#counting the peoples party. truly. i feel like we’re just pretending they don’t exist in the hopes they’ll go away

[werewolfpdfs]

sometimes im like since i lost access to local cable news im so uninformed but then i talk to some of my friends here and they couldn’t name the primary 3/4 political parties of canada. hello

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Not Enough

has anyone else just wanted Danny to go completely fucking feral at Dash? anyone?

yeah me too

this is some truly self-indulgent shit y'all

"Hey Fenton!"

Danny slammed his locker shut, sighing as Dash clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

"I'm throwin' a huge ass Halloween party this weekend, ghosts are all about Halloween right? You should totally come!"

It wasn't the first party Danny had been invited to since being outed as Phantom, but somehow Dash didn't seem to get the hint that he wasn't even remotely interested.

"No." Danny snapped, he threw his bag over his shoulder and turned his back on Dash, walking away without another word.

"What's your problem?"

Danny stopped, turning back around with a face of utter disdain.

"Excuse me?"

"I've been trying to be nice, but all you do is just brush me off! Like you can't even pretend to be busy or something?"

Danny stared, mouth halfway open as he tried to find the words to respond.

"Are you actually serious?" he finally choked out, almost too bewildered to be angry.

Almost.

"You're not still mad about all that stuff from before right?" Dash asked. "Like, I don't even do that shit anymore, it's over."

"Is it?" Danny's eyes flashed brightly and Dash took a half step back as the air went cold. "Because I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday that I pulled Mikey out of his locker."

"Well, yeah but that was Mikey." Dash laughed. "C'mon man, I wouldn't do that to you. We're totally cool now, so why you gotta keep blowing me off? You talk to Kwan like it's not big deal, and he used to wail on you all the time!"

Danny took a deep, slow breath, then another.

"Have you considered that maybe it's because I don't like you?" Danny said through gritted teeth.

Dash huffed, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the ground.

"Look, I get it, I was a jerk, but it's over! I'm actually trying to be nice, now you're the one being an asshole."

Danny looked as though he'd been slapped.

"You're such a fucking idiot Dash." Said Danny, his voice trembling with barely restrained rage. "You can't just treat someone like shit every single day for two years and then expect them to get over it because you invited them to a few parties."

"Then how come Kwan gets to hang out with you?" Dash could feel his face heating up. "You're just gonna let him off the hook? That's not fair!"

"HE APOLOGISED!"

In one thunderous moment, every locker in the hallway slammed open, sending papers and books flying across the floor. The few students still packing up their things got the fuck out of dodge, whether this was a ghost thing or a Fenton thing (was there even a difference at this point?) they wanted no part of it.

Dash couldn't move, his feet felt heavy, he wasn't entirely sure if Danny had done something to him with his ghost powers, or if he was just afraid.

Because he was certainly afraid.

Even after everyone found out, Danny still didn't use his powers at school unless it was a ghost emergency. He didn't use them for pranks, didn't use them to get even, didn't even use them to show off.

But he was sure as hell using them now, and Dash suddenly realised why he was always holding himself back.

He was terrifying.

Danny took a few steps forward, stopping barely an arm's length away from where Dash was rooted to the spot, trembling.

"Kwan apologised to me." He said, quietly this time. "He apologised to my friends, he even apologised to some other kids, and when I told him that I wasn't ready to forgive him, he accepted that and left me alone until I was ready to talk to him again."

Dash wanted to speak, but he couldn't seem to make his brain form the words he needed, it was too busy buzzing with danger run danger get out run run RUN.

"You made every single day of my life miserable for two whole fucking years, and that isn't even counting the bullshit you pulled in middle school. How do you feel right now Dash? Does it scare you to be around me? Does it scare you to be at the mercy of someone that you know damn well can hurt you?" Danny leant in, grabbing a fistful of letterman jacket. "I hope it does, because now maybe you'll have an idea what it was like for me going to school every fucking day knowing that you would be there, ready and waiting to hurt me. Every single FUCKING day."

Dash found himself being thrown backwards, his feet finally able to move again as he caught himself.

"I'm s-sor-sorry." he mumbled, his lips felt numb and tingly and his head swam with panic as he struggled to get the words out. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Are you?" Danny's voice cracked, his face wasn't twisted in rage anymore, his eyes were blue once again, and shining with tears. "Are you really sorry for hurting me? Or are you just sorry that the guy you were beating the shit out of turned out to be Phantom?"

"I didn't... I didn't know." Dash gasped out, he could barely hear his own words, all he could hear was his own heart beating loudly in his ears as he struggled to draw in breath. "I didn't know it was like that, I just thought-"

Thought what? What had he thought? That he wasn't really hurting anyone? That it wasn't that big a deal?

No, he hadn't thought that, because he hadn't thought at all.

"And you're gonna stand here and tell me I'm an asshole." Danny was almost sobbing as he raggedly spat out each word. "Because I won't forgive you for something you never even apologised for. This is the first time you even acknowledged that you were an absolute jerk to me, and you followed it up by demanding that I just get over it."

Dash stared down at the floor, it sounded terrible when Danny put it like that.

"I wasn't... demanding anything." he said, he was embarrassed by how whiny he sounded. "I was just trying to make it up to you, I was trying, I just thought... it's not fair that I can't have second chance. I was trying so hard and all I wanted was a second chance-"

"I DON'T CARE." Danny's eyes were screwed up tight, but it didn't stop the tears of fury from pouring down his cheeks, his voice so shredded with pain it was barely recognisable. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT. I DON'T OWE YOU A SECOND CHANCE. I DON'T OWE YOU ANYTHING. YOU FUCKED ME UP AND YOU. CAN'T. FIX IT."

Dash didn't know what to do. Danny was openly sobbing, his breaths came out in grunts as he couldn't hold the rage and misery back.

He was still standing within arm's reach, Dash cautiously put out a hand, to comfort him? He wasn't sure, but he barely brushed Danny's shoulder before Dash found himself spinning violently and his cheekbone exploded with sudden pain as he hit the floor. Cold hands drew away from him roughly.

"DON'T TOUCH ME." Danny screamed. "DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN."

Dash watched as Danny grabbed his backpack and his footsteps disappeared down the hall.

It was over, just like that it was over.

Dash sat up and touched his face, he wasn't bleeding but he knew it would bruise pretty bad. It hurt, he would be squinting through one eye for a few days.

Danny could have done this to him at any time, he could have done it to him every day if he wanted, and maybe he would, now that he'd done it once.

The thought made Dash feel cold as dread pooled in his stomach.

The next day Dash told people he'd gotten his black eye from playing football, his team knew it wasn't true, but they didn't ask. He kept his eye out for Danny, wondering if he would pop up invisibly and knock him off his feet, or drag him through the floor, or hit him when nobody was looking.

He clung to Kwan's side all day, afraid to be alone.

Phantom could be anywhere, he could get him anywhere, if he wanted to hurt Dash nobody would be able to stop him.

Nobody had been able to stop Dash, and he didn't even have superpowers.

But in the end, nothing happened.

Dash went through the day untouched. Danny didn't even look his way. Not once. He just acted like yesterday never happened.

But it did happen, Dash still had the bruise on his cheek, and the terror set deep in his bones.

In the following days, weeks, months, Danny still never touched him, never looked at him, never talked to him. Dash realised that Danny probably wasn't going to do anything else after all, that maybe he hadn't even meant to hurt him in the first place.

He was a hero after all, he protected people, even people he didn't like. The only time he had ever come into contact with Dash again was to haul him out of the way of a ghost, and he did so with the same care as he would with anyone else.

Danny wasn't like him, he didn't gloat about hurting him, he didn't revel in the fact that Dash was scared of him. He just went about his day, acting for all the world like Dash didn't even exist.

Dash never gave him a true apology, it was clear Danny didn't want one, it was far too late for that.

It left Dash with a sick feeling of unfulfillment. He understood now what Danny had been going through, the pain, the terror, he wanted Danny to know that he was truly sorry, that he really had changed this time.

But he couldn't, because forcing an unwanted apology on him would just make Dash the asshole all over again, he was trying to steal a forgiveness that he could never have.

So he had to find his closure somewhere else.

He stopped picking on Mikey, and Nathan, and all of the other nerds he frequently hassled. He even tried apologising to them, some forgave him, others didn't, and he had to be okay with that. He struggled not to lash out, it still felt unfair, the world had always told him that you were supposed to forgive people when they apologised. It always happened that way on tv, in the cartoons he grew up watching. The mean kid would apologise, the other kids would forgive him, and they would all become friends.

He was realising that the real world was a whole lot more complicated than that, he didn't earn forgiveness just because apologising was hard, he was learning fast that he didn't earn any brownie points for taking responsibility for his actions. He was just doing what any decent person should.

It took him a while to come to terms with that, to stop being angry at people for not letting him make it up to them. For not letting him prove that he had changed.

All it took was to occasionally pass by Danny in the hallways for him to cool his jets and think more clearly. To remind him that he was the bad guy, he was the one who hurt people, that his victims did not owe him anything.

In his last year of school, he had found himself watching the juniors below him falling into the same behaviours, the same struggle for power and control. Pushing other kids around without so much as sparing a thought to how it made them feel.

After a lengthy chat with Mr Lancer, Dash was given permission to pull out younger students from detention one day a week. He would talk to them, ask about their lives, ask about their feelings. He would ask why they lashed out, why they thought it was okay to treat people that way. Most of them didn't have an answer, or simply refused to give one, but he would push, he wouldn't let them hide in ignorance like he did.

Some of them did feel guilt for the way they treated people, and they only needed someone they could talk to who could understand what they were going through, so they wouldn't take it out on whoever was around at the time.

Others would take more effort, they need a far stronger push in the right direction, they were defensive and combative, selfish and unapologetic.

Dash had been one of those kids, he knew they would be hard work, but he did his best. He couldn't help all of them, some were simply unwilling to change.

So he contacted the school-board, he pushed for better protection for students, more programs to help troubled kids, he volunteered to keep running his own counselling groups even after he graduated.

It still never felt like enough.

After graduation he turned down his favoured college to attend one closer to home so he could continue his volunteer work. He joined petitions and rallies for change across entire school districts, he spoke at other schools' anti-bullying campaigns. He'd attended enough of them in his own childhood that he knew they did next to nothing, but it gave him the opportunity to reach out to kids for one on one support.

He found more volunteers for his counselling groups, he helped people start them up in other local schools. It was a lot of work, especially when he was also juggling his college studies. He was taking a major in psychology, it was brutal, Dash had never been good at studying, but he'd decided that this was what he needed to do, this was important to him.

It still wasn't enough.

It would come at him in the night, as soon as he laid his head down on his pillow. He would see the faces of all the kids he hurt, it felt so much worse the older he got, they just looked younger and younger every time the memories came back to plague him.

He had beat the shit out of children. Kids who were the same age as the students he now counselled. He beat them until they were bloody or bruised, he shoved them into lockers, pulled pranks that humiliated them in front of the whole school, and he had laughed.

He'd laughed at their pain.

When the guilt weighed him down, he would begin searching for new programs to volunteer for, new petitions or rallies to get behind, always finding another way to help protect kids like Danny from kids like him.

And to protect kids like him from doing things that would one day haunt them.

He had spread himself thin across every school in the district, barely keeping afloat at college, but it wasn't enough.

It was never enough.

Kids still slipped through the cracks, schools were still too lenient, there were too many kids, not enough volunteers.

Casper High was holding another anti-bullying assembly. It had been a few years since Dash had attended one at his old school. This year they had excitedly announced that they'd even secured an appearance from Phantom himself.

Dash's blood ran cold, his hands shook as he went over his notes, he was slated to do his speech alongside Phantom's, they would be sharing the stage for a solid 75 minutes, barely a few feet from one another.

When Danny showed up he was already in Phantom form, Dash spotted him discussing emergency exit plans with one of the organisers in the event of a ghost attack.

He was so different from when they were in school.

He was tall, and broad, he stood with confidence and had a good natured charm to him. He was a hero, he was strong, he was brave. He could fight monsters ten times his size with a smirk and a witty one liner. He could take on anything, he wasn't afraid of anything.

He was a kid, running down a hallway, screaming words that still pierced through Dash's mind every time he saw the hero's face.

"DON'T TOUCH ME."

Dash's hands clenched around his notes, shaking so violently that they barely even looked like words.

"DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN."

"Dash?"

A deep voice cut through the chaos in Dash's mind as cold hands closed over his tremblings ones.

"It's good to see you again."

Phantom was smiling at him, his hands still closed around Dash's.

"Good... good to see you too." Dash mumbled, not able to meet the man's eyes.

Phantom paused before releasing Dash's hands.

"I've heard all about your work." Phantom grinned as Dash finally looked up and met his eyes.

"Yeah." he said, and then before his mind could catch up with his mouth, he blurted out, "I'm sorry, for everything."

Phantom's eyebrows rose for a moment, before he gave a gentle smile and clapped a hand on Dash's shoulder.

"I know." he said warmly. "Thank you."

They gave their speeches, Dash had told his story many times before, the victim that he'd pushed to breaking point, the boy whose words drove the change that made him the man he had become.

For the first time ever, that boy was listening.

After the assembly had packed up and the volunteers were heading home, it was Danny Fenton who approached Dash and asked if he wanted to go grab a beer together.

Dash thought it would be rather awkward, but Danny had plenty of experience socialising with the public, awkwardness slid right off him, and soon enough Dash found himself laughing alongside Danny as he told a story about the new misadventures of the Box Ghost.

He returned to his dorm that night, head still swimming from one too many beers, and he had the best sleep of his life.

He pulled back on some of his volunteer work, hunting for new people to take his place as he focused on college. He was falling far behind, but he would work hard to make his way back. As a volunteer he could only do so much, but with the right education and training, he could do so much more.

The guilt still haunted him, every so often when the pressure and the stress weighed heavy, it would creep back into his mind. It would probably never go away, not entirely, but at least now he had his closure.

Finally, it was enough.

[saladejin]

Admire | 07

Seokjin x Fem!Reader | arranged marriage!au, husband!Seokjin | Strangers to lovers, angst, self discovery, loneliness in luxury, touch starvation (eventual smut), eventual domestic fluff

Summary: You’d never needed anyone else. Growing up alone, living alone, existing alone. It all came naturally and effortlessly, quite like breathing. That was until your somewhat distant parents finally decided it was time to make good on a promise. One they’d made before you were even born.

Warnings: Things are getting a lil saucier

Word Count: 5k

A/N: Whew, finally we’re up to date. I FINALLY got around to re-editing and revamping this latest chapter, but once again I’m sorry for the delay on it. Now I can start focusing on my wips :))

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The driver bid you both a chaste farewell and soon you were making your way up to house both of you had grown used to sharing. These days, it was simply your safe space, a place you’d slowly begun to warm up to, where you could live and work peacefully in the unimposing presence of your husband, who worked equally as hard for his family.

This was your place to finally belong, the stupidly large mansion that could house ten more of you plus your family with ease, but alas it was still your mansion.

Our … mansion. 

You couldn’t recall the moment where you’d begun to think of it as a home rather than a house. In your mind, it wasn’t really the house itself, but rather the people who lived there that made it a place you could truly call home.

You looked over to Seokjin and suppressed a sigh of built up emotion. The man was currently bringing most of the bags inside without a hitch, making use of his broad shoulders and hauling weight as if he weren’t wielding enough hierarchical power to get it brought in for him by the driver. Watching the scene only reminded you of how much had changed during your time away. 

For one, Seokjin had shocked you with how easily he’d adapted to the different atmosphere and routine. There were no complaints from him about accommodation, food, or even the over-the-top rowdiness and friendliness of the company. He’d taken it all on board with a curiosity you honestly found adorable, and even adopted some of the various mannerisms. Watching him carrying all the luggage inside was just an example of his new way of living, one you chose to call ‘like a normal person’.

You were also growing closer somehow. The usually stoic man had opened up significantly, and you were discovering new things about him just as quickly as he discovered them himself. For instance, he found an enjoyment for cooking after helping some of the uncles with their traditional barbeque, he’d shown interest in acquiring a guitar for himself as soon as he could, and he was becoming more talkative as he began relaxing his hold on the professional barrier between you.

It was as if he was finally allowing himself to live the kind of life he always wanted. No luxurious parties, no expectations, no having to save face with every public outing. You were a messy mixture of nerves, uneasiness, and excitement at the prospect of getting to know Seokjin for who he was.

He had to discover who he was first, though.

“Dinner will be delivered soon.” His voice filtered out from the kitchen area distantly, and only then you realised you’d been standing in the front entrance in a daze. Lost in your thoughts like a fool. Even so, it was hard to miss the odd note hidden deep within his tired voice.

“Why do you sound disappointed? Is it not what you wanted?” you queried while leaving your bags at the front door for someone to collect later. You made your way into the living room with probing eyes, trying to find where his voice was coming from before spotting his black mop of hair scattered on the back of the lounge.

He didn’t respond at first, only met your gaze with his own investigative ones. You sat down heavily on the other lounge with a sharp exhale. Seokjin drummed his fingers against the leather while lifting one leg to cross over the other elegantly, and you knew he was just trying to avoid talking about what was on his mind.

“You can tell me, you know.” You rolled your eyes at his silence.

He ran both hands through his hair roughly and you almost felt breathless at how messy he’d made himself, like he’d just rolled out of bed. Considering you were both still in your casual clothing from the road trip, it was a sight that made your whole body tingle with a fondness you couldn’t explain. You were just beginning to see more of his hidden personality, and that made you happy in some indescribable way.

“I don’t know, I was hoping to actually try and cook something for once. Like hyung was telling me…”

“Oh? there’s that word again,” you chuckled, trying to ignore the happy swell in your chest after hearing that he wanted to try cooking the same things from a few nights ago, “and you can get the grill out tomorrow night if you want.”

“Hmm, I’ll see how I feel. Anyway, what word?” he asked while sitting back and continuing to run his hand through his hair lazily, expression puzzled. You felt so annoyed at the longing you felt to be the one doing it for him. You had been wondering what his silky looking tresses had felt like for the longest time.

“Is it ‘hyung’?” You smiled in embarrassment, mouthing out the word carefully to try and pronounce it in an acceptable manner at least, though you could never hope to sound fluent right off the bat. Seokjin’s eyes fell to you as the word left your lips, the small lifting of his cheeks being the only hint that he was trying to suppress his amusement. The way his cocoa coloured eyes sparkled at the sound of his native tongue made your heart squirm.

“It’s a good attempt, but no it’s pronounced more like ‘hyeong’. Try it.”

“Hyung.”

“Yeah, that’s … better.”

You hid your grin with the back of your hand, eyebrows shooting up at his unsure sounding feedback. He even managed to crack a tiny smirk of his own, his full lips making him look even more model-like under the soft lighting of your living room.

“Hey, how am I meant to get it perfect straight away? Besides, I forgot what it means already,” you huffed, and brought your legs to tuck comfortably underneath you.

“It’s just a term we use to refer to older males,” he explained, letting his head fall back against the seat slowly. Seeing his eyes fluttering to a close made you wonder how tired he must’ve been feeling. After spending so much time interacting with strangers, and driving, and pretending to be your husband, you supposed.

The jarring noise of the doorbell brought you to your feet, and you went to collect your dinner from the front door as Seokjin gave a quiet nod.

Now that he’s brought it up, I think I’d prefer a home cooked meal too.

“So, am I meant to call you ‘hyung’?” You laughed inwardly while making your way back to him. You were excited to learn more about him now that he was opening up and unfurling in front of your eyes.

He had to purse his lips slightly to avoid smiling again. “No, and please don’t. It would feel way too odd to hear that from you.”

“Oh.” Your heart cracked a little, thinking of course he wouldn’t want his foreign partner to try and so poorly imitate something such as his native language, something he considered close to his heart and home. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t think-”

“It’s okay, it’s just that Korean women don’t use ‘hyung’. If you are female and want to refer to an older male, or partner…” He seemed to hesitate, as if rethinking his decision to elaborate on the subject at all. “Then you can call m- you can use ‘oppa’.”

You swallowed a mouthful of steak before attempting to copy him. “Oppa?”

Seokjin blinked before giving you a tiny nod. Not a single second passed before he was focusing back on his food, the conversation apparently hitting a weird place for him.

“I don’t have to go around calling you that. It’s not like I’m trying to adopt another culture,” you clarified for him, noting how his shoulders seemed to relax at your gentle tone. “I only want to understand you better, Seokjin.”

His hands faltered in their movements to cut the tender steak on his plate. You didn’t catch any change in his expression, as expected, but his eyes gleamed with something you could only describe as appreciation. A few months ago, neither of you probably thought you’d end up sharing your ethnic differences with one another over dinner like this.

The house had always been so silent with just the two of you, and your mind kept thinking back to your old home where there were always maids, cooks and butlers milling about. It struck you as a little peculiar, so you decided to ask.

“Sorry to change the subject, but why is it that your mother requested there to be no live-in staff here?”

Seokjin continued to eat slowly but looked up with a thoughtful gleam in his eye. “I was confused too, but she always brushed it off. Something about family traditions requiring minimal interferences? I didn’t really get it since I’d never heard of said ‘tradition’, but I never really understood her methods anyway.”

Oh…

Your face burned as you understood what he was saying. It was almost laughable, how oblivious he was to his mother’s implications. The thought probably never crossed his mind that she could be referring to the two of you having sexual relations in some way. Well, why should the thought cross his mind?

This was never meant to be anything more than a fake relationship, an array of masks worn only to fool them into believing it was true. It was easy to understand why his mother would think accordingly. You had been trying to trick her, but perhaps you’d been just a little too convincing.

“Yeah, weird huh?” You cleared your throat, offering to take up his dish as you both finished off the meals. The case of the understaffing was forgotten as you moved back to where your husband was half sprawled on the couch, but now the quiet hum of the television accompanied the room and you were thankful to have something filling the silence. Even if it was something was simple as slightly muffled voices from the people on the big screen.

You plonked back down on the leather and felt relaxation crawl up your spine in the best way. You were slowly beginning to believe that there was almost nothing better than this. Spending a night at home with someone you cared about, watching a movie or TV show, nice and warm and comfortable.

You briefly registered that in your current position, Seokjin’s arm that’d been outstretched along the back of the seat now rested just behind your neck. You thought nothing of it, knowing he sure as hell wouldn’t, but let your imagination take the reins at all the possibilities presenting themselves.

Imagining a smile tugging at his lips as he brought his arm down to drape across your shoulders. His warm hand as it cupped your jaw, a gentle thumb drawing tiny circles into the flushing skin along your cheekbone. You imagined the feeling of your smaller hand travelling up the hardened expanse of his clothed chest, feeling the lean muscle and taut ridges underneath the flimsy barrier separating skin from skin.

You felt your face flush further in surprise when your daydream was snapped away into thin air, the cushion underneath you squeaking as he suddenly moved from his slumped position.

“I’m about ready to call it a night. The driving must’ve taken more out of me than I thought,” he said while sporting a grunt of effort, his face wincing at the pop of his joints once he stretched his long legs out. As he brought his arm inwards to follow suit, you felt the slightest brush of his fingers graze your neck. The small shudder that racked your body from the sensation was instantaneous, and you knew that your shameless imagination from earlier had made the cravings for his touch worse.

Unintentionally, your body shifted to try and follow his hand before you managed to will yourself into a stiff, unmoving statue.

Shit, what was that?

You closed your eyes and blew out your cheeks in annoyance, directed at nobody but yourself. Was it really all becoming too much for you the handle at this point? When had you become so … pathetic and needy? This wasn’t like you at all.

It was only then you realised Seokjin hadn’t moved since your loss of inhibitions. You wrenched your eyes open and glanced over to him, knowing full well that his observant gaze had seen the entire display from beginning to end. Oh God no!

“(Y/n), I’ve been thinking,” came Seokjin’s voice through the robotic sounding laughs emitting from the speakers of the television. He was holding his arm awkwardly in the air just above his own lap, as if it had been electrocuted and was no longer capable of moving.

“About what? Oh, when is our next event? I forgot to ask you earlier,” you uttered faintly, trying to cover up your reddening face with one hand. There was no way he was going to let what happened slide, you knew just by seeing the pointed look in his curious dark eyes. He lowered his arm and kept his eyes fixated on your jittery form.

“Not for ages, but anyway that’s not what I was thinking about,” he said with a lazy mumble to his voice that was honestly just a little too low, teetering on seductive but obviously unintentional.

You mentally implored him to forget your stupid reactions. It was getting out of hand and you were already trying your best to rein yourself in.

“Oh?” You raised a brow, waiting for the inevitable questioning that was surely coming your way.

In all honesty, you just wanted to go shower and sleep for the next week. During the trip you’d had so many restless nights, being too caught up on the whole sharing a bed situation. It got better as time went on, but you still couldn’t shake the feeling that you weren’t meant to be there in between the sheets with him. Every time, you held yourself back from the urge to touch him and shuffle closer to his side.

