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retrievablememories · 3 years ago

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afterdeath | lucas

title: afterdeath pairing: vampire!lucas x fairy!reader genre: angst, forbidden romance, fantasy, vampire!au request: May I request a Vampire!Lucas with a fairy!s/o (Forbidden romance perhaps?) word count: 8.6k warnings: descriptions of death and sickness, mentions of a funeral, viewing, and funerary preparations, major character death (but...with a slight twist), mentions of blood and drinking blood, smoking cigarettes, arguments/conflict, mentions of physical violence, some romeo and juliet elements? a/n: hmm this fic probably could’ve been more detailed but i was trying to avoid triggering my own damn self with so much talk of death...ha...not sure why i went this route but i wanted a forbidden romance with an actual decent ending for both characters and this was the first idea i had recommended songs: OLLA - jhené aiko

Year 1508

“We’ve felled the demon!”

“Indeed, we have!”

Cheers ring through the dawn as a large group of fairies dance around an immense bonfire, raising their shouts of celebration to the sky. Within the fire burns the body of the Primitiva Vampire, the One and Only Pureblood, haphazardly thrown over the wood pile and relieved of her head—which sits near the bottom of the burning mass of wood, her face still twisted in a mien of anger.

As the sky begins turning lighter with the onset of sunrise, the fairies continue their celebration, staying close to the fire all the while. They carry large flaming torches to guard against any of the Primitiva Vampire’s followers who might try to sneak upon them and strike in that sliver of space where the sun has yet to rise.

The Primitiva Vampire had a long reign of terrorizing fairies and turning humans and other supernatural creatures into vampires. Each transformed being became a terrible revenant, one which viciously hunted villages and stole into people’s homes for more blood, more death, and more unwilling adherents to the vampiric cult.

Mass numbers of fairies had been decimated once the vampires first tasted their blood and took a unique liking to it. For over 200 years, the carnage continued on at the hand of the Primitiva Vampire, who had one day blinked into existence in a way that could never really be explained by any conceivable means, either human or magic. And without ever giving a hint to her strange conception, she tore across cities and towns, converting others into night creatures like herself and building a loyal following of half-bedeviled beings.

When fairy populations had dwindled to nearly extinction-level quantities, they were left no other choice—fight back or be wiped completely from the universe’s ledger. So they took up arms, honed their magic skills, and did just that.

And now, all their efforts culminate in this blood-stained morning. It marks a much-anticipated moment of revelry before they have to return to their posts to watch for the night creatures inevitably waiting on the other side of the sunset, ready to avenge their slain Goddess.

Present Day

“You probably shouldn’t be here right now.”

“I wanted to come,” Lucas replies, taking your hand is his large one. “I wanted to see you.”

“I can figure that.” You laugh quietly, a little afraid to let your voice rise higher in case it carries too far. “But that doesn’t mean you should’ve come.”

Lucas holds your hand tightly. His skin is cold against yours due to his slow blood, and colder still from the chill permeating the air. It’s only one of many vampiric traits that the other fairies would think of as strange or barbaric, but you don’t see it that way. The chilliness just reminds you solely of him.

“Well, I missed you. And I’m here now, so you’ll just have to deal with me.”

The building you’re standing behind is damp, old, and dilapidated, and it’s not even one of your pre-designated meeting places. In front of you is a rusted chain link fence, which barricades a field of tall and unkempt grass. More aged and crumbling buildings scatter themselves across the distance, taken over by grass and climbing vines.

You don’t know what’s out here. This is one place within your district you haven’t been to before. It was Lucas’s idea to come here, after your last meeting place had nearly been discovered and he found it too risky to keep going there.

The entire city of Beijing is split up into different districts, each belonging to a different faction of supernatural beings. Some nonhuman races have close ties with each other and allow frequent cross-district mingling; others are sworn enemies, forbidden to fraternize with each other under pain of death. In these latter cases, crossing into another’s territory without express permission—or in rare situations, ties to a powerful ally (or allies) on the other side—is asking to get arrested, injured, or worse.

Lucas would be your tie to the vampire side and you his tie to the fairy side if your species weren’t centuries-long enemies. Instead, you’re relegated to having him sneak in and out of your district and hide what he is with blood-scent blockers and eye contacts to make the trickery easier to get away with. There’s only so much you can do to disguise your fae nature; stepping into vampire territory would turn you into a shining beacon.

“Hmm…” you sigh, shaking your head with a small smile on your face. You grasp Lucas’s hand so you’re now holding it with both of yours. “How long do you think we can keep this up? Going from place to place like this. Hiding like criminals.”

Lucas gives a lopsided grin—one that cannot morph into a full smile because of the sadness coloring it. “I don’t know. Forever, if we’re lucky.” He chuckles.

You stare at your intertwined hands, unaware of the sheer intensity of the longing expression on your face, though Lucas sees it clearly. It threatens to burn his heart to ash. “Unfortunately, fae don’t live forever like you do, so maybe not. Besides, your people would probably find out and come after me before we could even settle into a ‘forever.’”

He shakes his head fretfully at your words, squeezing your hand. “Do we have to talk about all that now? You know we don’t have much time together. Let’s just enjoy it for what it is.” Lucas pulls you into him, tucking your head into his shoulder.

“That’s fine by me,” you say, and resist the urge to make some dark joke about how scandalous it is for a fairy to have their neck so close to a vampire’s mouth—or a vampire’s anything.

You both stay together in that dingy and old spot for a while, talking in the dark until he tells you he has to go. He follows you the whole way back home to ensure you’re safe, keeping to the shadows until he sees you disappear past your front door. Then, he slips away again to head back to the familiar manor in his own district.

It’s nearly morning when Lucas gets back to the large house he shares with the other six men. By this time of day, he knows they will either be in bed or getting ready to turn in.

“Still visiting that fairy, I see.”

The unexpected voice doesn’t scare Lucas, but it does make his body tense up a bit in irritation and a slight sense of anticipation. He sighs and stops in his tracks on the way to his room, though he doesn’t face the clan leader just yet.

“Is that a problem? Because you know I’m not going to stop.”

Kun makes a noise of disbelief. “Of course it is. You know what the consequences are if anyone outside of us finds out.” Lucas turns to him slightly, and the look on Kun’s face is more disappointment—maybe even slight fear?—than anger. “I clearly can’t stop you from doing what you want to, but I can’t help you if the Association gets involved.”

Lucas rocks back on his heels and sighs, rolling his eyes at the mention of the vampire organization. “Fuck the Association. They’re nothing but a bunch of old ass hags who have no purpose in their lives other than ruling over every other vampire in the world.”

Kun looks weary at his words. “You really don’t care, do you, Xuxi. They’d have your heart on a stake if they ever heard that.” He pauses and rolls his eyes. “They’re also not that much older than me, so I wonder who you’re calling an ‘old ass hag’...”

“Isn’t it a good thing that they won’t hear it, then?” Lucas laughs, but it’s not an entirely humorous sound, and he gives Kun a searching look as his chuckles die off.

“Don’t look at me like that. I have no interest in telling them anything, mostly because I also have no interest in our whole clan being wiped out.”

Lucas nods, reaffirming his somewhat shaky but still present trust in Kun, needing the regular reassurances for his own calm. He stretches his arms above his head and takes a few steps like he’ll go to his room, though he doesn’t move to leave just yet. “Just don’t see what the big deal about all this is. All this over some ancient bloodsucker who died like 500 years ago...who cares.”

Kun winces again, though he doesn’t bother with reprimanding Lucas this time; he only shakes his head and sighs heavily like it’s already a lost cause. “A vampire and a fairy together is more than blasphemy—it’s ridiculous. It’s illogical. They all think we’re bloodsucking demons hellbent on killing them.”

“To be fair, there’s definitely a sect of vampire zealots or two who are trying to do exactly that despite the laws.”

Kun sighs. Lucas is right; what can he say to argue that? “Xuxi…”

“I’m telling you I’ll be fine, Kun-ge. You don’t need to worry about me and Y/N. Things have been going fine for this long.” Lucas nods, then heads off to his room for real this time. Kun watches him leave, feeling a lot less reassured than the younger man.

Ten takes Xiaojun and Lucas on one of their weekly outings to a blood lounge. Blood lounges are an easy and accessible way for vampires to get blood, though the legalities of this practice are a little muddy. Before getting with you, Lucas didn’t mind drinking straight from the source—going to one of the back rooms and sucking some willing, vulnerable being just to the point of death—but now, it feels like a type of transgression. Drinking someone else’s blood can be an intensely intimate act, on the same level as sex depending on the context, and he doesn’t want to do anything to make you think he’d be unfaithful.

To his fortune, there is no club rule about having to feed off other beings; many vampires take their blood in fancy champagne glasses, just like drinks in a human club. He does that now as the three men sit in a darkly lit booth.

Their conversation is unexciting for a while, with Lucas keeping careful not to mention you or any of his recent visits to your district to avoid any prying ears in the lounge. However, things soon get interesting. “We all know how Renjun got taken off the Association’s Registry a year ago, right?” Ten asks suddenly.

“Yes, of course.” Xiaojun answers like he’s already bored of this turn in the conversation. “That’s what happens whenever a vampire dies.”

Ten nods, but his eyes are wide like he has a secret he’s itching to tell. “But I don’t think he actually died.”

Lucas’s ears perk up at that.

“Why?” Xiaojun asks.

“He was seeing that human before he supposedly died, you know—”

“The one who lost it and drove the stake in his heart? We all know how it happened—”

“Can you let me finish? Anyway, I’ve heard some...suggestions that he faked his death—that maybe he got a magic user to set the whole crime scene up and make it look like it was real. Illusory magic, or something like that.”

Xiaojun sits forward. “A magic user. As in a fairy? Or a witch? Who?”

“I don’t know, just someone who uses magic. People are starting to think he and the human faked it all and ran away to Tianjin. I heard someone even claimed they saw somebody who resembled him when they went to Tianjin recently, though I don’t know how true that is…”

Xiaojun’s interest is thoroughly engaged now. “Think the Association will go looking for him, if it's true?”

“I don’t know if they’d care enough to hunt down an unregistered vampire who’s laying low and not creating chaos with other citizens. We all know Tianjin is way more relaxed about inter-species relationships, too. But the Association doesn’t like looking stupid. And that kind of trick definitely makes them look stupid.”

Lucas sits back, taking all of this information in. He is uncharacteristically quiet, but he doesn’t know what to make of that situation or why Ten is telling them about it. He thinks he can guess why, though, by the way Ten’s gaze lingers on him, and that scares him a little. The way this rumor piques a forbidden interest in him scares him. Lucas lifts the glass of blood to his lips and drinks from it, trying to distract himself from the current conversation.

“All this for a damn human. Only an idiot would try something like that,” Xiaojun says, shaking his head.

“Maybe a smart one. It did get him off the Registry.”

“How can you be a smart idiot?!” Ten and Xiaojun start arguing over the semantics of the term, and Lucas watches them in amusement, though his mind remains in two different places for the rest of their time in the blood lounge.

—

Later that night when they are back at the manor, Lucas pulls Ten aside, just like the older man expected him to.

“What’s wrong?” Ten asks, though his expression shows he already knows exactly what’s the matter.

“You...the stuff you said about Renjun earlier. I…” Lucas doesn’t know how to start or break his idea to him softly, so he decides to just say it. “Is it really possible?”

“I think it’s possible. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to get off the Registry…though many other attempts were way less successful.” Then Ten hesitates before saying, “You could try it.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.” Ten’s expression softens a little. “I know you and Y/N love each other a lot, but there’s no way the Association will ever let you stay together if they find out. Y/N’s life could actually be in danger. Both of you are, every moment you spend together while living in these districts. If you really want to stay with Y/N, then…”

“...But I wouldn’t be able to see any of you again.” You and Lucas have become so entwined with one another that he can hardly imagine a life without you, but he also finds it difficult to picture his existence without his brothers. They’ve become like blood family to him over the last couple centuries.

“Yeah.” Ten sighs deeply, and although his reply is short, Lucas knows that one word is carrying the weight of all of his stress and sorrow about the idea. “Maybe we could find a way to visit you sometimes. Get the fairies or witches to do some of their magicky shit.” Ten laughs quietly. “But...it’s still just an idea. You don’t have to do it.”

Lucas shakes his head slowly. He wants to put the idea to bed and try to continue on with his life, managing his clandestine visits to your district when he can. But now that he knows of an alternative way, no matter how unreasonable or unbelievable it is, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to forget about it. “Kun-ge is going to kill you once he finds out this was your suggestion. You know that, right?”

Ten shrugs, and the sadness lifts momentarily in the curve of his lips. “He can try.”

The next time you and Lucas meet up, it’s in yet another different place under an ancient and mostly abandoned bridge. As a precaution, you stand together underneath the darkness of the bridge and stay out of sight, though there are few chances of anyone being around to see you in the first place.

He has to muster up the courage to tell you of his idea, unsure of how you’ll react or what you’ll think of it. It’s a lot to ask of you. Your kinships and friendships are not as extensive as his, only having a brother and two cousins left in the world, but he doesn’t know if he could ever ask you to leave them behind like this. Or if he could shake off the guilt that would remain from it.

“There might be a way for us to change things…” Lucas starts, skipping the build-up because he knows it would take him forever to think of something appropriate to say. “But I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“Change things?” You glance at him curiously. You wish you could see the deep red of his irises, but they are hidden behind his brown contacts. “As in, with us?”

“Yes. So that maybe we wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore. Or at least...not sneak around as much as we do now.”

“What is it?” you ask. Despite yourself, your wings flutter against your back as wonder and excitement rise in your chest. You and Lucas have waxed poetic many times before about how you wish things could be different; and neither of you have ever been able to come up with a workable plan. But now, his claim that maybe something is possible has you dangerously curious.

“Taking myself off the Registry. I could basically just...disappear. The Association can’t harm what technically no longer exists.”

You stare at him in confusion. “But you can’t do that, right? Only under special circumstances…”

Lucas sees the question in your eyes and nods. “Right. Like if I die…” You flinch, shaking your head immediately. “...or pretend I’ve died.” This makes you pause, not expecting to hear something like that come from him.

“Pretend...you’ve died. Faking your own death?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but...there’s another vampire who we think has done it before. And...it worked. Supposedly.”

You shake your head again, but you turn the idea over in your mind. “How would you even do that? Someone would have to know you’re not really dead. That can’t be as easy as it sounds...”

Lucas swallows hard. “I know, it doesn’t, but maybe if we plan it right...I think we could pull this off. Some of the others...already know about it.” Only Ten, really, but that’ll inevitably change soon.

Your heart is hammering in your chest just thinking about this plan—the small, undefined plan that it is—and you’re unsure how to approach it. “If we leave under those circumstances, we can’t come back here to Beijing. Which means we won’t see anyone else again, our families and friends...”

“You understand that.” Lucas’s voice comes out strained.

You sigh, wringing your hands. “I do.”

Lucas hangs his head, closing his eyes tightly. “It’s too much to ask of you. We can just forget about this, really. I know sneaking around has been difficult, and I just—”

“I never said I wouldn’t agree to it,” you say softly, interrupting him before he can begin deriding himself about the idea.

Lucas’s head perks up again, and you both look at each other for a long moment. A cold night breeze flows through your clothes and rustles your wings, which remain tucked close against your back.

“Just think of it as leaving the nest, I guess,” you say, though there are tears welling in your eyes. “Growing up and making a life for ourselves. We can do that...right?”

Lucas bites his lip and closes his eyelids to stave off the tears trying to form in his own eyes. “Yeah. We can do that. Even if it’s a bit...unconventional.”

You nod hurriedly, wiping your eyes with the backs of your hands before any more tears can make their way out. “If you really want to do this, then we need to visit my brother.”

—

Your brother is predictably not thrilled about the idea. He likes Lucas well enough, but he’s never been very good at hiding his skepticism about your relationship. Though he would never say this to you directly, he never expected your relationship to make it past a few months; and yet it’s been a year and a half since you and Lucas started seeing each other. Maybe he’d be glad about your relationship’s stability if your partner was anyone other than a vampire. Alas, he instead spends all his time stressing over whether either of you will be found out at any moment’s notice.

“You’re playing with fire,” your brother says as he sits down at his desk within his apothecary office. He shakes his head the entire time, but he rifles through his collection of books on magic anyway. If there is anyone who knows a potion or spell that could work for this scheme and would actually be willing to keep it all secret, it’s your brother.

“I know that, Aldriel.” You cross your arms, sighing impatiently at your brother’s continuous reprimands since you’ve stepped through his door. “That’s why we came to you. You’re one of the best magic wielders and potionists around.”

“Oh, I’m well aware. No need to blow smoke up my ass,” Aldriel replies, never one to let a moment to brag slip away. He continues flipping through his book fast enough to make the words on the pages blur, his brow creased with focus. He is paying attention to the words and pictures on the pages, though you also know him well enough to realize this is him trying to distract himself from the many thoughts that must be crowding his brain.

“Don’t be so worried about it,” you say, trying to speak against the lump that’s suddenly forming in your throat. “You’ve always complained about wanting me out of your hair, anyway.”

Aldriel pauses in flipping through his spell book to look directly at you now, his brows creased even further and his face creating a visage of bitter desperation. “Not like this.”

Sighing, you turn away from him and let him go back to his textbook, knowing you’d probably start to cry if you look at him any longer. And who knows what will happen once that begins.

You go back to Lucas, who is sitting in the other room with his face turned to the window. It is nighttime and the blinds are closed, so you know he’s not looking at anything in particular. His mind must be similarly preoccupied.

“You okay?” you ask, touching his arm.

“Fine,” he answers, though he doesn’t turn to you. He just grasps your hand where it slides down to his own, gripping your fingers tightly. “As fine as I can be in this situation, I guess.”

You sit down in front of Lucas on the floor’s intricately decorated rug, resting your head against his knee. “It’ll be okay.” You aren’t sure of the words when they leave your lips, but you have to believe in them or else all will be lost.

—

You both spend a few hours at Aldriel’s place. At one point, you try to prod Lucas into going back to his clan to avoid raising suspicions for being gone too long—you can just get the potion to him some other day—but he insists it’ll be easier for him to stay and receive the potion now.

Finally, in the hour before dawn, your brother’s door opens and he steps through. “It’s ready.”

Both you and Lucas come alert at that, and you step back into Aldriel’s apothecary to see what he’s developed.

“This is an advanced death glamor potion,” your brother says, holding up a small glass bottle. “It contains a magic incantation that will leave you dead for a week and only a week. Seven days. Your body will remain in perfect stasis, so there’s no risk of the regular side effects that come with death.”

“A week?” you repeat, nervousness coursing through your body. Lucas looks equally apprehensive, and he squeezes your hand tighter.

Aldriel nods, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “That should be enough time to take care of the funeral arrangements and make everyone else think you’ve passed.” He says the last bit while gesturing to Lucas. “I’m not super clear on how vampire funerary customs work, though, so—”

Lucas nods. “No, it’ll work. That’s enough time.”

Your brother’s mouth creases into a thin line. “Good.” He passes the vial to Lucas, makes an expression like he might say something else, and then shakes his head, glancing to you instead. “You plan to go to Tianjin, right?”

“That’s right,” you say quietly.

“You’ll need to find a place to stay, then, until you can get one of your own. And I think we both know exactly where that will be.”

The potion works just as Aldriel said it would. It’s hard to know whether to be dismayed or relieved about this, though the former emotion quickly wins out with everyone.

Lucas takes it a week after meeting with your brother and procuring all the necessary fake documents, claiming it’s best not to wait any longer for it. You feel apprehensive about doing it so soon; or maybe you just want to stall for a little while longer. By now the other five men in his clan all know, each with varying reactions to it but ultimately unable to do anything to change his mind—not even Kun.

On the night Lucas uses the potion, Kun makes one last ditch attempt at reasoning.

“You don’t need to go to this extreme,” the older man insists. Though his voice is cold and sharp and deceptively calm, his entire face is a picture of perfect anger. Everyone had already had their turns talking to Lucas alone and telling him what they needed him to hear—and now it’s just Kun left.

“It’s my decision,” Lucas says, keeping his voice steadier than he feels. “I want to be with Y/N. There is no other way.”

“You’re endangering the entire clan with this. You’d throw us all away for one person?” Kun’s eyes are red-rimmed, but not just from the rage; Lucas knows he’s been crying. Lucas shuts his own eyes, his forehead creasing as he presses the pads of his fingers to his temples.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Lucas shakes his head, knowing he is treading on very dangerous waters with what he’s about to say. As if the situation weren’t already contentious enough. “You closed yourself off to love a long time ago. After Jingyi died. You just wouldn’t know.”

The vivid red hue of anger bleeds into Kun’s irises at the mention of his late human lover, and he has to make a very concentrated effort not to reach for the younger’s neck. “How dare you speak of her.”

Lucas opens his eyes again and looks directly at his elder now. “You’ve let the Association run your life too much,” he says, though the words come out sounding a bit defeated. He’s not even sure why he invokes Kun’s lover now; maybe he is trying to make the split easier by provoking the other man into hating him. “You’ve let them beat it into you that love is not worth trying for. What did you gain from that, in the end? But more loneliness.”

Lucas gets the breath knocked from him when Kun slams him up against the wall, and the unpleasant sound of wood splintering strikes against his eardrums. A long vertical crack forms in the wood behind Lucas, but not wide enough to make the wall separate completely. Not using his full strength, then, Lucas thinks to himself.

Kun looks for all the world like he might kill Lucas then and there without the younger man ever needing to take a potion—just bite his heart right out. He crumples Lucas’s shirt in his hands, fisting the fabric tightly enough to create small rips in it. His irises are the color of newly spilled arterial blood, and alongside the red rimming of his eyes from his earlier crying, it makes for an agonizing sight—one that sears itself into the back of Lucas’s mind. It’s made even worse by the new tears spilling down the older man’s face.

He chokes out through the tears, “You cannot do this. I raised you. You would have me destroyed twice?”

Lucas wishes he could shut every one of his senses off right now, but he can only manage to shut his eyes, once again, against the pain in the other man’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Kun-ge.”

—

After that, Lucas goes back to his own room and sits on the bed for a long time, replaying the events in his head and growing colder with the realization of what he’s about to do. He stares at the small vial on his dresser until he can’t stare at it anymore, and then he downs it all at once. He looks at the vial with renewed interest as it actually disappears once the fluid is gone, the glass evaporating away in the palm of his hand like water droplets under the sun. No evidence.

Lying on his side, he stares at the wall across from his bed and waits for the spell to begin working. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually his vision begins to blur, almost so imperceptibly that it’s difficult to realize until he notices everything in his field of view is doubled, objects bleeding out of their lines like pictures drawn by a drunken artist—there’s a strange ringing in his ears too, a sound on the edge of his hearing but still present, and he doesn’t know what any of it means, or if this is how other beings feel when they are on the brink of death—it’s frightening, and he feels a momentary pang of sympathy for other nonhumans and humans alike who have no choice but to experience this terrible ordeal at the closing of their lives—

It’s harder to keep his eyes open now, so he closes them and lets all sounds and sensations fade out of his hearing—he only holds one last memory of you in his mind, of the soft and filmy texture of your wings underneath his fingertips, of you laughing whole-heartedly at something silly he’d said, and he joins his hands together in the universal symbol of prayer even as they grow weaker, hoping and praying even to his cursed vampire ancestor that this won’t be the very last memory of you—

—

“Yes, he has...most certainly departed from this world.”

An Association council member known as Belial announces this to the room of men after doing a thorough check of Lucas’s body. His voice is distant and saddened. The texture of it is almost tangible, dragging everyone down with it like a physical thing—akin to a rock being dropped into a thin sheet. “Such a fledgling, too. Truly tragic and strange circumstances.” Belial stands beside the bed, shaking his head and looking down at the still form of the younger man as if he might discover an answer if he stares for long enough. “Was there no indication…?”

“He was probably exposed to bad blood,” Ten replies, his voice tense and quiet. Though Kun is clan leader, he doesn’t say anything at all, leaving all the dirty work of explaining the lie to Ten.

Belial’s gaze turns to Ten. He shifts his head slightly to turn his ear towards him, as if he didn’t understand what the other man said. “Bad...blood? As in death by blood weakness?”

The room feels like it’s been sucked of air once these words are spoken, and the younger men shift uncomfortably. Sicheng never lifts his gaze to look at Belial, though Yangyang’s eyes keep darting between Belial and Lucas on the bed like he’s waiting for something to happen. Hendery is just as anxious beside Yangyang, both of them passing uneasy energy between each other. Xiaojun’s face is still fixed into the same permanent frown it had been in since Lucas first told them of the plan. His eyes remain downcast and fixed on Lucas, silently asking Why did you have to be the idiot this time?

“Yes, blood weakness. He hadn’t drank as much blood as usual in the last few days...maybe he seemed a little restless...but we didn’t think it was unusual. He...didn’t seem sick.”

“Where would he have gotten bad blood from? We vampires always take such care…” Belial’s tone turns condescending, as if he could expect no better from a young vampire—someone not even wise enough to tell bad blood from uninfected blood. How could one let themselves be taken out of this world by such a fundamental, basic mistake? Kun curls his fingers into a fist at his side, though he quickly remembers himself and tries to let them relax.

“The blood lounge,” Hendery blurts out. Every eye turns to him now, and Ten’s mouth thins into an agitated line. This isn’t what they agreed on. “M-maybe it was spoiled blood from the blood lounge. It had to be. He’s more careful than that…”

Belial’s eyes are whirling with so many emotions that it’s hard to pin any singular one down. “Serving bad blood, with or without knowledge of it, is an incredible offense within any vampire district. In that case, the establishment must be shut down—after an exhaustive investigation, of course.” This statement causes more discomfort among the gathered men, almost too much of it to be properly concealed.

“I think that won’t be necessary,” Kun interjects quietly. Belial looks at him with an expression that reeks of offense, and Kun returns the stare, glaring straight into the elder vampire’s eyes. “He died of blood weakness, most likely from drinking from some disease-ridden human. Even though he used the blood lounge and blood bags, he was in the habit of getting outside blood on occasion. It was a moment of poor judgment that cost him his life...and nothing more than that.”

A tense silence stretches over the room, and Belial’s eyes still don’t leave Kun’s. The other men remain statue-still, waiting to see what will happen—if it will work—until Belial says, “Yes. Of course. I’ll file his passing with the Keepers of the Registry, as protocol states.”

The other men stay quiet and motionless until Belial departs from their house.

“You used your compulsion on a council member,” says Yangyang, and even his voice is trembling when he speaks.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Xiaojun notes, though his tone is more irritated than awed. “They’re all so much more advanced.”

That action obviously didn’t come for free, though, because Kun is holding his head like it hurts, turning away from the rest of them. “Such recklessness is not my style. Primitiva help us all. We’re all dead if we’re found out.”

