#but raphael has carved a place out for himself in the world

[not-poignant]

Does Mephistopheles regularly beat all of his Cambion children? Or does he just particularly enjoy hurting Raphael? Or does he specifically find himself having to put Raphael in his place more often than the others?

Feel free not to answer if it’s too spoilery. I’m just curious. The Devil family dynamics are fascinating.

There's some indications that Mephistopheles raped so many women that he has like hundreds of cambion sons and has killed most of them. So that's the lore I'm going with, because that's fun for me, the idea that he just has this endless supply of weak (by fiend standards) sons that he can make do his bidding and torment whenever he likes.

I think Raphael's a bit special (like a few of his sons are), in the sense that he did actually genuinely rise to power, he is very intelligent, and he has secured the House of Hope which is strategically a very significant waypoint for Zariel, and therefore affords him more status than a (Ascended pit fiend) cambion would generally have. I would say that of the surviving cambion sons, he was the most powerful, and had been for some time. That along with Raphael's loyalty is the only reason why Mephistopheles deigned to resurrect him in the first place, he hasn't offered that to any of his other sons, who are just like...dead and/or lemures.

I don't think Mephistopheles regularly beats all his children, in fact I think he's as patchy with the concept of fatherhood as he is with all of his projects. But I do think he has a tangible enjoyment from tormenting Raphael, and I think Raphael doesn't do a great deal to discourage him, because it means he often gets away with other activities that like...his father underestimates him for / thinks he's incapable of.

Mephistopheles needs some of what Raphael supplies to him (particularly funds, most fiends don't care a very great deal about gold or wealth or anything like that. All wealth is measured in souls and the acquisition of souls, and they often need wealth to do that, but, only some are personally interested in attaining that wealth. Raphael is very good at securing gold / gems / capital for manipulating greater populations of people, so he therefore directly funds a lot of his father's 'projects' which means for thousands of years, Mephistopheles hasn't had to bother learning how to do that himself. Which makes him more kind of semi-dependent on what Raphael does for him.

He's been betrayed by at least one of his sons before, and very significantly, so I think he never misses an opportunity to both remind Raphael of his place, and get some enjoyment out of what he's doing re: hurting him. But I also think Raphael benefits from Mephistopheles thinking of him as some poetry-obsessed Faerun gadabout and assuming he's not capable of more than that).

Idk I have a lot of thoughts about those two, I do think Raphael is not above using himself as bait for example, to get enough soul coins to essentially rebuild the boundaries of the House of Hope and get his appetite quenched again. I think he also believes Mephistopheles won't come after him, because M is ultimate ADHD archduke - hyperfixated on a project and loses track of things very quickly (like literally, that's canon). I also think M doesn't want to visit Avernus and he doesn't want to lose the House of Hope so he'll probably grumble and kill some cornugons about it once he finds out, and then settle down lol.

[risestarkiss]

Orange, Baby!

Rise Ramblings #316

When I think about Mikey, this scene always comes to mind.

As soon as they step foot in the library to save Mayhem, Angelo instantly disqualifies himself…hilariously.

On first watch, I found it interesting that he made this decision with no hesitation, especially given the stakes.

At the time I just resigned to him being a silly silly boy, but now I know better.

Yet, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s explore who Mikey is.

Michelangelo Hamato is the youngest turtle in the family, and it shows.

Consequently, he seems to possess a certain “youngest brother privilege" that his other brothers just can’t help but reinforce. This is the role that Mikey was born into. Therefore, he doesn’t have to push himself to be the smartest, or cleverest, or strongest turtle.

Instead, he decides to be the artist of the family. He’s a creative! He expresses himself everywhere, from stickers on his own shell, to tagging the lair, as well as on paper. The world is his canvas!

Michelangelo also expresses himself in virtually everything he does, so it’s easy to understand why he’s the most open, honest, caring, and emotionally expressive turtle of the bunch. To some it could be seen as a weakness, yet Mikey uses his emotional intelligence as a pillar of strength, of which he utilizes to uphold his brothers when they need support the most.

In the show, Michelangelo often takes on certain personas; Doctor Feelings and Doctor Delicate Touch. (For some reason, they are all doctors, but that’s beside the point.)

At first glance, the personas could be seen as silly bouts of make-believe. But I think that placing these roles upon himself for his brothers' sake is Michelangelo’s way of helping them cope with the world by offering them what they each individually lack.

For instance, Raph, Leo, and Donnie have trouble voicing their discomforts when someone does something they don’t like.

In other words, they have trouble putting their foot down.

But here is Mikey to the rescue!

Dr. Delicate Touch has no such hang-ups.

Similarly, when Donatello runs into trouble, as he is unable to recognize his own emotions, it’s up to Doctor Feelings to help his desperate client in need.

Through taking on these roles, Mikey is able to support his brothers and fill the emotional gaps in his teammates, which, inevitably makes them all stronger.

How is Mikey able to do this and how does he have the strength to take on these roles?

You could think that it’s just in his character, meaning, it’s just how he is. I don’t think so, though. He’s a free thinker, and a creative, but there’s something about these roles that is specifically catered to the needs of his family.

Then I realized, the only reason that Mikey is able to help his brothers in this way is because they first helped him.

Let me explain.

All four of the boys grew up in the same household. Although Splinter tried his very best (there is no Splinter hate here), a single depressed parent doth not a stable child make. Raphael struggled with the burden of his responsibilities as an ad hoc leader (see Being Big Red), Leo struggled with expressing his natural talents as a middle child (see Being Baby Blue), all while Donnie struggled with carving out his place on the team and his feelings of uselessness (see Being Purple Part One and Part Two).

Well, what does Mikey struggle with?

In my humble opinion, nothing.

The struggles of his brothers all related to each turtle coming to terms with themselves and coming to terms with their place on the team.

Yet, due to the love and support of his brothers and father, Michelangelo never had to ask himself if he belonged, struggle with his role on the team, or make huge life-changing decisions that could affect everyone.

Michelangelo is free to just be Michelangelo.

And as a free spirit who is completely in tune with his own emotions, he is able to do things like this:

and this,

and this.

Let’s get back to the scene in the library.

Angelo sees the high stakes of his friend’s pet disappearing forever if they fail but makes the decision to disqualify himself anyway. Why? Because he knows that no matter what he does, it will all be ok.

He has complete faith in his brothers and their ability to solve the problem at hand, so he might as well have some fun.

This not the first time he’s come to this conclusion.

Through out this entire scene, Michelangelo plays in the background.

It’s scenes like this that makes me believe that Mikey’s faith in his family knows no bounds.

Altogether, his brothers and his father were everything he needed to become who he is. Reciprocally, he is free to be everything that they need him to be and more. Over…

and over,

and over again

he trusts them completely.

And through this unwavering trust in his family, he is able to trust himself and his instincts. He knows that with everything they’ve poured into him, he can save them from, well, everything. Over…

and over…

and over again.

Hence, due to all of this evidence, I believe that through the collective love of his family, Michelangelo became the best version of the Hamato spirit, and thus, the best Mystic Warrior of all time.

All because, he’s Orange, baby!

○○○○

Previous | Being Big Red • Being Baby Blue • Being Purple ○ Part One • Being Purple ○ Part Two

Finale | Being Hamato Yoshi

[wufflesvetinari]

Preview: "Be My Mirror"

yeah FUCK it i'm excited and i lost my couth 15,000 spreadsheets ago

presenting a full-length multiverse caper fic by 19 (!!) authors in the wyllstarion discord, coming in mid-aug to an ao3 tag near you! we've got fusion AUs, we've got canon divergence, we've got A Very Normal High School AU, we've got......so many AUs, jesus. please understand. wyll's a mouse in one of them

Summary:

Wyll, that sanctimonious bastard, refuses to help Astarion ascend. Astarion leaves the party, hoping they all die screaming.

Ah, but Raphael has an offer: a mirror allowing travel between worlds. Surely there must be a universe where ascension is still on the table? There’s nothing left for Astarion in Baldur’s Gate, after all.

It doesn’t matter that Wyll’s come looking for him. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Wyll follows through the glass, through boundless universes, through their myriad other lives—searching, chasing, never giving up.

-

Prologue preview beneath the cut

“I’m done with this,” Astarion snarls, “and I’m done with you.”

The cavern is massive, the gullet of a creature crouched beneath the palace. The air is warm and dank. Cazador’s body lies butchered, drenched in its own lifeblood. 

It isn’t enough. It isn’t ascension. Now he’ll never be safe.

Wyll’s face is tight with pain, pleading and princely in equal measure. “I couldn’t let you do it, Astarion. All those people—”

Astarion makes an incoherent noise, pure fury. He doesn’t want to think about the seven thousand wretches in their cages—the familiar desolation behind their eyes. Empty of everything but misery. 

(And hope, perhaps. Hope that Astarion was going to save them. It doesn’t bear thinking about.)

“They—they were as good as gone anyway! You put a pile of corpses over me! Gods below, why couldn’t you have just helped me?"

Wyll’s noble shoulders slump. He looks a picture, standing there in his bloodied gambeson: a proud jaw and a gleaming brow, both of which Astarion had kissed with fevered affection just yesterday. 

A warm red eye.

All Wyll had to do was be his eyes. All he had to do was let Astarion carve the damned sigil into Cazador’s back. He didn’t even have to lower himself so far as to hold the knife.

“I couldn’t watch you lose yourself this way,” Wyll pleads, and Astarion remembers—

Drinks by the river. A dance by firelight. A blade flashing in the dark beside his own. Teasing, challenging, spurring him on—but not touching, never pushing, not unless he wanted it. Gentle enough he could’ve cried.

He remembers Wyll’s palm smoothing across his back, checking in after a tough fight. 

Wyll used to have his back. 

He bares his teeth. “I would say good luck out there, but honestly? I hope you die screaming.” 

He storms over the stone bridge. He ignores the raised voices, the way the party calls his name—the way Wyll’s stupid stately baritone sounds so close to breaking. 

Idiots, the lot of them. They’ve taken his choices away. It doesn’t matter what happens to them anymore.

Chains sway over the chasm. Cages in the fog.

What’s left for him now? Skulking through shadows, remembering the glorious weeks he’d walked in the sun? (Remembering a palm on his back, gentle—)

No. He’ll show them all. 

This little tadpoled traipse across Faerûn may have been a waste of a good vendetta, but it’s still earned him a few assets. Friends in low places, for one. 

He makes for Sharess’ Caress and the devil he knows. 

--

It takes two days.

Raphael refuses to give a straight answer: some feeble excuse about time travel being difficult. Some lord of the hells he is. 

It doesn’t feel good, throwing himself on a devil’s mercy. It doesn’t feel good, sleeping alone in flophouses he’d once frequented as Cazador’s lure. It feels, altogether, like he’s rather less in control than Wyll had promised he’d be, once Cazador was dead.

Stupid man. Sweet fool.

He hadn’t looked back, in the palace—hadn’t let himself see whatever big wet cow eyes Wyll was giving him. People never talk about how manipulative the Blade of Frontiers can be. You don’t hear about that, in the stories: the diabolical way he twists you around inside until you forget what’s good for you. Until you get all caught up in stupid fantasies of knights and fairness and respectful conversation. Until you forget how to think for yourself.

The Gate is in chaos. Shapeshifters kill civilians, the Zhent are moving in, and none of this is Astarion’s problem anymore.

On the third day, Raphael shows him a hand mirror.

It’s a gaudy thing: silver and studded with pearls. Look straight on, and the glass is normal. Look from the corner of your eye, and it seems almost to ripple.

“And this trinket will allow me to redo the ascension,” Astarion says, carefully skeptical—pushing down the excitement bleeding through his chest.

“Not exactly. At least, not in the way you mean.”

“By all means, thrill me with riddles. Or you could speak plainly for once and we could skip to the godsdamn deal.”

Raphael stands surrounded by the Caress’ plush comforts: velvet drapes, plates of plums and currants, a warm bath set in the back of the room. He regards Astarion with mild, patrician interest. “Patience, little mouse. Have I steered you wrong yet?”

“I am extremely tired of people steering me anywhere.”

“Mm. Hopefully you’ll have the power to change that very soon.” He shifts the mirror in his hand. It catches the light. “My collection lacks any artifact with the power to turn back time. You’ve missed your chance at ascension. This world marches forward, lockstep.”

Astarion grits his teeth. “Then why are we still talking?”

“Because your efforts hardly have to be confined to this world. Not with this…trinket.”

Astarion peers at the mirror more closely this time. There’s an etching down the handle, but it’s half-hidden by Raphael’s hand. Raphael shifts the mirror away from him—casual enough to be coincidental, though Astarion knows better. It’s one bloody powerplay after the next, with devils.

“Shaundakul’s Mirror,” Raphael says, “will allow you to move between universes. I’m sure there are boundless worlds where ascension is still in your grasp.”

“So just…leave? Ascend somewhere else?”

“As another version of yourself, yes.” Raphael examines his nails. “Or I suppose you could stay a spawn in Baldur’s Gate, scuttling between alleyways as you wait out the dawn.”

A strange ringing starts in Astarion’s ears. He’d never considered—of course there are other worlds. Of course things would be different there. He could steer some pitiful other version of himself toward greatness. He could ascend, then make a life there.

Nothing’s left for him here, after all. Not anymore.

There must be other Wylls, surely. Perhaps some of them are more reasonable about the things desperate people do for power. Perhaps he could find a Wyll who’d never look at him with disappointment, or with pain. 

He squashes down the raw-rubbed feeling in his chest. Ascension must be the priority. Mooning over strange Wylls is in a distant second place.

It’s every fool for himself.

“If the first world doesn’t suit your tastes,” Raphael is saying, “just skip to the next. The mirror will be nearby, in some form or another.”

“What’s in this for you? What’s my end of the bargain?”

“I thought it would be obvious.” He smiles, and Astarion knows a predator when he sees one. “I could make better use of seven thousand souls than Mephistopheles ever could. Just between you and me.”

[whispering-about-the-tmnt]

I know Leo is your favorite. I am curious what’s your opinion on Raph?

I love him! I actually love all the guys pretty much equally, it's just that I love Leo a tiny bit more.

The thing about Raph, though, is in some of the iterations he is reduced down to a base "angry guy" personality; and I prefer it when the writers tell us why he is angry, and show more aspects of who he is.

For example, the "why" being, as Splinter put it in my story "Something Wicked", when Raph got angry and punches things after... well, that's a spoiler:

"I am sorry if someone has hurt you in their anger," he said, placing his touch on the teen's arm. "But I swear to you that Raphael would never do so. He is first and foremost a protector, and he believes at this moment that he has failed in that charge. Would you feel any different, if one person you loved was missing, and two others unwell?"

He wants to protect people; that is his primary personality trait, not "angry guy". That is doubtless why he became Nightwatcher in the 2007 movie. It wasn't because he wanted to go out there bashing heads in (that was just a bonus), it was because he wanted to protect people, and when Leo left they stopped doing that. Interestingly, the things that Leo found distasteful about the Nightwatcher were very much the same things that Leo himself was doing in the jungle in South America, but it seems that Raph was actually more conscious of not killing anyone in the process (you can't tell me that Leo let that guy in the Jeep actually live... not with that blood-curdling scream).

But, yeah, Raph and Leo are actually very much alike in that they are protectors of others, except that Leo goes about it very differently. The jungle example notwithstanding, in most versions Leo is the big brother that goes to his younger sibling's bullies and gives them a calm warning; Raph is the big brother that goes to his younger sibling's bullies and pushes them against the wall and tells them to back the hell off or deal with him... then he goes home and smacks the younger sibling across the head.

He can be very soft when he wants to be, though, so those soft moments have much more of an impact. Like in Tales Of Leo in 2k3, when he was the only one to cry when he told his story; or in both Bayverse and MM when he confessed his love for his brothers when he thought they were all going to die; or how well he got along with little Yoshi in TMNT 3; or when, in the 2007 movie, he told Splinter about Leo getting taken; or in Batman Vs. TMNT when he lectured Batman about the importance of family. But one of the most heart-wrenching moments had to be in Same As It Never Was when he was dying and used his last ounces of strength to crawl to Leo's side.

And as I said, I love it when his other interests are put on display. Like when he is shown knitting and carving in Bayverse, or working on his bike in 2k3, or playing video games with the guys in whatever iteration. In the future world of the TMNT Archie run, he is shown to be married and runs a restaurant where he is the chef. And though it is not an interest, knowing that he is afraid of insects makes him seem more down-to-earth and less of just the tough turtle.

Some of his "traits", I must admit, are simply headcanons to me. Because of his protective nature, I like to think of him as a gifted medic (albeit one whose bedside manner could use some working on), whose medical knowledge is second only to Don's. Also, I picture him being able to speak Spanish, which he learned by hanging out with people in the Bronx (also where he picked up his distinct-in-the-family accent). Both of those things, again, I wrote into "Something Wicked", which even has a whole chapter about Raph called "The Protector".

So, yeah, I think Raph is awesome! I just wish we could see more of it onscreen, you know? I am really looking forward to how Tales Of The TMNT utilizes him!

Anyways, thank you for the ask! Sorry the answer was so long!

[niphredil-14]

pls write some fluff for raph <3333

its 2 am rn so i just want something comforting to read lmao. maybe some headcannond about trying to get a peaceful nights sleep while ur crime fighting boyf sneaks back into ur room after patrolling/a mission?🥷🥷🥷

ty bby

METRONOME OF AFFECTION (2012 Raphael Hamato/Reader) Warnings: some pining, some light insecurity, lots of fluff, friends to lovers word count:1794 notes: tumblr wouldnt let me post this all at once so i was forced to break it up.

