#but i guess stay tuned for a potential return

[rosinna]

why the fuck are over 900 of you still here asjdfk;l

[if-loves]

nightingale

// Yandere Sunday

sum: always on a tv screen, but never in front of him.

wc: 1649

warnings: possibly OOC sunday, probably some inaccuracies about penacony in general

a/n: who let me yap ⁉️ if anyone can guess the song that inspired this fic i will write you a fic of anyone you want LMAO first come first serve /j

and tried to make this gender neutral as possible, lmk if i left in some things!

likes & reblogs are appreciated :)

Nightingales are scarce and even more so fleeting, never lingering in one place for too long, always preparing for their next flight. Along with them they bring their lovely sounds, endlessly singing their tunes that humans could only wish to understand.

Small and agile, they are quick to slip away, as if holding sand in your hand. Coupled with their tendency of moving often, the nightingale is a bird that few have managed to see, and even fewer have managed to hold. Sunday was one of them, once upon a time.

He knew of a nightingale who seemed to enjoy his company, often playing with him and accompanying him when he needed a friend. This nightingale was gentle and kind, it stayed by his side without complaint or question, and even looked happy to do so. In all his joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, this nightingale was with him, perched on his shoulder obediently, a companion that he so desperately needed.

However, caging a bird no matter its species is perhaps one of the most sacrilegious things a person could do. They long for freedom, to feel the wind against their feathers, to explore the boundless skies; if a bird’s wings are clipped, if they are caged and unable to fly freely, can they truly be called a bird?

When you flew away, he was stunned. You flew far beyond his grasp, no longer willing to be perched on his shoulder obediently, and he had never seen you again since. Not in person, in Penacony, at least. You, who became a renowned actor, schedule always filled to the brim with no time for rest, always on to your next big hit.

Sunday watches you on televisions screens and sees your face plastered on billboards, as you’ve become the pride of Penacony for acting in the same way Robin has for singing. Both of you took flight and left the nest, and he is the only one who remains, waiting for the fateful day you return home, back to him.

When months turn to years, and there’s no sign of you, is when he gets anxious. He has no way to contact you without having to go through the Iris Family first, and you have never written to him. He doesn’t know where you are, or where to even start looking for you, and his duties as the head of the Oak Family mean that he doesn’t even have any opportunity to search through the cosmos for you. It worries him, and it makes him uncomfortable; what if you got hurt? What if you were sad? Who would comfort you?

Sunday feels like he’s going crazy when he reads a gossip article about your potential relationship. Even as his pen crunches and breaks in his hand, as the ink soaks into his pristine white gloves and stains his hand and the papers beneath, he can only focus on reading the same few words on the bright screen.

Only when the distinct taste of iron floods his mouth does he realise the mess he created on the table, promptly swiping off the clearly clickbait headline and taking a deep breath. You wouldn’t betray him like that, he knows you wouldn’t. (Of course you wouldn’t. Right?)

When invites for the Charmony Festival are sent, he takes the time to personally prepare your invite, even leaving in a dried red orchid he procured just for you. He knows you’ll accept the invite, but he still can’t shake the feeling of doubt and fear. There was always the possibility… No, you wouldn’t. He knows you wouldn’t. (Would you?)

Even as word of your acceptance reaches his ears, he still lives with bated breath, as if he’s constantly afraid something will happen. Logically, he knows that you’re not one to back down on your word so there is nothing to worry about, but somehow, somehow - something doesn’t feel right, like a pipe slowly leaking water. It’s only a matter of time before it breaks completely, but he’s left guessing and at the mercy of the Aeons, something far beyond his control, and he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like it at all.

Ever since you left, he’s always had this uncomfortable feeling in his chest. He feels, or rather, he knows, that you belong with him, by his side as his lover, his everything. To have let you slip from his fingers so easily, so quickly was an oversight on his part - he was foolish to think that you would stay. Your promises were naught but honeyed lies, a treason he could never forgive.

When news of your arrival reached his ears, he was quick to arrive at the reception in the Reverie in reality to greet you. Sunday had personally requested to be your main contact for the duration of your stay, even as mounds of paperwork piled up on his desk. You, who he had not seen for so many years, stood in front of him as beautiful as the day you opened your wings and took flight, and left him alone in loneliness he thought he’d spend with you.

“(Y/n),” he breathes out, relief seeping through his words as he bows and takes your hand in his. Sunday cranes his neck to look into your eyes as he brings your knuckles to his lips, and in front of hundreds of guests and staff members, he presses a kiss that lingers for far too long to be considered chaste on your skin.

Whispers immediately flood the area, phones taken out to film the scene, and Sunday still refuses to let your hand go. Even as you tug as gently as you can, and even as you give him a clearly strained smile, he doesn’t pay them any mind and walks away while pulling you along. While you worry about the rumors that are bound to surface from such a blatant display, he seems as though he could care less.

“Sunday! What was that about?!” You finally confront him as he brings you to what you can only assume is meant to be your room, but he takes his time to close the door and take a seat on a couch. He is smiling.

“What do you mean?” Sunday cocks his head to the side innocently, as though unaware of the meaning of his actions. He even has the gall to pat the space next to him, wordlessly inviting you to take a seat, next to him no less. “Is it wrong to greet my dearest friend, of whom I have not seen for many years?”

If Sunday knows you, after all these years…

“…W-well, I just didn’t expect that you’d do it like that…”

He knows that you’ll always, always, fold to him.

“I couldn’t have our first meeting after so long be anything less than memorable.” He chuckles as you timidly take your seat next to him, his wings fluttering ever so slightly.

“About that…” You clearly hesitate to say your next words, shadows of guilt creeping onto your face as you stare at your lap. “I know it’s been a long time, but I want to say… sorry for leaving you without telling you. I wanted to, really, but Maeven said it would be for the best and I, well, I couldn’t really talk back to her, could I? You know I always wanted to be a movie star, and- and she offered me that chance, who knows if it would ever come back? I just, I’m sorry, I didn’t -”

“Breathe, (Y/n).” He takes your hands in his, looking at you with a soft smile. You looked so frightened, like a bunny facing a big wolf and knowing there was no escape. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Ah, um, are you sure? It’s okay to be mad at me, I deserve it, so please don’t hold back on me just because we’re friends-”

“I really mean it when I say I’m not mad.” Sunday’s smile is pure and angelic, and it brings you comfort in a way you haven’t felt since you left. For a moment, the universe stops, and you lose yourself in this peace. It feels like breathing, after drowning for so long.

You let him hold you as tears start to stream down your face, and soon you’ve started crying for a reason you’re not quite sure of yourself. Despite this, Sunday says nothing and merely hugs you warmly and gently, and you think that perhaps what you’ve missed the most about Penacony is him.

So when Sunday coaxes you into taking a trip into the Dreamscape, you obediently follow his words, and when he brings you to Dewlight Pavilion, to his private office, you don’t question a single thing. He’s still the Sunday you’ve known since you were a child, the Sunday who played with you and the Sunday you laughed and smiled with, the one you made promises to.

When he tells you to take a rest in his office, to let go of all of your stresses and loosen up, you see no reason to be apprehensive of him, and with a nod you do as he advises. Sunday would never want to hurt you.

When you allow yourself to let go of your worries and embrace the warmth of slumber, and when you wake up in a room not yours but somehow also yours, with a raging headache and gaps in your memory, and when Sunday says that you’re married, that you’ve been sick for a long time, that you often forget and forget but it’s okay because he always remembers for you, you believe him. It’s easier to believe him when he tells you the medicine he’s giving you is to aid your recovery than to try and think of anything else.

It’s easier when he’s all that you know.

[blasphemousclaw]

Hello ! I’ve seen a post mentioning the demigods of the Mausoleum as well as the ones killed by Vyke, and while as the person say that this does have potential for oc writers, I can’t help but wonder who they might be related to. (Like seriously I can’t stop wondering the relation between 9 dead demigods and the demigods we know about as well as the Elden Lords and Marika). So I became so desperate that I finally dare to ask other people their thoughts about it (my family doesn’t even know a little bit of Elden Ring Lore or just forget about it).

Hello! OK this topic has actually stumped me for so long, so I finally got around to looking into the wandering mausoleums and wow is it weird and complicated. 

Lets get the basic facts out of the way… Basically, the wandering mausoleums house the bodies of “the soulless demigods:” 

“The mausoleum prowls. Cradling the soulless demigod. O Marika, Queen Eternal. He is your unwanted child.” (Spirit NPC)

“The sun in eclipse is said to be the symbol of the Wandering Mausoleum where the soulless demigods slumber.” (Eclipse Crest Heater Shield)

The mausoleums’ bells are said to ring "in constant mourning for the soulless demigods.” (Mausoleum Surcoat)

The mausoleums (well, most of them... stay tuned) are defended by Mausoleum Knights, undead warriors who “willingly beheaded themselves so that they may serve their masters in death.” (Mausoleum Knight enemy description) The mausoleum knight Lhutel the Headless earned herself the honor of Erdtree burial for this sacrifice. These knights carry shields bearing the symbol of the Eclipse:

“The eclipsed sun, drained of color, is the protective star of soulless demigods. It aids the mausoleum knights by keeping Destined Death at bay.” (Eclipse Crest Greatshield)

We also know that Castle Sol and Miquella are connected to all of this, because the inhabitants of Castle Sol seem to worship the eclipse… there are two spirit NPCs in the area who say these things:

“Ohh, great sun! Frigid sun of Sol! Surrender yourself to the eclipse! Grant life to the soulless bones!”

“Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... I will never set my eyes upon it now... Your divine Haligtree…”

There is some kind of operation to “give life” back to the soulless demigods of the walking mausoleums centered at Castle Sol. 

So who are these dead guys??? It does seem that they were killed on the Night of the Black Knives… Godwyn the Golden’s murder was said to be “the first recorded Death of a demigod in all history” (via Rogier), so we can assume that these guys were also killed by Destined Death, wielded by the Black Knife assassins. I think they are considered “soulless” because, since they were killed by Destined Death, they died in both body and soul… Ranni set up her ritual splitting the cursemark of death so that she would die only in body and keep her soul, and Godwyn would die only in soul and his body stayed alive, to everyone’s horror… so a killing with no special ritual would just kill both aspects of a person, and prevent them from experiencing the “proper” death of returning to the Erdtree: 

“A proper death means returning to the Erdtree. Have patience. Until the time comes...and the roots call to you.” (Spirit NPC)

So I guess the goal of the eclipse ritual is to retrieve these demigods’ lost souls, including Godwyn’s. 

As for the soulless demigods’ identities, a spirit NPC does explicitly state that a demigod within a mausoleum is Marika’s child. There is indeed plenty of room within the Golden Lineage family tree for there to be a bunch of currently unknown family members, because Godrick is said to be the last of the Golden Lineage and a distant relation of Queen Marika… so that’s potentially a ton of previous generations of demigods that are just not named! These demigods could easily have been killed in order to hurt Marika and the Golden Order in Ranni’s dire plot, with Godwyn being the most devastating loss and the target of her specific ritual. 

I should also mention that there are two unique wandering mausoleums in Liurnia, around the Uhl Palace Ruins, that do not have a bell, are not protected by mausoleum knights, and can only duplicate remembrances of NON-shardbearing bosses. @katyahina pointed this out in this fantastic post, and I wouldn’t have even thought about these mausoleums if I hadn’t read it!! I’m currently unsure if these two soulless demigods had unique identities; however, really interestingly, unlike every other demigod corpse, the corpses in these two bell-less mausoleums are charred black:

(Normal mausoleum)

(Bell-less mausoleum)

So I’m inclined to think that something weird happened TO these two demigods that didn’t happen to anyone else that caused them to behave as less powerful versions, rather than them having unique identities from the other demigods to begin with… but that's just my take. What could have happened to them??? And why are they confined to this one “Mausoleum Compound” area, that’s among the Uhl Palace Ruins, where there are also Ancestor followers??? Literally I thought about this so hard I gave myself a headache. Anyway give katyahina's post a read for some fun ideas about their identities. Whoever they are, I think whatever happened to them means that they’re beyond saving; even the eclipse ritual can’t help them.

Also I could not ever begin to guess what’s going on with the demigods supposedly killed by Vyke in order for him to have gotten great runes and it honestly makes absolutely no sense to me. sorry but if I try to think about this anymore I fear my head will explode

[sephirthoughts]

Father: Verb

Epilogue (1 of 2)

Summary: 11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

Hooray, first epilogue!!!! There are two because this one got a little heavier than I intended. Stay tuned for the second epilogue, which is the fun one!!

rating: teen and up

(prev chapter and ao3 linked at bottom)

When the first dawn of their new lives broke, they were lying together on the narrow bed of a cheap inn in Kalm, where Vincent had carried Sephiroth, after their flight from the Manor. Sephiroth’s face was buried in Vincent’s leather chest armor, which had returned with his human form, and his arms were wrapped tightly around Vincent’s narrow waist.

The boy actually hadn’t let go of him, since they arrived, not even allowing Vincent to go out and purchase food for him. He seemed to be afraid that if he let Vincent out of his sight for a single moment, he’d disappear forever. He’d eventually drifted back off to sleep, but if Vincent so much as stirred, he’d murmur in protest and constrict his arms, like a little python.

Not that Vincent had any complaints. He wasn’t even certain he was allowed this much happiness, as he lay contentedly, in the hazy twilight of early morning, listening to his son’s soft, even breathing. Every once in a while, he would lean down to press kisses to the top of his head, breathing deeply of his warm scent, reminding himself that this was real. That it was all over. That they were free and they were together.

Violet turned to yellow-gold, as the rising sun pushed lazy shadows across the floor, patiently herding them toward noon. Vincent was still holding his sleeping son, watching the fairy-glimmers of sunlight, that slipped in through the eyelets in the curtains, shimmer and glow as they were captured and refracted by Sephiroth's brilliant, silver hair. 

Sephiroth finally stirred and blinked about, blearily. “Vincent? What…what time is it?”

“Almost noon,” Vincent answered. “This is officially the latest you’ve ever slept. Congratulations.”

“How do you know what time it is? From the position of the sun? Is that a Turk thing?”

“I can see the clock, from here.”

“Oh,” he yawned. “Do we have to get up, now?”

“We don’t have to do anything. Stay in bed as long as you like. I figure you’ve earned about fourteen-hundred sleeping in days, since you’ve never had a weekend off, before.”

“You’ll stay with me, though, right?”

“I have nowhere to be.”

Sephiroth nuzzled his face back into Vincent, like a cat, and lay silent for a few minutes, before he looked up at him again. “Well, now I’m too excited about having a day off. I can’t go back to sleep.”

“Do you want to get up?”

“Mm, not yet. Can we just…lie here and talk?”

“Alright. What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Yes, a few things. First of all, how did you know?”

“About what?” Sephiroth asked, though he knew very well what Vincent meant.

“About Chaos, your mother, where to find me, everything.”

Sephiroth peered up into Vincent’s face. “I…was possessed by time-traveling future versions of myself, who showed me all their memories from my potential futures. That’s how I found out you’d never abandoned me, at all, and Hojo had imprisoned you under the manor, while Shinra sent me out to commit war crimes, and be the poster boy for recruiting other innocent children into their SOLDIER program.”

