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bored-storyteller · 3 years

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Thank you dear Anon for your request! Also because, I had already started writing a possible sequel on my own, your request arrives perfectly!

Note: I imagined these events after the one-shot you find here. In any case there are only subtle references.

35- Tokyo Ghoul- Uta x human!Reader (pt. 2)

"Beyond the Mask"

Uta sees you there, curled up in the chair in front of the table like a wet little bird, despite the fact that you are now wearing his warm clothes, which fall softly on your frightened figure. He doesn't mind lending it to you, on the contrary, he tried to find something that wasn't too extravagant, coming out with a heavy black sweatshirt and wide gray pants. He thought that this clothing could help you put yourself at ease, but he also understands that being wrapped in his clothes for you doesn't have to be so reassuring. You probably accepted this only to avoid being immersed in the nauseating humidity of the body fluids that stick to your skin.

He can't tell if your following him was a sign of courage or fear. You didn't say anything, and the few words you whispered were kind; you also thanked him. It almost seems like you are straining to try to be calm, but it's the small, meaningless gestures that betray you. Earlier you insisted that he be the first to shower and change, although it would have been more logical for you to go first; yet perhaps for you that was a way to get the killer monster out of sight, or at least partially forget it.

Uta is unable to understand you right now, nor does he really pretend to, he is already grateful enough that you are intelligent enough to understand that it would be almost suicidal to return to your home in the condition you were in, especially after what it happened.

No, he doesn't pretend to understand you, but to understand himself a little more, yes. Uta is a labyrinth, with a thousand streets inside, which intersect and cancel each other out. A thousand paradoxical streets where after a turning point you can find someone completely different than the person you met. Yet all those roads are authentic and sincere, in their sweetness or in their violence.

He is aware of this, it is clear to him, but as the owner of his soul he should know how to pull the strings, understand what is happening inside. Yet he doesn't know now, or he can't really explain it.

He feels sadness, a deep sadness to see you so small and afraid. He would like to hope your snuggling up to him in that alley was dictated by mutual trust and not despair, but he doesn't even know if you're aware of that. He doesn't really want you to be scared of him, but at the same time he sees no way to stop it.

He also feels angry with you. Because deep down he knows that you are unconsciously judging him. The same fear you evidently feel makes him angry. He didn't eat you, right? So why do you have to be so scared in front of him? It was you who ran into his arms, wasn't it?

Yet he still can't tell you that, because you are doing absolutely nothing threatening towards him. You simply indulge him timidly, tremblingly accepting his care that will never be able to reassure you.

Maybe you've never really felt as confident in him as Uta hoped. Being in his house, first naked in his bathroom and now in his clothes maybe it wouldn't have been pleasant for you even if he had been human, let alone now with all the terror you've accumulated… after what you saw.

Uta is the author and accomplice of things that you would consider horrible, it is his nature, he is not able to change, he needs that to feel alive.

But you also make him feel alive. He likes that cordial, playful confidence that you take with him, the one that remains within limits, but which somehow transmitted the affection of a kind heart; like that time, when you playfully smeared his nose with red paint with the brush you were using. You apologized right away, but you laughed happily and enjoyed watching him, and Uta liked it, so much that he returned the favor with some yellow color.

You are spontaneous, and he likes it, even if now this spontaneity of yours is pulling you away from him, even though you try to pretend it isn't.

In the end, he really wants to take care of you. But how can he do it? He can't even really offer you anything other than a cup of bitter coffee.

He looks for a moment at his own reflection in the dark drink, so indistinct and blurry, before placing the cup on the shelf in front of you slowly.

You look at him suddenly, as if you have just woken up. Uta smiles kindly at you: he has always been kind to you. You smile at him too, but he could swear that you only do it to please him, for fear of a negative reaction from him.

He would really like to sit in front of you, so he can talk as you do every time you meet in the coffee shop, but he instead leans against the wall with his back, a wall quite far from your warmth and your presence. He too has a hot cup in his tattooed hands, but he doesn't really want coffee; maybe he just hoped that if he drank something familiar to you - something that didn't speak your language before he was devoured - you would trust again.

You take a sip, probably more out of politeness than out of desire, and your expression turns into a small involuntary pout as you perceive the bitterness of the coffee on your tongue.

Uta would find it funny if it weren't for the whole situation.

"I'm sorry…" his quiet voice of him draws your attention to himself. He doesn't really know what he's apologizing for. "I have no ... sugar ..."

The relaxed musicality of his voice is slightly cracked by uncertainty.

He has no sugar to console you, no regular sugar at least. It's already strange that he got the coffee. He never really welcomes real guests, only customers, now that he thinks about it; there are rare times when he really has to welcome someone outside of his "business", generally speaking.

You do not answer immediately, your gaze cannot help wandering over his figure, his body, his chest and his abdomen.

He smooths his baggy black sweater, as if to make you realize he's noticing your eyes, and then take a sip from his cup.

"Don't worry, it's okay ..." you assure "in the end ... I like to try new things ..."

Are you talking about sugar?

Your voice is a twitter that leaves him with vague hope. Are you trying to tell him something?

He's not really afraid of you going around talking, you told him you wouldn't and he knows you won't. You are not that different from Renji in this.

You turn the cup over in your fingers, looking at that dark liquid, and then turn to him again.

"Don't ... want to sit down?"

You ask him shyly, as if you feared rejection, but you asked him anyway.

You amaze him, of course. That is a little melancholy surprise, your calling him close, your giving him a little illusion of closeness.

But do you really want him there?

With a nod he slowly approaches, as if he is approaching a wounded animal - or prey - and he slowly sits in front of you.

The cups of coffee that nobody wants look at each other, placed in front, close together, like when you happen to meet at the end of the day in the cafe. It was a good time for Uta, he enjoyed pretending that there were no Ghouls and Humans, silenced his hunger so attracted to you and focused on the pleasure of your presence as if you were no different.

But now the charade is over, you two are not alike, and for some reason it hurts him.

Your gaze rests docile on his face, and he smiles lightly.

He is beautiful, you really think so. In a way, those red and black eyes are the only ones that fit him. Uta is not of an objective beauty, he must like him, and you really like him.

"You know..." your murmur puts him on alert "I ... I hear the news but ... it's hard to think that it could happen to you, when you hear about ghouls ..."

"It didn't happen to you."

His calm voice stops you immediately, and despite his flat tone makes you feel accused. He didn't hurt you, you can't say he's your turn. If anything, he is the turn of your tormentor.

"I ... no ... I meant that I had never thought of meeting one ..."

You justify shy, and he realizes he scared you. You're probably thinking that the first misstep you take will automatically become his next meal.

His lips press in a thin line, while he looks at you calmly.

"We are not that rare, you know ..."

He informs you, understanding that you would never speak if he remained silent.

There were ghouls even more integrated into human society than he. You were kind of his exception to him, his regular break from his violent life, even though he still had other human connections.

"Do you want to eat me?"

The question comes out suddenly, interrupting any flow of thought. It is less insecure than you thought, but deep down you both know that that's the core of it all.

He looks you straight in the eye, without giving in to the gaze and somehow gluing your pupils into his.

He could tell you that if he had wanted he would have done it already, he could say many things, yet he doesn't want to lie, he owes you and you owe it to him.

"It would be nice."

His voice is kind of calming despite the harshness of those words. As scary as they are, you don't react, and let him talk again.

"But it would also be extremely sad for me."

His tattooed fingers twirl around the slowly cooling cup, and you wonder if his heart has started beating a little faster, like yours, despite his mute expression.

"As tempting as eating you may be ... it would be very sad not to see you again."

A spark suddenly lights up in your eyes, it's so beautiful and bright that Uta opens his lips slightly in amazement, seeing that little light in you, so unexpectedly. He can't say if it is the hope of being able to live still that ignited it or that unspoken admission of affection, but that's okay with him.

"Would you be sad, Uta?"

You ask with a voice covered with expectations. He does not know how it happened, but it seems that your focus has shifted to something else, so suddenly.

Your cheeks just blush, and you smile as you look down at your hands. That smile isn't for him, it's for you. Uta wasn't hoping to see you smile again, yet there you were, wrapped in his baggy clothes smiling genuinely, as if you had suddenly forgotten the fear.

Your fingers intertwine in front of the cup, and your face doesn't dare lift up on him, but this time it's not fear that stops you.

“A Ghoul… sure, I had to know. In fact, in the end I knew it. Being a human would have been too trivial for you. "

Take another sip of coffee, and this time you commit yourself to putting up with the bitterness, even if you don't quite succeed.

Uta allows himself a slight amused smile.

"Oh yes?"

His is a rhetorical question that you just nod.

He drinks too, plunging both of you into a less heavy silence, but which still lingers in Uta's mind doubts that he would like to silence.

"Now where will you go?"

He is used to those he cares about disappearing far away. It wouldn't be new to see you walk away from him, he's not really hoping to be able to hold you back, despite what you said. Life simply changes people, and with them the world, he is aware of it, as he is aware of the fact that after this night the world between you two has changed, and as always you will be the one to change with it, while he will remain there, immobile.

"Do you want ... I have to go home?"

You ask confused, glancing towards the door. Night out scares you, you prefer the wolf's lair more than the dark and unpredictable shadows of the dark hours.

You didn't understand what he meant, how could you? Yet somehow Uta expected you to do it, he expected you to tell him this was goodbye. Yeah, is this goodbye?

"No, you don't have to go home if you don't want to ..."

It's hard to ask you to stay, to really stay. It is difficult to ask you to stay with him, because if you refused it would be a defeat, if you felt forced you would no longer be you.

“So you can't eat the food? Normal food I say ... so the idea of inviting you to lunch is out of the question. "

Your words break the melancholy in his mind again. He looks at you, his head slightly bent towards his right shoulder:

"Did you want to invite me to lunch?"

You wonder if it's really that surprising that you had such an idea. Should you be ashamed of it? Maybe this is inappropriate for him?

"I wanted. I mean, I've thought about it. It seemed nice to me. "

It seemed nice to you. You were cute, Uta often thought that. Here it is again, your gentle affection; it would have been a problem to refuse you if you really asked him to share lunch. He had never gotten used to pretending to eat human food, even though he tolerated smells quite well by now.

“Anyway, that's a kind thought of you. Thank you."

Without the glasses, his expression is even more gentle. It seems paradoxical, compared to the figure of him, but still, Uta is so unique.

"Not very kind if it kills you."

You mutter to yourself, looking away in embarrassment. In fact, now that you really know he's a ghoul a lot of your talk may no longer make sense.

"No ..." you hear him chuckle slightly, lightly and yet amused "we don't die so easily unfortunately for you ... I'd end up feeling extremely bad."

Suddenly the argument between you lightens up without either of you really noticing. He feels it, almost palpable, the boulder in his chest becoming light at the sound of curiosity that colors your voice as you confirm that you understand: it is the same curiosity as when you ask him questions about his masks, the colors he uses or his tattoos, he clearly recognizes it, which has now almost become part of both of you.

"I have so much to ask you, Uta" you admit, smiling at him fondly "but for now, thank you for everything you've done."

His nonexistent brows go up, looking at you as if he's asking if you were serious. But you did, sure, he knew.

"Thanks to you for bringing me dinner downstairs."

Uta doesn't mince words, he never did, and it was something you loved. He was always contemptuous and edgy in his calm and delicacy of him, it was a humor all of him, no one could ever look like Uta.

He makes you laugh, despite the macabre implied, and he's happy. He feels lighter, freer, and this seems to apply to you too.

One of his laboriously painted hands moves towards your face. He doesn't even notice, it's a gesture dictated by instinct, from his heart. Only when he's about to touch your cheek does he freeze, dumbfounded as to what to do, wondering in his head what the hell he was doing, why he did it.

He fears to see you retract at his touch, fears to see you hide and still does not understand why he fears so much the rejection of a human, a human who should be food and who instead twists his stomach with just a look.

He tries to retreat first, before it's late, but your hands stop him.

His fingers are now squeezed between yours, tenderly, as you tenderly bring them to your face. The hand that presses on his back is warmer than his skin, but the one that squeezes his palm has frozen fingertips, he feels them pinch against his skin. In yet another gesture of care for you, his fingers close on yours, to warm them.

And while you hold him he holds you, you hold both of you, and he knows you don't know him, that you haven't seen the dark side of him yet nor does he know if he will ever have the courage to show it to you, but for now that's okay .

Now he's no longer alone in his charade with you. You are no longer his audience, you are the actor who responds to his sentences in front of that cruel world. But luckily now, behind the scenes, his mask is no longer needed.

"I promise I'll take you for a better coffee tomorrow."

"I accept with great pleasure."

#uta tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul x reader #uta x human reader #uta x reader #anime oneshot #oneshot #Tokyo ghoul oneshot

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generallypo · 4 years

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in all sincerity, kim dokja makes me happy and he deserves to be so too :^(

incoherent yelling and sobbing under the cut. these fEELINGS will not be contained aaauuunnghhh.

------

anyway i binge-read all 500+ chapters of ORV this week and i honest to god feel bad for this -- completely! fictional! aghhhh -- guy. in case you haven’t figured it out, the following is some spoilerly shit

i went in expecting a fun, brainless power trip fantasy for dudes with an isekai addiction. instead, it turns out ORV is actually a gigantic, self-deprecating prank on the entire genre itself. kdj plays more into the sad -- if high-functioning-- clown trope than the sexy, edgy, chuuni bastard type i was prepared to laugh at. there were -- gasp! -- female characters with personalities! parents (aka ADULTS who act like ADULTS) who actually survive and feature prominently! adorable children! a real sexy, edgy bastard! a power trio with amazing fashion! sexual tension and bickering! friendship! life and death bonding!

*breathes in deeply* fouND FAMILYYYYYYY.

like, yeah, the plot around the first few arcs seems a little aimless, but the buildup is worth. the world-building is pretty decent. there’s discernible effort put into the fight scenes, and i can appreciate that. but -- but! what i stayed for were the characters -- namely, the fantastic OT3 of KDJ, HSY, and YJH -- who come together despite their initial rivalries and end up saving each other’s asses, like, every other day. granted, the other characters don’t get as much focus, and they do fall into certain character tropes..

but a trope done well is nothing i would gripe about. every significant character in ORV has a coherent, and more importantly, respectful take on their respective trope. maybe it’s because sing-shong is actually a married couple, but all the interactions between even minor characters are a convincing blend of awkward rambling, suggestive humor, sharp remarks, and casual banter. in other words, this cast of mostly working adults (plus a teen and two kids) talks like working adults. the relationships built throughout the story are, frankly, some of most realistic of its genre. sing-shong has managed to craft a dynamic that undoubtedly brims with fluffy fondness all around, but also drips with sarcastic tension, with unspoken urgency, with a wariness that softens into sincerity over the course of many, many chapters. it’s the kind of progression that makes even stock characters read like more than just the 2-bit villain or comrade or love interest. here, we have relationships both straightforward and not, strained or otherwise, romantically-oriented as well as decidedly the opposite -- and then numerous others scattered along the spectrum with the freedom to shift either way.

it’s also an interesting point of note that our MC kdj actually does not end up with a stated romantic partner, much less a conventional heteroromantic harem. he gets teased about that fact from time to time, but it’s with less of the sleazy shonen locker room humor one would expect and more of the good-natured ribbing you’d find among friends or that one especially nosy auntie at the yearly family reunion. kdj is a grown ass man. in the background, i applaud his maturity, and he handles all the prodding like a champ.

so instead of finding and fulfilling his horny, he builds himself a wealth of loving family. yeah, there are beautiful men and women around him. yeah, they unequivocally adore him. but they’re also adults, and they have priorities, too -- which are not so much finding a way to bang kdj’s brains out and more so simply keeping the damn guy alive. this is truly not ‘oblivious mc with his thirsty, sex kitten harem’. it just so happens that a guy proves himself to be unflinchingly gentle and capable in an apocalyptic setting despite his broken self-esteem, and lots of people find that attractive, romantically and platonically.

it.. kinda makes sense? he’s a hard worker, thoughtful, and good with kids. kdj is the kind of guy you know would make a reliable partner, and anybody with eyes can plainly see and appreciate that.

and it’s not that our MC’s a total brick wall. in fact, it’s likely the opposite, and he’s just too darned repressed to admit it. from what has been implied, kdj does indeed recognize and accept love, or at least a primitive concept of it. i like to imagine that the kind of love that he ends up seeking out simply manifests itself more easily as acceptance and safety, as warmth and a home of people to return to every day. even better, the people who surround him know this, and they give him exactly that. it’s refreshing, and honestly, really sweet.

(as a side note, i really, really do appreciate the cosmic bi energy radiating off of kdj, who canonically earns the title of being loved by all and is all but in name married to yjh and hsy. he also respects women and small children and honestly anyone who isn’t total scum to him or his family. i respect that.)

but the happy stuff aside, you know it it just ain’t ORV without the generous screaming dollop of angst. admittedly, there’s self-sacrifice, injury, lonesome wandering, more sacrifice, some epic fighting, reunion and confrontation. all of it is a lot to digest, sure, but never does it feel entirely hopeless, or truly, truly heart-clenching. ORV, up until the final act, is a mostly light read. you relax in your chair, thinking that nothing beyond this point can disturb you.

yeah fucking right.

------

and then the beginning of the end arrives. when the squad finally break through to their ‘ending’, the scene that kind of breaks me is the reveal of the Most Ancient Dream. it ties so much thematically into the little tidbits that we get of kdj’s past, and it though it feels like almost a joke that the source of the goddamn apocalypse is a kid with bruises smeared across his skinny ass body -- it’s such a pathetic picture that it’s kinda poetic, actually. you’re left mystified but somewhat convinced, like a math problem explained halfway through. this.. child.. is a villain somehow, isn’t he?

and then 999th turn uriel speaks up, and she. just. hugs him.

[[You are this universe’s most powerless existence, aren’t you.]]

that. that gets me. kdj’s reaction immediately upon this revelation? absolute murder. seeing him essentially self-destruct upon realizing that all these people he’s surrounded himself with -- some who continuously proclaim their loyalty and affection for him throughout their journey, some who suffered eons of war and loss and trauma because of his existence -- not only forgive his younger self but smother him with unconditional acceptance and love is stifling, is too vulnerable and exposed and he simply can’t cope -- it’s so telling of his true mentality, of his crippling insecurity and crumpled sense of self-worth. kim dokja is a liar, through and through, so much that he fails, or perhaps refuses, to comprehend the veracity of others’ kindness and love towards himself.

by some miracle, the events at the end of the world somehow resolve.. or so it seems. there is a departing train, a liberated team of ex-gods, and a child rousing from his slumber. in the aftermath, i am left shaking. somehow, despite the ending having been (happily?) reached, there’s still another chapter ahead. what is this witchcraft?

------

and then ah, yes -- the epilogue arc. i teetered on the edge of being critical for a little bit there -- is that display of deus ex machina, of sad, self-sacrificing nobility a bit too egregious to be acceptable? is this some wild last let-me-yank-this-outta-my-ass plot twist to drag out the chapter count? i sincerely thought that the arc before it would have been the finale. i was wrong. thank god.

anyways, as an answer to the above: no, and no. i stake my firm claim on the belief that the epilogue arc was meticulously planned out well in advance of its release, confusing and time-warpy as it is. i liked it. tremendously. even if it entirely invalidates all of kdj’s supposed development (”haha lol yeah sure i won’t sacrifice myself or anything anymore guys don’t worry about me” -- KDJ, at some point because he’s a lying rat bastard). actually, our beloved MC disappears for a large chunk of this arc, and i think it’s great. in his absence, the other characters not only go absolutely fucking nuts, but they have to figure out this new problem on their own, even if the lure of peaceful complacency in the newly saved Korea might convince them otherwise.

and then the whole time paradox thing comes around. yjh goes to space, hsy saves the only life she can, and kdj grows up. the crew waits, holding onto their hope even if it bleeds them dry. sing-shong does a damn good job of illustrating their fraying calm, their lurking madness, the unseen but pervasive depression that seeps in from kdj’s absence. the kids lose their father, lhs and jhw lose their reliable leader figure, ysa loses a best friend and confidant, lsk -- as distant as she pretends to be from her son -- loses her only child. and then there’s hsy and yjh , who are essentially bereft of the other half of their existences. their pain is palpable, is grounded in the hopeless, gnawing frustration of an utterly meaningless victory. emotionally, ORV hits all the right -- if agonizing -- beats.

however, a story can’t sustain itself just through its pathos. i’m happy to say that ORV doesn’t drop the ball after the first milestone, and after all the hurt, the characters do leap straight back into action. even better, the plot holes actually do get patches, and the poetic cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader comes full circle by making use of all those supposedly throwaway characters from the myriad world lines.

at the end of the road, there is a distinct sense of unity, of a delicate but undeniable cohesion to the world lines and their origins. sing-shong lets us guess a little here at the finish, but there’s just enough information to feel hopeful. maybe there never had been a definite start -- or finish -- to the story of kdj company, and... that’s okay. everybody ends up where they were meant to be, where they fought and struggled to reach. it’s.. almost like a happily ever after, if we’re allowed to dream of that.

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now, i realize, this was all an orchestrated maneuver.

i’ll take it.

to me, all of this work sounds like someone put some serious thought into this behemoth of a plot. it cements the entire original premise of the story. it suggests -- but never explicitly confirms! -- the possibility that breaking free of the cycle is possible through the exact same system that sustains it. it’s terribly interesting -- and inspirational! with all the dramatic revelations and life-threatening scenarios and the cast’s resigned acceptance of them that essentially make up ORV’s entire mood, there’s still that last hint of rebellious and righteous anger that lights up the whole damn nebula. it’s like the kdj company blasting away at the heavens just to yell into the nether: we’re not looking for the happy end, but the free one. stay alive.

it’s subtle, and yet it’s such an emotional gut punch. i came away with the most ruinous, frustrating, bittersweet sense of longing in ages. i pined. for these fictional darlings. god, i am weak.

so. yeah. ORV is pretty good. flawed, but ambitious and impressively thought out. i’m stoked that the webtoon is making pretty good progress, even if it’ll take an eternity and a half to meet that monstrous chapter count. i’m still gonna follow it. hell yeah.

------

(by the way the idea that secretive plotter and co are literally gonna take care of and raise baby kdj and spoil him and be the best friggin family a kid could ever want does things to me. protect him. he’s suffered too much. let at least one worldline’s version of him know happiness. and actually, aLL OF THEM DESERVE DOMESTIC BLISS TOGETHER IN A BIG OL MANSION WITH SUN AND FRESH AIR AND TENDER FAMILY MOMENTS UGH)

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and there you have it, folks. you made it to the end. in the far, far distance, i’m cheering you on and crying my eyes out in gratitude. thanks for tuning in!

#omniscient reader #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #fanart #kdj happiness rights!#protect him!#let! him! have his big house! with everyone! he loves!#please!#long ass emotional screeching #look i can't do him justice with drawing but hell can i yell out my love for him :'^DD

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just-come-baek · 4 years

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get in, loser 3

Pairing: Taeyong x female!reader

Themes: smut | mafiaboss!taeyong | streetracer!reader | carthief!reader

Word count: 6.8k

Summary: Taeyong has another assignment for me, and though it seems quite simple, I could not foresee these complications. Also, why do actions have consequences? Somebody should’ve warned me before!

A/N First of all, special thanks to Ally for supporting me through ko-fi! 🥰 Also, sorry for not updating it sooner, I’ve been busy with work and college, the next chapter will be probably around New Year, since I’d like to write something christmasy. 🎄Enjoy~~

There’s something unexplainable about Taeyong.

He’s a living paradox; on one side, he’s a ruthless mafia boss who won’t hesitate to attack people who had dared to wrong him. However, on the other, he’s a caring leader that is ready to go out of his way to protect his loyal associates.

Though it was, give or take, two weeks since I got to know him personally, I could deduct this much. There was nothing he valued more than loyalty, and I made a mental note to myself to never let him down, especially in this department.

Despite witnessing him murder Haechan and Jisung, I felt oddly safe in his arms, and it was alarming as fuck. Only God knows how many red flags I decided to ignore this night for the sake of his warm embrace. Perhaps it was stupid and reckless, but I didn’t care.

I was scared, and it provided me with warmth and comfort. Taeyong was the one who inflicted the wound on my mind by making me torture Haechan. However, at the same time, he was helping me to treat it with his support.

I didn’t do anything wrong. However, according to Taeyong’s twisted sense of justice, it should be me to punish them – an eye for an eye and all of that bullshit.

As soon as Taeyong led me out of the basement, he leaned in. His whisper tickled my sensitive skin as he ordered me to wait for him in my new car. With a slight nod of my head, I exited the mansion, awfully glad he let me go. Though I tried to forget it even happened, my mind was replaying all of the events from the last hour, making me sick.

The cold fresh breeze hit my face, making me shiver. Wrapping my arms around my torso, I made my way to the vehicle. Once inside, I turned on the music player, looking through for my therapy playlist.

The first song on the playlist was “Don’t Cha” by The Pussycat Dolls, and I nervously began tapping my fingers against the steering wheel in the rhythm. At some point, I unconsciously started singing my heart out, and it actually helped me calm down my nerves.

Unfortunately, the sensation was short-lived. As soon as Taeyong sat down in the passenger seat and closed the doors, I once again became a nervous wreck.

What did he want to discuss with me in private?

“Your opponents didn’t make it easy for you, did they?” Taeyong asked with a mischievous smirk upon his face after he saw the current state of the car.

“It’s just a couple of scratches; it’s no big deal,” I stated, trying to brush it off. Though it pained me, I knew Doyoung would gladly help me fix the vehicle in exchange for a fancy bottle of booze. (And some free ride coupons if he happened to be extra whiny.)

“So…” I cleared my throat, trying not to seem overly intimidated by his presence. “What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked, avoiding his dominant gaze. Under the influence of Taeyong's penetrating eyes, I’d most likely agree to anything in a heartbeat, and that’s not what I wanted at the moment. I had to be assertive and stand my ground.

“First of all, where is the money you won tonight?” Taeyong inquired, and I tilted my head toward the glove compartment, where I had stuffed all the cash I had won in the race. With a playful smirk, Taeyong reached in, pulled out the bag, and looked inside.

