#but i still quite like how this one turns out wheeee

[chewykiwiwhee]

Tried a different approach of my usual artstyle: a lineless art!

[sayakxmi]

[Magi reread; special edition] Episode 2: Dungeon Suite [Part 1]

Y'know, I meant to do the ops and eds on the side, but tbh feels a bit pointless? So I'm making up for the op here.

Fun fact! I actually used to dislike V.I.P.! I like it, now, but at first it was just kinda meh to me. Idk what changed. But still Hikari >>>>>>> Honestly, Hikari and With You With Me are still best op/ed in Magi to me, and that will not change. But I am also extremely biased towards the Magnostadt Arc. Can't wait for it.

I like it when they're allowed to be a trio. And also how it's shown from Morgiana's perspective. The world was so dark until these two came around.

You seemed like you were gonna be more important than you ended up being, and I'm a bit sorry.

Ugh, this dumb bitch (I love him).

My beautiful daughter who deserves every good thing in the world and a very not cool boyfriend with a stupid horn on his head.

Fun fact, I've only noticed that lil prince Alibaba on xth rewatch.

I love the door scene, ngl.

Anyway, I also really liked at the beginning the scene with Ugo, and how it transitioned to Alibaba. It's both cute and a bit sad, too. Alibaba's kinda filling that place Ugo's about to leave empty.

Ok, the actual episode.

That's still a really cool shot.

Also, I forgot to mention. But in the anime Aladdin and Alibaba become genuine friends far faster. But that's also bc the first few chapters were juggled around a bit.

Aladdin gest tired of summoning Ugo much faster here, and, yeah, he just faints a little, pushing Alibaba and himself in.

Wheeee

It's a cool scene, and I like it very much, but also, that's the exact opposite of what happened in the manga. I've mentioned it before, in the manga Aladdin wakes up first and has some time to calm down, so he's more level-headed when Alibaba gets there, and he is the one to save Alibaba by convincing him not to rush in blindly. Here, well, clearly Alibaba wakes up first (because Aladdin's already kinda fainted), notices the danger and gets them out.

You guys remember all these chibi Rolling Girl animations?

We had a moment with Jamil (I don't recall half of the oasis trying to convince him not to go), but it was a funny scene, bc it transformed into Aladdin and Alibaba running and screaming.

He's just like me fr

ALSO now that I realize. In the manga Alibaba actually makes a point to prepare for the dungeon. I like that, it shows that he's being understandably cautious. But here they just straight up ran on Ugo from the desert, and went in without a second thought. Well, that's not true, Alibaba was thinking about what it entailed, but he didn't actually consider preparing or anything at all, only asked if Aladdin wanted to turn back, cuz it was his last chance.

Oh, yeah, Alibaba's thinking about it, now. Good that he's aware of that, but, like, it's quite a difference.

This scene is still hilarious.

But also, man, purpla saliva looks kinda sick there, ngl.

Oh, yeah, I wasn't imagining it. They used white outline for it.

Alibaba has a pretty cool fighting moment here, ngl.

AGAIN. Man, they really made Alibaba save their asses left and right. In the manga it was, again, Aladdin, who called for Ugo. Like, bro, what the hell.

Like, listen, I live for Alibaba being allowed to be cool and all that, but not at the cost of other cast members?

Now Aladdin's calling for Ugo, so at least that, I guess. But it sure took him ages to do anything.

WASTED

But also, I gotta admit that Amon's Dungeon is my favorite aesthetics-wise. I love all the colors here.

[littlerit]

For the fanfic ask game, F and S 💓💓💓

Thanks for the ask 🧡 and apologies for being so goddamn slow to answer!

F: share a snippet from one of your favourite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you are proud of it?

Wheeee so I already answered this [here] but let's have another!

This one is.... Taking snippet liberally and giving you more of an excerpt but it really like this one as it's not often I end up with an ensemble cast to bounce off, as I tend to write more solitary protagonists. And I think this one shows a good example of how their relationship changed as teenagers and the barrier between obedience-cursed Vanya and her unknowing siblings.

From Obedience Suite (in A minor)

Except, as she left her door, turning to head towards the stairs, she came face to face with her startled siblings — all sneaking out of Klaus’ room in single file, their wet shoes clutched in their hands, and their knee high socks splattered with the spray from dirty puddles. Every single one of them, even Five and Ben, who Vanya had thought were her friends. “Oh,” she said, somehow still remembering to stay quiet despite her shock, because it was not worth drawing their father’s ire. Vanya can still remember how much it had hurt, and how her hands had shaken as she clenched the glass, when despite the dim light, she still managed to see the powdered sugar at the corner of Ben’s lips, and the smudge of jelly on Five’s collar. “You’ve been sneaking out, without me.” “Vanya—” Ben started with a wince. “Where did you go?” “It’s none of your business, Vanya,” Luther hissed from Klaus’ doorway, stuck at the back of the pack and glaring at her from over Allison’s head, “and don’t you go telling Dad that you’ve seen us either!” And, well, even if Vanya had wanted to tell on them, that would have put an end to it. “Yeah, you’re always a tattle-tale Vanya,” Diego whispered with barely a stutter. More surprising to Vanya was the fact that he was backing up Luther for once, instead of arguing. “You’re always telling Pogo and Dad what we’ve been doing and getting us into trouble— so why would we invite you to come with us? Anyway, it’s a team bonding exercise.” At this point, Klaus’ order from years before was still in effect. So, no matter how much Vanya’s heart hurt, her chest felt tight, her eyes stung or her hands shook with anger, she could at least be grateful that she knew she wouldn’t cry about being left behind. That at least her own body wouldn’t betray her in this instance. “I don’t mean too,” she whispered, voice trembling, “I don’t! I’m not a tattle-tale.” But she saw when even Five gave a slight shrug, as if to agree with Diego. And that hurt. She hadn’t meant to tell their father that Five broke the vase when he was practising his jumps in the house. She wouldn’t have told anyone, it was an accident. He hadn’t meant to break it. She hadn’t meant to break his trust. But all it took was a simple command. She tried to hold her tongue, until her cheeks went red from the effort and her father’s foot tapped with annoyance, but it soon burst out of her, the truth spilling out along with her breath. Five had winced every time he sat down for three days straight. It had been quite a rare and valuable vase. “You kind of, well, are, Vanya,” Ben said quietly, looking down at the floor, “and, well, we didn’t want Dad to catch us. So—” “Guys! What’s the hold up?” Klaus stage whispered as he ducked out of his bedroom door with a wild grin, which wilted as soon as he saw her. “Oh. Shit.” “Well, don’t worry,” Vanya shot back, her chin trembling. She hunched her shoulders and tried to duck through her pack of brothers, “I won’t ruin your fun. Goodnight!” “Oh, go cry all you want Vanya,” Diego hissed after her, “but don’t you dare tell Dad!” The tears that had been stinging at her eyes had instantly spilled over and began to run down her cheeks. With a gasp, she had broken into a run to get away from her siblings, her footsteps thankfully muffled by the thick socks she had pulled on before she left her room.

S: any fandom tropes you can't resist?

Oh. Welllll. I did go through a period of being unable to resist a fic where the siblings went back to childhood and Reggie would kill Klaus over and over for training/experimentations/distraction as they trained Vanya. I'm also a bit of a sucker for Klaus dying and the siblings being forced to watch, or alternatively they don't realise/know. Right look, we could be here all day. I see angst as an advertisement. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Rit loves angst 🤣 let's call angst my irresistible trope!

[soda-pop-kandy-krush]

Remus squealed as he landed on the pile of beanbags and cushions he had spent all morning dragging into his room from various places in the mind palace. He wriggled onto his front, pushing himself back up. “Again!”

Patton faked an incredulous gasp. “Again? You want me to throw you again?”

Remus giggled, babbling and making grabby motions with his hands, making Patton chuckle.

“Oh, okay, then. Just one more…” He said, scooping him into his arms and nuzzling his cheek lovingly. “You ready, squirt?” 

“Yeah!”

Patton chuckled, setting him down and gently gripping his wrists. “Hold on tight, now!” He lifted him slowly, letting him dangle by his arms and swaying him too and fro. Remus cackled delightedly, curling his legs up.

“Cana-bah!”

“Yes, baby- cannonball!” Patton cooed. “And we’re launching in three…” He swung a little more. “Two…” Remus squeaked in excitement, tipping his head back. “One… Go!”

Patton let go, watching him fly from his grip and flop face-down into his nest, cheering and clapping as he resurfaced. It would never stop amusing him, how Remus would cling to his legs and bounce up and down, begging to be picked up and hurled into the nearest pile of soft objects. And, naturally, he was happy to oblige. Even now, when it was almost nap time and he should be trying to calm him down rather than rile him up even more. Because how could Patton say ‘no’ when he gave him that sweet little gap-toothed smile?

“Again!”

Patton laughed. “Gosh, you’re just insatiable, aren’t you, kiddo?” He flicked his wrist, checking his watch. “But it’s almost two o’clock, Reemie, you know what that means…”

Remus blinked. “Na’ time?”

“That’s right, sweetie, time for a lie-down.”

He physically deflated at those dreaded words. “Bu’... bu’, ‘m not tired…”

“I know, ducky, I know…” Patton winced. If his smile was his kryptonite, the threat of his tears flat-out destroyed him- something Remus knew very well.

Hamming it up, he gazed up with his big, brown eyes, his bottom lip trembling pitifully. His twin had definitely taught him that little trick, Patton thought as he willed the ache in his chest to go away. All of the books said that he had to be stern, he had to lay down the rules and stick to them-

“P’ease, one more?”

… Well, then. Just how on earth was he supposed to refuse that?

He bit his lip, trying to hold back his grin, before sighing in defeat. “Fine. One more.” He held up a single finger. Remus was too busy scrabbling to roll out of the beanbag excitedly to notice, chirping happily as Patton crouched down to pick him up

“You, Mister, are far too cute for your own good.” He poked his freckled nose. “Ready?”

“ ‘eady!” He said, raising his arms to allow Patton to lift him, squealing when his feet left the ground and he started to swing back and forth. “Wheeee!”

“Patton?”

The pair of them turned around to discover Logan had stuck his head around the door, looking at Remus’ mountain of stolen pillows bemusedly. Patton beamed when he saw him.

“Hey, Lo-lo! What’s up?”

The logical side stepped into the room. “Hello, Patton. I thought I would come and wish Remus a pleasant rest before he fell asleep, but I can see that the two of you are… Otherwise occupied.”

Patton grinned. “Oh, yeah, we were just playing a game together- weren’t we, cupcake?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Remus peeped.

Logan sighed. Oh dear. 

“Whilst I appreciate you were only trying to have fun, encouraging this kind of playful ruckus before a nap is not conducive to a healthy and efficient period of sleep. Not to mention how terribly unsafe it is to be dangling him by his wrists and tossing him into… Whatever this set-up is.” He gestured to the pillows and beanbags behind him.

“That’s our nest! We’ve been using it to build all kinds of fun stuff- like a spaceship, and a castle- ooooo, that was a fun one, wasn’t it, honey?”

“D’ agon!”

“Yeah, Lo- we defeated and conquered the land held captive by the evil dragon-witch!”

“Yeah!”

Logan pursed his lips, trying his best not to let his insides melt at the heartwarming display of silly affection, before narrowing his eyes as he scanned ‘the nest’ in closer detail. “... Is that the cushion from my desk chair?”

Patton chuckled. “I don’t know, kiddo, why don’t you ask the little troublemaker here?”

Said troublemaker was busy kicking his feet restlessly. Logan was so boring when he bickered with the others like this. Like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Wah, wah, wah...

Logan huffed, folding his arms over his chest and glancing at the toddler dangling from Patton’s grip. He slowly crouched so that they were eye-level.

“Remus? Did you take the cushion from my room?”

He looked up, the picture of innocence with his sparkling eyes and brown curls. A poster-child for the adorable little cherub-type- the sort of baby who was good-tempered, well-behaved, and perfect in every way.

Pbffffffft!

… And apparently, blew raspberries when he didn’t want to confess to the theft of other people’s property.

Patton sputtered. Logan blinked, frowning.

“I beg your pardon?”

Remus giggled mischievously before blowing another even louder than the last.

Pbffffffft!

Logan raised an eyebrow. Remus cackled at the unimpressed look on his face.

“Hey, hey, kiddo- what was that for?” Patton enquired gently, struggling to subdue his own laughter. “You know we don’t blow raspberries when somebody says something we don’t like…”

Remus just continued to laugh, clearly very amused that he had rendered Logan speechless. “Ra’ bee’! Ra’ bee’!”

“It’s okay, Patton. I understand.”

Remus quietened down at the sound of Logan’s dangerously calm voice, looking at him curiously.

Logan narrowed his eyes, the beginnings of a smirk pulling at his lips. “Clearly, he wants me to blow one back.”

With that, he pushed his hands up the bottom of his tiny sweatshirt and held him in place, pressing his mouth against the warm skin and blowing hard.

Pbffffffft!

Remus shrieked, immediately bursting into loud, joyful laughter and wriggling and squirming as much as he could- which was, frankly, impossible given that Patton was still holding him tightly by his arms.

“Oh, no, kiddo!” He cried, a massive grin on his face. He loved when Logan was in a silly mood and wanted to play with the babies like this. “Looks like the tickle monster got you!”

“No no nohoho!” Remus yelled, giggling hysterically and kicking his legs. One of them hit Logan in the chest, which apparently only spurred him on, as he started scratching his ribs at the same time as blowing another raspberry.

Pbffffffft!

“Logiiii-hehehe!” Remus squealed, his dimples visible from how hard he was smiling. “Nohoho!”

“No?” Logan spoke into his pudgy belly, making him laugh even harder. “But I thought you wanted me to give you some raspberries!”

It was getting difficult to hold back his own grin by this point. Patton had given up completely, and was openly laughing alongside Remus as he tugged at his arms. Logan slowed down a little bit and started blowing shorter puffs of air all around his sides and tummy, earning boisterous, squeaky giggles that were, categorically, the cutest thing he’d ever heard in his life. However, he knew that he would have to show some mercy soon.

Leaning back to take a deep breath, he blew one more right over his belly button, making him scream, before sitting back on his heels, his hair messed up and cheeks slightly pink. Remus panted, laughter still flowing out as Patton lifted him up properly to cradle in his arms.

“Whoopsy-daisy! I gotcha, kiddo.” He said, holding him close. Remus buried his face into Patton’s shoulder as his final few giggles disappeared. After a while he started rubbing his nose against his chest, bringing his fist to his mouth to slip his thumb in when he thought neither of them were looking. Patton chuckled.

“Well, it looks like you finally managed to tire him out, Lo-lo!”

Logan huffed a quiet laugh, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. Teaching lessons to bratty three year-old turned out to be quite the arduous task, even if the loving smile on his flushed face said otherwise. He was about to stand up and leave when a hand suddenly appeared in his line of vision. Patton wiggled his fingers, looking down at the logical side with that warm smile that always made Logan’s heart flutter.

“Wanna help me put him to bed?” He asked, looking unfairly lovely as the mid-afternoon light glowed orange behind him.

He ducked his head a little, smiling to himself, before looking back up with a nod. He took Patton’s hand, pretending not to notice how it made his heart race when he squeezed it, and led them both to Remus’ room, where they tucked him in and set a timer to come back and wake him up.

Little did they know that they wouldn’t need to, because in exactly fourty-five minutes Remus would spring out of bed and charge into the common room, dressed in Roman’s knight costume and declaring revenge on Logan for earlier. And since dismissing the requests of such an honourable cavalier would be terribly impolite of him, how could Patton not help to hold Logan’s arms down so that he could have at all of his worst spots?

[akampana]

Would loooove to see the ozytoria art you made, and also your thoughts on them for the ask game !

Hello Anon, thank you for the ask! I made this a few months back for a draft I scrapped. It must have worked as a catalyst since Ozy came home during the white day event.

Hahahaha hope you like it anyway. :)

What made you ship it?

You know what, I really do hate to say this but it's GilArt's fault.

By now, I think you all know about my boundless love for Saber. Ozy, however, I was first interested in because of Prototype and then when I saw the art I was like. Oh. Oh no.

So, little old me researched literally every crumb there was to Ozy, found out he's quite similar to Gil, but tan different enough, especially concerning his boundless love for his wife Nefertari (and his other wives, good on you for being generous, Ozy!). And then I got interested.

I ended up drafting a really old like years old smut-ish angst fic involving Arturia and Ozy, in which they were both using each other as replacements. You know, for Gil and Nefertari. I'll put an excerpt right below the cut. (The excerpt is not NSFW it just made the ask long. )

And that's where it started. More below.

“You broke our agreement,” she hissed from under him, words cold and accusing.

“How dare you?” she whispered, “When I am not her...”

She turned to face him, wiping away his kiss with the back of her hand. “...And you are not him?”

In her mind, superimposed on Ozymandias, was a different face. One with fairer skin and hair. One with piercing blood eyes, and an arrogant curve of lip. One less gentle. One less kind. And she supposed right now, her lover saw her as his wife. With darker hair, with olive skin, with chocolate eyes and a soft smile. Arturia was everything but.

“You are not mine, King of Kings...and I am not yours.”

Ozymandias caressed her cheek with a heavy hand, exhaustion settling over him.

He found he no longer craved the tanned skin of his wife, nor the gentler gaze of her eyes. He still loved Nefertari. He always would. That was one thing that would never change. But every night he spent with this blonde woman, he was beginning to see her for her own beauty, not the qualities she shared with Nefertari.

He was falling for Arturia.

And he was tired of pretending.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

That they've both been married before. I've alluded to this briefly on the last ask, but I frequently hc them together acknowledging their marriage with other people. Nefertari is a huge part of Ozy's life and character after all, and though Guin isn't very much mentioned in Fate, she did play a significant role in Arturia's life. One of Saber's happiest days was their wedding day.

So if we put Ozyturia in conjunction with OzyxNefertari and Arturia/Guinevere or even Arturia/Gil, the dynamic we get is Widower x Widow/Divorcee, with the former missing love and the latter dismissing it.

Plus, it's not like they won't catch each other's interest in Chaldea, for example:

He's met Arthur and Lartoria both. Meeting Arturia, he supposes the gods must be trying to tell him something.

By his dialogue Ozymandias has a thing for people who have the disposition of a king, like, oh you know, the King of Knights. :D

On Arturia's part, his general aura would initially drive her to stay away, due to certain similarities with another king. Slowly, however, she'd learn he's different.

Ozymandias has...a certain wistful aura about him, and unlike the other Servants who usually hang around her post-Rayshift, Ozymandias just...disappears.

She thought herself to be rather reserved, but she then realizes she never sees the pharaoh with the other Servants, and only rarely with Nitocris. At least she has her Table and the company of her former Grail War enemies. In comparison, she and even Gilgamesh are more social.

Then, one day, he's finally coaxed out of his hole due to Master's efforts (interlude 1), and Arturia's curious enough to ask him about it.

Delighted to have a new audience, and a kingly one, no less, he retells the poems about his wife that he's only graced Master and Nitocris with.

"HM! That you have listened to my wondrous tale of my queen for these plentiful hours intrigues me, King of Knights. While I am cognizant of my own talent, that your attention hasn't lapsed once is commendable in itself."

Arturia doesn't even realize that so much time has passed, she just found herself so lost in how much love this Egyptian King had for his wife. She laments two things: that she doesn't know if she can say the same of Guinevere, and that she knows no one is ever going to say such wonderful things of herself.

I will again be bringing up that Arturia's a competitive, sore loser, and Ozy has an ego bigger than Jupiter, and I love that dynamic. While that sounds like another ship, there is a difference:

Despite his massive ego, Ozy is far more generous with his appreciation and hasn't too sharp a tongue. What that means is, Arturia is going to be persistently annoyed by his hubris, and yet also commended on her best qualities.

She can definitely learn from him to be prouder of her achievements, even if that lesson must be frequently beaten into her head by hearing "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" over and over.

Their tangle with equality. Ozy does see himself as above everyone else as the pharoah, the god king, but in his eyes, everyone else is equal in service to him. This is why Arturia's Round Table intrigues him so much, because it applies the same principle. A circular table, so none sits at a position inferior or superior to the other, not even the king. While he certainly wouldn't equate himself to his people, that she can do so and still be revered by her followers is astounding to him.

SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON

Ozymandias has a thing for eyes. It's rather subtle but it's there, based on his dialogue and interlude. I wonder what he'd see, faced with her brilliant, haunting emeralds.

AHOGE BUDDIES!!!! :D

I hc that she likes his voice. Even the Dajaku Dajaku. Why? Idk it's cute. Has she mumbled it to herself in battle before? Yes. Gawain thought he was having a stroke.

The MODERN AU POTENTIAL OH MY GOD CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE?

We have Ozy, a brilliant loner architect who lost the love of his life and company heiress Arturia, a recent divorcee who needs to build a new house for herself after moving out of the place she used to share with her partner. She remembers the Egyptian from the construction of one of her most successful branches, and hires his talent to help her.

He has to talk to her to understand her concept for the new place, finding out things he didn't know about the rather serious president. She's a foodie, she cares not for extravagance, and she's easily riled up by teasing. Slowly, he begins to find comfort in her presence, even when he knows all their meetings are professional.

She is forced to remove herself from overwork to spend time with him, and at first, she can't understand how anyone could stand being around someone so boastful. But, he proves his skill time and time again, delivering exactly what she was envisioning. In listening to his stories during coffee breaks, she gets charmed by his life and wishes her marriage could have been as happy as his was. :">

When the constructions end, they...well I'll leave that to your imagination hehe

Is there an unpopular opinion you have about your ship?

I know that Ozy and Nefertari are the main ship for this guy or actually, it might be Gil lol and I love their relationship as well and ship them to the heavens, it's so wholesome, but I don't think that he was married in life should be a barrier for shipping. Even if Ozy's love is particularly highlighted compared to the others. A lot of Servants had past loves and a lot lived whole lives, that doesn't stop them from possibly finding new connections. all ships are valid wheeee

Again, thank you very much for the ask! Hope you enjoyed reading through this one. :)

[ask-rwby-multishipper]

Everyone must participate in a competition (up to you what that might be) and the two people who come in last place must get legally married!

Yang: Pffff what???

Weiss: So, literally get married. Courthouse, marriage license, everything?

Blake: Seems like it.

Yang: So this is legit? Whatever this competition will be ends with two of us getting married?

Nora: But what should the competition actually be?

Everyone: ...

Ruby: Art contest!

Yang: Art contest?

Ruby: Yeah! And we could get the boys to judge.

Blake: That might actually be fun.

Yang: Of course you’d say that, I’ve seen your sketchbook.

Blake, shrugging: Guess I’m not getting married then.

Pyrrha: How long do we have to create our pieces?

Ruby: Until this time tomorrow I guess? *stands up and poses dramatically* You have 24 hours to create your masterpieces! Go!