“I see,” Vincent said, furrowing his brow thoughtfully.

Sephiroth blinked. “You believe me?”

“Yes. Why would I not believe you?”

“I guess, I expected some skepticism, at such a fantastic claim.”

Vincent very nearly smiled. “Seph, I’m the undead vessel of an ancient demon who can kill gods, and you are my superhuman son, conceived in a lab, using extra-terrestrial DNA. A bit of possession by time-traveling future selves seems the least fantastic thing about us.”

“But it wasn’t Jenova’s DNA that conceived me. You know that, right? It was introduced in the womb, to alter me, after the fact. My conception was purely human. I—I’m human.”

Seeing the boy’s eyes redden, Vincent wrapped him up tightly in his arms. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry. Of course you’re human.”

“You are, too. No matter what you think,” Sephiroth said, his voice muffled by Vincent’s cloak. 

Borne down by the weight of their mutual trauma, the two lapsed back into silence. For a long while, they simply lay in each other’s arms, listening to the birds chirping outside, and the people on the street below, going about their daily business. Sephiroth had never felt so much like a monster, so far removed from the rest of humanity, as when he was exposed to human beings, living their peaceful, mundane lives. That feeling was magnified, tenfold, now that he was free to live as he chose. Would he and Vincent ever have such a life? Could they? He hardly dared to hope.

“Your future versions,” Vincent said, drawing him from his ruminations. “Are they still…in there?”

Sephiroth shook his head. “No. They stopped existing, once we broke fate. I will not miss them. Living so many lives, all at once, was exhausting.”

“But you still have those memories? From all the futures?”

“Some. The futures my others came from don’t exist anymore, so most of the memories are fading quickly. But it’s not like I have amnesia. I remember that those things happened, I’m just losing the memory of actually having been there, in those times and places. The others wanted me to be free of fate, and live a life of my own choosing, not following their paths. But, a man choosing a path and one stumbling onto it may still wind up at the same destination. So, they left me with guideposts, to help me avoid the patterns of events, that led to that terrible future Lucrecia showed you, in her visions.”

“And you’re certain you can trust them?”

“Yes. But it’s not just because they’re me. That would be a foolish reason to trust them, since I know myself. I trust them because of the oldest one—my final version. He hardly spoke, but he was the strongest. When his body died, he won a battle of wills with the lifestream, and kept his consciousness intact. That was how he discovered the way to defy destiny and travel back.

“During his life, he overpowered and silenced Jenova, and got free of her will. Only, it was too late. He restored his sanity, only to fully comprehend what a monster he’d become. That is the one thing, I will never forget, as long as I live. His…anguish. His abject despair and desolation, when he looked back, with clear eyes, upon what he had done, under the influence of her poison, and saw the rivers of blood, in his wake.

“I will never forget the agony, that tore his soul apart. His desperation, to find some way to make it right, to heal the wounds dealt by his own hands, to undo it all. No version of me would ever willingly walk back toward that fate. That is the reason they all agreed, one by one, to die, in order to have a chance at changing it.

“And now, they are me. I am all of us. I am Sephiroth, unbound by fate. I will take this precious gift I have been given, and dedicate my life to protecting this world and its innocent children, from the cruelty of gods and monsters.”

“You sound like such a grown man,” Vincent observed, with a sigh. “So wise and circumspect. I don’t know if you even need me, anymore.”

Sephiroth’s slit pupils contracted and he sat bolt-upright, grabbing Vincent’s arm with both hands. All at once, that look of aged weariness and hard-won wisdom evaporated from his face, and he was just a fourteen-year-old child, again. “No. No. Never say that, Vincent. I need you. I’ll always need you. You can’t…you can’t ever leave me. You’re my special person. You are the one I want to be with. P—please don’t leave me. Please don’t—”

“Seph, breathe,” Vincent interrupted firmly. “I’m not going to leave you. Not ever.”

“But you said that before and then they took you! It was our birthday! And they took you away from me! What if they try to take you away again!”

The boy was spinning out into a panic attack, shaking and chest heaving with rapid, shallow breaths, squeezing his forearm in a white-knuckle grip, that would’ve pulverized the bones of a normal human.

Vincent sat up and threw his cloak back. “Come on. Bite. Just like when you were little.”

Sephiroth lunged forward and bit into the leather, clawing Vincent’s sides, hanging on for dear life, until his head stopped spinning, and the iron bands stopped constricting around his chest. Then he loosened his grip and melted into Vincent, with a shuddering sob.

“It’s ok. It’s ok,” Vincent murmured. “There’s no one who can take me away, anymore. No one who can tear us apart. If they want to try, let them come. All the armies in the world would break on us, and be swept away like dry leaves before a gale.”

“That’s…very poetic,” Sephiroth sniffled.

“I think I read it in a book, once. I don’t remember the book.”

“Thank you, for helping me calm down. I’m better now,” he said, wiping his red-rimmed eyes with the back of his hand. “Sorry for acting like a baby.”

Vincent’s throat constricted with a tight ache, hearing the boy use these words again. “Hojo berated you for crying, didn’t he. Did he call it acting like a baby? You’ve said that before.”

Sephiroth lowered his blue-green eyes and nodded.

“Seph, showing emotion doesn’t mean you’re acting like a baby. Even if it did, you are a child. You may have grown-up memories from alternate realities and a supergenius intellect, but you’re still just a little boy. You have every right to be one. You are allowed to cry. You are allowed to be scared and sad and confused and angry. You are allowed to make mistakes and not be perfect, and know that you’ll still be loved and protected and cared for. No matter what. You don’t have to be strong, for me, Sephiroth. You don’t have to be a hero, for me. Just be my son. That’s all.”

Tears were rolling down Sephiroth’s cheeks again, and despite Vincent’s admonition, he kept brushing them away, as if he was ashamed of them. Vincent drew him right back into his arms and held him, rocking him gently, till the tears naturally subsided. Even when Sephiroth pulled away, eventually, he took Vincent’s hand in his and fidgeted with the brass gauntlet, unwilling to break physical contact.

“Vincent…is it alright if I call you father?” he asked timidly, without raising his head. “It—it’s ok if you don’t like it. Just tell me and I won’t.”

“What?” Vincent said, taken aback. “Of course you can, why would you…wait, is that why you’ve been calling me Vincent since we left the manor? You were afraid I wouldn’t like it if you called me father?”

Sephiroth shrugged, still looking down at the gauntlet, as he straightened Vincent’s fingers and curled them, observing how the articulated plates moved and interlocked. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”

“Where is this coming from, Seph? Why would you think I’d want to distance myself from you, after everything we’ve been through together?”

“I know it’s biologically true, that you are my father, but you never asked for any of this. Lucrecia stole a piece of you,and made you a father, without your consent. She impregnated herself, with the express purpose of using your child as experimental material. If I were you, I’d feel betrayed. Violated. I’d be furious. So, I would understand if you’d rather not be reminded of…of what she did to you.”

“I’ll never understand why she did what she did,” Vincent sighed. “I knew all along that she was a scientist, first, and that she loved her work, above all else, but I never imagined that would extend to her own child. I don’t know if I feel betrayed and violated. Maybe I should. Maybe I should be angry. Mostly, I just feel regret and pity for her.”

“What happened between you?” Sephiroth asked gingerly.

Vincent shook his head. “It’s…complicated. It was never anything more than friendship, technically. I know she at least partially reciprocated the attachment I felt to her, but everything between us was implicit and contextual. Then, when she told me she’d made her choice, and it wasn’t me, I backed off. All I wanted was for her to be happy, even if her happiness didn’t have a place in it for me. Looking back on everything, now, I think she wanted me to fight for her. But I didn’t understand that, then. I believed standing aside was the right thing to do, so I did.”

“It was, though,” Sephiroth contended. “You can’t blame yourself for not pursuing her, against her stated wishes. You can’t blame yourself for not fighting for her, when she told you she didn’t want you to. It wouldn’t have been you.”

Vincent smiled ruefully. “Because I’m a coward?”

“Because you’re a kind and considerate person!” Sephiroth returned, warming quickly in defense of his father. “What is wrong with that? Since when is accepting another person’s decisions and respecting their stated boundaries cowardly? She made her choice, and you respected it. It wasn’t your fault she didn’t tell you the truth!”

“But, I should have known,” Vincent said, wavering. “I should have known her well enough to grasp the subtext, and understand what she really wanted.”

“Would you have done it? If you understood what she wanted from you? Would you have fought for her?”

Vincent closed his mouth tightly and looked away, for a long beat. Then he very slowly shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t have.” As soon as he’d said it, he let out a shaky breath, as if even pronouncing the words had cost him a tremendous effort. But now that he’d finally got them out, a dam seemed to have broken, inside him. “She…hurt me. She chose another man. If she loved me, she—she should have chosen me. I should have been good enough for her. It would have wounded my pride, too deeply, to lower myself to fighting over her, like a dog over a bone. I deserved better, than to be pitted against her lover, in a contest for her affection. At least, I thought I did.”  

“You did! You did deserve better! It’s not wrong for you to have a bottom line. She had no right to expect you to sacrifice your dignity and self-esteem chasing after her.”

“The worst of it is that she never told me the truth. Not even when she tried to force my hand, and said that if she was the only one concerned, then she’d go ahead with the fetal experiments.” Vincent’s brow darkened and his eye flashed gold. “She gave me that ultimatum, while continuing to let me believe you were his child! What sane man would have pressured a woman to leave her lover, whose child she was ostensibly carrying, when she had already refused him? What game was she playing? How many dragons did she want me to slay, to prove my love? Did she want me to get on my knees and beg her not to ruin her life?”  

This was the angriest Sephiroth had ever seen Vincent, and he was stunned to silence. The sudden change in the gentle, softspoken man was akin to watching a beaten dog break its chain, and suddenly realize it was a wolf. Hackles up, fangs bared and bristling—a proud and beautiful creature. It was breathtaking.

“I—I’m sorry,” Vincent faltered, misunderstanding Sephiroth’s expression. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“No more apologizing!” Sephiroth said vehemently, grabbing and tugging his hands, to stop him withdrawing into himself. “You didn’t frighten me, at all. I was just surprised to see you finally expressing anger. To be honest, I was beginning to worry that you’d keep turning it all inward and punishing yourself forever, without admitting that what Lucrecia did to you was wrong.”

“But, it wasn’t all your mother’s fault. If it weren’t for Hojo—”

“We’re not talking about him, we’re talking about Lucrecia,” Sephiroth interrupted, pointedly using her name, rather than the maternal designation. “Getting angry isn’t enough. You have to admit to yourself, that the blame for what she did rests on her, alone. She was a grown woman, years older than you. She made her choices with her eyes open. She didn’t need her twenty-seven year-old bodyguard to tell her what she was doing was wrong. She knew it was, and she did it anyway. She lied to you and violated you!

“And then what? She expected you to force yourself into the situation, in order to save her from herself? How were you supposed to navigate the tangled web she wove, when she didn’t even get out of it alive? That doesn’t mean you can’t forgive her, but you can’t keep finding ways to excuse her. Lucrecia wasn’t a saint, and she wasn’t a victim of circumstances. She was a person who made a conscious choice to destroy all three of our lives.”

Vincent’s shoulders slumped, and he gave a long, weary sigh. “I…I didn’t know you felt that way. For what it’s worth, I think she really wanted to be your mother.”

“Then she should have done better,” Sephiroth said icily. “I wasn’t a person, to her, when she decided to use me as a test subject. I was a biological process, that she could manipulate in the name of science, with no thought to the human repercussions.”

“But…she did change her mind,” Vincent attempted. “She regretted her mistakes. I doubt she ever suspected that Hojo would take you away, and never even let her hold you. By the time she realized what he really was, it was too late. She was trapped by what she’d done, and it all spun out of her control. When I saw her image in my dreams, she said that she couldn’t live with the guilt, anymore, after all the suffering she’d caused. She begged me to forgive her.”

“She also asked you to kill me.”

“Yes. That is why I doubt what I saw was really Lucrecia, in the true sense. It was probably more like an echo of her will, filled with her lingering regrets. But whatever the truth of the matter, she was still your mother. I hope you can forgive her, one day.”

“You hope that I’ll forgive her because you loved her. I didn’t even know her. All I know is what she did to us. Maybe, one day, I’ll have it in me to forgive her. But right now, she is no more a mother to me, than that thing in the mako reactor was.”

Vincent nodded his understanding, despite the pain his son’s bitter words caused him. “It’s up to you, and I won’t press you.” He paused. “But Seph, no matter what she did or how I feel about her, I would never harbor any negative feeling toward you, because of the choices your mother made. You’re the only good thing that any of us ever did. The way it came about was ugly and complicated and full of misery, but you are my son. You are the only person in the world who matters to me. Of course I want you to call me father.”

Sephiroth sighed, leaning into Vincent’s embrace again. “I never wanted anything more than I wanted you to be my father. But I feel like…I don’t deserve to be that happy. I keep expecting to find out there was some mistake, and I’m not your son at all. That I’m just a freak, with no connection to anyone, except a dead monster.”

“Well, that can’t possibly be true. Even if Hojo could have faked the DNA profiles he showed me, you look just like me. I tried to downplay it, because of his threats, but there’s a reason people always assume we’re father and son, despite our hair and eyes being the exact opposite colors.”

“That woman at the bakery didn’t. I forgot to tell you, because we ran into that boy and his mother. She thought you were my lover. She said we must be a fated pair!”

Vincent’s eyebrows went up. “Well. That’s certainly flattering to me. Except, you’re not a girl.”

“Oh, please. As if that matters to you.”

“Excuse me? What are you implying, young man?”

“Don’t forget, I’ve seen the future, father. I know all about you,” Sephiroth said, looking very wise and mysterious.

“What does that mean? I’m not—I don’t…do I?”

“Nuh-uh, I’m not telling. First of all, that would be weird. Second of all, it might be totally different, now. We rewrote destiny, after all.”

“Well then why bring it up?” Vincent groused. “Just to tease me?”

“Actually, I brought it up to break the ice. I wanted you to know that I’m aware your…horizons are broader than you let on, as far as gender and attraction. I don’t want you to feel you have to hide it from me. And also, I wanted to tell you right from the beginning that I don’t like girls and I never will. Just to spare us the awkward conversation, when I bring home a boyfriend.”

“B—boyfriend?!” Vincent sputtered. “You’re fourteen! No boyfriends!! Not till you’re twenty—no, thirty!”

“Tch. You’re such an old prude.”

“You think I won’t make it forty? Keep sassing me and find out!”

“Alright, alright, calm down before you turn into Chaos,” Sephiroth laughed. “I was just joking, anyway. I won’t be dating or anything like that. I’m waiting for my soul mate.”

Vincent squinted at him. “Soul mate? I didn’t realize you were the romantic type.”

“No, I mean I am literally waiting for him,” Sephiroth clarified. “I know he exists, because I have seen him with my own eyes. He was my soul’s anchor point, in every timeline. Our connection to each other is the reason experiencing all the other futures didn’t destroy my mind. I’m going to protect him and take care of him, this time. I will never let anything bad happen to him. I also plan to marry him, one day. He just happens to be far too young for that kind of thing, at the moment.”