Protecting a city as massive and crime filled as New York was far from an easy task, no matter how many people were on the team, and in some cases, the team could add more to his plate than they took anything off of it. From small annoyances, and petty arguments to full on battles, it didn't take long to wear Raphael down, he could feel his patience falling away from him like loose scutes. Every little inconvenience and setback sticking to him like algae on his shell. By the time that the bright moon, clouded by the fog and smoke rising from the city, had begun to set over the skyline, Raph's feet were dragging with every step, his very bones ached, and what risked becoming a permanent scowl had carved itself onto his face, his mouth curving downward, pulling awkward lines down his jaw from his beak. The group had all been heading towards their go-to sewer cap, located in a small, cramped alley in the Italian district, right next to a small Mom-and-Pop pizzeria that they had April and Casey frequenting on their behalf. The closer they got to their equivalent of a doorstep, the more Raph's appetite lessened and a strong sense of dread set into his chest. He did not want to end his less-than-ideal night with going back to the lair, with people who has spent the past six hours doing nothing but getting on his nerves, only to brood and stew in his misery, holed up in his room or the dojo until the stars rose yet again as the next evening dawned, where they would all rinse and repeat their ass-kicking and name-taking routine, he needed an escape, and he knew exactly where to go. He had stopped walking, letting his brothers and friends build a gap between them as he slowly melded with the shadows, turning and heading east. After five minutes or so, he would send them a text, just before he arrived at his destination, letting his family know that he was okay, and that it was just a bit early for him to crawl back to the sewers to hide from the world again. Pausing after sending the text, letting the dim blue-light from the screen minimally illuminate his face, he hesitated on their fire escape. The window led into their living room, and he could tell that there was not a single light on in their apartment, save for a small night light kept plugged into the hallway outlet, so that they didn't trip if they had to get up in the middle of the night, as they so often did. The last thing he wanted to do was disturb their sleep, he knew that with everything they had going on in their life, that they weren't getting nearly enough, and yet he couldn't stop himself from at least slipping in to use the first aid kit they kept underneath their bathroom sink, and making sure that they were okay. He placed his fingers underneath the window, and let out an exasperated sigh when it lifted open without resistance. The number of times he had warned them to keep all their windows locked was as impossible to count as the stars with the naked eye. He faced the evil of the city every night, he knew what hid in the shadows, he knew the monsters that would give anything to hide in their closet or under their bed, he could be counted among them, though for contrasting reasons to the other freaks and low lives. Silently crawling through their window, with some struggle due to his sheer size, he made his way to the kitchen first, grabbing a glass of water, and some of the snacks they had begun buying once Raphael's visits became more frequent. He smiled to himself in the dark of the kitchen, his heart touched at seeing that they had restocked his favorite snacks. After having a quick bite, he snuck into the bathroom, taking out the first aid kit an patching himself up where needed, which fortunately for him, was not much, he hadn't gotten more than a few cuts, and only had to remove two bullets. He slid the kit back into the cupboard and shut the door behind him, walking as quickly as he quietly could towards the end of the hall, where their bedroom was.

The door was closed, but he could hear their soft breathing behind the door. Their breaths were slow and even, and he was sure that they were in a deep sleep. He felt as though he shouldn’t intrude, but they had always told him that he was always welcome, no matter the time or the day, and maybe, he thought, he should just do a quick check to make sure a necklace they forgot to take off wasn’t choking them and that there weren’t any intruders or creepy-crawlies hiding in the room, waiting for the perfect moment. And so, he slowly opened their bedroom door, cringing at the low squeak that resulted. He froze, waiting for any sign that he had disturbed them, but their breathing did not change, and they only slightly shifted. It wasn’t the first time that he had shown up in the middle of the night, and though he always felt so guilty about it, he knew how it usually ended, with them tucked close to his plastron, as the two cuddled close underneath the comforter, drifting off to sleep, with only a small stream of light creeping in through a small crack in the blinds. And yet, though this was far from his first time entering without prior notice, he was afraid. Afraid that it would be the last straw, that they would turn him away, tired of his company, tired of his existence. Despite his fear, the turtle took a step into their room, and then another. He walked around the perimeter of the room, checking the closet, the blinds, and any other potential hiding spots, before making his way over to the side of the bed. He did not lift the covers, just stood there, blocking the small bit of window light, and casting a shadow over their form. They looked so peaceful that he couldn’t help but just stop and stare, unable to fathom how someone as gruff and rough around the edges as him, someone with a shell even harder than their head, could end up with someone who made them feel so soft. Looking down at his friend, the one he had loved for what felt like several lifetimes before his own, he felt a sense of hopelessness. He loved being close to them, and yet he was so sure that they could never feel anything more than platonic, if even that, for him. Sometimes his brain turned its rudeness towards him, yelling at him that they only ever kept him around out of the kindness of their heart, out of pity, that he was a charity case, that they would never willingly want to be with a mutant such as him. In a moment where he wanted to be close enough to crawl inside their skin, but was to fearful of the rejection, he could only grant himself any sort of reprieve from the tightening of his heart, by lightly brushing his finger along their face, tracing swirls on their cheek. Being with them was as torturous as it was heavenly, they gave him a safe haven when he needed an escape, but with their gift of hospitality, their bright smile and caring eyes had planted a seed of sickly sweetness deep within him. He didn’t know how they had managed to reach through his plastron to tug directly at his heart strings, puppeteering him like a string marionette, but they had and there was no one else he would rather have such control over him. And just as he was about to let his hopelessness consume him and leave, their eyes slowly blinked open, their head lolling to face him as their gaze followed his arm up to his shoulder, jaw, then face. A sleepy, almost drunk-like smile graced their features, and his heart swelled. In a moment of vulnerability, they had smiled at him, so genuinely he was convinced that it couldn’t have been an act of pity.

“Hey, Big Guy.” The exhaustion seeped into their words, slurring them. His voice caught in his throat, and he coughed, clearing his throat.

“Hey.” He replied, trying to pull his hand away from their face, unsuccessfully, as they grabbed his wrist and tugged them towards them, lifting up the covers for him to crawl under. He sat down on the side of the bed, undoing the wraps on his feet and hands, and taking of his belt an harnesses, finally taking off the bandana as well, before finally climbing into bed with them. It was a small bed, twin size at best, which did not leave much personal space between them. He hovered his hands on his side, until they shifted forward, hugging him as they buried their face in his shoulder. “Sorry for waking ya,’ Doll.” They shook their head, nuzzling into him some more in the process.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Raph. You know I’m always happy to have you. It’s been too long.” He gave a light chuckle, caving to the cuddles they both craved, and pulling them even closer to him.

“It’s been three days.”

“Exactly, that’s far too long to be without my love.” Raphael sputtered, and he was sure that if reptiles could blush, that he would be red as the first roses, dyed with the blood of Aphrodite herself.

“You love me? Like, love me, as in, a more-than-friends kinda way?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“’Course I love you, Raphael, you think I’d let anyone else break into my apartment at five in the morning to wake me up for a cuddle sesh? You’re my everything.” As embarrassing as it was, he could feel his tail thump against the mattress behind him.

“You’re my everything too.” Raphael replied. He wanted to tell them that he loved them too, but the words were too heavy in his throat, and too scary for him to let escape just yet, so he settled for mimicking their last sentence, and lowering his beak to gently press against their forehead, to mimic a kiss as closely as he was capable of with his beak. Giving them a tight squeeze, he shuffled even closer to them, nuzzling the top of their head, and drifting off to sleep, with their hearts synching to beat together as a metronome of their affection.

[goodlucktai]

always darkest before the dawn

rise of the tmnt x tmnt 2k3 word count: 4k title borrowed from the tornado by owl city post-movie

part two of this prompt

read on ao3

x

Raph’s not a crier.

When he was younger he might have said it was because he was too tough to cry, a New Yorker to his core. In his thirties he can admit, at least to himself, that it has nothing to do with being a tough guy, and everything to do with being extremely self-conscious in just about every avenue of his life, but especially about feeling things out loud where anyone might see it.

Blue’s Raph doesn’t have the same problem.

He’s huge, his shell and shoulders covered in dangerous-looking spikes, a big tail that puts Raphael in mind of Leatherhead dragging across the floor behind him. By looks alone this kid is the definition of a tough guy—and he’s weeping openly, tugging Blue into an embrace just shy of crushing.

“Hey, big guy,” Little Blue whispers, shaking hands fumbling for a solid hold on his brother’s shell. His fingers skate across the big hole carved through the top of Big Red’s carapace. He reaches up to touch the bandage packed over Red’s right eye. That’s about when his expression crumples and his own eyes fill with tears. “I’m so—Raph, I’m so—”

“Don’t,” Red rumbles, burying his face in the top of Blue’s head.

“It was all my fault,” he insists, breath hitching like he’s just a few seconds from bawling. “I’m so sorry, Raphie.”

“God, Leo, don’t. You don’t have to—” Red grits his teeth, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He looks like he’s remembering something that makes him sick to his stomach. One of his hands finds the nape of Blue’s neck, thumb brushing carefully over the grisly bruises there. “You don’t have to apologize anymore, okay? I don’t want to hear it. Everything’s alright now. Nobody’s mad at you.”

“I’m mad at you,” Purple interjects immediately.

“Donald,” Orange says at length, which seems to be enough to shut him up point-blank.

Blue’s next sob sounds more like a laugh.

Red only loosens his tight hug for as long as it takes for Purple and Orange to shove their way in, and then he has all three of them squeezed against his battered plastron like there’s a very real possibility he’ll never let them go.

They’re all clearly hurting, clinging to each other in a way that Raph recognizes, even if he wishes he didn’t. How many close calls has he lived through? How many nights has he kept a frightened vigil in the infirmary, counting a wounded sibling’s breaths, refusing to sleep just in case he woke up in a world he didn’t recognize?

The kids huddled on the floor look like it would take a small apocalypse to wrench them away from each other, and even then, they wouldn’t make it easy.

“You scared me, Lee,” Orange says thickly. His tone wavers between desperate relief and actual heartbreak, face screwed up as if he can’t decide how he wants to look at his prodigal brother. He curls his hands into fists around the strap that stretches across Blue’s plastron. “I thought you were—I don’t know what I’d do if…. Never ever ever do anything like that ever ever again.”

“If you do, I will make you wish you’d never been born,” Purple hisses. “There’s nowhere in the universe you would be able to hide from me, you scheming, self-sacrificial idiot.”

It’s definitely a threat, and it definitely sounds genuine. If it weren’t for the way Purple’s snout is tucked firmly into the crook of Blue’s neck and shoulder, the two of them pieced together like a familiar puzzle, Raphael might have been worried.

There’s also the fact that Blue looks absurdly reassured, like all’s right with the world again now that Purple is here to menace him.

These guys are weird, he thinks.

“These guys are adorable,” Mikey coos a millisecond later. That tracks—Mikey’s weird, too. He pitches his voice a little louder, his friendly tone effortlessly disarming. “Hey, kiddos. I’m absolutely a believer in group hugs, please don’t get it twisted. But there are comfier places to cuddle than the floor.”

“And it looks like some of you might need rebandaging,” Donnie adds gently. “I’m happy to help with that, if you like.”

Raph watches as their alternate selves seem to remember where they are in real time. The new arrivals scramble, each of them trying to shove Little Blue behind them protectively and only succeeding in jostling him around like a snowglobe.

He looks dizzy and tired and he’s probably sore as all hell, and his bloodied eye hurts Raph to look at, but he’s laughing breathlessly, trying to worm free. Red makes a deep rumbly noise in his chest that shuts all escape attempts down. His little brothers respond with clicks or chirps, like it’s second nature—first nature? Whatever, like it’s normal for them.

“Take a chill pill, mis hermanos,” Blue says, perpetually unruffled despite the tear tracks on his bruised face and the manhandling. “These guys are cool. They made me an omelet.”

The defensiveness goes out of Orange and Red right away—whether at Blue’s reassurance itself or just the certainty in his tone, Raph has no clue. Purple, who looks like he was born to harbor grudges with every fiber of his being, scoffs loudly and doesn’t let his guard down an inch.

A huff of laughter beside him makes Raph turn his head to find Leonardo smiling at their visitors ruefully.

“It almost sounds like it’s more meaningful to him that we fed him, not the fact that we treated his numerous life-threatening wounds,” Leo says.

Raph remembers being fifteen. He feels his mouth twitch toward a grin of his own. “It probably is.”

The mention of breakfast causes Mikey to loudly mention to the room at large that Blue hasn’t even touched his, which has the intended domino effect of an exodus out of the cramped infirmary and into the den.

The couch isn’t big enough to accommodate Red, something that Raph notes with a pang. The kid agreeably settles on the rug instead, tail curling around his brothers as much as it’s able. Orange picks his way up to Red’s shoulder, sitting among the spikes there comfortably. Blue is bundled in Red’s lap, with Purple shoving him over none-to-gently to climb in next to him.

“Cozy,” Mikey says, hands on his hips. “But we’re back on the floor again.”

“Losing battle, Mike,” Raph butts in. “You’re familiar with those.”

“Boys,” Splinter cuts them off. They’ll never outgrow that exasperated tone, apparently. “Before we become distracted by the tasks at hand, there is one thing I would like to establish first.”

The kids all straighten when he speaks, not so much out of respect as anticipation. They look more bewildered by him than anything. But they seem ready to follow Blue’s lead as a whole, and Blue is eyeing him curiously.

“What would you like us to call you?” the elderly rat says kindly.

“Ah,” Orange says. “Yeah, we all have the same names, huh? You can just nickname us!”

“Nicknames for you and full-names for us?” Leonardo says as if it’s not the best plan he’s ever heard but he’s made do with worse.

“Full names are a mouthful,” Red replies immediately. “Since, uh, you—” He nods toward Raphael a little bashfully. “—probably go by Raph already, I guess you can call me Ellie.”

“‘Ellie’?” Mikey says in absolute glee. Raph resigns himself to the inevitable—the absolute menace masquerading as his youngest brother is gonna run that goddamn nickname into the ground for the next month. “Really?”

“It’s what these bozos used to call me when they were little,” Ellie replies with a shrug, not at all self-conscious about it. “Mike, how ‘bout you, big man?”

“Angie’s cool,” the spotted turtle pipes up readily. “Looks like we’re going with the last half of our names as a theme.”

Purple, however, adamantly refuses to let Raph and his brothers even entertain the idea of calling Blue “Nardo,” because that method of address is his intellectual property and a Genius Built trademark, whatever the hell that means. Likewise, only Blue calls Purple “Tello,” and Purple looks downright murderous at the idea of these strangers using the name.

“If any of you must speak to me, I suppose you can refer to me as Othello.”

“I thought you hated that alias ever since the whole Purple Dragons situation,” Angie says with a wrinkle in his brow beneath his mask.

“Yeah, and I hate it here, too, so it’s perfect.”

Raph doesn’t take it personally. How could he? The kids look like they’ve been through hell and back. Ellie hasn’t made any move to let his brothers out of his arms. Angie keeps clenching his fists, and then shaking them out, like a tic he’s not entirely aware of—or like whatever is under the bandages wrapped up the length of his arms is consistently hurting him. Othello seems like he’s willing to take a bite out of the next person who looks at him for a second too long but he hasn’t let go of Blue’s hand once.

“And you, little lion?” Splinter asks of the only hold-out.

Leonardo’s younger counterpart hums thoughtfully, then surprises the hell out of Raph by looking right at him, past his own brothers and Raph’s more affable siblings.

“What have you been calling me in your head this whole time?”

Put on the spot, Raph doesn’t have time to think of anything to say but the truth. So he gruffly admits, “Blue.”

Blue’s face lights up. His brothers’ expressions shift into something pleased, a little relieved. Even Othello looks slightly less like he’s about to commit a war crime at any given moment. It’s the same way Blue looked at Mikey earlier, when Mikey knew what drink he liked best; like it’s a hint of home they weren’t expecting to find here.

“Fine by me,” the red-striped turtle allows magnanimously.

Smiling, Splinter begins hobbling toward the kitchen. “Donatello, if you wouldn’t mind looking over their wounds, please? Leonardo and I will make a few more omelets for our guests.”

Donnie mumbles agreeably, heading back into the infirmary, presumably for supplies. Meanwhile, Blue lifts his plate up to Angie, balanced carefully in his casted hand. Angie happily tears the cold omelet in half with his fingers, keeping one part for himself and biting into it like a taco before passing the rest back.

“Eggs?” Blue asks, shoving it under Othello’s snout next.

“I’ll reduce you to atoms,” Othello says plainly, tapping on his phone with his free hand.

“Noted. Eggs?” Blue asks Ellie.

“Leon, if you don’t quit fooling around and eat your dang food—”

“I can’t even tell you how likely it is that I’ll puke if I put anything heavier than jello in my body for the next twelve hours,” Blue says conversationally. It draws Ellie up short, something pained leaking into his expression, and Othello bares his teeth at no one in particular. Sensing that his light-hearted remark didn’t really land the way he intended, Blue adds, “I had some strawberry milk before you got here.”

Somehow he makes it sound like his family is here picking him up from day camp. Ellie’s visible eye gets very soft, the gruff concern melting away and pure affection shining through instead.

“That’s good, kid.”

“Hey,” Angie pipes up, with a depth of care in his voice that makes him sound twice his age, “how ‘bout a fruit smoothie instead, Lee?”

“Say no more, mini-me,” Mikey jumps in, clapping his hands together. “I can blend with the best of them. Baby Blue, don’t tell me your favorite combo, I wanna guess—pineapple and banana?”

Blue blinks owlishly at him. Ellie chuckles and Angie says, “Ohmigosh, the parallels!” so Raph is assuming Mikey was right on the money, yet again. He’s gonna get a big head at this rate—a bigger head—and be impossible to live with.

Don returns at that point, shouldering his Mary Poppins bag off onto the sofa and pawing through it. “Can I see your hands?” he asks gently, offering his own to Angie.

“Oh, no, my hands are fine,” Angie says, flapping them. “They’re not cut or hurt or anything, April only wrapped them ‘cause they kept shaking and the pressure helped.” When Blue shoves far enough away from his siblings to crane around and look up at him in alarm, Angie hastens to add, “I just strained myself, that’s all! It’s like, uh, a torn muscle? In my soul? Dad made us all drink this gross mystic tea that’s s’posed to up our healing game, and he promised Pops that all my pain would go away in a few days.”

Blue stares at him for a second longer. If he’s anything like Leonardo, then he’s able to see right through any attempt at bullshitting him from like five miles away. Angie must be genuine, because after a tense moment, Blue relaxes back against Ellie’s plastron.

“Glad I missed the gross tea,” he announces.

“We saved you some,” Ellie replies shortly. He glances up, and starts at the way Donnie is waiting patiently beside them. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry! I think we’re okay, but you could look at Donnie’s shell, maybe.”

“No,” Othello says shortly.

“Dee—” Ellie begins, but Othello jerks his head sharply, and then glowers openly when Donnie settles down on the floor in front of him.

Raph’s not going to say it out loud or anything, but he’d feel better if Donatello kept his hands away from that kid. Out of biting distance, at least. Don doesn’t seem bothered by his little counterpart’s attitude in the slightest, smiling crookedly at him.

“You’re a softshell, right?” he says mildly. “Your carapace must be spiny and leathery, unlike your brothers’ armored scutes. Is that why you built the metal shell you’re wearing? For protection?”

“Eughh boy,” Angie mutters under his breath, torn between horror and a sort of morbid fascination.

Blue squeezes the hand that Othello is still holding, and Ellie’s arm around him flexes—they’re all clearly anticipating a violent reaction. Raph is taking his cues from them, his muscles tensing as he prepares himself for the act of flinging his immediate younger brother out of harm’s way.