Everyone: *stays in place*

Nora: I have no idea what to do.

Ruby, still posing: Just...think of something, this is getting awkward.

May, glancing at Fiona: Uhh.

Fiona: Indeed.

The next day, in the Beacon courtyard with everyone’s art pieces on display...

Jaune: Okay, fellow judges, how are we going to figure out who wins this?

Mercury: Just...write down your own rankings from worst to best and then we’ll compare?

Sun: How long is this going to take?

Neptune: What, do you have somewhere to be?

Sun: It’s the weekend, I want to do weekend things.

Neptune: Like sit around and do nothing.

Sun: Yes!

Neptune: That’s what you always do.

Ren: Does anyone know what this competition actually entails?

Jaune: Ruby said it was a secret. Maybe the winner gets a date with whoever they choose?

Ren: Something tells me it’s worse than that.

May: *taps Jaune’s shoulder*

Jaune: Hm? Oh, hi, uhh...

May: May.

Jaune: Right.

Sun: What’s up?

May: Okay, so, you guys are judging this art competition, right?

Jaune: Yeah?

May: Could you give me and Fiona a break here? Neither of us have a single artistic bone in our body.

Fiona, nodding: We tried. Really tried. But...it’s not pretty.

Sun: Wait, so hold up, you’re asking us to skew the results to your advantage? Not cool.

Fiona: C’mon, just a little bit? Just to, like, keep us out of last place?

Ren: What’s the concern about last place?

May: If you come in last place, you have to—

Ruby, appearing next to them: Heyyyyy guys, we’re almost ready to start! *looks toward May and Fiona* What are you two doing? *points at them* Talkin’ up the judges, hmm? Trying to get an unfair advantage?

Fiona, blushing: Uhhh no? Just...meeting new people!

Ruby: I’ve got my eye on you two. *chuckles* I’m just joking. Ready, boys?

Jaune: I think so. Though we do have a question: What does the winner of this competition even get?

Ruby, looking to the side: Uhh...they get an immunity for a future truth or dare.

Jaune: Oh. Okay, makes sense.

Mercury, snickering: You sure the prize isn’t a date with Jaune?

Jaune: What??

Neptune, laughing: Pretty sure that’s for whoever comes in last place.

Jaune: What????

Fiona, murmuring to May: Oh gods, that would be even worse...

Sun: You’re not allowed to put Pyrrha in last place, Jaune.

Jaune: A date with me isn’t an actual consolation prize! Like half of them are lesbians anyway, quit being weirdos! *crosses his arms and pouts*

Ren: I’ll go on a date with you, Jaune.

Jaune, grinning: Aww, really??

Ruby, snapping her fingers: Snap out of it, you’ve got art to judge. *waving for them to follow her* Look at mine first!

Timeskip timeskip wheeee....

Ren, holding a clipboard: Okay, we’ve put together a final ranking of everyone’s pieces into tiers, because Sun says tier lists are fun.

Sun: They are!

Ren: Sooooo S-tier, the winner is Blake’s drawing of their team. Very detailed, lovely colors, all-around beautiful.

Yang: Wooo go Blake!

Ruby, hugging Blake: I knew it!

Blake, bowing: Thank you thank you.

Ren: Next, A-tier, Ruby’s painting of Zwei, Penny’s glass sculpture of a bird, Yang’s spray paint mural tribute to her bike, and Nora’s wood burning drawing of a thunderstorm.

Nora, high-fiving Yang: Nice!

Penny, hugging Ruby: Yay!

Ren: B-tier, Pyrrha’s origami swan made of metal, Ciel’s photo collage of sunsets, Ilia’s watercolor painting, and Elm’s wood carving of an Ursa.

Elm, pouting: Aww...and I broke out my good chainsaw for this.

Ilia: Wait. Your what?

Elm, chuckling: Just kidding, I just have the one.

Nora: Wait, Pyrrha only got B-tier? *points at her metal origami swan* But that’s so good though?!

Ren, shrugging: To be fair, with her semblance, she can fold metal as easily as anyone can fold paper, so...it’s a paper swan on steroids, as Mercury put it.

Nora: Hmph...

Jaune, whispering to Pyrrha: I tried to vouch for you, I really did.

Pyrrha, turning to him, grinning: Are you kidding? This is the first time in a long time that I lost at something. I feel liberated!

Jaune: Wow, really? Well, awesome!

Ren: C-tier, Neon’s glowstick sculpture, Harriet’s digital drawing of a rabbit, and Cinder, Emerald, and Neo’s...“dress”?

Emerald: It started as a dress, but then it kinda became overalls, and then a dress again, and then...I don’t know.

Cinder: It has fire dust infused with it, so there’s that.

Neo, wearing said monstrosity: I want to change.

Ren: D-tier, Weiss’ melted ice sculpture. We gave her the benefit of the doubt that it was as magnificent as she described.

Weiss: It was! It’s just...sunny outside...

Ren: However, bottom tier, May and Fiona for their...paper mache...pyramids?

May, sighing: It was supposed to be a model of Beacon.

Yang, chuckling: So, when’s the wedding?

Fiona, blushing, deliberately avoiding eye contact with May: Uhhh we can’t get married, though! We’re legal residents of Atlas, so we can’t get married in Vale, oh well!

Blake: But marriages are recognized everywhere no matter where they’re performed.

Fiona: But...we can’t tho.

May, sighing and putting a hand on Fiona’s shoulder: There’s nothing we can do, fiancée.

Fiona: Wait, you’re cool with this?

May, shrugging: I mean, we could get an annulment immediately after.

Fiona, sighing: Okay, I guess you’re right.

Ruby, throwing rose petals over them both: 🎵 May and Fiona sitting in a tree, M-A-R-I-A-G-E~ 🎵

May: When is this actually happening?

Yang: Uhh, today? Go get married!

May: Sure, let’s elope.

Fiona: How are you so unbothered?!

Later, outside a courthouse...

Fiona: Well, we’re legally married now.

May: Should we call Robyn and Joanna and tell them the good news?

Fiona, sweating: I think it would be totally fine if we didn’t mention it to them.

May: Whatever you say, wife.

Fiona: Don’t call me that!

May: But you are my wife, legally speaking.

Fiona: Stahhhp!

May: Why??

Fiona, blushing: You know...gay thoughts...

May: What, the thought of being married to me is embarrassing?

Fiona: No! It’s just...I dunno...

May, turning and kissing her forehead: Chill out, Fiona, it’ll be just fine.

Fiona, blushing even more: Ohhh...

May, smirking at her: What?

Fiona: Nothing! Uhh...wanna get that annulment taken care of?

May: Eh, I’m sick of paperwork at this point. Let’s do it tomorrow.

[songfell-ut]

Chapter 9 is done, urgh

This one was quite the exercise in rewriting All The Phrasing. Stoopid fortunes. I ended up splitting it off again. Here it is! Hi, @lostmypotatoes! Next one very soon!

Sans and Frisk did not have a slumber party that night.

No, once they returned from the festival and she finished telling Sans exactly what she thought of his behavior, Frisk sent him to his room, then went to the office and stayed there. Not on the couch: she sat down at her desk to make a few notes while the fortunes were still fresh in her mind. By the time she was done, it was after dawn, her hand was one solid cramp, she'd lost all feeling in her rear, and she had filled up five sheets of paper.

Regarding the child – the one from her nightmares – there wasn't much to write, just key phrases that she suspected would be more intelligible when she'd tracked down the man who spoke in hands. Would Sans have mentioned it if he knew some way in which he didn't belong here? It could simply be his stay in the castle, but it felt bigger than that. She'd had nightmares about that horrible child throughout her entire life, and it had never wanted her to do anything before; had it known she'd meet him, and would its "business" be finished if she killed him?

For now, it was all morbid conjecture. She'd put it aside until she could talk to Sans without wanting to pull his arm off and slap him with it.

So. If she didn't open the box, her life would be adequate. There was a lot to be said for adequacy. Her children would have wealthy, loving parents, and never suffer from hunger, loneliness, beatings—the kind of pain that was all behind her now, the same way a loaded wagon is behind the horse pulling it. Staying busy with her lessons in the strict, orderly convent and then her duties as High Priestess had kept Frisk going, preventing her from having to look over her shoulder. Would marrying Luke keep it that way?

She had gone years without really thinking of her life before St. Brigid's, except for fleeting apprehensions about having to explain the scars to her future husband. Why in God's name would she want to dig that up in the course of remembering something even worse?

By definition, she didn't know the exact contents of the rosewood box. She just knew that when she was about thirteen, one of her teachers had finally explained to Frisk why she couldn't recall anything between her tenth birthday and her second month at the convent: "We could do nothing with you when you first arrived. No food, no rest, just tears and 'Take me back, please' for weeks on end," Sister Clair had told her, almost accusingly. "Your father came to see you for himself, and he was so distraught that he gave the Mother Superior his blessing to do whatever she thought needful."

Frisk had always accepted that the sisters knew best; her father's influence had probably been a factor, but it wouldn't have pushed them to take such a drastic step if it hadn't been absolutely necessary. She herself had done her fair share of comforting frightened or homesick new arrivals, and no matter how distressed they were, none of them had had their memories removed.

She also had come to terms with her father returning home from his visit without her. Her first solid recollection at the convent was of the Mother Superior taking her aside to tell her exactly who her father was, ensuring she understood why he hadn't been a more direct part of her life and why she would be staying here from now on. Accustomed to receiving girls born out of wedlock, the Mother had emphasized how lucky Frisk was that her father had come forward – discreetly – to acknowledge her and pay for her education, and that he would ensure she had everything she needed from then on. Even as a child, Frisk had appreciated how superior the convent was to her prior circumstances, and agreed that she was fine at St. Brigid's.

The only mystery to Frisk was why she had initially been so desperate to leave. She couldn't have been crying for her father; she'd always been told that he was dead, and never thought to question it. Frisk had seen over and over again that mistreated children never wanted to leave their parents, no matter how awful they were, but her mother had only visited her every few months throughout her early life, and once Frisk realized that Mama was never going to keep her promise to take her with her, Frisk had grown to hate seeing her. She hadn't been attached to anyone at the group home where she'd stayed as a very little girl, and when she was old enough to work in the castle kitchens, her only goal had been to avoid being noticed. What had she wanted so badly?

Since Sans had arrived, she had been more and more tempted to try something stupid and just crack the orb or chip off a few figuratively bite-sized pieces. But that wasn't how the magic worked, was it? The sisters had been very specific on how to take the memories back if she so chose, and her fortune had also made it clear that this was an all-or-nothing proposition. She would fully open the box and reclaim the contents, or throw them away for good, no peeking allowed.

At that point, Frisk almost stopped writing and tossed her notes into the fireplace. What was she doing? Why wouldn't she choose a long life with a respectable husband and four children? True, her efforts to free monsters from slavery wouldn't work, but that didn't mean she'd be totally useless. Besides helping humans – always a full-time job – there was still plenty she could do for monsters in captivity, and she'd lay the groundwork for others to finish what she'd started. After centuries of hatred and mistrust, it made sense that humanity wasn't ready yet to accept monsters as equals; she couldn't change the entire world on her own, so—

Except that she could. She could change the world for the better if she worked hard enough to achieve her goal, which she knew in her bones to be humans and monsters living in peace. But how could her lost memories possibly be the one thing that made the difference? And if they were, how was she supposed to deal with that much pain, knowing it would also affect at least one other person?

...But what about the joy, the love, the power, also to be shared? What about the child she'd bear in time for next year's All Souls festival?

That was another worry: the ferryman had said "your husband" for the first future, but "your child's father" in the second. That didn't seem accidental. Frisk knew herself, and she had no idea what would induce her to conceive a child with someone she wouldn't or couldn't marry, no matter how attractive he was or how lonely she might be. With her own morals and her mother's example to go on, she'd sooner die than let a married man near her, and she'd kill him if she found out after the fact!

Surely the fortune-teller would've mentioned the child resulting from violence or coercion? Its wry tone had implied that the father would be unable to talk her out of going to the festival, not that she'd escape from his clutches, which also eliminated the possibility of one night with someone she'd never see again or a man who would die before the baby was born.

So, in summary, she would have little triumphs, large regrets, old age, a decent husband, money, kids, in-laws, and grandkids. Very simple.

...Granted, it...didn't sound quite like the life she'd always craved, with joy and love, real parents, a huge family, and monsters freed in her lifetime, not to mention a man she loved enough to have his illegitimate child...and maybe Frisk could see Luke assuring her with a straight face that he'd "take an interest in her happiness," and maybe it was already making her cringe. Maybe she was already wealthy enough to marry anyone she wanted. Maybe she intended to keep working hard enough that, when she thought it over, she found she would much rather have one child than divide her attention between four who could very well end up being raised by servants. Maybe all these things were true.

...What was she trying to say again?

Right. Maybe all these things were true. There was still no avoiding the fact that she'd be exchanging a life of peace and stability for every bit of the heartbreak that had nearly killed her as a child, and somehow also share it with someone else. Was she stupid enough to open the box anyway out of curiosity, like the woman in the fable?

A treacherous little voice whispered in reply: Are you selfish enough to keep monsters enslaved because you're afraid of being hurt?

Frisk shoved the papers into a drawer and eased out of her chair, shaking her hand vigorously as the sun peeped in through the high window. It'd be time for breakfast soon. She wouldn't take Sans to pieces; she'd let him sleep in, then have him experiment with the alfalfa mixtures while she napped, though they'd need fresh seedlings before he could really get started. The supplies she had already ordered should be arriving this afternoon, which would enable them to try even more—

Sans was not sleeping. Sans was sitting in the middle of the workroom floor with no clothes on. He was holding a book up over his head and squinting at the words as though he'd never seen letters before, and gave a very elongated "Heyyyy" when he heard the door open.

Frisk stopped dead. "Hey," she responded. "What are you doing, Sans?"

"Wheeee," the skeleton said, and demonstrated by falling onto his back. The book stayed up, and his legs fell every which way, one bumping into a chair pulled away from the worktable and the other almost hitting the bedroom door. "'s hot in here," he explained, pointing at the ceiling.

Frisk looked at the ceiling, then at the windows. They were all wide open, and the workroom was freezing. She had the completely irrational urge to cover her eyes, and compromised by turning her back and heading to the windows. "We're going to pretend that it's not hot in here," she said carefully. What on earth was wrong with him?

In the time it took for her to shut one window and place her hand on the latch, Sans had appeared inches away. One enormous phalange wobbled its way up to push her hand aside. "No, 's hot," he explained.

The priestess was equal parts annoyed and concerned now, especially when he teetered against the wall. "Sans, if I did not know better, I would say you were drunk. Have you been mixing things without telling me?" She eased away from him, just in case.

The skeleton seemed to take umbrage: his eyes lit up. "Ya don' know better. I am absolutely drunk!" Just as quickly, his sockets were blank. He peered at the tiny-looking book in his hand and turned it to her, tapping a random word. "How d'ya say this? It's human. How do you human. Please."

Frisk eased back a little more, trying not to look at his pelvis, which was far too close to her eye level. "That's the word 'the,' Sans. If that's not the one you mean, I will have to ask you to be more specific." Should she make a break for the bedroom, or just put up a barrier while she had the chance?

Sans laughed. "Damn, yer cute! Lessee." He dropped the book and continued trying to flip pages in midair. A moment later, he realized his mistake, scowled, and lifted the book on a wisp of red. "Hold on. 's tryin' ta get away." Even the magic had trouble staying steady, she noted uneasily.

Someone knocked on the double doors, and Frisk heaved a sigh of relief. "You can find the word while I answer that, all right?" She lifted a foot to step around him.

Unbelievably quick, Sans sat down, extended a hand, and caught her around the middle in a loose, ironclad grip. Across the workroom, the bar on the doors glowed red and lifted; the doors swung open. "There," said the boss monster, tugging her closer and frowning at the book. "Who's what y'want?"

It was Dr. Serif, who stopped on the threshold, raised an eyebrow as high as it would go, and closed the doors behind him. "Good morning?" he inquired.

"Hands," the skeleton replied, still searching the pages for that errant word.

The priestess was still trying to comprehend what was happening. Was this some kind of bizarre prank, or a distraction from talking about last night? The longer he held on, the less likely either possibility seemed—he was too calm and too comfortable, as if this was something he was doing simply because he wanted to do it.

Here they were, then. With Sans seated and her standing, the giant skeleton could fold his arm and hold Frisk against him like a child cuddling a teddy bear, fingers spread across her upper legs and torso, her shoulders resting on his clavicle. This wasn't quite as scary as the last time he'd grabbed her, but...

Frisk tested his grip and was unsurprised to find that, though his phalanges were angled not to dig into her, they were about as movable as solid rock. "We're having a very interesting morning," she said to Dr. Serif, and mouthed Help!

"I can see that," said the doctor, who gestured for her not to move, then came forward a few steps. Sans' head swiveled, eyes fully lit, and the royal sorcerer turned his next step into a half bow. "I am glad to hear that you had a good time at the festival last night, my lady. Rumors are brewing about a woman with a highly interesting fortune who was called 'Your Eminence,' but no one is willing to swear that it was you."

That sounded like one problem too many. "Good" was all she could think to say.

"I can't find it," complained Sans. He tossed the book out the window. "Gimme another one, pl's."

"You can have it later," Frisk said acidly. That was her old science textbook from the convent, with her notes and doodles in the margins!

"Sans," said the doctor, "where are your clothes?"

The skeleton blinked at him, sockets still wide orange. "Off," he said, as though the sorcerer was being stupid.

"Of course. How silly of me." Dr. Serif bowed vigorously, letting the motion carry him forward. "Tell me, what did you have to drink at the festival?"

"This asshole was comin' onta her." The skeleton's now-free hand patted Frisk very lightly on the head. Despite her irritation, the priestess couldn't help smiling. "I hit 'im with cider," said Sans. "Damn good cider. 'sat why those people were goin' at it, Frisk?" he asked curiously.

The priestess was no longer smiling. "Sans intervened on my behalf when a man wouldn't leave me alone," she explained to the straight-faced doctor. "We tried some apple cider—why can I still smell it on you, Sans? And yes, we saw a couple who couldn't wait until they found somewhere private. I have no idea what they'd been drinking, but it wasn't what we were having."

"Hmmm." Dr. Serif watched Sans, who was examining the back of Frisk's head, then produced a scroll from his robe pocket. "The monster Snowdrake has been confiscated from his owners, effective immediately. I've brought the paperwork for you to take official custody, my lady. He will be here once the captain of the guards has finished questioning him."

Sans started. Frisk tugged at the skeleton's enormous metacarpals. "Let me go, Sans, please."

Very reluctantly, his hand uncurled to let her wriggle free. Trust the doctor to be a step ahead of everyone, she thought as she accepted the scroll, unaware that Sans was staring fixedly at him. The priestess smoothed out the papers on the worktable and began skimming through it.

Sans turned around so that he stretch out on the floor lengthwise. The doctor wrinkled his nose at the colossal skeleton, then peered over Frisk's shoulder as she came to several blank lines for an address. "Where is that, my lady?" he asked as she began writing.

"It's a house I own on the edge of the city. I've been renting it out, but the current tenants have already moved for the winter, so I'm putting it down as Snowdrake's official residence."

"Well done." Dr. Serif glanced at Sans, then suddenly flicked his fingers across Frisk's back. "Forgive me, Your Eminence," he said as she jumped, "there was a spider. We'll have to have your rooms cleaned soon."

The High Priestess scratched her back, gave him a terse nod, and went back to the scroll, moving away from him.

Sans was on his feet. He said to Frisk, "'Scuse us, kitten," then grabbed the doctor and vanished.

She wondered why he was so upset, and why he'd teleported Dr. Serif just a few feet away into the office. Well, at least he'd let go of her without a fight. Should she check on him to be sure he wouldn't hurt the doctor?

After a moment, she shook her head. She'd have to let them hash it out. What was the worst that could happen?

 ~

 The moment they reached the office, Gaster dropped his disguise, summoned six extra hands, and gripped the boss monster's arms before Sans could dismember him. "Easy, now," the older skeleton cautioned him. "Don't disrupt Her Eminence any more than you already have."

"Oh yeah? 'll disrupt yer fuckin'—"

Smack. "Hold still," the doctor rasped, and Sans jerked convulsively as a hand gripped the back of his skull. A moment later, the hand disappeared and left Sans with his eyes shut tight. "Can you think now, insofar as you are capable of it?" snapped Gaster.

Sans blinked at the hands grasping his arms. They disappeared, too, and Sans looked down at himself. "What." He twisted around to look at his backside. "The hell are my clothes? What'd ya do?"

"I sped up the metabolism of the ethanol molecules that were causing you to lose track of your clothing and treat the High Priestess like a toddler with his favorite toy. In short, you were drunk, and you no longer are. Would you care to tell me how much alcohol it took to inebriate someone your size so many hours after the fact, and how you did so without the lady knowing?"

Sans had gone red. "All I had last night was turkey an' cider!" he protested. "She wouldn't let me try anythin' else! She had the exact same stuff, 'n she didn't get plastered!"

The older skeleton regarded him with narrowed eyes, which was extremely creepy. It made Sans think of Frisk's first question, the one about the child from her nightmares—had Frisk been talking about him? If so, then how did he not belong here? Did the kid's unfinished business with him involve murder? Why?

Why should they beware the man who spoke in hands?

Gaster started to speak, and Sans cut him off: "Were you tryin' ta piss me off back there? Are ya after Frisk, or d'you just wanna screw with me? Whaddya want?"

"To help," the doctor said calmly.

Sans sat down with a mighty thmp. "Ta help. Of course. Why didn't I realize that already?" He tapped his phalanges on the carpet. "Who are you helpin', besides yerself?"

"That is a very large question." Gaster also sat down, on the edge of the desk. "My most immediate goal since Frisk became High Priestess has been to aid her in restoring peace between monsters and humans. The longer I have worked with her, the more I find that, frankly, I like her, and I would like her to be happy if possible." No sooner had the words left him than a hand sprang up in front of Sans, who was already fully aglow. The hand held up a finger long enough for Gaster to add, "Which is to say, I admire her caring heart, her singing voice, her magical prowess...her determination. Would you agree?"

Sans' eyes felt ready to burn clean through his skull. Frisk would get even more upset with him if her office was destroyed, so he tried to say something civil, or at least something okay, or something that wouldn't get him smacked again. But he couldn't.

The hand waggled again, then vanished. "Everything I say and do is for one ultimate purpose, my boy: to gather data. I can help no one if I have insufficient information. Take you, for example." The older skeleton folded an extra set of hands in the air over his lap, like a lecturer settling in at the start of class. "Since the High Priestess made you her apprentice, I have considered your intractability to be an impediment to her plan. I ensured that she had a means of preventing your escape, and I have been monitoring your relationship to see if you were developing any kind of rapport. Now that you have, though, you have become a very different sort of problem."