“You’re far too young for that kind of thing,” Vincent grumbled, crossing his arms. “Maybe slow down on the marriage talk, before you give your father a heart attack.”

“Nice try, old man. We both know you don’t have a heart.”

“That’s because you took it.”

“Speaking of that. I should probably give it back,” Sephiroth said sheepishly.

Vincent held his hand up. “No. I meant what I said. Keep it for me.”

“You…you want me to keep your heart?” Sephiroth’s eyes misted over again, and his voice trembled with emotion. “You really trust me that much?”

“Of course I do. There’s no better place for it, that I can think of, than with you. I’ve thought about it, since we left the manor, and if you’re literally holding my heart, you won’t have to worry, anymore, when we’re apart. You’ll always be able to call me back to you, if you need me.”

Sephiroth nodded, through his tears, reflexively laying a hand on his heart. As he did, he felt the familiar shape, through his shirt. “My locket. But I gave it to Chaos, in the reactor.”

“I thought you’d probably want it, so I put it back on you, while you were sleeping.”

Sephiroth pulled the locket out of his shirt and looked at it, for a moment. Then he unclasped the chain and took it off. Rocking up on his knees, he carefully fastened it around Vincent’s neck.

Vincent balked. “Seph, I can’t take this. This is your—”

“No, you have to take it,” Sephiroth insisted, laying one hand over the locket, on Vincent’s chest, and the other over his heart, on his own. “You gave me your heart. Since I can’t cut mine out and give it to you, this is the next best thing. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that matters to me. It represented love and family, to me, till I met you. Now that I have my father, I don’t need to cling to an old picture of my mother, for comfort. So, I want you to keep it for me, as a symbol of our love and trust.”

Vincent hesitated, then dipped his chin in solemn assent. “Then I will take good care of it, for you.”

“I think it may have belonged to your father, anyway. There’s a V engraved on the inside.”

“Huh. That’s odd,” Vincent frowned, opening the locket and holding it up to inspect it. “It does look like the V from our family seal. But my father would never have worn something silver. He was allergic.”

“It’s platinum, not silver. The chain, too.”

“I see,” Vincent said, with an odd expression. Then he repeated it, in a lower voice. “I see.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing important. Just an answer to an old question,” he said, tucking the locket away under his cloak. “Now, it’s about time we got you something to eat. You must be starving.”

“Not really. I can go days without food, before I start feeling it,” Sephiroth chirped.

Vincent’s iris flashed a warning gold. “And you know that because Hojo…”

“Father, he’s dead,” Sephiroth said, putting his hands on Vincent’s shoulders. “I cut off his head, myself. There’s no use wasting any more anger on him.”

His wrath subsided immediately, along with the gold ember in his eye. Then he was embarrassed that he could so easily be pacified, simply by being called ‘father’ and touched affectionately by his son, and scowled disconsolately, which made Sephiroth laugh again.

“Well, whether you feel hungry or not, I’m going to get you food,” Vincent announced, reasserting his authority. “It’s unhealthy not to eat, especially while you’re still growing.”

“Alright, but I’m coming with you.”

“Seph, you know we can’t risk you being seen. Your appearance is too distinctive.”

“Said the man who wears a bright-red cloak and shiny brass armor everywhere.”

“No one is going to be looking for me, and if they were, they’d have no reason to believe you and I would be together. Most of Shinra don’t even know I was at the manor. Besides, I know how to move around unseen.”

“I know how to—”

“Without mind control.”

Sephiroth made a sour face. “It’s not my fault people are weak-willed and easy to manipulate.”

“That’s true, but it’s still not nice to do it, if you don’t absolutely have to. How do you know there won’t be any permanent side-effects?”

“Hmph. Fine, I won’t go about scrambling the brains of the riff-raff, if you’re going to be so strict about it. Oh! I know! I can just disguise myself! So much has happened, that I forgot it’s one of the abilities my others left me.”

To Vincent’s horrified astonishment, the boy’s body suddenly warped and distorted, and he found himself standing face to face with…himself. Or rather, an identical copy, down to every detail. “Seph, this is…very weird. Is that really what I look like?”

“It is,” Vincent’s double said, with Sephiroth’s voice. “I can’t change my voice, though. That’s a flaw. Also, I can’t keep it up for extended periods. No more than a couple of hours, at a time.”

“That’s a pretty remarkable talent. I don’t see how you being me helps, though. We can’t both go out like this.”

“I just wanted to impress you with what I can do.” Sephiroth grinned, as his body shifted back to normal, only his hair was still jet black and he still had Vincent’s crimson eyes and ashen skin. “How’s this? No one will be looking for Sephiroth Valentine.”

That shot struck home, of course, and Vincent was thoroughly defeated. Just as he’d said, Shinra really couldn’t do much to them, even if they did send an army. But they could make things annoying for them, and they certainly wouldn’t bat an eye at hurting any civilians that happened to be in the way. He and Sephiroth weren't in hiding, per se, but it was better not to invite their notice.

Down the street from the inn, was a pub he’d visited many years ago. It had since been converted into a bakery, featuring local baked goods and some light lunch fare, such as sandwiches and salads. Because of Vincent’s knack for fading from sight, the beautiful boy with him attracted many curious gazes, but no eyes fell on him, despite the crimson cloak and brass armor. After they entered the bakery, he leaned down and whispered something to Sephiroth. The boy nodded, and Vincent actually vanished, leaving him to peruse the pastries in the glass case, alone.

Outside, Vincent alit on the ridgepole of a rooftop, crouched like a stone gargoyle, sighting the streets below for about ten seconds, before he sprang away, dissolving into crimson blur and rematerializing in an alleyway, a street over, with the massive barrel of Cerberus pressed to the base of a man’s skull, below his black ponytail. The man’s gloved hands went up slowly.

“Special Agent Valentine. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” He sounded young. Very young. His voice was steady, but too stiff and proper. Concealing his nervousness behind cold formality. Vincent had been the exact same way, when he was a rookie.

“Not a Turk anymore,” Vincent growled.

“Still, I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t kill my agent,” another voice said, behind him. “For old time’s sake.”

Vincent pulled back the hammer with an audible click. “What the hell do you people want with me?”

“Come on, Valentine,” the voice behind him said, with an edge of impatience. “Point that gun where it belongs. Leave the kid out of it.”

“He’s a Turk, not a kid.”

“He’s fourteen.”

Vincent’s eye twitched. Then he drew the gun away and holstered it with an annoyed snarl. “Shinra just can’t stop turning children into killers, can they.”

The boy turned around, glancing up at Vincent, before looking to the man behind him for orders. Vincent was surprised to see a Wutaian, even more so one who wore a religious symbol so openly as this one did, with a bindi dot on his forehead. The boy was clearly surprised by Vincent’s face, too, though there was no telling which element of it he found more startling than which. 

“You can go, Tseng,” the other man said. “Agent Valentine and I need to have a chat.”

The boy looked up at Vincent again, his eyes lingering for a second or two, as if he wanted to say something, before he turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

“Vincent.”

“Veld.”

The two men studied one another for a long beat. Vincent was a good four inches taller, but Veld was stockier and appeared much older, with grey streaks in his dark-brown hair, and a perpetually rugged look about him, despite his smart black suit.

“Holy hell, you look exactly the same,” Veld said, at last, shaking his head.

“You have aged,” Vincent replied flatly. “Since when does the Director of the Administrative Research Division track down targets in the field, himself.”

“Since the target is you, you fuckin’ asshole!” Veld exploded. “They told me you died, Vince! Where the hell have you been for a decade and a goddamn half!”

“I did die,” Vincent sneered. “I spent most of the past fourteen years in a coffin.”

“Real fuckin’ funny. If you're not going to—” He broke off, catching sight of Vincent’s gold iris, which he could see faintly glowing, now that it was in the shadow of his shaggy bangs. “What…is that? What did they do to you?”

Vincent turned his head away. “Nothing you want to know about. Answer my question. What do you people want with me?”

“Officially? Recovery. You’re a missing Shinra asset. In reality, I don’t know if I have the manpower it would take to haul your ass back to Shinra.”

“You really think you could bring me in, even if you had brought all your men?”

“God damn it, Vince, listen to me. I’m telling you I’m not trying to bring you in. There’s too much going on with the conflict in Wutai, and we’re already stretched paper thin, so the president doesn’t have the bandwidth to worry about you. I pushed back on hunting you down, and he agreed that it’s enough to just have you surveilled, for now, to make sure you’re not an immediate threat to Shinra.”

Vincent tilted his head. “And what does he plan to do, if I am?”

“Did you become more of a prick, in the past decade and a half?” Veld asked, eyeing him cagily. “I seem to recall you being a lot more…”

“Of a pushover?”

“I was gonna say agreeable, but yeah, pretty much.”

“People change,” Vincent answered vaguely.

“I guess so.” Veld paused and ran his hands back through his hair, which he always used to do when attempting to conceal some strong emotion. “It's so good to see your face, again, Vince. All these years thinking you were killed in action, and you know how I found out you were alive? I'm supervising the cleanup of Shinra Manor. One of the assets whose location I was to verify was you. That’s how they told me my old partner wasn’t really dead. A name, in an inventory of their property.”

“I am dead. I don’t know how much more clearly I can say that.”

“Well, you’re sure making it look good,” Veld Chuckled, clearly still not understanding. “Speaking of good looking, who’s the kid with you? Boyfriend?”

“My son.”

“Your s—your son?? But how? Who? Did you…with a woman??”

“I guess it’s hard for you to imagine, because of…back then. But yes, before they killed me, I loved a woman. He is my son, with her.”

“Well, where is she? Are you on your way to see her?”

“She died.”

“Ah. Uh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Veld, I understand that you have to keep a tail on me. I know you’re just doing your job. And I know what it took for you to put Shinra off hunting me down, even if you’re making light of it. I’ll never forget that. But if your people get within a one-block radius of my son…I’ll kill them all.”

“Fair enough. I wouldn’t want Turks snooping around my kid, either. I’ll tell ‘em to keep their distance. But in exchange, you gotta agree not to kill 'em, unless you absolutely have to.”

“Agreed.”

“By the way, I found something I think belongs to you.”

From a storage materia somewhere on his person, he produced a box, about the size of a shoebox, only a bit longer and narrower. It was wrapped in rumpled, stained red paper, and had a grimy silver ribbon with a flattened bow tied around it. The name ‘Vincent’ was clearly written on the wrapping paper, in black permanent marker.

Vincent stared at the all-too familiar object in stunned disbelief. “Where did you find this? How did you—”

“My crew found it in a trash bag, out by the dumpsters, where the garbage from the manor gets hauled away. They’re a good way from the buildings, so the stuff there didn’t get burned to a crisp, with everything else. You recognize it?”

“A birthday gift, from my son. It…was thrown away by mistake.”

“Well, I’m glad I made the boys sort through the trash, then. Despite all the bitching and moaning.”

“They should, anyway,” Vincent frowned, as he tucked the rumpled present into his cloak. “You can learn more about a target from the garbage they throw out than—”

“Than from the garbage that comes out of their mouth, yeah, I remember,” Veld laughed. “So, you’re still thinking like a Turk, after all this time.”

“It’s not something that just goes away. And I…I do miss it, sometimes.”

“You ever think about coming back, there’ll always be a place for you.”

“No. I’ll never work for Shinra again. I promised my son that I’m finished with all of that. We’re going to settle down and have a nice, quiet life together.”

“I respect that. Maybe one day, I’ll follow your example.”

“I hope you do. Sooner, rather than later,” Vincent said, as he turned to go.

“Maybe…I can meet your son, one day, too,” Veld called after him.

Vincent paused, then gave a nod, over his shoulder, before he vanished.

Back at the bakery, Sephiroth already had the middle-aged ladies that owned the place fawning all over him and stuffing him full of ‘free samples’ of pastries, like a couple of grannies that were worried he was too thin. He and Vincent took their lunch to go, and once they stepped off the main street, Vincent scooped Sephiroth up in his arms and flew them over the castle-like city walls, to the broad, green valley below.

Sephiroth chose a picnic spot in the turfy grass, beside a cheerfully babbling creek. He’d never seen a creek, in person, and was so enthralled by it, he had to be reminded to eat at least some of his lunch, before he went to play around in it.

“It’s so cold!” he shouted laughingly to Vincent, when he’d rolled up his trousers and waded into it, up to his knees. “Do you think there are fish?”

“Not here. Maybe further from the city, where it gets deeper and slows down.”

Sephiroth kicked and splashed around, till he soaked the legs of his trousers, and had to use a fire spell to dry them, before he could put his boots back on.

“How did you get rid of the Turks?” he asked, when he’d sat down again, and began working on Vincent’s half of their lunch.

“One of them was an old friend. He was willing to be reasonable. He was also at the manor, for the cleanup. He, uh. He found this, and thought we might want it.”

Vincent drew the stained and rumpled package from his cloak. Sephiroth’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open, in an endearingly childish expression of wonder. “It’s your birthday present! I can’t believe they saved it! How did they save it?”

“Technically, you saved it.”

“Huh? Me?”

“The area where the garbage is left to be hauled away is far from the buildings, so it doesn’t attract wild animals to the areas where people work. None of the things there were burned.”

“Oh. Right. I threw it away.” Sephiroth’s face fell. “I—I thought you weren’t coming back and I just…couldn’t bear to look at it.”

“You don’t have to explain. Hojo made me watch the security feed, anyway. He knew hurting my body didn’t work anymore, so he hurt you, to torture me. I’m so sorry, for all of this. For the pain I caused you, just by existing.”

“I said no more apologizing. Now open your present, I worked really hard getting it for you!”

Of course, the custom-made holster was the most beautiful gift Vincent had ever received, and not just because it was from his son. Even more precious to him, however, was Sephiroth’s happy excitement, chatting to him about the design process and his correspondence with the blacksmith, and all the little details that made it special, while he helped Vincent remove the old holster and strap the new one on, in its place. It fit perfectly, and without that awkwardness of a new thing, as if it had been with him all along.

After that, Sephiroth was still full of energy, being exhilarated by his first foray into the great outdoors, so Vincent agreed to take a walk in the green valley, under the early-afternoon sun. He walked, rather, while Sephiroth picked up interesting rocks, stopped to investigate unfamiliar plants, found a family of frogs, and startled the local birds half out of their wits, scaling nearly every tree he saw. 

“You said your other versions left you guideposts, to avoid repeating their future,” Vincent said, after a while. “So, do you have a plan?”

“I do,” Sephiroth answered decisively, hopping lightly down from the large boulder he’d leapt onto. “First, there are people we have to collect, and some we have to strategically position. Things have to be done at the right times, to be effective, though, so it’ll be a process that takes several years. The upside is, we’ll have a lot of time to relax and travel around, while we wait for circumstances to align.”

“Sounds good. Then what?”

“Then we’re going to kill President Shinra, and everyone else on the board of directors. Well, almost everyone.”

“We are?” Vincent asked, confused. “I thought you were done with killing people. I thought we were going to have the peaceful life you always dreamed of, now.”

