#drabble; character study.

[ofthesepulchre]

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

Montparnasse jolted awake, chest heaving and sweat soaking his fringe so that the hair plastered itself to his forehead. In the darkness, his eyes struggled to adjust, searching around for a source of light as a reference of his surroundings. His hands reached up to push the hair out of his eyes, grasping to have something to hold onto while he stilled his hurried breathing. The cell was empty, just as it was before. His eyes had finally adjusted to the dark when he gazed around at the lonely grey stone, a single blue-white square on the wall opposite of him assuring him that there truly was a world outside the walls of the La Force.

“Just a few days, just a little vacation. You like that, don’t you?” Claquesous had mocked, laughing behind the mask as he- unlike Montparnasse- had disappeared into the night. The youth had often felt resentment towards the older man, but now it had grown into a dark hatred- imagine leaving one of your own there to be shackled and imprisoned? The betrayal felt sour, though Montparnasse had always had a sense that the masked one had no intention of staying loyal- no matter how much he bet his childish whims on it. He clenched his jaw- imagined himself sinking his knife into what he thought was flesh - though some part of him was still convinced he would stab into pure air instead. It was not the first time he had ended up here.

Montparnasse had spent many a day of his life within these walls, awaiting the release that would eventually come once one of his patrons had heard the news and managed to send a letter- assuring that he was just a wayward youth- he would improve and “oh you mustn’t be so cruel to him!”

A wayward youth- corrupted. After all, was he not just that? Was he not just a lazy idler, a beast of burden in the team of Hell, as the old man once had told him? The speech had lingered for longer than Montparnasse had thought it would, the words burnt into his head that he will enter young and rosy- yet come out broken bent and wrinkled - his vain desires for finery and luxury creating a path he was unlikely to break out of if he did not address the desires for idleness and comfort. “The hardest of all work is thieving.”

What did he know of that, anyway? Besides, Montparnasse’s desire for finery was only the product of yearning for what he had never had, the thrill of doing what was undesirable- an act of rebellion against a world that had cast him as unwanted. After all, he had never known his father, hardly knew his mother. Perhaps that is where it had gone wrong? It was never of his own doing that he had become this way, he had argued to himself- no, it must be the world that was wrong. Or perhaps he was wrong himself- though he found that his own philosophy of idleness had worked far better than anything he had been told by any priest. No, the resentment of the hypocrisy of the church fuelled him more than anything else. He fed into each of the seven heads of the sinful beast that resided within him, rebelling against the rigid systems that had decided for him how and what he should be.

Montparnasse held no conscience that came to gnaw on his roots, saw no fault within himself, rather felt the fiery burning passion of hatred and resentment that had been sown by the seeds of his position grow into vines that twisted and bound themselves to him. All his acts of rebellion were justified, for they were acts upon which he showed himself as Lucifer speaking up against a God that never truly loved him. His eyes cast up at the fine light shining in from the moonlight. His lips had curled into a snarl following his train of thought and his brows had furrowed.

Now he sat there, much like a sour child, gazing hatefully at the light which in his mind represented the higher power that had obviously cast him here.He had fallen. He had fallen yet he welcomed the fall, for it was his own doing- and Montparnasse always had control- he always had the upper hand (so he believed), so they could take their words and their rituals and shove them up where the sun didn’t shine. The shackles placed on his wrists before he was tossed into the cell had reminded him of the imprisonment that was him inside his own mind, trapped in the labyrinths of thoughts and consciousness. He was writhing and fighting against the shackles placed there by the morality and the consequences of his fall into idleness, the morality that held him in place and was there to make him compliant. He had rebelled against it- fought against the shackles and broken free- it was his own doing! All he did was himself, and nothing else - the choices made were for him- and him only. A virus preying upon society.

If they wanted him to be this- had branded him to be this- so be it. He knew that he would be back again - no matter how many times they tossed him in. The sound of footsteps broke him out the rush of resentment that had imprisoned his mind, and Montparnasse averted his gaze to the door. A rustling of keys, keys entering the lock, turning - and the door opened. One of the prison guards with the sour face of a man who’d clearly never known the pleasures of flesh unless it was paid for under the table looked at him for a second.

“They are letting you out. Again.”

A smirk broke out on the youth’s face. The cogs began moving again, churning, turn⁷ing, watching Montparnasse leave the prison with easy steps, sauntering down to the sewers with the moonlight tracing the brim of his hat. Something that Claquesous once had said to him echoed within his mind, lines from something he never had read himself, though the words had burned into his consciousness: “And, when night darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.”

[minimujina]

wanderer in his season of healing makes me so happy. i love that he is safe enough to become softer again, that he is regaining some of his previously “weak” attributes and finding peace with them. he is becoming measured and introspective, and thinking before he speaks, perhaps a result of both his healing and his melancholy; i think it’s beautiful that he is finally able to safely feel his sadness and process the things that have happened. he is simultaneously finding peace and feeling all the difficult emotions he previously consumed with anger. it is painful, but right.

his sense of humor is still intact, certainly rough around the edges as you’d expect, though much less biting than before. it’s easy to tell that most anything aggressive he says is a front, a front that he is no longer concerned with presenting as absolute truth. perhaps the front is his sense of humor, and his affection is all thinly veiled behind jabs and sour grumbles—he is not willing to divulge the intimate details of that, however, preferring to leave it up to interpretation.

i just think of him and his healing and i feel like if he were to fall in love, it would be such a sweet and gentle and quiet sort of thing, just like his newfound peace. he ponders over many things, brooding by himself as much as he can, though he occasionally allows space for others to brood with him. that, i think, is something unique he may grow in. there are people who cannot tolerate strong emotions in themselves and certainly not in others—but he is the kind of person who can. he is the kind of person you could sit with and exist in your sadness and just be sad, and that’s okay. he’s not offering words of comfort or anything, but he doesn’t need to. anything he’d say would be useless anyways, he knows what it’s like and knows that a presence is enough and existing in your emotions safely is enough. he can appreciate someone who is straightforward about feeling unwell, who doesn’t seek pity, who is alright with sitting in the mud. he will gladly sit with you, then, as long as you don’t expect him to get all mushy about things.

he would do well falling in love quietly, not having to beat around the bush. naturally, pieces would fall into place, and he’d find himself yearning to be in the presence of another in a way he’d never before experienced. he had never really wanted to be around anyone, had never sought out anyone’s presence. but once he has been treated gently, has fallen softly into the arms of a likened soul who has the patience and understanding to touch his rough edges without recoiling, he finds his third space being with this new safe person.

and despite his reluctance to be anything but mysterious and nonchalant, i believe wanderer in his healing season would become quite the romantic. not in the sappy sense, but in the quiet love sense i’ve been talking about. firm and protective, subtle and gentle, almost gentlemanlike if it weren’t for his falsely rotten attitude he enjoyed projecting. romantic in a princely way, in a reverently respectful way, in a grotesquely wholesome way.

only the most chaste touches and kisses; he’s still getting used to affection, and would abhor pda. in private he’s much more open to being touched, because he is safe. if he is not safe, he is deeply conditioned to be conscious of his vulnerabilities, and it’s something that will take a lot of time to override, if even at all. but it’s a massive and beautiful step that he is even willing to receive affection at all, that he would want it from a partner in any amount.

hates eye contact, likes playing with hands. likes tracing veins and creases in skin and freckles and scars; he finds them fascinating, as he has nothing of the sort on his artificial body. one of his unique ways he shows affection is what could be called “studying” you. he likes to brood (with you there; perhaps it could be called parallel brooding) and take your arm and trace all the splotches, imperfections, veins, tendons he can find. he likes to touch more than he likes to be touched i think. perhaps he becomes amusingly selfish in this way. perhaps he is more averse to receiving than giving the affection because his disgust towards himself still lingers. perhaps he still has harmful core beliefs to unlearn.

i think he is full of a love that is strong and quiet, a love that he gives so sparingly, and only in pieces, never all at once. unless, that is, someone comes along and manages to drag it all out like a magnet—his carefully crafted exterior is in pieces, just like that! but oh, once someone is in possession of his love, he begins to know them so intimately, more intimately than he lets on. he so deeply knows who he loves and he knows how to give and to take action and so he does it, silently, for he is adept at perceiving the needs of his loved ones. reading body language and facial expressions is second nature to him at this point; nothing can get past him.

he studies you wordlessly with the expression of a cat who loves and reveres its human, except it’s the kind of cat who believes it owns the human, not the other way around. you’re his responsibility that he has taken on like an extension of himself because he loves you, and you have loved him, and now he hardly wants you out of his sight. his journey of rediscovery and learning self acceptance has been mentally and emotionally arduous, but ever since you came in and made loving him seem so easy, he’s felt much more at peace, and has had the capacity to reflect and process with much more freedom to sincerely feel.

stupid fictional character i hate him i hate him so much he is not real and i hate him

[metalhoops]

“I think I’m seeing things, man,” Eddie spoke from his spot on the Harrington’s couch. His white skin appeared paler still against the brown leather. 

Steve didn’t blame him. He was on all kinds of painkillers. It’d been two weeks since the world fell apart. Two weeks since Vecna disappeared. Two weeks since Eddie almost died. 

Steve liked to treat those memories as others treated head-on collisions. It was better not to look at them directly. It was better to treat it like it’d never happened. 

“What’re we looking at?” Steve asked from his spot on the floor, following Eddie’s line of sight to the gap in the curtains. 

“Don’t know. Thought I saw somebody outside,” Eddie confessed. 

The Harrington house had always been filled with spectres, whether that of partygoers, like front lawn flamingos in need of an exorcism or the body in the backyard pool. But those were Steve’s hang-ups, not Eddie’s. 

If all it took to be a ghost was to haunt, Eddie might be included in the ranks of his own private phantasmagoria. He kept checking each night to make sure the boy was really there, that he’d really gotten out. People shouldn’t have that much blood in them, and they definitely shouldn’t have that much blood out of them. 

Steve went to the window because that was something he could do for Eddie. He wasn’t sure why he kept feeling the need to apologise. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but hell if Steve knew if he’d done anything right either. He’d gotten Eddie out of the Upside Down. He’d put his hands inside the boy’s body, shoved his shirt beneath his skin and held it in the dark cavity that oozed and throbbed warm blood like the rise and fall of the tide.

Don’t think about it. Check the window. His hands at his side felt cold. He wondered if they’d ever be warm again. There was a figure across the street. 

A boy in a basketball jersey circled passed the house. 

Things never ended smoothly. Steve liked to think once Jason went down the rest of the vigilante crew would stop looking for Eddie, but there were some stragglers who hadn’t got the message. 

Hopper had his hands full trying to clear Eddie’s name. Eddie’s uncle was still looking for him. The whole town was holding their breath in the midst of destruction, waiting for someone to blame. Steve shut the curtains, turned the lights off and moved to Eddie’s side in the darkness. 

“Hounds of hell still circling then?” Eddie guessed after one glimpse at Steve’s face. 

“I’ll call Hopper,” Steve reasoned, reaching up to squeeze Eddie’s knee. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Maybe to make sure he was real. Maybe to tell him he was sorry. 

“Don’t worry about it, Steve,” Eddie spoke, reaching out and snagging the hem of Steve’s sweater.

“No one thinks I’m here. If the cops show up at the Harringtons’ it’s going to turn some heads,” Eddie reasoned, and he was right.

So where did that leave them? Sitting alone in the dark with Eddie fading in and out of sleep and Steve watching car headlights dance across the curtains, waiting for the moment everything went wrong. 

“Steve?” Eddie breathed beside Steve’s ear in the blackness. He hadn’t realised they were so close. 

“Yeah?” Steve moved his eyes from the window to look at Eddie. 

“I think I’m crashing,” he noted, a grimace dancing across his face. Steve had never felt smaller. 

“Doc said we’ve gotta wait six hours,” Steve replied, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt. 

“How long’s it been?” 

“Three.” 

Steve always wanted to appear cool in times of crisis, but he had no idea what he was doing. Some of the government agents Steve had signed countless NDAs for over the past four years had patched Eddie up as best they could and had started scrambling for a cover-up. 

In the meantime, Eddie would stay at Steve’s place. It made the most sense. Eddie was nobody to Steve. No one would go looking for Eddie at the Harringtons’, and unlike the other older teens, he didn’t have parents to answer to. Big house. No parents. Perfect place to lie low. 

Steve was nobody to Eddie and yet for the past week, they’d been an island unto themselves, trapped indoors together, watching shadows on the walls and trying to keep each other alive and sane. He felt completely unprepared. 

“Alright. Come on. Let’s go to bed,” Steve muttered, kneeling in front of Eddie. He watched the boy rise to a sitting position over his shoulder. Eddie snorted.

“What exactly is the plan here, Steve?” 

Eddie had been stuck oscillating between the living room, kitchen, and downstairs bathroom for days. They could both use a change of scenery. 

“Piggyback,” Steve spoke, trying not to think about the connotations that the word had garnered. He wasn’t going to think about Vecna. Not today. 

He expected the boy to argue, but instead, he felt Eddie’s arms snake around his throat. He held tight, but not as tight as he should. Steve had to hold on to his forearms like backpack straps as he stood. Eddie’s legs were stronger. They held firm around Steve’s waist. 