Othello is staring at Don with unblinking gold eyes. They’re a perfect mirror of Blue’s, except there’s a gleam in Othello’s that puts Raph in mind of a deep sea creature lurking beneath an unsuspecting fishing vessel, ready at any moment to casually fuck up someone’s whole day.

“Is there a point to this line of questioning?” he asks in a dangerously blank tone.

“I just think it’s interesting,” Donnie replies, every bit as if he doesn’t sense the danger he’s in. “Yours is one of the most dangerous, aggressive species of turtle that exist in the wild, second only to snappers, but most people wouldn’t be able to tell as much just by looking at you. I’ll bet you’re underestimated pretty often.”

That earns him a blink at least. Othello’s brothers are all frozen, eyes darting back and forth between the two hyper-intelligent turtles like they’re following a tennis match.

Donnie’s smile widens. It’s warm, as always. If you didn’t know where to look, you wouldn’t be able to tell that it was sharp, too.

“I know a thing or two about that,” he admits easily, like it isn’t a painful truth to part with.

Don’s vicious little parallel self tilts his head a bit, considering him. Among the items Donnie has pulled out of his bag is the handheld sensor he modeled after the tricorder from Star Trek. Predictably, Othello’s eyes linger on it. Donnie agreeably offers it to him.

The whole thing reminds Raphael of the countless hours he’s spent with Mikey in countless dark alleys, winning feral cats over with morsels of food.  

Ellie, Angie and Blue all exhale in relief when Othello sets his phone down and takes the tricorder.

“My brothers and I are diamondback terrapins,” Don goes on. “You’d think that, by virtue of belonging to the same species, we’d have had an easier time understanding each other. But growing up, there were times I didn’t understand them at all.”

After a beat, Othello grudgingly engages him. “Human DNA complicates everything. Our genetic donor was equal parts martial arts superhero and an on-fire trainwreck of a man, so at least we come by our eccentricities honestly. But even if my dumb-dumb brothers were softshells like myself, they would still be their dumb-dumb selves, and I would still spend half my waking moments engaged in mortal combat with them at even the slightest provocation.”

“The Cain Instinct,” Angie supplies wisely.

“Indeed,” Othello agrees.

“I guess siblings are the same everywhere,” Donnie says with good humor. “That’s actually kind of a comfort.” He glances back at Othello and nonchalantly adds, “If you show me your shell, I can show you how the sensor works.”

The siren call of an unfamiliar gadget is enough. Othello finally lets go of Blue and extracts himself from Ellie’s hug to disengage his metal shell with a quiet hiss of hydraulics. He leans it against the front of the couch and hands the sensor to Donnie, turning his back to him expectantly and settling tailor-style with a white-knuckled grip on his own legs that betrays his nerves.

Blue plants his elbows on Elllie’s knee and props his chin in his hands so that he and Othello are eye-to-eye. He offers a stupidly charming smile. Othello says, “Get away from me, I’m busy.” Donnie snorts and activates the tricorder, narrating his every move.

A stunned Angie leans down to whisper at Ellie. “Dude, did you see that? Their Donatello just finessed our Dee. He made it look effortless. It took him like two minutes.”

“April is never going to believe this,” Ellie replies weakly.

“Speaking of April,” Blue asks of no one in particular, “how are we getting home?”

“Believe it or not, we jumped in face-first without an exit plan,” Othello says dryly. “We be we, et cetera, ad nauseam.”

“Um, in my defense, it’s really hard opening portals between dimensions, and I’m not even really sure how I did it the first time,” Angie says in a prickly tone. His mouth tugs into a frown, and he bites the inside of his lip, before he adds, “If I hadn’t thrown that chain around you before you disappeared, we might never have found you again, Leo.”

“In the immortal words of J Beiber, never say never,” Blue says immediately. He doesn’t lift his head or look away from the Donatellos, and Raph gets the feeling that the only thing keeping Othello from snapping at Donnie’s hands when they get too close is the knowledge that his brother is keeping an eye on things for him. “There’s nothing in this entire goddamn universe that you can’t do, Angelo, and that’s on god.”

“Jesus, Leo, language,” Ellie snaps. But Angie is smiling again, so Blue accomplished what he meant to.

Splinter, Mikey and Leo return at that point with plates of fresh food as well as reheated food from earlier, and Mike presents Blue his smoothie with a flourish. Othello is quick to scoot back around to press his carapace safely against Ellie’s side the moment Don is finished with his scan, and makes grabby hands at it to view the data for himself. Angie hops down from his perch to take his plate, beaming his thanks at Splinter.

“If I overheard you correctly, you don’t know how to get home?” Leonardo asks, passing food to Ellie with a worried line in his brow.  

This is the sort of thing that would strike absolute fear into Raph’s heart—stuck someplace he didn’t belong, without direction or an immediate next step to take—but the snapper digs into his eggs and only looks vaguely worried about his situation.

“Not really,” he says slowly. “And we may have promised Pops we wouldn’t do anything stupid, but—”

“But if he believed us, then that’s on him,” Othello says unapologetically.

“But,” Ellie stresses, “when the portal opened and we felt Leo’s ninpo on the other side, what other choice did we have? Besides, Mikey tossed them a line before we jumped in.”

Humming around the big bite of omelet he just scooped into his mouth, Angie lifts a hand and makes a grabbing motion in thin-air. Chains materialize in his grip, the same burning gold links that had held onto Blue so tightly.

The length of chain is taught, as if the other end is anchored onto something, keeping the young turtles moored to their place in the unknowable vastness of the universe. Wherever they go, they’ll be able to follow that glowing lifeline back home eventually.

Angie lets it go after a moment and it vanishes. But Raph knows it’s still there, even if they can’t see it anymore.

“We’re not alone,” Ellie explains, as if just that says all it needs to say.

Blue settles back, sipping his smoothie through the pink metal straw Mikey thoughtfully provided. None of the fear or uncertainty that he woke up with has stuck around. He’s listening to his brothers talk without hopping into the conversation anymore, and each time he blinks his eyelids get a little heavier.

God, Raph thinks, these kids could make themselves at home anywhere as long as they were there together.

It’s that, more than anything, that Raphael recognizes innately. Their different species and personalities and abilities aside, they’re the exact same breed as Raph and his family in the ways that really matter, in the heart and soul and marrow of the thing.

Plates are scraped clean, and conversation is beginning to stall, starting again in fits and then petering out again. Blue is fast asleep by the time his brothers are nodding off. Leonardo is still talking in a low, level tone, a tried and true tactic to lull stubborn little brothers to sleep that he perfected when he was ten years old. Like clockwork, Ellie shifts to lie flat on his plastron, and Angie and Othello follow him down into a comfy-looking turtle pile. Blue turns onto his side without waking to take the pressure off his cracked carapace and tucks his beak under Othello’s outstretched arm with a content sigh.

“Finally,” Mikey whispers, blue eyes soft.

Splinter picks the massive homemade blanket off the back of the sofa and unfolds it with a gentle shake. It’s a multicolored mess of mismatched squares, a gift from April nearly a decade ago when she was going through a quilting phase, and a family favorite. Over the years it’s been worn to unbelievable softness, and it has kept Raph warm through even the coldest winter nights in the underground.

It’s big enough to cover their guests entirely. One of them makes a sleepy subvocal noise that’s echoed immediately by three others, and it makes Donnie huff out a fond, amused breath from where he’s silently gathering the pieces of the tricorder that he had gamely allowed his mad scientist counterpart to dissect. Raph helps Leonardo pick up the empty plates and Mikey turns the TV on, volume so low it’s almost inaudible, so the kids won’t wake up in total darkness and silence.

They never outright said what happened to them, what they lived through that left those brutal marks on their bodies, and wrenched Blue away from his siblings, and made them afraid to go more than an arm’s length away from each other. Concern weighs heavy in Splinter’s eyes, echoed in Leonardo’s—obvious in the way Donnie and Mikey find reasons to linger in the room—and hell, Raph’s worried, too.

But for now, they’re safe to sleep and heal. Anything that might want to hurt them won’t be able to find them here. And even if it did, it’d have to go through Raph and his brothers first. That’s not much, but it’s not nothing.

In about four hours, give or take, a very pissed off young woman is going to metaphorically kick the door of Raphael’s dimension off its metaphorical hinges, rattling the entire fucking foundation of the place with the sheer force of her love and loyalty, fully ready to fight god to get her little brothers back. She’ll be backed up by a small army—as mismatched and messy as the quilt Raphael’s own sister made them once, made up of pieces that have no business belonging together that belong together anyway, effortlessly, endlessly, always.

None of them will be immediately familiar, but Raph will still know who they are. Some things really are universal.

Family, he’s learned, is one of them.

[haematoclan]

Um, maybe 6 with Donnie and Raph?

oh hi! i hadn't even noticed i've got one! sorry about the wait i honestly didn't get the notif? but the moment i saw this prompt i got struck with an inspiration, thank you for the ask! (also sorry for that(?))

content warnings: family death/major character death, description of a dead body (it's short and not detailed but still), grief and denial

ao3

6. “We’re gonna fix you up, brand new. I promise.”

A welder sends sparkles into the air, dancing in front of a mutant turtle's face, protected by a mask. A room is dimly lit, barely giving any idea what is going on inside. It smells of burnt metal and paper, sweat, copper, as well as something that… in the past would be, perhaps, harder to identify, but after spending ten years in the apocalypse the smell of a rotting corpse becomes obvious. And this room reeks of it.

There’s banging on the door, people yelling, begging, pleading… it’s all targeted at the engineer, he knows, although he cannot decipher what is being said in detail, his head’s stuck, swimming at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a barrier between him and the rest of the world, shielding him from hearing things that would stop him from working, from registering how his body aches and begs for rest. The murk of dissociation ensures he can finish his most important but the most challenging project yet to date.

He has to succeed. Failure is not an option.

The softshell finishes wielding two metal rods and turns the torch off, darkening the room even more. He sighs and, lifting his mask, stands up, ignoring the wobble in his legs and dizziness in his head, staying up only by the sheer force of will. He maneuvers through the metaphorical minefield on the floor full of the robot parts. He gets to the light switch and he flicks it. Weak ceiling lamps blink to life, revealing the workspace in its entirety; it’s a mess of scattered projects, destroyed and gutted machinery, drawers ripped out of the cabinets, their contents haphazardly thrown on the floor, glass and ceramic shards are everywhere, as if someone smashed mugs in rage. Then, amongst all the chaos, there are bloody and dried stains all over the place. The almost black droplets can be seen as high as on the ceiling.

Yet the most imposing and eye-catching scene is located in the center.

Here’s a medical table on which lays an enormous, spiky robot body of a mutant turtle. His green skin and red accents made of steel are shining in the light, looking surprisingly clean and neat, considering the state of disrepair and dirtiness of the workshop. There were small details that were lovingly applied during the long hours spent on this craft, like the snaggletooth was perfectly shaped and sized, every spike applied exactly where it should be and the so called “Raph Chasm” is carved ideally, just at the exact depth and size.

On the opposite table lies a nearly identical looking mutant body, the main difference being a gaping hole in his chest and the many, many, many scars the body acquired through the years that the scientist decided to ignore in his design.

Donatello turns around to see his progress on the robot, but his eyes accidentally gaze at Raph and- the moment he catches a glimpse of the gigantic carcass… his body moves in its direction almost like on autopilot, his mind’s set dead on the need to be by his big brother’s side as fast as possible. He doesn’t even register tripping over and stepping on the precious robot parts that he so painstakingly retrieved from the ruins of the civilization as they knew it. At this specific moment, this didn’t matter.

When he finally finds himself by Raphael’s side, Donatello lays his hand on the cold, decaying fingers covered in dried blood. His voice wobbles a little when he says: “We’re gonna fix you up, brand new.” He takes the much bigger hand in his two, squeezes it with trembling fingers and lays his forehead on its bony knuckles. A small whisper leaves his lips: “I promise,” and he means it. He will not stop until Raph is back with them, even if it kills him.

[thekillingjoke-haha]

Angel With A Shotgun

Summary: The Novak family was big talk,but not nearly as famous as the L/n’s. Togther they can be unstoppable,so what say family ties like guns,drugs,money,and murder?

Paring: Michael!Dean x Male!Reader

1900's Mafia/Gangsters AU

A/N: this is a Micheal fic,but its him in Dean's body so like...idk its the same snake different skin. Also Chuck is referred as Charles

Warning:Blood,guns,knives,gore,torture,swearing. Homophobic comments like just a few. No proof reading

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The Novak's that a family that was one of the most feared yet respected. The way people talk about them down south you'd think they were inspiration for the Bible itself. A man by Charles or Chuck Novak is the head honcho with five sons to help him run is kingdom.

The youngest is Castiel he was probably the nicest of all his siblings,but also the most protected with three other brothers, Gabriel is the definition of trouble and if he slipped up head could easily get lynched good thing he puts that silver tongue to work. Raphael was one of the more head strong,but sadly he was shot when several rivals attacked at on of their bars. Lucifer is the second oldest and the most hot headed with a temper to match the black sheep in his family if you will, then last,but not least Michael he was something else entirely the play boy,a demon is a flat cap and tailored suit.Now that the Novak's have been introduced the world's most feared gang the L/n's is one family not to be fucked with.

(Father's name) leading his kingdom no...empire with his wife (Mother's name) and togther they had only two sons. The second born William and the oldest M/n. William wasn't much involved with the criminal side of the business,but his big brother was the prime example of a gangster. No one besides the L/n gang has seen him he stays out of newspaper coverage and that only allows his terror to run ramped. A man with no face and a title of Satan himself made the oldest Novak just a little timid when he found out. "WHAT THE HELL!!!" Michael threw the newspaper on his fathers desk in anger the older man looked up after glancing at the paper. "I'm due to be wed to a L/n and none the less a man! I can be hanged for so much as saying I do and it IN THE FUCKING BULLETIN!!!" He was seething with hatred in every word. Michael will admit it hurt a lot finding out he was to be wed by the slight disgust look he got while grabbing the paper before getting coffee. "I wanted to tell you sooner,but you were handling something. There's no way out of this a deal was made before you were born me and (Father's name) have been waiting for his wife to bare a girl or your mother to do the same,but your mother's untimely passing and (Mother's name) having gone unfertial our oldest are due to wed." Chuck sighed taking off his thin wired glasses.

"You two were once friends,but I guess time got rid of those memories." Chuck sat down his spectacles down looking at his son. Michael turned to father with shock evident in his eyes. He was friends with M/n L/n the man with no face. Everything was too foggy. The shorter male stood up to a shelf in the office and grabbed a small match box opening it looking around before pulling out a picture. Handing it over to his son he sat back down. "He was one of the only people you'd go to when you were a baby. Heavens he was probably the only person you liked,but when he was five and you were three the fact that our business was centered around blood and there's on bonds it became a fight,mafia versus a gang, and you guys saw eachother less and less till around the time Luci was born not at all." Chuck sighed. The young man was in shock a little boy maybe two or three was cuddled up to a baby in a pale blanket that he remembered was blue fully awake and if the picture could come to life he's sure the boy was humming all while rubbing the infants back.

"No ones seen a picture of him in twenty six years and he was on his fathers hip with a match box car. He's in town and should be coming for dinner here by himself in three days time. So til then keep your brothers in check we don't need them to shoot the young man with a stray bullet." With that Charles dismissed his eldest son as the green eyed boy stormed off in a huff. Michael started to do digging. M/n L/n was in headlines weekly in every post known to man from shootings,assassination,and gangbanding to rumors of his love-life,what he wears,and people claiming to have met him. One thing caught his eye that made him falter. "Gangsters M/n L/n Captures Murderer" that when he started reading the full paper that crumbled a bit due to age. Maybe he's not so bad the guy he caught never saw a courtroom,but met a far worse end all because he caused problems with his people. It was admirable the brunette knew he'd do the same,but not just for anybody. Marriage wasn't settling well with him that didn't mean it felt completely wrong.

One day later

Looking in the mirror Michael watched as his maid adjusted his tie while another smoothed the wrinking in his white button up and vest of his three piece suit. As the oldest he had business to handle people to keep in line. When their hands left his body they scurried out of the room rushing to be down stairs before him. His dress shoes met the floor as he grew closer to the door his youngest sibling ran up next to him. "Can I come,please!" His raven head of hair and doe blue eyes almost made him cave,but with a firm look he gazed down at him. "Sorry little raven,but I have things to handle another time." The pout on Castiel lip didn't move as he held up his hand his pinky out. "Promise?" Interlocking with the ten year olds pinky. "Promise." With that he happily skipped away to play in the garden.

Out the door he went. His flat came on his head and coat thrown over his shoulder his effects tucked in his waistband. Screams caused him to smile as he stood before the butcher on payroll. He wore the man's leather apron having abandoned his tailored suit jacket in the front of the deil. "Were is my money?" He cut the man some more as he continued to scream in pain the white fire from the rusted meat hook in his shoulder flaring with each jerked motion. "Help please!" He yelled all of a sudden in the past hour he hasn't called for assistance. "No can do." A deep voice said behind the oldest Novak turning around sharply his green eyes clashed with e/c. The man looked like anyone off the street his shoes tattered and clothing dirty form labor no bet. "I came for my five notes." The didn't seem fazed at the torture. "Fuck you gypsy scum!!" The pig of a man responded as the tall s/c man crept closer gripping a knife Michael was using. "I just unloaded a load of meat in the summer heat that would give the devil a sweat and all I asked for my effort was five notes nothing more nor less so cough of the money that you clearly owe both of us or I'll carve it out of you and make you squeal like the piggy bank you are." His tone dropped further the blade under the man's fat chin and the Novak felt aroused at the threat. This guy meant every word when the hanging man spat in his face the off color of snuff and blood made the normally clear liquid seen and thick. Let's just say Michael sat back crossing his legs in a attempt to compose himself as the man hit pitches not even the girls in the church choir could master. The heavy weight man forked over the money then some I got my full and he ended up giving the mystery man a hundred notes if he made the pain stop after pocketing the money he shot the man.

He turned around and began to leave when the brunette stopped him. "Wait! I give you my thanks friend he was stubborn for a hour almost" The h/c man turned looking at him giving a smile tilting his head for the Novak to follow as he stepped out the deli. Scrambling he walked down the street next to the man their attire clashing a well tailored suit next to rags that looked more like a potato sack then cloth. "Glad I could help a fine looking fella like yourself." His flirtatious grin caused butterflies to run ramped in Michael's guts. As they walked down the street they slowly moved from the good side of the town to the slums. No cars drove on the gravel a fire hydrine spat out water for all the children playing around it,women hung up clothes on wire between tenements and men looked more like the mysterious gypsy next to the Novak. Speaking of the mystery man he went to each crowded tenements door and knocked the women or young men of the families came to the door and he handed over twenty notes each. The women cried and clung to his tall figure and the boys almost men looked at him in wonder like a hero before running off to tell the adults of the place. "Why did you do that?" Michael asked as they walked out of the town. "You worked for that money and gave it all away." He was confused he's never seen a man work for a family that wasn't his own.