The boss monster was still at a loss. Gaster was quiet, but it didn't feel as if he was trying to antagonize him again; this seemed more careful, almost sad, thought Sans. "In that respect, I have all the data I need," the doctor said. "I assure you that I have no personal designs on Her Eminence, and I will not imply anything further to that effect." He was looking through Sans now, almost talking to himself. "The more I resolve to be of use, the more difficult it becomes to discern where usefulness ends and interference begins. I am more inclined to let matters go where they will from here on, especially after the advice Her Eminence received last night. But..." The slashes on Gaster's face deepened. "It cannot hurt to exchange information. For example, did you notice that the 'ferryman' is a monster?"

"I..." Sans got his thoughts back in order, contemplated the fortune-teller and his cat-shaped table, and found himself nodding slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I kinda did. He didn't seem very human."

Gaster chuckled. "It's strange how these things work. Where I come from, he is the ferryman in the Underground."

"Where you come from?" A chill crept down Sans' spine. He tried to force a laugh. "We just have a coupla Royal Guards runnin' our ferry. Wha, is there more'n one Underground 'round here?"

"No. There is not." The smile faded. "Now, my turn. None of the people who heard Frisk's fortunes told were listening closely to her first question, or the answer. What exactly were they?"

Sans still had that prickly feeling, like someone had held a door open too long and he'd glimpsed something he couldn't unsee. He probably shouldn't tell the man who speaks in hands that they were supposed to beware of him, should he? "Yeah, she asked about something from her nightmares that wanted her to hurt somebody. He said it's a child who wants Frisk to kill someone who doesn't belong here, something about it having 'unfinished business,' and that Frisk was its connection."

The doctor waited patiently as Sans hesitated. "I'm pretty much positive she meant me," the boss monster continued. "I saw the kid once, and I could tell it hates my guts." The boss monster took a moment to indicate that he didn't have guts, ha ha, but Gaster was unamused. "So that means I don't belong here, and some freaky little ghost wants Frisk t'finish me off? I guess? Any chance ya know what any of that means?" He scratched his patella, wondering if it was his imagination or if his body was feeling a little more touch-sensitive than usual, like his human self.

Come to think of it, he could sort of smell the air in here, though it wasn't as strong as any of the ones he'd encountered at the festival. And now he could vaguely remember Frisk being right up against him a minute ago, and that her hair had smelled like...a smell. All he knew was that he had liked it, and letting her go had sucked.

...Crap. What were they talking about again?

"I see," murmured Gaster. He looked down at his extra hands. "Forgive me if this sounds dramatic, or if it's very personal, but have you ever felt especially out of place, or dreamed vividly of things that you are sure never happened to you?"

It was more than a chill this time. "Yeah, but I figured everybody feels like that sometimes. I've had the same nightmares my whole damn life, over and over. They stopped when I came here and started sleepin' inside her barrier. So..." He scowled, trying to cover his fear. "Somethin' is makin' us both see things? Is that it?" He suddenly sprang to his feet. "Is that why I used ta dream about ya? Are you behind all this shit?!"

Two skeletal hands flew at him and stopped just short of his eye sockets. Sans froze, feeling sick and cold inside as he stared through the holes in the palms. Those hands, coming at him—

Gaster gave a long, tired, defeated sigh. "Data. I am sorry, Sans. This will be very unpleasant, but I need to know if it is familiar to you. Hold still, please."

Before the boss monster could react, a third hand dropped onto the top of his skull and—

 ~

 It was cold. Dark, darker, yet darker.

Papyrus wasn't moving. Sans struggled out of the restraints, threw himself onto the tiles and screamed at his brother, trying to shake the little skeleton awake, but pieces were already flaking off. Helpless tears streamed from Sans' sockets, soaking the dust into pink mud.

"Messy."

Sans whirled around, choking with grief and rage. He'd always promised himself he would kill the bastard before he let him hurt Pap! Why hadn't he—

Hands smashed into his spine, his ribs, and one square over his face, the palm large enough for both his sockets to see out through the hole. "I never could fix that design flaw," their creator said in distaste, poking at the red streaking Sans' cheekbones. "Strange...I always thought you'd break first. Ah, well." A philosophical sigh. "Now, the question of whether to finish with you and create a better set, or try a fresh copy of that one first. What do you think, Sans?"

There was a deep sound from behind Dr. Gaster, almost a snarl. It was Gaster's turn to whip around, his face contorted in surprise and every one of his hands flung up to defend himself. A flash of light, searing pain—

Footsteps. A dark figure bent over him. Sans whimpered as Gaster loomed back into his field of view. He should have known better than to hope he was dead!

But...Gaster seemed different, almost another person—paler, the cracks in his face more shallow and less splintered than the ones Sans had stared down his whole life. The hand that rested on Sans' forehead was...gentle? "I am so sorry, child," the scientist said quietly. "Forgive me."

Sans couldn't answer. He felt as if his bones were getting softer, his body lighter. When Gaster sighed, Sans watched tiny bits of himself blow away in the puff of breath. It was almost a relief to feel his SOUL flicker out like a candle and finally die.

 ~

 Sans clawed his way back to consciousness, sitting up so hard that he nearly banged his head on the desk. He looked around, but there was no laboratory equipment, no tile floors or piles of murky dust, just the desk in her office.

Frisk's office. He was here. He wasn't dead, Pap wasn't dead, Gaster wasn't—

"Please do not move."

The boss monster froze in place. "Now, tell me," the doctor said, shutting the door. "Have you had that nightmare before?"

Sans nodded imperceptibly. "Yeah. Long...a long time ago." He couldn't stop shaking.

He flinched as Gaster patted his shoulder blade. "Please don't be frightened, Sans. It was only a dream. I have never hurt you or your brother, and I have no intention of ever doing so." A black coat drifted past Sans' peripheral vision as the royal sorcerer went behind the desk. "To answer your last question, no, I have not sent any of your nightmares, or hers. As I said, I am here to acquire information. I try to avoid collateral damage in the pursuit thereof, but it is not always possible. For that, I sincerely apologize. I've asked Frisk for her help in calming you down."

Sure enough, a sound was coming through the door behind him. It was faint, but as Sans listened, he recognized her humming a slow, sweet little song. Out of her entire repertoire, that one was probably his favorite; he hadn't heard it in so long that he'd been on the verge of swallowing his pride and asking her to do it again. Had Gaster requested that one specifically, or did she know?

Gaster watched the tension fade from the boss monster's massive frame, and the smallest movements of his skull as he bobbed his head along. The doctor examined the center of Sans' chest, his eyes going very wide. Sans was too mellow to ask what he was looking at...probably his SOUL. Eh, whatever.

Presently, the royal sorcerer said, "Snowdrake should be en route now. Her Eminence is still checking that the papers are in order, as well as the deposit she will have to put down until the Church finds another buyer for him." A dry chuckle. "If I know Frisk, Snowdrake will not be sold again. In the unlikely event that someone discovers she's lost track of him, she will be rebuked and lose her deposit, and that will be all."

Sans moved his shoulder back. "She's not gonna get fired or locked up?"

"They wouldn't dare. Not for her first offense, and not for neglecting a single low-ranked monster. Our High Priestess is protected by very powerful connections."

That word took Sans right back to the child from her nightmares. "Why'd you show me that horrible thing with me 'n Pap, and how? I didn't see the ghost kid anywhere. Is the little psycho mad about that dream 'cause it wanted ta kill me first? What the hell is it, anyway?"

"One thing at a time, please. Overall, you may be on the right track, but that's a matter I would rather discuss with Frisk. I—"

"Quit callin' 'er by name. I thought you weren't gonna pull that crap anymore."

Gaster merely smiled. "If you'll bear with me for a moment, the best answer I can give you is that the mind is a terrifyingly powerful thing." Sans bit back his impatience as the doctor settled himself again. "When someone has suffered greatly, especially early in life, it is natural to try to move past those experiences as quickly as possible. But if the mind is active, intelligent, and magically gifted, failure to properly acknowledge these experiences can backfire very badly. Inner demons may become reality, or outside forces with malevolent intent take notice, or both."

"Geez." Sans rubbed the corners of his eyes, wondering where the hanky was. "Yeah, that'd explain why I never got any sleep before I shacked up with someone who could block 'em for me."

A beat of cold silence. "I am not talking about you."

The giant skeleton paused mid-rub. "Ya mean—"

"Most people in a great deal of pain will express it as destructive behavior toward themselves or others. It takes remarkable determination to turn that negativity into the drive to protect other people, rather than lashing out." The doctor shook his head. "I am impressed that she has not seen anything worse than the specter of an evil child. The fact that it can be stopped with a barrier suggests it is primarily external in nature, and her recognizing its intent without acting upon it is also a good sign."

Sans winced. "So, is she seeing it 'cause she's mad at me? Am I in any actual danger?"

Gaster laced his fingers together. "Its power and its ability to work through her will depend both on her intrinsic strength and the energy she has left after dealing with other problems—say, a protege who interrupts an expensive fortune-teller with crude questions in front of dozens of people, and then says 'See you next year' as she tries to get him away."

At this point, Sans would have been surprised if word of that incident hadn't gotten around. "Ya think she's still mad at me?" he asked sheepishly.

"I am not her, so I cannot say for certain, but I can ask you whether you've apologized yet."

"I didn't get a chance! She reamed me out 'n made me go straight t'bed!"

"After which you were drunk this morning, which I still do not understand, and during which you took sizable liberties." A hand popped up to rap Sans on the skull. "At the risk of interfering further, I strongly advise you to ask yourself whether you want to be a friend or a problem."

Sans digested this in silence. The royal sorcerer glanced at the door. "We have a few more minutes. I'd like to ask you a few more questions—nothing terrible, just some odds and ends I've wanted to discuss for some time now. You may do the same."

The boss monster thought it over for a moment. "What's everyone sayin' about her second fortune, the one with the box?"

"Your turn is already over." Two more hands appeared over Gaster's head, one holding a pen and the other a small notepad. "Now, you were a normal skeleton for most of your life, correct? And Papyrus remains as he was?" The hand with the pen swooped down and tapped on Sans' upper leftmost fang, then the top of his skull. "Hm. Intact. How interesting."

Sans swatted at the hand, which evaded him as nimbly as a bug and swooped back up to scratch something on the notepad. "Yeah, Pap's still Pap, and I wasn't born a big ol' freak. Don't ask how that happened, 'cause I don't wanna talk about it."

"Fair enough. Tell me, Sans, do you or have you ever smoked?"

"Smoked? From where?"

The doctor laughed. "I'll take that as a no." Scritch, scritch went the pen. "Do you have a predilection for violence? If so, is it against other monsters, humans, or both?"

"Uh...yes? Humans?"

"I see." Scriscritch. "What is your favorite food? Do you prefer any condiments in particular?"

"My favorite food's whatever I can eat! Haven't you heard what's happenin' in the Underground? Where the hell are you from, exactly?"

Gaster tsked. "In that vein, have any monsters besides yourself become more violent than usual?"

"Not...really. Undyne's more psycho than ever, but I think that's just her."

"Is the situation such that anyone has contemplated resorting to cannibalism?"

"Hell no! Don't even joke about that!"

"I am not joking, Sans. Has the Underground seen a marked increase in sexual activity?"

Great, now he was baffled and embarrassed. "Weren't you listening? There's no damn food! Why would anybody want to have kids right now?"

"A valid point, but to your knowledge, have any of the monsters been engaging in indiscriminate, non-procreative sexual activities?"

"Wha—why the fuck would I know that?!"

That earned him another smack on the head, though not very hard. "Language." Scriscritch. "Now, please be honest. Have you ever contemplated keeping a human as a pet? If so, do you believe you would treat her well, or would you—"

"That does it!" Sans lurched to his feet, eyes and face blazing. "I dunno what kinda sick fantasies ya got goin', buddy, but I'm not gonna play along!"

The royal sorcerer held up his hands, and the extras holding the pen and notepad vanished. "Let's move on, then. Tell me whether this is correct: the second fortune explained the consequences of Her Eminence either opening or disposing of a box. One result is a very dull and safe future, while the other would be shorter and more painful, but ultimately much more fulfilling. Yes?"

Sans sat back down, poking at a scuff mark on the carpet. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

"Unsurprisingly, many people are fixated on the latter possibility, because it would result in the High Priestess – if it is her, of course, which no one will say for certain, though they're certainly saying it – having a child by this time next year." One side of Gaster's mouth lifted. "It is a very popular misconception that human gestation lasts nine months, but in reality, medical experts consider a full-term pregnancy to be roughly forty weeks, or ten months. I will not contribute any sordid conjectures to the narrative, but if this aspect of her fortune is accurate, the necessary timing of certain events is self-evident."

"If?" Sans sat forward eagerly. "Ya mean it might not happen? No boring husband sometime soonish, no havin' a kid right away?"

Gaster stared at him for a little too long. "Where do you see yourself in this, Sans? Where would you like to be?"

Sans blinked. "Wha?"

"You escorted her to the festival, and mutual convenience led you to present yourselves as a couple, but you are not her husband. You are her apprentice and personal guard for the next twenty or so days, after which she will return to the usual course of her duties, and you will return to the Underground to report to King Asgore that the humans are interested in reopening diplomatic relations."

"Actually," Sans said, trying not to sound smug, "once my time's up, she's probably gonna come back Underground with me. She's got this big plan ta have monsters work with humans instead of bein' slaves, and it's too much fer me t'decide on, so—"

"So you would risk her life by bringing her directly to Asgore?" The doctor stood slowly, and the room seemed to grow darker as he glared down at Sans. "You idiot! Do you have any idea what will happen if the High Priestess is delivered to your King as he is now?"

"You mean, if he doesn't like her idea? Then I'll...uh..."

"You'll what?" Gaster's voice dripped with such scorn that Sans couldn't muster a response. "King Asgore is not interested in making peace! He would only meet with her in order to take her SOUL!"

The boss monster's mouth opened and closed. "But...if I didn't—"

"Asgore's sole aim is to become powerful enough to take vengeance on humanity. The King knows very well that only women with strong inborn magic may become High Priestess, and the moment he saw Frisk's SOUL for himself, he would be willing to fight her, you, and perhaps even Toriel to acquire it. Do you understand?"

Sans had never felt so small and stupid. Why hadn't it occurred to him that Asgore would notice how powerful Frisk was without being told? All he had thought of was the excuse to take her with him, not even bothering to remember how he had immediately noticed her SOUL and tried to kill her for it. He was smarter than this!

There was no time to beat himself up. He had to think. Her first fortune had said her efforts wouldn't bear fruit, and Gaster had mentioned Asgore "as he is now"; for the second future to come to pass, with Frisk changing the world and achieving her goal, the King would have to be more like his old, sweet-natured self, who would never have killed someone without at least hearing her out. "Whaddya think is in the box?" Sans asked abruptly.

Gaster frowned. "That's an excellent question. I couldn't even venture a guess without seeing the box myself, but I doubt Her Eminence would be willing to show me. After what you said last night, I don't think she would be receptive to you asking, either."

Sans let himself fall onto his back, staring at the wallpapered ceiling. Who the hell put wallpaper on the ceiling? "Nope. She'd kick my ass from here to the Underground and back."

"Crude, but accurate." Gaster sighed, twiddling his thumbs in elaborate swirls. "How very frustrating. We have so much information, but the most crucial component may be forever beyond our gr—"

The door banged open. "Excuse me," Frisk said to Sans, who got up and watched her shove the couch aside.

Gaster quickly resumed his disguise; luckily, the priestess was so fixated on the couch that she hadn't noticed. "May we help you, my lady?" asked Dr. Serif.

"No." The young woman yanked at a floorboard, and both monsters watched in astonishment as she pulled it up to reveal a makeshift safe. She removed the barrier and rummaged through the safe, extracting a thickly folded paper. "Here we are." Frisk scowled as she tried to remove the packet: the safe was so small that the paper was stuck lengthwise against something. The priestess dug downward and shoved the offending object up and onto the floor. "Here is the deed to my house in Riverview, and here's the key. You and Snowdrake will be able to stop there on your way, and no one will...Sans? Hello?"

The men weren't listening to her. They were looking at what had tumbled out of the safe: a rosewood box.

Frisk slapped at it, sending it tumbling back into the safe, which she resealed and covered with the floorboard and couch in rapid succession. "Don't even think about it," she said to them, dangerously calm, and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The royal sorcerer scratched his cheek. "Memories."

"Hm?" Sans glanced at him. "What about 'em?"

"That type of wood is useful for preserving magical objects, but that shape and size are not common. Given the context of her second fortune and the emotional pain therein, it must contain at least one memory." Dr. Serif drummed his fingers on the desk. "How curious. Memory excision has historically been so abused that it was outlawed by King Stephin's great-grandfather. Nowadays, the procedure can only be authorized on a case-by-case basis by a Church official higher than an archdeacon, or the very highest ranks of the nobility or royalty."

Sans suddenly remembered a night not long after he'd arrived where Frisk had mentioned her father, and how loyal her mother had been to the duke she worked for. Just for grins, he'd looked up the hierarchy of nobility in one of Frisk's books, and a duke was the next best thing to being a royal. It all fit, except for the fact that what the hell was in the box? How did you keep memories sitting around like that? Why would you need to carve something like that out of someone's head, and how would getting it back make the difference between a future of "stupid perfect husband she didn't even like" and "monsters going free" plus "having sex sometime soon"?

One more thing came to mind, and before he could stop himself, Sans said, "Hey, Gaster. Doctor. Whatever you are right now. You say you're from another Underground or something?"

The doctor narrowed his eyes at him again. Even with a human face, it gave Sans the creeps. "Why do you ask?"

Sans almost said "Never mind," but the air still faintly smelled of Frisk – he'd have to ask her what it was, exactly – and he wouldn't get a chance to ask anyone else who might know, so, fuck it. "D'ya know if it's possible for a monster and a human to have a kid together? Biologically?"

The royal scientist raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said after a painfully long moment. "It is quite rare, but I am aware of several instances where a human woman married and had at least one child with a monster." He coughed. "With a skeleton."

But before Sans could even start feeling things about that, much less sort through them, the doctor half-smiled. "None of them, however, involved a boss monster." He stood, and walked to the door. "I'm sorry." He slipped out, leaving Sans to stare up at the wallpaper ceiling.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

“Stop!”: Kauri/Owen

Anonymous asked for Prompt 14 “with literally any OC” - so have 14. “Please! Stop it! Stop!” with Box Boy Kauri and Owen! (After this I get to go through the Danny crew’s prompts wheeee)

CW: Severely dubcon touching, noncon touching and kissing, implied noncon towards end of piece. Some violence/drunken abuse.

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings​

Kauri wakes up in the bed alone.

He never wakes up alone - not since he was given the phrase that helped him to sleep in the box, knowing he was being shipped to his new owner, that he’d been delivered from the facility. 

For those few minutes as he came back awake - when Owen tipped the glass water bottle from the kitchen to his lips, when all he had to do to wake him up was brush a thumb across his face - it had felt like delivery from hell, that he had gone somewhere better.

And it was, it was somewhere better. Anything was better than the facility.

It was so much better, here.

Kauri always woke up with the warmth of another person nearby, the thing he sought out and was terrified to be without. Sleeping alone made him think of sleeping on the cold stone floor, the square of the tiles all he had to look at, counting them over and over and over until his mind finally let him escape into increasingly fractured, fragmented dreams - until he stopped dreaming of anything but the facility, of more training, of an endless loop of the black sticks in their hands and the circles on his skin and the metal around his neck and the colorless liquid in the glass at meals.

So when his eyes flutter open, still smudged with what some dim memory calls sleepy sand in a tiny, high-pitched little girl’s voice, he expects to see Owen in the bed, too. Owen always slept turned on his side towards Kauri, usually with one hand out towards him. Kauri had to slide himself out of the bed to go watch the stars, but Owen slept like the dead and it was usually easy to sneak away.

But tonight, Owen isn’t there.

“Mr. Owen?” Kauri whispers, shifting around, pushing the heavy soft blankets and sheets down, sitting up slowly and looking around in the dark, shivering as cool night air ghosted over bare skin. His black curls are a riot of messiness around his head, and he rakes a hand back through them to try and get them under control.

No one is in the bedroom. 

His eyes dance around, and there is a part of him - only a tiny part - that tells him to just go back to sleep. To take the moments he is alone and stretch them out to include even this, these times he is never, ever alone.

But the deeper push is to find his owner - the compulsion inside of him will not let up, it pulses alongside his heartbeat. Owner is safe. Owner is safe. Owen is safe. Owen, find Owen and be safe.

Kauri slips out from under the sheets, bare feet soundless on the hardwood floors, and moves over to the folded clothes on the chair nearby. Tomorrow’s clothes, meant for meeting Owen’s mother and for Karen Renford to visit-

NUMBERS. Stand at your doors. At attention, you have a guest!

645898, back straight.

S-Sorry, ow, sorry, got it, sir, got it.

Ms. Renford, they’re ready for inspection.

Lovely. This won’t take long. What is this one’s number, exactly?

645898. Custom order for-

I know who it’s for. Give this one your special attention. Can’t upset the Senator, now, can we?

Yes ma’am. And the one at the end of the hall?

Oh, he’ll regret what he does soon enough. Let me see the numbers.

NUMBERS. Respect. Position Two.

Kauri froze with his hands on the soft cashmere bundled in his fingers, fighting the urge to drop to his knees on pure instinct, in perfect fear of the woman who holds what happens to him next in the palm of a long-fingered hand with very sharp nails. Nails he’s felt digging in to the soft skin under his chin, lifting his head to look her in the eyes.

Cold eyes, and Owen’s eyes are warm when he’s happy, and Kauri pulls the sweater on over his head hurriedly, then pulls on the soft black pants, hopping on one leg to get them on faster as he moves to the door. He moves with instinctive soundlessness - every time I hear a step, you’ll get a fucking shock, won’t you? The prospective wants you quiet - as he checks the extra bedroom - empty except for the discipline tools and his box, and he closes the door as fast as he can against the image of his punishments, of what happens when he does the wrong thing.

He tries so hard not to, but sometimes… sometimes something else breaks through.

Not in the kitchen, not in the living room where Keira beeps in her docking station. Kauri has never been alone in the whole condo at night before. He stands in the center of the living room, on a soft rug, his heart beating fast in terror. 

Owen never leaves him alone at night.

Ever.

Kauri takes a deep breath, and then another, breathes and breathes and breathes until he’s dizzy with too much oxygen or not enough. If he is alone at night, it is because Owen left, and without Owen, the night looms too large. The stars aren’t a comfort, they’re a menace, because he isn’t safe. He’s just small.

Then he hears a soft cough from the balcony and his heart leaps, a mix of joy and worry and fear together, and he nearly runs for the door, turning the long curved knob that opens inside, to find Owen sitting in his balcony chair, with a bottle next to him and a glass up to his lips.

