their right set of mind?

It took everything inside of you to not suddenly pull your Quinke out and hold it against them. That would be too much of a risky move and right now you didn’t want to do anything to trigger them even more. You also hoped somewhere in the back of your mind that they wouldn’t hurt you because of their undeniable crush on you. Everyone in the CCG knew, Mutsuki being a bit too obvious with it. And no matter from which perspective you tried to look at it, you also couldn’t deny that they had done this to save you. You would have never guessed how far they would really go nor how unhealthy their love really seemed to be. For them to become a completely new person...It made more the impression on you that this was an obsession. You had successfully let yourself get fooled by their timid and shy appearance, a mistake no one who killed ghouls should make. Appearance didn’t matter, damn it! Even the tiniest girl could prove to be your worst and last enemy! But you had gotten carried away, had closed your eyes because they were one of your kind, they were on your side! So why...Were they even realizing how they were acting? Probably not. The only thing on their mind now was you, you could tell from the way they were staring at you as if you would be someone higher than them, someone to admire.

With slow and somewhat wobbly steps they moved closer to you, the two knifes in their hand which they had used to kill the ghoul off still dripping with blood. They looked like a butcher. But you didn’t run, you simply couldn’t. Mutsuki was a precious person to you, someone you had sworn to keep an eye out. You had always been there for them, always encouraged them, had always cheered them up and had shown them kindness. This was your fault, you had to fix this. Their eyes never left you for once, glazing with a worrisome and also eerily amount of obsession at you. “(y/n)-sama.” They straightened up a bit when in front of you, still keeping in mind that you were a special class investigator, a job you had hardly worked for. You didn’t doubt that in this condition they could easily take that title too, but even then they would still show you the same amount of respect. You would always be higher for them. “How did I do? I did alright, right?” “...” You couldn’t believe it. Did they seriously just asked you whether they had done a good job or not? And their voice...It had shaken a bit! Not only that, but there was a certain glance of insecurity which seemed to grow with every passing second you gave them the silent treatment. Oh god, they wanted your approval. They had killed for you and now asked for your approval, for your opinion whether they did good or not.

But your shocked state where you couldn’t form any kind of words seemed to discourage them. They hunched over, pale-green hair covering their face and suddenly they bowed. “I-I’m sorry, (y/n)-sama. It was bold from me to assume that my skills would ever be able to compare to yours. Y-you’re the greatest. I apologize for interrupting your investigation. I didn’t think clearly. But I would never doubt your abilities! I know that you could handle this on your own and that I had no right to-“ Before they could continue their apology speech from which you had the feeling that it would take a while you placed a hand on their shoulder. “Tooru, stop it.” Calling them by their first name was always a good way to calm them down, they loved it when you called them by their first name. They had already tensed up the moment your hand had touched their shoulder, but the moment you called them by their first name they instantly jolted up, looking shocked, but also touched at you. You sighed a bit, looking with a somewhat conflicted expression at them. You had to make a judgement call in here. And you guessed you had already decided. “There’s no need to apologize. You just took a raising threat for this district down so don’t even think about apologizing. You did great today. I knew you had potential. So stop doubting yourself.”

Hearing you complimenting them like this caused a furious blush to form on their face, trying desperately to stutter something out in response. You chuckled a bit upon seeing this, noticing with relief that the Mutsuki you knew was back once again. You quickly took your phone out of your pocket, starting to dial the number of one of your friends in. “Would you eventually do me a favor and tell my friend here that we caught Misstress? I’m sure we can make a very useful Quinke out of her Kagune.” You handed them your phone, number already on display. By now Mutsuki couldn’t even manage to look you into your eyes for longer than a few seconds, grabbing with shaking hands your phone. “Y-yes (y/n)-sama.” Whilst they nervously started to call your friends in the CCG, you took the time to observe the dead woman closer. And you couldn’t help, but press your lips into a thin line when seeing everything from close-up. Countless stabs were visible on her, the eyes being gouged out and the lips being cut that it reminded you almost of the way Joker in Batman looked like. It didn’t throw you out of your calm, you yourself had often made quite made the mess during missions. But all of this had been done by Mutsuki...

You glanced shortly at them, the way they fumbled over their own words whilst trying desperately to make sense on the phone, explaining what had just happened. They looked like they would suffer a heart attack at any moment, making you almost feel like that you had just hallucinated all of this. But you hadn’t, one look at the ghoul being enough to tell you that all of this had been real. And that could mean problems. You bit nervously on your bottom lip, glancing again at the green-haired investigator. It would be probably a wise decision to stay away from them or report this, that would tell everyone you right now. But you didn’t. You wanted to observe this for a bit before deciding what to do. And you also knew that trying to distance yourself now from Mutsuki would be dangerous, not being able to anticipate their reaction to this. You had to stay close. Because as much as you dearly hoped that Mutsuki would never go that far, you couldn’t deny a very possible reaction that could happen one day when they would snap again. And then the next victim wouldn’t be a ghoul. No, then they would have the blood of a human on their hands and it would also be your fault. “I have to watch them. I have to keep an eye on them. Or else...”

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 11; the rewatch edition

I have found a bit more enthusiasm for this one on the rewatch, so here goes!

- din snapping ‘I’m trying my best here!’ in a vaguely annoyed tone as his entire ship is going up in flames around him because he mostly doesn’t get angry as much as sulky... the height of cinema 

- I love frog husband’s clothes, because they’re in a very similar style and colour scheme to frog lady’s but also incorporate the knitwear we see on the people of trask, so it both underlines his belonging with her and implies that he’s been on this moon for quite a while, they may have been apart for some time  

especially his scarf is a darling detail and there’s a bit of contrast in texture to it next to his wife’s, it’s nice. he’s wearing a similar kind of vest to what we see on the fishermen later, too 

- I think my favourite part of this entire episode (well second after din cradling the baby against him after nearly drowning) is just the design and Vibe of the planet and especially this harbour

for one I LOVE that it’s shown that even in the middle of the day it’s dark enough that the electric lights are still on when it’s overcast (it reminds me a bit of norway during the winter, actually, when dawn just never quite breaks and then slinks off in embarrassment before it’s even noon). and there’s also the... sails? nets? hanging around looking almost like flags, which are very Aesthetic but god knows what they’re for. maybe for drying fish on in the summer? 

I think the building in the distance behind frog husband’s back here is a lighthouse? or it could be one of those towers for loading you see when they scout out the empire ship too, I suppose!

and one for my strange obsession with Texture on this show: these fabric-covered crates!!! they look exactly as dingy and moldy as you’d expect them to be in this climate, I wonder what they’re for (& I vaguely want to touch them) 

- from the sound of it din’s vibroknife is uh ‘on’ when he pokes the squid thing, and he also goes for the tentacle the furthest away from the baby <3

proof the calamari flan have been scratched up a bit during all that time in din’s pockets! (the attention to detail in this show sometimes istg) 

- this is 100% me reading too much into things again, call the overthinking police I’ll do my time meekly lol, but the boat looks a little bit like the mudhorn signet from this angle: 

again din keeps his hand on or sooo close to his blaster in this entire scene, he knows this is sketch as all hell 

a) once again I want to praise the effects team for how GOOD the aliens look in this episode holy shit and b) the hell is this dude wearing on the straps of his overalls tho 

- the dude mando (axe woves) uses his little... wrist launcher thing to shoot with to finish two off the fishermen, so my theory that they can be loaded with other things than the whistling birds for slightly less effective use (maybe without the level of honing we’ve seen din’s be able to do?) is looking good!

- din actually has quite good form when diving into the water, I’m guessing he can swim at least tolerably when not in full armour, being stabbed at from all directions, having just had his son eaten by a sea monster and also being trapped in with said sea monster (I’m a strong swimmer and I can tell you that there’s a reason they make you swim with clothes on from time to time to see how hard it is, it sucks. with metal plates strapped all over you as well? yeah good luck) people don’t tend to hit the water that gracefully without some kind of training in my experience lol. might be some of the training with the jet pack has carried over too, considering he throws himself off that cliff in chapter 12 with similar confidence?

it’s interesting that they’re once again showing us a threat where the armour doesn’t help and even hinders him. we’re so used to the ways it can make him near-invincible, but it can also drag him down (literally, in this case. aha ha ha. well if I’m not here for my own entertainment then what am I here for honestly)

- din’s voice sounding like he’s just on the verge of crying as he cradles the baby (and the sound he makes as he realizes the baby’s alive) is my kryptonite, turns out. fucking breaks my heart into tiny pieces every time, I would die for this man and he wouldn’t let me

- in support of din’s paranoia: so far this season we haven’t been able to go five minutes without someone talking about peeling the precious beskar off a mandalorian corpse, I can see why his mind was primed to move in one particular way there

- I think the fabric of din’s cape has been treated with something that makes it waterproof; the water seems to pearl on top of it rather than soak in! can you imagine how heavy it would get if it did absorb water tho christ

(a bit hard to see at this size but that’s what it looked like to me close up anyway! could also be that it’s wool and that’s why it looks that way but I prefer an elaborate sci-fi explanation here, because it doesn’t look particularly weighed down afterwards) might also explain why he doesn’t seem worried about it catching on fire when he uses the jetpack haha, maybe this is something the mandos do with fabric they’re going to use for a long time 

I also enjoy part of the gambeson/undersuit thing poking up from under the shoulder pauldron and cape; I think this is about as disheveled as we’ve seen him since immediately post-mudhorn 

- the sound mixing in this scene, where din’s breathing is layered a bit over everything else so you almost feel like you’re in the helmet with him listening to what the others are saying........ oh my GOD, it embeds you so deeply in his POV but so subtly 

- not to be biased or anything... but din and the armorer’s armour design is so vastly superior to these guys it shouldn’t even be a competition lol 

din looks like an honest to god knight in shining armour except also sci-fi western and the armorer looks like a fucking war goddess from a time beyond memory; the clone wars mandos look like high end cosplayers (eh maybe it’s just my dislike for the boobplates that has me so 😒 lol. also a lot of dudes were very shitty about that whole thing and I don’t say anything but the ‘vaguely-concerned will remember this’ telltale message pops up in the corner every time) 

moment of saltiness over: I do like the differentiation between their individual character designs 

the differences in body type and helmet design is nice! they look like a unified team, but with individuality. I suspect the ladies have those belts and their armour plates on the hips instead of the front of the thighs to emphasize the ‘female’ silhouette, which. okay fine whatever

- bo katan looks very pointedly down at the baby after saying ‘a group of religious zealots who want to return to the ancient ways’ which makes me VERY nervous for reasons I can’t quite articulate

- the mournful guitar version of the mando theme as din watches the sunset...... hmmmmngh (this might be some Symbolism happening to us folks strap in for the identity crisis he still hasn’t processed) 

- I Cannot get over din being so unimpressed by and uninterested in bo katan’s ‘retake mandalore’ sales pitch from literally the first moment dfhasdkjfhsad sorry lady kryze this man just does not do main quest shit, he’s all side quests all the time and that’s why I love him  

- as someone who after chapter 8 wrote a whole-ass fic that was wholly & exclusively about din telling the baby he’ll always come back for him... some of the shit he’s been saying this season does feel like it’s been written to mercilessly victimize me, personally and specifically 

- guessing this structure in the background is the traffic control tower! doesn’t really matter, I just thought it was neat

- this part of the soundtrack is called ‘ship o hoj, mandalorians!’, which I found incredibly charming haha (it’s ‘ship ahoy’ except how you write it in swedish, good one herr göranson)  

- bo katan is vague about who exactly the new mand’alor would be if they took back mandalore to begin with, she doesn’t specify she is planning to be the ruler until she’s already got din on the ship and in no position to refuse to help. gotta respect the grift at least lol  

I do love her voice, though, it reminds me a bit of jennifer hale as shepard

- “I need to get back to my ship, with the foundling” your honor I uh love him so fucking much 

- frog lady stroking the baby’s back a bit as she holds her hand behind him to make sure he doesn’t fall backwards while playing with the tadpole ;___________;

and also frog husband and frog lady reaching out to hold hands and frog smooching as din and yodito leave ;____________________________________________;

- when din says the exasperated “mon calamari. unbelievable” line, the baby makes that little blowing a raspberry sound he does as if to agree ‘uh-huh unbelu -- unbelly -- unbelievable dad smh’ and it is very very adorable 

- there’s quite a bit of Stuff in the concept art that didn’t make it in this time around; I wonder if maybe they cut some stuff for pacing or whatever and that’s why this episode is so short? water leaking into the cockpit of the razor crest, something that looked a bit like whaling going on on the docks and more spaceships taking off (maybe there were originally meant to be some smaller ships defending the big empire one?), there’s quite a bit here  

[aster-aspera]

Seemed the Better Way

CW's for this chapter: major character death, unsympathetic sides, violence, murder

If you're uncomfortable with any of this, feel free to skip this chapter. This chapter isn’t part of the main story in my superhero AU and isn’t connected to the other chapters.

Relationships: romantic LAMP/DLAMP

The idea for this chapter was given to me by the lovely MizzMarvel on ao3

Chapter title is from 'It seemed the better way' by Leonard Cohen

Masterlist

“V? Virgil? Come on, wake up.” Roman pleaded as Patton cradled Virgil against his chest.

Blood, so much blood was spilling over Roman’s hands, onto the dirty concrete under them.

Logan sat a little distance away, his face a blank slate, his eyes staring past the blood and pain into something only he could see.

Patton sobbed and pressed his face into Virgil hair matted with sweat and blood.

“Come back to us.” He whispered around the tears.

But Virgil didn’t stir, he just stayed there, his chest ripped open, his eyes unseeing.

Roman screamed, a scream filled with agony and loss and Patton felt it echoed in his chest.

This couldn’t be real, not Virgil. Not the strongest, fastest, most experienced of the group. The one who always knew what to do, who had taught Patton how to fight, how to run over rooftops. He couldn’t be so small, so empty. He couldn’t just give up like this, he had survived so many impossible things before, he had to survive this. The duke couldn’t take this from them too.

“I’m going to kill him.” Logan said, his voice flat and robotic, not a trace of human emotion.

“What? You can’t.” Roman protested, his voice wavering.

“He’s taken enough from me. This is the last time.”

“Seriously!” Roman yelled. “Virgil’s just… He just… And you’re already…?” Roman broke off with a choked sob.

“Logan.” Patton tried, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Did he really want to stop Logan anymore? Had it been any other day, Patton wouldn’t even have hesitated to stop him but now, with his lover’s body cooling in his arms, what did those rules even mean anymore? The duke had no regard for them. What was the point of following them if this was the price?

“Don’t, Patton.” Logan snapped.

Patton looked around, at the chains on the wall, the instruments that he didn’t want to examine too closely, at the blood pooling at his knees and finally at the fine boned face of his lover. He thought of the fear, the pain he knew Virgil must have felt.

Grief threatened to pull him under, to drown him in her dark, choking waves.

They had been too late, always too late. And the duke had beaten them again, taken the light from their lives yet again. It wasn’t enough that he had killed Logan’s parents, that he had ruined Roman’s life, he wouldn’t rest till he had taken everything good and happy and wholesome from them.

Well, if that was the case, then Patton wouldn’t have mercy anymore. Nobody hurts his family.

“I’m coming with you.” He snarled, anger so unfamiliar to him coursing through his veins.

Emotion broke through Logan’s façade at that, surprise and pain.

“Patton.” He whispered brokenly.

“Save it, you’re right Logan. I’m done with letting him hurt people.”

Patton looked at Roman.

“Roman?” He asked.

Roman stared at the floor, debating with himself.

“Can we bury him first?” He whispered.

Logan finally softened and wrapped his arms around him.

The three heroes sat in the darkening warehouse with their grief.

~

Roman should feel something, anything at all.

His brother had killed Virgil, his own brother had killed him.

It kept repeating through his head, all through the funeral and night afterwards, while Patton and Logan started planning.

Shouldn’t he be angry or sad? Shouldn’t he feel something? It was all just static, just a fuzzy blur of words and the memories of finding Virgil in that warehouse playing in a loop.

They were going to kill his brother and Roman couldn’t find it in himself to care anymore.

It was over, Roman had tried long enough, his brother was lost to him now.

He watched as Remus smiled at them, made a comment about Virgil. He watched as Patton took out the guards, this time not just blowing out kneecaps.

Roman sidestepped a charging guard and stabbed a knife into his guts. They took down the guards with a scary efficiency, their ruthlessness unexpected.

Remus turned tail and tried to flee and Patton shot two bullets into his legs. He went down with a pained cry.

He smiled up at them as they gathered around him.

“You won’t kill me.” He panted.

Roman looked at his brother, lying there on the ground, still so sure of his victory For the first time, when Roman looked at him, he didn’t see all the memories. The memories of the orphanage, of his brother protecting him, of sneaking out at night to go to the city. He didn’t see the person he had tried to save, the person he had convinced himself was still somewhere deep inside his brother.

He just saw what he really was, a murderer, a criminal. Someone who would never stop hurting and destroying. Roman had enabled him long enough. It was time for it to end.

He nodded at Logan.

Remus’s eyes widened as Logan lifted his dagger and slipped it neatly between his ribs.

~

Logan squared his shoulders against the rain beating down and the cold curling into his jacket. He clenched the flowers in his hand so tightly the stems had bent.

The graveyard was empty, nobody willing to brave the rain for a few corpses.

He breathed a sigh of relief, the last thing he wanted right now were random onlookers. With their annoying sympathy and their curiosity.

He knelt at the small grave in the corner of the graveyard. He laid the flowers down on the cold, wet marble and traced the letters on the headstone.

“I am the soft stars that shine at night.” It read.

Patton had picked it out.

Such a pretty lie. It was tempting to imagine Virgil looking down on them when he stared at the stars at night. To recognize the sparkling of his eyes in celestial bodies billions of lightyears away.