Eddie’s head flopped against Steve’s shoulder blade, nuzzling into the space. He was warm as the sun. Too warm. He was running a temperature. Steve tried not to think of the last time he carried Eddie. The boy was uncharacteristically quiet. Steve needed to do something. 

“Saddle up, buckeroo,” Steve spoke, hoisting Eddie further up his back. He felt a puff of air against his neck, a barely there laugh. 

“Hi-yo, Silver,” Eddie grumbled against Steve’s skin. 

Steve moved deftly through the dark, taking the staircase slowly and methodically. The last thing either of them needed was another broken bone. 

“I think I owe you one once all this is over,” Eddie noted. Steve was already shaking his head.

“You stick around, and I’ll call it a favour. I think Henderson would kick my ass if you died.” 

“The kid’s got spunk. I’ll give him that,” Eddie noted as the two reached the top of the stairs. 

“He’s got an attitude and a problem with authority,” Steve corrected, taking Eddie to his bedroom.

He moved to the edge of his bed and let Eddie extract himself. When they broke apart, Steve felt cold again. 

“That’s our boy,” Eddie chuckled, shooting Steve a lopsided smirk. He was definitely still high on painkillers.

Steve rolled his eyes and helped lower Eddie down onto his favourite pillow, the one worn down with age but all the more comfortable for it. He pulled the covers up around the boy’s shoulders.

“Yeah, our boy,” Steve echoed in a too-fond tone. 

He’d never let Henderson hear the term of affection. The kid had a big enough head as it was, but in the too-quiet world of just himself and Eddie, he felt okay admitting it. Once it looked like Eddie was settled in, Steve sat on the edge of his bed, feeling as he always did, like a stranger in his own home. 

“When did you last get some shut-eye, boy wonder?” Eddie asked, his foot tucking beneath Steve’s thigh.  

Friday. What day was it? Sunday. Not good. 

“Well, come on then, don’t make a guy beg. Lay down, Steve. It’s your bed. I could sleep in the spare room if it’s a problem.” There was something cautious about the offer Steve didn’t understand. 

He flopped down beside Eddie, so close the two shared a pillow. It changed the shape of the thing. It made the familiar strange. 

“You know, I had this dream last night,” Eddie began, his dark eyes still open, glued to the ceiling. He cringed, knowing all the ways dreams could go bad, but Eddie shook his head.

“Not that kind of dream,” He insisted, his hands balling into fists on the bedsheets. 

“I had a dream I was a pinball machine,” the boy stated plainly. The absurdity of the statement shocked a laugh out of Steve. 

“These painkillers are legit, Harrington,” Eddie spoke, shooting Steve a sidelong glance. 

“What kind of pinball machine?” 

“You know the Centaur one? It’s black and white, mostly. The arts got this topless guy who’s half man, half motorbike,” Eddie explained. 

Steve had no idea what he was saying, but it was nice to hear him talk. 

“Wait, if you were the pinball machine, how did you know what you looked like?” 

“Great question Steven. I’ve got no clue. Dream logic,” Eddie reasoned.  

Steve screwed up his nose at the use of his full name. Only his dad called him Steven. Eddie raised a brow, seeming to take note. One of them had shifted closer. Steve wasn’t sure who. Eddie’s hand brushed against his side as he played with the sheets. 

“Remind me again why I needed to know about your pinball dream?” Steve asked. The sound of the wind in the trees outside his bedroom window set his teeth on edge. 

“Because you’re too damn serious and I thought it’d make you smile... Which it did.” Eddie added the last part in quietly and Steve rolled his eyes. 

Eddie craned his head to look around Steve’s room before screwing up his nose. 

“Anyone ever told you your wallpaper is gaudy as hell? Your curtains match your walls. Dude, I thought rich people were meant to have taste,” he observed, the boys’ shoulders pressed together. 

“This coming from the guy who eats cereal out of the box with his hands,” Steve countered, no heat in his voice. 

“Are you still mad I used to stand on your lunch table?” Eddie muttered, shoving Steve’s shoulder before tensing. When had Steve last checked his dressings? 

He flipped the bedside lamp on, leaning over Eddie to do so. He’d been helping the guy shower for days now. Privacy was a word reserved for other people. Intimacy was a necessity.  

“Once you stood in my mashed potatoes. It was disgusting,” Steve uttered, gently peeling up the hem of Eddie’s tee shirt. Really, it was Steve’s, but it seemed strange to make distinctions. 

Eddie’s eyes trailed down to Steve’s fingers, half-hooded and slowed with sleep or inebriation, Steve didn’t know which. He wondered how much of all this Eddie would remember when he got better. He would get better. 

“You never ate the potatoes. You’d bring your stupid bagels from home,” Eddie remarked, as Steve carefully unwound the bandage and gauze. It was stained brown with dried blood, but it looked better than it’d been a few days before, no longer as red or swollen.   

The bagel comment made Steve look up. Seemed like Robin wasn’t the only one that’d been watching him. Maybe Eddie had a crush on Tammy Thompson, too. Maybe it was something else. Steve’s friends had crappy taste in women. Eddie could do better. 

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Eddie questioned, noticing Steve’s sudden silence. 

He cleaned the wounds as best he could. Eddie’s fingers had found their way to Steve’s thigh, gripping so tight he thought it would bruise. It would be another to add to the collection. Steve hadn’t been thinking of how his battle wounds were healing. He was in triage mode. Eddie’s wounds were worse than his. 

“We're going to have to amputate,” Steve deadpanned as he found the first aid kit he’d hidden beneath his bed years before, starting to redress the wound. 

“How the hell can you amputate a side?” Eddie asked with a shaky laugh, his breathing more ragged again. 

“Well, you see, there’s this new experimental procedure that lets you transplant your brain into a pinball machine,” Steve began and felt Eddie’s elbow in his side. 

“Screw you.” 

Steve laid back beside Eddie, less space between them than before, if it was at all possible. They braced against each other, the contact grounding Steve. Eddie was alive. He was alive. Maybe one day they could look at each other and not think about death. That day wasn’t today, but Steve could hope for it. 

As Eddie drifted to sleep, his head fell on Steve’s shoulder. He wouldn’t sleep for long that night, but he was used to that. He knew the weeks and months after a run-in with the Upside Down were full of fitful sleep and nightmares, but they never lasted. 

On a long enough timeline, you could get used to anything. It was strange how short that timeline was when it came to getting used to Eddie. 

More days came and went with the same imperfect routines. The two boys woke at all hours of the night and spent the daylight hours behind closed curtains, trying to heal. 

By the third day, Steve got sick of the quiet. A sombre mood hung over them, shifting and changing like the phases of the moon. It never entirely disappeared, but there were moments it seemed almost absent.  

One of these such moments arose when Steve hijacked the boombox from the living room and dragged it upstairs to his bedroom, where a slowly healing Eddie sat bored out of his mind, aching and itchy. Steve knew the feeling. The wound on his neck had scabbed and begun to fade into a scar. 

“Hey, Munson?” Steve spoke, sitting beside Eddie, spreading his tape collection between them. 

“You wanna hear some real music?” He asked, watching Eddie’s nose scrunch and his teeth worry away at his bottom lip.

“These are all horrible, Harrington.” 

Eddie turned over several cassettes in his hand, treating them gently as though they were something special.  

“You have every WHAM! album, dude. The Outfield. Halls & Oats. Tears for Fears,” Eddie listed off, his tone one of disgust. 

“You’re going to have to pick something, or I’ll pick WHAM! out of spite.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes and shuffled through the tapes, tossing one Steve’s way. 

“Bowie isn’t horrible,” Eddie mumbled as Steve placed The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, into the player. 

The two sat shoulder to shoulder, as always, listening to the quiet swell of drums. Steve realised too late it was a song about the end of the world. He realised, later still, that it was a love song. Eddie’s fingers drummed against his knee. Steve tried to ignore the way the action made his heart swell. 

Steve couldn’t sit still any longer as Moonaged Daydream began. He remembered another life in Nancy Wheeler’s garage, asking her to pretend things were normal for a couple of hours. God, he wanted that. He needed a few normal hours.

He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then, but parts of him had stayed the same. He didn’t know how to change them. Nancy Wheeler faced problems head-on, but Steve? The passage of time had taught him how to stand his ground in the face of danger, but he hadn’t yet learned how to stop being chased. 

He caught Eddie’s eye and watched as a wicked grin spread across his face. Without words, he knew exactly what Steve was about to do. He grabbed the nail bat he kept by the bed, the same one from the Wheeler’s garage and sang, using the gnarly weapon as his makeshift microphone. He was a little too loud and a little off-tune.  He sang about alligators and space invaders, lyrics he knew off by heart, without understanding them.

He watched as a grin threatened to crack Eddie’s face in two. There was a reckless abandon to his smile. It was different from the glazed-eyed, half-high smiles of the past week. His eyes were keen and sharp as he watched Steve fling himself across the room in the way only someone who’d learned to dance drunk could.

By the time the album finished, he’d worked up a sweat. Eddie joined in, singing a couple of lines when he could before tugging Steve back to bed, his hand in Steve’s hair, smoothing it back in place. The action was intimate, yet familiar.

“Alright, Starman. Maybe Bowie doesn’t suck so hard, but when I’m not on the run from the law, I’m going to show you what real music sounds like.” 

“Promise?” Steve asked, his chest heaving. 

Then, Eddie did something so unlike anything the populous of Hawkins would expect. To them, he was a Satanist and a murderer. Steve had always known better, but he’d seen Eddie as a wildcard. He was loud and rough around the edges, but he also had the capability of being endearing when the moment called for it. Still, Steve had never expected Eddie to roll over, extend his pinkie and link their little fingers together. 

“I promise,” He assured, placing his lips to the knuckle of his thumb as though sealing the deal. 

The action was equal parts childlike and intense. Steve looked down at their interlaced fingers and knew he was in over his head. Warmth pooled in Steve’s fingertips. 

“Eds, I—,” A knock at the downstairs door made the words die on Steve’s lips. The boys pulled apart. Steve was cold. 

“I’ll get it,” Steve spoke, picking up the discarded nail bat and trudging down the stairs. 

He hoped it was one of the door-knocking jocks. Some primal part of him felt like hitting something. Years before, he would have questioned if he was the kind of person who could do it, but now he knew he could. 

Steve clutched at the bat hidden behind his back as he swung open the door, coming face-to-face with an older man dressed in too-short jean shorts, holding an armful of paper bags. He looked familiar. He’d seen the man with Hopper. A furrow etched its way onto his brow. 

“Aren’t you going to let your beloved uncle in, Steve?” The man spoke, loud enough for the people in the next neighbourhood to hear. 

“Right,” Steve mumbled, pushing the door open and stepping to the side. 

The man walked through the house as though he’d grown up within their walls, dropping the paper bags on the countertop, switching on the lights and examining the space. 

“Hopper sent me with supplies. It’d draw too much attention having the feds at your front door, but a visit from your favourite Uncle Murray? That’s incognito. I’ve got groceries and painkillers, slipped in some vodka too, on the house. Personally, I was thinking of making my homemade ravioli for dinner. Trust me, it’s to die for. Where’s the other one by the way?” The man, Murray, breathed, spinning on his heels to examine the interior of the house.  Steve let his nail bat fall to the floor.

“You really should invest in a gun, kid...Was I interrupting something?” The older man asked, gesturing absentmindedly to his balding head. Steve touched his hair and found it still out of place. He ran his fingers through it in an attempt to tame it. 

“No, we... I was sleeping. Eddie’s upstairs. I think he’s okay, but I could use another set of eyes. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing here. Are you staying?”

“I’m just staying for dinner. It’d look strange if your uncle only showed up for a few minutes, wouldn’t it?” Steve didn’t dignify that with an answer. 

“There’s the man of the hour,” Murray spoke, glancing up at the top of the staircase where Eddie stood, leaning heavily on the banister. 

“What happened to staying up there?” Steve spoke through gritted teeth, making his way back up the stairs. 

“You were taking too long,” Eddie muttered with an unbothered shrug. 

“And if it’d been one of Jason’s asshole friends, we’d have been screwed,” Steve rebutted, letting Eddie lean on him as they made their way to Murray in the kitchen. At least he could walk.

“But it wasn’t,” Eddie huffed, his breath warm on Steve’s neck. 

Steve kicked out one of the kitchen chairs and lowered Eddie into it. The older man watched them as a scientist observes a specimen. There was a morbid fascination to it.

“I see you two are getting along well,” He spoke. 

He’d found where Steve’s mother had stored their pots and had begun some strange kitchen alchemy. Steve had made risotto. This guy looked like he was completing a summoning ritual. The ingredients were splayed out on the countertop like objects of adoration. 

Steve sat down in the chair beside Eddie. It felt strange having someone else in the house. For what seemed like a lifetime, his world had consisted of one other person. He missed Robin, Dustin, and the rest of the kids, but he hadn’t let himself dwell on it. He’d known their isolation couldn’t last forever, but he’d never have guessed Murray would be the first person he’d see.  

“Tense mood. Why is it I always end up in the middle of couples in denial?” Murray breathed to himself. 

Eddie’s head snapped up with a speed Steve hadn’t seen him manage all week. Steve didn’t look at Murray, he was too busy trying to unpick the pained look on Eddie’s face. His eyes searched the boy’s body for some torn open wound he’d missed. 

“What? Don’t look so surprised. Contrary to what kids these days think, we did have homosexuality in the sixties,” Murray informed before pausing. He gave Steve a once-over that made his skin crawl. He felt as though he were a bug, pinned beneath a glass plate. 