Rein it in. Rein-

Seokjin finally parted his lips in to respond, “It’s just that I can’t help noticing how you get lost in your thoughts lately, along with all the other odd reactions. You keep getting this look on your face, like you’re longing for something, and I can’t help but think back to what you were saying at Taehyung’s party.”

Okay, well this was a bit more than you expected. You felt shivers of humiliation travelling up your skin at the thought of him noticing your fantasizing, of all things. Were you really becoming that obvious even in a state of subconscious? Damn, things were really worse than you thought.

“What? At Tae’s party?” you murmured, trying to awkwardly laugh it off in the process. How did he manage to call you out like that with the straightest of faces? It was almost unfair that he could be so serious and not become affected by these things.

“Yeah,” Seokjin continued. “How you said you craved human touch all the time because the way you grew up left you wanting. I realised during the trip, how content you looked when you were receiving affection from your family members … and me.”

You snapped your eyes up to him, looking to see if his expression would give anything away about what he was thinking even though you knew it was futile. To your shock, his face actually wasn’t the same blank slate you were used to seeing when he pondered. For the first time, you saw him show slight apprehension as he nibbled on his plush bottom lip.

‘And me’ he’d said. You were suddenly thrown back to that one night in the motorhome, which honestly seemed like a mere fever dream, where he’d run his hands along your body and held you close for the first time. That first night you had shared the same bed, and all the dams had broken within you.

It was the night I opened up to him, and maybe that was when he decided to do the same.

“So, I want-”

He cut himself off and sat forward, looking so bewildered and lost that you were beginning to grow concerned. At the recollection of all these memories, you were already feeling vulnerable and ashamed. His vagueness was not helping you keep your shit together.

“I want you to show me what you mean. What are you asking for when you say those things?” He finished by clasping his hands together and looking up at you as hopefully as he could, which was minimal for him. You couldn’t really believe your ears at this point.

“Show you?” you repeated in disbelief. “H-how?”

“Show me what you need,” he rephrased, straightening his back slightly and fiddling with his fingers.

It was a cute little habit you’d never seen before, but your brain could barely register that when you were already reeling from what he was saying. He was close enough that you could catch the scent of his faint cologne, and it was making your head spin faster and faster. The quiet sound of the television faded out as you focused on his beautiful eyes right in front of you.

“You want me to touch you?” You tilted your head, feeling like you were having an out-of-body experience when he nodded to confirm your suspicions.

“If that’s what you want.”

It was strange, not knowing whether to feel happy or whether to feel humiliated, or relieved, or even saddened; all because of your neediness that he’d seen way too many times.

“Okay.”

Your shoulders sagged in a strange sense of defeat. This whole impasse had been your weakness from the start, and now it was finally coming to light. You were ready to help him understand things from your point of view, and maybe he would start to see why you’d been acting this way.

He’d grown up in a similar environment, even despite some stark differences. Why couldn’t there be just a small chance that he might relate somehow?

“What do you feel when you get close to another person?” you asked softly, untangling your feet from under each other and resting them squarely on the ground in front of you. It was intimidating to look up at his looming figure this boldly, yet being so close to his body heat only seemed to put you more at ease.

You wanted to fall into him and have him cradle you in his arms, but you knew that if you were going to show him the right way, you needed to take it slow.  

“I don’t feel so different. It doesn’t happen often, actually,” he mused while keeping his eyes focused on you. “When I see my mother at galas or balls, I suppose it just feels like I want to get away.”

You stifled a chuckle at the thought of his mother’s smothering putting him off. It was like that for so many kids out there, but you couldn’t share that feeling when it was lucky for you to even see your mother once in a while. Seokjin’s tensed frame seem to falter slightly when you knowingly smiled up at him. Gone was the shyness, the tiptoeing, the never-ending feeling of restraint.

This was your husband in front of you, and now he was asking you to touch him.

“That’s understandable Seokjin, but I mean in other instances where it’s perhaps more welcomed, or even instigated mainly by you. Say, you see your brother after a long time, so you hug him. Yes?”

The man’s black hair bounced slightly as he nodded. You hadn’t made any moves to be closer to him yet, and you could sense his confusion, but truly it was best to go gradual for him to understand. Rather than you just throwing yourself at him in a barrage of limbs.

“How does that make you feel, compared to how you feel normally?” you tried again, your eyes wide with a curiosity that probably burned even brighter than his. A month or so ago, you never would’ve thought you’d be having such a close and intimate conversation about his relationships.

Clearly, the road trip had not only changed you both in multiple ways, but it had also changed the very dynamic tying you together. The foundations of your relationship, and what it meant to each of you. The man sitting before you now was nothing but a far cry from the man you’d once faced at the altar. As foolish as it was, you could not be prouder of him.

“I suppose I was taught to just do it in certain situations. I never thought about how it made me feel,” he offered in a low voice, brows furrowing as he tried thinking about how he could be more helpful. The slight pout to his pinkish lips had your heart beating erratically.

“Seokjin, do you care about me?” you asked, and time drew to a stop.

This was the kind of question you told yourself you would never ask him. It was almost impossible to answer considering your circumstances, and the owlish look in his eyes told you that you were right in thinking so.

“Yes.”

Your world resumed spinning, but the silence continued. Honestly, you didn’t think you would have kept it together if he’d answered no. You loved him, that much you were sure of, but before the holiday you had been confused about whether you cared for the man so strongly out of your pure desire for close friendship and companionship. You weren’t dense though. These feelings were far more than that, and you were an idiot for entertaining them.

You stared into each other’s eyes, trying to read foreign minds and figure out what it all meant. He cared about you, and you cared about him. That much was a given, but the true depth of that fact remained a constant unknown. He exhaled sharply, almost as if he couldn’t really believe he’d answered so sincerely. So quickly.

“I didn’t think I would, but since the beginning you’ve turned out to be quite different than who I thought I’d be married to. My life … changed, but it was seamless and easy compared to the complicated mess I thought I was going to have to deal with,” he explained with sad eyes. His gaze had been trained on the floor since he’d given you ‘yes’ as an answer.

You shifted closer and brought one hand up to lift his lowered jaw, angling it to face you so you could see his inquisitive eyes once more. His large hands remained clenched in his lap, unsure of what to do at this point.

“Seokjin I care about you too, so you don’t have to feel like you’re on your own here.” You laughed quietly, noticing his shoulders relax as you moved your hand up to rest on the side of his face. Your fingertips buried themselves into the shorter strands of his hair.

If only he knew the true extent of my feelings.

You cleared your throat, trying to push away the intrusive thoughts before they took over, and switched your teacher mode on quickly. “This is a … type of contact that you can kind of do anytime, and you can even play with the person’s hair, or just kind of massaging gently.”

You demonstrated by slowly bringing your hands up to run through his marvelous black locks, lips parting in amazement at the feeling of his soft hair you’d always imagined combing back with your fingers. Your other hand shaped itself to his face as you tried your best to stop yourself from leaning any further forward.

You couldn’t kiss him like this just yet. Not when it would actually mean something to him, for the first time.

“Why do you say ‘the person’s’? You know I wouldn’t have the nerve to try this with anyone else, right?” He murmured unexpectedly; his eyes somewhat nervous at what you were implying. You were quick to push your surprise away and nodded, because it was the only response you could think of.

He took a small but deep breath to regain himself, letting his stoic persona continue to melt underneath your touch. “May I?” he asked in a soft voice, and once again all you could do was nod your head.

He brought one of his hands up hesitantly and you couldn’t help a small fond smile at the way he was concentrating so intently on the movement. As soon as his hand made contact with the skin of your cheek, you couldn’t stop yourself from leaning into it. He watched in wonder as your eyes fluttered shut, his other hand now carding itself through your slightly messy hair.

If you’d been a cat, you were certain a distinct sound of purring would emanate from your throat.

He smoothed all your hair back until it was no longer ruffled, and then brought both hands back to cradle your face once more. You didn’t realise you’d been leaning forward and running your hands up his chest until the moment you reached his shirt collar, and your eyes zeroed in on the expanse of his neck just long enough to see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in a hard swallow.

“Um, now you can touch a bit lower if you want. Or just hold my hands if you’re more comfortable with that,” you breathed, trying to bring your thoughts to a focal point while removing your hands from him sharply. He looked so picturesque up this close. You just wanted to stay in this position for hours upon hours.

“Like this?” He voiced hoarsely. You tried to keep your breathing normal as one of his hands fell down to encompass yours, but the other traced the line of your jaw before gliding downwards and brushing against the tender skin of your neck. Just has he had in the beginning before all of this had started.

“Yeah.”

You almost whimpered at the tingling sensation, but kept it in for the sake of the exercise. This man was absolutely dangerous for your wellbeing. It wasn’t even his actions at this point, just his undivided attention and careful eyes tracing over the curve of your figure that had your insides turning to jelly.

“That’s probably enough for now. I can hear your brain working,” you spoke and let out an airy laugh when his fingers hesitated in their descent. It was as if he was trying to compute too much information at once, and somehow, the way he was trying his best was oddly charming.

He grunted. “I’m just- I’m trying to understand you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it,” you responded with a genuine smile, noticing how his words mirrored your own from earlier back when you’d butchered his native tongue. “Now I don’t know about you, but I’m so exhausted I could pass out.”

“Yeah, now I’m really calling it a night.” He cleared his throat with a sigh, mind clearly burning out from the overload of new experiences.

He stood from the couch so suddenly, a stiffness taking hold of his movements. Just what was going through his head at a time like this? You missed his close proximity almost immediately.

Like a robot programmed to move, you also heaved your body up from where it was beginning to sink into the cushions. This whole turn of events seemed unreal, and you could feel your heart still throbbing in your chest at the feeling of Seokjin underneath your fingertips. He had been so warm and had looked so beautiful.

You ran your fingers through your hair as the silence permeated the air, the only sounds being your husband's gentle footsteps as he packed away a few things around the house. You gathered your own bags from the front door and sluggishly traipsed towards your bedroom at the opposite end of the hallway.

I don't want to be on my own.

The invasive thought made you take a few shaky steps back. You were ready to put everything at risk and confess to him how lonely and in love you were, yet to your surprise the sound of his voice softly calling your name made you falter in your tracks.

You stood in the doorway looking outwards as he loitered in front of his own bedroom door at the opposite end, one large hand resting on the doorknob as if he'd been hesitating to open it.

"Did you hear me?"

You relaxed your stance, a sudden embarrassment beginning to settle in at how eager your movements were. "Yeah? What is it?"

Please let me stay with you. Please let me-

"Isn't it - doesn't it seem strange?" He seemed to inwardly backpedal all of a sudden, his pretty eyes falling to the floor and his slightly down-turned nose twitched in regret. "I mean, sorry if this is weird, but after sharing a bed for the entire road trip, doesn't it feel strange to suddenly go back to our own rooms?"

“Ah.” You somehow managed to suppress a hefty sigh of relief, pure ecstasy shooting through your body like some special brand of heroin. You tried to bump up his courage with a reassuring smile. "Jin yes, I still want to spend the night with you."

His eyes rose from the floor as the burden lifted from his mind, shoulders seeming to shake free the stiffness that had taken hold of them ever since the couch fiasco.

"I'm glad. Come over here then."

Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.

[inkandpen22]

Beautiful Angel of Darkness (2/?)

Pairing: Spike x Female! Reader 

Warnings: Swearing, violence, angst, mentions of death 

Word Count: 2k

Part Summary: Y/N considers Spike’s offer, but for obvious reasons she’s hesitant. However, she can’t deny the pull feels toward him. 

Masterlist

“Forever is an awfully long time,” I state quietly, torn between the options of life or living forever.

“Um yeah, that’s sort of the whole point,” the stranger retorts as he pulls out a cigarette for himself.

“aw yes, that’s the way to get a girl’s permission to bite her,” I remark sarcastically. “Sass her to death!”

“I don’t need your permission, Pet,” he so ominously reminds me.

“I suppose not, but you prefer my compliance. Am I wrong?” I challenge. 

He glares at me while lighting his cigarette. “You’re such a tease, you know that?” He mumbles bitterly.

“And you’re a hard ass,” I fire back, unfazed. He stares at me with raised brows. “Oh I’m sorry, are you the only one who can name call?”

His eyes roll dramatically with a huff of annoyance. “I couldn’t pick a mute girl to be interested in.”

“I imagine she’d bore you,” I predict, crossing my arms over my chest.

He shrugs, “you’re probably right.” Casually, he hops up onto one of the nearby headstones and sits down.

“Get used to saying that sentence frequently,” I snicker, moving to sit on the headstone across from his.

“So, you want to be vamped out?” He waves me along, growing impatient.

“Oh, so I do have a choice?” I tease, pretending to be surprised.

“Not if you keep talking,” he grumbles, taking a hit of his cigarette.

“I have family and friends I have to consider,” I state matter-of-factly.

It’s true, I have a mother, my siblings, friends from school, all of whom will wonder what happened to me. I can’t just let that go.

“They won’t be a thought once you’re mine,” he claims, smirking at me mischievously.

“Why the sudden interest?” I inquire, genuinely curious. I imagine he could have anyone in the world, why me? Why now?

“I lost someone,” he answers, avoiding my gaze as he focuses on tapping his cigarette against the tombstone. “My girl, Druscilla.”

“So I’m the rebound,” I clarify, nodding in understanding.

His head snaps up, meeting my eyes directly. Apparently, I’ve hit a trigger point. He hops down from his tombstone and rushes over to me. The man pries my legs apart and stands between them. He cups my face in his hands, making me stare into his emerald eyes. “You will be far more,” he assures me with such certainty in his voice I can’t help but believe it. “You will be my reason for existing.”

My chest rises and falls at a rapid rate as I process it all. The longer I stare into his marble-like eyes, the more convinced I become. How could I ever deny him? “Okay,” I finally grant him my answer.

An amazing glimmer appears across his features and he steps closer. “Okay, what?” He repeats as if he isn’t sure he heard me correctly.

I place my hands over his that caress my cheeks. “Make me like you, but under one condition.”

He rolls his eyes, “should’ve known this was coming,” he grumbles. “What is it?”

“Tell me your name,” I request simply.

“Spike,” he answers without hesitation.

“What’s your real name?” I clarify, almost certain that ‘Spike’ couldn’t be it. “And not just your first name either, I want to know the whole thing.”

He frowns, evidently growing frustrated with the subject. “Why does it matter?”

“Because it does!” I argue.

“But why? It’s stupid,” he dismisses sharply, removing his hands from me, but remains between my legs.

“Because if we’re going to spend forever together I’d like to know your real fucking name so just say it!” I snap at him, earning a look of surprise.

Visibly, there’s a strong debate occurring in his mind. He sighs, shaking his head as he glances around the cemetery then back at me. “William, alright? My name is William Pratt, happy now?”

“Over the moon,” I joke with a giggle, reaching up and holding his cheek in my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Will.”

“Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you too,” he pretends to be hard and disinterested in the charm of it all, but I can tell by the way he subtly leaned into my touch that he truly longs for it.

____________________________________________

Becoming a vampire is by the far the most freeing experience of my life or should I say undead life? Either way, Spike has broken me free of all torments and has opened the gates to the world. There is nothing we can’t do together. The entire world belongs to us. All we have to do is reach out and take what we want. Each night, I wake up with a strong urge to destroy and devour. I’ve never felt more powerful and entrancing.

I’ve been a vampire for a few days now, but Spike has kept me confined to the crypt for safety reasons. He claims I’m fragile in the early days until I become used to my new status. To build my strength, he brings me humans to feed on and is teaching me how to defend myself. I’m still learning how to fight in case I ever run into the Slayer or her team of misfits. Her very existence is annoying, such an inconvenience. According to him, I’ve been adjusting rather well, better than usual actually. So, to celebrate my growing strength and swift adaptions, Spike is taking me to The Bronze tonight. It’ll be the first time I’ve been outside the crypt in a week! There’ll be so many people to feed on and every opportunity to terrorize, I’m so excited!

Spike grips my hand protectively as we travel through the crowd of the club. I rarely had enough time to visit this place when I was human. Taking care of my mom and siblings all while balancing school consumed most of my days.

“Oh great,” Spike grumbles, tossing his head back.

I grip his forearm and squeeze his hand worriedly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The Slayer and her clan of party killers are over there,” he growls, his eyes directed sharply at a nearby table.

I purr, watching the table of oblivious teenagers hungrily. I spot the blonde Slayer as she chats with her friends naively happily. So, that’s the infamous Buffy Summers. Spike has described her to me frequently. Apparently, we go to the same high school, different grades. I never really branched out of my grade or friend group for that matter. Immersed in the idea of snapping the Slayer’s neck for myself, I move to approach her. Imagine what her friends would do if I killed her right here and now.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Spike repeats quietly in my ear, wrapping his arms around my waist to stop me. “Not here, Love. Wouldn’t want to cause a scene.”

“But I thought you loved the dramatics, Darling,” I mutter, keeping my eyes on Buffy with a pout.

“I do, but we mustn’t yet.” He brushes my hair away from my neck slowly, planting a pattern of kisses on my neck. “Let’s go dance.”

I smile, spinning in his arms to face him. Spike takes my hand, leading me to the dance floor. We pass the table of goody-goodies and chatter ensues amongst them. I whip my head around and find the Slayer. Her eyes narrow at me, a confused expression across her features. I turn my attention back to Spike right as he stops in the middle of the dance floor. He brings his hands to my waist, pulling me in closer. I drape my arms over his shoulder loosely and meet his exquisite emerald eyes. God, he’s gorgeous.

Seductively, Spike and I dance as though we’re alone in the building. I see no one else but him. He stares into my eyes so deeply that I can feel it in my soulless body. I would wreck the world for him. I would do anything if it brought him pleasure. Spike is now my purpose in this undead life. My purpose is to make him happy. If we were to ever be parted, I don’t think I’d survive it.

“Get away from her, Spike,” a voice interrupts us.

Our heads whip to our side in unison. The little blonde Slayer stands with her arms crossed. A serious expression plaguing her face. Aw, why the frown Buffy?

Spike snickers, tossing his head back mockingly. “Won’t even wait five minutes, will you?”

“Get out of here,” she commands sharply to him. Then, Buffy turns to me with softness in her eyes. She grips my forearm pleadingly, “he’s not who he says he is.”  

Oh, this is funny, she thinks I’m human. She assumes I’m an innocent defenseless victim. Okay, I could work with this. This may be the opportunity Spike and I was looking for, the perfect charade.

My eyes go wide and I step back from Spike anxiously, “what... what do you mean?” I move to stand beside Buffy.

Spike frowns at me as though I’ve lost my marbles.

The Slayer takes my hand, ready to pull me away, “he’s-”

“Must we cause such a scene?” Spike rips me away from Buffy, grabbing my wrist roughly. “Come on, Y/N, let’s go,” he instructs, wrapping an arm around my waist and escorting me to the door. I interlock my hands instead of leaning into him as I usually would keep up the act. Once we’re out of hearing range of the Slayer and her team, he whispers to me harshly. “What the bloody hell was that?”

I suppress a snicker, “you’re far too simple-minded sometimes, Baby. Buffy is going to follow us and I need you to just go with it.”

As he opens the door for me leading out into the alley, he glances at me in amazement. Finally, the pieces are coming together. “You’re trying to pull one on her.”

“Precisely,” I confirm with an evil grin.

Alone in the dimly lit alley, Spike squeezes my waist and tugs me into his chest. He bites down on my lip, peering down at me with a pleased smirk. “You are by far the most miraculous woman I’ve ever met.” Eagerly, he leans down and smashes his lips to mine. My fingers comb through the back of his hair and grip the edges in a fist. He growls against my lips and it only drives me crazier. Will, it ever subside, the wanting him?

The metal door to The Bronze squeezes and I instantly shove Spike off of me with a scream. He stumbles back, still in a daze from our kiss. “Help!” I scream, “someone helps me, please!” I pretend to be distraught and soon Buffy is by my side, ushering me behind her safely.

“I’m not going to let you take her!” She yells at Spike bitterly.

“Well that’s really up to her, isn’t it?” Spike mocks with a cheeky grin on his lips.

“She’s human, Spike! She doesn’t know what you are,” she argues, acting as the big-bad defender of man.

“What is he?” I squeak, sounding all poor pitiful. Honestly, it’s kind of annoying playing the victim. I sound like such a cry baby. Plus, if I were human, I definitely wouldn’t follow a strange man into an empty alley. I’d be asking to get murdered. No, I just talk to them in empty cemeteries in the middle of the night.

Buffy turns to me urgently, doing everything she can to keep me safe, how sweet. She grips both of my forearms, leading me away from spike. “Look, Spike isn’t a good guy, okay? He’ll hurt you or worse! You need to run!” She urges, gesturing down the alley to the road.

“But-” I stutter, glancing at Spike. Then, in one swift motion, I yank my arms free of Buffy’s hold and leg sweep her. She falls to the pavement with a smack. I tower over her with a giggle. “You know, grabbing people without their permission isn’t nice. Where are your manners?”

Spike jogs over and pulls me into his chest. I rest my arms over him around my waist and he places his chin on my shoulder with a cheeky grin. “Beautifully done, My Love.”

Buffy pants, staring up at us in confusion, “what the-”

“Surprise! Didn’t see that one coming, did you?” I laugh wickedly, steadily approaching her like a snake going in for the kill.

______________________________________

Masterlist 

Tags: @currently-obsesed-with-spike​

[bookaboutabook]

dress by ts= rowaelin

this might be long but i thought of it and it has to be done :)

“our secret moments in your crowded room they've got no idea about me and you”

okay so literally in QoS they communicate basically entirely in silence, like they’re the only people in a crowded room, especially at arobynn’s party they are basically flirting without anyone knowing because at the time things are basically all platonic to everyone else. no one knows that they’re growing feelings or having secret conversations. 

“there is an indentation in the shape of you made your mark on me, a golden tattoo”

this is EoS and KoA energy-- the claiming marks, and the tattoos that rowan gives aelin. ALSO the choice of the color golden screams rowaelin because as we know thats the nightgowns color and i feel like it comes up a lot when describing aelin-- golden eyes, hair etc.

“all of this silence and patience, pining in anticipation my hands are shaking from holding back from you all of this silence and patience, pining and desperately waiting my hands are shaking from holding back from all this ”

QoS is almost entirely sexual tension so i think this is very self explanatory. they were both holding back the way they felt about each other when they both clearly wanted something more. this gives me vibes of rowan needing to cool down from aelin’s presence and taking forever to fall asleep with her so near yet so far away.  

“say my name and everything just stops i don't want you like a best friend”

um please so several points-- 1.) rowan is the first person that starts calling celaena by her real name, aelin ( if i remember correctly i don’t think he really ever calls her celeana?? only aelin and she gets mad, but i may be wrong bc it has been a while since i’ve read HoF) he makes her comfortable with her real identity and helped her come to terms with who she was and her name. 2.) fireheart. that’s it. it’s who she was to her family and its who she is now to rowan. ALSO “i don’t want you like a best friend” their relationship goes from basically entirely platonic in HoF to something more in the late books. in QoS, it took them forever to get together bc they had to break through the past definition of their relationship which was strictly friends, carranam, and fighting partners. but they obviously wanted more, and started feeling more comfortable with their past trauma and relationship baggage to face that. 

“only bought this dress so you could take it off take it off  carve your name into my bedpost 'cause I don't want you like a best friend only bought this dress so you could take it off”

ALRIGHT HERES THE KICKER. so this is obviously referring to the golden nightgown that rowan requests. i KNOW that he technically doesn't even take it off her and they don’t go there but she literally only bought it for him bc he said he would love that color. in conclusion it still counts and the sexual tension was there so.

“inescapable, I'm not even gonna try and if I get burned, at least we were electrified”

SO i feel like they both know that they are inevitable and i think it kinda ties into the idea of the mating bond being something that you can’t break or avoid. they subconsciously knew that being apart would not work. AND we have a reference to aelin’s fire... she might burn too brightly, but at least she burned.

“i'm spilling wine in the bathtub, you kiss my face and we're both drunk everyone thinks that they know us, but they know nothing about”

HAHA we have a little reference to aelin bathing rowan and washing his hair in that one scene. tbh this doesn’t really fit that well but it’s not too out of place-- i also may not be thinking of anything bc i havent re read them in a while. anyways, we also have another moment where rowan and aelin are kind of keeping what is blooming between them a secret from the rest of aelin’s court.