The glass drops back down and Owen turns to look at him, surprised. His eyes are clouded and hazy, and Kauri has never seen Owen drunk before. “Kauri? What are you doing up?”

“I-I don’t know,” Kauri says softly, stepping out. The breeze is perfect here, warm even in winter, a mockery of the season. Kauri thinks he used to live somewhere with snow and ice on the roads, has a vague understanding that once he rode a school bus painted yellow with a driver who careened along ice-covered country roads with grim determination, but here the winds are warm even in winter, until the rains come. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I got… I got scared.”

“You did?” Owen looks at him differently this time, then slowly sets down the glass. His words don’t quite work - they’re slurred like his tongue is too heavy for the inside of his mouth, working too hard to speak. “I guess I paid for that.”

Kauri doesn’t say anything - his feelings are bought and paid for, too, just like his body. That’s not a surprise. It doesn’t hurt to hear it. It doesn’t hurt to know.

It doesn’t hurt at all to not know where he came from or who he was or if he used to worry, then, too. He signed the contract and they took everything - that was his decision, his choice, whatever the name of the person had been who wore his skin, back then.

Sleep like a log, baby.

Do logs even sleep, Mommy?

Oh, honey. God, I love having kids. Sleep tight, baby birds.

Cheep cheep, Mommy.

Right, Keira. Cheep cheep. 

“Cheep cheep,” Kauri whispers. Her face is so close, it’s on the other side of a wall of tiny circles stuck to his temples, the wires, the screaming.

“What?”

Kauri jumps, and is thankful to see that Owen is too drunk to notice or maybe just to care. Drunk and sad, and Kauri’s heart twists, guilty at how selfishly he was trying to find memories that don’t belong to him any longer while the only safe place in the world was here so sad. “Nothing, Mr. Owen. Are you okay? Can I… Can I help?”

Owen sighs, looking down at the dark parking lot, the rustling of the trees in the warm winter winds the only sound for a long time beyond Keira’s faint beeping from underneath the couch. “I don’t know, Kauri. I just… I just don’t know. You were supposed to, but… but I don’t know if you can.”

“Let me try.” Kauri shifts around, between Owen and his view of the parking lot, the trees, the stars, the night. Owen’s hazy eyes move to his, and Kauri tries on a smile. To his relief, Owen smiles back. “Let me try to help you. Do you want a position?”

Owen snorts, takes another drink, sets the glass down again. “No, Kauri. Not right now. You know what I want? I want to hear you say something, and you have to say it like you mean it. Real emotions, not just repeating my words. Can you do that?”

Kauri nods quickly, his hands worrying a little at each other in front of him, trying not to worry at the cashmere sweater, because it cost so much and Owen was so nice to buy him such nice things. 

Other owners hurt their pets, more than this.

“Okay. Kauri, I want you to say, ‘Owen, I’m sorry I hurt you.’”

“N-Not Mr. Owen…?”

“No. He never called me that. Just say, ‘I’m sorry I hurt you, Owen. I shouldn’t have.’”

Kauri swallows hard and nods. He tries to call on feelings that aren’t entirely safe to have, the sense of the blue eye and longer black hair that sometimes tries to find him in his dreams now. The guilt that he had hesitated a moment too long, and he doesn’t know what happened but his hesitation-

“I-I’m sorry I hurt you, Owen. I shouldn’t h-have.” His voice sounds real, and even Kauri is surprised at the way every word is laced with tears.

Owen’s eyes light up. He sits up in his chair, looking up at Kauri, and he takes another drink. “That was perfect, Kor-bore. Do it again. Say you’re sorry again.”

“I, um. I’m so sorry, Owen, for hurting you. I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

“Good. Now say, ‘Everything was my fault.’”

“Eh-everything was m-my fault.”

He is standing in for someone, and he doesn’t know who, or why. He is standing in, he thinks, for the reason that Owen hides in his house, goes out to the gym or sometimes to lunch but doesn’t really go anywhere else any longer. He is standing in for the reason that Owen is sharp on some days and cold on others. He is standing in for someone who is not him, but who might as well be.

“‘I’d do anything to make it up to you, Owen.’” There are tears in Owen’s eyes, now, standing up and glittering in the darkness and then rolling down his face, and Kauri’s lip trembles. He cannot stand this, he is not made to watch his owner hurt. Owen is safe, and if Owen is sad, then Kauri is not safe at all.

Owen is safe, even when it hurts. 

“I’d do anything to make it up to you, Owen.” 

It’s not an act, or a lie, when he says it. Kauri speaks the words with pure sincerity, and if there is someone else who screams someone get me out of here in the back of his mind, that person is long gone now. Instead, Kauri moves closer, slow step by slow step, to where Owen sits. 

“I wish you would,” Owen says, and his voice breaks, and Kauri’s whole being twists with the need to help. “I wish you would do anything, Vince.”

Kauri freezes, and Owen does, too.

“M-Mr. Owen…?”

“Sssshhh. Come here.” Owen holds out his hands, and Kauri moves to him quickly, sliding knees up onto the balcony chair on either side of the other man, settling his weight on Owen’s thighs, feeling Owen’s rougher fingers on one hand slip up under the cashmere sweater. He watches Owen close his eyes, his shoulders shaking, as he drops his forehead against Kauri’s shoulder. “Say, say ‘please. Stop it. Stop.’ Say it.”

Owen’s nails dig into his back, and Kauri cries out at a sudden flash of pain, only to have Owen’s other hand muffle the sound, the smell of whiskey - how does he know what whiskey smells like? - from his breath, from Owen’s skin.

“St-stop,” Kauri says shakily when the hand pulls back and away, biting down hard on his lower lip as the nails dig and dig and dig, stripes down the side of his back, like the cane but slow and slow and slow. “Please, please stop.”

“Again,” Owen whispers into his shoulder, and bites hard into his neck. 

Kauri tastes blood from his lip, copper salt-sweet taste, as Owen’s hand on his back pushes them together, chest to chest, and this isn’t a position or what he was trained for exactly. This is something else, and Kauri tips his head back to stare at the stars.

“Please stop,” He says, louder this time. No one will care. What owners do with their pets is no one’s business. At worst, Owen will pay a fine. No one cares. He’s not a person. “Stop, please stop.”

“One more time,” Owen growls, fists a hand in his hair, yanks hard enough to nearly pull Kauri right back off the chair, bites again until Kauri can feel his skin tear, tears running down his face helplessly. There are tears on Owen’s face, too, in the starlight, but all Kauri can see now is the sky. 

“Please!” Fingernails down his back, teeth in his neck, the trickle of blood down his collarbone soaking into the cashmere that cost so much, and Owen moves suddenly, knocking the bottle of whiskey to the ground where it pours out onto the solid floor, the liquor-smell in the air all around them. “Stop it! Mr. Owen! Stop!”

“Too fucking bad,” Owen growls, and then shoves Kauri away from him so he falls with a hard smack to the ground, and he curls himself up, trying to think, to scramble away, accidentally dragging his pant leg through the whiskey puddled there. “Too fucking bad. You had your goddamn chance and it’s too late, Vince.”

“Pl-please, Mr. Owen, I’m not him, I’m not him-”

What if he hurts you, 645898?

Whatever the owner does with their pet is the owner’s prerogative once the three-month return period is up.

Perfect. See, once you get the hang of it…

“No.” Owen snorts, picks up the glass, and throws it at him. Kauri flinches as it bounces against his shoulder and then hits the ground, cracking along one side on impact. “No, you’re not, are you? You won’t be, you won’t ever be. But that doesn’t matter. Get inside.”

“Y-Yes, Mr. Owen, yes, I will-” Kauri scrambles to his feet, his shoulder and neck and scalp aching. He crosses his arms in front of himself, hunches over to try and look small. Then Owen’s hand is against his face, and Kauri shivers, looking up at him.

Owen stands so strong, and tall, even when he’s angry. Even when he’s drunk. Kauri breathes out as the hand caresses him, rubs a thumb across his cheekbone, just like when he woke him up the first time. Owen leans down to kiss him, and if his lips are a little redder with the blood from Kauri’s bit lip when he pulls back, it’s too hard to see in the dark. Kauri kisses back with desperate sincerity, trying to get around the violence that he has never experienced before.

Not like this.

Not marks that will take days to heal, a week. Owen never hurts him, not like this, not like the other owners hurt their pets.

“I-I love you, Mr. Owen,” Kauri whispers, and it’s true. “I love you. I’m sorry you were hurt, and I’ll, I’ll do anything for you. I love you.”

Owen tilts his head, smiles a little - but the smile is still all wrong. “I know you do. I paid extra for that.” He slides his hand briefly up into Kauri’s black curls again, then drops it, and where his hand is gone Kauri feels cold. “I’m sorry for making you bruise up, Kauri. I’ll get you fixed up tomorrow. For now... get in the bedroom.”

“M-Mr. Owen?” Kauri looks up, but this at least is something he can do to help. He knows this, he is trained for this. Company. Companionship. A hallway full of numbers learning things that, deep down, Kauri knows you’re not supposed to learn like this.

“You can love me all you want - all I want. But you’re not the one who was supposed to love me, are you?” With that confusing statement - at the furrow between Kauri’s eyebrows, the uncertainty and fear in his eyes, Owen only shakes his head. “You’re never going to be him. Not really. But you will do anything for me. So get in there.”

“I’m, um… I’m bleeding.” The hand on his face again, and Kauri leans into it, closes his eyes.

“That doesn’t matter. We’ll get those sheets sent out for cleaning tomorrow anyway. Go on, Kauri.”

“Yes, Mr. Owen.” He moves inside, and for a second Owen just stands there, watching him walk, with that look again - the distant sadness, the look of a grieving man speaking with a ghost. Then the expression shifts away, it slides, and in its place is a low humorless smile.

“Get in the bed.”

Kauri closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then nods quickly, and he moves to the bedroom like he used to walk down the hallways, with the black stick at his back ready to force him to go faster if he tried to stop. His hands worry at each other, but this is something he knows, that he understands.

And he won’t have to look at Owen’s eyes.

He can still smell whiskey on his clothes as he pulls the sweater back over his head, the links of his collar clinking together, and Owen is behind him, breathing down his neck. 

“Position Twenty-Three,” Owen says from the doorway, and Kauri moves back onto the bed without hesitation. There is a pulse in his mind now that beats with the word survive, again and again.

Box Boys survive by doing what they’re told, again and again and again and again.

My life must have been so terrible, for me to choose to turn into this. I’m trapped and I chose to be trapped and this is all there is. Why did I sign the contract?

What was so bad that this seemed better?

Kauri thinks, with a sudden burst of someone inside his mind, that he’s like a fairytale, trapped in the tower with a monster that breathes fire and pain.

No prince is coming to save me. 

[dogbearinggifts]

Do you have any theories or headcanons on how each siblings' relationship with Ben was like when he was still alive, based on flashbacks or the reactions they had when Ben manifested? Or maybe when he's mentioned? Thank you

I have a couple, yeah. However, of all the siblings we meet, Ben gets the least screen time and the least development (which—it has been confirmed—will change in Season 2) so a lot of these are just extrapolation and speculation.

Luther: In the comics, we get a quote from Vanya’s autobiography stating that Ben “was so eager to please Father, he was easily drawn into his and Luther’s little games—and those two simply let him die.” I tend to think this quote is less accurate recollection of what happened and more Vanya’s resentment coloring the events as she remembers them, but from this it seems Reginald roped Luther into helping with Ben’s training.

However, I don’t think Luther was as uncaring toward Ben as the quote makes him out to be; we know that Ben was not fond of his powers in the slightest. A comics quote from Reginald establishes that Ben would cry in his sleep, and from what we see in the bank flashback, it’s clear he’s not looking forward to letting the monster out. Luther would have seen this reluctance, and while I’m not sure he would have fully comprehended why Ben felt this way (enhanced strength and endurance aren’t the sort of powers that hunger for blood and make you cry in your sleep) I think he tried to sympathize with Ben as much as Reginald would allow. Maybe he gave Ben a friendly pat on the back after a training session, told him he’d done a good job. Maybe he saw there was only one creme-filled donut left during one of their Griddy’s runs and made sure Ben got it despite wanting it for himself. Maybe he’d save out books from the library he knew Ben would like and leave them at his door, or listen to Ben talk about his favorites even if he wasn’t interested. I think Luther was a lot less aloof prior to his Moon mission (four years of total isolation will wreak havoc on your ability to relate to people) and while he wouldn't have gone against Reginald and tried to argue that Ben be exempted from training—which is what Ben probably needed—I think he did try to ease the pain as much as he could. It wasn’t enough, and it didn’t prevent Ben’s death, but we know from the comics that Luther blames himself for it—and if his reaction in the bowling alley is anything to go on, I think the show backs up this characterization. 

Diego: I wouldn’t be surprised if Diego was jealous of Ben’s powers. This is the kid who was told from a very young age that he would never measure up to Luther, and who spent his adulthood trying to outshine his brother as a superhero. His powers in the show are maybe a little flashier than Luther’s, but Reginald still likely saw them as a disappointment and told Diego as much. So I can see him looking at Ben—who can produce a whole monster out of his torso—and wishing he had a power like that. The comics tell us that Reginald was fascinated by what Ben could do, and so it would make sense if Diego saw this morbid curiosity as little more than extra attention lavished on a brother who didn’t even appreciate what he had.

At the same time, though, I don’t think Diego took out too much of his frustration or resentment on Ben. That same quote calls Ben “the kindest of my siblings,” and so while I believe he was envious of Ben for having seemingly cooler powers, I also think Diego might have felt guilty if he lashed out at Ben too often. I think it happened, but I think that if he pushed too far and genuinely upset Ben, he might’ve wound up feeling like he’d just kicked a puppy. If this were the case, Diego could have become more verbally abusive toward his remaining siblings following Ben’s death, both out of grief and misplaced anger, as well as a sort of bitterness that the best of them (in his view) was gone and there was no point in holding back any longer.

Allison: From her reaction in the bowling alley, I think it’s safe to say she cared about Ben deeply and that his death was still painful for her all those years later. But I also think that of all the Hargreeves, Allison would have least understood Ben’s aversion to his own powers. She tells Luther that she used her power to get everything she wanted. Whether or not “everything” includes Patrick’s love remains to be seen, but it’s clear she grew up seeing her power as an advantage that she used whenever it suited her. So if Ben ever confided in her that he hated his power—or even that he wished he was ordinary like Vanya—there’s a pretty good chance Allison would have looked at him like he’d just spoken Czech. How could he hate his power? It let him take out four bad guys at once. It earned him more of Dad’s attention. It was interesting. How could he hate something like that?

If his powers played a role in his death, this likely would have caused her to see his complaints in a new and darker light, and possibly might have made her wonder if she could have done anything to prevent it. Maybe a rumor would have made Reginald ease up on him; maybe it wouldn’t have. But I think she’d wonder, and those questions would probably haunt her.

Klaus: I’ve seen some fans theorize that personality clashes prevented him and Ben from becoming all that close before the latter’s death, but I don’t think they’re that different. Klaus—high, drunk and grieving—gets behind the wheel of an ice cream truck that he takes careening past two highly trained assassins while “Ride of the Valkyries” plays over the speakers and all Ben has to say is “Wheeee!” Ben has a wild, fun-loving side, and I doubt it only surfaced after his death.

More to the point, however, I think the two of them bonded over a mutual hatred of their own powers. Maybe they didn’t discuss it much. Maybe they didn’t have the words to really examine what they both felt, maybe they didn’t like thinking about the things their powers made them do and see. But I think there was always that understanding between them, and I think that’s why we see them together before a mission in Vanya’s hallucination. And I think that at this point in their lives, Klaus was still hiding the depths of his growing addiction, leaving Ben unaware of just how quickly he was spiraling downward. There’s a very good chance he knew, but not that he knew how bad things really were.

If he and Klaus were close prior to his death, then that might explain some of how he treats Klaus in the present. Not only is he able to see just how bad his addiction has become, but this is his friend. The only one in that household who even came close to understanding what Ben was going through, the one who commiserated with him and probably offered whatever limited support he could, and he’s destroying himself. After his death, it seems Ben spent even more time with Klaus than he did before, and so he would’ve had a front-row seat to all the ugliness of a full-blown substance addiction. When he nags Klaus to take better care of himself, he’s probably acting at least partly out of guilt, knowing he missed too many red flags while he was still alive and capable of action.

Five: Like Allison, I don’t think he quite understood Ben’s aversion to using his powers. He could use his powers without fear, and they enabled him to have a lot of fun at the baddies’ expense. More than that, though, Five wanted to push the limits of his power. He wanted to prove himself. I think he wanted more of Reginald’s attention than he got, and he might have resented Ben on some level for taking the spotlight off him. The fact Ben didn’t want that spotlight in the first place might have mitigated that resentment somewhat, or it might have made it all worse. After Five got stuck, though, I think he might have started to feel some sort of kinship toward Ben. His disastrous attempt at time travel probably left him afraid to use his powers for quite some time, and he probably thought back to Ben’s fear of his own powers. Five might not have understood completely, and he might have recognized that he’d never understand completely, but I do think his jump to the apocalypse cleared the way for a more sympathetic attitude toward Ben’s hatred of his powers. 

However, I think there’s also evidence that Five felt fondness toward Ben—perhaps even protectiveness. When he lands in the apocalypse, he calls out for Ben and then Vanya, both of whom are ranked lower than him and behave more like his younger siblings than his older ones. In the present, Five masks his emotions far more than he shows them, so it’s somewhat difficult to tell if the notion of Ben being there with them in the bowling alley affects him as deeply as it does his other siblings, but it’s clear he’s at least curious. I think he’s long since given up on the idea that he’ll get to see Ben again, and he’s not about to latch onto this hope if it turns out to be false, but he’s open to it.

Vanya: The quote I referenced for Luther paints Ben as one of her favorite siblings, to be sure, and the sheer level of resentment that quote conveys shows his death hit her hard. She saw his kindness and loved him for it, and it seems he treated her kindly as well. However, the fact he hated his powers and she longed to have any power at all probably drove a wedge between them. He probably would have killed to be ordinary, and she would have killed to have his powers.

Ben and Vanya don’t have a lot of interaction, but I think we see a bit of that resentment when she hallucinates him and Klaus suiting up for a mission. He gives her a flat look and tells her, matter-of-factly, that “To go on a mission, you have to have a power.” Vanya sees this as intentional cruelty, but I think Vanya’s desire to go on missions probably struck Ben as insulting and more than a little tone-deaf. How could she want to go on missions? Missions are horrible. He has to put himself in danger and let the monster free, walk away covered in blood and with fresh fuel for his nightmares. Vanya gets to stay at home and play her violin, and here she is acting like going on a mission is some sort of reward. Maybe he’s tried to explain it and maybe he hasn’t, but whatever the case, I think Ben is watching her beg to come along, thinking, She doesn’t know how good she has it. And, ironically, Vanya’s thoughts in that scene probably run along those same lines. Each has what the other doesn’t, and that grass-is-greener mentality probably formed one of the biggest cracks in their relationship. 

[swaps55]

What's your favourite character to write?

Wheeee, I’m gonna cheat and give you more than one. 

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way. Kaidan is a filthy soft-hearted paragon with integrity coming out his ears, loves carefully but deeply, is tough but kind, has been through trauma and hardship but found his way through to the other side. He’s steadfast, warm, funny if you pay attention, and the type of character who gives an excellent opportunity to observe others. So, basically, if you wanted to trap a Swaps in the wild, Kaidan Alenko is the friggin’ template you should work from to do it, Plus, when he’s with Shepard I get to go ham with old soldier imagery, which I have discovered is one of my absolute favorite things. Not surprisingly, I write Kaidan eagerly and often. Virtually all of my mShenko is exclusively from his POV. When I do it from Shepard’s it loses its magic somehow. 

The less obvious one? ASHLEY. I was never satisfied with Ashley in the games. I knew what I wished she would be, but the games never quite...gave me that. So a goal for me when I sat down to write Exordium was to create the Ashley that I’d wanted to see in the games. How surprised was I when all of her scenes basically wrote themselves? She was effortless for me to write - in fact I had to be very careful that she didn’t dominate POV characters when she shared scenes with them. She’ so fun and freeing to write. Loud, funny, confident, uninterested in worrying about what people think of her. She just...does her thing. And doesn’t apologize for it. It’s a blast. 

Honorable mention? Garrus. I love Garrus. I love him as a romance, I love him as Shepard’s best friend. In my stories I work his snark and sense of humor, and I’m always happy with the results. I very badly want to write more ME2-era fic, where he’s got Shepard’s back no matter how dark it gets, and in my ME2 canon things get really dark for Shepard. (Not Fine is my favorite example.)

Couple of snippets that I love for each character: 

Kaidan, from Celestial Navigation: 

Shepard’s body is familiar, but only as it functions in a hardsuit. Where it’s weak. Where it’s strong. How long before his amp overheats, how much punishment his barrier can take before he’s spent and vulnerable. He knows Shepard’s weak left hip – still weak, even after he’s been rebuilt from the ground up, because the man doesn’t know how to roll to the right every now and then – and how to protect him from it.

Now instead of gauntleted hands searching ablative for a breach to seal, Kaidan’s fingers skate over bare skin, find where it’s whole and where it’s broken. Instead of checking his biofeed and reading Shepard’s pulse he feels it under his palm, flesh and blood instead of numbers in his HUD.  

This is better. This is much better.

Ashley, from Exordium, Chapter 24 - Corpora Numerandum:

When Kaidan crawled his way back to groggy consciousness, he discovered he wasn’t alone. In the dark confines of Dr. Chakwas’ office there was a small rectangular glow of light from a datapad. The smell of eggs and sausage filled his nostrils, eliciting a growl from his empty stomach. The vice around his skull had loosened into a dull, throbbing ache. With a groan he rolled over and reached up to thumb the switch of a small lamp on Dr. Chakwas’ desk. In the sudden light he saw a pair of neon green boots propped up on the frame of his cot.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Williams drawled, not looking up from her datapad. “Did you know Dr. Chakwas likes celebrity gossip? I think she has half a dozen entertainment mags on this thing.” She swiped at the screen, head cocked to the side with one eyebrow raised. “Apparently Varesh Onek and Chan’Dren Yara vas Naroma of Fleet and Flotilla fame may be a real life couple.”  She looked up at Kaidan. “See, they’re assuming I have any idea what the hell Fleet and Flotilla is.”  

“What are you doing here?” Kaidan replied, sitting up slowly as he waited for his brain to shake off some of the cobwebs. The aftermath of a migraine felt a little like what he imagined coming off a three day ryncol bender might be like.

She lifted a tray off Dr. Chakwas’ desk and removed the cover with a flourish. Beneath it was a steaming pile of scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes dripping with syrup. The smell was heavenly. She smirked. “The Doc said you’d be coming around soon, and I hear biotics like to binge eat.”

“You brought me breakfast?” he said, surprisingly touched by the gesture.