"They need it more. Schools out the children don't get meals and the men work hard to feed them at least a meal a day. I'm alone here no lover or children with the energy and muscle to work." Novak wasn't sure before,but he was sure now this was love and it felt better then any harlot he could spend the night with. "Thats very admirable of you." Michael complmented which was not a normal accuracy. "It was truly nothing to admire,handsome. I'm not saying I'm amazing,but sometimes I'm decently above average. That's what people need someone decent enough go care."

Before he knew it they were back on his side of town and getting closer to the business. "It's been a pleasure,Mr. Novak." The man dripped his head as he turned to leave somewhere. "You know who I am and I don't even get a name." He turned back around and got closer to him his chest pushed up against his till he was pinned to the wall he leaned down his lips so close to his face just out of reach. "I'm N/n,but you can call me the man of your dreams." Michael almost leaned up to peak his lips when the warm body pulled away taking with it the lust filled tension. N/n turned and left out of sight that night was full of the man tossing and turning dreaming of the e/c man that made him feel high as the clouds above. N/n smiled as his men drank around him he finally saw his baby boy all grown up and he's taking what's his this time.

Two days later=Six Hours Before Family Dinner

The buzz of the New Yorker coming to Kansas was the rage. Any man that was new in town was watched like a hawk by commoners and the Novak's. Michael was no longer looking forward to this marriage he didn't want this man no matter who he was. N/n stole his heart like a petty thief and ran away from him. No one in Kansas knew who he was a s/c skinned,h/c haired,e/c eyed gypsy was all he had to go on no last name just a image that burned bright in his mind. Michael sighed as he left his office and went down to the bank he needed enough cash on hand to throw away on booze and maybe angel dust. People parted for him like the red sea and he easily got money when gun shots went off. The teller in front of him fell to the ground wounds ridding his body and Novak turned to see men...no boys with guns.

"Everyone get down on the ground. We've come only for the money we won't hesitate for blood as well." The group chuckled as the leader smirked people shook as they easied to the ground all except Michael who stood tall. "Ah! If it isn't Michael Novak no men to protect you now." A man he didn't realize came behind him hit him over the head with his gun causing him to fall to his knees. "Pathetic." The band of thugs leader grabbed the Mafia bosses chin looking and the blood coming from his brow. Someone stood from on their knees a flat cap covering their hair and a long trench coat that was only slightly open. "It would be in your best interest to leave,boys." They all train their guns at the man. "Why's that,you motherless bastered?" The man turned his gaze upward deadly sharp e/c orbs looked at him and Michael was in shock it was N/n. "Cause I have twelve guns ready to blow holes in you and your men." After his words ten men stood up all wearing the same clothing flat caps,overcoats,and suspenders with a Tommy on every man except the leader. The cowardly man looked frightened looking around keeping his gun on the s/c man. "I only count ten I still have the upper hand." N/n gave a devilish smile that made Michelle gaze on love struck and excited for what's to come. His gray trench coat hit the floor and two sawed-off shotguns in each hand. "Upper hand you say?" He pulled both triggers the left one killing the man sending himself flying back and the right killing the man behind Michael blowing his brains painting the tan walls this made the others fire as well. The bodies of the criminals and one civilian litter the floor.

N/n sent the men off to get the people out as he walked up to the bleeding Novak. "Thank you." His green eyes gleamed making the standing man give a grin as he held his hand out to help him up. "Consider it a gift from M/n L/n." The gleam disappeared from his eyes his soon to be husband was in town has been in town and set his men up to keep him safe. "Now if I'm not mistaken you have a dinner to get ready for,pretty boy." He takes the handkerchief out of his waist coat dabbing the blood away. "Will you be there?" Michael voice sounded weak so full of hope. "You can count on it. We'll be seeing eachother alot more." The man stood up and quickly left and not a moment later Mafia men came in running tending to the boss. Looking longingly at the piece of cloth (Your Initials) were sowed into the reddend white square of fabric.

Family Dinner was about to start the Novak's sat at the table Charles sitting at the end his three eldest sons to his right while his youngest sat to the left two spots were available one across from Michael and the other on the opposite end of Charles. A maid came in the dinning hall and cleared her throat. "The L/n's are here." Two young men came through the door one taller then the other the shorter of the two sat across from Michael while the other sat at the other end of the table closest to Michael and the other man. Charles smiled at them both and Michael was in a state of shock. "M/n been a long while hasn't it?" The oldest Novak looked at the man infront of him waiting for a response when the man he thought to be just a gangster working under the L/n's answered. "That it has Chuck. Sorry father couldn't come he had some other business to handle." N/n or M/n now to Michael's knowledge said before placing a hand on the man beside him. "This is Benjamin or Benny my right hand man don't mind him." The man gave a nod of acknowledgment his blue eyes piercing. "Heard about the blood bath at the bank quite impressive from what Michael has told me." A side smile and a teasing look was turned the mentioned Novak's way. "Saw low life scum trying to rob the place and touching what's mine,their little toys they call guns were child's play compared to my men." M/n sent a wink addressing the men hitting Michael from behind.

"Are you a knight that saves people?" The youngest asked his blue eyes wide in wonder. The s/c males eyes turned to the child a warm smile gracing his lips. "Sometimes when I want to be." A bubbly giggle rang out. "You saved Mikey making him your prince." Those words caused different reactions from all the men. Gabe covered his mouth trying not to laugh at his older brother,Lucifer grinned leaning over to his brother. "Did he have to kiss you sleeping beauty?" He chuckled lowly making kissing noises in his ear,Micheal was beet red as he couldn't bear to face any of them,Chuck smiled looking at his son and son-in-law,Benny nudged his boss sliding something to him while everyone was distracted. "Yeah and I'm gonna make him my king and take him to my castle." M/n leaned towards the boy and whispered in his ear. "We'll ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after." Castiel was gobsmacked as he gazed at his brother all giddy he was gonna live a fairy tale like in all the books their mother use to read. "Um if you'll excess me. I need some air." Micheal stood up and not long after M/n followed when given a reassuring nod from Charles.

The garden of the estate was beautiful in the moonlight and it wasn't hard to spot the oldest Novak on a bench on looking the pond that reflected the night sky. "You knew the whole time who I was." Micheal didn't look up at the man as he sighed. "Yes I knew who you were...we were once closer then the stars and the skies itself." The L/n sat next to him on the bench looking forward. "Chuck knew as well." Michelle turned in shock at that statement a goose chase for nothing. "He didn't know what I looked like now,but letters everyday asking about you seemed to do the trick." Those e/c eyes turned to look into those apple green ones. "Learning from a young age that in you grasp was the person you were due to wed was shocking I almost hated you,but the moment you grabbed my finger as if I'd slip away made me realize it can't be so bad." M/n held out his hand palm up so the younger male rested his hand in his grasp. "I was afraid at first you'd hate me. So I swore to protect you always. Some of my men live here with their families and they keep me posted. Just last year a rat was found on you door step admitting his faults."

Micheal remembered that the maids came rushing to get the family and a man bloody and beaten spilled his guts about planning to cross the family having been hired by a rival Mafia to get information to attack them at a weak state. "I know this won't mean munch to you know,but maybe at some point you'll be happy to carry my last name and call yourself my husband." In M/n hand that wasn't interlocked with Micheal's he opened a box revealing two wedding bands both were silver while one had a gold trim and the other had a f/c trim. "No matter what,Novak,I'll be there when yiu need me through it all most of the times guns blazing." M/n chuckled lightly taking in a deep breath. "Just ponder on it,pretty boy,I'llbe here waiting." as he slipped the ring on the silent man's finger before doing the same with himself he gently kissed the top of his head as he stood up and left wanting to give him space. Micheal smiled at the ring that perfectly fit his finger. The one man he felt attracted to was his guardian angel always there no matter what.

Lifting his hand up he kissed the metal band as a laugh left his lips. "My angel with a shotgun."

⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉⑆⑉

A/n: Second Male reader and I had to spell check for almost 50 she/her in her so I think I got them all lol.

@spnquotebingo

Quote: "I'm not saying I'm amazing,but I'm decently above average."-Blacklist @spnquotebingo

[fandom-space-princess]

The Game of Us

Rating: T (gen, no warnings)

Chapter 3: Raphael

Raphael watches, impassive. “Our pain is not weakness, Michael. This grief... it took some time, but I did eventually come to understand. Why I awoke here, that is. You met Gabriel at the Styx? Fitting. Judgement always was her burden to bear. But this... this is mine."

Read below the cut, or on AO3

************************************

With Gabriel gone, the shades begin to dissipate, and soon Michael finds himself alone once again.

It doesn’t last long.

“Well done,” comes a voice from behind him. The tone is the same as before, but now the words are spoken aloud. The entity’s form has shifted. It wears a body that, while still indistinct and hazy, appears far closer to human than it had previously done.

Michael scrambles to his feet. He can feel his own form shifting as well, physical appearance undergoing continental drift atop his roiling grace.

“You took her. Gabriel. What have you done with her?”

“Please try to keep up, my boy. I took nothing and no one. The messenger is safe and well, merely—well, let’s call it offstage, for the moment. And she came quite willingly, as you saw for yourself.” The entity folds its hands neatly in front of it. “I see that she has given you much to consider. I trust your time together was informative?”

“That’s—one way of phrasing it.” The entity moves away, beckoning, and Michael doesn’t fight the impulse to follow. At the termination of the crevice, just outside the circle of crumbling stones, he is unsurprised to see that the path continues deeper into the forest.

As they walk, low-hanging branches catch and drag at his hair, his clothing. Michael feels as though he might be leaving snippets of himself behind, like fur snagged in brambles along the trail. He thinks of Gabriel’s wispy audience with sorrow. “So much of the Host, dead and gone. So many shades. I knew, of course I knew. But seeing them there... it’s not the same.” Regret swirls within him, settling as a tightness around his eyes; he can feel it there, performing the subtle work of reshaping the image he wears.

Into what, though—he doesn’t yet know.

The being at his side nods, curt. “You must understand where your actions lead. Not solely for yourself, but for others. You cannot abdicate your duty to your nature by refusing to choose, any more than you can by making choices.” He gets the impression that it raises its eyebrows meaningfully in his direction. “In your brief period of freedom, you knew the state of Heaven, and yet you turned your back on your responsibilities. On Earth, with that human—that wasn’t choosing. You were hiding.”

The words dig at him, slivers of ice working their way into the center of his grace. Adam. “He needed me. And I needed to keep him safe.”

“That’s a partial truth at best, and I’ve no interest in coddling self-delusion. Try again.”

Being dead, he is discovering, has a way of making it harder to lie to himself. Shame flares low in his stomach. “I... I should have done better by them all. They were my family, and I failed them. I couldn’t face them. Couldn’t face—”

He stops. The path has led them to the edge of another river. Crystalline and clear, smooth as glass, it burbles quietly past their feet. It winds away in lazy curves, disappearing into the deeper shade of the trees.

Michael looks down at his reflection, and his Father’s face looks back at him.

A hand on his shoulder. “I am not without sympathy for your pain,” the being at his back says, gently. “But running from it is no solution. The realm of Heaven is in disarray. Without you and your kin, it will fall, new God or no. And then—whatever it is you love, whatever it is you fear—then there will truly be nothing left to salvage.”

Michael crouches down, touches fingertips to the image of Chuck’s face. Tiny ripples distort the surface, rebounding off each other, spreading and fading away. “This isn’t the Styx. None of this should be here at all. What have you done to the local reality? And to what purpose?”

“Ask your next brother. They always were the wisest of you.”

This time, Michael doesn’t need to turn to know he is alone.

************************************

He follows the river further into the wilds, meandering gradually down the mountainside. The underbrush thins with the change in altitude, and the straggling trees grow steadily sparser. Before long he finds himself among yet more ruins, though these appear considerably more modern than the last. The river glides through the bones of a forgotten city. He picks his way along streets of stone dwellings adorned by grand archways, airy courtyards, monolithic houses of worship. Mist twines in and among the silent remains of civilization, and everywhere he looks he sees the incursion of the forest: trees growing in cracking walls, moss overhanging low rooftops.

Near the center of the city, both buildings and trees grow abruptly denser once again. A thicket of olive trees and creeping ivy, solid and unassailable, tangle up through ruined foundations and collapsed walls. The river seeps between the roots and disappears under a wall, alongside a single narrow entryway into what must once have been a church. It is barely wide enough to permit him entrance.

He pushes forward, through the vines.

An uneasy aura pervades the air within, musty and stifling, heavy across his shoulders and thick in his lungs. The further in he travels, the stronger it becomes. As it intensifies, he realizes that the feeling is not solely physical; a heady and potent psychic residue that he recognizes as grief only when he finds himself choking back a sob, without understanding quite why.

Down an overgrown corridor, and as suddenly as the vegetation had closed in upon him, it clears. He finds himself in an interior courtyard, roof all but gone, open under the sky.

“So, I get to see you again, after all. Hello, Michael.”

He looks around, confused, for a moment unable to identify the source of the words. Then, all at once, he sees.

In the quiet grove that has sprung up to consume this once-thriving city stands a sparkling pool, the termination point of the river’s above-ground course. Here the water stagnates, swirling deeper into a reservoir carved through foundation and bedrock to disappear into the earth. A stand of trees grows about the edge, roots worming deep down to seek the water through cracks in the floor. What he had originally taken for a statue carved into that living wood shifts minutely. Raphael meditates among the trunks, limbs now gnarled branches, head crowned by thick twisting ivy.

They are, he realizes, the source of the pain imbuing this place. He circles the pool and seats himself beside them, back bending under the onerous weight of their distress.

“You’ve taken His face,” they observe. Their voice holds neither scorn nor approval. Only sorrow. “Don’t take this personally, but I don’t think it suits you.”

“I’m not so certain of that,” he replies morosely. He brushes his hand lightly over the back of one of their own, firm and warm as olive wood. “And you’ve given up on a human form at all. I didn’t realize you held any fondness for dryads.”

“I needed—a change of perspective.” There is, momentarily, a hint of wry smile in their voice. Even on their worst days, he reflects, Raphael always held a spark of gentleness. It makes him ache for them; warrior and healer both, the only one among them as truly skilled in restoring life as taking it. They had never needed his protection, but he should have done more to uplift and support them, still. “Hamadryads have no skin to stitch. No bones to set. They neither bleed, nor do they break. They put down roots, and they grow, and they watch the world pass. It’s a peaceable enough existence.”

“Brother, you—you do realize where we are.”

Raphael rolls their eyes. “I’m dead, Michael, not blind.” They shake their head, ivy tumbling back and out of their face. Michael realizes, abruptly, that the ivy is a deep emerald green; like the blindfold Gabriel had worn, it is the only point of color against the otherwise monochrome environment.

“Then maybe you can enlighten me. I was sent to find you. By... well, I still don’t really know by who.”

“Don’t you, though?”

“I don’t,” he replies, adamant. “I can’t see the purpose to this, any of this. We are asked to return to the world, but to what end? What makes him think—” Michael breaks off, defeated.

“What makes him think we’d do any good for it this time around?” Raphael finishes knowingly.

Michael studies his reflection in the water, and says nothing.

They shake their head again, turning to contemplate the pool. “Did you know this pool has no bottom? If you fell in, you’d sink for eternity. There’d be no point in swimming; you couldn’t save yourself.”

“Why do you sound like you’re considering it?”

Raphael sighs. “I tried so hard, Michael. I fought and bled and died for our family, and still, it fell apart. You’re wearing His face, and for what? You blame yourself?” They look down at their palms, loose in their lap. The wood there is stained; in a place with light, with color, Michael wonders with a shiver if the stains might not appear the ruddy brown of old blood. “But I was our healer, Brother. And I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t heal anyone.” The sadness in the atmosphere redoubles, clawing over Michael’s skin.

Their voice cracks. “I couldn’t even heal myself. He wouldn’t even allow me that much.”

Michael’s head drops to his hands. This agony, like a breaking bone or a breaking heart, has been eating at their foundations for so long. Gabriel struck speechless, Raphael in tatters, and himself—what had he done for them? Other than carry out the edicts of a creator who treated his creation as no better than toys, to be discarded when He was bored of them?

He feels tears bead at the corners of his eyes, and overflow. To his astonishment, they do not fall onto his hands. He draws back in surprise.

The tears hang suspended in the air before him, crystalline. Gently revolving, they slowly coalesce, and descend toward the pool. When at last they meet the surface of the water, they merge without a single ripple marring the glassy shine.

Raphael watches, impassive. “Our pain is not weakness, Michael. This grief... it took some time, but I did eventually come to understand. Why I awoke here, that is. You met Gabriel at the Styx? Fitting. Judgement always was her burden to bear. But this... this is mine. The Kokytos is fed by the tears of mourners.” Their voice rings hollow, but there is an underpinning of tenderness there, Michael thinks. Something patient. Something compassionate. “My own contribution was long overdue.”

“How do you know where I came from? And why the rivers at all?”

“My stubborn, immovable brother.” Raphael’s smile is weary, but fond, even in their grief. “This place is his to command, he who sent you here, beyond mortality as it is. Knowledge flows through it. You need only listen for it.”

Michael scrubs hands across his eyes, and takes slow, steadying breaths. “Raphael. You don't belong here, not like this. Please. Move on from this place with me. We can do it together.”

Their eyes crinkle at the corners. Gently, they extend a hand down to break the surface of the pool. “No, Michael. In that, you are mistaken. It has been too long since I allowed myself to sit with my pain, and learn what it has to teach me. Give me time. I’ll catch up with you.” They draw the hand to their face. Trace their fingers over their lips. The tip of their tongue flicks out, catching at the water that beads there. “If I am to heal, first I must let myself mourn. Don’t worry too much about me. I know how far the river of lamentation runs; I will not drink so deeply of this well that I drown.”

The thought of leaving Raphael behind fills him with dread, but he nods. Stands. They reach up to him, trace a hand over his wrist as he pulls away.

“I wish I could have done more for you, too,” they murmur. “But you aren’t Him, Michael. Please remember that. You’re nothing like Him. I wish I could have helped you to see that more clearly.”

Michael resists the urge to look back into the pool, to see his reflection there. “I don’t know what I am. But I’ll keep searching until I do know.”

“That’s all I could hope for. See you soon.”

He feels the edges of his countenance shift and blur again. When he exits the room, his companion is waiting.