“But I want everyone to have a peaceful life. There are powerful people who are malignant influences, actively causing suffering, to as many others as they can. Shinra's top ranks are full of them. None of them are any less monstrous than Hojo. Except one. There’s one good man, who got mixed up in Shinra, and managed to stay a good man.

“We’re going to kill the rest of them, so he’ll be installed as Shinra’s interim chairman, while they’re dragging Rufus home and filing the paperwork, for him to take over as president. By that time, our man will already have public support, and his power base within Shinra will be stable. Rufus will have no choice but to let him steer the ship. And he will definitely steer it in the right direction.”

“You seem to have a lot of faith in him. Who is he?”

“His name is Reeve Tuesti. He’s just an engineer, working in their Urban Planning Department, at the moment, but he’s a genius. He’ll be promoted to Executive Director, within a few years. Youngest executive in Shinra history.”

“How old is he?”

“Now, I’m not sure. Probably eighteen.”

“Already an engineer at eighteen? Impressive. Speaking of precocious teenagers, do you know anything about a person named Tseng?”

“Tseng? Why do you ask?”

“He was one of the Turks they sent after me, today. I just…got a feeling about him.”

“He’d be fourteen years old, right now,” Sephiroth frowned. “He was a Turk so young?”

“I don’t know why that should surprise you. Shinra sent you to war at fourteen, didn’t they?”

“Not anymore, but yes. They would have. Either way, your intuition was spot-on. Tseng is important. We can leave him be, for now, but we’ll need him on our side, later.”

Vincent glanced at him, sidelong. “Out of curiosity, what is ‘our side,’ Seph?”

“It’s…ours,” Sephiroth answered broadly. “It’s the side that wants to help people and save whoever we can. We can help the most people in this world by going after Shinra. Not by blowing up their reactors like a bunch of idiot children, but by completely restructuring the company, from the top down.”

“Blowing up their reactors?”

“There are these eco-terrorists…don’t worry about it. We’ll be ten steps ahead of them. Oh, also we’re going to need the family fortune, to fund our world-changing efforts, so we’ll have to inform the Valentine estate lawyers that you’re not dead. And also have me added to the family register.”

At this point, Vincent didn’t bother to ask how the boy knew about the family’s financial situation, and took it in stride. “You’re sure you want to be a Valentine?”

“Of course. What else would I be?”

“Well, there’s your mother’s surname. I thought you might—”

“No. Not even if I didn’t have another option,” Sephiroth said bitterly. “I may as well take Jenova or Hojo as my surname.”

Vincent looked as if he’d slapped him. “Seph…”

“Sorry, father. I didn’t mean that. I have a lot of pent up anger,” he corrected himself, lowering his head contritely. “All I mean is that, I don’t want any surname other than Valentine. I’m your son. That’s all I want to be.”

“Then you’ll be a Valentine,” Vincent agreed, pulling him close, to kiss the top of his head. “After we take control of the family fortune, what’s our objective?”

“We start gathering allies.”

“Alright. Who’s first?”

“The most important one, of course,” Sephiroth smiled. “Maybe the most important person in the world.”

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY i bet it's Reno

next chapter:

[shares-a-vest]

@eddiemonth Day 8: Rockstar, Confident

Word Count: 952 Rating: T | cw: No Happy Ending, Break-Up Fic, No Resolution, Hurt No Comfort My first post for Eddie Month! With this event's prompts, I reallyyy want to challenge myself and write things I typically wouldn't/haven't so far. I'm sorry for starting out a week late with a no-happy-ending fic, I didn't mean for it to work out this way 😭😅 Thanks to both Lex and Lex for creating and hosting this event 💖💖💖

Since he was a boy, listening to a healthy combination of his mother's records and any and every radio station his dad could tune into, Eddie dreamed of being a rockstar.

When he was six, his grandma gifted him a battery-operated plastic microphone with sound effects. Later when he first moved in with his uncle and the Munson family had dwindled down to just the two of them, Wayne brought home an acoustic guitar from Goodwill.

Eddie practised and played away, sometimes for hours too long until underdeveloped callouses stung and bled. Wayne helped him paint 'This Machine Slays Dragons' on it so he could be just like Woody Guthrie, one of his mom's favourites.

He soon found his fellow bandmates in Jeff, Gareth and George. Gareth offered up his garage and Jeff came up with the name Corroded Coffin. Eddie and George made merch and drew up posters.

They practised and played until Gareth's mother kicked them out of the garage, complaining about what the neighbours might think of their noisy metal thrashing. They entered the Battle of the Bands contest in middle school, then started playing at The Hideout perhaps a few years too early for a handful of drunks who probably weren't listening anyway.

Then they spent the next few years scrimping and saving between jobs, travelling to other towns in his shitty van until they found an even shittier (but bigger) van and a studio that was willing to give them a booking to record a demo.

They shopped it around for a good long while as Eddie turned on his charm.

And one day they got a chance.

George called Eddie, frantically talking about a producer who wanted to re-record the demo with an expert on hand, all the while promising more music and a meeting with a potential manager.

And if all that wasn't enough, Eddie found himself with none other than Steve Harrington by his side.

After a good few years of pining and failed dates and the temporary comfort of other people, they finally got their act together. It was Christmas, just a few months after the demo got picked up. They kissed out on Claudia Henderson's front porch with snow falling around them as they promised each other more.

Then Corroded Coffin made it.

The perks came fast. Money – oh-so-much fucking money! Private cars and drivers to take them anywhere they wanted. Touring around the world and sightseeing between gigs. Adoring fans. Photoshoots. Magazine covers, interviews and TV spots.

Eddie always maintained it was about the music, though. The rush, the confidence and power it gave him to be performing on stage. Whether it be The Hideout or a goddamn stadium. It filled his soul from the moment he stepped on stage until the band finished their encore.

But most of all, he had Steve by his side. Always.

Until he didn't.

Until the night he got back to their hotel room, a swanky penthouse overlooking New York City that they always stayed in. They were barely a night out from returning back to the States from a quick promo tour in Europe for the new album.

Steve had left a note scrawled in his messy handwriting on the hotel's branded notepad.

'Going to Robin's' is all it said.

Eddie was angry at the time. He balled the note up in his fist and hurled it across the room.

At the time he was pissed because Steve was acting all bitchy pouty at the airport after barely speaking a word to him the whole flight. Then he was tapping away incessantly on the limo's middle armrest the whole car ride, looking at the window with his stupid Tom Cruise sunglasses on.

At the time he guessed it had something to do with the last night in Amsterdam. The band had a gig, the last one and Eddie just wanted some quiet so he skipped out on dinner, telling their security to pass the message on to Steve.

But it was just a tiff, right? Steve knew what it was like – how exhausting being on the road could get sometimes.

He thought Steve knew what the deal was, that he didn't mean anything by not going to dinner. Hell, Steve was used to a last-minute change of plans after years of this, right?

At least that's what Eddie told himself until Steve didn't call.

Or come back.

So, Eddie called Robin's number. No answer.

Then he asked Jeff to call, even their manager. Still nothing.

A call to Wayne made it real though.

"Eddie," his uncle had sighed, voice low and impossibly disappointed.

And then everything he had gained came to mean nothing.

As Eddie now stands at the door to Robin's apartment in Chicago, he knows he fucked up. Knows that it won't be easily forgiven.

Knows that Robin will probably cut his dick off if she arrives home from... Which gallery had she moved to, again? Steve told him. Weeks ago... months? He thinks...

He should have asked his publicist to look up the name of the gallery along with Buckley's address.

His stomach drops and tears begin to fall as Steve opens the door.

"Oh," his boyfr – Steve – mutters as his brows quickly knit together.

Eddie slaps his hand onto the doorframe, chancing the guy slamming the door shut and thus smooshing his guitar-wielding digits.

But then Steve rips off his wire-framed glasses and presses the heels of his palms into his reddening eyes.

"How could you just forget about me?" he sobs, his whole body shaking.

And Eddie is confident the sound of Steve choking on his own breath as he cries will haunt him for the rest of his life.

[geddy-leesbian]

some Leon taking care of an injured Luis I dug out of the deepest depths of my drafts

Set after the end of CODE:Veronica, in an AU where Luis met Leon and Claire during RE2, and when Claire left to look for Chris, Luis went with her because he felt like he owed her a favor. Leon stayed behind with Sherry. Same universe as How Do You Talk To Girls? but that's just how they met and doesn't get into any RE2 or CV stuff, so this can be read standalone, you're not missing too much.

(Also Leon gets to keep Sherry and isn't extorted by the government because she didn't get infected and before leaving Luis coached him on what he should say so he comes off as a potentially useful idiot instead of someone who "knows too much.")

Luis's heart is racing the second he wakes up, because Leon isn't in bed with him. He's pretty sure he didn't just dream Leon picking him up, but far from certain. All his memories of the night before are hazy. He vaguely remembers taking a painkiller after getting to Leon's apartment, or at least what he thought was Leon's apartment, so that's making the memories even more clouded. He at least knows he didn't dream getting out of Rockfort; there isn't a tracking collar around his neck.

And because he's clean. Well, not clean. Slightly less dirty and disgusting than before is a more accurate description. And he has clean pajamas on. Not the once white shirt that ended up dyed red with blood. Not the pants that had gone from skintight to loose and baggy over the course of his time as an inmate.

But none of this is evidence that the Leon part wasn't a dream. Someone else could have cleaned him up and changed his clothes.

Then he hears something, and everything is okay again. Leon's voice from the other room. He doesn't know who Leon is talking to, and tunes the conversation out because he doesn't particularly care. All he cares about is that he is with Leon.

No longer on the verge of a panic attack, Luis closes his eyes again. Leon comes back into the bedroom a few minutes later, and starts putting a hand on Luis's wrist. His eyes flutter open. Leon lets go of his wrist.

“Hey, sweetheart, I'm gonna bring you something to eat. Be right back,” Leon says softly, and kisses his forehead. A couple minutes later he returns with a basket of snacks. “Sorry I don't have a meal for you. I wanted to get back to you right away. I'll cook something later, but you should have something now.”

“I heard you talking to someone? Sherry?”

His memory really is fucked. He knows he asked about Sherry last night, but can't remember any of what Leon said. He's pretty sure there wasn't any bad news at least.

“Oh, no, I was on the phone. She's not home. I was supposed to pick her up today, but that didn't exactly pan out, so she's staying there another night.”

“Didn't pan out?”

“You. You've been asleep for like 16 fucking hours. I was worried sick. Kept coming back in to check your pulse to make sure you weren't dying on me. Didn't want to pick her up and get her worrying about you too.”

“Oh. So that's what you were doing before getting me food. Sorry for worrying you. I guess I just need to catch up on good sleep. Been a couple months since I slept feeling safe, and clean. I guess I showered last night? I don't remember much…”

“It's okay. I mean I knew it was just something like that, or I would have taken you to the ER or something, but you mean so much to me that I still felt worried,” Leon says. “God, you were annoying last night. I love you, but you were horrible. You wanted to shower before going to bed, but I told you no, because you'd taken a pill and were kinda out of it and I didn't want you falling and cracking your head open on my bathroom floor. But you argued with me and said you were too dirty to sleep in my bed, and then you started crying too, so I finally just gave up and compromised and let you take a bath. With me watching you, so you wouldn't drown. Of course after like 3 minutes you fell asleep in the tub and I had to dry you off and carry you to bed.”

“Shouldn't have asked. I was definitely better off not knowing I did that. But you were watching me in the bath? Did I at least say something inappropriate about it to you?”

“Surprisingly, no. You did when we were arguing though. A lot. You just kept listing various sex acts and saying you'd do them if I let you shower,” Leon chuckles, and then pecks Luis on the lips. He's trying to be careful because he knows touching Luis could hurt him, but all he wants to do is wrap him in the tightest hug. He really thought Luis was dead, and still struggles to wrap his head around Luis being alive and here. “But whatever, how do you feel? You need another pill?”

“I feel a lot better, actually,” He doesn't feel better. He actually feels worse. But he hates that the pill fogged his memory up so badly. He'd rather deal with physical pain than mess his mind up again. “Maybe if you have something over the counter, but I don't want to take anything strong again.”

“I know I said you were annoying, but it's really not a big deal. I'd rather have you be annoying than be in pain.”

“Seriously, Leon, I don't want it. Even before you told me about last night, I was planning on stopping it in the next couple days. I want to be in my right mind so we can start our life together right.”

Leon frowns for a second, then gets up and kisses the top of Luis's head, not minding how disgusting his hair is. “I'll see if I have anything over the counter. Eat something while I'm gone.”

Nothing is appetizing to Luis. But he knows he needs to eat, and he knows eating will make Leon happy, so he manages to choke down a couple packs of fruit snacks.

“Ibuprofen,” Leon says, handing Luis a glass of water and some pills. He smiles when he notices the empty wrappers. “Glad you're eating. Got a hot bath ready for you. Figured you'd want a real one, so you can actually get clean instead of falling asleep immediately.”

“I do want to get clean, but why a bath? It's basically sitting in your own filth.”

“It's not that bad. It's like doing the dishes.”

“What the hell does that even mean..?”

“You have really nasty dishes, then to get them clean you let them soak in hot water and soap. Then you just have to rinse ‘em off. But it's not just about the cleanliness. The hot water will be good for your pain.”

“You make compelling arguments. Bath it is.”

“You're not going to ask for me to watch?”

“I'm genuinely so excited about just getting all this grime off me that I don't feel like making a joke. But if you want to watch… I certainly won't object.”

Despite his protests, Leon insists on helping Luis walk to the bathroom, and he does stay in the room after helping him into the bath. Not even for an inappropriate reason, he's just missed Luis so much, to the point he hates the thought of leaving him alone, even if it's just in the next room.

“Leon? I need– uh, I need your help,” Luis hates asking for help, so he decides to finally add a joke to put himself a bit more at ease. “Not for anything perverted, so don't get too excited. Just– Can you wash my hair for me? Don't know if I can even bend like I'd need to.”

“Of course. Should be last though, when you're done,” Snapped out of his idle mind, Leon starts to pay more attention to Luis, and he's kicking himself for not doing so sooner. When he's just laying back and just soaking, the hot water is soothing and he looks content. But every square inch of Luis's body either has dirt, blood, or both, and needs scrubbed. And Luis winces almost every time he has to bend in a new way, to reach a new unwashed spot. That explains why he'd phrased his request like he couldn't be able to wash his own hair at all. He wouldn't ask for help if it would just hurt. Leon scoots to sit on his knees beside the tub, reaching a hand out to Luis's hand with the washcloth. “Don't like watching you hurt yourself. Let me?”

Luis does hesitate to hand the washcloth over. For over half of his short life, he's been fiercely independent. The day his grandfather died, he was alone in the world and it was trial by fire. He made it out of Valdelobos himself, armed with nothing but maps, a bit of food, and a guitar. Then when he made it to civilization, there was so much more he had to learn, and quickly. He learned where not to sleep. He learned where pity would buy him a full belly, and just how often he could exploit each bleeding heart before their generosity would be stretched too thin and they'd stop feeding him. He learned to listen to his gut instincts and avoid any situations that he had a bad feeling about.