“You made me really proud tonight,” he commented, staring at the money before he put his hand into the bag and threw a handful of cash on my thighs. “That’s the tip, spend it wisely,” Taeyong added, and I smiled sheepishly, having no idea what I could spend this money on.

“Thanks,” I answered out of courtesy.

“I know you must be exhausted, so I’ll be quick,” Taeyong started, and I smiled, glad he understood my state. I had survived a couple of terribly tiring days, and right now, I just wanted to return to my tiny apartment, crawl under the covers, and sleep to my heart’s content.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Next Saturday, I have a business to tend to, and I’ll be needing a driver,” Taeyong explained vaguely, and I nodded my head, making a mental note of it. “Normally, I’d ask Lucas, but we’re a bit understaffed right now, so he’s going to be pretty busy.”

If I wasn’t half-asleep by now, I would be outraged. Ever since I had stolen Taeyong’s vehicle, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into proving I could be a legit gang member. And now, they were looking for recruits, the nerve! Partially, I might’ve been an indirect reason they were understaffed at the moment, yet it still managed to anger me.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll do it,” I replied dismissively, not even bothering to ask for any additional information. The case seemed too easy; there must’ve been a catch, but at this point, I didn’t care. I just wanted this conversation to be over with. Taeyong wouldn’t assign me to this task if he didn’t believe I could pull through, so I naturally agreed, hoping I wouldn’t regret this negligence.

“Someone will text you more details sometime next week until then, get some rest, you look like you need lots of it,” Taeyong spoke teasingly as he once again eyed me from head to toe. I could only guess how awful I looked with the bruises, the eye bags, and an unimpressed frown on my face.

“Gee, thanks for that,” I jested, making Taeyong smirk in response.

“See you soon, doll,” having leaned toward me, he whispered before pressing a delicate kiss in the corner of my mouth, confusing the hell out of me.

What the hell was that?

***

Though at first, I was doubtful, I somehow managed to get better over the week. I still had a vivid picture in my mind of the crime scene unfolding in front of me, but it didn’t bother me as much as it had earlier. Also, I didn’t feel like throwing up out of stress when I thought of Taeyong. As time passed, all the intensity seemed to wear off, and I was glad because I wasn’t ready to take in any more stress.

Right now, I felt great.

Most of the bruises already healed, and I slept to my heart’s content and even went to the fitness club for some yoga classes. Last night, Doyoung and I had a sleepover at my place with classic 90’s movies, unhealthy snacks, and fruity face masks.

Life’s beautiful, I’d say.

Just as Taeyong had said, someone had texted me the details about the next gig. It was Lucas, and as much as I liked hearing from him, I’d much prefer a face-to-face encounter. He was hot as fuck, and though out of my league, I would love to appreciate his ethereal beauty in person instead of imagining him in yet another gorgeous outfit. I just couldn’t help myself; it was his fault he looked like his place was on the cover of Men’s Health.

His message was short, but it provided me with a lot of information, and in all honesty, I was glad he didn’t give me too many details. All I had to do was to escort Taeyong and his friend to a nightclub outside the city and drive them back to the mansion. The car would await me in Taeyong’s driveway, and I should arrive about half an hour before the departure. Oh, and of course, what the dress code was – nightlife extravaganza.

I had no idea what business they were to tend to, but I decided it was for the better. The less I knew about Taeyong's dirty dealings, the less trouble I was getting myself into. If I knew what they were about to do, I might’ve found myself in yet another one stress-heavy episode. It seemed like the only reasonable option to stay the hell away from any possible stress factors.

“How do I look?” I asked Doyoung as I stepped out of my bathroom, letting him check out the outfit. I was wearing a black two-piece, consisting of a cropped top with straps around the waist and a pair of high-waisted leather skinny pants. With ankle strap red high heels, a matching quilted purse, and sharp make-up, I felt sexy and empowered.

“You look like a badass CEO, is this the look you were going for?” Doyoung stated after carefully judging my outfit. Sighing, he put one leg over another. “I like it,” he smiled, giving me thumbs up. “Top it off with that leather jacket, and you’re good to go.”

“The black one or the red one?” I asked, looking at the jackets, wondering which would suit me better, ignoring ‘the really???’ look that Doyoung was giving me. “OK, never mind, sorry I asked,” I groaned, throwing the black jacket at Doyoung’s face, putting the red one over my shoulders.

“Mr. Bad Boy won’t be able to take his eyes off of you,” Doyoung remarked in a snarky manner, and I stuck my tongue out, trying to ignore the verbal jab. Very sophisticated conversation between two best friends, I had to admit.

“I won’t even reply to that,” I sighed and went to the mirror to check out if my make-up needed any retouch. Doyoung must’ve really thought I was trying to impress Taeyong with the outfit, and to be honest, it was the least of my worries. Though we barely spoke with each other, Taeyong didn’t seem to understand the meaning of personal space, so I doubted he cared what I was wearing. As long as I’d let him take it off, he would be satisfied.

Not that I thought about letting him do that…

I was a professional, and sleeping with my boss, or even thinking about it isn’t at the top of my priorities. I’m a skilled car racer and a thief, and that’s what I’m planning on focusing on.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. Close the doors when you leave, okay?” I told Doyoung, and he smiled, lying on the couch, reaching for the TV remote.

“No worries, I’ll just watch the game, clean up the mess you made, and leave,” he said before he stuffed his mouth with a handful of potato chips. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

***

Punctually, I parked my cute Fiat on Taeyong’s driveway right next to a big ass black Hummer. Having got out of my tiny vehicle, I made my way around the monster truck, seeing Lucas in the driver seat, setting up the navigation system. I knocked on the window, and the man turned his head around in a second, sending me a playful smirk.

God, he’s ridiculously hot. My memory didn’t do him justice. With his hair swept back, in a loose red jacket and a low-cut black t-shirt, he looked mesmerizing. A minute later, he exited the vehicle, and I saw him in all his tall glory, and for a brief second, I forgot how to breathe.

It was the effect® Lucas had on regular people.

“The keys are in the ignition, the location already typed into the GPS system. Taeyong and the other guy should be here in a few,” Lucas said, and I nodded.

Who’s the other guy?

Not even Lucas knows his name?

Strange…

“Hello to you, too,” I spoke, smiling at him. Taeyong was nowhere to be seen, so I cleared my throat before firing a question, initiating small talk. “How is recruiting going?” I inquired, genuinely curious about the progress he must’ve made.

“Nothing much yet, but I’m full of hope,” Lucas answered honestly, scratching the back of his head. “Actually, you inspired me to broaden my horizons,” he added, and I cocked up my eyebrow, wanting him to continue. Did I inspire him? Wow.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you’ve done some impressive shit,” Lucas confirmed, and I blushed at the compliment. “I’ve figured we need more women in our field, and I’ve talked to two best female candidates I could find. Right now, we discuss terms of recruitment,” Lucas explained excitedly, and I was positively shocked to hear such news.

Did someone hit him in the head with the feminism manifesto, or what?

“I don’t know what to say…” I whispered, trying to wrap my head around the newest revelation. Having experienced the treatment I received from most of them, it was hard to believe it took them so little time to change their mindset. I mean… it was just Lucas for now, but the change was already visible. “I’m happy to hear that; I can’t wait to meet them,” I added, turning my head to the side upon seeing Taeyong and his friend.

“Meet who?” Taeyong asked in confusion as he didn’t know the full context of our conversation.

“We were just talking about new recruits. I fill you in as soon as I have everything confirmed,” Lucas spoke. Taeyong nodded his head in comprehension, not even half as interested as I was. “Have a safe trip. I’ll get going,” he excused himself before walking away to a white Lamborghini Huracan.

“Missed me, doll?” Taeyong asked with a suggestive smirk decorating his face, as he bit on his bottom lip, glancing at me from head to toe. Yikes! It was unprofessional, and I wanted to scold him for being such a caveman. However, on a second thought, I decided to straighten my back to assert my confidence. Taeyong just wanted to express his appreciation for my fantastic outfit. Even though he chose the creepiest way of doing it, I chose to ignore it with a subtle eye roll.

“Is he always this nasty with you?” The mysterious man asked me as he walked past Taeyong, stretching his hand, greeting me like a regular person. “Pardon him, I’ve told him many times to work on his manners, but it’s like talking to a wall,” he added, and I chuckled, respecting the man already. He was talking shit about Taeyong in his presence – it was admirable.

“Who’s nasty? Speak for yourself!” Taeyong yelled, but his shorter friend just brushed it off.

“I kind of got used to it,” I replied casually, trying to give him a neutral answer.

“I’m Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, but since no one can pronounce it right, everybody calls me Ten,” he introduced himself, and I replied with my name, hoping he would use it instead of yet another infantile nickname.

“Nice to meet you, Ten,” I answered, smiling at the man politely.

“Should we get going?” Having cleared his throat, Taeyong asked, urging us inside of the vehicle. Following Taeyong’s order, I smirked, thinking of his ridiculous behavior. It was the first time when I didn’t give him my full attention, and it was evident it bothered him.

It was new and refreshing, and it was kind of cute of him.

“Yeah, sure, get in, losers, we don’t have all night,” I added, growing a little bit impatient with their slow movements.

“You really have to stop calling me that,” Taeyong whispered in a low voice as he put his hand on my thigh and gave it a firm squeeze.

“And you really have to fasten your seatbelts, or we’re not going anywhere,” I teased with a big, artificial smile, scraping his hand off my thigh. “Those rules apply to you, too,” I added, looking into the rearview mirror, catching Ten sitting comfortably, ignoring seatbelts.

“Is she always like this?” Ten asked, yet obediently following my instructions.

“No. Usually, she’s way cooler,” Taeyong answered, pouting slightly.

***

A little over an hour later, I parked the Hummer in front of a night club. Apparently, all types of shady dealings were meant to be discussed over strong liquor and with a half-naked lady sitting on their laps.

“Good luck, boys,” having turned off the engine, I spoke, sounding awfully like a mom, dropping her kids at another soccer practice.

Annoyed, Taeyong smirked. “Oh no, you’re going with us,” he added, and I cursed under my breath, displeased that Taeyong managed to ruin my plans of staying behind and not getting involved in whatever business they were about to discuss. The less I knew, the better, and Taeyong was really making it difficult for me.

Trailing slowly behind them, I entered the club.

“Get anything you want. We’ll be back in a few,” Taeyong whispered into my ear as he slid his platinum credit card into my palm. “Don’t cause any trouble,” he added before they both walked away to the booth at the back of the establishment.

I still could see them, though they were outside my earshot. It couldn’t get any better. I wouldn’t have to worry about hearing anything that wasn’t meant for my ears. However, at the same time, I could appreciate their natural beauty, fashion sense, and confidence in their original habitat.

I was a designated driver tonight (duh), and it was more than irresponsible to buy myself an alcoholic drink – especially with my ridiculously low alcohol tolerance. Leaning over the counter, much to the bartender’s dismay, I ordered a virgin Mojito.

Having checked whether or not the bartender spat into my drink, I picked up the glass, wrapped my lips around the straw, and took a sip. Though it was delicious, I’d much prefer it to have some alcohol in it. Maybe next time, perhaps tomorrow on my day off, I told myself as I spun on the barstool to have a look at Taeyong and Ten.

They both looked gorgeous, though they didn’t fit the typical mobster description.

Taeyong had his now baby blue hair styled down, a white suit jacket, a baby blue T-shirt, and light pants that made him look like some lawyer on a business trip. Ten, on the other hand, with his messy parted bangs hairstyle, an olive bomber jacket, black hoodie, and a pair of black cargo pants, resembled a lost college student.

The men, who they were meeting, were a completely different story, though. All of them seemed like lethal mobsters with their short hair and all leather outfits. I knew for sure I wouldn’t like to stumble upon them in a dark alley. Without any doubt, they had guns on them, and I was fearful enough to turn my head around and return to my drink.

Not knowing how much time it would take them to discuss all terms of whatever agreement they wanted to sign on, I decided to text Doyoung to pass the time. Unfortunately, before I managed to pull out my phone, my drink got knocked over by a very drunk girl sitting on the barstool next to mine.

“Hey, watch it!” I shouted as I jumped off my stool, not wanting to get all wet. In a matter of a few seconds, the bartender rushed over, helping me wipe off the counter.

“I’m really sawwy,” she said in a drunken haze, and I rolled my eyes, not really wanting to start an argument with an intoxicated person. When drunk, I also tend to be more clumsy than usual, so I simply decided not to hold her accountable for such a minor mistake.

Having apologized for spilling my drink, she excused herself, leaving her date at the bar alone. A good-looking man ordered another round of cocktails for him and his date. I cocked my eyebrows at his behavior. She was already drunk; another drink wouldn’t make her any good.

In a minute, the bartender placed two cranberry vodkas on the counter, putting it on the man’s tab. At first, I wanted to mind my own business and not attract any unnecessary attention. However, when I noticed the man slipping something into the woman’s drink, I knew I needed to intervene. He wanted to hurt her, and I just couldn’t let that happen.

Sighing, I jumped off the barstool and marched to the bathroom, wanting to warn her. Thankfully, she was standing in front of the mirrors, washing her hands when I found her.

Casually, I stopped next to her and pulled out my lipstick to reapply it.

“Are you alright?” I asked her, watching her wobble in her ridiculously high stilettos. She was barely standing on her feet – she was in no condition to have yet another drink, let alone a drink spiked with some type of drug.

“I feel funny. I had one drink, yet I feel like I had five,” the woman commented, placing her purse next to the basin, searching for cosmetics to touch up her make-up. “It must be because I barely ate today, I was so stressed about this date, so I only had breakfast,” she added, but it didn’t calm me. If anything, it made me even more alert.

“Is it your first date with him?” I inquired, trying not to sound intrusive. She seemed a bit naïve, and I wanted to look out for her. If I could prevent her from getting hurt, I had to try.

“Yeah, he asked me out yesterday in a coffee shop next to my building. He’s so romantic,” the woman explained dreamily, and I refrained from groaning in distaste. What kind of dudes did she date in the past to think this guy was romantic?

That was all I needed to know to figure out that he just wanted to get laid and toss her aside. He just wanted to use her body without even earning her consent. No matter how good looking he was – it was unjustifiable. I couldn’t let her go to him and become a victim. I had to try and prevent her from getting hurt.

“Are you sure you want to go back to him in this state? If I were you, I’d reschedule,” I commented, trying to talk her out of continuing this date.

“What is your problem?” asked she, her tone laced with anger and irritation. “I’m on a date, and you keep ruining it. What’s your deal?”

Wow, that was rude.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She couldn’t be for real, right?

“Listen–” I started, trying to defend my case, but she, once again, interjected me.

“No, you listen! I’m on a date with his hot man. You may try your luck somewhere else. I can bet you’ll find someone willing to fuck you but buzz off from me, and my man,” she hissed, and I just blinked a couple times, trying to comprehend what just happened. Though she was annoying the hell out of me, I still had to help her. Perhaps she didn’t fully deserve my saving, but I had to try. Friends or enemies, she didn’t merit to be taken advantage of.

Trying to flee the scene, she grabbed her purse and turned around to storm out of the bathroom. Fortunately, I managed to wrap my hand around her wrist before she made her way to the doors.

“Get a grip, woman!” I shouted at her, hoping she would listen to my loud voice – especially when she didn’t seem to particularly enjoy my calm and worried tone. “He roofied your drink and wants to take advantage of you. You better get yourself a ride home and leave.”

She looked at me, and I looked at her, having an intense stare contest. She must’ve been weighing her options before she tore her arm from my grasp.

“I can take care of myself,” she added before leaving the bathroom.

I tried, I told myself, but it still made me uneasy. She didn’t listen to my warnings, and she was about to get hurt, and it made me feel remorseful. I didn’t do my best. I still could prevent her from getting assaulted.

Heaving a deep sigh, I left the bathroom, determined to stop the man from drugging her even if I had to swallow the poison myself.

They were sitting by the bar as earlier. She was laughing at his joke, and he had his hand on her thigh. They seemed comfortable, but I knew enough to realize it was superficial.

Slowly, I approached them, stumbling over my legs, pretending to be shitfaced drunk. Once the drink was within my reach, I fake-tripped, spilling the alcohol on the man’s laps.

“You bitch,” he yelled in absolute anger. Apparently, he didn’t like it when his plan fell through. “Look what you’ve done!” He jumped to his feet, trying to wipe off his jeans.

Unfortunately, his furious outburst brought lots of attention to us. Instinctively, I turned to look at Taeyong. He was staring at me, mouthing, get out.

It was my much-awaited cue, so I gave this gross man some half-ass apology and left the club without any second thoughts. I had enough of this drama; I’d rather wait for them in the car.

Patiently, I waited for Taeyong and Ten to return. Time flew by quickly as I browsed my social media feed, forwarding the funniest memes to Doyoung.

Maybe thirty minutes later, Taeyong knocked on the window, wanting me to open the trunk. Two huge men with heavy leather jackets and gold chains around their necks threw four enormous black bags into the trunk, shutting it close with a loud thud.

I had no idea what the cargo was, but it didn’t sit right with me. Whatever it was, it must’ve been illegal, and it made me jumpy.

“What’s in the bags?” I asked carelessly, regretting my questing the second it left my mouth.

“Do you really want to know?” Taeyong challenged, and I vigorously shook my head in firm denial. Chuckling, he added, “Just samples.”

“Right,” I answered, dismissing the topic. Quickly, I turned on the engine and drove away, wanting to get back to the mansion as fast as it was lawfully possible.

Unfortunately, not talking about the cargo didn’t make me stop thinking about what’s inside the bags. Taeyong’s business has many branches, varying in dozens of illegal activities. Regardless of what was sitting in the trunk, we would all go to prison if caught.

“What kind of trouble did you cause when I specifically requested you didn’t?” Taeyong asked somewhat throughout the ride. His hands were squeezed in fists, resting on his thighs as he waited for my answer.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I genuinely apologized before I began pleading my case. Hopefully, with proper justification for my actions, Taeyong would understand. He was a human, after all. “I just couldn’t stay idle and watch this nightmare unfold in front of me. I had to help this girl out, even though she didn’t seem to appreciate it."

“Jaehyun was right about you,” Taeyong whispered mysteriously, making me raise an eyebrow in confusion. What kind of prejudice Jaehyun held against me? “You’re way too nice for this job,” he added, and I took a deep sigh, expecting a much worse response.

Though it pained me, it was understandable that being good was a bad thing in this line of business. Typically, I’d be glad to hear such a compliment, but under these circumstances, it made me upset. I wasn’t a saint, but I had some sort of a moral backbone.

“I wouldn’t necessarily put it that way,” I trailed off, thinking of the best way to present my abilities in the most fitting way.

“It was admirable if you want some second-hand opinion,” Ten interjected, pretty amazed with my attitude. “You should’ve punched him in the face, though. I’d love to see that,” he added, and I giggled, picturing my fist colliding against his jaw.

That would be a very nice picture.

“Can you drop me off at the Moonlight club? I’d like to meet with a friend of mine if that’s not a problem?” Ten asked, and I hummed in agreement, punching the club location into a navigation system. It was on our way, so it really wasn’t a nuisance.

“Sure thing,” I added, returning my focus on driving. Unfortunately, as soon as I shifted my attention to the front of our lane, I saw a car overtaking the Hummer. A second later, it flashed red and blue lights right, mentioning for me to stop the vehicle on the side of the road.

The police cruiser.

FUCK.

It was impossible. After doing so much illegal stuff, it was ironic to get caught when properly driving. It was a bad sign, and in a matter of seconds, I turned into an anxious ball of stress.

What a lame way to the end of my career!

OK, you gotta keep calm. Normal women can bullshit their way out of getting a ticket, so you can do it, too! I tried to psych myself up, though it didn’t help much. My mouth was still dry, and my hands were all sweaty. They’re about to discover I’m hiding some illegal stuff in the trunk. I couldn’t go to prison – orange is definitely NOT the new black.

“You can do it, doll. Don’t lose your cool,” Taeyong whispered, giving me an encouraging squeeze on the knee. Admittedly, it didn’t work.

“Yeah, don’t even think of all the drugs we have the trunk stocked up with,” Ten added, and I angrily turned back to yell at him for giving me info that I did not want nor need.

“Why would you say that?!” I shouted, trying to collect my thoughts. Cool, cool, cool, cool. You got this. You’ve survived worse. “If we make out of this alive, I’m gonna kill you,” I warned Ten before I straightened my backs, rolling down the window for the policeman who approached the vehicle.

“Good evening, Mr. Officer,” I beamed innocently, trying to read the policeman’s surname off the uniform, yet in vain. “I didn’t go too fast, did I?” I asked, batting my eyelashes in a poor attempt at flirtation.

Yikes, so much cringe!

“Driving license and vehicle registration certificate,” said the police officer coldly, completely ignoring my pathetic wooing. Unwillingly, I handed him the documents, praying to all the gods for him not to investigate the trunk. “Please, step out of the vehicle,” he added, and I followed his orders, ready to cooperate if he was willing to overlook the car inspection.

Obediently, I entered the backseat of the police cruiser, awaiting the interrogation.

“I’m an experienced driver. Did I make a mistake?” I inquired, waiting for them to give me the reason for pulling me over. My driving skills are mastered to perfection. I was really interested in what lame-ass excuse they were about to conjure to give me a ticket to fund the city’s budget.

“It’s just a routine checkup,” one police officer spoke dismissively, checking my data in their database. “All cops were asked to do routine checkups. Apparently, tonight some gang was doing drug drop-off, yet we stopped dozens of suspicious cars, and nothing came out of it. It must’ve been a false lead.”

What the fuck?

How, on Earth, did the police find out about this? Even I, who was a part of the drop-off, didn’t know what was inside the bags until two minutes ago. Was there a mole in the organization? Or maybe the police sent an undercover agent?

Thoughts were running through my head at a ridiculous speed, my gears were shifting swiftly as I tried to make any connection. Unfortunately, I didn’t connect shit. One thing was sure, though. If, by any chance, they let me go without investigating the car, Taeyong wouldn’t be thrilled to hear the news.

“Really? Drugs? And here I thought I live in the safe neighborhood,” I commented, feigning my cluelessness. Surprise, surprise, it actually sounded natural. Almost as if I was born to be a benighted dumb-dumb. “You better catch those smugglers.”

“We’re doing our best, miss,” the other policeman chimed in, and I tried my best not to roll my eyes at his for this evident negligence. They had culprits right under their nose, and it seemed they did not suspect me.

How could a dumb chick like me be involved in such a shady operation, am I right?

As much as I felt the urge to prove them wrong, I decided not to. As tempting as it was, it was extremely unbeneficial. I just wanted to get the hell out of the cruiser, drop the guys at Taeyong’s mansion, get my paycheck, and go home.

“Where were you going at such a late hour, miss?” The policeman asked, handing me back my documents after not finding anything worth further investigation.

“My friends were at the bachelor party in the club outside the capital, and they got really drunk, so I drove all the way there to pick them up,” I explained, though I got a feeling they weren’t listening to what I was saying.

“Uh-huh,” one of them muttered, quickly writing a messy note of the routine checkup, handing me back my documents. “That would be all, thank you for your cooperation,” the cop added, and I politely smiled, bolting out of the cruiser.

Phew!

Having fastened my seatbelts, I drove away. I just wanted to get the hell away from them, hoping they wouldn’t change their mind and order a thorough vehicle inspection. Taeyong and Ten must’ve had a dozen questions; however, I just turned up the volume of the radio, ignoring their concerned glances.

“Get out,” I barked when I abruptly stopped by the Midnight club. Perhaps it was rude, but I didn’t care. I’ve had a very stressful night, and politeness wasn’t on my mind.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow; good luck with miss grumpy,” Ten spoke before he jumped out of the vehicle, almost as if he was afraid I was going to talk back to him.

“What’s with the attitude?” Taeyong casually asked, and I sighed, trying to calm myself down. “I get you’re stressed, but you shouldn’t take your annoyance on us. Besides, if you’ve forgotten, let me remind you. I’m your boss, and Ten is my close associate.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized before I revealed what exactly happened in the police car. Truth to be told, Taeyong didn’t seem particularly surprised.

“That’s not the worst thing I’ve heard today,” Taeyong whispered, looking at my profile. “Jungwoo from Busan division called me today. Some of Yuta’s men crossed the border. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate our little prank,” he explained, and I grew speechless.

Karma was getting back at me.

Why do actions have consequences?

“That’s not good,” I answered, unable to form a coherent response. I was royally screwed, yet at the time, I was overwhelmed by the revelation.

Why couldn’t I just wait for Taeyong to put an ad on Craigslist, for fuck’s sake?

“Hey, look at me,” Taeyong ordered, and I obediently tore my eyes off the road to gaze into his eyes. “Don’t think too much about it; it’ll be fine,” Taeyong promised, yet his words didn’t make me feel assured. “You’re one of us; we’ll protect you.”

“You better,” I added, clutching my palms around the steering wheel in yet another stress-fuelled episode. There better be a professional health care program for Taeyong’s employees. Otherwise, I may need a therapist. Stress factors don’t stop coming, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry on much longer.

“Do you want to hang out?” Taeyong inquired, taking me by surprise. He, the mafia boss, wanted to spend some time with such a peasant like myself. That concept was wild, and it actually made me wonder. I couldn’t really say no. Some people would die to get a chance to wander around his big-ass mansion with Taeyong himself. “We can order some take out and just chill. What do you think?”

“I’d love that.”

***

Since the police knew the registration number, Taeyong ordered me to park the vehicle in a large garage under his majestic mansion. Having turned off the engine, we got out of the car, and I handed him the keys, lifting some heft off my shoulders. It was a nice car, but the memories it held were terrible. I’d rather forget that I even drove that thing.

“Give me a sec,” Taeyong said, taking a handful of samples, stuffing his pocket with them.

“What are these exactly?” Having creased my forehead in contemplation, I asked.