“And bisexuality,” He clarified. 

Steve averted his eyes and reached over to squeeze Eddie’s knee. He was hopelessly lost in the conversation, but he knew something was wrong with Eddie. The boy jumped at the sudden contact and Steve pulled his hand away as though burnt. 

“So, what’s the problem? Still in denial?” Murray asked, levelling Steve with a knowing look. He scowled back at the man, ready for him to leave. 

“No. I think you know how you feel, maybe even how he feels.” Steve didn’t know how to respond. 

“You, however,” Murray continued, turning his attention to Eddie, the boiling pot on the stove, forgotten.

“I don’t think you have a clue. Self-esteem issues, maybe. You try to hide it, but you couldn’t imagine that someone in a house like this would look at you twice.” 

“What the hell, man?” Eddie breathed with a huff of indignation. Murray showed no signs of stopping. His eyes were back on Steve. 

“So, what’s holding you back? You got your heart broken after Nancy Wheeler. Let me guess, you keep saying how much you want commitment, but you keep dating the wrong people, people who don’t want to be tied down. That, my boy, is self-sabotage and him,” Murray spoke, indicating Eddie with a wooden spoon he’d been using to stir the rice. 

“He looks like a long-haul kind of guy.” 

“Dude,” Eddie interjected. 

“What? You’re both obviously attracted to one another. Don’t lie. I have eyes. You’re telling me that all this near-death stuff hasn’t made you re-evaluate your life a little? It’s just been you two, locked away together at the end of the world, helping each other heal. Seeking comfort in one another. You’ve got shared trauma. That kind of thing bonds you for life.” 

“Leave it alone,” Steve said, standing as he spoke. The chair scraped on the tile floor. A nails on a chalkboard kind of sound. 

Steve pushed past the older man, pulled the pot off the stove, and let a tense silence settle over the three of them. The subsequent dinner dragged on in uncomfortable silence. Steve and Eddie kept their eyes glued to their plates. Murray talked but neither paid attention. He gave Eddie’s wounds a once over, appearing as lost as Steve. He didn’t seem concerned, so Steve took it as a good thing. 

He thought he’d known what tense silence between himself, and Eddie felt like, but he’d known nothing compared to the moment Murray left. His whole body was on edge. Eddie wouldn’t meet his eyes. They needed to talk, but neither wanted to be the first to cave. 

“I was thinking of turning in early,” Steve spoke, not knowing what else to say. 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

The boys lay side by side, but sleep didn’t come. Eddie’s body was wound tight as a tourniquet. This time, Steve was the one bleeding out. 

He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. Maybe that he was sorry. Murray was right. Steve had known Eddie liked him and he hadn’t said anything because it wasn’t a problem he could throw himself in front of. It’d be easier if he thought telling Eddie would end up with him getting hit. There were worse things. 

Eddie’s feelings had become more apparent as their time together wore on, but on some level, Steve had known long before. When Eddie had leaned over into his space smelling of cigarette ash, dried earth and sweat and called Steve some god-awful pet name, he’d known. He also knew the feelings weren’t one-sided. 

That revelation came later. Eddie had been fading in and out of consciousness. Steve had shaken him awake to redress his wounds when it happened. The boy awoke, shooting him a lopsided grin, gazing at Steve with his drowsy, doe eyes.

He’d crooned, ‘Good morning sunshine’. And that had been enough. 

Steve’s heart had stuttered to a halt as it had all the times before when a pretty girl had called him a prettier name. 

As much as Steve hated to admit it, Murray had been right about a lot of things. There was one thing Steve desperately wanted him to be wrong about. 

He and Eddie were bonded because of what they’d been through. That’s what the man had said. Shared trauma. Was that all they were?

Steve was back in the bathroom with Nancy, her white shirt, red. The whites of his eyes the moment she left, red. 

He knew where shared trauma got him. He’d try to bury it. To move past it. He wanted to be more than what was done to him. People would say he was running. He was bullshit. 

How was he meant to sit with the kind of stuff he and Eddie had been through? How was he meant to fight it? Would Steve always look at Eddie and see his death? Would Eddie always look at Steve and feel like dying? 

“I wished I’d met you later,” Steve spoke to the dark room. Eddie’s locked body loosened, and as it did, he started to shake. In a moment, he’d start to bleed too. 

“You know, normally people say they wished they’d met you sooner.” 

“I mean... I wish we’d met after everything with The Upside Down. That you hadn’t gotten dragged into it. I wish that we’d gotten to know each other the normal way,” Steve explained. Eddie snorted. 

“Can you imagine me doing anything the normal way?” He had a point. 

Steve didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say. The silence was back, looming large as a lunar eclipse. 

“You aren’t... weirded out by what he said? About me liking you?” Eddie’s voice was small. The only time Steve heard Eddie whisper was when he was dying. 

“I think he also said something about me liking you back,” Steve replied, glancing at Eddie’s profile only to find the man was already watching him. His face was contorted in confusion. 

“Then... what’s the problem here, Stevie?” 

Steve had never been good with his words. 

“What if we’ve ruined it?” He tried. At seeing a frown cross Eddie’s face, he knew he hadn’t done a good enough job at explaining. 

“With what’s happened between me and you. You never would’ve looked at me twice if I hadn’t saved you, and what if that’s all we’ve got? Shared trauma.” 

Bullshit. What if all they had was bullshit? Eddie finally understood.

“I don’t like you because you saved me, Steve. I like you because despite all the terrible shit you make me want to laugh.  I love that you’re shit at dancing, but you do it anyway. Also, screw that guy your risotto is better than his. You’re a good cook. Your stupid hair makes me want to slam my head in a car door and before you say anything, that’s a compliment. You care so damn much about everyone.” To Steve’s surprise, Eddie’s hand reached up to touch his cheek. 

“I don’t like you because we’ve been through bad shit together. I like you because you make me feel like one day, we’re going to get out on the other side of it, that things aren’t going to be like this forever,” Eddie finished.

Steve’s heart was a cardinal, beating itself bloody against a windowpane. 

“Can I kiss you?” Steve breathed. For the first time in a long time, he was nervous. 

Eddie’s smile was a lightning strike, bright, beautiful and something they’d shape gods after. 

“I thought you’d never ask.” 

Eddie’s lips were warm. 

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Robin never really got boys talk.

When Sarah turned 14 she invited all the girls in band for a sleepover. It started out fun. After her parents went to bed they put on a creepy horror movie and watched it in a huge cuddle pile. They braided each other's hair and did each other's nails and squeezed each other during tense scenes and muffled their shrieks after a sudden jumpscare.

After that they watched another one. This time Sarah sneaked her mother's makeup kit down to the living room, and so lipstick and eyeshadow joined the mess of nail polish, hair clips and snacks already on the floor.

The second movie was different. In the first one, the blood was obviously fake and the acting wasn't the best (to say the least). But the second one was tense through and through. The cries of pain were so visceral that Robin shuddered, and in the end everyone was terrified. It was silently and unanimously agreed upon that everyone had had enough TV for the night. It was already 3 in the morning, but tomorrow was the weekend and right now Robin wouldn't be able to sleep even if she wanted to, and thus began Robin's first real boys talk.

It was funny at first. Sarah pretended to die of heartbreak when "the blond hot one" was unfortunately the second to die. Heather said the nerdy one with glasses and abs was cuter, which started a very heated discussion of whether blond or brown is the more attractive hair color. Robin had to defend her correct "redheads" opinion all by herself.

(When the others got into a stalemate Sarah turned to Robin. "C'mon", she pleaded, "you know that the blond one was hotter. Just tell us which one you found prettier! And don't forget that this is my birthday party."

Robin laughed at the ribbing, played a bit hard to get, until she finally admitted. "I actually found the first one who died the prettiest." Sarah was already halfway through her victory dance, when Robin corrected her. "No, I don't mean the dude. I mean the first one. The girl with the pink purse."

Everything was silent for a moment.

Then Emma laughed. "You don't have to be jealous Robin", she consoled, "you are also very pretty."

"Yeah, especially after our makeover!"

Robin laughed and agreed and continued on as if her world just hadn't been turned on its axis. Because she knew that the stirring in her gut and the beating of her heart had nothing to do with jealousy. She didn't find the blond one hot or the brunet one cute. That was the first time she really knew it. She liked the girl.)

It was a bit funny the first time, even though she couldn't really join. It got less funny the more it went on. Suddenly boys was the only thing everyone wanted to talk about. And worse: it wasn't just unreachable famous boys like singers or actors anymore. Suddenly it was all "oh, Steve Harrington is sooooo cute" or "oh my god, Tommy Hagan had suuuuuuch a glowup" and "I want to lick the sweat of his body after basketball practice" (this last one was applicable to multiple different people, including Steve and Tommy. It was not applicable for Chrissy when she exited cheerleading practice or Beth after football.)

She thought it would get better when Emma finally confessed to her crush and they actually got together, but no. It somehow got worse. Because "normal boy talk" turned into "experienced boy talk", and Robin wasn't allowed to admit that the only thing that got wet when she thought of Billy Hargrove was her mouth, because he made her want to throw up.

At first she'd say that she didn't have crushes. After a while of people refusing to believe her (even if she was telling the truth! Sometimes.) she started pretending to be into Steve Harrington. Every girl had a crush on Steve, so it made sense that she'd been embarrassed to admit that she was just like everybody else. He was way too far above her league for her friends to force her to "confess" and she could stare without fear when he passed by in the halls with the beautiful Tammy Thompson in his arms. Truly, it was a brilliant plan. It didn't stop the boys talk, though.

So she became a tomboy. She joined football and she hung out with boys and she cut her long hair into a bob. She lost a bit of touch with Emma and Sarah and the others, but she tried not to think about it too much. Instead she threw herself into sports and started hanging out more and more with Matt, the second trumpet in band.

And that was that. Sometimes she missed wearing dresses, but it was a relief not to have her mother insisting she "do something about that hair" anymore. She and Matt became best friends. She even considered telling him for a while. Until he sat her down and confessed his feelings.

She tried to let him down as gently as possible, and they never talked again. The cycle would repeat for multiple times.

Someone out there is laughing their ass off because who would have thought that the dude she pretended to have a crush on would turn out to be the missing half of her soul?

It started out like always. She teased him, he laughed. They suffered through customer service together. He was funny and surprisingly in touch with his emotions and apparently babysat a bunch of middle schoolers, which was equally hilarious and adorable to watch. They both enjoy sports and they both hate Billy Hargrove with a passion and Robin is heartbroken because she knows she can't get attached. She has already been through this too many times to allow it to happen again. She gets close with a guy, they become best friends, he confesses, she can't reciprocate, they never talk again.

This is what is going to happen. She should already be used to it, but it still hurts. It's better for her to keep her distance. To encourage him to flirt with other girls, even if she can see that he mostly does it to amuse her.

And then they uncover an actual real life Russian spy network right beneath their place of work like some fucking blockbuster. And then they are pumped up with drugs and the next thing she knows is that they are both throwing up in a cinema bathroom.

And then it happens. Of course it happens.

He starts his little speech and her heart is already breaking. She surprises herself when she realizes how much she started enjoying Steve's company. He is a dingus, but she is also a dingus and they just fit.

She is already preparing her apology in her head (oh fuck work is going to be so awkward), but what comes out instead is what she wishes she could've said every time this happened. What she wished she could have said every time she got close to another person, every time her parents questioned if she finally found a boyfriend. Something she really tried not to feel ashamed of, but it was so fucking hard when you had to keep it hidden all the time.

(She remembers when she used to train in front of the mirror. She would stare at herself and repeat again and again "I am Robin Buckley and I am a lesbian. I am a lesbian. I am-")

She doesn't breathe as she waits for what she knows what comes next. What has to come next. There is a reason she never told anyone, always kept it hidden and to herself even if she wanted to scream it into the world. He will mock her and he will out her and he will be disgusted and-

"Tammy Thompson?!"

Instead they have girls talk. And Robin finally gets it.

[berryless]

"What, want me to ruffle your feathers?" Tav asked with a smirk when she caught him staring, as if she didn't ruffle enough of his feathers prior to this moment—figuratively speaking, most unfortunately.

The owlbear's cub sprawled on its stomach beside her, head on her lap as it was cooing something. Given how eagerly it butted into her hand, rather obvious what it was after.

He took a step back, arms raised as he refused, "I'll abstain for tonight. Afraid the competition's too fierce for me to win this fight without any losses. Tomorrow, though…"

He let some hope into his voice, tone laced thick with promise.

Astarion looked at Tav, waiting for her answer, and she nodded to him with a smile on her lips.

"Wonderful. I'll be awaiting then. Most eagerly."

So easy.

Too easy.

He should've known better, but perhaps he was momentarily blinded that she'd finally given up keeping her distance.

Tav played with his hair for a good part of the evening, and Astarion tolerated it—the experience was quite enjoyable, if he was to be honest, but those weren't headpats that he was after. Finally the time came to take the heavy weapons against her, those that he was most proficient at using. Those that hardly ever betrayed him. And he needed Tav to not betray him either. To protect him, when hardly anyone in the camp was terribly happy about having a vampire in their midst. If Cazador… When Cazador… Even though Astarion didn't need to breathe anymore, the air staled in lungs when he thought about this. He needed Tav—and everyone else she have eating out of the palm of her adorable little hand—to stay on his side when that happens. Because as convenient as it may've been, out of many advantages the worm gave him, making his master forget about his existence wasn't one of them.