Logan wished he could believe it true.

“I’m sorry, my love.” He repeated the phrase he had uttered every time he visited the grave. An apology, for being too late, for not being able to save him, for not stopping the villains who had so cruelly ripped his lover away from him.

He had had so many chances, so many opportunities to strike, to end the fight once and for all. And yet he had never been strong enough to do it. Even after he had found his parents in a puddle of their own blood, even after all the atrocities the monsters in this city had committed, he had never broken that golden rule. And this was the result: a cold grave, a snippet of a poem, a cold space in their bed.

He would not be so merciful again. The duke might be gone but the city contained other monsters. Monsters who had taken lovers and brothers and children from other people. He knew more than anyone what that grief felt like and he felt disgusted with the fact that he had let them continue inflicting it. As a hero, wasn’t it his job to protect those people, no matter the cost?

The news broadcast from yesterday flashed through his head. The city rejoicing over the death of the duke. But a note of fear had tainted the celebrations. Were their heroes to be trusted if they could kill so ruthlessly? What separated them from the villains?

Logan found the whole debate ridiculous. The duke was gone and heroes had finally had the guts to stand up to the vile villains that infested their city. Why would the citizens fear them? They were on the good side.

They were going to take down all the people who had hurt and killed and destroyed, regardless of what the people thought. They would be grateful one day.

He walked out of the graveyard, throwing the old flowers in a trash can by the gate.

~

Janus ran. Ran from the people who were supposed to protect the city. He had looked up to them once, admired them. They brought light into the dark streets, beat out the shadows. Now they were nothing more than dark, washed out versions of themselves.

Whatever had happened to the purple hero must have been terrible. Janus ached for him, wished he’d known the duke’s plans, had found a way to prevent this happening.

The city was falling. With the heroes killing indiscriminately, people were terrified. This would only end in tragedy for everyone. And right now, that tragedy seemed awfully close for Janus.

A shot rang out and a sharp pain exploded in his leg. The light blue hero certainly knew how to aim Janus thought detachedly as the heroes gathered around him.

Sharp fear shot through him. He wasn’t going to get out of this one. He could expect no mercy from these heroes.

“It’s over, snake.” The red one snarled.

“If you do this, the city will burn. Can’t you see you’re destroying it?” He knew it would get him nowhere, but he had to try. As it was, he was the last one standing between these heroes and innocent civilians. Janus had long lost the hope that they would stop at just killing all the criminals.

“We are saving it.” Logos snapped.

“You are no heroes, not anymore.” Janus panted.

“And what would you know about that?” The light blue one asked, pointing his gun at Janus’s head.

“More than you apparently, you can’t save people by killing them.”

The hero paid him no mind and tightened his grip on the trigger.

Janus’s breath hitched.

God, he didn’t want to die. Not yet, not like this.

“Please, just think about what you’re doing.” He begged, staring into that bright blue domino mask, hoping to find a glimpse of humanity.

The gun went off.

~

Logan stared at the monitors flashing warning signs at him.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked him from where he was draped sideways on the office chair.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s a first.” Roman laughed.

“Ro, don’t be mean.” Patton chastised.

“These readings look similar to Vortex’s teleporting abilities, but I’ve never seen them at this magnitude before.”

“Didn’t we take care of Vortex months ago?” Roman asked, joining him at the monitor.

“It’s unlikely it’s Vortex. It seems unlikely they would magically come back to life and even then, they wouldn’t be able to produce readings of this scale.”

“I guess we’ll have to go check it out.” Patton sighed.

“Shame, I was looking forward to movie night.” Roman sighed.

“There will be enough time for that later.” Logan consoled his boyfriend with a kiss.

They suited up and headed out into the quiet city.

In the alleyway the readings had originated from, five figures argued among themselves.

“I told you we shouldn’t have trusted them.” One griped.

“Well, sorry for trying to save the goddam city.” A familiar voice replied.

Logan couldn’t see them properly, but there was something very familiar about them. He strained to make out their faces in the gloom.

Then, a voice he had thought he would never hear again broke through the arguing. A voice that made his heart beat with happiness and his chest swell with grief.

“Guys, stop arguing, it’s not going to get us anywhere. Lo, do you have any idea what that was?” Virgil’s voice asked as he stepped out of the shadows into the pale light of a distant streetlight.

Next to Logan, Patton’s breath hitched and Roman shifted forward.

He looked the same as the last time Logan had seen him, before the duke had gotten his hands on him, his body all tense and wary lines, his eyes scanning the area, looking for threats. Not that empty, lifeless husk that was all that was left after the Duke was through with him.

I took all of Logan’s willpower not to surge forward and wrap his lost lover in his arms. One of the other figures stepped into the light too, tapping away at a screen. Patton gasped, and when the figure looked up, Logan realized why. That was the face he saw in the mirror every day. The figure was him. But how?

“What the hell?” Roman muttered as someone who looked exactly like him stepped into the light too.

“The readings that portal gave off are similar to the ones Vortex produces.” The other Logan said.

“Vortex teleports to different places, this looks like the exact same alleyway we were in before.”

A figure Logan had last seen begging for their life at their feet stepped into the light.

Deceit, the serpent, the snake, looking at ease surrounded by these alternate versions of them.

“My technology isn’t interacting with anything, I can’t even access satellites.” Other Logan sighed.

“Strange.” Deceit said, looking over Logan’s shoulder at the screen.

“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” Patton, the other Patton, asked.

Just as other Logan was about to answer that frankly ridiculous comment, Virgil’s eyes snapped upward, focusing on the spot they were crouched.

He motioned for the others to shut up and they obliged, immediately falling into a fighting stance.

“Who’s there?” Virgil called out.

“I guess we should go introduce ourselves.” Patton whispered shakily.

Logan took a deep breath. On one hand, the prospect of seeing Virgil again, of being able to talk to him and hold him, was something he had dreamed of every night. But on the other hand, it all felt wrong.

Virgil stood there, surrounded by alternate versions of them and a villain who had died years ago. This wasn’t their Virgil and Logan was scared of comparing them. It felt too much like chasing after a quickly dissipating dream.

But Roman was moving forward already, swinging off a pipe and landing on the ground in a controlled descent. Logan and Patton followed suit.

“Hello.” Patton greeted them awkwardly.

The others all stared at them for a long moment, dumbfounded, until other Roman muttered. “What the hell?”

“Umm, Lo, what is this?” Other Patton asked.

“Time travel?” The snake suggested.

“They look the same age as us, I must have aged well.” Roman remarked, Deceit rolled the one eye that was visible behind the mask.

Other Logan stuttered for a moment and then managed to compose himself, or appeared to at least, Logan knew himself well enough to recognize the uncertainty in his posture.

“What day is it?” He asked.

“The twenty ninth of october, 2020.” Logan answered.

“Same day.” The snake muttered.

“So not time travel.” Other Logan said.

Logan knew there were dots he should be connecting, theories he should be formulating that could explain this.

But all his thoughts were occupied by the man standing just a few meters from him. Virgil, who was still looking at him like he was a threat. Virgil, who looked healthy and happy and alive.

“So they’re us, or at least, they look like us and it isn’t time travel.” Virgil said, seemingly noticing the way all three of them were staring at him as he shifted awkwardly.

Patton made an aborted motion towards him.

"Alternate universe?" Logan suggested.

The others seemed to become aware of their fascination with Virgil.

“Um, everything alright?” The other Roman asked, shifting so he was positioned in front of Virgil. Virgil glared at him and stepped sideways.

Logan almost laughed, the non verbal conversation the two had was so familiar. He had seen his Virgil and Roman do it so many times.

“Yeah, it’s just…” Patton tried to explain, his voice wavering, on the edge of tears.

The snake connected the dots first. “Where’s their Virgil?” He asked.

Roman’s breath hitched and Patton sobbed. Logan felt the ragged hole in his chest tear open even more as he stared at the other Virgil in front of him. Comprehension was slowly dawning on his face.

“Murdered.” Logan managed to say.

“Oh.” Other Patton gasped sympathetically.

Roman approached Virgil and the other Roman hesitated, making to stop him. Virgil shook his head and the other Roman stepped aside. Logan felt his feet carry him forward too, towards this mirage of their lost lover.

Virgil shifted awkwardly but let them approach. Roman took his hand and Virgil squeezed it.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” He whispered.

Roman just smiled tearfully. Virgil drew the three of them into a hug and for a moment, Logan let himself forget. Forget about the fact that they had buried Virgil years ago, that this version wasn’t theirs, that there was no way he would ever choose to stay with them.

He just savoured the feeling of those familiar arms around him. This was home.

They walked back over the rooftops together, an air of awkwardness over the group.

“It’s quiet.” Other Patton remarked.

“There’s a curfew in place, research has shown it reduces crime rates.” Logan explained.

“Research also shows enforced curfew has negative effects on the economy and psychological welfare and increases traffic, not to mention the ethical implications of constraining peoples’ freedom.” The other Logan countered and Logan cursed himself for being such a smartass.

“Well, we judged the pros and cons and judged that the curfew would be beneficial despite the drawbacks.”

“It really helped lower the crime rates. Look how peaceful the city is.” Patton chimed in.

“It’s disconcerting.” Deceit remarked.

“Yes, imagine that, no crime in the city, that must be a nightmare for you.” Roman said snidely.

The snake drew up his shoulders and turned away from them. Other Patton’s face hardened.

“He’s not a criminal anymore.” He snapped.

“Leave it, Pat.” Deceit admonished.

“No. Maybe in your universe it’s different, but you guys need to know that in ours, he’s a part of our family.”

“You just let a villain be part of the team?” Patton asked.

“He proved his trustworthiness.” Other Logan said.

“And he’s a good friend.” Virgil said, looking at him fondly.

Deceit shouldered him. “Sap.” He muttered.

Logan felt a flame of jealousy burn in his gut. Looking at Roman, he saw he felt the same.

“So I gather my counterpart didn’t really do much to land himself in your good graces, judging by the way you look at me.” The snake remarked.

“He’s dead.” Patton reported lightly.

Logan took a small pleasure in the shock on the villain's face.

They made it home and got their counterparts settled, watching with disappointment as Virgil disappeared into their room.

~

Patton stared in horror at the file laid out in front of him.

“No.” He protested weakly, trying to find an explanation that wasn’t this .

Janus turned away from the file and leant against the table.

“The file is pretty solid evidence, I don’t know why they would fake that.” Logan said, looking at him pityingly.

“They, we wouldn’t do that.” Patton said.

“They’re not us.” Roman protested vehemently.

Logan just sighed.

“I wish I could be so certain of that. Yes, their actions horrify me, but you have to remember that they lost their lover in a very traumatic way. Try to put yourself in their shoes, how would you react if you lost Virgil?”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Patton protested, but he knew how weak it sounded.

He tried to imagine Virgil dying the way the others had described. Tried to imagine the grief, the anger they must have felt. The pain felt worryingly familiar. He found he had almost no trouble placing himself in their shoes.

He stared at the picture of Janus, the other Janus, splayed out on the ground, a dark puddle of blood around him, his eyes open and accusing.

In one day, he had found out about the death of two of his lovers, one at the hands of himself. And he knew they weren’t the same people, he knew it was a different universe, but it still made him feel sick and angry.

Was he truly capable of such horrendous acts?

“Janus, you know I’d never do that, right?” He begged.

Janus smiled weakly at him.

“Not in our universe, mon amour.” He consoled, drawing Patton against his chest.

“We can’t let them continue with this.” Virgil spoke up for the first time.

“What should we do?” Roman asked.

“We take them down, the way we’ve taken down so many villains over the years. They’re not much better.”

~

Virgil sat on the roof, watching the quiet city from above. He thought about his less fortunate counterpart. He tried to imagine what it would feel like, to lose one of his lovers. It didn’t excuse their actions, he told himself. But maybe it explained them, another part of his brain whispered.

The entrance to the roof opened and Other Patton sat down on the roof next to him. Virgil tensed.

“Hi.” Patton said, his voice wavering and his eyes glistening with tears.

They sat in tense silence for a while. Virgil tried to ignore the quickening breaths coming from the other and the soft sobs.

Eventually, he cracked.

“Patton…” He said gently, turning towards him.

Patton choked on a sob as he looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, I just miss you so much. Well, not you you, the other you, our you.” Patton babbled.

“And you look so much like him and it just…” He sobbed.

“There’s just so many things I wish I could tell him.”

Virgil stared into those bright blue eyes, spilling tears. Those eyes he looked at every morning, that sparkled with joy whenever he made a pun. And he looked at the unmeasurable grief in them. And that was his Patton, staring into his soul, not this dark twisted version.

He wrapped him up into his arms.

“It’s okay, just tell me… Tell me all the things you want to tell him.”

“I… I want to tell him that I’m sorry, I’m sorry for not being there in time, we should have saved him and we were too late. And I want to tell him I love him so, so much. And I want to tell you that I love your laugh and your dimples and your grumpy morning face and… Oh god, I’m so sorry.” He was shaking all over from the force of his sobs.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Virgil tried to console him desperately.

He had no idea what to do. He was torn between sympathy and revulsion. The thought that his lovers could commit acts like that was horrifying. The fact that they did it for him doubly so.

He knew these people weren’t his lovers but beside the fact that he had died, he hadn’t found any notable differences between their timeline and his. Logan had said it was fruitless research but Virgil had to know. He had hoped there would be something, some big past event or even a small change that set these monsters apart from the people he knew.

He settled for drawing the other Patton in closer, resting his head on his curly hair.

“It’ll be okay.” He murmured, hoping he was right.

~

In the end, it was almost laughably easy.

Janus and Roman went into the city. With their talents for convincing and theatrics, and the general resentment the citizens harboured for their heroes, they managed to gather a sizable army of insurgents.

Logan and Patton worked on coordinating the plan and laying the traps. And Virgil led them in.

The other heroes were suspicious of their counterparts, jealous of the fact that they hadn’t had to suffer the same loss and they seemed to notice the revulsion the heroes had to the way they had taken care of the villains in the city.

But they trusted Virgil blindly. Despite the knowledge he wasn’t their Virgil, they couldn’t help but latch onto him.

The insurgents dismantled the cameras and surveillance systems the heroes had installed.

Virgil brought the others news of a disturbance in a warehouse and they followed him blindly into the traps laid by Logan and Patton.

“It’s over.” Virgil said, looking at the three handcuffed on the floor.

“No, it’s not.” Other Roman snarled. He looked to the others for support. Patton looked away, ashamed. Logan was just staring at the opposite wall, his expression neutral.

“Janus and Roman broke through the barriers around the city. The outside world has been alerted and a specialised force to incarcerate you is underway.” Virgil’s Logan reported.

“We’ve done nothing wrong. We saved this city, you can’t lock us up for that.” Roman said.

“You’re going to prison for at least five counts of murder for each of you, and a whole other laundry list of crimes.” Patton countered. He couldn’t believe that even now, they didn’t see the wrong in their actions.

The heroes watched from the rooftops as their counterparts were led into the van, under the watchful eye of the insurgents who had taken back the city with their help.

“Well, this was fun.” Janus muttered.

Patton shuddered, he didn’t think he would ever be able to get the image of his dead boyfriends out of his mind.

Logan was quiet. He had dreamed of getting his revenge on Remus for years, but was this what it would inevitably lead to? He had always thought he was a good person, maybe not as compassionate and altruistic as the others, but definitely not a cold blooded murderer.

“Let’s never do this again.” Virgil said, his eyes still trained on the van.

“Yeah, good idea.” Roman muttered, his eyes just the slightest bit teary.

They drew closer together, hands finding hands and finding comfort in the solid warmth of their family.

[graveyard-in-the-void]

--- The Jumping Devil --- (Me:  I have no inspiration. Me: Listens to “Jumping Devil” by Living Tombstone. Me: I have inspiration. One day I will explain why I love little Henry so much. Dumbass gremlin bitch. BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY!)