“Why did you say that,” Sicheng deadpans, his words directed to Hendery. Even though Sicheng hasn’t said or done anything since stepping into the room, he looks thoroughly exhausted. “You almost gave us away.”

Hendery holds himself up on the bed as if he’ll collapse, his body bent with all the weight of their lies. He makes a motion like he might sit on the bed before remembering it’s where Lucas’s body is resting, and he straightens himself with some effort. “I...but he was thinking badly of Lucas. Like it was his fault.”

“It was,” Kun says faintly.

“You can’t let your emotions get the best of you right now. Just let me handle the talking.” Ten’s expression is stressed, and for a moment he starts to wonder if he should’ve ever said anything to Lucas at all.

Xiaojun shakes his head. “For now, there is a lot more we need to do than just talking.”

Vampire funerary procedures are much different from what many other supernatural races are used to—even blasphemous to some. Everything is handled at the home of the deceased instead of a funeral home or mortuary, in keeping with the tradition of honoring one’s vampire ancestors—and ultimately, the Primitiva Vampire. After the Primitiva’s gruesome death hundreds of years ago, all that had been left was her ashes once the fire burned out, but her followers still gave the remains a proper processing and burial.

The men dress Lucas in one of his nicest suits and perform all the necessary actions that would be involved at a funerary home, including preparing the casket. All of them help throughout this process as tradition dictates, though it is more difficult than any of them expected it to be. (No one even makes a dark joke about you’ll have to do this for me when I’m gone, which speaks to their inner turmoil.)

The viewing is equally challenging to get through, if not more.

Many of their vampire friends and acquaintances attend, including various members of the Association. Everyone seems to buy the blood weakness lie perfectly, which means Kun’s compulsion worked as it should have. That knowledge does very little to relax any of them in the grand scheme of things, though.

Though they know Lucas is not really gone, the sight of him lying there in that dark coffin with other vampires looking sadly down at his still face and dabbing their tears away is deeply frightening.

The night of the viewing goes by at a glacial pace, and every other night after that up until the funeral passes even more slowly, like time itself has dropped its speed to prolong the torment.

When the last few straggling visitors for the viewing are gone, the men go their separate ways to try to deal with the not-so-small trauma of the day’s events. Kun goes up to one of the manor’s several wide balconies, one that they’ve all used as a familiar hangout spot or simply a place to unwind over the years. The sun will not rise for another forty-five minutes or so, giving him enough time to sit and think before it becomes unsafe. He is not very surprised when he finds Ten already there, though he decides not to leave.

“You stopped smoking three decades ago,” Kun comments, waving his hand in a pitiful attempt to clear out the smell of smoke filling the air. There’s no hint of teasing or personality in his voice, only hollowness and exhaustion. He sits beside the other man in one of the chairs sat outside. “Where did you even get cigarettes from?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is just for the nerves.”

“Why would I worry, it’s not like you can—” Kun pauses before saying the word they both know, realizing it hits far too close to home right now. Silence falls between them until Kun asks, “Do you actually believe this will be worth it?”

“It will. We’ve worked too hard for it not to be.” Ten takes a drag from his cigarette. “We’re giving them a second chance. Isn’t that something to feel good about?”

“A second chance. How interesting.”

“Everyone deserves one.” Ten glances at Kun from the corners of his eyes and doesn’t say anything more, but Kun already knows what he’s vaguely implying.

“And yet everyone doesn’t get one.”

“All the more reason to take the opportunity when it becomes possible.”

Kun doesn’t reply to that. Ten places a hand on his shoulder, but the older man meets this with little regard as he rises from his seat and walks away at a sluggish pace.

You stand in the train station ready to buy a ticket, clutching documents falsifying your identity and feeling more terrified than you possibly ever have. Today marks the seventh day, and you don’t even know if Lucas is alive right now. It was too risky to have any of the other clan members contact you—not until you and Lucas meet up in the designated place. You know Aldriel is an excellent potion master, and if he says the spell will work as intended then it will, but there’s always that seed of doubt.

Your parting with Aldriel had been typical of your relationship with him—you crumbling before him and him pretending like he was fine, lending enough strength for the both of you to survive on, though you knew he was also bleeding from the heart.

“You better not forget about me,” you’d told him, smushing your face into the sleeve of his shirt to hide your tears, though there was no stopping the flow. It was staining his shirt sleeve right through.

He’d scoffed at you, though it was a watery sound. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.” He’d held your head closer against his shoulder, the both of you glued together in whichever way seemed fit when you’d walked through his door one last time to say goodbye. “We’ll see each other again. Don’t worry.”

You’d lifted your head from his shoulder then, looking at him with an aggrieved expression. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Aldriel put his hand on top of your head, petting you like a small puppy. It was a thing you’d disliked since you were both children, but which only made your heart hurt even more now. “Have more faith in me than that, dear sister. You’ll see.”

When it’s your turn to get a ticket, you step up to the counter and hand over your information, trying to keep the shaking in your hands to a minimum. The teller behind the counter is also a fairy, their wings tucked against the back of their uniform but peeking out at the sides. You childishly try to take some solace in that, hoping there will be some solidarity between you two. Maybe they’ll be less critical of your legitimacy than any other being might be.

The process is scarily easier than you’d thought it would be, though you are sweating the entire time. A fake name and birth date, and no one suspected anything. All of this would have to be your new identity now if you were to live with Lucas in Tianjin without being discovered.

Getting on the train when it comes is only part of the long journey ahead. It doesn’t provide you with much relief, but you are at least thankful to have one segment of that journey complete.

—

It takes another cab to get to your destination once you’re off the train, but you soon arrive at the house of one of Aldriel’s friends and his similar-name twin—Raziel. Raziel was Aldriel’s most trusted and oldest friend, their woven history extending back to childhood. The three of you had grown up together, and you’d even been quite familiar with Raziel until they left for Tianjin some years ago. Now, you’re back in front of each other again under circumstances that you never could’ve guessed.

“You’re here. Good.” Raziel welcomes you into their house with open arms, tugging you into a jittery hug that you anxiously return.

“Have...you heard anything?” you ask, though you know it’s futile. Raziel wouldn’t have gotten any more information than you have, not until Lucas was standing right on their doorstep. They shake their head and give you a sympathetic look, patting your hands.

“He’ll be alright. Everything will go well. I believe it.” Raziel guides you further into their house, presumably towards the room you’ll be staying in while you’re there. “It’s all so romantic, though—even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. I hope you know you’re doing a good thing, in the end.”

You force your facial muscles into a smile, though it is a ghostly and fleeting one. “Thank you.”

Either way, you will have to wait until nighttime to know if Raziel’s words come true or not; the sun is still high in the sky. It’s only midday. You’ve never before hated the sunlight, but right now you curse the sun’s rays that elongate the time between you and your lover.

—

“You all, give him some damn space,” Ten says, trying to pull the younger vampires away so they won’t crowd around the coffin. “He doesn’t need the scare of his life looking at all your faces when he wakes up.” Despite trying his best to be the voice of reason, Ten also has to refuse the urge to station himself beside the coffin and watch for the slightest movement of eyelids, the tiniest twitch of the lips. His hands shake from the frayed nerves of a week of nothing but death and gloom, and even though he doesn’t need to sleep, he thinks he will be out for at least two days after all of this is over.

There is no set time, no designated signal for when—or the dreaded if—Lucas will awaken. The waiting game feels longer than it really is, especially with the hours until the funeral commences steadily counting down. However, it is not very long before there’s a big sucking breath coming from the coffin, the sudden sound of lungs being filled after a week of complete stillness. Everyone rushes back to the bier when this happens, peering wildly inside the coffin.

Lucas’s eyelids flutter for an eternity before shooting open. He immediately seems distressed upon waking, sitting up out of the coffin so quick that it stutters on its stand, and the others have to steady it before it tips over.

“Xuxi...are you okay?” Sicheng asks, voice hushed with nervousness. Despite his unending anger and distress about the situation, Kun has also crowded in to witness Lucas’s awakening, and he visibly sags with relief to see the younger man is at last awake.

The look in Lucas’s eyes is wild. They are momentarily afraid that maybe something has gone wrong with the potion—maybe it has affected his mind somehow and he doesn’t remember any of them— but then he says,

“Y/N. Is Y/N okay?”

“We don’t know,” Sicheng replies. “I mean, hopefully. But it was safer to not have so much cross-communication going on—you’ll have to go to the meeting spot to find out…”

Though the reasons for this make sense, this does not provide consolation. Lucas fumbles his way out of the coffin with the men’s help. It’s clear he’s still disoriented, which makes them even more nervous, if that’s possible at this point.

“You should drink some blood before you leave,” Hendery suggests, and everyone else agrees. Lucas won’t argue that, so he downs one of the blood bags they have stored until he feels a little more like himself.

“You have to go soon, the funeral is set to start in another hour—we’ll have to leave—” Yangyang warns him, though the words fade at the end of his sentence. He doesn’t know how to continue his thought or how to even begin saying goodbye.

Lucas fills that gap by steeling himself and saying his farewells to each of them in turn, though his eyes are troubled and his chin crumples like he might cry at any moment.

“Don’t say I never helped you out with anything,” Ten says, a few tears slipping down his cheeks. Being separated is painful, but it’ll ultimately serve its purpose of giving Lucas a chance at having a love that none of them could. After seeing Kun suffer the way he did after losing Jingyi, Ten wants to spare another one of his mates from dealing with the same fate.

When Lucas gets to Kun, there is a slight awkward silence and a swift exchange of glances—Lucas’s soft gaze butting up against Kun’s more solid one, which is simultaneously pleading to him and rebuking him for his actions. Still, Kun embraces him tightly enough that their bodies could join together.

“Xuxi…” Kun starts, “I don’t…” And then his words break, leaving an unspoken thought between them.

“One day, you’ll forgive me for this,” Lucas whispers to the older man. Kun gives him an endlessly hurt look in return, silently asking him how he could even conceive those words. When they separate from each other, it’s with much reluctance. Lucas looks at them all and nods once, his mouth tight with grief.

“Right. Time to go, then.”

—

You awake in the middle of the night to cool fingers on the side of your face, which startles you completely out of your sleep. Opening your eyes to an unfamiliar room scares you even more, and it takes you a moment to remember why your surroundings have changed. The knowledge comes back to you quickly when a large palm slips against your own, long fingers twining with yours.

“Xuxi,” you whisper quietly, the sound of his name hanging in the air like a prayer. One of the last few times you’ll be able to freely call him that, except in private.

You can’t see his figure well with all the lights turned out, but he had no problem navigating through the dark to reach your bedside. Wanting desperately to see his face, you fumble around for the bedside lamp switch before turning it on.

“Y/N…” Lucas’s face is suddenly illuminated to you in all its golden glory, a myriad of emotions flickering over his features.

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” you say breathlessly. You’re somewhat sad and wish you could’ve met him at the door, embraced him after his long trip, but it doesn’t much matter anymore because he’s here now.

“Poor Y/N. My baby must’ve been so tired.” Lucas bumps his forehead against yours, his whole body drooping with relief as he practically sinks into you, and you giggle a little as you complain about having to hold his weight up. There is a tingle behind your eyes that threatens to turn into a sudden burst of tears, but you try to hold them at bay for a while longer.

“Are we safe?” he whispers, needing your confirmation. “Raziel said so. But...are we really safe?”

“That’s frightening to even think about,” you reply quietly. “We can’t stay here too long, but for now…I think we will be.” Lucas nods without a word, still holding your hand. His blood-scent is completely absent, as it usually is when he’s around you, and you know he’s used the blockers. Soon, with the ability to go out together and not be arrested or threatened for it, that will not be necessary to disguise his vampirism anymore. “It...won’t be easy.”

“No, but the things we want out of life usually aren’t.”

You squeeze his hand. “Raziel will help take care of things for us. It won’t all be trials and tribulations. I hope.” More hesitantly, you ask him, “What was it like? Being dead?” You know that vampires, being once human, still have souls and an afterlife to go to like most other living beings.

The look on his face is worrying. He doesn’t meet your eyes; he only shakes his head and stares at your joined hands. “It was cold without you.” His lips pull into a weak and chapped smile, if only to quiet your worrying, but that doesn’t work as intended. You decide to leave it for now, figuring there will be more time to talk about it when he feels ready.

Turning the light back off, you both press your bodies together as close as they can physically get, Lucas’s head on your chest and his long legs all jumbled together with yours. You fall asleep before he does, lulled away by his comforting and safe presence. He stays awake for a while longer, staring into the dark and the dark staring back into him, before everything else falls away.

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walkerwords · 4 years ago

Text

“The Savior Sessions” Part 11 of 33 - Negan x GN!Reader

IMAGE CREDIT: GENE PAGE/AMC

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: Part 11! The reader has to greet the newcomers and try to convince Michonne to do the right thing...

Word Count: 2584

Warning: Swearing

Song I Wrote To: “Off My Mind” by Radio Company

Note: Bit more of a filler, but I am slowly trying to map out the timeline that extends from the beginning of the whisperers all the way through s10 finale. I am going to be staying as close to canon as possible with a few changes. For example, Negan getting out, certain deaths, and of course Alpha and company. There will be spoilers in the upcoming chapters.

------

Staring at the group in front of you, you felt an immense amount of pressure building in your chest.

The man before you, Luke, was still gripping your hand. He was waiting for you to say something, but your brain was moving a mile a minute. Not just because of Negan, but because you hadn’t been faced with a decision such as this one. Michonne was the one to make the rules.

It was an unspoken thing, her reign over Alexandria. Before Rick had died, he was the one in charge, but since the bridge incident, the council had been born. However, everyone knew that if Michonne said no, that was the law and she would not be happy with what was happening right now.

“This isn’t my decision,” you said, taking back your hand from the stranger and giving your full attention to Aaron.

“It is now,” he said, and coming up behind him was Gabriel who was nodding in agreement. You looked back to the newcomers and noticed one of the women was signing to another, translating everything that was going on. You also noticed that the woman who was injured wasn’t looking much better.

“(Y/N),” Judith said, pulling your attention. You looked down at the girl, worry still on her freckled face. “This is Luke, Connie, Kelly, Magna, and Yumiko. They need medicine and water, please.” All you wanted to do was be there for the little girl, but you had never been put in this position before.

“I don’t know what to do,” you admitted. “Michonne, your mom, she needs to be the one to make this decision.” Judith frowned, ready to make her case when suddenly the far gate opened and you heard the unmistakable pounding of hooves along the road. Michonne was home. “Oh, thank god,” you whispered.

“(Y/N), please,” Judith begged. You reached down and squeezed the hand that was gripping the bottom of your shirt.

“I’m sorry, Jude, but it’s up to your mom,” you said, and with barely a glance towards Luke and Company, you jogged over to Michonne as she dismounted from her horse.

“What is this?” Michonne asked, already seeing the small group forming around the others.

“Judith found them,” you explained and it was enough for Michonne to rub the space between her eyebrows.

“My kid, always the good one,” she muttered and then let out a deep sigh. It was then that you could already tell what she was thinking and it wasn’t good.

“Michonne,” you began, “just let Siddiq look at the woman. She’s hurt and Judith saved them. I know your rules, but we’ll keep them under guard.”

“You know that we can’t,” Michonne said, her hand snaking back around her waist to hold onto the sheath that held her katana. You noticed that she did that whenever she was on edge. It seemed that was her natural state these days, not that you could blame her. Michonne had seen enough terror in her life to last a lifetime.

“We are better than this and you know it,” you challenged. Michonne blinked at your strong tone but relaxed her arms.

“I am thinking of our people, (Y/N),” she said back, staring you down.

“And you don’t think I am? Alexandria has always been a place of refuge. What would our people think if we just said, ‘good luck people, go and fend for your damn selves,’?” you asked, crossing your arms.

“We did,” Michonne reminded you and your mind flashed back to those days on the road after Terminus. You glared at the woman, knowing that she was trying to get you to cave, but you had dealt with enough of your own bullshit over the years.

“Aaron found us,” you argued. “He invited us here and you were one of the only ones to convince Rick to accept Alexandria. Aaron took a chance on us and because of us, we helped this place thrive. Hilltop, Kingdom, Oceanside, all of them accepted us and we helped them because we believed that there were more good people out there.”

“You weren’t there, (Y/N),” Michonne said and you knew what she was referring to. Only she and Daryl had witnessed the horrors of Jocelyn. You weren’t even sure if Judith remembered the day she was taken.

“I know,” you said, this time your tone much softer. “However, I also know that we are not the kind of people who have stopped caring.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking over your words and eventually she hung her head before looking back towards Aaron. Her eyes fell on her daughter who was looking at her with those big brown eyes of her and the determination of a Grimes. She looked back at you and then nodded.

“I will speak to the council,” she settled on and you sighed,

“Thank you, Michonne,” you said and she nodded once before grabbing her bag and heading over to her daughter who was still looking at her with a pleading expression. Not wanting to intrude, you decided to head out of the community to make sure that nobody had followed them

The last thing you needed was for Michonne to blame you for something you championed for.

------

You had killed a lot of Walkers since the beginning of the Apocalypse, but it still never failed to gross you out.

Once you realized that the group had been alone, after all, you began the trek back towards Alexandria. Nevertheless, the monsters of the new world had still managed to ruin your day. After fighting through a small pack of them, you were exhausted.

Your mind began to wander towards Hilltop as you walked through the woods. You hadn’t been to see Jesus in some time and you were missing him a lot. When you had met the eccentric man the day Rick and Daryl dragged him into Alexandria, the two of you had connected almost immediately.

With your skills as a long-distance fighter and his close-quarter combat ones, you were an unusual, but strong duo. You often worked as a spotter for the man, keeping your hand on the Walkie as he fought through hoards of Walkers or smaller groups of Saviors. Then, when Paul had approached you about taking the survivors of a Savior outpost back to Hilltop to keep them as prisoners instead of killing them, you had backed him.

Maggie was not thrilled that you were not willing to kill the Saviors, but that wasn’t how you thought anymore. You knew that you had to kill to survive some times, you had even done it yourself, but there came a time when the killing had to end.

Jesus always told you that holding grudges would never amount to anything and you believed him. It was why you had never told anyone that Rick had actually come to you to discuss what he was going to do with Negan.

You had told Negan that there wasn’t a vote, but what it actually was, was a conversation between you and the man you trusted most in your life. You weren’t sure if even Michonne knew what was going to happen on that field when Rick slit open Negan’s throat.

That day had been one that nobody wanted to remember. There was already too much loss on both sides and after losing Carl, nobody wanted there to be more carnage.

Well, except for Maggie Rhee.

You couldn’t even begin to think about what she would be thinking right now if she knew what you were feeling when it came to the man who murdered her husband.

You were close to Maggie once, but after Glenn died, the two of you had begun to pull away from each other. You both missed Glenn, but while you were just trying to resolve the issue, Maggie was out for revenge. Never once did you blame her for it, she had every right to want Negan dead, but you weren’t so sure that Negan was still that man.

At least that was what you felt.

As you approached the main gates of your home, that analytical side of you, the one that made you such a great teacher, began hounding you. You couldn’t stop all the scenarios that ran through your head and all the possible negative reactions that could happen if anyone outside of Alexandria found out about you and Negan.

However, there was still one thing that offered you comfort. You knew that your best friend, Paul, would not judge you and as you stepped into Alexandria, you felt the urge to run all the way to Hilltop. Instead, you let Eugene roll the gate behind you and seal it shut.

--------

The next day, Judith Grimes sat on the steps of her home as she did her homework.

“Airplane ‘A’ and airplane ‘B’ are 1000 miles apart. If airplane ‘A’ is flying east at 500 miles per hour and airplane ‘B’ is flying west at 650 miles per hour, how…”

“You know what?” Negan interrupted, “I would definitely recommend booking a seat on airplane ‘C,’ because that is shaping up to be one hell of a mid-air collision.”

“You gonna help me or what?” Judith asked with a frown, the small sheriff figurine in her hand as she read from her textbook. Negan chuckled, watching her from the small window of his cell.

“All right. Let me ask you somethin',” he began, “you ever seen an airplane fly in any direction, at any speed?”

“No,” Judith said.

“Do you think you ever will?” Negan asked.

“Probably not,” Judith said.

“So, what the hell difference does it make?” Negan asked. “See, math problems are supposed to apply to the real world. You want my help? Give me a question or a problem from right here, right now.” Judith was silent for a moment as Negan waited patiently for her to continue, but instead of math, she diverted the conversation.

“You know the strangers we brought here yesterday? My mom's gonna make them leave,” Judith said with a sigh, pushing up the brim of her hat slightly.

“Well, no, I didn't know,” Negan said with a smile, “but let me guess. You being you, you wanna help 'em.”

“I found 'em. I brought 'em here,” Judith argued.

“What does (Y/N) think? Ain’t they second in command or somethin’?” Negan asked, wondering where your head was at.

“They think that they should be able to stay,” Judith revealed, closing her book and bracing her elbows on the cover.

“Does your mom agree?” Negan asked.

“No, but (Y/N) got her to let Laura stay after the war,” Judith explained. “They’ll get Mom to let these people stay too. I’m almost positive.” That bit of news had Negan slightly surprised.

“They wanted Laura to stay?” he asked. While he knew that Laura was the tamer of his former fighters, she was still a Savior and he didn’t think her transition into Alexandria would have been that easy.

“(Y/N) wanted as many people to live after the war as possible,” Judith told him, “They don’t like it when people die. I like that about them.”

“Me too,” Negan said softly.

“What are you two chattin’ about?” you said as you approached the duo. Negan’s eyes lit up as you came into view, a bottle of water swinging from your fingers as you looked at Judith with a smirk on your lips.

“Math,” Judith said nonchalantly.

“Mmhmm,” you said, not buying it for a second. “Your momma is askin’ for you, Jude,” you said with a nod towards her house behind her.

“Okay, fine,” Judith said with a sigh.

“Wait a minute,” Negan said, “Where you going? I thought you wanted my help.” you looked over at him with a smile and he sent you a wink.

“I do, but just with math,” Judith said, gathering up her stuff.

“Why just math?” he asked.

“Because it doesn't matter if you're a good or bad person on the inside. The numbers don't care,” she said with a shrug as she jogged up the steps and into her house. You watched her, your mouth open in shock.

“Wow,” Negan said as soon as the door closed behind her. “Since when is she that sassy?”

“Since she was born,” you said with a snort as you leaned against the gate, turning your back to him. “Just lettin’ ya know, shit might start hittin’ the fan. Michonne is on edge.”

“Ain’t she always?” Negan asked with a sigh. “This about the newcomers the kid found?” You nodded, twisting off the cap of your bottle.

“She thinks Hilltop will take them. Apparently, the meeting didn’t go too well. One of the women is a bit… edgy.”

“Will Maggie take them?” Negan asked.

“It’s not up to Maggie. It’ll be up to Jesus and Tara,” you explained. “Maggie isn’t at Hilltop.”

“No?” Negan asked in that curious tone you liked so much.

“She went away for a bit,” you said, “At least that’s what Enid told me last time I talked to her.”

“So what does this mean?”

“It means that Michonne is going to have to finally talk to the people we once considered friends.”

“And you?” he asked.

“I am going to have to keep my head on a swivel,” you said with a sigh. All the drama that had come up hadn’t helped the insomnia that had crept up on you in the past couple of weeks.

“Which you will, of course,” he said and you rolled your eyes.

“You really have so much faith in me, don’t you?” you asked with a sly smile.

“I like to put my money on people I know will win,” Negan said and you just knew he was shrugging.

“What exactly is the competition?” you wondered.

“Life,” he simply said.

“I am not so sure you can win at life, Negan,” you said with a small chuckle, drinking from your bottle.

“I don’t know, (Y/N), I seem to be doing pretty damn well,” he said, his voice lower and you almost choked on your water right then. You weren’t quite sure what to follow with after that statement and he seemed to realize. “Too strong?” he asked, worried he may have pushed it a bit far.

“No, no,” you said, turning to face him. “I just, uh,...” you tried to find the words.

“You’re blushin’,” he pointed out with a sly smirk.

“It’s hot,” you said.

“Not really,” he whispered back.

“Shut up.”

“Is that a challenge?” he asked with a quirk of his brow.

“It’s an order. I am still technically your warden.”

“I thought that was only when I was in your bed,” he said as he wet his lips with that grin of his.

“You were never in my bed, just beside it,” you clarified.

“Optics,” he said with a wink, and you were reminded of the time you had said the same thing to him when discussing the details of who started the war. Pushing off the gate, you straightened your clothes.

“I am going to go and do something...something else,” you said, still flustered.

“Yeah, maybe ask Siddiq about what to do about a heatstroke,” he teased and you flipped him off. “How adorable,” he cooed.

“I hate you!” you called as you walked away.

“No, you don’t!” he yelled back and you chuckled under your breath.

No, you really didn’t.

TAGS: amaroho @thanossexual @yes-sir-hotchner @boom-bunny @delusionalteenagewhispers @scootankle @ritajammer21 @writteriguess @tea-atfive @jennydehavilland @halszka-potter @yespleasejayhalstead @fmunegan @hoemadegrace

#walkerwords #twd imagine #twd fics #twd fanfiction #negan x reader #negan imagine #the walking dead #savior sessions #Negan

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ververa · 4 years ago

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Twist In The Sobriety

Request: something sweet and fluff with mina about her insecurity and reader being understanding and saying that she loves her, you can take it wherever you want, smutt or not, I would just love something sweet.

A/N:@honeysorwell I hope this can do! Sorry if this is shit. Also I’m deeply sorry it took me so long. I’m just really discouraged and I’m kind of struggling rn. Anyways, hope you enjoy it!

Wilhemina Venable x reader

Word count: 5 500

Wilhemina Venable was a professor of literature, who held the position of pro-rector for over two years. Wilhemina was known as a very strict, demanding and cynical woman. Some even considered her mean. She was respected by other professors and hated by students, as she was the one ‘ruining’ their plans. She came off as an unapproachable woman, who had a heart of stone and no mercy. She always wore dark purple or black suits, had her dark hair pulled back in a bun and she never smiled. Most people felt intimidated by her, but you were fascinated. For you she was the most perfect woman you had ever seen. You really wanted to get to know her, but it wasn’t possible. Wilhemina spent most of the time in her office and you only saw her passing by from time to time. Though you were very observant, so you obviously made some assumptions.

You hoped that one day you would be able to meet her. You were fantasizing about how your first meeting could go, though none of those scenarios came true. The reality totally surprised you as you met her when you least expected it.

Wilhemina rarely had classes, she almost completely gave up on teaching after she became a pro-rector. She did lectures for a small group of students, who displayed advanced level of required subjects. Other than that Wilhemina barely left her office and if she did - it was only to inspect the condition of the university and to check if certain rules were followed by students and professors.