Her fingers raked his hair and scratched his scalp, sending him into shivers as Astarion couldn't help but lower his guard a notch. He wasn't an inexperienced youngling, still wet behind his ears. He wouldn't miss the change in her touch when it was most familiar to him. It would be rather convenient for Tav to hold his neck or slide her fingers under the lacing of his shirt, so Astarion expected that. Ears too were a good starting point… Lips, perhaps, if she was feeling adventurous for a sharp touch of his fangs…

He turned to the side, forehead pressed against Tav's stomach to let her get to the back of his head. Then turned again, face buried in her lap.

As tedious the pointless waiting went, this kind of foreplay was not without its pleasures. If she were to continue fondling the rest of him in same manner, Astarion wouldn't mind much. If anything, the thought was getting him rather excited, albeit weary in a similar way any kind of sex did. But it was familiar kind of wear he was most used to, so Astarion was slipping into it with ease like one would into old boots they've long been donning. Perhaps the heels were stooped a bit from years of use, and the laces were frayed and brittle, but those were the boots he'd worn for as long as he could remember. He didn't have a spare, if there even existed a spare the likes of him could afford.

Finally Tav's hand stopped, resting on his neck as she barely moved her big finger against the edge of his hairline.

He knew it was coming, and yet a part of him was strangely disappointed.

Well, no point dwelling on it.

Finally it was his turn to…

"Think I'm spent for the evening. My hand's cramping. Want to lie down for a little while longer, or you'd prefer to rest on something more comfortable than my lap?"

Her question came most unexpectedly. At first Astarion thought he heard it wrong. But when he raised his head to check Tav's face, there was nothing special on it, like she was asking something mundane, barely worth of notice. And it was a rather mundane thing to ask. If you weren't expecting anything else to follow.

She wasn't.

It stunned him when Astarion realized that.

Thankfully it lasted barely a moment, and then his instincts kicked in.

"Why? I find your lap a rather enjoyable place to rest my head on."

'It would be even better if you were to let me put it between your legs, but I suppose I wouldn't get much rest then,' was supposed to follow, but somehow it got stuck in his throat. He couldn't even say why at first.

Because she wasn't flirting. Because it wasn't foreplay. Because she just offered to ruffle his feathers in a most simple, primitive, childish way possible, and never planned to stretch the invitation to something more salacious and titillating.

Ruffled his feathers she did.

With much too fervor.

Astarion hardly remembered the way he traveled back into his tent and what he said in the process. Surely it was something appropriate for the occasion, he could trust the habits beaten into his skull by years of use.

No wonder she agreed so easily. He must've been blind not to notice.

He laid down, curled into a ball, sulking—for what, Astarion couldn't tell.

Perhaps it irked him that his plans fell through, and the cooked duck flew away from his mouth when he was so close to biting into it. What else could've been the issue otherwise?

But most strangely, a tightness in his stomach loosened as soon as he was left alone. He breathed with ease, warm ticklish touch of Tav's fingers lingering on his skin.

Safe.

From what..?

He didn't know.

[guardsembush]

He’s My Man, I’ve Been Damned, No, Nobody Has To Understand

- AKA a short drabble I posted on my AO3 earlier detailing what I think happened to Airachnid after the events of the TF One movie, and how she became a Decepticon!

-By short I mean its like 5000 words and some change

- Some of her characterization and actions are based off of her TF Prime iteration, since she received only a few minutes of screentime in the movie ^^

- The relationship between Airachnid and Sentinel can be interpreted as platonic or romantic or any other kind of relationship, it’s pretty fluid in this imo

- In Airachnid’s POV!

______________________

Airachnid always saw things before they happened.

Not in a divination sense, but in a predatory and analytical sense. She saw what others could not, how faceplates always twitch and tick in particular and predictable ways to tell her everything she needed without even lifting a claw.

Watching and observing for eons as a first lieutenant and surveillance officer hones such skills to near perfection. So much so that she could predict what a bot would likely do from a single movement, a single glance.

However, she never could have foreseen this.

The pathetic cell she was kept in could barely be considered one, as it was clearly meant for prisoners with much smaller frames. That didn't stop the new Prime from shoving her inside one and throwing the key away.

It was laughable, really. Once the second in command to the mech she was devoted wholly to, now reduced to nothing. It all ended so fast. Cycles passed like this, with Airachnid simply staring at the empty walls surrounding her. She was cut off from the rest of the surveillance networks, so she couldn't look at anything even mildly entertaining.

Now and then, the unrightful Prime and his weak underlings would visit her cell, speaking of peace and unity and other naive topics that they knew nothing about. They even briefly talked of freeing her to use her skills to their advantage. Not that she would agree to it, even if they did.

She never once spoke back to them. What was there to say? She wouldn’t join their lost cause. A civil war was just beyond the horizon of Cybertron’s future, but they couldn't see it. Nobody could. But Airachnid saw everything, even beyond the walls of her cell.

Airachnid always saw things before they happened.

She knew how the elite members of Cybertron’s past society felt hesitant to live alongside the previous lower classes, and she saw how Sentinel’s death was dividing more and more bots by the minute. It was only a matter of time before the Quintessons would become the least of Cybertron’s worries.

Pathetic. All because a couple of defective mining bots didn't learn their places in their society. It was times like these that made Airachnid reflect on her time with Sentinel.

He was the one who acknowledged her strength, even when the Primes did not. She was left to waste away as the head of surveillance operations, forever recording and processing battle footage and data but never participating in it.

She remembers the day Sentinel approached her for the first time, completely lacking fear or repulsion but instead showing genuine admiration and curiosity for her skills. He promised that the war would no longer be unwinnable, that she would be a warrior who could wet her blades with energon as often as she wished.

Sentinel kept his word. If nothing else, he kept his promise to her. For it, she swore her loyalty for all time. Over reason, over question, over her own life. For it, he was slaughtered as she watched.

Airachnid thought that she could see things before they happened.

She had to watch from the broadcasting tower as he was torn in half by the silver mech, the one who dropped the newly appointed Prime. The cog of Megatronus Prime was then ripped from Sentinel’s color-drained chest cavity, and she watched as his killer placed it inside his own chest.

She was battered and scratched, forcefully held against the broadcasting input panel as her memories betrayed her. Betrayed him.

None of it felt real then. It still doesn't feel real now. In a way, she was denying it still. She was meant to protect Sentinel, and now he was dead. Everything she ever did, she did for him. But now he was gone, and she was still here, rotting away in a cell that didn't even fit her.

An unfamiliar aching pain in her chest made itself known ever since that day.

She was not familiar with the concept of emotions, only with their capability of revealing weaknesses in her enemies. Anger leads to irrationality. Loss leads to impulsivity. Sorrow leads to openings.

So she kept that feeling locked away, unseen and unknown.

It stayed like that for cycles, and Airachnid counted every single moment of it. The distant window at the end of the hall where her cell was placed was painfully small, but it was just enough for her to tell when day turned to night. She never recharged. It unsettled the wardens when they left their shift only to return and find her in the exact same position she was in.

She was used to staying alert for days on end, working until Sentinel would not so subtly suggest a break. Even after they became more acquainted, he still couldn't comprehend that Airachnid didn't have downtime, let alone hobbies or personal preferences.

That pain in her chest only got worse the longer she thought of Sentinel. It seemed to dig and claw at her very spark.

Airachnid knows many things, but emotional connection isn't one of them. She and Sentinel shared that trait, she recalled him telling her. He played the part of a dutiful and devoted Prime, one that happily interacted with his subjects and praised the lower classes, but he didn't care for them at all. Nearly every last relationship he fostered was superficial.

However, there was…an understanding between them. He never bothered to keep up his act around her. She saw through the mask regardless. She saw what he was really like. However, he saw something in Airachnid too. Something that even she didn't realize or think was there.

There was one memory in particular that often crawled across her processor when she thought of Sentinel.

——

“Can you imagine waging a war could be this dull?”

Sentinel was visiting her working area again, an isolated and screen-filled room that was far away from potential prying eyes. It was dark and hidden, unseen and unheard, just like Airachnid herself. The large blue and gold mech was leaning against the doorway, simply watching her work. Sentinel’s gilded presence stuck out from the dim surroundings, but it was not…unwelcome.

She didn't look up from her work with her main optics, but a couple of the ones on the side of her helm flicked to him, a subtle indicator that she was listening. The mech tilted his helm at her action, having seemingly learned a couple of her unspoken signs.

“If it is varied action you desire, I suggest requesting more field assignments.”

His face fell just a little at her response, but it was enough for her to make her prediction. He would be disappointed by her lack of ability to humor him and leave her workspace, never to return. He wasn't the first mech to try and converse with her, and he likely won't be the last. Perhaps he would finally become unsettled by her.

Airachnid always saw a thing before it happened, after all.

But to her surprise, he didn't move from his spot near the doorway. He moved further into the room, like he was…intrigued. Fascinated, even.

He wasn't like the other bots. He wasn't deterred by her pragmatic demeanor or unnerved by her appearance and skills. Even if he was, he truly hid it from her gaze well for her to believe it, and that warranted her respect.

“Do you think we can win this war?”

His usual smile was gone, replaced by a slight frown and a surprising amount of awareness in his optics. It was like he was gauging her reaction, trying to pry open her helm to find the thoughts she buried so deep even she forgot they were there. Sentinel sparked something in her mind that she thought she had suppressed.

She couldn't tell that to him, obviously. He may be laying out a trap. She couldn't trust him so easily. However, she didn't want to ignore his question. For some reason, she decided to entertain him.

“My thoughts on this war are irrelevant. I am not the one behind the plans for battle and strategy.”

“But if you were, do you think things would be different?”

Silence. At least as silent as it could be with her slowed clicking and constant readjusting of her helm optics. Even though she was taller than Sentinel, she felt the need to shrink under his gaze, like he could see what she could not.

He could see her most hidden thoughts, and for the first time, she felt…vulnerable. It was thrilling. Horrifying. Was this how other bots felt when she entered a room? She felt her spark hum just a little faster than it normally did.

“We’ve been taken for granted, don’t you think? If the Primes weren't so self-insistent and hypocritical, we might be winning against the Quintessons.”

His usually outspoken and confident demeanor was stripped away, revealing something he had kept tempered and cleverly hidden in front of others, especially the Primes. But not her. Not anymore.

Pure ambition sparkled in those big blue optics of his. He was peeling himself apart for her, showing her what he would never show others. She knew it was there since she first laid her optics on him, but now he was completely barren of masks and walls and acts.

“Every last one of those Primes wastes your potential by keeping you hidden away. Don't you want to prove to them that you're more than a surveillance expert?”

Airachnid realized that Sentinel was now much closer than she anticipated him to be. How he managed to sneak behind her, she had no idea. Perhaps this was a plot, a ploy to get her to lower her guard-

She swiveled her helm fully backward to meet Sentinel’s painfully blue optics, her indigo ones burning for a reason she couldn't fathom. Her helm stayed completely still as the rest of her body turned to face him, her extra limbs unfurling to give her some extra height.

She was angry, angry at him for interrupting her life with his sincerity both true and false, angry at the losing war she was forged to serve in, angry at herself for letting anyone ever get this close to her true thoughts. The carefully placed walls of her stoicism had started to crack once Sentinel started visiting her workspace.

An unstoppable force had reached an unmovable object, it seems.

If he were any other mech, she would have gutted him for his insolence long ago and hid the evidence. Even tampered with footage systems to make it seem like he left and betrayed the Primes and their forces. But he was not any other mech, and he was still standing.

He may be her superior, the aide to the Primes themselves, but she never cared for ranks or titles.

Sentinel seemed surprised at her angered reaction, but not afraid. He didn't take any steps back, instead opting to stand his ground and look at her with an expression she still couldn't decipher even after cycles of knowing him. The closest description she could ever find was understanding, but even that felt wrong and inaccurate.

It stayed silent like that for what felt like eons, and every bit of it was tense and insufferable. Airachnid was used to sensing tension whenever she was around other bots, and she had grown used to it, but with Sentinel, it just felt…wrong.

“I…”

For once, Airachnid was at a loss for words. Maybe she didn't understand all of Sentinel’s facets after all. The thought of him having more hidden beneath his charm and confidence made her want to peel him open herself, to dissect him piece by piece to try to understand why and how he makes her act so…unlike herself.

Sentinel slowly reached for her servo with his own, an act that would have warranted dismemberment if he were any other mech. But he wasn't, so he lived. She didn't even realize he slowly guided her extra limbs down so that her pedes were touching the floor once more, thoroughly unraveling the web of frustration and barriers she put up.

“You’re held back by what others decided for you. So am I. One day, we’re going to be who we were meant to be.”

Her optics widened, surprised at the sincerity in his voice. If he were feigning his emotions, then he was very good at it. She was going to say something in response to his admittedly comforting fantasy, but he held her servo a little tighter and spoke before she could.

“This is a promise. I'll give us the destiny we deserve. I'm going to make sure of it.”

She didn't have any sort of response to his conviction. His smile wasn't like the practiced one in reflections or the one he used around the Primes, it was…different. Smaller. Personal.