“flashback when you met me your buzzcut and my hair bleached”

their haircuts at the beginning of QoS... rowan cut his long ass hair and aelin had to dye her hair red to go undercover and not get caught... WHY DOES IT WORK SO WELL I--

“even in my worst times, you could see the best of me”

in HoF aelin was at the lowest point of her life. even though he was closed off was dealing with his own baggage, he saw the power aelin held. the light that had been snuffed out inside of her. he pushed her because he knew what she was capable of. and i forgot who said this, but rowan was never afraid of aelin the way chaol was. he saw every part of her and loved all of it. 

“flashback to my mistakes my rebounds, my earthquakes”

rebounds??? *cough cough* CHAOL AND DORIAN *cough* okay but for real these weren’t really mistakes but she had made plenty of other mistakes around that time. he helped set her on a better and clearer path. and i guess we could technically consider chaol a rebound...

“even in my worst lies, you saw the truth of me”

her keeping the mating bond from him? her keeping so many of her plans a secret? her pretending she’s okay and KoA and him seeing right through her? yea <3

“and I woke up just in time now I wake up by your side”

I think around nehemias death she was kind of in a trance where she felt like nothing mattered and her life was useless (the whole “i do not care” scene where she was lashing out is a good example), but he helped her out of that. she has that one quote that im gonna paraphrase about how he held her hand and walked back into the light with her. He essentially woke her up from the nightmare she was living and now she wakes up next to him. this literally also happens in HoF because he starts letting her sleep in his bed, which was a huge step in the right direction for their relationship. he started seeing her as a friend and he literally falls asleep with his hand over her heart bye. 

“my one and only, my lifeline”

mates are truly each others one and only and i think it’s beautiful that she says “lifeline” because that’s literally what it is to them. they are stronger together and even the forces of their existence are tied together <3

anyways if you read this whole thing thank u lol i just had to get that out:)

[curvingsunsets]

So This is The Fic I WroteAbout the Boys

idk what to call it but here it is

Quick warning before you read: parents fighting, implied homophobia, anything else I need to tag lmk

ALSO I listened to Jubilee Line by Wilbur Soot the entire time I was writing it 

I was also asked to tag @crybabyddl so here u go <3

Wasting your time

You're wasting mine

There was something in the air that night. Something that gave the boys a gentle switch of tone. A signal that they were the only family they’d need.

It wasn’t easy managing everything that he was going through. He’d barely been holding on to not only his grades, but the band and his social life. It wasn’t what he wanted to happen. He wanted a nice family dinner with his mom and dad. His dad just had to find out about his next gig. Tension grew around the table and it ended with a regretful “I hate you” spat into the living room.

The next hour was spent in his room. He couldn’t return to the scene, his mom’s gentle weeping could be heard through the hollow door of his room along with his dad’s attempt at reassurance. He stopped staring at the stars he stuck to his ceiling years ago and grabbed his bag. For once, he was thankful his room was on the first floor. He slipped out of his window and started the long, but calming walk to the only place he knew he could go to.  

~~~

Usually, it was easy for him to ignore the muffled screams through the walls of the house. Tonight was different, however. The insults his dad threw at his mom, who he supposedly loved, started to sting a little more than any other day.  He’d tried to muffle it out with a pillow over his ears, even tried humming to drown it out, but no luck. It was frustrating, having to be the only level-headed person in the house.

The longer he was alone with the fighting, the deeper he got into his own head. Whatever was going on outside that door couldn’t be love, he told himself time and time again. Yet, he never seemed to believe it. Just as he started getting trapped in his own head, a gut-wrenching curse was thrown from one parent to the other. That’s when he’d drawn the line. He pulled himself out of his own thoughts and unlocked the window, slipping out into the salty air.

~~~

The disapproving stares from his parents seemed to hit a little harder as he walked into the kitchen wearing the pink hoodie he knew they hated. He pretended not to hear the slur his dad muttered under his breath as he scanned the fridge. The word lingered in the air for a second longer than he was comfortable with. He’d settled for a bottle of water and escaped back into his room, avoiding the two pairs of eyes burning judgement into the back of his head.

He’d tried so hard to be “normal” for them. Until he realized that he was normal, and that they were just bigots. He laid in his bed with his headphones in, Whitney playing through the speakers quietly, afraid that they’d still hear her through the door. No matter how hard he tried, his mind drifted back to the disapproving looks that fell over his parent’s faces the day he’d come out to them. The clouding of his mind seemed to pull him away from his home and out of his window.

Hate to see you leaving

Fate worse than dying

Your city gave me asthma

That's why I'm fucking leaving

Your water gave me cancer

The pavement hurt my feelings

They’d all been suffocating in their own homes. The places they thought were supposed to be their safe spaces...yet they’d never felt truly safe there.

The cold air that hit his face was a gentle reminder of the tears that were slipping down his cheeks. As he pushed the pedals of his bike forward, he’d used the sleeve of his flannel to rid of the trails on his cheeks. His mind kept racing, still. The feeling of regret trickling in, but not deep enough to make him turn back. He’d pushed forward once again, letting go of the handlebars for a moment to simply exist in the calm.

~~~

The trail in the woods definitely wasn’t his favorite, but it helped him sift through his thoughts. The rustling of the trees provided almost a drone that kept him grounded. Of course, it wasn’t his prefered method of releasing stress, but it was the quickest route. So he pushed forward, picking a few leaves off the trees as he passed, tearing them apart so he could do something with his hands instead of picking at his cuticles until they bled.

~~~

The gentle breeze had drawn his thoughts away from the scowls and towards his safe space. He may not have been paying attention to where he was going, but he’d been on this path too many times to count, so it was basically second nature at this point. The passing cars gave no second glance to the seventeen year old they drove past on the highway, all too busy to get to their third party of the night. It didn’t bother him, though. He’d always made up stories for the people driving past.  

Shout at the wall

Because the walls don't fucking love you

Once he’d arrived in the garage, he dropped his bag on the couch and sighed, the stress from the night disintegrating into the concrete floor. He walked further into the garage, not even bothering to turn the lights on. He took a deep breath before kicking a pillow across the room. Pulling off his hoodie, he laid down on the couch, draping it over his chest.

It was silent for a moment before the second boy walked in. “Luke?” he asked softly, unsure if the boy on the couch was asleep.

“Hey, Reg,” Luke answered without even opening his eyes. “Bad time at home too?”

Reggie didn’t even have to answer before Luke was up off the couch, leading him up to the loft of the garage. They laid over the bags of clothing and guitar cases, the small hole in the roof letting moonlight seep through, illuminating the boys’ faces.

“Wanna talk about it?” Luke asked, running a comforting hand over the bass player’s shoulder.

There's a reason

That London puts barriers on the tube line

There's a reason

That London puts barriers on the rails

And he did. For a few minutes, he’d let out every thought that was lingering in his mind for the past month. Some of them not even the reason he left his house that night. But, although he was crying, it was a relief for him. Like any negative feeling that filled his being dissolved into the air above him and left the two with a sigh of relief afterwards.

Their comfortable silence was interrupted by the garage door opening for a third time that night. The blonde immediately noticed the faint sniffles of one of his best friends in the loft. To which he climbed the ladder and joined the pile, trying to hide the fact that he had been crying on the way here.

But, they noticed. And Luke asked him the same thing he’d asked Reggie twenty minutes before. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

There's a reason

That London puts barriers on the tube line

There's a reason

That London puts barriers on the rails

And he spoke his mind. They let him release that tension. It came with some crying and self-doubt, to which they responded with supportive comments and comforting touches. But, he’d started to finally recognize the difference between how he felt about himself versus the way others made him feel. And on his face, a smile broke through for the first time that day.

“What about you, man?” Alex asked Luke, who’d been so generous to let the others pour every piece of themselves out on the floor.

He usually never shared in moments like this. He’d never admit it, but he always wants the others to be okay before he’d ever share what was on his mind.  Even then, he wouldn’t spill the whole story, just enough to make the others content.

And after they’d all spoken their hearts out, they looked at each other. And that was the spark that made them realize. There was another gust of wind that came through the hole in the roof that finally knocked out any negative feelings that were left. Reggie sighed contentedly, leaning further into Luke’s side as he played with his necklace. Alex tapped out a rhythm on his legs, staring through the hole in the roof, the stars laying out a familiar pattern for him to trace in his mind.

The silence ended with a sigh from Luke, “This is the only family we’re ever gonna need,” he explained softly. “There is nobody out there who understands us. Except for us.”

Both Alex and Reggie nodded. Alex laid back against the garbage bag filled with Luke’s clothes. Reggie curled further into Luke’s embrace, a soft sigh of relief escaping from his lips as he let sleep take over. Luke kept his comforting touch continuing for Reggie’s comfort. He waved Alex over to the pile, to which he complied, resting his head in the guitarist’s lap, tapping a different rhythm into his knee. It continued until Alex succumbed to the sleep that had been tugging at his eyelids for the past 15 minutes.  

Luke looked at his two best friends and nodded. Although this wasn’t the family he’d particularly wanted, it sure was the one he needed.

[fischerfrey]

hphm fic: 'til tonight do us part

fandom: harry potter: hogwarts mystery

pairing: mc/merula snyde

word count: 2.2K

summary:

A party in the Slytherin common room leads both Verna and Merula to confront some things about themselves...

“You don’t know shit,” was what Merula spat back at her and Verna didn’t know what she said wrong this time. “You prance around like you own this school and think you’re so damn special!”

“That’s fucking rich, coming from you,” Verna arched an eyebrow at her nemesis. “You’re the one proclaiming to anyone who will listen that you’re the most powerful witch at Hogwarts.”

warnings: underage drinking, swearing, merula being mean

author’s note: no proof-reading, we die like men! aka i wrote this thing at 3am in my notes app and english isn’t my native language.

hphm fic: 'til tonight do us part

“I’m not sure about this,” Ben Copper said and caught up to Verna. He had been tailing behind her and Charlie for the past several staircases. “Maybe I should’ve stayed in the common room studying with Rowan…”

“Cheer up Ben, this is gonna be fun,” Charlie attempted but Ben still didn’t look convinced. He had been trying hard to step out of his comfort zone with varying degrees of success.

“Hush the both of you, we’re almost there.”

The three of them were approaching the Slytherin common room entrance in the dungeons and the utmost care was needed. Parties in Hogwarts were notoriously difficult to organize if you wanted anyone but your own house members to attend. This one had coordinated times at which someone from Slytherin would let students belonging to other houses in. Barnaby had agreed to open the door for Verna, Charlie, and Ben at 9.30.

“Why are we even going to a Slytherin party…?” Ben asked as they reached the entrance.

“Because Barnaby invited us and I can’t say no to him, it’d feel like kicking a puppy,” Verna answered and glanced around to make sure no one else was in the corridor. “Besides, I think all of us need to let out a little bit of steam.”

“You are aware that most Slytherins think we’re the worst?”

“Yeah, that’s part of the fun,” Charlie said as the door to the Slytherin common room swung open.

“Verna! You guys made it!” Barnaby greeted them with open arms, spilling a bit of the contents of his pint.

“Well Ben almost stayed behind to study but I’m very persuasive!” Verna announced and dragged both of her friends inside past Barnaby.

“Don’t say the S-word Verna, it’s forbidden,” he said with a grimace.

“Oh shit, sorry.”

They had all been extremely tied up with studying for their O.W.L.s for the past weeks and it did sound appealing to just forget the exams for the night. The common room was dark and illuminated by a green glow. Verna wasn’t sure what its source was, but it did create certain menacing flair for the party. The music was loud, and many of the attendees were dancing to its beat.

“So, where’s the fire whiskey?” asked Charlie and Barnaby pointed them to the direction of the drink selection before going off to talk to some of his friends.

“See, Ben, no worries, there are plenty of people from other houses in here,” Verna said observing Tulip and Tonks chatting with some 6th year Slytherins, as well as Penny and André sitting on a couch, heads close together, obviously deep in conversation.

“Is that… a thing now?” asked Charlie.

“Last week I asked André if he was seeing Penny and he said no,” Verna muttered.

“So, you think it’s a new thing? Or is André just full of shit?”

“Guys… I hate to interrupt your gossip club but…” Ben yanked Verna’s sleeve to get her attention. She turned to look where Ben was glancing. Merula Snyde was walking towards them, looking like a storm cloud.

“Oh, here we go…” Charlie whispered, and Verna gently punched him in the arm.

Merula stopped short in front of Verna and glared at her. She seemed taller somehow and Verna noticed she was wearing platform shoes. “What the fuck are you doing here, Malinda?”

“I came to party.”

“Nobody wants you and your loser friends here.”

“Barnaby invited us,” Verna said simply and waved at Barnaby, who waved back, smiling.

“Lee couldn’t read a room if it punched him in the face with a book made for toddlers.”

“Don’t be rude Merula, we’re just here to get drunk and hang out with our friends.”

Charlie saw this as an ample opportunity to poke the hornet’s nest and added: “At least we have some of those.”

Merula snapped her death glare to Charlie. “Shut up Weasley.”

“Anyway! We were just about to go talk to Penny, so I’ll be seeing you Merula!” Verna interjected, handed Ben and Charlie drinks, and ushered them towards Penny and André. “Just pretend I don’t exist, if you can,” she added with a wink, grabbed a drink for herself and followed her friends. When she glanced back, Merula was still standing there, staring daggers at her back. Verna couldn’t help but be amused.

~

It turned out both André and Penny still vehemently denied being involved with each other romantically in any shape or form, so Verna let it slide. They spent a good couple of hours drinking, talking, and dancing. Verna hadn’t realized how much she needed a night off until she finally got one. Between her studies, detention, and trying to find the Portrait vault, her free time was sparse.

“Vernaaaa… can you bring me a glass of water?”

She was called out of her thought by Penny, who had, to be fair, downed quite a few drinks by then.

“Sure, sit tight,” Verna got up and navigated to the table filled with various drinks. Penny had not been herself ever since her sister got trapped in the portrait and Verna knew she was frustrated by how long it was taking to break the curse.

~

As she was filling a cup with water, she heard a familiar voice behind her: “Water? That’s weak.”

“Hi Merula…”

“Don’t tell me you can’t hold your liquor,” Merula mocked as Verna turned to face her. Her makeup had smeared just a little in the corners of her eyes.

“It’s not for me,” Verna tried to move past Merula. The latter stepped in front of her to block her path.

“Maybe you should take Haywood to sleep, she looks like she’s about to pass out any second now.”

“Maybe you should mind your own damn business,” Verna suggested and started to feel annoyed.

“What? I’m just worried about my fellow students.”

“You’ve literally tried to kill me.”

“Bygones,” Merula smirked and took a sip of her drink.

“Maybe after you apologize.”

Merula had the audacity to laugh, she truly was infuriating. “Don’t hold your breath, Malinda.”

Verna had had enough and pushed her way past Merula, ignoring her grunt of protest. She was beginning to think Merula enjoyed pissing her off.

~

“Did Merula give you trouble?” asked André once she got back.

“No more than usual.”

“Maybe we could curse her hair to fall off or something,” suggested Charlie lazily, having taken up most of the couch for himself, leaving just a small spot for Penny to sit in and sip her water.

“Chaz, as much as I would love to do that, I think we’re better off just keeping away from her tonight. After all, I’m actually supposed to get along with her for professor Rakepick’s sake.”

“Aren’t the both of you prefects…?” André asked, amused.

“Well yes, but that doesn’t really mean anything, I mean Merula is a prefect too!” Charlie protested.

André shook his head and returned to his conversation with Ben. Something about his gobstone collection.

“Guys… I feel a little sick…” came a quiet voice from Penny’s direction.

“Shit, don’t throw up on me,” Charlie quickly sat up and pulled away from Penny’s immediate vicinity.

“Okay, maybe you should call it a night,” Verna said and set her drink down on one of the tables. “C’mon, I’ll walk you back to your common room.”

“Oh… you don’t have to…”

“Shush, it’s no trouble… c’mon,” Verna took Penny’s hand and pulled her up. She swung on her feet for a second or two but seemed to be able to walk at least a little bit. “Charlie, can you tell Barnaby to let me back in in like… 10 minutes?”

Charlie saluted her and said: “Sure thing.”

That meant there was approximately 50% chance he’d forget and Verna would have to miss the rest of the party.

~

Getting Penny to walk in a straight line was a bit more difficult than Verna originally thought, but they managed to get out of the Slytherin common room and headed towards Hufflepuffs’.

“I don’t think I should have gone to that stupid party…” Penny mumbled. “I feel guilty enough as it is doing anything other than researching the vaults…”

“We’re doing everything we can, Rakepick is trying to find a way to break the curse right now,” Verna said, trying to sound confident but honestly, she wasn’t sure which one she was trying to comfort, herself or Penny.

“You don’t understand, Bea is all alone…”

Verna bit her lip. She knew Penny was taking this hard. “Penny, I get it. My brother is missing, I want to find the Portrait vault just as much as you.”

Penny let out a stifled sob. “Merlin, Verna I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

“I know, I know it’s okay…”

~

Verna managed to get her friend safely to the Hufflepuff common room and started to make her way back to the party. She felt a little bit drunk and, being absolutely honest with herself, she would’ve preferred to feel a lot drunk. Before she could make it halfway back, she heard another pair of footsteps in the silent hallway. She was expecting to see other people heading to bed from the party, but instead it was Merula Snyde, who rounded the corner.

“Are you following me, Snyde?” Verna asked.

Merula’s face transformed into a scowl. “Stop flattering yourself, Malinda.”

“Well, I just think that you mysteriously run into me a lot these days…”

“Shut up.”

Verna lifted her hands in the air as a sign of surrender. “Suit yourself, can you let me back into the party since you’re out here?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I despise you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Is that what you have to say?” Merula asked and her hands balled into fists.

“I don’t really care, honestly. You’ve been on my case for four and a half years, I know you hate me,” Verna explained. She was fed up with Merula’s constant provoking.

“You don’t know shit,” was what Merula spat back at her and Verna didn’t know what she said wrong this time. “You prance around like you own this school and think you’re so damn special!”

“That’s fucking rich, coming from you,” Verna arched an eyebrow at her nemesis. “You’re the one proclaiming to anyone who will listen that you’re the most powerful witch at Hogwarts.”

Merula blushed and that made her even angrier. “I don’t do that anymore!”

“Sure, but you used to, while I’ve always just wanted to mind my own business.”

Merula took a few quick steps closer to Verna. “You think you’re better than me, huh?”

“That’s so not the point.”

“Then what is the point? Please enlighten me, illustrious Verna Malinda.”

“The point is, that you’re mean. And arrogant. You go out of your way to make people feel bad,” Verna made sure to stress each point, so they’d maybe sink in. “I’ve tried to be your friend more than once.”

Merula let out a mocking laugh. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

“The what the devil do you want?”

Something blazed in the purple of Merula’s eyes at the question, and before Verna could react, the other girl had pushed her against the wall. Vaguely, Verna thought about how easily she could free herself from the grasp, but she found herself not really wanting to. Oh.

“Merula what- “

“Shut up,” Merula grumbled. “Just shut up, you’re ruining everything!”

Confused, Verna studied Merula’s features. The colovaria-spell keeping her eyes purple had started to fade out the littlest bit and if you looked closely, you could see specks of brown. Merula had tiny little freckles dotted across her cheeks and nose that Verna had never noticed before (If her gaze also dropped down to Merula’s lips, then that was neither here nor there).

“I don’t want to fight,” she told the shorter girl. Merula’s expression remained unchanged. Verna sighed. “Just let me back into the party, I promise I won’t bother you.”

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll go to bed then, this isn’t worth it.”

That seemed to change something for Merula again, because she moved, grabbing Verna’s shirt to pull her closer. Verna tried to ignore the excitement in the bottom of her stomach, but it turned out she didn’t have to, because Merula didn’t hiss out any more thinly veiled threats or insults. Instead, she kissed her. There was something ferocious and hungry about the kiss that made everything inside Verna twist into knots. She pulled Merula closer by her waist and found herself not giving a damn if someone happened to walk by right then. For a blissful moment, Merula had her hands in Verna’s hair and was kissing her like she actually wanted to be there with her, and then just as quickly as it started, she pulled back again. The girls stared at each other in the silence of the corridor. Verna’s heart was beating its way out of her chest.

“Barnaby’s gonna open the door for you,” Merula only said and then turned her back to Verna, hurrying to the opposite direction along the corridor. Verna stood there for several seconds, dumbfounded. She raised her fingers to her lips and wondered whether she’d just imagined that. Slowly she forced her jelly-like legs to walk back to the Slytherin common room.

 ~

Like Merula had said, Barnaby was there to let her in, as cheerful as ever. Verna went back to her friends who had migrated to talk to Tonks, Tulip, and Liz. Charlie handed her abandoned drink back and assured her no one had messed with it. Verna wasn’t feeling particularly up for the party anymore. Her mind kept wondering to the dark corridor, messy mascara, and hot, fire whiskey-laced breath on her skin.

fin.

if you read the whole thing i’d love to hear what you think! this is the first time i’m actually publishing any of my fics, despite having written them for years so this is kind of like a moment for me, personally :’)

[demivampirew]

So we meet again.

Henry x Reader

Summary: A recent graduate recounters someone from her past with who things did not exactly ended up in great terms. She holds a grudge on him for that and still has unanswered questions about what happened.

This will have another part soon.

Masterlist

Triggers: talking about losing a parent; drinking; ghosting.