It was one of those days, when she actually got bored. She decided it was a good time to inspect one of her colleagues. In fact, Wilhemina didn’t care about what was going on in the classrooms as long as no rules were broken. She usually went there only to make herself feel better or eventually meet those students who were noticeably superior to the group.

She had heard quite a lot about you from other professors. They were always praising you and she got a bit curious. It had been a long time since anyone managed to make any impression on her. It was really hard to do it, and she started believing that no one and nothing could ever impress her again. Yet then she met you.

You had a lecture with one of the professors that you truly despised. The man was over 50 years old. He was arrogant and overconfident, but what you hated the most about him was that he had no respect for women. He kept insulting and abusing female students for years, though none of them was brave enough to stand up to him. That was until you. You had been brought up in a family of lawyers, so holding various kinds of discussion was something that you had been taught for years. You had no trouble objecting him and then finding arguments to prove your point. Normally you tried to control yourself and be respectful, but that time was different. That time you got too angry to hold yourself back.

Wilhemina didn’t like to rush. She took her time getting to the right classroom and used the back door, so as not to interrupt. She had expected yet another boring lecture, but to her surprise she found you arguing with her colleague.

“I fail to understand how some of you, men, can be so narrow-minded. You classify women only in two categories - fuckable and non-fuckable. But let me tell you, there is more than that”

Venable scanned the room trying to understand what was going on. She decided not to interfere, because your speech sounded pretty interesting and promiscuous.

“Let’s take Miss Venable for example. You are all sure that you know her, but the truth is you only get to see the surface layer. And you are too oblivious and unintelligent to even consider that there is something more. In result you totally misunderstand her and perceive her in a wrong way”

“That’s enough. Sit down Y/N”

“No”

“Sit down!”

“I’ll sit when I’m done”

“You’ll regret it. You’ll get punish for your insubordination”

“It’s not insubordination. We’re just having a discussion and you’re calling it an ‘insubordination’, because I’m right and you don’t have any arguments. But of course, I understand it’s hard to admit that you’re just a fool with a low self-esteem, who tries to compensate for it by using young students and turning their life into hell if they refuse to have sex with you”

“Miss Y/L/N as a future lawyer you should know how to keep your head right, but apparently you’re not able to. I’ll not tolerate such behaviour in my classes. That’s why I think you can’t continue the course”

“Oh, I’m very calm. It’s you who takes it personal and reacts emotionally, because you can’t stand the fact that women can be more powerful. What hurts you the most is that you’re intimidated by us, by Miss Venable. And if that wasn’t enough she also took the position that you aspired to hold. And now I beat you, using the right arguments - the same as she beat you thanks to her qualifications. But of course, it’s our fault, because as women we’re supposed to serve you. I’m sorry to inform you, but the medieval times are over”

Wilhemina stood there shocked. She finally understood why everyone was talking about you. She hadn’t heard such kind of argument in a while. And you talking about her in such a way truly impressed her. Of course Wilhemina wasn’t the type of person who would admit that you made her speechless, so she composed herself and slowly approached you.

“Oh, and one more thing” you continued not realizing Wilhemina was there “Next time I find out you tried to abuse any woman, I’ll report you to Miss Venable. You’ll have a chance to ask how she's doing...”

“I’m good. Thank you” Wilhemina said as calm as possible - trying to hide her amusement

You slowly turned round only to see her looking at you.

“Miss Venable…”

“Miss Y/L/N, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you”

“That’s… umm… that’s my pleasure” you said a bit dumbfounded

“Wilhemina… I can explain” your professor began

Venable said nothing, but you could notice how her hand clenched on her cane. She slowly approached the man and looked into his eyes.

“It’s Miss Venable” she emphasized her name hitting her cane on the floor “I'll make it clear, so there will be no misunderstandings. I’m truly disgusted. Your explanations do not interest me at all. And you can be sure I’ll raise this issue during the meeting of the school board”

You didn’t expect her to be there. You didn't necessarily want her to hear what you said and you obviously didn’t know how to act after that. Normally you would come up with something, but Wilhemina gave you no time.

“Miss Y/L/N” she moved closer to you

Venable looked at you, but you didn't lower your eyes like your professor. It felt weird - almost as if her big brown eyes could look right through your soul, but you held her stare anyway.

That was unexpected. Her stare was like a weapon. It made everyone feel intimidated and thereby proved that Wilhemina was in power. Everyone always averted their eyes, except for you.

“Miss Y/N would you care to follow me to my office?” she asked, but by the tone she used you could tell it was an order not a question or request

“O-of course”

You followed Venable - counting all the tiles on the floor on your way, trying to compose yourself. Being alone with her had been something you wanted, but you weren’t really sure where that could go at that point.

“Sit down” she demanded and you did it immediately - this time not needed to be told twice. Wilhemina sat down as well and looked at you carelessly swiveling her cane.

“So…” you started after a moment of silence that for you seemed to be a bit too long

“So” she repeated doing her best to contain her amusement with your nervousness

You were looking everywhere, but her face. Yet even though you weren't looking at her, you could feel her eyes on you. You shifted feeling slightly insecure under her stern gaze.

“You are quite a unique specimen, aren’t you Miss Y/N?”

“I… I guess I am...” you said scratching the back of your head

“I must say, I’m pretty impressed with your gift of the gab”

“Well… I must say, I wasn’t quite expecting you to hear all that?”

“Why is that? I’m glad I did. Though, I really felt quite distressed learning some of those things”

“Umm… Does that mean I won’t be expelled or suspended?”

“Oh, of course not. We can’t let ourselves lose such precious students as you”

Your eyes widened. That definitely was the last thing you had expected to hear.

“Of course, it’s understandable if you won’t want to attend Mr Smith’s classes. And if that’s the case, I’d help you to prepare for the exam instead”

“Yes. That’d be great!” you exclaimed probably a bit too enthusiastically “I mean I’d really appreciate it, Miss Venable”

Wilhemina nodded. She didn’t show any kind of emotion, but she seemed pretty pleased with your response.

“Alright then. We shall start on Monday. Meet me at the library. 8 a.m. and don’t be late”

Going to the university wasn’t a dream come true for you - at least not at that time. You wanted to take a gap year and travel. You wanted to see the world, meet people, party, fall in love. Though your parents were against your idea. They basically made you go to the university and study law. They had already had everything planned for you. You were supposed to become a lawyer, just like your father and then work in his office. That for sure was a good plan, but nobody asked you if that was what you wanted. It obviously wasn’t and you hated it. All the lectures were boring and most of your professors were assholes. That’s why spending time at the university was like a torture for you. Though after you started your lessons with Wilhemina it became more bearable.

You weren’t wrong saying that there was more than Venable let people see. And whether she liked it or not, you noticed everything. Every little detail about her. From the way she moved or shift her cane to the changes in her voice tone when she spoke. You could see beyond the thick walls she had been building her whole life and you absolutely loved every second of getting to know her better. She was an incredibly intelligent, independent and strong woman. She always talked so passionately about all the things related to the subject she was teaching. And even though law wasn’t really her thing, she was doing a really good job teaching you and helping with all the stuff. In fact she was better than your other professor. You loved listening to her calm voice and it didn’t really matter what she was talking about. Just the fact it was no other than Wilhemina Venable made even the most boring thing interesting.

Wilhemina couldn’t deny that you were full of surprises. After everything she had been through in her life she didn’t think there was anything more that could make her feel astonished, but there you were. You were an eloquent and ambitious person. She knew that at once, but she had no idea how hot-tempered and sassy you could be. She got to see that side of you after some time, when you got more comfortable around her. But she didn’t mind. In fact your dry sense of humour, which perfectly matched hers, made her like you even more. You might have been sarcastic or even arrogant at times, though you never disrespected her in front of others. It’s not that other people did. They wouldn’t dare to disrespect her, because they were all afraid of the consequences. Though it was different with you. You were the one who truly respected her and you did that not because of fear, but because in your eyes she deserved that respect. And much to her dismay, it made Wilhemina feel different about you. There was just something in the way you rolled your eyes or made some snarky comment. Something that made her unable to get you out of her head. Wilhemina wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not or whether it was something good or not. The only thing she knew was that you, with no doubt, were the one who could push all her buttons down.

As you got to know her better - teasing Wilhemina became your new favourite hobby. She always knew what to say, except for those moments when she was with you. And you loved seeing her being frustrated or rolling her eyes or when she unsuccessfully tried to tell you off. She may try to seem mad, but you knew that deep inside she liked it as much as you did.

“Do you want me to be honest, Miss Venable?” you started one time when you were in the library

“No” Wilhemina said not averting her eyes from the book she was reading

“Well, I’ll say it anyway”

“I had no doubt you’d do that” she sighed

“Oh c’mon. You love listening to me and my theories, Willy” you used the nickname knowing it would draw her attention

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” she asked closing the book

“I’m sorry, I don’t take orders” you shrugged “In fact I barely take suggestions”

Wilhemina shook her head.

“You should have been born with a warning sign”

“Shit happens” you laughed at her comment

“Apparently”

“Anyways…”

“Y/N” she cut you off

“Yes?”

“From the bottom of my heart - I don’t care”

“Well, I respectfully don’t care that you don’t care”

It wasn’t possible to tame you and Wilhemina knew that, but she couldn’t let you see how much she actually liked it.

“I was wondering what kind of music you like” you started

Wilhemina looked at you with anticipation. You rarely dared to make any assumptions about her or if you did you didn’t share them with her. You were usually making fun of other people, so she was curious where your conversation was about to go.

“And?”

“Well, Miss Venable, you seem so calm on the outside, but I bet that behind closed door it’s all loud music, leather and BDSM”

Wilhemina stared at you in silence. Her brown eyes did not blink even once as she examined you. Her serious face expression caused a shiver run through your body. Did you cross some line?

“I… I mean you... just give that kind of vibes… I mean no offense…"

"No harm done"

"Okay. Good" you said looking at your hands instead of looking at Wilhemina as you’d normally do.

It didn’t happen often that you shy away or get insecure. Your silence was always very suspicious and it usually led to more snarky comments. But it was different that time and Wilhemina knew it. She knew that you got shy and she couldn’t help, but used it against you.

“You are right in fact”

“I am…?” your eyes widened

“Yes, except for the part with leather… I’m not a huge fan of latex you know”

You blinked completely dumbfounded. You couldn’t quite process her words and so you just stared at her.

“Oh my, did the great orator lose the ability to speak? Did I make a counselor-to-be speechless?”

“Yes, Miss Venable. You kind of did" you admitted not looking at her, feeling your cheeks slowly turning light pink. You rarely felt embarrassed or confused, so in that very moment Wilhemina felt kind of bad for you. A part of her was satisfied with succeeding and making you shut up, but there was also that bit of her that found you adorable. She hated seeing a frown of concern on your face, so she decided to act.

“Well” she stood up “You are fine Y/N. I’m just messing”

“So, it’s not true?”

Venable was about to say something, but she closed her mouth without making any sound. She was hesitant or couldn’t find the right words - you weren't sure which one. You kept looking at her as she was moving around the table, that the two of you were sitting at. She walked slowly, her heels and cane clicking on the floor making your knees feel weak.

“To some extent it is, I think” she said finally

“W-what do you mean?” you asked turning round to look at her

“Well” she placed her hand on your shoulder “I do like loud music” she continued playing with the strand of your hair “I listen to classical music mostly, but I like rock too...” she said, but stopped as she looked at your face.

Wilhemina didn’t know why she was telling you all that, but it felt right. And the smile on your face definitely was worth the effort.

“It’s actually a long story” she said after a long moment of silence

“Now, that you started you have to tell me. Please, please Miss Venable” you looked at her pleadingly

"I…Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Y/L/N?"

"With you Miss Venable I could drink anything" you joked, but you actually meant that. And you just kind of wished Wilhemina knew how happy you felt whenever you were with her.

Wilhemina had been through all of that before. At some point she realized that her heart beating faster every so often whenever you appeared wasn’t just a coincidence. Such kind of tune was known to everyone, including Venable. She was well aware that she wasn’t able to win that war, no matter how hard she tried. That’s why she hoped that particular tune would never play again - at least not in her heart. Yet you appeared in her life. The battle had begun the moment she met you. You were like a hurricane that rearranged her molecules. You were the twist in her sobriety that she wasn’t ready for. And there she was - fighting with herself. It was her and no one else burning in her own hell. She knew that fighting it was a lost cause, yet she still tried to play that game. And she was doing her best, so as not to get too carried away.

“Which part of following the rules you don’t get Y/N?” Wilhemina asked as you appeared in her office with the same enquiry for what felt like a hundredth time

“I understand everything. I’m not asking you to break the rules” you said innocently “I’m only asking to bend them a little” you added smiling

Wilhemina sighed shaking her head.

“Rules are rules” she stated not looking at you, knowing that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to remain cold anymore

“Oh, c’mon dude!” you said out of habit

That’s when she looked at you. Her eyes narrowed into a glare and as they met yours, you immediately realized your mistake. It wasn’t the first time that something like that slipped and you knew for a fact that Wilhemina hated it. She kept trying to cure you of using such kind of sentences, though apparently it didn’t go as well as she thought.

“I… I mean Miss Venable” you corrected yourself

She really wanted to play it cool and remain indifferent, but that pleading look on your face was too much to take. How she hated you for it.

“Why would I agree?” she shifted, sitting more comfortably in her chair

“Because… deep inside you have a heart of gold?”

Wilhemina raised her eyebrows.

“I’m not convinced” she was about to go back to whatever she was doing before you interrupted her

“Ugh… You’re so stubborn” you rolled your eyes

“I told you to stop doing that”

“Doing what?”

“Rolling your eyes at me, Miss Y/N”

“What? I… You never told me that?”

“Well, I’m telling you now”

“T-that’s… Ugh… Fine! I have better arguments”

“I’m all ears”

“First of all, our library needs renovation, but school obviously doesn’t have enough money. So, the plan is…”

Wilhemina kept listening to you, as you were explaining all your ideas to her. She tried hard not to show any kind of emotion, but since you appeared hiding and avoiding her feelings became rather difficult.

“Are you always such a smartass?” she asked unexpectedly

“No…” you answered a bit dumbfounded “Only when I want to impress you” you added shrugging

Your answer took her by surprise. She really wanted to hold it back, but couldn’t and chuckled. Her cute, genuine laugh made you smile.

“OH.MY.GOD. So, you do smile and laugh” you teased

It was the first time ever that Wilhemina expressed a kind of emotion other than anger, dissatisfaction or boredom. It was new, it was different and it was all because of you. Being around you she couldn’t suppress her emotion, but she was enjoying it more than she would ever admit. In fact, she liked herself better when she was with you. And she obviously couldn’t say ‘no’ to whatever you asked her for - no matter how ridiculous it was for her.

“Wow… Miss Venable smiled at me” you kept teasing “I’m flattered”

“I didn’t ask for your insight” she said not looking at you

"Don't worry. It hurts a little less each time" you smiled at how flustered she got

"Keep teasing and there will be no film night or whatever other shit you come up with" she said crossing her arms

"So you agree?" you beamed

"You wouldn't leave me alone if I said 'no'" she answered playing with her pen, trying her best to focus on it instead of you

"Thank you!" you moved quickly and before Wilhemina had a chance to comprehend what was actually going on, you kissed her on her cheek. Her eyes widened. That unexpected move made her feel a thousand of butterflies in her stomach and much to her dismay she didn't know how to get rid of that weird feeling.

"I swear to God, Y/N, I'll strangle you"

"Is that a promise?" you bit your lip

It took everything in Wilhemina to remain unimpressed and didn't let her feelings show.

"You're walking on thin ice, Miss Y/N" her voice was calm and the usual grave expression was back, but you could notice how the corner of her mouth twitched a little as she spoke

"I'm aware of it. That's professional risk, Miss Venable" you said with pretended dignity at which Wilhemina rolled her eyes

"Don't you have somewhere else to go?"

"Perhaps, I do"

"Then perhaps you should go"

"Perhaps I should" you said, but kept standing there and looking at her

"Out! Now! Before I lose my patience and decide to throw one of the books at you"

"Umm..." You tilted your head to one side "You wouldn't do that. You like those books too much"

You were right - she wouldn't do that, but not because of her love to the literature. She wouldn't do that, because she liked you. She liked you more than her books, in fact, and hurting you was the last thing on her mind.

"Okay, I'm leaving" you said finally

"Good" she nodded

"Oooh, one more thing" you stopped at the door and turned round to look at her one more time

"Yes?"

"You have a beautiful smile, Willy" you said and left not waiting for her response

As you closed the door Wilhemina sighed. She stopped holding herself back. She touched her cheek and a wide smile appeared on her face at the thought of your kiss.

"You'll be the death of me, Y/N" she said to herself

Wilhemina was used to being on her own. She devoted herself to her career and didn’t feel like anything in her life was wrong or missing. In fact she was convinced that everything was in place. She never wanted to need someone ever again, but that changed when she met you. Wilhemina knew it. She could feel it, though she still couldn’t accept it.

You were everything she had been avoiding. You were loud, you were talking almost constantly, you couldn’t sit still even for a minute, you were annoying, stubborn, arrogant, sarcastic and funny and charming… She tried to hate you, but it wasn’t possible. You had awaken something inside her. Something that caused her walls to tumble down. You were the only one, who had such effect on her and she truly wanted you in all possible ways. Yet at the same time Wilhemina was scared. She had had her heart broken before, because she had let herself be led astray. She was afraid of getting burnt again.

Besides that she believed that being with you wasn’t possible. Why would you even like her? She was a horrible person. She could be really mean at times and was capable of truly anything. Ever since she had got her heart broken she treated people more like punching bags. She could cut them into pieces with her words alone and that was exactly why she was on her own.

Wilhemina never truly gave a damn about her bad reputation. She didn’t care what people thought or said about her. But since you appeared in her life she was, in fact, constantly worrying about what you may think when and if you found out about certain things she had done. She often wondered how she had became so obnoxious. Or what was it with you that made her act different. She didn’t mean to care so much. She didn’t mean to be lenient with you. She didn’t mean to enjoy your company. And she definitely didn’t mean to fall for you. But she couldn’t help it and so she hated herself for loving you.

A film night at the university was one of your many ideas that Wilhemina agreed to. She didn’t like it, but for the sake of you, she couldn’t say ‘no’. Though she made it clear, that it was just a one-off deal and you wouldn’t be allowed to do something like that ever again. Her statement didn’t really bother you. Wilhemina always said things like that, but then changed her mind because of you. You knew she had a soft spot for you and you often wondered how it would be to be with her. Yet you didn’t dare to do anything, afraid of scaring her off or losing her trust.

Wilhemina, of course, couldn’t and didn’t want to show how much she enjoyed seeing you so excited or listening to you talking about that one particular film you chose, so she made much of an effort to hide it and kept complaining. Though you were way too happy to care about it. You completely focused on organizing everything, so that everyone, including you and Wilhemina could enjoy it. You put a lot of effort into that, that’s why you were a bit upset when Wilhemina said nothing and kept ignoring you for almost whole evening. She seemed pretty wired, so you didn’t push. You tried your best to give her space, though you failed miserable as the movie that you had chosen ended and another one, picked by one of your friend, turned out to be a horror.

You hated horror movies and you never watched them on your own. But there you were forced to watch. It wasn’t even the middle of the film and you already couldn’t take it. Wilhemina, on the other hand, seemed completely unmoved. She just sat there and kept watching without any particular expression on her face. Though she did show some emotion, as unexpectedly, you hid your face in her arm - gripping her hand and clinging to her like a child. You were close. Very close. And Wilhemina wasn’t ready for it. She didn’t like when people were that close to her. She knew you didn’t do it on purpose, but couldn’t help and got tensed or maybe even a bit mad.

“Y/N, could you move out of my space?”

“I… Sorry” you moved immediately

You internally cursed yourself for acting like that, especially around Venable. You didn’t want to make her feel bad, but you knew you did. You tried to focus on the movie or rather on not freaking out because of it. Though it turned out to be too much for you. You couldn’t keep watching it and you definitely couldn’t hide in Wilhemina’s arms, so you decided it’d be better for you to leave.

Wilhemina watched as you grabbed your things and left without any explanation. At first she was sure you went to the toilet or somewhere, but more and more time passed and you didn’t come back. She began to worry and felt a bit guilty. Without thinking much she stood up and went after you. She slowly wandered through the corridors, wondering what she should do when she finds you. Was it her fault that you left? Should she have not acted the way she did? And why did she even do that? She was longing for your touch. She wanted you close, but then she pushed you away. Wilhemina carried on scolding herself for her behaviour until she found you in the library. You were sitting on the desk and looking out of the window.

“Y/N?” she called your name closing the door

You jumped at the sudden sound.

“Oh my God” you placed your hand on your heart

“I didn’t mean to scare” she said worriedly

“It’s fine”

“Are you alright?” Wilhemina asked approaching you

“Yeah… I just don’t like horror movies” you shrugged

Venable nodded stopping right next to you. There was a moment of silence, that Wilhemina needed to think through her next move.

“So…” she started

“So” you repeated, remembering that your very first conversation was almost the same. The only difference was that then you were the one who were nervous back then.

“Would you mind if I stay here with you?”

“No, Miss Venable”

“Okay”

You could say something was bothering her, but you knew Wilhemina wasn’t the one to talk about her feelings, so you let it be. You said nothing, just kept looking at her trying to figure out what was going on inside her head.

Wilhemina stared at an old bookcase in front of her. She was lost in her thoughts - recalling her past, wondering how she always ended up making bad decisions, making the people, who cared about her sad or how they always left her. She knew that she was mostly bad and kept pretending, because she didn’t want people to know her. Yet, somehow, you managed to break through her defense and you made her someone new. You took her self control and made her forget to play her role. She loved that feeling, but still she was worried, afraid of making yet another bad decision.

Venable could feel your eyes on her. You were staring all the time, so she turned to face you.

“What?” she asked coldly

“Nothing” you smiled to yourself and averted your eyes

“It’s not nothing. Tell me”

“I… You are just… so perfect”

Wilhemina looked at you. There was some kind of fear mixed with shock in her eyes.

“Trust me Y/N, I am not”

“Why would you say such stupid thing about yourself?”

“Just look at me...”

“I’m looking at you”

“And what do you see? For people I’m just a horrible, heartless woman… And my disability…”

“For God’s sake, if someone is truly disabled in our university, it’s professor Smith, who suffers from the lack of working brain cells. You’re fine Willy. You’re so very fine that it hurts when you say such things about yourself”

“You’re too precious to know what I’ve done in my lifetime… and, selfishly, I’ve grown to enjoy your company so much that it would tear me apart if I lose you over my past”

“Stop it. You are amazing. You are the most powerful, clever and beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You’re the best thing I’ve seen in quite some time, Willy…” you said biting your lip

“I swear to God, if you call me that one more time…”

“Then what, Willy?” you asked arching your eyebrow playfully

“Then I can’t be held responsible for my actions” she said and kissed you

You smiled against her lips. She was about pulling back, but you held her in place to kiss her back. And for a moment she forgot to worry.

Tag list: @midnight-lestrange, @natasha-danvers, @stopkillinglilyrabe

#wilhemina venable #wilhemina venable x reader #AHS #ahs imagine #ahs apocalypse #sarah paulson imagine

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heroinepose · 5 years ago

Text

two a.m.

Shinsou Hitoshi x Reader Word Count: 2,316 (Yes, I lost control of this.) Warnings: None. We’re in fluff land again, friends. Someday the porn fairy will visit, but today is not that day.

Finals are stressful, even in your second year, and sleep doesn’t come easy with such a tall order ahead of you. It’s a damn good thing the company is so good.

This was written as an entry to @heroheads’ 500 follower contest! Congratulations on hitting a milestone -- your work is amazing and you deserve it!

The looming final exams are becoming a menace in more ways than one. Almost all of your spare time has been dedicated to studying, training or sleep in the last three weeks. The challenges your teachers will issue in realtime are less worrisome to you as a second-year than the ones that come on paper, now that you think you know what they’ll be like. They’ll focus more on problem-solving and working on the fly; beyond making sure you’re as physically prepared as possible, you know your time is better spent studying for the written exams and making sure you’re rested.

… which makes it all the more infuriating that you can’t sleep.

The last couple of nights in particular have been rough, but at least last night you’d managed to get a few hours of good rest. Tonight it’s been a fruitless endeavor, and the weariness settles down to your very bones as you shut the door of your dormitory behind you as quietly as possible, stepping out into the faintly humid night air with a mug of tea clutched securely in your hand. Sitting on one of the steps leading up to the entryway, you heave an exhausted sigh as you settle down, lifting your mug to your lips and inhaling the sweet, herbaceous scent of chamomile and honey.

Heights Alliance is peaceful at night. It is the one blessing attached to being up so far into the wee hours: the solitude is truly tranquil out here on the front steps, with little but the humming of the streetlights and the rhythmless chirping of crickets to distract you. With the light pollution from campus and the surrounding area, you can’t see the stars as well, but the moon hangs full and only a little hazy above the treeline, dampening the orange glow from the always-on walkway lighting. Sipping carefully at the hot liquid in your mug, you tip your head back and close your eyes, pulling slow even breaths through your nose to try to lull yourself into some kind of meditative state. If you could just relax, force your body to slow down …

You’re not certain how long you’ve been sitting like that when you hear the telltale crunch-and-slide of someone’s footfalls up the walking path to the building, eyes snapping open to see who else could possibly be up at this hour. It takes a moment for you to refocus, tired eyes struggling to make out the figure from this distance in the dark. It isn’t until he passes directly under one of the lights lining the pathway inside the gate that you can clearly make it out as your classmate, Shinsou Hitoshi, very clearly out past curfew. His hands are jammed in his pockets, eyes low but ahead of him, lost in thought. You’ve watched him for so long -- since that first Sports Festival, naturally, but particularly after he joined the Hero Course -- that it’s a posture you recognize almost as much as you recognize your own tells, and while you’re no stranger to his dark circles, you would never have called seeing him here, now.

It makes your heart swell to aching to cross paths with him alone in daylight, but the lack of sleep and the stillness of the night makes it worse. You’d tried, you really had, to simply be content with a collegial relationship with the boy who didn’t join the program to make friends, but somehow that had twisted itself into the kind of friendship he had been avoiding so adamantly. … and then, on your part at least, it had gotten worse. He's clever, straightforward, and although he's certainly reserved, he’s been a remarkable support in the last year. In hindsight, it seems natural that it would have evolved on its own, out of control. You can’t help your feelings, but you do keep them buried, certain that he’s not at all interested in you.

Rather than call out to him, you choose to wait it out, sipping idly at your tea. He doesn’t appear to notice you as he draws closer to the front steps, hidden as you are near one of the columns. You’re not actually trying to scare him, but with his face tucked penseively into the top folds of his capture weapon, he won’t notice you at all if you don’t say something. Swallowing the tea in your mouth, you manage a smile as his foot hits the second step.