“These? Oh, it’s a new type of drug. It’s called the punch,” Taeyong explained, showing me a single dose of the drag. It was nicely wrapped like candy, and inside it looked like a mint. “It’s like LSD had a baby with shrooms,” he commented casually, winking at me. “And it tastes like bubblegum; you want to try some? The first batch is in the house.”

“Maybe later,” I answered dismissively, not really keen on having my first trip with Taeyong. But on the other hand, who was a better candidate to do drugs with? “I’d rather have some take out first if that’s not a problem,” I added, hoping he wouldn’t press me into doing anything out of my comfort zone. Not that I expected Taeyong to force me to do things against my will. I didn’t. After all, he was a really considerate man.

“Sure, what cuisine are you craving? I’m thinking… maybe something spicy. How about Mexican?” Taeyong proposed, and I vigorously nodded. Either he was my soulmate or really was able to read minds. “I’ll order something delicious.”

This time around, his mansion felt odd.

It was still majestic and glamorous, yet at the same, it was quiet. Back then, it was packed with Taeyong’s minions, but right now, they were in hiding, giving Taeyong his much-needed privacy. Following behind him, roaming around the spacious corridors felt like being guided through a museum during a private tour.

Once settled in the day room, Taeyong walked up to the bar, brought two glasses and a bottle of tequila, and set them on the coffee table.

“You want some? You look like you need a glass or two,” Taeyong offered upon seeing me all tensed up and anxious on the leather couch, nervously scanning the room.

“I’d rather hear some good news, but the alcohol will do,” I answered, reaching for the glass, downing it in one go, only to regret it a second later. “Pour me another one.”

“Take it easy,” Taeyong suggested, yet obediently filled my glass before turning on music, letting me know what type of songs he was into. Apparently, for late night’s chilling EDM hits were his to-go playlist.

With some liquid courage, it was easier to relax at Taeyong’s place. I took off my shoes and stretched on the sofa comfortably, all unpleasant and stressful occurrences slowly fading away. Unfortunately, these feelings were about to come back in the morning.

Twenty minutes later, the food was delivered, and it was absolutely mouthwatering. Fresh corn tortillas, spicy ground beef with a ridiculous amount of cheese made a perfect combination, tasting orgasmic. If I had less self-control, I’d moan at the foodporn laid out on the table for us to devour.

“So… how did the meeting go? Was it a success, or did I fuck it up with my shenanigans at the bar?” I inquired, narrowing my eyes, carefully watching his reaction.

If I could make out an emotion that his eyes were conveying, it was amusement.

“We will see,” Taeyong whispered, reaching into his pocket, playing with a single sample in his hands. “I only distribute the goodies. I gotta check first if this innovation is worth my time,” he added before popping the substance into his mouth like candy. “Is ‘no’ your definite answer?” Taeyong questioned, looking like a cute innocent hamster with the pill dissolving against the inside of his left cheek.

After a few tequila shots and delicious Mexican take out, I was much braver. However, at the same time, I became a way less assertive version of myself. Consenting to his kind proposition was too easy. Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen? His mansion’s probably the safest place in the country.

“Fine, gimme,” I gave up, reaching out for the pill.

At first, nothing happened. A few minutes later, still nothing, and I even began to think Taeyong gave me a sample from a faulty batch. It was until it hit me good.

The couch melted like milk chocolate swallowing me in its soft waves before I crashed through the floor of nonexistent colors splashes.

#taeyong smut #nct smut #neosmutcollective #nct angst #taeyong angst #taeyong #lee taeyong #nct #get in loser #taeyong fanfic #nct fanfic #taeyong fanfiction #nct fanfiction

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pfreadsandwrites · 4 years

Text

不名誉・Ignominy・一 (1/3)

AO3 LINK AND AUTHOR’S NOTES

ACCOMPANYING SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

warnings: description of suicide, depression, violence, death, angst, father-son relationships, one-shot, 7k words

i.father /ii. son (tba) /iii. legacy (tba)

不名誉（romaji: fumeiyo) - dishonour

Nothing is here. Not time, not space. Just the ghost of a father, waiting for the ghost of a son. What else would limbo be for?

親はなくても子は育つ

Even without parents, children grow up.

The flame is incessant.

It rustles and crackles, never wavering, the only thing of note, of light, in this eternal aphotic abyss. It’s comforting somehow, the warmth of the fire. Energising. Igniting his soul in a way that he doesn’t mind this place, wherever it is, however long he’s been here. Paradoxically, he doesn’t feel it.

A spark escapes, but he doesn’t make to evade it. His bleary eyes watch on hopelessly as it disappears back into the obsidian.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t begrudge it.

Limbo, is it? Sakumo figured. Certainly not the afterlife, not all of it. Bleak as it was, it was too… empty, too inconsequential, even for someone like him, someone who died like he did. He shouldn’t have expected anything more. He didn’t deserve anything more. It was fitting that even transferring from the physical realm to the spiritual isn’t straightforward, not for him anyway. It’d been too bold of him to assume he’d at the very least get that, even if he did only assume it for a moment.

When he considered the notion of his own death - and he had considered it - afterlife hadn’t really come into it. It didn’t matter, he’d decided. As long as he ceased to exist on Earth, what awaited him here was an afterthought. And he’d be remiss if he lamented it now, not after what he’d done.

There’d been no other way.

(But if that were true, why is he bound here? He knows nothing has ever been that simple. Surely there’s something missing, something he needs to atone for beyond his death? Or maybe-

The thought is snatched away before it forms fully, engulfed by the greedy fire before him)

Yes - no other way.

It’s of little comfort though, because it just means that he was always supposed to be here too, regardless. Waiting. He knows why. Ending things like that - no, how dare he be cryptic - when he plunged the blade into his stomach, swiped it along smoothly and keeled over. When he groaned in pain, torment and inure. When he expelled his guts and with it, his anguish and his anger - and his sins and his virtues, in the hope that no one else would bear them, especially not the little boy. When the the little boy that, despite acting more like a man, wouldn’t understand that this was all for him, the little boy that looked too much like him and too much like her, the little boy that meant everything, had discovered his father’s corpse.

Yes - no other way.

Necessary - incumbent, horrific, as it was, he has to take responsibility. Even if it means staying and suffering here for all eternity. He won’t let thoughts of regret enter his mind, let alone admit it out loud.

Whether what he did was fair, whether what led up to it was fair, is inconsequential. Justice doesn’t come into it. It’s honour. It’s what a shinobi does, what a man does, what a father does. If he can’t do even that for his son, then that flame can grow and swallow him up now for all he cares.

He owed Kakashi that much then, and he owes him that much now.

So he knows he can only accept, and wait. Morbid as it is to wait for your own son here, of all places, it’s the best he can offer him. It’s all he’s ever been able to offer him. He closes his worn eyes. The smoke from the fire envelops him and for a moment, it’s too real. He reminds himself there’s no point in coughing.

(How can he still feel so tired?)

Less than a fortnight after his own birthday, the child is born. He takes as much as he brings.

It’s quick - it seems barely minutes have passed before his wife’s cries were replaced with the newborn’s. Kicking and crying, a typical protest at being dragged away from safety and into this wretched world.

He waits outside (a shinobi has no place at a birth, after all), mission-worn, resting his bruised forehead on his clasped fists whilst his eyes are screwed shut. He knows better than to expect a perfect outcome, even if her determination wouldn’t accept anything less. But still, his ears strain of their own accord for the slightest hint of her voice camouflaged by the baby’s.

“It’s a boy. A healthy, beautiful boy,” the nurse says kindly, breaking him out of his prayer. Her eyes avoid his, and he can’t help but read too much into the hesitance in her words. So he attempts to ready himself for the impossible, but she continues. “Hatake-san, your wife-“

His breath hitches.

“She’s a fighter.”

The scene is alien, when he finally meets his new family, hunching over her bedside. She holds the infant close against her breast, nursing him with an exhausted, but enduring glow on her weary features. The tenderness that she’d previously only ever shown him seems to define her whole being now. The skill, the nonchalance, with which she’s transformed so flawlessly from a woman, from his wife, into a mother leaves Sakumo unable to do anything but watch awkwardly. It’s too pure an image, too different from all the ones he’s grown accustomed to. Completely natural whilst somehow equally ethereal. He knows he’ll sully it the moment he interrupts.

Luckily, she does it for him. She’s always been stubborn. Dragging him back for his sake, like she always does.

“Your son,” she states matter-of-factly, before dissolving it with a giggle. “Come meet him.”

He nods. Her smiles always were infectious. So much so that they both forget that it’s a miracle she’s still here. His large, marred hand brushes over the baby’s tiny head, his soft, clean silver hair, silver just like his. This is the son of the White Fang. Cruelly ironic, the visceral reminder that this boy was his, even in all his innocence and all his father’s battle scars.

Father - yes, he was a father. How long will it be, until his son sees his father for what he is? How long will it be until he turned out the same way? Fatherhood - his head suddenly feels too heavy to hold up, to bear it, just like his son’s.

As if she knows, she interrupts his internal doubt. “He looks just like you. If I were feeling just a bit pettier, I’d say it’s unfair,” she jokes. “Well, it’s not like it’s a bad thing.”

“No,” Sakumo dismisses quickly, and points to a mark next to the boy’s mouth. A black dot, placed so specifically it feels intentional. It’s easy to miss, but it’s there. Unwavering, unremovable. Just like her. “This is yours.”

Almost in agreement, the baby’s tiny fist clenches around his finger. His eyes widen, and she laughs. “Mm. And look - you’re his.”

He doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything - only marvel at how, for the second time, someone was just able to pull him away from himself and so close so simply and so impossibly.

He straightens his back.

“What do you think of the name Kakashi? You know, scarecrow to your crops?”

He grins. Strange how she always re-ignites his courage.“…It’s a good name.”

It’s dreamlike after that. The child grows quickly, and every day they both find new things to smile about, to love, about the baby and each other. Kakashi looks more and more like his father each day, and it exults his mother, even if she pretends otherwise. Each mission has Sakumo more reluctant to leave the sanctuary she created when she kisses him goodbye, but he returns quicker each time too. Their smiles are more motivation than he ever thought possible.

Nothing so idyllic would last so long, even if a child can convince you otherwise.

It isn’t long before her smiles disappear when she thinks his back is turned. When her colour disappears, her fingers tremble and she becomes lighter in his arms as Kakashi grows heavier in hers.

Her infinite determination is only finite at delaying fate. Suddenly the always blunt, smart-mouthed woman is reticent, subdued. She’s never been good at apologising, but it’s all she seems to do now. To him, to Kakashi - even he, with his curious, intelligent eyes, seems to understand more for his age than he should. He becomes equally silent.

“Look after him, for the both of us, Sakumo. Watch him grow up. Please.” Of course he assuages her fears, even as his world falls apart, and as Kakashi takes his first steps a little ahead of them.

It’s earlier than normal, but by that point they come to expect it. His tiny feet tremble, and he thinks he might stumble, but he doesn’t let his parents see. He doesn’t cause more concern than he has to.

She takes her last breath before his first birthday.

Less than a fortnight after his father’s birthday, the child turns one. He takes as much as he brings.

The grooves around his eyes become deeper. The smoke feels real again. Sometimes he wishes he could choke on it.

Still, he’s here. He’s waiting. Maybe he’s supposed to atone a little more before seeing her, too. The smile comes of its own accord, when he considers just what she’d say when she finds out he didn’t keep his promise quite like he was supposed to. Maybe she’ll forgive him, though not before scolding him. It makes the uncertainty of this vacuum more bearable, just barely. Afterlife, when he does let himself ponder it, is one thing.

Her.

He’s not so proud to pretend that he has the nerve to face her without having something more to tell her about Kakashi anyway.

Would things have turned out differently, if she - He stops himself. He won’t make excuses. He still would have taken the mission, and he still would have failed it. He still wouldn’t regret failing it, either. And it still would have ruined the village, and ruined it for them in turn. He still would have had to resolve it, resolve it in that excruciating way. He has no right to put that burden on her absence.

It’s so foolish, devoid of foresight - but he never considered that he’d be the one raising a child alone. It’s cruel, when the realisation bites him. He’d never let himself ruminate on it, but the assumption had always been there. Underlying every farewell, every strike of his tanto, every homecoming.

He’d definitely die first.

That would have been easier, selfish as it sounds, but then, he’s never been destined for ease. Neither had she. But he can even accept that, if it means, somehow, in some twist of fate - it’s too sentimental, but he grants himself an allowance this time - that Kakashi would have to bear a little less.

(Don’t get him wrong. He knows the fact that he’s here, that the fire is right there, waiting, to burn up his optimism incinerates that hope.)

The child catches on quickly.

Kakashi gives up crying for his mother, and soon gives up looking for her at all. It’s a response to that look Sakumo gives him, that maps his face involuntarily before the carefully chosen smile replaces it. It’s easier for them both if he pretends the last expression is the first.

Regardless, they manage, even if their home no longer feels like a home. There are sympathetic drop-ins on the poor widower and his baby, and again when the missions restart. Eventually he burns less food, Kakashi’s sleeping habits are less chaotic, and the house feels a little less empty. Soon, they’re affectionately thought of as the Hatake boys. You rarely see Sakumo without his pup.

The Hatake boys are nothing if not adaptable. Especially Kakashi. He grows quickly, too quickly.

He takes after his father, that’s what everyone says. And Sakumo lets himself believe it - the physical similarities are obvious, the boy is smart, precocious and he shows so much interest and talent for his pre-destined shinobi path that it’s mournful.

He knows he’s being idolised a little too much, but instead of quelling it, he succumbs to that wonder, that innocence in the boy’s eyes. God knows if this world has its way, it won’t be there much longer. And Kakashi’s in too much of a hurry to grow up, so he has to protect what little of it remains.

It’s no wonder, though. He tries to shield him, from the praises, the adulations - hero, legend, genius - but it’s futile. Just as he’s about to explain that such words are tentative, that they might have a time limit, they both hear it again.

“Look! It’s the White Fang!”

“And his son! I bet he’ll be just as great.”

It’s forever chasing them. Kakashi’s not the kind of boy to ever outwardly hesitate, but he’s thoughtfully silent now.

He insists on wearing a mask by the time he’s four. It’s bizarre, but apparently ‘the quintessential shinobi wears a mask’.

(How the hell does he know the word quintessential?!)

But his logic is sound. Still, Sakumo can’t help but think it’s a response, cleverly disguised like the boy’s already learnt to disguise so much. Did he want to invite less comparison? So far, it hadn’t really helped. Or had Kakashi caught him glancing at the black dot near his mouth one time too many, that unforgettable, enduring reminder of her?

Regardless, he doesn’t fight back, even though it’s damn near impossible to find masked shirts for children and his homemade attempt makes Kakashi chortle in an unusually carefree outburst. He’s never been good at denying him anyway, just like he was never good at denying her. That’s another thing - the more he looks like him, the more Sakumo’s reminded of her.

He holds onto his hand after pestering him to take him to the training grounds, and to the academy entrance exam - flooring the invigilators, to Sakumo’s pride and horror - and back home again, tugging on his shirt, a familiar demand to hoist him on his back when witnesses are out of sight. He has that uncanny way of making him and only him feel needed, even if he’s too proud to say it. Just like her.

Kakashi’s independent, mature, self-sufficient - even a little arrogant. But it’s impossibly endearing, just like her. He’s blunt, too matter-of-fact and never understands why it’s a problem, no matter how many times he’s reprimanded, but it’s chalked up to his maturity and his talent rather than a personality defect. He’s too logical, and causes adults and children alike to scratch their heads in confusion and infuriation. It’s all too familiar. His mother’s influence is just as enduring in him as it ever had been, but it’s as subtle as that damn beauty mark.

The mask, too. How typical of her, how perfect it is, Sakumo thinks, when it finally dawns on him. It’s his way of revealing himself to others on his - and only his - terms. He controls how much you see of him, whilst he sees right into you.

The child catches on quickly.

The fire rustles again, but it’s remarkably hearth-like now. Cosy. Sakumo lets himself smile, and open his eyes again. There was an optimism, a warmth, in those days as well. It still hurt, but they managed, even enjoyed themselves. They made quite a team. Kakashi seemed more like a man than a boy, even when he was that young. It seemed natural to others, and Sakumo supposed it was, partly. But he tried so hard too.

Things had looked up for a while, as they so often do, when you hold so much promise. When you’re not a pariah. It all changed so quickly. He knew it would, from the moment he turned his back on his duty, even if he didn’t know what it would entail. But it never felt wrong either.

It felt hopeless instead. He’d have been a bastard either way. Better to be a bastard who made a mistake, whose softness led to a screw-up, than a heartless bastard who’d throw his friends away for bureaucracy, for a convenience. For something as constructed as a code of conduct.

Kakashi could recite every rule of Shinobi Conduct before he even entered the academy (Sakumo doesn’t even remember letting him learn) but had only stared up at him blankly when Sakumo tried to tell him he needn’t worry so much. His rigidity, his insistence on his black and white view of the world - though he always used words beyond his years, it was a stark reminder that he was still only a little boy. A little boy that didn’t understand he was a little boy was a difficult thing. A dangerous thing.

Still, he trusted that the boy, little as he was, would understand one day. That he wasn’t leaving him behind because he regretted it. But because it was hopeless, because he’d become unfit for his purpose, both as a shinobi and a father, whether it was right or not. Because though it hadn’t felt wrong, he still had to deal with the consequences. Maybe one day the land they were expected to throw away their lives for would be more forgiving. Maybe it’d take his death for them to start to see it.

(Did he die for honour, responsibility, cowardice or anger?)

The child raises himself.

He’s the talk of the town now that’s he entered the academy. A prodigy, they call him. He’s set to graduate and be a full-fledged shinobi within the year. Classmates and teachers alike fawn over him, though he’s somewhat aloof to it all, which only makes them flock closer.

(He’s too young!) Her disapproval seems to float from that world to this one. And he can’t disagree, even though there isn’t much he can do about it. It seems Kakashi’s born for it, that he’d have nothing if he didn’t have this. So he supports it, fully. Besides, Konoha needs all the talent it can find.

Even if it means depending on children.

His self-reliance is bittersweet, but Sakumo won’t deny that it makes it easier to leave. That even if he doesn’t come home, he can worry a little bit less.

Isn’t that what fatherhood is? From the moment it’s possible, to help him feel his independence, feel every risk whilst concealing your own fear, so that he knows he might bear every pressure of this wretched world, prepare him so that he won’t collapse under it and, if he’s lucky, become a man that others can rely on too? He knows he can’t protect him forever. And that there’ll be a day, sooner than he’ll expect (it always is), where he won’t be there at all, because he’ll be damned if he has to go to his own son’s funeral instead.

Still, he would have liked to protect the boy’s childhood just a little bit longer. But he’s always so insistent on giving away what little of it he has left. It’s hard not to be bitter - when he sees the children of civilian families running around without a care in the world. But that’s the point, he knows that. Someone has to sacrifice so they can even exist at all. To be the one to do that is an honour, in one way or another.

The missions are relentless. The boy knows that each goodbye might be his father’s last. He doesn’t have to explain it. Kakashi is always calm, always accepting, always mature, careful to give him a casual send-off. It’s curious though, the intense, hopeful stare Sakumo feels bore into his back as he walks away.

The missions go well. Sakumo cements himself again and again as a hero, the revered White Fang, and invites commendation wherever he goes. Kakashi works harder, bearing pride and pressure on his tiny shoulders to meet his aspirations.

The mission is a failure. Behind enemy lines, espionage and destruction. It’s doomed from its inception. Mistakes pile up, and eventually his comrades get themselves captured. All his training has taught him that it can’t be helped, that he must carry out his mission and toss them aside. But he can’t abide. It’s never been in him to turn his heart to stone, not completely, but it’s even more impossible now. When the little boy’s at home, waiting for his own special report. When he’s watching and analysing his every move. When he’s picked Sakumo as the model he puts all his energy into emulating. He has to learn it’s okay to break the rules sometimes, lest he learns that lesson himself the hard way.

So, thanks to Sakumo’s doing, no lives have been lost. They’re grateful, for now. But experience fills him with apprehension. The worst is yet to come. There’s just something in the way his heart palpitates without explanation, why the journey home is forebodingly silent.

He’s right. The consequences are dire. Not just for Konoha, but through the entire land.

He turns from the Leaf’s White Fang to a disgrace overnight.

How precarious it all is, being a hero, he thinks with a sardonic smile. How fickle they are.

The smiles and praise become glares and blame, from strangers and old friends alike. Save for a few, but it isn’t enough to influence the rest of them. The close-knit community, the idyllic home he’d risked his livelihood countless times to protect almost seems an illusion now. Maybe it’s naive of him, that he never realised that ‘home’ could be conditional. That all the good you’ve already done could be wiped away so easily by one mistake that there was no point trying to do good in the first place.

He only indulges the bitterness for a little while. It’s immature. A man should take responsibility for his actions, good and bad. He knows what he did, and he knows it directly led to more damage and destruction. He knows it’s his fault. He knows he ended up hurting the very thing he was supposed to protect, and he knows it was him who elected to take on that responsibility in the first place. He knows he has no right to self-pity.

But he also knows he doesn’t regret it - the action, not the situation. He knows that if he had the choice to go back, he’d do it again. He knows wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he knew he was the kind of man that could turn his back on his friends, no matter what he’s been taught. He knows he has to set an example.

And an example he is. Kakashi’s quieter than usual, at first. He acts as if he doesn’t hear the angry muttering, he doesn’t notice that the missions are dwindling down, that the lines chiselled around his father’s eyes span further and that his clothes hang a little looser. That hurts most of all. That he’s suffering, but he refuses to dwell on it. It’s either for Sakumo’s sake or because that’s what a shinobi does. He doesn’t know which explanation is worse.

Everyone has their limits, most of all little boys. He should have expected this sooner. Kakashi doesn’t badger him to come to the training grounds like he used to, but Sakumo’s the one insisting this time. He still has to try. Even if it takes more from him than it ever has before. But he has to feel like he can still do something, anything. The range of which seems to decrease by the day. When the boy topples to the floor after a badly timed kick, he slaps away his father’s hand.

“Why?! Why did you do that? You went against orders, and everything went wrong! They all say these horrible things now! You’re not supposed to-” Kakashi stops himself, panting. His little body struggles to keep up with his rage and his words.

Strange, Sakumo thinks, as his dreary eyes meet the boy’s tearful ones. His reprimands match those of the adults he’s no doubt heard, but he’s never sounded more like the child he is. How can he understand? It must feel like a punishment, for all the pride and admiration he’s held for him until now. To have it snatched away like that. He can only apologise, but a father has no right to expect forgiveness from his son. Still, Kakashi lets him hold him close, just this once.

Then one day, it happens.

Cruelty is cruelty, no matter the source and no matter the recipient, and it isn’t long before the son bears the sins of the father. Kakashi does the best he can to take it in his stride, as usual, but when Sakumo asks if he can walk him to the academy, the sacred, persisting ritual comes to an end.

“I can go myself. Don’t worry,” he dismisses, gently enough, but he barely glances back before disappearing, before Sakumo even responds. It seemed so long ago, when he’d say the exact same words but he’d smile under his mask and grab his hand. Now he seems like an adult, resigned and reluctant. Hurt and tired. Bearing so much, for everyone else’s sake. For Sakumo’s sake

Whether it’s out of self-preservation, pity - or worst of all, an attempt to spare his father from the villagers’ scowls, it’s unacceptable. They all mean the same thing. Pretending he’s still needed, that his existence isn’t superfluous, is exhausting both of them. And he’s slipped one level further. Kakashi never mentions it, but he knows being Sakumo’s son is akin to damnation now.

He’s holding him back. Kakashi’s still the talk of the academy, but it’s opposite in nature now. There’s no more talk of his progress, of his graduation, of the illustrious road he was so sure to have ahead of him. It’s all snatched away in an instant. Kakashi has no future as long as Sakumo keeps breathing. What father can live with himself knowing that?

Everything is so difficult now. Standing takes all he has. He feels like a fraud for even doing that, for anything he says, anything he does. A soul-sucking, lacklustre performance. Every bodily function only spirals him down further into an abyss. He’s a ghost among the living. He’s always wondering why the hell he’s still here. He’s been able to convince himself, to a point, that he should still fight, he should still eat - but it’s undeniable now. He’s a burden.

And as burdensome as he is, the most important thing still remains.

He’ll do whatever he has to for his son. That much he can do.

Anything that Sakumo regrets is out of his control. He’s never been able to control anything where it counts. Not her death, not the mission, not sparing Kakashi from any pain. He’s even failing at his own modest goal - to ensure that the boy has the tools to bear anything and everything he might have to. So he can’t say he regrets this. What he regrets is far beyond anything he can express. This is the only thing he can do now.

Kakashi rejects his offer to accompany him before he even makes it. But he hangs on for a second, long enough for Sakumo to whisper one sentence.

“I love you, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

The little boy stops - silently studying his father’s expression. But he doesn’t have the same energy he used to either, to draw any real conclusions from it, to have the patience for his father’s random lamentations.“What are you sorry for? I’m fine. See you.”

It’s surprisingly easy to put things in order. The note is succinct, but it’ll do what it’s supposed to. Lift the sins that stick unfairly to Kakashi’s scrawny back, if nothing else. His possessions have dwindled, his paperwork is minimal, the deeds on the house are finalised. He’s determined to leave this world with as little fuss as he deserves, as he can manage. It’s the least he can do.

Then, Sakumo kneels, and takes out his tanto. The tanto that’d accompanied him as long as he could remember. Something he inherited from his father when he became a genin. Something he’d give to Kakashi as a graduation gift.

Who says a gift can’t be posthumous? It’s the same blade that’s going to wash away his and its sins. It’s ready for a reset with new honour, a new owner.

He inhales. He closes his eyes. He plunges the blade into his gut. It sinks in smoothly. The pain starts, spreading slowly and surely through his body like electricity. He exhales. He glides it along. It moves easily. Everything empties and he is exalted. His body, his being, his soul. His sins. His virtues. His love, his hate. His joy and his rage. His life and his death. He’s gone now, fading away into the whiteness. The warrior’s body is meek, inconsequential as it falls unceremoniously on its side.