************************************

(Chapter notes:

- The city in which Michael finds Raphael is inspired by the ghost city of Kayaköy, currently part of Turkey; by its former inhabitants, it was referred to in modern Greek as Levissi. Between World War I and the Greco-Turkish war, its entire population was either forcibly exiled or killed. Despite the horror of that recent history, until that point it had been a relatively peaceful place, its mixed Muslim and Orthodox Christian populations living together harmoniously. It is now officially under the protection of historical conservation, and there have been some attempts at restoration. I think Raphael would consider such a place deeply meaningful, and be able to find healing in the possibility of moving on even in the wake of such tragedy.)

[thepandapopo]

His Star

This is my first FE fic in over ten years. The last time I wrote anything for FE was back in FE7 which, to this day, is my second favourite game of all time.

I have been on a Claudeth binge lately and since it is our favourite deer’s birthday tomorrow, I thought I would try my hand at a fic.

This is most likely going to be a multi chapter fic as I am spinning the plotline in my head as we speak, but whether or not that plot bunny makes it to paper is a different story.

Pairing: Claude x F!Byleth

In which Byleth falls sick for the first time in her entire life, but those who slither in the dark insist on making her life difficult. 

OR

The one where Claude fears he won’t make it in time.

Chapter List: 1 / 2 / 2.5 

Masterlist

XxXxXxXxX

“Professor, you need to rest!”

For someone so demure and dainty looking, Marianne is deceptively strong. Though, Byleth thinks absently as she lets her former student push her back down onto her large 4 poster bed, she shouldn’t be so surprised since she’s seen even Raphael himself bend to the gentle bishop’s will in the odd instances that he sustains a critical enough injury to land himself in the healer’s tent.

“Don’t worry, Professor. I’m sure Seteth will be able to hold down the fort while you recover.” Leonie says from her place at the foot of the bed. Despite the fact that the war has been over for nearly 6 months, her lance is still clipped neatly to her belt, next to her sword scabbard - close enough within reach to attack on a moment’s notice.

Since the end of the war, Leonie had taken it upon herself to act as the new Queen’s Head of Royal Guard. When Byleth had questioned the orange haired girl about her decision, she was merely met with a grin and a simple “I would be a terrible apprentice to Captain Jeralt if I let anything happen to his only child.”

“I’m... sorry.” Though the words themselves are not strange on her tongue, the unfamiliar dryness of her mouth and stuffed nose make Byleth sound weaker and more hesitant than she would have liked.

Leonie snorts, “you don’t have to apologize for catching a cold, Professor. Especially one due to stress. Despite what I think of you when you’re on the battlefield, you really are just a person like anyone else - of course you’re bound to get sick every now and again.”

Still, Byleth broods silently as she watches the blue haired healer usher her other student out the bedroom door, she has never gotten sick in her entire life until now and it just seems a tad bit unfair.

Fusing with the progenitor goddess has several advantages, but unfortunately it seems like being immune to illnesses is not one of them.

As her eyelids begin to lose the fight against consciousness, Byleth cannot help but let her mind wander longingly until she falls asleep dreaming of beautiful emerald eyes and a crooked grin that shines brighter than the dawn.

----

It only takes one week of being bed ridden before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Byleth is finally starting to feel well enough to stand up without feeling like she has ingested a vial of Claude’s infamous dizziness poison, when the scouts return with a report that the remnants of the Imperial army have joined forces with Those who Slither in the Dark and are marching for Derdrui, the country’s new capital.

It does not take a tactical genius to figure out that they are coming for the newly appointed Queen and Archbishop of the United Land of Fodlan.

Urgent messengers are sent out to all the nearby houses, requesting any available troops they can spare without leaving themselves vulnerable. It’s almost laughable the pitiful number of men that show up to help fight, but the arrival of all her golden deer is enough to raise Byleth’s morale and hope that she can conquer this disadvantaged fight without her schemer by her side.

Despite the protests from her students - former students, she corrects herself - Byleth steels herself and leads the meager army at her disposal in a defensive formation. This is her duty, after all. Without her, troop morale would falter and that in itself can be the deciding factor in a battle. Additionally, though she has not used it in several months and truly, she does believe in all her students’ skills, Byleth cannot help the unease that creeps up her throat when she thinks about her precious deer on the battlefield without her Divine Pulse. She has fought so hard to make sure they lived to see the peaceful world Claude and her dreamed of, that it would seem like a cruel joke only for them to fall now.

Even sick, the Ashen Demon earns her reputation. Fells of enemies fall to the Sword of the Creator as it burns with power, whipping around its wielder like a snake striking with deadly precision at the enemy’s weakness. Byleth refuses to let any enemies get close to the city. Her people have already been ravaged by war. They deserve peace, not another battle at their front step.

Hilda is somewhere to her left swinging Freikugel and cleaving through enemies with all the difficulty of a hot knife slicing through butter. Byleth is tempted to relocate the pink haired girl to the back line to act as a final barrier, but she knows that those orders will fall on deaf ears.

“If you insist on going out there Professor, then I have to come and make sure you don’t die. Can you imagine what Claude would say if he came back to find you dead? He would mope for the next century!”

Ignatz and Lysithea are further back providing cover with their long ranged attacks. Arrows and black magic rain from the sky, piercing through unsuspecting enemies and carving a path for Byleth’s battalion to advance and cut through the ranks of the enemy.

Somewhere to her right, she can hear Raphael’s battle cries above the cacophony of sounds. Judging by his sheer volume, Byleth knows that he is doing well despite being far outnumbered. Besides, the brawler is accompanied by Lorenz and Bernadetta, and while Lorenz specializes in black magics, he knows enough healing spells to keep them afloat. Plus, no matter how timid she is off the battlefield, Bernadetta is a force to be reckoned with when protecting her loved ones. Especially her mountain of a husband.

Marianne, Leonie, Felix, Ingrid, Seteth and Flayn are scattered elsewhere to protect against the enemies from crushing them in from both sides, but as the battle wages on, it becomes more and more apparent that their ranks are thinning and those that still stand are beginning to feel the fatigue of being outnumbered three to one.

The battlefield has long since warped into a jigsaw of cracked earth and chasms, courtesy of some nasty earth spells from Those Who Slither In the Dark. Where there should be rolling plains leading out onto the salty water of the ocean, there are now steep cliffs of jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, and despite her best efforts, Byleth eventually finds herself cornered on the precipice of one such cliff.

It can’t end like this.

Another enemy falls to her sword and Byleth barely has time to parry an oncoming arrow before another wave of nausea assaults her body.

She knows she’s probably burning up right now. Mint green strands of hair are matted to her skin with dirt and sweat, and the pounding behind her eyes is growing increasingly difficult to ignore. Byleth is pretty sure that had it not been for her father hammering in years of battle instincts into her, she would have had her head lopped off ages ago.

Despite how much she tries to will herself to stay in that cool, collected mindset that has won her numerous battles, Byleth cannot stop the tightness in her chest that accompanies the tears of frustration accumulating at the corner of her eyes.

She wanted to see Claude again. To feel his arms around her. To fall asleep to the steady pounding of his heart that seemed to inexplicably speed up every time she let her body melt into his. To let herself drown in the scent of pine needles and spices.

She could try using the Divine Pulse, but where would she rewind to? A few minutes would not be enough to make a drastic enough decision to turn the tide in their favor.

It’s not fair.

Goddess. She is so tired. But she cannot give up. Not when she has a promise to keep.

“I love you. With everything I am. And the next time we see each other... it will be at the dawn of a whole new world. A peaceful, happy world.”

Claude...

The ground beneath her feet teeters and he sky is suddenly above her. It is a brilliant blue with fluffy white clouds and even though she knows she is falling, she cannot help but be reminded of the first time Claude invited her out on his wyvern and they spent the afternoon soaring and diving through the air on a beautiful day just like this.

Claude... I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our promise...

She thinks it is a trick of her mind, but right as Byleth feels her consciousness slipping away, she hears his voice one last time crying out her name with such fear and anguish.

Then, there was nothing.

----

“BYLETH!”

Claude feels his heart stop and clench painfully as the familiar black and green figure tumbles off the edge of a jagged cliff.

He is shooting across the battlefield on his wyvern’s back before he can even spare a thought to how absolutely reckless it is to fly so low in the range of archers.

Behind him, he vaguely registers his generals shouting at him in alarm and Nader barking out orders to support the retreating Fodlan forces.

All he can think about right now is getting to His Star in time.

Later, he will wonder to himself if perhaps he might have the power to pause time as well, because although it was probably less than 4 seconds, Claude swears that the world around him slowed as all of his senses honed in on his one goal.

Please, goddess, let me reach her in time.

---

To those who participated in the Final battle with Those Who Slither in the Dark, they would recall vividly the moment when a loud battle cry rang out from the east heralding the arrival of the Almyran army.

They would also recount the arrow of white and gold that shot across the battlefield towards the Queen whom had made her last stand on the edge of a cliff before fainting from exhaustion and tumbling down to the depths below.

Above the din of weapons clashing and cries of agony rose a single name, cried out with such fear and panic that even those who knew not whom the shout belonged to, felt their hearts clench painfully with the raw emotion.

Although not many could say for certain what happened next, all the surviving Fodlan soldiers would recall shortly thereafter seeing their former leader, Claude von Riegan, atop his white wyvern loosing arrow after arrow on the lingering enemies with such brutal efficiency that reminded everyone exactly how he had ended the war.

When the fighting ceases and casualties are tallied, fear for their Queen runs rampant through the soldiers. For those who have had the privilege of fighting under the combined leadership of Claude, the master tactician, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon, they know how strong the bond is between the two, and although they have their doubts, they allow themselves to let their worries melt away when they see Claude exit the medical tent with a look of such knee wobbling relief that he has to lean on a nearby wall to stop from collapsing.

XxXxXxXxX

Ugh. I hate how this ended. I’ll come back and fix it another day.

Anyhoo, hope you all enjoyed it!

Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 2

[drsilverfish]

15x03 Coda - Castiel in the Desert

Cas drives through the night and into the pale morning.

He has the things Sam thrust into his hands; fake IDs, credit cards, a change of clothes, a bag of weapons.

His own few possessions, the things from his life in Lebanon, Kansas, that he’d treasured: a “Welcome Home” card with a bee on it from Claire Novak, sent after he got resurrected from the Empty; the music tape Dean made him; a polaroid of Jack, leaning on the bonnet of the Impala, smiling; the T-shirt Sam printed for him which read (in Enochian) “It’s funnier in Enochian” - these, he’d left behind, a small pile on the bed in the room that had, sometimes, been his.

Sedona, Arizona, a place of red rocks and juniper trees. He doesn’t want to think too hard about why he picked this town. But, he can’t lie to himself. Some of the Westerns he watched with Dean, back when Dean seemed eager to be in his company, were filmed around Sedona. Angel and the Badman, starring John Wayne, he remembers particularly, because Dean had looked at him before they pressed “play” and said “That’s kinda you and me, huh?”.

He figures a semi ex-angel who still has some healing powers can get lost here, amongst the spiritual seekers and ley-line tourists.

It’s fall, and the yellow-greens of the oaks, the reds of the maples, against a blue sky heading into noon, are almost psychedelic in their bright potency, as he drives along the road into Oak Creek Canyon.  

Being “Steve” back in Rexburg, Idaho, after the great angel-fall, had given Cas some life-skills outside of hunting. He plans to head to the library in Oak Creek Village to create a resume. There are coffee houses, and artists’ galleries and crystal shops in this part of the world. He’s pretty sure he can find work.

He promised Sam he’d keep his phone, but its silence feels like a lead weight in his pocket. He stops the car by the creek, watching a cascade of leaves fall onto the hood, and takes off the trench coat and tie, bundling them into the back seat.

“And what visage are you in now, huh? Holy tax accountant?” he hears Dean’s voice, from long ago.

I don’t know what I am, he thinks, but not this anymore, not Heaven’s soldier and not the Winchesters’ angel - just... Cas, whoever that may be.

...........

A week later, Cas has settled on Flagstaff, thirty miles north of Sedona. His shifts at Coffee and Bagels on the NAU Flagstaff Mountain Campus don’t make rent, but he has begun to establish a lucrative side-line in tarot card readings. Although his powers crap out at odd moments, he finds he can still look into a person’s soul. He remembers his lesson, from the brothel that night before he and Dean trapped Raphael in a ring of holy oil; no sudden mentions of absent fathers. Dean’s laugh from ten years ago echoes in his memory, as if a moth has become trapped in his chest.

He still doesn’t need much sleep, so Cas’ solace becomes night-hiking in the surrounding Coconino forest and the San Francisco peaks.

The first time he decides to walk through the night, he heads for the highest point on the mountains, Humphrey’s Peak. Beneath his feet are dark roots. The pines and aspens shiver in the night air. Cas can taste the copper of the fallen leaves, hear the worms blind and joyous in the mulch underfoot, brush the sleep of Calliope hummingbirds, resting under cover of darkness on their winter migration south to Mexico.

As he reaches the treeline, there is snow and basalt underfoot, and finally, the gasp of stars he is searching for. The Milky Way, that glittering stairway to Heaven, casting her fishing net across the shoals of light in the pitch sky.

There, as the canopy of the world arches over his head he finds, heretic that he is, a voice for prayer.

He prays to his dead son, once so golden and eager in Kelly Kline’s womb.

“I’m sorry, for all the things in this world I never got to show you; roses of Jericho like desert sculptures in Judea; dancing revellers in red pvc at Battle Hymn in New York, golden monkeys with blue faces in the forests of southwestern China.”

Cas prays, not to Chuck, whom indeed he has cursed bitterly, over and over. But, as if otherwise they will shake him apart, rather, he hurls his prayers into the black holes of God’s expanding universe.

“If it is blasphemy, to have gravitated to the particular calluses of one pair of human hands; if it is blasphemy, to have carved my name onto bright bone, remade in Hell; if it is blasphemy, that no thousand-year command of garrisons in Heaven could ever compete with a single year’s savage nights in Purgatory; if it is blasphemy, I have been no more, and no less, a blasphemer.”

“And yet,” he whispers, into the cold solitude of the mountain, “if many waters cannot quench it, and neither can the floods drown it, is it not, also, holy?”

Cas stays there with his question, like some modern Prometheus, a piece of quantum infinity on the edge of finite time, until the rocks bleed out in the dawn.     

[calumcest]

good morning :) loved the new drabbles and i was wondering if you'd write about 'actually.. i just miss you' and lashton again but like.. in the angel/devil au? i completely get it if not because you already wrote one with that prompt (and it was great) but i'm a sucker for this verse and the phrase just reminded me so much of them (oh and maybe alternatively for them if you don't want to use the prompt again: 'why do i love you?')

thank u so much!! omg i’m so glad you enjoyed the verse bc i am slyly living for it its very self-indulgent so any requests to write more in the angel/demon verse...how could i say no also forewarning this is not a drabble its 1.7k sdlkfjhsbdf 

Ashton, Michael prays, an edge of desperation to the word, and Ashton jerks up from the record of the soul he’s currently processing, focusing in on the prayer. Come down. I need you. 

What for? 

Luke. 

Ashton can’t help the butterflies in his stomach at that, and he swallows, pushing himself back from his desk. 

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t go. Michael’s more than capable of handling Lucifer - he’s proven that once before - and Ashton’s busy. He’s got at least three thousand more souls to process today. He doesn’t have the time to go down, doesn’t have the time to chase whatever stupid nonsense Lucifer’s up to now. He shouldn’t. 

Instead, he focuses in on Michael, lets his prayer swell in his heart, closes his eyes, and heads down. 

He turns up in the dark outside a restaurant, lit up by one feeble streetlight. He can feel that Lucifer’s in there, feel it in the burning, crawling sensation under his folded-in wings, so he takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. 

It’s nearly empty, save a table with Calum, dressed in all black, leather jacket catching the light as he gesticulates wildly, frowning. Michael’s opposite him, white shirt setting off his pale skin and blond hair, frowning right back at Calum, lips twisted in a way that Ashton knows firsthand means I know you’re right but I refuse to lose this argument. Lucifer’s sat next to Calum, looking incredibly bored with whatever’s happening, but, almost as though it were an instinct, his eyes are drawn to Ashton, north meeting south. 

Ashton swallows at the dark look in Lucifer’s eyes, and heads over to the table. 

“What?” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as hoarse to everyone else as it does to him. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” Michael says, a look of relief spreading across his face. The curse rings loud and unholy in Ashton’s ears, and makes him wince slightly. Michael barely even notices. “Cal, let’s fucking go.” 

“Wait,” Ashton says, as both Calum and Michael scrape their chairs back, and Michael turns to look at him, faint annoyance etched in his features. 

“What?” he says. 

“What?” Ashton echoes, slightly incredulous. “You call me down here, and then you leave?” Michael shrugs. Ashton cannot believe him. “You said-” he cuts himself off, with a glance at Lucifer, who’s watching the exchange idly. Lucifer doesn’t miss the glance, and a lazy smile spreads across his face when he realises what the look means. 

“I just said I needed you,” Michael points out. 

“For Lucifer.” 

“Yeah, to keep him company,” Michael says, “while me and Cal go off and fuck.” Calum nods seriously at that. Ashton’s going to speak to Him about blanket banning consorting with demons. Michael’s getting worse by the day, and he was never good to begin with. 

“I think he can look after himself,” Ashton bites out, casting Lucifer another glance. Lucifer just looks back at him, amused smile playing on his lips. 

“No,” Michael says, placing a hand on Ashton’s shoulder, and Ashton feels it, feels the full weight of God’s love and holiness thrumming through his veins, heavy in Michael’s touch, stronger than any other angel. He kind of gets why Raphael hates Michael whenever he feels that. “I think you should be there with him.” He says it with the kind of gravity only an archangel can muster, and Ashton has no choice but to nod, because it’s an order. Michael grins at him, quick and easy, all seriousness gone, and pats him on the shoulder, right above his wing. Ashton winces, and falls into the seat Michael had been occupying. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Lucifer calls after Calum and Michael as they head for the door. 

“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do,” Calum shoots back, and Lucifer grins wickedly. 

“Exactly,” he says, and both Michael and Calum roll their eyes fondly - and, okay, when did Michael become fond of Lucifer? Something rolls uncomfortably in Ashton’s stomach at that, but he pushes it aside, focusing on the task at hand. Keep Lucifer entertained. Keep him company. Ashton can do that. 

“So,” Lucifer says, blue eyes flicking to Ashton, lit up and amused. “Just me and you now.” Ashton nods tightly. 

“Looks like it,” he says. That just seems to amuse Lucifer even more, small smile stretching to a full grin. He leans back, tilting his head like he’s scrutinising Ashton, and suddenly there’s a cheeseburger in front of Ashton. 