It's been an exhausting journey, but you finally made it. You graduated from University College of London and got your PhD in Linguistics. Now you were ready for the new chapter of your life. You wanted to teach Linguistics but also write books. One of your firsts topics in mind was to write a book about the topic of language acquisition, discussing the different views of famous linguistics such a Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir, Eve Clark, Steven Pinker, among others. You also wanted to write books about the best methods of learning more languages. It excited you to know how limitless was the things that you could do with all your knowledge and how anxious you were to investigate even further. But that would have to wait because today your focus was on celebrating all your hard work. After the commencement ceremony, you went home to change and went to a pub to celebrate your achievement with your girls. The bar was pretty exclusive and usually wealthy people hung out there, mostly because when celebrities were in London, went to the pub looking for a place to drink without being bothered. You weren't rich, exactly, but money wasn't a problem for you. But definitely, you wouldn't qualify to get in the said club, the only reason you were allowed to be there was that the place was owned by your uncle/godfather. You were dancing to some song playing in the pub with your friends Kate and Emma. It felt so good to be out, truly partying without worrying about upcoming exams or books to read for class. You were finally free to rest and just have fun for once. You went to the bar to get the next round of drinks for you and your friends when you got a text. You grabbed your phone from your jean pocket and read the lovely message that your aunt Judy sent you. She couldn't be in the commencement because she lived in The USA, but she wanted to let you know how proud of you she was. You were walking towards the bar with your eyes set on your phone screen when accidentally collided with someone. You immediately apologized for being distracted and not looking where you were walking. The other person did the same as you, for him was distracted as well. You look at his face and froze. "What is he doing here?" You thought, then remembered that he always used to hang out there. That was after all the place where you met a few years back, one summer that you worked as a bartender to gain some money for the upcoming spring break; he helped you make the drink that he wanted since you didn't know how to do it for you were new in the job and he used to have the same job when he was twenty. It's been almost two years since the last time you two spoke to each other, before he ghosted you out of the blue, without any explanation. You used to be really close, he was your best friend in the entire world. You trusted him more than anyone else in the entire world. He was always there for you, even when he was away filming some movie. He would do everything he could to make you feel better on your shitty days. But, again, one day he stopped responding your messages, changed his number, moved out and didn't try to reach for you to let you know that he was moving or why he did not want to be your friend anymore. He just vanished. You knew that he was ok because he continued doing movies and you recently saw a trailer from a movie starring him and Armie Hammer that was about to be released soon. You could see in his eyes that he was as shocked to see you as you were to see him and how immediately he put together that the pub was owned by your uncle, so it wasn't uncommon for you to be there. You broke the silence, saying "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be more careful next time.", offering a sympathetic smile and walking away, pretending not to know him. You asked your friend Mark, the bartender, to prepare you three margaritas, and then went back to your friends. You chatted with your friends, although your mind was somewhere else. You discretely check the entire room, looking for him. You saw him with hanging out with two guys that you didn't know. They were laughing and taking pictures while drinking beer. "Stop looking at him and enjoy your night," you told yourself. You try hard to focus on the conversation with your friends. - I can't believe that you're leaving me alone in my night. It's only eleven p.m. - you told your friends after some time. - I'm truly sorry, but I have to work tomorrow.- Emma apologized - Tomorrow is Sunday! - you prompted - I know, but I still have to work in the hospital. - she explained - Yeah, and I'm a mother, I don't have free days - Kate added.- So technically, I also have to work tomorrow and I should go. You sighed and said goodbye to your friends. Then you went to sit by the bar. - Your friends left? - asked Mark surprised - Yep. One has a kid and the other has a shift in the hospital where she works tomorrow, so they both left early. -Bomer. Well, I guess you'll continue your celebration with me.- he said smiling. - I guess so. Hey, do you need some help? - you asked him - No, don't worry, Charlotte and I have everything cover. Just enjoy your night. - How is George? - He's great. He got promoted, now he's the bank's manager. - he informed excited. - Great! Congratulate him on my behalf. - I will. And I'm sure he will ask me to tell you the same. - Thanks. Are you going to New York for vacations as you planned? - We're still not sure. We were also thinking about going to Las Vegas. - That sounds fun as well. - Yes. I promise you to bring you something from our trip. - he said winking - Please, don't waste your money on me. Buy things for you two. - Nonsense, I want to bring you a present. We met thanks to you. - A simple thank you is enough for cupid, a.k.a me. - you replied winking and with a smirk on your face. - There she is! My little genius! - said a man approaching you from behind. You recognized immediately the voice and stood up to hug your godfather. - Hi, uncle John! - you greeted him while hugging him. - Hi princess! Congratulations! You're a star! - he saluted you while praising you. - Thanks! And thank you for letting me celebrate here! - you thanked him - No need to thank me, and besides, your dad help me built this place, so technically is part yours too. - he said winking. - He'd be so proud of you, honey. -he assured you. It's been a year since your father passed due to a heart attack. Since then, your mother, who was a college professor, and your big sister, a surgeon, have been taking care of you, so you wouldn't have to quit studying. You could always count with your uncle too; you didn't like to ask for money, even though you knew that he would be happy to help if you needed it, so if you require some money for things like clothes, hang out with your friend, etc, you would always ask him to work in the pub. You would cover shifts and during college breaks, you would work regularly there. - Everyone, can I have your attention for a moment - said your uncle aloud, while everyone in the pub turned to him - For those who don't know me, I'm the owner of this place and this is my gorgeous niece. - he said while grabbing your shoulder - She graduated from the University College of London today! - he announced proudly - So, in her honour, everyone gets a drink on the house.- he said and people cheered. Your uncle kissed your temple and went into the back of the place. You continued drinking, while people came to claim their free drink, congratulating you while doing so. Apparently, Henry asked his friend to bring him the drink, because he never reached the bar. You gave a hand to Mark and Charlotte, who now were more than busy handing out drinks. When the clock announced that it was 1:30 a.m, you decided to head home. You could keep partying, but you were bored. Mark tried to keep you entertained, but he was busy now that the pub was getting more and more clouded with rich kids looking to get wasted. You said goodbye to him and Charlotte and went to salute your godfather before leaving. He offered to take you home, but you assured him that a taxi would be more than fine and that you would let him know as soon as you were in your house. The night was so beautiful that you decided to walk. Your place was not that far away and the streets were packed with youngsters looking for places to hang out, so you felt safe. You were halfway to your home when you notice a shadow walking not so far from yours. Someone was walking behind you, although judging from the shape of the shadow, it was a few meters away. You weren't a scaredy-cat and you're even tougher when you have some drinks on you, so you turned around to face the person. It was him. - What the hell are you doing following me? - you said angrily - I saw you leave alone and I wanted to make sure you made it safe - Henry explained - Oh, so now you remember that I exist? - you questioned, furious. - I wonder where was that concern for me like two years ago when you erase me from your life without notice. A little heads up would've been nice, you know. - you reproached him and he looked away. - So, like when you ghosted me, it seems like I still don't get an explanation from you. - you told him while rolling your eyes - I needed you a year ago, not now. - What happened a year ago? - he asked surprised - I lost my dad. You've known if you were there for me like you always did, but apparently, I stopped being important for you, sir. So now you can fuck off. Don't worry about me, I'll take care of myself, as always. Goodbye. -you said and turned around and starting to walk away. - I was in love with you.- he said loudly enough for you to hear him. You stopped immediately and stood there, without turning around. - I loved you and I couldn't stand the fact that once again you forgave that asshole Steven for cheating on you once more. I couldn't be around you any more, it hurt, so I left. - That asshole reached for me to see how I was doing after my father passed. You didn't. And yes, I've made the same mistake plenty of times, but in the end, I learned my lesson. I might have done things differently if I'd have known that you had feelings for me. - you said, turning around to face him - I had a crush on you when we met and grew stronger and stronger, and then my heart broke when you started dating Gina. You were so happy together, that's when I realized that I'd never had a chance with you. So I started dating Steven. I've always known that he'd cheat on me sooner or later, he was a womanizer, a party boy, but at least he was nice to me. I needed that to make feel better and to concentrate on other things that weren't my feelings for you. - I didn't know. - he commented. - I stopped talking to you because I had hopes that if I wasn't around you my feelings would go away and I would fall again for Gina, but that didn't happen. She realized that my heart now belonged to someone else and left me. I saw online that you broke up with him and I wanted to reach you, but I was ashamed for cutting you out of my life without speaking to you, that I simply could not do it. I really wish I would have had the guts to ask you to forgive me, then I'd have been by your side when your dad passed. I'm so sorry. I know you two were close and that must hurt. You don't know how sorry I am. - You can apologize for all your want, it doesn't change a single thing, Henry. - you were about to continue your way, but stopped for one moment - Thank you for ruining my graduation day by reminding me how not only you neglected our friendship, leaving me alone without a single word, but also for letting me know that we might have something nice if instead of disappearing you would have told me how you felt. - you finished and walked away.

[caitybug]

Please could we have Snowbaz for 14? 🌧☔💖

Nena, you could have anything you want!

14. Kisses in the rain (with a twist).

(Thanks for letting me give it a fun little twist, I hope you enjoy the direction I took it in.)

You can read this ficlet (with the others that I promise I’ll slowly get around to uploading) on ao3 here.

(also, shoutout to @adamarks @motherscarf for looking this over for me before posting. The true MVP’s here.)

There’s soft noise coming through the doors as I stand on the balcony. 

Everyone inside is having a great time. 

It’s a good party.

(Truly, it is.)

Sometimes I just need to take a breath and separate myself from everything.

It’s also nice to be able to go outside without the fear of someone shrieking when they see me. 

(That happened once. Baz and I forgot about spelling my wings away the first night we moved in and the poor lady to our left saw us over her morning cup of tea.)

Thank Merlin costumes exist. 

(She still gives me weird glances in the hall though.)

“Doing alright?”

It’s Baz. He always knows I need some time at big gatherings.

(Frankly, he does too.)

 We love our friends, but we get drained after a while. It’s nice to be able to step away and get fresh air. 

Shepard is here anyway. He could always carry a party all by himself. 

Baz can tend to put up with more than me, people wise. (A side effect of his upbringing, I guess.)

“Yeah.” I look over the ledge at a group of people walking down the road. They’re slightly intoxicated, shouting about how this next year of their life is going to be the best thing ever. “‘M’alright.”

Baz’s arm comes behind my back and I feel his lips touch the top of my head.

“I’ll kick them out if you want me too,” he whispers. 

I snort. 

“Penny would kill you.” I lean into him.

He laughs softly.

Much softer than whoever is laughing back in the living room. 

(Penny, I think.)

“I’d bounce back, somehow. Short of her setting me on fire, I’d wager I could come back from the dead, so to speak.” 

I look up. 

He’s concentrating at a point on my forehead. Looking at me, but not at me. 

I start to wonder why, but he lifts a finger and brushes a curl from my face. 

“No amount of product you use will ever stop your hair being the way it is,” he says, finally looking down into my eyes. 

I smile finally. The first time since walking out here to escape the noise. 

Shepard shouts something about how he’s met Mothman.

Penny shouts back that Mothman isn’t real.

“I love you,” I tell him, putting my arms around his neck. “Any hopes for what this next year will bring?”

A group of people step out on the balcony above us, buzzing about how it’s almost time.

Must almost be midnight.

“Well let’s see,” he ponders. He purses his lips and looks up for a moment, pretending to be deep in thought. “I wouldn’t mind if my boyfriend learned to put his trousers away after finishing the laundry.”

He’s smirking, but it’s in jest.

(Doesn’t mean I don’t pinch his waist in response though.)

“I wouldn’t change much either,” I respond, leaning into his chest. “Maybe could do without the salt and vinegar crisp crumbs left on the table.”

He hums in response.

Not denying or accepting. 

“Okay, does everyone have one?” Someone asks above us. 

I hear people from inside start to count down. 

The people above start too (a bit off time, but close enough.)

“10…”

“Should we go in?” Baz asks.

I scrunch my nose.

“9…”

I look inside.

Penny and Shepard are shouting, both standing on the couch.

(I make sure Baz stays facing me. He’d be dreadful if he saw.)

“8…”

“I think they’ll make do without us,” I say, facing him again. 

He pulls me closer, our foreheads touching.

“7…”

We whisper the countdown now.

“6…”

It feels like it’s just us.

Me and Baz, against the world.

(Though we’re not fighting anything anymore.)

“5…”

Not really.

Unless you count the cable provider.

Baz got into it with them last Monday.

“4…”

He kisses my forehead.

“3…”

I kiss his chin.

“2…”

“I love you, Simon,” he whispers. His lips move against my own.

“I love you too, Baz.”

“1…”

We stay this in unison. The last number, the final moment of the previous year, and we press harder into each other.

I hear pops go off, maybe some fireworks in the distance. 

People on the street are shouting, praising the end of yet another horrible year.

Baz leans back for a moment. I open my eyes.

His hair has strips of something on it. 

He raises an eyebrow and pulls a similar one off mine. 

They’re floating all around us.

Confetti. 

I hear more pops from above.

“The neighbors seem to be having fun,” Baz jokes.

I hum, leaning up to keep kissing him while the confetti rains around us. 

Not every day of the year was great. Most were fairly painful if we are being honest.

But this, here.

Kissing Baz.

Feeling confetti hit our cheeks as we laugh.

Hearing Penny shout, asking where we are.

Only for Agatha to respond with: “Where do you think, Penelope? Making out on the balcony.”

She groans, but I don’t much care if I’m being honest.

It’s a new year, and I’ve started it by kissing Baz.

I could do this a million times more. 

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Le Démon Déchu - Chapter 2: Réponses Et Plus De Questions

Summary: The summary is kind of long so please check a previous part or my masterlist if you want to read it.

Warning(s): threat, swearing

Word Count: 6.8k+

Inspiration: Do You Know What Eternity Is? by Elderly_Worm on AO3, Great Omens (The Big One) by falsepremise on AO3, Pray For Us, Icarus series by Atalan on AO3, Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm on AO3, wasteland, baby by john1513 on AO3, Not of Us by ShesAKillerQueen98 on AO3, How to Win a Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Television (and how not to) by GaryOldman on AO3, Doctor Who (don’t ask) and, of course, Good Omens itself

A/N: Okay I took a bit of a hiatus from writing literally anything for about five months so sorry about that but I’m back now!! That’s the main thing. Also, I’ve left high school now which is very exciting! That does mean I’ll have so much more time to write and I’m definitely going to try and use this summer to establish some kind of routine for writing so that when I start college, I won’t get too overwhelmed with both my studies and with updating my fics. That’s the plan anyway so don’t hold me to that lmao. With any luck, now I’ve actually said that it’ll have to happen. (I wrote that part of this note back in May when it was the start of the summer. It is currently September and I’m just about to finally publish this chapter and I assure you, I am cringing at my own optimism.) Sorry this took so long to post. This chapter has been in the works since May (yes, I know I’m terrible) but I actually got a lot more writing done in that time that what you just see in this chapter. All will be revealed soon. I just promise that I have been productive. Once you’ve read this chapter, you have my blessing to translate the title of this fic. Hopefully it will make sense.

I just wanted to point out something about the playlist I linked in the previous chapter. I am well aware that there are some rather problematic people in it, namely Sia. I want you all to know that I don’t support her in any way (I don’t like her at all I think she’s a complete ableist twat). Her songs are only on there because of how well they fit with the story (a lot of this will become clearer as the story goes on).

I also wanted to point out that I know that if angels do exist, then their true forms probably wouldn’t look anything like humans. I’m well aware of that, I’m not an idiot, I don’t know if any of you remember when people started googling ‘angel true form’ and some people got scared lmao. The point is, we’ve all seen the pictures. But for the purpose of this story, and honestly just to make it easier for me to describe what the characters are doing, we’re going to have to pretend that they did look like humans. Can I claim creative license with this one? Maybe it got lost in translation because there is probably no way someone could describe how an angel truly looks in any human language? I don’t know, just roll with it.I know that this chapter had so much exposition and explanation in it but I can promise you two things. One, there is still much to be revealed. Two, I promise this isn’t just bad writing on my part. Just trust that I needed to put this all in this early on.

And how is everyone doing after the season 2 announcement? I mean, at the time of writing this specific part of my notes, it only got announced about an hour ago lmao. I’m very fucking excited, oh my god. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I found out I can’t lie. Catch me trying to finish this before it comes out in case things occur which means I have to change things in this story. I can’t be arsed for that. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll read like those Sherlock fics that people wrote in between series 2 and series 3 if that doesn’t happen.

Taglist: @briarrose26​

Ask or comment to be on my taglist! Let me know if it’s for a specific fandom(s) or series. Full list is in my bio.

Hermit (upright) + Five of Wands (upright)

Conflict. Reflection. Resurfacing memories.

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

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.

We know who our enemies are. We know.

– Richard Siken (Detail of the Fire)

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

“Fuck.”

The angel and demon exchanged glances of what could only be described as thinly veiled panic, while the woman in front of them just looked annoyed at the most.

“They couldn’t wait five minutes, could they?” she muttered, pinching at the bridge of her nose in frustration before standing up again, “Look, just stay down here, I’m gonna go sort this out. With any luck they won’t have actually realised you’re here too.”

“Wait, how do you know they’re here for you?” Crowley asked, suddenly curious as to what business Eloise might have with Heaven.

“Just a gut feeling,” she said before making her way to the spiral staircase behind them, muttering to herself, “If they were here for you, I feel like they would have at least used the front door.”

The other two waited until she’d run upstairs before exchanging a quick glance, an unspoken word, and following her up.

Meanwhile, Eloise was hovering outside a room at the end of the corridor which she could only assume was the bedroom. She was strangely hesitant, not out of fear of them, simply out of fear of the unknown. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in that room for millennia, and something told her that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat. She took a deep breath, even though she technically didn’t need it, letting a wave of faux confidence wash over her, and stepped inside. Don’t crumble now. You’ve come too far to crumble now.

“Ah, Mariel, long time no see,” Gabriel smiled coldly, brushing the dust off his white suit. Flanked by two other angels, he stood in the wreckage of the bedroom without even acknowledging the damage they must have caused when they crashed in. Beside him were Beelzebub and Hastur, who both looked as though they had been dragged kicking and screaming to come here. Beelzebub in particular kept shooting metaphorical daggers at Gabriel, who remained perfectly oblivious. The entire ceiling had caved in from the impact of their crash, the setting sun painting the doorway where Eloise stood in a pale gold and casting a dark shadow over the others.

She’d grimaced at the use of her old name; it was too unfamiliar, too ancient. Mariel was the name of a long-dead version of herself. Once upon a time, she’d embraced it, but that was once upon a time. Once upon a time long gone.

“Almost like I’ve been avoiding you on purpose,” she muttered, leaning against the doorway as she stared intrusively at each person in the room, observing, assessing. She silently revelled in the blatant discomfort in each of their faces.

“No need to be so rude,” Gabriel said, doing anything to avoid her eyes, his previous confident façade now shattered.

Eloise stared at him in disbelief, “What exactly were you expecting? A fucking welcome party? I haven’t seen any of you in over six thousand years and you just crash through the roof of my house, unannounced and uninvited, so yeah, forgive me for being a little irritated.” She couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. She’d barely been in Aziraphale’s bookshop for fifteen minutes and she was already pretending she owned it.

She watched smugly as he squirmed under her gaze, desperately looking to the others to say something in response. A moment or two passed before Beelzebub’s head suddenly snapped up in confusion, “Are you alone?”

Shit. She’d hoped that they wouldn’t have noticed the presence of the two who were definitely not downstairs like she’d asked. She swallowed, trying not to let any kind of emotion show on her face, trying not to give the game up that quickly, “Yeah, I live on my own.” She watched the whole group of them squint in concentration, trying to sense any other beings in the house. She sighed, changing the subject before they could comment on it any further, “Look, what do you want? I don’t have all day so if you could make it quick then that would be much appreciated.”

Gabriel looked back at her, his suave exterior unfortunately making a return, “Hey, we just wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing-”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she snapped. She pushed herself off from the doorway, stalking towards the others, “You have had six thousand years to ‘check up on me’, don’t pretend you’ve only started to care now.”

She was met with only silence as Gabriel and Beelzebub glanced at each other awkwardly, looking very much like chastised children. Suddenly the latter groaned and cried, “You can’t just leave Hell!”

“Oh, here we go,” Eloise muttered, rolling her eyes, bored already.

“You can’t! You Fell from Heaven, so you go to Hell, there isn’t a third option!”

“Well, apparently there is,” she shrugged.

“No there isn’t!” they argued, face screwed up like a petulant child.

“Then what do you call this then?” she asked, unfolding her wings for the second time that day. She studied their reactions closely, scrutinising coal-black eyes piercing through their very souls. She was searching for any hint of shock, of recognition, of anything that could clue her in as to what was going on in their heads at that moment. All she could find, however, was pure, unadulterated confusion. Which was annoying when her wings were supposed to be an answer to their unasked questions.

Gabriel stumbled over his words, “Good Lord, how did you even-”

Eloise cut him off curtly, no longer having the patience to listen to his incoherent mumbles. She instead turned to Beelzebub who at least had the decency to look a little more composed, “That would be what you could sense then. I’ve got both Heaven and Hell in me, that’s a lot of energy to pick up on.” She stared right through them, daring them to say anything else.

“Must be,” they replied slowly, though they didn’t look at all convinced.

Gabriel held up a hand, his eyes darting about as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing, “No hold on, how did you even manage that?”

“I left Hell,” Eloise said simply, “Why should I have black wings? I’m not some demon who ran away from everything. I left. Permanently. I looked Hell in the eye and walked away. You know what? Fuck it, I looked Satan in the eyes and walked away.”

“You what?” he stuttered.

“Yeah, you heard me. You have a problem with me leaving Hell then go on! Take that up with the bloody devil,” she said, staring them down, daring them to retaliate. She smirked when she was met with pure, uncomfortable silence, “Except you won’t, will you? Because you don’t actually give two fucks about me. Just like I said, if you did then you would have chased me up a long time ago. Quite frankly, I think you must have been glad to have me out of your hair,” she sighed, half sad, half amused when they couldn’t even meet her eye. She paused for a moment, wondering how far she could push this, before asking, “You know what I think is really going on here? I think the pair of you are feeling a bit bruised after the absolute shitshow that was Armageddon last year, which, by the way, fucking hilarious. I think your egos are feeling a little sore after a literal child stopped you from ending the world, so you’re thinking ‘hmm, what would be an easy win so that we don’t feel like total shit? Oh yeah, what about that demon who ran away all that time ago? That should be easy to sort out.’. Well, love to disappoint, but you’re not getting me that easily, especially when not a single one of us actually wants me back, and Sandalphon, take one more step further I swear I will dropkick you back to Heaven,” she snapped, glaring at the angel who had been menacingly inching closer while she had been talking. He reluctantly stepped back alongside Gabriel, looking a little more than miffed that his plan hadn’t worked out. “You really want me back? Get your bosses to talk to me because I don’t actually see why it’s any of your business. No middle men. Just God, Satan and me. I’ll see what they have to say about all this. Questions?” she asked, tone snapping from one extreme to another, almost as if she had just been possessed.

Gabriel stared at her, mouth gaping like a fish, “You can’t just boss us around like that.”

“What? Like how you bossed us around all those years?” she replied without missing a beat, real rage, real danger seeping into her voice now, “I think we’re done here.”

“But-”

“I said, I think we’re done here,” she said, leaving no room for arguments. She gestured to the sorry excuse for a room around them, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind cleaning this up.”

“Why can’t you do it? You can miracle things too,” Gabriel said, desperate for any kind of leverage over Eloise.

“You’re right, I could, but I didn’t make this mess, and I personally believe that you should face the consequences of your actions, Gabriel,” she said pointedly, watching as he visibly gulped. In a matter of seconds, the room was restored to its original state and Eloise was left alone in the room, no indicators that she was ever with any other people remaining.

She sighed and all but collapsed into a chair that may or may not have existed a few moments ago, confident façade shattered completely. She breathed heavily in exhaustion, as if she’d just run a marathon; she supposed she had just run a mental one. Her emotions were bugging her to no end. It was strange. She wasn’t scared, per se. There was very little that Gabriel or Beelzebub could do to her that would frighten her anymore. She tried her best to compose herself, writing off the tsunami inside her mind as just plain old adrenaline, before calling out, “You can come in now. I know you guys are outside, it’s okay, you can come in.”

Crowley and Aziraphale walked into the room, one looking considerably more sheepish than the other. Aziraphale perched awkwardly on the freshly reconstructed bed, “We’re sorry–”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, we’re not.”

Eloise and Crowley exchanged a glance, amused looks on both of their faces while Aziraphale simply looked distressed. Eloise turned back to him and smiled sympathetically, “I told you, it’s fine. I would have done the same,” she admitted, looking away before collecting herself once again, “So, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions–”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Crowley muttered as he took a seat beside Aziraphale, although it was a very loose definition of ‘taking a seat’.

Aziraphale glared at him while Eloise just sighed and reluctantly said, “I think it might be better if I just show you.”

Crowley cocked his head in confusion, “Show us what?”

She brought her chair closer to the edge of the bed and put out her hands, “Take my hands. Brace yourselves.”

Mariel was standing before a crowd of angels, dozens upon dozens of disgusted faces staring right at her. She couldn’t quite remember getting there. She had been in the pitch-dark holding cell and the next thing she knew, she was here. Blinding white light surrounded them, harshly illuminating her vulnerabilities before all of Heaven. She tried her best to keep her chin up even though she absolutely hated the fact that they could see the bruises from when she had been arrested that were now blooming on her face. She frowned as she noticed the lack of measures preventing her from escaping. All that was keeping her there was Gabriel’s presence at her side, cold violet eyes pointedly ignoring her. He really was an arrogant bastard for assuming that she wouldn’t even try to make a run for it. Just because he was right this one time, it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t have come prepared. Mariel sighed and looked up at the angels staring down at her. Michael was sat higher than everyone in the centre of the crowd, face void of all emotion as she said, “The Principality Mariel. You’re on trial today for betraying the will of the Almighty, rebelling against all that is good and light in the universe...”

Mariel blocked the rest of her pretentious speech out as she droned on about all the awful things she’d supposedly done to deserve this. It was all lies anyway. She knew the real reason she was here. There were a few things that stood out to her despite it all, things that nearly made her laugh. She’d known that they’d needed to conjure up some reasons for condemning her, but this was just ridiculous. Gabriel really had gone to extraordinary yet desperate lengths to slander her in her final moments in this Someone-forsaken place. She was surprised that the angels gathered to watch her downfall believed a word of this. She tried her best not to resent them, though. It wasn’t like they had anything better to believe in. Especially considering the amused smirk that had crept its way onto her face.

She returns to reality just in time to hear Michael ask, “What do you have to say to defend yourself?”

“I’ve done nothing I need to defend,” she said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t make this worse for yourself than it already is,” Gabriel muttered dangerously from where he stood beside her.

Mariel turned to look at him in disbelief. “How the fuck could this get any worse, Gabriel?” she hissed, fury flaring up in her eyes.

He just looked back at her condescendingly, “Do you really need me to answer that?”

She pointedly refused to reply, turning back to face Michael, determined to ignore him.

The next part goes past in a blur for Mariel. Michael speaks again, though she doesn’t listen. Then suddenly there are shouts of anger, screams of rage, coming from the gathered crowd. They spit with venom as they hurl insults at her. She doesn’t hear a word. It’s as though her head is under water, completely submerged in the stone cold anger that seeps through her body, and suddenly Mariel is drowning in the realisation that this is really happening, oh God this is really happening.

Why? Why is this happening to me? You listening, God? Look me in the eye and tell me why this is happening.

She doesn’t get an answer, and though she wasn’t expecting one, it still hurts. Because she knows that she’ll never get an answer from Her again now.

Eventually she feels a tug on her arm from where Gabriel has been standing, dragging her away from the crowd and out her of current state of mind. She could feel her senses coming back to her as she stumbled backwards, but everything was crashing down on her too quickly, too harshly. She did her best to shove the rising panic as deep down insider her as she could. There was no way she would let anyone here see her in that state. She couldn’t let them think they’d won.