Airachnid always saw things before they happened. She had expected the war to be lost, and to die not in battle with wetted claws and blades but in this cursed workspace that became her life. But now, she cautiously imagined a future of glittering cities and future cybertronians who knew nothing of war.

She could tell Sentinel saw the same future, and he was willing to turn it into reality through any means necessary. The thought of getting to spill energon once more thrilled her.

If Sentinel was lying, Airachnid didn't notice. More accurately, if he was lying, she didn't care.

——

Airachnid now knew that Sentinel was not lying. He effortlessly deceived working-class miners and even the Primes, but she discovered that he never lied to her. Not even once. He told her everything from his desires for Primacy to his plans to keeping someone quiet, and she was always there to wait, watch, and assist.

He was always there to provide her cover, always present to perpetuate the simple little lie that held the foundation of their society together. But when a few unsuspecting bots slipped through the cracks? That's what he had her for.

She was Sentinel’s shadow, the one who happily killed in the dark so he could bask in the light. He knew this, and he made her feel…seen. He never once told her to hide away in some distant lower floor, to hide who and what she is. He was happy to gloat about her dependability, happy to praise her skills in covering up brutal murders to look like unfortunate accidents.

He…

A distant explosion forced Airachnid to open all of her optics and receptors. She couldn't hear what could have caused the noise, but she could feel just how close it was to the walls of her prison shaking from the force. She wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the disruption was caused by the new Prime’s inability to keep his own forces from dissent. He knew nothing of what it meant to keep someone in line.

Another explosion, and the quieter sounds of blasters firing. They seemed to fade in and out, but they all seemed targeted at her prison building. A riot or escape plan, perhaps.

Airachnid did not know anything to try and make a prediction. It was maddening, having so many eyes and yet unable to use any of them to know what was going on. She was blind in every possible way except physically.

She was defenseless, only having just enough energon in her systems to prevent deactivation. Her weapons were useless without the energon required, and her extra limbs had been removed long ago to prevent transformation or retaliation.

More blasts and explosions. This time, they sounded-

An impossibly loud sound erupted directly next to her, and pain traveled all across her frame in waves. Each of her optics was damaged, even the ones carefully concealed by her helm plating. She wasn't blind, not yet. She had just enough vision left to see that a giant hole had been made in her cell, revealing the outside. Just outside the gap was a jet of red and white and just a bit of blue-

Starscream. She recognized that imbecile easily. That high and mighty pathetic fool whom she so easily captured for Sentinel. High Guard exile scrap. He and his Seekers probably came for petty revenge for killing some of his forces, back when he was -and still is- an ignorant coward who hid as soon as he struck.

Without thinking, Airachnid jumped out of the opening made by the jets and onto Starscream in his aircraft form, clawing and tearing and prying at the metal of his wings and any other area she could reach. Even without her extra limbs and weapons, she knew how to fight, and she knew how to fight dirty.

Sentinel used to commend her for that. For being brutal yet efficient. For being swift and strong and vicious and-

Airachnid screamed out. She clung to the Seeker like a second set of armor. She didn't care that he transformed to try and counter her attacks, didn't care that she was being reckless and risking her life for nothing. She had nobody to fight for, no cause to follow.

These ignorant fools, Autobots or Decepticons or whatever they chose to call themselves were dooming Cybertron more than Sentinel ever did. Why couldn't they see that? Why couldn't they see that Sentinel intended to betray the Quintessons and liberate their planet once and for all, that he did what he did to protect their home temporarily?

She saw things before they happened. She saw how things were supposed to happen. But then these filthy half-wits got in the way.

Her senses came back to her once she realized she was falling, that some other Seeker had torn her off of their commander. She didn't panic. Though she would have liked to be able to fight with more than just her servos, she would gladly pick dying while fighting rather than rotting away in a cell or in a surveillance operations room.

One of the Seekers shot something towards her, and she wasn't able to dodge without the propeller that would usually be on her back. Whatever the thing was made contact with her helm, and everything glitched and burned before going dark.

——

“…Wake her up, and fast.”

Airachnid’s systems hummed to life, and she was immediately overwhelmed by all the notifications of her injuries and the critical state of her energon reserves. There was nothing but red registering in her optics, an unusual sight devoid of the details she was so used to processing.

Familiar surroundings. This was on the surface, nowhere near Iacon City or energon train routes. Red lighting. Nighttime. Distant burning.

Bright blue dotted and smudged against every single one of her optics, a searing pain washing over the injuries despite the lack of sensory inputs around them. Those cowardly imbeciles must have damaged her optics to prevent her from gaining any information.

She was forced up and forward with the distinct sensation of a blaster pressed to the cabling on her nape, the slight heat from the barrel nearly activating and the sound of it charging up being more than enough to make the assumption. Her servos were clamped behind her with the distinct heat and hue of energon cuffs, and she was forced to walk forward with shaky steps.

Her optics clicked and shuttered to process her surroundings fully. It was made very clear where she was now.

Bots and mechs of all kinds created a rough path for her to walk through in what she realized was their run-down base, all branded with the same symbol somewhere on their wings or limbs. The base was filled to the brim with other mechs and femmes alike, all bearing that same symbol. The simplified helm of Megatronus Prime was now an insignia for a band of miserable fools.

Airachnid would narrow a singular pair of her many optics, but the bright blue energon leaking from them prevented her with a sharp sting of pain. The equally bright blue energon cuffs holding her servos behind her back certainly didn't help.

It was humiliating to be paraded in front of these exiled High Guard miner-following imbeciles. At least with kneeling to the Quintessons, it was an unspoken rule with Sentinel to never bring up those moments of submission. But here in this dingy wrecked ship (a poor excuse for a base if she's ever seen one, especially after she and her fleet destroyed most of it), these red-eyed dimwits had already started to chatter and gossip amongst themselves.

“Look, Starscream and the other Seekers came back! They managed to catch Airachnid!”

Airachnid had to hold herself back to prevent gutting the insolent mechs where they stood, something that became increasingly harder to do as her propeller parts were either broken or no longer present to aid in her typical slaughter. She kept marching forward, not just to prevent herself from doing something she'd regret but also because a blaster was pressing against her spine as she walked.

Fearful cowards.

Even with a limited range of vision with damaged and bleeding optics, Airachnid was still acutely aware of her surroundings. The supposed warriors before her were nothing but fools with weaponry. She saw everything. The way some of them shifted uncomfortably when she glanced at them, how others narrowed their optics at hers to hide their dread.

Predictable.

She resisted smirking to herself upon seeing just how many of the High Guard were missing. She knew what happened to them, of course. She sliced them to ribbons with her blades. Perhaps that was why her presence here was such a spectacle to behold. She stood just a little taller as she walked, savoring how some of the surrounding bots shrank under her gaze and physical presence.

Starscream sneered from behind her, his glitched voice box causing some of his words to crackle and be pitched much higher than normal.

“Keep walking, freakshow.”

The null ray on his arm pressed into her back even more, causing her to stumble forward ever so slightly. She said nothing in response, only opening up the back of her helm for just a split second to let her many bleeding optics gaze at his crimson ones.

She couldn't help but smirk a little once she heard and saw his determined expression turn into a panicked one for a split second.

The rest of the walk through the pathetic base was uneventful, save for a forgettable mech or two from the sidelines who tried to shout at her for killing their best friends or Conjux or whatever it was they said, outbursts that were quickly hushed with a glare from Starscream and shushes from the other surrounding bots. It was almost funny.

Airachnid and her escorts ended up reaching a throne towards the end of the room, one that was fashioned from various junk scrap metal pieces and stray cables. Fitting for the mech sitting upon it.

D-16. Or Megatron, as he now insisted on calling himself. Either way, he was still a petulant brute. Even with his new silvery armor plating and tank alt-mode, he still reeked of inexperience and an innate lack of proper control over his forces.

Starscream kicked one of her legs from behind, causing her to kneel awkwardly to avoid falling forward. He and his Seekers then emerged from behind her to join their leader in stoic positions, their pure red eyes rivaling the crimson moons of Cybertron itself. Starscream’s torn plating and sparking wires brought her immense satisfaction, though nobody would be able to tell from her expression.

Someone tried quietly suggesting he get checked out by a medic, but he rejected the notion with glitching hissed words. A small spark from a bundle of exposed wires made him curse quietly to himself, and Airachnid’s gaze narrowed at the sight. Even without her extra limbs and her weapons, the High Guard were still complete jokes.

For a while, it was mostly quiet. There was the occasional distant whispering in the background as Airachnid tried and failed to regain some of the sight she lost after the fight with the Seekers. Megatron continued to glare at her with disgust from his throne as if he was some battle-torn warlord and not an upgraded miner.

She said nothing. She did nothing. She knew how to easily break the energon cuffs holding her servos back. War and surveying battles provide such tricks. She should slaughter all of these imbeciles where they stand.

She should have killed D-16, but she struck him only once. It was all she needed to do to subdue a forgettable miner. Sentinel wanted him alive, after all.

But here, she was surrounded by other soldiers with fully loaded weapons. It was best to watch and wait. To do what she has always done.

Her main pair of optics narrowed to match Megatron’s. His faceplate twisted with revulsion even further if it were possible. Starscream seemed all too eager to tear her spark from her chest if the silver mech demanded it.

“I should have you torn apart right in front of everyone here just for being alive. For working with Sentinel to keep up a lie that was bound to be revealed. For hunting anyone close to the truth. For many things that would take me too long to list.”

Megatron’s faceplate contorted with detestation and far too many other emotions, ones that he didn't have the skill to hide from Airachnid’s perception. Anger. Hatred. Disgust. Reminiscing. Regret.

His words prompted the other High Guard members- the Decepticons- to ready their weapons and point them all at her. Some had even stepped forward as if waiting for their leader to give a silent cue.

However, the silver-plated mech held a black servo up to subdue them. The other bots around him turned their heads in confusion, clearly all too eager to kill her if only given the chance.

“Lord Megatron, what is the meaning of-”

Starscream was hushed with a sharp side-eyed glare, and he hesitantly lowered his damaged arm weapons. The other Seekers and Decepticons slowly followed his actions, all of them reduced to meager insects underneath their leader’s gaze. Airachnid held in a scoff at how easily they were corrected.

“As much as I wish to rip each of your optics out one by one…”

Airachnid braced herself for whatever may come next, the energon cuffs around her servos straining with pressure. The back of her helm split just ever so slightly, just enough for her to use her damaged optics to seek a way out, any way to escape. Her main pair and the ones on the side of her helm all focused on the mech in front of her, his grey and black frame still mostly covered by shadow.

She could escape, though not easily. There were gaps in the plating of the upper rafters, cables and wires parted just enough for her to slip through. She would need to subdue the Decepticons around her. Prioritize the strongest. Starscream, then Soundwave, then-

“…You would be more useful to me with them intact.”

Airachnid lifted her helm slightly, the back plates closing completely. So that was what he wanted. Her skills. With how Starscream and his Seekers made their entrance in Iacon City, it was clear that the Decepticons didnt have anyone who specialized in stealth or covert operations. It was painfully obvious that they needed her experience.

But working for a leader like Megatron? It wasn't worth staying alive and becoming a warrior again. It was an embarrassment. A stain on her history of working for someone like Sentinel.

What would he think, seeing her like this? What would he think of her now, joining a group of inexperienced imbeciles in order to survive?

No. She was not getting involved with this meaningless war. Whether it was with the Quintessons or the Autobots or whatever they called themselves, Airachnid wasn’t interested. Cybertron was doomed either way.

Nothing will have any meaning, and none of these imbeciles cared.

Megatron, however, seemed to be the most delusional of all. He acted as if his word was law here, and so did his minions. They were blinded, but not by the new Prime’s so called deceptions.

The energon cuffs linking her arms behind her back were suddenly removed, and someone forced her to stand upright. She must have been trapped deep within her own mind, otherwise how else could someone approach her without her detecting it?

The optics on the sides of Airachnid’s helm shuttered and blinked individually, each of them reflecting her confusion and sudden tuning into her surroundings once more. There were more Decepticons around her, nearly crowding her but clearly too afraid to actually approach her. Some of them had malicious, almost satisfied smirks on their faces, others had disdainful and disapproving frowns.

It started off quiet, then it quickly became loud cheering and chanting, each of the Decepticons looking in the distance at something. Airachnid followed their gazes, and her optics narrowed.

A red-hot branding iron was being carefully carried over to her in the servos of a large mech, aimed directly at the center of her chest plating just beneath her neck cabling. The insignia was the helm of Megatronus Prime, now desecrated and pathetically symbolic of the Decepticon cause.

Airachnid never cared for the Primes in the first place- except perhaps a certain pretender one- but even she raised an optic ridge at the sorry excuse of immortalization this was. Her secondary optics focused on the different Decepticons around her, each bearing the violet symbol on them somewhere. Wings on one, chest plating on another.

Through this symbol, she would be bound to the Decepticons until her spark gave out or until it was torn from her by her enemies. Through this, she would be loyal to them. At least, that was their definition of loyalty.

The mech with the branding iron approached her slowly as he got closer, the visor over his optics unable to hide his uneasiness as Airachnid didn't move an inch. Her optics hardly narrowed as she gazed at the sizzling metal meant to mark her place in the faction for the rest of her existence.

But these fools knew nothing. They don't know what it means to hold an oath to someone, to swear to stand by them with everything they have, everything they are. To kill and lie and fight not as a servant to their leader but as a complement, as a missing piece to something greater. As someone who understands their leader and is understood in turn.