- - -

It was all over the news. Horrifying reports of a killer on the loose. A Serial Killer, with absolutely clear intent. They called him the Jumping Devil. Why? Because he himself called him that. Letters arrived at the police station, were found on the street, cut out of little pieces of newspapers. Parts of the first letter were from the reports of his first murder. “As of yet, there has been no clear pattern established. Everyone is urgently asked to stay inside during these hours and stay clear of any suspicious people on the road. The current investigations-“ The TV was muffled audible from Henry’s bedroom, where he sat and stared at the ceiling, grumpy. He was basically locked inside by his parents. Life was so unfair. He wasn’t scared! He could take care of himself! Bored he held up his plastic gun and shot pellets at the ceiling, accepting that they rained back down, right on his face. No, he wouldn’t stay inside. The city could beg him as much as it wanted. His parents didn’t need to know anyways. Grabbing his bag that he kept in his room always, he gently opened the window by a little bit and then laid down, the lights out, his eyes closed. This was routine. The door opened, his mom entered to check on him and give him a kiss on the forehead- standard too. And then? He was good to go. Crawling out of the window, quietly, he suppressed an excited giggle as his feet hit the cold ground. Freedom! Quickly he made his way along the house, somewhat careful to not be in direct line of sight. Joyful, he took a deep breath. The air was wonderful and it was so SILENT! Music to his ears. Yeah! Now nobody could tell him anything! The world was full of possibilities! The world was- “Hey, kid!” A raspy, low voice almost made him jump. Panicked he turned to see a guy slowly step into the weak light of a faulty lantern. And what a guy it was! He must have been seven feet and a half, more than- five times his size! Surely! It was almost impossible to see anything about his face, aside from his glinting, aggressive eyes and the glint of his cigarette. “What are you doing here on the streets?” “Uhm- I- I lost something and I- d-didn’t want my parents to find out…” No, this WAS intimidating, he wouldn’t lie. This man was much, much more intimidating than he ever imagined another person to be. Even scarier than his dad when he was angry. Oh god, what would this man look like when angry?! Slowly he approached as Henry stumbled backwards. “… shouldn’t be on the streets so late. Bad folks is around to this hour. Especially since recently.” Steady he moved forward, easily being quicker that Henry, grabbing his wrist tightly, causing the boy to cry out. “L-Let go of me! You can’t just- do this! I’ll go home in a bit!” “What did you lose?” Quietly he asked. “I’m not telling you!” Even more impatient the man repeated his words, his raspy tone turning a tad louder. “What did you LOSE? I can’t and won’t let you-” A third, very sharp and cold voice joined. “Let go of the child, right this instant.” They both snapped around seeing a police officer standing there, his gun drawn. Henry made a noise of relief. “P-please office, I just want to go home-“ Slowly the giant man let go of the boy, who promptly rushed to the officer’s side, hiding a bit behind his leg. The police man’s voice turned a whole deal softer as he shortly glanced at Henry. “Is everything okay there?” The stranger spoke up, his voice shaking. “Listen, office, I- it wasn’t- I didn’t try to-“ “You shut your mouth.” Instantly his voice turned cold again. “Slowly on your knees, keep your hands where I can SEE them. Around at this hour, grabbing a child that quite clearly isn’t yours and it is “not” as you’re trying to say? You come with me.” Surprisingly, despite his size, the guy seemed to have tears in his eyes as he slowly went down. “I swear, I was trying to-“ “Better be quiet buddy, everything you tell me now can be used in the court of law. I will call for backup and then you can explain all the way what you were TRYING to do before I arrived. You probably know what it LOOKS like, don’t you? I have nothing but disgust for people like you. Aren’t that confidence when you aren’t writing your little letters mocking the police, huh? I wonder what we will find on you.” The large man was looking down, but as he looked up, for a split second, he saw something shiny beside the guard. The boy beside him spoke suddenly up. “A knife.” “Wh-?” Before the guy could even turn a little he was hit right in the throat, pierced cleanly through then taken back out. The boy was so young, he had to jump both to get the knife in and out, yet did it with a surprising efficiency. When the officer collapsed, he stepped closer to the body, using the clean part of the corpse’s shirt to clean his weapon, before looking at the guy in front of him, who had fallen back in shock. “If you scream or come any closer, I will scream. And I will say it was you. And you know who they’ll believe.” Letting go of the knife, he smiled. “What’s your name?” “M-Malcolm-?” “Cool! I’m Henry. You know why I tell you that?” The man shook his head, mortified. “B-because you will kill me next…?” Puzzled Henry looked at him, then broke out in laughter. Oh, he was trying HARD to keep it down, but it was almost impossible. “Dude. You’re… a billion times stronger than me! Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” He twirled on the spot, stepping away bit by bit. “I am telling you… because nobody will ever believe you! And I think that’s funny! I think I like you!” The boy laughed again. “Look at you. What can you do? If you stalk me to gather evidence, then… oh buddy boy, the FBI will have a field day with you! And the prison system. You know.” “H-how can you… y-you’re TEN!” Malcolm’s poor mind wasn’t able to handle this. “I am twelve!” Instantly the kid snapped at him. Apparently he hit a nerve. “And I am very mature for my age!” “You just-“ “I just killed a man. And I killed more before. And I will kill more after! Do you know how FUNNY this is? They come to me like I am some sort of great mystery box! But there’s a jumping jack inside, all in there is a little jumping devil that gets them every time! Now they will be MAD though. We killed one of them.” “WE?!” “Well, you were here too!” He snickered. Slowly Malcolm had made it onto his feet, shaken to the core. Henry hummed. “I wouldn’t go out at night anymore, friend. It’s dangerous outside. Especially looking like you. You’re one mask away from every Slasher killer ever! I’m surprised you’re not called Jason or something. Hah!” The man was rubbing his face, tears gently dropping from his eyes. He just saw a man die. “I- I’m- you- this- w-what did you even lose…?” Suspicious Henry looked at him. “… are you senile?” Then he paused, looking at the corpse. “Well, I guess my knife. I hate leaving it behind. Tell you what, if you bring it somewhere I can find it, I’ll take you as my new playmate. Maybe you CAN prove that it was me! Someday. In a few years. But you can’t do that if you’re dead! So…” He leaned over. “… how about we play a game. If you bring me the knife back where I can find it, I will take it as you taking up the challenge. Then I won’t kill you if I see you on the streets randomly at night, okay? If you don’t and I catch you snooping, I will stab you when you least expect it! Or maybe worse!” Boastful the boy rose up. “I got away with so much. It is almost getting boring. Please bring the knife and put it on my route to school somewhere. It would be fun!” And with that, the boy skipped away, humming satisfied. Leaving behind more terror than ever before. Until next time.

[tired-writeblr]

My first chapter

Sup dudes!

Some of you seem interested in my current wip, so I thought ‘what the heck, let them read some of it.’ Please bear in mind that it is the very first draft, and is by no means even near perfect, but I think it has some moments that shine through, and I hope you enjoy!

It was a relatively average night for a country village. There was a spot of rain, but the kind of rain that struggles to make a person even slightly damp, rain so light it’s almost as if it apologises for each little drop that hits. “Oops, I’m awfully sorry” the rain might say “I really hope I didn’t make a mark.” It’s awfully polite rain. The village, though small, had everything a person could need (as long as that person was a medieval peasant). It had some stalls to purchase goods, farms to work, a Blacksmith's shop, and the two most important buildings, that would remain a vital necessity for every Christian town, city and village for centuries; a place to worship, and a place to get drunk afterwards.

Candle light could be seen glowing in the church, even though it was in fact completely empty. The tavern, on the other hand, was packed. Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise; drinking is a lot more fun than praying, even the priest and monks agreed. Hell, at a time when even drinking the water would probably kill you, getting drunk was one of the few pleasures people had. And since the water was likely to give you a minor case of death, it was much safer to drink wine and mead, and so getting drunk was just a daily fact of life. The tavern was quite large, with plenty of wooden stools and wooden tables, most of which were occupied by drunken men and women (and some drunken children). The owner, a large bald man with a crooked nose, light brown skin, and a very welcoming smile, was behind the counter serving people drinks, whilst his two daughters, Camilla and Magdalena, were running about carrying food and collecting the tankards. Camilla was a large woman, with her father's smile, a broad nose, long black hair in a bun, and brown eyes. Magdalena was thin, and had her father's crooked nose, but unlike her sister had brown hair in a long plait. Both were beautiful in their own way, and both were often the victim of unwanted advances from some of the non-local male patrons, which often didn't end well as Magdalena had a hell of a right hook, and Camilla often used it as an opportunity to pick the man's pocket.

The tavern was often a noisy place. That night was no exception. And one table a drunken coachman was telling tales no sober person would believe, but the men and women at his table were not sober and took him at his word. At the bar itself sat a large drunken monk with a big walrus moustache. He was one of those people that would be incredibly forgettable if it weren't for one single feature. For this monk it was his moustache. It was so memorable that people simply called him Friar Moustache, which he believed to be a term of endearment, but was in fact because not a soul in the village knew his actual name, not even the priest (who was at this point sat next to Friar Moustache resting his head on the bar, drunkenly mumbling incoherently). Friar Moustache was leading a choir of drunken men singing a popular drinking song. There were a lot of harrumph's and ho's, and a great deal of crude language and descriptions of various lewd acts. The only one more enthusiastic about the song than Friar Moustache was an old man, possibly in his early to mid sixties, known to the villagers as Ser Malcolm the White. He looked a bit like a mid-sized bear. Well more accurately, a mid-sized, shaved, pink, alcoholic bear wearing an almost shoulder length curly white wig, with a scruffy white goatee, a wrinkled face, and tired eyes. His accent was surprisingly similar to the modern Glaswegian accent. He had once been a knight who fought for glory and honour and place in the history books, but he never won any of those things. All he did achieve was reaching a ripe old age, and now the only fight he had was the one to get out of bed each morning, which was getting harder every day.

On a table near the back of the tavern sat a young man just holding a tankard. His skin was pale, his eyes were wide, and tired looking. He gazed ahead of him as if he were staring into the abyss itself. This young man was an unfortunate peasant by the name of Glenn, and earlier that day he had died, which, as it usually does for most people, was causing him a great deal of distress. Now, many may think ‘well, he doesn’t seem that dead, he seems pretty alive.’ And those who do think that would be correct. He was in fact very much alive.  

***

“Don’t worry, I got this this” Glenn had said to the huntsman, as the boar began charging and he attempted to pull back the drawstring on his longbow.  He most certainly did not. You see, longbows require a great deal of upper body strength, which weedy, little Glenn didn’t actually possess. Why he had been given a bow by his father, it’s hard to tell. Perhaps his father hated him, which actually seems quite likely; he did have several more capable siblings. He managed to pull the bowstring back only a little before releasing, causing the arrow to travel only a couple of feet in a downward arch until it landed on the ground in front of him, seconds before the boar collided with him, knocking him to the ground. It would have actually been a little funny if he weren’t about to die. The huntsman tried to stab the beast with, but he missed, and the boar itself narrowly missed him. He immediately decided the best course of action was to run away before he was killed horribly. The beast chased him off a little before turning back towards Glenn. By this point he had managed to get to his feet, but his head was still spinning, and he was very unsteady on his feet.

The boar looked more like a monster than anything else now. It looked almost the size of a cow, with huge sword length tusks either side of its incredibly large snout. Of course, it was not in fact that size, or even especially monstrous. It was an average boar, but in his panicked, and dizzy state, his imagination had gone mad. It didn't help that he had never actually seen a living boar this close before, so he had no memory to compare it to. He attempted to stagger away, with little success. He stumbled just as the beast charged at him again, and this time was immediately gored by the creature’s tusks. It was a rather unpleasant sight, huge gashes into the poor man’s flesh from the beast’s tusks. Spaghetti sauce or blood gushed out of the wound, covering his shirt. It was probably blood. Either way, it would stain. The world around him began to dim, and the last thing he saw was the bloody beast wandering off back into the forest.

Okay, so it wasn’t the last thing he saw. Not long after, he awoke to find himself still in the forest, and caught a glimpse of the beast’s backside as it wandered off. For a second he froze and held his breath, but when he was sure the boar wasn’t going to charge again, he sat up, and touched him side. He found two large, deep gashes from the boar's tusks on his right hand side that should have killed him as far as he was aware, but there was no blood. He stood up, and looked back to where he had been lying. His eye widened.

“Holy mother of god!” he screamed, on the edge of tears. Lying there, at his feet, was him. Well, more accurately, his body. Even more accurately, his very bloody body, with the exact same wounds he had. He stood there, staring at his own corpse for a while, sobbing in a very gross, ugly fashion.

He was disturbed from his silent mourning by the sounds of loud slurping. He turned to see a skeleton in a large black hooded cloak, and bright blue fluffy bunny slippers, drinking something from a ceramic mug covered in little colourful fish. The being was reading a newspaper (of course, Glenn had no idea what a newspaper was, as they wouldn’t be a thing for a few more centuries, he was also mostly illiterate, so it just looked like a piece of paper with squiggles one – which is all any newspaper or book is really) and hadn’t noticed him. He coughed a little to get the being’s attention, with no success. Whatever they were reading in the paper, they were engrossed in it. The being took another large, loud sip from his fish mug, and spoke. “Hmm, four down, five letters, unpleasantly bitter” said the being in an almost ethereal, other worldly voice. The being reached to put their mug down on a table that wasn’t there. The mug fell to the ground, and smashed. The being looked up from his paper, and down at the broken mug, then looked at Glenn, then back at the mug, then back to Glenn.

Now, without an actual face the being couldn’t really provide any facial expression that would suggest just how annoyed they were, but they were incredibly annoyed, and would have scowled at Glenn if possible, which it wasn't (no eyebrows). They were so annoyed that they gave off this feeling of deep, intense annoyance, that even the dimmest of people could pick up.  

“Oh great” said the being sarcastically “another dead mortal, just what I wanted.” Glenn shuffled awkwardly and didn’t say anything. He tried to avoid making eye contact. He didn’t want to make the skeletal being even angrier by saying something stupid. It did not work.

“I was happily doing my crossword, drinking my coffee, but you just had to die, didn’t you?” continued the being, slowly becoming less sarcastic, and more openly angry about having been disturbed “bloody mortals, I hate this damned job.” At this, Glenn was confused.

“What job?” he inquired

“Oh for goodness sake, are you really that dim? Must I explain everything?” replied the being

Glenn shrugged and nodded awkwardly.

"It might help a bit" he said.

The being groaned at this and would have grimaced if they could have.

“Very well. I am Death, claimer of souls, destroyer of worlds, and you died” said Death reluctantly “I’m here for your soul blah, blah blah, take you to the afterlife and all that crap so you can be judged by some jumped up little prick” Glenn just stood there, slightly stunned by the fact that he was talking to death, but also a little underwhelmed. He expected more from Death, though he couldn’t tell you exactly he expected. He definitely would have preferred someone nicer.

“That it?” he said after a few moments of silence.

“I’ve been doing this for a while buddy, and honestly I can’t be arsed with this” replied Death tiredly. They stood in silence for a few minutes. Glenn wasn’t sure what to say to an immortal cosmic entity. Death was beginning to think they should have listened to their mother and become a butcher (though in a way, being the grim reaper isn’t all that much different to being a butcher, at least, that was what they had said to her).

“So, mister Death, sir” began Glenn ending the awkward silence.

“Now listen here mate” said Death, interrupting the recently dead person “I am a skeletal cosmic freaking entity that exists outside of space and time, I really do not have the time for the restrictive genders of you mortals”

“Oh, right, sorry” responded the recently deceased Glenn “you could be a bit nicer about it though, I have just died!.” He gestured to his still warm body, that was lying in a pool of his own blood (or spaghetti sauce, though probably blood), and was being pecked at by a bird that looked a bit like a raven, though since Glenn knew nothing about birds, especially ravens, he wasn’t entirely certain.

“Mate, shut up” said Death “damned mortals!”

“But what now though?” asked Glenn, ignoring Death, “do I go with you? Or am I stuck here?”

“Honestly, I don’t care mate, do what you want” replied Death exasperatedly “I just want to go back to my crossword, but now I have to deal with all the sodding paper work!”

“Could you just let me go back to being alive?”

“Not likely, I mean look” Death said as he pointed at the corpse being pecked at what may or may not have been a raven “you are pretty obviously dead.”

“Oh, right” responded Glenn gloomily “I understand.”

“Although” began Death craftily

“Although what?”

“You could just be mostly dead”

“How can I be mostly dead?” asked Glenn confused by the whole situation

“Well, you personally are obviously properly dead, but sometimes people are a little bit alive, and in those circumstances, I can let them go back to being alive”

“Okay!” responded Glenn excitedly.

“And thankfully there is no paperwork because you were alive” continued Death happily, using his skeletal fingers to do air quotes around the word alive “plus I don’t have to deal with you anymore, so go on back.” Glenn nodded and followed Death’s orders. He lay down on top of his body, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then winced in pain. His eyes shot open, and he sat up, covered in his own blood, shirt ruined, glad about not having to be dead, but understandably still rather shaken by the whole experiences.

“Oh, by the way, don’t die again anytime soon, because if you do I’ll make you regret it” said Death threateningly before grabbing his newspaper and disappearing.

***

"Helloo, anyone home" said a woman's voice startling Glenn a bit, causing him to drop him his empty tankard. It was Camilla.

"Ah bollocks" exclaimed Glenn

"Watch your language Glenn" responded Camilla feigning offence

"Sorry, I was someplace else" explained Glenn

"No worries sweetie" she said reassuringly "is everything okay? You look like death." Glenn reached for his side. His shirt was still a little damp with his spaghetti sauce, I mean, blood. It was probably some sort of health and safety violation for him to be in the tavern, but they didn't have health and safety, which explains a great many things about the period, like why there were so many things that could end your life prematurely.

"Its...err...I'm fine?" he replied, though it came out as if he were asking a question.

"Oh, that's great sweetie" said Camilla, completely uninterested, she wasn't really paying attention. The tavern was busy and Glenn was one of those people who you could easily forget about. She grabbed his tankard and got back to work.

The singing had all but come to an end, even Ser Malcolm had stopped. The only one still singing, if you could call slurring most of the words and forgetting the other ones singing, was Friar Moustache. He was swaying a little one his stool and swinging his arm about, seemingly forgetting he was still holding a half full mug of mead. His big finish came, and he leant back on his stool and toppled over, flinging his mug into the air, which quickly came crashing down onto the head of another drunken patron.

"oi, Wheresh me drink gone?" slurred Friar Moustache "were in me han!"

He struggled to get back up onto his feet. Camilla walked quickly over to see what the commotion, and bent down. "Let me help you Friar" said Camilla. He smiled at her a great big stupid drunken grin.

"Yur a riight goodun" he replied taking her hand and letting her pull him up.

"You need to go home Friar" said the owner in a thick Lancashire accent from behind the counter "You've had a bit much mate."

“Iamsickofyourshit,” Moustache said, his words tumbling from his mouth in a rush of barely distinguishable syllables. The owner nodded to his daughter, and a couple of his larger, more sober patrons, who grabbed the drunken holy man, and tried to escort him calmly out.

“Gerroff me!” he said as he wobbled “I’m ash sober ash ‘m gonna git. And there nuffink - wait wait wait - nuffink you can do ‘boutit.” He shook free of their grasp, and ambled back to the bar without so much as hiccup in their direction. The owner was much less polite after the first attempt.

"Just carry him out" he ordered a couple of patrons.

"Gerroff! I'm a man o cloth" objected Friar Moustache "I'ma have words with god if ya don't gerroff." They ignored him, and carried him through the tavern, whilst the other patrons simply ignored what was pretty average for a Sunday evening.

