#did you know that my vampire is op as fuck when put next to the cat? I have no idea why but the two synergize too well

[elecman108]

Welcome to the Darker Lord’s worst nightmare... A bunch of anime-protagonist-looking idiots with confusing and stupid outfits.

Huzzah! I have drawn something! To be fair I sketched this in September, lined most of it in October, and finished it in November, now uploading it in December... My life’s been a mess on the side. But!! I do continue to doodle now and again, and here’s six of nine of my main team’s Miis as regular idiots!

Based on their class outfit, here’s whose there: Vic is the Elf, Axel is the Cat, Ryma (belongs to @/melmagicianmage on Twitter) is the Vampire, Theo is the Warrior, Seven is the Thief, and Alren is the Cleric. The snurp is me for some reason because I thought it would be funny I guess? The other three in my main team are Cecillia (an Imp), Blaze (a pants-Pop Star), and Reyanne (a Princess), who I originally did draw in this picture but they looked wonky and I removed them. You can see sort of where some of the wonky bits are because of how I removed and erased sections along the sides. All are my OCs save for Ryma, as already stated.

My favourite thing here is these are all hairstyles that these Miis have selected for themselves using the “New Hairstyle!” event... All of them loon normal, Ryma never changes her hair at all, and Axel... my poor, stupid cat boy, lmao. Regardless, it’s a very good doodle for the only thing I’ve drawn since like, September, I think? Or early October, I’m not too sure.

[galvanizedfriend]

hii Yokan! i miss you!😭

how are you? how is work?? I hope everything is going well<3

rn there's a little Comic Con in my city, and it really did help my mood!! (even tho I throwed up 6 times and fainted during the morning of the first day due to the heat and lack of iron🥲) 2 days down, 2 more to go 🙏

ANYWAYS! I know you've been going through a writer's block lately, and I read a post that said something about asking/commenting about the fictions to help the "stucked" autor, SO!

I've been re-reading TW III (shocking, I know) and those little hints about married!kc are just 😭😭 my heart melts, really, although... I was never really sure you'd get them married, mostly due to Care's speech to Cami about how Klaus supposedly sees weddings, and because I remember you saying that you weren't planning on giving them an actual marriage, but rather the closest thing next to it. I checked to comments to see other thoughts, and I saw one of you reply saying that you were completely against married!kc at the start, but then you were slowing changing your mind about it...

so, what was it that made you say "fuck it, I'm gonna ring the bells"?? is it because many people asked you to do it, so you are throwing us a bone, or is it something else?? I'm really interest on hearing the process of your change of heart <3

have a good one, friend <3 love you xoxo

I don't know if I am eloquent enough or if my train of thought makes much sense, but I will try 😂

Also grab a chair because this will be a long one. Be careful what you ask me, I do not know how to shut the fuck up 🙃

Objectively, I still think Klaus is not the marrying kind (in canon context, at least). That man has been alive for a thousand years. He's the vampire of vampires, one who sees humans as a lower species. He's used to getting what he wants by conquering and subjugating because he can. Why would he ever submit himself to an inherently human institution that, throughout history, has served as a tool for various types of social, political and religious control? The ceremony itself doesn't mean anything to him. He probably thinks it's ridiculous and performative, not to mention extremely frail. You can just change your mind and get a divorce, or the good old spouse murder, and then what? What's even the point?

(Just to be clear: I'm not personally preaching against weddings and marriages here btw, it's just how I think Klaus might have seen it.)

If you look at it from the sentimental side, Klaus spent almost a thousand years saying that love is a sign of weakness, a character flaw. He carried his siblings, the only people he genuinely cared about, inside coffins because he didn't trust them enough not to leave him, betray him or end up captured and killed by one of his enemies. Now, why would he want to marry someone, thus exposing yet another vulnerability to be exploited?

Having said that 😂

When we first see Klaus in TVD he's trying to surround himself with a whole new OP supernatural species that will have no choice but to stand with him. They will protect him, they will go to war for him, do whatever he asks them to and they will never leave (or that's what he thought, anyway) because they don't have a choice. That is the only way Klaus knows how to trust people: by completely removing their capacity to challenge him. That's how paranoid he is.

But as the story progresses, and especially with The Wolf in particular because it takes their relationship much further than the show, Klaus realizes there is more than one way to earn people's trust. I feel like that's one of the pillars of his relationship with Caroline. He could've just compelled her (in TVD, not TW because she's a witch), but he never did because he wanted more from her than obedience. All of the things he liked about her - her personality, her honesty, her fire, her loyalty - would've been essentially erased or made meaningless if he'd compelled her. Which puts her in direct opposition to how he related to his hybrids, right? He pretends to be fine with people who have no choice but to follow him, but what he really craves is more real than that. He surrounds himself with people who will worship the ground he walks on after some forged "gratitude" for releasing them of their curse, but he is fascinated by how gutsy Caroline is to look him in the eye and tell him the things that no one else will dare to. What he really seeks but doesn't have the courage to admit is that he wants someone who will choose to be with him. And that's the difficult part, because it can't be conquered or taken, it has to be earned.

Klaus comes from a place of paranoia and extreme distrust of everything and everyone around him, especially after Mikael in New Orleans, and he feels very isolated and alone. He tells Stefan about that, right? The loneliness of immortality. When The Wolf starts, in spite of how he and Caroline were having a bit of a thing before it, he's not sure she would want to stay with him. Actually, he thinks the first chance she gets, she's gonna bail. It's why he's mad when he thinks she wants to terminate the pregnancy. It's not about the baby (it's never about the baby), he couldn't care less about the damn baby at that point, it's the fact that he thinks she's trying to get rid of him, as if that pregnancy is the one thing that is holding them together at that point and so if she's no longer pregnant, she doesn't have to be with him. What I'm very inarticulately trying to say is that his initial approach to Caroline being pregnant is the same he had with his hybrids, as if the baby is a version of a sire bond. It's crazy and dysfunctional, yes, but it's how Klaus rationalizes it, how he thinks he gets to keep people around him - either through daggering them or giving them no choice.

Slowly, Klaus internalizes the fact that Caroline is choosing him. She tells him that a few times throughout the story, and even when he's hallucinating her at the beginning of TW4, because that's something that she has said before and that has stuck with him for reason. She could've left him at any point, but she didn't because she wants to be with him. It's a choice that she has made not because he forced her to, but because she's in love with him. She protects him, she fights for him, she walks through hellfire for him because she wants to, not because she must. He has earned her trust and her love and her loyalty. And that is something that is new for Klaus in his one thousand years of life, at least at this magnitude and with this much clarity and certitude.

So I think when I started writing TW3, which was them in their domestic era, it started to feel like something Klaus might actually do. Not just because it obviously does mean something to Caroline and he would basically do anything for her (even though she never asks for it, which in itself is something, because Caroline comes from relationships that made her feel so insecure and unsafe that she would've held on to a ring like a lifeline, but with Klaus she simply does not need hard evidence to feel safe and reassured, she knows how Klaus feels about her, she's very comfortable in their relationship, she knows that what offers her means a lot more than a thousand weddings to other people ever would - even though she does still love a good wedding lol), but because it suddenly makes sense to him. Not the big party, or the tradition of it, or making it official or anything of the sort, but as a way to externalize what he feels. There is a symbolism to it that while not ideal, it might be the closest to thing to expressing just how devoted he is to her and how she is, pure and simple, eternity for him. When that comes from someone who has lived for as long he has, and who has been as cynical as he was for as long as he was, it does mean something, even if nothing else does.

There is a territorial factor to it as well, of course. 😌 He's a very possessive man and so he wants everyone to know Caroline is his, and it's why it first came to him during the thing with Jackson, but it's more than just that. If it was just about that, he wouldn't do it. He is at a point where he no longer has any doubts about how Caroline feels for him (although there will be a little something something on that front at the beginning of TW4, just because they've been apart for so long, but it will be quickly dispelled).

The most sacred thing for Klaus was the vow he took with his siblings when they fled Viking Falls. They stuck together through everything because of that. He knows the value of a vow and a promise. And he wants a version of that with Caroline. It's the first time in his life when he contemplates genuinely offering that to someone other than his family. There are a million ways he could go about it, probably, but he knows asking her to marry him is the one that will be most representative to her, because of the age where she was born and how she grew up, etc.

And so that is why I decided that Klaus was going to buy a ring even though I crossed my heart and hoped to die a million times for years when people asked me about that. 😂 I just think it's the natural course this story has taken. It's long enough that it eventually made sense to me that he might do it.

Does any of that make sense???? I don't know! I just typed my stream of thought and hoped for the best and now I'm afraid to read it again, so apologies if it's just crazy words.

Now if only I can get back to writing and actually get to that part. 🥲 Pray for me 🙏

THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK! 🙃 Here have a pretty married Klaroline gif.

[weretiger-be-my-horse]

this!!! you put into words that eerie feeling i got when i was watching the episode.

it felt too perfect and too predictable and too cliché, and the reason behind this, as you said, is because it feels unearned. first, it feels rushed. i don't know if bones did it intentionally and with a sense of self-awareness, as you mention, or out of desperation, but it's that. second, THE DIALOGUES!!! i knew something was wrong with some lines but i couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. and third, and most important one in my opinion, the sacrifices.

the thing is that, in conventional storytelling, one of the major elements of character development is the sacrifices they make to achieve what they want/need to do. for example, dazai leaves the port mafia to be a better person, but oda is dead. mori helps the ada escape, but in exchange, the ada will have to send one of their own to work for the port mafia. atsushi can escape fukuchi on the boswellian, but akutagawa dies and is turned into a vampire.

there's sacrifice, pain, a sense of bittersweetness to it. there's always a price to pay and the characters are alive and safe now so it must have been worth it but it'll take a while for them to be okay with that.

here, nobody really pays. soukoku are not only fine, but also the possible struggles chuuya may have had regarding vampirism were a false alarm and dazai only had to wear a fucking cast. gogol, although sad, comes to terms with fyodor's death, and the same goes to fukuzawa with fukuchi. who, by the way, WAS STABBED MULTIPLE TIMES AND CAN WALK AWAY NO PROBLEM. tanizaki and kunikida were not really threatened, and ranpo seems to be fine too. aku comes back to his senses because bram is released and magically grows a body, so aku saves aya and stops fighting atsushi. kenji and tetchou conveniently wake up at that moment too.

the only ones who truly lose something? the big bad wolves fyodor and fukuchi, who lose their lives. but fyodor is hinting at pulling off a jesus christ and fukuchi gets a peaceful death because he commends fukuzawa with his world peace mission and a united humankind.

in fact, the only person i feel that truly loses something/someone deeply dear to them is TERUKO. and i mean, sure everyone needs character development, but it's weird that it's only one character and it's her out of all people, since she's not exactly the protagonist.

as op said, the episode had an ongoing sense of "GOTCHA!" and when the credits rolled i was flabbergasted.

my two working theories are that it's either asagiri's galaxy brain four dimensional chess uno reverse strategy for a crossmedia story or that bones was desperate and next season they will fix it with a "yeah so someone wrote in the book and fucked things up" or perhaps a "haha fukuchi used the time travelling sword AGAIN classic fukuchi haha"

anyway thank you for your analysis! let's see how much of my enclosure i destroy upon reading the next chapter lmao

Okay, a good amount of time has passed, and after having seen this post by @weretiger-be-my-horse , I've been turning it over and over in my brain going absolutely feral over this concept. I need to expand upon my thoughts on this idea and all the evidence there is pointing towards it, whether that be actual tangible things, or purely strong vibes I have.

First of all, full disclaimer: I did not like the season 5 finale, and how it wrapped up the DoA arc. To say that I "disliked" it is putting it extremely lightly, in fact -- I absolutely hated it, and I am still, to a degree, in disbelief that I actually even watched those 24 minutes with my own two eyes, and that it somehow wasn't a complete fever dream. While I'm not going to go in long-winded detail into all the ways that I feel like the finale almost completely bastardized all of its featured characters and destroyed any and all buildup we've had going on in this arc for 50 some chapters now, because that's not the main point of this post, I will not make any attempt to hide the fact that the theory-crafting I'm about to pose here is partly influenced and prompted by how much I hated the finale, and how much I desperately hope that it will not end up being manga canon. Therefore, if you enjoyed the finale — and that's fine! — and don't want to read any negativity about it, then I would not recommend reading any further (I mean, you've probably already left by this point, which is fair lol), While obviously it's important that I be as objective and unbiased as possible when explaining my thoughts, some of my negative feelings about the writing will be a part of this analysis, even if this isn't going to be a full-blown rant. Just know that if you proceed.

With that out of the way, let me continue.

So. In the aforementioned post, the theory presented is that the anime may be operating on an alternate timeline, and that this will become evident once we read the upcoming October chapter, wherein things will go completely differently post-chapter 110 than they do in the final episode — probably for the worse, with the s5 finale intending to lull us into a false sense of security and make us assume that everything in the manga arc finale will wrap up as smoothly and consequence-freely(? lol) as it did in the anime one. It also suggests that the Fukuchi we see at the very end that sskk are fighting came from the manga timeline, where he won, and that he used the Book to jump to a timeline where he lost, the anime one, proven by the fact that this Fukuchi is wearing a mask with the same design on it as the mask Fukuchi is wearing on the chapter 110 DoA color spread/title page.

First of all, I want to note the fact that it's not just the mask design that's the same: the entire outfit is roughly more or less the same as well. It's not completely 1-to-1, because the anime can never fully match the intricacies of Harukawa's beautiful outfit designs, and the Fukuchi in this scene has the kimono half-off because of the... super saiyan mode he's in, but most all of the main pieces of clothing are there. Any small inaccuracies could also be attributed to the fact that Harukawa probably didn't have this finalized art ready back when this episode was being made, so the animators wouldn't have had the complete design to work off of. But in general, because it's all so similar, I think we can quite confidently say that the ending episode Fukuchi is meant to be the one from this manga art.

Also, people have pointed this out, but it's worth mentioning that the mask Asagiri wore at Anime Expo in July was referencing this Fukuchi. It's not a crucial detail, but it just proves more that Asagiri is a gigantic fucking troll, and that he clearly wanted to draw attention to this Fukuchi design. It's important. He describes the mask here as made in the motif of an ellipses inside a speech bubble... could that perhaps be referencing meta aspects, like the Book?

Next, I want to talk about the even bigger elephant in the room, which to me is the most damning and undeniable piece of evidence there is of the anime operating on a completely separate timeline from the manga:

This Fucking Hand™️

As we all know, in the anime, Fyodor injures his hand when the password input device blows up, and as we all know, this does not happen in the manga. In the last episode, Dazai claims that the final nail in the coffin of his impromptu plan to kill Fyodor relied on this hand injury: because Fyodor couldn't pilot his escape helicopter himself, he would ask one of his Meursault vampires to do it for him, unaware that Bram and thus this vampire was now on the ADA's side, and said vampire could kill him while his guard was down.

Ignoring how utterly stupid and contrived this plan is when you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, the fact of the matter is that something that initially seemed like nothing more than an odd but inconsequential anime original addition ended up snowballing into being the entire reason one of the big bads was brought down. If Fyodor hadn't hurt his hand, he wouldn't have needed another pilot, and so the traitor vampire wouldn't have had an opportunity to get near him and kill him without him expecting it even though said vampire was presumably with him as they were leaving Meursault, and was probably already a traitor by then, so there was plenty opportunity for him to still die. not to mention by Chuuya's hands at literally any time he wanted to, because Chuuya was coherent the whole time. Also there's absolutely no way Dazai could have known exactly what Ranpo would do, no matter how smart he is and how much he trusts him. idk it's fucking dumb, just roll with it. Therefore, putting aside all other variables for now, we can conclude that, on the most basic level, this signifies that no hand wound = no death.

And let me tell you, this hand wound bothers me. It really, really does. Because they focus on it a LOT — they go out of their way to draw attention to it MULTIPLE TIMES, from the moment it first happens to the end of the season. Fyodor even talks about it to himself, about Dazai being able to cause him tangible, visible, bodily harm, (something that, again, as far as we've seen, has never happened in the manga). Hell, even after Fyodor's death, they're still drawing attention to it, because his right arm is all of him that survives, and Dazai picks it up and gives it to Nikolai to do his hilarious sad little gay fondling of it played completely straight even though there's nothing straight going on here at all! It's like it's a big red flashing sign at all times going "you see this injured hand? This is important. Are you picking up that it's important? Are you taking note of it?" Why is that? Obviously, it serves to give us the lore crumbs about Fyodor and "that man", but that's hardly the main, much more glaring reason, as I've already mentioned.

Fyodor doesn't hurt his hand in the manga. Fyodor won't die here in the manga. I am so dead serious by this point about this, and it's not just simply the fact that this was absolutely not at all the time for him to die, or the fact that his hand is the reason for his death in the anime in and of itself, but how much EMPHASIS they place on this, and on the hand in general. What would be the point of adding something like this, if it's not meant to alert us to the fact that it has a major impact on how the story plays out? We all know Bones: they struggle to get right and include everything that's already there in the source material; they would never go out of their way to add something this noteworthy if there wasn't a very good reason for it, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I've seen a few people bring up the fact that Fyodor gets shot in the shoulder by Sigma and that that could lead to the same outcome in the manga, but I disagree: although he has blood on his shoulder in the manga, it seems like the bullet just grazed the top of it, because his arm and hand appears completely functional afterwards (not hanging limp by his side or anything). But that doesn't even matter, because this isn't even about the semantics/logistics of how the hand wound caused Fyodor's death because again, it's a stupid outcome, or what could serve as a substitute in the manga — thematically, this is a textbook example of the butterfly effect. Countless parallel universes exist within this series, ones where even the most minute differences lead to a majorly different outcome: this just happens to be one of them. There's no reason to think it isn't, and there's no reason to not think that the anime wants us to clue into the fact that things only went as smoothly as they did on the Meursault side because of this wound; in other words, that things will go very differently in the manga thanks to the absence of said wound. They wouldn't have added it in the first place and put such clearly deliberate emphasis on it otherwise.

Things are going to happen very differently in the manga, at least when it comes to the Meursault crew (but then, if you assume that, you then naturally assume it all will be very different). This is the only conclusion one can come to with the presentation of this anime-only wound, combined with the fact that parallel universes are a very real thing in BSD.

I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, so bear with me. I play a lot of visual novels, and although such concepts aren't really as original now as they were a while ago, some of my favorite and some of the very best VNs out there are the ones that break the fourth wall and make the visual novel branching route format directly intertwined with the story: you know, the ones where the characters go "if only I had done things differently, maybe everything would have turned out better...!" in a wink wink nudge nudge moment, and the ones where the characters are aware of the different timelines, even, or even have the ability to gain information from their selves in said alternate timelines to influence events in their current one (I'm intentionally not naming the games I'm thinking of for the sake of spoilers, but if you know, you know lmao). It gets very meta in this regard, and this is how I started viewing BSD through the lens of ever since I first learned about Beast: like a visual novel with many branching routes, and only a few routes that feel entirely "right".

When I first read Dazai's Entrance Exam, I was struck by how unnerving the ending sequence in the abandoned hospital felt. Obviously, Kunikida's internal struggle over Sasaki's actions and motives is him still desperately clinging to his ideal world that does not exist, but the specific type of phrases he uses — "who is wrong?" "[who is] the cause of all this?" "there has to be an ideal world" "there has to be something, I'm sure of it" "There must have been something we could have done!" — and the framing of the scene in general, is eerily reminiscent of a bad ending in a visual novel, to me. There's a haunting, looming, bleak sense that a different outcome could have been achieved, if different decisions had been made, or if things outside of anyone's control had been different... and we know that this is true, because in Beast alone, Kunikida never goes through the Azure Messenger incident, because Dazai doesn't have his entrance exam. Hell, you could even consider the anime's version of the Azure Messenger arc an alternate timeline in of itself, if you really wanted to, long before we even arrive at season 5.

When it comes to Beast, this timeline has almost the opposite feeling of what I described above, that I've also encountered in visual novels: the idea of a "good route" or "good ending" that still doesn't feel quite earned, or as perfect as one would expect. Beast is presented as the "ideal" timeline purely for one sole reason: Oda is alive. It is the only timeline where he's alive, and keeping Oda alive is the ultimate goal Dazai wants to achieve, the only reason this timeline exists; therefore, disregarding all else, Beast should be the best timeline, because Oda's death is the greatest devastation in the series to date. We all want him to live, so why wouldn't the timeline where he does be the best one? And yet... of course, it isn't. Dazai is alone, and steeped in darkness and loneliness without Oda, and dies by the end of the story for Oda's continued living. Atsushi has Kyouka still, but he's suffering and more traumatized, and unable to heal while stuck in the mafia, and neither can Kyouka. Akutagawa is living a much better life in the ADA... but without his sister, and without what he has from his bond with Atsushi in canon, that isn't replicated in Beast. And Oda... Oda is alive, and he has his children and his novel, but there is a feeling that he is aimless, that something in his life is missing. He has everything he ever wanted, but all that means nothing without what he truly needs: Dazai, and his time with Dazai and Ango at the bar. In this way, things going well and us getting what we want — in this case, Oda living — goes against how it's supposed to be, the natural order, which is why it feels so hollow. In the specific visual novel I'm thinking of here as a comparison (again, shoutout if you know), there's an alternate ending that involves you inputting information you gain at the end of the game very early on in the game, wherein the protagonist now has memories of the future and is able to bypass and prevent all of the events that take place normally. This means that people who die or are hurt somehow in general are saved from that fate, and nothing bad ever occurs; everything wraps up neatly and nicely... but again, there's an undeniable, unsettling feeling of emptiness, of a victory that rings hollow, because what's the point if everything is simply handed to you easily, where's the sense of accomplishment, without any struggles to achieve said victories, or any growth along the way? How can it feel earned if one doesn't have to, in Dazai's words, "scream within the storm of uncertainty, and run with flowing blood"?

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

This finale feels weird. Really, really weird. It feels too cheap, too simple, too unsatisfying. So much so, in fact, that for almost the entire runtime, as I was bombarded with resolution upon resolution one after another, I kept thinking "There's no way this can be real. Where's the catch? When is the "gotcha!" moment gonna happen? The "it was all a dream" reveal?". And this isn't just because I hated the writing, and that it really did feel like a fever dream watching fanfic levels of bad (actually, that's an insult to fanfic writers, tbh; they could do better) — no, it genuinely feels so incredibly fake. Even upon rewatching it and already knowing what happens, my brain still naturally keeps expecting some kinda of "sike, you THOUGHT!" moment to suddenly appear. It just.... feels "too good to be true". Dazai and Chuuya come out unscathed, and it's revealed that they were never in any real danger to begin with. Fyodor, one of our biggest threats, is dealt with supposedly for good (I say "supposedly" only because of the Jesus line, but if anything imo, I think that's just a hint that this won't be the canon ending in the manga, so in a sense he's going to "come back to life"), and Nikolai seems somewhat at peace with his death. The other biggest threat, Fukuchi, is also dealt with, and he and Fukuzawa get their final moment together of closure. Yes, Sigma is left in Meursault don't even get me started on how angry this alone makes me, and Fukuzawa loses Fukuchi, but overall, everything is portrayed in a positive light, and any negatives or losses are quickly glossed over. Everything is tied up nicely, neatly, and smoothly. ...And that is exactly what makes it feel so wrong, and hard to trust in.