The searing pain of branded symbols was nothing. It was insignificant compared to the true bonds that forged themselves underneath, carving them into a spark and into life effortlessly. The connection that inspired someone to their greatest good and their darkest evils.

Airachnid only stared directly in front of her at Megatron- her new leader- as the hot metal was placed on the center of her chest plating, not even flinching at the steaming heat as it pressed harder than it probably should. Megatron stared back at her, helm raised as if he had conquered an army. As if he had broken her in.

The other mechs around him didn't share the sentiment. Starscream, in particular, had a displeased and sour expression. His position as second in command was threatened. He was threatened. Predictable. An easy target to make an example of.

If playing weak was what it took for Megatron to lower his guard, then Airachnid would do it. She would play along with his meaningless words and his insufferable band of fools for as long as it took. She would play the part of a faithful and dependable little soldier for Megatron and wait. She would wait and watch, just like she always has.

Airachnid always saw things before they happened. She could see the path unraveling itself now.

While every other Decepticon had careful fear of their leader, she would wait and watch, weaving in between the shadows and the light. She made very little mistakes when it came to her duty, her purpose. Sentinel always told her that. However, there was one mistake that led her here today. She struck D-16 only once. She left him alive.

But now, a new opportunity has presented itself. Airachnid would be damned if she ever let go of it now.

So, she will keep her optics open. She will weave a web and familiarize herself with her new circumstances. She will wait. She will watch. And when the time finally comes,

Airachnid will strike twice.

[infamous-if]

O kay okay okayaoakayasysayas Since Rowan isn't going to be a LI can we please get his POV reaction (deep crush stage) of MC going over to him to tell him that MC is in love with one of the other ROs? Pleasee I need the angst and I love Rowan and am sad we won't be able to romance him!!

I was listening to favorite crime and kind of went a bit overboard. Please excuse this lengthy and angsty-ish drabble. Aha.... 🤒 ill keep it short next time

The soft notes of Rowan's guitar--affectionally dubbed 'Betty'--rises above his head, filling the silence of his hotel room. He strums aimlessly, absently, his fingers having a mind of their own as they move, creating a random melody that's oddly soothing. Or maybe it's the very essence of his guitar--he always feels more grounded, centered, with Betty in his hands.

Rowan's gaze remains unfocused as he plays, his head tilted, legs crossed on the balcony that overlooks the sleepy streets of their latest tour stop. A soft, pleasantly warm wind curls around the messy strands of his hair, locks sweeping across his forehead like a caressing hand. As the melody takes hold, going from mindless practice to something that sounds like it can be the bones of a real song, he closes his eyes.

Rowan has never been a good singer, but you don't need to be a good singer to make people feel something. He's learned that from the best of them.

I wonder if MC would like this.

The thought of his best friend makes a low groan sound in his throat, and with a huff he pauses the recording of his phone. Suddenly Betty's romantic notes feel like a taunt, a blade to his heart with every reminder of what he and MC are not. They're not together. They're not anything more than friends.

They're not what he wants them to be.

He knows he shouldn't feel this way about them. They're friends. They've been friends since he still thought fart jokes were funny and he had no bass in his voice. That's all they've always been and all they will be: friends.

The word has never sounded so terrible.

Still. If only...

His phone buzzes with a text and he sets Betty down. That blade in his heart only twists when he sees who it's from.

Of course. Did my thinking manifest them? The thought induces both a laugh and a sharp hint of misery from him.

He reads the text: Open your door.

He turns his upper-body to face his door, bursting up once the realization flows through him. He glances at himself in the mirror on his way there, making sure his pajamas are at least semi-presentable. It's MC; they've seen him in worst states, but level of comfortability changes when you want someone to see you in ways they've never seen you before.

In other words, he needs to look good.

Rowan heaves a breath before swinging open the door, remembering to keep the easy smile on his face. MC still looks good even at twelve a.m. after an entire day on the road. It's almost unfair.

"Heyyyy." He grins, trying to appear light. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

MC rolls their eyes. "You're not busy, are you?" They lean over to peek behind Rowan's shoulder, their eyes settling on an abandoned Betty. "Working on something?"

"Nah." He scratches his neck, self-concious. "Just fooling around. What, you need to talk about something?"

MC pushes past Rowan's shoulder to breeze inside, throwing themselves on the bed with a huff. "Iris and Devyn are out and I need to talk to someone."

Rowan takes a seat next to them, snorting. "So I'm the third choice?Wow."

They prop themselves up on their elbows, strands of hair falling in front of their face. Rowan has the terrible urge to lean over and push them away. "You're not exactly the 'serious talk' kind of person."

"Serious talk?" He gapes. "Yes, I am! I'm capable of being serious, you know. I'm not an asshole."

With a laugh, MC rolls over on their stomach and groans into Rowan's pillow. Now his curiosity is officially piqued. What could have MC so...like this?

"What's up?" Rowan's following laugh is both nervous and amused. "Did something happen with Seven?" Seven and MC have been a bit...all over the place since the beginning of the tour. He hardly knows what to call it. "Or did Orion lecture you again?" Orion is another one. That man has been relentless since tour started.

MC shoots him a look before sitting up, copying Rowan's position. His eyes flicker down to where their knees touch, to the proximity that's gone from the size of the bed to none at all.

They've been close like this before. No, scratch that. They've been closer, but this is different. This is different because everything is different.

"You know you're my best friend, right?" MC says, putting their hands on Rowan's.

He clears his throat, the skin under theirs burning with their touch. "Yeah...?"

"And we can tell each other everything?"

"Yeah." He quirks a brow at them, trying to stifle their humor. "Are you dying? Please don't tell me you're dying. You haven't even gotten rich yet to leave me anything in your will."

MC laughs but it comes out a bit uncertain. High-pitched. Rowan knows them. The same way he knows Iris and Devyn. He knows all of them like the back of his hand. So it only takes him another second to realize it.

MC is nervous.

His heart does a weird somersault in his gut.

"I have a secrettttt," MC sing-songs. Even as a joke they still manage to sing with perfect pitch.

The four words are enough to shake his very world, but he manages an eye roll. "Fucking hell, we're not twelve. Just spit it out."

"Sorry." MC palms their face, a nervous laugh escaping them. God. This must be serious for MC to be nervous in front of him? Rowan has never really gave anyone the impression of a harsh judge. Hell, he's always been an open book. "I just...I'm in love with [RO]."

He wished he didn't rush them. He wished he didn't hear those words at all. He's half tempted to grab it from the air and shove it back into MC's mouth so they can pretend it never happened.

"What?" is all the fuzz in his brain can spit out.

MC throws their self back, a wildly breathless laugh escaping them. The sound is even better than Betty's notes. "WHEW. That felt good to say it. Is anyone hot in here? I know I am."

MC keeps babbling but all Rowan could hear is a white noise in his head. MC is in love with RO. MC is in love with them.

MC is in love with someone that's not him.

"I just needed to let that out." MC huffs, gazing around the room. "You should invite me next time you play. You know I like seeing you finger Betty."

Rowan can't even laugh at the dirty inside joke they've had between them since he bought Betty years ago. It suddenly makes him feel wholly small and largely ridiculous: Rowan will never be the person for MC. He will always be the goofy best friend that makes stupid, childish jokes about fingering his dumbass guitar and the one MC goes to when Devyn and Iris aren't available.

He's not even the second choice. He's the fucking fourth.

As if noticing the change in atmosphere, MC awkwardly purses their lips and says, "I should probably get back to my room and get some sleep. We have an early start tomorrow."

He blinks, managing a small nod. "Uh-huh." He runs a hand through his hair, feeling naked without his hat. "Right."

They stand and shoot Rowan a final look. "Thank you," they say after. a moment, "for being my friend."

He's really starting to hate that word.

But he smiles anyway. "Yeah. Ditto."

MC grins, spinning on the heel of their foot to leave the room. Rowan follows, waving lamely at them and watching as they disappear down the hall, whistling a merry tune. It's true; it does feel like a weight was lifted of their shoulders. They walk with a hop in their step. Rowan hates knowing it was RO that is responsible for that.

With a sigh he closes the door, leaning his forward against it. Spinning on his shoulder, he looks up at the ceiling.

"I need to get laid," he mumbles.

Though he has a feeling that won't do much to solve the problem in his heart.

[youphoriaot7]

just saw a heart-wrenching edit on tiktok (sad music and all) about q!cellbit and the way he interacts with the eggs and i just...

i remember when i was still getting into the qsmp (which i did from cellbit's pov) and was scrolling the wiki on the daily, trying to figure out past lore and relationships and everything

and every single time i clicked on an egg's page i would end up seeing cellbit's face somewhere in the relationship box. and it always made me grin so wide because it was just...cute. and then i realized a lot of them had even mentioned things like him being one of their favorite tios or whatever and i'm just so. fucking. soft. about the idea of just-

this guy. comes to this island. in the middle of nowhere—doesn't really know how he ended up there, doesn't remember much about where he came from, nothing. and, like, it's natural to be a bit skittish or at least defensive, especially when there's already so many people here, because you don't know what they will do to you, how they'll react to anything: they are essentially unknown entities.

and if you really think about it, that completely includes the eggs. because although they're just kids, q!cellbit was canonically in a war at, like, age 15. he's definitely not one to underestimate someone because of their age—he is damn well aware of how scary people can be, regardless of what their age is.

but then they start interacting, and, like—tallulah gives him flowers, and ramon picks him for a partner in the boat race, and he's able to joke and play around with chayanne and bobby, and...in a way, it's like seeing himself, or rather, what he could have been.

because he never got that; he never got to do that. he can see the relationships they have with their parents—tallulah and chayanne with phil, ramon with fit, dapper with bbh, bobby with roier and jaiden—and he sort of comes to realize, like, "these kids don't know." they don't know what it's like to be at war. they don't know what it's like to end up in jail. they don't know what it's like to not be able to live because you're too focused on surviving. whether it's been that way in the past and they don't remember or not, they don't know.

and, inwardly, he decides he's going to make damn fucking sure it stays that way.

so he starts collecting flowers, to give some to tallulah the next time they meet, and the way she beams assures him he'll continue. and when ramon makes a mistake in the boat race and starts beating himself up about it, he empathizes and reassures him. (practically makes the poor kid cry.)

he sees the way chayanne takes the lead around the younger eggs and takes note, making sure to joke around and play with him whenever he can—because he may be the oldest, and the most responsible, but he deserves to have fun, too.

all of this includes richas, of course. in fact, it's even more exaggerated, to the extent that (in some ways similarly to fit) he mostly lets richas do what he wants, only growing concerned or stern if the kid's life is in danger. (because he saw what happened to bobby, and he's not going to let it happen on his watch.)

because there's enough pain in the world. chaos runs rampant on the island, from the federation to the codes, from the kidnappings to the tasks, from the bombs to the capybaras. there is death at every turn, and this island can be deceiving, because it doesn't seem like it. it seems perfectly fine.

but he knows.

he's been in this position before, where everyone and everything is trying to kill him. he's familiar with the concept of survival. and this island is survival.

but these are kids. they don't need that. hell, he had that as a kid, and look how he turned out. no, if he has anything to say about it, nothing will seem out of the ordinary. as much as he can help it. he will gives flowers to tallulah, he will make jokes with chayanne, he will explore with richas, he will spend time with ramon and dapper—all to offer even a semblance of normalcy.

so uh the fluff part of this train of thought is over so click off now if you don't want the hurt <3

but then things start to change. bobby dies, and the federation teases them about it, dangling the child above their heads. the codes ramp up their attacks. the kidnappings start to increase. people die and respawn more frequently. and the more he tries to get free, to get away from the island, the worse things get for the current inhabitants.

he meets pomme. this terrified egg that's been trapped behind a wall since before he even got there. and he realizes that he won't be able to shelter them forever.

things are going to happen, one way or another, to shatter the fragile illusion of reality the islanders are trying to create for these kids. in some way, the curtain is going to fall, and it is going to hurt. it's going to hurt as badly as it hurt him when he was thrown into battle. it's going to hurt as badly as it hurt him when he ended up in a top-security prison when he was barely an adult. it's going to hurt as badly as it hurt him when the wool was yanked away from his own eyes by that white bear not a week after his arrival on the island.

so whatever you do, don't think about what it must've felt like to find that book. don't think about what he must've been thinking as he flipped through those old, yellowed journal pages. don't think about him reading that lost egg's words, and just thinking, "god, this could've been me."

because it very well could've been.

the book literally talks about not wanting to survive, but wanting to live, and all he can think about for the rest of the day is how it was abandoned. same as him—only one was on a battlefield, and one was in this tiny-ass room. and there was no warrior in shining armor, no police officer taking pity to pull this egg out of there. he had someone. this egg had no one.

so of course he switches out the keychain on his backpack. because carrying that egg with him is like carrying a piece of himself, in just the same way that all the eggs feel like a piece of himself.

he can't protect the eggs forever. he knows that. but that doesn't mean he can't try.