Okay. Ashton’s not a fan of human food, he really isn’t, but Michael had gone on and on about cheeseburgers for at least fifty years, begging Ashton to come down and try one, and Ashton had eventually relented and said he’d try one if Michael brought one back up, which he’d duly done. It’s been at least forty years since that happened, and Ashton had only managed about ten before he’d caved and started taking the odd secret trip down to Earth for a cheeseburger. Nobody, though, nobody, not even Michael, knows about that. 

“I don’t eat human food,” Ashton says primly, because he doesn’t. Ashton may not be able to lie, but all that’s done is make him very good at bending the truth. 

“You eat cheeseburgers,” Lucifer says, like this is a well-known fact, and not something Ashton’s sworn Michael to secrecy on. 

“I-” Ashton’s cut off with a wince, holy power seizing his tongue, caught in an almost-lie. Lucifer grins, recognising the telltale signs of an angel trying to lie all too well. Ashton clears his throat in a dignified manner, hoping Lucifer can’t see the flush on his cheeks, and tries a different tack. “How do you know that?” Lucifer shrugs. 

“Kept tabs on you,” he says, and then proceeds to reel off Ashton’s cheeseburger order. “Double cheeseburger, extra pickles, no mayo, two tomatoes.” Ashton stares at him. 

“You stalked me?” he says, and it comes out a little strangled. He’s not sure whether that’s the holiness or the fact that his stomach has done, like, a full Olympics gymnastics set at the idea that Lucifer’s been keeping up with him, been watching him from afar. 

“Well, now, stalking is a strong word,” Lucifer says, grinning, because he doesn’t care, he’s the Devil. That thought sends a strong wave of revulsion coursing through Ashton, top to toe, followed immediately with a wave of guilt. He really hopes Raphael’s not tuned in to him right now. The last thing Ashton needs is someone spreading the word that Ashton’s hanging out with Satan. 

“You-” Ashton cuts himself off, because he’s not really sure what he wants to say. Lucifer watches him, half-amused, half-interested. Ashton feels the full weight of something under his gaze, but he’s not sure what it is - holy, sacrilegious, Heaven, Hell - and drops his gaze to the cheeseburger. 

“You should eat it,” Lucifer says casually. Ashton eyes it warily. 

“Do I look like an idiot?” he says. Lucifer rolls his eyes. 

“What, you think I’ve carved a banishing sigil into the lettuce?” he says, like it’s the most ludicrous idea in the world, and then stops. “Hmm. That might be one to try on Michael, actually.” Ashton, because he’s a good friend and an even better angel, dutifully sends a prayer in Michael’s direction informing him as such. Michael doesn’t respond, and Ashton withdraws before he gets too close to the dark spikes of whatever it is that Michael’s currently giving off. 

“I don’t want your food,” Ashton says, because it’s true, he doesn’t want Lucifer’s food, and pushes the cheeseburger away from him childishly. Lucifer rolls his eyes, but pulls the cheeseburger towards himself, and takes a huge bite out of it, holding Ashton’s gaze as he does. Ashton prays for the strength not to watch the line of his throat as he swallows, but He doesn’t seem to be listening. 

“Have you always been this fucking boring?” Lucifer comments idly, licking his finger obscenely, and oh, oh, the repentance for the thoughts that just went through Ashton’s head hits him like a train. He visibly flinches, and Lucifer grins. “Man, you know shit’s a lot more fun when you don’t feel shitty about every thought you have.” 

“I don’t feel bad,” Ashton grits out, because he doesn’t. Repentance is a necessary consequence of sin, and he always feels good that he’s repented. Lucifer shrugs, and takes another bite of the burger. Ashton swallows, not entirely because he kind of wishes the burger were going down his throat instead of Lucifer’s. Like he knows what Ashton’s thinking, Lucifer quirks a brow at him. 

“You can still have some,” he offers. 

“I-” Ashton winces again, unable to say I don’t want any, because he does, he really does. Lucifer laughs, and pushes the burger back towards Ashton, but there’s something fond in his eyes, and it makes Ashton feel a little sick with something that he tries not to identify as guilt. 

“Eat,” he says, and it’s soft, it’s gentle, and it breaks Ashton’s heart into a million pieces. The Devil shouldn’t have it in him to care about anyone, least of all Ashton. 

Ashton can’t rid himself of that sneaking suspicion, though, staring at the burger in trepidation, and Lucifer sighs. 

“You really don’t trust me, huh?” he says, and there’s a note of bitterness in his voice. Ashton hates it, hates himself more for causing it, hates the guilt and confusion that washes over him as an immediate consequence of both of those thoughts. 

“You are the Devil,” Ashton points out, and Lucifer huffs out a laugh. 

“I’d never fuck with my second-favourite angel,” he says solemnly. 

“I’m glad Michael’s safe, then,” Ashton shoots back before he can stop himself, and Lucifer grins, shaking his head. 

“Why do I love you?” he says, and there’s something so raw and wistful in his tone that Ashton wants to cry, wants to reach out, wants to tell him I’m sorry, I’m wish I could make it better, I wish I could fix this, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I wish I’d never loved you, I wish I’d found a way to stop loving you. 

Instead of saying anything, because nothing would be enough, and anything would be too much, he reaches forwards, picks up the burger, and brings it to his lips.

The radiant smile Lucifer gives him is all angel, no Devil. 

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Changing Channels: Final Part

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,876

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I am so sorry this is out late. I’ve been dealing with shit the past few days.

I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

When the morning came, Dean wanted nothing more than to get out of this town. Sam was nowhere to be found which was odd, but you didn’t say anything of it until Dean started to notice. When he was finished brushing his teeth, he spit out the rest of what was in his mouth.

“I'm worried, man. What that SOB did to Cas. You know, where is he?”

“Sam isn’t in here,” you called out from bed.

“Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know. I woke up and he wasn’t here. His bed wasn’t even slept in,” you frowned.

Dean shrugged on his jacket before pulling out his cell phone. He grabbed his keys, and you both walked to the car as Dean called his brother.

“Sam. It's me. Where the hell did you go?” Dean left a message just as you two got in the car.

“Dean? Y/N?” Sam said, his voice a bit strange.

“Where the hell are you?” you asked since he clearly wasn’t in the car.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Noticing the flashing red light on the dashboard, it lit up in time with Sam’s words.

“Shit,” you sighed.

“Oh shit. I don't think we killed the Trickster.”

“Is it too early for an ‘I told you so’?” you asked, crossing your arms.

“Save it,” Sam sighed.

Dean put the car in drive and peeled out of the parking lot and down the road.

“Okay, stake didn't work. So, what, this is another trick?” Dean asked.

“I don’t think it’s a Trickster,” you announced.

“What do you mean?” Dean wondered.

“Don’t you find it kind of weird that he’s so invested in this Michael/Lucifer/Amara storyline? He’s so obsessed with us saying yes, it’s getting suspicious. Did you know that there are currently and only has been four archangels? Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, and—”

“Gabriel,” Dean finished for you.

“Yeah. We know who Michael and Lucifer are. Dean and I met Raphael when Castiel needed him. That leaves Gabriel left. This isn’t a Trickster. He’s an angel, and he’s hiding. And I know just how to get him to admit it,” you grinned, looking at Dean with a mischievous look.

“For once, I like that look in your eyes,” Dean smirked.

Dean drove to the spot where it would be perfect to do your little experiment. If you were right about this, then you get to go home—your real home. If you were wrong about this—and you knew you weren’t—then this really was a Trickster, and you’d need to find another way home. After retrieving the holy oil, you made sure to leave a big enough circle that if Gabriel does show, then he would land in it. Once that was complete, then Dean rummaged through the Impala’s trunk to hide the container of holy oil.

“Dean?”

“What?”

“That, uh, feels really uncomfortable,” Sam cleared his throat. Dean slammed the trunk of the car down hard. “Ow. You sure this is gonna work?”

“No, but we have no other ideas,” he sighed, looking to the sky as if Gabriel could see you three that way. “Alright, you son of a bitch! Uncle! We'll do it!”

“Should I honk?”

“Wow. Sam. Get a load of the rims on you,” Gabriel appeared right in the spot you needed him.

“Eat me.”

“Okay, lady and gentlemen. Ready to go quietly?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast. Nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs.”

“What's the difference? Satan's going to ride his ass one way or another.”

“Now,” you glared.

Gabriel rolled his eyes but snapped his fingers. The lights go off in the car, and Sam stepped out of it with narrowed eyes.

“Happy?”

“Tell me one thing. Why didn't the stake kill you?” you asked.

“I am the Trickster,” he chuckled.

“No, you’re not,” you smirked, holding up a flaming cigarette lighter and tossed it to the ground. A ring of fire springs up around the archangel right where you laid the oil out. He looked all around himself before laughing. “You’re an archangel.”

“A what? Somebody slip a mickey in your power shake, kid?”

“Fine, then why don’t you jump out of the holy fire, and we’ll call it our mistake… Gabriel, the youngest of the four. I wonder what your big brothers would think if they saw you here. They do know you’re here, right?” you chuckled, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

Gabriel laughed, but stopped once he knew he’d been caught. The surrounding areas vanished in a burst of static, only to be replaced by the inside of the warehouse you approached days ago.

“Well played, Y/N and Co. Well played. Where'd you get the holy oil?” Gabriel clapped.

“Well, you might say we pulled it out of Sam's ass,” Dean chuckled.

“Where'd I screw up?”

“You didn’t. I wouldn’t have figured it out if it weren’t for Castiel. Ever since I first met you, I knew there was something about you that just didn’t add up. Plus, it was mostly the way you talked about Armageddon.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, call it personal experience, but nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family,” Dean explained.

“So, Gabriel, how does an archangel become a trickster?” you asked.

“My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, and carved out my own little corner of the world. Till you three screwed it all up.”

“What did Daddy say when you ran off and joined the pagans?” Dean asked.

“Daddy doesn't say anything about anything.”

“So why ditch your family?” you asked.

“Do you blame him? I mean, his brothers are heavyweight douchenozzles,” Dean smirked.

“Shut your cakehole. You don't know anything about my family. I love my father and my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So, I left. And now it's happening all over again.”

“Then help us stop it.”

“It can’t be stopped.”

“You wanna see the end of the world?”

“I want it to be over! I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you three! Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins, I just want it to be over.”

“That’s no way to think. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” you nodded.

“You do not know my family,” Gabriel laughed. “What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. A fight against a force that comes out of nowhere, and acts as if they know and rule everything. You'd think you'd be able to relate.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked.

“You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you three are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father. Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. Amara, the surrogate mother who invades and latches on like a leech. Why do you think she’s in prison right now? You three were born to this. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Dean glared.

“Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.”

“No, there is no way in hell that’s happening. I won’t allow it,” you shrugged.

“And therein lies your similarities. See, Amara was just like you. Strong, powerful, and protective. Then she stopped caring and it all went to shit,” he groaned after pausing. “Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers and endings wrapped up in a bow... but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be.”

“No,” you whispered painfully.

The four of you stared at each other for a long time before Gabriel spoke up about it.

“Now what? We stare at each other for the rest of eternity?”

“No, you’re going to bring Castiel back from wherever you stashed him,” you glared.

“Oh, am I?”

“Yeah, you are. I wasn’t pissed before, but I will be. You don’t want to see that,” you crossed your arms with the promise of your blue magic.

Gabriel groaned, but he snapped his fingers to bring your angelic friend back. Castiel appeared next to you three, and you placed a hand on his arm in comfort.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Hello, Gabriel.”

“Hey, bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful.”

“Okay, we’re done here. Come on, Sam and Y/N,” Dean decided, turning and walking to one of the doors.

“Uh. Okay. Guys? So, what? Huh?” Gabriel stuttered as everyone began walking away from him. “You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?”

“No, we’re not,” you stopped by the door and turned to the archangel. Sam and Dean were already out of the door along with Castiel, but they stayed close to hear what you had to say. “We don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family.”

Lifting your arm, you swept your hand from your left side of your body to your right, the flames dying down in motion of your arm. Your magic was able to extinguish the flames on their own.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” you scoffed as the archangel glared.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel left, and you were about to follow when Gabriel stopped.

“I saw her. Amara. I don’t know what she’s doing to you or how she’s communicating with you, but don’t trust a word she says. She’s evil and manipulative and stubborn. Most importantly, she’s real because I’m the one that helped put her away. If you say yes to her, she will destroy everything good about you and then the world.”

“Like Michael and Lucifer?” you asked. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t need someone like you to look over my shoulder. I have family for that.”

Leaving the warehouse, you joined Sam and Dean at the car where they were discussing what happened.

“All that stuff he was spouting in there, you think it was the truth?”

“I think he believes it,” you commented.

“What do we do now?” Dean asked.

“Live our lives the way we want to. I don’t believe in destiny because if I did, I’d at least hope there was something better for us out there. We make our own rules, and the angels are going to regret it if they think they can try and dictate our lives,” you announced, turning to Castiel after. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Right about now I wish I was back in a TV show,” Dean huffed, sliding into the car.

“Yeah, me too.”

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[hmel78]

In conversation with Raphael Doyle ...

A few weeks ago my attention was drawn to a video in which Tom Robinson [Tom Robinson Band / presenter on BBC radio] spoke about a project he’s working on with his old friend, Raphael Doyle. Now, Crowd Funding has become the ‘in thing’ and many people pay it no mind, but this pledge was different. And why? Because there’s real a story behind it - This is not just about a band expecting their fans to donate money in return for a signed photo, or a cheesy ringtone, thus ensuring  the next album is made. From what I’ve heard, the album is going to be something special musically - but not only that, this album is a genuine work of LOVE; not for profit. but for the sake of creativity, for the music ; it’s about old friends, and new, coming together to be a part of Raphael’s album - And they’re against the clock  (for more than one reason) which makes it all the more compelling. I was, of course, interested to know more about Raphael, who along with Tom Robinson and Hereward Kaye in the late 1960’s, formed the trio ‘Cafe Society’.

I should imagine you’re already familiar with Tom, and perhaps Hereward too [from his days with The Flying Pickets], but Raphael has clearly managed to remain off the radar - until now! Born in Northern Ireland, Raphael absconded to England when he was 15 - An unconventional teenager, but a keen songwriter and poet - he found himself at Finchden Manor in Kent, before carving a career, one way or another, in music. ‘Cafe Society’ enjoyed a relative amount of success but it was short lived, and following the break up of the band in 1976, Raphael’s  biography states that he was, at that time “Painfully short on confidence and increasingly dependent on drink”. By the time he was 19 Raphael had already married Rose. Over 40 years later, through thick and thin, and with a clan of four children, they’re still going strong! When I first spoke to him he was telling me about his return to living in the North East of England, having been lucky enough to buy back the very same house he and Rose had lived in as a young couple ; add to that his return to making music, and it would seem that there are many aspects of his life that are coming ‘full circle’.   “Never Closer” is the title of the album - Raphael sings us through a number of extraordinary tracks inspired by “a messy life encompassing darkness and recovery pain and love”,  but at the end of it all, quite contentedly  concludes - “The whole journey has definitely been worth it” ... You can keep up with Raphael’s story, and the pledge campaign, as it unfolds via his website and social media, but in the meantime, we thought we’d attempt to extract some more of his memories about those early days as a musician.

HR : If you’re open to talking about it Raphael, I’d like to go back to 1968 - to Finchden Manor**, where you met up with Tom Robinson - what was life like there?

Raphael Doyle : Well, I was 15 when I arrived at Finchden. I'd come from Northern Ireland where I'd had unhappy fallings out with a couple of schools.  I was clashing with the conservative, Catholic environment of my upbringing, and I was a fledgling hippy in the world that didn't like that. Finchden was like another world entirely - suddenly you found yourself somewhere where you weren't in the wrong all the time - where you could be yourself. It was very unstructured. Your time was your own.

HR : Were you encouraged to be creative?

RD : It wasn't so much that you were encouraged to be creative, but more that you were given the space to be yourself. So some people got into making things, some got into gardening, lots of us spent a lot of time talking. And there was a great spilling out of creativity, whether music, art, pottery, poetry. Whatever people had in them. Just in the time that I was there, there was Matthew Collings scribbling away amazing cartoon-like drawings, who has gone on to become a very highly regarded artist and art critic. There was Mike Medora who was playing searing blues guitar and he went on to do the festival circuit with Global Village Trucking company. There was Danny Kustow, still a much loved guitarist, who became famous beside Tom Robinson in TRB. There was the amazing and eccentric Robert Godfrey who went off to form the Enid, a legendary prog rock band, and he took with him a bunch of other boys, notably Francis Lickerish, another brilliant guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. And there was Tom and me, writing songs, putting groups together- and I guess we were encouraged, yes. We used to be brought out to play to visitors… I remember us being taken off on long journeys in George Lyward- the founder -in his old car to visit Lord and Lady somebody or other in a mansion, and he would give a fundraising talk, and Tom and I would sing a couple songs, and then wander outside where we chanced upon this old guy in ancient corduroys tending a rhubarb patch, who turned out to be the Lord himself. Very PG Wodehouse!

HR : Actually it sounds like fun,  despite being a difficult time ... There’s a great quote from Hereward [Kaye] about your songwriting, he says “The lyrics were all his own and smelt of trouble. How I longed to be deeply troubled like him!”     What was it about music, and songwriting that engaged you? Is it fair to say that without music, you may have strayed onto a very different path?

RD : Well, Hereward was right. I was a troubled young man. We all were at Finchden. But even before I went there, back in Northern Ireland, music and writing had become my escape valve. I came from a little seaside town, and a Scottish wild card called Colvin Hamilton took over the swimming pool cafe and turned it into a venue -  The Scene  - and he would bring down bands from Belfast. This was at the height of the early 60s R&B boom. ‘Van Morrison’ and ‘Them’ were the big name. I was too young to be let in but I'd spend the weekend nights with my ear pressed to the blacked out plate glass window, listening to that raw, rough earthy music. And at home, and in friends’ houses, I was listening to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, John Mayalls blues breakers ... So Music was already my landscape. It didn't stop me getting into trouble though!  So it was arriving at Finchden, having a place of respite , the chance to heal and grow, and there to get together with Tom and start honing my musical instincts - that's where my direction became set. I became a musician at Finchden.

HR : It was Tom who introduced you to Hereward, in Middlesborough - what happened in the interim before you eventually moved to London and formed ‘Cafe Society’?

RD : Tom's family were living in the north-east and I went up there with him for a holiday. A neighbour of his decided to introduce us to some other arty young folk she knew of from Middlesbrough, and that's where Hereward came in. We just clicked - it wasn't so usual then to meet others passionately into writing and making music. Hereward in Teesside and Tom and I in Kent would make reel to reel revox recordings of each new song and post them to each other, then when we'd meet 2 or 3 times a year and we'd have long sessions playing the songs to each other and trying out harmonies. So then when we finally got together in London it was natural to get into a bedroom or a cellar and just spend hours playing and arranging and practicing.... We were buzzing on it.