I'm not sure if this will make sense, but to me, the finale is so incredibly poorly written that it almost feels.... intentional. It's so bad to the point of feeling self-aware in how bad it is, how unrealistically happy and convenient an ending it is. It had to end this neatly in order to rush to wrap up this arc for the season finale and not leave the last episode on a cliffhanger — which imo is chiefly the main reason it turned out this way, and, if this whole theory is true, Asagiri just used it to his advantage — and I'm not saying this was probably an effect Bones had in mind intentionally, I'm sure they just threw shit at the wall and went with whatever stuck, maaaaybe with some suggestions/approval from Asagiri, but the result is that you have a conclusion that contradicts so much of what was set up before and goes against so many character arcs, making some characters so out of character and even regressing in their development Dazai. I'm talking about Dazai abandoning Sigma, because he would never; hashtag #NOTMYDAZAI. Also Nikolai, Nikolai for most of that is so ooc I can't even begin to describe it oh my god. Everyone is OOC to a degree though lmao, and opens so many plot holes, to the point that it's impossible not to watch all that and get the feeling that it is subtly saying to you "did you really think it could be this easy? It feels wrong, doesn't it? It doesn't feel satisfying. It feels unearned." I find it incredibly interesting and suspicious in particular that they confirmed multiple theories people had about soukoku in Meursault: that Chuuya slowed the elevator's fall so that Dazai wouldn't die from it, that Chuuya slowed down the bullet so that it only penetrated Dazai's skin and not his skull, and that the both of them used Fyodor's camera angle to their advantage because they knew he wouldn't be able to see certain things from his view. I'm not saying that Asagiri trawled BSD twitter and tumblr after those chapters dropped for the most popular theories before the final episode was made lmao, there was no time for that (imagine though lol—), but I do think it's highly likely that he already had in mind exactly what theories would be made about these parts (I mean, the evidence for the gun scene was all there), and that Dazai rattling them off in his long monologue to Fyodor at the end is essentially him speaking to the audience and going "yeah, that's what you would predict, right? Those are the clichés, after all", much like him suggesting earlier that he can maybe bring Chuuya back to himself with a few moving words and the power of friendship, and Fyodor using the split personalities trope to fool Sigma. We expect these tropes to be true. Of course we'd fall for them, as Fyodor tells Sigma, especially if the evidence is right there. But Asagiri himself has explicitly said that he likes doing the opposite of what people expect. And so just because people predicted correctly with the three things I mentioned in this timeline... doesn't mean they'll be true in the manga's. Things happened how we wanted and expected it to, and everything turned out happily. So we can relax now, right? Everything will work out just as easily in the manga, right? Or... is the reason most of this finale feels so fake and unsettling and unsatisfying because it's meant to lull us into a false sense of security before all our heroes lose in the manga? Because deep down, we don't want an ending that's this simple, because we'd rather have a conclusion where our characters have struggled more and grown more and come out the better for it, and we know it?

After rewatching the episode a lot, and watching some other videos, and doing a lot of thinking, I am pretty confident in suspecting that the only part of this finale that is actually from manga canon, aside from Aya jumping off the building of course, is Fyodor and Nikolai's exchange after Fyodor leaves Meursault — specifically, them talking about Fyodor leaving Sigma behind, and their "new game" and Nikolai being excited at the prospect of it. This little conversation actually feels in character for them, and it's easy to tell this when contrasting it with everything that happens immediately after, wherein Fyodor is fatally stabbed, and Nikolai, completely at odds with what he was just talking about, just... stands there and watches Fyodor die while Dazai monologues lmao. I'm not sure if the helicopter is still a factor, but I would bet good money on Fyolai getting out of Meursault being manga canon, and that Dazai and Chuuya getting out as well and killing Fyodor + everything with FukuFuku, is part of the anime original ending, in order to wrap up everything positively. It makes much more sense if you think about, in reality (aka in the manga), Dazai and Chuuya still being left behind in Meursault (where they can eventually try to get Sigma), because none of it was an act and things did not go according to plan, and Fukuchi having an entirely different goal that doesn't feel so stupid and contradictory to his character, and Fukuzawa possibly dying — everyone seemingly loses, with Aya still being the last hope, perhaps by awakening her ability like we all speculated.

There's a youtuber I watch who covers BSD in-depth, despite being an anime-only (she reads the respective manga content after each season, though). Going into this finale, she knew about the fact that the anime had overtaken the manga, though she didn't know where the cutoff point was; despite that, however, she made predictions about what was from the manga so far and what was anime original, and it was almost entirely spot-on, based mostly on what she basically described as "anime original dialogue." She talked about how you can always tell when dialogue is veering into the realm of anime-original, because the sentences are very short, choppy, and slightly out of character, but generic enough to not be TOO out of character, and so that anyone can easily write said lines, even if they're not extremely familiar with the character like the original author would be. And when I heard this explanation, everything clicked — because so much of this finale has dialogue like that. The Fyolai scenes just feel peppered with it, around the lines I mentioned earlier, the Dazai dialogue does too, and ESPECIALLY shit at the end like Fukuchi and Fukuzawa exchanging the cliche death lines to end all death lines: "Are you there? I'm a little tired." "Rest up." That just isn't Bungou Stray Dogs. That isn't Asagiri. BSD is cheesy at times, yes, but it isn't like this; it's smarter. The dialogue is smarter, the explanations/plot twists are smarter, Asagiri is smarter, and the aforementioned youtuber I watched agreed. She's a pretty casual fan of the series, so if even she could pick up on these things, I think it speaks volumes.

I mentioned this briefly earlier, but this theory makes sense if you consider that this situation probably came about because of Bones wanting two seasons back-to-back when they did, and this arc being as long as it is. Season 3 aired in 2019, and I imagine Bones would have wanted season 4 in 2020, and might have then been willing to wait a bit longer for season 5 in order for more of this arc's manga chapters to come out — but then covid happened. Because of that, season 4 was delayed to 2023, creating the longest gap we've had between seasons, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the delay made them want season 5 right together with it, after getting so far "behind", so to speak. S4 was announced in November of 2021, and roughly around that time, Asagiri was finishing up writing the plot of the DoA arc. If Bones came to him sometime in late 2021 and said they wanted two seasons now (so basically, one giant two cour season), Asagiri would know that not only of course would this arc not be finished publishing in the manga for a very long time yet, but that roughly 20ish episodes would not be enough to cover it all to the end, with this arc being longer than any arc the anime has adapted to date. Because of all this, and the arc manga chapters being nowhere near fully drawn to completion, he'd have to make a decision about what to do, and what to give Bones. Without ending season 5 on a massive cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for years until an eventual season 6, the only other option would be to rush towards an anime-original ending for the DoA arc.... and for Asagiri to take advantage of that, and integrate it into BSD's lore. Thereby creating a truly unique cross-media experience that utilizes the different mediums to create multiple timelines, that could make both the anime and manga interact with each other and become part of a bigger picture (not that you'd need to see both to get the full experience, mind you, just that it'd provide a little bonus if you did).... and would without a doubt be Asagiri's biggest surprise yet.

...I feel like at this point I'm starting to ramble, and my evidence become more and more incoherent and less substantial lmao, so I should probably end this post. 💀 Thank you if you've read this far, and hopefully it made some semblance of sense, despite not being structured very well; I know I promised at the start to try to be as objective as possible and curb my negative feelings, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that regard. If it weren't for the Fukuchi thing and the Fyodor hand thing, I probably wouldn't take how wrong and strange and bad the finale feels to me as serious evidence about it being an alternate timeline, especially since I seem to be one of the only people who actually hates all of it.... but combined with everything else, I am just so convinced of this theory being true. It started off as pure copium, but as more time has gone on, I fully, 100% believe in my bones (ha) that there is no way that finale is the same Bungou Stray Dogs I know and love, for so many reasons. It just isn't. It can't be. I know BSD better than this, I know Asagiri better than this, and I know that it's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him to cook up this whole scheme to completely blindside us with in the upcoming chapters, because that's exactly the kind of shit Mr. "Please Be Surprised!" himself would pull. If I end up being completely wrong, I guess I'm wrong, and you can laugh at me all you want then.... but I just know that ages ago people were teasing the idea of the anime operating on a different timeline from the manga, and I truly do think that only now are we finally seeing that idea come to fruition, as a setup for Asagiri going full-bore insanity with the Book in the upcoming arc(s). if I and the OP of that theory end up right, this will be the wildest time in the BSD fandom's history.

Like. I cannot even emphasize how hard they are trolling us at this point. Something is going on. Something is being cooked over there, the likes of which we've never seen before... and I don't think any of us are ready for it.

Oh yeah, and one last thing of note: both Fyodor and Nikolai here have their right arms hidden from view. Is that alluding to anything? I'm not sure. I also think that since chapter 110 was so short, next chapter will likely be 110.5 instead of 111, and if that's the case, this title spread could still technically be associated with the next chapter... wherein we might see this Fukuchi, who ends up wreaking havoc, right before he jumps to the timeline in the anime, as we see him at the end of the s5 finale.

I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

[sanaxking]

When Night Comes - Prologue

arrangement by @kaexloey • credit to all OPs, do not repost.

Genre: Vampire!AU

Rated: M, 18+

Word count: ~1.7k

TW: mild sexual themes, language, violence/gore, blood, mentions of alcohol & intoxication

As Sana opens the door to the dive bar, she is immediately hit with the smell of cheap alcohol and cigarettes. Taking a look around the bar, everything perfectly matches the smell. There are plenty of gross looking men (and women, for that matter) all over and in various states of intoxication.

“Ugh, I hate these fucking bars. Why did he have to be at a shitty place like this,” Sana mutters to herself as she takes her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.

Unlocking the phone, she opens her photos app to a specific picture of a tall, fair skinned man with blonde hair and green eyes. He's smiling directly into the picture without a hint of anything he does in his free time. Looking up from the phone with her temper already boiling, she begins to scan the room in search of the man in the photo.

It doesn't take too long as her eyes settle on the handsome man deep into conversation with the unsuspecting bartender. "Got you, motherfucker," Sana says to herself with a villainous smile as she makes her way over towards the bar.

As she walks towards the bar, a pair of eyes watches her closely from the other side of the room. The unseen person slowly takes a sip of her drink as she watches Sana approach the bar next to the blonde-haired man.

"So that's when I said, 'I'll have whatever he's having!’" Sana rolls her eyes as she hears the punchline of what was no doubt a terrible joke from the man she was searching for, feeling bad for the bartender that has to act like she likes this in order to boost her tips.

"I'll have a Jack & Coke on the rocks," Sana says to the bartender, giving her a look to know she'll be taking this idiot off her hands for the rest of the night. The bartender looks incredibly grateful for the gesture, mouthing "thank you" before turning to make the drink.

Within seconds of settling onto the barstool, Sana can feel the man already burning the side of her face with his intense gaze. "Just push through, Sana. You need this," she quickly says in her head as a way to work up the courage to continue on.

“I haven’t seen you in here before, blondie. You must be new in town. I would have for sure remembered a face like that,” he says to Sana, raising his voice to get above the chatter of the crowd inside the bar. Her skin crawls slightly at his cheesy pickup line as she gathers herself to respond.

“Somewhat. I’ve been here a few months, but just thought I would try somewhere new. Can’t find many men as hot as you at my usual spots,” she responds, hoping that she didn’t lay it on too thick with the comment. Thankfully, this guy is as dense as he seems, not noticing at all that she’s obviously just leading him on.

“Well, you’re not wrong there. How about we get another round on me?”

Sana really would rather not spend more time talking with him than she absolutely has to, but in order for this to work, she knows she needs him to drink a bit more. She begrudgingly obliges as the drinks flow for three more rounds. By this point, the man is pretty drunk. Not drunk enough to blackout, but certainly too drunk to drive. Which is all Sana needs.

“Alright, alright,” Sana says into the man’s ear after he tries to push the date to a fourth round. “As much as I would love another drink, how about we call it a night and get out of here? I know a perfect place.”

“Shit, you don’t have to tell me twice. Let’s go,” he responds, while fishing his car keys out of his jeans.

“Not a chance in hell. No way are you driving us anywhere like this,” Sana says as she snatches the keys from his hands.

“Hey, you had just as much as I di-,” he begins to say in protest as you put a finger up to his lips to silence him. “I’ll be just fine, trust me,” Sane replies, hoping that he buys it without further explanation.

Once again, the guy is too dense to notice much of anything as he simply shrugs and grabs her hand as the pair head out of the bar into the misty night air.

Getting him to the car wasn’t much of a struggle, as he was perfectly content to lean as close as possible into Sana’s body to steady his stumbling feet. As she slammed his door shut and made her way around to the driver’s side, Sana took a quick look around, making sure no one saw her getting into the man’s car. Not a single soul was spotted on the empty street, giving her enough peace of mind to see this through.

As she got into the car and started the engine, a pair of eyes once again was keenly watching her every move. A few seconds after Sana pulls the Audi out into traffic and down the street, a black BMW slowly falls into place half a dozen car lengths behind.

After a painfully long 30-minute drive filled with plenty of handsy advances from her passenger, Sana pulls the car up to the seaside cliff she had previously scoped out. She puts the car in park and shuts off the engine before turning in her seat to face her passenger.

“How did you find out about this place? Seems kind of random. Hey, were your eyes always that red?” he asks her as he undoes his own seatbelt with an inquisitive look on his face.

“Don’t worry about it. All you should care about is making this a night neither of us will wanna forget,” Sana responds, internally cringing at the ridiculousness of her words. She always hates this part of these encounters. As she utters her response, the man seems to catch a glimpse of something flashing in her red eyes before his expression seems to go slack.

Sana then crawls over the center console and into the backseat, making sure to jut out her ass to give him an enticing view. When he seems to hesitate for a few moments, she quickly takes off her shirt and tosses it into his face in the front seat.

This seems to be all the encouragement he needs as he quickly snaps out of his trancelike state and climbs into the backseat with far too much eagerness for her taste. Swallowing her own hesitation, she then crushes her lips into his, allowing herself to get lost in the moment. He may be an asshole, but she was going to let herself enjoy this, even if briefly.

Sana feels his hands slide up her waist towards her semi-exposed breasts, completely bringing her out of the moment as she remembers who he is and what he did. She then feels something take over her senses as she pulls back from the kiss to get a better look at his neck. Her vision begins to pulse and it’s as if she can see his blood pumping through his veins.

A slow, sinister smile begins to spread across her moonlit face.

“How about we take this a bit furth-,” he begins before his sentence is cut off by a searing pain in his neck.

As he was beginning to mutter his advance, Sana was seeing red and finally exposes her fangs. She slowly ran her tongue along them, taking one last whiff of the intoxicating smell before swiftly latching onto his neck.

The man’s guttural scream is cut short as her fangs sink deeper and deeper into his neck, Sana attempting to suck out as much blood as she can in her first few swallows. It takes less than a minute before he loses consciousness, his body going into shock. By the time 20 minutes has passed, any traces of life have completely left his body. She continues to drain his body until she’s finally had her fill.

Feeling satisfied, Sana sits up and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. As she leans into the front seat to grab her shirt, she looks down and catches a glimpse of her bra, noticing the blood that’s smeared all over it.

“Fuck. I just bought this last night!” she curses out loud, annoyed at the carelessness of wearing brand new clothes out tonight. Before she has too much time to berate herself, a pair of headlights illuminate the interior of the car. She quickly grabs her things and hops back out into the cool air.

Just as she slams the door shut, she hears the tires of the black BMW screech to a halt along the dirt road.

"It's about fucking time, Sana! The sun is up in a couple hours and the crew still needs time to clean up your mess. You always cut this shit so close."

"Calm down, Momo. We have plenty of time to get back before dawn. You worry too much."

"Maybe if you actually followed the rules for once in your life, I wouldn’t have to worry so much," Momo responds with an annoyed look on her face.

Sana rolls her eyes at the insinuation. “Whatever. I follow the stupid rules just fine. Let's just get the fuck out of here, okay?"

As Sana gets into the passenger seat, Momo doesn’t even wait for Sana to get her seatbelt on before she throws the car into gear and speeds off down the road.

It was at about this point that Sana used to feel guilt for taking the life of a stranger. Looking into the mirror in front of her, she sees that her eyes have gone back to their normal, warm brown tint.

“Eh, he was a piece of shit anyways,” she thinks to herself with a sly smile as the car lurches forward towards their estate.

[ot5ismyhome]

33. Destruction Breeds Creation

To read from beginning click here.

*****

Coulson looked at agents- remaining agents- in front of him. They all had the hollow frightened look in their eyes. If he was alone, he would have adorned the same look but he had seen and gone through a lot to know that the team is just the reflection of the leader. When he spoke up, his ever-playful chirpy voice filled the room.

“No Darkhold. Base gone. If anybody has ideas now would be the good time to say it.” 

“Me and Fitz have been looking up about Loki. The normal ways used to kill a vampire will not work on him” started Simmons.

“How fucked are we?” Hunter quipped.

“He is a vampire and a witch” Fitz replied with a tilt in his head. “Sunlight, Holy fire, Stake, I guess even beheading cannot stop that guy. So, I will say very much.”

“That explains his powers. I knew something was up with that guy” Mack said. 

Simmons cut through the banter bringing the focus on the research. “Sir, All the powers, every single thing we saw out there was witchcraft. Actually, he is a winter witch. His powers are more prominent in colder weather. According to the data Agent Romanoff provided earlier, he can bring winter anywhere.”

“He needed the Darkhold to cast permanent winter. If he succeeds, we can’t turn it back. Maybe the book would help us turn it back but it’s just a theory” Fitz said. He sighed and placed his hands on his hips.

“But there is one thing that could bring him down. The Stake of the First Vampire”

“Now, we just need to know where it is” Hunter said looking expectantly at Lincoln.

“I have no idea,” Lincoln shrugged. 

“I will contact Jiaying. Trip and Thompson evacuate the city. Hunter and Elena run ops.”

The agents nodded to their Director’s order and took off. 

“Sir, I need permission to bring my daughter back here,” Mack asked. When Coulson gave affirmation, he left with Trip and Thompson.

…..

The young man walked into the Gothite Industries. He was stopped by the security.

“Who do you want to see?”

“Oh yes. Mr. Malick. You could say I’m his family. Hail Legion.” Nathaniel said the last two words in the guard’s ears. The guard immediately stepped aside.

“Sorry sir. I didn’t know you were... But I have never seen you around.”

“This visit is long overdue.”

…..

“We came across five bloody massacres and we still haven’t covered Brooklyn.” 

Elena sighed. “We need to prepare for the upcoming battle.”

“Hey. You there. What are you doing here?” shouted a man grabbing the duo’s attention. They turned around to see a policeman. “Don’t you know you have to vacate the city?” he shouted. “Fuckers. Making my job difficult.”

Back in the jeep Elena’s mind was racing on what to do. “We need to do something,” she told Hunter.

The policeman shouted racial slur at a black teenage boy who just exited the nearby shop. The police neared the terrified boy.

“What have you got there?” sneered the man, taking his gun out. “You are stealing, aren’t you?” he threatened the kid.

The kid started stammering and dropped the things down. He lifted his arms above his head.

“No sir, I left some mone-”

The kid’s eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t finish his sentence as he saw a man sneak behind the harasser and sucker punch him. The policeman went down to the ground, unconscious. Hunter turned towards Elena and made an ‘okay’ gesture with his hand.

Hunter approached the kid. “Hey are you okay?” he asked, still keeping his eyes on the police.

“You punched him.” 

“Yeah, if I hadn’t, he would have shot you”

Elena making her way towards them. “What’s your name?” she added looking at the boy.

“Flint”

“Flint, the city is in great danger. We need you to get out as soon as possible. There is a bus five blocks away. We will drop you there.”

“No. I can’t leave my sister. She is handicapped. I need to take care of her.”

“Then let’s get your sister.”

…..

Mack went to collect his daughter. When he reached school, he saw that it was a total mess. All the parents and children were running around trying to find each other. Mack joined them desperate to find his daughter.

“Hope” he shouted. There was no response. He called her for her again and again. Finally, he heard a feeble voice answering back.

“Hope” he shouted again.

“Daddy” a little girl shouted from inside the classroom. She ran to him and he swept her in his arms. 

“Daddy, what’s happening?”

“A bad guy had taken over the city. We need to get out soon.”

“You always said we should always fight back. Also help others. Aren’t we going to do that?”

“First, I’m taking my little princess to safety”

As he reached the Quinjet, he placed Hope on the seat. “Be here. Daddy will be back.” He turned to Trip, “Can you watch her till I come back?”

…..

Gideon Malick was on the conference call with the higher ups in the government. He used them as puppets in his master plan. What he didn’t expect was Loki coming back. He needed to put an end to it. For the Legion to grow over here, he needed to have control over The Council. Had Loki not come back, the ATCU would have been a success.

Gideon heard a rapport knock on his door. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He signalled to Giyera to be on alert as a young man stepped inside. The blood drained from the businessman’s face. His eyes widened and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

“You weren’t expecting me, were you? I have always wanted to hunt you down. But Barnes and Wilson were also about letting it go. They don’t know the inner turmoil. They don’t know what you did to me” Nathaniel said pacing the big office. Giyera was on his guard ready to attack on his boss’ order. Gideon had lost the ability to speak as he looked at his so thought dead brother.

“Finally, my time has come. Anarchy is here. The Council would never understand that” Nathaniel stopped his pacing and glanced at his petrified brother. “Gideon, you trapped yourself in the Legion and the government, bound by their history, rules, hierarchy” he spat the last word.  “You go around saying ‘Hail Legion’ and ‘God bless America.’ Say goodbye to all that. Say hello to anarchy.”

“Nathaniel-”

“I didn’t come here to listen to your pathetic pleas.” Nathaniel closed his hands around his elder brother’s neck and lifted him. Giyera ran forward to stop him. But he caught the bodyguard with his other hand and threw him against the wall. Giyera went down unconscious. He turned his attention to Gideon.

“You planned and tried to kill me back then. Just for this Legion. You know what? It all turned out good. Your organizations are all the same. More and more hierarchy. It diminishes one’s true potential. It creates unbalance. I’m going to destroy all that. Destruction breeds creation.” Nathaniel snapped the neck of Gideon Malick. He dropped his brother’s limp body and walked out. 

…..

Flint took the agents to his home. The door was slightly open and there were signs of forced entry. Elena and Hunter shared a look but didn't say anything.

"Tess" called out Flint. Hearing no reply, he panicked as he approached her room. He opened the door to see his sister lying on the bed. At first it looked normal but on closer look he felt something was not right.