[drewlover]

annabeth is first introduced to eve at school. her teacher—ms. honey—had given her a bible. no one had told her it was for religious purposes, or that someday the idea of it would be so ridiculous to her, so she just treated it like any other story, another poem-of-sorts to be read and analyzed.

she barely makes it past genesis—there was only so much a six-year-old's attention span could take, no matter how smart the said six-year-old was. perhaps it had felt wrong, too, older forces making the wind cooler and the book harder to read, century-old jealousy rearing its head.

but annabeth was annabeth, and she took on challenges better than most. she finished genesis and gave it back to her teacher.

"eve is like me," is all she says when she gives it back to ms. honey.

ms. honey nods and smiles. "yes, darling. she is a woman, and as brave and beautiful as you will be."

annabeth nods. she doesn't tell ms. honey that the only similarity she's noticed between herself and eve was that eve did not have a mother, either.

-

her father is a good parent. the thing is, annabeth doesn't really know what a good parent is, but her father is kind. he doesn't raise his voice at her, and he smiles absently and nods when she says something. he never forgets to put a side a smaller serving on a smaller plate whenever he eats, even though he barely remembers to.

she tells him about eve, and tells him that she is like her. she doesn't notice the way his hands grip his pen tighter when she says the word 'mother'.

she doesn't understand why her father won't bring her to church, either.

-

annabeth is seven when her mother first speaks to her. she's been on the streets for so long, and she's tired. the spiders keep following. the monsters keep following. she's alone, and so, so hungry.

"annabeth."

the voice is stern—there is no warmth in them. sterile. cool. precise. annabeth looks up.

somehow, she knows. "mother."

her mother looks her up and down, but makes no move to go closer. a cap appears in front of annabeth—old and worn, yet heavy, still. a gift from her mother. she takes it, and her hands tremble.

athena notices. her mouth forms a sneer, but no insult comes out of her mouth. "do me proud," she says instead, like a seven-year-old will understand, like a child will understand.

yet athena still flows through annabeth's veins, and she nods. athena disappears, and there is nothing left—just the slightest ripple of a breeze. the monsters come, still, and the spiders soon follow. athena doesn't come back.

annabeth wonders if her mother gifts her invisibility so that she will never have to see annabeth again.

-

the invisibility cap hasn't worked in over a year. the first time it doesn't work she's caught of guard, and the scorpion hits her on the shoulder, already weakened from the time during the battle of manhattan. it takes the combined force of her, chiron, and will to stop percy from storming olympus and destroying her mother's temple.

"why would she give something just to take it away?" percy asked her, eyebrows furrowed with anger. he's a hurricane in her arm, fingers trembling and veins thrumming.

annabeth doesn't answer, but she knows. this is her mother, telling her that annabeth needs to be seen.

-

annabeth is nineteen years old when she renounces her mother, and the pain is bone deep.

she does it in rome, where her mother had sent her in a fit of anger, sending her daughter to execute her revenge. take back the mark of athena. make your mother proud.

athena had sent her there, a pig raised for slaughter.

she had braved tartarus. the gods, no matter their cruelty, held no power over her now.

her mother had always been one of the crueler ones.

"you renounce me? you dare?"

annabeth could feel her blood thrumming in her veins, threatening to burst out. athena was barely keeping her essence in—annabeth could see her skin burning gold, on the precipice of shifting to her godly form. everything was blurring around the edges—athena was barely holding on to her disguise. despite everything, she refuses to incinerate annabeth. a small act of mercy.

"yes mother. i dare." she could feel the blood soaking her teeth, could taste it's metallic tang on her tongue. the air grew hotter.

"you would not have me on your side. you will never gain back my alliance, annabeth. do you dare?"

annabeth laughed, and somewhere she knew dionsyus was chuckling in delight at the traces of insanity in it. blood trickled down her chin and onto the ground, but it did not sizzle. the blood wasn't an offering to athena. it was an act of defiance.

athena's most successful warrior—whose blood no longer belonged to her.

"very well," athena said eyes flashing gold. "you are no longer my daughter. greek land will reject your blood. no longer will you be accepted into our world, and no longer will you be mine."

annabeth felt the bones in both her legs crack, but she refused to let out the scream of anguish struggling to be let out of her throat. refused to give athena the satisfaction of knowing that this hurt her as much as it hurt the goddess.

all at once the goddess disappeared, and annabeth was left alone in the middle of rome.

she looked up. it was a church, and it was beautiful.

eve looked down at her, with her frightened eyes and trembling hands wrapped around the apple.

the apple that had gifted her knowledge. the apple that had taken away everything from eve. the apple that had gifted humanity freedom.

annabeth had never been more like her.

[aunteat]

T | Children of Satan One-Shot | Day 3: Eucharist for @vamptember WARNING: depictions of torture, religious symbolism, implied sexual conduct

Santino visits Armand in the dungeons.

Impossible to know how much time had passed without even the rise and fall of the moon as a guide but he knew it must’ve been near time for his next victim. The hunger was growing terrible again — not just bodily anymore, it infected his mind. He struggled to distinguish sleep from wakefulness, couldn’t tell if he suffered dreams or memories or some amalgamation of both but the subject was always the same. One moment, he was lying in the dripping dungeon of that terrible Venician brothel, near death with fever, and the next he was in one of the grand Turkish establishments, being fawned over, massaged with oil, stroked and caressed till he was blind with pleasure. Then he woke again in the dirt cell, still feeling the warmth of their hands against his thighs. 

He didn’t know how long he lay there, face to the dirt, grasping for the sensation when the chorus of shrill squeals finally registered to him. He rolled over and, sure enough, there was Santino, standing at the edge of the cell, with his hoard of rats like familiars streaking through the bars of the cell and over his bare feet. 

“Blood.” His voice was raw with thirst but he knew already that Santino had brought him no victim. He would’ve smelled it.

“A thankless child always asks for more than he knows he deserves. The lowest of vermin know only to take what they are given but you, foulest creature of them all, would demand more,” Santino said. Armand could see he had something in his hands. He tore it, ripping from it a piece no larger than a coin, and cast it at Armand’s feet. The rats swarmed it, crawling over his ankles, tickling his soles with their whiskers so, wincing, he drew his knees to his chest. 

They didn’t sicken him outright the way they might’ve a mortal but the sight of the hoard, the writhing mass of wire fur and fleshy tails, still left a terrible gnawing feeling in his stomach. Perhaps it wasn’t the rats so much as how closely he associated them with Santino. 

“You dream of whores. You lay awake longing for earthly pleasures. Do you think we have not noticed?” Santino asked. He sounded almost saddened, a priest who had listened to the confession of a grievous sin. The rats parted seamlessly for him as he knelt. “God has transformed your body, taken from you the fleshly pleasure of lust, and yet still you lay in want — always in want — and so I have brought you what you want.”

It fell from Santino’s grip onto Armand’s chest, the thing he had been holding. It was a severed hand, lean with long fingers and trimmed nails, bloodless and white but still malleable, still fresh. Despite all the gore he had seen, had created in his desperation to rid his cell of the rotting bodies, he gasped. He grabbed it to throw it out of the cell, but Santino’s hand fell over his and pinned it there. 

“This is what you dreamed of, is it not? The touch of your whores?”

“Get it away from me.”

“Tell me is this not what you asked for?”

“Get it off!”

And, to his surprise, Santino did. He lifted his hand off Armand’s chest and took the severed hand with it. 

“She said she would please me, this woman, even looking as I am. The whore would defile herself for a creature such as me,” Santino lifted the hand to his mouth and let a finger, her ring finger, slide into his mouth in a gesture that seemed almost obscene. And then he bit down. Armand could hear the cracking of bone, the tear of her skin, his vampire sense spared him nothing. Santino plucked the finger from his mouth as though it were but an orange rind. “Did you take Holy Communion, child?”

Confused, stammering, Armand nodded, “Yes.”

“Then you know what to do.” He held the finger before Armand’s lips. “Take it.”

His eyes were bulging, wild, trapped between horror, amazement, and mortal confusion. 

“Open but do not swallow. Even such a Eucharist would be wasted on you.” And when Armand still did not move, Santino tilted his head. “Would you rather I fit it elsewhere?”

Choking a sob, Armand opened his mouth and Santino, breathing a soft sigh, placed the finger on his tongue. It tasted of nothing, not blood, not sweat, perhaps faintly of the dirt from Santino’s hand, if anything at all, but the revulsion swelled in him all the same. 

“Do you see, my son? To hold their flesh in your mouth, to see them devoured by rats, this is how you will take pleasure in whores now. Do you understand?”

Then, as if flicked by an invisible switch, they came, the rats, crawling up his tattered hose and shirt, his chin, his lips, his very gums. Armand choked a cry, tried to reel back, to bite down even and sever their little heads, but Santino held him, squeezing his fingers so viciously into Armand’s cheeks that he couldn’t. 

He heard the snapping of their little jaws as they devoured the finger, their fangs scraping down to the bone. Their fleshy tails wiped his face and he felt their little tongues on his cheeks, licking away the blood tears that he hadn’t even realized were falling. It wasn’t just the revulsion — that alone he might’ve managed — but the indignity, the sheer cruelty of the act, he couldn’t bear it!

It seemed an eternity they were there before Santino released his face and the rats fled as if of one mind. Armand rolled to his side, gagging, spitting out the bones, the little hairs, the bits of grit their little paws had tracked into his mouth. He pushed himself up on his elbows and his body convulsed in retches. There was nothing in his stomach to vomit up and yet on he went retching until his body gave beneath him and he fell back to the dirt, panting and exhausted.

“Demon!” He heaved for breath and, once again, with all his might screamed, “Demon!”

“No, child. Nothing of the sort.” Oh, how saddened Santino seemed by this. He shook his head gently and laid his hand on Armand’s thigh. He tried feebly to kick him off but he had exhausted his strength. “You would still believe I take delight in this torture but I do not. Would that I could relieve you of this suffering… But what a disservice I would be doing to you. We learn, all of us, through pain. We grow into the beings that our Lord would us to be. No. For all the begging in the world, I would not deny you this.”

[fazedlight]

Mercy (character study)

Kal said he knew what it was like.

He didn’t. How could he?

Kara had choked down her anguish, hearing him describe his skirmish with a black mercy, as he tried to commiserate with her encounter. He had dreamt up this entire incredible world - just from his own mind, from fragments of knowledge learned in the Fortress, from the plant embedded in his chest - fantastical and new. On Krypton, he had a robo-dog named Brainiac, a beautiful wife, a son who loved pancakes.

Krypton never had pancakes.

Kara gave a sympathetic smile, pushing away the words she wished she could say. About how the black mercy had let her listen to her father’s voice say inah for the first time in decades. About how the black mercy had shown her the mother who had taught her how to pray to Rao. About how the black mercy had offered her the beautiful lands out her childhood window - all burnt to ash, long before Kal had ever formed his first memory. 

She didn’t lose a fantasy. She had lost her whole world.

And she hoped Kal would never understand that.

[pocketsizedowls]

Lan Xichen, libra extraordinaire, has never made a decision in his life.

He's been trained to, of course, but only in an official capacity. His uncle once told him to only make decisions after gathering sufficient information, and that has since become the most important rule in his life. This means he's great at mediating conflict, hosting banquets, and making executive decisions like which village gets more rice and what policies he should enact, but he never knows what to eat for dinner and what to do during his free time.

Lan Wangji, neurodivergent/autistic icon, is the complete opposite. He's a picky perfectionist with a strict daily routine, which no one ever interrupts because why should they? It's just Wangji being Wangji. And, in fact, everyone should strive to be like him. Perhaps if he grew up somewhere rowdier like Lotus Pier or the Unclean Realm then someone would finagle him into being spontaneous, but this is the Cloud Recesses. Of course nobody bothered him until Wei Wuxian came along and turned his world upside down.

Before Wei Wuxian, though, there was Lan Xichen. He stops by the Jingshi often, not because he is concerned for his antisocial little brother (well, maybe just a little), but because he gets so bored sometimes and he never knows what to do. Whenever Uncle is busy, little Xichen likes to find little Wangji and follow his routine with him. Can I join you as you meditate, he asks, and can I eat dinner with you? What do you suggest I do after lectures tomorrow? The other day I took your advice and made a painting, do you wanna see it? Can you pick a book out of this pile for me to read first? I can't seem to decide.

This is why Lan Xichen gets along so well with people. He goes along with things, lets people make decisions for him, and genuinely enjoys it. He earns the trust of the skeptical people without even trying to, just because he lets them pick which wine to order at the inn and what day they should go on a night hunt. You might think it's quite counterintuitive for an all-important sect leader to be this indecisive, but it worked out for the majority of his life. Just like how he chooses to believe in the good in people, people also believe in the good in him.

These days, though, Lan Xichen is reconsidering his behavior. As weeks turn into months turn into years, he stares out the windows of the Hanshi and wonders: Would everything turn out differently if he made more decisions based on instinct? Who can he even trust anymore? Would Nie Mingjue still be alive today, if he didn't force him and A-Yao to become sworn brothers? Would A-Yao still be alive today, if he listened to Wangji and Wei-gongzi's warning sooner? All the people who tell him he did nothing wrong must be lying. How can nothing be his fault?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji adds more items to his routine. With Lan Xichen in seclusion, he's busy now. He teaches and he nighthunts and he sits through meetings and he spends time with Wei Ying. He also visits his brother. He drops by the Hanshi every three days and says, can I join you as you meditate, and can I eat dinner with you? What do you suggest I do after lectures tomorrow? The other day I took your advice and wrote a new song, do you wanna hear it? Can you pick a book out of this pile for me to read first? I can't seem to decide.