She raised her chin proudly. “Reconstituted it myself. I figured I’d save you the trouble of shambling through the mess to get some grub. Someone might mistake you for a plant zombie.”

“How chivalrous,” he said dryly.

“Right. Cute. Because of the knight in shining armor comment. I get it.” She pulled the tray out of reach. “You can’t have this now.”

Garrus, from Noel: 

“I bet there’s a few turian traditions that sound more than a little odd when you try to explain them to outsiders,” Liara prods.

“As odd as a single person visiting the homes of an entire planet in one evening?” Garrus asks. “Liara, we’re talking physics here.”

She gives him a withering look. “Ok. Then tell me about the turian belief in Turak Selar.”

His mandibles twitch. “You mean the spirit that snatches the souls of ill-mannered children and traps them in lizards?”

Liara is silent.

“How is that weird?”

She sighs and turns back to the monitors. “Christmas seems like a multi-layered tradition. There are even hints of fertility rituals in there, though I’m not sure humans still acknowledge those origins.”

Garrus shudders. “I really hope fertility has nothing to do with this.”

“The Christmas tradition appears to have both religious and folkloric derivations,” EDI’s offers helpfully over the comm.  “The human Christian faith honors it as a birth commemoration for the offspring of their deity. The occasion is marked with religious services, re-enactments of the child’s birth—”

The turian’s mandibles flail in alarm.

“—communal singing of relevant songs and reuniting of families. However secular influences appear prominently throughout the holiday’s history as well. The date coincides closely with a winter solstice. Several related ancient customs therefore have been adopted as part of the festivities, such as interior decorations with greenery, feasting, and gift giving.”

The AI’s voice quirks with interest on the last comment.

There’s a knock on the door, and Tali enters. “You said you wanted to see me?”

“For solidarity,” Garrus quips. “Shepard and the rest of the humans apparently neglected to tell us they secretly worship an immortal fat man who rides around in a hover sled dragged by hapless mammals, distributing presents to young children by breaking into their homes.”

Tali is so still Liara feels out the room’s gravity well to see if she’s somehow accidentally put her in a stasis field. “Is…that a joke?”

“No, Tali,” Garrus says with a sigh. “We’re actually friends with these people.”

[aalissy]

Midnight Meetings

Chapter 10 of Dreaming in Black and White is doneee!! And it’s on time wheeee!! I really enjoyed writing this chapter and the Marichat fluff that comes along with it! I hope you guys enjoy reading it! I also hope you like the fluff while it lasts hehe. There’s going to be some angst sooonnn. Lemme know what you think?

AO3

Adrien flopped face-first onto his mattress as he released a relieved sigh. He snuggled into his warm pillow, his eyes fluttering closed against the harsh light of his bedroom. 

“Long photoshoot?” Plagg snickered, floating out of the boy’s front pocket.

“Mhm,” he said tiredly, nuzzling his head further into the warmth of his pillow. Blinking his eyes open blearily, Adrien looked at his phone to check the time. Seeing that it was only 7:00 pm he groaned in frustration, “It’s too early to go to bed and I still have homework to do. How am I going to stay awake, Plagg?”

The kwami merely shrugged, “I could tell you but you’d have to get me some cheese first.”

Brushing a hand through his hair agitatedly, Adrien reluctantly got up from his cozy bed, tossing Plagg one of the cheeses he kept lying around. The black cat’s face immediately turned into a beaming smile as he ate the delicious treat in one bite. “I will never understand how you do that,” the model said with a disgusted expression, “Now will you tell me what I could do to stay awake?!”

“Two words for you,” Plagg’s face transformed into a mischievous smirk, “Baker’s daughter.”

“Marinette?” Adrien’s brow furrowed, “But I already saw her today.”

“Yeah, but Chat Noir didn’t,” the kwami practically sang, “Don’t you think your purrincess is getting a little lonely? After all, it’s been a while since your last visit.”

The model’s cheeks warmed slightly before a pensive expression overtook his features, “Actually Plagg, I think you’re right. It has been a while since I’ve talked to Marinette as Chat. Besides, this could be a great way to gauge her feelings about Adrien!”

“Yeah, yeah, lover boy, whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better about seeing Marinette,” Plagg snickered.

Rolling his eyes, Adrien called for his transformation, “Plagg, claws out!” 

With a rush of renewed energy, his tiredness from before was completely eradicated. After shaking himself slightly to get rid of the last flickers of exhaustion, Chat Noir carefully snuck out of the Agreste manor. Slinking out into the cool Parisian night, the wind gently brushed along his cheeks as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. Chat gazed up at the brightly lit full Moon as his tail swayed gently behind him. It was with remembered practice that he eventually found himself back at Marinette’s balcony and a subtle smile overtook his face as he stood above her trapdoor. With a quick knock to the hatch, the superhero awaited her presence eagerly.

After a few minutes, the girl emerged, rubbing a hand sleepily over her eye as she yawned, “Hello?” Marinette called out tiredly.

A soft smile spread across his face as he took in her messy bed-head and pajamas. Adorable, the thought flitted across his mind before Chat bowed, “I’m sorry purrincess, did I wake you?”

“No, I just look this amazing all the time,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes before giggling cutely, “Kidding! But I am glad you woke me. I took a much-needed nap because I’ve been staying up way too late in order to finish a commission.”

“Can I see it?” his eyes lit up excitedly, “Your designs are always amazing!”

Smiling shyly, Marinette opened the trapdoor wider before ducking away, “Sure. It’s not the best right now but it’s only a rough version of the final piece.”

Jumping down, Chat landed gracefully on her bed. He watched her go down her ladder curiously before he saw her hold up a sweater. Though he, unfortunately, couldn’t see the colors properly, to him, it was a very light gray, stitched with darker grey hearts on the sleeves. “That’s pawsitively amazing, Marinette,” he grinned happily at her.

“You think so?” she looked down at her own design, “Maman assures me that it’s a pretty pink but I can’t tell or even know what pink is or looks like. Hopefully my customer likes it,” Marinette shot him a small smile.

“Well I love it and it’s not even finished yet, so I’m sure she’s going to love it,” the superhero slid down her ladder before going over to her and placing a warm hand on her shoulder, “You’re an amazing designer, Marinette. Even without the ability to see colors.”

“Aw, Chat!” she beamed before wrapping her arms around him in a giant hug, “You’re too sweet to me!”

He chuckled as his arms came up to hug her back, “Only telling the truth, Mari.”

After a few seconds, the girl pulled back and gave him a serious look, “But are you alright, Chat? I haven’t asked why you’re here yet.”

“I’m wounded purrincess. Can’t a kitten come and visit his favorite civilian without something being wrong?” Chat placed a hand over his heart.

Rolling her eyes, Marinette said warningly, “Chat!”

“Honestly Mari, I just missed you,” his eyes softened as he watched a small smile take over her face before she ducked her head down.

“Well I missed you too, kitty,” she peered up at him before looking away and giggling nervously, “You know, I haven't seen you or Ladybug for a while. There hasn’t been an akuma attack in a long time. Maybe Hawkmoth’s finally given up.”

The superhero let out a puff of breath, “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

Marinette nodded before falling backwards onto her chaise, “Yeah it really would,” she murmured as her eyes took on a far-away expression.

“So how’s boy trouble going?” he tried to ask unsubtly as he nudged her so they could share the small couch together. Shooting him a nasty look, she moved over and sat cross-legged so they could face each other.

Chat gave her a charming grin as Marinette rolled her eyes again and grumbled, “What boy trouble?”

“You know,” he nudged her slightly with his knee, “How’s Adrien?”

Her cheeks puffed up before she blew out a long breath, “Honestly half of the time I want to punch his stupid model face.”

Chat’s eyes widened and his hands unconsciously went up to cover his face protectively, “What?” he whispered.

“I mean seriously! I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Marinette ignored his reaction, “I swear it’s like he’s going around making certain that we’re ‘just friends, Marinette,’ or ‘I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable. I don’t want to remind you that you had feelings for me.’ God, it’s exhausting.”

“I-,” he swallowed, “Maybe he’s just trying to make certain you’re okay?”

“I know he is,” her lips pursed, “This is Adrien, the sweetest boy in the world! I know for a fact that he isn’t doing this on purpose but it still hurts.”

Note to self quit asking Marinette if she’s okay, Chat thought to himself as he watched said girl stand up and begin to pace.

“And then,” Marinette chuckles dryly, “And then he goes and interrupts my conversation with Luka and I do stupid things like hope! Hope that maybe he’s realizing he does have feelings for me even though I know that I’m wrong!”

“Mari,” he stood up as he placed both of his hands on her shoulders comfortingly, though his face felt as though it was on fire from her words, “Are you alright? I don’t want an akuma to come...” Chat trailed off as he scanned her face.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a second as she took in a deep breath, “You’re right, Chaton. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, Marinette. You should be allowed to get upset without the added fear of an akuma,” he ran a hand through his hair frustratedly.

“Hey, that’s not your fault, Chat. You and Ladybug are trying your best and I know that in the end you’ll win,” she grinned at him.

The superhero shook his head slightly as he chuckled at her, “How are you the one cheering me up when I’m supposed to be cheering you up?”

Marinette giggled, “We can both cheer each other up! That’s why we make such good friends!”

“While we’re still on the topic, do you have any other feelings of residual anger toward Adrien you need to get out? I'd rather an akuma come with me here rather than having your emotions build-up,” Chat asked as a smirk tickled at the edges of his lips. Am I really this much of a masochist? he thought to himself, Well if it’s to help Mari, I suppose that I am.

She snickered before shaking her head, “Honestly no. I’m more mad at myself than him.”

“What?! Why?!” his eyes widened as she plopped down in her desk chair, spinning around slightly.

“Because even after he’s told me he likes someone else I still can’t help but like him back. I mean, just when I think I’m getting over him he does something and all I want to do is lean in and smooch that pretty model face of his. Take today, for example, we were working on a school project together and I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at him. And then, suddenly, the setting sun hit his face just so and I really did almost kiss him,” Marinette sighed as she lowered her head on the desk in front of her.

“You almost did w-what?” Chat’s eyes practically popped out of his head as his face burned. He tried to scan his memory for any sign that she had continuously glanced up at him as they studied together. Finding none, he looked at her helplessly.

Marinette’s head whipped up at that, scoffing as she rolled her eyes, “Please, you know what I mean! Smooching, kissing, making out it only means one thing!”

“L-like on the cheek you mean,” he stuttered nervously.

“Yes Chaton, I want to make out with Adrien’s cheek,” her words practically dripped with sarcasm as she stood up and swatted him over the head, “No, you idiot! On the lips!”

“So y-you want to do WHAT to Adrien’s face?” he practically screeched as he envisioned her leaning over and actually kissing him from earlier that day.

“Shh, Chaton! Be quiet or you’ll wake up my parents!” she hissed, getting up and smacking a hand over his mouth quickly, “And surely you know what it’s like to want to kiss someone! Don’t you want to kiss Ladybug?”

“Well, I mean... I guess... yeah... but that’s different,” Chat stuttered and stumbled, still trying to erase the vision of Marinette and him kissing instead of focusing on their assignment.

Marinette’s eyebrows rose as she said incredulously, “Different how? We both have feelings for them. Usually you want to kiss the person you have a crush on.”

Because I wasn’t imagining kissing you, he thought to himself desperately as he sucked in a harsh gulp of air, “But... but...,” Chat’s face paled as he couldn’t stop himself from envisioning leaning over and connecting their lips right now.

“But what, silly kitty?” the designer giggled before concern took over her features, “Are you alright, Chaton? You look like you’re going to be sick? Do you want me to get you some water?”

 “Yes please!” he gasped out, “You’re right! I’m not exactly feeling like myself right now, though I’m certain a glass of water would help. If you wouldn’t mind.” 

“Okay! I’ll be right back!” she nodded quickly before ducking down her trapdoor. 

What in the world is wrong with me, Chat thought to himself furiously as he ran a hand through his hair, suddenly Marinette says she wants to kiss me and I turn into a raging lunatic. I rejected her a few nights ago and I’m in love with Ladybug. Ladybug! I can’t go around thinking about kissing Marinette! As the superhero raged to himself silently, he collapsed back onto the chaise. Staring up at the ceiling he attempted to get his thoughts back in order when Marinette finally came back upstairs with a cup of water.

“Here you go, Chaton,” she said, looking at him with clear worry etched onto her features. She handed him the glass and he gulped it down quickly, shaking his head to rid his mind of its errant thoughts. 

Chat cleared his throat before smiling, “Thank you, Marinette. Sorry I really don’t know what just came over me.”

“It’s alright,” she grinned softly back at him, the concern in her eyes slowly receding, “It is getting colder. I hope you’re not getting sick.”

“Don’t worry purrincess, I’m feline just fine,” he winked at her cheekily to erase any remaining tension between the two.

The anxiety completely left her features as Marinette rolled her eyes, “And there are the puns. I was wondering where they had gone. I suppose you must be feeling better then.”

“Well, if I’m being honest, I’m pawsitively famished. Do you think this little kitten could get a treat from the bakery, purrhaps?” Chat pouted up at her.

Her lips pursed in annoyance as her brow furrowed, “Did you come over here just so you could get a croissant?”

“No,” he said innocently, “Why would I ever do that? I come here for you and only you, Marinette,” Chat’s lips jutted out further as he blinked at her innocently.

Marinette’s lips twitched into a smirk before she giggled and shook her head, “You’re too charming for your own good, kitty cat. Keep those eyes to yourself,” she flicked his nose once before ducking back down her trapdoor.

Pushing himself up from his reclined position on her chaise, Chat looked around her room. Not for the first time, he wished he could see colors instead of the light greys and whites that decorated her room. He wondered if one day he’d actually be able to see it, preferably after winning over his sweet lady. The superhero sighed longingly as he thought about where Ladybug could be and what she was doing at this particular moment. Chat chuckled as he imagined she was most likely in bed sleeping by now.

“I’m back!” Marinette practically sang, interrupting his thoughts when he turned to look at her. She was smiling brightly as she held up a plate of steaming, hot croissants. 

“Food!” he chirped as he plucked one of the delicious treats off of the plate. Biting into the buttered, crispy pastry his eyes fluttered closed as the flavor exploded on his tongue, “Mmm! This is delicious, Marinette! Thank you!”

She merely rolled her eyes at him with a fond smile, “Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome Chat. I swear though if my parents ever catch me up at almost midnight reheating croissants you’re taking the blame!”

“If it means I keep getting some of your delicious pastries then I’m alright with that,” Chat smiled widely at her.

Marinette chuckled before a wicked expression twinkled in her eyes, “Want to get destroyed in Ultimate Mecha Strike III?”

“You’re on!” the superhero said before sitting on the desk chair next to her as he grabbed the controller, “Bet I can beat you at least once,” he smirked at her.

“Good luck,” she scoffed, booting up the video game. 

Marinette’s fingers easily flew across the buttons with well-timed practice as Chat’s tongue stuck out in concentration as he attempted to win. Though he got close several times throughout their multiple rounds, he never quite managed to beat her.

“Aw come on!” he whined as her combo completely destroyed his character.

“I did say you wouldn’t be able to beat me,” she smirked at him triumphantly.

Chat’s eyes narrowed as the need to erase her smug expression filled him. I know I can beat her in at least one game, he thought to himself determinedly, I just might need to play a little unfairly. “One more game,” he pouted, “Purrety please, Mari.”

“Fine, one more,” Marinette giggled, “But then you need to head home. We still have school tomorrow, you know.”

They restarted the game and this time when his character was on the verge of death, he pointed behind her, “Mari, look over there! It’s Adrien!”

“Wah?” her eyes widened to the size of saucers as her head whipped around. Marinette’s brow furrowed as she realized, but she turned around too late. Chat Noir is the winner, read very clearly on her computer screen. Her mouth dropped open as she gasped in shock, “You cheater!” she shoved his shoulder. Chat fell off his chair laughing as the young fashion designer glared down at him. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he panted out, wiping a tear from his eye, “That was just too easy.”

Marinette’s arms crossed over her chest in annoyance, “Seriously?! You just had to say Adrien!? How would you feel if I said ‘Oh, look over there! It’s Ladybug!’ You big cheat!” she grumbled.

“What did you just call me?” Chat asked before standing as a dangerous smile spread across his face.

“A big cheat!” her chin lifted as her eyes flashed threateningly at him. His hands raised up as his fingers moved slightly, causing Marinette to take a step backwards unconsciously. 

“Do you know what happens to people who call me a cheater?” the superhero drew nearer to her.

“What happens?” she asked warily.

“They get tickled!” Chat pounced as the fashion designer darted to the side squealing. She ran across the room and stood with her dresser to her back so she could watch him cautiously.

A flicker of remembrance brushed against his mind but, before he could hone in on just what it was he was supposed to remember, Marinette giggled at him, “Leave me alone you pesky Tomcat! Go back home and take your cheating fingers with you!” 

Chat gasped in fake offense, “I’m no cheat, Marinette! How dare you accuse me of such a thing! I am a superhero!”

“Not right now you’re not!” she grabbed a sock from her drawer and threw it at him as he crept closer.

The superhero’s hands raised in surrender even as he continued to walk to her, “Alright, you got me. I apologize sincerely, Mari.”

“Uh-huh,” Marinette dragged out suspiciously, watching his every step with laser focus.

“I purromise to never use Adrien against you like that again. Cat’s honor,” Chat dipped his head in a small bow.

The designer smiled, dropping the sock that she had clenched in her hand, “Then I forgive you, Chaton. I also promise to never use Ladybug against you like that.”

With her guard let down Chat leapt at her, brushing his fingers against her sides mercilessly as she laughed. He chuckled along with her as she attempted to push his hands away, “Got you, purrincess,” he said quietly.

“You-you pr-promised,” Marinette panted out in between her giggles. She attempted to squirm away from him but the dresser behind her effectively blocked her escape.

“Ahh but I only promised to never use Adrien against you again. I never promised to not tickle you,” Chat slowed his hands to a stop, a wicked smirk on his face as he stared down at the still gasping girl.

“You’re terrible! Getting me to trust you like that,” she glared up into his eyes as she finally managed to catch her breath. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips and he couldn’t help himself from tracking the movement. 

Clearing his throat, Chat stepped away from her as an image of him leaning down and connecting their lips hit him in full force. Shaking his head, he gave her a shaky smile as he looked at the trapdoor over her bed, “Well, thank you for keeping me company, Mari, but I think it’s time for me to head home. As you said before, it’s getting rather late and we both have school tomorrow.”

“Ugh. You’re absolutely right,” Marinette groaned, “I’m going to be so tired. And to think, I even tried to get a good night’s sleep tonight. You ruined my sleep, Chaton!”

“Ahh but it was worth it, wasn’t it?” he winked at her before climbing up the ladder to her bed and the trapdoor which laid above it.

The designer rolled her eyes as she followed him up, “Hmm, sleep or Chat Noir? Sleep or Chat Noir? Honestly, I’m pretty sure I’d pick sleep every time.”

“Meouch,” the superhero pouted at her, “That hurts purrincess. And here I thought you loved spending time with me.”

“Not when it disrupts my sleep schedule,” she smiled prettily at him as her head tilted to the side innocently.

“So harsh, what did I do to deserve a friendship like this? Everyone else thinks I’m pawsitively wonderful.”

Marinette opened up her trapdoor as she practically pushed him out of it, “Get out of my room! I can’t take your puns any longer.”

Chat laughed as he leapt up through the small hatch, feeling the cold night air brush against his flushed skin, “Goodnight, Mari. I’ll see you soon,” he paused at the edge of her terrace before turning around and winking down at her, “And I know you think my puns are the cat’s meow. It’s alright, I’ll keep your secret fur you.”

“Go away!” she shouted up at him, yanking her trapdoor back down.

The superhero threw back his head and laughed giddily before taking off into the night. The pitch black of the sky camouflaged with the darkness of his suit as he raced back to the Agreste manor. A twinge of loneliness hit him as he carefully and quietly entered through the large window. Where before Chat was warm and happy within the brightness of the Dupain-Cheng bakery, he felt as though his empty bedroom sucked the last of his energy away from him.

“Plagg, claws in,” he whispered before collapsing face-first onto his bed.

“So?” the small kwami floated above him with a small smirk.

“So what, Plagg?” Adrien turned his head to the side so he could talk to the small cat.

“Still dreaming about kissing your purrincess?” he snickered.

“What?! No!” the model practically spluttered as his face flamed, “Plagg you know I’m in love with Ladybug! Why would I even think about that?!”

Plagg rolled his eyes, “Still in denial then.”

“Denial? What do you mean?” Adrien’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Nothing at all,” the small, black cat said quickly before whining, “Just get me some cheese already. I’m starving.”

With a groan, Adrien shoved himself up from his bed, heading to his usual storage of cheese. His muscles ached with exhaustion as he longed to be back underneath the covers of the warm mattress. Tossing Plagg a piece of the stinky food, he watched as the kwami ate the entire thing in one gulp. Sticking his tongue out in disgust he quickly changed into his comfy, Ladybug-themed pajamas.

“Goodnight, Plagg,” Adrien whispered as he shut off the lights and flopped quickly onto his bed. His eyes fluttered closed though his mind strayed.

I can’t believe Marinette actually almost kissed me today. That’s so weird... but is it? I mean, she does have pretty lips. Would it really be so bad if..., he shook his head quickly before turning over, Okay, that’s enough for one night, Adrien. The only lips you should even consider kissing are Ladybug’s. Besides, you’ve already rejected Marinette. There’s no way she’s actually going to kiss you. Squeezing his eyes shut, Adrien listened to Plagg’s quiet snores as he finally felt himself drift off into his own deep slumber.

[loftec]

7, 17, 18! Wheeee!!!

Whoooh! 

7. What’s the last thing you read that made you cry?

I cry at the drop of a hat at music and film/TV, but I can’t really recall crying at something I’ve been reading lately... I’m sure I’ve had a sniffle or two at a fic in the last couple of years, but there isn’t a specific thing that comes to mind. The last time I had a proper cry over a book, that left a lasting memory, was when I read Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett the first time. Which was a long time ago. I need to read more.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

Okay, so. This was the idea I was going to use for the very first Big Bang I dropped out of, three years ago now (ah, the memories). The doc is called “Princess TuTu” and I might have talked about it here before, but I guess I will again. I am not sure I ever will write it, seeing as I still haven’t thought of an ending I like. More later, under the cut!

18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?

Reading: No... I am a very erratic fic reader, last week I randomly read like 20 Community fics in a row and I’m still not quite sure why.

Writing: I try to have a routine, but the routine usually starts with me making a weekly schedule where I aim to spend all my spare time writing, and then don’t. The most productive writing routine I have is this: have a whole day off, go to a café, sit there until they kick you out. Which is what I have planned for tomorrow!

‘Tis a very long mess.

Part 1. Mandy.