They carried him through the door and dropped him on the ground. "Sorry Friar" said one of the men who had been carrying him. The friar rolled over and struggled to get up, but refused to any offer of help from those who had just chucked him out.

"Itsh fine, gerroff" he said "I can do it meself." The men looked at one another, shrugged and went back inside. The friar climbed back onto his feet and stumbled forward. He grabbed a wooden hitching post for support. He clung there, slack-jawed and slumped over, for a long time before he began staggering away from the tavern towards the church. He was planning to have a bit of holy wine before heading to bed. It was dark, and the polite rain had become proper rain. He was drunkenly mumbling angrily to himself about having been thrown out of the tavern. He was insistent that he wasn't that drunk, even though he was barely able to stand, or string a sentence together.

As he approached the midway point between the tavern and the church he noticed a very bright, almost blinding light out of the corner of his eye. He turned¸ squinted, and walked towards the light.

"Whasis? Whas goin on?" he exclaimed, though still slurring his words "Lord is tha you?"

Friar Moustache walked into the light, and fell backwards with a loud 'oof'

"Watch where you're going, drunk prick!" yelled a feminine voice, coming from the light, as it seemed to float round the friar and wandered towards the edge of the village. Moustache sat there for a minute, his mouth agape, shocked. After a few minutes of watching the light float away, he drunkenly climbed up onto his feet, looked towards the church, then at the tavern, then at the church again, made the sign of the cross, then staggered back towards the tavern.

[mon-blanchetts]

Thieves Among Us (Part 4)

Let Jon have his armies and his devoted wildlings and the love of their people, she thinks. Let him have his dragon queen. She’s in possession of a secret, tragic as it may be, but at least it’s entirely her own. For Sansa, that’s more than enough. It has to be. Rated M; inspired by content from S7. Previous chapters can be found here.

A huge thanks to @alittlestardustcaught for beta reading this chapter!

We used to play in the godswood together when we were children, me and you and Robb and Theon. You remember that, don’t you?

Jon stared at the ancient face carved into the heart tree. That was what Sansa had asked him when they had been in the broken tower, when the tension in that small room had been thick enough to taste on his tongue. There she was, looking out towards the godswood with her back facing him, her body a tense line, her voice soft and wistful. It wasn’t enough to fool him—Jon knew that she was barely holding herself together, but he couldn’t undo what had been done. Worse, he didn’t what she was referring to—not then, not now. It rang true, was the thing, authentic, and yet for the life of him he couldn’t conjure any memory whatsoever to fit with her words. All those moons ago, Jon had assumed that he’d been too wrapped up in his intentions to think about anything else other than what he had to do, what he had to end, but lately his perceptions had altered. More and more, he realized that there were other things he couldn’t remember, a dark space in his consciousness where something ought to have been, but no longer was. It left him feeling unsettled and out-of-touch, but he had yet to mention it to anybody. Jon wanted to change that.

The winds were biting this afternoon, moving all around him in a way he thought somewhat uninviting. Despite all the layers he wore beneath his cloak, Jon never felt warm, whether he was inside or out. It wasn’t a bad thing to lament over—at least it kept him alert, sharp. Warmth lulled him to sleep, wrapped him with a false sense of hope and security. Not a soul on either continent was in a place to think that, him least of all.

 “Still praying to the old gods, are you now?”

 Beric Dondarrion’s voice was smooth like marble, a calming sound that seemed fitting for the place they stood in. Jon turned his back on the heart tree, taking in the man approaching him. “No more than I pray to all the other gods,” he replied.

 “Don’t believe in any of them, you mean?” Lord Beric smirked. “Not even the Lord of Light, who brought you back to life? Who chose you to be the Prince that was Promised?”

 Jon huffed in response. That damned prophecy, not to mention that damned title—why did he have to be part of it all? He was a survivor, first and foremost; all he could hope for was to see the world he knew make it through whatever was coming for all of them, but Jon knew he wasn’t the only one who believed that. The Red Witch was entirely at fault for this, and for that he was even more exasperated with her. Where she had disappeared to after she’d been given a private audience with Dany remained a mystery, but there was not a doubt in his mind she would find ways to stir up trouble wherever she was.

 “Maybe I don’t know what I believe in anymore,” he said, turning to the heart tree again. He tried to ignore the way his stomach throbbed to life again, just as it had when he woke this morn. “What I do know is that I’m here—I’m alive, and now there’s an undead army of thousands, maybe more, marching towards us…yet here I am, trying to convince myself and everyone around me that we can defeat them.” Jon knew it was the worst thing to say, but doing so had been strangely comforting. Remedial, almost, seeing as he’d wanted to let it out for ages.

 Behind him, Beric Dondarrion said nothing. Strange to think that this was likely the first instance they were making conversation, despite the fact that they had journeyed beyond the Wall together in order to gather proof of the Night King’s army of the Dead. A white walker had dealt him a near-fatal blow to his stomach when that horde of wights had ambushed his party, a stab wound that had gone deep. Even now, Jon could remember with vivid clarity how it felt, as if the blood in his veins had turned to ice while the enemy’s spear was lodged in his flesh—but there was something else to it as well, something that he didn’t have the chance to reflect on until he’d reached the safety of the Wall. Jon couldn’t explain it, but in that moment he felt as if he had lost a part of him, as if the white walker had ripped something vital out of him when it had pulled its spear back.

 Jon glanced over his shoulder. Lord Beric was studying the red leaves above him with his exposed eye, one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He had seen the man fight and drink and laugh, all the things that the living did, but there was always a haunted look in his eye that never went away, an emptiness that came through his voice no matter what he was saying. A shell of a man. That was what Beric Dondarrion was.

 “When was the last time you set foot in the godswood, Lord Beric?”

 The man snorted. “Barely even went to my own, back before everything went to shit.” He looked around, as if he was expecting someone else to be with them. “The people at the castle like to talk quite a bit. A fellow died here, no? That’s a travesty, in a sanctuary like this.”

 Jon nodded. “So the story goes. They found the corpse lying about, but there isn’t anyone who can explain what happened, not even the maesters.”

 “Was the man someone of importance?”

 “That depends who you ask,” he said, unable to hide the smirk that formed on his mouth. He turned his gaze down at the snowy ground beneath his feet. Jon tried to imagined the corpse lying before him, facedown in the snow just like Maester Payton and others had described. The body had been given to the flames shortly after the discovery, just like he’d ordered of every corpse in their midst. Sansa had seen to that.

 Beric Dondarrion cocked his head. “From the sound of it, you weren’t too taken by him. Am I right?”

 “Petyr Baelish was Lady Sansa’s guest, not mine,” he said, his voice hard, unforgiving. “I’ve a feeling there aren’t a great many who miss him, but I could be wrong.” Sansa’s face flashed through his mind and his wound throbbed with more fervor than before. She had written to him personally about the whole thing, a detached, sterile piece that arrived at Dragonstone by raven. Littlefinger is dead, his body found in the godswood, but nobody knows how he got there or what happened to him. We’ve burned the body. Squabbles have begun over his legacy. If she had experienced any grief of loss, it was completely missing in her letter.

 “One less corpse for the Night King to get his fucking hands on, that’s how I see it,” Lord Beric mused. He looked Jon straight in the eye. “Why did you ask for me, Your Grace?”

 It was a last resort, but Jon felt that someone who’d been through the same experience might understand. Was his predicament truly his own?

 “There are things I can’t remember,” he said, his eyes still focused on the face of the heart tree. “It’s just…at first, I thought it was only things that happened a long, long time ago, but now I’m realizing that there are more gaps in my memory, things that people discuss of recent that I can’t recall at all.” He let out a sigh, his breath floating before him.

 When Jon glanced at Lord Beric, his expression was unreadable. His stomach knotted inside him. Jon didn’t know what the man was thinking, wasn’t sure if he understood. Suddenly he felt foolish about the whole thing, angry at himself for requesting his presence here, a man he didn’t really know about.

 “You don’t get to come back the same,” Lord Beric said, upending the silence between them. “You forget things that happened in your life, and there’s no picking and choosing the memories that disappear. Those lost memories, though—you’ll never know how meaningful they were, anyway. You could say it’s a small mercy.”

 “That’s no mercy,” Jon protested. He wasn’t sure why, but he was oddly affronted by the man’s comment. He felt swindled, incomplete.

 Lord Beric lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? Those memories you say you can’t remember—they could have all been bad ones, something sad or tragic. That’s not a terrible thing to have away with.”

 Jon scoffed. “I doubt the Lord of Light is benevolent enough to allow something as convenient as that.” He thought about what Sansa had made mention of in the broken tower. She had shrugged it off as soon as she realized that he didn’t know what she was talking about—she’d shrugged him off shortly after, but that hadn’t been a surprise at all—but her disappointment was discernible in that small chamber built high above the keep. Why had she brought up something that happened so long ago? Was it all to fill that ugly silence that pressed down on them while she came to terms with what he was doing, or was there more significance to it?

 “I thought you weren’t keen to believe in the Lord of Light,” his companion pointed out, tilting his head to the side to scratch beneath his chin. Jon said nothing.

 “Look at it the way a scale works. The Lord of Light puts you on one side, but there’s nothing else to put on the other side to make it balance. A life is owed, yours, but something has to give for you to come back. So a compromise is made. You get to come back, I get to come back, but we’re not the same people we used to be. Every course of action has a consequence.”

 Jon tried to swallow what Lord Beric had said “How much have you forgotten?”

 His companion shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Sometimes I do things I find myself questioning afterwards and wonder if it’s because it’s to do with who I was before. Besides,” he reached forward to touch the heart tree, almost reverently, “how do you know what’s lost to you if you didn’t have any knowledge about it in the first place?”

 An image of Sansa, splayed out beneath him, naked, her auburn hair spread over the pillow, her head tilted back in ecstasy to expose her beautiful throat. A better man wouldn’t have done what he did with her, despite Littlefinger’s own beliefs. It’s easy to fall in love with her, your sister, but even easier to fall in lust with. Any man able to withstand charms like hers might not be much of a man at all. Jon hadn’t been out to satisfy his lust, not while he’d been inside Sansa. He just wanted to help her forget, just like she had asked. Give me back a piece of home I’ve lost, Jon. Give me something to get lost in. A part of him knew that they were doing something wrong, filthy, but it had been too easy to push that away, too easy to forget the sanctity of their blood relations. And yet, Jon had taken Sansa to bed because he loved her. Perhaps it was that love that had become twisted when he had been brought back. Telling her he regretted it all when he didn’t had been a means to protect both of them, but it had ended up destroying what precious bond that they had forged, a bond that he realized could never be replicated or mended.

 He thought of all the people he placed his confidence in, Sam and Ser Davos and Tormund. Jon thought about Dany and the ironies that the gods enjoyed heaping on him. He had known her for such a short period of time, and yet the history they shared was probably enough to span an entire lifetime. War had the ability to make time stretch when it saw fit; it was no wonder that one experience felt like it happened ages ago. He had questioned his connection with Sansa based off what he thought he knew—he had questioned his connection with Dany because of what he didn’t. Were all of his follies also the work of the same god?

 “What goes through your mind, Your Grace?”

 Jon blinked once, twice. He looked at Lord Beric. “Nothing worth voicing out loud,” he said, offering the man a tight smile. The leaves rustled above their heads while the wind wailed, a sorrowful sound that seemed to go straight to his heart.

 “I’ll stay here then, if you’re finished with me,” his companion said, glancing at his surroundings. “Not a bad place after all, this.”

 Jon left Lord Beric on his own. His wound was throbbing again, but he ignored it. A small worry had been accounted for, but it hadn’t been lifted, not really. His sporadic bouts of amnesia still weighed him down along with the rest of his troubles, but it was a small comfort knowing that he wasn’t suffering alone. He didn’t think he agreed with Lord Beric’s philosophies, but he had none to offer, either.

 Every course of action has a consequence. That part was certainly true. There would have been consequences, severe ones, if he and Sansa hadn’t ended what it was they had, despite his own desires, despite hers. Littlefinger had veered too close to the truth, and Jon wasn’t sure how far the man would’ve gone with his suspicions, who else he would have passed them to. What if his lords had got wind of what he’d been doing with Sansa? His stomach twisted almost painfully from the thought. The King in the North, fucking his own sister. That’s how they would’ve all viewed it. Neither of them would have been able to hide behind the Stark name then. They would have been as corrupt as the Lannisters, as mad as the Targaryens, not a bit different than their enemies. What defense could either of them stand on, had their transgressions come to light? Would Sansa have wanted him then, knowing that he’d been an accomplice in her downfall?

 He almost didn’t notice the entrance of the crypts, nearly passing it entirely, but he stopped in his tracks. The last time he had been there, he’d looked to Ned Stark’s effigy for guidance and strength; Jon had merely glanced at the statue of Lyanna Stark without giving it any thought whatsoever. There wasn’t a reason to pause and reflect, nothing to linger on. Lyanna Stark had been a tragic figure, no doubt, but her presence had been muted in favor of the battles and victories he and his brothers were more interested in. If only he’d known differently. If only Ned had said something. He had promised though, hadn’t he? His uncle had promised to discuss more about it when he came back from King’s Landing, but how much would he have let on?

 Again and again, he dreamt of her. It was the same thing every time; always she would appear before him as a child, dressed in Stark gray, her eyes full of wisdom that wasn’t natural for her age. They both partook in that same game of hide-and-seek, that which he always lost because then Sansa would appear, always Sansa, completely oblivious to their presence, pulling out that casket from underneath her bed, its design so simple and nondescript that he couldn’t even begin to figure out what lay inside. It eluded him each time, its contents, despite the fact that he was always trying to see, always waiting for her to lift open the lid while Lyanna giggled behind the drawn curtains. Whenever he got close to finally satisfying his curiosity, darkness took hold of him and he found himself back in his own bed, frustrated and confused. Of all the things to grow mad about, it was being thwarted by his desires in a dream.

 A raven squawked somewhere behind him, shaking him out of his contemplations. He looked up, but only overcast skies looked back at him. Gray, like the colour of his mother’s dress when he dreamt of her, like the colour of his eyes. The colour of Sansa’s gowns.

 Something dawned on him. He hated looking back on their last conversation, considering the way he had ruined what could have well been his best chance at reconciliation, but he couldn’t ignore it any further. Sansa was hiding something. He had his suspicious even before that, but for the first time, Jon realized that she was keeping something from him. It was in the way she avoided him, the closed-off way she spoke with him when they happened to be alone. Jon thought her behaviour was in response to everything he had done wrong in her eyes, but something still didn’t sit right with him.

His wound was throbbing more strongly now, making it hurt when his stomach rose while he inhaled, and he wondered if it was going to re-open again, like it usually did. Sam would be as furious as he would be perplexed, but Jon couldn’t blame him for his reactions. Something wasn’t right about this injury; it was disquieting, to say the least, but not as disquieting as the thought that Sansa was hiding something from him. What was she hiding?

 Jon walked on, leaving the crypts behind him. As badly as he wanted to know, how would he ever find out? Not from Sansa, unfortunately. His heart constricted when he remembered how she stared at him coldly at the feast held the night before he had traveled to the Gift, together with Dany. Sansa didn’t attend the banquet that had been held after the feast; his eyes had been searching her out the whole time, until an observant attendant informed him that Lady Sansa had chosen to retire instead. No, Sansa wouldn’t tell him anything, even if he demanded it of her. If he really wanted to know what she was keeping from him, he’d have to find out through other means.

He didn’t mean to be here, not alone. Not without Sansa’s permission. Her bedchamber was her private sanctuary and he knew he was intruding upon it, but the moment he’d made the decision to slip through the space left by the open door, Jon knew that there was no going back on his intentions.

 Nothing had changed since he was last here; all of the furniture was still arranged in the same spot, tilted at the same angles. Everything looked as it should be. So why couldn’t he shake off the feeling that a great change had taken place? Why did something feel wrong in the air?

 Jon always remembered how warm it was in her bedchamber, even when there wasn’t a fire blazing inside the hearth; but he was always cold now, even here. He hadn’t come back beyond the Wall right, he realized more often than not. The fact that he felt no warmth, not to mention that damned wound on his abdomen that refused to heal properly, were the most obvious signs. He was afraid to learn what else might be wrong with him, what other thing might wear his resolve down just a little more.

 But, gods, he used to feel so warm in here. Jon was always warm when he had clung to Sansa like she was air—her hot, bare skin pressed tightly against his while he moved inside her to a rhythm that was exclusively theirs. And Sansa, achingly sweet and achingly beautiful, would match him with every thrust, chanting his name over and over and over again, an erotic hymn that brought about the most divine moment he had ever experienced. Jon screwed his eyes shut and drew in a shuddering breath, hoping to disarm the images that were shoving themselves to the forefront of his mind, but that only made things worse. More images flashed by with startling clarity: the curve of Sansa’s hips beneath his fingers, gripped so tightly for purchase that there would no doubt be a patch of bruises the next day—the little gasp that always came from her swollen lips just before her crisis washed over as reverently as his own did just a few beats later.

 Jon knew that his mind was playing games with him, no longer a faculty he had as much faith in these days, but he could’ve sworn that he could smell vestiges of their sexual transgressions, thick and heady, so potent that it made his head swim. But there was something else lingering in the air, too; even though everything looked fine, he was positive that he could grasp the metallic tang of blood. The realization served to remind him again why he had chosen to come here in the first place. He’d been dreaming that same dream night after night—dreaming of Sansa so often, of that casket she always pulled from beneath her bed—that he began to wonder if there was any truth behind it. The idea was ridiculous; the chances that Sansa actually had a casket that she hid in her bedchamber seemed slim to none, but Jon could never extinguish the possibility completely.  