And just like that, the boy is pure once again. He’s his own, as he should be. He’s no longer just the son of the hero-turned-pariah (maybe it was better to have never been a hero at all?), but Kakashi. Kakashi the prodigy. Kakashi the genius. Kakashi who he trusts will understand all this one day. That his father isn’t so wrong in what he did, but he knows he still has to do this, he still has to make up for it. They’re all just victims of circumstance. That he’s sorry, and that he loves him more than anything, but the last thing he needs is a father like him. He’s already doing so well. And he’ll do better now. After all, he’s never needed him.

The child raised himself.

The fire’s rustling becomes louder as the flames grow larger. A welcome distraction, Sakumo chuckles to himself. It’s almost as if he’s not supposed to concentrate on his mistakes and shortcomings.

(Or maybe the embers somehow know he doesn’t really want to)

Everything had seemed so urgent back then. Hasty. Not like now, where he’s neither here nor there, there’s no past and no future.

It must have seemed cruel, on the surface, he admits that. And his justifications probably seemed like excuses, like cowardice. He has the clarity to see that now. But it didn’t make them feel any less true, not at the time.

It was the best thing for Kakashi, how could it not have been? Not only that - he pauses, before he finally lets himself admit it. It was a relief. He was just so tired.

(But he’s still tired now. It’s just more bearable.)

Did any of it work? Or had it all been in vain? As much as he held out hope that when Kakashi did come here - and he would - he’d have been older, lived a long life of love. Where the village respected him, praised him, honoured him. Maybe with a family too.

(…Could any of that have happened if he’d stayed alive?

No. The answer has to be no.)

Or had he ended up too similar to his father?

Regardless, he knows why he’s here now. No matter how it turned out after, he did what he did. And he has to take responsibility for it. It’s all so much more demanding than he thought it would be. He chose death to take responsibility, and now he has to do the same for his death.

But then again, a father has no right to expect forgiveness from his son.

Especially not one like him.

The flame settles down. It’s calmer now, like its wish has been granted, like it’s satisfied.

It won’t be long now.

And as usual, he’s right. Soon, he hears footsteps. They’re measured, relaxed, but emphatic.

“That you, Kakashi?” Sakumo affirms, but he doesn’t know why. He already knows. Just like Kakashi doesn’t seem surprised to see him, or even be here at all.

“So this is where you’ve been,” Kakashi answers just as superfluously.

The deep voice should have thrown him, it should have been unfamiliar, but everything seems to make sense. Everything is natural. Everything is easy.

He’s a man now. Another superfluous statement, one Sakumo doesn’t voice. But here he is. He’s grown, a different person from the one Sakumo knew. But it still seems like he knows him, like he never really stopped knowing him. As if time has been the obstacle between them. He looks more like him now, even though he’s still wearing that damn mask. It’s amusing, the way his stubbornness appears to have persisted for no reason at all. It’s typical. There’s a scar across his eye. There’s a story there, as there always is. He carries himself with a rare combination of decorum and drudgery. Subtle acquiescence, controlled to his core.

“Will you tell me your story?”

He knows it’s only a pale substitute for not laying witness to it himself, but Kakashi seems happy to oblige. He agrees, joining him at the fireside. It rustles in approval.

“Yeah. But it’s a long one. I want to tell you everything.”

Sakumo agrees.

Kakashi’s smile is so relaxed, so wide that it’s visible - that he may as well be that same little boy again. It’s even a little bit contagious. “So, Dad…”

The conversation flows like water. Kakashi is unrestrained, serene, even as the terrible stories come out of him. Though they’re not all terrible. Some have Sakumo hanging his head in shame, others have him laughing out loud with a freedom he hasn’t had in years. Some are ridiculous. Some are stupid. He talks as if they’re not - as if they’re just that, stories. Happenstance.

But still, the terrible ones are the most memorable ones. It’s shocking, how much he’s been through. How many times he’s been failed, how many times he’s failed. How he’d been through more before puberty than most had been through by their deaths. The boy was always destined for that, though. He’d graduated not long after Sakumo died, and was promoted again within a year after. It’s only a few years after that that he makes jounin, the same rank as his father. Most everyone important to him is gone by then too. He’s made a name for himself as a legend, as a hero, even as the disgrace’s son. And he’s made sure to pass on all the lessons he’s learnt.

He doesn’t expect sympathy, or pity. He’s long made peace with it - well, to the extent he can. He’s just never had anyone to tell this to, without judgement. With ease. Where it’s streamed out of him without thought. Where he’s not using his pain as a warning for others, to try and protect others. Just the kind of acknowledgement you want from your father.

Gone is his cocky demeanour - Sakumo knew it would probably have to some day, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to go through so much to learn that lesson. Instead, there’s a humility about him, an ease. If she were here, she’d say Kakashi’s even more like him, and scoff at the injustice.

It’s like he’s happy to be here. Sakumo doesn’t know if it’s just the situation. Kakashi doesn’t seem like he’s ever done this before - but then, how could he? It’s the comfort you can only have with a father, and Sakumo’s grateful that he’s still considered one. But he can’t help but wonder if Kakashi’s smiling because he’s happier to be dead.

He acts older than he is, sometimes. He always did, but it has more weight now that he’s grown. Sakumo points it out, but Kakashi just chuckles.

“This job ages you. I feel older than I am.”

He can’t argue with that.

Soon, the conversation turns to other things. Philosophies, mutual experiences, women. He’s a little more subdued on that last one. He hesitates now, he’s more cryptic. There does seem to be one, Sakumo figures that much, though Kakashi’s reluctant to call it that. He isn’t as open out there as he is here. It’s no wonder. Everything that’s meant anything has been snatched away regardless of his will. Still, it seems that she’s a source of infuriation and confusion. She’s stubborn, but endlessly kind. She sees through Kakashi’s reluctant attempts at distance, and he’s drawn to her, whether he likes it or not. He shows absolutely no regret for being dead, but the only clue of it is when he talks about her. Sakumo lets it end there.

Eventually, they both have to acknowledge it. How miserable their lives have been, how they’ve died so young. A cursed pair. The burden of the suicide hangs over them both, their stories and their fates, like a cloud, in this strange place that has no sky.

“You did the best you could. You knew what the consequences would be, but you chose your friends anyway,” Kakashi says first. He’s only stating facts, but they’re heavy on his tongue. His gaze is locked on the fire ahead, and his voice takes on a gruff timber, one that ensures Sakumo of the depth of his words. He pauses. “And I understand you. I’m proud to be your son now.”

Sakumo’s eyes widen.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

It’s all he can say. After everything, it’s too much, too difficult to accept. It took hearing it to actually realise it, for the weight he’s carried on his shoulders for so long to begin to dissipate. It’s not entirely dissimilar to the first time Kakashi had wrapped his tiny fist so fiercely and as-a-matter-of-factly around his finger all those years ago. Where his confidence and courage promptly returned. He never knew he needed it so badly, that it would be more freeing than his death was - forgiveness - even if he was never going to ask for it.

It’s a miracle, but somehow, it’s happened. He’ll never admit it has anything to do with him, but Kakashi’s grown. He’s grown well. He’s learnt everything he hoped he would, and he’s more than he could have ever hoped. It wasn’t easy. Life had put him through the wringer to say the least - that much was obvious before Kakashi even joined him at the fire. But he did it. He managed.

A father’s most important and most horrible duty is to leave their children to the wilderness - was that how the old adage went? He can’t remember. But they have to, because he won’t be there forever, because the world will eat them alive if they don’t. You offer up your only son up to the world, in the hopes it won’t chew him up and spit it out, and that he might come out better for it. It’s as much of a horror as it is an honour. He didn’t mean to leave him that viscerally, and he’s still so sorry - but he can’t deny that for the first time in God knows how long, he feels lucky. He doesn’t deserve Kakashi’s forgiveness, for him to grow up to be the man he is, but here he is.

Still, Kakashi’s a little too eager to come here. It’s the most wrenching thing about this, that he seems too comfortable, that he seems to have been waiting for his death. It’s the only thing he can’t accept, as a father. He doesn’t want to accept that his son’s life has been that miserable, with so little to show for it. Even if he seems satisfied to be here.

Before he can even voice it, a light emerges, starting at Kakashi’s core and soon engulfing his entire being. The fire beside them stills for a moment, but then it sizzles with a vengeance. He turns to his father in shock, looking for an explanation in the wordless way a child does.

Sakumo provides it immediately. He’s not sure, but he wants it to be true. “My guess is… It’s too soon for you. There must be something you still have to do.”

He doesn’t offer any explanation as to what, but it has to be true. He should get more than he has. He can’t be so happy to come here. They both could’t have been in such a hurry to die. It’s too tragic, too terrible. A son shouldn’t be lonelier than his father.

Kakashi ruminates on it, and he suddenly looks like the young man he is. Not a tired war veteran. It’s even more obvious how untimely this all is.

But it hasn’t been meaningless.

“I’m grateful we had a chance to talk. Thank you forgiving me. Now I can move on, and finally see your mother again,” he continues. I’m proud of you too, Sakumo thinks, just like he thought so many times during the boy’s childhood, and countless times during this strange meeting. But he has no right to say it. Still, Kakashi looks at him with those same wide eyes from all those years ago, heeding his words with the same awe.

The harsh, green glow rips Kakashi away from this world and back. Just like his birth. Sakumo smiles and stands, the stretch alighting and aching through his soul - it feels physical, even though he’s no longer corporeal. Tall, encouraged, proud and determined.

(It’s been so long since he last stood.)

It won’t be long now. He has his own exit now.

The fire suddenly quickens, expanding, expanding, expanding, fighting for its last breath, its rustling turning into a desperate roar, sparks flying out past the wood - until at long last, its energy dwindles. It hisses in protest.

Instead, there’s a new warmth. Somewhere, somewhere far away yet somewhere so close. An amused, feminine hum of his name travels through his being and invigorates his soul. He smiles.

The flame flickers out.

親はなくても子は育つ

Even without parents, children grow up.

#sakumo hatake #kakashi hatake #naruto #hatake kakashi #hatake sakumo #kakashi #naruto fanfiction #fanfiction #pfwrites #anyway i'm finally done #i'm so sorry if you were expecting something super long given how long i've been talking about this #but consider that i'm stupid can't write and can't concentrate and it'll make sense #i would love to know your thoughts on this cuz i'm trying a lot of new things here #and this is a very vulnerable thing to share for me #because the themes and ideas have been in my head for so long #also read my author's notes in the ao3 link if you want more context because THEY ARE LONG #i'm thinking of writing a kakashi POV version which i'm sure'll be less depressing... probably #but not sure yet. let me know if you think i should #btw i know my music taste is extremely roast-worthy #also tmi but i have zero relationship with my father and i'm neither a father nor a son why do i have so much empathy for fatherhood???

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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 3 years

Text

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chapter Six

Ao3, Masterpost, C.1 C.2 C.3 C.4 C.5

Relationships: eventual queer-platonic intruality. platonic dukeceit, creativitwins, and dlampr.

Yet again there are no italics. its new years eve sue me. oh also happy 2021 nobody question my priorities thanks <3

Warnings: so much softness, implications of self-isolation, swearing, Lots of Feelings, sympathetic everybody, descriptions of the sides having non-human features.

Word Count: 3,962

Something Remus came to realize was that he, a bit paradoxically, was not used to people being in his space.

It was weird. Not weird in the way that people usually felt when he was the one interrupting- he wasn’t scared by it, or disgusted, or even really annoyed. It was just… surprising, to have somebody else hanging around him, unprompted by anything.

Remus wasn’t known for having boundaries- or respecting them, for that matter- but he’d at least been attempting to restrain himself just a bit after being accepted by the others. Out of courtesy, if nothing else.

And apparently he didn’t need to. Not after what happened with Patton, anyway. Now that Patton had deemed the two of them ‘close’- something he was absolutely happy to agree with, for the record- Remus’ world had flipped sort of around. Back to no boundaries, only he wasn’t the one crossing those lines, and nobody was running screaming. Least of all Patton!

Remus ran the thoughts over in his head, feeling like that day was shaping up to be a great example of the change:

He and Patton were sitting side-by-side in the living room, content, with the rest of the sides spread around in different seats and configurations just the same. The unlikely pair were at the fringe of the circle, close enough to be part of things but far enough to zone in and out at will (as both were prone to do). It was nice, amiable.

But minutes before- forty of them at most- Remus had been up in his own room, happily dissecting some gooish creations and only vaguely aware that there was a meeting that day. His attendance to group meetings varied from week to week- sometimes he was bored and could use an argument, and other times he was having fun on his own and knew that it wouldn’t be all that important if he ditched. He joined more often than he used to, sometimes he was even asked for, but he was optional still. A favored option, suggestions taken now, sure- but still not mandatory.

He was going to stay upstairs for that one, but Patton had come to get him. Had dragged him down in that sweet, puppy-dog way of convincing that worked so well and, knowing him, was totally unintentional. And even if Remus didn’t care about arguing his way through content production right then, Patton had promised that it was important for him to be there.

That was the word he’d used for Remus. Important.

How the hell could Remus say no to that?

At least the meeting was going by without a hitch, for once. He assumed it was- Remus was honestly paying very little attention- but the lack of anger or tension was practically palpable. These things were usually so spiteful that even Remus, renowned lover of chaos, could almost taste his headache when everybody started shouting and hissing and fighting. It just got sad.

But not that time, apparently.

As Logan went on his third ramble of the evening, smiling widely at a surprising lack of interruption, Remus turned to Patton. He whispered:

“Okay, when are they gonna snap? Did they all finally get lobotomized?”

Patton frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean where’s all the screaming and crying? Specs and Prince Priss haven’t had a single one of their horny yelling matches, what gives?”

Patton smiled in a way that said he was trying very hard not to laugh, rolling his eyes.

“These meetings have calmed down a bit, I guess,” he shrugged.

Remus glanced around the room with narrowed eyes. While that certainly seemed like the truth, he couldn’t buy it.

“Yeah, I give it until one of them vaguely insults the others, and then everybody’s gonna shut down for the next week. That kinda tension doesn’t just go.”

Patton didn’t say anything. Half-gazing at the carpet, he didn’t look like he’d even heard. He was smiling, but it was one of those jumbled up expressions, the type that tried to span a hundred different feelings. He had so many expressions like that, that seemed bottomless and swirling and so intricate on a humanoid face that, in reality, wasn’t built to display something like that. It was uncanny- not like an eerie doll, but like something with unearthly beauty. This face, though, had tones of upset.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been around everybody,” Patton said.

It wasn’t a question and it didn’t need to be. While Remus wasn’t exactly known for keeping to himself, he couldn't be called sociable either. He dropped in to say something, usually random, and then he was gone as soon as he’d visited. Even before the first Patton incident, fuck, it had been weeks since he’d actually stuck around through something.

Since The Acceptance, now that Remus thought of it, he’d been spending more time alone than ever. Not all of his time- he remembered being surprised at Logan talking to him, willingly, like friends, and after that had even come Virgil and Roman. He saw people, talked to them, yeah. The time spent was friendlier, more welcoming, but it was so much less.

Well, it was obvious why: they visited him, but- like he’d mentioned, he’d been trying to give them some space.

“Sure, it's been awhile,” Remus admitted, “But I never expected shit to change so much around here, still.”

The haze on Patton’s face thickened like fog on the moors, a soft and sympathetic mist over his eyes that Remus knew was aimed at him (even if it was pointed more to a sort of middle distance).

“I don’t think I did, either,” Patton’s mouth barely moved, his voice less of a whisper and moreso a fragile breath. “I was hoping for it, but… I’m still trying to get used to stuff being allowed to change, you know?” He picked at a loose thread along the seam of the couch. “I haven’t done this stuff in a while, either.”

Remus’ head shot up, and he almost forgot that they weren’t the only two in the room. Somehow, he stopped himself from shouting:

“You- it has?”

A tiny smile. Something built up behind Patton’s eyes; a wave, dark and lonely and filling his bright blues with cloudy gray. “I just needed some alone time, after everything changed so much so fast. I still feel, I dunno, weird. I don’t know what’s wrong with me- but…” he swallowed, his head lifting. “I’m really happy for them,” he was staring- so very loving- first at Logan, then Roman, then Virgil and Janus. It was a wonder none of them felt his gaze on them, Remus thought, because he was sure if anyone looked at him that way, he’d burn up like a fae upon iron. “They deserve it so much. I know that not everything is perfect still, but, I’m just so proud of us anyways. I- I think maybe-”

He cut himself off, blinking rapidly. Remus gave the room a quick once over to make sure nobody was looking their way- and nobody was: Virgil was very resolutely trying to get everyone to stay on topic despite Janus and Logan’s continued tangenting, and Roman was scribing furiously on several different pieces of paper- before he inched close enough to curve his arm around Patton. Touching like that had steadily become familiar to both of them, and it didn’t take long for Patton to fall untense against his side. He leaned into him, muttering: “I mean, they’re all doing a lot better than me, that’s for sure. I- I don’t even know what I’m for anymore. Maybe that’s why I’ve been… ditching, really.”

Remus squeezed his shoulder. There were so many things he could’ve said and done, but all of them loud and fervent and definitely not subtle enough to go unnoticed by everyone. So, for the sake of Patton’s privacy, he settled on this:

“That makes two of us, Morey.”

The meeting that was planned to take two or three hours took the entire day, just as always. Hours and hours were spent in a room filled with excited conversation, of which the subject oscillated wildly between relevant topics and complete nonsense- which Remus and Patton did, eventually, tune back into (and contribute to as well, mainly in the nonsense department). Eventually, even Virgil gave up on trying to keep anything in order.

But the meeting ended on a good note anyway. Lots of good notes, actually, if the stacks upon stacks of paper they’d scribbled up were any indication. Mess, the sides had come to believe, was usually a measure of their productivity: if crumpled pages were strayed across the room, if forgotten pens and pencils balanced on every surface from coffee table to TV stand, and if- in the process of snacking- they’d accumulated enough dishes to fill the sink for days on end? Shit. Got. Done.

Remus stared over the chaos with unfocused eyes. He felt distantly proud of the stormish state the living room was in. Draped over the back of the sectional, he gnawed idly on a wood pencil, stripping its yellow into beige. The paint fell off in bitter chunks, and the taste made him think of grabbing some non-acrylic dinner before closing the night off. Maybe he’d steal some of whatever saccharine sweet Patton usually made in the late evenings, and then spend the rest of the night with him, anyway. Remus debated what would be the most fun (or if he was tired enough to sleep yet), partially aware as he did so that he’d chewed and swallowed the metal-eraser end of his pencil.

“Ugh,” a drawn out groan broke his thoughts, petulant and whiny. “Do you have any intention of helping us clean up this, the common area?”

Roman was kneeling beside Janus on the carpet, the pair surrounded by papers and binders and trashbags, the former of which they were sorting into either of the latter two, depending on how useful each page was. Roman had stopped working, however, to stare up at Remus indignantly. Remus glared right back.

“I’ve never had an intention in my life,” he answered.

Janus shrugged, smiling in that I-told-you-so way at Roman. But Roman, ever the nuisance, wasn’t letting it go.

“Come on! It’s not like you’re even doing anything!”

“I’m doing something,” Remus’ words were wide and wobbly as he stripped another line of paint off the pencil, breaking some splinters off into his teeth.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” another chunk of wood, down the hatch. “I’m flaying all these leftover pencils until they’re lead-sticks.”

Roman hopped up from the floor and dropped himself onto the couch, shoving himself into the way so jarringly that it reminded Remus of himself.

“Well, now you’re going to help us clean.”

Janus rolled his eyes, not even glancing up. “Roman, just leave it alone, we-”

“We are all parts of this whole now, including him! Remus-” Roman rounded on him again, “If you’re going to come down here and help us make all this mess, with all of your numerous contributions that we have to write down, you’ll help clean it like anybody else. Do you think that I like any of- of-” he gestured, flamboyantly, at the room, “This? Ugh, please, I’m a prince! But, fair is fair, and fair means everybody.”

And that was the point of the conversation in which Remus would cackle, push Roman backwards off the couch, and proclaim how much it’d go against his very being to clean a mess instead of cause it. He’d tell Roman how funny it was that he thought he could boss him around, because it always had been- that full-of-it Older Brother kind of attitude that had never worked. The Prince had never once managed to get him to do anything, and each attempt only got funnier than the last.

He didn’t say any of that, though.

Roman was bitching at him, not to go away this time, but to stay. Stay and help the group, because he was a part of said group. So he was asked to help them, the group that he was a part of, because he was part of it. That group.

“Okay,” he blurted, “Okay, I’ll- alright.”

Roman blinked at him, a look of disbelief spreading across his face. “You- oh!” he smiled, utterly baffled. “That was- very easy?”

Janus, too, was looking up at Remus with bewilderment, his task of paper-sorting all but forgotten. Remus couldn’t blame either of them, but he still huffed, trying very hard not to be embarrassed by that whole… moment.

He shook it off, rolling off the couch and standing up, jittery.

“Whatever, just- tell me what to pick up, okay?”

They seemed not to hear him, the gawking continuing on until he started working unprompted, and longer than that still. Each time he (begrudgingly) shoved something into a trashbag, it earned him another Exchange of Glances from the pair.

They got over it eventually, though, because there was a fuck-load more to clean than there was room to stare. So they cleaned.

Remus thought it would get old after a minute, and he’d finally gather up the guts to bail on them, but it just… never happened. It felt unnatural to be getting rid of a mess- like an animal having its fur brushed the wrong way, continuously- but by some point the sensation was distant. The rest of him was still busy processing, experiencing, maybe possibly overthinking this kind of recognition he’d never gotten before. It was handed to him now like it was something normal. The three of them worked together, and it was normal.

Acceptance, as it turned out, wasn’t synonymous with ‘soulless assimilation’. In fact, it was pretty fucking great, getting to watch his brother and best friend find documents from the floor with his ideas on them, then tucking them into a binder marked important, instead of a trashcan marked to burn. It was… surreal.

But the tidying was over in just an hour and a half- oh wow, never in a million years would Remus have thought an hour and a half of cleaning would be too little for him. He made a note to absolutely destroy something big and important later, to balance the universe out again.

Roman sank through the floor as soon as they were done, complaining loudly about how very exhausted he was. Remus teased him on his way out, but it was just for the habit- he was way too mushy to think of anything properly mean at the moment.

Janus watched him go, silent. He sat beside Remus on the couch, and despite his obvious tiredness, he waited a good few minutes before saying anything.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Remus shivered. Janus pulled him up into a hug (one that maybe dragged on for a little too long, but who was counting?), and it spelled out all the pride and care that he’d never been good at verbalizing. With that, he gave Remus a short nod, and then was gone as well.

Which made everyone else upstairs, probably in their rooms and halfway asleep. Then there was Remus, antsy in the living room, itchy with feelings.

Everyone but Patton, of course, who could still be heard humming in the kitchen; who never went up until he knew everyone else was in their rooms, true to the protective parent persona. Remus suddenly didn’t think he wanted anything else but to see Patton after what had happened, to talk to him, to…

He walked to the kitchen.

“Pat.”

Patton looked over his shoulder at Remus, up to his elbow in sudsy sink water. A smile fell naturally across his face.

“Hi,” his voice was low, delicate. “You about to head up?”

Remus watched his friend work, trailing into the room slowly. He grinned, “Are you kidding? I could stay up all night, if I wanted.”

“Do you want to?” Patton asked him.

Remus thought on it for a moment. He shrugged, iunno, leaned against the counter by the sink. Patton turned away again.

It was so quiet. No wind. No footsteps. Not a muffled voice upstairs, even- just the sound of water and ceramic hitting ceramic. Everything was still.

Remus hated it. Silence was fragile, and he crawled with the need to break it. He felt it get tense as it stretched out, and he just wanted to tear the air apart with sound. It felt like nothing mattered anymore, when peace was so easily able to drown it all out. Cold and alone. He hated it.

Sometimes, Remus imagined that if the silence went too long, he’d never be able to make a noise again. There were few things that made him so unhappy, but the quiet…

“What’s on your mind?” Patton asked.

Remus jolted. Patton was staring, concern gathering in his eyes the longer he did. Remus took a deep breath- he remembered something, something small and unimportant that Janus had told him once.

When one is so intensely happy, they can fall to agonizing upset even quicker than if they’d been mildly perturbed in the first place, because of the ferocity of the feelings. Something like that.

“A lot more than I’m willing to throw on your shoulders, Pops.”

Patton pouted. Actually. Fucken. Pouted. The worst part was, his puppy-face was actually working.

“Ugh,” Remus rolled his eyes, “Just- could I- I dunno, have a hug, or some shit?”

If Patton was surprised, he hid it well. God knew, that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing Remus would ask for. He almost never asked to get attention- taking it was much easier, and much more entertaining. Besides, if he’d ever asked before that point… well, he already knew what answer he would’ve gotten.

Patton’s smile only widened, until it was positively melting. “Of course you can,” he shut the sink off. “Of course.”

He reached haphazardly for a hand towel, to dry his arms. Remus, riding the high of that enthusiastic permission, absolutely could not wait that long. He latched his arms around Patton’s middle before the side had even finished talking, burying his face between his shoulder blades and hugging tight.

Patton went still, like he didn’t know what to do. After it became clear that Remus had no intention to move, Patton laughed, dreamy and soft, and shook his hands as dry as he could. He patted Remus’ forearm; bead-bracelets clattered under the Duke’s sleeves.

“Hey,” Patton said.

“Mmh?”

“Not that this isn’t lovely,” he laced his fingers with Remus’, squeezed them, “But I’d like it better if I could hug you back, ya know?”

Remus let go, reluctantly. In the true fashion of intrusive thoughts, there was a second he was so convinced Patton would run, now that he was freed. Make an escape from him, an escape from his claws.

He didn’t. He spun right around and pulled Remus against his chest- one arm linked around his torso, the other winding into his tangled hair. Anyone, at a glance, could see that Patton was huge- but up close the difference was dizzying: his wide chest, encircling arms that seemed to be made of nothing but muscle and padding, and that height, all made him so… comforting. Big and strong, a body that disguised power in soft edges and fat. If he squeezed just a little too tight, in fact, Remus wouldn’t be surprised if Patton could make splinters out of his bones. Which Remus definitely, definitely wouldn’t mind, but the knowledge that Patton not only could do that but also wouldn’t ever do that- that was what really did him in.