“Someone’s breaking curfew,” you singsong from your perch in the shadow of the dorm, watching his shoulders hitch slightly. His hands remain in his pockets as he turns, and you lift one hand from your mug to wave good-naturedly at him when he registers your presence and inclines his head to glower directly at you.

“Someone should speak for themselves,” Shinsou mocks, although there’s no venom in it. “Should you be out here?”

“Ah, but I’m still on the front steps! I’m not out anywhere,” you reason, pointing at the remaining stairs that lead to the footpath he’s just taken through the courtyard. “Can’t get in trouble for breaking curfew if I never left, can I?”

You hear him chuckle before he changes direction, walking across the steps to sit next to you and finally removing his hands from his pockets. “I think your Hero Law scores have gone to your head. You’re drunk with power.” The backhanded praise and the grin that lingers on his face makes the heat creep into yours, and you take a long sip of hot tea to cover it.

“If only!” It’s a wistful sigh, head tipping back dramatically as you roll your eyes. “Unfortunately, I’m mostly drunk on lack of sleep.”

“Which is why you’re sitting on the steps at two in the morning,” Shinsou guesses, and you confirm the assumption with a slight shrug, turning your mug around in your hands.

“I’ve tried everything else, so I thought fresh air might help.” You nudge him with your shoulder, jostling him only slightly in his seat next to you. “Now, why are you sitting on the steps at two in the morning?”

He leans in conspiratorially, and you find yourself leaning too, before you can stop yourself. “Because some creepy woman lurking in the shadows startled me.” Your face falls.

“Shinsou,” you scold, and he cracks a smile, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Seriously, you were already gone when I got out here and you’re only just getting back. Where did you go?” A thought occurs to you, a mild tightness in your chest, and you risk asking the question in the form of a joke. “Did you get a secret girlfriend when none of us were looking?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmurs, averting his gaze and dropping his hand so both of his elbows rest on his knees. There are a few beats of silence between you.

“... secret boyfriend?”

He moves, as if to stand, with a great sigh. “Okay, I’m going inside --”

“I’m joking!” You’re whisper-shouting, to avoid calling attention to either of you, tugging on his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Shinsou, please. I know, it’s none of my business. I’m sorry I asked.”

The movement stops, and he settles on the step next to you, reaching over to take your mug right out of your hand. You’re so startled that you don’t stop him, watching him lift it slightly. “If that’s what you think, maybe you’re drunk on whatever is in here, not power. When would I have even had the time?” He reaches behind the both of you to set it down as your fingers slip from his sleeve, the dull clink of ceramic against concrete surprisingly loud in the quiet of the night.

“It’s just tea,” you grouse, but you make no move to reclaim it. The brush of his arm against you is comfort enough to replace its warmth -- that and the relief that he isn’t off seeing someone, not that you have any right to feel that way. “Anyway, I’m entitled to be a little worried when my friends wander home so late.”

“Your friends come home after midnight that often?” Shinsou’s tone is light; he knows he’s caught you out. He’ll make you say it, though, because that’s always his game.

“No,” you sigh. “You’re the first. Still ...”

There’s another lull where he says nothing, considering you as you look out into the empty courtyard. Your brows are furrowed, like you’re thinking much too hard about something. Maybe it’s the late -- early? -- hour, but he seems emboldened slightly by your aversion to looking at him.

“Still …?” He presses. “Why would you worry about me?”

Your breath hitches a little when you draw a breath to respond, cutting your eyes over to him briefly as you choose your words. His dark circles are more pronounced here in the shadows, and maybe it’s the way the fiber of his capture weapon looks like spun silver at night, but it brings up a flood of concern you haven’t voiced since he was accepted to the hero program at the start of the year.

“You worked so hard to get here,” you say, words slow and deliberate. You’re concentrating so hard on being careful that you fail to notice how he stops breathing. “I think you might have worked harder than anyone else I know. Saying it out loud sounds stupid, I guess, but I worry about how you handle it all.” One breath and you’re rambling, mind racing with the effort to dance around what you want to say: that you care for him, that you’re always cheering him on, but how much he worries you. “You deserve to be here, Shinsou. You deserve to become a hero, and you’re -- you’re my friend, and sometimes I worry that if you’re not taking care of yourself --”

It happens so quickly you’re not quite sure how he’s done it, but you’re silenced by the assertive tug of fingers beneath your chin, pulling you to face him. Then all you can feel is his lips on yours, the scent of cedar and something faintly minty overwhelming you, and even the crickets seem to stop. All you can process is the fact that oh, he’s kissing you. Shinsou Hitoshi just kissed you.

You feel as if you might implode. It’s soft, and warm, but unpracticed -- somehow, though, it’s everything you’d imagined it would be, the gentle pressure of his mouth on yours. You didn’t think he’d be the type to really go for it on the first try like others you’ve kissed who were all teeth and tongue right out of the gate, and a private part of you is gratified to be right, a shiver working its way down your spine as he adjusts his fingers against your jaw.

He pulls away carefully, but the warmth in your chest spurs you on, looping your fingers in the capture weapon draped around his neck to pull him in again, lean in further. You feel him sigh against you, a soft exhale through his nose, and can’t help the twitch of your lips into a smile against his. You hold him there a few long seconds more before you pull away, realizing how warm your face is now that he’s not so close.

“Finally,” Shinsou breathes, his voice close to a whisper. “Took you long enough.” Your jaw drops immediately, hand still curled in the fabric draped along his shoulders.

“Me?” You say, loud enough to actually get him to shush you quietly, reaching up to grab your hand where it rests against his capture weapon in an attempt to distract you, calm you down. It works, if only because the feel of his fingers wrapped around yours sends something akin to electricity rocketing up your arm. You take a breath, release it in a huff, before lowering your voice. “What about you, Mr. I’m Not Here to Make Friends, and Therefore Not Date People?”

The man in question quirks a brow, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I don’t believe I ever said that last part.”

“Does one not kind of preclude the other?”

“I suppose that depends on your point of view,” he laughs, “but we can argue semantics in a few hours if you’re really that hung up on it.”

“Shinsou!” It’s more of a hiss than anything, trying to regulate your volume as he lets go of your hand, reaching behind you for your long-forgotten mug and standing up at last. You’re pouting up at him when he offers you the other, his grin only a little smug as you take it and allow him to pull you up. He uses the momentum to pull you into just one more kiss, little more than a brief peck against your lips, a way to silence your argument for now. You let him, breathing deeply as he pulls away.

“It’s late. Just sleep on it,” he offers, “and if you still feel that strongly about it in the morning, let me walk you to class so you can yell at me some more.”

That sly bastard. You smile in spite of yourself, watching him as he pulls you up the stairs, closer to the door. Once inside, he keeps hold of your hand as you deposit your mug in the sink -- you can deal with the whining about leaving things there in the morning -- parting ways with you only when you need to split up and head to your respective sides of the building, barely-there whispers of goodnight and seriously, go to bed the last of your affectionate gestures for the moment. The full weight of what’s occurred on the front steps hits you as the elevator doors close, leaning against the interior wall and looking at yourself in the reflection of the metal.The smile stuck on your face widens a little, giddy with the knowledge that he likes you back.

Suddenly, a peaceful few hours’ sleep doesn’t seem so difficult.

#shinsou hitoshi #shinsou hitoshi x reader #shinsou x reader #heroheads 500 follower writing contest #bnha x reader #bnha imagine #i still don't know what tags to use aaaaah #anyway i'm glad i could write this!!!#even if i lost all control over it at some point

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nightcoremoon · 4 years ago

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weird opinion but christians aren't religious.

ok so like, jews generally follow god's rules, muslims follow allah's rules, hindus probably follow their gods rules, so on and so forth. and overall they do it out of faith; they do it because they want to honor the deity who loves them rather than because society forces them to.

granted the zionists and the radical extremists and the zealots do exist but as loud minorities and thus are statistical outliers & don't matter.

christians are... a different breed.

"if you aren't x branch and dont obey y rules you'll go to hell so we'll fucking murder you" is pretty much the main driving force behind a significant portion of christianity in history. the catholics, the protestants, the orthodoxy, all are built on a foundation of fear, anger, and hatred. it's shaped the way society developed; in the 4 nations that did the most genocidal imperialist colonialism- England, France, Spain, and Italy- a combination of convenient coastal locations, naval prowess, military tendency, christianity, and ultranationalism lead them down a path of missionaries, holding bibles in one hand and bloodstained knives in the other. the religion is inseparable from the culture and inseparable from the horrible things done in the name of their god, and the resulting cancers of society we feel today from the campaigns of slaughter. xenophobia. capitalism. savage barbarism via sensationalized capitol punishment. misogyny. queerphobia. gender fascism. classism. racism. all of these issues in the "civilized world" stem predominantly from those four nations and the disease ridden pestilent filth some call pilgrims.

here's something interesting:

there are less than 1 million rastafari in the world.

there are less than 5 million shinto in the world.

there are less than 25 million jews in the world.

there are less than 30 million sikhs in the world.

there are roughly 100 million african cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are less than 400 million chinese cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are about 500 million buddhists in the world.

there are about 1.1 billion hindus in the world.

there are about 1.2 billion nonreligious people in the world.

there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world.

and one final statistic

there are over 2.1 billion christians in the world.

the jewish count is a highball, rounded up, and includes several different definitions of jewish including people who are only one quarter. so for every single person who is even remotely jewish, there are more than 8 christians. for every hindu, there are 4 christians. for every atheist, agnostic, or "other", 2 christians. this frightening statistic should set off warning bells for everyone who is involved in a discussion about religion. and anyone who knows BASIC world history and can correlate data at all can probably piece together what I'm putting down.

now, I may be slightly biased here considering my eclectic religious beliefs. now, I personally believe that there is some primary force of energy that may or may not manifest itself as a humanoid being, that engineered the most basic laws of physics in the universe: atomic magnetism. as can be inferred by planck's constant and its implications, our universe is digital, written in binary. an electron either moves or doesn't move. there are no other options. so I genuinely believe in some form of intelligent design; whether it's a bearded guy on a cloud, some dude with six arms and an elephant for a face, just a big swirling pool of ectoplasm, or a big ol' plate of spaghetti and meatballs, something is out there that we are physically incapable of contacting from our plane of existence, just as a drawing on a piece of paper cannot reach out to interact with the world: a gif will move on its own but it will never acknowledge our existence, even if it could think by itself. and all the different mythologies of the world- egyptian, greek, norse, shinto, whatever- very well could be the agents of that unknown "god". perhaps anubis, ra, and bastet are just angels with animal heads that all of the peoples of ancient egypt saw and were like oh I guess this must be a god. maybe zeus and loki were the same person with a magic dick who fucked a bunch of animals in both greece and the scandinavian countries and spawned all of the horrible half-animal monstrosities that, idk, made vishnu think "well I have to kill that" and caused the biblical flood or something. maybe the jewish god gifted wisdom to siddhartha for sitting under a fig tree for 6 years through the angel pomona [roman goddess of fruit, had to google that one], so buddha gets his wisdom from demeter and is in nirvana right now right a step up from hades on yggdrasil the world tree keeping an eye on his charge persephone. any theory could theoretically be true but we ants of humans will never fucking know because we can't just point a telescope at the magellanic clouds and say "look, there's amaterasu with russell's teapot, and she's having tea with... *rubs eyes* lemmy kilmister??? wow I guess gods are real after all!" it's impossible to know the secrets of our universe because of the very restrictive nature of the universe itself. is it a circle? is it a donut? WE DONT FUCKIN KNOW.

we cannot know what religion is truthful.

""anyone who says that any one religion is more or less true than any other is a fucking moron, and if they're suggesting that White Western European Colonial Imperialist Protestantism is the one true faith, they're probably a fucking racist colonizer who beats his wife/sister and burns gays at the stake. and considering how that exact demographic is typically the one that murdered people for not converting to their religion, I don't think they have the intellectual non-deranged ability to make those logical connections.

again, I'm not saying that there AREN'T a lot of people of every religion who are evil assholes who contributed to mass genocide. israelites killed palestinians. shiites killed sunnis. hutus killed tutsis. danes killed geats. turks killed armenians. the ottoman empire has as much blood on its hands as the holy roman empire. germans who called themselves aryans but weren't actually aryan killed jews. but all of these tragedies were isolated incidents rather than repeated patterns over the course of two thousand years. not like christianity was and is.

just look at the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, & India's British Raj. Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, by extension Protestantism and Catholicism, are the shared factor between the long and bloody history fraught with massacring indigenous populations who wouldn't convert religions. native americans, indigenous canadians, latin americans but predominantly mexicans, the eastern chinese, coastal africans, aborigine aussies, indians- coastal coastal coastal. true the western chinese and the mongols/hunnu and xinjiang muslims haven't exactly been on civil terms and the silk road has always been a battleground and the middle east was already tenuous before murrica bombed them for oil but those happened in such a spread out area among asia which is FUCKING HUGE, MIND YOU! but also that's three high traffic places with massive diversity, it's human nature to have conflict, but not nearly to the same level as all of the shit christianity has done to the world. it's impossible to separate the religion from the cultures; victorian england without protestantism is just dirty people who die at 15 from having their 3rd child. italy without the catholicism is just grass and cheese. france and spain without religion are just kingdoms that fought wars with england for forever and now just make food that's one part delicious and three parts horrifying. religion is directly responsible for a significant portion of the evils those countries committed. one religion in particular.

they don't practice religion the same way as the rest do. they aren't faithful to their god. they don't follow his rules out of love but out of fear. they execute dissenters without a second thought, heresy they cry. they execute women and little girls for being free thinking or having sickness associated with mercury poisoning in the water, witch they cry. they slaughter men women and kids alike in the name of cramming their beliefs down the natives throats, we're chasing out the snakes they cry, we're bringing god to your godless people they cry, we're just civilizing you they cry. they shit in the streets and proudly display rotting corpses and leave the impoverished disabled and starving to die alone and whip their slaves and rape teenage girls and scrap in the streets while sopping wet with spilled ale over insignificant insults and stab people to death in the night and never even fucking BATHE, and they have the nerve to say the natives were uncivilized. the nerve. because hey. they read a magic book they stole from a culture who stole from another culture who stole from another culture, mistranslating each time from hebrew to greek to italian to english, and they think they're better because their skin is white.

christians never evolved. their mentalities have stayed the same. all thatms advanced has been technology. that's it. they're still the same evil disgusting degenerate bastards they always were. they just have the money they stole to buy stained glass windows, rosary beads, giant tacky metal statues, bigass robes, leather, and printing presses. and as time passed they used the money they continued to steal to buy cars and websites and radio stations and commit felony tax evasion and secretly molest children and line the pockets of the politicians.

all of their holidays are stolen from pagans anyway.

so fuck christmas. fuck easter. fuck lent. fuck the golden calf christian holidays that the tiny minded fragile snowflake conservatives lose their collective shit over because the pandemic response common sense stipulations won't let them buy the shit they can't afford with money they shouldn't have for people they don't even LIKE, all in the name of tradition, tradition! the rituals that worship something so much worse than satan or baphomet or pan or whatever: the dollar. they buy all the new shiny shit they can, at the expense of the chinese kids that the corporate pigs outsource to, buy the pine trees and the coca cola vunderbar and the fake mint corn syrup Js and watch the same shitty cookie cutter white supremacist hallmark fash movies and stuff their kids full of enough sugar to go into a goddamn coma when the african slaves who pick the cocoa beans will never get to know what actually being a kid will ever feel like because they're gonna die from falling into a combine harvester and be eternally forgotten to history and no christian will ever give a shit because they don't fucking care about what they don't see on their safe space news or hear on their safe space radio or read on their safe space social media. they think their worst sin is eating cheeseburgers so instead they'll go eat a mcchicken or chick fil a or an arby's chicken sandwich instead but not at popeyes because "that place is sketchy" and by that they mean they don't wanna eat where black people eat, that's why cracker barrel was so popular for so many white christians for so long because it had racially segregated seating until barely 20 years ago.

they don't love jesus. they love a paper doll they shove into their back pockets until every other sunday where they go to a fucking mall with a baptism waterslide and raise their hands like a bunch of dumbass weirdos and away to adult contemporary indie schlock with the word jesus pasted into a boring-ass hetero romance song, pat themselves on the back, then go to starbucks to scream slurs and misgenderings at 14 year old starbucks baristas who give them a cappamochalattechino instead of a fucking carmamochalattechino because you mumbled under the mask you didn't even fucking cover your nose with because you don't give a shit about the virus beyond how it inconveniences you.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. until you suggest the slightest infinitely small inconvenience to them that would alter their holiday plans even the littlest smidge. then they would kill you if not for the police. don't get me started on them because you know by now what I'd say about those fuckers. but they'll gladly wear shirts about how they'll kill you. how they'll go back 200 years. how they'll murder you and watch you slowly suffer because their primate brains shoot a million endorphins when they watch things die by their hands because they never evolved a sense of empathy, compassion, or morality beyond how wearing a cross necklace will remove any of the consequences they will face in their afterlife.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. unless you're gay or black or trans or Not Christian™ or mexican or disagree with them about politics economics sociology science technology music or movies. assimilate or die. assimilate or die. assimilate or die.

they don't deserve special treatment for their false idols.

they aren't better than jews or muslims.

they're worse.

so much worse.

and they should be stopped.""

-Nightingale Quietioca

save as draft arch draft bookmark draft where did I put my keys contra code kontra kode I need to remember this and copy it buzzwords keywords find it later please god tumblr don't bork on me this is good stream of consciousness repackage repackage change the words this is a great character study if I do say so myself thanks 3am me you're welcome 3am me

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monysmediareview · 4 years ago

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Juliet, a novel by Ann Fortier Review

This time I have a review for a one-off book rather than a series for you guys and it may have actually reached the top of my list for favorite books ever. Juliet, a novel by Anne Fortier was so incredibly good I worry I’ll never be able to fully describe the way it made me feel reading it. I read this book incredibly slow because the idea of finishing it made me so upset; I didn’t want it to end but also found myself thinking about it constantly.

The Shakespeare of it All

When I found this book at goodwill, I figured I’d grab it just to see what it was. Having a degree in theatre and having studied Shakespeare in Europe, I even work for a Shakespeare specific theatre; I figured it would at the very least be interesting. And I was right, but for the wrong reasons. Shakespeare is barely mentioned as the book is actually about the true story of Romeo & Juliet.

If you don’t already know, Shakespeare stole the story of Romeo & Juliet from an Italian poet who wrote the story in the early to mid 1500’s. That story may have also been stolen from another author from France, and maybe even someone else before that. Thanks to the lack of records or copyright laws, there’s not really a way to be sure but we do know that Shakespeare was not the first, only the most famous. And to be fair, his story is much more intense since it takes place over the course of less than a week while the original plot takes months. There are a few other differences between the two but the gist of it is, two star crossed lovers separated by family feuds and ending in tragedy. And this book takes us through all of that drama and gives us a beautiful and dramatic ending to it all.

The Real Story

Some of the things I loved about this book were actually the historical events and characters. The three families in the story, the Tolomeis, the Salimbenis, and the Marescottis were apparently all real families that had feuds and stories fairly similar to what happened in this book. Fortier wrote in her authors note that she did take some liberties with the history for the sake of the story but that she tried to be faithful to them. I do highly suggest reading her author’s note if you get the book because for me, it made it that much more special.

I think that her ability to blend the past and present was well executed and emotional in ways I wasn’t expecting. I really felt the connection between the Romeo and Giulietta of 1340 and the Romeo and Guiletta of the early 2000’s. Her ability to connect these people not only by blood but by fate and destiny and emotion and passion is unmatched and she managed to do it in roughly 500 pages.

Divine Intervention

I am normally not a fan of books with religious undertones, especially without some kind of supernatural explanation to it but in Juliet it really didn’t strike me as prevalent even though it was. The Virgin Mother and the “curse on both your houses” are two huge driving forces behind this story. Both felt like completely natural pieces of the puzzle rather than an overbearing push for Catholic guilt which could have easily been the case in a story set in Italy spanning 600 years with generational family drama. There was a real feeling of the Virgin Mother being the overseer of the fate of these people and bringing them together, to righting the wrongs done in the past. In a lot of other books this might have felt preach-y or overbearing but it actually made fate feel real.

Love Story

I’m a sucker for a good romance book; I will read love story after love story after love story, but even I can get tired of the same plot over and over again. Sometimes the misogyny gets tiring and I want these female led stories to be about more than finding a man to complete them and this book gave me exactly that.

The story starts and ends with Julie Jacobs’ family. She needs to learn about her family, about her history, where she’s really from. I got so sucked into her journey of self discovery that I kind of forgot it was a love story for a while. And that kind of messed me up when we got there because I had missed a lot of the chemistry build up that I had to think back about to even realize it was there. I was so focused on her learning about her father and visiting banks and libraries that I nearly missed her falling completely in love. But in the end it was one of the most passionate and tumultuous love stories, because when you’re Romeo & Juliet, how could you have anything else?

My Personal Opinion on R&J

Following that I want to talk quickly about Romeo & Juliet. If you’ve taken a Shakespeare class or even just a high school English class at some point you’ve probably talked about this. Sometimes it gets glossed over because it’s one of the well known stories and they don’t usually waste time on it but I’m going to.

Classes like this tend to brush these lovers off as horny teenagers who are in lust and get married so they can bone each other but I think that’s a sad approach. I’ll even admit that was my view on it for a while, but not now. It’s a love story. It’s the love story. So to read an in depth story like this that doesn’t diminish the real feelings they had for each other was very pleasing. I might write a whole thing about some of my Shakespeare opinions one day but for now I will leave you with this:

To thine own self be true. Shakespeare is theatre. It isn’t mean to be read, it’s meant to be staged. And the beauty of theatre is that every single production of every play is different (at least it’s supposed to be. Some directors have yet to learn this, but I digress). This means that everyone interprets things differently, so while I think Romeo & Juliet are the ultimate lovers, you might think they were just horny teenagers. And that’s okay.

Generational Drama

Generational stories like this hold a special place in my heart. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the idea of fate and family and stories that span hundreds of years just really get me. I won’t go on about this too much because I’ve already mentioned it a few times but I love the redemption that Romeo and Guilietta get through their ancestors, even if it was 600 years later. I love that their love lasted generations and the thought of how the spirits of the original couple feel looking at themselves, their ancestors, finally bringing their families together chokes me up a little if I’m being honest.

Alessandro

I was really not counting on Alessandro being such an important piece of this story, but his evolution as a character was a fucking ride. Going from a security guard/driver, to basically an undercover cop, to potential lover, to fake identity, to actual lover, to liar and cheat, to being framed and actually being a lover and savior was intense. Ideal. I loved and hated him through the whole thing but I was very happy with where he ended up.

Symbolism

There is so much symbolism in this book. The gems being the color of their eyes, the golden statues, the paintings, the maestros. All of it. It can be found on almost every page. But there were a few that really stood out to me.

The cencio and dagger constantly popping up as important of the story for Giulietta was not lost on me. I’m still tossing around what I think it really means, actually, but where I stand now is the idea of an official marriage and what makes it official in the eyes of the Virgin Mother. Romeo and Giulietta weren’t considered actually married because they never consummated and it didn’t happen on the cencio if it had. So for it to have been hidden in Julie’s bed after that weird secret ceremony with Alessandro, was interesting because they also weren’t really married. Not the way we think of now. It just shows that marriage isn’t defined by sex (which I think futher proves my point that this was never just about horny teenagers. As well as the entirety of this book), or by words. Marriage is defined by love and commitment.

And then there’s the River Diana. Another thing I haven’t quite landed on a full meaning for, but I know what it made me feel. It’s hard to put into words, but the first word that came to mind was literally symbolism. This story, this curse, killed Diana, Julie’s mother. And now Julie made it to the statue, and she found her Romeo and in the moment that she almost dies it’s by drowning in the River Diana. This whole time she was drowning in what her mother started for her and it’s Alessandro that pulls her out and saves her from it. Being with him is what keeps her alive, from being swept away by this curse the way her mother was. So maybe it’s symbolic of the end. Of not falling into the same pattern or being swept into the same current.

Plot Twists

This story never went where I thought it was going to go. I don’t actually want to talk about the plot twists too much because I want people reading this to be as surprised as I was. Not like I didn’t spoil things before but there are still quite a few things I didn’t mention that really fucked me up if I’m being honest.

If you’re a fan of plot twists, please read this book.

Ye Olde Slow as Hell Language

I don’t want to scare anyone off here - most of the book is in modern language and even the parts that take us back to 1300 aren’t that bad. But they are far more detailed and can sometimes just feel really slow. But all of the information is really important so I wouldn’t skip it. But the language and the flow of the story really slows things down in these parts and it’s what made me take so long to finish this book. Well that and the fact that I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I finished it too soon.

However, I will give the author credit for having parallel story lines set so far apart. She really pulled it off and made the entire thing just so magical. By the time they died, I didn’t want to leave that world. I wanted to stay and watch them be happy but then I got to go back to Julie and watch her get her happily ever after

Janet’s Character Development

Right off the bat we’re supposed to hate Janet. And we do. She’s awful and when she shows back up we kind of hate her even more because of what she’s been doing. I didn’t feel sorry for her in the slightest. Up until the last few chapters of the book, these twin sisters felt very estranged so to go from that to them being a fantastic duo that you root for was a twist I wasn’t ready for but whole heartedly welcomed. It was a nice change of pace to see a female character arc into a better person instead of someone who got increasingly bitter. Still not a huge fan of the character but she ended up being kind of important and at least it passed the Betchdel test, right?

In Conclusion

I think this might be my favorite book now. High recommend.

#monyreview #media review #book revie #romeo and juliet #r+j #juliet #ann fortier #books #book tumblr #best seller #romance #historical fiction #modern au

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cheryls-blossomed · 4 years ago

Note

This won't be received well but there were entirely too many statistical inconsistencies and anomalies to dismiss investigation. I'm not saying there was fraud or that Trump won, but when PA had an over 2000% increase in mail-in ballots from previous elections compared to 200-500% increases in other states things start looking weird. In some counties over 100% of the voting pop voted. Many dead ppl voted. There's more, but basically the investigation is needed to see where things went wrong.

Oh my god. Oh my god, I.... Why do you think Pennsylvania had such a high increase in mail-in ballots? We’re in the middle of a raging pandemic, that’s why. Like it’s not fishy at all that there’s such a huge increase in mail-in voting, when we’re in the middle of a goddamn pandemic, with cases rising at an exponential level. We knew there were going to be so many more mail-in ballots, because Democratic voters, in particular, were encouraged to vote mail-in, because it’s safer, in states which allowed for it.