 He could feel his heart hammering against his chest; Jon reached out towards one of the bedposts to steady himself, confused by the sudden terror that gripped him. What was there to be so scared about? So what if he did find something beneath Sansa’s bed—what if he did find the casket he had seen in his dream? What would she possible have in there that was worth mulling over to this extent? Jon didn’t have the right to be here; he didn’t have the right to any information that Sansa decided she wanted to keep to herself. Should that include the things that he might be involved with?

 What are you hiding from me, Sansa?

 The silence in the room rang in his ears in a way he didn’t think possible; he felt as if his heart was trying to escape from his chest. Desperate to quell the panic that was growing, Jon walked to the side of the bed that Sansa always stood in his dream before he sank to his hands and knees, the cold floor against his palms sending a jolt through his body.

 He ducked his head beneath the bed frame. Everything was just a dream. Only a dream, and nothing more.

 There was nothing.

AN: If you got this far, I just want to say thank you for sticking it out with me. I don’t know how interesting this story is now that Season 7 has aired, but it’s where I’m getting all the inspiration to write, and I’m going to ride that high until it wears out, which I hope isn’t soon, because I do want to finish this story, bloody hard as it is. I also want everyone to know that the light is coming, but it time was needed. Again, thank you so much for reading; your feedback and comments are the absolute best a writer can hope for!

[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Twenty-Three: Ajax

Why I Decided to Never Sleep Again: It’s Safer for Everyone.

  Normally, Pax’s list of Ways Things Could Go Wrong was WAY too creative and masterfully crafted for the fates to come close to guessing every item enlisted. Today, they must have been high-fiving each other around that stupid ball of fately yarn.

Everything started with Pax’s nightmare. Well, everything actually started for Pax when his father, Santiago, tortured an opposing mob leader and that mob leader’s family to death, and Eris found this an attractive mating call. However, Pax thought that was not an appropriate story for any eldest brother to tell his little brother, thank you Kouta. Pax would have rather been told that his parents met at a mixer for singles who liked to limbo, as he’d rewritten the story in his head.

Regardless of awesome limbo singles mixers, Pax’s jokes, hopes, and wishes for fluffy bunnies failed him when he fell asleep. The beginning was always fuzzy, but clarity hit when he fell on the deck of a ship. Pax could never focus on what ship.

The smell of rot intermixed with saltwater.

Pain kept him from pushing off the slimy floorboards. One of his arms wouldn’t move. The other trembled violently when he tried to sit up. As his gaze hardened on his functional hand, he internally screamed. And probably externally, he couldn’t be sure.

He managed to press his working hand into the floorboard, just in time for his own bronze dagger to stab through his palm, pinning him to the deck.

Glittery blood smeared onto the slimy wood.

Someone released a booming laugh somewhere nearby.

Pax cussed, shrieked, and sobbed at the laugher, especially insulting the laugher’s mother, but, he couldn’t look at the laugher. No, because he could sense the approach of something worse.

Mist and smoke twisted around the animalistic arches of his brother’s calves as the Leonis Caput stalked out of the shadows. Normally, Pax could see right through Axel’s fear magic and Mist manipulation, but Axel had become the monster. The half-decayed feline skeleton crept closer, obsidian claws fully extended from one hand, Pax’s remaining dagger clutched in the other. Blood and saliva dripped from the helmet’s jaws as it leisurely performed the flickering dance at the end of its hunt.

Pax cried and struggled to unpin his functional arm, but his palm felt like it was on fire. When he thrust his forearm upward to dislodge the dagger, the world went white momentarily. When he regained clarity of the deck, there was more blood oozing from his hand, but it still had a bronze blade pinned through it, like some serial killer decided to organize body parts on a corkboard.

And he knew the Leonis Caput was that serial killer.

When the dream shifted, Pax decided he would make a thank you basket for Atë. Not one with flowers and chocolates. She didn’t strike him as that kind of girl. Maybe something with laughing gas, so she could drop that on the next Olympian meeting she snuck into. The image of Poseidon giggling uncontrollably at Hades’ stupid helmet brought Pax more joy than twenty Reese’s Sticks.

“Without Hades’ permission to walk the earth, I’ll need a shadow bridge—something weak I can suspend between here and the Underworld. Then my ghost army can walk freely and… oh…” A hissing laugh, that Pax thought befit a mid-level villain. “Does Camp Half-Blood have a lot of restless ghosts.”

They were in a shack, somewhere hot.

For an instance, Pax thought the person speaking was his dead brother Kouta, a Native American with long, black hair pulled into a bun and stray locks in braids with feathers. The “oh no, you were dead!” was a little hackneyed after seeing Jack, but he realized that wasn’t his brother when the person released a second hissing laugh.

Fog warped around her, twisting away the shade of his brother to leave a different corpse. Well, sort of. She looked like two morticians got into a fight over preparing a body, flipped a coin, and the coin landed stubbornly on its edge, so one mortician mummified half her face and body into a blackened, hardened heap, and the other sucked all the blood out the other half to leave a chalky pale… thing. Split right down the middle hot dog style. Pax wondered if they’d discussed splitting her at the waist instead, and decided no one wanted to touch both her feet.

Her eyes were pits of nothingness.    

There were two other people with the corpse lady. One, he readily recognized as his mother. She didn’t look like his mother right now. She looked like a floating triangle with a top hat, stick arms, and feet, but Pax just knew it was Eris the Goddess of Strife. She held a martini glass in one hand and a cup with a sting attached in the other. Only his mom would have that much style.

The last woman in the room, Pax assumed, was Hemera, the primordial Goddess of Day that his mother had godnapped. She would have been pretty, if her sapphire dress wasn’t in shreds and her golden hair wasn’t tangled and she didn’t have a pink sock tied around her mouth. She looked how Pax would imagine a distraught queen to look. Memo to self: Ask Calex if he’s ever met the Queen, and if he’s ever seen her distraught before. Her skin blazed intermittedly, like an emergency lighthouse.  

Pax assumed she’d be under the Golden Net that they’d stolen from Camp Half-Blood, but instead her hands were chained to the ground. The chains dazzled and flashed a Made in Sparta: Keep Your God Here each time she twisted to get out.  

“We’ll get you a shadow bridge soon, Two-Faced—” Eris said.

“Melinoe,” Two-Faced corrected.

“—and your little gift of extended darkness… or we’ll have the Olympians crush us like roaches, but—eh—who has time to keep track of their attention. Lapis, darling henchie—” The yellow triangle held the cup up to her slit of a mouth, like a walkie-talkie. “—how’s delivering that ultimatum to my mother? Is it as nightmarish as your heart could hope there?” The triangle winked at Hemera.

Hemera huffed back.

“Sunshine and freaking rainbows, Ajaxamamma. Why does your afterlife have so many lines and so many rivers? It’s stupid.”

Lapis’s irritation came through the cup clearly. Pax wanted to dance at hearing her voice. Atë had pulled through after all—though he wished he could actually see his siblings. Disembodied, cup-voices were a close second.

A delivery to Pax’s grandmother though? With an ultimatum? Although Pax desperately tried to forget all the lectures Alabaster gave him on mythology, he was pretty sure he’d heard his mother complain that Hemera was Nyx’s favorite, despite being the least dark of Nyx’s children. And Nyx did live somewhere below the Underworld. Below the Underworld… huh, good name for a metal band.

And what did Eris need the Golden Net for if she had chained down Hemera?

“We’ve been telling Hades for centuries that his stupid single-file system is outdated. Thanatos and I tried suggesting a computerized system. I suggested we let waiting spirits wonder among the living, but noooo, too much chaos,” Two-Faced Melinoe growled.

The triangle spun a few times in the air, waving a hand at Melinoe to quiet down. “Now, Lapis, sweetie, did you find a good place to take a snack break and help Hiro extort Mr. Percy Jackson? You know he works much better in a team,” Eris said. “Our little champion got Frank’s extortion all good to go.” The triangle raised her martini glass. Upon examining it, Pax realized the stirring stick with two olives was Frank’s mysterious wizarding wand. Or, what Pax hoped was his wizarding wand. Maybe Frank just really liked wood and had a secret collection in his praetorian house.

Eris giggled. “Imagine? Just one little flame and we could squash Frank Zhang right now, leaving his friends to watch him wither, all in confusion of his malady. Oh, maybe another day.”

Pax felt his stomach drop and promptly fight with his intestines to see who could sink to his feet first. That stick was Frank’s lifeline?!?! That was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard! What—was Percy’s lifeline tied to a goldfish somewhere?

No, he knew what Percy’s was: his Bat Signal, Grover Underwood. But Grover was a Lord of the Wild now. Maybe Pax was lacking faith in his little brother, Hiro, but kidnapping Grover wouldn’t be stealing candy from a baby. It would be a walk in the park. One infested with angry dryads and nature spirits armed with deadly flowers, sleep incantations, and club-signs about saving the trees.

Like the dream knew about Pax’s concern, the scenery shifted again.

This time, he was in a small room, probably in an apartment. Although muted, Pax could still hear the thrum of a city outside the closed window. There was a heavy, oak bassinet in one corner, and a changing table beside it. Baby diapers littered the changing table. A baby monitor sat nearby. Pax could see a stray sock on the ground. This was a travesty: somewhere, somehow, a baby only had one sock on.

Weird spot for Grover Underwood to be, but maybe Camp Half-Blood was desperate for recruits and had started far younger. Or, maybe Grover was recruiting baby ecoterrorists. It was like the same thing.

Although Pax knew he couldn’t touch anything as a dream projection, he still stepped over to the crib. There was a tiny human inside. His heart did a little disco. The baby did only have one sock on, and he couldn’t return the sock. It had beautiful blue eyes, staring directly at him, despite his dream projection status.

Pax made a face at the baby and it giggled and kicked at the pink blankets around it. Girl? Unless this was a hyper progressive, awesome household, he assumed so.

Pax wished he could pick up this stranger’s baby and play with her until she laughed herself to sleep. That wasn’t super illegal or creepy, right? He couldn’t wait to have at least ten children.

All her toys were ocean themed and the twirling, dangling toy-thing that hung over her bed—it had beads he recognized from Camp Half-Blood’s crafting sessions.

Sweat broke out on Pax’s face. One of the blankets wrapped around her was artfully woven with little owls decorating the edges. Something Annabeth Chase might make. As a matter of fact, the corner of the blanket had a tiny, cursive signature that read, May Athena grant you wisdom, Love Annabeth.

Something creaked behind him. Pax whirled to find someone pushing the window open. A boy, fourteen years old, crawled noiselessly through the crack. His long, black hair slid over the window sill as he righted himself. He wore a burgundy button down shirt with suspenders. As per usual, they were lined with darts. Now though, he wore shoulder holsters over them, armed with two handguns, one much larger than the other. Those had been Kouta’s, their oldest brother’s, revolvers.

His Asiatic features broke into an impish smile as Hiro danced into the room.

“No—No—Hiro—stop!” Pax shouted.

The only one that seemed to hear him was the baby. She stopped kicking.

Pax could see how Hiro’s feet wouldn’t make any noise: he wore his acrobatics shoes. He stepped alongside the crib and stuck his tongue out at the baby.

She giggled again.

Hiro made the motion to clap his hands in excitement. Pax could tell the emotion was genuine. Hiro was struggling not to continue dancing around the baby’s room.

Instead, he withdrew a radio from his belt and set it beside the baby monitor. Once done, he reached into the crib and wrapped the baby up in her blankets. Upon noticing the sock on the floor, he—as he should—put the sock back onto her foot.

At least Hiro had manners while kidnapping.

Then Hiro hoisted her into his left arm, careful to position her so she wouldn’t get stabbed by a dart.

Pax hoped that would be it.

It wasn’t.

Hiro pulled out his brother’s huge revolver: the cold metal of the Taurus Judge gleamed in the nightlight. He tapped it on the changing table.

A low, feminine voice hummed through his radio into the baby monitor. Within a few notes, Pax recognized his sister, Lapis’s voice, singing, “I’ve got the whole world in my hands! I’ve got the whoooollle world in my hands—”

Within seconds two people burst through the door in pajamas. From his old days in reconnaissance, Pax recognized the forty-year-old women to be Sally Jackson. He assumed the man was Paul Blofis, Percy Jackson’s step-father.

Sally’s jaw dropped. She took a step into the room.

Paul’s face went blanch white. He held a handgun but immediately lowered it when he saw what was in Hiro’s hands.

Hiro gestured the revolver towards the baby. Sally and Paul froze.

“Gods no,” Sally whispered.

“What do you want?” Paul demanded. “Put her down!”

The baby made a soft whine.

Hiro bounced her a few times and nuzzled his forehead to the baby’s. He gestured at Paul’s weapon with his elbow. Slowly, Paul put it on the floor.

From the radio, Lapis said, “Hey, Dart Face, I assume that’s them?”

Hiro made a sharp, upward whistle of affirmation.

“Oh, holy Hun-Batz,” Lapis hissed. “Okay, well, hello Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Blofis. I’m sorry I can’t be there to help threaten you in person, but I don’t have the stomach to kill tiny people, so I got sent on the nicer job of trudging through the Underworld—”

“Don’t hurt her,” Sally begged. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Hey—rude, Mrs. Jackson. Do I interrupt people when they’re threatening me? Well, yes, but I shoot them with lightning. Anyway, the person you’re looking at is my dumb baby brother, and I’d think of him if I were looking at your child, so I can’t be there. Grime-licking Dart Face—I can tell you’re making that stupid face—”

Lapis was accurate. Hiro was smirking at the radio in his best, haha! You love me! look he could give.  

“Anyway, Hiro doesn’t have a little sibling. He doesn’t understand what it would mean to lose something that depends on you to live. As such, I think he could actually break her neck. That gun definitely has enough firepower to turn her into modern wall art.”

Sally sobbed.

Paul sank to his knees.

Pax couldn’t stop trembling. This was bad. This was way worse than he thought it would be, and he was a creative genius when it came to worst case scenarios.

From Hiro’s placid smile, Pax got the feeling she was right: Hiro could do it, go home, make some soba, and catch Attack on Titan’s latest episode without a blink. If his hands weren’t full, he’d probably be signing some inappropriate jokes in ASL.

There was a pause. Pax could tell, from the hesitation, that Lapis didn’t want to be doing this. She inhaled shakily. “So, please, I know the temptation to do something stupid is strong, but let’s show that your genes are smart enough to deserve going to the next generation, right? Now, our employer isn’t totally heartless. Ajaxapax and his crew want to give you a chance here.”

Pax puffed up his cheeks to pop them. He needed to stop thinking that things couldn’t get worse. That was like telling the Fates that machines would replace them in the next year because handcrafting thread was out of style.

Hiro glared at the radio. Apparently Lapis hadn’t said something they’d rehearsed earlier. Hiro kicked the changing table, making the radio flop on its side.

“Augh, fine Dart Face. You see, we’re his little henchmen, and we take our job with pride. We do our best to please him and stay on his good side.[1] And Ajax doesn’t want Percy in the fight at Camp Half-Blood…”

Pax trembled. He didn’t want Hiro to hurt the Jackson family, but Pax realized the icing on top of the cake—except it really wasn’t icing, because baked goods were delicious and this problem was not. Once Percy found out about this, Eris would succeed in causing her little war. Percy would kill him.

 Thanks for reading! :D Things are starting to heat upppp, question is, which side is going to break under the heat first?

[1] Lyrics from Kidnap the Sandy Claws. The Korn version of the song was inspiration for this scene.That and my sister calling me up in the middle of sleep hours saying, “I have the best way to kidnap a kid.” Thanks, Sis. -.-

[hekate1308]

As You Are

Drowley once more, I am afraid. More Destiel will be coming, though. AU, mafia boss!Crowley, married Drowley. Enjoy!

His husband would never forgive him for getting blood on the carpet. It was Dean who had insisted on the thing (Crowley had from the first thought it was hideous) and now he’d dropped a body on it.

It was the fool’s own damn fault. He should have known there’d be a knife coming. How dared he break in and try to kill him as if he was a run-of-the-mill minion anyway?

There was a reason they’d called him the King of Hell, once.

Still, things between him and Dean hadn’t been going well lately, and now the carpet...

It didn’t matter anyway, he realized suddenly.

He would have to leave. He’d never force Dean to vanish and never see his family again, so that meant...

Dean would probably be happy to watch him go. It seemed like all they’d done during the last few months was fight, and over the most trivial things, too.

“For God’s sake, it’s a couch, just pick one!”

“I would like to be comfortable in my own home – “

“How am I supposed to know what you “like” since you never tell me a thing – “

Maybe they had been doomed from the start. There were just some things he’d never been able to share with Dean, things that had slowly come between them, things that, if he’d known them, would have led to him running away at top speed, and...

Crowley should have known better.

His only excuse was that Dean had looked as gorgeous on the morning he met as he always did, and that he’d known from the first minute that he wanted him.

He sighed as he sat down on the couch.

He was getting too old for carrying bodies around on his own, but this time it couldn’t be helped. And in the morning, he’d tell his husband he wanted a divorce.

He wearily eyed their wedding picture on the wall. Five maddening, insane, wonderful years, the best years of his life, and it was all over.

He really was getting old. He’d fallen asleep right there, on the couch he’d picked out just last week, and woke up to Dean asking in a pointed manner, “Crowley, why is there a corpse in our living room and why is there a knife in its back?”

He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he replied, “Sorry about the carpet.”

“Sorry about – oh God, it really was you”. Dean was looking at the body.

“But why in the back, you can’t tell me – “

All in all, Crowley was rather impressed with his husband’s calmness at the situation. He’d waited for hot, boiling rage. Or maybe fear.

“I had to kill him before he harmed you”.

“Had to... Crowley, we call the police if there’s an intruder in the house. This is what they are for.”

“Not when you happen to be me, darling”.