She didn’t even realise she had reached the edge of the ground she was standing on, the edge of Heaven itself, Gabriel no longer grabbing her arm. She nearly found herself peering over the edge, but stopped herself before she could lean too far. It may have helped her in the past but now was not the time to give in to her curiosity. And she didn’t trust Gabriel to not push her the moment he had the chance. She turned her head to glare fiercely at him, piercing holes in his very soul. She could slowly feel her anxiety being replaced by cool rage as she found herself saying, “Any institution that tries to silence anyone who opposes them is inherently corrupt.” She stared knowingly at his discomfort as he forced himself to face her. He knew what she meant by that. He knew.

He took a second to compose himself before practically scoffing in her face, “Don’t preach at me.”

Mariel cocked her head as she studied him. She watched as his eyes subconsciously flicked back to the crowd, to the other Archangels. He blatantly wanted nothing more than to re-join his fellow angels, the only beings who understood why he was doing what he was doing, or were at least supposed to understand anyway. Somehow she doubted they were all as cold-hearted and self-absorbed as the angel in front of her. She considered him for a moment before saying simply, “Your quest for power will kill you in the end.”

He furrowed his brows in somewhat amused confusion, “Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s the truth,” she blinked at him before leaning in and murmuring in his ear, “It will be your downfall.”

“The only one who’s going to Fall around here is you,” he said dangerously. Mariel leaned back and watched the lethal glimmer in his eye wither and die under the intensity of her gaze.

She just smiled. “We’ll see.” She let herself look at him for a moment longer before blinking away the tears and cautiously taking a small step backwards. She could feel where the ground ended beneath her feet and was sure not to step any further. She took one last look of the place she once called home, embracing how it felt for the last time though she knew she wouldn’t miss it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and fell back.

Mariel was Falling. That bit she knew, but much more than that? Everything was happening too fast for her to notice. And yet, it was as if she was existing in slow-motion. She worried for a moment that this was, in fact, her fate; doomed to remain in a perpetual state of limbo, of Falling, for all eternity. The only thing telling her otherwise was the view of Heaven above her, which she realised only too late was slowly shrinking into nothing. Mariel found herself reaching her own arms out, grasping for Heaven. They were opposite ends of a magnet being roughly pulled away from each other by an invisible force.

You hear that God? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? And don’t you dare tell me it’s all part of your plan because right now, the only thing I want is to be back where I should be and I can’t even have that.

She pulled herself out of her mind and back into reality; she’d have plenty of time in Hell to yell at a God who’d never listen, let alone answer. She only just started to register her surroundings, the fact that she was actually Falling, who knows how far and for how long, tumbling through the air at an unimaginable speed, plummeting towards a place that could be anything from seconds to hours away. The deafening wind that screamed in her ears, drowning out the screams which may have been coming from her mouth or her mind, who was she to say? Air whipped around her body, icier and more painful than any words that could ever be uttered by the angels above her. It wasn’t until she could no longer see any hint of Heaven on the horizon that she started to feel the tears finally fall, trickling down her face and floating slightly due to the force of the Fall.

Then suddenly it came. She felt it in the very tips of her wings first, a strange tingling sensation, as though hundreds and then thousands of pins were skirting the edges of her corporeal being. It spread over the rest of her wings, and then her body, at a faster pace than she could keep track of until her whole being felt as though it was burning. The pain grew, and it grew, and it grew, and she didn’t think she could physically take any more pain when she looked up in horror at her own freshly blackened wings. Her beautiful, holy wings which had once been the softest, purest white, were now stained with evil and ash. For the first time since she started Falling, however long ago that might have been, she let out a choked sob that racked through her whole body and through the ever-changing air around her. Nobody heard her cries. Nobody heard her screams as the searing pain in her chest grew stronger. She couldn’t even begin to work out whether it was physical or emotional but it was there and it burned a hole, a gaping wound, through her soul, leaving a scar fated to never heal and to forever haunt her-

Eloise was crying. She’d tried so hard to prevent the steady streams that were now running down her cheeks, but that was a memory that she’d never wanted to relive. She looked upwards for a moment, trying to regain control of her emotions and her breathing, before peeling her hands away from the two sat in front of her. She roughly wiped the tears from her face, and suddenly the only thing telling you she had been crying were the bloodshot eyes that Crowley tried to ignore as he said bluntly, “I’m still confused.”

“Crowley, give her a minute,” Aziraphale chastised him, furrowing his brows at the demon before he turned back to Eloise with kind eyes and a kinder heart, “Are you alright, my dear?”

She nodded without much hesitation, “I’m fine, it’s okay.” She certainly wasn’t fine, nor was it okay, but the last thing she wanted was to have to deal with her feelings in front of two people she was trying her best not to scare off. She looked back at Crowley, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

He looked at her in understanding, for if anyone knew her thought process in that moment, it was him. “Right, so you Fell and became a demon. Then what?”

“Well, you know what Hell’s like,” she started, looking pointedly at Crowley. She waited for him to nod before continuing, “Not my scene at all. I just point-blank refused to do anything they asked of me. Naturally they didn’t like that much. Eventually I was called in to see Satan about it. I remember thinking, ‘well, that’s that then. Terrible knowing you all.’, because I didn’t think I was going to survive that. Turns out he was just annoyed that I was being a bloody nuisance to everyone else, but he was too amused to really do anything about it, so he basically just told me to piss off. Leave Hell, don’t come back, and I won’t tell anyone where you’ve gone or that you’re even alive. Not exactly a deal I could refuse, so I left, came to Earth, been here ever since. I think everyone just assumed he’d killed me,” she shrugged as if she hadn’t just destroyed the whole idea of eternal damnation with just a few sentences. She smiled to herself as they gaped at her for a moment, though she doubted they realised they were doing it.

Crowley somehow managed to gather his senses quick enough to hold up a hand and say, “Wait, but when you were talking to Gabriel and Beelzebub and that lot, you said they had six thousand years to check up on you. Why would you say that if they thought you were dead?” He narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t altogether quite sure why he seemed to be so keen on finding any gaps in her story, but he needed to be able to trust that she was telling the truth. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Yes, and they didn’t exactly seem surprised to see you alive.”

Eloise grinned. You two are gonna be fun, I can tell. “You’re both very observant, I have to give you credit for that.” She paused in thought for a second before starting carefully, “You see, the trouble with me is that I’m not really one for keeping a low profile. I’m too noisy, so to speak, and I don’t even realise it most of the time. This demon I hadn’t exactly been the nicest to back in Hell saw me in Babylon, gosh, it must have been eighteen thirty something BC? Anyways, he ratted me out to Beelzebub who must have told Gabriel all about it. I had about a decade of this bloody demon trying to discorporate me just to see if it would force me to go back to Hell, then one day he just stopped, and I never saw him again. Beelzebub probably told him to piss off.”

They were both quiet again for a little while. Eloise didn’t even think to say anything. It might be a rare occasion, but she did know when to keep her mouth shut when it mattered. She could see the cogs turning in their heads as if it was projected in the air above them. Eventually Crowley murmured, “I didn’t even know you could do that, you know, leave.”

She shook her head with a strange kind of sympathy that came from recognising an experience you had far too long ago, “Neither did I. It stills shocks me sometimes if I think about it too much.”

A few seconds passed before Crowley cleared his throat abruptly and said, “They called you Mariel. I thought you said your name was Eloise.”

She hesitated before answering. She knew exactly what he was doing, she’d been doing it for the whole of their conversation thus far, but just because she tended to bury her emotions, it didn’t mean that she liked it when others did it. She decided to ignore the hypocrisy of that thought, how ironic, she thought to herself, and instead explained, “It is. Mariel was my angel name. You know how it is,” she looked pointedly at Crowley again, hoping that Aziraphale would be able to put the pieces together. She didn’t actually know how much he knew about what it was like to Fall and become a demon.

“Oh, so is Eloise your demon name?” Aziraphale asked politely.

“No,” she said curtly, instantly feeling guilty when she saw the hurt that flashed over Aziraphale’s face. She grimaced and explained in a gentler tone, “I chose it for myself when I came to Earth. Hell tried to change my name after I Fell but I just refused.” She studied him for a second, watching his eyes dart about, before saying, “You want to ask something, I can tell. What is it?”

He looked a little startled at being caught out, momentarily glancing at Crowley for support, probably subconsciously, Eloise noted with a smile. “I, well, I couldn’t help but notice that you mentioned Armageddon. Back when you were speaking with, um, well, you know. H-how did you know about that?”

“I might have been there.” The words rushed out of her mouth in a much less casual manner than what she’d been aiming for, coming out in a sort of jumbled heap that took Crowley and Aziraphale a moment to decipher.

Crowley, the poor sod, could only think to lean forward and ask a simple, “You what?”

She jumped to defend herself, wanting to avoid the onslaught of questions if she could, “Not actually at the airbase, but I was in the area. I was living in Tadfield at the time.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, although the hint of a smirk on his face told her it was more in amusement than suspicion, “How did you know it was at the airbase?”

Eloise couldn’t help but chuckle to herself because of course, they’d notice her choice of words, “I knew Adam and his mates. I ran an ice cream shop, would you believe it. He came and told me all about it the day after,” she smiled fondly before suddenly coming alive with excitement, “That’s actually how I found out about you two. That’s why I’m here. Because I thought I was the only one trying to stop the world ending, but apparently I wasn’t. I had to see for myself.”

A moment passed before Aziraphale asked quietly, “You were trying to stop it?”

Eloise, not noticing the newly subdued atmosphere, launched herself into a painfully over-enthusiastic explanation, “Yeah, it was quite clever really, if I do say so myself. I made sure Adam was swapped with the American baby in the hopes that he would have a human enough upbringing to perhaps change things. Seems to have worked,” she shrugged, before finally taking in the two shocked faces that were staring back at her. Her brows furrowed and her face fell as she asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You switched the babies?” Crowley asked blankly, although it came out as more of a statement than a question.

Her face screwed up as she tried to work out how best to explain herself. “Well, I say switched, it was more of a ‘made sure the demon dropping the antichrist off went to the wrong delivery room’ kind of thing. Feel sorry for the poor sod who had to deal with that but needs must.”

Crowley blinked at her and said bluntly, “I was the poor sod who had to deal with that.”

Eloise looked at him for a moment as about five different jigsaw pieces finally clicked in her head, before she threw her head back in realisation, “Oh shit, so you were. I knew your name sounded familiar.”

“You bastard, we spent six years raising the wrong child because of you!” he exclaimed, wagging his finger at her and jumping off of the bed at one point before Aziraphale tugged him back down. Eloise didn’t know whether to laugh or run for her life, for the menace in his words was betrayed by the disbelieving laugh in his voice.

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” she asked, only just processing what he’d just said, and she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her lips at his dramatic antics. She knew not to push it when Aziraphale just lifted a finger and pursed his lips with the look of someone who’d rather never bring up said event again.

“Oh bloody heaven, I can’t believe this,” Crowley shook his head, chuckling to himself. Although part of him resented it, he couldn’t help but look at Eloise differently now as they laughed like little kids together. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed so much more like them now, so much more human. Or maybe it was the fact that she had been trying to stop the apocalypse and all the implications that came with the fact. Suddenly he just wanted to know more about her, but he quickly silenced that thought. One thing at a time.

She raised her shoulders with a confused look on her face, giggling as she said, “Sorry? Well, I didn’t know, did I?”

They locked eyes for a moment before bursting into laughter again at the sheer absurdity of it all, leaving Aziraphale slightly bewildered and more than slightly exasperated at the pair. It took them a few moments to finally calm down but once they did, Crowley sobered his tone of voice as he asked, “Right, back to what happened before we came in. Anything we need to keep an eye out for?”

Though he didn’t say it, Eloise could see the unasked question in his eyes. Are we safe? She smiled softly, “Nah, you two’ll be fine. Basically I told them if they want to talk to me, then they need to get their bosses involved, and somehow I highly doubt God and Satan are gonna pop down for a friendly chat any time soon. Even then, you two should be fine. I don’t think any of that lot clocked on that you were here.”

Crowley nodded in understanding, and it didn’t escape Eloise’s attention how the remaining dregs of tension visibly dissipated from both of their bodies. Aziraphale and Crowley looked at each other for a moment, the relief palpable from the pair of them. Eloise averted her eyes, giving them the privacy that they didn’t necessarily need but probably did want. She allowed herself a moment to ponder their relationship. They were very in tune with each other, very in sync, that much was obvious. Are they in love? The question sounded ridiculous the moment she thought it. Of course they are, look at them. She’d seen that look time and time again over the millennia. Although when she thought about the way they looked at each other further, that lead to another question. Do they know? The hint of yearning in their eyes was subtle but it was there. No, absolutely not. They’re too comfortable with each other. They’re a unit, that much she could tell. A unit that might not want to be disturbed.

Oh dear.

She looked back up at them hesitantly, unsure of what to say for the first time that evening. Eventually she said, “I’d better go. I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

Crowley frowned. Hadn’t she said she’d been travelling for a while? “You got somewhere to stay?”

Eloise paused. She’d definitely not been expecting that response. “Not yet. There is a flat I was going to rent but the people haven’t moved out yet because of the lockdown and it seems rude to miracle them away. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Stay here,” Crowley said almost instantly, then pulled a face of confusion at how quickly he replied, “I mean, only if you want to.”

Eloise blinked at that. Surely, they wouldn’t want her there? What reason could they possibly have to want her there? “Wait, are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Crowley just shrugged, “It’s not a problem. What are your options anyway? No hotels are open, and you can’t stay with anyone.”

“Only if you’re sure,” she murmured, still wary for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She glanced at Aziraphale for confirmation; it was his bookshop after all.

He nodded firmly, “Of course. I’ve been told the sofa is remarkably comfy,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, to which she grinned broadly.

A short while and a few miracles later, the sofa downstairs had become a makeshift bed that was significantly larger and softer than it had remembered it being. Eloise was currently settled on it; all it had taken was ten minutes for her to completely crash out. Aziraphale and Crowley had left her in peace with a chuckle, heading up to the bedroom they shared (that wasn’t out of choice, mind you. Simply because there was only one bedroom in the bookshop. No other reason.) One slightly confused item of furniture aside, all seemed to be well in the bookshop.

Upstairs in the bedroom, an angel and a demon were sitting in the same bed. Neither of them had thought to turn off the lights, so they were sat in thick silence in the bedroom. Aziraphale didn’t usually come up to bed, not as used to sleeping as Crowley was, instead opting to read the night away downstairs. However this seemed impolite considering their new guest, so he’d come up with Crowley. And while Crowley was mulling this over he finally stumbled upon why he felt so uneasy.

Aziraphale hadn’t brought a book up with him.

As bizarre a concern as that may seem, Crowley could always trust Aziraphale to bring a book up to bed with him on the rare occasion he came up at night. That was one of the things he lo- liked about him. Liked. He looked at Aziraphale curiously, noting the slight frown on his face as he stared into space. How deep in his head must he have been to forget a book? “You alright, angel?” he asked as softly as he could so as to not startle him.

He looked at Crowley with wide eyes that darted away almost instantly as he started to play with his hands in his lap, “Yes, my dear, I’m fine. I just realised something, is all.”

Crowley cocked his head in interest, “Oh really? What was it?”

He was silent for a little while before saying in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I think I was there when she Fell.”

Crowley felt his eyebrows raise in shock, looking away for a second to try and compose himself. “Right. Well, that’s a thing.”

“Quite.”

He furrowed his brows as he tried to make sense of what this meant now, “And was she telling the truth? Did all that actually happen?”

“Yes. I remember it perfectly well. Clear as day,” he managed to choke out with a forced smile before going back to his routine fidgeting.

Crowley laid a gentle hand on top of Aziraphale’s, stopping what he was doing and getting him to actually look him in the eye for longer than a second. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I am quite well. Don’t fret,” he said, and despite Crowley’s concern, he couldn’t pretend that the smile on Aziraphale’s face wasn’t genuine, however small it may have been.

He reluctantly let it go, changing the subject quickly, “You alright with her staying here? I know it just sort of happened.”

The smile on his face only grew, much to Crowley’s surprise, “It’s alright. After all, wasn’t it you who said we’re on our own side now? I think she’s the first person we’ve met who might understand what that means.”

Crowley tried not to think too much about the fact that Aziraphale had actually listened to him when he’d said that, let alone remembered it, instead opting for a casual, “Yeah, I suppose so. Right, I’m gonna get some sleep. I, um, yeah,” he stammered out awkwardly, cursing his brain for not thinking of literally any other decent response.

Aziraphale simply smiled fondly at him, “Indeed. Goodnight, my dear.”

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

Hello my love,

At the time of writing this, I do not know what the future holds. For me it’s an uncertain, unstoppable force, and it’s not one I think I can fend off for much longer. I’ve tried, please believe that I’ve tried. I’ve tried for your sake to prevent the inevitable. But it’s coming. I can feel it. It won’t be long now, I don’t think.

If you’re reading this, it means I was right, and I have Fallen. I know you’re probably confused and scared and that there is a biting anger bubbling inside you. I wish I could tell you why this is happening. I wish I could tell you that this is all a huge misunderstanding that will be resolved soon.

I wish I could tell you I love you one more time.

But I can’t. There are many things I can’t do now, and it’ll do me no good to dwell on this any longer than I have to. To survive we must focus on what we can do, and that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.

If I know myself as well as I think I do, there are many things I would have liked to have said to you upon our final farewell, but didn’t because I wanted to make sure you were alright. Don’t feel guilty about this, my love. Think of it as my last debt to you being repaid.

I have a plan. Well, it’s more of an idea, and it might not work. And it’s because of this that I shan’t tell you exactly what it is. It seems cruel to allow you to hope for something that might never come into fruition. But please put your faith in me, and in our love, for we will prevail. One way or another.

I hope that you didn’t wait to read this letter because you were scared of its contents, though I’m sure this isn’t the case. You were always brave. It was always something I loved about you. Your quiet, beautiful, roaring courage in the face of such turmoil and anguish. You always had the courage to be kind and to love with all your being, even when everything was against you. No one would have blamed you if you had turned cold and bitter, and yet you chose not to. I admire you for it every day. My idea, should it work, will require us both to be incredibly brave. But more on that another day. It’s that bravery and that strength that you will need to rely on now. That, and the thought of me. Though I may not physically be with you, but I hope that my love’s own soul is enough.

I won’t sign off this letter, because this is not where our story ends. There is much left to be written. And I need you to remember that each day we are parted. Until the next time, my love.

[seekeroftruthpromestein]

Welp. Paradox time.It’s the Finale.

Yikes. Last campground....

That doesn’t bode well...

Here they are. All my friends. I’ve traveled with them for this long. We’re near the end of the game. Who knows what will happen... 

Promestein. You’ve been a very interesting character to see through this game. Seeing you young kind of shows you were always a fucked up kid. But, you have a good heart. And you now have a found family. You’re no longer a lone wolf salvaging through a dark world. You have us. And we’re happy to have you and alllow you to examine this bright new world.

Nuruko. I sadly didn’t get to know you too well and I’ll be sure to remedy that next game. But you were an interesting little thing. 

I wouldn’t have pegged you as a main character honestly but hey. I’m glad your here. You were another person that I’ll have to be sure to bring next time because I feel you probably have lots of interesting insight. 

Pope. You are DEF going to be in my next group. You were one of the most exciting twists i’ve ever seen and I am happy you were here. I am still angry for no sex scene. 

Hilde. Once again, another “I didn’t bring around enough” but you hey. Happy to have you.

These two were my favorite running joke. The not so wise senpai and the student. 

Not sure why YOU are here but you WERE the first boss of the game. So. Yeah. Welcome.

And you were the first recruited monster... I think.

This little exchange reminds me. Granberia was NOT at ALL a regular character in this entire exchange. Hardly any of the knights showed their faces. Alma I think was the most regular. 

The spirits play little purpose as well. In the orginal trilogy they were SUPER important as they were a constant ability you had to keep on or die.  Here. They’re not weak, they’re decent buffs.  But I rarely use them... I did use them actually in the battle against Blalice. Alice actually is a Spirit Summoner because I felt it was rather poetic all things considered. 

Wait are you a noble? Maybe you should put on pants. And a shirt. But okay. Vanilla! The most useful member that never see’s battle. She was BRIEFLY drafted in Black Alice when all of the other allies died but yeah. She has been a rock this entire time. Constantly producing MP for the party.  

I admit I never had a use for her. She mostly stayed around because she had the most Dialog from things. 

And ah. The MVP herself. Okay second MVP but we’ll get to her soon. Superb support. Valuable as hell. Sadly a lot of Angels have Auto-hit attacks. But I would have lost without her many times. 

I’m trying to do the whole sentimental thing but yeah. Don’t have a lot to say. Maybe one of these days I’ll have just the four of them on a team. 

I’m just WAITING for you to betray me. But it’s a bit late and you’re no longer important in the slightest so. 

Ah speak of the devil. Now. Time for the main course. 

Traveling with Black Alice has been a really facinating experience. She’s a lot of fun. If you know, a bit evil. It’s interesting that she played the Alice. Pretending to be something she’s not. It makes me wonder if it’s a tradition? I wonder if this experience will make her nicer. 

Ah Sonya. You sadly have a LOT of death flags... It was interesting the idea of Luka having a human friend, but from a writing perspective it makes sense as she suddenly got the tropes that were associated with Alice in the first game. 

Not a good sign.

This does bring a point though. Sonya I dropped out of the party for not being too useful. A healer in a game where healing is incredibly easy. And she didn’t exactly have a whole lot... Actually I could have turned her into a vampire funny enough. And a worm Villager. But yeah, besides that. She didn’t have a whole lot. I’m probably gonna try using her more in my Ilias file as I want to RP it as more of a Human/Angel Centric idea. The only overlap being Prom really. 

And Alice. I really wish there was more to you but I get it. The romance between Luka and her just isn’t  a focal point. Despite the fact that her and Luka’s children are in fact facing off. I kind of wish that was addressed more. 

And her mother... There’s actually a LOT of plot threads still not addressed. 

Was hoping for Elemental Giga. This would be a game where it could be theoretically useful though. With all the abilities and such.

Ilias prayer music in the background.

Now we have Opera music... Place has changed.

Less then steller. 

You bitch.

You know what. Fuck you. YOU are FOURTH! 

Alright gotta act quickly. Can’t... wait

WHAT??

SHE SAID IT

I’m not sure if gleefully killing an entire town counts. 

Never a nice thing to learn.

“Then the fanfiction writers started... There’s this ONE bitch. She runs a Promestein blog and if you LISTENED to the drivel she writes. She made up this nonsense with male monsters for drama’s sake”

“And don’t get me started on the Luka Situation. There were like 3 at one point.”

Wait... How many others from other worlds??

...Wait When??? I can go over level 60 now?? Must be when I updated.. Huh. Okay. Wish I did this earlier.

Too many... oh

See. I’m doing an RP with La Croix that takes place using this concept. But something both of us realized is that Luka actually very rarely DIED in most of his endings. Not right away. Many of them used him as a pleasure slave. Or married him. Or he just gave up adventuring. Some like the angels even used him for 1000′s of years. So. Theoretically. He would have had to live his entire life. Die of natural causes. And then wake up back at a fight he had years ago. 

But here it just says failed. 

Oh.... Is this...Which Ilias?

I forgot... You’re... the Real ilias. so you have been trying your best to keep things from going to shit huh?

Oops.

Yikes... So yeah. Makes sense. Fuck that Lukia (Which was us)

The...Remina labs??

Oh hey. It that bitch.

Yes Little Prom. Yes. Soon. You will meet. Yourself.

A better part of the whole. I remember there being an Angel/Monster hybrid who says she couldn’t  combine her dark and holy energy. This is probably why.

I wonder if this is a joke of some kind revolving around smoking becoming less allowed in Japan.

And they summoned.... Black..Alice. Is that how she was alive in the original Trilogy??

Oh no... This..... Is.... Original Trilogy Black Alice.

As creepy music plays. I am reminded. The White Rabbit is a universal Constant. Where was she then in the original Trilogy? Simple. She was here. Right here. In Black Alice... the drug created by Promestein. The fusion of Holy and Dark.

Those poor Scientist.

That Casualty of it.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

“So you finished the art for that Hentai game right?” “HENTAI GAME?? I thought we were making Bloodborne.”

That is terrifying. 

Oh dear lord.

Angels. Demons. Both are at her demand.

YOU SAID SHE COULD NOT REACH US.

Of course. Time Succubi from aother wordl

That. Is terrifying.

Yup. Zero.

She’s dying as the Villain again? The Pyrrha. 

Wait. What?

So... You.. Were killing them to.. Bring them into YOUR world??? So. They’re alive? 

So they’re killing people... to bring them into another?  This reminds me of a little bit of a Webcomic called Order of the Stick. Where the gods wondered briefly if they should destroy the world, in order to save the souls. Because the main monster, was a giant horrifying sould devouring creature.  So if the gods destroyed the world, they could save many from inhiliation, and bring them into the after life.  This begs a lot of question about after lives and existance beyond death and whether or not it truly is a death. 