And he’d hugged Patton before- months ago, and somehow Patton had seemed so small then, when everything had started- but being hugged? Properly, too, not underwater while one of them was drowning- it was a world of difference. No panic, no breakdowns, just a real, solid hug.

He could just ask for this and then have it. He could smell sugar cookies and candle wax, and feel somebody- a willing body- pressing in. It was weird. He thought that someday, he might get used to it. He wanted a chance to get used to it.

“Do you wanna talk now?” Patton prompted, forcibly reminding Remus that he had a bloodhound’s nose for emotional distress.

“I don’t know.”

Patton hummed, his fingers scratching through Remus’ hair. “Today went better than I thought it would.”

“You didn’t have to bring me, if you thought it was gonna be bad.”

“I wasn’t worried because of you! I was worried because of me. Things have been… a lot for me, lately.”

“Oh,” Remus angled his head to the side, looking up at him. “Yeah. I feel ya.”

“But they were all so much more patient, weren’t they,” Patton’s eyes went a little misty, the way they always did when he talked about his family. “Everything’s different now, and I guess that scared me, but I think that now… it’s a good different, you know?”

“Like us, right?” Remus laughed, “This is the craziest difference, if ya think about it.”

Patton chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest so that Remus felt it more than heard it.

“I don’t think I would’ve gotten through with today without you, you know that?”

It was deeply honest. There was a beat.

“I-” Oh fuck, Remus was choked up, when did that happen? “I wouldn’t have even had a day like today, without you, so. Do with that what you want.”

Remus buried his face in Patton’s sternum, just to avoid the sad understanding in his eyes.

He- he wasn’t exactly made for the care he was getting, not the kind of softness in that face. Not when Patton was still patiently untangling his matt of hair while they hovered in the stillness of the dark, empty kitchen, and Remus desperately didn’t want to cry.

Patton gave him a minute to breathe, at the very least, before:

“They like you, though. Janus loves you.”

“Yeah, okay, but it’s not-”

“I know how you feel,” said Patton, and did. “Like they couldn’t actually care about us, even though it doesn’t make sense for them not to. It’s one of those things that’s easy to forget,” Remus could hear the smile in his voice. “So it’s good we have each other, when we need to get out of our own heads. At least, it’s like that for me, I don’t know if you even-”

“No,” Remus curled his claws in the back of Patton’s shirt, something dark and emotional flooding like tar through his chest. “Nah, you’re right, Morey. This is good for us.”

Remus shook his head at nothing in particular. He forced his hands unballed, pulled back, and wormed his way out of Patton’s hug after way too long.

His skin felt like paper from the affection, like he’d been electrocuted, and while that was fun- was amazing- for a while, he didn’t think he could handle much more in one sitting.

Patton let him go, smiling warmly, leaning back against the counter. His eyes were shiny and wet, but he was content.

“Thanks,” Remus said.

“What for? The hug?”

“No- I mean, that too, but I was saying ‘thanks, for caring’. For giving enough of a shit about me to try and help.”

Patton smiled, solemnly.

“I told you so,” he breathed, “I promised I would like you when I got to know you, and then I did. I do!”

Remus felt a grin returning to his face, sliding across his lips more naturally than anything else he’d had to deal with that night.

“Yeah. You aren’t too bad yourself, Pat.”

Chapter Seven

Taglist: @shrimp-crockpot @glitter-skeleton-uwu @donnieluvsthings @intruxiety @thefivecalls @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @gayformlessblob

#sanders sides #ts #fanfiction #fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #intruality #qpr intruality #platonic intruality #remus #patton

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aros001 · 3 years

Text

Going in blind: Watching season 4 for the first time. Random thoughts.

I never said anything about it before but I love Shadow Weaver's DCAU Batman eyes. They're so expressive.

Episode 1: Okay...I wasn't expecting Catra to do that. I mean, it makes sense. If she has leverage over Hordak then she's basically in charge of the Horde and that's what she's wanted (or at least believes she wants) since episode 1. It's an aspect that made her a good antagonist, that she's not blind to the evil of the Horde, she just doesn't care as long as she herself is secure. Which naturally begs the question, when the rebellion and the princesses are crushed, when the Horde is on top, when Adora is dead, when Catra finally has everything she's ever wanted...will she actually finally be happy? Somehow, I have my doubts.

I definitely feel for Glimmer in this. When you go through as big a loss as she did you need to be able to feel and vent if you're ever going to get through it. It doesn't have to be right away but everyone doing everything in their power to avoid the topic entirely can make you feel like you're going crazy. It'a especially bad for her since it unintentionally makes it feel like everyone is acting like it doesn't matter that Angela is gone when it clearly means everything to Glimmer.

Episode 2: I actually had a potted cactus plant once. Accidentally forgot about it and left it outside for an entire winter. Once the snow was gone the cactus looked like it had melted.

I kind of want to see what an interaction between Double Trouble and Clayface from the Harley Quinn animated series would look like. I'm guess Catra was just testing how good Double Trouble was as a doppelganger because it doesn't seem like she did anything while Adora was being distracted, though I suppose that could be a reveal in a later episode.

Not much to say except that I love how buff Huntara is while still clearly being a woman. Like, women can have a variety of different body types, as this series and Steven Universe show, and Huntara's build isn't just, like, Bow's body with lipstick and ponytail and the animators calling it a day. No, she looks like a freakin' jacked adult woman.

Episode 3: I didn't figure out the Flutterina = Double Trouble twist until a minute before it was revealed, so good job there. Before that I was wondering if Flutterina was some fan's original character where they won some contest where their OC got to be in the show for an episode. She was giving off some weird self-insert vibes. That twist made it all work though. It's honestly not a bad plan. Shapeshifters haven't really been a thing in the series before now so there's no reason to suspect it. Even if they did they'd probably be expecting it by way of magic or technology, while Double Trouble's seems to be a natural ability.

I like that even though Bow is definitely the goofier one of the trio he is still consistently shown as competent. That's never in question. He was very heroic and reassuring to the villagers this episode. I get why those kids idolize him so much.

Catra's having guilt over what she did with the portal and to Entrapta and her response is basically to just double-down. She doesn't know any other way to be. Not going to lie, I am kind of hoping we get another moment in the show where Adora just completely overwhelms Catra with the sheer power of She-Ra. I'm not saying like brutalize her or anything but just something where Catra is made to realize just how powerful Adora is and that she could just destroy Catra if she had a mind to do so.

Episode 4: Well, I was saying I wanted Adora to do it but I guess I don't mind Glimmer being the one to get some good shots in on Catra. Like I predicted, Shadow Weaver's moving in to become her teacher like she was with her father. Honestly I like that that was more Adora's problem than Glimmer using her as bait, which she seemed to get over pretty quick. Yeah, it was kind of a heartless thing to do but it was an understandable tactic and she clearly outright told Adora that she did it and why afterwards, which at least means she's still being honest.

It occurs to me that Glimmer and Catra may be the ones running parallel right now. Both are basically leading their respective sides of the war. They both have lost someone very important to them. And both are trusting someone they probably shouldn't. Both even have outfits that've been updated in the intro. The difference is Glimmer's just trying to deal with a bad situation while Catra's is entirely self-inflicted.

Minor thing but I like Glimmer's new outfit this season. I'm sure this is the intention but it makes her look older and more mature. A little more muscular in some shots too.

Episode 5: Heart of Etheria project. No idea what that is but assumedly whoever's a part of it doesn't like Light Hope and Mara being friends. Sounds like it's very much interested in She-Ra being just a warrior, and perhaps a tool, for the greater good. It does make me wonder though how much Light Hope remember from when she was rebooting. Even if she deleted the Mara memory she could potentially still have the memory of her and Adora watching the Mara memory, as well as Adora asking to be her friend.

Episode 6: Yep. Scorpia; definitely favorite supporting character. There is something kind of funny about her whole "Scorpions are loyal" line when you remember the story about the Frog and the Scorpion, where it stings the frog despite it meaning death for itself as well simply because that is its nature. But finally we're having someone go save Entrapta, and I can only assume at some point Scorpia's going to access the power of the Black Garnet.

The parallels between Catra and Hordak are definitely at their max here with that speech of hers to him. She's basically trying to convince herself that she doesn't need anyone, the timing of which is appropriate since she just drove away Scorpia and now truly doesn't have anyone. Not that I blame Scorpia, obviously. Like Adora before her, however good you believe someone can be and that you can help them, at some point you just have to cut the toxic people out of your life. You have the right to be happy too.

And man, Bow is just the best. He saw something was wrong between Adora and Glimmer and defused the situation like (snap) that, pushing them to talk like any sane person would.

Episode 7: I'm sure it is just because I've seen way too many TV shows and movies (both animated and live action) that don't do it but it is just such a relief to have a show where the characters just TALK and LISTEN to each other. It doesn't solve all their issues but they're at least not being stupid and freakin' petty. It helps the drama feel a lot less forced and contrived.

Episode 8: A little bit of amusement in Bow thinking at first that Glimmer and Adora didn't even notice he was gone despite them coming to his rescue very shortly afterwards, given Catra is only now realizing Scorpia has left and assumedly she did so a while ago. Bow and Sea Hawk hadn't been gone for that long so it's not unreasonable Glimmer and Adora wouldn't be worried about their absence (Bow was literally talking about "me time" when they last saw him), while Catra is only noticing Scorpia's absence now and it was because she wanted something. Like Scorpia said, she's a bad friend.

Kind of ironic given that a lot of Catra's issues are the direct result of Shadow Weaver giving her very little love growing up but it does seem this tough love is probably what'll get through to Catra the best. She might finally stop making bad decisions and lashing out if she's forced to live with the consequences of them, like Adora told her last season.

Glimmer gets a bit of slack from me since she suffered through a huge loss, that being her mother, and then was immediately thrown into being queen right after. It'd be hard for anyone to be 100% on their game and well-adjusted in a situation like that, and I buy that she was on some level resentful of Adora for coming back instead of her mother, even if unintentionally so. What definitely helps is that Glimmer very clearly and immediately regretted what she said to Adora. Like Catra she's lashing out but unlike Catra Glimmer recognizes some of the damage she's doing and knows, at least in this case, that she went too far.

Episode 9: Now that I can see the design in color I definitely prefer Mara's She-Ra with pants to Adora's She-Ra with shorts. Honestly, while the differences are pretty minor, I do think Mara's She-Ra design is overall a lot better than Adora's. Sharper shoulder guards. Bigger cape (especially the cape, I love capes). I don't know, there's just a lot that clicks with it and I wouldn't mind Adora getting a similar outfit later.

Madam Razz definitely had a Yoda feel this episode. I was very much expecting her to start wacking Mara with a stick over the sugar like Yoda did with R2. Though while that was Yoda acting crazy, for Razz it's because she experiences time out of order, and I don't think I've ever seen that concept taken to this extent, or at least done this way before. There are characters like River Song from Doctor Who, Professor Paradox from Ben 10, or even the Reverse-Flash who interact with other characters in time out of order but those characters are still on a linear path from their own perspective, even when travelling through time. Razz is just bouncing around her own timeline, seemingly not even any real reason or cause to it like Subaru from Re:Zero. Clearly she's not just remembering things oddly because her talk about things of the present are heard by people in the past and have an effect. I wonder if maybe the reason why is because Razz was at ground zero of Mara's actions and this is a side-effect of pulling Etheria away from the rest of the universe.

Bringing more Star Wars into this, it basically sounds like the Heart of Etheria project has turned Etheria into a magic Starkiller Base; storing power that'll be unleashed to destroy whole planets. And jeez, I think this was the first time I really felt creeped out by Light Hope when she was talking to Mara.

I'm looking forward to seeing what it means that the First Ones only made the sword and that Etheria made She-Ra. If that's the case, why is only the sword able to bring out the She-Ra form? Is it like MCU Thor's hammer and the weapon was just meant to help him control the power he already had? Or is what we think is She-Ra not actually She-Ra and that form that Adora and Mara take is just a stand-in for the real thing?

Episode 10: It didn't even occur to me until now but Double Trouble's capture is another blow to Catra's circle of "friends" too. They were at least able to make her laugh. One less person for her to talk to and just...really just distract her from her thoughts.

It's a good dilemma this episode presents about what to do with the Heart of Etheria. The safest and probably best option is to just dismantle it, like Adora and Bow want, since it could easily lead to the destruction of the entire planet if it goes off. Not the mention there's so little they know about it and what it was intended for and the one person who can potentially tell them, Light Hope, they were warned not to trust. But it's not hard to understand where Glimmer is coming from in wanting to use that power to fight the Horde. They're already losing the war and now she knows Hordak Prime and his FAR more powerful forces are on the way. Tapping into the Heart is a huge risk but she's not seeing any other paths for the rebels to win. It's a really good dilemma, with good arguments presented from both sides, and I buy this widening the schism between Adora and Glimmer.

Episode 11: I have mixed feelings on King Micah still being alive. On the one hand there's a lot of good potential interactions we can now have with him, primarily between Glimmer and Shadow Weaver, and he is a fun character. But on the other I can't help but wonder if this kind of lessens the impact of what Angela gave up to overcome the false reality. Part of what made it so emotional was that she had to accept the person she loved was dead and not coming back...except now we see that he wasn't dead and now he is coming back. Yeah, their family lost out on years together and that does still carry some emotional weight but I was already also half-expecting Angela to come back later in the series because she's stuck between dimensions, meaning there's a chance she could still be alive. If both Glimmer's parents come back then that really feels like it takes a lot of weight out of her story. But I guess we'll see what happens.

Also, why did the Horde exile him to Beast Island? Why not just kill him?!

Episode 12: So the Horde exiles Micah to Beast Island instead of killing him. The First Ones protect their secrets by sending their bad tech to Beast Island. Does no one know how to just destroy things in this world?

Ohhh, I am so looking forward to next episode. While it's debatable whether Glimmer should be going through with her plan she is at least being smart with how she's going about it. Double Trouble was being paid by Catra to work for the Horde, not out of any sense of loyalty. Glimmer has the resources of Bright Moon at her disposal so it's reasonable she could pay them more to switch sides. Double Trouble was very good at sabotaging even a group as tight-nit as the heroes, so Hordak and Catra are probably easy pickings with all their issues.

Episode 13: ....WELL THAT AIN'T GOOD!

I'll admit, I had a little bit of an unintended laugh. After all we've heard about Horde Prime, like this shadowy all-powerful monster, I wasn't expecting the fabulous flowing dreadlocks and smoothness. Credit where it's due, man has charisma and charm, which goes a long way in helping your big evil world conqueror not be a very flat character, because it's doubtful he's going to have the same kind of sympathetic motivation as Hordak or complexity as Catra to keep him elevated.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Double Trouble kicking at Catra while she's down. Adora and Scorpia were honest but they never wanted to hurt Catra. Not so much with Double Trouble and they just shove reality into her face. Everyone leaves Catra because of Catra. She's the common factor. It's her fault and no one else's. Again, I don't know for certain if Adora and Catra get together at the end (Catra would have a LOT to make amends for regardless) but Double Trouble was definitely implying Catra had feelings for her with the way they put Catra's hand on "Adora's" cheek while talking about how she left her.

I like that we see Glimmer's plan actually working at first. The princesses get a massive power boost and decimate the Horde forces. But the minute it starts going wrong she immediately admits Adora was right and she tries to stop the energy flow. I imagine having her there with Catra was intentional by the writers. Despite some parallels, Glimmer can actually accept her failures and work to try and fix things. Unlike Catra, she didn't blame Adora for things going wrong.

So the sword allows the First Ones to control She-Ra and the energy she'd be absorbing from the planet. Assumedly that means there are at least some parts to She-Ra that have nothing to do with the First Ones and thus maybe Adora can still use some of those powers without the sword.

Season 4 verdict: Yeah, the show keeps getting better, though I will admit last season's finale had me more emotional, but that's a bit of an unfair comparison given everything that happened in that finale vs. this one. This is definitely the series hitting its darkest hour, where it feels like EVERYONE lost. Not just the rebels but the Horde as well. The sword and Light Hope are gone and She-Ra (for now) along with them. Glimmer and Catra are basically prisoners. Hordak's probably going to have his personality stripped away. The Fright Zone is in ruins. The only one who's gained anything is Prime.

Really looking forward to what the final season has in store, especially since there seems to be the implication that Catra just saved Glimmer's life.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o1j5gk/going_in_blind_watching_season_4_for_the_first/

#she ra #she ra spop #random thoughts #reddit repost

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thestuffedalligator · 4 years

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The Scholar of Gondor

There was a day’s travel between Undertowers and Hobbiton.

This was less a consequence of the actual distance between the two and more the fault of the state of the road. Namely, there wasn’t one. Thirty-five years of carts had carved two long furrows through the hilly lowlands, and these looped and turned around the hills like a very bored giant had spent an afternoon trailing its fingers through the dirt to make interesting designs. It was generally understood that a road was going to be built eventually, and in the meantime the Westmarch-hobbits and the Old-Shire-hobbits came to enjoy the distance from each other.

But gossip in the Shire never seemed to actually follow the roads. It soared on the open wind, travelling as the crow flies, so what was news in Undertowers somehow became known in Hobbiton in a matter of hours. If it was particularly scandalous gossip, it made the trip in minutes. When Fíriel Fairbairn was caught snogging Donnamira Brandybuck two Yules ago, it had spread across the Shire so quickly that it had reached back to Donnamira a full two minutes before it had actually happened. By that point the two decided that, what the hell, best not to tempt a paradox, and ducked into a parlor closet.

News about the Scholar of Gondor reached Hobbiton a full thirty minutes after the Scholar’s horse clattered to a stop in Undertowers.

This was news because it had been a full sixty years since King Elessar had declared Men as forbidden from entering the Shire. And what was worse, this human had been permitted entry into the Shire upon the orders of King Elessar himself. Worse still, the Fairbairns were apparently allowing it to stay in their home.

This was just too much for the Old-Shire-hobbits. Why couldn’t the Big Folk keep to their own and leave us in peace? And on Elessar’s orders, no less. What did Elessar think he was? King? As for staying with the Fairbairns, well -

Most hobbits stopped at that. Well. You just didn’t talk about that sort of thing.

***

Fíriel “Sharkey” Fairbairn - a nickname she had picked up by general acclaim somewhere in her tweens - was doing her own research in her family’s library. This mainly consisted of pretending to read Herblore of the Shire while trying to inconspicuously stare at the Scholar of Gondor.

She was, Sharkey decided, rather pretty in a tall sort of way, all dark, wavy hair and brown face. If she was wearing a leather tunic and hunting spiders in the forest, she’d probably be the spitting image of an elf. Instead she was wearing a grey dress and robe that was somehow fashionable in Gondor despite it making her look a bit like a grounded thundercloud, and she was currently hunched over a massive pile of hobbit books, one hand pressing open The Red Book of Westmarch, and the other scrawling notes down in a small, leather notebook.

Sharkey considered herself to be rather attractive - she had to have been, to wind up snogging Donnamira Brandybuck two Yules ago - but even in her sharpest jacket and brightest trousers, a base animal instinct warned her that the Scholar was out of her league.

Sharkey closed Herblore with a snap, pulled her pipe out of her jacket pocket, and made an obvious show of nonchalantly cleaning it. “How’s it coming?” she asked.

The Scholar nodded. “A bit slow, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve only just finished There and Back Again.”

Sharkey had experimentally puffed on the pipe to test it for blockages and suddenly inhaled a glob of charcoal that lodged itself in her throat. “Al-ready?” she managed between coughs. “You - just - got here - two days ago!”

The Scholar hummed. “It’s a very short book,” she said. She looked up. Sharkey noticed that her eyes were a stunning shade of grey and, just then, full of curious worry. “Are you all right?”

“Never better!” Sharkey said in a strangled tone. She made one more hard, wheezing hack, and the glob came out into the crook of her elbow.

“What I don’t get,” Sharkey said, changing the subject after a sufficiently embarrassing pause, “is - you’re here to study The Red Book. I get that. But we gave Gondor a copy of The Red Book just three years ago, right?”

The Scholar tapped her quill on the notebook. “Well, yes, and we’re very grateful for it. But the academics of Gondor believed that it deserved some… clarification.”

Sharkey quirked an eyebrow. “Clarification?”

The Scholar nodded and flipped through some pages of notes. “Bilbo seemed to have something of a fanciful imagination, and inserted some creatures from hobbit folklore into his writing.” She got to a page almost black with Sindarin. “There and Back Again has stone-giants, skin-changers, were-worms - were-worms!” She looked back up at Sharkey. “What the hell is a were-worm?”

Sharkey allowed the image to form in her mind. “Something like a werewolf, I reckon,” she said after a moment. “Only it turns into a worm, not a wolf. Stands to reason, right?”

There was a pause as the Scholar thought up the image as well. “No,” she said.

Sharkey grinned. “Oh, what, you’ll accept eagles, trolls, goblins, and dragons, but-”

“They’re history,” the Scholar said. “Giants and mewlips and gorcrows and Tom Bombadil - those are mythology.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “I admit it’s a fine line,” the Scholar said. “But I can see it from where I stand-”

“Tom Bombadil’s mythology?”

“Er - yes,” the Scholar said. She held up The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and gave it an accusatory wobble. “I suspect your Frodo inserted him into the story to add some levity to his travels. He’s a folklore figure. A hobbit fairy tale. He’s not actually real.”

Sharkey frowned. “Isn’t he?”

There was another thoughtful pause. “I… thought so,” the Scholar muttered. “Up until just now, anyways.”

***

It turned into something like a pattern - Sharkey pretending to read some new book in the library, catching up on how the Scholar was doing. Sometimes this turned into the Scholar asking for clarification. Sometimes this was, “A later edition of this could really do with more mentions of Arwen,” or, “Look, just because Aragorn mentions the Beornings doesn’t mean that they can turn into bears.”

Then, somewhere in the middle of Blotmath:

“You’re - you’re asking me if my grandfather ever fucked Frodo.”

The Scholar shrugged. “I’m not necessarily suggesting that the two consumated the relationship, but if you look at the subtext-”

“My dear, sweet granddad, who loved my grandmother very much, and decided to leave for the Undying Lands the moment she died-”

“Well, who’s to say what happened before he got married? I’m just saying, it’s very convenient that Rosie only gets mentioned towards the end of the-”

“My lovely, gentle Grandpa Gamgee-”

The Scholar slapped a hand onto the table. “Your Grandpa Gamgee had a legendary virility among hobbits, and was considered for his time to be the most attractive hobbit in the Shire, Frodo would be insane not to get on that.”

“This is hell,” Sharkey said. “I’m in hell and you’re the devil. Everything makes sense now.”

The Scholar laughed, a clear, beautiful noise that set certain parts of Sharkey’s brain on fire. “I suppose hobbits don’t talk about that sort of thing, do they?”

“In the Old-Shire, definitely. But Undertowers is different.”

“How so?”

Sharkey shrugged. “It’s a new town,” she said. “When hobbits heard that there was a new place, a place away from the gossip, a lot of the ones who were disgraced in their old towns migrated over. A lot of that was for-” She made a vague gesture. “Travelling by ship with Gimli and Legolas, if you catch my meaning.”

The Scholar raised her eyebrows. “I had no idea.”

Sharkey puffed herself up, and pulled on the lapels of her jacket. “I pride myself as being the foremost authority on the subject.”

The Scholar leaned across the desk to her. Sharkey could suddenly see the little droplets of dried ink on her cheek, the shape of her lips, the thunderstorm in her grey eyes. “It’s a theory I’m… less experienced in, but certainly willing to study.”

The library was the biggest room in all of the Fairbairn Hallow, with ceilings that stretched up to a full ten feet. It was suddenly entirely too small and cramped to breathe in.

Sharkey licked her lips. “D’you - what do you say we get out of here and get a drink?”

***

The door to Elfstan’s study banged against the bookshelf built into the wall, dislodging a butterfly collection and Herblore of the Shire.

In the round doorway, significantly ruffled, gently swaying, and, an observer would have to be very close and deal with the very strong smell of hobbit-brewed whiskey to spot it, with dark lipstick smeared across one side of her mouth, was Sharkey.

“I AM,” she declared, “THE GREATEST HOBBIT WHO EVER LIVED.”

Elfstan apparently ignored her. “Write it down for posterity,” Sharkey continued. “On this, the sixteenth of Blotmath in the year 1487 (by Shire Reckoning), I, Fíriel Fairbairn, achieved the unachievable, and okay we just made out a little before she passed out, but that’s pretty good for me, and hey, why aren’t you paying attention?”

Her brother handed her a sheet with some scrawls across it. She read it, closing one eye to shut out the three other images swirling in her vision. “Sindarin,” she said flatly. “Oo-ee.” She looked closer.

“Are you sure?” she said, the dread chill of sobriety reaching its fingers into her hindbrain.

“I think so.”

Sharkey looked back at the sheet. “Damn,” she muttered.

***

The Scholar was up in the tower of Elostirion, apparently to see where the palantír had once been until it was put on the ship that carried Frodo and Gandalf off into the Undying Lands.

Hobbits said that they could see all the way to the Sea from the top of Elostirion. Sharkey was firmly of the opinion that they were full of crap, mostly because by the time she’d managed to get to the top of the tower, her mind was mostly preoccupied with not dying.

“Stairs,” she wheezed once she’d made it to the top of the tower.

The Scholar was looking out over the railing. She made a sound, not really laughing, more a puff of humour without any of the effort behind it. “The hangover’s probably not helping, is it?”

“Definitely not.” She walked towards the opposite railing. “Don’t mind me, I’m going to throw up over the side.”

“I would’ve thought you’d inherited your grandfather’s constitution,” said the Scholar behind her. It sounded like she was smiling.

Sharkey wheezed over the railing until her mouth stopped tasting like she’d gargled pennies. “Granddad never had to deal with stairs while hungover,” she said. “Confusticate and bebother, I don’t know how you did it.”