Also, we really need to dispel this notion that mail-in ballots are somehow more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting, which again is a falsehood engineered by Trump and his hacks, when mail-in ballots are extremely secure and also leave a clear paper trail, which is very important when it comes to being cautious about counting votes (also, for example, makes the recount in Georgia easier). PA having a high volume of mail-in ballots during a pandemic is not fishy, when mail-in ballots are incredibly secure (implicit in your statement is the notion that mail-in ballots are somehow more susceptible to fraud, when they’re not).

Dead people did not vote. A Pennsylvania court already threw out claims of “dead people voting.”

Trump can’t even put together a legitimate legal team, so he has real estate and construction lawyers litigating cases for him in election law. And this is because lawyers can be sanctioned for bringing frivolous claims. In Arizona today, the campaign lawyers basically admitted they didn’t find any real evidence, after producing a whole bunch of dodgy affidavits that the judge refused to allow into evidence.

Yesterday, in a Pennsylvania court, Trump’s lawyers admitted that they weren’t alleging fraud. What were they alleging? Who the hell knows. Trump’s own legal team literally filed an appeal in Nevada, contesting observation of ballot counting, before withdrawing that appeal themselves.

You can’t allege fraud, without first producing evidence. Dodgy conspiracy videos on youtube are not evidence. Rudolph going on Fox News and whatever new right-wing media is the norm and alleging he has 234 affidavits of fraud in Wayne County, Michigan (Have you read them? I have. Most of it is hearsay (”I believe I saw somebody spray a chemical on a machine and then put a ballot several times in the machine”), and a lot of the claims are truly absurd and racist, i.e., claim somebody wearing a BLM shirt in the polling center is somehow fraud) is not legitimate evidence of fraud. The Republican Attorney General of Arizona has said Biden is going to win Arizona, and the election was smooth-running and fair.

Oh, and who can forget the GOP blatantly making up false allegations of fraud about people voting in Nevada when they didn’t live there, when it turned out these ballots were literally military ballots, from Nevada residents at a different base in the US or serving overseas.

But what all of this does is delegitimize democracy, and enough people are buying into this ugly, utterly fallacious, and blatantly dangerous narrative. It’s delegitimizing democracy and the democratic process and the right to vote and feeding into GOP narratives of voter suppression under the guise of “irregularities” and “fraud.” American democracy, in and of itself, has always been a problematic concept, the electoral college having been conceived to benefit white slaveowners, and the GOP has for years capitalized on the advantages the EC gives them, by engaging in voter suppression tactics against people of color, especially Black people, Indigenous people, and Latinx people, and now, in GOP fashion, they are delegitimizing the will of the people, because their wannabe dictator didn’t win.

I have followed all of Trump’s bogus lawsuits closely, and his team of lawyers haven’t alleged even legitimate irregularities, let alone fraud. And now the CISA, a government agency in the DHS, has said that this was the most secure election in American history. And the head of that department, a Trump appointee, might I add, is probably going to be fired for telling the truth.

Biden won this election; there is absolutely no question about his mandate. Trump and his hacks know this, but they refuse to accept it.

Pennsylvania is being targeted unfairly, because Trump is mad at the margin at which Biden is going to win the state, and so he’s literally trying to get people’s votes thrown out, or even the whole state’s EVs, so that he can try and peddle faithless electors via the GOP-controlled state legislature (ahem... is that not fishy to you...). The ACLU has intervened to protect people’s right to vote in Pennsylvania. What the Trump hacks are doing in Pennsylvania is dangerous, and it is wrong. The Philadelphia Commissioner, a Republican, is getting death threats from the MAGA crowd just for counting votes. As pointed out above in one of the cases I cited, they couldn’t even allege irregularities in front of the PA judge, let alone fraud.

Oh and while obviously Biden’s winning Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, by a massive margin, Trump actually got more votes in Philadelphia this year than he did in 2016 (so Clinton won Philadelphia by an even more massive margin than Biden is winning it in 2020). And yet that’s where Trump’s legal team is targeting most of the votes in PA. So... idk maybe that’s the real irregularity, who knows (lmao).

We’ve got a raging pandemic, with cases rising exponentially. The COVID crisis in the US is a humanitarian disaster, but Trump and the GOP would rather focus on delegitimizing the will of the people. While people are literally dying.

#anonymous #replies

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thorne93 · 5 years ago

Text

Inside the Criminal Mind (Part 29)

Prompt: You’re married to Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU, and are a distinguished doctor yourself on the team. You’re sent down to Miami, Florida for teaching and as a side request from the FBI, to investigate a string of missing persons. When you think you’ve figured out who the unsub is, your life becomes more complicated than you ever could’ve imagined.

Word Count: 3951

Warnings: (throughout the fic –>) death, blood, gore, killings, language, disturbing mental notions, mentions of rapes/murder/etc (You know, Dexter and Criminal Minds related business)

Notes: Thank you so much to @arrow-guy, @carryonmyswansong, and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo - without each of you, I couldn’t have finished, written, or properly navigated this story. Each of you helped me fish out details that were incredibly important to me. Beta’d by @carryonmyswansong and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo… Aesthetic by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo

This is a crossover of Criminal Minds x Dexter. First time writing Dexter.

Also, the timeline is after Season 1 of Dexter, but during season 14-ish of Criminal minds into Season 15. Enjoy!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So he’s tracking us,” Rossi concluded, sighing.

“That wouldn’t be too hard to do, but why’d he leave the victim’s body for us? That’s a first,” Batista noted.

“Probably didn’t take too kindly to the idea of Olson imitating him,” Debra remarked.

“You think it’s a message to all the possible copycats?” you inquired.

Batisa nodded. “Yeah, I hate to say it, but I think he kind of did us a favor. Take the law into your own hands and the Bay Harbor Boogeyman’s gonna get you.”

You bobbed your head.

“Well, this is the first time we’ve ever been where the unsub has actually been, so let’s get busy,” Rossi ordered.

From there, forensics swept over everything. Dexter was there, taking pictures. There was blood. Rossi had Spencer map out neighborhoods the unsub might live in, he had Luke get with Garcia to check on any connections Olson had.

Once the investigation was done, Spencer told Dexter that you two were coming over. It wasn’t a request, and Spencer barely kept his anger out of his tone. You were worried someone might’ve seen the tense interaction but both men were moving so quickly towards their cars you didn’t even have time to scold them.

Like always, you three got to Dexter’s apartment, and the instant the door shut, Spencer’s frustration was firing at all cylinders.

“I said we needed a plan, that didn’t mean you had to kill him,” Spencer said in Dexter’s face before pacing nervously.

“First of all, I was trying to break in so we could get legitimate evidence on him. Then I found out he’s murdered before. He saw my face, I had to kill him.”

“Or you could’ve still gotten the evidence on him and we could’ve turned him in for the murders! Framing a murderer for other murderers isn’t so bad. Why didn’t you at least tell us where you were? What you were doing? Maybe before you did it? We could’ve at least talked about it--”

"Why didn't you just tell YN about JJ? huh? Maybe it's because you do have feelings for her? While we’re on the topic of not talking to people about things that matter."

Surprised, you glanced at Dexter. You had no idea he’d bring that up ever, let alone right now.

“That has nothing to do with this right now. That’s between me and Y/N,” Spencer tried to coolly dismiss.

You were about to step in, but their conversation was flying so fast, you didn’t even know what to say. To be honest, you were angry with Dexter too.

"That's what it is, isn't it? You were worried if you told Y/N, she'd see through your bullshit and see that you actually do have something to hide about JJ."

"That's not.... That is none of your business," Spencer rebutted once more.

“It became my business when I had to talk your wife down. Last I checked, between the serial killer in the room and her husband, only one of us was there for her emotionally... and it wasn't you." His eyes were dark on your husband and the entire room’s tension made you incredibly uncomfortable.

“Dex, this is hardly the time or place,” you began. “We need to talk about the fact that you went and killed a suspect, instead of consulting us.”

“Consulting you? This isn’t a board meeting for a fortune 500, Y/N! This my life. This is me. This is who I am. These are people I need to protect.”

“So you just killed him? We could’ve framed him! We could’ve talked about it!” Spencer lashed out. “We have people we’re trying to protect too. This isn’t just you, you know.”

“I don’t need anyone’s fucking permission. I’ve been doing this for years, just fine until you came along,” he hissed, pointing at you. “I never should’ve let you in. trusting a fed. What the hell was I thinking?”

“You can’t honestly make this my fault? I’m not the one who killed most of those criminals out there. Your victims were exposed by some scuba divers, not by some slip up I had,” you countered.

“You’re right. It wasn’t your slip up. It was mine. It was mine when I agreed to teach you. I should’ve just trusted my instincts and told you that you were wrong.”

“You wanna turn this around on me? Fine. But we said we’d all be in this together. I told Spencer the truth. He’s being good enough to help us and not turn us in. And you’re repaying us by just going out and doing whatever you damn well please? Everything we discuss gets back to you. I keep you updated on every lead, every shred of evidence. I keep Garica off your tail and I cover your tracks. And you want to turn this around and say that it’s my fault your in deep shit? I’m not the one digging up tapes on my dead parents at work.”

You grabbed your jacket and purse and stormed out, having Spencer follow right behind you. He didn’t say anything, wise to the fact that he needed to let you cool down.

The two of you got back to the hotel and you were spent. This investigation, Dexter, Spencer… you were beyond tired and exhausted.

Spencer sighed as he started to get undressed.

“What’s wrong?” you asked quietly as you began to take your shoes off.

“Nothing, just tired. This is all… it’s a lot, that’s all,” he softly responded.

“I know, and I appreciate it,” you said.

"It's already a lot trying to cover your tracks on this case, but having to fight him every time I go in a room...." He let the tired idea trail off.

Under your breath, you muttered, "Well it's not like he starts it..."

Spencer stopped getting ready for bed as he looked at you. "Are you seriously taking his side?"

"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm just pointing out that you aren't making it easier. Any time you see him, you make it very clear you don't like him."

"Well I don't, Y/N."

"You act as if you blame him for the reason I started killing."

"Well he is, isn't he?" he questioned, as if it were the only possible answer.

"No, if it wasn't him, it would've been anyone else. Any other vigilante." You sighed.

"That's not how I see it," he confessed.

“I’m sorry if that’s not the way you see it, but it is. It could’ve been any one else,” you informed matter-of-factly.

“I just wish you had come to me first, tell me you were having these feelings, these thoughts. We could’ve gotten you help... “

“Spencer, I don’t want help. I want these people gone and off the streets. No red tape, no year long trials. I just want these scumbags gone, for good. I know you do too, and I know you don’t want me to be the one to do it because of the risk it poses, but it is what it is. I’ve done what I did. I can’t change that.”

“I know, but maybe I could’ve helped you, protected you.”

You took a deep breath. “I know that you think Dexter is a fuck up. I know all you see are about twenty bodies that he didn’t properly dispose of and now we could be caught, but I see a man who has killed way more than twenty people for nearly fifteen years. He’s been stealthy enough to break into homes, abduct people, make people disappear -- all without being caught or suspected of, even from inside a police station. He is good, he is savvy, and he is intelligent. I know you’ve been trained to see criminals as all they are - criminals. But it’s not all black and white, past what Dexter does, he’s a good person. He takes care of Rita and her kids. He worries about Deb. He worried about you when you were taken and he offered to come with me, states away, just so I had a friend because he knew I’d be a mess around JJ. He likes to cook great tasting food, go to the beach, go to barbecues. He isn’t some unfeeling monster that hides in a basement waiting for people to hurt. He’s a good guy, trying to keep Miami safe in a way he was raised to. We were trained to lock them up, he was taught to stop them.”

“It just kills me to see you go through this. I blame him because… if he’d done something different, done it better, we wouldn’t be here.”

You nodded. This made sense. Dexter was the best and only target for Spencer’s feelings. He probably felt betrayed, confused.

“I mean, you went to him, a random unsub to ask him how to do this. You could’ve been killed. I could’ve lost you to this. Instead of coming to me with these feelings, you went to him. If you felt anything like this when I told you about JJ, then I’m sorry.”

You gave a soft half smile, finally understanding where his anger and pain was coming from. It wasn’t so much about what you hid, it was about the fact that you hid it.

“It was. Ultimately, we’ve both betrayed each other. You’re right. Hindsight says I should’ve gone to you. But I think I knew that you’d either just get me a therapist or talk me down from doing this. This was something I wanted to do, and I knew you wouldn’t approve or even entertain the idea, not that I blame you. You shouldn’t. What I did isn’t normal, but I don’t feel bad. I feel the world is a better place from what I did, what we did, together. You kept the thing with JJ from me, and I kept these dark desires from you. I’m sorry for lying, and I’m still sorry for putting you in this travesty of a situation.”

He nodded, looking down.

“I just want us to be us again. I can get past the killing, and I understand why you lied and kept it from me. I just want us to know that going forward, we can be honest with each other,” he said softly.

“Well we’ve faced murder and infidelity, I’m not real sure there’s a whole lot we can’t tell each other,” you teased.

“That’s true. I think any topic is fair game at this point.”

You two gave each other wistful smiles before getting into bed together to face another day of this double agent work.

--------------------------

When you got to the station the next day, Luke and you worked on the report for Olson while Debra helped. They had tons of evidence they wanted to go over and part of you was bursting at the seams to just scream, “Dexter did it! There! Happy? Can we go get lunch now?”

It was mind numbing having to pretend to be this naive about something that you already knew the answer to.

Dexter did minimal work for the blood work. Masuka mainly gathered the physical evidence and Dexter just ran some blood they’d found, but of course both of you knew he’d find no trace amount of anything leading to the killer.

At one point, Dexter caught you outside as you grabbed two cold drinks from a food truck for you and Spencer.

“About last night…” he started and you stood there waiting for the drinks.

“Yes?” you dragged out, waiting for him to finish it.

“I didn’t mean to… This is all still… I’m not used to sharing the steering wheel, alright? I’m used to having one on the steering wheel and my Dark Passenger has the other. But now with you and Spencer in the picture, I’m not used to including anyone on my decisions, ever. I’ve been alone and independent for years, ever since Harry died. Things happened quickly the other night. I was there, he confessed things, and I just… I knew I could use him. I didn’t really have time to call you two.”

“As far as apologies go, that’s the worst I’ve ever heard,” you said with a bit of a smile.

“Come on, don’t make me do this.”

“Don’t make you do what? Dex,” you sighed, rubbing your head. “I didn’t make you train me. It was very clear what my intentions were. I’m pretty sure I even told you you could tell me no and I’d walk away with no hard feelings. But you didn’t do that. Because we both know you’re desperate to have a friend that knows you for who you are. So I don’t appreciate being the bad guy here. I didn’t pick the dump site. None of the things happening now are due to mistakes I made, they’re ones you made. I don’t hold them against you. Shit happened and we're dealing with it. I just want the same courtesy.”

“You’re right, I know,” he acquiesced. “I am sorry. It’s just all the frustration and tension with this god damn case.”

“You’re tellin’ me.”

“Friends?”

“Always.”

You two parted ways, smiling before getting back to your work.

With no new real leads, and the profile very broad and hardly anything to go on except criminal victimology, there wasn’t much else to be done. Dexter left at a reasonable time, and Rossi dismissed Spencer. He still wanted you to finish up the report though, so you didn’t get out until about two hours after they left.

At this point it was an unspoken agreement that every night would be spent at Dexter’s unless he had to spend time with Rita or his sponsor. So, without you there, Spencer and Dexter were together at his apartment.

“What do we do next?” Spencer asked while standing near the kitchenette, Dexter sat in his computer chair.

In a casual voice, Dexter answered, “I’m not sure.”

“I was hoping you had a next step after slaughtering that guy.” The venom in his voice was very thinly veiled. Despite not trying to actively start a fight, Spencer couldn’t keep his contempt for Dexter under wraps.

“Not exactly. It was a spur of the moment thing,” he informed.

“Great. A meticulous serial killer with compulsions. That’s what we need right now,” he sarcastically responded.

“I’ve got to ask, do you hate me because of what I do, or who I am?” Dexter finally asked, anger in his voice.

“What does that even mean?” Spencer fired back, frowning.

“I mean do you hate me because I’m another criminal in your eyes, I should be locked up, and you shouldn’t be helping me. Or do you hate me because I’m your wife’s friend?”

“I hate you because without you, she wouldn’t be in this situation. Without you, without your consent, your teachings, and your existence, she wouldn’t be doing all of this. She wouldn’t be in this horrible position,” he angrily said.

“I keep having to remind you that she came to me.”

“And the word ‘no’ doesn’t exist in your vocabulary?”

“If I had said no she’d have gone to someone else. And would probably be dead right now. Hell I considered killing her. But I listened to what she had to say, instead. Also, she's innocent. Or… was.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?” he asked incredulously, the ferocity in his face and body evident.

“Yeah, a little. I could’ve turned her in to begin with and been rid of her. I could’ve killed her. I could’ve turned on her when the bodies showed up. But I didn’t, because whether you like it or not, and more importantly whether you believe me or not, I give a shit about her.” He took a deep breath. “If she's discovered, so am I, and vice versa. I don't want to see either of us go down for this. So maybe you could stop being a fucking dick to me, and help me save her life?"

“If you cared about her, you never would've put her in this position," Spencer retorted in a low, firm voice.

"If I could fix it for her, I would..."

"You know, she asked me to pretend like I didn't know anything.... if she's.... She begged me to say I didn't know anything about it... maybe you could take the fall for her."

"You want me to take the fall for people I didn't kill? People that aren't part of my victimology? It'll never work. Why would I do that?"

"If you care for her the way you say you do, you'll do this. You'll spare her life. A few victims against your twenty or so is nothing. I'm sure there are some bodies they haven't found, am I right? Just pretend you're taking punishment for the ones they didn't find."

Dexter looked down in thought. It was an idea. He did care for you. In the back of his mind, he’d always prepared for getting caught, but not you. You were just someone who was fed up with seeing good people and animals hurt and you wanted to stop it. Dexter, as he’d been led to believe all his life, felt he was a monster. So if he was arrested and charged for all the killings, it would be punishment fit for the crime.

In a way, he felt it was right to repay you. You’d set him free from Harry. Making him realize that he was a product of Harry, not himself. You’d shown him he wasn’t evil to the core. You’d been his friend, you’d had beers with him, you sat and ate and talked with him as if you two hadn’t just killed someone. Deb and Rita loved him, but they didn’t know him. You knew him and loved him and he didn’t know the first thing about how to repay this. But perhaps doing this, taking the fall, he could do that. He could give you back your life. Give you back your marriage. He could be a good person, for once, even if it was just to you, his very dear friend.

Finally, you arrived at the apartment, bracing for whatever was on the other side of the door.

But you were pleasantly surprised when they were quietly sitting there. “You’ve managed not to kill each other… So what’s our next move? You killed Olson, but now what? The team thinks you did this and we looked into the train car, but now what?”

“I think it’s time we stop waiting for evidence and leads to fall and take action. Steer the investigation instead of it steering us,” Dexter offered.

“What? I don’t know. Where would we even lead it? We don’t have anyone to frame,” you responded.

“Doakes.”

“I know you don’t like him Dex, but that’s too risky. Doakes already suspects you of shit so we can’t do that.”

“Well, what if we didn’t point it at someone, but in general?” Spence suddenly suggested.

“What do you mean?” Dexter asked.

“Well, it’s been known that killers in the past send something to the police or the media once the victims have been found. Zodiac did it. It creates quite the guessing game for people.”

“He’s right,” you agreed, looking at Dex with a knowing look.

“You want me to turn in some kind of serial killer note? No. no way. I'm not going to be a cliche.”

“This isn’t about your image right now. This is about protecting both of you. Some kind of letter addressed to no one will have everyone scrambling. We could make it absolutely arbitrary. It won’t point to anyone in particular. It’ll give the BAU and the Miami PD something to dig over for at least a couple of days. It buys us time,” Spencer implored.

“Yeah, and then what happens when someone realizes it is just something to chase our tail? Debra’s smart. She’ll figure it out, or any person on our team could as well,” you stressed.

“Well, we’ve bought some time then. And it won’t mean anything. It won’t be the first time a unsub has sent in propaganda for the sake of propaganda. It won’t narrow anything down to any one in particular, the teams are no better off than they started, and we’ve bought some time,” Spencer argued.

“Hate to say it, but he’s right,” Dexter said. “I think we should just do a totally typical serial killer note. Point to politics, environment, daddy issues, mommy issues--”

“Profiling is more than just--” Spencer started, but Dexter cut him off.

“I know, but let's say for the sake of the run of the mill serial killer, this note is going to hit everything. It’ll seem like it has one seamless, unified message.”

In seconds, Dexter was hitting up various blogs with different meanings and agendas. Soon, he and Spencer were formulating a well structured essay littered with what appeared to be a higher purpose, but was actually just nonsense. Spence even threw in some literary references. They were sure to include victims names that the press hadn’t released anywhere. They had to be sure this was coming from the real killer or no one would waste their time on it.

When they had quite a bit and Dexter was polishing the opening lines, you pulled Spencer aside, in the living room.

“Thank you, for continually doing this, helping me. I know you could’ve turned me in, or at the very least, just let me deal with it on my own. You'll never know how much it means to me that you’re sticking by my side this entire time,” you said earnestly, holding his hand.

“You’re still my wife, and I still love you. You still love Star Wars, right?” he asked with a bit of a smile.

“Yes.”

“And you still love chocolate chip pancakes, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you were still hell bent on getting me out of prison, right? Still spent day and night either trying to free me or visiting me, right?”

“Yes, but--”

“But nothing. You made a choice that I don’t entirely agree with, you’ve agreed to stop, and now we are doing what we can to protect you. I’m just repaying the favor you gave me.”

“I don’t deserve you. The two events aren’t exactly the same, either.”

“I did something illegal, made choices that hurt us, and endangered my life and career. It’s no different. I’m not here to quantify or qualify what either of us did. Marriage is being there for the mistakes and rough moments. I made a vow, and I’ve never regretted making those vows to you.”

You peered at him with a tender gaze as he did so with you. You were just about to kiss, your lips touching his, but in a swift second, Dexter broke the spell.

“Hey, genius, come read this,” he requested.

Spencer’s jaw set before he walked over. It took him about 10 seconds to read the whole thirty-two page note. “You’ve got three grammatical errors.” Spencer leaned over Dexter and keyed in the corrections. “There. It’s good to be sent in.”

“Newspaper?” Dexter asked.

You and Spencer traded a quick look before nodding and mumbling a verbal confirmation.

“I’ll call it the Manifesto,” Dexter said with a smile.

Spencer rolled his eyes but you smiled back at Dexter.

“Well, good night, Dex,” you said sweetly, placing your hand on his arm before leaving.

As Spencer was walking out, Dexter stopped him and said, “Thanks for helping on this.”

“I’m doing it for Y/N, not you,” he sharply told him, his tone and gaze steely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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ITCM

@arganfics

#inside the criminal mind #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fic #spencer reid #dexter #dexter fic #dexter morgan

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maple-keenes · 5 years ago

Text

now you don’t

chapter 1 of 5

previous chapter | next chapter

summary: roman atlas. logan mckinney. virgil may reeves. patton wilder.

they are the greatest magicians of all time, also known as the four horsemen. trapped in a standoff against the fbi, they race against the law to finally set some damn things right.

word count: 3639

ships: eventual prinxiety, eventual remile

a/n: aaaaaaaaaaaa i did it!!! once i saw all the positive feedback on the sneak peek i just had to finish it out

read on ao3

taglist: @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @imnotcameraready @icequeenoriginal @starryfirefliesbloggo @violettucce @dapper-deceit @therealmoshar @lucifer-just-needs-a-hug @mintgreenglasses @thelowlysatsuma @aroundofapplesauce @ironwoman359 @theresneverenoughfandoms @ukaia @ilovemygaydad @notalwaysthevillian @weirdsthenewnormal @theincediblesulk @romansleftshoulderpad @alltimevirgilant @max-is-tired @creativity-killed-thekitten (holy crap that’s a lot of people)

---

Come in close.

Closer.

Because the more you think you see, the easier it’ll be to fool you.

Roman Atlas smirked as he held the cards out in front of him, winking at the gorgeous blonde in front of him. “I’m going to flip through this deck, and you’re going to see one card. I promise.”

She smiled back at him, nodding - of course, Roman knew which card she was gonna see, this is all too easy and of course, she was an amateur and he was the best street magician in years.

He closed his eyes for a bit, pretending to think about the cards. When he was finished, Roman flicked his wrist, quickly fanning the cards out in front of him. “Do you see your card?”

Shaking her head, she batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously. “No,” she said, still smiling.

Roman grinned. “Then I guess we’ll have to remedy that,” he replied, throwing the cards into the air. The motion directed the audience’s eyes towards the nearby building and they gasped in awe as the side of the building lit up, revealing her card - seven of diamonds.

They all clapped enthusiastically, cheering and whooping for the magic. Roman reveled in it - of course he did, they were clapping and cheering for him, he made that happen, even if it was as simple as simple gets. They were smiling because of him.

Somewhere else, at the same moment, Logan McKinney was having a great day.

He had already made 500 dollars that day, tricking businessmen into believing he was their new business partner and nicking the cash off of them, but it was the cheating husbands who really brought in the money.

“And sleep,” he said, bringing the woman’s head to his shoulder. “And… back awake.” Logan snapped his fingers and the woman jolted up.

He held up a twenty dollar bill. “If you can take this out of my hands, you can have it.” She reached forward but couldn’t grab it, as her fingers were laced together, unable to move. She laughed and Logan grinned back at her, pocketing the twenty dollars. “Alright, I’ll make it easier on you. Just tell me your name,” he teased, watching her struggle to even get the words out.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’ll set you right in a minute, but right now I think it’s your husband’s turn…” Logan turned to the man. “Let’s see what I can discover.”

The man waved his hands in front of his face. “I - I - that’s unnecessary, sir - “

“No, no, I think you’ll find it’s quite necessary - well, for me, of course - but really, the chance you’ll die from mentalism is infinitesimal, so don’t worry…” He laughed. “Anyways,” Logan continued, staring into his mark’s eyes, “I see… a beach? In… Florida?”

The man tried to look away from Logan’s eyes as he muttered, clearly embarrassed, “It was a business trip.”

Logan tilted his head to the side. “I mean, yes, technically it’s business… What’s her name?” He began listing off letters, stopping when the man jerked ever so slightly backward at “J”. Smirking, Logan turned to the side and started to pace. “J, huh? Maybe Jean, Jane, Janet -”

The man made another jerking motion.

“Janet? Who’s Janet?” Logan glanced over to the man’s wife, who was, through gritted teeth, mumbling something that sounded like “sister”. “Your sister? That’s quite the affair, my friend.”

He sighed. “Listen, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but - “

“But I can make it all go away!” Logan gave the man a lopsided smile. “For the low, low fee of… oh, let’s make it 300.”