Actually, cross out that last one. Eventually he wanted to do more than just beg, so he started playing guitar on street corners to scrounge up enough to keep him fed. There was a woman who stopped by everyday. She struck up a conversation, asking about his life, why he was on the streets, if he had any family, etc. Despite the nagging feeling in his gut that something was wrong, he spoke freely, bragging about everything he had done all by himself. And then she asked if he'd heard of Umbrella, if he'd be interested in taking some tests to see if he'd be a good fit for a special boarding school…

Even at the boarding school, he was alone. They were all kids, but Umbrella buttered them up with compliments about how mature they were. They were expected to act like adults and treated like they were, never being given any slack. There was no being taken care of, ever. If you got sick or hurt, you were expected to just grin and bear it and keep working, or else…

So needless to say, being taken care of is very foreign to Luis. Letting anyone take care of him is weird, and uncomfortable. But he does give in, and surrenders the washcloth to Leon and closes his eyes.

“All clean, from the neck down,” Leon eventually says. “You want me to wash your hair now, or soak longer?”

It's a tough call. Luis wants to, but isn't sure it's a good idea. Mostly because the water feels too good, and he had been so exhausted that even those 16 hours weren't enough. It makes him worry he'll doze off. Of course Leon would prevent him from drowning, but it would be embarrassing, and apparently he still has a tiny scrap of dignity left that he doesn't want to give up.

“Just do my hair.”

“Be right back.”

Leon comes back holding a pitcher. And without pants on.

“I didn't take my pants off for anything perverted, so don't get too excited,” Leon grins as he parrots Luis's words back to him. “Just relax and sit in a way that doesn't hurt. All I need you to do for me is tilt your head back so I can rinse without getting water in your eyes.”

Luis slides more towards the middle of the tub. Leon sits on the edge of it, one foot on the bathroom floor, the other in the tub. First he has to go through the tedious process of getting Luis's hair untangled. He doesn't get frustrated or annoyed by how long it's taking, he just keeps gently untangling knots with his fingers. Eventually he reaches for the faucet and turns it on just long enough to fill the pitcher.

“Wish I had a nicer bathroom, with a detachable shower head,” Leon mumbles, as he starts pouring the pitcher to wet Luis's hair, being careful to make sure all of it is saturated enough, and none is dripping down his forehead. Luis has no complaints. Something about the way Leon pours the water feels nice on his scalp. “Should have just gotten us a hotel really. Could’ve had a tub big enough for both of us, would have made it easier to wash you.”

“This is fine,” Luis says. “It's good. I don't think I would have been willing to swallow my pride and ask for help if there was a chance you would get into a tub full of dirt and my blood.”

“Guessing you want to shower for a couple minutes to rinse all the soap off, so I'll go get you a towel now while you do that?” Leon asks when he's done with Luis's hair. “Put one in the dryer when I got the cup, so it would be warm for you.”

“Wait, Leon, can you…” Luis trails off. Leon has already done so much. He was thoughtful enough to go out of his way just so Luis's towel would be warm. “Nevermind.”

“I'm not getting up until you tell me what you were going to ask me to do.”

“I was going to ask you to rinse me. Something about the way the water felt while you poured was relaxing. But that would take forever, I'll just shower.”

“I got all night,” Leon says, reaching for the cup again. “I really don't mind. Actually like getting to take care of you. You deserve it. Remember in Raccoon City, how you'd be demanding to look at me and thoroughly clean so much as a paper cut. Just let me return the favor. Please.”

Please really is a magic word. At least it is when Leon says it.

“Okay… And you can help more with my hair, after I'm rinsed. Blow dry it. I'd usually braid it or wake up with knots, but just pulling it up into a bun should be fine.”

“I can braid it for you!" The way Leon's whole face lights up with excitement over the fact he can help Luis… Yeah, he can get used to this, he can learn to let himself be taken care of, if it means Leon keeps giving him looks like that. “Sherry doesn't have a lot of good memories with her parents, but she did miss her mom doing her hair. I got Barry and one of his older daughters to start teaching me that kind of stuff. I'm not great at it yet, but I'll try.”

“Well, I'm perfect for you to practice. I don't care how it looks, just don't want knots.”

“You are perfect for me. In a lot of ways. Wait, did I ever tell you that I fucking hated you when I first saw you?"

“You definitely did not. I would never forget hearing something so heartbreaking!” Luis says over dramatically. He'd be dramatically clutching his chest if moving didn't hurt so much. “But seriously, what? You were the one looking at me first! I went to talk to you because you were giving me serious bedroom eyes. I didn't even hesitate to leave the woman I was talking to, because I thought I was going to get to have sex with you instead.”

“I mean, you did get to have sex with me. Eventually. But I wasn't even interested in you at first, I just wanted to know how you looked so stupid and still got a girl.”

“You're telling me you thought I looked stupid? Do you think I forgot about how I was doing my best to be patient for once in my life and not try to sleep with you right away, and then all of a sudden you forgot you were shy and asked me to suck your dick in the parking lot! You liked me!”

“Jesus Christ, Luis,” Leon says. “Just shut the hell up and let me finish the fucking story!”

“You're so mean to me, Leon. Telling me you thought I looked stupid, telling me to shut up, it's like you don't even love–” Luis cuts himself off with his own laughter. It's a laugh that hurts his ribs, but he's not sure he cares too much. Poor Leon just looks so baffled. “I'm sorry. I just wanted to kiss you, but I couldn't reach you without hurting myself. I knew you would kiss me if I sounded sad and said anything about you not loving me, but I just couldn't keep a straight face because you've been sitting here pouring–”

This time Leon cuts him off, with a kiss.

“There. If that was what you wanted, all you had to do was ask. You didn't need to go crazy like that,” Leon gives Luis one more kiss, on his forehead, before going back to rinsing. “You got what you wanted, so now you can shut up and let me finish rinsing you and telling you the story.”

“What I kept trying to get to is that I hated all that shit about you, until we were closer. You fucking broke me, I swear. I'd only ever been into girls, and then I got up close, and saw that your stupid tangled hair was actually just beautiful curls, and your stupid tight pants showed off your stupid hips.”

The phone rings before Leon is done rinsing. He murmurs an apology and says he'll be right back. Luis starts to come to an upsetting realization: He’s not as fine as he thought. The hot water was doing some heavy lifting. Now he's cold, and every piece of his body aches.

“Shit, Barry, bad time. Can you give me like half an hour, and I'll call back? Just let Sherry stay up 'til then.”

“Oh no, he's actually awake now! Sorry, didn't even realize how that would have sounded to you. Just bad timing because he needs some help with his hair. Got too caught up in the relief of him waking up to realize it was getting close to Sherry's bedtime, or I would have called already.”

Sherry. Luis wishes he didn't fucking hurt. He puts his arms up, to try to stand up again and shower, so that Leon wouldn't have to waste time rinsing Luis with a fucking pitcher. But he can't do it. Everything hurts.

“Thank you so much. Go ahead and tell Sherry he woke up, but don't say anything about him being ready to talk to her. I know he wants to, but obviously he's still not great, so I don't want her to be disappointed if he falls asleep or doesn't feel up for it tonight. I'll still talk to her, of course.”

Luis starts crying.

“Sorry, that was just–” Leon stops when he sees Luis's face. “Luis, what's wrong?”

“I… I heard what you were saying. I wanted to get up and shower myself so you could call Sherry sooner, but I'm worse than I thought I was. Tried to a couple times, couldn't get myself up.”

“It's okay. I'll do this faster, if you want to hurry?” Luis nods. Before Leon had gently poured, slowly and methodically making sure that water would reach everywhere it needed to, and feel good for Luis. Now he pours quickly, almost dumping it on him. Luis isn't upset at all, he wants to get to Sherry. The hairdryer cord is long enough that Leon blow dries it while Luis is still sitting in the tub, so that he can get Luis straight from the tub to the bed. Once his hair is mostly dry, Leon is reaching into the tub with the warm towel, scooping Luis up in it. “I got you, Luis. Always will.”

It's not at all difficult for Leon to lift Luis, which Leon has mixed feelings about. Leon wasn't even as strong as he had been in Raccoon City, having given up on all the police training. He had still been going to the gym, but wasn't as serious about it. Picking Luis up should be doable for him, but not easy. But Luis had lost enough weight while gone that Leon didn't need to be that strong to carry him. He sets him on the bed as gently as he can.

“I'll go get your medicine.”

“No, Leon, still don't want it. I want to talk to Sherry.”

“Luis, please,” Time for an experiment: Can Luis resist Leon saying please? “You told me yourself, you're worse than you thought. You're in pain, you need your medicine.”

“Compromise. Let me talk to Sherry first, read to her, then after I'll take the pill without arguing at all,” No, he cannot resist it. “I promise. I'll even let you take me to another doctor for a second opinion tomorrow…”

“… Okay. I'll be right back," Leon returns with the phone and a book he sets down on a night stand. He keeps the phone wedged between his face and shoulder, so he can talk to Barry while he puts a shirt on Luis and tucks him under the covers. “Hey, Sherry. Sorry I'm late, but I got a surprise for you.”

[itsclydebitches]

#greenlightvolume10 but seriously how!? Its RTX and it was not greenlit.

No idea, anon. Like legitimately, I don't know nearly enough about this business to say if general support would make a difference at this point, or if Eddie is calling for something else, or... what.

Honestly though, Vol. 10 still not being greenlit is currently overshadowed by the everything of that epilogue. I am immensely grateful that it wasn't a formal part of the Volume (even though releasing it now raises it to the status of canon in many fans' eyes and its mere existence implies that, if we do get Volume 10, the information in that clip will greatly inform what comes next) because boy oh boy, did I dislike it. That right there is six condensed minutes of RWBY's tendency to rewrite important plot-points and characterization on the fly. Why is Winter guiltily claiming she stayed by Ironwood's side too long when the entire point of Volume 7 was that they all agreed with him, at least when it came to long-term goals? Why has the story forgotten the crucial World Building detail that one of the things everyone agreed on was that telling Remnant about Salem would lead to mass-scale grimm attacks? Now, as we already guessed due to the implications of Volume 9's final image, Ruby's message has only brought super convenient cooperation—to the point of her getting impromptu memorials. Hell, even Raven, the one character defined by her cowardly neutrality, appears to ferry the girls into the city without any arc to explain her presence except, apparently, "The teenager telling me things I already knew but being ~hopeful~ about it has totally changed my tune, to the point of being OOC." Why does Winter get the long-winded speech expressing her sorrow when Qrow, someone who just lost two girls akin to his daughters, walks around laughing and feeling "optimistic"? I get that obviously the clip is very unfinished, but why does Nora have a waaaaay stronger reaction to Team RWBY's return than he does? Why is he thumbing Clover's badge in gratitude when Volume 8 worked so hard to paint him as the villain who (agree to disagree) got himself killed? Meanwhile, I can't say I'm surprised that his depression, rather than getting worse after such a monumental tragedy, has apparently disappeared just like his alcoholism.

Even Vacuo feels like a mess. We left the citizens stranded in the desert getting picked off by grimm, their only potential salvation a city that despises them, specifically, and prizes itself on the kind of survival mentality the Atlas elite are not in a position to emulate (huntsmen aside). We then return to suddenly find new happiness blooming, the Schnees doling out bread with only the occasional snarky remark to contend with. This is partly why I really didn't want that time skip. It's far too easily—as RWBY has done in this clip—to skate over all the conflict it introduced with a, "They got out of that mess somehow" implication.

Also, question: were Maria and Pietro there? I don't recall seeing them, but I've only watched it once. If you're going to produce a things-are-bad-but-not-actually-compared-to-what-the-story-set-up ending that includes character appearances all the way down to the largely inconsequential butler... at least tell us if those two are actually dead or not?

[anamelessfool]

Lil WIP of Chapter 15 because I guess each plot arc starts with a flashback

Primo [Irving] returns to the Ministry to follow through on his mother's final wish. He decides to stay for just a few days. Until he figures things out. Tags: Young Primo, Satanic Panic, 1970s Horror, Mystery Noir

Chapter 15: I Wanna Be Your Dog Comes Out Soon (Full Fic Here)

1972

They told Irving to wait, so he did. He watched the nun with pretty eyes and a firm walk sway down the hallway and out of sight, her heels echoing across the wide expanse of marble. He hadn't been to the Ministry since he was around ten, and even a decade on it felt just as huge as it was in his memory.

“Only for a few days,” he muttered to no one. Well, it wasn't no one, exactly. He adjusted the urn on his hip. Sister Nance, or at least what remained of her earthly vessel, had been there this entire time. When he packed up his car with items from the apartment he was certain he'd get evicted from. When he parked behind the diner. She was there, and he talked to her. “I'm leaving you here, then I'll be gone. But I'll stay just a few days.”

Nance had not spoken much about the Ministry with any enthusiasm until she got sick. Then it felt like that was all she could remember. She spoke about the grounds, the chores and how much she loved the garden there. She pulled memories from Primo that had long been buried by time. She said when she was there the words of her poetry poured out of her. The Void provided that, she said. It moved underfoot across the hallowed land, flowing deep below the Earth, eternal currents of limitless potential.

Ever since she left she said it was a struggle to write. Or, at least in her fading months, she felt that that was the case. She wanted to be there, after death, in the perpetual tides of creativity that ebbed and flowed from the Void itself.

He stood there for a few minutes more, debating how obedient he was going to be today. Perhaps if he walked just a few feet down the hallway, he would at least see if anyone was on their way and hurry back. He had a vague memory of the kitchen garden, of the cell he'd share with his father on his extended summer stays. Maybe a quick wander was in order, if only to see how the place had changed.

Irving strode a few feet down the hallway, admiring the sweep of stone archways overhead, the fifty year old hanging iron lamps fashioned to resemble globes nestled in batwings and claws. Through the walls he heard a bell ring from a distant tower, calling the congregation to what, he was unsure. He remembered a television program he saw, about some sort of convent or orphanage or someplace equally gothic and ecclesiastical. An orderly line of nuns in severe headwear processed while a bell rang. He thought back to his memories of his beatnik mother and wondered why on earth she ever thought that life to be appealing.

“L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, Que nul ne peut apprivoiser….”

A woman’s voice drifted down the hall. It was a familiar tune, from some origin unknown to Irving. It was one of those classical refrains, something that hinted at refinement and high art. He himself had the most crude understanding of both of those things, and yet the sound lured him forward.

“Et c'est l'autre que je préfère…Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît…”

Like a dutiful beast he moved towards the sound, stopping in front of a closed set of doors. Should he…open it? Couldn't hurt, he reasoned as he teased the door open. Worst case he could pretend to be lost.

A figure stood silhouetted against the crown glass panes of the choir room. It was a tall woman nestled in a luxurious red silk cape, her blonde hair thick and long down her back. As she sung to herself her hands were outstretched, longing. The gloves were tipped with bronze claws, flashing as the fingers beckoned an imaginary lover.

“Si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime…Si je t'aime prends garde à toi…Prends garde à toi!”

She finished her song, chuckling to herself. Her voice was deep, low. It had a timbre to it that made Irving draw closer. She must have felt his approach, for as he stepped into the room she turned to face him.