Bloodying her hands so her daughter doesn’t have to.

Yeah I would like to know that as well.

I would like to know actually.

Wait why are you wearing clothes now?

I forgot you were a person.  Wait. So these are from another universe.... One where Ilias won...And therefor Eden got to wear clothes. 

The old Monster and Angel War, Fought in the foreground of the world we stand.

And the death flags come home to roost. 

Was she... one the entire time?

Or did she become one now?

Mhm. This looks familiar.

And the music begins. The  battle wasn’t too hard. But...

This isn’t good.

Not grand.

This battle music is though. ♪♫

Oh you bitch.

We beat both of them... or...

We did not.

That’s... really really not good.

...what?

HUH???

UMMM????

SHES A WHATR??

She’s the element of chaos....   Does that mean there’s a HOly and Dark Spirit too?

Fine. I’ll train you.

...What?

Oh.... shit.... Dad... Killed Alice’s Mom.

And. That. Is the end.... Welp. I guess we have to do the Ilias Route next.

[infiniteshawn]

Beautiful Stranger

a/n: 2k of something that popped into my brain while i was brushing my teeth 2 hours ago. based on the song Finally // beautiful stranger by Halsey. angst and then fluff. **this exists in a world where Steve continued his “normal” (present?) life post-Endgame**

It wasn’t always like this. Tense. Regretful. Pain in your chest at the mere thought of him, even. You and Steve had been inseparable since everything was right in the world again and he’d decided to settle down and lay low for a while. He was close-knit with the rest of the Avengers, but still, he needed a break.

That’s where you factored into the equation.

When everything happened, Steve decided he needed change. To turn a new leaf. Start fresh—but maintain his sense of home. He left Washington and moved back to Brooklyn.

Living across the hall from him forced you into his path a few times too many, and before you knew it, the two of you had clicked. You were spending sleepless nights on his couch watching reruns of home improvement shows, or challenging each other to following unnecessarily complex recipes from your New York Times subscription. Within weeks you’d become best friends, and everything was fine. Which didn’t last long.

Steve fell for you. Hard. And he was obvious about it, too, even though he wasn’t trying to be.

You thought back to one night last November in your apartment, when Steve had accidentally shown his cards. Your home seemed to fascinate him, and you couldn’t count the times he’d asked if you’d really read all the books on the shelves that lined the walls of your studio apartment. You were curled up on your couch--because Steve liked your place better, apparently—and you’d realized that he’d began the evening on the other end of the sofa, but had somehow crept his way over and engulfed you in a warm entanglement of limbs.

You’d just told him about going home to spend Thanksgiving with your parents, and he’d unexpectedly piped up, suggesting you stay in the city instead.

“I can’t just cancel on my family, Steve,” you reasoned, freeing your arm from his grip so you could take a sip of your wine. Guilt ate at you a little as you remembered that he didn’t exactly have the luxury of going ‘home’ for the holidays, so you made a suggestion, “you could always come with me.”

He chuckled at that and you looked up to meet his gaze. His eyes found yours with little hesitation.

“Nah, I don’t wanna do that to you,” he spoke quietly, tilting his head back a bit to rest on the back of the sofa, “I’m being stupid, anyway. Of course you have to go home. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“What?” you responded as your face fell, your arms subconsciously holding onto him a little more tightly, “No, Steve, I don’t know why I didn’t invite you sooner. I think you should come.”

Silence loomed between the two of you, though there wasn’t much space for it. You were nestled into him and his nose was only a couple of inches from yours. You could see the gears turning, though, as his brows knitted together with concern and he opened his mouth as if to say something.

“Steve,” you slightly grinned, but spoke somewhat sternly, “what is it?”

“It’s stupid.”

“No, it probably isn’t,” you protested, “Tell me.”

He sighed with a playful roll of his eyes, shifting in his spot to put some space between the two of you in his uncomfortable state.

“Fine,” he started, bringing a large hand up to scratch a nonexistent itch on his scalp, “I, I just, I had this idea, you know?”

You nodded.

“This idea that we could do the whole Thanksgiving thing here, or at mine, or whatever you want, really. I just thought it might be nice to do the big-dinner-thing even though there are only two of us?”

You pursed your lips, your heart breaking a little. This was what you were afraid of.

“You know, I, I don’t really have family, and most of the time you don’t exactly get along with yours, so why not spend Thanksgiving with one of the only people I really love?” he finished, trailing off and making it sound like less of a question. It was a statement. A bold, honest, raw statement that you hadn’t yet acknowledged until this moment, and you were terrified.

Because you loved him too.

You went home for Thanksgiving. You pretended that your heart didn’t break a little when you knocked on Steve’s door and were met with no answer, knowing that he was inside and he’d be spending the weekend alone. You missed him, but you knew things had gotten out of hand; This was never meant to happen.

It was always just friendship between you and Steve. Nothing more, nothing less, because once you’d gotten to know him, you’d realized how precious he truly was. After having him play such a big part in your life, it was clear that you didn’t want to go back to not knowing him. And coming to terms with your romantic feelings toward him was scary and out of the question—you’d have rather had him as your friend than your ex.

But now, he wasn’t your anything.

Days passed and he tried to get a hold of you, but you couldn’t risk it. Thinking back to what you felt when he finally said it made your heart lurch in your chest, and you knew that was dangerous territory. You couldn’t fuck this one up—so you decided you wouldn’t let yourself. Steve was off-limits.

Steve was off-limits when you passed him in the hall and he shot you that charming, but pained half-grin. Steve was off-limits when you were late to work and he was there, holding open the door to your building because your hands were full. Steve was off-limits when he was calling you at midnight—somehow, over the years, he’d found a way around that can’t-get-drunk thing—going in circles about his confusion and longing to talk about absolutely nothing and everything again, anything to just be with you. Steve was off-limits when you wanted nothing more than to pick up the goddamn phone.

It didn’t stop eating at you because eventually, he stopped calling. That hurt even more.

But you knew you couldn’t budge. The feelings had to dissipate before you could even think about going back to the way things were.

And as you sat at table two of the hotel’s banquet hall, watching the snow cascade in a white blanket over New York while your sister danced with her new groom, you wished Steve could have been there with you.

You’d invited him ages ago. He agreed with no hesitation. But after all of this, you were positive it was a write-off. There was no way he’d show face without a call or a text, especially not after the neglect you’d shoved in his direction over the past month.

Everyone was tipsy. The room was candle-lit. You wore black, mourning the loss of your place in the wedding party once your sister had annulled her feud with her childhood friend—surprise surprise. In a room filled with love and laughter, you’d never felt more alone.

A voice pulled you back into reality. A familiar voice.

“S’cuse me,” it spoke, kindly but timidly, “I believe this seat is mine.”

It couldn’t be.

You looked up from your daydreaming gaze to see Steve, dressed for the occasion, motioning to the empty spot beside you.

“Steve,” you spoke, not sure what else to say as he looked at you with a questioning expression, the pain in his eyes tugging at your heart strings.

“Steve, I’m so sor-“ you started, but he cut you off because you’d suddenly stood and there were tears in your eyes and fuck, he thought, she’s so goddamn beautiful.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he spoke, barely a whisper, pulling you into the arms you knew all too well.

You closed your eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to suppress your feelings while appreciating being in his arms once again.

“I just can’t believe you’re here,” you gulped, pressing your cheek to his as he held you close, “you still came.”

“Well,” he chuckled, “I couldn’t leave my best girl.”

You giggled at his traditional way of speaking, pulling yourself from his arms to meet his crystal gaze.

“Not here, anyway,” he concluded, motioning to the room around you, “I figured today would be kind of...hard.”

For a moment, you said nothing. And then, you wanted to say everything.

Steve could feel it. Either the anticipated apology or the angry meltdown. He wasn’t sure.

Before you could open your mouth, he opened his.

“Care to dance?”

You frowned a little as you nodded, unsure of how you could have treated someone so gentle so harshly. And somehow, some way, he still wanted to dance with you.

The song changed to something slow and Steve’s hands fell to your hips, and you knew there were endless pairs of eyes on you, but you didn’t care. Neither of you did.

Your eyes, so crisp, so green

Sour apple baby, but you taste so sweet

You got hips like Jagger and two left feet

And I wonder if you’d like to meet

“Steve, I’m really sorry,” you spoke, head resting on his shoulder.

“You don’t need to explain yourself, really,” he responded, brushing your forehead with his cheek, “I overstepped. I scared you off. That was the last thing I wanted, but I felt like I couldn’t go another day without telling you how I feel.”

“Steve-“

“No, really,” he insisted on speaking, so you let him, “I saw you everywhere. You were in my living room. You were in my kitchen. You were in my sweaters and on my phone and in my brain that can’t seem to shut up sometimes,” he paused, tightening his grip around your waist, “And then I started thinking, why should it? Why should my brain shut up?”

“It shouldn’t,” you replied, “you love who you love.”

“And I love you. And I’m sorry,” Steve spoke, and something about the snow and the candles and the song and the man wrapped around you told you that it was okay.

Oh, we’re dancing’ in my living room, and up come my fists

And I say I’m only playing, but, the truth is this

I’ve never seen a mouth that I would kill to kiss

And I’m terrified, but the truth is this

Your hands found his lightly-stubbled cheeks before you could verbally respond, pulling his face down to yours to meet his lips in what truly was the kiss-to-end-all-kisses. It was warm and soft and euphoric as his grip tightened once he processed what was happening, and you didn’t have to say it back for him to know.

Beautiful stranger, here you are in my arms and I know

That beautiful strangers only come along to do me wrong

And I hope, beautiful stranger, here you are in my arms

And I think it's finally, finally, finally, finally, finally safe

For me to fall

[nomimits7]

UGH!

Title: UGH!

Genre: angsty (maybe just a little) hinting at smut but no actual action?? (Reader gets cornered and he licks her, does that count?)

Pairing: BTSrapline x reader

Au: Yandere-ish, supernatural-ish… I kind of don’t know what happened.

Warnings: sexual references. Yandere behavior. Description of a slight loss of control. Deception, slightly. Cursing… a little (in my defense, some things just sound better with a power word) considering this is the rap line, that is a warning on its own.

Song reverence: UGH! By BTS

Summary: In a rageful world ruled by rageful men, Y/N decided to change her destiny by becoming an outcast. Hated by all for being the neutral party in almost every situation, she was destined for a lonely life. Maybe her mistake was to choose to be uninformed when it came to who was in charge. Maybe her mistake was the day she allowed herself to feel wanted again. All Y/N knew was that those three men who walked through her door changed everything she has come to know.

Author notes: Hi! I’ve never done this, so I tried to base this story mostly on the actual song and my interpretation of it, with my own inserts as well! Hope you like it! Thank you @btswritingcafe​ for this fun workshop thingy!! And yes, there are a lot of different movie references as well. Lockdown got me all types of creativity.

•••

The gentle hum of the wind outside combined with the crackling of the wood in your fireplace was enough to make you feel at peace, normal even. You welcomed this feeling with open arms. It’s not often that you get to feel at peace. Even if this was by choice, you missed the peace that came with a ‘normal’ life.

Reclining in your seat, you briefly close your eyes as you try to soak up as much of the feeling as possible before you had to get back to work. You loved your job, make no mistake about it, but with your line of work some sacrifices needed to be made. Many people looked down at you for your choice but in a cruel world such as this… you were happy being an outcast. Very few people chose your line of work seeing as you had to stay neutral. Most people preferred giving in to the rage that filled the air at a constant pace.

Your little world wasn’t always like this. You once lived in a peaceful society, where people actually smiled at least once in their daily lives. This was before the fall of the peace towers before others decided to take over the energy circulating through the air.

In the city of Redak, you thrived on the energy provided by the towers built by the old kings. These towers giving most people ‘gifts’ in exchange for their fears. Yes, this didn’t sound right for most of the people living in Redak, so King Clodious decided to build a peace tower. This tower radiated peace and kept the balance needed for life to thrive. This tower especially kept the other towers on a leash, they sometimes got greedy and demanded more fear to become stronger.

Unfortunately, something or someone decided to take control of the power supply. These individuals soon realized the power harbored in fear, thus leading to the great fall of peace. People slowly started losing control of themselves. Rage being the most prominent power to make the rounds in the air, soon lead to people succumbing to it. Violence soon engulfed the city and rage filled the hearts of Redak’s citizens.

That’s where you came in. When the rage became too much for people to bear, they seek you out. You were one of the few people holding out against the rage- epidemic. Your job was one that required a neutral party to ‘extract’ the rage from a person and replace it with whatever other emotion they needed. Be it love, sadness, or happiness. People needed you, but they also resented you for being strong enough to withstand the temptation. Ultimately, this led to a very lonely life.

Each new patient presented a new challenge. Some would go out of their way to hurt others. Some would just stare and have nothing to say. Some would never shut up and then you got those who thrived in making your life miserable. Today you had one of the last ones. Clare, or rather Queen C as she preferred you call her, was in one of the more severe stages of rage. She didn’t lash out at you like most, but her words made up for that. It took you three times as long to get the right information out of her than it normally did.

And it took twice as long to get her to actually lie down on the power extractor, so you could do your damned job. Everyone you see gave into the idea of perfection or rage, then they end up judging you for staying neutral on the subject. After releasing Clare from the contraption, she was a totally different person. She actually smiled at you and thanked you for helping her. It was draining and a moment like this where you can just sit and relax was rare.

You loved your job, you truly did. You just sometimes wished you could be… normal. Being the outcast gets to you. You crave the attention and affection of others. You want to hang out with friends, lose yourself to loveless love, and be captured by scenes unfolding around you. You didn’t want to be trapped like you were. You couldn’t even leave your own house without being tempted by the sent of rage filling the air. You chose this, but sometimes you regret your choices.

The sound of your doorbell ringing pulled you from your daydreaming. You had no other scheduled appointments and it was too late for any emergency walk-ins. Reluctantly you got up to see who could possibly seek you out. Upon opening the door you’re met with three very handsome faces. They were all dressed to the nine in black suites, completed with styled hair and white button-up shirts.

“Can I help you?” you asked uncertainly. The three men just stare at you, assessing you with their eyes. Something in the way they were taking you in told you to close your door and forget you ever opened it. There was a very clear warning in their eyes, something sinister. Before you could act one of them spoke up.

“We’re sorry for barging in on you like this but we heard a rumor that you were neutral? And we need someone neutral to talk to” he was handsome, that much you could tell. His hair was a light shade of brown, his eyes glowed amber and his skin was flawless. He even added a dimpled smile to help persuade you into letting them in, and it worked. Before you knew what or how it happened they were entering your consultation space and making themselves comfortable.

A little caught off guard, you slowly made your way to your usual seat in the furthest corner of the room. This action didn’t go unnoticed by the three men. You were careful, not like the previous five neutrals they’ve encountered. Your seat was fairly far from theirs and there was a set of sensors surrounding you. They found this fascinating to say the least. Normally neutrals were just good at hiding the rage coursing through them, usually, neutrals weren’t any better than anyone else who has fallen into the trap of rage. You were… different.

“Okay, I’m going to need names, ages, and status in the hierarchic so that I know what type of extractions should be done” You began as you got your glasses from a hidden drawer. Clicking your pen, you looked up curiously to see how these men would react. They always react to this question, especially the last part.

Their eyes stayed focussed on you, unmoving and certainly not planning on moving away from you anytime soon. They expected you to be confused at first, but they didn’t think you wouldn’t recognize them at all. Did you really not know who they were? What danger you were in? Well, you will know. Soon. None the less, they decided to play along for now.

“Kim Namjoon, my age is of no importance and my status is unmatched. I do not need any extraction from you because you won’t find anything to extract.” The man in the middle spoke up. It was the same man who first talked to you. His response was expected, not in this manner but the denial was only one step they would have to take to overcome this rage they feel. Although, they seemed very calm, almost to calm and that was new.

“Jung Hoseok, If you can guess my age I might reward you baby. My status is quite important, but why don’t you come to sit on my lap and feel it rise even more?” the one on the right of Namjoon said. You instantly went red as you stared at the man with wide eyes. No man had ever spoken to you like that and it was doing something to you.

Your reaction didn’t go unnoticed by the three men as they watched you like a hawk with binoculars. You were interesting indeed. One of the emotions that get engulfed by the rage, is arousal. If you have given in, you would not be so easily worked up.

“Min Yoongi, age is just a number made up by society to set boundaries of what one can and cannot do. Status is important, but let’s pretend you didn’t ask that question… for now, it’s not important. But trust me, it will be” The last man spoke up. His voice was void of all emotion, the meaning behind his words left a cold chill hanging in the air. You need to be careful around these men.

Shallowing slowly, you averted your eyes from them. This was new, really new. No one has ever gotten to you like these men have and they’ve only been here for 3 minutes. You needed to get this done with and get them out of your home. Something’s off and not in the normal way.

“Y/N”

At the mention of your name, you looked up to see who has spoken your real name. You never shared that aspect of you. No one knew who you were. A name holds so much power and once you gave it away, it’s over. You must have worn your emotions on your sleeve because as soon as you locked eyes with each man, they returned your stare with a slight smirk.

“So, you do exist? We were beginning to think you were a made-up myth or something. Anyway, did you know that everyone is bound to be swallowed by the rage? Even the most stubborn of people give in. It’s been proven countless times. Sometimes they give in just to survive.” Hoseok said as he slowly leaned forward. His eyes, that use to be a deep brown, slowly swirled with red as he kept them on you.

The sensors next to your seat suddenly lost all power. Their lights flickering and going out with a pop that made you jump slightly. You knew you shouldn’t react and somehow you managed to keep as still as possible. Your heart only skipping a beat as a response. You won’t give in to fear, you won’t give in to rage. You won’t give in to them.

Your lack of response only spurred them on to see how far they can push you. They needed to be sure you were indeed the last remaining neutral out there before they could proceed. They could feel the power building within you and that alone made them want you for themselves even more.

“How much of the things people tell you in here do you believe? The truth may become false, the lies may become true. How do you know people aren’t lying to you?” Namjoon asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Tilting your head slightly, his question surprised you. Just moments ago, Rambo over there was trying to get into your head with all his rage talk and so and then he asks you this? Before you could mull over his question more your own voice interrupted you.

“Eyes, Their eyes. Usually, you can read their emotions through their eyes. But most of my clients are regulars and they understand what can happen when they lie. I choose to trust them, they know what they're getting themselves into. I’ve always been an open person, but I do know they lie anyway. There’s nothing I can do about that” your voice was small, yet strong. It was the truth and you knew they knew it was.

The trio didn’t know what they expected you to answer, but it certainly wasn’t that. You were so honest compared to the other. Of course, the other neutrals immediately recognized them and answered according to that. But you, you answered with honesty and so much innocence it was sickening. The way you held yourself was pure and for some reason, they felt the need to hide you away from the world. Like you were made of glass and could shatter at any moment, the initial plan be damned.

“What do you believe Y/N? What caused this world to give in? Why didn’t you give in like them?” Yoongi asked. His voice is soft and full of the promise that you will be all right. This was truly nothing like what your appointments usually consist of. Not one of your clients has ever spoken to you in such a manner that you felt like a human. They always spoke with disgust or anger. Never as soft as this.

“I always suspected there was a reason people started hating and raging. Just the other day I had to sedate one of my regulars because they lost control. There was a time I thought that something that happened in our past was the reason, yet I came up with nothing. But as I concluded my research I did find something that could provide the answers. When the rage took over our little world, our people fell into fear and chaos. Everyone was scared to death of the future without the peace tower. I believe that is what caused this. Fear, not rage” you answered, voice matching his softness.

You could see that they expected a different response. Like they wanted a different answer. You couldn’t place the emotion you saw reflecting in each of their eyes, so you opted for disappointment. This left a very uneasy feeling in your gut. Why? Why would your answer disappoint? You got the fact that nobody liked or cared for you, but disappointment? That’s new indeed.

“Do you know how neutrals are born?” Namjoon asked, tilting his head slightly. Shaking your head, you allowed yourself to be curious for once. Usually, you wouldn’t dare, but maybe one slip won’t be that catastrophic.

“Neutrals” Namjoon began.

“Neutrals don’t exist by choice. They are born with the inability to completely give in to the rage. Sometimes they do make the choice to give in, but the opposite is easier to do for them. These people are born from a bond of pure lust mixed with love and affection. A careless act their parents would never see as such. Some call it a spur of the moment decision were both parties forget about the rage and fear for those precious moments they share. Where the old world emotions are the only ones present. These children won’t seem different for the first few years. They make mistakes and get angry and act ‘normal’ in the content of the rage. But once they reach the subadult stage they begin to show signs of neutralism. The neutrals thrive off the fear of others, exactly like those in charge, just without knowing. They tend to scare other naturally and thus can grow extremely strong.” Namjoon added, carefully watching the color drain from your face.

“Once they reach adulthood, they are known as outcasts. Now even with them possessing gifts like the feeding of fear and so they tend to ‘not’ survive. Others kill them out of fear, or they are hunted down by other neutrals. Some ‘neutrals’ are just normal people in disguise. You see, one of the gifts that some receive is the act of deceivement. And trust me, they know how to use this gift. Even people like us were fooled more times than we would care to admit” Hoseok added helpfully.

You were not okay. You could feel your head swimming with a hundred and ten different thoughts at once, trying to make sense of this new information. But it seemed like fate had other plans for you.

“Neutrals are very lucky. They receive very rare gifts like control of an element or mind reading. Some even have levitation powers. It can get quite annoying when you try to kill them. I’m curious Y/N. What gifts do you possess? And why are those sensors pointed at you and not us? Aren’t we the ones that tend to lose control?” Yoongi concluded with a tilt of his head.

He had a point. But he wasn’t a regular and thus he didn’t understand why your office was organized like it was. Of course, there were reasons things were the way they were, but as naïve as you are, you’re not stupid enough to trust a total stranger from the word go. Once they knew there would be no turning back. You still haven’t figured out why these men were so important.

“I can’t tell you that” You softly whisper more to yourself than them. That was one secret of your life you wish to take to your grave. Even your long term clients have no clue what you're truly hiding. They simply just know to not set you off.

A low chuckle vibrates through the room as you silently sit and observe the three, laughing men. You knew just then and there these men where here to test you, and you have never been this close to losing your grip on yourself.

“I would advise you three to shut up and get this session over with so you can leave my house,” You said lowly, already losing yourself. This seemed to shut them up rather quickly. The last thing they expected was for you to lose your composure.

“Hey Y/N. Wha-“Namjoon began only to be cut off by your voice.

“Right, sorry about that. Moving on. Could you kindly turn the sensors back on? It’s for your own safety” You said with a beaming smile, a completely different person from just a few seconds ago. Within a few heartbeats later the sensors were back up and running, you visibly sagging with relief.

“So, it’s true what they say. You may be holding out against the rage, but that’s only because you're fighting a continuous battle against your own power within you. That’s why you have the sensors, for when you lose control. It’s to protect your clients, isn’t it?” Yoongi’s voice entered your ears.

Your face paled as you suddenly sat up straight. Slowly you crossed your hands in your lap, briefly making eye contact with each of the men sitting in front of you.

“I think you should leave now. I do hope you can find what you are seeking elsewhere” you said as you stood up on shaky legs and slowly made your way to the entryway. You made it a miraculous two meters before a warm hand engulfed your wrist. In one swift movement, you have spun around and was pinned against the wall.

“I don’t mean to be intruding in personal matters, but I do find it extremely rude that you haven’t tried to figure out who we really are. So, let me spell it out to you nicely. Hello Y/N, I’m Jung Hoseok. The third Lord. You know, those people that’s actually in charge of all of Redak? Over there is Kim Namjoon, the First Lord and that my dear, is Min Yoongi the second Lord.” Hoseok said. His grip tight as his face hovered close to your left ear.

Your eyes widened upon hearing this new information. How stupid of you to refuse to stay up to date with the happenings of your own world. If you have known who was in charge, this situation right here would never have happened. Gosh, you wouldn’t even have let them inside your home if you knew.

Licking a long stride along with the expanse of your neck, Hoseok moved away from you slightly. Your face was paler than he liked but he knew you needed to know that bit of information before they could continue. You were the last piece of the puzzle and by the seven towers, they were going to do anything to get you. Anything.

“Get out” you whispered, sliding down the wall into a little bundle on the ground. There’s a fine line between rage and fear and to any normal human, you would resemble those in the first stages of surrender. Your form small and weak against the enormous power your weak body was objected to. But they knew better. They knew that your form might look weak, but that’s only because you are afraid. Not of them, but yourself.

You chose to fear the one monster you could not control. The monster you were born as. The one neutral that could change everything if she was given the proper training. The one neutral robbed of everything by the only people she deemed good. The one neutral deprived of love, afraid of her own shadow.