Mandy knows darkness. She’s seen it, and she is it. So she equips herself, she trains, scams and lies her way through fancy ass martial arts classes. She has magic, it’s crap, but she has it. She can touch a person and see their most formative moment. No one knows about this, except Mickey, her brother, who hasn’t touched her since she told him, they were 10 and 12 and he told her to never tell anyone else. She hasn’t. Until she met Ian, who is a hunter. They meet in the dark, she thinks she’s saving him, but he doesn’t need saving. They become best friends, and they hunt together. She never used to hunt, she feels herself change when she realizes that she can help people. She tells him about her powers and touches him with purpose. She sees something she doesn’t understand, it’s not like anything she’s seen before, it’s diffuse and obscure, Ian’s useless mom is there, and Mandy’s father, but she can’t see Ian. Ian is nervous and under the impression that what she’s seen is him realizing he’s gay, and that she’s freaked. Mandy goes with it, and doesn’t tell Ian what she really saw.

They start hanging out more, and hunt less. Ian still hunts on his own, but Mandy feels less inclined. She wants to find out more about Ian’s past, so she researches magic and the forces of darkness. She finds out things about herself that makes conflict for her in the battle between good and evil. She thinks she might be evil.

She tries to talk to Ian about it, but she doesn’t know how to tell him, he has no conflict. She tries, and overnight Ian becomes hard and unfeeling and distant. She thinks it’s just her at first, she cries in secret and thinks it was bound to happen.

She comes home one night to Mickey bleeding out on the floor. He opens his eyes when she grabs at him, and tells her not to call for help. Asks her to help him to the bathroom. She doesn’t understand, but something tells her to just do what he says. She notices Ian standing in a dark corner, and doesn’t have time to ask him WTF, so she asks him to help but Mickey insists that he stays the fuck away from him. Mandy thinks he’s being a homophobic asshole but gets him in the bath on her own and finds out that Mickey also has magic, tied to water. He heals himself with Mandy’s help.

Through Mickey, she finds out that Ian has been cursed, that his heart has been shattered into pieces and scattered, and that Mickey’s been trying to help put him back together. Mandy asks him why, and Mickey says he owes him. That Terry is a demon, and responsible for Ian’s current state. That they all have magic, and that Mandy has been kept on the sidelines only because of Mickey casting spells to keep her out of Terry’s mind, effectively isolating her from her family for years.

Mandy and Mickey band together and hide out in different places, trying to find the last parts of Ian’s heart. Mickey has the pieces collected in a small bag hung on a string around his neck. Mandy can sense where they are, link herself to Ian. Mickey still won’t touch Ian.

Ian has nothing, and desperate to get him up and working, they start returning his heart. It’s painful and unbalanced and they don’t know how many pieces they have left to find.

Mandy wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks she can hear voices, she finds Mickey awake and alone, and she thinks he’s been crying, but it doesn’t seem right.

They realize that a piece of Ian is with Terry, and go after him. There is scuffle, and Mandy gives Ian his piece. Terry opens a portal and Mickey tells Mandy he’s the only one who can close it, by going through it. He sees Ian and kisses him, before he throws himself through the portal and vanishes with it.

Part 2. Mickey.

Mickey knows evil. It’s easy and familiar and in him. When his powers start to surface, he’s told all about it from Terry, from his brothers. When Mandy comes to him and tells him about her powers, he feels himself change inside. Like lightning strikes. He protects her, keeps her from the rest of the family. She’s happy, but lonely, he can tell. So he’s pleased when she makes a friend in Gallagher, but maybe less so when he turns out to be a sanctimonious hunter. He antagonizes the hunter and threatens his life. Gallagher calls him a wizard and isn’t afraid of him, isn’t out to get him. Mickey hates him.

The sex is amazing.

They start hunting together, hunting and fucking. Mickey has no allegiance, he’s not a white hat, but he’s no longer all Terry either. Gallagher makes him feel like he’s mostly his own, and maybe a little bit Ian’s. He gets shot at a couple of times, in the line of duty, and goes to juvie. When he comes back the first time, his mom is dead. The second time, he finds out that Terry struck a deal with Monica Gallagher 17 years ago, and it’s time to collect. The price she bargained with is Ian, she sold his soul to Terry before he was even born.

Mickey cracks a joke about gingers that fly right over Terry, but his heart is breaking and he is already trying to figure out how to break the contract.

Gallagher’s 18th birthday is a while away, but Mickey wastes no time finding a spell that will free Ian from his contract, if done just right. They perform it, but Terry walks in on them after and beats up Mickey, and curses Ian. He shatters his heart and throws away the pieces. Mickey tries to stop him, and Terry understands. Eyes on Mickey, he tells Ian he’s never going to be whole again, and that his memories are all he’s got left. But one touch from the one who loves him the most, and his memories of them will be gone too.

Mickey takes Ian home and explains everything to Lip (?)

Mickey hunts for Ian’s heart, and tries to stay out of his way. He ends up in a scuffle one night, when Ian tagged along and didn’t help, and they retreat back to the house. Mandy finds them and helps them.

Mickey finds more pieces. He wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t stop the tears. Ian appears in front him him and tells him it’s okay. It’s not Ian, it’s a piece of his heart in the shape of Ian. It’s a piece that has been with Mickey all along. Mandy wakes up and asks him what’s wrong, and Mickey doesn’t tell her. He’s tried to deny his feelings for so long, but not anymore.

He thinks Ian’s better off not knowing him, when he realizes that he’s got the power to close the portal. So he tells Ian to forget him, and kisses him one last time, before he jumps.

Part 3. Ian.

Where Ian got his last piece back in time, breaking the curse, and doesn’t forget Mickey. Instead he’s had enough of this shit and goes after him. Pulling him out of hell and throwing Terry in there instead.

[nellynee]

Trollstopia Blindblogging: episode 5a - Manager Poppy

 I actually lost the first half of this (Poppy had trapped Val with taffy) so while I’m going to redo the important bits I’ll be missing quite a bit of the mid blogging speculations WHEEEE

Ok there was actually a moment at the end that really, really impressed me. And Val has yet to bore me, she’s a delight at every turn. 4/5 with a recommend to definitely watch. I can’t quite give it a 5/5 I’m saving that for rare special episodes should I find them. But it’s a very high 4

(The theme song is really growing on me. started looping it on youtube that's part 1 of my crazy)

Making note now too that instead of digging into what they enjoy, we seem to be back at rock and I wonder if they are just gonna rotate the tribes?

“I can’t tell if you’re upset or if this is just your regular face” Now I’m wondering if Val has resting Bitch Face or if it’s just a Poppy thing

Given my fast and loose percolations for the last year on Troll Genders and cultural nuances lets just say I’m very interested in the Band Manager Job

That is a totally probable amount of scenery puncturing for that hair btw. Ever try to get hair spikes that long? They are more product than hair by mass at that point. Pure cement.

Trollstopia just pulled a Yzma on that poor Troll

(I fully approve of Demo BTW can not wait to see more)

Demo, being facetious: “Glitter and Cupcake goodtime jamboree” Poppy, completely serious: “Yes that is something we do go on”

Given how I’ve been headcanoning that acids as a flavor profile originates in the Ocean with the Techno Trolls but is occasionally enjoyed in costal Rock communities as a natural byproduct of purifying ocean water to be consumed as a loose analogy for salt.... In my head Val’s “Extreme Sour Blaster Puckerball” is either a regional treat she couldn’t indulge in much back home or a nostalgic flavor and this is what I mean by this show passively reinforcing my headcanons.

Val’s face sinking when she sees the serious squad (Poppy) just gives credence to my “Poppy just does that to her and she doesn't have resting bitch face” theory

That’s POPSQUEAK NUMBER 2. Three is a trend!

Ok Val super excitedly singing an emphasis on what she wants to do is so freaking cute I love it. It doesn’t hurt that her voice actor is amazing

“The risks are as high, as they are pointless! YEEEEEAH!”

rewatched that whole sequence close to 10 times

I swear to God if “edge” is another acronym...

Ok I don’t know who the other Troll is but that is PRIDE AND PREDGUDICE!SMIDGE I am all here for her. a reference to one of my favorite TBGO episodes

Also this song is kind of a bop

The hulu subtitles don’t match the lyrics. poppy definitely sings “get up and go” and they definitely say “Get out of control”

why the heck does skiing with a Funk ship have the same vibes as that video of the Amish man skiing behind his buggy on a highway?

“I’m finding my edge yeeeeeah! WE’VEBENOVERTHIS!” (drums) yup that’s legit funny as hell

I had a pretty long rant regarding the issue which was kind of undone by the Stunt Bug but I want to mention anyways that I really appreciated the organic, almost symbiotic technology all the Troll tribes had (excluding Funk) and how I didn’t and still don’t like how technical the TV show gets sometimes. In particular of the Dune Huggy, given that overcomplicated turn style, it’s probably R&B tech, and I really appreciate the Stunt Bug.

How much you wanna bet “Finding her edge” was a legit issue that Val needed to do and Poppy is gonna get yelled at by Demo?

That’s some sharp ass hair. I bet it’s like, 70% actual crafting glue

polish my own glitter

Ok wait

wait

Did they just go through a Harmony special style wormhole????

I call shenanigans. I hate the TV versions of wormholes. It was obviously a play on words for the being eaten by that specific kind of worm phenomenon you don’t get to have both!

Ok that effect when Val is contemplating and concludes she feels edgy? That little black and red rock skull and crossbones into a stylized Val’s face during a lightning strike? That was legit really, really cool. I was starting to worry this production would be missing some of the harder hitting moments we got in TBGO but this was legit super cool

oh my god it actually turned into birds and carried DJ Suki off what the fuck. the birds had little mohawks

[itsjulesharper]

When we left our intrepid characters, Philippe had stupidly and against all sense, charged off on his own, in the night, without guards (yeah, this would never happen) to the Bastille to find out who this mysterious Duc de Sullun is. And promptly got hit on the nopper. Louis meanwhile, thinks he is hot shit because of all the awesome lights and running water he’s given to his people. JUST LOVE MEEEEEE.

So somehow, Philippe has made it back home to bed, and Liselotte is leaning over him while he is disorientated and half-awake. He looks awful. Bontemps is heard saying, “nothing to worry about, your Highness.” (WRONG form of address – should be ‘your royal Highness’. And so it starts.) Did Bontemps clonk Philippe? Of course, he was acting all forms of suspicious last ep, so he was most obvs. there to swoop in and bring Philippe back. Can’t have a royal prince of France just getting all KILLED without a guard or backup or anything, can we?? Anyways, the doctor says he has a mild concussion and Bontemps adds, “caused no doubt, by the fall.” WHAT FALL. So this is the narrative being spun by suspect Bontemps, eh? “I didn’t fall, ” mumbles Philippe. “I was hit.” There is blood on the pillow and the camera focus goes from clear to fuzzy then back again and everyone is concerned and I am concerned that they keep calling him YOUR HIGHNESS FFS. Philippe wants to talk to his brother but Liselotte says he’s not going anywhere. Philippe mumbles stuff about ‘the mask’ and Bontemps looks quite a bit shitty while Liselotte is all confused and Philippe goes on: “his eyes… one of the prisoners… was wearing a mask.” Bontemps tells the doctor to ensure he gets the rest he needs, Philippe finally falls asleep and we are into the intro.

In the gardens, and Louis and Leopold are in a frantic battle of swords, with lots of clanging and thrusting and grunting and moving about. Leopold finally elbows Louis in the face and draws blood, and Louis looks quite shocked. Bontemps makes a step forward but Marchal puts a hand on his shoulder. Not yet. Louis gives Leopold a look, wipes his nose and turns away… but Leopold advances and Louis whirls, blocking the thrust and they continue to clash. Louis lands a blow on the other man’s kidneys and he advances again before a breath can be caught. They grapple and struggle and in the struggle, Leopold manages to disarm Louis, taking both swords. Louis is shocked and angry (as you would be) and we hear the tiniest sound of a blade being drawn, then see Marchal step forward as he slides his dagger from his belt *heart eyes*.  Leopold takes a breath then lowers both swords, his point proven. Bontemps says loftily, “It is customary for the king’s adversary to bow after the fight.” Leopold, looking sweaty and spent, answers: “In Austria it is customary for the loser to bow.” Bontemps ain’t havin’ any of that: “This is not Austria, your Majesty. This is Versailles.” (Not YOUR MAJESTY, UGGGGH). There’s a bit of a Mexican standoff and we see shitty Bontemps, mouth breathing Louis, Leopold looking from every face and gauging the mood and how much he can get away with. Finally he inclines his head (not at ALL like a proper bow) And offers Louis’ sword back. Louis takes it in silence.

And next scene we are walking back into Versailles. Louis says, “a clever ploy. A vicious attack hidden behind a show of weakness.” Leopold replies, “History remembers the winner, not the manner of his victory.” Ah, so now we are on the subject of winners, and Louis says it is time to enter negotiations. Leopold received word from Rome and they ‘look favourably on your guardianship of Strasbourg and Luxembourg.’ Louis is pleased and now wants to discuss Spain. Sure, your Majesty go right ahead, because I am taken by the lovely staircase and marble everywhere. Ahhhh, now they are talking about their ‘deal’ – on King Charles of Spain’s death, they split the spoils. Louis replies that much has changed since that deal. Leopold is all ‘such as?’ and Louis leans in and says tightly, “I won the war.” Before Leopold can reply, the queen floats down the stairs, asking who won. Of course she is talking about the duel, and Leopold says “His Majesty was kind enough to allow me victory.” The queen is concerned for Louis’ bloody nose, but he’s ‘meh, it’s nothing’ about it. Her gaze darts from Leopold to Louis, then back again and Louis picks up on the weirdness, saying that she seems…. “tired.” Huh. Not what I would’ve gone with, but there you go. Nothing that can’t be remedied by a walk in the gardens, it seems. And just look at Leopold – a ‘yeah, I shagged you last night and it was goooood’ expression if ever I saw one.

how you doin’?

The queen looks flustered, bobs a curtsey and hurries down the steps, and Louis does not see her or her lady’s smiles as they float off. Leopold turns to Louis: “how much of Spain do you want?” Louis answers tightly, “All of it,” then continues up the stairs. Leopold sighs, glances back down to the queen in the distance then goes on his way.

*historical note: Louis did indeed demand Spain as part of his wife’s dowry because at the time, he knew Spain could not pay the monies he wanted and so, the ‘we give you money in exchange for the ‘not challenging the throne of Spain” agreement was forfeit. It was also expected that King Charles of Spain (the queen’s brother and also in possession of the mighty Hapsburg jaw) wouldn’t live very long. He surprised them all by living until he was nearly thirty-nine.  He was born in 1661, a year after his sister Marie-Therese was married to Louis and so was living in France. She was 22. 

that art on the wall – lulz.

so pretteh….

We are back with Philippe, and he is finally on his feet, shuffling along and holding his head but still in a daze. He goes into one of Louis’ private salons and Louis and Bontemps are there, Louis telling him he really should be in bed. Dazed and confused, he sits, and Bontemps butts in with his prepared standard line – that Philippe had ‘an unfortunate accident.’ But nuh-uh Philippe is not here for that mansplaining shit. But Bontemps is really invested in this, even going so far as to say that he spoke with the governor who assured him that Philippe SLIPPED AND FELL. Nup. Philippe calls bullshit on that, saying he went to the Bastille to see the prisoner, then was struck, and that the prisoner wore a mask of iron. And I must say, Louis is rather calm after hearing a prince of France not only went to the Bastille ALONE and without guards, but was hit. He says he was told that the prisoner’s real name was Macquart. Philippe is confused and now we hear the lie Bontemps has settled on – the prisoner is a petty criminal and of unsound mind, believing himself to be an actual duke, so the guards gave him the title of le duc de Sullun to appease him. But why that name? Apparently, ‘Sullun’ is latin – the reverse of ‘nullus’, meaning ‘no one’. And the man in the iron mask does not exist, Louis explains, and it is all in Philippe’s head. Bontemps watches them both in silence but his expression is not quite right but I am suddenly distracted by what Louis is wearing. Look at it! Louis tells Philippe to go back to bed and the scene becomes blurry.

We are back in the gardens and Leopold is striding around, obvs looking for the queen to remind her of teh sexytimes they both had. How indiscreet of him. He finds her nervously undercover of some trees and does his best alpha male impression by silently going over to her, cupping her face and going in for a neck snog. The queen doth protest, overcome by some late shyness/modesty/guilt/loyalty I suppose. Why not? Leopold asks. “You will soon be gone,” she softly replies. Oh, okay. “It will only increase the pain of your departure,” she adds when he wants to just snog it out and enjoy each other. He looks frustrated, asks if he can trust her, that he needs her help. “Your husband is trying to destroy the dynasty that our ancestors have spent six hundred years creating. He will claim all of Spain on your brother’s death. The Hapsburgs will soon be extinct.” The queen is concerned and wants to know what he intends to do about it. “I will stop him.” But how? Oh, apparently his niece Eleanor will marry the queen’s brother, Charles. Plus he wants the queen to write a letter to her brother recommending the union. The queen asks why she should help him, so he plays the “you are a Hapsburg” card, plus the ‘your husband just wanted you for political stuffs, not you as a woman’ guilt trip. Wheeee. He rubs it right in: “He abandoned you the day he married you. Since then, his only gifts have been solitude and infidelity.” The scene cuts to the queen with parchment and quill, thinking what to write, then goes back to them in the garden where they finally kiss WHERE ANYONE CAN SEE THIS, and we have three close-ups of the queen’s ruby ring and THIS IS SIGNIFICANT so take note of it. The queen’s voiceover is then heard: “My dear brother Charles. I am writing to you concerning marriage…”

*Historical note: they mess up the real time lines so much it makes my head spin. Charles of Spain married in 1679 at the age of eighteen to …..SPOILER!!!! Philippe’s favourite daughter, Marie-Louise. She was 17. Can you see how confused I am – are we in 1679? Or 1674 because baby Philippe was born then? Or 1667, when the street lights were first on? Or….  …..SPOILER!!!! 1683 when the queen dies? UGH. FRUSTRATED.  😫

Now back in the salons and we hear the Chevalier holding court, saying “they say that at Villarceaux she spent her nights on her back in bliss, and her days on her knees in penance.” Chortle, chortle. “If you want my opinion – and I’m sure you do-” He suddenly is cut short by the appearance of Maintenon in the doorway, Delphine beside her, and he skilfully changes with subject with “the question is… what colour for the forthcoming season? Blue or green?” The two women blithely stroll and mingle while everyone gossips (CHAIRS WITH ARMS NOOOOO 😡😡) and I’m loving the look of that dark-haired noble behind Liselotte. So very mysterious. We follow Maintenon, and suddenly we see Louis’ last bedmate gossiping with the other demoiselles, saying “behind that air of prudishness, she’s quite the slut. And the next time I see the king, I’ve a good mind to tell him about it.” Silly chit. We know how this is gonna end, don’t we? (but also – look at those gowns!!) And look at this screen cap, which I loooove. Look at the demoiselle’s expression over her shoulder. And the two messieurs behind Delphine, just waiting for a scene.

Delphine is at a loss as to who everyone is talking about, and is shocked when Maintenon confirms she is the subject of all the gossip. Of course there’s no truth to the rumours, she assures Delphine, then excuses herself. She glides, head held high, out the doors and then leans against the stone wall, taking unsteady breaths. The camera pans around and Bontemps appears. “her ladyship seems upset.” (WAT LULZ. Not the correct way to address a marquise, ffs……) “Tell me, Bontemps,” she starts a little out of breath. “Do you consider it the mark of nobility to destroy a lady’s reputation with sordid gossip and lies?” errr…. no. Bontemps looks a bit out of his depth. She nods. “Neither do I.” And she floats off. So now Bontemps is all het up and goes into the salon, all curious-like. He looks a bit shitty as he sees the gossip girl laughing with her gossip friends and then the scene cuts back to Maintenon, who appears to be stomping about and looking for someone. Ahhh. Madame de Montespan. Montespan greets her politely but Maintenon gets right into it, accusing her of being behind the rumours. Montespan claims her innocence – “Why would I do such a thing?” – and Maintenon comes back with the old and favourite ‘you’re just jealous’. Montespan finds that amusing, says it is the other way around, that she was ready to risk everything, while Maintenon is not. And then… ahahahhhhhaaaaaa! She says, “is it true you put other women in his bed?” And I LAUGH AND LAUGH because as I mentioned in Ep1, this is what the real Montespan did, and the real Maintenon tried her earnest to keep women OUT of Louis’ bed because of all the sinning and stuffs. Well, apparently the king has needs that must be satisfied and these women mean nothing to him, says Maintenon with much conviction. Yeah, but nup. Montespan has her number, can see the other woman is scared. Of what? “Of your own passion. You are scared that if you give in to it, you will lose control. You take refuge in piety and denial but behind the mask you’re just screaming with pain.”

Next scene – Leopold is studying paperwork in his rooms with his Austrian Bontemps, niece Eleanor reading a book in the corner, and he is told King Charles is expecting their imminent arrival. How is Leopold going to approach the negotiations, his Austemps asks. The same as Louis – “Lie, haggle, concede, coerce, protest…. and smile.” When his man reminds Leopold the king is dangerous and starts to offer advice, Leopold gets a bit shitty. He does not need advice: “This is a game of cards. The prize is Spain and I have the trump card.” DISMISSED, AUSTEMPS.

Right, so Louis enters the small prayer room where Maintenon has perched her carcass. Again. She turns. Louis is shitty. “There is talk in the salon.” Oh, I’ll bet there is. He wants to know if there is any truth in it. “No, Sire. It is scurrilous gossip designed to destroy my reputation.” DEAR LORD, MAINTENON. You could’ve come clean. He was offering you the prime opportunity to tell him all about it. And so you LIE, knowing how he feels about liars. *headdesk* Louis is annoyed because it also damages his reputation. Maintenon kisses ass: “The king must know he has my total trust. I only pray I have his.” Right-o, sowing the seeds for when she finally does tell the truth, then. He gives her a look then says, “come with me.”

Back in Leopold’s rooms and Eleanor wants to go to the salons. “No, you will stay here and practice your embroidery.” (Lulz) “Embroidery is for spinsters.”😆 He gives her a champion side eye – she needs to show a little more humility and respect… oh, and befriend the queen. Eleanor isn’t impressed – the queen seems dull to her. She’s a Habsburg, dammit. And you will talk to her about Spain. Ugh. Srsly. How boring. Eleanor seems lovely and bouncy like a teenager often is, looking for fun and excitement. But Leopold doesn’t care for that: “You are only here because I have a use for you.” Eleanor looks shitty, as would I. “Yes, Uncle.”

Bontemps doing his now-standard shitty look.