Elena and Hunter noticed that Tess was pale. Her skin looked grey. Flint shook his sister awake but got no response. Hunter checked the pulse. He realised she must have just died now. There was no pulse but the body was still warm.

Hunter signalled Elena to scan the house. As she slipped away quietly, Hunter pulled the crying boy towards himself. He tried to get Flint out of the house but he resisted.

“Lad, we need to get out soon,” Hunter urged. But Flint pulled himself away from Hunter’s hold.

“My sister is dead, man. I’m not going anywhere” he shouted as he pushed Hunter further away.

Hunter’s eyes widened as he saw the figure in the bedroom doorway.

“Duck” he shouted as he drew out his gun and pointed at the man. The man came out of the shadows. He wore old crumpled clothes. His face was in contrast. His skin glowed healthy. His eyes were red and his fangs had descended. Hunter shot the man but it was in vain. He kept shooting again and again. Blood poured out of his chest but he kept walking. Hunter protectively pushed Flint behind him.

Elena was in the other room when she heard the gunshots. She hurried back to check on her companions. She saw an unknown man approaching Hunter and Flint. Hunter fired the next consecutive shots but it didn’t seem to stop the stranger. Elena took out her gun and shot the man straight through his skull.

The vampire fell down. Everyone breathed out in relief. Hunter kneeled down to examine the body. He noticed that the bullet was still lodged in the skull.

“Does a bullet kill a vampire?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Why isn’t he moving?”

“Do you want him to?” she said snarkly.

A new person appeared on the doorway startling the group. Elena swung around her gun raised. A man holding a baseball bat was standing there.

“He is a friend,” said Flint, putting himself between the two. Both of them lowered their weapons.

The newcomer was Mike Peterson. He was in the apartment next to Flint’s. He and his son were on the way to the evacuation bus when he had heard the commotion. So, he came to check on his neighbours. Hunter gave his gun and ammo to Mike. He asked them to head to safety.

“What should we do with him?” Elena asked pointing at the wounded vampire on the floor.

“Simmons would have fun cutting him up.”

*****

Chapter 34

[yeongwvnhi]

》일어나《

Supernatural creatures AU

Taglist (send an ask if you want to be added) : @twancingyunhoe @vickylamore @glxwingstar @se0--0ho

Genre: angst!!, fluff, suggestive

Rating: 16+

General Warnings: Supernatural creatures (vampires, werewolves etc), blood, violence, weapons, language, death, poisoning and just dark themes in general.

Chapter Specific Warnings: drinking, poisoning, blood, major character death

Pairing: ONEUS x fem reader 》choose your ending

Synopsis: somehow you came back to life just about a day after dying, scaring the poor guys who work at the mortuary one late night as you flee, not knowing where to go before they found you.

Word count: 2.1k [thanks to @kingleedo for beta-reading <3]

》Next《 》Masterlist《

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The loud music was keeping the whole street awake. Another frat party from your friend group is taking place again. The smell of potions, alcohol and other mixtures hung heavy in the air as you were dancing with your friends. You all had a glass of whatever you drank in your hands and were swinging around to the beat of the Songs that were playing and just enjoying yourselves. 

"Hey Y/N!" your friend calls over the loud music, "Junghwa and his friend keep glancing over here and talking, I saw them mouthing your name a few times!" 

A confused pout forms on your face as you sneak a glance at said guys only for them to quickly avert their eyes. "Thanks for letting me know, Hae-in" You mouth over the booming bass and she smiles back at you, mouthing a 'no problem' right back at you. 

Finishing your potion in a swift sip you shake a little and put your glass down on the kitchen island, feeling the nice buzz keeping you relaxed as your eyes lazily fly over the crowd in the house. This really was one of those parties where half of the campus came. 

At some point Junghwa came over to you and leaned in to talk to you, "You look tired, should I take you home, Noona?" 

With half-lidded eyes you barely register him but nod, not knowing what kind of potion you actually drank - you doubt it was one to give you the buzz you were desiring as you felt anything but energetic - lethargic actually. It felt like it was draining everything out of you from the inside out. 

Junghwa's worried look goes unnoticed by you as you scramble to get your stuff and leave, just waving at your friends across the room before exiting with Junghwa in front of you. 

"You look like you drank some Vampire's booze instead of yours" He comments as he watches you struggling to even step forward without stumbling. 

"I- I think so too" You mumble, body feeling heavy, like something was pulling you down and to the side. 

"Y/N careful-" Junghwa was barely able to finish his sentence before you fell. 

Luckily, he's got quick reflexes so he caught you. "Noona you really don't look good" 

"Take me to my father" You mumble, feeling hot all of a sudden, then shivering like you're in the deepest winter. "I-I think someone put Spirit-Iron in my drink when I was distracted…." After that you were out like a light and Junghwa panicked, so he ran to get you home. 

—

"Mister L/N!" Junghwa yells after entering the huge house, you in his arms, still unconscious. "It's an emergency!" 

Hwanseok was practically flying down the stairs after hearing that and didn't know what to say. "What happened?!' 

Junghwa hands you over to your father and follows him quickly into the house's own infirmary. "She said someone must've put- uh… spirit-iron in her drink" 

He watches all the color draining from your fathers face. "No way" 

"Why..?" 

"Because Y/N could die because of that if we don't get help within the next 24 hours!" Hwanseok almost yells. "Fuck, I hope Seoho is in the city" 

Junghwa recognizes the name and lights up. "I think I've seen him a few hours prior to the party somewhere, sir" 

Hwanseok puts you into the bed and goes down into the kitchen with Junghwa. "We need to find him, he's our only hope since Y/N can't do anything" 

"I know where to find him" Junghwa says and stands up, "I'll go and get him immediately" 

"Thank you, Junghwa" Your father says and gives the man a tight smile, watching him leave. "Haeryeong!" 

—

Junghwa was walking through the rather busy streets of Seoul towards the forest, hands in his pockets and fast paced steps. He didn't exactly know where their house was, but he knew it was deep in the woods. 

"Yah" Someone calls after him from behind. "Where are you heading?" 

Junghwa halts his steps and turns around, eyeing the blonde guy who stood a few feet away from him. "Is that any of your business?" Junghwa gives a snarky reply. 

"I think it is, because you're heading for my home, phantom" 

Junghwa clicks his tongue. "I'm looking for the Necromancer" 

The guy raises a brow and crosses his arms in front of his chest. "What do you want from him?" 

Junghwa groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. "My friend drank a whole glass of spirit-iron and her father said she has less than 24 hours to live" He says, "Is that reason enough?!" 

The blonde guy's eyes widen and he steps forward. "Fuck okay" he hisses, "You wait here, I'm bringing him" 

So he relents, running into the forest and Junghwa waits. 

—

"Mister L/N! I'm back!" Junghwa loudly announces after entering the house with two more people. "I brought… them" 

Hwanseok meets them at the entrance and bows. "Thank you Junghwa" He says and then turns to the other two. "And thank you a lot for coming" 

"Don't worry about it" the one with green hair speaks up, a friendly smile adorning his face. "We're here to help after all" 

"Let me see what I can do" Seoho then says and Hwanseok leads them into the room you're in. 

"Oh god, the smell" the grain haired guy says and scrunched his nose, "it reeks of spirit-iron" 

Your father turns to him. "Junghwa told me how she said she thinks she drank it" 

Seoho steps closer, inspecting you closely. "When did he bring her here?" 

"About 3 hours ago. They were at a party" 

"I see…" The sorcerer nods and puts a gloved hand on your forehead briefly. "Spirit-Iron is illegal, I wonder who got it and how it got into her drink. According to her state, she doesn't have much time, but you knew that already, I presume" 

"Can you.. do anything?" Hwanseok asks with trembling hands. 

Seoho exchanges glances with his companion for a few seconds before he speaks. "You see, Mister L/N, his healing abilities aren't all that strong… he can only try and get the toxin out of her system"

"But I can't guarantee for her to wake up again" Seoho adds, a frown pulling at his lips. "If you want me to, I will try and get it out of her, but like I said, I can't guarantee anything" 

Your father hides his face behind his hands, a shaky exhale escaping him. "Please… please do it" He almost begs, "If you can't save her… at least you tried" 

The two men look at each other again at the state your father is in. "Come on, sir, we'll leave him to do what he can and I'll try and explain everything to you" 

Hwanseok just nods and lets the other guy lead him away, closing the door to the room and hoping that Seoho can help you. 

"Okay Sir, first of all, I'm Leedo and I accompany him almost everywhere he goes so I know what he's doing" Leedo starts explaining, "he's going to use some magic and pull the iron out of her between the cells- I know it sounds disgusting, but it doesn't hurt and is the safest way to get everything out. Then he will try and stabilize her vitals with a few healing spells" 

"How high are the chances that she's going to make it?" Your father asks with glassy eyes and Leedo sighs. 

"You said it's been 3 hours so… about 65 percent, since you acted quickly. I'm sure she will get through, Seoho Hyung knows what he's doing, even if he's not the best healer" 

Hwanseok nods, running a hand through his hair. "Thank you, I'm sure he will get her back" 

Leedo pats your father's shoulder and stands up. "This procedure might take a while. How about we ask if the one who brought her here knows something more?" 

"That sounds like a plan. He's probably talking to Yongjun right now" Hwanseok says and stands up, gesturing Leedo to follow him while walking down a hallway. "Yongjun is Y/N's younger brother. I bet he already knows what's going on after my wife freaked out" 

"I'm sorry to hear that, I hope she's alright" 

Your father nods and opens a door, revealing your brother and Junghwa. "Hey, Junghwa, come with us please" 

Said guy wordlessly nods and follows the two men back into the kitchen, all taking a seat. "You're the one who brought her, right?" Leedo asks and he nods. "Alright, Junghwa. I'm Leedo and I want to ask you a few question if that's okay" 

Again, he just nods while Hwanseok silently listens in. "So, Mister L/N told me you brought her here from a party?" Leedo asks, eyes meeting Junghwa. 

"I did" He agrees, "We were at one of our University's frat parties and she was with her friends almost the whole time" 

"Where were you? And did anyone seem suspicious to you?" The green haired man asks, folding his hands in front of him. 

"I was always in her line of sight" He answers and scratches his ear, eyes averting to the left for a split second. "I was talking to a friend myself, so I didn't see much going on where she was standing. I only passed by once to go to the bathroom" 

Leedo nods, making a mental note before continuing. "Does she have enemies?" 

At that question, the male goes quiet for a minute, before finally answering. "I don't think so. I only know how there's one girl in our year who's jealous of her about pretty much everything, but I'm not sure if she was at that party" 

"Okay, thank you, that should suffice for now" Leedo nods and pushes the hair which was falling into his face back with a hand. "I think Seoho Hyung is almost done, I'll go and check on him" 

Hwanseok nods and Leedo leaves to go back into the infirmary room, just at the right moment. "Quick! I need your help!" Seoho frantically exclaims, hands pressing down on your stomach. "I don't know what happened, but while I was extracting the Iron- this huge wound opened!" 

Leedo hurries to his side, taking Seoho's place and pressing down on your wound so the sorcerer could seal your wound. 

"Hyung, something is horribly wrong with the smell of her blood" Leedo comments and meets Seoho's frantic gaze. 

"What do you mean?!" 

"It smells like Vampire-Root" 

"Fuck!" 

—

Hwanseok has sent Junghwa home after Leedo went back upstairs and has calmed his wife down, now sitting in the living room and trying to keep a positive mind by reading through the newspaper. 

It worked until about an hour later both Leedo and Seoho came downstairs, hands bloody and faces fallen. 

"Oh bloody hell what happened!" Your father yells in shock as he almost falls out of his chair and speed-walks towards the two men. 

Seoho's head lowered as he stared at the blood on his and Leedo's hands. 

"There were complications. Not only was your daughter poisoned with Spirit-Iron but also Vampire-Root. There was nothing we could do" Leedo spoke for Seoho. "We're so sorry.." 

Your father broke down on the spot and the two men exchanged sorrowful glances. "S-She was the b-best healer in thi-this land" he sobs, "what an i-irony that she got poisoned" 

"Sir I wish I could do more for you but-" Seoho says, voice catching in his throat, "but i can't bring her back" 

"N-No we wouldn't want you to" your father shakes his head. "I'm still thankful t-that you tried to help" 

"I think we should leave…" Leedo says. "Again, we're so sorry" 

"It's okay… I-I hope you find the door" Hwanseok sobs and the two guys leave right away, shortly before Haeryeong finds her husband.

—

Seoho and Leedo take a secluded path back into the woods, hands still bloody and sorrow in Seoho's eyes, but they couldn't care less. It irked Seoho to no end about the blood on them from someone who never did harm to anyone before, but still got poisoned in such a brutal way. It was more angering for Seoho to know he failed. He's certain he could have saved you, but yet you died under his and Leedo's hands. If only he knew about the Vampire-Root earlier, he could have definitely saved you, but now it's too late and he couldn't bring you back - his conscience would never let him, and neither would his friends. 

[bytheangell]

Form a Connection

(Read on AO3) Square Filled: Omegaverse for @shadowhunterbingo Pairing: Raphael/Jace/Simon  Rating: Teen – Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: alpha/beta/omega dynamics, mentions of fertility issues but it isn’t the focus, true mates, happy ending Summary:   Jace, after years of taking suppressants to be able to patrol and hunt with the Alphas and Betas, finds his world turned on its head when a chance encounter with his True Mates brings everything about himself he's ever fought against rising to the surface. -------------

It’s a big mission. Most of Jace’s missions are routine missions, despite his best efforts to match up with the Alphas and Betas normally sent out on them. He knows that Alec is trying, that the orders don’t come from him, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when the best assignments are given to everyone but him, even if being the only Omega on constant active duty is a huge deal in and of itself.

Once and a while, though, Alec manages to get him on something properly exciting - and the raid on the Hotel Dumort is nothing if not exciting, just not for the reasons Jace expects.

A fledgling is causing trouble in the city, wanted for a few mundane murders, and they’re going in to extract her for questioning. No lethal force if at all necessary, which means some pretty good fights are bound to break out from anyone trying to interfere - like the vampires currently trying to block his path.

That’s when Jace smells them, and in that moment he feels his entire world stop, just for a second.

It’s the longest, most life-altering second of his entire life; because Jace isn’t being drawn to another Shadowhunter, which is expected, or even a mundane, which would be frowned upon but ultimately tolerated. No, Jace just rounded a corner to bring his seraph blade up to the throat of a vampire, with another vampire immediately lunging to pull him off. The first one, who looks rightfully terrified, smells sweet, almost like the vanilla hazelnut coffee Jace is so fond of from the place near the Institute. The angry one, done up in a suit that looks like it’s worth more than Jace has spent on every piece of clothing he’s ever worn in his entire life, smells of leather and patchouli.

They’re the most wonderful scents that Jace has ever smelled and it’s so overwhelming that he loses focus and closes his eyes, just for a moment. At first, all of his instincts seem to kick into overdrive at once: he wants more, he needs more, leaning towards the scents. Then he remembers where he is - he remembers who he is and what they are - and his eyes snap back open as he takes two fumbling steps back.

They make no move to attack Jace now that he dropped his blade, however, and seem to be staring back at him with the same surprised (and possibly a little bit horrified) look of realization as they take him in in turn.

“Raphael…?” The one Jace attacked starts, his words slow and hesitant.

“Carajo,” the vampire in the suit, Raphael, curses in a low tone.

“I-” Jace starts, still processing, before turning abruptly and leaving without another word. The other vampire must make a move to follow him because a forceful “Simon, let him go” is the last thing Jace hears behind him before he’s out of earshot, walking straight out of the Dumort and back to the Institute.

---

Jace barely sleeps that night. Alec is concerned after he vanished without checking in but Jace insists he’s fine and eventually Alec stops asking, at least for now. Not that it matters, because not talking about it doesn’t keep it from his mind.

He wants nothing more than to go back to the Dumort and feel the comfort of Raphael’s scent again. They’re meant to be mates, he knows it, and he thinks the vampire does, too. Of all the Alphas in the world… and he has a Beta already, too. Raphael’s scent was all over Simon, there’s no doubt about it.

Fuck.

He can’t do it. He’s ostracized by the Downworlders enough for who his family is… Valentine raised him, after all, and even if he isn’t around any longer his legacy sure as hell is. And even if Jace did accept this attraction there’s no way any Downwolder would be with him. Not even…

Jace doesn’t want to admit that the pull he felt was more than the average desire. He always thought all that talk of true mates was romantic nonsense but here he is practically drowning in the memory of it. Maybe Raphael didn’t notice - Jace has taken suppressants since before he was even old enough to present as an Omega and with any luck it was enough for Raphael to forget about him.

Any hopes of that being true are dashed the next day when Jace, in the Ops Center with Alec to go over some plans for the week’s missions and patrols, looks up to see Raphael being escorted inside by the two Shadowhunters on guard duty.

Jace’s anxiety spikes and Alec senses it immediately, turning to face Raphael while moving defensively in front of Jace.

“What are you doing here?” Alec snaps.

“I wanted to return this,” Raphael says, stopping where he is a few feet away from them to hold up a dagger. It’s Jace’s dagger, the one he dropped last night before he fled. Raphael looks beyond Alec to Jace who promptly averts his gaze to the papers in front of him. “And I wanted to speak to him.”

“He’s right here,” Alec says, not moving. Jace is grateful because he can smell Raphael from here and it only confirms his suspicions from the night before. He’s never had this sort of physical reaction before… he wants to hate it but he doesn’t. It feels right. What he does hate is how right it feels.

“Alright,” Raphael says, turning his gaze from Alec back to Jace. “Is that what you want? For me to discuss this here, in the middle of a room full of your colleagues?”

Jace swallows thickly. No. He hasn’t even told Alec… he can’t have the entire Institute knowing, he just can’t.

“No,” Jace says quickly. “I’ll speak to him. It’s alright, Alec.” He knows there’s no way Alec believes that, not with the spike in panic tainting everything around him, souring the air.

Alec looks at him in concern. “Jace, what is it?” Alec asks him quietly. “If this vampire’s threatening you-”

“It isn’t that,” Jace promises. “It’s-” Jace starts, but stops again, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you later. I swear it. But I need to talk to Raphael alone first. It’s okay. Really, it is.”

“I promise not to touch a hair on his perfectly styled head,” Raphael swears.

Jace is already walking off towards a side hallway, motioning for Raphael to follow him to an empty room before shutting the door behind them and placing both locking and silencing runes on the door.

Inside, the scent of Raphael is overwhelming, even more so than the night before when he rushed toward Jace to throw him off Simon. Raphael can sense Jace’s hesitation and keeps his distance.

“Thank you for speaking with me,” Raphael starts. “Jace, was it?”

Jace nods. “And you’re Raphael.”

It isn’t a question but the vampire nods in response just the same.

“Now that the pleasantries are out of the way-”

“Don’t,” Jace cuts him off. “I can’t- we can’t- this can’t happen. I’m sorry.”

Whatever Raphael is expecting, it isn’t that. “Sorry?”

“I can’t be with a Downworlder. You’d never be accepted here, and my father-” Jace shakes his head. “My father’s Valentine. He raised me. I can’t exist in your world.”

“So you think you can make decisions for me? You don’t even know me,” Raphael says, tone strained as he tries to control his frustration. The air in the room seems to sour at once and Jace feels nauseous. He needs to get out.

“I don’t,” Jace admits. “And I never will.”

With that he walks out of the door, telling the two guards lingering nearby to escort Raphael back outside now.

---

Alec finds Jace in the training room shortly after.

“Talk,” Alec demands, not even waiting for the punching bag Jace is hitting to swing to a stop in front of him.

“I think Raphael’s my true mate,” Jace says, not bothering to stall. He promised Alec he’d explain so there’s no point in trying to avoid it now.  “Maybe Simon, too? Can you have more than one? I dunno, I didn’t stay long enough to sort it out.” 

“That’s why you left the raid,” Alec realizes, finally able to put the pieces together.

“Yeah,” Jace admits. “I was hoping I could just ignore it. I’ve been on the suppressants for so long I figured it might block it from him, but it didn’t. He came here to talk about it.”

“And?” Alec asks, his tone gentle and patient. He knows how difficult this is for Jace.

“And I told him it isn’t going to happen,” Jace says flatly. “Can you imagine? I’ve heard what the other Shadowhunters say about the vampires, I’ve seen how they treat them and the warlocks for being unnatural. I can’t bring them into that.”

Vampires and warlocks are sterile, even the Alphas, something the Nephilim frequently look down on them for even more than the other Downworlders. For a Nephilim to tie themselves to one of them for life is no light matter.

“And with my father…” Jace frowns. “His people would hate him for even considering bringing me into their lives. They’d never trust him again. I can’t do that to him, either.”

“Jace…” Alec starts slowly, sensing Jace’s frustration and pain at what he’s denying himself. “Wouldn’t this be good for you? With your suppressants...”

Everyone knows that there’s a serious risk of infertility issues with suppressants. His father knew when he started giving them to him, and Jace was old enough to understand the risk when he decided to keep taking them. He’d do anything to keep going on missions with Alec and Isabelle, anything to not be further ostracised from the Alphas and Betas the way he saw other Omegas his age were. He’s never allowed himself to get attached enough to anyone else long enough for them to even consider him as a mate, figuring the longer he stayed detached the longer it wouldn’t be an issue for someone other than himself.

Being with a vampire would make it a non-issue. It’d make that aspect of Jace’s life easier, but for Raphael and Simon being mated to him would only bring them trouble; they had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and he’ll be damned if that drive to nurture and protect isn’t overriding everything more than usual just then, even his own well-being.

“No,” Jace repeats firmly. “I can’t do it, Alec. It’s for the best. He has Simon, he’ll be fine.”

“I’m not worried about him, Jace. I’m worried about you.” Alec pushes.

“I’ll be fine,” Jace says, knowing the words are a lie. It’s a lie he’s said so many times that he almost believes it himself now. Maybe if he says it often enough, it’ll come true. “I’m always fine.”

---

The intense heat Jace goes into that night is unexpected. His suppressants usually stop them entirely and the few he has experienced were mild. This one comes on suddenly and even now, just at the start, it’s stronger than any he’s experienced in the past… maybe stronger than all of them combined. He tells Izzy to take him off any assignments for the foreseeable future and locks himself inside his room, refusing to speak to or see anyone.

Jace takes every blanket and pillow in his possession and makes a nest in the back corner of his closet. It’s cramped and small and dark, with no scent other than his own and the slightest hint of Alec and Isabelle that always lingers around him, the only other people who occasionally spend time with him in his room. It isn’t enough to bring him comfort. He knows what will since he can’t help the instinctive desire for Raphael and Simon’s scents intruding into his thoughts no matter how desperately he pushes the urge back down, but he refuses to ask for it.