“You know. For someone as smart as you, you sure can act dumb. You know as well as we do why we are here and that we cannot just leave after finding you.” Yoongi said. But the confused look on your face was enough to inform him that you truly had no idea why you were of any importance to them. Something neither of them had time to explain to you know.

“We don’t have time to enlighten you but let me give you a quick overview,” Namjoon said, crouching down next to you and lifting your chin with his finger. Your eyes locked and for the love of all that is peaceful, you couldn’t look away even if you tried. His eyes held a dominance that contrasted his words.

“Everyone out there chose to embrace the rage out of fear. The rage wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. The rage was just put in place to make people a bit more fearful of their dearest. It was meant to help people protect. It was meant to give them just the right amount of courage to stand their ground against threats. Unfortunately, we lost control, and to regain that control we must balance out the power tower. We didn’t destroy that peace tower, the people did. The last thing we wanted is for chaos and destruction.” His eyes held a sadness that you have never seen in anyone before.

You felt your heart skip a beat and you subconsciously raised your hand to hold his. His eyes never left yours, something felt familiar about them. But it was the sincerity in them that allowed you to trust them. All three of them.

“Apathy combined with excretion should do the trick to gain control once again” Your voice was soft yet it held truth. The moment the source of the problem is removed the balance should be restored.

“That’s the problem we face. We are the source. The rage that courses through the air, emits from us. We control the amount of power that is released. If we can’t find something to counteract…” Yoongi trails off, looking at you.

He couldn’t possibly mean that you were that something, could he? You were an out of control neutral how could you help them, help Redak? You only did extractions. You steered clear of too much attention. You tried to not let the people see what monster you really were.

Your breathing became shallow as anxiety took over. This was the last thing you needed, you couldn’t lose control now. These men, how powerful they may be, were in danger and you needed them to leave before you snapped. Just as you were about to warn them, the windows started rattling as the walls of the house started shaking. The three men were clearly startled as their eyes shot to yours.

The sensors in your consultation room suddenly started going off and all you could do was yell ‘RUN’ to the three men standing in front of you. It took them a good 5 seconds to realize that they had no other choice in the matter. There where books flying everywhere and some of the furniture even started disintegrating.

“Y/N, we can help you get control. You need us just as we need you. I know you can feel the connection. Let us protect you” Namjoon shouted before all three of them hurried out of the house. Just in time to hear you scream and everything going silent. As much as the sound of your screams was unsettling, all three men slightly smirk at what was to come.

Lying on the floor, almost lifeless, you could only stare at the ceiling as the shockwaves ran through your body. You needed to increase the voltage again, it’s supposed to knock you out and not paralyze you. You were growing stronger and you feared that soon not even the shocking would be enough to control your powers.

•••

It’s been roughly three days since they left your house. Three horribly long days. The amount of power circulating the air increased almost three times than before, and the number of extractions you had to do daily increased almost ten times. Things were getting ridiculous and out of hand. You haven’t completely lost control, but you came very close in the last 48 hours.

Every day that passes gets worse. Not only for your clients but for you too. Usually, your clients came around every five weeks for extraction, sometimes they could stretch even longer. But now you saw some of them at least twice in the past three days. Despite all this, you stayed indifferent, disgusted but indifferent.

You knew what had caused this, but you refused to show sympathy. Your argument was simple, they chose to give in. Why should you feel anything toward their choices? It’s not like it’s your fault they could not hold out. You flat out refused to even think about the three men that occupied your house a few days ago. You refused to think about what they told you, what they did to you. To put it plainly, you were being beyond stubborn.

Well, if you were completely honest with yourself, you were thankful for being so busy with clients. This only meant you had no time whatsoever to think about them, or what they promised you. But soon enough you said goodbye to your last client, and you were left alone with your thoughts.

“Y/N, we can help you get control. You need us just as we need you. I know you can feel the connection. Let us protect you”

Of everything that could pop up into your mind, Namjoons last words played on repeat. They could help you. You knew how close you were to losing it. How dangerous you became every minute that you remain stubborn. But stubbornness is what kept you alive all this time. Through every challenge you faced, your stubbornness is what helped you to not give in to the rage.

But your struggling. Not against the rage but against yourself and this time, you might actually lose. You have no idea how many times your body would be able to handle the shocking before it to will cave in. You know the risks and yet somethings keeping you from seeking them out.

You were just about to take a seat in your consultation area to relax for a bit when the tension snapped. Your whole world started spinning as you felt the power circulate through your veins. Your windows started rattling again as you collapsed to the ground. It felt like you couldn’t breathe with the amount of electricity running through your muscles. But nothing happened. Your own power took control and all you could do was watch as your whole world, your life burned to ashes all around you.

Tears streamed down your face freely as you watched the flames consume your hard work in seconds. You have finally lost the ability to control your own demons.

After the power within has returned to their dungeons within your heart, you finally decided to give into them. That’s how you find yourself outside the tall steel gates 40 minutes later. Tear stained cheeks, with only a handful of your belongings you could salvage. You had no certainty that these men could help you, or even if they would protect you. The journey to their mansion alone has been difficult and unpredictable.

Someone out there really loved fucking with you. First, your own parents abandon you at the ripe age of nine, then you nearly die twice because of some punks ruffing you up. And just when you finally settled into the only profession someone as you could do, this happens. Your whole world literally goes up in flames by your own uncontrolled power. The cherry on top would have to be the fact that there seems to be no fucking bell on the gates and you just walked all this way for nothing. Thanks for that karma.

Just as you began using a fresh packet of tears the gates opened. Hesitantly you stepped inside and made your way up to the front door. Doors swinging open by an unknown force, you peek inside the dark foyer. This was by far the creepiest house in Redak. Not even your home was this dark when the lights were off and the curtains were drawn.

The lights flickered on, startling you into a new bloodline, as three figures appear at the foot of the staircase you failed to notice. Looking around the room, you notice how modern this ancient house is decorated. From the beautiful wooden floors up to the cream painted walls. Finally, your eyes were drawn to the crystals that seem to be the light source hanging from the ceiling. This place looked and smelled fancy and you seriously began rethinking your decision to even breathe the air.

“Y/N? This is truly a surprise. I was beginning to think you would never come here. Oh my, it looks like you’ve been through a rough day” Namjoon said as his surprised gaze turned to concern when he took in your ashened form. At his words, your gaze snapped to your appearance. Your clothes were stained with soot and you probably smelled like a burned turkey. Simply put, you would put a hobo to shame at the way you dared appear before the Lord’s of Redak.

“I-I’m sorry I shouldn’t have come here looking like this. I-I’ll be leaving. S-sorry” You hastily stuttered out before turning around and aiming for the door. The same door that suddenly slammed shut before you could even take a step forward.

“Do you want some tea? Maybe coffee? We even have alcohol if that would help you calm down. You can freshen up here and then we’ll talk. Come I’ll even dare say I can find you some fresh clothes” Hoseok said as he swiftly reached for your hand to lead you to the bathroom.

“C-coffee would be nice thank you” you simply replied as you allowed the Third Lord to lead you to the bathroom. His hand was warm in yours and you wanted to soak up as much of it as you could but the dirt on your palm prevented that. You were beyond embarrassed at how fragile you had become. These strangers had no obligation to take care of you or even be this nice to you. Why they deemed you worthy, you did not know.

They honestly thought they would have to use even more force to get to you, but when you arrived at their gates it was like the pain inside of them disappeared. They were losing control over the amount of power they released into Redak and they knew the effect it would have on the people. But they couldn’t give a flying pigs ass over the people of Redak. They wanted only you. The fact that you were so different made you that more appealing. Hench why they had to go to extremes such as fire to get to you.

They could sense the amount of power you harbored, and they knew how to use it to balance everything out to and extend. Their plan was simple: go in, retrieve the power, and get rid of its owner. But that plan changed the minute you opened that door. You were beyond beautiful. Everything about you screamed innocence and purity. Your curious eyes and silent professionalism were a major turn on. But the thing that fixed the decision of claiming you were the way you had no control. Your lack of control over your own powers being the contrast of the century in regard to the work you did.

The most intense of desires to protect you, help you took control the moment you screamed at them to get away before it was too late. They had no idea what happened to you that day after that scream, but they knew you had to, no needed to hurt yourself to gain even the slightest of control. It hurts them to even think of what you possibly did to yourself. But it also warmed their hearts to see the trouble you went through to protect the low lives that depended on you. You were indeed innocent and pure, naïve even, yet they could see the loneliness in your eyes.

They would give their lives to be able to change that, but let’s not think to unrealistically. The chance of that happening was slim and now that you were here, in their mansion made things far easier than they initially thought.

Returning to the matter at hand. They didn’t mean to listen for any noise coming from the bathroom, but when you whimpered at the feeling of hot water against your skin, they almost lost their minds. The fact that you were right there made things worse, but they just couldn’t stop listening to your every gasp, whimper, or sob. Whatever happened before the fire clearly took a toll on your beautiful self.

Once the water shut down, they decided to make their presence known by knocking on the door. Even the yelp of surprise that escaped your mouth had their knees weak and heads swim with lust. It took them another 10 seconds to come back to reality before speaking.

“Y/N? How do you take your coffee? Also, we found some clothes for you” Yoongi’s slurry voice reached for you through the door. His voice was so different compared to the first time you met him. It held emotion and even some strain from the sound of it. Yet, it also felt like silk on soft skin, filling you with warmth and calm. It was a weird contrast and you secretly loved every second of it!

Opening the door slightly, you accepted the clothes and explained your coffee preference. No sugar with milk. It was bitter but what was the point of drinking coffee if you kill the taste with loads of sugar? You didn’t really expect them to find you clothes, but the fact that they gave you a simple button-up shirt that was long enough to work as a dress and a hoodie to match was surprising, to say the least. They added some shorts that hid nicely under the shirt along with some simple socks to keep the feet warm. Tying your hair into a messy, wet bun you opened the door to find Namjoon patiently waiting for you.

“Wow. You clean up nicely” Namjoon awkwardly cleared his throat as he averted his gaze from you. You’re wearing his shirt, Yoongi’s shorts, and Hoseok’s hoodie. He would be lying if he said you just looked okay. It was like their clothes were not made for them but for you to wear. This only further proved their decision to take you for themselves, the correct one.

Trailing behind him towards what you assumed to be the living room, you couldn’t help but take his form in. clad in tight jeans and a tight shirt this man was the reincarnation of sin. It had to be illegal to look so casual while screaming confidence.

Soon you were sitting in front of all three men, warm coffee in hand and nerves ablaze. They asked you what happened about 5 minutes ago, you have yet to answer. They were patiently observing you. You looked small and beyond vulnerable in front of them and internally they goo-ed at your sweater paws clutching the coffee cup tightly as if it were the only lifeline available. They knew what happened, but they weren’t planning on telling you what part they played in it.

“After you left, things got worse for my clients. It was as the power in the air itself increased and that caused many of them to come for extraction in a very short time of their previous ones. I have no idea what triggered it but my own powers started acting out. I even increased the voltage that I use to control my power to far over normal, but it didn’t help. Today, when I said goodbye to my last customer, it felt like a tsunami of power that escaped me. The shocking did nothing and I… I was left watching my whole life burnt to ashes around me. I-it was so intense that I blacked out. I have no idea how long I was out, but when I woke up everything was gone. And somehow I ended up here” you finished off in a whisper as silent tears streamed down your face.

You were ashamed. Your world came crumbling down and here you were, silently seeking their protection, their promise you decided to ignore the first time they made it.

“You have no reason to be ashamed and we’re sorry that you had to go through something like that. The important thing, however, is that you are here now. We’ll give you anything you need” Hoseok said. Reassurance ever-presents in his eyes. You could only smile weakly at them before you felt that overwhelming feeling return. The one that took away everything from you and your eyes widened in fear. You can’t control it and you knew you had to leave before you destroyed them as well.

Everything happened within a matter of seconds. You stood and bolted for the door. Just to collide with a hard chest as arms trapped you against it. You were so, so scared. You can’t allow this to happen. Thus, the struggling began. You were beyond desperate, and you fully relied on your instincts to get you out. Get away from these men that did nothing but be kind towards you.

“Let me go! You’re not safe, I need to get away from you before I destroy you to” You practically screamed.

“Y/N, take deep breaths for me. We can help you, just let us in. Let us in angel” Namjoon’s desperate voice filled your ears.

“We know you're scared. It’s okay to be scared baby” Yoongi’s soft voice came from behind you.

“W-what should I-I do?” You asked as another wave of energy filled your veins, making you stumble. It felt like lava coursing through your veins as the pain becomes too much to bear.

“Let us in. Calm your mind and allow us to take over. All you have to do is trust us. We won’t hurt you sweetheart, but I can’t promise you this will be painless. Let us help you” Hoseok said, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder. With wide eyes staring at them with complete trust, you simply nodded at his words as you focussed on calming down your racing mind.

Namjoon held you tightly against him as all three of them readied themselves for what they were about to do. Never in their lives had it been this difficult to consume powers from someone. They wanted anything but to hurt you like this, but this was the only way. With one final nod, they began the process.

It was a simple process that ensured they would be able to consume as much power as they wanted from the host. But this process itself was painful, not only for the host but for them as well. The first step was to literally open the host. Nothing to major, the smallest incision would do. The next step was to start the process, it was close to blood magic but far more painful and cleaner.

For the one whos powers, they would consume it felt like someone was ripping their soul out. They could feel every single detail of the power being drained out of them. For them, it felt like hours of torture where in reality it took only 5 minutes to drain them dry.  

For a brief moment, nothing happened. You stood there in the middle of them, tears still flowing down your cheeks. There was no power present, not from them and not from you. For the first time in your life, you experienced a world without any external forces. It felt lighter, freer as if you could conquer the world in one day. But like all good things, this moment of peace was ripped away.

It came out of nowhere. Your own power resurfaced with a vengeance like no other. Every inch of your body, mind, and soul was consumed by this overwhelming pain, forcing you to collapse to the ground. Before you could even cry out in pain a new feeling took a hold of you. It felt something close to a hot knife driving through your heart at a slow pace. You could feel every bit of your power being ripped from your body.

Your cries of pain were the only thing keeping them grounded. Your power was so overwhelmingly powerful that they could feel their control slip. But hearing your cries, seeing your curled-up form on the floor reminded them that they needed to stop. They have only taken a fourth of your power, they needed to take more.

Soon enough Hoseok caught sight of the blood dripping out of your nose as you became motionless. The sight that greeted them when they finally pulled away, broke them. Your fragile body felt heavy in Namjoon’s arms as he picked you up and carried you to one of the many rooms. You were still alive, but you were weak. Weak from carrying this burden alone. Weak from fighting against yourself constantly. This being a small sacrifice for them to finally have you in their grasp.

Since the day they consumed some of your power, the city of Redak took a complete 180⁰ turn. The rage that once dominated the streets had subsided, the hate in the eyes of its citizens was replaced by compassion. To put it simply, Redak returned to what it once was before the great fall of the peace tower. People were genuinely happy again.

It’s been almost five days since you gave them your trust. Yoongi was keeping watch over your sleeping form when a soft whimper escaped your once silent mouth. He has never moved so fast in his life. One moment he was sitting near the window watching the trees move with the wind, the next he was kneeling beside you, screaming for the others as he carefully took your hand in his.

Even with the big sacrifice you made, the boys never expected you to stay asleep for so long. They missed your voice, your eyes, your everything. They wanted to see what a real smile would look like, what your laugh would sound like, what your lips would taste like. What it would feel like to own such beauty.

It took Namjoon and Hoseok exactly 5 seconds to make it to beside Yoongi. All three of them carefully watched for any signs of life or movement. When nothing happened for a few moments the feeling of true fear took hold of them. What if you never came back? Might they have overdone it? Did they hurt you that badly that perhaps you wanted to stay away?

Just as they were about to give up, another small whimper escaped your throat. Accompanying said whimper your eyes fluttered open. Their relieved faces being the first thing you see. A soft subtle smile pulling at your lips as you finally felt free.

So naïve.

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[abalovesfic]

The Demon, The Exorcist, and the Memory Chapter 1

We all do stupid things. And sometimes that stupid thing is posting an entire 47k fic at once... which then actually lowers people’s ability to see it because you aren’t posting on a schedule. A lot of my readership comes from Tumblr and I really, really need it.  So why can’t I cross post already completed chapters? Leave your comments, hits, and blood offerings at  AO3. Help me fix the mistakes I made against my baby! @transcendence-au ---------- Dipper looked into the cup of hot chocolate, his reflection cast back into the dark brown slurry. He looked the same as always, gold irises piercing back at him. Same sharp teeth and dramatic wings. Even after all these years, he never truly managed to change. “So what exactly do you do on your 5013th birthday? I think I’m a little too old for parties,” he said.

“Don’t be silly.” She grabbed a handful of marshmallows and forced them down into her cup, followed by three candy canes and a thick pulse of fluffy whipped cream. “You’re never too old for cake and presents. Don’t you have friends to hang out with?”

“Yes, but I’ve never told them when my birthday was. Sorta ruins the whole immortal demon thing I’ve got going on,” he muttered, tapping his claws against the side of the mug. “The only person who I’d even tell is Mizar.”

She chugged some of the hot chocolate, pulling the cup away to reveal a chocolatey brown mustache over her upper lip. “You should tell her. I think she’d like to celebrate with you: this is the big 5-0-1-3.”

Dipper laughed at her, just for a moment, watching as she tried to lick the chocolate away. “I’ve only found Fang a few weeks ago. We’re still adjusting to each other, you know? Fang and I haven’t really clicked yet. She’s been… difficult.”

Grabbing a napkin from the table, she rubbed the chocolate from her face. “Well it sounds like this could be a bonding moment for you and Fang.” She paused and chewed on a strand of her dark hair in thought. “I know it’s not easy going through this every few hundred years… but she is Mizar. A lot of things change between incarnations, but your connection doesn’t. So go grab a couple cupcakes and go visit her. I promise, she’ll see right through that scary demon exterior to your soft squishy core.” Reaching over, she bopped him on the nose with one finger.  

Knocking her hand away, he laughed. “Cut it out.”

“Nope.” She bopped her finger against his nose again.

Dipper’s grin faded just as quickly as it arrived. Something sorrowful creeped over him. “And what would you want to do, for the big 5-0-1-3? After all,” he looked at her, the soft curls of her dark hair caressing her face, how her eyes looked so bright and awestruck. “It is your birthday too, Mabel.”

Mabel’s smile changed. What was once joyous turned to a thoughtful and sad glaze across her face. “Oh, Dipper.” Mabel wrapped one hand around his. Everything about her was intense, down to the texture of her fingerprints. He could smell the combination of perfume and hot glue on her skin, count the stands in her wool sweater, see every freckle on her nose. “I’m not really Mabel, I’m just a representation of her.”

“I know,” his voice broke, on the verge of a grief filled rage. “You don’t have to remind me every single time. At least pretend or something.”

His memory of her was perfect, concocted of every thought, every word ever spoken by or about her. The most precise image of his sister he could muster. She appeared in her late 20’s, soft bags under her eyes from the exhaustion of raising triplets, but also vibrant and full of life. Every time he came to see her, she wore a new sweater every time he saw her, generated from one of his memories. This one happened to be her pink birthday sweater, the one she initially planned to wear for their 13th birthday 5,000 years ago.

After a while it had gotten too hard. He had Mizar. Every moment with each incarnation was a new adventure. But it didn’t change the fact that there was only one Mizar he wanted to talk to. Only one Mizar who knew him for who he truly was. But the only place she still existed was in his own mind. And, after all, he controlled the mindscape. So who was to say he couldn’t rebuild her from his own memories?

Mabel slipped her hand up to his cheek and tried to force his gaze on to hers. “I know you don’t want to celebrate because you miss her. But she would want you to. I want you to.”

“But I want y̸̛͖̤̲̟o̶͛͐ͅu̸̡̝̪͕͂͗̂͠ ,” Dipper said, unaware of the snarl carving in his voice. “Don’t you get it? I’m so tired of going through this over and over again. I want m̷̱̑ͅy̷̝̤̥͕̐͛ ̷͉͖̞̕s̷̭̓̓ḯ̷̘̘̲̾̍s̷̖͑t̸̛͔͈̰̔͜ȩ̶̭͚͔̀̓̍̚r̷̡͚̜̪͒̋͝.̷͍̞̝̓̀͜.”  

“Hey, snap out of it. Listen to me for a moment.” She had that big goofy grin he adored. “If Mabel had stayed with you all these years, you would have missed so much. Belle, Maddie, Marcia, Lane: all of my incarnations have loved you so much and you loved them. The universe is like a big sweater, sometimes you have to get a new ball of yarn. And now you have Fang as your new ball of yarn!”

He sighed, “Fang is a little scared of me, I think.” He shook his head, “Actually, I know she is. She doesn’t trust me yet.”

“Duh I’m Dipper,” Mabel did her best mocking interpretation. “I’m socially awkward and emotionally isolated. I have a hard time making connections with people and I use being a demon as an excuse.”

“I do not!” he retorted.

“Do too!” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Bro, you have to show her who you are. Being Alcor the Dreambender isn’t gonna cut it. You have to show her Dipper, the dorky nerd who plays card games and reads the same book 5 times just to make sure he picked up on all the details. She’ll be scared if all you let her see are the dark and violent parts of what’s happened to you.”

He stared back down at his reflection in the hot chocolate, haunting, dark, and eternal. “I’m starting to forget who Dipper is. It’s been so long.”

“Then let me remind you. Dipper Pines is the most loving person in the world. He’d do anything for the people he loves, including follow their soul around for eternity. He’s been a little broken down over the years, but it’s never stopped him from trying. I know this is hard. But you’ve never given up before. Don’t start now.”  

His smile was faint, “Thanks, Mabes. You always know what to say.”

Leaning back, she crossed her arms and gave him a smug grin. “Yup. I’m a genius. Now go have a birthday party with Fang. Let her know that this is a special occasion and you want to share it with her .”  

“I will.” Standing up, he gave her a kiss on the cheek and turned to leave.

“Wait!” She cried. He turned around. She pointed at his still full cup of hot chocolate. “Are you gonna drink that?”

“It’s all yours,” he chuckled and walked out of the Mindscape.

------

Fang sat on her bed, her usual clambering and shrieking emo/punk music vibrating through her bedroom. The array of all black clothing consumed her. The sleeves were torn away from her shirt leaving nothing but fringe and the muscled curve of her arms. She had her hair pulled into the signature, stumpy pigtails atop her head. She wasn’t paying attention, as usual, chewing on a piece of bubble gum and staring into her MagiOrb. The image appeared backwards through the holoscreen, though he could tell she was looking at a news article about the unfortunate dismembering of a child-sacrificing cult this morning, having been found with their organs separated from their bodies. Fang was nosey, that was for sure. Dipper sucked in a breath, trying to push down his nerves. He positioned himself at the back of the bedroom and rapped his knuckles against the wall 3 times to get her attention.

At first she was startled, obviously she was. He had surprised her and she was still getting used to him. Not just the way he looked or the faint terror that radiated from him, but the fact that he had become tangible. No longer a myth or a legend, but someone real.

“Oh uhm… hey?” she said, unsure what to make of his unannounced presence. Scrambling, she turned off the MagiOrb and tucked it beneath her pillow, as if to hide what she was looking at.

“Sorry, I know it’s not one of our pre-planned meeting times, but I wanted to see you today,” he said, still standing awkwardly at the back of the room. Unlike past Mizars, he had agreed not to blip in and out of her life at random. They made a schedule of days and times she was willing to meet with him, all of those meetings lasting no more than an hour, and she could send him away without question. He had also agreed not to approach her without permission. So he stood off in the far corner of the room waiting for her to motion him closer.

Fang gave him a confused but cautious glance. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine. It’s all good. Today is just kind of an important day for me and I wanted to spend it with you.”

Her shoulders hunched forward with curiosity. “What’s today?”

“It’s sort of my 5,013th birthday.” He gave a mild smile and nervous jazz hands, confetti spurting from his fingers and then disappearing.

“Oh.” She blinked her dark eyes a few times, lashes thick with clumpy mascara. “I guess I hadn’t considered that you would even have a birthday. Let alone that you would celebrate it every year.” She pressed her lips together, sitting in an uncomfortable thought.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I realize I just sort of popped in here and dropped this birthday thing on you. That’s weird. Like you said, demons don’t really have birthdays.”  

“It’s okay,” she replied, a genuine sympathy curling into her voice. “No it's okay. I wish I had known, I would have gotten you a present or something. Now I feel bad.”

“Don’t. Really, it’s okay.”