HR : From what I’ve read, many people were buzzing about it, including Alexis Korner. You had a really strong connection to him - how did that come about?

RD : Alexis had been at Finchden in his youth - he was an 'old boy'. While we were there his daughter Sappho stayed for a while ... I remember Alexis and Sappho singing the country blues song “Trouble In Mind” together. This was when Tom and I would be wheeled out to play for visitors and there were some powerful times when Alexis and us would play in a packed Oak Room to visitors and wild eyed disturbed adolescents ... So Alexis got to know us and became something of a mentor. HR : Alexis was really big on the music scene, especially with  ‘Blues Incorporated’ - how connected  were you to all of that?  

RD : I remember staying at his place in Queensway and meeting John Mayall - I was a bit dumbstruck. It wasn't that long before that I'd been standing in the dark in a blues club in Belfast watching the ‘Blues Breakers’ with John Mayall and the new guitarist Peter Green playing stunning music, and here was the man standing before me. I don't know what I mumbled but I think it was embarrassing. Another time I was sitting in Alexis' front room with Andy Fraser who was someone Tom and I both loved very much. We'd been to see ‘Free’ at the Redcar Jazz club - the place of been jampacked and heaving and the band were incredible. And here was Andy talking to Alexis about what to do now Free had broken up. He put together a band called Toby. A little while later Hereward and I nicked his drummer Stan Speake, for the band we were putting together while we were waiting for Tom to come to London.

HR : So when Tom arrived, and ‘Cafe Society’ formed properly, what attracted you to the folk scene above any of the others?

RD : We didn't really choose the folk scene. It was just that we were three guys with acoustic guitars, a focus on harmonies, writing our own songs. In those days you either put together a band and played places like the hundred club, or you went to the booming folk circuit. So we began there ...

HR : You landed a residency, as a 3 piece, at The Troubadour coffee house - what do you remember about those first performances?

RD : As far as I remember we had a residency at Bunjies first. We were playing around a lot of clubs- The Rising Sun in Tottenham Court road was a good one. But the Troubadour had the cachet; it had a more serious reputation. We used to go down there and do floor spots on other people's nights and gradually we were building up a following. So then we got a night of our own-Tuesday nights.   It was a wonderful time, a very atmospheric place to try out new songs, to practice our harmonies. We had a captive audience in a little space and it became a shared experience. I think we had a very distinctive blend.   Tom was serious about the nuts and bolts of arrangements and song structure. Hereward was a showman, flamboyant in his songs and performance, and I would escape into the music and let my soul pour out. It made for a dynamic blend. And we were all fans, we all loved music, for us the people we listened to were our heroes and we wanted to join them. HR : And it wasn’t long before you did, was it? RD : No - By now we were trying to get a deal. That was the big Next step in those days. First you build up a bit of a following, then you got management, then you got a deal. We got a manager. Hereward knew John McCoy who ran music venues in and around Middlesbrough where he came from. John went on to become Chris Rea's manager and got him signed and started on his career. We used to go up and play at the Kirk, the most happening club on Teesside at the time, which John owned and ran. He listened to our stuff and wasn't quite sure what to make of it but he agreed to manage us, and one thing led to another and it resulted in Ray Davies of ‘The Kinks’ coming down to the troubadour to check us out. It was the same night Alexis was headlining for us so there was a real buzz in the air. Ray did a bit of a floor spot with us standing alongside not quite able to believe what was happening. Ray saw something in us, I think, that chimed with his own sense of song. He signed us up to his new indie label Konk -the first one in the country-and he himself produced our first album.

HR : Presumably that opened a few doors?

RD : Sure. From playing the London folk clubs, suddenly we were getting support act slots on national tours. We supported ‘The Kinks’ a whole bunch of times,  which was a bit odd because we were this very well mannered acoustic trio in the middle of the stage set up for this raucous pop rock band and the audiences were kind of looking for a good time. But we went down surprisingly well on those tours.  HR : Didn’t you also open for Barclay James Harvest? RD : Yes -That was a bit weird because they were a full blown prog rock band with colours and smoke and atmospherics and everyone took the whole thing very seriously!   I think for some of them a support band was just a necessary evil so we felt a bit sidelined. But luckily a lot of their audiences were the listening kind and enjoyed what we did. Also I have to say that Woolly Wolstenholme was a really sweet guy and he was always very encouraging and would make time for us. We learned a great deal on all of those shows. Sometimes it's when you're not doing your own show, but having to make your mark in someone else's, that you can learn most about holding true to yourself and standing firm as a performer. Then I remember we did the Alan Hull solo album tour. Alan was big at that point as the singer songwriter of Lindisfarne so it was a much better match for us as an acoustic trio. He did the whole tour solo and the audiences were great for us.  Mind you the dressing room was a place to be .... A parade of beautiful people hobnobbing with the latest thing ... Eh, that'd be him, not us!

HR : So as things progressed, and you were having this amount of success as a trio, what prompted you to add more members and form a ‘proper’ band, changing the dynamic, and presumably the sound?

RD : Well, as I said, we weren't really a folk group. We did love people like Neil Young,  Paul Simon, Dylan... We used to finish with a James Taylor song “Lo and behold” . Tom always really liked Richard Thompson. I remember at The Troubadour we used to sing the Fairport song 'Meet on the Ledge'. But really our folk credentials were accidental. We always saw ourselves as a band. Hereward and I had both been in blues bands, and played the raunchier end of R&B pop. Tom's musical interests ranged really widely. He was a big fan of early ‘Manfred Mann’. He and I were besotted with ‘The Band’, “Music from Big Pink”. So really we were just waiting for the chance to expand and go electric - unfortunately it happened just as Ray Davies was making the first album with us. He signed an acoustic trio, but while Ray was supervising recording us at Konk, a process in which we didn't feel we had much say, we were off down the road when not needed in the studio, doing our own demos in a little place in Holloway with a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard player. We abandoned the folk circuit and started to play the pub scene. The Golden Lion in Fulham, The Three Kings in North End Road where the unknown Elvis Costello was forcing himself on the attentions of a bemused audience! Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's. There was a new buzz around and we wanted to spread our wings. So with one thing and another the Konk relationship fizzled out.

HR : ‘Cafe Society’ were dubbed band of the year by Sounds magazine in 1976, but the same year saw  the arrival of ‘The Sex Pistols’ and a whole new scene - what impact did Punk have on you and the rest of the band?

RD : We had built up an expanded following as a band and it felt like we had lots to do. But Ray Davies brought in a production team to work on our second album, who were nice guys but they were not about new music. We were trying to make a go of it with them, and Hereward and I were both newly married and putting a lot of time into that side of things - so the impact of punk, for me at least, Was Tom turning up one night to visit me and sitting down in the front room and telling me how he had been going to the hundred club and seeing  this group - ‘The Sex Pistols’ - and that everything was changing. Tom was going out nights and seeing them and ‘The Clash’, the new bands, and he knew that the album we were recording was redundant.   And he did the right thing. He went off and he dived into the deep end of this new wave. A few short months later Hereward and I were standing at the back of the Lyceum on the Strand looking in disbelief at this mass of thousands of people all with their backs to us, Facing forwards, arms raised and yelling to the rafters for TRB. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think we did both, but very proudly.

HR : It seems at that point, Tom was destined to go a different route - did you and Hereward plan to continue?

RD : When Tom announced he was leaving I didn't want, for myself, to carry on. But Hereward really wanted us to finish the album, which was looking more of a Hereward album anyway. So we continued. But it was without any real sense of ownership or involvement or hope. Really, it was over when Tom left.

HR : What direction did you take musically after the band broke up for good?

RD : I put together a band doing mostly my songs and some of my favourites. There was still a healthy pub rock circuit in London and we were playing places like the golden lion in Fulham and the Stapleton near Crouch end where the Jam were making their mark. There was a buzz - EMI were interested. Robert Plant came down to check us out. But the truth is my confidence was in bits ... I would be sick and need a drink before going on. I couldn't handle the business side - promoters, A&R men. Aargh. It freaks me out just remembering it. You either have the balls to be a good self promoter or you don't. I didn't. I carried on writing songs and playing in many different settings - clubs, in pubs, in schools, and made a couple of albums with a  gospel rock band in England and in the states. Later I returned to the blues with an old friend Paul Davey on guitar. I always loved Paul's playing and he has a quality to him which is very authentic. He is not flashy, he's like The early Peter Green I saw all those years ago in Belfast. But essentially I think I'm still what you might call a soul/folk singer. I love to make contemporary music that is now on the surface, but plunging deep into the timeless in the feel

HR : Some 40 years later there seem to be a lot of things that are coming full circle in your life ... in music particularly ...

RD : Yeah - Really when I look back my life has been about life, but music is a thread that runs through it either in the actual doing of it or in the yearning for it. I absolutely love making music. And that special magical thing of making music with really good musicians, where an unspoken understanding happens and creates a platform on which something even better then you know how to make, actually suddenly happens. A moment outside time. I remember seeing an interview with a very respectable English poet John Betjeman  - he was old and in failing health and he was asked rather respectfully if he had any regrets. And he said "yes. I wish I'd had more sex ". That's how I feel about that level of music making. And that's why am so blown away with what's been happening. Everything I've hungered for has come to me this year.  Making a new album, working with great people, and a really special night at the Troubadour. HR : Oh yes - the show at The Troubadour - how did it feel to perform there again? Was the atmosphere the same?

RD : Actually, the atmosphere was even better than before! I've just been listening to a recording of the opening song, “Give Us A Break”. It's a song of Tom's he and I used to do back at Finchden and we did it acoustically to start the night and it was magic. Then a series of great artists doing floor spots, then me with a spot-on young band, and Tom and Hereward getting up to join in. It was a 10 course meal by candle light! And the audience .... They might as well have been on stage, we were all so involved together.

HR : You remained friends with Tom, and Hereward - as you say they played with you recently, and have teamed in for your Solo album “Never Closer” - how does it feel to be back in their company on a creative level?

RD : Well you know we haven't been strangers to each other.

Hereward and I are brothers in law as well as friends so there's always been opportunities for us to get the guitars out and play together.  My song “Feet on the Floor”, on the new album, wouldn't be the same without Herry's harmonies.  And he's put a lovely, subtle keyboard part on “Kiltermon”, one of the most important songs for me. Tom though, his part in this has been crucial. He says he sees himself as executive producer, just making sure it happens but leaving the music up to me. The truth is he is much more than that. Looking back to the beginning, I wouldn't even be a serious musician but for Tom. And so to be doing this album in partnership with him is just fantastic.

The sense of coming full circle, of completion, of fulfilment is really strong in my life this year. This album is a big example of that, and Tom and Hereward and myself getting up on stage together at the troubadour, and being in the studio together looking into each others eyes, listening to each other, singing together, is deeply wonderful for me.

HR : You’ve said recently, that the recording process took the magic out of the music in the early days, so what has changed for you with this solo record?

RD : The heart went out of the music in the recording process in the 70s for us because it was an artificial environment and a rather autocratic structure. Music is about musicians sharing from their souls together, and that sharing combining, meeting in the air and combining into something extra. That just can't happen in a compartmentalised and splintered and structured and often rather heartless recording process. It's not always like that of course, but too often it has been. We need to get back to the magic of creativity. With this album it's very different. I suppose it's not too strong to say that this album is an act of love. And everybody involved in it is acting with creative integrity and with mutual regard. It's a great thing to be part of.

HR : What was your inspiration for putting these songs together, now?

RD : Back in the spring I noticed that I couldn't grip the plectrum when I was playing the guitar. That led me to check some things out, and I was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in April. I've had a good long summer since my diagnosis, holding the condition at arms length, and it's been great - But it is increasingly something that I am living with day by day so it is a big part of the reality of this stage of my life, and will only continue to be so, and more so ... So it's true to say that all this has come about in response to my diagnosis: Tom and my son Louis started looking at the songs that had never really seen the light of day, and talking about making an album - they were both very much spurred on to bring this about with me because time is an issue.  I wasn't sure  ... I certainly didn't want to make an album just for the sake of it. I wanted it to exist primarily as a piece of work in its own right, and have not wanted my health issue to be a dominant factor in what I've been doing - but the reality and beauty and urgency of this project has come about in trying to get these tracks down while it is still possible. Every stage of this process, of building this album, has been full of surprises.  It's incredibly alive. It's the story of a life. And it's a great collaboration between creative artists - not just me, but Louis, the brilliant Gerry Diver, Tom and everyone who's contributed..

HR : As you say there, the album also features your son Louis - what does it mean to you to be able to have this creative relationship with him, and your other children?

RD : It's been brilliant doing this with Louis. I always say he outstripped me musically a long time ago. The work he's done, from his early band the Cadets, to Slides, and now the Spare Room is often amazing. When he and I started looking at the songs for this album we started to get some of those shivery moments, like I used to get rehearsing in the cellar in Clapham with cafe society. I remember the rehearsal before the troubadour, we got the band together at the Music Room in New Cross and I had Louis on one side of me and my other son Jess on bass guitar on the other side, and we were all blasting out harmonies and it was like something in me just took off and flew up into the air. To be doing this together, at The Troubadour, and in the studio, and at such a wonderful high standard, is something that it's hard to explain. It's just beautiful.

HR : When are you hoping for it to be released?

RD : We are making the album with crowd funding - pledge music - so people are pre-ordering their copies and that helps pay for the cost of making it. The aim is to release it in January - hopefully on the 6th, my birthday - when I'm 64! 

HR : And what can listeners expect? RD : Well, the answer to that changes every week and every time we go back in the studio. It was going to be a good album, but there is all kinds of magic brewing in the cauldron. What can I say. I'm blown away by some of the things we've done. Gerry Diver is doing some extraordinary work on arrangements and production. Louis has written some great music, played brilliant guitar and found lovely musicians and I, I promise you, am singing my heart out. I tell you, I'm a happy man. But there's lots of previews on the PledgeMusic page, with some videos of different songs from the album or the Troubadour - keep watching.   It's at  http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/raphael-doyle-never-closer , and my Facebook page raphaeldoylemusic

https://www.facebook.com/raphaeldoylemusic/?fref=ts

“I Come From Ireland” - a spoken word track is currently claiming worldwide acclaim, having made it to a feature in the Huffington Post!

The album - Songs Of Experience - can be found here http://www.raphaeldoyle.co.uk/

[Sadly Raphael passed away in March 2018. It is with huge thanks to my friend Ian Donald Crockett, that I had the pleasure of knowing Raphael for that short time].

[tmntxreader-fics]

TMNT Raphael x Reader: A Damaged Love

Request: 

@skywolf42   Ooh I have prompt for you!! RaphaelxReader where the Reader character gets in an argument with Raphael and flinches and freezes up at some point when he gets mad. Raph is immediately guilty that he's done something to make the Reader think he'd ever hit them, not understanding at first that it was a subconscious response due to physical abuse at the hands of a masculine figure at some point in the Reader's life. 

I took a different take on this, and added some 2007 Raph elements to it. Made it a little bit darker. Raph goes a little too far. 

WARNINGS: Cussing (as usual), mention of physical abuse, angst, and typos because I’m a dumb bitch. Violent anger. ANGRY RAPH. like, Unreasonable 2007 Raph angry. 

Fem Reader this time around.

‘Every couple squabbles.’

 At least, that’s what they say. That’s what you had told yourself when you were ignoring the ringing in your ears.

They say that ‘the arguments make the relationship stronger, make them healthier.’ With delicious irony, you remember repeating that one beneath your breath quite regularly; especially the nights when your purple jaw ached. 

‘Now that everything has been spilled into the air, you can both work on coming to a compromise together.’ On the contrary, you discovered that attempting to “compromise” simply resulted in a doomed-to-be-overdue hospital bill.

Now, on your second attempt at playing a role within a relationship, you realize that the first point was correct; every couple does squabble. Or, as you have found to be more accurate, they go to war. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

With a tragic spark of displaced humor, you consider the fact that this is the first time you have heard Raphael direct those words at you, rather than his enemies. Venturing further into your morbid curiosity, you wonder if, perhaps at this moment, you are his enemy. 

You suppose that you should have seen the burst of volume coming, really. It was bound to arrive between both of your voices rising in a steady crescendo. The predictability of the explosion was evident, so you’re unsure as to why it had shocked you so intensely. 

Maybe it was the words in which he had spoken, or perhaps, the way he had so aggressively pointed his finger towards you; accompanied by a menacing step. 

“Excuse me?” Your tone is the perfect picture of aggravated bewilderment. Now you understand how people could be so taken aback that they question the reliability of their hearing. “What did you just say to me?” 

“What, are you deaf? You heard me,” Raphael snarls, pacing from side to side as if he were a caged animal. Maybe he is, you muse. Perhaps he holds a barely contained animalistic anger; simmering beneath that rough, viridescent skin. Something that not even the Mutagen could evolve; or possibly, it’s responsible for encouraging the aggression. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Your voice is ripped from your lips in a bellow, your anger almost tangible. “What makes you think that you can talk to me like that?”

“You think you’re fuckin’ special?” he sneers, the simple sentence acting like a spear to your chest. The terrapin spins on his heels to face you, raising his finger once again to point at you accusingly. “You think that just ‘cos you’re my girlfriend, that means I can’t get mad at ya?” 

Your jaw drops in indignant disbelief, “there’s mad and then there’s this!” 

“You started this!” He growls, inhaling sharply in a poor attempt to maintain composure, “I didn’t fuckin’ come for you, you provoked me!”

Taking a step back from his overbearing presence, you return his words with a humourless snicker, “of course, it’s my fault.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Raphael snaps, eyes boring holes into your own; as if he were praying that looks could kill. Your stomach churns, clearly understanding the intent behind that gaze. 

“Of course it is! When have you ever taken responsibility for your own fuck-ups?” The words leave your lips before you can help yourself. You know instantly that you’ve just poured fuel over an already flaming fire. You could almost see the uncontrollable rage spread from his chest throughout his body. 

Still, despite the signs, you’re unable to prevent yourself from stumbling backward when the wooden table explodes into splintered pieces beneath his fist. You’ve fallen uncomfortably into the bench, tripping on the heel of your own shoe in your desperate attempt to gain space between you and the destructive beast on the other side of the room. Despite the blatant fear your new position exclaims, leaning back against the support of a metal structure with fingers that grip the edges for comfort, you cannot bring yourself to move. 

You try to stand to your feet and straighten up before he can turn around and see you. Before he can witness the power his anger has over you, the humiliating way you cower from his explosive outburst. Your body barely budges an inch at your mental commands and you remain frozen to your place.

Habit is not easily broken, your body reminds you. 