“Don’t call me that” Dean snapped; for some reason, he’d always hated that particular pet name.

“I’m calling 911. Someone will have to clean up here – “

“Dean, you can’t” he said hastily, getting up.

“Don’t be an idiot, I have to. I’ll call Sam too, it was self defence of course, but why did it have to be in the back – “

“It was dark and I had to throw it”.

“It was... of course you did”. Crowley ripped his phone out of his hands.

“Give that back!”

“I won’t. Sit down so I can explain”.

Dean made an annoyed sound but did sit down.

“Alright. You got five minutes before I – “

“Dean, my real name was never Crowley Sheppard”.

Like ripping off a band-aid, he told himself. He’d always been against useless pain.

Useful pain, to gather information for example, was something else entirely, but that was a subject for another day.

“What?” Dean blinked.

“My name wasn’t Crowley Sheppard. It was Fergus MacLeod”.

“Why would you give me a false name? And why tell me now?”

He wasn’t even angry; that’s how little he already meant to the man he’d married.

Apparently he’d never heard of him, but that didn’t surprise him. People paid little attention to details when it came to news about criminals, unless they happened to be very notorious, and he’d always been content to keep himself in the background.

“From the Hell cartel”.

The media had been responsible for that nickname, and it was more than reasonable to assume Dean had heard about it at some point.

Since a few years had passed, he needed a moment to place the name.

His eyes widened and he moved away from him on the couch.

That was it then, the moment he finally lost him.

He reminded himself it had been coming for some time.

“Wasn’t MacLeod... are you telling me you were a freaking mob boss!?”

“That is exactly what I am telling you”.

“Are you kidding me?”

Dean sprang up and started to pace up and down, pointedly ignoring the body.

“I married – wait why the assumed name? And why did you go after me in the first place? Suburbia isn’t exactly what gangsters usually go for... oh God it was all a cover, wasn’t it. Every single minute. You were playing me...”

“No” he interrupted him. “I wasn’t. I assure you, I wanted to marry you”.

“But... why?”

“What do you know about the Hell cartel?”

“I... didn’t the feds get them all a few years ago?”

“You’re looking at the chief witness against them. As well as several other high-profile criminals”.  

“But... wasn’t it your cartel to begin with”.

“Yes. And then...”

Crowley took a deep breath.

“I told you about Gavin”.

Dean nodded.

“You said you never wanted to talk about him again. I know you still miss him, though”.

He smiled at him somehow weakly. The years had dampened the feeling of loss slightly, but the guilt was as strong as ever.

“We didn’t really get along for years. He spent most of the time with his mother, and I... I didn’t feel comfortable as a father”.

“I suppose you had enough to do”.

Dean was actually joking. There was hope then, of at least parting ways amiably.

“But... things got better. Eventually. He and his girlfriend were on his way to visit me when they had the car accident”.

He’d told Dean as much. Then he’d demanded they never mention it again because he hadn’t wanted to repeat half-truths again and again.

“It turned out someone had cut the breaks of their car. The...” He swallowed.

On to something else he’d never confessed to Dean.

“The autopsy revealed Fiona was pregnant. I think that’s why they wanted to see me... They wanted to tell me in person.”

“Oh Crowley”.

Dean sat down next to him and reached out to squeeze his hand.

“I’m so sorry”.

He nodded, acknowledging the comfort he’d never been able to ask for before.

“I decided to investigate myself... it was members of my own cartel”.

“Back stabbing sons of bitches” Dean said, earning a smile.

“I decided I was done with it all.”

“So you went into witness protection?”

He chuckled.

“It took a while for the FBI to believe I was being sincere”.

“Can’t imagine why. And this guy...”

Dean gestured towards the corpse without looking in its direction. He was still holding Crowley’s hand, and he cherished the contact. It was the last time after all.

“The FBI have always been grossly incompetent. A few managed to escape... No one high up in the organization, but still.”

“I see. So he came for revenge”.

“I didn’t leave him the time to explain himself”.

Dean nodded.

“So what now? We call your... handler or whatever in the FBI?”

He nodded.

“I suppose I’ll be out of your hair in a few hours”.

“What do you mean?”

Dean withdrew his hand abruptly.

“They’ll hardly leave me here, and I know you’d never move away from your family. I won’t expect you to follow me. They’ll probably fake my death like they did before...”

Only he’d had no one left behind but his mother at the time, and she’d most likely been glad he was gone.

“So... that’s it? Five years, three of them married, and you’re just going to leave me here?”

He shouldn’t have, but he enjoyed the hurt in Dean’s voice. Even after all their fights, he was still angry at him for going away. He was still that important to him, at least.

“I told you...”

“Okay, you said that would happen if you called the FBI. So what if you don’t?”

“Dean, there’s a body on the floor”.

“I know and you’re paying for the new carpet, mister, but that’s not the point.”

Dean looked down at the body again, this time seizing it up.

“We need shovels and flowers”.

“Flowers?”

“We do have a garden, don’t we?”

Crowley’s eyes widened.

“Are you suggesting...”

“We burry this thing and forget about it, yeah. Does he have any friends likely to look for him?”

He shook his head.

“Even if he told someone where he was going, they’ll guess what happened and keep their mouths shut”.

“Well then”.

This was a side of his husband Crowley had never seen before, and he was enjoying it immensely. And yet...

“Dean, what do you think you are doing?”

“Keeping my husband” he replied simply, stepping up to him.

God, it had been too long since he saw that gleam in his eyes.

“Are you propositioning me over a dead body?”

“We’re not standing over it exactly. Don’t act so high and mighty, you were the mob boss here”.

“I’m just surprised”.

Dean grinned and gave him a shove. He landed on the couch, Dean towering over him.

“What can I say? There is something sexy about a man being ready to kill for you”.

He pulled him down and kissed him.

They made love right there as they hadn’t in too long, desperately, passionately.

Three weeks later

Sam and Sarah arrived at Dean’s and Crowley’s barbecue a little late, but there was nothing Dean couldn’t forgive if it meant seeing his nephew.

“Hey mini-me”.

“Should have known there would be repercussions for naming him Dean” Sam muttered, but he was smiling.

His smile only grew bigger when Crowley stepped up to Dean to greet them, his hand resting at the small of his husband’s back, and he actually relaxed into the touch.

Things were looking up.

He and Sarah had been worried about Dean’s marriage for a while now. They just didn’t seem to have anything to say about each other, and if he’d had to hear about Dean’s “blue balls” one more time...

That was a thing of the past too, if Dean’s posture was anything to go by. He remembered it well from their teenage years.

Crowley and Sarah were talking about Dean Jr. while he was working on the grill; Sam came to talk to him after Benny had moved away.

“Things seem to be going well” he said carefully.

Dean grinned.

“Yeah. We were in a bad spot for a while, but we talked it all through – no more secrets.”

Sam snorted.

“I bet a business man has a lot of those”.

For some reason, Dean chuckled.

“I’d tell ya, but I’d have to kill ya”.

After a moment he added, “We’ve been talking about kids. Nothing specific yet, but – you know”.

“Dean, that’s awesome!”

Dean had always wanted kids. Crowley hadn’t seemed to be interested until now. Maybe he’d needed some more time to get over his son’s death? Sam could easily imagine that.

His eyes wandered to the new addition in the garden.

“That’s a good place for a flower bed.”

Dean grinned.

“Yeah, thought I’d try something new. Charlie had a freak-out about it earlier, you can go fangirl with her”.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but it looks pretty nice”.

“We did it together. Sort of bonding experience, you know...”

He caught his husband’s eyes and smiled.

[clonerightsagenda]

A Jade post? In 2017?

I could write this post in my sleep because I’ve written 40 just like it, but I keep seeing posts about lack of Jade meta, so I guess I was a little ahead of my time and must now answer the call. If you’ve been following me for a while, you might as well keep scrolling. You’ve seen this all before in increasing tones of despair.

For everyone else, this aims to be a general overview of Jade Harley’s character, back when she was allowed to have one, looking at her issues and development. I’ll condense it a fair bit because none of us want to be here all evening, but feel free to ask me to expand on anything. I used to do this all the time.

Childhood

So let’s start at the very beginning. Jade’s home situation is revealed in pieces. Much like Dave’s, it’s played as less serious early on, with the ramifications and its impact on her personality not fully explored until later. (Jade never gets a big speech on the topic, so I fear it still went over some heads.) Over time, however, we learn that Jade has grown up alone save for a powerful dog, after her grandfather died... and she stuffed his corpse. (yuck.) She has had to fend for herself from a young age, plagued by occasional bouts of Vriska-induced narcolepsy to boot.

This has made her tough and self-sufficient. She’s one of the more capable and efficient Betas, shown when she takes charge near the tail end of their session. However, she takes it a bit far. When you’re a kid alone, no one is going to take care of you. You don’t have the luxury of hoping someone else will handle a problem, or getting bogged down in sadness or doubt. Jade takes this to the extreme of never allowing herself to express negative emotions. That’s not productive. That won’t get anything done. She’s happy happy happy all the time!!! (At least to her friends. More on that later.) 

She projects this onto her grandfather as well. Loneliness takes a toll. When Jade “encounters” her grandfather, she imagines him chastising her and has an argument with him, eventually concluding “he was much easier to deal with when he was alive”. Jade has placed a lot of her weighty expectations for herself on her grandfather, and she pretends he’s talking back to deal with her isolation. Additionally, she doesn’t know about Tavros’s interference, so as she grows older, she assumes Grandpa Harley killed himself, abandoning her to her fate. When she does learn about what happened, she blames herself. More on that later. 

Her constant cheer is particularly concerning when we consider one last detail that people also seem to forget a lot. Jade grows up knowing she’s going to die. She’s seen her own stuffed dream self, and while it may not be time stamped, she’d be able to gauge by her own height roughly how much time she has left. By the time the story starts, she knows she’s almost out. And when Tavros mentions that his dream self died in their conversation pre-Descend, she’s surprised. She didn’t know they could die. This means she didn’t think ‘oh, my dream self will die but it’ll be ok’. She thought she was going to die, full stop. But she kept up the cheerleader routine anyway.

Friendships

That segues into Jade’s personal relationships.  As I mentioned earlier, Jade refuses to express negative emotions. This is similar to John, but I’d argue John is less aware of what he’s doing. Jade knows all that dark stuff is there; she just keeps pushing it down. Instead, she acts as team cheerleader, encouraging all her other friends as they start playing the game. She tells John he can save the world, encourages Rose, and flatters Dave. Rose is the only one who pushes back a little - her comment about Jade being tough for surviving on her island suggests she might have grasped a little about her situation, and she probes a little - but Jade doesn’t give much away. John vacillates between being surprisingly perceptive and super not, and Dave tends to be absorbed in his own problems. Jade successfully keeps most of her life a secret. No one knows her grandfather is dead or that she’s alone. No one knows she’s going to die.

The person she’s most direct with, ironically, is Karkat. He hears her angry or upset, mostly because he’s not her friend. She doesn’t care what he thinks. It also seems likely, though, that she lost patience with him a long time ago. After all, from her perspective he’s been trolling them for a while, and her dismay the first time he contacts her suggests that he got on her last nerve a while back. (She gets her revenge later, showing that she doesn’t forgive him as fully as she claims during their session.) Still, it’s kind of tragic that she’s most honest with people she dislikes. As they grow less adversarial, she begins to cover more and more up. 

Karkat happens to be the character who catches her at one of her most vulnerable moments, which is...

Jadesprite

Alas, we hardly knew ye. Faced with the seemingly unbeatable boss that’s Bec Noir, Jade decides to prototype her dead dreamself in order to have a human intelligence armed with the power of a First Guardian. This... does not go as planned. Jadesprite is yanked out of the afterlife and put back into the game that traumatized and killed her. She’s hysterical and doesn’t seem to understand that John’s not dead, and she’s not thrilled about facing Jack again and probably dying in the process. This makes Jade furious. How dare this version of her not put the group’s safety over her own personal life and happiness? How dare she not be happy to be used as a tool? How dare she show fear, weakness, pain, anything but a constant eagerness to please? Jade flies into a rage because Jadesprite reveals every bit of weakness she has hidden within herself and has come to despise. This part of her was never supposed to see the light of day.

Of course, it doesn’t for long. Jadesprite shows up again for a handful of panels, which are mostly devoted to Davesprite exposition-dumping. It’s interesting to note that, while she’s more emotionally honest with him, the panel after he shows up, she’s back to the generic sprite-mode smile. She still can’t quite kick that urge to cover it all up.

Then, Jade God Tiers and absorbs Jadesprite as part of herself. She wastes no time in crushing her and everything she represents deep into a corner of her psyche. And she crushes hard. Jade mentions later that her memories of Jadesprite’s time in the bubbles is hazy, which is understandable. Bubbles are weird. But later, when Dave talks about his sword quest and Jade seems confused, he asks in exasperation, “didnt davesprite tell you anything?” And he did. He told Jadesprite information that should have made Dave’s explanation later clear. But Jade, it seems, has forgotten. Could be an authorial oversight, could be the passing of time... or could be a signifier of how hard she pushed away everything “tainted” by that ‘lesser’ version of herself. 

Yellow Yard

Hope everyone’s been enjoying themselves, because we’ve now left behind the chunk of the story where Jade gets to do much at all. She’s John’s emotional sounding board for the next three years and then spends the majority of the combo session possessed, dead, or asleep. Yes, I’m still bitter.

The fact that both of Jade’s appearances in the intermissions are focused on being a response to John’s complaining is fitting, though (besides revealing the author’s priorities), considering her role on the battleship is to do everyone’s emotional labor. I could write a massive post on battleship dynamics since I’ve had years to parse the roughly 5 sentences allotted to them, but I’ll keep it short for this post. John’s showing the strain by the first intermission (there’s a lot of subtext in the way he talks about that video game) but in general he’s missing his old life, chafing at having nothing to do, resentful of his role of “following orders” in the previous session, upset at himself  for being childish, and of course sitting on top of a simmering pile of repressed emotions he refuses to fully acknowledge. Davesprite is Sir Not Appearing In This Comic the whole time, but it’s clear he’s in a downward spiral due to his lack of a clear purpose, feelings of inadequacy, paranoia over his lesser/doomed status, and general self-hatred. Jade is the apparent ‘stable’ one. She tries to be supportive of John even as he gets increasingly nasty to her in his frustration, and she’s presumably doing her best to prop Davesprite up. Unfortunately, no one’s going to support her, because she can’t ask for help. She can’t show weakness. She has to be useful. Anything else means she’s a bad friend and a failure. So she just keeps going until she gets crushed under the weight.

It gets to her, though. By John’s 15th, she’s short with him and looks visibly annoyed in a few panels, which is unusual for her. And by the time they arrive, she heads off to deal with business without telling Davesprite where she’s going or even bothering to wake John up, which suggests she’s pretty sick of them. Still, she hasn’t given them a piece of her mind. Yet. Instead, she heads off without a word, right into the Empress’s trap.

Grimbark Mode

The Empress has been plotting for the arrival of the gods, and she gets to work. In moments, her two girls are under her control. Not only are they forced to do her bidding, but their worst impulses, desires, and repressed grievances are pulled to the surface. For Jade, this is primarily anger. Notice that she mostly lashes out at people who have wronged her. She kicks John, fabricates a reason to get Karkat stabbed (it’s strategically inadvisable to have Jane fork him, but Jade wanted to), and tries to goad Dave into a fight. Finally, all that fury is coming out. 

While talking to Roxy, Jade also reveals how much her hypercompetence issues affect her self-esteem. ‘once i was even more of a dork than you’, she tells her ‘but now i’m one of the most powerful beings in the universe’. The implication is that Jade considers her greatest asset her powers. Without them, without her ability to be useful, she’s nothing. Also in this conversation she says she’s the suckiest Jade there is, showing both her unhappiness with her current state and her deep seated self-worth issues (get in line, girl). These hypercompetency issues also fuel her fight with Jake. She arrogantly proclaims herself smarter and more powerful than him (Jade can be headstrong at times or disregard other people’s views; I’ve talked about that in other posts) but gets curbstomped because she refuses to back down from the fight or go straight for Aranea. She has been challenged, so she has to prove she’s the best... and she fails. 

Speaking of things I am still bitter about, I will never not be bitter about how grimbark mode (and crockertier mode) were handled. I was upset about my favorite character being mind controlled, yeah, but I defended it as a chance for character growth. When I saw grimbark mode, I thought, ok. This sucks, but this means Jade can’t hide anymore. It’s all out in the open. She had a guy killed, for crying out loud. Once she’s snapped out of it, she’s going to have to be honest about it. This is a turning point where she can finally tell people how she feels.

That... did not happen. Instead, Game Over did, and then the retcon, and my last hopes of Jade Harley getting decent character resolution fizzled and died. I don’t like talking about the retcon very much, so let’s make this last bit quick.

Post-Retcon

I’ll go through this fast, because it’s unpleasant. In our latest chapter of ‘Jade Harley gets fucked by the narrative because Andrew Hussie made her too op and also doesn’t care’, the retcon shifts things around so that John and Davesprite blow up soon into the trip, leaving Jade to travel the Yellow Yard alone. Accompanied by carapaces and Nanna, of course, but it’s never really acknowledged that she can interact with them, despite her growing up on Prospit. Why those two couldn’t have blown up immediately before arrival I’m not sure, considering how late retcon Roxy died, but fuck Jade, amiright? (Bitterness intensifies). Anyway, the part of this I find most egregious is that this doesn’t have as much of an impact on Jade’s character as it really should have. 

Let’s review. Jade derives a lot of her self-worth from being competent and helping people. She has had issues with loneliness in the past. She’s got some self-worth problems that she covers up with the knowledge that she has a lot of cool powers. So we blow up her two friends while she in all her God Tier and First Guardian powers is powerless to save them, and then she’s stuck alone stewing in her failure for three years, knowing she will have to face Dave and Rose and tell them what happened. 