He saw her skull.

He took a step back, jarred by the stark white on black. For an instant he thought it was her true face, but then after a few stunned blinks he realized it was a visage painted on her skin.

The eye was real though.

The whitened eye with the pinhole iris, staring. Dead but living, a step away from reality.

The Eye Knew more about him than he did himself.

The woman had an air of surprise that settled into a conspiratorial smirk. The eye burned. “Are you lost?”

“I think so. Sorry to disturb—”

“You did not disturb me at all,” she said. “I'm always available for my flock.”

“I'm not…actually…”

“Interloper then?” She stepped towards him with small movements of her feet that gave the impression of her gliding across the floor like a phantom. “Even better.”

She peered into him and seemed to drink up his silence, privately entertained by his puzzled expression. By the fact that even as horror flashed across his face, his feet moved him towards her. “I…am Mater Emerita Jocasta. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh.” Irving felt his face burning, and he knew from this point forward anything he said would sound stupid. “Is that…important?”

“What, the fact that I am the spiritual leader of this Church, Provider of our UnHoly Relic of the Void, Queen of Hell herself or the idea that I am pleased to meet you?”

“…both?”

She tilted her head with elegance. “I am more pleased to meet you.”

“I've come to…well…” he gestured to the urn under his arm. “My mother loved her time here.”

The Papessa’s brow furrowed, realizing with a soft frown. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“It's okay.” He smiled crookedly. “At least we got the ‘Meeting the family’ part out of the way.”

Jocasta paused. Her eyes widened, then she smiled broadly, her teeth almost bared. “You! Fiend!”

They shared a gentle laugh together. “What else can I do,” Irving said. “I'm Irving. Irving Olson.”

“I was certain your name was Primo,” she said. “You are Nihil's son are you not? You stoop like him. Pretending you aren't tall.”

“You were expecting me?”

Jocasta scoffed. “Nihil has done nothing but talk about you lately! You've come here to stay?”

“No…” Irving looked down, feeling a small smile on his face. “Are you and Nihil…”

“Close? Friends, yes. He is my mentor,” Jocasta said. Her face dropped into a smirk. She brought her hand up to the side of his head, drawing across his jaw with a single bronze nail. Irving felt the electricity shoot down his nerves through the touch of the cold metal across his face. “I prefer younger men,” she purred.

“I'm a musician too,” Irving blurted out for reasons beyond his own understanding. “Guitar. I sing…a little.”

“Oh? Runs in the family,” Jocasta said. “Your father inspired me to join. My first night in New York City, I see him play at a bar…” She sighed, wistful. “Haunting. Thrilling. I got off of one bus and onto another, bound for here.”

“But you did opera previously.” Primo found himself stepping closer to her, now nearly in her arms, growing in confidence.

“I was raised in it,” she said. “Throw a rock in Vienna and you will find an opera singer. It’s not that remarkable.”

The door opened and four figures stepped into the choir room. They were uniformed in black, their faces concealed by ominous metal masks. They didn’t settle on their feet like a human did, rather they simply stood there, hands lowered, their eyes shaded in shadow. “Yes, of course,” Jocasta said, as if replying to an unheard voice.

Primo held the urn a bit more tightly. “Who are they?”

“Oh them? Demons.” Her eyes narrowed in amusement. “Mass is shortly. You…and your mother are invited, of course. You get to see what I’m capable of. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I guess it would,” he replied. “I'm not staying here long.”

Irving thought he saw the smallest gesture of a lip bite. Of a seductive peek of the tip of her tongue across her painted lips. “Of course you're not. What is a few days anyway?”

He felt a sudden reluctance to leave.

[ayoda]

August 1

The Noto Peninsula is a hidden gem on Japan. Beautiful forests and fields, right on the ocean. Our job is to help restore the area as best as we can.

The original estimate was 299 dead, about 1,200 injured, over 60,000 homes damaged. Many eventually find themselves in a "kasetsu juutaku," temporary shelters pictured above. We're guessing each unit is about 200 square feet, which includes kitchen and bathroom facilities. Many will eventually find themselves there, albeit there's some reluctance to do so. Plus there are some alternatives.

Here's an example. We returned to the house we helped clean out yesterday. I now know our purpose was to help prepare their home to receive family friends. The latter's home is still liveable, but will need several months for extensive repair and slight remodeling. We were assigned to help move furniture, books, and other goods that will be in the way of the reconstruction. Neighbors helping neighbors, indeed.

I also learned something interesting. There were numerous homes where the heavy tile roofs collapsed onto the house. Apparently the reason is if a fire breaks out, the collapsed roof will snuff out any flames from spreading. There were fires after the Noto quake, but the roofs minimized the potential damage.

The sign, loosely translated, says "Noto, be strong and persevere." We saw similar signs in Ishinomaki after the 2011 tsunami, then similar signs in Kumamoto after the 2016 earthquake. We feel privileged to contribute in some small way. More tales ahead, stay tuned.

[yesact]

Prince-Origin

Ch8-A GIRL FROM....

Several weeks later, Grien, Genep, and Idreyl returned to Cela with shocking news. They had received information from Haikom planet in Universe 10 about strange activities. Era, another counterpart of Prince on Haikom, and other confidants reported that Yaduro's next targets would likely be elements 49, 50, and 51.

Era explained that Yaduro sought these special elements for power. Element 49 was a massive spherical bowl that could be used as a weapon, though it was extremely heavy. Element 50 was a sword made of ancient metal from Haikom, considered one of the toughest metals in the universe. Element 51 was a feather from an extinct bird native to Haikom, rumored to have magical healing properties.

On Cela, upon receiving this news, Vaikho put her Merey on high alert. Students and trainers now had to be more prepared than ever. Prince and Karry had become good friends, and Prince had started interacting with other students and trainers in Merey. He also learned about the ongoing events in the various universes from Karry.

Vaikho assigned Prince his first mission alongside Karry and another boy named Lym. Merey had a system to identify potential candidates for trainers or students from different locations in the universes. A sudden call came from Prince's home planet, Zureryo. The three of them traveled to Zureryo, to the same country where Prince was born, and found a little girl.

The little girl was covered in dirt, malnourished, and her clothes were torn. Karry approached her gently, but the girl was afraid. Karry comforted her while Prince and Lym watched in shock. They took her back to Merey.

During the journey, the girl fell asleep. When she woke up, Karry bathed her, cleaned her up, and gave her new clothes. Lym, Prince, and Karry wanted to know what had happened to her, but she was too weak to even sit up. They fed her, and Karry gave her some medicine.

After she fell asleep again, Lym said, "The girl looks so desperate. I guess she hasn't had any food or water for many days."

Karry nodded, "Right, Lym. She's sleeping now. You can perform your ability on her."

Lym replied, "Yeah, sure."

Prince stood by, observing everything. Lym placed his hand on the girl's head and injected a wire-like device. He closed his eyes and sat quietly, focusing. Lym had the ability to read any organism's mind, extracting their memories. He could also manipulate his own mind and keep himself updated about various organisms.

During this process, Lym experienced a range of emotions. Several minutes later, he opened his eyes, filled with tears, looking terrified and sad. He abruptly left the room.

Karry called after him, "Lym, wait...."

Author's Note:

What happened to the little girl that made a young boy terrified and sad? The group's resolve will be tested as they face new challenges and uncover deeper truths. Stay tuned to see how Prince, Karry, and their friends navigate the complexities of their mission and the unfolding threats in the universe.

[market-news-24]

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[wench-and-jezebel]

Stranger Things Reaction: The Weirdo on Maple Street

Wench (@scripted-downfall) reacts: A Flashback Series

See this link for context

Dustin, it’s not like all you did was clap; you kinda lunged at her.  She could be not-deaf, or she could be deaf and have eyes alkdsjf

Okay, look, I guess how people see this as “Oh, look, Mike’s so in-tune with her, he’s realizing she’s scared and cold and drenched and all.”  But.  Also.  Have you considered.  That he’s literally the caretaker of the group?  Steve is the overall babysitter/caretaker, eventually, of course, but, of the kids, Mike is the one who’s always anticipating people’s emotions.  He’s always ultra-aware of Will, sure, and El, but there are other examples.  I’ll start mentioning them when I see them.

Well, there’s one; the other two instantly turn around, but he stops her, points out the bathroom, etc.

Noticing a trend of compromise here; I remember the “compromise” and “halfway happy” scene with Hopper in the later ep, and now there’s Mike going to close the door, Eleven stopping him, and him putting it cracked instead.  I don’t know what this says, but it says something.

Dustin being adorable alkdsjf

“Like Michael Myers”  Foreshadowingggg

DUSTIN.  WE KNOW SHE ALMOST TOOK OFF HER SHIRT.  CALM THY SELF, PLEASE  (but also you’re adorable)

“I feel like my life started that day we found you in the woods.”  -Mike, s4.  Buddy, what do you mean???  You legit found her and went, “here’s how we can get out of having to worry about her and her potential backstory from the asylum, and then we go out again, and this time we find Will.”  WDYM YOUR LIFE STARTED WITH EL???  (Shhh.  Not me having spoilers from s4 or anything…)

Oh, look, the yellow phone returns

Ouch

Mike, you’re so subtle

I love the Mike-taunting-Nancy-with-innuendos thing here.  “What’s your test on again?  Human Anatomy”  aka the sibling “I know what you did and I’ll tell if you don’t hush.” 

Okay, but the fact that El's somehow managing to stay in someone's house without any adult ever noticing a;kdsfj;lkadjf

I’m sorry, but this is just… not how a romance would be shot.  Mike is concerned and caring, yeah, but not like a boyfriend, I’m sorry.

All the Upside-Down places being cool-colored, and all the party scenes being warm

WAIT THE JACKET JONATHAN’S WEARING.  I’VE SEEN THAT BEFORE.  YOU’VE SHOWN ME THAT SOMEWHERE BEFORE

The awkwardly hovering blurry figures over her shoulder

She still looks so different

I KNOW.  WAYNE’S WEARING IT.  WHEN HE’S PUTTING UP THE EDDIE POSTERS… not to push my Eddie-lives agenda, but.  I’ve heard about him and I don’t accept the Eddie-dies agenda, so.

Dustin.  Let.  The shirt thing. Go.

“Nice, right?  It’s a 22-inch.”  The contrast between then and now aldskjf

El getting to have some degree of fun with the chair is precious

Love this song.  Even before I watched this show, I loved it, but even more so now.

Jonathan, pushing against conformity for the sake of conformity since season 1 episode 2.

If this shopowner can afford giving her an advance, he sucks for not just giving it to her; if he can’t, I sympathize.  Idk how to feel, tbh.

Nooo, poor Mike. I understand, tho.  I, too, rant about my fixations until the other person walks off.  ‘Tis sad, every time

Mike and Will practically hugging in the photo though (photo post here)

Mike legit almost ran out in front of his mom with El right behind him; y’all ain’t inconspicuous

Um.  Just pointing out the symbolism of Mike suggesting hiding in the closet as a viable defense mechanism

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide anything.”  *thump*  “Is there someone else here?”  “Nope!”  That went well.

Poor El

Poor Joyce

I think I’m gonna write those four words a lot for this show

Poor Benny  (See?)

Um.  *Jonathan shoves Lonnie off him*  “You’ve gotten stronger”  SIR?!  I don’t like that insinuation.

Dustin is adorable.

Oop, spooky door slamming motion.  And nosebleed.

(I’m sorry, but I have to say… It’s a pet peeve of mine that the blood never changes from that same, one-centimeter drip out of her left nostril.  Like, it’s the stupidest thing, but it irks me.)

Lonnie, you’re an asshole.

Oh, he actually tried it: “Look, all I’m saying is, maybe I’m not the asshole, right?”  No, sorry, Lonnie, you’re definitely the asshole.  Many times over, in fact.

Dustin is the only one acting normal; he’s so cute

Y’all ain’t acting normal; it’s a wonder no one’s noticed

I’ve had Dustin’s “spasm” thing in my head ever since I first saw that episode.

Nancy being mean to Dustin again :(

Go Mr. Clarke, finding the clue

Dustin continues to be my beloved

Poor El

“A friend…”  “Is something you’d do anything for.”  “You lend them your cool stuff, like comic books and trading cards.”  These two answers are not equivalent, btw, and it’s very easy to tell which is Mike talking about Will and which is Dustin talking about Will.  *cough cough* Byler *cough cough*

Dustin and Lucas in the background were quality.

Barb deserves better

“Is that a new bra?”  “...No.”  Mmmhmmm

Who tf is this chick? Hopper had a gf?

Ma’am just wiped off their campaign map; how dare.  Better hope Mike had that written down

Also, how convenient of her to know which miniature was Will’s alkdsfj

Okay, I’m sorry… Look, I love, love, love the D&D stuff, okay.  But the fact that Dustin, Mike, and Lucas are all like oh my god she picked up the demogorgon is kinda ridiculous because it’s not like she knows what it means?  She just saw the mini and was like, ooh, scary thing, that works. (At least as far as we know)

Love the music

Steve, buddy, you are so awkward

Poor Barb

I could neverrrrrr.  I hate trying something new with an audience and then screwing it up, and this was such a doomed-to-fail situation, too

Poor Barbbbbb

Carol deserved getting shoved into the pool for that smirk, just btw.

Although, judging by how steamy that pool is, it doesn’t seem that cold, tbh

Jonathan being creepy

Will and yellowish phones again

FLICKER LIGHTS

Poor Joyce never has working technology

I still love this song

I was waiting for the bulb to burst but it didn’t… at least her tech isn’t not-working that badly

Also, the light-flickering-and-music-combo to show Will still trapped there/get her to go back in is so cool

“Well, you are cleaning the sheets”  The sad bit is, Steve’s parents probably wouldn’t even notice if they weren’t laundered at all

Poor.  Barb.

Steve’s room is so horrible.

“Some… privacy please?”  *he turns*  “Steve?”  *takes off shirt*  Ma’am wot.  (Yes, I know, the first might well have been a test to make sure he’d respect her boundaries, but still.  Ma’am.)

Poor Barbbbbb.

I will say, the photos Jonathan took, for all they’re creepy, are very pretty.

The image of the blood passing through the water was pretty

I love this song too… Hazy Shade of Winter?  Gold.

And that’s a wrap!