Right-o, so Louis enters the salon after Bontemps announces him, and everyone stops gossiping and playing cards and does the usual stand/bow/curtsey. He looks shitty, and Maintenon behind him looks apprehensive, and then he announces “To lie is a sin. To slander is a sin. To seek to destroy someone through unfounded gossip is a sin. A woman close to me who does great honour to this court has seen her reputation stained by the poison of gossip. In harming her, you harm your king. This will stop. Now.” The camera pans to Maintenon, then to the Gossip Girl as Louis turns to look at her and – we learn her name is Mademoiselle de Vasseur – tells her she is no longer welcome at Versailles. The camera pans to a few faces: the shocked and controlled-panicky Vasseur, Maintenon who follows Louis as he leaves, Liselotte with a tight expression, Montespan as Vasseur rushes from the room while whispers start. Liselotte approaches Montespan, says the girl is innocent. Montespan: Nobody here is innocent. Liselotte: You started those rumours. Montespan: They’re not rumours, they’re true. She deserves to be punished for her past, just as I was.

Liselotte leaves while Bontemps gives Montespan the most shittiest look eva.

The music swells (LOOOOOVE the music!) and we are outside, in the coeur d’honneur following a hooded female figure all the way up to the guards who cross their weapons and TAH-DA it is the return of Sophie! “I think you’d probably better arrest me.”

Scene cut to Marchal walking through to his office dungeon, and he gives a sigh, turns and sees Sophie standing there. Then a conversation is had about where she’s been (Holland) and why she was there (Thomas told her) and what she is doing now (being a double agent, apparently. Working for William of Orange as a spy but telling Marchal all about it). Marchal looks rather intimidating, circling her and meeting her eyes and getting very close, but Sophie looks very cool and calm. Now they are both before Louis and he is all “A spy. Here at Versailles.” She spins her story, saying she refused to spy, that she was not suited, that she then escaped by seducing the guard then taking refuge in convents and taverns on the way home. Huh. A likely story. Louis is a bit shitty at the thought of her wanting to reclaim her title and fortune (Cassel’s fortune), and Sophie is all “I place myself at your mercy, sire.” Louis is not fooled. “Lock her up.” Sophie plays her trump card, blurting out that William of Orange’s army is on the march, 10,000 men headed to Austria to support Emperor Leopold. Louis’ WTF face is so funny 😄 Interesting that Sophie gives up some info to ‘prove’ her innocence, yet that info can’t immediately be confirmed or denied. Of course, Marchal is gonna make enquiries to confirm it and meanwhile she remains locked up.

We are back with Philippe, who is fully dressed on the bed, contemplating…. something. He slowly sits up and with a determined look, heads to see Louis. Bontemps looks surprised to see him, says the doctor was most insistent. “He is no longer my doctor. And I know what I saw.” Bontemps looks worried as Philippe continues on, and Bontemps strides off to see a guard, instructing him to go to the stables and prepare a horse and messenger to leave immediately for Rome.

The queen is teaching Eleanor Spanish in the queen’s rooms as they play cards, the younger girl asking questions about “the king, your brother” saying she must miss him and I am UGH NO HE WAS BORN IN 1661, A YEAR AFTER SHE LEFT SPAIN TO MARRY LOUIS. The queen is coolly “yes, I miss him terribly,” (reminder: MARRIED) and she has his portrait to remind her of him (the original was painted by Claudio Coello).  Eleanor is holding back the ewwww when the queen says “it’s not his fault he was born that way. As you can imagine, he suffers, but he has a noble heart.” Eleanor is so not impressed.

*historical note: Charles of Spain was the last of the Hapsburgs and had a shit load of physical and mental challenges, due to a history of consanguineous unions (uncles marrying nieces, cousins to cousins. Louis and the queen were actually first cousins, as their parents were brother and sister) . If you are interested in reading more about the doomed Hapsburg dynasty there was a fascinating study done in 2009 in science journal PLOS One on the role of inbreeding in the European royal dynasty here. 

Leopold does not like what Louis proposes for their negotiations. “If you claim all of Spain and its territories you will trigger a war with every country in Europe!” Louis is not deterred, because yo, he has won one war and his army is well-prepared for another. Leopold is mucho angry:  it would be a war without end. “I want what is mine,” Louis replies. “You think everything is yours,” is Leopold’s reply. Louis is all casual-like: “What will you do if the Turks advance on Vienna? Hope it rains? Or are you counting on the rabble that is William of Orange’s army?” Leopold’s expression is ‘uh-oh’ as Louis delivers his persuasive argument – “the only person who can protect you is me.” But Leopold says that the pope will never approve of giving Spain to Louis. More negotiations – Louis says he’ll only take 80%, Leopold says ‘nup, nuh-uh.’ Better start Turkish lessons, then.

Next scene…. Philippe riding ALONE through the woods and minus any guard or escort. I am wondering if this horrid oversight of what it actually means to be a prince of France is deliberately ignored in order to show the viewer that he is very bad-ass and fiery and will do whatever TF he wants. But it backfires on this viewer. It is stupid. We see a nice shot of the Bastille and then we are inside, where Philippe is talking to the head guard and we learn that the dude in the room that Philippe said contained the Iron Mask Man has cut his wrists. We see this dude – Macquart – obvs dead, face down on the desk and with blood on the floor. Philippe lifts up the dead man’s head, and he knows it is not the one who was originally there. We cut to the jailer, who is looking just a wee bit nervous, then Philippe asks “Who struck me?” but the jailer is still going with the ‘slipped and fell’ defence and Philippe is not happy about that. He also says the dead man wore a mask of iron….aaaaand the jailer is all confused and “Your Highness, there is no prisoner wearing such a thing,” which we all know is total bullshit because we have seen it all with our own eyes. The body is removed, the jailer bows and Philippe is left standing in the room looking a bit frustrated and sighing mightily. Then he spots the words “KILL ME” carved in the stone wall. He turns and walks out, past a ranty and smelly-looking poor sod in a cage outside. Philippe pauses with a brief sad smile, does the whole “Do you know who I am?” to which the ranty dude says “I know you better than you know yourself.” then it sounds like he says “Philippe of Gutter and Arsewipe and Good Dung.” My French subs say “of gutter and dung” which is about right. Philippe is amused, asks if he knew of the (now dead) man in the cell. “Everybody knows him, nobody knows him, if you know what I am saying. Don’t look him in the eyes, he’ll eat you up.” Is he still alive? Philippe wants to know. Dude gets a bit angry: “he’s undead! You can’t kill him!” But Philippe is also angry and all “did he wear a mask?!!” Ranty Man sticks to his story: “He will kill you with his eyes!” and then we hear other noises and Philippe has had enough, striding out as Ranty Man finishes with “Cain, brother of Abel. Two brothers drenched in blood and cursed forever!” which is pretty much a dead giveaway to what is to come.

Right, so back in the gardens of Versailles and…. okay, the Chevalier is strolling arm-in-arm with Liselotte, while two servants walk behind with the baby, looking all cosy as a couple. Also  WEIRD AF because historically those two hated each other at this stage, only calling a truce much later in life when everyone was older and (I guess) tired of fighting about shit. Maintenon bows her head at Liselotte’s greeting and she asks to admire the petit prince and everyone smiles and looks on adoringly. Then Maintenon looks all concerned and serious and I know some shit is gonna go down because she is Maintenon the cow and knows Liselotte was part of the rumour spreading. “If I may. I don’t mean to seem impertinent, but I think you are making a grave mistake by keeping him here.”

baby Philippe ahhhhh!

WAT.

The Chevalier gives Liselotte a look, and Liselotte is all calm and “is that so?” Maintenon replies: “Well, it is not the right environment for a child.” (and I laugh and laugh because LOUIS HAS ALL HIS KIDS THERE, and for fucksake, if it is good enough for HIS HEIRS then it is good enough for everyone else!) Liselotte, comes back with a polite fuckyou:

Kindly shut the fuck up.

Liselotte: May I ask what gives you the right to tell me how to look after my child? Maintenon: I was a governess. Liselotte: Yet never a mother. Maintenon: (expression a bit tight) Alas, no. Liselotte: You’d think one of your many lovers would solve that problem. Maintenon: (after a pause) It would seem your reputation for honesty and integrity is ill-deserved.

Then Maintenon flies off on her broom glides away while the Chevalier smacks his lips and says “well, that went well,” and Liselotte is much disturbed by what just transpired. (Narrator: As well she should. Much wtfuckery is about to explode. EXPLODE, I TELL YOU! 😡)

We are back with Louis and his ministers, and Colbert is flicking annoyedly through the pages of a ledger, saying that their monies to finance their expansion into the Americas and to fortify their borders will add another two million to the deficit. UUUUGH. More pesky money talk and Louis can’t quite believe that he doesn’t have an endless pit of money to allow him to run the country as he sees fit. (Sames, Louis, sames) He demands that his people respect the law i.e. pay the taxes they simply cannot afford. So begins the rise of Tyrant Louis in all his splendour, setting the stage for an obvious revolt later on. Colbert is annoyed and frustrated. Then Bontemps enters and says he’s discovered the source of the Maintenon rumours. Louis knows without Bontemps confirming: “bring her to me.”

We are back in Paris, with Guillaume and Jeanne in their eh-by-gum Yorkshire workshop where they are stressing about taxes. G thinks his workers are just being slackers, and demands to know who hasn’t paid their taxes because his is an upstanding, law abiding citizen. Some workers say they haven’t – they don’t like the hike: “the king’s gone too far.” Thus ensues a resigned exchange: “if you want us to pay more taxes, give us more money.” “If I pay you more money, the business will fold.” “Whether we work or not, most of us are gonna die in rags and poverty.”

Back at Versailles and we have a stunning-looking Montespan going before Louis. His back is turned, Bontemps says “there is a piece of paper on the table. You will read it aloud then sign it.” So with great trepidation she reads: “I, the Marquise de Montespan, do hereby renounce and relinquish my place at the court of Versailles. I pledge to sever all contact with anyone I may know at the palace and will take no further part in court life. I shall devote the rest of my days to prayer and charitable work. I have sinned and I accept my penance.” She signs as Bontemps tells her her affairs are in order, and a carriage will take her to the convent of Sainte Ursule, never return to court. Montespan is clearly shaken, says, “a condemned normally has a right to a last word before being led away.” Louis does not turn around as she begins: “where I once saw the warm face of a man, I now see the stone face of a tyrant. You treat those around you like slaves and you place yourself beyond mortal sway. But remember the story of Icarus – fly to close to the sun and you will fall and drown.”

Bontemps always seems to be in a state of shitty side-eyes

There is a pause: Louis looks so very shitty, like a petulant child suffering a parental scolding. Finally he says (still not turning around), “the dance is over. Go.” And so Montespan leaves. Louis says to Bontemps, “In time I will forgive her. But I will never forget.” And there we have it. The end of Montespan’s reign. We see her in slo-mo through the corridors, music swelling as she makes her final walk past the courtiers, her face a mask of tight control. Maintenon watches her go then turns on her heel, slo-mo walking towards the camera that smug, nasty little witch.

*Historical note: Montespan did indeed leave Versailles for a convent but it happened over time. First she was moved to a less favourable apartment in 1685, then in 1687 Louis changed his visiting times.   She was consoled from this fall from favour by seeing her children married off well, then in 1691 she finally left court to the convent Saint-Joseph in Paris’ Rue de Saint-Dominique, where Louis allocated her an allowance of 500,000 francs.  You can read more about her here. 

The scene cuts to Maintenon in her rooms, now lounging nekkid in the bath, and Louis the creeper is watching her through the gap in the door. She stands, wraps herself in a sheet and is surprised to see Louis in the shadows. She wants to know how long he’s been there, and he acts like a teenager, kind of stuttering and getting her robe. Right. They stand before a glorious mirror, and she thanks him for what he said in the salons, in defence of her honour. (what honour UUUUGH) and then he goes in for a snog and she is more than willing to let him, even as she whispers “Please don’t. I can’t.” More snogging, a bit of va-jay-jay grabbing, which seems to snap her out of it, breaking away and hissing, “Enough. His majesty takes advantage of his station.” ?????? WTF. Louis is angry: “sometimes I don’t know what my station is with you.” And Maintenon is all “I would ask you to leave.” He does in a mighty huff but she stops him with an offering: “The Marquise de Quincy awaits his majesty in his room.” Nice pimpin’ there, Maintenon. Louis turns and storms off, while Maintenon sits and looks a bit stressed but most def. does not cry as you would expect one would when you send the man you love INTO ANOTHER WOMAN’S BED.

And there Louis is, entering his room as a pretty marquise obediently sits on his bed and removes her robe. Louis’ expression is all ‘ugh’ and quite a bit shitty but hey, lets not allow feelings and stuffs to get in the way of a tumble in the sheets, eh?

Meanwhile, Leopold is in his room, quaffing from that FABULOUS GLASSWARE, and his door slowly opens to reveal the queen. And so they engage in some shagging after she tells him she wrote the letter.

Louis stands and stares melancholic from his window as Bontemps enters, and he bids his servant to come join him a moment. He is in a mood: “Everyone looks at a king and says ‘I would give anything to be in his place. All he wants is his.’ But they see only the surface. They see nothing of the shadows below.” Bontemps: “No one has all he wants, sire. Not even a king.” Louis replies cryptically, “From the darkest shadow springs the brightest light.”

A shot of the fountain now and is it daybreak or sunset? We follow Marchal walking a dingy corridor with keys, leading us to Sophie in a cell. Has he come to torture her? “My men have checked every detail of your journey from Holland. It seems you are telling the truth.” And so, the king has given permission for her release. “You are once again, the duchesse de Cassel.” Yeah, but nah. Marchal still does not trust her and I am on his side with that. Something just seems off with it all. “You may be free,” Marchal drawls, “but whatever you do, whoever you talk to, wherever you go, I’ll be watching you.” Sophie casually walks past him, looking a little flirty. “Even when I return to my chambers?” Marchal watches her go with a suspicious eye and I am all OKAY THEN.

We are in the chambers of Liselotte, where she is cooing over baby Philippe’s cot. Look at her face! What a lovely domestic motherly scene. PITY IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN TO IT. Liselotte is all heart eyes “Philippe, he smiled! Come and look!” Meanwhile, Philippe is moping on the bed, while she breathlessly says “look at those blue eyes! Aren’t they beautiful!” And still Philippe looks mega-shitty and now I AM SO ANNOYED because Real Philippe absolutely adored his children and it physically pains me to see him portrayed as a spoilt, moody asshole. But wait, ‘blue eyes’ hits a chord with him and we can practically see his brain starting to click and turn. BLUE EYES. And he storms off without a word. UGH.

Philippe stomps into Marchal’s dungeon (WITHOUT GUARDS yet again), asks if the name Marcquart means anything to him, then relates what he knows – a thief in the Bastille, face hidden behind an iron mask, then a dead body is removed. The first man had blue eyes, the dead man, brown. Philippe needs Marchal’s help to get to the bottom of it, but bummer, Marchal only serves the king. “Don’t see this as work. See this more of… say…. leisure activity.” LULZ the look on Marchal’s face. 

Murder investigation for fun? I AM SO THERE.

your people? errr…. they love you.

We are back in Louis’ rooms and Guillaume is measuring him for shoes, Jeanne taking notes. “Tell me about the mood of the people in Paris,” Louis suddenly says. G is all ‘wtf now?’ before he says “they are happy, sire. To be ruled by so generous a monarch.” But hey, aren’t they unhappy with paying their taxes? “nothing that isn’t cured by hard work, sire.” Louis continues to fish, saying that surely there are some who despise their king. AS IF Guillaume would go “oh, yeah. Let me give you their names.” ? Instead he placates, says there will always be those who don’t think of the glory of France, who think only of themselves…. while Jeanne’s expression is quite a bit ‘ugh.’ She finally says, “they are hungry.” and Bontemps butts in with “mind your tongue” and I am really, REALLY starting to dislike Bontemps this season. Louis wants to hear, however, and goes on a bit of a condescending monologue, like they are both children: “You must understand that a king is only there to serve his people and his country, to defend the land, to develop trade and commerce. To pay for construction. All these things require money. (MANSPLAINING a king’s duties) And the only way to raise money is through taxation. Is that so wrong?” Jeanne: It is. If it bleeds the people dry. Louis: SHOCKED FACE. Jeanne: The people his majesty claims to serve believe he serves only personal ambition.

Let me mansplain being a king to you.

The music becomes ominous as Guillaume tries to backtrack, but Jeanne will have none of it. She means what she says. Louis steps to her, gives her a death stare and says, “But you are wrong. I do not seek glory for myself but for France.” (But you are France, Louis. Srsly). Jeanne: Your people care little for the glory of France, sire. They are grateful for clean water and lighting, but neither will fill their stomachs. Louis steps away, looks thoughtful, then thanks them for their honesty. And as they leave, Guillaume is furious. “Have you lost your mind?” Jeanne retorts: “have you lost your origins?” They have a hushed argument about being ungrateful for the king’s favour, how she told Louis the truth, would he have her lie? YES! says G. Why? Because he’s the king! And interestingly, here we see the seeds of motivation for Jeanne. This makes sense. Her character makes sense. We see her in her Ordinary World, we see her struggles and her conflict, dealing with the people around her, and so as time goes on, we understand her motivation for all she does. Unlike Agathe in Season 2, who was just ‘down with the tyrant king!’ without any real reason WHY.

Now we are in a salon with Marchal, and he approaches Philippe. He has news – his agents in Paris say Marcquart was a harmless petty thief, just trying to feed his family. “So what was he doing in the Bastille?” Philippe asks. Marchal: “He was not in the Bastille.”

Duh-DUH. Orchestra, play something dramatic.

We’re walking with Leopold and his Bontemps now, and Leo confirms the pope will look favourably upon the match… and right now I am most concerned with the huge and disturbing absence of PEOPLE. There is a distinct lack of people in Versailles and it is hugely distracting to me. Servants, courtiers, guards, ministers… where ARE THEY??? no one was hardly ever alone in Versailles, there were bodies E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. But these corridors and halls are empty and there only seems to ever be a handful of people in the salons or strolling about the gardens.

Gonna leave you tomorrow. So sad.

Anyways, Leo enters Louis’ rooms – he has good news and bad. Good news – he’s decided he is gonna give 80% of Spain to Louis upon Charles’ death. He says he’s had enough of war, he wants peace and stability. And the bad news? Leo is leaving. They hug, they smile and tonight they will celebrate the signing of their agreement.

BUT WAIT…. FORGET THAT. One of the most GTFO scenes is just about to happen. STRAP IN.

Liselotte is in her rooms, cooing over baby Philippe when we hear the doors open. Bontemps, two guards and mega-cow Maintenon walk in. ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?????? Liselotte’s expression drops. “No. Please. Don’t take him away. Let me talk to the king.” Bontemps: It is the law of the palace, your Highness. I am sorry (WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK NO IT IS NOT) A guard steps forward and Liselotte pushes him away and WAT. Another guard grabs her and holds her back and I AM IN A FUCKING RAGE BECAUSE SHE IS A PRINCESS OF FUCKING FRANCE WHAT THE FUCK. Liselotte screams, the baby cries (A PRINCE OF FRANCE FOR FUCKSAKE!) “Take him away and you take away my heart,” Liselotte sobs, Bontemps says “this is no place for children” (WHAT A FUCKING CROCK – there were children everywhere in Versailles, including LOUIS’ OWN FUCKING CHILDREN) and Maintenon, that utter fucking hypocritical snake, murmurs “it is for the best,” and the doors close as Liselotte sobs.

And here – HERE – is where I lost all hope for this season. Seriously. This is so much fucking bullshit that I can smell it clear on the other side of the world. THIS IS WRONG. I do not mind historical fiction. I enjoy historical fiction. But when the historical facts are totally and utterly distorted, just for the sake of some dramatic twist – which, having watched the entire season, serves NO ACTUAL PURPOSE – this is a fucking insult. Let us break this down. The baby is a prince of France. A royal mistress, no matter how high in affection, cannot just REMOVE a prince of France. Liselotte is a princess. The hierarchy, while complicated by Princes of the blood and other titles and orders, goes like this:  King first, then Queen, then the dauphin and dauphin’s kids, then Philippe (as brother of the king), then Liselotte (as wife to brother of the king),  then children of Philippe. Maintenon, ranked as a marquise, is much lower on the totem pole – the Chevalier de Lorraine is a foreign prince, Delphine a duchesse, and BOTH rank higher than Maintenon. Versailles was all about RANK and PROTOCOL and to have an uppity marquise even approach a member of the royal family, much less REMOVE ONE, is so fucking beyond ridiculous that I have to use a telescope to find even a fucking glimmer of where it is. Louis would have gone absolutely ballistic. 

GET IN THE FUCKING SEA. 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡

From the ridiculous to the streets of Paris. Colbert is on his soapbox, telling everyone that he is here to remind them of the shared vision that “binds us all together. And of the wonder of our king, Louis.” Cue unpressed looks from the peasant crowd. “You have chosen to question his authority. Our great king has only one purpose. To further the glory of France. But we all must make sacrifices just as he does. We must believe as he does. Dream as he does. Suffer as he does!” Murmurs from the crowd… they are not buying it. “We must trust in him as he trusts in us.” Bastien pipes up: “Why should we trust him? What, so he can steal our money more easily?” The crowd laughs but Colbert valiantly continues: “The king steals from no one! He raises taxes which he then returns to his people. Look at his gifts! Education. Roads. Clean water. Streets like glory!” “And poverty,” Bastien adds. Another peasant heckles, “Glory my arse!” And someone grabs an egg from a cart and hurls it at Colbert and suddenly there is a barrage of food while Colbert tries for calm. Food being thrown despite their complaints of being hungry in the streets… And the guards hustle Colbert away as the crowd turns nasty.

Back in Versailles with Louis telling Bossuet of Leopold’s offering of 80% of Spain, telling the priest he must go to Rome to ensure the support of the Vatican. Bossuet is kinda not really happy, but Louis tells him to remind the Pope where his loyalties should lie, and that the bastion of the Catholic church is France. Bossuet does not see how he can influence his Holiness, and Louis calmly says if he has any doubts, then Bossuet can remain at Versailles and draw up a list of replacements for his position. Lulz. Cue a weird look from Bontemps. Much ringing of hands from Bossuet. Meanwhile Marchal and Philippe are walking through the enfilades, Marchal wanting to tell Louis what they know but Philippe is all ‘nup, he will order you to stop because he thinks I’m just making this all up.’ They agree to wait a few days before telling.

won’t anyone rid me of this chattering wench?

Leopold is getting dressed and his niece Eleanor is chattering about Spanish words and the look on Leo’s face is ….😆 Eleanor now wants to go to Spain. Leo says they are going there, and she is all ‘yay! As long as I don’t meet the king – his portrait is atrocious’ And Leo is all ‘tough. You will meet him. Because you gonna marry him. SURPRISE’ Dear Lord, the look on Eleanor’s face. Her mother is on her way there, and they will leave tomorrow. “I refuse,” Eleanor says bravely, looking devastated. Leo slaps her, then gently says, “you will be Queen of Spain* (*Spoiler: she won’t). You should be grateful.”