Does it seem likely that Jade would pop out the other side of the fourth wall perky and enthusiastic? Hardly. With no witnesses left, I imagine she would have dropped the facade. Having failed her friends, if she didn’t believe the timeline was doomed, she’d probably double down on making sure it never happened again, devoting her time to leveling up and training to a greater degree than she did in the GO timeline. She’d emotionally distance herself from her friends in advance. After all, once she finds out what happened to Grandpa, she describes it as “basically my fault”, even though Grandpa let her play with guns and Tavros redirected the bullet. Part of her hypercompetency is a quickness to take responsibility even when she should not. She would blame herself for John and Davesprite’s deaths and assume Dave and Rose would as well. I imagine her trust in Skaia and a happy ending would also be shaken. The clouds never showed her this.

So Jade ought to be a mess. In canon, though, she really isn’t. Oh, she mentions to Calliope that she felt depressed. This is progress for Jade, admittedly, but in general she’s relatively the same as she always was. When she sees John, it apparently fixes that all up (setting aside his notorious issues with alt selves.) She does seem reluctant to process that Davesprite is essentially dead, repeatedly referring to D avepeta as Dave, but otherwise, she seems to slot into the new reality without a ripple. We do see a hint of the loneliness-based projection with her naming the consorts and making up stories about them, but that's mostly glossed over. And since Vriska knocks her out before she has a chance to do anything while grimbark (even deliver some nasty taunts), no one gets any indication of her suppressed anger, so no one’s prompted to ask her about it. In terms of repression, she’s cleared to continue. And, as far as we’re shown, she does. At least John gets to visibly show that he’s got issues in the credits. Jade’s a smiling background character. 

As the final insult on top of injury, Jade’s big contribution in Collide is getting punched. I’m not entirely clear as to why she’s trying to prevent PM from fighting Jack - she knows Jack is a threat and has worked against him in the past. But no, here she gets in the way until PM knocks her down. Another blow for a character who has built her self-worth upon contributing to the team. 

I have my (grim) thoughts on what Jade realistically would have turned into after all this. And honestly, you could write a ‘how the ending shafted character x’s development’ for most of the cast, but Jade is a special example because her shafting started after Cascade and never stopped. And it makes me sad, because she was my favorite, and the opportunities were RIGHT THERE to give her development and bring some of this to the surface, but the story never made the effort.

I could go into way more depth about any of this, especially her personal relationships, but this is already long and it’s late, so I will leave you with this single, simple truth: 

Jade deserved better. 

[eclissy]

10 Days of Heroshipping 3/10

AU

An RWBY AU! I struggled a long time with what AU I wanted to do (plus school got really busy again) and ended up with this. I already have Ty involved with an RWBY AU with my friends’ OCs but I wanted to try something different with this. It doesn’t follow RWBY’s overarching story. This is a plot I came up with including Ty and DF characters in the RWBY setting.

2331 words

Hero/Drakath (Again)

Plus very brief notes on the AU at the end.

There was nothing Drakath hated more than those self-righteous hunters and huntresses. Their job was to fling themselves at the Grimm or whatever the King wished them to until they succeeded in getting honorably killed in action. A hunter that lived long enough to see their hair grow white was a failure.

And yet, the whole lot of them managed to commit an even worse crime.

They turned their weapons on his father, the rightful King, and a member of theirs usurped the throne.

Drakath would do anything to drag the pretender out from the stolen throne and execute every last Hunter and Huntress in Remnant.

But as he hid behind a wall of intermodal containers, aura depleted down to dregs, Drakath realized a Hunter was going to kill him before he could set foot home.

Or to be more exact, this was a former hunter looking to make Drakath his fall man.

“The academy will find the corpse of the former Prince of Vale, one half in a sad corner and the other in the mouth of a Grimm he tried to set on the city,” Frostscythe walked down the aisles between the huge intermodal containers as his once compatriots warred with the Grimm he and Drakath let loose. The Hunters were winning.

“Then, it would just be a sad end to a sad line. No connection to Sepulchure or myself.”

Frostscythe struck his fist against steel and the echoing noise made Drakath scream into his hands.

“Out, coward!” The former Hunter goaded the Prince. “Find honor in death before they mark your failure in the books.”

Drakath clutched his family’s sword, infuriated but not enough to face Frostscythe.

There was still a way out of this! If he could sneak by Frostscythe, find the exit, get by the hoards of hunters and Grimm, survive a journey thousands of miles back to Sepulchure without being caught, and…beg for forgiveness.

Honestly, that was the worst part.

“Ah, I see,” Frostscythe tapped the handle of his weapon on the warehouse floor. “Honor and courage is alien to you. Perhaps the chance to grovel will appeal more.” The suggestion and its timing stabbed deep into Drakath’s skull, causing the grip on his sword to tighten until his gloves tore.

“If you crawl out and kiss the ground where I walk—“Frostscythe barely stifled a chuckle as Drakath pulled himself up, ready to cleave the former Hunter in two the moment he turned his corner. “—I will consider killing you quickly. How’s that?”

He had repeated the option Drakath loved to give to his victims. It had been a long time since the Prince had been angry enough to leap into fire but he was no victim! He’ll carve out Frostcythe’s spine with his own scythe before that.

“Found you!” Frostscythe exclaimed.

Blind to where he was going, Drakath leaped out and swung his sword with all of his might. The air that he cut parted so easily that the Prince tripped and fell over.

Frostyscythe keened anyways, thrown on his back, and slid towards the back wall of the warehouse. His armor sparked on the cement ground. Managing to swing his scythe into the ground, Frostscythe swung himself back up and met with the blade of a huntress.

Her red scarf billowed in the wind tossed up by the sparking energy from her sword smashing against Frostsycthe’s arm guard. It blasted the hanging lights to shards.

Pulling his scythe from the floor, Frostscythe swung and left a deep nick in the huntress’ white armor.

“No! The Grimm have been defeated already?” Frostscythe panted, proved wrong by the ongoing sounds of battle outside.

“I went ahead, you big ol moldy slushy!” The huntress twirled her blade, having flipped back on top of one of the containers. Vicious cracks had formed in the sword but they glowed from the effects of the embedded dust, sealing closed. “After all—“She ran a gloved finger over the scar on her armor, her bright smile holding no irony. “—I couldn’t miss a reunion.”

“Wretched scum!” Frostscythe’s aura flared, casing the floor in a layer of ice. “I’ll crush the shards of your frozen shattered corpse.”

The Huntress’ grin fell into opened mouthed awe.

“Oh shit!” She said. Not at Frostscythe. The tip of the sword peeking out from his thigh was way more eye catching.

Drakath dug his blade deeper, wrenching it out the side of Frostscythe’s leg with a roar of effort. The former hunter toppled and fell, wailing at the horrendous wound.

“Now, who did you say was going to be groveling on the ground?” Drakath quipped, turning to see his work and gagged. Bile rose in his throat and the Prince pressed his palm against his nose and mouth, stumbling away from the sight.

His weak stomach saved his life. The moment Frostscythe fell on his back, that huntress erased any chance of him getting back up.

One of the huge steel containers, filled with heaping tons of dust, was tossed on top of him. Frostscythes legs stuck out from under the thing, twitching every so often.

“How’d you do that?”

Drakath jumped. Somehow the huntress had snuck up on him, tilting her head to the side to get a better look at his Marquis blade.

“Is it the sword?” The huntress asked, deciding to turn her attention to him directly. She came nose to nose with him, freezing the Prince in place. His mouth moved but no words came out. “Or is it your semblance?” She circled around him, dragging her hands softly over his chest.

From under the giant steel crate, Frostscythe groaned.

“Damn it,” The huntress went over the prone criminal, attempting to plunge her sword into his leg. The blade clanked and clanged, blocked by the remnants of the man’s aura. “Seriously, pretty boy. What did you do?”

“Pu-p-pu-PRETTY BOY?” Drakath fumed, face on fire. “How dare you refer to me so vulgarly? I am Prince Drakath and I should be the rightful King of Vale! My sword and semblance can pierce through any commoner’s aura! It is a sign of my right to rule over you peasants!” Drakath spat.

Meanwhile, the huntress caught sight of the table and blackboard where the circle of criminals had planned their activity. She took the chair by the table and smashed it on Frostscythe’s legs. It broke into pieces but unfortunately, Frostscythe stayed whole.

“Nice, nice,” The huntress nodded, peering over her shoulder at Drakath. “Say, I’ve heard a little about you. Your face is even plastered over the bounty hunter boards. Weird, they all turned out being bad sketches,” She strolled back to Drakath and he brought his sword up between them, wary. “You’re cute in person.”

“Shut your mouth!” Drakath hissed, hands shaking. Slowly, his fear transformed into bewilderment. Very insulted bewilderment. “And what do you mean ‘heard a little about me,’ I am the Prince!”

“And I am Ty,” The huntress bowed in a dramatic sweeping gesture. “A transfer from Mistral.”

“That makes no difference,” Drakath tsked. “Have you been living in a basement?”

“Only for a little while.” Ty kept approaching until she had him pressed against the wall. Easily flicking Drakath’s sword out of the way, she flatted her hand against the spot by his ear.        

Frostscythe was still making rude noises under the steel container.

“Lib? Are you there?” Ty called back to the rest of warehouse. “Sorry, but could you take care of that? I think Pretty Boy’s too tired to finish him off.”

“Who says I’m tired?” Drakath attempted to sound threatening, attempting to shove Ty out of his face. His knees ended up buckling and if Ty didn’t hold him against her, Drakath would have broken his nose in the fall.

“Apologies, my Prince.” Ty referred to him correctly but it still made Drakath feel queasy in the worst way possible. The worst way possible! It made his ears burn…like he had an allergic reaction! Right? Right!  

“You’re a huntress, are you not?” Drakath narrowed his eyes up at the brat. He imagined that she was still attending Beacon with how she looked. “What now? Drag me back to your teachers? I’ll kill you before you can lay a finger on me.” He said, clinging to her.

“Let me think,” Ty tried to straighten Drakath as a young blond child, likely Lib, dragged a jug of gasoline over to Frostscythe. “If you were with the Slushy, I’m guessing you were conspiring with him and whoever else was working in his circle.”

“And what of it?” Drakath was standoffish, forgetting that he shouldn’t be sharing any link the players serving under Sepulchure had.

“Huh.” Ty gazed down at him, considering.

“Ty? I don’t have a match.” Lib yelled, crouching by the panicking pair of legs. His voice was high and breaking in places, characteristic of a kid barely out of the single digits.    

“Oh,” Ty glanced around before looking back to Drakath. “Do you have a lighter?”

“Are you serious?” Having found his balance, Drakath gaped at the huntress. “You can’t set him on fire!”

“Why?” Ty asked, genuinely curious.

“What do you mean, why?” The Prince didn’t mind killing. He was about to kill Frostscythe himself but this was…it’s not…gods above who would…

The Prince groaned, clutching his aching head.

“I just want to keep my lunch down!” Drakath had not and would never want to know what roasting flesh smelled like.

“Well, Pretty Boy--” Ty was rummaging through her pockets for anything that could set some flames off. Maybe a gun. She could have left a gun in her back and didn’t notice. Everyone in remnant had something close to a gun. It wasn’t such a strange idea.

“—I’m not a Huntress just to hunt Grimm. We need to keep order too.” Ty fished a gun out from a side pocket on her bag. What did you know?

“By setting people on fire?” Drakath exclaimed, incredulous.

“By killing everyone in my grade.” Ty finished, turning and firing the gun at an empty wet spot on the floor. “Uh, Lib?”

The kid shrugged, turned his palms up, pointed them in the direction of an open door, and back to Ty and her new toy.

Both the Prince and the Huntress rushed out, following red footprints out to the docks. Floating far out at sea was a block of ice containing the wanted fugitive Frostscythe.

“Oops,” Ty grimaced. Sure, someone could swim out to him. Someone who wasn’t her. Drakath read that from her facial expression, creasing his brows at her. “It’s not like I can’t but only in swimming pools. The ocean can go suck out a brown starfish.”

It was just as well. Ty shouldn’t be the one who takes down Frostscythe anyways.

Bright searchlights shone on Drakath and Ty, reminding them of all the action that had happened around them. All of the Grimm had been defeated, leaving two loose ends to be taken care of and one had just sunk below the waves.

Drakath wanted to crumple and the desire to do so worsened when the Headmaster of Beacon Academy descended to Ty on a Helicarrier the Prince had previously taken.

Warlic stepped out, somewhat perplexed at how Ty was linking arms with Drakath, unbeknownst to the despairing criminal.

“I see that your second initiation has gone as remarkably as the last,” The headmaster nodded to Drakath’s astonishment.

Initiation? A mission like this was used to serve as an initiation for a bunch of brat hunters? Surely, the Kingdom was falling apart at the seams without his family’s lead.

“So he will be your partner?” Warlic asked.

The remark snapped Drakath back to attention.

“What?” The Prince’s eyes nearly popped out at the arms trapping his. “The nerve of you! I would never—“

“Then what are we?” Ty asked, killing the rest of the words in his throat.

The Prince was stuck between the sea and a slew of authorities who may or may not have the option of bringing him in dead.

Gritting his teeth, Drakath gripped Ty back without really needing to. ‘Acting the part’ was a good excuse as opposed to fighting off terror.

“Real mates.” The Prince held back a stutter.

One of the teachers whispered to Warlic, worried.

“We can’t allow this!” They said, making perfect rational sense. Warlic had already been turning away from the pair.

“Considering how we have a cache of information on the Shadowscythe, this could be seen as an advantage,” Warlic explained himself. “As opposed to the amount of students who turned their backs on the Kingdom last year, having one or three isn’t such a travesty in comparison.”

“And you trust Ty?”

“I trust that Ty terrifies him.”

Overhearing bits of their conversation, Drakath shook Ty’s hands off.

“I will make it my mission to destroy your false King and the traitors who foolishly thought they could get rid of me.” Drakath swore, finding himself prisoner to a very strange situation.

Clasping her hands behind her back, Ty walked ahead of him.

“I can’t say I’m with you on the King thing. In fact, I love Alteon,” Ty leaned on her heel, gazing back at Drakath with interest. “But you wouldn’t be able to stop me from tearing my old classmates to shreds even if you cried,” The statement sent a chill up Drakath’s spine. “But since we’re partners, how about some tea? Maybe coffee at late nine? I have to treat my cute new partner after all.”

Everything about Ty, from the top of her head to her the toes of her red stained shoes, made Drakath’s stomach quiver. And yet, the Prince’s throat was parched, his body ached, and he needed time to think.

“Coffee.” He stated, strict and without any hint of wanting to make formalities with this freak.

“Absolutely.” Ty offered her arm and Drakath caught himself only after he took it again.    

It was something I really wanted to try. The Hero ended up in a class of aspiring hunters and huntresses who decided that villain-ing matched them better. Since her reputation was bad already, Ty goes off to ‘capture’ them in hopes that she won’t get thrown in prison for no reason. And she grabs Drakath anyway.

[iamapoopmuffin]

Friend Viktor on Yuri On Ice part 2

So people asked me to update with Viktor’s responses to YOI as he watches it, and who am I to say no? (Also the look on his face when I told him you all liked his thoughts was adorable he was so happy) so this is some of the stuff said during episodes 3 and 4.

“I am personally offended that I haven’t seen Yuri in those trouser holders he wears in the opening.”

Viktor: “So why can’t Yuri stay in Japan and train there?” Henry: “He’s 15, mate.” Viktor: “So? Nobody would miss him, we’ve established that.”

“Viktor’s a bird! A glorious, graceful bird!”

“If Yuuri’s pregnant from Eros, what do you think they’ll name their strange ice child? I think they should name it after me.”

“THERE’S A ROBOT ON THE ICE, THE ICE HAS A ROBOT!”

“Yuri’s like ‘Viktor, quit flirting and pay attention to me!’ and Viktor’s like ‘No, I want to flirt’” *So much later that it took us forever to realise these comments were linked* “And Yuuri’s like ‘oh my god Viktor’s so close it’s like he’s flirting lol’”

“Yuri’s like a cat. Or a dog. They’re both pretty needy.”

“What the fuck is that octopus doing to that smiley spike ball? Are they fucking? They are, aren't they? There's a statue in Hatetsu of an octopus having a fuck with a spike ball.”

 “I think Yuri is going to murder Viktor and I don’t blame him. It’ll be like that Diamond Brothers book where the guy was stabbed with an ice skate and dumped on the rink. They’ll find Viktor’s corpse on ice.”

“Ew, flashbacks.”

“Why is everything suddenly pin art?”

“Minako is going to murder Yuuri. It’ll be Murder! On Ice.” *Sings opening of Murder On The Dancefloor by Sophie Ellis Bextor*

“Viktor would make an interesting genie. The great, uh, Viktor of the lamp.”

“Yuuko wanted to cop a feel of 15-year-old booty.”

“Yuri looks like a glittery swan princess scarecrow.”

“Where did Yuri’s fans all come from? Are they from Russia? Go back to Russia, sexy Yuuri’s going to win anyway!”

“Yuuri looks like a human Death Star.”

Henry: “Please specify which Yuri you’re talking about, I’m starting to get confused.” Viktor: “No!” Henry: “But-” Viktor: “NEVER!” *Tries to take laptop and run*

“Is it bad that I’m imagining Yuuri in different dresses every time he mentions he’s the lady? It looks good though.”

“Is the fact that Yuuri’s skates are silver and Viktor’s are gold important at all?”

“’Now that that little blond shit has buggered off, I can stand on both parts of the podium, right?...Where did we even get this podium?’ ‘I pulled it out of my arse!’ ‘Euwh...’” (I think he was pretending to be Yuuri and one of the other guys here)

About the credits: “It looks like Yuuri has lice and Viktor is combing for the lice.”