[buddieboos]

I'm rewatching bones for the nostalgia but I'm also subscribed to the castle buddie au fic by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (which, im so impressed with how you married the two stories while still making it its own thing) and im trying to figure out if a similar route would be possible so heres what I've got so far:

BONES / BUCK

older brother who vanished

Older sibling who they lost touch with at a young age but become close to once they return again later in life

neglected by parents

Visited lots of different places on a journey of self discovery

built a found family around themselves

extremely open about sexual history

Generally takes scenarios at face value

Knows a lot of cool facts and will share them at inopportune moments

afraid of being left behind

Cool nickname bc their given name is extremely boring

BOOTH / EDDIE

Catholic upbringing

Shares a son with a woman who separated from him

War vet

Unhealthy coping mechanism developed as response to war-related trauma (gambling / fight club)

Toxic masculinity upbringing (eddie has been way more successful at deconstructing this)

needs to take the first step in bringing romance into the relationship (this is a headcanon of mine to be fair)

Invoking the others given name in situations of high emotions

Knows how to read a room and will guide the other on when not to ramble or spout facts

OVERALL

They've got each others backs for real for real utter trust and connection

Including digging the other out of the ground like oh my god

Obvi Bobby is the director but WHAT IF athena is Camille and instead of being his replacement she becomes head of security

Hen as Angela who is most in tune with everyone's emotions. Dr by proxy through her wife the rocket scientist. Comedy potential if Karen is the person she married in a wack semi legal ceremony while drunk on her holidays. This could make for a v cool subplot where they need to divorce for whatever reason but that means she needs to find Karen first and then maybe the judge pulls a what happens in Vegas move (took me a while to realise i watched that film more for cameron diaz than ashton kutcher oh well) to force them to work it out and stay married. THINKING THOUGHTS

Chimney as Hodgins for the comedic relief and absolute conspiracy nut

Maddie as Russell I guess???? We'll need to take some license, she can just be maddie tbh

Ravi, Lucy, and jonah as the rotating interns

PS @clusterbuck thought this might be of interest to you as well

[itskatastrophe-x]

Finally Home (c!Sapnap x Reader)

I let my twitter followers decide who I wrote a oneshot for, and they wanted c!Sapnap, so here it is :) Written in the span of like... Idk 2 hours?? It’s a soulmate AU where you can feel everything your soulmate feels when you get in a certain distance of them and it gets stronger the closer you get to them. I hope yall like it!!

Word count :  2,701

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

There it was again. That burning sensation on the palms of your hands. You didn’t understand where it came from or why it was happening, but it hurt like hell. You wondered if it would ever stop, but you doubted it would. You knew the stories all too well but figured it would never happen to you, and slowly your fears confirmed it as all of your friends got theirs and eventually found their person. A soulmate. The way they talked about how they could feel what their soulmate felt on a physical level. They would feel light brushes against their arms or bumps when the other person would be somewhere busy. All of your friends had found their other halves years ago, explaining that when it happened there was a jolt like electricity in their bodies. After all of your friends had abandoned you, you had given up hope in ever finding your person. So you travelled. For miles and miles and miles, seeing every country, village, and kingdom your empty heart desired. You had lost everyone you loved and couldn’t even find your soulmate. 

Then it happened all too suddenly. If you had to guess, it happened when you got within range of the person, so you kept up your pace and travelled. It was an unpleasant sensation. It felt like fire all over your body. At first it was a small stinging, then the farther you travelled, the closer you got to this person, it grew. You would wake up in the middle of the night screaming because of cuts and wounds your other half would experience. You wished it was something as simple as the things your friends had gone through, but this was a nightmare. You wished you could meet this person once and for all just so you could give them a strong right hook to the jaw, then changed your mind as you remembered that you would also feel it. 

You knew by the things you were going through that this person was crazy and potentially dangerous with the amount of wounds this person was accumulating through the weeks of you travelling, so you did your best to be delicate. Whenever you would feel a new pain, you would prepare healing potions and drink them in hopes that the other person would also feel the effects. Either that or, if it didn’t feel like a gash or deep cut, you would trace your fingers over the spot gently to sooth the other person to let them know you would comfort them. What you couldn’t stand, though, was the feeling of fire dancing around your fingers. You eventually learned to tune it out and numb yourself to it, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was when it started, but it was still painful and annoying.

Then it stopped as suddenly as it started. For three whole days. Three. Days. After the first couple hours of the first day you started to worry. It was rare that you got a single second of rest from this crazy asshole, but three days? Part of you hoped he wasn’t dead, but the other part was happy you didn’t have to deal with scratches, bruises, and burning. But you missed it so much that you wished the burning in your palms returned. Nothing stopped you from continuing on though, even though you had no idea if you were going the right way anymore or not. You used the pain as a guide for weeks to lead you closer, but when it stopped, you lost your physical compass. Something in your heart told you that you were still heading towards them though, so you kept on, this time faster and without much sleep. You wanted to make sure this person was ok, and fast. You watched all of your friends leave you, you couldn’t have your literal soulmate leave you as well. 

When the third day ended and you were about to fall asleep, you felt it. The smallest little touch to your cheek you had ever felt. It was out of the blue and you had never felt such a touch come from the other person, so it woke you up instantly. You laid there for a moment, the stroking on your cheek so soft and faint that you wondered if it was even the person at all. Slowly, you lifted your hand to your other cheek and caressed it. The feeling on your other cheek stopped, but the feeling of a hand still stayed there. That’s when you knew it was them. They knew you would feel it, but probably weren’t expecting you to return the feeling to them. The stroking started again, so you stroked your other cheek for them as well. Then it hit you. Why had you never thought of it before? After weeks of knowing you had a soulmate out there, it just now hit you. You sat up from your bed in the little hotel you were staying at and tapped your leg. The feeling on your cheek stopped then you felt the same tap on your leg again. You smiled and pressed your hand down for a second and felt more pressure a couple seconds later. 

Then you started. At first it was a smiley face, then letters one at a time to write to the person. You asked their age first. Then you felt the pressure of the person writing back. “20”. You drew yours back, then they drew a smile to confirm they got it. You asked their name. “Nick” they wrote back. Then you wrote yours. You got as much information as you could from this small communication as possible so you could find him easier. After your small exchange, you got up, got dressed, packed your things and headed towards a location called “Dream SMP”. You had seen it on maps before, but it was so far away that you thought you would never get there. You had already crossed oceans, rivers, and mountains for this man, but now you had a new fire to feel. A fire burning so deep in you that it ignited in your eyes. You used all the money and resources you had to get there. You bought boats and horses for the days leading up to your arrival.

After over a month of travelling, you finally made it to the outside borders of what was known as the DreamSMP. The streets were full and bustling with life. Most people smiled and greeted you as a new member, fully accepting you the second you set foot on the land, others scowled or threw hateful words your way, possibly thinking you wouldn’t hear, or maybe they hoped you would so you would leave. You asked around about this person “Nick” and got an overwhelming response of happy chatter and protests of anger, so you left as politely as you could to search on your own. 

You felt like it would take forever to find this other person if all of the streets and businesses would be this crowded and overwhelming, until you came across one man standing at the edge of a river with his eyes closed and a smile on his face. His fluffy brown hair flipped up in the front and slightly waved in the breeze, the colors he wore matching his vibe completely. You approached him cautiously at first, but felt comforted by the aura he gave off. You cleared your throat quietly, so as not to startle him, and he opened his eyes slowly to greet you, the lightest shade of blue you had ever seen. He gave you a soft smile and waved you over, so you complied. 

For a second, you wondered if this was him, but you took note of his soft, clear looking skin and the lack of electricity as you neared him. When you got next to him, he pointed across the river to a very ornate village sitting on the hills surrounded by flower forests. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” You stared in awe at the mushroom buildings and statue and smiled at him. “I’ve travelled a long way to get here and passed hundreds of kingdoms, but this tops them all,” you replied. He made a noise of agreement and smiled, content with your answer. “Well, tell me, new face, how did you make your way to Kinoko Kingdom, and why are you here?” There was no malice in his voice as he asked and you could tell he was being friendly so you knew you wasn’t being standoffish. “I came to meet my soulmate,” you answered. His eyes went wide and met yours, a look of shock on his face. “Th-that’s you?!” You looked at him, furrowing your brows. How did he know? As if to read your mind, he continued. “I knew he was expecting someone, but, wow… I mean… He’s gonna want to meet you now. He literally hasn’t shut up for weeks about you.” You stammered for a second as he grabbed your hand and started running, barely giving you any reaction time to keep up with him. He was fast and energetic and you liked it. He seemed friendly and bubbly and his touch was comforting. 

He weaved in and out of streets and occasional bystanders watching the two of you with wide eyes and gaping mouths. You took it these people didn’t see many new faces, seeing as they were small in numbers. He didn’t slow down until both of you were panting in front of a giant cherry blossom tree in front of the biggest library you had seen. You could hear a loud voice echoing out of the open hole, acting as a doorway. The man next to you put a hand on your shoulder and you looked over at his grinning face. “I should explain before you get in there… My name is Karl and Sapnap, or Nick, is my fiancé. Now before you get worried, we’re in an open, poly relationship and he’s talked to me about all of this and I am 100% welcoming you into our little family.” He gave you a warm smile that reached his eyes so you knew he was being sincere. 

A booming shout broke your thoughts and you felt a pain in your toe that almost made you fall over, then loud laughter erupted. You smiled and shook off your foot as Karl motioned you inside, and that’s all you needed to run inside. The space inside was open with books lining the high walls. There was a staircase to your right, a mushroom in the far back, and a balcony above your head. There you saw him. At first he stood there laughing with the other man in front of him, not realizing you were inside, so you stared. You felt something like fire dancing across your skin lightly as you watched him with wide eyes. He was more beautiful than anyone you had ever seen. He had his jet black hair tied into a messy, low bun at the back of his head, a scar across the length of his face that went across the bridge of his nose. He had a light dusting of freckles across his rosy cheeks and the most piercing eyes. The man in front of him caught onto your stare and nudged the man, pointing down at you from their spot on the balcony. When his eyes met yours, a shiver went up your spine and your skin felt hot, like you were now encased in a cocoon of fire. For a moment you both just stared at each other, not being able to move, until you felt a pair of hands push you gently from behind.

That’s all it took to move you. You took off towards the stairs and took them two at a time as he ran to meet you on the landing. You collided into the biggest hug that knocked the wind out of your lungs and almost sent you flying backwards, but he kept you steady. Your eyes welled up for a moment and you laughed into his chest. He smelled like a campfire, fir trees, and old books. He was so warm and your body fit his so perfectly under his arms. You heard footsteps coming up the stairs and a soft touch to your shoulder, a small hum coming from Karl behind you. “Thank god you’re finally here. Sapnap literally would not shut up. He always talked about how soft you were with him when he knew how hard it must have been for you. Weeks. Weeks.” Sapnap reached an arm out to punch Karl, but he dodged easily since Sapnap still hadn’t let you go. You chuckled and closed his eyes as he put his arm back over your shoulder and squeezed you closer to him. 

“I can’t believe you’re real,” he whispered into your hair. He squeezed him and smiled. “You thought I wasn’t?” He sighed and relaxed his shoulders. “I thought you would hate me. I’m so reckless and get hurt all the time. How could anyone want me if they feel what I feel?” You pulled back to look him in the eyes and you gave him the most genuine smile you had ever had on your face. “You’re stupid. Of course I would be here. And I will stay here. I’ll take care of all your bumps, scrapes, and stabs. The pain means nothing so long as I know you’re ok.” His pointed ears turn a bright red and he averts his gaze to the floor, so you bring your hand to his cheek gently. At first he flinches, but soon closes his eyes, sighs, and leans into your hand, his lip slightly quivering from such tenderness. 

“I do have one question, though.” He hums, not opening his eyes. “Why do my palms always burn? Do you just, like, constantly sit around a campfire?” He chuckles and slowly lifts his head, eyes opening to look at you. He pulls back from you slightly, keeping one arm around your waist as he watches his hand, then back to your face to watch your eyes on his hand. In an instant, his hand is surrounded by fire, the burning in your hand starting up. He must have liked the look on your face because he lets out a snort and then starts laughing, all while you stand there in awe at the power he held. “Holy shit… And… And that’s real fire? Just like that?” You look back at him and he gives you a shy smile and a nod of his head as the fire goes out. There was a sparkle in your eyes that he was absolutely enchanted by and he hoped he would get to see that for the rest of his life. You let out a small huff of amazement and smile brightly. “You are the most amazing person I have ever met,” you say quietly as you watch his features soften as he’s left speechless. 

“Oh get a room,” the guy behind Sapnap says, his voice thick with an accent and sarcasm, the sound of a smile in his words. Sapnap looks at the man and points at him, shooting off a mini fire at him. His shirt catches for a second before the man screams and smacks himself to put it out. You laugh as you watch the exchange and Sapnap looks back at you, thinking of how beautiful your laugh sounds. “Well,” Karl starts. “We have a lot to talk about! Ooooooh this is so exciting! We need to know more about you!!” He grabs both of you and pulls you down the stairs and out to the pond next to the tree out front, the sun finally setting over the hills, casting a gorgeous, fiery glow on your soulmate’s features. You couldn’t wait to see what their life was like. To kiss all of his scars and tell him how amazing he was. To run your fingers through his raven feather-looking hair. Oh how you loved this.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Open Me Carefully

summary: spencer reid and reader are best friends, but don’t realize that they both love each other. 

author’s note: crappy summary, but this one is loosely based on gold rush 

warnings: none

Open Me Carefully 

Maybe it’s the fact that I have a propensity to keep rereading historical romances, or maybe it’s the fact that I just listen to “Lover” way too much for a single person. Or maybe, I’m actually in love with him, my best friend and the only person in this world who I think truly knows me. 

I mean, how could I not be completely in love with him. Spencer Reid is the closest thing to perfection. He is kind, brilliant, and unbelievably handsome. It almost hurts me how wonderful he is. But daydreaming about Spencer’s hair falling in his eyes, or his hands grazing across the map spread out on the table, or even his wide smile that slips out when he lets his guard down is not productive to solving crimes. 

Unsubs, Y/N. Unsubs. Stop thinking about his hands. And start focusing. 

“Y/N/L!” Calls Hotch from across the room. He’s assigned me to locate the birth mother of the potential unsub. He was given up for adoption as an infant, but bounced around from foster home to foster home, never finding a home, and now obsessed with finding his roots. 

“Yes, sir, here’s the name from Garcia. Susan Lee gave up her baby for adoption in 1981, she was a just 16 years old, so that would make her-”

“44 years old” Spencer injected. 

Hotch gave me a short nod of approval and I cocked my head towards Spencer’s direction, who tried to pull off an innocent look. 

“It’s math, Y/N. I can’t help myself,” he explains. 

“It’s fine, Spence. Math is like your religion,” I tell him, but what I’m really thinking is it’s you, Spence, and you can get away with anything with me. 

“Math, in its purest form, is a beauty known nowhere else” he remarks. 

“Who’s that Nietzsche?” I ask him as he beams down at me, twirling a blue permanent mark between his very distracting fingers. 

“No, Spencer Reid.” he says as he turns back to the map on the table before us.

Just as I give myself the smallest bit of a second to enjoy the playful banter that falls between us, JJ and Emily come walking in, leading a gruff looking detective with them. 

“We think we know where Jacob is hiding out,” JJ starts with a grim look on her face. Emily and the detective walk past her to where Hotch and Derek explain the profile to the SWAT team waiting by. 

“His old orphanage, right?” Spencer asks looking up from the map.

“Yeah, and we think he’s going to hold some of the other children hostage,” JJ tells us. 

“We need to get there, JJ. But isn't it his mother he wants, not the other children. You’d think that with the profile we came up with, it would make more sense for him to want to save the children, not hold them hostage?” I reason.

“You’re right, Y/N,” Spencer says, coming to a dark realization “he thinks that he’s saving them. He’s Angel of Death” he finishes grimly. 