[pureanimosity]

idk what this is so go ahead and take it

Sonic didn’t know if this was an obsession or if he still couldn’t get over the past.

He didn’t even know why he felt this way, or how he did. Usually, whenever he was at his lowest point the hedgehog would shake it off. Ignore it, because he was the hero of Mobius — he had no time to act so self-pitying. 

He was saving the world for chaos sake! He shouldn’t feel that way when it was such an honour to be a mobian that everyone depends on.

A mobian that everyone depends on too much.

So why, why did he hate it? Why did it always feel so overbearing.. so overwhelming. 

The pressure of others piling up in a messy, unorganised, folder and forcefully placed onto his hands.

The weight on his shoulders felt heavier than usual; a truly exhausting thing.

He never asked for this. 

He never wanted this. 

As far as the azure hedgehog could remember, whenever he played saviour attempting to make everyone proud and acknowledge his heroic acts, all the responsibility was suddenly thrusted into him without warning. 

Just because he could ruin some robots beyond repair. 

Ever since he showed off his abnormal speed, everyone relied on him to save their village. To give them the freedom they deserved.

They were asking too much from a little kid.

For Gaia sakes. The unique hog was wasting too much time wondering on how he got here and his current predicament, he needs to help out on the action being committed right in front of him. 

He needed to beat some ro-butts.

A blocky-robotic head stained with oil at the side of its base rolled over to the tip of his shoe, before being brutally crushed. 

Vibrant long red quills entered his peripheral vision, violet eyes glared at him with the intensity of a thousand-burning suns.

“Sonic. We can’t deal with your daydreams or whatever's going on that hedge of yours, but chip-chop look at the clock. As you can see here, we are currently in the middle of a BATTLE! You better catch up or I might as well take whatever spot you’ve been bragging about for so long, some hero you are.”

Knuckles scoffed, annoyance visible in his tone.

Sonic ignored the way his ears slightly drooped, his tail folding downwards. He ignored the way his gloved-fingers trembled and his smile slightly faltering. 

Just what was wrong with him today? He won’t let this get to his head; he's just being a big baby, over-sensitive of a simple insult.

“Still aiming for that top spot? Thought we got over that competitiveness, or maybe you're just jealous I always come out first?” He jabbed, a confident smirk etched across the hedgehog’s face whilst raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself!”

Tails watched all of this bickering from afar as his other friends who surrounded the area near him continued bashing an army of robots, ignoring the scene that unfolded right in front of them. 

For these group of mobians, arguments such as this one (mainly initiated by Sonic) were the norm. However, the observant, kid-genius, fox knew something was off about his older brother. 

He noticed how in the most random periods of the day, his fast companion would be unusually quiet and would stare at nothingness. His usual teasing and snarky comments were now seldom and rare to find. 

How the blue hedgehog would slowly appear less often in the day, only appearing when the clock strikes midnight. 

Tails was aware of the almost unnoticeable growing eyebags right beneath his eyelids. The quiet snoring as if he wasn’t asleep at all, (and maybe he was) the sloppy attacks and sluggish movement. That wasn’t even the worst part! 

Nowadays, he acted so.. distant.

He saw everything, up until the very last detail. 

Tails really, really, wanted to confront his brother about this behaviour, but he would wait. Wait until the latter was comfortable enough to talk about this with him. 

He was patient, so he would wait. 

Tails just hoped he’d be quick about it this time though.

—————

Sonic’s internal crisis drowned out the sound of robotic limbs clanging together and bolts being forcefully ripped out. 

Why he was still pondering at this matter? He didn’t know. He was tired, he wanted to rest. Let him rest. LET HIM RES-

An ebony hedgehog flew towards him leaving trails of dust where he once stood. 

“What's up with you Faker? You’re not as unbearable as usual.” the hedgehog quirked a brow.

“It’s nothing Shads,” the other pushed away the topic as he brushed his messy quills. “-anyway where the heck did Egghead go?”

“Escaped, as always. Maybe if you were paying more attention we would’ve captured him to prevent any other dirty tricks and cheats he has hiding up his sleeve.” Shadow snarled at him. 

“Ignore him dear, but I'm afraid he does have a point. What is with you today? You’re not as lively as always.” Rouge flew over, resting a hand atop of one of Sonic’s shoulder blades, one brow quirked in suspicion.

“Hm, I am curious as to what is troubling you today.” 

Shadow added. An irritated tone displayed to hide his slight worry for the speedster, he had noticed the other’s mood slightly plummet from the jab he made earlier.

Sonic’s palms began to feel clammy under his gloves. 

“It’s nothing, chillax guys. We shouldn’t waste our time talking about this and instead focus on Eggbreath. Hello??” “If you aren’t gonna help me find him, then I might as well leave. Gotta dash!” The darker hedgehog and bat were both about to protest before being rudely interrupted, a blue streak flew past them. “That hedgehog..” Shadow growled.

“Lay off him for now Handsome, we’ll try to corner him later..”

Rouge had a bad feeling. That hedgehog may reveal something terribly shocking, something that’ll impact and change everyone's perspective of the blue hero.

 Something attention-catching, something that would turn all eyes on him.

Her inner bubble popped when she heard robotic thumping resembling footsteps behind her. She straightened up and swiftly whipped around before being tackled in a bear hug along with the hybrid.

“Hands off Omega!”

“THE BATTLE HAS ENDED. IT IS OUR CUE TO RETURN HOME AND REST FOR THE DAY. THERE IS NO USE DELAYING OUR BREAK BY IDLING HERE AND GOSSIPING AMONGST SELVES.”

“Pfft-” the female snorted.

“Shut it Rouge, we weren’t gossiping! Now let go!” Shadow attempted to escape the robot’s tight grip.

Omega activated his boosters, flying away before dawn could reach them. Distant yelling and laughing could be heard as they flew away out of earshot.

“..Well that was random.” A pink hedgehog muttered. Overhearing the trio’s conversation.

“Kinda out of character too..” A young fox replied, his twin-tails flapping around randomly.

“I’m leaving, I need to guard the Master Emerald.”

The duo stared at the fading figure of an echidna, before simultaneously turning their heads to face each other.

“Tails!” Amy called out.

“Should we check on Sonic later? I’m worried..” The pink hedgehog’s brows furrowed in confusion and frustration. Her tone curious with a strong desperate need to soothe her friends internal misery.

“They have a point, he has been acting a bit.. Off per say.” The fox muttered back.

“Maybe we should give him some time, I’ll tell you if he ever acts weird Amy.”

They give each other one last nod of acknowledgement and head off their separate ways, one slightly limping with exhaustion due to the battle that occurred minutes ago.

[berryless]

As much as Astarion likes to pretend he's better than everyone, the truth is—when the performance ends, and the curtains draw to a close, he stays on the stage alone and forgotten, unworthy of attention when he isn't a spectacle. That's why his little theater is open for everyone around the clock. Every act, every movement, every phrase, although deftly improvised, is part of the show.

Everything to prevent the crowd from discovering the truth.

Everything to fool himself into forgetting said truth himself.

That outside of the spotlight, away from the little stage of his, when he looks in someone's eyes, Astarion doesn't see himself reflected in them. They look at him, but also past him, through him, like he's nothing but an empty space, a person-shaped hole in the fabric of the world that someone forgot to mend.

And because this happens oh so every often this thought is no longer a fear of his, not something he can doubt, but a simple fact.

They don't see him. They don't know him.

They don't care to.

Admittedly, this makes it easier to stomach luring them back to Cazador. Because of course a performance of century would require a fee. Nothing in this world is free. Certainly not his services.

And he is but a humble baitman, a shining lantern attracting moths to leap into the flames of eternal damnation.

A tool.

And as a tool he does what he's told to do unless he wants to end up discarded and broken like others disobedient useless tools were.

But then Tav sees him. And it's frightening.

Because suddenly after the show is over, after the curtains are drawn, after everything falls back to silence, and he returns to being in nothingness, he isn't truly alone on this stage anymore.

She's here, sitting quietly, looking at him in a contemplation, thinking who knows what—Astarion certainly doesn't. And her presence alone is forcing him to put back his stage costume and perform off clock, asking in jest if she happened to lost herself in his eyes, because it certainly wouldn't be the first for this to happen, he does have pretty eyes (or so he's been told enough to regurgitate the sentiment appropriately).

Tav laughs, "As a matter of fact, you do. But…" Her voice trails off, and that uncomfortable stare returns. She looks at him, lost in thoughts as she gathers her words, and a wave of goosebumps runs up Astarions arms when it comes to him she actually sees him.

Wants to see him.

Through him—in a different, completely foreign way, not skipping past his existence, but uncovering it and studying its insides. His insides.

The notion makes him nauseous.

His fingers start to tremble, and Astarion hides them in his fists.

He never knew that being perceived might be so frightening.

He's far more comfortable with everything being the usual way, for people withdrawing when the performance ends, for them seeing past him, but not him, because if they judge his mask, his persona, his act—that's a critique of his presentation. His work, if you will. His craft.

Not of Astarion himself.

And as it shockingly turns out, he might not like receiving judgment on something that he, an actor, an author, a man behind the stage is.

"You have far more than just those beautiful eyes of yours, aren't you?"

He laughs on cue, desperate to turn this exchange into one he has with his audience, "My, what gave me away? My luscious locks, perhaps? Or would that be my lustful lips? I received rave reviews on my use of them. Would you like to try for yourself?"

Tav smiles. She looks at him openly, without blushing, without twitching, neither sultry nor loathing, accepting his words like an act that they are.

Astarion can barely keep his flirtatious mask without it cracking.

"As tempting as this offer is, afraid I've to restrain myself," she sighs, the tone of her voice aligning to his. She's also performing her part, and he knows that with certainty. "My compact size does not allow me thread deep waters without caution."

And your waters, Astarion, run very deep indeed.

She doesn't say this out loud, but he can infer the meaning from other places.

"Oh, come on, I'm hardly deeper than a puddle," he quips back. "You'll be perfectly fine sloshing through. As long as you don't mind being messy."

"Will I?"

He's still unable to see his reflection, but the feeling of being seen doesn't go away. She looks at him, through him, but not past him, right into his skull, right into his soul, and a part of him wants to curl himself in a ball to hide from this deep penetrating stare of hers.

Thankfully, Tav turns away before he's forced to do that. Or gouge out her wise all-knowing eyes, completely ill-fit for someone oh-so-young.

"Goodnight, Astarion."

He doesn't ask for a goodnight sip this time, just says something fitting without thinking much about it.

The feeling of her gaze lingers, it crawls under his skin, making all his hairs stand on end.

He doesn't like it.

And yet the shudder runs through him from just a fleeting picture of those eyes prying him open and reading through him with same acute attention that's reserved exclusively for her books. A frightened one, yes. But simultaneously full of excitement.

He does not like it.

Not one bit.

Not at all.

[mariuniverses]

Shinobu knows she’s a bad sister.

She would cause mischief whenever she can. Staying out to play long after the sun sets, getting scrapes and tears on her nice kimonos, sneaking bugs into people’s hairs when they aren’t looking are just a number of troubles she causes. Her parents would always scold her. They would always say that she should be more like her older sister, Kanae who was kind, patient and mature. And in the same vain they would scold Kanae too, for not stopping Shinobu from causing all this mischief.

Most people would hate to have such a trouble maker as a younger sibling, but Shinobu had the confidence that no matter what she did, Kanae would support her. Because Kanae was kind, patient and mature. Always forgiving of Shinobu, always supporting Shinobu, always loving Shinobu. Kanae was never one to get mad at her not matter what trouble she caused.

It was supposed to be them against the world.

.

The only time Kanae had ever gotten mad with Shinobu was around the time she had finally perfected her wisteria poison and insect breathing. Shinobu was stubborn and wouldn’t let something like her weakness stop her from killing demons. So what, if she didn’t have the strength to behead them, if she couldn’t use her brawn’s she would use her brain.

But she knew sometimes that wouldn’t be enough. One day there will be a demon that would catch her and eat her. However she had a mischievous scheme in mind. If she started to inject herself with poison, then even if she died she would get the last laugh. She had shared this idea happily with Kanae, hoping that she would go along.

Kanae had slapped her for it.

It was the first and only time Kanae ever raised a hand against her sister. It had stunned Shinobu into silence. Kanae had tears in her eyes, obviously regretting having hit her, but she knew if she didn’t Shinobu wouldn’t take her next words seriously.

“Never think of that idea ever again.” She had said, her voice void of the cheerfulness it usually held.

“But Nee-san.”

“No.” She said sternly, “Poisoning yourself is practically going into fights thinking that you will die, that is very different from going into a fight being prepared to die. You don’t even know what effects Wisteria Poison has on the human body, you could seriously harm yourself. Shinobu you have to promise me that this is the one scheme you won’t see through.”

She left no room for argument, so Shinobu had dropped it.

.

Shinobu knew she was a bad sister.

She was racking up so many broken promises to her sister. She didn’t quit the demon corps. She continued to dedicate her life to defeat demons instead of finding love. She would not live long and grow old.

She would start thinking of the plan that she had promised Kanae that she would forget about. She starts her first dose of wisteria poison hoping that when she meets Kanae, that her sister will forgive her, like she always had.

[phantomstatistician]

Fandom: Goncharov

Sample Size: 755 stories

Source: AO3