You know, logically, that Raphael would never hurt you. But, as much as you’d like to trust yourself, your logic has led you seriously wrong before. Your fiery nature has only brought you to once conclusion in your relationships, and they started off just like this. Just once. Just one fight. Just one blow. Then it never stopped. 

All is quiet, except for the heavy breathing that fills the room. Distantly, you remember that Mikey had carved that table himself as a kid; it was lopsided and ugly but he had made that. It was a piece of their childhood, a fond memory- and Raphael had just obliterated it without a second thought. 

You stand torn, staying put leaves you in the ‘danger zone’ and leaving the room is basically a flashing neon sign screaming ‘weakness’. You had promised yourself to grow stronger in the face of the opposition, to challenge and at the first sign of violence, to leave. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” His voice is hoarse; breaking the silence so suddenly that you jump a little. His shell is turned to you, though you can tell that he is hunched over a little; shoulders heaving with the weight of your words. 

“I asked you the same question and you didn’t answer,” the reply leaves your lips as a rasp. The longer you dwell on the thought of Mikey’s face when he sees the damage the stronger your resentment towards Raphael becomes. You find that you want to grind your teeth until there’s nothing left but small shards of bone; you want to clutch his world in your hands and burn it to ashes. With the rage rushing through your blood you find the energy to at least stand and somewhat straighten your stance. You’ve never felt such unfathomable wrath towards somebody that you genuinely love, even against those of whom you had thought you loved. 

Perhaps, it’s because you love him and you know it’s mutual that it hurts to see the relationship take a tragically familiar path. Is this the inevitable truth of love? Is it simply a means to an end? Could it be that love is so desired that they hide the horrors of it behind a quaint picture, and collectively everyone drinks it in like a sweet cocktail of poison. They thirst for it because they think that the high is worth the consequences, that the repercussions of love are the lesser of two evils- the other being loneliness.  

“You want me to answer your question?” His voice interrupts your train of thought. Turning your gaze to your partner’s hulkish figure you can’t help but shiver when he straightens up, shell still shielding him from your observation. “I’ll tell you exactly who I am.” 

Your heart leaps into your throat when Raphael turns, his eyes narrowed and blazing with a heat that make your instincts scream at you to run. 

One step. 

“I’m Raphael,” he begins. 

Two steps. 

“Now, see, I got a bad, bad, temper.” 

Three steps. 

“But I’m the best at what I do; putting a fist through someone’s jaw is how I get off.” 

Four steps. He’s halfway across the room now. 

“Now, I got a girlfriend. She talks big for someone who’s half my size.” 

Five steps. You stomach lurches and you can’t help but lean back into the metal bench once more. 

“She reminds me of my brother, can’t stop themselves from tryin’ to dictate my life, correct me at every turn,” his teeth are gritted now, words ground out rather than said. “Of course, they call it guidance.” 

Six steps. Too close. 

“Kinda funny that my girlfriends joined in when you think about the fact that I’m ten times as strong as her.” 

“Raph,” you whisper. Your heart sinks, you know where this is going. You had held out hope that it would never come to this, perhaps you’ve pushed him too far. Maybe this is your fault. 

Ignoring your voice, he takes another step forward. Seven. 

“Faster than her.” 

“Please,” you rasp, gripping the metal beside you in an attempt to not curl up. 

“Bigger than her.” 

Eight. 

He’s in front of you now, his body towering over your trembling self. You can barely breath, your eyes fixated on the fists that are balled at his sides. If it’s coming you might as well make the most of it. 

“What do you want from me?” You burst, voice breaking mid sentence. “What do you want me to say?” 

“I want you to support me!” He snaps. You can feel his breath brushing the top of your head and you lips tremble at the volume of his voice. Don’t break, stay strong. “Why is this so fuckin’ hard for you’s to understand. I don’t want authority I want a partner!”

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that partnership is about guiding someone through their flaws and encouraging them with their strengths,” you whisper shakily. Finally you turn your eyes up to meet his hard expression, watching the way he observes the wateriness of your gaze. “You’re so insecure that you can pinpoint everyone else’s problems but the second yours are addressed you think you’re being attacked and dominated.” 

“Insecure?” 

Perhaps, that was not the best word to throw around when you’re trapped between a metal bench and a 6′5, 340lb angry turtle. 

“I’m insecure? Look who’s talking!” His laugh is a humorless roar and you flinch beneath him.

“I don’t intimidate the people I love to hide my insecurities,” you snap back, gesturing to his aggressive posture. 

“Being intimidating is the only way to shut you’s up! There’s no other way to get you to back off!” He exclaims, throwing his hands up in disbelief. Your stomach clenches, shoulders flinching upwards to your jaw at the sudden movement. 

"What are you a caveman?” You cry, poking your finger into his plastron and straightening your posture in an attempt to cover your previous reaction. Be strong. “Use. Your. Words. Be honest! Be open! No one is gonna understand where the line is if you explode the second we open our mouths. Communicate through your words, your touch, your actions!” 

Your heart is pounding in your chest and you realise instantly that your courageous facade is permanently over when you catch his eyes. The sheer fury. Your body begins to tremble harder than it has in so long, the adrenaline rushing through your body in an attempt to evoke a response. Run, your instincts scream, hide! 

“You want me to use my words?” He sneers, his voice so low you don’t expect the volume from his next sentence. “Then shut the fuck up.” 

He steps in so that your body is pressed between his and the metal digging into your back. Your hands immediately raise up to press against his chest. “Raph....” 

“You want me to use my touch?” His voice is a steady shout now, you distantly wonder whether the boys can hear his bellow from the streets. But you know the truth, that you’re alone. Left at his mercy. 

His hands grip your body by your shoulders and at the sound of your startled cry he lifts you up so that only your toes brush the ground. He shakes you, as if hoping that somehow he could scramble your mind and prevent you from conjuring anymore words. “Then let me shake some sense into ya.” 

Your first sob is overpowered by the roar of his voice, you don’t know if he’s even heard it. You feel as though you’re going to puke any second now and you can’t find your breath. There’s no air. Where’s the air? 

“You want me to use my actions?” He drops his grip on you and your body falls into the bench behind you. “Then here!” 

He leans in and your body is bent backwards over the table before his fists smash into the metal on either side of your body, undoubtedly denting it. 

With that, you break. 

Your body crumples to the floor beneath his feet, hands raised above your head in a feeble attempt to protect yourself. 

Not again. 

There’s a silence before his voice, ever so soft, violates the quiet. He says your name. He says it twice. 

Is this how it’s meant to be? 

He says it three times. 

Please, not again. 

Please. 

He doesn’t touch you, not yet. 

Please. 

Please.

He says your name again, this time his voice sounds as broken as you feel. 

Please. 

He’s apologising, the words sweet nothings lost to the air. The whispers caress your body, curling around your neck in a deceptively loving touch. The words stroke your cheek, touch your lips. 

He says your name again, so softly. So gentle. The hushed tones wait for you to look up, they’re coaxing you to unfurl. But you know; you know from experience that they beckon you so that they can look you in the eyes. So that they can watch you, adoration in their gaze. They want to see your face when they choke you with the very thing that you crave. 

Love.

This is love. 

[aveaugvstus]

❛ You made a mistake. Everybody makes them. Even me. I’ve made many. It’s only fair that you made one. ❜

it’s strange how the passage of time warps and bends around the shape of the people in your life, the silhouettes they carve from the liminal space of your soul — it’s like that thing about stars and how when you’re looking up at the night sky, you’re actually looking at stars that could be already be dead a hundred years ago, their fading requiem only just now reaching earth’s stratosphere, a thousand light years away. 

this is what it feels like to see vladimir standing in the door frame of his childhood bedroom looking like the ghost of fuck-ups past.  (  he has no lock now, which is mildly insulting and excruciatingly patronising; he’s an addict, not bloody suicidal, but to his family the distinction might as well be non-existent.  )  he looks different, and also like nothing has changed at all in a way that august can’t quite pinpoint. it’s as if he’s lost his ability to translate him; the myriad tiny, insignificant nuances and habits he used to obsessively decrypt with his very own rosetta stone, a whole stele for the vladimir yamatov script, forgotten like a dead language. or maybe he no longer cares to. he doesn’t know if that should make him feel nostalgic, or furious, or bittersweet. feeling particularly strongly about anything these days is a herculean task in and of itself. which, he supposes, was the original sin that instigated everything to begin with.

he thinks he can remember asking vladimir to come home.

he thinks he can almost remember begging, knees in the dirt and gravel scraping his flesh raw, over voicemail like a needy fling who had accidentally gone and done the thing you and every other idiot knows you’re not supposed to do, and fallen. 

he thinks he might have begged for absolution. 

but that could have also been the sixth line of blow cut with ketamine and procaine and only god and the devil knows what else  (  he’d been desperate, it was three a.m. in camden  )  and he’s composed text messages nay, goddamn fucking letters, ad nauseam, ad infinitum, like he’s on the receiving end of some dear john bullshit, and he’s never been sure which of them actually made it to the send button. he’s smashed, or lost, or misplaced, half a dozen phones, for all the futile effort to replace them. collateral damage in the dawning realisation that vladimir wasn’t replying because he was mercilessly leaving him on read, but because he wasn’t receiving them at all, and judging by his infrequent instagram updates, was doing absolutely fine / fuck him, happy / having the time of his fucking life on his primitive anti-tech detox.

for a moment, he entertains the fleeting, whimsical distraction that this could be yet another delusion. after all, he’s conjured vladimir enough times that this wouldn’t be unusual.  (  why, sometimes i’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  )  he has imagined vladimir heartsick, wretchedly beside himself with guilt. he has painted him alabastrine, cold and immovable, patron saint raphael of the lost and the meek indifferent to august’s self-inflicted torment. he has envisioned him lit with madness, seized in catastrophic rage, gripping him by the jaw and rattling his bones till he might see reason. there were other imaginings, too, steeped in the unspeakable, tauntings of an uninhibited mind free to conceptualise the reality of its most ludicrous desire. in the worst dream, the most terrible, most fantastical one, vladimir comes home because of him. for him. it plays out like the final scene of a cult romantic comedy, or the odyssey, maybe, much-enduring odysseus returning home to penelope at last. two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk, their hands meeting as light spills in a flood, the sky pouring out the sun. and he would take his other-soul’s face in his hands and kiss him and say the words this lifetime’s vladimir would never say.

there is, of course, a singular difference in this one. this vladimir. the vladimir he filled his dreams with never looked at him like this. with this curious amalgamation of horror and — most tellingly so; am i not what you expected, vladimir? how did you imagine you would find me? beatific? flourishing? — disgust. 

august knows what he looks like. five shades too pale and ashen, like the vivacity has been drained right out of him. a layer of grease shines in his hair, the fade he alway maintains with meticulous care and precision grown out into his natural, unruly curls. he’s not quite skeletal, his frame was always too lean and muscular for that, but he seems perilously thin for his height. it shows in his face, he knows even though he’s been avoiding mirrors and isn’t allowed one anyway, because a) addicts use those to cut their coke, and b) suicidal ones might be inclined to break them, he knows because of the way his mum looks at him when she comes into his room to bring him his meals three times a day like a convict. it hurts him a little, more than the physical pain of looking at vladimir, of hearing his voice, that he sees him like this. he had not been informed in advance that vladimir would come calling. if he had, he would’ve — he doesn’t know what he would’ve done  (  attempted an escape, maybe; broken his twelve-day sobriety, maybe  )  but he might’ve. cleaned up a little. tried to look less like a shell of himself. augustus has always been vain, has always been a gilded, preening thing who took great pride in being pretty and well-loved for it. it pains him. not to be even that anymore. he is rusted. tarnished.

if he had known, maybe he would have told vladimir not to come. 

now that he is here, he is split in two, cleaved in half by the urge to tell him to go and the more pressing compulsion to make him stay to never go never leave again never go anywhere that is out of his sight out of his life out of him. 

his ambivalence makes him poor company and a poorer conversationalist. not that this is entirely his fault — what are they supposed to do? chat about the weather and trade perfunctory banter just to fill the air? he’d rather do a line right here in front of vladimir. 

your hair is longer, august had said. the only thing other than what are you doing here, which had come out of his mouth, part-shock and part-petulance, when his mother had opened the door and presented vladimir like some screwed-up surprise gift for reaching a whopping week and a half of not being a fucking disappointment to everyone around him. so, now he can disappoint the person that matters most fundamentally, tortuously, to him in the world, too. how delightful.

vladimir’s hair being longer is the only thing he can think to say that doesn’t make him want to give in to the pulverising sensation in his head, in his bones, in his chest, screaming for a deus ex machina reprieve. if this is what they have come to — the two of them, who had spent their entire lives talking about nothing and everything till they could anticipate exactly what the other’s response would be — augustus is glad he didn’t come home sooner. he looks handsome, which feels like another slight against august’s pride. rugged and sun-soaked like a male model cum travel influencer, but one that actually does something meaningful with his life. time, and sunlight, and the kind of hard labour that builds muscle definition and character, has certainly been kinder to him than it has been to august. he doesn’t say you look good because that would sound like he has any remotely positive feelings towards this interaction, and, indeed, the cause of vladimir’s looking like a golden, newly-anointed demi-god. it seems they have traded places. or maybe vladimir is exactly who he was always supposed to be. and august is, too.

august supposes it’s the silence, and the reality that vladimir cannot abide it either, that prompts him to say what he does.

what happened?

he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, he drifts in the absence of an answer because he is allowed to, because he is technically, partially an invalid now, and people who are sick are allowed to be not altogether there. 

(  sick. malaised. he likes this word for it. he likes that there is a scientific explanation for what he is. a brain disease. a diagnosable mental illness. see, vladimir, he almost wants to say, a little deranged part of him finally gleeful at not having a pedestal to stand on anymore, you aren’t special. i’m fucked up now, too.  )

well, vladimir. it’s a very long story that i don’t care to repeat as i’ve recounted the tales to you so many times through missives you were never inclined to respond to. there was angel, and bennie, there was emmy, and good old molly. ah, and charlie, my favourite of the lot. ours was a whirldwind love affair. but it turns out i loved him more than he loved me. seems like i have a nasty little habit of doing that. it’s one i haven’t learned to kick yet.

god — august...

it’s the look of wrenching disgust, again. the thing that twists and snakes across vladimir’s face and awakes something snarling and animal shackled to august’s throat, something that slams into him chest-first and doesn’t stop until it’s gone right through him, left him raw, all bloodied edge and teeth.

what happened? what happened? what’s the point of asking now when it’s all been said and done. how long am i supposed to carry this black mark? until everyone around me deigns to let me bury it? i’m not a fucking child.

it’s not an explanation, which is what vladimir is after. he would know, however, if he had bothered to answer august any of those times. he would know, he would have known, if he hadn’t left august in their bed that morning at the warwickshire summer palace and run from everything they’d ever touched. they’d had the world world in their hands in that bed, in that room, in that place of stolen summer outside of time, outside of life itself. they could have had — everything. everything august had to give. and he gave it, and vladimir looked him in the eye and decided it was not for him.

you made a mistake. everybody makes them. even me. i’ve made many. it’s only fair that you made one.

he feels each word grate right through him, each syllable catching on his skin like little knives, the thin strand keeping him tethered to the present grinding down into dust and bone. he doesn’t blame vladimir for what happened to him. he blames him for leaving. but it’s a mistake that vladimir won’t — can’t acknowledge because to do that, he would have to admit to the thing he doesn’t want to say, or can’t say, and august can’t make him say it. that’s what made him do it, the first night at that grimy, filthy club in the berlin underground. that’s what made him want to trade his soul for just a night of rapture so euphoric he wouldn’t have to remember how fucking miserable it was to be unloved by the one person you thought you were meant for. but then, it’s never just one night is it? it couldn’t have been. you don’t get over something like that with one goddamn night.

(  if august were honest, and his heart not surrendered, he would say it was this, too: that vladimir could walk away from them, has always been able to walk away, and think nothing of it. him. that vladimir had found purpose and higher meaning in something other than themselves and the stupid, foolish, boyish dreams they used to talk about like they might someday happen. that august had disappointed him somehow by, what, not being enough? not living up to the unearned greatness that vladimir saw in him and was supposedly the only person in the world who could? that vladimir would forge a path for himself in life that diverged from august and not feel his soul rending itself in half to be half a world away from him, and survive it. — it was enough to ruin him then, it still ruins him now.  )

“if you’ve come all this way just to lecture to me, you can sod the fuck off back to phuket or hanoi or fucking antarctica if that’s what you want. maybe there’s some disease-riddled penguins out there that you can save to sate your saviour complex. saint francis of assisi. a non-shitty mother teresa. malala.”

he’s exhausted before the first word leaves his mouth, strung out just with the effort of starting, but he can’t stop them now any more than he can stop the hunger and thirst clawing at his head howling for a drop of blood, a pound of flesh, any part of him that it can cannibalise in retribution for starving. it’s easier to be cruel than to be wounded, better to be the conqueror than the fallen — but right now it just feels like he is going through his twelfth or two hundredth day of withdrawal and the boy he loves has come back but not the way august wanted and not the way he wants to be wanted. it hurts just to look at him, it hurts to have him looking back. every part of his body aches with dependence, codependence. they’re the definition of it. see what happens to me when you are not in my life?

alexander lay on hephaestion’s bed for three days. but you are not him. you are just a spoiled, arrogant, silver-spooned nothing who will never amount to greatness, glory, or anything at all. it is no wonder he would not have you.

his rage breaks, like sea foam crashing against cliffs; it rends and shatters down the fault line mapped throughout his body, the one that winds from his throat to his sternum, down to his thighs and feet, and aches forever mostly at his heel. helpless to the unbidden trembling of his hands as he curls them around the sheets of his bed, unmoored. he looks small and disarmed, more lost than he’s ever been with vladimir by his side. it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, does it? not if he cannot make vladimir stay. whatever they had between them — is it damaged, now. they could rebuild it, but the foundations would still bear the memory of where the cracks lie. he would still remember this look on vladimir’s face.

he has looked at him a thousand times, and there has always been an echo reverberating between them. the wavelength of an elegy he knows the words to like they are writ upon heartbeat, upon headstone. there have been other faces, but vladimir’s eyes have always been the same. fathomless as distant stars in an entire universe light years away and yet close enough to touch if he dared to. if it is fate, or circumstance, or a reiteration of the immortality that stands between them and their freedom, then he already knows how this ends. vladimir knows it, too. it doesn’t make him want it any less. it doesn’t make him suffer for it any less. this ache he has spent an eternity chasing after, this feeling of being so incandescently alive that even death cannot keep them apart, this is what vladimir ran from. augustus cannot blame him. if he was not the one who always outlived him, he’d do the same.

“is this why you came back? because you think you can save me, too?”