“Dollars?”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “I know all your secrets. I know things you haven’t even thought about in years… so yeah, let’s make it 350 for my troubles. And,” he drawled, “as the icing on the cake, let’s fix this whole debacle. Every time you think of Janet,” he placed a hand on the man’s head, “you will think of me. Hopefully, that should be enough.”

He backed up, putting the 350 dollars in his pocket, and snapped his fingers. The woman’s head jerked up, confused. Logan smiled apologetically at her and said, “I guess you just can’t be hypnotized. I’m sorry, ma’am, it just doesn’t work on some people…” he trailed off, winking at her husband. He glowered at Logan, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder as they walked away.

On a boat in New York City, Patton Wilder was about to lose a lot of money.

Of course, they were going to get it back, but it was all in good fun, really, the loss of it. If they never lost it, someone was bound to catch on.

They jumped up onto the front of the boat. “Hello, amazing travelers! I’ve got a simple magic trick for you - simple for me, not simple for you, of course - and if you can figure out how I’ve done it, I’ll give you 100 dollars. Promise.”

The crowd murmured amongst themselves as Patton smiled to themselves, pulling a spoon out of their pocket. “I am going to bend this spoon with my mind!” they yelled, causing the crowd to cheer.

They brought their hand up to the side, pretending to force it to bend as they twisted the stem between their fingers.

The crowd cheered, and Patton smiled, basking in it until some guy in a beanie with tastefully expensive glasses walked up and grabbed the spoon out of his hand, showing the rest of the people gathered on the boat the obvious falsity of the trick. He turned to the crowd, waving Patton’s spoon around. “It’s fake!” The man spun back around, holding out his hand. “I believe you owe me some money?”

Patton raised an eyebrow, handing over the hundred dollars - and slyly undoing his watch as they did. “A promise is a promise,” they said, patting the man on the back as they reached into his pocket and removed his wallet. They then nodded to their victim and walked off, speeding up once they were out of the man’s sight.

As Patton jumped off the boat back onto the dock, they heard their mark yell out, “That man! He stole my wallet!”

Patton turned around, affronted. “How dare you assume I’m a man, sir?” they called, giggling as they ran off yet again, enjoying the cacophony raised behind them.

And in a Las Vegas nightclub, Virgil May Reeves was about to die.

Well, only for about ten seconds. But still. Dead.

He hopped up on the third tier of the stage, waving to the audience. “You’ve been so good to me tonight, I don’t know how I can leave!” he called, as they whooped and cheered for him. “Alright, alright. I’ve got one last trick. I’m gonna jump in this tank, save myself, and if I can’t get out in 60 seconds, well, the piranhas will take care of me.” He gestured to the giant cage above him as the crowd gasped.

“Well, let’s get me chained up, shall we? A man’s gotta have his handcuffs, trust me,” Virgil said, winking. “Now, come on, this is getting boring. We’ve got death to defy, people!”

He smiled out at the crowd and shimmied his hips a bit before the platform dropped out from underneath him and he was plunged into the water below.

Virgil made a show of undoing the first handcuff before he dove to the bottom to try and pull out the locks. As he realized he couldn't undo it, hr started banging on the glass, screaming for help. The crowd tried to help, but the shatterproof glass refused to break.

As the seconds ticked down, Virgil finally managed to get the locks dislodged from the grate and kicked off the bottom, only for the piranhas to drop right as he breached the surface of the water.

People screamed as the water turned red, Virgil's body disappearing out of view. The panic continued until someone in the back yelled out, "This is crazy! What kind of sick sadist invented this?", then burst into laughter as the crowd parted around them to reveal Virgil himself. He grinned widely, giving the crowd around him high-fives.

It was only a few minutes after each of those tricks where each and every one of our four heroes pulled out a tarot card, seemingly from a place no man should ever have been able to reach.

Roman’s, hidden in the book bag he’d left in his apartment, bore the symbol of the Lovers.

Logan’s, laying on top of the table next to him, the table he’d been staring at as he packed up his stuff, bore the symbol of the Hermit.

Patton’s, stuffed in the man’s wallet they had just stolen, the wallet which had been in their back pocket, bore the symbol of Death.

And Virgil’s, floating in the tank he had just escaped from, amongst the piranhas, bore the symbol of the High Priestess.

Each and every one of them had an eye on the back, with a date, time, and address.

March 29th, 4:44 PM, 45 East Thomas St, NY, NY.

So come March 29th, at 4:43 PM, on the curb outside 45 East Thomas St, on the outskirts of Manhattan, Virgil was staring up at the building with a coffee clutched in his hand, when he heard someone call his name from behind him.

“Hey! Virgil!”

Virgil turned around to see his former boss and er, ex-boyfriend, waving at him from the cab. “Hey, Roman!”

He held up a card. “You, uh, got one of these cards too?”

“Uh, yeah, I did,” Virgil replied, before turning around and heading up the stairs.

“So, Virgil, what have you been up to these days?” Roman asked, following him into the building. “I - I haven’t seen you since -”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Cut the crap, Roman, I’ve seen your anonymous posting on my website. You’re not sly, or clever, or anything.”

He huffed. “I didn’t even know you had a website, but good, that’s good for you.”

“Oh, shut up -”

Their bickering continued as they walked up the stairs, only stopped when they saw Logan, leaning against the door to Number 45.

Logan bit his lip. “Oh. So… I guess I’m not the only one who got one of these cards? Well, let me be the first to say that I am wholly disappointed.” He smiled a bit, looking at the two other magicians standing in the hallway. “Wait, before you tell me your names… Victor? Virgil?”

Virgil nodded, looking slightly amazed. Roman scoffed. “Virge, it’s on your coffee cup. Nice trick, man.”

“Thanks for keeping me honest. That wasn’t mentalism, just an observation…”

Roman crossed his arms. “I know who you are, McKinney, and I’m not interested in your, uh, mind games,” he said, and Logan simply laughed, waving his hands around as Virgil stifled a giggle in the background. However, they all stopped when the fourth member of their motley crew bounded up the stairs, gasping in awe when they saw the three others gathered in front of the door.

“Oh my gosh, you’re Roman Atlas! And - and you’re Logan McKinney! And oh god, Virgil May Reeves, oh, you guys are so awesome!” they gushed, beaming, nearly jumping up and down.

Logan raised an eyebrow, seemingly amused. “And you are?”

“I’m Patton Wilder! I - I’m the nonbinary criminal? I do some stuff on the docks, a little bit of pickpocketing but only a little!” They shrugged. “I got one of the tarot cards too, don’t worry.”

“My ego has been utterly shattered,” Logan muttered. “What’s to say they just let in any off the street criminal now?”

“I’m not some two-bit thug, McKinney,” Patton scowled, though it quickly turned into a wide smile. “I’m your new best friend!”

“Yeah… no.”

Patton shook their head. “Just you wait. Anyways, why are we all standing out here? If I remember correctly, the card didn’t say to stand outside the apartment…”

Virgil snorted. “Okay, smartass, it didn’t. But the door’s locked.”

“Oh, no, nothing’s ever locked,” they responded, pulling a long metal rod out of their pocket and deftly unlocking the door and pushing it open. “See?’

“You, my friend, are más de lo que parece,” Roman acquiesced, smiling, not too bothered about whether Patton understood the Spanish or not. “Let’s go, then.”

They walked into the apartment, each with their flashlights on as they poked around the apartment.

“God, this place makes my apartment look nice,” Logan mumbled as he shone his light on a very filthy bathroom. “Why the hell are we here?”

“Because of this,” said Virgil, pointing at the ground, where a strange shape was carved into it, and a rose was sitting next to a pitcher. He picked the rose up gingerly and placed it in the pitcher, and all of a sudden the water started pouring out of it, filling the symbol on the floor with it.

And once it was full, the symbol dropped into the floor, turning into a gas that poured out of it, twisting in between each of the crew’s ankles, enveloping the room. Each and every one of them looked on in awe, perplexed by the whole thing, really.

“Atlas, grab the lights!” Virgil called, backing up towards the wall.

Roman flicked the switch up and down. “No electricity.”

“We’ll see about that,” Logan declared, twisting the lightbulb in the light fixture above him. Suddenly, a blue hologram sprung up in the middle of the room, and the four of them crowded around it.

Patton breathed out a soft, “Woah,” as Virgil held a hand up to it, examining the blueprints.

“This is… amazing,” Logan said, at a loss for words.

Roman gasped. “Guys, look… it’s a show.”

The same symbol that was carved in the floor was flickering in the center of the hologram, underneath the words The Four Horsemen.

las vegas

one year later

“Helloooooooo, Las Vegas! Let me hear you!” Roman yelled, the crowd cheering at the top of their lungs.

“Okay, for our last trick tonight, we are going to do something that has never been done before on a Las Vegas stage,” Logan said as the crowd’s cheers died out.

Virgil grinned. “We are going to rob a bank.”

Patton held their hands up. “We’re not even kidding. But, to start off, who’s got a bank they’d like us to rob?”

Most of the crowd raised their hands, causing Roman to laugh and say, “Well, that’s a lot of people with a vendetta. Just to keep it truly random, we’ll have you guys pick the seat number of the person whose bank we’re going to rob for us. Now, Pat, which bowl do you have?”

They raised the bowl of ping pong balls into the air. “I’ve got sections! You, sir, in the front, would you grab one for me?”

The person they held the bowl out to handed Patton the ball and they threw it to Roman, who was standing in the center of the raised platform. He caught it and yelled out, “We’ve got Section B!”

The section in question cheered, and Virgil smiled as he bent down and offered his bowl, containing row numbers to the person in front of him. “Atlas, catch!”

Roman snickered as he caught it. “Looks like we’ve got… Row 5! Row 5, Section B, raise your hands.”

They did so as Logan made his way over to the person closest to him with his bowl, which contained the seat numbers. He then threw his audience selection over to Roman, who called out, “Seat 13! Section B, Row 5, Seat 13! Stand up!”

A man stood up, and the attendant handed him the microphone. “That’s me.”

“And what is your name, sir?”

“Etienne Personnage.”

“And your bank?”

“Credit Republicain de Paris.”

Roman blinked. “Oh. French. Honestly, we were hoping for something a little more local, but that’s okay, that’s okay. Well, Etienne, come up here onstage.”

“And while Etienne makes his way up onstage, we’re going to recognize the woman who put us up on stage today - Mrs. Ira Apellido, and her wife, of course. Three cheers for them!” Logan called, and the audience whooped as a woman in her late fifties stood up.

Virgil raised his hands, hoping to get the audience to settle down. “ First, we need you to pick a card, any card, well, okay, not that card. Sorry, American joke… yeah, that one. Can you sign it for us? Preferably in English.” Etienne scribbled his name on the card, and Virgil smiled. “Okay, okay, now for the real trick. Etienne, here is this magic thing we in the magic business call a teleportation helmet. It’s quite stylish, no?” He laughed as he handed it to Etienne.

“And as for the teleportation device itself…” Pattom smirked, throwing three large black silk sheets out into the center of the stage. They twirled around in the center for a bit before shooting off into the audience, revealing a large metal contraption in the middle of the stage. “Etienne, if you could just be a dear and step into the center of this device… thanks. Now, can we get a countdown?”

The audience counted down from 5, and then Virgil pulled down a lever on the side of the contraption and Etienne vanished. There were gasps from all over the room as a screen lit up on the side of the room, showing Etienne within a bank vault.

“Holy shit, it worked!” Roman cried. “Okay, Etienne, does this look like your bank vault?”

The man onscreen nodded, seeming amazed at the stacks of euros in front of him.

“Good, good. Now, can you take that card and the ticket from tonight’s show and put it in the center of the stacks? And then sit back and relax,” Roman said, grinning.

Patton nodded. “Just watch out for the vacuum.”

Etienne looked momentarily confused, and then dropped the two pieces of paper into the center of the stacks as the money was suddenly sucked up into the vents above the vault.

“Goddamn, guys, would you look at that! Now, Etienne, if you press the button on the side of your helmet, you should teleport right back up here onto the platform and then you can watch it rain,” Virgil assured him. “Now, to our faithful audience… We are the Four Horsemen!”

And as the money began to fall from the ceiling, showering the crowd in euros, the four of them called out together, “Goodnight!” as they vanished off the stage.

It was the next day when FBI Agent Remy Rhodes got the call that four magicians had robbed a Parisian bank from a stage in Las Vegas.

He stormed into the office, already mad beyond belief. “What the hell do you guys mean that magicians robbed a bank? You’re kidding!”

Agent Stokes grimaced, fearing the aftermath of Remy’s wrath. “We’re not kidding, I’m afraid. We went to their hotel room yesterday and they simply… turned themselves in. It was quite the debacle.”

Remy sighed, running a hand down his face. “Oh, this is ridiculous.”

“Je suis d’accord, Monsieur Rhodes. It is an interesting case,” the man who had previously been leaning against the door said.

“Who is this, exactly?” he asked.

The man laughed. “I am Emile Dray. Interpol. I will be your partner on this case.”

“I’m not working with him,” Remy cried, “he’s pretentious! And French! I can’t - this is my case!”

“Je vais essayer de ne pas être offensé, grand putain d'idiot,” Emile muttered. “We will be working together and you will like it. Now, we ‘ave to get to interrogating, Monsieur Rhodes.”

Remy tried hard to suppress a shiver at the way Dray pronounced his name. “Fine. God fucking damn it, fine.”

He giggled, hand on the door. “That’s the spirit.”

As the two walked into the interrogation room, McKinney immediately shot up. “Oh my god, I just got hit with the biggest wave of sexual tension.” Logan waved a hand through the air. “It’s so thick, it’s like you two just want to push each other up against the wall and -”

“We’ll be doing the talking here, thanks,” Remy cut in smoothly, ignoring Emile’s quite obvious blush.

“Hey, I mean, you’re going to have to talk about it at some point. I know you just met and all, but… it’s kind of ridiculous.”

“Shut up, McKinney,” he growled.

A little bit later, once they’d decided that Logan was essentially useless to their investigation, they turned to Atlas himself. “Why’d you rob a bank?” Remy asked, rather bluntly.

Roman shrugged. “Felt like it.”

“That’s… not an answer,” Emile responded.

“It’s really not, no. Well, I can’t tell you that, unfortunately. And really, you’re not going to arrest me, either.”

Remy scoffed. “And why is that?”

“Because that would be saying that the FBI, and Interpol, too, believe, on an institutional level, in magic. And then the press would have a field day.” Roman leaned back in his chair. “So you won’t.”

Emile snorted. “You’re quite adept, Monsieur Atlas.”

“And you too, Señor Dray. Are we speaking in our first languages now? Because I’m totally down for Spanish,” Roman said. “Anyways, if this is all that’s going to happen, can I just go now? These handcuffs are super uncomfortable.”

So, of course, in about an hour, the Horsemen were walking free on the streets of Las Vegas.

Remy was fuming on the steps of the FBI Agency when his former deskmate, Agent Stokes, walked up to him and handed him a phone.

“Stokes, what the hell is this for?”

“It’s on a call with Damien Bradley. He debunks magicians. And he knows exactly how the Horsemen robbed that bank.”

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danetobelieve · 5 years ago

Text

Car Shellsman || Alain and Winston

Despite a giant crustacean attacking their car and forcing Winston to run away with a weirdo who would then go onto buy them lunch, Winston managed to get their car to Babineaux Garage. They had to admit that they were starting to wonder whether mechanics were bound by the laws of an automotive equivalent of patient and doctor confidentiality. There was a giant rent down the side of their car, starting on the left side of the bonnet and taking an immediate sharp left down it’s side, ending in the wheel arch. Not to mention the already pre-existing problems with the car. Gently, carefully, they wheeled their vehicle into the garage and came to a neat stop. Stepping out of the vehicle, they headed towards the ‘office’ section of the garage. “Hey,” they said adjusting their thick lenses as they spotted a somewhat dishevelled mechanic that they thought they might’ve spoken to online, “we spoke online, I was the guy with the rattling car… that chugged out a load of smoke.” They really hoped that this mechanic didn’t notice the giant sheet of torn car bonnet.

Alain was doing bookkeeping when he heard what he suspected was the rattling car from that guy online. Yeah, that did not sound good at all, like someone shaking a box of rocks underneath it. The exhaust system, probably. He did not look up from his computer screen, however, his eyes narrowing at what the software was telling him to do. He hated this goddamn thing. Things would have been a lot easier had it been done on paper. “Fait chier,” he mumbled under his breath, spinning in his chair to get a look at his invoices. Scratching the back of his head, he glanced up at a young looking person, happy to get a break from the paperwork. “Alright, let’s have a look,” standing up from his chair, he headed in the garage. The first thing he noticed was the giant sheet of torn car bonnet. What the fuck. A loose catalytic converter, ok, that was normal. This? No. This car was a wreck. Between the car body and the converter, this would not be cheap. “You cannot drive with your hood looking like that. You’ll get arrested.” What the actual fuck.

Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston winced at the obvious sight of the hood. Swallowing somewhat awkwardly, they shrugged gently. “Uh, I don’t know what to tell you other then it wasn’t like that when I left the house, you probably wouldn’t even believe me if I did tell you what happened…” They trailed off and shuffled their feet. Their car was a touchy subject. It had never really run well, even when they got it. But then again by the time it made its way into their possession it had already been around the block thousands of times. “Normally I wouldn’t be driving this,” another lie, Winston drove everywhere they could, “but the truth is that I really need it to get to and from college, I can’t really afford to pay for a bunch of body work right now so maybe we could … I don’t know … patch it up with duct tape or something and try and make sure that it stops overheating.” They were hoping to avoid a fiery death if they possibly could but it seemed unlikely with the now trademarked bag of rocks sound that their car was making. “Can you save her?”

“Huh,” scoffing, the mechanic rubbed at the back of his neck. Of course Alain had seen cars in worse shape, but they were usually classic cars people had bought and wanted to be made brand new again. This, was a whole other situation and another kind of damage too. “Try me, you have no idea what stories I’ve heard in the past,” obviously his stories weren’t as wild as stories someone working at the ER could hear but still, people were never proud of their accidents. Alain walked around the car, running his hand on the dent on the left side. “If you’re going to be using duct tape, you’ll be the one responsible for that. I don’t want to be associated with that kind of job,” he took pride in his work, and that was simply unacceptable. Of course he was used to broke kids crashing his garage and expecting a discount because they would rather get a new pair of brand new Nikes rather than save a couple of bucks in case of such scenarios. The entitlement was terrifying. “So, just to be sure, you are completely broke, and I should save your car because…?” His hands on both hips, Alain was now chewing on his lower lip and shaking his head slowly.

“Well, the car overheated, but that isn’t that weird, it does that a couple of times a year and normally if you just leave it to cool down then it is completely fine,” Winston paused a little guilty. Cars weren’t meant to just overheat and they knew that. “Then after that I was accosted by a woman jogging who said it looked like a shit car and a shit car had had sex and given birth to this beautiful baby,” they rubbed the roof of their car affectionately, “it was at that point a giant lobster and / or crab thing turned up and assaulted my poor automotive.” They raised an eyebrow about the comment on duct tape. “Well, y’know I was joking about using duct tape but whatever you feel would be the best tool for the job, I trust your professional expertise.” They hated it when someone tried to tell them how to do their job when it came to working with computers, they were sure Alain felt the same way about cars. “Obviously I will pay whatever the work costs, but I’m a college student who works an unpaid internship and inherited this car from my elder siblings, it has a lot of sentimental value. If I can save her I want to, I’d rather not scrap her for the sake of it.”

“Did you ask her out ? She sounds lovely”, Alain commented as he squatted and had a look at the back of the car, putting on gloves before he grabbed the exhaust pipe to shake it a little bit. As he expected, that thing was loose, and that fella’ was lucky it had not fallen down on the road. “A giant lobster?” His eyebrows raised up on his forehead. This was .. interesting. Even if he did not have a habit of going after beasts, the variety of them always astonished him. At least, with vampires, you had a certain routine, the night, the solid ground. Beast hunters could easily end up several feet above the ground, or beneath the surface of water. Alain admired them but he did not envy them. His time at the ring had been very instructing and while he wouldn’t be completely clueless in front of those things, he left their care to those who had trained for them. There were enough unholy things for him to stake care of. “You don’t have to pay it all at once,” scratching his cheek, he rubbed a recent scar, one he could thank Deirdre for. “Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to look for used car parts in junkyards,” he only had to make a phone call or two, maybe look online, which wouldn’t take long. “It might not be the right color, but we can change that if necessary.” Most people did not particularly enjoy having a patchwork car. “The catalytic converter on the other end, it has to be brand new, or it’ll just go back to making sounds,” he shrugged. The kid could go for a used part for this too if he wanted.

Shaking their head, Winston shrugged. “Honestly she was way older then me … and I don’t really go for girls that are there to make fun of my car. I don’t see why it matters what I drive as long as I get from A to B.” Pausing for a moment, they gazed as the mechanic set to work. “Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it kind of stood on my car and did that to it, honestly I was worried it would rupture a fuel line or something but I guess I got off lucky because I managed not to die or anything.” Honestly they weren’t sure what they expected this guy to believe. They probably wouldn’t believe it if they heard it. But so many weird things had been happening recently and they weren’t sure what the hell was really happening to this town. Listening to Alain’s recommendations, they paused and nodded. “I can deal with that, I think it's probably best to fix the car so that it runs as best it can, but I don’t know how far away from going to the junkyard it really has left on it.” The car should’ve been scrapped years ago really, Winston knew it, they were just too cheap to let it go.

"I've heard worse stories," Alain took a step back from the car. If a gigantic beast had stood on this car then there might be more damage than what he could see here. He'd have to check that too, but that meant dismantling everything under the hood and checking each piece which would take hours of labour. Besides he had no way of really knowing whether the damage was due to the giant lobster or to the fact that this was a wreck anyways. He did not question the veracity of the story. It probably was true. "To be honest, it'll probably cost more than what the car is worth," he scratched at the back of his head. Fixing it was something he could do and he was not afraid of that ; he felt bad for that kid, and while he would fix it if they really wanted him to, they had to know that it was a waste of money they apparently did not have. "I can already fix what we said, I would count around $500 if I can find used parts for everything." And it was unlikely that they had an insurance that covered any of this either… Alain held back a sigh and motioned them to follow him back to the front office. He'd have a look online and maybe he would even have good news.

“I dread to think what worse stories there could possibly be.” Winston wasn’t even joking, with everything that was happening recently. There was no real good news here. They could probably afford to pay that, but at that point they might as well just scrap it and sell it for parts. “Damn,” Winston winced and adjusted their glasses, “look, I appreciate the offer but I don’t even think that the car is worth that much…” they sighed and pulled their glasses off. Rubbing their eyes exhaustedly Winston sighed. “Do you have like a good scrap guy that I can try and make some money off of what is left of this thing…?” Winston looked at Alain hopefully, wishing that they had a better option than this. They felt like this was something that they could do without, but for now they would just have to deal.

“Well, the giant lobster did not eat anyone alive in your story,” Alain’s smile grew wide, so wide you could not tell whether he was joking or not. Shaking his head, he took off his gloves and headed back to his computer to have a look at prices for late 90s Buicks like Winston’s. He did not expect that they could be, after all this time, still priced at over $2,000. Well, then, maybe repairing it was worth it, but they could probably get a good price from a junkyard too, and buy another used car with that money. “Change of plans. It might be worth it. I’ll do my best to keep it affordable,” turning the monitor so that Winston could have a look, he waited for them to take a decision. Even if this car wasn’t what you could call a nice car, he could see that they cared a lot about it, and Alain appreciated that. “This might take a bit longer than two weeks,” he rubbed his bearded chin. “I could let you leave with a courtesy car if your insurance covers it.”

“Would that be something that would do? Why don’t you sound like you think I’m having a nervous breakdown or something? Why is no one concerned about how weird all of this shit is?!” Pausing for a second, Winston scratched at their stubble and considered Alain’s apparent new proposition. The possibility of keeping their car intact would be good, but only if it was worth it. There would of course eventually come a point where Winston knew that they would have to just cut their losses and hope for the best. But despite that they were somewhat attached to the car. “I can cope with a bit of a wait if there is something that you can do, I’d have to check with my insurance if they cover a courtesy car but I truly doubt it. I guess if there is anything you can do then that’d be good, but if it is going to get really expensive then I’ll have to scrap her…”

"What? Eat a person whole?" His eyebrows raised with concern. Maybe he was indeed a bit too laid back about all of the things happening in his town. "Look kid," Alain almost raised a hand to pat him kindly on their shoulder, but decided against it, scratching at the back of his neck instead, "if you're new in town, you'll either get used to it or you'll end up in complete denial," this had to be the case for about 90% of the town population, he estimated. Alain was not representative of the normal White crest citizen, far from it, and this dated back to his childhood. It was probably best for Winston to not dwell on it. Maybe they would even forget it was ever real. "I'll have a look under the hood, check if there's anything damaged. I doubt you could have drived here without lights flashing red or orange on your dashboard," he observed, filling out a form for him. "I'll need your name, address, phone number and assurance papers, etc." Pointing at different spots on the form, the mechanic glanced up at Winston's face. "Don't worry, I'll email you a quotation in a couple of hours. I'm not doing anything until you respond to the mail, ok?"

“You were the one who didn’t seem that bothered about it moments ago,” Winston replied with a laugh, “not me!” They shrugged gently and sighed. “I’ve actually lived here all my life, things were always a bit weird, you know like my neighbours cat once turned up with no fur, or one time a tree moved gardens,” they scratched at the edge of their sleeve, “but I’m starting to realise that maybe I’d been in denail before, I’m not sure how I didn’t realise all of these things before.” They sighed gently and listened to Alain’s procedure for the car. It sounded as if they were going to do a good job with it and they quickly set about filling out the requisite parts of the form that Alain had given them. Writing down their name, phone number, address and the various details that would be needed, including an email address where they could be reached. “Thanks, you’re … you seem cool.” Despite the fact that the news of a giant lobster hadn’t seemed to phase them, Winston thought that they seemed to be at least halfway decent, and they had only had a brief professional interaction.

“It’s not that I’m not bothered. I’m…. blasé ? Jaded.” Alain shrugged, sitting back in his office chair and idly playing with a pen. “Oh, I’m sorry, I assumed…” he trailed off and looked away from them. Taking the form back from Winston, Alain looked at the information for a moment, holding poorly back a smile at the compliment. “That lobster, where was it by the way?” If it had attacked once, it could attack again unless they had killed it, in which case they would probably get along very nicely. "Hey it's okay. Just don't get willingly in trouble because you no longer are in denial…" Alain had witnessed it before in others. Curiosity was something Alain had also been cursed with but at least he could afford to be curious, unlike regular humans of White crest. "Don't hesitate if you see anything weird, ok? I might be able to help," an odd offer, but he wasn't taking any chances here.