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Sitting quietly in the jet after the chaos of de-escalating a hostage situation is a calm like no other. We all have routines for the ride home. A quiet ritual that we take the time to be thankful that we’re all here, in one piece, having made the world slightly more safe. 

JJ, ever diligent, will work on paper with Hotch. Rossi will usually keep Hotch from overworking with a small, light conversation. 

Emily spreads out on the couch, and the rest of us pretend to not see JJ glance over at her as she looks at Emily with eyes that crave her attention.  

Derek will listen to music and I’ll close my eyes and strain my ears to make out the muffled tunes that escape his ears. I sit across from Derek and will share snacks that we grabbed from a dingy convenience store on the way to the tarmac. 

Spencer, who always sits next to me, will usually write his mother a letter. He writes her a letter on every plane ride after a case. I think back to the time that I asked him why he prefers letters to phone calls. He told me that he finds letters a forever way to say ‘I love you’. Taking your love and turning it into pen and paper makes it tangible, is what he told me. Until that day, I never really pegged Spencer to be a poet, but he continues to amaze me everyday. 

I think that he can feel me staring at him, because he suddenly stops writing and his eyes look up to meet mine. 

“She’s not doing so well, Y/N” Spencer says, his voice but a whisper above the hum of the jet and music spilling from Morgan’s headset. 

“Your mom?” I ask, my voice matching his. 

Spencer, for perhaps the first time I’ve known him, is quietly defeated.

“All I ever wanted to do was to save her, Y/N. Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing everything I should be. I thought that by the time I was 30 I would have cured schizophrenia. It’s just that sometimes I feel like maybe I settled” 

“Well, you know we really don’t hear about child genius when they are adults. And you have the same job and me, and I’m not where near as smart as you. So you feel like you’re letting the world down or even worse— yourself”

“You might not have the IQ points on a piece of paper, but you are nothing short of brilliant” Spencer says looking at me directly in my eyes. I hold his gaze for maybe a second and look down towards my lap in disbelief. 

“Spence,” I say. “You have to say that, otherwise I’d stop making you chocolate donuts.”

“I don’t need your donuts to convince me that you are an amazing agent. I mean,” He pauses and holds my stare again. 

“You’re so kind it hurts me sometimes. And watching you those kids today, you’d be a great mom, Y/N. You make everyone feel so comfortable just being around you, and I’d give up all the chocolate donuts and IQ points and bottomless coffee if it meant you’d stay in my life,” Spencer says looking at me. I rest my hand over his and we sit there in the silence and comfort of the other. 

Spencer Reid is a man of many hats. But I think his way with words just may be my favorite. I don’t dare to respond to him. I don’t trust myself not to kiss his pink lips as he looks at me like he loves me. I don’t trust myself to not tell him all the wonderful and sinful things I think about him. I don’t trust myself to not tell him how I was watching him play with those orphans back at the police station.

“What’s a best friend for, Spence?” I say to him. 

“Besides, ’d want nothing more than to be a mom one day,” I tell him.  We never really talked about our futures. Maybe it was the nature of our jobs. Having a lethal job means that the future is more of an arbitrary idea than a definite possibility.

“But,” I start. “I'm twenty-seven years old, I've no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents and I'm frightened” I quote with a smirk on my face that covers my trepidation at talking about love and children and the future with Spencer. 

“I’d never think that you’d be one to settle for a Mr. Collins, Y/N” Spencer tells me, a similar look on his face mirrors my own. “If anything, you’re a Lizzie and you deserve a Mr. Darcy” 

“You really think that Spence, because I’m not too sure.” 

“You never know, Y/N your Mr. Darcy can be anyone. Statistically speaking, you may have already met him or have mutual friends or he may even work in the Bureau. 

Sometimes I think that luck and fate are mocking me. Dangling Spencer in front of me; so real yet so far that I’m jumping to remain close to him. Touching his hand to mine feels like I’m teasing myself, just getting a taste of how his warm, strong hands fit into mine is enough to set my heart on fire. 

I let go of his hand and my palm is cold and lonely without his touching. My heart cools but there’s a yearning for him that’s so strong it’s like a magnetic field pulling me in. 

“I’m going to get a cup of coffee, would you like some?” He asks me as he scoots out of the seat.

“I’ll take a green tea, coffee this late makes me anxious” And sitting here holding your hand talking about children and my Mr Darcy makes me even more anxious. 

“Coming right up,” he says with a sad smile on his face that I try to convince myself is because of his mother’s illness and not because I dropped his hand.

Spencer returns to his spot beside me, sipping his coffee and making small notes in his letter. There’s a chill between us that can’t be quelled by even the hottest cup of tea. Spencer doesn’t talk to me again and even though it’s just a couple more hours, I miss his voice.

I have a routine for when I come home after cases, but that routine has been thrown out the window when I watched Spencer walk out of the bullpen without as much as a wave goodbye. We usually go to my apartment and make dinner together. My trip home is a lot more lonely without Spencer by my side. I try to stop my thoughts from going to him, but it’s impossible when he’s all I can think about. 

My apartment is dark and quiet when I walk in. It was left in shambles, with clothes and books strewn all over the couch, desk and floor. I can’t even bother myself to care about the dirty dishes stacked in the sink. I convince myself that those dishes are a tomorrow problem. 

I take out a small container of leftover fried rice and vegetables and pop into the microwave. Making my way into my bedroom I change out of my work clothes, that I’ve been in for nearly 30 hours. I don’t really think about what I’m putting on, as long as it does not smell it works with me at this point. 

My microwave dings, altering me that my mediocre meal is finished. But, before I can even reach the kitchen a small envelope slips through my door and falls on the floor. A sudden rush of fear courses through me. I flit my eyes to the corner safe where my gun rests. In my mind, I try to calculate the risk of punching the code or if I should just find out who is behind my door. I guess curiosity wins out, because I’m walking towards the door where the mysterious envelope sits. 

I reach down and instantly recognize the handwriting as Spencer’s. I can feel my heart pumping blood through my bodying as I think that some sadistic unsub is trying to toy with me by hurting Spencer.

I was not prepared for what I read. My fingers grazed over the messy penmanship. I don’t even let my mind wander as I pour over the words on the page, still fearing for the worse

Dear Y/N, 

Part of me can’t believe that I’m actually doing this. But something that you mentioned on the plane sparked something in me. You’re not a Charlotte, or a Lizzie or even a Jane, even though you are the kindest and most beautiful person I know. 

You are a Y/N. And I am wishing for anything to be your Mr. Darcy. Thinking about you, Y/N gets me thinking about love. How much I love when you look at me across from the table, or how your soft hands will brush against mine. It reminds me that I’m alive. Your gaze makes me blush and those small brushes make me forget to breathe. In your eyes I can see my future— our future. In your smile I can taste happiness. When I am with you the world moves in slow motion and time seems to move too fast. 

I hope that this does not ruin things, Y/N. I could not bear to lose you. I hope that you won’t hate me but even if you do, I’d rather you hate me and be in your life than not be in your life.

I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still

Forever yours, 

Spencer

I read the letter silently. Not sure if I can believe it, but I so desperately want to. I throw all sense to the wind when I fling the door open, my eyes hunting for Spencer. He sits on the steps leading up to the next level, fiddling with his shoe laces. I run over to where he sits, not caring that my neighbors might be looking or caring that I look like I’m about to mug him. 

He makes me, cautious girl, a rebel. 

“Hey, you,” I say approaching him. Spencer moves to stand up and I reach out to hold his hands in mine. Like a puzzle piece they hit perfectly. His hands are not too warm or clammy or too cold and boney. They’re perfect. He hesitates and rubs his thumb against the back of my palm, like he does on the plane. 

“Hi, Y/N.” He starts nervously. “I guess you got the letter, and I just want to tell you-”

“What letter, Spence?” I say. I can’t help but to tease him. His face turns pale and green in the same breath. 

“Uh-um, you didn’t just get something in your mail a couple minutes ago?” He asks me so nervously that I almost feel bad at teasing him. Almost, he’s kind of cute when he’s stumbling over his words and I like to be one that makes him this fluttery. 

“I got your letter, Spencer,” I tell him. I think he half expects me to drop his hand and shatter his heart then and there. Maybe he came here and prepared himself for the worse. I think he’s done that his whole life, believing that he doesn’t deserve a chance at happiness. I’m kind of inclined to give him that happiness when it’s so intricately tied to mine. 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, who knew that you were quite the poet, Spencer.” I tell him as I brush his hair from his eyes. It’s gotten so long, but I like it. I’ve dreamt about threading my fingers threw it many times. It’s so soft and brown and frames his face. 

“You deserve a poet, Y/N. And I could only dream of being that person for you.” He says. Against even his own wishes he leans in closer to my touch. His cheek is warm in my palm and I feel his long eyelashes flutter against the ball of my thumb. 

“Luckily for you, Spence, I like scientists.” I say to him. 

“You--” 

“I love you back, Spencer.” I move to wipe the tears that flood down the bridge of his nose. 

“It was a really beautiful letter that you wrote, Spencer. All the right things in there, Emily Dickinson and Mr. Darcy,” I tell him pressing my cheek into his chest. 

“Well, I had to win you over, Y/N” 

“Ha!, Spencer you’ve had me since I’ve met you” 

He looks at me with a veil of disbelief. 

“Spencer Reid, in his purest form, is a beauty known nowhere else” 

“Is that what you think of me?” He asks me. 

“Why don’t you come inside and let me show you what I think of you Spencer?” I say leading him inside to my apartment, that was no longer so dark and lonely. 

[eirikaanemo]

A Pitch Perfect Pair

Fair Warning: This is probably not going to be an often occurrence, but I may sometimes write something myself instead of just reblogging other people’s majestic work.

I do this daily now.

No Warnings, just potentially poorly written fluffy

Feedback and constructive criticism are very, very welcome!

Venti x GN!Reader

1.2k Words

Continue below the cut

After becoming friends with Venti, he has played many songs for you. From quick to slow, warm to cold, lively to hollow, every song was different, unique, and wonderful. In fact, he’d played so many songs for you that you started feeling guilty. He’s done so much and it feels like all you’ve been doing is sitting around doing nothing. And so you decided that you would play him a song for once!

It took some searching through the attic storage but you did eventually find your old flute in its case. You had made many good memories with the instrument. Your mother had wanted all her children to learn how to play music, so everyone learned to play something. There would be family nights where all you did was play music together. But those warm and happy days ended when your mother passed away suddenly in an accident. There was a strange sort of nostalgia and a wave of grief that came with handling your beloved flute again.

Hoping it would help you avoid the impending emotional breakdown, you took the whole case and set out for Windrise. You had made many good memories there that might help balance out the emotions that suddenly plagued your mind. Once you reached your destination you sat down, unpacked your instrument, and started cleaning and tuning it. The time it spent in storage had not been kind to it and it took longer than you’d expected to get it ready. But finally you were able to warm up.

From there you fell back on your memories to decide what you’d play. You closed your eyes and got lost in the melodies of days gone by, your emotions imbued in every note that played so high and clear. Sure, your technique was nowhere near where it used to be. But your fingerings and tunes were true to memory. Eventually you started to play your favorite song, one your Mom had called “Song of the Heart”. 

The song started slow and soft, gently speeding up. It then became a cheery tune that bubbled along from one note to the next. From there it calmed to a deeper tone, more solemn and contemplative. And it then returned to the soft and slow beginning before ending on a joyful and satisfying note. You took a moment to rest and appreciate the silence of the area around you.

Then the clapping started. 

Startled, you fumbled and almost dropped your flute. After making sure that you weren’t actually going to drop your instrument you turned to see who it was. There stood Venti, with just the biggest smile on his face. He was clapping so fast that part of you started to become a little concerned for his hands, but the rest of you was too busy being horribly embarrassed to care.

“That was amazing,” he exclaimed, “I had no idea you could play the flute so well!” 

If your face wasn’t already red, it was now. “Where did you come from?” You asked. He pointed at Vanessa’s tree, around 100 yards away. “I was sitting in the tree. It’s one of my favorite places, remember?” “Oh yeah, I forgot,” you explained. “But even then, how did you hear me play from clear over there! I wasn’t all that loud.” He gave a secretive little smile, “I have my ways.” You raised an eyebrow, but let it go.

“Anyway, it wasn’t all that good, it’s been a while since I’ve played and I’m pretty out of practice. I was hoping to surprise you later but I guess that didn’t work out very well.” Your foot kicked at the dirt a little bit as you avoided eye contact. Not only had someone overheard you, but it was Venti, your friend and secret crush, who also happened to be a bard. 

Venti just laughed. “If that was you playing out of practice then I can’t wait to hear what it’s like when you’ve polished your skills some! It’s been a while since I’ve heard someone play the flute so well! Oh! Maybe we could practice together and play some duets! Everyone would love that!”

Now that you thought about it, that would be kind of fun. And spending time practicing playing instruments with your crush? Score! “I’d love that,” you admitted, an elated feeling spreading from your stomach butterflies to your thumping heart. “My initial intention was simply to play some music for you because you’ve always played so much music for me. I’ve felt kind of bad, like I’ve been taking advantage of you or something. I figured this would be a way I could pay you back for that in some measure, but playing duets with you sounds like fun too!” 

Venti looked at you, his head tilted a little and jaw slackened in surprise. “You never owed me anything for those songs. I played them for you because I wanted to. As a bard, I don’t make a lot of money. So this has been my way of giving back to you for all of the times you let me stay over and bring me food. You’ve done more for me than you probably think.” 

He walked over and sat next to you, just a few inches away. You rested your flute on your lap and turned towards him. At that moment he was staring up into the sky with a shy smile on his face, so unlike his usual grins. The movement of his braids back and forth reminded you that it was windy, which reminded you that it was cold. It was getting late and you’d neglected to grab a jacket, thinking that you’d be back soon.

He must have noticed you were getting cold, because he shrugged off his cape and wrapped it around you. “You should’ve brought a jacket, you know it gets cold here,” he scolded gently. You looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise at his sudden act. The flush that had finally fled your cheeks started returning with a vengeance. And for the first time you noticed that his cheeks were rather flushed themselves.

Both of you fell silent, simply looking at each other. His eyes were thoughtful and a soft smile remained on his face. The silence was broken as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and scooted a little closer. “You know,” he murmured, “there’s another reason for why I’ve been playing music for you.”

“Oh? And what reason might that be?” You asked. “Well,” he responded, “we’ve been friends for a while but recently I’ve started feeling something more for you, about you. There’s a lot I haven’t told you, that I’m not ready to tell you, but if you’re willing I’d like to give us a try.”

Your heart jumped to your throat and you swallowed, trying to gather courage. “Yeah,” you whispered, “I think I’d like that.” You tilted your forehead forwards to touch his, reaching up to cup his cheek. “I think I’d really, really like that.”

He smiled and gave you a quick kiss, much too quick for your liking. Your disappointment must have been obvious because he chuckled. “I think we’ll have plenty of time for more once we start practicing our duets, yes?” “Yes,” you agreed, “let’s be sure to practice lots. Maybe they’ll even call us a ‘pitch perfect pair’.” You laugh a bit at the thought.

“If that’s what you’d like,” he said gently, “then pitch perfect we shall be.”