The Scholar made another sound like laughter. Sharkey wiped her mouth, looked out over the railing, and said, “But I reckon it must be different for half-elves.”

There was silence. A breeze drifted through the tower, Sea-borne warmth now chilling into proper wintery discomfort.

The Scholar sighed. “How did you find out?”

Sharkey nodded and turned. The Scholar was still looking out over the opposite railing. “Elfstan’s been studying Sindarin. ‘Unglittering Gold’ - ‘All that is gold does not glitter’ - it wasn’t really a subtle pseudonym.” She added, “Er - I mean, your high-”

“Don’t,” the Scholar said. “Please don’t. I’m not that, not here.”

Sharkey took the point. “I’d like to know your name, though,” she muttered. “Your real one.”

The Scholar of Gondor turned her head and gave Sharkey a sad little smile.

“Eldariel,” Eldariel said.

Sharkey nodded. “The princess-”

“No, Sharkey, I’m not. Not here.”

“But you are.” Sharkey suddenly felt like throwing up over the rail again. “Oh ye heavens, you’re the prin-”

Eldariel whipped around, grey and black cloak and dress swirling like a woolen thunderstorm. “No, I’m not. Not here, Sharkey, do you understand? Here, I’m a scholar. I can do what I want, study what I wish. That-” she waved a hand vaguely, “-person, that girl, she’s back in Gondor.”

She raked her fingers through her hair and took a deep, dramatic breath. “I am the daughter of King Elessar, the first daughter of the House of Telcontar. Do you know what that makes me?”

Sharkey considered this. “A pri-”

“Nothing, Sharkey. I’m nothing.” She made another noise like laughing, only this time there was no humour behind it. “Worse than that - I’m a token. An asset. Do you know what the name Fíriel is from? It’s from a princess of Gondor who was married off to Arvedui of Arnor and disappeared from history all together. That’s what the princess of Gondor is meant to do, just exist and be happy until you continue the family line.”

She turned back to the railing. When she spoke again, it sounded as though her voice was coming from very far away. “My brother will be the one who takes the throne, and he’ll be the one who’ll stay in history. Stories will be told about the great deeds he’ll do once Father passes and Mother fades away. He’ll go on great quests with Elboron and Elfwine, I have no doubt, and they’ll probably find the Entwives and the Beornings and maybe even the two Blue Wizards. And what will people what remember about me?”

Sharkey looked out over the railing. She didn’t know how far half-elf eyes could see, but for the first time in her life, she thought she could just spot the Sea.

She almost said: The tip of your nose wiggles when you talk.

You hold your forehead in your palm when you read.

You are personally offended by the concept of were-worms.

When you get frustrated, you run your fingers through your hair to try and make it as messy as you can. It never works.

When we got drunk together, we walked out on a snowy night and you started crying. Snowflakes were glittering gold in the lamplight, and you’d decided that it was the prettiest thing you’d ever seen.

Your first kiss felt like revenge against your parents, and I’m terrified to ask for a second kiss because it might taste like you falling in love with me.

At the same time she thought: But people won’t remember that. People don’t deserve to have those moments remembered, written down, because that version of you belongs to me.

But for now - and tomorrow - and forever - that’s what I’ll remember about you.

She said: “To hell with what other people remember about you.”

Eldariel looked over at her.

“To hell with what other people remember about you,” Sharkey said again, a bit more certainly this time. “Maybe centuries later, somewhere, someone’ll read ‘And Old Samwise had a granddaughter named Fíriel Fairbairn,’ and they’ll say, ‘Fíriel Fairbairn? I wonder who she was,’ and they’ll read, ‘And King Elessar had a daughter,’ and they’ll say, ‘I wonder what she did.’

“But by then it’s all a story, and people will forget the truth, or they’ll remember it accidentally, but in some way it’ll carry on. What’ll be important,” she reached up and took Eldariel’s hand in hers, “is what we do today.”

What happened next - who’s to say?

***

And maybe it happened And maybe it didn’t. Oh! Who is a hobbit to say Of those dirty codgers, Those damn gossip-dodgers, Who packed up and all went away.

- Chorus of a traditional Undertowers drinking song

#lord of the rings #lotr #tolkien #jrr tolkien #tolkien legendarium #the hobbit #lotr fanfic #lotr fanfiction #fanfiction #writing #technically no original characters #in that eldariel is a nameless character in the appendices #and firiel is mentioned once in a footnote in the forward of the adventures of tom bombadil #so #technically #wlw fanfic #narrativia

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years

Text

Nen and Characters: Razor and Genthru

The Greed Island arc has two main antagonists, who are Razor and Genthru.

At first glance, they seem two completely different people, but they both explore similar concepts like the idea of redemption and the necessity of finding a good equilibrium between individual strength and teamwork.

What is more, the narrative itself invites us to compare their stories since Razor is introduced as the boss of fourteen devils, while Genthru as the leader of the Bomb Devils. The names of the two groups clearly highlight how both Razor and Genthru are (or used to be) criminals aka people outside society and who are able to damage it.

This meta will use concepts I have already explored in this meta and will try to explore them more in depth and to broaden the topic.

RAZOR: A HYPOCRITICAL TEAMWORK

Razor’s character is important for at least three distinctive topics.

1) The theme of redemption.

2) The theme of teamwork and bonds.

3) The theme of the link between fiction (the game) and reality (the real world).

1) The first theme is pretty clear and explained through a flashback:

Razor became the person that he is because Ging gave him a second chance even if he used to be a criminal. It is implied by Razor’s narration that, before Ging, nobody treated him as a person or thought that he could accomplish anything in life. This is interesting for three reasons.

a) Razor’s story resembles Binolt’s:

Just like Razor, Binolt is portrayed as a ruthless criminal, but a quick flashback implies that he is partly who he is because people have refused his kindness. Binolt’s memories show him as a poor boy who tried to give a rich couple their purse back. However, they, instead of thanking him, gave in to their prejudices and hit him thinking that he was a criminal.

The implication is clearly that Binolt has become who he is because society saw him in a specific way and so he decided to give in to society’s expectations. This is why Gon earnestly thanking him for the help he gave him and Killua during the training is something which gets to him. His story ends with him leaving Greed Island and presumibly starting a new life.

Let’s highlight that Razor and Binolt are not the only characters who suffered because of society’s prejudices. As a matter of fact Battera is a victim of this as well:

Battera is introduced to us as an extraordinary rich man who is ready to spend a fortune to obtain three magical objects. At the beginning of the arc both the characters and the readers are led to believe that he wants these objects for materialistic purposes like becoming more powerful and influential. However, by the end we discover that all Battera wanted was simply to spend time with the person he loved.

b) Razor himself is probably trying to offer the people under his leadership a chance similar to the one Ging offered him. As a matter of fact, the group of people who are with Razor are real world criminals and Greed Island is basically their prison.

Given Razor’s own background and how much important the game itself has been for his rehabilitation:

it is easy to infer that he would like for other people as well to be saved thanks to this game and the chance of redemptions it gives. If that were not the case, Razor could have simply been the only person taking part in the event to gain Plot of Beach. After all, it is clear that he has the power to do so. He decided instead to take some criminals with him and to have them serve as characters in a game.

That said, even if these may be Razor’s motivations, he is also ready to kill one of his own men and this act of violence is indicative of other contradictions that the character has.

c) The main contradiction is shown by his own ability. As a matter of fact Razor has the power of creating a bunch of nen creatures who will act as his own teammates and would generally move as he wishes.

This is interesting considering that for the major part of his life Razor has probably been pretty lonely. As a result, it is easy to imagine that his power is somehow the result of him creating his own comrades. Razor has probably been searching for a way to feel less lonely by materializing parts of himself he could interact with. However, this can’t fill the need of human interactions which was somehow satisfied when he met Ging, aka someone who is not a materialization of Razor himself, who would treat Razor as a person.

2) This leads us to the second point mentioned above. As a matter of fact despite how much a friendship with another person has been important for Razor, he keeps depending mostly on himself.

This is shown by the fact that he himself turns out to be the fourteen devils mentioned by the woman:

This is proven when he tells the others he would take care of the matches from that moment on and it is highlighted by Gon as well:

Razor’s behaviour here is contradictive and partially hypocritical. As a matter of fact the condition to gain Plot of Beach is to form a group big enough that they can take on fifteen individuals, but in the end their major opponent is just one person aka Razor himself. Why should people unite and be tested over their teamwork when the person they are fighting is simply fighting alone?

This contradiction is embodied also by the card Razor is guarding:

As explained by Killua, the card, even if fifteen people must come together to obtain it, can be transformed only a limited numbers of times. This means that there is the risk of inner fights after the battle against Razor is over. This is not casual because, all in all, the fight with Razor seems to have been thought in order to test people about their teamplay and their bonds.

In a sense, the battle to obtain Plot of Beach is representative of the whole contradictive nature of the game. On one hand it is obvious that players would naturally join groups in order to finish the game. On the other hand only three objects can be taken in the end. What if a large group is composed of individuals who all want different things? This trap is probably also why the game as a whole is called Greed Island. In there people are tested to see if they will end up prey of their own greed or if they will manage to channel it in a constructive way.

The battle against Razor is not exception and, in a sense, it can be seen as a test to see how strong the bonds created throughout a common struggle are and if they can survive individual interests.

The answer is that they can:

Not only does Gon’s team win only because more individual combined their abilities, so that they could overcome Razor, but also they avoided any inner fighting after the fact. Despite this, even if fighting together made so that important bonds could be born, this does not mean that every conflict is immediately settled or overcome:

Hisoka who was fundamental to the team’s victory and even commented that said victory was the result of team-play has no problem to lie to his “comrades” and, once the fight is over, immediately goes off to pursue his individual interests which conflict partially with Gon and Killua’s.

So, in the end the fight against Razor is a celebration of team-play, but at the same time it highlights the inconsistencies and contradictions of more people uniting for a common goal. Moreover, the whole situation also underlines the paradox of such an individualistic character like Razor celebrating team-work.

3) Razor’s other power is the ability to transform his aura in a ball. This ability is interesting because it is linked to the last theme this character explores aka the link between games and reality.

First of all, it is interesting that Razor challenges his opponents to sport matches since sports are not supposed to be especially dangerous. They are basically games with specific rules which are also used to avoid extreme damage among the players. However, as the dodgeball match goes on, it becomes clear that what is happening is basically a fight to the death and that Razor’s balls are not really balls, but weapons.

This description fits Greed Island in general. Greed Island is a game which was hypothetically made in order to be enjoyed, but it ended up becoming a death trap for those players who were not strong enough. This is why Gon and Killua are immediately said so:

And Gon immediately reacts this way:

The truth is that both perspectives are wrong. Killua’s point of view is probably the most accurate:

The game has been created, so that it can be played in different ways. If one wants to steal all the cards from other players they can, while if another wants to win each card on their own, they still can.

All in all, this is so because the game is a mirror of the world. To be more precise it is a smaller world where all human dynamics, both positive and negative, end up being amplified. The island is a place where you can easily meet other people and keep in touch with them (the transportation spells and the book are used to do so), but also a place where you can steal from others (the stealing spells are there to encourage theft).

What is more, the island is isolated by society and this makes it the perfect place to transform into a prison like Razor has done. At the same time, it is the perfect place to transform into a training camp as well:

So, it is obvious that the island is strictly linked to the real world and it is not by chance that the fight against Razor is where the protagonists discover such a truth:

This is because the battle against Razor is fundamental to win against Genthru as well. As a matter of fact it is through this fight that Gon, Killua and Biscuit forge their bonds with Goreinu and Tsezguerra and these bonds will prove fundamental to take down Genthru and to finish the game.

This also explains why the Greed Island arc has basically two boss fights. The one against Razor (an opponent in the game) is propedeutic to the final one against Genthru (an enemy in the real world). This is just another way to highlight how much the lessons learnt in the game can be useful in real life as well.

GENTRHU: ACTING CRAZY

If Razor plays the part of a pirate, then Genthru is the island equivalent of a terrorist, like his powers make clear.

Genthru’s most dangerous ability is called Countdown and it is interesting because it shares some similarities with Gon’s Jajanken.

First of all, both abilities share some similarities with common games. Gon’s power takes after rock, paper, scissors, while Genthru’s has some similarities with a game of tag or with cops and robbers. As a matter of fact a person has to touch another saying a keyword and the other has a time limit to touch the person back saying another keyword.

What is more, both Countdown and Jajanken are difficult to freely use in a fight because they both need time to be activated. This is because Gon needs time to concentrate his aura, while Genthru needs time to properly explain how his ability works. That said both characters come up with creative and smart ways to change this weakness into a strength.

These similarities already show that Gon and Genthru are more alike than what one might think at first sight. In particular, they have a common trait which has been commented by both Genthru and other characters:

This trait is firstly mentioned by Puhat and it is the ability of moving at one’s own pace without being influenced by others. This is an ability both Genthru and Gon show and it is later on called by Genthru the ability of “acting crazy”:

Genthru highlights how often people who assume a crazy demeanor can be dangerous and effective and juxtaposes this idea to Puhat trying to act in a smart way.

All in all, both Genthru and Gon have shown to be able to think outside the box, but they have declined their ability in opposite ways. This is shown since the first time they met. In that occasion, as it was shown above, Genthru condemned the game and called it cruel, while Gon said to believe the game to be entertaining and affirmed his will to enjoy it. These two opposite perspectives symbolize two different ways of living and of experiencing society.

On one hand one can only concentrate on the most negative dynamics and use them to their own advantage. Genthru does exactly this and is even able to discover hidden rules which make him able to kill more easily:

Moreover Genthru’s whole tactic makes use of the most toxic and greedy aspects of the game. For example, he makes use of a large group which could be formed only because of Battera’s huge reward and used the fact that Greed Island is isolated in order to spread the rumor of the Bomb Devils and used said rumor to his advantage. This strategy was especially effective because of the limited size of the island and the fact the everyone there knew about nen. What is more, once he revealed his power he could easily use a spell to put distance between him and his victims. In short, Genthru used the traits of the game to his advantage and used also things like fear and paranoia to “infect” people with his power. This is also represented by the bombs being linked to one’s pulses, so that the panic works to Genthru’s advantage. Genthru is a character who feeds people’s worst instincts and is fed by them in return. This is lampshaded also by Biscuit:

In the end if all the people who were infected by Genthru had attacked him together some of them might have survived, but ironically, such a large group came together only for convenience and so lacked the team-spirit and the selflessness to pull off such a feat.

On the other hand one can concentrate on the opportunities society gives to grow up, like Gon does while playing Greed Island. It is not by chance that he is able to obtain the card Wild Luck Alexandrite which can be obtained only by helping a group of bandits using the Paladin’s Necklace. All in all, it is a card which can be obtained through altruism and it is not by chance that Genthru, who is obsessed with finishing the game and has mostly stolen cards from others does not have it. The fact that actually very few people have that card despite it not being that difficult to obtain is symbolic of how much the majority of players is motivated by selfishness and greed and not really by the desire to finish the game. This is something proved also by the fact that Gon, who enjoyed the game most of all, is the one who answers the major number of questions during the final quiz.

At the same time, Gon is genuinely able to forge positive relationships within the game and the final group who fights Genthru is composed not only by him, Killua and Biscuit, but also by Goreinu and Tsezguerra’s group. It is only because Tsezguerra is able to selflessly put his life on the line and to believe in his alliance with Gon’s group that Genthru is finally defeated.

This leads us to another point of comparison between Gon and Genthru and about another theme the character explores. In particular, if Razor explores the theme of teamwork, its importance and its contradictions, Genthru explores the theme of the importance of being self-sufficient and in particular of developing a personal strength. I will be quoting the meta I linked above:

This is also shown by Genthru who is both a character able to fight alone and a person who works well with his comrades (as a matter of fact they seem to share some powers).

The way Gon fights him is also indicative of how the boy is trying to reconcile a strong wish of individual strength and the necessity to work together:

As a matter of fact Gon has been given by Killua a plan to follow and if he did, he would not have any problems in defeating Genthru. However, Gon is not completely satisfied because he wants to use the battle to test himself. So in the end he chooses to follow the plan only after he managed to injure his opponent on his own.

This solution is a good synthesis of Gon and Killua’s struggle to grow up together, but also in an independent way, so that the can keep being friends, but also become proper individuals. This is something which will be explored also in the CAA with their friendship being partly deconstructed after GI spent much time showing its importance and positive effects.

This is something which is not only conveyed through Genthru alone, but also through his two other comrades aka Sub and Bara who are nothing more than satellite characters and even lack a specific personality of their own. Sub and Bara seem to completely revolve arounf Genthru and the Bomb Devils since they both have a tattoo which symbolizes the group on their own forehead. What is more, they also lack any personal hatsu and the only nen power they are shown to have is the ability of making the bombs of Countdown detonate before the time and, even then, they need to be together with Genthru.

In short, Genthru’s group is clearly unbalanced and Genthru is the centre of it all, the most intelligent member and the strongest. This is not true for Gon’s group where Biscuit is clearly the strongest member and Killua comes up with the majority of the strategies of the group among which the one which leads to genthru’s downfall. In other words, each member of Gon’s group has their own personalities, talents and objectives.

This is clearly shown in Biscuit and Killua’s fights against Bara and Sub. As a matter fo fact the two battles end up just being moments where the two characters can be explored more. In particular, Biscuit reveals her true self during the fight and shows the readers something she has hidden even from her two students. Killua, instead, uses the fight to develop himself and his hatsu, so as a wayto train and to advance in his journey for individuality.

In conclusion, the victory against Genthru is finally reached thanks to both individual strength and team-work and it is symbolic of Gon and Killua’s growth throughout and thanks to the game. At the same time, Genthru’s defeat is also a defeat of an excessive greedy and selfish perspective:

Gon, Killua and Biscuit manage to touch Genthru’s with their generosity and convince Goreinu to cure also the three bomb devils. In this way, Genthru too, just like Razor, is saved by a stranger’s generosity and can hope to redeem himself thanks to his relationships with his comrades which humanize him.

CONCLUSION: THE GOOD SIDE OF THE MAN-CHILD

All in all, Razor and Genthru are two people who are given a second chance thanks to Greed Island.

What is more, this second chance is given to them thanks to a particularly childish character (Ging for Razor and Gon for Genthru) who did not let himself be influenced by society’s standards, but imposed his own. Ging saw in Razor more than a criminal and Gon decided to fight Genthru not following the man’s rules (kill or be killed), but his own ones (enjoy the game and play correctly).

Both Ging and Gon’s behaviour can be seen as utterly childish and they are both described as selfish in multiple occasion. However, at least in Greed Island this childishness of them is not condemned, but highlighted as a positive trait which is able to offer an alternative take on things and on society’s most rigid structures.

This is also why it is so important that Greed Island in the end is nothing more than a game aka something created to have fun. This fact also underlines both Ging and Gon’s approach to life as something which must be enjoyed to its fullest.

At the same time, the arc itself has some things which will later be deconstructed. As a matter of fact Gon’s incredible stubborness is already criticized in this arc and will lead to a disaster in the CAA as it will Gon’s tendency to judge people according to how they behave with him. This tendency lets him forgive people like Binolt, but will prevent him from properly empathizing with people like Pitou in the CAA.

Finally, even the important themes of team-work and selflessness are partially subverted in the end. As a matter of fact Gon, Killua and Biscuit end up taking three cards with them in the real world.

-The first one is Blue Planet and it is Biscuit’s reward.

-The second is an Accompany card disguised as a Plot of Beach card.

-The third is the Paladin’s Necklace which is necessary to convert the Accompany card to its original form.

Let’s concentrate on the last two cards.

The Paladin’s Necklace is a card representative of the main characters’ philosophy throughout the game since they were like paladins trying to pursue a positive way to play and to defeat the people who were transforming the game in a trap. At the same time, it represents Killua’s selflessness and devotion to Gon since he basically chooses this card in order to let Gon’s trick to smuggle an Accompany in the real world work.

The fact that the Accompany has the appearance of a Plot of Beach card is also to highlight the importance the fight with Razor had in Gon’s personal journey. That fight is also a link Gon has with his father.

Finally, when it comes to the Accompany, Biscuit comments this:

She says that it is possible Ging’s message for Gon is that if he truly wants to meet him he should both become strong and leave everything behind. Let’s highlight that this message is coherent with the idea of Greed Island as a place to test people’s greed. According to this reading, Ging’s test on Gon is also one about his moral character. Will Gon lose himself after jewels and power or will he sacrifice them in favor of his bond with his father? Will he choose a simple spell over the wonderful cards he could take?

At the same time, the conclusion of Greed Island puts a dent in this reading and makes the situation more complex:

In the end Ging refuses to meet Gon because Gon chose an Accompany rather than a Magnetic Force. This can be read in two different ways.

a) What Ging is asking Gon to leave behind, so that he can meet his father are not only power and items, but also a friend who has helped Gon up until that point.

However, the fact that Gon does not can be seen as a way to highlight that not all greed is negative. As a matter of fact Gon treasures the people he grows close to and this in itself is not something negative. So, in the end, him not leaving Killua alone to go meet Ging can be shown as a sign of this.

b) In order to obtain the spell card Gon needed Killua’s help and he needed his help to complete the game. Gon needing comrades to complete the game is surely something Ging knew in advance. As a matter of fact, in order to use a spell card outside the game, two cards are needed. Given the nature of the game, it is very difficult for a single player to finish it on his own. This means that Gon would have had to surely join forces with someone, but if that were the case, then he would have had to share the reward in the end. This means that, in order to obtain two of the three cards given as a reward, Gon would have needed comrades ready to give them to him.

Because of this, it is hypocritical for Ging, who gives a lot of importance to comrades and the bond of friendship, to refuse to see Gon simply because he brings a friend along.

We are again in a paradoxical situation similar to the one of Razor where there is a person celebrating bonds, but also refusing them on a certain extent.

Thank you for reading!

If you are interested in other analysys of HxH characters through their nen abilities here is a list of the ones I wrote up until now:

-Nanika

-Kurapika and Chrollo

-Killua and Illumi

-Gon and Hisoka

-Meruem and Komugi

-Palm Siberia

-Neon Nostrade

-Neferpitou and Shaiapouf

-Kachou and Fugetsu

-Menthuthuyoupi

-Ikalgo and Welfin

-Knuckle and Shoot

#hxh #hxh meta #razor #genthru #bomb devils #greed island #greed island arc #gon freeks #ging freecs #nen and characters #my meta

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jinruihokankeikaku · 4 years

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I dunno if you're taking asks rn, but if so, witch of rage analysis please?

The Wwitch of Rage? Hellz yeah!! Requests are closed at time of wwritin, 8ut they wwere open wwhen you sent this, so here wwe go!

Title: Witch of Rage

Title Breakdown: One who actively manipulates [transforms, mutates, bends the rules of, pushes the limits of] Rage [disbelief, negative emotion, skepticism, defiance, and of course, metanarrative shenanigans]

Role in the Session: The Witch of Rage is the ultimate iconoclast and rule-breaker, casting aside conventions as though they were never there to begin with. Therefore, the Role they’re meant to play is somewhat ambiguous, as they’ll likely stand in defiance to the concept of playing a Role at all. They’ll likely be tempted to abuse their powers; this is the case for all Witches, but the Witch of Rage in particular will have access to a font of negative emotion, of literal rage, that could amplify this temptation significantly. Their influence over these domains parallels the influence of these domains over them, which could lead to initial difficulties between the Witch and their team.

However, this is not to say that a Witch of Rage would necessarily be a negative factor in the session’s overall narrative. Indeed, they’re the sort of player that could easily get a team out of a seemingly inescapable situation, allowing their teammates’ Rage and desire to get away to manifest physically, perhaps even as a being independent of its host. As a corollary to Hope’s association with (religious) ecstasy, Rage can have associations with sobriety, clarity, and grimness – not the sort of intellectual or perceptual clarity brought on by Light, but a pessimistic emotional clarity that suggests that one’s course of action, however mad it seems, is a necessity. The Witch will be able to follow through on lines of inquiry that other members of the team may deem unpalatable. However, this same clarity of purpose can incline the Witch towards overcommitting to certain dangerous courses of action; like other highly Active players (Lords, Thieves, and Princes), Witches struggle with the risk of pushing their Aspect past its limits and succumbing to hubris in light of their newfound power.

The healthiest path forward for a Witch of Rage is probably to embrace their role as a fixer, a clearer of obstacles – one who transforms adversity into advantage. Their Quest may be set on a particularly brutal, harsh, or unfamiliar Planet, and they will have to progress by turning each set of dangerous and uncertain circumstances into a tool to advance to the next area, and the next set of challenges. They likely won’t find the decision to Ascend difficult, should they reach that point – a Witch of Rage would be well aware of the necessity of sacrifice, even loss of life, for a greater good (for whatever value of good they happen to be using, naturally). Their powers, which will almost certainly be somewhat destructive in nature, would be well-complemented by those of a Maid or Sylph of Space, who could assist in creating anew in the wake of the Witch’s destruction. A Seer of Life could have an interesting, albeit complex, relationship with the Witch as an advisor, guiding the explosions of energy they create through the systems they inhabit in a more transformative and less blindly devastating.

Opposite Role: The Seer of Hope. The Seer of Hope is one who learns of, interprets, and ultimately teaches their interpretation of faith, positive emotion, and suspension of disbelief. Which is to say, the Witch of Rage throws a spanner in their whole deal, then does it again out of spite. Everything that the Witch does is likely to somehow bother the Seer, who prefers positivity and comprehensibility to the sort of borderline-nihilistic madness which the Witch deals in. While they’re unlikely to be hateful people, the Seer certainly isn’t going to like the Witch, and the Witch certainly isn’t going to care about whether or not they’re liked. They’re likely to clash more and more as their affinities with their respective Aspects deepen.