Instead, he gives a loud whine as he buries himself as deep into the corner as he can, which isn’t that much further than he already is. The stone wall around him provides little relief against the spike in his temperature leaving him overheated and uncomfortable no matter how he positions himself. He can’t focus, can’t think for more than a few seconds before the seesaw of lightheadedness and nausea flare up again.

Even Alec’s voice from the other side of his bedroom door barely reaches him, but he does catch some of it despite his best efforts to ignore him.

“Jace, please let me in. At least let me bring you something to eat, or drink.”

“It’s been hours, just let us know you’re alright.”

“Don’t make me break this door down, Jace.”

It’s an empty threat, Jace thinks. He has no idea how many hours, possibly even days, have passed, the blur of his fever haze distorting any sense of time. But even Alec wouldn’t barge in on him like this, no matter how worried he is; he wouldn’t contaminate Jace’s nest during his heat like that, not if Jace wants him out.

“Just leave me alone!” Jace shouts at some point, hoping it’s enough. He shouldn’t turn Alec away - he’s hungry and dehydrated and isn’t sure if the brief moments of respite he gets are sleep or passing out - but he struggles to power through on his own, the way he always has before… not that this is like anything he’s experienced before.

The next time he hears Alec’s voice it’s softer than before. “I know you don’t want me to come in,” Alec starts. “And please don’t be mad at me but… I brought someone else in to help. Please let them.”

And then a voice that sounds like music to his ears in his current state.

“Jace? It’s Raphael. I’m here with Simon. I’d like to come in, if you’d allow me to.”

Jace wants nothing more. It’s all he’s wanted from the start, especially considering it was likely Raphael’s scent that broke through his suppressants and brought all of this on in the first place. Just hearing Raphael’s voice eases something inside of him, and he can only imagine filling the room with his scent.

“You shouldn’t… be here…” Jace manages, but his voice is weak and he hates how fragile it sounds in his own ears. He isn’t sure they can even hear him on the other side of the door.

“Yes, I should. I think you know that as well as I do,” Raphael insists. “May I come inside?”

It’s the fact that Raphael asks again, rather than asserting authority and insisting, that finally breaks Jace.

“Yes,” he chokes out, curling around himself as a wave of lightheadedness passes over him again. “Please.”

Jace hears the door open and close again. “It’s just me,” Raphael says. “But if you want anyone else just tell me and I’ll get them. I brought water and some protein bars that Alec says you like. I can toss them into the closet for you?”

“Yes,” Jace says again, too disoriented to focus on more than that at the moment. Raphael’s small movements are enough to push his scent further into the room, into Jace’s small, safe space, and it’s so much of the comfort he’s craved since this started.

Jace manages to drink some of the water and eat one of the bars.

“I hope it’s alright that I came,” Raphael says, speaking in a soothing, comforting tone. “Alec called me. He said that he’s never seen you get this bad.”

“Did he say… why?” Jace asks, silently cursing Alec for telling Raphael anything, even if it was for his own good.

“No,” Raphael admits, and Jace relaxes with the knowledge that Alec kept his privacy. “And you don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. I know you don’t want me here-”

“I do,” Jace cuts in.

“Oh?” Raphael sounds surprised.

His head is swimming. He’s exhausted and for the first time since this began he thinks he might actually be able to fall asleep.

“I’ll tell you, just… later?” Jace knows he sounds desperate but it isn’t a conversation he wants to have here, not like this.

Raphael, thankfully, understands. “Do you want me to leave you alone again?”

Jace considers this. So far he hasn’t even seen the vampire - Raphael stayed outside of the closet, in Jace’s room. He doesn’t know him well enough to want him any closer just now, instincts or not. They’re strangers, and Jace knows he walked away from his chance to talk before, knows he has no right to ask him to stay now, but he does it anyway.

“No. Could you stay a bit? Simon can come in, too. And use the bed, or the chairs, if you want.” Jace can hear from where Raphael’s voice is coming from that he’s sitting on the floor.

There are some noises that seem lightyears away and then Simon is there, his sent mixing with Raphael’s in that perfect fusion Jace remembers from the raid. They stay there with him, sometimes talking to him, sometimes talking to each other, other times in total silence, for the next two days, leaving only to bring him food and water.

Yet Jace can’t help the nagging fear in the back of his head of what the others must think, of what they’ll be saying… the rumors and judgments…

He’s equal parts relieved and terrified when he feels well enough to come out and face them, but he can’t stay hidden away forever.

“How are you feeling?” Raphael asks him almost immediately, worry etched into his expression behind pinched brows and a slight frown.

“Better, thanks to you two.”

“Well, it seems only fair since I have a suspicion this has something to do with our encounter,” Raphael says. True mates have been known to cut through the effects of suppressants, glamours, and other spells, something Raphael must have already put together.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jace says, defaulting to sarcasm and deflecting, even though it’s true.

Simon laughs as Raphael rolls his eyes.

“The others, while you’ve been here, have they been- did they treat you alright?” Jace almost doesn’t want to ask, but he has to know. He knows Alec would, he’s the one who brought them here, but some of the others barely manage to treat Jace decently half the time, and that’s with Alec’s constant protection and threats hanging over their heads.

“Some have,” Raphael admits honestly. “Others not so much. It’s what I expected being in the heart of the Nephilim Institute.”

“You should’ve left,” Jace sighs. “I never should’ve asked you to stay.”

“Are you kidding?” Simon says. “All Raphael did after you left was talk about you and-”

“That’s enough of that,” Raphael cuts him off, but it’s too late. Jace perks up significantly at that knowledge.

“Oh yeah?” Jace manages a slight smirk.

“It wasn’t all I did,” Raphael glares at Simon. “But I was hoping we’d have another chance to at least talk. I wasn’t quite picturing this, of course.”

“Neither was I,” Jace agreed. “But I meant what I said before. It’s not worth the trouble.”

“You mean ‘you’re’ not worth the trouble?” Simon huffs. “Why don’t you let us decide that.”

Jace looks from Simon to Raphael with uncertainty. Why? Why would they want to deal with the harassment and the judgment, just for him? They don’t even know him.

Then again, he doesn’t even know them, and he was already willing to let himself suffer to do what he thought was best for them over his own needs. Is it really so impossible for him to imagine they feel the same?

“My father-”

“Is Valentine,” Raphael fills in, sounding unphased and almost bored. “And you are not your father.”

There’s another long silence.

“We’re not the only ones with something to lose, Omega.” The use of Jace’s status rather than his name is all the insinuation he needs to know what Simon is referring to.

“That isn’t a problem,” Jace says quietly. “I’ve been on suppressants since I was a kid… it was the only way I was allowed to train and go on missions with the others, and, well, even if I was with another Nephilim I don’t think children are in my future.”

Jace doesn’t even realize as he said the words how personal of an admission it is, almost forgetting he’d kept it a secret from everyone other than Alec after the doctors more or less confirmed it to be the case. Normally he’d change the subject, but Raphael and Simon? Jace wanted to tell them. He wanted to let them in, to try at least, even if it turned them away to learn the lengths he’d gone to deny who and what he is as much as possible.

Jace went so far out of his way to avoid this very scenario - one where he’s out of commission for days on end, at the whims of hormones out of his control - one where he appears as weak as everyone expects him to be. This isn’t the strong, furious Shadowhunter who attacked Simon at the Dumort, all power, skill, and control, and that comparison is made even worse by the fact that his suppressants left him unused to heats this intense. He must seem like a total disaster.

Jace wouldn’t blame them for taking one look at him and deciding he isn’t worth the hassle…. except they aren’t going anywhere.

“I’m sorry, Jace,” Simon says. Jace is surprised to see genuine sorrow on both of their faces.

“I appreciate you trusting us with that,” Raphael adds.

“You really think we can make this work?” Jace asks. He’s clearly not good at this part of things - it’s going to be difficult to get used to and he’s going to need a lot of help, they have to realize that. And still...

“I think we owe it to ourselves to try,” Raphael says, and Simon nods emphatically beside him.

“There’s plenty you don’t know about us, too. You may decide we’re not worth it in the end.”

Jace snorts. “Yeah, right,” he says, realizing just how invested he really is after the short period of time he’s known them. It should terrify him, but it doesn’t. He wants to make this work, and for the first time Jace allows himself to imagine he might have something serious in his future.

“Alright,” Jace agrees at last. “But first I need to shower for about half a day. Maybe… maybe we can get a drink tomorrow night, and talk some more?”

“Yes! I knew you’d come around. And I know the perfect place-” Simon exclaims, starting to ramble before catching himself and snapping his mouth shut, looking over to Raphael. “I mean, uh, what do you think?”

Raphael, who does his best to look exasperated before his expression softens, finally smiles.

“I think we know the perfect place.”

Jace doesn’t bother to ask where - he’s already pretty certain that the perfect place is wherever the three of them can be together, which is just fine by him.

[iheardarumorxxx]

Midnight Sun, Chapter 5 - Invitations

This chapter opens up with Weirdo doing what he does best, whining.

In particular, he’s whining this time about how school is hell. Oh, it’s not boring anymore, not just a coma that he has to suffer through to appear normal, but actual genuine hell. He has to be around Bella all the time, you see. He has to exist in the same space as her and it is just misery and woe.

Except, and this is a point that I was going to make back in chapter one when Jasper was doing his freaky little spazz thing about all the tasty good hoomans around them, the Cullens don’t actually HAVE to suffer through the inane slog of Forks High. Think about it for a second. As far as anyone in town knows, Carlisle is a respected doctor (Dr. Kevorkian, but so far he hasn’t been that bad here), and Esme is a soft delicate happy homemaker mama. So why the fuck do they bother going to the public high school? Why would it be out of the realm of posibility to say that Esme home-schools the kids? It keeps them away from the teenagers who could be in very real danger having a bunch of Pire classmates, and it literally leaves them to their own devices. If they wanna spend a week up in Alaska (Weirdo) then no one is going to be the wiser, because they live on the edge of town and the only one with any actual ties to the community at large is Dr, Carlisle. 

Maybe they do it because they get bored just being around one another all the time. But everything we’ve seen in the text tells us that even at school, they only hang out with each other and go out of their way to avoid the rest of the school population. It tracks as yet another selfish thing that the Cullens are doing, putting the teenagers of Forks High at risk because they wanna go to normal school, even though they don’t have to.

I’m not even a paragraph in and I just ranted for two. This chapter recap might be a long one, guys.

I'd comforted myself with the fact that her pain would be nothing more than a pinprick - just a tiny sting of rejection - compared to mine.

This is one of those lines that SM uses to hammer home the fact that her Pires are OH SO MUCH better than you. It’s such a blatant ‘Oh, my pain and sorrow and misery is just SO BAD compared to Bella with her weak human mind and weak human emotions. She couldn’t possibly be as hurt as I, the great Edward Cullen, am.’ And it’s trash. It hasn’t been overt enough yet, but there’s still a rant coming about vampire instincts, with which I hope to point out exactly how this sentiment is wrong. 

If I was destined to love her

This is one of the main reasons why I just don’t buy the love story aspect of this series. They never talk about love in anything but ‘fate’ and ‘destiny’. Love is hard work. It’s building mutual respect and trust for one another and learning little quirks and habits along the way. It’s bumpy and messy and gross and wonderful, and most of all, it’s a choice. A choice to get to know someone, to spend time with that person and understand their hopes and dreams and wants and needs and fears and all of it, but in Twilight, it feels like the choice is taken away. Alice with her magic future power divines that Weirdo and Bella are gonna be in love, and instead of Eddie boy taking note that he barely even knows Bella, and has spent the better part of the few weeks he’s had with her making wild assumptions about who she is and what she’s like, he just goes ‘Ope, well, I guess if the future says I love her, I love her’ and that’s it. And the worst part is, even after their relationship actually begins, they don’t even try to do that getting to know and trust and respect one another thing, they just flat out keep their wild assumptions about one another throughout the entire series and rely on this ever subjective future that Alice has seen.

Wow, I’m ranting a lot today in this one. I’m not even a third of the way into this chapter yet.

Who would have ever dreamed that such a generic, boring mortal could be so infuriating?

We’re shitting on Mike Newton again, and I have to point something out yet again. Eddie, baby, sweety. You are outright ignoring Bella and treating her like she doesn’t matter in the slightest to you. You stated just before this that you were going out of your way to outwardly ignore her, even while you obsess over her in your mind. You have given only the outward indication of, if not outright disdain, then at the very least indifference to this girl and yet you’re giving Mike shit for having a crush on a girl and actually fucking acting on it. He talks to her, he attempts poorly to flirt with her and ask her out, even though we all know that she’s just as obsessed with you and compares Mike to a dog (because Bella is a piece of shit, too, so at least you have that in common). So stop shitting on poor Mike, who’s only crime is liking a girl who isn’t interested in him.

He'd created a Bella in his head that didn't exist

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU’VE FUCKING DONE, EDWARD. And honestly? Yours is even worse because you don’t even BOTHER trying to FUCKING TALK TO HER TO GET TO KNOW HER. You just spy on her conversations with other people and assume that you know everything about her! Bella goes out of her way to put on this fake little show for her classmates and lie to them about everything she feels and thinks about them, but at least they FUCKING TALK TO HER! So yeah, I agree, Mike doesn’t have the full picture of who Bella really is (and if he did, he absolutely would not still have that little crush on her because Bella is a big fucking jerk), but at least they’re MAKING THE EFFORT!

Bella was good.

This is just not true and I have four books worth of canon to prove it.

I frequently amused myself by imagining backhanding him across the room and into the far wall...

“It helps if you think of them as people.” Remember that, Eddie??? Now here’s the thing. We’ve all had those fantasies about people. Wanting to throw them across the room or punch them in the face or whatever. The difference here? Edward is well aware that his Magic Pire Strength would genuinely hurt Mike, so much so that the very next line is about how it ‘probably’ wouldn’t hurt him fatally. Meaning that Eddie is well aware that it would hurt him, probably even break a few bones, but hey, he probably won’t die! Fuck you, Edward.

For all I knew, she never thought about me at all.

Pointedly gonna look over at Twilight now and see just how fucking much Bella is obsessing over Eddie, to the point where any thought not centered around her Woobie Pire is glossed over and ignored.

Eddie is having a jealous baby fit and once again thinking about how he would just love to hurt poor Mike for having the gall and audacity to ask Bella out. I already ranted about it up there, and I’m too tired and annoyed to do it again. Just know that Edward is a fucking asshole and poor Mike doesn’t deserve any of the shit that gets forced on him in this series.

Eddie is finally paying attention to Bella again, and wondering what she’s thinking, and he does that a lot in this book. I know that it’s supposed to be because he’s relied on his shitty vampire super power for so long, but considering how often he demanded (yes, demanded) to know what she was thinking in canon, and wouldn’t let up until she caved and told him, it feels like he’s trying to monitor her thoughts. She can’t be thinking anything that Daddy Ed doesn’t approve of, after all.

I picked the correct answer out of his head

But the Cullens are just super smart and know things and definitely aren’t cheating cheaters who cheat to get perfect grades in school.

"Are you speaking to me again?"

This is a problem with this canon. These people have had TWO conversations. In one of them, it was banal and inane small talk about the fucking weather and why Bella moved to Forks, and in the other, Eddie was gaslighting her to make her think she was wrong about what happened in the Van Of Doom(tm) crash. They haven’t talked like, at all. They don’t know anything about one another besides what they’ve crafted in their own empty heads. Bella is obsessing about how Eddie must hate her and Eddie is obsessing about how this version of Bella he’s built up in his head must be so amazing and wonderful and touting about how he loves her. There isn’t love in this relationship. There isn’t even a relationship. These people are obsessed stalkers.

I managed not to laugh.

This is another example of Edward being just... the biggest fucking jerk. Clearly, Bella is upset. She’s jumped to the wrong conclusion, and assumes that Eddie just wants her to fucking die or whatever, but she’s clearly upset and annoyed and Eddie is treating her feelings like a joke. He does that so often in the series, but hearing it from his own perspective really drives it home. 

Edward is being extremely shallow watching Eric and Tyler asking Bella out. He makes a rude comment about Eric’s skin (he’s a teenage boy with acne, oh GOD) and outright calls Tyler ‘average’ as if he knows anything about him. This is another problem with Ed and his magic surface thought listening power. I’ve already pointed out that he’s created this image of who Bella is in his head based on absolutely nothing, but he’s done this with everyone around him. He assumes what kind of people they are based on the very bare, surface thoughts they have. He doesn’t consider the people around him complex, because he isn’t diving into their more complex thoughts and emotions, and that’s just so gross and shitty.

How was I any better than some sick peeping tom?

We know what this is, right? We’re witnessing the birth of Eddie breaking into Bella’s house and watching her sleep. He’s once again acknowledging that he shouldn’t be doing it, and he knows that its wrong, so of course, that means he can just keep on doing it anyway. 

I was not the one she was destined to say yes to.

This is such a ham-fisted attempt at keeping the ‘will they won’t they’ illusion up, because its been made so obvious from the word GO that there’s never going to be anyone else for Bella. Even the attempt at a love triangle doesn’t work in the series because SM made it so clear all throughout New Moon that Bella would never choose Jacob if Edward was a choice. Everything she did in New Moon was to keep the illusion of Edward up in her mind, and even spending time with Jacob was a means to that end goal. Its not a compelling love story because, as stated, there is no love here because they haven’t spoken to one another, but their sick, driving obsession with one another is going to guide them all the way to the end. Edward and Bella are not a good couple, and I wish very much that that line up there was the truth, and that Bella discovered who she was as a person and found someone to compliment her.

My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?

Left that full for context. This is our title drop, and as someone who has read all of Twilight, who has seen all of the horrible title drops in them, I honestly think this one might be the worst of them all. It’s just this affected way that SM writes and it really, really irks me to see it so blatantly on display combined with a ‘hee hee, Midnight Sun, get it~’ on top of it.

My self, also, had frozen as it was - my personality, my likes and my dislikes, my moods and my desires; all were fixed in place.

This has a lot of implications for the Pires that SM never even bothers to explore because she doesn’t actually realize the potential in it. According to canon, right there in that sentence, when they’re turned Pires STOP CHANGING. They don’t develop new interests or hobbies, they don’t change their taste in music, film, anything. They become truly frozen in time. That means that the Cullens should not be driving cars, or wearing the clothes that they wear. They should not have picked up all of these skills that immortality has allowed them to pick up. The should be the exact same as they were the day they were turned. There’s something really dark and genuinely heartbreaking about that, and a better author would have explored it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a better author.

if I were going to attempt any kind of relationship with her

Edward refuses to take into account that that is not solely his decision to make. Pretend for a second that Bella is a normal human with normal thoughts. All she has seen of Eddie is this hot and cold thing were he does a nice thing or has a nice conversation with her and then ices her out for days and weeks at a time. He is, by all accounts, a total jerk and kind of a weirdo. Why the hell would she (again, if she were a normal, rational person) want a relationship with him?

Strange, unfamiliar reactions stirred deep in my forgotten human core.

AKA, Eddie just felt the first stirrings of being a horny teenage boy. Gross. 

The chapter ends on Eddie asking Bella to let him drive her to Seattle. I know I’ve already made this point, but if Bella were a normal teenage girl experiencing all of this shit from Eddie, she would have absolutely laughed in his face and told him to go fuck himself on a cactus or something. He’s proven to be volitale, rude, condescending, and just an outright jerk. There is no reason a sane, rational person would want to go anywhere with him. Would want to spend any time alone with him. If anything, Bella should be thinking that Eddie wants to get her alone to murder her or something based on the way he’s acting. It’s creepy and weird. Bella, unfortunately, eats this shit up and is so excited about her date with him. 

That’s it. Chapter over. Sorry this was such a long one, folks, but I’m not sure they’re gonna get any shorter. This story makes me angry, and when I get angry, I rant. Feel free to reach out in messages or DMs if you wanna chat more about this book or offer suggestions for the next one I should do after I finally put this one to bed. 

You can also buy me a snack if you want, I have my CashApp tag in my bio. Until next time. 

[elejah-verse]

An Officer and A Gentleman/1

Fanfiction 

Part 1

AU TVD/TO story 

Elijah Mikaelson x reader/Elena Gilbert

ft. Angel and Buffy

and other pairings 

a/n: this was inspired by this - when I watched Seals Team

but then remembered Dg being in NCIS, and since I love old movies, got to watch Top Gun, which then inspired me some more to write this -and well- here is a crossover of sorts- also, since I am a gothic girl - as you know looove vampires and all that genre, I loved Angel and Buffyverse (Angel being my no1 vampire, till he got knocked down by Elijah Mikaelson. LOL), and David Boreanaz is starring in Seals Team, so I borrowed those two characters and put them in this story. 

Well, I hope you like it. Thanks for all your support and likes and what can I say - you are great, guys!!! xoxo

P.S. I don’t know who these gifs belong to anymore, so credit to gifmakers. The one in the story is mine. Lol. 

and - doesn’t Dg look so dashing in uniform?! LOL

tags @rissyrapp20 @dendrite-lover @captainshurley @hides2000 @cassienoble2000 @goddessofthunder112 @elejahforever 

_______________________

Returning from the Special OP, friends and fellow Seals Special Operatives, Elijah Mikaelson and Angel S. Booth were summoned by their Commanding Officer.

"This must be about Yemen."- Angel said-"they didn't like our alternative method of rescue."

"Well, if it suspension, I am ok" - Elijah said-"I can do with a few days or a week of going down New Orleans." - Elijah said.

"To see your girl, ha?!" - Angel said-"What was her name?"

"Hayley" -Elijah said, continuing-"Talking of women, did you sort things out with Brennan?"

Angel sighed now, remembering the divorce papers he got as he landed back in the US.

"Divorce is still on. And I signed the papers and sent them off earlier. It's over. I have to face it."

"I am sorry, man" - Elijah said.

"It's ok. I have no energy anymore to wallow in it." - Angel said. He now wanted to add something, but they were called in the office.

"At ease, gentleman" - the Commander said-" Lieutenants, I will get straight tp the point. Due to your very imaginative rescue missions, of which we had a few, you were chosen  to be part of a Special Hybrid Unit and will be taking a special training course at US Navy Struke Fighter Tactics Instructor Program. Best known to us as Top Gun."

Angel and Elijah looked stunned at the commander.

"Only the best of the best go there. Continue to make us proud."

"When do we report, Sir?"

"You have three days off. You have to report Monday morning. 6:00 sharp. Dismissed, gentleman"

Angel and Elijah saluted and went out.

They were extremely surprised and they could not believe that they were called up for something so extraordinary.

"The best of the best?!" - Angel now said in disbelief sort of.

"Did you ever doubt that we are anything else, not that I am bragging, but we deserved it. Hard work, ingenuity paid off." - Elijah said-"and we got three days-whoooohooo."

"Which means that we will not see any free days for a very long time." - Angel said.

"So I will make sure I got three glorious days with my girl. Ahm - and - I know it's not really appropriate as you just signed your divorce papers, but will you be my best man?" - Elijah asked his friend.