“Blasé?” Winston replied somewhat bemused, “Is there something that I’m missing here? If you’re blasé about it then you’re going to have to have been aware of it for sometime so that you could have reached your jaded state… so I guess what I want to know is what your secret is.” They shrugged. “Don’t be sorry, I’m still learning about it all. I just, I didn’t realise it was so obvious until it whacked me across the head, kind of. Figure of speech y’know.” They considered it before pulling up google maps on their phone and pointing to the road they had broken down on. “Uh, it all happened over here, so I’d avoid it …” then Alain was saying that maybe they could help and Winston was once again curious, “so you could help?” they asked somewhat skeptically wondering exactly what a mechanic would be able to do in this instance, “What is it exactly that you would be able to do against a giant lobster … thing?”

“I started learning about those things before I could read,” leaning back in his chair, Alain raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Yeah, I had a weird childhood,” and that was all Alain would say about being a child in a slayer family. “I see. Well, I can’t blame you for being in denial for a while. None of this make sense,” it was against everything they taught you at school, everything your parents normally told you. Don’t follow strangers was normal advice. If you see a vampire, stab it with a pointy stick, was not normal advice. Glancing at the map on their phone, Alain rubbed at his chin wondering if he should just tell that fella about his activities. While he doubted that they were dangerous, Alain was not willing to start a fight with a protector of supernatural creatures in his own shop. He had a glance at the shredded car and sighed. No one would have gone through so much trouble to confront a hunter, right? “I don’t hunt these specifically, but I might know someone who does,” he finally replied, scratching at the back of his head.

“Woah…” Winston couldn’t really imagine what that would be like. Deliberately choosing to learn about this. That was something that they were having to do now and they already felt as if they were behind on the game. But if they had known since they were younger then maybe they would have been able to come to terms with all of this or at least know what to do. “I mean, weird sure, but at least you know what you’re doing and how to deal with all of this … y’know … stuff.” They paused for a second more and shrugged. There was only so much that they could do. “Well, if you could put me in contact with them then I’d really appreciate that, it would be nice to know that there is someone that I can call incase I get trapped by one of those things. I don’t even know what the cops or animal control would be able to do against these things.”

“Woah indeed,” raising his eyebrows, Alain started typing a couple of things on his keyboard before putting phone numbers on a post it note for later. He’d have to make a couple of phone calls to fix Winston’s car and those always took time because he didn’t particularly talking over the phone. Heh, maybe he’d ask his employee to do it for him instead. Iker probably hated it too, but that was a perk Alain had, choosing who did the things he personally disliked. “Sure, I’ll send you that by email,” now whether Kaden charged people for doing his job, he was not sure, but Alain felt like saving a life was priceless. He would never do it for money, but some people had to make a living, and he could not blame them for monetizing life. “It’s quite easy, they’ll do nothing. All you’ll get is your face on the front page of the newspapers and a headline saying it was a wild animal who did it.”

#p: alain #para #wickedswriting #chatzy para #car shellsman

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statusquoergo · 5 years ago

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Part II

Deposition, take two.

Harvey and Mike run into each other on their way into the conference room and Harvey informs Mike that this case is never going to make it in front of a jury, thanks to their decision to waive a jury trial. Mike is aghast but refuses Harvey’s suggestion to terminate the deposition, because “while a jury might never hear it, [he’s] gonna make that motherfucker answer for what he’s doing.”

Here’s the thing about that: As long as he does it in a timely fashion, the plaintiff has the right to demand a jury trial. So Mike can goad Haskins (the CEO of Brick Street Athletics, I guess) into saying whatever he wants in the deposition, but none of this finitely precludes the case from appearing before a jury.

During questioning, Mike lays out the working conditions at the factory—2000 people working “twice what they’re supposed to” (however this is supposed to be quantified), employee salaries of less than twenty cents per hour compared to Haskins’ salary of $20,000,000 per year, “building an empire on the backs of women and children” (Haskins denies that they employ children and Mike challenges that “it’s just women, then”)—and Haskins repeats the defense that they’re not breaking any local or international laws. Mike argues that conditions are so bad that two people have killed themselves in as many years, and Haskins bursts out with the key phrase: “God dammit, I don’t care how many people have killed themselves! This has nothing to do with my company!”

Real friendly. Appearing quite weary of this whole charade, Harvey asks if Mike is done, “Because [Mike] can get emotional, and [Haskins] can get emotional, but [Mike] still [has] no jury, and no case.” Not to mention “this testimony isn’t to be revealed outside this room.”

Actually I can think of at least one instance in which the deposition testimony would be admissible at trial, or in front of a judge: If Haskins testifies to anything contrary to what he said in deposition, Mike could introduce it to contradict or impeach the testimony given by the deponent as a witness, i.e., prove he lied.

But who cares about the law, this is Suits.

Louis and Sheila go to Lipschitz for therapy, and it’s nice that they’re trying to work out their problems, and the dialogue feels honest, and Sheila never wanted kids but now that she’s pregnant she’s embracing the idea of becoming a mother, and Louis supports her 1000%, and she loves him, and it’s no wonder Lipschitz is always so busy if this is how quickly he’s able to fix his clients’ problems.

Alex fills Katrina in on Faye’s request that he oversee Mike and Harvey, and Katrina tells him not to tell them about it because “Have you ever seen either one of them react well to an authority figure telling them not to do something?” It’s a pretty inconsequential scene, but I like the reminder that Mike and Harvey used to be, like. Marvey.

Harvey swings by Mike’s place to make sure they’re still on good terms after Mike got his ass kicked at the deposition, but Mike drops the bomb that Jeremy had a televised interview that day and wore a t-shirt to said interview printed with the quote: “I don’t care how many people kill themselves, we abide by the law,” attributed to Haskins. Harvey angrily charges that “Dammit, Mike, that deposition was under seal,” and Mike retorts, “So sue me.”

Excuse me, gentlemen, I just want to point something out here:

“Anything that could get us disbarred or put in prison is off limits.”

You know what two of the several qualifiers for disbarment are in New York State? Crimes and misdemeanors featuring interference with the administration of justice, and misappropriation.

Mike, that was your fucking ground rule.

Mike then argues that if Harvey does sue him, “it won’t be a countersuit anymore” (it’s not a countersuit now), “which means there will be a jury” (he can still demand a jury trial). Harvey threatens to have him sanctioned, and Mike says that’s fine since the video is already going viral; Brick Street’s best option is to give in to Jeremy’s demands and let him out of his contract with full pay so, wait for it, he can start his own competing and much more ethical apparel company, using the contract salary as seed money and the suit as free publicity.

This is bullshit. This is total bullshit.

Forget the part where it’s legal nonsense, let’s just focus on what an underhanded move this was for Mike. Harvey, for some ungodly reason, seems proud of him for pulling this off, guessing that Mike “helped [Jeremy] plan this thing from the beginning”; Mike says it was easy to pull off, since he knew Harvey would try to play the man, “but the thing is, the version of [Mike who Harvey] thought [he] was playing, he doesn’t exist anymore. The new Mike cares more about results than he does about playing the violin.”

Great. That’s great. But what the fuck does Korsh think he’s doing? Why send Mike off to Seattle to take on class action suits against Fortune 500s, why highly publicize Mike’s return, why bring him back at all to turn him into some unrecognizable version of himself who’s not even doing the work he supposedly left New York, the firm, and Harvey to follow his heart for in the first place? If anything, this episode is a tragedy, a stab directly into Harvey’s already fragile heart; Mike, his protégé, his best friend, his comrade in arms, abandoned him to fight for the greater good and has made a triumphant return to once again do battle, to show how much he’s learned from Harvey, how much he’s grown since they parted ways, but instead of playing on an even field, or joining forces to accomplish something actually meaningful, Mike uses the fact that Harvey’s usual tactics of skirting the law are hampered by Faye’s oversight in order to give himself a huge (and illegal) advantage which he started this case by promising not to use.

So I guess that when it comes right down to it, all Mike has really learned by setting out on his own is how to walk past the bodies he piles up in his wake. The ends justify the means, and that’s all there is to that.

God dammit.

Oh, but we’re not even out of the woods yet, because after some cute but logically unsound banter (“Are you actually taking credit for my win when you lost? Let’s be very clear about something here, Harvey, right now you are the governor of Loserville, and I am the mayor of Winnertown.” “You know mayor’s below governor, right?” “Not in Winnertown, he isn’t.”) Harvey invites Mike for drinks, which after this catastrophe of an episode would’ve been a nice Moment for the two of them, except that he goes on to invite Donna along for absolutely no reason whatsoever except to keep repainting every hint of Marvey that this show has ever had with a big old brush of Darvey.

Before drinks happen, though, Katrina stops by to inform Donna that she’s taken her advice to focus more on herself, signing up for a ballet class to follow up on an interest she had when she was younger and piggybacking on Alex’s interest in tap by showcasing Amanda Schull’s history as a professional ballet dancer. And one more thing: Brian called her back and left a message, but she “deleted it without even listening,” which Donna cites as “amazing,” for…some reason. Seems kind of rude to me, but alright, sure, whatever. Donna then invites her over for drinks with Mike and Harvey (not that this was supposed to be an intimate personal affair or anything), which she refuses because “Tonight’s the first night of class,” so, good for her.

Samantha, unsurprisingly, has become aware of Mike’s little stunt with Jeremy’s interview attire and declares to Harvey that she’s not going to let him get away with it. Harvey bleakly submits that “he beat us fair and square” (no, he didn’t) but Samantha says that’s bullshit, that he planned this in advance and it’s a clear violation of Jeremy’s contract. (Is it? I wouldn’t know, the specific contract details have been kept very under-the-table. Plausible deniability, I suppose.) Harvey doesn’t want to fight this because “knowing Mike, [they’ll] never prove it”; Samantha accuses him of being proud of Mike (why), and Harvey asks so what if he is (why), and Samantha says that if they can’t find proof, she’ll make it. Shockingly, Harvey orders her not to do that (what, because it’s illegal? Or because it reminds him too much of Cameron Dennis?), and she storms out.

Remember when Louis asked Benjamin for help with the whole donation thing? Benjamin’s finally getting his just reward for all the shit he pulls for these people as Louis promotes him to Vice President (the benefits of such a thing being utterly unclear, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts) and gives him a thirty percent raise. So, uh. That’s nice.

Now about those drinks. At Harvey’s place, Donna prepares a cheese plate, and Harvey tries to greet Mike with a somewhat excessively enthusiastic “Hey! You want some cheese?” Mike, however, is not interested in any cheese, because it seems Samantha went ahead and fabricated that evidence after all; Mike accuses Harvey of bribing Charles Hu to say Mike contacted him eighteen months ago with the scheme to get Jeremy out of his contract, which he can’t dispute because “[he’s] on the record saying the guy’s a saint.” (What record, what is he talking about?) Harvey says he had nothing to do with it, Mike calls bullshit, and Donna steps in to say, in a slightly creepy tone of voice, that “It’s not bullshit, Mike. He’s telling the truth.” For some stupid fucking reason, Mike didn’t believe Harvey but he does believe Donna, so he determines it must have been Samantha who lied about him, and asks Harvey what he intends to do about it. Harvey says there’s nothing he can do about it, and when Mike points out that he can say she fabricated evidence, Harvey pulls his loyalty card at the worst possible time:

“Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what would happen to her?” “I don’t care! She is cheating my client out of a company that could change people’s lives!” “And I’m not gonna sell her out! Just like I’d do for you if you were still here.” “I don’t believe this. You’re pissed that I left!” “No, Mike, I’m glad that you left, and you could have come back to visit any fucking time, but you came back to pick a fight with me that you rigged six months ago.” “Oh, so it’s not that I left. It’s just that I beat you.”

Oh boy.

First of all, we get out of the way the hint that Mike really was taking this case on to make a difference in the world, but I dunno, man, feels to me like this is too little, too late.

Then, finally, after a full season and a half of no resolution, we finally get Harvey’s admission that he’s upset Mike left. Yeah, no shit; their goodbye, as I’ve lamented to the point of tear-inducing monotony, was terrible and inconclusive, and Harvey’s behavior afterwards has not been that of a man who’s at peace with the change in his life (s08e01-04, 13). And finally, he acknowledges out loud that he’s angry (yes, angry) that Mike hasn’t come back to visit, and now that he has, it’s just to pick a fight with Harvey that he secretly rigged far in advance. That doesn’t seem to me like a fight Mike should be particularly proud to tout as a win; the odds were artificially weighted in his favor, and he went out of his way to tip them even further by making them both promise not to do anything illegal and then breaking that promise himself when he knew Harvey would be in no position to follow suit.

That is a dick move.

But we’re not done yet:

“No, you almost did. I was gonna let you get away with it, but she didn’t. And I might want to kill her, but I’m not gonna betray her.” “I don’t care about her! I care about you. You gave me your word, and the Harvey I know wouldn’t break his word and screw over a bunch of innocent people in the process. You lost yourself, Harvey. And you know it.”

Fuck.

Not only should Mike not be proud of this win he achieved illegally, but it was only his to take because Harvey made the conscious decision not to turn him in for those illegal activities.

You know what’s the real gut punch here?

“I care about you.”

You sure about that, Mike? Because you could stand to fucking act like it.

He goes on to as much as admit that Samantha’s involvement—not her fabrication of evidence, just the fact that she was there, was the thing that ruined this for him, because “the Harvey [he knows]” would have acted predictably, and he would have been able to manipulate him. “I always have time for an old friend”? He always has time to use an old friend for his own advantage, maybe. I agree that Harvey hasn’t been acting like himself of late, but my rationale for that has always been that Mike’s rapid departure broke him and he’s been unable to recover, and if this is what Mike’s return means, well, maybe Harvey’s better off.

(Harvey would be better off leaving the firm and going into intensive therapy, but I’m trying to keep my goals achievable for the time being.)

Harvey then returns to the firm to confront Samantha and yell at her for lying to him, and she says she didn’t lie, she just changed her mind, so that’s mature. She asks if he’s really mad at her crossing a line or because she beat “[his] little adopted son” (did you catch that? "Adopted son," i.e., "definitely not a love interest thank you very much"), and Harvey tells her that he defended her to Mike, but that’s over now because he doesn’t trust her anymore, and I guess he’s taking his ball and going home and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Spoiler alert, Faye happened to observe this whole exchange, and now has some mulling to do.

This whole episode has been one giant offense to the memory of Mike and Harvey’s relationship, but this part might just take the cake: Louis arrives at Mike’s apartment while Mike is packing to go to the airport, because Donna sent him, and she would’ve come herself but “she’s with Harvey now” and “she didn’t want [Mike] to hold it against her.” Mike says he’s not holding anything against her, and Louis asks him not to hold anything against Harvey, either. Bringing up the story he told Mike back in “Blood in the Water” (s02e12) about himself and Harvey being Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, he says that he and Harvey “were rivals at work. But no matter how much [they] fought, at the end of the day, [they] didn’t let it get in the way of [their] friendship.” Kindly permitting Mike to be furious at Harvey for defending Samantha’s actions, Louis asks that he nevertheless not let this be the end of him and Harvey. Rather than comment on the request, or their relationship, Mike says that he has a plane to catch.

As Louis bids his farewell, Mike calls him back to give him the last of the “You Just Got Spitt Up” onesies that he had made up in Season 8, which Rachel apparently took to save for him. Louis tells Mike to thank Rachel for him, he agrees to do so, and Mike and Louis, of all people, get the heavily emotional hug I was hoping Mike and Harvey would get when I saw that bullshit reunion in the teaser.

Then Faye goes into Samantha’s office and finagles her into tacitly admitting that she’s the one who fabricated the evidence, not Harvey, and Faye fires her, so at least some good came out of all this.

Part IV

#suits usa #s09e05 #season 9 #marvey #analysis

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dandart · 5 years ago

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I like quizzes...

1. What is you middle name?

Walter. Not kidding.

2. How old are you?

3. When is your birthday?

4th June

4. What is your zodiac sign?

Classical: Gemini

Revised: Taurus

5. What is your favorite color?

Deep purple. Also orange sometimes.

6. What’s your lucky number?

4, 16, 64... powers of 4.

7. Do you have any pets?

1 black cat, 2 lutino cockatiels, a venus fly trap and a "puppy" (shytsumiki is my Chise)

8. Where are you from?

Devon, south west England.

9. How tall are you?

175cm (about 5'9" in ye olde measurements)

10. What shoe size are you?

Like 7... ._. That's tiny. It makes it painful to walk. (EU 41, US 9)

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

One that I actually use. But then I occasionally share with my darling Angel shytsumiki, but I also have more impractical ones stashed.

12. What was your last dream about?

Ah fuck now I don't remember... it was interesting though.

13. What talents do you have?

Coding, origami, musical instruments, tech in general and uhmm not a lot else?

14. Are you psychic in any way?

No one's psychic. That's never been proven. I can barely read emotions when I look at faces. I am remarkably imperceptive.

15. Favorite song?

Starset's My Demons, Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb or Focus' Anonymus 2.

16. Favorite movie?

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But I do also enjoy me some others. Ask for my imdb if you're interested.

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

My babygirl shytsumiki was my childhood crush. No one I have ever met has come close to being so magically attractive to me.

18. Do you want children?

No, I have my babygirl shytsumiki and our pets are our babies.

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Noooooooooooo. One in the dead of night in the woods would be just lovely.

20. Are you religious?

In as much as I occasionally personify the world or the universe, but not seriously.

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

Yeah. I even stayed overnight but only to stay with my little Angel shytsumiki.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

Umm... once as a kid I didn't know how to do anything nor what I was doing, and punched a teacher after she stopped me stealing and eating broken biscuits and had to talk to a policeman. But other than that, not since I was like 7. Gosh I was a horror.

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

Yeah, I met the Linux Outlaws and co, I've met the Gadget Show crew, I went to see Biffy Clyro live... of all bands... I've spoken to a few coding legends too... erm... tweeted with Carmack, and Akira, that vfx guy for Star Trek...

24. Baths or showers?

Baths are soothing but I usually shower because I haven't always got the patience.

25. What color socks are you wearing?

Nihilism.

26. Have you ever been famous?

I should hope so. I was known as The Cloud Man by LO, got published in Linux Format, once had a thousand twitter followers and had feedback from strangers on my code. I am also in the OEIS, thrice.

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

Not in the classical papparazi pop star sense, but to be a household name who doesn't have to hide his face in public sounds okay. A legacy would be nice, after all.

28. What type of music do you like?

Uber metal and prog rock, usually. Soundtracks too.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

Noooooooo eww.

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

Two, but I often share two with shytsumiki and iunno if she counts <3

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

Sideways unless my neck hurts (physiological problem) in which case back or front.

32. How big is your house?

Three bedrooms but still pokey. We have too much stuff.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

A nothing sandwich with bread made out of thin air with a side of invisible chips.

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

Only a bb and a fairground one.

35. Have you ever tried archery?

Yeah once and I loved it and want to take it up again.

36. Favorite clean word?

Either discombobulate, defenestrate, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis or jam.

37. Favorite swear word?

Fucknugget? Anything which is half swear and half clean is a winner in my book. Shitsticks.

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

Around 40 hours I should think.

39. Do you have any scars?

Myes. That's a story which perhaps requires a tw...

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

How would I know? If it's secret I wouldn't know. My little darling is my exsecret admirer though apparently.

41. Are you a good liar?

Nope. I am forgetful so I wouldn't even be aligned in the answers I was giving. Plus I just don't like it. It makes me too guilty.

42. Are you a good judge of character?

I hope so but haven't had many chances to find that out just yet.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

Sure. It's-a pizza, italiano! But seriously I am okay at some but terrible at others.

44. Do you have a strong accent?

I wouldn't say so but no one would. I would just say "generic Southern English"

45. What is your favorite accent?

Some Southern hemisphere or east Asian I like a lot, also a few European.

46. What is your personality type?

INTP afaik

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

I don't actually know, I don't go for expensive, nor care for my clothes especially.

48. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes.

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

Innie.

50. Left or right handed?

Right.

51. Are you scared of spiders?

Nope.

52. Favorite food?

Sushi.

53. Favorite foreign food?

...sushi. Alright, different answer? Takoyaki?

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

Extremely messy.

55. Most used phrased?

It changes every so often. Dunno right now.

56. Most used word?

Also changes. Still don't know.

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

For climbing? Jk like a minute?

58. Do you have much of an ego?

Used to, now I don't.

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

Both.

60. Do you talk to yourself?

All the time. I know, right?

61. Do you sing to yourself?

Yup.

62. Are you a good singer?

Only if I try which is rare and even then rarely.

63. Biggest Fear?

Losing my Angel. Or dying.

64. Are you a gossip?

Nope. Not at all.

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

I don't actually know.

66. Do you like long or short hair?

Having? Long. Seeing? Don't mind as long as it's not a buzzcut. So from vaguely short and floofy to massively long.

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

No I can't, and it would be weird to expect that of me.

68. Favorite school subject?

Maths and physics and IT.

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Intro now, ex extro

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

No but it sounds llike good fun.

71. What makes you nervous?

Jealousy and making the wrong moves.

72. Are you scared of the dark?

Nope. Used to be a bit when alone.

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

Sometimes, less than I used to, when it would be useful.

74. Are you ticklish?

A bit. Less than I used to be since being bigger.

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

Nope

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

Not official governmently but I have owned projects, and in other places.

77. Have you ever drank underage?

Probably.

78. Have you ever done drugs?

Hasn't everyone done soft ones?

79. Who was your first real crush?

My Angel Baby shytsumiki

80. How many piercings do you have?

None.

81. Can you roll your Rs?“

Yes.

82. How fast can you type?

Reasonably fast I should think.

83. How fast can you run?

Reasonably slow.

84. What color is your hair?

Brown to me, dark blonde to my mum and ginger in an underground coding quiz apparently.

85. What color is your eyes?

Are? Blue.

86. What are you allergic to?

Probably prawns.

87. Do you keep a journal?

No, wish I could remember to.

88. What do your parents do?

My mum's a mosaic artist and my dad's a retired satcom engineer.

89. Do you like your age?

Ummm, it's alright??

90. What makes you angry?

Die hard cruelty and things that make people or animals suffer. Including wars, all of which are inexcusable. Come on people, the best for the most, keep up! I am the judge.

91. Do you like your own name?

It's alright. Better than some, not as cool as others.

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

Bob Jim Ted because they are hilarious names. Not that I'm using them for anything but fiction.

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

No. I already have my babygirl shytsumiki.

94. What are you strengths?

Code. Logic. Maths and science. Compassion perhaps.

95. What are your weaknesses?

Memory, communication and showing emotion.

96. How did you get your name?

My folks picked it from a comic. "Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future". Middle name from a great uncle.

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

Everyone's were. I haven't traced exactly how but have traced up to 500 years in some places.

98. Do you have any scars?

Yes, you asked that before.

99. Color of your bedspread?

Colour. Currently red and black.

100. Color of your room?

Colour! Well white as are all of them atm.

These are fun. Thank you.

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firstpuffin · 6 years ago

Text

The infuriating politics behind Captain Marvel (2019) [with spoilers]

I watched Captain Marvel the morning of writing this and to make things clear: I liked it. It was fun, I enjoyed her character (which I’ll expand on earlier) and best of all it wasn’t in-your-face feminist propaganda. I call myself apolitical, the “a-“ prefix meaning “not” so I am “not political”. I’m not a feminist because there is modern baggage behind that word and there are very few labels that I actually subscribe to. The ones I do usually have the “a-“ prefix, so that probably says a lot about me.

I hate that I have to bring this up but people, including people whose opinions I generally respect, can’t see past the politics of a situation. I’m not not a feminist because I don’t believe in the cause; I do. I’m not some kind of red pill manist or whatever they are called, because I’m comfortable in myself. I’m apolitical because I see the content first and the agenda second. And Captain Marvel has good content.

Yes there are issues. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t find problems with fiction. Where did Mar-vell get the Tesseract after Stark found it in the sea? Why did only Carol get powers from the explosion and not the others who were there? And it most definitely had the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s villain problem.

To make it clear this article is not about the film, it’s about people whose reviews repeatedly talk about the freaking patriarchy. Such as yes, Jude Law’s character is revealed to be a part of the conspiracy to suppress her true self. As a man he is clearly oppressing our female hero-

Or maybe he’s just a bad guy. You know, the bad guy. The villain. And we all know that if he had been a woman instead then the same people would claim there were too many women in the film thus feminist agenda. You know what has too many female characters? The Supergirl television show. But if you were to switch everybody’s sexes then it would look like an ordinary male-lead show. You could consider that as them pushing a bit too hard, but it is not only understandable but is also far from the worst part of that show.

So, our antagonist is suppressing the powers of our hero. Maybe that’s because as we see in the final part of the story (what is known as the Falling Action and is when the heroes turn things around) she is practically unstoppable. Maybe it’s because they are trying to use her. Maybe it’s because he shot her out of the sky six years ago and is responsible for the death of the person she admires most and is possibly the person who wiped her memory. Maybe it’s not patriarchy but assholery.

I started watching one review that said it was bad because it didn’t follow the Hero’s Journey, an old method of story-telling that he claimed is essential to a good story (which it isn’t, especially in our post-modern age) and while it seemed to follow it at the beginning it quickly departed. How? Well the mentor character (Jude Law again) wasn’t actually a mentor character, he just pretended to be one. Except he was a mentor, but the twist (admittedly a predictable one) was that he was a villain. And if you think that doesn’t count, then look at it this way: he’s training her to be a bad guy too. So he’s still a mentor.

And he claimed that there was no “call to action”, which is the reason why the hero ventures out to adventure, saying that she was just “sent on a mission”. And yes, that wasn’t a call to action (except maybe in the most literal sense), the call to action comes later when she discovered hints about her past and found out that everything was in danger if she, the only person in the position to do so, didn’t help; by which I mean she was the only member of her organisation on Earth for the next day. If galactic danger and self-discovery aren’t calls to action then just what is it that motivates most stories?

So clearly this guy wanted to dislike the film. I stopped watching less than half way through his video after he said patriarchy for the fifth time. Like, shut up about it already.

The next complaint that I’m going to cover is that apparently only boys like comics and so a strong female character is off-putting? I’m not sure, this guy confused me. Yes, comics were (and possibly still are; I don’t check demographics) aimed at young teenage boys, hence the silly action and terrifyingly bombastic female figures (like seriously, those proportions would be fatal). But you know what I like? To use my own terminology, capable characters.

I don’t use “strong” as an adjective without purpose because it has connotations of physical power, which isn’t what is meant by “strong female characters”. I use capable because I feel it is a better fit. Carol Danvers is capable, strong and generally badass anyway. Why? Well for one thing, she always gets back up. You know, that thing that Captain America always does? That is important to his character? She does it too, and it is hinted at all throughout the film so it isn’t just some cheap “drama” for the climax.