He watched her inch closer, shuffling herself across the bed, wrinkling the blankets as she moved. “What sort of things do you like anyway? Beyond murder and eating souls?”

“Very funny,” he replied, a sarcastic spit to his tone. “But seriously, I do enjoy things outside of eating the occasional soul.” But then he softened for a moment to think about it. Mabel had told him to show Fang who he really was. He supposed this would be the way to do it. “For example: I like the top 40’s pop hits. And I love role playing games; the ones from the old days when you had dice and graph paper. I like the smell of pine trees, the real thing, not candles. Oh and candy; the good kind, not that loser stuff.”

“What are you,12?” A slight snort of laughter erupted from her.

“I’m 5,013 ,” he said and stuck his forked tongue out at her. This was the first time he had ever seen her laugh. After two months of scheduled meetings, trying to force just a little bit of conversation out of her, he finally got Fang to laugh.

“It’s just so weird,” she said, the laugh slowing in her voice. “I thought you were gonna say warfare or videos of people falling down the stairs. Maybe professional wrestling. Something a little more chaotic.”

He shrugged. “I don’t like any of those things. Okay, well, videos of people falling down the stairs are pretty funny but not in, like, a malicious way.”

Fang looked over at him, standing in the yellow lamplight in the back of the room. A pink hue flushed his cheeks. She reached out to pat the bed beside her, inviting him closer. He did so, not quite sitting on the bed but barely hovering over it and folding his wings up against his back. She still went rigid when he got close, but she held her ground.

“What about you?” he asked, leaning forward with his elbows pressed against his knees and chin resting on both hands. “What do you like?”

“Oh,” she blinked a few times, clumpy lashes sticking together. “I thought you would have rooted through my brain for that information.”

“I’m trying out this new thing called privacy. I hear humans like it.” She contorted her mouth in confusion and disgust. “I’m kidding,” he replied. “I know what privacy is. Despite what you may believe, I do have a sense of right and wrong.”

“I can’t help what I believe,” she replied. The silence hung between them as if sentenced to death on the gallows. And even though her music raged on with angry synth-drums and screaming lyrics, nothing could cover up the quiet between them. Fang sucked in a breath, looking away from him as if disinterested. “I like bubble gum, punk bands that say ‘fuck’, horror movies that are so bad they’re good, dunking all my foods in hot sauce, and…” she thought a moment, “killing demons.”

He must’ve turned a stark white. “Seriously? Well, that’s...”

She smiled, a subtle curve at the corner of her mouth. “I’m kidding. I can make jokes too. I mean, killing demons is fun, but I wouldn’t call it a hobby.” Her glance was sly and wry, a slip of her true personality slipping through her exterior.

“Are, uhm, you still going to exorcist training?” he asked.

He could see the pieces of her history strewn about the room, as if she left everything out in the open on purpose. Old demonology textbooks were stacked on the corner of her desk (you could tell they were old because books stopped going into print 2,000 years ago), a protection sigil hung over the door, all of her awards and medals for exorcism-training were displayed proudly in the same manner that other teenagers might display martial arts or science fair ribbons. There was a faint and lingering smell of burnt aromatics used to protect the home. Everything about Fang had been shaped and cultured to distrust him.

It was one of the universe’s sick jokes. First, to take Mizar away, keep her hidden from his sight for so long, and then to turn her against him.

The way Fang looked at him always seemed to be accompanied by a threat, as if she were counting the ways she could bring him down. “I am.” She said it so plainly, as if she meant to insult him with the mundanity of it. “Dropping out would be suspicious. I’ve been training since the day I turned 12, to stop so suddenly would raise concern in the community. I have to pretend like nothing has changed until I turn 18 and I can take my test to become a full exorcist. And besides,” she said. “I think I need it now more than ever.”

He perked up. “Does that mean you’ve given the whole Alcor and Mizar thing more thought?”

“I haven’t,” Fang replied, a cold snap to her voice. Dipper then realized she wasn’t talking about fighting demons with him, she was talking about fighting him. She was still worried he might betray her. “I just don’t understand this Mizar thing right now. I need more time to…”

“Adjust?”

“Yeah.”

“I understand.” His cheek puckered where he bit down on the inside of it.

Fang leaned back, using the palms of her hands to press against the bed and stretch out her back. “So,” she said, eager to keep talking in order to ignore the absurdity of her situation. “What did you want to do? Considering it’s your birthday and all.”

“Oh.” Dipper hadn’t expected to get this far. He thought Fang would have asked him to leave by that point. “I don’t know. It’s honestly been a really long time since I’ve celebrated with anyone. How do you typically celebrate?”

“I uhm,” Fang rested her cheek on her hand. “I don’t celebrate. My parents are usually too busy; not to mention they’re pretty terrible gift-givers. They always get me something related to exorcism. Seriously, for my 5th birthday they got me a copy of My First Demonic Dictionary . It had all sorts of fun words for kids like ‘circle’, ‘fire’, and ‘human sacrifice’. And three years ago, I said I wanted some new music downloads. So they got me 3 albums of Latin chanting.” Dipper chuckled a little at that, though Fang didn’t appreciate him mockering her misery. She punched him in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt. “Cut it out. It’s not funny!”

“Sorry, that's just a terrible present. Latin chanting is the worst . I’m more of a classics guy myself; like BABBA.” He cleared his throat, it was a terrible nervous habit, considering he didn’t have a throat nor did he have something to clear out of it. “So really, you just spend your birthday alone? No friends or anything?”  

“No, I’ve never been good at making or keeping friends.” She sighed and leaned backwards so that her shoulder blades touched the back wall by her bed. “I guess that’s one thing we have in common. We’re both good at being alone. Huh?” There was a slight arc in her lips, a certain kind of look in her black makeup-rimmed eyes. Fang had the face of a silent film star; someone who had perfect control over their expressions. There was something coy in her face, like she had left a snare for him to walk into. She had him all figured out.

“What makes you think I’m alone?” he replied.

“Because you’re spending your birthday with someone you barely know. That sounds pretty lonely to me.”

He laughed to himself, a sharp-toothed smile spreading across his face. “You’re very astute, Fang.” Then his smile faded into something more soft and contemplative. “But we aren’t alone right now. And all I’d really like for my birthday is for us to try to be friends.”

He could tell by the pucker in her bottom lip that she was thinking. Letting out a breath through her nose, the tips of her bangs ruffled. “I guess I can try.” The deep brown of her irises looked nearly black as her dark gaze settled on his.

For the first time, the smile she gave him was friendly and the tide of her breathing became relaxed. Maybe things were finally starting to change.

[clumsyclifford]

popularity, or pink flowers

well the good news is i have absolutely no excuse for this. a month ago my dear friend spidey anon send this ask about wicked!5sos and then tonight it was revived when @calumsclifford starting discussing it and now it’s 4am and muke!gelphie exists. SO.

not to pretend this is a Real Fic because it’s literally just the Popular scene but with muke as gelphie, but anyway you can read this as pre-slash or as just homies, i don’t really care. also if anyone cares, kara lindsay is my favorite glinda and this is the video i watched to get the dialogue and gist of this scene down. even if you know absolutely nothing about wicked i recommend you watch it because kara lindsay is fucking hilarious.

anyway, obvious shoutout to maggie, who’s tagged above, for being the bearer of all the great musical!sos aus. this is my humble offering to you. also to spidey anon.

(side note i changed the ending a little bit because you know me. a sucker for a hopeful ending. fuck angst 2k20 baby)

[ao3]

-

Luke is buzzing when they get back to their dormitory, just a few minutes shy of midnight, and Michael sits at the edge of his bed and pretends not to notice the way Luke is literally bouncing on his own mattress.

Finally Luke snaps. “Your very first party ever!” he cheers, as if that’s something to be celebrating, that Michael is college-age and still has never been to a party.

“Do funerals count?” he asks, because if so he’s been to quite a few.

Luke frowns for a moment and then carries on, undeterred. “Your very first party,” he says, emphasis clear, and grins. “Yay!”

Michael doesn’t think the party was as much of a smash hit as Luke seems to believe it was, but Luke’s already leaping off his bed and scurrying over towards Michael’s. It’s possible Luke has had too much to drink; Michael wishes he’d known there would be alcohol. He would have taken advantage.

That, or Luke is just naturally this bubbly, which is an even more exhausting thought.

“I know!” says Luke, clambering onto Michael’s bed, pushing right up against his side. Michael shies away, hugging tighter to the pillow across his lap, but Luke doesn’t get the message and reaches to straighten out Michael’s fringe. “Let’s tell each other secrets. Something you’ve never told anyone before.” Grinning conspiratorially at Michael, he says, “I’ll go first.” Then, in a low whisper: “Ashton and I are going to be married!”

Michael blinks. Luke and Ashton are well-suited, he reckons; both a little bit flippant, a little bit ditzy, and very popular.  “He’s asked you already?”

“Oh, he doesn’t know yet,” Luke says cheerfully. “Now you tell me a secret.”

Michael can’t think of a single secret he wants to share with any version of Luke, but especially not this version of Luke, who’s so ridiculously upbeat it makes Michael want to crawl under his bed and hermit until he becomes one with the dust bunnies.

“Like what?” he asks.

“Like,” Luke says, and then before Michael can react he’s off the bed and reaching under Michael’s other pillow, “why do you sleep with this green bottle under your bed?”

Michael jumps to his feet, cheeks hot. “Give it back!”

“Come on, what is it?” Luke screeches, holding it high up, almost out of reach. Michael grabs hold of it and they play tug of war for a moment, Luke demanding to know what it is and Michael growling for him to return it, before Michael finally wins the battle and the bottle is safely in his hands.

“It was my mum’s!” he snaps. “That’s all. Fuck.”

Luke looks deeply upset. “That’s not fair,” he accuses. “I told you a really good one.”

Michael thinks he’s going to do something violent in a few moments unless Luke does something really redeemable. And then Luke turns back to his own bed and flops face-first into his pillow, unmoving. Like he’s really, truly hurt by this betrayal of Michael’s, daring not to match Luke’s oh-so-secret secret with one of his own.

It occurs to Michael that Luke is trying to bond with him. Or at least be friendly. And to be perfectly honest, that’s not something Michael’s come by too easily at Shiz. Friends, friendly people, anyone willing to make polite conversation...they’ve all been effectively nonexistent for Michael. For Luke, who had been such an asshole to him in the beginning (though Michael had returned the favor), to try and build a bridge despite their past failings, is actually pretty admirable. And Michael’s being cagey.

He caves.

“My dad hates me,” he admits. Luke immediately springs up. “That’s not the secret.” Once again Luke flops into his pillows, disappointed. Michael sighs. “The secret is that he has a good reason to. It’s my fault.”

This time Luke stands up and turns to look at him, and Michael recognizes the faintest trace of concern in his features. Sympathy. Not something Michael expected to see on Luke.

“What?” Luke asks, brows drawn together. “What is?”

This time, when he approaches Michael’s bed, it’s tentative, and maybe that’s what makes Michael shift over so that Luke can sit himself down. Still hugging the pillow close, Michael says, “That my sister is — the way she is.” Crippled, he doesn’t say, because she hates it when people call her that, even if it’s true. Nessarose is crippled for life. 

Luke watches him, careful, and doesn’t say anything, so Michael clears his throat and starts from the beginning. “See, when our mum was carrying Nessa, our father started worrying that the new baby might come out, you know.” 

“Green,” Luke supplements, although there’s nothing mocking in his voice, surprisingly.

“Green,” Michael agrees, looking down at his hands for a moment. When he looks back, Luke’s eyes are still on him. “He was so worried that he made mum chew milk flowers all the time. Only…it made Nessa come too soon, and her legs were all tangled. And mum never woke up.” He swallows, shakes his head. “None of which would’ve happened if not for me.”

Luke is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “But that was the milk flowers’ fault. Not yours.” He grabs at Michael’s hands and Michael is too startled to pull away. “That may be your secret, Michael, but that doesn’t make it true. You’re blaming yourself for something you didn’t even do. For someone you just are.” And then, just as Michael is thinking that maybe Luke is cleverer than he lets on, Luke cuddles into his side, stroking his hair and whispering, “Shh.”

“Uh, Luke,” Michael whispers back, because this is pretty weird.

Luke ignores him. Then he catches sight of the clock on the wall and leaps away from Michael to his feet, clapping in excitement. “Hey, look, it’s tomorrow!” Turning to Michael, he adds, “Mikey — is it alright if I call you Mikey?”

Michael grimaces. “Well, it’s a little childish.”

Luke ignores him again, happy grin fixed into place. Whatever Luke was sincerely reassuring Michael that Nessa’s deformity hadn’t been his fault is gone, and this bubblegum version of him is in his place. Michael’s not sure which one is the real Luke, or if there is a real Luke. Maybe Luke is just a bunch of personalities that slot in and out of place like gobo lenses on stage lights.

“And you can call me…” Luke spreads his arms. “Luke!” Like Michael wasn’t already doing that. “See, Mikey, now that we’re friends, I’ve decided to make you my new project.”

Michael stares. “You really, really don’t have to do that.” Please don’t do that, is what he means to say. Michael can only imagine what that means, and it’s not pretty.

But Luke, once again, is steadfast. “I know! That’s what makes me so nice.”

Michael doesn’t know if nice is the word. “I don’t need to be a project,” he tries, but Luke is already talking over him.

“You see, Mikey, I’m a very fortunate person,” he chirps. “And so when I see someone less fortunate than I am — which, let’s face it, is most people —  my heart aches for them. And when someone needs a makeover — well, I’m amazing at makeovers.” He tosses a grin at Michael. “Clearly. And I know —” Michael opens his mouth to protest and Luke puts a finger over it, “I know exactly what they need. Oh!” He stalls Michael on his return from putting the green bottle back underneath his pillow and reaches for his glasses. Michael winces as Luke pulls them away from his face, examines him for a moment, and then puts them back. Awesome. Michael’s always thought he looked dorky with glasses, but somehow Luke thinks he looks worse without them, which is just great.

“Luke —” he tries again, and is once more cut off.

“No, no, no! Mikey, listen. This is going to be tough. I’m not going to lie. You’re a real fixer-upper, but don’t worry. I have a perfect track record with makeovers. When I’m done with you, I swear, you will be popular.”

Michael frowns at Luke’s winning smile. “Popular?”

“Popular!” Luke agrees brightly. “I’m an expert on being popular, Mikey. I can teach you everything you need to know.” He gasps excitedly. “I can teach you to talk to boys!”

“I’m not really planning on —”

“And we can fix your hair!” Luke continues, growing more excited by the minute. At Michael’s face, he hurriedly says, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it! Except that it’s um, bad.”

“Oh,” Michael says faintly. “Well, if that’s all.” 

“Don’t worry, it’s not!” Luke says. Michael is tempted to try sarcasm again but it obviously sails right over Luke’s head, so he keeps his mouth shut as Luke fluffs a hand through Michael’s hair. Evidently he’s trying and failing to get it to do something — maybe stick up in a quiff like Luke’s does, which Michael could have told him would be a lost cause — and eventually he rocks back on his heels and huffs. “Well. We can work on that later. You look offended.”

“Well —”

“Lighten up,” Luke insists. “Think of it as…personality dialysis!” Which is a big word that stuns Michael into silence. He hadn’t really known Luke knew any big words, much less how to use them correctly. “Don’t be worried, Mikey. I told you, I’m a pro. And now that we’re friends and I can give you advice you have nothing to worry about.”

Michael is worried, although not for the reasons Luke thinks. He can’t picture a scenario where he walks out of this engagement unscathed.

“Luke, this is nice and all, but I don’t really feel like I need…to be popular.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Luke says. “Nobody needs to be popular. Well. Except me. But I am popular, so it works out pretty well!” He giggles. Michael wonders if the alcohol has worn off yet. Part of him hopes it hasn’t; if this is how Luke normally is with his friends, Michael has reason to be concerned. “Just let me help you. Let me try. You can be someone new! Instead of your old self! Well, your current self. Well — you get it.”

Michael sighs. “Okay,” he says, because the path of least resistance also seems like the fastest way to wear Luke out. He’s practically vibrating with excitement, and when Michael gives in he immediately springs into action.

“Amazing! First of all, let me take these —” Luke lifts Michael’s glasses off his nose and folds them up, then grabs Michael’s wrists and tugs him over to Luke’s bed. Michael doesn’t really see why this pseudo-makeover can’t happen from the safety of his own twin, but whatever. “See, Mikey, you just have to think logically. I mean, think about the big-shots you know about. Heads of state, diplomats.” Still chattering away, Luke reaches for something between his pillows, and Michael barely has time to register that it’s glitter — glitter, what the fuck, why would he keep that between his pillows — before it’s being dusted over his face. “Do you think they got those positions because they were smart? Of course not! They were popular. It’s all to do with being popular, Mikey. I know you’re smart, but that’s not enough anymore! It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It matters how many friends you’ve got.”

There’s a lot going on right now, what with Luke babbling about aptitude while he applies fucking glitter to Michael’s cheekbones, so Michael almost misses the part where Luke compliments him. Almost, but not quite. It’s right there; I know you’re smart, but…Michael feels his cheeks flush with pride.

“You really think being — popular is going to help me with my studies?” Michael asks hesitantly.

Luke beams, leaning away from Michael to survey his handiwork, and claps. Glitter clouds around his hands and flutters to the carpet.

“I don’t just think so,” he says giddily. “I know so. Okay. First of all, you need to learn to flirt.” Michael doesn’t really have time to wonder how flirting is going to help him get ahead in class, because Luke’s powering forward, and Michael has no choice but to listen in helpless captivity. “This is a simple two-step move. Step one: hair.”

“Hair,” Michael repeats.

“Yes, try and keep up,” Luke says impatiently. “Step one, you run your hand through your hair. Like so.” He demonstrates, and his hair takes on a charmingly mussed-up look. “Now you try!”

Certain that his hair will either stay the same or get worse, Michael concedes, dragging his hand half-heartedly through his hair. Luke looks unmoved.

“You’ve got to do it like you mean it, Mikey. Here, pretend I’m some hot guy you’re trying to impress. Well, you won’t need to pretend I’m a hot guy, but you get it.” He giggles.

Michael rolls his eyes. “Maybe if you tell me the second step I can put them together?”

“Oh! Right. Step two: bite your lip. Like so.” With a halfway smirk, Luke drags his bottom lip between his teeth, then grins at Michael. “Okay. Put it all together. Come on come on come on! You can do it!”

There’s no denying that Luke looks pretty sexy with his infallible two-step move, but equally no denying that Michael will crash and burn. Luke looks too excited not to at least give it a shot, though, so Michael bites the bullet.

He tries for a smile, which definitely looks more like a grimace, and then pulls a hand through his hair, biting his lower lip as he does. Confused by both things at once, he bites down too hard, and then winces. “Ow, fuck!”

Luke looks so overjoyed at his attempt that he wraps him up in a too-tight hug. When he pulls away he looks optimistic. “Well,” he says hopefully, “you can practice.” Michael snorts. Luke’s eyes light up like he’s struck with an idea, and he pulls Michael to his feet. “Ooh, oh! And now, I shall turn your ratty clothes into a bespoke suit!”

Ratty clothes? “I like these clothes,” Michael says defensively, as Luke grabs for his wand. Skinny jeans and t-shirts are most of his wardrobe, most if not all black. It’s part of his whole look. The emo, brooding loner look.

Luke ignores him, which is becoming a theme for the night. Morning. Whichever. Brandishing his wand in Michael’s general direction, he declares, “Suit!”

Nothing happens.

Luke frowns, taps the end of his wand, and emphatically repeats, “Suit!”

Again nothing.

“Is this thing even on?” Luke grumbles, and starts hitting the wand against his bed. 

Michael doesn’t want to be wearing a suit, but he also doesn’t want Luke to break his wand over this. “Do you want me to try?” he offers.

“No!” Luke says hotly, and throws the wand behind him, where it clatters against the wall and then to the floor. Calmly, he adds, “Just keep the, um, statement clothes. They’re cute.”

His expression says otherwise, but Michael decides not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“And now for the finishing touch,” Luke says, leading Michael to sit again at the foot of Luke’s bed. Michael goes willingly; hopefully this means an end to this nonsense, and Michael can get to bed, and in the morning they can be, like, awkward acquaintances at best. Michael isn’t expecting a lasting friendship out of this. It will be nice not to be constantly hostile towards his roommate, sure, but Luke’s…well, Luke is Luke, cheerful and bubblegum pink and popular, and Michael is Michael, that is, none of those things. In no universe could he and Luke remain friends, whatever Michael might want.

Patiently, Michael sits and watches as Luke reaches for the flower clipped in his hair, pulling it neatly back from his face, and slides the clip into Michael’s hair instead. It probably looks ridiculous — Michael’s all dark colors and green and grumpy, and pink shouldn’t be within a five-foot radius of his outfit, much less in the form of a hair clip flower — but as soon as it’s in, Luke gives a short gasp, and a smile spreads slowly over his face.

“Pink goes good with green,” he says happily. Michael can’t help but smile himself at the sincerity in Luke’s expression. “Michael. Look at you. You’re beautiful.”

In all his years of life, Michael has never once been called beautiful, and he jerks at the word now, sure that Luke must be having him on, that this must all be an elaborate prank. But Luke tugs him to his feet and leads him to the mirror, and the Michael in the mirror is — huh.

Pretty, actually.

Everything fades around Michael until Luke is just a blur off to the side, and Michael stares at himself until his eyes start unfocusing. He’s never been pretty before, never been anything other than an embarrassment to everyone who’d known him. But now his cheeks glimmer when they catch the light, and somehow fussing with his hair has actually made it look soft and inviting, and the flower, somehow, inexplicably, does look good.

Warmth is blossoming in Michael’s chest, and with it, panic. This isn’t — this isn’t him. This isn’t Michael Clifford. This is some bootleg version of him, some bastardized combination of himself and Luke, and Luke isn’t who he wants to be, or even who he should be. He should be Michael fucking Clifford, and that should be enough. His intelligence should be good enough to carry him through his studies; he shouldn’t need popularity, or pink flowers.

“I,” he chokes out, as the world rushes back to him. “I have to go.” Anywhere else, anywhere other than in front of this mirror. He heads for the door but Luke grabs his arm.

“Hey,” he says, pouting. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” Michael says, strangled. “I mean, thanks but no thanks. This isn’t me.”

“It looks like you,” Luke points out, still holding his wrist. “Just a prettier version of you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be prettier,” Michael snarls, wrenching his hand free.

“Who wouldn’t want to be prettier?”

Michael groans. It had been too good to be true all along; Luke really is that stupid, that shallow, that daft. “I don’t! I don’t care if I’m pretty, or if I know how to flirt, or if I’m wearing a fucking suit! I want to be enough as I am. This might be hard for you to believe, but some people want to have worth outside of their looks!”

Luke stares at him as Michael cuts himself off, chest heaving from the outburst. “You think all I am is a pretty face?”

“No, Luke,” Michael says tiredly. “You think all you are is a pretty face. But I don’t want to be that. I’d rather be clever than handsome.”

“You can be both clever and handsome,” Luke argues. “You’re not stupider if you put glitter on your face, Mikey.”

“Michael.”

“Mikey. I don’t think you’re being very fair right now.”

“How am I not being fair?”

“I’m trying to help you, and you’re just — yelling and running away!” Luke says, throwing his hands up. “Maybe instead of blaming me, you should acknowledge why you’re really upset right now, huh? Admit it — you’ve never felt beautiful in your life, and now you’re upset because you didn’t realize you could have been pretty all along, and it was stupid, bubbly Luke Hemmings who taught you how to do it! You’re embarrassed that I knew something that you didn’t!”

Michael opens his mouth to retort, closes it, opens it again as the pink rises predictably in Luke’s cheeks — he’s probably not prone to violent outbursts the way Michael is, or confrontation at all, and now he looks like he might start crying — and says quietly, “Okay. Fine. You’re right.”

Luke’s eyes go wide. “I’m…right?”

“Yeah,” Michael says, though it pains him to admit it. “You’re right. I — I’m sorry, Luke. I shouldn’t have tried to run out. You were just trying to help.”

“I did help,” Luke argues weakly, bottom lip quivering. “I did.”

“You did,” Michael allows. “Thank you.”

“You look really nice, you know,” Luke whispers. “Even if pink isn’t usually your color. It suits you.”

“Yeah, well,” Michael says, casting around for something to say. “Maybe you should start wearing green.”

Luke quirks his lips in a smile. “Maybe I should.”

He won’t, and they both know it — Luke’s color is going to be pink until the end of time — but it’s an olive branch for the both of them, and as one they both grab hold of it. Michael gets the feeling that something is going to be different. Maybe Luke isn’t just going to be an awkward acquaintance. Maybe they’ll be friends.

It’s far-fetched, but stranger things have happened. After all, Michael’s wearing glitter.