*Sings ‘Fancy’ by Iggy Azalea as Yuri skates*

“So I get the impression little Yuri didn’t see much of his parents either, so they’re either dead or really just don’t give a crap.”

“Oh my god! Are they sharing a bed?!...No, wait, that’s the dog...damn dog!”

“Yuuri owns a cactus. Yes, that is important. I’m gonna marry that cactus!”

“Yuuri’s panic running is my normal running.”

“The crowd watching Viktor do things to Yuuri in the onsen is like crazy yaoi fangirls who want all the things even slightly gay. The one at the front is about to get a nuclear nosebleed.” 1 second later: “See? He’s either covering his nuclear nosebleed or praying.”

About Celestino: “He thinks he’s a sexy tiger.” About Celestino, in a whisper: “It’s really unprofessional to look right at the camera.”

*Laughs for a minute straight (no exaggeration) at Yuri leaning against the ice rink with his leg up vertical* “Aaah, I wish I was that flexible.”

“This ballerina teacher is even scarier than the last one.”

“I’m not sure if Yuri just sold his soul to Satan and Ballerina teacher is the devil, or if he just sold his body to a prostitute child sex traffic ring and she is the traffic pimp. Either way, I am deeply concerned.” A moment later: “Okay it’s the second, she’s kidnapping him.”

As Yuri and Satan/Lilia: “’Dear Satan, if I sell you my soul, please give me gold in Grand Prix Final in exchange.’ ‘Okay, but you will have to live with me and man with the face of Donkey Kong.’ ‘But why? I’m giving you my soul!’ ‘I just don’t like you.’”

“The cactus looks like a tower of bunnies.”

“Yuri upside down looks like a disgruntled zombie.” *Makes terrible imitation zombie noises*

*Pauses video for a long time to stare at screen* “I love how all the songs on Yuuri's computer are descriptions, like 'happy song' and 'favourite song 3' and 'heavy song 1' instead of having titles. How does he tell the songs are songs? How does he tell which one is the sex rap and which one sounds like the tinkly start thing? Does he just play one and hope for the best?”

“Phichit is a bug man. He has feelers. He feels.”

“What if a river monster suddenly came up and grabbed Yuuri and took him on an epic undersea adventure with mermaids and shit?”

“Scarier ballerina’s face looks like a spoon in this scene.” “I prefer it when her face looks like a spoon.”

“Oh my god! A bigger cactus! With houses on it! I’m sorry, wife cactus, I’m leaving you, this one is better!”

“Viktor’s voice tone is screaming ‘Please say yes, be my boyfriend, oh sexy Japanese one’.”

“Little (shorter) Yuri makes me think of a solider with his ‘yes ma’am’ and something in his face.” (He didn’t understand why I laughed at this one and it was glorious)

“Yuuri touched the buttcrack of Viktor’s hair.”

“’My theme is ‘I want to bone you and I’m 90% sure you’re violently flirting with me’’”

“Lilia’s house is fancy as fuck, that is the prettiest fireplace I have ever seen.”

“Yuri put some clothes on there are ladies present.”

“Mari looks as sick of this shit as I feel and Yuuri’s dad looks like a hamster.”

“I WAS WRONG, MINAKO IS THE SCARIER TEACHER!”

“Why do all these old ladies want Yuri’s ass?”

“THAT WAS A DISGUSTING TITLE DROP AND I AM ANGRY.”

Part 1                       Part 3

[tired-history-graduate]

I finally actually finished the first draft of my first chapter for my novel! It only took a few months, but hey! I don’t know how to start the second chapter, and I’m still not entirely sure on why the characters actually join together, but still, its a start! If you have any criticism (if you read it) feel free to share it with me! I’d prefer constructive criticism, but if you just want to tell me its crap, thats fine! It won’t destroy my self esteem (because I don’t have any anyway!) Most of it is under the cut thingy because its like 3000 words.

It was a relatively average night for a country village. There was a spot of rain, but the kind of rain that struggles to make a person even slightly damp, rain so light it’s almost as if it apologises for each little drop that hits. “Oops, I’m awfully sorry” the rain might say “I really hope I didn’t make a mark.” It’s awfully polite rain. The village, though small, had everything a person could need (as long as that person is a medieval peasant). It had a some stalls to purchase goods, farms to work, a Blacksmith's shop, and the two most important buildings, that would remain a vital necessity for every Christian town, city and village for centuries; a place to worship, and a place to get drunk afterwards.

Candle light could be seen glowing in the church, even though it was in fact completely empty. The tavern, on the other hand, was packed. Of course this shouldn’t be a surprise; drinking is a lot more fun than praying, even the priest and monks agreed. Hell, at a time when even drinking the water would probably kill you, getting drunk was one of the few pleasures people had. And since the water was likely to give you a minor case of death, it was much safer to drink wine and mead, and so getting drunk was just a daily fact of life. The tavern was quite large, with plenty of wooden stools and wooden tables, most of which were occupied by drunken men and women (and some drunken children). The owner, a large bald man with a crooked nose, a large scar along his right cheek from some previous bar fight, but a very welcoming smile, was behind the counter serving people drinks, whilst his two daughters, Camilla and Magdalena,  were running about carrying food and collecting the tankards. Camilla was a large woman, with her father's crooked nose, long blonde hair in a bun, and brown eyes. Magdalena was thin, and had her father's welcoming smile, but unlike her sister had brown hair. Both were beautiful in their own way, and both were often the victim of unwanted advances from some of the non-local male patrons, which often didn't end well as Magdalena had a hell of a right hook, and Camilla often used it as an opportunity to pick the man's pocket.

The tavern was often a noisy place. That night was no exception. And one table a drunken coachman was telling tales no sober person would believe, but the men and women at his table were not sober and took him at his word. At the bar itself sat a large drunken monk with a big walrus moustache. He was one of those people that would be incredibly forgettable if it weren't for one single feature. For this monk it was his moustache. It was so memorable that people simply called him Friar Moustache, which he believed to be a term of endearment, but was in fact because not a soul in the village knew his actual name, not even the priest (who was at this point sat next to Friar Moustache resting his head on the bar, drunkenly mumbling incoherently). Friar Moustache was leading a choir of drunken men singing a popular drinking song. There were a lot of harrumph's and ho's, and a great deal of crude language and descriptions of various lewd acts. The only one more enthusiastic about the song than Friar Moustache was an old man, possibly in his early to mid sixties, known to the villagers as Ser Malcolm the White. He looked a bit like a mid-sized bear. Well more accurately, a mid-sized, shaved, pink, often slightly drunk, bear with almost shoulder length curly white hair, a scruffy white goatee, a wrinkled face, and tired eyes. His accent was surprisingly similar to the modern Glaswegian accent. He had once been a knight who fought for glory and honour and place in the history books, but he never won any of those things. All he did was age, and now the only fight he had was the one to get out of bed each morning, which was getting harder every day.

On a table near the back of the tavern sat a young man just holding a tankard. His skin was pale, his eyes were wide, and tired looking. He gazed ahead of him as if he were staring into the abyss itself. This young man was an unfortunate peasant by the name of Glenn, and earlier that day he had died, which was causing him a great deal of distress. Now, many may think ‘well, he doesn’t seem that dead, he seems pretty alive.’ And those who do think that would be correct. He was in fact very much alive.  

“Don’t worry, got this this” Glenn had said to the huntsman, as the boar began charging. He did not. You see, longbows require a lot of upper body strength, which weedy, little Glenn didn’t actually possess. Why he had been given a bow by his father, it’s hard to tell. Perhaps his father hated him, which actually seems quite likely; he did have several more capable siblings. He managed to pull the bowstring back only a little before releasing, causing the arrow to travel only a couple of feet in a downward arch until it landed on the ground in front of him, seconds before the boar collided with him, knocking him to the ground. It would have actually been a little funny if he weren’t about to die. The huntsman tried to stab the beast with, but he missed, and the boar narrowly missed him. He immediately decided the best course of action was to run away before he was killed. The beast chased him off a little before turning back towards Glenn. By this point he had managed to get to his feet, but his head was still spinning, and he was very unsteady on his feet. The boar looked more like a monster than anything else now. It looked almost the size of a cow, with huge sword length tusks either side of its incredibly large snout. Of course, it was not in fact that size, or even especially monstrous. It was an average boar, but in his panicked, and dizzy state, his imagination had gone mad. He attempted to stagger away, with little success. He stumbled just as the beast charged at him again, and this time immediately gored by the creature’s tusks. It was a rather unpleasant sight, huge gashes into the poor man’s flesh from the beast’s tusks. Spaghetti sauce or blood gushed out of the wound, covering his shirt. It was probably blood. Either way, it would stain. The world around him began to dim, and the last thing he saw was the bloody beast wandering off back into the forest.

Okay, so it wasn’t the last thing he saw. Not long after, he awoke to find himself still in the forest, and caught a glimpse of the beast’s backside as it wandered off. For a second he froze and held his breath, but when he was sure the boar wasn’t going to charge again, he sat up, and touched him side. He found two large, deep gashes from the boar's tusks on his right hand side that should have killed him as far as he was aware, but there was no blood. He stood up, and looked back to where he had been lying. His eye widened. “Holy mother of god!” he screamed, on the edge of tears. Lying there, at his feet, was him. Well, more accurately, his body. Even more accurately, his very bloody body, with the exact same wounds he had. He stood there, staring at his own corpse for a while, sobbing in a very gross, ugly fashion.

He was disturbed from his silent mourning by the sounds of loud slurping. He turned to see a skeleton in a large black hooded cloak, and bright blue fluffy bunny slippers, drinking something from a ceramic mug covered in little colourful fish. The being was reading a newspaper (of course, Glenn had no idea what a newspaper was, as they wouldn’t be a thing for a few more centuries, he was also mostly illiterate, so it just looked like a piece of paper with squiggles one – which is all anything is really) and hadn’t noticed him. He coughed a little to get the being’s attention, with no success. Whatever they were reading in the paper, they were engrossed in it. The being took another large, loud sip from his fish mug, and spoke. “Hmm, four down, five letters, unpleasantly bitter” said the being in an almost ethereal, other worldly voice. The being reached to put their mug down on a table that wasn’t there. The mug fell to the ground, and smashed. The being looked up from his paper, and down at the broken mug, then looked at Glenn, then back at the mug, then back to Glenn. Now, without an actual face the being couldn’t really provide any facial expression that would suggest just how annoyed they were, but they were incredibly annoyed, and would have scowled at Glenn if possible (which it wasn't). They were so annoyed that they  gave of this feeling of deep, intense annoyance, that even the dimmest of people could pick up.   “Oh great” said the being sarcastically “another dead mortal, just what I wanted.” Glenn shuffled awkwardly and didn’t say anything. He tried to avoid making eye contact. He didn’t want to make the skeletal being even angrier by saying something stupid. It did not work. “I was happily doing my crossword, drinking my coffee, but you just had to die, didn’t you?” continued the being, slowly becoming less sarcastic, and more openly angry about having been disturbed “bloody mortals, I hate this damned job.” At this, Glenn was confused. “What job?” he inquired “Oh for goodness sake, do I have to go through the entire spiel?” replied the being Glenn shrugged and nodded awkwardly. "It might help a bit" he said. The being groaned at this and would have grimaced if he could have. “Very well. I am Death, claimer of souls, destroyer of worlds, and you died” said Death reluctantly “I’m here for your soul blah, blah blah, take you to the afterlife and all that crap so you can be judged by some jumped up little prick” Glenn just stood there, slightly stunned by the fact that he was talking to death, but also a little underwhelmed. He expected more from Death, though he couldn’t tell you exactly he expected. He definitely would have preferred someone nicer. “That it?” he said after a few moments of silence. “I’ve been doing this for a while buddy, and honestly I can’t be arsed with this” replied Death tiredly. They stood in silence for a few minutes. Glenn wasn't sure what to say to this eternal cosmic entity. Death was beginning to think they should have listened to their mother and become a butcher (though in a way, being the grim reaper isn't all that much different to being a butcher, at least, that was what he had said to her).

“So, mister Death, sir” began Glenn ending the awkward silence. “Now listen here mate” said Death, interrupting the recently dead person “I am a skeletal cosmic freaking entity that exists outside of space and time, I really do not have the time for the restrictive genders of you mortals” “Oh, right, sorry” responded the recently deceased Glenn “you could be a bit nicer about it though, I have just died!.” He gestured to his still warm body, that was lying in a pool of his own blood, and was being pecked at by a bird that looked a bit like a raven, though since Glenn knew nothing about birds, especially ravens, he wasn’t entirely certain. “Mate, shut up” said Death “God damned mortals!” "But what now though?" asked Glenn, ignoring Death, "do I go with you? Or am I stuck here?" "Honestly, I don't care mate, do what you want" replied Death exasperatedly "I just want to go back to my crossword, but now I have to deal with all the sodding paper work!" "Could you just let me go back to being alive?" "Not likely, I mean look" Death said as he pointed at the corpse being pecked at what might not have been a raven "you are pretty obviously dead." "Oh, right" responded Glenn gloomily "I understand." "Although" began Death craftily "Although what?" "You could just be mostly dead" "How can I be mostly dead?" asked Glenn confused by the whole situation "Well, you personally are obviously properly dead, but sometimes people are a little bit alive, and in those circumstances, I can let them go back to being alive" "Okay!" responded Glenn excitedly. "And thankfully there is no paperwork because you were alive" continued Death happily, using his skeletal fingers to do air quotes around the word alive "plus I don't have to deal with you anymore, so go on back." Glenn nodded and followed Death's orders. He lay down on top of his body, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then winced in pain. His eyes shot open, and he sat up, covered in his own blood, shirt ruined, glad about not having to be dead, but understandably still rather shaken by the whole experiences. "Oh, by the way, don't die again anytime soon, because if you do I'll make you regret it" said Death threateningly before grabbing his newspaper and disappearing.

"Helloo, anyone home" said a woman's voice startling Glenn a bit, causing him to drop him his empty tankard. It was Magdalena. "Ah bollocks" exclaimed Glenn "Watch your language Glenn" responded Magdalena feigning offence "Sorry Maggie, I was someplace else" explained Glenn "No worries sweetie" she said reassuringly "is everything okay? You look like death." Glenn reached for his side. His shirt was still a little damp with his blood. It was probably some sort of health and safety violation for him to be in the tavern, but they didn't have health and safety, which should explain a great many things, like why there were so many things that could end your life prematurely. "Its..err..I'm fine?" he replied, though it came out as if he were asking a question. "Oh that's great sweetie" said Magdalena, completely uninterested, she wasn't really paying attention. The tavern was busy and Glenn was one of those people who you could easily forget about. She grabbed his tankard and got back to work.

The singing had all but come to an end, even Ser Malcolm had stopped. The only one still singing, if you could call slurring most of the words and forgetting the others singing, was Friar Moustache. He was swaying a little one his stool and swinging his arm about, seemingly forgetting he was still holding a half full mug of mead. His big finish came, and he leant back on his stool and toppled over, flinging his mug into the air, which quickly came crashing down onto the head of another drunken patron. "oi, Wheresh me drink gone?" slurred Friar Moustache "were in me han!" He struggled to get back up onto his feet. Camilla walked quickly over to see what the commotion, and bent down. "Let me help you Friar" said Camilla. He smiled at her a great big stupid drunken grin. "Yur a riight goodun" he replied taking her hand and letting her pull him up. "You need to go home Friar" said the owner in a thick almost Lancashire accent from behind the counter "You've had a bit much mate." “Iamsickofyourshit,” Moustache said, his words tumbling from his mouth in a rush of barely distinguishable syllables. The owner nodded to his daughter, and a couple of his larger, more sober patrons, who grabbed the drunken holy man, and tried to escort him calmly out. “Gerroff me!” he said. “I’m ash sober ash ‘m gonna git. And nuffink I - wait wait wait - nuffink you can do ‘boutit.” He shook free of their grasp, and ambled back to the bar without so much as hiccup in their direction. The owner was much less polite after the first attempt. "Just carry him out" he ordered a couple of patrons. "Gerroff! I'm a man o cloth" objected Friar Moustache "I'ma have words with god if ya don't gerroff." The ignored him, and carried him through the tavern, whilst the other patrons simply ignored what was pretty average for a Sunday evening.

They carried him through the door and dropped him on the ground. "Sorry Friar" said one of the men who had been carrying him. The friar rolled over and struggled to get up, but refused to any offer of help from those who had just chucked him out. "Itsh fine, gerroff" he said "I can do it meself." The men looked at one another, shrugged and went back inside. The friar climbed back onto his feet and stumbled forward. He grabbed a wooden hitching post for support. He clung there, slack-jawed and slumped over, for a long time before he began staggering away from the tavern towards the church. He was planning to have a bit of holy wine before heading to bed. It was dark, and the polite rain had become proper rain. He was drunkenly mumbling angrily to himself about having been thrown out of the tavern. He was insistent that he wasn't that drunk, even though he was barely able to stand, or string a sentence together.

As he approached the midway point between the tavern and the church he noticed a very bright, almost blinding light out of the corner of his eye. He turned, and walked towards the light. "Whasis? Whas goin on?" he exclaimed, though still slurring his words "Lord is tha you?" Friar Moustache walked into the light, and fell backwards with a loud 'oof' "Watch where you're going, drunk prick!" yelled a feminine voice, coming from the light, as it seemed to float round the friar and wandered towards the edge of the village. Moustache sat there for a minute, his mouth agape, shocked. After a few minutes of watching the light float away, he drunkenly climbed up onto his feet, looked towards the church, then at the tavern, then at the church again, made the sign of the cross, then staggered back towards the tavern.