"You proposed to her? When? You didn't tell me. "

"I haven't yet. I am going now to buy a ring and go down there and propose. Get a special licence, if not, then, we can get married the first free day I get. I want her with me."

"Right. I will be your best man." - Angel said.

And so, the men got the first plane out to New Orleans.

And down in New Orleans, Elijah got the same blow as Angel. Well, sort of the same.

Coming down to Hayley's house, he found a man opening the door. And when Elijah asked if he could speak to Hayley, the man said-

"What is it about? My wife is not at home. Can I help you? "

"Your wife?" - Elijah was gobsmacked.

"Yes, my wife. Hayley Marshall-Kenner. I am Jackson Kenner, her husband."

"Come on, man" - Angel, who stood next to Elijah now put his hand on his friend's shoulder and said-"Let's go."

"Yeah. Ahm- nothing-Sorry, I bothered you." - Elijah said feeling like someone punched him really hard in the gut.

Angel now kind of nudged again to his friend to leave and they both got in the car. Angel sat in the driver's seat as Elijah was completely lost.

"Keys!" - Angel said.

Elijah got the keys out of his picket, still kind of numb, like he was not able to process what just had happened.

"Bourbon Street?" - Angel suggested.

Elijah just nodded looking straight, trying to make his heart not explode from pain. After a night of a lot of Bourbon to totally numb the heartache and let out steam, both men flew to their new station to San Diego, a two days before planned.

Getting out of the plane, Angel asked Elijah-

"Ready for new adventure? New life? Letting go of the past?!"

"So fucking ready."- Elijah said.

As they still didn't have to report for duty, and having settled in their new abode, they went to have two more days of fun.

Elijah and Angel had no problem making friends or making the party going on, and ending up at a bar, they quickly got the crowd going.

Trying hard to get on and quick the heartbreak, goofying around a bit with the karaoke, Elijah took the microphone and Angel always knew which song to find.

As the song started, Elijah got ready, and getting into the song, seeing a woman at the bar turn catching his eye he now went to her.

Angel rolled his eyes a bit, but he just let him go for it. 

💖Listen baby, ain't no mountain high

Ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough baby

If you need me call me no matter where you are No matter how far don't worry baby Just call my name I'll be there in a hurry You don't have to worry 'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough

Ain't no valley low enough Ain't no river wide enough To keep me from getting to you babe

Remember the day I set you free I told you you could always count on me girl From that day on, I made a vow I'll be there when you want me                

Y/N/E  laughed, feeling embarrased but flattered in a way. Elijah continued, fully in the role.

Some way, some how 'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough Ain't no valley low enough Ain't no river wide enough To keep me from getting to you babe Oh no darling

No wind, no rain Or winters cold can stop me baby, na na baby 'Cause you are my goal If you're ever in trouble I'll be there on the double Just send for me, oh baby, ha

My love is alive Way down in my heart Although we are miles apart If you ever need a helping hand I'll be there on the double Just as fast as I can Don't you know that there

Ain't no mountain high enough Ain't no valley low enough Ain't no river wide enough To keep me from getting to you babe

As Elijah finished and everyone in the bar clapped, Y/N/E said-

"Well, you picked a good one. It’s actually one of my favs.”

"Ahh, can't take credit for this one. Angel picks them."- Elijah now showed to his friend who was talking to a woman.

"Angel? Interesting name.”- Y/N/E said.

"I am Maverick." - Elijah said.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nah, well, it's my cool name. I am Elijah."

"Two guys with two cool names. Pilots, right?"

"No. Seals, actually. Can I buy you a drink."

"Maybe some other time." - Y/N/E said as a man now approached them.

"Ready?" - the man said.

"Yeah" - Y/N/E replied, turning to Elijah saying-"See you around, ‘Maverick -Elijah'

“Hey and your name?”

“Y/N/E”

The brunette/blonde then went with the guy, and Elijah looked after them. As Angel joined him, he said -

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're lost your heart already."

"Nah. No more falling in love."- Elijah said.

"Right. Just casual stuff then? Well, it looks like she has a boyfriend."

"Yeah" - Elijah said, his heart flattering unusually at the thought of Y/N/E.

"Who did you talk to? '

" It' s Commander Salvatore's wife. We are invited to a barbecue thing tomorrow night at his house. "

"Ok. Game of darts?" - Elijah sugfested.

"Yeah, go on."

"What's up, you're a bit weird" - Elijah said as the got a couple of beers and went to the darts board area.

"I just found out that the tactics instructor is Buffy Summers." - Angel said.

"You're kidding me? Your Buffy? Buffy, the one you broke up with when you went to Washington?

" The one. "- Angel replied.

" Oh, man. So much about new life, new leaf. "- Elijah said.

Angel sighed and took a swag of beer.

The past seemed to came rolling back in at least when he was concerned.

In the car, Y/NE thought of the Seals Officer she had just met.

"Who was that?" - Damon asked.

"The new Seals guys."- Y/N/E answered.

"Ok. So, shall we go and eat something before we go to the cemetery?"

"Yeah, sure." - Y/N/E said-"Also need to get flowers for it. I can't  believe it's been two years since his death."

"Yeah" - Damon said. 

Not longer after Y/N/E and Damon put the flowers down on the grave of Stefan Salvatore.

"Hey you" - Y/N/E said placing a kiss on the name-"crazy to say it- but happy birthday. Miss you still so much."

Damon sighed a little. His brother was gone two years and a month now, and it seemed like it was yesterday, and at times it felt like it was eternity.

Arranging the flowers a bit, Y/N/E now flashed back

Two years previously

Damon knocked a little at the door frame of Y/N/E and Stefan's bedroom of the Salvatore house, before he entered.

"Hey" - Damon said.

Y/N/E was going through her clothes in obvious total distress.

"I don't have anything to wear for the funeral. Nothing black - damn -" she now burst out crying and turning to Damon continued- "I was supposed to be wearing a wedding dress. We were supposed to get married in August.                 

Damon stood there feeling her sister-in-law to be, sharing her pain.

"I know. He was so -"

"How will I go on? I can't - I just - don't want to - hate the army- hate everything- I want him back, Damon. Please, bring him back-"

"Oh, Y/N/E -" 

                 "Bye" - Y/N/E slipped as she placed a kiss with her hand on the stone.

Damon and her now walked back to the car.

"So, how does it feel to be back, in general?"

"Kind of weird. It's like I've been gone a hundred years. Ok. Can we talk about you and Kai and how did it happen?"

"It's a long story."- Damon said.

"I want to hear it. Everything. Especially about the rain kiss! "- Y/N/E said.

"Caroline told you!"

"Yep! Come on. I want to hear everything."

Damon now told her some, but this was Caroline's version as she saw Damon  finally his feelings to Kai. 

                 "I am so happy for you, Damon."- Y/N/E said-"Kai is a great guy. How did you dad take it?"

"He didn't. There is no change. The idea that I am with a man still repulses him. He wished I was dead and not Stefan. "- Damon said.

"Oh, Damon. I am sorry. That means that Lily is still between the hard and the rock place?!" - Y/N/E remarked.

"Yep."- Damon said-"I am happy, but she is not and I hate that she has to juggle between us. She left him for a while, but then she got back when he ended up in hospital with the heart scare."

"I wish things got better." - Y/N/E said.

"Anyway, you are kind of a big shot now if Pentagon sent you to do this new program" - Damon said.

"I am not. I am just an instructor really."- Y/NE said.

"Just an instructor? This is Top Gun! Only the best are here."

"The program is unique and kind of experimental. I hope it works."

"Did you see the F-18?"

"I helped construct it Damon! Of course I've seen it. Working on a better improved version. " - Y/N/E said.

"Like I said, you are a real big shot."- Damon said.

His phone rang and seeing it was Kai, he swiped the call answering-

"Hey, babe, where are you?"

"I got pizza. When are you home?" - Kai asked.

"Heading home. Y/N/E is with me. I kinda invited her to eat with us. Say hi" - Damon now put the loudspeaker on.

Kai and Y/N/E now exchanged heys.

Soon, as they got to Damon's apartment, Kai gave Y/N/E a warm hug hello.

"It's good to have you back." - Kai said to the brunette.

"I am glad to be back. Seeing you two together, really makes it worth being back. Love conquers all." - Y/N/E’s eyes watered a bit-"ok, I won't be sad."

"You are allowed. We miss him, too."- Kai said.

"Yeah - ok-" - Damon said-"let's toast to Stefan and love. May Y/N/E find love again."- Damon said.

"Oh, Damon please." - Y/N/E said taking the glass of Tequila he had poured.

"Stefan would wanted you to find love again."- Kai said taking a glass of the drink from his boyfriend.

"I know, but - I just - can't think about that-got a new plane to think about"

Kai didn't quite understand.

"Y/N/E is working on a new Fighter plane." - Damon explained.

"Wow!" - Kai said.

"Told you. She is not jus a pretty face." - Damon said.

"Enough you guys. Ok. To Stefan."- Y/N/E raised her glass and so did Kai and Damon. 🚫

Elsewhere, 

Elijah and Angel had dinner at a small diner. And later headed back to the dorms. Both went to their respective rooms, both still very much in thoughts about the past.

Elijah trying to get the grips of how Hayley just went and got married. He now thought of the last time he was with her before he was deployed to the Middle East. And no matter how much he tried to find answers, nothing made sense. Did she ever loved him? He asked himself now. But like Angel had said - can't wallow in it, she obviously chose another guy, and married him- Elijah closed his eyes and his mind wondered to the woman he had sort of sang to.

"Y/N/E" - he slipped and smiled a little.

💕In the room next door, Angel revisited his heart. Eversince he heard that Buffy Summers, his first love was onw of the instructors of the program, he could not stop thinking about her, taking him back ten years previously, when he came to her the night before leaving to Washington to join the FBI. But the break up was not as simple as he had told Elijah. He had not told him that he had gone to Buffy's wedding to tell her that he had made a huge mistake to have let her go.

🚫 At the same time, Buffy Summers now entered the house she has rented.

Putting her bag on the chair, she went straight in the kitchen and got a bottle of red wine out and poured herself a glass. Earlier at a briefing, she has found out that Angel Seeley Booth was chosen for the program.

She thought she didn't care anymore. She thought that it would not stir her, but driving back home, strangely the smallest of butterflies bubbled up.

Buffy slumped down on the sofa, and flashed back to the past.                        

🚫

Monday morning came and all respective parties were in the classroom. The Seargent now introduced two instructors -

"Now you will also be trained and evaluated by a few civial specialist as well as military instructors. One of them is our tech rep, code name Sunny. She has PhD in astrophysics, aerospace engineering.  She is a civilian contractor and you don't need to salute her, but you better listen to her, because the Pentangon does. And if you don't pass her evaluation, you can lose your post. Sunny, was one of the constructors of the hybrid F-18. She will tell you all about the fighter plane. Sunny, it's all yours."

Y/N/E now came in from the side room, and Elijah looked at the brunette like he had just entered a strange kind of dream world.

Y/N/E greeted everyone present now immediately going into the presentation mode. She was serious, eloquent, and it was very clear to everyone that she knew what she was talking about.

Finishing the lecture for the day, on her way out, Elijah followed her and catching up with her said-

"You could have given me a fair warning."

"About what, Lieutenant Mikaelson?" - Y/N/E said raising an eyebrow.

"You could have told me that you are - who you are"

"You didn't give me much time."- Y/N/E said-"But if you can fly as good as you can sing, I just might give you a good evaluation."

"Oh, I can fly. I flew Mig 40. out of Afghanistan."-Elijah now said.

"That was you?" - Y/N/E was now surprised to hear it.

"Yep. That was me."- Elijah confirmed.

"Really? This is not one of those things to splash your charm out again?"

"No. But, all the info is classified." - Elijah said.

"You are kidding me, right?" - Y/N/E now showed Elijah one of the badges that showed him that she had access to all classified information-"I read all about the intel on it. But - I have questions about it."

"Ok. I can tell you about it first hand, but - if you agree to -  coffee?"

"I knew this was one of those things."

"One of what things? It's just a harmless invitaton to have a cup of coffee." - Elijah said.

"Harmless?" - Y/N/E said with a smirk saying yeah, right.

"Completely." - Elijah replied with a charming smile.

Y/N/E's phone now rang and she said this to Elijah before picking up -

"I will get back to you, Lt."

She answered the call and walked away.

Elijah smiled dreamily looking at her until she got into her 1963 Porsche, and drove off. 

Oh, man, what did he do to deserve this. Why did she have to be his instructor. This is going to be so complicated, his heart murmured.

Marvin Gaye song fading in the background as he watches her leave

[brothermouzongaming]

E3 2019 overview

I wanted to take the time to look at and talk about some of the games we’re more than likely seeing at the conference. E3 is...dying and it’s misleading trailers don’t help, but despite this, the show is still important and at least gives us a little insight into what may come in games/tech. So let’s cross our fingers and dive in. I’ll be focussing more on main titles and not DLC and updates. Available footage will be linked in the corresponding title.

Avengers project (Crystal Dynamics/ Square Enix)

It feels like ages since the teaser for the Avengers project dropped. Since then I have been trying to keep my hopes high, I even thought it was canceled for a time when we heard literally nothing since that trailer. I know nothing about this game, but I just hope Crystal Dynamics and Square are treating something this big with the care it needs. The last thing Marvel, more importantly Disney, want is another Battlefront 2 situation on their hands. If Square can incorporate their over the top combat style to the Marvel universe, it could be amazing, incredible, invinci- okay I’ll stop.

Borderlands 3

Getting back into Borderlands just before the big press release was very serendipitous. Something about this made me even more excited for some of the additions coming like loot instancing, slide/mantle (finally), secondary fire weapons, more diverse and varied play spaces, and a lot more. So many of BL2 and the Pre-Sequel’s flaws are glaring with me having played them recently and to see the long-awaited title addressing these exact issues so comforting when I get to thinking about this next adventure into the wastes. It isn’t some massive leap forward or anything, it’s more Borderlands and there’s nothing wrong with that to me. Finally, an online optional looter shooter that isn’t some strange mmo lite, long live the king. Randy Pitchford is a weirdo but I’m not gonna hold that against the devs lol.

Cyberpunk 2077

This is more than likely going to be my game of the show. E3 is typically full of surprises and anything can happen but in all honesty, I just can’t see much coming close especially since we aren’t seeing Death Stranding (thattrailertho). I was literally giddy when they released the gameplay trailer that they showed press and influencers and the FPS RPG looked very good but not unrealistic. Recently it’s come out that the game is “pretty different” from that showcase and that statement interests me as much as it gives me pause. Regardless, we are going to be seeing more of this game with CDPR claiming they’ll have an even bigger presence than last year. I just hope that we get solid gameplay footage and not buzzwords and theatrical trailers.

CoD 2019

Black Ops 4 came out guns drawn and it really impressed at first. Since that time Activision has found a way to completely reverse the conversation around BO4 and where the franchise is headed/ is as a whole. Activision needs a win, and with this being their main and essentially only franchise it has to be big. The rumor is that it’s Modern Warfare 4 which would be a “soft reboot” if that is the case. If not this year then next, I’m surprised it’s even taken them this long so hopefully all this time will lead to something good. Honestly, I’m shocked we’re still getting annual releases of this game. I don’t forsee CoD lasting much longer and this tug at our nostalgia may be a sign of that. 

Destroy All Humans (THQ Nordic)

I spent so many hours with my friend Walter terrorizing the meat bags between the tools the game devs gave us and some gamer creativity that was a relatively new aspect of gaming compared to nowadays where player creativity is often an aspect of gameplay. THQ has reported something insane like 50+ games in development which...sounds like a stupid choice but if this is one of them it’s definitely going to get people’s heads turning. Can you imagine what they’ll be able to do with today’s tech? They don’t have to go crazy but then again for the sake of a concise vision but...maybe they should?

Dino Crisis (Capcom)

Let’s talk more about old ass games I’m completely shocked could be coming back. So in light of Capcom bringing back past titles and breathing new life into them, it is reported that Capcom is looking to bring back...Dino Crisis? I swear to god if they make Dino Crisis before Viewtiful Joe and Onimusha? POWER STONE ANYONE?? I’m more than willing to suspend my meh-ness because Capcom has proved that not only can they bring back an old game we love, but they can do it damn well. If this is true, then maybe there is hope for some of my favorite Capcom titles from the past but mother of god why Dino Crisis?

Doom Eternal

Doom 2016 was one of the best first-person shooters I’ve ever played. “Smooth as butter” isn’t something I would use to describe most games but god damn if that game wasn’t lubed up before they packaged it because it’s damn slick. So imagine the stiffy I got when that gameplay was dropped and mobility was increased. Can we talk about the grappling hook shotgun? The new demons and takedowns to dispatch said demons? God knows what else is under the hood for us to find out when it releases let alone when they talk about it during the conference. A more open level design in tandem with the conventional “kill room” here and there is gonna really spice up the combat especially if exploration is properly rewarded. Rage 2 was a disappointment but I do have hope this is gonna live up to the hype the way it did the first time.

Gears of War 5

Lawd Microsoft needs a win. This is quite clearly their attempt at a blockbuster event like God of War was for Sony. Everything about the trailer screams “Oscar bait but for games” and I hope they do the damn thing. Make me sad I don’t have an Xbox dammit! This could be a big step for Gears and could even lead it down a more character focussed design. The world of Gears of War is rich for a deeper explanation, and I know that isn’t what Gears is known for but I won’t be told that they can’t do both. It appears to be heavily cinematic though gameplay can be seen in the trailer above. It seems interesting and I hope they really make something worth owning an Xbox for. The fans deserve it.

Halo: Infinite

Did I say Microsoft needs a win from the software perspective? Cause they do. The Xbox One is fine, the One X is a huge step up and is the most powerful console but there are next to no exclusives for this console. Ya know, the reason why you buy a certain console outside of interface and services. What better way than to bring back the most successful franchise Microsoft has associated with. There’s talk of it having an open world which is jarring initially especially when the history of Halo is rich with environments that tell stories alongside the mid-range combat. If they can properly expand that baseline to fit an open world format, it’ll be amazing. Whether or not they can is the question.

Harry Potter: Magic Awakened

Warner Brothers does a great job of shooting themselves square in the foot. They just put on the finest shoes money can buy and BAM queue the red kool-aid fountain. Shadow of War is the pinnacle of such stupidity with the way the monetization completely bankrupted the integrity of the game. The brief footage that was up involved a third-person real-time action reminiscent of the original games. Warner Bros. jumped on the trailer takedown but it’s safe to say the cat is out of the bag and casting spells in the kitchen. This could be a unique adventure involving a custom character, it could involve something more directly related to the books. Anything is possible but if we heard about it this year it wouldn’t entirely surprise me.

My Friend Pedro

A twin stick shooter of a different kind. Imagine stranglehold but cartoony, John Wick but even more comic book like. It looks like the entire game is going to be centered around ballerina jumping through levels and enemies leaving every enemy in your wake riddled with bullets. It seems light, fun, and self-aware in it’s silliness which can lead to the most fun type of games.

Session

Oh boy, SKATE was my jam back in high school and if you’re anything like me you’ve been waiting for the next game/ literally anything like it to come along. Session appears to be that game, we weren’t told a lot when it was revealed so I’m hoping that E3 will lead to some more information on gameplay and ya know, a release date. 

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

Anthem is in shambles and in my opinion, it’s this year’s No Man’s Sky. Between the games they put out, and the Star Wars games they put out (or don’t put out depending on your perspective); this does not bode well at all. Respawn is working on the project and their track record is very good, but I can’t help but worry about what EA is planning. They always find a way to put their hand directly into a project and do exactly what needs to be done to ruin it. Sometimes that’s on the front end in development and planning or lack thereof, and sometimes it’s on the back end with moving devs to other projects/ not hold their devs to the post-launch promises they tend to make and not fulfill. This story of a padawan in hiding after Order 66 is ripe for gameplay development and storytelling. So long as Respawn has the vision and can execute, all we need is for EA to stay the fuck away and let them work. We’ll see.

honorable mentions: Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Vampire Bloodlines 2, From Soft and George R. R. Martin collab, Fable remake, Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, Wolfenstein Young Blood, Afterparty, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Bleeding Edge (Ninja Theory’s new game), Last of Us 3 (v hype just not a lot of info)

[crashdevlin]

Good Things: Part Three

Part One

Part Two

That day in Manitoba started a three week-long texting relationship with the eldest Winchester, which began with a simple 'How's your hunt going?' and slowly evolved to sexts and pictures... and then just stopped. You called and it went to voicemail every time. As the days of silence went by, you went through a cycle of angry, betrayed and worried.

"I know you're retired, Garth. I'm not calling you into a hunt!" You were in the worried part of the cycle and you had started calling every hunter you knew that knew the Winchesters. "I need to know if you've heard from Dean."

"I didn't know you even knew Sam and Dean." Garth mused on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, for a little while now, okay, and I've been trying to get a hold of either of them for weeks and neither are answering their phones."

"Oh, that happens sometimes. They get into-"

"So, that's a 'no', Garth?"

"No. Sorry, y/n. I haven't heard from them in a while."

"Great. Do you have, uh, Jody Mills' number?"

"Yeah. You got a pen?"

Your conversation with Sheriff Mills had gone the same way, but ended with you being given Mary Winchester's number. "Hello?"

"Hi, uh, Mary? It's y/n."

"Oh. Hey."

"I'm trying to get in contact with Dean. Have you heard from him?"

There was a moment of silence followed by, "Castiel didn't call you?"

You swallowed, nervously. "Call me about what?"

She sighed, sending static through the phone. "I think it'd be better coming from Castiel."

"Mary, please. I have spent the last month thinking I did something wrong or Dean was killed or that he just decided he didn't want to waste his time with me! Don't make me wait for the fucking angel!" You exclaimed.

"Y/n... you didn't do anything wrong and they aren't dead... but they are in trouble and we... Castiel and I haven't been able to help them."

"What trouble?" Your voice barely came out.

"You remember how Lucifer was in Vince Vincente?"

"Yes."

"He ended up in President Rooney."

"What?"

"They were arrested after getting Lucifer out of him and black-bagged, sent to some... off-books black site that we can't find. That was... five weeks ago."

Her words hit you with enough force to knock the wind out of you. "How do you know they're still alive? Assault on the president, that's gotta be-"

"Castiel says they are, so I have to believe him."

You swallowed, fighting back tears. "Okay. Thank you... for telling me... Mary."

"The boys will be okay. I know they will."

"Sure." You lost the fight with the tears as you hung up. You went to sleep that night thinking you might have just lost the most amazing man in the world and you never gave him the fair shake he deserved, that you'd been so wrapped in your self-deprecating bullshit that you had lost the opportunity of a lifetime.

You threw yourself into a hunt, immediately. It didn't matter that it might be an entire nest of vampires and you were but a single hunter, you went to Lancaster, Missouri, anyway. You were met with confusion and a bit of anger from the townsfolk. Another 'agent' had been through the town, asking questions, before disappearing on the heels of the the fifth body drop. You easily found the bar that was the overlap between the victims and went to work tracking the monster from a bar stool, which is where you were when Mary Winchester walked in.