Back with Louis walking through the salons, and Louvois reports a bunch of Austrian nobles have been spotted making their way to Spain. Why? A family gathering, perhaps? And why do families gather? Louis muses. Louvois – “for funerals.” Louis: “And weddings.”

Sophie returns to the salons, all clean and pretty again, and people are whispering, watching her circulate. She smiles and greets Liselotte, who is alone and sad and attached to a wall.

*historical note: again, what is it with the absence of people? Liselotte, as princess, has an entourage, ladies-in-waiting, plus courtiers hanging about wanting her favour and attention. She would not be clinging to a wall like a Nigel No-Friends.

Liselotte is pleased to see Sophie, who says she has been in a convent. Sophie asks what has happened since she last saw the pregnant Liselotte, and Liselotte says she had a son…. taken from her. “On whose orders?” Sophie asks. Liselotte just stares across the room, right at Maintenon, who is chatting happily to Delphine, the Chevalier in the background. “THE KING!” Bontemps announces, and Louis walks in with the queen, heading straight for a table where the historical signing is to be conducted. Leopold bows (wtf is that “Louis” as he addresses the king of France?? Wrong.) They sit and prepare to sign, and Louis casually mentions Leo’s niece. “I would like her to stay here. We shall show her all the wonders of Versailles.” Ahhhhh, sneaky Louis. Leo is all “it’s a kind offer, but-” but Louis will have none of it. “My wife has conceived an affection for the princess. She would enjoy her company for a few months.” He looks at Eleanor – “-would that please you?” Damn right, it would. And now Leopold cannot refuse. Louis says she will be well looked after then sticks the knife right in: “who knows? We may even find her a husband.” So the camera pans the crowd, they sign the documents, Louis rises and gives a speech about being former enemies now friends, blood replaced by wine, now allies blah blah. Everyone claps as the music swells.

Festivities begin and the Chevalier is being some kind of circus ringleader, demanding a volunteer as he waves about a cane and some silk, the centre of attention. Has a joke about Philippe being missing, then Louvois’ belly, then Louis stands and volunteers. “A brave proposition from the king,” the Chevalier declares as Louis ties on the blindfold. “Olé” (lolwat) he then announces and Louis smiles and starts to blindly grope about the room as courtiers laugh and scatter. I see Maintenon deliberately putting herself in the way, but the Chevalier good-naturedly prods the king with his cane. The queen is watching, playing cards as Leopold hovers behind her, asking her for courage and then whispering something in her ear. As the king laughs and enjoys the game, the queen’s face is looking more panicky as Leo keeps whispering and Jebus, I bet my front teeth he is suggesting something along the lines of regicide… Even that is too much. Meanwhile Louis gropes about, still laughing and the doors behind him open and everyone stills, their faces dropping in shock and horror. Louis senses the mood, quickly removes the blindfold and we see Colbert, battered and bloody and with a smashed-in face. “My God.” Louis gasps. “Who did this to you?” Colbert swallows, then shakily gets out, “the people of France, sire.” Louis looks horrified.

The music swells and that is the end of Episode 2. UGH. What is in store for the next ep?

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Versailles S3, Ep2 – The one with Sophie’s return When we left our intrepid characters, Philippe had stupidly and against all sense, charged off on his own, in the night, without guards (yeah, this would never happen) to the Bastille to find out who this mysterious Duc de Sullun is.

[red-5]

Consequences

Summary: Learning you may have had a one-night stand with the bane of your existence is bad enough. But having to team up with said one-night stand to track down possible video evidence is just a recipe for a bad day.

Pairings: Poe x Reader

Warnings: Adult themes, alcohol consumption, language

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone that has helped me get my groove back. I’m working on a bunch of Poe request that came in, but i’m still riding a crazed, derailed rollercoaster of emotions so just kinda writing my way through it. Wheeee.

As delicious as aged Corellian Whiskey was, it left one hell of an aftertaste.

You peeled your tongue from the roof of your mouth and scrubbed it across your teeth, trying to rid them of the vile fermentation that clung to them in a fuzzy film that your toothpaste just couldn’t quite get off. There had been a thought about hiding the bags that hung beneath your eyes and taming the wild flyaways that sprung from your head, a fleeting one, but a thought nonetheless. Chances were the majority of the fleet wouldn’t look much better than you anyway. Your only saving grace was there were no scheduled flights today. Red Squadron would be spending the day with their feet planted firmly on the ground. Thank the Maker.

You stumbled into the cantina, shielding your eyes from the intrusive light that seemed so much brighter than normal.  The cinched arms of your flight suit hung off your hips, you’d gotten it most of the way on, and you were 75% sure your tank top was clean. Most of them were stained with various mechanical fluids at this point so it wasn’t like it was a new look for you. The thick orange material was just too thick, and you were in no mood to bear the heat of a D’Qar afternoon any more than you needed to.

“Daaaamn, boss.”

You actively flinched away from the far-too enthusiastic voice that had the nerve to intrude upon your sulking. Bright, blue eyes raked across your disheveled form with just a hint of disapproval, blonde waves infuriatingly impeccable. Cora. You loved her, you did, but her ability to end the night barely remembering her own name and start the next morning fresh as a Noobian daisy was something you’d never been able to stop hating her for.

“Shhh.”

You heaved your hand up, pressing a finger to her lips to stop the assault on your eardrums that was sure to follow.

“Where’s Kato?” You croaked.

She laughed, pulling your hand from her mouth and taking hold of your arm.

“He popped off to talk to Miss Mira the second you stumbled in,” she chirped, dragging you in the direction of what you hoped was somewhere you could just sit down and wait for death. “He’ll be bringing you his life-restoring concoction in no time.”

You ducked your head and allowed yourself to be pulled across the cantina and dumped into your usual chair at your usual table, collapsing across the top and burying your face in your arms. It wasn’t quite as loud as it normally was at this time in the morning, so it appeared that as bad a shape as you were in, you didn’t seem to be the worst. Just as the spinning in your head reached it’s peak and you opened yourself up to the sweet embrace of death, a firm hand grasped your shoulder and hauled you into a sitting position.

Your mouth dropped open in preparation to unleash an unholy torrent of cutting insults until your eyes squinted Kato’s face into focus.

“You better drink this before the rest of your pilots show up. They’ll never let you forget it.”

He placed the cup in your hand, and you wasted no time raising it to your lips. You’d thank him when you could form coherent sentences again. The thick, green liquid coated your mouth and slid down your throat, but the knowledge of the sweet relief that was in store for you helped you fight against the churning in your stomach. The first time he’d made it for you, you’d made the mistake of asking what was in it. He had taken your hands in his, looked deeply into your eyes, and said in the ominous voice you had ever heard:

“You don’t want to know.”

You hadn’t wanted to drink it, but after he had coaxed it down your throat and you had felt the effects, you’d never questioned him again.

“You know,” Kato drawled, leaning lazily against the table next to you. “You look a lot better than I thought you would, considering the… company you had last night.”

You grimaced through a thick, sticky swallow and shot him a confused look before yelping at the sharp pain that exploded across your shin.

“Cora what the shit?!” You howled, lifting your glass into the air to try and salvage the nectar of life that sloshed up the sides and rubbing the burn away with your other hand.

Cora’s wide, panicked eyes darted between your face and Kato’s, perfectly pouted pink lips gaping between the two of you for a frantic moment before she remembered how to speak.

“S-sorry boss,” she squeaked with a shrug. “Leg spasms. My thighs still cramp up since the crash.”

You shot her an irritated look, but lacked the energy to do little more than raise your cup back to your mouth.

“What the hell are you going on about now?” You asked after another large swallow, wiping the corners of your mouth on the back of your hand.

Kato blinked back at you, suddenly nervous gaze snapping from your face to the frightening, pointed look the tiny blonde shot him from across the table.

“U-um, well- “ he stuttered.

“Kato, just spit it the hell- “

“What do you remember from last night?” Cora blurted over you, leaning onto her elbows to look at you carefully.

You looked back and forth between them for a moment, slowly lowering the cup to the table.

“What do you mean?”

“Just,” Cora began, pressing her lips together and drawing a sharp breath through her nose before continuing. “What is the last thing you remember?”

You rolled your eyes, but seeing no end to the interrogation, obliged.

“Black Squadron was throwing Snap a make-up birthday party, which, I’m sure you agree was a perfect opportunity to break out the whiskey Han sent me.”

She smiled and nodded, but stayed silent.

“I had a few drinks, gave my good wishes to the birthday boy, you-know-who showed up, so I decided to bail, ran in to Jess and you guys and we went to the hangar for a few more drinks, then I went home. Alone.”

She rested her chin on her hands, narrowing her eyes as she watched you. You could practically hear the gears in her head turning.

“Not… exactly.”

Your eyebrow shot into your hairline.

“What do you mean not exactly?”

She sighed, dropping her arms to the table and pressing her palms flat against the top.

“You did go home… but a bit more happened before then… and you didn’t go alone… “

You didn’t speak, but watching her squirm under your gaze was satisfying enough.

“Someone… else… showed up at the hangar…”

A chill ran up your spine. There was a relatively small list of people that warranted the kind of reaction that had been elicited from your closest friends, and only one name was coming to mind.

“Who?” You hissed.

Her mouth dropped open, and you watched the words die in her throat. Her eyes snapped helplessly to Kato before slipping over your shoulder and widening in a way you were certain she had no real control over. It felt like your life had been put into slow motion as you turned your head, meeting the wide-eyed look Jess gave you when she clearly had something she needed to speak to you about before landing on the head of unruly dark curls that walked in after her.

“No…”

You whipped your head back around to face them a little too quickly for your current state.

“If this is some kind of joke it isn’t funny.”

Their silence spoke volumes.

“There’s no possible way…”

More silence.

You whirled back around helplessly, unsure what seeing his stupid face again would solve but not entirely sure what else to do. Nausea twisted tight knots in your stomach when his eyes seemed to be waiting to meet yours from across the room. You barely lasted a more than a second of full eye-contact with Poe Dameron, your arch-nemesis, however childish Cora said having an arch-nemesis was, and apparently if your closest friends were to be trusted, lover. Kato’s miracle concoction crawled back up your throat at the thought, and you spat out a string of words that conveyed your intention before darting out of the cantina. You wanted to be behind closed doors when the few contents of your stomach made a reappearance.

A few deep breaths, a splash of cold water to the face, and a stiff cup of caf, and you’d managed to calm the raging storm in your stomach. Kato’s potion had finally taken effect, and you’d managed to work yourself into a state where it no longer felt like your skeleton was trying to crawl out of your skin. You’d resisted the urge to sit in the fresher under the hottest water it was capable of producing until your flesh melted off, ultimately convincing yourself that was a touch melodramatic. You were an adult. You could handle a regrettable one-night stand. Eventually the mortifying thumbs-up and sly winks you were receiving would stop, and everyone would move on to the next scandal. Until then, you would take out the frustration on all the little bugs and quirks you’d been meaning to work out of your beloved ship.

Once you’d nursed yourself back to a state of productivity, you’d beelined for the hangar and set to work without another word. You didn’t know where Cora and Kato were, and despite the look you’d seen on her face in the cantina, Jess was also nowhere to be seen. It was just as well. You had no intention of interaction with another person for a while. Because it seemed everything in the galaxy had made a pact to turn against you, the wrench you gripped in your cramping fingers seemed bound and determined not to move. You jerked it free from the crusted bolt you’d been attempting to coax free with a growl. With one more inspection of the bolt in question, you backed out of the maintenance compartment, mumbling obscenities under your breath, and turned on your heel to face your tool cart only to crash into a solid, warm figure. You realized with a sickening fury that you didn’t need to see the face to know who it was, you recognized their scent instantly.

“Woah, sorry,” Poe said with an awkward chuckle, innocently putting his hands into the air and taking a few steps back.

You glared holes into his head in response, folding your grease-slicked arms across your chest.

“Is there something I can help you with, Commander?” You ground out between your teeth.

His eyes floated across your face in a way that made you feed oddly exposed, and you fought the urge to squirm as you stared him into submission.

“I, uh… “ he started lamely, wringing his hands in front of him. “I was thinking we should… talk.”

Oh, no. Not happening.

You shouldered passed him, nonchalantly tossing the wrench onto your cart and rifling through your tools.

“About what?”

He didn’t respond right away. You could feel him fidgeting behind you. You were also slightly ashamed at how much satisfaction it gave you.

“About… about last night… “

You continued to search through your tools at a leisurely pace, picking through them one-by-one until finding the one you were looking for.

“I barely remember anything from last night, Commander Dameron, and the parts I do remember don’t concern you.” You spun back around to stride back to your ship without so much as sparing him a second glance. “If I can’t remember something, I can’t talk about it, now can I?”

Ignoring his sigh, you set back to work freeing the bolt from the dried, crusted oil that imprisoned it in place.

“That’s how we’re going to do this?”

Though your mind created a list of biting responses, you elected to simply continue to ignore him. Eventually he’d get the hint and go away. The seconds ticked by, and your skin still bristled at his presence behind you.

Fine,” he said after a while. “Will you at least tell me if you saw my datapad?”

You heaved a sigh, dropping your chin to your chest as your hands halted their work.

“Why the hell would I care about your damn datapad?”

The awkwardness, it at all possible, spiked to a record high between you.

“Because, the last time I saw it… was… well we were… “

The glare you shot over your shoulder was all the motivation he needed.

“The last time I remember having it was when we were… together.”

You stared at him while your mind caught up.

“…And?”

His eyes shot up, down, to the side, anywhere but your face as his hands found his hips.

“And… I’m pretty sure that the… that the video function… was used.”

For the next several seconds all you could hear was a high-pitched whine and your own heartbeat.

“I’m sorry?”

He winced at your low hiss, still reluctant to meet your eyes as he increased the distance between the two of you by a few strides.

“I’m pretty sure- “

“Well you better get really sure really damn quick!” You wailed. “For fuck’s sake, Dameron.”

You pushed off of the fuselage, drawing in a deep, steading breath as you paced the short distance between your ship and tool cart.

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

He shifted uncomfortably from side to side, a brilliant shade of red painting his face and neck.

“You didn’t seem to have any complaints.”

The look you gave him could have melted planets. That’s it. You were smashing the next bottle Han sent you, regardless of what it was. Poe seemed to sense there were no words that would help him out of his current situation, and that the sound of his voice would only act as fuel for your roaring fire of rage. After several laps, and several cleansing breaths, your fists unclenched, your fingernails no longer tore through the tender flesh of your palms, and you felt confident enough to speak.

“Okay,” you breathed with a firm set of your shoulders. “Well, obviously we have to find it, so get to remembering. The sooner we find it, the sooner I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

You didn’t give any room for argument, tossing your tools unceremoniously back on your cart with a clunk and turning on your heel to log your progress before beginning what was sure to be the worst scavenger hunt you’d ever participated in. You could feel his eyes on you, but the only indication he gave that he agreed were two simple words.

“Yes, ma’am.”

@angelaiswriting @i-said-goddameron @geeksareunique @hanginwithmanerds@thefirebreather00

[wannawant]

Happy Birthday Kang Daniel!

Written to commemorate Kang Daniel’s 22nd Birthday. Happy birthday to our center 10.12.1996 💖🍑

Daniel still remembered vividly how he had spent his birthday last year. He managed to get a few days off to go back to Busan, saw his mum and pet cats, Peter and Rooney. To put it simply, he had everything he needed in his life. His mum also bought him a birthday cake, with lots of fruits and cream. They sung happy birthday together and he blew the tiny rainbow-coloured candles after making a wish, then her mum gave him a beautiful black suit as a present. She hoped he would need it once he got famous and he just laughed it off. Little that he knew that he would wear the suit quite often in the next few months. Either way, he thought he had the best birthday party ever then.

This year was a different story. 

Since days, weeks, months before he had been constantly reminded about his birthday by his friends, fans, and company. Some fans were kind enough to send gifts, some even put an ad for his birthday at the New York Times Square. He never dared to dream for all these things a year ago. People usually only did this for superstars, and perhaps he was one but he still felt like he was the same Kang Daniel as ever.

So his plans for his birthday didn’t really changed much. He had hoped to spend it like last year, in a small yet intimate event with his loved ones and something good to eat. Although with his tight schedule and his deteriorating condition he couldn’t really ask for much. He had a terrible fever since a few days ago that forced him to stay away from events and fansigns. Even today, only a day before his big day, he still had to stay in the dorm and wait until he was fully recovered for the sake of attending so many end of year events that their management had fitted into their already tight schedule.

The young man stirred in his sleep, chuckling softly as he dreamed of his cats purring and playing hide-and-seek. He was awakened by the loud noises his friends made. Those boys sure knew how to ruin someone’s good night sleep, but they would be naive to underestimate Kang Daniel’s ability to sleep through anything.

“Daniel-hyung~ Wake up.” Daehwi said as he patted the sleeping figure softly on his shoulder.

“Yah, you’re too soft. You should wake him up louder like this. Hyung-ah! Wake up!” Jinyoung shook the body harder but Daniel still didn’t show any sign of waking up anytime soon.

“Daniel~ Wake up! It’s your birthday wheeee! I’m going to eat your cake if you don’t want to.” Ong said as he jumped up and down the bed. Not sure if he was seriously attempting to wake his friend up. He was just having fun jumping and making a mess on his friend’s bed. Ongnable, its torn part fixed and stitched, hung comfortably on his waist.

“Guys, don’t forget we’re waking up Daniel who wouldn’t even wake up for a bowl of hot ramyeon. We need to be louder. Daniel, there’s a fire outside!” Jisung tried but he only mumbled something about, ‘just pee on it’ or something. Then Jaehwan took his guitar and began playing a tune.

“Let’s wake him up Produce 101 style. Sing with me everyone! Neoreul bodeon geu sungan~”

“PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME!” All the 10 boys chorused but not a single movement could be detected from the lying figure beneath the blanket.

Is he really still alive?

“Please guys, you are all amateurs. Leave this to the amazing Sungwoon.” He brought a cup of water and splashed its content lightly on the Wanna One’s center’s face but instead of waking up he giggled and mumbled something about ‘Rooney, stop licking me.’ 

This boy is hopeless.

“Kuanlin, you try it.” Sungwoon, who was just as desperate as everybody else, said as he motioned for their group’s youngest member to give it a try but the tall teenager just shook his head and waved his hand.

“It’s impossible. Waking Daniel-hyung up is even more impossible than doing Jessica Gomez’s poses.” To which everybody else nodded in agreement. Whose idea in the first place to try and wake him up? But they couldn’t give up just then, they had everything carefully planned and it would go to waste if he wouldn’t wake up in the first place so they carried on trying.

The next person was Minhyun. He hesitated at first but tried to wake his friend with a more traditional way. He took out his phone, set the volume to maximum, and played the Alarm ringtone. Of course nothing happened. The other members sigh at the sight.

“Hyung, you’re boring. It’s Pink Sausage Duo’s time to shine.” The two Parks moved closer to Kang Daniel’s sleeping figure and each kneeled right beside Kang Daniel’s ears. They took out a gas horn each from their pocket and aimed it to their hyung’s ears.

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

It was so loud, everybody else automatically used their hands to protect their eardrums. If he wouldn’t wake up to this perhaps nothing else could. Finally the birthday boy stood straight and opened his eyes in annoyance.

“WHAT THE—“

“Saengil chukahamnida”

Happy birthday to you

“Saengil chukahamnida”

Happy birthday to you

“Saranghaneun, Daniel”

Happy birthday dear Daniel

“Saengil chukahamnida”

Happy birthday to you

There, in front of his eyes, you stood along with his 10 teammates. And a birthday cake on your hand, twenty two colourful candles on top, shining brightly in the dimly lit room. His drowsiness disappeared instantly as he stared at the sight in disbelief. 

You smiled as you saw the look in his face, he must be wondering if he was still in dream world so you stepped closer to his bed and brought the cake closer for him to see. It was a round cake with lots of white cream loaded with plenty of fruits, just the way he liked it. You knew it because you had called his mother a few weeks ago before you placed the order. He couldn’t go home to Busan and his mother was unable to visit Seoul on his birthday so you vowed to throw him a small birthday celebration with his friends so he wouldn’t feel as lonely.

“Daniel, make a wish.” As he registered that everything was indeed reality, he had his huge signature grin plastered on his face before he slowly closed his eyes to make his wish. It didn’t took long before he blew all the candles in one go and all the other boys made another round of cheering noises.

“Happy birthday our Daniel!”

“Happy birthday Daniel-hyung!”

“Happy birthday Peach Kid!”

Some of them threw confetti all over the room, making a huge mess that would probably give Minhyun a headache later on. The Wanna One members then began taking turns to personally congratulate the birthday boy, his bedhead sticking out to all different directions, bare-faced without the tiniest hint of make-up, dressed in his worn-out t-shirt and shorts. You chuckled at the sight of the young boys hugging, or perhaps attacking, the defenseless man. Ong didn’t let the cake go to waste as he grabbed a handful of cream to wipe it on Daniel’s face.

“Birthday boy, I know you’re busy admiring your girlfriend but don’t forget to eat the cake or we’ll finish it all.” 

Cue everybody laughing as you and your boyfriend turned as red as the strawberries on his cake. You put the cake on his bedside table and pulled out some plastic spoons for everyone. Nobody had bothered to cut the cake and they began eating it directly with their spoons, as some cream was wasted on their faces and sleepwear. They too didn’t had much time to prepare themselves before throwing the surprise and was just as ‘naked’ as Daniel but nobody minded the sight. They have seen each other in worse conditions and were just as close as brothers. Acknowledging this fact brought a smile to your face as you too began scooping a small piece of cake with your spoon. You looked up to lock eyes with Daniel and you realized that you hadn’t had a proper chance to congratulate him so you put off your spoon and approached him.

“Happy birthday, Daniel. Thank you for being born.” You said softly as you cupped his cheek and gave him a kiss on his nose, licking the cream on top of it in the process which took him by surprise for a moment before he bursted into glee and pulled you onto his lap and wrapped his hands around you in a tight hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He exclaimed as he repeatedly kissed the top of your head, inhaling your sweet shampoo scent. It was a habit of his if he found something really adorable, firstly his cats and now you.

“Eeeeeeew, you two get a room.” Bae Jinyoung threw a pillow to you two and you two just laughed it off, realizing that there too were minors in the room so you stood from his lap and sat by his side instead. He then poked you again and whispered something only for you to hear, as if he hadn’t said it enough already before.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Was your only reply before you two continued devouring the remaining cake. Then your boyfriend’s phone rung with a video call request from his mother. His mother’s face appeared on the small screen and everyone began cheering loudly and greeting her, you too included in the process. At the time you didn’t know why Kang Daniel thanked you again just now, it was because you had granted what he had wished for last year, to celebrate his next birthday with the people that he loved.

And he wished for the same thing again for next year because Wanna One and you are the best present ever for Kang Daniel.