God Tier Powers

Rage is the Expansive-Explosive-Personal Aspect; domains associated with it include demons, explosions, carnivals, chaos, et al. The Witch is the Active Manipulation Class, whose powers tend to involve altering the nature or manifest characteristics of their Aspect, and in combination with the Aspect of Rage, the manipulation involved will specifically have to do with the expansion or (often violent) of personal identity and experience into the outside world. Here are a few ideas as to how that might happen…

Make My Demons Come to Life: The Witch allows the “negative emotional auras” of everyone nearby, themselves included, to physically manifest as semi-tangible psychokinetically projected demons, under the Witch’s control. The form these demons take depends on the particular character of the emotions from whence they were drawn, and their size, strength, and ability to affect change in the material world wax and wane in tandem with those emotions. This ability can have a self-fueling effect, whereby the fear and rage provoked by the demons actually strengthens them; one’s best hope of destroying them is to face them with calm and stoicism, which may prove to be a difficult task.

Shaped Charge: The Witch of Rage is capable of manipulating explosions, conflagrations, and electric surges with extraordinary efficiency. This has several applications, beyond just making things blow up more (although that remains, as ever, a viable option). For one thing, this will allow the Witch a functional immunity to flames and blasts, as they can just reshape the flow of energy around themselves. Additionally, they can manipulate the shape and direction of a blast wave so as to destabilize a structure without totally obliterating it, or to destroy one small part of a machine with great precision.

Command Control: Rage players at the height of their power have been known to have the capacity to influence events on a metanarrative level, which is pretty damn weird, and Witches are pretty much the masters of weirdness. An Ascended Witch of Rage could well simply refuse to comply with an adverse narrative development. How this would manifest would vary widely based on the particular Witch and the context in which they’re using this power, but, for example, it might involve simply refusing to let a co-player die if they think that they’re being killed off for the convenience of the writer rather than for the good of the story. Extremely broken, use with caution, &c.&c..

Personality: Witches tend to be big personalities, if somewhat strange and/or scattered, and they’re easily excitable, idiosyncratic, and inclined towards rebellion and trend-bucking. Rage players are aggressive and also paradoxically cynical and passionate at once, believing in very little but having firm convictions about what they don’t believe. I think a Witch of Rage might be the sort of person who actively doubts things most people consider to be consensus reality – maybe not to the degree of, say, Flat-Earther-ism, but then again, maybe so. They might identify as an “optimistic nihilist” or something along those lines, and would probably be the type to blur the lines of, and indiscriminately play with, irony and “meta” commentary. I’d rank them pretty high on the “most likely to break the 4th wall” list, also. The greatest obstacle to their development as a person and as a player might be their excessive playfulness and envelope-pushing, and their serious lack of emotional stability, but these things could also contribute greatly to their resiliency. Like any coping mechanism, a balance must be struck here between what allows you to thrive despite adversity, and what keeps you alive at the cost of personal growth.

Songs

New Chevrolet In Flames by the Mountain Goats

The Five of Us Are Dying by My Chemical Romance

Nightlife by Green Day (lol)

I hope you found this analysis entertaining and/or informativve, anon!! Thanks for the ask ^^^^v^^^^

#Homestuck #Classpect analysis #classpect #class #aspect #witch #rage #witch of rage #anon #ask

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thesandersarchives · 4 years

Text

Just To See You Plain

After his first proper meeting with Deceit, Logan dreams. Loceit, pre-ship/mutual pining. Some descriptions of violence.

Logan dreads sleeping nowadays, but he can’t deny that it’s still a necessity--or at least, he assumes it is. It’s quite possible that Deceit was correct, that he’s not human anymore, and therefore doesn’t have the same basic needs as humans do. Nevertheless, he finds himself tiring, slipping into sleep, because despite knowing, somehow, that he could stay awake, he also knows that the price would be opening his mind to something he’s not yet ready to fully accept.

When he regains awareness, after passing through several of the now-usual visions, he finds himself somewhere new.

He’s in a dark building, watching a huddled group whisper quietly among themselves. He squints at the unfamiliar scene, unsure how this place has been added to the dreamscape he wanders each night.

A siren wails, too close, and the sound echoes as images wisp into view--corpses, skeletal visions manifesting all around the building. As the people gasp, recognizing their own charred, mutilated faces, freezing in terror, one figure breaks from the group, slipping out the door as the specters close in.

Logan suddenly recalls a statement given months and months ago--a second-hand story of a British ex-pat’s great-uncle seeing ghosts during the Blitz. The only survivor of a blast that decimated a factory, because everyone else had been too paralyzed by fear at the sight of the ghosts of their future selves to even move.

He turns to follow the man who ran, catching up easily in this space as he finally pauses in an alleyway, back pressed to the wall. There’s not quite enough distance when the bomb finally hits the factory to completely dampen the impact. With the not-so-distant flames illuminating half of his face, Logan recognizes him with a jolt as they lock eyes--and then he’s gone into another vision.

The next night, the scene returns--the factory floor, the huddled workers whispering, shaking. They can feel what’s coming, Logan knows.

“Ah, Archivist.” A voice sounds from just behind him. “I should have guessed.”

Deceit. Of course.

Logan turns to see him, and it’s not quite what he expected. He’s wearing pristine white gloves, and his face is free of the scales he’d seen in their meeting, as far as Logan can tell in the darkness. Instead, a deep scar runs across his cheek, shimmering in and out of existence in the moonlight. He smiles.

“You look surprised, dear.”

Logan feels himself blush, and hopes it isn’t too visible in the dim lighting. “Normally the, ah, subjects of these memories, or dreams, or whatever they are, don’t... interact with me. At least, not so directly.”

He intends to ask why, why this is different, why Deceit is different, when someone in the huddled mass in the corner gasps. Logan turns to see the skeletal images again, phantoms manifesting around the group with their arms outstretched.

They press closer, reaching, and Logan just barely hears one of them say “Oh Lord, that’s me, that’s us--” and see the people begin to reach for each other as the phantoms huddle together, hovering over them, before Deceit is dragging him bodily out the door and through narrow London streets.

Deceit pulls him along as he runs as far away as possible, air raid sirens wailing through the night all the while.

“I feel as though I ought to make some sort of comment about the Grandfather Paradox.” Logan says once they stop moving, and Deceit chuckles at that, managing an eye roll just as the scene slips away and Logan is carried off to another story. -------------------------------------------------------

He finds Deceit again a few nights later, this time in a grimy meat locker that he knows is the base of operations for a San Francisco cannibal killer from the halting description given by a grizzled fellow with graying hair of his narrow escape from this very room as a younger man.

He’s never seen this place before, however, which can only mean one thing--and sure enough, when Logan turns around, there’s Deceit, face screwed up in concentration as he frees himself from his bindings. Eventually, the last loop of rope falls to the floor, and Deceit scrambles up and crouches by the door moments before it swings open.

The man that enters is easily disarmed, the butcher knife clattering to the floor, and Deceit bolts out the door. Logan goes to follow, but the scene fades just as he and the would-be killer catch up...

It’s much the same, the next night. Logan watches Deceit slip free of his bonds, standing perhaps a little closer than necessary just to watch his scales shift and glitter in the cold, dim light. The other man’s gaze passes through him for a moment, before it focuses, and Deceit smirks.

“We really have to stop meeting like this.” He quips, before footsteps sound outside and he turns grim-faced, taking up a position beside the door.

The ensuing scuffle is much the same, except this time, Logan gets to see what happens after.

Deceit’s not quite fast enough--his pursuer slams into him, pinning him against the wall by his throat as Deceit hisses and scrabbles at the man’s arm, a flash of fang and claw showing as the air is slowly choked from him.

“Monster.” The man spits. “You’re not even fit to eat.”

“I’m a monster?” Deceit manages, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Just look at yourself.”

His voice has an odd echo to it, Logan realizes, and though he can’t see exactly what Deceit’s doing, he sees the glint of his mirror-eyes shift, and suddenly the man is pulling away, horrified. He begins to scream, but the air seems to have left his lungs. He falls backward, and as Deceit takes a single step forward, the man scrambles onto hands and knees, turning and scurrying away... straight back into the meat locker.

Deceit sighs heavily.

“The rest isn’t really worth watching.” He says, shutting and locking the door of the meat locker. Logan idly wonders when he had time to filch the key. “Not even for you. Or so I assume. I didn’t stick around.”

He flips open a panel beside the door and pushes a few buttons, then turns to exit. The murderer inside the meat locker begins to scream, but Logan doesn’t look at him through the small window inset into the door as the scene finally fades. He stares at Deceit’s retreating form until the vision dissipates, replaced with another, more usual tale.

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

The final dream he has of Deceit is set in London again, though this time in a slightly more modern setting. It’s the fifties, judging by the fashion, and Deceit is once again scale-less and white-gloved. Something’s different, though, from the Blitz--a darkness in his shining eyes, a heaviness to the way he carries himself.

Logan’s almost tempted to call it a look of mourning, though he can’t quite tell why.

He falls into step beside Deceit, who seems to be moving aimlessly, until his chin lifts, just slightly, and something sparks in his eyes. Subtly as he can, Deceit reverses course, his steps coming a little quicker. Logan concludes that he’s caught sight of the servant of the Desolation he mentioned.

He knows this story in full already, it holds none of the surprises of the previous two encounters with Deceit. Logan watches as he’s cornered in the alley, watches as he’s grabbed and hit and burned by the man he was tailing and his hidden associate.

For the first time in what feels like a long time, Logan wishes he didn’t have to watch. He’d thought that by now, after witnessing so many horrible things, over and over with no hope of escape, he’d have grown numb to it all, and given up on the idea that he could possibly affect these visions, but Deceit... Deceit is different already, could be the exception to this rule as well.

Before he can step in, though, Deceit twists, and there’s a flash of silver, and he slips out of the man’s grip while he’s distracted by the knife in his arm. Then Deceit’s running, and Logan can only follow him as he leaves the wax men behind, eventually coming to a stop in a quiet, dark alley, where he slumps down onto the cobblestoned street.

Logan’s vision blurs the moment Deceit’s eyes slip closed, and when it clears again, Deceit is on his knees, staring helplessly down at his now-scaled hands with undisguised distress.

After a moment, he swallows, and his expression smooths into the cold indifference he’d projected during his chess game with Logan. As he reaches for the yellow gloves that have appeared at his side, Logan drifts into another scene.

He’s both glad and dismayed to find that re-entering this memory comes easily to him the next night. He sidles up to Deceit, picking over what to say in his mind before Deceit beats him to the punch.

“You know it can’t be changed. It happened, and it can’t happen any other way. I could keep walking away from him, and I’d still find myself in that alley eventually.”

Logan frowns. “But you’re different.”

Deceit shakes his head, lips pulling into a wry grin. “Just because I’m exempt from certain rules in this place doesn’t mean I can bend them all, Logan. I’m not the darling of the Eye, now, am I?”

“Well, I can’t alter anything here, either.” Logan sighs, feeling a pouting tone creep into his voice that immediately makes his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

Deceit laughs. “Isn’t that just the way of things? Like a wish made on the Monkey’s Paw. You have what the Eye wants you to have, not what you want, to say nothing of what you need.”

Logan could ask whether the Stranger operates in the same way, but he knows the answer already. Instead, he asks, “What happened, in between the Blitz and now?”

Deceit’s expression pinches, almost imperceptibly.

“...I learned.” He manages after a moment. “A very harsh lesson in how things work, for creatures such as you and I.”

The alley looms in front of them both suddenly, and Logan reflexively reaches out for Deceit, but he’s already slipping out of Logan’s grasp and into the dead-end street.

Logan doesn’t follow, but he still sees what happens. Deceit’s right, he realizes, the past, the horrors Logan is forced to watch every night, it’s inescapable.

Deceit collides with Logan as he tears himself away from the two servants of the Desolation, and they both land clumsily on the ground. Deceit’s got his scales back, and he’s already wearing his yellow gloves and black bowler. His assailants have disappeared without a trace. Deceit grins shakily down at Logan.

“Well, this is a nice break in the monotony for us both, I suppose. Same time tomorrow night?”

Logan laughs, because that’s all he can do. But he can’t deny that it’s nice to have someone in this awful dreamscape to talk to that isn’t afraid of him.

“Perhaps we ought to move this to the waking world, instead.” He finds himself saying, and for it he receives the pleasure of watching Deceit’s smile turn genuine, just for a moment, before Logan’s vision shifts and he’s thrown back into his usual nightly routine.

He receives a text from an unknown number the next day, shortly after Remus brings him Patton’s latest recording. An address and a time, signed with a snake emoji.

Despite it all, Logan smiles.

#supplemental #Logan #Janus #this is a long one y'all buckle up

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 5 years

Text

Non-Sequential [Ch. 16]

Pairing: Pre-Serum Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers x Reader

One night, Steve Rogers met a beautiful dame named Y/N. He hadn’t intended on letting her get away. But fate had other ideas. Y/N appeared and disappeared in his life so hauntingly that Steve started to wonder if she was an angel meant to watch over him.

Word Count: 3,100

Chapter 15

Bucky squinted as the sun beamed down on him.

It had become a routine of sorts. Y/N, not knowing anyone in Wakanda nor willing to make new friends in her current state, would usually find her way down to Bucky’s farm eventually. Some days she couldn’t bring herself to leave her room. But it felt like those were becoming less and less of a thing.

She’d ask Bucky if she could help with anything. He refused to give her any actual job. He pretty much just asked her to feed the animals, or convinced her they needed to be talked to or they’d get irritated.

Mostly Y/N just sat on a bail of hay or a blanket he’d throw on the ground for her and read while Bucky worked around the farm.

She almost never talked to him.

Bucky wished she would, but being able to keep an eye on her was good enough for him…for now.

“You ever take a break from reading?” He called out in exasperation after he threw another bail of hay off the large wagon.

She eyed him, “To do what exactly?”

Bucky’s smile faltered a little bit, knowing he was nearing dangerous territory. “Ever considered writing something of your own?”

Y/N glared at him, “You mean like a diary?”

He shrugged. “Diary, journal, notebook – whatever you want to call it, yeah.”

“No, thanks.” She shot back instantly and then somehow picked up her book again with an attitude and put an end to her portion of the discussion.

Bucky took a few steps closer to her and then put his hands on his hips. “You know, it might help a bit.”

“Sure,” she snapped back without taking her eyes off of her book.

“You’re not talking to me, kid. You’re not talking to anyone. At least talk to yourself. Get those thoughts out of your head and on paper. Maybe it’ll help you make sense of them.”

Now Y/N was fully glaring at him. “Yeah?” She mocked. “Is that what you do?”

Bucky took the challenge. “Yes, actually. It is.”

“I’m not trying to piece together my memories, Bucky. I know what happened to me. I’m not trying to remember. I’m trying to forget it.” Her voice was cold as ice when she said it.

“I’m only trying to help, Y/N.” He told her softly.

But she wasn’t finished with her anger yet. She stood up and took a few combative steps toward him until she was just a foot away from him.

“What do you want me to write? That the curse I was given almost got me killed once again? That I was tortured?” She was screaming now. “That I live every day fucking terrified of when I get thrown somewhere in time again? That – after everything that’s happened – my boyfriend left me in a foreign country to deal with it all alone?”

He was quiet.

“Is that what you want me to write, Bucky? Yes or no?” She bellowed.

“You’re not alone,” he muttered.

Her face dropped. “What?”

He looked her dead in the eyes. “I said you’re not alone.”

“Whatever,” Y/N rejected before stomping away.

But Bucky couldn’t let her leave in such a condition. She may have yelled it all at him, but it was the first time she had even somewhat opened up. It was the first time she even told anyone that she had been tortured. Obviously it was what every had already assumed. But he took it as a giant step forward, having her finally just admit it.

In a panic, he turned and gently grabbed her forearm.

Y/N ripped it away like he’d burned her and whirled around. “Don’t fucking touch me!” But her eyes weren’t wide with anger. They were wide with pure and acute fear.

Bucky quickly stepped back and raised his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That was stupid.”

Her fear was quickly replaced with embarrassment. She escaped even quicker now.

This time, Bucky had no choice but to let her.

He rubbed his face and then nearly pulled out his hair.

“Goddammit!” He hissed to himself.

  What the hell had he been thinking, grabbing her like that?

No one understood what she was going through more than him. When he first got out of cryo and was on the run, the idea of ever letting someone touch him again made him sick to his stomach. No matter how kind someone’s face or intentions were, he no longer trusted that anyone’s touch would do anything other than harm him.

Bucky stomped into his hut and started going through his things.

“Damnit, where’d I put that thing?” He muttered to himself.

Eventually he found it in a drawer: a phone, the burner phone that Steve had given him. It was for emergencies. Through Wakandan tech, Steve would call every once in awhile. But sometimes he was in places where that wasn’t possible. But the burner phone was the exception.

Bucky flipped it open and dialed the only number in the address book.

It only rang twice before he picked up.

“Buck? Is everything OK?” His voice was instantly panicked.

“It’s not me,” Bucky said slow and quiet.

The other end went quiet.

“She’s not OK, Steve. She needs you. You hear me? So, get your ass back here and be there for her. I’m not going to tell you again.”

Then he hung up before Steve could answer.

—————

Despite her anger at Bucky, Y/N still didn’t want to be alone.

Shuri had told Y/N, with utter sincerity, that she always welcome in her lab.

So Y/N found herself making her way there, almost like a zombie of sorts.

Two of the Dora Milaje nodded at her politely as she walked through the doors. It only took a few days for all of the guards to put together that Y/N held almost 0 threat to the royal family or the general public. Soon they grew protective of her, losing all sense of suspicion and mistrust.

Shuri spotted Y/N’s entrance immediately and jumped in excitement. “Oh, great! Your timing could not be better!”

Y/N blinked in surprise and confusion.

“I’ve done quite a few tests with your blood work. However, I’ll learn a lot more once I get the readings from before and after your time-travel. But that will come eventually.”

Y/N shivered at the idea of traveling again.

She hadn’t since returning to the present after being tortured and held captive by Hydra. The thought of ending up somewhere dangerous again was the reason she couldn’t sleep and her mind was filled with horrors.

Shuri pointed to one of her lab chairs and grabbed another for herself, silently telling Y/N to take a seat.

“We’ve clarified two things,” Shuri started in a serious and authoritative voice, “You only travel to two types of places in the past and future: places of your own life and places of Steve’s life.”

Y/N winced a bit. “Well…that’s not entirely true.”

Shuri tilted her head to the side.

“I went back in time to Bucky – I guess it was twice, depending on how you look at it.”

“Go on,” Shuri encouraged.

“I went back to WWII. Steve was technically there. But he was on a scouting mission. The date was more significant for Bucky than it was for Steve. It was Bucky that found me, not Steve. And then the other time…” Y/N suddenly realized that she would have to talk about Hydra to explain the second time she’d been brought to Bucky.

“When you last traveled,” Shuri finished for her. “You do not have to talk about it if you are not ready.” The princess offered with a kind and gentle smile.

Y/N swallowed awkwardly and realized how dry her mouth and throat had suddenly become. But she just nodded.

“While I have yet to fully analyze and diagnose your abilities, I am starting to understand what motivates where they take you.” Shuri began to explain and pulled up a hologram of a brain. But not just any brain, it was Y/N’s brain. “There are two things I believe are controlling the destinations of your travels: memory and love.”

Shuri pointed to the lit up areas of the brain. “The parts of your brain that control memory are your amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. Emotions like fear and love are controlled by the limbic system, which is located in the temporal lobe. The amygdala is also part of the limbic system, which – as I just mentioned – also controls memory.”

Y/N slowly stood up from here seat and got closer to stare at the scan. “So, basically, my amygdala is the things that most controls of my ability?”

Shuri nodded, “That is the simplest way I can put it.”

Y/N crossed her arms and still stared at the scan. “I travel to Steve because I love him so much.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but Shuri was able to make out the words still.

“When it comes to your memories, you cannot think of them as linear. Your powers take memories from your past and future to effect your present. Your memories have no beginning and no end. Your powers are all-knowing. I believe, perhaps, you are in a Predestination Paradox.”

“What does that mean?” Y/N quickly interrupted.

“Well, you are unable to change the past, which would be what the time travel theorists call a Grandfather Paradox. You are simply a witness through both the past and the future, unable to change anything. Therefore, your visits have already been set in time.”

Y/N nodded, somehow following Shuri’s explanation and theories.

“The reason you started traveling to Steve, before you even met him in your present, is because your consciousness already existed in the future. And your love for each other created a chemical effect that influenced your time-traveling destinations…forever.”

The last part was the least surprising of the news. Over the years, Y/N and Steve had put together that their bond in the future had brought them together in both of their pasts. But the way Shuri explained it all made it all seem so much more formidable.

“And what if we stopped?” Y/N’s voice shook as she asked.

Shuri squinted. It was the first time she seemed confused in the conversation. “Stopped what?”

“Stopped loving one another.”

Shuri’s first reaction was to say that she couldn’t imagine a world where Steve and her didn’t love each other. But it was not her place to say such things. Y/N was looking for a scientific hypothesis, not a friend to talk her down.

“I…I do not know, Y/N.” Shuri admitted.

“Can you make it stop?” Y/N shot back. “Can you back the time traveling stop?”

Shuri bowed her head. “I am not sure yet. There is still far too much to learn before I can give you an honest answer, Y/N.”

Meanwhile, Y/N looked more disappointed than anything. But she bowed her head slightly in acceptance before fleeing the lab in a brisk walk.

—————————————

Y/N had made her way to the lake. It was the middle of the night. It would have been a little more dangerous had a guard not been assigned to her. The only time they left her alone was when she was with Bucky. Y/N had found that odd, but didn’t dare think on it too long.

She hugged one knee to her chest, as her other leg dangled over the dock and her foot drew circles in the cold water.

Then she heard footsteps coming up behind her.

They were loud in a way that made her realize the person made sure she heard them, so they wouldn’t scare her.

Bucky.

Only Bucky would do something like that.

Y/N didn’t turn around or acknowledge him. But she felt him sit down beside her. It was a little difficult for him to do, with having one arm and all. He made sure to put a few feet between them.

“I went to the palace to talk to you. When you weren’t in your room, I thought I might find you here.”

She didn’t say anything in return.

“Y/N, I’m sorry for grabbing you the other day. I should’ve known better. I just panicked when I saw how upset I’d made you and immediately wanted to fix it.”

She stayed silent.

“You won’t talk about it. But I know what happened to you,” Bucky finally confessed. “I know because I remember. When Shuri finally got rid of my brainwashing, memories just started flooding back. And when I saw you for the first time here, it triggered everything. I saw your injuries and – I was there.”

Y/N’s eyes finally snapped to him. His ice-blue eyes were already waiting to meet her gaze.

Her breathing became heavier.

“I’m not telling you this so I can pretend to know what you’re going through.” His look stayed so gentle and sincere. “I’m telling you because I want you to know that even if you never want to talk about what happened, you don’t have to do this by yourself. You don’t have to have to keep it a secret because you’re scared of how people will react.”

Y/N’s eyes swelled with tears that she managed to blink away.

A silence settled between them. All they could hear were the crickets and other nocturnal creatures. The waves of the lake would make a heavier sound against the pebbly beach every so often.

Finally, Y/N took in a shaky breath. Her gaze looked over the water now. “When I first saw you here–” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it, but I instantly got this odd sense of comfort. It made me realize that I wasn’t alone in what I went through. Because, even if it wasn’t really you, you were there with me.”

She looked at him. “Do you remember what you did?”

Bucky swallowed. He couldn’t find the words.

“You tried to help me,” Y/N muttered. “You protected me.”

He shook his head. “And look what a shit job I did at it.”

“That’s not true,” Y/N urged.

“If I had been stronger, I could’ve stopped it all. I could’ve kept you safe.”

“Bucky, you were brainwashed. The fact that you were even able to break through it at all and do what you had is remarkable.”

He was starting to get worked up now. “If Steve knew I was there and did nothing…”

“But you did do something!” Y/N argued.

Suddenly they were interrupted by Y/N’s guard walking to them. “I have a message from His Majesty.” Then the guard tapped the Kimoyo Beads around his wrist and a hologram of T’Challa appeared.

“Sergeant Barnes, Y/N,” he greeted politely, as if it wasn’t the middle of the night. “I must request that you both come back to the palace immediately.”

“Is something wrong?” Y/N asked quickly.

“No, but your presence is required.” Then he hung up, leaving no room for more questions or refusals.

Y/N shared a worried look with Bucky. But he didn’t seem to feel the same concern.

“Come on,” Bucky said as he carefully maneuvered himself back onto his feet. It should’ve been more awkward without a second limb. But even with one arm, Bucky was disturbingly graceful.

He held out his hand, offering to help Y/N up.

She took it without really thinking, trying to figure out what could possibly be waiting for them at the royal palace.

The walk was filled with silence.

Little did Y/N know that Bucky was pretty sure what – or rather, who – would be waiting for them with King T’Challa.

The guard led them to the landing dock without forewarning them. They just followed mindlessly.

Someone with dirty blonde and shaggy hair was talking to T’Challa, with his back to them.

Y/N squinted.

T’Challa meeting her gaze made the stranger’s back tense and stop talking.

He turned around and Y/N stopped in her tracks.

Steve looked like a different person. For the first time since Y/N knew him, he had a beard. His hair was longer than she’d ever seen it. Somehow he looked bigger, but she doubted that was a actual possibility.

While Y/N’s eyes widened in shock and – was it fear? – Steve looked like his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

Then his eyes shifted between her and Bucky. He hadn’t expected his best friend to be at Y/N’s side when he saw her again.

Without even realizing what she was doing, Y/N took a quick and big step backward. It caused her to run into Bucky’s chest.

“It’s OK, kid.” Bucky whispered to her reassuringly.

The interaction didn’t go amiss by Steve.

Y/N was breathing heavily, convinced she was about to have a panic attack at any moment. The shock of it all was doing nothing for her sleep deprivation. Her emotions were all over the place. She was in no state to be able to handle this.

“Figured you’d be sleeping by the time I got here,” Steve finally broke the silence.

Of all the first things to say to Y/N, Steve knew that shouldn’t been it. But he lost all composure.

Y/N stared at him for a moment, still trying to process if she was starting to imagine things. It wasn’t uncommon for people with insomnia.

But then something snapped within her.

“So you were planning on leaving before I could see you,” she accused.

Steve blinked, surprised by the animosity of both her words and tone.