"Hey." You started. "Buy you a beer?"

"Sure." She sat down next to you and you nodded at the bartender to get another round of beers. "You here for the hunt?"

"Beats sitting around the house, wallowing."

She nodded. "I've always been a 'kill things instead of cry' kinda woman, too."

"That's what happens when you grow up in the Life. You learn to dissociate from pain... all pain."

"Yeah, Dean told me you were a 'born-and-raised' hunter, like me."

"He told me that you got out... supposedly." You took a drink of your beer. "Tried to do the normal-boring, raise a litter... but this isn't something you can just turn off, not when it's how you were raised, when it's who you are."

"True. Even when I was..." She shook her head and raised her bottle to her lips. "You can take a break but you can never stop. Like you said, it's who we are."

"Wanna work this together?"

"You've already done the legwork, I assume."

"Yes, ma'am. Beardy dude in the corner is our guy. Was gonna let him lead me back to the nest. Always good to have another machete at the party."

"Sounds good to me."

The nest was four vampires strong, but you and Mary took them out in a span of about fifteen minutes, heads rolling off your machete and across the floor like misshapen bowling balls. "Not bad." She said as the two of you walked out of the old shop they'd settled in. Her phone started ringing as the two of you moved to get into her car. "Castiel? Slow... slow down. What?" Her eyes widened as she sat in the driver's seat. "Oh, God. I'll be there."

She hung up and turned to you, looking through the open window. "Get in. The Boys have escaped. They're in Colorado. I'm meeting Castiel in Lebanon. Let's go."

Mary drove like a bat out of Hell. It was nauseating around the curves, how your insides pulled with the force, but you didn't mention it. You were glad for her fast driving, it just meant you'd get to see Dean again sooner. It cut a six hour trip from Missouri to Kansas down to two and a half and it was no time before she was pulling into a parking lot in Lebanon and Castiel was walking up to the passenger window.

"You got here quickly."

"Yep." Mary responded as Castiel got into the backseat. "What do you think we're walking into?" Mary asked.

"I don't know." Castiel answered, honestly. "We may want more backup. Crowley and Rowena?"

"The King of Hell and his mother: the witch?" Mary scoffed.

"Hope we can do better than that." You insisted as Mary buckled her seat belt.

"I may have an idea." Castiel said.

"Good. Seat belt on. I drive fast."