I’m going to go full nerd here and talk about anime. My favourite characters in the action genre have always been those who stand back up. They get beaten down (physically or mentally) and force themselves back up. It’s cheesy as all hell and it is done in anime better than I usually see in western comics or films and stuff. It’s cool, it’s dramatic and it works really well at getting you to root for the hero.

Many people probably know of Dragon Ball Z and we see it in Goku, the hero of that series. I’d also like to point out that when it comes to raw power, the Dragon Ball fighters are similar yet stronger than Captain Marvel. A character in the series who is less frequently called “strong” is Bulma. She isn’t a fighter and she doesn’t have all of the superpowers of Goku or the others, but she’s a scientist who often provides support. More than that though, she never lets her lack of planet-destroying power prevent her from standing side by side with the fighters. Heck, she stands up to literal gods when they piss her off.

She is what I think of as a capable female character, because she can’t kick ass but that doesn’t make her weak.

Growing up, Carol Danvers is obviously what we call a “tomboy”. She wants to do what the boys do and she pushes herself to do so, despite being condescended to regularly for it. She literally gets knocked down, she falls and she (again literally) crashes and she gets back up. Even more impressive for me is that she is mentally and emotionally shaken, but stands up again to protect others and to regain control of her life.

And there is nothing in that above paragraph that is uniquely masculine.

A girl can fall over and stand back up. A woman can be emotionally manipulated only to pick herself back up. And because they aren’t masculine actions, seeing a female character do so isn’t at all feminism. It’s just a person doing what a person does.

So, what else? Well there are complaints about her character being “snarky” or her being a bad loser (she is beaten in a sparring match and lashes out). Except I loved seeing her cocky mannerisms (which are common in male action heroes) and her obvious pleasure to be doing something, because it’s pretty clear that they haven’t let her do anything but train for the last six years. And this isn’t patriarchy again, she is in a military group with strict guidelines on when you are ready to go into the field (plus as we know, they are scared of her power).

She was bored, she was restless. She’s a character who obviously like to act, being held back. That’s why she lashed out; she was frustrated and angry at not doing anything and yes, it could be seen as a flaw. But it’s a humanising and understandable flaw if you just try to empathise with her instead of looking for things to dislike. And one last point, Jude Law’s character said that if she couldn’t control her power then she’d have to visit the Supreme Intelligence(SI), who is a sort of commanding officer (I don’t know the terminology). So what does Danvers do? She uses it. It is not a stretch at all to suppose that she may have intentionally lashed out so that she could confront the SI. Plus, they are all something that we see again and again in male action heroes.

Yes, I keep comparing her to male action heroes and that’s because she is also an action hero. They will have similar traits regardless of sex or gender. She is confident and willing to have a laugh and it is great to see.

And finally, and this may come across badly but hear me out first, I loved seeing her smile. I don’t mean that in the “give us a smile, love”, but in the “she’s excited” way. I love to see people excited and when she’s about to go on a mission or when she’s figuring out her powers towards the end, she is clearly having fun.

I’d love to see that in a male character too, it doesn’t matter. Seeing action heroes excited to do what they do, is great. Again, that’s something we see a lot in anime so it’s no surprise that I like seeing it here.

This has run longer than I intended so, to conclude: Captain Marvel is an action hero who is frustrated from doing nothing for six years and when she gets the chance, she acts. She is driven, her power is suppressed and she is oh-so clearly a good person. Oh, and she’s confident, which I suspect is a big problem for those who are not used to seeing it.

-Note= I found it interesting that according to the dictionaries I looked at, bombastic means flowery or pretentious language; think of people who use excessively complex language. But as soon as you look at how people use the word (including but not limited to Urban Dictionary) you see that is not only how people use the word. Language is fascinating.

-Note= Releasing these every two weeks isn’t working, I can’t keep it in mind and so I keep missing the upload date. Instead I’m considering releasing a short 500 word-ish between uploads, just to keep myself from slipping.

#first puffin #captain marvel #marvel #movie #opinion #agenda #feminism #thosetagswilldofornow

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mountphoenixrp · 5 years ago

Photo

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

Sun Wukong, the God of Mayhem and Mischief, whose origins stem from Ancient China. He is now a martial arts instructor.

FC NAME/GROUP: jackson wang ( wang kayee ) or got7 GOD NAME: sun wukong PANTHEON: chinese OCCUPATION: martial arts instructor HEIGHT: 174 cm ( 5'9" ) WEIGHT: 63 kg ( 140 lbs ) DEFINING FEATURES:

HAIR: black (it was gold before but he made it black to match his daughter’s) EYES: a bright golden. it was originally brown until he got stuck in a cauldron for 49 days. is also sensitive to smoke. NOTABLE FEATURES: a monkey tail always was present and ready to act as a third hand. very useful. STYLE: anything and everything fancy and trendy. liked to look rich and luxurious. however in home he’s so casual with boxer shorts and baggy shirts.

PERSONALITY:

MBTI: ENTP- A extroverted: 92% intuitive: 60% thinking: 54% prospecting: 56% assertive: 78% HOGWART’S HOUSE: slytherin POSITIVE: adaptable; charismatic; social; daring NEUTRAL: cunning; proud; genuine NEGATIVE: mischievous; stubborn; childish; erratic the monkey king was a proud one, a child at heart. despite his improvement of the years, at the core he was a troublemaker who wanted to be under the spotlight. however he was charming and bright, always willing to talk with others and connecting with them. an adventurer much too sly and playful, but an ally worthy to have. although unpredictable and stubborn at times, he did try his best and put his all no matter what ( even if it’ll lead him to crash and burn ).

HISTORY:

act i.

he was not normal, not even with his birth. born from a magic stone, an egg that took form of the species around him, the thing known as monkeys. in this mountain where he had no family, nothing to turn back to, the stone monkey attempted to fit in with everyone else. eating, breathing, living like everyone else. he was not like everyone else that had to take time to grow, instead matching to the adults as soon as he was born. what a strange one, ran through the other animals’ minds. but they took in the odd monkey and he in turn tried to learn from them all. to be like the others, to live, to do something. for this creature merely wanted to live, wished to find purpose, find a reason for why he existed. that’s why, when the chance came, the stone monkey dared to be more. went through the waterfall to be known as the monkey king, became a leader to the other monkeys, stole a treasure from the dragon king to make himself stronger, defeat the four dragons anyway, became a powerful and well known demon king that was praised and had followers in awe of his prowess. he never felt more alive than in that moment, loved and a subject of awe among his peers. the stone monkey was no more, and he now tried to be the amazing and loved king, the one in the spotlight. and when death came knocking at his doorstep, he defied it with all his might. erased his name from the book of life and death to achieve immortality, and when he thought of his people, those that will one day disappear and he’d lose all that he loved about his position—the monkey took all of heir names out of it too. for this being was not like others, he had no purpose. that’s why he turned to others, that’s why he strove to be more, to reach the top. for then there, everyone would seek for him. and he’d finally be doing something right, instead of nothing at all and meandering about like a lost wanderer. he wasn’t going to be a waste in this vast world, he was going to be so much more.

act ii.

the thing about being more was that it came with defying the laws put down upon lesser beings such as he. and as such, he was reported to the jade emperor by those he slighted. let it be known that he was more easily fooled at this time, and one much more optimistic. he only thought of this as an opportunity to be better. a mere child in mind thinking he was going to be gifted to be better because he did a job well done didn’t he? and truly, despite all his deeds, this monkey was but a child. one who was never taught properly of how the world worked, of how people acted, how his actions may be perceived. he was just trying to find his worth, in this world too big for his small body. that’s why, when he was put down as a mere lookout for the stables and to take care of the horses—he was hurt. he was a hurt little one, and he wondered what he did wrong. but then he started to think, did he mean nothing to them? there’s a fear gripping at his heart, and he hated how he felt like he just lost his worth to these new people he did not know, and before he knew it, he was seeking for attention. he lets loose all the horses and so began the start of the havoc in heaven. he didn’t want to be nothing. “i’m the great sage, heaven’s equal and you better treat me as such!” a childish declaration, but one which had to work out well enough for heaven to recognize his title. and he thought, yeah, this was it. he was going to be well loved, and he was going to be under the spotlight again! he was going to be someone of worth! then he found out, that wasn’t the case. not really. another lie, another fake to make him seem great but realizing that no, that’s not really the case. because there was a great banquet for the great figures in heaven and he wasn’t invited at all. sad little monkey, within the peach garden that he thought was a grand area to give to him, but it wasn’t. no, instead, he stood alone and felt like he was just thrown away. why? i didn’t do anything wrong. i just wanted—, such thoughts ran rampant in his mind. but no one was there to listen. and once more, the spiral down to negativity pushed the monkey again. and this time, against these deities and beings, he took all he could to give him immortality ( because he’s just one monkey, one against all these mean, mean people ). then he began his rebellion. heaven needed a wake up call. they need to realize that he’s more than what they thought he was. they should know his worth! and that was all that fueled this monkey king to fight. army of heaven’s 100,000 celestial warriors, 28 constellations, four heavenly kings, and even nezha—it did not matter. in that moment, he surpassed them all, for even if he was a child, combat seemed to be such a naturally in born talent of his. tricking them all, defeating them, proving his worth. but even so, he was one mere being. powerful, but alone. and he loathed how in the end he didn’t come out at top. instead, he was captured. in the end, he failed. and he screamed out at them all, cursing them and hateful. and he was terrified, because oh, he was so small against the swarm and he just wanted approval. he just wanted to be loved. am i truly worth nothing? he’s thrown into laozi’s eight-way trigram crucible, and in that moment he wondered what fool called heaven a holy place.

act iii.

49 days, that’s the record he bore for being stuck in the forsaken place. curled up in the corner, he transformed out of his monkey form to something much smaller in fear. flinching away from the flames, eyes burning from the smoke. immortality was what kept him alive, and he wondered why he was so horribly tortured. no one heard his cries to the raging fires and ceramic walls, and after a few days he had nothing left to sob out. when the cauldron finally opened, he jumped out. he jumped and ran away. he continued to hate them, and yet deep down he sought for their approval ( because how else was he to find his worth? ). which led to the next event. meeting buddha, bigger and stronger than him, he didn’t want to seem meek and weak next to the other. bringing out the mask of bravado, he accepted the bet made by buddha and attempted to win the game. he was going to reach heaven and not be caught by the higher being, he was going to prove himself! for if he won this, would he not be finally put at the top? however, it seemed that nothing ever went his way. for as he thought he succeeded in defeating the buddha, showing off loudly of his great victory, it turned out he had been already trapped. the palm of buddha turning into a mountain and locking him inside. again, he was put into isolation. this time, the space was bigger and at least there was no fire, but god was he alone. there were only plantations and insects, these were all he could see. the monkey was put all alone and he tried to count how many days it has been. with each day, he found himself fearing how the world would be when he returned. would anyone remember him? would people care? would his people even care? in this time of isolation, the monkey tried to make life exciting to ignore such worries. building his own luxurious tree house, making all sorts of traps for fun, playgrounds that he could enjoy in. he loved the flowers and fruits especially, colorful things to break the monotony of earthly colors. and sometimes, for a moment, things were fun. until he turned around, cheer on his face to call out for a friend to try things out with him. but then he remembered, he had nobody. was this his fate? he sometimes wondered. was he really meant to not have a purpose? he loathed to think. was he never meant to be loved? the worst of it all entered his mind. and he curled up in the center, digging his finger down on the ground to carve the symbol of another day. and maybe if he ducked hi head and let it stay above his knees, no one would see or feel the tears dropping from his eyes.

act iv.

500 years, 182500 days, and too many hours to count later—he was given freedom. Well, not really freedom. he was allowed to roam on earth after he successfully escorted some monk on his pilgrimage. protect monk and keep him safe, and then he’s out scott-free. sure, he also had a dumb headband on him to give him headache for days, but at least he had three chances to defy it. that was the basic idea really. and before he knew it, he got lumped in with a monk that got a stick up his ass, a womanizing and gluttonous pig, a boring ogre, and then later on in life some quiet ass horse. it was a very strange combination indeed, one that the king thinks could easily fail anytime soon—but he was stubborn and when he put his mind to it, he always aimed for the best results. he hated the monk when he used the stupid mantra to mess with his head, hated the pig for his stupidity and foolish actions, hated the ogre for being so serious, hated how the horse refused to return to normal and remained silent. yet at the same time, xuanzang became the one person he learned to respect and love dearly, bajie became the fun friend he loved to mess with, wujing was always someone he could rely on, and yulong was the trusty and silent stead. from a ragtag group butting heads, to brothers that he could trust. xuanzang in particular, despite their stark differences, was someone he came to care for beyond than anyone in the world. even with all the troubles and how xuanzang always seemed to be taken away, he and the others always brought him back in the end. and even if there were arguments, many nearly breaking them up, they bounced back and together continued their adventure. the journey to the west was one of adventures beyond the norm, but he thought that this was truly a tale to tell the world when it was all over. sometimes he fancied them becoming a popular tale in the future, joked about it really. xuanzang told him that such a tale was not really necessary, bajie was all in for it at the prospect of fame and the girls and money he could obtain from it, wujing didn’t really seek for such fame but it was an interesting topic nonetheless. the primate already knew he was going to definitely publish it in the future. this was his lifestyle for fourteen years, and even if it’s such a small number of years too his actual age—it had been one of the greatest there was. and through it, he found out more about him, people, and individuals. he understood then, of heaven’s punishment on him. he understood why the world once labeled him a pest. he understood it all thanks to these people and his adventures. xuanzang especially broke through all the farce he put up, came to understand him beyond anyone else, and in turn the troublemaker was the same with the monk. he thought that, strangely enough, after so much suffering this was where he truly belonged. however, as stated before, this journey lasted fourteen years. in the end, the pilgrimage was successful. bajie was gifted, wujing became an arhat, and surprisingly he was granted buddhahood alongside xuanzang. but xuanzang requested to stay as human for as long as his mortal life could offer, whilst he took it without problem ( because at the core of it all, he still wanted to be something and took every opportunity to be as such ). and just like that, the group disbanded. misfits and a religious one all going on their own ways. surprisingly, he found himself suggesting a yearly meet up of sort to catch up on each other too. none of them minded this, and he thought he caught xuanzang having a proud smile. in the end, despite reaching buddhahood, he tried to check on the monkeys he left and how their lives have been. when he returned back to open arms and them crying out of relief and joy seeing him fine and well, worries of the past washed away. a weight lifted off of his shoulders, and he thought perhaps this was all he needed.

act v.

the world became duller without the others with him and facing constant adventures. perhaps that’s why he’d frequently go around causing bits of mischief here and there to amuse himself. the monkeys were a nice pack to return to as well, but he found himself without much to do. what was he if not playing the rebellious troublemaker? what was he, if not playing the protector of the monk? what was he in the end? even after reaching buddhahood, he questioned himself. he flaunted the title around, but somewhere in him he wondered why he even received it. sometimes he wanted to talk about it to xuanzang, but he hated to be anything but the facade he showed. because that vision was cooler, much more than this wanderer still lost within himself. speaking of xuanzang, today he’s meeting up with the guy. he knew wujing and bajie met the monk earlier on, but it seemed they were making sure he and xuanzang have one last fina talk. if he heard bajie talk about a secret forbidden love between them, he thought of transforming himself to a beautiful woman to embarrass the pig. still, it was definitely better for them to be alone for this last talk. it’s been years of course, and whilst the disciples have a limitless life ( with only him assured to just never die ), xuanzang did request to keep his mortality for the time being. and once the monk truly became a buddha, they really had no doubts that even their yearly meet ups wouldn’t be complete. the former demon should be as busy, but he never really followed the normal rules. that’s why unlike most others, he wandered and he did whatever. after all, he’s not like the standard deity. not based off of a concept needed by people or praised by them, or of the life cycle such as death. no, he was of mischief and trickery, a combatant to boot. but xuanzang would be more, that was the unanimous thought they had. that’s why, calmly so, he’d meet up xuanzang one last time as what he originally was. a mortal man, much more benevolent than any holy being he knew ( the one who understood him, the one who forgave him, the one who helped the lost child that no one ever did ). sitting by the old man, now wrinkly but bald as ever, he couldn’t help but find it peaceful. the leaves and grass sway lightly against the wind, cups of tea being nursed in their hands. the primate sat silently for once, basking in the tranquility of their current setting. then, for once, xuanzang was the one who opened his mouth first. “i’m glad we met. i think that’s one of the best things to happen to me.” he froze, eyes flickering to the aged monk. “even if you were someone i disagreed with in many ways, even when we were so different, you were the one i learned most from. you were the one that made me realize the many things that made a person them.” a pause, a shared look, and a pleasant smile on the elderly man. here’s a pang on his heart, and a realization that he’ll not see it in a long time. finally, the monk continued and the troublemaker continued to silently listen for once. “you were also my protector, and there were many things we did not see eye-to-eye but i grew to understand your views as you did with mine. and as time passed, we just knew how to go about things. and…” a softened gaze, weak and old hand raising up to his shoulder, then firmly “you never had to be anything but yourself, that was enough. you were enough, and you never needed to try so hard to be someone or something else. and you are truly amazing as you are. even when it was rough, and i know you’ve hurt so much, you tried your best. i know i will be off soon, but i have no doubts that you would leave a mark on this world. and that you will be loved and cared for. more importantly, there is no one you have to prove, because i can tell you that you’ve always been an individual with a great heart.” the monkey king was speechless, wide eyed at the monk’s words. he also hated how he felt choked up, how the urge to cry was present ( and how he hated to cry in front of others ), how xuanzang just always knew what to say. and moreover, it seemed that he always knew what the primate would say if he had found his voice. for the monk lets go, calmly shut his eyes as he faced front and still held onto his cup of tea. even without the heightened sense of hearing, he could tell that xuanzang had passed. peaceful as ever, and satisfied to have said all he wanted to say. looking down at the cup of tea, though, he could not say everything he wanted to say. instead, noting how the beverage of the other was unfinished, he choked out “idiot, you always nagged at me when i didn’t finish my stuff. you should have finished your’s.” i wished you could have stayed longer.

act vi.

the world moves on, and so did he. he lived on with his immortal life, admiring the world as it changed beyond his comprehension. humans were odd things, and through them he liked to find more about the world. that’s how his life became one full of activities. meeting up with his fellow immortal monkeys, meeting up with the journey to the west gang, meeting with the other deities once in a blue moon whenever it was important to even drag him into it, pranking some poor souls, and sometimes playing a normal human to closely watch the world. although being human was a task since he always had to hide away his dastardly tail, he did manage to get some magical items and the sort to cover the tail if he needed to do so. and plus, he thought that he made a mighty fine looking one. meeting people, getting to know them, sometimes helping around, it was a wonderful time. it was always funny to make enemies, then see them in the underworld and loudly announce all their horrible deeds even if the god knew it all already. still, the priceless looks were always worth it. and if he liked someone enough, he could put his two cents in about them. he liked to play different roles, mostly anything exciting. whatever that seemed fun at the moment. a pirate, a warrior, a shaman, whatever really. when more roles came to exist, he tried them out with great gusto. never stagnant, always trying out new things as long as it caught his interest. that was the life he lived. he would meet people, become friends, family, enemies, and more. a social soul, one that loved to shine among them all. the world spun and spun, never stopping and always warping. in turn, he got to take another step and learn to adapt. always flowing along, for what else was there really to do? he got no proper domain to look over, and he thought that this really was a life more suitable for him. he thought he may be a celebrity one too many times, but he couldn’t help it. in the end, he was someone who strove to be a star. a being under the spotlight. for perhaps, that was all the motivation he needed for himself, the purpose he sought for. one which he’s more than happy to comply.

act vii.

the cycle repeated, and finally he met her. it’s not that he didn’t get into flings or dates and all, he’s done it several times. but in that time, his role was a circus performer, a stuntman wowing people. although, before he was a short-lived actor that was a scene-stealer on a tv show prior to that as well ( and he rather liked the face he donned, which was why kept it instead of throwing away the identity like usual ). but during a time where in he was in china and taking a break, he went to florist’s shop to look around. for even at that point in his life, the flowers were still one of his most favorite things in the world. there, he met the florist. a plain woman she was, one to be easily overlooked. in fact, the reason he stayed longer was because she noticed him as the actor she had admired. then they talked about flowers and things just sort of clicked. falling together so perfectly like puzzle pieces meant to form together a beautiful image. then he started to come over more and more. even when he was busy, he got her number just so he could video call her whenever. he got to know her more, and found out about her family. in all honesty, her sister was a lot more beautiful than her, but he didn’t even bat an eye at the woman. instead, he’s always been more charmed by the florist with as much love for flowers as he did. he realized that the florist girl was the odd one out in her family, not as famous or gorgeous. but he didn’t really care, instead showering her in praises and love. always sweet and kind, always trying his best. for she made him feel grounded, normal, and despite all that he preached about being a star—he wanted to be someone that was approved. and the little florist gave him that love and acceptance. her family was kind, and his special vision didn’t see them as bad. and he thought, that perhaps he finally found someone he was meant to be with. then one night led to another, he became a father, and now he’s ready to propose to the woman he loved. it all seemed perfect, until she requested to hold off the proposal. shaky eyes and a tired smile. he didn’t like the sight, and there’s a sinking feeling but—he smiled and let her have it. nine months, the sinking feeling never fade. instead wariness grew, and in turn he tried harder. he wanted to make her happy, didn’t mind it when she got emotional and cried for him to go away. it’s only then that he realized, perhaps, somewhere along this beautiful romance story he had been blinded. when the child was born, when the infant cried, he found himself knowing that he’d love the baby to the very end. yet, as he looked up to the mother’s eyes, somehow he knew this was a symbol of the end. when his lover was allowed to leave, and they could finally talk it out in the confines of his home she finally blurted it all out. she apologized for being cruel, for being weak, but this was a life she could not have. young girl that had been oppressed, one that was always talked down by others outside family. the plain girl that was fated to a plain life. and then he came to her life and everything seemed so wonderful but— the people, they still talk. still said things behind their backs, such venomous words only raising in volume when he wasn’t physically around. and the feeling he was hiding something, something so important but never telling her anything ( his divinity, the deity he actually was, how he was not even a mere man ). the mistrust that builds, the negative monsters forming in her mind, and finally… “i’m sorry. i really can’t do this anymore. i think you deserve better than me. including her. because for having such thoughts i…i really don’t deserve any of this.” perhaps this florist girl he loved really didn’t. after all, if such a mindset was enough for her to give it all up…the disguised man could only accept it ( because even then, he was a man in love who could not say no to her ). taking the child, his only request was that they named her together. “meihua.” they agreed, the beautiful flower that deserved the world. it made him wonder if he had left any other children behind without really realizing it. wondered if their mothers felt as empty as he was watching the woman’s back as she left. maybe he could make it right for them when he meets them once more but for now… looking at the little girl in his arms, he could only smile kindly. for now, he’ll at least make things right for what was left of the love story that ended tragically. as he looked out of the window, he realized it was raining. was xuanzang crying for him? he couldn’t help but wonder. but it’s okay, he’s not alone at least. he now had a family of his own blood to take care of for once. and he’s going to help her down the right path.

act viii.

he had been in mount phoenix at times. may it be pranking some others or to just chill out. its been a really long time since he returned there, though—about fifty years or so. but with so many ways people could be a danger to his precious child, he found himself trying to bring her to a safe haven she’d fit in more. that’s how the deity that’s also known as the victorious fighting buddha found himself becoming a ( struggling ) single father. one who thanked for the creation of internet as he could easily search all that he needed to know to take care of the baby and her following years. fatherhood was an exhausting experience, but he couldn’t say he regretted doing such a thing. not when it assured the best conditions for his daughter. he also had given up on his circus profession by the drop of the hat as soon as he knew he couldn’t really move about so freely. not if he was going to stay in mount phoenix until who knew how long. instead, the god opted to open up a whole dojo to teach anyone willing to learn the martial arts. he’s been here for five years, and now he’s trying to learn how to deal with his baby going to school. moreover, he wondered how many boys he had to fight because he swore if anyone tried to mess with her he was going to give them the pranking of a lifetime ( and if their bones get broken….well, that was a nice bonus ).

POWERS:

PRIMATE PHYSIOLOGY was his original form really, a monkey who’s got enhanced condition and very useful feet and tail. his tail still popped out even in human form and he’d use it a lot because it was useful. most noteworthy was his speed and strength, though ( travelling 21,675 km in one somersault and carrying around a staff weighing 7960 kg with ease ).

SUPERNATURAL COMBAT was one of the things he was well known for. defeating most of heaven’s forces, several other enemies, and more—his combat surpassed many levels and he loved to flaunt it.

IMMORTALITY definitely common in deities but this god just won't die. decapitation, rip his heart out, and you can name it all but he survived from it all. perhaps making himself immortal five times over was overkill but at least he obtained the role of useful meat shield.

72 EARTHLY TRANSFORMATION or shapeshifting, but generally he could shapeshift perfectly to anything under the 72 earthly transformations ( mostly other living beings ). however, anything outside of it would always have his tail pop out.

CLONING by plucking out a strand of his hair, he could clone himself. he could also shapeshift those clones into anything he wanted in the process.

CLOUD FLIGHT simply as it said on the tin, he could use clouds as a mode of transportation to fly around on.

MAGIC his magic consisted of being able to command wind, part water, conjure protective circles against demons, and freezing humans, deities and demons alike.

RUYI JINGU BANG his well known weapon that many knew to be in his possession. this magical staff was capable of changing sizes, multiply, and fight according to his whims. he considered it one of his most trusted ally.

GOLDEN-GAZE FIERY-EYES was his special eye condition that was gained through being stuck in a burning cauldron for 49 days. it allowed him to recognize evil in exchange for heightened sensitivity to smoke.

STRENGTHS:

a one-man army who was enough to bring great havoc in heaven in attempts to lock him up. this was someone to proceed with caution.

he just didn’t die. it was simple as that.

he’ll know if you’re evil in a heartbeat, and when you’re recognized as one he would put up the walls and be on a lookout.

an extremely versatile fighter who could use strategies well, was very good in combat in general, play with stealth, and had an arsenal of powers to use.

WEAKNESSES:

his transformation was not full on perfect. sometimes his tail popped out. and even if he was using one of the 72 earthly transformations, if emotional enough the tail might pop out.

smoke was very bad for his eyes.

a very proud one more often than not, you might be able to use his hubris to your advantage ( for even if he mellowed out, pride was still his sin ).

despite having quite the arsenal of magic spells, he much more relied on his combat skills and staff. due to the neglect on his magic, most things he could do with it weren’t that strong. even the freezing spells were on a very short time limit depending on how strong the enemies were.

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