But before anyone else could say anything, Y/N turned on her heels and fled.

“Y/N, wait!” Bucky called after her, taking a step in her direction.

But he had learned his lesson and let her run.

T’Chall cleared his throat. “I will…let you speak amongst yourselves.” Then he looked at Steve. “I have prepared a room for you, Captain. The guard will show you to it when you are ready. Goodnight.”

Steve gave a nod in thanks, and he and Bucky watched the King leave them.

“She hates me,” Steve whispered the moment they were alone.

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

Chapter 17

So, I’ve had a shit couple of days. I also haven’t been inspired or motivated to write. I’m honestly shocked I was even able to write this chapter in a somewhat timely matter. It would make me very happy if you guys commented or just shared your thoughts and reactions. :) Thanks

#non-sequential series #non-sequential chapter 16 #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers series #steve rogers fic #steve rogers reader insert #bucky x reader #bucky fic #bucky x reader x steve #steve x reader x bucky #marvel fic #steve rogers angst #steve rogers fluff #captain america x reader #captain america reader insert #non-sequential

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themurphyzone · 4 years

Text

PatB Oneshot: We’re Just Mice

A/N: This is my first time writing for Pinky and the Brain! I was inspired after reading skimmingsurface’s and SylviaW1991’s fics because their characterizations are just phenomenal. Hope you enjoy!

FFN, A03

They liked torturing him with aggravating experiments. Another insipid maze that Brain could navigate with his eyes closed. The only deviation from the norm was that a normal mouse had been selected to run the maze with him instead of Pinky.

There wasn’t much of a difference between Pinky and a normal mouse’s usual finishing times though.

The lab tech roughly deposited Brain and the other mouse at the start of the maze, then rushed off to chat with a female coworker. Several mounted video cameras were stationed at the junctions, but the lights along their sides remained off.

They weren’t being observed and there would be no proper recordings either. The tech would have to falsify his results. It was unprofessionalism to the highest degree.

“A complete waste of time,” Brain grumbled. He itched to double-check his calculations in time for tonight’s plan. His estimations needed to be flawless, otherwise it could prove to be their downfall when he used humanity’s desire to protect endangered species against them.

“Come, Pinky,” he called out of habit, not fully expecting Pinky to follow him. His wayward associate would inevitably find the ceiling fascinating and stray off the correct path.

His words were met with a feeble squeak, and Brain suddenly found it disconcerting to be in a maze where he wouldn’t hear Pinky’s strange verbal patterns. Perhaps he was relying too much on muscle memory. The other mouse sniffed the air and shuffled away, disappearing around a corner.

Brain headed in the opposite direction. He knew better than to rely on the cheese scent, which would disappear in a few minutes once his nose became desensitized to it. If Pinky were here, he’d be able to identify the type of cheese by smell alone. Brain only knew how to scent rotten cheese because Pinky would ingest it without regard for potential food poisoning.

Pinky, Pinky, Pinky. He still managed to be an annoyance even without his physical presence!

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Brain muttered, though the phrase didn’t seem applicable when Pinky was involved. “Concentrate on the plan.”

First, the emotional story. He and Pinky would appeal to the National Wildlife Federation and present themselves as the last of the mus musculus intelligentus subspecies. They’d narrowly escaped being crushed under a bulldozer tearing down the forests of Northern California at ages too young to be separated from their parents. Banding together to survive, they taught themselves how to forage until a scientist caught them in a trap for research. They were taken to ACME Labs and genetically enhanced after enduring numerous cruel experiments. Finally, they decided to use their newfound ability to communicate with humans and share their story.

Once those seeds were planted, he’d allow their story to be circulated across The New York Times, National Geographic, and all the other major news and magazine organizations. Humans would be on their knees, begging to see the famous mus musculus intelligentus duo!

Then Brain would reveal the final stage: demand justice from the United Nations for the wrongs done to their species. And the only justice he’d accept was in the form of being crowned world leader. He wouldn’t settle for anything less.

Perhaps he’d create a labyrinth designed to stimulate people’s minds once he was ruler. He could easily create a far better maze than the ones he was forced to endure.

The pathways were predictable as always. It only took one left turn and two more rights before he reached the end of the maze. The two cheese balls weren’t attached to any electrical wires this time, but Brain disliked eating food used as an incentive for completing a task. He was a sentient creature and would never lower himself to baser instincts.

He couldn’t help but entertain the idea of smuggling one of the cheese balls back to the cage. Pinky would be exuberant and prattle on about how it was the best cheese he’d eaten in his life even though he ate cheese whenever it was available to him.

Brain quickly pushed that image out of his mind. Normal food pellets didn’t have much nutritional value. Pinky was just eating an adequate source of calcium. It was vital to keep his energy level up so he could participate in their quests for world domination.

He settled against the cardboard wall, resigning himself to being stuck until the scientists clocked out for the day. Assuming someone bothered to remove him from the maze, of course. Not that he’d have any trouble finding his own way out.

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium,” Brain recited. He had to occupy his mind somehow. His current environment was unsuitable for inspiring plans.

He’d just gotten to bismuth on his second recitation of the periodic table when he heard the angry footfalls. A livid red face loomed above him, and Brain only had a split second to recognize the incompetent lab tech before a sweaty hand seized his entire head and jerked him upward.

Brain twisted in the man’s vicegrip, attempting to bite the thumb so he could make his displeasure known. But his teeth snapped at empty air instead, his body slamming into a hard counter. Slightly dazed, Brain took a moment to rub his temples, clearing the black spots in his peripheral vision.

An irritatingly familiar cry of “narf” brought his senses back completely, just in time to see the normal mouse dangling by its tail, oddly limp and quiet in the lab tech’s hand.

The lab tech stomped over to a wastebasket and dropped the mouse into the plastic lining below. The mouse’s head flopped at an angle that shouldn’t have been possible with its anatomy.

Brain gripped the edge of the countertop as the lab tech threw scrap paper over the mouse’s unmoving body.

It was dead from a broken neck, a barbaric and senseless murder that would receive no justice.

The lab tech retreated into a different section of the lab, as if he hadn’t just committed an act of animal cruelty.

And a heartbroken sob from across the room told Brain he hadn’t been the only witness.

O – O – O – O – O

“Don’t get too attached. That one’s getting inoculated with a virus tomorrow.”

“Useful as snake food, not much else.”

“They’re just mice. We can always get more.”

The murderer had gone home. The other scientists had clocked out hours ago, unaware of the dead mouse buried in a heap of scrap paper without a shred of dignity.

Brain clutched the pencil, writing out a series of linear equations and engrossing himself in the familiar letters and numbers.

Equations were simple. Logical questions with logical solutions. Patterns that were set, established, and unable to be proven wrong.

Numbers didn’t have emotions.

Which was precisely the reason Brain wanted to deal with numbers before he had to deal with the living antithesis to logic and objectivity.

But nightfall was approaching fast, the last of the sun’s rays disappearing over the horizon. He couldn’t waste more time thinking about the corpse of a rodent he never knew.

Unlock the cage. Collect Pinky. Review plan. Bop Pinky for interrupting explanation. Implement plan.

Brain mentally repeated the simple steps as he retrieved his notebook and a paperclip, ignoring how he couldn’t hear his cagemate running on the squeaky wheel. He usually told Pinky to be quiet several times by now. But there hadn’t been a reason to say it once tonight.

He was annoyed by both the presence and absence of Pinky’s background noise, and the paradox confused and bothered him.

Brain approached the cage with his paperclip. Pinky’s ear twitched, but his gaze remained on the small garbage bin.

Pinky had the perfect vantage point to see everything in the room. His posture was hunched, his usual cheer replaced by an unnatural melancholic demeanor.

Brain was supposed to be the melancholy one. Never Pinky. That wasn’t how their friend…ahem, associative relationship worked.

Forcing himself to think about the plan, Brain straightened one end of the paperclip and jammed it into the keyhole, carefully listening for the soft click.

“Pinky,” Brain called as the cage door swung open. “It’s time to go over tonight’s plan.”

Pinky jumped, a hand thrown over his chest in shock. His blue eyes were round and shiny with tears, the fur around his cheeks damp.

His appearance took Brain aback too, and they stared at each other for an excruciatingly long time.

After what seemed like an eternity, Pinky finally broke the silence with an agonizing wail, throwing himself at Brain at a speed that even light would’ve envied.

“Ba-Brain! I thought you were a goner!” Pinky cried, winding his lanky body around Brain and clinging so tightly that it felt like he was being crushed by a furry boa constrictor. Tears spilled onto Brain’s head, and he quickly flattened his ears so the moisture didn’t slide into his auditory canals. “That…that mean ol’ techie was super mad and it wasn’t the fun fun silly-willy type of mad either! Layla told him no, and he said she owed him cause he helped her carry stuff and then the girls walked out all huffy. Then he stomped around for a while and plucked you and the other mouse up like spring chickens. The other mouse’s head flip-flopped all over the place. Poit, if my head did that I would be dizzier than a whirlywind!”

Pinky’s ramble dissolved into syllables one could only find in a Scrabble dictionary. Realizing Pinky had a sort of loose grasp on the situation but was barely coherent, Brain decided he needed to take control now before the blubbering proved too much.

He glanced at his notebook, the numbered steps open and inviting, but he’d never hammer his plan through Pinky’s genetically modified skull in his current emotional state.

“Pinky, cease your babbling this instant or I shall be forced to hurt you,” Brain managed to choke out despite Pinky’s iron grip on his entire body. Slowly, Pinky released him, but kept close. Brain inhaled deeply, his lungs screaming for precious oxygen. “Just for the record, your head can’t reproduce those motions and should never be capable of it while you breathe.”

Pinky blinked. “Were we recording?”

Brain sighed, grabbing Pinky’s nose and tugging him down so that they were eye level. “I was preoccupied in the maze and my surroundings prevented me from having the perspective you had. I want you to start from the top. And please try to be more coherent this time.”

“More confetti this time, got it,” Pinky nodded. “Well, the techie plopped you in the maze with the other mouse and zoomed right outta there when Layla walked by.”

“The new hire?” Brain asked. It was rare for seasoned employees to take interest in rookies, which contributed to the lab’s high turnover rate.

“Narf, that’s her! It’s so lovely of her to clean out our cage!” Pinky exclaimed. And it was even rarer to find employees who had a tiny notion for a lab animal’s living conditions. Most people just wanted their paychecks.

“At the cost of our sleep and my plans,” Brain muttered. Layla didn’t pick them up by their tails, an unusual trait for an ACME employee, but he still disliked how she came in early and disrupted his sleep and brainstorming sessions for new plans. Besides, Pinky did a perfectly adequate job of keeping their cage tidy. He didn’t require assistance from humans. “Continue.”

“He gave her a rose, but it was smooshy and plastic-y,” Pinky’s nose wrinkled. “Must’ve sat down on it too. Said he liked her and wanted a date. Bit old for her if you ask me.”

Brain turned away from Pinky, fixing his gaze on the wall above that accursed wastebasket. “And she said no. Then he lost his temper,” he finished, his own anger threatening to spill over. But he pushed it back. Not yet. Put the events in chronological order first.

“They yelled an awful lot, Brain,” Pinky whimpered. “I could hear them over here, clear as egg yolk. I couldn’t hear my wheel squeak, and you know how loud my wheel squeaks. Layla was crying awfully hard and a bunch of the women had to help her leave. Didn’t you hear them?”

It was an honest question, but Brain didn’t want to answer. Had he really been so focused on taking over the world that he never noticed how this entire mess built up in the first place?

“He snapped that mouse’s neck,” Brain said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “And killed him. Because he couldn’t accept her refusal.”

By some stroke of dumb luck, Pinky made it out unscathed.

But it could’ve been Pinky…

It could’ve easily been Pinky.

“Layla’s favorite mouse in the whole wide lab,” Pinky whispered, his voice breaking. “She called him Basil. And she doesn’t know he’s…you know.”

Brain didn’t reply, turning his attention to his notebook instead. He had to focus on the plan now. And when he ruled the world, he’d have the power to enact laws and reform entire systems to prevent further desecrations and injustices from ever happening again.

And then he remembered the entire foundation for the plan.

Step One: Send message to the National Wildlife Federation. Appeal to pathos. Example opening statement: “We’re just mice. The last of the mus musculus intelligentus subspecies. We watched our brethren die because of human activity.”

Revise as needed.

Brain’s vision blurred, the paper crinkling in his hands. Someone’s voice called to him, but they would’ve had better luck speaking through a soundless vacuum.

We’re just mice.

Disposable living models to humans. Cosmic playthings to the universe.

We’re just mice.

Given sentience and no chance to make a difference in the world.

We’re just mice.

Whose minds and hearts would waste away, as if they never existed at all.

O – O – O – O – O

Brain didn’t remember what happened next. One moment he was reading the plan, the next he was in Pinky’s warm embrace, surrounded by a pile of shredded paper.

One of Pinky’s hands pressed Brain’s head to his heart, the fast yet strong thump-thump-thump resounding and soothing to his desperate mind. The other hand rubbed gentle circles into Brain’s back.

Pinky’s chest was damp, but he didn’t seem to care. He hummed a little tune, keeping his eyes tilted up to prevent his own glistening tears from falling.

“Poit. You ripped up your own plan thingy,” Pinky said, his voice trembling. “And you were angry crying. That mean techie hurt you, Brain. You can get madsad all you want. I’ll be here.”

Brain pressed his face into Pinky’s chest, an act he would consider mortifying under normal circumstances, yet his irrational side won out. “We’re just mice,” he said, pointedly ignoring Pinky’s uncomfortable observations on his emotions. “We hardly matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Pinky’s mouth curled into an obstinate pout. “You matter to me. You’re the smartest mouse I know. The smartest smartie candy ever.”

The words were oddly phrased, but sincere. Brain began to feel uncomfortably warm, and he stepped away before his emotions started making his body react in strange ways.

“I…appreciate your assistance, Pinky,” Brain admitted. “But tonight’s plan isn’t feasible. Humans don’t care enough to preserve our species’ dignity, last living individuals or not.”

“Layla cares,” Pinky replied. “She’ll cry when she finds Basil tomorrow morning. And she won’t stop being sad. I wish we could help her not be sad anymore, Brain.”

Brain shook his head. “There’s only so much you’re capable of, Pinky. She might reconsider her employment here because of the lab tech’s actions. There’s a high probability we may never see her again.”

He wouldn’t be accomplishing much tonight. But Brain didn’t want to sleep yet. Instead he gathered the shredded paper, keeping the written words face down so he didn’t have to see the heavy reminders of his mortality.

He was almost through with his self-appointed task when he spotted Pinky drawing closer to the wastebasket. There was a reverence in Pinky’s movements as he balanced on his toes, long arms reaching towards the rim. Crumpled paper spilled out as Pinky carefully tipped over the wastebasket.

Brain dropped the scraps of his plan, not caring if he kicked them off the counter as he rushed over to Pinky. Only Pinky would be stupid enough to believe there was something they could do in this awful mess.

Pinky tossed aside a forgotten report, uncovering the corpse, which somehow seemed bigger when he’d run the maze alongside Brain.

The dead mouse was named Basil, according to Pinky. Not a letter and number designation, or a colorful string of profanity when someone tried to use uncooperative animals in their experiments, but a real name.

Pinky dragged the lower half of Basil’s body out of the wastebasket, panting heavily since Basil’s stiffened paws scraped against the floor and required more exertion to move. Basil’s neck wasn’t flopping anymore, but it was locked into a crooked, unnatural angle.

“He’s stiff, Brain,” Pinky said, his voice hitching as he tried to move one paw into a more comfortable position. “How do we help him relax?”

Unwilling to explain the concept of rigor mortis to Pinky, Brain decided to change the subject. “What are you doing, Pinky?”

“He oughta be comfy,” Pinky said, a tear slipping down his face. A silent sob wracked his body, but Pinky somehow held on. “The bin isn’t a nice place to rest. It’s too prickly. And he’ll wind up in the big stinky trash mountain. He should sleep somewhere nice.”

Brain didn’t want to admit it, but Pinky was right. Basil would be thrown into a garbage truck and taken to a landfill to rot in the next few days if they left his body here. Or someone who took contamination procedures seriously would find Basil and throw him into a biohazard bag, like he was just another leftover bacteria culture.

Both disposal methods were unsettling, to say the least.

“There’s a beautiful tree outside,” Pinky continued. “With roots big enough to play hide and seek under. Do you think he’d like that, Brain?”

Basil wouldn’t like anything anymore. He was dead.

But Brain’s curt reply died on his tongue when he found his companion watching him with hopeful eyes, looking at him like he held all of life’s answers in his hands.

“He’d appreciate it very much, Pinky.”

O – O – O – O – O

Basil was laid to rest in a cushioned jewelry box. Pinky wrote the name on the lid in permanent Sharpie. He insisted on it. Brain let him, though it resulted in the top being covered in misspellings. But Pinky’s determination shone through.

They sealed the box shut with tape, protecting the body from predators and other forms of harm. Brain made sure to wind the tape around several times, knowing Pinky would be distraught if something managed to pry it open and damage Basil.

Pinky cried during the entire journey to the tree, but he refused to relinquish his hold on the box.

There was a hollow where the trunk connected to the roots. Large enough for Pinky to squeeze himself and the box through, but small enough that nobody else would be able to disturb Basil’s final resting place. They’d have to cut down the tree for that, which hopefully wouldn’t happen for a very long time.

Brain waited outside the hollow, underneath the vast canopy of the night sky. He didn’t look to the stars, as he was prone to do on some nights when he needed to think for a while. There would be plenty of opportunities for him to contemplate his existence in the future.

Pinky crawled out of the hollow, his fur caked with dirt, leaves, and tears. Brain brushed a few leaves off Pinky’s fur, letting them flutter gently to the ground.

“Don’t worry, Brain,” Pinky said, as if Brain was the emotional wreck who required comforting. “The streets are paved with cheese in heaven.”

“How unsanitary,” Brain muttered.

Pinky giggled, a tiny one that was probably inappropriate for the occasion, but it was enough. He wanted to stay out for a while longer, but Brain had something else he wanted to do before the night was over.

They cleaned themselves in the sink, then Pinky left to make tea with honey and lemon. After an emotional trainwreck of the day and night, Brain was looking forward to a thimble to settle his nerves.

In the meantime, he drew up the termination papers.

Aggression not conducive for safe workplace.

The humans would believe it was for harassment, which suited Brain just fine. He refused to let that neanderthal of a lab tech anywhere near Pinky.

He rejoined Pinky on the counter. There were two steaming hot thimbles and several torn sticky notes next to him.

“Layla should know,” Pinky said, tongue sticking out as he attempted to spell ‘tree’.

“Keep it anonymous,” Brain replied.

But he transcribed the message between sips of tea anyway.

Pinky didn’t know Layla on a personal level. He would gain no reward, reap no benefits from his actions, yet her feelings mattered to him.

Pinky never shared a cage with Basil, never knew him when he was alive either. Even deceased, Basil’s comfort mattered to him.

And Pinky had proven time and time again that Brain mattered to him. Brain could forget, but Pinky never would.

Just a mouse, but an important mouse who deserved the world.

A/N: When I was in middle school, I went to a summer camp. At some point, the boys’ cabin decided to stuff a dead mouse into one of those long Pringles cans and leave it outside of the girls’ cabin. I was the first to find it, though I think I just left the can where I found it. I felt pretty bad for the mouse though.

I was almost tempted to use that in the story, but poor little Basil suffered enough.

Can you tell I love these two by how much I make them cry?

#pinky and the brain #fanfiction #oneshot

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oveliagirlhaditright · 4 years

Text

Strelitzia learns that her love, Player, is the Master of Masters and then has to make a decision about it.

Forgiveness

Strelitzia had fallen in love with the Master of Masters. And at first, that had felt like a betrayal since that man had pretty much killed her love, Player… but then she'd realized they were one in the same.

"How are you the Master of Masters?!" Strelitzia demanded of him when she stormed into his study one day, wondering if he had partly planned her death to further his plans... even though she loved him. "How does that make sense at al-"

"Because of time travel and paradox stuff. Strelitzia,” he had answered in a way that was somehow childish, and not at all like the man who had played with their lives. It was the voice of the person she loved. “My face and gender always used to change. And I wondered why... was I just imagining it, or did other people see me that way, too? When I found out that answer… well, let’s just say I get why I had to wear this hood for so long. Basically, everyone else saw what they wanted me to be—as one thing—but I saw all of the different possibilities for myself.”

And this instantly broke Strelitzia’s heart… because what if he was essentially saying that she fell in love didn’t exist, but was just someone she’d made up in her head? But as the woman looked at all the vials around her, she tried to be strong—like a plant still flowering even amidst harsh weather. "And so you became evil? You, who had less reason to do so than many of us from that era, because you knew what your Nightmare Chirithy wrought?"

But then Player tried to explain. Because, right… he’d talked about paradoxes, hadn’t he? There was a time where he and the Master of Masters had existed simultaneously… and was there just a day that Player’s mind had gone into the Master’s body and he’d then had to try and fix what he’d done? That’s what Strelitzia thought he was trying to explain now, as he said: "Strelitzia, understand. I... essentially had another version of me and they were going to destroy the world. And strangely, the only way to save the day was to step in and only slightly alter things from that plan."

…Strelitzia didn’t know if she bought that explanation—she didn’t know if she could buy any of this, or wanted to—so she bolted from the too sterile room before she could give it too much more thought.

…

Despite the fact that Strelitzia had never met the Player in the first years that they had lived, she finally had been able to when they were transported to the future.

And at first, Strelitzia hadn't been able to believe it was her loved one when she came across him. Because she'd been certain he had to be dead… After all, what were the chances that they would both find their way here? Especially since she'd heard that Player had started using darkness some... and in a certain someone's plan where darkness wasn't allowed, she didn't think that person would have a lot of longevity.

She, of course, hadn't known at the time, that it was Player's own plan, so of course he'd make an exception for herself.

...But Strelitzia didn't want to dwell on negative thoughts right now, as she swung on a swing as she tried to decide what to do with her life. No. Because their first days together had been wonderful.

Player had found her—and it had been about that time, that she'd nearly fainted in shock: when she’d had to accept that it was him—and he'd told her that friends of his had informed him of her and how she'd wanted to meet him.

And Strelitzia had wanted to refuse, of course, because he'd been implying (the truth) that she'd had a crush on a stranger, and that was creepy... but then he'd handed Strelitzia flowers and asked her out, and she was lost.

…

Their date had been lovely. After listening to her new friends, Sora and the gang, Strelitzia had suggested that she and Player go to the bistro in Twilight Town, and she hadn’t regretted that decision in the slightest. She’d had French cuisine before—when she’d ended up in a world connected to Verum Rex—but it was nothing compared with what Little Chef could whip up.

And looking back on it now—now that Strelitzia was aware that Player was the Master of Masters—she was kind of taken aback that the dark-hearted man hadn’t mentioned the power of darkness at all during their dinner. But he hadn’t a word of it. Instead, Strelitzia had mentioned that she was trying to create a blue flower, and Player had said he’d always loved the blue of Jasmine’s clothes—so maybe she should try for that shade—even though it was weird to think about her existing in this time, when they’d met her a hundred years ago, and Strelitzia had concurred.

They’d then rounded out the evening by talking about how they needed to teach the Moogles of this era to better upgrade Keyblades, and had decided that that was what their second date would be… if the Moogles would allow it.

But they hadn’t had that second date. Because that very night, Strelitzia had learned the truth about Player.

Sora… he had been in the Black Box, as the Master of Masters had put “the world’s hope” there, and that was where everyone had ended up finding him. But since the Black Box wasn’t supposed to be used maliciously, it kept a record of who put new hopes into the box in case justice needed to be brought down upon them. And Strelitzia had seen Player in all of his glory… in the Master of Master’s robes and using gestures like she’d seen that mean use before (gestures he must have fought against when he played the average-Joe role of Player now), before dropping Sora into the Box.

So that was when Strelitzia had confronted Player… but she’d somewhat chickened out of that. So, she went a second time… but that hadn’t exactly gone like she thought it would, because he’d somehow made it seem like to her… that he was actually good—doing things for the world—and hadn’t tried to hurt anyone at all, and maybe even hadn’t done so.

And while part of her had wanted to run again then, she also realized she needed more time with him to figure it all was. So, she’d suggested to the man, as he tried to change the color of chemicals for fun, that they should go on their second date.

And that’s where they were now. With angry Moogles, who could even back that up. And it was going fine. More than fine. And Strelitzia thought she may have been talking to Player and not the Master of Masters. And was it wrong to think she might have been falling in love again?

Eventually—after they’d convinced a Moogle to give new Keyblades lean more towards Power, Magic, or Speed—he pulled her to the side and said, "I'm not a bad person, Strelitzia. I just fixed what my... Other started. And I still say I didn't hurt the world. I maybe even helped it. And I brought Sora back to the world after he died, and gave the world hope again that way."

And Strelitzia believed him. And while it might have been easy to get hung-up on wanting him to pay for what he’d done—because one just had to assume he’d done something wrong with his power… but wasn’t she learning he hadn’t?--she'd forgiven her killer for his deceptions, hadn't she? So Strelitzia would give Player this chance that she'd always wanted. And she kissed his cheek to let him know… and he blushed. Something to her, that was not Master of Masters-like at all.

Author’s Note: Kind of rushed, I know. But I needed to get something out as close to June 9th as possible.

So… my sister was born/died on June 9th. I never knew her, as she was born before me, but this year I’ve decided that maybe I should commemorate her birthday somehow (and maybe someday, she can read these in Heaven, or something, and know I thought of her. Maybe she’s even doing so now). And I’ve decided to write about redheads each time, as for some reason I always tend to think she would had been a redhead for some reason… even though she probably wouldn’t have been at all. XD

The Player is MoM thing was just a semi-plot I needed for this story, that’s somewhat fun to explore even though I don’t believe it. Yep.

#fanfiction #my work #mine #Shanna writes #my writing #playerlitzia #playerstrelitzia #oneshot #future fic #au #player is the master of masters au I guess #male player #player with the name player #canon #canon au #non-evil master of masters

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