"She's not lying." You confirmed.

~~~~

Mary parked her car on Colorado State Route 34 in front of a black luxury car. You recognized the shorter man in the tan coat before you even got out of the car: Mick Davies, British Men of Letters. He'd been trying to get you to talk to him for months. "Miss y/l/n, a pleasure as always."

"Mr. Davies."

"This is my associate, Mr. Ketch. I don't think you've met." He gestured to his companion, a taller man with tattoos on his hands.

"No. Definitely would've remembered meeting this one." Ketch looked you up and down as Mary stomped around the front of the car to glare at Castiel.

"This is your idea? The people that almost killed my boys, they're gonna be our backup? Suddenly, the demon and his mommy don't look so bad." Mary said, snarkily.

"They helped us with Lucifer." Castiel defended.

"Lucifer? The Lucifer?" Mick asked.

"Yes."

"Wait, so, you're tellin' me what happened in Indianapolis was you took on the bleedin' Devil, himself?" Mick asked.

"Yes." Castiel answered.

"Did you win?" Ketch asked.

Castiel looked from the Brits to you and Mary. "Yes."

The Brits looked at each other, obviously impressed. "Bravo."

"But Sam and Dean were taken. We think we can get them back, but we need... help." Mary said.

"So, we'll help." Mick said.

"Really?" Mary asked.

"Just like that?" You asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mrs. Winchester... y/n..." Mick stepped forward. "I came to this country to do one thing: Make friends. But you American hunters, you're... you're a different breed than our sort. You're surly, suspicious. You don't play well with others." Mick started.

"Well, that is accurate." Castiel commented. You and Mary gave the angel almost identical bitch faces.

"You don't trust people you don't know, even when they come bearing gifts. Now, I can't help that, but I can help you. And if word were to get out that we did our part to save Same and Dean Winchester, well, that's just good business, innit? And who knows? When all this is over, we might even be friends." Mick turned his gaze to you. "Maybe you'll let me buy you that dinner, finally."

"What's the saying about Brits bearing gifts?" You responded, with a sarcastic smile.

"That's Greeks bearing gifts." Ketch corrected.

"Yeah, but the Greeks left the gift for the gods and the Trojans stole it, whereas the British Empire had a habit of rolling across nations like they were God's gift, stealing resources and killing people. My way makes more sense."

The two men blinked at you as Mary leaned against the hood of her car. "We think Sam and Dean were being held somewhere in the Rocky Mountain National Forest."

"Site 94? It's a government facility, off-books. Shadow ops. One of those places that officially doesn't exist." Ketch said.

"Then how do you know about it?" Mary asked.

"We gather information. It's our job." Mick said.

"They told us to meet them off State Route 34." Cas tried to help.

"Which is a fairly long stretch of road and we don't know where, exactly, they're comin' up for air." You said.

"I'll get our techs to put a satellite over the area." Mick offered.

"You can do that?" You and Mary asked.

"And so much more."

"Do you have any idea what sort of trouble we're walking into?" Ketch asked Castiel.

"No."

Ketch smiled. "Oh, good. I do like a surprise."

It didn't take long for Mick to tell you that the satellite had picked up the brothers in a gunfight with some paramilitary guys in a small cabin and the five of you figured out the best area between the cabin and Route 34 to wait for them as the sun dipped lower and lower. The sound of them stomping through the underbrush turned your attention as they came crashing into the small clearing.

"Sam, Dean." Cas said, relieved.

Both brothers breathed the angel's name and Sam wrapped Cas in a hug. "Mom." Sam breathed as his eyes fell on Mary. He broke away from Castiel and enveloped his mother in a hug.

Dean hugged the angel, next, watching as his brother attacked their mom with love. "Hey, buddy." Dean patted his shoulder and moved to hug Mary.

You tucked your hair behind your ears as they greeted each other with love. You almost felt like you didn't need to be there, that you shouldn't be there, like this was a moment for family and you should've stayed at the car with the British Men of Letters. You were contemplating sinking backward into the trees, circling back around to the Brits' Bentley and Mary's car, when Dean pulled away from Mary and pulled you to him.

He was clearly exhausted, and he smelled like sweat, gunpowder and mud, but he held you to his chest like he never wanted to let you go and it was everything your heart needed in that moment. "I'm so happy you're here, y/n. So glad Cas called you."

"Actually, Dean, I didn't have y/n's number."

"I happened to be with y/n when Castiel called me." Mary said, gesturing through the woods toward where the car was parked. Dean didn't want to let you go, you could tell, but he pulled out of the embrace and took your hand in his as you started toward the road. "This girl can hunt."

"Mom, how did y'all even find us?" Sam asked, as the group emerged from the wood line.

"They helped." She nodded at Mick and Ketch, leaning against the hood of their car.

"Hello, lads." Mick greeted.

"They have a thermal imaging satellite that saw you... from space." Cas' words were stilted, like he wasn't sure he was saying the right thing, and Sam and Dean both looked confused.

"Well, we don't have one, just borrowed it for a bit. Friends in all the right places." Mick corrected.

"Well, I guess this is where we're supposed to say 'thank you'." Dean stiffened and you squeezed his hand.

"No need. Happy to be of service." Mick said.

"Again." Ketch stressed.

"Okay, then. We should get." Sam said, gesturing at the trees. "The people we left, they'll call for backup any second."

"Uh, you left survivors?" Ketch asked.

"Of course they did." You answered, immediately, as Sam squinted at Ketch and nodded.

"They were soldiers, just doin' what they were told." Dean responded, like he was talking to a child.

"Still... a bit unprofessional." Ketch continued.

"What profession do you think you're in, Mr. Ketch?" You asked, pulling away from Dean's side and stepping closer to the Bentley. "We're good people. Good people don't kill unless they have to. Especially other people."

"We'll handle it. Let's get." Sam said as Dean pulled your arm until you were back to his side and the two of you headed for the back seat of the car.

Dean pulled you into his lap as Mary pulled off and headed North. "Shoulda called you before we went up against Lucifer... how long were you in the dark?" He whispered. He hugged you to him, running one of his hands down your back and sweeping the other up and down your thigh.

"I got a hold of Mary a week ago."

"Shit, y/n. I'm sorry. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd want to help if you knew we were going up against-"

"Satan? Of course I would've." You turned to look at him better. "You offer me a chance at epic status and then you go against Lucifer and you freeze me out?"

"I couldn't even imagine sending you into a room with Lucifer. The thought of what he could have done to you... I tried to call, but I couldn't." He shook his head.

"Well, I suppose not hearing from you, not knowing what the hell happened..." You smiled softly and ran your thumb across his cheek to rub away a smudge of dirt. "That's not nearly as bad as being murdered by Lucifer or locked up in Site 94."

"God, you're understanding." He said under his breath, before twisting your body on his lap so that you were straddling him, facing him. He cupped your chin between his hands and looked deeply into your eyes. "I hope you're still this understanding at midnight."

"What does that mean?" You and Castiel asked, instantly worried.

Dean shook his head, looking from your face to the clock on the GPS and back. "Look, what I need you to know right now, y/n, is that I thought about you every day I was in there. I dreamed of your face, your smile. Those pictures you sent me by your pool..." He smiled, softly, tears brimming around his lashes. "I need you to know that... you're my good thing, too."

"Dean, what-"

He didn't answer, pulling your head forward to lock his lips against yours. There was no tongue, no heat, in the kiss. It was every bit of sweetness and care that you'd imagined your first kiss with him might carry, but there was an undercurrent of loss and sadness, like it might be the last kiss, as well. He didn't pull away until the radio spontaneously turned on, sending static through the car as the engine died. "It's time." Sam said from the front seat as the car rolled to a stop on a small bridge over Timber Creek.

You all got out of the car and stepped around the car. "What's happening?" Mary asked. Your eyes were stuck on Dean's face.

"Yeah, Dean." A voice called from the middle of the bridge. You turned to see a beautiful woman, wearing a brown leather jacket and a black t-shirt, arms crossed over her chest. "Sup?"

"Billie?" Mary asked.

"Who?" You immediately snapped.

"The reaper?" Cas' question answered your own.

"I don't understand." Mary turned to look at her boys.

"Mom... that place... there was only one way we were getting out of there, and that wasn't breathing." Dean responded. You shook your head. You didn't understand. Well, you did, but you didn't want to. "So I made a call."

"Dean talked with her and then Billie came to see me. And we made a deal. We'd get to die and come back one more time, but in exchange..." Sam started. He was having a hard time looking at Mary and Castiel.

"Come midnight, a Winchester goes bye-bye. Like, permanently." The reaper said, smugly, as Mary stepped right in front of her sons. You sat against the hood of the car, hand over your mouth. No wonder Dean had kissed you like that. "And that is something I've been looking forward to for a long time."

"Why would you-"

Dean cut his mother off. "We were already dead. Being locked in that cell with nothing... I've been to Hell. This was worse."

"At least this way, one of us gets to keep fighting." Sam reasoned.

"You don't have to do this." You flinched at the harshness of the angel's voice.

"Yeah, they do. We made a pact, bound in blood. You break that, there's consequences on a cosmic scale. So, who's it gonna be?"

Dean was about to volunteer. If the kiss hadn't tipped you off, the way he looked at Sam would have, but before he could do what he was planning, Mary turned to face the reaper, pulling her gun from her waistband. "Me."

"Mom." Dean said. "Mom."

"No." Sam said. "No."

Billie flung the brothers backward. "You said, come midnight a Winchester dies? I'm a Winchester." Mary explained.

"Works for me." Billie responded.

Mary cocked her gun and pressed the barrel to her temple as you squeezed your eyes shut and the brothers shouted at her to stop. "I love you." She sniffled.

The sound of piercing flesh drove you to open your eyes to the vision of Billie with an angel blade through her chest, just in time for the blinding light of her dying to make you squeeze them shut again. Castiel looked fairly shocked that he'd killed Billie, too, as Sam and Dean got to their feet. "Cas, what have you done?" Dean asked, looking at the body.

"What had to be done. You know this world, this sad, doomed little world, it needs you. It needs every last Winchester it can get, and I will not let you die. I won't let any of you die. And I won't let you sacrifice yourselves. You mean too much to me, to everything." You were certain you'd never seen an angel cry, but Castiel was right there on the edge of it. "Yeah, you made a deal. You made a stupid deal and I broke it. You're welcome."

There was a long moment of silence before you pushed away from the car and launched yourself at Dean. The slap you administered to his dirty cheek made your right hand hurt. "You absolute-" You let your left hand swing. "-idiot! We could have found you! You didn't have to do this!" You went for another slap with your right hand, but Dean caught it.

"Ow." Dean said, pointedly, moving his jaw. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?! You were gonna kill yourself!"

"We hadn't decided which of us-" Sam started.

"Dean had! Dean knew exactly which one of you was gonna bite that bullet." Dean looked down, a confirmation of your theory. "You were going to have us watch you die!"

"Because I had to! And it's not like it'd be a first, y/n. Everyone here, except you, has died. Most of us in triplicate." He dropped your wrist and stepped back. "And when I made that decision, I didn't know you and Mom were gonna be here. I thought it was just gonna be Cas."

"And that's better? That you thought only your best friend was gonna have to see it, that's better?!" You were screeching.

"Yes! I thought Cas would take it better than either of the women in my life! Obviously I was wrong." Dean argued.

"Don't say it like that, like he made some hysterical decision based in emotion. He made the rational decision. He was cool as a cucumber when he decided to save your mom from having to clean up your fucking mess! She was also super calm in her decision. The only one acting like a woman here is me and that's because I'm so pissed off I can't-" You cut yourself off and turned to Mary. "Just drop me in Loveland. I'll find my own way back to my car."

"Oh, come on, y/n! You shouldn't-" Dean started, stepping forward.

"Look, I need a fair amount of time and several bottles of wine to process what just happened, so you're gonna get in the back seat with brother and the angel and you're gonna keep your mouth shut." You demanded.

Dean sneered as he got in the back seat, allowing the smaller-framed Castiel take the middle as you got into the front seat. You'd been driving in silence a few minutes when Mary looked at you. "You know, I could get you back to Missouri, y/n. It wouldn't be-"

"Loveland's fine." You said, biting your thumbnail.

Dean made a huffy, displeased sound, but you ignored it. You recognized that sacrifice wasn't a question for the Winchesters. If it saved the other, or saved the world, the brothers would die for it. Seems they got that from Mary.

You knew sacrifice was a Winchester staple, but you hadn't expected to have to deal with it, yet. To have to confront the reality that Dean was always going to throw himself on a sword at a moment's notice to save Sam or the world... you weren't sure you were okay with that.

[terramythos]

My liveblog/commentary on October Daye #11 "The Brightest Fell" or "Friendship ended with Sylvester Torquill. Now SIMON Torquill is my best friend"

God if you told me that's a sentence I'd write when I read book 1 I'd call you fucking insane. We had this whole Cain and Abel thing going and Seanan McGuire had to go be a GOOD WRITER and make them COMPLEX CHARACTERS and shit.

Also featuring a "Resurrect Your Gays" novella at the end so.. that's nice

-Wow, this opens with a story so far section and everything 👀

-who would be like "gee the October daye series sounds interesting. Let's start with book 11"

-omfg The Luidaeg singing Poor Unfortunate Souls. Fucking hell yes.

*stares at my vampire crack theory* *stares at that line* *stares at the camera*

-(To be fair, it does parallel when Simon showed up in book 8, which is probably the actual intent, but uhhh)

-then AGAIN, half the foreshadowing lines in this series had double meanings in context

-Amandine calling Simon "your father" oh oof.

-oh my god Amandine is AWFUL. Jesus christ. Insults everyone in the room then kidnaps 2 people and just strolls out. This puts Tybalt, one of the more OP allies, out of commission for like the whole book lol

-Definitely Impossible Quest: find this character that disappeared over 100 years ago who Simon spent the last century committing misc atrocities to find

-This does lead me to wonder what motivated Amandine to show up suddenly and force October to find August. Is she just unstable/crazy as has been implied, or is it something more?

GOD shes awful!

-So oh boy we are actually waking up Simon! I'm glad we are getting more development for him cause holy crap he's an interesting gray morality character.

-Sylvester using the same binding spell Evening used on October in book 1, but this time to keep Simon from hurting October, sure draws some.. uh.. interesting parallels.

👀

-Amandine shows up again and is just fucking AWFUL. I'm trying to figure out if she has any real sympathetic traits. This is the first book she really shows up as a character out of flashbacks and the trippy shit in book 4.

- "Oh yeah Toby the reason I abused you and twisted your blood human as a kid was I wanted to mourn the daughter who disappeared and then let you die asap" like. Yikes

-Simon, established as an Arch Villain just being an awkward dad (at least toward October) is interesting. I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

-oh hey saving the pixies in book 5 actually set up a Thing in this one. Huh.

-Surprise that random pixie you saved in book 5 is relevant and a full fledged character now.

-The Luidaeg is a sympathetic character and a consistent ally in the series but BOY does she have her moments. Egads. (Quentin, who adores her, was NOT amused. We'll see how that shakes out...)

The Luidaeg just.. resurrecting an extinct race here. No big deal. I'm sure this has zero future implications.

-oh fuck the Babylon Road is back. Oh shit book 3 vibes. Oh shit

-lmao they literally end up in Blind Michael's lands. Just fuck me up

-ok theres a line that basically implies Blind Michael wasn't even that bad of a guy at one point, that he did The Ride with the best of intentions and for the life of me I am trying to figure out what they mean by that

-also intentional parallel between Blind Michael and Simon with the whole "best of intentions" thing.. Simon started as like, the arch villain. And now look where we are. So what is that implying about Blind Michael? 🤔

-I mean Blind Michael is the closest this series has come to a Dark Lord character. He was fucking awful. I'm interested to see if we are going to explore from a different angle?

-Goddamn world tour here showing up in Annwn.

-Oh duchess Riordan.. she's so pleasant. I'm glad we get to see what the fuck she's been up to since being trapped there

-Oh fuck they found Officer Thornton. He is not Well. I remember speculating what we were going to do with that plot thread lol

Are you FUCKING kidding me

-That was book SEVEN. I fucking REMEMBER that part. August was a fucking throwaway background character??? Chekhov's missing sibling?

-And it was intentional because of the door thing! She was described in a weird amount of detail for a background character! What the fuck!

-AAAND we found August. And the first thing she did was attack and basically turn October almost human. Whoops.

-And she doesn't recognize Simon. Her father. Because the Luidaeg's price was her way "home". Which includes Simon. Yikes

-omg Simon's magic finally smells like it does in flashbacks before he got corrupted. Smoke and mulled cider. Maybe I'm kinda sappy but I like that that paralleled the whole redemption arc thing

;____; FUCK dude

-October accidentally makes herself almost entirely human to save Simon. Whoopsie daisy!

FUCK DUDE ;______; full redemption arc shit there I'm gonna cry

-OK so I'm inserting this after finishing the book. And I realize this sounds like a MAJOR "not as much of an asshole as you could have been" award. But Simon had NO reason to treat Toby well. And he certainly did not in the brief glance of him in the book 1 prologue. That's changed by his second appearance (book 8). She's a changeling (always seen as inferior in Fae society) and she's the bastard child of his wife. He has every reason to treat her like shit. Yet he doesn't. He seems to want to be a father figure for her, even though she isn't really his blood related daughter, and this book reinforces that attitude. He even gives up things he wants--on multiple occasions--in order to save October, simply because he wants to. Compare him to his wife, October's actual biological mother, someone who literally created her as an expendable coping mechanism and resents the fact she's still alive? Despite everything he is WAY more of a parent to her. Found family sure is a thing in this series, huh.

-i like how instead of going all emo that she turned basically human October's just like "oh yeah I was raised in a street gang" and beats the absolute SHIT out of August

-Simon: uh excuse me did you just hit my daughter in the back of the head with a CLUB

October: she'll be fine

Well SHIT. The other shoe dropped, but not how I expected it.

-Like Simon genuinely redeemed himself, saving both August AND October despite everything. And he just sacrificed all of it. That was the final price of redemption for him. Yikes. YIKES. Like I knew it wouldn't be that easy, but this SUCKS.

-And this basically states that he wont be back to normal until fucking Oberon returns. I know the series has been leading up to that but... when the fuck. That seems like it would be the endgame.

-this is somehow worse than killing him off. How the fuck.

-August might have some redeeming traits. Shes an asshole but she is genuinely distressed when she realizes what Amandine did to October. Amandine? I'm pretty sure theres nothing to redeem her at this point. Shes fucking terrible.

-Jazz and Tybalt come back.. completely traumatized. Yeah. Ok. This entire last third is just complete despair I guess.

And award for "bleakest ending in the series" goes to...

-i think "The Brightest Fell" is the most fitting title in the series. It works on so many levels and for multiple characters. Especially in the context of the Shakespeare quote.

-i have.. thoughts. I think I'm going to do a compilation of said thoughts when I finish the next book and am officially caught up.

For now, there is also a novella @ the end so I will read that!

-"Of Things Unknown" (the novella) can basically be summarized by:

It's cool to get April's perspective! And some good old fashioned "resurrect your gays" on top of it.

-The Luidaeg: hey toby you know how you brought me back to life? You probably should not have been able to do that. You probably should not make a habit of raising the dead.

Toby: *resurrects like 5 characters who got killed off in book 2*

The Luidaeg: *breaking down the door* What the FUCK did I just say

-I am sure that January (a fucking month name) being resurrected has absolutely no future implications whatsoever :')

-Oh god theres one book left then I'm caught up. At least the novella softened the gut punch that was this book a little bit.

[buckyscrystalqueen]

Half Blood, Whole Heart: Part 23

Pairings: Jax x Reader, sister Winchester!reader- SOA/SPN Crossover

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst.

Word Count: 2,087

A/N: So I decided to repost my novel- the story that someone stole from my old blog and put up on Wattpad. PLEASE don’t be an asshole and steal my stories. It CRUSHED me when it happened and almost ran me off Tumblr.

Half Blood, Whole Heart Masterlist    Aesthetic by @ravenangel33​

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

“Who’s swinging first, Jax or Dean.” You looked up from the blood drenched rounds you and Sam were loading into magazines with gloved fingers and looked at your brother. Dean was going through his own training session with Jax and Opie while you all waited for Jody to come back from recon. You shook your head and looked back down.

“Neither. Jax knows how mad I would be if he hit Dean unprovoked and so does Dean. Ope might. While Dean and him were friends when he lived with me, Ope sees Jax as a brother. Best friends since childhood. I’ve seen that man break another man’s jaw with one punch for talking shit to Jax at the club.” Sam’s eyebrows flew to his hair line and he chuckled as he leaned closer to you.

“Shit… maybe he should swing first. Knock Dean off his high horse for a bit.”

“Bro, I would pay money to see that.” You joked as you loaded the last round. 

“Dean! Be nice to your brother-in-law and his friend.” Jody snapped in her ‘mom-voice’ as she walked back up the path. Dean went to interject and she held her hand up. “They both look like they can handle themselves. Don’t need you up their asses.” You and Sam both snorted laughter as you took the full magazine from Sam and pulled your rifle toward you.

“Shut up.” Dean snapped at you and your brother.

“Do I need to mom-voice you, too, De?” You teased as you shut the tailgate of your truck and threw your gloves into the back.

“Don’t push it.” Knowing he hated to be ganged up on, you smiled at your oldest brother and bowed your head toward him in surrender.

“Alright. Three entrances; front and right side and an open loft. It’s pretty high up.” Jody informed everyone as they picked up their weapons.

“High, as in two, six foot four guys can’t push you and (Y/N) up there?” Dean asked.

“It may be a slight stretch.” The oldest Winchester nodded slowly before looking around.

“Alright. Jax and I on the side, Sam and Ope take front. Get the girls in the loft first then throw a rock or something toward the side. 5 count and go in.” All of you nodded in agreement as something began to irk you. Your brow furrowed and you shook your head.

“Something is off…” You said as the group started heading toward the barn.

“You know, it really weirds me out when you do that so don’t.” Dean said; far past brother mode at this point. Jax waited to walk with you and you shook your head.

“Just, stay close to Dean. I can’t…” With a small nodded, he shushed you and wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

“I know. It’s gunna be alright. I’ll be careful.” You nodded as you cocked the rifle in your hands and tried to ignore the annoying twist in the pit of your stomach. As the barn came into view, you forced yourself into hunter mode. Dean and Jax headed toward the right side of the barn quickly as Sam and Opie ran in front of the doors and made a cradle with their hands.

“Go first and find a spot. I’ll pass this up.” Jody whispered as she took your rifle. You nodded and stepped into their hands. At the end of a whispered three count, you were hoisted into the air. You grabbed the edge of the loft easily, heaved yourself up and took a look around. The decrepit building was dimly lit by the sun slanting through broken spots in the wood paneling. The platform you were standing on was short and while you could see a lot of the barn below you, you couldn’t see a single vamp.

“Looks empty.” You whispered as you crouched down and reached out of the open door to grab your gun. Your senses were on high alert as you laid it down next to you when suddenly, someone ‘tisking’ you from the shadows behind you sent ice water through your veins.

“Don’t remember ordering take out but I’ll never turn down a free meal.” You grabbed your rifle and spun toward the sound as the loft doors slammed closed behind you; trapping you in darkness. Your heart stopped as your eyes fought to adjust.

“Now! Go now!” You screamed as the woman’s footsteps ran toward you at an inhuman speed. You thanked God for your fast reflexes as you fired off a round into the unknown before you. You heard a female scream as the body hit the ground. The doors flew open below you with a bang, but as the barn was filled with light, you instantly wished for the darkness again. With giant, fang filled smiles, at least 6 vampires came out of the shadows and advanced toward you. Without thinking, you stood up and ran forward.

“Someone catch me!” You shouted as you leapt out of the loft with your rifle clutched to your chest. Jax had only seconds to get under you and you both collapsed to the ground from the impact.

“I am not OK with that.” He gasped as vampires appeared to pour out of the wood work; dancing along the shadows on the edge of the barn and leaping down from the loft.

“Yea, no fucking kidding.” The barn turned into gory chaos as the five members of the hunting party stood in a circle of sunlight around you, attacking vamp after vamp as they lunged toward the group. The sound of blood curdling screams and shouted directions were muted by explosive gun fire. You fired round after round at every vamp you could to slow the monsters down; the power of your rifle and the close proximity doing a lot more good than originally expected. 

The bloody fight felt like it lasted forever as more and more vamps fought to kill their next big meal. Your pulse pounded in your ears as you fought to stay alive and to keep your family safe. When the last stumbling vamp hit the ground; his body a good six inches away from it’s now rolling head, you cycled the last empty shell casing of your last round.

“Jax, get her out of here. We’ll clear it.” Dean said as he pat Opie’s arm and pointed toward the stairs. Your husband didn’t wait to be told twice as he grabbed your arm and spun you toward the door. He took your rifle for you as he guided you up the path next to him in an adrenaline fueled fog. It took almost a full minute before the severity of how close of a call that was fully hit you.

“Jax…” You whispered as your stomach turned; the reality that you were seconds away from losing your life and your sons twisting in you like a knife. You ripped your arm out of his grip and he turned around as you threw up. You barely heard the clatter of the weapons he was carrying fall to the ground over the sound.

“It’s alright, babe. It’s over.” He soothed as he pulled your hair out of the way. You shook your head as tears began to pour.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” You sobbed between heaves; the guilt of agreeing to this hunt in the first place eating away at you. He didn’t say a word as he stood by your side; checking for any injuries or bites and gently rubbing your back until your stomach finally settled. Once you were done, he handed you the bloody weapons and picked you up bridal style to carry you back to the truck.

“I’m not sorry so you shouldn’t be either. They would be dead if we hadn’t shown up. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like how it went down and so help me, I will tie your ass to a chair if you ever think you are hunting while your pregnant again. But end of the day, we did our job and we are both OK.” You nodded wordlessly as he put you down next to the truck. You tossed your gun and the machete into the bed of the truck, not paying any mind to the blood that drenched them and your body. You heard the flick of Jax’s zippo and you looked over at him. You took in his blood soaked clothes and the small bits of flesh and blood in his hair and short beard and a small bubble of laughter broke your upset mood.

“You look like a horror movie victim.” He smiled around his cigarette and pointed at you.

“You don’t look much better, babe.” With a small shrug, you reached out and quickly snatched his cigarette; dancing out of reach as you took a drag.

“I almost died.” You said as you handed him back the cigarette. “I call that grounds for a drag, pregnant or not.” You walked back and dropped the tailgate of the truck.

“I will say this… that was one epic jump.” You giggled as he sat down next to you.

“Sorry, if I hurt you.” He shook his head and exhaled as he handed you the cigarette.

“You didn’t. Knocked the wind out of me though.” You passed him back the cigarette and smiled as you looked over at him.

“Do you realize we both literally fell for each other?” He smiled and leaned over to give you a chaste kiss.

“Had to make it cheesy.” You laughed and laid your head on his shoulder as he took your hand in his.

“I thought it was a cute sentiment, thank you.” You could hear Jody’s voice coming up the path and you picked your head up to look over at them.

“Final count was twenty-two vamps.” Sam called out as they headed toward you looking just as battle worn as you and Jax. “Winchester family record.”

“You guys OK?” Ope asked as he pulled out his smokes and lit one.

“Yea, we’re good. Little shell shocked.” You responded as Jax got off the tailgate. You could see the anger in his eyes and you quickly stuck your leg out to keep him back and prevent a fight.

“Look, I’m glad everyone’s all good and shit worked out, but I need this to be said officially. Do not call (Y/N) for a hunt while she’s pregnant again. That was way to fucking close and when she says shit feels off, listen to her. She does that shit all the time and she’s always right.” 

“No, totally agreed.” Sam said quickly as he purposely took a step forward in front of Dean who you both knew was quick to pop off when he was confronted. “I made a poor judgement call and it won’t happen again.” You reached out and grasped Jax’s shirt sleeve to pull off your guard dog.

“Hey, let’s just go back to Bobby’s, get cleaned up, have a few beers and call it a night. Call to check up on Lyla and Tommy and have Crowley come check the baby?” You suggested to the group as you used your legs to turn Jax away from your brothers.

“I already called Cas for that. He’s gunna meet us at Bobby’s.” Dean said as he walked over to the Impala and popped open the trunk. You rolled your eyes at your brother’s disliking for the demon but didn’t say anything.

“Well thank you all for your help. You guys have a good night; I have a hot bath, Netflix and a bottle of red calling my name. Keep in touch, boys.” You all said by to Jody as you jumped off the tailgate and snapped it closed.

“Be nice.” You scolded softly as Jax lead you to the cab. He laughed as he opened the door.

“That was nice.” You climb in next to Opie who chuckled as he tossed his cigarette butt out the window.

“That’s Jax nice.” He said as your husband got in behind you. Your friend looked you over with concern. “Are you OK though, really? That was a pretty far jump.”

“Brotha… she literally fell for me.” Jax said as he started the truck as the Impala roared to life next to you.

“Really? You call me cheesy and then steal my line?” He shrugged as he got on the main road behind the Impala.

“It’s a cute sentiment.”

Part 24

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

The Vampire, The Zombie and The Werewolf

Request: There's a Halloween episode of Buffy where there's a costume shop but the guy who owns it puts a spell or something on it so whatever costume you have on Halloween you become it. Could you have Sam and Dean and Cas get costumes from there but reader gets one from somewhere else or home made so she has to make sure nothing bad happens b/c all of the sudden there are monsters and the boys aren't hunters?

Pairing: none (Team Free Will centric)

Word Count: 2,000ish

Warnings: language

A/N: Non-supernatural supernatural stuff? Got it...

“Alright guys! You got two minutes before I drag you down here!” you shouted from the foyer of your shared house, tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“Coming, ya little...well look at you, slugger,” said Dean. You glanced down at your old softball uniform, leaving the shirt untucked from the pants, your hair in a side braid under a backwards cap, your mitt in one hand. 

“Where’s your costume?” you said with a frown, Dean holding up a werewolf mask. “That is not a costume and you know it.”

“Boo!” Sam shouted, Dean jumping behind him as he saw Sam sporting some fake blood and some tattered clothes, trying to be a zombie from the looks of it.

“Scare her! She’s the one making us go to this party anyways,” said Dean with a grumble.

“Come on. You guys are doing me a solid. Janice keeps saying she wants to meet my roommates. Plus there’ll be free booze,” you said, twirling your hips.

“And girls in sexy costumes, right?” asked Dean, Sam rolling his eyes. 

“Sure,” you said, hearing Cas come down the stairs, wearing a bed sheet. “Very original buddy.”

“I thought so,” he said, tearing the sheet off and revealing his count dracula cape underneath. 

“So Dean’s the only one that didn’t dress up,” you said, cocking your head. He sighed and ran upstairs to his room and back down, sporting a pair of fake paws with claws, his mask on.

“Rawr,” he said, swiping at the air, making you laugh. “Lead the way slugger. It’s only a four block walk, right?”

“Yup,” you said, Cas locking up as you headed down the path and to the street, the guys muttering that you never got any kids to trick or treat on your block. You glanced around at the quiet street, the moon poking out behind a cloud. “At least it’s a nice night, not freezing like last year.”

No one responded and you kept walking, humming along until you got to the corner of the street and turned your head, the boys nowhere in sight.

“Guys?” you asked, looking all around. “Come on guys, don’t scare me, it’s not funny.”

You didn’t see them anywhere, clenching your hands into fists.

“Guys! I’m serious! It’s dark and don’t pull this shit on me!” you shouted, hoping if they thought you were actually scared they’d call off their plan to jump out at you. When no one came out of hiding a few seconds later you actually felt a jolt of panic. “Guys?”

“Hi,” you heard behind you, Cas nearly giving you a heartache as you spun around to see him smiling at you.

“At least one of you is going to be an adult. Where are the wonder twins?” you asked, Cas stepping forward, licking his lips. “Uh, Cas?”

“You smell very...good,” said Cas, leaning forward as you stepped back, holding your mitt up and catching his face.

“Dude! You’re seeing someone! Did you pregame or something? You’re being weird,” you said, walking away from him. “Don’t do that again, got it?”

When you got no response and spun around, he was gone, probably off to sulk at home.

“Drunk little shit,” you muttered, hearing a raspy groaning further up the next block, spotting a tall looking zombie. “Oh great, he’s drunk too.”

You stormed up to Sam, doing a damn good job of sounding like an undead creature, trying to grab at you but too slow for his own good. 

“Where is your brother, moose?” you asked, Sam groaning again. “Sit on the sidewalk and do not move, understand me?” 

Sam groaned as he followed you over before you took off farther down the street. Spinning back around two seconds later, Sam was gone, wandering through one of your neighbors yards most likely.

“What the fuck guys? I’m your babysitter now?” you grumbled, Dean jumping out in front of you, making you jerk back. “Get your ass home now!”

Dean didn’t say anything but snarled and swiped his paw at your mitt, the sound of the leather tearing. You glanced down at it, showing the deep cuts before back at Dean, finding the mask to be...off. It was formed a little too well to his head and the mouth was moving...

“Maybe there’s a gas leak,” you said, shaking your head, trying to grab Dean by the arm, getting a shove to the ground instead, Dean standing over you. “I am going to kick your ass if you don’t sober up in the next two seconds Dean.”

He growled and bent down, baring his teeth, your eyes widening when you saw that it wasn’t just a mask you were looking at. It was...real. Somehow it was...

“Dean? Good boy?” you asked, hoping you weren’t nuts. He growled and you reached up to pet his furry head, scratching behind his ears, Dean whimpering and nuzzling into it. “Someone drugged me. That’s what’s going on. There is no way in hell my best friend is currently a werewolf that is...fucking hell Dean!”

He’d rolled onto his back, looking for a tummy rub for the looks of it. You shook your head and you heard him snarl, your hand running over his stomach as you winced. 

“Good boy,” you said, Dean suddenly jumping up and sniffing sharply at your face. You pet his head again and that seemed to calm him down. “Okay, let’s get you home so I can figure out what to do with...shit.”

If Dean was somehow an actual real life monster, what about the other two? It’d explain why they were acting so strange. But a vampire and zombie weren’t exactly things you wanted running about on a night where kids were out and about.

“Dean, you’re such a good boy,” you said, hearing him bark as you rubbed up and down his back. “Can you...I can’t believe I’m asking this...but can you sniff out Sam and Cas? We need to bring them home with us.”

Dean tilted his snout up and sniffed, taking off down the street as you jogged to keep up. You saw Sam wandering around a front yard a few houses down, Dean running back to you, looking for more praise apparently.

“Good boy, Dean. I’ll give you a treat later,” you said, Dean barking and attracting Sam. He wandered over, snapping his jaw open and shut a few times that caused you to shiver. Dean wrapped his arms around his brother, Sam confused but not really minding as he just let Dean push him further along the street and back home.

Dean bumped into you and you pet him again, Dean walking the three of you down to your house where you front door was open. Dean went first with Sam as you shut the door and heard your kicthen being torn apart.

“What the...” you said, walking down the hall to find Cas with the fresh meat you’d picked up at the store earlier on the floor, the blood from the package over his hands as he sucked on a finger. “Ew. You’re getting salmonella poisoning for sure Cas.”

“No I won’t,” he said, Dean letting go of Sam as the both grabbed at the meat on the ground and started to tear into it.

“Guys, you’re going to get sick,” you said, Cas giving you a smile again. “You are not a blood sucking vampire.”

“Not yet,” said Cas, stepping forward as you held up your hands, your mitt being the only thing that seemed to stop them all from ripping you to shreds tonight.

“Alright boys,” you said, looking around, trying to figure out your next step. Dean was the least of your worries, especially with the way he would wrangle in Sam if told. Cas was the most level-headed at the moment but that wasn’t saying much. “Um, if you guys stay here in the kitchen, I’ll bring you back treats in just a little while, okay?”

“Or we could just have the treat in front of us,” said Cas. “I’m sure the thriller reject wouldn’t mind either.”

Dean growled at Cas and stood in front of you as you slapped a palm over your face. You weren’t sure to be scared or laugh at this point.

“Be a good puppy and you can have the heart,” said Cas, Dean loosening his fighting stance. 

“Dean...” you said, petting his head. “You got to help me out. Calm Cas and Sam down while I fix you guys.”

Dean growled at Cas and jumped on top of him as you pulled the kitchen door shut, shoving a chair behind it, not like that’d stop them. You went upstairs to their rooms, trying to find anything to help you, only the bags their costumes came in catching your eye.

“This is...oh we’re already nuts, might as well roll with it at this point,” you said, grabbing one of the bags and dialing the number for the store. It was late but the voice on the other end didn’t seem surprised.

“Kil’s Costume Shop, how may I turn you into a monster this evening?” the man said, a smirk in his voice.

“Listen up. My friends are literal monsters and you’ve got something to do with it,” you said, expecting an awkward pause or a big laugh.

“That’s kind of the point of the costumes. They make you a literal monster, hun,” said the guy, your jaw clenching.

“Well they kind of want to eat me so I’ve got a problem with that,” you said, the guy sighing.

“Oh, they’re harmless for the most part,” he said, like he was talking about a posion fucking ivy rash.

“One tried to suck my blood!” you yelled, hearing a commotion downstairs. “Listen pal-”

“I said mostly harmless. It only lasts until midnight. Keep an eye on them if you’re so worried then,” he said.

“Oh, well thanks for the update! I’m just swell now!” you yelled, the guy grumbling. 

“It’s basic witchcraft. Any idiot with google can figure out how to undo it. Good luck,” he said, ending the call. 

“Any idiot with google can figure it out,” you mumbled, grabbing your laptop, not sure what the hell to even look up as you heard your kitchen start getting torn apart. 

Fifteen minutes later you were holding a spray bottle normally meant for ironing, now full of the concoction you whipped up using stuff from your bathroom. You pulled the chair away and flung open the kitchen door, Dean sitting on top of Cas, Sam munching on a pack of beef jerky.

You sprayed the mist in the air a few times, hitting all three. Nothing happened for a few moments and you groaned, turning around to go find another solution. A hand caught your arm as you rounded the stairs to research again and you kicked freely, hitting the poor guy so hard he dropped to his knees.

“Ow,” said Dean hoarsely, bending over as Sam and Cas followed over with confused looks on their faces.

“What the...” said Cas. “What even...”

“Take off those costumes and throw them in a garbage bag. Now,” you said, Cas dropping his cape fast, Sam back a minute later in normal clothes and adding it to the pile. You grabbed Dean’s stuff up and tossed it in, putting the bag in the back yard in the trashcan and setting it on fire, putting it out with the hose a few minutes later.

“Did I eat raw chicken?” asked Sam, cocking his head. “The morning is not going to be fun.”

“Just sit on the couch and put on a halloween movie. We’re staying in tonight,” you said, changing out of your costume upstairs, coming back a few minutes later to find them all in their normal spots.

“Y/N?” asked Dean, now in a pair of pajamas. “Did you...pet me?”

“New rule. You three will never go near that costume store again and we will never discuss what happened tonight ever. Agreed?” you said, all three nodding their heads. 

“Agreed.”

@charliebradbury1104 @everyday-supernatural-af @squirels-angels-and-moose @youwerelikeadream @drugpug @darkx143 @kristaparadowski @tom-is-in-my-tardis @tanithlowisabamf @smoothdogsgirl @dancingalone21 @ktrivia @demonic-meatball @feelmyroarrrr @cojootromuelle @gallifreyansass @casgetoutofmydiddlydarnass @mogaruke @ria132love @heycassbutt-67 @aingealcethlenn @docharleythegeekqueen @missmotherhen @smacklesandstretch67 @tumblinwith-me @samisimportant

@awkwardcupcake95 @heaven-is-aplaceonearthwithyou @hey-um-misha @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @lovelife-tothefullest @under-general-asthetics @tardis-full-of-fallen-angels @missdestiel67 @evyiione @jensenackesl @xxxdevine-demonsxxx @ayeeitsemry @mac5323 @atc74 @nanie5 @captainemwinchester @idalinette @quiddy-writes @pureawesomeness001 @poukothenerd @mickey-m399 @mrswhozeewhatsis @upon-a-girl @flufy07 @alilianamendez @batmanprincesskitten @uniquewerewolfsuit @whit85-blog

@zeusmyster @maddieburcham1 @moonstar86 @arryn-nyxx @spn-ficfanatic @kickasscas67 @mrsbatesmotel53 @sup3r-pott3r-lock3d @untitled39887 @emilymorgan1994  @its-not-a-tulpa @pillow223 @jaelami @roxyspearing @extreme-supernatural-lover

[pagesoflauren]

A Thousand Years (vampire!Jack x reader AU) - Part 7

Part 6 Part 6.5 Masterlist

“Here’s your lunch,” Jack says, handing her a small tote bag with a tupperware, an apple and a juice box. “Have you packed your water bottle as well?” “Yes, mum,” Y/N chides, taking the bag from him and tying it to one of the straps on her backpack so that her hands could be free. Jack puts his hands on his hips, giving her an unamused glare. She giggles, getting on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “You’ll be back at 4:30?” he says, holding her waist and leaning down to kiss her cheek as well. “Yeah, around that time,” she says. “Okay. What time will George be around?”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang.

“Now, I guess,” she laughs, walking over to the door as she slings her backpack over her shoulder. She unlocks it and opens the door to find her friend eating a bagel, cream cheese smeared on his face. “Don’t you look handsome…” she mutters sarcastically. “T’ank you,” he says with his full mouth. Jack comes to the door, avoiding the rectangle of sunlight that comes through the opening. “Oh,” George says, stepping in and allowing Y/N to close the door. “Hey, mate,” he says, reaching his hand out to shake Jack’s. “Morning,” Jack greets, giving him a firm handshake. “Y/N, do you mind if I finish this really quick?” “No, take your time.”

They chatted casually while George finished his breakfast. Jack learned that Y/N and George met during their first year of uni when they were in the same dorm. George moved out of the dormitories after the first year because it was too expensive and has been living in a co-op with some other lads that were still in uni and went to the same school or a different school and others that were working full time. “How many people live in your house?” “It’s a three bedroom house with five guys in it.” Jack wrinkles his nose at the idea. He had trouble living with Socks for a couple years and is still adjusting to living with Y/N; he can’t imagine what it’s like to live with four other people. “It’s not as bad as you think. Though we do have to call some of our girl friends to help with washing or something because we’re so clueless.My first week there I had to call Y/N to talk me through doing a load of laundry.” “Ah, yeah. She had to teach me how to use a Mac the other day.” “Oh, nice!” George says, taking another bite of his bagel and chewing it very casually, “How’s that going?” “Oh, I have no idea how to do anything still. I might just stick with the TV and cooking for now, have her deal with all that.” “Doesn’t sound like a bad combination. How’s cooking, you like it?” “I do, until I have to use garlic or onions.” “Mmm,” George hums, understanding as he stuffs the last bit of his bagel into his mouth. He chews quickly and Jack turns to find Y/N on the couch on her phone. “Y/N, love,” Jack calls, grabbing her attention, “Time for you to go.” “Okay,” she says, getting up and putting her backpack back on and stuffing her phone into her pocket. She hurries over to him, hopping on her toes to give him another kiss. “Have a good day, my love,” he whispers. He turns to George, “Have a good day, mate.” “You too,” he smiles, shaking his hand.

Jack steps back when Y/N opens the door to prevent himself from getting exposed to the sunlight that comes through the door and waves to her when she calls out one last goodbye.

“I’m gonna make a phone call,” Y/N says once George starts the car. She dials the number and brings her phone to her ear, listening as the ringing tone chimes in her ear. “Is this about finding Jack’s friend?” “Yeah, I found their old address in Liechtenstein, so I’m hoping I can find their old landlord and they can give me some information.”

George nods as he lowers the volume on the radio.

“Hallo?” a woman says on the other line after a minute of ringing “Um, hallo…spre-sprechen sie Englisch?” Y/N asks, speaking what little German she retained from her childhood trip to Berlin. “Yes,” the woman replies, “How can I help you?”

She sounds like she’s been speaking English for a long time, and Y/N is relieved a bit. “Hi, my name’s Y/N. What’s yours?” “Lotta. Nice to meet you, Y/N.” “It’s nice to meet you too. Um, Lotta, I was wondering if you could possibly give me information about a former tenant of yours?” “How long ago were they a resident here?” “They left in 1995 and possibly moved in around 1993.” She hears drawers opening and closing and papers being spread across the desk. “What is their name?” “Thomas Morrison. T-H-O-M-A-S-M-O-R-R-I-S-O-N. And, um, Poppy Hollingberry. P-O-P-P-Y-H-O-L-L-I-N-G-B-E-R-R-Y.” “Okay…please give me one moment.”

Y/N waits anxiously as the woman is silent on the other end of the line. She hums and mumbles to herself and Y/N’s heart drops a little when she hears a quiet “No” on the other end. “Ms. Y/N?” Lotta speaks after a few minutes. They’re almost to campus now. “Yes, I’m here.” “Hi. We do have record of a Thomas Morrison. I assume his phone number changed when he moved since it says here it moved to another country, but there is a job description here; a barista.” “Do you know what coffeeshop it was?” Y/N asks, the hope is her voice extremely noticeable. “No, unfortunately there is no indication of which coffeeshop it was. There are a few within a one-mile radius of this building, so I think it’s likely to be one of those.” “Okay. Okay, thank you so much, Lotta. This was a huge help,” Y/N says appreciatively. “Of course. I hope you can get in touch with him. Have a good day and good luck!” “Thank you, you too!” Y/N hangs up as George pulls into the parking lot on campus. “Sorry we couldn’t listen to music.” “No, it’s alright. You found something, though?” “I did! Kind of. I have to do more research, but I think the ball is rolling.” “Good, I’m glad something came out of it.” “Thanks. I really wanna do this for him. And I really hope I can do it before his birthday.” “I’m sure you will. When’s his birthday?” “June.” “Did you do anything this year?” “No! Because I didn’t know, he never told me and I never asked, which actually confuses me because I feel like the first thing you ask when you meet someone is what their birthday is. But I just never did and we never celebrated because ‘he’s had 167 of them, he doesn’t need another.’” “Nah, fuck that! You gotta do something special on birthdays!” he says as he pulls into a parking spot. “Have you got bills for the pay station?” “Yeah,” she replies, unbuckling her seatbelt when George stopped the engine. She hops out of the car and pulls her backpack over her shoulders before fishing her wallet out. They walk to the pay station and she pays half before they begin walking to the science building. “Let’s get this year done!”

“There ya are mate, a big heaping of your favorite food, just the way you like it,” Jack says as he sets Socks’ food bowl down in front of him. He had spent the day cleaning and doing some laundry, killing some time with some more Jeremy Kyle. It wasn’t until 4:00 that Socks began asking for food again, so Jack obliged.

However, Socks doesn’t eagerly dig in, he just stares at the food bowl before looking back at Jack.

“What?” Socks’s tail swipes back and forth across the floor. “Why aren’t you eating?” Socks just stares at him through green eyes. “Mate, it’s your food, the same food you’ve eaten for the past two years since I got you, what’s wrong?”

Socks meows this time, getting up and walking away. Jack is confused when he follows him up the stairs. Socks is, again, sitting in front of Y/N’s office. The door is open this time but Y/N forgot to draw the curtains shut, so sunlight filters through the window there. Jack stays in the dark hallway as Socks gets up and goes in, meowing.

“She’s not in there, mate. She’s at school.”

Socks doesn’t give up, meowing and circling the room. Jack huffs in annoyance, arms crossing over his chest. Why won’t he just eat the damn food? He goes downstairs and sits in front of the TV. He looks over to the stairs when he hears Socks’ footsteps and watches as the feline looks around more before walking back to the food bowl.

He gets up and walks over to him. “Why aren’t you eating?” he asks again. Meow. Jack thinks for a bit, trying to understand Socks’ behavior of not eating and looking around the house. “Is it because Y/N didn’t make your food?” Silence. “Mate, it’s the same food, I make it just like she does. Same amount of dry food and wet food.” Silence. “It’s the same food you’ve been eating for years!” Silence. “Fine! Starve for all I care!” he says exasperated. He huffs as he stands as he and his cat engage in a staring contest. In the back of his mind, Jack is thinking Socks is doing this just to be difficult since Y/N isn’t there to witness his mischief. He looks at the clock on the microwave and sees that it’s 4:15. She could be home any minute.

“Please eat, she’ll be home soon, she might get mad at me for not feeding you.” Exactly, Jack imagines him saying. “You’re a little shit, you know that right?” I know. “Please eat,” he says, sitting on the floor, next to him. No. “Why not!?” Because. “It’s the SAME. DAMN. FOOD.” I don’t care. “SOCKS LOWDEN YOU EAT THIS FOOD RIGHT NOW.” Since when was my last name Lowden? “I’m your owner, you have my last name and you will listen to me!” Make me. “Please, please just eat,” Jack says, lying on the floor. The door unlocks and opens and Y/N walks into the kitchen. “What is happening?” “Socks won’t eat and I’m trying to get him to-“ “What are you talking about, he’s almost done.” “WHAT.” Jack scrambles up to look and lo and behold, his cat is digging into his food bowl, his tail straight up and ears perked. Y/N gives Jack a skeptical look. “Your age is showing, honey,” she says, stroking his cheek, “You’re losing it.” “No, no! We had an argument, he wasn’t listening to me, I put the food in fifteen minutes ago-“ “Shhh, stop grousing, it’s okay. This happens when people age, they see things that aren’t actually there.” Jack harrumphs to himself, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling. Y/N giggles as she turns to put her tupperware in the sink. “Lunch was really good, by the way. Thank you.” He doesn’t reply, eyes concentrated onto the floor and Y/N presses a kiss his cheek. “Stop frowning, baby. I like your dimples too much.” He feels a smile through his features, the muscles in his torso relaxing and his hands reaching to hold her to him “Can’t stay too long,” she says, cuddling into his side as his arms wrap around her, over her backpack and around to the other side to rest on her arm, “I’ve got homework.” “Already?” “This is normal, Jack. I’ve got a few chapters to read and outline.” He huffs into her hair and she pulls away, “I’ll be down in a couple hours for dinner, don’t worry.” “Okay.” He watches her go up the stairs with her backpack and hears her office door shut.

Y/N pauses her music after a couple hours of studying, feeling her stomach rumble. She goes to the bedroom to change, pulling on one of her dad’s old concert shirts and sleeping shorts. She grabs a bobby pin and tucks it into her hair so that it doesn’t fall into her face while she’s eating. She hears “My Girl” by the Temptations playing from a speaker downstairs.

“I guess you say, what can make me feel this way? My girl.” She laughs to herself when she hears an extra voice, the one that belongs to her boyfriend, singing along. She stands in the doorway of the kitchen, taking out her phone and opening Snapchat to take a video as the last refrain of the song plays. “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day with my girl,” Jack sings and dances around with an apron tied around his waist, using the wooden spoon in his hand as a mock microphone as a pot simmers on the stove. “I’ve even got the month of May—AH!” He jumps when he sees her in the doorway and quickly hides the spoon behind his back. She giggles as she sends the video to some of her friends. “Darling,” he says bashfully and Y/N is sure his cheeks would be turning red if he were human, “You’re early, I’m not quite done yet.” “Did you get distracted getting your boogie on?” “No! I was just, you know, sampling the pasta sauce.” “Mhmm,” she hums, “what’re you making?” “There’s this thing called one-pot pastas, have you heard of them?” “Oh yeah, it’s pretty cool.” “Yeah! You’ve got food for the week now and I only have to wash one pot!”

She laughs again at his excitement over this concept of making pasta in one pot that yields a huge serving. He’s still raving about it as he makes her plate and Y/N just stands there. She stands there and smiles, loving that she’s able to see him get excited over something so simple. She wants to keep showing him things, whatever new inventions and innovations have come out since he fell off the grid. She wants him to be this happy and excited all the time. “…and dinner is served!” he turns to hand her the plate and sees that she’s looking at him. “What?” “Nothing,” she says, shaking her head. She walks to him and cups his face, looking into his eyes. They’re mild and soft, blue like the ocean before a storm. “I love you,” she whispers. He laughs a bit to himself, as if he finds it amusing that she’s telling him this now, “Because I cook for you?” “No, because you’re perfect.” “I’m far from it, love.” “No way.” “I am,” he states, setting her plate on the counter and turning away from her, “Before I met you, I…” “What?”

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, forcing his lungs to take in as much air to its full capacity. “Jack, you’re scaring me,” she says quietly. She’s not stupid; she’s completely aware of what he’s capable of. Knowing that he might be telling her of some atrocity he participated in or committed frightens her. How could he hide that under his sweet face so well? Had he fooled her for the past eleven months? “I changed a human. And I’ve killed a lot of them too.” “Jack, you’ve told me, you only kill the other that hurt others-“ “I took a woman’s life and watched her become what I am,” he interrupts, emotions bursting forward. He never planned on telling her, he never planned on speaking of that woman again. “And I watched her become this angry, vengeful person that was so angry at me that she killed every living thing in her sight. Carol Grey, have you heard of her?”

Y/N’s quiet as she recollects the memories from her first year of psychology. Carol Grey was the classic example of someone who killed for sport out of anger. She was a notorious 1970s serial killer, acting quickly to kill almost thirty people within a three-week time period. Y/N begins connecting dots: Carol killed to spite a lover—Jack—and was found and killed by the Vampire Police Department of London. Peace was restored, but she’s mostly the reason why humans don’t interact with vampires much. “How could you keep this from me for so long?” she asks. “What was I supposed to say? ‘I’m the reason Carol Grey became a serial killer’?” “It couldn’t have been all you.” “She blamed me. I tried to stop her and she said ‘You made me this way. You’ve done this to me. I can’t kill you but I can kill others.’ Why do you think I tried ending it after we had dinner together for the first time? I couldn’t have you wanting me to change you then turn around and start killing people.” “It’s not your fault. You bit her, but you didn’t make her kill all those people. That was a choice she made on her own and she used you as a scapegoat. She was probably mad at herself for asking you to do it and that’s how she hashed it out.”

He doesn’t say anything, and Y/N thinks this is the most vulnerable she’s seen him since he was afraid to meet her parents. She holds her hand out. “Jack.” He looks at her open hand, but looks away. “Jack, take my hand. Please.”

He sniffles, appearing to reluctantly take her hand, but she feels his tight grip. He’s holding on with everything he has.  She pulls him toward her and wraps her arms around him so that he can rest his head in the crook of her neck.

“What you did and what she did are completely different. I understand why you think it’s your fault, but you need to know that it was a choice she made. You were doing what you thought was right and that’s what happened. It doesn’t make you a bad guy, it doesn’t make you an accomplice,” she whispers, pushing his shoulders gently so that she can look into his eyes, “and it doesn’t make me love you any less. And it doesn’t make you any less perfect to me.”

Jack knows what it’s like to have a crush on someone. But now, he knows what it feels like to look into a person’s eyes and feel their love for him. The stray movement of her finger tips on the back of his neck and on his shoulder spread a feeling of calm over him. The reassuring look in her eyes helps him understand that she doesn’t hold his past against him and he realizes he shouldn’t hold it against himself. He had been angry and upset for so long, almost shutting Y/N out only to let her in when she told him she didn’t want to be like him. He knows what it’s like to forgive himself after forty years of being single.

When he saw Thomas and Poppy together, he told himself that it was very possible he’d be their third wheel for all eternity, their single friend that just never settles down, because he couldn’t let what happened with Carol repeat. Y/N almost forced her way into his life, returning his jacket when she didn’t need to, pulling him into their first kiss, bringing him up to date with the times and showing him that life can be fun. He can’t help but feel so lucky that she came into the pub that night. He’s so lucky that she loves him, which is something he never thought he’d have.

“Sit with me while I eat?” she asks. “Yes,” he says.

They sit at the dining table together, chatting as Y/N eats. Their chairs are close together and Jack’s hand rests on her knee. As he watches her laugh at a joke he made, he realizes that to the dinner table or to the North Pole, he’d follow her anywhere.

.

.

.

lil sneak peek into Jack’s life before Y/N 👀

ALSO HI FROM DISNEYLAND!!! I’m here all day today so peep those picture I’ll be posting!

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans and to all of my followers and readers, I AM SO THANKFUL FOR ALL OF YOU!!! ❤️❤️❤️

tagging: @albionscastle

[noditchablepromdate]

Wales Comic-Con Dec 2017!

//So, as many of you will probably already be aware, I took off for the above-mentioned con on Friday with my partner in crime @respect-the-king. Actors were met. Photographs were taken. Cosplayers cosplayed. There was a minor case of stalking. It was an excellent time.

Extremely long and rambly story below the cut, complete with several photos!

Links to the cosplay photos I took here and here.

It did not start well. Friday was a very cold day.

Our first train was delayed by about 20 minutes, which led to us missing our connection and having to wait a good 45 minutes for the next train. And then we had to wait again at the second connection for a good 20 minutes. And all 3 trains were pretty much standing room only. And then when we got to Wrexham, where the con was being held, we had to wait AGAIN for a good 30 minutes or so for a taxi to get us to our hotel.

Which meant by the time we finally got to the hotel we were very, very tired and cold. XD We pretty much just had enough energy to thaw out, go get food and then fall into bed.

Saturday morning opened with Mark Pellegrino screeching “GOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAAAAAAM!” courtesy of @respect-the-king’s phone alarm. My extremely eloquent response of “What the fuck?” was accepted as perfectly reasonable.

After a short while of stumbling around getting ready, we went to breakfast, where @respect-the-king got a little too into character flirting with Bobby. The conversation when Crowley disappeared and came back with a banana went as follows:

Crowley (peeling the banana): Reminds me of you, Robert, darling. Bobby (after a moment of stunned silence): ...Bit on the inadequate side, ain’t it?

Hysterical OOC gigglefit over, we returned to our hotel room so Bobby could put his beard on, and then set out to the con’s first day. This is what we looked like.

We spotted several amazing cosplays while queuing up to go in, including a handful of Deadpools, Thors and Wonder Women, plus Festive Negan complete with tinsel-wrapped Lucille. The crew had got into the festive spirit too - one guy had decided the only appropriate thing to do was shove his head into a plushie turkey and wear it on his head all day. XD

Once we actually got inside, we went to get our weekend wristbands and immedately got very confused... as the woman handing them out took one look at me and went, "BALLS!" This earned her a bewildered stare because I wasn't sure I'd heard her properly, and she repeated it a couple of times before adding "Bobby, right?" at which point I realised she was actually just saying Bobby's catchphrase at me. XD I confirmed that yes, indeed, she had ID'ed my cosplay, and she sent us off with a huge grin.

We tried to sign up for the cosplay competition, but were told signups wouldn’t be until Sunday morning. Undaunted, we set off to explore the area so we knew where everything was, and to kill time until our photo ops.

First photo op was with Mitch Pileggi (Samuel Campbell, Supernatural). I wasn’t sure what to expect, having never had a photo op before, but it was absolutely lovely. Queueing was efficient and relatively painless, and the man himself was very kind and friendly. He asked if my beard was itchy, and when I said no, his response was “Really? Mine is!”

He also said my cosplay looked great, before we had to scoot out of the way for the next people in the queue. @respect-the-king​ and I tried very hard not to squeak over this for the next half-hour or so, before she took off to have her photo op with Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty, Sherlock).

Once those were done with and the photos collected (which was pretty much instantaneous - the guys in charge of prints were amazing!), we headed into the signing hall to get the pictures autographed. Mitch was lovely and even got up to give me a hug when I approached him ^_^ He signed my photo and my hunter's journal!

I also collected a few autographs in my hunter's journal from other guests I recognised (pics here). Said guests were:

- John Noble (Denethor, Lord of the Rings) who was very friendly, and when I told him it was my first time at a big con, shook my hand and said he was delighted to have been there for my first experience

- Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley, Harry Potter) who was thrilled that I was collecting autographs in an old-fashioned autograph-book way, as he hadn't seen that sort of thing for years

-Jed Brophy (Nori, The Hobbit, + numerous other roles in Peter Jackson films) who was absolutely thrilled with the effort I'd gone to with my beard (I took this as a massive compliment - many of his roles have involved heavy prosthetics, so he knows what it takes to apply false beards etc.)

- Kevin McNally (Joshamee Gibbs, Pirates of the Caribbean) who also complimented me on my beard

- Stanislav Yanevski (Viktor Krum, Harry Potter) who looked pretty worn out by the time I reached him but still had a smile and a handshake at the ready

I also had time to play one of my favourite games at a con - Find the Fudge-Man! This is a stall run by a couple who make home-made fudge and brownies to sell at cons all over the country, and they've been at so many of the cons I've attended that they recognise me on sight no matter what cosplay I'm in XD I bought about a kilo of assorted flavours of fudge from them this time. It's always soft and squidgy and really delicious.

Then it was back off to our final photo ops of the day - Corin Nemec (Christian Campbell, Supernatural) for both of us and Kristine Sunderland (Joyce Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) for @respect-the-king.

Corin was completely over the moon on seeing me! He absolutely had to have a little grope of the beard before the picture was taken, and told me I looked amazing :D He was so sweet and enthusiastic I just melted when he hugged me, before we had to move out of the way for the next people <3

We made some new friends in the queue for Kristine - a pair of ladies right in front of us who spotted me and were delighted to chat. One of them informed us that she had personally asked Jim Beaver if he'd be willing to come to next year's con, and got a reply from him saying he'd be more than happy to! We bonded immediately. XD

Once all our photos were done with, we headed back into the signing hall. Andrew Scott's queue was positively HUGE! So we circled the hall, poked around the stalls, and got a few other autographs. Corin got the biggest grin on his face when we showed up again and we spent a little while chatting to him while he signed my photo and journal... and then he insisted on giving us both a big hug before we left ^____^

@respect-the-king got a couple of autographs from actors I didn't recognise (she's seen a lot more than I have XD). But our best reaction of all came from Travis Aaron Wade (Cole Trenton, Supernatural). He practically bounced out of his seat on seeing the two of us show up at his signing desk, insisted on getting a selfie with us, and asked for a picture of me - and then promptly sent it to Jim Beaver, telling us "Jim's gonna love this!" while we tried not to giggle incoherently. XD

Once he hugged us and finally let us go, we went to get Andrew Scott's autograph and nearly got run over by an amazing Dean Winchester! Sadly we didn't get a pic as we were in the queue at the time, but we chatted for a while and agreed to meet up the next day.

We finally left the con about an hour before everything ended, worn out and delighted, and headed back to the hotel for an evening of eating fudge and watching Moana. I kind of accidentally got @respect-the-king hooked on the fudge I'd bought. XD

Sunday began with the terrifying strains of "HEEEEEEEEEEEEAT OF THE MOMENT" and only improved from there. XD

We went for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant again and just as we sat down to eat... who should walk past but Travis! He stopped short on spotting the pair of us and the first thing out of his mouth was "Hey! It's you guys! ...Where's your beard?!" at which I just kind of cracked up. @respect-the-king spent much of her time trying to process the situation (in fairness, she hadn't had her coffee yet XD) but we managed to talk for a couple of minutes all the same.

He was so lovely - it turned out he was there with a couple of fans who'd won a breakfast with him as a charity prize and he's been donating part of the money to a fund to help rescue dogs. He also informed us that he'd had a reply from Jim - who said he loved my cosplay! Officially endorsed by Jim Beaver, y'all! XD

We managed to get into the con without anyone yelling BALLS at us this time... but promptly got ambushed by an 11th Doctor/TARDIS duo for photos instead. XD We also spent some time chatting with a very festive Kaylee Frye!

We spent a while checking out the areas we hadn't managed to get to on Saturday, took more pictures of awesome cosplays, and then headed up for the only photo op we had on our schedule for the day - Sean Pertwee (Alfred Pennyworth, Gotham).

On the way there, we almost literally ran into Corin Nemec on his way back from his own photo ops... he stopped dead, gave us a huge grin, and the first words out of his mouth were "Did you SLEEP in that beard?!" (I think I may have accidentally discovered one sure-fire way to get the guests’ attention. They all went NUTS over my freaking beard. XD) He gave us both a huge hug before heading back to the signing area and left us both squeeing quietly in the middle of the road. I thought the day couldn't get any better!

Once we got back into the signing hall, we managed to find the demon!Dean we'd promised to meet, and she took us over to find the other two in her group, who had come as Sam and Mary. They did get a group shot, but alas - I didn't. XD

After that it was just a matter of idling away our time looking at stalls and cosplays, and rehearsing for the cosplay competition... and just as we'd taken a snap of a rather impressive Wolverine, we got literally ambushed by Travis yet again! He popped up behind us with a "Hi! Yeah, I'm stalking you guys! :D" and we both just about fell apart laughing XD He was incredibly sweet and happy to chat and seemed so pleased with himself for having run into us so many times.

When he finally had to disappear, one of the old-time crew members who was taking a coffee break wandered over and said he always enjoys working with the guests - he's worked so many cons he never really sees them as stars any more, just ordinary people. We mentioned Mark Sheppard and his reponse was "oh yeah, met him... he's a prick." He saw the looks on our faces and hastily qualified this comment with an explanation about Mark being incredibly sarcastic and prone to teasing fans, not actually a jerk. XD

And then we had to go for the cosplay competition.

It was a good time! There were some amazing cosplays, including an incredibly cute under-16 group Potter cosplay that included a Dobby who could just about toddle =3

I felt really confident when it came time for me and @respect-the-king to get up on stage and do our skit - but oh my gods! I goofed one word in my very first line and the rest of the skit was a thin veneer of calmly playing it out over sheer OH CRAP OH CRAP I MESSED UP... when I got back to my seat my hands were shaking from the rush of adrenaline and terror. XD

We didn't win, but it was fun to see the ones who did. A group Walking Dead entry, and a gorgeously crafted Edward Scissorhands ^_^ and we got complimented on the way out by a few people who really liked our skit!

Aaaaaaaaaand that pretty much brought Wales Comic-Con to a close... we did run into the cutest little Moana while waiting for a taxi, though.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend and I am really excited to go back in April for the 10th Anniversary!